Brownson's quarterly review

BROWN SON'S

QUAETEELY BEVIEW.

National Series. — No. I.
JANUAKY, 1864.

CONTENTS.

Art. Page

I. — Our New Programme 1

Introduction to the National Series.

II. — The Federal Constitution 12

The Constitution of the United States of America. By W. Hickey.

III. — Vincenzo ; or. Sunken Rocks ........ 4.5

Vincenzo ; or, Sunken Rocks. A Novel. By John Ruffini.

IV. — Popular Corruption and Venality 70

The Peril of the Republic the Fault of the People. An Address
delivered before the Senate of Union College, Schenectady, July 20,
1863, and before the Literary Societies of Franklin and Marshall Col-
lege, Lancaster, Pa., July 29, 1863. By Daniel Dougherty, Esq., of
Philadelphia,

V. — The President's Message and Proclamation 85

Third Annual Message of President Lincoln to both Houses of Con-
gress.

VI. — Genervl Halleck's Report 112

The War in 186*. The Official Report of the General-in-Chief to
the Secretary of War.

VII. — Literary Notices and Criticisms ....... 121

NEW YORK:
PUBLISHED BY D. & J. SADLIER & CO.,

NO*. 31 BARCLAY STREET.

LONDON: RICHARDSON & SON, 26 PATERNOSTER ROW; 9 CAPEL
STREET, DUBLIN; AND DERBY.

4

fek

BEOWNSOFS
QUARTERLY REVIEW.

JANUARY, 1864

Art. I. — Introduction to the National Series.

With this number we commence a new series of our
Review. Henceforth the Review is to be national and sec-
ular, devoted to philosophy, science, politics, literature, and
the general interests of civilization, especially American
civilization. It ceases to be a theological Review, and
though it will defend religion, and prove itself in the prin-
ciples which govern it truly Christian, it will defend the
special interests of the Catholic Church only as they are
implied in the freedom of conscience and the religious and
civil liberty of the citizen. The Editor has not changed his
faith, or abated in his zeal for the Communion to which he
has been warmly attached for the last twenty years, and
whose doctrine and discipline he has labored as well as he
could to explain and defend ; but, for reasons satisfactory to
himself, he withdraws his Review from the field of theologi-
cal discussion and sectarian controversy, and restricts it for
the future to those great public questions and general inter-
ests of Christian civilization, which can be fully discussed
without trenching upon any ground debated between Catho-
lics and Protestants.

Christianity, as we have been taught it, embraces at once
man's relations to his Creator and his relations to his fellow-
men, or religion and society, and is therefore catholic in
the strict and proper sense of the word. Man's social rela-
tions grow out of his relations to his Maker, and the
principles on which all real civilization depends are derived

Yol. L— No. 1. 1

4

2 Our New Programme. [Jan.,

from the religious order, and are inseparable from them.
It is therefore never a matter of indifference, even under
the point of view of civilization, what is or is not a nation's
religious faith. But not every man is bound to devote
himself specially to the work of settling that faith. Not
every man is bound to cultivate every field that needs cul-
tivating, and each one is at liberty to confine himself to the
cultivation of his own field. "We are bound to seek, and
to embrace when found, the true religion for ourselves,
but we are not as laymen obliged to make ourselves theo-
logical professors, or religious missionaries. Adhering
firmly to what he conscientiously believes to be Chris-
tian truth, and scrupulously observing in his own life all its
requirements, the layman is free to leave its public discus-
sion and defence to the ministers of religion, and to confine
himself to the faithful discharge of his secular duties. The
civic virtues are as sacred and as obligatory as the ascetic
virtues, and, indeed, no man who neglects his duties to soci-
ety can perform his duties to God, for he who loves God
must love his neighbor also; and " he who says he loves
God and hateth his brother is a liar, and the truth is not in
him." In the Christian order which proceeds from the God-
man, the human and the divine are distinguishable, indeed,
but never separable.

Catholics have in this country equal rights with all other
citizens, and therefore the same civic duties. Neither their
Catholicity nor the fact of their being only a small minor-
ity absolves them from any civic duty, or justifies them in
regarding themselves as aliens, or the country as their
enemy. They are not our enemies, who, though differing
from us widely in religion, yet allow and secure to us equal
rights as citizens with themselves ; and it would be no com-
pliment to our religion to show that we have no affection
for a country unless we ourselves alone can govern it, and
govern it in our capacity as Catholics. To us as Cath-
olics belongs, indeed, neither the country nor its govern-
ment ; but in our capacity as American citizens we have
equal rights with others, and we should defend as citizens
for non-Catholics the freedom which they defend for us,
and feel that as citizens they and we stand on the same
footing — one people, one body, one community, having the
same rights and the same duties. The great questions raised
by the national crisis through which we are passing cannot
be solved by us in our capacity as Catholics, but are

1864.] Our New Programme. 3

to be solved by the American people at large, in their
capacity as American citizens ; and if we refuse our co-op-
eration with them, or stand aloof from them because they
are not in all respects of our religion, we not only fail in
our civic duties, but prove false to that very religious liberty
without which we had never had a foothold in this country.
Surely it is not a matter of indifference before God, or in re-
lation to the eternal world, whether we embrace the true reli-
gion or the false ; but he who will not allow before the state
or civil society the same freedom for what he conscien-
tiously believes to be a heterodox confession that he
demands for what he conscientiously believes to be the
orthodox communion, has not yet mastered the simplest
rudiments of either civil or religious liberty. In this coun-
try all religions, not contra oonos mores, are equal before
the civil authority and equally under its protection, and the
liberty of truth is secured by conceding equal liberty to
error. The State with us is assumed to be incompetent in
spirituals, and before it there are no religious differences.
As American citizens we are neither Catholics nor Protest-
ants, and none of us, in our capacity as citizens, have
any right to act or to insist on our being treated as either
Catholic or Protestant, Presbyterian or Methodist, Baptist
or Episcopalian.

Now, laymen as we are, and having no cure of souls
and no special religious vocation, we are under no obliga-
tion, civil or religious, to write or publish any thing in ex-
position or defence of our Church, or against any other.
Nothing obliges us to continue a Catholic publicist, and we
think we can best serve our country in this her hour of trial
by confining ourselves, as writer or editor, to such subjects
as will not require us to disturb the theological convictions
or wound the religious susceptibilities of any class of Ameri-
can citizens. Our whole heart and soul are wrapped up in
the national cause, and we are not willing to be distracted
from it by controversies, which, however important in them-
selves, have no immediate bearing on our present and most
pressing duties to American civilization. Such controver-
sies, also, could serve only to separate us from the great
body of our countrymen, and circumscribe the little influ-
ence we might, perhaps, exert in giving a proper solution to
the great national questions now before the American
public. We believe our most pressing duties as a publicist
are now our civic duties, and these duties we can' faithfully

4 Our New Programme. [Jan.,

discbarge only by uniting and acting as a loyal citizen in
concert with the great body of our countrymen, the major-
ity of whom are either hostile or indifferent to our religious
communion. Catholics, in their capacity as Catholics, can
do little for the country in the present emergency, and
nothing except in their capacity as American citizens ; in
which capacity religious differences disappear, and no dis-
tinction obtains, but that of loyal and disloyal citizens.
We believe, therefore, that as a loyal citizen, it is not only
our right, but our duty, if we publish a Review at all, to
make it a real American Review, devoted to the common
interests of American civilization, irrespective of the reli-
gious differences that may obtain amongst Americans.

We believe such a Review as we propose to make ours
hereafter, even in hands as feeble as ours, may meet a
want in American periodical literature, and be of some
service to the national cause. The majority of our coun-
trymen have no good- will to our religion, but we do not
believe they lack confidence in us personally, as an honest
man, or as a loyal citizen. We are too old and too infirm to
serve our country as a soldier in the field, and we can serve
it at all only with our pen. We do not believe our coun-
trymen will repel us, and greet us with a non tali auxilio.
We cannot see the flower of youth, our own sons among
them, rushing to the battle-field to lay down their lives for
the land we love so well, without wishing to give them a
word of encouragement, or uniting with our countrymen in
expressing a nation's admiration of their heroism, or trying
to do something to save their noble and generous sacrifices
from having been in vain. The Pen has its power, and may
win important victories which the Sword cannot. We
believe even in our humble way we can do something for
our country, and we do not believe our countrymen will
refuse us the opportunity of doing so.

The military suppression of the great Rebellion against
American nationality and' American civilization is as yet
by no means completed, and the civil suppression, after the
military is completed, will prove neither less important nor
less difficult. We were, at the breaking out of the Rebel-
lion, hardly less deficient in political science and real
statesmanship than we were in military organization and
experience. It is the fate of every popular government to
be always unprepared for emergencies, and to be obliged to

1864.] Our New Programme. 5

concert its measures for averting dangers after they have
come. The mass of our people are loyal and patriotic, as
the war has proved, and is every day proving; but we
abound in politicians, not scientific statesmen, and upon all
the great questions which the present troubles have raised
the men we look up to as leaders have only vague, confused,
and contradictory views. Even Judges of Courts, Mem-
bers of Congress, Governors of States, seem to be in doubt
whether the United States is a Nation, or only a Con-
gress of Sovereign States, bound together temporarily for
certain specified purposes. There is a great doubt among
them as to the real constitution of the American state, or
whether there is or is not an American state ; what are the
powers of the Federal government, what is the source
whence it derives those powers which it confessedly has ;
whence the Federal Constitution derives its authority as the
supreme law of the land ; what is the War Power under it,
and in whose hands it is lodged. Few among the ablest of
our politicians seem to comprehend the real constitution of
American Society, and the real nature of our complex sys-
tem of government. Questions like these have become,
in the present state of our affairs, practical questions of the
most vital importance, and need a scientific solution, which
few among us are prepared to give.

There are tendencies amongst us to be fostered, and ten-
dencies to be checked, if we would retain and realize the
Idea of American Civilization. We need to understand, as
we have not always done, the distinction between the politi-
cal people, or the people as the state, acting under and
through political organization, and the people as inhabit-
ants or population of the national territory ; and while we
refuse to foster the tendency to a wild and lawless democ-
racy, so manifest among European Democrats and American
citizens of European birth or education, and which is only
a tendency to the despotism of the many substituted for that
of the few or the many, we need to be on our guard
against that distrust of the people and popular forms of ..gov-
ernment which the Kebellion, and the difficulties met with
in the conduct of the War for its suppression, are generating
in many minds hitherto over-confident in the capacity of
democracy to go alone. We must guard sedulously against
concluding, because our experience proves that popular forms
of government cannot go alone, that they cannot go at all.
We need to be brought back from the insane dream of ab-

6 Our New Programme. [Jan.,

solute democracy, which imposes no restraint on popular
will, popular caprice, or popular passion, to a fuller under-
standing of legality or constitutional government, and to
bear in mind that all government of mere will, whether the
will of the one, the few, or the many, is essentially despotic,
and that all free government is a government of law — that
is, of reason and will combined. The constitution of the
American state is admirable, the work of Providence rather
than of human wisdom and sagacity, and needs no revision ;
but the theories by which it has been interpreted, and which
our politicians substitute in the popular mind for the con-
stitution itself, need a thorough revision and important mod-
ifications, if we would not in our practice wholly lose sight of
the American Idea. Perhaps a thorough and impartial exam-
ination of our national constitution, from the point of view
of the philosophical statesman, instead of the point of view
of the petty attorney, will prove that the United States is
really a nation, is really a polity, a State, not a congeries of
sovereign states ; and be found to contain all the elements of
power necessary to satisfy those who want a strong govern-
ment, and all the elements of liberty needed to satisfy those
who have a horror of monarchical or oligarchical despotism.

We propose, in the progress of our ISTew Series, to discuss
these points more fully than we have heretofore done, and
we hope before a larger public, and if possible to do some-
thing to dissipate these doubts, and to arrive at a just
understanding of the Constitution of the American state.

In Politics our Review, as heretofore, will be neither ex-
clusively conservative, nor exclusively radical. Our philos-
ophy is synthetic, and therefore dialectic. Conservatism seeks
to retain the past, radicalism seeks to secure the future.
Exclusive conservatism would cut off the nation from all
future development, and confine it to what has been,
which were simply national death. A nation lives only as
it continues and develops its idea, which is its reason of
being and its principle of life. The radical rejects the
past,, tramples on the graves of his ancestors, denies that he
has had ancestors, scorns historical and vested rights, breaks
the continuity of the nation's life, and seeks development
without leaving any thing to be developed. Both the radical
and the conservative are destructives. Both break the con-
tinuity of the national life ; the one in favor of the past,
the other in favor of the future. Where there is no
progress there is no life. Progress is never a new crea-

1864.] Our New Programme. 7

tion, but is always in the continuous explication and reali-
zation of the national idea, or essential principle of the
national existence. This principle or idea is the national
soul ; and when lost, either in seeking to retain what has
been, or in gaining what is not, the nation is dead, as dead
as the human body when the soul has fled, and is a dead,
not a living nation. The law of all life, whether we speak
of a particular nation or of humanity, is the law of conti-
nuity and growth. The germs of the future are always
deposited by the past, and life and progress consist in de-
veloping and maturing them in the actual life of the nation.
Life is in progress, and progress is the continuous develop-
ment, transformation, and realization of what was contained
in germ in the past. In this law conservatism and rad-
icalism are reconciled, brought into dialectic relation, and
made one.

The American Idea, or the essential as well as differential
principle of American civilization, is liberty, or the rights
of man, but not the rights or liberty of the Atheistic man,
or man without a Creator, a Superior, a Moral Governor ;
therefore not liberty without authority, or rights without
duties ; but liberty with authority, and authority with
liberty. To deny either liberty or law is equally to deny
the American Idea, and to war against the vital principle
of American civilization. The false conservatives of the
day err not in seeking to preserve in its purity and integ-
rity the American Idea, but in seeking, under sanction of
that Idea, to preserve abuses, anomalies, or institutions and
usages repugnant to it. They are principally conservative
just now in the respect that they would preserve that great-
est American anomaly, Negro Slavery. But they are
really destructives, because there is an innate incompati-
bility between slavery and the American Idea, and be-
cause they seek to preserve it at the expense of the national
unity, and the continuity and development of the national
life. Slavery is a violence, and contradicts alike the prin-
ciple of liberty with authority and authority with liberty.
Liberty with authority means that liberty is not license, but
liberty regulated by law ; and authority with liberty means
that authority is not absolute, but must govern in accord-
ance with liberty, or without lesion to natural justice or
violence to the natural rights of man, and is bound to recog-
nize, respect and protect them, which in permitting slavery
it does not do, since slavery is the total denial of those

8 Our New Programme. [Jan.,

rights. It is the greatest of all outrages upon natural
justice.

That the American Idea in its developments should sooner
or later come in conflict with slavery, and demand its
elimination from American society, was inevitable ; for that
Idea is not the rights of a race, a caste, a class, but the
rights of man. Either the work of national development
and progress must be brought to a close, which wTere na-
tional death, or slavery must be eliminated. To seek to
preserve it is to war against the American Idea, the funda-
mental and living principle of the American state and
American civilization. The Slaveholding States have un-
derstood this, and therefore have seceded, rejected the Amer-
ican Idea, and attempted to found a new, separate, and
independent nation, based on slavery as its corner-stone ;
that is, on the rights of a race, not on the rights of man.
They had no alternative, if resolved on perpetuating Negro
slavery ; for the American Idea is incompatible with slavery,
and, unless renounced, wTould sooner or later abolish it in
the New World, as the Christian Idea had abolished it in
the Old World, since, in fact, the American Idea is only
the Christian Idea in the order of civilization.

To seek to develop and realize the American Idea, to
clear away anomalies, to promote national progress, to con-
firm and advance American civilization, is not, as our North-
ern sympathizers with Southern Rebellion pretend, a
destructive radicalism, but both the civic and the Christian
duty of the American citizen, unless attempted in a disor-
derly way, in violation of the great principle of that civil-
ization itself, which, as we have seen, is freedom with law,
and law with freedom. The so-called Conservatives, who
are intent on retaining slavery, are in reality destructives,
and so are those Abolition leaders, if such there are, who
would abolish slavery by unconstitutional means, or in con-
travention of constitutional provisions ; the former by assert-
ing law without liberty or respect to natural right, and the
latter by asserting liberty without law, or due respect for
vested rights. But they who, without rejecting the obliga-
tions of law or undermining authority, insist on the aboli-
tion of slavery and the recognition of the equal natural
rights of all men, black or white, red, yellow, or copper-
colored, of mixed or unmixed blood, are real conservatives,
for they seek to preserve in its integrity the American Idea,
for the future as well as for the past ; they are, also, radi-

1864.] Our New Programme. 9

cals in the good sense of the word, for they accept the legiti-
mate development of the American Idea, and seek to make
it a living idea, and the American nation a living, not a
dead nation.

That the Abolitionists, such as William Lloyd Garrison,
Wendell Phillips, and others associated with them, in their
zeal against slavery, forgot the Constitution and the sacred-
ness of law, and were willing to destroy slavery at the
expense of the American state, is possible, and has always
been our conviction, and hence we have uniformly opposed
them. But after all, something may be pardoned to the
excesses of liberty, and it is better to err on the side of
freedom than on the side of slavery. Possibly, too, what
we regard as the one-sidedness of the Abolitionists was
necessary to arouse the American people, engrossed as they
were with material interests and the worship of Mammon,
to a sense of the great crime of Negro slavery. An error
on one side can sometimes be corrected only by an equal
error on the other, as we see in the use of infinitesimals by
the mathematician. It is possible that the Abolitionists
have rendered even by their exaggerations a greater service
to American civilization than we have given them credit
for. The bold, earnest men who take the lead in any great
movement, and struggle manfully for it against the wealth,
fashion, public opinion of the day, seldom get credit for
the good they do, and the world rarely suspects how much
it is indebted to them. The Abolitionists have been so
long decried as fanatics, incendiaries, &c, that, though we
reap the harvest they sowed in tears, we find it difficult to
do them justice, and to award them the honor they may
have merited.

However the American people may have regarded or may
still regard the Abolitionists, nothing is more certain than
that they to-day instinctively regard as deficient in loyalty,
as false to the American Idea, every citizen of a non-slave-
holding State who still struggles against the abolition of
slavery, or who does not see and admit that its abolition is
essential to national unity, and the existence and progress of
American civilization. There are, unquestionably, loyal
men in the ranks of the Democratic party, who in the
recent elections voted for its candidates, because not con-
vinced of the disloyalty of their leaders ; but nobody
believes in the loyalty of the Northern man who repeats the
old cries against Abolitionists, and denounces the anti-

10 Our New Programme. [Jan.,

slavery policy finally adopted by the Administration.
Every true-hearted American feels the American Idea as an
elemental force of his nature, and that slavery must go, or
the American Republic cease to exist. They who feel not so
have no American soul, are men who have loosely adopted
the American Idea, not men in whom it was born, and
whose inmost life it informs.

Entertaining the firm conviction that either slavery or
the nation must perish, that all attempts at compromise
between the two inherently antagonistic forces will prove
unavailing, and result only in disaster, or greater or less
injury to the national cause, our Review, without being
technically Abolitionist, will defend, as the means of end-
ing the present national crisis, the most decided anti-slavery
policy the Administration may see proper to adopt, and the
more decided it is, the better, and the more heartily shall
we defend it ; and we shall steadily oppose the restoration
of any seceded State to its former status in the Union as a
slaveholding State, or without a Constitution prohibiting
slavery forever within its territory, and abrogating all laws
and usages wThich authorize it. We are in favor, as a polit-
ical necessity, as wTell as an act of justice, of the universal
and immediate abolition of slavery by Congress, which has
under the war power, unless we have misread the laws of
nations, the right to demand indemnity for the past and secu-
rity for the future ; and as security for the future it cannot
only emancipate the slaves, but abolish slavery throughout
the Union and the whole national territory. We are, now
our hands are in and the Rebellion has given us the right
and the opportunity, for making thorough work with slavery,
and would finish it, so that it shall never reappear to inter-
rupt or embarrass the onward march of American civilization.

Our Review, however, is not intended to be strictly
confined to one subject, or to one class of subjects. It
will study to have the usual variety of English and
American Quarterly Reviews. Philosophy, politics, and
general literature are, as they always have been, within its
scope. It will be open to all subjects of general interest
that do not involve discussions of doctrinal differences
between the different creeds and confessions into which
Christendom is at present divided. Books and literary
works sent us will be reviewed according to their literary,
intellectual, and scientific merits, not from the stand-point
of theological dogma. In this respect the works of Catho-

1864.] Our New Programme. 11

lie authors and non-Catholic authors will be treated alike.
It is never designed that a Quarterly Review of any preten-
sion should be a mere party publication. In politics we can-
not, however, be neutral, and while we shall always claim the
right to criticise with temper and' moderation such measures
of the Government as we do not believe wTise or just, well-
timed or expedient, we shall support, even more firmly and
unreservedly than we have heretofore done, the Administra-
tion, and the great loyal party now in power and conduct-
ing the war for the maintenance of the national unity and
the integrity of the national territory. We shall maintain
national sovereignty, but oppose consolidation ; eschew the
doctrine that the States are severally sovereign, and as-
sert States' Rights. We are opposed to revolutions both at
home and abroad, and believe that all real progress is to be
effected by orderly development and growth, or realization
by each nation of its own fundamental idea or essential
national principle. We believe in both natural and
acquired rights, and' demand of Government the protection
of both. We believe in religious liberty, and concede in
the civil and political order the same freedom to other
Christian Communions that we claim for our own. But we
hold that American civilization is Christian civilization,
and therefore excludes all civilizations repugnant to it. We
do not construe religious liberty to mean that we must pro-
tect or even tolerate manners and customs which that civil-
ization abhors, and which would be pronounced immoral
and criminal, if practised by Christians, whether Catholic
or Protestant. Polygamy, for instance, is contrary to the
universal sense of Christendom, and if Turks and Mormons
choose to live amongst us, they must in their practice
dispense with a plurality of wives. A Mormon or a Turk
may believe what he pleases, but if either insists practically
on having more than one wife at a* time, he is punishable as
a criminal. We are a Christian nation, and pertain to
Christendom, and unless we choose to secede from Chris-
tendom, we must sustain Christian civilization.

Such is our new Programme. It differs very little from
what has always been our Programme, aside from theology,
which is simply dropped. We are not introducing ourselves
to the public for the first time, and our views on most points
which we shall hereafter discuss have already been pub-
lished. We have grown old as a publicist, and we simply
wish to be permitted to devote the brief remainder of our

12 The Federal Constitution. [Jan.,

days, and such experience as we may have acquired, to our
native land,v and to the interests of American civilization.
We love our country, and have faith in her future. We
believe that the American people have a great destiny. We
are not blind to their faults, we know their weaknesses, and
we have freely criticised their short-comings ; but we have
been struck by their calm attitude in the present Civil War.
They are carrying on one of the most formidable wars of
modern times, and yet they are hardly moved in the loyal
States from the routine of their ordinary life ; they seem to
make no effort, to feel no uneasiness, and to have not the
slightest apprehension as to the result. At first we thought
it stupidity, now we think it sublimity. It is the secret
consciousness of a great destiny, of which they are incapa-
ble of doubting. They can carry on the War without any
disarrangement, with serenity and repose. All greatness is
calm, quiet, serene. It is only weakness that makes an effort.
The ancients represented their gods asleep, and spread over
their countenances an air of ineffable repose. So seem the
American people, not as individuals, but as a body, and far
more worthy of worship than the deified Roma of the old
Quirites. What may not be expected from such a people?
We own ourselves proud of being one of them, and of hav-
ing the right to say, "I am an American Citizen."

We cannot tell what may happen, but we believe in our
country's destin}^, and no military disasters can make us
doubt it. Our fathers' God is with us, and, however he
may chasten us, he will not abandon us till we wholly aban-
don ourselves. Our only earthly ambition remaining is to
be permitted to contribute our mite towards settling the
great questions this Rebellion has raised, in a sense accord-
ant with the grand idea of American Civilization. But
however that may be, one thing is certain — the fate of our
country depends on no one man, and we can lose any man
we have and find another to take his place, either in the
field or the cabinet. Can such a nation fail?

Art. II. — The Constitution of the United States of America.
By W. IIickey. Philadelphia : 1846.

There is apparently, as we have shown in our Review
for last October, a serious difference of opinion among loyal
politicians as to the actual condition in regard to the

1864.] The Federal Constitution. 13

Union of the several States that have seceded, declared
their independence, and entered into a Confederacy
among themselves. Are they States still in the Union, or
have they lost, by their act of secession, their State charac-
ter, and become simply population and territory subject to
the Union, in like manner as any other population and terri-
tory belonging to the United States, but not yet erected into
States and admitted into the Union ? A great cry is raised
against those of us who maintain that State secession is State
suicide, and we are asked if we propose to blot out their stars
from our political firmament, and to reduce them to terri-
tories ? The affected horror is quite misplaced, and the
question quite impertinent. Nobody proposes to inflict any
injury on the seceded States, or to deprive them of any
constitutional rights to which they are entitled. All we
and those who think with us demand is, that the seceded
States be treated for what they really are, or by their own
act have been, themselves. There is no question of reducing
them to the condition of territories subject to the Union ;
but the question is, Have they or have they not, by their
own act, so reduced themselves ? If they have, we must,
unless we choose to go against both law and fact, treat
them, not as States in the Union, but as unorganized popu-
lation and territory under the Union, or subject to the
Union, and in rebellion against it.

The question is one of grave importance, and we cannot
agree with a leading Republican journal, that we should
leave it to be settled by the Administration, because we do
not believe that its determination belongs to the Executive
branch of the Government, and because much of the future
peace and harmony of the Union, and the stability of the
Government itself, depends on its being settled by the
proper authority, in strict accordance with the Constitu-
tion. If we had from the first understood ourselves, North
and South, as to the real character and provisions of the
Constitution, and strictly adhered to it, and had not endeav-
ored to evade difficulties by affecting not to recognize
them, or by creating false issues to divert attention from
the real issues, we should have had no secession, no rebel-
lion, no civil war, and no such questions as we have now
to meet and dispose of. We are required now, as it
were, to take a new start, and we should be careful to
avoid former errors, and to set only such precedents as
may hereafter be safely followed. It is always better to
prevent the evil from coming, than it is to rely on our

14 The Federal Constitution. [Jan.,

ability to remedy it after it has come. There is wisdom in
the homely proverb, " An ounce of prevention is worth a
pound of cure." We ought now to fix the understanding
of our Constitution, at least as to its essential principles,
and place the Government, in its policy and administration,
on a strictly constitutional ground. We should guard
against all irregularities, and admit as few theoretic or
practical anomalies as possible with the imperfections and
infirmities of human nature. The easiest way of getting
over a present difficulty may not prove in the long run the
best, and as a rule the right will be found the truest meas-
ure of the expedient. In common with all loyal Ameri-
cans, we want the Rebellion suppressed, and all the States
that have seceded reinstated in the Union on a footing of
perfect equality with the States that have remained faithful,
and by their fidelity, their bravery, and their sacrifices,
saved the nation. But we want this done by the constitu-
tional authority, and in a legal and constitutional manner,
so as to take away all pretext for any future disturbance,
and all precedent justifying future irregularity.

What is the legal or constitutional status to which the se-
ceded States, by their own act, have reduced themselves, can
be determined only by a correct and profound understanding
of the American constitution, or the real constitution, writ-
ten and unwritten, of the American State, or Republic,
called, for the lack of a proper name, the United States.
If our Republic in the outset had had a proper name, much
difficulty would have been avoided, many questions which
have agitated us would never have been raised, and doubts
as to our national unity would never have been entertained.
The illustrious Count Le Maistre, in the beginning of the
present century, predicted the failure and dissolution of our
Republic, precisely on the ground that it had no proper
name, and therefore no national unity. The name adopted,
that of United States, is expressive of union, indeed, but may
be understood to designate a confederacy of States rather
than a nation, and it tends to fix attention on the elements
of which the Republic is composed, rather than on the unity
or oneness of the nation itself. Nevertheless, though the lack
of a proper name is an inconvenience in more ways than
one, the thing does not depend on the name ; and the Re-
public may, notwithstanding, be one polity or state, as much
so as if it had a name less cumbersome and more expressive
of its unity. What, then, is the Constitution of the United

1864.] The Federal Constitution. 15

States ? Who made it ? Whence does it derive its author-
ity ? And what is the rule of its interpretation ?

We reject in the outset the theory that the Constitution
of a state is or can be made. Constitutions are generated,
not made, and antecedent to all written instruments, or
constitution of the government. The constitution of the
United States is not the instrument drawn up by the Con-
vention of 1787, and which we call the Constitution ; for
that Constitution was the sovereign act of the United States,
and therefore the United States preceded it, and must have
been anterior to that Convention. The Convention repre-
sented the United States, but it could not represent what
did not exist. Either it was no convention at all, but an
assembly of very able and respectable private gentlemen,
or there was already a United States, possessed of supreme
political power. Now the real constitution of the Republic
of the United States, what wTe call the unwritten constitu-
tion, was that pre-existing constitution of the people them-
selves, by which they were constituted one political people
of the United States. The people were already constituted
as States and as United States prior to the Convention,
and as such they assembled by their delegates in that Con-
vention, drew up and ordained the written constitution, or
Constitution of the Government.

The fundamental and essential constitution is the constitu-
tion of the people themselves, as United States, or as distinct
States united. The sovereignty that governs with us is the
sovereignty of the people, but of the people organized and
existing in bodies called States. They exist as the sovereign
people, or the American state, only in these States or or-
ganizations, and in these only as united as one political peo-
ple ; or the one political people, the political sovereign from
whom all laws emanate, exists only as organized into States
united. There is, then, by the essential constitution of
the American people, no political sovereign without States,
and none with States without the Union. Such is the con-
stitution as we understand it. To this view, no doubt, many
objections, more or less plausible, may be urged, and we do
not pretend that many historical facts may be cited which
appear to contradict it, or that no opinions of great weight
have been entertained not in harmony with it. But we are
satisfied that this view is the only one that really meets
the thought and intention of the men who won our inde-
pendence, and gave us a national status among the nations
of the earth.

16 The Federal Constitution. [Jan.,

We are told, and many people honestly believe, that the
American state has had a democratic and revolutionary
origin, and that our Government is to be interpreted on
democratic and revolutionary principles. But we must bear
in mind that though a state may owe its origin to a success-
ful revolution, yet no state is ever founded, or can stand, on
revolutionary principles ; for the very idea of a state is re-
pugnant to that of a revolution. Revolution is the subver-
sion of the state, and the moment the new state is organized
and established, it is obliged in its own defence to repudiate
revolutionary principles, and to punish those who conspire
to subvert it, as criminals, traitors, and rebels. Our fathers
understood this, and sought to guard against all future rev-
olutions by providing, in the institutions they founded, for
their legal, orderly, and peaceful amendment. The fact
that we acquired our national independence by a successful
revolution, has nothing to do with the principles of the
American state, or the Constitution of the American Gov-
ernment. Our fathers were revolutionists, if you will, in
asserting national independence, but not in organizing and
founding the Government, whether State or Federal ; and
we must take the Government they established, and inter-
pret it precisely as if it had been preceded by no revolution,
but had alwaj^s been the legitimate and established Govern-
ment of the country.

The American state had a democratic origin, and is a
democratic state in the sense that it was founded by, and
on the principle of, popular sovereignty. With us sover-
eignty vests in the people, but in the political people, or the
people organized as the State, and acting through and un-
der constitutional forms, not the people regarded simply as
inhabitants or population of the national territory. That it
is the right of the people in this latter sense, where there is
no civil constitution, where there is no state, nor govern-
ment, to come together in Convention, or by a plehiscitum^
as Napoleon III. calls it, and organize themselves into a
state, and institute such government as they judge best,
we freely concede. Indeed, this right rests on the natural
equality of all men, and grows out of the necessity of the
case. But we must beware of confounding the right of the
people to institute civil society where none exists, with their
right where it already exists, and there is a civil constitu-
tion in force and operation. Where civil society exists the
constitution defines the rights of the people, and prescribes

1864.] The Federal Constitution. 17

the conditions on which their power is to be exercised, as
well as who among them are to exercise it. The govern-
ment is to be interpreted, when established, by govern-
mental principles, as government, precisely the same as any
other government.

This is one of the points on which we are the most liable
to mistake the character of our government, and many of
us, in fact, do so interpret American democracy as to nul-
lify the government itself, or to make it the government
of mere arbitrary popular will, popular passion, or popular
caprice, and so as virtually to deny the right of the authori-
ties to enforce any law not in accordance with popular
opinion. But this is not American democracy — it is Euro-
pean democracy, invented by the old Jacobins, and brought
here principally from France and Ireland. It is only pop-
ular autocracy substituted for Imperial autocracy, or what
we call Csesarism. The sovereignty with us vests in the
political people, indeed, but who are the political people is
determined by the Constitution, and their will only as con-
stitutionally expressed is law. • They, in a constitutional
way, may enlarge or contract their number, decree univer-
sal suffrage, or restrict it to property-holders, as they see
proper ; but outside of the Constitution and constitutional
forms they are simply population, and without a particle of
political power. It is important that we bear this in mind,
lest we confound the Caucus with the Convention.

The democratic question is, in fact, no question for the
American statesman, and the term democrat, as applied
here to a political party, has, if the party is not a revolu-
tionary party, no meaning. The democratic question is
properly raised, and is important only when there is no
government, no civil society, and the question is that of found-
ing civil society, and organizing government ; or where
there is a question as to the right of revolution, or of over-
throwing by violence an existing government, and intro-
ducing a new one. In neither sense is it a legitimate ques-
tion in the United States, for we have a government, and
the people have a constitutional way of amending our insti-
tutions, and therefore can introduce such ameliorations as
they judge desirable without any resort to revolution.

The simple fact is, that the men who resisted what they
regarded as the tyranny of Great Britain, asserted American
independence, and made us a nation, were not democrats,
and rarely, if ever, appealed for their justification to

Vol. I.— No. I. 2

18 The Federal Constitution. [Jan.,

democratic principles. They argued their case on the prin-
ciples of the British Constitution, and their grievance against
the Mother Country was not that she was monarchical,
aristocratic, or oligarchical, but that she by her acts, in
which she persisted, violated their rights as British subjects,
as set forth in Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights. There
is in the whole controversy scarcely an appeal to the demo-
cratic theory, of which so much has since been said, and in
whose name so much blood has been shed and so many
crimes committed. In reorganizing government and pro-
viding for the administration of justice, our fathers took
care to observe as far as possible the law of continuity, and
to admit no break, no innovation even, that could be
avoided. Whether they were justified or not in throwing off
the authority of the British Crown was a momentous ques-
tion for them, but is none for us, for the acknowledgment
of American Independence by the British sovereign legit-
imated their act and condoned any offence against loyalty
or legality which they might have committed. The Ameri-
can state properly dates from that acknowledgment, and
since then, whatever it was before, it has been an inde-
pendent sovereign nation, with the acknowledged and
unquestionable right of self-government. The government
which then existed may have been incomplete, imperfectly
organized, but it was the legitimate government of the
country, and the people, collectively and distributive! y,
were bound by it. "We, in interpreting the constitution,
must begin with it, take it as we find it, without going into
any inquiry as to the justifiableness of the revolutionary
acts preceding it, or whether it be or be not necessary to
assert, in order to justify them, the modern democratic theory
of popular sovereignty.

Certain it is that the American system is not democratic
in the present popular sense of the word, for democracy in
that sense, as we showed in 181:4, in our controversy with
the Democratic Review, is tantamount to no government at
all. The American system is what we may term, with
strict propriety, a constitutional system, and is a system of
real government. It is not a constitutional monarchy, not a
constitutional aristocracy, but, perhaps, may be defined,
with sufficient accuracy, a constitutional democracy, although
the terms are to us a little incongruous. We would, if the
thing were possible, exclude the word democracy altogether,
as unnecessary, and apt to mislead. " We committed a great

1864.] The Federal Constitution. 19

mistake," said John C. Calhoun to us in 1840, " when we
dropped the name Republican* and suffered ourselves to be
called Democrats ; names are things, and by adopting the
name democrat we are led to substitute democracy for the
constitutionalism founded by our fathers." The Jeffer-
sonian party, in Jefferson's days, never went by the name
of the Democratic party, and to call, in our younger days,
a member of that party a Democrat, was regarded as an
insult. The party called itself officially Republican, and
never assumed generally the name Democratic till the
re-election of Andrew Jackson in 1832, when an effort was
made to assimilate the American Republican party to the
Democratic party of Europe. It is too late to get rid of the
name, but not too late to understand and conform to the
real constitution of the American state, and to employ the
name in the American sense, and not in the European.

Dismissing all questions relating to the revolutionary
and democratic origin of American Independence, we
return to the real constitution of the United States.. What
was the American constitution at the moment George III.,
our former sovereign, acknowledged the American people
to be a free and independent nation % Two facts are cer-
tain : the people existed as distinct States, and as States
united. They had been constituted colonies, independent in
relation to each other, by their former sovereign, and were
united as one by being dependent on one and the same
supreme national authority. As colonies they were distinct
and mutually independent, but under the relation of nation-
ality they were one people, so far as people they were.
They, therefore, remained one after the separation from
Great Britain, unless in the act of separation, or immedi-
ately or subsequently,- something was done to destroy their
national unity. The essential constitution then was a
Federal constitution ; that is, the people acknowledged to
be one people or sovereign nation constituted . a Federal
Republic, with the political sovereignty vested in them as a
Federal body, distributed, so to speak, between a govern-
ment representing the States united and State governments
representing the States in their severalty. Such was the
fact. How they became so united and so divided is of no
consequence in determining what was or is the real consti-
tution of the American people. It is enough to know that
they were so constituted, and that their constitution was
legitimate.

20 The Federal Constitution. [Jan.,

The States succeeded to the colonies. Now the colonies
were not independent sovereign states, under the British
Crown, as the Electorate of Hanover after the accession of
George I., or as was Hungary under the crown of Austria
prior to 1848. They were colonies, and were and claimed
to be British subjects, with the rights and duties of British
subjects. Their independence of the British Crown did not
necessarily convert them into separate and independent
sovereign states, or states in the full and proper sense of the
word. They retained the political, civil, and corporate
rights which they held as colonies, but did not necessarily,
or by the act of separation, receive any accession of rights,
or become separate and independent nationalities. We
find, also, bating a few irregularities not to be counted, that,
in point of fact, they never acted as such nationalities.
Whatever may have been the theory of the time, or the doc-
trines contended for by individuals, they never acted as sov-
ereign states, or performed the functions of sovereign states.
They declared their independence in common, carried on in
common, under the authority of the United States, the war
for independence, were acknowledged as the United States,
and as the United States they took their rank as a nation.
No foreign Power has ever recognized any national charac-
ter in any one of the States, or held any national relations
with any one of them in its separate State capacity, or save
as one of the United States, through the General government.
Complete State sovereignty has therefore never existed
either in law or in fact, — certainly never in fact.

That from the first there has been more or less widely
entertained the theory that under our system sovereignty
inheres in the States severally, or that the sovereignty
which in colonial times was in Great Britain inured on
Independence to the States severally, that the Articles of
Confederation were drawn up on that hypothesis, and that
the weight of judicial opinion, especially in later times, favors
it, we do not deny ; but that amounts to nothing, unless we
find some political act of the political sovereign recognizing
it, and asserting it in the legal Constitution. The judicial
opinions favoring it in recent times have little weight with
us, because they have been more or less influenced by the
conflicts and controversies of parties growing out of the
slavery question. The prevalence of the theory at the time
that the Articles of Confederation were drawn up and
adopted, is by no means conclusive in its favor, because it

1864.] The Federal Constitution. 21

was a time of revolution, when almost every thing was
unsettled, and men's minds were chiefly intent on gaining
national independence. Our fathers had no historical pre-
cedent to' guide them, and even our ablest statesmen only
imperfectly comprehended the Providential constitution of
Anglo-American soqiety. Besides, the question at the
moment did not seem to them one of any great importance.
They generally held the now exploded doctrine of the origin
of the state in the contrdt social, or the foundation of civil
society in compact or agreement between sovereigns, or equal
and independent parties. In their view, government formed
de novo by compact or agreement between independent
sovereign States was a real civil society or state, for all civil
society, they held, originates in convention, in an express or
tacit pact between sovereign individuals. Thus the preamble
of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,
drawn up in 1780 by the elder Adams, the profoundest and
most thoroughly accomplished statesman, and perhaps the
greatest man our country has ever produced, defined a state
or commonwealth to be a voluntary association or agree-
ment of individuals, — a definition that would answer as well
for a debating club or a temperance society. It accorded
perfectly with the political theories of the time to regard
the Union as formed by an agreement or compact between
sovereign States. But if the Articles of Confederation
assumed the sovereignty of the States severally, they also
assume the contrary, in the rights they assert for the United
States as represented by the Congress, and in the rights
they deny to the States respectively. The Articles, how-
ever imperfect they may have been, were intended to bind
the several States together in an inseparable union, and to
distribute the exercise of sovereignty between a general
government and several State governments. They accorded,
indeed, to the States severally, much the larger portion of
power ; yet they recognized the essential national and polit-
ical constitution of the American people as a federal people.
The Articles of Confederation, it is well known, proved
a failure, did not meet the wants of the country, and pre-
cisely because they left the Central Government too weak.
Their failure proves that they were not in harmony with,
or did not fully express the national constitution, the
unwritten but real constitution of the American people.
That constitution could not endure so weak a centre, or
find its expression in simple State sovereignty. Why ?

22 The Federal Constitution. [Jan.,

Simply "because the people had a national instinct, and did
and could regard the several States only as parts of one
whole, and as unable to stand alone. The Articles of Confed-
eration did not satisfy this instinct or national sentiment
for the whole Anglo-American people. State sovereignty
broke the nation into pieces, and destroyed not only the
life of the whole, but the life of each of the parts. The very
failure of the Articles of Confederation, proves that the
American people were, and felt themselves, one people ; a
nation, not a Confederation of nations. Hence the neces-
sity and explanation of the Convention of 1787, called to
amend the Articles of Confederation ; and to provide for a
more perfect Union ; that is, a more complete national
Government.

The idea that constitutions are made, not generated, no
doubt predominated in the minds of the men of 1787, and
they supposed that a nation is formed by the Constitu-
tion agreed upon and adopted by the people. Whether
the Anglo-American people were really one nation or
not prior to the adoption of the Constitution, was to
them a matter of no consequence, because they regarded
as the constitution only the written instrument, and
the written instrument as constituting the nation, or
civil society. If that asserted or implied nationality,
it was enough. Hence, Mr. Webster, in his controversy
with Haynes and Calhoun, of South Carolina, concedes
that the States severally were originally sovereign, and the
first Union formed under the Articles of Confederation was
simply a Congress of sovereign States ; but that the new
Federal Constitution, when adopted, made the States one
state, or rather constituted the people of the several States
one people. Mr. Calhoun, taking a more philosophical view
of political constitutions, maintained that, if the States
were sovereign prior to the adoption of the Federal Consti-
tution, they remained so after its adoption, and that the Fed-
eral government could only be a compact between inde-
pendent sovereigns, and however great or numerous the
powrers conceded to it, they are simply delegated powers,
and powers delegated by sovereign States. Hence, the
United States are not a civil society, and the Federal gov-
ernment is not a government proper, but is and can be
only an agency created by the States. The States are
principals, and .the Union must be interpreted by the law
that governs the relation of principal and agent. Mr.

1864.] The Federal Constitution. 23

Webster, still adhering to the doctrine that civil society is
founded in compact, the doctrine of the contrat social, con-
tinued to assert that since the adoption of the Constitution
we are one people, but could not succeed in refuting Mr.
Calhoun's reasoning. This concession, which could be
safely made on his theory of the foundation of the state in
compact, was fatal to his argument on Mr. Calhoun's the-
ory, which denies that a state is created by agreement or
convention, and maintains that it exists prior to the adop-
tion of the written Constitution. Mr. Calhoun always
maintained that the real constitution is in the constitution
of the people, and. is anterior to the written Constitution;
for only a constituted people, a political people, a people
already existing as a state or organized nation, can draw
up and ordain a written Constitution. In this he was, in
our judgment, right, and therefore, if the people of the
United States did not exist as one political people prior to
the Convention of 1787, they did not afterwards, and do
not so exist now ; for the Convention could not create what
did not exist; and could only regulate or determine the
mode or manner in which a pre-existing power, which it
represented or was, might or should be exercised.

The written Constitution is the fundamental law of the gov-
ernment, but it always presupposes a state or political sov-
ereign that draws it up and ordains it. It is a sovereign act,
and the actor creature of the political sovereign ; and where
there is no sovereign people, there can be no such Constitu-
tion established, because there is no power competent to
establish it, and impress upon it the character of law. The
people cannot establish a Constitution unless they are, or
exist. They must exist as a people before they can meet in
Convention and agree on a Constitution. But who are the
people that can meet in Convention 1 Are they a people
previously defined, the people of a certain defined territory ?
Or are they any number of persons inhabiting such territory
or not, coining together fortuitously, and irrespective of any
pre-existing authority or law ? Can any number of persons
who choose, without reference to territorial boundaries or
pre-existing law, come together, and constitute themselves
into a sovereign state? If so, we have no right to com-
plain of the Secessionists, or to brand them as rebels, or
traitors. Here is the insuperable objection to the theory that
founds civil society in compact, and maintains that the state
is created by the written Constitution, or that written Con-

24 The Federal Constitution. [Jan.,

stitutions are law when they are framed by no political
power competent to ordain and enforce them.

The real starting-point for the American statesman is the
Convention of 1787. The Constitution drawn up by the
Convention, and subsequently ratified by the States respect-
ively, or by Conventions of the people thereof, purports to
emanate not from the States, but from "the people of
the United States." Thus in the preamble we read
"We, the people of the United States, in order to form
a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic
tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the
general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to our-
selves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Con-
stitution for the United States of America." Can any thing
be more clear, explicit, and to the purpose? Who ordain
and establish this Constitution? The States severally?
No. u We, the people of the United States." For whom
do the people of the United States ordain and establish it?
For " the United States of America." The Constitution
does not emanate from the States severally, but from the
people of the United States. Then there must have been
such a people already existing, for, if there had been no
people of the United States, they could not have ordained
and established, or assumed to ordain and establish, a Con-
stitution. This people could not have been created by the
Constitution, for it ordains and establishes, or creates the
Constitution, and it is absurd to suppose that the creature
creates its creator. There not only was, then, a people of
the United States, but a sovereign political people, for none
but a 'sovereign political people can ordain and establish, a
Constitution. Hence, with the Constitution before our
eyes, we assert, and are obliged to assert, that the political
sovereignty with us resides not in the States, nor in the
people of the States severally, but in the political people of
the United States, or of the States United. Therefore, we
have maintained that the sovereignty which before separa-
tion and independence, was vested in the British Crown, or
the Mother Country, lapsed to the States united, not to
the States severally, and therefore the Anglo-American
people have always been one people, and since the acknowl-
edgment of independence by Great Britain, one sovereign
people, with all the inherent unity and rights of self-gov-
ernment of any other free, sovereign, and independent
nation.

1864.] The Federal Constitution. 25

That the political sovereignty is in the people of the Uni-
ted States is still further evident from Article X. of the
Amendments. " The powers not delegated to the United
States by this Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the
States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the peo-
ple." The Article would have been more consistent with
itself, and more consonant with the general spirit of the
Constitution, if it had said " delegated to the General gov-
ernment," instead of the United States ; but, though drawn
up and adopted to satisfy the scruples or the fears of the
Anti-Federal or States' Rights party of the time, it recog-
nizes the political people of the United States. The re-
served powers are " reserved to the States respectively, or
— to the people." What people? The people of the States
respectively % No, otherwise it would have read, " are re-
served to the States respectively, or to the people thereof."
The " thereof" is omitted, and therefore we must under-
stand, by the people, " the people of the United States."
This interpretation is confirmed by Article Y., which pro-
vides for amending the Constitution without the unanimous
consent of all the States, or the people thereof. Amend-
ments proposed by two-thirds of the members of both
Houses of Congress, or by Conventions called by Congress,
on application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the States,
when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the
States, or by Conventions in three-fourths thereof, are valid,
to all intents and purposes, as parts of the Constitution.
These amendments, so proposed and ratified, are as binding
on the States opposing them as on the States ratifying
them. This supposes a political sovereign distinct from
State sovereignty, competent to alter the Constitution, and
to enlarge or contract the powers of either the General gov-
ernment or the State governments.

But we have asserted the political people of the United
States, and asserted them as vested with full and complete
sovereignty. But this sovereign people is the people of the
United States. There is with us no political people out of
either the States or the Union. The sovereign people are
the people organized as States, but as States united. This
is the essential constitution of the American state ; and is
the creature of no pact or convention. We owe it to the fact
that the Anglo-American people existed while under Great
Britain as distinct and mutually independent colonies under
one sovereign authority. The people who asserted their in-

26 The Federal Constitution. [Jan.,

dependence were one people, but they existed as thirteen
colonies, and they could act only as they existed, and as
they had been accustomed to act ; that is, through such or-
ganizations as they had. Each colony was an autonomous
body. It had been so under British rule, and continued so
under Independence, making as little alteration or change in
its internal organization or structure as possible, simply sup-
plying by election or appointment such officers, political, leg-
islative, executive, or judicial, as the change from colonial
subjection to independence rendered necessary, and supply-
ing, by union with the sister colonies, the loss of national sov-
ereignty occasioned by the lapse of that of Great Britain.
The internal social structure remained unchanged. The
same people voted that had voted in colonial times, the.
laws were continued, and the courts were retained merely
with patriotic judges, instead of royal judges. The people
accustomed to vote chose their legislators and their dele-
gates to the Congress of the United States in the way pre-
viously established, or according to customary forms. We
say not that every thing was done by a strictly legal author-
ity, for we do not understand how any revolution can be
effected by legal authority ; but we do say that all was done
constitutionally, or that what the people did they did in
their constituted or organic character.

So in the Convention of 1787. That Convention was
the Convention of the political people of the United States,
a National Convention, as much so as that of France in
1793, or the later one in 1848 ; and even more so than the
latter, because it was called by a recognized legitimate pub-
lic authority. But this people was represented in it by del-
egates chosen by States, or the people existing and acting
through State organizations. They could be present in no
other way, because in no other way did they exist as civil
society. The Constitution agreed on by the Convention
was submitted to the people as organized into States for
ratification. This was a measure of prudence, not of ne-
cessity, for the people in convention were the people, and
in their plenary sovereignty. But it was wise to get, as it
were, their reiterated assent, their assent given in Conven-
tion, repeated out of the Convention, or, as in our days it is
called, a jplebiseitum, though this added nothing, except as
they chose to submit to it, to the legality of their act in
Convention. But choosing to demand the popular ratifica-
tion of their act, the people could give it only as States,

1864.] The Federal Constitution. 27

either through the State legislatures, or through conven-
tions of the people of the States legally convoked.

If this is borne in mind, taking the Convention of 1787
as our point of departure, the American people will be
found to have, in some sense a two-fold capacity, State and
Federal, or to exercise their sovereignty partly through a
General government and partly through State governments.
They are in each one and the same people, and the two gov-
ernments combined constitute only one full and complete
government. There are not two sovereigns, one of the TJ nion
and the other of a particular State, but the one sovereign peo-
ple governs alike in both the State and the Union. The
Union does not derive from the States, nor the States from
the Union, but both coexist as the one political sovereign,
acting as one sovereign through a two-fold organization.
Historically considered, the same sovereignty represented in
the United States is the creator of the States, regarded
simply as colonies of Great Britain, transformed by Inde-
pendence into what, under our system, we call States. The
colonies were created, organized, or constituted bodies pol-
itic and corporate by the sovereignty of Great Britain,
whose subjects the colonists were. That sovereignty on In-
dependence inuring to the United States, the States depend
on the United States, and can be bodies politic only as
States United, as they were British colonies only under
British sovereignty.

The existence of the people of the United States as one
people prior to the adoption of the Federal Constitution, we
think, is sufficiently proved by what we have now said, and
by what has been said in this Review on several previous
occasions. But whether so or not we are obliged to assume
it, because that Constitution asserts such existence, and,
as the sovereign people, ordains and establishes it. We
cannot go behind its assertion and question its truth. On
that point the declaration of the Convention is conclusive,
for the Convention was itself that people assembled by its
delegates. We are not disposed to deny that prior to the
adoption of the Federal Constitution the people in their
federal capacity were but imperfectly organized and repre-
sented, and therefore that the constitution was incomplete.
The practical organization and measures for expressing and
governing according to the internal constitution of the
people were in an inchoate state, and the people never really
came into the full practical possession of their sovereignty
till the Convention was called. Its organs were not fully

28 The Federal Constitution. [Jan.,

formed and were defective, and the nation was struggling
to get full possession of its faculties, and to exert them ac-
cording to its will. In fact, we may regard the nation, po-
litically considered, from 1776 to 1787, as in an embryonic
state. The Convention is the real date of its birth, and in
interpreting its constitution we must take it precisely as
the Convention presents it to us. Whatever facts or opin-
ions may be encountered at a prior period adverse to indi-
visible nationality, or to the unity of the national sovereign,
must count for nothing, for the assertion of the Convention
in the preamble of the Constitution overrides them, or is
the law of their interpretation.

The written Constitution is not the creator of the political
sovereign, for only the political sovereign can - write it. It
is never a constitution of the state. That is the con-
stitution of the state by which the people are constituted
in themselves, and by virtue of which they are not only
a political people, but a political people of such or such
a character. It is the essential and differential principle
of a given people, and is generated and born with it.
Hence we say constitutions are generated, not made. The
written Constitution is really only a solemn act of the
political sovereign, already existing and constituted, or dec-
laration of the rules by which the sovereign state is to be
governed in the exercise of its power. With us it is the
solemn declaration of the political people, and the manner
in which they will govern, for with us sovereignty vests in
the political people. It is in the nature of an ordinance or
supreme law enacted by the sovereign people, binding alike
upon them as governors and as governed. It is an act of the
sovereign will, and is a Constitution, not of that sovereign
will, but of the several branches of the government it
chooses to create. Governments have three distinct func-
tions, with us separated into three separate as well as dis-
tinct departments — the legislative, the judicial, and the ex-
ecutive. But back of and over all these is the political or
sovereign power of the state, which organizes according to
its will these several departments of government, dele-
gates to them their powers, which they hold and exercise
according to the Constitution publicly ordained and es-
tablished in free states, by the arbitrary orders of the mon-
arch in despotic states.

The political sovereign always exists and is inherent in
the nation, and inseparable from it. Hence most writers on
government hold, that even in monarchies the sovereignty

1864.] The Federal Constitution. 29

vests in the people or nation, and that kings hold their
power only as a trust from the people, and forfeit it when
they grossly and persistently abuse it. Hence the doctrine
that kings and emperors are justiciable, and that even
armed resistance when the monarch becomes a tyrant is
lawful, and sometimes a civic duty. The early Fathers of
the Church and the Mediaeval doctors were, wTe believe,
unanimous in maintaining this doctrine; and the doctrine
of the Divine right of kings and passive obedience, the irre-
sponsibility of rulers, and the inamissibility of power, seems
to have been unknown or without defenders prior to the
Stuarts in England, and Bossuet in France. All power is
indeed from God, but it comes to kings, kaisers, rulers and
magistrates from God through the people or nation. The
political power or sovereign with us, whence all legislative,
judicial, and executive powers are derived, and to whom
they are responsible, is what we call the political people of
the United States, whose supreme organ is the Convention.
The Convention is supreme, and can modify, in the pre-
scribed way, the powers now possessed by either the Gen-
eral government or by the several State governments, or by
any branch of either. We see the unity and political sov-
ereignty of the United States in the Convention, not in the
several State governments, nor yet in the General govern-
ment, all of which are subordinate to the Convention, and
possess only the delegated and limited powers it concedes
them. Tftat the Convention is supreme, and the people
assumed to be present in it is sovereign, we know, from
the fact that it can enlarge or contract the powers held by
either the General government or the several States at its
will. Were it not so, the provision adopted for amending
the Constitution would be nugatory, and there would be no
way of getting amendments but by revolution. If the pre-
amble asserts the existence of a sovereign people of the
United States, the Yth Article of the Constitution asserts
equally the supremacy of the Convention. It is true, three-
fourths of the States must give their assent to any proposed
amendment before it can become a part of the Constitution;
but that provision itself, which we regard as a wise conces-
sion to the minority, and also very necessary to render con-
stitutional changes difficult, and to preserve the stability of
the Government, is alterable by the Convention, and a simple
majority of the States may be made competent to adopt new
amendments.

30 The Federal Constitution. [Jan.,

If now we ask, What is the Constitution of the United
States ? we answer, It is the original and inherent consti-
tution of the American people as a Federal Republic, or
people existing in several State organizations, united in one
general organization, as one people in many, and many in
one. Is it asked, Who made this Constitution f we answer,
It was not made, it grew; grew up with the people, with
the circumstances in which they were placed, and came into
play with national independence. It was the work, not of
human foresight, forethought, or deliberation, but of Provi-
dence, using men and their circumstances as his agents. Is
it asked, What is the Constitution of the Government ?
We answer, It is the written instrument before us. Are
we asked, Who made it ? or who ordained and established
it ? We answer, The Convention, or people of the United
States acting through their several State organizations, be-
cause there is no political people of the United States exist-
ing outside or independent of State organizations. The sov-
ereignty that ordains and establishes it is the people of the
United States in Convention, exercising their sovereignty,
not as a consolidated mass, but as divided and organized
into States. In answer to the question, What is the rule
of interpretation or construction of the written Constitu-
tion ? We answer, The antecedent unwritten Constitution,
or Providential Constitution of the people of the United
States ; that is, on the one hand so as to save national unity,
and on the other so as to save the rights and autonomy of
the States.

It will be perceived that we distinguish between civil soci-
ety or sovereign state and the government. The sovereign
governs in the government, whether State or General ; but
in either case, the Government has only delegated powers.
We distinguish also between the United States and the
General government. The States united, or the States in
their unity, are represented in the General government ; but
the United States are anterior to that government, and
create it instead of being created by it. This distinction is
not always observed, and has been overlooked through the
influence of the theory that confounds civil society with
the government, and founds government in compact, or
the eontrat social* Civil society is anterior to the gov-

* The Constitution of civil society, or the sovereign state, is Providential,
and, as the illustrious Le Maistre maintains, generated, not made ; but the
Constitution of the government originates in Convention, and is founded in com-

1864.] The Federal Constitution. 31

eminent, and institutes the government, instead of being
instituted by it. The government is never the sovereign ;
the sovereignty is civil authority itself providentially con-
stituted ; the government, whatever its form, is created and
constituted by civil society, or the Convention. The people
of the United States are sovereign, but the United States
government is not sovereign, and has only delegated and
limited powers. This distinction is important, although
the framers of the Constitution seem not to have always
kept it in view, as when they speak of the powers
u conceded to the United States." They, however, evidently
mean, not the United States as represented in Convention,
but as exercising sovereignty in the government they were
creating or organizing. The government is subordinate to
the Convention, and therefore is not supreme. The several
State governments do not derive their powers from the
General government, and therefore are not subordinate to
it ; but they derive their powers from the Convention, and,
like it, are subordinate to the Convention, or to the political
people called the United States.

This view of the Constitution, whether of the United
States or of the General government, guards equally against
consolidation and dissolution. The United States are States,
and act, whether in the Convention or in the General gov-
ernment, only as States, or as a people existing in distinct
and mutually independent State organizations. The States,
or the people of the States, elect delegates to the Conven-
tion, Representatives and Senators in Congress, their votes
for President and Vice-President are given and counted by
States, and no enlargement or contraction of their powers
can be effected without their consent as States, or people
organized as States. This sufficiently secures and asserts

pact expressed or implied. The Constitution of the G-overnment may be said
to be made, but not the Constitution of civil society itself. The error arises
from confounding the Government with the state, or civil society, as Louis
XIV. did, when he said L'Etai, c'est Moi. The Government, as in absolute
governments, may be constituted with unlimited powers, or they may be, as
in free States, only with limited powers. That is, the Convention may dele-
gate all the powers of sovereignty to the government, as -in the present Impe-
rial government of France, or it may delegate only certain portions of the
powers of civil society, and reserve the others to itself, as is the case in our
government, General or State. But the Constitution of the government
should correspond as nearly as practicable to the inherent, unwritten, Providen-
tial constitution of the state ; and if it does not so correspond, it will not work
well, and the government can maintain itself only by armed force, as in the
greater part of the European Governments.

32 The Federal Constitution. [Jan.,

State Rights. But they have none of these powers or rights
save as united States, or in national unity. The individual
citizen has political power only as a citizen of a State, and
of a State onty as it is a member of the Union. This guards
sufficiently national unity, for the State loses its State
rights, all political rights whatever, the moment it ceases
to be one of the United States, and its people cease to be an
integral portion of the political people of the United States.
The Union cannot subsist without the States, nor the States
without the Union, since the sovereignty is in the Conven-
tion, and the Convention is the Convention of the States,
or people of the States united. Dissolve the States, you
dissolve the Union ; dissolve the Union, and you dissolve
the States. The one is as essential to our system as the
other, which eschews alike the disintegrating doctrine of
State sovereignty, and the centralism which denies State
Rights, and asserts the Federal Government as the supreme
national Government of the land. As we understand it,
all are but parts of one people or nation, and both Govern-
ments are alike essential to one complete national Govern-
ment. The same sovereign governs in both, and the State
governments are no less national than the General govern-
ment. The States govern in the General government as
truly as they do in their own, and the nation governs in
them as truly as in the General government. The two
governments are simply two distinct modes through which
the political sovereign, which is one, sees proper to exercise
its power ; or in other words, the exercise of the indivisible
sovereignty is distributed in two distinct organizations,
instead of being concentrated, as in all centralized states,
in one alone. But this distribution in nothing impairs
its unity, for one and the same sovereignty governs in them
both.

This, if we may so call it, Federal Unity, which it
requires some little thought and philosophical culture to
understand, is the peculiarity of the American state, and
the chief merit of its constitution. We have found in our
reading no state or national Constitution like it. The union
of separate independent states under one crown is not rare,
and formerly existed between England and Hanover, and
has long existed between Austria and Hungary ; but in
these and similar cases, each state is complete in itself*, and
the union of both under one crown is a personal and not a
political union. The Emperor of Austria in Hungarian

1864] The Federal Constitution, 33

affairs, before the new Constitution, not yet accepted by the
Hungarians, acted not as Emperor of Austria, but as King
of Hungary. There have been numerous examples of the
Confederacies of states, ancient and modern, as that of the
Greek Cities, that of the Swiss Cantons, and that of the
United States of Holland, and that of the present German
States. But none of these were or are a Federal state. The
States confederated are each a state complete in itself, and
its constitution, is as complete without as with the Confed-
eration. But with us the constitution is Federal, the state
is strictly a Federal state. The Central Government has
no bottom, nothing to rest on without the States, and has
its complement in the State Governments; and the State
Governments are incomplete in themselves, and find their
complement as governments proper, only in the Central or
General Government. Either without the other is like
man without men, or men without man. The two subsist
synthetically, and constitute together not a syncretic, but a
real synthetic state and government, and their separation
would be the destruction of both'. Hence we assert a real
American state, instead of a confederacy or congeries of
States, and call its constitution a federative instead of a.
unitary constitution, or a government that contains essen-
tially the idea of unity in plurality, and of plurality in
unity. Herein is the originality and the peculiarity of
the American Constitution expressed in the name United
States.

The merit of the system is in this originality or peculiar-
ity. Suppose each State complete in itself, and you have in
each a simple unitary State, which within its own limits,
like all unitary or centralized States, is a despotism, whether
monarchically, aristocratically, or democratically organized.
The Central Government, in such case, would, and could,
be no protection for liberty within the particular State.
The power of the States severally might be a check on the
power of the Central Government, as under the feudal
regime the feudal Barons were a check or restraint on the
power of the monarchy, but no protection to the people in
their respective fiefs against their own tyranny and oppres-
sion. The feudal baron limited the power of the mon-
arch, but was not in turn limited by him in his own power
over his own vassals and serfs. Within his barony or fief he
was absolute, and could govern as he pleased. So it would
be in a confederacy of States as distinguished from a federal

Yol. I.— No. I 3

34 The Federal Constitution. [Jan.,

state. Remove the principle of unity, and the state is dis-
solved ; takeaway the principle of plurality, and the Union
would be a simple centralized despotism. The true Amer-
ican statesman, who loves and resolves to maintain Ameri-
can freedom, either for the nation or the citizen, will guard
with equal vigilance against consolidation and against dis-
integration— against encroachments on the rights of the
States by the central Government, and against encroach-
ment on the powers of the Central Government by the
States, or State governments.

It will be seen from what we have said that the consti-
tution of the United States, or, as we prefer to say, the
American state, is profoundly philosophical, and accords
perfectly with that synthetic philosophy which this
Review has for years defended. We even doubt, if we had
not found in that philosophy a key to it, we should ever
have been able fully to understand it. It is a complex state,
and is founded neither on the simple idea of unity, nor on
that of confederation, but on the two ideas dialectically*
united. This creates the difficulty in understanding it.
All, or nearly all, foreigners either interpret it on the
unitary principle, suppose the States to be not constituent
elements of the nation, but the creatures of the Union, and
therefore that the constitution is unitarian, and the gov-
ernment in principle a consolidated or unitarian govern-
ment ; or else they interpret it by the simple idea of con-
federation. They can understand that the Union is sov-
ereign, or that the States are severally sovereign, but not
that sovereignty is conjointly in both. The majority of our
own citizens come very near falling into the one or the
other error. The Rebels and their sympathizers adopt the
theory of State sovereignty, that each of the States is in
itself a complete state, and that the Union is merely a con-
federation, a league, or an alliance, and that when a State
in its sovereign capacity secedes, it becomes, ipso facto, an in-
dependent sovereign state, as much so as France or Great
Britain. According to them allegiance is due to the State,
and only obedience to the United States by virtue of State
enactment. This view is simple, and is easily taken in, and
we confess we held and defended it down almost to the
breaking out of the Rebellion. We were led to it not only
by its simplicity, but by supposing that there could be no
alternative between it and the opposite view, — the denial of
State rights, and the assertion of the Union as a consolidated,

1864.] The Federal Constitution. 35

or centralized state, which, with our love of liberty, we could
not accept. The fact is, that those among us who reject the
doctrine that the States are severally sovereign, are apt to
favor the doctrine that ours is a consolidated or unitary
state. Since the Rebellion broke out we have found even
our most loyal statesmen defending now the one extreme,
and now the other. Obliged to re-examine the question
for ourselves, we have found that our system of government
accepts neither as excluding the other, but both dialectically
united and harmonized. We may reject both as extremes,
and yet accept each as containing an element of truth.
There is in each a truth that must be accepted, and in each
an error to be rejected. The error is avoided, and the truth
asserted in a single judgment, as we have now shown. The
constitution of the American .state is the synthesis of the
rights of the whole and of each of its constituent elements,
— what we mean by a federal or federative constitution.
What our people need is not to study theories that have
been adopted for interpreting the constitution, but to study
the constitution itself, as it really is in the written Constitu-
tion of the Government, and the unwritten and Providential
constitution of the American people, from whom the
written Constitution has emanated. In this deeper sense
the constitution has been little studied amongst us. If it
had been, the people of the Southern States had never
rebelled or seceded, for they, with very few exceptions,
never intended to be rebels or traitors to the Government
to which they owed allegiance. The mass of them
have only done what they sincerely believe'd that they had
a perfect moral and civil right to do. Hence, while we feel
it the duty of the Union to suppress their rebellion by force
of arms, we entertain for them personally no ill-will, and
' indeed entertain sentiments of respect for their sincerity, as
well as for their bravery, and we deeply commiserate them
in their delusion, and the fearful sufferings which it has
occasioned them, and which they have borne so manfully.

But no man can really understand the American Con-
stitution without long, deep, and earnest study. It is easy
to master the routine, the external forms, the practical
methods of conducting a canvass, elections, or of enacting
laws, and the like, but the deeper, the inner sense of the
Constitution, the mass of our citizens neither understand
nor suspect. They can talk fluently, sometimes flippantly,
if they read the journals, about democracy, aristocracy,

36 The Federal Constitution. [Jan.,

monarchy, liberty, despotism, but are at fault whenever re-
quired to speak of the constitution of the state. Indeed,
not a few of them have no conception of what a state is,
and still less of what is the American state. A state, a
real state, is a mysterious existence. It is not a voluntary
association, a collection, or an aggregation of individuals,
with no existence, no life, no activity, except what it derives
from them. It is a real existence, not a mere abstraction ;
an organism, not a mere organization. It has its own
unity, its own central life, of which individuals participate,
and which enables them to live at once a national and an
individual life. It does not subsist without individuals,
nor does it subsist in individuals as formed by them. They
must obey at once the law of national life, and of indi-
vidual life, and have in them a national, no less than an
individual element, so that every individual pertains partly
to the state, and partly to himself. The mystery of the
state is, in some sense, the mystery of the race itself, dis-
tinguishable, never separable from the individual, any more
than the individual is separable from the race, or men from
man. It is analogous to the mystery of the Church, what
is called the Mystic Body of Christ, and, perhaps, is only a
lower phase of that same mystery. Of all conceivable
states, the American state is the most complex, the
most mysterious, "and demands the most intelligence, the
most study, and the most thorough mental discipline for
its scientific understanding. No people ever had greater
need than we of the profoundest political philosophy, and
hardly a people can be found with less, or that has not a
better understanding of the Constitution of its country.
Liberty, in the American sense, is a boon that can be re-
ceived, retained, and enjoyed only by a people that stands
in the front line of modern civilization, and even farther
advanced than any other nation that has hitherto existed.
Let us hope that the present life-and-death struggle of the
nation will force the American mind to the study of
political science, and to master the profound and philosoph-
ical constitution of the American state.

Returning to the question regarding the rebellious States
with which we set out, we can now easily dispose of it.
The simple question to be settled is, are these States a part,
an integral part, of \\iq political people of the United States,
in whom vests the National and State Sovereignty % The
sovereignty is one and indivisible, and vests in the political
people of the United States. But the whole population

1861.] The Federal Constitution. 37

and territory belonging to the Union, and within its juris-
diction, are not included in the political people of the United
States, and none not so included have any political rights
or existence under the Constitution as it is. None are so
included except those who are organized into States, and
States existing in the Union ; that is, none but citizens
of a Federal State. The people of the Territories, not yet
organized into States and admitted into the Union, are no
part of the political people of the United States. They
have no political rights, no political existence, and are
simply subjects. The powers of the Territorial Govern-
ment derive solely from Congress, not from the Territorial
people. The non-political people have duties, and may
have equal civil rights, but no political rights or powers.*

The tact, then, that the rebellious population and territory
belong as population and territory to the United States,
does not make them States in the Union, or give them any
political rights or existence ;. otherwise the Territories would
be States in the Union, and the Territorial people would
have political rights, and there would be no distinction con-
ceivable between a State and a Territory, which, indeed,
seems to have been the doctrine of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill,
but which the Supreme Court, in the Dred Scott case,
very decidedly rejects. The rights of suffrage and eligibility
belong only to citizens of an organized State which is in
the Union as a State, not merely as population and terri-
tory.

S"ow we do not pretend to deny that the people and ter-
ritory in rebellion belong to the United States, and are,
though rebellious, a part of the population and territory of
the Union. It is only on the ground that they are that we
can make war against them as rebels. The simple question

* We call civil rights, the rights of person and property, some of them
natural, some of them acquired, which the law recognizes and protects for
all persons, without distinction of age or sex ; we call political rights, the rights
of sovereignty, or the right of the citizen to participate in the government of the
country. In a monarchy proper, these rights are the rights of the monarch
alone ; in an aristocracy, they are the rights of the nohles ; in a democracy,
they are the rights of every freeman ; with us, they are, in most of the States,
the rights of all free white male persons, and in some, of all free male
citizens, without regard to color, over twenty-one years of age, of sound mind,
and not having been convicted of any infamous or disqualifying offence, and
who are at once citizens of the United States, and of a particular State.
They may all be included in the right to vote, and the right to be voted for,
or suffrage and eligibility. The American citizens who have the rights of
suffrage and eligibility, are what we call the political people, and may include
a larger or smaller number, according to the will of the Convention.

38 The Federal Constitution. [Jan.,

is, are they a part of the political people and territory of the
United States? To be so, they must be States legitimately
organized and in the Union; that is, they must be Federal
States. Are they Federal States ? They certainly are not.
They were such States, but have ceased to be, and have so
ceased by their own free, voluntary act. They have seceded
from the political people of the Union, and, by doing so,
have lost for their population and territory all their po-
litical rights in the Union. As they could be States and
possess political rights only in the Union, they have, by
their act of secession, ceased to be States, or to have any
political rights at all. Their legal status, even were they not
rebels, would be simply that of population and territory of
-the Union, not yet organized into States and admitted into
the Union, which, as we have seen, have no political rights
or existence whatever.

But it is said that the States have not seceded. They
have not seceded, because they could not. We might re-
tort, they could secede, because they have seceded, and
valet argumentum a esse ad posse, as all logicians maintain.
The States have not seceded from the population and terri-
tory of the Union, and could not, except by a successful rev-
olution, we grant ; but we see no reason why they could
not secede from the political people of the Union, and thus
deprive themselves of all political status, or political rights
under our system in the Union. To be a State in the Union,
is a privilege conferred by the Convention or Supreme po-
litical power; but the Convention compels no one to accept
or to retain the privilege. There is no authority in the State
or nation to compel me to avail myself of my political
rights — to compel me to vote at any election, although I
have the right, or to accept of an office, although I am
eligible. The Territory needs the permission of Congress to
organize itself as a State, and to come into the Union, but
the organization and the application are voluntary acts, and
there is no power under our system to compel them. What
an actor may freely do, he may as freely undo. The State
in the Union, as a Federal State, has certain very important
and much coveted rights, but if it chooses to forego or to
abdicate them, what is to hinder it ?

Moreover, a State under the Federal system, though it
has not full and complete sovereignty, for it is sovereign only
in union with others, has, nevertheless, autonomy, and is
capable of standing on its own feet, and acting from its

1864.] The Federal Constitution. 39

own centre. It is a constituent element of the Union, but
a living, self-acting element. In performing its revolutions
with its sister planets around the common centre, it revolves
in an orbit of its own, and on its own axis. This is what is
said when we say it is autonomous, or self-acting. Now by-
virtue of this autonomy, not derived from the Union, but
possessed only in the Union, it is competent to withdraw
itself from the political people, or to abdicate all the politi-
cal rights it holds as being an integral part of that people.
The seceded States claim to have done so. . Grant that in
doing so they have annihilated their own political exist-
ence, killed themselves, committed political suicide; even
that does not exceed the limits of their free agency, and is
only the extreme exertion of their autonomy. Cannot a man,
if he is wicked enough, or foolish enough, commit suicide %
To deny this would be to deny the autonomy, the substan-
tive existence of the States — would be to deny the Fed-
eral Constitution of the American state, and to make the
States simple provinces, prefectures, dependencies, and
the Republic a simply unitary state — the doctrine which
seems to have been that of the President himself, for in
some of his early speeches after his election, he compared
the relation which a State bears to the Union to that of the
county to a State, forgetting that the county is a simple
creature of the State, and that the State is a constituent
element of the Union, not created by it, any more than the
hand is created by the head.

In the exercise of its autonomy, or its free agency, the
State secedes, declares itself out of the Union ; that is, no
longer a State in the Union. Eleven States have so se-
ceded. What, then, remains of these States as States in the
Union % Not the political people of the State, for that peo-
ple exists only in the political organization, and that organ-
ization is gone, since it exists only as a Federal organization,
or as an organization in the Union, and loyal to it. What
remains, then, as the State ? Nothing. No. The State, we
are told again, has not seceded ; only the rebellious part of
the population has seceded. The State remains in the loyal
Union men. But the act of secession, if an act at all, was
the act of the State. The authority of the State is per-
sonal and territorial, and binds both population and terri-
tory ; alike secessionists and non-secessionists, the loyal to
the Union no less than the disloyal. Otherwise it would not
be a State. Was the act of secession an act of the State ?

40 The Federal Constitution. [Jan.,

It has pleased our Administration to assume the contrary,
and to maintain that secession was the work of a faction in
the State, and not the work of the people of the State at all.
This we now know was not the fact. In every case the seces-
sion ordinance received the votes of a majority of the politi-
cal people of the State, and was as literally and as truly the act
of the State as any act is or can be. No doubt, if the great
body of the people had been let alone, or if an active and
energetic few had not stirred them up, they would not have
voted as they did; but that, we apprehend, is the case in
all elections, even in the loyal States. The few always lead
and govern the many, and the real contest in every election is
a contest between two opposing minorities. Even if there
had been irregularities in the State action, it would have
been only a question between the citizens of the State them-
selves, and none between them and the General Govern-
ment, which can, constitutionally, interfere in the internal
affairs of a State, only to suppress insurrection or to guar-
antee a republican form of government. Neither case ex-
isted. There was no insurrection against the State author-
ities, and no attempt to set up in the State other than a
republican form of government.

The secession evidently was not the work of a faction in
the State itself, but undeniably was, as we have maintained
from the first, the act of the State, or the political people of
the State, acting as a political organized community, in
their highest political capacity, through the forms of law
and the Constitution of the State government. Therefore
the State has seceded, and in seceding has ceased to be a
State. Certainly there were in all the seceded States differ-
ences of opinion among the citizens, and in them all many
citizens who in their sentiments and convictions were loyal
to the Federal Union; but these, if they still remain, be
they more or be they fewer, are not the State, for they have
no political organization, and no unorganized people are a
State. The Union men in the Rebel territory may, under
an Enabling Act of Congress, be organized politically, and
become States, but it is idle to pretend that they are States
in the Union now.

Having settled this, we can understand the political con-
dition of the Rebel population and territory. They are,
seclude the fact of rebellion, simply population and
territory belonging to the Union, and in precisely the con-
dition of any other population and territory belonging to

1864.] The Federal Constitution. 41

the United States, but not yet erected into States and
admitted into the Union. The process by which they may
be restored as States is precisely that by which new States
under our system are formed and admitted into the Union.

We are not in the secrets of the Administration, but
from all we have been able to learn, its plan is to treat the
seceded States as still States in the Union, and the Union
men as the State. These are to be allowed or encouraged
to organize under the old State Constitution, now really
defunct, to elect their officers, State and Federal, and to
resume all the functions, rights, and immunities of a State
in the Union. But if the' States are held to have never
seceded, and to be still States in the Union, there is already
a State organization existing, and the State is in that
organization, and can act only through it. The new organ-
ization, formed without and against its authority, would be
illegal and revolutionary, in direct violation of every principle
of Constitutional Government. This plan would do more
credit to a ranting Jacobin than to a Constitutional lawyer,
and can be favored by none who really understand that the
American state is a Constitutional state, and that it is only
the organized political people, acting through Constitutional
forms, and according to law, that is sovereign.

But what is to prevent the disloyal and rebellious popu-
lation, the unquestionable majority in all the rebellious
States, from outvoting the Union men? "None but Union
men," the Honorable Henry Winter Davis tells us, " are to
be permitted to vote." By what authority are others to be
prevented? In passing an Enabling Act, as it is called,
Congress can prescribe the qualifications of electors, and
say who may or may not vote in the organization of the
State. In the question of organizing a new State, Congress
may declare disqualified, both in relation to suffrage and
eligibility, all disloyal persons, and all persons whose loyalty
is suspected ; but when the State is once constituted, the qual-
ifications of voters, even for Electors of the President1 and
Vice-President of the United States, and for Members of
Congress, are determined by the State Hence, we have
never fully understood by what right the Government
interfered in the recent elections in Maryland and Dela-
ware. Where does it find its authority for proposing a test
oath, and to prevent by its military police any citizen from
voting who refuses to take it ? The Government may come,
as in Kentucky and Missouri, in aid of the State authorities

42 The Federal Constitution. [Jan.,

to enable them to enforce the law of the State, but to inter-
fere in its own name, without any pretence of State Law, is,
it seems to us, an unauthorized interference, at war with
constitutional government, incompatible with the free-
dom and purity of elections, and going far towards ren-
dering them null' and void. We concede that persons
ought not to be permitted to vote for officers of a Gov-
ernment they are striving to overthrow, or to which
they are really disloyal ; but it is the business of the State
authorities to exclude them. If the State authorities can-
not exclude them, send them sufficient Federal force to ena-
ble them to doit; if they can, but will not, then treat the
State as disloyal, place it under martial law, in a state of
siege, and thus for the time being suspend the elections.
The Convention, in framing the Constitution of the Gov-
ernment, made ample provision for such cases, by clothing
the Government with the war power; and a State Constitu-
tion, when perverted to shield traitors and rebels, can be
suspended under that power, or by martial law, without
being violated, or the principle of constitutional govern-
ment being attacked.

Yet the end contemplated in this plan can be as speedily
and as effectually attained in a constitutional way as in an
unconstitutional way, and even more so. The Rebels in
each of the States in question had the State organization,
and by their rebellion have destroyed it. All loyal men
are agreed that the Rebels have ceased to belong to the
political people of the United States, that is, have ceased to
have any political rights whatever, and the purpose, both
of those who oppose us, and of those who agree with us, is
to prevent them while remaining* rebels, or disloyal, from
exercising any political rights in the State or in the Union.
Both alike wish to reconstitute the lapsed States in the
hands of the loyal Union men inhabiting their terri-
tory. Constitutionally, this cannot be done, if we hold
these States to be still States in the Union. But concede
what is the obvious fact, that these States by their act of
secession have ceased to exist as States, and every difficulty
vanishes. Let Congress declare the surcease of the States,
organize the Rebel population and territory into Territorial
governments, and then, when the Territory is ready to
become a State, pass an Enabling Act authorizing the terri-
torial people to organize as a State, elect State and Federal
officers, and claim admission into the Union. In this Ena-

1864.] TJie Federal Constitution. 4 3

bling Act, who may or may not vote in the organization of
the State, may be prescribed by Congress, without exceed-
ing its Constitutional powers, and therefore all who will not
take the oath of allegiance may be excluded, and the State
organization secured to Union men. All that is neces-
sary to make the plan we have criticised legal and Consti-
tutional is, that the Union men should organize de novo, not
as the continuation of the seceded State, and under a new
Constitution, not the old. The new may be a duplicate of
the old, if the Convention pleases, or it may be different
from it. The Convention may revive and confirm as many
or as few of the rights acquired under the old as it sees fit.
The matter is plain enough, and less difficult than the
unconstitutional way which we oppose, and which seems to
be favored by the Administration.

It is greatly to be regretted that Gen. Ashley's Bill did
not become a law. Early in the regular session of 1861-2,
this distinguished member of Congress from Ohio intro-
duced, as far as we can judge, a carefully drawn Bill for the
organization of the Rebel population and territory into
Territories under governments established by Congress.
The Bill took a legal, constitutional, and statesmanlike
view of the subject, and if it had become a law, much con-
fusion would have been avoided, several very questionable
things would not have been done, and the loyal men of the
country would not have been divided as they now are, on a
questioii on which there should be no disagreement. We
hope Gen. Ashley will revive his Bill early in the present
Congress, and meet with better success than he did when he
originally introduced it. The subject is eminently one for
Congressional action, for under our system of government,
Congress alone has the constitutional power to deal with it.
The Executive has no authority to act on it, save under the
war power, and he has the war power only in its executive
branch. The President, in his letter to a meeting of friends
of the Union at Springfield, 111., last August or September,
quietly remarks, " I suppose I have the war power." We have
been in the lrabit of supposing the contrary : that the Consti-
tution vests that power in Congress, and that the President
carries on war as Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy
only in the execution of the law or laws of Congress. We
have supposed, also, that Congress does nothing under the
war power that it can do under its peace power. If we are
not on our guard, with a war of such formidable dimensions

44 The Federal Constitution. Jan

on our hands, and all minds and hearts intent on military
success, we shall overload the war power, or forget, till too
late, that there is such a thing as the civil power. We
must remember that our own brave and noble Army, to
which we owe more than we are alwa}Ts aware of, is endur-
ing all its fatigues, all its hardships, sickness in camp, wounds
and death on the battle-field tore-establish the supremacy of
the civil power, not to install the war power as.the Govern-
ment of the country.

We know our most excellent President shrinks from no
responsibility, except severity to criminals, especially traitors,
and is willing to take his own and that of Congress too ; but
we do not think it becoming in Congress to suffer a free
horse to be ridden to death. It has no right to throw on the
Executive, who must have his hands fall with the business
of his own department, the responsibility devolved by the
Constitution of the government on itself. We have every
possible confidence in the patriotic intentions and business
capacity of the Executive, but we do not feel ourselves at
liberty to regard him as alone and in himself the whole
government, and we want each branch of the government
to assert its independence, and to do its own work. At
present, the whole question in regard to the treatment of the
Rebel population and territory is left to the discretion of
the Executive. There may be serious danger in this — a
danger so much the greater because we cannot fully expose
it without assuming an attitude which, in these times, might
be mistaken for that of hostility to the Administration.
We have no wish to restrict, in the smallest respect possible,
the constitutional sphere of the Executive, nor have we any
disposition to enlarge it. We are neither monarchists nor
democrats ; we are constitutionalists, and we raise as our
battle-cry, and demand, "The Union as it was, and the
Constitution as it is ;" but in our sense, as explained in this
article, not in the sense of those who seek only to embarrass
the Government, and to preserve intact the fondly cherished
institution of Negro slavery.

We say, then, in conclusion, that we believe it of vital im-
portance to the safety of our constitutional system that Con-
gress should take possession of the whole subject, and dispose
of it in its wisdom. If Congress do not do it, we fear the
consequences will be such as every loyal American will de-
plore as long as he lives, and his children after him. Let
Congress look to it.

1864.] Vincenzo ; or, Sunken Rocks. 45

Art. III. — Vincenzo / or, Sunken Rocks. A Novel. By
John Ruffini. 1863.

Euffint is not the real name of the author of the work
before us ; but as it is the name under which he chooses to
publish, it is the only one under which we choose to recog-
nize him. He is an Italian, was at one time an exile from
his native land as a conspirator against the government, is
well known in the United States and Great Britain, and the
writer of several works in English, among which Doctor An-
tonio is the best known, and the most remarkable. After the
establishment of a liberal constitutional government in the
kingdom of Sardinia, in 1848, he returned to Italy, and was
for several years a member of the Piedmontese parliament.
But whether disappointed in his political ambition, or
whether his English tastes and habits had unfitted him for
Italian life, he subsequently returned to England, and is,
we have heard, now in the United States, a correspondent
of the London Times. He is a gentleman of education,
ability, and even genius, an Italian patriot, formerly a Car-
bonaro, a great admirer of Yictor Emanuel, the present king
of Sardinia, or rather of Italy, and takes for his beau-ideal
of a statesman the late Count Cavour, whose consummate
ability ho man doubts, whatever may be thought or said of
the truthfulness of his representations, or the morality of
the means he made use of to obtain his ends.

The most remarkable feature in the novel under review is
its English, which is to the author a foreign language, and
widely different from his native Italian. Its language is
really English, and only nice judges will detect in it the
foreigner. The English is for the most part pure, correct,
graceful, and even idiomatic, and only rarely do we meet an
Italicism. One we notice : " The Pope refused to declare
war to Austria.5' An Englishman, we suspect, would have
written " declare war againstP One sovereign declares
war to the public or the world against another. Yet
Signor Ruffini writes better English than even many Eng-
lishmen and Americans, who are accounted good writers.
We can just detect the foreigner in the studied correctness
of his language, in his tone of thought, and the turn of his
expressions.

Except, however, in the language in which it is written,
Vincenzo is a thoroughly Italian novel. Not only is the

46 Vincenzo ; or, Sunken Rocks. [Jan.,

scene laid in Italy, not only are all the actors Italians, but
the manners and customs, the ideas, sentiments, tone, the
very mind and sonl are Italian, or rather Piedmontese,
and none but an Italian, and a very clever Italian at that,
conld have written it. It bears very little resemblance to
the general style of either English or French novels, even
the more grave and thoughtful. It has nothing of the
French persiflage, French levity, immorality, or intrigue,
nor any thing of English sentimentality, sensationism, or
Old Baileyisin. It administers no food to a morbid fancy
or to a prurient imagination. There is great freedom of
manners, but also great purity. It has none of the mate-
rials of a modern popular English novel. There is no
elopement, no forbidden love, no clandestine marriage, and
no marrying without the paternal consent or the paternal
blessing. Its tone is grave, chaste, and elevated, thoughtful
and earnest. It never corrupts the imagination or disturbs
the senses. In all these respects it is a model our novelists
would do well to follow, especially as it lacks nothing of
deep and intense interest, both for the mind and the soul ;
an interest that may be indulged with no detriment to one's
moral health or intellectual vigor. There is much in it that
we cannot accept, but under a literary and artistic point of
view we award it high praise.

Err on some grave points the author certainly does, but
his work proves that the cultivated Italian lives and moves
in an intellectual and aesthetic atmosphere, far above
that breathed by the best of our English, American, or
French novelists. Even a slight acquaintance wTith Ital-
ian literature suffices to prove that nothing is farther from
the truth than the ordinary English and American estimate
of the Italian character. The dolcefar niente supposed to
describe it is seldom, if ever, heard from Italian lips.. The
Italian has not the pompous gravity ascribed to the Span-
iard, any more than he has the bluntness of the Englishman,
the roughness of the American, the boorishness of the un-
cultivated German, or the vanity of the Frenchman ; but he
is active, energetic, sober, thoughtful ; above all, earnest.
When he fails, it is because he lacks a held broad enough
for his ambition. The Italian nature is richly endowed, and
has great capacity, not only tor the line arts, but for science,
philosophy, and erudition. The greatest scholars, histo-
rians, antiquarians, philosophers, poets, statesmen, legists,
painters, sculptors, architects of the modern world, are Ital-

1864.] Vincenzo ; or, Sunken Bocks. 47

ians, who seem to have inherited the genius as well as the
civilization of the ancient Grseeo-Romans. Dante is unri-
valled as a poet, unless perhaps by Shakspeare, whom he even
surpasses in learning, philosophy, and culture, if not in
native genius ; and neither England nor Germany, France
nor Spain, can approach in philosophy Aquinatas, Vico,
Rossini, and Gioberti. Modern science is of Italian origin,
and Italians have been among its most successful cultivators.
Modern commerce took its rise in Italy, and to Italy and
Spain we are indebted for our commercial codes, and our
earliest and best works on international law. Modern mili-
tary art and science are of Italian origin, and Napoleon
Bonaparte, the great captain, was born an Italian, and of
an Italian stock, and, though Emperor of the French, was
never a Frenchman.* The Italian language itself is the
language of a noble people, and is, perhaps, far better fitted
to be a universal language than any other modern tongue,
combining as. it does the majesty and terseness of the Latin,
the beauty, richness, and flexibility of the Greek, with a
melody peculiarly its own. It is rich in all the terms of
art and science, and, as we may see in Gioberti, is for the
profoundest anci most subtle metaphysics in no sense infe-
rior to the language of Plato.

The great defect of the Italian people in more recent
times must be attributed to the political condition of their
country. In the middle ages, before the rise of great cen-
tralized states, Italy was the first country in Europe, and
her division into several independent states, republics, or
principalities, interfered comparatively little with her moral
or political influence. Her language was the court lan-
guage of Europe, and her cities commanded the commerce
and exchange of the world. Her social state was the least
wretched in Europe, for she was less feudal, and more
municipal, and enjoyed a freedom, though incomplete, far
greater than was to be found with any other European
people. It is strange, the delusion which seized many of us
a few years since, with regard to the feudal regime. It
founded government on the nobles and the clergy, and if it

* Napoleon was born, it has been proved, prior to 1769, the commonly
alleged date of his birth, and, in fact, before Corsica was annexed to France.
The date of his birth was altered after he became distinguished, and the
orthography of his name was Frenchified, in order to make it appear that
he was born a Frenchman. At least it has been so alleged. At any rate,
his parents were Italians, his mother-tongue was Italian, and so was his
genius.

48 Vincenzo / or, Sunken Rocks. [Jan.,

restrained the power of the monarch and weakened the
central power of the State, it afforded no protection to the
people, either against the king or their immediate lords.
The lords could oppress the people, who were for the most
part serfs, or vassals of vassals, as much as they pleased,
and there was no power to restrain them, or to call them
to an account for their misdeeds. So far as the great mass
of the people, the untitled many, are concerned, there can
be no question that the centralized monarchies that sprang
up in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, against which
the popular revolutions of the eighteenth century were
directed, were a great advance on the feudalism of the mid-
dle ages. Louis XL of France, Henry YII. of England,
Maximilian I. in Germany, and the Regent, Cardinal
Xi mines, in Spain, in breaking the power of the great vas-
sals of the crown, and in laboring to centralize power in
the hands of the monarch, whatever their personal
motives, acted, undoubtedly, in the interest of the people,
and therefore in the interest of civilization. The French
peasant, under the military despotism of Napoleon, was a
man compared with what he was under Philip Augustus,
St. Louis, or Charles le Sage. Modern monarchy, though
less favorable to the nobility, is far more favorable to the
people than was feudalism, under which they were still
more than under Louis XIV., gens corveables et gens taillables.
But Italy, in the midst of the great modern centralized
States of Europe, governed in their international relations
by no considerations of vested rights or of natural justice,
suffered by her division into several sovereign but petty
states, incapable of acting together as a single state, and
each too weak to stand alone. For a long time the Italian
States subsisted only under Spanish, French, or Austrian
protection, or domination, and could hardly pretend to an
autonomous existence. The Italians thus lost political life,
and all field for political activity, unless displayed in the
service of a foreign power. There is no doubt that during
the forty years of peace throughout the Peninsula, that pre-
ceded the outbreak of the French Revolution, the Italians,
without any military or political career, lost much of their
manliness, their energy of character, — became effeminate,
even corrupt, dillettanteish, and unworthy of their noble
ancestry, and of their own national genius. They had no
public career, and their native activity returned upon and
devoured itself. Their memories oppressed them, and their

1864.] Vincenzo ; oi\ Sunken Rocks.] 49

life was aimless and wearisome. Their souls were impris-
oned within them, and they lost faith, lost hope, lost all
stimulus to exertion, as every noble, true, and generous
people highly cultivated and civilized will do when they
are deprived of all public field of exertion, all scope for
laudable ambition. We may preach as we please, exhaust
our eloquence and our imagination in portraying the charms
of private life, but no people that has advanced a single
step i_n civilization will ever be contented without a public
career. In this world men desire action rather than repose,
— to mingle with and to act upon their fellow men, to take
part in public affairs rather than to rust out their lives in
the interior of their palaces, in a round of inane pleasures,
or even of private beneficence. It is useless to fight against
this, for it is human nature itself. A people to be great
and noble must have a great field of activity, must have a
career at home and abroad, a scope for high ambition.
Regulate ambition you may and should, keep it if you can
within the bounds of religion and morality, but seek to
eradicate it from the heart of the nation or of the individual
never. The unity of Italy, if effected without, religious
schism or the loss of the Christian faith, will open to
Italian ambition a national career, and cure most of the
defects of the Italian character that have been complained
of. We Americans should hope for this, for we shall here-
after find our interest in cultivating a close and warm
friendship with the Kingdom of Italy.

But to return to Vincenzo. It opens to us a charming
world in Piedmontese society. It unconsciously reveals to
us a simplicity, a warmth, a tenderness, and a purity of
domestic manners seldom to be found in our own country.
There is a certain primitiveness, a certain homeliness that
captivates us. II Signor Avvocato, the father of the
heroine, and patron of the hero, is by no means a perfect
or a strong character ; he has his defects, his little vanities,
and his little weaknesses ; but he is essentially a just man,
generous, friendly, kind to his servants, liberal to the poor,
and uses his talents, his learning, his legal knowledge, his
means, and his influence for the benefit of the circle in
which he is placed. He is wealthy, engaged neither in
business nor in the active duties of the profession he has
studied, yet he wastes not his life in idleness or in the pur-
suit of pleasure. Every hour is employed, and his time
seems never to hang heavy on his hands. His daughter,

Vol. I.— No. 14

50 Vincenzo / or, Sunken Mocks. [Jan.,

Rose, his only child and heiress, though the daughter of a
new man, whose father had risen from a peasant to be a
large landed proprietor, is simple, natural, free from pride,
from affectation, gentle, playful, loving, yet serious, indus-
trious, and frugal. No household cares are beneath her
attention, and she does not blush to look after the family
linen ; she is really her father's housekeeper, though not
his drudge, and seems never to have learned, like so many
of our American daughters, whose notions of good society
are drawn from English fashionable novels, that to be a line
lady one must be useless and helpless. The whole picture
of Piedmontese life drawn by Signor Rufhni is in singular
contrast with our American life. Here the grand-daughter
of a poor man become rich by his own exertions can
rarely be found, who has not a horror of being useful, or
who, if her father has retained the wealth he has inherited,
can deign to help herself, much less to take a part in the
domestic cares of father or mother. Our domestic educa-
tion is nearly all wrong, and the mass of our people,
whether old or young, act as if they had no fixed position,
as if they felt in constant danger of losing the position they
hold, and that to retain it they must be constantly striving
to get higher up the social scale. This comes from the
rolurier character of our people. We count birth, man-
ners, breeding, education, intelligence, for comparatively
nothing, and make our social position depend on the dis-
play or the reputation of wealth.

The story of Vincenzo is simple, and simply told. There
is no disproportion, no extravagance, no affectation, noth-
ing forced, nothing unnatural. There is no striving after
effect, no startling contrasts. The author is a man of real
strength, and raises the weight without effort. Every thing
comes in in its place, at the proper time, and with a suffi-
cient reason. II Signor Ruffini is a literary artist, and shuns
monstrosities. He is a classic artist, and has not learned
that beauty has no positive character, and can be appreci-
ated only when set off by the ugly or the grotesque, as M.
Victor Hugo would have us believe. He never violates
probability, or departs from aesthetic truth. Nothing is in-
troduced for the sake of ornament or to keep up the flag-
ging attention of the reader. Every thing accepted contrib-
utes to the action of the piece, and tends to produce the
precise effect intended by the author. Indeed, the author
does not appear to accept the theory that genius creates

1861.] Vineenzo ; or, Sunken Rocks. 51

unconsciously or instinctively, as the bird sings, or the bee
builds her cell. He is not a disciple of Goethe or of Ralph
Waldo Emerson, and is no master of the wonderful Wood-
notes, warbled some years since in the Boston Dial. He
apparently holds that art is intellectual, and that the artist
is none the less an artist for understanding what he does
and why he does it. Reason is no less essential to the
artist than to the philosopher. Art demands reason in its
plenitude, and in its sublimest exercise. Study Michael
Angelo, if you doubt it. Not every great man can even by
study be a great artist, but no man can be a great artist
unless he has a rich endowment of reason, and a liberal in-
tellectual culture. At least such is the Italian* theory.
Signor Rufhni understands himself, knows what effect he
wishes to produce, and deliberately proceeds to produce it.

Vineenzo, though artistically written, has not been con-
ceived simply as a work of art. The author has designed
it for an effect beyond its purely aesthetic effect. He has
written it for a moral purpose, and it is properly a novel
only in its exterior form. He has had in view the pres-
ent state of affairs in Italy, to animadvert on the defective
or narrow-minded education imparted under clerical influ-
ence to his countrymen, and especially to his country women,
and to exhibit in a simple domestic tale its baleful influence
on private and public life. He labors to direct public
indignation9 against those earnest, but, as he regards them,
illiberal and bigoted priests who place themselves in oppo-
sition to the principles and acts of the Constitutional Gov-
ernment, and by their direction and influence disturb the
consciences of the pious, break up the peace of families, and
embarrass the action and cut short the career of patriotic,
gifted, and liberal-minded young men, aspiring to be states-
men, and anxious to serve their country by entering into
the Administration. He wishes to show that the great ene-
mies to the regeneration of Italy and the introduction and
consolidation of wise, liberal, and beneficent government,
are those among the clergy who place the Church above
the State, and insist that politics should be subordinated to
religion, and be carried on under clerical direction.

The hero, Yincenzo, is the son of a peasant, brought up
and liberally educated by a wealthy gentleman, whose god-
son he was, and in whose service his father lost his life.
This gentleman, himself the son of a peasant named
Pietro, enriched by his labors or speculations in Mexico,

52 Vincenzo ; or, Sunken Rocks. [Jan.,

who is designated in the novel by his professional title,
II Avvocato, the Advocate, brings np the peasant boy as a
member of his family, with his only daughter, Rose, and
treats him as considerately and as tenderly as if he had
been his own son. He at first destines him to the ■Church,
bnt finding that he has an invincible repugnance to being
a priest, he consents to send him to the University at Turin,
and to permit him to study for the bar. Though while iii
the Petit Seminaire regarded as rather slow, and even defi-
cient in intellectual capacity, he proves to have extraordi-
nary mental powers, great facility in learning, and. remark-
able aptitude for every kind of intellectual labor. He is
modest, humble, grateful, affectionate, honest, honorable,
high-toned in his principles, liberal, and patriotic. While
at the University he has the happiness to form many ac-
quaintances, and some warm-hearted and powerful friends,
closely connected with the Government, who are disposed
to open to the young lawyer as soon as he gets his degree,
a brilliant and enviable career in the Administration. The
Minister is delighted with him, admires his genius and
talent, approves his principles, and as soon as he leaves the
University gives him an important post under Government.
No young man could enter public life with fairer prospects
or brighter hopes. He can count as soon as arriving at the
constitutional age, on being elected a deputy in the Sardin-
ian Parliament, of entering the ministry, and may reason-
ably aspire to be one day Prime Minister, and at the head
of the Government.

The young man has hardly won his doctor's cap and left
the University before he is married to Rose, his patron's
daughter and sole heiress, who has been his playmate from
childhood, and whom he loves with all the warmth, tender-
ness, and depth of a pure and unsophisticated Italian heart,
and who appears to return his love, if not with an ardor
equal to his own, yet sincerely and heartily. His father-in-
law, II Avvocato, is proud of him, and his wife loves and
honors him. The world smiles on him, fortune favors him,
his country calls him to her service, and opens wide her
arms to receive him. What is to hinder him from running
a long and an honorable public career ? What but the in-
termeddling of the clergy devoted to Rome and the narrow-
mindedness, bigotry, and scrupulousness of his wife, his
dear Rose, for whom he would sacrifice every thing but prin-
ciple. Rose loves her religion, loves her Church, reverences

1864.] Vincenzo ; or, Sunken Boohs. 53

the clergy, is devout, and invincible in her faith, in her
religious and moral principles. But she is a quiet, peacea-
ble woman, attached to the privacy of domestic life, with
no taste for politics, and no very warm or active patriotism.
To her, home, and the quiet, unambitious life she has led
in her father's house, where she reigned as mistress, were
every thing, and she could neither understand her hus-
band's politics, nor appreciate his character. Why should
he seek public life % He needed not wealth or public hon-
ors. Wiry not be content to- live in private life, cultivate
his mind, discharge his religious and domestic duties, do
good to the poor of his own neighborhood, take care of the
estate which would in time pass to them from her father,
and indulge his tastes as a wealthy private gentleman ?
Yincenzo, to enlarge the mind and liberalize the sentiments
of his dear Rose, starts on the wedding day, after the Eng-
lish, but contrary to the Italian fashion, on a tour through
several parts of Italy, very unwisely, however, evading her
ardent wish to visit Rome. He visited with her Turin,
where she was pleased with the society into which he intro-
duced her, and Florence, where she was not pleased. Being
from Piedmont, she was little less than a barbarian in
Florence ; she learned there that her speech was not
Italian, and that her simple Piedmontese manners were
rather ridiculed than esteemed. Her husband, intent on
supplying the defects of her education, and liberalizing and
expanding her mind, hurries from party to party, from sight
to sight, till he well nigh wearies her life out, and succeeds
only in disgusting her with the kind of life he wishes her
to lead. He, however, nothing daunted, nothing discour-
aged, returns home, and soon departs with her for Cham-
berry, in Savoy, where he has been appointed to a place in
the Intendenza. But his bark soon strikes on sunken
rocks, and has hardly left port before it is wrecked. His
Rose, who had been his guardian angel from his childhood,
has no patriotism, no political ambition, and values her
own and her husband's salvation more than the union of
Italy under a liberal Constitutional Government. Her
conscience, alarmed by her ghostly directors, and persuaded
that a good Catholic cannot innocently hold office under
Victor Emmanuel, she demands to be sent back to her
father, and compels her husband, out of tenderness for her,
to resign his post, and abandon the fair prospects of an
honorable and useful public life which had been opened to

54: Yincenzo y or, Sunken Rocks. [Jan.,

*
him. Great trials and sufferings await him. Through the

influence of Don Pio, the new parish priest, he is driven
from the house of his father-in-law, and separated from
Rose. He retires to Turin, struggling with poverty, men-
tal anguish, and broken health, and makes a new effort to
gain a position. He partially succeeds, but he hears noth-
ing from Rose. He fancies her ill, returns to see her, and
is treated by her and her father as worse than a stranger,
as a base, unprincipled villain. At length the father is
struck with apoplexy, temporarily recovers, returns in his
affection to Yincenzo, will endure no one else in his pres-
ence, and at length has a relapse, and dies. Yincenzo is
himself exhausted, worn out, and brought near to the
grave. The affection of Rose revives ; she proves herself a
tender nurse, a faithful and affectionate wife. She takes
him to the seaside, reads to him, brings him congenial
acquaintances to converse with him, no longer opposes his
wishes, and as soon as he is able returns with him to
Turin, and encourages him to turn his attention to public
affairs. It is a stirring time — the time of the Italian Cam-
paign by Napoleon III. for the liberation of Italy. Turin
is all alive, and all Italy is full of hope. Yincenzo makes
the acquaintance of the Minister, Count Cavonr, and is em-
ployed by him in a confidential mission. No more oppo-
sition from Rose. She too has become an Italian patriot ;
and Yincenzo recovers his health, his spirits, and ftnds the
career he had lost opening to him anew. All goes well —
gloriously.

But the sunken rocks remain. The JEmilian provinces
secede from the Pope, and are annexed to Sardinia, and the
kingdom of Sardinia is on the point of being transformed
into the kingdom of Italy, in total disregard of the rights of
the several sovereign Italian Princes. The Pope protests,
and finally fulminates a sentence of excommunication against
the despoilers of his temporal principality. Rose must
leave her husband and return for a few days to the paternal
palace. Here she meets Don Pio, who shows her the Bull of
Excommunication issued by the Holy Father. Her con-
science is again alarmed, and without offering one word of
reproach to Yincenzo, without asking him to abandon either
his principles or his career, informs him in a meek and gen-
tle tone, that she cannot return to live with him in Turin.
She has tried to think with him, and to encourage him in
his patriotic efforts. It may be she is wrong, but she dare

.1861.] Yincenzo / or, Sunken Rocks. 55

not place herself in opposition to the Head of her Church,
or incur the censures of the Holy Father. Yincenzo cannot
live separated from his wife ; he is touched by her humility,
and a second time resigns his office, abandons anew and
forever all hope of a public career, and retires to private
life, and consoles himself for foiled ambition as well as he
can in educating his daughter Rosetta, in his own princi-
ples, and in guarding her against the narrow and bigoted
notions of her mother. The moral of the whole story is,
that the chief obstacle to Italian regeneration is in the cler-
ical education of the Italians, especially of Italian women,
and the necessity of taking education out of the hands of
the Clergy, and committing it to politicians under the direc-
tion of the State.

The Clergy, of whatever denomination, undoubtedly
educate, where they control the education, as well as they
can, in relation to the political and social state they lind
existing, and to which they have themselves been accus-
tomed ; for religion is never revolutionary, and its ministers
do not usually educate in view of changing the political or
social constitution of the nation. When, therefore, great
political and social changes are contemplated, or introduced,
there is no doubt that the education they have previously
given is. not favorable, but even unfavorable to them. Yet
we do not see how this evil can be avoided by committing
the education of our youth to politicians acting under the
authority of the State. The State once established is as
averse from change as the Catholic Church, or any other
Church, and politicians are as much disposed as clergymen to
educate in accordance with their own ideas, principles, and
prejudices. When the purpose is to break up an old order
and introduce a new one, the educators must be persons who
reject the old and believe only in the new; but when the old
is broken up and the new is established, then they should be
men who accept the new and seek to preserve it, and there-
fore just as conservative as those who educated to preserve the
order that has been superseded. The State, if a State there
be, must be as conservative as the Church, and its ministers
as little favorable to changes of any sort, and in point of
fact less so ; for the religious idea is always broader, more
comprehensive, more catholic, so to speak, than the polit-
ical idea, as God is more universal than man. The very
principle of political and social progress is in religious ideas.

Moreover, if the Clergy educate our children, and mould

56 Yincenzo / or. Sunken Hocks. [Jan.7

them to the existing political and social order, it is that
order itself in some sense that compels them to do so.
Would yon have yonr children educated for a state of soci-
ety in which they are not to live, which as yet does not
exist, and which may never exist ? But how will yon con-
trive to give in the bosom of the society which exists an
education adapted to a society which does not exist, and
wdiich remains to be created ? Arrange matters as you
will, 'constitute your schools as you may, and let who will
be yonr professional teachers, society is the real educator,
and the adult generation determines the education of the
rising generation, and will always find itself reflected in it.
All education has, and upon the whole will have, so far as
consciously given and intended, a conservative tendency.
No community can adopt and sustain deliberately and
knowing]}^, systems of education incompatible with its own
continued existence, for no community does or can proceed
on the supposition that it has in itself nothing true, nothing
good, nothing fixed and stable, or nothing that ought to be
preserved. A Mahometan nation does not and cannot edu-
cate its children to be Christians. An absolute despotic
State will never bestow or suffer to be bestowed, an educa-
tion that is favorable only to Republicanism, or even to
a constitutional Monarchy. A slaveholding State never
teaches its children, and never will suffer them to be taught
that slavery is a sin, a social and political wrong, and that
its abolition is a moral, religious, social, and political duty.
The schoolmaster, whether lay or cleric, that should have
attempted to teach such a doctrine in any one of the South-
ern States before the Rebellion would have been summarily
dismissed, and accounted himself fortunate if he escaped
with his life. No, the evil Signor Ruffini finds, or imagines
he finds, in Italian education is a necessary effect of the
changes lately introduced in the political and social order,
and which have not yet conciliated the good will of all
classes and all orders of Italian society. It cannot be re-
moved by substituting the State for the Church as educa-
tor, or lay for clerical instructors ; for no old society can
educate for a new and different one, and the new can edu-
cate in harmony with itself no further than jt has supplant-
ed the old and become the exclusive possessor.

All education should tend to quicken, develop, enlarge,
and invigorate the mind, and to give it full possession of all its
faculties, or, as far as practicable, under all circumstances,

1861.] Vincenzo / or, Sunken Bocks. 57

favorable or unfavorable, the perfect command of itself;
but no education can provide beforehand for violent and
radical political and social changes, and time is always
requisite to adjust the schools, colleges, and universities, to
the new state of things ; for such changes are never the
work of the whole people of a nation, but always of the
active and energetic minority that has by its ability, its
combinations, its concentrated activity, its adroitness, and
— it need not be denied — unscrupulousness, succeeded in get-
getting possession of power, which it wields despotically for
carrying out its views, and forcing by a reign of terror the
nation to accept them. We see this in our seceded States.
The mass of the population in every country, if left to
themselves, are' at least passively conservative, and if let
alone seek no change, and prefer to have things remain very
much as they find them. All these sudden and violent
radical changes, necessarily in some degree interfere with
vested rights, invade numerous interests, throw down one
set of men, and raise up another, and therefore have always
a party more or less powerful opposed to them, because
gaining nothing and losing every thing by them. This
party struggles hard and long against them, and is hostile
to them, even after it has ceased to have any hope of de-
feating them, or of re-establishing the old order. Society
is unsettled, is torn by internal divisions, and order,
though forming, is nowhere formed. Education does, and
must reflect somewhat of this unsettled state, and partake
of the evils of the transition period of society itself. It
could not prepare, beforehand, for the changes, nor can it
at once and universally conform to them.

But, happily, radical political changes, violently and sud-
denly effected, are abnormal, and never desirable. They
seldom, if ever, fail to destroy more good than they intro-
duce, even when successful. They are sometimes, through
human infirmity, inevitable, and when they come we must
ke*ep up our courage, meet them bravely, and do the best
we can with them. They are political and social convul-
sions, that must be endurqd and submitted to, as are wounds
and bruises, and bodily diseases ; but no people in its sys-
tems of education can contemplate them, or give its children
and youth an education that forms them beforehand, to the
political and social order that is to succeed them. No
people can foresee them, and much less foresee what is to
come after them. Progress should always be contemplated

58 Vincenzo / or, Sunken Rocks. [Jan.,

and aimed at, but all progress is by the transformation*,
never by the destruction of the pre-existing order, and is
the continuous development, explication, and realization of
the national idea. If real progress, not merely change, it
is a normal growth, and effected, not without struggle
indeed, for all life is a struggle, but without any great
political or social convulsion, as a simple normal develop-
ment. It is seldom, with the weakness or infirmity of
human nature, the selfishness of the human heart, and the
complicated interests of old civilized communities, that the
progress goes on peaceably as a normal growth, but the aim
of all the leaders of opinion and the rulers of society should
be to enable it to do so, and therefore to educate as if the
existing order is to be not a d^ad, but a living permanent
order. The political authorities educate always according
to their own views and wishes. At present, in Italy, they
would educate in accordance with the newly introduced
order, and therefore, in the opinion of its friends, in favor
of liberty ; but, in reality, only in favor of liberty to de-
throne the old order, and to reject old ideas and adopt the
new. The moment education should look to new changes,
seek to overthrow the new government as it has overthrown
the old, they would be as hostile to it, and as despotic in its
suppression as were their predecessors, and, perhaps, much
more so.

We hold every State bound to make ample provision, at
the public expense, for the common education of all its
children, as is done, or begun, in all the Free States of the
American Union, and we would give the State a certain
oversight, not only of the prudential affairs of the schools, but
of the education, so far as to exclude all directly treasonable
or immoral teaching, or downright infidelity, but we would
not make it in name or in fact the educator. We would,
with the restriction conceded, leave education free from State
control, and subject only to the control of the parents. We
are not in favor of the separation of religion and politics,
but we are in favor of a separation of Church and State as
corporations, and therefore, we would not subject by law,
education to the authority of the Church or Clergy, whether
our own or another's. We would leave this to the parents
themselves, and to the discipline of the Church or denomi-
nation to which they may respectively belong. I claim the
right to educate my children in my own religion, and to
give the^ clergy of my Church, that control over their

1864.] Vincaizo y o?% Sunken Rocks. 59

education which my religion authorizes them to exercise ;
but I do not claim the right to educate directly or indirect-
ly another's children in my religion, against his will, or to
use the State, if able, to compel him to place his children
under the charge of my Church. Before the State or civil
society, the rights of all parents are equal, and we can
devise no system of public education, that better conciliates
the rights of the public with the rights of parents than that
which has been generally adopted in our own country, and
whatever evils may result from it are to be regarded as
abuses, not as inherent in the system itself.

The evils in Italy, Signer Ruffini complains of under the
head of Education, do not spring from undue clerical influ-
ence, or from the hostility of the clergy to an education that
tends to develop, enlarge, and liberalize the mind ; but are
incidental to the present transitional state of Italian society.
Signer Ruffini was himself educated under precisely the
same influences which he deems so hurtful, and in his Dr.
Antonio, he bears witness to the fact, that in the colleges
and universities of Italy, the education given by the pro-
fessors, was far more liberal than Italian society itself, and
awakened in the students aspirations and hopes for a politi-
cal freedom, which it was the policy of existing govern-
ments to repress. The simple fact is, the social war in Italy
is not yet completely ended, and there is still a strong party
in favor of the old order and the old governments, and
perhaps an equally strong party that have no faith in the
permanence of the new order, and believe, it may be, fear,
that the old order will be restored. There is still raging a
conflict of opinions, interests, hopes, and fears, and no
reasonable man expects to enjoy the blessings 0f peace in
the midst of war, or of order while all is as yet unsettled
and order in society is not re-established. The evils of the
conflict can pass away only with the conflict itself.

Political and social abuses will creep into the best ordered
State, under the best devised and administered system of
education, and reforms be needed. But these reforms can-
not be effected by any system of public education. They
must be effected by adults acting on adult minds. Usually
they are first demanded by a few bold, daring, inspired
individuals, who labor a long time in obscurity, unheeded
by the public, or heeded only to be sneered at, misrepresent-
ed, or denounced. Gradually they gain adherents, form to
themselves a public, and finally carry the public with them.

60 Yincenzo j or, Sunken Hocks. [Jan.,

The proposed reforms are adopted by authority, and are
incorporated into the existing order, and the work of the
reformers is done. But instantly new reforms are seen to
be necessan^, a new class of reformers are born, who after
the same process succeed. Thus must it always be in every
living community, for perfection is never reached in this
life. Here society and individuals remain always imperfect,
below the ideal, infirm, and capable of falling back as well
as of advancing. Perfect society and perfect individuals
are to be looked for only in Heaven, when men have reached
the end for which they were created. We must here live
by faith and hope, and beware of expecting to secure on the
journey what we can realize only at its termination, or
when we have arrived, as the Christian affectionately says,
at home. We can in this life be ever approaching the end,
but can never fully attain it. While we believe in progress,
and labor unremittingly for it, we must indulge no Uto-
pian dreams, nor expect to remove all difficulties. In all
countries, in every social state, and in all careers, we must
expect inconveniences to be put up with, trials to be borne
with patience, and evils which no human wisdom or fore-
sight can guard against. The new will have its incon-
veniences from which the old was free ; liberty has its
excesses no less than authority. We cannot have all things
as we would ; but it will always be well to bear in mind
that better is life than death, and more endurable are the
excesses of liberty than the excesses of power.

We do not think, again, that Signor Rufrini makes out so

strong a case of bigotry and illiberality against Rose and

her clerical directors as he supposes. It is easy to use dis-

araging epithets, but it is possible to misapply them.

igotry is an overweening attachment to one's own opin-
ions, especially in matters of religion ; illiberality is the
indisposition to concede to others the same liberty of thought
and action which we claim for ourselves. Firm adherence
to religious principle, and a readiness to die rather than to
surrender it, is not bigotry, but a virtue, the noblest of vir-
tues ; the defence and maintenance of risrht under all cir-
cumstances, let it cross whose views, prejudices, or interests
it may, is not illiberality or narrow-mindedness, but every
one's duty, and the basis of all true liberty.

We have in this Review nothing to do with the Roman
question, as a theological or ecclesiastical question ; the
rights of the Holy See, or of the Pope as Head of the

1864.] Vincenzo : or, Sunken Rochs. 61

Church, we leave to theologians and canonists to discuss, and
defend in their own way and as they judge it their duty ;
but the Pope is, asitlefrom his character as Supreme Pontiff,
an Italian Prince, and stands in his rights as such on the
footing of perfect equality with any other independent sov-
ereign Prince; and the Roman Question is, as we conceive
it, simply a question of the rights of sovereign Princes,
or sovereign and independent States in relation to one
another, and to their respective subjects. We, as all our
readers know, are in favor of a united, free, independent,
constitutional, and powerful Italy, included in a single
State, under one national sovereign. Such an Italy is
necessary to redress and preserve the balance of Europe, to
prepare the way for the regeneration of the long down-
trodden East, which can be hoped neither from France nor
Austria, neither from Russia nor Great Britain, and to carry
on effectually the great work of Christian civilization. Such
an Italy, it seems to us, has nothing in it dangerous to the
interests of religion, or to the freedom and independence of
the Catholic Church, which, if catholic, neither stands nor
falls with the temporal sovereignty of the Pope. But it is
never lawful to do evil that good may come, or to seek even
a good and desirable end by unjust and unjustifiable means.
Italy, since the fall of the old Roman Empire, has never
been united in a single State or Kingdom under one nation-
al sovereign. It has been divided into several states, prin-
cipalities, and kingdoms, each sovereign and independent.
It has never in a political sense been one nation, and there
was, when the recent revolution began, not a single reign-
ing house that had the shadow of a legal or historical right
to the lordship of the whole Peninsula. The House of
Savoy had no more right to it than had the House of Haps-
burg, the House of Bourbon, or the Pope himself. The
Union of all Italy into a united Kingdom under a Prince
of the House of Savoy could be effected in a legal and
justifiable way, but not without the free consent of the sev-
eral peoples and their sovereign Princes. That consent has
never been given or obtained, and the portions of Italy
annexed by Sardinia have been annexed by fraud and
force, in direct violation of the independence of sovereigns,
international law, and vested rights.

Let not the friends of the late Count Cavour plead the
alleged popular vote, or plebiscitum, of Naples, Tuscany,
Modena, and the ^Emilian provinces of the Papal Princi-

62 Vincenzo / or, Sunken Rocks. [Jan.,

paTHy, for the constitutions of the several States taken
possession of and erected into the Kingdom of Italy.
authorized no such vote, and a plebiscitum is lawful only
when all legitimate authority has lapsed, and the govern-
ment is vacant. The vote of a whole people against an
existing legitimate government, or against the legal claim-
ant, being illegal, is invalid, and to be treated as non avenu.
When all government has failed, and the population of a
country have no constitutional or legitimate government, to
which they owe allegiance, a plebiscitum, or popular vote
freely given and collected is proper, necessary even to legal-
ity, and is the expression of the supreme or sovereign will.
But such was not the case with any of the Italian States or
Provinces annexed or united. They all had legitimate or
legal governments. They were all monarchically consti-
tuted, and none of their sovereigns had, by their gross tyr-
anny, their long-continued and cruel oppression, forfeited
their right to reign. Neither the Princes nor the people
alone could have given the requisite consent. The State
consisted of the Prince and people, or people and Prince,
and the consent, to be valid, must be the joint consent of
both, which the popular vote or plehiscitvmi was not, for
it was given against and in defiance of the Prince.

We do not assert the inamissibility of power, or deny the
right of the people to depose the tyrant. All power is a
trust, and a trust with certain expressed or implied condi-
tions, and is forfeited when these conditions are systemat-
ically and persistently violated. The Prince is not the sov-
ereign proprietor of the nation, but its Chief Magistrate, or
representative of its majesty, and is justiciable, as England
asserted in the case of Charles I. and France in that of Louis
XYL The Nation may depose its Prince become a tyrant,
even by force of arms, when there is no other way of over-
throwing his tyranny, and the case is one of extreme cruelty
and oppression ; but the people outside of the government,
as the inorganic people, never for the sake of forming new
political combinations, or for the simple purpose of changing
the existing government for another which they think will
better suit them, or prove more convenient. It is on this
doctrine that we have fought the battles of the Union
against the Secessionists seeking to set up a separate and
independent government for themselves, and sustained the
Administration in its patriotic efforts to put down the
Southern Rebellion.

1864.] Vincenzo / or, Sunken Rocks. 63

Now, as it cannot be pretended that the Italian Princes
dispossessed by Sardinia and their own insurrectionary sub-
jects, had forfeited their right or lost their character of
sovereign princes and representatives of their respective
states, principalities, or kingdoms, there is in the acts of
Sardinia, not simply an ecclesiastical question, or question
between the claims of the Church on the one hand and
of the State on the other, but a question of international
law, of the rights, powers, and immunities of sovereigns, or
of sovereign independent States. The Sardinian ministry
in annexing the other independent States of Italy to herself,
violated the rights of sovereign nations, and in taking the
vote of the insurgent populations as the consent of the peo-
ple to be annexed, denied the right of the supreme govern-
ment to enforce, and the obligation of subjects to render
obedience to the laws. The principle asserted and acted
on strikes a blow at the independence of sovereign States,
and denies that the rights of sovereigns are sacred and in-
violable; thus depriving small States of all protection under
the law of nations, and leaving them a prey to their more
powerful neighbors, making might the, rule of right between
nation and nation. The principle applied within the nation,
asserting the authority of the plebucitum where there is a
government, given without the authority of government,
and even against it, is revolutionary in the extreme, and
incompatible with civil society itself. Rose and her spirit-
ual advisers, in rejecting that principle and condemning
the acts of the Sardinian ministry, were not necessarily
bigoted, narrow-minded, or illiberal, for they were in fact
only defending the rights and independence of sovereign
nations, and the obligation of subjects to obey the constitu-
tion and laws of the State. We think they took a broader,
a more liberal, and a more enlightened view, one far more
in accordance with the rights and interests of nations, of
both sovereign and subject, than that taken by Signor Ruf-
fini, Count Cavour, or theRegalantuomo, for we hold justice
to be more liberal than injustice, and right more tor the in-
terest of nations and individuals than wrong.

The American people have felt aggrieved by the favor
shown by the Western Powers of Europe to our rebellious
subjects, and have had cause for grave offence in their recog-
nition of the Confederates as ocean belligerents, when they
have not a single port into which they can bring their cap-
tures on the high seas, and have them adjudged by the

61 Yincenzo j or. Sunken Icoclcs. [Jan.,

admiralty .courts to be or not to be lawful prizes. We
also feel, as a nation, aggrieved by the intervention of
France in the internal affairs of Mexico, and the not im-
probable annexation of that Republic to the French Em-
pire. But what should we have felt and said, if France
had treated us as Sardinia, backed alternately by herself
and England, treat the sovereign Principalities of the Pope,
the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Duchies of Placentia,
Lucca, and Modena, and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies —
that is, sent her agents into the Slave States, stirred them
up to secede, induced them to declare their independence,
and to vote their annexation to France, and then by direct
armed intervention have prevented the government from
reducing them to their allegiance, and simply pretending to
carry into effect the plebiscitum f Should we have pro-
nounced it all right, and held up the Frenchman who pro-
nounced it a great wrong, and refused to support his gov-
ernment in committing it, a narrow-minded bigot, an
illiberal, unenlightened, priest-ridden subject % Shall we
sustain one set of principles for ourselves, and a contradic-
tory set of principles for Italy ? one set for great States, and
an opposite set for small States? It has been the calamity
of Europe that since the accession of Frederic the Great,
the great Powers have disregarded the rights of sovereign
States, and recognized practically no international law but
that of convenience or force. Let not America followT the
European example.

Nevertheless, though we protest against the perfidy by
which the late Count Cavour, the real founder of the King-
dom of Italy, as far as founded it is, carried out his policy
for the union of Italy, we are disposed to accept Italian
Unity as un fait accompli. We think a restoration of the
old order is now impracticable, and even if it were not, that
the evils of the restoration would be far greater than the evils
of sustaining and consolidating the new. Not all things
that have been done even by wrong means would we, when
done, labor to undo. We have only condemnation for those
Powers who, in the last century, suppressed the Kingdom
of Poland and divided its population and territory among
them ; and especially do we load with our malediction
the memory of that most unprincipled and cold-blooded of
modern princes, Frederic, called the Great, who devised the
scheme, and wTas principally responsible for it ; but we would
not disturb the settlement which has lasted now nearly a

1864.] Yincenzo / or, Sunken Roclts. 65

century*, and received the sanction of nearly all Europe.
The great Powers, witli the exception of Austria, have recog-
nized the Kingdom of Italy, our own government has recog-
nized it, and is represented at its court, and we have only
friendly hopes for its consolidation and future glory. There
are no offences that may not be condoned, and those who
have been wronged beyond the reach of indemnification,
will do well to forgive their wrongs, and prove themselves
real Italians, by accepting the new order, and laboring to
make, by just means, Italy really a nation worthy of her
glorious memories, and faithful and successful in discharg- J

ing the mission to Christian civilization she has received.

With this view, which violates no moral principle, we
think Don Pio might have allayed poor Pose's scruples,
and advised her that her husband, taking heed to his own
principles and personal acts, could hold office under the
government of his king, as the early Christians did not
hesitate to hold office, both civil and military, under the Pa-
gan Caesars, even those that were bitter persecutors of the
Christian religion. He could have done so in spite of the Bull
of Excommunication which the Pope had fulminated, for
that excommunicated no one by name, and therefore, ac-
cording to the Canons, forbid only the acts specified, and by
no means prohibited intercourse with the king or his minis-
ters, or the holding of office under them.

Nor do we think the author succeeds any better in sus-
taining his charge against Pose and her clerical advisers on
another point. It is well known that the Sardinian govern-
ment, by the authority of the State alone, passed certain
enactments on the subject of matrimony, and suppressed a
certain number of religious houses, in violation, as it is al-
leged, of the Concordat, or agreement with the Holy See,
and therefore viol ated its plighted faith. Now, it is not
\>igotry nor narrow-mindedness, nor ignorance nor illiberal-
ity, to insist that treaties solemnly and freely entered into
should be faithfully observed, and abrogated only by the
mutual consent of the contracting parties ; and we know no
reason why a treaty entered into between the Chief of the
State and the Chief of the Church, should not be held as sa-
cred and obligatory as a treaty between two sovereign na-
tions, or two secular sovereigns. With regard to the acts
of the Sardinian Government, in introducing a new law on
marriage, and abolishing monastic establishments, save in
so far as in contravention, if in contravention it was, of ex-

Yol. L— No. 1. 5

G6 Yincenzo / or, Sunken Rocks. [Jan.,

isting treaties, we have nothing to say. It is not for us to
decide whether they are or are not within the competence
of the State. Bat Signor Ruflini seems, in his reasoning, to
assume, that in all cases of conflict of the two powers, the
Church and the State, the State has the right to prevail,
and the Church ought to yield. Rose and her spiritual ad-
visers do not see it, and are disposed to maintain that when
the temporal and the spiritual come in collision, it is the
temporal that should give way. Whether the spiritual is
represented by the Pope or the Church, is a question into
which we do not enter, for it is a question disputed between
Catholics and Protestants. But we can generalize the ques-
tion and avoid the disputed point. Let us suppose a case of
collision between religion and politics, which should give
way ? Signor Ruffini may deny, if he will, the authority of
the Pope or the Catholic Church to speak in the name of reli-
gion, but he has no right to assume as the principle of that
denial, a principle that denies religion itself, denies con-
science, and subjects one absolutely, soul and body, to the
State.

Religion, if any thing, is the lex suprema, the supreme
law. It is the law of God, and overrides all human lawT ;
it is the law of conscience, which no man, under any cir-
cumstances, or for any reason whatever, no, not even to
save his life, is free to violate or disobey ; and all religions,
all churches, all sects, all ages, all nations and tribes, hea-
then as wTell as Christian, assert that "we must obey God
rather than men." All recognize in some form u the higher
law," a law above all civil constitutions or human enact-
ments. So true is this, that our Southern slaveholders have
some time since ceased to defend slavery, on the ground that
it is authorized by the State or civil societ}^ and have at-
tempted to place its defence on the ground that it is a Chris-
tian, a Divine institution, sanctioned by the law of God,—
evidently feeling that a human law in contravention, or
even without the sanction of the higher law, or Divine law,
has no force of law at all. The maxim of the old Roman
jurist, quod placuit jprincipi habet legis vigorem, is repu-
diated by all Christian moralists and liberal statesmen, who
agree with St. Augustine, that " unjust laws have no force,
and are rather violences than laws." The people, the or-
ganic people, are sovereign indeed, but under God, and they
derive all their right to govern from Him who is Sover-
eign of sovereigns, King of kings, and Lord of lords. On the

1864] Vincenzo / or, Sunken Rocks. 67

higher law, or the Divine law, rest all moral codes for their
obligation, and all human legislations for their validity, or
their binding force as laws for the conscience. Deny it,
and you deny the very ground and conception of justice,
and have no basis for either authority or liberty. I am
bound to obey civil society, because I am so cbmmanded
by the higher or Divine law. I am free to assert my rights,
that is, my liberty, in face of the State, because I hold them
by a higher patent than any State grant or civil concession
- -by the patent of my Creator, the irrevocable charter of
my manhood.

In a clear case between religion and politics, God and
man, I hold it my duty to follow the example of the old
confessors and martyrs — to obey God, and submit to the
penalty Cgesar chooses to inflict on me, should it even be
that of death. No man who understands the meaning of
conscience does or can acknowledge the absolute authority
of the State, or make the civil law his only criterion of right
and wrong, or the measure of his duty. He may err as to
what the law of God enjoins, but he must do what, w.ith the
best light .he has, he honestly believes it enjoins ; and in no
case can a man act against his conscience, or do what it for-
bids, without guilt, let the State command what it may.
This is, as we understand it, the teaching of all religions,
the false as well as the true, and is a simple dictate of uni-
versal reason common to all men.

We cannot, then, see that Rose and her clerical friends,
in asserting the supremacy of religion, or the law of God,
its superiority to simply human law, showed any lack of in-
telligence, of liberality, or patriotism ; and the bigotry seems
to us to be on the side of Signor Ruffini, who would make
the State the director of conscience, subject conscience to
the civil power, and thus deny its freedom. His objection
to them seems to us not well taken. He should either have
assumed the falsity of the Catholic Church, and therefore
denied the legitimacy of the authority she claims to inter-
pret for her children the law of conscience, or he should
have at once openly denied all religion, the law of God, by
whomsoever interpreted or applied, whether by a Church
or by each man for himself; for if religion there be, in any
sense of the term, it is and must be supreme, and override
all human laws, as well as all disorderly passions and evil
inclinations of the individual.

What we more especially dislike in Vincenzo is a half-

68 Yincenzo / or, Sunken Bocks. [Jan.,

concealed contempt for the clergy, and a covert assumption
that they are far inferior, as interpreters of the Divine law,
to politicians and novel-writers. "We cannot accept this.
The clergy are, neither collectively nor individually, either
infallible or impeccable, but they are in all ages and na-
tions, and in all denominations, the pars sanior of their
age and country, and far better judges of moral and reli-
gious subjects than politicians and statesmen. Clerical
bigots and fanatics are sometimes found among the minis-
ters of religion, but political bigotry and fanaticism are no
less injurious to society and civilization than religious —
indeed are far more injurious. The ministers of religion,
even of false religions, where the false religions are held to
be true, should always be treated with the respect and
reverence due to their sacred profession. We do not find
the writings of the early Christians filled with attacks on
even the heathen priesthoods, or with slurs and insinuations
against them. They attack error, vice, corruption, im-
moral rites, and false worship, but always with respect for
the sacerdotal office and character. The man who does
otherwise, who seeks to bring the professed ministers of
religion into disrepute, is an enemy to civilization, for he
labors, at least indirectly, to bring religion itself into disre-
pute, from which all the principles which originate, sustain,
and advance civilization are derived. We want a complete
separation of Church and State as corporations, but no
divorce between religious principle and politics.

We have never approved the contemptuous manner in
which our politicians and demagogues have spoken of those
three thousand New England ministers who memorialized
the Senate of the United States against the passage of the
Kansas-Nebraska Bill. Those ministers did not go out of
their sphere as ministers of religion, and meddle with that
wThich was none of their business. When the Government
is about to commit a great moral wTrong, it is the business
of the ministers of religion, it is their vocation to remon-
strate, and to induce it if possible to desist; for they are by
their very office the ministers and guardians of the law of
God, which is obligatory alike upon States and individuals;
and in this case, if their memorial had been heeded, we
should, in all human probability, have been spared the hor-
rors of the present civil war, inevitable after the passage of
that Bill. There was as much intelligence, as much learn-
ing, as much virtue, and as full an understanding of the

1864.] Vincenzo ; or, Sunken Books. 69

conditions of civilization in those three thousand ministers,
to say the least, as there was in even the august body they
memorialized. The clergy of all denominations in our
country, taken as a -body, surpass in moral culture, mental
discipline, education, science, literature, and general en-
lightenment, the average of any other class equally numer-
ous in our country. And it is a symptom of decline, rather
than of progress, in our civilization, when we find them
treated with disrespect, or compelled by public sentiment to
hold a position inferior to that held by demagogues and
politicians.

We have devoted more space to Vincenzo than its intrin-
sic merits or the antecedents of its author deserve ; but it is
a novel, "and it is through novels that the public mind in our
day is in a great measure formed, whether for good or for
evil. Vincenzo is by no means the worst novel of its class, but
it conceals a subtile and deadly poison, against which novel-
readers should be placed on their guard. The author, in
his hostility to the Pope and the Catholic Church, on polit-
ical grounds alone, has laid down principles which, in their
logical developments, deny all religion, and which therefore
are incompatible with the political liberty, freedom of con-
science, and social progress he professes to favor. It cannot
be too often repeated, nor too strenuously insisted on, that
the ideas and principles, on which all real civilization de-
pends, are taken from the religious order, or derived prima-
rily from man's relations to his Creator. Historically and
philosophically all civilization is of sacerdotal origin ; priests
have invariably been the civilizers of the race ; and we
can no more have civilization without religion than we
can have the universe without God. There are, no d'oubt,
great differences amongst men as to which is the true reli-
gion, or religion in its purity and integrity, but there should
be none astotl^e necessity to civilization of religion itself.
All forms of religion contain some elements of truth, and
better for civilization the grossest forms than none. Better
is the lowest and most debasing superstition than Atheism,
for even the worst superstition keeps alive some sense of a
moral order, while Atheism admits no moral order at all.

Our fathers, who first migrated to this western world,
were not in all respects orthodox, as we understand the
term, but they were Christians, and brought with them the
elements of the highest and noblest civilization the world
has ever seen or conceived of. Our civilization is Christian

70 Popular Corruption and Venality. [Jan.,

civilization, and Christian civilization severed from the
Christian faith can no more live and bear fruit than the
branch severed from the trunk. Severed from its principles,
which are taken from the Gospel, our civilization must
soon run out, be exhausted for the want of new supplies,
as the stream severed from its fountain. It is well for us,
in this hour of our national crisis, to remember this, and not
forget the source of our national life. We have fancied that
our civilization could subsist alone, without religion, and in
our eagerness for the goods of this world we have supposed
we might safely neglect the Christian faith and the evan-
gelical law. We must hasten to correct this fatal mistake,
and to return to Him whose providence nothing escapes,
and in whom nations, as well as individuals, live, move, and
have their being. To us Christendom is a reality, and. we
believe in Christian civilization, and therefore we deem it
our duty to protest against whatever is essentially hostile
to it. In this civilization all Christian nations in varying
degrees participate, and all, whether Catholic or Protestant,
have a common interest in advancing it, and may labor in
harmony to advance it.

Art. IV. — Tlie Peril of the Pepublic the Fault of the Peo-
ple. An Address delivered before the Senate of Union
College, Schenectady, July 20, 1863, and before the Lit-
erary Societies of Franklin and Marshall College, Lan-
caster, Pa., July 29, 1863. By Daniel Doughp;rty, Esq.,
of Philadelphia. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co.,
1863. 8vo,pp. 28.

We have read with much interest this very able and elo-
quent Address, by Mr. Dougherty. The author speaks as a
Christian and a patriot, out of a full heart,«;becanse he has
something to say, not. because he has, an address to deliver.
He is a man in downright earnest, and too much concerned
for the honor of his countrymen to flatter them, too sin-
cerely devoted to his country to fear to tell it unpalatable
truths. He believes the Pepublic is in peril, and he says
so ; and believing the cause to be in the corruption and
venality, public and private, of the people, he tells them so.
He is no demagogue, and is probably, no aspirant to office.

After briefly sketching the greatness and richness of the
countrv, its noble institutions, the wide field for high and hon-

1864.] Popular Corruption and Venality. 71

orable ambition opened to the American people, the hopes
of a great destiny they have been permitted to indulge, he pro-
ceeds to inquire and set forth the causes of our present trou-
bles and dangers, and he traces them to the fault of the people.

" Whence the causes of this awful fate — this sudden death to all
our hopes ? ■ From a hundred streams they come ; yet, trace them,
and find the source of all to be the people.

"Ay, every drop of blood poured out in this terrific war — every
one of the hundreds of thousands of new-made graves that rise all
over this once happy land — the desolated homes — the wrecked
hopes — the squandered treasures — the untold misery — the imper-
illed nation — the menaced liberties of America-— all, all rest on the
guilty heads of the People.

" Before high heaven I arraign the American People as recreants,
ingrates, and parricides.

" Apostate to the Republic — faithless to their vows — scoffers at
public virtue — reckless of principle — eager for gold and greedy for
place — they banished integrity, intellect, and patriotism from the
high stations of the State and Nation, and rilled them with trick-
sters, trimmers, partisans, plunderers, drunkards, duellists, imbe-
ciles, and traitors.

" The men who, after a seven years' war, won our independence,
and the generation that followed, knew the priceless value of the
Republic ; they faithfully discharged the high, trusts of American
citizenship. Then virtue and worth were placed at every post to
guard the public weal. Then intellect cultivated a pure ambition
to serve the State. From the by-ways of humble life came forth
statesmen, sages, and orators, who flung the mantle of genius around
their country, and made her fame immortal.

" But the children born wdien the last of the Revolutionists were
passing to their graves, and growing to manhood amid all the evi-
dences of boundless prosperity, fancied the Republic was their
own, without effort or responsibility, and that no power could wrest
it from them. Educated beyond all other peoples, the fruits of
literature spread far and wide ; lovers of liberty and ready to die
for it, they yet forgot to live for it. Jealous and watchful of their pri-
vate interests, they overlooked the public good. Enjoying the
rich gains of industry and enterprise, they utterly ignored the vital
truth that a Republic dies when the people cease their vigilance or
leave to faction or party the sacred duty enjoined on every citizen.

" Blessed with peace while Europe was convulsed with wars, our
patriotism exhausted itself in shouting at the name of Washington,
chorusing the national songs, blindly voting for party hacks, and
in public meetings being moved to pity or passion-, like the citizens
in the play of Caesar.

" This forgetfulness of duty, this sin against ourselves, this crime

72 Popular Corruption and Venality. [Jan.,

against our country, was taken advantage of by opposite classes in
the two sections of the country.

" In the South, the planters — a small minority, comprising its
wealth and culture, living in elegant ease on the labor of an inferior
race, ambitious of rule, anxious to guard, and, if possible, spread
their peculiar and precarious institution — assumed entire control.

" While Southern cities and States did not and could not grow
in population and thrive as the North, yet they were always better
governed; more free from corruption, riots, and crime, because
offices were created and filled for the good of the community, and
not for the gain of the incumbents. Officials were retained as long
as they faithfully discharged their duties.* Representatives and
Senators had previously served in the State legislatures, and entered
Congress a phalanx, differing, perhaps, on indifferent subjects, but
united in every thing that tended to the interest of their section and
to strengthen and spread the institution of slavery. Re-elected
without opposition term after term, they became educated in the
profound science of government, were the master-spirits of the na-
tion, shaped its legislation, inoculated the country with some re-
volting theories, by the adroit management of party selected for
themselves the highest honors of the Union, and when, with a show
of fairness, they yielded to the North, chose only those who were
pledged to their opinions, and would be controlled by their counsels.

"In the North, the lowest grade of society — the scum of the
cities, village loafers, hucksterers of legislation, aided by contractors
without capital, lawyers without practice, doctors without patients,
and journalists without principle, all bound together by the cohe-
sive power of public plunder — boldly grasped the reins and will-
ingly gave the honors and control of the Republic, in consideration
that they might clutch each year a hundred millions of patronage,
besides the rich booty that every office, high and low, in all the
North, became. Offices were created and managed without refer-
ence to the general good, and exclusively for the emoluments of
the knaves who filled them. Honest and able Judges received
salaries less than the income of an ordinary attorney ; while the
clerks of -the courts, whose functions were mostly discharged by
deputies, made fortunes in three years. Seats in the Legislature
and in Congress were too often scrambled for by filthy fellows,
who unblushingly sold their votes to the highest bidder, and were
thrust aside at the end of the second term to make way for success-
ful competitors.

1 " If it so chanced that a great Intellect appeared from the North
in the Senate, as long as his views chimed with party his path-
way was strewn with flowers ; but if his sense of right and proud
heart rose indignant at an attempted wrong, his followers deserted

* There were but three persons who held the office of Postmaster in Charles-
ton from the formation of the Government to the outbreak of the Rebellion.

1864.] Popular Corruption and Venality. 73

him ; his own fellow-citizens, whose honor and opinions he had
maintained, turned for a moment from their avocations to sigh that
he ha:l left the service of the State, and then threw up their caps
as some low trickster started to fill a chair from which a statesman
had been expelled.

" The rival organizations, by corrupt caucuses and conventions,
named the candidates for every office, from the Executive of a
Commonwealth to the constable of a township, and to advance
their respective designs and make permanent their success, sought
by every artifice to inflame the spirit of party, which the first Pres-
ident in his farewell appeal warned the people was 'truly their
worst enemy, and which, instead of warming, would consume the
nation.'

" Alas ! the people would not see the snare ! The angel of coun-
try, all beautiful and good, who had enriched them with priceless
gifts and would have shielded them forever, was turned from with
cold neglect, her caresses scorned ; while the demon of party was
worshipped with idolatrous devotion.

" Year after year, party spirit grew in bitterness and rancor, poi-
soning the whole nation, and dragging it towards the awful gulf of
civil war.

" No villain too depraved to aspire to office ; and once nominated,
every voice shouted for his success. No outrage could a partisan
commit that would not find defenders. Infamous legislation would
be applauded by the party in power; the noblest and most neces-
sary measures denounced by the one seeking authority. The basest
passions of the mob courted. Justice was sacrificed to expediency,
honor to availability. The laborer who paved the streets or swept
a room, and by the secret ballot/voted for the worthiest man, would
be dismissed from employment, and with his family left to starve,
while the audacious knave who had, by bribery, purchased distinc-
tion, would be dined and honored by the President." — Pp. 7-11.

. This is a dark picture, but who of us can say that it is
too deeply shaded ? Who of us can deny the fearful loss
by the American people of both private and public virtue,
or the deep and damning corruption of American politics ?
We have ourselves, ever since the Presidential election in
1840, when the canvass was carried on by songs, log cabins,
coonskins, and hard cider, been calling the attention of our
readers to this corruption ; and long before the present civil
war broke out, we told them plainly whither we were hast-
ening, and the ruin that was sure to overtake us, if we did
not amend, arid endeavor to recover the virtues without
which no nation can live and prosper ; but our words were
unheeded ; we were a radical, a Papist, or a disappointed
man, opposed to Democratic government, " all things by

71 Popular Corruption and Venality. [Jan.,

turns and nothing long," and so onr words went for nothing,
and the people rushed on with railroad speed to destruction
with Apollyon for Conductor, while they fancied they were
going towards heaven, and prospering as no people before
them had ever prospered. Only the voice of flatterers
would be listened to. But the time has come, or is near
at hand, when men must hear the truth which Mr. Dough-
erty so fearlessly tells. And let not the people of the loyal
States flatter themselves that they are in no sense respon-
sible for the evils now upon us, or that -the Southern Rebels
are sinners above all men who dwell in America. Political
corruption, speculation, private and public dishonesty and
fraud, have been and are as rife, to say the least, in the Free
States as in the Slave States. The withering rebuke admin-
istered us of the loyal States by Mr. Dougherty is richly
deserved :

"The people, aroused, lavished contributions to carry on the
war, cheered until the welkin rung farewells to their gallant sons,
and then returned to their own concerns, certain that before three
months were passed there would come to them the same message
that Caesar sent from Zela.

" Since that time two years have passed ; each day draped with
blood, and crowded with scenes of unutterable woe. Immense
tracts of country, over which the eye enraptured gazed on lovely
fields and happy homes, are now desolations, where lives alone the
carrion-bird.

" States that had never heard the booming of cannon save on
joyous celebration of historic * anniversaries, now hear its roar
crashing death and destruction in its fiery flight.

" Away out on every sea our commerce is devastated — from the
shores ( f the Atlantic far on to the* Rocky Mountains ; from within
sight of the Capitol to the extremest southern verge, the war rages.
A million of men of the same origin, born on the same soil, speak-
ing the same language, worshipping at the same shrine — with inter-
ests mutual, if not identical, bound together by commercial, mari-
tal, lineal, and religious ties — until yesterday enjoying boundless
prosperity in unbroken peace, under the mildest and noblest of
Governments, are now warring with each other. Five hundred
thousand have been slaughtered. Three thousand millions of dol-
lars have been expended. The wounded and the maimed, never seen
before, now ache the sight whichever way we turn. Women mourn-
ing for their husbands and sons, fathers and brothers, cross our path
at every step. The rumble of the hearse is heard, and the muffled
drum is beating. Imperial France, in violation of the Monroe doc-
trine, unchecked, rears a throne on the ruins of our only sister Re-
public. Foreign complications are drifting towards us. Our gal-

1864-.] Popular Corruption and Venality. 75

lant army, decimated by battle and disease, disheartened by dissen-
sions and want of sympathy at home, lias nigh been overwhelmed.

f* The rebellion, haughty, defiant, and successful, has advanced
its legions on Pennsylvania soil, and threatened to ravage our fields,
fire our mines, and' wave its bloody banner over our own homes
and altars. The cause of the Union sinks lower and lower, while
ghastly anarchy seems hovering just above us !

" Yet, are the people of what is called the loyal States alive to
these awful realities ? Have they banished from their minds all
meaner thoughts in the towering resolve to regain their nationality ?
' Are all differences forgotten, and are they united to a man in burn-
ing hate against the foe bent on the destruction of their liberties ?
Have they hurled from the Tarpeian rock the traitor? , Have they
placed at every post, military and civil, the able soldier and the
virtuous citizen ? Have they decreed the direst penalties on the
wretch who fattens on ill-gotten gains wrung from his country's
misfortunes ? Have they execrated for all coming time the damned
villains, the active agents of all our woes, the scurvy politicians ?

" Stand forth, men of the North, and answer.

" Grief may shed its bitter tears in the silent chamber, poverty
may starve in its hiding-place, the patriot may mourn, but no grief
nor feeling seems to dwell in the public mind or touch the public
heart. This year eclipses all the past in gorgeous dissipation.
Our Northern cities are wild with fashion, hilarity, and show. More
diamonds flash in the glare of the gay saloon, the gentlemen stop
at no extravagance, and. the ladies in full dress powder their hair
with gold; dinners, balls, and masquerades, in ostentation and
luxuriance, turn midnight into day. Prancing steeds and gaudy
equipages carry light-hearted loveliness through all the drives of
fashion. Stores where jewels, pearls, and precious stones, and the
rich goods of Europe and Asia are exposed, are crowded with pur-
chasers and have doubled sales, though gold touched a premium of
seventy per cent. Speculators in stocks make fortunes in a day.
Palatial stores and marble dwellings are springing from the earth
on every side. Eesorts of amusement were never so numerous and
never so crowded. Prize fights excite for a time more interest than
the battles of the Republic. Thousands of dollars are staked on
the favorite of the race. Gambling hells are wide open to entice
to infamy the young. Crime is fearfully on the increase. The law
grows impotent, and men who have, by the basest means, defrauded
the laborer, the widow, and orphan, hold high their heads and go
unwhipt of justice.

" Is all this the ruddy glow of health, or the hectic flush?

'• Turn from social to public life. The politicians who in April,
1861, awe-struck at the majestic anger of the people, had crept
like cravens to their dens, no sooner saw the storm had passed
than they came forth bolder, baser, and more perfidious than be-

76 Popular Corruption and Venality. [Jan.,

fore. They divided again into parties, and have contrived, foment-
ed, and produced apathy instead of energy, discord in place of har-
mony, and are preparing events for the future at the thought of
which the strongest hearts must shudder. Lofty sentiments actu-
ate but few of the leaders on either side. One cries out for the
Union, the other for the Constitution ; but they care for neither.
With one party it is a struggle to keep power, with the other to
obtain it. Becoming millionaires by the war, some of them care
not when it ends. The opposite faction, mad that they, too, cannot
plunder, have no words of comfort for the bleeding soldiers of the
Republic, but in public meetings are loud in the expression of*
their love for traitors, who, under the cloak of free speech, are
striving; to light the fires of mutual slaughter in the North.

''These organizations are, for the most part, controlled by an
aristocracy of scoundrels, ignorant, selfish, vulgar, and depraved,
who give the choicest honors to him who pays highest or sinks
his manhood deepest. Walk the promenade of either New York
or Philadelphia, and let me point at a few you will surely see.
There at the corner lounges a felon who has served a term, nay,
probably been pardoned out of the penitentiary. See where rides
the murderer who escaped conviction. Yonder swaggers the bully
of the prize ring. Yet one of these is, perhaps, a justice of the
peace ! another a councilman ! and the third holds a sinecure in
the customs or post-office ! They each manage precincts, wards,
or districts ; are bowed to, buttonheld, and made companions of
by candidates for Congress, Governors of Commonwealths, and
Senators of the United States. These are the lords of the city, the
fountains of honor in the State. They issue their edicts, and the
citizens — the industry, the labor, the wealth, the intellect, aye, the
piety ! — blindly obey, and never raise a voice against the despotism.

" Every avenue to the Capitol choked up with these characters,
gifted men, in self-respect, shrink from such associations, and smother
a noble ambition in the useful security of mechanical, mercantile,
and professional pursuits. This accounts for the otherwise extra-
ordinary fact, that the stupendous events of the last two years have
produced no statesman whose name will stand conspicuous among
the heroes of history.

" Thus, too, it is that even the legislatures of the States are swel-
tering with corruption.

" In September last,* the roar of the battle of Antietam could
be heard in the Counties of Adams, Franklin, and Fulton. The
Legislature of Pennsylvania, meeting in January, were four months
in session, bartering for bribes the franchises of the State, favoring
every villanous scheme to cheat, wrong, and oppress the people,
quietly passing bills to annihilate contracts involving immense

«

* September, 1862.

1864.] Popular Corruption and Venality. 77

sums, and when detected,* unanimously requesting the Executive
to return the bills unsigned ; yet had no time for organizing the
militia, nor for considering the necessity for fortifications, though
the enemy has since invaded the State, and in one week destroyed
property to the amount of millions of dollars.

'* So bold and so brazen in iniquity have lawgivers. become, that
more than one member asserted in open session, without contradic-
tion, that rings were formed among the legislators !\ so that no bill
could be passed unless each member of the ring received his price !

" Search the records of civil and criminal courts of your large
cities, watch the proceedings of the legislatures of the States, read
the reports of the investigating committees of the two last Con-
gresses, and stand amazed at the diabolic villany of those to whom
the people have intrusted their dearest rights and sacred liberties !"
—Pp. 13-16.

We should be less despondent, if the people of the loyal
States laid the perils of the Republic more to heart, and
were more impressed with a sense of their own short-com-
ings. We yield to no man in our detestation of slavery, or
in our determination to war against it till nothing of it is
left standing; but we tell our countrymen, as we have told
them any time for the last thirty years, that slavery is not
the only evil, nor the chief evil in the country, nor slave-
holders the only American sinners against God and human-
ity. ISTo people, unless the English, have a better1" faculty
of concealing from both themselves and others their vices
and iniquities than the people of our loyal States, and of
none can it be said with more truth —

They compound for sins they are inclined to,
And damn those they have no mind to.

The abolition of slavery will remove a dark stain from our
national escutcheon, but it will heal very few of our wounds,
bruises, and putrefying sores, and do but little towards sup-
plying the private and public virtues we lack. The
North has virtues which are wanting at the South, and the
South has virtues which are wanting at the North. We
have vices, too, from which the South are comparatively
free, as their superior physical hardihood and endurance in
the present war ampty proves. The Southern people have
submitted without a murmur, in what they erroneously
hold to be a war of independence, to losses, want, destitu-
tion,' of which we can form only a faint conception, and
shown a zeal, an energy, a determination, a disinterestedness,

* See Legislative Record for 1863, pages 440, 441, 476, and 409.
f See Legislative Record for the session of 1863.

78 Pojmlar Corruption and Venality. [Jan.,

that we have failed to show in the cause of the government
and the Nation. Our journals have even had the bad taste,
the purse-proud feeling to sneer at the ill-fed, ragged, and
Bare-footed soldiers of the so-called Confederacy, as the
British did at our own troops in the War of Independence,
and to conclude the superiority of the Union cause from the
fact that we are rich enough to furnish our soldiers better
clothing and larger rations. We of course believe our cause
superior, and alone the just cause, but not for such a reason,
and we can have but little respect for men who urge such
a reason, and still less for those who can be moved by it.
If the cause of the Rebels had been just, as many of them
believe it is, they would have proved themselves the least
deteriorated part of the American people. The people of the
loyal States have not yet suffered. They are making money
out of the war, growing rich on the calamities of their
country, and boast of it as a merit. Some hundreds'" of
thousands of the "flower of our youth may have died in
camp, been killed in battle, or maimed and disabled for life,
but what matters it ? Contractors grow rich, and their
wives and daughters glitter with jewelry, and the journals
assure us that the gaps in our population are more than
filled up. by emigration from Ireland, Germany, and Canada.
Why, then, should not the war be protracted indefinitely?

Though all that a brave and noble people can hold dear,
not only for this generation, but for all coming generations,
is at stake, for country gone all is gone, we are hardly
moved. We absolutely refuse to unite and march as one
man against the enemy. A draft yields hardly a corporal's
guard ; unheard-of bounties are offered almost in vain to ob-
tain volunteers; and no appeals are effectual, but appeals to
the most sordid elements of our nature.. Nothing can in-
duce us to forego our old party divisions, to break through
our old " Rings" formed for successfully plundering the
City, the State, the Nation, or to emancipate ourselves from
money brokers, office brokers, and political jobbers. Here,
again, we must listen to Mr. Dougherty.

" Amid all these events and scenes which foretell our swift and
sure destruction, and which, as if an angel spoke, should recall us
to our allegiance to the Republic, the people, like a sleeping drunk-
ard, will not awake and avert the impending doom.

" The politicians, the evil spirits of the nation, with whom fair is
foul and foul is fair — these close contrivers of all harms, these jug-
gling fiends who trade and traffic in affairs of death, who met the

18(34:.] Popular Corruption and Venality. 79

people in the days of success and with prophetic speeches that did
sound so fair solicited them to the sacrilegious murder of their
country — are now with wild glee dancing around the boiling cal-
dron of partisan hate, pouring in every envenomed lie and poisoned
argument to make the hell-broth boil and bubble, telling the spell-
bound people they bear a charmed life, can never vanquished be,
urging them to still further step in blood,

" ' To spurn fate, scorn death, and bear
Hopes 'bove wisdom, grace, and fear ;'

despairing of the charm only when brought to a dismal and fatal
end, their liberties and rights are struck down and forever destroyed
by the swords thay thought could only fall on vulnerable crests.

"We of the North, with interests identical, knowing that, in this
dread crisis, whatever our fate, all must share it alike, instead of
standing united, firm as a mountain in support of our Government,
are divided against ourselves; our differences exhibiting themselves
fiercely and distinctly in social clubs, family circles, public charities,
and religious denominations. Part of our people, with hearts de-
voted to the precious cause, yet stand paralyzed like passengers on
a ship struggling amid a stormy sea, forgetting that in this hurri-
cane we are all of the crew and belong to the ship itself. Tens of
thousands there are who care not whether the nation is saved or
lost. Thousands in private conversations openly oppose their coun-
try, and declare their sympathies are with the traitors. Some ad-
mit the army needs soldiers, but, even to violence and murder, will
oppose conscription ! They say the war is for. the black man, yet
will not agree to the black man fighting ! carry on the war, say they,
but inflict on the rebels as little harm as possible ! shoot them, but
don't exasperate them ! kill them in battle, but don't confiscate
their property ! it is true they have resolved to destroy the nation,
but give them their constitutional rights !

" With others, slur the flag with impunity, but, on peril of your
life, utter no free speech against a favorite general ! These leave
the house of God when prayers are said for the Government ; curse
the President as a tyrant who should die, and in our very presence
praise the arch-traitor Davis !

" WTith them to defend slavery is patriotism ! to advocate free-
dom is treason ! they say a secessionist must be conciliated, an abo-
litionist hung! South Carolina should be coaxed back into the
Union, Massachusetts must be 'left out in the cold!' They are
against war, but will organize to assassinate soldiers sent to arrest
deserters ! they prate of pea,ce, and call the foe, reeking with the
hot blood of our slaughtered patriots, their brothers ; yet are eager
to clutch their weapons and kill their own kinsmen who dare to be
true when they are false !

" Treason, the bloodiest and blackest of crimes, has from the be-

80 Popular Corruption and Venality. [Jan.,

ginning been unchecked, and aids the enemy in the very capital of
the nation ! All the roads leading to the armies, our cities and
towns, swarm with conspirators ready to seize on our mishaps to
raise the banner of revolt. Yet no death-warrant has been si fined.
When, at last, in loyal Kentucky a traitor was arrested, tried, found
guilty, and sentenced to die, the President of the United States
pardoned the culprit ! ! !" — Pp. 21-23.

The Administration, in its treatment of traitors and oth-
er criminals, has only followed the false philanthropy which
has been for the, last half century at work, to undermine
every thing founded on the experience of mankind in all
ages and nations. The American people, having gained
their independence by a successful revolution, and having
once been exposed to be treated as traitors, have never re-
garded treason as much of a crime, and have been more dis-
posed to sympathize with and to honor the traitor, than to
punish him. In every country except their own, where
they could find a portion of the people fighting against law
and order, or established authority, they have pronounced
them friends of liberty, held their cause to be just, and
taken them under their protection. Did we not invite the
Hungarian Kossuth to be the nation's guest, and send out a
national vessel to transport him hither? Is not the free
booter Garibaldi our beau-ideal of a patriot and a hero?
Even now, when we are* fighting to put down a rebellion
which threatens the very existence of the nation, leading
journals devoted to the cause of the Union cannot refrain
from encouraging -rebellion abroad. Do they not support
Mosquera, who, in the United States of Colombia, is playing
the exact counterpart of Jeff. Davis ? Have we not been
accustomed to sneer at loyalty, and to treat loyalists wdiere-
ever we found them as the enemies of liberty, the party of
the past, for whose discomfiture all living men should pray,
and if opportunity offer, fight? "We have heard it- gravely
argued by grave men, that there can be loyalty only where
there is royalty, and that the word loyalty does not belong
to the American vocabulary. Need we wonder that the
Government makes it a point to deal tenderly with
traitors?*

For the last half century philanthropy has been the rage
with the great body of the English and Northern Ameri-
cans, not specially devoted to politics and money -getting.
The better, the more disinterested and self-sacrificing portion
of our own community, especially in the non-slaveholding

1864.] Popular Corruption and Venality. 81

States, have for a long time given their time, their
thoughts, and their money to create a sympathy, not with
the unfortunate only, but with rogues and criminals whom
the law arrests and punishes. They make the criminal a
hero, and turn away with contempt from the innocent vic-
tim. They have abolished the whipping-post for petty
offences, done their best to abolish the gallows, and to con-
vert the prison into a palace. "Whenever a scoundrel is
caught, convicted, and has received a righteous sentence,
they cry out pardon, pardon, forgetting that often the only
good use you can put some men to, is to hang them. In all
this there is a just, a noble, and even a Christian sentiment,
but carried to excess or misapplied. The better the senti-
ment, the greater the evil of its perversion. There are few
things more detrimental to public justice and private virtue
than philanthropy perverted or misdirected. It is like
zeal for God not according to knowledge. It had, before
the breaking out of the civil war, been carried so far as
nearly to dispense with penal justice altogether, and to cre-
ate the impression that the only persons deserving punish-
ment are those who have the hardihood to be innocent.
The President of the United States is not a professed phi-
lanthropist; he is not a man of theories, not a doctrinaire,
and aims generally to meet every question on its merits,
when it comes up ; but he is a man of remarkable tender-
ness of heart, as every one may see who looks into his eyes,
and he cannot bear to inflict pain on even a traitor. Per-
haps he has inherited something from his Quaker ancestry,
and should be regarded as a man even on principle opposed
to war. There is no doubt that his tenderness amounts at
times to a weakness, and is real cruelty in its effects. But
we doubt if the American people would not have cried out
against him had he practised a prompt and just severity.
It was necessary that they should see and experience the
sad effects of the perverted philanthropy they had so long,
so widely, and so persistently encouraged. They needed to
learn from experience that no true and just policy for state
or nation can be founded on the sentiments alone, even
the most benevolent and the most disinterested. Govern-
ment must be founded in reason and justice, and be guided
by stern principle. This is the lesson of the ages, and it is
the lesson this war is bringing home to us. The modern
cant about the heart, that the heart is above the head, that is,
that the sentiments and affections are a safer guide than
Yol. I.— No. I 6

82 Popular Corruption and Venality. [Jan. ,

reason and intellect, should be rejected with the toys of our
childhood. Plato gave the soul two wings — Intelligence and
Love, and the soul can soar with neither alone. The true
guide of nations, as of individuals, is Intelligence informed
with Love, or Love informed with Intelligence.

The Administration has been undoubtedly too lenient to-
wards traitors, spies, deserters, and other offenders, and much
too ready to relax the severity of military law ; yet, if err
it must, it is better that it should err in being too lenient,
than in being too severe. We do not think it desirable that
the government should aspire to the reputation of treating
its enemies better than its friends, and wTe never believed
that the Rebels were to be wTon over by soft words and len-
ient deeds, or otherwise than by hard knocks ; but we should
be sorry to believe that our Government or our people
could imitate the barbarism of the so-called Confederate
States, or could be capable of treating the disloyal dwelling
amongst them at the North, as the Southern people have
treated those among them who adhered to the flag of their
country, and remained faithful among the faithless to the
Union. We would rather suffer wrong than do wrong, and
when the war is over and peace restored, it will be better
for our Government to lie under the imputation of excessive
leniency than under that of excessive severity. Besides,
the mildness with which the Government has treated North-
ern traitors and disloyal demagogues may have proceeded
from its conscious strength, and its contempt of their efforts
to harm it.

There is no doubt that the peril of the Republic is the
fault of the people, for the people after all choose their rep-
resentatives, and men who fairly represent them, though in
general the men they elect, if not alwaj^s the best men in
the country, range above the general average of the elect-
ors. But after all, we have some doubts if any good can
come, in times like these, from parading the faults of\ the
people before them. Events speak more powerfully than
words. If the roll* of musketry and the thunder of artillery
in their ears cannot reach and move their hearts, what can
our puny voices do ? The American people have faults,
great faults, but they have also their virtues ; and faulty as
they unquestionably are, they do not fall below the people
of contemporary nations. Ireland was far worse when
she had a Parliament of her own, and Irish politics are not
even now very edifying. England was worse under the first

1864.] Popular Corruption and Venality. 83

two Georges, and is no better now. The complaints we
make of our Government and people are little else than rep-
etitions of those that filled the English journals during the
war in the Crimea. France was worse in the time of the
Fronde, under the Regency, in the reign of Louis XV. and
his mistresses, and during the Revolution that broke out in
1789. French patriots, when all Europe was in coalition
against France, when a royalist insurrection raged in La
vendee, and the streets of Paris ran with French blood,
could look as closely after their private interests, speculate
as largely on the calamities of their country, and make as
large fortunes as the most successful of our shoddy contract-
ors. All was not immaculate or perfect disinterestedness in
our own War of Independence. We had our tories, our
cow-boys, our skinners, and our contractors, and the claims
of some of the latter remain yet unsettled, as the heirs of
Beaumarchais can testify, if any of them still live. The
selfish element of human nature will manifest itself in very
revolting forms, if you give it an opportunity ; but we are
not aware that it exhibits itself with us in a more revolting
form than with other nations. In all countries, and under
all forms of government, there are men who regard public
or private calamity as their opportunity, and who will coin
the blood of the soldier, and the tears of the widow and
the orphan, into money, if possible.

We are all inclined to expect too much of mankind, and
in times of calamity to reproach them with undue severity.
We are never to look for a nation of saints on earth. Neither
a perfect society nor perfect individuals are to be found this
side of the Kingdom of Heaven. Never yet was there a
nation in which the whole population were moved by a pure
and disinterested patriotism. All men act more or less from
mixed motives, and are seldom either as good or as bad as
they seem. We must learn to be tolerant, and to take men
with their imperfections, and not to fret or grow misan-
thropic because on close acquaintance we find them not an-
gels. For our part, we confess that we have found more
virtue in the American people than we looked for. They
have proved themselves far less corrupt and venal, far more
patriotic, more disinterested, more self-sacrificing, than, dur-
ing the dark winter of 1860-61, we believed them to be.
That was the only period when we despaired of our coun-
trymen, or for a moment doubted the result of the impend-
ing struggle. The loyal people of the Union have displayed

84 Popular Corruption and Venality. [Jan.,

more vigor than we gave them credit for, and have won onr
admiration for their energy, their perseverance, their sacri-
fices, and their heroism, and it is fitting that they should re-
ceive deserved credit. It is not well for a people to be proud
and conceited, and unconscious of its own faults and defects ;
nor is it well that it should lose self-respect, or confidence in
its own intelligence and virtue.

"We do not yet see the faults of the people corrected by the
war ; some of them seem to become greater ; but we must re-
member that it takes time to effect any great changes in the
character of a people, even after the causes sure to effect
the changes are already in operation. As yet the calamities
of the Nation have not come home to us. We of the loyal
States have suffered comparatively little from the war. ¥e
have drawn principally upon the future. We have con-
tracted heavy debts ; which one day will have to be paid.
There will come a collapse of our present inflated currency,
prices will fall, things will find their level, and many who
now count themselves rich, even many of our fraudulent
contractors, will find themselves poor. Then will come the
real hour of trial to the people. It will be found that in
the point of view of economy the expenditures for the war
have been a dead loss to the country, and that they remain
a tax on the land and industry. The preservation of the
Union is worth more than it will have cost, for its value is
inestimable. All that a man hath will he give for his life,
and every true citizen will give his life for his country.
The chief reforming effects of the war will be felt only
when the war is over, and the struggle comes to its legiti-
mate conclusion. It will be a long time before trade and
industry can recover the blow they have received in the
Southern and Border Slave States, and we doubt if ever here-
after we can rely on Southern staples to support so large a
portion of our foreign exchanges as they did before the war.
feut the South will produce more for itself, and will hereaf-
ter make many things for itself, which it has heretofore im-
ported from the Northern States, or from Europe, which
will be a great gain for virtue as well as economy. Busi-
ness, hereafter, will be conducted on truer and safer princi-
ples. The habit of cash payments without credit will have
been acquired, and fewer chances for wild and reckless
speculations will be afforded, and a larger proportion of the
population will find it necessary to devote themselves to the
cultivation of the. soil. Luxury and extravagance will be

1864.] The Presidents Message and Proclamation. 85

confined within narrower limits. The soldiers will return
and bring with them some notions of discipline, some sense
of the importance of government, and the necessity of se-
lecting the right men to govern. These and other things
will work a reform. Hitherto we have received only ben-
efits from the Government, and thought only of what we
could get from it ; but when we have suffered for the coun-
try, and made sacrifices for it, we shall become patriotic and
public-spirited. We love never what has cost us no suffer-
ing. Time will work wonders with us, and thus we hope
and confide in our national destiny.

Aet. Y. — Third Annual Message of President Lincoln to
both Houses of Congress, December 9, 1863. Washington,
D. C.

All will agree that this Message, including the Proclama-
tion appended to it, is one of great importance, perhaps the
most important that has ever been sent to Congress by a
President of the United States. It tells us plainly the Ex-
ecutive Plan for reorganizing the rebellious States as States
in the Union, and the terms on which the Rebels may be
restored to their rights of property and citizenship. The
plan of reorganization in its outlines, however, has been well
understood to he that of the Administration since the first
advance of our army into Tennessee, and was criticised in
this Review in April, 1862, and has been uniformly opposed
by us ever since. It will be found discussed at length in the
article on The Federal Constitution in our present number,
written and in type before the Message was delivered. We
find nothing in the President's reasoning in his Message, or
in the details of the plan as set forth in his Proclamation, to
induce us to change our opinion of the plan. We honestly
believe the plan unconstitutional, and fraught with hardly
less danger to our Republican institutions than the Southern
Rebellion itself, and all the more dangerous because it is
not unlikely to enlist in its support a large portion of the
most fearless and most devoted friends of the Union.

The Executive Plan is ingenious ; it is astute, but it seems
to us the plan of the politician, rather than of the statesman,
and to look more to the next Presidential election than to
the real welfare of the nation. If accepted by Congress it
secures Mr. Lincoln's renomination, and re-election to the

86 The Presidents Message and Proclamation. [Jan.,

Presidency; no serious objection in itself, indeed, for it mat-
ters not who administers the Government if it is well admin-
istered ; and our rule is to retain the present incumbent so
long as he faithfully and efficiently discharges the duties of
his office. It is better to put up with evils that we know
than fly to others that we know not of. There are many
reasons why we should prefer the re-election of Mr. Lincoln
to the election of a new man. He has acquired experience,
and knows the ropes. He is far better qualified to admin-
ister the Government for a second term than he was for the
first. We do not, therefore, object to the Executive Plan on
account of its probable bearing on the next Presidential
election. We object to putting forth so important a plan
with such a view, and for such a reason.

We object primarily to the plan of reorganization pro-
claimed, because it is an Executive plan, and as an Executive
plan without the sanction or acquiescence of Congress can-
not be carried into effect. If the President had simply
recommended the measure to Congress, with his reasons for
wishing it to be adopted, he would have done his duty, and
whether Congress approved the plan or not, he would have
been free from all blame. What we object to is the attempt
by Executive action to forestall the action of 'Congress, or to
place the whole question in such a position as to render it
next to impossible for Congress to refuse its sanction.

The President proceeds on the supposition that he is
clothed with the whole war power of the Nation, and as the
war power is unlimited, while the war lasts he may do any
thing he judges proper. Judge Trumbull, of Illinois, in
his speech in the Senate early in the session of 1861-62,
corrects this error into which the President and many others
appear to have fallen, and proved, what we all ought to have
understood, that the war power is vested by the Constitu-
tion in Congress, and in Congress alone. It was that able
speech that set us right on the question, and showed us that
we had written our essay on Slavery and the War, with a
wrong impression as to the constitutional powers of the
President. The President is the Chief Executive of the Na-
tion, and has the executive branch of the war power, but
only that branch. As Commander-in-chief of the Army
and Navy, he has authority to make such disposition of the
land and naval forces placed by Congress at his command,
as he judges most proper to gain the military ends Congress
has designated. He can issue such orders and do such

1864.] The Presidents Message and Proclamation. 87

things as are allowed by the laws of war to commanders-in-
chief, and are of strict military necessity. He can take en-
emy's property and enemy's slaves, or declare them eman-
cipated, appoint military governors for conquered territory,
where no civil government is acknowledged, and govern it
by military law. But he cannot organize such territory
under a civil government, or say on what terms its inhabit-
ants may or may not regain a civil organization, for that,
under our system, is the prerogative of Congress alone.

The civil organization of government cannot be done
even by Congress under the war power, and if done at all,
must be done under its peace powers, as specified in the
Constitution. The seceded States are still States, that is,
civil and political organizations in the Union, or they are
not. If they are, the Executive,* neither under the war
power, nor any other power, has any authority to establish
military or any other governments within their limits. If
they are not, their reorganization is the wTork of Congress
under its peace powers. The Executive has then, in either
case, nothing to do with their civil reorganization till Con-
gress has acted, and then only to carry out the law of
Congress. Congress is competent to reorganize them under
the peace powers of the Government, or it is not ; for under
the war power only military governments can be instituted.
The institution or reorganization of civil government is
always the act of the supreme political power, of the
sovereign authority of the State or Nation, and is the work
of peace, not of war. The President, then, when he tells
Congress it must hold on to the war power, as the power
under which the rebellious States are to be reorganized,
forgets that neither he nor Congress can reorganize them
under that power. The moment;- we come to the civil re-
organization of conquered territory, the belligerent rights
have ceased, and only the rights of peace are in operation.

The President, in his Proclamation, tells the Rebels on
what condition or terms they may escape the penalties of
their treason and resume the exercise of their political and
civil rights. He has, unquestionably, the right to 'except
from the confiscation and emancipation laws of Congress,
to the extent that those laws give him power to do so, but
it may be questioned if he has not, in the amnesty and
general pardon he has proclaimed, exceeded his powers.
He claims, by virtue of his power to pardon, a general
dispensing power, for daring to exercise which, James II.

88 The Presidents Message and Proclamation. [Jan.,

of England lost the crown of three kingdoms. We are
the last man in the world who would deprive the President
of the power to pardon, of mercy, but we do not wish to see
it very grossly abused. The terms of the amnesty should
have been settled by Congress, and the Proclamation would
have been more in order, and had more weight, if it had
been issued in obedience to an act of Congress. An am-
nesty, general pardon, and restoration to civil rights are not
proclaimed under the war powers, but under the peace
powers of the Government, and when proclaimed on certain
conditions they are null, if the conditions are not complied
with. And also when the authority proclaiming them is not
competent to fix the conditions, which the Executive is not.
Congress may to-morrow, if it chooses, overrule the Proc-
lamation, or pass a law prescribing entirely different
conditions. Nothing the President has done beyond wThat
the acts of Congress authorize, binds Congress in the
slightest degree. It would, then, have been much better to
have submitted the whole matter to Congress, with such
suggestions and recommendations as the Executive judged
proper. It would have been far more in consonance with
the Constitution which distributes the functions of govern-
ment in three departments, instead of concentrating them in
one alone, and that the Executive.

We have, we admit, no grave objections to the terms on
which the Executive proposes amnesty and pardon to
the Rebels. We have no vindictive feelings to gratify, and
we ask not for vengeance. The terms the President proposes
are as severe as we liave ever contemplated, perhaps severer.
But we would offer no terms at all to Rebels till they have
submitted. Submission first, is our rule. When rebels have
submitted and thrown themselves on the mercy of the
government, we will then offer terms, and treat them
humanely, liberally. The submission of rebels at discretion,
is the homage they owe to the authority they have unlaw-
fully and wickedly resisted, and it is needed to vindicate
the honor of authority, the majesty of the State. The
Rebels had, in the beginning, liberal terms enough offered
them, and this Proclamation looks like an act of weakness
on the part of the Government, and will be taken as such by
the Rebels themselves. It is an exhibition of Northern dough-
facedness, and want of manliness. The Rebels are still in
arms against the Government, and it is folly to pretend that
their military strength is not still formidable. They have

1861,] The Presidents Message and Proclamation. 89

large armies still confronting us, and our Army of the
Potomac hesitates to attack their army of Northern Virginia,
on equal terms. We have but just barely escaped the
greatest disaster of the war in Northern Georgia and East-
ern Tennessee. The Rebels have suffered, and suffer much,
but their spirit is not broken nor their resources exhausted.
Is this a time to proclaim an amnesty, and attempt to coax
them back to their allegiance ? We feel that the Proclama-
tion belittles the nation, and throws away the opportunity
the Government might soon have to gain some credit for
real magnanimity.

We are surprised that after his experience, the President
should still continue to place reliance on the oath of
allegiance. All he asks of the Rebels, of any Rebel, while
the war is still raging, while Rebel corsairs are driving our
merchant ships from the ocean, and Rebel gangs go aboard
our steamers in our own harbors, and overpower and murder
their peaceful crews — all he asks of any Rebel, as the condi-
tion of a full pardon and a full restoration to his political
and civil rights, is that he take the oath of allegiance. All
the prisoners of war we now hold, under the rank of Colonel,
have the right, under the President's Proclamation, to
demand the oath, and to be treated as free and loyal citizens
as soon as they have taken it. They would then be free to
go where they please, to return to their homes, if they can
get through our lines, — no difficult matter, — and to re-enter
the Rebel Army ; that is, just as free as they were before
taking the oath. All citizens are bound by an express
or tacit oath of allegiance, and every Rebel breaks it, and
does so either because he does not believe in the sanctity of
oaths, or because he does not believe in the right of the
government to impose an oath that conflicts with his
allegiance to his particular State. In either case the oath
of allegiance to the Union has no binding force on the Rebel
conscience. Political oaths have never offered any real
security for political fidelity. In all ages and countries they
have been found worthless, as weak as cords made of burnt
flax. The only men they would bind, who would not be
bound without them, are precisely the men who refuse to
take them. They are, as a rule, worse than worthless, and
yet the President places his whole reliance upon them, — and
he has been a practising lawyer ! If the Rebels could be
bound by oaths of allegiance to the Union, they would never
have been rebels. The oath is only a profanation, and the

90 The President }s Message and Proclamation. [Jan.,

Rebels who have taken it, or may hereafter take it, will keep
it no longer than they are forced to do so, or than it suits
their convenience. In the summer of 1861, as the story
goes, a company of New York troops, sent out as a scouting
party, captured a rattlesnake, which they brought with them
into camp, where they kept his snakeship a day or two,
as a plaything. But growing tired of him, they held a
council of war to determine what they should do with him.
Some proposed to cut his head off, others said hang him,
but one, who had made a little too free with commissary
whiskey, exclaimed, " Swear him, and let him go." The
President is fond of a good story, and we tell this for his
benefit : " Swear him and let him go," is the Executive way
of disposing of traitors and rebels, on whom an oath has
about as much influence as on a rattlesnake.

But does the President really hold that to determine the
conditions on which the seceded States may return as States
to the Union is within the province of the Executive ? We
confess we read with some surprise the following extract from
his Proclamation :

" And I do further proclaim, declare, and make known, that
whenever, in any of the States of Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Mis-
sissippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and
North Carolina, a number of persons, not less than one-tenth in
number of the votes cast in such States, at the Presidential election
of the year of our Lord 1860, each having taken the oath afore-
said, and not having since violated it, and being a qualified voter by
the election law of the State existing immediately before the so-
called act of Secession, and excluding all others, shall re-establish a
State Government, which shall be republican, and in nowise con-
travening said oath, such shall be recognized as the true Govern-
ment of the State, and the State shall receive thereunder the benefit
of the constitutional provision which declares that

"' The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union
a Republican form of government, and shall protect each of them
against invasion, on application of the Legislature, or of the Exec-
utive, when the Legislature cannot be convened, against domestic
violence.'

"And I do further proclaim, declare, and make known, that any
provision which may be adopted by such State Government in re-
lation to the freed people of such State, which shall recognize and
declare their perfect freedom, provide for their education, and which
may yet be consistent, as a temporary arrangement, with their pres-
ent condition as a laboring, landless, and houseless class, will not be
objected to by the National Executive.

1864.] The Presidents Message and Proclamation. 91

" And it is engaged as not improper that, in constructing a loyal
State Government in any State, the name of the State, the boundary,
the subdivisions, the Constitution and the general code of laws as
before the Rebellion, be maintained, subject only to the modifica-
tions made necessary by the conditions herein before stated, and
such others, if any, not contravening said coaditions, and which
may be deemed expedient by those framing the new State Govern-
ment.

" To avoid misunderstanding, it may be proper to say that this
Proclamation, so far as it relates to State Governments, has no ref-
erence to States wherein loyal State Governments have all the while
been maintained. And for the same reason it may be proper to
further say, that whether members sent to Congress from any State
shall be admitted to seats constitutionally, rests exclusively with
the respective Houses, and not to any extent with the Executive.

" And still further, that this Proclamation is intended to present
the people of the States wherein the national authority has been
suspended, and loyal State Governments have been subverted, a
mode in and by which the national authority and loyal State Gov-
ernments may be re-established within said States, or in any of them.

" And, while the mode presented is the best the Executive can
suggest with his present impressions, it must not be understood
that no other possible mode would be acceptable."

Here, it strikes us, is an extraordinary assumption of
power. Where in the Constitution does the President find
it? - Does he claim it under the war power ? But we have
already shown that under the war power Congress can es-
tablish military governments for conquered territory, that
neither he nor Congress can under that power organize civil
government, or determine the conditions on which it may
be organized or recognized. If the rebellious States are
still States in the Union, the President violates their Con-
stitutions, and wars against the essential principle of every
State organization in the Union ; if they are not States in
the Union, but, as we maintain, population and territory
belonging to the Union, then he transcends his province as
the executive branch of the government, and undertakes to
do on executive authority alone what only Congress can do.
By what right, then, does the President issue his proclama-
tion prescribing on what conditions the rebellious population
and territory may reorganize themselves and be recognized
as States in the Union ?

"We said we objected primarily to the Executive plan, be-
cause it is an Executive plan. Every feature of it is marked
by what seems to us an extraordinary assumption of power

92 The President's Message and Proclamation. [Jan.,

on the part of the Executive. The President prescribes the
oath, prescribes on what conditions the States in rebellion
may reorganize State governments, and be recognized and
represented in Congress as loyal States in the Union. Any
one of them, with not less than one-tenth of the num-
ber of persons who voted in the Presidential election of
1860, may reorganize themselves as the State, and have the
full Federal representation in Congress to which the State
under the census of 1860 was entitled ! Why, the Presi-
dent could easily, by the distribution of Federal offices and
patronage in any seceded State, unless there are fewer Union
men than is pretended, induce at least one in ten, if assured
of Federal protection, to swallow without scruple the pre-
scribed oath, or any number of oaths he might prescribe,
and elect State and Federal officers, whom he may choose to
prescribe. With the Federal representation of eleven States,
.who would be his nominees and creatures, and the number
from the other States he could always command by the dis-
tribution of the patronage of the Government, the Executive
could easily grasp for himself the whole power o£ the Union,
reign as an absolute prince, perpetuate by re-elections
his reign during life, and reduce the functions of Congress
to that of simply registering his edicts ; or, if it should now
and then show a disposition to demur, he could, after the
manner of Louis XIV., hold a lit de justice.

We are far from pretending or from believing that the
President has concocted his scheme with a view of practi-
cally concentratingthe whole power of the Government in
the hands of the Executive. His motives are no doubt un-
selfish and patriotic, and he seeks power only as the means
of doing good, and settling in the easiest and readiest way
possible the terrible difficulties of the Nation. But his
scheme is only the more dangerous on that account. All
dangerous usurpations of power are made from good mo-
tives, for desirable ends, by men in whom the public con-
fide. The scheme is cunningly devised, and admirably fitted
to make the Executive practically the Government, even the
State, and to open the door to wholesale political corruption,
and to force the people to cheat themselves out of their hon-
esty and their liberty. Nobody imagines for a moment
that the President has adopted his scheme for the sake of
the evil sure to flow from it. He adopts it for the good he
hopes to effect by it. We hope we shall be pardoned if we
say the President seems to have inherited something of the

1864.] The President's Messdge and Proclamation. 93

doctrine of his old English Whig ancestry, that govern-
ment can be carried on only by trickery and corruption ;
also that he seems to have confused the peace powers and
the war powers of the government, to have supposed that in
time of war the .peace functions of the government are in
abeyance, or absorbed in its war functions. So, holding
that he has the war power, he sees no impropriety in assum-
ing that he can settle by his own authority any questions
growing out of the Rebellion, and settle them in any way
that seems to him advisable, without seeking any legislative
authority, or legislative sanction. In no other way can we
explain or account for that part of his Proclamation under
review. Our friends of the Times, in this city, the organ
of the Secretary of State, claim the Message and Proclama-
tion as decisively discarding the doctrine of State suicide ;
but will they tell us on what principle the President author-
izes one-tenth of the legal voters under the old Constitution
to organize and assume to be the State, if the old State is
still a State in the Union? If the State is still in the Union,
it is in it with its old Constitution, its old organization and
laws, and neither the President nor Congress can authorize a
reorganization, or treat one-tenth of its voters as the State.
To do so would be in the last degree revolutionary. The
assumption of power on the part of the President to pre-
scribe the conditions of reorganization and the qualifica-
tions of voters, can be defended only on the ground that the
old State is dead, and that the population and territory have
ceased to be a State. If the Presidential scheme for the
return of the rebellious States has any sense, any principle,
it must assume that the States by their secession have
ceased to be States ; and what is this but the assumption
that State secession is State suicide ? They who can ap-
prove the President's Message and Proclamation, and still
reject Mr. Sumner's doctrine, and which we after him have
defended, that the territory and population in rebellion are
not States in the Union, but simply population and territory
belonging to the Union, have minds very differently consti-
tuted from ours, and are capable of maintaining, in spite of
the logicians, that of contradictories both may be true; and
they who suppose that they can palm off such an absurdity
upon the public must count largely upon popular ignorance,
popular stupidity, or popular credulity. The General Gov-
ernment cannot interfere in the internal affairs of a State
recognized to be a State in the Union, and is as much bound

94 The Presidents Message and Proclamation. [Jan.,

to respect the State Constitution and laws not repugnant to
the Constitution and laws of the United States, as the State
is bound to respect the Constitution and laws of the Gen-
eral Government. If the President denies the seceded States
have ceased to exist, he has no right to institute either mil-
itary governments or civil governments for them, or to pre-
scribe the conditions on which they may become States
again, and be restored to their rights as States in the Union,
for they are, on the supposition, already States in the Union.
So much must be clear to the veriest tyro, and ought to be
clear even to our radical-conservative friends of the Times.
But if the seceded States have ceased to be States, and be-
come . simply population and territory belonging to the
Union, then, again, the President has no authority either to
reorganize them, or to prescribe by proclamation or other-
wise the conditions on which they may reorganize and be
recognized as States. In either case the Executive action is
revolutionary and indefensible, as much so as the act of
secession itself. There is no principle known to our Con-
stitution, written or unwritten, on which the action of the
Executive can be justified or even palliated.

The President, no doubt, calculates that his extraordinary
assumption of power will be overlooked by those w'ho might
otherwise oppose it, because in the test oath which he pre-
scribes, he requires adhesion to his Proclamation emanci-
pating the slaves in certain States and parts of States. But
it should be remarked that he requires an oath to adhere to
it only in case it is not set aside, or till it is set aside by
Congress or the Supreme Court. If Congress can set aside
the Emancipation Proclamation, as the President clearly con-
cedes that it may, he cannot suppose that his Proclamation
really frees the slaves he declared to be free, for nobody can
pretend that Congress has the right to reduce freemen to
slavery, unless it be for crime. That the Supreme Court will
sustain the freedom of slaves under the proclamation, un-
less they have become free in fact before the conclusion of
the war, we suppose nobody expects. For ourselves, we do
not believe a single person can sustain his freedom in the
courts under that proclamation ; and more than this, we have,
and all along have had doubts whether it was ever intended
that any one should. Moreover, this new Proclamation as-
serts, in terms somewhat obscure indeed, but still intelligi-
ble enough, that, should the revived States see proper to
hold the persons declared free by the Emancipation Procla-

1864.] The President' *s Message and Proclamation. 95

mation as slaves for an indefinite period, no objection will
be offered by "the National Executive." If the President
believes that his Proclamation really freed the slaves, how
can he proclaim that he will »ot object should they for any
reason whatever even for one moment be detained in servi-
tude? We have always regarded the Emancipation Proc-
lamation as intended not so much to free the slaves as to
silence the clamor of the anti-slavery men at home, and to
amuse the philanthropists abroad, and by so doing guard
against foreign intervention.

Mr. Lincoln, as everybody knows, however much in gen-
eral thesis he may be opposed to slavery, is invincibly op-
posed to any and every scheme of immediate emancipation,
and in no sense will he willingly or cordially favor it. In
this we might ourselves agree with him, if we were consid-
ering emancipation as a peace, and not as a war measure ; but
certain it is that he is no immediate emancipationist,, and
we have no doubt that he has sought to prescribe himself
the mode of reorganizing the rebellious States instead of
leaving it to Congress, lest Congress should insist on imme-
diate emancipation. His whole course with regard to Mis-
souri, if not also to Maryland, proves that he is determined
to use all his power and influence to prevent immediate,
and in favor of what is called gradual emancipation. Here
is the trouble. The emancipation of the slaves as a mili-
tary necessity is and must be immediate. Having issued a
Proclamation emancipating the slaves immediately and for-
ever, the problem came up, how to prevent it from taking
immediate effect? The only valid reason for proclaiming
emancipation was military necessity, to deprive the Rebels
of the labor of their slaves, which enabled them to draft
nearly the whole able-bodied free white population into their
army ; and yet it will be remembered that the President,
in the very Proclamation in which he declares them free,
exhorts them to remain peaceably where they were, and to
continue laboring for their masters as before ! Now he is-
sues a proclamation telling the Rebels how they can reor-
ganize their States and recover their lost rights in the Union,
and adds, that if they choose to retain their slaves,
that is, the men he had professed to free, in bondage for a
time, he shall make no objection ! The key to this singu-
lar inconsistency is in the fact that the President is opposed
to immediate emancipation, and is determined to do what
he can to prevent it. Mr. Lincoln is an able man, a shrewd

96 The President's Message and Proclamation. [Jan.,

man, and no man is less likely to commit a blunder, or to
act without deliberation.- He has a logical mind, and never
does any thing without knowing what he is doing, and in-
tending it. He knew perfectly well why Ke emancipated
the slaves by proclamation instead of by a military order
to his Generals commanding Military Departments, and is
lawyer enough to know that the latter would hold good in
the courts, and that the former would not, unless in the
case of those who became actually free during the war.

We do not doubt in the least that the President is op-
posed to slavery, and intends that this Rebellion shall be
made use of for its ultimate abolition. He did not so in-
tend in the beginning ; he hoped, as he himself says, that
the Rebellion might be suppressed without emancipation,
but finding the public opinion of the only party he could
rely on to sustain his administration too strong to be resisted,
he, after long deliberation and with evident reluctance,
yielded in appearance, not because he believed the emanci-
pation would in itself aid his military operations, but be-
cause without it he saw he could not carry on the war. We
presume he is now in earnest to secure the ultimate aboli-
tion of slavery, but only gradually, and by what may seem
to be the action of the Slave States themselves. Such, we
suppose, to be the actual facts in the case, and such the
true explanation of the extraordinary acts and apparent in-
consistencies of the course of the Executive on this momen-
tous subject. We find no fault with him, for, given the
man and the circumstances, we see not how he could have
done better or differently. Yet we personally have a great
dislike to a tortuous course, and we like a man, whether in
public or private, to act openly, in a straightforward man-
ner. We want him to tell us plainly and without ambi-
guity what he means. We will not ascribe what displeases
us in Mr. Lincoln's policy, to the subtle advice of Mr.
Seward, for we believe the President the abler man and the
shrewder politician. Besides, Mr. Lincoln is the principal,
and we hold the principal, not the agent, responsible. The
Convention organized the government with a single respon-
sible Executive head. The President has no cabinet min-
isters, he has only clerks, or Heads of Departments, re-
sponsible to him and removable at his will. The journals
speak of his constitutional advisers ; but he has no consti-
tutional advisers. The Heads of Departments or Secre-
taries are no more the President's constitutional advisers

1864.] The Presidents Message and Proclamation. 97

than we are, and no more responsible for the advice they
give him, than we are for the advice we give him, and he
is no more constitutionally bound to follow their advice
than he is ours. In Great Britain the ministry are respon-
sible, and may be impeached for the advice they give the
Sovereign, but it is not so here. We ought to bear this in
mind, and place the responsibility where the Constitution
places it. The President is responsible for all the acts of
his Secretaries.

The Executive plan does not appear to us to give any
adequate security even for the ultimate abolition of slavery.
It will, if the States are restored, and still hold their slaves
even temporarily, be easy for them to alter their Constitu-
tions, prescribed by the Executive, and make slavery per-
petual. When once recognized as States they are compe-
tent to do it. The States will then be perfectly competent
to take off the restriction from suffrage and eligibility, in
State matters at least, restore the disloyal population ex-
cluded by the President's test oath, and in ten or a dozen
years slavery, in all the States, may be re-established as
firmly as ever, perhaps more firmly than ever. Slavery is
now more flourishing in Kentucky than it was before the
Rebellion. That State has become the grand slave mart of
the Union, whence the slave masters from localities where
slave property is insecure send their slaves to be sold, at a
low price. Kentucky alone, after peace, will be able in a
very few years to restock a large portion of the South.
The President, by the exceptions he inserted in his proc-
lamation, secured plenty of nest-eggs for slavery.

But the President's plan of reviving the seceded States
would, in many respects, be objectionable, even if proposed
and adopted by Congress. We do not think a tenth of the
votable population of a seceded State, while the other nine-
tenths are in rebellion, or at least opposed to the Union,
ought to have the whole Federal representation of the State.
It is neither just nor fair to the loyal States who have borne
the whole burden of suppressing the rebellion. A State
with nine-tenths of its population disloyal and excluded
from the ranks of its political people, evidently could not
sustain itself and discharge its proper functions as a State in
the Union. It would have to be held up and nursed by
the Government, and thus would be opened the door to
political intrigue and corruption, exceeding any thing we
have yet known, even in this city. Its representatives in
Vol. L— ]Sto. I. 7

98 The Presidents Message and Proclamation. [Jan.,

Congress would be virtual nominees of the Administration,
and the Congressional Districts would be only so many
" rotten boroughs" owned by the Government. No election
would or could be free. Besides, with here and there an
individual exception, the men who would take the oath
and be allowed to vote, would be the weakest and least
energetic portion of the population. The portion of the
Southern people who have the most character, and are the
best fitted to govern and look after the interests of the State
or the Union, are precisely those who would be excluded
by the test oath. The majority of the voters would be
composed of government employes, adventurers from other
States, with very little honesty or principle of any sort, and
without any permanent interest in the State, or connection
with it. Here is a grave consideration.

We know there has been some talk about changing the
population of the Rebellious States, of getting rid of the
present population, and supplying their place with Yankees
or emigrants from Europe. We contemplate, we wish nothing
of the sort. We wish to save and keep the present Southern
population, with most of its characteristics. It has elements
that the North has not, and with which the nation cannot
dispense without great loss ; and we look forward to the time
when the seceded States will be restored, and their politics
will be in the hands of the very population now in arms
against us. We are neither for exterminating nor changing
the Southern people. After they have been well whipped
they will abandon their disloyalty, and become the most
loyal people of the Union, and the most politically honest and
trustworthy. We are a New Englander, and like New
England, but we have no wish to see the South New England-
ized. We want it free ; we want slavery abolished, but we
do not want to see disappear the simplicity of manners, the
warmth of feeling, and the hospitality we were accustomed
to find in Southern homes. We should be sorry to see even
plantation life disappear, or the large plantations cut up into
small farms, cultivated either by black or white owners.
A nation is nothing without families, and families soon dis-
appear without estates, without homesteads, transmitted from
father to son, through generation after generation. We
demand political equality, in the sense secured by our
institutions ; but we regard equality of property and of social
position as neither practicable nor desirable. It is long
since we had faith in La Pep'ublique democratique et sociale.
We do not believe the whole past has been simply a blunder,

1864.] The President's Message and Proclamation. 99

and that nothing that has been approved of by those who
went before us deserves to stand. We have not to begin
the world anew ; we have only to develop and perfect what
we have received from our fathers. We want the conser-
vatism of the South to balance the radicalism of the North,
as we want the radicalism of the North to balance the con-
servatism of the South. We want both sections to make a
complete nation, a full and rounded national character.

The Executive Plan would transform the South for the
worse. We think ours, though less favorable to speculators,
political jobbers, and Jewish Yankees or Yankee Jews, is
far more favorable to the Southern people, and likely much
sooner to reinstate them in their rights as an integral portion
of the political people of the United States. Our plan is
given in the article on The Federal Constitution, in the
present number of our Review. It is simply for Congress to
establish in each of the seceded States a Territorial Govern-
ment, and then as soon as anyone of them gives satisfactory
evidence of its ability to maintain itself as a loyal State in
the Union, with simple protection by the General Govern-
ment from exterior invasion and disturbance, for Congress
to enable it to form a State government and enter the Union
with a Federal representation and electoral vote, determined
by its actual population. That this plan supposes that the
seceded States have lapsed, we grant ; but so does the
Executive plan. The President and all loyal men hold that
all legal government in the Rebellious States has been
subverted, and therefore there is, unless the doctrine of com-
plete original State sovereignty be conceded (and if it is, the
Secessionists are not rebels), no State remaining. They who
oppose Mr. Sumner's doctrine that State secession is State
suicide, and contend that the seceded States are still States
in the Union, are at best contending for the veriest abstrac-
tion, for an airy nothing, to which not even the poet, of
imagination all compact, and his eye in a fine frenzy rolling,
can give a local habitation and a name. The President
himself concedes that to all practical purposes the seceded
States are dead, and he proposes, as we have seen, to deal
with them as such. We have heard no one ever pretend that
the governments now in rebellion against the Union are
legitimate State governments, or that they are to be rein-
stated in the Union. Mr. Winter Davis, in his speech
elsewhere alluded to, while denouncing rather flippantly
Mr. Sumner's doctrine about State suicide, scouted the idea

100 The President's Message and Proclamation. [Jan.,

that thepe disloyal concerns were legitimate governments,
or that they would ever be recognized as such. Well, what
then are he and his friends lighting for, or quarrelling about %
The States have lapsed as actually living States in the Union
by their own concession, and can be living States in the
Union only by being reorganized as such ; and the
President, in his Proclamation, points out the mode in
which they may be reorganized. Practically, then, all we
contend for is conceded, and asserted by all loyal men, if, as
we suppose they do, they understand themselves.

The difficulty which some honestly feel on the point
grows out of the fact that they well understand that a real
sovereign State may be disorganized or lose its entire gov-
ernment, and yet retain its existence and all its rights as a
State. It is a sovereign State still, and has in itself the power
to reorganize its government. The government is gone,, but
the Convention remains. All this is true, and is assumed
in the distinction we have made in the foregoing article on
The Federal Constitution, between the state or civil society
and the government, between the constitution of the gov-
ernment and the constitution of civil society or the state.
Every half-fledged politician knows, or ought to know this
much ; for if we did not concede it we should recognize in a
nation no recuperative power, no power when its govern-
ment has once been subverted to reorganize and re-establish
legitimate government. But this applies to a State proper,
to a complete, sovereign State, but not to a State in the
Union, unless we hold the States in the Union are severally
complete States, States proper, possessing all the attributes
and faculties of free, independent, sovereign States. In an
independent sovereign State, the sovereignty, in the absence
of government, or any constitution of government, vests
in the national territory and population. But to assume
that it vests in the territory and population of one of
the American States, when its organization and gov-
ernment are gone, have been subverted, destroyed, is
plainly and undeniably to assume that these States are
each a sovereign State, a full and complete State in itself.
But assume this, and you have no right to make war on the
Seceders as Insurgents or Rebels. Here is the dilemma in
which these good people place themselves. They can con-
tend that the seceded States are still States in the Union,
only on the assumption of full and independent State sov-
ereignty ; and they cannot make that assumption without

1864.] The President's Message and Proclamation. 101

denying the right of the General Government to prosecute
the war against the sececlers. They must either condemn
the war as a war of invasion and conquest, or they must
reject State sovereignty, as we do. Then they must concede
that the State under our system is not population and terri-
tory, but is population and territory organized as a State
and admitted into the* Union. Then they must concede that
the lapse of the State organization is the lapse of the State;
and as they admit that the State organization has been sub-
verted or destroyed by secession, and therefore lapsed, they
must, whatever wry faces they may make, concede that they
have lapsed as States, and accept the doctrine that a State
secession is State suicide." Mr. Sumner's phrase will live.

By the concession of the President and the so-called con-
servative Republicans themselves, the State organization is
gone, and nothing but population and territory, as a prac-
tical fact, remains. What we ask of Congress is, that it
deal with the practical fact as it is, and establish for this
population and territory regular Territorial governments, in
like manner that it is accustomed to do for any other unor-
ganized population and territory belonging to the Union.
This it can do under the exercise of its ordinary or peace
powers. It requires no assumption of extraordinary pow-
ers, and no resort to the war power. It is simply the sover-
eign exercising his civil power, in establishing a civil gov-
ernment, not exercising his belligerent rights.

But we are told that this is to reduce the seceded States
to provinces, and to place them under provincial govern-
ments. That is something terrible, we suppose. But how
much better off are they now, placed as they are under
military governors appointed by the Commander-in-Chief of
the Army and Navy, and governed by military law, so far as
by any law at all? They would, under our plan, be placed
at least under a civil government, a civil administration, and
the protection of civil law, which we regard as an advantage
of no slight moment. Then, again, under our system, the
Territorial organization is provisional, and is never intended
to be final or permanent. It is merely preparatory to a
State organization, and looks to the transformation of the
Territory into a State at the earliest practicable moment.
JSTobody dreams that the population and territory of the
seceded States are to be held for any considerable length
of time under Territorial governments, and the territo-
rial people will always have it in their power, by return-

102 The Presidents Message and Proclamation. [Jan.,

ing loyalty, to abridge the period of their probation, and
hasten the day of their reinstatement in the Union. In
some cases it may be only a few months before the trans-
formation may be safely effected, and in no case will the
territorial government need to be continued beyond the
period of the complete military suppression of the Rebellion.
When the Southern people once find that they are really
whipped, that they have not the slightest chance of securing
separation and independence, they will cease resistance, and,
if permitted, return to their allegiance. They may then be
safely intrusted with the powers of self-government. There
is, no doubt, humiliation for a people once a State in being
placed under a Territorial government, but less, in our
judgment, in being placed under a civil than under a mili-
tary government, and the transformation from the civil
Territorial government is easier, more regular, and more
speedy than from a military Government. We cannot
sympathize, then, with the men wTho affect such a holy hor-
ror at treating the rebel population and territory as Territo-
ries, and yet are quite willing to see them treated as Military
Departments, under Military Governors, and subjected to
military law.

JSTo objections can be made to this simple and constitu-
tional way of restoring the rebellious States that do not
bear with far greater force against the Executive scheme,
and, unless there are, as is not unlikely, some political inter-
ests, party or personal, at stake, we can understand no rea-
son why that scheme should be preferred. Its adoption
wTould, indeed, enable a few thousands of voters in each of
the eleven States to cast in the next Presidential election
the entire electoral vote of those eleven States, representing
a population of some twelve millions, nine-tenths of whom
are in hearty sympathy with the Rebellion. This, suppos-
ing Mr. Lincoln to be a candidate for re-election, would ren-
der his election well-nigh certain, even should a Republican
as well as a Democratic competitor run against him. But
we cannot suppose a thought of that sort could influence in
the least our honest and high-minded Chief Magistrate, or
the high-souled and patriotic admirers of the Secretary of
State. Such a scheme, adopted for such a purpose, would
be an outrage, and a death-blow to honest constitutional
government. And yet, for the life of us, we cannot under-
stand why else the especial friends of the Secretary of State
should persist so strenuously against law, fact, and common

1864:.] The President's Message and Proclamation. 103

sense, in maintaining that the seceded States are States still
in the Union. They know, as well as we do, that there is
no truth or reason in maintaining that those States are still
States in the Union. Mr. Lincoln knows they are not, for
his very scheme, while it assumes that they are, denies it.

We are utterly opposed to allowing one-tenth of the popu-
lation of a seceded State, while the other nine-tenths are in
rebellion, to cast the whole electoral vote to which the State
would be entitled if loyal and in the Union, under the United
States census of 1860. We are not opposed because we fear
it would secure the defeat of our candidate for the next
Presidency, 'for it would be very sure to elect him; but be-
cause we do not believe that so small a number as one-tenth
of the assumed voters in a State have the right to a Fed-
eral representation and an electoral vote, based on a census
that gives ten times their number. If the Union men are
to be treated as the State, be it so ; but let, at least, their
electoral vote and Federal representation be no more than
their actual number under the census entitles them to. We
cannot understand why one Union man in South Carolina,
Tennessee, or Louisiana, should count for ten in Massachu-
setts, New York, or Pennsylvania. We know no reason
why they should have any vote at all, while the great, the
overwhelming majority of the population are in rebellion.
" But that majority are politically dead." Then do not count
them as a basis of representation. Abstract them from the
whole population given by the census of 1860, and take only
the remainder as the representative population. You can-
not do that legally? The State is the State, and you must
count its whole population or none ? Then do you not see
the gross inequality and absurdity of pretending that they
are States in the Union, with all their Federal rights unim-
paired ? Moreover, the Union men in the eleven seceded
States are not citizens of the United States. They are ene-
mies, and are declared to be so by the Supreme Court in the
Hiawatha case, and have been since the 13th of July, 1861,
and their territory is enemy's territory, otherwise the Presi-
dent could never have placed it under Military Governors,
or blockaded the Southern ports. The Supreme Court have
decided that the war we are carrying on is not a simple war
against insurgent individuals, but a territorial civil war,
which makes every man, woman, and child in the rebellious
territory an enemy. The interdict must be removed from
that territory before these Union men cease to be enemies ;

104: The Presidents Message and Proclamation. [Jan.,

and that cannot be removed so long as the law of Congress
of the 13th of July, 1861, remains unrepealed, and the
great majority are still hostile, without a gross abuse of
Executive power. We do not know that even these Union
men in the seceded States are any better than the Union
men in the organized Territories under the Government of
the United States. And why should they, any more than
these, have a Federal representation and an electoral vote %
But happily the Executive scheme is naught unless sanc-
tioned or acquiesced in by Congress. Congress has the
supervision of the whole matter, and nothing is concluded
but by its will, unless it be the exceptions from the confis-
cation and other penal laws, which the President was
authorized by Congress to make. Congress has clothed
the Executive with too large a discretion in the case, and
we hope it will be more cautious for the future. But it has
not yet given up to the Executive its authority to say on
what conditions the Rebels may return and resume their
political rights as States in the Union ; at least we hope not.
There are good men and true in Congress, and we count on
their vigilance and fidelity to the Constitution. The last
Congress, in the novelty of the questions and the confusion
of the times, set one or two very bad precedents, but the
present Congress need not follow them. If Congress will
but assert its independence, and do its own work, no harm
can come from the Executive scheme. Even the scheme
itself, though still objectionable, would be shorn of some
of its dangerous features, if adopted by Congress along
with the establishment of civil Territorial governments
for the lapsed States, till such times as they are able
to organize State governments in accordance with the con-
ditions prescribed by the President in his proclamation.
But what we insist on is, that the reorganization of the
seceded States, whether under State governments or Terri-
torial governments, is a thing that neither the President
nor Congress can do under the war power, and must be
done by the simple exercise of the ordinary peace powers
of the government. It is not a thing which needs or admits
a resort to the war power, in whose hands soever that power
may be vested ; for it is not necessary to military opera-
tions, and is determined not by international law, but by
the national law, the Constitution and laws of the national
government. The rights of war, however extensive they
may be, are yet restricted to the legitimate object and pur-

1864.] The Presidents Message and Proclamation. 105

poses of the war, and never exceed what is necessary to gain
and secure that object and those purposes. This under-
stood, it is certain that the subject is one for Congressional
action, not for the Executive action.

We insist, perhaps to wearisomeness, on the importance
of proceeding constitutionally, and of each branch of the
government confining itself to its own department and to
its strictly constitutional functions. We are and always
have been a constitutionalist of the strict constructionist
school, and we believe the constitutional way the best and
safest. Yet we have never urged the Constitution' in any
way to impede the Government in doing. any thing neces-
sary to suppress the Rebellion or to save the life and in-
tegrity of the nation. We have no sympathy with those
who can see in the Constitution only a restriction on power,
and appeal to it only when they want to prevent some very
useful and necessary thing from being done. The Consti-
tution grants powers, as well as imposes restriction on
power, and we believe it confers on the. Government all the
powers that in any emergency it needs or can find useful.
We have never complained of what are called " arbitrary
arrests," for we see them provided for in the Constitution,
when the public safety requires them. We have been much
more disposed to complain of arbitrary discharges from ar-
rest and imprisonment. We have never complained of the
suspension of the writ of Habeas Corpus, because we find
the Constitution allows it to be suspended in certain con-
tingencies which obviously now exist; and as the object of
that writ in our jurisprudence is not to restrain the Execu-
tive from making necessary arrests, but to compel the
courts to bring the person arrested to a speedy trial, or to
grant him his discharge, we believe the power to suspend
it in times of war, invasion, or insurrection, is vested in the
President. It may often be necessary to suspend it when
Congress is not in session and cannot be assembled in sea-
son. We have given great extension to the war power,, not
as an extra-constitutional power, for the Constitution con-
fers it on Congress. Under it Congress and even the Presi-
dent can do legally and constitutionally many things in
time of war, foreign or domestic, which neither can do
under the peace powers of the government, or in times of
peace, when the higher law of public safety does not come
in. Congress has the ordinary peace right to prescribe the
terms of the reorganization and restoration of fallen States

106 The President's Message and Proclamation. [Jan.,

to their status of States in the Union, but the President has
not, because the Convention did not see proper to confer it
on him; and he cannot do it under the war power, for it is
not one of the ends of the war, is not necessary to the suc-
cess of our arms, or to his military operations as Com-
mander-in-Chief. He has in regard to it in time of war all
the power that he has in time of peace, and no more. The
Constitution gives to no branch of the government under
the rights of peace the right to abolish slavery within the
limits of any State in the Union, but it gives to Congress,
perhaps even to the President, the right, under the war
power, to abolish it everywhere in the Union and in the
territories of the Union, if judged necessary as a military
measure, or to obtain indemnity for the past or security for
the future. A military order of the Commander-in-Chief,
or an act of Congress abolishing slavery for such reasons,
if correct in form, would be valid, and repealable only by
the Convention, for Congress has no more right to establish
slavery than it has to abolish it. We were among the first,
except the Abolitionists, to urge the abolition of slavery as
a war measure, and we are proud of it. It is a legacy
we leave to our children. Our complaint of the President
has been, not that he issued his Proclamation, but that he
did not in his Proclamation adopt, in our judgment, the
proper legal form. We think it should have been by military
order to his Generals commanding Military Departments.
We have always preferred, however, emancipation by act
of Congress, because Congress has more freedom in the
case, and there could be no doubt of the validity of its act.
It is true, the Proclamation cites an act of Congress emanci-
pating certain classes of slaves, and professes to be based
upon it, but it is not merely executory of it, but goes be-
yond it, and it may be a question in the courts whether in
the respect that it transcends that act, or goes beyond what
is necessary to its execution according to its true intent and
meaning, it has any legal force. We hope Congress in its
present session will remove all doubts on the subject by
passing for the purposes we have named, an act emancipat-
ing forever, not only in the States and parts of States in-
cluded in the Proclamation, but in those States and parts of
States not so included. We have not a doubt of its consti-
tutional right to do it as a military measure, or as a meas-
ure necessary to guarantee the nation against a new out-
break of the Rebellion.

1864.] The Presidents Message and Proclamation. 107

It is idle to expect peace and union, henceforth, between
Free States and Slave States ; and, as we cannot be forced
to become all Slave States, we must look to it that all be-
come Free States, and let the value of the slaves, as prop-
erty, be set oft* as an indemnity to the United States, for
the expenses they have been obliged to incur in the sup-
pression of the slaveholders' Rebellion, and for which the
Union has the right to indemnify itself, by levying on any
property belonging to Rebels it can find. They ought to
feel that they are let off easily, if they are let off with sim-
ply the loss of their slaves. The few really loyal slavehold-
ers in the non-seceding States may receive a reasonable
compensation ; the others deserve and should receive none.
The seceded States may adjust the matter with their own
citizens as they see proper. The Proclamation relieves them,
with very few exceptions, if they choose to return to their
allegiance, of all other penalty for their treason and mur-
ders. The people of these States rebelled as States, and they
deserve to lose their slaves ; for, if they had remained
loyal, they might have enjoyed their property in slaves, and
" wallopped their own nigger," with nobody to disturb
them. Let the dispossessed slaveholders seek redress from
their own States, when those States are restored.

The President, we have said, is evidently opposed to im-
mediate emancipation, and so are we ; he favors gradual
emancipation, and so should we, so that the transition from
slavery to freedom should disturb society as little as possible,
though we do not understand the same thing by gradual
emancipation that the President does. If the Government
had had under its peace powers the constitutional right to
deal with the question of slavery, we should not have favor-
ed immediate emancipation. But such was not the case.
It could deal with it only under the war power, and under
that power emancipation must be immediate or not at all.
We cannot understand, then, why in Maryland and Mis-
souri, where slavery can be abolished without any serious
social shock, the President should set his face against im-
mediate emancipation. As the slaves in all the Rebel States,
with the exception of Tennessee, and parts of two other
States, have had their immediate emancipation declared,
the Federal Executive might, we should think, prudently
suffer the people of the loyal slaveholding States to adopt
immediate emancipation, if they saw proper.

We see Mr. Wilson, of Iowa, has given notice, in Con-

108 The President' \s Message and Proclamation. [Jan.,

gress, of his intention to move an Amendment to the Consti-
tution of theUnited States, abolishing and prohibiting forever
involuntary servitude, in the Union and the territories
thereof, except for crime, and empowering Congress to cany-
it into effect by the requisite legislation. Seeing the turn
things are taking, we withdraw our former objections to
such an Amendment. It would be the shortest, and most
effectual way of disposing of the slavery question at once
and forever. The supreme political power is in the Conven-
tion ; the Convention is composed of the political people
of the United States, and is as complete and as sovereign
with the States now in the Union, as it wrould be were all
the seceded States restored. An amendment passed by the
requisite majority of both houses of Congress, and ratified
by three-fourths of all the States actually in the Union,
would be, to all intents and purposes, a part of the Consti-
tution. It would always remain such, for there would al-
ways be at least over one-fourth of the States that would never
consent to its being changed. If such an amendment could
be carried, it would be a grand thing; whether it can be or
not, can never be known till the experiment is made. We
hope Mr. Wilson may succeed, for our mind is made up on
this slavery question. We demand the utter extinction of
negro-slavery. The nation has recognized the negro as a
man. It has done more : it has put arms in his hands ; in-
corporated him into its armies ; bid him fight manfully as
an American, for the life and integrity of the nation. In
doing so, it has naturalized and nationalized him. Never
will we consent to see a man who has shed his blood
for our country, for the maintenance of national right, lib-
erty, and law, held in slavery, and counted, not as a per-
son, but as a chattel; and never will we consent to enslave
a race that hasproduced such a man. The Government^ by
arming the negroes, has made them our countrymen ; and
never shall our countrymen, whatever their complexion, be
held as slaves, without our doing every thing in our power
to prevent it. To so much we solemnly pledge what re-
mains to us of life. That flag, under which the freed man
and the freeman have mounted the parapet side by side,
side by side met death from rebel fire, and side by side been
laid in the same soldier's grave, must henceforth wave only
over the free, and never again be profaned to protect the
slaveowner, or the trafficker in human flesh.

" Liberty," said Mr. Calhoun, in a letter to us in 1838,

1864.] The President's Message and Proclamation. 109

" we consider a boon which they only are entitled to, who
are able to take it." It is a harsh, Pagan doctrine, and
overlooks the, obligation of the strong to help the weak, and
the powerful to defend the defenceless. But the negro is
fast proving that he is entitled to the boon, even on Mr.
Calhoun's hard conditions. Nothing sooner calls out one's
manhood, than to make him a soldier, and to let him feel
that he is counted worthy to bear arms and do a man's
work. Yet, we are far from feeling that the battle for aboli-
tion is over. The Rebellion is not yet suppressed, and the
war is not yet ended ; nor, in our judgment, so near being
ended as many of our friends natter themselves. The
President's Proclamation, we do not believe, will have much
effect on the Rebel population, one way or another. They
do not look upon their cause as we look upon it, and they
fight for it with all the determination, ardor, and desper-
ate bravery of patriots. Not easily or speedily will such a
people succumb, and give over the struggle. They will hope
against hope, and yield only when they find that all possi-
ble chances are against them. Nearly one-half of the peo-
ple of the loyal States are bent on preserving slavery, as
essential to their political combinations and influence;
even in the ranks of the professedly loyal, there are large
numbers who have little or no manliness or pluck, and are
ready for almost any compromise that will secure peace,
and not deprive them of their political importance. So we
do not yet feel sure that a reconciliation will not be effected,
without obtaining sufficient guaranties that slavery shall
cease, and cease forever. Even the President's Proclama-
tion weakens, instead of strengthening our assurance. We
have so few politicians that place right as the measure of
expediency, justice above interest, or their country's good
before their own, that we always are in doubt till the thing
is done, and so done that it cannot be undone,

We have taken up so much space in commenting on
the Executive plan for restoring #ie fallen States, that we
have left ourselves no room for commenting on the other
important matters in the Message, — the ablest and best
written Message Mr. Lincoln has ever sent to Congress. It
has more dignity, and more the character of an official
document, than its predecessors. We have criticised freely,
but honestly and conscientiously, the Executive scheme for
reorganizing the Rebellious States, or transforming them
into loyal States ; but, we hope, with becoming respect for

110 The Presidents Message and Proclamation. [Jan.,

our Chief Magistrate, and without any gratuitous offence.
We may have misconceived its intent and what is likely to
be its practical bearing, and we are led to distrust, in some
measure, our own judgment, by finding the Message and
Proclamation cordially endorsed by some of our most
earnest and judicious political friends. "We are never above
acknowledging and correcting our errors when we detect
them, or when they are pointed out. Better that we should
suffer in public estimation than that the truth should.

We have, in the course of our remarks, twice alluded to
the next Presidency. We are no President makers or
President breakers. We voted for Mr. Lincoln in 1860,
and we shall vote for him in 1864, if he is the candidate of
the loyal Union party, and with less reluctance, for though
not, as we need not say, precisely a man after our own heart,
he is an abler man, and has made a better President than
we had looked for. We have expected him to be a candidate
for re-election as a matter of course. In 1860, Mr. Chase,
Secretary of the Treasury, was our iirst choice, and if he is
the candidate we shall cheerfully support him. We have
heard the names of two eminent loyal military men mention-
ed in connection with the next Presidency, either of whom
would meet our wishes. We recorded years ago our
conviction that a real military man, other things being
equal, should be preferred for President. A military train-
ing is better than a mere civilian training to fit a man for
the executive duties of the Presidential office. He who has
led the life of a soldier, acquired the discipline of the
army, and learned to command men in the battle-field, is
likely to have a more manly character, a better judgment
of men, and more promptness and energy in emergencies.
Wellington was England's greatest soldier, but he lives
almost entirely in the memory and affections of his country-
men, as heir noblest, greatest, and most disinterested
statesman. 3STo man as President would be more likely to
keep the nation out of war, or to help it in case it was
unhappily involved in a war, than a real soldier. Personally
our preferences are for the soldier, and our only hesitancy
is the fear that the soldier we should prefer will be required
for active service in the field; for we by no'means expect
the war to end this year, or even the next. But, be this as
it may, we shall support the candidate of the loyal Union
party, be he soldier or civilian ; and the present incumbent
will have the advantage of four years of valuable experience.

1864.] The Presidents Message and Proclamation. Ill

Since writing the foregoing, we have seen tjie Bill reported
to the House by General Ashley for organizing the Rebel-
lious States under Military Governors, and providing for
their reorganization as States, on the basis of the scheme
set forth in the President's Proclamation. Should Congress
pass the Bill, it would relieve the scheme of our objections
to it on the ground of unconstitutionality, and of its being
purely an Executive measure. We, however, still object to
the "one-tenth" provision, and should demand a decided
majority, for reasons we have already given. The President's
proposition is unfair, and it is unjust to the other States to
give to so small a number the whole representative
and electoral vote of the former State. The Military
Governments may be instituted under the war power, but
the civil reorganization of seceded States can be effected
only under the peace powers of the Government, and there-
fore the scheme, whether congressional or executive, is
unconstitutional and revolutionary, if the seceded States are
held to be still States in the Union. It is only on the supposi-
tion that they are not, that Mr. Ashley's Bill is defensible ;
and if they are not, there is no defence of the one-tenth
provision, which allows a Federal representation and
electoral vote, due only to ten times their number. ■ It is all
very well to get over difficulties by way of compromise
when one can, but here is a question of law, and an
unconstitutional mode of proceeding even by Congress may
vitiate the whole. It is folly to assume in one part of the
act the nullity of the seceded States, and in the other their
legal existence and vitality. We suppose then that the Bill,
as it evidently does, assumes the legal nullity of the seceded
States. We ask Congress to provide for a larger percentage.
Regarded as a new State organization, it has no right,. and
Congress can give it no right to count as a portion of its
population, the disloyal population of the old State ; and if
it does not regard it as a new organization or the creation of
a new State, it has no right to effect or authorize it. The
whole difficulty we see in the way of Mr. Ashley's new Bill
is precisely here, in the matter of Federal representation and
the electoral vote. If the Bill, before it passes, can be so
moditied as to obviate this difficulty, we shall heartily ap-
prove it. We are willing and even anxious that Congress
should make the Executive plan the basis of its own legis-
lation, for we want no quarrel between Congress and the
Executive that can be avoided ; but we presume the President

112 General Hallectis Report. [Jan.,

himself will consent to such modifications as are necessary
to save its consistency and constitutionality.

We see also, with great pleasure, that Mr. Lovejoy has
introduced a Bill giving effect to the President's Emanci-
pation Proclamation. If it becomes a law it will settle all
disputes as to the legality or illegality of the Proclamation,
and fix the status as freemen of the persons professed to be
liberated by it. Let Congress do its duty on these great
questions, and it will soon be able to rally all Union men
around it and the Executive, and secure with the hearty
good-will of the nation there-election of Mr. Lincoln, which
is on many accounts desirable, for there will questions come
up in the next four years which can be much better settled
under a second Presidential term than under the first.

Art. YL— The War in 1863. The Official Report of the
General-in-Chief to the Secretary of War.

General Halleck's Official Keport of the operations of
the army, its successes and reverses, during the last year,
though not as full as could be wished, is of great interest,
and throws considerable light on many passages of the war
which have been very much misrepresented or misunder-
stood. We learn from it incidentally, that, though invested
with the title of General-in-Chief, he has not, or at least has
not had, the full authority ordinarily supposed to be im-
plied by that title. It appears that General Hooker, while
in command of the Army of the Potomac, was not under
the General-in-Chief, but held an independent command,
and reported directly to the President. In simple justice,
then, General Hal leek must be exonerated from all respon-
sibility for the movements of the Army of the Potomac
while under General Hooker, and is not in any sense to be
blamed for that General's shameful defeat at Chancellors-
ville, on ground of his own choosing, with as brave and as
well-appointed an army as ever encountered a foe, and
numbering at least two to one of the enemy. The disgrace
of that disastrous affair, in which we lost some twenty
thousand men in killed, wounded, and prisoners, does not
attach to the General-in-Chief. We think it would be bet-
ter to have no General-in-Chief, and leave the command of
the several armies to the President, than to have one, with-

1864.] General Hailed' s Report. 113

out the effective command of all the forces placed nominally
under him, misleading the public, and causing it to blame
without justice.

It has always been, and perhaps always will be difficult,
If not impossible, to say how much of the disastrous failure
of General McClellan's Peninsular Campaign was due to the
General commanding, and how much was due to the Com-
mander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy. Where the re-
sponsibility nominally attaches to one party and really to
another, the public is always liable to do no little injustice
in its judgments. General Halleck and the Secretary of
War may have been blamed for things which they never
ordered, and which they did what they could to prevent.
In nearly all cases where we can trace military movements
to the direct orders of the President, they have proved fail-
ures, or at least not successful. This need surprise no one.
The President is a man of excellent judgment, but he is a
civilian, and lacks both the training and the experience
necessary to be an able and successful commander of armies.
It is possible for him to issue an order very proper from a
civilian's point of view, which will render abortive through-
out the whole theatre of the war all the calculations and com-
binations of the General-in-Chief. We know not that the
President has ever given any such order, but he has been
charged with doing it, though that is almost a presumption
that he has not. But we think the wisest and safest rule .
is for the President, as the Civil Administration, to inform
the military authorities of the objects of the campaign, or
of the war, and then leave them to employ the army in
their own mode for effecting them. If they show incapacity
or indisposition to carry out his purposes, relieve them, and
put better men, if they are to be found, in their places.
Neither the President nor the military commanders should
allow themselves to be influenced in military operations,
against their better judgment, by popular clamor or by the
demands of the press. Nothing has done more to ruin
generals, to create disaffection in the army, to render abor-
tive military movements, and to mislead the public, than
the swarms of newspaper correspondents that like so many
carrion crows follow our armies in the field. No informa-
tion would be far better than the false information which
they, with a few honorable individual exceptions, palm off
upon an ignorant, credulous, and greedy public. Were we
the commander of an army, every professional newspaper

Vol.. I.— No. 1. 8

114 General HaZleck\s Report. [Jan.,

correspondent should be excluded from the lines ; or, if lie
entered them, it should be to enter the ranks. They are a
real nuisance. Who has been more lauded by them than
General Sickles? And yet, we learn officially from General
Meade and from the Report before us, what we knew from
another source, that his misapprehension of his orders and
unmilitary movements came very near proving fatal to the
battle of Gettysburg. Perhaps he had a liberal share in
causing Hooker's disaster at Chancellorsville. The fact
that the newspaper correspondents agree in extolling a gen-
eral has come to be a presumption against him.

General Halleck dissipates the oft-repeated slander that
General Burnside made his disastrous attack on Fred-
ericksburg, against his own judgment, in obedience to the
peremptory orders of the General-in-Chief. General Hal-
leck disapproved the Fredericksburg route, and consented
to it only on General Burnside's assurance that he would
cross the Rappahannock at the upper fords and march his
army down the south side of the river, which he did
not .do, but which he might have done, and got possession
of the heights before Lee could bring up his forces to
oppose him. Why General Burnside did not keep his
promise, which was perfectly practicable, is not explained,
for his Report, except a few telegraphic; dispatches, has not
been yet given in, at least to the General-in-Chief.

We gather from the Report, that, though the military
operations of the year have been upon the whole successful,
and attended with important and encouraging results, they
have not been as successful as was expected, nor as they
would have been if the plans of the Military Administration
had received the prompt, energetic, and cordial co-opera-
tion of all the army and corps commanders. Had they
been carried out as they might have been, the war would
have been virtually closed with the Fall campaign. There
is no good reason why Burnside, or Hooker after him, failed,
and secured to Lee and his rebel army a prestige to which
they are not entitled. Ordinary generalship would have
won the battle of Fredericksburg, and annihilated Lee's
army at Chancellorsville. Hooker's inaction subsequent to
his retreat to Falmouth, his permitting Lee to flank him,
and move his army down the valley of the Shenandoah,
across the Potomac, threatening Washington, Baltimore,
and Philadelphia, is a matter for which General Halleck is
not responsible, for General Hooker held an independent

1864.] General Hallectfs Report. 115

command, and reported only to the President, but one
which needs explanation.

General Halleck has been censured for keeping General
Dix and some 30,000 men inactive on the Peninsula, after
the advance of Lee, instead of sending them to re-enforce
General Meade, who succeeded Hooker. But General Dix
was expected to employ his forces in Lee's rear, to cut off
his communications with Richmond, and to take that city,
then guarded by only a few militia. General Dix ordered
an advance for that purpose, but the forces he sent effected
nothing, owing to the incompetence of the general in com-
mand, and after their failure were ordered to return, and
actually sent to re-enforce Meade, as we happen to know
personally.

General Rosecrans does not appear to so good advantage
as we had hoped he would. General Rosecrans is a true-
hearted patriot, loyal to the core ; a man of unsurpassable
personal intrepidity, of great ability, education, literature,
and science, to whom his country is indebted for great and
valuable services ; but as a general he is too much after the
McClellan type, refusing to move till he has every thing
ready, and never able to get every thing ready. In spite
of his attention to his preparation, he lacks, what McClel-
lan did not, necessary caution, as we may see at luka, Cor-
inth, Stone's River, and above all at Chickamauga. He is
excellent to plan, perhaps in that respect has no superior in
the army, but he fails in execution, and rarely attains the
practical results counted on. At Stone's River he won at
best only a barren victory, and that at a terrible cost ; at
Chickamauga he ought not to have suffered defeat. Had
he remained on or returned to the battle-field, on the 20th,
instead of -retiring to Chattanooga, and giving up all as
lost, he would have made his defeat a victory, for as it was,
General Thomas, having, with only a part of the army, to
resist the whole Rebel force, stood his ground, and compelled
the enemy to retire. On that occasion General Rosecrans
does not appear to have shown his usual personal energy
and pertinacity. We fear, too, he had not proved himself
a good disciplinarian, and had not made sure of having his
orders strictly and promptly obeyed. His failure came very
near losing us Tennessee and Kentucky, and throwing us
back where- we were at the opening of 1862. But we do
not suppose his failure was the cause of his being relieved
of his command. He was relieved because it was resolved

116 General IlallecMs Report. [Jan.,

to place the armies of the Tennessee, the Cumberland, and
the Ohio, under a single commander, and General Grant,
as the senior officer in those armies, was entitled to it.
There were reasons enough why General Rosecrans could
not hold a subordinate command under Grant, and there-
fore there was no alternative but to retire him. His per-
sonal honor is unimpeached and unimpeachable, and we
trust he will not long remain without a command, in which
he can still serve his country.

Our armies have done much, and done well ; but more
could have been done, and more was intended to be done.
Lee's army should have never been permitted to escape
from Chancellorsville without a crushing defeat. It should
never have been permitted to invade Maryland and Pennsyl-
vania, or, after the battle of Gettysburg, to get back into
the mountains of Virginia, with its columns unbroken, and
with the greater part of its trains and plunder. General
Meade should have followed his own judgment, and held
his council of war afterwards, or not at all. General Halleck
is right in citing so frequently the military maxim, " Councils
of war never fight." If a General has not sufficiently the
confidence of his Corps commanders to order an attack when
his own judgment approves, he cannot discharge effectively
the duties of his command. Grant's brilliant victory at
Chattanooga has saved us from the fatal consequences,
threatened by the disaster of Chickamauga, and given us
possession of Tennessee, and the strategic point of the
Union ; but the Army should have been in a position to
advance to Eome, and even Atlanta, Georgia, and been able
to threaten Richmond, Charleston, Savannah, and Mobile
in the rear, besides dividing the Confederacy North and
South, as by taking Yicksburg and Port Hudson it had
divided it East and "West. This would have given us
full command of the interior communications of the Rebels,
destroyed their principal factories and depots, cut off their
chief supplies, and enabled us to recruit our armies indefi-
nitely from the able-bodied Negro population, crowded into
Georgia and Alabama. The Rebels could no longer have
sustained war on a large scale, and would have been forced
to succumb.

This General Grant will effect, but the delays, chiefly of
General Rosecrans, in not moving upon Bragg when he was
urged to do so by General Halleck, have prevented him
from being able to do it before the spring campaign.

1864.] General Halleck' s Report. 117

General Rosecrans was not ready ; didn't believe Bragg's
forces had been diminished by re-enforcements sent to
Johnston against Grant ; didn't hold it good policy to risk
the Army of the Cumberland till the fate of Grant was
determined ; consulted his officers, and refused to advance.
When he did finally advance, the rainy season had com-
menced, he met with unexpected delays, failed in his
calculations, lost the battle of Chickamauga, and prolonged
the war at least a year beyond the period necessary to close
it up. So much is evident from General Halleck's report.

General Halleck is blamed severely for the dispersion of
Grant's Army, after the fall of Yicksburg, on detached'
expeditions, chiefly west of the Mississippi, of comparatively
little military importance ; but it is not certain that he is
responsible for it. The Administration may very legitimately
have had other than purely military objects in view. It
may have wished, at the earliest moment possible, to
facilitate the organization of loyal State Governments in
Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana. Besides, at the time,
there was, or was believed to be, danger that the Rebels
would, if they had not done so, cede Texas and a part of
Louisiana to the Emperor of the French, as the price of his
recognition of Southern Independence and intervention in
behalf of the Confederacy ; and policy required the Union
to take possession of Texas, and place an army of observation
on its Western frontier. This could be done, with the
collateral advantage of picking up some bales of cotton, and
cutting off supplies to the enemy, coming in through .
Matamoras and across the Rio Grande, from different parts
of Mexico. The Administration may have regarded these
considerations of sufficient importance to outweigh purely
military considerations. If so, General Halleck had no
option in the case, for the military is subordinate to the
civil authority.

We know General Halleck is not popular either with the
army or with the people ; wherefore, we know not. He is said
to have been a Hunker democrat, but so were we ourselves,
and so were many others who are among the stanchest friends
of the Government and the Union. Yet since the Administra-
tion has adopted a decided policy on the Slavery question, we
have not heard of his refusal to conform rigidly to it. He
seems to us to have confined himself to a faithful discharge
of his military duties, as a true soldier and a loyal citizen.
Perhaps he is not sympathetic; perhaps he does not believe

118 General Halle-cHs Report. [Jan.,

in newspaper war-correspondents ; perhaps lie does not court
the people, and pays little heed to popular opinion on
scientific matters ; but these are all, except the first, so many
things in his favor. We had strong prejudices against
General Halleck, and heard with regret that he was made
General-in-Chief. But we have watched his course, we
have scrutinized his acts, wherever we could get at them,
and we have come to the conclusion that he is really one of
the ablest men in the Union, a truly loyal man, well fitted
for his place, and that no blunder has been committed, or
disaster befallen our arms, by adherence to his orders or
observance of Jiis instructions. His Report proves the
contrary. We believe he has been unjustly censured, and
that when his military administration shall be better known
he will hold a high place in the affections of his countrymen.
We have had evidence of his eminent capacity, and no
evidence of his lack of earnestness, or of a tendency in him
to seek any selfish end at the expense of his country, of
honor, or of honesty. We believe him one of our greatest
and purest men, and that one day his country will count it
an honor to have produced him.

We like the recommendation of General Halleck, as to
the establishment of the grades of Generals and Lieutenant-
Generals in the army. We need not flatter ourselves that
we are ever again to be the non-military people we were
three }rears ago. We shall always need a comparatively
large army, and we ought to adopt now a proper military
organization. We do not like to see Colonels commanding
brigades ; Brigadier-Generals commanding divisions ; Ma-
jor-Generals commanding corps and armies. Every officer
should have a grade corresponding to his command. Some-
thing in this direction has been done in the navy ; but, for
reasons we do not understand, Congress thought proper to
stop short with the grade of Rear- Admiral. The grades in
our navy should correspond with those of other first-class
maritime powers. So with the army. We should have all
the grades requisite for all the commands in the army of a
first-class military nation, and there should be a regular
order of ascent from the lowest grade to the highest. This,
we suppose, is what General Halleck contemplates. He
suggests that it can be done without any additional ex-
pense to the government, by making the pay of Generals
and Lieutenant-Generals the same as that of Generals
commanding divisions. This feature we do not like. The

1864.] General ITalleeFs Report. 119

American people, in their love of equality, commit a great
mistake in elevating unreasonably the pay of the lower
grades of employes, and reducing too' much that of the
higher grades. Our merchants, bankers, manufacturers, and
shop-keepers, commit no such mistake. Nearly all the sal-
aries paid by our government to the higher officers, to the
President and Yice-President of the United States, Su-
preme Judges, State and Federal Governors of States, are
too low. At present, the pay of a private soldier, counting
his bounties, is higher than that of a Second Lieutenant, and
a Bill is before Congress for raising it still higher. Suppose
we want for the army, say four or six Generals, and four or
five times as many Lieuten ant-Generals, with an increased
pay above Major-Generals in the same ratio that pay of a
Major-General is increased from that of a Brigadier-General ;
what is that for such a nation as ours ? The number of of-
ficers would not be increased, and the additional expense
would be only the excess of pay of Generals and Lieutenant-
G.enerals over the pay of an equal number of Major-Generals,
which would be only a trifle in the national budget. We
favor the English rule of giving low salaries, where skill
and capacity are not required, and high salaries where they
are ; that is, the reverse of the Democratic rule which our
country has hitherto followed ; yet we are, as a people, so
penny wise and pound foolish, that we do not expect any
change for the better. Some journalist, or some Senator or
Representative, who purchases a reputation for patriotism
and economy, by haggling about the mileage of the mem-
bers of Congress, or the franking privilege, will cry out
against it as aristocratic, as a ruinous extravagance. Yet, if
a nation would be well served in the higher regions, it must
pay liberally, and make it an object for men of the first
order of intellect, education, and capacity, to devote them-
selves to its service.

We hope the present Congress will adopt General Hal-
leck's recommendation : but we fear that it will content it-
self with passing Mr. Washburne's Bill, reviving the grade
of Lieutenant-General, which is a ver,y ditferent thing. For
ourselves, we are no more in favor of stopping with a
Lieutenant-General in the army, than we are of stopping
with Hear- Admiral in the navy. We should prefer creating
the grade of Lieutenant-General to command corps and ar-
mies ; and that of a full General to be Commander-in-chief.
The President, though Commander-in-chief of the army and

120 General Hallectts Report [Jan.,

navy, is not, properly, a General. There is, then, an incom-
pleteness in our military organization, when we have for our
highest grade that of Lieutenant-General ; and even an im-
propriety, for there is no one whose place he holds or sup-
plies. If Congress will not adopt General Halleck's recom-
mendation, the next jbest thing will be to adopt "Washburne's
Bill ; but amending it so as to create the grade of full General,
instead of reviving that of Lieutenant-Genera], as Command-
er-in-chief, though, even without that amendment, we should
be glad to see it pass.

If this grade is revived or created, we take it, as a matter
of course, it is done in favor of General Grant. The pre-
judices against General Halleck, though we believe them
unjust, are too strong to be overcome, and after him even
we will not say no man in the army is .so well entitled
to the honor as General Grant, or can be more safely trusted
with the high military authority the grade and the com-
mand necessarily give. General Grant has received the
regular military education of the Academy at West Point ;
he has been in actual command since the breaking out of
the present civil war, and has proved himself a truly loyal
man. He has, if we recollect right, fought sixteen battles,
and won sixteen victories. His last victory at Chattanooga,
the most brilliant of them all, and, probably, the most im-
portant in its ulterior results, is one that would do- honor to
the greatest captain living. The plan of the .battle was due
solely to himself; and if his orders had been fully obeyed,
victory would have been still more brilliant and deci-
sive than it was. He is eminently fit to command, for he
knows how to obey. "It is hardly necessary to remark,'*
says General Halleck, in his Keport, " that General Grant,
never disobeyed an order or an instruction, but always car-
ried out, to the best of his ability, every wish or suggestion
made to him by the Government. Moreover, he has never
complained that the Government did not furnish him all the
means and assistance in its power, to facilitate the execution
of any plan he saw fit to adopt." This is high testimony
frankly borne, and proves that he to whom it is bornepos-
sesses true nobility and greatness of soul. The fact is so
much the more creditable to General Grant, when it is con-
sidered that he has had to operate often with smaller means,
in proportion to the magnitude of his undertakings, and the
obstacles to be overcome, than any other of our generals
commanding armies. His effective force has never been so

1864.] Literary Notices and Criticisms. 121

large as supposed, and his most brilliant achievements in the
Vicksburg campaign, and which secured the investment and
fall of that stronghold, were with a number of effective
troops, hardly greater, if at all greater, than Pemberton sur-
rendered to him when he surrendered the place. He had
able corps and division commanders under him, it is said,
with the exception of General McClernand. This is no
doubt true, and a great General always has them, for he
infuses his own spirit into them. General Grant, give him
a little time, will always have them, for he is modest, gen-
erous, unselfish, and delights to recognize and honor merit.

Art. VII. — Literary Notices and Criticisms.

1. Annals of the Army of the Cumberland, containing Biographies,
Descriptions of Departments, Accounts of Expeditions, Skirmishes,
and Battles ; also its Police Record, Sc. By An Officer.
Illustrated with Steel Portraits, Wood Engravings, and Maps.
Philadelphia: Lippincott and Co. 1863. 8vo, pp. ,671.

The printer and engraver have done their work well on this
volume, but the literary execution is hardly passable ; still its subject
is such that the veriest literary bungler could not have contrived to
deprive it of deep interest to every loyal American heart. General
Rosecrans is a man who has won a strong hold on the affections
of the American people, and there were officers under him who
will live in American history. The Army of the Cumberland is a
noble army, and has rendered great service to the country. We
do not, however, while the war is in progress, like the plan of
publishing such volumes as this, respecting any of our armies.
The volume published at Cincinnati by a war-correspondent in praise
of G-eneral Rosecrans, was the most damaging thing to that General
that we have seen. This volume is not fitted to help his reputation.
The great error of the officious friends of General Rosecrans was
in thinking of him in connection with the next Presidency. Any
general thought to have an eye on the next Presidency, is from that
moment lost as a military man. We are, therefore, happy to be
able to assert, on excellent authority, that General Grant has no
aspiration to the Presidency, and they who are using his name
in connection with the Presidency, are doing so without his
authority, and against his wishes. He is a soldier, not a politician,
and looks not beyond a military command.

When this book was written, General Rosecrans was the com-
mander of the Army of the Cumberland, and in public estimation
ranked with the very best of our commanders. He has since been

122 Literary Notices and Criticisms. [Jan.,

relieved of his command, — many people think unjustly, and are
disposed to blame General Halleck, or Secretary Stanton for it.
We count ourselves among the warmest personal friends of the
General, and had hoped much from his ability and loyalty. We
do not attempt to judge his case, first, because we are only partially
informed of the facts, and secondly, because we are not a military
man, and regard our own judgment on military questions as worth
very little. Yet, for the removal or the continuing in command of any
general officer, we hold the President alone responsible. If there
is credit, he is entitled to it ; if blame, he must bear it. Mr. Lincoln
is the last man who would shift his responsibility upon another; and
as he assumes, at least, all the power he has under the Constitution,
and really acts as the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy,
we are decidedly opposed to throwing any blame for miscarriage or
ill-success on any one of his subordinates, till it is clearly proved
that such subordinate acted without or ao-ainst orders.

2. Broken Columns. New York : Sheldon and Co. 1863. 12mo,

pp. 558.

Mr. Bayne, a somewhat celebrated Scottish writer, says : " I have
complied with* your request, and read 'Broken Columns' carefully.
I do not hesitate to pronounce it, in my judgment, superior to
' Adam Bede.' The plot is admirable, and the execution is a singular
nearness to perfection." We, too, have read Broken Columns,
carefully, even twice through, and we think it very inferior to Adam
Bede, both as a work of art and as a work of moral instruction.
There are marks of power in it, no doubt, but one-half of it is filled
with very rowdy descriptions of the sayings and doings of a very
worthless set of rowdies, and the other half with very tiresome
Methodistical or Evangelical preaching. The preaching would be
well enough in itself, if the book was a volume of Sermons ; but
placed in juxtaposition with the rowdyism, it is not remarkably
edifying. The tone of the book is low, even coarse, and the
characters intended to be approved, are hardly better than the
characters intended to be condemned. We are willing that our
writers should manifest compassion for the erring, and persuade us
to lift them up, but no man will read Broken Columns, and believe
that Emily was sinless, or betrayed solely by her innocence ; or that
Ben Dudgeon could deserve any better fate than to be secluded
from decent society.

We must, as a friend to good morals, also protest against the class
of works to which Broken Columns belongs. No good to either
old or young can come from dwelling on these pictures of morbid
nature, where all the skill of the artist is employed to render vice
attractive, and crime interesting. The moral reflections thrown in,
or pious exhortations offered, do not neutralize the mischief done.
There was much in Adam Bede that we liked, but the book, upon

1864.] Literary Notices and Criticisms. 123

the whole, was unhealthy, and its interest was gained at the expense
of virtue. We know nothing better fitted to corrupt a people than
the present English sensation novels, and we cannot read them
without feeling that our amiable cousins on the other side of the water
have lost the sense of domestic virtue, no less than of public and
international justice. Eternally boasting of their high moral sense,
of the virtue and felicity of their homes, and regard for strict justice
and humanity in all their intercourse with other nations, they seem
to us to have come to the conclusion that the pretence, though
having no foundation in truth, is far superior to the reality. The
worst literature of the day, so far as our knowledge extends, is the
popular literature of the English, and, as it is all republished and
read here, we are in a fair wav of becoming even worse than they.

3. Husks. Colonel Floyd's Wards. By Marion Harland. New
York: Sheldon & Co. 1863. 12mo, pp. 526.

Marion Harland, of whom we know nothing, except what we
learn from her works, has made herself a high reputation among
our female novelists. Her writings are marked by great purity of
sentiment, truthfulness of description, just appreciation of charac-
ter, and, in general, sound morality.

Husks is an admirably written story, being well conducted from
beginning to end. The same can be said of Col. Floyd's Wards.
We could not help thinking, while reading it, that the author had
made rather too free with the character of Col. John B. Floyd, late
Secretary of War of the United States, especially since that notable
character has gone to render up his final account. The author
must either be a native of a Slave State, or have lived long amongst
slaveholders. She does not appear to be an abolitionist, or to have
any particular desire to depict slavery in odious colors. But few
can read either of these two works without being struck with the
deleterious effect of slavery on slaveholders. Men bred up from
childhood in the possession of irresponsible powers-, with nothing
to restrain their violent passions, may have many excellent traits
of character, but they will be# more than balanced by their licen-
tiousness, violence, and inhumanity. Col. Floyd does not regard
his negroes as men, but as animals, to be beaten when he is in bad
humor, and to be used as instruments of his vices or his crimes.

In both of these works we notice that the plot turns, and the
catastrophes are brought about, by misunderstanding, or the want
of a clear and frank expression of the truth on the part of one lover,
or of both. Such things may occur in actual life ; but we are in-
clined to believe that most women if they love a man, and he loves
them, are able to find some means of letting him know it, without
any breach of delicacy; and we think that Mr. Alexander Lay
could have contrived some way to let Helen know the position in

124: Literary Notices and Criticisms. [Jan.,

which he stood, and thus have rendered the murder useless. Con-
sidering the sentiments with which they parted, he was at perfect
liberty to correspond with her from Germany, and it would have
been the most natural thing in the world for him to have done so.
It is true, if he had done so, the novel could not have been written.
But we think the making of a story turn on a plot that is so easily
defeated, betrays a poverty of invention. Aside from this slight
criticism, we like Marion Harland's books very much, and shall
always be glad to meet her in a new publication. We cannot for-
bear to add that the author has an admirable appreciation of char-
acter, and draws her characters with great truth and beauty. We
notice especially the characters of Lucy and Philip, in Husks.
We may mention also Sarah and Aunt Benson.

4. The Great Stone Book of Nature. By David Thomas An-
stead, M. A. Philadelphia. George W. Childs. 1863. 16mo,
pp. 335.

The author of this book ranks among the more distinguished
geologists of the clay, and he has given us here a very good popu-
lar introduction to the study of geology. The book, however, is a
misnomer ; instead of being called the Stone Book, its name should
have been the Stone Hieroglyphics, of which geologists have deci-
phered about as many characters as Champollion and others have
of the hieroglyphics of the ancient Egyptians. There are, no
doubt, great facts written on the rocks, but it is idle to pretend
that geologists have as yet become able to read them. They may
spell out here and there one", but, as yet, the great mass of facts are
sealed up from the learned no less than the unlearned. The men
who devote themselves to the study of the physical sciences have,
no doubt, made great discoveries ; they have thrown much light on
natural history, and corrected many of the errors of past times, yet,
at best, they have done no more than to decipher a few letters of
the alphabet. We find no fault with them from the theological
point of view, for we hold that every science has its own laws, and
has a right to rely on its own logical conclusions. It is true, every
science has its principles in theology, as the universe has its origin
in God ; but not, therefore, is every science or any science bound
in its own sphere to submit to theological or ecclesiastical authority.
So long as the science keeps within its own sphere, follows its own
laws, and does not attempt to draw conclusions that go beyond the
facts observed, or that trespass on another science, its cultivators
are free, and are not to be censured although their conclusions and
those of theologians do not in all respects agree. Sir Charles
Lyell, in his Antiquity of Man, places the creation of man on this
earth at a far more remote period than that commonly held by
theologians. He has a perfect right to do this, in case his facts
fully establish the antiquity he contends for. If the geological facts

1864.] Literary Notices and Criticisms. 125

prove the earth to have existed much longer than the Mosaic ac-
count seems to indicate, the geologist is not required to give up
his facts ; but if he goes farther, and from facts which are not con-
clusive, and which only render such antiquity probable, he reasons
badly, no one is obliged to pay any attention to his theory.
If, again, the ethnologist could prove to a certainty, by physiologi-
cal, philological, and other facts appropriate in the case, that the
human race has not had a common origin, his conclusion would be
lawful, and we should be obliged to believe it, whatever had been
our previous convictions. But it is agreed by all ethnologists
worthy of any note, that the science of ethnology is not, at present,
in a condition to prove any thing certain on the question, either for
or against the unity of the race. Now, in this case, we contend
that revelation, sustained by incontestable historical documents,
gives the law to the scientific as well as the believer ; and as this
unequivocally teaches the unity of the race, the scientific cannot
deny it. No doctrine of revelation can be set aside on mere con-
jecture or probable proof that it is not true. Observing this rule,
we are quite willing that the explorers of nature should continue
their investigations, and the result of these investigations we shall
always read with interest, although we may not attach so much
value to them as do these explorers themselves. Truth is one, and
can never be in contradiction to itself; and as all facts are facts,
and will be facts, whether we admit them or not, it will be idle to
fear them or contend against them. The only things to be guarded
against, are taking for facts what are no facts ; half facts for full
facts, or real facts without understanding their significance. The
Scripture says, "Judas went out and hanged himself;" it also says,
" Go thou and do likewise ;" but not, therefore, is it true that the
Scriptures command us to commit suicide. Much of the reasoning
of physicists, and that of eminent physicists, too, is of this Char-
acter.

5. Sermons preached at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle,
Kew York, during the Year 1863. New York : D. & J. Sadlier
& Co. 1864. 16mo, pp. 377.

This is the third annual volume of sermons by the Paulists, or
the Congregation of St. Paul the Apostle. The men composing
this Congregation are nearly all converts to the Catholic Church, and
several of them were formerly Protestant ministers ; but they are
men who retain a lively memory of all that they learned as Protest-
ants, and have not yet satisfied themselves that there are no virtues
among those they account heterodox. They are warm, zealous
Catholics, but broad, high-minded men, who are willing to accept
truth wherever they find it, and virtue wherever it is practised.
Their sermons are plain, direct, energetic, practical, and may be
read with profit and pleasure by any who really believe in the
Christian religion and Christian civilization.

126 Literary Notices and Criticisms. [Jan.,

6. Guide f or Catholic Young Women, especially for those who earn
their oivn Living. By the Rev. George Deshon, Missionary
Priest. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1863. 18mo,
pp. 322.

This is another work by one of the Congregation of the Paulists,
of whom we have just spoken. It is intended to be a guide for
Catholic Young Women, more especially that large and interesting
class usually called servant girls, and is designed not only to instruct
them in their more special duties as Catholics, but in their moral
duties, and especially those duties that belong to their state in life.
It is, therefore, a book for which Protestants must be grateful to
the author ; for while it gives them credit for their many virtues
and> their fidelity, it does not spare, in the least, their faults, such as
lying, pilfering, and giving away what belongs to their employers.
Though more especially designed for a particular class, there are few
persons who might not profit by reading it. The author's experience
as a priest has led him to be a little rigid, but probably not too
much so.

7. The Complete Sodality Manual and Hymn Book. By Rev.
Alfred Young. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1883.
8vo, pp. 204,

8. Helion de Villeneuve, a French Zouave. A Model for Christian
Soldiers. Boston : Donahoe. 1863. 16mo, pp. 81.

There is no doubt that the French Zouave was a very pious and
excellent young man, with a military vocation, and the bravery
which belongs to a French nobleman. But the most remarkable
thing about the book is, that he wasYthe last male descendant of one
of the noblest families of France, and was killed in the trenches,
when he was on the point of being promoted to be Adjutant. We
would, however, advise the very excellent paraphraser or translator,
before he attempts to do another work into English, to make him-
self more thoroughly master of the English language. No foreign
scholar is to blame for not knowing English, but no one is pardon-
able for attempting to write in English without knowing the
language, and being able to write it correctly.

9. The Carmel ; or, the Conversion of Hermoun^the Pianist. Boston:
Donahoe. 1863. 16mo, pp. 180.

We have little to say of this book, except to object to the
English into which it is translated, and to protest against publishing
as a translation, what has only a faint representation of the work
translated, and is only half made up of ejaculations and other matters, '
of which the author knew nothing. Either translate the work
faithfully, as the author wrote it, or do not translate it at all.

1864.] Literary Notices and Criticisms. 127

10. Western Missions and Missionaries. A Series of Letters. By
Rev. P. J. De Smet, of the Society of Jesus; author of " Indian
Sketches," " Oregon Missions," &c. New York : Kirker.
1863. 12mo, pp. 532.

Father De Smet is well known as a Missionary among our North-
western Indians on each side of the Rocky Mountains. This work
is composed of letters written to his Provincial, and to various
friends in Belgium, and gives a great variety of interesting infor-
mation concerning the Indian tribes, their habits, customs, religion,
and religious ceremonies. In this volume we are told, for the first
time, of the mis-translation of Wah-Kon as Medicine-Man. The
.word so translated means incomprehensible, and according to our
judgment would have been better translated Wonder-Worker than
Medicine-Man. Any one is a medicine-man, as our earl}- Missionaries
translate it, who does things which are incomprehensible, or which
they are unable to explain^ and therefore supposed to be by
supernatural agency. In addition to the information given in the
letters, the volume will be found to give several very interesting
biographies of some Belgians and Belgian Jesuits, who have died
on the American Missions ; some of whom were admirable for their
labors, their endurance, and their holiness of life.

11. The Hermit of the Hock. A Tale of Cashel. By Mrs. J. Sadlier,
author of the " Blakes and Flanagans,1' &c, &c. New York :
D. & J. Sadlier. 1863. 16mo, pp. 492.

Mrs. Sadlier is an Irish Catholic lady who has gained no incon-
siderable literary reputation by her translations from the French,
and her various original stories and novels. She posesses much real
genius, and is a most admirable writer, except when she assumes the
cap of the theological doctor. Though not absolutely blind to the
faults of her countrymen, at home or abroad, she is yet intensely
Irish, and would keep her countrymen and countrywomen settled in
this country, Irish till doomsday, if possible. She does not under-
stand that her efforts are calculated to keep her own people and the
Americans two distinct peoples, inhabiting the same country, each
having a nationality of its own, and different from the other. The
Irish nationality, if such a thing there is, may be an excellent na-
tionality for Ireland, but is not the nationality for America ; and the
effort of the Irish writers and journalists to substitute an Irish na-
tionality for the American, has, and can have, only disastrous results
for both parties. As yet, the Irish have been slow to learn that in
taking the oath of allegiance to the United States, they abjured alle-
giance to all other powers and nations — slower still to learn the
real sense of American equality, and that to be recognized as the
equals of natural-born citizens, it is not necessary that they should
be treated as superiors. The true friends of all the Irish settlers

12S Literary Notices and Criticisms. [Jan.

in America, study in all matters pertaining to politics and civiliza-
tion, or temporal affairs, to mould them and the native population
into one body, animated by one national sentiment, and laboring
in unity for the real interests of the nation. Their Juiy riots in
New York, and their riots in the Pennsylvania mines, have created
much prejudice against them, and such riots will always occur if
they attempt to maintain a distinct national character. They must
either make themselves Americans, feel and act with Americans,
understand that they have not only the same rights, but also the
same duties as Americans, or else they must remain Irishmen
without professing to owe any American allegiance. Thousands
and thousands of them — we have heard even of seven thousand in
one city — who had heretofore acted as American citiifens, suddenly
found, when the draft came, that they were Britislrsubjects, and
claimed and received British protection. It is idle to pretend that
people who will conduct themselves in this way are loyal citizens, or
entitled even to the privileges of American citizenship. There are
many among the Irish who are as loyal, and as earnest to saverthe
life and integrity of the nation, as any men in it, and our armies
prove that no small number of Irishmen have volunteered to fight
our battles, and we are not aware that any braver troops than the
Irish have been found on the battle-field. But this was only their
duty as American citizens, for a naturalized citizen is just as much
bound to fight for the country as a natural-born citizen, and just
as much bound to consult what he owes to the nation. Unhappily
the Irish, having been in a state of chronic rebellion against the
English government for seven centuries, have been in the habit of
considering only what they can get from a government, not what
they are bound to render it — of acknowledging the authority of
government when it confers favors, but of denying it when it exacts
service. In this last respect, however, too many of our native citi-
zens are like them.

The book before us is, perhaps, upon the whole, the best work,
the most complete and consistent in an artistic point of view, which
Mrs. Sadlier has published. Portions of the work are written with
remarkable spirit, truth, and accuracy, and can be read only with
intense interest and deep sympathy for the poor Irish people who
suffer from hard-hearted and oppressive landlords. The great fault
of the book is, that the conversions and courtships are rather clum-
sily managed, and some of the conversions and some of the marriages
mentioned seem to have no sufficient reason. As a contribution
to Irish literature, not to American, it is highly creditable, and de-
serving of warm approbation.

BROWNSON'S

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