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]^EW    AMERICA. 


BY 


WILLIAM   HEPWORTH   DIXON, 

EDITOR       or       THE      ^  A  T  H  E  N  ,B  U  M,"       AND      AUTHOR      OF       '-THE      UOLJ       LAND,' 
"WILLIAM   PENN,"   ETC. 


Wililx  jnustrjttions  );iiom  Orjiginal  photo||i[ajjhs. 


COMPLETE  IN  ONE  VOidUMi, 


PHILADELPHIA : 

J.   B.   LIPPINCOTT  &   CO. 
1867. 


TO 

CHARLES   WENTWORTH   DILKE,   Esq. 

OP 

TRINITY  HALL,  CAMBRIDGE, 
MY  FELLOW-TRAVELLER  IN  THE  GREAT  WEST, 

i^his  Uolumf_ 

IS   AFFECTIOXATELY   IXSCEIBED. 

(iii) 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Main  Street,  Salt  Lake  City       .         .         .         Frontispiece. 
Robert  Wilson,  Sheriff  of  Denver  .         .       Page     101 

Brigham  Young  ...         .         .         .         .         .      146 

Bible  Communiiits.     Prophet  and  Family        .         .  387 

The  Four  Races 254 

New  Capitol,  Washington 295 


Civ) 


PREFACE. 


Some  studies  of  past  times,  which  have  long  occupied 
my  pen,  led  me  last  summer  to  the  James  River  and  to 
Plymouth  Rock.  I  went  out  in  search  of  an  old  world, 
and  found  a  new  one.  East,  west,  north,  and  south,  I 
met  with  new  ideas,  new  purposes,  new  methods ;  in 
short,  with  a  New  America. 

The  men  who  planted  these  Free  States — doing  the 
noblest  work  that  England  has  achieved  in  history  — 
were  spurred  into  their  course  by  two  great  passions  :  a 
large  love  of  Liberty;  a  deep  sense  of  Religion;  and,  in 
our  Great  Plantation,  liberty  and  religion  exercise  a 
power  over  the  forms  of  social  and  domestic  life  unknoAvn 
at  home.  In  the  heart  of  solid  societies  and  conservative 
churches,  we  find  the  most  singular  doctrines,  the  most 
audacious  expei*iments ;  and  it  is  only  after  seeing  what 
kind  of  foj'ces  are  at  work  within  them,  that  we  can 
adequately  admire  the  strength  of  these  societies  and 
churches. 

What  I  saw  of  the  changes  now  being  wrought  in  the 
actual  life  of  man  and  woman  on  the  American  soil, 
under  the  power  of  these  master  passions,  is  pictured  in 
these  pages. 

6  St.  James'  Terrace, 

New  Year's  Day,  1867. 

(V) 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  THE   WESTERN   COUNTRY 9 

II.  BLEEDING   KANSAS 18 

III.  OVERLAND    MAIL 2T 

IV.  THE   PRAIRIES 36 

V.  PRAIRIE   INDIANS 45 

VI.  THE   RED    MAN             ......  51 

VII.  INDIAN    LIFE 60 

VIIL  CARRYING   THE   MAIL 69 

IX.  RED   COMMUNITIES tt 

X.  THE    INDIAN    QUESTION 84 

XI.  CITY    OF    THE    PLAINS  .    ^      .  .  .  .92 

XII.  PRAIRIE   JUSTICE 101 

XIII.  SIERRA    MADRE 101 

XIV.  BITTER    CREEK Ill 

XV.  DESCENT   OF    THE   MOUNTAINS         .  .  .  .126 

XVL  THE    NEW   JERUSALEM 133 

XVII.  THE    MORMON   THEATRE 141 

XVIII.  THE    TEMPLE 149 

XIX.  THE    TWO    SEERS 155 

XX.  FLIGHT    FROM    BONDAGE               .            .            .            .  162 

XXI.  SETTLEMENT    IN    UTAH 167 

(vi) 


CONTENTS.  vii 

CHAPTER  PAOE 

XXII.    WORK   AND    FAITH 1*13 

XXIII.  MISSIONARY   LABOR  .  .  .  .  .118 

XXIV.  MORMON    LIGHT 184 

XXV.    SECULAR    NOTES 189 

XX VL    HIGH   POLITICS 195 

XXVII.    MARRIAGE   IN    UTAH 201 

XXVIII.    POLYGAMOUS    SOCIETY             ....  207 
XXIX.    THE   DOCTRINE   OF   PLURALITIES        .            .            .212 

XXX.    THE   GREAT    SCHISM 220 

XXXI.    SEALING 226 

XXXII.    WOMAN   AT    SALT   LAKE         .            .            .            .  232 

XXXIIL    THE   REPUBLICAN   PLATFORM    ....  241 

XXXIV.    UNCLE    SAM'S   ESTATE 248 

XXXV.    THE    FOUR   RACES 254 

XXXVI.    SEX   AND    SEX 261 

xxxvn.  LADIES 269 

XXXVIII.    SQUATTER   WOMEN 214 

XXXIX.    FEMININE   POLITICS 280 

XL.    HUSBANDS   AND   WIVES          ....  288 

XLL    DOMESTIC   LAW 293 

XLIL    MOUNT   LEBANON 301 

XLIII.    A    SHAKER   HOUSE 308 

XLIV.    SHAKER    UNION 316 

XLV.    MOTHER   ANN 323 

XLVI.    RESURRECTION    ORDEE.             .            .            .            .  331 

XLVIL    SPIRITUAL   CYCLES 339 

XLVIII.    SPIRITUALISM 347 

XLIX.    FEMALE   SEERS           ......  358 

L.    EQUAL   RIGHTS     .....  364 


viii  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

LI.    THE    HARMLESS   PEOPLE 370 

LIT.    THE   REVOLT   OF   WOMAN             .            .            .            .  378 

LIII.    ONEIDA   CREEK 387 

LIV.    HOLINESS 394 

LV.    A   BIBLE    FAMILY 402 

LVI.    NEW    FOUNDATIONS 411 

LVIL    PANT  AGAMY 418 

LVin.    YOUNG   AMERICA        .           .           .           .           .           .  424 

LIX.    MANNERS      ........  430 

LX.    LIBERTIES 438 

LXI.    LAW   AND   JUSTICE 444 

LXII.    POLITICS 449 

LXIII.    NORTH    AND    SOUTH 457 

LXIV.    COLOR 465 

LXV.    RECONSTRUCTION 474 

LXVI.    UNION 484 


NEW  AMERICA. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE    WESTERN    COUNTRY. 

"  Guess  these  Yanks  must  look  alive  on  this  side 
the  River,  unless  they  should  happen  to  enjoy  having 
their  eye-teeth  drawn — eh,  Judge?" 

The  man  to  whom  this  appeal  is  made  as  judge  lifts 
up  his  chin  from  a  dish  of  hominy  and  corned  beef, 
glances  first  at  myself,  then  at  my  fellow-traveler,  and 
after  winking  an  eye  to  the  right  and  left,  says  slowly, 
"  Guess  you  are  right  there.  Sheriff." 

Spoken,  as  it  is,  across  the  table  of  a  tiny  hotel  in 
the  City  of  Atchison — the  only  wonder  about  which 
hotel  is,  how  a  place  so  diminutive  can  hold  so  much 
dirt  and  feed  so  much  vermin — this  passage  of  legal 
wit  may  need  a  few  words  of  explanation. 

The  Yanks  now  warned  by  the  Sheriff  that  they 
must  look  alive,  under  penalty  of  having  their  eye- 
teeth  drawn,  are  my  friend  Charles  W.  Dilke  and  my- 
self; two  men  of  undeniable  English  birth  and  blood. 
English  faces  are  not  seen  every  day  in  the  State  of 
Kansas ;  and  these  Western  boys  (every  man  living 
beyond  the  Missouri  is  a  Boy,  just  as  every  woman  is 
a  Lady — in  her  own  right),  these  Western  boys,  having 
dim  notions  of  ethnology  and  accent,  set  down  every 
man  who  crosses  the  River,  with  a  white  face  and  with- 
out a  bowie-knife,  as  a  Yankee — a  traveler  from  the 

(9) 


10  NEW  AMERICA. 

Xow  England  States  in  quest  of  gold  dust,  reserva- 
tions, and  corner  lots.  "The  River"  means  the  Mis- 
souri ;  here  flowing  between  the  settled  State  of  that 
name  and  the  wild  unpeopled  region,  known  in  maps 
as  Kansas,  in  poetry  and  fiction  as  Bleeding  Kansas. 
To  a  Western  boy,  the  Missouri  is  the  Thames,  the 
Rhine,  and  the  Seine;  his  stream  of  commerce,  beauty, 
luxury,  and  art;  and  every  man  and  woman,  that  is  to 
say,  every  boy  and  lady,  living  in  the  western  uplands, 
beyond  this  margin  of  blufl  and  forest,  talks  to  you 
about  going  down  to  the  River  just  as  a  Pieardie  peas- 
ant boasts  of  going  up  to  Paris,  as  a  Marylebone  grocer 
speaks  of  running  down  to  Brighton  and  the  Isle  of 
Wight.  The  River  divides  him,  as  he  says,  from  the 
East,  from  the  States;  and  the  current  jest,  everj-where 
to  be  heard  from  Atchison  to  Salt  Lake,  says,  that  a 
man  who  means  to  cross  the  Missouri  is  going  on  a 
trip  to  America.  Dressed  in  his  high  boots,  his  slouch 
hat,  his  belt,  his  buftalo-skin,  his  bowie-knife,  and  his 
six-shooter,  a  Western  boy  feels  for  the  unarmed, 
sober,  unadventurous  men  dwelling  on  the  opposite 
bank  of  the  River,  the  sort  of  proud  contempt  which 
an  Arab  beyond  Jordan  cherishes  for  the  settlers  in 
Galilee,  spiced  with  the  fierce  hatred  which  a  Spanish 
hidalgo  dwelling  east  of  the  Ducro  feels  for  the  Por- 
tuguese peddlers  crawling  on  the  western  bank. 

Xow,  that  question  of  drawing  the  eye-teeth  is  one 
about  which  I  hold  to  an  extreme  opinion.  Five  or 
six  years  ago,  when  calling  on  my  old  friend  Landor 
in  his  Florentine  house,  and  expressing  my  joy  at  find- 
ing him  so  liale  and  bright  (he  was  then  eighty-four), 
I  heard  in  reply  to  my  congratulations,  these  noticea- 
ble words:  "My  dear  fellow,  say  no  more  about  it;  I 
have  lost  four  of  my  teeth."  When  I  smiled,  the  vet- 
eran added,  "  Do  not  lauo-h  at  me ;    I  would  rather 


THE   WESTERN  COUNTRY.  \\ 

have  lost  al-l  my  intellect  than  one  of  my  teeth."  On 
the  whole,  I  should  hardly  go  Laudor's  length,  though 
the  threat  of  having  your  "  eye-teeth  "  drawn  for  you, 
willy  nilly,  is  certainly  one  to  disturb  a  saint.  But  we 
have  crossed  our  Jordan,  and  on  this  side  the  River  we 
must  take  our  chance. 

Early  yesterday,  a  sultry  August  morning,  we  left 
St.  Louis ;  a  bright  and  busy  city,  full  of  a  fierce  and 
tameless  life,  half  Saxon,  half  Latin;  a  city  which  has 
been  smitten  to  the  heart  by  panic,  such  as  will  some- 
times fall  upon  Cairo  and  Aleppo  in  a  time  of  plague. 
For  a  month  of  burning  heat — the  heat  of  a  great 
plain,  lying  low  down  in  the  drain  of  a  great  conti- 
nent, three  hundred  miles  from  the  nearest  hills,  eight 
hundred  miles  from  a  mountain  range — cholera  has 
been  sweeping  off  her  countless  victims  from  those 
quays  on  which  the  poor  L'ish  labor,  from  those  slums 
in  which  the  improvident  negroes  lodge. 

Ko  Howard  Society  sprang  up  this  year  to  assist  the 
poor,  as  on  a  former  visitation  of  the  pest,  when  fif- 
teen hundred  of  the  young,  rich,  able  men  of  the  city 
had  put  their  hearts  into  the  helping  work.  Nothing 
had  been  done  to  meet  a  calamity  which  is  always 
threatening  such  a  city  as  St.  Louis,  built  on  one  of 
the  deepest  sewers  in  the  world.  With  a  lack  of  wis- 
dom hardly  to  be  matched  beyond  the  walls  of 
Gotham,  the  council  had  ceased  to  make  daily  returns 
of  the  dead,  the  number  of  which  could  only  be 
guessed  from  the  march  of  funerals  through  the 
streets,  and  from  the  register  of  interments  in  the  ten 
or  twelve  busiest  graveyards.  The  rate  of  deaths  ran 
high,  and  it  was  grossly  extended  by  the  arithmetic  of 
fear.  Fires  were  burning  in  ever}'  street;  lime  was 
being  forced  into  every  gutter;  no  one  dared  to  enter 
a  public  conveyance;  horrible  tales,  the  offspring  of  a 


12  NI^W  AMERICA. 

Southern  brain,  were  whispered  iir^your  ears  at  table, 
where  you  heard  that  every  officer  had  flown  from  the 
cemeteries,  even  the  felons  and  murderers  who  had 
been  promised  their  pardon  on  condition  of  interring 
the  victims  of  cholei^ ;  that  the  unburied  corpses  were 
heaped  together  in  the  island ;  that  coffins  and  sear- 
cloths  had  been  set  on  fire  by  the  runaways ;  that  a 
thousand  nameless  horrors  had  been  committed  in  the 
dead-houses  and  in  the  graveyards.  The  death-bells 
were  tolling  day  and  night. 

We  left  tlie  city  early.  Noon  saw  us  at  Macon, 
picking  grapes  and  sucking  melons;  midnight  brought 
us  to  St.  Joseph  (afi'ectiouately  called  St.  Joe),  on  the 
Missouri  River,  some  dozen  miles  above  Atchison,  and 
of  course  on  the  eastern  bank.  At  two  o'clock,  in  the 
night,  we  came  to  the  end  of  our  iron-track,  when  the 
car  in  which  we  rode  emptied  itself  into  a  field,  at  no 
place  in  particular,  but  in  a  patch  of  waste  land  over- 
grown by  stinkweed,  and  in  a  situation  generally  sup- 
posed to  be  occupied  by  a  ferry-boat. 

When  we  came  alongside  the  last  plank  of  the  rail- 
way, the  night  being  bleak  and  cliilly,  it  was  sweet  to 
hear  the  cry  of  the  hotel-runner  (a  tout  is  here  called 
a  runner),  "Any  one  for  Planter's  House  ?"  Yes  :  we 
were  all  for  Planter's  House;  and  away  we  huddled, 
with  our  sacks  and  sticks,  our  wraps  and  overcoats, 
into  an  omnibus,  which  stood  ready  by  the  plank  to 
swallow  us  up.  Ugh !  what  monster  is  lying  among 
our  feet?  Something  like  a  huge  black  dog  was  sleep- 
ing on  the  floor ;  which,  the  moment  we  pushed  into 
the  doorway,  began  to  snort  and  kick.  It  seemed  too 
big  for  a  dog;  perhaps  it  was  a  bull,  that,  finding  the 
omnibus  open,  had  crept  in  from  the  Missouri  chills. 
Presently,  it  began  to  swear ;  such  oaths  as  Uncle 
Toby  heard  in  Flanders ;  and  on  waking  into  con- 


THE   WESTERN   COUNTRY.  13 

sciousness,  the  strange  beast  proved  to  be  the  driver, 
coiled  up,  concealed,  and  snoring  in  a  buiFalo's  hide. 
Getting  into  our  seats,  with  a  dozen  sleepless  wretches 
like  ourselves,  we  cried,  "All  right,"  and  bade  the 
driver  "go  ahead." 

"  Guess  you'll  wait  for  the  ferry,"  said  he,  with  a 
vollej^  of  adjectives  and  objurgations,  such  as  ladies 
and  clergymen  would  consider  somewhat  high  in 
flavor. 

"When  will  the  ferry-boat  come  over?"  some  one 
asked. 

"Well,  I  guess  about  seven  o'clock." 

It  was  now  two ;  the  night  raw  and  cold ;  the  omni- 
bus choked  with  passengers ;  and  we  were  lying  out 
in  an  open  field.  Shaking  the  hotel-runner  from  a 
doze — both  he  and  the  driver  had  again  tumbled  off 
into  sleep,  in  the  cosiest  corner  of  our  coach — we 
learned  that  the  river  might  be  crossed,  at  that  point, 
even  in  the  night,  if  we  liked  to  venture  upon  it  in 
a  small  rowing-boat.  Venture  upon  it !  Away  we 
trudged,  through  the  stinkweed,  lugging  our  traps, 
which  no  one  could  be  got  to  carry  for  us  to  the  river 
side ;  feeling  our  feet  down  the  bank,  listening  to  the 
lap  of  the  stream,  and  crying  for  help  to  the  opposite 
bluflt's.  The  bank  was  steep  and  soft,  the  black  loam 
slipping  beneath  our  shoes,  while  a  dense  yellow  fog 
lay  heavily  on  the  swift  and  whirling  flood.  On  the 
opposite  heights  we  could  trace  the  outlines  of  a  little 
town ;  a  few  white  houses  scattered  here  and  there ; 
below  these  ran  the  dark  outline  of  the  river  bank. 
But  where  was  the  rowing-boat  ?  Not  on  our  side  of 
the  river ;  for  Bill,  the  waterman,  lodged  in  his  wife- 
less cabin  on  the  Kansas  side;  and  a  "Yep,  yep" — a 
war-whoop  raised  by  the  runner,  which  ought  to  have 

2 


14  NEW  AMERICA. 

roused  the  seven  sleepers  from  their  trance — came 
back  to  us  only  in  echoes  from  the  Kansas  bluffs.  ISTo 
boat  came  over  with  it;  and  after  hanging  by  the 
waterside  for  an  hour,  seeing  the  fog  grow  thicker,  and 
fancying  the  stream  grow  wider,  we  turned  away  from 
the  muddy  bank,  not  wholly  displeased  at  our  war-cry 
having  failed  to  disturb  the  boatman's  rest. 

Going  back  to  the  omnibus,  we  found  the  driver 
snorting  in  his  nook.  We  shall  never  forget  the  vol- 
leys of  oaiths  and  growls  which  he  fired  off  during  the 
next  four  hours ;  neither  shall  we  forget  the  rude  and 
ready  kindness  with  which  he  thrust  upon  us  one  of  his 
blankets  and  his  buffalo-hide.  My  friend  lay  do^Ti 
and  slept;  sleep  comes  to  you  easily  in  3'outh ;  for 
myself,  I  walked  on  the  plank ;  made  a  second  trip  to 
the  river;  watched  the  stars  pale  out;  railed  against 
the  stinkweed  ;  smoked  a  cigar. 

At  seven  the  ferry-boat  came  steaming  over;  at 
eight  we  are  seated  at  table  in  the  Planter's  House, 
in  the  midst  of  these  rough  aristocrats  of  Kansas ;  a 
jolly  set  of  dogs,  each  dog  with  a  bowie-knife  in  his 
pocket,  a  six-shooter  in  his  bell. 

"  Can  you  tell  me,  sir,  at  what  hour  the  Overland 
Mail  leaves  Atchison  for  Salt  Lake  ?"  is  the  simple  in- 
quiry to  which  the  Sheriff  answers,  as  above,  with  that 
suggestion  about  our  eye-teeth  being  hardly  safe  in 
Kansas.  oSTot  taking  the  reply  so  quickly  as  might  be, 
I  look  the  man  steadily  in  the  face,  and  repeat  my 
question ;  this  time  with  extreme  deliberation ;  on 
which  the  company  break  into  a  pleasant  burst  of 
Satanic  laughter.  Then  we  hear  from  the  Judge  that 
the  Overland  Mail  (to  travel  by  which,  on  our  way  to 
Denver  and  Salt  Lake,  we  have  come  from  St.  Louis 
to  Atchison,  its  starting-point)  has  ceased  to  run  by 
the  Platte  route,  and  that  the  oificers  and  stages  have 


THE   WESTERN  COUNTRY.  15 

been  sent  down  the  river  to  Leavenworth,  whence  the 
mail  is  in  future  to  be  sent  across  the  Plains  by  an 
easier  and  shorter  line. 

Mail,  mail-agent,  stock,  mules,  wagons,  all  have 
been  sent  down  the  river  to  Leavenworth,  and  we 
have  no  choice  left  us  but  to  take  up  our  traps  and 
follow  in  their  wake.  These  folks  make  merry  at  our 
expense,  with  a  brutal  kind  of  good  nature;  for  a 
transfer  of  the  Overland  Mail  from  Atchison  to  Leav- 
enworth is  a  big  blow  to  their  town,  such  as  people 
who  have  put  their  money  in  it,  and  who  are  bound 
either  to  stand  by  it  or  fall  with  it,  may  be  forgiven  for 
not  seeing  in  the  light  of  a  joke.  Being  regarded  as 
companions  in  their  misery,  it  is  expected  in  the  town 
that  we  shall  consider  ourselves  generally  as  victims  of 
a  plot,  and  as  having  had  one  at  least  of  our  eye-teeth 
drawn. 

In  a  hundred  phrases  w^e  are  told  that  the  mail  is 
leaving  the  best  route  through  the  prairies  for  the 
worst.  The  Platte  route,  we  hear,  is  safe  and  easy ;  a 
good  road,  well  stocked  and  stationed ;  the  military 
posts  on  which  are  strong,  the  Indians  all  through 
which  are  friendly  to  white  men.  In  a  word,  it  is  the 
route.  The  new  route  is  called  the  Smoky  Hill  route, 
from  a  rolling  mist  which  runs  along  it  for  a  hundred 
miles. 

"Well,  gentlemen,"  says  the  Sheriff,  "you  will  see 
it,  and  then  you  will  judge.  Perhaps  you  like  having 
your  remaining  eye-teeth  drawn  ?" 

One  of  these  citizens  takes  from  his  pocket  a  gazette 
of  the  current  date,  in  which  there  is  news  from  the 
Smoky  Hill  country ;  showing  that  Black  Kettle, 
Roman  ISTose,  Spotted  Dog,  and  some  other  worthies 
of  the  red  race,  are  out  on  the  war-path ;  telling  how 
this  and  that  lonely  ranch  has  been  plundered   and 


16  NEW  AMERICA. 

iired  bj  the  Oheyennes;  and  giving  lists  of  white  men 
who  have  been  killed  by  these  savages.  By  the  same 
gazette  we  learn  that  in  the  North  the  state  of  affairs 
is  rather  worse  than  better.  A  party  of  white  men, 
coming  down  the  Missouri,  has  been  attacked  by 
Blackfeet  Indians,  who  exchanged  shots  with  them, 
and  swam  after  them,  but  were  distanced  by  the  rapid- 
ity with  which  the  white  men  plied  their  boats.  The 
party  thus  escaping  from  the  tomahawk  report  that 
seven  white  men,  coming  in  a  boat  down  the  same 
river,  have  been  captured  and  killed  by  Crows,  an  In- 
dian tribe  who  have  recently  made  a  treaty  of  peace 
with  the  Government ;  but  in  consequence  of  some 
slight,  as  they  allege,  have  burned  their  treaty,  put  on 
ochre  and  vermilion,  and  gone  out,  like  their  brethren 
the  Cheyeunes  and  Sioux,  on  the  war-path. 

A  tall,  swashing  fellow,  bickering  with  rifle,  bowie- 
knife,  and  six-shooter,  lounges  into  the  room,  and  is 
introduced  to  us  as  Captain  Walker;  "the  famous 
Captain  Jem  Walker,  sir,  who  has  crossed  the  plains 
seven-and-twenty  times ;  after  whom  Walker's  Creek 
is  named  " — a  creek  of  which  we  blush  to  think  that 
we  know  nothing,  not  even  the  famous  name.  Cap- 
tain Walker  is  of  opinion  that  we  shall  be  fools  if  we 
trust  our  scalps  along  the  Smoky  Hill  route.  The 
Platte  road  is  the  only  safe  one.  When  we  object  that, 
as  the  mail  no  longer  runs  along  that  safer  path,  we 
can  hardly  travel  by  it,  he  opines  that  we  shall  do  well 
to  stay  a  few  days  in  Atchison,  during  which  he  will 
put  us  up  to  the  ropes,  and  fix  us  generally  in  prairie 
politics.  If  we  don't  know  what  is  best  for  ourselves, 
he  has  no  objection  to  our  being  damned,  as  we  cer- 
tainly shall  be  after  making  unpleasant  acquaintance 
with  a  Cheyenne  knife. 

It  is  clear  that  these  men  of  Atchison  have  but  a 


THE   WESTERN  COUNTRY.  17 

poor  opinion  of  the  Leavenworth  route  when  com- 
pared against  their  own. 

Hearing  that  a  small  steamer  is  going  down  the 
river  to  Leavenworth  in  the  afternoon,  we  send  for  our 
bills,  and  have  our  boxes  put  on  board.  It  is  now  nine 
in  the  morning,  and  as  we  have  nothin'g  to  do,  our 
new  friends  think  proper  to  stay  and  help  us ;  a  cour- 
tesy on  their  side  to  which  we  should  offer  no  objec- 
tion if  it  were  not  for  their  frequent  and  sardonic  allu- 
sions to  the  fact  of  our  having  been  taken  in.  About 
noon  an  accident  raises  us  in  their  good  opinion  to  a 
height  yet  higher  than  that  from  which  we  had  evi- 
dently fallen ;  enabling  us  to  quit  the  town,  morally 
sj)eaking,  sword  in  hand  and  with  flying  colors. 

Sauntering  down  the  street,  enjoying  our  gossip  and 
cigar,  we  note  the  word  post-office  on  a  shop-front,  and 
on  going  inside  we  find  there  is  one  letter  with  my 
name  on  the  cover,  written  in  an  unknown  hand,  on 
which  three  cents  are  due.  Paying  the  money,  and 
breaking  the  seal,  I  find  the  letter  is  not  for  me ;  on 
which  I  fold  and  restore  it  to  the  postmaster,  saying  it 
is  not  mine,  and  should  be  kept  for  the  owner,  to 
whom  it  is  perhaps  of  moment.  Eyeing  me  in  a 
queer  way,  the  postmaster  takes  the  letter,  and  gives 
me  back  my  change  of  three  cents.  "Do  you  see?" 
says  the  Sherifl:"  to  his  nearest  friend  ;  "  damned  smart 
that — read  his  letter  and  got  his  money  back  !  Hang 
me  if  I  think  they  are  Yanks,  after  all." 

One  touch  of  roguery,  it  would  seem,  is  enough  to 
make  the  whole  world  kin  ! 


2* 


18  NEW  AMERICA. 


CHAPTER  n. 

BLEEDING    KANSAS. 

"Well,  Sam,"  say  I  to  a  blithe  young  negro  of 
tliirty-five  years,  a  boy  with  quick  eye  and  delicate 
razor-hand,  as  he  powders  my  face  and  dabs  the  rose- 
water  on  my  hair,  in  the  shaving-room  of  Planter's 
House,  Leavenworth,  "where  were  you  raised  ?" 

"  Me  riz  in  Missouri,  sar." 

"  You  were  born  a  slave,  then  ?" 

"Yes,  sar,  me  slave  in  Weston;  very  bad  boss; 
always  drunk  and  kicking  poor  nigger  boy." 

"And  how  did  you  get  your  freedom,  Sam — did  you 
go  and  fight?" 

"No,  sar;  me  no  fight;  tink  fighting  big  sin;  me 
swim." 

"  Swim  !  Oh,  yes ;  you  mean  you  swam  across  the 
Missouri  into  Kansas,  from  a  slave  State  into  a  free 
State?" 

"  Dat  true,  sar.  One  bery  dark  night,  me  slip  away 
from  Weston ;  run  through  the  wood  along  river 
bank,  down  stream  ;  get  into  de  water  by  dem  trees, 
and  push  oberto  de  mud  bank  "  (pointing  to  the  great 
ridge  of  slime  which  festers  in  front  of  Leavenworth 
when  the  water  runs  low) ;  "  there  wait  till  morning, 
looking  at  de  stars  ob  heaven  and  de  lights  in  dese 
houses  all  about ;  and  when  daylight  come,  creep  out 
of  de  rushes  and  wade  ober  to  the  levde." 

"  Then  you  were  free  ?"    Sam  answers  with  a  smile. 

"Had  yon  any  help,  in  your  escape,  from  men  on  this 


BLEEDING   KANSAS.  19 

side  the  river  ?" — the  slaves  had  always  good  friends  iu 
Kansas. 

"  ISTo,  sar ;  me  got  no  help  to  'scape ;  for  me  neber 
tell  no  one;  'cause  me  neber  know  afore  the  moment 
when  me  slip  away.  The  Lord  put  it  in  my  head. 
Me  Methodist,  sar;  most  nigger  boy  in  Missouri, 
Methodist;  me  just  come  home  from  chapel,  tinking 
of  de  wonderful  ways  of  de  Lord,  when  some  one  say, 
close  in  my  ear,  '  Rise  up,  Sam ;  run  away  and  be  a 
man.'  It  was  de  voice  of  de  Lord;  I  know  it  well. 
At  first,  I  not  see  what  to  do ;  me  tink  it  quite  wrong 
to  run  away  and  steal  myself  from  boss — twelve  hun- 
dred dollars.  Den  me  tink,  it  must  be  right  to  obey 
de  voice  of  de  Lord,  for  me  belong  more  to  de  Lord 
than  to  boss,  and  den  I  slip  away  into  de  w^oods." 

"  Of  course  you  were  followed  ?" 

"Yes,  sar,"  says  Sam,  putting  the  last  of  his  fine 
flourishes  upon  my  face;  "boss  come  ober  into  Leav- 
enworth, where  he  find  me  in  de  street.  '  Come 
here,  you  damned  nigger,'  he  say,  pulling  out  his  re- 
volver, and  catching  me  by  de  neck.  He  got  a  boat 
all  ready ;  den  some  people  come  up.  '  You  let  dat 
nigger  go  alone,'  say  one ;  '  Put  a  knife  into  de  damned 
nigger,'  say  another.  Den  come  a  big  row ;  dey  fight 
for  me  all  day ;  and  my  side  win." 

The  date  of  this  little  history  was  six  short  years 
ago.  Missouri,  the  fertile  State  beyond  the  river,  the 
forests  of  which  I  have  before  me  as  I  write,  was  then 
a  slave  State,  with  a  sparse  but  fiery  population  of 
slave-breeders  and  slave-dealers.  Nine  years  before 
that  time — that  is  to  say,  so  late  as  1851,  when  the 
world  was  gathering  for  its  jubilee  of  progress  in  Hyde 
Park — all  this  wide  region,  lying  westward  of  the  Mis- 
souri, from  this  river  bank  to  the  Rocky  Mountains, 
was  without  a  name.     A  host  of  wild  Indian  tribes. 


20  ^^^W  AMERICA. 

Kansas,  Cheyennes,  Arappahoes,  hunted  over  the  great 
l^lains;  following  the  elk,  the  buftalo,  the  antelope,  to 
their  secret  haunts.  Two  great  lines  of  travel  had 
been  cut  through  the  prairies  ;  one  leading  southward 
to  Santa  F^  in  New  Mexico,  the  other  running  west- 
ward, by  the  Platte  River,  toward  Salt  Lake  and  San 
Francisco ;  but  the  country  was  still  an  Indian  hunt- 
ing-ground, in  which  the  white  man  could  not  lawfull}'- 
reside.  Half  a  dozen  forts  had  been  thrown  up  by  the 
Government  in  this  Indian  country — Fort  Bent,  Fort 
Laramie,  Fort  Leavenworth,  Fort  Calhoun,  Old  Fort 
— but  rather  with  a  view  to  guarding  the  red  man's 
rights  than  to  helping  the  white  traveler  and  trader  in 
their  need.  But  wdiile  the  people  of  all  nations  were 
assembling  in  Hyde  Park,  and  wondering  at  the  mag- 
nificent country  which  had  even  then  to  be  represented 
by  an  empty  space,  a  swarm  of  settlers  crossed  the 
Missouri  on  rafts  and  in  canoes,  seized  upon  the  bluifi 
between  Fort  Calhoun  and  Fort  Leavenworth,  threw 
up  camps  of  log-huts,  staked  out  the  finest  patches  o"^ 
land,  especially  those  on  the  banks  of  creeks  and 
pools,  and  so  laid  the  foundation  of  what  are  now  the 
populous  and  flourishing  towns  of  Omaha,  Nebraska, 
Atchison,  and  Leavenworth — cities  of  the  free  Terri- 
tory of  Nebraska,  of  the  free  State  of  Kansas. 

Then  commenced  along  the  whole  line  of  the  Mis- 
souri River,  that  fitful,  sanguinary  strife,  which  earned 
for  this  region  the  mourning  epithet  of  Bleeding  Kan- 
sas. It  lasted  six  years,  and  was  a  prelude  to  the  Civil 
War. 

Lawrence  and  Leavenworth  were  the  results  of  this 
battle,  of  which  Sam's  little  story  may  be  taken  as  a 
sample. 

Every  one  is  aware  that  in  the  great  feud  between 
the  free-soilers  and  the   slaveholders  of  America,  a 


BLEEDING   KANSAS.  21 

truce  had  been  made  in  1820,  which  is  known  in  his- 
tory as  the  Missouri  Compromise  ;  by  which  act  it  was 
arranged  between  the  parties  tliat  slavery  should  never 
be  introduced  into  any  western  region  lying  beyond 
36°  30'  of  north  latitude,  excepting  into  such  portion 
of  Missouri  as  happened  to  stand  above  that  line.  For 
thirty  years  that  truce  held  good,  and  even  when  the 
war  of  freedom  raged  against  slavery  on  other  fields, 
the  Missouri  Compromise  was  respected  in  the  West. 
As  the  final  conflict  neared,  the  two  parties  in  the 
struggle  showed  an  equal  discontent  with  that  act  of 
truce.  The  slaveowners  in  Missouri,  having  an  excep- 
tional advantage  in  their  State  of  settling  with  their 
slaves  above  the  prohibited  line,  desired  to  carry  their 
domestic  institution  straight  backward  through  the 
country  in  their  rear  to  the  foot  of  the  Rocky  Mount- 
ains, even  if  they  should  not  be  able  to  carry  it  thence 
to  the  Pacific  Ocean.  All  the  South  went  with  them 
in  their  plans,  though  their  action  was  in  open  con- 
flict with  the  law.  Secret  societies  sprang  up  in  many 
States — Blue  Lodges,  Social  Bands,  Sons  of  the  South, 
and  many  more,  all  pledged  to  aid  these  planters  in 
carrying  slavery  westward  of  the  Missouri  Hiver,  in 
the  teeth  of  their  own  compromise,  in  violation  of 
their  own  truce. 

The  slaveholders  of  Missouri  won  one  victory  with- 
out a  shot,  in  quietly,  by  a  local  act,  which  attracted 
no  attention  either  in  Boston  or  in  'New  York,  extend- 
ing their  own  frontier  westward,  from  the  line  drawn 
north  and  south  through  Kansas  City,  up  to  that  of  the 
river  bank;  adding  six  large  and  now  populous  coun- 
ties to  their  State,  and  consequently  to  the  area  of  the 
slave  empire.  This  act  was  absolutely  illegal;  but  no 
cue  in  the  eastern  cities  noted  it  until  the  bills  effect- 
ing the  change  had  become  law,  and  the  district  had 


22  NEW  A3IERICA. 

been  peopled  with  masters  and  their  slaves.  The  game 
appeared  to  be  wholly  in  their  hands.  From  this  new 
slave  soil,  which  lies  on  the  opposite  bank,  in  front  of 
my  window,  Blue  Lodges,  Social  Bands,  and  Sons  of 
the  South  streamed  over  into  these  Delaware  reserves, 
into  these  Kansas  hunting-grounds ;  each  boss,  accom- 
panied by  his  sons  and  his  negroes,  proceeding  to  help 
himself  to  the  choicest  lots.  From  St.  Louis  to  New 
Orleans,  their  courage  was  applauded,  their  success 
predicted.  In  "Washington,  the  slave-dealing  senators, 
instead  of  calling  these  Missourian  planters  to  account, 
and  carrying  out  the  law  against  them,  sustained  them 
in  this  outrage  on  the  free  States.  By  a  course  of 
partisan  agitations  they  procured  a  fresh  compromise, 
in  which  it  was  agreed  that  the  question  of  slavery 
should  be  referred  back,  generally,  to  the  people  of 
any  unorganized  country  claiming  to  come  within  the 
Union  either  as  a  Territory  or  as  a  State.  Such  an  act 
was  supposed  by  the  planters  of  Missouri  and  Ken- 
tucky to  be  an  open  declaration  that  Kansas  and  Ne- 
braska were  to  be  organized  as  slave  territories.  But 
now  New  England  came  into  the  field.  The  conver- 
sion of  Nebraska  from  free  soil  into  slave  soil,  would 
have  carried  the  line  of  slavery,  in  the  western  coun- 
try, as  high  north  as  Boston  !  A  Northern  Emigrant 
Aid  Society  was  founded  in  Massachusetts ;  sturdy 
farmers,  fervent  professors,  youthful  poets,  yoked 
horses  to  their  wagons  and  pushed  across  the  conti- 
nent toward  the  Missouri,  sworn  to  settle  on  the  new 
Lidian  lands,  to  accept  the  compromise  of  Congress, 
and,  in  their  quality  of  free  citizens,  to  vote  a  free 
constitution  for  Kansas.  The  Blue  Lodges  were  al- 
ready hutted  at  Leavenworth  and  Atchison ;  and  when 
the  first  New  Englander  crossed  the  stream,  being  un- 
able to  answer  these  sentinels  that  he  owned  any  nig- 


BLEEDING  KANSAS.  23 

gers,  they  placed  him  in  an  open  boat,  without  food, 
without  oars,  and  sent  him  floating  down  the  river 
amid  derisive  shouts  and  threats.  A  meetino^  of  Sons 
of  the  South  was  called  in  Westport,  on  the  Kansas 
border,  but  within  the  limits  of  Missouri,  at  wdiich, 
after  fiery  eloquence,  the  following  resolution  was 
unanimously  carried : 

"  That  this  association  will,  whenever  called  upon 
by  any  of  the  citizens  of  Kansas  Territory,  hold  itself 
in  readiness  together  to  assist  and  remove  any  and  all 
immigrants  who  go  there  under  the  auspices  of  the 
Northern  Emigrant  Aid  Society." 

The  "Squatter  Sovereign,"  a  news  sheet,  published 
in  the  town  of  Atchison  (founded  and  named  by  David 
Atchison,  Senator  of  Missouri),  put  forth  in  an  early 
number  this  declaration  of  the  planters : 

"  We  will  continue  to  lynch  and  hang,  tar  and 
feather,  and  drown  any  white-livered  abolitionist  who 
dares  to  pollute  our  soil." 

In  July,  1854,  thirty  ISTew  England  free-soilers  crossed 
the  river  in  open  boats;  they  were  well  armed,  and 
brought  with  them  tents  and  provisions.  Pushing  up 
the  Kansas  River,  they  rested  at  the  foot  of  a  fine  bluft', 
in  the  midst  of  a  rolling  prairie,  covered  with  flowers. 
Pitching  their  tents,  and  beginning  to  fell  wood  for 
shanties,  they  called  the  place  at  which  they  camped 
the  City  of  Lawrence,  from  the  name  of  their  popular 
purse-holder.  In  August,  they  were  joined  by  seventy 
more,  men,  like  themselves,  well  armed  and  resolute, 
prepared  to  found  that  city  and  to  free  that  soil.  Now 
had  arrived  the  time  for  the  Missouri  men  to  show 
their  spirit;  a  hundred  Yankees,  separated  from  their 
friends  by  six  great  States,  had  come  into  their  midst, 
daring  them  to  carry  out  their  threat  of  either  hang- 
ing, lynching,  or  drowning  everyone  w^ho  should  cross 


24  ^£!W  A  ME  BIG  A. 

luto  Kansas  without  a  negro  slave  in  his  train.  Three 
hundred  and  fifty  Sons  of  the  South  took  horse,  dashed 
over  the  shallow  stream,  and,  having  early  in  the  morn- 
ing formed  a  camp  and  thrown  out  pickets,  sent  word 
into  Lawrence  that  these  new  settlers  must  quit  the 
Territory,  promising  never  to  return.  Three  hours 
were  given  the  free-soilers  in  which  to  pack  their 
things  and  get  ready  to  march.  A  Yankee  bugle  sum- 
moned the  immigrants  to  arms;  a  civil  but  decisive 
answer  was  returned  to  the  Missouri  camp  ;  and  when 
the  Sons  of  the  South  perceived  that  the  Yankees 
were  ready  for  the  fray,  and  would  be  likely  to  fight  it 
out  so  long  as  a  man  could  hold  his  piece,  they  began 
to  suspect  each  other,  to  doubt  the  goodness  of  their 
carbines,  and  to  steal  away.  Dusk  found  their  camp 
much  thinned  ;  dawn  found  it  broken  up  and  gone. 

From  that  day  Lawrence  has  grown  and  prospered. 
More  than  once  it  has  fallen  into  Missourian  hands,  and 
the  marks  of  grape  and  canister  are  seen  upon  some  of 
its  buildings  ;  but  its  free-soil  people  have  never  been 
driven  out,  and  it  is  now  a  charming  little  city,  with 
the  brightness  of  a  New  England  town.  It  is  the  cap- 
ital of  a  free  State. 

Li  these  streets  of  Leavenworth  many  a  fierce  battle 
has  been  fought ;  the  Sons  of  the  South  living  close  at 
hand,  in  a  score  of  villages  on  yon  wooded  banks. 
Blood  has  been  shed  in  almost  every  lane,  especially 
at  the  voting  times,  when  thousands  of  the  Missou- 
rians  used  to  come  across  in  boats,  take  possession  of 
the  polling-booths,  and  return  an  overwhelming  but 
fictitious  majority  in  favor  of  a  slave  constitution.  One 
good  citizen,  William  Phillips,  an  advocate,  was  seized 
by  Sons  of  the  South  for  having  signed  a  protest,  as 
a  lawyer,  against  the  frauds  which  had  disgraced  the 
election;  was  forced  into  a  boat  and  pulled  up  the 


BLEEDING   KANSAS.  25 

river  to  Weston,  on  the  Missouri  side,  where  he  was 
first  tarred  and  feathered,  then  ridden  on  a  rail,  after- 
ward put  up  to  auction  as  a  slave,  and  finally  knocked 
down,  amid  frantic  yells  and  menaces,  to  a  negro- 
buyer.  On  his  escape  from  "Weston,  Phillips  returned 
to  Leavenworth,  resolute  in  his  free-soil  faith,  and 
ready  for  the  post  of  danger  in  every  fray. 

In  another  week  from  this  date,  it  will  be  just  ten 
years  since  a  gang  of  Blue  Lodges  started  from  the 
opposite  bank,  landed  on  this  levde,  took  possession  of 
the  town,  which  lay  completely  at  their  mercy  for  many 
hours,  and  under  pretense  of  searching  for  arms — an 
utterly  illegal  search  on  their  part — plundered  and  in- 
sulted the  free-soilers  in  every  house.  Phillips  refused 
to  allow  these  fellows  to  come  inside  his  door,  on  which 
the  house  was  attacked  and  its  owner  killed.  Before 
he  fell,  Phillips  had  shot  two  of  his  assailants  dead. 
His  house  was  burned  to  the  ground,  along  with  many 
other  dwellings ;  and  every  free-soiler  who  could  be 
found  in  Leavenworth  was  put  on  board  a  steamer 
and  sent  down  the  river. 

Yet  the  New  Englauders  rallied  to  their  flag,  with 
growing  numbers  and  glowing  passions,  becoming 
genuine  settlers  on  the  land,  which  the  Missouri  men 
were  not.  Here,  and  elsewhere,  it  has  been  shown 
that  slavery,  as  a  social  system,  lacked  the  solid  fiber 
of  a  colonizing  power.  Slaves  could  not  work  the 
prairie  land  to  profit;  negroes,  toiling  under  a  master's 
eye  and  whip,  required  the  rich  soils  of  Mississippi 
and  Alabama.  With  a  pistol  in  one  hand,  a  hoe  in 
the  other,  these  stout  I^ew  Hampshire  and  Massa- 
chusetts lads  fought  on,  toiled  on,  not  only  until  they 
had  gained  a  fair  majority  in  the  ballot-boxes,  but  won 
a  full  ascendency  in  the  open  field. 

One  of  the  comic  incidents  of  this  war  was  the  bat- 


26  ^EW  AMERICA. 

tie  of  Black  Jack,  wlicu  Captain  Claj  Pute  (ominous 
name!),  a  Virginian,  who  gave  himself  airs  as  a  pro- 
fessional soldier,  put  liimsclf  at  the  head  of  iifty-six 
Sons  of  the  South,  and  threatened  to  cat  up  old  John 
Brown,  of  Osawatomie  (afterward,  unhappily,  of  Har- 
per's Ferry),  and  his  band  of  twenty-seven  frec-soilers. 
Pate  had  organized  his  force  like  a  little  army,  with 
its  horse  and  foot,  its  camp  equipage,  and  its  luggage 
train;  and  having  just  then  been  plundering  Palmyra, 
a  free-soil  city,  his  baggage  mules  were  heavily  laden 
with  the  spoils  of  war.  Brown  made  a  fair  light  by 
going  out  into  the  open  plains.  After  a  lusty  tug.  Clay 
Pate  surrendered  to  the  tough  old  fellow — himself, 
with  his  sword,  his  luggage  train,  all  the  spoils  of  Pal- 
myra, twenty-one  hale  men,  the  Avhole  of  his  dead  and 
wounded,  and  his  gorgeous  tent. 

In  1861,  a  few  months  after  these  citizens  of  Leav- 
enworth had  fought  the  battle  for  my  friend  Sam  on 
this  levde  under  my  windows,  the  wounds  of  bleeding 
Kansas  were  stanched  and  healed  by  her  admission 
into  the  Union  as  a  free  State. 


OVERLAND   MAIL.  27 


CHAPTER  III. 

OVERLAND    MAIL. 

The  Overland  Mail  is  one  of  the  many  great  facts 
of  the  Great  Republic,  The  postal  returns  tell  you 
how  many,  you  can  imagine  how  important,  are  the 
letters  going  westward  from  the  Atlantic  cities  to  the 
Pacific  cities.     This  mail  is  an  Imperial  institution. 

While  we  were  yet  in  London,  dreaming  of  the  de- 
tails of  our  trip  to  the  Rocky  Mountains,  it  was  always 
comforting  to  know  that  in  going  out  among  the  wild 
Cheyennes  and  Sioux,  we  shoukl  find  ourselves  traveling 
in  company  with  the  Imperial  Mail,  Glancing  at  maps, 
scanning  the  vast  spaces  over  which  Cheyenne,  Sioux, 
Comanche,  and  Arappahoe  roam,  one  is  apt  to  think 
there  may  lurk  some  spice  of  danger  in  such  a  journey; 
but  then  comes  in  the  assurino;  thou2:ht  that  all  along; 
this  route  across  the  Prairies,  across  the  Mountains,  the 
American  mails  are  being  daily  sent  under  powerful 
escorts  of  mounted  men.  Magic  lies  in  this  word 
"daily."  That  which  is  daily  done  must  be  safely 
done.  Would  he  not  be  considered  a  sorry  fellow  who 
should  fear  to  travel,  even  along  a  road  infested  by 
Sioux  and  rattlesnakes,  under  escort  of  United  States 
troops  in  company'  with  the  Imperial  Mail?  When 
Speaker  Colfax  drove  across  the  Plains  last  fiiU,  to 
study  the  Indian  question,  the  Mining  question,  and 
the  Mormon  question,  among  living  Indians,  Miners, 
and  Mormons,  instead  of  reading  about  them  in  govern- 
ment reports,  he  had  only  o)\e  general  officer,  one 
colonel,  and  twenty-four  sabers  galloping  round  his 


28  NEW  AMERICA, 

coach;  yet  he  has  publicly  confessed  that — although 
the  redskins  frightened  him  a  little,  and  delayed  liis 
journey  much,  by  plundering  tlie  stations  in  his  front, 
and  threatening  every  moment  to  have  liis  scalp — he 
got  safely  through  to  Denver  and  Salt  Lake. 

Colfax,  it  is  true,  was  a  State  official,  and  besides 
having  his  escort,  he  had  also  with  him  a  considerable 
party  of  well-armed  men.  We  are  strangers,  only  two 
in  number  (so  far  as  we  can  see);  we  are  but  slightly 
armed  with  Colts — since  we  have  all  along  been  dream- 
ing, that  if  any  fighting  is  to  be  done,  it  wull  be  the 
work  of  our  gallant  escort,  riding  by  our  sides  in  de- 
fense of  the  Imperial  Mail. 

At  Leavenworth  we  find  the  mail-agents,  to  whom 
we  have  letters  from  their  chief  in  New  York — as  we 
have  to  every  one  employed  by  the  Overland  Mail 
Company  along  these  tracks.  ^STothing  can  be  more 
polite,  more  teasing,  than  their  answers  to  our  ques- 
tions. Everything  shall  be  done  for  us  that  can  be, 
under  the  circumstances.  We  have  come  at  an  un- 
lucky time.  If  we  had  only  started  a  month  sooner — 
if  we  had  only  stayed  a  month  later — all  would  have 
been  right.  As  it  is,  they  will  do  their  best;  we  may 
find  things  a  little  rough  in  the  plains,  but  the  agents 
have  hardly  any  doubt  that  we  shall  get  through  to  our 
journey's  end. 

Such  words  rather  pique  our  fancies;  since  our 
health,  our  comfort,  nay  our  lives,  depend  on  the  state 
of  these  plains.  The  fact  is,  the  old  road  by  way  of 
the  Platte  River  has  been  changed,  by  order  of  Con- 
gress, for  a  shorter  cut  through  the  vast  Indian  region 
of  the  Smoky  Hill  Fork;  a  shorter  course,  perhaps  a 
better  one,  if  the  road  had  only  first  been  made,  bridged, 
and  leveled;  and  if  the  Indian  tribes  who  hunt  bufialo 
and  antelope  across  it  had  been  either  driven  away  or 


OVERLAND   MAIL.  29 

negotiated  into  peace.     None  of  these  things  have  yet 
been  clone. 

Two  great  Unes  of  travel  have  been  driven  by  the 
white  men  through  these  plains:  (1)  the  Platte  road 
from  Omaha  and  Atchison,  by  way  of  Kearney,  Denver, 
and  Salt  Lake  City,  to  San  Francisco;  (2)  the  Arkansas 
route,  starting  from  Kansas  City,  and  running  by  Fort 
Atkinson  and  Fort  Wise  to  Puebla,  the  gold  regions 
of  Colorado,  and  thence  to  San  Francisco.  To  the  ex- 
istence of  these  two  roads  the  Indians  seem  to  have 
submitted  in  despair.  To  the  Platte  road,  they  have 
ceased  to  show  any  strong  opposition;  having  fought 
for  it  and  lost  it;  first  to  the  Mormon  pilgrims,  after- 
ward to  the  gold-seekers,  men  who  came  into  their 
country,  driving  before  them  trains  of  wagons,  in  bands 
of  eighty  or  a  liundred,  and  being  armed  with  rifles 
and  revolvers.  To  the  Arkansas  road,  they  nurse  a 
sharper  antipathy;  since  it  is  mainly  a  trial  road,  the 
right  to  travel  over  wdiich  has  been  purchased  from 
their  chiefs.  Still,  though  it  may  be  with  a  bad  grace, 
and  with  many  murmurs  and  protests,  they  have  shown, 
and  they  still  show,  themselves  ready  to  respect  the 
white  man  as  he  passes  through  their  lands  by  either 
of  these  two  routes.  But  in  the  vast  prairies  between 
these  tracks  lie  the  great  buffalo-runs,  wi^h  the  pas- 
tures feeding  nearly  all  that  remains  in  the  Indian 
territories  of  the  elk,  the  antelope,  and  the  black- 
tailed  deer.  The  buffalo-runs  are  also  theirs,  say  the 
Cheyennes  and  the  Arappahoes,  and  they  must  either 
keep  them  free  from  whites  or  else  die  like  dogs. 
They  say  they  will  not  die  before  the  pale-faces;  there- 
fore, they  must  keep  the  buffalo-runs  of  Kansas  and 
Colorado  (as  the  white  men  have  begun  to  call  the 
plains — on  paper)  free  from  intrusion  of  mail  and 
train. 

3* 


30  NEW  AMERICA 

JSTow  the  new  route  chosen  by  Congress  for  the 
Overland  Mail,  beyond  all  question  a  shorter  line  from 
St.  Louis  to  San  Francisco,  cuts  these  buffalo-runs, 
these  elk  and  antelope  pastures,  into  two  halves,  and, 
as  the  Cheyennes  and  their  allies,  the  Comanches, 
Ara[»pahoes,  Kiowas,  Sioux,  and  Appaches,  know  very 
well,  a  railway  is  being  built  in  the  rear  of  this  new 
mail;  a  railway  which  has  already  reached  Wamego, 
near  Fort  Riley.  jSTow  the  red  men,  knowing  that  the 
Mail  is  only  a  herald  of  much  worse,  and  that  the  rail- 
way bell  will  quickly  follow  the  crack  of  a  driver's 
whip,  have  called  a  counsel  of  their  tribes,  and  some 
say  have  concluded  to  try  war  against  the  whites  for 
the  possession  of  these  buffalo-runs.  When  a  railway 
engine,  say  the  braves,  shall  have  whistled  away  buffalo 
and  antelope,  it  will  be  idle  to  raise  the  hatchet  and 
draw  the  bow.  Now  is  the  time  for  them  to  strike ; 
now  or  never;  and,  even  if  a  few  of  the  old  men,  gray 
with  years  and  sad  with  sorrow,  should  recommend 
peace  with  their  white  neighbors,  resignation  to  the 
will  of  their  Great  Spirit,  the  young  braves,  proud  of 
their  own  strength,  ignorant  of  the  white  men's  num- 
bers and  resources,  are  said  to  be  all  for  war.  If  the 
pale-face  will  not  come  into  the  buffalo-runs,  they  will 
keep  the  peace;  if  he  will  build  his  ranch,  dig  his  well, 
and  crop  his  grass,  in  these  runs,  the  Cheyenne  and 
the  Arappahoes,  aided  by  their  brethren  of  the  prairie 
and  the  hill  country,  will  burn  his  shanty  and  take  his 
scalp. 

Such  are  the  rumors  that  we  hear  from  every  mouth 
in  Kansas.  A  small  party,  it  is  true,  affects  to  regard 
the  alarm  of  Leavenworth,  Lawrence,  and  "Wamego, 
as  a  panic  having  little  or  no  foundation;  partisans  of 
the  new  route  by  way  of  Smoky  Hill  Fork,  who  wish 
to  see  it  opened  and  kept  open.    They  are  few  in  num- 


OVERLAND  MAIL.  31 

ber;  and  I  do  not  hear  that  any  of  these  heroes  propose 
to  settle,  as  yet,  along  the  line  of  road  though  the 
Cheyenne  country. 

Now,  as  we  gather  from  tlic  mail-agents  in  Leaven- 
worth, this  is  the  line  along  which  we  are  to  go  a 
journey  of  thirteen  hundred  miles;  through  a  country 
the  greater  part  of  which  has  never  been  surveyed, 
through  which  there  is  no  road,  in  which  there  are 
many  streams  and  gullies,  but  not  a  single  bridge;  a 
country  in  which  the  hills,  the  creeks,  the  rivers,  have 
as  yet  received  no  names,  and  in  which  the  small  mili- 
tary posts  of  the  United  States,  themselves  only  corrals 
of  logs  and  planks,  lie  two  hundred  miles  apart. 

Still,  a  line  along  which  a  mail  so  magnificent  as 
that  sent  off  from  jSTew  York  to  San  Francisco,  not  to 
speak  of  the  thousand  inferior  cities  which  help  to  feed 
it,  has  been  running  its  daily  course,  must  be  at  least 
as  safe  as  the  line  from  Damascus  to  Banias.  But  on 
our  saying  this,  or  something  like  this,  to  a  friend  in 
Leavenworth,  we  learn,  to  our  surprise,  that  there  has 
never  been  a  daily  mail  runijing  along  that  line ;  that 
no  such  thing  has  ever  yet  been  attempted;  that  there 
are  neither  men  nor  mules  along  the  road  to  carry  a 
daily  mail;  that,  in  point  of  fact,  only  one  wagon,  an 
empty  w^agon,  has  gone  out  in  advance  of  us;  that  no 
one  knows  where  that  empty  wagon  is,  or  whether  it 
will  arrive  in  safety  beyond  the  plains. 

We  look  at  our  pistols,  and  feel  the  hair  on  our 
polls;  the  aspect  of  aft'airs  is  at  once  tragic  and  comic; 
and  the  kindly  jokes  of  our  friends  in  Pall  JMall,  as  to 
the  best  way  of  enjoying  a  scalping-knife,  are  coming 
rather  near  and  hot.  AYe  find,  too,  that  we  are  the 
only  passengers  booked  for  the  trip;  so  that  the  num- 
ber of  revolvers  coming  into  play,  in  case  of  a  scrim- 
mage with  the  Cheyennes  and  Comanches,  in  aid  of  the 


32  NEW  A  ME  HI  G  A. 

military  escort,  seems  to  be  reduced  to  two.  All  onr 
acquaintance  in  this  city  urge  us  to  get  more  and  better 
arms;  a  suggestion  in  which  the  mail-agents  cordially 
agree.  The  new  arm  of  the  West,  called  a  Smith  and 
Weston,  is  a  pretty  tool;  as  neat  a  machine  for  throw- 
ing slugs  into  a  man's  flesh  as  an  artist  in  murder  could 
desire  to  see.  Bowie-knives,  and  such  like,  being  use- 
less to  a  Britisher  who  may  have  seen,  but  never  prac- 
ticed, the  art  of  ripping  up  an  adversary's  side,  like  a 
Livornese  and  a  Valentian,  w^e  buy  a  couple  of  these 
Smith  and  Westons,  and  then  pay  our  fare  of  five  hun- 
dred dollars  to  Salt  Lake.  An  escort  of  veterans  from 
the  Potomac,  aided  by  these  six-shooters,  will  surely 
scare  away  all  the  Cheyennes,  Arappahoes,  and  Sioux, 
who  may  be  found  clamoring  about  the  rights  of  man, 
especially  about  the  rights  of  red  men,  in  the  bulfalo- 
runs. 

The  rail  has  been  laid  down  so  far  west  as  Wamego 
— the  Clear  Springs — so  called  from  the  fact  of  there 
being  no  water  in  the  village;  and  there  we  are  to  join 
the  stage  for  our  long  ride;  the  stage  being  an  old  and 
much-worn  Concord  coach;  a  vehicle  unknown  in 
Europe,  though  its  shapelessness  and  inconvenience 
might  be  hinted  by  cutting  off  the  coup^  of  a  French 
diligence,  and  bellying  out  the  rotundo,  until  it  could 
be  supposed  by  its  proprietor  big  enough  to  hold  nine 
persons.  This  coach,  when  we  come  to  it,  is  jammed 
full  of  mail-bags — forty-two  hundredweight  in  all — 
State  dispatciies,  love-letters,  orders,  bills  of  exchange, 
invoices  of  account,  all  sorts  of  lively  and  deadly  mis- 
siles, the  value  of  which  to  governor,  maid,  clerk, 
banker,  emigrant,  and  dealer  must  be  far  beyond 
price;  and  here  are  five  passengers  on  the  books  to 
take  their  chances  of  the  road  (three  of  them  being  a 
young  woman  and  two  babies),  who,  having  duly  paid 


OVERLAND   MAIL.  33 

their  fares  and  got  their  tickets,  have  a  right  to  he 
taken  on.  But  this  going  on  is  a  thing  impossible,  as  a 
glance  at  the  coach  and  the  mail-bags  tells  the  experi- 
enced eye  of  the  Wamego  agent.  What  shall  be  done? 
The  mail  must  go,  even  though  the  passengers  should 
have  to  wait  in  Wamego  for  a  month;  and  as  the 
driver  is  already  cracking  his  whip,  and  belching  out 
volleys  of  oaths,  which  the  lady  and  her  two  babies 
are  obliged  to  hear  (poor  things !),  the  agent  quickly 
makes  up  his  mind,  bids  us  get  aboard — men  and 
revolvers — says  one  sharp  word  to  the  driver,  when 
away  we  plunge  into  the  dust,  leaving  our  female 
fellow-traveler,  astonished,  protesting,  in  the  cloud  of 
mud  and  sand.  We  look  at  each  other  wonderingly; 
for  in  this  Paradise  of  Women,  a  petticoat  is  accus- 
tomed to  carry  all  things  before  it — the  best  room  at 
a  hotel,  the  highest  place  at  table,  the  first  seat  in  a 
coach,  in  spite  of  your  prior  right.  Ha!  the  revolvers 
have  done  it.  As  we  are  dashing  oft",  we  look  out  of 
window  for  the  troops  who  are  to  be  our  companions 
in  the  Cheyenne  country.  I^one  are  in  sight!  "The 
escort,"  says  the  agent,  "will  join  you  at  Junction 
City,  if  there  should  seem  to  be  any  need;  you  must 
consider  the  mail  as  starting  from  Junction  City;"  and 
as  he  courteously  Avaves  his  hand,  we  roll  away  into 
the  dust. 

In  a  couple  of  hours  we  pass  Fort  Riley;  in  two  or 
three  more  we  are  at  Junction  City;  a  city  of  six 
wooden  shanties,  where  we  alight  to  sup  off'  hot  cake, 
tea,  and  tomatoes;  and  about  an  hour  later,  in  the 
midst  of  a  pleasant  chat  with  the  landlord  of  our  hos- 
telry, we  hear  the  driver's  cry,  "On  board  !"  Eushing 
out  into  the  night,  our  belts  swung  round  us,  our  pis- 
tols loaded  for  the  fray,  we  find  that  our  big  Concord 
coach  has  been  exchanged  for  a  light  prairie  wagon, 


'M  NEW  AMERICA. 

smaller  in  size,  frailer  in  build,  without  a  door,  with 
very  bad  springs,  and  with  canvas  blinds  for  windows. 
Into  this  wag'on,  the  letter-bags  have  been  forced  by 
an  ingenious  violence,  the  art  of  which  is  only  known 
in  the  Western  country,  with  so  neat  a  finish  that  it 
would  seem  impossible  to  insert  two  human  beings 
between  the  mail-bags  and  the  wall.  But,  in  time,  by 
doubling  our  legs  across  each  other,  by  craning  our 
necks,  l)y  slinging  our  elbows  into  straps,  the  feat  is 
accomplished;  the  two  human  beings  aforenamed 
having  been  persuaded,  much  against  their  grain,  to 
wriggle  themselves  between  the  bags,  under  a  promise 
that  the  said  bags  will  shake  down  in  a  few  minutes 
so  as  to  give  plenty  of  room.  This  is  not  easy,  we 
suggest  to  each  other,  since  we  have  our  own  small 
litter  of  pistols,  books,  maps,  brandy-flasks,  shawls, 
night-caps,  potted  meats,  cigar-cases,  sticks,  umbrellas, 
and  the  like,  about  our  feet.  We  begin  to  fear,  that 
unless  the  load  shall  happen  to  shake  down  considera- 
bly, we  may  chance  to  have  a  bad  week  of  it. 

But  see,  this  fellow  is  about  to  start,  though  the 
escort  is  not  in  sight! 

Whew!  We  speak  to  the  agent:  "Well,"  says  he, 
in  eiiect,  "the  officer  in  charge  will  not  lend  us  any 
troops;  his  command  is  very  low  just  now;  the 
country  is  disturbed  by  Indians  in  his  front  and  flank; 
he  has  enough  to  do  to  hold  his  own  in  the  post. 
But,"  the  good-natured  agent  adds,  for  our  comfort, 
"you  will  find  the  road  all  right;  some  troops  went 
up  the  plains  yesterday;  you  will  pass  them  ahead; 
good-by!"    And  w^e  are  oft'. 

The  truth  now  flashes  on  our  minds  like  a  revela- 
tion : 

We  are  the  escort ! 

Not  a  soul  goes  out  with  the  mail,  either  now  or 


OVERLAND   MAIL.  35 

through  the  journey,  except  the  boy  who  drives  the 
mules  (changed  every  forty  or  fifty  miles  on  the  road); 
no  escort,  no  mail-agent,  nobody  save  ourselves.  I 
cannot  say  that  in  my  travels  I  have  ever  seen  the 
fellow  of  this  prairie  mail.  In  the  most  dangerous 
district  crossed  by  traveler  and  trader  west  of  Chinese 
Tartary,  the  New  York  and  St.  Louis  people  trust  the 
most  important  mail  leaving  any  city  in  the  world 
excepting  that  from  London,  without  a  guard.  No 
one  doubts  that  the  Cheyennes  and  Sioux  are  now 
holding  council  on  these  plains,  even  if  they  have  not 
as  yet  gone  out  upon  the  war-path;  nay,  that  they 
have  given  notice,  after  their  Indian  manner,  of  an 
intention  to  stop  the  road;  yet,  the  mail  is  going  into 
their  buffalo-runs,  in  spite  of  all  warnings,  without  a 
single  guard,  even  such  an  old  fogie  as  used  to 
blow  his  horn  and  shoulder  his  blunderbuss  on 
Hounslow  Heath. 

Perhaps  I  am  forgetting  the  confidence  which  they 
place  in  their  English  guard.  They  know  that  we  are 
armed;  they  feel  a  reasonable  certainty  that  we  know 
how  to  use  our  tools.  "The  road  is  a  little  rough," 
says  one  of  the  stock-keepers  as  we  roll  from  his 
station  into  the  black  midnight  and  the  unknown 
prairie;  "but  the  Government  will  do  nothing  for  us, 
until  it  has  been  roused  by  a  great  disaster;  they  care 
nothing  for  a  few  lives,  especially  for  the  lives  of  poor 
teamsters  and  drivers."  One  passing  friend  rather 
hopes  that  we  may  be  scalped,  as  he  thinks  that  such 
an  event  might  create  a  pleasant  and  profitable  sensa- 
tion in  ISTew  York. 

We  have  paid  five  hundred  dollars  for  escorting  the 
United  States  mail  to  Salt  Lake.  It  is  a  high  price, 
but  the  privilege  might  be  worth  the  cost,  if  we  had  a 
mind  to  use  the  facilities  which  fall  about  our  feet  and 


36  ^EW  A3IERICA. 

court  us  to  see  tlicm.  This  mail  is  wholly  at  our 
mercy.  Six  nights  and  days  we  are  shut  up  with  our 
pistols  and  the  United  States  correspondence;  our  sole 
companion  hcing  the  boy  outside,  who  cannot  see  into 
the  wagon  when  the  flaps  are  down.  Li  one  place  a 
bag  falls  out  of  the  wagon,  and  would  certainly  be  left 
behind  on  the  plain,  but  that  we  call  the  driver  to  stop 
and  pick  it  up.  In  another  place  one  of  the  bags 
bursts  open,  when  a  stream  of  letters  comes  flowing 
about  our  feet.  We  have  only  to  help  ourselves;  read 
what  Ave  like,  pocket  what  we  like.  Might  not  the 
secrets  of  a  single  letter  be  worth,  in  some  hands, 
more  than  the  five  hundred  dollars  we  have  paid  to 
guard  them  ? 


CHAPTER  rV. 


THE    PRAIRIES. 


Of  all  the  States  and  Territories  wliich  still  exist  on 
paper,  Kansas  may  be  described  as  the  Prairie  State. 
Nebraska,  Colorado,  and  the  Indian  territory  are  cov- 
ered by  prairies;  great  grassy  plains,  not  level,  as 
many  persons  think,  but  rolling  uplands,  rising  from 
the  river  to  the  mountains  in  a  series  of  ascending  bil- 
lows, always  of  gentle  grade,  often  of  enormous  sweep. 
But  Kansas  is-  beyond  dispute  the  region  in  which 
these  plains  display  themselves  on  the  largest  scale, 
and  with  their  points  most  perfect. 

On  the  old  maps,  which  show  the  natural  history  of 
each  section  of  the  Great  Republic,  the  district  now 


THE   PRAIRIES.  37 

called  Kansas  will  be  fouud  iigured  Dy  a  buffalo,  aa 
l^ebraska  is  marked  by  an  antelope,  Iowa  by  a  beaver, 
Utah  by  a  boar.  Across  these  plains,  up  from  the 
Indian  territory  on  the  south,  come  the  wild  and  mul- 
titudinous herds  on  which  the  Cheyennes,  the  Arappa- 
hoes,  the  Comanches,  and  the  Kiowas  feed. 

For  two  hundred  miles  westward  from  the  Missouri, 
the  plains  are  green  with  trees,  most  of  all  so  along 
the  lines  of  the  Kansas  River  and  its  many  crocks  and 
inlets.  The  wood  is  hickory,  walnut,  oak,  and  water- 
elm.  Maple  and  chestnut  are  not  found  in  the  plains. 
The  land  is  alive  with  shrubs  and  flowers;  among 
which  flourish  wikl  marigolds,  shamrock,  water-lily  (in 
the  pools),  rosin-weed,  stink-weed,  and  sunflowers. 
These  sunflowers  of  the  "West  are  not  the  tawny  gauds 
of  our  cottage  gardens;  big  and  brazen  bachelors, 
flourishing  on  a  single  stock;  but  little  golden  flowers, 
clustering  in  bunches,  and,  like  our  buttercui^s,  num- 
berless as  the  stars  of  heaven.  In  many  parts,  the 
prairie  is  alive  with  their  golden  light.  A  white  frame 
house — on  this  side  of  the  river  called  a  ranch — peeps 
out  here  and  there  from  beneath  the  foliage,  having  its 
green  blinds,  its  bit  of  garden,  its  sheep-fold.  Herds 
of  horses  can  be  seen  on  the  rolling  plateau.  Here 
you  have  a  drove  of  cattle,  there  a  long  wagon  train. 
Anon  we  pass  an  Indian  village,  where  some  families 
of  Delawares,  sent  out  from  those  Atlantic  forests 
now  occupied  by  the  quays  and  palaces  of  Dover, 
Baltimore,  and  Philadelphia,  have  taken  a  fitful  and 
precarious  root  in  the  soil.  These  Delawares  have 
long  since  buried  the  hatchet,  put  on  pantaloons,  for- 
gotten the  use  of  war-paint.  Some  of  them  make 
farmers;  living  on  friendly  terms  with  their  pale 
neighbors;  even  marrying  their  sons  into  tne  families 
of  whites.     We  pass  a  Shawnee  village,  of  which  the 

4 


38  NEW  AMERICA. 

bame  things  may  be  said.  White  men's  ranches  stand 
among  them;  dangerous  neighbors  to  these  natives; 
for  the  pale-face,  finding  his  way  through  tlie  cracks 
and  crannies  of  Indian  character,  making  himself  first 
useful,  then  formidable,  to  the  tribe,  commonly  ends 
the  connection  with  them  by  becoming  lord  and  owner 
of  their  lands.^ 

The  air  is  warm  and  sweet;  a  perfume  of  prairie 
flowers  mingling  with  the  distant  snows  of  the  sierras. 
The  sky  is  intensely  blue,  with  none  of  that  golden 
haze  w^hich  frets  the  eye  in  our  own  southern  land- 
scapes. A  patch  of  cloud,  intense  and  vivid  in  its 
whiteness,  dots  and  relieves  the  grand  monotony  of 
azure,  so  as  to  combine  in  one  field  of  view  the  dis- 
tinctive beauties  of  a  Sicilian  and  an  English  sky. 

As  we  draw  away  from  the  river,  the  woodland 
scenery  disappears ;  the  country  opens  to  the  right  and 
left;  the  plains  swell  languidlj^  into  greater  breadths 
of  upland.  About  the  creeks  and  pools,  for  the  most 
part  dry  on  the  surface,  there  are  still  some  shrubs ; 
the  wild  convolvulus  is  common ;  also  the  Virginian  ' 
creeper;  more  than  all  others,  a  plant  called  the  rosin- 
weed.  This  rosin-weed  appears  to  be  jSTature's  choice 
in  the  way  of  verdure  and  adornment.  When  the 
ground  is  either  cleared  by  fire,  or  cut  by  the  prairie 
breaker,  the  rosin-weed  disappears;  the  fire-weed 
springs  up  in  its  place,  and  dies  in  its  turn  after  two 
or  three  crops,  in  some  places  after  one  crop ;  when 
this  second  weed  is  succeeded  by  the  tickle-grass. 
(P.  S. — Don't  let  the  tickle-grass  get  up  your  legs — for 
it  seems  to  be  alive;  to  know  you  don't  like  it — and  to 
creep  up  your  pantaloons  the  faster  you  fret  and 
worry.)  After  this  grass  come  three  or  four  species  of 
wild  grasses ;  and  after  these  fertilizers  sown  by  IST a- 
ture   have   dropped   their  decaying  blades   into   the 


THE  PRAIRIES.  39 

gronnd,  the  fbrnier  may  come  with  his  rake  and  his 
seed  to  a  soil  made  ready  for  his  use. 

Driving  on  night  and  day  (as  men  must  drive  who 
have  charge  of  an  imperial  mail),  we  begin  to  leave 
all  trace  of  man  and  his  arts,  save  one,  behind.  A 
prairie  hen  chicks  in  the  wild  sage;  a  rattlesnake  coils 
among  the  suntlowers ;  a  wolf  steals  noiselessly  along 
the  road ;  dead  mules,  dead  horses,  dead  oxen,  strew 
the  path,  on  which  the  carrion-crow,  the  raven,  and 
the  wolf,  find  food ;  these  white  horns  and  skeletons 
of  man's  servants  being  often  the  only  traces  of  his 
ever  having  found  his  way  across  the  plains. 

By  daring  ingenuity  and  patience,  the  Western 
trader  has  pushed  a  way  for  himself  across  this  diffi- 
cult trail  of  land;  making  an  opening  for  trade  and 
travel  between  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  Oceans.  He 
has  done  this  feat  as  a  private  man,  without  help  from 
the  State,  without  cheers  from  any  learned  body,  at  a 
cost  of  blood  and  money  which  can  never  be  counted 
upon  earth ;  and  for  this  reason ;  the  Western  man 
thinks  nothing  of  blood,  not  much  of  treasure,  when 
he  regards  them  as  being  invested  in  a  business  that 
will  pay.  Holding  his  life  in  his  hand,  this  reckless, 
jovial  fellow,  swearing  overmuch,  brimming  with  help 
when  help  is  of  use,  is  careless  of  blood — either  his 
own  or  yonrs — far  beyond  an  Arab,  almost  beyond  a 
Chinese.  This  path  through  the  prairie  has  been 
paved  by  him,  again  and  again,  with  bones;  but  the 
trace  of  his  passage,  of  his  suffering,  dies  away  out  of 
sight  with  the  autumnal  flowers.  ISTature  is  here  too 
strong  for  man  to  do  more  than  throw  a  trail  upon  her 
landscape,  which  may  show  itself  for  a  day  in  the 
bunch-grass,  among  the  gray  sand,  and  then  vanish 
from  sight  like  the  track  of  a  ship  at  sea.  The  prairie 
is  not  man's  home.    Even  if  he  had  time  to  plant  and 


40  ^EW  AMERTGA. 

reap  it,  lie  could  hardly  grow  a  blade  of  grass,  a  stalk 
of  Indian-corn,  on  these  open  flats,  where  myriads  of 
locusts  clatter  through  the  air,  devouring  in  their  hun- 
ger every  green  leaf  and  twig.  "VVe  ride  past  a  lonely 
ranch,  near  which  the  daring  and  hopeful  tenant  had 
planted  a  field  with  corn,  for  his  winter  food.  Look  at 
the  poor  man's  harvest !  Legions  of  locusts  are  upon 
his  crop;  and  every  ear  that  should  have  made  him 
bread  has  been  picked  away. 

In  these  uplands,  Nature  is  lord  and  king.  Snipes 
and  plovers  abound;  blackbirds,  carrion-crows,  ravens, 
and  vultures  are  also  seen.  Flowers  are  still  common; 
most  of  all,  the  dwarf  sunflower,  which  is  sown  so 
thickly  through  the  landscape  as  to  give  it  a  shimmer 
of  burning  gold.  The  dwarf  sunflower  is,  in  fact,  the 
prairie  flower;  lighting  up  the  face  of  Nature  every- 
where in  our  route,  from  the  Missouri  River  to  the 
Great  Salt  Lake;  in  some  parts  growing  low  and 
stunted,  the  stalk  not  a  foot  long,  the  flower  not 
higher  than  a  common  marigold,  in  others  rising  ten 
or  twelve  feet  high,  with  clusters  of  flowers  each  as  big 
as  a  peony.  Ants  are  toiling  in  the  ground  ;  the  little 
prairie  dogs — comedians  of  the  waste — sit  crowing  on 
their  mounds  of  earth,  until  we  drive  close  up  to  them, 
when  they  utter  a  quick  laugh,  and  with  a  shout  of 
mockery  plunge  into  their  holes  bead  downward,  dis- 
appearing from  our  sight  with  a  last  merry  wag  of 
their  tails.  Owls,  prairie-dogs,  and  rattlesnakes  live  on 
the  most  friendly  terms  with  each  other;  the  owls  and 
snakes  dwelling  in  the  prairie-dogs'  holes,  and  some- 
times, I  fancy,  eating  the  dogs  when  they  happen  to 
be  short  of  food.  It  may  only  be  a  superstition ;  but 
the  teamsters  and  drivers  across  fhe  plains  have  a  fixed 
belief  that  flesh  of  the  prairie-dog  is  poisonous  in  a 
peculiar  way,  and  that  men  who  eat  of  it  become  in- 


THE   PRAIRIES.  41 

sane.  Once,  in  a  stress  of  hnnger,  I  was  obliged  to 
kill  one. 

"  Lord  !"  cries  the  boy  at  the  ranch,  "you  will  never 
eat  that,  sir?" 

"Why  not?  I  am  hungry  enough  to  eat  a  Chey- 
enne." 

"AVell,  sir,"  says  the  lad,  "we  prairie  folks  consider 
the  owl,  the  rattlesnake,  and  the  prairie-dog  to  be  all 
of  a  kith  and  kin,  the  Devil's  own  spawn,  and  that 
anybody  who  eats  them  will  go  mad." 

"Put  him  in  the  pan;  I  must  take  my  chance." 
The  flesh  proved  to  be  delicious,  with  something  like 
the  taste  of  squirrel ;  and  on  seeing  me  suck  the 
savory  bone,  the  prairie-boy  instantly  seized  and  de- 
voured a  leg.  I  hope  the  teamsters  and  drivers  will 
continue  in  their  want  of  faith  as  to  the  wholesome- 
ness  of  prairie-dogs;  for  the  antics  of  these  little  ani- 
mals should  make  them  dear  to  every  man  who  has  to 
cross  these  plains,  in  which  the  supply  of  comedy  is 
extremely  scant. 

After  passing  Fort  Ellsworth — a  collection  of  wooden 

shanties,  in  which  lie  a  hundred  men,  not  very  well 

armed  (we  hear),  and  careful  to  keep  their  feet  within 

bounds,  leaving  the  Cheyennes  and  Arappahoes  alone 

— we  have  before  us  a  stretch  of  two  hundred  and 

twenty  miles  of  dangerous  country,  without  a  single 

post  for  its  protection  ;  a  country  in  which  there  is  no 

town,  no  camp,  no  ranch,  except  the  log  stables,  now 

being  built  for  the  overland  mules.     "We  are  alone 

with  ITature  and  the  imperial  mail.    Around  us,  we 

have  many  signs  that  the  Cheyennes  and  Arappahoes 

are  hovering  nigh ;  at  times  we  catch  visible  evidence 

of  a  scout  on  some  distant  ridge  of  the  Smoky  Hill, 

and  see  the  curl  of  blue  smoke  from  some  neighboring 

creek. 

4* 


42  N^^V  AMERICA. 

"We  are  now  between  Big  Creek  and  Big  Timber 
Station,  in  the  very  heart  of  the  wikl  game  country ; 
a  country  of  long,  low,  rolling  hills,  covered  Avith  a 
short  sweet  grass — bunch-grass — on  which  the  buffalo 
loves  to  feed.  We  have  ceased  tiring  at  rattlesnakes 
and  prairie  chickens;  reserving  our  cartridges  for  the 
nobler  uses  of  self-defense ;  thongh  we  are  tempted, 
now  and  then,  to  try  a  shot  at  some  elk,  or  antelope, 
or  black-tailed  deer.  The  great  game  being  buffaloes, 
against  the  tough  hides  of  which  our  small  six-shooters 
are  of  no  avail,  Ave  sit  quietly  in  our  wagon  Avatching 
the  herds  troop  by;  in  lines,  in  companies,  in  droves, 
in  armies,  the  black  and  shaggy  beasts  go  thundering 
in  our  front ;  sometimes  from  north  to  south,  some- 
times from  south  to  north ;  but  always  scudding  in 
our  front,  and  ahvays  across  our  line  of  march.  The 
plains  are  teeming  with  life;  most  of  all  Avith  buffalo 
bulls  and  cows.  For  forty  hours  we  have  now  had 
them  alAA'ays  in  our  sight;  thousands  on  thousands, 
tens  of  thousands  after  tens  of  thousands  ;  a  countless 
host  of  untamed  animals ;  all  of  them  fit  for  human 
food;  enough,  we  should  think,  to  stock  Arappahoe, 
Comanche,  and  Cheyenne  Avigwams  to  the  end  of  time. 
Once  or  tAvice  the  driA^er  tries  a  shot;  but  fear  of  the 
red-skins  commonly  checks  his  AA'ish  to  fire. 

This  buflalo,  Avhich  is  the  Avhite  man's  sport,  is  also 
the  red  man's  food;  and  a  Cheyenne  warrior  cannot 
be  made  to  see  why  a  pale-face  should  come  into  his 
country  and  destroy  the  buffalo  for  the  sake  of  a  little 
amusement.  A  AA^hite  man  Avho  has  to  kill  buffalo  to 
live,  the  Indian  can  comprehend,  though  he  may  haA^e 
to  suffer  in  estate  by  that  white  man's  rifle;  but  a  man 
who  shoots  buffalo  for  sport,  having  no  Avish  to  eat  it, 
is  a  mystery  of  conduct  to  Avhich  any  red-skin  Avould 
gladly  put  an  end  by  tomahawk  and  scalping-knife. 


THE   PRAIRIES.  43 

As  we  ascend  the  plains,  a  series  of  rolling  steppes, 
iu  no  part  level  for  a  dozen  miles,  the  sun  grows 
fiercer  overhead,  the  sands  hotter  beneath  our  feet. 
Snakes,  lizards,  locusts,  swarm  on  the  ground  and  in 
the  air;  the  heat  of  noon  is  terrible;  sometimes,  in 
the  breathless  noon,  reminding  me  of  the  Jordan  val- 
ley. Water  is  scarce  and  bad,  and  the  dry,  hot  fever 
of  external  nature  creeps  into  and  corrupts  your 
blood. 

The  fourth  day  of  our  journey  on  the  plains  is  one 
of  tropical  warmth.  That  short,  sweet  grass  on  which 
the  buftalo  loves  to  feed,  is  now  behind  us  in  the  lower 
plains,  where  moisture,  though  it  may  be  scant,  is  not 
unknown,  as  it  seems  to  be  here  for  many  a  league  on 
league.  Our  path  is  strewn  with  skeletons  of  oxen, 
mules,  and  horses;  waste  of  the  life  that  helps  to  keep 
up  an  overland  trade  from  the  river  to  the  sea.  Ravens 
and  wolves  are  seen  fattening  on  these  remains  of  mule 
and  ox;  tame  enough  to  be  hardly  scared  from  their 
meal  by  the  crashing  of  our  wagon  wheels  through  the 
burning  sand.  A  golden  haze,  the  effect  of  heat,  en- 
velops the  earth,  and  the  mirage  tantalizes  our  parch- 
ing throats  with  a  promise  of  water, — never  to  be 
reached.  A  stillness  as  of  death  is  round  about  us. 
In  the  west  we  see  a  little  cloud,  not  bigger  when  we 
see  it  first,  than  a  prairie-dog;  anon  it  is  the  size  of  a 
fox,  of  a  buftalo,  of  a  mountain;  in  a  few  minutes  it 
has  covered  the  sky  with  one  black  and  sulphurous 
pall,  out  of  which  the  lightnings  begin  to  leap  and 
dance. 

A  flash  comes  through  the  still  and  silent  air,  like  a 
gunshot,  suddenly,  with  a  sharp  surprise.  It  is  followed 
hy  a  wail  of  wind  and  rain,  which  lifts  the  sand  from 
the  ground  into  the  air,  and  drives  it  into  the  canvas 
flaps  of  our  mountain  wagon,  splashing  us  with  mud 


44  NEW  AMERICA. 

and  mire.  No  care  can  keep  tlie  deluge  out;  and  in  a 
few  minutes  we  are  drenciied  and  smothered.  Four  or 
five  hours  that  storm  of  saiid  and  rain  drives  heavily 
against  us.  Two  or  three  times  the  mules  stand  still 
in  fear;  turn  their  hacks  to  the  heavenly  fire,  refusing 
to  go  forward  under  any  encouragement  of  either  voice 
or  whip.  Were  they  not  fastened  to  the  coach,  they 
would  fly  before  the  tempest;  bolting  for  their  lives 
until  the  hurricane  should  have  drooped  and  died. 
Being  chained  to  the  wagon,  they  can  only  stand  and 
moan.  When  the  storm  is  spent,  the  stars  come  peep- 
ing out;  the  air  is  chill  and  sweet;  and  we  drag  our 
way  along  the  wet  and  smoking  plain. 

Want  of  sleep,  want  of  food,  want  of  exercise — or 
we  are  jolted  over  the  unmade  tracks  all  night,  all  day, 
stopping  at  the  creeks  for  a  little  water,  at  the  log- 
stables  for  the  change  of  mules,  but  a  few  moments 
only — have  made  us  ill.  We  obtain  no  proper  supplies 
of  food  and  drink,  and  we  are  cooped  up  in  a  wagon 
designed  (one  might  suppose)  by  some  infernal  genius 
as  a  place  of  torture;  a  machine  in  which  you  can 
neither  sit,  nor  stand,  nor  lie  down.  j\Iy  friend  is  suf- 
fering from  bilious  sickness;  I  am  tormented  by  erup- 
tions on  the  skin;  yet,  even  with  these  quick  monitors 
of  evil  in  us,  we  are  every  day  astonished  by  the  sud- 
den gush  of  life,  which  comes  with  the  morning  light. 
We  crawl  from  our  miserable  den — a  den  without  a 
door,  without  a  window,  without  a  step — with  nothing 
save  a  coarse  convas  cover  for  a  roof,  coarse  canvas 
flaps  for  sides, — into  the  dust  and  filth  of  a  stable; 
banged  and  beaten  and  jolted,  until  pur  heads  are 
swollen,  our  faces  bruised,  our  hands  lacerated;  sleep- 
less, hungry;  our  temples  racked  b}-  pain,  our  nostrils 
choked  with  sand,  our  limbs  stiflened  and  bent  with 
cramps;  but  after  rinsing  our  mouths  and  dipping  our 


PRAIRIE  INDIANS.  45 

heads  in  some  little  creek,  tlie  water  of  which  we  dare 
not  drink,  and  pushing  on  three  or  four  miles  ahead 
of  the  stage,  winding  up  the  long  prairie  swells,  and 
breathing  the  morning  air,  we  pause  in  our  brisk  step, 
look  at  each  other,  and  smile.  The  efiect  is  magical; 
all  pain,  all  cramp,  all  languor,  have  disappeared ;  the 
blood  flows  freely,  the  lungs  act  softly,  the  nostrils 
seem  to  open  from  within,  and  the  ej^es  appear  to  cast 
out  sand  and  dust  by  some  internal  force.  If  we  could 
only  now  get  food,  we  feel  strength  enough  to  defy  all 
other  forms  of  pain. 

But  food  is  a  thing  we  cannot  get. 


CHAPTER  Y. 

PRAIRIE   INDIANS. 

The  red  men  of  these  prairies  have  been  taking 
counsel  together  in  a  field  near  Fort  Ellsworth,  as  to 
the  policy  of  allowing  the  white  men,  headed  by  their 
Big  Father  in  Washington,  to  open  a  new  road  through 
their  country  by  way  of  this  Smoky  Hill  Fork;  and  the 
warlike  tribes  of  this  region,  the  Cheyennes,  and 
Arappahoes,  aided  and  supported  by  allies  from  the 
South  and  from  the  I^orth,  the  powerful  Sioux,  the 
savage  Kiowas,  the  clever  Comanches,  and  the  swift 
Apaches,  are  said  to  have  resolved  on  war. 

These  Indians  say  they  have  been  deceived  by  the 
white  men;  this  they  always  say  when  going  out  on 
the  war-path;  for  a  red  man's  pride  will  not  suffer  him 


4G  NEW  AMERICA. 

to  acknowledge,  even  to  himself,  that  he  has  done  any 
wrong — that  he  has  broken  any  pledge.  In  these 
frontier  quarrels,  the  Indian,  by  his  own  confession,  is 
always  right.  So  far  as  we  can  learn  from  these 
Cheyennes  and  their  allies,  it  would  seem  that  early  in 
the  spring  of  this  present  year  (1866)  Major  Wyncoop, 
an  officer  of  Government,  employed  in  the  task  of 
making  treaties — a  brisk  and  profitable  branch  of  the 
public  service — had  been  among  these  prairie  hmiters, 
giving  them  arms  and  blankets,  flour  and  whisky,  in 
exchange  for  a  promise  of  good  behavior  on  the  roads 
in  respect  to  emigrant  wagons  and  merchants'  trains. 
Wyncoop,  they  say,  had  told  them,  byword  of  mouth, 
to  have  no  fears  about  the  safety  of  their  buffalo-runs, 
since  the  Big  Father  in  "Washington  had  no  intention 
of  opening  any  new  road  by  way  of  the  Smoky  Hill. 
After  "Wyncoop  left  them,  thej-  began  to  fear  that  he 
had  been  a  bearer  of  lies ;  for  they  heard  that,  even 
while  he  was  sleeping  in  their  lodge,  eating  elk  with 
Roman  ITose,  Black  Hawk,  and  Spotted  Dog,  Cheyenne 
chiefs  and  warriors,  the  white  men  had  been  laying 
their  plans  for  cutting  a  road  straight  toward  the  heart 
of  these  buffiilo  lands. 

Of  course  they  have  heard  from  the  pale-faces  that 
all  roads  should  be  free  and  open.  They  have  been 
told  that  the  road  from  St.  Louis  to  N^ew  York  is  just 
as  free  to  a  red  man  as  to  a  white  man;  and  they  have 
been  also  told,  as  though  this  second  thing  followed 
from  the  first,  that  the  path  from  St.  Louis  to  Salt 
Lake  should  be  as  free  to  the  white  man  as  it  is  to  the 
red;  but  Roman  Xose,  Black  Hawk,  and  Spotted  Hog 
are  men  too  subtle  to  be  taken  in  by  what  they  call 
baby- talk.  They  answer,  that  in  their  sense  of  the 
word  yon  road  from  St.  Louis  to  iSTew  York  is  not 
open.    "VYould  Black  Hawk  be  allowed  to  hunt  through 


PRAIRIE  INDIANS.  47 

the  fields  of  Ohio  ?  "Would  Spotted  Dog  be  suffered  to 
pitch  his  lodge  in  the  streets  of  Indiauapolis?  Could 
Roman  Nose,  on  that  road  from  St.  Louis  to  New  York, 
kill  and  eat  sheep  and  cow,  animals  which  have  re- 
placed his  own  buffalo  and  elk?  If  not,  how,  they  ask, 
can  the  track  be  called  open  to  them,  dwellers  in  wig- 
wams, hunters  of  wild  game?  These  Cheyenues,  these 
Arappahoes  and  Sioux,  are  as  well  aware  as  any  pale- 
face in  Washington,  that  their  laws  are  not  our  laws, 
their  liberties  not  our  liberties.  If  it  were  one  of  their 
Indian  fashions  to  have  a  party-cry,  they  would  prob- 
ably raise  the  shout  of  "The  hunting-ground  for  the 
hunter!" 

Roman  Nose  and  Spotted  Dog  tell  us  that  the  very 
best  hunting-grounds  now  left  to  the  red  man  are  these 
prairie  lands,  lying  along  and  around  the  Smoky  Hill 
Fork;  a  dry  and  sandy  ravine,  more  than  a  hundred 
miles  in  length,  stretching  at  the  foot  of  this  high  ridge 
or  bluff",  called  Smoky  Hill  from  the  cap  of  mist  which 
commonly  floats  above  its  crest.  Here  grow  the  sweet 
bunch-grasses  which  the  buffalo  loves  to  chew,  and 
hither  come  those  herds  of  game  on  which  the  Indian 
lodge  depends  for  its  winter  store.  Disturb  these  herds 
in  their  present  quarters,  and  whither  can  they  flee? 
Southward  lies  the  Arkansas  road  from  St.  Louis  to 
Santa  Fd;  northward  lies  the  Platte  road  from  Omaha 
to  Salt  Lake.  No  game  will  linger  on  the  white  man's 
track ;  and  to  make  a  path  for  the  mail  by  way  of  Smoky 
Hill  Fork  is  simply  to  drive  away  the  red  man's  food. 
Elk  and  antelope  may  wander  into  close  vicinity  to  a 
trader's  and  an  emigrant's  trail;  buffalo,  a  bolder  and 
fiercer,  but  more  cautious  animal,  never. 

"White  man  come,  buffalo  go,"  says  Black  Hawk, 
with  his  sharp  logic;  "when  buffalo  gone,  squaw  and 
papoose  die." 


48  NEW  A3IERICA. 

From  Black  Hawk's  point  of  view,  the  policy  of  re- 
sisting our  encroachments  on  their  hunting-iields  is 
beyond  dispute. 

A  second  cause  has  helped  to  create  the  trouble 
which  besets  us  on  these  plains. 

One  of  the  great  feuds  which  divide  Eastern  Amer- 
ica from  "Western  America — the  States  lying  east  of 
the  Mississippi  from  the  States  and  Territories  lying 
west  of  the  Big  Drink — has  its  birth  in  the  question, 
"What  line  of  policy  should  be  followed  by  the  Govern- 
ment in  dealing  with  the  red  men  ?  The  Eastern  cities 
are  all  for  rose-water  and  baby-talk  ;  the  "Western  cities 
are  all  for  revolvers  and  bowie-knives.  Each  section 
has  its  sentiment  and  its  passion.  In  Boston,  no  one 
believes  that  a  red  Indian  can  do  wrong ;  in  Denver, 
no  one  believes  that  a  red  Indian  can  do  right.  Each 
party  accuses  the  other  of  ignorance  and  petulance; 
Massachusetts  looking  on  the  red-skin  solely  in  his 
romantic  lights,  as  a  representative  of  tribes  and  na- 
tions, dear  to  art  and  poetry,  which  are  rapidl}^  pass- 
ing into  the  land  of  dreams ;  Colorado  looking  upon 
him  solely  in  his  prosaic  aspects  of  a  thief,  a  beggar, 
an  assassin,  who  may  have  stolen  white  women  and 
scalped  white  men.  In  Massaclmsetts,  in  Rhode  Island, 
in  New  Hampshire,  almost  everybody  has  either  made 
a  sketch,  composed  a  song,  or  read  a  romance,  about 
the  Indian ;  while  in  Colorado,  in  New  Mexico  and 
California,  almost  everybod}-  has  had  a  kinsman  butch- 
ered, or  a  kinswoman  carried  off  by  that  romantic  per- 
sonage— a  difference  which  may  very  well  account  for 
the  radical  opposition  of  ideas  as  to  a  true  Indian 
policy  regarding  him  in  the  East  and  in  the  West. 
Being  strojarg  in  Washington,  Massachusetts  has  com- 
monly had  her  own  way  in  Kansas,  and  wherever  a 
judge's  writ  will  run  ;  being  near  to  the  plains,  Colo- 


1 


PRAIRIE  INDIANS.  49 

rado  lias  sometimes  had  lier  OAvn  way  in  the  lonely 
grass  land  and  the  nameless  creek. 

One  sudden  blow  Colorado  dealt  last  year  at  her 
savage  enemy,  when  a  body  of  volunteer  horse,  under 
Colonel  Shevington,  broke  into  a  Cheyenne  camp  at 
Sand  Creek,  a  little  way  in  our  front,  where  a  thousand 
Indians  had  encamped,  under  the  command  of  White 
Antelope,  an  aged  and  renowned  Cheyenne  warrior. 
The  Colorado  volunteers,  raised  by  orders  from  Wash- 
ington, rode  in  upon  these  Indians,  shooting  down 
brave  and  squaw  and  papoose  in  undistingaishing  hate 
and  wrath.  White  Antelope  fell  like  the  hero  in  a 
poet's  tale;  for,  seeing  that  defense  was  idle,  that 
escape  was  impossible,  he  sprang  up  a  mound  of  sand, 
and,  throwing  open  his  embroidered  jacket,  bade  the 
pale-faces  fire.  With  twenty  slugs  in  his  body,  he 
rolled  upon  the  earth.  Most  of  his  followers  fell 
around  his  corpse — old  and  young,  men  and  women, 
wrinkled  warriors  and  puling  infants.  Sixteen  of  the 
volunteers  were  slain ;  and  their  comrades  rode  back 
into  Denver,  covered,  as  they  imagined,  with  the  glory 
of  their  deed. 

In  i^ew  England,  this  raid  upon  the  Cheyenne  camp 
is  everywhere  denounced  as  the  Indian  massacre;  in 
the  ranches  of  these  prairies,  in  the  cities  near  the 
mines,  it  is  everywhere  celebrated  as  the  big  fight. 
Your  opinion  on  the  point  is  held  to  be  a  test  of  your 
good  sense.  In  Boston,  any  approval  of  the  big  fight 
would  subject  you  to  a  social  ban ;  in  Denver,  any 
denunciation  of  the  Indian  massacre  would  bring  a 
bowie-knife  into  your  side.  After  saying  so  much,  I 
need  scarcely  add,  that  westward  of  the  Missouri  I 
have  never  met  a  man  who  does  not  say  that  the  Sand 
Creek  aftair,  though  terrible  enough   in  some  of  its 

5 


50  NEW  AMERICA. 

details,  was  a  good  and  wholesome  act  of  severity,  an 
act  that  ouglit  to  be  repeated  twice  a  year,  until  every 
Indian  tribe  has  been  swept  away  from  these  plains. 

Eastern  men  assert,  that  when  Shevington  attacked 
the  Indian  camp  the  Che3'ennes  were  at  peace  with 
the  whites,  and  that  the  American  flag  was  floating 
above  White  Antelope's  tent  Shevington  denies  these 
facts,  asserting  that  the  Cheyenne  camp  had  been  the 
refuo-e  of  dosr  soldiers,  a  band  of  red-skin  outlaws  and 
assassins,  who  had  been  plundering  settlements  and 
murdering  teamsters  and  emigrants  for  many  months, 
a  fact  which  he  and  his  Colorado  friends  assert  was 
proved  :  in  the  first  place,  by  the  Indians  having  had  a 
white  girl,  of  sixteen,  and  three  young  white  children 
in  that  very  camp,  whom  they  sold,  after  much  palaver, 
to  the  citizens ;  in  the  second  place,  by  their  boast  of 
having  two  other  white  women  in  their  lodges,  whom 
they  would  neither  give  away  nor  sell ;  in  the  third 
place,  by  the  white  men  finding,  when  their  camp  was 
taken,  a  heap  of  rings,  ribbons,  photographs,  and 
human  scalps. 

One  act  of  atrocity,  committed  by  these  Indians,  is 
said  to  have  roused,  in  a  peculiar  manner,  the  indigna- 
tion of  Denver.  In  a  ranch  on  Hunning  Creek,  near 
that  city,  lived  with  his  wife  and  two  children,  a  man 
named  Ilungate — an  honest  man,  a  good  farmer,  who 
stood  well  with  his  neighbors.  The  red  men  had  swept 
down  upon  his  lonely  farm,  had  driven  off  his  cattle, 
had  burnt  his  ranch,  had  violated  his  wife,  had  massa- 
cred his  children,  and  shot  himself.  The  heads  of  all 
the  Hungate  family  were  scalped,  the  bodies  hacked 
and  pounded.  When  they  were  found  in  this  muti- 
lated state,  they  had  been  borne  into  Denver  City,  and 
made  a  public  show,  like  the  wounded  men  of  Paris 
in  '48,  rousing  the  hot  blood  of  Colorado  into  madness. 


THE  RED   MAN.  51 

"White  Antelope  was  made  to  answer  for  the  blood 
of  ITungate. 

Two  of  the  scalps,  which  the  volunteers  under  Shev- 
ington  found  at  Sand  Creek  after  the  tight,  are  said  to 
have  been  fresh :  one,  a  white  man's  scalp,  was  hardly 
cold;  a  second,  a  Avhite  woman's  scalp,  was  declared 
by  the  army  surgeon  to  have  been  drawn  Avithiu  ten 
days. 

Eeud  begets  feud,  and  the  strife  of  last  year  can  only 
be  answered  by  strife  in  the  coming  fall.  A  son  of 
"White  Antelope  is  now  going  about  the  plains  calling 
on  the  tribes  and  nations  to  rise  and  avenge  his  father's 
death,  which  Roman  ISTose,  Black  Hawk,  Tall  Buiialo, 
Lance,  and  Little  Blanket,  all  powerful  chiefs,  are  said 
to  be  willmg  enough  to  do,  since  they  may  gain  a  rare 
opportunity  of  gratifying  their  passion  for  blood  while 
clearing  these  favorite  buffalo-runs  of  all  white  dis- 
turbers of  the  Indian  game. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE    BED    MAN. 

A  LONG  line  of  poems  and  novels  leads  an  English 
reader  into  habits  of  looking  on  the  red  man  as  a  pic- 
turesque figure  of  the  prairie  and  the  lake,  rather  than 
as  a  living  force  in  the  midst  of  American  cities. 
We  have  lodged  the  Indians  in  our  minds  as  we  have 
the  men  who  exist  for  us  only  in  tales  and  plays. 
When  we  recall  either  an  Iroquois  or  a  Mohican,  he 
presents  himself  to  our  vision  in  his  war-paint,  in  his 


■oz 


NEW  AMERICA. 


Imntino;  o^oar ;  lie  is  sitting  in  council  under  the  Treaty 
tree,  seeing  God  in  clouds  and  hearing  Him  iu  the 
wind.  We  note  him  stealing  forth  with  Hawk-eye  on 
the  war-path,  watching  over  Minnehalia  in  the  wig- 
wam, tearing  himself  from  his  old  hunting-grounds 
on  the  Ohio,  starting  for  his  new  home  in  the  un- 
known West.  We  connect  him  with  aged  hemlocks, 
running  waters,  and  silent  valleys.  But  whether  he 
comes  hefore  us  in  his  hunting  gear  or  in  his  paint 
and  feathers,  with  a  pipe  of  peace  in  his  mouth,  or  a 
scalping-knife  raised  in  his  hand,  he  is  ever  the  same 
for  us:  a  being  of  the  mind,  a  picture,  a  poem,  a  ro- 
mance ;  not  a  man  of  tlesh  and  blood,  endowed  with 
senses,  rich  in  passions,  fruitful  in  ideas,  one  strong  to 
resist,  one  swift  to  impress,  all  men  who  may  come 
into  contact  with  him. 

In  the  United  States  people  know  him  better.  The 
red  man  lives  among  them  like  the  black  man:  less 
ductile  iu  genius,  more  prolific  in  ideas;  having  his 
own  policy,  his  own  arts,  his  own  traditions;  with  a 
power,  which  the  black  man  has  not,  of  giving  back, 
no  less  than  taking,  in  the  way  of  thought.  They 
have  to  deal  with  him  from  day  to  day  as  with  a  man 
having  rights  in  the  soil  which  no  Yengee  can  deny, 
which  no  honest  Yengee  feels  the  wish  to  dispute. 

IS^o  race  of  men  ever  yet  drove  out  another  race  of 
men  from  any  country,  taking  their  lands  and  cities 
from  them,  without  finding  on  the  spot  which  they 
came  to  own,  a  local  genius,  which  affected  their 
polity,  their  usages,  and  their  arts.  Man  is  a  living 
power,  acting  and  reacting  on  his  fellow,  through  a 
natural  law.  All  force  is  relative.  If  the  strong  act 
upon  the  weak,  the  weak  react  upon  the  strong. 
Numbers  are  strength;  and  if  the  higher  race  should 
have  the  disadvantage  of  being  few  in  number,  they 


THE   RED   MAN.  53 

will  fall  ill  some  measure  to  the  level  of  their  slaves, 
in  spite  of  their  first  sn})eriority  in  physical  gifts  and 
in  moral  power.  Thus,  the  Eoman  masters  of  Greece 
adopted  the  art,  the  language,  the  religion,  and  at 
length  the  country  they  had  won  by  the  sword.  Tlie 
IsTorman  hero  became  an  English  gentleman,  helping 
to  make  that  name  the  pioudest  title  borne  on  earth. 
After  three  generations,  the  settlers  under  Strongbow 
proved  themselves  more  Irish  in  feeling  than  the  Celts. 
Duke  Rollo's  soldiers  softened  into  Sicilians.  The 
Mantchoo  Tartars  have  become  Chinese.  Even  in 
cases  where  fire  and  sword  have  been  used  to  thin 
off  the  original  people,  the  efiect  has  been  pretty 
much  the  same.  The  Israelites  were  told  to  cut  down 
the  Ilittites  and  Amorites,  the  Canaanites,  Perizzites 
and  Jebusites;  and  they  slew  the  men  of  these  nations 
without  mercy,  as  they  had  been  commanded  from 
God.  Yet  the  customs  and  ideas  of  these  heathens 
clung  to  the  soil,  and  generation  after  generation  of 
the  chosen  people  fell  into  sin  by  running  after  the 
native  gods.  Dagon,  Moloch,  Ashtaroth,  drew  men 
away  from  Jehovah;  and  the  arts  of  T^re  and  Sidon 
acted  upon  those  whom  the  sword  of  Jabin  could  not 
drive  from  the  land.  In  like  fashion,  those  red  men 
whom  our  fore-comers  found  on  the  Atlantic  sea- 
board, and  whom  they  have  been  pushing  back,  at 
first  toward  the  Alleghanies,  then  to  the  Ohio  and  the 
"Wabash,  afterward  to  the  Mississippi,  and  at  length 
beyond  the  great  river  as  far  west  as  the  Kansas  and 
the  Arkansas,  have  left  the  traces  of  their  former 
presence  in  the  national  mind ;  in  the  popular  politics, 
in  the  popular  science,  in  the  popular  life.  They  have 
done  so  in  places  from  which  tliey  have  wholly  disap- 
peared, as  well  perhaps  as  in  districts  where  they  still 
exist;  among  the  Spiritualists  of  New  England,  among 

5* 


54  NEW  AMERICA. 

tlie  Mormons  of  Salt  Lake  valley.  Man  is  what  he 
eats;  and  a  nation  grows  into  the  likeness  of  that 
which  it  absorhs.  Where  the  Indian  has  been  de- 
stroyed by  assimilation,  the  pale-face  must  have 
undergone  a  change,  to  be  measured  by  the  amount 
of  resisting  power;  a  quality  in  which  some  tribes  of 
these  red-skins  are  pre-eminently  rich.  When  the 
Indian  has  survived  the  shock  of  conflict  with  the 
pale-face,  as  at  Oneida  Creek,  at  Wyandotte,  at  St, 
Mary's  Mission,  and  in  many  other  places,  the  power 
of  acting  and  reacting  on  the  whites  is  still  in  force, 
affecting  the  national  character  in  a  way  which  no 
man  could  have  foreseen,  and  no  one  will  now  deny. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  power  of  assimilation  is  very 
great;  but  the  Cheyenne  and  the  Dakota  present  to  it, 
perhaps,  the  very  hardest  meal  it  has  ever  been  called 
upon  to  digest.  The  Anglo-Saxon  has  not  gone  far  in 
the  process  of  eating  up  the  red  man ;  yet  he  shows  by 
a  hundred  signs  the  effect  of  that  indigestible  meal 
upon  his  health.  The  Indian  fiber  is  exceedingly 
tough.  Can  any  one  say  whether,  up  to  this  moment, 
though  the  white  men  have  an  easy  mastery,  the 
action  of  the  white  men  on  the  red  has  been  stronger 
than  that  of  the  red  men  on  the  white? 

Let  those  who  think  so  come  into  these  Western 
plains,  into  the  lands  where  red  and  white  men  live 
together  in  anything  but  harmony.  They  will  find 
that  each  has  acquired  the  other's  vices;  that  while 
the  Indian  has  learned  how  to  beat  his  pale  brother  in 
debauchery,  the  white  man  has  only  come  to  equal  his 
red  brother  in  ferocity  and  craft.  If  the  Yengee  has 
taught  the  Indian  to  drink  whisky,  the  Indian  has 
taught  the  Yengee  to  keep  squaws.  Xearly  all  the 
old  trappers  and  teamsters,  who  have  lived  among 
Indians,  are  polygamists:  Jem  Baker,  of  Clear  Creek, 


THE   RED   MAN.  55 

lias  tAvo  squaws;  Mageary,  of  South  Platte,  has  three; 
Bent,  of  Smoky  Iliil,  is  said  to  have  married  six.  As 
an  Indian  chief  said  to  Colonel  Marcy,  "The  first 
thing  a  Yengee  wants  in  the  plains  is  plenty  wife." 
If  Little  Bear  drinks  and  beats  his  squaw  to  death, 
Jem  Smithers  has  learned  to  make  a  jest  of  taking 
scalps.  I  hear  anecdotes  in  these  plains  to  make  the 
blood  run  cold.  Jack  Dunkier,  of  Central  City, 
scalped  five  Sioux  in  the  presence  of  his  white  com- 
rade. The  same  Coloi'ado  boy  is  said  to  have  ridden 
into  Denver  with  the  leg  of  an  Indian  warrior  slung 
to  his  saddle;  a  leg  which  he  had  cut  from  the  trunk, 
and  on  which  he  reported  that  he  had  been  living  for 
two  whole  days.  JS^o  one  believed  his  story;  but  a 
boast  is  in  its  way  a  fact,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that  in 
Denver  City  a  white  man  openly  boasted  of  having 
boiled  and  eaten  steaks  from  a  human  tliigh.  A 
Pawnee  would  glory  in  such  a  deed;  vaunting  it 
afterward  in  the  meetings  of  his  tribe.  The  Yengee 
quickly  learns  to  imitate  the  red  man's  crimes.  One 
of  the  Sand  Creek  volunteers  returned  to  Denver  with 
a  woman's  heart  on  the  head  of  a  pole;  having  shot 
the  squaw,  ripped  her  breast  open,  and  plucked  out 
her  heart.  Xo  one  blamed  him,  and  his  trophy  was 
received  with  shouts  by  a  rabble  in  the  public  streets. 
I  am  glad  to  say,  that  white  opinion  underwent  a 
change,  even  in  the  rough  mining  districts,  with  re- 
spect to  this  man's  doings;  not  that  any  one  dreamed 
of  arresting  him  for  his  crimes,  not  that  his  comrades 
in  the  ranks  thought  any  worse  of  him  for  liis  lark; 
but  the  jokes  of  the  grog-shop,  the  gaming-house,  and 
the  smoking-room  turned  rather  freely  on  his  deed, 
and  the  fellow  being  deficient  in  wit  and  patience,  fled 
away  from  the  town,  and  never  came  back.  In  a 
Cheyenne   brave,  such   a   crime   as   his   would   have 


56  NEW  A3IEBICA. 

raii^cd  a  warrior  to  the  rank  of  a  chief.  One  offence, 
though  it  implied  no  loss  of  life,  appeared  to  me  more 
revolting  than  even  the  murder  of  a  squaw,  of  a  pa- 
poose —  the  violation  of  Indian  graves  by  the  Yengees. 
A  Government  train,  passing  through  the  Indian  ter- 
ritory, came  upon  a  heap  of  stones  and  rocks,  which 
the  knowing  trapper  who  accompanied  the  train 
pointed  out  as  the  burial-place  of  some  great  chief: 
when  the  Western  bovs  ripped  it  open,  kicked  the 
bones  of  the  dead  Avarrior,  and  picked  up  the  bow 
and  arrows,  the  spoon  of  buffalo  horn  (an  officer  of 
the  United  States  army  gave  me  that  horn  as  a  keep- 
sake !),  the  beads  and  ornaments,  the  remnants  of  a 
buffalo  robe  in  which  the  chief  had  been  wrapped  for 
his  final  rest. 

Along  with  many  of  their  vices,  the  Yengees  have 
borrowed  from  the  Indians  some  of  their  simple  vir- 
tues—  a  spirit  of  hospitality,  a  high  respect  for  the 
jilighted  word,  a  sovereign  contempt  for  pain  and 
death. 

The  red  men  have  taught  the  whole  world  how  to 
smoke  the  Indian  weed.  Have  they  received  from 
the  pale-face  any  one  boon  to  compare  with  this  gift 
from  the  savage  to  the  civilized  man  ? 

It  is  no  figure  of  speech  to  say  that  in  White  America 
red  infiuence  is  very  widely  spread  and  very  strongly 
felt,  alike  in  the  sphere  of  institutions  and  in  the  sphere 
of  thought. 

The  confederacy  of  the  Five  Xations  was  the  type 
adopted  by  the  whites  when  framing  the  confedera'^y 
of  the  Thirteen  Colonies;  not  only  as  regards  tk3 
principle  of  their  Union,  but  also  in  respect  to  ita 
most  original  details.  The  Iroquois  had  invented  the 
theor}-^  of  State  Rights,  which  the  colonists  borrowed 
from  them;  an  indefinable  and  dangerous  theory,  ini- 


THE  RED   MAN.  57 

plying  a  power  of  separate  action,  perhaps  of  with- 
drawal, from  the  Union;  leading  to  a  thonsand  qnar- 
rels,  and  to  a  civil  war,  of  which  the  end  has  not  yet 
been  reached.  These  Iroquois  had  adopted  the  theory 
of  extending  their  power  and  territory,  not  by  adding 
to  the  limits  of  any  existing  nation  of  tlie  confederacy, 
but  by  bodily  introducing  new  tribes  and  nations  into 
union ;  a  novel  principle  of  political  growth,  which 
the  white  men  also  borrowed  from  them.  Under  these 
two  principles,  the  Five  ISTations  had  grown  into  Eight 
Nations;  and  the  Thirteen  Colonies,  following  in  their 
wake  and  carrying  on  their  work,  have  expanded  into 
Forty-six  States  and  Territories. 

In  the  conference  of  1774,  when  commissioners 
from  Pennsylvania,  Maryland,  and  Virginia,  went  to 
consult  the  Iroquois  sachems  at  Lancaster,  the  great 
chief  Casannatego  addressed  them  in  terms  which  a 
Greek  member  of  the  Achaian  League  might  have 
used:  "Our  wise  forefathers  established  union  and 
amity  between  the  Five  Nations.  This  union  has 
made  us  formidable.  This  has  given  us  great  strength 
and  authority  with  our  neighboring  nations.  By 
showing  the  same  method,  you  will  acquire  fresh 
strength  and  power.  Therefore,  I  counsel  you,  what- 
ever befalls  you,  never  to  fall  out  with  one  another." 
Official  reports  to  Congress  from  the  Indian  bureau 
confess  that  this  Iroquois  confederation  was  the  true 
political  germ  of  the  United  States. 

The  men  of  the  Five  Nations  had  very  high  notions 
of  liberty,  and  that  on  both  the  public  and  the  domes- 
tic side.  Ever\-  man  was  considered  equal  to  his  fel- 
low. The  sachem,  even  when  he  came  of  a  ruling- 
stock,  was  elected  to  his  office.  They  had  no  heredi- 
tary rank,  and  no  other  titles  than  the  names  which 
described  their  function,  such  as  warrior,  counselor, 


58  NEW  A  ME  HI  G  A. 

and  seer.  They  said  that  all  men  of  Iroquois  race, 
together  with  their  allies,  were  born  free  and  equal 
with  each  other;  and  that  no  man,  thus  freely  born, 
could  ever  be  made  a  slave.  Indeed,  they  set  their 
faces  against  slavery  in  any  form.  No  Iroquois  could 
own  his  fellow.  If  enemies  were  taken  by  him  in 
war,  they  were  either  put  to  death  or  naturalized  and 
adopted  into  his  tribe.  Nay,  the  sentiment  of  free- 
dom was  so  strong  in  the  Five  Nations  that  they  de- 
clared the  soil  itself  free,  so  that  no  slave  could  be 
found  within  the  districts  hunted  by  these  red  men, 
even  when  negro  slaves  were  everywhere  being 
bought  and  sold  in  the  streets  of  Boston,  Philadel- 
phia, and  New  York.  In  time,  however,  some  of  the 
less  noble  tribes  of  Indians — Cherokees,  Choctaws, 
and  Chickasaws — learned  from  the  white  men  to  buy 
and  to  steal  their  negro  brother,  and  to  hold  him  in 
bondage,  like  a  mule  or  a  dog. 

Among  many  of  the  Indian  tribes,  though  less  in 
these  savage  western  provinces  than  among  the  Dela- 
wares,  Mohicans,  and  Senecas,  the  women  have  a  sin- 
gular degree  of  power;  not  only  in  the  wigwam, 
where  they  occupy  the  seats  of  honor,  but  in  public 
places  and  in  public  life;  even  the  right  of  holding 
meetings  and  discussing  questions  of  peace  and  war. 
Among  the  higher  class  of  Indian  tribes,  the  braves 
take  a  pride  in  paying  to  their  squaws  a  measure  of 
respect  exceeding  the  mere  courtesies  of  city  life ; 
often  rising  into  what,  for  lack  of  a  better  name,  might 
be  called  chivalry;  a  fine  feeling  of  the  strong  tow^ard 
the  weak,  as  such ;  a  softening  of  the  hard  toward  the 
gentle;  a  bending  of  the  warrior  toward  the  hus-wife. 
Of  course,  in  a  settled  society,  where  rights  are 
guarded  by  law,  not  left  to  the  caprice  of  individual 
will,  there  should  be  little  need  for  this  open  -^..d 


THE   RE  DM  AN.  59 

avowed  protection,  on  tlie  part  of  men  toward  women. 
It  is  a  virtue  of  the  savage  and  the  semi-savage,  of  tlio 
hunter  and  the  herdsman,  of  the  Seneca  Indian  and 
the  Anezi  Arab,  wliich  has  not  failed  to  toucli  witli 
moral  and  poetic  beauty  the  manners  of  a  people  of 
far  nobler  grade. 

What  man  can  doubt  that  Indian  ideas  on  witch- 
craft, on  polygamy,  on  plurality  of  gods,  on  the  migi-a- 
tion  of  souls,  on  the  presence  of  spirits,  on  future  re- 
wards, have  entered  deeply  into  the  popular  mind,  and 
are  now  aii'ecting  for  good  or  ill  the  course  of  Ameri- 
can religious  thought  ? 

One  of  the  first  things  to  strike  an  English  eye 
about  these  red-skins  (after  their  paint  and  feathers, 
perhaps),  is  their  division  into  tribes;  the  oldest  form 
in  which  men  were  organized  into  societies.  It  is  an 
Oriental  system,  found  in  Media  and  India,  in  Arabia 
and  Scythia,  among  all  the  wandering  and  pastoral 
nations.  In  the  first  step  from  savage  toward  civil 
life,  all  races  are  divided  into  tribes,  of  either  the  fam- 
ily or  the  clan.  In  Sparta  there  were  three  of  these 
original  tribes,  in  Athens  four,  in  Palestine  twelve,  in 
Rome  three ;  in  each  of  which  states  one  tribe  would 
appear  to  have  had  some  sort  of  regal  superiority — the 
Hyllean  at  Sparta,  the  Eupatrid  in  Athens,  the  house 
of  Judah  in  Palestine,  the  Ramnes  in  Rome.  Among 
these  multitudinous  tribes  of  the  red  race,  no  such 
regal  character  appears  to  obtain;  the  Cheyenne  ad- 
mits no  moral  superiority  in  the  Sioux,  the  Mohican  in 
the  Seneca;  each  nation  is  a  separate  body;  and  the 
chief  policy  of  the  red  natives  is  that  of  maintaining 
their  tribal  independence.  From  them  the  white  set- 
tlers have  borrowed  the  sentiment  of  State  Rights. 


60  ^^W  AMEBIC  A. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


INDIAN    LIFE. 


The  story  of  Miniielialia,  Laughing  Water,  has  made 
known  the  fact  that  there  exists,  among  these  sons  of 
the  lake  and  prairie,  a  body  of  tradition  available  for 
art.  The  life  of  a  red  Indian — as  he  starts  on  a  trail, 
as  he  hunts  the  bison  and  the  elk,  as  he  courts  his 
mistress  with  the  scalp  of  an  enemy  slain  in  battle  or 
by  stealth,  as  he  leaps  in  the  war-dance,  as  he  buries 
the  hatchet  and  lays  by  the  knife,  as  he  harangues  his 
fellows  in  council,  as  he  defies  the  malice  ot  his  cap- 
tors, as  he  sits  down  under  his  hemlock  and  smokes 
the  pipe  of  peace — is  nothing  less  than  a  romance. 
His  presence  is  a  picture,  his  conduct  a  poem.  The 
forest  in  which  he  dwells,  the  plain  on  which  he  hunte, 
the  river  along  which  he  floats,  are  full  to  him  of  a 
myriad  spirits.  His  canoe  is  an  ark,  his  wigwam  is  a 
tent.  On  every  side,  he  is  in  contact  with  the  inner- 
most soul  of  things,  and  nature  speaks  to  his  ear  out 
of  every  leaf  and  from  every  stone.  What  marvel, 
then,  that  his  unwritten  poetry  should  be  of  a  wild  and 
daring  kind;  new  in  its  character,  fresh  in  its  colors, 
like  and  yet  unlike  to  the  Homeric,  the  Ossianic,  and 
the  Gothic  primitive  romance? 

A  young  hunter  fell  in  love  with  a  beautiful  girl 
whom  he  sought  for  his  wife,  and  being  the  pride  of 
his  tribe,  both  for  swiftness  in  the  race  and  for  courage 
in  war,  his  suit  was  accepted  by  her  father,  and  she 
was  given  to  him  in  marriage.  On  her  wedding-day 
ane  died.     Tearing  a  trench  in  the  soil,  the  women 


INDIAN  LIFE.  61 

swathed  licr  limbs  in  a  cloth,  and  after  wailing  over  her 
body,  laid  her  down  in  the  bunch-grass.  But  the  young 
hunter  could  not  leave  her.  His  bow  was  unstrung  in 
the  wigwam,  his  club  lay  idle  on  the  ground,  for  his 
heart  was  buried  in  that  forest  grave,  and  his  ears  were 
no  longer  awake  to  the  sounds  of  war  and  the  chase. 
One  joy  was  left  to  him  on  earth: — to  sit  by  himself, 
near  that  mound  under  which  his  love  lay  at  rest,  pon- 
dering of  his  lost  l)ride,  and  following  her  in  fancy  to 
the  spirit-land.  Old  men  of  the  tribe  had  told  him, 
when  a  child,  that  souls  go  after  death  to  the  Blessed 
Isles,  lying  far  off  to  the  south,  in  a  sunny  clime,  upon 
the  bosom  of  a  placid  lake,  under  a  sky  of  unfreckled 
blue;  and  one  day,  as  he  sat  on  the  cold  ground,  with 
snow  in  the  trees  above  him,  the  thought  came  into 
his  mind  that  he  would  go  in  search  of  that  Island  in 
which  the  soul  of  his  mistress  dwelt.  Turning  his  face 
to  the  south,  he  began  his  journey,  which,  for  a  long 
while,  lay  through  a  country  of  lakes,  hills,  valleys, 
much  like  his  own;  but  in  time,  there  appeared  to  be 
less  snow  in  the  trees,  less  frost  on  the  streams,  more 
brightness  in  the  air,  more  verdure  on  the  earth;  then 
he  came  upon  buds  and  blossoms,  he  saw  flowers  in  the 
field,  and  heard  warblings  in  the  bush.  Seeing  a  path 
into  a  thick  grove,  he  followed  it  through  the  trees 
until  it  led  him  to  a  high  ridge,  on  the  top  of  which 
stood  an  Indian  lodge.  At  the  door  of  this  lodge,  an 
old  man,  with  white  hair,  a  pale  face,  and  fiery  eyes, 
covered  with  skins  of  wild  beasts,  and  leaning  on  a 
staff,  received  him  with  a  sad  smile.  The  hunter  was 
beginning  to  tell  his  story: — "Hush!"  said  the  old 
man;  "I  expected  you,  and  have  risen  to  give  you 
welcome.  She  whom  you  seek  has  been  here;  she 
rested  for  awhile,  and  then  went  on.  Come  into  my 
lodge."   When  the  hunter  was  refreshed  with  food  and 

6 


62  NEW  AMERICA. 

sleep,  the  old  man  led  him  fortli  of  the  lodge  and  said: 
"  See  you  that  gulf  and  the  plain  beyond  ?  It  is  the  land 
of  souls.  You  stand  upon  its  confines,  and  my  lodge 
is  the  gate  of  entry.  But  only  souls  can  pass  beyond 
this  gate.  Lay  down  your  bundle  and  your  quiver; 
leave  behind  your  body  and  your  dog;  now,  pass  into 
the  land  of  spirits."  The  hunter  bounded  from  the 
earth,  like  a  bird  on  its  wings.  Forest,  lake,  mountain, 
were  the  same,  but  he  saw  them  with  new  eyes,  and 
felt  them  with  a  strange  touch.  I^ature  seemed  to 
have  become  luminous  and  vocal.  The  air  was  softer, 
the  sky  was  brighter,  the  sward  was  greener,  than  they 
seem  to  our  mortal  senses.  Birds  sang  to  him  out  of 
trees,  and  animals  came  frisking  past  him.  No  creat- 
ure was  afraid  of  him,  for  blood  is  never  shed  in  the 
spirit-laud.  He  went  forward  without  effort,  gliding, 
rather  than  walking,  along  the  ground;  passing  through 
trees  and  rocks  as  a  man  in  the  flesh  might  walk 
through  a  wreath  of  spray  and  a  cloud  of  smoke.  At 
length  he  came  to  a  wide  and  shining  lake,  from  the 
midst  of  which  sprang  a  lovely  isle.  A  canoe  of  white 
stone  lay  close  in  shore,  with  paddles  laid  ready  to  his 
hand.  Stepping  into  this  boat,  and  pushing  from  the 
bank,  he  became  conscious,  as  in  a  dream,  that  another 
white  canoe  was  at  his  side,  in  which,  pale  and  beauti- 
ful as  he  had  last  seen  her,  sat  his  bride.  As  he  put 
forth  from  the  bank,  she  put  ofl:"  also;  answering  to 
the  motion  of  his  oars  like  the  chords  in  music.  A 
tranquil  joy  was  in  the  hunter's  heart  as  they  pushed 
their  way  toward  the  Blessed  Isle.  On  looking  for- 
ward toward  the  land,  he  was  seized  with  fear  for  his 
beloved;  a  great  white  line  of  surf  broke  angrily  in 
their  front,  and  in  the  clear  deep  waters  he  could  see 
the  bodies  of  drowning  men  and  the  bones  of  thousands 
who  had  perished  in  that  surf.    His  thews  being  strong 


INDIAN  LIFE.  G3 

and  his  courage  calm,  he  had  no  fears  for  himself;  but 
he  yearned  for  her,  exposed  to  the  surf  in  that  glitter- 
ing shell;  but  when  they  pushed  boldly  into  the  break- 
ers, they  found  their  canoes  go  through  them  as  through 
air.  Around  them  were  many  boats,  each  freighted 
with  a  soul.  Some  were  in  sore  distress,  some  wrecked 
and  lost.  The  boats  wdiich  bore  young  children  glided 
home  like  birds.  Those  containing  youths  and  maidens 
met  with  gusts  and  rollers.  Older  men  were  beaten  by 
storms  and  tempests,  each  according  to  his  deeds;  for 
the  calm  and  storm  were  not  in  the  spirit-lake,  but  in 
the  men  who  sailed  upon  it.  Softly  running  to  the 
shore,  the  hunter  and  his  bride  leaped  hghtly  from 
their  canoes  upon  the  Golden  Isle.  What  a  change 
from  the  dull,  cold  earth  on  which  the  hunter  lived! 
They  saw  no  graves.  They  never  heard  of  war.  N^o 
gales  ever  vexed  the  air,  no  fogs  ever  hid  the  sun.  Ice 
was  unknown  to  that  Blessed  Isle.  lio  blood  was  ever 
shed;  no  hunger  and  thirst  were  felt;  for  the  very  air 
which  they  breathed  was  food  and  drink.  Their  feet 
were  never  tired  and  their  temples  never  ached.  No 
sorrowing  was  endured  for  the  dead.  Gladly  would 
the  hunter  have  remained  forever  with  his  bride  in 
this  spirit-land;  but  a  great  presence,  called  the  Master 
of  Life,  came  near  to  him,  and  speaking  in  a  voice  like 
a  soft  breeze,  said  to  the  young  man: — "Go  back  to 
the  land  from  which  you  came;  your  day  is  not  yet. 
Eeturn  to  your  tribe,  and  to  the  duty  of  a  good  man. 
When  that  is  done,  you  will  rejoin  the  spirit  which 
you  love.  She  is  accepted;  she  will  be  here  forever; 
as  young,  as  happy  as  when  I  called  her  from  the  land 
of  snow."  When  the  voice  ceased  from  its  speaking, 
the  hunter  started  in  his  sleep — to  iind  the  little  mound 
at  his  feet,  snow  in  the  trees  overhead,  and  a  numb 
sorrow  in  his  heart. 


64  ^EW  AMERICA. 

Ah  me,  it  was  all  a  dream  ! 

Tlic^  red  man  believes  in  a  god,  or  rather  he  believes 
in  many  gods;  also  in  a  life  after  death,  to  be  shared 
by  his  horse,  his  hawk,  and  his  dog.  lie  thinks  there 
is  a  good  spirit  and  a  bad  spirit,  equal  in  dignity  and 
strength  to  each  other;  that,  under  them,  live  a  multi- 
tude of  gods;  spirits  of  the  rock,  the  tree,  the  clouds,  the 
river,  and  the  frost;  spirits  of  the  wind,  of  the  sun,  and  of 
the  stars,  ISTo  Greek  shepherd  ever  peopled  Hymettus 
and  Arcadia,  Orion  and  the  Bear,  with  such  swarming 
multitudes  of  shapes  and  radiances  as  the  Cheyenne, 
the  Pawnee,  and  the  Snake  believe  to  inhabit  their 
plains  and  mountains,  their  creeks  and  woods,  their 
lakes  and  skies.  But  the  Indian  has  never  yet  learned 
to  erect  temples  to  his  deities;  being  content  to  find 
them  in  tree  and  flower,  in  sunshine  and  in  storm,  in 
the  hawk,  the  beaver,  and  the  trout.  His  only  religion 
is  that  of  nature,  his  only  worship  a  kind  of  magic. 
He  believes  in  witches  and  in  sorcerers;  in  their 
power  to  degrade  men  into  beasts,  to  elevate  beasts 
into  men.  Sleep  is  to  him  but  another  side  of  his  life, 
and  dreams  are  as  real  as  his  waking  deeds.  In  his 
fancy  all  space  is  teeming  with  gods  and  spirits,  which 
are  close  to  him  as  he  hunts  and  fights,  capable  of 
hearing  his  call  to  them,  of  making  known  to  him 
their  presence  and  their  wishes  by  signs  and  sounds. 
He  is  the  original  source  of  all  our  spirit-rapping,  all 
our  table-turning;  and  in  the  act  of  invoking  demons 
to  his  aid,  he  is  still  beyond  the  reach  of  such  puny 
rivals  as  the  Davenports  and  Homes. 

His  religious  rites  are  few  and  cabalistic;  thus,  he 
will  sing  for  the  sick,  and  offer  meat  to  the  dead;  he 
will  put  a  charm  in  his  ear,  in  his  nose,  and  around  his 
wrist — commonly  a  shell  from  the  great  sea — as  a 
defense  against  evil  spirits.     He  has  no  priest,  as  we 


INDIAN  LIFE.  65 

understand  tlio  word,  hut  lie  suhniits  liimself  abjectly 
to  his  pi'opliet  (jossakoed)  and  seer;  and  he  does  so, 
not  only  as  regards  his  soul  hut  liis  body.  In  fact,  his 
prophet  is  his  (h)ctor  also;  disease  being  in  his  opinion 
a  spiritual  as  well  as  physical  defect,  only  to  be  con- 
quered by  one  who  has  power  upon  sin  and  death. 
Brigham  Young  has  very  much  the  same  function  to 
perform  at  one  end  of  Salt  Lake  that  a  Shoshonee 
soer  may  liave  to  discharge  at  the  other. 

The  red  men  have  no  settled  laws.  Their  govern- 
ment is  patriarchal,  the  chief  power  being  exercised, 
as  in  every  savage  horde,  by  the  old  men  of  the  tri])e, 
except  in  war  time,  when  the  bravest  and  most  cunning 
take  the  lead.  They  know  nothing  about  votes,  either 
free  or  open,  but  in  electing  leaders  they  declare  their 
preference  with  a  shout.  They  have  no  conception  of 
the  use  and  power  of  work,  and  it  is  only  with  a  slow 
and  sullen  heart  that  even  the  best  among  them  will 
consent  to  practice  a  trade.  They  have  about  them  a 
sense  of  having  always  been  a  wild  tribe;  a  race  of 
hunters  and  warriors,  lords  of  the  arrow  and  the  club ; 
and  the}'  are  too  proud  to  moil  and  toil,  to  do  the 
offices  of  squaws  and  cowards.  If  they  were  not 
driven  by  hunger  to  the  chase,  they  would  do  nothing 
at  all,  except  drink  and  fight.  In  these  things  the 
Creeks  and  the  Dakotas  excel  the  most  accomplished 
rowdies  of  Denver,  Leavenworth,  and  New  York. 

I  cannot  say  that  their  domestic  life  is  either  noble 
or  lovely.  A  prairie  brave,  mounted  on  a  strong 
pony,  with  a  ritle  on  his  saddle,  a  blanket  strapped 
behind  him,  dressed  in  a  handsome  skin  jacket, 
adorned  with  beads  and  tags,  with  his  squaw  trudging 
heavily  by  his  side  on  foot,  carrying  her  papoose  on 
her  back,  and  a  parcel  of  provisions  in  her  hands,  was 

6* 


66  ^"EW  AMERICA. 

one  of  my  earliest  illustrations  of  the  chivalries  of 
Indian  life.  A  mob  of  Ute  warriors,  tearing  through 
the  streets  of  Denver,  rushing  into  shops  and  painting 
their  faces,  while  the  squaws  and  papooses  tumbled 
after  them  in  the  mire,  laden  with  cabbages,  butfalo- 
skins,  and  miscellaneous  domestic  fry,  was  another. 
A  listless,  insolent  crowd  of  Pawnees,  smoking  and 
drinking  on  the  Pacific  road,  while  their  squaws  were 
laboring  on  the  railway  line  as  navvies,  hired  out  by 
the  braves  at  fifty  cents  a  day  and  a  ration  of  corn  and 
meat  uncooked,  was  a  third.  As  such  exam^Dles  grew 
in  strength  upon  me,  I  began  to  think  the  noble 
Indian  was  not  so  much  of  a  gentleman  as  a  believing 
reader  of  the  Last  of  the  Mohicans  might  suppose. 
"  Why  don't  these  fellows  work  for  themselves,  instead 
of  lounging  in  groceries  and  grog-shops,  while  their 
wives  are  digging  earth  and  carrying  wood?"  An 
Omaha  friend  who  stood  near  me  smiled:  "Don't  you 
see,  they  are  warriors  and  gentlemen;  they  cannot 
degrade  themselves  by  work." 

The  Sioux,  the  Pawnee,  the  Cheyenne  squaw^,  though 
she  may  have  a  certain  power  in  the  wigwam,  and  an 
uncertain  liberty  of  speech  in  the  council,  when  her 
character  as  a  woman  happens  to  be  great,  is,  in  many 
respects,  and  as  a  general  rule,  no  better  than  a  slave; 
STich  rights  as  she  may  exercise  belonging  to  her 
rather  as  a  member  of  the  tribe  than  as  a  mother  and 
a  wife.  Her  husband  has  probably  bought  her  for  a 
blanket,  for  an  old  carbine,  for  a  keg  of  whisky;  and 
it  depends  wholly  on  the  man's  humor,  on  his  fond- 
ness, whether  he  shall  treat  her  as  a  lady  or  as  a  dog. 
He  can  sell  her,  he  can  give  her  away.  The  squaw's 
inferiority  to  the  hunter  is  like'that  of  the  horse  to  his 
master.  She  is  one  of  the  man's  chattels;  one  of 
many  like  herself;  for  the  Indian  is  a  polygailiist,  and 


INDIAN  LIFE.  67 

keeps  a  harem  in  the  prairie.  She  has  to  perform  all 
in-door,  all  ont-door  labor;  to  fix  the  wigwam  in  the 
ground,  to  fetch  water  from  tlie  stream,  to  gather  bil- 
lets from  the  l)ush,  to  dig  roots  and  pick  up  acorns,  to 
dress  and  cook  the  food,  to  make  the  clothes,  to  dry 
the  scalps,  to  mend  the  wigwam,  to  carry  her  children 
on  the  march.  And  while  she  has  a  thousand  toils  to 
endure,  she  has  scarcely  any  rights  as  either  a  woman 
or  a  wife.  The  man  may  put  her  away  for  the  most 
trifling  fiiult.  Her  infiint  may  be  taken  from  her  lap. 
Her  modesty  is  not  always  spared.  While  the  sins 
into  which  her  ow)i  fancies  may  have  led  her  are 
visited  with  revolting  punishment;  she  may  be  forced 
by  her  husband  into  acts  of  immorality  which  degrade 
her  as  a  woman,  not  only  in  her  own  eyes,  but  in  those 
of  the  companions  of  her  shame.  If  she  commits 
adultery  without  her  husband's  leave,  his  custom 
allows  him  to  slit  her  nose;  yet  when  the  whimsy 
takes  him,  he  may  sell  her  charms  to  a  passing  guest. 
In  the  freedom  of  his  forest  life,  it  is  common  for  the 
Shoshonee  and  the  Comanche  to  offer  his  squaw  to 
any  stranger  visiting  in  his  lodge.  The  theory  of  the 
wigwam  i§,  that  the  female  member  of  it  is  a  chattel, 
and  that  her  beauty,  her  modesty,  her  service,  belong 
to  her  lord  only,  and  may  be  given  as  he  lists.  For 
her  there  is  nothing  save  to  hear  and  to  obey. 

And  the  Indian  squaw  is  what  such  rules  of  life 
must  make  her.  If  her  mate  is  cruel  in  disposition, 
she  is  savage;  if  he  is  dirty  in  person,  she  is  filthy;  if 
he  is  lax  in  conduct,  she  is  shameless.  When  anything 
base  and  monstrous  has  to  be  done,  it  is  left  to  the 
squaws.  If  an  enemy  is  to  be  tortured,  the  women 
are  set  upon  him.  A  brave  might  club  his  prisoner 
to  death  by  a  blow,  but  the  sharper  and  slower  agonies 
caused  by  peeling  off  his  skin,  by  tearing  out  his  nails, 


68  NEW  AMERICA. 

by  bi'oakinji;  his  fiiio-er-joints,  l)y  putting  fire  under  his 
feet,  by  gouging  out  his  eyes,  are  only  to  be  intlicted 
by  the  demons  who  liave  taken  up  their  dwelling  in 
female  forms. 

All  the  men  who  fought  against  the  Indians  at  Sand 
Creek,  to  whom  I  have  spoken,  describe  the  squaws  as 
fighting  more  furiously  than  the  braves;  and  all  the 
white  women  (as  I  hear)  who  have  had  the  double  mis- 
fortune of  falling  into  Indian  hands,  and  surviving  to 
tell  the  tale  of  their  dishonor,  exclaim  against  the 
squaws  as  deeper  in  cruelty  and  iniquity  than  their 
lords.  The  story  of  a  white  woman's  captivity  among 
the  Sioux  and  Arappahoes  is  one  that  ought  never  to 
be  told.  In  Colorado  there  are  fifty,  perhaps  a  hun- 
dred, females  who  have  undergone  the  shame  of  such 
a  passage  in  their  lives;  and  it  is  fearful  to  see  the 
flashing  eyes,  to  hear  the  emphatic  oaths,  of  either 
father,  lover,  or  son  to  one  of  these  wretched  creat- 
ures, when  a  Chej-enne  is  spoken  of  otherwise  than 
as  a  dog,  whom  it  is  the  duty  of  every  honest  man  to 
shoot. 

It  would  be  a  dangerous  trial  for  a  Yengee  to  say 
one  word  in  favor  of  the  Indians  either  in  the  streets 
of  Denver  and  Central  City,  or  along  the  route  through 
the  Rocky  Mountains  traveled  by  the  wagon  trains 
and  the  mail. 

Yet  with  all  their  faults,  the  Indians  have  some  vir- 
tues and  many  capacities.  They  are  brave.  As  a  rule, 
they  are  chaste.  In  patience  they  have  few  equals;  in 
endurance  they  have  none.  They  are  atfectionate 
toward  their  children;  moderately  faithful  to  their 
squaws.  Their  reverence  for  age,  for  wisdom,  and  for 
valor,  is  akin  to  religious  feeling,  and  is  only  a  little 
lower  in  degree  than  that  which  the}^  pay  to  their 
Great  Spirit.     In  war  time,  and   against   an  enemy, 


CAERYING    THE   MAIL.  G9 

they  consider  everything  fair;  l)ut  the  first  and  worst 
of  all  vices  in  the  savage,  the  habit  of  lying,  is  com- 
paratively rare  in  these  red  men. 


CHAPTER   Vin. 


CARRYING    THE    MAIL. 


In  l)ands  from  fifteen  to  forty,  well  armed  and  well 
mounted,  the  Cheyennes  and  their  allies  are  moving 
along  our  line,  plundering  the  stations,  threatening 
the  teamsters  and  drivers  with  fire  and  lead.  A  red- 
skin war  is  never  sudden  in  its  coming;  for,  as  many 
tribes  and  nations  must  be  drawn  into  it,  there  is  much 
running  to  and  fro,  mucli  smoking  of  tobacco,  and  a 
vast  amount  of  pahivcr.  "When  a  man  desires  to  have 
war,  he  must  first  persuade  his  chief  and  his  tribe  to 
dare  it;  next  he  must  ride  round  the  country  into 
other  tribes,  whispering,  haranguing,  rousing,  till  the 
blood  of  many  of  the  younger  braves  boils  up.  Meet- 
ings must  be  held,  councils  compared,  and  a  decision 
taken  by  the  allies.  If  the  palavering,  in  which  the 
aged  and  timid  warriors  have  a  principal  share,  is  go- 
ing on  slowly,  some  of  the  younger  braves  steal  off 
into  the  enemy's  land,  where  they  provoke  bad  blood 
by  plundering  a  ranch,  driving  away  mules,  if  possible 
carrying  oflt'  women.  The^^  know  that  the  white  men 
will  turn  out  and  fight,  that  two  or  three  braves  may 
happen  to  get  killed,  and  they  are  pretty  sure  that  the 
nations  which  have  suffered  in  the  fray  Avill  then  cry 
loudly  for  revenge. 


70  NEW  AMERICA. 

As  a  rule,  the  white  men,  being  few  in  number,  un- 
supported by  their  Government,  never  resist  tliese  In- 
dian attacks,  unless  life  is  taken  or  women  are  captured  ; 
short  of  these  crimes  being  committed,  the  pale-face 
says  it  is  cheaper  to  feed  the  red  men  than  to  fight 
them,  since  he  must  always  meet  them  with  a  halter 
round  his  neck.  A  white  man  dare  not  fire  on  a  band 
of  Sioux,  of  Comanches,  though  he  may  be  perfectly 
sure  that  they  are  enemies,  bent  on  taking  his  life.  If 
he  killed  an  Indian,  he  would  be  tried  for  murder. 
The  red  man,  therefore,  has  his  choice  of  when  and 
where  he  will  attack,  and  the  grand  advantage  of  be- 
ing able  to  deliver  his  volley  when  he  pleases.  It  is 
only  after  some  one  has  been  killed  that  the  white 
man  feels  himself  safe  in  returning  shot  for  shot.  So, 
when  parties  of  Indians  come  upon  lonely  ranches  and 
stations  on  the  plains,  the  white  men  have  to  kill,  as  it 
were,  the  fatted  calf;  that  is  to  say,  they  have  to  bring 
forth  their  stores  of  bacon,  dried  buffalo-tongue,  beans, 
and  potted  fruit,  set  the  kettle  boiling,  the  pan  frying, 
and  feed  the  rascals  who  are  going  to  murder  them, 
down  to  the  very  last  pound  of  flesh,  the  very  last  crust 
of  bread;  only  too  happy  if  they  will  then  go  away 
into  their  wilds  without  taking  away  women  and  scalps. 
Of  course,  few  women  are  to  be  found  in  these  perilous 
plains;  not  a  dozen  between  Wamego  and  Denver,  I 
should  say. 

]^ow,  these  small  bands  of  Cheyennes  and  Arappa- 
hoes  in  our  front  have  come  from  the  great  camp  of 
the  Six  Nations,  lying  near  Fort  Ellsworth,  nnder  the 
command  of  Roman  Nose.  The}"  are  going  forward 
as  a  party  of  feelers  and  provokers,  a  little  way  in  ad- 
vance of  us,  insulting  the  whites  and  eating  up  the 
road.  At  ever}^  station,  after  passing  Fort  Riley,  we 
hear  of  their  presence  and  of  their  depredations. 


CARRYING    THE   MAIL.  71 

Red-skins,  however,  will  not  pci-mit  tliemsolves  to 
be  seen,  unless  they  are  friendly  and  mean  to  beg.  In 
going  over  one  of  the  long,  low  ridges  of  Smoky  Hill, 
we  observe  a  small  party  of  Cheyennes  moving  along 
the  opposite  ridge;  they  are  mounted,  and  leading 
spare  horses,  and,  as  Ave  catch  the  gleam  of  their  rifles, 
we  know  they  are  well  armed.  Tinlike  tlie  Bedouin, 
every  red-skin  has  a  revolver  of  his  own ;  some  of 
them  have  two  or  three  revolvers  in  their  belts  ;  almost 
every  one  slings  a  ritle  across  his  horse.  They  seem  to 
be  crossing  oar  path.  "Who  are  these  Indians?"  I 
ask  the  driver,  by  whose  side  I  am  sitting  on  the  box. 
"  Well,"  says  he,  in  the  deliberate  Western  fashion, 
"  guess  they  are  some  cuss."  They  seem  to  have 
halted ;  for  the  moment,  as  I  think,  they  are  trying  to 
prevent  our  seeing  a  white  horse,  which  one  of  them 
is  leading.  "  Guess  I  can't  make  them  out, '  adds  the 
driver,  after  taking  time  to  consider  his  want  of  opin- 
ion ;  "  if  they  w^ere  friendly,  they  would  come  to  us 
and  beg;  if  they  were  thieves,  they  would  hide  in  the 
creek,  so  as  not  to  be  seen ;  guess  they  are  out  on  the 
war-path."  When  they  draw  up  we  can  count  them  ; 
they  are  only  Ave  men  in  number,  with  four  led  horses 
in  addition  to  their  own.  Five  men  would  not  dream 
of  attacking  the  mail,  in  which  there  might  be  a  dozen 
men  and  guns;  especially  not  when  the  blinds  are 
down,  and  they  cannot  from  their  coign  of  vantage  see 
into  the  coach  and  count  the  number  of  their  foes.  A 
sure  knowledge  of  the  enemies  to  be  met  in  light  is  a 
cardinal  point  in  the  system  of  an  Indian  warrior,  who 
prides  himself  more  on  his  success  than  even  on  his 
valor.  Rich  in  stratagem,  he  is  always  afraid  of  am- 
buscade ;  and  he  rarely  ventures  to  attack  an  enemy, 
when,  from  either  want  of  light  or  any  other  cause,  he 
cannot  see  into  every  element  of  his  game. 


72  NEW  AMERICA. 

This  Indian  fact  is  of  use  to  us  now.  In  the  pres- 
ence of  our  Cheyenne  neighbors,  we  draw  the  cur- 
tains of  our  wagon  pretty  close,  so  tliat  the  red-skins, 
who  can  see  that  we  are  two  outside,  the  driver  and 
myself,  cannot  tell  how  many  more  may  be  sitting  in- 
side with  revolvers.  They  know,  in  a  general  way,  that 
no  one  rides  outside  the  stage  in  the  burning  heat  of 
these  plains,  unless  the  inside  seats  are  filled.  The 
rule  is  not  good  for  us,  our  seats  being  occupied  with 
mail-bags  ;  but  the  Cheyennes  and  Comauches  have  no 
notice  of  our  straits.  Now,  five  red-skins,  though  they 
might  rush  upon  a  single  man,  or  even  upon  a  couple 
of  men,  no  better  armed  than  themselves,  against  whom 
they  would  enjoy  the  privilege  of  firing  the  first  volley, 
will  always  pause  before  pulling  a  trigger  on  a  foe  of 
invisible  and  unknown  strength.  It  is,  therefore,  with- 
out surprise,  though  with  much  inward  satisfaction, 
that  we  see  them  break  up  their  council,  fall  into  line, 
and  inove  along  the  creek  in  such  a  way  as  to  increase 
the  distance  between  us  at  every  stride. 

At  the  next  log-hut  we  find  that  this  partj^  of  Chey- 
ennes, with  the  led  horses,  stolen  from  sonic  wagon 
train,  have  been  here  ;  very  insolent  and  masterly ;  not 
mincing  words ;  not  concealing  threats.  They  have 
eaten  up  everything  in  the  station :  the  dried  elk,  the 
bufialo-tongue,  the  fat  bacon,  the  canned  fruits;  have 
compelled  the  boys  to  boil  them  coflee,  to  fetch  clean 
water,  to  mend  their  horses'  shoes ;  and  have  left  the 
place  with  a  notice  that  the  mail  must  be  stopped,  the 
stock  removed,  and  the  shanties  burnt. 

Having  tasted  a  little  putrid  water,  seasoned  with  a 
few  drops  of  cognac,  happily  carried  from  ISTew  York, 
we  push  out  of  the  station,  following  in  the  track  of 
these  menacing  braves.  We  crash  through  ravines,  in 
which  our  driver  believes  they  lurk,  and  we  pass  little 


CARRYING    THE   MAIL.  73 

mounds,  under  which  tlic  scalpless  heads  of  wliitc  men, 
murdered  in  the  recent  frays,  have  scarcely  ^-et  grown 
cold.  The  long  green  line  of  the  Smoky  Hill  is  on 
our  left,  not  half  a  mile  from  our  course,  which  lies 
for  two  or  three  days  and  nights  along  the  bank  of 
Smoky  River.  As  we  dash  into  Low  Creek,  we  find 
the  men  in  a  scare,  though  they  are  only  a  few  miles 
distant  from  Ellsworth.  A  party  of  Cheyennes  have 
been  to  the  station,  have  eaten  up  their  food,  have 
taken  away  what  they  wanted,  and  promised  to  return 
in  fifteen  days  to  burn  down  the  shanty  and  murder 
the  men.  The  boys  say  these  Indians  will  come  back 
before  the  end  of  their  fifteen  days.  They  notice  many 
signs  of  the  red  man's  anger  which  are  invisible  to  us. 
The  blacksmith  went  out  in  the  morning;  but  he  saw 
enough  in  an  hour  to  induce  him  to  scamper  back.  A 
farmer,  living  in  a  ranch  close  by,  has  called  in  his 
man  and  horses  from  the  plains.  Every  one  is  belted 
and  on  guard  ;  in  all,  five  men  against  as  many  thou- 
sand red-skins.  With  some  satisfaction,  we  hear  of 
seven  United  States  soldiers,  from  the  fort,  having  rid- 
den on  in  front  of  us,  looking  after  buffalo  and  red- 
skins. The  mules  having  been  yoked,  our  revolvers 
fired  off  and  reloaded,  and  a  can  of  bad  water  swal- 
lowed, we  light  our  cigars  and  jump  on  the  wagon. 

Just  as  we  are  sallying  from  the  station,  a  riderless 
horse  comes  sweating  and  panting  into  the  yard,  and 
is  instantly  recognized  as  belonging  to  one  of  those 
soldiers  wdio  had  passed  through  in  the  early  day, 
looking  after  buffalo  and  red-skins.  One  or  other  he 
seems  to  have  found.  Bill  the  driver  pulls  at  his  reins, 
doubtful  whether  he  ought  to  go  out;  but  on  second 
thoughts,  with  an  ugly  twist  of  the  jaw  and  resolute 
scowl  on  his  brow,  he  whips  his  team  into  a  rage,  and 
plunges  out  with  them  upon  the  hot  and  arid  plains. 


74  NEW  AMERICA. 

Half  a  mile  from  the  station,  we  come  upon  a  dying 
horse,  which  the  driver  says  had  belonged  to  one  of 
those  soldiers  who  had  gone  before  us.  The  beast  is 
ripped  through  the  belly;  but  whether  he  has  been 
gored  by  a  buft'alo  horn  or  slit  open  with  a  knife,  we 
cannot  decide  as  we  roll  swiftly  by.  Saddle  and  trap- 
ping have  been  taken  away;  but  there  is  nothing  to 
tell  by  whom,  or  for  what  end. 

With  fingers  laced  on  our  revolvers,  Ave  keep  a  keen 
eye  upon  objects,  both  far  and  near.  At  Chalk  Bluff 
we  find  Kell}^  and  "Walden,  the  two  stockmen,  horribly 
scared.  Kelly,  an  Irish  lad,  makes  a  wry  face  and  a 
joke  about  the  dirty  vermin,  who  have  just  been  here; 
but  Walden,  a  Yankee,  who  has  been  through  the 
war,  is  painfully  white  and  grave.  They  believe  these 
Cheyennes  mean  mischief.  We  give  the  brave  lads  a 
little  cognac,  wring  their  hands,  and  bid  them  be  of 
good  cheer,  as  we  rattle  oft'  in  the  wagon. 

(I  am  sorry  to  say,  that  three  weeks  afterward  these 
men  were  murdered  by  the  Cheyennes.  The  Indians 
came  to  the  hut,  and,  as  usual,  asked  for  food  and  to- 
bacco. Kelly  put  their  dinners  on  the  table,  which 
they  instantly  devoured.  I  cannot  say  how  the  poor 
men  came  to  be  so  careless  as  they  must  have  been, 
when  the  Cheyennes,  catching  them  off  their  guard, 
lanced  Kelly  through  the  heart,  and  shot  'W^alden  in 
the  bowels.  Kelly  fell  dead,  and  Walden  only  lived  a 
few  hours.  A  wagon  came  up,  and  a  white  man  heard 
the  story  from  his  lips.) 

The  whole  road  is  unarmed,  unprotected;  for  the 
two  forts,  Ellsworth  and  Wallace,  each  with  a  couple 
of  weak  companies,  stand  at  a  distance  from  each  other 
of  two  hundred  and  twenty  miles.  If  they  are  able  to 
defend  themselves  it  is  thought  enough.  Pond  Creek 
lies  a  mile  from   Fort  Wallace:    a  woman  and  her 


CARRYING    THE   31  AIL.  75 

daughter,  Mrs.  and  Miss  Bartholomew,  live  hero;  and 
when  a  party  of  Clieyennes  came  into  the  station  yes- 
terday, eating  it  up,  and  threatening  to  burn  it  down, 
the  woman  sent  a  driver  up  to  the  fort,  which  contains 
a  gurrisou  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  men,  with  two 
field-pieces,  and  begged  for  help;  but  Lieutenant 
Bates,  the  gentleman  in  command,  replied  to  her  cry 
of  distress,  that  if  she  and  her  daughter  need  protection, 
the}'  must  seek  it  in  the  lines,  as  he  cannot  spare  a  man 
to  defend  the  road  along  which  we  are  guarding  the 
imperial  mail ! 

She  is  packing  a  few  things  in  a  handkerchief,  and  as 
we  drive  out  of  the  yard,  we  see  the  two  women  start 
ofi"  for  the  military  post. 

From  Big  Timber  station,  a  place  where  we  find  a 
few  trees,  most  welcome  to  our  sight,  the  red-skins 
have  hardly  gone,  as  we  roll  in;  they  have  been  here 
three  days,  a  party  of  twenty-eight,  with  Little  Blanket 
at  their  head;  eating  the  fat  bacon,  sipping  the  hot 
j3oflee,  and  lording  over  the  stockmen  like  kings  over 
conquered  slaves.  The  country,  they  said,  is  theirs, 
and  everything  brought  into  it  is  theirs.  When  about 
to  go  away,  they  counted  these  trees,  fifty-one  in  num- 
ber, "ISTo  cut  down  trees,"  th.Qy  said,  "we  like  them 
to  stand  there,  in  the  creek."  Pointing  to  a  stack  of 
hay,  laid  up  for  the  mules,  they  added,  with  a  grim 
and  smiling  hirrnor,  "Cut  grass, — cut  plenty  grass, — 
make  big  fire;"  and,  as  they  rode  away,  the  chief  turned 
round,  and  said,  "Fifteen  days  we  come  back;  you 
gone,  good;  you  not  gone — ugh!"  accompanying  his 
threat  with  a  horrible  pantomime,  expressive  of  lap- 
ping flames. 

At  Cheyenne  Wells  we  have  another  domestic  scene. 
Long  before  coming  to  this  station,  we  heard  from 
drivers   and  trainmen  of  Jack  Dunbar,  the  station- 


76  NEW  AMEBIC  A. 

keeper,  as  a  reckless  Colorado  devil,  one  of  those 
heroes  of  Saud  Creek  who  had  sent  a  slug  into  the 
heart  of  "White  Antelope,  when  the  aged  red-skin  had 
bared  his  breast  and  called  on  the  troops  to  fire.  We 
hoped  to  find  one  man,  at  least,  unscared  by  this  Indian 
raid  along  our  line;  but  on  our  wheeling  into  his  yard, 
we  see  that  everything  is  wrong,  for  Dunbar  has  a 
wife  at  Cheyenne  Wells,  and  his  own  share  in  the  ex- 
ploit of  Sand  Creek  being  well  known  to  the  Indians, 
he  is  fearful  that  the  first  sharp  blow  of  the  coming 
war  may  fall  upon  her  head.  A  glance  at  the  way  bill 
tells  him  that  the  stage  is  full,  that  passengers  who 
have  paid  their  hundreds  of  dollars  have  been  left  be- 
hind for  want  of  room;  but  then,  as  he  says,  it  is  a 
question  of  life  and  death, — of  a  woman's  life  and 
death, — and  he  comes  to  us,  cap  in  hand,  with  a  prayer 
that  we  will  carry  on  his  Avife  into  a  place  of  safety. 
For  himself,  he  is  willing  to  stand  by  his  stock,  defend- 
ing himself  and  his  stable  to  the  last;  but  the  poor 
woman  cannot  fight,  and  in  case  of  his  own  death,  be- 
fore he  should  have  time  to  kill  her,  her  fate  would  be 
revolting,  far  beyond  the  power  of  an  English  imagina- 
tion to  conceive. 

What  can  we  do,  but  ofi'er  to  comply  ?  A  fresh  dis- 
posal of  the  mail-bags;  a  new  twist  of  our  limbs;  and 
a  hole  is  made  in  the  vehicle,  into  which  the  hero's 
wife  inserts  her  slim  and  plastic  body.  A  pillow  thrust 
behind  her  head,  protects  her  from  many  a  bump  and 
blow;  but  when  we  lift  her,  thirty  hours  later,  from 
the  wagon,  it  is  hard  to  say  whether  she  will  live  or  die. 

In  the  nio;ht,  we  rougher  fellows  get  a  little  rest  and 
relief  by  climbing  to  the  box,  breathing  the  cold  air, 
and  occasionally  curling  up  our  legs  in  the  boot.  It 
is  only  the  fiery  day  that  kills. 

As  the  sun  works  westward  toward  his  setting,  the 


RED    COMMUNITIES.  77 

air  grows  cooler  to  tlie  skin,  softer  in  the  Inngs;  and 
a  spring  of  life  comes  back  as  it  were  into  the  veins. 
Our  pulses  quicken,  our  chests  dilate,  our  limbs  put 
out  new  strength.  The  weird  and  pensive  solitude  of 
the  prairie  grows  into  our  souls  as  the  stars  peep  out; 
and  Avhen  the  ancient  moon  lifts  up  her  head  from  the 
horizon,  bathing  the  vast  ocean  of  rolling  grass  in  her 
tender  light,  we  feel  in  the  beauty  and  majesty  of  jSTa- 
ture  such  a  sovereign  balm,  that  unless  the  scalping- 
knife  were  in  his  hand,  we  could  salute  either  a 
Cheyenne  or  a  Sioux  as  a  man  and  a  brother. 


CHAPTER  IX. 


RED    COMMUNITIES 


Between  the  great  lakes  and  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
there  may  be  two  hundred  tribes  and  tribelets  of  the 
red  men:  Creeks,  Dakotas,  Mohicans,  Cheyeunes, 
Pawnees,  Shoshones,  Cherokees,  Sioux,  Comanches, 
and  their  fellows,  more  or  less  distinct  in  genius  and 
in  shape:  men  who  once  roamed  over  these  hills  and 
valleys,  danced  in  their  war-paint,  hunted  the  elk  and 
the  bison,  and  left  their  long  and  liquid  names  to  many 
American  rivers  and  American  States. 

What  to  do  with  these  forest  people  has  been  the 
thought  of  colonist  and  ruler  from  those  early  days 
when  the  first  Saxon  came  into  the  laud.  At  times, 
perhaps,  an  adventurer  here  and  there  has  plied  them 
too  freely  with  the  carbine  and  the  cruse;  but  his  bet- 

7* 


78  NEW  AMEBIC  A. 

tor  nature  and  his  higher  principle  have  brought  him 
to  regret  this  use  of  powder  and  whisky,  tlie  de- 
stroying angels  of  civilization;  and  from  the  days  of 
Penn,  at  least,  the  red  man's  right  in  the  country  has 
been  commonly  assumed  by  writers,  and  his  claim  to 
compensation  for  his  lost  hunting-ground  has  been  re- 
cognized by  the  laws. 

This  policy  of  paying  money  for  the  land  taken  by 
the  white  men  from  the  red  was  the  more  just  and 
noble,  as  Indians,  like  the  Senecas  and  the  Walla- 
Wallahs,  have  no  clear  sense  of  what  is  meant  by 
rights  in  the  soil.  The  soil?  They  know  no  soil. 
A  Seneca  comprehended  his  right  to  fish  in  the  Hud- 
son River;  a  Walla- Wallah  understood  his  right  to 
hunt  bison  in  the  plains  at  the  feet  of  the  Blue  Mount- 
ains; but  as  a  thing  to  plow  and  plant,  to  dig  wells 
into,  to  build  houses  upon,  the  soil  was  no  more  to 
them  than  the  sea  and  the  sky  are  to  us.  A  right  to 
go  over  it  they  claimed;  but  to  own  it,  and  preserve 
it  against  the  intrusion  of  all  other  men,  is  a  claim 
which  the  red  men  have  never  made,  and  which,  if 
they  should  learn  to  make  it,  could  never  be  allowed 
by  civilized  men.  'No  hunting  tribe  has  any  such 
right;  perhaps  no  hunting  tribe  can  have  any  such 
right ;  for,  in  strict  political  pliilosophy,  the  only  ex- 
clusive right  which  any  man  can  acquire  in  land,  the 
gift  of  nature,  is  that  which  he  creates  for  himself  by 
what  he  puts  into  it  by  way  of  labor  and  investment 
alike  for  his  own  and  for  the  common  good.  ISTow,  a 
slayer  of  game  does  nothing  for  the  land  over  which 
he  roams;  he  clears  no  forest,  he  drains  no  marsh,  he 
embanks  no  river,  he  plants  no  seed,  he  cultivates  no 
garden,  he  builds  no  city;  what  he  finds  at  his  birth 
he  leaves  at  his  death;  and  no  more  property  would. 


RED    COMMUNITIES.  70 

under  such  conditions,  accrue  to  liini  in  the  soil  than 
in  the  air.  But,  in  dealing  with  such  men  as  the 
Sioux  and  the  Delawares,  is  it  wise  to  he  always  hring- 
ing  our  political  logic  to  the  front?  A  law  which  the 
strong  has  to  enforce,  and  which  weighs  upon  the 
weak,  may  be  tempered  with  mercy,  even  when  it 
cannot  he  generally  set  aside.  A  little  love,  say  the 
philanthropists,  may  go  a  long  way.  The  land  is 
here;  we  come  and  seize  it;  gaining  for  ourselves  a 
possession  of  untold  v/ealth,  while  driving  the  hunter 
from  rivers  and  forests  which  before  our  coming  had 
yielded  his  family  the  means  of  life.  Ours  is  the  profit, 
his  the  loss.  Our  wants  can  hardly  be  the  measure  of 
our  rights;  and  if  the  Walla-Wallah  has  few  rights  in 
the  soil,  the  stranger  who  displaces  him  has,  in  the 
first  instance,  none  at  all,  beyond  that  vague  common 
right  which  every  human  being  may  be  supposed  to 
possess  in  the  earth  on  which  he  is  born.  A  com- 
promise, then,  would  appear  to  these  reasoners  to 
ofifer  the  only  sound  issue  out  of  such  conflicting 
claims:  and  an  Englishman,  jealous  —  for  fiimily 
reason  —  of  everything  done  by  his  brethren  in  the 
United  States,  may  feel  proud  that,  as  between  Yen- 
gees  and  Indians,  the  strong  have  dealt  favorably  with 
the  weak. 

Washington  laid  down  a  rule  for  paying  to  each 
tribe  driven  back  from  the  sea  by  settlers  a  rental  for 
their  lands;  arrangements  for  that  purpose  being 
made  between  a  Government  agent  and  a  recognized 
chief;  and  these  payments  to  the  Apalachian  and 
Algonquin  tribes  and  tribelets  have  ever  since  that 
day  been  made  by  the  United  States  government  with 
unfailing  good  faith. 

13ut  a  legal  discharge  of  this  trade  obligation  was  far 


80  NEW  A  ME  BIG  A. 

from  being  enough  to  satisfy  conscientious  men,  who 
felt  that  in  coming  upon  the  Indian  plain  and  forest 
the  J  were  driving  a  race  of  hunters  from  their  fields, 
and  cutting  away  from  them  the  means  by  w^hicli  they 
lived.  Could  nothing  else  be  done  for  the  red  man? 
These  white  men  saw  that  the  past  was  past.  A 
tribe  of  hunters,  eating  the  flesh  of  antelope  and  buf- 
falo, could  not  dwell  in  a  province  of  farms  and  pas- 
tures. The  last  arrow  had  been  shot  when  the  home- 
stead rose;  it  was  only  a  question  of  years  until  the 
bow  must  be  broken  and  the  archer  cast  aside.  A 
hunter  needs  for  his  subsistence  an  area  wide  enough 
to  feed  thousands  of  men  who  can  make  their  living 
by  the  plow  and  the  spade.  In  a  planet  crowded  like 
ours,  no  room  can  be  found  to  grow  the  hunter's  food; 
for  the  Avild  buck  which  he  traps,  the  elk  which  he 
runs  down,  the  bison  which  he  slays,  will  only  breed 
in  a  country  that  is  seldom  disturbed  by.  man.  The 
smoke  of  a  homestead  drives  away  buflalo  and  deer. 
Even  a  pastoral  tribe  can  find  room  enough  only  in 
the  wilds  of  Asia  and  Africa,  where  the  feuds  between 
tent  and  city  burn  with  consuming  heat;  yet  a  people 
living  by  pasturage,  driving  their  flocks  before  them 
in  search  of  herbage,  require  very  little  ground  for 
their  sustenance  compared  against  a  people  living  by 
the  chase.  What  then?  Must  the  red  man  perish 
from  the  earth?  Should  he  die  to  let  the  white  man 
live  upon  his  land?  Thousands  of  voices  cried  out 
against  such  sentence;  at  least  until  the  white  man, 
who  had  brought  his  law  upon  the  scene,  could  say 
that  every  eftbrt  to  save  the  Indian  had  been  made, 
and  that  every  experiment  had  failed. 

Then  came  the  question  (onlj-  to  be  laid  at  rest  by 
trial),  whether  the  Seneca,  the  Delaware,  the  Oneida, 


BED    COMMUNITIES.  81 

and  the  Chippewa  could  be  trained  in  the  arts  of  life; 
could  be  persuaded  to  lodge  in  frame-houses,  to  live 
in  one  place,  to  plant  corn  and  fruit-trees,  to  wear 
trowsers  and  shoes,  to  send  their  little  ones  to  school? 
A  number  of  pious  persons,  full  of  zeal  for  the  red 
race,  though  lacking  true  knowledge  of  the  course 
through  which  N^ature  works,  put  themselves  to  much 
cost  and  trouble  in  trying  these  experiments.  These 
reformers  had  a  strong  belief  in  their  power  of  doing- 
things,  so  to  say,  by  steam — of  growing  habits  of  life 
under  glass,  and  of  grafting  civilization  with  the  knife. 
They  fell  to  their  work  with  unflinching  spirit.  Lands 
were  given  up  to  the  red-skins;  teachers  were  provided 
for  them;  schools,  chapels,  saw-mills,  houses,  were 
built  for  them;  all  the  appliances  of  farming — plows 
and  flails,  corn-seed  and  fruit-trees,  horses  and  oxen, 
poultry  and  pigs — were  furnished,  more  or  less  freely, 
from  the  white  man's  stores.  A  true  history  of  these 
trials  would  be  that  of  a  great  endeavor,  an  almost 
uniform  failure;  fresh  proof  that  Nature  will  not  suf- 
fer her  laws  to  be  broken,  her  order  contravened,  and 
her  grades  disturbed. 

A  tribe  of  Senecas  was  placed  upon  the  Alleghany 
River  in  a  fine  location ;  a  tribe  of  Oneidas  settled 
on  a  reservation,  in  the  center  of  New  York,  called 
Oneida  Creek.  Care  and  money  were  lavished  on 
these  remnants  of  red  nations;  farms  were  cleared, 
houses  built  for  them ;  but  they  would  not  labor  with 
their  hands  to  any  purpose;  not  with  the  caution,  the 
continuity,  needful  to  success  in  growing  grain  and 
stock.  A  good  harvest  made  them  lazy  and  improvi- 
dent; a  bad  harvest  thinned  them  by  starvation  and 
disease.  One  or  two  families,  in  whom  there  was  a 
tinge  of  white  blood,  made  pretty  fair  settlers;  the 


82  NEW  AMERICA. 

rest  only  lived  on  the  land  so  long  as  tliey  could  sell 
the  timber  and  the  game.  As  wood  grew  scarce,  and 
game  disappeared,  they  began  to  sell  the  land;  at  first 
to  appointed  agents;  and  to  move  away  into  the  wild 
country  of  Green  Bay.  Most  of  the  tribe  have  now 
left  Oneida; — witli  the  exception,  perhaps,  of  the 
Walkers,  all  will  quit  their  ancient  Creek  in  time. 
Bill  Beechtree,  one  of  the  remnants,  cut  me  some 
hickory  sticks,  and  showed  me  some  bows  and  arrows 
which  he  makes  for  sale.  He  can  do  and  wall  do 
nothing  else.  Though  he  never  drew  bow  against  an 
enemy  in  his  life,  and  has  a  very  nice  voice  for  a 
psalm-tune,  he  considers  any  other  occupation  than 
cutting  sticks  and  barbing  arrows  unworthy  of  the  sou 
of  a  brave. 

The  Delawares  whom  we  saw  near  Leavenworth, 
the  Pottawottamies  whom  we  found  at  St.  Alary's 
Mission,  are  in  some  respects  better  off  than  the 
Oneidas,  being  settled  in  the  midst  of  friendly  whites, 
among  whom  they  continue  to  live,  but  only  in  a 
declining  state.  Both  these  tribes  have  engaged  in 
farming  and  in  raising  stock.  The  Delawares  rank 
among  the  noblest  nations  of  the  red  men ;  they  have 
finer  forms,  cleaner  habits,  quicker  senses,  than  the 
Cheyennes  and  the  Pawnees.  A  fragment  of  this 
people  may  be  saved,  by  ultimate  amalgamation  with 
the  surrounding  whites,  who  feel  less  antipathy  for 
them  than  for  Sioux  and  Utes.  The  Pottawottamies 
have  been  lucky  in  attracting  toward  their  settlement 
in  Kansas  the  wise  attentions  of  a  Catholic  bishop. 
At  St.  Mary's  Mission,  half  a  dozen  priests  have 
founded  schools  and  chapels,  taught  the  people  re- 
ligion, and  trained  them  to  habits  of  domestic  life. 
Two   thousand   children   are  receiving  lessons   from 


RED    COMMUNJTIES.  83 

these  priests.  The  sheds  are  better  built,  the  stock 
better  tended,  and  the  land  better  tilled  at  St.  Mary's 
than  they  are  in  the  reservation  of  any  Indian  tribe 
that  I  have  seen — except  one. 

At  Wyandotte,  on  the  Missouri  River,  some  Shawnee 
families  have  been  placed;  and  here,  if  anywhere  in 
the  Red  Land,  the  friends  of  civilization  may  point 
the  moral  of  their  tale.  Armstrong,  their  chief  and 
their  richest  man,  has  English  blood  in  his  veins;  in- 
deed, many  of  these  Shawnees  can  boast  of  the  same 
high  title  to  respect  among  their  tribe.  They  farm, 
they  raise  stock,  they  sell  dry  goods;  some  of  them 
marry  white  girls,  more  give  their  daughters  to 
whites;  and  a  few  among  them  aspire  to  the  mysteries 
of  banking  and  lending  money.  A  special  act  endows 
these  Shawnees  with  the  rank  of  citizens  of  Kansas, 
in  which  capacity  they  serve  on  juries  and  vote  for 
members  of  Congress. 

But  the  Shawnees  of  "Wyandotte,  being  a  people 
mixed  in  blood,  can  hardly  be  used  as  set-off"  against 
a  score  of  undoubted  failures. 


84  NEW  AMERICA. 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE    INDIAN    QUESTION. 

Now,  the  blame  arising  from  these  faikires  to  found 
any  large  reel  settlement  in  the  old  countries  once 
owned  by  Iroquois  and  Algonquin  has  been  constantly 
charged  against  the  red  man.  Is  this  charge  a  just 
one  ?  Is  it  the  Delawares'  fault  that  he  cannot  pass 
in  one  generation  from  the  state  of  a  hunter  into  that 
of  a  husbandman  ?  If  a  man  should  have  his  lodge 
built  with  a  green  shoot  instead  of  with  a  strong  tree, 
whose  fault  would  it  be  when  the  lodge  came  down  in 
a,  storm  ? 

Every  one  who  has  read  the  annals  of  our  race  —  a 
page  of  nature,  with  its  counterfoil  in  the  history  of 
everything  having  life  —  is  aware  that  in  our  progress 
from  the  savage  to  the  civilized  state,  man  has  had  to 
pass  through  three  grand  stages,  corresponding,  as  it 
were,  to  his  childhood,  to  his  youth,  and  to  his  man- 
hood. In  the  first  stage  of  his  career,  he  is  a  hunter, 
living  mainly  by  the  chase ;  in  the  second  stage,  he  is 
a  herdsman,  living  mainly  by  the  pasturage  of  goats 
and  sheep,  of  camels  and  kine ;  in  the  third  stage,  he 
is  a  husbandman,  living  mainly  by  his  cultivation  of 
corn  and  maize,  of  fruits  and  herbs.  These  three 
conditions  of  human  life  maybe  considered  as  finding 
their  purest  t^^pcs  in  such  races  as  the  Iroquois,  the 
Arabian,  and  the  Gothic,  in  their  present  stage  ;  but 
each  condition  is,  in  itself  and  for  itself,  an  aftair  of 


THE  INDIAN  QUESTION  85 

development  and  not  of  race.  The  Arab,  who  is  now 
a  shepherd,  was  once  a  hunter ;  the  Saxon,  who  is 
now  a  cultivator  of  the  soil,  was  first  a  hunter,  then  a 
herdsman,  before  he  became  a  husbandman.  Man's 
progress  from  stage  to  stage  is  continuous  in  its  course, 
obeying  the  laws  of  physical  and  moral  change.  It  is 
slow ;  it  is  uniform  ;  it  is  silent ;  it  is  unseen.  In  one 
word,  it  is  growth. 

No  one  can  step  at  his  ease  from  the  first  stage  of 
human  existence  into  the  second ;  still  less  can  he 
step  from  the  first  stage  into  the  third.  All  growth  is 
a  work  of  time,  depending  on  forces  which  are  often 
beyond  the  control  of  art ;  work  to  be  helped  perhaps, 
not  to  be  hurried,  by  men.  As  in  the  training  of  a 
vine,  in  the  rearing  of  a  child,  a  wise  waiting  upon 
nature  seems  our  only  course. 

These  three  stages  in  our  progress  upward  are 
strongly  marked ;  the  interval  dividing  an  Iroquois 
from  an  Arab  being  as  wide  as  that  which  separates 
an  Arab  from  a  Saxon. 

The  hunter's  habits  are  those  of  a  beast  of  prey. 
His  teeth  are  set  against  everything  having  life;  every 
beast  on  the  earth,  every  bird  in  the  air,  being  an 
enemy  against  which  his  club  will  be  raised  and  his 
arrow  will  be  drawn.  On  passing  into  the  stage  of  a 
herdsman,  he  becomes  used  to  the  society  of  horses, 
dogs,  and  camels,  animals  of  a  tender  breed  ;  he  finds 
himself  charged  with  the  care  of  sheep  and  goats,  of 
cattle  and  fowls,  creatures  which  he  must  pity  and 
tend,  bearing  with  their  humors  under  penalty  of  their 
loss.  If  he  would  feed  upon  their  milk  and  eggs,  if 
he  would  clothe  himself  in  their  wools  and  skins,  he 
must  study  their  wants,  and  care  for  them  with  a 
parent's  eye.  It  will  become  his  business  to  serve 
and  guard  them ;  to  seek  out  herbage  and  water  for 

8 


86  NEW  AMERICA. 

them  ;  to  consider  their  times  aud  seasons  ;  to  prepare 
for  them  a  shelter  from  the  heats  of  noon  and  the 
frosts  of  night.  Thus,  a  man's  relation  to  the  lower 
world  of  life  must  undergo  a  change.  Where,  in  his 
savage  state,  he  sharpened  his  knife  against  every 
living  thing,  he  has  now  to  become  a  student  of 
nature,  a  nursing  father  to  an  ever-increasing  family 
of  beasts  and  birds. 

Such  cares  as  occupy  all  pastoral  tribes  —  the  Arab 
in  his  tent,  the  Caffir  in  his  krall,  the  Kirghis  in  his 
hut  —  are  utterly  unknown  to  the  Seneca,  the  Sho- 
shonee,  and  the  Ute ;  the  softer  manners  which  result 
from  the  paternal  relation  of  men  to  domestic  animals 
bavins:  no  existence  in  anv  huntins;  tribe.  To  advance 
from  the  stage  of  a  Seneca  into  that  of  an  Arab,  is  a 
march  requiring  many  years,  perhaps  many  gener- 
ations, to  accomplish ;  and  even  when  that  stage  of 
pastoral  existence  shall  have  been  gained,  with  all  its 
changes  of  habit  and  of  thought,  the  hunter  will  be 
only  halfway  on  his  path  towards  the  position  occu- 
pied by  a  grain-growing  Saxon.  After  the  second 
stage  of  this  journey  has  been  accomplished  by  the 
red  man,  those  who  have  visited  !N'ahr  Dehab  in  Syria, 
and  watched  the  trials  there  being  made  by  the  Turks 
in  settling  the  Ferdoon  Arabs  on  the  soil,  will  feel 
inclined  to  wait  for  any  further  results  of  his  eitbrt  in 
a  very  calm  and  dispassionate  frame  of  mind. 

The  Cheyenne  is  a  wild  man  of  the  woods,  whom 
neither  cold  nor  hunger  is  strong  enough  to  goad  into 
working  for  himself,  his  children,  and  his  squaws. 
How  should  it  ?  A  man  may  die  of  frost  and  snow, 
and  even  for  lack  of  food,  without  bringing  dishonor 
upon  his  tribe ;  but  to  labor  with  his  hands  is,  in  his 
simple  belief,  a  positive  disgrace.  A  warrior  must 
not  soil  his  palm  with   labor,  seeing  that  his  only 


THE    INDIAN   QUESTION.  87 

duties  in  the  Avorld  are  to  hunt  and  tight.  If  maize 
must  be  planted,  if  roots  must  be  dug,  if  tires  must 
be  lit,  if  water  must  be  carried,  Avhere  is  the  squaw  ? 
Not  much  work  is  ever  done  in  a  Cheyenne  lodge ; 
but  whether  it  be  much  or  little,  the  man  will  take  no 
part  of  the  trouble  upon  himself.  To  kill  his  enemy 
and  to  catch  his  prey — that,  in  a  line,  is  the  Cheyenne's 
whole  duty  of  man.  Starvation  itself  will  not  drive 
him  into  treating  industry  as  a  duty ;  the  neglect  of 
which,  even  in  another,  is  never,  in  his  eyes,  an  offence. 
In  some  of  the  western  tribes,  where  game  is  running 
scarce  and  the  beavers  evade  the  trap,  the  squaws  and 
little  ones  throw  a  handful  of  grain  into  the  soil;  but 
the  hunters  give  no  heed  to  their  w^ork ;  and  if,  on 
their  return  to  the  spot,  later  in  the  year,  the  men  find 
that  their  squaws  have  omitted  to  sow  the  maize,  the 
idea  of  anybody  working  and  waiting  for  a  crop  to 
grow  is  so  foreign  to  their  Indian  taste,  that  they  sit 
down  and  laugh  at  the  neglect  as  a  passing  jest.  If 
the  tribe  runs  short  of  food,  the  hunter's  remedy  is  to 
march  against  his  neighbor,  and  by  means  of  his  bow 
and  his  tomahawk,  to  create  a  fresh  balance  between 
the  mouths  to  be  fed  and  the  quantity  of  butfalo  and 
elk  which  may  be  found  to  feed  them.  This  rude 
remedy  for  want  is  his  only  art.  Any  thought  of 
making  the  two  ends  of  his  account  meet  by  setting 
up  beehives  and  multiplying  herds,  would  never  pre- 
sent itself  unbronght  to  his  simple  mind.  His  fathers 
having  always  been  hunters,  the  only  resource  of  his 
tribe,  when  their  food  runs  short,  is  the  original  one 
of  breaking  through  every  obstacle  to  a  fresh  supply 
with  his  club. 

Can  we  marvel,  then,  that  when  the  Senecas  were 
placed  upon  such  land  as  the  Alleghany  reservation, 
in  a  bountiful  and  fruitful  country,  rich  in  white  pines, 


88  ^J^W  A  ME  ETC  A. 

and  in  other  valuable  trees,  they  should  have  done 
little  or  nothing  in  the  way  of  planting  and  sowing ; 
that  they  should  have  sold  their  timber  to  the  whites ; 
that  they  should  have  rented  their  saw-mills  and  ferries 
to  the  whites;  that  they  should  have  let  out  their 
rafting  yards  and  landing-places  to  the  whites ;  in 
short,  that  they  should  have  starved  on  a  few  dollars 
derived  from  rent,  while  the  more  eager  and  in- 
dustrious Yankee,  placed  in  the  same  location,  would 
have  coined  the  real  riches  of  the  country  into  solid 
gold?  Like  his  Arab  brother  at  Nahr  Dehab,  the 
Seneca  on  the  Alleghany  could  not  deiile  his  hands 
with  work — the  business,  not  of  warriors,  but  of 
squaws. 

It  is  only  fair,  then,  to  remember,  that  the  failure 
of  so  many  attempts  to  convert  the  hunter  into  a  hus- 
bandman at  a  single  step  was  due  to  great  laws  of 
nature,  not  to  the  perversity  of  man.  The  chasm 
could  not  be  bridged;  but  your  eager  and  well-mean- 
ing friends  of  the  red  race,  having  no  science  to  guide 
them,  had  to  work  this  truth  for  themselves  out  of 
vague  ideas  into  visible  facts.  In  their  ignorance  of 
the  general  laws  of  growth,  they  saw  their  very  sym- 
pathies and  generosities  changed  into  destroying 
powers ;  for  the  Indians  who  gave  up  their  lands  to 
the  white  men,  receiving  rentals  or  annuities  in  return 
for  them,  had  to  abandon  their  old  habits  of  life  with- 
out being  able  to  enter  on  any  new  employments. 
And  what  was  the  end  of  this  change  for  them  ? 
Hanging  about  the  skirts  of  towns,  they  ate  and 
drank,  rioted  and  smoked,  themselves  into  premature 
old  age.  Of  a  hundred  millions  of  dollars  which 
have  been  paid  to  the  red  man,  it  is  said  that  fifty 
millions  at  least  have  been  spent  in  grog-shops  and  in 
houses  of  evil   name.     The  misery  is,  that  in  their 


THE   INDIAN  QUESTION.  89 

savage  state  the  red  men  have  to  live  in  tlie  light  of  a 
high  civilization.  The  ferns  which  grow  in  their 
native  forests  would  not  more  surely  perish  if  they 
were  suddenly  planted  out  in  the  open  sun. 

The  same  hasty  desire  to  bring  the  red  savage  into 
close  relation  with  white  civilization  affects  the  policy 
pursued  by  government  agents  in  these  Plains.  In 
the  American  part  of  Red  India  failure  of  justice  is 
the  rule;  in  the  Canadian  part  of  Red  India  failure 
of  justice  is  extremely  rare  ;  and  the  reason  is  this, 
the  trappers  and  traders  living  beyond  the  Canadian 
frontier  deal  with  robbery  and  murder  with  a  prompt- 
ness and  simplicity  unknown  to  American  judges. 
My  friend,  Jem  Baker,  a  sturdy  old  trappor,  who 
resides  with  his  squaws  and  papooses  on  Clear  Creek, 
near  Denver,  put  the  whole  case  into  a  few  words. 
"You  see,  colonel,"  says  Jem,  to  whom  every  gentle- 
man is  a  colonel,  "the  diiference  is  this:  if  a  Sioux 
kills  a  white  man  near  Fort  Ellice,  you  English  say, 
'Bring  him  in,  dead  or  living,  here's  two  hundred 
dollars ; '  and  when  the  Indians  have  brought  him  in, 
you  say  again,  'Try  him  for  his  life;  if  he  is  guilty, 
hang  him  on  the  nearest  tree.'  All  is  done  in  a  day, 
and  the  Indians  have  his  blood  upon  themselves. 
But  if  a  Sioux  kills  a  white  man  near  Fort  Laramie, 
we  Americans  say,  'Bring  him  in  with  care,  along 
with  all  the  witnesses  of  his  crime  ; '  and  when  the 
Indians  have  brought  him  in,  we  say  again,  '  He  must 
have  a  fair  trial  for  his  life ;  he  must  be  committed  by 
a  justice  and  sent  before  a  judge,  he  must  have  a  good 
counsel  to  speak  up  for  him,  and  a  jury  to  try  him 
who  know  nothing  about  his  crime.'  So  most  times 
ne  gets  oif,  has  a  present  from  some  lady  perhaps,  and 
goes  back  to  his  nation  a  big  chief." 

I  have  heard  the  details  of  cases  in  which  Indian 

8* 


90  NEW  AMERICA. 

assassins,  taken  all  l)ut  red-handed,  have -been  sent  to 
Washington  for  trial,  three  thousand  miles  awa^'frora 
the  scenes  and  witnesses  of  their  crimes ;  wlio,  on 
being  acquitted  from  the  lack  of  such  evidence  as 
complicated  legal  methods  require,  have  come  hack 
into  these  prairies,  bearing  on  their  arms  and  necks 
gifts  of  philanthropic  ladies,  and  taking  instant  rank 
as  leaders  in  their  tribes.  A  simpler  and  swifter  form 
of  trial  is  needed  on  these  Plains — on  penalty  of  such 
irregular  acts  of  popular  vengeance  as  the  battle  of 
Sand  Creek. 

The  truth  is,  the  eastern  cities  have  always  shirked 
the  Indian  question  ;  fearing  to  face  it  boldly,  hoping 
it  would  drop  out  of  light  and  vex  their  spirits  no 
more.  "  We  push  our  way,"  said  Secretary  Seward 
to  me,  condolingly;  "ninety  j^ears  ago,  my  grand- 
father had  the  same  sort  of  trouble  with  Indians,  only 
sixty  miles  from  ISTew  York,  that  you  have  now  been 
suft'ering  six  hundred  miles  beyond  St.  Louis."  I  am 
often  surprised  by  the  splendid  confidence  which 
Americans  express  in  their  power  of  living  down 
everything  which  they  find  unpleasant ;  but  I  am  not 
convinced  that  this  policy  of  pushing  the  red  man  off 
this  continent  is  the  only  method  of  procedure. 

If  policy  compels  this  people  to  make  a  new  road 
from  St.  Louis  to  San  Francisco,  policy  suggests  that 
the  road  should  be  made  safe.  Thus  much  will  be 
admitted  in  Boston  as  well  as  in  Denver.  But  how  is 
a  path  through  the  buft'alo-runs  to  be  made  safe?  By 
the  white  men  going  out  every  spring  to  beg  a  treaty 
of  peace  from  Roman  Xose  and  Spotted  Dog,  paying 
for  it  with  1)aby  talk,  blankets,  fire-arms,  powder,  and 
whisky  ?  That  is  the  present  method  of  proceeding, 
and  no  one,  exce[)t  the  agents,  finds  it  much  of  a  suc- 
cess.    My  own  impression  is,  that  such  a  method  can 


THE  INDIAN  QUESTION.  91 

have  only  one  result,  to  deceive  the  red  man  into  an 
utterly  false  impression  of  the  Avliite  man's  weakness. 
These  Cheyennes  actually  helieve  that  they  are 
stronger,  hraver,  and  more  numerous  than  the  Ameri- 
cans. If  one  of  these  fellows,  who  may  have  been  at 
St.  Louis,  reports  to  his  tribe  that  the  white  men  of 
the  sunrise  are  many  beyond  counting,  like  the  ilowers 
on  the  prairie,  they  say  that  he  has  been  seized  by  a 
bad  spirit,  and  made  into  a  speaker  of  lies.  Tlius, 
they  hold  the  white  men  in  contempt. 

If  these  new  roads  are  to  be  kept  open,  and  blood  is 
to  be  spared,  this  position  of  the  white  and  red  man 
should  be  reversed,  and  the  order  of  things  in  this 
country  made  to  correspond  with  the  actual  facts. 
The  Indians  must  be  driven  into  suing  for  treaties  of 
peace.  If  you  admit  their  right  to  the  laud,  buy  it 
from  them.  When  they  come  to  you  for  peace,  let 
them  have  it  on  generous  terms,  and  then  compel 
them  to  observe  it  with  religious  faith.  A  little  sever- 
ity may  be  necessar}-  in  the  outset;  for  the  Cheyenne 
has  never  yet  felt  the  white  man's  power;  but  a  policy 
at  once  clear,  clement  and  firm,  would  soon  become 
intelligible  to  these  sons  of  the  prairie.  If  the  policy 
of  leaving  things  alone,  and  letting  the  trader,  emi- 
grant, and  traveller,  push  their  way  through  these 
deserts,  is  continued,  the  American  will  never  cease 
to  have  trouble  on  their  Indian  frontiers. 


92  N^W  AMERICA. 


CHAPTER  XI. 


CITY    OF    THE    PLAINS. 


At  the  head  of  these  rolling  prairies  stands  Denver, 
City  of  the  Plains. 

A  few  months  ago  (time  runs  swifth^  in  these  west- 
ern towns ;  two  years  take  you  back  to  the  middle 
ages,  and  a  settler  of  five  years'  standing  is  a  patriarch) 
Denver  was  a  wifeless  city. 

"I  tell  you,  sir,"  exclaimed  a  fellow-lodger  in  the 
wooden  shanty  known  to  emigrant  and  miner  as  the 
Planter's  House,  "five  years  ago,  when  I  first  came 
down  from  the  gulches  into  Denver,  I  would  have 
given  a  ten-dollar  piece  to  have  seen  the  skirt  of  a 
servant-girl  a  mile  off"." 

This  fellow  was  sitting  at  a  lady's  feet;  a  lady  of 
middle  age  and  fading  charms ;  to  whom,  an  hour  or 
so  afterwards,  I  said,  "  Pray,  madam,  is  the  gentleman 
who  would  have  given  the  ten-dollar  piece  to  see  the 
skirt  of  a  girl's  petticoat,  your  husband?  " 

"  "Why  do  you  ask,  sir?  " 

Having  had  no  particular  reason  for  my  query,  I 
replied,  with  a  bow,  "Well,  madam,  I  was  rather 
hoping  that  so  good  a  lover  had  met  with  a  bright 
reward." 

"No,"  she  answered  with  a  smile,  "I  am  not  his 
wife  ;  though  I  might  be  to-morrow  if  I  would.  He 
has  just  buried  one  lady,  and  he  wants  to  try  on  with 
a  second." 


CITY  OF  THE  PLAINS.  93 

On  alighting  at  the  Planter's  Honse  I  noticed, 
swinging  near  the  door,  a  little  sign,  on  Avhich  these 
words  were  painted  — 

"  Madame  Mortimer, 

"  Clairvoyant  Physician." 

In  the  shop-windows  of  Main  Street  I  had  seen  a  hand- 
bill, which  appeared,  from  its  ragged  look,  to  have 
done  service  in  some  other  house,  of  dirty  habits,  an- 
nouncing that  the  celebrated  Madame  Mortimer  had 
arrived  in  Denver,  and  might  be  consulted  daily  (no 
address  being  given)  on  what  I  may,  perhaps,  be  al- 
lowed to  call  diseases  of  the  heart.  Her  room  in  the 
hotel  stood  next  in  the  corridor  to  mine,  and  as  a  large 
panel  over  her  door  (door  discreetly  locked)  leading 
from  my  room  into  hers  was  open,  I  could  at  any  time 
of  the  last  three  or  four  nights  and  days  have  made 
her  personal  acquaintance  by  simply  standing  on  tip- 
toe and  looking  through.  Strange  to  say,  I  have  not 
thought  of  arming  myself  against  the  wiles  of  my 
neighbor,  even  by  a  cursory  inspection  of  her  camp ; 
and  when  I  spoke  just  now  to  the  faded  woman  in  the 
parlor,  I  was  utterly  unaware  that  she  was  the  cele- 
brated Madame  Mortimer,  who  could  tell  everybody's 
fortune  —  show  every  man  a  portrait  of  his  future  wife, 
every  woman  a  picture  of  her  future  husband  —  for 
the  low  charge  of  two  dollars  per  head  ! 

Poor  sorceress  ?  there  is  not  much  poetic  charm  in 
her;  not  a  tradition  of  the  art,  the  grace,  and  supple- 
ness of  spirit  which  made  the  genuine  witch.  This 
afternoon,  in  passing  my  door  in  the  lobby,  with  the 
adoring  lover  at  her  heels,  she  saw  me  looking  on  the 
ground  for  something.  It  was  only  a  match,  which  I 
had  dropped  while  drawing  on  the  wall  for  a  light. 


94  NEW  AMERICA. 

"You  have  lost  sonietliing?  " 

"Madame,  it  is  only  a  match;  can  you  make  me  a 
new  one?"  said  I,  looking  from  her  face  to  that  of 
the  miner. 

"  We  do  not  make  matches  in  Denver,"  she  replied, 
in  the  saddest  spirit. 

"  Surely  they  cannot  help  making  them  wherever 
you  are,"  I  said  with  a  bow. 

She  looked  quite  blank,  though  the  lover  began  to 
chuckle.     "  How  ?  "  she  asked,  still  simpering. 

"How!  by  gift  and  grace  of  heaven,  where  all 
matches  are  made." 

At  last  she  smiled.  "Ha!  thank  you,  sir;  I  like 
that,  and  will  keep  it;  "  on  Avhich  she  and  the  lover 
slipt  away  into  the  parlor,  and  I  lit  my  cigar  with  a 
fusee.  Yet  this  poor  sorceress  is  a  feature  in  the  City 
of  the  Plains;  and  I  am  told  that,  while  the  bloom  of 
her  coming  was  fresh  among  these  mining  men,  the 
curiosity  about  her  was  keen,  the  flow  of  dollars  into 
her  pocket  was  steady.  But  the  charm  appears  to  be 
nearly  spent;  the  landlord,  properly  protected  by  a 
wife,  and  not  being  of  a  romantic  turn,  is  said  to  be 
dunning  her  for  bills;  and  she  is  consequently  being 
driven  by  adverse  fates  to  trifle  with  the  aflections  on 
her  own  account.  Her  life  in  this  city  of  rakes  and 
gamblers  must  have  been  a  very  hard  one;  the  nearest 
town  is  six  hundred  miles  away ;  the  price  of  a  seat 
in  the  stage  is  about  two  hundred  dollars.  Poor  artist 
in  fate  —  the  stars  appear  to  be  very  hard  on  her  just 
now. 

{Note.  On  -my  return  from  Salt  Lake  City  to  Den- 
ver, I  found  that  her  little  sign  had  been  removed  from 
the  house-front,  and  I  began  to  fear  that  she  had  been 
driven  off  by  adverse  angels  to  either  Leavenworth  or 
Omaha ;  but  in  skipping  upstairs  to  my  room,  I  met 


CITY  OF  THE  PLAINH.  95 

the  poor  creature  on  the  ]andin£:;-sta<2i;e,  and  made  her 
my  politest  bow.  From  a  friend  in  the  house  I  learned 
that  she  had  retired  from  her  profession  into  domestic 
life;  but  onlj,  I  am  grieved  to  add,  with  what,  in  this 
City  of  tlie  Plains,  is  described  as  the  brevet  rank  of 
lady  and  wife.) 

The  men  of  Denver,  even  those  of  the  higher 
classes,  though  they  have  many  strong  qualities  — 
bravery,  perseverance,  generosity,  enterprise,  endur- 
ance—  heroic  qualities  of  the  old  ITorse  gods  —  are 
also,  not  unlike  the  old  Norse  gods,  exceedingly  frail 
in  morals;  and  wherc'j-ou  see  the  tone  of  society  weak, 
you  may  always  expect  to  find  aversion  to  marriage, 
both  as  a  sentiment  and  as  an  institution,  somewhat 
strong.  Men  who  have  lived  alone,  away  from  the 
influence  of  mothers  and  sisters,  have  generally  but 
a  faint  belief  in  the  personal  virtue  and  fidelity  of 
women;  and  apart  from  the  lack  of  belief  in  woman, 
which  ought  to  be  a  true  religion  in  the  heart  of  every 
man,  the  desire  for  a  fixed  connection  and  a  settled 
home  will  hardly  ever  spring  up.  Men  may  like  the 
society  of  women,  and  yet  not  care  to  encumber 
themselves  for  life.  The  worst  of  men  expect,  when 
they  marry,  to  obtain  the  best  of  wives ;  but  the  best 
of  women  do  not  quit  'E&w  England  and  Pennsyl- 
vania for  Colorado.  Hence  it  is  a  saying  in  Denver, — 
a  saying  confirmed  by  practice,  that  in  these  western 
cities,  though  few  of  the  miners  have  wives,  you  will 
not  find  many  among  them  who  can  be  truly  de- 
scribed as  marrying  men. 

On  any  terms  short  of  marriage  these  lusty  felloAvs 
may  be  caught  by  a  female  snare.  They  take  very 
freely  to  the  charms  of  negresses  and  squaws.  One 
of  the  richest  men  of  this  city,  whose  name  I  forbear 
to  give,  has  just  gone  up  into  the  mountains  with  a 


96  NEW  AMERICA. 

couple  of  Cheyenne  wives.  Your  young  Norse  gods 
are  nervously  afraid  of  entering  a  Christian  church. 

Denver  is  a  city  of  four  thousand  people ;  with  ten 
or  twelve  streets  laid  out ;  with  two  hotels,  a  bank,  a 
theatre,  half  a  dozen  chapels,  fifty  gambling-houses, 
and  a  hundred  grog-shops.  As  you  wander  about 
these  hot  and  dirty  streets,  you  seem  to  be  walking 
in  a  city  of  demons. 

Every  fifth  house  appears  to  be  a  bar,  a  whisky- 
shop,  a  lager-beer  saloon ;  ever}^  tenth  house  appears 
to  be  either  a  brothel  or  a  gaming-house ;  very  often 
both  in  one.  In  these  horrible  dens  a  man's  life  is 
of  no  more  worth  than  a  dog's.  Until  a  couple  of 
3-ears  ago,  when  a  change  for  the  better  began,  it  was 
quite  usual  for  honest  folks  to  be  awakened  from 
their  sleep  by  the  noise  of  exploding  guns  ;  and  when 
daylight  came,  to  find  that  a  dead  body  had  been 
tossed  from  a  window  into  the  street.  ISo  inquiry  was 
ever  made  into  the  cause  of  death.  Decent  people 
merely  said,  "  Well,  there  is  one  sinner  less  in  Den- 
ver, and  may  his  murderer  meet  his  match  to- 
morrow!" 

Thanks  to  William  Gilpin,  founder  of  Colorado, 
and  governor  elect,  aided  by  a  Vigilance  Committee ; 
thanks  also  to  the  wholesome  dread  which  unruly 
spirits  have  conceived  of  the  quick  eye  and  resolute 
hand  of  Sherifi:'  Wilson ;  thanks,  more  than  all,  to  the 
presence  of  a  few  American  and  English  ladies  in  the 
streets  of  Denver,  the  manners  of  this  mining  pande- 
monium have  begun  to  change.  English  women  who 
have  been  here  two  or  three  years,  assure  me  it  is 
greatly  altered.  Of  course  Gilpin  is  opposed — in  the- 
ory, at  least — to  all  such  jurisdiction  as  that  exercised 
by  the  Vigilance  Committee;  but  for  the  moment,  the 
society  of  this  city  is  unsettled,  justice  is  blind  and 


CITY  OF   THE   PLAINS.  97 

lame,  while  violence  is  alert  and  strong;  and  the  Vigi- 
lance Committee,  a  secret  irresponsible  board,  acting 
above  all  law,  especially  in  the  matter  of  life  and 
death,  has  to  keep  things  going  by  means  of  the  re- 
volver and  the  rope.  No  one  knows  by  name  the 
members  of  this  stern  tribunal ;  every  rich,  every  ac- 
tive man  in  the  place  is  thought  to  be  of  it;  and  you 
may  hear,  in  confidential  whispers,  the  names  of  per- 
sons who  are  supposed  to  be  its  leaders,  ministers, 
and  executioners.  The  association  is  secret,  its  agents 
are  many,  and  nothing,  I  am  told,  escapes  the  knowl- 
edge, hardly  anything  escapes  the  action,  of  this 
dread,  irresponsible  court.  A  man  disappears  from 
the  town: — it  is  an  offence  to  inquire  about  him;  you 
see  men  shrug  their  shoulders ;  perhaps  you  hear  the 
mysterious  words — "gone  up."  Gone  up,  in  the 
slang  of  Denver,  means  gone  up  a  tree  —  that  is  to 
say,  a  cotton-tree — by  which  is  meant  a  particular 
cotton-tree  growing  on  the  town  creek.  In  plain 
English,  the  man  is  said  to  have  been  Jiung.  This 
secret  committee  holds  its  sittings  in  the  night,  and 
the  time  for  its  executions  is  in  the  silent  hours  be- 
tween twelve  and  two,  when  honest  people  should  be 
all  asleep  in  their  beds.  Sometimes,  when  the  store- 
keepers open  their  doors  in  Main  Street,  they  find  a 
corpse  dangling  on  a  branch;  but  commonly  the  body 
is  cut  down  before  dawn,  removed  to  a  suburb,  where 
it  is  thrown  into  a  hole  like  that  of  a  dead  doer.  In 
most  cases,  the  place  of  burial  is  kept  a  secret  from 
the  people,  so  that  no  legal  evidence  of  death  can  be 
found. 

Swearing,  fighting,  drinking,  like  the  old  Norse 
gods,  a  few  thousand  men,  for  the  most  part  wifeless 
and  childless,  are  engaged,  in  these  upper  parts  of  the 
Prairie,  in  founding  an   empire.      The   expression  is 

9 


98  NEW  AMERICA. 

William  Gilpin's  pet  phrase;  but  the  congregation  of 
young  Norse  gods  who  drink,  and  swear,  and  fight 
along  these  roads,  are  comically  unaware  of  the  glori- 
ous work  in  which  they  are  engaged, 

"Well,  sir,"  said  to  me,  one  day,  a  burly  stranger, 
all  boots  and  beard,  with  a  merry  mouth  and  auda- 
cious eye;  "well,  what  do  you  think  of  our  Western 
boys?" 

Remembering  Gilpin,  and  wishing  to  be  safe  and 
complimentary,  I  replied,  "You  are  making  an  em- 
pire." "Eh?  "  he  asked,  not  understanding  me,  and 
fancying  I  was  laughing  in  my  sleeve — a  liberty  which 
your  Western  boy  dislikes  —  he  brought  his  hand,  in- 
stinctively, a  little  nearer  to  his  bowie-knife.  "  You 
are  making  an  empire  ?  "  I  put  in  once  again,  but  by 
way  of  inquiry  this  time,  so  as  to  guard  against  giving 
offence  and  receiving  a  stab. 

"I  don't  know  about  that,"  said  he,  relaxing  his 
grim  expression,  and  moving  his  hand  from  his  belt; 
"  but  I  am  making  money." 

Gilpin,  I  dare  say,  would  have  laughed,  and  said  it 
was  all  the  same. 

William  Gilpin  is  perhaps  the  most  noticeable  man 
on  the  Plains,  just  as  Brigham  Young  is  the  most 
noticeable  in  the  Salt  Lake  Valley;  and  it  would 
hardly  be  a  figure  of  speech  to  say  that  his  office  in 
Denver  (a  small  room  in  the  Planter's  House,  which 
serves  him  for  a  bedroom,  for  a  library,  for  a  hall  of 
audience,  for  a  workshop,  and  the  upper  ten  thousand 
of  Colorado,  generally,  for  a  spittoon)  is  the  high 
school  of  politics  for  the  gold  regions  and  the  moun- 
tain districts.  By  birth,  Gilpin  is  a  Pennsylvanian ; 
by  nature  and  habit,  a  state  founder.  Descending 
from  one  of  the  best  Quaker  families  of  his  State,  (his 
ancestor  was  the  Gilpin  who  came  out  with  Penn  and 


CITY  OF   THE   PLAINS.  99 

Logan,)  taiiglit  ])y  history  the  need  of  that  large  and 
graceful  tolerance  of  religious  sentiment  which  Penn 
displayed  in  the  court  of  Charles  the  Second,  which 
the  Friends  have  put  into  practice  on  the  Susque- 
lianna,  and  armed  by  nature  with  abundant  gifts  of 
genius, — patience,  insight,  eloquence,  enthusiasm, — 
he  has  played,  and  he  is  now  playing,  a  singular  and 
dramatic  part  in  this  western  country.  He  describes 
liimself  to  me  as  in  sympathy  a  Quaker-Catholic:  that 
is  to  say,  as  a  man  who  embraces  in  his  single  person 
the  extremes  of  religious  thought  —  the  feeling  of  per- 
sonality with  the  dogma  of  authority — the  laxest  forms 
of  liberty  with  the  sternest  canons  of  order ;  an  unu- 
sual blending  of  sentiments  and  sympathies,  one  not 
made  in  a  day,  not  springing  from  an  individual 
whimsy,  but  the  result  of  much  history,  of  a  long 
family  tradition,  and  nowhere,  perhaps,  to  be  found 
in  this  generation  except  on  the  frontier-land  which 
unites  Quaker  Pennsylvania  with  Catholic  Delaware. 
Gilpin  abounds  in  apparent  contradictions.  A  Qua- 
ker, he  is  also  a  soldier — a  West-Pointer — and  of 
singular  distinction  in  his  craft.  He  bore  a  prominent 
part  in  the  Mexican  war;  was  the  youngest  man  in  the 
army  who  attained  the  rank  of  lieutenant-colonel ;  and 
but  for  his  resignation,  on  moving  out  West,  would 
have  been  the  superior  officer  of  Grant  and  Sherman. 
It  is  a  happy  circumstance  for  him  that  no  call  of  dutj'- 
made  it  necessary  for  him  to  hold  prominent  command 
against  any  section  of  his  countrymen  during  the  civil 
war.  Gilpin's  work  is  in  another  field,  in  the  Great 
West,  of  which  he  is  the  champion  and  the  idol;  and 
which  he  has  given  his  mind  to  explore,  to  advertise, 
to  settle,  and  to  subdue. 

Under  this  man's  sway,  the  city  is  changed,  and  is 
changing  fast;  yet,  if  I  may  believe  the  witnesses,  the 


100  N^W  AMERICA. 

advent  of  a  dozen  English  and  American  ladies,  who 
came  out  with  their  husbands,  has  done  far  more  for 
Denver  than  the  genius  and  eloquence  of  William 
Gilpin.  A  lady  is  a  power  in  this  country.  From  the 
day  when  a  silk  dress  and  a  lace  shawl  were  seen  in 
Main  Street,  that  thoroughfare  became  passably  clean 
and  quiet;  oaths  were  less  frequently  heard;  knives 
were  less  frequently  drawn ;  pistols  were  less  fre- 
quently fired.  None  of  these  things  have  ceased;  far, 
very  tar,  is  Denver  yet  from  peace  ;  but  the  young 
Norse  gods  have  begun  to  feel  rather  ashamed  of 
swearing  in  a  lady's  presence,  and  of  drawing  their 
knives  before  a  lady's  face. 

Slowly,  but  safely,  the  improvement  has  been  brought 
about.  At  first,  the  ladies  had  a  very  bad  time,  as 
their  idiom  runs.  They  feared  to  associate  with  each 
other;  every  woman  suspected  her  neighbor  of  being 
little  better  than  she  should  be.  Things  are  safer 
now  ;  and  I  can  testify,  from  experience,  that  Denver 
has  a  very  charming,  though  a  very  limited  society  of 
the  better  sex. 


^ 


ROBERT  WILSON,  SHERIFF  OF  DENVER. 


PRAIRIE  JUSTICE.  101 


CHAPTER   XII. 


PRAIRIE    JUSTICE. 


The  chief  executive  officer  of  this  city  is  Robert 
Wilson,  sheriff,  auctioneer,  and  justice  of  the  peace; 
though  he  would  hardly  be  recognized  in  Colorado 
under  such  a  description.  As  Quintus  Horatius  Flac- 
cus,  poet  and  good-fellow,  is  only  known  as  Horace,  so 
Robert  Wilson,  sheriif  and  auctioneer,  is  only  known  as 
Bob,  in  polite  society  as  Bob  Wilson.  The  Sheriif,  who 
is  said,  like  our  Judge  Popham  of  immortal  memory, 
to  have  been  a  gambler,  if  nothing  worse,  in  his  wild 
youth,  is  still  a  young-looking  man  of  forty  or  forty- 
two  ;  a  square,  strong-chested  fellow,  low  in  stature, 
with  a  head  like  the  Olympian  Jove's.  The  stories 
told  in  the  Prairies  of  this  man's  daring  make  the 
blood  freeze,  the  flesh  creep,  and  the  pulse  gallop. 
To-day  he  came  and  sat  with  me  for  hours,  talking  of 
the  city  and  the  territory  in  which  his  fortunes  are  all 
bound  up.  One  of  his  tales  was  that  of  his  capture  of 
three  horse-stealers. 

According  to  the  code  in  fashion,  here  in  Denver, 
murder  is  a  comparatively  slight  oft'ence.  Until  two 
or  three  years  ago,  assassination  —  incidental,  not  de- 
liberate assassination — was  a  crime  of  every  day.  At 
the  door  of  some  gambling-house — and  ever}^  tenth 
house  in  Main  Street  was  a  gambling-house,  openly 
kept,  with  the  stimulants  of  drinking,  singing,  and 
much  worse  —  it  was  a  common  thing  to  find  a  dead 

9* 


102  NEW  AMERICA. 

man  in  the  streets  each  daybreak.  A  fight  had  taken 
place  over  the  roulette-table;  pistols  had  been  drawn; 
and  the  fellow  who  was  slowest  with  his  weapon  had 
gone  down,  No  one  thought  of  searching  into  the 
affray.  .A  ruffian  had  been  shot,  and  the  ci'ty  consid- 
ered itself  free  of  so  much  waste.  Human  life  is  here 
of  no  account;  and  what  man  likes  to  bring  down 
upon  himself  the  vengeance  of  a  horde  of  reckless 
devils  by  seeking  too  particularly  into  the  cause  of  a 
fellow's  death? 

A  lady,  whom  I  met  in  Denver,  wife  of  an  ex- 
mayor  of  that  city,  told  me  that  when  she  first  came 
out  into  the  West,  four  or  five  years  ago,  there  were 
sixty  persons  lying  in  the  little  grave-yard,  excluding 
criminals,  not  one  of  whom  had  died  a  natural  death. 
Exact  inquiry  told  me  this  account  was  somewhat 
beyond  the  mark  ;  but  her  statement  showed  the  be- 
lief still  current  in  the  best  houses;  and  indeed  it  was 
only  a  little  beyond  the  truth.  Men  quarrel  in  the 
streets  and  fight,  but  no  one  dreams  of  going  to  the 
help  of  the  weaker  side.  One  night,  when  I  was 
writing  in  my  room,  a  pistol-shot  exploded  near  my 
window,  and,  on  looking  out,  I  saw  a  man  writhing 
on  the  o;round.  In  a  few  moments  he  was  carried  off 
by  his  comrades;  no  one  followed  his  assailant;  and  I 
heard  next  day,  that  the  assassin  was  not  in  custody, 
and  that  no  one  knew  for  certain  where  he  was.  Op- 
posite my  window  there  is  a  well,  at  which  two  sol- 
diers were  drinking  water  late  at  night ;  an  English 
gentleman,  standing  on  the  balcony  of  the  Planter's 
House,  heard  one  soldier  say  to  the  other,  "Look, 
there  is  a  cobbler,  bang  at  him  !"  on  which  his  com- 
rade raised  his  piece  and  fired.  Poor  Crispin  jumped 
up  into  his  shop  and  shut  the  door;  he  had  a  near 
escape  with  life,  for  the  ball  had  gone  through  the 


PRATRTE   JUSTICE.  lOP, 

lioarding  of  his  house,  and  lodged  itself  in  the  oppo- 
site wall.  Nothing  was  done  to  those  two  soldiers; 
and  every  one  to  whom  I  expressed  my  surprise  at 
such  negligence  on  the  part  of  their  commanding 
officers,  marvelled  at  my  surprise. 

Unless  a  ruffian  is  known  to  have  killed  half  a 
dozen  people,  and  to  have  got,  as  it  Avere,  murder  on 
the  hraiu,  he  is  alnu)st  safe  from  trouble  in  these 
western  plains.  A  notorious  murderer  lived  near 
Central  City ;  it  was  known  that  he  had  shot  six  or 
seven  men  ;  but  no  one  thought  of  interfering  with 
him  on  account  of  his  crimes  until  he  was  taken  red- 
handed  in  the  very  act.  Some  persons  fancied  he 
was  heartily  sorry  for  what  he  had  done,  and  he  him- 
self, when  tossing  off  cocktails  with  his  rough  com- 
panions, used  to  say  he  was  sick  of  shedding  blood. 

One  day,  on  riding  into  Central  City,  he  met  a 
friend  whom  he  invited  to  take  a  drink.  The  friend, 
not  wishing  to  be  seen  any  more  in  such  bad  com- 
pany, declined  the  offer,  on  which  the  ruffian  drew 
his  pistol  in  the  public  street,  in  the  open  day,  and 
saying,  with  a  comic  swagger  of  reluctance,  "  Good 
God,  can  I  never  come  into  town  without  killing 
some  one?"  shot  his  friend  through  the  heart. 
Seized  by  the  indignant  crowd,  the  callous  ruffian 
had  a  stern  trial,  a  short  thrift,  and  a  midnight  escape 
up  the  famous  cotton-tree  in  the  city  ditch. 

But  with  respect  to  theft,  most  of  all  the  theft  of 
horses,  public  opinion  is  far  more  strict  than  it  is 
with  respect  to  murder.  Horse-stealing  is  always 
punished  by  death.  Five  good  horses  were  one  day 
missed  from  a  corral  in  Denver;  and  on  Wilson  being 
consulted  as  to  the  probable  thieves,  the  Sheriff's  sus- 
picions fell  on  three  mining  rowdies,  gamblers,  and 
thieves,  named   Brownlee,  Smith,   and    Carter,   men 


104  NEW  AMERICA. 

who  had  recently  come  into  the  city  from  the  mines 
and  the  mountain  roads.  As  inquiry  in  the  slums 
and  grog-shops  could  not  find  these  worthies,  Wilson, 
feeling  sure  that  they  were  the  men  he  wanted,  or- 
dered his  horse,  and,  after  looking  well  at  his  re- 
volver and  bowie-knife,  jumped  into  the  saddle  and 
turned  toward  the  Platte  road.  The  time  was  early 
spring,  when  the  snow  was  melting  and  the  water 
high.  Coming  to  the  river,  he  stript  and  crossed  the 
rapids,  holding  his  clothes  and  pistols  above  his  head, 
and  partly  swimming  his  horse  across  the  stream. 
Riding  on  all  day,  all  night,  he  came  upon  the  thieves 
on  a  lonely  prairie,  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  from 
Denver,  and  five  miles  from  the  nearest  ranch.  Carter 
and  Smith  were  each  leading  a  horse,  in  addition  to 
the  one  he  rode ;  Brownlee  rode  alone,  bringing  up 
the  rear.  It  was  early  day  when  he  came  up  with 
them,  and  as  they  did  not  know  him  by  sight,  he  en- 
tered into  conversation,  chiefly  with  Brownlee,  pass- 
ing himself  off  with  the  robbers  as  a  broken  miner 
going  home  to  the  States;  and  riding  with  them  from 
eight  o'clock  until  twelve  in  the  hope  of  meeting 
either  the  public  stage,  or  some  party  of  traders  who 
could  lend  him  help.  But  he  looked  in  vain.  At 
noon  he  saw  that  no  assistance  could  be  got  that  day, 
and  feeling  that  he  must  do  his  perilous  work  alone, 
he  suddenly  changed  his  air  and  voice,  and  reigning 
in  his  horse,  said, — 

"  Gentlemen,  we  have  gone  far  enough ;  we  must 
turn  back." 

"Who   the   h are   you?"    shouted   Brownlee, 

drawing  his  weapon. 

"  Bob  Wilson,"  said  the  Sherifl:',  quietly ;  "  come  to 
fetch  you  back  to  Denver,  You  are  accused  of  steal- 
ing three  horses.  Give  up  your  arms,  and  you  shall 
be  fairly  tried." 


PRAIRIE  JUSTICE.  105 

"You  go  to  h !"  roared  Brownlee,  raising  his 

pistol;  but  before  he  could  draw  the  trigger,  a  slug 
Avas  in  his  brain,  and  he  tumbled  to  the  ground  with 
the  imprecation  hot  upon  his  lips.  Smith  and  Carter, 
hearing  the  loud  words  behind  them  followed  by  the 
exploding  pistol,  turned  round  suddenly  in  their  sad- 
dles and  got  ready  to  fire ;  but  in  the  confusion  Smith 
let  drop  his  piece ;  and  in  an  eye-blink,  Carter  fell 
to  the  ground,  dead  as  the  dust  upon  which  he  lay. 
Smith,  who  had  jumped  down  from  his  horse  to  get 
his  pistol,  now  threw  up  his  hands. 

"  Come  here,"  cried  Wilson,  to  the  surviving  thief; 
"  hold  my  horse  ;  if  you  stir  a  limb,  I  fire  ;  you  see  I 
am  not  likely  to  miss  my  mark." 

"  You  shoot  very  clean,  sir,"  answered  the  trembling 
ruffian. 

"Now,  mind  me,"  said  the  Sheriff";  "I  shall  take 
you  and  these  horses  back  to  Denver ;  if  you  have 
stolen  them,  so  much  the  worse  for  you ;  if  not,  you 
are  all  square;  any  way,  you  shall  have  a  fair  trial." 

Wilson  then  picked  up  the  three  pistols,  all  of  them 
loaded  and  capped.  "I  hesitated  for  a  moment,"  he 
said  to  me,  in  this  part  of  his  tale,  "whether  to  draw 
the  charges ;  on  second  thought  I  resolved  to  keep 
theip  as  they  were,  as  no  one  could  tell  what  might 
happen."  Tying  the  three  pistols  in  a  handkerchief, 
and  carefully  reloading  his  own  revolver,  he  then 
bade  Smith  get  on  one  of  the  horses,  to  which  he 
then  made  the  fellow  fast  by  ropes  passed  round  his 
leo-s.  Leavino;  the  two  dead  men  on  the  e-round,  and 
turning  the  horses  loose  to  graze,  Wilson  led  him  cap- 
tive along  the  road  as  far  back  as  the  ranch.  A 
French  settler,  with  aii  English  wife,  lived  at  this 
prairie  ranch,  and  on  Wilson  stating  who  he  was,  and 
what  his  prisoner  was  more  than  suspected  of  being. 


106  ^^W  AMEBIC  A. 

the  brave  conple  entered  into  his  plans.  After  lash- 
ing Smith  to  a  post,  and  telling  the  woman  to  shoot 
him  dead  if  he  struggled  to  get  free  (an  order  which 
her  husband  said  she  would  certainly  carry  out, 
should  the  need  for  it  arise),  the  two  men  rode  back 
to  the  scene  of  execution,  buried  the  two  bodies,  re- 
covered the  four  horses,  and  brought  away  many  arti- 
cles from  the  dead  men's  pockets,  which  might  serve 
to  identify  them  in  evidence.  Returning  to  the  ranch, 
they  found  the  woman  on  guard,  and  tSmith  in  despair. 
In  their  absence.  Smith  had  used  all  his  arts  of  appeal 
upon  the  woman  ;  he  had  appealed  to  her  pity,  to  her 
vanity,  to  her  avarice.  At  length  she  had  been  forced 
to  tell  him  that  she  would  hear  no  more,  that  if  he 
spoke  again  she  would  fire  into  his  mouth.  Then  he 
grew  white  and  silent.  i!^ext  day  brought  the  Sheriff 
and  his  prisoner  to  Denver,  when  Smith  had  a  short 
shrift  and  a  violent  escape  up  the  historical  tree. 


SIERRA  MADRE.  107 


CHAPTER  XIII. 


SIERRA    MADRE. 


From  Denver  City  up  to  Bridger's  Pass,  the  highest 
point  of  the  Sierra  Madre  (Mother  Crest,  or  saw-line) 
over  which  trapper  and  trader  have  worn  a  track,  the 
ascent  is  easy  as  to  gradients,  though  it  may  he  most 
uneasy  in  the  matter  of  ruts,  creeks,  sand  and  stones. 
So  far  a  traveller  finds  but  little  difference  between 
the  mountains  and  the  prairies,  which  are  also  rolling 
uplands,  rising  between  Leavenworth  and  Denver  up- 
wards of  four  thousand  feet,  the  height  of  Snowdon 
above  the  sea.  Yet  Bridger's  Pass  is  the  water-part- 
ing of  a  great  continent ;  the  eastern  slopes  shedding 
their  snow  and  rain  towards  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  the 
western  slopes  towards  the  Pacific  Ocean. 

For  ninety  miles  the  road  runs  quietly  north  of 
Denver,  along  the  base  of  a  lower  range  of  mountains 
known  as  the  Black  Hills,  in  search  of  an  opening 
through  the  towering  wall  of  rock  and  snow.  At 
Stonewall,  near  Virginia  Dale,  it  finds  a  gorge,  pr 
canyon,  as  the  people  call  it,  leading  into  a  pretty 
woodland  district,  full  of  springs  and  streamlets,  in 
which  the  trout  are  so  abundant  you  may  catch  them 
in  a  creel.  The  scenery  is  not  yet  wild  and  grand, 
though  it  is  picturesque,  from  the  strange  rock  forma- 
tion and  the  brilliance  of  its  body  color.  The  mo- 
ment you  enter  into  the  mountain  land,  you  see  why 


108  NEW  AMERICA. 

the  Spaniards  called  it  Colorado,  The  prevailing  tint 
of  rock,  of  soil,  of  tree  (especially  in  the  fall),  is  red. 

Between  Virginia  Dale  and  Willow  Springs,  the 
country  lying  south  of  our  track  may  be  called  beau- 
tiful. The  road  runs  high,  commanding  a  sweep  of 
many  valleys,  bright  with  welcome  foliage,  therefore 
blessed  with  water ;  broken  by  cols  and  ridges,  with 
long  dark  intervals  of  space  between ;  the  whole  land- 
scape crowned  in  the  distance  by  the  mighty  and 
irregular  range  from  Long's  Peak  to  Pike's  Peak. 
This  is  a  true  Swiss  scene;  the  hills  being  clothed 
with  pine,  the  summits  capped  with  snow;  a  scene  as 
striking  in  its  natural  features  as  the  more  famous 
view  of  the  Oberland  Alps  from  Berne. 

At  Laramie  we  lose  this  mountain  picture.  Low 
mounds  of  earth  and  sand,  covered  with  the  wild  sage, 
peoi)led  by  prairie  dogs,  coyotes,  and  owls,  shut  out 
the  snow-line  from  our  sight. 

Here  and  there  along  the  track  we  pass  the  shoulder, 
we  cross  the  summit,  of  a  height  which  may  be  called 
a  mountain  (out  of  courtesy)  such  as  Elk  Mountain, 
the  Medicine  Bow  Mountain,  and  the  ridge  of  North 
Platte,  before  we  descend  upon  Sage  Creek  and  Pine 
Grove ;  but  w^e  see  no  peaks,  we  climb  no  alps ;  jog 
jog,  —  trot  trot, — grind  grind,  —  we  rumble  in  the 
light  wagon  over  stones,  over  grass,  over  sand,  across 
creeks  and  water-ruts,  with  a  uniform  miser}-,  day 
after  night,  night  after  day,  that  would  murder  any 
man  outright,  from  sheer  exhaustion  of  his  animal 
spirits,  were  it  not  for  the  strong  reaction  caused  by 
the  ever-expected  appearance  of  Ute,  Cheyenne,  and 
Sioux. 

The  life  is  hard  at  its  best,  intolerable  at  its  average. 
Only  twice  in  the  night  and  day  we  are  allowed  to 
eat.     The  food  is  bad,  the  water  worse,  the  cooking 


SIERRA  MADRE.  lO'J 

worst.  Vegetables  there  are  none.  Milk,  tea,  "butter, 
beef,  mutton,  are  commonly  wanting.  Even  the  talis- 
manic  letters  from  !N^ew  York  are  useless  in  these  high 
and  desolate  Passes  throuii-h  the  sao;e-fields.  If  there 
were  food  it  would  be  sold  to  us ;  but,  as  a  rule,  there 
is  simply  none  at  all.  Hot  dough,  which  they  call 
cake,  you  may  have,  though  you  will  find  it  hard  to 
eat,  impossible  to  digest — ^}'ou  who  are  not  to  the  ma- 
terial and  the  method  born,  and  who  have  been  pam- 
pered and  spoiled  by  the  chefs  in  Pall  Mall.  ISTo  beer, 
no  spirit,  sometimes  no  salt,  can  be  found.  As  a  lux- 
ury, you  may  get  dried  elk  and  buiFalo-flesh,  seasoned 
with  a  dash  of  powder ;  and  for  these  horrid  dainties 
you  are  charged  a  dollar  and  a  half,  in  some  places 
two  dollars,  per  meal. 

But  if  the  life  seems  hard  to  us,  who  get  through  it 
in  a  dozen  days  and  nights,  what  must  it  prove  to  the 
trapper,  the  teamster,  the  emigrant?  Spite  of  its 
perils  and  privations,  this  mountain  road  is  alive  with 
trains  of  people  going  to  and  fro  between  the  River 
and  Salt  Lake.  Hundreds  of  men,  thousands  of  oxen, 
mules,  and  horses,  climb  these  desolate  tracks ;  bear- 
ing with  them,  in  light  mountain  wagons  built  for  the 
purpose,  the  produce  of  eastern  fields  and  cities,  — 
green  apples,  dried  corn,  salt  beef,  flour,  meal,  potted 
fruits  and  meats, — as  well  as  tea,  tobacco,  coflee,  rice, 
sugar,  and  a  multitude  of  dry  goods,  from  caps  and 
shoes  to  cofiin-plates  and  shrouds,  —  bearing  them  to 
the  mining  districts  of  Colorado,  Utah,  Idaho,  Mon- 
tana, where  such  things  find  a  ready  sale.  The  train- 
men march  in  bands  for  safety,  and  a  train  from  Leav- 
enworth to  Salt  Lake  resembles  in  many  ways  the 
great  caravan  of  commerce  on  a  Syrian  road.  A  trader 
on  the  river, —  at  Oma,  in  Nebraska, — at  Leaven- 
worth, in  Kansas, — hears,  or  perhaps  suspects,  that 

10 


110  NEW  AMERICA. 

some  article,  such  as  tea,  cotton,  fruits,  —  it  may  be 
molasses,  tanned  leather,  —  is  running  short  in  the 
mountains,  and  that  in  a  few  weeks  a  demand  for  it  is 
likely  to  spring  up  at  high  rates.  Buying  in  a  good 
market,  he  takes  the  risk  of  being  wrong  in  his  con- 
jecture. With  his  one  prime  article  of  trade  he  com- 
bines a  dozen  minor  articles;  say,  with  a  huge  bulk 
of  tea,  a  little  cutlery,  a  little  claret,  a  little  quinine 
and  other  drugs,  store  of  blankets  and  gauntlets, — 
perhaps  a  thousand  pairs  of  top-boots.  He  buys  fifty 
or  sixty  light  wagons,  with  a  dozen  oxen  to  each 
wagon ;  engages  a  train  boss,  or  captain,  hires  about  a 
hundred  men, — packs  up  his  goods,  —  and  sends  the 
caravan  off  into  the  plains.  ISo  actuary  in  his  senses 
would  ensure  the  arrival  of  that  train  in  Denver,  in 
Salt  Lake,  in  Virginia  City.  The  journey  is  consid- 
ered as  an  adventure.  The  men  who  go  with  it  must 
be  excellent  shots,  thoroughly  well  armed;  but  they 
are  not  expected  to  defend  their  cargo  against  the  In- 
dians; and  should  the  red-skin  plunderers  show  in 
force,  the  teamsters  are  allowed  to  cut  the  traces, 
mount  on  the  fleetest  mules,  and  fly  to  the  nearest 
post  or  station,  leaving  their  wagon,  stock,  and  cargo, 
to  be  plundered  as  the  Indians  list.  No  man  likes  his 
poll  to  be  scalped;  and  the  teamster,  with  a  wife  and 
child,  perhaps,  lying  in  Omaha,  in  Leavenworth,  loves 
to  keep  his  hair  untouched.  Murder  will  happen  in 
the  best  conducted  trains;  but  the  bravest  "Western 
boy  sets  his  life  above  a  hundred  chests  of  tea  and  a 
thousand  sacks  of  flour. 

Some  of  these  trains  haul  passengers  along  the 
road  at  the  rate  of  fifty  dollars  a-head  for  the  journey 
—  (in  the  stage  it  is  two  hundred  and  fifty)  —  the 
passenger  finding  himself  in  food,  herding  with  the 
teamsters,  and  cooking  his  own  meals. 


SIERRA  MAD  RE.  HI 

The  trip,  when  it  is  done  at  all,  is  made  in  about 
ninety  days,  from  the  River  to  Salt  Lake;  a  journey 
of  more  than  twelve  hundred  miles ;  with  the  city  of 
Denver  as  a  resting-place,  six  hundred  miles  from  the 
starting-point  and  from  the  end.  The  average  rate  is 
fourteen  or  fifteen  miles  a  day ;  though  some  of  the 
train-men  will  push  through  twenty  miles  on  the 
plains. 

Four  or  five  hours  in  the  middle  of  the  day  they 
rest  to  let  the  cattle  graze,  and  to  cook  their  food ;  at 
nightfall  they  encamp  near  to  fresh  water,  if  possible 
in  the  vicinity  of  a  little  wood.  They  corral  the 
wagons;  that  is  to  say,  they  set  them  in  the  form  of 
an  ellipse,  open  only  at  one  end,  for  safety ;  each 
wagon  locked  against  its  neighbor,  overlapping  it  by 
a  third  of  the  length,  like  the  scales  on  plate  armor ; 
this  ellipse  being  the  form  of  defence  against  Indian 
attack,  which  long  experience  in  frontier  warfare  had 
proved  to  the  old  Mexican  traders  in  these  regions  to 
be  the  most  effective  shield.  When  the  wagons  are 
corralled,  the  oxen  are  turned  loose  to  graze,  the  men 
begin  to  cut  and  break  wood,  the  women  and  children 
(if  there  be  any  in  the  party)  light  the  tires,  fetch 
water  from  the  spring  or  creek,  boil  the  kettle,  and 
bake  the  evening  bread.  Some  of  the  young  men, 
expert  with  the  rifle,  tramp  across  gully  and  creek  in 
search  of  plover,  prairie  dog,  and  chicken ;  and  on 
lucky  days  these  hunters  may  chance  to  fall  upon 
antelope  and  elk.  Luck  going  with  them,  the  even- 
ing closes  with  a  feast.  Others  hunt  for  rattle-snakes, 
and  kill  them  ;  also  for  stra^-  coyotes  and  wolves,  many 
of  which,  driven  mad  by  hunger,  infest  the  neighbor- 
hood of  a  camp.  I  saw^  a  huge  gray  wolf  shot  within 
two  yards  of  a  wagon,  which  had  been  lifted  from  the 
wheels  and  set  on  the  ground,  and  in  which  lay  a 


112  NEW  AMERICA. 

sleeping  child.  "When  supper  is  clone,  the  oxen,  hav- 
ing had  their  mouthful  of  bunch-grass,  are  driven  for 
safety  into  the  corral  of  wagons ;  or  otherwise  the 
morning  light  would  haply  find  them  miles  away  in 
an  Indian  camp.  A  song,  a  story,  perhaps  a  dance, 
winds  up  the  weary  day.  In  warm  weather,  train-folks 
sleep  in  the  wagons,  to  escape  the  rattle-snakes  and 
wolves.  When  the  snow  is  deep  in  the  gully,  when 
the  wind  comes  sweeping  down  the  ice,  a  wagon  on 
wheels  is  too  cold  for  a  bed,  and  the  train-men  prefer 
a  blanket  on  the  ground,  with  a  whisky-bottle  for  a 
pillow.  Long  before  dawn  they  are  up  and  about ; 
yoking  the  cattle,  hitching  up  the  wagons,  swallowing 
their  morning  meal.  Sunrise  finds  them  plodding  on 
the  road. 

Sometimes  the  owner  travels  with  his  train;  not 
often  :  for  the  boss  can  manage  these  unruly,  drunken, 
quarrelling  teamsters  better  than  the  actual  owner  of 
the  cargo.  If  the  rations  should  run  short,  if  the 
whisky  should  turn  out  bad,  if  the  wagons  should 
break  down,  the  boss  can  join  chorus  with  the  team- 
sters in  swearing  at  his  chief.  A  strong  outburst  of 
abuse  is  said  to  do  the  men  much  good;  and  as  the 
owner  does  not  hear  it,  he  is  none  the  worse.  When 
the  chief  is  present,  every  man  in  the  train  has  a  com- 
plaint to  make ;  so  that  time  is  lost  by  the  way,  and  a 
spirit  of  insubordination  shows  itself  in  the  camp. 
When  anything  goes  wrong, —  and  every  da}-,  in  such 
a  country,  something  must  go  wrong, —  if  the  real 
master  is  not  present,  the  boss  can  say,  lie  cannot  help 
it,  they  are  all  in  one  boat,  and  they  must  make  the 
best  of  a  bad  job.  In  this  way  —  grumbling,  drink- 
ing, fighting  —  they  get  through  the  mountain-passes; 
to  end  their  ninety  days  of  stern  privations  by  a  week's 
debauchery,  either  in  the  secret  slums  of  Salt  Lake 
City,  or  in  the  solitude  of  some  mountain  ranch. 


SIERRA  MAT) RE.  113 

The  owner  travels  in  the  mail,  more  swiftly,  not 
more  pleasantly,  than  his  servants,  and  is  ready  in 
Denver,  in  Salt  Lake,  in  Virginia  City,  to  receive  his 
wagons ;  when  he  may  sell  the  whole  train,  tea,  drugs, 
hosiery,  wagons,  oxen,  in  a  lump  or  lumps. 

The  ranch-men  are  of  two  classes :  (1),  the  enter- 
prising class,  who  go  out  into  the  mountains  —  much 
as  eastern  farmers  go  into  the  backwoods  —  to  clear 
the  ground,  to  grow  a  little  corn,  to  feed  a  few  sheep 
and  kine;  fighting  the  battle  of  life,  on  one,  side 
against  reluctant  nature,  on  the  other  side  against  hos- 
tile red-skins ;  living  on  bad  food  and  bad  water,  in 
the  hope  of  getting  a  first  footing  on  the  unoccupied 
soil,  and  laying  the  foundation  of  a  fortune  for  their 
sons  and  grandsons ;  (2),  the  more  reckless  class,  who 
build  a  log-hut  by  the  roadside,  in  the  highway  of 
teamster  and  emigrant,  with  a  view  of  selling  whisky 
and  cordials  to  the  passers-by,  and  even  to  the  tipsy 
Cheyenne  and  Sioux,  making  in  a  brief  season  a  for- 
tune for  themselves.  Both  classes  lead  a  life  of  much 
peril  and  privation.  Even  more  than  the  teamster 
and  the  emigrant,  the  ranch-man  bears  his  life  in  the 
palm  of  his  hand ;  for  every  rufiian  on  the  road  who 
calls  for  drink,  with  a  bowie-knife  and  a  revolver  in 
his  belt,  has  the  quick,  quarrelsome  spirit  of  the 
"Western  boy,  and  often  wants  whisky  to  drink  when 
he  has  never  a  dollar  in  his  pouch  to  pay  for  the 
delicious  dram. 

But  the  chief  peril  comes  to  the  ranch-man  in  the 
shape  of  Indians ;  most  of  all,  when  a  pow^erful  tribe, 
like  that  of  the  Sioux,  that  of  the  Pawnees,  sets  out 
on  the  war-path.  The  red-skin  loves  whisk}^  more 
than  he  loves  either  wife  or  child ;  in  peace  he  will 
sell  anything  to  obtain  his  darling  poison  ;  his  papoose, 
his  squaw,  even  his  captive  in  war:  but  when  a  Sioux 

10* 


114  NEW  AMERICA. 

has  put  the  red  paint  on  his  cheek,  and  slung  the 
scalping-knife  to  his  side,  he  no  longer  thinks  of 
buying  his  dose  of  fire-water  from  the  white  man ;  he 
sweeps  down  upon  the  ranch,  takes  it  by  force,  and 
with  it,  not  unfrequently,  the  life  of  its  vendor. 

Yet  the  spirit  of  gain  tempts  the  ranch-man  to  re- 
build his  burnt  shed,  to  replenish  his  plundered  store. 
K  he  lives  through  two  or  three  seasons  of  successful 
trade  in  whisky  and  tobacco,  he  is  rich.  Paddy  Blake, 
an  Irishman,  from  Virginia  city,  keeps  a  ranch  near 
the  summit  of  Bridger's  Pass,  in  a  field  which  is  the 
very  model  of  desolation.  lie  lives  at  Fort  Laramie; 
by  trade  he  is  a  suttler ;  but  he  finds  it  pay  better  to 
sell  bad  spirits  to  the  teamsters  at  three  dollars  a 
bottle,  and  cake-tobacco  for  chewing  at  six  dollars  a 
pound,  than  to  deal  in  decent  stores  among  soldiers 
and  civilians  at  the  fort.  A  small  log-hut  contains 
his  stock  of  poisons,  which  he  vends  to  the  passer-by, 
including  Utes  and  Cheyennes,  about  four  months  in 
the  year,  while  the  roads  are  open  and  the  snow  is  oflT 
the  ground ;  taking  butfalo  and  beaver  skins  from  the 
red  men,  dollars  and  kind  (the  kind  too  often  stolen) 
from  the  whites. 

Along  this  mountain  road,  in  every  train,  among 
the  callous  teamsters,  among  the  raw  emigrants,  among 
the  passing  strangers,  among  the  resident  stockmen, 
there  is  one  topic  of  conversation  night  and  day, — the 
Indians.  Every  red  man  moves  in  this  region  with 
the  scalping-knife  in  his  hand.  Spottiswood,  one  of 
the  smart  agents  of  the  Overland  mail,  told  me  that 
he  saw  a  white  man  taken  by  the  Sioux  from  his 
wagon,  and  burnt  to  death  on  a  pile  of  bacon.  The 
antelope-hunter  of  Virginia  Dale  was  killed  onl\^  a  few 
weeks  ago.  Between  Elk  Mountain  and  Sulphur 
Spring  a  train  was  stopped  by  Cheyennes,  and  eighteen 


STEBRA  MADRE.  115 

men,  women,  and  children,  were  massacred  and  muti- 
lated. Two  young'  girls  were  carried  off',  and,  after 
being  much  abused  by  the  Indians,  were  sent  into 
Fort  Laramie,  and  exchanged  for  sacks  of  flour  from 
the  quartermaster's  store. 

Near  the  top  of  the  iirst  pass,  stands  a  lonely  mail- 
station,  called,  by  a  pious  and  permissible  fiction,  Pine 
Grove ;  two  stockmen  occupy  the  log-hut ;  one  of 
them,  named  Jesse  Ewing,  is  the  hero  of  a  tale  more 
striking  than  many  a  deed  that  has  earned  the  Vic- 
toria Cross. 

In  the  spring  of  this  year  a  party  of  Sioux,  then 
out  on  the  war-path,  came  to  Pine  Grove,  and  by  acci- 
dent found  Jesse  there  alone.  As  usual,  they  made 
free  with  what  was  not  their  own ;  ate  up  the  bread 
and  coffee,  the  dried  elk,  and  the  salt  bacon ;  and 
having  gorged  their  stomachs,  they  told  Jesse  to  light 
a  big  tire,  as  they  meant  to  roast  him  alive.  Burning 
their  captives  is  a  common  pastime  with  the  Sioux; 
not  their  Pawnee  enemies  only,  but  the  Swaps  (as 
they  call  the  Yengees)  or  Pale-faces  also.  Up  to  this 
time  Jesse  had  contrived  to  keep  his  knife  and  his 
revolver  hidden  in  his  clothes,  and  neither  of  these 
weapons  being  seen,  the  Indians  supposed  that  he  Avas 
quite  unarmed  and  at  their  mercy.  At  first,  he  refused 
to  light  a  fire,  knowing  they  would  carry  out  their 
threat;  and  on  their  saying  they  would  set  their 
squaws  to  skin  him  if  he  did  not  swiftly  obey  their 
chief,  he  said  he  could  not  make  a  big  fire  unless  he 
were  allowed  to  fetch  straw  and  fagots  from  the 
stable.  The  fact  being  obvious  to  the  Sioux,  he  was 
told  to  go  and  fetch  them,  two  of  the  Indians  going 
out  into  the  night  to  see  him  do  it ;  one  entering  the 
stable  with  him,  the  second  standing  at  the  door  on 
STuard.     Quick  as  thought,  his  knife  was  in  the  side 


116  NEW  AMERICA. 

of  the  red  man  near  him ;  a  second  later  a  slug  was 
in  the  brain  of  the  one  outside.  The  firing  brought 
out  all  the  yelping  band;  but  Jesse,  swift  as  an  ante- 
lope, leaped  into  a  creek,  got  under  some  trees  and 
stones,  in  a  place  which  he  knew  very  well,  and  lay 
there  under  cover,  still  as  the  dead,  while  the  Sioux, 
infuriated  by  their  sudden  loss,  kept  up  for  hours 
around  big  hiding-place  their  wild  and  horrible  yep, 
yep.  The  night  was  intensely  cold;  he  had  no  shoes; 
no  coat:  worse  than  all  else,  the  snow  began  to  fall, 
so  that  he  could  not  stir  without  leaving  traces  of  his 
feet  along  the  ground.  Happily  for  him,  snow  slob- 
bers and  numbs  an  Indian's  feet  as  quickly  as  it  chills 
a  Yeugee's.  He  could  hear  the  Sioux  crjnng  out 
against  the  cold ;  after  a  few  hours  he  found  that  his 
enemies  were  turning  their  faces  eastward.  Slowly, 
the  noise  of  feet  and  voices  bore  away ;  the  Indians 
taking  the  path  towards  Sage  Creek;  and  when  the 
air  was  a  little  still,  Jesse  stole  from  his  covert,  and 
ran  for  his  life  to  the  home-station  at  Sulphur  Springs, 
where  he  arrived  at  daybreak,  and  obtained  from  his 
comrades  of  the  road  the  welcome  relief  of  food  and 
fire. 

This  brave  boy  has  come  back  to  Pine  Grove ;  a 
fact  which  I  mention  with  regret,  since  the  Indians 
are  again  menacing  the  road;  and  if  they  come  down 
in  strength,  Jesse  will  be  marked  in  their  score  of 
vengeance  as  one  of  the  first  to  fall. 


BITTER  CREEK.  \yj 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

BITTER    CREEK. 

The  Camp  of  Peaks,  composing  the  Sierra  Madre, 
having  their  crown  and  centre  in  Fremont's  Peak, 
three  hundred  feet  above  the  height  of  Monte  Rosa, 
shed  from  their  snowy  sides  three  water-lines  :  on  the 
eastern  side,  towards  the  Mississippi  and  the  Pacific 
Ocean;  on  the  western  side  towards  the  Cohimbia 
River  and  the  Pacific  Ocean ;  on  the  southern  side  to- 
wards the  Colorado  River  and  the  Gulf  of  California. 
Southwestward  of  this  Peak  rises  the  Wasatch  chain, 
shutting  out  from  these  systems  of  rain-flow  the  de- 
pression known  as  the  Valley  of  Utah  and  the  Great 
Salt  Lake.  Between  the  two  great  mountain  chains 
of  the  Sierra  Madre  and  the  Wasatch  lies  the  Bitter 
Creek  country,  one  of  the  most  sterile  spots  on  the 
surface  of  this  earth. 

This  wild  Sahara,  measuring  it  from  Sulphur  Springs 
to  Green  River,  is  one  hundred  and  thirty-five  miles  in 
width.  It  is  a  region  of  sand  aiid  stones,  without  a 
tree,  without  a  shrub,  without  a  spring  of  fresh  water. 
Bones  of  elk  and  antelope,  of  horse  and  bullock,  strew 
the  ground.  Here  and  there,  more  thickly  than  else- 
where, you  come  upon  a  human  grave  ;  each  of  which 
has  a  story  known  to  the  mountaineers.  This  stone  is 
the  memorial  of  five  stock-men  who  were  murdered  by 
the  Sioux.  Yon  pole  marks  the  resting-place  of  a 
young  emigrant  girl,  who  died  on   her  way  to  the 


118  NEW  AMERICA. 

Promised  Land.  That  tree  is  the  gallows  of  a  wretch, 
who  was  huug  by  his  companions  in  a  drunken  brawl. 
The  whole  track  is  marked  by  skeletons  and  tragedies; 
and  visible  nature  is  in  sternest  harmony  with  the  work 
of  man.  A  little  wild  sage  grows  here  and  there,  scat- 
tered in  lonely  bunches  in  the  midst  of  a  weak  and 
stunted  grass.  The  sun-flower  all  but  disappears,  at- 
taining, where  it  grows  at  all,  no  more  than  the  size 
of  a  common  daisy.  The  hills  are  low,  and  of  a  dirty 
yellow  tint.  A  fine  white  film  of  soda  spots  the  land- 
scape, here  in  broad  fields,  there  in  bright  patches, 
which  the  unused  eye  mistakes  for  frost  and  snow. 
When  the  creek,  which  lends  its  bitter  name  to  the 
valley,  is  full  of  water,  as  in  early  summer,  while  the 
ice  is  melting,  the  taste  of  that  water,  though  nau- 
seous, may  be  borne ;  but  when  the  creek  runs  dry,  in 
the  later  summer  and  the  fall,  it  is  utterly  abominable 
to  man  and  beast ;  rank  poison,  which  inflames  the 
bowels  and  corrupts  the  blood.  Yet  men  must  drink 
it,  or  they  die  of  thirst ;  cattle  must  drink  it,  or  they 
will  die  of  thirst.  The  soil  is  very  heavy,  the  road  is 
very  bad.  A  train  can  hardly  cross  this  Bitter  Creek 
country  under  a  week,  and  many  of  the  emigrant  par- 
ties have  to  endure  its  stern  privations  ten  or  twelve 
days.  Oxen  cannot  pull  through  the  heavy  sand,  when 
from  scanty  food  and  poisonous  drink  their  strength 
has  begun  to  fail.  Some  fall  by  the  way,  and  cannot 
be  induced  to  rise ;  some  simply  stagger,  and  refuse  to 
tug  their  chains.  The  goad  curls  round  their  backs  in 
vain ;  there  is  nothing  for  a  teamster  to  do  but  draw 
the  yoke  and  let  the  poor  creatures  drop  into  the  rear, 
where  the  wolves  and  ravens  put  an  end  to  their  mis- 
eries. The  path  is  strewn  with  skeletons  of  ox  and 
mule.  Again  and  again  we  meet  with  trains  in  the 
Bitter  Creek  country,  in  which  a  third  of  the  oxen  are 


BITTER  GREEK.  119 

in  hospital ;  that  is  to  say,  have  been  relieved  from 
their  labor,  thrown  on  the  flank  to  graze,  or  left  be- 
hind on  the  chance  of  their  recovery,  perhaps  in  care 
of  a  lad.  When  many  animals  of  a  stock  fall  sick,  the 
strain  put  on  the  healthy  becomes  severe,  and  the 
caravan,  unable  to  go  forward,  may  have  to  camp  for 
a  week  of  rest  in  most  unhealthy  ground. 

Lying  between  the  two  great  ridges  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  the  Bitter  Creek  country,  a  valley  about 
the  average  height  of  Mons  Pilatus  above  the  sea, 
is,  of  course,  intensely  cold.  The  saying  of  the  herds- 
men is,  that  winter  ends  with  July,  and  begins  with 
August,  Many  of  the  mules  and  oxen  die  of  frost, 
especially  in  the  fall,  when  the  burning  sun  of  noon 
is  suddenly  exchanged  for  the  icy  winds  of  midnight. 
Frost  comes  upon  the  cattle  unawares,  with  a  soft, 
seductive  sense  of  comfort,  so  that  they  seem  to  bend 
their  knees  and  close  their  eyes  in  perfect  health  ;  yet, 
when  the  morning  dawns,  it  is  seen  that  they  will 
never  rise  again  from  their  bed  of  sleep.  It  is  much 
the  same  with  men  ;  who  often  lie  down  in  their  rugs 
and  skins  on  the  ground,  a  little  numb,  perhaps,  in 
the  feet;  not  miserably  so,  their  toes  being  only  just 
touched  with  the  chill  of  ice ;  yet  the  more  knowing 
hands  among  them  feel  that  they  will  never  find  life 
and  use  in  those  feet  again.  I  heard  of  one  train  cap- 
tain, who,  being  careful  of  his  men  and  teams,  had 
put  them  up  for  the  night,  near  Black  Buttes,  in  a 
time  of  trouble  with  the  Sioux ;  and  who,  being  well 
clothed  and  mounted,  had  undertaken,  in  relief  of 
another,  to  act  as  their  sentinel  and  guard.  All  night 
he  sat  his  pony  in  the  cold ;  shivering  a  little,  dozing 
a  little ;  but  on  the  rustling  of  a  leaf,  awake,  alert,  and 
watchful.  When  daylight  came,  and  the  camp  began 
to  stir,  he  shouted  to  one  of  his  drivers,  and  would 


120  NEW  AMEBIC  A. 

have  drawn  his  foot  from  the  leather  rest,  which  serves 
the  mountaineer  instead  of  a  stirrup  ;  but  his  leg  was 
stiff  and  would  not  obey  his  will.  In  his  surprise,  he 
tried  to  raise  the  other  leg,  but  the  muscles  once  more 
refused  to  answer.  When  he  was  lifted  down  from 
the  saddle,  his  legs  were  found  to  have  been  frozen  to 
the  knee ;  and  after  three  days'  agony  he  expired. 

Nothing  is  more  usual  than  to  see  men  on  the  prai- 
ries and  in  the  mountains  who  have  lost  either  toes  or 
fingers,  bitten  away  by  frost. 

Hardly  less  trying  to  the  mountaineers  than  frost 
and  snow,  are  the  sudden  storms  which  rage  and  howl 
through  these  lofty  plains.  On  my  return  from  Salt 
Lake  City  across  the  Bitter  Creek,  a  storm  of  snow,  of 
sleet  and  hail,  swept  down  upon  us,  right  in  our  front, 
hitting  us  in  the  face  like  shot,  and  soaking  us  sud- 
denly to  the  skin.  At  first  we  met  it  bravely,  keeping 
our  horses  to  the  fore,  and  making  a  little  progress, 
even  in  the  teeth  of  this  riotous  squall.  But  the 
horsesNSOon  gave  in.  Terrified  by  the  roaring  wind, 
chilled  by  the  smiting  hail,  they  stood  stone-still ; 
dogged,  stolid,  passive,  utterly  indifferent  to  the 
driver's  voice  and  the  driver's  whip.  Taught  by  his 
long  experience,  the  driver  knew  when  the  brutes 
must  have  their  way ;  he  suddenly  wheeled  round,  as 
though  he  was  about  to  return,  and  setting  the  wagon 
to  the  fore,  put  his  team  under  its  lee,  with  their  hind- 
quarters only  exposed  to  the  pelting  storm.  In  this 
position  we  remained  three  hours,  until  the  swirl  and 
tumult  had  gone  by ;  after  which  we  got  down  from 
the  wagon,  shook  ourselves  dry  in  the  cold  night  air, 
and  with  the  help  of  a  little  cognac  and  tobacco  (taken 
as  a  medicine)  we  resumed  our  journey. 

A  train  of  emigrants,  which  had  to  draw  up  near  us, 
and  await  the  tempest's  passage,  was  not  so  lucky  in 


BITTER  CREEK.  121 

arrangement  as  ourselves.  Tlie  men  had  stopped  their 
caravan  as  soon  as  the  mules  and  horses  had  refused 
to  move ;  but  instead  of  bracing  their  frightened  ani- 
mals closer  to  the  wagons,  they  had  loosened  their 
bands  and  sutfered  them  to  face  the  elements  as  they 
l>leased.  Some  of  them  could  not  stand  this  freedom 
from  the  trace  and  curb.  For  a  moment  they  stood 
still ;  they  snifled  the  air ;  they  shook  with  panic ; 
then,  turning  their  faces  from  the  wind,  they  pawed 
the  wet  ground,  bent  down  their  heads  and  went  off 
madly  into  space ;  a  regular  stampede,  in  the  course 
of  which  many  of  the  poor  creatures  would  be  sure  to 
drop  down  dead  from  terror  and  exhaustion.  "We 
could  not  see  the  end  of  our  neighbors'  troubles,  for 
the  night  came  down  between  us  and  their  camp,  and 
on  the  instant  slackening  of  the  wind,  we  wheeled  the 
wagon  round,  and  trotted  on  our  way.  The  emigrants 
would  have  to  wait  for  dawn,  to  commence  their 
search  for  the  wandering  mules  and  horses;  some 
they  would  find  in  the  nearer  creeks,  where  they  hap- 
pened to  first  shelter  from  the  driving  storm  ;  others 
they  would  have  to  follow  over  ridge  and  gully,  many 
a  long  mile.  Once  in  motion,  with  the  hail  and  wind 
beating  heavily  on  their  backs,  horses  will  never  stop ; 
will  climb  over  mountains,  rush  into  rivers,  break 
through  underwood,  until  the  violence  of  nature  has 
spent  itself  out.  Then  they  will  stand  and  shiver, 
perhaps  droop  and  die. 

Bullocks,  like  mules  and  horses,  suffer  from  these 
storm-frights,  and  the  experienced  teamster  of  the  plains 
will  yoke  them  together,  and  lash  them  to  the  wagons 
whenever  he  sees  the  sign  of  a  tempest  coming  on. 
Herding  in  a  corral,  hearing  the  voices  of  their  drivers, 
they  are  less  alarmed  than  when,  loose  and  alone,  they 
break  into  a  stampede ;  yet  even  in  a  corral,  with  the 

11 


122  NEW  AMERICA. 

song  of  the  teamster  in  their  ears,  they  shake  and 
moan,  lie  down  on  the  earth  and  cry,  and  not  unfre- 
quently  die  of  fright. 

In  the  midst  of  these  terrors  and  confusions  in  a 
train — when  the  horses  are  either  strayed  or  sick, 
when  the  boss  is  busy  with  his  stock,  when  the  team- 
sters are  exhausted  by  fatigue  and  hunger  —  the  road- 
agents  generally  fall  on  the  corral  and  find  it  an  easy 
prey. 

Road-agent  is  the  name  applied  in  the  mountains  to 
a^  ruffian  who  has  given  up  honest  work  in  the  store, 
in  the  mine,  in  the  ranch,  for  the  perils  and  profits  of 
the  highway.  Many  ruined  traders,  broken  gamblers, 
unsuccessful  diggers,  take  to  the  road,  plundering 
trains  of  their  goods,  robbing  emigrants  of  their 
mules,  and  sometimes  venturing  to  attack  the  mail. 
They  are  all  well  armed ;  some  of  them  are  certain 
shots.  1^0  fear  of  man,  and  no  respect  for  woman, 
restrain  these  plunderers  from  committing  the  most 
atrocious  crimes.  Their  hands  are  raised  against 
every  one  who  may  be  expected  to  have  a  dollar  in 
his  purse.  Every  law  which  they  can  break,  they 
have  already  broken ;  every  outrage  w^hich  they  can 
efiect,  they  have  probably  already  efiected ;  so  that 
their  dregs  of  life  are  already  due  to  justice;  and 
nothing  they  can  do  will  add  to  the  load  of  guilt  which 
they  already  bear.  These  plunderers,  who  roam 
about  the  tracks  in  bauds  of  three  or  five,  of  ten  oi 
twenty,  sometimes  of  thirty  or  forty,  are  far  more  ter- 
rible to  the  merchant  and  the  emigrant  than  either 
Sioux  or  Ute.  The  Sioux  is  but  a  savage,  whom  the 
white  man  has  a  chance  of  daunting  by  his  pride,  of 
deceiving  by  his  craft ;  but  his  brother  on  the  road, 
himself  perhaps  a  trader,  a  train-man  in  his  happier 


BITTER    CREEK.  123 

days,  can  sec  through  every  wile,  and  measure  with  a 
ghince  hoth  his  -sveakness  and  his  strength. 

Many  men  known  to  have  been  road-agents,  sus- 
pected of  being  still  connected  with  the  bands,  are  at 
large ;  this  man  keeping  a  grog-shop,  that  man  living 
in  a  ranch,  the  other  man  driving  the  mail.  In  this 
free  western  country  you  cannot  ask  many  questions 
as  to  character.  A  steady  wrist,  a  quick  eye,  a 
prompt  invention,  are  of  more  importance  in  a  ser- 
vant than  the  very  best  testimonials  from  his  recent 
place.  Life  is  too  rough  for  the  nicer  rules  to  come 
into  play.  I  saw  a  fellow  in  Denver  whose  name  is 
as  well  known  in  Colorado  as  that  of  Dick  Turpin  in 
Yorkshire.  He  is  said  to  have  murdered  half  a  dozen 
men ;  he  is  free  to  come  and  go,  to  buy  and  sell ;  no 
one  molests  him ;  fear  of  his  companions,  and  of 
men  who  live  by  crimes  like  his,  being  strong  enough 
to  daunt,  for  a  time,  even  the  Vigilance  Committee 
and  their  daring  Sheriff.  On  my  return  through  the 
Bitter  Creek  country,  I  had  the  honor  of  riding  in 
the  mountain  wagon  with  an  old  road-agent,  who 
laughed  and  joked  over  his  exploits,  caring  not  a  jot 
for  either  sheriff  or  judge.  One  of  his  stories  ran  as 
follows.  He  and  a  wretch  like  himself,  being  out  on 
the  road,  had  been  rather  lucky,  and  having  got  a 
thousand  dollars  in  greenbacks  in  their  pouch,  they 
were  making  for  Denver  City,  where  they  hoped  to 
enjoy  their  plunder,  when  they  saw  in  the  distance 
five  mounted  men,  whom  my  campanion  said  he  knew 
at  once  to  be  part  of  a  gang  in  which  he  had  formerly 
served  on  terms  of  share  and  share.  "  We  are  lost 
now,"  he  said  to  his  companion  in  crime;  "these 
men  will  rob  us  of  our  greenbacks,  possibly  shoot  us 
into  the  bargain,  so  as  not  to  leave  a  witness  of  their 
deed  alive." 


124  NEW  AMEBIC  A. 

"We  shall  see,"  replied  his  more  crafty  friend.  "I 
know  them,  and  have  been  out  with  them ;  we  must 
get  over  them  as  broken-down  wretches." 

Smearing  themselves  with  dirt,  dragging  a  long 
face,  and  looking  hungiy  and  miserable,  they  met 
the  five  horsemen  with  the  cry,  ''  Give  us  five  dollars, 
captain  ;  we  are  broken  down  and  trying  to  get  on  to 
Denver,  where  we'll  find  some  friends;  give  us  five 
dollars ! "  This  cry  of  distress  went  straight  to  the 
highwayman's  heart.  He  tossed  my  companion  the 
greenbacks,  telling  him  to  be  mum,  and  then  dashed 
on  in  front  of  his  more  suspicious  comrades. 

Not  long  ago,  a  party  of  these  road-agents  robbed 
the  imperial  mail,  with  circumstances  of  unusual 
harshness,  even  in  the  mountains.  The  story  of  the 
crime  is  in  everybody's  mouth  as  that  of  the  Portlift' 
Canyon  murder;  and  is  here  told  mainly  from  the 
murderer's  confession  to  Sheriff"  Wilson. 

Frank  Williams,  a  man  of  bad  character,  but  a  good 
whip,  a  good  shot,  an  experienced  mountaineer,  got 
employment  as  a  driver  on  the  Overland  route.  On 
one  of  this  man's  visits  to  Salt  Lake  he  made  the  ac- 
quaintance of  one  Parker  of  Atchison,  a  trader  who 
had  been  doing  business  in  the  Mormon  city,  and 
was  about  to  return  Avith  his  gains  to  the  River  town. 
M'Causland  of  Virginia,  and  two  other  merchants, 
having  with  them  a  large  sum  of  money  in  gold  dust, 
were  proposing  to  go  back  with  Parker  in  the  mail,  for 
their  mutual  safety.  These  names  and  facts  Parker 
told  Frank  Williams  as  they  drank  together,  at  the 
same  time  asking  his  advice  .in  the  matter  as  a  driver 
and  a  friend.  Under  Frank  Williams'  suggestion  the 
four  men  took  their  places  in  the  stage ;  they  Avere 
the  only  passengers  that  day ;  and  thej^  made  a  pros- 
perous journey  until  they  arrived  in  Portlift'  Canyon, 


BITTER    CREEK.  125 

where  Parker  found  Frank,  who  had  gone  back  from 
Salt  Lake  City  to  his  accustomed  drive. 
"  In  that  canyon  they  were  murdered.  In  a  narrow 
gorge  of  the  pass,  Frank  let  his  whip  fall  to  the 
ground;  he  stopped  the  coach,  and  ran  backwards  to 
pick  it  up;  when  a  volley  of  shot  came  rattling  into 
the  mail,  and  three  of  the  men  inside-  of  it  fell  dead. 
Eight  fellows  in  masks  rushed  up  to  the  mail,  pulled 
out  the  dead  and  dying,  and  seized  upon  their  boxes 
with  the  gold  dust  and  the  greenbacks.  Parker  was 
hurt,  though  not  to  his  death ;  and  on  seeing  Wil- 
liams come  back,  pistol  in  hand,  he  cried  out  to  his 
friend  to  spare  his  life.  "  I  am  only  hipped;  help  me, 
Frank,  and  I  shall  do  ! "  Frank  put  the  pistol  to  his 
friend's  head  and  blew  his  brains  into  the  air;  not 
daring  to  allow  one  witness  of  his  crime  to  remain 
alive.  He  then  drove  into  the  station,  where  he  re- 
ported that  the  mail  had  been  robbed,  the  passengers 
killed.  Two  men  went  out  with  him  to  find  the  dead 
bodies,  and  a  search  was  made  from  Denver  to  Salt 
Lake  for  the  assassins.  No  suspicion  fell  upon  Frank, 
until  a  few  weeks  after  the  robbery  and  murder,  when 
news  was  brought  to  Sheriff  Wilson  by  a  thief,  that 
Frank  Williams  had  left  his  place  on  the  mail-line, 
and  was  spending  his  money  rather  freely  in  the 
Gentile  grog-shops  of  Salt  Lake.  Bob  instantly  took 
steps  to  have  him  watched  in  those  dens ;  but  w^hile 
he  was  setting  his  spies  in  motion,  Williams  suddenly 
appeared  in  the  streets  of  Denver,  close  to  that  cotton- 
tree  on  which  the  Sheriff  looks  down  from  his  auc- 
tioneer's throne.  Before  he  had  been  a  day  in  Den- 
ver, he  had  bought  for  himself  and  his  boon-compan- 
ions seven  new  suits  of  clothes,  had  hired  a  brothel, 
and  treated  nearly  every  ruffian  in  the  town  to  drink. 
One  evening  he  was  seized  by  Wilson,  who  con- 
11  * 


12fi  NEW  AMERICA. 

ducted  him  to  a  midnight  sitting  of  the  Vigilance 
Committee.  What  took  place  in  that  sitting  is  un- 
known ;  the  names  of  those  who  were  present  can  be 
only  guessed ;  but  it  was  evident  to  every  one  next 
day  that  Frank  Williams  had  been  found  guilty  of 
some  atrocious  crime.  Men  who  got  up  early  that 
morning  had  seen  his  body  dangling  from  a  buggy- 
pole  in  Main  Street. 


CHAPTER    XV. 

DESCENT    OF    THE    MOUNTAINS. 

After  passing  Fort  Bridger,  the  descent  becomes 
quick,  abrupt,  and  verdant.  The  track  is  still  rough, 
stony,  unmade  ;  here  running  over  round  crests,  there 
cutting  into  deep  canyons,  anon  toiling  through 
troughs  of  sand ;  but  on  the  whole  w^e  go  dropping 
down  from  the  high  plateau  of  the  Sierras,  where  Na- 
ture is  dry  and  sterile,  seemingly  unfit  for  the  occupa- 
tion of  man,  into  deep  ravines  and  narrow  dales,  in 
which  the  wild  sage  gives  place  to  tall,  rank  grass. 
A  little  scrub  begins  to  show  itself  in  the  clefts  and 
hollows ;  dwarf-oak  and  maple  now  putting  on  their 
autumnal  garb  of  pink  and  gold.  Stunted  pines  and 
cedars  become  a  feature  in  the  landscape ;  a  noise  of 
water  babbles  up  from  the  glens;  long  serpentine 
fringes  of  balsam  and  willow  show  the  courses  of  the 
descending  creeks.  We  rattle,  in  the  fading  light, 
through  Muddy  Creek,  and  roll,  in  the  early  darkness, 
past  Quaking  Asp,  —  startled,  as  w^e  come  round  the 
ledge  of  a  sharp  hill,  to  see  before  us  a  mighty  flajue, 


DESCENT  OF  THE  MOCjXTAJNS.  127 

as  though  the  valley  in  our  front,  the  hill-side  on  our 
flank,  were  all  on  tire.  It  is  a  Mormon  camp.  About 
a  hundred  wagons,  corralled,  in  the  usual  way,  for 
defence  against  Utes  and  Snakes,  are  halted  in  a  dark 
valley,  where  rocks  and  crests  pile  high  into  the 
heavens,  shutting  out  the  stars.  In  front  of  each 
wagon  burns  a  huge  fire  ;  men  and  women,  boys  and 
girls,  are  gathered  round  these  tires;  some  eating  their 
supper,  some  singing  brisk  songs,  others  again*  danc- 
ing ;  oxen,  mules,  horses,  stand  about  in  happy  confu- 
sion of  group  and  color;  dogs  sleep  round  the  fires  or 
bark  at  the  mail ;  and  through  all  this  wild,  unex- 
pected scene,  clash  the  cymbals,  horns,  and  trumpets 
of  a  band.  Though  w^e  are  still  high  up  in  the  moun- 
tains, we  feel,  as  it  were,  already  on  the  borders  of  the 
Salt  Lake  Eden,  that  home  of  the  Latter-Day  Saints, 
to  which  the  weaver  is  called  from  Manchester,  the 
peasant  from  Llandudno,  the  cobbler  from  White- 
chapel. 

An  hour  later  we  drop  into  Bear  Hiver  Station,  kept 
by  acting-bishop  Myers,  an  English  member  of  the 
Mormon  Church;  a  dignitary  who  has  hitherto  limited 
his  rights  over  the  weaker  sex  to  the  wedding  of  two 
wives.  One  wife  lives  with  him  at  Bear  River;  one 
hired  help,  a  young  English  woman  on  a  visit  (and  I 
fear  in  some  little  peril  of  the  heart),  with  two  or  thi-ee 
men,  his  servants,  make  up  this  bishop's  flock  and 
household.  The  wife  is  a  lady ;  simple,  elegant,  be- 
witching ;  who,  while  we  rinse  the  dust  from  our 
throats  and  dash  cold  water  about  our  heads  and  faces, 
hastily  and  daintily  sets  herself  to  cook  our  food. 
Tired  and  hungry  as  we  are,  this  Myers  appears  to  us 
the  very  model  of  a  working  bishop  for  a  working 
world.  At  Oxford  he  would  count  for  little,  in  the 
House  of  Lords   for  nothing.      His  words   are   not 


128  NEW  AMEBIC  A. 

choice,  his  intonation  is  not  good  and  musical;  he 
hardly  (I  will  not  answer  for  it)  knows  a  Greek  par- 
ticle by  sight ;  hut  he  seems  to  know  very  well  how  a 
good  man  should  receive  the  hungry  and  weary  who 
are  cast  down  at  his  door  on  a  frosty  night.  After 
poking  up  the  stove,  heaping  w^ood  upon  the  fire, 
chopping  up  a  side  of  mutton  (it  is  the  first  fresh  meat 
we  have  seen  for  days),  he  runs  out  of  doors  to  haul 
water  from  the  well,  and  puts  straw^  into  our  coach 
that  our  feet  may  be  kept  warm  in  the  coming  frost. 
From  him  we  get  genuine  tea,  good  bread,  even  but- 
ter ;  not  sage  tea,  hot  dough,  and  a  pinch  of  salt.  The 
chops  are  delicious  ;  and  the  bishop's  elegant  wife  and 
her  ladylike  friend,  by  the  grace  and  courtesy  with 
which  they  serve  the  table,  turn  a  common  mountain 
meal  into  a  banquet. 

We  leave  Bear  River  with  respect  for  one  phase  of 
the  working  episcopacy  founded  by  Brigham  Young, 

In  the  night  we  pass  by  Hanging  Rock  and  roll 
down  Echo  Canyon ;  a  ravine  of  rocks  and  nooks,  sur- 
prising, lovely,  fantastic,  when  they  are  seen  under 
the  light  of  luminous  autumn  stars.  Early  morning 
brings  us  to  Weber  River,  w-here  we  break  our  fasts 
on  hot-bake  and  leather ;  early  day  to  Coalville,  the 
first  Mormon  village  on  our  road ;  a  settlement  built 
of  wooden  sheds,  in  the  midst  of  rude  gardens  and 
patches  of  corn-fields,  hardly  redeemed  from  that  wild 
waste  of  nature  in  the  midst  of  which  a  few  Utes  and 
Bannocks  hunted  the  elk  and  scalped  each  other  not 
a  score  of  years  since.  Coal  is  found  here ;  also  a 
little  water,  a  little  w^ood.  We  glance  with  quick 
eyes  into  the  houses,  some  of  which  stand  in  groups 
and  rows,  as  we  learn  from  our  driver  that  those 
wooden  cottages  which  have  two  or  more  doors,  are 
the  houses  of  elders  who  have  married  two  or  more 


DESCENT  OF  THE  MOUNTAINS.         129 

wives.  We  tliink  of  the  arid  sweeps  through  which 
we  have  just  come;  of  our  six  daj's' journey  among 
rocky  passes  and  mountain  slopes ;  and  gaze  with 
wonder  on  the  courage,  industry,  fanaticism,  which 
could  have  been  induced,  by  any  teaching,  by  any 
promise,  to  attack  this  desolate  valley,  with  a  view  to 
making  out  of  it  a  habitation  fit  for  man.  But  here 
is  Coalville ;  a  town  in  the  hills,  at  least  the  beginning 
of  a  town;  placed  in  a  gorge  where  engineers  and 
explorers  had  declared  it  utterly  impossible  for  either 
man  or  beast  to  live.  Patches  of  corn  run  down  to 
the  little  creek.  Oxen  graze  on  the  hill-sides.  Dogs 
guard  the  farmhouses.  Hogs  grub  into  the  soil ; 
chickens  hop  among  the  sheaves ;  and  horses  stand  in 
the  court-yards.  Eosy  children,  with  their  blue  eyes 
and  flaxen  curls  telling  of  their  pure  English  blood, 
play  before  the  gates  and  tumble  in  the  straw.  Girls 
of  nine  or  ten  years  are  milking  cows ;  boys  of  the 
same  age  are  driving  teams;  women  are  cooking, 
washing ;  men  are  digging  potatoes,  gathering  in 
fruit,  chopping  and  sawing  planks.  Every  man  seems 
busy,  every  place  prosperous,  though  the  ravine  was 
but  3'esterday  a  desert  of  dust  and  stones.  From 
among  the  green  shrubs  a  neat  little  chapel  peeps  out. 
Lower  down  the  valleys  the  scene  expands,  and 
herds  of  cattle  dot  the  wide  sweeps  of  grass.  We  pass 
Kimball's  Hotel  —  a  station  of  the  Overland  Mail  — 
kept  by  one  of  Heber  KinibalVs  sons;  a  man  of  some 
wealth,  living  out  here  in  the  lonely  hills,  with  his 
sheep,  his  cattle,  and  his  three  wives ;  professing  the 
Mormon  creed,  though  he  is  said  to  have  been 
drummed  out  of  the  society  of  Salt  Lake  for  tipsiness 
.and  rioting  in  the  public  streets.  Sharp  justice,  as 
we  hear,  is  meted  out  by  the  Saints  upon  offenders ; 
no  claims  of  blood,  however  high  or  near,  being  suf- 


130  N^W  AMERICA. 

ferecl  to  protect  a  crimiual  from  the  sentence  of  his 
church. 

At  Mountain  Dell,  the  house  of  Bishop  Hardy,  a 
man  having  eight  wives,  three  of  whom  live  with 
him  in  this  mountain  shed,  we  see  a  little  Ute  Indian, 
who  has  been  reclaimed  from  his  tribe,  made  into  a 
faithful  Mormon  and  a  good  boy ;  a  shrewd  lad,  who 
seems  to  know  the  difference  between  dining  off  wolf 
and  off  mutton,  and  wdio  hates  the  red-skins,  his 
brethren  in  the  war-paint,  with  all  his  soul.  From 
one  of  the  bishop's  wives  we  learn  that  he  was  bought, 
as  a  papoose,  from  his  father  for  a  few  dollars ;  that 
he  is  a  sharp  fellow,  and  works  very  well  when  he  is 
made  to  do  so ;  that  he  is  lazy  by  nature,  and  apt  to 
lie  much  in  the  sun ;  that  he  is  slow  at  books  and 
learning,  but  takes  easily  to  horses,  and  drives  a  team 
very  well.  In  fact,  he  is  capable  of  being  raised  into 
a  white  man's  servant,  and  trained,  at  much  cost  and 
care,  to  fetch  in  wood  and  water  for  the  white  man's  use. 

The  Mormons  have  a  peculiar  view  about  the  red 
men,  whom  they  regard  as  a  branch  of  the  Hebrew 
people,  who  migrated  from  Palestine  to  North  Amer- 
ica in  their  days  of  power  and  righteousness,  while 
they  yet  held  the  priesthood  in  their  hands.  "When, 
through  the  sin  of  disobedience  they  lost  their  priest- 
hood, they  lost,  along  with  that  sacred  office,  their 
white  color,  their  bright  intelligence,  their  noble 
physiognomy.  According  to  the  Mormons,  some 
rags  and  tatters  of  tlieir  early  faith  —  of  their  ancient 
institutions  —  still  remain  to  these  remnants  of  Israel; 
their  belief  in  one  Great  Spirit;  their  division  into 
tribes ;  their  plurality  of  wives.  But  the  curse  of 
God  is  upon  them  and  upon  their  seed.  They  came 
of  a  sacred  race, —  but  a  sacred  race  now  lying  under 
the  stern  reproof  of  Heaven.     "In   time  —  in  God's 


DESCENT  OF   THE   MOUNTAINS.        131 

own  time,"  said  Young  to  me,  in  a  subsequent  con- 
versation, "  they  will  be  recalled  into  a  state  of  grace: 
they  will  then  cease  to  do  evil  and  learn  to  do  good; 
they  will  settle  down  in  cities ;  they  will  become 
wdiite  in  color;  and  they  will  act  as  a  nation  of 
priests." 

The  change  will,  indeed,  be  great  that  transforms  a 
Pawnee  and  a  Ute  into  the  likeness  of  Aaron  and  of 
Joshua. 

Before  the  w^ar  broke  out,  and  slavery  was  banished 
as  an  institution  from  the  American  soil,  the  Saints 
had  passed  a  territorial  law  permitting  the  purchase 
of  boys  and  girls  from  the  Indians,  with  a  view  to 
their  being  baptized  into  the  church  and  taught  use- 
ful trades.  Ute  and  Snake  are  only  too  ready  to  sell 
their  infants ;  and  many  young  red-skins,  bought  un- 
der that  law,  are  still  to  be  found  in  these  valleys. 
Of  course  they  are  now  free  as  the  whites,  and  far 
more  lazy,  treacherous,  and  wicked. 

The  bishop's  wife,  having  had  her  eyes  opened  by 
many  trials,  has  come  to  have  little  faith  in  the  gov- 
ernment plan  for  reclaiming  Utes  and  Bannocks. 
She  sees  that  a  curse  is  on  them,  and  on  their  seed ; 
she  hopes  that  w^hen  the  time  shall  come  for  that 
curse  to  be  removed,  the  red  man  \\\\\  be  capable  of 
thrift,  of  labor,  of  salvation;  but  that  removal,  she 
ow^ns  to  herself,  must  be  the  work  of  God,  not  that  of 
man. 

A  long  steep  canyon,  nine  or  ten  miles  in  length, — 
with  fringe  of  verdure  and  beck  of  water  running 
through  it ;  the  verdure  feeding  cattle,  the  water 
working  mills, —  opens  a  way  from  Mountain  Dell 
into  the  Salt  Lake  Basin,  which  we  come  upon  sud- 
denly, and  by  a  sort  of  surprise,  on  turning  a  project- 
ing mountain  ledge. 


132  NUW  AMERICA. 

The  scene  now  in  front  of  us,  from  whatever  point 
of  view  it  may  be  taken,  is  one  of  the  half-dozen  pure 
and  perfect  landscapes  which  the  earth  can  show. 
No  wonder  that  the  poor  emigrant  from  a  Liverpool 
cellar,  from  a  Blackwall  slum,  exalted  as  his  vision 
must  he,  with  religious  fervor,  and  by  sharp  privation 
looks  down  upon  it  as  a  terrestrial  Paradise. 

Lying  at  the  foot  of  these  snowy  ranges  of  the  "Wa- 
satch mountains,  spreads  the  great  plain,  far  away 
into  the  unseen  vistas  of  the  north;  the  whole  ex- 
panse of  valley  tilled  with  a  golden  haze  of  surprising 
richness,  the  efi'ect  of  a  tropical  sunshine  streaming 
over  fields  sown  thick  with  sun-flowers,  like  an  Eng- 
lish field  with  buttercups,  and  over  multitudinous 
lakelets,  pools,  and  streams :  to  the  left  soar  into  the 
clouds  and  curl  round  the  Great  Salt  Lake  a  chain  of 
mountains,  which  the  Lidians  call  Oquirrh.  In  our 
front  lies  the  sparkling  citj^,  the  New  Jerusalem,  in 
its  bowers  of  trees;  beyond  that  city  flows  the  Jordan, 
bearing  the  fresh  waters  of  Utah  through  the  plains 
into  Salt  Lake,  which  darkens  and  cools  the  great 
valley,  with  its  amplitudes  of  blue.  From  the  lake 
itself,  which  is  a  hundred  miles  broad,  a  hundred  and 
fifty  miles  long,  spring  two  islands,  purple  and  moun- 
tainous ;  Antelope  Island  (now  called  Church  Island) 
and  Stansbury  Island ;  while,  on  either  side,  and  be- 
yond the  blue  waters  of  the  lake  itself,  run  chains  of 
irregular  and  picturesque  heights,  the  barren  sierras 
of  Utah  and  Nevada. 

The  air  is  soft  and  sweet ;  southern  in  its  odor, 
northern  in  its  freshness.  Cool  winds  come  down 
from  the  Wasatch  peaks ;  in  which  drifts  of  snow  and 
frozen  pools  lie  all  through  the  summer  months.  So 
cle-ar  is  the  atmosphere  that  Black  Rock  on  the  Salt 
Lake,  twenty-five  miles  distant,  seems  but  a  few  hun- 


THE  NEW  JERUSALEM.  133 

dred  yards  in  our  front,  and  crests  which  stands  sixty 
miles  apart,  appear  to  our  sight  as  though  they  were 
peaks  of  a  single  range. 

Lower  down  in  the  valley  the  golden  haze  steeps 
everything  in  its  own  delicious  light.  The  city  ap- 
pears to  be  one  vast  park  or  garden,  in  which  you 
count  innumerable  masses  of  dark  green  trees,  with  a 
white  kiosk,  a  chapel,  a  court-house,  sprinkled  about 
it  here  and  there.  Above  it,  on  a  bank  of  higher 
land,  is  the  camp ;  a  cluster  of  white  tents  and  shan- 
ties ;  from  which  a  Gentile  government  watches  sus- 
piciously the  doings  of  men  in  this  city  of  the  Saints. 
But  the  camp  itself  adds  picture  to  the  scene ;  a  bar 
of  color  to  the  landscape  of  yellow,  white,  and  green. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

THE    NEW   JERUSALEM. 

A  DREAM  of  the  night,  helped  by  a  rush  of  water 
from  the  hill-side,  (not  larger  than  the  Xenil,  which 
gave  life  to  Granada,  and  changed  the  barren  vega  into 
a  garden,)  fixed  the  site  of  the  New  Jerusalem.  Brig- 
ham  Young  tells  me,  that  when  coming  over  the 
mountains,  in  search  of  a  new  home  for  his  people,  he 
saw,  in  a  vision  of  the  night,  an  angel  standing  on  a 
conical  hill,  pointing  to  a  spot  of  ground  on  which 
the  new  Temple  must  be  built.  Coming  down  into 
this  basin  of  Salt  Lake,  he  first  sought  for  the  cone 
which  he  had  seen  in  his  dream ;  and  when  he  had 
found  it,  he  noticed  a  stream  of  fresh  hill- water  flow- 
ing at  its  base,  which  he  called  the  City  Creek.    Elder 

12 


134  NEW  AMEBIC  A. 

George  Smith,  and  a  few  of  the  pioneers,  led  this 
creek  through  and  through  a  patch  of  likely  soil,  into 
which  they  then  stuck  potatoes ;  and  having  planted 
these  bulbs,  they  took  a  few  steps  northward,  marked 
out  the  Temple  site,  and  drew  a  great  square  line 
about  it.  The  square  block,  ten  acres  in  extent,  is 
the  heart  of  the  city,  the  Mormon  holy  place,  the 
harem  of  this  new  Jerusalem  of  the  "West. 

The  cite  of  the  new  city  was  laid  between  the  two 
great  lakes,  Utah  Lake  and  Salt  Lake, —  like  the  town 
of  Interlachen  between  Brienz  and  Thun, — though  the 
distances  are  here  much  greater,  the  two  inland  seas 
of  Utah  being  real  seas  when  compared  against  the 
two  charming  lakelets  in  the  Bernese  Alps.  A  river 
now  called  the  Jordan  flows  from  Utah  into  Salt  Lake; 
but  it  skirts  the  town  only,  and  lying  low  down  in  the 
valley,  is  useless,  as  yet,  for  irrigation.  Young  has  a 
plan  for  constructing  a  canal  from  Utah  Lake  to  the 
city,  by  way  of  the  lower  benches  of  the  Wasatch 
chain;  a  plan  which  will  cost  much  money,  and  ferti- 
lize enormous  sweeps  of  barren  soil.  If  Salt  Lake 
City  is  left  to  extend  itself  in  peace,  the  canal  will  soon 
be  dug;  and  the  bench,  now  covered  with  stones,  with 
sand,  and  a  little  wild  sage,  will  be  changed  into  vine- 
yards and  gardens. 

The  city,  which  covers,  we  are  told,  three  thousand 
acres  of  land,  between  the  mountains  and  the  river,  is 
laid  out  in  blocks  of  ten  acres  each.  Each  block  is 
divided  into  lots  of  one  acre  and  a  quarter;  this  quan- 
tity of  land  being  considered  enough  for  an  ordinary 
cottage  and  garden. 

As  yet,  the  Temple  is  unbuilt ;  the  foundations  are 
well  laid,  of  massive  granite;  and  the  work  is  of  a 
kind  that  bids  fair  to  last;  but  the  Temple  block  is 
covered  with  temporary  buildings  and  erections — the 


THE  NEW  JERUSALEM.  135 

old  tabernacle,  the  great  bowery,  the  new  tabernacle, 
the  temple  foundations,  A  high  wall  encloses  these 
edifices;  a  poor  wall,  without  art,  without  strength; 
more  like  a  mud  wall  than  the  great  work  which  sur- 
rounds the  temple  pLatform  on  Moriah.  When  the 
works  are  finished,  the  enclosure  will  be  trimmed  and 
planted,  so  as  to  ofter  shady  walks  and  a  garden  of 
flowers. 

The  Temple  block  gives  form  to  the  whole  city. 
From  each  side  of  it  starts  a  street,  a  hundred  feet  in 
width,  going  out  on  the  level  plain,  and  in  straight 
lines  into  space.  Streets  of  the  same  width,  and 
parallel  to  these,  run  north  and  south,  east  and  west; 
each  planted  with  locust  and  ailantus  trees,  cooled  by 
two  running  streams  of  water  from  tne  hill-side.  These 
streets  go  up  north,  towards  the  bench,  and  nothing 
but  the  lack  of  people  prevents  them  from  travelling 
onward,  south  and  west,  to  the  lakes,  which  they 
already  reach  on  paper,  and  in  the  imagination  of  the 
more  fervid  saints. 

Main  Street  runs  along  the  Temple  front;  a  street 
of  offices,  of  residences,  and  of  trade.  Originally,  it 
was  meant  for  a  street  of  the  highest  rank,  and  bore 
the  name  of  East  Temple  Street;  upon  it  stood,  besides 
the  Temple  itself,  the  Council  house,  the  Tithing 
office,  the  dwellings  of  Young,  Kimball,  Wells,  the 
three  chief  officers  of  the  Mormon  church.  It  was 
once  amply  watered  and  nobly  planted;  but  commerce 
has  invaded  the  precincts  of  the  modern  temple,  as  it 
invaded  those  of  the  old;  and  the  power  of  Brigham 
Young  has  broken  and  retreated  before  that  of  the 
money-dealers  and  the  venders  of  meat  and  raiment. 
Banks,  stores,  offices,  hotels, — all  the  conveniences  of 
modern  life, —  are  springing  np  in  Main  Street;  trees 
have  in  many  parts  been  cut  down,  for  the  sake  of 


18G  NEW  AMERICA. 

loading  and  unloading  goods;  the  trim  little  gardens, 
full  of  peach-trees  and  apple-trees,  bowering  the  adobe 
cottages  in  their  midst,  have  given  way  to  shop-fronts 
and  to  hucksters'  stalls.  In  the  business  portion. 
Main  Street  is  wide,  dusty,  unpaved,  unbuilt;  a  street 
showing  the  three  stages  through  which  every  Amer- 
ican city  has  to  pass :  the  log-shanty,  the  adobe  cot  (in 
places  where  clay  and  fuel  can  be  easily  obtained,  this 
stage  is  one  of  brick),  and  the  stone  house.  Man}'  of 
the  best  houses  are  still  of  wood;  more  are  of  adobe, 
the  sun-dried  bricks  once  used  in  Babylonia  and  in 
Egypt,  and  still  used  everywhere  in  Mexico  and  Cali- 
fornia; a  few  are  of  red  stone,  and  even  granite.  The 
Temple  is  being  built  of  granite  from  a  neighboring 
hill.  The  Council  house  is  of  red  stone;  as  are  many 
of  the  great  magazines,  such  as  Godbe's,  Jennings', 
Gilbert's,  Clawson's;  magazines  in  which  you  find 
everything  for  sale,  as  in  a  Turkish  bazaar,  from 
candles  and  champagne,  down  to  gold  dust,  cotton 
prints,  tea,  pen-knives,  canned  meats,  and  mouse-traps. 
The  smaller  shops,  the  ice-cream  houses,  the  saddlers, 
the  barbers,  the  restaurants,  the  hotels,  and  all  the 
better  class  of  dwellings,  are  of  sun-dried  bricks;  a 
good  material  in  this  dry  and  sunny  climate;  bright 
to  the  eye,  cosy  in  winter,  cool  in  summer;  though 
such  houses  are  apt  to  crumble  away  in  a  shower  of 
rain.  A  few  shanties,  remnants  of  the  first  emigration, 
still  remain  in  sight.  Lower  down,  towards  the  south, 
where  the  street  runs  off  into  infinite  space,  the  locust 
and  ailantus  trees  reappear. 

In  its  busy,  central  portion,  nothing  hints  the  differ- 
ence between  Main  Street  in  Salt  Lake  City,  and  the 
chief  thoroughfarCj  say,  of  Kansas,  Leavenworth,  and 
Denver,  except  the  absence  of  grog-shops,  lager-beer 
saloons,  and  bars.    The  hotels  have  no  bars ;  the  sti'eets 


THE  NEW  JERUSALEM.  137 

have  no  betting-houses,  no  gaming-tables,  no  brothels, 
no  drinking-places.  In  my  hotel  —  "  The  iSalt  Lake" — 
kept  by  Col.  Little,  one  of  the  Mormon  elders,  I  cannot 
buy  a  glass  of  beer,  a  flask  of  wine.  Xo  house  is  now 
open  for  the  sale  of  drink  (though  the  Gentiles  swear 
they  will  have  one  ojien  in  a  few  weeks) ;  and  the 
table  of  the  hotel  is  served  at  morning,  noon,  and 
night,  with  tea.  Li  this  absence  of  public  solicitation 
to  sip  either  claret-cobbler,  whisky-bourbon,  Tom 
and  Jerry,  mint-julep,  eye-opener,  iix-up,  or  any  other 
Yankee  deception  in  the  shape  of  liquor — the  city  is 
certainly  verj-  much  unlike  Leavenworth,  and  the  River 
towns  where  every  third  house  in  a  street  appears  to 
be  a  drinking  den.  Going  past  the  business  quarter, 
we  return  to  the  first  ideas  of  Young  in  planting  his 
new  home ;  the  tamiliar  lines  of  acacias  grow  by  the 
becks ;  the  cottages  stand  back  from  the  road-side, 
twenty  or  thirty  feet;  the  peach-trees,  apple-trees,  and 
vines,  tricked  out  with  roses  and  sun-flowers,  smother 
up  the  roofs. 

Right  and  left  from  Main  Street,  crossing  it,  parallel 
to  it,  lie  a  multitude  of  streets,  each  like  its  fellow ;  a 
hard,  dusty  road,  with  tiny  becks,  and  rows  of  locust, 
cotton-wood,  and  philarea,  and  the  building-land  laid 
down  in  blocks.  Li  each  block  stands  a  cottage,  in  the 
midst  of  fruit-trees.  Some  of  these  houses  are  of  goodly 
appearance  as  to  size  and  style,  and  would  let  for  high 
rentals  in  the  Isle  of  Wight.  Others  are  mere  cots  of 
four  or  five  rooms,  in  which  the  polygamous  families, 
should  they  ever  quarrel,  would  find  it  ditficult  to  form 
a  ring  and  fight.  In  some  of  these  orchards  you  see 
two,  three  houses ;  pretty  Swiss  cottages,  like  many  in 
St.  John's  Wood,  as  to  gable,  roof,  and  paint :  these 
are  the  dwellings  of  different  wives.  "Whose  houses 
are  these?"  we^ask  a  lad  in  East  Temple  Street,  point- 

12* 


188  NEW  AMEBIC  A. 

ing  to  some  pretty-looking  villas.  "  They  belong," 
said  he,  "  to  Brother  Kimball's  family."  Here,  on  the 
bench,  in  the  liigliest  part  of  the  city,  is  Elder  Hiram 
Clawson's  garden  ;  a  lovely  garden,  red  with  delicious 
peaches,  plums,  and  apples,  on  which,  through  the 
kindness  of  his  youngest  wife,  we  have  been  hospitably 
fed  during  our  sojourn  with  the  Saints;  a  large  house 
stands  in  front,  in  which  live  his  first  and  second 
wives  with  their  nurseries  of  twenty  children.  But 
what  is  yon  dainty  white  bowser  in  the  corner,  with 
its  little  gate  and  its  smother  of  roses  and  creepers? 
That  is  the  house  of  the  youngest  wife,  Alice,  a 
daughter  of  Brigham  Young.  She  has  a  nest  of  her 
own,  apart  from  the  other  women, — a  nest  in  which 
she  lives  with  her  fouj'  little  boys,  and  where  she  is 
supposed  to  have  as  much  of  her  own  way  with  her 
lord,  as  the  daughter  of  a  Sultan  enjoys  in  the  harem 
of  a  Pasha.  Elder  ISTaisbit,  one  of  the  Mormon  poets, 
an  English  convert  to  the  fViith  as  it  is  in  Joseph,  lives 
with  his  two  wives  and  their  brood  of  young  children, 
on  the  high  ground  opposite  to  Elder  Clawson,  in  a 
ver}'  pretty  mansion,  something  like  a  cottage  on  the 
Under  Cliff'.  Much  of  the  city  is  only  green  glade 
and  orchard  Avaiting  for  the  people  who  are  yet  to  come 
and  till  it  with  the  pride  of  life. 

In  First  South  Street  stand  the  Theatre  and  the  City 
Hall,  both  fine  structures,  and  for  Western  America 
remarkable  in  style. 

The  City  Hall  is  used  as  head-quarters  of  police, 
and  as  a  court  of  justice.  The  Mormon  police  are 
swift  and  silent,  with  their  eyes  in  every  corner,  their 
grip  on  every  rogue.  ~No  fact,  however  slight,  appears 
to  escape  their  notice.  A  Gentile  friend  of  mine, 
going  through  the  dark  streets  at  night  towards  the 
theatre,  spoke  to  a  Mormon  lady  of  his  acquaintance 


THE  NE  W  JER  US  ALE  M.  1 39 

whom  he  overtook ;  next  day  a  gentleman  called  at 
his  hotel,  and  warned  him  not  to  speak  with  a  Mormon 
woman  in  the  dark  streets  unless  her  father  should  be 
with  her.  In  the  Avinter  months  there  are  usually 
seven  or  eight  hundred  miners  in  Salt  Lake  City, 
young  Norse  gods  of  the  Denver  stamp  ;  every  man 
with  a  bowie-knife  in  his  belt,  a  revolver  in  his  hand, 
clamoring  for  beer  and  whisky,  for  gaming-tables  and 
lewd  women,  comforts  which  are  strictly  denied  to 
them  by  these  Saints.  The  police  have  all  these  vio- 
lent spirits  to  repress;  that  they  hold  them  in  decent 
order  with  so  little  bloodshed  is  the  wonder  of  every 
western  governor  and  judge.  William  Gilpin,  gov- 
ernor elect  of  Colorado,  and  Robert  Wilson,  sherift"  of 
Denver  and  justice  of  the  peace,  have  nothing  but 
praise  to  give  these  stern  and  secret,  but  most  able  and 
etfective  ministers  of  police. 

With  this  court  of  justice  we  have  scarcely  made 
acquaintance.  A  few  nights  ago  we  met  the  judge, 
who  kindly  asked  us  to  come  and  see  his  court;  but 
while  we  were  chatting  in  his  ante-room,  before  the 
cases  were  called,  some  one  whispered  in  his  ear  that 
we  were  members  of  the  English  bar,  on  which  he 
slipped  out  of  sight,  and  adjourned  his  court.  This 
judge,  when  he  is  not  sitting  on  the  bench,  is  engaged 
in  vending  drugs  across  a  counter  in  Main  Street; 
and  as  we  know  where  to  find  him  in  his  store,  we 
sometimes  drop  in  for  soda-water  and  a  cigar ;  but  we 
have  not  yet  been  able  to  fix  a  time  for  seeing  his 
method  of  administering  justice  at  Salt  Lake. 

The  city  has  two  sulphur-springs,  over  which  Brig- 
ham  Young  has  built  wooden  shanties.  One  bath  is 
free.  The  water  is  refreshing  and  relaxing,  the  heat  92°. 

No  beggar  is  seen  in  the  streets  ;  scarcely  ever  a 
tipsy  man ;  and  the  drunken  fellow,  when  you  see  one, 


140  NEW  AMERICA. 

is  always  either  a  minor  or  a  soldier — of  course  a  Gen- 
tile. No  one  seems  poor.  Tlie  people  are  quiet  and 
civil,  far  more  so  than  is  usual  in  these  western  parts. 
From  the  presence  of  trees,  of  water,  and  of  cattle,  the 
streets  have  a  pastoral  character,  seen  in  no  other  city 
of  the  mountains  and  the  plains.  Here,  standing  under 
the  green  locust-trees,  is  an  ox  come  home  for  the 
night ;  yonder  is  a  cow  at  the  gate  being  milked  by  a 
child.  Light  mountain-wagons  stand  about,  and  the 
sun-burnt  emigrants,  who  have  just  come  in  from  the 
prairies,  thankful  for  shade  and  water,  sit  under  the 
acacias,  and  dabble  their  feet  in  the  running  creeks. 

More  than  all  other  streets,  perhaps.  Main  Street,  as 
the  business  quarter,  offers  picture  after  picture  to  an 
artist's  eye ;  most  of  all  when  an  emigrant-train  is 
coming  in  from  the  plains.  Such  a  scene  is  before  me 
now;  for  the  train  which  we  passed  in  the  gorge  above 
Bear  River,  has  just  arrived,  with  sixty  wagons,  four 
hundred  bullocks,  six  hundred  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren, all  English  and  Welsh.  The  wagons  fill  the 
street :  some  of  the  cattle  are  lying  dowai  in  the  hot 
sun;  the  men  are  eager  and  excited,  having  finished 
their  long  journey  across  the  sea,  across  the  States, 
across  the  prairies,,  across  the  mountains  ;  the  women 
and  little  folks  are  scorched  and  wan ;  dirt,  fatigue, 
privation,  give  them  a  wild,  unearthly  look ;  and  you 
would  hardly  recognize  in  this  picturesque  and  ragged 
group  the  sober  Monmouth  farmer,  the  clean  Wool- 
wich artisan,  the  smart  London  smith.  Mule-teams 
are  being  unloaded  at  the  stores.  Miners  from  Mon- 
tana and  Idaho,  in  huge  boots  and  belts,  are  loafing 
about.  A  gang  of  Snake  Lidians,  with  their  long 
hair,  their  scant  drapery,  and  their  proud  reserve,  are 
cheapening  the  dirtiest  and  cheapest  lots.  Yon  fellow 
in  the  broad  sombrero,  dashing  up  the  dust  with  his 


THE  MORMON  THEATRE.  141 

wiry  little  horse,  is  a  New  Mexican ;  liere  comes  a 
heavy  Californiaii  swell ;  and  there,  in  the  blue  uni- 
form, go  two  officers  from  the  camp. 

The  air  is  wonderfully  pure  and  bright.  Rain  sel- 
dom falls  in  the  valley,  though  storms  occur  in  the 
mountains  almost  daily ;  a  cloud  coming  up  in  the 
western  hills,  rolling  along  the  crests,  and  threatening 
the  city  with  a  deluge ;  but  when  breaking  into  wind 
and  showers,  it  seems  to  run  along  the  hill-tops  into 
the  Wasatch  chain,  and  sail  away  eastward  into  the 
snowy  range. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

THE    MORMON    THEATRE. 

The  play-house  has  an  office  and  a  service  in  this 
Mormon  city,  higher  than  the  churches  would  allow 
to  it  in  London,  Paris,  and  New  York.  Brigham 
Young  is  an  original  in  many  ways;  he  is  the  high- 
priest  of  what  claims  to  be  a  new  dispensation  ;  yet 
he  has  got  his  theatre  into  perfect  order,  before  he  has 
raised  his  Temple  foundations  above  the  ground. 

That  the  drama  had  a  religious  origin,  and  that  the 
stage  has  been  called  a  school  of  manners,  every  one 
is  aware.  Young  feels  inclined  to  go  back  upon  all 
first  principles ;  in  family  life  to  those  of  Abraham, 
in  social  life  to  those  of  Thespis.  Priests  invented 
both  the  ancient  and  the  modern  stages;  and  if  expe- 
rience shows  as  strongly  in  Salt  Lake  City  as  in  New 
York,  that  people  love  to  be  light  and  merry — to 
laugh  and  glow — why  should  their  teachers  neglect 


142  ^^^  AMERICA. 

the  thousand  opportunities  offered  by  a  play,  of  getting 
them  to  laugh  in  the  right  places,  to  glow  at  the 
proper  things?  Why  should  Young  not  preach  morali- 
ties from  the  stage?  Why  should  he  not  train  his 
actors  and  his  actresses  to  be  models  of  good  conduct, 
of  correct  pronunciation,  and  of  taste  in  dress  ?  Why 
should  he  not  try  to  reconcile  religious  feeling  with 
pleasure  ? 

Brigham  Young  may  be  either  right  or  wrong  in 
his  ideas  of  the  uses  to  which  a  playhouse  may  be 
turned  in  a  city  where  they  have  no  high  schools  and 
colleges  as  yet;  but  he  is  bent  on  trying  his  experi- 
ment to  an  issue  ;  for  this  purpose  he  has  built  a  model 
theatre,  and  he  is  now  making  an  effort  to  train  a 
model  company. 

Outside,  his  theatre  is  a  rough  Doric  edifice,  in  which 
the  architect  has  contrived  to  produce  a  certain  effect 
by  very  simple  means ;  inside,  it  is  light  and  airy, 
having  no  curtains  and  no  boxes,  save  two  in  the 
proscenium,  with  light  columns  to  divide  the  tiers,  and 
having  no  other  decoration  than  pure  white  paint  and 
gold.  The  pit,  rising  sharply  from  the  orchestra,  so 
that  every  one  seated  on  its  benches  can  see  and  hear 
to  advantage,  is  the  choicest  part  of  the  house.  All 
these  benches  are  let  to  families;  and  here  the  prin- 
cipal elders  and  bishops  may  be  seen  every  play-night, 
surrounded  by  their  wives  and  children,  laughing  and 
clapping  like  boys  at  a  pantomime.  Yon  rocking- 
chair,  in  the  centre  of  the  pit,  is  Young's  own  seat; 
his  place  of  pleasure,  in  the  midst  of  his  Saints.  When 
he  chooses  to  occupy  his  private  box,  one  of  his  wives, 
perhaps  Eliza  the  Poetess,  Harriet  the  Pale,  or  Amelia 
the  Magnificent,  rocks  herself  in  his  chair  while 
laughing  at  the  play.  Round  about  that  chair,  as  the 
place  of  honor,  cluster  the  benches  of  those  who  claim 


THE   MORMON   THEATRE.  14 3 

to  stand  nearest  to  their  prophet :  of  Heber  Kimball, 
■first  councillor;  of  Daniel  "Wells,  second  councillor 
and  general-in-chief ;  of  George  A.  Smith,  apostle  and 
historian  of  the  church ;  of  George  Q.  Cannon, 
apostle ;  of  Edward  Hunter,  presiding  bishop ;  of 
Elder  Stenhouse,  editor  of  the  "  Daily  Telegraph  ;" 
and  of  a  host  of  less  brilliant  Mormon  lights. 

In  the  sides  of  the  proscenium  nestle  two  private 
boxes :  one  is  reserved  for  the  Prophet,  when  he 
pleases  to  be  alone,  or  wishes  to  have  a  gossip  with 
some  friend ;  the  other  is  given  up  to  the  girls  who 
have  to  play  during  the  night,  but  who  are  not  engaged 
in  the  immediate  business  of  the  piece.  As  a  rule, 
every  one's  pleasure  is  considered  in  this  model  play- 
house ;  and  I  can  answer,  on  the  part  of  Miss  Adams, 
Miss  Alexander,  and  other  young  artists,  that  this 
appropriation  to  their  sole  use  of  a  private  box,  into 
which  they  can  run  at  all  times,  in  any  dress,  without 
being  seen,  is  considered  by  them  as  a  very  great 
comfort. 

Through  the  quick  eye  and  careful  hand  of  his 
manager,  Hiram  Clawson,  the  President  may  be  con- 
gratulated on  having  made  his  playhouse  into  some- 
thing coming  near  to  that  which  he  conceives  a  play- 
house should  be.  Everything  in  front  of  the  foot- 
lights is  in  keeping ;  peace  and  order  reign  in  the 
midst  of  fun  and  frolic.  Neither  within  the  doors  nor 
about  them,  do  you  tind  the  riot  of  our  own  Lyceum 
and  Drury  Lane  ;  no  loose  women,  no  pickpockets,  no 
ragged  boys  and  girls,  no  drunken  and  blaspheming 
men.  As  a  Mormon  never  drinks  spirits,  and  rarely 
smokes  tobacco,  the  only  dissipation  in  which  you  find 
these  hundreds  of  hearty  creatures  indulging  their 
appetites,  is  that  of  sucking  a  peach.  Short  plays  are 
in  vogue  in  this  theatre,  just  as  short  sermons  are  the 


144  NEW  AMERICA. 

rule  in  yon  tabernacle.  The  curtain,  which  rises  at 
eight,  comes  down  about  half-past  ten ;  and  as  the 
Mormon  fashion  is  for  people  to  sup  before  going  out, 
they  retire  to  rest  the  moment  they  get  home,  never 
suftering  their  amusements  to  infringe  on  the  labors 
of  the  coming  day.  Your  bell  rings  for  breakfast  at 
six  o'clock. 

But  the  chief  beauties  of  this  model  playhouse  lie 
behind  the  scenes ;  in  the  ample  space,  the  perfect 
light,  the  scrupulous  cleanliness  of  every  part.  I  am 
pretty  well  acquainted  with  green-rooms  and  side  wings 
in  Europe ;  but  I  have  never  seen,  not  in  Italian  and 
Austrian  theatres,  so  many  delicate  arrangements  for 
the  privacy  and  comfort  of  ladies  and  gentlemen  as  at 
Salt  Lake.  The  green-room  is  a  real  drawing-room. 
The  scene-painters  have  their  proper  studios ;  the 
dressers  and  decorators  have  immense  magazines. 
Every  lady,  however  small  her  part  in  the  play,  has  a 
dressing-room  to  herself. 

Young  understands  that  the  true  work  of  reform  in 
a  playhouse  must  begin  behind  the  scenes ;  that  you 
must  elevate  the  actor  before  you  can  purify  the  stage. 
To  this  end,  he  not  only  builds  dressing-rooms  and  a 
private  box  for  the  ladies  who  have  to  act,  but  he  places 
his  daughters  on  the  stage  as  an  example  and  encour- 
agement to  others.  Three  of  these  young  sultanas, 
Alice,  Emily,  and  Zina,  are  on  the  stage.  "With  Alice, 
the  youngest  wife  of  Elder  Clawson,  I  have  had  th6 
honor  to  make  an  acquaintance,  which  might  be  called 
a  friendship,  and  from  her  lips  I  have  learned  a  good 
deal  as  to  her  father's  ideas  about  stage  reform.  "I 
am  not  myself  very  fond  of  playing,"  she  said  to  me 
one  day  as  we  sat  at  dinner,  —  not  in  these  words,  per- 
hapS;  but  to  this  effect,  —  "  but  my  father  desires  that 
my  sisters  and  myself  should  act  sometimes,  as  he 


THE    MORMON  TllEATIiE.  145 

does  not  think  it  right  to  ask  any  poor  man's  child  to 
do  anything  which  his  own  chikh'cn  would  object  to 
do."  Her  dislike  to  playing,  as  she  afterwards  told 
me,  arose  from  a  feeling  that  Nature  had  given  her 
no  abilities  for  acting  well ;  she  was  fond  of  going  to 
see  a  good  piece,  and  seldom  omitted  being  present 
when  she  had  not  to  play.  Brigham  Young  has  to 
create,  as  well  as  to  reform,  the  stage  of  Salt  Lake 
City  ;  and  the  chief  trouble  of  a  manager  who  is  seven 
hundred  miles  from  the  next  theatre,  must  always  be 
with  his  artists.  Talent  for  the  work  does  not  grow 
in  every  field,  like  a  sunflower  and  a  peach-tree ;  it 
must  be  sought  for  in  nooks  and  corners;  now  in  a 
shoe-shop,  anon  in  a  dairy,  then  in  a  counting-house  ; 
but  wherever  the  talent  may  be  found,  Young  cannot 
think  of  asking  any  young  girl  to  do  a  thing  which  it 
is  supposed  that  a  daughter  of  his  own  would  scorn. 

In  New  York,  in  St.  Louis,  in  Chicago,  nobody 
would  assert  that  the  stage  is  a  school  of  virtue,  that 
acting  is  a  profession  which  a  sober  man  would  like 
his  daughter  to  adopt.  Young  does  not  blind  himself 
to  the  fact  that  in  claiming  the  theatre  as  a  school  of 
morals,  he  has  to  fight  against  a  social  judgment.  An 
odor  of  vice,  as  of  a  poisonous  weed,  infects  the  air 
of  a  playhouse  everywhere ;  though  nowhere  less 
offensively  than  in  American  towns.  Against  this 
evil,  much  of  it  the  consequence  of  bad  traditions,  he 
offers  up,  as  it  were,  a  part  of  himself — his  children  ; 
the  only  persons  in  Salt  Lake  City  who  could  really 
do  this  cleansing  work.  In  this  way,  Alice  and  Zina 
may  be  regarded  as  two  priestly  virgins  who  have  been 
placed  on  the  public  stage  to  purify  it  by  their  presence 
from  an  ancient  but  unnecessary  stain. 

Young,  and  his  agent  Clawson,  are  bestowing  much 
care  upon  the  education  of  Miss  Adams,  a  young  lady 

13 


14G  NEW  AMERICA. 

who  has  everything  to  learu  except  the  art  of  being 
lovely ;  also  upon  that  of  Miss  Alexander,  a  girl  who, 
besides  being  pretty  and  j^iquant,  has  genuine  ability 
for  her  work.  A  story,  which  shows  that  Young  has 
a  feeling  for  humor,  has  been  told  me,  of  which  Miss 
Alexander  is  the  heroine.  A  starring  actor  from  San 
Francisco  fell  into  desperate  love  for  her,  and  Avent  up 
to  the  President's  house  for  leave  to  address  her. 
"Ha!  my  good  fellow,"  said  the  Prophet;  "I.  have 
seen  you  play  'Hamlet'  verjMvell,  and  'Julius Cfesar' 
pretty  well,  but  you  must  not  aspire  to  Alexander!  " 

We  saw  Brigham  Young  for  the  first  time  in  his 
private  box.  A  large  head,  broad,  fair  face,  with  blue 
eyes,  light-brown  hair,  good  nose  and  merry  mouth ; 
a  man  plainly  dressed,  in  black  coat  and  pantaloons, 
white  waistcoat  and  cravat,  gold  studs  and  sleeve-links, 
English  in  build  and  looks, — but  English  of  the  mid- 
dle class  and  of  a  provincial  town  :  such  was  the  Mor- 
mon prophet,  pope,  and  king,  as  we  first  saw  him  in 
the  theatre  among  his  people.  A  lady,  one  of  his 
wives,  whom  we  afterwards  came  to  know  as  Amelia, 
sat  with  him  in  the  box ;  she,  too,  was  dressed  in  a 
quiet  English  style ;  and  now  and  then  she  eyed  the 
audience  from  behind  her  curtain,  through  an  opera- 
glass,  as  English  ladies  are  apt  to  do  at  home.  She 
was  pretty,  and  appeared  to  us  then  rather  pensive 
and  poetical. 

The  pit  was  almost  filled  with  girls ;  on  many 
benches  sat  a  dozen  damsels  in  a  row;  children  of 
Kimball,  Cannon,  Smith,  and  Wells ;  in  some  places 
twenty  or  thirty  girls  were  grouped  together.  Young, 
as  he  told  me  himself,  has  forty-eight  living  children, 
some  of  whom  are  grown  up  and  married ;  and,  since 
he  sets  the  fashion  of  attending  this  theatre  among 
his  people,  it  is  only  right  that  he  should  encourage 


BRIGHAM    YOUNG. 


THE  MORMON  THEATRE.  147 

his  children  to  appear,  both  before  the  foot-lights  and 
behind  them.  Alice  is  the  young  lady  married  to 
Clawson.  Zina,  whom  we  have  seen  play  Mrs.  Musket 
in  the  farce  of  "My  Husband's  Ghost,"  is  a  lady-like 
girl,  tall,  full  in  figure,  moon-faced  (as  the  Orientals 
say),  not  much  of  an  artist.  Emily  we  have  also  seen; 
Elder  Clawson  is  said  to  be  courting  her.  I  am  told 
that  the  flame  is  mutual ;  and  that  Emily  is  not  un- 
likely to  be  gathered  home  to  her  sister  Alice.  Gen- 
tile rumor — fond  of  toying  with  the  domestic  secrets 
of  the  President's  family — says  that  Alice  is  not  happy 
with  her  lord  ;  but  this  is  one  of  those  Gentile  rumors 
which  I  can  almost  swear  is  false.  One  day  last  week 
I  had  the  pleasure  of  taking  Sister  Alice  down  to  din- 
ner, of  talking  with  her  for  a  long  evening,  and  of 
seeing  and  romping  with  her  four  brave  boys.  A 
brighter,  merrier  woman  I  have  rarely  seen ;  and  I 
noted,  as  a  peculiarity  in  her,  not  common  in  either 
eastern  or  western  America,  that  she -always  addressed 
her  husband  by  his  baptismal  name  of  Hiram.  Ameri- 
can ladies  almost  everywhere  speak  to  their  husbands 
as  Mr.  Jones  and  Mr.  Smith,  not  as  William  and 
George.  The  perils  of  a  double  alliance  with  the 
Mormon  pope  are  said  to  be  very  great ;  envy  among 
the  Elders,  collision  with  the  Gentiles,  jealousy  at 
Camp  Douglas,  hostility  in  Washington;  but  Elder 
Clawson  is  said  to  be  ready  to  take  his  chance  with 
Sister  Emily,  as  he  has  done  with  Alice,  answering, 
as  the  Mormons  put  it,  Washington  theories  by 
Deseret  facts. 

The  first  piece  we  saw  was  Charles  the  Twelfth. 
Where  Adam  Brock  warns  his  daughter,  Eudigo, 
against  military  sparks,  the  whole  pit  of  young  ladies 
crackled  oft'  into  girlish  laughter ;  the  reference  being 
taken  to  Camp  Douglas  and  the  United  States  officers 


148  NEW  A  ME  RICA . 

stationed  there,  many  of  whom  were  in  the  house,  and 
heartily  enjoyed  the  fun.  This  play  happens  to  be 
full  of  allusions  to  soldiers  and  their  amours,  and 
every  word  of  these  allusions  was  appropriated  and 
applied  by  the  Saints  to  their  local  politics.  The 
interference  of  these  United  States  officers  and  sol- 
diers with  the  Mormon  women  is  a  very  sore  point 
with  the  Saints,  some  of  their  wives  having,  it  is  said, 
been  seduced  and  carried  off.  Young  spoke  to  me 
with  indignation  of  such  proceedings,  though  he  did 
not  name  the  offenders  as  connected  with  the  camp. 
"  They  cause  us  trouble,"  he  said;  "they  intrude  into 
our  affairs,  and  even  into  our  families ;  we  cannot 
stand  such  things;  and  when  they  are  guilty,  we  make 
them  bite  the  dust."  I  thought  of  all  that  I  had  ever 
heard  about  Porter  Rockwell  and  his  Danite  band ; 
but  I  only  smiled  and  waited  for  the  President  to  go 
on.  He  quickly  added,  "I  never  had  any  trouble  of 
this  sort  in  my  own  family." 

When  Charles  the  Twelfth  referred  to  the  amours 
of  his  officers,  it  w\as  good  fun  to  see  the  Prophet  roll- 
ing back  in  his  chair,  convulsed  with  merriment,  while 
the  more  staid  Amelia  eyed  the  audience  through  her 
opera-glass. 


THE  TEMPLE.  149 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

THE  TEMPLE. 

What  the  Theatre  is  to  the  social  life  of  this  people, 
the  Temple  is  to  its  i-eligious  life.  One  symbolizes 
the  enjoyment  of  the  present  world,  the  other  typiiies 
the  glories  of  a  world  to  come.  The  playhouse  has 
been  raised  and  opened  because  its  service  is  con- 
cerned with  the  things  which  cannot  wait;  the  Temple 
is  proceeding  slowly,  block  being  piled  on  block  with 
the  care  and  leisure  of  a  work  designed  to  last  for- 
ever 

These  Mormons  profess  to  have  so  much  religion  in 
their  blood  and  bone,  that  they  can  easily  dispense,  on 
occasion,  with  religious  forms.  A  few  days  ago,  I 
happened  to  hear  the  first  discourse  of  Brigham  Young 
to  a  band  of  emigrants,  the  practical  character  of 
which  would  have  taken  me  by  surprise,  but  that  my 
previous  intercourse  with  him  had  in  some  degree 
prepared  me  for  it. 

"Brothers  and  sisters  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,"  he 
said,  in  substance,  "you  have  been  chosen  from  the 
world  by  God,  and  sent  through  His  grace  into  this 
valley  of  the  mountains,  to  help  in  building  up  His 
kingdom.  You  are  faint  and  weary  from  your  march. 
Rest,  then,  for  a  day,  for  a  second  day,  should  you 
need  it;  then  rise  up  and  see  how  you  will  live. 
Don't  bother  yourselves  about  your  religious  duties; 
you  have  been  chosen  for  this  work,  and  God  will  take 
care  of  you  in  it.  Be  of  good  cheer.  Look  about 
this  valley  into  which  you  have  been  called.  Your 
first  duty  is  to  learn  how  to  grow  a  cabbage,  and  along 

13* 


150  NEW  AMERICA. 

with  this  cabbage  an  onion,  a  tomato,  a  sweet  potato ; 
then  how  to  feed  a  pig,  to  build  a  house,  to  phint  a 
garden,  to  rear  cattle,  and  to  bake  bread ;  in  one  word, 
your  first  duty  is  to  live.  The  next  duty  —  for  those 
who,  being  Danes,  French,  and  Swiss,  cannot  speak  it 
now — is  to  learn  English;  the  language  of  God,  the 
language  of  the  Book  of  Mormon,  the  language  of 
these  Latter  Days.  These  things  you  must  do  first ; 
the  rest  will  be  added  to  you  in  proper  seasons.  God 
bless  3^ou  ;  and  the  peace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  be 
with  you." 

The  Temple  is  not  forgotten  ;  in  fact,  no  people  on 
the  earth  devote  more  money  to  their  religious  edifices 
and  services  than  the  Mormons.  A  tenth  of  all  prod- 
uce—  often  much  more  —  is  cheerfully  given  up  to 
the  church;  but  the  first  thought  of  a  convert,  the 
first  counsel  of  an  elder,  is  always  that  the  Saint  shall 
look  upon  labor,  labor  of  the  hand  and  brain,  and 
most  of  all  labor  of  the  hand,  as  the  appointed  sacri- 
fice through  which,  by  God's  own  law,  a  man  shall  be 
purged  from  sin  and  shall  attain  everlasting  peace. 
All  the  passions  which  another  sect  throws  into  po- 
lemics, the  Mormons  put  into  work.  They  do  not 
shun  discussion  by  the  tongue;  in  fact,  they  are  shrewd 
of  wit,  prompt  in  quotation  ;  but  they  prefer  that  their 
chief  controversies  with  the  world  should  be  con- 
ducted b}^  the  spade. 

Hence  they  thrive  where  no  other  men  could  live. 
Those  engineers  who  reported  that  a  hundred  settlers 
could  never  find  sustenance  in  these  valleys,  were  not 
so  much  in  the  wrong  as  many  people,  wise  after 
Young's  success,  suppose.  Even  Bridger,  the  old 
Wasatch  trapper,  when  he  ofiered  to  give  a  thousand 
dollars  for  every  ear  of  corn  to  be  raised  in  this  val- 
ley, was  not  sut^h  a  fool  as  his  words  may  now  seem 


THE    TEMPLi:.  If)! 

to  make  him.  Those  critics  only  spoke  of  what 
might  have  ])eeii  expected  from  ordinary  men,  im- 
pelled by  ordinary  motives ;  and  nothing  on  earth  is 
surer  than  that  ordinary  men  would  have  perished  in 
these  regions.  The.  soil  is  so  dry,  so  barren,  that  with 
all  his  passion  for  work,  a  Mormon  can  only  cultivate 
four  acres  of  land,  while  a  Gentile  on  the  Missouri 
and  the  Kansas  rivers  can  easily  cultivate  forty  acres. 
Take  away  the  Mormon  impetus,  and  in  two  years 
this  city  of  Salt  Lake  would  come  to  depend,  as  Den- 
ver does,  on  Indiana  and  Ohio  for  its  supplies  of  food. 

Who,  then,  are  these  working  Saints  engaged  in 
building  this  Temple? 

Thirty-six  years  ago,  there  were  six  Mormons  in 
America;  none  in  England,  none  in  the  rest  of  Eu- 
rope ;  and  to-day  (1866)  they  have  twenty  thousand 
Saints  in  Salt  Lake  city ;  four  thousand  each  in  Og- 
den,  Provo,  and  Logan;  in  the  whole  of  their  stations 
in  these  valleys,  (one  hundred  and  six  settlements, 
properly  organized  by  them,  and  ruled  by  bishops  and 
elders,)  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  souls ;  in  other 
parts  of  the  United  States,  about  eight  or  ten  thou- 
sand ;  in  England  and  its  dependencies,  about  fifteen 
thousand;  in  the  rest  of  Europe,  ten  thousand;  in 
Asia  and  the  South  Sea  Islands,  about  twenty  thou- 
sand; in  all  not  less,  perhaps,  than  two  hundred  thou- 
sand followers  of  the  gospel  preached  by  Joseph 
Smith.  All  these  converts  have  been  gathered  into 
this  Temple  in  thirty  years. 

This  power  of  growth — a  power  developed  in  the 
midst  of  persecution  —  is  one  of  the  strangest  facts  in 
the  story  of  this  strange  people.  In  half  the  span  of 
our  life  they  have  risen  from  nothing  into  a  vast  and 
vital  church.  Islam,  preaching  the  Unity  of  God  with 
fire  and  sword,  swept  onward  with  a  slower  march 


152  NEW  AMEBIC  A. 

thau  these  American  Saints ;  for  in  little  more  than 
thirty  years  they  have  won  a  nation  from  the  Chris- 
tian church ;  they  have  occupied  a  territory  larger 
than  Spain ;  they  have  huilt  a  capital  hi  the  desert, 
which  is  already  more  populous  than  Valladolid;  they 
have  drilled  an  army  which  I  have  reason  to  helieve 
is  more  than  twenty  thousand  strong;  they  have 
raised  a  priesthood,  counting  in  its  ranks  many  hun- 
dreds of  working  prophets,  presidents,  bishops,  coun- 
cillors, and  elders;  they  have  established  a  law,  a  the- 
ology, a  social  science  of  their  own,  profoundly  hostile 
to  all  reigning  colleges  and  creeds. 

Counting  them  man  by  man,  the  Saints  are  already 
strong ;  but  the  returns  which  are  made  on  paper  (so 
frequently  beyond  the  mark  in  both  churches  and 
armies)  stand  in  their  case  far  below  their  actual 
strength,  whether  we  weigh  them  in  the  case  of 
either  temporal  or  spiritual  power.  Other  men  may 
be  counted  by  heads  ;  these  men  must  be  counted  by 
heads  and  hearts ;  for  every  saint  is  at  once  a  priest 
and  a  soldier;  the  whole  Mormon  population  being 
trained  alike  to  controversies  of  the  spirit  and  of  the 
flesh.  Every  male  adult  has  a  thought  in  his  brain,  a 
revolver  in  his  belt,  a  rifle  in  his  hand.  In  every 
house  we  find  arms:  in  the  Prophet's  chamber,  in  the 
newspaper  office,  in  the  emigrants'  shed,  in  the  bath- 
house, in  the  common  parlor,  in  the  ordinary  sleepiug- 
room.  On  our  first  arrival  at  Salt  Lake  City,  the  hotel, 
kept  by  Colonel  Little,  a  leading  Mormon,  was  full  of 
guests,  and  a  small  dog-hole,  without  a  chair,  a  table, 
a  wardrobe,  and  with  only  one  camp-bed  in  it,  was 
offx3red  us  by  a  hasty  negro  for  our  quarters.  Letters 
of  introduction,  instantly  delivered,  brought  friends 
to  our  help;  but  the  place  was  so  crammed  with  visit- 
ors that  no  room  could  be  made  or  got,  and  my  friend 


THE    TEMPLE.  153 

was  obliged  to  accept  Colonel  Little's  hospitalities  at 
his  private  house.  There  he  found  one  of  the  Colo- 
nel's wives  reading  to  her  group  of  pretty  girls  a  book 
in  favor  of  polygamy;  and  on  being  shown  into  a  bed- 
room for  the  night  (a  bedroom  belonging  to  one  of 
Colonel  Little's  sons),  he  was  startled  on  finding  a 
loaded  pistol  under  his  pillow,  two  Colt's  revolvers 
loaded  and  capped,  slung  on  the  wall ;  in  a  corner  of 
the  room  two  Ballard  rifles.  Young  Little,  whose 
room  my  friend  was  occupying  for  the  night,  is  a  lad 
of  seventeen. 

At  first  these  Saints  were  a  pacific  race,  warring 
with  the  sword  of  faith  only ;  but  when  the  Gentile 
spoiler  came  down  upon  them,  using  steel  and  lead 
against  what  they  called  truth,  and  when  it  appeared 
that  the  law,  appealed  to  in  their  stress  of  mind  and 
body,  could  give  them  no  help,  they  girt  upon  their 
loins  a  more  carnal  weapon.  They  bought  swords 
and  guns,  formed  themselves  into  bands;  fell  steadily 
to  drill,  and  in  a  few  months  they  had  become  more 
formidable  in  Iowa  and  Illinois  than  their  weak  num- 
bers could  have  made  them.  If  they  were  not  strong 
enough  to  found  a  new  empire  on  the  Mississippi  in 
defiance  of  public  opinion,  they  were  powerful  enough 
to  disturb  the  adjoining  States ;  and  when  the  Mexi- 
can war  broke  out,  to  send  a  brilliant  corps  to  the 
seat  of  war.  From  that  day  to  our  own,  the  martial 
exercises  of  the  Saints  have  known  no  pause.  Drill 
may  now  be  considered  as  a  part  of  the  Mormon 
ritual ;  a  Saint  being  as  much  bound  to  appear  on 
parade  as  he  is  in  the  tabernacle.  It  is  scarcely  a 
figure  of  speech  to  say  that  every  male  adult  of  Des- 
eret — as  the  Mormons  call  Utah  —  holds  himself 
equally  ready  to  start  on  a  mission  and  to  take  the 
field.     It  is  their  boast,  and  I  believe  not  a  vain  one, 


154  NEW  AMEBIC  A. 

that  in  fifteen  minutes  tliey  can  rally  three  thousand 
rifles,  each  rifle  backed  by  a  revolver,  around  their 
City  Hall.  Once,  on  a  false  alarm  being  raised,  this 
body  of  men  was  actually  under  arms. 

These  Temple  builders  call  themselves  Saints,  ac- 
cept the  Bible  as  true,  baptize  their  converts  in  the 
name  of  Christ ;  but  they  are  not  a  Christian  people, 
and  no  church  in  the  world  could  hold  communion 
with  them  in  their  present  state.  In  truth,  they  ap- 
proach much  nearer  both  in  creed,  in  morals,  and  in 
government,  to  the  Utes  and  Shoshones  than  to  any 
Anglo-Saxon  church.  Young  gets  a  meaning  from 
the  Bible  which  no  one  else  ever  found  there.  It  has 
been  often  said  that  the  Saints  pretend  to  have  a  new 
translation  of  the  Bible ;  a  rendering  made  by  the 
Holy  Spirit ;  but  Brigham  Young  tells  me  that  this 
statement  is  untrue.  He  claims  to  understand  the 
Scriptures  by  a  purer  light  than  we  Gentiles  now  pos- 
sess, and  to  have  the  hidden  meaning  of  certain  por- 
tions of  them  cleared  by  Divine  revelation ;  but  he 
takes  our  Bible  as  it  stands  in  the  authorized  English 
version.  "King  James'  Bible,"  he  said  to  me  with 
emphasis,  "is  my  Bible;  I  know  of  none  other."  In 
fact,  he  seems  to  regard  that  version  as  in  some  sort 
divine,  and  the  very  language  in  which  it  is  couched  as 
in  some  sort  sacred.  "The  English  tongue,"  he  said, 
"is  a  holy  form  of  speech;  the  best,  the  softest,  and  the 
strongest  language  in  the  world."  I  think  he  considers 
it  the  language  of  God  and  of  heaven.  "It  is  holy," 
he  said,  "  for  it  is  the  speech  in  which  the  angels  wrote 
the  Book  of  Mormon,  the  speech  in  which  God  has 
given  his  last  revelation  to  man."  When  a  friend  of 
mine  went  into  a  Salt  Lake  City  book-store,  and 
asked  for  the  Mormon  book  of  faith,  the  man  behind 
the   counter  handed   him   an  Ens^lish  Bible.     "  We 


THE    TWO   SEERS.  155 

have  no  better  book,"  he  said;  "all  that  we  believe 
you  will  find  in  those  pages."  This  is  what  they 
always  say ;  but  it  is  no  less  true  that  they  find  a 
thousand  facts  and  doctrines  in  their  Bible  which  we 
have  never  found  in  ours :  a  new  history  of  the  crea- 
tion, of  the  fall,  of  the  atonement,  of  the  future  life. 
In  fact,  they  have  made  for  themselves  a  new  heaven 
and  a  new  earth, 

A  Mohammedan  mosque  stands  nearer  to  a  Chris- 
tian church  than  this  Mormon  temple  stands.  Islam 
broke  down  idols,  Mormonism  sets  them  up.  Smith 
and  Young  have  peopled  their  strange  heaven  with 
gods  of  their  own  making ;  and  the  Almighty  is  in 
their  eyes  but  a  President  of  Heaven,  a  chief  among 
spiritual  peers,  occupying  a  throne  like  that  of  the 
Roman  Jove.  In  short,  this  temple  is  nothing  less 
than  the  altar  of  a  new  people ;  a  people  having  a 
new  law,  a  new  morality,  a  new  priesthood,  a  new 
industry,  a  new  canon,  and  a  new  God. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 


THE   TWO    SEERS. 


Nothing  is  more  easy  than  to  laugh  at  these  votaries. 
They  are  low  people ;  scum  of  the  earth,  dregs  of 
great  cities,  mire  of  the  roadside,  ooze  of  the  river- 
bank  and  the  ditch.  Their  prophet  was  Joe  Smith ; 
and  that  story  of  his  about  the  gold  plates,  about  the 
Urim  and  Thummim,  about  the  Egyptian  mummy, 
about  the  Spalding  manuscript  novel,  about  the  sword 
of  Tjaban,  and  the  angelic  visitors,  about  the  Mormon 


156  NEW  AMERICA. 

bank,  the  paper  money,  and  the  spiritual  wife  —  may 
be  so  told  by  a  man  of  comic  vein  as  to  excite  shouts 
of  laughter  in  a  Gentile  room.  Perhaps  the  weakest 
side  of  the  new  church  is  that  of  the  Prophet's  actual 
life,  as  the  strongest  side  is  that  of  his  actual  death. 
Had  Smith  lived  long  enough  for  the  facts  of  his 
career  to  become  known,  many  persons  think  that 
among  a  people  keenly  alive  to  humor,  he  would  have 
found  no  lasting  dupes. 

Look,  say  these  persons,  into  that  oily,  perky  face, 
and  say  w^hether  you  can  dream  of  anything  divine 
Ij'ing  hid  behind  it?  Smith,  having  the  true  instinct 
of  a  sectarian,  and  knowing  that  the  seeds  of  the 
Church  were  sown  in  the  blood  of  her  martyrs,  put 
himself  day  by  day  into  the  paths  of  the  persecutor. 
No  man  is  popular  until  he  has  been  abused  — no  man 
is  thought  a  saint  until  he  has  been  calumniated  —  no 
man  is  ranked  among  the  prophets  until  he  has  been 
stoned  to  death.  "Persecution,"  said  Brigham,  "is 
our  portion  ;  if  we  are  right,  the  w^orid  will  be  against 
us ;  but  the  world  will  not  prevail  against  the  elect  of 
God."  Smith  felt  in  his  heart  this  truth  of  truths; 
he  sought  for  oppression  as  the  sign  of  his  calling, 
and  his  enemies  in  the  States  indulged  him  in  the 
dearest  wdsh  of  his  soul. 

Thirty-nine  times  he  was  cited  into  courts  of  law. 
It  is  strong  evidence  of  his  craft  that  he  contrived  to 
be  so  often  accused  without  being  once  condemned. 
Every  charge  made  against  him  put  new  heart  into 
his  church.  Still  the  growth  of  his  sect  was  slow ; 
slow,  compared  against  that  of  George  Fox,  that  of 
John  Wesley,  even  that  of  Ann  Lee.  Round  Smith's 
own  person  there  was  always  bickering  and  division ; 
many  of  the  Saints  declaring  that  their  seer  was  rob- 
bing the   common  till.     Rigdon,   his  partner  in  the 


THE   TWO   SEERS.  157 

fraud  of  palming  off  Spalding's  romance  as  a  transla- 
tion from  the  golden  plates,  quitted  and  exposed  bini. 
Other  men  followed  this  example ;  and  though  many 
new  converts  were  being  made  at  a  distance  among 
people  who  knew  not  Joseph  in  the  flesh,  the  sect 
could  hardly  have  been  kept  together,  had  it  not 
pleased  the  western  rowdies  to  make  Smith  a  martyr. 
A  gang  of  ruffians,  taking  the  law  into  their  hands, 
broke  into  his  prison  at  Carthage,  and  shot  him  down 
like  a  dog. 

A  crime,  for  which  no  excuse  could  be  found,  in- 
fused new  spirit  into  his  friends,  and  opened  to  his 
missionaries  the  ears  of  thousands.  After  the  murder 
had  been  committed,  justice  was  too  slow  to  seize,  too 
weak  to  punish  his  assassins ;  a  fact  which  seemed  to 
carry  the  appeal  of  blood  from  earth  to  heaven. 

When  it  became  known  that  Smith  was  dead — that 
he  had  been  slain  for  his  opinions  —  his  faults  were 
instantly  swept  aside ;  the  remembrance  of  his  craft, 
his  greed,  his  sensuality,  his  ignorance,  his  ambition, 
was  buried  in  his  secret  grave ;  and  the  unsought 
glory  of  a  martyr's  death  was  counted  to  him  by  his 
people,  and  by  many  who  had  not  till  then  become  his 
people,  as  of  higher  virtue  than  would  have  been  the 
merit  of  a  saintly  and  heroic  life. 

It  is  a  story  as  old  as  time.  Smith  —  living  at 
Nauvoo,  squabbling  with  his  apostles  about  debts  and 
duns,  wrangling  with  his  wife  Emma  about  spiritual 
wives,  subject  to  constant  accusations  of  theft  and 
drunkenness  —  was  certainly  not  a  man  whom  the 
American  people  had  any  cause  to  fear ;  but  his  assas- 
sination in  the  jail  at  Carthage  raised  this  alleged 
debtor  and  drunkard,  this  alleged  thief  and  fornicator, 
into  the  rank  of  saints.  Men  who  could  hardly  have 
endured  his  presence   in   the  flesh  proclaimed  him, 

14 


158  ^£W  AMERICA. 

now  that  he  was  gone,  as  a  true  successor  of  Moses 
and  of  Christ. 

Under  a  new  leader,  Brigham  Young,  —  a  man  of 
lowly  birth,  of  keen  humor,  of  unerring  good  sense, — 
the  sect  emerged  from  its  condition  of  internal  strife ; 
putting  on  a  more  decent  garb,  closing  up  its  broken 
ranks,  laboring  with  a  new  zeal,  extending  its  mis- 
sionary work.  Finding  that  through  recent  troubles 
his  position  on  the  Mississippi  had  become  untenable, 
Young  advised  his  followers  to  yield  their  prize,  to 
quit  the  world  in  which  they  had  found  no  peace,  and 
set  up  their  tabernacles  in  one  of  those  distant  wilds 
in  the  far  "West,  which  were  then  trodden  by  no  feet 
of  men,  except  those  of  a  few  Red  Indian  tribes,  Utes, 
Pawkees,  Shoshones,  in  what  was  called  the  American 
desert,  and  was  considered  by  everybody  as  l^o-man's 
land.  It  was  a  bold  device.  Beyond  the  western 
prairies,  beyond  the  Rocky  Mountains,  lay  a  howling 
wilderness  of  salt  and  stones,  a  property  which  no 
white  man  had  yet  been  greedy  enough  to  claim. 
Some  pope,  in  the  middle  ages,  had  bestowed  it  on 
the  crown  of  Spain,  from  which  it  had  fallen,  as  a 
paper  waste,  to  the  Mexican  Republic ;  but  neither 
Spaniard  nor  Mexican  had  ever  gone  up  north  into 
the  land  to  possess  it.  In  the  centre  of  this  howling 
wilderness  lay  a  Dead  Sea,  not  less  terrible  than  Bahr 
Lout,  the  Sea  of  Lot.  One-fourth  of  its  water  was 
known  to  be  solid  salt.  The  creeks  which  run  into  it 
were  said  to  be  putrid ;  the  wells  around  it  were 
known  to  be  bitter ;  and  the  shores  for  many  miles 
were  crusted  white  with  saleratus.  These  shores  were 
like  nothing  else  on  earth,  except  the  Sj^rian  Ghor, 
and  they  were  more  forbidding  than  the  Syrian  Ghor 
in  this  particular,  that  the  waters  of  Salt  Lake  are 
dull,  impure,  and  the  water  lines  studded  with  ditches 


THE   TWO  SEERS.  159 

and  pools,  intolerable  to  the  nostrils  of  living  men. 
To  crown  its  repulsive  features,  this  desert  of  salt,  of 
stones,  and  of  putrid  creeks,  was  shut  off  from  the 
world,  eastward  by  the  Rocky  Mountains,  westward 
by  the  Sierra  Nevada,  ranges  of  alps  high  as  the  chain 
of  Mont  Blanc,  and  covered  with  eternal  ice  and 
snow. 

The  red  men  who  roamed  over  this  country  in  search 
of  roots  and  insects,  were  known  to  be  the  most  savage 
and  degraded  tribes  of  their  savage  and  degraded 
race.  A  herd  of  bison,  a  flight  of  gulls,  a  swarm  of 
locusts,  peopled  the  plain  w^ith  a  fitful  life.  In  spring, 
when  a  little  verdure  rose  upon  the  ground,  a  little 
wild  sage,  a  few  dwarf  sunflowers,  the  locusts  sprang 
from  the  earth  and  stript  the  few  green  plants  of  every 
leaf  and  twig.  No  forests  could  be  seen ;  the  grass, 
where  it  grew",  appeared  to  be  rank  and  thin.  Only 
the  wild  sage  and  the  dwarf  sunflower  seemed  to  find 
food  in  the  soil,  plants  which  are  useless  to  man,  and 
were  then  thought  to  be  poisonous  to  his  beast. 

Trappers,  w^ho  had  looked  down  on  the  Salt  Valley 
from  peaks  and  passes  in  the  Wasatch  Mountains, 
pictured  it  as  a  region  without  life,  w^ithout  a  green 
slope,  even  without  streams  and  springs.  The  wells 
were  said  to  be  salt,  as  the  fields  were  salt.  Findino- 
no  wood,  and  scarcely  any  fresh  water  in  that  region, 
these  explorers  had  set  their  seal  upon  this  great 
American  desert  as  a  waste  unfit  for  the  dwelling,  in- 
capable of  the  sustenance,  of  civilized  men.  But 
Young  thought  otherwise.  He  knew  that  where  the 
Saint  had  struck  his  spade  into  the  ground  —  at  Kirt- 
land  in  Ohio,  at  Independence  in  Missouri,  at  Nauvoo 
in  Illinois — he  had  been  always  blessed  with  a  plen- 
tiful crop ;  and  the  new^  Mormon  seer  had  faith  in  the 
same  strong  sinews,  in  the  same  rough  hands,  in  the 


160  NEW  AMERTGA. 

same  keen  "will,  being  able  to  draw  harvests  of  grain 
from  the  desolate  valley  of  Salt  Lake 

A  carpenter  by  trade,  Young  knew  how  to  fell  trees, 
to  shape  log^,  to  build  carts  and  trucks,  to  stake  out 
ground,  to  erect  temporary  sheds.     The  Saints  whom 
he  would  have   to  lead  were  inured  to  labor  and  pri- 
vation ;    being    chiefly    New   England    artisans   and 
Western  farmers,  men  who  could  turn  their  hands  to 
any  trade,  who  could  face  any  difficulty,  execute  any 
work.     An  equal  number  of  either  English  or  French 
converts  would  have  perished  in  the  attempt  to  move 
across  the  plains  and  the  mountains ;  but  the  native 
American  is  a  man  of  all  trades —  a  banker,  a  butcher, 
a  carpenter,  a  clerk,  a  teamster,  a  statesman,  anything 
at  a  pinch,  everything  in  its  turn — a   man   rich   in 
resources  and  ingenuities,  so  that  a  baker  can  build 
you  a  bridge,  a  preacher  can  catch  you  a  wild  horse,  a 
lawyer  can  bake  you  hot  cakes.     Young  knew  that  in 
crossing  the  great  plains  and  in  climbing  the   great 
ranges,  which  are  loosely  clubbed  together  under  the 
name  of  Rocky  Mountains,  the  privations  of  his  people 
would  be  sharp  ;  but  to  his  practical  eye  these  suft'er- 
ings  of  the  flesh  appeared  to  be  such  as  brave  men 
could  be  trained  by  example   to   bear  and   not  die. 
Food  and  seed  might  be  carried  in  their  light  wagons, 
and  a  little  malt  whisky  would  correct  the  alkali  in  the 
bitter  creeks.     In  his  baud  of  disciples  every  man  was 
master  of  some  craft ;  every  woman  was  either  a  dairy- 
maid, a  baker,  a  seamstress,  a  laundress;    nay,  the 
children  could  be  turned   to   account   in   the   desert 
roads,  for  every  American  girl  can  milk  a  cow,  every 
American  boy  can  drive  a  team. 

A  party  of  pioneers  (many  of  whom  are  still  alive 
in  Salt  Lake  Valley)  having  been  sent  forward  to 
explore  and  report,  the  word  to  move  on  westward 


THE    TWO   SEERS.  1(^1 

was  at  length  given  by  Young,  and  in  every  family  of 
Nauvoo  preparations  were  made  lor  a  jonrney,  un- 
matched in  history  since  the  days  when  Moses  led  the 
Israelites  out  of  Egypt.  The  Saints  broke  up  their 
cheery  homes.  They  gathered,  in  their  haste,  a  little 
food,  a  few  roots  and  seeds,  a  dozen  kegs  of  spirits. 
Then  they  yoked  their  mules,  their  oxen,  to  the 
country  wagons.  Those  who  were  too  poor  to  buy 
wagons  and  oxen,  made  for  themselves  trucks  and 
w^heelbarrows.  Pressed  upon  by  their  foes,  they 
inarched  away  from  l^auvoo,  even  while  the  winter 
was  yet  hard  upon  them,  crossing  the  Mississippi  on 
the  ice,  and  started  on  a  journey  of  fifteen  hundred 
miles,  through  a  country  without  a  road,  without  a 
bridge,  without  a  village,  without  an  inn,  without 
wells,  cattle,  pastures,  and  cultivated  land.  As  Elder 
John  Taylor  told  me,  they  left  everything  behind ; 
their  corn-fields,  their  gardens,  their  pretty  houses, 
with  the  books,  carpets,  pianos,  everything  which  they 
contained.  The  distance  to  be  conquered  by  these 
emigrants  was  equal  to  that  from  London  to  Lemberg, 
six  times  that  from  Cairo  to  Jerusalem.  Their  route 
lay  through  a  prairie  peopled  by  Pawnees,  Shoshones, 
wolves  and  bears ;  it  was  broken  by  rapid  rivers, 
barred  by  a  series  of  mountain  chains ;  and  the  haven 
to  be  reached,  after  all  their  toils  and  dangers,  was 
the  shore  of  a  Dead  Sea,  lying  in  a  sterile  valley ;  a 
laud  watered  with  brine,  and  pastures  sown  with  salt. 

14* 


162  NEW  AMERICA. 

CHAPTER  XX. 

FLIGHT   FROM    BONDAGE. 

The  tale  of  that  journey  of  the  Saints,  as  we  hear  it 
from  the  lips  of  Young,  of  Wells,  of  Taylor,  and  of 
other  old  men  who  made  it,  is  a  story  to  wring  and 
yet  nerve  the  hearts  of  all  generous  men.  When  these 
Mormons  were  driven  by  violence  from  the  roofs 
which  they  had  built,  the  fields  which  they  had  tilled, 
the  days  were  short  and  snow  lay  thick  upon  the 
ground.  Everything,  save  a  little  food  for  the  way- 
side, a  few  corn-seeds  and  potato-roots  for  the  coming 
year,  had  to  be  abandoned  to  their  armed  and  riotous 
enemies ;  the  homes  which  they  had  made,  the  temple 
they  had  just  finished,  the  graves  they  had  recently 
dug.  Frost  bit  their  little  ones  in  the  hands  and  feet. 
Hunger  and  thirst  tormented  both  young  and  aged. 
Long  plains  of  sand,  into  which  the  wagon-wheels 
sank  to  the  axle-trees,  separated  the  scanty  supplies 
of  water.  Wells  there  were  none.  Mirage  often 
mocked  them  with  its  promises ;  and  even  when  they 
came  to  creeks  and  streams,  tiiey  often  found  them 
bitter  to  the  taste,  and  dangerous  to  the  health.  The 
days  were  short  and  cold,  and  the  absence  of  any 
other  shelter  from  the  frost  than  the  bit  of  canvas 
roof  made  the  nights  of  winter  terrible  to  all.  Horses 
sickened  by  the  way.  Disease  broke  out  among  the 
cows  and  sheep,  so  that  milk  ran  short,  and  the  sup- 
plies of  mutton  were  dressed  and  cooked  in  fear. 
Some  of  the  poor,  the  aged,  and  the  ailing,  had  then 
to  be  left  behind ;  with  them  a  guard  of  young  men 
who  could  ill  be  spared. 


FLIGHT  FROM  BONDAGE.  108 

Nor  was  loss  of  a  part  of  their  youth  and  strength 
the  whole  of  their  calamity  in  this  opening  stage  of 
their  emigration.  Just  at  the  hour  when  every  male 
arm  was  most  precious  to  these  exiles,  the  Mexican 
war  broke  out ;  and  a  government,  which  had  never 
been  strong  enough  to  do  them  right,  came  down  to 
them  for  help  in  arms  and  men.  Young  answered 
the  appeal  of  his  country  like  a  patriot;  five  hundred 
youths,  the  flower  of  his  migrating  bands,  stepped  out 
before  him,  and  with  the  blessing  of  their  chief  upon 
their  heads,  they  mustered  themselves  into  the  invad- 
ing corps. 

Weakened  by  the  departure  of  this  living  force,  the 
Mormons  crossed  the  Missouri  River  in  a  ferry  made 
by  themselves,  entering  on  the  gr^at  wilderness,  the 
features  of  which  they  laid  down  on  a  map,  making  a 
rough  road,  and  throwing  light  bridges  over  streams, 
as  they  went  on  ;  collecting  grass  and  herbs  for  their 
own  use ;  sowing  corn  for  those  who  were  to  come 
later  in  the  year ;  raising  temporary  sheds  in  which 
their  little  ones  might  sleep;  and  digging  caves  in  the 
earth  as  a  refuge  from  the  winter  snow.  Their  food 
was  scarce,  their  Avater  bad,  and  such  wild  game  as 
they  could  find  in  the  plains — the  elk,  the  antelope, 
the  bufl^alo  —  poisoned  their  blood.  Nearly  all  the 
malt  whisky  which  they  had  brought  from  Nauvoo  to 
correct  the  bad  water,  had  been  seized  on  the  road, 
and  the  kegs  staved  in,  by  agents  of  government,  on 
pretence  of  its  being  meant  for  the  red-skins,  to  whom 
it  was  unlawful  for  the  whites  to  sell  any  ardent  spirits. 
Four  kegs  only  had  been  saved ;  saved  by  Brigham 
Young  himself.  An  elder,  who  was  present  in  the 
boat,  and  who  told  me  the  anecdote,  says  it  is  the  only 
time  he  ever  remembered  to  have  seen  the  Prophet  in 
a  rage.     Four  kegs  were  on  board  the  Ferry,  when 


104  NEW  AMERICA. 

the  officer  seized  them  and  began  to  knock  in  the 
staves  ;  in  that  spirit  lay  the  lives  of  the  people  ;  and 
when  Brigham  saw  the  man  raise  his  mallet,  he  drew 
his  pistol,  levelled  it  at  his  head,  and  cried,  "  Stay 
your  hand !  If  you  touch  that  keg,  you  die,  by  the 
living  God!"  The  man  jumped  off  the  ferry  and 
troubled  them  no  more. 

In  our  own  journey  across  the  plains,  though  the 
time  was  August,  the  weather  fine,  the  passage  swift, 
we  suffered  keenly  from  the  want  of  fresh  food  and 
of  good  water.  My  companion  sickened  from  bile 
into  dysentery;  no  meat,  no  drink,  would  lie  in  his 
stomach  ;  nothing  but  the  cognac  in  our  flasks.  The 
M'ater  almost  killed  him.  His  sun-burnt  face  grew 
chalky-white  ;  his  limbs  hung  feeble  and  relaxed  ;  his 
strong  physique  so  drooped  that  a  man  at  one  of  the 
ranches,  after  looking  at  him  for  a  moment  with  a 
curious  eye,  came  up  to  me  and  said,  "  You  will  feel 
very  lonely  when  he  is  left  behind.-'  My  own  attack 
came  later,  and  in  another  form.  The  skin  of  my 
hands  peeled  off,  as  if  it  had  been  either  frayed  or 
scraped  with  a  knife  ;  boils  came  out  upon  my  back  ; 
a  pock  started  on  my  under  eyelid ;  my  fingers  had 
the  appearance  of  scorbutic  eruptions. 

These  two  diseases,  Taylor  told  me,  ravaged  the 
camp  of  emigrants.  Many  sickened  of  dysentery,  still 
more  suffered  from  scurvy. 

Some  of  the  Saints  fell  back  in  the  face  of  these 
terrible  trials.  More  fainted  by  the  wayside,  and  were 
mournfully  laid  in  their  desert  graves.  Every  day 
there  came  a  funeral,  every  night  there  was  fresh 
mourning  in  the  camp.  The  waste  of  life  is  always 
very  great  in  the  emigrant  trains:  even  now,  when  the 
roads  are  made  and  the  stations  are  provisioned  with 
vegetable  food.     Of  the  train  which  I  saw  come  in, 


FLIGHT  FROM  BONDAGE.  1G5 

six  had  perished  on  the  plains.  A  young  lad}' told  me 
that  eighty  had  died  in  the  train  by  which  she  had 
arrived ;  forty  would  perhaps  be  an  average  loss  in  the 
mountains  and  the  plains.  But  no  subsequent  train 
has  ever  suffered  like  the  first.  "  The  waste  of  life 
was  great,"  said  Brigham  Young,  as  he  told  the  dread- 
ful tale.  Yet  the  brave,  unbroken  body  of  male  and 
female  Saints  toiled  along  the  frozen  way.  When 
their  hearts  were  very  low,  a  band  of  music  struck  up 
some  lively  air,  in  which  the  people  joined  and  forgot 
their  woes.  By  day  they  sang  hymns,  at  night  they 
danced  round  the  watch-tires.  Gloom,  asperity,  ascet- 
icism, they  banished  from  their  camps  and  from  their 
thoughts.  Among  the  few  treasures  which  they  had 
carried  with  them  from  l^auvoo  was  a  printing-press  ; 
and  a  sheet  of  news,  printed  and  published  by  the 
wayside,  carried  words  of  good  counsel  into  every  part 
of  the  camp. 

After  crossing  the  sanas  and  creeks  which  have 
since  become  known  to  civilized  men  on  the  maps 
and  charts  as  Nebraska  and  Dakota,  they  arrived  at 
the  foot  of  the  first  great  range  of  those  high  and 
broken  chains  of  alps  which  are  commonly  grouped 
together  under  the  name  of  Rocky  Mountains;  over 
these  high  barriers  there  was  yet  no  path  ;  and  the 
defiles  leading  through  them  were  buried  in  drifts  of 
snow.  How  the  Saints  toiled  up  those  mountain-sides, 
dragging  with  them  oxen  and  carts,  foraging  for  food, 
baking  their  bread  and  cooking  their  meat,  without 
help  and  without  guides,  it  brings  tears  into  the  eyes 
of  aged  men  to  tell.  The  young  and  bold  went  for- 
ward in  advance  ;  driving  away  the  bears  and  wolves; 
stoning  the  rattle-snakes;  chasing  the  elk  and  the  wild 
deer;  making  a  path  for  the  women  and  the  old  men. 
At  length,  when  they  had  reached  the  summit  of  the 


166  NEW  A3IERICA. 

pass,  they  gazed  upon  a  series  of  arid  and  leafless 
plains,  of  dry  river-beds,  of  verdureless  hill-sides,  of 
alkaline  bottoms ;  pools  of  bitter  water,  narrow  can- 
yons and  gorges,  abrupt  and  steep.  Day  by  day,  week 
after  week,  they  toiled  over  these  bleak  sierras,  through 
these  forbidding  valleys.  Food  was  running  out ;  wild 
game  became  scarce ;  the  Utes  and  Snakes  were  un- 
friendly; at  the  end  of  their  journey,  should  they  ever 
reach  it,  lay  the  dry  Salt  Desert,  in  which  they  had 
consented  to  come  and  dwell ! 

Yet  they  were  not  disheartened  by  these  hostile 
aspects  of  the  country ;  they  had  not  expected  a  ver- 
dant paradise ;  they  knew  that  the  land  had  never 
been  seized,  because  it  had  not  been  considered  worth 
taking  from  the  Indian  tribes ;  they  expected  to  find 
here  nothing  beyond  peace  and  freedom,  a  place  in 
which  they  could  take  their  chance  with  Nature,  and 
to  which  they  could  invite  the  Saints,  their  brethren, 
to  a  country  of  their  own.  Descending  the  passes 
with  beating  hearts  and  clanging  trumpets,  they  en- 
tered on  their  lonely  inheritance ;  marched  upon  this 
slope  above  the  Jordan,  near  the  conical  hill  on  which 
Brigham  had  seen  the  angel  in  his  sleep ;  laid  down 
the  plan  of  a  new  city ;  explored  the  canyons  and 
water-courses  into  the  hills ;  and  in  a  few  days  found, 
to  their  sudden  joy,  not  only  springs  of  fresh  water, 
but  woody  nooks  and  grassy  mounds  and  slopes. 

IsTot  an  hour  was  lost.  "  The  first  duty  of  a  Saint 
when  he  comes  to  this  valley,"  said  Brigham  Young 
to  me,  "is  to  learn  how  to  grow  a  vegetable ;  after 
which  he  must  learn  how  to  rear  pigs  and  fowls,  to 
irrigate  his  land,  and  to  build  up  his  house.  The  rest 
will  come  in  time."  Ruled  from  the  first  by  this 
practical  genius,  every  man  fell  to  his  work.  Des- 
eret — country  of  the  Bee — was   announced  as   the 


SETTLEMENT  IN   UTAH.  167 

Promised  Land  and  future  home  of  the  Saints.  It 
was  to  them  as  an  unknown,  unappropriated  soil,  and 
they  hoped  to  found  upon  it  an  independent  State. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

SETTLEMENT   IN    UTAH. 

Soon  the  aspects  of  this  desert  valley  began  to 
change  under  their  cunning  hands;  creeks  from  the 
hills  being  coaxed  into  new  paths ;  fields  being 
cleared  and  sown ;  homesteads  rising  from  the 
ground ;  sheep  and  cattle  beginning  to  dot  the  hills ; 
salt-pits  and  saw-mills  being  established ;  fruit-trees 
being  planted,  and  orchards  taught  to  bloom  and 
bear.  Roads  were  laid  out  and  made.  When  the 
Mormon  herdsmen  entered  the  hill  ravines,  they 
found  pine  and  cotton-wood,  elder,  birch,  and  box : 
materials  precious  for  the  building  of  their  new 
bomes.  A  new  Jerusalem  sprang  from  the  ground ; 
a  temple  was  commenced;  a  newspaper  was  pub- 
lished. Walnut  and  other  hard  woods  were  planted 
in  favorable  spots.  The  red-skins  who  had  long  been 
the  dread  of  all  scouts  and  trappers  in  the  far  west, 
were  won  by  courtesies  and  gifts ;  and  in  a  few 
months  they  appeared  to  have  been  changed  from 
enemies  of  the  white  men  into  allies.  "  We  found  it 
cheaper,"  said  Colonel  Little,  "to  feed  the  Lidians 
than  to  fight  them;"  and  this  policy  of  feeding  the 
Utes  and  Snakes  has  been  pursued  by  Young,  with 
two  or  three  brief  intervals  of  misunderstanding,  from 
the  day  of  his  first  settlement  in  the  valley.     For  two 


168  ^^^^V  AMERICA. 

or  three  trying  years,  the  Saints  of  Salt  Lake  had  to 
wage  war  against  locusts  and  crickets,  those  pJaguea 
of  the  older  Canaan;  hut  by  help  of  gulls  from  the 
lakes,  and  of  their  own  devices  in  trapping  and 
pounding  the  insects,  the  Mormons  contrived  to  pre- 
serve their  crops  of  corn  and  fruit.  A  year  went  by, 
and  the  Mormons  had  not  perished  in  the  waste.  On 
the  contrary,  they  had  begun  to  grow,  and  even  to 
make  money.  Year  after  year  they  have  increased 
in  numbers  and  in  wealth,  until  their  merchants  are 
known  in  London  and  New  York,  and  their  city  has 
become  a  wonder  of  the  earth. 

What  are  the  secrets  of  this  surprising  growth  of 
the  new  society  out  in  these  western  deserts  ? 

"Look  around  you,"  said  Young  to  me,  "if  you 
want  to  know  what  kind  of  people  we  are.  Nineteen 
years  ago  this  valley  was  a  desert,  growing  nothing 
but  the  wild  sage  and  the  dwarf  sunflower ;  we  who 
came  into  it  brought  nothing  with  us  but  a  few  oxen 
and  wagons,  and  a  bag  of  seeds  and  roots;  the  people 
who  came  after  us,  many  of  them  weavers  and  arti- 
sans, brought  nothing,  not  a  cent,  not  even  skill  and 
usage  of  the  soil ;  and  when  you  look  from  this  bal- 
cony, you  can  see  what  we  have  made  of  it." 

How,  above  all  other  settlers  in  the  waste  lands 
of  western  America,  have  the  Saints  achieved  this 
work  ? 

Is  it  an  answer  to  say  that  these  Saints  are  dupes 
and  fanatics  ?  Nothing  is  easier  than  to  laugh  at  Joe 
Smith  and  his  church ;  but  what  then  ?  The  great 
facts  remain.  Young  and  his  people  are  at  Utah ;  a 
church  of  two  hundred  thousand  souls ;  an  army  of 
twenty  thousand  rifles.  You  may  smile  at  Joseph's 
gift  of  tongues;  his  discovery  of  Urim  and  Thummim 
(which  he  supposed  to  have  been  a  pair  of  specta- 


SETTLEMENT  IN    UTAH.  169 

cles  !) ;  his  sword  of  Lal>aii ;  liis  prose  works  of  Abra- 
ham ;  his  Eo-yptian  papyrus;  his  Mormon  paper 
money ;  his  thirty-nine  trials.  You  may  prove,  with 
a  swift  and  biting  irony,  that  the  weakest  side  of  this 
new  faith  is  the  actual  life  of  its  founder;  but  will 
your  wit  disperse  this  camp  of  fanatics  ?  AVill  your 
irony  change  the  Utes  and  Shosliones  into  enemies 
of  these  Saints  ?  Will  your  arguments  arrest  those 
bands  of  missionaries  which  are  employed  in  preach- 
ing, in  a  hundred  places  and  to  thousands  of  willing 
ears,  the  gospel  as  it  was  in  Joseph  ?  The  hour  has 
gone  by,  as  Americans  feel,  for  treating  this  Church 
in  sport. 

In  England,  though  our  soil  is  said  to  be  the  nurs- 
ery of  the  Saints,  we  have  not  yet  learned  to  think  of 
Mormonism  otherwise  than  as  one  of  our  many  hu- 
mors ;  as  a  rash  that  comes  out  from  time  to  time  in 
our  social  body;  a  sign,  perhaps,  of  our  occasional 
lack  of  health ;  no  one  among  us  has  learned  to  re- 
gard it  as  the  symptom  of  a  disease  which  may  be 
lying  at  the  seat  of  life.  Has  Convocation  ever  given 
up  a  day  to  the  Book  of  Mormon  ?  Has  a  bishop 
ever  visited  the  Saints  in  Commercial  Road  ?  Two 
or  three  ministers  may  have  fired  off  pamphlets 
against  them  ;  but  have  any  of  these  reverend  fathers 
been  to  see  them  in  their  London  homes  ?  Rare,  in- 
deed, has  been  this  holy  strife  even  on  the  part  of 
private  men.  But  our  brethren  in  America  can 
hardly  aiiect  to  treat  the  Saints  in  this  easy  style. 
The  new  Church  is  visible  among  them ;  for  good 
and  evil  it  is  in  their  system ;  not  a  humor  to  be  cast 
out  like  a  rash  upon  the  skin.  Up  to  this  time  our 
own  Saints  have  been  taught  to  regard  England  as 
Egypt,  and  their  old  dwelling-place  as  exile  from  a 
brighter   home.     America   is   to   them    Canaan,  Salt 

15 


170  NEW  A3IERIGA. 

Lake  City  a  New  Jerusalem.  I  do  not  say  that  this 
is  good  for  us,  though  it  has  an  appearance  of  being 
good,  since  it  relieves  us  of  a  painful  duty,  and  removes 
from  the  midst  of  our  cities  a  cause  of  shame.  The 
poor,  the  aged,  the  feeble,  among  the  Saints,  may  be 
left  behind  in  our  streets,  to  die,  as  they  think  and 
say,  in  the  house  of  bondage;  but  the  rich,  the  young, 
the  zealous,  are  bound  by  their  faith  to  go  forward 
and  possess  themselves  of  the  Promised  Land.  With 
the  younger  Saints,  especially  with  the  female  Saints, 
a  change  of  air  is  always  recommended  on  a  change 
of  creed.  Thousands  emigrate,  though  it  is  also  true 
that  thousands  remain  behind.  In  London,  Liver- 
pool, Glasgow,  and  in  other  cities,  the  other  Saints 
have  schools  and  chapels,  books  and  journals,  of 
which  Oxford  knows  little,  and  Mayfair  less.  Not 
being  a  political  sect,  never  asking  for  any  right, 
never  urging  any  wrong;  content  with  doing  their 
work  in  peace ;  they  escape  notice  from  the  press,  and 
engage  the  thoughts  of  society  as  little  as  the  Mora^ 
vians  and  the  Plymouth  Brethren.  Li  London  soci- 
ety you  may  hear  in  any  one  week  more  speculation 
about  Prince  and  Home,  the  Abode  of  Love  and  the 
Spiritual  Spheres,  than  you  will  hear  about  Young 
and  Deseret  in  six  months.  The  Saints  are  not  in 
society ;  but  in  Boston,  Washington,  and  New  York, 
these  Mormons  are  a  fearful  portent,  threatening  to 
become  a  formidable  power.  Already  they  have  put 
jurists  into  session  and  armies  into  motion.  Colfax, 
the  Speaker,  has  been  to  confer  with  Young;  and 
committees  of  Congress  are  sitting  on  the  affairs  of 
Utah.  The  day  appears  to  be  drawing  nigh  when 
the  problems  which  these  Mormons  put  before  the 
world  may  have  to  be  considered  by  practical  men, 
not  in  colleges  and  chapels  only,  not  in  senates  and  in 


SETTLEMENT  IN   UTAH.  171 

courts  of  law  only,  but  in  the  camp  and  in  the  battle- 
field. 

That  question  of  how  these  Mormons  are  to  be  dealt 
with  by  the  American  people,  is  one  of  the  strangest 
riddles  of  an  age  which  has  bridged  the  ocean,  put  a 
girdle  of  lightnings  round  the  earth,  and  tamed  to  its 
service  the  fiery  steeds  of  the  sun.  A  true  reply  may 
be  far  to  seek ;  for  we  have  not  yet  resolved,  finally, 
how  far  thought  is  free  from  the  control  of  law ;  and 
to  what  extent  toleration  of  creeds  implies  toleration 
of  the  conduct  which  springs  from  creeds.  One  step 
in  advance  towards  such  a  reply  must  be  an  attempt 
to  find  what  Mormonism  is,  and  by  what  means  it  has 
grown.  It  cannot  be  put  aside  as  either  unmixed  fool- 
ishness or  unalloyed  vice.  Strange  as  the  new  secta- 
rians may  seem  to  us,  they  must  have  in  their  keeping 
some  grain  of  truth.  They  live  and  thrive,  and  men 
who  live  by  their  own  labor,  thrive  by  their  own  en- 
terprise, cannot  be  altogether  mad.  Their  streets  are 
clean,  their  houses  bright,  their  gardens  fruitful. 
Peace  reigns  in  their  cities.  Harlots  and  drunkards 
are  unknown  among  them.  They  keep  open  more 
common  schools  than  any  other  sect  in  the  United 
States.  But  being  what  they  are,  believing  what  they 
do,  their  merits  are  perhaps  more  trying  to  our  patience 
than  their  crimes.  It  is  thought  that  many  persons  in 
the  United  States  would  be  able  to  endure  them  a 
little  better  if  they  would  only  behave  themselves  a 
good  deal  worse. 

What  have  these  Saints  achieved? 

In  the  midst  of  a  ft-ee  people,  they  have  founded  a 
despotic  power.  In  a  land  which  repudiates  state  reli- 
gions, they  have  placed  their  church  above  human 
laws.  Among  a  society  of  Anglo-Saxons,  they  have 
introduced  some  of  the  ideas,  many  of  the  practices, 


172  ^^"I^W  AMERICA. 

of  Red  Indian  tribes,  of  the  Utes,  Slioshoncs,  and 
Snakes.  In  the  nineteenth  century  after  Christ,  tlie}'- 
have  revived  the  social  habits  Avhich  were  common  in 
Syria  nineteen  hundred  years  before  his  birth. 

Hints  for  their  system  of  government  may  have 
been  found  nearer  home  than  Hauran,  in  less  respect- 
able quarters  than  the  Bible.  The  Shoshone  wigwam 
could  have  supplied  the  Saints  with  a  nearer  model 
of  a  plural  household  than  the  Patriarch's  tent;  but 
this  fact,  if  it  were  true,  would  hardly  be  confessed 
by  Kimball  and  Young.  As  they  state  their  case, 
Abraham  is  their  perfect  man  ;  who  forsook  his  home, 
liis  kindred,  and  his  country,  for  the  sake  of  God. 
Sarah  is  their  perfect  woman ;  because  she  called  her 
husband  lord,  and  gave  her  handmaid  Hagar  into  his 
bosom  for  a  wife.  Everything  that  Abraham  did, 
they  pronounce  it  right  for  them  to  do ;  all  gospels 
and  commandments  of  the  Church,  all  laws  and  insti- 
tutes of  man,  being  void  and  of  no  effect  when  quoted 
against  the  practices  of  that  Arab  sheikh.  Putting 
under  their  feet  both  the  laws  of  science  and  the  les- 
sons of  history,  they  preach  the  duty  of  going  back, 
in  the  spirit  and  in  the  name,  to  that  priestly  and  pa- 
ternal form  of  government  which  existed  in  Syria 
four  thousand  years  ago ;  casting  from  them,  as  so 
much  waste,  the  things  which  all  other  white  men 
have  learned  to  regard  as  the  most  precious  conquests 
of  time  and  thought  —  personal  freedom,  family  life, 
change  of  rulers,  right  of  speech,  concurrence  in  laws, 
equality  before  the  judge,  liberty  of  writing  and  voting. 
They  cast  aside  these  conquests  of  time  and  thought 
in  favor  of  Asiatic  obedience  to  a  man  without  birth, 
without  education,  whom  they  have  chosen  to  regard 
as  God's  own  vicar  on  the  earth.  No  Pope  in  Rome, 
no  Czar  in  Moscow,  no  Caliph  in  Bagdad,  ever  exer- 


WOEK  AND  FAITH.  173 

cised  such  power  as  the  Mormons  have  conferred  on 
Young.  "I  am  one  of  those  men,"  said  to  me  Elder 
Stenhouse  —  perhaps  the  man  of  highest  culture  whom 
we  saw  at  Salt  Lake  City  —  "who  think  that  Brotlier 
Brigham  ought  to  do  everything;  he  has  made  this 
church,  and  he  ought  to  have  his  way  in  everything." 
Many  others  said  the  same  thing,  in  nearly  the  same 
words.  No  one  would  dispute  Young's  will.  "A 
man  had  better  go  to  hell  at  once,"  said  Stenhouse, 
"if  he  cannot  meet  Brigham's  eye."  In  a  caste  of 
Hindoos,  in  a  family  of  Kirghis,  in  a  tribe  of  Bedou- 
ins, such  an  act  of  prostration  would  have  seemed 
to  me  strange ;  in  free  America,  among  the  country^ 
men  of  Sydney  and  Washington,  coming  from  the 
lips  of  a  writer  who  could  make  jokes  and  quote  the 
last  poem,  and  who  is  enough  American  to  carry  two 
revolvers  in  his  pockets,  it  was  more  than  strange.  It 
was  a  sieu. 


CHAPTER    XXII. 

WORK    AND    FAITH. 

Joseph  Smith,  a  poor  lad,  born  m  Sharon,  Windsor 
County,  Vermont,  the  son  of  unlettered  parents,  had 
been  crazed  by  one  of  those  revivals  which  Elder 
Frederick,  the  Shaker  preacher  at  Mount  Lebanon, 
regards  as  the  providential  season  of  religious  life. 
This  untaught  boy  had  begun  to  work  upon  the  pas- 
sions which  he  felt  in  play  around  him ;  announcing, 
like  many  others,  but  with  more  insistence  than  his 
fellows,  that  in  his  trances  of  body,  ho  had  received 

15* 


174  NEW  AMEBIC  A. 

angelic  visitors,  that  he  had  spoken  with  God  face  to 
face,  that  he  had  been  chosen  to  plant  a  new  Church 
on  earth ;  a  Church  of  America,  the  new  Canaan, 
chosen  from  the  beginnings  of  time  to  be  the  home  of 
a  new  creed  and  the  seat  of  a  new  empire.  Men  who 
liad  come  to  hear  him  had  gone  away  converted;  he 
had  tohl  them  tliat  a  new  priesthood  had  been  chosen, 
that  God  had  planted  His  kingdom  once  again ;  they 
had  left  him  convinced,  and  gone  away  from  his 
presence  carrying  these  glad  tidings  into  thousands  of 
Christian  homes.  No  force  had  been  used,  none 
could  have  been  used  in  that  early  stage  of  their 
career ;  for  the  Saints  had  then  no  weapon  save  the 
word ;  they  toiled  in  a  pacific  vineyard,  and  made 
their  conquests  in  the  face  of  vigilant  foes.  A  fair 
hearing  for  their  gospel,  an  open  field  for  their  preach- 
ers, were  all  they  had  asked,  and  more  than  what  they 
had  received.  They  sent  no  Khaled  to  the  nations, 
with  his  ofter  of  either  conversion,  slavery,  or  death ; 
not  because  such  a- line  of  policy  would  have  been 
contrary  to  the  genius  of  their  creed ;  but  simply 
because,  in  a  free  state,  and  under  a  secular  law,  they 
had  found  no  means  for  carrying  out  their  plans. 
From  the  day  of  their  dawn  an  Arab  spirit  had  been 
strong  upon  them.  Should  a  time  ever  come,  when 
they  can  cut  their  withes  and  buckle  on  their  swords, 
they  may  be  found  fierce  as  Gideon,  ruthless  as  Omar ; 
but  in  the  past  they  have  been  obliged  to  occupy  the 
ground  of  a  suffering  rather  than  that  of  a  militant 
Church,  Everything  done  b}-  them  as  yet,  has  been 
eifected  by  word  of  mouth,  by  what  they  describe  as 
the  power  of  truth. 

How  have  these  settlers  in  the  wilderness  done  the 
things  we  see  ? 

Simply,  answers  Young,  by  the  power  of  work  and 


WOBK  AND   FATTH.  175 

faith  ;  by  doing  what  they  profess,  by  believing  what 
they  say. 

Nearly  all  the  forces  which  are  found  most  powerful 
to  sway  men's  minds  in  our  lay  societies, — genius, 
reputation,  office,  birth,  and  riches,  —  have  been  want- 
ing to  these  Saints.  No  man  of  the  stamp  of  Luther, 
Calvin,  Wesley,  has  appeared  among  them.  In 
intellect,  Joseph  was  below  contempt.  Brigham  is  a 
man  of  keen  good  sense.  Pratt  is  a  dreamer.  Kimball 
is  unlettered.  "Wells,  Cannon,  Taylor,  Hooper, — the 
brightest  men  among  them, — have  shown  no  worldly 
gifts,  no  scholarship,  eloquence,  poetry,  and  logic,  to 
account  for  such  sudden  and  sustained  success  as  they 
have  met  with  in  every  land. 

The  bee  has  been  chosen  by  the  Saints  as  an  emblem 
of  Deseret,  though  nature  has  all  but  denied  that  insect 
to  this  dry  and  flowerless  land.  Young's  house  is 
called  the  Beehive ;  in  it  no  drone  ever  finds  a  place ; 
for  the  Prophet's  wives  are  bound  to  support  them- 
selves by  needle-craft,  teaching,  spinning,  dyeing  yarn, 
and  preserving  fruit.  Every  woman  in  Salt  Lake  has 
her  portion  of  work,  each  according  to  her  gifts,  every 
one  steadfastly  believing  that  labor  is  noble  and  holy ; 
a  sacrifice  meet  for  man  to  make,  and  for  God  to 
accept.  Ladies  make  gloves  and  fans,  dry  peaches 
and  figs,  cut  patterns,  prepare  seeds,  Aveave  linen  and 
knit  hose.  Lucy  and  Emiline,  sometimes  called  the 
lights  of  Brigham's  harem,  are  said  to  be  prodigies  of 
skill  in  the  embroidery  of  flowers.  Some  of  Emiline's 
needlework  is  certainly  fine,  and  Susan's  potted 
peaches  are  beyond  compare.  On  men  fall  the  heavier 
toils  of  the  field,  the  ditch,  and  the  hill-side,  where 
they  break  the  ground,  dam  up  the  river,  fell  the 
maple  and  the  dwarf-oak,  pasture  the  cattle,  and  catch 
the  wild  horse.  But  the  sexes  take  each  their  share  of 


176  NEW  AMERICA. 

a  common  task :  rearing  houses,  planting  gardens, 
starting  workshops,  digging  mines  ;  each  with  a  strain 
of  energy  and  passion  never  found  on  tlie  eastern 
slopes  of  this  Wasatch  chain. 

The  ministry  is  unprofessional  and  unpaid.  Every 
Saint  being  a  priest,  no  man  in  the  church  is  suffered 
to  accept  a  cent  for  his  service,  even  though  his  time, 
his  faculties,  his  life  itself,  should  be  spent  in  doing 
what  his  brethren  regard  as  the  work  of  God.  Duty 
to  the  church  comes  first;  duty  to  the  family,  to  the 
individual,  comes  next ;  but  with  such  an  interval  as 
puts  collision  and  confusion  utterly  out  of  question. 

Prophets,  presidents,  bishops,  elders,  all  pursue 
their  avocations  in  the  city  and  on  the  soil ;  sell  rib- 
bons, grow  peaches,  build  mills,  cut  timber,  keep 
ranches,  herd  cattle,  drive  trains.  One  day,  we  met  a 
venerable  man,  Avith  a  small  basket  on  his  arm,  covered 
with  a  snow-white  napkin  ;  his  appearance  struck  us  ; 
and  we  learned  that  he  was  Joseph  Young,  elder 
brother  of  Brigham,  and  President  of  the  Sevent3\ 
He  was  taking  his  basket  of  peaches  to  market  for 
sale. 

An  apostle  holds  the  plough,  a  patriarch  drives  a 
team.  In  a  city  where  work  is  considered  holy,  the 
brightest  dignitary  gains  in  popular  repute  by  engaging 
in  labor  and  in  trade.  These  Saints  have  not  one  idle 
gentleman  in  their  church.  Brigham  Young  is  a 
mill-owner,  cotton-planter,  fiirmer ;  Ileber  Kimball  is 
a  mill-owner,  grazier,  manufacturer  of  linseed  oil  ; 
George  Smith  is  a  farmer  and  miller;  Orson  Pratt  is 
a  teacher  of  mathematics;  Orson  Hyde  is  a  farmer; 
John  Taylor,  formerly  a  wood-turner,  is  now  a  mill- 
owner;  Wilford  Woodruff  is  a  farmer  and  grazier; 
George  Cannon  is  a  printer  and  editor.  These  men 
are  the  foremost  lisrhts  in  the  church,  and  they  are  all 


WORK  AND   FAITH.  177 

men  of  laborious,  secular  habits.  Young,  Kimball, 
Taylor,  are  now  rich  men ;  the  twelve  apostles  are 
said  to  be  mostly  poor ;  but  whether  they  are  rich  or 
poor,  these  Mormon  elders  live  on  what  they  can  earn 
by  the  labor  of  their  hands  and  brains,  taking  nothing, 
it  is  said,  for  their  loftier  services  in  the  church. 

The  unpaid   functions  of  a   bishop   are   extremely 
numerous ;  for  a   Mormon   prelate   has   to  look,  not 
merely  to   the  spiritual  welfare   of  his   flock,  but   to 
their  worldly    interest   and   wellbeing ;    to    see   that 
their  farms  are  cultivated,  their  houses    clean,  their 
children   taught,  their   cattle   lodged.     Last  Sunday, 
after  service  at  the  Tabernacle,  Brigham  Young  sent 
for  us  to  the  raised  dias  on  which  he  and  the  dig-ni- 
taries  had  been  seated,  to  see  a  private  meeting  of  the 
bishops,  and  to  hear  what  kind  of  work  these  reverend 
fathers   had  met  to  do.     We  rather  wondered  what 
our  friends  at  Bishopsthorpe  and  Wells  would  think 
of  such  a   scene.     The  old   men  gathered  in  a  ring ; 
and  Edward  Hunter,  their  presiding  bishop,  questioned 
each  and  all,  as  to  the  work  going  on  in  his  ward,  the 
building,  painting,    draining,   gardening;  also   as   to 
what   this  man  needed,  and  that  man  needed,  in  the 
way  of  help.     An  emigrant  ti*ain  had  just  come  in, 
and  the  bishops  had  to  put  six  hundred  persons  in  the 
way  of  growing   their   cabbages   and   building  their 
homes.     One  bishop  said  he    could  take   five   brick- 
layers,   another   two    carpenters,  a   third  a  tinman,  a 
fourth  seven  or  eight  farm-servants,  and  so  on  through 
the  whole  bench.     In  a  few  minutes  I  saw  that   two 
hundred  of  these  poor  emigrants  had  been  placed  in 
the  way  of  earning  their  daily  bread.     "This,"   said 
Young,  with  a  sly  little  smile,   "  is  one  of  the  labors 
of  our   bishops."     I   confess,  I  could   not   see  much 
harm  in  it. 


178  N£W  ami:  BIG  A. 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 

MISSIONARY   LABOR. 

The  spirit  of  the  Mormon  church  may  best  be  read 
in  the  missionary  labors  of  these  Saints.  It  is  their 
boast,  that  when  they  go  out  to  convert  the  Gentiles, 
they  carry  with  them  no  purse,  no  scrip ;  that  they  go 
forth,  naked  and  alone,  to  do  the  Lord's  work  in  the 
Lord's  way ;  trusting  in  no  arm  of  flesh,  in  no  power 
of  gold  ;  taking  no  thought  of  what  they  shall  eat  and 
where  they  shall  lie  down  ;  but  putting  their  lives  and 
fortunes  wholly  in  the  hands  of  God. 

The  way  in  which  an  elder  may  be  called  to  such 
missionary  work  has,  in  this  age  of  dollars,  an  air  of 
primitive  romance.  Young  (say)  is  walking  down 
Main  Street ;  he  sees  a  young  fellow  driving  a  team, 
galloping  a  horse,  riding  in  a  cart;  a  thought  comes 
into  his  prophetic  mind ;  and,  calling  that  young  elder 
to  his  side,  he  tells  him  that  the  Lord  has  chosen  him 
to  go  forth  and  preach,  mentioning,  perhaps,  the  period 
and  the  place  ;  the  time  may  be  for  one  year,  for  three 
years,  for  ten  years ;  the  locality  may  be  in  Liverpool, 
in  Damascus,  in  Delhi,  in  Pekin.  Asking  only  a  few 
hours'  time  to  put  his  house  in  order,  to  take  leave  of 
his  friends,  to  kiss  his  wives  and  children,  that  young 
elder,  chosen  from  the  street,  will  start  on  his  errand 
of  grace. 

I  have  talked  with  a  dozen  of  such  missionaries; 
young  men  who  have  been  called  from  the  ranch,  from 
the  saw-mill,  from  the  peach-garden,  at  a  moment's 
notice,  to  depart  without  purse  or  scrip,  to  go  forth, 
naked  and  alone,  into  the  ends  of  the  earth.     Elder 


MISSIONARY  LABOR.  179 

Steuhoiise  had  been  sent  to  labof  in  France  and  Switz- 
erland, Elder  Riter  in  Austria,  Elder  Naisbit  in 
Enc;land,  Elder  Dewey  in  India  and  Ceylon.  Their 
method  was  the  same. 

Without  money  and  without  food,  the  missionary 
starts  on  his  journey;  hiring  himself  as  a  driver,  a 
guard,  a  carpenter,  to  some  train  of  merchandise  going 
either  towards  the  river  or  towards  the  sea,  as  the  case 
may  be.  If  his  sphere  is  Europe,  the  young  elder 
w^orks  as  a  laborer  to  New  York,  where  he  hires  him- 
self out  either  as  a  clerk,  or  as  a  mechanic,  according 
to  his  gifts,  until  he  can  save  his  passage-money  ;  if 
this  course  is  inconvenient  to  him,  either  as  to  his  per- 
son or  his  mission,  he  agrees  with  some  skipper  to 
serve  before  the  mast,  on  which  he  will  take  his  place 
humbly  with  the  poor  sailors,  to  whom,  as  the  ship 
heaves  onward,  he  finds  many  opportunities  for  preach- 
ing the  glad  tidings  of  a  Mormon's  rest  in  the  Valley 
of  the  Mountains.  He  is  not  a  man  of  books.  "  We  have 
no  colleges  here,"  said  Young,  "  to  train  our  young 
men  to  be  fools;  we  just  take  a  fellow  from  the  hills, 
who  has  been  felling  wood,  killing  bears,  and  catching 
wild  colts  ;  we  send  him  out  on  a  mission,  and  lie 
comes  back  to  us  a  man."  Arrived  in  Europe,  without 
a  penny,  without  a  home,  the  missionary  finds,  if  he 
can,  a  lodging  in  the  house  of  some  local  saint.  If  he 
cannot  find  such  lodging,  he  sleeps  on  a  bench,  on  a 
stone  step,  under  a  tree,  among  the  litter  of  a  dock. 
"I  landed  in  Southampton,"  said  Elder  Stenhouse, 
when  relating  his  many  victories  of  the  spirit,  "  without 
a  farthing  in  my  purse,  and  I  sold  the  boots  from  my 
feet  to  buy  a  plank  from  which  I  could  preach."  Elder 
Dewey  told  me  he  had  travelled  from  Salt  Lake  to 
San  Francisco,  from  San  Francisco  to  Ceylon,  from 
Ceylon  to  Poonah,  toiling,  preaching,  begging,  never 


180  NEW  AMEBIC  A. 

fearing  for  the  flesh,  but  confiding  everywhere  and 
always  in  the  protection  of  God  ;  hiboring  among  Cali- 
fornia miners,  among  Chinese  sailors,  among  Cinga- 
lese farmers,  among  Bombay  teamsters  and  muleteers, 
seldom  wanting  for  a  shelter,  never  wanting  for  a 
meal.  Such  is  the  spirit  of  the  young  Mormon  elder. 
Sometimes  he  is  helped  forward  by  a  Saint,  oftentimes 
by  a  stranger  and  a  Gentile ;  at  the  worst,  he  gets  em- 
ployment as  a  tailor,  as  a  carpenter,  as  a  dock-yard 
laborer.  Living  on  crusts  of  bread,  sleeping  beneath 
lowly  roofs,  he  toils  and  preaches  from  town  to  town, 
ardent  in  the  doing  of  his  daily  task ;  patient,  absti- 
nent, obscure ;  courting  no  notice,  rousing  no  debates ; 
living  the  poor  man's  life ;  offering  himself  everywhere 
as  the  poor  man's  friend.  When  his  task  is  done,  he 
will  preach  his  way  back  from  the  scene  of  his  labor 
to  his  pleasant  home,  to  his  thriving  farm,  to  his  busy 
mill,  in  the  valley  of  the  Great  Salt  Lake. 

In  this  Mormon  city,  where  every  man  is  an  elder, 
almost  every  man  is  a  priest.  Any  Saint,  therefore, 
ma}'  be  called  to  these  missionary  toils ;  and  no  Eastern 
slave  obeys  his  master  with  such  swift  alacrity  as  that 
which  is  shown  by  the  Saint  wdio  is  called  by  Young 
to  start  for  a  distant  land. 

The  glad  tidings  Avhich  men  like  Dewey  and  Sten- 
hous€  scatter  among  deck-passengers,  dock-men,  street- 
porters,  farm-servants,  and  their  fellow^s,  are  of  a 
kind  which  the  desolate  and  the  discontented  long 
to  hear.  They  pronounce  against  the  w^orld  and  the 
world's  ways.  They  declare  the  need  for  a  great 
change ;  they  promise  the  poor  man  merrier  times 
and  a  brighter  home.  They  offer  the  starving  bread, 
the  houseless  roofs,  the  naked  clothes.  To  the  crafts- 
man they  promise  mrlls,  to  the  peasant  farms.  The 
heaven    of  which   they  tell   is   not  placed   by  them 


MISSIONARY  LABOR.  181 

wholly  beyond  the  grave;  earth  itself  is,  in  their 
opinion,  a  part  of  heaven  ;  and  as  the  earth  and  all 
that  is  in  it  are  the  Lord's,  they  announce  that  these 
riches  of  the  earth  are  the  true  inheritance  of  His 
saints.  The  rich,  they  say,  have  corrupted  the  faith 
of  Christ,  and  the  churches  of  the  rich  are  engaged 
in  the  devil's  work.  They  represent  Joseph  as  a  pastor 
of  the  poor.  Tliey  suggest  that  ignorance  is  a  saving 
virtue,  and  that  lowly  people  are  the  favorites  of  God. 
Other  churches  besides  that  of  the  Saints  hold  some 
of  these  gospels ;  but  the  Mormon  preacher  is  seen  to 
act  as  though  he  believed  them  to  be  true.  Show  the 
young  missionary  a  beggar,  an  outcast,  a  thief,  —  one 
who  is  in  despair  and  ready  to  perish, — and  he  will 
act  as  though  he  considered  himself  chosen  of  God 
to  save  that  miserable  wretch.  With  men  who  appear 
in  fine  clothes,  who  dwell  in  great  houses,  who  dine 
off"  silver  plate,  he  has  no  concern.  His  task  lies  in 
Five  Points,  not  in  Madison  Square ;  in  Seven  Dials, 
not  in  Park  Lane.  The  rich,  the  learned,  the  polite, 
have  their  own  creeds  and  rituals,  beyond  his  power  to 
either  mend  or  mar.  They  have  no  need  of  him,  and 
he  never  seeks  them  in  their  pride.  What  could  he 
say  to  them  ?  Would  they  listen  to  his  promise  of  a 
brighter  day?  Would  they  care  for  his  paradise  of 
farms  and  pastures  ?  Passing  these  worldlings  by,  as 
men  to  whom  he  has  not  been  sent,  the  Saint  goes 
lower  in  the  scale  of  life ;  seeking  out  those  victims 
of  the  world  for  whom  no  one  but  himself  appears  to 
care.  In  the  wants  and  cravings  of  the  poor  he  finds 
an  opening  for  his  message.  But  he  does  not  praise 
the  lowly  for  being  poor ;  he  does  not  lead  them  to 
infer  that  a  state  of  pauperism  is  a  state  of  grace ;  his 
doctrine  is,  that  riches  are  good  things  ;  and  he  holds 
out  a  promise,  which  he  can  back  by  a  thousand  ex- 

IG 


182  NEW  AMERICA. 

amples,  that  the  8aiiits  will  become  rich  by  the  toil  of 
their  hands  and  by  the  blessing  of  God.  To  men 
hungering  after  lands  and  houses,  the  prosperity  which 
he  can  truly  describe  as  existing  in  Deseret,  and  which 
he  warmly  invites  them  to  come  and  share,  is  a  great 
and  potential  fact. 

Care  of  the  poor  is  written  down  strongly  in  the 
Moi'mon  code  of  sacred  duties.  A  bishop's  main 
function  is  to  see  that  no  man  in  his  ward,  in  his 
county,  is  in  want  of  food  and  raiment ;  when  he  finds 
that  a  poor  family  is  in  need,  he  goes  to  his  more  pros- 
perous neighbor,  and  in  the  Lord's  name  demands 
from  him  a  sack  of  wheat,  a  can  of  tea,  a  loaf  of 
sugar,  a  blanket,  a  bed ;  knowing  that  his  requisition 
will  be  promptly  met.  The  whole  earth  is  the  Lord's, 
and  must  be  rendered  up  to  Him.  Elder  Jennings, 
the  richest  merchant  in  Salt  Lake  City,  told  me  of 
many  such  requisitions  being  made  upon  himself;  in 
bad  times,  they  may  come  upon  him  twice  or  thrice  a 
day.  In  case  of  need,  the  bishop  goes  up  to  the 
Tithing  office  and  obtains  the  succor  of  which  his 
parishioner  stands  in  need ;  for  the  wants  of  the  poor 
take  precedence  of  the  wants  of  the  church ;  but  the 
appeal  from  personal  benevolence  to  the  public  fund 
has  seldom  to  be  made.  For  if  a  Saint  has  any  kind 
of  store,  he  must  share  it  with  his  fellow ;  if  he  has 
bread,  he  must  feed  the  hungry ;  if  he  has  raiment, 
he  must  clothe  the  naked.  J^o  excuse  avails  him  for 
neglect  of  this  great  duty.  The  command  to  sell 
what  we  have,  and  give  the  money  to  the  poor,  is  to 
most  of  us  an  empty  rule ;  but  the  Mormon,  like  the 
Arab  and  the  Jew,  whose  spirit  he  has  had  breathed 
into  him,  knows  nothing  of  such  pious  fictions.  "  Feed 
my  flock,"  is  to  him  an  injunction  that  admits  of  no 
denial,  and  of  no  delay. 


MISSIONARY  LABOR.  183 

A  special  fund  is  raised  for  the  relief  of  necessitous 
Saints ;  and  Young  himself,  the  servant  of  all,  dis- 
charges in  person  the  troublesome  duties  of  this  trust. 
I  went  with  Bishop  Hunter,  a  good  and  merry  old 
man,  full  of  work  and  humor,  to  the  emigrants'  corral, 
to  see  the  rank  and  file  of  the  new  English  arrivals; 
six  hundred  people  from  the  Welsh  hills  and  from  the 
Midland  shires;  men,  women,  and  children;  all  poor 
and  uncomely,  weary,  dirty,  freckled  with  the  sun, 
scorbutic  from  privation ;  when  I  was  struck  by  the 
tender  tones  of  his  voice,  the  wisdom  of  his  counsel, 
the  fatherly  solicitude  of  his  manner  in  dealing  with 
these  poor  people.  Some  of  the  women  were  ill  and 
querulous ;  they  wanted  butter,  they  wanted  tea ; 
they  wanted  many  things  not  to  be  got  in  the  corral. 
Hunter  sent  for  a  doctor  from  the  city,  and  gave  or- 
ders for  tea  and  butter  on  the  Tithing  office.  I^ever 
shall  I  forget  the  yearning  thankfulness  of  expression 
which  beamed  from  some  of  these  sufferers'  eyes. 
The  poor  creatures  felt  that  in  this  aged  bishop  they 
had  found  a  wise  and  watchful  friend. 

Yet  the  Saints,  as  a  rule,  are  not  poor  m  the  sense 
in  which  the  Irish  are  poor;  not  needy  as  a  race,  a 
body,  and  a  church ;  indeed,  for  a  new  society,  start- 
ing with  nothing,  and  having  its  fortunes  to  make  by 
labor,  they  are  rich.  Utah  is  sprinkled  with  farms 
and  gardens;  the  hill-sides  are  pictured  with  flocks 
and  herds ;  and  the  capital  city,  the  JSTew  Jerusalem, 
is  finely  laid  out  and  nobly  built.  Every  man  labors 
with  his  hand  and  brain  ;  the  people  are  frugal ;  their 
fields  cost  them  nothing ;  and  the  wealth  created  by 
their  industry  is  great.  To  multiply  flocks  and  herds, 
to  lay  up  corn  and  wheat,  is  with  them  to  obey  the 
commands  of  Grod. 


184  NEW  AMEBIC  A. 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 

MORMON    LIGHT. 

Fully  to  comprehend  these  Saints,  you  must  look 
beyond  the  beauty  of  their  city,  the  prosperity  of 
their  farms,  the  activit}-  of  their  workshops,  the  extent 
of  their  villages,  into  the  spiritual  sources  of  their 
strength, 

Joseph  taught  his  disciples  a  doctrine  b}'  no  means 
new;  that  in  ever}'  religion  there  is  a  germ  of  good, 
and  perhaps  a  germ  of  evil ;  and  he  proposed  by  divine 
assistance  (and  the  aid  of  Rigdon,  Young,  and  Pratt), 
to  extract  the  grain  of  good  out  of  every  old  creed, 
and  add  it  to  the  church  which  he  was  founding  for 
his  people.  He  took  much  from  Mohammed,  more 
from  Paul,  most  of  all  from  Abraham  ;  but  in  his  free 
handling  of  religious  notions,  he  had  no  scruple  about 
borrowing  from  the  Hindoos,  from  the  Tartars,  from 
the  Mohawks.  The  doctrinal  notes  of  his  church  may 
be  numbered  and  explained  :  — 

1.  God  is  a  person,  with  the  form  and  flesh  of  man. 

2.  Man  is  a  part  of  the  substance  of  God,  and  will 
himself  become  a  god. 

3.  Man  is  not  created  by  God,  but  existed  from  all 
eternity,  and  will  exist  to  all  eternity. 

4.  Man  is  not  born  in  sin,  and  is  not  accountable  for 
offences  other  than  his  own. 

5.  The  earth  is  a  colony  of  embodied  spirits,  one  of 
many  such  settlements  in  space. 

6.  God  is  President  of  the  Immortals,  having  under 
him  four  orders  of  beings:  (1),  Gods  —  that  is  to  say, 
immortal  beings,  possessed  of  a  perfect  organization 


MORMON  LIGHT.  Igf) 

of  soul  and  body ;  being  the  final  state  of  men  who 
have  lived  on  earth  in  perfect  obedience  to  the  law; 
(2),  Angels  —  immortal  beings,  who  have  lived  on 
earth  in  imperfect  obedience  to  the  law ;  (3),  Men  — 
immortal  beings,  in  whoiii  a  living  soul  is  united  with 
a  human  body;  (4),  Spirits  —  immortal  beings,  still 
waiting  to  receive  their  tabern"acle  of  flesh. 

7.  Man,  being  one  of  the  race  of  gods,  becomes 
eligible,  by  means  of  marriage,  for  a  celestial  throne ; 
his  household  of  wives  and  children  beins:  his  kincr- 
dom,  not  on  earth  only,  but  in  heaven. 

8.  The  Kingdom  of  God  has  been  again  founded  on 
the  earth ;  the  time  has  come  for  the  Saints  to  take 
possession  of  their  own ;  but  by  virtue,  not  by  vio- 
lence ;  by  industry,  not  by  force. 

Joseph  would  appear  to  have  got  nearly  all  these 
doctrines  from  Rigdon  and  Pratt.  Pratt  —  the  lead- 
ing scholar  of  the  Mormon  Church — too  much  of  a 
scholar  for  Young  to  comprehend  and  tolerate,  has 
laid  down,  in  various  books  and  lectures,  a  cosmogony 
of  heaven  and  earth,  which  Young  has  strictly  warned 
us  not  to  receive  as  truth.  Once,  if  not  more  than 
once,  Pratt's  writings  have  been  formally  condemned 
by  the  First  Presidency  and  by  the  Twelve  ;  though 
he  still  continues  to  hold  rank  as  an  apostle.  "  But 
for  me,"  said  Brigham,  smiling,  "he  would  have  been 
thrust  out  of  the  church  long  ago."  When  we  put 
the  doctrine  of  spirit  and  matter  inculcated  by  Pratt 
before  the  President  for  his  opinion,  he  said,  impa- 
tiently, "  We  know  nothing  about  it ;  it  may  be  all 
true,  it  may  be  all  false ;  we  have  no  light  as  to  those 
things  yet."  What  has  been  stated  above  in  the  num- 
bered paragraphs  is  official  doctrine  taught  in  the  Mor- 
mon schools,  from  the  catechism  written  by  Elder 
Jacques,  and  formally  adopted  by  Young. 

IG* 


186  NEW  AMERICA. 

These  propositions  would  seem  to  have  heen  drawn 
by  the  Saints  from  the  oldest  and  newest  mythologies 
under  heaven. 

The  Alormon  God  appears  to  be  the  same  in  nature 
and  shape  as  Homer's  Zeus.  Their  Angels  are  not 
unlike  the  beni-elohim  of  St.  Paul ;  not  angels  and 
spirits  in  the  old  English  sense,  but  rather  bodiless 
and  unseen  beings,  as  of  tine  air  and  invisible  flame. 
Their  Men,  as  beings  which  are  uncreated,  indestruc- 
tible, are  the  creations  of  Pythagoras ;  and  as  beings 
born  without  sin,  accountable  only  for  their  own  evil 
deeds,  are  the  fancies  of  Swedenborg. 

Some  confusion  has  arisen,  in  Utah  and  elsewhere, 
as  to  the  Mormon  doctrine  of  angels  —  a  confusion 
caused  by  the  reveries  and  speculations  of  Orson  Pratt. 
Young  had  been  good  enough  to  teach  us  the  true 
and  official  belief  of  his  church  on  this  curious  subject. 
Angels,  he  saj's,  are  imperfect  beings,  incapable  of 
rising  into  the  higher  grade  of  gods,  to  whom  they  are 
now,  and  will  be  forever,  the  messengers,  ministers, 
and  servants.  They  are  immortal  beings  who  have 
passed  through  the  stage  of  spirits  in  space,  and  of 
men  on  earth,  but  who  have  not  fulfilled  the  law  of 
life,  not  spent  their  strength  in  perfect  obedience  to 
the  will  of  God.  Hence  they  have  been  arrested  in 
their  growth  towards  the  higher  state.  On  m}^  asking 
in  what  they  had  failed  to  observe  the  law,  Young 
answered,  "Li  not  living  the  patriarchal  life  —  in  not 
marrying  man}^  wives,  like  Abraham  and  Jacob,  David 
and  Solomon ;  like  all  those  men  who  are  called  in 
Scripture  the  friends  of  God."  In  fact,  according  to 
Young,  angels  are  the  souls  of  bachelors  and  monog- 
amists, beings  incapable  of  issue,  unblessed  with  female 
companions,  unfitted  to  reign  and  rule  in  the  celestial 
spheres.     In  the  next  world,  my  friend  and  myself — 


MORMON  LIGHT.  187 

he  beinc^  unmarried  as  yet  —  and  I  having  only  one 
wife  —  may  only  aspire  to  the  rank  of  bachelor  angels, 
while  Young  and  Kimball  are  to  sit,  surrounded  by 
their  queens,  on  celestial  thrones  ! 

These  notes  of  the  faith,  as  it  is  held  in  Salt  Lake 
City  —  as  it  is  taught  in  our  own  midst  —  in  the  Welsh 
mountains,  in  the  Midland  shires,  among  the  Mersey 
dockmen,  in  the  AVhitechapel  slums  —  mystical  though 
they  read  in  the  main,  exert  a  mighty  spell  over  the 
imagination  and  a  mighty  power  upon  the  actual  life 
of  their  people.  Nothing  is  useless  in  the  Mormon 
system  ;  ISTanak  himself  was  not  more  practical  in  his 
reforms  than  Young.  Faith  is  their  principle  of  action ; 
what  they  believe  they  do ;  and  those  who  would  com- 
prehend the  position  taken  up  by  these  Saints  on  earth 
—  defended  by  twenty  thousand  rifles  —  must  try  to 
understand  what  they  think  of  heaven. 

Like  the  Moslems,  the  Mormons  are  a  praying  people. 
Religion  being  their  life,  every  action  of  the  day, 
whether  social  or  commercial,  is  considered  by  them 
in  reference  to  what  may  be  conceived  as  the  will  of 
God.  Hence,  they  have  little  respect  for  policy,  cau- 
tion, compromise  ;  they  seem  to  live  without  fear ;  they 
take  no  account  of  the  morrow ;  but  trust  for  safety, 
succor,  and  success,  to  Heaven,  and  to  Heaven  alone. 
Refer,  in  speaking  with  them,  to  the  Chicago  platform ; 
one  of  the  planks  of  which  is  the  suppression  of  po- 
lygamy by  force,  and  they  only  smile  at  your  worldly 
wisdom,  and  tell  you  they  are  living  the  divine  life, 
and  that  God  will  know  how  to  protect  His  own. 
Hint  to  them  that  Young  is  mortal,  and  will  one  day 
need  a  successor;  again  they  smile  at  your  want  of 
understanding,  saying  they  have  nothing  to  do  with 
such  things ;  that  God  is  wise  and  strong,  capable  of 
raising  up  servants  to  guide  His  church.     Their  whole 


188  NEW  AMERICA. 

dependence  seems  to  be  on  God.  It  is  right  to  add  — 
as  a  point  within  my  knowledge  —  that  they  also  take 
good  care  to  keep  their  powder  dry. 

Confidence  in  the  divine  power  to  help  and  save 
them  is  not  so  much  the  eiiect  of  weakness  and  hu- 
mility, as  of  strength  and  pride.  Young  puts  man 
much  higher  in  the  scale  of  being  than  any  Christian 
priest  has  ever  done  ;  higher,  perhaps,  than  any  Moslem 
mollah;  though  the  Koran  makes  the  angels  dwelling 
in  Paradise  servants  of  the  faithful  who  are  gathered 
to  their  rest.  Bab  in  Persia,  Nanak  in  the  Punjab, 
go  beyond  Mohammed ;  teaching  their  scholars  that 
man  is  part  of  the  personality  of  God;  but  Young 
describes  man  as  an  uncreated,  indestructible  portion 
of  the  Highest ;  a  being  with  the  faculty  of  raising 
an  order  of  immortal  a.nd  unbodied  spirits  into  the 
exalted  rank  of  gods.  How^  much  a  high  belief  in 
man's  rights  and  powders,  as  a  son  of  God,  and  a  special 
favorite  of  Heaven,  can  steady  the  soul  in  danger,  and 
nerve  the  arm  in  battle,  was  seen  in  every  conflict  of 
the  Jews,  and  is  written  in  every  history  of  the  Sikhs. 

The  secular  notes  of  the  Mormon  Society  may  be 
gathered  into  three  large  groups  :  —  (1)  Those  which 
define  its  relations  to  man  as  a  member  and  as  a 
stranger;  (2)  Those  which  define  the  method  and  the 
principle  of  its  government ;  (3)  Those  which  define 
the  condition  of  its  family  life. 


REGULAR  NOTES.  189 

CHAPTER  XXV. 

SECULAR    NOTES. 

The  first  group  of  secular  notes  embraces  two  lead- 
ing ideas. 

1.  The  new  cliurph,  established  in  Utah,  though  it 
is  called  the  Church  of  America,  is  free,  and  (with  one 
passing  exception)  open  to  all  the  world ;  to  men  of 
every  race,  clime,  creed,  and  color ;  taking  into  its 
bosom  the  Jew  from  ISTew  York,  the  Buddhist  from 
San  Francisco,  the  Parsee  from  Calcutta,  the  Weslejan 
from  Liverpool,  the  Moslem  from  Cairo,  the  Cheyenne 
from  Smoky  Hill  River. 

The  one  passing  exception  is  the  I^egro.  "  The 
Negro,"  Brigham  said  to  me  this  morning,  "is  a  de- 
scendant of  Cain,  the  first  murderer,  and  his  darkness 
is  a  curse  put  on  his  skin  by  God,"  Only  one  Negro 
has  ever  yet  been  admitted  into  brotherhood  with  the 
Saints :  the  act  of  Joseph,  done  at  Nauvoo.  Until 
God  shall  have  removed  this  curse.  Young  wdll  have 
none  of  these  Cainites  in  his  church. 

2.  The  new  church  not  only  receives  all  comers,  but 
tolerates  all  dissenters;  asking  no  questions,  putting 
no  test,  demanding  no  sacrifice.  Thus,  a  man  of  any 
other  creed  may  be  enrolled  among  the  Saints  without 
losing  his  identity;  without  breaking  his  idols,  without 
rooting  up  his  faith,  without  shedding  his  habits ;  in  a 
word,  without  that  spiritual  change  which  Christians 
understand  as  being  born  to  a  new  life.  The  convert 
to  Mormonism  accepts  a  new  truth,  in  addition  to  the 
truths  w^iicli  lie  may  have  held  beforetime.  Joseph 
is  proposed  to  him  as  a  reconciler,  not  as  a  separator; 


190  NEW  A  ME  ETC  A. 

the  Saints  insisting  that  there  is  some  good  in  every 
forra  of  religion,  and  that  no  sect  on  earth  enjoys  a 
monopoly  in  the  love  of  God. 

Let  us  look  into  these  two  leading  ideas,  not  in  their 
dogmatical,  but  in  their  political  aspects : 

The  Church  is  free  and  open.  In  its  first  appeals,  a 
new  creed  has  commonly  been  proposed  to  a  particu- 
lar race,  its  ritual  adapted  to  a  special  zone.  We  see 
in  history  so  many  examples  of  such  appeals  succeed- 
ing on  the  spot,  and  failing  everywhere  beyond  it, 
that  students  are  apt  to  deny  the  possibility  of  a  com- 
mon faith,  and  to  treat  religion  as  an  affair  of  climate 
and  of  race.  The  law  of  Moses  made  few  converts 
beyond  the  Hebrew  tHbes.  Confucius  fihds  no  fol- 
lowers out  of  China.  The  Great  Spirit  only  reigns  in 
the  American  woods.  The  Guebres  have  never  car- 
ried their  w^orship  out  of  Persia  and  India.  Dagon 
was  a  local  god,  the  s^mibol  of  a  people  fond  of  the 
sea.  Thor  is  a  denizen  of  the  frozen  North.  Brahma 
is  only  known  to  Hindoos,  who  make  no  converts ; 
and  so  strictly  is  this  law  of  living  apart,  for  them- 
selves only,  fixed  in  the  Hindoo's  habits  of  thought, 
that  a  man  of  one  caste  can  never  pass  into  another ; 
a  Brahman  born  must  remain  a  Brahman  ;  a  Sudra 
born  must  remain  a  Sudra  all  his  life.  Buddhism  has, 
in  som.e  respects,  the  character  of  a  universal  church, 
having  drawn  to  itself  many  tribes  and  nations,  and 
become  the  chief  religion  of  the  world,  if  the  mere 
number  of  its  temples  and  congregations  could  confer 
that  rank ;  yet,  among  the  four  hundred  of  millions  of 
men  who  worship  Buddha,  there  is  no  instance  of  a 
people  having  ever  been  converted  to  the  faith  in 
whom  the  reception  of  his  creed  had  not  been  pre- 
pared by  a  natural  inclination  towards  the  Oriental 
belief  in  transmigration  of  souls ;  so  that  Buddhism 


SECULAR  NOTES.  191 

itself,  however  widely  it  may  be  difl'nsed  tliroug-hout 
the  earth,  is  but  the  religion  of  a  particular  race. 
Islam  is  the  creed  of  Arabia  and  the  Arabs.  When 
carried  eastward  to  the  Ganges,  westward  to  the  Gua- 
dalquivcr,  it  was  borne  forward  on  the  points  of  a 
myriad  lances,  not  I'eceived  by  the  people  of  India  and 
of  Spain  on  its  merits  as  a  saving  faith ;  and,  being 
neither  a  natural  growth  nor  a  free  adojttion  in  those 
countries,  it  wore  itself  out  in  Spain,  while  in  Persia 
and  India  it  has  rooted  itself  chiefly  among  men  of 
Semitic  race.  Nanak  in  the  Punjab,  Bab  in  Persia, 
may  be  said  to  have  founded  sects  on  a  wider  plan 
than  most  other  religious  leaders :  for  the  Sikhs  and 
Babees  are  both  missionary  churches,  taking  their  own 
from  among  Moslem,  Buddhist,  and  Hindoo  flocks;  yet 
the  notion  of  having  one  free  and  open  church,  which 
should  make  the  brown  man  and  the  white  man,  the 
black  man  and  the  red  man,  brothers  and  equals,  has 
scarcely  ever  yet  dawned  upon  these  fiery  advocates 
of  faith. 

Thus,  nearly  all  our  creeds  have  either  some  open 
or  some  latent  reference  to  condition.  An  ancient 
legend  says  that  the  Arabian  prophet  told  his  fol- 
lowers they  would  prevail  in  arms  and  plant  the  true 
faith  wherever  the  palms  bore  fruit ;  a  legend  which 
has  been  almost  verified  in  fact  for  a  thousand  years  ; 
but  Mohammed  never  dreamt  of  oftering  his  half- 
tropical  system  of  social  life  to  the  white  barbarians 
of  the  North ;  to  hungry  hunters  beyond  the  Euxine, 
to  frozen  woodsmen  of  the  Helvetic  Alps.  His  rule 
of  rejecting  wine  and  pork,  wise  enough  on  the  Nile 
and  on  the  Jordan,  would  have  been  wasteful  of  na- 
ture on  the  Danube  and  the  Elbe.  His  code  was 
written  for  the  palm-bearing  zones,  and  within  those 
zones  it  has  always  thriven.     No  Babee  is  found  set- 


192  ^^^^  AMERICA. 

tied  out  of  Persia,  no  Sikh  out  of  Upper  India;  in 
each  case  a  man  finds  his  religious  rites  adapted  to 
the  country  in  which  he  dwells. 

Christianity  itself,  though  nobler  in  spirit,  tougher 
in  framework,  than  any  of  these  geographical  creeds, 
has  yet  very  much  the  appearance  of  being  mainly  the 
religion  of  the  Gothic  race.  Although  our  creed 
sprang  up  in  Palestme,  and  flourished  for  some  years 
in  Egypt  and  Syria,  it  never  took  hold  of  the  Semitic 
mind,  never  rooted  itself  in  the  Semitic  soil.  No  Arab 
tribe  has  been  finally  won  to  the  cross,  just  as  no 
Gothic  tribe  has  finally  been  gained  to  the  Crescent. 
The  half  Oriental  churches  w^hich  remain  in  Africa 
and  Asia — the  Abyssinian,  the  Coptic,  the  Armenian 
—  have  no  connection  with  the  great  Arabian  family 
of  man.  In  fact,  no  branch  of  the  Christian  society 
has  ever  yet  clearly  put  forth  the  pretension  of  oflfer- 
ing  itself  to  all  nations  as  a  free  and  open  church;  we 
pride  ourselves  on  being  local  and  exclusive — Greeks, 
Latins,  Anglicans,  Lutherans  —  rather  than  branches, 
of  one  living,  universal  church.  The  largest  Christian 
community  on  earth  defines  its  catholicity  as  Roman 
and  Apostolic,  instead  of  aiming  to  include  the  world 
and  owning  no  founder  except  Jesus  Christ. 

How  much  power  is  lost  by  the  existence  of  this 
parish  spirit  in  our  churches,  a  statesman  feels  the 
instant  that  some  object,  common  to  the  whole  Chris- 
tian society,  comes  into  view ;  such  as  that  question 
of  the  Holy  Sepulchre  which,  only  a  dozen  years  ago, 
drove  the  Russ  and  Frank  into  fraternal  strife. 

The  new  church  is  tolerant  of  differences  in  belief  mid 
habits  of  life.  —  Laymen  like  More  and  Locke  have 
written  most  eloquently  on  the  policy  of  tolerating  £^11 
kinds  of  opinion;  but  no  large  branch  of  the  Christian 
Church  has  ever  yet  entered  on  the  practice  of  their 


SECULAR  NOTES.  193 

liberal  views.  On  no  better  ground  than  a  difference 
of  opinion  as  to  points  which  only  the  highest  intel- 
lects can  master,  Greek,  Roman,  Lutheran,  Dutch, 
Genevan,  are  at  deadly  feud;  mocking  each  other's 
rites,  impugning  each  other's  motives,  condemning 
each  other's  actions ;  saying  evil  things,  doing  evil 
works  to  their  brethren,  with  a  bitterness  of  hate  in- 
creasing with  the  narrowness  of  their  dividing  lines. 
To  wit,  the  prelates  of  Rome  and  England  go  on 
damning  each  other  from  fast  to  feast  with  a  ferocity 
which  they  would  shrink  from  displaying  towards  an 
Imam  in  Egypt,  a  Gosain  in  Bengal,  a  prophet  at 
Salt  Lake.  We  make  watch-words  and  warn-words 
to  prevent  people  from  coming  near  us  who  might 
otherwise  share  in  our  gospel  of  love  and  peace.  With 
as  little  ruth  as  the  Gileadite  swordsmen  felt  towards 
the  flying  bands  on  the  Jordan,  we  slay  all  brethren 
who  either  can  not  or  will  not  pronounce  our  shibbo- 
leth. 

As  our  Founder  left  it,  the  Church  was  loving  and 
merciful ;  as  men  have  made  it,  it  is  hard.and  cruel  as 
a  Hindoo  caste.  A  Brahman  does  not  stand  aloof 
from  a  Sudra  with  fiercer  pride  than  a  Greek  Chris- 
tian shows  towards  a  Copt.  Even  at  the  cradle  and 
at  the  the  tomb  of  Christ,  we  fight  for  our  parish 
creeds,  until  the  very  Bedouins,  who  have  to  part  the 
quarrelling  disciples,  blush  for  shame.  Is  it  better  in 
London,  Rome,  and  Moscow,  than  in  Bethlehem  and 
Zion?  Do  the  hundred  Hindoo  sects  revile  each 
other  in  a  darker  spirit  than  our  own  congregations? 
Who  will  say  it?  A  worshipper  of  Vishna  may  live 
in  the  same  convent  as  a  worshipper  of  Siva,  and  the 
two  Hindoo  hermits  will  dwell  in  their  narrow  den  in 
peace.  How  would  it  fare  in  the  same  shed  with  a 
Calvinist  and  a  Catholic  ?    Chaitanya  taught  the  fine 

n 


194  NEW  AMERICA. 

truth  tliut  faith  abolishes  and  replaces  caste ;  so  that 
Brahman,  Kshatrya,  Vaisya,  and  Sudra,  whatever  their 
rank  and  state  may  be  on  earth,  are  equals  and  broth- 
ers in  the  sight  of  God.  Some  Christians  preach  the 
same ;  but  where  is  the  national  church  that  has 
adopted  this  beneficent  truth?  Why,  a  Greek  will 
not  allow  that  a  Latin  can  be  saved  from  hell,  and 
every  Armenian  monk  believes  that  his  Coptic  rival 
will  be  burnt  in  everlasting  fire.  Our  churches,  even 
on  our  parish  greens,  are  worn  and  torn  by  internal 
feuds.  Of  all  races  on  the  earth,  the  Anglo-Saxon  is, 
in  matter  of  thought  and  speech,  the  most  liberal,  the 
most  tolerant ;  yet  we  have  had  our  lurid  Smithfield 
tires,  and  our  list  of  martyrs  lengthens  into  a  mighty 
host.  "Within  the  existing  pale  we  have  a  High  Church 
faction  fighting  a  Low  Church  faction,  much  as  Hana- 
fees  strive  against  Malikees  in  the  orthodox  Arab 
mosque.  Some  writers  see  a  spiritual  good  in  this 
wide  separation  of  sect  from  sect ;  but  the  political 
results  of  it  are  not  to  be  concealed;  and  these  results 
are,  in  England  strife,  in  Europe  bloodshed,  in  Pales- 
tine the  occupation  of  our  Hol}^  Places  by  the  Turk. 
A  tolerant  Church  would  save  society  from  enormous 
waste  of  power. 


HIGH  POLITICS.  195 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 

HIGH    POLITICS. 

The  second  group  of  secular  notes  —  those  notes 
which  deiine  the  metliod  and  the  principle  of  Mormon 
government — ascend  into  the  highest  region  of  politics. 
Three  points  may  be  mentioned  as  of  supreme  impor- 
tance for  the  understanding  of  this  peculiar  people. 

(1.)  The  new  church  assumes  that  God  is  in  personal 
contact  with  his  Saints ;  guiding  them  now,  as  He  did 
in  past  times,  as  He  will  do  in  future  times,  by  a  re- 
velation of  his  will  through  a  chosen  seer;  not  in 
their  great  affairs  only,  their  battles,  famines,  and  mi- 
grations, but  also  in  their  rural  and  domestic  troubles, 
such  as  the  planting  of  fields,  the  building  of  a  store, 
and  the  sealing  of  a  wife. 

(2.)  The  new  church  asserts  that  true  worship  is  true 
enjoyment;  a  blessing  from  on  high,  bountifully  given 
by  a  father  to  his  children ;  not  a  tribute  levied  by  a 
prince,  not  a  penance  exacted  by  a  priest ;  but  a  light 
and  innocent  play,  a  gladness  in  the  spirit  and  in  the 
flesh ;  a  sense  of  duty  being  done,  of  service  accepted, 
and  of  life  refreshed. 

(3.)  In  the  new  church  work  is  honorable,  the  re- 
covery of  barren  places  noble,  the  production  of  corn 
and  oil,  of  fruit  and  flowers,  of  gum  and  spices,  of 
herbs  and  trees,  a  saving  act;  the  whole  earth  being 
regarded  by  the  Saints  as  a  waste  to  be  redeemed  by 
labor  into  the  future  heaven. 

These  notes  deserve  a  close  attention  from  those 
who  would  comprehend  the  political  growth  of  the 
Mormon  Church. 


196  NEW  AMU  RIG  A. 

The  neiv  church  is  divinely  ruled.  —  The  notion  of  God 
being  always  present  among  his  people,  making  known 
his  wishes  from  day  to  day,  through  one  selected  and 
unfailing  channel,  though  it  may  appear  to  reverential 
persons  very  profane,  is  one  that  must  strike  a  ruler 
and  a  thinker,  bent  on  governing  men  through  their 
hopes  and  fears,  as  oiiering  him  a  vast  reserve  of 
strength-.  Upon  a  certain  class  of  minds,  it  is  known 
that  the  mere  sense  of  distance  serves  to  dim  all  light, 
to  deaden  all  fear ;  so  that,  with  persons  having  such 
minds,  the  authority  of  right  and  truth  is  apt  to  grow 
faint,  in  exact  proportion  to  the  remoteness  of  their 
vouchers.  For  men  of  this  feeble  stamp,  everything 
must  be  new  and  near.  To  them  old  edicts  are  of 
doubtful  force  ;  to  them  ancient  traditions  are  out  of 
date.  Indeed,  for  every  one  save  the  highly  trained, 
to  whom  Euclid  is  the  same  as  De  Morgan,  laws  have 
a  tendency  to  become  obsolete.  A  church  that  takes 
a  particular  year  as  its  point  of  departure,  and  stands 
to  it  forever,  must  always  reckon  on  coming  into  con- 
flict with  this  weakness  of  the  human  heart.  To  say 
that  a  thing  is  a  long  way  off,  that  it  happened  a  long 
time  ago,  is  to  express  a  kind  of  moral  despair.  Men 
wish  to  get  nearer  to  the  sources ;  if  the  grace  could 
be  given  to  them,  they  would  like  to  see  God  face  to 
face.  Moses  cannot  speak  for  them ;  Sinai  is  but  a 
name.  They  never  felt  the  waves  of  Galilee  stilled 
beneath  them.  They  were  not  standing  in  the  Grentile 
court  when  the  Temple  vail  was  rent  in  twain. 

To  men  of  this  class,  clamorous  for  a  sign,  Jerusa- 
lem answered  by  a  succession  of  prophets,  who  brought 
the  Jewish  heaven  down  to  earth,  and  served  it  to  the 
people  with  their  daily  bread ;  Rome  answers  now,  as 
she  answered  of  old,  with  her  mystery  of  the  actual 
Presence  of  God  in  the  bread  and  wine.     Rome  and 


HIGH  POLITICS.  197 

Jerusalem  found  in  such  means  a  defence  against 
feel;)le  spirits;  but  cities  of  a  wider  culture  —  London, 
Boston,  Amsterdam,  Geneva  —  have  no  resources 
against  such  craving  of  the  spirit,  excepting  the  criti- 
cal opinions  of  their  learned  men.  But  this  critical 
learning  does  not  always  answer.  A  faith  which  has 
to  find  its  support  in  logic  and  in  historj-,  will  always 
appear  to  some  devout  and  unreasoning  minds  as  a 
secular  sort  of  canon,  resting  on  man  when  it  should 
only  lean  on  God.  Religious  doubt  is  more  exacting, 
and  more  illogical,  than  philosophical  doubt.  Per- 
haps the  peril  arising  from  its  presence  in  any  society 
is  greatest  in  the  freest  and  most  educated  states;  reli- 
gious doubt  being  one  of  the  products  of  civilization 
quicker  in  its  physical  than  in  its  moral  growth.  As 
the  mind  may  be  clouded  with  excess  of  light,  it  may 
also  become  morbid  from  excess  of  health.  Freedom 
starts  inquiries  to  which  replies  are  not  yet  ready,  and 
the  philosopher's  difficulty  makes  the  impostor's 
opportunity.  When  men  ask  for  a  sign  and  receive  a 
date,  what  marvel  if  they  should  turn  away?  Souls 
which  are  groping  in  the  dark  do  not  ask  you  for 
controversy,  for  history,  for  logic  ;  they  want  a  living 
gospel,  an  instant  revelation,  a  personal  God. 

Here  the  Saint  steps  in  to  supply  all  wants.  When 
Young,  with  a  peculiar  emphasis,  says,  "This  I  know," 
his  followers  take  his  voice  for  that  of  God.  Their 
eyes  dilate,  their  faces  brighten,  at  his  word ;  new 
hope,  fresh  courage,  shoot  into  their  hearts.  Accept- 
ing the  counsel,  the  encouragement,  as  divine,  life 
begins  for  them,  as  it  were,  anew.  It  would  be  simple 
blindness  in  our  pastors  not  to  see  that  in  our  own  age, 
and  in  the  most  liberal  nations,  many  weak  souls,  from 
lack  of  true  imaginative  insight,  are  falling  from  a 
faith   which   they  cannot   any   longer  grasp  as   they 

IT* 


lOS  NEW  AMERICA. 

might  an  actual  fact;  on  one  side  turning  into  Ration- 
alism, on  the  other  side  into  Romanism — here  be- 
coming Spiritualists,  there  inquiring  about  the  Mor- 
mons. To  the  frail  who  are  cr3'ing  out  for  guidance, 
the  Reasoners  say.  Come  to  us  and  be"  cured  of  creeds; 
the  Saints  say,  Come  to  God  and  be  saved  from  hell. 

The  se7'vice  of  God  is  the  enjoyment  of  life.  —  On  its 
social  side,  the  Mormon  church  may  be  regarded  as 
gay,  its  ritual  as  festive.  All  that  the  elder  creeds 
have  nursed  in  the  way  of  gloom,  austerity,  bewilder- 
ment, despair,  is  banished  from  the  New  Jerusalem. 
No  one  fears  being  damned ;  no  one  troubles  his  soul 
about  fate,  free-will,  election,  and  prevenient  grace. 
A  Mormon  lives  in  an  atmosphere  of  trust ;  for  in  his 
eyes,  heaven  lies  around  him  in  his  glowing  lake,  in  his 
smiling  fields,  in  his  snowy  alps.  To  him,  the  advent 
of  the  Saints  was  the  Second  Coming,  and  the  found- 
ing of  their  church  a  beginning  of  the  reign  of  God. 
He  feels  no  dread,  he  takes  no  trouble,  on  account  of 
the  future.  What  is,  will  be  ;  to-morrow  like  to-day, 
the  next  year  like  the  past  one;  heaven  a  continuation 
of  the  earth ;  where  to  each  man  will  be  meted  out 
glory  and  power  according  to  the  fulness  of  his  obedi- 
ence in  the  present  life.  The  earth,  he  says,  is  a 
Paradise  made  for  enjoyment.  If  it  were  possible  to 
think  that  Young  and  Pratt  had  ever  read  the  Hindoo 
sages,  we  should  imagine  that  they  had  borrowed  this 
part  of  their  system  from  the  disciples  of  Vallabracha, 
the  prophet  of  pleasure,  the  expounder  of  delight. 

Prom  whatever  source  this  idea  of  a  festal  service 
may  have  come,  Euphrosyne  reigns  in  [Jtah.  Young 
might  be  described  as  Minister  of  Mirth ;  having  built 
a  great  theatre,  in  which  his  daughters  play  comedies 
and  interludes ;  having  built  a  social  hall,  in  which  the 
young  of  both  sexes  dance  and  sing;  and  having  set 


HIGH  POLITICS.  199 

the  example  of  balls  and  music-parties  both  in  the 
open  air  and  under  private  roofs.  Concerts  and  operas 
are  constantly  being  given.  Water-parties,  picnics, 
all  the  contrivances  for  innocent  amusement,  have  his 
hearty  sanction."  Care  is  bestowed  on  the  ripening  of 
grapes,  on  the  culture  of  peaches,  on  the  cooking  of 
food;  so  that  an  epicure  may  chance  to  find  in  the 
New  Jerusalem  dainties  which  he  would  sigh  for  in 
vain  at  Washino-ton  and  New  York.  When  dininsr  in 
the  houses  of  apostles,  we  are  always  struck  with  the 
abundance  of  sweets  and  fruits,  with  the  choiceness 
of  their  quality,  and  the  daintiness  of  their  prepara- 
tion. A  stranger  who  sees  the  Theatre  crowded  and 
the  Temple  unbuilt,  might  run  away  with  the  notion 
that  Young  is  less  of  a  Saint  than  his  people  pretend 
to  think.  It  would  be  a  mistake ;  such  as  we  make 
in  Bombay,  when  we  infer  that  the  Maharajahs  have 
no  religion,  because  in  some  of  their  services  they  clothe 
themselves  in  purple  and  begin  with  a  feast. 

The  ne7v  church  regards  work  as  noble. —  That  work  is 
noble  is  a  very  old  phrase,  known  to  the  Jews,  held 
by  the  Essenes,  sanctioned  by  St.  Paul.  It  was  a 
legend  among  monks  in  the  middle  ages ;  and  it  lies 
at  the  root  of  all  English,  French,  and  American 
systems  for  reforming  and  regenerating  societ}'.  But 
the  principle  that  manual  labor  is  good  in  itself,  and 
for  its  own  sake,  a  blessing  from  heaven,  a  solace  to 
the  heart,  a  privilege,  an  endowment  to  the  spirit,  a 
service,  an  act  of  obedience,  has  never  been  taken  as 
her  fundamental  social  truth  by  any  church.  Hand- 
work may  have  been  called  useful ;  it  has  nowhere 
been  treated  by  the  law  as  noble.  In  our  old  world, 
the  names  of  prince  and  gentleman  are  given  to  those 
who  write  and  think,  not  to  those  who  plough  and 
trench,  who  throw  in    the   seed   and   gather  up  the 


200  ^^W  AMEBIC  A. 

sheaves.  By  noble  labor,  we  mean  the  work  of 
judges,  statesmen,  orators,  priests ;  no  one  in  Europe 
would  think  of  saying  that  to  plant  a  tree,  to  dig 
a  drain,  to  build  a  house,  to  mow  a  field,  would  be 
noble  toil.  The  Hindoo  puts  his  laborers  into  the  two 
lowest  castes ;  if  they  are  husbandmen,  into  the  third 
caste;  if  artisans,  into  the  fourth ;  their  estate  being  in 
either  case  far  less  honorable  than  that  of  a  warrior, 
that  of  a  priest.  A  Sudra's  soul  and  body  counts  for 
less  than  one  hair  from  a  Brahman's  head ;  for  among 
the  Hindoos,  work  is  regarded  as  a  curse,  never  as  a 
blessing,  and  the  free  laborer  of  Bengal  ranks  but  one 
degree  higher  than  a  pariah  and  a  slave.  Now  and 
then  the  Hebrews  had  glimpses  of  a  better  law: — 
"  Seest  thou  a  man  skilful  in  his  work,  he  shall  stand 
before  kings ;"  the  theory  of  God  and  Nature ;  and 
from  this  Hebrew  source,  not  from  any  dreams  of 
Owen,  Fourier,  and  St.  Simon,  the  Saints  have  bor- 
rowed their  idea,  translating  it,  not  into  language 
only,  but  into  extensive  pastures  and  smiling  farms. 
With  them,  to  do  any  piece  of  work  is  a  righteous 
act ;  to  be  a  toiling  and  producing  man  is  to  be  in  a 
state  of  grace. 

What  need  is  there  to  dwell  on  the  political  value 
of  such  a  note  ? 


MARRIAGE  IN  UTAH.  201 


CHAPTER  XXYII. 

MARRIAGE    IN    UTAH. 

But  the  most  singular,  the  most  powerful,  of  these 
three  groups  of  secular  notes,  even  when  we  stud}' 
them  from  a  political  point  of  view  only,  is  that  which 
defines  the  conditions  of  family  life,  particularly  in 
what  it  has  to  say  of  marriage.  Marriage  lies  at  the 
root  of  society,  and  the  method  of  dealing  with  it 
marks  the  spirit  of  every  religious  system. 

Now  the  New  American  church  puts  marriage  into 
the  very  front  of  man's  duties  on  earth.  Neither  man 
nor  woman,  says  Young,  can  work  out  the  will  of 
God  alone ;  that  is  to  say,  all  human  beings  have  a 
function  to  discharge  on  earth  —  the  function  of  pro- 
viding tabernacles  of  the  flesh  for  immortal  spirits 
now  waiting  to  be  born  —  which  cannot  be  discharged 
except  through  that  union  of  the  sexes  implied  in 
marriage.  To  evade  that  function  is,  according  to 
Young,  to  evade  the  most  sacred  of  man's  obligations. 
It  is  to  commit  sin.  An  unwedded  man  is,  in  Mormon 
belief,  an  imperfect  creature ;  like  a  bird  without 
wings,  a  body  without  soul.  Nature  is  dual ;  to  com- 
plete his  organization,  a  man  must  marry  a  wife. 
Love,  says  Young,  is  the  yearning  for  a  higher  state 
of  existence ;  and  the  passions,  properly  understood, 
are  the  feeders  of  our  spiritual  life. 

Looking  to  this  dogma  of  the  duty  of  wedlock 
solely  as  a  source  of  political  power,  we  should  have 
to  allow  it  very  great  weight.  What  waste  it  saves ! 
In  many  religious  bodies  marriage  is  simply  tolerated, 


202  NEW  AMERICA. 

as  the  lesser  form  of  two  dark  evils.  Those  Essence 
from  whom  we  derive  so  much,  allowed  it  only  to  the 
weak,  and  on  account  of  weakness ;  they  thought  it 
better  for  a  good  man  to  refrain  from  marriage ;  and 
in  the  higher  grades  of  their  society  the  relation  of 
wife  and  husband  was  unknown.  Many  orders  among 
the  Hindoos  practise  celibacy.  The  Greeks  had  their 
Vestal  virgins,  the  Egyptians  their  anchorites,  the 
Syrians  their  ascetics.  In  the  Pagan  Olympus,  absti- 
nence was  a  virtue,  praised,  if  not  practised,  by  the 
gods.  Hestia  and  Artemis  were  honored  above  all  the 
denizens  of  heaven,  because  they  rose  beyond  the 
reach  of  love ;  nay,  the  idea  of  marriage  being  a  kind 
of  corruption  had  so  far  sunk  into  the  Pagan  mind  as 
to  crop  out  everywhere  in  the  common  speech.  To  be 
unloved  was  to  be  unspotted ;  to  be  single  was  to  be 
pure.  In  all  Pagan  poetry  the  title  of  virgin  is  held 
to  be  higher  than  that  of  mother,  nobler  than  that  of 
wife.  Among  Christian  communities  marriage  is  a 
theme  of  endless  disputation ;  one  church  calling  it  a 
sacrament,  another  calling  it  a  contract;  all  churches 
considering  it  optional ;  few  regarding  it  as  meri- 
torious ;  many  denouncing  it  as  a  compromise  with 
the  devil.  The  Greek  church  encourages  celibacy  in 
a  class ;  the  Latin  prohibits  marriage  to  its  priests. 
The  Gothic  church  may  be  said  to  stand  neutral ;  but 
no  church  in  the  world  has  ever  yet  come  to  insist  on 
the  duty  of  marriage  as  necessary  to  the  living  of  a 
true  Christian  life. 

On  the  contrary,  every  religious  body  which  has 
dealt  with  the  topic  at  all  —  Greek,  Armenian,  Coptic, 
Latin,  Abyssinian  —  declares  by  facts,  no  less  than  by 
words,  that  any  union  of  the  sexes  in  the  bands  of 
wedlock  is  hostile  to  the  highest  conception  of  a 
Christian  life.     Hence  the  monastic  houses ;  hence  the 


MARRIAGE  IN   UTAH.  203 

celibacy  of  priests ;  institutions  which  infect  the  mind 
of  society,  arresting  the  growth  of  many  honsehold 
virtues,  poisoning  some  of  the  sources  of  domestic 
life.  A  wifeless  priest  is  a  standing  protest  against 
wedded  love ;  for  if  it  he  true  that  the  human  atlec- 
tions  are  a  snare,  leading  men  away  from  God,  it  is 
surely  a  good  man's  duty  to  crush  them  out.  A  snare 
is  a  snare,  a  sin  a  sin,  to  he  avoided  equally  by  the 
layman  and  the  priest. 

Young  has  turned  the  face  of  his  church  another 
way.  With  him  marriage  is  a  duty  and  a  privilege ; 
and  the  elders,  being  considered  examples  to  the  peo- 
ple in  all  good  works,  are  enjoined  to  marry.  A 
priest  and  elder  must  be  a  husband ;  even  among  the 
humbler  flock,  it  is  held  to  be  a  disgrace,  the  sign  of 
an  unregenerated  heart,  for  a  young  man  to  be  found 
leading  a  single  life. 

But  the  Saints  have  pushed  the  doctrine  a  step  far- 
ther; for  instead  of  denying  to  their  popes  and  priests 
the  consolation  of  woman's  love,  they  encourage  them 
to  indulge  in  a  plurality  of  wives;  and  among  their 
higher  clergy, — the  Prophet,  the  apostles,  and  the 
bishops,  —  this  indulgence  is  next  to  universal.  Not 
to  be  a  pluralist  is  not  to  be  a  good  Mormon.  My 
friend.  Captain  Hooper,  though  he  is  known  to  be 
rich,  zealous,  insinuating,  —  an  admirable  representa- 
tive of  Utah  in  Congress, — has  never  been  able  to  rise 
high  in  the  church,  on  account  of  his  repugnance  to 
taking  another  wife.  "We  look  on  Hooper,"  the 
Apostle  Taylor  said  to  me  j^esterday  at  dinner,  "as 
only  half  a  Mormon ;"  at  which  every  one  laughed  in 
a  sly,  peculiar  way.  When  the  merriment,  in  which 
the  young  ladies  joined,  had  died  down,  I  said  to 
Hooper,  "  Here  's  a  great  chance  for  you  next  season. 
Pick  out  six  of  the  prettiest  girls  in  Salt  Lake  City ; 


204  NEW  AMERICA. 

marry  them  in  a  batch ;  cany  them  to  Washington ; 
and  open  your  season  in  December  with  a  ball ! " 
"Well,"  said  Hooper,  "  I  think  that  would  take  for  a 
time ;  but  then  I  am  growing  to  be  an  old  fellow." 

Young,  who  is  fond  of  Hooper,  proud  of  his  talents, 
and  conscious  of  his  services,  is  said  to  be  urging  him 
strongly  to  marry  one  more  wife  at  least,  so  as  to  cast 
in  his  lot  finally,  whether  for  good  or  evil,  with  the 
polj'gamous  church.  If  Hooper  yields,  it  will  be  from 
a  sentiment  of  duty  and  fidelity  towards  his  chief. 

Every  priest  of  the  higher  grades  in  Salt  Lake  Val- 
ley has  a  plural  household ;  the  number  of  his  mates 
varying  with  the  wealth  and  character  of  the  elder. 
IS'o  apostle  has  less  than  three  wives. 

Of  the  marriages  of  Brigham  Young,  Heber  Kim- 
ball, and  Daniel  Wells,  the  three  members  of  what  is 
here  called  the  First  Presidency,  no  accounts  are  kept 
in  the  public  otfice.  It  is  the  fashion  of  every  pious 
old  lady  in  this  community,  who  may  have  lost  her 
husband  by  death,  to  implore  the  bishop  of  her  ward 
to  take  measures  for  getting  her*  sealed  to  one  of 
these  three  Presidents.  Young  is,  of  course,  the 
favorite  of  such  widows ;  and  it  is  said  that  he  never 
makes  a  journey  from  the  Beehive  without  being 
called  upon  to  indulge  one  of  these  poor  creatures  in 
her  wish.  Hence,  a  great  many  women  hold  the 
nominal  rank  of  his  wife  whom  he  has  scarcely  ever 
seen,  and  with  whom  he  has  never  held  the  relations 
of  a  husband,  as  w^e  in  Europe  should  understand  the 
term.  The  actual  wives  of  Brigham  Young,  the 
w'omen  who  live  in  his  houses  —  in  the  Beehive,  in 
the  Lion  House,  in  the  White  Cottage — who  are  the 
mothers  of  his  children,  are  twelve,  or  about  twelve, 
in  number.  The  queen  of  all  is  the  first  wife,  Mary 
Ann   Angell,  an   aged   lady,  whose   five    children  — 


mabhiage  in  utah.  205 

three  sons,  two  daughters  —  are  now  grown  up.  She 
lives  in  the  White  Cottage,  the  first  house  ever  huilt 
in  Salt  Lake  Valley.  Joseph  and  Brighani,  her  eldest 
sons,  chiefs  of  their  race,  are  already  renowned  in 
missionary  labors.  Sister  Alice,  her  eldest  daughter, 
is  my  friend  —  on  the  stage.  The  most  famous,  per- 
haps, of  these  ladies  is  Eliza  Snow,  the  poetess,  a  lady 
universally  respected  for  her  fine  character,  nniver- 
gally  applauded  for  her  fine  talents.  About  fifty 
years  old,  with  silver  hair,  dark  eyes,  and  noble  as- 
pect—  simple  in  attire,  calm,  lady-like,  rather  cold — 
Eliza  is  the  exact  reverse  to  any  imaginary  light  of 
the  harem.  I  am  led  to  believe  that  she  is  not  a  wife 
to  Young  in  the  sense  of  our  canon ;  she  is  always 
called  Miss  Eliza;  in  fact,  the  Mormon  rite  of  sealing 
a  woman  to  a  man  implies  other  relations  than  our 
Gentile  rite  of  marriage;  and  it  is  only  by  a  wide  per- 
version of  terms  that  the  female  Saints  who  may  be 
sealed  to  a  man  are  called  his  wives.  Sister  Eliza 
lives  in  the  Lion  House,  in  a  pretty  room,  on  the  sec- 
ond floor,  overlooking  the  Oquirrh  mountains,  the 
Valley,  the  River  Jordan,  and  the  Salt  Lake ;  a  poet's 
prospect,  in  which  form  and  color,  sky  and  land  and 
water,  melt  and  fuse  into  a  glory  without  end.  Young's 
less  distinguished  partners  are :  Sister  Lucy,  by  whom 
he  has  eight  children ;  Sister  Clara,  by  whom  he  has 
three  children ;  Sister  Zina,  a  poetess  and  teacher 
(formerly  the  wife  of  Dr.  Jacobs),  by  whom  he  has 
three  children  ;  Sister  Amelia,  an  old  servant  of  Jo- 
seph, by  whom  he  has  four  children  ;  Sister  Eliza  (2), 
an  English  girl  (the  only  Englishwoman  in  the  Pro- 
phet's house),  by  whom  he  is  said  to  have  four  or  five 
children ;  Sister  Margaret,  by  whom  he  has  three  or 
four  children ;  Sister  Emeline,  often  called  the  favor- 
ite, by  whom  he  has  eight  children.     Young  himself 

18 


206  ^J^W  AMEBIC  A. 

tells  me,  that  he  has  never  had,  and  never  will  have, 
a  favorite  in  his  house ;  since  desires  and  preferences 
of  the  flesh  have  no  part  in  the  family  arrangements 
of  the  Saints. 

The  Apostles  have  fewer  blessings  than  the  Presi- 
dents ;  but  the  Twelve  are  all  pluralists.  The  follow- 
ing figures  are  supplied  to  me  by  George  A,  Smith, 
cousin  of  the  Prophet  Joseph,  and  Historian  of  the 
Church, — 

Orson  Hyde,  first  apostle,  has  four  wives ; 

Orson  Pratt,  second  apostle,  has  four  wives ; 

John  Taylor,  third  apostle,  has  seven  wives ; 

Wilford  Woodruft",  fourth  apostle,  has  three  wives; 

George  A.  Smith,  fifth  apostle',  has  five  wives ; 

Amasa  Lj'man,  sixth  apostle,  has  five  wives ; 

Ezra  Benson,  seventh  apostle,  has  four  wives ; 

Charles  Rich,  eighth  apostle,  has  seven  wives ; 

Lorenzo  Snow,  ninth  apostle,  has  four  wives ; 

Erastus  Snow,  tenth  apostle,  has  three  wives ; 

Franklin  Richards,  eleventh  apostle,  has  four  "wives ; 

George  Q.  Cannon,  twelfth  apostle,  has  three  wives. 

With  the  exception  of  John  Taylor,  the  apostles  are 
considered  poor  men ;  and  in  Salt  Lake  it  is  held  dis- 
honest for  a  man  to  take  a  new  wife  unless  he  can 
maintain  his  family  in  comfort,  as  regards  lodging, 
food,  and  clothes.  Some  of  the  rich  merchants  are 
encouraged  by  Young  to  add  wife  on  wife.  A  bold 
and  pushing  elder  said  to  me  last  night,  in  answer  to 
some  banter,  "I  shall  certainly  marry  again  soon;  the 
fact,  is,  I  mean  to  rise  in  this  church ;  and  you  have 
seen  enough  to  know  that  no  man  has  a  chance  in  our 
society  unless  he  has  a  big  household.  To  have  any 
weight  here,  you  must  be  known  as  the  husband  of 
three  women." 


POLYGAMOUS   SOCIETY.  207 

CHAPTER   XXVIII. 

POLYGAMOUS    SOCIETY. 

On  the  political  strength  which  this  fashion  of  plu- 
rality lends  to  the  Saints  of  Salt  Lake  City,  a  few 
words  may  be  said.  Two  questions  present  them- 
selves, —  In  the  first  place,  has  the  promise  of  a  plu- 
rality of  wives  proved  to  be  a  good  bribe,  inducing 
men  of  a  certain  class  to  join  the  Mormon  Church? 
And,  in  the  second  place,  has  the  practice  of  plurality 
shown  itself  to  be  a  means  by  which,  when  converts 
have  been  won,  they  can  be  made  to  multiply  in  num- 
bers far  beyond  the  ordinary  rate  ? 

To  the  first  query,  only  one  answer  can  be  truly 
given.  Xame  the  motive  as  you  please ;  call  it,  with 
the  Saints,  desire  of  the  spirit ;  call  it,  with  the  Gen- 
tiles, desire  of  the  flesh;  the  fact  will  remain  —  that 
a  license  for  making  love  to  many  women,  for  sealing 
them  as  wives,  for  gathering  them  into  secluded  ha- 
rems, has  acted  in  the  past,  and  is  acting  in  the  present, 
as  a  powerful  and  seductive  bribe. 

Young  and  Pratt  declare  that  the  carnal  appetites 
have  no  immediate  share  in  their  own  selection  of 
brides ;  that  this  business  of  selection  is  the  work  of 
Heaven;  that  the  act  of  sealing  is  a  religious  rite; 
and  that  a  wife  for  eternity,  the  queen  and  partner  of 
a  celestial  throne,  can  be  given  to  a  man  by  none  but 
God.  Young  told  me,  with  a  laughing  eye,  that  they 
would  put  their  wives  in  evidence  of  what  they  say ; 
many  of  these  ladies  being  old,  plain,  uneducated,  ill- 
mannered  ;  though  others,  as  my  eyes  inform  me,  are 
young,  fre^sh,  delicate,  and  charming.     But,  who  can 


208  NEW  AMERICA. 

doubt  tluit  Young,  with  his  keen  sense  of  power,  and 
his  mastery  of  all  the  springs  of  action,  is  well  aware 
of  the  political  uses  to  be  made  of  this  great  appeal 
of  beauty  to  the  carnal  man  ?  If  taking  a  fresh  wife 
once  a  year  be  an  act  of  obedience,  it  serves  the  Saints 
very  much  like  a  call  of  pleasure.  Yet,  who  shall 
say  they  are  insincere?  Young  told  me  that  in  the 
earl}'  days  of  their  strange  institution,  he  was  much 
opposed  to  plural  households,  and  I  am  confident  that 
he  speaks  the  truth.  Among  the  Mormon  presidents 
and  apostles,  we  have  not  seen  one  face  on  which  liar 
and  hypocrite  were  written.  Though  we  daily  meet 
with  fanatics,  we  have  not  seen  a  single  man  whom 
we  can  call  a  rogue.  Their  faith  is  not  our  faith — their 
practice  is  not  our  practice.  Yv^hat  then  ?  Among 
the  Hindoos  many  sects  indulge  in  rites  which  English 
people  call  licentious ;  some,  indeed,  being  so  abomi- 
nable, that  a  man  who  sees  them  for  the  first  time  is 
apt  to  call  for  the  police.  Could  the  Ras  Mandala  be 
performed  in  London  ?  Would  the  Kanchulayas  be 
allowed  to  celebrate  their  worship  in  New  York  ?  Yet 
there  are  men  and  w^omen,  living  under  the  sceptre 
of  Victoria,  who  in  perfect  faith,  if  not  in  perfect 
innocency,  imitate  the  amorous  sports  of  Krishna, 
choosing  the  partners  of  their  delirious  worship  by 
the  lottery  of  the  vest. 

Young  may  believe  in  what  he  says,  and  in  what  he 
does  (for  I  think  him,  in  the  sphere  of  his  knowledge 
and  his  customs,  an  honest  man) ;  but  some  of  his 
followers  are  accused  of  taking  pains  to  preach  a  plu- 
rality of  wives,  as  one  of  the  rewards  of  conversion  to 
his  church;  and  I  know  that  they  are  fond  of  quoting 
the  promise  made  by  Nathan  to  David,  that  he  should 
wed  and  enjoy  the  wives  of  his  enemy  Saul.  That 
this  gospel  of  indulgence  is  found  by  the  Saints  to  be 


POLYGAMOUS  SOCIETY.  209 

most   alluring    in    Gentile   lands,    their   missionaries 
would  certainly  not  deny.     It  may  be  that  cither  the 
ilesh   is  weak  or  the  spirit   strong ;   but  the  AYelsh 
peasant,  the  London  tailor,  the  Lancashire  weaver,  is 
found  to  pore  with   a  rapt  eye  and  a  burning  pulse 
oyer  the  pictures  painted  by  missionaries  of  that  Para- 
dise near  Salt  Lake,  in  which  a  man  is  free  to  do  all 
things  that  liis  arm  can  compass,  to  have  as  many 
houses  as  he  can  build,  as  many  wives  as  he  can  feed 
and   govern.     An   unregenerate   man   is   told  that  a 
harem   may  be    not   only   lawfully    kept,   but   easily 
gained,  —  the  female  heart  being  opened  by  a  special 
providence  to  the  truth  as  it  lies  in  Young, —  that 
there  are  plenty  of  beautiful  girls  at  Salt  Lake ;  and 
that  a  Saint  is  invited  and  enjoined  to  live  up  to  the 
perfect  law.    Few  elders,  it  is  said,  come  back  to  Utah 
from  a  journey  without  bringing  a  new  favorite,  won 
from  among  the  Gentiles  to  his  fold.    One  of  Young's 
wives  was  a  married  lady  in  JS'ew  York,  who  fell  in 
love  with  the  Prophet  and  fled  with  him  from  her 
husband's  house.     It  is  one  of  the  pleasantries  of 
Utah,  that  Kimball  never  lets  a  missionary  go  forth 
on  a  journey  without  giving  hiin  injunctions  to  bring 
back  young  lambs.     It  is  noted,  as  a  rule,  that  the 
high  dignitaries  of  the  church  have  been  blessed  by 
heaven  with  the  prettiest  women  ;  one  of  those  recom- 
penses of  a  virtuous  life  which  Helvetius  conceived  as 
desirable,  but  which  no  society  has  ever  yet  had  the 
wit  and  daring  to  adopt. 

To  the  second  query  two  answers  may  be  returned. 
In  a  fixed  society,  like  that  of  Turkey,  of  Syria,  of 
Egy23t,  the  existence  of  polygani}^  would  have  no  great 
influence  on  the  powers  of  increase.  Once,  indeed, 
men  thought  otherwise.  "Writers,  like  Montesquieu, 
seeing  that  polygamy  prevailed  in  many  parts  of  the 

18* 


•ill)  NEW  AMEBIC  A. 

EtiRt,  imagined  that  in  these  regions  the  females  must 
be  far  in  excess  of  the  males,  and  that  the  appropria- 
tion of  several  women  to  one  man  was  a  rule  of  na- 
ture, made  from  the  earliest  times,  by  way  of  correet- 
inc^  a  freak  of  birth.  Travellers,  like  Niebuhr,  lindinff 
his  Arab  sheikhs  with  harems,  hinted  that  polygamy 
arose  from  the  circumstance  that  Arab  women  grow 
old  and  barren  while  their  husbands  are  still  young 
and  hale.  These  delusions  have  long  since  gone  the 
way  of  all  error. 

Xow,  we  can  happily  say,  in  the  light  of  science, 
that  even  in  Egypt  and  Arabia  the  males  and  females 
are  born  in  about  equal  numbers ;  the  males  being  a 
little  in  excess  of  the  females.  We  see,  then,  that 
Nature  has  put  the  human  family  on  the  earth  in 
pairs;  rejecting  by  her  own  large  mandate  all  those 
monstrous  and  irregular  growths  apart  from  the  con- 
jugal relations  established  by  herself  between  male 
and  female ;  whether  those  growths  have  taken  the 
shape  either  of  polygamy  or  of  polyandry,  either  many 
wives  to  one  husband,  or  many  husbands  to  one  wife. 
The  true  law  of  nature,  therefore,  is,  that  one  male 
and  one  female  shall  make  their  home  together;  and 
in  the  old  country,  where  the  sexes  are  equal,  where 
the  manners  are  uniform,  and  where  the  religion  is 
common,  any  departure  from  this  true  law  will  rather 
weaken  than  increase  the  multiplying  power  of  the 
country  as  a  whole.  So  far  the  ai]swer  seems  to  go 
one  way.  The  question,  however,  is,  not  as  to  the 
growth  of  a  whole  nation ;  but  as  to  that  of  a  par- 
ticular family,  of  a  particular  community,  of  a  mere 
sect  within  the  boundaries  of  that  nation.  Even  in 
Arabia,  it  is  clear  that  if  a  particular  sheikh  could 
invent  some  means  of  getting  from  other  tribes  a 
orrent  many  of  their  women,  until  he  had  enough  fe- 


POLYGAMOUS   SOCIETY'.  211 

males  in  his  power  to  give  three  wives  to  every  male 
adult  in  his  camp,  the  tribe  of  that  sheikh  would  in- 
crease in  numbers  faster  than  their  neighbors  who  had 
only  one  wife  apiece.  This  is  something  like  the  case 
in  America  with  the  Saints.  Their  own  society  could 
not  give  them  the  plurality  of  wives  which  they  an- 
nounce as  the  social  law  of  all  coming  time.  But 
granted  that,  by  either  good  or  evil  means,  they  could 
get  the  women  into  their  church,  it  is  idle  to  deny 
that  the  possession  of  such  a  treasure  gives  them 
enormous  powers  of  increase.  One  man  may  be  the 
father  of  a  hundred  children ;  one  woman  can  hardly 
be  the  mother  of  a  score.  We  know  that  Jair  and 
Hillel  must  have  been  pol3'gamists,  the  moment  we 
hear  that  the  lirst  had  thirty  sons  and  the  second  had 
forty  sons. 

It  is  not  an  easy  thing  to  count  the  number  of  chil- 
dren in  the  ditferent  households  at  Salt  Lake.  The 
census  papers  cannot  be  quoted,  since  they  were  made 
up,  the  Apostle  Taylor  tells  me,  mainl}^  by  guessing 
on  the  part  of  a  Gentile  officer,  who  would  not  go 
about  and  count.  In  this  city  a  moslem  jealousy  ap- 
pears to  guard  such  facts  as  would  be  public  property 
in  London  and  Xew  York.  Young  tells  us  he  has 
forty-eight  children  now  alive.  Kimball  has,  perhaps, 
an  equal  number.  Every  house  seems  full ;  wherever 
we  see  a  woman,  she  is  nursing;  and  in  every  house 
we  enter  two  or  three  infants  in  arms  are  shown  to  us. 
This  valley  is,  indeed,  the  true  baby  land.  For  a  man 
to  have  twenty  boys  and  girls  in  his  house  is  a  com- 
mon fact.  A  merchant  with  whom  we  were  dining 
yesterday,  could  not  tell  us  the  number  of  his  children 
until  he  had  consulted  a  book  then  lying  on  his  desk. 
One  of  his  wives,  a  nice  English  lady,  with  the  usual 
baby  at  her  breast,  smiled  sweet  reproof  on  his  igno- 


212  NJnV  AMERICA. 

ranee  ;  but  the  fiict  was  so;  and  it  was  only  after  eount- 
ing  and  consulting  that  he  could  give  us  the  eicact  re- 
turn of  his  descendants.  This  patriarch  is  thirty-three 
years  old. 

It  was  by  means  of  polygamy  that  Israel  increased 
in  a  few  generations  so  as  to  confound  all  sense  of 
numbers ;  and  no  one  can  mistake  the  tendency  among 
these  American  Saints.  Young  has  more  children  than 
Jair ;  Pratt  than  Hill  el ;  Kimball  than  Ibzan.  This  rate 
of  growth  may  not  be  kept  up  for  a  hundred  years ;  in 
time  it  must  slacken  of  itself  for  want  of  supplies ; 
but  for  the  present  moment  it  exists:  —  not  the  least 
ominous  of  those  facts  which  a  statesman  of  the  New 
America  has  to  face. 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 

THE    DOCTRINE    OF    PLURALITIES. 

"When  the  Saints  were  engaged  in  seizing,  as  they 
say,  for  their  own  use,  all  that  was  found  to  be  fair  and 
fruitful  in  other  creeds,  they  would  appear  to  have 
added  to  the  relations  of  husband  and  wife,  as  these 
have  been  fixed  by  the  codes  of  all  civilized  States, 
whether  Christian,  Moslem,  Jewish,  or  Hindoo,  some 
highly  dramatic  details.  ISTot  only  have  the  Saints 
adopted  polygamy  into  their  church,  but  they  have 
borrowed  it  under  its  oldest  and  most  savage  form. 

Taken  by  itself,  apart  from  surrounding  schools  of 
thought,  the  mere  fact  of  a  new  church  having  brought 
itself  to  allow  plurality  of  wives  among  its  members, 
would  not  need  to  startle  us  very  much,  since  many 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF  PLURALITIES.      213 

of  us  are  familiar  with  such  a  system  in  legend  and  in 
history,  even  though  we  may  be  strangers  to  it  by 
actual  sight  and  sound.  Abraham  and  David  Y^ractiscd 
it.  Neither  Moses  nor  Paul  forbade  it ;  and  Moham- 
med, while  purifying  it  of  the  grosser  Oriental  features, 
sanctioned  it  by  his  deeds.  Polygamy  enters  into  the 
poetry  of  Cordova,  the  romance  of  Bagdad.  The  enter- 
prising Parsee,  the  learned  Brahman,  the  fiery  Rajpoot, 
all  embrace  it.  Even  in  the  Christian  Church,  opinions 
are  divided  as  to  whether  it  is  wrong  in  itself,  or  only 
a  trouble  in  the  social  body.  Many  of  the  early  con- 
verts, both  in  Syria  and  in  Egypt,  were  polygamists ; 
and  the  questions  which  have  recently  disturbed  Co- 
lenso  and  the  Kaffir  chief  had  arisen  in  primitive  times, 
when  the  policy  of  admitting  men  having  several  wives 
into  fellowship  was  affirmed  by  fathers  of  the  church. 
Nor  would  the  appearance  of  polygamy  in  these  plains 
of  Salt  Lake  be  a  novel  and  surprising  fact,  since  every- 
thing that  we  know  of  Ute  and  Shoshone  compels  us 
to  believe  that  plurality  has  always  been  the  domestic 
law  of  these  valleys.  The  sides  of  these  sierras  are 
wild  and  bare ;  a  poor  country  and  a  hard  life  induce 
polygamy ;  and  all  the  tribes  of  red  men  which  seek 
a  scanty  subsistence  in  these  glens  and  plains  practise 
the  nomadic  custom  of  stealing  and  selling  squaws.  A 
big  chief  prides  himself  on  having  plenty  of  wives; 
and  the  white  men,  who  have  come  to  live  among 
these  Utes,  Cheyennes,  Arappahoes,  and  Kiowas, 
whether  they  began  as  trappers,  guides,  interpreters, 
or  hunters,  have  almost  always  fallen  into  the  Indian 
way  of  living.  The  dozen  pale-faces,  known  to  be 
dwelling  with  Indian  tribes  at  this  moment  —  hunting 
buffido,  cutting  scalps  —  are  all  polygamists ;  often 
with  larger  harems  than  the  biggest  native  chiefs. 
But  the  Saints  have  not  simply  revived  polygamy 


214  NEW  A3IERIGA. 

in  Utali  ;  they  liave  returned  to  tluit  form  of  domestic 
life  in  both  its  unlimited  and  its  incestuous  forms.  In 
their  search  for  the  foundations  of  a  new  society,  they 
have  gone  back  to  the  times  when  Abram  was  called 
out  of  Hauran  ;  undoing  the  work  of  all  subsequent 
reformers ;  setting  aside  not  only  all  that  Mohammed, 
but  all  that  Moses  had  done  for  the  better  regulation 
of  our  family  life.  Moses  forbade  a  man  to  take  a  wife 
of  his  own  flesh  and  blood.  Mohammed  restrained 
his  followers  to  a  harem  of  three  or  four  wives  ;  a 
moderation  at  which  Young  and  Kimball,  who  appeal 
from  Moses  to  Abraham,  only  laugh.  Who,  they  ask, 
married  his  half-sister  Sarai  ?  —  the  man  of  God. 
Hence  the  Saints  of  Utah  have  set  up  a  claim  to  marry 
their  own  half-sisters,  without  being  able  to  plead  for 
this  practice  either  the  Arab  custom  or  the  Arab  need. 
They  find  no  objection,  either  in  nature  or  in  revela- 
tion, to  the  custom  of  breeding  in  and  in  ;  a  subject 
on  which  we  one  day  had  a  curious  talk  with  Young 
and  the  Twelve.  Young  denied  that  degeneracy  springs 
from  marriage  between  men  and  women  who  may  be 
near  in  blood. 

The  Saints  go  much  beyond  Abram;  and  I,  for  one, 
am  inclined  to  think  that  they  have  found  their  type 
of  domestic  life  in  the  Indian's  wigwam  rather  than  in 
the  Patriarch's  tent.  Like  the  TJte,  a  Mormon  may 
'have  as  many  wives  as  he  can  feed ;  like  the  Mandan, 
he  may  marry  three  or  four  sisters,  an  aunt  and  her 
niece,  a  mother  and  her  child.  Perhaps  it  would  not 
be  too  much  to  say  that  in  the  Mormon  code  there  is 
no  such  crime  as  incest,  and  that  a  man  is  practically 
free  to  woo  and  wed  an}"  woman  who  may  take  his  eye. 

We  have  had  a  ver}^  strange  conversation  with  Young 
about  the  Mormon  doctrine  of  incest.  I  asked  him 
whether  it  was  a  common  thing  among  the  Saints  to 


THE  DOCTRINE   OF  PLURALITIES.     215 

marry  motlier  and  daughter ;  and,  if  so,  on  what  au- 
thority they  acted,  since  that  kind  of  union  was  not 
sanctioned  either  by  the  command  to  Moses  or  by  the 
"revelation"  to  Smith.  "When  he  hung  back  from 
admitting  that  such  a  thing  occurred  at  al],  I  named 
a  case  in  one  of  the  city  wards,  of  which  we  had  ob- 
tained some  private  knowledge.  Apostle  Cannon  said 
that  in  such  cases  the  first  marriage  would  be  only  a 
form ;  that  the  elder  female  would  be  understood  as 
being  a  mother  to  her  husband  and  his  younger  bride ; 
on  which  I  named  my  example:  and  in  which  an  elder 
of  the  church  had  married  an  English  woman,  a  widow, 
with  a  daughter  then  of  twelve ;  in  which  the  woman 
had  ])orne  four  children  to  this  husband  ;  and  in  which 
this  husband  had  married  her  daughter  when  she  came 
of  age. 

Young  said  it  was  not  a  common  thing  at  Salt  Lake. 

"But  it  does  occur?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Young,  "  it  occurs  sometimes  ?  " 

"  On  what  ground  is  such  a  practice  justified  by  the 
church  ?  " 

After  a  short  pause,  he  said,  with  a  faint  and  wheed- 
ling smile  :  "  This  is  a  part  of  the  question  of  incest. 
We  have  no  sure  light  on  it  yet.  I  cannot  tell  you 
what  the  church  holds  to  be  the  actual  truth ;  I  can 
tell  you  my  own  opinion ;  but  you  must  not  publish 
it  —  you  must  not  tell  it  —  lest  I  should  be  misunder- 
stood and  blamed."  He  then  made  to  us  a  commu- 
nication on  the  nature  of  incest,  as  he  thinks  of  this 
oflfence  and  judges  it ;  but  what  he  then  said  I  am  not 
at  liberty  to  print. 

As  to  the  facts  which  came  under  my  own  eyes,  I 
am  free  to  speak.  Incest,  in  the  sense  in  which  we 
use  the  word, —  marriage  within  the  prohibited  de- 
grees,—  is  not  regarded  as  a  crime  in  the  Mormon 


216  ^^W  AMEBIC  A. 

church.  It  is  known  th<at  in  some  of  these  saintly 
harems,  the  female  occupants  stand  to  their  lords  in 
closer  relationship  of  blood  than  the  American  law- 
permits.  It  is  a  daily  event  in  Salt  Lake  City  for  a 
man  to  wed  two  sisters,  a  brother's  widow,  and  even 
a  mother  and  daughter.  A  saint  named  Wall  has 
married  his  half-sister,  pleading  the  example  of  Sarai 
and  Abraham,  which  Young,  after  some  consideration, 
allowed  to  be  a  precedent  for  his  flock.  In  one  house- 
hold in  Utah  may  be  seen  the  spectacle  of  three  women, 
who  stand  towards  each  other  in  the  relation  of  child, 
mother,  and  grand-dame,  living  in  one  man's  harem  as 
his  wives !  I  asked  the  President,  whether,  with  his 
new  lights  on  the  virtue  of  breeding  in  and  in,  he  saw 
any  objection  to  the  marriage  of  brother  and  sister. 
Speaking  for  himself,  not  for  the  church,  he  said  he 
saw  none  at  all.  What  follows  I  give  in  the  actual 
words  of  the  speakers  :  — 

D.  "  Does  that  sort  of  marriage  ever  take  place  ?  " 

Young.  "Never." 

D.  "  Is  it  prohibited  by  the  church  ?  " 

Young.  "  i^o  ;  it  is  prohibited  by  prejudice." 

Kimball.  "Public  opinion  won't  allow  it." 

Young.  "  I  would  not  do  it  myself,  nor  sufier  any 
one  else,  when  I  could  help  it." 

D.  "  Then  you  don't  prohibit,  and  you  don't  practise 
it?" 

Young.  "My  prejudices  prevent  me." 

This  remnant  of  an  old  feeling  brought  from  the 
Gentile  world,  and  this  alone,  would  seem  to  prevent 
the  Saints  from  rushing  into  the  higher  forms  of  incest. 
How  long  will  these  Gentile  sentiments  remain  in 
force  ? 

"  You  will  find  here,"  said  Elder  Stenhouse  to  pie, 
talking  on  another  subject,  "  polygamists  of  the  third 


THE  DOC  TRINE  OF  PL  URALITIES.       217 

generation;  when  these  hoys  and  girls  grow  uj),  and 
marry,  you  will  have  in  these  valleys  the  true  feeling 
of  patriarchal  life.  The  old  world  is  about  us  yet ; 
and  we  are  always  thinking  of  what  people  may  say  in 
the  Scottish  hills  and  the  Midland  shires." 

A  revival  of  polygamy,  which  would  have  been  sin- 
gular in  either  Persia  or  Afghanistan,  sprang  up  slowly, 
and  by  a  sort  of  secret  growth.  It  began  with  Rigdon 
and  his  theory  of  the  spiritual  wife,  which  he  is  said 
to  have  borrowed  from  the  Vermont  Methodists.  At 
first,  this  theory  was  no  more  than  a  mystical  spec- 
ulation; having  reference,  less  to  the  world  and  its 
duties,  than  to  heaven  and  its  thrones.  We  know  that 
it  was  preached  by  Rigdon,  that  it  was  denounced  by 
Joseph,  that  it  crept  into  favor  with  the  elders,  that  it 
gave  rise  to  much  scandal  in  the  Church,  and  that  it 
was  finally  superseded  by  a  more  practical  and  useful 
cree^l. 

The  spirit  evoked  by  that  fanatic  in  the  infant  church 
could  not  be  laid  ;  sealing  women  went  on  ;  the  first 
in  the  new  Prophet's  household,  afterwards  in  the 
harems  of  Kimball,  Pratt,  and  Hyde ,  whose  mar- 
riages, only  half  secret,  put  an  end  to  the  mystical 
restraints  involved  in  the  theory  of  spiritual  husbands 
and  spiritual  wives.  They  were  polygamous,  but  po- 
lygamous without  disguise.  Years  afterwards,  Young 
produced  a  paper,  which  he  said  was  a  true  copy  of  a 
revelation  made  to  Joseph  at  Nauvoo,  commanding 
him,  after  the  manner  of  Abraham,  of  Jacob,  and  of 
David,  to  receive  into  his  bosom  as  many  wives  as 
should  be  given  unto  him  of  God.  This  paper  was 
not  in  Joseph's  handwriting,  nor  in  that  of  Emma,  his 
wife.  Young  declares  that  it  was  written  down  from 
the  Prophet's  lips  by  a  male  disciple ;  adding,  with  a 
true  touch  of  nature,  that  when  Emma  had  first  heard 

19 


218  NEW  AMERICA. 

it  read,  she  had  seized  the  paper  and  flung  it  on  the 
fire. 

Young  tells  me  that  he  was  himself  opposed  to  the 
doctrine,  and  that  he  preached  against  it,  foreseeing 
what  trouble  it  would  bring  upon  the  Church.  He 
says  that  he  shed  many  bitter  tears  over  the  sacred 
writing ;  and  that  only  on  his  being  convinced  by 
Joseph  that  the  command  to  marry  more  wives  was  a 
true  revelation,  he  submitted  his  prejudices  and  his 
passions  to  the  will  of  God.  He  is  very  emphatic  on 
this  point.  "  Without  this  revelation  on  polygamy," 
he  said  to  us,  "we  should  have  lived  our  religious  life, 
but  not  so  perfectly  as  we  do  now.  God  directed  men, 
through  Joseph,  to  take  more  wives.  This  is  what 
we  most  firmly  believe."  As  he  spoke,  he  appealed 
to  the  apostles  who  were  sitting  round  us,  every  one 
of  whom  bowed  and  acquiesced  in  these  words. 

For  years,  the  Saints  admit  that  nothing  had  come 
of  this  revelation ;  that  was  kept  a  secret  from  the 
world ;  two  things  having  to  be  seen  before  such  a 
dogma  could  be  openly  proclaimed  in  the  Church ; 
(first)  how  it  would  be  received  by  the  great  masses 
of  the  Saints  at  home  and  abroad ;  and  (second)  how 
it  would  be  regarded  b}^  the  American  courts  of  law. 
To  ascertain  how  it  would  be  welcomed  by  the  Saints, 
sermons  were  preached  and  poetry  was  composed. 
Female  missionaries  called  on  the  people  to  repent  of 
their  sins,  and  to  return  to  the  principles  of  patriarchal 
life.  Every  Sarai  was  encouraged  to  bring  forth  her 
Hagar.  A  religious  glow  ran  through  the  Mormon 
Society,  and  the  whole  body  of  Saints  declared  for 
publishing  the  command  from  God  to  Joseph  in  favor 
of  taking  to  his  bosom  a  plurality  of  wives. 

Two  thousand  elders  came  together  in  the  New 
Jerusalem,  and  after  hearing  a  discourse  from  Orson 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  PLURALITIES.        219 

Pratt,"  and  a  speech  from  Brio;ham  Young,  they  re- 
ceived and  adopted  the  revehition,  (August  29,1852); 
a  remarkable  date  in  the  history  of  their  church,  one 
of  the  saddest  epochs  in  that  of  the  Saxon  race. 

Nearly  all  those  elders  were  of  English  blood;  a 
few  only  were  Germans,  Gauls,  and  Danes ;  nineteen 
in  every  twenty,  at  least,  were  either  English  or 
American  born.  That  day  the  red  men  and  the  white 
men  made  with  each  other  an  unwritten  covenant,  for 
the  Shoshone  had  at  length  found  a  brother  in  the 
Pale-face,  and  the  Pawnee  saw  the  morals  of  his 
wigwam  carried  into  the  Saxon's  ranch. 

But  the  new  dogma  from  Heaven  was  announced 
by  Young  as  a  special  and  personal,  rather  than  a 
common  and  indiscriminate,  property  of  the  Saints. 
The  power  to  take  many  wives  was  given  to  them  as 
a  grace,  not  as  a  right.  Plurality  was  permitted  to  a 
few,  not  enjoined  upon  the  many.  In  the  eyes  of 
Young,  it  was  regarded,  not  as  a  privilege  of  the 
earth,  but  as  a  gift  of  heaven ;  a  peculiar  blessing 
from  the  Father  to  some  of  His  most  ftivored  sons. 

The  Prophet  seem-s  to  have  noted  from  the  first, 
that  in  this  passionate  and  robust  society,  full  of  young 
life  and  young  ideas,  his  power  of  giving  women 
to  his  elders  and  apostles  would  be  of  higher  moment 
to  him,  as  a  governing  force,  than  even  his  power 
of  blessing  the  earth  and  unlocking  the  gates  of 
heaven.  Such  an  authority  has  made  him  the  master 
of  every  house  in  Utah.  No  Pope,  no  Caliph,  no 
Gosain,  ever  exercised  this  power  of  gratifying  every 
heart  that  lusted  after  beauty ;  but  when  it  came  into 
Young's  hands,  through  the  march  of  ideas  ar.d 
events,  he  held  it  in  his  grip,  as  a  faculty  inseparable 
from  his  person  and  his  rank.  A  saint  may  wed  one 
woman  without  seeking  leave  from  his  Prophet ;  that 


220  NEW  AMERICA. 

privilege  may  be  considered  one  of  his  rights  as 
a  man ;  but  beyond  this  limit  he  can  never  go,  except 
by  permission  of  his  spiritual  chief.  In  every  case  of 
taking  a  second  wife,  a  special  warrant  is  required 
from  heaven,  which  Young  alone  has  the  right  to  ask. 
If  Young  says  yea,  the  marriage  may  take  place ;  if 
he  says  nay,  there  is  no  appeal  from  his  spoken  word. 
In  the  Mormon  church  polygamy  is  not  a  right  of 
man,  but  a  gift  of  Grod. 


CHAPTER  XXX. 

THE    GREAT    SCHISM. 

This  dogma  of  a  plurality  of  wives  has  not  come 
into  the  church  without  Herce  disputes  and  a  violent 
schism. 

George  A.  Smith,  cousin  of  Joseph,  and  Historian 
of  the  Mormon  Church,  tells  me  from  the  papers 
in  his  office,  that  about  five  hundred  bishops  and 
elders  live  in  polygamy  in  the  Salt  Lake  valleys; 
these  five  hundred  elders  having,  as  he  believes,  on 
the  average,  about  four  wives  each,  and  probably 
fifteen  children  ;  so  that  this  very  jieculiar  institution 
has  come,  in  fourteen  years,  to  aiiect  the  lives  and 
fortunes,  more  or  less,  of  ten  thousand  persons.  This 
number,  large  though  it  seems,  is  but  a  twentieth  part 
of  the  following  claimed  by  Young.  Assuming,  then, 
that  these  five  hundred  pluralists  are  all  of  the  same 
opinion; — in  the  first  place,  as  to  the  divine  will 
having    been    truly   manifested    to  Joseph ;    in    the 


THE  GREAT  SCHISM.  221 

Beooiul  place,  as  to  that  manifestation  havine^  l)eGn 
faithfully  recorded ;  and  in  the  third  place,  as  to  that 
record  having  been  loyally  preserved, — there  must 
still  be  room  for  a  very  large  diiference  of  opinion. 
The  great  body  of  male  Saints  must  always  be  content 
with  a  single  wife;  Young  himself  admits  so  much. 
Only  the  rich,  the  steadfast,  the  complaisant,  can  be 
indulged  in  the  luxury  of  a  harem  even  now,  when 
the  thing  is  fresh  and  the  number  of  female  converts 
is  large  enough  to  supply  the  want.  As  nature  itself 
is  fighting  against  this  dogma,  the  humble  Saint  cainiot 
hope  to  enjoy  in  the  future  any  of  the  advantages 
which  he  is  now  denied.  Many,  even  among  the 
wealthy,  hesitate,  like  Captain  Hooper,  to  commit 
themselves  forever  to  a  doubtful  rule  of  family  order, 
and  to  a  certain  collision  with  the  United  States. 
Some  protest  in  words,  and  some  recede  from  the 
Church,  without,  however,  renouncing  the  autliority 
of  Joseph  Smith. 

The  existence  of  a  second  Mormon  Church  —  of  a 
great  schismatic  body,  is  not  denied  by  Young,  who 
of  course  considers  it  the  devil's  work.  Vast  bodies 
of  the  Saints  have  left  the  Church  on  account  of 
polygamy  ;  twenty  thousand,  I  am  told,  have  done  so, 
in  California  alone.  Many  of  these  non-pluralist 
Saints  exist  in  Missouri  and  in  Illinois.  Even  among 
those  who  fondly  cling  to  their  Church  at  Salt  Lake 
City,  it  is  apparent  to  me  that  nineteen  in  twenty  have 
no  interest,  and  not  much  faith,  in  polygamy.  The 
belief  that  their  founder  Joseph  never  lived  in  this 
objectionable  state  is  widely  spread. 

Prophets,  bishops,  elders,  all  the  great  leaders  of 
the  faith,  assert  that  for  months  before  his  death  at 
Carthage,  the  founder  of  Mormonism  had  indulged 
himself  though  in  secret,  with  a  household  of  many 

19* 


222  NEW  AMERICA. 

wives.  Of  course  thej-  do  not  call  his  sealing  to  him- 
self these  women  an  indulgence ;  they  say  he  took  to 
himself  such  females  only  as  were  given  to  him  of 
God.  But  they  claim  him  as  a  pluralist.  Now,  if 
this  assertion  could  he  proved,  the  trouble  would  be 
ended,  since  anything  that  Joseph  practised  would  be 
held  a  virtue,  a  necessity,  by  his  flock.  On  the  other 
side,  a  pluralist  clergy  is  bound  to  maintain  the  truth 
of  this  hypothesis.  For  if  Joseph  were  not  a  polyga- 
mist,  he  could  hardly,  they  would  reason,  have  been  a 
faithful  Mormon  and  a  saint  of  God ;  since  it  is  the 
present  belief  of  their  body  that  a  man  with  only  one 
wife  will  become  a  bachelor  angel,  a  mere  messenger 
and  servant  to  the  patriarchal  gods.  So,  without  pro- 
ducing much  evidence  of  the  fact,  the  elders  have 
stoutly  asserted  that  Joseph  had  secretly  taken  to  him- 
self a  multitude  of  women,  three  or  four  of  whom 
they  point  out  to  you,  as  still  living  at  Salt  Lake  in 
the  family  of  Brigham  Young. 

Still,  no  proof  has  ever  yet  been  adduced  to  show 
that  Joseph  either  lived  as  a  polygamist  or  dictated 
the  revelation  in  favor  of  a  plurality  of  wives.  That 
he  did  not  openly  live  with  more  than  one  woman  is 
admitted  by  all  —  or  by  nearly  all;  and  so  far  as  his 
early  and  undoubted  writings  are  concerned,  nothing 
can  be  clearer  than  that  his  feelings  were  opposed  to 
the  doctrines  and  practices  which  have  since  his  death 
become  the  high  notes  of  his  church.  In  the  Book  of 
Mormon  he  makes  God*  Himself  say  that  He  delights 
in  the  chastity  of  women,  and  that  the  harems  of 
David  and  Solomon  are  abominations  in  His  sight. 
Elder  Godbe,  to  whom  I  pointed  out  this  passage, 
informed  me  that  the  bishops  explain  away  this  view 
of  polygamy,  as  being  uttered  by  God  at  a  time  when 
He  was  angry  with  His  people,  on  account  of  their 


THE  GREAT  SCHISM.  223 

sins,  and  as  not  expressing  His  permanent  will  on  the 
subject  of  a  holy  life. 

The  question  of  fact  is  open  like  the  question  of  infer- 
ence. Joseph,  it  is  well  known,  set  his  face  against 
Rigdon's  theory  of  the  spiritual  wife;  and  it  is  equally 
well  known  that  he  neither  published  the  revelations 
which  bear  his  name,  nor  spoke  of  such  a  document  as 
being  in  his  hands. 

Emma,  Joseph's  wife  and  secretary,  the  partner  of 
all  his  toils,  of  all  his  glories,  coolly,  firmly,  perma- 
nently denies  that  her  husband  ever  had  any  other 
wife  than  herself.  She  declares  the  story  to  be  false, 
the  revelation  a  fraud.  She  denounces  polygamy  as 
the  invention  of  Toung  and  Pratt — a  work  of  the 
devil  —  brought  in  by  them  for  the  destruction  of  God's 
new  church.  On  account  of  this  doctrine,  she  has 
separated  herself  from  the  Saints  of  Utah,  and  has 
taken  up  her  dwelling  with  what  she  calls  a  remnant 
of  the  true  church  at  Nauvoo. 

The  four  sons  of  Joseph  —  Joseph,  William,  Alex- 
ander, David  —  all  deny  and  denounce  what  they  call 
Young's  imposture  of  plurality.  These  sons  of  Joseph 
are  now  grown  men ;  and  their  personal  interests  are 
so  clearly  identified  with  the  success  of  their  father's 
church,  to  the  members  of  which  their  fellowship 
would  be  precious,  that  nothing  less  than  a  personal 
conviction  of  the  truth  of  what  the}'  say  can  be  hon- 
estly considered  as  having  turned  them  against  Brig- 
ham  Young. 

As  it  is,  these  sons  of  the  original  seer  have  formed 
a  great  schism  in  the  church.  Under  the  name  of 
Josephites,  a  band  of  Mormons  are  now- gathering 
round  these  sons  of  the  prophet,  strong  enough  to 
beard  the  lion  in  his  den.  Alexander  Smith  has  been 
at  Salt  Lake  while  I  have  been  here,  and  has  been 


224  NEW  AMEBIC  A. 

suffered  to  preach  against  polygamy  in  Independence 
Hall. 

Young  appears  to  me  very  sore  on  account  of  these 
3^oung  men,  whom  he  Avould  gladly  receive  into  his 
family,  and  adopt  as  his  sons,  if  they  would  only  let 
him.  David  he  regards  with  a  peculiar  grace  and 
favor.  "Before  that  child  was  born,"  he  said  to  me 
one  day,  when  the  conversation  turned  on  these  young 
men,  "  Joseph  told  me  that  he  would  be  a  son ;  that 
his  name  must  be  David ;  that  he  would  grow  up  to 
be  the  guide  and  ruler  of  this  church."  I  asked 
Young  whether  he  thought  this  prophecy  would  come 
to  pass.  "Yea,"  he  answered;  "in  the  Lord's  own 
time,  David  will  be  called  to  this  work."  I  asked  him 
whether  David  was  not  just  now  considered  to  be  out 
of  the  church. 

"He  will  be  called  and  reconciled,"  said  Young, 
"the  moment  he  feels  a  desire  to  be  led  aright." 

This  schism  on  account  of  polygamy  —  led,  as  it  is, 
by  the  Prophet's  widow  and  her  sons  —  is  a  serious 
fact  for  the  church,  even  in  the  judgment  of  those 
bishops  and  elders  who  in  minor  affairs  would  seem 
to  take  no  heed  for  the  morrow.  Young  is  alive  to  it; 
for  in  reading  the  Chicago  platform,  he  can  see  how 
easily  the  Gentile  world  might  reconcile  itself  to  the 
Prophet's  sons  in  Nauvoo,  while  waging  war  upon 
himself  and  the  supporters  of  polygamy  in  Utah. 

The  chief — almost  the  sole  —  evidence  that  we  have 
found  in  Salt  Lake  City  in  favor  of  Joseph  having  had 
several  wives  in  the  flesh  is  an  assertion  made  by 
Young. 

I  was  pointing  out  to  him  the  loss  of  moral  force 
to  which  his  people  must  be  always  subject  while  the 
testimon}'  on  that  cardinal  point  of  practice  is  incom- 
plete.    K  Joseph  were  sealed  to  many  women,  there 


THE  GREAT  SCHISM.  225 

must  be  records,  witnesses,  of  the  fact;  where  are  those 
records  and  those  witnesses? 

"I,"  said  Young,  vehemently,  "am  the  witness. 
I  myself  sealed  dozens  of  women  to  Joseph." 

I  asked  him  whether  Emma  was  aware  of  it.  He 
said  he  guessed  she  was ;  but  he  could  not  say.  In 
answer  to  another  question,  he  admitted  that  Joseph 
had  no  issue  by  any  of  these  wives  who  were  sealed  to 
him  in  dozens. 

From  two  other  sources  we  have  obtained  particles 
of  evidence  confirming  Young's  assertion.  Two  wit- 
nesses, living  far  apart,  unknown  to  each  other,  have 
told  us  they  were  intimate  with  women  who  assert 
that  they  had  been  sealed  to  Joseph  at  Nauvoo.  Young 
assures  me  that  several  old  ladies,  now  living  under 
his  roof,  are  widows  of  Joseph;  and  that  all  the  apos- 
tles know  them,  and  reverence  them  as  such.  Three 
of  these  ladies  I  have  seen  in  the  Tabernacle.  I  have 
learned  that  some  of  these  women  have  borne  children 
to  the  second  Prophet,  though  they  bore  none  to  the 
first. 

My  own  impression  {after  testing  all  the  evidence  to 
be  gathered  from  friend  and  foe)  is,  that  these  old 
ladies,  though  they  may  have  been  sealed  to  Joseph 
for  eternity,  were  not  his  wives  in  the  sense  in  which 
Emma,  like  the  rest  of  women,  would  use  the  word 
wife.  I  think  they  were  his  spiritual  queens  and  com- 
panions, chosen  after  the  method  of  the  Wesleyan 
Perfectionists;  with  a  view,  not  to  pleasures  of  the 
flesh,  but  to  the  glories  of  another  world.  Young 
may  be  technically  right  in  the  dispute;  but  the  Pro- 
phet's sons  are,  in  my  opinion,  legally  and  morally  in 
the  right.  It  is  my  firm  conviction,  that  if  the  practice 
of  plurality  should  become  a  permanent  conquest  of 
this  American  church,  the  Saints  will  not  owe  it  to 
Joseph  Smith,  but  to  Brigham  Young. 


226  NEW  AMERICA. 

CHAPTER  XXXI. 

SEALING. 

Much  confusion  comes  upon  us  from  the  use  of  this 
word  sealing  in  the  English  sense  of  marriage.  Seal- 
ing may  mean  marriage;  it  may  also  mean  something 
else.  A  woman  can  be  sealed  to  a  man  without  be- 
coming his  wife,  as  we  have  found  in  the  case  of  Jo- 
seph's supposed  widows ;  also  in  the  instance  of  Eliza 
Snow,  the  poetess,  who,  in  spite  of  being  sealed  to' 
Young,  is  called  Miss  Snow,  and  regarded  by  her  peo- 
ple as  a  spinster.  Consummation,  necessary  in  wed- 
lock, is  not  necessary  in  sealing.  Marriage  is  secular; 
sealing  is  both  secular  and  celestial. 

A  strange  peculiarity  which  the  Saints  have  intruded 
into  the  finer  relations  of  husband  and  wife  is  that  of 
continuity.  Their  right  of  sealing  man  and  woman 
to  each  other  may  be  for  either  time  or  eternity;  that 
is  to  say,  the  man  may  take  the  woman  as  his  wife 
either  for  this  world  only,  as  we  all  do  in  the  Christian 
church,  or  for  this  world  during  life  and  the  next 
world  after  death.  The  Ute  has  some  inkling  of  the 
ideas  on  which  these  Saints  proceed,  since  he  dreams 
that  in  the  hunting-grounds  beyond  the  sunset  he  will 
be  accompanied  by  his  faithful  dog  and  his  favorite 
squaw.  The  Mosaic  Arab,  when  the  thought  of  a  re- 
surrection dawned  upon  his  mind,  peopled  his  heaven 
with  the  men  and  women  whom  he  had  known  on 
earth,  and  among  the  rights  which  he  carried  forward 
into  the  brighter  land,  was  that  of  claiming  the  society 
of  his  mortal  wife.  The  Moslem  Arab,  though  he  has 
learned  from  a  later  poetry  to  adorn  his  paradise  with 


SEALING.  227 

angelio  houris,  still  fancies  that  a  faithful  warrior  who 
prays  for  such  a  blessing  will  be  allowed  to  associate 
in  heaven  with  the  humble  partner  of  his  cares  on 
earth.  It  is  only  in  our  higher,  holier  heaven  that 
these  human  joys  and  troubles  are  unknown,  that 
there  is  no  giving  and  taking  in  marriage,  that  the 
spirits  of  the  just  become  as  the  angels  of  God. 

Upon  the  actual  relations  of  husband  and  wife,  Ute 
and  Arab  theories  of  reunion  after  death  in  the  old 
bonds  of  wedlock  have  no  eiFect  beyond  that  of  excit- 
ing a  good  and  loving  w^oman  to  strive  with  a  ^varmer 
zeal  to  satisfy  the  affections  of  her  lord,  so  as  to  ensure 
her  place  by  his  side  in  the  celestial  wigwam,  in  a 
paradisiacal  tent.  But  among  the  Saints  of  Salt  Lake 
the  notion  of  a  marriage  for  time  l)eing  a  contract,  not 
only  different  in  duration,  but  also  in  nature,  from  the 
sealing  for  eternity,  has  led  to  very  strange  and  wholly 
practical  results.  A  Mormon  elder  preaches  the  doc- 
trine that  a  woman  who  has  been  sealed  to  one  hus- 
band for  time  may  be  sealed  to  another  for  eternity. 
This  sealing  must  be  done  on  earth,  and  it  may  be  done 
in  the  lifetime  of  her  earlier  lord.  In  some  degi-ee, 
it  is  a  gift  to  the  woman  of  a  second  choice ;  for 
among  these  Saints  the  female  enjoys  nearly  the  same 
power  of  selecting  her  celestial  bridegroom  as  the 
male  enjoys  of  selecting  his  mortal  bride. 

Of  course,  the  question  is  always  coming  forward 
as  to  what  rights  over  her  person  on  earth  this  sealing 
of  a  woman's  soul  for  eternity  confers.  May  the 
celestial  rite  be  performed  without  the  knowledge  and 
consent  of  the  husband  for  time  ?  Can  it  be  com- 
pleted without  invasion  of  his  conjugal  claims?  Is  it 
clear  that  any  man  would  suffer  his  wife  to  be  sealed 
to  another  if  he  were  told  of  the  fact,  since  an  engage- 
ment for  eternity  must  be  of  more  solemn  nature  and 


228         -  ^^^  AMERICA 

more  binding  force  than  the  minor  contract  for  time  ? 
It  is  not  probalile  that  the  intimacies  of  a  man  and 
woman  who  are  linked  to  each  other  in  the  higher 
bond  would  be  more  close  and  secret  than  the  intima- 
cies of  earth. 

Some  Saints  deny  that  it  is  a  common  thing  in  Utah 
for  a  woman  to  be  sealed  to  one  man  for  earth  and 
another  man  for  heaven.  It  may  not  be  common  ; 
but  it  occurs  in  more  than  one  family  ;  it  gives  occa- 
sion for  some  strife  ;  and  the  humbler  Saint  has  less 
protection  against  abuse  of  such  an  order  than  he 
would  like  to  enjoy.  Young  is  here  the  lord  of  all. 
If  the  Prophet  says  to  an  elder,  "Take  her,"  the 
woman  will  be  taken,  whether  for  good  or  evil.  Often, 
I  am  told,  these  second  and  superior  nuptials  are  made 
in  secret,  in  the  recesses  of  the  endowment-house,  with 
the  help  of  two  or  three  confidential  chiefs.  No  notice 
of  them  is  given  ;  it  is  doubtful  whether  any  record  of 
them  is  kept.  What  man,  then,  with  a  pretty  wife, 
can  feel  sure  that  her  virtue  will  not  be  tempted  by 
his  elders  into  forming  that  strange,  indefinite  relation 
for  another  world  with  a  husband  of  superior  rank  in 
the  church  ?  The  office  of  priest,  of  prophet,  of  seer, 
has  in  every  country  a  peculiar  charm  for  women ; 
what  curates  are  in  London,  abbes  in  Paris,  mollahs 
in  Cairo,  gosains  in  Benares,  these  elders  and  apostles 
are  in  Utah  ;  with  the  added  grace  of  a  personal  power 
to  advance  their  female  votaries  to  the  highest  of 
celestial  thrones.  Except  the  guru  of  Bombay,  no 
priest  on  earth  has  so  large  a  power  of  acting  on  every 
weakness  of  the  female  heart  as  a  Mormon  bishop  at 
Salt  Lake.  Who  shall  assure  the  humbler  Saint  that 
priests  possessing  so  much  power  in  heaven  and  on 
earth  will  never,  in  these  secret  sealings  for  eternity, 
violate  his  right,  outrage  his  honor,  as  a  married  man  ? 


SEALING.  229 

Another  familiarity,  not  less  strange,  which  the 
Mormons  have  introduced  into  these  delicate  relations 
of  husband  and  wife,  is  that  of  sealing  a  living  person 
to  the  dead. 

The  marriage  for  time  is  an  aftair  of  earth,  and  must 
be  contracted  between  a  livino^  man  and  a  livinjr 
woman  ;  but  the  marriage  for  eternity,  being  an  affair 
of  heaven,  may  be  contracted,  say  these  Saints,  with 
either  the  living  or  the  dead ;  provided  alwaj's  that  it 
be  a  real  engagement  of  the  persons,  sanctioned  by 
the  Prophet,  and  solemnized  in  the  proper  form.  In 
any  case  it  must  be  a  genuine  union  ;  a  true  marriage, 
in  the  canonical  sense,  and  according  to  the  written 
law  ;  not  a  Platonic  rite,  an  attachment  of  souls,  which 
would  bind  the  two  parties  together  in  a  mystical  bond 
only.  There  comes  the  rub.  How  can  a  woman  be 
united  in  this  carnal  conjunction  to  a  man  in  his  grave? 
By  the  machinery  of  substitution,  say  the  Saints. 

Substitution  !  Can  there  be  such  a  thing  in  marriage 
as  either  one  man,  or  one  woman,  standing  in  the 
place  of  another?  Young  has  declared  it.  The 
Hebrews  had  a  glimmering  sense  of  some  such  dogma, 
wheji  they  bade  the  younger  brother  perform  a 
brother's  part ;  and  are  not  all  the  Saints  one  family 
in  the  sight  of  God  ?  Among  the  Hebrews,  this  rule 
of  taking  a  brother's  widow  to  wife  was  an  exception 
to  general  laws ;  and  in  the  Arab  legislation  of 
Mohammed,  it  was  put  away  as  a  remnant  of  polyandry, 
a  thing  abominable  and  unclean.  !N"o  settled  people 
has  ever  gone  back  to  that  rule  of  a  pastoral  tribe. 
But  Young,  who  has  no  fear  of  science,  deals  in  auda- 
cious originality  with  this  and  with  every  other  ques- 
tion of  female  right.  A  woman  may  choose  her  own 
bridegroom  of  the  skies,  but,  like  the  man  who  would 
take  a  second  wife,  the  woman  who  desires  to  marry 

20 


230  ^EW  AMERICA. 

a  dead  husband,  can  do  it  in  no  other  way  than  on 
Young's  intercession  and  by  his  consent.  Say,  that  a 
girl  of  erratic  fancy  takes  into  her  head  the  notion 
that  she  would  like  to  become  one  of  the  heavenly 
queens  of  a  departed  saint;  nothing  easier,  should  her 
freak  of  imagination  jump  with  the  Prophet's  humor. 
Young  is  her  only  judge,  his  yea  or  nay  her  measure 
of  right  and  wrong.  By  a  religious  act,  he  can  seal 
her  to  the  dead  man,  whom  she  has  chosen  to  be  her 
own  lord  and  king  in  heaven ;  by  the  same  act  he  can 
give  her  a  substitute  on  earth  from  among  his  elders 
and  apostles  ;  should  her  beauty  tempt  his  eye,  he  may 
accept  for  himself  the  office  of  proxy  for  her  departed 
saint. 

In  the  Tabernacle  I  have  been  shown  two  ladies  who 
are  sealed  to  Young  by  proxy  as  the  wives  of  Joseph ; 
the  Prophet  himself  tells  me  there  are  many  more ; 
and  of  these  two  I  can  testify  that  their  relations  to 
him  are  the  same  as  those  of  any  other  mortal  wives. 
They  are  the  mothers  of  children  who  bear  his  name. 
Two  of  the  young  ladies  whom  we  saw  on  the  stage, 
Bister  Zina  and  Sister  Emily,  are  daughters  of  women 
who  profess  to  be  Joseph's  widows.  About  the  story 
of  all  these  ladies  there  is  an  atmosphere  of  doubt,  of 
mystery,  which  we  can  hardly  pierce.  Two  of  them 
live  under  Brigham's  roof;  a  third  lives  in  a  cottage 
before  his  gate ;  a  fourth  is  said  to  live  with  her  daugh- 
ter at  Cotton  Wood  Canyon. 

My  own  impression  is,  that  while  some  of  the  old 
ladies  may  have  been  sealed  to  the  Prophet  as  his 
spiritual  wives  onl}',  these  younger  women  elected 
him  to  be  their  lord  and  king  years  after  his  death. 

Joseph  is  the  favorite  bridegroom  of  the  skies.  Per- 
haps it  is  in  nature,  that  if  women  are  allowed  to 
choose  their  spouses,  they  should  select  the  occupants 


SEALING.  231 

of  thrones;  certain  it  is  that  many  Mormon  ladies 
yearn  towards  the  hosom  of  Joseph,  not  poetically, 
as  their  Christian  sisters  speak  of  lying  in  the  bosom 
of  Abraham,  but  potentially,  as  the  Hindoo  votary  of 
Krishna  languishes  for  her  darling  god.  Young,  it  is 
said,  keeps  all  such  converts  to  himself;  the  dead 
Prophet's  dignity  being  so  high  that  none  save  his 
successor  in  the  temple  is  considered  worthy  to  be  his 
substitute  in  the  harem.  Beauties  whom  Joseph 
never  saw  in  the  flesh,  who  were  infants  and  Gentiles 
when  the  riots  of  Carthage  took  place,  are  now  sealed 
to  him  for  eternity,  and  are  bearing  children  in  his 
name. 

Except  the  yearning  of  Hindoo  women  towards  their 
darling  idol,  there  is  perhaps  no  madness  of  the  earth 
80  strange  as  this  erotic  passion  of  the  female  Saints 
for  the  dead.  A  lady  of  New  York  was  smitten  by 
an  uncontrollable  desire  to  become  a  wife  to  the  mur- 
dered Prophet.  She  made  her  way  to  Salt  Lake, 
threw  herself  at  Brigham's  feet,  and  prayed  with  gen- 
uine fervor  to  be  sealed  to  him  in  Joseph's  name. 
Young  did  not  want  her;  his  harem  was  full;  his 
time  was  occupied:  he  put  her  ofi' with  words;  he  sent 
her  away ;  but  the  ardor  of  her  passion  was  too  hot, 
to  damp,  too  strong  to  stem-  She  took  him  by  assault, 
and  he  at  length  gave  way  ;  after  sealing  her  to  Joseph 
for  eternity,  he  accepted  towards  her  the  office  of  sub- 
stitute in  time,  and  carried  her  to  his  house. 

On  the  other  side,  the  Mormons  affect  to  have  such 
power  over  spirits  as  to  be  able  to  seal  the  dead  to  the 
living.  Elder  Stenhouse  tells  me  that  he  has  one  dead 
wife,  who  was  sealed  to  him,  by  her  own  entreaty, 
after  her  death.  He  had  known  this  young  lady  very 
well ;  he  describes  her  as  beautiful  and  charming ;  she 
had  captivated  his  fancy ;  and  in  due  time,  had  she 


232  NEW  AMERICA. 

lived,  he  might  have  proposed  to  make  her  his  wife. 
"While  he  was  absent  from  Salt  Lake  City  on  a  mis- 
sion, she  fell  sick  and  died;  on  her  death-bed  she  ex- 
pressed an  ardent  wish  to  be  sealed  to  him  for  eternity, 
that  she  might  share  the  glories  of  his  celestial  throne. 
Young  made  no  objection  to  her  suit;  and  on  Sten- 
house's  return  from  Europe  to  Salt  Lake  the  rite  was 
performed,  in  the  presence  of  Brigham  and  others,  his 
first  wife  standing  proxy  for  the  dead  girl,  both  at  the 
altar  and  afterwards.  He  counts  the  lost  beauty  as 
one  of  his  wives ;  believing  that  she  will  reign  with 
him  in  heaven. 


CHAPTER  XXXH. 

WOMAN    AT    SALT    LAKE. 

And  what,  as  regards  the  woman  herself,  is  the 
visible  issue  of  this  strange  experiment  in  social  and 
family  life? 

During  our  fifteen  days'  residence  among  the  Saints, 
we  have  had  as  many  opportunities  afibrded  us  for 
forming  a  judgment  on  this  question  as  has  ever  been 
given  to  Gentile  travellers.  We  have  seen  the  Presi- 
dent and  some  of  the  apostles  daily ;  we  have  been 
received  into  many  Mormon  houses,  and  introduced 
to  nearly  all  the  leading  Saints;  we  have  dined  at  their 
tables;  we  have  chatted  with  their  wives;  we  have 
romped  and  played  with  their  children.  The  feelings 
which  we  have  gained  as  to  the  effect  of  Mormon  life 
on  the  character  and  position  of  woman,  are  the 
growth  of  care,  of  study,  and  experience;   and  our 


W03IA N  AT  SALT  LAKE.  233 

friends  at  Salt  Lake,  we  hope,  while  they  will  differ 
from  our  views,  will  not  refuse  to  credit  us  with  can- 
dor and  good  faith. 

If  you  listen  to  the  elders  only,  you  would  fancy 
that  the  idea  of  a  plurality  of  wives  excites  in  the 
female  breast  the  wildest  fanaticism.  They  tell  you 
that  a  Mormon  preacher,  dwelling  on  the  examples  of 
Sarai  and  of  Rachel,  finds  his  most  willing  listeners 
on  the  female  benches.  They  say  that  a  ladies'  club 
was  formed  at  Nauvoo  to  foster  polygamy,  and  to 
make  it  the  fashion  ;  that  mothers  preach  it  to  their 
daughters  ;  that  poetesses  praise  it.  They  ask  you  to 
believe  that  the  first  wife,  being  head  of  the  harem, 
takes  upon  herself  to  seek  out  and  court  he  prettiest 
girls ;  only  too  proud  and  happy  when  she  can  bring 
a  new  Hagar,  a  new  Billah  to  her  husband's  arms. 

This  male  version  of  the  facts  is  certainly  supported 
by  such  female  writers  as  Belinda  Pratt. 

In  my  opinion,  Mormonism  is  not  a  religion  for 
woman.  I  will  not  say  that  it  degrades  her,  for  the 
term  degradation  is  open  to  abuse ;  but  it  certainly 
lowers  her,  according  to  our  Gentile  ideas,  in  the 
social  scale.  In  fact,  woman  is  not  in  society  here  at 
all.  The  long  blank  walls,  the  .embowered  cottages, 
the  empty  windows,  doorways,  and  verandas,  all  sug- 
gest to  an  English  eye  something  of  the  jealousy,  the 
seclusion,  the  subordination  of  a  Moslem  harem,  rather 
than  the  gayety  and  freedom  of  a  Christian  home. 
Men  rarely  see  each  other  at  home,  still  more  rarely 
in  the  company  of  their  wives.  Seclusion  seems  to  be 
a  fashion  wherever  polygamy  is  the  law.  ISTow,  by 
itself,  and  apart  from  all  doctrines  and  moralities,  the 
habit  of  secluding  women  from  society  must  tend  to 
dim  their  sight  and  dull  their  hearing ;  for  if  conver- 
sation quickens  men,  it  still  more  quickens  women ; 

20* 


234  NEW  A  ME  BIG  A. 

and  we  can  roundly  say,  after  experience  in  many 
households  at  Salt  Lake,  that  these  Mormon  ladies 
have  lost  the  practice  and  the  power  of  taking  part 
even  in  such  light  talk  as  animates  a  dinner-table  and 
a  drawing-room.  We  have  met  with  only  one  excep- 
tion to  this  rule,  that  of  a  lady  who  had  been  upon  the 
stage.  In  some  houses,  the  wives  of  our  hosts,  with 
babies  in  their  arm's,  ran  about  the  rooms,  fetching  in 
champagne,  drawing  corks,  carrying  cake  and  fruit, 
lighting  matches,  iceing  water,  while  the  men  were 
lolling  in  chairs,  putting  their  feet  out  of  window, 
smoking  cigars,  and  tossing  off  beakers  of  wine. 
(N.  B. — Abstinence  from  wine  and  tobacco  is  recom- 
mended by  Young  and  taught  in  the  Mormon  schools; 
but  we  found  cigars  in  many  houses,  and  wine  in  all 
except  in  the  hotels !)  The  ladies,  as  a  rule,  are  plainly, 
not  to  say  poorly,  dressed ;  with  no  bright  colors,  no 
gay  flounces  and  furbelows.  They  are  very  quiet  and 
subdued  in  manner,  with  what  appeared  to  us  an  un- 
natural calm;  as  if  all  dash,  all  sportiveuess,  all  life, 
had  been  preached  out  of  them.  They  seldom  smiled, 
except  with  a  wa£i  and  wearied  look ;  and  though  they 
are  all  of  English  race,  we  have  never  heard  them 
laugh  with  the  bright  merriment  of  our  English  girls. 
They  know  very  little,  and  feel  an  interest  in  very 
few  things.  I  assume  that  they  are  all  great  at 
nursing,  and  I  know  that  many  of  them  are  clever  at 
drying  and  preserving  fruit.  But  they  are  habitually 
shy  and  reserved,  as  though  they  were  afraid  lest  your 
bold  opinion  on  a  sunset,  on  a  watercourse,  or  a 
mountain-range,  should  be  considered  by  their  lords 
as  a  dangerous  intrusion  on  the  sanctities  of  domestic 
life.  While  you  are  in  the  house,  they  are  brought 
into  the  public  room  as  children  are  with  us ;  they 
come  in  for  a  moment,  curtsy  and  shake  hands;   then 


WOMAN  AT  SALT  LAKE.  235 

drop  out  again,  as  though  they  felt  themselves  in 
company  rather  out  of  place.  I  have  never  seen  this 
sort  of  shyness  among  grown  women,  except  in  a 
Syrian  tent.  Anything  like  the  ease  and  bearing  of 
an  English  lady  is  not  to  be  found  in  Salt  Lake,  even 
among  the  households  of  the  rich.  Here,  no  woman 
reigns.  Here,  no  woman  hints  by  her  manner  that 
she  is  mistress  of  her  own  house.  She  does  not 
always  sit  at  table ;  and  when  she  occupies  a  place 
beside  her  lord,  it  is  not  at  the  head,  but  on  one  of 
the  lower  seats.  In  fact,  her  life  does  not  seem  to  lie 
in  the  parlor  and  the  dining-room,  so  much  as  in  the 
nursery,  the  kitchen,  the  laundry,  and  the  fruit-shed. 

The  grace,  the  play,  the  freedom  of  a  young  English 
lady,  are  quite  unknown  to  her  Mormon  sister.  Only 
when  the  subject  of  a  plurality  of  wives  has  been 
under  consideration  between  host  and  guest,  have  I 
ever  seen  a  Mormon  lady's  face  grow  bright,  and  then 
it  was  to  look  a  sentiment,  to  hint  an  opinion,  the 
reverse  of  those  maintained  by  Belinda  Pratt. 

I  am  convinced  that  the  practice  of  marrying  a 
plurality  of  wives  is  not  popular  with  the  female 
Saints.  Besides  what  I  have  seen  and  heard  from 
Mormon  wives,  themselves  living  in  polygamous 
families,  I  have  talked,  alone  and  freely,  with  eight  or 
nine  difl'erent  girls,  all  of  whom  have  lived  at  Salt 
Lake  for  two  or  three  years.  They  are  undoubted 
Mormons,  who  have  made  many  sacrifices  for  their 
religion ;  but  after  seeing  the  family  life  of  their 
fellow-Saints,  they  have  one  and  all  become  firmly 
hostile  to  polygamy.  Two  or  three  of  these  girls  are 
pretty,  and  might  have  been  married  in  a  month. 
They  have  been  courted  very  much,  and  one  of  them 
has  received  no  less  than  seven  offers.  Some  of  her 
lovers   are  old  and  rich,  some  young  and  poor,  with 


236  ^^W  AiMEHICA. 

their  fortunes  still  to  seek.  The  old  fellows  have 
alread}-  got  their  houses  full  of  wives,  and  she  will  not 
fall  into  the  train  as  either  a  fifth  or  a  fifteenth  spouse  ; 
the  young  men  being  true  Saints,  will  not  promise  to 
confine  themselves  for  ever  to  their  earliest  vows,  and 
so  she  refuses  to  wed  any  of  them.  All  these  girls 
prefer  to  remain  single,  —  to  live  a  life  of  labor  and 
dependence  —  as  servants,  chambermaids,  milliners, 
charwomen,  —  to  a  life  of  comparative  ease  and  leisure 
in  the  harem  of  a  Mormon  bishop.    • 

It  is  a  common  belief,  gathered  in  a  great  measure 
from  the  famous  letter  on  plurality  by  Belinda  Pratt, 
that  the  Mormon  Sarai  is  willing  to  seek  out,  and 
eager  to  bestow,  any  number  of  Hagars  on  her  lord. 
More  than  one  Saint  has  told  me  that  this  is  true,  as  a 
rule,  though  he  admits  there  may  be  exceptions  in  so 
far  as  the  Mormon  Sarai  falls  short  of  her  high  calling. 
My  experience  lies  among  the  exceptions  solely.  Some 
wives  may  be  good  enough  to  undertake  this  ofiice.  I 
have  never  found  one  who  would  own  it,  even  in  the 
presence  of  her  husband,  and  when  the  occasion  might 
have  been  held  to  warrant  a  little  feminine  fibbing. 
Every  lady  to  whom  I  have  put  this  question  flushed 
into  denial,  though  with  that  caged  and  broken  courage 
which  seems  to  characterize  every  Mormon  wife. 
"Court  anew  wife  for  him  I  "  said  one  lady;  "no 
woman  could  do  that ;  and  no  woman  would  submit 
to  be  courted  by  a  woman." 

The  process  of  taking  either  a  second  or  a  sixteenth 
wife  is  the  same  in  all  cases.  "  I  will  tell  you,"  said 
a  Mormon  elder,  "  how  we  do  these  things  in  our 
order.  For  example,  I  have  two  wives  living,  and 
one  wife  dead.  I  am  thinking  of  taking  another,  as 
I  can  well  afford  the  expense,  and  a  man  is  not  much 
respected  in  the  church  who  has  less  than  three  wives. 


WOMAN  AT  SALT  LAKE.  237 

Well,  I  fix  my  mind  on  a  young  lady,  and  consider 
within  myself  whether  it  is  the  will  of  God  that  I 
should  seek  her.  If  I  feel,  in  my  own  heart,  that  it 
would  be  right  to  try,  I  speak  to  my  bishop,  who 
advises  and  approves,  as  he  shall  see  fit ;  on  which  I 
go  to  the  President,  who  will  consider  whether  I  am  a 
good  man  and  a  worthy  husband,  capable  of  ruling 
my  little  household,  keeping  peace  among  my  wives, 
bringing  up  my  children  in  the  fear  of  God  ;  and  if  I 
am  found  worthy,  in  his  sight,  of  the  blessing,  I  shall 
obtain  permission  to  go  on  with  the  chase.  Then  I 
lay  the  whole  matter  of  my  desire,  my  permission  and 
my  choice,  before  my  first  wife,  as  head  of  my  house, 
and  take  her  counsel  as  to  the  young  lady's  habits, 
character,  and  accomplishments.  Perhaps  I  may 
speak  with  my  second  wife ;  perhaps  not ;  since  it  is 
not  so  much  her  business  as  it  is  that  of  my  first  wife ; 
besides  which,  my  first  wife  is  older  in  years,  has  seen 
more  of  life,  and  is  much  more  of  a  friend  to  me  than 
the  second.  An  objection  on  the  first  wife's  part 
would  have  great  weight  with  me ;  I  should  not  care 
much  for  what  the  second  either  said  or  thought. 
Supposing  all  to  go  well,  I  should  next  have  a  talk 
with  the  young  lady's  father ;  and  if  he  consented  to 
my  suit,  I  should  then  address  the  young  lady  herself." 

"But  before  you  take  all  these  pains  to  get  her,"  I 
asked,  "  would  you  not  have  tried  to  be  sure  of  your 
ground  with  the  lady  herself?  Would  you  not  have 
courted  her  and  won  her  good  will  before  taking  all 
these  persons  into  your  trust?  " 

"No,"  answered  the  elder;  "I  should  think  that 
wrong.  In  our  society  we  are  strict.  I  should  have 
seen  the  girl,  in  the  theatre,  in  the  tabernacle,  in  the 
social  hall ;  I  should  have  talked  with  her,  danced  with 
her,  walked  about  with  her,  and  in  these  ways   ascer- 


238  ^^W  AMERICA. 

tained  her  merits  and  guessed  her  inclinations  ;  but  I 
should  not  have  made  love  to  her,  in  your  sense  of  the 
word,  got  up  an  understanding  with  her,  and  entered 
into  a  private  and  personal  engagement  of  the  affec- 
tions. These  aft'airs  are  not  of  earth,  but  of  heaven, 
and  with  us  they  must  follow  the  order  of  God's  king- 
dom and  church." 

This  elder's  two  wives  live  in  separate  houses,  and 
seldom  see  each  other.  While  we  have  been  at  Salt 
Lake,  a  child  of  the  second  wife  has  fallen  sick;  there 
has  been  much  trouble  in  the  house ;  and  we  have 
heard  the  first  wife,  at  whose  cottage  we  were  dining, 
say  she  would  go  and  pay  the  second  wife  a  visit. 
The  elder  would  not  hear  of  such  a  thing ;  and  he 
was  certainly  right,  as  the  sickness  was  supposed  to  be 
diphtheria,  and  she  had  a  brood  of  little  folks  playing 
about  her  knees.  Still  the  manner  of  her  proposal 
told  us  that  she  was  not  in  the  habit  of  daUy  inter- 
course with  her  sister-wife. 

It  is  an  open  question  in  Utah  whether  it  is  better 
for  a  plural  household  to  be  gathered  under  one  roof 
or  not.  Young  sets  the  example  of  unity,  so  far  at 
least  as  his  actual  wives  and  children  are  concerned. 
A  few  old  ladies,  who  have  been  sealed  to  him  for 
heaven,  whether  in  his  own  name  or  in  that  of  Jo- 
seph, dwell  in  cottages  apart ;  but  the  dozen  women, 
who  share  his  couch,  who  are  the  mothers  of  his  chil- 
dren, live  in  one  block  close  to  another,  dine  at  one 
table,  and  join  in  the  family  prayers.  Taylor,  the 
apostle,  keeps  his  families  in  separate  cottages  and 
orchards ;  two  of  his  wives  only  live  in  his  principal 
house  ;  the  rest  have  tenements  of  their  own.  Every 
man  is  free  to  arrange  his  household  as  he  likes ;  so 
long  as  he  avoids  contention,  and  promotes  the  public' 
peace. 


WOMAN  AT  SALT  LAKE.  239 

''  How  will  you  arrange  your  visits,  when  you  have 
won  and  sealed  your  new  wife?"  I  asked  my  friendly 
and  communicative  elder;  "shall  you  adopt  the  Ori- 
ental custom  of  equal  justice  and  attention  to  the 
ladies  laid  down  by  Moses  and  by  Mohammed?" 

"  By  heaven,  sir,"  he  answered,  with  a  flush  of 
scorn,  "no  man  shall  tell  me  what  to  do,  except 
"  giving  the  initials  of  his  name. 

"You  mean  you  will  do  as  you  like?" 

"  That 's  just  it." 

And  such,  I  believe,  is  the  universal  habit  of 
thought  in  this  city  and  this  church.  Man  is  king, 
and  woman  has  no  rights.  She  has,  in  fact,  no  re- 
cognized place  in  creation,  other  than  that  of  a  ser- 
vant and  companion  of  her  lord.  Man  is  master, 
woman  is  slave.  I  cannot  wonder  that  girls  who  re- 
member their  English  homes  should  shrink  from 
marriage  in  this  strange  community,  even  though 
they  have  accepted  the  doctrine  of  Young,  that  plu- 
rality is  the  law  of  heaven  and  of  God.  "  I  believe 
it 's  right,"  said  to  me  a  rosy  English  damsel,  who  has 
been  three  years  in  Utah,  "  and  I  think  it  is  good  for 
those  who  like  it ;  but  it  is  not  good  for  me,  and  I 
will  not  have  it." 

"But  if  Young  should  command  you?" 

"  He  won't ! "  said  the  girl  with  the  toss  of  her 
golden  curls ;  "  and  if  he  were  to  do  so,  I  would  not. 
A  girl  can  please  herself  whether  she  marries  or  not; 
and  I,  for  one,  will  never  go  into  a  house  where  there 
is  another  wife." 

"Do  the  Avives  dislike  it?" 

"  Some  don't,  most  do.  They  take  it  for  their  reli- 
gion ;  I  can't  say  any  woman  likes  it.  Some  women 
live  very  comfortably  together;  not  many;  most  have 
their  tifls  and  quarrels,  though  their  husbands  may 


240  NEW  AMERICA. 

never  know  of  them.  No  woman  likes  to  see  a  new 
wife  come  into  the  house." 

A  Saint  would  tell  you  that  such  a  damsel  as  my 
rosy  friend  is  only  half  a  Mormon  yet ;  he  would 
probably  ask  you  to  reject  such  evidence  as  trumpery 
and  temporary ;  and  plead  that  you  can  have  no  fair 
means  of  judging  such  an  institution  as  polygamy, 
until  you  are  able  to  study  its  eifects  in  the  fourth 
and  fifth  generation. 

Meanwhile,  the  judgment  which  we  have  formed 
about  it  from  what  we  have  seen  and  heard  may  be 
expressed  in  a  few  words.  It  finds  a  new  place  for 
woman,  which  is  not  the  place  she  occupies  in  the 
society  of  England  and  the  United  States.  It  trans- 
fers her  from  the  drawing-room  to  the  kitchen,  and 
when  it  finds  her  in  the  nursery  it  locks  her  in  it. 
We  may  call  such  a  change  a  degradation ;  the  Mor- 
mons call  it  a  reformation.  We  do  not  say  that  any 
of  these  Mormon  ladies  have  been  worse  in  their  mo- 
ralities and  their  spiritualities  by  the  change ;  proba- 
bly they  have  not ;  but  in  everything  that  concerns 
their  grace,  order,  rank,  and  representation  in  society, 
they  are  unquestionably  lowered,  according  to  our 
standards.  Male  Saints  declare  that  in  this  city 
women  have  become  more  domestic,  wifely,  motherly, 
than  they  are  among  the  Gentiles;  and  that  what  they 
have  lost  in  show,  in  brilliancy,  in  accomplishment, 
they  have  gained  in  virtue  and  in  service.  To  me, 
the  very  best  women  appear  to  be  little  more  than 
domestic  drudges,  never  rising  into  the  rank  of  real 
friends  and  companions  of  their  lords.  Taylor's 
daughters  waited  on  us  at  table ;  two  pretty,  elegant, 
English-looking  girls.  We  should  have  preferred 
standing  behind  their  chairs  and  helping  them  to 
dainties  of  fowl  and  cake;  but  the  Mormon,  like  the 


THE    MEFUBLICAN  I'LATFOUM.  241 

Moslem,  keeps  a  heavy  hand  on  his  female  folks. 
Women  at  Salt  Lake  are  made  to  keep  their  place. 
A  girl  must  address  her  father  as  "  Sir,"  and  she 
would  hardly  presume  to  sit  down  in  his  presence 
until  she  had  received  his  orders. 

"Women,"  said  Young  to  me,  "will  be  more  easily 
saved  than  men.  They  have  not  sense  enough  to  go 
far  wrong.  Men  have  more  knowledge  and  more 
power ;  therefore  they  can  go  more  quickly  and  more 
certainly  to  hell." 

The  Mormon  creed  appears  to  be  that  woman  is 
not  worth  damnation. 

In  the  Mormon  heaven,  men,  on  account  of  their 
sins,  may  stop  short  in  the  stage  of  angels ;  but 
women,  whatever  their  offences,  are  all  to  become 
the  wives  of  gods. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII. 

THE    REPUBLICAN    PLATFORM. 

"We  mean  to  put  that  business  of  the  Mormons 
through,"  says  a  New  England  politician  ;  "we  have 
done  a  bigger  job  than  that  in  the  South ;  and  we 
shall  now  fix  up  things  in  Salt  Lake  City." 

"Do  you  mean  by  force?"  asks  an  English  trav- 
eller. 

"  Well,  that  is  one  of  our  planks.  The  Republican 
Platform  pledges  us  to  crush  those  Saints." 

This  conversation,  passing  across  the  hospitable 
board  of  a  renowned  publicist  in  Philadelphia,  draws 
towards  itself  from  all  sides  the  criticism  of  a  distin- 

21 


242  N£W  AMEBIC  A. 

guished  company  of  lawyers  and  politicians;  most  of 
them  members  of  Congress ;  all  of  them  soldiers  of 
the  Republican  phalanx. 

"Do  you  hold,"  says  the  English  guest, — "you  as  a 
writer  and  thinker, — your  party  as  the  representatives 
of  American  thought  and  might, — that  in  a  countiy 
where  speech  is  free  and  tolerance  wdde,  it  would  be 
right  to  employ  force  against  ideas, — to  throw  horse 
and  foot  into  a  dogmatic  quarrel, — to  set  about  pro- 
moting morality  with  bayonets  and  bowde-kuives  ? " 

"It  is  one  of  our  planks,"  says  a  young  member  of 
Congress,  "to  put  down  those  Mormons,  who,  besides, 
being  infidels,  are  also  Conservatives  and  Copper- 
heads." 

"Young  is  certainly  a  Democrat,"  adds  an  Able 
Editor  from  Massachusetts,  himself  a  traveller  in  the 
Mormon  land;  "we  have  no  right  to  burn  his  block 
on  account  of  his  politics ;  nor,  indeed,  on  account  of 
hi  -  religion ;  we  ave  no  power  to  meddle  with  any 
man's  faith  ;  but  w^e  have  made  a  law  against  plurality 
of  wives,  and  w^e  have  the  power  to  make  our  laws 
respected  everywhere  in  this  Republic?" 

"By  force?" 

''  By  force,  if  we  are  driven  by  disloyal  citizens  to 
the  use  of  force." 

"  You  mean,  then,  that  in  any  case  you  will  use  force 
—  passively,  if  they  submit;   actively,  if  they  resist?" 

"  That's  our  notion,"  replies  our  candid  host.  "The 
government  must  crush  them.  That  is  our  big  job  ; 
and  next  year  w^e  must  put  it  through." 

"  You  hold  it  right,  then,  to  combat  such  an  evil  as 
polygamy  with  shot  and  shell  ?" 

"We  have  freed  four  million  negroes  with  shot  and 
shell?"  replies  a  sober  i^ennsylvanian  judge. 

"Pardon  me,  is  that  a  full  statement  of  the  case? 


THE  REPUBLICAN  PLATFORM.  243 

That  you  have  crushed  a  movement  of  secession  by 
means  of  military  force  is  true ;  but  is  it  not  also  true 
that,  five  or  six  years  ago,  every  one  acknowledged 
that  slavery  was  a  legal  and  moral  question,  which, 
while  peace  and  order  reigned  in  the  slave-states,  ought 
not  to  be  treated  otherwise  than  on  legal  and  moral 
grounds?" 

"  Yes,  that  is  so.  We  had  no  right  over  the  negroes 
until  their  masters  went  into  rebellion.  I  admit  that 
the  declaration  of  war  gave  us  our  only  standing," 

"  In  fact,  you  confess  that  you  liad  no  right  over  the 
blacks  until  you  had  gained,  through  the  rebellion,  a 
complete  authority  over  the  whites  who  held  them  in 
bondage?" 

"  Certainly  so." 

"If,  then,  the  planters  had  been  quiet;  keeping  to 
tlie  law  as  it  then  stood ;  never  attempting  to  spread 
themselves  by  force,  as  they  tried  to  do  in  Kansas  ;  3"0U 
would  have  been  compelled,  by  your  sense  of  right,  to 
leave  them  to  time  and  reason,  to  the  exhaustion  of 
their  lands,  to  the  depopulation  of  their  States,  to  the 
growth  of  sound  economical  knowledge, —  in  short,  to 
the  moral  forces  which  excite  and  sustain  all  social 
growths  ?  " 

"Perhaps  so,"  answers  the  Able  Editor.  "  The  Saints 
have  not  yet  given  us  such  a  chance.  They  are  very 
honest,  sober,  industrious  people,  who  mind  their  own 
business  mainly,  as  men  will  have  to  do  who  try  to 
live  in  yon  barren  plains.  They  are  useful  in  their 
way,  too ;  linking  our  Atlantic  states  with  the  Pacific 
states;  and  feeding  the  mining  population  of  Idaho, 
Montana,  and  Nevada.  We  have  no  ground  of  com- 
plaint, none  that  a  politician  would  prefer  against 
them  beyond  their  plural  households;  but  New  Eng- 
land is  very  sore  just  now  about  them  ;  for  everybody 


244  NEW  AMERICA. 

m  this  country  has  t^ot  into  the  luihit  of  callino^  them 
tlie  spawn  of  our  New  England  conventicles,  simpl}' 
because  Joseph  Smith,  Brigham  Young,  Heber  Kim- 
ball, all  the  chief  lights  of  their  church,  happen  to  be 
New  England  men." 

"  When  New  England,"  adds  a  representative  from 
Ohio,  with  a  laugh,  "goes  mad  on  any  point,  you  will 
find  that  she  contrives  in  this  Republic  to  have  her 
way." 

"When  her  way  is  just  and  open  —  sanctioned  by 
moral  principle  and  by  human  experience  —  it  is  well 
that  she  should  have  her  way.  But  wall  Harvard  and 
Cambridge  support  an  attack  by  military  power  on 
religious  bodies  because  they  have  adopted  the  model 
of  Abraham  and  David  ?  You  have  in  those  western 
plains  and  mountains  a  hundred  tribes  of  red-men  who 
practise  polj-gamy ;  would  you  think  it  right  for  your 
missionary  society  to  withdraw  from  among  them  the 
teacher  and  his  Bible,  and  for  General  Grant  to  send 
out  in  their  stead  the  soldier  and  his  sword  ?  You  have 
in  those  western  territories  a  hundred  thousand  yellow 
men  w^ho  also  practise  polygamy ;  would  you  hold  it 
just  to  sink  their  ships,  to  burn  their  ranches,  to  drive 
them  from  your  soil,  with  sword  and  fire? " 

"Their  case  is  difterent  to  that  of  the  Saints,"  rejoins 
the  Able  Editor ;  "these  red-skins  and  yellow-skins  are 
savages ;  one  race  may  die  out,  the  other  may  go  back 
to  Asia ;  but  Young  and  Kimball  arc  our  own  people, 
knowing  the  law  and  the  Gospel ;  and  whatever  they 
may  do  with  the  Gospel,  they  must  ol)ey  the  law^" 

"  Of  course,  everybody  must  obey  the  law ;  but  how? 
Those  Saints,  I  hear,  have  no  objection  to  your  law 
when  administered  by  judge  and  jury,  only  to  your  law 
when  administered  by  colonels  and  subalterns." 

"In  other  words,"  says  the  Pennsylvanian  judge, 


THE   REPUPLWAN  PLATFORM.  245 

"they  have  no  objection  to  our  kiwwhen  they  arc  left 
to  carry  it  out  themselves." 

"We  must  put  them  down,"  cries  the  young  mem- 
ber of  Congress. 

"Have  you  not  tried  that  policy  of  putting  them 
down  twice  already  ?  You  found  them  twelve  thou- 
sand strong  at  Independence,  in  Missouri ;  not  liking 
their  tenets  (though  they  had  no  polygamy  among 
them  then),  you  crushed  and  scattered  them  into  thirty 
thousand  at  Nauvoo  ;  where  you  again  took  arms 
against  religious  passion,  slew  their  Prophet,  plundered 
their  city,  drove  them  into  the  desert,  and  generally 
dispersed  and  destroyed  them  into  one  hundred  and 
twenty-seven  thousand  in  Deseret !  You  know  that 
some  such  law  of  growth  through  persecution  has  been 
detected  in  ever}^  land  and  in  every  church.  It  is  a 
proverb.  In  Salt  Lake  City,  I  heard  Brigham  Young 
tell  his  departing  missionaries,  they  were  not  to  sug- 
gest the  beauty  of  their  mountain  home,  but  to  dwell 
on  the  idea  of  persecution,  and  to  call  the  poor  into  a 
persecuted  church.  Men  fly  into  a  persecuted  church, 
like  moths  into  a  flame.  If  you  want  to  make  all  the 
western  country  Mormon,  you  must  send  an  army 
of  a  hundred  thousand  troops  to  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains." 

"But  we  can  hardly  leave  these  pluralists  alone." 

"Why  not  —  so  far  at  least  as  regards  bayonets  and 
bowie-knives  ?  Have  you  no  faith  in  the  power  of 
truth?  Have  you  no  confidence  in  being  right?  Nay, 
are  you  sure  that  you  have  nothing  to  learn  from 
them  ?  Have  not  the  men  who  thrive  where  nobody 
else  can  live,  given  ample  evidence  that,  even  though 
their  doctrines  may  be  strange  and  their  morals  false, 
the  principles  on  which  they  till  the  soil  and  raise  their 
crops,  are  singularly  sound  ?" 

21  * 


240  ^J^^V  AMERICA. 

"I  admit,"  says  the  Able  Editor,  "they  are  good 
farmers." 

"  Good  is  a  poor  term,  to  express  the  marvel  they 
have  wrought.  In  Illinois,  they  changed  a  swamp 
into  a  garden.  In  Utah,  they  have  made  the  desert 
green  with  pastures  and  tawny  with  maize  and  corn. 
Of  what  is  Brigham  Young  most  fond  ?  Of  his  harem, 
his  temple,  his  theatre,  his  office,  his  wealth  ?  He 
may  pride  himself  on  these  things  in  their  measure ; 
but  the  fact  of  his  life  which  he  dwelt  upon  most,  and 
with  the  noblest  enthusiasm,  is  the  raising  of  a  crop 
of  ninety-three  and  a  half  bushels  of  wheat  from  one 
single  acre  of  land.  The  Saints  have  grown  rich  with 
a  celerity  that  seems  magical  even  in  the  United 
States.  Beginning  life  at  the  lowest  stage,  recruited 
only  from  among  the  poor,  spoiled  of  their  goods  and 
driven  from  their  farms,  compelled  to  expend  millions 
of  dollars  in  a  perilous  exodus,  and  finally  located  on 
a  soil  from  which  the  red-skin  and  the  bison  had  all 
but  retired  in  despair,  they  have  yet  contrived  to  exist, 
to  extend  their  operations,  to  increase  their  stores. 
The  hills  and  valleys  round  Salt  Lake  are  everywhere 
smiling  with  wheat  and  rye.  A  city  has  been  built; 
great  roads  have  been  made  ;  mills  have  been  erected  ; 
canals  have  been  dug;  forests  have  been  felled.  A 
depot  has  been  formed  in  the  wilderness  from  which 
the  miners  from  Montana  and  Nevada  can  be  fed.  A 
chain  of  communication  from  St.  Louis  to  San  Fran- 
cisco has  been  laid.  Are  the  Republican  majority 
prepared  to  undo  the  progress  of  twenty  years  in 
order  to  curb  an  obnoxious  doctrine?  Are  they  sure 
that  the  attempt  being  made,  it  would  succeed  ?  What 
facts  in  the  past  history  of  these  Saints  permit  you  to 
infer  that  persecution,  however  sharp,  would  diminish 
their  number,  their  andacitv.  and  their  zeal?" 


THE  REP  UBLIGA  N  PL  A  TFOllM.  24  7 

"  Then  you  see  no  way  of  crusliing  them  ?  " 
"  Crushing  them  !  ^No  ;  none.  I  see  no  way  of 
dealing  with  any  moral  and  religious  question  except 
by  moral  means  employed  in  a  religious  spirit.  Why 
not  put  your  trust  in  truth,  in  logic,  in  history  ?  Why 
not  open  good  roads  to  Salt  Lake?  Why  not  encour- 
age railway  communication ;  and  bring  the  practical 
intellect  and  noble  feeling  of  New  England  to  bear 
upon  the  household  of  many  wives  ?  Why  not  meet 
their  sermons  by  sermons ;  try  their  science  by  sci- 
ence;  encounter  their  books  with  books  ?  Have  you 
no  missionaries  equal  to  Elder  Stenhouse  and  Elder 
Dewey  ?  You  must  expect  that  while  you  act  on  the 
Saints,  the  Saints  will  re-act  upon  you.  It  will  be  for 
you  a  trial  of  strength ;  but  the  weapons  will  be  legit- 
imate and  the  conclusions  will  be  blessed.  Can  you 
not  trust  the  right  side  and  the  just  cause,  to  come  out 
victoriously  from  such  a  struggle  ?  " 

"Well,"  says  the  judge,  "while  we  are  divided  in 
opinion,  perhaps,  as  to  the  use  of  physical  force,  we 
are  all  in  favor  of  moral  force.  Massachusetts  is  our 
providence ;  but,  after  all,  we  must  have  one  law  in 
this  Republic.  Union  is  our  motto,  equality  our  creed. 
Boston  and  Salt  Lake  City  must  be  got  to  shake  hands, 
as  Boston  and  Charleston  have  already  done.  If  you 
can  persuade  Brigham  to  lie  down  with  Bowles,  I  am 
willing  to  see  it And  now  pass  the  wine." 


248  NEW  AMERICA. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV. 

UNCLE    SAM'S    estate. 

In  climbing  the  slopes  of  you  rivers  from  IS^ew  York 
to  Toledo;  in  running  down  the  Mississippi  Valley 
from  Toledo  to  St.  Louis ;  in  mounting  the  Prairies 
from  St.  Louis  to  Virginia  Dale;  in  crossing  the  Sier- 
ras from  Virginia  Dale  to  the  Great  Salt  Lake;  in 
winding  through  the  "Wasatch  chain,  the  Bitter-creek 
country,  and  the  Plains  from  Salt  Lake  City  to  Oma- 
ha; in  descending  the  Missouri  from  the  middle  waters 
to  its  mouth;  in  traversing  the  table-lands  of  Indiana 
and  Ohio;  in  threading  the  mountain-passes  of  Penn- 
sylvania; in  piercing  the  forests,  following  the  streams, 
lounging  in  the  cities  of  Virginia;  in  pacing  these 
streets  of  Washington,  mixing  with  these  people  in 
the  gardens  of  the  White  House,  and  under  the  dome 
of  the  Capitol,  a  man  will  hud  himself  growing  free 
of  many  great  facts.  He  will  be  in  daily  contact  with 
the  newest  forms  of  life,  with  a  world  in  the  earlier 
stages  of  its  growth,  with  a  society  everywhere  young 
in  genius,  enterprise,  and  virtue;  but  probably  no 
other  fact  will  strike  his  imagination  with  so  large  a 
force  as  the  size  of  what  is  here  called,  in  the  idiom  of 
the  people,  Uncle  Sam's  Estate. 

"Sir,"  said  to  me  a  Minnesota  farmer,  "the  curse 
of  this  country  is  that  we  have  too  much  land;"  a 
phrase  which  I  have  heard  again  and  again;  among 
the  iron-masters  of  Pittsburg,  among  the  tobacco- 
planters  of  Richmond,  among  the  cotton-spinners  of 
Worcester.     Indeed,  this  wail  against  the  land  is  com- 


UNCLE   SA3I'S   ESTATE.  249 

mon  among  men  who,  having  mines,  plantations,  mills, 
and  farms,  would  like  to  have  large  supplies  of  labor 
at  lower  rates  of  wages  than  the  market  yields.  There 
have  been  times  in  which  a  similar  cry  was  raised  in 
England,  by  the  Norfolk  farmers,  by  the  Manchester 
spinners,  by  the  ITewcastle  coalmen.  Those  who  want 
to  get  labor  on  the  lowest  terms  must  always  be  in  favor 
of  restricting  the  productive  acreage  of  land.  But 
whether  a  Minnesota  farmer,  a  Pennsylvania  miner, 
or  a  Massachusetts  cotton-spinner,  may  like  it  or  dis- 
like it,  nobody  can  dispute  the  fact  that  the  first  im- 
pression stamped  on  a  traveler's  eye  and  brain  in  this 
great  country  is  that  of  stupendous  size. 

During  the  Civil  War,  when  the  Trent  aifair  was 
waxing  warm  between  the  two  main  branches  of  our 
race — a  brother's  quarrel,  in  which  there  was  some 
right  and  a  little  wrong  on  both  sides — a  New  York 
publisher  put  out  a  map  of  the  United  States  and  Ter- 
ritories, stretching  from  the  Atlantic  Ocean  to  the 
Pacific  Ocean,  from  the  line  of  the  great  lakes  to  the 
gulfs  of  Mexico  and  California;  on  the  margin  of 
which  map  there  was  an  outline  of  England  drawn  to 
scale.  Perhaps  it  had  not  been  designed  by  the 
draughtsman  to  rebuke  our  pride;  still,  it  made  us 
look  very  small  on  paper;  and  if  we  had  been  a  people 
piquing  ourselves  on  the  possession  of  "much  dirt"  in 
the  Home  County  called  England,  that  map  might 
have  cut  •us  to  the  quick.  Space  is  not  one  of  our 
island  points.  In  three  or  four  hours  we  hurry  from 
sea  to  sea,  from  Liverpool  to  Hull,  from  the  Severn  to 
the  Thames;  in  the  lapse  between  breakfast  and  din- 
ner we  wing  our  way  from  London  to  York,  from 
Manchester  to  aSTorwich,  from  Oxford  to  Penzance.  It 
is  the  common  joke  of  New  York,  that  a  Yankee  in 
London  dares  not  leave  his  hotel  after  dark  lest  he 


250  NEW  A3IER1GA. 

should  slip  oft"  the  foreland  and  be  drowned  in  the 
sea. 

The  Republic  owns  within  her  two  ocean  frontiers 
more  than  three  million  square  miles  of  land;  a  fourth 
part  of  a  million  square  miles  of  water,  either  salt  or 
fresh;  a  range  of  Alps,  a  range  of  Pyrenees,  a  range 
of  Apennines;  forests  by  the  side  of  which  the 
Schwarzwald  and  the  Ardennes  would  be  German 
toys;  rivers  exceeding  the  Danube  and  the  Rhine, 
as  much  as  these  rivers  exceed  the  Mersey  and  the 
Clyde. 

Under  the  crystal  roof  in  Hyde  Park,  when  the 
nations  had  come  together  in  1851,  each  bringing 
what  it  found  to  be  its  best  and  rarest  to  a  common 
testing  place,  America  was  for  many  weeks  of  May 
and  June  represented  by  one  great  article — a  vast,  un- 
occupied space.  An  eagle  spread  its  wings  over  an 
empty  kingdom,  while  the  neighboring  states  of  Bel- 
gium, Holland,  Prussia,  and  France  were  crowded 
like  swarms  of  bees  in  their  summer  hives.  Some 
persons  smiled  with  a  mocking  lip,  at  that  paper  bird, 
brooding  in  silence  above  a  mighty  waste;  but  I  for 
one  never  came  fi'om  the  thronging  courts  of  Europe 
into  that  large  allotment  of  space  and  light,  without 
feeling  that  our  cousins  of  the  "West  had  hit,  though 
it  may  have  been  b}^  chance,  on  a  very  happy  expres- 
sion of  their  virgin  wealth.  In  Hyde  Park,  as  at 
home,  they  showed  that  they  had  room  enough  and  to 
spare. 

Yes:  the  Republic  is  a  Dig  country.  In  England, 
we  have  no  lines  of  sufficient  length,  no  areas  of  suf- 
ficient width,  to  convey  a  just  idea  of  its  size.  Our 
lono-est  line  is  that  running  from  Land's  End  to  Ber- 
wick, — a  line  which  is  some  miles  shorter  than  the 
distance  from  Washing-ton  to  Lexington.     Our  broad- 


UNCLE   SAM'S  ESTATE.  251 

est  valley  is  that  of  the  Thames, — the  whole  of  which 
would  lie  hidden  from  sight  in  a  corner  of  the  Sierra 
Madre.  The  State  of  Oregon  is  higger  than  England; 
CaUfornia  is  about  the  size  of  Spain;  Texas  would  be 
larger  than  France  if  France  had  won  the  frontier  of 
the  German  Rhine.  If  the  United  States  were  parted 
into  equal  lots,  they  would  make  fifty-two  kingdoms 
as  large  as  England,  fourteen  empires  as  large  as 
France.  Even  the  grander  tigure  of  Europe, — the 
seat  of  our  great  powers,  and  of  many  lesser  powers, — 
a  continent  which  we  used  to  call  the  world,  and  fight 
to  maintain  in  delicate  balance  of  parts, — fails  us  when 
we  come  to  measure  in  its  lines  such  amplitudes  as 
those  of  the  United  States.  To  wit;  from  Eastport  to 
Brownsville  is  farther  than  from  London  to  Tuat,  in 
the  Great  Sahara;  from  Washington  to  Astoria  is  far- 
ther than  from  Brussels  to  Kars ;  from  IsTew  York  to 
San  Francisco  is  farther  than  from  Paris  to  Bagdad. 
Such  measures  seem  to  carry  us  away  fi-om  the  sphere 
of  fact  into  the  realms  of  magic  and  romance. 

Again,  take  the  length  of  rivers  as  a  measurement 
of  size.  A  steamboat  can  go  ninety  miles  up  the 
Thames;  two  hundred  miles  up  the  Seine-;  five  hun- 
dred and  fifty  miles  up  the  Rhine.  In  America,  the 
Thames  would  be  a  creek,  the  Seine  a  brook,  the  Rhine 
a  local  stream,  soon  lost  in  a  mightier  flood.  Some  of 
these  great  rivers,  like  the  Kansas  and  the  Platte,  flow- 
ing through  boundless  plains,  are  nowhere  deep  enough 
for  steamers,  though  they  are  sometimes  miles  in  width; 
yet  the  navigable  length  of  many  of  these  streams  is  a 
wearisome  surprise.  The  Mississippi  is  five  times  longer 
than  the  Rhine;  the  Missouri  is  three  times  longer  than 
the  Danube;  the  Columbia  is  four  times  longer  than 
the  Scheldt.  From  the  sea  to  Fort  Snelling,  the  Mis- 
sissippi is  plowed  by  steamers  a  distance  of  two  thou- 


252  N£!W  AMEBIC  A. 

sand  one  hundred  and  thirty-one  miles;  yet  she  is  but 
the  second  river  in  the  United  States. 

Glancing  at  a  map  of  America,  we  see  to  the  north 
a  group  of  lakes.  ITow,  our  English  notion  of  a  lake 
is  likely  to  have  been  derived  from  Coniston,  Killarney, 
Lomond,  Leman,  and  Garda.  But  these  sheets  of  water 
give  us  no  true  hint  of  what  Huron  and  Superior  are 
like,  scarcel}^  indeed  of  what  Erie  and  Ontario  are  like. 
Coniston,  Killarney,  Lomond,  Leman,  and  Garda,  put 
together,  would  not  cover  a  tenth  part  of  the  surface 
occupied  by  the  smallest  of  the  five  American  lakes. 
All  the  waters  lying  in  Swiss,  Italian,  English,  Irish, 
Scotch,  and  German  lakes,  might  be  poured  into 
Michigan  without  making  a  perceptible  addition  to  its 
flood.  Yorkshire  might  be  sunk  out  of  sight  in  Erie; 
Ontario  drowns  as  much  land  as  would  make  two 
duchies  equal  in  area  to  Schleswig  and  Holstein.  Den- 
mark proper  could  be  washed  by  the  waves  of  Huron. 
Many  of  the  minor  lakes  of  America  would  be  counted 
as  inland  seas  elsewhere;  to  wit,  Salt  Lake,  in  Utah, 
has  a  surface  of  two  thousand  square  miles;  while  that 
of  Geneva  has  only  three  hundred  and  thirty;  that  of 
Como,  only  ninety;  that  of  Killarney,  only  eight.  A 
kingdom  like  Saxony,  a  principality  like  Parma,  a 
duchy  like  Coburg,  if  thrown  in  one  heap  into  Lake 
Superior,  might  add  an  island  to  its  beauty,  but  would 
be  no  more  conspicuous  in  its  vast  expanse  than 
one  of  those  pretty  green  islets  which  adorn  Loch 
Lomond. 

Mountain  masses  are  not  considered  by  some  as  the 
strongest  points  of  American  scenery;  yet  you  find 
masses  in  this  country  which  defy  all  measurement  by 
such  puny  chains  as  the  Pyrenees,  the  Apennines, 
and  the  Savoy  Alps.     The  Alleghanies,  ranging  in 


UNCLE   SAM'S  ESTATE.  253 

height  between  Helvelljn  and  Pilatus,  run  tlirough  a 
district  equal  in  extent  to  the  country  lying  between 
Ostend  and  Jaroslaw,  The  Wasatch  chain,  tliough 
the  name  is  hardly  known  in  Europe,  has  a  larger  bulk 
and  grandeur  than  the  Julian  Alps.  The  Sierra  Madre, 
coninionly  called  the  Rocky  Mountains,  ranging  in 
stature  from  a  little  below  Suowdon  to  a  trifle  above 
Mont  Blanc,  extend  from  Mexico,  through  the  Repub- 
lic into  British  America,  a  distance  almost  equal  to  that 
dividing  Loudon  from  Delhi. 

No  doubt,  then,  can  be  felt  as  to  the  size  of  this 
Anglo-Saxon  estate.  America  is  a  big  country;  and 
size,  as  we  know  in  other  things,  becomes,  in  the  long 
run,  a  measure  of  political  power. 

Leaving  out  of  view  all  rivers,  all  lakes,  there  re- 
main in  the  United  States  about  one  thousand  nine 
hundred  and  twenty-six  million  acres;  nearly  all  of 
them  productive  land;  forest,  prairie,  down,  alluvial 
bottom;  all  lying  in  the  temperate  zone;  healthy  in 
climate,  rich  in  wood,  in  coal,  in  oil,  in  iron;  a  landed 
estate  that  could  give  to  each  head  of  five  million  fami- 
lies a  lot  of  three  hundred  and  eighty-five  acres. 


254  N£!W  AMERICA. 


CHAPTER  XXXV. 


THE    FOUR    RACES. 


On  this  fine  estate  of  land  and  water  dwells  a  strange 
variety  of  races.  No  society  in  Europe  can  pretend  to 
such  wide  contrasts  in  the  type,  in  the  color,  as  are 
here  observable;  for  while  in  France,  in  Germany,  in 
England,  we  are  all  white  men,  deri\dng  our  blood  and 
lineage  from  a  common  Aryan  stock,  and  having  in 
our  habits,  languages,  and  creeds,  a  certain  bond  of 
brotherhood,  our  friends  in  these  United  States,  in  ad- 
dition to  such  pale  varieties  as  the  Saxon  and  Celt,  the 
Swabian  and  Gaul,  have  also  the  SiouXj  and  Negro, 
and  the  Tartar;  nations  and  tribes,  not  few  in  num- 
ber, not  guests  of  a  moment,  here  to-day  and  gone  to- 
morrow; but  crowding  hosts  of  men  and  women,  who 
have  the  rights  which  come  of  either  being  born  on 
the  soil  or  of  being  settled  on  it  for  life.  White  men, 
black  men,  red  men,  yellow  men;  they  are  citizens  of 
this  country,  paying  its  taxes,  feeding  on  its  produce, 
obeying  its  laws. 

In  England  we  are  apt  to  boast  of  having  fused  into 
one  strong  amalgam  men  of  the  most  hostile  qualities 
of  blood;  blending  into  a  perfect  unit  the  steadfast 
Saxon,  the  volatile  Celt,  the  splendid  Norman,  and  the 
frugal  Pict;  but  our  faint  distinctions  of  race  and  race 
fade  wholly  out  of  sight  when  they  are  put  alongside 
of  the  fierce  antagonism  seen  on  this  American  soil. 
In  the  Old  World  we  have  separate  classes,  where  in 
this  new  country  they  have  opposite  nations;  we  have 


THE   FOUR   RACES.  255 

slight  variation  in  the  quality,  where  they  have  radical 
difference  in  the  type.  To  a  negro  in  Georgia,  to  a 
Pawnee  in  Dakota,  to  a  Chinese  in  Montana,  a  white 
man  is  just  a  white  man;  no  more,  no  less;  the  Gaul, 
the  Dane,  the  Spaniard,  the  Saxon,  being,  in  his  sim- 
ple eyes,  brethren  of  one  family,  members  of  one 
church.  Our  subtler  distinctions  of  race  and  race  are 
wholly  invisible  in  this  stranger's  eyes. 

In  the  western  country  you  may  sit  down  at  dinner 
in  some  miner's  house  with  a  dozen  guests,  who  shall 
not  be  matched,  in  contrasting  types  and  colors,  even 
in  a  Cairene  bazaar,  an  Aleppo  gateway,  a  Stamboul 
mosque.  On  either  side  of  you  may  sit — a  Polish  Jew, 
an  Italian  count,  a  Choctaw  chief,  a  Mexican  rancher, 
a  Confederate  soldier  (there  :called  a  "whitewashed 
reb"),  a  Mormon  bishop,  a  Sandwich  Island  sailor,  a 
Parsee  merchant,  a  Boston  bagman,  a  Missouri  boss. 
A  negro  may  cook  your  meat,  a  Chinese  draw  your 
cork,  while  the  daughters  of  your  host — bright  girls, 
dainty,  well  dressed — may  serve  the  dishes  and  pour 
out  your  wine;  the  whole  company  being  drawn  into 
these  western  regions  by  the  rage  for  gold,  and  melt- 
ing toward  each  other,  more  like  guests  who  dine  in  a 
New  York  hotel  than  like  strangers  who  come  either 
to  trade  in  an  Egyptian  bazaar,  to  lodge  in  a  Syrian 
khan,  or  pray  in  a  Turkish  mosque.  You  may  find, 
too,  under  one  roof  as  many  creeds  as  colors.  Y'^our 
host  may  be  a  Universalist;  one  of  that  soft  American 
sect  which  holds  that  nobody  on  earth  will  ever  be 
damned,  though  the  generous  and  illogical  fellow  can 
hardly  open  his  lips  without  calling  on  one  of  his 
guests  to  be  so.  The  Mormon  will  put  his  trust  in 
Joseph,  as  a  natural  seer  and  revelator;  the  Chinese 
will  worship  Buddha,  of  whom  he  knows  nothing  but 
the  name;  the  Jew  will  pray  to  Jehovah,  of  whom  he 


256  NEW  AMERICA. 

cannot  be  said  to  know  much  more.  The  Choctaw 
chief  may  invoke  the  Big  Father,  whom  wliite  men 
call  for  him  the  Great  Spirit.  Sam — all  negroes  there 
are  Sams — may  be  a  Methodist;  an  Episcopalian  IMeth- 
odist,  mind  you ;  Sam  and  his  sable  brethren  hating 
everything  that  is  low.  The  Italian  count  is  an  in- 
fidel; the  Mexican  a  Catholic.  Your  whitewashed 
reb  repudiating  all  religions,  gives  his  mind  to  cock- 
tails. The  Missourian  is  a  Come-outer,  a  member  of 
one  of  those  new  churches  of  America  which  profess 
to  have  brought  God  nearer  to  the  earth.  That  the 
Parsee  holds  a  private  opinion  about  the  sun  we  may 
fairly  guess;  Queen  Emma's  countryman  is  a  Pagan; 
w^iile  the  Boston  bagman,  now  a  Calvinist,  damning 
the  company  to  future  miseries  of  fire  and  brimstone, 
was  once  a  Communist  of  the  school  of  Xoyes. 

White  men,  black  men,  red  men,  yellow  men — all 
these  chief  types  and  colors  of  the  human  race — have 
been  drawn  into  company  on  this  western  soil,  this 
middle  continent,  lying  between  China  and  the  Archi- 
pelago on  one  side,  Africa  and  Europe  on  the  other, 
where  they  crowd  and  contest  the  ground  under  a  com- 
mon flag. 

The  White  Man,  caring  for  neither  frost  nor  fire,  so 
long  as  he  can  win  good  food  for  his  mouth,  fit  clothing 
for  his  limbs,  appears  to  be  the  master  in  every  zone ; 
able  to  endure  all  climates,  to  undertake  all  labors,  to 
overcome  all  trials;  casting  nets  into  the  Bay  of  Fundy, 
cradling  gold  in  the  Sacramento  Valleys,  raising  dates 
and  lemons  in  Florida,  trapping  beavers  in  Oregon, 
raising  'herds  of  kine  in  Texas,  spinning  thread  in 
Massachusetts,  clearing  woods  in  Kansas,  smelting 
iron  in  Pennsylvania,  talking  buncombe  in  Columbia, 
writing  leaders  in  New  York.  He  is  the  man  of 
plastic  genius,  of  enduring  character;  equally  at  home 


THE  FOUR   RAG  EH.  257 

among  the  palm-trees  and  the  pines;  in  every  latitude 
the  guide,  the  employer,  and  the  king  of  all. 

The  Black  Man,  a  true  child  of  the  tropics,  to  whom 
warmth  is  like  the  breath  of  life,  liees  from  those  bleak 
fields  of  the  ]!^orth,  in  which  the  white  man  repairs  his 
fiber  and  renews  his  blood;  preferring  the  swamps  and 
savannas  of  the  South,  where,  among  palms,  cotton- 
plants,  and  sugar-canes,  he  finds  the  rich  colors  in  which 
his  eye  delights,  the  sunny  heats  in  which  his  blood 
expands.  Freedom  would  not  tempt  him  to  go  north- 
ward into  frost  and  fog.  Even  now,  when  Massa- 
chusetts and  Connecticut  tempt  hira  by  the  offer  of 
good  wages,  easy  work,  and  sympathizing  people,  he 
will  not  go  to  them.  He  only  just  endures  j^ew  York; 
the  most  hardy  of  his  race  will  hardly  stay  in  Saratoga 
and  Niagara  beyond  the  summer  months.  Since  the 
South  has  been  made  free  for  Sam  to  live  in,  he  has 
turned  his  back  on  the  cold  and  friendly  North,  in 
search  of  a  brighter  home.  Sitting  in  the  rice-field, 
by  the  canebrake,  under  the  mull^erry-trees  of  his  dar- 
ling Alabama,  with  his  kerchief  round  his  head,  his 
banjo  on  his  knee,  he  is  joyous  as  a  bird,  singing  his 
endless  and  foolish  roundelay,  and  feeling  the  sunshine 
burn  upon  his  face.  The  negro  is  but  a  local  fact  in 
the  country;  having  his  proper  home  in  a  corner — the 
most  sunny  corner — of  the  United  States. 

The  Red  Man,  once  a  hunter  of  the  Alleghanies, 
not  less  than  of  the  prairies  and  the  Rocky  Mountains, 
has  been  driven  by  the  pale-face,  he  and  his  squaw,  his 
elk,  his  buftalo,  and  his  antelope,  into  the  far  western 
country;  into  the  waste  and  desolate  lands  lying  west- 
w^ard  of  the  Mississippi  and  Missouri.  The  exceptions 
hardly  break  the  rule.  A  band  of  picturesque  peddlers 
may  be  found  at  Niagara;  Red  Jackets,  Cherokee 
chiefs,   and  Mohawks ;  selling  l)ows  and  canes,  and 


258  NEW  AMERICA. 

generally  spongins;  on  those  youths  and  damsels  who 
roam  about  the  Falls  in  search  of  opportunities  to 
flirt.  A  colony,  hardly  of  a  better  sort,  may  be  found 
at  Oneida  Creek,  in  Madison  County;  the  few  sowing 
maize,  growing  fruit,  and  singing  psalms;  the  many 
starving  on  the  soil,  cutting  down  the  oak  and  maple, 
alienating  the  best  acres,  pining  after  their  brethren 
who  have  thrown  the  white  man's  gift  in  his  face,  and 
gone  away  with  their  weapons  and  their  war-paint. 
Red  Jacket  at  the  Falls,  Bill  Beechtree  at  Oneida 
Creek — the  first  selling  beaded  work  to  girls,  the  sec- 
ond twisting  hickory  canes  for  boys — are  the  last  repre- 
sentatives of  mighty  nations,  hunters  and  warriors, 
who  at  one  time  owned  the  broad  lands  from  the  Sus- 
quehanna to  Lake  Erie.  Red  Jacket  will  not  settle; 
Bill  Beechtree  is  incapable  of  work.  The  red-skin  will 
not  dig,  and  to  beg  he  is  not  ashamed.  Hence,  he  has 
been  pushed  away  from  his  place,  driven  out  by  the 
spade,  and  kept  at  bay  by  the  smoke  of  chimney  fires. 
A  wild  man  of  the  plain  and  forest,  he  makes  his  home 
with  the  wolf,  the  rattlesnake,  the  buffalo,  and  the  elk. 
When  the  wild  beast  flies,  the  wild  man  follows.  The 
Alleghany  slopes,  on  which,  only  seventy  years  ago, 
he  chased  the  elk  and  scalped  the  white  woman,  will 
hear  his  war-whoop,  see  his  war-dance,  feel  his  scalp- 
ing-knife,  no  more.  In  the  western  country  he  is  still 
a  figure  in  the  landscape.  From  the  Missouri  to  the 
Colorado  he  is  master  of  all  the  open  plains ;  the  forts 
which  the  white  men  have  built  to  protect  their  road 
to  San  Francisco,  like  the  Turkish  block-houses  built 
along  the  Syrian  tracks,  being  mainly  of  use  as  a  hint 
of  their  great  reserve  of  power.  The  red  men  find  it 
hard  to  lay  down  a  tomahawk,  to  take  up  a  hoe;  some 
thousands  only  of  them  have  yet  done  so;  some  hun- 
dreds onlv  have  learned  from  the  whites  to  drink  gin 


THE  FOUR  RAGES.  259 

and  bitters,  to  lodge  in  frame-honses,  to  tear  up  the 
soil,  to  forget  the  chase,  the  war-dance,  and  the  Great 
Spirit. 

The  Yellow  Man,  generally  a  Chinese,  a  Malay, 
sometimes  a  Dyak,  has  been  drawn  into  the  Pacific 
states  from  Asia,  and  from  the  Eastern  Archipelago, 
by  the  hot  demand  for  labor;  any  kind  of  which 
comes  to  him  as  a  boon.  From  digging  in  the  mine 
to  cooking  an  omelette  and  ironing  a  shirt,  he  is  equal 
to  everything  by  which  dollars  can  be  gained.  Of  these 
yellow  people  there  are  now  sixty  thousand  in  Califor- 
nia, Utah,  and  Montana ;  they  come  and  go ;  but  many 
more  of  them  come  than  go.  As  yet  these  harmless 
crowds  are  weak  and  useful.  Hop  Chang  keeps  a  laun- 
dry ;  Chi  Hi  goes  out  as  cook ;  Cum  Thing  is  a  maid- 
of-all-work.  They  are  in  no  man's  way,  and  they  la- 
bor for  a  crust  of  bread;  carrying  the  hod  when  Mike 
has  run  away  to  the  diggings,  and  scrubbing  the  floor 
when  Biddy  has  made  some  wretch  the  happiest  of  his 
sex.  Supple  and  patient,  these  yellow  men,  though 
far  from  strong,  are  eager  for  any  kind  of  work;  but 
they  prefer  the  employments  of  women  to  those  of 
men;  delighting  in  an  engagement  to  wash  clothes,  to 
nurse  babies,  and  to  wait  on  guests.  They  make  vei-y 
good  butlers  and  chamber-maids.  Loo  Sing,  a  jolly 
old  girl  in  pig-tail,  washes  your  shirts,  starching  and 
ironing  them  very  neatly,  except  that  you  cannot  per- 
suade him  to  refrain  from  spitting  on  your  cuffs  and 
fronts.  To  him  spitting  on  linen  is  the  same  as  damp- 
ing it  with  drops  of  water ;  and  the  habits  of  his  life 
prevent  him,  even  though  you  should  catch  him  by  the 
pig-tail,  and  rub  his  tiny  bit  of  nose  on  the  burning 
iron,  from  seeing  that  it  is  not  the  same  to  you.  To- 
day, those  yellow  men  are  sixty  thousand  weak;  in  a 
few  years  they  may  be  six  hundred  thousand  strong 


260  NEW  AMERICA. 

They  will  ask  for  votes ;  they  will  hold  the  balance 
of  parties.  In  some  districts  they  will  make  a  major- 
ity; selecting  the  judges,  forming  the  juries,  interpret- 
ing the  laws.  Those  yellow  men  are  Buddhists,  pro- 
fessing polygamy,  practicing  infanticide.  Next  year 
is  not  more  sure  to  come  in  its  own  season  than  a  great 
society  of  Asiatics  to  dwell  on  the  Pacitic  slopes.  A 
Buddhist  church,  fronting  the  Buddhist  churches  in 
China  and  Ceylon,  will  rise  in  California,  Oregon,  and 
Nevada.  More  than  all,  a  war  of  labor  will  commence 
between  the  races  which  feed  on  beef  and  the  races 
which  thrive  on  rice ;  one  of  those  wars  in  which  the 
victory  is  not  necessarily  with  the  strong. 

White  man,  black  man,  red  man,  yellow  man,  each 
has  a  custom  of  his  own  to  follow,  a  genius  of  his  own 
to  prove,  a  conscience  of  his  own  to  respect;  custom 
which  is  not  of  kin,  genius  which  is  largely  difi'erent, 
and  conscience  which  is  fiercely  hostile.  These  four 
great  types  might  be  represented  to  the  eye  by  four  of 
my  friends :  H.  W.  Longfellow,  poet,  Boston ;  Eli 
Brown,  waiter,  Richmond ;  Spotted  Dog,  savage, 
Rocky  Mountains ;  and  Loo  Sing,  Laundry  boy,  Ne- 
vada. Under  what  circumstances  will  they  blend  into 
a  common  stock  ? 


SEX  AND   SEX.  261 


CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

SEX    AND    SEX. 

^EXT,  perhaps,  after  its  huge  size,  and  its  varied 
races,  the  fact  which  is  apt  to  strike  a  stranger  most  in 
the  United  States,  is  the  disproportion  almost  every- 
where to  be  noted  between  sex  and  sex. 

To  such  a  dinner  as  we  have  imagined  taking  place 
in  the  western  country,  no  woman  will  have  sat  down ; 
not  because  there  are  no  ladies  in  the  house,  but  be- 
cause these  ladies  have  something  else  to  do  than  dine 
with  guests.  Your  host  may  have  been  a  married 
man,  pluming  himself  with  very  good  right,  on  his 
winsome  Avife,  his  bevy  of  sparkling  girls ;  but  his  wife 
and  hei'  daughters,  instead  of  occupying  seats  at  the 
board,  will  have  to  stand  behind  the  chairs,  handing 
round  tlie  dishes,  pouring  out  the  tea,  aiding  Loo  Sing 
to  uncork  the  wine.  Females  are  few  in  yonder  west- 
ern towns;  you  may  spend  day  after  day  without  fall- 
ing in  sight  of  a  pretty  face.  At  the  wayside  inn, 
when  you  call  for  the  chamber-maid,  either  Sam  puts 
in  his  woolly  head,  or  Chi  Hi  pops  in  his  shaven  crown. 
Hardly  any  help  can  be  hired  in  those  wastes ;  Molly 
runs  away  with  a  miner;  Biddy  gets  married  to  a  mer- 
chant ;  and  when  guests  ride  in  from  the  track,  the 
fair  creatures  who  live  on  the  spot,  the  joy  of  some 
husband's  home,  of  some  father's  eyes,  have  no  choice 
beyond  either  sending  these  guests  on  their  way,  hun- 
gry, uurested,  or  cooking  them  a  dinner  and  putting 
it  on  the  board.  At  Salt  Lake,  in  the  houses  of  Mor- 
mon apostles  and  of  wealthy  merchants,  we  were  al- 


262  NEW  AMERICA. 

ways  served  by  the  young  ladies,  often  by  extremely 
delicate  and  lovely  girls. 

At  first  this  novelty  is  rather  hard  to  bear ;  not  by 
the  ladies  so  much  as  by  their  guests.  To  see  a  woman 
who  has  just  been  quoting  Keats  and  playing  Grounod, 
standing  up  behind  your  seat,  uncorking  catawba, 
whipping  away  plates,  and  handing  you  the  sauce,  is 
li'ying  to  the  nerves,  especially  when  you  are  young 
and  passably  polite.  In  time  you  get  used  to  it,  as 
you  do  to  the  sight  of  a  scalping-knife,  to  the  sound 
of  a  war-whoop  ;  but  what  can  a  lady  at  the  mines,  on 
the  prairies,  on  the  lonely  farmsteads,  do  when  a  guest 
drops  in  ?  Help  she  has  none,  excepting  Sam  and  Loo 
Sing.  In  that  district  of  many  males  and  few  females, 
every  girl  is  a  lady,  almost  every  woman  is  a  wife. 
Men  may  be  hired  at  a  fair  day's  wage,  to  do  any  kind 
of  male  labor;  to  cook  your  food,  to  groom  your  horse, 
to  trim  your  garden,  to  cut  your  wood;  but  women  to 
do  female  work,  to  make  the  beds,  to  serve  at  table,  to 
nurse  the  bairns;  no,  not  for  the  income  of  a  bishop, 
can  you  get  them.  Biddy  can  do  better.  Girls  who 
are  young  and  pretty  have  a  lottery  full  of  prizes  ready 
to  their  hand ;  even  those  who  may  be  old  and  plain 
can  have  husbands  when  they  please.  Everywhere  west 
of  the  Mississippi  there  is  a  brisk  demand  for  women; 
and  what  girl  of  spirit  would  let  herself  out  for  hire 
when  the  church  door  is  open,  and  the  bridal  bells  are 
ready?  Who  would  accept  the  possition  of  a  wo- 
man's help  when  she  has  only  to  say  the  word,  and 
become  a  man's  help-mate  ? 

Your  hostess  on  the  Plains  may  have  been  well  born, 
well  educated,  well  dressed ;  both  she  herself  and  her 
bevy  of  girls  may  be  such  as  would  be  considered  mag- 
netic in  Fifth  Avenue,  attractive  in  May  Fair.  They 
may  speak  French  very  well;  and  when  some  of  you 


SEX  AND   SEX.  263 

selfish  fellows  gathered  under  their  window  to  smoke 
and  chat,  they  will  have  charmed  your  ears  with  the 
most  brilliant  passages  from  Faust.  Now,  to  hear 
Sibyl's  serenade  in  the  shadow  of  the  Eocky  Mount- 
ains is  a  treat  on  which  you  may  not  have  counted; 
but  the  fact  remains  that  only  one  hour  earlier  in  the 
day  the  contralto  has  been  acting  as  your  cook.  Once 
before  in  my  life  the  same  sort  of  thing  has  occurred 
to  me ;  in  Morocco,  where  a  dark-eyed  Judith,  daugh- 
ter of  a  Jew  in  whose  house  I  was  lodging  for  the 
night,  first  fried  my  supper  of  fowls  and  tomatoes,  and 
then  lulled  me  to  sleep  by  the  notes  of  her  guitar  as 
she  sat  on  the  door-step. 

This  comedy  of  the  sexes  may  be  found  in  action, 
not  only  out  yonder  in  Colorado  and  the  western  prai- 
ries, but  here  in  the  shadow  of  the  Capitol,  in  every 
State  of  the  Union,  almost  in  every  city  of  each  State. 
After  all  the  havoc  of  war, — of  which  this  disparity 
between  males  and  females  was  an  active,  though  an 
unseen,  cause, — the  evidence  of  inequality  meets  you 
at  every  turn ;  in  the  ball-rooms  at  Washington,  in  the 
streets  of  New  York,  in  the  chapels  of  Boston,  at  the 
dinner-tables  of  Richmond,  as  well  as  among  the  frame 
sheds  of  Omaha,  in  the  plantations  of  Atlanta,  in  the 
miners'  huts  near  Denver,  in  the  theater  of  Salt  Lake 
City.  The  cry  is  everywhere  for  girls;  girls  —  more 
girls!  In  a  hundred  voices  you  hear  the  echoes  of  a 
common  want;  the  ladies  cannot  find  servants,  the 
dancers  cannot  get  partners,  the  young  men  cannot 
win  wives.  I  was  at  a  ball  on  the  Missouri  River 
where  half  the  men  had  to  sit  down,  though  the  girls 
obligingly  danced  every  set. 

Compared  against  the  society  of  Paris  and  of  Lon- 
don, that  of  America  seems  to  be  all  awry.  Go  into 
the  Madeleine, — it  is  full  of  ladies ;  go  into  St.  James's 


264  N£JW  AMEBIC  A. 

Palace, — it  is  full  of  ladies.  Every  house  in  England 
has  excess  of  daughters,  about  whom  mothers  have 
their  little  dreams,  not  always  unmixed  with  a  little 
fear.  When  Blanche  is  thirty,  and  still  unsettled,  her 
very  father  must  begin  to  doubt  of  her  ever  going  out 
into  life.  An  old  adage  says  that  a  girl  at  twenty  says 
to  herself,  Who  will  suit  me?  at  thirty.  Whom  shall  I 
suit  ?  Here  in  America  it  is  not  the  woman,  but  the 
man,  who  is  a  drug  in  the  matrimonial  market.  No 
Yankee  girl  is  bound,  like  a  Scottish  lassie,  like  an 
Irish  kerne,  to  serve  in  another  woman's  house  for 
bread.  Her  face  is  her  fortune  and  her  lips  a  prize ; 
her  love  more  precious  than  her  labor;  her  two  bright 
orbs  of  more  value  than  even  her  nimble  hands.  "War 
may  have  thinned,  to  her  disadvantage,  the  rank  and 
file  of  lovers,  but  the  losses  of  male  life  by  shot  and 
shell,  by  fever  and  ague,  by  waste  and  privation,  have 
been  more  than  replaced  to  her  from  Europe  ;  and  the 
disproportions  of  sex  and  sex,  noted  before  the  war 
broke  out,  are  said  to  be  greater  since  its  close.  The 
lists  are  crowded  with  bachelors  wanting  wives ;  the 
price  of  young  men  is  ruling  down,  and  only  the  hand- 
some, well-doing  fellows  have  a  chance  of  going  off! 

This  sketch  is  no  effort  of  a  fancy,  looking  for  ex- 
tremes and  loving  the  grotesque.  When  the  census 
was  compiled  (in  1860),  the  white  males  were  found  to 
be  in  excess  of  the  white  females,  by  seven  hundred 
and  thirty  thousand  souls.  Such  a  fact  has  no  fellow 
in  Europe,  except  in  the  Papal  States,  where  society  is 
made  by  exceptional  forces,  governed  by  exceptional 
rules.  In  every  other  Christian  country, — in  France, 
England,  Germany,  Spain, — the  females  are  in  large 
excess  of  the  males.  In  France  there  are  two  hundred 
thousand  women  more  than  men;  in  England  three 
hundred  and  sixtv-five  thousand.     The  unusual  rule 


SEX  AND   SEX.  265 

here  noticed  in  America  is  not  confined  to  nnj  district, 
any  sea-board,  any  zone.  Out  of  fifty-two  organized 
States  and  Territories,  only  eight  exhibit  the  ordinary 
rnle  of  European  countries.  Eight  old  settlements  are 
supplied  with  women  ;  that  is  to  say,  Maryland,  Massa- 
chusetts, i^ew  Hampshire,  ]N"ew  Jersey,  iSTew  York, 
i^orth  Carolina,  Rhode  Island,  Columbia;  while  the 
other  fifty-four  settlements,  purchases,  and  conquests, 
from  the  Atlantic  Ocean  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  lack  this 
element  of  a  stable,  orderly,  and  virtuous  state, — a 
wife  for  every  young  man  of  a  proper  age  to  marry. 
In  some  of  the  western  regions,  the  disparity  is  such 
as  strikes  the  moralist  with  awe:  in  California  there 
are  three  men  to  every  woman;  in  Washington,  four 
men  to  every  woman;  in  IS^evada,  eight  men  to 
every  woman;  in  Colorado,  twenty  men  to  every 
woman. 

This  disparity  between  sex  and  sex  is  not  wholly 
caused,  as  will  be  thought,  by  the  large  immigration 
of  single  men.  It  is  so  in  degree,  no  doubt,  since  far 
more  males  arrive  by  ship  at  Boston  and  New  York 
than  females;  but  if  all  the  new-comers  were  sent 
back,  if  no  fresh  male  was  allowed  to  land  in  JSTew 
York  unless  he  brought  with  him  a  female  companion, 
a  sister,  a  wife,  still  a  large  percentage  of  the  people 
would  have  to  go  down  into  their  graves  unmarried. 
More  males  are  born  than  females.  Casting  off  the 
German  and  Irish  quota,  there  would  still  be  four  men 
in  the  hundred  in  this  great  Republic  for  whom  nature 
has  sent  no  female  mates.  Immigration  only  comes  to 
the  help  of  nature;  Europe  sending  in  hosts  of  bache- 
lors to  fight  for  the  few  women,  who  would  otherwise 
be  insufficient  for  the  native  men.  In  the  whole  mass 
of  whites,  the  disproportion  is  five  in  the  hundred ;  so 
that   one   man  in    every  twenty  males   born    in   the 

23 


266  ^EW  A3IER1CA. 

Uuited  States  can  never  expect  to  have  a  wife  of  his 
own. 

What  is  hardly  less  strange  than  this  large  displace- 
ment of  the  sexes  among  the  white  population,  is  the 
fact  that  it  is  not  explained  and  corrected  by  any  excess 
in  the  inferior  types.  There  are  more  yellow  men  than 
yellow  women,  more  red  braves  than  red  squaws.  Only 
the  negroes  are  of  nearly  equal  number;  a  slight  excess 
being  counted  on  the  female  side. 

A^ery  few  Tartars  and  Chinese  have  brought  their 
wives  and  daughters  with  them  into  this  country.  On 
their  first  coming  over  they  expected  to  get  rich  in  a 
year,  and  return  to  sip  tea  and  grow  oranges  in  their 
native  land.  Many  of  those  who  are  now  settled  in 
California  and  Montana,  are  sending  for  their  mates, 
who  may  come  or  not;  having  mostly,  perhaps,  been 
married  again  in  the  absence  of  their  lords.  The 
present  rate  is  eighteen  yellow  men  to  one  yellow 
woman. 

As  yet,  the  red-skins  have  been  counted  in  groups 
and  patches  only;  in  the  more  settled  districts  of 
Michigan,  Minnesota,  California,  and  Xew  Mexico; 
but  in  all  these  districts,  though  the  influences  are 
here  unusually  favorable  to  female  life,  males  are 
found  in  excess  of  females,  in  the  proportion  of  five  to 
four. 

Think  what  this  large  excess  of  men  over  women 
entails,  in  the  way  of  trial,  on  American  society — 
think  what  a  state  that  country  must  be  in  which 
ct)unts  up  in  its  fields,  in  its  cities,  seven  hundred  and 
thirty  thousand  unmarried  men ! 

Bear  in  mind  that  these  crowds  of  prosperous  fellows 
are  not  bachelors  by  choice,  selfish  dogs,  woman-haters, 
men  useless  to  themselves  and  to  the  world  in  which 
they  live.     They  are  average  young  men,  busy  and 


SEX  AND   SEX.  2G7 

pushing;  fellows  who  would  rather  fall  into  love  than 
into  sin ;  who  would  be  fond  of  their  wives  and  proud 
of  their  children  if  society  would  only  provide  them 
with  lawful  mates.  What  are  they  now  ?  An  army  of 
monks  without  the  defense  of  a  religious  vow.  These 
seven  hundred  and  thirty  thousand  bachelors  have  never 
promised  to  be  chaste;  many  of  them,  it  may  be  feared, 
regard  the  tenth  commandment  as  little  more  than 
a  paper  law.  You  say  to  them  in  efleet,  "You  are  not 
to  pluck  these  flowers,  not  to  trample  on  these  borders, 
if  you  please."  Suppose  that  they  will  not  please? 
How  is  the  unw^edded  youth  to  be  hindered  from 
coveting  his  neighbor's  wife  ?  You  know  what  Naples 
is,  what  Munich  is.  You  have  seen  the  condition  of 
Liverpool,  Cadiz,  Antwerp,  Livorno;  of  every  city,  of 
every  port,  in  which  there  is  a  floating  population  of 
single  men;  but  in  which  of  these  cities  do  you  find 
any  approach  to  iTew  York,  in  the  show  of  open  and 
triumphant  vice? 

Men  who  know  New  York  far  worse  than  myself, 
assure  me  that  in  depth  and  darkness  of  iniquity, 
neither  Paris  in  its  private  haunts,  nor  London  in  its 
open  streets,  can  hold  a  candle  to  it.  Paris  may  be 
subtler,  London  may  be  grosser,  in  its  vices;  but  for 
largeness  of  depravity,  for  domineering  insolence  of 
sin,  for  rowdy  callousness  to  censure,  they  tell  me  the 
Atlantic  City  finds  no  rival  on  the  earth. 

Do  all  these  evils  come  with  the  anchoring  ship,  and 
stream  from  the  quays  into  the  city?  No  one  will  say 
so.  The  quays  of  New  York  are  like  the  quays  of  any 
other  port.  They  are  the  haunts  of  drabs  and  thieves; 
they  are  covered  with  grogshops  and  stews;  but  the 
men  who  land  on  those  quays  are  not  viler  in  taste 
than  those  who  land  in  Southampton,  in  Hamburg,  in 
Genoa.     "What,  then,  makes  the  Empire  City  a  cess- 


268  NEW   AMERICA. 

pool  ])y  the  aide  of  which  European  ports  seem  almost 
pure  ?  My  answer  is,  mainly  the  disparity  of  sex  and 
sex. 

New  York  is  a  great  capital ;  rich  and  pleasant,  gay 
and  luxurious;  a  city  of  freedom,  a  city  of  pleasure,  to 
which  men  come  from  every  part  of  the  Union;  this 
man  for  trade,  that  for  counsel,  a  third  for  relaxation, 
a  fourth  for  adventure.  It  is  a  place  for  the  idle  man, 
as  well  as  for  the  busy  man.  Crowds  flock  to  its  hotels, 
to  its  theaters,  to  its  gaming-houses;  and  we  need  no 
angel  from  heaven  to  tell  us  what  kind  of  company 
will  amuse  an  unmarried  man  having  dollars  in  his 
purse. 

On  the  other  side,  this  demand  for  mates  who  can 
never  be  supplied,  not  in  one  place  only,  but  in  every 
place  alike,  affects  the  female  mind  with  a  variety  of 
plagues;  driving  your  sister  into  a  thousand  restless 
agitations  about  her  rights  and  powers;  into  debating 
woman's  era  in  history,  woman's  place  in  creation, 
woman's  mission  in  the  family;  into  public  hysteria,  into 
table-rapping,  into  anti-wedlock  societies,  into  theories 
about  free  love,  natural  marriage,  and  artistic  mater- 
nity; into  anti-offspring  resolutions,  into  sectarian 
polygamy,  into  free  trade  of  the  affections,  into  com- 
munity of  wives.  Some  part  of  this  wild  disturbance 
of  the  female  mind,  it  may  be  urged,  is  due  to  the  free- 
dom and  prosperity  which  women  tind  in  America  as 
compared  against  what  they  enjoy  in  Europe;  but  this 
freedom,  this  prosperity,  are  in  some  degree,  at  least, 
the  consequences  of  that  disparity  in  numbers  which 
makes  the  hand  of  every  young  girl  in  the  United 
States  a  positive  prize. 


LADIES.  269 


CHAPTER  XXXVII. 

LADIES. 

"The  American  lady  has  not  made  an  American 
home,"  says  sly  old  Mayo;  a  truth  which  I  sliould 
hardly  have  found  out,  had  I  not  met  with  it  in  an 
American  author.  Ladies,  it  is  true,  are  very  much  at 
home  in  hotels;  but  I  have  only  to  remember  certain 
streets  in  Boston,  Philadelphia,  Richmond,  and  l^ew 
York — indeed,  in  Denver,  Salt  Lake  City,  and  St. 
Louis — to  feel  that  America  has  homes  as  bright  as 
any  to  be  found  in  Middlesex  and  Kent,  "What  do 
you  say,  now,  to  our  ladies?"  said  to  me  a  bluff 
Yankee,  as  we  sat  last  night  under  the  veranda,  here 
in  the  hotel  at  Saratoga,  "Charming,"  of  course  I 
answered,  "pale,  delicate,  bewitching;  dashing,  too, 
and    radiant."      "Hoo!"    cried    he,   putting   up   his 

hands;     "they   are  just   not   worth   a   d ,     They 

can't  walk,  they  can't  ride,  they  can't  nurse."  "Ah, 
you  have  no  wife,"  said  I,  in  a  soothing  tone.  "A 
wife!"  he  shouted;  "I  should  kill  her,"  "With 
kindness?"  "Ugh!"  he  answered;  "with  a  poker. 
Look  at  these  chits  here,  dawdling  by  the  fountain. 
What  are  they  doing  now  ?  what  have  they  done  all 
day?  Fed  and  dressed.  They  have  changed  their 
clothes  three  times,  and  had  their  hair  washed,  combed, 
and  curled  three  times.  That  is  their  life.  Have  they 
been  out  for  a  walk,  for  a  ride  ?  Have  they  read  a 
book  ?  have  they  sewn  a  seam  ?  Not  a  bit  of  it.  How 
do  your  ladies  spend  their  time  ?     They  put  on  good 

23* 


270  NEW  AMEBIC  A. 

boots,  they  tnck  up  their  skirts,  and  liark  away  through 
the  country  lanes.  I  was  in  Hampshire  once;  my  host 
Avas  a  duke ;  liis  wife  was  out  before  breakfast,  with 
clogs  on  her  feet  and  roses  on  her  cheeks ;  she  rode  to 
the  hunt,  she  walked  to  the  copse ;  a  ditch  would  not 
frigliten  hei',  a  hedge  would  not  turn  her  back.     T.'liy, 

our  women,  poor,  pale ."     "Come,"  I  said,  "they 

are  very  lovely."  "Ugh!"  said  the  saucy  fellow, 
"they  have  no  bone,  no  fibre,  no  juice;  they  have 
only  nerves;  but  what  can  you  expect?  They  eat 
pearlash  for  bread;  they  drink  ice-water  for  wine; 
they  wear  tight  stays,  thin  shoes,  and  barrel  skirts. 
Such  things  are  not  fit  to  live,  and,  thank  God,  in  a 
hundred  years  not  one  of  their  descendants  will  be 
left  alive." 

"When  looking  at  these  sweet  New  England  girls,  as 
they  go  trooping  past  my  window,  I  cannot  help  feel- 
ing that  with  this  delicate  pallor,  winsome  and  poetic 
as  it  looks  to  an  artist  in  female  beauty,  there  must  be 
lack  of  vital  power.  My  saucy  friend  had  got  an  ink- 
ling of  the  truth.  Would  that  these  dainty  cousins  of 
ours  were  a  trifle  more  rol)Ust!  I  could  forgive  them 
for  a  little  rose-blush  on  the  cheek ;  at  present  you  can 
hardly  speak  to  them  without  fearing  lest  they  should 
vanish  from  before  your  face. 

Woman,  in  her  time,  has  been  called  upon  to  endure 
a  great  deal  of  definition.  In  prose  and  in  verse  she 
has  been  called  an  angel,  a  harpy,  a  saint,  an  ogress,  a 
guardian,  a  fate ;  she  has  been  likened  to  a  rose  and  a 
palm,  to  the  nightshade  and  the  upas;  she  has  been 
painted  as  a  dove  and  a  gazelle,  a  magpie  and  a  fox. 
Poetry  has  made  her  a  fawn,  a  nightingale,  a  swan ;  while 
satire  has  represented  her  as  a  jay,  a  serpent,  and  a  cat. 
By  way  of  coming  to  a  middle  term,  a  wit  described 
her  as  a  good  idea — spoiled  I     Wit,  poetry,  satire,  only 


LADIES.  271 

exhaust  their  terms ;  for  how  can  a  phrase  describe  an 
infinite  variety? 

A  lady,  as  a  single  typo,  would,  perhaps,  be  easier 
to  define  than  woman  ;  she  would  certainly  be  easier 
to  express  by  an  exani})le.  Asked  to  produce  a  perfect 
woman,  I  might  hesitate  long,  comparing  strength  and 
weakness,  merit  and  frailty,  so  as  to  get  them  in  the 
most  subtle  relations  to  each  other;  asked  to  produce 
a  perfect  lady,  I  should  point  to  Miss  Stars  at  Wash- 
ington, Mrs.  Bars  of  Boston,  and  to  many  more.  ISTot 
that  perfect  ladies  are  more  common  than  perfect  wo- 
men ;  they  are  far  less  common  ;  but  we  seize  the  type 
more  easily,  and  we  know  in  what  soils  to  expect  their 
growth.  A  typical  woman  is  a  triumph  of  Kature  ;  a 
typical  lady  is  a  triumph  of  Art. 

Among  the  higher  classes  in  America,  the  traditions 
of  English  beauty  have  not  declined;  the  oval  face, 
the  delicate  lip,  the  transparent  nostril,  the  pearl-like 
flesh,  the  tiny  hand,  which  mark  in  May  Fair  the  lady 
of  high  descent,  may  be  seen  in  all  the  best  houses  of 
Virginia  and  Massachusetts.  The  proudest  London 
belle,  the  fairest  Lancashire  witch,  would  find  in  Bos- 
ton and  in  Richmond  rivals  in  grace  and  beauty  whom 
she  could  not  feign  to  despise.  Birth  is  one  cause,  no 
doubt,  though  training  and  prosperity  have  come  in 
aid  of  birth.  Li  some  of  our  older  colonies,  the  people 
drew  their  blood  from  the  very  heart  of  England  in 
her  most  heroic  time  and  mood,  when  men  who  were 
born  of  gentle  mothers  flung  themselves  into  the  great 
adventure  for  establishing  New  States.  The  bands 
who  came  out  under  Raleigh's  patent,  under  Brew- 
ster's guidance,  were  made  up  of  soldiers,  preachers, 
courtiers,  gentlemen ;  some  coming  hither  to  seek  a 
fortune,  others  to  find  an  asylum ;  and  though  crowds 
of  less  noble  emigrants  followed  after  them — farmers, 


272  NEW  AMERICA. 

craftsmen,  menials,  moss-troopers,  even  criminals — the 
leaven  was  not  wholly  lost.  The  family  names  re- 
mained. Even  now  this  older  race  of  settlers  keeps  its 
force  in  some  degree  intact,  making  the  women  lovel}-, 
the  men  gallant  and  enduring,  in  the  fashion  of  their 
ancient  types.  This  higher  range  of  female  beauty, 
which  is  chiefly  to  be  found  in  the  older  cities  and  in 
families  of  gentle  race,  is  thoroughly  English  in  its 
style  ;  reminding  the  stranger  of  a  gallery  of  portraits 
in  a  country  house ;  here  of  Holbein  and  Lely,  there 
of  Gainsborough  and  Reynolds.  Leslie,  I  think, 
brought  some  of  his  sweetest  English  faces  from  the 
United  States. 

In  many  of  the  younger  cities  of  the  Union,  there  is 
also  a  great  deal  of  beauty,  backed  b}"  a  good  deal  of 
wit  and  accomplishment ;  but  the  beauty  of  these 
younger  cities  (at  least  that  sample  of  it  which  I  see 
here  in  Saratoga,  and  that  which  I  saw  a  little  while 
ago  at  Lebanon  springs)  is  less  like  the  art  of  Gains- 
borough and  of  Reynolds  than  that  of  Guido  and  of 
Greuse.  Much  Flemish  blood  is  in  it.  The  skin  is 
fairer,  the  eye  bluer,  the  expression  bolder,  than  they 
are  in  the  English  type.  New  York  beauty  has  more 
dash  and  color ;  Boston  beauty  more  sparkle  and  deli- 
cacy. Some  men  would  prefer  the  more  open  and 
audacious  loveliness  of  ISTew  York,  with  the  Rubens- 
like rosiness  and  fullness  of  the  flesh ;  but  an  English 
eye  will  find  more  charm  in  the  soft  and  shy  expres- 
sion of  the  elder  type.  In  I^ew  York,  the  living  is 
more  splendid,  the  dressing  more  costly,  the  furnish- 
ing more  lavish,  than  in  New  England;  but  the  effect 
of  this  magnificence,  as  an  educating  agent,  is  found 
to  be  rather  upon  the  eye  than  upon  the  soul.  May  I 
illustrate  my  meaning  by  example?  In  Fifth  Avenue 
you  may  find  a  mansion  which  has  cost  more  money 


LADIES.  273 

to  build  than  Bridgewater  House  in  London,  and  in 
which  the  wines  and  viands  served  to  a  guest  may  be 
as  good  as  any  put  on  an  English  board,  but  an  Amer- 
ican would  be  the  iirst  to  feel  how  wide  an  interval 
separated  these  two  houses.  One  house  belongs  to 
wealth;  the  other,  to  poetry.  One  boasts  of  having 
marble  columns  and  gilded  walls ;  the  other,  of  pos- 
sessing Raphael  paintings  and  Shakspeare  quartos. 
In  Fifth  Avenue  there  is  a  palace;  in  Cleveland  Row 
there  is  a  shrine. 

Some  of  this  difference  is  what  I  find  (or  fancy)  be- 
tween the  beauties  of  Boston  and  Richmond  and  those 
of  "Washington  and  New  York.  Of  course,  I  am  not 
speaking  of  shodd}^  queens  and  petroleum  empresses; 
these  ladies  make  a  class  apart,  who,  even  when  they 
chance  to  live  in  Fifth  Avenue,  have  no  other  relation 
to  it  than  that  of  being  there,  like  the  hickories  and 
limes.  I  speak  of  the  real  ladies  of  ISTew  York,  wo- 
men who  would  be  accounted  ladies  in  Hyde  Park, 
when  I  say  that,  as  a  rule,  they  have  a  style  and  bear- 
ing, a  dash,  a  frankiiess,  a  confidence,  not  to  be  seen 
among  their  sisters  of  either  J^ew  England  or  Old 
England.  "I  was  very  bad  upon  him  ;  but  I  got  over 
it  in  time,  and  then  let  him  otf,"  said  a  young  and 
l)retty  woman  of  ISTew  York  to  a  friend  of  mine,  speak- 
ing of  her  love  affairs,  in  the  secrecy  of  a  friendship 
which  had  lasted  two  long  days.  B}'  him,  she  meant  a 
swain  whom  she,  in  the  wisdom  of  sixteen  summers, 
had  chosen  from  the  crowd — one  whom,  if  the  whim 
had  only  held  her  a  trifle  longer,  she  might  have  made 
her  husband  by  lawful  rites.  The  girl  was  not  a  brazen 
minx,  such  as  a  man  may  sometimes  see  in  a  train,  in 
a  river  boat,  playing  with  big  words  and  putting  on 
saucy  airs,  but  a  sweet  and  elegant  girl,  a  lady  from 
brow  to  instep,  with  a  fine  carriage,  a  low  voice,  a  cul- 


274  N'EW  AMERICA. 

tiired  mind  ;  a  piece  of  feminine  grace,  such  as  a  man 
would  like  to  have  in  a  sister  and  strive  to  compass  iu 
a  wife,  ller  oddity  consisted,  first,  in  the  thing  which 
she  said ;  next,  in  her  choice  of  words ;  in  other  phrase, 
it  lay  in  the  difterence  between  an  English  girl's  and 
an  American  girl's  habits  of  thought  with  regard  to 
the  relations  of  men  and  women.  "I  was  bad  upon 
him,  but  I  let  him  off,"  expresses,  in  very  plain  Saxou 
words,  an  idea  which  would  hardly  have  entered  into 
an  English  girl's  mind,  and,  even  if  it  had  so  entered, 
would  never  have  found  that  dry  and  passionless  escape 
from  her  lips. 

In  that  phrase  lay  hidden,  like  a  pass-word  in  a  com- 
mon saying,  the  cardinal  secrets  of  American  life :  the 
scarcity  of  women  in  the  matrimonial  market,  and  the 
power  of  choosing  and  rejecting  which  that  scarcity 
confers  on  a  young  and  pretty  girl. 


CHAPTER  XXXVni. 

SQUATTER   WOMEN. 

The  fruits  of  this  excess  of  males  over  females  in  the 
American  market  are  not  confined  to  young  damsels 
who  flirt  and  pout  in  Saratoga,  in  l!Tewport,  and  at  the 
Falls;  they  come  in  equal  harvests  to  the  peasant  girls 
of  Omaha,  St.  Joseph,  and  Leavenworth.  In  the  west- 
ern country,  the  excess  of  males  is  greater  than  it  is 
in  the  eastern,  with  advantages  to  match  on  the  part 
of  our  fairer  sex. 

Among  the  many  points  of  difference  between  life  in 


SQUATTER    WOMEN.  275 

the  Old  World  and  life  in  the  JSTew,  none  comes  more 
vividly  to  the  eye  than  the  daily  contrast  between  the 
gait,  dress,  speech,  and  occupations  of  females  in  the 
lower  ranks.  If  Fifth  Avenue  is  a  paradise  for  women, 
80,  each  in  its  own  degree,  is  the  mill,  the  ranch,  the 
oil-spring,  the  rice-field,  and  the  farm-yard. 

I  am  old  enough  to  recall  with  a  smile  my  boylike 
indignation  when  I  first  saw  females  laboring  in  the 
open  countrj^;  not  Avith  the  men,  their  fathers  and 
sweethearts,  as  they  might  do  for  a  day  of  haymaking 
in  my  own  Yorkshire;  but  alone  on  the  hillsides,  in 
gangs  and  parties,  gaunt  and  wasted  things,  ill-clad, 
ill-fed,  pallid  with  toil,  and  scorched  by  the  sun.  This 
trial  happened  to  me  in  beautiful  Burgundy,  on  the 
slopes  of  sweet  Tonnerre,  to  which  I  had  gone  in  the 
heyday  of  youth,  full  of  dreams  and  pastorals.  Good 
old  Josephine,  poor  little  Fan,  how^  my  heart  used  to 
ache  for  you,  as  you  trotted  oft'  in  the  early  day,  in 
your  old  flap  hats,  your  thin  calico  skirts,  and  thick 
wooden  clogs,  with  the  rakes  and  hoes  in  your  hands, 
the  jar  of  fresh  water  on  your  heads,  the  basket  of 
brown  bread  and  onions  on  your  arms,  leaving  that 
lazy  old  Jean,  who  called  one  of  you  wife,  the  other 
of  you  daughter,  asleep  in  his  crib !  How  my  fingers 
used  to  twitch  and  claw^  the  air  when,  later  in  the  day, 
the  rascal  would  come  out  into  the  street,  shake 
himself  into  good  humor,  gabble  about  the  news,  play 
his  game  of  dominoes  at  the  estaminet  door,  and  enjoy 
his  pipe  of  tobacco  on  the  steps  of  St.  Pierre!  Since 
that  boyish  day,  I  have  seen  the  feminine  serfs  at  their 
field-work  in  many  parts  of  the  earth;  the  Celt  in  Con- 
naught,  the  Iberian  in  Valentia,  the  Pawnee  in  Colo- 
rado, the  Fellaheen  in  Egypt,  the  Valack  in  the  Carpa- 
thian mountains,  the  Walloon  in  Flanders,  the  Negress 
in  Kentucky;  but  I  have  never  yet  been  able  to  look 


276  NEW  AMERICA. 

down  on  this  grinding  and  defacing  toil  without  flush- 
ing veins.  After  so  much  waste,  it  was  rather  comical 
to  lind  Loo  Sing  making  beds  and  Hop  Chang  washing 
clothes. 

In  my  own  country,  the  peasant  girl  is  not  every- 
thing that  poets  and  artists  paint  her.  In  spite  of  our 
Mayday  games,  our  harvest-homes,  and  many  other 
country  pastimes,  relies  of  an  older  and  a  merrier  age, 
the  English  peasant  girl  is  a  little  loutish,  not  a  little 
dull.  As  a  rule,  she  is  not  very  tidy  in  her  person, 
not  very  neat  in  her  dress,  not  very  quick  with  her 
fingers,  not  very  gainly  on  her  feet.  The  American 
girl  of  the  same  rank  in  life  is  in  every  respect,  save 
one,  her  superior. 

It  may  come  from  living  in  a  softer  climate,  from 
feeding  on  a  diflerent  diet,  from  inheriting  a  purer 
blood;  but  from  whatever  cause  it  springs,  there  can 
be  no  dispute  about  the  fact,  that  in  Lancashire  and 
Devonshire,  indeed,  in  every  English  shire,  you  find 
among  the  peasant  women  a  degree  of  personal  beauty 
nowhere  to  be  matched,  as  a  general  rule,  and  on  a 
scale  for  comparison,  in  the  United  States.  Many 
American  girls  are  comely,  many  more  are  smart;  but 
among  the  lower  grades  of  women,  there  is  no  such 
wide  and  plentiful  crop  of  riietic  loveliness  as  an  artist 
finds  in  England;  the  bright  eyes,  the  curly  locks,  the 
rosy  complexions,  everywhere  laughing  you  into 
pleasant  thoughts  among  our  Devonshire  lanes  and 
Lancashire  streets.  But  then  comes  the  balance  of  ac- 
counts. With  her  gifts  of  nature,  our  English  rustic 
must  close  her  book,  in  presence  of  her  keen  and  natty 
American  sister. 

A  few  weeks  ago,  I  rode  out  with  a  friend  to  see 
Cyrus  Smith,  a  peasant  farmer,  hving  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Omaha.     Omaha  is  a  new  city,  built  on  the 


SQUATTER    WOMEN.  217 

Missouri;  a  place  that  has  sprunp^  into  life  in  a  dozen 
years;  and  is  growing  up  like  a  city  in  a  fairy  tale. 
Yesterday  it  had  a  Imndred  settlers,  to-day  it  has  a 
thousand,  to-niorrow  it  may  have  ten  thousand.  Twenty 
years  ago,  the  Omaha  Indians  lodged  under  its  wil- 
lows, and  the  king  of  that  tribe  was  buried  on  horse- 
back, by  the  adjacent  bank.  Now,  it  is  a  city,  with  a 
railway  line,  a  capital,  a  court-house,  streets,  banks, 
omnibuses,  hotels.  What  Chicago  is,  Omaha  threat- 
ens to  become. 

Cyrus  Smith  is  a  small  squatter,  living  near  a  tiny 
creek,  in  a  log-hut,  on  a  patch  of  forest  land,  which  he 
has  wrung  from  nature  by  the  toil  of  his  hand,  the 
sweat  of  his  brow.  The  shed  is  not  big,  the  plot  of 
laud  is  not  wide.  Within  a  narrow  compass,  every- 
thing needful  in  the  way  of  growing  stuif  and  rearing 
stock,  for  a  family  of  young  children,  must  be  done; 
cows  must  be  stalled,  pigs  littered,  poultry  fed.  There 
is  no  wealth  to  spare  in  Smith's  ranch;  the  fare  is 
hard,  the  living  is  only  from  hand  to  mouth;  yet  on 
the  face' of  affairs,  there  is  no  black  sign  of  poverty, 
of  meanness,  such  as  you  would  see  about  an  Irish 
hovel,  a  Breton  cabin,  a  Valack  den.  Walk  up  this 
garden  way,  through  these  natty  little  beds  of  fruit- 
trees,  herbs,  and  flowers.  This  path  might  lead  to  a 
gentleman's  villa;  for  the  road  is  wide  and  swept,  and 
neither  sink  nor  cesspool,  as  in  Europe,  offends  the  eye. 
Things  appear  to  have  fallen  into  their  proper  places. 
The  shed,  if  rough,  is  strong  and  snug;  a  rose,  a  ja- 
ponica,  a  Virginia  creeper,  climbing  round  the  door. 
Inside,  the  house  is  so  scrupulously  clean,  that  you 
might  eat  your  lunch  as  comfortably  off  its  bare  planks 
as  you  could  from  the  shining  tiles  of  a  Dutch  floor. 
The  shelves  are  many,  the  pots  and  pans  are  bright. 
Something  like  an  air  of  gentle  life  is  about  you;  as 

24 


278  Ni:W  AMERICA. 

though  a  family  of  position,  suddenly  thrown  upon  its 
own  resources,  had  camped  out  in  the  prairie,  halting 
for  a  season  on  its  march.  In  the  little  parlor,  there  is 
a  vase  of  flowers,  a  print,  a  bust  of  Washington.  You 
see  at  one  glance  that  there  is  a  bright  and  wholesome 
woman  in  this  house. 

Annie  Smith  is  the  type  of  a  class  of  women  found 
in  America — and  in  some  parts  of  England — but  no- 
where else.  In  station  she  is  little  above  a  peasant;  in 
feeling  she  is  little  below  a  lady.  She  has  a  thousand 
tasks  to  perform :  to  light  her  fires,  to  wash  and  dress 
her  children,  to  scrub  her  floor,  to  feed  her  pigs  and 
fowls,  to  milk  her  cows,  to  fetch  in  herbs  and  fruits,  to 
dress  and  cook  the  dinners,  to  scour  and  polish  her 
pails  and  pans,  to  churn  her  butter  and  press  her 
cheese,  to  make  and  mend  the  clothes;  but  she  laughs 
and  sings  through  these  daily  toils  with  such  a  gay 
humor,  such  a  perfect  taste,  such  an  easy  compliance, 
that  her  work  seems  like  pleasure  and  her  care  like 
pastime.  She  is  neatly  dressed;  beyond,  as  an  English- 
man might  think,  her  station  in  life,  were  it  not  that 
she  wears  her  clothes  with  a  perfect  grace.  Her  hands 
feel  soft  as  though  they  were  cased  all  day  in  kid.  Her 
manner  is  easy,  her  countenance  bright.  Her  idiom, 
being  that  of  her  class,  amuses  a  stranger  by  its  un- 
conscious sauciness  of  tone.  But  her  voice  is  sweet 
and  low,  as  becomes  her  sex,  when  her  sex  is  at  its 
best.  Oddities  of  expression  you  will  hear  from  her 
lips,  profanities  never.  Dirt  is  her  enemy;  and  her 
sense  of  decency  keeps  the  whole  homestead  clean. 
She  rises  with  the  sun,  oftentimes  before  the  sun ;  her 
beds  are  spotless,  her  curtains  and  hangings  like  falling 
snow.  A  Sicilian  crib,  with  sheets  unwashed  for  a  year, 
is  a  thing  beyond  her  imagination  to  conceive.  I^o 
herding  with  the  kine,  no  sleeping  in  the  stable,  so 


SQUATTER    WOMEN.  279 

common  in  France,  in  Italy,  in  Spain,  is  ever  allowed 
to  her  son,  to  her  servant,  by  Annie  Smith.  A  Kentish 
barn  in  hop-time,  a  Caithness  bothy  in  ha3'-time,  would 
appear  in  her  eyes  to  be  the  abomination  of  abomina- 
tions. Iler  chicks,  her  pigs,  her  cattle,  are  all  penned 
up  in  their  roosts,  their  styles,  their  sheds.  A  Munster 
peasant  puts  his  pig  under  the  bed,  a  Navarrese  mule- 
teer yokes  his  team  in  the  house,  an  Epirote  herdsman 
feeds  his  goats  in  the  ingle,  and  an  Egyptian  fellah 
takes  his  donkey  into  his  room.  But  these  dirty  and 
indecent  habits  of  the  poor  people  in  our  lazy  Old 
World  are  not  only  unknown  but  incomprehensible 
to  American  women  of  the  grade  of  Annie  Smith. 

Another  thing  about  her  takes  the  eye ;  the  quality 
of  her  ever^'day  attire.  In  England,  our  female  rustics, 
from  the  habit  of  going  to  church  on  Sundays,  have 
caught  the  custom  of  dressing  themselves  in  better 
clothes  on  one  day  of  the  week  than  on  the  other  six 
days.  They  have,  in  fact,  their  Sunday  gowns,  com- 
pared with  which  their  ordinar}'-  wear  is  nothing  but 
mops  and  rags.  In  these  respects  their  sisters  in  Italy 
and  France  resemble  them;  the  contadina  having  her 
festa  boddice,  the  paysanne  her  saint's-day  cap.  The 
Suffolk  farmer's  wife,  whom  3'Ou  see  coming  out  of 
church  to-day,  her  face  bright  with  soap,  her  bonnet 
gay  with  ribbon,  has  no  objection  to  be  seen  by  you 
again  to-morrow,  grimy  with  dirt,  and  arrayed  in 
patches.  Not  so  in  America;  where  Annie  thinks  it 
would  be  in  bad  taste  for  her  to  dress  gaudily  one  day, 
and  shabbily  six  days.  True  economy,  she  says,  makes 
her  dress  herself  cleanly  and  nattily,  even  when  the 
materials  of  her  gown  are  poor.  One  good  suit  is 
cheaper  than  two  suits,  though  one  of  them  may  be 
coarse  in  texture  and  mean  in  make.  Good  dressing 
is  a  habit  of  the  mind,  not  a  question  of  the  purse. 


280  NEW  AMERICA. 

Any  woman  with  a  needle  in  her  hand  may  be  tidily 
dressed. 

All  round  Smith's  holding  near  Omaha  lies  a  colony 
of  bachelors;  four  men  out  of  five  in  this  territory 
being  without  a  wife.  Annie  feels  some  influence 
from  the  common  fact;  her  house  is  a  pleasant  center 
for  the  young ;  and  as  bachelors  are  apt  to  grow  untidy 
in  their  ranches,  she  finds  it  pleasant  fun  to  suggest 
without  words  the  blessings  which  accrue  to  a  man 
who  is  lucky  enough  to  procure  a  wife. 

How  sad  to  think  that  every  man  who  may  deserve 
it  cannot  win  the  prize ! 


CHAPTER  XXXIX. 


FEMININE    POLITICS. 


If  all  that  I  hear  from  the  female  politicians  of  these 
New  England  States — particularly  from  those  of  beau- 
tiful Burlington — be  true,  the  great  reform  coming 
forward  in  the  United  States  is  a  moral  and  social 
change ;  a  reform  of  thought  even  more  than  of  society; 
a  change  in  the  relations  of  man  to  woman,  which  is 
not  unlikely  to  write  the  story  of  its  progress  on  every 
aspect  of  domestic  life. 

Compared  with  such  a  revolution,  all  other  issues 
of  right  and  wrong — bases  of  representation,  negro 
suffrage,  reconstruction.  State  rights,  repudiation,  and 
the  like — are  but  the  topics  of  a  day,  trifles  of  the 
vestry,  accidents  of  time  and  place,  in  two  words, 
parish  politics.     Domestic  reform,  when  it  comes  at 


FEMININE   POLITICS.  281 

all,  must  be  wide  in  scope,  grave  in  principle.  The 
question  now  on  trial  in  the  United  States  is  said  by 
these  female  advocates  of  Equal  Rights  to  be,  in  eftect, 
neither  more  nor  less  than  this:  Shall  our  family  life 
be  governed  in  the  future  of  our  race  by  Christian  law 
or  by  Pagan  la\\'  ? 

"We  have  had  an  old  saying  among  us,  that  "a  clever 
woman  can  make  any  man  she  pleases  propose  to 
marry  her;"  and  this  London  phrase,  I  am  told,  has 
been  very  much  the  New  York  fjict. 

In  the  face  of  our  surplus  million  of  spinsters,  the 
saying  is  a  pleasantry-,  as  you  may  see  at  any  crush- 
room,  kettle-drum,  and  croquet  party.  Who  does  not 
know  a  hundred  clever  women,  among  the  brightest 
of  their  sex,  who  are  dropping  down  the  stream,  unbid- 
den to  the  church  upon  its  banks?  If  that  saying  about 
a  clever  woman  being  able  to  marry  whom  she  pleased, 
were  true,  should  we  always  hear  it  with  a  smile? 
Who  would  risk  meeting  those  clever  women?  "  Come 
now,  and  bring  the  lady  that  owns  you,"  were  Lady 
Morgan's  coquetting  words  to  a  friend  whom  she  was 
coaxing  to  drop  in  upon  one  of  her  morning  concerts. 
Yet  the  brilliant  Irish  lady  wrote,  that  in  all  ages,  in 
all  climates,  women  have  behaved  like  saints,  and  been 
treated  like  serfs.  It  is  not  a  female  saying,  that  a 
woman  can  marry  any  one  she  likes. 

"  Woman  and  her  Master"  gave  a  voice  to  that  cry 
of  the  female  heart,  which  has  led  London  into  found- 
ing a  Ladies'  College  in  a  side  street,  a  Ladies'  Club 
over  a  pastry-cook's  shop;  which  has  helped  i^ew 
York  into  calling  congresses  of  maids  and  matrons 
on  love,  marriage,  divorce,  with  the  kindred  topics  of 
natural  selection,  artistic  maternity,  and  the  mediatorial 
privilege  of  the  sex. 

It  must  be  owned,  that  as  yet  our  own  female  poli- 
24  * 


282  NEW  AMERICA. 

ticians  have  made  but  puny  eftbrts  to  free  themselves 
from  the  bonds  of  law.  With  us,  Reform  has  to  wait 
on  times  and  seasons.  In  English  society,  the  mascu- 
line mind  still  bears  the  bell,  and  the  most  daring  of 
her  sex  cannot  hope,  when  she  lays  her  hand  on  our 
forms  and  canons,  to  have  the  laughter  on  her  side. 
She  knows  it  will  be  against  her.  Xot  so  her  American 
sister;  come  what  may,  the  Vermont  heroine,  the  l!^ew 
Hampshire  reformer,  has  no  dread  of  being  baffled  by 
a  sneer.  Mary  Cragin  may  renounce  her  marriage 
vows,  Anna  Dickenson  may  mount  the  platform,  Mary 
Walker  may  put  on  pantalettes.  What  do  they  care 
for  men's  jests  and  gibes?  Young  girls  being  now  in 
brisk  demand,  women  are  free  from  all  fear  of  misad- 
venture and  neglect,  even  though  they  should  presume 
to  look  the  great  question  of  their  destinies  in  the  face. 
Prudence  of  the  trading  sort  having  no  part  in  what 
these  ladies  may  say  and  do,  they  are  free  to  think  of 
what  is  right  in  fact,  of  what  is  sound  in  law;  to  come 
together  in  public,  to  teach  and  preach,  to  defy  the 
world,  and  to  hold  a  parliament  of  their  own.  Why 
should  they  not?  If  men  may  meet  in  public  to  dis- 
cuss affairs,  why  may  not  women?  Are  parish  politics 
more  important  to  a  people  than  domestic  politics? 

No  man  with  eyes  and  heart  will  say  that  everything 
in  relation  to  our  home  affairs  has  yet  been  placed  on 
a  perfect  footing — that  justice  everywhere  reigns  by 
the  side  of  love — that  behind  the  closed  door,  the  cur- 
tained window,  all  the  relations  of  husband  and  wife, 
of  parent  and  child,  are  tempered  and  ennobled  by  a 
Christian  spirit.  If  this  cannot  be  said,  with  even  a 
show  of  truth,  then  we  have  failed  as  yet  to  plant  on 
our  hearths  the  religion  of  love.  And  if  we  have  failed 
in  our  attempt  after  a  Christian  life,  why  may  not  the 
reasons  of  our  failure  be  asked  in  a  public  place,  in 


FEMININE   POLITICS.  283 

presence  of  those  whom  it  concerns?  But  whether 
men  may  think  it  right  or  wrong  to  put  such  queries, 
American  damsels  have  begun  to  think,  to  write,  and 
to  vote  upon  them.  Domestic  life  is  said  to  be  woman's 
sphere;  domestic  reform,  then,  is  feminine  work. 
Some  of  these  Vermont  politicians  have  got  far  beyond 
writing  and  voting  on  domestic  1  >ve.  Oneida  Creek 
and  Salt  Lake  City — communities  founded  by  Vermont 
men — are  practical  replies  to  the  one  great  question 
of  our  day, — What  shall  be  done  to  reform  the  abuses 
of  our  social  and  domestic  life? 

All  the  ladies  who  have  entered  these  lists  in  favor 
of  their  sex — who  have  begun  to  preach  and  write  on 
woman's  place  in  the  household,  on  equality  of  male 
and  female,  on  free  trade  in  love,  on  slavery  in  mar- 
riage, on  the  right  of  divorce,  on  sexual  resurrection — 
whether  they  lift  up  their  voices  with  a  Margaret  Fuller 
at  Brook  Farm,  a  Mary  Cragin  at  Oneida  Creek,  an 
Antoinette  Doolittle  at  Mount  Lebanon,  a  Belinda 
Pratt  in  Salt  Lake  City,  an  Eliza  Farnham  of  ^STew 
York — have  gone  back,  in  these  debates,  to  the  very 
iirst  of  First  Principles:  the  absence  of  all  guiding 
light,  of  all  settled  law,  even  of  all  safe  tradition  on  the 
subject  of  domestic  life,  compelling  them,  in  search  of 
evidence,  to  question  books,  to  waylay  facts,  to  criticise 
codes.  These  ladies  have  entered  on  their  task  with 
spirit.  i!s"o  sphere  has  been  too  high,  no  abyss  has 
been  too  deep,  for  their  prying  eyes.  They  have 
soared  to  Olympus,  they  have  plunged  into  Hades, 
in  search  of  examples  of  the  actual  working  of  a  law 
of  love.  They  have  turned  to  Syria  and  to  Egypt,  to 
Athens  and  to  Eome;  they  have  appealed  to  nature 
and  to  art,  to  poetry  and  to  science;  they  have  disputed 
the  story  of  Eve,  denied  the  wisdom  of  Lycurgus,  in- 
vaded  the   seclusion    of    Sarah's   tent.     From    every 


284  NEW  AMERICA. 

country  they  have  souglit  an  argument,  a  warning,  a 
reproof.  They  have  gone  clown  to  the  threshing-floor 
with  Kuth,  they  have  read  the  story  of  Aspasia,  they 
have  dwelt  on  the  fate  of  Lucretia,  they  have  invoked 
the  spirit  of  Jane  Grej^  In  every  land  they  have 
found  a  model  and  a  moral;  and  though  the  model 
may  vary  with  woman's  height,  and  color,  and  educa- 
tion, the  moral  is  said  to  be  everywhere  the  same. 
Until  the  new  era — which  their  newest  prophetess, 
Eliza  Farnham,  has  been  good  enough  to  describe 
as  AVoman's  Era — dawned  upon  the  sex  in  America, 
they  have  found  that  the  female  liad  been  treated  by 
the  male,  sometimes  as  a  toy,  often  as  a  victim,  gen- 
erally as  a  chattel,  always  as  a  slave.  Where,  they 
ask,  in  glancing  through  the  story  of  our  race,  can  a 
woman's  eye  find  anything  to  admire?  Let  her  pass 
into  an  Arab  harem,  into  a  Hindoo  zenana,  into  a 
Kaffir  krall,  into  a  Xew  York  hotel,  into  a  Pawnee 
wigwam,  into  a  Mayfair  house,  and  what  will  she  find 
in  these  female  cages?  Equality  of  the  sexes,  freedom 
of  the  affections?  Nowhere.  East  and  west,  north 
and  south,  she  will  find  little  more  than  government 
by  the  strong.  As  regards  higher  principles  of  order, 
she  will  see  alike  in  the  Christian  house  and  in  the 
heathen  cave,  the  same  confusion  of  ideas,  the  same 
difierence  of  laws — the  greatest  confusion,  the  wildest 
divergence,  being  found,  it  is  alleged  by  some,  in  the 
United  States. 

In  no  country  under  heaven,  say  these  female  re- 
formers of  domestic  life,  is  the  woman  held  equal  to 
the  man.  An  Arab  is  allowed  to  marry  four  wives;  a 
Jew  gives  daily  thanks  that  he  was  born  a  man;  a 
Persian  doubts,  in  spite  of  the  Koran,  whether  his 
concubine  has  any  soul.     Baron  and  feme,  the  lord 


FEMININE   POLITICS.  285 

and  his  woman,  are  the  rough  old  English  names  of 
husband  and  wife.  In  America,  in  the  midst  of  liberty 
and  light,  the  station  of  woman  has  hardly  been  im- 
proved— if  she  measures  the  improvements  by  Christian 
lengths.  At  Onondaga,  in  New  York,  the  principal 
people  have  petitioned  the  legislature  in  favor  of  abol- 
ishing all  the  laws  against  seduction.  Even  in  Boston, 
in  Philadelphia,  in  New  York,  the  most  refined,  the 
most  wealthy  societies  of  America,  her  position,  say 
these  female  politicians,  is  little  better  than  it  is  among 
the  Perfectionists  and  Mormons,  even  when  she  has 
given  herself  to  the  man  of  her  choice.  See  what  she 
has  to  yield!  She  must  give  up  to  him  her  name;  she 
must  cease  to  be  a  citizen;  she  must  transfer  to  him 
her  house  and  land ;  she  must  sink  herself  in  her  new 
lord.  What  more  does  the  negress  yield  on  being  sold 
as  a  slave  ?  In  legal  jargon,  the  married  lady  becomes 
a  feme  covert;  a  creature  to  be  treated  as  an  infant, 
who  can  hardly  do  either  right  or  wrong;  a  change 
which,  while  shielding  her  on  one  side,  robs  her  on  the 
other  of  all  her  natural  rights.  No  court,  no  canon,  no 
society,  does  the  woman  justice.  What  is  a  wedding- 
ring  but  a  badge?  What  is  a  harem  but  a  prison? 
What  is  a  house  but  a  cage?  Why  should  man  have 
the  court,  the  camp,  the  grove,  while  woman  has  only 
love?  Why  should  not  girls  aspire  to  shine  in  the 
senate,  to  minister  in  the  church?  Why  may  not 
Elizabeth  Stanton  represent  New  York  in  Congress? 
Why  should  not  Olympia  Brown  have  the  charge  of 
souls  at  Weymouth?  Must  women  be  condemned  for- 
ever to  suckle  fools  and  chronicle  small  beer?  Such 
ladies  as  Lucy  Stone  and  Mary  Walker  put  these 
queries  to  the  world,  while  an  army  of  wives  and 
maidens  waits  for  its  reply. 


286  NEW  AMERICA. 

The  very  names  which  the  two  sexes  use  toward 
each  other  in  wedlock  imply,  it  is  alleged,  the  rela- 
tions of  lord  and  slave.  Husband  means  master;  wife 
means  servant.  In  many  parts  of  America,  as  in 
England  north  of  the  Trent,  a  woman  of  the  lower 
classes  never  speaks  of  her  husband  otherwise  than  as 
her  "master;"  and  a  husband  of  the  same  parts,  in 
the  same  class,  would  never  talk  of  his  wife  except  as 
his  "woman;"  when  he  would  let  you  see  that  he  pets 
her,  as  his  "little  woman."  Are  these  relations,  ask 
indignant  Eliza  Farnham,  persuasive  Caroline  Dall,  to 
be  the  lasting  bases  of  the  married  state  in  a  free,  a 
pacific,  and  a  religious  land? 

No  other  topic  ever  did,  no  other  topic  ever  will,  ex- 
cite in  the  human  breast  so  keen  a  curiosity  as  the 
relations  of  man  to  woman,  of  woman  to  man;  two 
bright  and  plastic  beings,  unlike  in  form,  in  genius, 
and  in  office ;  yet  linked  by  nature  in  the  strongest 
bonds ;  fated,  as  the  case  may  be,  to  make  each  other 
either  supremely  wretched  or  supremely  blest.  Society 
is  the  fruit  of  these  relations.  Law  is  but  a  name  for 
the  order  in  which  they  exist.  Poetry  is  their  audible 
voice.  All  epics,  tragedies,  and  stories  rest  upon  them, 
as  the  fountains  of  our  nobler  and  our  finer  passions. 
From  these  relations  spring  our  highest  love  and  our 
sternest  hate.  Minor  dramas  play  themselves  out. 
Simpler  problems  get  themselves  solved.  To  wit :  the 
rules  which  govern  the  relations  of  man  with  man — 
whether  as  prince  and  subject,  priest  and  laic,  father 
and  son,  creditor  and  debtor,  master  and  slave — are 
found  to  have  been  obeying  for  ages  a  certain  law  of 
growth,  which  has  been  softening  them,  until  the  old, 
harsh  spirit  of  pagan  law  has  been  all  but  wholly  cast 
out  of  our  daily  life.     Is  it  the  same  with  those  rules 


FEMININE   POLITICS.  287 

which  govern  the  more  delicate  relations  of  man  with 
woman?     In  no  very  large  degree. 

Is  it  not  a  sad,  surprising  fact,  that  in  the  nineteenth 
century  of  gospel  light,  the  laws  under  which  women 
are  compelled  to  live  in  wedlock  should  be  worse  in 
America  than  the}'  are  in  Asia  ?  In  Turkey,  marriage 
makes  a  bond  woman  free;  in  the  United  States  (if  we 
believe  these  champions  of  Equal  Rights),  it  turns  a  free 
woman  into  a  slave.  In  the  East,  polygamy  is  dying 
out ;  the  only  quarter  in  which  it  is  being  revived  is 
the  West. 

Is  it  true  that  our  domestic  affections  lie  beyond  the 
sphere  of  law?  Men  like  John  H.  Xoyes,  women  like 
Harriet  Holton,  saj'  so  boldly;  and  at  AVallingford  and 
Oneida  Creek,  the  sexes  have  deposed  all  human  codes 
and  agreed  to  live  with  each  other  by  the  light  of  grace. 
But  this  opinion,  with  the  practice  Avhich  depends  upon 
it,  is  the  fancy  of  a  small,  though  an  active  and  seducing 
school.  The  world  thinks  otherwise;  for  the  world  be- 
lieves in  a  law  of  God,  even  though  it  may  have  ceased 
to  confide  in  a  law  of  man. 


288  NEW  AMERICA. 


CHAPTER  XL. 

HUSBANDS    AND    WIVES. 

About  the  main  facts  which  lie  at  the  root  of  this 
feminine  discontent  with  existing  rules,  there  is  hardly 
any  debate  among  men  of  sense.  All  who  have  eyes 
to  see,  admit  them.  When  you  enter  upon  a  study 
of  that  nameless  science,  so  often  in  our  thoughts, 
which  may  be  called  the  Comparative  Anatomy  of 
Domestic  Life,  you  are  certainly  met  on  the  threshold 
of  inquiry  by  the  astounding  fact,  that  the  rights  of 
woman  in  wedlock  would  seem  to  have  had  scarcely 
any  connection  with  the  scheme  of  Christian  progress. 
All  other  rights  appear  to  increase  with  time.  The 
subject  wins  concessions  from  his  prince  ;  the  layman 
rises  to  the  level  of  his  priest ;  the  child  obtains  pro- 
tection against  his  sire  ;  the  debtor  secures  some  jus- 
tice from  his  creditor ;  the  slave  is  freed  from  his 
owner ;  but  hardly  any  change  in  her  condition,  hardly 
any  improvement  in  her  standing,  comes  to  the  wedded 
wife.  As  a  mere  chattel,  a  damsel  may  be  safe;  as  a 
wedded  wife,  the  mistress  of  a  home,  the  law  takes 
hardly  any  note  of  her  existence ;  even  after  all  the 
changes  wrought  by  a  dozen  years  of  reform,  the  law 
may  be  described  as  almost  blind  to  her  sufferings, 
deaf  and  dumb  to  her  appeals. 

When  you  compare  the  relations  of  man  with  man, 
and  of  man  with  woman,  in  Asia  and  America,  you 
are  struck  at  every  turn  by  unsuspected  contrasts. 
Whether  you  look  on  man  as  a  citizen,  as  a  laic,  as  a 
son,  as  a  debtor,  as  a  servant,  you  find  him  better 


HUSBANDS  AND  WIVES.  289 

placed  before  the  law  in  America  than  in  Asia.  Could 
a  fellah  in  Damascus  dare  to  say  in  a  rich  man's  pres- 
ence, "I  am  as  good  as  you?"  Could  the  ryot  of 
Lnckuow  answer  to  his  lord,  "Go  to,  my  vote  is  as 
good  as  yours,  and  I  will  not  serve  you  ? "  Would  not 
such  an  offender  be  dispatched  to  the  gateway  and 
punished  with  twenty  stripes  ?  But  is  there  any  such 
difference  between  Damascus  and  Boston,  between 
Lucknow  and  Philadelphia,  in  respect  of  the  relation 
of  man  with  woman  ?  Not  at  all.  The  contrast  lies 
another  way;  for  in  Turkey,  in  Persia,  in  Egypt,  in 
Mohammedan  India,  the  privileges  of  married  women 
stand  on  a  surer  footing  as  to  justice  than  they  do  in 
Massachusetts,  Pennsylvania,  and  New  York.  If  you 
doubt  this  fact,  take  down  from  your  shelves  the 
Hidayah,  that  legal  code  which  an  English  lawyer  has 
to  administer  in  our  Indian  courts,  and  your  doubts 
will  pass  away  into  quaint  surprise.  On  opening  the 
Hidayah,  you  will  find  that  the  harem  life,  which 
many  of  those  who  have  never  seen  it  are  content  to 
picture  as  a  drama  of  poisons,  bowstrings,  slaves,  and 
eunuchs,  is  guarded  and  secured,  so  far  as  the  females 
go,  by  a  host  of  wise  and  compassionate  rules,  which 
are  not  to  be  broken  with  impunity  by  the  stronger 
sex.  Many  persons  here  in  Boston  imagine  that  a 
harem  is  a  jail,  an  Oriental  wife  a  slave;  though  a 
very  slight  acquaintance  with  Mohammedan  law  would 
show  them  that  an  English  wife  is  far  worse  off  as  a 
woman  than  any  of  her  swarthy  sisters  of  Egypt  and 
Bengal. 

In  one  short  chapter  of  a  dozen  pages,  Blackstone 
set  down  in  his  Commentaries  all  that  he  could  find 
in  our  books  about  the  legal  relations  of  an  English 
husband  to  the  woman  whom  he  makes  his  wife.  In 
the  Hidayah  (Arabic  Commentaries)  the  chapters  which 

25 


290  ^EW  A3IERICA. 

contain  the  rules  defining  the  relations  of  a  Moslem 
husband  to  his  Moslem  wife,  are  long  enough  to  fill  a 
volume.  A  New  England  advocate  of  Equal  Rights 
for  the  two  sexes,  would  describe  our  English  code  — 
and  after  it  the  American  code  —  as  making  a  free 
woman  into  a  serf  by  the  machinery  of  a  civil  con- 
tract and  a  solemn  right ;  in  some  respects  as  worse 
than  into  a  serf,  since,  by  the  mere  act  of  marriage, 
it  cancels  all  the  rights  to  which  she  may  have  been 
born,  takes  away  her  family  name,  disposes  of  her 
goods  and  lands,  and  gives  her  person  into  the  power 
of  a  man  who  may  squander  her  fortune  and  break 
her  heart.  How  far  would  such  a  description  by  the 
New  England  advocate  be  unfair?  Who  does  not 
know  that  such  cases  may  be  occurring  in  any  town  ? 
We  need  not  look  for  exgimples  in  the  divorce  courts : 
—  they  meet  us  in  these  streets,  they  cry  aloud  to  us 
from  these  balconies.  Our  common  law  gives  up  the 
wife  so  thoroughly  into  her  husband's  power,  that  a 
woman,  who  comes  to  the  altar  young,  confiding, 
beautiful,  and  rich,  may  be  compelled  by  brutal  treat- 
ment, for  wdiich  the  law  can  give  her  no  redress,  to 
quit  it,  after  a  dozen  years,  an  outraged  woman  with 
a  ruined  fortune  and  a  wasted  frame.  One  course, 
and  one  only,  can  save  her  from  the  risk  of  these 
evils:  —  a  settlement  made  on  her  account  with  the 
law  before  she  has  entered  on  the  fatal  right. 

Nothing  so  gross  and  cruel  towards  a  young  and 
loving  girl  could  happen  in  either  Turkey,  Persia,  or 
Mohammedan  India.  In  a  Moslem  country,  every 
right  which  a  female,  whether  rich  or  poor,  enjoys  by 
her  birth,  remains  with  her,  a  sacred  property-,  to  her 
death.  No  man  can  take  it  from  her.  After  she  has 
passed  from  her  father's  house  into  her  husband's 
home,   she  is  still  a  citizen,  a  proprietor,  a  human 


HUSBANDS  AND  WIVES.  291 

being.  She  can  sue  lier  debtors,  and  recover  ber  own 
in  tbe  open  courts.  All  tbe  privileges  which  belong 
to  her  as  a  woman  and  as  a  wife  are  secured  to  her, 
not  by  tlie  courtesies  that  come  and  go,  but  by  actual 
text  in  the  book  of  law.  A  Moslem  marriage  is  a 
civil  act,  needing  no  mollah,  asking  no  sacred  phrase. 
Made  before  a  judge,  it  may  also  be  unmade  before  a 
judge.  But  the  Eastern  contract  is  in  this  respect 
more  logical  than  the  "Western  contract,  that  it  gives 
to  the  man  no  power  upon  the  woman's  person  beyond 
what  the  law  defines,  and  none  whatever  upon  her 
lands  and  goods.  A  Persian,  a  Turkish  bride,  being 
married  to  a  man  of  her  own  rank  and  creed,  retains 
in  the  new  household  which  she  enters  to  become  the 
soul,  her  separate  existence  as  her  father's  child.  A 
New  England  bride,  on  being  married  to  a  man  of  her 
own  rank  and  creed,  becomes  lost  in  him.  A  Turkish 
wife  is  an  independent  and  responsible  person,  know- 
ing what  is  right  and  wrong,  and  with  the  same  faculty 
of  receiving  and  devising  property  which  she  held  in 
her  spinster  days.  What  is  hers  is  not  her  lord's. 
She  may  sue  her  debtor,  without  the  concurrence  of 
her  nearest  friend.  She  may  receive  a  pension,  sign 
a  bond,  execute  a  trust.  Compared  against  her  Asiatic 
sister,  what  a  helpless  being  an  American  lady  seems! 
The  very  first  lesson,  then,  to  be  drawn  from  this 
study  of  the  Comparative  Anatomy  of  Domestic  Life, 
is  that  rules  of  law  are  not  beyond  some  sort  of  fair 
and  equal  application,  even  in  the  midst  of  those 
secrecies  which  feed,  and  those  sanctities  which  guard, 
the  love  of  husband  and  wife.  Such  rules  of  law  are 
found  in  Asia.  They  exist  in  Cairo,  in  Bagdad,  in 
Delhi,  in  a  hundred  cities  of  the  East.  Our  own 
magistrates  have  to  take  account  of  them  in  India ; 
where  the  most  intricate  questions  of  domestic  right, 


292  NEW  AMERICA. 

—  questions  relating  to  dowry,  to  divorce,  to  prefer- 
ence, to  maintenance,  to  conjugal  iidelity,  are  brought 
before  the  courts,  and  require  to  be  considered  and 
decided  on  principles  utterly  unknown  in  Westminster 
Hall.  In  dealing  with  such  cases  between  man  and 
woman,  we  have  to  lay  aside  our  Statutes  at  large,  our 
civil  law  and  common  law;  to  forget  our  jargon  of 
baron  and  feme,  covert  and  sole.  The  Suras  of  Mo- 
hammed supply  us  with  the  principles,  the  Commen- 
taries of  Abu  Yusuf  with  the  details,  of  a  practicable 
Moslem  code.  Who,  then,  in  the  face  of  our  large 
Indian  experience,  will  be  bold  enough  to  say,  that 
law  cannot  be  made  to  reach  the  innermost  recesses 
of  a  household  ?  In  Delhi,  in  Lucknow,  in  Madras, 
not  to  speak  of  Cairo,  of  Damascus,  of  Jerusalem, 
law  penetrates  to  the  nursery  and  to  the  bridal  cham- 
ber. Of  course,  there  may  be  secret  tyrannies  in 
Asia,  as  there  may  be  in  America;  violence  of  the 
strong  against  the  weak  may  be  fierce  as  the  passion, 
subtle  as  the  genius,  of  an  Oriental  race ;  but  the  ex- 
cesses of  a  Moslem  husband  find  no  sanction  either  in 
the  silence  or  in  the  provisions  of  his  actual  code.  If 
he  does  wrong,  he  does  it  as  wrong,  and  with  the  fear 
of  punishment  in  his  heart.  When  a  man  commits 
an  abuse  of  the  harem,  however  trifling,  he  knows 
that  for  the  victim  of  his  temper  there  is  a  swift  and 
sure  appeal  to  an  impartial  judge. 

But  how,  it  may  be  asked,  does  a  married  woman 
come  to  have  a  higher  security  against  oppression  in 
an  Asiatic  city  than  in  American  cities?  Surely  it 
cannot  be  because  those  Asiatic  cities  are  Moslem  in 
creed,  while  these  American  cities  are  Christian  ? 
Nothing  in  our  Gospel  makes  a  Christian  wife  a  slave ; 
and  in  its  sweet  tenderness  to  woman,  the  Gospel 
stands  high  above  the  Koran,  high  above  every  other 


DOMESTIC  LAW.  293 

book.  Why,  then,  is  the  law  of  Christendom  so  harsh 
to  wedded  women,  while  that  of  Islam  appears  to  be 
so  mild  ? 

This  question  goes  deep  down  into  the  roots  of 
things,  and  a  full  answer  to  it  would  supply  the  motto 
for  that  revolution  which  the  female  politicians  declare 
to  be  coming  upon  American  social  life. 


CHAPTER  XLL 


DOMESTIC    LAW. 


"When  the  l!Tew  England  seeker  after  better  things 
than  she  can  find  just  now  in  a  woman's  lot,  turns 
aside,  with  her  aching  heart,  from  the  wrongs  of  time 
towards  the  promise  of  a  golden  age  of  justice,  in  she 
knows  not  what  new  cities  of  Bethlehem,  Wallingford, 
Lebanon,  Salt  Lake,  the  sites  of  her  new  experiments 
in  living,  no  man  will  say  that  she  is  troubled  without 
cause.  Let  her  remedy  be  sought  in  the  right  place 
or  in  the  wrong,  the  evil  is  dark  and  vast ;  pervading 
the  whole  community,  and  passing  in  its  degrees  of 
shame,  from  the  delicate  tortures  of  the  boudoir  down 
to  the  rough  brutalities  of  the  street.  Even  here  in 
Boston,  with  all  its  learning,  all  its  refinement,  all  its 
piety,  the  wrongs  of  women  are  so  gross,  that  Caroline 
Dall  confessed  to  a  female  audience  she  could  neither 
lay  them  bare  nor  speak  of  them  by  their  proper 
names.  Yet  on  all  these  suflerings  of  the  weaker 
sex,  the  American  law  is  silent,  the  American  magis- 
trate is  powerless.  How,  ask  the  reformers,  have 
these  evils  grown  upon  us? 

25* 


294  NEW  AMERICA. 

That  prior  question  of  liow  it  has  come  to  pass  that 
a  Turkish,  Persian,  Egyptian  lady  enjoys  in  marriage 
a  securer  state  than  her  paler  sister  of  Boston,  liich- 
mond,  New  Orleans,  would  open  up  for  us  a  glimpse 
of  some  forgotten  truths ;  since  it  would  start  a  second 
question,  —  How  have  we  Christians  come  by  our 
marriage  laws,  and  how  have  the  Mohammedan  na- 
tions come  by  theirs  ?  The  answer  is  not  far  away  ; 
for  the  facts  are  written  broadly  in  our  histories,  mi- 
nutely in  our  statutes.  We  get  our  marriage  laws 
from  the  Pandects ;  the  Moslema  get  theirs  from  the 
Koran.  In  this  difference  of  origin  lies  the  secret 
of  their  difference  in  tone  and  spirit.  Our  laws  have 
a  civil  and  commercial  source ;  theirs  have  a  moral 
and  religious  source. 

Here,  indeed,  an  inquirer  strikes  his  axe  upon  the 
root.  Our  life  is  a  divided  duty :  a  moral  life  based 
on  the  Gospel,  a  family  life  based  on  the  civil  law. 
While  our  morals  have  their  root  in  Christianity,  our 
statutes  have  their  root  in  Paganism.  And  thus  it  is, 
in  the  main  degree  at  least,  that  woman's  griefs  in 
marriage,  and  in  all  the  relations  of  sex  and  sex,  have 
come  upon  her,  like  many  other  evils  in  our  social 
body,  from  the  fact  of  our  deriving  our  morals  from 
one  source,  the  Gospels,  our  laws  from  another  source, 
the  Pandects. 

One  of  the  sorry  jests  in  which  we  are  apt  to  array 
our  falsehoods,  says  that  our  English  and  American 
codes  of  law  are  founded  on  the  precepts  of  our  faith. 
Let  us  try  this  dogma  by  a  test.  A  just  and  pious 
man,  fresh  from  his  study  of  Holy  Writ,  shall  walk 
with  the  Bible  in  his  hand,  into  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States,  and  shall  then  and  there  try  to  per- 
suade the  presiding  judge  that  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount    is    good  American    law,   binding    on    every 


DOMESTIC  LAW.  295 

follower  of  Christ.  Have  jou  any  kind  of  doubt  as  to 
what  would  become  of  that  just  and  pious  man  ?  You 
know  that  the  judge  would  pity,  the  advocate  quiz, 
the  audience  mock,  and  the  officer  seize  him.  Re- 
move the  scene  from  the  Capitol  at  Washington,  to 
the  gateway  of  Damascus.  In  the  Oriental  cit}^  such 
a  man  might  go  before  the  cadi,  Koran  in  hand, 
assured  that  his  citations  from  the  holy  book  would  be 
heard  ;  and  if  his  views  of  them  were  sound,  that  they 
would  govern  the  verdict  to  be  given.  And  the 
reason  is  plain.  An  Oriental  has  not  two  laws :  one 
f^r  the  street,  another  for  the  gate  ;  one  for  his  harem, 
a  second  for  his  mosque.  His  moral  life  and  his  civil 
life  have  one  source,  one  end,  and  he  finds  no  war 
between  the  teachings  of  his  cadi  and  his  priest.  In 
Boston,  in  ISTew  York,  we  have  a  moral  code  which 
only  on  two  or  three  points  of  moment  approaches  the 
edge  of  our  domestic  code.  What  do  our  judges 
know  of  Christ,  of  Moses,  and  of  Abraham  ?  As 
lawyers,  nothing.  These  names  are  not  among  those 
which  may  be  quoted  in  our  acts  and  commentaries. 
The  judges  who  dispense  our  law  have  heard  of  Jus- 
tinian, of  the  civilians  ;  but  of  the  immutable  precepts 
of  our  faith,  the  divine  foundations  of  our  moral  life, 
they  are  powerless,  as  magistrates  on  the  bench,  to 
take  any  public  and  judicial  note.  They  must  abide 
by  the  text,  a  mixture  of  the  Saxon  common  law  and 
of  the  Roman  civil  law. 

A  prime  result  of  our  laws  being  Pagan  while  our 
morals  are  Christian,  is  the  fact,  so  strange  and  be- 
wildering to  an  Oriental,  that,  with  us,  the  practice  of 
virtue  is  regarded  as  a  private  affair,  a  thing  between 
a  man  and  his  Maker  only,  not,  as  with  the  Moslems, 
between  a  man  and  his  fellow.  Thus,  in  Boston,  in 
New  York,  no  law  compels  a  man  to  be  chaste,  com- 


296  A^^TF  AMERICA. 

passionate,  dutiful.  One  of  those  wits  who  speak 
truth  in  jests  and  parables,  has  said  that,  in  our  society, 
a  rich,  unscrupulous  sinner  may  contrive  to  break 
every  commandment  in  the  decalogue,  without  losing 
his  place  either  at  good  men's  feasts  or  in  ladies' 
cabinets.  If  he  is  great  in  evasion,  pleasant  in  manner, 
choice  in  hospitality,  he  may  run  the  whole  round  of 
offence,  from  following  false  gods  to  coveting  his 
neighbor's  wife.  His  only  art  is  to  avoid  being  seen 
by  the  police.  Is  that  parable  untrue  ?  What  man 
who  drives  in  Fifth  Avenue,  who  walks  on  yon 
common,  shuts  his  eyes  on  the  world  so  far  as  to 
dream  that  our  manners  are  all  alike  ?  You  need  not 
be  a  cynic  to  see  that  fashion  sits  down  to  its  meat 
and  wine,  day  after  day,  year  after  year,  with  wretches 
who,  in  any  part  of  Islam,  would  be  taken  before  the 
cadi  and  beaten  on  the  feet.  With  two  exceptions, 
perhaps,  a  sinner  ma}'  break  the  ten  commandments 
openly,  in  these  public  streets,  and  no  one  shall  lay 
hands  upon  him.  While  he  refrains  from  killing  his 
foe  and  robbing  his  friend,  he  is  safe.  What  magis- 
trate on  the  bench  would  think  of  asking  whether  a 
man  accused  before  him  bowed  to  a  false  god,  put 
away  graven  images  from  his  house,  abstained  from 
the  use  of  oaths,  kept  holy  the  Sabbath  day,  honored 
his  father  and  mother,  respected  the  purity  of  his 
neighbor's  wife,  drove  out  the  sin  of  covetousness 
from  his  soul?     Not  one.     And  why? 

Because  the  magistrate  in  his  office  on  the  bench  is 
the  minister,  not  of  our  moral  system,  but  of  our  civil 
code. 

The  truth  is,  we  English  and  Americans  have 
hardly  yet  embraced  Christianity  as  a  scheme  of  life. 
We  find  our  religion  at  church,  and  when  we  have 
sung  our  psalms  and  breathed  our  prayers,  we  go  back 


DOMESTIC  LAW.  297 

into  the  streets  to  be  governed  for  another  week  by 
our  pagan  law.  Our  courts  of  justice  have  no  authority 
to  notice  moral  oiFences,  unless  they  happen  to  have 
been  injurious  to  a  fellow-citizen  in  either  his  peace  or 
his  purse.  Mere  lack  of  honor,  virtue,  reverence, 
goes  on  our  bench  for  nothing.  A  wretch  may  curse 
his  parents,  may  profane  the  Sabbath,  may  worship 
stocks  and  stones,  without  earning  for  himself  the 
penalty  of  a  stripe.  The  same  wretch  may  break  his 
wife's  heart,  may  squander  his  child's  estate,  may 
destroy  his  friend's  happiness,  yet  he  shall  escape  all 
punishment  of  his  crimes.  Some  of  the  darkest 
transgressions  in  the  sight  of  God — the  God  whose 
will  we  obey — are  treated  by  the  code  under  which  we 
live,  as  of  no  more  moment  than  the  whimsies  of  a 
child.  Fornication  is  not  condemned.  Seduction  is 
treated  as  a  wrong  done,  not  to  the  girl,  who  may  be 
its  victim,  but  only  to  the  owner  of  her  service. 
Adultery  is  classed  with  such  small  injuries  as  theft; 
a  loss  of  property  rather  than  of  purity  and  credit; 
and  the  man  whose  name  may  have  been  tarnished  for- 
ever by  a  seducer,  must  plead  against  the  destroyer  of 
his  peace,  not  his  outraged  honor,  but  the  loss  of  his 
daughter's  service,  of  his  wife's  society.  In  some  of 
the  United  States,  they  have  gone  a  little  way  towards 
rounding  ofl"  these  lines  of  separation  between  Chris- 
tian morals  and  the  civil  code.  In  New  York,  a  fellow 
may  be  lodged  in  jail  for  seducing  girls;  but  the 
legislatures  have  hardly,  as  yet,  even  touched  the 
fringe  of  a  mighty  evil.  Those  Onandago  reformers 
of  the  law  who  petitioned  in  favor  of  replacing  the 
felon's  cell  by  a  bridal  wreath  —  going  back  to  the 
prosaic  plan  of  considering  the  act  of  seduction  as  an 
act  of  marriage  —  have  no  remedy  to  suggest  for  the 
still    darker  outrage  of  seducing  and  debauching   a 


298  ^^W  AMEBIC  A. 

married  woman.  Nor  can  they  find  one  under  a  law 
which  treats  the  crimes  of  seduction  and  adultery  as  a 
wrong  to  the  man's  estate,  but  not  to  his  moral  life. 

In  all  the  advancing  schools  of  American  thought, 
this  topic  is  discussed,  the  evil  is  admitted,  a  remedy 
is  sought.  At  Oneida  Creek  they  have  put  an  end  to 
adultery  by  abolishing  marriage.  At  Mount  Lebanon 
they  have  done  the  same  thing  by  prohibiting  love. 
At  Salt  Lake,  again,  they  have  checked  the  evil  by 
punishing  adultery  with  death.  But  these  sectional 
trials  leave  the  law  intact,  and  the  courts  and  legisla- 
tures of  the  Union  are  continually  being  vexed  by 
petitions  in  favor  of  substituting  some  higher  rule  for 
the  one  in  vogue.  Will  they  ever  find  such  a  rule 
while  the}'  cling  to  the  code  of  Justinian  in  preference 
to  the  word  of  God  ? 

Li  a  Moslem  country,  the  Prophet's  word  is  law, 
each  line  a  command,  each  sura  an  institute.  The 
Prophet's  object  being,  according  to  his  lights,  to  pro- 
mote among  his  people  not  only  the  public  peace,  but 
holy  living;  his  precepts  were  adapted  to  the  regula- 
tion of  every  act  of  a  believer  in  the  harem,  in  the 
mosque,  in  the  bazaar.  On  the  other  side,  our  Saviour's 
word  has  only  obtained  in  our  western  society  the 
force  of  a  moral  precept,  which  every  one  may  adopt, 
and  every  one  may  reject,  at  pleasure. 

Again,  our  pagan  statutes  seem  to  have  been  framed 
for  service  onh'  in  the  public  streets.  We  have  a  say- 
ing that  our  house  is  our  castle;  it  is  so  sometimes,  in 
a  wide  and  wicked  sense.  ISTo  writ  runs  in  it.  Law 
pauses  at  the  threshold;  and  the  crown  itself,  the 
majesty  of  public  right,  can  only  break  those  portals 
after  due  solemnities  and  in  the  wake  of  some  atro- 
cious crime.  In  a  Moslem  harem,  no  such  feudal  se- 
crecy is  found.     Every  room  in  a  house  is  open  to  the 


DOMESTIC!   LAW.  299 

Koran  ;  every  act  of  the  lord  must  be  confc)rmal)le  to 
rule ;  and  a  man's  wife,  his  child,  his  slave,  may  cite 
the  Koran  against  him.  In  Islam,  every  one  knows 
the  law  by  heart ;  the  Koi'an  being  a  text  which  can 
never  fall  out  of  date.  All  Moslem  jurists  muft 
adopt  this  text,  which  they  are  only  free  to  expound 
within  certain  limits,  and  every  cadi  may  go  back  to 
the  original  in  his  day  of  doubt.  The  basis  of  public 
justice  is  the  same  in  every  age  and  in  every  land. 
In  states  like  England  and  America,  we  have  no  great 
body  of  divine,  indisputable  law,  by  which  all  queries 
might  be  answered,  all  problems  might  be  solved. 
When  a  case  arises  in  our  courts,  which  no  enact- 
ment appears  to  meet,  where  do  our  judges  look  for 
guidance  V  Do  they  turn  to  the  Gospels.  Do  they 
read  St.  Paul  ?  They  never  think  of  such  a  course. 
The  Gospels  make  no  part  of  our  legal  store.  If  we 
teach  the  decalogue  in  our  infant-schools,  and  preach 
it  in  our  chapels,  we  make  no  use  of  it  in  our  law 
courts.  Proud,  as  it  would  seem,  of  our  Pagan  code, 
which  puts  so  much  of  our  conduct  into  contrast  with 
our  creed,  we  make  a  boast  of  this  freedom  from  re- 
straint, and  only  on  our  grand  occasions,  as  it  were, 
admit  the  presence  in  our  midst  of  a  purer  law. 

Xow  it  is  one  of  the  open  facts  of  our  modern  soci- 
eties in  London  and  lN"ew  York,  that  a  woman's  rank 
in  the  family  is  either  high  or  low  according  to  the 
loyalty  with  which  we  follow  that  Gospel  law  of  love 
which  the  courts  of  justice  may,  if  they  please,  ignore. 
A  Turk  is  not  permitted  by  the  cadi  to  set  aside  1m 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  as  a  precept  for  Sundays,  for 
good  women,  for  men  in  childhood  and  old  age. 
Even  in  the  privacy  of  his  harem,  an  Asiatic  is  gov- 
erned by  some  kind  of  moral  and  religious  rules ; 
while  an  American  is  governed  in  his  home  only  by 


300  ^^i'^W  AMERICA. 

legal  and  commercial  precepts,  from  which  every 
moral  and  religious  feeling  may  have  been  utterly 
divorced.  Thus  it  happens  that  an  Oriental  wife, 
though  she  may  be  living  in  the  state  of  polygamy, 
has  in  some  capital  points  a  wider  freedom  in  her 
circle  than  the  most  highly  cultured  lady  of  New 
York. 

Is  that  the  end  of  our  long  endeavor  after  a  Chris- 
tian life  ?  No  religious  man  or  woman  thinks  so ; 
and  at  this  moment  a  thousand  busy  brains  and  gen- 
tle hearts  are  w^orking  on  the  problem  of  our  passage 
from  this  stage  of  growth  into  a  religion  of  higher 
truth.  Some  of  these  seekers  after  better  things  may 
be  groping  in  the  dark ;  looking  for  light  where  light 
is  not ;  but  in  so  far  as  they  are  seeking  honestly  and 
with  earnest  heed  to  get  into  the  better  way,  they 
deserve  our  study  and  respect. 

Foremost  among  these  seekers  after  light,  are  the 
Brethren  of  Mount  Lebanon  in  the  State  of  New 
York. 


MOUNT  LEBANON.  301 

CHAPTER  XLIT. 

MOUNT    LEBANON. 

On  a  sunny  liill-side,  three  miles  soutli  of  New 
Lebanon  Springs,  (a  watering-place  in  the  upper 
country  of  the  lovely  river  Hudson,  at  which  idlers 
from  New  York  and  Massachusetts  spend  the  hot 
weeks  of  summer,  lounging  in  frame  sheds,  flirting 
under  chestnuts,  driving  over  broken  roads,  sipping 
water  from  the  well,  —  which  a  negro  has  just  told 
me  that  a  horse  may  drink  without  doing  itself  any 
harm !)  stands  a  group  of  bmldings,  prim  and  yet  pic- 
turesque; the  chief  home  of  a  religious  body,  small  in 
number,  singular  in  dress  and  in  ideas,  and  only  to  be 
found,  as  yet,  in  the  United  States. 

This  village  is  Mount  Lebanon,  the  chief  home 
and  centre  of  a  celibate  people,  founded  by  Ann  Lee ; 
known  to  scoffers  as  a  comic  institution  unattached, 
under  the  name  of  the  Shaker  Village ;  Shaker  being 
a  term  of  mockery  and  reproach,  like  most  of  our  reli- 
gious names ;  one  which  the  members  meekly  accept, 
and  of  which  they  are  shyly  proud.  Among  the  elect 
they  are  known  as  the  United  Society  of  Believers  in 
Christ's  Second  Appearing. 

Needing  a  little  rose-water,  I  asked  a  friend  where 
the  best  might  be  got.  "You  must  apply,"  he  said, 
"  at  any  of  the  stores  where  they  sell  Shaker  scents." 
Liquiring  about  the  best  place  for  collecting  Ameri- 
can shrubs  and  flowers,  my  companion  said,  "You 
must  ride  over  to  Mount  Lebanon,  as  no  one  in  either 
New  York  or  Massachusetts  can  match  the  Shakers 
in  producing  seeds  and  plants."     My  curiosity  was 

26 


302  NEW  A3IERIGA. 

piqued.  Why  should  the  villagers  of  Mount  Lebauon 
excel  the  rest  of  their  countrymen  in  such  an  art? 
Of  course,  I  knew  that  the  Essenes  were  florists  and 
seedsmen,  as  well  as  rearers  of  bees  and  gro-wers  of 
herbs  and  corn :  but  then  those  Hebrew  anchorites 
lived  in  a  time  when  husbandry  was  contemned  a&  a 
servile  art,  unfit  to  occupy  the  thoughts,  to  engage 
the  hands  of  free  men;  and  they  gave  themselves  up  to 
a  life  of  field  labor,  not  for  the  profits  which  it  might 
bring  them,  but  as  an  exercise  of  the  spirit  and  a  trial 
of  the  flesh.  In  the  neighborhood  of  Mount  Leba- 
non,—  a  ridge  of  wooded  hills,  furrowed  with  bright 
dales  and  glades,  and  with  tiny  becks  of  water  run- 
ning east  and  south  from  the  Springs,  —  no  man  af- 
fects to  despise  farming  as  a  lowly  craft,  the  work  of 
women  and  slaves;  on  the  contrary,  all  the  best  tal- 
ents of  this  region  are  invested  in  the  land ;  and  re- 
nown of  its  kind  lies  in  waiting  for  the  man  who 
shall  produce  from  his  acres  the  finest  and  most  am- 
ple crops.  "  Why,  then,"  I  asked  my  friend,  "where 
all  are  striving  to  excel  in  the  art  of  producing  plenty 
from  the  soil,  should  the  Shakers  of  Mount  Lebanon 
be  the  only  seedsmen  in  the  State?"  "Guess,"  said 
he,  after  a  moment's  thought,  "  it  is  because  they  give 
their  minds  to  it." 

This  saying  about  the  Shakers  giving  their  minds 
to  the  culture  of  land  may  be  used  as  a  key  to  unlock 
nearly  all  the  secrets  of  Mount  Lebanon.  As  you 
climb  up  this  green  hill-side  from  the  pretty  hamlet 
of  New  Lebanon,  you  may  sec  in  the  clean  roads,  in 
the  bright  swards,  in  the  trim  hedges,  more  than  all 
else,  in  the  fresh  meek  faces  of  men  and  girls,  and 
in  the  strange  sad  light  of  their  loving  eyes,  how 
much  has  been  done  in  a  few  short  years  towards 
converting  this  corner  of  New  York  State  from  a 


MOUNT  LEBANON.  303 

rugged  forest,  the  haunt  of  Iroquois  and  Lenni  Le- 
nape,  into  the  likeness  of  an  earthly  Eden,  The 
rough  old  nature  shows  itself  near.  Yon  crests  and 
tops  are  clothed  in  their  primeval  woods,  though  the 
oaks  and  chestnuts  are  now  in  their  second  growth. 
Rocks  crop  out,  and  stones  lie  about  you.  Much  of 
the  land  has  never  been  reclaimed.  The  paths  are  all 
open ;  and  every  man  with  a  gun  may  shoot  down 
game,  as  freely  as  he  might  in  the  prairies  of  N'e- 
braska.  But  the  hand  of  man  has  been  laid  on  the 
soil  with  a  tight,  though  a  tender  grasp ;  doing  its 
work  of  beauty,  and  calling  forth  beauty  in  exchange 
for  love  and  care.  Where  can  you  find  an  orchard 
like  this  young  plantation  on  our  left?  Where, 
save  in  England,  do  you  see  such  a  sward?  The 
trees  are  greener,  the  roses  pinker,  the  cottages 
neater,  than  on  any  slope.  !N^ew  Lebanon  has  almost 
the  face  of  an  English  valley,  rich  with  the  culture  of 
a  thousand  years.  You  see  that  the  men  who  till 
these  fields,  who  tend  these  gardens,  who  bind  these 
sheaves,  w^ho  train  these  vines,  who  plant  these  apple- 
trees,  have  been  drawn  into  putting  their  love  into 
the  daily  task ;  and  you  hear  with  no  surprise  that 
these  toilers,  ploughing  and  planting  in  their  quaint 
garb,  consider  their  labor  on  the  soil  as  a  part  of  their 
ritual,  looking  upon  the  earth  as  a  stained  and  de- 
graded sphere,  which  they  have  been  called  to  redeem 
from  corruption  and  restore  to  God. 

The  plan,  the  life,  the  thought  of  Mount  Lebanon 
are  written  in  its  grassy  streets.  This  large  stone 
building  on  your  right  —  an  edifice  of  stone  in  a  region 
of  sheds  and  booths  —  is  the  granary;  a  very  fine  barn, 
the  largest  (I  am  told)  in  America;  a  cow-shed,  a  hay- 
loft, a  store-house,  of  singular  size  and  happy  contriv- 
ance; and  its  presence  here,  on   a  high  place,  in  the 


304  NEW  AMEBIC  A. 

gateway,  so  to  speak,  of  the  community,  is  a  typical 
fact. 

The  Granary  is  to  a  Shaker  what  the  Temple  was  to 
a  Jew. 

Beyond  the  barn,  in  the  green  lane,  stands  North 
House,  the  dwelling  of  Elder  Frederick  and  Elderess 
Antoinette  (in  the  world  they  would  be  called  Fred- 
erick W.  Evans,  and  Mary  Antoinette  Doolittle),  co- 
heads  of  this  large  family  in  the  Shaker  Society. 
Below  their  house,  among  the  shrubs  and  gardens,  lies 
the  Visitors'  house,  in  which  it  has  been  my  fortune 
to  spend,  with  Frederick  and  Antoinette,  a  few  sum- 
mer days.  Around  these  buildings  rise  the  sheds  and 
stores  of  the  family.  Next  come  a  host  of  gardens, 
in  which  the  Baltimore  vine  runs  joyously  up  poles 
and  along  espaliers;  then  the  church  lying  a  little  way 
back  from  the  road,  a  regular  white  frame  of  wood, 
plain  as  a  plank,  with  a  boiler  roof,  a  spacious,  airy 
edifice,  in  which  the  public  service  of  the  society  is 
sung,  and  danced  on  Sunday,  to  the  wondering  delight, 
often  the  indecent  laughter  of  a  crowd  of  idlers  from 
the  Springs.  Near  by  stands  Church  House,  of  which 
Elder  Daniel  and  Elderess  Polly  (in  the  world  Daniel 
Grossman  and  Polly  Reed)  are  the  co-heads;  with  the 
school,  the  store,  at  which  prett}^  trumperies  are  sold 
to  the  Gentile  belles.  Beyond  these  buildings,  higher 
up  the  hill,  stand  South  House,  East  House,  and  some 
other  houses.  In  all  these  dwellings  live  families  of 
Shakers.  Elder  Frederick  is  the  public  preacher;  but 
every  family  has  its  own  male,  its  own  female  head. 
One  family  lives  at  Canaan,  seven  miles  distant,  to 
which  I  have  made  a  separate  visit ;  while  just  beyond 
the  crest  of  yon  hill,  in  the  State  of  Massachusetts, 
you  find  another  society  —  the  settlement  of  Hancock. 
No  Dutch  town  has  a  neater  aspect,  no  Moravian 


MOUNT  LEBANON.  305 

hamlet  a  softer  hush.  The  streets  are  quiet ;  for  here 
you  have  no  grog-shop,  no  beer-house,  no  lock-up,  no 
pound ;  of  the  dozen  edifices  rising  about  you  —  work- 
rooms, barns,  tabernacle,  stables,  kitchens,  schools,  and 
dormitories  —  not  one  is  either  foul  or  noisy ;  and  every 
building,  whatever  may  be  its  use,  has  something  of 
the  air  of  a  chapel.  The  paint  is  all  fresh  ;  the  planks 
are  all  bright ;  the  windows  are  all  clean.  A  white 
sheen  is  on  everything ;  a  happy  quiet  reigns  around. 
Even  in  what  is  seen  of  the  eye  and  heard  of  the  ear, 
Mount  Lebanon  strikes  you  as  a  place  where  it  is  al- 
ways Sunday.  The  walls  appear  as  though  they  had 
been  built  only  yesterday;  a  perfume,  as  from  many 
unguents,  floats  down  the  lane;  and  the  curtains  and 
the  window-blijids  are  of  spotless  white.  Everything 
in  the  hamlet  looks  and  smells  like  household  things 
which  have  been  long  laid  up  in  lavender  and  rose- 
leaves. 

The  people  are  like  their  village;  soft  in  speech, 
demure  in  bearing,  gentle  in  face;  a  people  seeming 
to  be  at  peace,  not  only  with  themselves,  but  with 
nature  and  with  heaven.  Though  the  men  are  oddly 
attired — in  a  sort  of  Arab  sack,  with  a  linen  collar, 
and  no  tie,  an  under  vest  buttoned  to  the  throat 
and  falling  below  the  thighs,  loose  trousers  rather 
short,  and  broad-brimmed  hat,  nearly  always  made  of 
straw,  —  they  are  grave  in  aspect,  easy  in  manner,  with 
no  more  sense  of  looking  comic  in  the  eyes  of  strangers 
than  either  an  English  judge  on  the  bench  or  an  Arab 
sheikh  at  his  prayer.  The  women  are  habited  in  a 
small  muslin  cap,  a  white  kerchief  wrapped  round  the 
chest  and  shoulders,  a  sack  or  skirt  dropping  in  a 
straight  line  from  the  waist  to  the  ankle,  white  socks 
and  shoes ;  but  apart  from  a  costume  neither  rich  in 
color  nor  comely  in  make,  the  sisters  have  an  air  of 

26* 


306  ^^"J^W  AMERICA. 

sweetness  and  repose  wliich  falls  upon  the  spirit  like 
music  shaken  out  from  our  village  bells.  After  spend- 
ing a  few  days  among  them,  seeing  them  at  their 
meals  and  at  their  prayers,  in  their  private  amusements 
and  in  their  household  work,  after  making  the  personal 
acquaintance  of  a  score  of  men,  of  a  dozen  women,  I 
find  myself  thinking  that  if  any  chance  were  to  throw 
me  down,  and  I  were  sick  in  spirit,  broken  in  health, 
there  would  be  few  female  faces,  next  after  those  of 
my  own  wife  and  kin,  that  would  be  pleasanter  to  see 
about  my  bed.  Life  appears  to  move  on  Mount  Leb- 
anon in  an  easy  kind  of  rhythm.  Order,  temperance, 
frugality,  worship  —  these  are  the  Shaker  things  which 
strike  upon  your  senses  first;  the  peace  and  innocence 
of  Eden,  when  contrasted  with  the  wrack  and  riot  of 
New  York.  Every  one  seems  busy,  every  one  tranquil. 
No  jerk,  no  strain,  no  menace,  is  observed,  for  nothing 
is  done,  nothing  can  be  done  in  a  Shaker  settlement 
by  force.  Every  one  here  is  free.  Those  who  have 
come  into  union  came  unsought;  those  who  would  go 
out  may  retire  unchecked.  No  soldiers,  no  police,  no 
judges,  live  here;  and  among  the  members  of  a  society 
in  which  every  man  stakes  his  all,  appeal  to  the  courts 
of  law  is  a  thing  unknown.  Unlike  the  Syrian  Leb- 
anon, she  has  no  Druse,  no  Maronite,  no  Ansayri,  no 
Turk,  within  her  frontier;  peace  reigns  in  her  councils, 
in  her  tabernacles,  in  her  fields.  Look  at  these  cheery 
urchins,  in  their  broad  straw  hats  and  with  their 
dropping  sash,  as  they  leap  and  gambol  on  the  turf, 
laughing,  pulling  at  each  other,  filling  this  green  hill- 
road  with  the  melodies  only  to  be  heard  when  happy 
children  are  at  play.  Their  hearts  are  evidently  light. 
Look  at  these  little  blue-eyed  girls  (those  two  with  the 
curly  heads  are  children  of  a  bad  mother,  who  eloped 
last  year  with  a  neighbor,  when  their  father  was  away 


MOUNT  LEBANON.  307 

ill  the  field  with  Grant),  very  shy,  and  sweet,  and 
clean,  and  comely  are  they  in  their  new  attire;  if  ever 
you  saw  little  girls  like  angels,  surely  these  are  such. 

Yet,  is  it  not  strange  to  us  that  young  men  and 
young  women  should  be  found  living  in  this  beautiful 
place,  in  the  midst  of  peace  and  plenty,  without 
thoughts  of  love?  And  is  it  not  sad  to  reflect  that 
those  merry  boys  and  girls,  whose  voices  come  in 
peals  of  laughter  down  the  lane,  will  never,  if  they 
stay  in  this  community,  have  little  ones  of  their  own 
to  play  on  the  village  sward? 

The  Shaker  is  a  monk,  the  Shakeress  a  nun.  They 
have  nothing  to  say  to  this  world  ;  yet  their  church,  so 
often  described  as  a  moral  craze,  a  religious  comedy, 
a  ritual  of  Irigh  jinks,  at  best  a  church  of  St.  Vitus, 
not  of  St.  Paul,  will  be  seen,  when  we  come  to  under- 
stand it,  to  have  some  singular  attractions.  The  mag- 
netic power  which  it  is  exercising  on  American  thought 
would,  of  itself,  compel  us,  even  though  we  should  be 
found  unwilling  hearers,  to  sit  out  the  comedy  and  try 
to  comprehend  the  plot. 


308  NEW  AMERICA. 


CHAPTER  XLIIL 

A   SHAKER   HOUSE. 

During  the  days  which  I  have  been  spending  at 
North  House,  the  guest  of  Frederick  and  Antoinette, 
I  have  had  every  opportunity  given  to  me  of  seeing 
and  judging  for  myself  the  virtues  and  faiUngs  of  the 
Shaker  brethren,  I  have  been  eating  their  food,  lodging 
in  their  chambers,  driving  in  their  carriages,  talking 
with  their  elders,  strolling  over  their  orchards ;  I  have 
been  with  them  of  a  morning  in  the  field,  at  noon  by 
the  table,  at  night  in  their  meeting-rooms;  watching 
them  at  their  work,  at  their  play,  at  their  prayers;  in 
short,  living  their  life,  and  trying  to  comprehend  the 
spirit  which  inspires  it. 

My  room  is  painfully  bright  and  clean,  No  Haar- 
lem vrouw  ever  scraped  her  floor  into  such  perfect 
neatness  as  my  floor;  nor  could  the  wood,  of  which  it 
is  made,  be  matched  in  purity  except  in  the  heart  of 
an  uncut  forest  pine.  A  bed  stands  in  the  corner,  with 
sheets  and  pillows  of  spotless  white.  A  table  on 
which  lie  an  English  Bible,  some  few  Shaker  tracts,  an 
inkstand,  a  paper-knife  ;  four  cane  chairs,  arranged  in 
angles ;  a  piece  of  carpet  by  the  bed-side ;  a  spittoon 
in  one  corner,  complete  the  furniture.  A  closet  on  one 
side  of  the  room  contains  a  second  bed,  a  wash-stand, 
a  jug  of  water,  towels ;  and  the  whole  apartment  is 
light  and  airy,  even  for  a  frame  house.  The  Shakers, 
who  have  no  doctors  among  them,  and  smile  at  our 
Gentile  ailments  —  headaches,  fevers,  colds,  and  what 
not  —  take  a  close  and  scientific  care  of  their  ventila- 
tion.     Every   building    on   Mount   Lebanon  —  farm, 


A  SHAKER  HOUSE.  309 

granary,  mill,  and  dwelling  —  is  provided  with  shafts, 
fans,  flappers,  drafts,  and  vents.  The  stairway  is  built 
as  a  funnel,  the  vane  as  an  exhauster.  Stoves  of  a 
special  pattern  warm  the  rooms  in  winter,  with  aii  ad- 
justment delicate  enough  to  keep  the  temperature  for 
weeks  within  one  degree  of  warmth.  Fresh  air  is  the 
Shaker  medicine.  "We  have  only  had  one  case  of 
fever  in  thirty-six  years,"  says  Antoinette :  "and  we 
are  very  much  ashamed  of  ourselves  for  having  had  it; 
it  was  wholly  our  fault." 

North  House,  the  dwelling  of  Elder  Frederick's 
family,  has  the  same  whiteness  and  brightness,  the 
same  order,  the  same  articles  in  every  room.  An- 
toinette led  me  over  it  yesterday,  from  the  fruit-cellars 
to  the  roof,  showing  me  the  kitchens,  the  ladies' 
chambers,  the  laundries,  the  meeting-rooms,  and  the 
stoves.  My  friend  William  Haywood  (civil  engineer 
to  the  City  of  London)  and  his  wife,  were  with  me ; 
the  engineer  was  no  less  smitten  by  surprise  at  the 
singular  beauty  and  perfect  success  which  the  Shakers 
have  attained  in  the  art  of  ventilation,  than  the  lady 
w^as  charmed  by  the  sweetness,  purity,  and  brightness 
of  the  corridors  and  rooms.  Males  and  females  dwell 
apart  as  to  their  rooms,  though  they  eat  at  a  common 
table,  and  lodge  under  a  common  roof.  "How  do 
you  treat  a  man  wdio  comes  into  union  with  his  wife 
and  children  —  that  sometimes  happens  ? "  Antoinette 
smiled,  "  Oh,  yes  !  that  happens  pretty  often  ;  they 
fall  into  the  order  of  brother  and  sister —  and  make 
very  pretty  Shakers."  "But,"  said  the  lady,  "they 
see  each  other  ?  "  "  That  is  so,"  answered  Antoinette  ; 
"they  live  in  the  same  family ;  they  become  brother 
and  sister.  They  do  not  cease  to  be  man  and  woman  ; 
in  forsaking  each  other,  they  only  cease  to  be  husband 
and   wife."     Some   of  these   ladies   w^ho    live   under 


310  ^^W  AMERICA. 

Frederick's  roof  in  North  House,  have  husbands  (as 
the  world  Avouhl  call  them)  living  close  beside  theii 
rooms  ;  but  they  would  hold  it  to  be  a  Aveakness,  per- 
haps a  sin,  to  feel  any  personal  happiness  in  each 
other's  compan}^  They  live  for  God  alone.  The  love 
that  is  in  their  hearts  —  so  far  as  it  is  capable  of  bear- 
ing bounteous  fruit  — ought  to  be  shed  on  each  of  the 
Saints  alike,  without  preference  on  account  of  either 
quality  or  sex. 

Is  it  always  so  ?  After  this  morning's  early  meal, 
Antoinette,  who  had  come  into  my  room,  where 
Frederick  and  some  of  the  Elders  had  already  dropt 
in  for  a  social  chat  in  answer  to  some  of  my  wondering 
worldly  questions,  told  me,  in  the  presence  of  four  or 
five  men,  that  she  felt  towards  Frederick,  her  co-ruler 
of  the  house,  a  special  and  peculiar  love,  not  as 
towards  the  man,  and  in  the  Gentile  way,  as  she  had 
heard  of  the  world's  doings  in  such  matters,  but  as 
towards  the  child  of  grace  and  agent  of  the  heavenly 
Father,  She  told  me,  also,  that  she  had  sweet  and 
tender  passages  of  love  with  many  who  were  gone 
away  out  of  sight  —  the  beings  whom  we  should  call 
the  dead  —  and  that  these  passages  of  the  spirit  were 
of  the  same  kind  as  those  which  she  enjoyed  with 
Frederick.  The  functions  which  these  two  persons 
exercise  in  the  family,  as  male  and  female  chiefs,  give 
them  the  privilege  of  this  close  relation,  —  this  wed- 
lock of  the  soul,  if  I  may  use  that  phrase  to  express  a 
sympathy  which,  not  being  of  the  world,  has  no 
worldly  words  to  represent  it. 

The  ladies  usually  sleep  in  pairs,  two  in  a  room  ; 
the  men  have  separate  rooms.  One  bed  is  made  to 
slide  beneath  another,  so  that  when  the  chamber  is 
arranged  for  the  day-time,  there  is  ample  space  and  a 
sense  of  air.     Nothing  in  these  apartments  hints  that 


A  SHAKE E   HOUSE.  311 

the  people  who  occupy  them  seek  after  an  ascetic  life. 
All  the  ladies  have  looking-glasses  in  their  rooms, 
though  they  are  sometimes  told,  in  love,  to  guard  their 
hearts  against  the  abuse  to  which  these  vanities  might 
lead.  "Females,"  says  Frederick  in  his  homely 
humor,  "need  to  be  steadied,  some,"  The  dress  of 
these  ladies,  though  the  rule  is  strict  as  to  shape,  is 
not  confined  to  either  a  single  color.  On  some  of  the 
pegs  hang  dresses  of  blue  cotton,  lawn  stuff,  white 
muslin  ;  and  even  at  church  a  good  many  of  the  ladies 
appear  in  lilac  gowns,  a  color  which  becomes  them 
well.  "  We  leave  the  individual  taste  rather  free," 
says  Frederick;  "we  find  out  b}^  trial  what  is  best; 
and  when  we  liave  found  a  good  thing,  either  in  a 
dress  or  in  anything  else,  we  stick  to  it." 

These  Shakers  dine  in  silence.  Brothers  and  sisters 
sit  in  a  common  room,  at  tables  ranged  in  a  line,  a  few 
feet  apart.  They  eat  at  six  in  the  morning,  at  noon, 
at  six  in  the  evening  ;  following  in  this  respect  a  rule 
which  is  all  but  uniform  in  America,  especially  in  the 
western  parts  of  this  continent  from  the  Mississippi 
Ixiver  to  the  Pacific  Ocean.  They  rall}^  to  the  sound 
of  a  bell ;  file  into  the  eating-room  in  a  single  line, 
women  going  up  to  one  end  of  the  room,  men  to  the 
other;  when  they  drop  on  their  knees,  for  a  short  and 
silent  prayer;  sit  down,  and  eat,  helping  each  other  to 
the  food.  Not  a  'svord  is  spoken,  unless  a  brother 
need  some  help  from  a  brother,  a  sister  from  a  sister. 
A  whisper  serves.  No  one  gossips  with  her  neighbor ; 
for  every  one  is  busy  with  her  own  aflairs.  Even  the 
help  that  any  one  may  need  is  given  and  taken  with- 
out thanks  ;  such  forms  of  courtesy  and  politeness  not 
being  considered  necessary  in  a  family  of  saints. 
Elder  Frederick  sits  at  the  end,  not  at  the  head,  of 
one   table.     Elderess   Antoinette   at   the   other   end. 


312  ^-EW  AMERICA. 

The  food,  though  it  is  very  good  of  its  kind,  and  very 
well  cooked,  is  simple ;  being  wholly,  or  almost 
wliolh-,  produce  of  the  earth ;  tomatoes,  roast  apples, 
peaches,  potatoes,  squash,  hominy,  boiled  corn,  and  the 
like.  The  grape.^  are  excellent,  reminding  me  of  those 
of  Bethlehem  ;  and  the  eggs,  hard  eggs,  boiled  eggs, 
scrambled  eggs,  are  delicious.  The  drink  is  water, 
milk,  and  tea.  Then  we  have  pies,  tarts,  candies, 
dried  fruits  and  syrups.  For  my  own  part,  being  a 
Gentile  and  a  sinner,  I  have  been  indulged  in  cutlets, 
chickens,  and  home-made  wine.  "  Good  food  and 
sweet  air,"  says  Frederick,  "  are  our  only  medicines." 
The  ros}^  flesh  of  his  people,  a  tint  but  rarely  seen  in 
the  United  States,  appears  to  answer  very  well  for  his 
assertion,  that  in  such  a  place  no  other  physic  is 
required.  These  people  say,  they  want  no  Cherokee 
medicines,  no  plantation  bitters,  no  Bourbon  cocktails, 
none  of  the  thousand  tonics  by  which  the  dyspeptic 
children  of  New  York  whip  up  their  flagging  appe- 
tites, and  cleanse  their  impure  blood.  Frederick  has 
a  fierce  antipathy  to  doctors.  "Is  it  not  strange," 
says  he,  "  that  you  wise  people  of  the  world  keep  a 
set  of  men,  who  lie  in  wait  for  3'ou  until  by  some 
mistake  of  habit  you  fall  sick,  and  who  then  come 
in,  and  poison  you  with  drugs  ?  "  How  can  I  reply  to 
him,  except  by  a  little  laugh  ? 

No  words  being  spoken  during  meals,  about  twenty 
minutes  serves  them  amply  for  repast.  One  minute 
more,  and  the  table  is  swept  bare  of  dishes  ;  the  plates, 
the  knives  and  forks,  the  napkins,  the  glass,  are 
cleaned  and  polished,  every  article  is  returned  to  its 
proper  place,  and  the  sweet,  soft  sense  of  order  is 
restored. 

A  man  has  little  inducement  to  dally  with  the 
cheery  wine ;  and  as  no  cigar  has  ever  been  allowed 


A  SHAKE E  BOUSE.  313 

to  profane  the  precincts  of  North  House,  I  rise  after  a 
cup  of  black  coffee,  and,  joining-  a  knot  of  Brctliren, 
stroll  into  the  fields. 

Dropping  with  Frederick  into  the  schools,  the  harns, 
the  workshops,  I  have  learned  tliat  the  Shaker  estate 
on  and  around  Mount  Lebanon  consists  of  nearly  ten 
thousand  acres  of  the  best  woodland  and  lowland  in 
the  State  of  N"ew  York.  For  a  long  time,  as  lots  fell 
into  the  market,  the  family  has  been  buying  land;  but 
they  have  now  got  as  much  as  they  can  cultivate ; 
more,  indeed,  than  they  can  cultivate  by  their  own 
forces ;  and  for  some  years  past  they  have  been  com- 
pelled, by  the  extent  of  their  family  estates,  to  hire 
laborers  from  among  the  world's  people  in  the  villages 
about.  As  they  are  never  angry,  never  peevish,  never 
unjust  (I  have  heard  this  said  elsewhere,  by  men  who 
hate  their  principles  and  traduce  their  worship).  Gen- 
tile laborers  come  to  them  very  freely,  and  remain  as 
long  as  they  are  allowed  to  stay.  These  smiths  iu 
the  forge  by  the  roadway  are  World's  people ;  that  lad 
in  the  cart  is  a  cottager's  son;  those  fellows  making 
hay  in  the  meadow  are  Gentiles  w^orking  on  the 
Shaker  lands.  These  laborers  have  come  to  Mount 
Lebanon  to  live  and  learn.  They  get  a  very  fine 
schooling,  and  are  paid  for  being  at  school.  I^o  other 
farming  iu  America  reaches  the  perfection  that  is  here 
attained ;  and  a  clever  young  lad  can  hardly  pass  a 
season  among  these  fields  and  farms  without  picking 
up  good  habits  and  useful  hints. 

But  the  chiefs  of  Mount  Lebanon  can  see  that  this 
s^^stem  of  mixed  labor,  this  throwing  of  the  saint  and 
sinner  into  a  common  society,  for  the  sake  of  gain,  is 
foreign  to  the  genius  of  their  order.  Such  a  system, 
if  it  were  to  grow  upon  them,  would  be  hostile  to  their 
first  conception  of  celestial  industry;  it  would,  in  fsict, 

27 


314  NEW  AMERICA. 

by  the  operation  of  a  natural  law,  degenerate  into  a 
feudal  and  commercial  business,  in  which  the  Saints 
would  be  the  bankers  and  proprietors,  the  sinners 
would  be  the  laborers  and  serfs.  That  is  not  an  end 
for  which  they  have  denied  themselves  so  much. 
Even  their  wish  to  do  good  among  the  Gentiles  must 
not  lead  them  into  what  is  wrong ;  and  they  are  now 
considering  whether  it  may  not  be  wiser  for  them  to 
part  with  all  their  surplus  lands. 

I  need  not  say  that  any  estate  which  has  been  for  a 
few  years  under  Shaker  ploughs  and  spades  will  sell  in 
the  market  at  what  would  otherAvise  be  considered  as 
a  fancy  price. 

Climbing  up  the  hill-road  from  the  pretty  valley  of 
New  Lebanon,  I  notice  the  fine  rows  of  apple-trees 
growing  in  the  hedges,  after  the  English  fashion  in 
some  counties.  Elder  Frederick,  himself  of  English 
birth,  is  pleased  to  hear  me  speak  of  the  old  country. 
"Aye,"  says  he;  "this  green  lane,  and  these  fruit- 
trees,  carry  me  back  to  my  old  home."  Americans 
of  the  higher  class,  when  they  are  grave  and  tender, 
always  speak  of  England  by  the  name  of  Home.  The 
trees  in  this  lane  are  planted  with  care  and  skill ;  but 
I  notice,  not  without  curiosity,  that  in  the  midst  of  so 
much  order,  one  apple-tree  stands  a  little  from  the 
line.  "  How  do  you  prevent  the  passers-by  —  the  lane 
being  a  public  highway  —  from  snatching  at  the  fruit 
and  injuring  your  trees?"  The  Elder  smiles ;  if  the 
flush  of  light  in  his  soft  blue  eyes  can  be  called  a 
smile.  "Look  at  yon  tree,"  says  he,  "a  little  in  front 
of  the  rest ;  that  is  our  sentinel ;  it  bears  a  large,  sweet 
apple,  which  ripens  a  fortnight  before  the  others ;  and 
it  is  easy  for  every  one  to  reach.  Those  who  want  an 
apple  pluck  one  from  its  boughs,  and  leave  the  other 
trees  untouched."     Is  it  always  true,  that  the  children 


A   SHAKE B  HOUSE.  315 

of  this  world  are  wiser  in  their  generation  than  the 
children  of  light  ? 

Every  man  among  the  brethren  has  a  •trade;  some 
of  them  have  two,  even  three  or  four  trades.  No  one 
may  be  an  idler,  not  even  under  the  pretence  of  study, 
thought,  and  contemplation.  Every  one  must  take 
his  part  in  the  family  business  ;  it  may  be  farming, 
building,  gardening,  smith-work,  painting ;  every  one 
must  follow  his  occupation,  however  high  his  rank 
and  calling  in  the  church.  Frederick  is  a  gardener 
and  an  architect.  We  have  been  out  this  afternoon 
seeing  an  orchard  of  apple-trees  which  he  has  planted, 
the  great  barn  which  he  has  built,  and  I  have  good 
grounds  for  concluding  that  this  orchard,  this  barn, 
are  the  finest  works  of  their  kind  in  the  United  States. 
The  Shakers  believe  in  variety  of  labor,  for  variety  of 
occupation  is  a  source  of  pleasure,  and  pleasure  is 
the  portion  meted  out  by  an  indulgent  Father  to  his 
Saints. 

The  ladies  at  Mount  Lebanon  —  all  these  sisters  are 
ladies  in  speech,  in  manner,  in  garb — have  no  out- 
door work  to  perform ;  some  are  employed  in  the 
kitchen,  some  in  waiting  on  others  (duties  which  they 
take  in  turn,  a  month  for  each  course),  some  in  weav- 
ing cloth,  some  in  preserving  fruit,  some  in  distilling 
essences,  some  in.  making  fans  and  knick-knacks.  Maple 
syrup  is  an  article  for  which  they  have  a  good  demand; 
they  make  rose-water,  cherry-water,  peach-water;  they 
sew,  they  sing,  they  teach  children,  and  teach  them 
very  well.  Their  school  is  said  to  be  one  of  the  best 
for  a  good  general  education  in  New  York  State. 


810  NEW  AMERICA. 

CHAPTER    XLIV. 

SHAKER    UNION. 

Very  little  study  of  the  work  of  the  followers  of 
Ann  Lee  will  serve  to  show  that  Shakerism,  as  an 
actual  fact  in  the  domestic  life  of  America  (whatever 
we  may  think  about  its  origin),  is  far  from  being  a 
mere  folly,  to  be  seen  on  a  Sunday  morning  with  a 
party  of  ladies,  a  diversion  between  the  early  dinner 
and  the  afternoon  drive,  to  be  wondered  at,  laughed 
over,  and  then  forgotten  as  a  thing  of  no  serious  con- 
sequence to  the  world.  Mount  Lebanon  is  the  centre 
of  a  sj'stem  which  has  a  distinct  genius,  a  strong 
organization,  a  perfect  life  of  its  own,  through  which  it 
would  appear  to  be  helping  to  shape  and  guide,  in  no 
slight  and  unseen  measure,  the  spiritual  career  of  the 
United  States. 

In  many  of  their  ideas  the  Shakers  would  appear  to 
be  followers  of  the  Essenes,  and  in  the  higher  regions 
of  emotion  they  seem  to  be  wielding  the  same  sort  of 
power  as  that  Hebrew  society  of  bee-masters  and 
seedsmen. 

Their  church  is  based  on  these  grand  ideas :  —  The 
kingdom  of  heaven  has  come;  Christ  has  actually 
appeared  on  earth  ;  the  personal  rule  of  God  has  been 
restored.  Li  the  wake  of  these  ideas,  dependent  upon 
them  follow  many  more :  —  the  old  law  is  abolished  ; 
the  command  to  multiply  has  ceased ;  Adam's  sin  has 
been  atoned ;  the  intercourse  of  heaven  and  earth  has 
been  restored ;  the  curse  is  taken  away  from  labor ; 
the  earth,  and  all  that  is  on  it,  will  be  redeemed ; 
angels  and  spirits  have  become,  as  of  old,  the  familiars 
and  ministers  of  men. 


SHAKER    UNION.  317 

Only  tlio  elect,  it  is  said,  are  aware  of  these  mighty 
changes  having  takeii  place  on  the  earth  ;  for  the 
many  are  blind  and  deaf,  as  they  were  of  old,  knowing 
not  the  Lord  when  lie  calls  them  into  union.  A  few 
are  chosen  by  the  grace  of  God,  and  in  the  hearts  of 
His  own  elected  ones  He  reigns  and  works.  On  being 
called  by  Him,  men  die  to  the  world,  forgetting  in 
their  new  and  heavenly  stage  of  existence  its  rivalries, 
and  pleasures,  and  its  passions.  In  the  firm  belief  of 
these  people,  the  call  which  they  obey  is  not  to  a  mere 
change  of  life,  but  to  a  new  life  of  the  soul,  in  which 
the  world  has  no  share.  Birth  and  marriage  are  at  an 
end  ;  death  itself  has  become  to  them  only  a  change 
of  dress,  a  shedding  of  the  visible  robe  of  flesh  for  an 
invisible  glory  of  the  spirit. 

These  fundamental  ideas  control  the  Shaker  policy, 
inward  and  outward. 

Thus,  no  man  can  be  born  into  their  body,  as  no 
member  of  their  church  can  marry.  In  union,  as  they 
say  it  is  in  heaven,  the  sexes  must  dwell  apart;  love 
must  be  celibate,  in  spirit  and  in  fact,  shedding  its 
worldly  and  unregenerate  relations  with  the  flesh. 
Most  of  those  who  come  into  union  at  Mount  Lebanon 
are  young  men  and  girls,  such  as  in  Italy  and  Spain 
would  go  into  monasteries  and  convents ;  but  when 
married  people  enter,  they  must  agree  in  future  to 
live  apart,  in  chastity  and  obedience,  pure  from  all 
fancies  and  desires  of  their  olden  life.  Again,  no  man 
may  be  drawn  by  lures  of  the  world  into  union  with 
their  body,  since  the  elected  ones  are  strictly  forbidden 
to  make  use  of  any  lure,  any  argument,  with  the  Gen- 
tile. God,  it  is  said,  in  His  own  time,  in  His  own 
way,  will  draw  to  Himself  the  men  whom  He  has 
made  His  own.  The  Shaker  union  being  considered 
by  them  as  the  heavenh*  kingdom,  tliey  are  to  have 

•27  * 


318  NEW  AMERICA. 

no  part  in  tlic  task  of  peopling;  it  with  Saints;  foi-  the 
children  of  <i;race  can  be  called  into  His  rest  by  none 
but  God,  Heaven  must  be  sought  of  man;  she  will 
never  again  go  forth  to  seek  ;  her  day  of  missionary 
work  being  past. 

If  the  community  of  Saints  gives  much  to  a  mem- 
ber, it  demands  much  as  the  price  of  liis  fellowship. 
When  a  man  is  led  upwards  of  the  spirit  into  a  yearn- 
ing after  peace,  he  must  oft'er  at  the  gates  of  Mount 
Lebanon  everything  which  a  man  of  the  world  would 
prize :  his  wealth,  his  ease,  his  glory,  his  aflections ; 
for  what  is  earth  to  heaven,  and  what  is  man  in  the 
sight  of  God  ?  Before  an  applicant  can  be  received 
into  this  society,  he  must  throw  his  possessions  into  a 
common  fund ;  he  must  consent  to  labor  with  his 
hands  for  the  general  good ;  he  must  forget  all  ranks 
and  titles  of  the  world ;  he  must  abandon  his  house 
and  kin,  his  books  and  friends  ;  he  must  tear  himself 
away  from  his  wife  and  child.  On  these  high  terms,  and 
on  no  other,  can  a  Gentile  enter  into  the  Shakers'  rest. 

Yet  thousands  of  persons  enter  into  union.  Mount 
Lebanon  is  but  one  of  eighteen  Shaker  societies,  which 
are  scattered  throughout  these  United  States.  Be- 
sides Kew  Lebanon,  there  are  two  other  settlements 
in  New  York  State,  namely :  Water  Vliet,  in  Albany 
county  (the  original  Slicker  society),  and  Groveland, 
in  Livingston  county.  There  are  four  villages  in  Mas- 
sachusetts :  Hancock  (the  birthplace  of  Lucy  Wright) 
and  Tyringham  in  Berkshire  county,  Harvey  and  Shir- 
ley in  Middlegex  county;  two  in  ISTew  Hampshire: 
Enfield  in  Grafton  county,  Canterbury  in  Merrimac 
county ;  two  in  Maine :  Alfred  in  York  county,  ISTew 
Gloucester  in  Cumberland  county;  one  village  in  Con- 
necticut :  Enfield  in  Hartford  county  (the  birthplace 
of  Meacham,  the  Shaker  Moses);  four  villages  in  Ohio  : 


SHAKER    UNION.  310 

White  Water  in  Ilaiiiiltoii  connh',  Water  Vliet  in 
Moiitsjoniery  county,  Union  village  in  Warren  county, 
and  North  Union  in  Cuyahoga  county ;  two  in  Ken- 
tucky :  Pleasant  Hill  in  Mercer  county,  and  ISoutli 
Union  in  Logan  county.  In  spite  of  their  hard  life, — 
what  may  seem  to  us  their  very  hard  life,  —  the  Shak- 
ers increase  in  number ;  the  census  of  1860  reporting 
them  as  more  than  six  thosaund  strong. 

Of  course,  when  they  are  measured  against  the 
thirty  millions  of  Christian  people  living  in  the 
United  States,  some  six  or  seven  thousand  celibate 
Shakers  may  appear  of  but  small  account;  and  this 
would  be  the  truth,  if  the  strength  of  spiritual  and 
moral  forces  could  be  told  in  figures,  like  that  of  a 
herd  of  cattle  and  a  kiln  of  bricks.  But  if  numbers 
are  much,  they  are  far  from  being  all.  One  man  with 
ideas  may  be  worth  a  Parliament,  an  army,  —  nay,  a 
whole  nation  without  them.  The  Shakers  may  not 
be  scholars  and  men  of  genius.  In  appearance  they 
are  often  very  simple ;  but  they  aro  men  with  ideas, 
men  capable  of  sacrifice.  Unlike  the  mass  of  man- 
kind, who  live  to  make  money,  the  Shakers  soar 
above  the  level  of  all  common  vices  and  temptations, 
and  from  the  height  of  their  unselfish  virtue,  ofier  to 
the  worn  and  wearied  spirit  a  gift  of  peace  and  a 
place  of  rest. 

No  one  can  look  into  the  heart  of  American  society 
without  seeing  that  these  Shaker  unions  have  a  power 
upon  men  beyond  that  of  mere  numbers.  If  a  poll- 
tax  wore  decreed,  they  might  pay  less  into  the  ex- 
checpier  than  the  Seceders,  the  Second  Adventists, 
the  Schwenkfelders,  and  the  Jews;  but  their  infiu- 
ence  on  the  course  of  American  thought  is  out  of  all 
comparison  with  that  of  such  minor  sects.  The 
Shakers  have  a  genius,  a  faith,  an  organization;  which 


320  NEW  AMERICA. 

arc  not  only  strange,  but  seductive ;  wliicli  have  been 
tried  in  tbe  fire  of  persecution,  and  which  are  hostile 
to  society  as  it  stands.  A  Shaker  village  is  not  only 
a  new  church,  but  a  new  nation.  These  people,  who 
have  just  been  out  with  me  in  the  fields  and  lanes, 
know  nothing  of  New  York,  of  the  United  States. 
They  are  not  Americans;  and  have  no  part  in  the 
politics  and  quarrels  so  often  raging  around  them. 
They  vote  for  no  President ;  they  hold  no  meetings ; 
they  want  nothing  from  the  "White  House.  The  right 
to  think,  vote,  speak,  aiid  travel,  is  to  them  but  an 
idle  dream;  they  live  with  angels,  and  are  more  fa- 
miliar (as  they  tell  me)  with  the  dead  than  with  the 
living.  Sister  Mary,  who  was  sitting  in  my  room  not 
an  hour  ago,  close  to  my  hand,  and  leaning  on  this 
Bible,  which  then  lay  open  at  the  Canticles,  told  me 
that  the  room  was  full  of  spirits ;  of  beings  as  pal- 
pable, as  audible  to  her,  as  my  OAvn  figure  and  my 
own  voice.  The  dreamy  look,  the  wandering  eye,  the 
rapt  expression,  would  have  alarmed  me  for  her  state 
of  health ;  only  that  I  know  with  what  sweet  decorum 
she  conducts  her  life,  and  with  what  subtile  fingers  she 
makes  damson  tarts.  Frederick  has  the  same  beliefs ; 
if  you  like  the  word  better,  the  same  illusions.  What 
need  can  such  a  people  have  for  votings  and  palavers? 
God  is  their  only  right ;  obedience  to  His  will  their 
only  freedom. 

That  such  a  community  should  be  able  to  exist  in 
the  United  States,  is  a  sign  ;  that  it  should  have  seized 
upon  men's  affections,  that  it  should  have  become  pop- 
ular and  prosperous,  growing  without  effort,  conquer- 
ing without  conflict,  drawing  towards  itself  many  pure, 
unselfish  persons  from  the  adjoining  towns  and  states, 
is  little  less  than  a  judgment  on  our  churches.  And 
such,  in  truth,  the  Shakers  call  it. 


SHAKER    UNION.  321 

On  entering  into  nnion  with  the  believers,  tlien,  a 
convert  must  withdraw  himself  from  the  world;  paying 
off  all  debts,  discharging  all  bonds  and  trusts,  renounc- 
ing all  contracts,  cancelling  all  wills  and  settlements, 
giving  up  all  friends  and  kinsmen,  as  though  he  were 
parted  from  them  by  the  grave.  Indeed,  the  call  which 
he  receives  from  God  is  to  be  accepted  as  a  proof  that 
his  past  life  as  a  sinful  creature  is  at  an  end: — in  final 
words,  the  flesh  is  deposed  and  the  world  put  away. 

On  being  received  into  the  union,  he  no  longer  re- 
gards the  earth  as  a  spoil  to  be  won,  but  as  a  pledge 
to  be  redeemed.  By  man  it  fell,  by  man  it  may  be 
restored.  Every  one  chosen  of  the  Father  has  the 
privilege  of  aiding  in  this  redemption;  not  only  by  the 
toil  of  his  hands,  by  the  contrivance  of  his  brain,  but 
by  the  sympathy  of  his  soul ;  covering  the  world  with 
verdure,  filling  the  air  with  perfume,  storing  the  gran- 
ary with  fruit. 

The  spirit  in  which  he  puts  his  hand  out  is  a  new 
one  to  him.  Hitherto,  the  earth  has  been  his  servant; 
now  it  is  his  partner,  bound  to  him  by  celestial  ties. 
He  looks  at  the  face  of  nature  with  a  lover's  eyes,  and 
the  great  passions  of  his  heart,  directed  from  his 
money,  from  his  wife,  now  turn  upon  the  garden  and 
the  field.  But  he  understands  that  labor  alone  is  not 
enough ;  he  knows  that  the  laborer  must  be  worthy 
of  his  task,  that  this  fanaticism  must  be  guided  by 
angelic  wisdom.  According  to  Shaker  theories,  the 
earth  has  been  accursed  and  darkened  by  human  pas- 
sions, and  must  be  redeemed  into  beauty  by  human 
love.  Man  makes  the  landscape  smile  and  frown ;  the 
plant  you  train  will  grow  into  your  likeness  ;  and  if 
you  would  have  a  lovely  garden,  you  should  live  a 
lovely  life.     Such  at  least  is  the  Shakers'  thought. 

My  Gentile  brother,  if  we  were  to  flout  this  notion 


822  NE  W  AMER  TO  A. 

as  a  crazy  dream,  the  fact  would  still  remain,  and  we 
should  have  to  account  for  it  as  we  might,  that  these 
Shakers  get  more  out  of  the  earth  b}^  love,  than  we  get 
by  our  craft.  This  fact  is  not  a  thing  to  be  disputed 
and  denied;  the  evidence  is  found  in  a  hundred  Broad- 
way stores  and  London  shops.  K  we  deny  that  the 
earth  will  answer  love  by  love,  we  are  bound  to  explain 
the  beauty  and  fertility  of  Mount  Lebanon  in  some 
other  way. 

This  morning  I  have  spent  an  hour  with  Frederick 
in  the  new  orchard,  listening  to  the  story  of  how  he 
planted  it,  as  to  a  tale  by  some  Arabian  poet.  "A  tree 
has  its  wants  and  wishes,"  said  the  Elder ;  "  and  a  man 
should  study  them  as  a  teacher  watches  a  child,  to  see 
what  he  can  do.  If  you  love  the  plant,  and  take  heed 
of  what  it  likes,  you  will  be  well  repaid  by  it.  I  don't 
know  if  a  tree  ever  comes  to  know  you  ;  and  I  think 
it  may ;  but  I  am  sure  it  feels  when  you  care  for  it 
and  tend  it ;  as  a  child  does,  as  a  woman  does.  Xow, 
when  we  planted  this  orchard,  we  first  got  the  very 
best  cuttings  in  our  reach;  we  then  built  a  house  for 
every  plant-to  live  in,  that  is  to  say,  we  dug  a  deep 
hole  for  each ;  we  drained  it  well ;  we  laid  down  tiles 
and  rubble,  and  then  filled  in  a  bed  of  suitable  manure 
and  mould  ;  we  put  the  plant  into  its  nest  gently,  and 
pressed  up  the  earth  about  it,  and  protected  the  infant 
tree  by  this  metal  fence."  "You  take  a  world  of  pains," 
I  said.  "Ah,  Brother  Hepworth,"  he  rejoined,  "thee 
sees  we  love  our  garden." 

Thus,  when  a  Shaker  is  put  upon  the  soil,  to  beau- 
tify it  by  his  tilth,  the  diiference  between  his  hus- 
bandry and  that  of  a  Gentile  farmer,  who  is  thinking 
solely  of  his  profits,  is  likely  to  be  great.  Wliile  the 
Gentile  is  watching  for  his  returns,  the  Shaker  is  in- 
tent upon  his  service.     One  tries  for  large  profits,  the 


MOTHER   ANN.  323 

other  strives  for  good  work.  Is  it  strange  that  a  celi- 
bate man,  who  puts  his  soul  into  the  soil  —  who  gives 
to  it  all  the  affection  which  he  would  otherwise  have 
lavished  on  wife  and  child  —  should  excel  a  mere  trad- 
ing rival  in  the  production  of  fruits  and  flowers  ? 


CHAPTER  XLV. 


MOTHER    ANN. 


Sitting  with  Elder  Frederick,  who  has  been  taking 
much  pains  to  make  me  understand  his  intricate  and 
difiicult  code  of  morals,  I  have  heard  how  these  seeds- 
men and  florists  of  Mount  Lebanon  have  been  made 
what  they  are  in  skill,  in  gentleness,  in  temperance 
—  in  all  the  virtues  which  they  display  —  through  loyal 
obedience  to  the  lessons  taught  them  by  Ann  Lee  ;  a 
female  saint,  who  is  only  known  to  her  followers  by 
the  august  and  holy  name  of  Mother.  She  may  be 
spoken  of  as  Mother  Ann. 

As  a  distinct  and  sacred  people,  the  Shakers  have 
this  peculiar  boast  among  American  churches  —  that, 
while  they  are  wholly  of  the  New  World  in  thought, 
in  feeling,  and  in  platform,  having  no  life  beyond  these 
great  waters,  they  draw  the  original  germ  of  their 
existence  from  the  old  paternal  soil.  If  the}-  are  called 
to  an  American  paradise,  the  messenger  of  heaven 
who  called  them  into  rest  was  a  female  English  seer. 

About  a  hundred  years  ago,  a  poor  woman,  living 
at  Bolton-on-the-Moors,  a  bleak  and  grimy  town,  in 
the  most  stony  part  of  South  Lancashire,  announced 
that  she  had  received  a  call  from  heaven  to  ffo  about 


324  N-EW  A31ERIGA. 

the  streets  of  her  native  town  and  testify  for  the  truth. 
Her  name  was  Jane ;  her  husl)and,  James  Wardlaw,  a 
tailor,  with  gifts  of  speech,  had  become  her  first  con- 
vert and  expositor.  These  poor  people  had  previously 
belonged  to  the  Society  of  Friends ;  in  which  they 
had  been  forward  in  bearing  testimony  against  oaths, 
against  war,  against  formality  in  worship.  Living  in 
a  hard  and  rocky  district,  in  the  midst  of  a  coarse  and 
brutal  population,  Jane  had  seen  about  her,  from  her 
youth  upwards,  a  careless  church,  a  Papist  gentry,  a 
drunken  and  fanatical  crowd.  Going  out  into  the 
market-place,  she  had  declared  to  these  people,  that 
the  end  of  all  things  was  at  hand,  that  Christ  was 
about  to  reign,  that  His  second  appearance  would  be 
in  a  woman's  form,  as  had  been  long  ago  prefigured 
in  the  Psalms.  Jane  had  never  said  that  she  herself 
was  the  female  Christ ;  but  she  had  acted  as  though, 
she  believed  that  all  the  powers  of  earth  and  heaven 
had  been  given  into  her  hands  ;  receiving  converts  in 
His  name,  confessing  and  remitting  sins,  holding  com- 
munication with  unseen  spirits.  It  was  assumed  by 
her  own  people  that  she  was  filled  with  the  Holy 
Ghost ;  and  whatsoever  thing  she  affirmed,  in  the 
power  of  her  attendant  spirits,  had  been  received  by 
her  followers  as  the  voice  of  God.  But  her  reign  had 
not  been  long. 

Among  the  early  converts  of  this  female  witness 
had  been  a  girl  named  Ann  Lee,  daughter  of  a  poor 
blacksmith ;  a  girl  of  parts,  though  she  had  never 
been  taught  to  read  and  write.  Born  in  Toad  Lane 
(now  Todd  Street),  Manchester,  a  lane  of  ale-ho«ses 
and  smithies,  Ann  had  been  brought  up,  first  in  a 
cotton  mill,  next  in  a  public  kitchen ;  a  wild  creature 
from  her  birth,  a  prey  to  hysteria  and  convulsions ; 
violent  in  her  conduct,  ambitious  of  notice,  and  de- 


MOTHER  ANN.  325 

voiired  by  the  lust  of  power.  Like  many  girls  of  her 
class,  she  had  been  married  while  she  was  yet  a  child ; 
married  to  a  neighboring  lad,  a  smith  of  the  name  of 
Stanley;  a  man  poorer  even  than  herself.  To  this 
man  she  had  borne  four  infants,  all  of  whom  had 
died  in  their  tender  years ;  and  these  losses  of  the 
young  mother  may  have  touched  her  mind  with  a 
morbid  repugnance  to  the  offices  and  duties  attending 
on  a  woman's  share  in  our  common  conjugal  life. 
Joining  the  sect  of  Jane  Wardlaw,  Ann  also  had 
begun  to  sally  forth  into  the  streets  and  witness  for 
the  truth ;  lecturing  the  blacksmiths  of  Toad  Lane, 
the  weavers  of  New  Cross,  on  the  things  to  come, 
until  the  prosy  old  parish  constable  had  seized  her  as 
a  nuisance,  and  the  magistrate  had  sent  her  to  jail  as 
a  disturber  of  the  public  peace.  While  she  was  lying 
in  prison  —  Old  Bailey  prison,  on  the  Irwell  —  she 
said  a  light  had  shone  upon  her,  and  the  Lord  Jesus 
had  stood  before  her  in  the  cell,  and  become  one  with 
her  in  form  and  spirit.  Jane  Wardlaw  had  never  yet 
pretended  to  have  wrestled  with  so  high  a  power; 
and  when  Ann  Lee  came  out  of  prison,  the  little 
church  of  six  or  seven  persons  to  whom  she  told  her 
story,  had  raised  her  to  the  rank  of  Mother,  in  place 
of  their  foundress,  the  tailor's  wife. 

A  feminine  church  had  been  now  openly  proclaimed 
in  Manchester  and  Bolton,  with  Mother  Ann  as  that 
queen  who  was  described  by  David,  as  that  Bride  of 
the  Lamb  who  was  seen  in  the  Apocalypse  by  John. 
Christ,  it  w^as  now  proclaimed,  had  come  again ;  not 
in  His  pomp  and  power,  as  the  world  expected  Him, 
but  in  the  flesh  of  a  factory  girl,  who  could  neither 
read  nor  write. 

As  the  rousrh  lads  and  lasses  of  her  native  town  had 
only  laughed  at  this  pretence  of  a  female  church,  Ann 

28 


326  NEW  AMERICA. 

had  received  a  second  revelation  from  heaven,  com- 
manding her  to  shake  the  dust  of  Toad  Lane  from  her 
feet,  to  gather  up  the  sheep  of  her  tiny  fold,  and  to 
seek  for  them,  and  for  herself,  a  home  in  the  Promised 
Land.  The  spirits  who  waited  upon  her,  angels  and 
ministers,  had  drawn  her  thoughts  to  America,  as  the 
hope  of  free  men  and  the  seat  of  God's  future  church. 
Five  males  (AVilliam  Lee,  James  Whittaker,  John 
Hocknell,  Richard  Hocknell,  James  Shepherd),  and 
two  females  (Mary  Partington  and  N^ancy  Lee)  had 
been  minded  to  cast  in  their  lot  with  her;  and  although 
the  master  of  the  ship  in  which  they  sailed  from  Liver- 
pool had  threatened,  on  the  voyage  out,  to  pitch  them 
all  into  the  sea  for  what  he  called  their  indecent  con- 
duct, Ann,  with  her  husband  Stanley,  and  her  seven 
disciples,  had  landed  safely  in  the  bay  of  New  York. 

The  only  one  of  this  little  band  who  had  felt  no 
true  faith  in  Mother  Ann  was  her  husband;  but  in 
spite  of  his  want  of  grace,  she  had  proceeded,  on 
their  reaching  the  Promised  Land,  to  put  her  gospel 
of  abstinence  into  force;  insisting  on  the  need  for 
living  a  holy  life,  and  separating  herself,  a  Bride  of 
the  Lamb,  from  her  husband's  side.  Her  fixed  idea 
had  been,  that  she  and  her  people  should  make  eter- 
nal war  against  the  flesh.  By  lust  man  fell  from  hea- 
ven ;  by  abstinence  from  carnal  thoughts  he  might 
hope  to  regain  his  celestial  rank.  No  form  of  earthly 
love  could  be  tolerated  in  the  Redeemer's  kingdom. 
Men  called  into  grace  must  live  as  the  angels  live; 
among  whom  there  is  neither  marrying  nor  giving 
in  marriage.  Ever}^  member,  therefore,  of  her  church 
had  been  compelled  to  renounce  his  yearning  after 
love ;  the  wives  consenting  to  dwell  in  a  house  apart 
from  their  husbands,  the  husbands  in  a  house  apart 
from  their  wives.     They  had  put  to  themselves  this 


MOTHER  ANN.  327 

question  :  If  all  men,  born  into  tlic  world,  are  born  in 
sin,  and  made  the  heirs  of  death  in  the  world  to  come, 
how  can  the  Saint,  wlien  raised  from  liis  fallen  nature, 
dare  to  augment  this  empire  of  sin  and  death  ? 

It  would  have  been  hard  for  Stanley  to  answer  that 
question  from  Mother  Ann's  point  of  view,  otherwise 
than  as  she  answered  it;  but  her  husband,  though  lie 
could  not  give  his  reasons,  had  felt  that,  as  a  married 
man,  he  was  being  badly  used.  He  was  no  mystic; 
and  when  his  wife  had  put  her  self-denying  ordinance 
into  force  against  him,  he  had  taken  up  (I  am  grieved 
to  write  it)  with  another  woman  of  New  York.  Mo- 
ther Ann  had  left  him,  and  had  left  New  York  City, 
going  up  the  Hudson  River  as  far  as  Albany,  then  a 
small  frontier  town,  facing  the  great  wilderness  to- 
wards the  west.  Even  there  her  people  had  found 
the  world  too  much  with  them.  Pushing  out  into  the 
back-woods,  to  a  spot  then  known  to  the  red-skins  as 
Niskenna,  they  had  built  log  shanties,  and  taken  up 
their  abode  in  the  green  waste,  founding  the  township 
now  so  famous  as  Water  Vliet,  the  original  Shaker 
settlement  in  New  York. 

For  three  years  and  six  months  these  strangers  had 
waited  in  their  lonely  huts,  clearing  the  forest,  tilling 
the  soil,  rearing  bees  and  fowls,  and  waiting  for  a  sign 
from  heaven.  They  had  made  no  eftbrts  to  convert 
the  Gentiles.  They  had  fled  from,  rather  than  sought, 
the  society  of  men.  They  had  preached  no  sermons, 
printed  no  books,  written  no  letters,  announced  no 
gospel.  Desolation  could  hardly  have  been  more 
complete  than  they  found  on  the  Hudson  River  at 
Niskenna.  But  this  nest  of  seven  believers  in  Mother 
Ann's  divine  commission,  being  comforted  by  angels 
of  the  night,  had  w^aited  and  watched  for  the  promised 
coming  in  of  the  Saints.     At  length  their  faith  in  her 


328  NEW  AMERICA. 

promises  had  been  crowned  by  wonders.  A  religious 
revival  which  had  broken  out  in  Albany,  spread  into 
the  villages  of  Hancock  and  New  Lebanon,  where  it 
had  caught  up,  in  its  electrical  vortices,  many  sub- 
stantial sinners,  including,  among  other  well-to-do 
people,  Joseph  Meacham  and  Lucy  Wright.  Joseph 
and  Lucy,  with  some  of  their  neighbors  who  had 
heard  of  the  coming  of  Ann  Lee,  had  gone  over  the 
hills  to  Niskenua,  as  a  deputation  from  the  revivalist 
camp  (Spring  of  1780),  and  after  seeing  her  way 
of  life,  hearing  her  words  of  peace,  and  being  told 
of  the  appearance  to  her  in  the  Manchester  jail,  they 
had  embraced  her  creed,  admitted  her  right,  and 
become  her  first  disciples  on  the  American  soil. 
Meacham  had  been  adopted  by  Ann  as  her  eldest  son; 
and  the  Mother  had  then  declared  that,  after  her  time, 
the  power  would  be  given  unto  him  from  God  to  put 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  into  perfect  order.  The  result 
of  this  visit  of  Lucy  and  Joseph  to  Mother  Ann  had 
been  the  foundation  of  the  Shaker  societies  in  Hancock 
and  Mount  Lebanon. 

Ann  had  now  fallen  into  trouble,  the  inheritance  of 
seers  and  prophets  from  of  old.  The  War  of  Lide- 
pendence  being  at  that  time  brisk,  and  the  people 
ardent  in  the  cause,  the  farmers  and  woodmen  of  New 
York  had  taken  up  the  notion'  that  these  Shakers,  who 
raised  their  voices  against  war  as  the  devil's  work,  had 
come  into  the  land  as  enemies,  perhaps  as  spies;  a 
charge  which  the  gentry  of  Albany  told  Ann  and  her 
disciples  they  must  rebut  by  taking  the  colonial  oaths. 
But  how  were  they  to  take  the  colonial  oaths,  seeing 
that  their  principles  forbade  them  to  swear  at  all? 
First,  Meacham  and  the  men,  afterwards  Ann  and  tlie 
women,  had  been  thrown  into  jail,  where  they  had 
been  visited  by  many  people,  and  become  a  topic  of 


MOTHER   ANN.  329 

discourse  tlirouglioiit  New  York.  Instead  of  calmino; 
men's  minds  and  jjuttint;:  Ann  down,  the  gentry  of 
Albany  soon  found  that  they  had  been  the  means  of 
spreading  the  fame  of  tliis  strange  prophetess  througli 
their  colony,  into  both  the  English  and  American 
camps.  What  could  they  do  with  a  prisoner  who  told 
them  she  Avas  the  female  Christ?  They  had  thought 
her  crazy,  and  they  had  fancied,  she  being  an  English- 
born  woman,  that  it  would  be  well  to  send  her  with  a 
pass  into  the  British  lines.  With  that  end  in  view, 
she  had  been  sent  down  the  rivei",  but  the  plan  could 
not  be  carried  into  etfect  on  account  of  the  war;  and, 
in  the  meantime,  she  had  been  lod-ged  for  security  in 
Poughkeepsie  jail,  where  she  held  a  little  court  of 
her  own  among  her  attendant  spirits,  and  left  behind 
her  in  that  town,  when  she  quitted  it,  memories  and 
influences  which  have  taken  shapes  in  the  Spiritualist 
theories  of  a  later  time. 

Set  free  by  Governor  Clinton  (December,  1780), 
Ann  had  come  out  of  prison  a  famous  woman ;  and 
after  three  months  had  been  spent  by  her  at  Water 
Vliet,  in  the  midst  of  her  male  and  female  elders,  she 
started  on  a  tour  of  exhibition,  visiting  Harvard  in 
Massachusetts,  and  many  other  places  in  the  K"ew 
England  colonies,  increasing  the  number  of  her  disci- 
ples, and  providing  the  materials  for  her  future  model 
societies.  Her  work  had  been  long  and  toilsome  ;  not 
without  profit  to  her  in  many  waj- s  ;  but  after  twenty- 
eight  months  had  been  spent  in  these  travels,  she  had 
returned  to  Water  Vliet,  near  the  Hudson  River,  in 
September,  1783,  wasted  in  vigor,  though  she  seemed 
to  have  become  sul)limed  in  spirit.  One  winter  and 
one  summer  more  she  had  held  on  to  her  task,  but  in 
the  fall  of  1784,  she  had  gathered  her  disciples  round 
her,  given  them  a  promise  and  a  blessing,  and  after 

28* 


330  NEW  A3IEBICA. 

yicldino-  np  tlie  visil)lc  keys  of  her  kingflom  to  Joseph 
and  Lucy,  as  her  successors  in  the  male  and  female 
headships  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  she  had  passed 
away  from  their  sight. 

According  to  the  doctrines  now  held  by  the  Shaker 
church.  Mother  Ann  did  not  die,  as  mortal  men  and 
women  die ;  she  became  changed  to  the  world,  trans- 
figured and  transformed,  made  invisible  to  the  flesh 
through  excess  of  light.  From  what  I  have  heard  and 
read,  it  seems  to  me  probable  that  some  of  Ann's 
people  were  amazed  at  her  disappearance  —  an  event 
on  which  they  had  not  counted  ;  nor  could  the}  recon- 
cile it  with  her  story  of  that  second  advent  in  the 
Manchester  jail,  where  their  Lord  had  taken  flesh  in 
a  woman's  form.  Their  taith  appears  to  have  been 
sorely  tried;  but  Joseph  Meacham  and  Lucy  Wright — 
the  divinely  appointed  king  and  queen  of  the  new 
kingdom — had  proved  themselves  equal  to  the  mo- 
ment. With  the  corpse  of  Ann  before  them,  they  had 
stoutly  affirmed  that  she  was  not  dead.  The  queen 
foretold  by  David  could  never  die ;  the  Bride  whom 
John  had  seen  in  his  vision  could  never  sink  into  the 
grave.  The  Queen  had  been  covered  with  robes  of 
light;  the  Bride  had  passed  into  the  secret  chamber. 
Ann  had  withdrawn  herself  for  a  little  while  from 
the  world,  which  had  no  part  in  her ;  but  she  would 
live  and  reign  forever  amongst  her  own  true  children 
of  the  resurrection.  The  dust  before  them  was  nothing 
but  a  worn-out  garment  which  the  Mother  had  cast 
away. 

Joseph  and  Lucy  had  caused  this  dust  to  be  lifted 
up,  and  put  away  in  a  field,  not  in  any  sacred  place, 
in  any  consecrated  ground,  where  it  might  rest  in 
peace  for  the  final  rising;  but  in  a  common  field, 
where  it  might  soon  be  lost  and  forgotten,  wliere  in 


RES  URRE  G  TION  ORDER.  3  3 1 

time  tlie  plough  would  go  tbrougli  it,  causing  it  to 
mingle  with  the  earth  from  which  it  had  been  drawn. 
A  Shaker  expects  no  further  rising  of  the  dead.  In 
his  conviction,  the  dead  are  now  risen,  and  are  even 
now  rising.  To  be  called  into  grace,  is  the  same  as 
being  raised  from  the  dead  into  a  new  life.  Frederick 
and  Antoinette  believe  that  they  have  passed  througli 
the  shadow,  that  they  will  die  no  more,  that  when 
their  season  comes  they  will  only  be  withdrawn,  like 
Mother  Ann,  from  the  world.  They  are  living  now, 
they  are  tirmly  convinced,  in  the  Resurrection  Order. 


CHAPTER  XLVL 

RESURRECTION   ORDER. 

When  Joseph  Meacham  and  Lucy  Wright  had  put 
the  dust  of  Mother  Ann  away,  telling  her  people  that 
she  had  only  changed  her  raiment,  being  clothed  in 
her  celestial  robes  as  Bride  of  the  Lamb,  all  difficul- 
ties appear  to  have  been  conquered,  and  the  faith  of 
the  wavering  to  have  been  made  strong.  The  doctrine 
was  seductive  and  bewitching.  Ann  was  still  living 
in  tlieir  midst ;  in  dreams,  in  ecstasies,  they  could  see 
her,  they  could  hear  her  voice.  The  change  which 
bad  come  upon  her  would  one  day  come  upon  them. 
How  glorious  for  the  saints  to  think  that  Death  is  but 
a  change  in  the  costume  of  life  ;  that  the  dissolving 
soul  dies  only  to  the  flesh ;  that  the  glory  to  which  the 
elect  attain  conceals  them  from  the  world,  but  leaves 
them  visible  to  eyes,  audible  to  ears,  which  have  been 
puritied  and  exalted  by  the  gift  of  grace  I 


332  NEW  AMERICA. 

To  this  dogma  of  the  existence  of  a  world  of  spirits 
• — unseen  by  us,  visible  to  them  —  the  disciples  of 
Mother  Ann  most  strictly  hold.  In  this  respect,  they 
agree  with  the  Spiritualists ;  indeed,  they  pride  them- 
selves on  having  foretold  the  advent  of  this  spiritual 
disturbance  in  the  American  mind.  Frederick  tells 
me  (from  his  angels),  that  the  reign  of  this  spiritualistic 
frenzy  is  only  in  its  opening  phase ;  it  will  sweep 
through  Europe,  through  the  world,  as  it  is  sweeping 
now  through  America;  it  is  a  real  phenomenon,  based 
on  facts,  and  representing  an  actual,  though  an  unseen 
force.  Some  of  its  professors,  he  admits,  are  cheats 
and  rogues ;  but  that  is  in  the  nature  of  spirit-move- 
ments, seeing  that  you  have  evil  angels  as  well  as  good 
angels.  Man  is  not  the  only  deceiver.  If  men  are 
false,  is  there  not  one  who  is  the  father  of  lies  ?  When 
the  higher  and  nether  world  shall  have  come  yet 
nearer  to  the  earth  —  in  the  riper  days  of  the  Resur- 
rection— both  good  and  evil  spirits  may  be  expected 
to  have  greater  power  on  earth. 

Antoinette,  who  has  just  been  sitting  in  my  room, 
asserts  that  she  talks  with  spirits  more  freely  and  con- 
fidingly than  she  does  with  me ;  yet  I  cannot  see  that 
Aiitoinette  is  crazy  on  any  other  point,  and  she  cer- 
tainly makes  neat  and  sensible  speeches.  This  room, 
in  which  I  am  writing — the  guest-chamber  of  North 
House — which  seems  to  me  empty  and  still,  is  to  her 
full  of  seraphim  and  cherubim,  who  keep  on  singing 
and  haranguing  the  livelong  day.  Mother  Ann  is 
here  present ;  Lucy  and  Joseph  are  present ;  all  the 
brethren  who  have  passed  out  of  hwman  sight  are 
present — to  her.  You  have  only  to  w^atch  Antoinette 
for  a  moment,  when  you  are  not  yourself  engaging 
her  attention,  to  see,  by  her  hushed  face,  by  her  rapt 
eye,  by  her  wandering  manner,  that  she  believes  her- 


RESURBE'^TION  ORDER.  333 

self  in  another  presence,  more  revered,  more  august, 
than  anytliinti;  of  earth.  Yes ;  those  whom  we  Gen- 
tiles call  the  dead  are  with  her;  and  by  this  ethereal 
process  of  belief,  the  brethren  of  Mount  Lebanon  have 
conquered  death  and  put  an  end  to  the  grave. 

This  morning,  when  Antoinette  first  came  into  my 
room,  I  thought  she  was  very  grave  and  sweet;  in  her 
hand  she  held  a  paper,  as  though  she  had  brought  it 
in  to  show  me  ;  and  on  my  inquiring  what  it  was  about 
she  laid  it  on  vay  table,  saying  it  was  a  song  which  she 
had  heard  in  the  night,  sung  by  angelic  choirs.  My 
eyes  ran  towards  it ;  and  from  her  Avay  of  speaking  I 
could  see  that  she  meant  to  give  it  me  as  a  parting 
token.  "Sign  it,  Sister  Antoinette,"  I  said,  "and 
let  me  have  it."  She  wrote  her  name  on  the  margin 
of  this  song ;  from  a  perusal  of  which  the  reader  will 
see  that  either  the  copyist  mistook  some  of  the  seraphic 
words,  or  else  that  the  angels  are  not  particular  as  to 
syntax  and  rhyme. 

Let  us  ascend  the  heavenly  scale, 

In  purity  be  rising  ; 
In  deeds  of  charity  and  love 

Let  not  our  souls  be  wanting. 

On  the  immortal  hills  of  truth 

Are  flowers  eternal  blooming  ; 
I  long  to  breathe  that  fragrant  air, 
To  join  my  voice  with  angels  there. 

So  sweetly  they  are  singing. 

I  do  not  understand  Antoinette  to  say  that  this 
hymn  was  made  by  the  seraphs  expressly  for  me.  She 
is  too  simple  to  indulge  in  jests ;  and  I  could  not  hurt 
her  mind  b}^  any  lay  remark.  Perhaps  it  may  be  as 
well  to  add  that  all  the  chants  and  marches  used  by 
the  Shakers  in  their  services  are  learnt  in  dreams  and 


334  #  NEW  AMERICA. 

reveries.  None  of  their  sacred  poetry  is  very  good, 
according  to  our  secular  canons,  though  some  of  it  has 
a  lilt,  a  tire,  that  would  make  effective  verse  if  it  had 
only  been  managed  with  a  little  more  art.  I  have 
rarely  heard  a  finer  effect,  of  its  kind,  in  music  than 
that  produced  in  the  frame  church  on  Mount  Lebanon 
by  four  or  five  hundred  Shakers,  men  and  women, 
marching  to  this  chant : 

To  the  bright  Elyslan  fields, 

la  the  Spirit-land  I  go  ! 
Leaving  all  inferior  joys, 
All  pleasures  below. 

For  my  spirit  reaches  upward. 

To  that  celestial  land, 
Where,  by  the  power  of  truth  and  love, 

The  Saints  as  sisters  stand. 

The  murmuring  of  the  waters, 

From  the  troubled  sea  of  time. 
Can  never  reach  the  peaceful  shores 
Of  that  pure,  that  happy  clime, 
Where  angels  the  banners  of  love  gently  wave. 
And  where  saints  do  triumph  over  death  and  the  grave ! 

If  we  may  judge  by  the  rules  established  in  this 
lower  world,  your  angels  make  much  better  tunes 
than  rhymes.  The  Shakers'  marches  are  often  very 
fine. 

To  Joseph  Meacham,  Mother  Ann's  first  adopted 
son  on  the  American  soil,  and  to  Lucy,  her  daughter 
and  successor  in  the  female  sphere,  the  government 
of  this  Church  descended  by  divine  appointment ; 
and  their  rule,  which  is  beyond  appeal,  was  made 
more  easy  to  them  by  the  promise  of  their  departed 
founder.  "  The  time  will  come,"  Mother  Ann  had 
said,  "when  the  Church  will  be  gathered  into  order; 


RESURRECTION  ORDER.  335 

bat  not  until  after  ray  decease.  Joseph  Meacham  is 
my  first-born  son  in  America;  he  will  gather  the 
Ohnrcli  into  order;  bnt  I  shall  not  live  to  see  it." 
And  with  this  promise  on  her  lips  she  had  passed  ont 
of  mortal  sight. 

As  yet,  the  believers  in  Mother  Ann  being  the  sec- 
ond incarnation  of  Christ,  had  been  scattered  through 
the  world,  living  in  it  bodily  for  the  greater  part, 
though  they  were  not  of  it  in  the  spirit.  Joseph  and 
Lucy  had  drawn  these  believers  apart  into  settle- 
ments :  to  "Water  Vliet  and  Mount  Lebanon  in  New 
York,  to  Harvard  and  Shirley  in  Massachusetts,  to 
Enfield  in  Connecticut,  to  Canterbury  in  IS^ew  Hamp- 
shire, to  Union  Village  and  White  Water  in  Ohio,  to 
Pleasant  Hill  and  South  Union  in  Kentucky.  Under 
their  rule,  a  covenant  had  been  written  down  and 
accepted  by  the  brethren.  The  divine  government 
had  been  confirmed :  elders  and  deacons,  female  as 
well  as  male,  had  been  appointed ;  celibacy  had  been 
confirmed  as  binding  on  the  Saints,  and  community 
of  goods  had  been  introduced  among  them.  When 
Joseph  had  also  passed  out  of  sight  in  1796,  he  had 
bequeathed  an  undivided  power  to  Lucy,  who  then 
became  the  leader,  representing  Mother  Ann,  and  for 
five-and-twenty  years  governing  these  Shaker  societies 
with  the  powers  of  a  female  Pope.  When  her  time 
had  also  come,  she  named  her  successor;  for  who, 
unless  the  chosen,  shall  have  the  right  to  choose  ? 
But  she  had  named  an  Elderess,  not  a  Mother;  and 
since  her  day  the  title  of  Mother  has  been  abandoned, 
no  female  saint  having  sprung  up  among  them  worthy 
to  bear  so  august  a  name.  The  present  female  leader 
of  the  Society  is  Betsy  Bates ;  she  is  simply  called 
Elderess  Betsy;  she  represents  the  Mother  only  in 
the  body,  for  Ann  is  thought  to  be  herself  present 


336  NEW  AMERICA. 

among  her  children  in  the  spirit.  The  chief  elder 
and  successor  to  Joseph  is  Daniel  Boler,  who  may  be 
regarded  as  the  Rliaker  bishop  ;  but  tlie  active  power 
of  the  Society  (as  I  fancy)  lies  with  Elder  Frederick, 
the  official  preacher  and  expositor  of  Shaker  doctrine. 
If  the  Shaker  communities  should  undergo  any  change 
in  our  da}^  through  the  coming  in  of  other  lights,  I 
fancy  that  the  change  will  have  to  be  brought  about 
through  him.  Frederick  is  a  man  of  ideas,  and  men 
of  ideas  are  dangerous  persons  in  a  Society  which 
affects  to  have  adopted  its  final  form.  Boler  repre- 
sents the  divine  principle,  Frederick  the  art  and  gov- 
ernment of  the  world. 

The  Family  at  North  House  contains  two  orders  of 
members,  (1)  Probationers,  (2)  Covenanters.  The  first 
are  men  and  women  who  have  come  in  for  a  time,  to 
see  how  they  like  it,  and  whether  it  likes  them.  Men 
in  this  early  stage  of  the  celestial  trial  retain  their 
private  fortunes,  and  maintain  some  slight  relation  to 
the  Gentile  world.  Men  of  the  second  stage  may  be 
said,  in  effect,  to  have  taken  the  vow  of  chastity,  and 
to  have  cast  in  their  lot  for  good  and  evil  with  the 
brethren.  The  chiefs  have  very  little  trouble,  Fred- 
erick tells  me,  with  the  novices,  for  any  one  may  go 
out  when  he  pleases,  taking  all  that  he  brought  in 
away  with  him.  A  poor  fellow  who  puts  in  nothing, 
is  generally  sent  away,  if  he  desires  to  leave,  with  a 
hundred  dollars  in  his  purse.  The  rich  men  give  less 
trouble  than  the  poor,  being  generally  persons  of 
higher  culture  and  of  more  earnest  spirit.  One  of 
my  female  friends  in  the  community.  Sister  Jane, 
came  in  as  a  child  with  her  father,  Abel  Knight,  one 
of  the  first  citizens  of  Philadelphia.  She  is  young, 
pretty,  educated,  rich ;  but  she  has  given  up  the  world 


RESURRECTION  ORDER.  337 

and  its  delights ;  and  if  ever  I  saw  a  happy -looking 
damsel,  it  is  Sister  Jane. 

As  regards  their  notions  of  the  duty  of  living  a 
cellliute  life,  there  is  (as  Elder  Frederick  tells  nie)  a 
great  mistake  abroad.  They  do  not  hold  that  a  celi- 
bate life  is  right  in  every  place  and  in  every  society, 
at  all  times ;  they  know,  that  if  the  rule  of  absolute 
self-denial  were  commonly  adopted,  the  world  would 
be  unpeopled  in  a  hundred  years  ;  but  they  say  that 
marriage  is  a  state  of  temptation  to  many  (as  wine- 
drinking  is  a  state  of  temptation  to  many),  and  they 
consider  that  for  a  male  and  female  priesthood,  such 
as  they  hold  themselves  to  be  as  respects  the  world, 
this  temptation  is  to  be  put  away.  That  claim  of 
being  a  sort  of  priesthood  of  the  Saints,  appointed  to 
serve  God  and  to  redeem  the  world  from  sin,  runs 
through  the  whole  of  their  institutions.  To  this  end, 
indeed,  they  have  passed  through  death  and  the  resur- 
rection into  a  state  of  grace.  To  this  end  tliey  have 
adopted  the  rule  of  absolute  submission  of  their  own 
will  to  the  will  of  God.  "We  admit,"  says  Frederick, 
"two  orders  in  the  world  —  one  of  Generation,  one 
of  Resurrection."  They  claim  to  stand  in  the  Resur- 
rection order;  to  them,  therefore,  the  love  which  leads 
men  into  marriage  is  not  allowed.  We  Gentiles  stand 
in  the  Generation  order,  therefore  the  love  which  ends 
in  marriage  is  still  for  a  time  allowed.  '•  Generation," 
says  Frederick,  "is  a  great  foe  to  Regeneration,  and 
we  give  up  what  is  called  our  manhood  as  a  sacrifice 
for  the  world." 

"  You  mean  to  say,  then,  that  in  fact  you  are  offering 
yourselves  as  an  atonement  ?  "  He  paused  a  moment ; 
his  blue  eyes  closed,  and  when  he  opened  them  again, 
slowly,  as  if  waking  from  a  trance,  he  smiled. 

"The  Order  of  the  Resurrection,"  he  added,  "is 
29 


338  -ViTTr  AMERICA. 

celibate,  spiritnal ;  in  it  there  is  no  marriage ;  only 
love  and  peace."' 

In  their  5*?cial  economy,  as  in  their  moral  sentiment, 
these  Shakers  totlow  the  ancient  Essenes.  They  drink 
no  wine,  they  eat  no  pork.  They  live  npon  the  land, 
and  shtm  the  society  of  towns.  They  cultivate  the 
virtnes  of  s<?briety.  prudence,  meekness.  They  take 
no  oaths,  they  deprecate  law.  they  avoid  contention, 
they  repudiate  war.  They  affect  to  hold  communion 
with  the  dead.  They  believe  in  angels  and  in  sj»irits, 
not  as  a  theological  dogma,  but  as  a  practical  human 
fact. 

One  circumstance  which  gives  to  the  Shaker  society 
an  imp>ortanc-e  in  the  Union  fer  beyond  its  rivals 
fTtmkers,  Moravians.  Mennonites.  SchwenkfeldersV  is 
the  fact  of  its  being  much  devoted  to  the  work  of 
education.  Every  Shaker  settlement  is  a  school;  a 
centre  fi^m  which  ideas  are  circulated  right  and  left 
into  every  comer  of  the  land.  Men  who  would  laugh 
at  the  pretensions  of  Mother  Ann.  if  they  stood  alone, 
c-an  hardly  help  being  touched,  if  not  seduced,  in 
spirit-  by  avowals  like  these  now  following :  — 

The  church  of  the  future  is  an  American  Church. 

The  old  law  is  abolished,  the  new  dispensation 
besTin. 

Interc'^urse  between  heaven  and  earth  is  restored. 

G'>i  is  king  and  g>?vernor. 

The  sin  of  Adam  is  atoned,  and  man  made  free  of 
all  err»:>rs  except  his  o^vn. 

Every  human  being  will  be  saved. 

The  earth  is  heaven,  now  soiled  and  stained,  but 
ready  to  be  brightened  by  love  and  labor  into  its 
primeval  state. 

These  prcf«ositions.  which  display  the  genius  of 
Shakerism  so  fer  as  it  pretends  to   be  a   social  and 


SPIRITUAL    CYCLES.  339 

political  power,  at  war  •vrith  the  principles  and  prac- 
tices of  a  republican  government,  are  apt  to  fascinate 
many  men  who  would  object  to  a  celibate  life,  to  a 
female  priest,  to  a  community  of  goods.  TVith  more 
or  less  of  clearness  in  avowal,  these  principles  will 
be  found  in  the  creed  of  everv  new  American  church. 


CHAPTER  XLVn. 

SPIRITrAL    CYCLES. 

Akd  how.  we  begin  to  ask.  so  soon  as  we  have  left 
the  witcheries  of  Mount  Lebanon  behind  us.  and 
begun  to  look  on  the  matter  with  a  purely  secular  eye, 
are  these  eighteen  settlements  of  Shakers  recruited  ? 
In  Rome,  in  Seville,  converts  may  be  fed  from  the  lay 
society  in  which  the  laws  of  increase  hold  their  natural 
sway;  but  in  Enfield,  at  Mount  Lebanon,  in  Grove- 
land,  no  lay  community  of  Shakers  stands  outside  the 
church,  from  which  the  losses  by  death  can  be  repaired. 
The  whole  church  being  celibate,  the  losses  by  death 
are  fixed  and  final ;  so  many  to  the  year ;  the  whole 
generation  in  thirty  years.  Calls,  fresh  calls,  must  be 
made  under  pain  of  extinction;  but  how  are  men 
called  from  a  busy  world,  from  a  pro5f»erous  society, 
into  a  life  of  labor,  chastity,  confinement,  and  obedi- 
ence ?  Li  Italy  and  Spain,  it  is  found  an  unea5y  task 
to  persuade  young  men  to  renounce  the  afifections, 
even  for  an  indolent  service.  Xature  is  strong,  and  a 
life  without  love  appears  to  many  of  us  worse  than  a 
tomb.     One  srreat  branch  of  the  Christian  Church,  the 


340  ^JE  W  A  ME  RICA. 

Latin,  has  adopted  celibacy  in  principle,  making  it  the 
rule  for  its  clergy  of  all  ranks,  and  fostering  the  prac- 
tice in  its  lay  societies;  but  her  success  in  this  par- 
ticular branch  of  her  policy  has  hardly  equalled  her 
efforts ;  and  in  no  country  of  Europe,  even  in  Sicily 
and  Andalusia,  has  she  found  willing  recruits,  except 
when  she  has  taken  them  from  the  world  at  an  early 
age,  and  exercised  upon  them  her  most  potent  spells. 
The  Greek,  the  Armenian,  the  Lutheran,  the  Anglican 
churches,  have  ceased  to  fight  against  nature,  though 
they  are  all  inclined,  perhaps,  to  assign  some  merit  to 
a  virgin  life,  and  to  desire  a  celibate  condition  for  a 
section  of  their  priests.  Li  all  these  churches  there  is 
something  like  a  balance  of  advantages  in  what  is 
given  and  what  is  withheld.  The  position  of  a  priest, 
of  a  monk,  is  one  of  high  respect  in , the  sight  of  men. 
The  service  to  which  he  is  called  is  noble  and  popular; 
one  conferring  rank  and  power,  the  right  to  stand 
among  the  highest,  to  be  exempted  from  labor,  to  be 
protected  from  violence,  to  be  free  of  great  houses, 
and  to  find  a  welcome  at  good  men's  feasts.  The 
Shaker  has  none  of  these  dignities,  none  of  these 
pleasures  to  expect  in  return  for  his  pledge  of  chastity ; 
in  their  stead,  he  has  before  him  a  daily  task,  coarse 
fare,  and  an  ugly  dress. 

Under  a  missionary  like  Klialed,  we  can  imagine 
converts  being  made  to  the  Shaker  Church ;  a  man 
who  offered  you  a  choice  of  either  Shakerism  or  death, 
might  be  expected  to  bring  proselytes  to  the  fold ;  but 
then,  these  believers  have  no  Khaleds  among  them ; 
they  employ  no  SM^ord,  they  exercise  no  fascination  of 
the  tongue  and  pen.  Where  then  do  they  find  recruits  ? 
Is  the  keen  New  Englander  anxious  to  give  up  his  will, 
his  freedom,  and  his  intellect,  in  exchange  for  a  fixed 
belief,  a  daily  drill,  and  a  peasant's  toil  ?     Is  the  rich 


SPIRITUAL    CYCLES.  341 

Xew  Yorker  Lent  on  strip[)ing'  himself  of  liis  costly 
mansion,  his  splendid  equipage,  in  favor  of  a  coarse 
hahit,  a  rood  of  land,  and  a  narrow  cell?  Is  the  smart 
Kentuckyian  ready  to  forswear  his  rank,  his  office,  his 
ambition,  for  a  life  of  daily  labor,  abstinence,  and 
care  ? 

"No,"  said  Elder  Frederick,  in  one  of  ni}-  parting 
conversations,  "not  in  ordinary  times.  In  God's  own 
time  he  must  and  will;  being  then  divinely  touched 
and  rapt,  and  acting  in  the  spirit  of  a  wisdom  higher 
than  the  world.  It  is  chiefly  in  our  spiritual  cycles 
that  the  elect  are  called." 

When  the  seasons  come  and  go  at  their  usual  pace, 
when  the  air  is  still  and  the  minds  of  men  are  tranquil, 
the  rich  New  Yorker,  the  smart  Kentuckyian,  would 
no  more  dream  of  coming  into  union,  than  of  going 
to  live  in  a  Pawnee  wigwam  or  a  negro  shed.  But  in 
the  day  of  spiritual  wrath,  when  the  vials  are  being 
opened  on  the  land,  when  sinners  run  staggering  up 
and  down,  when  the  colleges  are  mute,  and  the 
churches  of  the  world  stricken  dumb,  then  heaven  it- 
self comes  forward  into  line,  and,  working  through 
her  unseen  forces,  draws  to  herself  the  rich,  the  daring, 
and  the  worldly  spirit,  as  easily  as  a  little  child.  In 
the  hands  of  God,  we  are  only  as  the  potter's  clay. 
The  strong  will  bends,  the  proud  heart  breaks,  in  His 
frown.  It  has  been  in  tlie  midst  of  these  moral  and 
spiritual  commotions,  that  all  the  new  creeds,  all  the 
new  societies,  of  America  have  either  risen  or  gathered 
strength ;  not  the  poor  Tunkers,  the  aggressive  Mor- 
mons, the  celibate  Shakers  only ;  but  the  powerful 
Methodists,  the  prosperous  Baptists,  the  rigid  Presby- 
terians, the  fervent  Universalists.  The  Episcoj^al 
Church,  and  the  Roman  Church,  may  stand  aloof;  the 
educated  and  refining  intellect  of  these  elder  branches 

29* 


342  NEW  AMERICA. 

of  tlie  Christian  society  holding  that  the  teachings  of 
Christ  and  His  chosen  apostles  were  final,  that  the  age 
of  miracle  is  past,  and  that  the  gospels  are  complete. 
The  members  of  these  great  conservative  churches 
may  ask  no  day  of  an  especial  grace;  they  may  doubt 
the  origin,  the  effects,  and  the  fruits  of  these  periodical 
awakenings  of  the  spirit.  They  may  choose  to  walk 
in  the  old  paths,  to  avoid  novelties  and  eccentricities, 
to  keep  their  flocks  from  excitements  and  illusions. 
But  the  younger  rivals  for  dominion,  acting,  as  they 
say,  in  the  apostolic  missionary  spirit,  have  been  prompt 
to  seize  upon  all  occasions  of  drawing  souls  into  the 
Church.  All  the  new  sects  and  societies  of  America 
have  wrought,  and  not  without  success,  in  this  great 
field  of  conversion ;  the  Shakers  in  a  spirit  less  eager 
and  more  confident  than  the  rest.  Other  sects  regard 
a  revival  as  a  movement  in  the  mind  inviting  them  to 
labor  for  the  good  of  souls ;  the  Shakers  look  upon  it 
as  a  Spiritual  Cycle  —  the  end  of  an  epoch  —  the  birth 
of  a  new  society.  Only  in  the  fervor  of  a  revival,  says 
Elder  Frederick,  can  the  elect  be  drawn  to  God:  — 
that  is  to  say,  in  a  Gentile  phrase,  drawn  into  a  Shaker 
settlement.  Mount  Lebanon  sprang  from  a  revival ; 
Enfield  sprang  from  a  revival ;  in  fact,  the  Shakers 
declare  that  every  large  revival  being  the  accomplish- 
ment of  a  S})iritual  Cycle,  must  end  in  tlie  foundation 
of  a  fresh  Sliaker  union. 

Tlius,  it  would  appear  that  this  wild  and  weird 
phenomenon  in  the  religious  kingdom,  which  some  of 
our  Gentile  clergy  deem  an  accident,  an  illusion,  an- 
swering to  no  law  of  life,  is  to  the  Shakers  the  efitect 
of  a  special  providence.  Angels  are  employed  upon  the 
work.  In  the  Shaker  economy  a  revival  has,  there- 
fore, a  place,  a  function,  and  a  power.  It  is  their  time 
of  vintage ;    when  the  shoots,   which    thev  have    not 


SPIRITUAL    CYCLES.  343 

planted,  bring  them  grapes,  when  the  presses,  whicli 
they  have  not  filled,  yield  them  oil.  They  reckon  on 
these  periodical  revivals  as  the  husbandman  reckons 
on  the  spring  and  fall;  waiting  for  the  increase  which 
their  spiritual  cycles  bring  them,  just  as  the  farmers 
expect  their  hay-time  and  their  harvest-home. 

When  the  last  Ulster  revival  broke  out,  I  happened 
to  be  in  Derry;  and,  having  watched  the  course  of 
that  spiritual  hurricane  from  Derry  to  Belfast,  I  am 
able  to  say  that,  excepting  the  scenery  and  the  man- 
ners, a  revival  in  Ulster  is  very  much  the  same  thing 
as  a  spiritual  cycle  in  Ohio  and  Indiana. 

In  this  country,  the  religious  passion  breaks  out,  like 
a  fever,  in  the  hottest  places  and  in  the  wildest  parts ; 
commonly  on  the  frontiers  of  civilized  states ;  always 
in  a  sect  of  extreme  opinions,  generally  among  the 
Ranters,  the  Tunkers,  the  Seventh-day  Baptists,  tlie 
Come-outers,  and  the  Methodists. 

Methodism,  the  large  religion  of  America,  if  we  may 
count  the  church  by  heads,  was  itself  the  offspring  of 
a  kind  of  revival.  John  Wesley  had  tried  America, 
and  failed;  Whitfield  had  followed  him,  and  succeeded; 
the  time  being  more  propitious  to  his  work.  The 
early  preachers  had  won  their  way,  as  the  revivalist 
preachers  still  carry  on  the  fight ;  lodging  roughly  and 
faring  coarsely ;  tramping  up  muddy  ridges,  sleeping 
on  leaves  and  deer-skins,  tenting  among  wolves  and 
beavers;  suffering  from  the  red  men,  from  the  mean 
whites,  from  the  besotted  negroes ;  forcing  their  way 
into  jails,  gin-shops,  and  hells;  searching  out  poverty, 
miser}',  and  crime.  The  revivalist  is  a  fanatic,  if  you 
like  the  word ;  he  speaks  from  his  hot  blood,  not  from 
his  cool  head;  his  talk  is  a  spasm,  his  eloquence  a 
shriek;  but  while  philosophers  may  smile  and  magis- 
trates mav  frown  at  his  ravings,  the  swarthy  miner,  the 


344  NSW  A3IERICA. 

lusty  backwoodsman,  the  sturdy  farmer  and  carter, 
confess  to  the  power  of  his  discourse.  He  does  the 
rough  work  of  the  spirit  which  no  other  man  could 
do.  Trench  would  be  tame,  Stanley  inaudible,  in  the 
prairie  ;  Wilberforce  would  faint,  and  Xoel  would  die, 
of  a  year  on  the  forest  skirt. 

Yet  a  camp-meeting,  such  as  I  have  twice  seen  in 
the  wilds  of  Ohio  and  Indiana,  is  a  subject  full  of  in- 
terest ;  not  without  touches,  in  its  humor  and  its 
earnestness,  to  unlock  the  fountains  of  our  smiles  and 
tears.  The  hour  may  be  five  in  the  afternoon  of  a 
windless  October  day ;  when  myriads  of  yellow  flowers 
and  red  mosses  light  up  the  sward,  when  the  leaves 
of  the  oak  and  the  plane  are  deepening  into  brown, 
when  the  maples  gleam  with  crimson,  and  the  hickory 
drips  with  gold.  Among  the  roots  and  boles  of  ancient 
trees,  amidst  buzzing  insects  and  whirring  birds,  rise 
a  multitude  of  booths  and  tents,  with  an  aspect  strange, 
yet  homely ;  for  while  this  camp  of  religious  zealots 
is  utterly  unlike  the  lodgments  of  an  Arab  tribe,  of  an 
Indian  nation,  of  any  true  pastoral  people  on  the 
earth,  it  has  features  which  recall  to  your  eye  and  ear 
the  laughters  and  sounds  of  an  English  fair  and  an 
Irish  wake.  Epsom  on  a  Derby  day  is  not  so  unlike  a 
revival  camp  in  the  woods  as  many  think.  Carts 
and  wagons  are  unhorsed  ;  the  animals  tethered  to  the 
ground,  or  straying  in  search  of  grass.  In  a  dozen 
large  booths  men  are  eating,  drinking,  smoking,  pray- 
ing. Some  fellows  are  playing  games;  some  lolling 
on  the  turf;  others  are  lighting  tires ;  many  are  cook- 
ing food.  Those  lads  are  cutting  pines,  these  girls  are 
getting  water  from  the  stream.  In  the  centre  of  the 
camp,  a  pale  rivivalist  marabout,  standing  on  the  stump 
of  a  tree,  is  screeching  and  roaring  to  a  wild,  hot 
throng  of  listeners,  most  of  them  farmers  and  farmers' 


SPIRITUAL    CYCLES.  345 

wives,  from  tlie  settlements  far  and  near;  a  sprinkling 
of  negroes,  in  their  dirty  finery  of  shawl  and  petticoat; 
a  few  red  men  in  their  paint  and  feathers  :  —  all  equally 
ablaze  with  the  orator  himself,  fierce  partners  in  his 
zeal  and  feeders  of  his  tire.  His  periods  are  broken 
by  shouts  and  sobs  ;  his  gestures  are  answered  by  yells 
and  groans.  Without  let,  without  pause,  in  his  dis- 
course, he  goes  tearing  on,  belching  forth  a  hurricane 
of  words  and  screams  ;  while  the  men  sit  around  him, 
white  and  still,  writhing  and  livid,  their  lips  all  pressed, 
their  hands  all  knotted,  with  the  panic  and  despair  of 
sin ;  and  the  women  rush  wildly  about  the  camp,  toss- 
ing up  their  arms,  groaning  out  their  confessions,  cast- 
ing; themselves  downward  on  the  earth,  swooning  into 
sudden  hysterics,  straining  at  the  eyes  and  foaming  at 
the  mouth ;  the  staid  Indian  looking  with  contempt 
on  these  miseries  of  the  white  man's  squaw,  and  the 
negroes  breaking  forth  into  sobs,  and  cries,  and  con- 
vulsive raptures  of  "Glory!  glory,  Alleluja!" 

Many  visitors  fall  sick,  and  some  die  in  the  camp. 
In  the  agonies  of  this  strife  against  the  power  of  sin 
and  the  fear  of  death  (I  am  told  by  men  who  have 
oft(*Ti  watched  these  spiritual  tempests)  the  passions 
seem  to  be  all  unloosed,  and  to  go  astray  without  let 
or  guide.  "I  like  to  hear  of  a  revival,"  said  to  me  a 
lawyer  of  Indianapolis  ;  "  it  brings  on  a  crop  of  cases." 
In  the  revivalist  camp  men  quarrel,  and  tight,  and 
make  love  to  their  neighbors'  wives.  A  Methodist 
preacher  of  twenty-tive  years'  experience,  tirst  in  Xew 
England,  then  on  the  frontiers,  afterwards  on  the 
battle-tields  of  Virginia,  said  to  me,  "  Religious  pas- 
sion include  all  other  passions ;  you  cannot  excite 
one  without  stirring  up  the  others.  In  our  Church  we 
know  tbe  evil,  and  we  have  to  guard  against  it  as  we 
may.    The  young  men  who  get  up  revivals  are  always 


346  NEW  AMERICA. 

objects  of  suspicion  to  their  elders;  many  go  wrong, 
I  would  say  one  in  twenty  at  the  least;  more,  far  more 
than  that  number  bring  scandal  on  the  Church  by  their 
thoughtless  behavior  in  the  revivalist  camps." 

In  a  week,  in  a  month,  perhaps,  the  fire  of  religious 
zeal  may  begin  to  flicker  and  lie  down.  Quarrels  break 
out,  and  bowie-knives  are  drawn.  The  cynical  laugh, 
the  indifferent  drive  away.  Horses  are  now  put  up ; 
wagons  are  laden  with  baggage  and  women  ;  the  pub- 
lican strikes  his  tent ;  and  the  rift-raft'  goes  in  search 
of  another  field.  One  by  one  the  brawlers  are  knocked 
oft",  until  the  marabout  himself,  disgusted  with  his 
hearers,  ceases  to  give  tongue.  Then  the  last  horse 
is  saddled,  the  last  cart  is  on  the  road,  and  nothing 
appears  to  have  been  left  of  that  singular  camp  but  a 
few  burnt  logs,  a  desecrated  wood,  and  two  or  three 
freshlj'-made  graves. 

And  is  that  all  ?  The  Shaker  says,  No.  In  the  fren- 
zies of  that  camp-meeting  he  detects  a  moral  order,  a 
spiritual  beauty,  utterly  unseen  by  secular  eyes.  To 
him,  a  revival  is  God's  own  method  of  calling  His 
children  to  Himself.  Without  a  revival,  there  can  be 
no  resurrection  on  a  large  and  inclusive  scale  :  —  and 
no  revival,  it  is  said  by  him,  is  ever  quite  wasted  to 
the  human  race.  Some  soul  is  always  drawn  by  it  into 
the  peace  of  heaven. 

Frederick  told  me  that  every  great  spiritual  revival 
which  has  agitated  America  since  his  Church  was 
planted,  has  led  to  a  new  society  being  founded  on  the 
principles  of  Mother  Ann.  The  eighteen  unions  repre- 
sent eighteen  revivals.  According  to  Elder  Frederick, 
who  is  watching  with  a  keen  and  pitying  eye  the  vag- 
aries of  the  new  spiritualist  movements  in  America,  a 
nineteenth  revival  is  now  at  hand,  from  the  action  of 
which  he  expects  a  considerable  extension  of  his 
Church. 


SPIRITUALISM.  347 

CHAPTER  XL VIII. 

SPIEITUALISM. 

During  the  past  month  of  August,  a  crowd  of  Spi- 
ritualists has  been  holding  conference  in  this  pictu- 
resque port  and  peculiar  city  of  Providence,  Khode 
Island. 

The  disciples  came  in  troups  from  the  east  and  the 
west;  some  being  delegates  from  circles  and  cities, 
representing  thousands  who  stayed  at  home ;  sHll  more 
being  disciples  who  scorned  either  to  admit  any  rule  or 
to  express  any  one's  opinions  save  their  own.  Eighteen 
States  and  Territories  were  represented  on  the  platform 
by  accredited  members ;  more  than  half  of  them,  it 
seems,  by  ladies,  A  first  convention  of  Spiritualists, 
on  a  scale  sufficiently  vast  to  be  called  national,  was 
held  two  years  ago  at  Chicago;  a  second  was  held  one 
year  ago  at  Philadelphia ;  but  in  those  two  meetings, 
regarded  by  the  zealous  as  experimental,  the  delegates 
came  together  less  by  choice  than  chance.  Conven- 
ience of  men  and  women,  not  moral  significance,  had 
ruled  the  selection  of  a  place  of  meeting ;  but  when  a 
platform  had  been  voted  in  Chicago,  and  a  great  appeal 
to  the  public  had  been  made  in  Philadelphia,  moral 
considerations  came  into  play.  The  scene  of  the  third 
National  Convention  of  Spiritualists  was  fixed  in  this 
city,  on  account  of  the  peculiar  fame  of  Providence  as 
a  camp  of  heretics  and  reformers,  —  the  refuge  of  Roger 
Williams,  the  home  of  religious  toleration,  the  city  of 
"What  Cheer?" 

Quiet  observers  of  the  scene  were  struck  with  the 
wild  and  intellectual  appearance  of  this  cloud  of  wit- 


348  ^EW  AMERICA. 

nesses.  Their  eyes,  I  am  told,  were  preternaturally 
bright ;  their  faces  preternaturally  pale.  Many  of  them 
practised  imposition  of  hands.  Nearly  all  of  the  men 
wore  long  hair ;  nearly  all  the  women  were  closely 
cropped. 

Pratt's  Hall  in  Broad  Street  was  eno-as^ed  for  the 
sittings :  a  capacious  chamber,  though  not  too  large 
for  the  crowd  of  angels  and  of  mortals  who  came 
pressing  in.  Yes,  angels  and  mortals.  Elderess  An- 
toinette is  not  more  certain  that  she  sees  and  hears  the 
dead  than  are  all  these  hirsute  men.  In  Broad  Street, 
angels  stood  in  the  doorwa}',  spectres  flitted  about  the 
room.  Their  presence  was  admitted,  their  sympathy 
assumed,  and  their  counsel  sought.  A  dozen  times  the 
speakers  addressed  their  words,  not  only  to  delegates 
present  in  the  flesh,  but  to  heavenly  messengers  who 
had  come  to  them  in  the  spirit. 

L.  K.  Joslin,  a  leader  in  the  local  circles,  welcomed 
the  delegates  to  this  city  of  refuge,  in  their  character 
of  heretics  and  infidels.  "  To-day,"  he  said,  address- 
ing his  mortal  hearers,  "  the  Spiritualists  of  the  United 
States  are  the  Great  Heretics ;  and,  as  such,  the  Spirit- 
ualists of  Providence  greet  you  with  their  welcome, 
believing  that  you  are  infidel  to  the  old  heresies  that 
cursed  rather  than  blessed  our  whole  humanity." 
These  words  appear  to  have  been  official ;  also  what 
followed  them,  in  reference  to  the  celestial  portion  of 
his  audience.  "But  not  unto  you  alone,"  he  said, 
with  a  solemn  emphasis,  '-do  we  look  for  counsel,  for 
inspiration,  and  the  diviner  harmonies.  The  congre- 
gation is  greater  than  the  seeming.  There  are  others 
at  the  doors.  Those  of  other  ages,  who  were  the 
morning  lights  to  the  world,  fearless,  true,  and  mar- 
tyred in  the  earth-life  for  their  devotion  to  the  truth  — 
the  cherished  wise  and  good  of  the  long-ago,  and  the 


SPIRITUALISM.  349 

loved  ones  of  the  near  past  —  thej  will  manifest  their 
interest  in,  and  favor  with  their  presence,  the  largest 
body  of  individuals  on  this  continent  who  realize 
their  actualized  presence  and  power.  And  unto  them, 
as  unto  you,  we  give  the  greeting."  Loud  applause, 
not  hushed  and  reverent,  I  am  told,  responded  to  this 
welcome  of  the  heavenly  delegates. 

John  Pierpont,  of  Washington,  an  aged  preacher 
(once  a  student  of  Yale  College — the  school  of  Amer- 
ican prophets),  in  yielding  the  chair  which  he  had 
held  at  Philadelphia,  spoke  of  the  term  Infidel  as  ap- 
plied to  himself  and  his  brethren  in  the  spirit.  "  I 
am  infidel,"  he  exclaimed,  "to  a  great  many  of  the 
forms  of  popular  religion  ;  because  I  do  not  believe 
in  many  of  the  points  which  are  held  by  a  majority  of 
the  Christians,  nay,  even  of  the  Protestant  Church." 
He  went  on  to  say,  that  instead  of  putting  his  faith  in 
creeds  and  canons,  he  put  it  in  progress,  liberty,  and 
spirits. 

Ten  days  after  Pierpont's  delivery  of  this  speech 
the  old  man  died ;  and  in  less  than  ten  days  after  his 
funeral,  Mrs.  Conant,  a  Boston  medium,  who  writes 
spirit  messages  for  half  the  American  public,  an- 
nounced that  she  had  got  his  soul  back  again  in  her 
drawing-room ;  a  presence  visible  to  her,  sensible  to 
some,  audible  to  many.  Charles  Crowell  and  J.  M. 
Peebles  report  that  in  their  presence,  Mrs.  Conant  fell 
into  a  spirit-trance,  when  the  soul  of  John  Pierpont 
passed  into  her  (after  the  fashion  set  by  Ann  Lee),  and 
spoke  to  them  through  her  lips  of  that  higher  world 
into  which  he  had  just  been  raised.  "  It  was  evident," 
they  say,  "  that  some  spirit  was  taking  possession  of 
her,  for  it  portrayed  its  last  earthly  scene.  The  de- 
parture must  have  been  very  easy,  for  there  was  no 
struggle  in  the  demonstration;    merely  a  few  short 

30 


350  N^W  AMEBIC  A. 

breathings,  an  earnest  and  steady  gaze,  and  all  was 
over.  An  effort  Avas  made  to  speak,  and  soon  this 
immortal  sentence  was  uttered:  — 

"'Blessed,  thrice  blessed,  are  they  who  die  with  a 
knowledge  of  the  truth.' 

"After  a  slight  pause,  the  spirit  resumed :  — 

^^^  Brothers  and  Sisters,  the  problem  is  now  solved 
with  me.  And  because  I  live,  you  shall  live  also  ;  for 
the  same  divine  Father  and  3Iother  that  confers  immor- 
tality upon  one  soul  bestows  the  gift  upon  all.'  " 

Pierpont  would  not  seem  to  have  made  much  pro- 
gress in  celestial  knowledge  by  the  change  from  flesh 
to  spirit;  for  while  he  was  on  earth  he  confined  his 
arguments  on  spirit-rapping  and  spirit-writing  very 
much  to  these  forms :  —  "I  have  seen,  and  therefore  I 
know;  I  have  felt,  and  therefore  I  believe."  It  would 
seem  to  have  struck  Pierpont's  spirit  that  his  commu- 
nication might  be  regarded  as  unsatisfactory  to  his 
mortal  friends,  seeing  how  warm  a  curiosit}'  impels 
many  of  them  to  inquire  into  the  mysteries  of  a  higher 
world ;  and  he  spoke  to  Crowell  and  Peebles,  through 
Mrs.  Conant,  in  a  tone  of  apology.  "I  regret,"  he  is 
reported  to  have  said,  "  that  I  cannot  portray  to  3'ou 
the  transcendent  beauty  of  the  vision  I  saw  just  before 
I  passed  to  the  spirit-world.  The  glories  of  this  new 
life  are  beyond  description.  Language  would  fail  me 
should  I  attempt  to  describe  them."  Mortals  had 
heard  that  language  used  before  John  Pierpont  died. 

When  Pierpont  left  the  chair,  Xewman  Weeks,  of 
Vermont,  was  elected  president  for  the  year.  Among 
the  vice-presidents  were  several  ladies :  Mrs.  Sarah 
Horton  of  Vermont,  Mrs.  Deborah  Butler  of  Xew 
Jersey,  Doctoress  Juliette  Stillman  of  Wisconsin. 

Warren  Chase,  of  Illinois,  one  of  the  male  vice- 
presidents,  declares  that  more  than  three  millions  of 


SPIRITUALISM.  351 

Americans,  men  and  women,  have  already  entered 
into  this  movement.  Three  millions  is  a  large  figure ; 
no  church  in  these  States,  not  even  the  Methodist,  can 
sum  up  half  that  number  of  actual  members.  The 
Spiritualists  count  in  their  ranks  some  eminent  men  ; 
shrewd  lawyers,  gallant  soldiers,  graceful  writers ; 
with  not  a  few  persons  who  can  hardly  escape  the  sus- 
picion of  being  simply  rogues  and  cheats.  Still,  the 
fact  about  them  which  concerns  a  student  of  the  iSTew 
America  most  is  their  reported  strength  in  numbers. 
A  society  of  three  million  men  and  women  would  be 
formidable  in  any  country ;  in  a  republic  governed  by 
popular  votes,  they  must  wield  an  enormous  force  for 
either  good  or  ill ;  hence,  one  is  not  surprised  on  find- 
ing their  leaders  boast  of  having  power  to  control  the 
public  judgments  of  America,  not  only  as  to  peace 
and  war,  dogma  and  practice,  but  even  on  the  more 
delicate  questions  of  social  and  moral  life.  A  fair 
and  open  field  is  not  to  be  refused  when  hosts  so 
might}'  throw  down  wager  of  battle  on  behalf  of  what 
they  hold  to  be  true,  however  strange  their  faith  may 
seem. 

These  millions,  more  or  less,  of  Spiritualists,  an- 
nounce their  personal  conviction  that  the  old  religious 
gospels  are  exhausted,  that  the  churches  founded  on 
them  are  dead,  that  new  revelations  are  required  by 
man.  They  proclaim  that  the  phenomena,  now  being 
produced  in  a  hundred  American  cities  —  signs  of 
mysterious  origin,  rappings  by  unknown  agents,  draw- 
ings by  unseen  hands ;  phenomena  which  are  com- 
monly developed  in  darkened  rooms  and  under  ladies' 
tables  —  ofier  an  acceptable  ground-plan  for  a  new, 
a  true,  and  a  final  faith  in  things  unseen.  They  have 
already  their  progressive  lyceums,  their  catechisms, 
their  newspapers ;    their  male  and  female  prophets. 


352  NEW  AMERICA. 

mediums,  and  clairvoyants;  their  Sunday  services, 
their  festivals,  their  picnic  parties,  their  camp-meet- 
ings ;  their  local  societies,  their  state  organizations, 
their  general  conferences ;  in  short,  all  the  machinery 
of  our  most  active,  most  aggressive  societies.  Their 
strength  may  be  put  too  high  by  Warren  Chace ;  out- 
siders cannot  count  them,  since  they  are  not  returned 
in  the  census  as  a  separate  body ;  but  the  number  of 
their  lyceums,  the  frequency  of  their  picnics,  the  cir- 
culation of  their  journals,  are  facts  within  the  reach 
of  some  sort  of  verification.  A  man  would  hardly  be 
wrong  in  assuming  that  a  tenth  part  of  the  population 
in  these  is"ew  England  States,  a  fifteenth  part  of  the 
population  of  Xew  York,  Ohio,  and  Pennsylvania,  lie 
open,  more  or  less,  to  impressions  from  what  they  call 
the  spirit-world. 

Some  of  these  zealots  urge  a  most  ancient  origin 
for  their  faith,  while  others  maintain  that  they  are  a 
new  people,  blessed  with  an  unworn  revelation,  a 
growth  of  the  American  soil,  an  exclusive  property 
of  the  American  church.  They  allude  but  seldom  to 
the  Shakers,  from  whom  they  seem  to  have  derived 
nearly  all  their  canons,  with  not  a  few  of  their  prac- 
tices. They  prefer  to  trace  their  origin  to  the  visions 
of  Andrew  Jackson  Davis  and  the  happy  audacities 
of  Kate  and  Caroline  Fox.  A  majority,  perhaps,  of 
the  National  delegates  would  hav^e  resented,  as  an  in- 
jury to  their  country,  any  attempt  to  carry  back  the 
spiritual  movement  to  an  older  source  than  the  reve- 
lations of  their  own  Poughkeepsie  seer. 

Poughkeepsie,  pronounced  Po'keepsie,  the  Mecca, 
the  Benares,  the  Jerusalem,  of  this  new  church,  is  a 
green,  though  busy  and  thriving  town,  lying  at  the 
foot  of  a  picturesque  bluff  on  the  river  Hudson,  mid- 
way from  Albany  to  is"ew  York.    Seen  from  the  river. 


SPIRITUALISM.  353 

the  place  is  quaint  and  Swiss-like,  with  its  quay,  its 
rickety  exchange.  A  bend  in  the  stream,  there  five 
or  six  hundred  yards  in  width,  landlocks  the  river,  so 
as  to  form,  as  it  Avere,  tw^o  pretty  lakelets ;  the  higher 
one  backed  by  the  Catskill  mountains,  the  lower  one 
by  the  Hudson  highlands.  The  nearer  b-ank  is  bare 
and  weird;  with  rock  above  and  scrub  below;  but  the 
western  shore,  a  rolling  ridge  of  hill,  is  bright  with 
sycamore,  beech,  and  oak.  Schools,  churches,  col- 
leges abound  in  the  city ;  and  among  persons  who 
have  never  been  touched  by  unseen  fingers,  guns,  car- 
pets, beer,  and  cotton,  are  mentioned  as  its  produc- 
tions. Among  the  elect,  the  chief  production  of  Po'- 
keepsie  is  a  Seer. 

When  Mother  Ann  had  been  lodged  in  the  jail  of 
this  river  town,  she  had  gathered  a  little  court  of  cu- 
rious people  round  her,  to  whom  she  communicated 
her  strange  experiences  of  the  unseen  world.  An- 
drew"  Davis,  the  poor  cobbler,  is  the  spiritual  descend- 
ant of  Ann  Lee,  the  poor  factory  girl.  Davis  sees 
signs  and  dreams  dreams ;  but  his  revelations  have 
scarcely  gone  beyond  the  hints  afforded  by  Mother 
Ann,  In  his  trances,  he  declares  that  in  d\'ing,  men 
only  change  their  garments,  that  the  spirits  of  the 
dead  are  about  us  everywhere,  that  sensitive  persons 
can  communicate  wnth  them.  He  asserts  that  medi- 
cines are  useless  and  hurtful,  and  that  all  diseases 
may  be  cured  by  laying  on  of  hands.  He  describes  a 
new  method  of  education,  in  which  a  sort  of  dancing 
with  the  arms  and  hands  in  Shaker  fashion  is  largely 
introduced.  He  denounces  the  Christian  Church  as 
an  institution  of  the  flesh,  the  time  of  which  has 
passed  away,  and  he  proposes  in  its  stead  a  new  and 
everlasting  covenant  of  the  spirit. 

Such   are,    in   brief,    the   bases   of  w^hat  i^ewman 
30* 


354  ^^^W   AMERICA. 

Weeks,  Sarah  Horton,  Deborah  Butler,  and  the  asso- 
ciated brethren  proclaimed  in  Pratt's  Hall  as  that 
new  covenant,  which  is  to  elevate  man  from  the  low- 
est earth  into  the  highest  heaven.  Like  Elder  Fred- 
erick, they  maintained  the  dual  nature  of  the  God- 
head, assunfiug  a  female  and  a  male  essence — a 
Motherhood  as  well  as  Fatherhood  in  the  Creator  — 
and,  like  Sister  Mary  and  Elderess  Antoinette,  they 
inferred  from  this  duality  of  God  the  equal  right  and 
privilege  of  the  sex  on  earth.  Indeed,  from  first  to 
last,  the  ladies  seem  to  have  played  the  leading  parts 
in  Providence,  whether  in  exposition  or  in  expostula- 
tion. There  was  much  of  both  these  articles.  Miss 
Susie  Johnson  said  she  was  tired  of  talk  and  wanted 
to  work.  "I  am  ready,"  cried  the  young  reformer, 
"to  work  with  any  man  or  woman,  or  any  commu- 
nity, that  will  show  me  the  first  practical  step,  by  vir- 
tue of  which  we  shall  be  laying  the  foundation  of  a 
higher  morality,  of  a  stricter  integrity,  of  a  better 
government,  and,  finally,  of  a  higher  destiny  for  the 
whole  human  race.  I  want  to  do  something,  and  I 
want  to  see  others  who  are  ready  to  work.  It  is  very 
much  easier,  I  know,  to  pray  for  the  salvation  of  man- 
kind than  to  work  for  it,  and  oftentimes  you  get  very 
much  more  credit  for  praying  than  for  working ;  but 
it  is  not  that  I  am  after.  I  am  sincerely  devoted  to 
the  interests  of  the  children  of  the  coming  genera- 
tion." 

Mrs.  Susie  Hutchinson  was  bolder  still  in  rebuke 
of  her  brethren  in  the  spirit.  This  lady,  who  repre- 
sented the  Charleston  Independent  Society  of  Spirit- 
ualists in  the  Convention,  said  she  had  labored  for 
eight  years  in  the  cause  of  Spiritualism,  but  had 
always  been  ashamed  of  her  associates.  The  official 
report  makes  her  say  :  "  She  had  never  met  a  whole- 


SPIRITUALISM.  355 

soiiled,  noble  Spiritualist  yet,  but  she  had  hoped  that 
tliere  Avould  be  a  class  of  people  here  who  would 
show  themselves  worthy  of  being  called  men  and 
women.  She  had  hoped  that  they  would  pass  resolu- 
tions that  should  be  active,  and  not  dead  letters,  going 
back  to  the  buried  past,  and  that  they  would  iind 
manhood  and  womanhood  coming  up  to  the  work  of 
humanity.  If  there  was  one  single  soul  in  the  uni- 
verse to  be  shut  out  from  the  convention,  she  wanted 
to  be  shut  out  with  them.  If  there  was  a  single  per- 
son going  to  hell,  she  wanted  to  go  with  them;  and  if 
there  was  a  work  to  be  done  in  the  lower  regions,  she 
would  go  and  help  the  Eternal  Father  to  do  that 
work." 

Not  a  few  of  the  delegates  pretended  to  the  posses- 
sion of  miraculous  powers ;  to  the  gift  of  tongues,  to 
spiritual  insight,  to  the  art  of  healing.  Nearly  all  the 
adepts  undertake  to  cure  diseases  by  imposition  (scof- 
fers say  by  very  great  imposition)  of  hands.  In  a  cur- 
rent copy  of  "  The  Banner  of  Light,"  you  may  count 
a  score  of  male  and  female  —  mostly  female  —  medi- 
ums, who  publicly  advertise  to  cure  diseases  of  every 
kind  —  for  due  amount  of  dollars  —  by  spirit-agencies; 
a  certain  virtue  being  conveyed  from  the  physician  to 
her  patient,  by  a  movement  of  the  hands,  in  imitation 
of  the  apostolic  rite.  These  announcements  of  the 
healing  mediums  are  often  curious  and  suggestive. 
Among  lesser  lights  in  these  circles,  Mrs.  Eliza  Wil- 
liams, a  sister  of  Andrew  Jackson  Davis,  announces 
that  she  will  "  examine  and  prescribe  for  diseases  and 
cure  the  sick  by  her  healing  powers,  which  have  been 
fully  tested."  Mrs.  S.  J.  Young  advertises  herself  as 
a  business  and  medical  clairvoyant ;  Mrs,  Spafibrd  as 
a  trance-test  medium  ;  Mrs.  H.  S.  Seymour  as  a  busi- 
ness and  test-medium.     Some  of  these  advertisements 


I 

P,.j6  new  AMERICA. 

are  full  of  mystery  to  the  carnal  mind.  Mrs.  Spencer 
undertakes  to  cure  chills  and  fevers  by  her  "positive 
and  negative  powders,"  adding,  "for  the  prevention 
and  cure  of  cholera  this  great  spiritual  medicine 
should  be  always  kept  on  hand."  Dr.  Main,  who 
dates  from  the  Health  Institute,  requests  those  per- 
sons who  may  wish  to  have  his  opinion,  to  "  enclose  a 
dollar,  a  postage-stamp,  and  a  lock  of  hair."  Mrs. 
E..  Collins  "still  continues  to  heal  the  sick  in  Pine 
Street."  Madam  Gale,  clairvoyant  and  test-medium, 
"  sees  spirits  and  describes  absent  friends."  Mrs.  H. 
B.  Gillette,  electric,  magnetic,  healing,  and  developing 
medium,  "  heals  both  body  and  mind."  But  Mrs.  Gil- 
lette appears  to  be  distanced  by  Dr.  George  Emerson, 
who  announces  a  "new  development  of  spirit-power." 
This  medium  is  "  developed  to  cure  diseases  by  draw- 
ing the  disease  into  himself;"  and  he  advertises  that 
he  is  ready  to  perform  this  miracle  of  spirit-art  by  let- 
ter, at  any  distance,  for  ten  dollars.  In  some  respects, 
however,  the  ladies  make  a  bolder  show  of  might  than 
anything  yet  assumed  by  the  rougher  sex.  Mrs.  S. 
W.  Gilbert,  describing  herself  as  a  Dermapathist,  not 
only  oilers  to  cure  disease,  but  to  teach  the  art  of 
curing  it  —  in  so  many  lessons,  at  so  much  a  lesson  ! 

A  tone  of  stern  hostility  towards  the  religious  creeds 
and  moral  standards  of  all  Christian  nations  marked 
the  speeches  of  men  and  women  throughout  this  Con- 
vention ;  a  tone  which  is  hardly  softened  by  a  word  in 
the  official  reports. 

Miss  Susie  Johnson  said,  she  for  one  would  build 
no  more  churches,  "for  they  had  already  too  long 
oppressed  and  benighted  humanity." 

Mr.  Andrew  Foss  "thanked  God  this  was  not  an 
age  of  worship,  but  of  investigation." 

Dr.  H.  T.  Child  said  that  "  Spiritualism  has  bridged 


SPIRITUALISM.  357 

the  gulf  between  Abraham's  bosom  and  the  rich  man's 
hell.  -Let  tlianksgiving  be  added  to  thanksgiving  for 
every  blow  that  is  struck  to  weaken  the  superstruc- 
ture of  human  law — law  which,  by  the  hand  of  man, 
"  punishes  man  for  doing  wrong." 

Mr.  Perry  said,  "As  a  Spiritualist,  I  have  yet  to 
learn  that  we  hold  anything  as  sacred ;  and  I  am  op- 
posed to  any  resolution  that  has  the  word  sacred  in  it." 

Mr.  Finney  said,  "  The  old  religion  is  dying  out. 
"We  are  here  to  represent  this  new  religion,  born  of 
the  Union  and  of  the  types  of  humanity  in  a  cosmo- 
politan geography,  the  die  of  which  was  cast  in  the 
forges  of  Divine  Providence." 

This  was,  in  fact,  the  substance  of  what  was  said  in 
presence  of  the  assembled  delegates,  mortal  and  celes- 
tial, at  the  third  National  Convention. 

These  resolutions  were  adopted,  which  the  Spirit- 
ualists consider  as  of  great  importance.  The  first  was, 
to  oppose  the  teaching  of  Sunday-schools,  and  to  sub- 
stitute for  it  that  of  their  own  progressive  lyceums : 
the  second,  to  procure  the  writing  of  a  series  of  essays 
on  Spiritualism :  the  third,  to  discountenance  the  use 
of  tobacco  and  strong  drinks.  A  proposal  to  found  a 
National  Spiritual  College  was  ordered  to  stand  over 
for  discussion  next  year.  One  resolution,  of  no  imme- 
diate importance,  showed  how  broad  an  action  might 
be  taken  by  these  Spiritualists  on  the  political  field,  if 
they  should  gain  in  strength  of  numbers  and  in  unity 
of  purpose.  It  referred  to  the  Labor  question,  and 
ran  as  follows : 

"  Resolved,  That  the  hand  of  honest  labor  alone 
holds  the  sovereign  sceptre  of  civilization  ;  that  its 
rights  are  commensurate  with  its  character  and  im- 
portance ;  and  hence,  that  it  should  be  so  fully  and 
completely  compensated  as  to  furnish  to  the  toiling 


358  ^^W  AMERICA. 

millions  ample  means,  times,  and  opportunities  for 
eduoation,  culture,  refinement,  and  pleasure ;  and  that 
equal  labor,  whether  performed  by  men  or  women, 
should  receive  equal  compensation." 

These  reformers  pay  no  respect  to  our  Old  World 
notions  of  political  science. 

When  we  essay  to  judge  a  system  so  repugnant  to 
our  feelings,  so  hostile  to  our  institutions  as  this  school 
of  Spiritualism,  it  is  needful  —  if  we  would  be  fair  in 
censure — to  remember  that,  strange  as  it  may  seem 
to  on-lookers,  it  has  been  embraced  by  hundreds  of 
learned  men  and  pious  women.  Such  a  fact  will  ap- 
pear to  many  the  most  singular  part  of  the  movement; 
but  no  one  can  assert  that  a  theory  is  simply  foolish, 
beneath  the  notice  of  investigators,  which  has  been 
accepted  by  men  like  Juge  Edmonds,  Dr.  Hare,  Elder 
Frederick,  and  Professor  Bush. 


CHAPTER  XLIX. 

FEMALE    SEERS. 

In  this  learned,  bright,  and  picturesque  city  of  Bos- 
ton, the  home  of  Agassiz,  Longfellow,  Holmes,  and 
Lowell,  there  has  risen  up  a  branch  of  the  female 
priesthood  of  America,  which  puts  forward  a  claim  to 
regulate  science,  to  supersede  induction,  and  to  lay 
down  a  new  method.     The  women  are  Female  Seers. 

These  priestesses,  who  may  be  called  Elizabethans, 
from  the  name  of  their  founder  and  hierophant,  Eliza- 
beth Denton,  are  not,  properly  speaking,  a  church; 
hardly,  indeed,  a  sect ;  and  certainly  not  a  learned 
society.     Perhaps  they  may  be  called  a  school;  since 


FEMALE  SEERS.  359 

they  profess  to  have  everything  to  learn  and  every- 
thing to  teach.  Like  most  other  branches  of  the 
great  Spiritualist  fiimily,  they  live  in  the  world,  of 
Avhich  they  enjoy  the  pleasures  and  covet  the  distinc- 
tions with  unflagging  zest.  On  Boston  Common, 
the}'  are  undistinguishable  by  outward  signs  from  the 
world  of  ordinary  people  (if,  in  truth,  it  can  be  said 
that  on  Boston  Common  there  are  any  ordinary 
people).  Their  mark  is  that  of  an  inward,  intellectual 
gift;  the  peculiar  power  of  these  Female  Seers  being 
the  ability  to  read  into  the  very  heart  of  mill-stones. 

Obeying  the  common  law  of  these  new  societies,  the 
school  of  Elizabeth  is  a  female  school,  with  ladies  for 
its  prophets  and  interpreters.  Men  may  become 
members  of  the  school,  may  share  in  its  riches,  help 
to  propagate  its  gospels ;  but  no  male  creature  has 
ever  yet  dared  to  assert  his  possession  of  its  miracu- 
lous gifts. 

In  our  new  philosophy,  superior  gifts  depend  on 
superior  organization.  Man,  with  his  coarser  grain, 
his  harder  fibre,  his  duller  spirit,  is  unequal  to  the 
flights  and  ecstasies  of  the  nobler  sex.  In  New  York 
idiom,  man  has  been  played  out,  and  woman  must 
have  her  turn. 

Anne  Cridge  began  it.  Anne  Cridge  is  a  sister  of 
"William  Denton,  of  Boston,  a  person  of  some  conse- 
quence here  —  for  a  man  ;  a  student,  a  geologist,  a 
collector,  one  who  can  chop  logic  and  quote  authori- 
ties in  defence  of  the  doings  of  his  school.  The  new 
Gospel  of  the  Female  Seers  came  to  Anne  Cridge  and 
her  brother  William  in  this  odd  manner.  Buchanan, 
a  doctor  in  Cincinnati,  had  noticed  in  his  practice, 
that  some  persons  can  be  purged-  without  pills  and 
doses,  simply  by  being  made  to  hold  the  cathartic 
medicine  in  their  hands.     It  was  an  act  of  the  imag-i- 


360  NEW  AMEBIC  A. 

nation ;  not  to  be  expected  from  every  one,  perhaps, 
but  certainly  to  he  found  in  some,  especially  in  females 
of  delicate  genius  and  of  sensitive  frame.  Why  not 
in  Anne  Cridge  ?  The  delicate  genius,  the  sensitive 
frame,  wei-e  hers  by  nature  and  not  by  choice.  A 
trial  was  made.  Xow,  a  fancy  that  could  supply  the 
place  of  a  bolus,  should  be  capable  of  higher  service 
than  purging  the  body  of  its  viler  humors ;  and  with  a 
sly  feminine  frankness,  Anne  tried  her  powers  of  see- 
ing through  obstacles  on  some  of  her  friends'  un- 
opened letters.  The  gift  soon  grew  upon  her.  Putting 
a  sealed  paper  to  her  temples,  she  perceived  traces 
upon  it,  not  with  her  eyes,  but  with  her  brain,  of  the 
fii^ure  of  a  man  writing,  —  the  fio-ure  of  a  man  who 
had  written  that  paper,  —  so  that  she  could  tell  his 
height,  his  color,  and  the  shape  of  his  eyes.  A  thought 
now  struck  her  brother.  This  image  of  a  man  writing 
must  be  a  sun-picture,  which  had  been  thrown  upon 
the  paper  as  upon  a  lens.  He  could  not  himself  see 
it;  only  his  sister  Anne  could  see  it;  but  this  defect 
of  vision  was  a  consequence  of  his  grosser  qualities  of 
mind.  Denton  lacked  imagination.  Still,  it  was  made 
clear  to  him  that  Xature  must  be  in  the  daily  habit  of 
multiplying  pictures  of  herself;  that  every  surface 
must  receive  and  may  retain  such  pictures ;  and  that 
5-ou  only  want  a  seer  capable  of  reading  them,  in 
order  to  arrive  at  iSTature's  innermost  secrets.  It  was 
a  tine  idea ;  Denton  thought  the  beginning  of  a  new 
era :  for  if  Anne,  by  pressing  a  piece  of  paper  against 
her  forehead,  could  find  on  it  the  figure  of  its  writer, 
with  an  outline  of  the  room  in  which  it  had  been 
folded  and  sealed,  why  should  she  not  be  able  to  read 
the  images  which  must  huve  been  pictured  on  all  other 
surfaces;  on  flints,  on  bones,  on  shells,  on  metals? 
AVhy  not  ?     If  the  images  mirrored  on  all  substances 


FEMALE  SEEBS.  361 

by  light,  are  not,  as  we  fancy,  transient,  but  remain 
upon  them,  sinking  into  them,  it  is  simply  a  question 
of  test  —  of  an  agent  sensitive  enough  to  perceive  and 
recover  these  vanishing  lines.  Such  an  agent  Denton 
had  found  in  his  sister  Anne. 

Having  found  his  reader  of  Nature,  all  the  past  life 
of  the  world  would  be  opened  to  him,  as  one  great 
fragment  of  time  is  to  the  Wandering  Jew,  with  the 
added  adv'antage  that  he  could  go  further  back  in 
time  and  could  read  the  things  which  no  human  eyes 
had  ever  seen  :  to  wit,  if  his  theory  were  true,  you 
would  only  need  to  break  a  piece  of  rock  from  the 
Matterhorn,  wrap  it  in  paper,  and  place  it  against  the 
reader's  brow,  in  order  to  learn,  as  from  the  pages  of 
a  book,  the  story  of  the  glaciers,  from  the  age  when 
Switzerland  and  Swabia-  were  fields  of  ice,  through 
the  melting  periods,  down  to  the  day  when  forest, 
lake,  town,  vineyard,  laughed  upon  the  scene;  to 
scratch  a  flint  from  the  limestone  quarries  of  the 
White  Mountain,  and  you  would  find  engraved  upon 
it  pictures  of  the  primeval  forest,  of  the  Indian  camp, 
the  red-skins  in  their  paint  and  feathers,  brandishing 
their  spears,  and  tossing  in  their  war-dance ;  to  pick 
a  bit  of  lava  from  a  vault  in  Pompeii,  and  you  would 
obtain  a  map  of  the  Italian  city,  with  its  houses,  gar- 
dens, baths  and  circuses,  its  games,  its  festivals,  its 
civic  and  religious  life  ;  to  chip  a  scale  from  the  tower 
of  Seville,  and  you  would  instantly  restore  the  old 
Moorish  life  of  that  proud  city,  with  its  ensigns  and 
processions,  its  dusk  population,  its  gleaming  cres- 
cents and  heroic  pomp  of  war  ;  to  snatch  a  bone  from 
a  heap  of  sailors"  ballast  lying  on  the  quays,  and  may- 
hap you  would  have  pictured  on  this  fossil  the  con- 
dition of  England  thousands  of  years  before  Caesar 
sailed  from  the  Somme.  with  portraits  of  the  savages 

31 


362  NE'^  AMERICA. 

who  fished,  and  fought,  and  fed  goats  and  sheep  on 
our  shores  and  downs.  If  the  theory  were  only  true, 
a  new  light  had  dawned  upon  the  world ;  history  had 
obtained  a  great  supplement,  science  a  new  basis,  art 
a  fresh  illustration. 

But  Anne,  the  first  Female  Seer,  now  found  a  rival 
in  this  art  of  reading  stones  in  Elizabeth  Denton,  her 
brother's  wife.  It  may  be  that  Elizabeth  was  jealous 
of  Anne  passing  day  after  day  in  her  husband's  study, 
even  though  it  were  only  among  books,  bones,  skins, 
and  ores,  gazing  with  him  into  the  mysteries  of  life, 
while  she  herself  was  sent  out  into  the  nursery  and 
the  kitchen.  In  her  eyes,  it  is  probable  that  in  such 
services  to  science  one  woman  would  seem  to  be  as 
good  as  another  —  in  her  own  case  a  great  deal  better. 
Certain  it  is,  that  she  one  day  told  her  husband  that 
she,  too,  was  a  Female  Seer,  able  and  willing  to  look 
for  him  into  the  soul  of  things.  Denton  tried  her 
with  a  pebble,  which  she  instantly  r'ead  off  in  a  fashion 
to  extinguish  the  modest  pretensions  of  sister  Anne. 
In  the  published  list  of  experiments,  we  are  told  that 
a  piece  of  limestone  from  Kansas,  full  of  small  fossil 
shells,  was  held  by  Anne  Cridge  against  her  brow, 
when  she  read  off:  "A  deep  hole  here.  What  shells! 
small  shells;  so  many.  I  see  water;  it  looks  like 
a  river  running  along."  The  next  experiment  was 
tried  upon  Elizabeth :  a  bit  of  quartz  from  Panama 
being  held  before  her  eyes:  "I  see  what  looks  like  a 
monstrous  insect;  its  body  covered  with  shelly  wings, 
and  its  head  furnished  with  antennse  nearly  a  foot 
lone.  It  stands  with  its  head  ao-ainst  a  rock.  .  .  . 
I  see  an  enormous  snake  coiled  up  anions:  wild,  wiry- 
grass.  The  vegetation  is  tropical."  "Well  done," 
cried  Denton. 

Proud  of  the  gifts  so   suddenly  displayed   by  hie 


FEMALE  SEEBS.  363 

wife,  he  announced  that  a  new  science  had  been  seen, 
a  new  interpretation  of  the  past  revealed,  and  opening 
a  fresh  page  in  the  great  book  of  nature,  he  wrote 
down  the  word  Psychometry,  by  which  he  meant  the 
Science  of  the  Soul  of  things.  Of  course,,  being  only 
a  male,  he  cannot  show  this  soul  to  others;  he  does 
not  affect  to  see  it  for  himself.  He  is  privileged 
through  his  sister  and  his  wife.  But  being  a  man  of 
letters  and  ideas,  he  has  shaped  out  the  new  mystery 
of  the  universe  in  these  surprising  terms:  — 

"In  the  world  around  us  radiant  forces  are  passing 
from  all  objects  to  all  objects  in  their  vicinity,  and 
during  every  moment  of  the  day  and  night  are  daguer- 
reotying  the  appearances  of  each  upon  the  other;  the 
images  thus  made  not  merely  resting  upon  the  surface, 
but  sinking  into  the  interior  of  them  ;  there  held  with 
astonishing  tenacit}-,  and  only  waiting  for  the  suitable 
application  to  reveal  themselves  to  the  inquiring  gaze. 
You  cannot,  then,  enter  a  room  by  night  or  day,  but 
you  leave  on  going  out,  your  portrait  behind  you. 
You  cannot  lift  your  hand,  or  wink  your  eye,  or  the 
wind  stir  a  hair  of  your  head,  but  each  movement  is 
infallibly  registered  for  coming  ages.  The  pane  of 
glass  in  the  window,  the  brick  in  the  wall,  and  the 
paving-stone  in  the  street,  catch  the  pictures  of  all  the 
passers-by,  and  faithfully  preserve  them.  ISTot  a  leaf 
waves,  n-ot  an  insect  crawls,  not  a  ripple  moves,  but 
each  motion  is  recorded  by  a  thousand  faithful  scribes 
in  infallible  and  indelible  scripture." 

It  is  a  pity  that  men  are  not  allowed  to  see  these 
pictures,  to  read  these  histories,  of  our  globe.  But 
the  male  vision  is  dull,  the  male  mind  prosaic.  Only 
the  female  sense  can  peer  into  these  solid  depths.  It 
is  rather  hard  upon  us ;  but  Avhose  fault  is  it  if  man's 
grosser  nature  cannot  soar  to  these  feminine  heights  ? 


364  ^-EW  AMEBIC  A. 

Growing  by  what  it  feeds  on,  the  mysterious  faculty 
in  Elizabeth  Denton  has  left  that  of  Anne  Crid^o 
immeasurably  behind.  She  has  acquired  the  g-ift  of 
looking,  not  into  flints  and  fossils  only,  but  into  the 
depths  of  the  sea,  into  the  centre  of  the  earth.  She 
can  hear  the  people  of  past  times  talk,  she  can  taste 
the  food  which  saurians  and  crustaceans  scrunched  in 
the  pre-diluvian  world. 

From  these  Female  Seers  we  have  learned  that  men 
were  once  like  monkeys ;  that  even  then  the  women 
were  in  advance  of  men  ;  being  less  hairy  and  standing 
more  erect  than  their  male  companions.  It  is  coming 
to  be  always  thus,  when  the  story  of  man's  life  is  told 
by  a  properly  cjualified  female  saint  and  seer. 


CHAPTER   L. 

EQUAL    RIGHTS. 


"Are  you  a  member  of  the  Society  for  Promoting 
Ecjual  Rights,  as  between  the  two  sexes?"  I  asked  a 
young  married  lady  of  my  acquaintance  in  Xow  York. 
"Certainly  not,"  she  replied  with  a  quick  shrug  of  the 
shoulders,  "Why  not?"  I  ventured  to  say,  pursuing 
my  inquiiy.  "Oh,"  she  answered,  with  a  sly  little 
laugh,  "  you  see  I  am  very  fond  of  being  taken  care 
of."  Were  it  not  for  this  unfortunate  weakness  on  the 
part  of  many  ladies,  the  Society  for  Promoting  Equal 
Rights  would  soon,  I  am  told,  comprise  the  whole 
female  population  of  these  states,  especially  of  these 
New  England  states ! 

The  reform  which  ladies  like  Betsey  Cowles,  Lucy 
Stone,  and  Lucretia  Mott,  would  bring  about  by  way 


EQUAL    RIGHTS.  365 

of  equalizing  the  rights  of  sex  and  sex,  would  give  to 
AYoman  everything  that  society  allows  to  men,  from 
pantaloons  and  latch-keys  up  to  seats  in  the  legislature 
and  pulpits  in  the  church.  In  assertion  of  female  rights, 
Harriet  Noyes  and  Mary  Walker  have  taken  to  panta- 
lettes;  Elizabeth  Staunton  has  offered  herself  as  a  can- 
didate for  the  representation  of  Xew  York;  and  Olym- 
pia  Brown  has  been  duly  ordained  as  a  minister  of  the 
gospel. 

When  the  first  Female  Congress  was  called  in  Ohio, 
under  Presidentess  Betsey  Cowles,  the  ladies,  after 
much  reading  and  speaking,  adopted  twenty-two 
resolution?,  with  a  preample  echoing  the  form  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  :  — 

"  Whereas  all  men  are  created  equal,  a  id  endowed 
with  certain  God-given  rights,  and  all  just  icovernment 
is  derived  from  the  consent  of  the  governed  ;  And 
whereas  the  doctrine  that  man  shall  pursue  his  t  wn 
substantial  happiness,  is  acknowledged  by  the  highest 
authority  to  be  the  great  precept  of  nature;  And 
whereas  this  doctrine  is  not  local  but  universal,  being 
dictated  by  God  Himself:  Wherefore  .  .  .  ." 

Then  come  the  resolutions,  which  take  the  form  of 
an  open  declaration,  that  the  ladies  of  Ohio  shall  in 
fature  consider  the  laws  which,  in  their  opinion,  press 
unfairly  on  the  sex,  as  of  no  effect  and  void. 

"1.  Resolved:  That  all  laws  contrary  to  these  fun- 
damental principles,  or  in  conflict  with  this  great  pre- 
cept of  nature,  are  of  no  binding  obligation. 

"2.  Kesolved  :  That  all  laws  which  exclude  women 
from  voting  are  null  and  void, 

"3.  Resolved:  That  all  social,  literary,  pecuniary, 
and  religious  distinctions  between  man  and  woman 
are  contrary  to  nature. 

'*  9.  Resolved:  That  it  is  unjust  and  unnatnral  to 
31* 


366  'VA'jr  AMERICA. 

hold  a  ditFereut  inorul  standard  for  men  and  for 
women." 

Lydia  Pierson  put  her  foot  down  on  what  she  held 
to  be  the  true  cause  of  female  inferiority  :  the  habit 
among  girls  of  marrying  early  in  life.  Lydia  told  her 
audience  that,  if  they  wanted  to  be  men  they  must 
stay  at  school  until  they  were  twenty-one. 

Ma>^saohusetts  —  the  true  leader  in  every  movement 
of  opinion  —  now  took  up  the  question,  and  the  first 
JS^ational  Woman's  Rights  Convention  w^as  held  in 
Worcester,  with  Paulina  Davis,  of  Rhode  Island,  Pi'e- 
sidentess,  and  Hannah  Darlington,  of  Pennsylvania, 
Secretary, 

Paulina  described  the  object  of  that  female  parlia- 
ment to  be  —  an  epochal  movement,  the  emancipation 
of  a  class,  the  redemption  of  half  the  world,  the  re- 
organization of  all  social,  political,  and  industrial 
interests  and  institutions.  She  said,  This  is  the  age  of 
peace,  and  woman  is  its  sign.  The  Congress  voted  the 
following  resolutions. 

"  That  every  human  being  of  full  age,  who  has  to 
obey  the  law,  and  who  is  taxed  to  support  the  govern- 
ment, should  have  a  vote  : 

"That  political  rights  have  nothing  to  do  with  sex, 
and  the  word  'male'  should  be  struck  out  of  all  our 
state  constitutions : 

"That  the  laws  of  property,  as  affecting  married 
persons,  should  be  revised,  so  as  to  make  all  the  laws 
equal;  the  wife  to  have  during  life  an  equal  control 
over  the  property  gained  by  their  mutual  toil  and  sacri- 
fices, to  be  heir  of  her  husband  to  the  extent  that  he  is 
her  heir,  and  to  be  entitled  at  her  death  to  dispose  by 
will  of  the  same  share  of  the  joint  property  as  he  is." 

Other  resolutions  declared  the  right  of  women  to  a 
better  eduf^ation  than  they  now  <^njoy,  to  a  fair  partner- 


EQUAL   RIOHTS.  367 

ship  with  men  in  trade  and  adventure,  and  to  a  share 
in  tlie  administration  of  justice.  A  male  listener  said 
he  liked  the  spirit  of  this  female  parliament,  since  he 
found  they  meant  hy  woman's  rights  the  right  of  every 
lady  to  be  good  for  something  in  life! 

One  topic  of  discourse  in  this  Congress  was  Dress. 
It  would  hardly  he  outstripping  facts  to  say  that  the 
husk  and  shell,  so  to  speak,  of  every  question  now 
being  raised  for  debate  in  iVmerica,  as  between  sex 
and  sex,  belongs  to  the  domain  of  the  milliner  and  the 
tailor.  What  are  the  proper  kinds  of  clothes  for  a  free 
woman  to  fold  about  her  limbs  ?  Is  the  gown  a  linal 
form  of  dress  ?  Is  the  petticoat  a  badge  of  shame-?.  Does 
a  man  owe  nothing  to  his  hat,  his  coat,  his  pantaloons, 
his  boots  ?  In  short,  can  a  female  be  considered  as 
equal  to  a  male  until  she  has  won  the  right  to  wear  his 
garb  ?  Queries  such  as  these  have  a  serious  as  well  as 
comic  side.  Feminine  science  is  so  far  advanced  in 
these  countries,  that  many  a  topic  which  would  be 
food  for  jokes  and  poesies  in  London,  is  treated  here 
as  a  question  of  business  would  be  considered  in  a 
Broadway  store. 

Now,  dress,  if  3'ou  consider  it  apart  from  the  rules 
of  Hyde  Park  and  Fifth  Avenue,  denotes  something 
other  than  the  personal  taste  of  its  wearer.  Dress  is 
the  man;  and  something  more.  Dress  not  only  tells 
you  what  a  man  does,  but  what  he  is.  "Watch  the  tide 
of  life,  as  it  flows  and  surges  through  the  Broadway, 
past  the  Park,  the  Battery,  and  the  Quays,  and  you 
Avill  see  that  the  preacher  has  one  costume,  the  post- 
man another,  the  sailor  a  third  ;  that  a  man  of  easy 
habit  clothes  himself  in  a  garb  which  a  man  of  swift 
and  decisive  movements  could  not  wear.  A  flowing 
garment  impedes  the  owner ;  a  man  or  woman  in  skirts 
cannot  run  like  a  fellow  in  pantaloons. 


368  ^^^^  AMERICA. 

Ilelene  Marie  "Weber  Avas  one  of  the  first  to  don  coat 
and  trousers,  and  her  assumption  of  male  attire  was  a 
cause  of  loud  explosions.  Helene,  besides  being  r^ 
writer  on  reform,  on  female  education,  and  on  dres  it 
was  a  practical  farmer,  who  plou2:hcd  land,  sowefer 
corn,  reared  pigs,  and  went  to  market  with  her  pro(st 
uce,  habited  like  a  man,  in  boots,  breeks,  and  bu 
tons.  Apart  from  this  fancy,  she  is  described  as  nt 
strictly  pious  and  lady  like  person,  modest  in  mie-st 
unassuming  in  voice.  In  a  letter  which  she  wrote  in 
the  Ladies'  Congress,  she  mentions  that  she  had  be  re- 
abused  in  the  English  and  American  papers  for  weia, 
ing  trousers;  she  declares  that  she  has  no  desire  to 
an  Iphis  ;  that  she  never  aft'ected  to  be  other  thailia- 
woman,  and  has  never  been  mistaken  for  a  man  ion 
cept  by  some  liasty  stranger.  Iler  common  garb  re- 
describes  as  consisting  of  a  coat  and  pants  of  bljtrial 
cloth  ;  her  evening  dress  as  a  dark  blue  coat  withe  of 
buttons,  buff  cassimere  vest,  richly  trimmed^  with  £  the 
buttons,  and  drab  breeches.  She  adds,  with  a  sv 
feminine  touch,  that  all  her  clothes  are  made  in  Pa    to 

Many  of  the  points  to  which  these  ladies  lent  their 
countenance  were  of  serious  import:  others  were  only 
noticeable  for  the  comedy  to  which  they  gave  birth. 
I  have  heard  that  a  deputation  of  ladies  in  one  of  these 
New  England  towns  went  up  to  their  minister's  house 
to  protest  against  the  commencement  of  the  daily  les- 
sons with  the  words,  "  Dearly  beloved  brethren,"  as 
implying  that  the  women  were  either  not  present  or 
counted  for  nothing  in  the  congregation.  They  washed 
to  have  their  pastor's  views  on  a  project  for  amending 
the  Book  of  Common  Prayer.  "  Well,  I  have  thought 
over  that  matter,  ladies,"  said  the  preacher;  "but  I 
think,  on  the  whole,  this  text  may  stand ;  for  you  see 
the  brethren  always  embrace  the  sisters." 


EQUAL    RIGHTS.  369 

The  more  serious  question  discussed  in  the  Equal 
Rights  Association  is  the  position  of  woman  in  mar- 
v-'age.  "  The  whole  theory  of  the  common  law,"  they 
1   V,  "in  relation  to  the  married  woman,  is  unjust  and 

'grading."  What,  they  ask,  are  the  natural  relations 
y,  one  sex  to  the  other?  Is  marriage  the  highest  and 
,  rest  form  of  those  relations?  What  are  the  moral 
,    ects  of  marriage  upon  man  and  wife  ?     Is  marriage 

„  holy  state? 

an     *^ 

,  .  \ny  appeal  to  the  code  for  guidance  on  such  ques- 
ts would  be  idle  ;  for  the  rule  under  which  we  liyo 

f  /no  reply  to  make  in  matters  of  moral  and  religious 
:h.     The  Institutes,  Pagan  alike  in  origin  and  in 

1  •  dt,  consider  a  woman  as  little  more  than  a  chattel ; 

the  relation  of  husband  and  wife  as  only  a  trifle 

.'e  advanced  than  that  of  a  master  and  his  slave. 

y  see  no  moral  beauty  in  the  state  of  marriage ; 

.r     nothing  in  it  beyond  a  partnership  in  family  busi- 

/•      i,  akin  to  that  which  exists  in  a  trading  firm.     JTo 

„„    nan  ever  dreamt  of  love  beins;  divine,  of  marrias-e 

as   „'  .  .     -       . 

^^^■ng  a  union  of  two  souls ;  and  this  Gothic  sentiment, 

so  common  in  our  poetry,  in  our  traditions,  in  our 
households,  finds  no  food  whatever  in  the  civil  law. 
Hence  it  has  come  to  pass  in  America,  that  every  sect 
of  social  reformers  —  Moravian,  Tunker,  Shaker,  Per- 
fectionist, Mormon,  Spiritualist — has  commenced  its 
cftbrts  towards  a  better  life  by  discarding  and  denoun- 
cing the  civil  law. 

That  the  state  of  marriage  is  the  highest,  most 
poetic,  most  religious  stage  of  the  social  relations,  is 
denied  by  few,  even  in  America.  It  is  denied  by  some. 
The  Moravians  and  Tunkers  treat  the  institution  with 
a  certain  shyness;  not  denying  that  for  carnal  persons 
it  is  a  good  and  profitable  state ;  but  atfecting  to  be- 
lieve that  it  is  not  holy,  not  conducive  to  the  highest 


370  J^£W  AMERICA. 

virtue.  Tlic  Shakers,  we  have  seen,  repudiate  marriage 
altogether,  as  one  of  those  temporal  institutions  which 
liave  done  their  appointed  office  on  this  earth,  and 
have  now  passed  away,  so  far,  at  least,  as  concerns 
the  elected  children  of  grace. 


CHAPTER  LI. 

THE    HARMLESS    PEOPLE. 

The  Tankers,  who  say  they  came  into  America  from 
a  small  German  village  on  the  Eder,  all  from  one  little 
dorf,  owe  tlie  name  by  which  tlie^^  are  known,  not  only 
here,  in  Lancaster,  Pennsylvania,  abont  Avliieh  they 
are  largely  settled,  but  in  Boston  and  New  York  —  to 
a  pun.  They  profess  Baptist  tenets;  and  the  word 
"tunker"  meaning  to  dip  a  crumb  into  gravy,  a  sop 
into  wine,  they  are  described  by  those  who  use  it,  in 
a  very  poor  joke,  as  dippers  and  sops.  They  are  also 
called  Tumblers,  from  one  of  the  abrupt  motions  which 
they  make  in  the  act  of  baptism.  We  English  style 
them  Dunkers,  by  mistake.  Among  themselves  they 
are  known  as  Brethren  ;  the  spirit  of  their  association 
being  that  of  fraternal  love.  The  name  by  which  they 
are  known  in  the  neighborhood  of  their  villages  in 
Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  and  Indiana,  is  that  of  the  Harm- 
less People, 

Under  any  and  every  name,  they  are  a  sober,  pious, 
and  godly  race ;  leavening  with  a  simple  virtue  the 
mighty  fermentations  going  forward  on  the  American 
Boil. 


THE  HAMRLESS  PEOPLE.  371 

These  Tunkers  live  in  little  villages  and  groups  of 
farms,  for  their  common  comfort  and  advantage;  but 
not  in  separate  communities,  like  the  Shakers  and 
Perfectionists.  They  remain  in  the  world,  subject  to 
the  law.  In  some  respects,  they  may  be  considered  as 
in  a  state  of  change,  even  of  decay;  for,  in  these  later 
days,  they  have  begun  to  take  interest  on  money  lent, 
once  strictly  forbidden  among  them ;  and  they  have 
commenced  to  build  chapels  and  churches  instead  of 
confining  their  religious  services,  like  the  ancient  Jews, 
to  houses  and  sheds.  In  some  of  these  chapels,  I  am 
sorry  to  say,  there  is  even  a  hint  at  decoration  ;  but 
with  these  slight  drawbacks,  the  Tunkers  are  true  to 
the  practices  of  their  faith,  of  which  these  brief  par- 
ticulars may  be  given. 

The}'  are  said  to  believe  that  all  men  will  be  saved; 
a  dogma  which  is  common  to  almost  every  new  sect 
in  the  United  States  ;  though  some  of  their  body  deny 
that  universal  salvation  is  held  as  a  binding  article  of 
their  creed.  They  dress  in  plain  clothes,  and  use  none 
but  the  simplest  forms  of  address.  They  swear  no 
oaths.  They  make  no  compliments.  They  will  not 
fight.  They  wear  long  beards,  and  never  go  to  law. 
In  their  worship  they  employ  no  salaried  priest.  Males 
and  females  are  considered  equals,  and  the  two  sexes 
are  alike  eligible  for  the  diaconate.  Every  man  in  a 
congregation  is  allowed  to  rise  (as  in  the  Jewish  syna- 
gogue) and  expound  the  text;  the  man  who  proves 
himself  ablest  to  teach  and  preach  is  put  in  the  minis- 
ter's place ;  but  the  people  pay  him  in  respect,  not  in 
dollars,  for  his  service.  Like  Peter  and  Paul  on  their 
travels,  the  Tunker  apostles  may  be  lodged  with  their 
brethren,  and  even  helped  on  their  way  with  food  and 
gifts ;  but  in  theorj'  and  practice  they  accept  no  fees, 
even  when  they  happen  to  be  poor  and  unable  to  leave 


372  NEW  AMEBIC  A. 

for  a  week,  for  a  month,  Avithont  loss,  their  little 
patches  of  ground.  These  unpaid  preachers  wait  upon 
the  sick,  comfort  the  dying,  bury  the  dead.  They 
have  also  to  marry  young  men  and  maids;  a  few, 
not  many,  of  the  more  carnal  spirits ;  a  duty  which  is 
often  the  most  troublesome  part  of  their  daily  toils. 

For  the  Tunkers,  like  the  Essenes,  whom  they  re- 
semble in  many  strong  points,  have  peculiar  views 
about  the  holiness  of  a  single  life  ;  holding  celibacy  in 
the  highest  honor;  and  declaring  that  very  few  persons 
are  either  gifted  or  prepared  for  the  married  state. 
They  do  not  refuse  to  bind  any  brother  and  sister  who 
may  wish  to  enter  into  that  bond  to  each  other;  but 
they  make  no  scruple  about  pointing  out  to  them,  in 
long  and  earnest  discourse,  the  superior  virtues  of  a 
single  life.  The  preacher  does  not  say  that  matrimony 
is  a  crime;  he  onl}'  hints  a  profound  dislike  to  it; 
treating  it  as  one  of  those  evil  things  from  which  he 
would  willingly  guard  his  flock. 

When  a  brother  and  sister  come  to  him  wanting  to 
be  made  one  flesh,  he  looks  down  upon  them  as  sin- 
ners who  ought  to  be  questioned  and  probed  as  to 
their  secret  thoughts  ;  and,  if  it  may  be,  delivered  by 
him  through  grace  from  a  terrible  snare.  He  alarms 
them  by  his  inquisition,  he  frightens  them  by  his 
prophecies.  In  his  words  and  in  his  looks  he  conveys 
to  their  minds  the  idea  that  in  wanting  to  be  married 
they  are  going  headlong  to  the  devil.  It  is  not  easy 
to  say  what  the  object  of  these  Harmless  People  may 
be  in  opposing  the  tendency  of  their  folks  to  love  and 
marr}' ;  for  the  Tunkers  are  shy  of  publication  and 
explanation  ;  but  it  is  open  to  conjecture  that  their 
motives  may  be  partly  physiological,  partly  religious. 
A  wise  man,  who  could  have  his  way  in  ever}-  city  of 
the  world,  would  put  an  end  to  all  marriages  of  de- 


TEE   HARMLESS   PEOPLE.  373 

formed  and  idiotic  persons ;  on  the  same  lines  of 
justilication,  a  Tunker  might  dissuade  from  marriage 
a  pair  of  lovers  who  could  do  nothing  to  improve  the 
race.  But  some  mystic  dream,  about  chastity  being  a 
holy  state,  acceptable  as  such  to  God,  and  meritorious 
in  the  eyes  of  men,  has  more  to  do  with  it,  I  think, 
than  any  consideration  they  may  have  for  improve- 
ments in  the  Tunker  breed. 

Of  course,  the  Tunker  body  is  not  the  first  pro- 
fessing Christian  Church  which  has  felt  it  a  duty  to 
encourage  people  to  live  a  single  life,  though  the  fact 
of  such  encouragement  may  be  considered  as  having  a 
meaning  in  that  country,  where  every  child  is  a  fortune, 
which  it  never  can  have  had  in  Europe  and  in  Asia, 
where  t-he  separation  of  a  great  many  mor/ks'  and 
anchorites  from  the  reproducing  classes  may  have 
been  justified  on  economical,  if  not  on  moral,  grounds. 

In  the  Churches  of  Jerusalem,  Antioch,  and  Eome, 
the  question  of  whether  celibacy  was  or  was  not  a  holy 
state,  was  mooted  long  and  freel}',  for  apostles  could 
be  quoted  on  cither  side  in  the  dispute,  and  the  teach- 
ers, each  according  to  his  argument,  might  cite  on 
this  side  the  example  of  Peter,  on  that  side  the  precept 
of  Paul.     The  sentiment  in  favor  of  living   a  sino^le 

CD  O 

life  did  not  come  from  Paul,  much  less  from  Christ; 
it  had  sprung  up  among  the  Essenic  farms  and  villages 
of  Judea ;  had  spread  from  the  hill-side  into  the  city 
and  the  schools ;  had  become  popular  among  the 
Pharisees,  as  a  protest  against  the  flesh  and  the  devil ; 
and,  in  this  sense  only,  it  appears  to  have  been  adopted 
by  the  ascetic  Saul.  After  his  conversion  to  a  new 
creed,  Paul,  being  a  man  of  mature  age,  gjoing  to  and 
fro  in  the  world  on  his  Master's  work,  w^as  unlikely  to 
change  his  habits.  The  spirit  of  the  Essene  was 
strong  in  Paul,  but  in    pleading   for    chastity   of  the 

39 


374  NEW  AMERICA. 

body,  as  a  condition  acceptable  to  God,  it  should  not 
be  hastily'  assumed  that  he  set  up  his  voice,  even  by 
implication,  against  God's  own  ordinance  of  marriage. 
Those  only  who  have  studied  the  social  life  of  Corinth 
under  Junius  Gallio,  —  a  sink  of  vice,  appalling  even 
to  men  most  knowing  in  the  ways  of  degenerate 
Greece, — can  guess  what  may  have  been  the  apostle's 
motive  for  advising  his  disciples  in  that  city  to  obser\^e 
a  more  ascetic  rule  than  any  which  they  saw  in  vogue 
around  them;  but  any  man  of  sense  may  judge  from 
the  sacred  text  how  far  a  special  state  of  morals, 
special  even  among  the  Greeks,  must  have  driven  St. 
Paul  into  urging  upon  the  Church  of  Corinth  a  true 
and  resolute  watchfulness  over  matters  not  otherwise 
recdnimended  by  him  to  the  infant  church.  When 
he  says  to  them,  he  would  to  God  they  were  as  he  is, 
he  speaks  (if  I  read  him  rightly)  as  a  chaste  man 
rather  than  as  a  single  man.  How  could  an  apostle 
of  such  practical  and  commanding  genius  as  St.  Paul 
conceive  the  idea  of  banishing  marriage  from  the  new 
society  ?  Three  reasons  forbid  it,  any  one  of  which 
Avould  have  been  strong  enough  to  deter  him :  (first) 
because  Elohim,  the  God  of  his  fathers,  had  instituted 
marriage  for  Adam  and  all  his  seed ;  (second)  because 
Paul  knew,  and  said,  that  if  men  do  not  marry,  they 
will  do  much  w^orse;  and  (third)  because  the  rule  of 
abstinence,  if  it  could  have  been  enforced  by  him, 
would  have  destroyed  in  one  generation  all  his  con- 
verts, and  with  them,  perhaps,  the  very  Church  of 
Christ. 

Have  we  any  right  to  infer  from  Paul's  a-dvice  to 
the  Corinthians,  that  he  held  the  views  of  Ann  Lee, 
or  even  of  Alexander  Mack?  Greece  was  not  Amer- 
ica ;  the  Syrian  Aphrodite  is  not  worshipped  in  jSTew 
York.     St.  Paul  had  to  urge  the  merits  of  chastity  on 


THE   HARMLESti    PEOPLE.  375 

a  people  to  whom  that  Avord,  and  all  that  it  expresses, 
were  unknown.  His  converts  had  been  worshippei-s 
of  Astarte,  and  in  denouncing  their  abominations,  he 
used  the  iiery  freedom  of  a  man  whose  life  was  pure 
and  stainless.  Yet  he  weighed  his  words,  and  in  the 
tempest  of  his  wrath  took  time  to  say,  when  he  spoke 
in  his  own  name  onh',  as  a  private  man,  and  Avhen  he 
delivered  counsel  in  the  name  of  our  Lord,  The 
Greeks  understood  him.  "Writing  in  their  idiom, 
speaking  of  their  manners,  both  well  known  to  him  — 
child  of  a  Greek  city,  pupil  in  a  Greek  school  —  his 
meaning  must  have  been  clearer  to  them  than  it  is  to 
strangers.  Hence  the  Greek  church  may  be  taken  as 
a  safer  guide  to  the  sense  of  a  difficult  and  contested 
passage  than  any  other,  especially  than  that  of  the 
American  Tunker.  The  Greek  church  has  no  doubt 
about  it.  By  many  canons  and  by  constant  usage, 
that  church  affirms  that  St.  Paul  was  in  favor  of  wed- 
lock, not  in  the  communicant  only,  but  in  the  priest. 

Unhappily  for  Christian  unity,  the  Western  church 
took  another  view  of  the  text.  The  Pauline  and 
Platonic  Fathers  wrote  in  mystical  phrases  of  the 
superior  sanctity  of  an  unmarried  life  ;  and  long  before 
any  law  of  the  church  had  come  to  forbid  priest  and 
bishop  to  marrj',  it  had  become  a  fashion  among  the 
higher  clergy  to  abstain,  and  to  live,  as  they  phrased 
it,  for  the  church  alone.  Strange  to  say,  this  fashion 
took  root  in  Rome,  in  the  midst  of  a  people  boasting 
as  their  chief  glory,  of  having  had  for  their  founder 
and  birshop  St.  Peter,  Prince  of  the  Apostles,  a  married 
man. 

The  adoption  of  this  celibate  principle  by  Rome 
was  the  germ  of  both  the  great  schisms  in  the  Christian 
society  ;  first,  of  a  parting  between  East  and  "West, 
afterwards,  in  the  AVest  itself,  of  a  parting  between 


376  NEW  AMEBIC  A. 

North  and  South.  Disputes  about  dogma  may  be  set 
aside ;  disputes  about  social  order  may  not.  A  priest 
can  be  persuaded  to  hear  reason  on  such  topics  as 
election  and  foreknowledge,  who  cannot  be  induced 
to  admit  that  marriage  is  a  state  of  sin.  In  the  sixth 
and  seventh  centuries  this  battle  of  celibacy  had  been 
fiercely  fought,  the  Petrine  church  being  for  it,  the 
Pauline  church  against  it;  and  on  this  rock  of  contra- 
dictions, the  lirst  great  Christian  society  had  struck 
and  split.  The  Council  of  Tours  had  suspended  for  a 
year  all  priests  and  deacons  who  were  then  found 
living  with  their  wives,  of  wdiom  there  w-ere  many 
thousands  in  Italy,  Gaul,  and  Spain.  The  Council  of 
Constantinople  had  declared  that  priests  and  deacons 
ought  to  live  with  their  wives  like  laymen,  according 
to  the  ordinance  and  custom  of  the  apostles,  a  canon 
•which  they  still  observe.  Not  only  did  the  Greek 
Church  separate  from  that  of  Rome  on  this  cardinal 
policy,  but  the  clergy  and  laity  of  the  West  and 
North — of  England,  Germany,  and  France — stood 
out  ao;ainst  it;  and  the  main  efforts  of  the  Roman 
church  for  five  hundred  years  were  given  to  this 
domestic  question.  Ages  elapsed  before  Rome  had 
crushed  the  opposition  to  her  policy  in  England,  Ger- 
many, and  France,  in  which  countries  married  priests 
were  to  be  found  so  late  as  the  times  of  the  Black 
Prince:  at  length  she  won  her  cause;  but  on  the 
morrow  of  her  triumph  the  Reformation  began. 

No  man  can  read  the  ballads  and  chronicles  from 
Piers  Ploughman's  Complaint  to  Pecock's  Repressor, 
without  feeling  how  much  it  was  beyond  the  power 
of  a  celibate  clergy  to  dwell  in  peace  with  a  congre- 
gation of  Gothic  race.  The  cry  for  a  married  priest- 
hood rose  from  every  corner  of  the  West  and  North ; 
and  when  the  clerical  reformers  took  the  field  aofainst 


THE  HARMLESS  PEOPLE.  377 

Rome,  the  first  pledge  of  their  sincerity,  given  and 
taken,  was  to  marry  wives.  All  the  great  men  who 
led  the  Reformation  in  their  several  conntrics  —  Lu- 
ther, Calvin,  Cranmer — had  to  give  this  jDledge  of 
their  faith ;  thus  the  newly-made  Christian  societies 
of  North  and  West,  to  which  America  is  heir,  Avere 
founded  on  the  broadest  principles  of  human  nature, 
not  on  the  narrowest  criticism  of  a  text. 

But  Rome,  after  these  great  schisms  in  the  church, 
clings  fondly  to  her  ancient  order.  She  looks  on 
woman  as  a  snare.  Into  the  crypt  of  St.  Peter  (a 
married  saint)  no  female  is  allowed  to  enter,  except 
on  a  single  day  of  the  ^-ear.  A  lady  may  not  call 
upon  the  Pope,  except  in  mourning  robes.  In  the 
Roman  mass  no  music  is  permitted  for  the  female 
voice.  But  the  Italian  church  is  logical  in  its  practice, 
though  it  ma}'  be  wrong  in  its  principle.  "Where  it  is 
considered  sinful  in  a  priest  to  marry,  how  can  j'ou 
prevent  the  female  being  despised  ? 

This  question  may  be  put  to  the  American  celibate 
schools :  to  the  Tunkers  of  Ohio,  to  the  Shakers  of 
New  York. 

82* 


878  ^^W  AMERICA. 

CHAPTER  LIL 

THE    REVOLT    OF    WOMAN. 

Elizabeth  Denton,  founder  though  she  be  of  a 
school  of  Female  Seers,  is  not  the  highest  and  boldest 
of  these  feminine  reformers.  One  school  of  writers, 
a  school  which  is  already  a  church,  with  its  codes  and 
canons,  its  seers  and  sects,  soars  high  above  local 
wranglings,  into  what  is  said  to  be  a  region  of  yet 
nobler  truths.  Kights  of  Woman  !  exclaim  the  party. 
What  is  right  compared  with  power?  what  is  usage 
compared  with  nature?  what  is  social  law  compared 
with  celestial  fact?  A  woman's  right  to  love,  say 
these  female  reformers,  is  a  detail,  her  claim  to  labor, 
a  mistake.  Neither  the  first  nor  the  second  should 
be  urged  on  the  world's  attention.  One  ought  to  be 
assumed,  the  other  must  be  dropped.  Woman's  right 
to  love  is  implied  in  a  yet  larger  claim,  and  by  the 
new  theor}'  of  her  life  her  only  relation  to  labor  is  to 
be  exempt  from  it. 

These  reformers  make  no  feint,  they  hit  straight 
out.  According  to  them,  only  meek  and  weak  re- 
formers would  think  of  prating  about  equal  powers 
and  laws.  Women,  they  say,  are  not  the  equals  of 
man  ;  they  are  his  superiors.  They  do  not  ask  from 
him  either  chivalry  or  courtesy;  they  claim  the  sov- 
ereign rule.  In  throwing  down  such  a  gage,  they  are 
well  aware  how  much  they  surprise  and  oft'end  their 
masculine  hearers ;  but  they  speak  to  women,  and  do 
not  expect  that  men  Avill  receive  the  truth.  They 
have  a  gospel  to  deliver,  a  duty  to  discharge,  a  war  to 
conduct;  a  social  war;  no  more,  no  less.     Up  to  this 


THE  REVOLT  OF   WOMAN.  379 

time,  they  allege  that  women  have  been  held  in  bond- 
age ;  but  their  day  has  come,  their  chains  are  falling 
oft",  a  deliverer  is  at  hand;  a  truce,  they  cry,  to  com- 
pliments, to  hypocrisies,  to  concessions  on  all  sides ; 
the  movement  now  on  foot  is  a  Revolt  of  Woman 
asfainst  Man. 

The  first  principle  of  this  new  party  is,  that  of  the 
two  sexes  Woman  is  the  more  perfect  being,  later  in 
growth,  finer  in  structure,  grander  in  form,  lighter  in 
type.  The  distinctions  between  the  two  are  wnde  and 
deep,  one  being  allied  to  cherub  and  seraph,  the  other 
to  stallion  and  dog.  What  man  is  to  the  gorilla, 
woman  is  to  man.  Female  superiority  is  not  confined 
to  a  few  degrees  of  more  or  less ;  it  is  radical,  organic, 
lying  in  the  quality  of  her  brain,  in  the  delicacy  of 
her  tissues :  a  superiority  of  essence,  even  more  than 
o.f  grade.  If  nature  works,  as  it  would  seem,  through 
an  ascending  series,  woman  is  the  step  beyond  mai> 
iu  Nature's  ascent  towards  the  form  of  angelic  life. 
And  this  is  true,  not  only  of  human  beings,  but  of  all 
beings,  from  the  female  mollusk  to  the  New  England 
lady.  Man  is  but  the  paragon  of  animals,  while 
woman,  by  her  gif"t3  of  soul,  belongs  to  the  celestial 
ranks.  He  is  a  lord  of  the  earth,  while  she  is  a  mes- 
senger from  heaven. 

The  sexes,  too,  according  to  this  female  creed,  difter 
in.  office,  as  they  difter  in  endowment.  Man  is  here 
to  be  a  tiller  of  the  soil,  while  his  sister,  nursed  at  the 
same  breast,  is  meant  for  a  prophetess  and  seer.  One 
is  made  coarse  and  rough,  that  he  may  wrestle  with 
the  outward  world  ;  tiie  other  tender  and  douce,  that 
she  may  commune  with  the  spiritual  spheres.  Each 
sex,  then,  has  a  province  of  its  own,  in  which  the 
whole  of  its  duty  lies.  Man  has  to  work,  woman  to 
love.     He  labors  with  the  flesh,  she  with  the  spirit. 


380  NEW  AMERICA. 

A  husband  is  a  grower  and  getter,  his  wife  is  a  giver 
and  spender;  not  in  the  way  of  jest  and  caprice,  but 
by  the  eternal  settlement  of  law.  Man  has  to  toil 
and  save,  that  woman  may  dispense  and  enjoy  ;  the 
higher  intelligence  turning  his  material  gifts  into  use 
and  beauty :  as  warmth  draws  wine  and  oil,  color  and 
perfume,  from  the  watered  field.  One  sex  is  a  culti- 
vator, the  other  a  reconciler.  He  deals  with  the 
lower,  she  with  the  higher  aspects  of  nature.  Man 
conquers  the  soil,  "Woman  mediates  with  God. 

The  Prophetess  of  this  new  church  is  Eliza  Farn- 
ham,  of  Staten  Island ;  the  temple  is  unbuilt,  but  the 
faith  and  the  votaries  are  said  to  be  found  in  every 
populous  city  of  the  United  States. 

Five-and-twenty  years  have  elapsed  since  the  Truth 
of  Woman  first  flashed  upon  Eliza ;  then  a  poor  girl, 
unmarried,  unlettered,  untravelled,  like  most  of  these 
female  seers;  having  read  but  little,  speaking  no 
tongue 'save  one;  yet  keen  and  shrewd,  with  thoughts 
in  her  brain,  and  words  upon  her  lips.  This  Truth 
of  Woman  came  upon  her  in  1842,  the  year  in  w^hich 
it  is  said  that  Joseph  Smith  received  a  command  from 
God  to  restore  plurality  of  wives;  came  upon  her,  not 
by  induction,  but  by  intuition  ;  in  plainer  words,  she 
drew  her  dogma  of  superiority,  as  Smith  drew  his 
dogma  of  plurality,  not  from  any  facts  in  nature,  but 
from  the  depth  and  riches  of  her  mind.  Like  Smith, 
she  either  kept  the  secret  to  herself,  or  shared  it  only 
with  her  chosen  friends.  But  women,  she  confesses, 
can  teach  each  other  fast,  and  her  ideas  Avere  spread 
abroad  by  an  unseen  agency.  When  the  Truth  came 
upon  her,  she  was  yet  a  virgin  ;  to  prove  its  power, 
she  married,  becoming  in  turn  a  wife,  a  mother,  a 
widow;  making  money  and  losing  it;  toiling  with 
her  hands  for  bread  :  burying  her  children  as  she  had 


THE  REVOLT  OF  WOMAN.  381 

buried  her  husband ;  ■wandering  from  town  to  town, 
and  from  State  to  State ;  living  upon  other  people's 
bounty;  getting  past  the  turn  of  a  woman's  life; 
■watching  the  gray  hairs  start  upon  her  head,  the 
crow's  feet  pucker  at  her  eyes ;  and  then,  with  the 
evening  shadows  falling  sadly  on  her  life,  having  felt 
the  joys  and  griefs  of  womanhood  in  all  its  phases, 
she  was  ready  to  begin  the  war,  not  secretly,  and  in 
other  names,  but  with  her  principles  avowed  and  her 
forces  in  the  Held. 

The  Eevolt  of  Woman  opened,  as  it  ought  to  have 
opened,  with  an  attack  on  pure  Intellect:  a  faculty 
which  the  world,  in  its  folly  and  injustice,  puts  above 
woman's  susceptibilities  and  inspirations.  Reason  is 
man's  stronghold ;  a  fortress  which  he  has  built  for 
himself,  and  in  which  he  dwells  alone.  Yes;  reason 
is  the  basis  on  which  he  has  planted  all  those  canons, 
systems,  poetries,  sciences,  mythologies,  which  he 
turns  with  such  deadly  art  against  the  partner  of  his 
life.  But  when  Eliza  came  to  look  into  this  pure  In- 
tellect, what  did  she  find  ?  A  high  power,  a  divine 
faculty,  a  test  of  nature,  an  instrument  of  truth  ? 
Nothing  of  the  kind.  She  saw  in  Intellect  nothing 
more  than  a  coarse  bungler,  dealing  with  nature  in  a 
slow,  material  way,  gathering  up  a  few  dates  and 
facts,  tracing  out  causes  and  sequents,  catching 
through  harmonies  at  law.  What  was  man's  gift 
compared  against  woman's  grace  ?  A  process  against 
a  power.  A  woman  has  no  need  of  method.  She 
knows  the  fact  when  she  sees  it,  feels  the  truth  when 
it  is  unseen.  What  man  with  his  logic,  observation, 
and  procedure,  toils  up  to  in  a  generation,  she  per- 
ceives at  once.  To  him,  intellect  is  a  tiresome  and 
uncertain  guide ;  to  her,  intuition  is  a  swift,  unfailing 
diviner's  rod.     Has  not  man,  asked  Eliza,  been  using 


382  '  NEW  AMERICA. 

his  reason  for  ages  past,  without  having  fallen  on  the 
central  truth  of  life  —  the  natural  sovereignty  of  the 
female  sex  ?  Reason  may  have  its  uses  and  duties,  of 
a  humhle  kind  ;  since  it  may  teach  a  man  how  to  cut 
down  trees,  how  to  build  boats,  how  to  snare  game, 
how  to  reap  corn  and  sow  potatoes,  how  to  fence  his 
field  and  protect  his  camp  ;  and  for  these  uses  it  may 
be  kept  for  a  little  while;  but  only  in  its  proper  place, 
as  the  servant  of  woman's  far  higher  will. 

The  reign  of  Science  was  announced  as  over,  that 
of  Spiritualism  as  begun.  Science  is  the  offspring  of 
man,  Spiritualism  of  woman.  The  first  is  gross  and 
sensual,  a  thing  of  the  past;  the  second,  pure  and 
holy,  a  thing  of  the  future.  Science  doubts.  Spiritual- 
ism believes ;  one  is  of  earth,  the  other  is  of  heaven. 
!N'ow  that  the  Gospel  of  "Woman  is  declared.  Science 
has  ceased  to  have  a  leading  part  in  the  discovery  of 
truth;  the  objective  world  is  about  to  pass  into  the 
subjective,  and  the  superior  sex  will  read  for  us,  by 
their  inner  light,  the  mysteries  of  heaven  and  hell. 

Eliza  had  no  special  theology  to  teach.  She  re- 
jected Peter  and  Paul,  Luther  and  Cranmer;  but  she 
had  faith  in  Swedenborg.  Peter  and  Paul  had  put 
women  under  men. 

Eliza  proudly  contended  that  although  her  Truth 
of  Woman  is  new  and  strange,  it  admits  of  proof  con- 
vincing to  the  female  mind.  As  to  the  masculine 
mind,  a  thing  of  lower  grade,  she  was  not  concerned 
about  its  ways.  A  Virginian  never  thought  of  argu- 
ing with  his  slave.  The  Truth,  which  she  had  to 
preach,  did  not  require  man's  sanction  to  make  it 
pass ;  and  she  confined  her  discourse  to  the  superior 
sex. 

Her  evidence  in  favor  of  the  Truth  of  Woman  lay 
in  the  following  syllogism  :  — 


THE   REVOLT   OF   WOMAN.  383 

Life  is  exalted  in  proportion  to  its  organic  and 
functional  complexity;  woman's  organism  is  more 
complex,  and  her  totality  of  functions  larger,  than 
those  of  any  other  being  inhabiting  our  earth ;  there- 
fore her  position  in  the  scale  of  life  is  the  most  ex- 
alted— the  sovereign  one. 

That  was  Eliza's  secret.  The  most  complex  life  is 
the  highest;  woman's  life  is  the  most  complex;  ergo, 
woman's  life  is  the  highest.  If  the  premises  are 
sound,  the  conclusion  must  be  also  sound,  Eliza  felt 
80  sure  of  her  syllogism,  that  she  rested  her  case  upon 
it.  What  she  claimed  for  woman  is  only  what  Nature 
gives  her — the  sovereign  place. 

It  is  the  same,  says  Eliza,  through  all  the  animal 
grades.  The  females  have  more  organs  than  the 
male,  and  organs  are  the  representatives  of  power. 
All  females  have  the  same  organs  as  males  with  two 
magniticent  sets  of  structure  which  males  have  not ; 
structures  which  concern  the  nourishing  of  life.  She 
admits  that  the  male  is  often  physically  larger  than 
the  female,  so  far  as  size  can  be  measured  by  bulk  of 
body,  by  length  of  arm,  and  by  width  of  chest;  but  in 
lieu  of  any  argument  to  be  drawn  from  such  a  fact  in 
favor  of  the  male,  it  is  urged  that  he  is  only  bigger  in 
the  grosser  parts  —  in  bones  and  sinews  —  not  in  nerves 
and  brains.  Where  the  higher  functions  come  into 
play,  woman  is. in  advance  of  man.  Her  bust  has  a 
nobler  contour,  her  bosom  a  finer  swell.  The  upper 
half  of  her  skull  is  more  expansive.  All  the  tissues 
of  her  body  are  softer  and  more  delicate.  Her  voice 
is  sweeter,  her  ear  quicker.  Her  veins  are  of  brighter 
blue,  her  skin  is  of  purer  white,  her  lips  are  of  deeper 
red.  More  than  all  else,  as  fixing  the  grade  of  woman 
above  that  of  man,  her  brain  is  of  higher  quality  and 
of  quicker  growth. 


384  NEW  AMERICA. 

On  every  side,  then,  says  Eliza,  the  female  bears 
away  the  bell.  She  is  aware  that  an  old  saying, 
based  on  what  may  be  seen  in  a  wood,  in  a  street,  in 
a  farm-yard,  asserts  the  snperior  beauty,  no  less  than 
the  superior  size,  of  the  male  animal.  But  she  dis- 
putes the  facts.  It  is  true  that  nearly  all  male  ani- 
mals have  a  grander  figure;  that  nearly  all  male  birds 
have  a  brighter  plumage  than  their  mates ;  that  in 
some  species  the  males  have  special  ornaments,  such 
as  the  lion's  mane  and  the  peacock's  tail;  but  these 
appearances,  she  contends,  deceive  the  eye,  while  true 
beauty  is  always  to  be  found  in  the  female  form.  The 
lioness  is  nobler  than  the  lion ;  the  pea-hen  statelier 
than  the  cock.  The  beauty  of  your  dung-hill  rooster 
lies  in  his  feathers  and  his  voice.  Pluck  him  to  the 
skin,  and  you  Avill  find  that  he  has  neither  the  soft- 
ness nor  the  beauty  of  his  female  mates.  But  Eliza 
will  not  rest  her  argument  for  feminine  superiority  on 
birds ;  for  her  sex  in  birds  is  something  of  a  mystery 
to  her;  and  for  many  reasons  (chiefly  because  girls 
are  called  nightingales,  doves,  and  wrens)  she  inclines 
to  the  belief  that  the  feminine  of  our  higher  order 
answers  to  the  masculine  in  birds. 

All,  therefore,  that  is  best  and  brightest  in  the  two 
beings  —  outward  and  inward  —  beauty  to  the  eye, 
softness  to  the  touch,  music  to  the  ear  —  the  heart  to 
love,  the  brain  to  guide  —  are  developed  in  the  female 
on  a  richer  scale.  On  his  side,  man  has  little  to  re- 
commend him  beyond  a  brutal  strength.  In  short, 
the  picture  which  Ehza  draws  of  man  and  woman  is 
very  much  like  that  of  Caliban  and  Miranda  on  their 
lonely  rock. 

In  support  of  these  views  of  nature,  she  appeals  to 
history,  poetry,  science,  and  art ;  citing  Cornelia  and 
the  Mother  of  the  Gracchi  (whom  she  describes  as 


THE   REVOLT  OF    WOMAN.  385 

two  noticeable  Roman  wives) ;  cutting  up  81iakspearc 
for  his  low  views  and  slavish  pictures  of  women  ; 
pooh-poohing  Bacon  for  his  lack  of  true  method  and 
insight ;  braining  Michael  Angelo  for  his  absence  of 
all  feminine  grace.  There  is  novelty  in  her  appeal, 
and  in  the  illustrations  by  which  she  supports  it. 
Eliza  declares  that  Cornelia  and  the  Mother  of  the 
Gracchi  were  but  "  average  mothers  of  a  later  time  ;" 
that  Shakspeare  says  nothing  of  woman  that  is  to  her 
credit,  or  to  his  own.  Portia,  it  is  true,  is  sensible, 
courageous,  brilliant,  without  vanity;  but  Eliza  knows 
a  hundred  American  w^omen  who  are  better  than  she. 
Imogen  is  pure  and  loving;  but  the  man  is  to  be  pitied 
who  does  not  "know  a  score  or  two  of  finer  girls." 
Rosalind,  Perdita,  Ophelia,  Beatrice,  are  fools,  if 
pretty  ones,  in  wdiom  Eliza  can  see  "  little  goodness 
save  the  emptiness  of  evil."  Pious  Cordelia,  noble 
Isabella,  how  are  ye  fallen,  stars  of  the  morning! 
Darwin,  too,  though  he  is  allowed  to  be  excellent  in 
speculation,  gets  beyond  his  depth  when  dealing  with 
structure,  missing  his  chance  of  falling  upon  the  Truth 
of  Woman.  Strange,  she  thinks,  how  so  good  a  natu- 
ralist as  Darwin  is,  should  have  treated  rudimentary 
organs  in  male  animals  as  remains  of  lost  powers, 
when  it  is  clear  to  her  that  they  are  the  germs  of  new 
powers.  But  so  it  is  :  Darwin  considers  the  rudimen- 
tary mammse  as  the  ruins  of  old  organs,  which  once 
had  uses;  in  other  words,  that  male  functions  were  at 
some  distant  period  in  the  past  a  little  nearer  to  fe- 
male functions  than  they  stand  at  present.  Eliza,  on 
the  contrary,  conceives  that  these  mammse  are  the 
germs  of  new  organs,  growing  with  the  growth  of 
time;  in  other  words,  that  male  functions  will,  by 
progress  and  development,  come  into  closer  resem- 
blance to  female  functions.     Science  is  wrong,  like 

33 


386  NEW  AMERICA. 

history,  and  poctiy,  and  art.  But  what  is  science? 
Just  what  man  knows:  —  man,  who  knows  nothing; 
and  who  is  only  a  grade  higher  in  the  scale  of  being 
than  a  chimpanzee  !  A  true  science  would  show  you 
that  woman,  as  a  being  with  no  waste  organs,  no 
rudimentary  powers,  stands  at  the  head  of  all  created 
things. 

Milton's  Eve — though  fairest,  wisest,  best  —  is  not 
high  enough  in  the  scale  for  Eliza.  Eve  is  not  made 
first  of  the  twain  in  Paradise ;  first,  as  she  ought  to  be, 
in  virtue  of  her  keener  insight,  her  braver  spirit,  her 
larger  longings.  Nay,  the  Female  Seer  grows  hot 
against  the  Bible  for  its  hard  and  cruel  way  of  dealing 
with  that  story  of  the  Fall ;  urging  that  the  Scriptures 
tell  the  tale  as  a  man  was  sure  to  conceive  it,  to  his 
own  advantage,  and  to  woman's  loss.  She  writes  it 
out  afresh,  and  puts  the  thing  in  another  light. 

In  this  new  version  of  the  Fall,  Eve  is  not  weak, 
but  strong.  She  finds  Adam  in  bonds,  and  she  sets 
him  free.  He  is  bound  by  a  bad  law  to  live  in  a  state 
of  darkness  and  bondage,  a  mere  animal  life,  without 
knowing  good  from  evil.  She  breaks  his  fetters,  and 
shows  him  the  way  to  heaven.  The  consequences  of 
her  act  are  noble  ;  and  through  her  courage  Man  did 
not  fall,  but  rise.  She  did  "a  great  service  to  human- 
ity,'' when  she  plucked  the  forbidden  fruit. 

In  the  details  of  the  Fall,  Eliza  finds  much  comfort, 
when  she  can  read  them  by  her  own  inward  light. 
Wisdom  (in  the  form  of  a  Serpent)  addressed  the 
woman,  not  the  man,  who  would  have  cared  little  for 
the  tree  of  knowledge.  The  temptation  offered  to  her 
was  spirituil.  She  took  the  forbidden  fruit,  in  the 
hope  of  becoming  wiser  and  diviner  than  she  had  been. 
Man  followed  her.  Yes :  the  ascendancy  of  woman 
began  in  Paradise ! 


I'  III    PP'I^ 
>    > 


k    '1 


lll;fM'iiiiir!ii:iii  ;W,  i.i;'h.v.^;\l 


ONEIDA    CREEK.  387 

CHAPTER    LIII. 

ONEIDA    CREEK. 

On  tlie  opposite  verge  of  tliought  to  the  systems  of 
Mother  Ann,  of  Elizabeth  Denton,  of  Eliza  Farnham, 
stands  a  body  of  reformers  who  call  themselves,  in 
their  dogmatic  aspect,  Perfectionists,  in  their  social 
aspect,  Bible  Communists.  These  people  aver  that 
they  have  discovered  the  only  way  ;  and  have  reduced 
to  practice  what  their  rivals  in  reform  have  only  re- 
duced into  talk.  They  profess  to  base  their  theory  of 
family  life  on  the  New  Testament,  most  of  all  on  the 
teachings  of  St.  Paul. 

What  these  Bible  People  (as  they  call  themselves) 
have  done  in  the  sphere  of  life  and  thought  has  cer- 
tainly been  attempted  in  no  faltering  spirit.  They 
have  restored,  as  they  say,  the  Divine  government  of 
the  world;  they  have  put  the  two  sexes  on  an  equal 
footing;  they  have  declared  marriage  a  fraud  and  prop- 
erty a  theft;  they  have  abolished  for  themselves  all 
human  laws ;  they  have  formally  renounced  their  alle- 
giance to  the  United  States. 

The  founder  of  this  school  of  reform  —  a  school 
\shich  boasts  already  of  having  its  prophets,  semina- 
ries, periodicals,  and  communities — its  schism,  its 
revivals,  its  persecutions,  its  male  and  female  martyrs, 
—  is  John  Humphrey  ISToyes  :  a  tall,  pale  man,  with 
sandy  hair  and  beard,  gray,  dreamy  eyes,  good  mouth, 
white  temples,  and  a  noble  forehead.  He  is  a  little  like 
Carlyle  ;  and  it  is  the  fashion  among  his  people  to  say 
that  he  closely  resembles  our  Chelsea  sage;  a  fiction 
which  is  evidently  a  pleasant  delusion  to  the  Saint 


388  NEW  AMERICA. 

himself.  He  has  been  in  turn  a  graduate  of  Dartmouth 
College  in  Connecticut,  a  law  clerk  at  Putney  in  Ver- 
mont, a  theological  student  in  Andover,  Massachusetts, 
a  preacher  at  Yale  College,  ISTew  Haven,  a  seceder 
from  the  Congregational  Church,  an  outcast,  a  heretic, 
an  agitator,  a  dreamer,  an  experimentalizer;  finalh%  he 
is  now  acknowledged  by  man}^  people  as  a  sect-founder, 
a  revelator,  a  prophet,  enjoying  light  from  heaven  and 
personal  intimacies  with  God. 

I  have  been  spending  a  few  days  at  Oneida  Creek, 
the  chief  seat  of  the  three  societies  founded  by  l^oyes, 
—  Oneida,  Wallingford,  and  Brooklyn,  —  as  the  guest 
of  Brother  Noyes.  I  have  lived  in  his  family ;  had  a 
good  deal  of  talk  with  him ;  had  access  to  his  books 
and  papers,  even  those  of  a  private  nature ;  had  many 
conversations  with  the  brothers  and  sisters  whom  he 
has  gathered  into  order,  both  in  his  presence  and  apart 
from  him ;  had  leave  from  him  to  copy  such  of  the 
Family  papers  as  I  pleased.  The  account  which  fol- 
lows of  this  extraordinary  body  of  men  has  been  writ- 
ten fresh,  from  their  own  mouths,  and  from  my  own 
observation,  on  the  spot  which  it  describes. 

"You  will  find,"  said  Horace  Greeley,  as  we  parted 
in  ISTew  York,  "that  Oneida  Communism  is  a  trade 
success;  the  rest  you  will  see  and  judge  for  yourself." 

From  Oneida,  a  young  and  busy  town  on  the  New 
York  Central  Railway,  a  wide  and  dusty  road,  o)i 
either  side  of  which,  behind  a  line  of  frame-houses 
and  their  little  gardens,  the  forest  is  still  green  and 
fi'esh,  leads  you  to  Oneida  Creek ;  a  part  of  that  Indian 
reservation  which  was  left  by  a  compassionate  legisla- 
ture to  the  Oneidas,  one  of  the  Six  IS'ations  famous  in 
the  early  history  of  Xew  York  tor  their  honesty,  their 
good  faith,  and  their  constant  friendship  for  the  whites. 
Twenty  years  ago  the  Creek  ran  through  a  virgin  soil. 


ONEIDA   CREEK.  389 

Here  and  tliere  a  log  house  peeped  from  beneatli  the 
trees,  in  which  some  remnants  of  a  great  and  unhappy 
tribe  of  hunters  stood,  as  it  were,  at  bay.  The  water 
yielded  fish,  the  forest  game.  The  only  clearings  had 
been  made  by  fire ;  woods  either  burnt  by  cliance  or 
felled  for  winter  fuel.  A  patch  of  maize  might  be 
seen  on  some  sunny  slope  ;  but  the  Oneida  Indian  is 
a  very  poor  farmer  at  his  best;  and  the  district  in 
which  he  dwelt  with  his  squaw  and  his  papoose,  a 
tangle  of  brier  and  swamp  and  stones,  was  unbroken 
to  the  use  of  man.  He  sold  his  land  to  a  pale-face, 
richer  than  himself,  for  a  sum  of  money  not  equal  in 
value  to  the  maple  and  hickory  woods  upon  it.  From 
this  second  owner  the  Perfectionists  bought  the  Creek, 
with  its  surrounding  woods  and  open  ;  and  in  twenty 
years  the  surface  has  been  wholly  changed.  Roads 
have  been  cut  through  the  forest ;  bridges  have  been 
built;  the  Creek  has  been  trained  and  dammed;  mills 
for  slitting  planks  and  for  driving  wheels  have  been 
erected ;  the  bush  has  been  cleared  away  ;  a  great 
hall,  oflices  and  workshops  have  been  raised ;  lawns 
have  been  laid  out,  shrubberies  planted,  and  footways 
gravelled ;  orchards  and  vineyards  have  been  reared 
and  fenced  ;  manufactures  have  been  set  going —  iron- 
work, satchel-making,  fruit-preserving,  silk-spinning; 
and  the  whole  aspect  of  this  wild  forest  land  has  been 
beautified  into  the  likeness  of  a  rich  domain  in  Kent. 
Tew  corners  in  America  can  compete  in  loveliness  with 
the  swards  and  gardens  lying  about  the  home  of  the 
Oneida  family,  as  these  things  arrest  the  eyes  of  a 
stranger  coming  upon  them  from  the  rough  fields 
even  of  the  settled  region  of  New  York. 

The  home,  which  stands  on  a  rising  knoll  command- 
ing some  pretty  views,  is  remarkable  without  and 
within  ;  for  among    the  laws  which  the  Biljle  Com- 

88* 


390  NEW  A  ME  BIG  A. 

munists  have  put  behind  them  are  tlie  seven  orders  of 
architecture.  The  builder  of  this  pile  is  James 
Hamilton,  once  a  New  England  farmer,  carpenter, 
what  not,  as  a  Xew  Englander  is  apt  to  be ;  a  man  of 
sense  and  tact,  not  much  of  a  scholar,  not  at  all  an 
orator,  but  a  person  of  some  natural  gifts,  which  fit 
him  to  be  a  ruler  and  contriver  in  the  midst  of  inferior 
men.  He  is  the  head  of  this  Oneida  family,  just  as 
Noyes  is  the  head  of  all  the  Perfectionist  families  ;  and 
being  master  of  the  house,  so  to  speak,  he  is  also 
builder  of  the  house  ;  though  he  claims  that  everything 
in  it,  from  the  position  of  a  fireplace  to  the  furnishing 
of  a  library,  is  the  result  of  a  sjDecial  sign  from  heaven. 
I  vaaj  add,  without  ofi:ence,  that  Brother  Hamilton 
was  open  to  new  lights,  even  when  they  flashed  from 
a  Gentile  brain ;  most  of  all  to  those  of  my  fellow- 
traveller,  William  Haywood,  architect  and  engineer. 

In  the  centre  of  the  pile,  approached  by  a  w^ide 
passage  and  a  flight  of  stairs,  is  the  great  hall ;  a  chapel, 
a  theatre,  a  concert  room,  a  casino,  a  working-place, 
all  in  one ;  being  supplied  with  benches,  lounging- 
cbairs,  work-tables,  a*reading-desk,  a  stage,  a  gallery, 
a  pianoforte.  In  this  hall  the  sisters  play  and  sew,  the 
elders  preach,  the  librarian  (Brother  Pitt)  reads  the 
news,  the  young  men  and  maidens  make  love  —  sg 
far  as  such  a  Gentile  art  is  allowed  to  live  in  this 
curious  place.  Near  the  great  hall  is  the  drawing- 
room,  properly  the  ladies'  room;  and  around  this 
chamber  stand  the  sleeping-apartments  of  the  family 
and  its  guests.  Beneath  this  floor,  on  either  side  of 
the  wide  passage,  are  the  oflices,  together  with  a  re- 
ception room,  a  library,  a  place  of  business.  Kitchen, 
refectory,  fruit-cellar,  laundr}-,  are  in  separate  buildings. 
The  store  is  in  front  of  the  home,  divided  from  it  by 
a  lawn  ;  and  farther  away,  peeping  prettily  through 


ONEIDA   GREEK.  801 

tlie  green  trees,  stand  the  mills,  farms,  stables,  cow- 
sheds, presses,  and  general  workshops.  The  estate  is 
abont  six  hundred  acres  in  extent;  the  Family  gathered 
under  one  roof  number  about  three  hundred.  Eveiy- 
thing  at  Oneida  Creek  suggests  taste,  repose,  and 
wealth ;  and  the  account-books  prove  that  during  the 
past  seven  or  eight  years  the  Family  have  been  making 
a  good  deal  of  money,  which  they  have  usefully  laid 
out,  either  in  the  erection  of  new  mills,  or  in  draining 
and  enriching  the  soil. 

The  men  afiect  no  particular  garb  ;  though  the  loose 
coat,  the  wide-awake,  and  peg-top  breeches,  common 
in  every  part  of  rural  America,  make  up  their  ordinary 
wear.  They  have  no  dress  for  Sunday's  and  holidaj^s  ; 
having  abolished  Sundays  and  holidays  along  with 
every  other  human  institution.  But  they  are  open  to 
new  lights  on  dress,  saying  that  the  last  thing  has  not 
yet  been  done  in  the  way  of  hats  and  boots.  At  one 
of  their  evening  meetings,  I  heard  Brother  Pitt,  a 
well-read  man,  deliver  his  testimony  in  favor  of  peg- 
tops.  The  ladies  wear  a  dress  which  is  peculiar,  and 
to  my  eyes  becoming.  It  may  be  made  of  any  mate- 
rial and  of  any  color ;  though  brown  and  blue  for  out- 
door wear,  white  for  evening  in  the  meeting-room,  are 
the  prevailing  tints.  Muslin,  cotton,  and  a  coarse  silk, 
supply  the  materials.  The  hair  is  cut  short,  and  parted 
down  the  centre.  No  stays,  no  crinolines,  are  worn. 
A  tunic  falling  to  the  knee,  loose  trousers  of  the  same 
material,  a  vest  buttoning  high  towards  the  throat, 
short  hanging  sleeves,  and  a  straw  hat ;  these  simple 
articles  make  up  a  dress  in  which  a  plain  woman 
escapes  much  notice,  and  a  pretty  girl  looks  bewitch- 
ing. I  am  told  that  it  is  no  part  of  Noyes'  design  that 
the  young  ladies  of  his  family  should  look  bewitching; 
for  such  is   not  his  theory  of  a  modest   and  moral 


392  NEW  AMERICA. 

woman's  life ;  but  for  1113-  own  poor  self,  being  only  a 
Gentile  and  a  sinner,  I  could  not  help  seeing  that  many 
of  his  young  disciples  have  been  gifted  with  rare 
beauty,  and  that  two  of  the  singing-girls,  Alice  Ack- 
ley  and  Harriet  Worden,  have  a  grace  and  suppleness 
of  form,  as  well  as  loveliness  of  face  and  hand,  to  warm 
a  painter's  heart. 

So  much  of  the  Oneida  Community  you  may  see  in 
a  few  hours,  if  you  simply  wander  about  the  place, 
with  Brother  Bolls,  a  gentleman  who  for  twenty -five 
years  has  been  a  Baptist  preacher  in  Massachusetts, 
and  who  is  now  a  Perfectionist  brother  in  Oneida,  with 
this  special  duty  of  receiving  ordinary  strangers.  You 
see  a  fine  house,  a  noble  lawn,  a  green  shrubbery,  or- 
chards shining  with  apple-trees,  pear-trees,  plum-trees, 
cherry-trees,  prolific  vineyards,  excellent  farms,  busy 
workshops,  grazing  cattle,  whizzing  mills,  and  grind- 
ing saws, — peace,  order,  beauty,  and  material  wealth; 
and  these  are  what  the  picnic  visitors,  who  come  in 
thousands  to  stare  in  wonder,  to  hear  good  music,  to 
eat  squash  and  pastr}^,  always  see.  They  are  some- 
thing ;  signs  of  life,  but  not  the  life  itself.  The  secrets 
of  this  strange  success,  the  foundations  on  which  this 
community  rests,  the  social  features  which  sustain  it, 
are  of  deeper  interest  than  the  fact  itself;  and  these 
mysteries  of  the  Society  are  not  explained  to  picnic 
parties  by  Brother  Bolls. 

It  is  well  known  that  all  the  Communistic  trials 
which  have  been  made  in  England,  Germany,  and 
America,  from  Rapp's  Harmony,  and  Owen's  i^ew 
Harmony,  down  to  Cabet's  Icaria,  have  been  failures. 
Men  with  brains,  women  with  hearts,  have  often  turned 
fi'om  what  they  deem  the  evils  of  competition  to  what 
they  hope  may  prove  the  saving  principles  of  associa- 
tion ;  but  no  bodv  of  such  reformers,  with  the  sole 


ONEIDA    CREEK.  393 

exception  of  your  wifeless  followers  of  Ann  Lee,  liave 
ever  yet  been  able  to  work  an  association  in  which 
they  held  a  community  of  goods.  Each  failure  may 
have  had  its  own  history,  its  own  explanation,  showing 
how  near  it  came  to  success ;  but  the  fact  of  failure 
cannot  be  denied.  The  Socialists  had  to  quit  New 
Lanark ;  the  Rappists  had  to  sell  Harmon}- ;  the  Ica- 
rians  have  been  swept  from  Nauvoo.  Liberty,  equalit}-, 
fraternity,  have  not  hitherto  paid  their  weekly  bills ; 
and  a  society  that  does  not  pay  its  expenses,  must,  in 
the  long  run,  go  to  the  wall,  even  though  it  should,  in 
other  respects,  reproduce  the  image  of  paradise  on  the 
earth.  Man  may  not  sit  all  day  under  a  palm  -tree, 
munching  his  creel  of  dates,  and  feeling  at  peace  with 
heaven  and  earth.  Want  prods  him  forward  ;  and  he 
has  no  choice  but  one  of  the  two  evils  —  either  to  work 
or  die.  Each  trial  and  failure  of  association  puts  the 
principle  into  peril.  See  what  you  come  to,  laughs 
the  Sadducee,  happy  in  his  broad  lands,  his  mansions, 
gardens,  vineyards,  wdien  you  disturb  the  order  of 
time,  of  nature,  and  of  Providence!  You  come  to 
waste,  to  beggary,  and  death.  Competition,  which  is 
the  soul  of  trade,  for  ever!  and  blessed  be  heaven, 
wdiich  fights  on  the  side  of  the  great  capitalists! 

If  the  theory  of  mutual  help,  as  against  that  of 
self-help,  be  the  true  principle  of  social  life,  as  so 
many  men  say,  so  many  women  feel,  wdiy  have  nearly 
all  the  attempts  to  live  by  it,  and  under  it,  ended  in 
disaster  ? 

"  I  tell  you,"  said  Brother  Noyes  to  me  this  morn- 
ing, "they  have  all  failed  because  they  were  not 
founded  on  Bible  truth.  Religion  is  at  the  root  of 
life;  and  a  safe  social  theory  must  always  express  a 
religious  truth.  Now  there  are  four  stages  in  the  true 
organization    of    a   family:     (1)    Reconciliation   with 


304  N^W  AMERICA. 

God  ;  (2)  Salvation  from  sin  ;  (3)  Brotherhood  of  man 
and  woman ;  (4)  Community  of  labor  and  of  its 
fruits.  Owen,  Ripley,  Fourier,  Cabet,  began  at  the 
third  and  fourth  stages ;  they  left  God  out  of  their 
tale,  and  they  came  to  nothing." 

Noyes  makes  no  secret  of  his  opinion  that  he  has 
contrived,  by  the  Divine  favor,  a  new  and  perfect 
system  of  society ;  that  he  has  already  established,  by 
trial,  the  chief  principles  of  the  new  domestic  order; 
and  that  it  only  remains  for  the  communities  of  Oneida, 
Wallingford,  and  Brooklyn,  to  work  out  a  few  details, 
in  order  to  its  universal  adoption  in  the  United  States. 
If  the  reader  cares  to  hear  how  this  man — who  has 
done  so  much  in  America,  and  of  whom  so  little  is 
known  in  England  —  came  to  think  as  he  does  on  the 
religious  aspects  and  bearings  of  domestic  life  —  I  will 
put  before  him,  as  openly  as  a  layman  dare,  the  results 
of  my  inquiries  at  Oneida  Creek. 


CHAPTER  LIV. 

HOLINESS. 


"  While  he  was  yet  living  at  Putney,  in  Vermont, 
as  a  lawyer's  clerk,  ISToyes  was  struck  by  that  fierce 
revival  of  '31,  which  wrecked  so  many  New  England 
barks,  Noyes  is  said  to  have  suddenly  grown  grave 
and  moody ;  all  his  lights  appear  to  have  gone  out, 
leaving  him  ^n  the  dark  night,  amidst  howling  storms, 
against  which  his  puny  strength  of  intellect  could 
make  no  head.     Turning  his  gaze  inwards,  he  became, 


HOLINESS.  395 

as  lie  told  me,  conscions  of  sin  and  death.  How  could 
he  free  himself  from  these  evils  ?  Feeling  the  world 
and  the  devil  strong  within  him,  he  abandoned  law, 
taking  np  with  the  older  science  of  theology.  While 
studying  in  his  new  course  at  Andover,  he  fell  into 
many  temptations,  ate  and  drank  freely,  and  gave  way 
to  many  other  seductions  of  the  flesh.  The  young 
divines,  his  fellow-students  in  the  college,  were  a  bad 
set,  who  laughed  at  revival  energies,  and  sneered  at 
the  religious  world,  Noyes  thought  he  would  go  away 
from  Andover;  seeking  the  Lord  elsewhere,  and  on 
opening  the  Bible,  his  eye  fell  upon  the  conclusive 
text,  "He  is  not  here!"  With  this  Avarning  from 
Heaven  before  his  eyes,  he  went  away  from  Andover 
to  Yale  College,  at  Newhaven,  where  he  became  a 
great  seeker  after  truth  —  not  of  the  truth  as  it  stands 
between  God  and  man  only,  but  of  the  truth  as 
between  man  and  man.  In  the  midst  of  dreams  as 
wild  (I  infer)  as  ever  visited  the  brain  of  an  Arab, 
there  was  always  about  l^oyes  a  practical  American  view 
of  things.  He  felt  that  the  Divine  plan  must  be  perfect ; 
that  if  he  could  read  that  plan,  he  would  find  in  it  an 
Order  of  the  Earth,  no  less  than  an  Order  of  PJeaven. 
What  is  that  Order  of  the  Earth  ?  Not  the  Pagan  law 
under  which  we  live.  He  turned  for  light  to  the 
written  word.  In  the  Bible,  he  says,  he  sought  for 
that  rule  of  life  which  the  schools  could  not  teach 
him.  Pondering  the  words  of  the  gospel,  and  conning 
by  himself  the  writings  of  Paul,  he  found  in  these 
original  documents  of  the  Church  a  comfort  which  the 
preachers  of  Newhaven  had  not  proved  to  his  soul 
that  they  held  in  gift.  Paul  spoke  to  his  heart ;  but 
in  a  sense,  as  he  asserts,  quite  foreign  to  that  in  which 
the  apostle  had  been  understood  at  Antioch  and 
Rome. 


306  NEW  AMERICA. 

Much  reading  of  Paul's  epistles  led  him  to  believe 
that  the  Christian  faith,  as  it  appears  in  the  Churches 
of  Europe  and  America,  even  in  those  which  style 
themselves  Reformed,  is  a  huge  historical  mistake. 
There  is  no  visible  Church  of  Christ  on  earth.  The 
Church  of  Paul  and  Peter  was  the  true  one ;  a  com- 
munity of  brothers,  of  equals,  of  saints  ;  but  it  passed 
away  at  an  early  date,  our  Lord  having  returned  in 
the  Spirit,  as  He  had  promised,  to  dwell  among  His 
people  evermore.  On  this  second  advent,  !N"oyes  says 
that  our  Lord  abolished  the  old  law;  closing  the 
empire  of  Adam,  cleansing  His  children  from  their 
sin,  and  setting  up  His  kingdom  in  the  hearts  of  all 
who  would  accept  His  reign.  Noyes  fixes  this  spiritual 
advent  in  the  year  70,  immediately  after  the  fall  of 
Jerusalem  ;  since  which  date,  he  says,  there  have  been 
one  true  Church,  and  many  false  churches,  having 
His  name; — a  Church  of  His  saints,  men  sinless  in 
body  and  in  soul ;  confessing  Him  as  their  prince ; 
taking  upon  them  a  charge  of  holiness;  rejecting  law 
and  usage,  and  submitting  their  passions  to  His  will; 
and,  churches  of  the  world,  built  up  in  man's  art  and 
pride,  with  thrones  and  societies,  prelates  and  cardi- 
nals, and  popes ;  churches  of  the  screw,  the  fagot, 
and  the  rack,  having  their  forms  and  oaths,  their 
hatreds  and  divisions,  their  anathemas,  celibacies  and 
excommunications.  The  devil,  says  ISToyes,  began  his 
reign  on  the  very  same  day  with  Christ,  and  the 
official  churches  of  Greece  and  Rome,  together  with 
their  half-reformed  brethren  in  England  and  America, 
are  the  capital  provinces  of  the  devil's  empire.  The 
kingdoms  of  the  earth  are  Satan's :  yet  the  Perfect 
Society,  founded  by  Paul,  into  which  Christ  descended 
as  a  living  spirit,  never  quite  perished  from  out  of 
men's   hearts,    but,  by   the   grace   of    God,   kept    an 


HOLINESS.  397 

abiding  witness  for  itself,  until  the  time  should  come 
for  reviving  the  apostolic  faith  and  practice,  not  in  a 
corrupted  Europe,  a  worn-out  Asia,  but  in  the  fresh 
and  green  communities  of  the  United  States.  Some 
high  and  vestal  natures  kept  the  flame  alive.  The 
day  for  this  true  Church  came.  Faith,  banished  from 
the  busy  crowd,  returned  to  the  young  seekers  after 
truth  at  Yale;  and  the  family  of  Christ,  after  being 
corrupted  in  Antioch,  persecuted  in  Rome,  and  cari- 
catured in  London,  is  now  re-funded  at  Wallingford, 
Brooklyn,  and  Oneida  Creek! 

In  this  new  American  sect, — a  church  as  well  as  a 
school, —  the  rule  of  faith  and  the  rule  of  life  are 
equally  plain.  The  Perfectionist  has  a  right  to  do 
what  he  likes.  Of  course  he  wall  tell  you  (as  my  host 
at  Oneida  tells  me)  that  from  the  nature  of  the  case 
he  can  do  notliing  but  what  is  good.  The  Holy 
Spirit  sustains  and  guards  him.  Some  may  go  wrong 
through  the  old  Adam  being  fierce  within  them;  but  a 
few  exceptions  do  not  kill  an  eternal  truth.  "We  hold 
that  a  king  can  do  no  wrong,  though  a  good  deal  of 
scandal,  tempered  by  daggers  and  actresses,  may  af- 
flict our  royal  and  imperial  courts.  A  Perfectionist 
knows  no  law ;  neither  that  pronounced  from  Sinai, 
and  repeated  from  Gerizim,  nor  that  which  is  admin- 
istered in  Washino;ton  and  New  York.  He  does  not 
live  under  law%  but  under  God:  that  is  to  say,  under 
what  his  own  mind  prompts  him  to  do,  as  being  right. 
The  Lord  has  made  him  free.  To  him,  the  word  is 
nothing:  its  force  having  been  wholly  spent  for  him 
at  the  Second  Coming.  No  commandment  in  the 
Ten,  no  statute  on  the  rolls,  is  binding  upon  him,  —  a 
child  of  grace,  delivered  from  the  power  of  the  law, 
and  from  the  stain  of  sin.     Laws  are  for  sinners  —  he 

34 


398  ^^W  AMERICA. 

is   a   saint;   other  men   fall    into   temptation — he   is 
sealed  and  reclaimed  by  the  Holy  Ghost. 

This  frame  of  mind,  which  is  not  unlikely  to  look 
like  rebellion  in  the  eyes  of  a  Gentile,  is  called  by  the 
Bible  Communists,  a  state  of  submission.  In  this 
world  you  can  only  choose  whom  you  will  serve. 
You  cannot  have  two  masters,  —  God  and  Mammon. 
Earth  is  not  perfect ;  Christ  is  Perfect.  In  confessing 
Christ,  you  give  up  the  world,  yielding  it  bodily,  thor- 
oughly, and  forever.  Xo  half  measure  will  suffice  to 
save  you ;  and  the  whole  tendency  of  American 
thought  (before  the  War)  being  in  favor  of  individ- 
uals as  against  institutions,  no  one  felt  much  surprised 
on  hearing  that  Xoyes  and  his  adherents  had  made  a 
formal  renunciation  of  their  duty  to  the  United  States. 
Others  had  done  the  same  thing  before  him;  Shakers, 
Tunkers,  Mormons,  Socialists,  Icarians,  and  many 
more.  In  fact,  not  a  few  Americans  of  the  higher 
class  had  come  to  regard  the  State  as  a  kind  of  politi- 
cal club,  from  which  they  might  withdraw  at  pleasure; 
but  the  Perfectionist  went  far  beyond  the  Socialist, 
the  Shaker,  and  the  Mormon,  in  his  renunciation,  for 
he  rejected  the  law  of  God  as  well  as  the  laws  of  men; 
the  civil  code,  the  statutes  at  large,  the  canons  and  de- 
grees, the  Ten  Commandments,  the  Lord's  Prayer,  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount ;  all  his  old  voluntary  and  in- 
voluntary rules,  from  his  temperance  pledge  to  his 
marriage  vows.  Il^othing  of  the  old  man,  the  old  cit- 
izen, was  left  to  him.  He  denied  the  churches,  he 
renounced  his  obligations,  he  defied  the  magistrates 
and  the  police.  In  his  obedience  to  God,  he  cast  away 
all  the  safeguards  invented  by  man.  ISToyes  had  been 
a  teetotaller;  on  assuming  holiness,  he  began  to  drink 
ardent  spirits.  He  had  been  temperate  as  a  Brah- 
man ;  he  now  indulged  his  palate  with  highly-spiced 


HOLINESS.  399 

meats.  lie  had  been  chaste  in  his  habits,  regular  in 
his  hours  of  sleep ;  he  now  began  to  stay  out  all 
night,  to  wander  about  the  quays,  to  lie  in  doorways, 
to  visit  infamous  houses,  to  consort  with  courtesans 
and  thieves.  In  defending  himself  against  men  who 
cannot  reconcile  such  a  mode  of  living  with  the  pro- 
fession of  holiness,  jSToyes  asserts  that  he  had  given 
himself  up  to  temptation,  but  the  power  in  which  he 
trusted  for  protection  had  been  strong  enough  to  save 
him.  He  had  drunk,  and  gorged,  and  wantoned  with 
the  flesh,  in  order  to  escape  from  the  bonds  of  sys- 
tem. As  he  puts  the  matter  to  himself,  he  said, 
"  Can  I  trust  God  for  morality  ?  Can  I  trufet  my 
passions,  desires^  propensities,  everything  within  me 
which  has  hitherto  been  governed  by  worldly  rules 
and  my  own  volition,  to  the  paramount  mercy  of 
God's  Spirit?"  He  answered  to  himself  that  he 
could  and  would  put  his  faith,  his  conduct,  his  sal- 
vation, in  the  keeping  of  the  Holy  Ghost;  and  in 
this  confidence,  he  saj's,  he  walked  through  the  house 
of  sin  untouched,  as  the  Hebrew  children  stood  un- 
scathed in  the  midst  of  fire. 

But  how,  it  may  be  asked,  does  a  man  arrive  at  this 
stage  of  grace  ?  N'othing  (if  I  understand  it)  is  more 
easy.  You  have  only  to  wish  it,  and  the  thing  is 
done.  Good  works  are  not  necessary,  prayers  are  not 
desirable;  nothing  serves  a  man  but  faith.  You  stand 
up  in  public,  by  the  side  of  some  brother  in  the  Lord, 
and  take  upon  yourself  a  profession  of  Christ.  You 
say,  3'ou  are  freed  from  the  power  of  sin,  and  the  stain 
is  suddenly  washed  from  your  soul.  In  this  American 
creed,  facts  would  appear  to  lie  in  wait  for  words,  and 
all  that  is  said  is  apparently  also  done.  "  He  stood 
up  and  confessed  Holiness,"  —  such  is  the  form  of  an- 
nouncing that  a  lamb  has  been  brought  into  the  fold 
of  IS'oyes. 


400  NEW  A3IERIGA. 

When  Noyes  began  to  preach  his  doctrine,  some 
years  ago,  the  spirit  of  separation  was  alive  and  active 
in  every  part  of  Ncav  Enghand ;  for  many  persons 
thought  that  the  only  hope  of  staj-ing  this  impetus  of 
the  American  mind  towards  social  chaos  lay  in  the 
principles  of  association  then  being  tested  in  such 
experiments  as  Mount  Lebanon,  New  Harmony,  and 
Brook  Farm.  In-  such  a  state  of  confusion,  it  is  no 
marvel  that  ISToyes  should  have  failed  to  see  that  his 
theory  of  Individual  Action,  as  he  first  conceived  it, 
could  not  work.  A  man  may  be  a  law  to  himself; 
but  how  can  he  be  a  law  to  another  man,  who  is  also 
bound  to  be-  a  law  to  himself?  Noyes  may  receive 
from  his  own  conscience  a  guiding  light;  and  Hamilton 
may  receive  from  his  own  conscience  a  guiding  light; 
each  may  be  sufficient  for  its  purpose ;  but  how  can 
Noyes'  light  become  a  rule  for  Hamilton,  Hamilton's 
for  Noyes',  unless  by  a  bargain  between  the  two  ?  If 
they  could  not  make  such  a  bargain,  they  must  dwell 
apart;  if  they  could  compromise  the  aftair  as  to  these 
two  lights,  they  came  under  law.  From  this  alterna- 
tive they  have  no  escape :  on  one  side  chaos,  on  the 
other  law. 

Noyes  found  himself  in  trouble  the  day  he  began 
to  live  with  his  male  and  female  disciples  according 
to  their  notions  of  celestial  order — not  under  law, 
but  under  grace ;  and  before  the  community  could 
exist  as  a  fact,  a  second  principle  had  to  be  intro- 
duced. 

This  second  principle  is  called  Sympathy;  and  the 
office  which  it  holds  in  the  Family  is  very  much  like 
that  which  the  world  assigns  to  Public  Opinion.  Sym- 
pathy corrects  the  individual  will,  and  reconciles  nature 
with  obedience,  liberty  with  light. 

Thus  a  brother  may  do  anything  he  likes :  but  he  is 


HOLINESS.  JOl 

trained  to  do  everything  in  sympathy  with  tlie  gciu'ral 
wish.  If  the  public  judgment  is  against  him,  lie  is 
wrong  —  that  is  to  say,  he  is  going  away  from  tlie 
path  of  grace ;  and  his  only  chance  of  happiness  lies 
in  going  back  to  what  is  most  agreeable  to  the  common 
mind.  The  Family  is  supposed  to  be  always  wiser 
than  the  unit. 

A  man  who  wants  anj'thing  for  himself —  say,  a  new 
hat,  a  holiday,  a  young  damsel's  smiles  —  must  consult 
with  one  of  the  Elders  and  see  how  the  brotherhood 
feels  on  the  subject  of  his  wish.  If  their  sympathy  is 
not  with  him,  he  retires  from  his  suit.  When  the 
matter  is  of  moment,  he  seeks  the  advice  of  a  com- 
mittee of  Elders,  who  may  choose  to  refer  it  to  the 
Family  in  their  evening  sittings. 

It  was  long  before  this  second  great  principle  was 
introduced  as  a  ruling  power,  and  until  it  was  intro- 
duced, the  community  of  Perfect  Saints  had  little  of 
what  the  world  would  call  success. 

34* 


402  NEW  AMERICA. 


CHAPTER  LV. 

A    BIBLE    FAMILY. 

While  Noyes  was  still  a  preacher  of  Holiness,  going 
about  among  the  churches,  he  made  converts  of 
Abigail  Mervin  (a  woman  was  necessary  to  him,  and 
Abigail  was  a  female  disciple  of  whom  he  might  feel 
proud)  and  James  Boyle  ;  and  these  two  early  follow- 
ers were  the  first  apostates  from  his  creed.  Abigail 
seems  to  have  expected  an  ofler  of  marriage ;  Boyle 
had  hopes  of  being  elected  pope  ;  but  neither  of  these 
pretensions  suited  i«[oyes,  who  felt  averse  to  wedlock, 
and  meant  to  be  pope  himself.  They  were  only  the 
first  seceders ;  for  as  time  wore  on,  and  the  true  prin- 
ciple of  Holiness  was  understood  among  his  people, 
the  units  fell  away  from  the  mass.  Each  man  was  a 
law  to  himself;  the  spirit  operated  in  single  minds; 
and  out  of  many  independent  members  it  was  impos- 
sible to  found  a  church.  No  one  would  concede,  no 
one  obey,  no  one  unite.  At  the  end  of  four  years' 
labor,  Noyes  stood  alone ;  all  his  beloved  disciples 
having  gone  their  way ;  some  into  the  world,  others 
into  heresies,  many  into  older  sects,  from  which  they 
had  been  drawn  by  him.  The  press  had  opened  fire 
upon  them.  JSToyes  had  been  denounced  as  crazy ;  a, 
charge  to  which  his  conduct  and  preaching  oftentimes 
exposed  him.  There  were  still  Perfectionists,  but 
Noyes  was  not  their  pope. 

Taught  by  painful  trials  that  ropes  cannot  be  spun 
out  of  sand,  he  turned,  as  so  many  others  were  at  that 
time  turning,  to  the  principle  of  association  —  with 
him  it  must  be  Bible  Association  —  for  a  future.     Cast 


A   BIBLE  FAMILY.  403 

adrift  from  his  old  friends  of  New  Haven,  he  went 
back  to  his  father's  house  at  Putney,  in  Vermont, 
where  he  had  been  first  awakened  into  spiritual  life, 
and  there  he  began  his  work  of  converting  the  world 
afresh,  by  founding  a  Bible  class,  and  teaching  a  few 
simple  and  rustic  persons  the  way  of  grace.  Some 
listened  to  his  words  ;  for  never,  perhaps,  since  the 
days  of  Herod  the  Great",  certainly  not  since  the  years 
preceding  the  English  Civil  War,  had  any  people  ever 
found  itself  in  a  moral  chaos  so  strange  as  that  which 
prevailed  in  the  United  States.  Abigail  Mervin  had 
declared,  on  quitting  the  sect,  that  their  gospel  freedom 
ran  into  indecency.  The  same  thing  had  been  said 
in  the  streets  of  Jerusalem  and  in  the  streets  of 
London  ;  but  while  the  Gentiles  of  New  York  laughed 
at  these  stories,  the  believers  waxed  in  zeal.  What 
were  the  world  and  its  ways  to  them  ?  The  Putney 
class  grew  strong  in  purpose,  if  not  in  numbers  ;  for 
ISToyes  having  come  to  see  that  quality  of  converts, 
rather  than  quantity,  was  of  moment  to  him,  now 
bent  the  force  of  his  genius,  which  was  great  and  ori- 
ginal, upon  the  dozen  hearers  whom  his  voice  had 
called  together  in  his  native  town ;  until  he  could 
transform  the  Bible  class  into  a  Bible  Pamily ;  in 
other  words,  until  he  had  made  them  ready  in  soul 
and  body  for  the  great  experiments  of  dwelling  in  one 
house,  free  from  the  trammels,  everywhere  else  en- 
dured, of  living  under  law. 

To  lodge  a  family  of  converts  under  one  roof,  the 
teacher  required  a  large  house.  A  large  house,  even 
in  Vermont,  where  the  dwellings  are  built  of  wood, 
costs  money,  and  Noyes  was  poor.  His  life  had  been 
that  of  a  wanderer  to  and  fro  ;  resting-place  he  had 
none  ;  and  the  shepherd,  like  his  sheep,  was  without 
shelter  from  the  storm.     Among  his  disciples  in  Ver- 


404  NEW  AMERICA. 

mont  there  was  one  young  lady  of  good  family,  with 
present  means  and  some  expectations ;  such  a  young 
lady  would  be  a  blessing  to  him  in  eveiy  way,  if  he 
could  only  obtain  her  as  a  wife  ;  but  then  his  principles 
stood  in  the  way.  Marriage  being  utterly  against  his 
doctrine  of  the  true  gospel  life,  how  was  he  to  get  her 
person  and  her  money  into  his  power  ?  Of  course,  he 
could  not  offer  his  hand  and  his  heart  in  the  usual 
waj'^,  since  she  had  heard  him  declaim  against  wedlock 
as  the  sign  of  a  degenerate  state.  In  fact,  if  he  pro- 
posed to  her  at  all,  — and  his  need  for"  her  dollars  was 
very  sore,  — he  would  be  compelled  fo  say  that  he 
should  not  expect  her  to  be  true  to  him  only,  and 
that  he  would  certainly  not  engage  to  be  true  to  her. 
But  Harriet's  position  was  out  of  the  common  way. 
She  had  no  father,  no  mother,  no  brother,  no  sister.  Her 
only  kinsman  was  an  aged  and  foolish  grandfather. 
She  had  been  in  love  with  a  young  man  wlio  wished  to 
marry  her,  but  the  old  man  had  interfered  to  prevent 
him  ;  on  which  the  girl  had  fallen  sick,  and  in  a  fit  of 
remorse  her  grandfather  had  sworn  an  oath  that  in 
future  she  should  do  as  she  pleased,  and  he  would 
willingly  abide  her  wishes.  Thus,  a  way  had  been 
opened,  as  it  were,  for  Xoyes  to  come  in.  with  his 
proposal,  which  conveyed  to  her  an  offer  of  his  hand 
in  the  following  words  (a  copy  of  which  has  been 
given  to  me  by  himself) :  — 

From  J.  H.  Noyes,  to  Miss  H.  A.  Hotton. 

Putney,  June  11,  1838. 

Beloved  Sister,  —  After  a  deliberation  of  more 
than  a  year,  in  patient  waiting,  and  watching  for  indi- 
cations of  the  Lord's  will,  I  am  now  permitted — and 
indeed   happily  constrained  —  by   a   combination    of 


A   BIBLE  FAMILY.  405 

favorable  circumstances  to  propose  to  you  a  partnership 
which  I  will  not  call  marriage  till  I  have  defined  it. 

As  believers,  we  are  already  one  with  each  other, 
and  with  all  saints.  This  primary  and  universal  union 
is  more  radical,  and  of  course  more  important,  than 
any  partial  and  external  partnership ;  and,  with  refer- 
ence to  this,  it  is  said,  "there  is  neither  male  or 
female,"  neither  marrying  nor  giving  in  marriage,  in 
heaven.  With  this  in  view,  we  can  enter  into  no 
engagements  with  each  other,  which  shall  limit  the 
range  of  our  affections,  as  they  are  limited  in  matri- 
monial engagements,  by  the  fashion  of  this  world.  I 
desire  and  expect  my  yoke-fellow  will  love  all  who 
love  God,  whether  the}^  be  male  or  female,  with  a 
warmth  and  strength  of  affection  unknown  to  earthly 
lovers,  and  as  freely  as  if  she  stood  in  no  particular 
connection  with  me.  In  fact,  the  object  of  my  con- 
nection with  her  will  be,  not  to  monopolize  and  en- 
slave her  heart  or  my  own,  but  to  enlarge  and  establish 
both  in  the  free  fellowship  of  God's  universal  family. 
If  the  external  union  and  companionship  of  a  man  and 
woman  in  accordance  with  these  principles  is  properly 
called  marriage,  I  know  that  marriage  exists  in  heaven, 
and  I  have  no  scruple  in  offering  you  my  heart  and 
hand,  with  an  engagement  to  be  married  in  due  form, 
as  soon  as  God  shall  permit. 

At  first  I  designed  to  set  before  you  many  weighty 
reasons  for  this  proposal ;  but,  upon  second  thought, 
I  prefer  the  attitude  of  a  witness  to  that  of  an  advo- 
cate, and  shall  therefore  only  suggest,  briefly,  a  few 
matter-of-fact  considerations,  leaving  the  advocacy 
of  the  case  to  God  —  the  customary  persuasions  and 
romance  to  your  own  imagination — and  more  par- 
ticular explanations  to  a  personal  interview. 

1.  In  the  plain  speech  of  a  witness,  not  of  a  flatterer, 


40G  NEW  AMERICA. 

I  respect  and  love  you  for  many  desirable  qualities, 
spiritual,  intellectual,  moral,  and  persona]  ;  and  espe- 
ciall}'  for  3'our  faith,  kindness,  simplicity,  and  modesty. 

2.  I  am  confident  that  the  partnership  I  propose 
will  greatly  promote  our  mutual  happiness  and  im- 
provement. 

3.  It  will  also  set  us  free,  at  least  myself,  from  much 
reproach,  and  many  evil  surmisings,  which  are  occa- 
sioned by  celibacy  in  present  circumstances. 

4.  It  will  enlarge  our  sphere  and  increase  our  means 
of  usefulness  to  the  people  of  God. 

5.  I  am  willing,  at  this  parti<?ular  time,  to  testify  by 
example  that  I  am  a  follower  of  Paul,  in  holding  that 
"marriage  is  honorable  in  all." 

6.  I  am  also  willing  to  testify  practically  against 
that  "bondage  of  liberty"  which  utterly  sets  at  naught 
the  ordinances  of  men,  and  refuses  to  submit  to  them 
even  for  the  Lord's  sake.  I  know  that  the  immortal 
union  of  hearts  —  everlasting  honey-moon,  which  alone 
is  worthy  to  be  called  marriage,  can  never  be  made  by 
a  ceremony,  and  I  know  equally  well  that  such  a  mar- 
riage can  never  be  marred  by  a  ceremony.  You  are 
aware  that  I  have  no  profession  save  that  of  a  servant 
of  God — a  profession  which  has  thus  far  subjected  me 
to  many  vicissitudes,  and  has  given  me  but  little  of 
this  world's  prosperity.  If  you  judge  me  by  the  out- 
ward appearance,  or  the  future  by  the  past,  you  will 
naturally  find,  in  the  irregularity  and  seeming  insta- 
bility of  my  character  and  fortune,  many  objections  to 
a  partnership.  Of  this  I  will  only  say,  that  I  am  con- 
scious of  possessing,  by  the  grace  of  God,  a  spirit  of 
firmness,  perseverance,  and  faithfulness  in  every  good 
work,  which  has  made  the  vagabond,  incoherent  ser- 
vice to  which  I  have  thus  far  been  called,  almost 
intolerable  to  me;  and  I  shall  welcome  heaven's  order 


A   BIBLE   FAMILY.  407 

for  my  release  from  it  as  an  exile  after  seven  years' 
pilgrimage  Avould  welcome  the  sight  of  his  home.  I 
see  now  no  reason  why  I  should  not  have  a  "certain 
dwelling-place,"  and  enter  upon  a  course  which  is 
consistent  with  the  duties  of  domestic  life.  Perhaps 
your  reply  to  this  will  he  the  voice  saying  to  me, — 

"  Watchman,  let  thy  wanderinj^s  cease  ; 
llie  thee  to  thy  quiet  home." 

Yours  in  the  Lord, 

J.  H.  JSTOYES. 

Harriet,  left  to  herself,  answered  as  the  preacher 
wished.  In  a  few  days  they  were  united  ;  and  Noyes 
expended  her  seven  thousand  dollars  in  huilding  a 
house  and  a  printing-office,  in  buying  presses  and  types, 
and  in  starting  a  newspaper.  So  long  as  the  old  man 
lived,  he  supplied  them  with  money  to  live  on ;  when 
he  died,  Brother  Noyes  came  in  for  nine  thousand 
dollars  in  one  lump.  He  makes  no  secret  of  the  fact 
that  he  married  Harriet  for  her  money ;  to  use  his  own 
words,  she  was  given  to  him  as  his  reward  for  preach- 
ing the  Truth. 

The  first  family  gathered  into  celestial  order  at  Put- 
ney included  the  Prophet's  wife,  his  mother,  his  sister, 
and  his  brother;  all  of  whom  have  remained  true  to 
his  theory  of  domestic  life.  His  mother  died  only  a 
few  days  before  ray  arrival  at  Oneida  Creek ;  an  aged 
lady,  who  went  to  her  rest  (I  am  told)  confident  that 
the  system  introduced  by  her  son  is  the  only  true  and 
perfect  society  of  Christian  men  and  women  on  the 
earth. 

These  persons,  with  a  few  preachers,  farmers,  doc- 
tors, and  their  wives  and  daughters,  all  men  of  means, 
character,  and  position,  went  to  live  in  the  same  house ; 


408  ^J^^V  AMEBIC  A. 

setting  up,  as  they  oddly  phrased  it,  a  branch  of  the 
heavenly  business  in  Putney,  after  a  formal  renuncia/- 
tion  of  the  Republican  Government,  and  an  everlast- 
ing secession  from  tlie  CJnited  States. 

And  now  began  for  them  a  new  life,  more  daring, 
more  original  than  that  which  Riple^',  Dana,  and  Haw- 
thorn tried  to  follow  at  Brook  Farm.  They  stopped 
all  prayer  and  religious  service,  they  put  down  Sun- 
day, they  broke  up  family  ties,  and,  without  separating 
anybody,  put  an  end  to  the  selfish  relations  of  husband 
and  wife.  All  property  was  thrown  into  a  common 
stock;  all  debts,  all  duties,  fell  upon  the  Society, 
which  ate  in  one  room,  slept  under  one  roof,  and  lived 
upon  one  store.  At  first  they  were  strict  and  stern 
with  each  other ;  for  written  codes  being  all  set  aside, 
as  things  of  the  old  world,  they  had  no  means  of  guid- 
ing weak,  of  controlling  wicked  brethren,  save  that  of 
free  criticism  on  their  conduct ;  a  system  of  govern- 
ment which  had  yet  to  become  a  saving  power.  The 
life  was  somewhat  hard.  Three  hours  were  spent 
each  morning  in  the  hall ;  one  hour  in  reading  such 
book  of  history  as  might  help  them  to  understand  the 
Bible  better;  one  hour  in  silence,  or  in  reading  the 
Scriptures ;  a  third  hour  in  discussing  the  things  they 
had  read  and  thought.  Mid-day  was  given  to  labor 
on  the  farm ;  evening  to  study,  reading,  music,  and 
society.  One  person  gave  lessons  to  the  rest  in  either 
Greek  or  Hebrew ;  a  second  read  aloud  some  English 
or  German  writer  on  hermeneutics ;  and  a  third  stood 
up  and  criticised  his  brother  saint.  In  the  midst  of 
these  incessant  labors,  the  old  Adam  appeared  amongst 
them,  and  slew  their  peace.  One  man  ate  too  much, 
a  second  drank  too  much,  a  third  ran  wild  in  love. 
Strife  arose  among  the  brethren,  leading  in  turn  to 
gossip  among  their  neighbors,  to  queries  about  them 


A   BIBLE   FAMILY.  409 

ill  the  local  press,  to  attacks  in  the  surrouudiiig  grog- 
shops, and  at  length  into  suits  in  the  Gentile  courts. 
What  they  had  most  to  fear  in  their  little  Eden  was 
gospel  freedom  in  the  matter  of  goods  and  wives. 

Koves  admits  that  the  Devil  found  a  way  into  the 
second  Eden  as  into  the  lirst ;  and  that  in  Putney  as 
in  Paradise,  the  Evil  One  worked  his  evil  will  through 
woman.  When  the  moral  disorder  in  his  little  para- 
dise could  be  no  longer  hidden,  be  became  very  angry 
and  very  sad.  How  was  he  to  bear  this  cross  ?  A  sud- 
den change  from  legal  restraints  to  gospel  liberties, 
must  needs  be  a  trial  to  the  lusts  of  man.  But  how 
could  he  make  distinctions  in  the  work  of  God  ?  God 
had  given  to  man  his  passions,  appetites  and  powers. 
These  powers  and  appetites  are  free.  Desire  has  its 
use  and  faculty  in  the  heavenly  sj^stem ;  and  when  the 
soul  is  free,  all  use  implies  the  peril  of  abuse.  Must, 
then,  the  Saints  come  under  bonds  ?  He  could  not  see 
it.  Aware  that  many  of  his  people  had  disgraced  the 
profession  of  Holiness,  he  still  said  to  himself,  in  the 
words  of  St.  Paul,  "^Must  I  go  back  because  offences 
come  ? "  To  go  back  was  for  him  to  tear  up  his  Bible 
and  lay  down  his  work.  Such  a  return  was  beyond  his 
desire,  and  beyond  his  power :  so  he  labored  on  with 
his  people,  curbing  the  unruly,  guiding  the  careless, 
and  expelling  the  impenitent.  As  he  put  the  case  to 
himself: — If  a  man  were  moving  from  one  town  to 
another,  he  could  not  hope  to  do  it  without  moil  or 
dirt,  how  then  could  he  expect  to  change  his  place  of 
toil  from  earth  to  heaven  without  suiferiug  damage  by 
the  way  ?  Waste  is  incident  to  change.  His  people 
were  unprepared  for  so  sharp  a  trial;  and  the  quarrels 
which  had  come  upon  them,  scandalizing  Windham 
County,  and  scattering  many  of  the  Saints,  were  laid 

35*^ 


410  ^EW  AMEBIC  A. 

by  liim  to  the  account  of  those  as  jet  unused  to  the 
art  of  living  under  grace. 

Some  rays  of  comfort  fell  upon  IToyes  in  this  hour 
of  his  failure  and  distress.  A  rival  body  of  Perfec- 
tionists, of  which  Mahan  was  pope,  and  Taylor  prime- 
minister,  had  set  up  an  Eden  of  their  own  at  Obcrlin, 
in  Lovain  County,  Ohio.  Mahan  pretented  to  see 
visions,  to  converse  with  angels,  and  to  receive  com- 
munications direct  from  God.  Taylor,  an  able  editor 
and  eloquent  preacher,  made  also  some  pretensions  to 
celestial  gifts.  Now,  between  jSToyes  and  Mahan,  Put- 
ney and  Oberlin,  there  had  reigned  a  fraternal  feud, 
like  that  which  disgraced  the  two  sons  of  Eve.  Ac- 
cording to  all  the  Perfectionist  prophets,  Holiness  and 
Liberty  are  the  two  primary  elements  in  the  atmo- 
sphere of  Heaven,  —  that  is  to  say,  of  a  perfect  society ; 
but  in  the  exercise  of  their  daily  right  of  following, 
each  man  his  own  lights,  these  prophets  had  come  to 
regard  the  two  elements  as  of  unequal  value ;  so  that 
strife  arose  between  them,  questions  were  debated,  and 
schools  were  formed.  One  party,  putting  freedom  be- 
fore holiness,  were  known  as  the  "Liberty  men  ;"  an- 
other, putting  sanctity  before  freedom,  were  known  as 
the  "Holiness  men."  Putney  stood  out  for  holiness; 
Oberlin  for  liberty;  though  both  aftected  to  renounce 
the  world,  and  to  admit  no  tutelage  but  that  of  God. 
I^oyes  attacked  Oberlin  in  the  "Witness;"  Taylor  an- 
swered in  the  "Evangelical;"  and  the  war  of  words 
went  raging  on  for  years,  until  Putney  fell  away  into 
quarrels  ;  and  Taylor  had  used  his  freedom  in  a  fashion 
to  provoke  the  interference  of  a  Gentile  court. 


NEW  FOUNDATIONS.  411 

CHAPTER  LVI. 

NEW    FOUNDATIONS. 

"When  Putney  had  become  too  warm  a  place  for 
aSToyes  and  his  Bible  family  to  live  in  ;  not,  as  he  told 
me,  on  account  of  any  persecution  from  the  churches 
of  religious  Vermont ;  but  solely  from  the  opposition 
of  drunken  and  worthless  rowdies  ;  the  Prophet  having 
let  his  house  and  farm  to  a  Gentile,  moved  away  from 
his  native  town  to  Oneida  Creek;  a  place  which,  on 
account  of  its  beauty,  its  remoteness,  and  its  fertility, 
seemed  favorable  to  his  plan  of  trying,  by  patient  in- 
dustry, to  lay  a  new  foundation  for  social  and  family 
life.  Mary  Cragin,  who  brought  with  her  George,  her 
husband,  and  some  other  friends  already  tried  in  the 
tire,  came  heartily  into  his  scheme  ;  becoming  to  this 
fresh  enterprise  all  that  Margaret  Fuller  would  have 
liked  to  be,  and  was  not,  in  the  less  daring  settlement 
of  Brook  Farm. 

About  fifty  men,  with  as  many  women,  and  nearly 
as  many  children,  put  their  means  together,  built  a 
frame-house  and  offices,  bought  a  patch  of  land,  which 
they  began  to  clear  and  stock;  and  giving  up  the  world 
once  more,  its  usages,  its  rights,  declared  their  family 
separated  from  the  United  States,  from  the  society  of 
men,  even  as  Abraham  and  his  seed  had  been  separated 
from  the  people  of  Hauran.  Tlie  new  Bible  Family 
announced  itself  as  a  branch  of  the  visible  kingdom 
of  heaven.  Many  of  the  Saints  having  been  at  Put- 
ney, 'they  had  some  experience  in  the  waj's  of  grace  ; 
and  Noyes  laid  down  for  them  a  rule  in  their  new 
home,  which  a  Gentile  would  have  thought  super- 


412  NEW  AMEBIC  A. 

fluous  at  Oneida  Creek,  —  the  duty  of  enjoying  life. 
At  Putney,  said  he,  they  had  been  too  strict;  studying 
overmuch  ;  dealing  too  harshly  with  each  other's  faults. 
In  their  new  home,  heaven  would  not  ask  from  them 
such  rigors.  If  God,  he  asked  them,  had  meant  Adam 
to  fast  and  pray,  would  he  have  placed  him  in  a  garden 
tempted  on  every  side  by  delicious  fruit  ?  Man's  Maker 
blessed  him  with  appetites,  and  turned  him  into  a 
clover-field  !  And  w^hat  w^ere  these  Saints  at  Oneida 
Creek  ?  Men  in  the  position  of  Adam  before  the  fall; 
men  without  sin ;  men  to  whom  everything  was  lawful 
because  everything  was  pure.  Why,  then,  should  they 
not  eat,  drink,  and  love,  to  their  heart's  content,  under 
daily  guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit  ? 

They  made  no  rules,  they  chose  no  chiefs.  Every 
man  was  to  be  a  rule  to  himself,  every  woman  to  her- 
self;  and  as  to  rulers,  they  declared  that  nature  and 
education  make  men  masters  of  their  fellows,  putting 
them  in  the  places  which  they  are  born  and  trained  to 
fill ;  another  way  of  saying  that  God  w^as  to  rule  in 
person,  wnth  Noyes  for  his  visible  pope  and  king.  All 
property  was  made  over  to  Christ ;  and  the  use  of  it 
only  was  reserved  for  those  who  had  united  themselves 
to  Him.  The  wives  and  children  of  the  Family  were 
to  be  as  common  as  the  loaves  and  fishes ;  the  very 
soul  of  the  new  society  being  a  mystery  very  difficult 
to  explain  in  English  phrase. 

Through  a  dozen  years  of  sharp  and  feverish  trial 
the  society  held  its  ground.  "War  without,  and  want 
within,  exposed  the  brethren  to  temptations,  which  no 
bod}' of  zealots  but  a  bandofXew  England  farmers,  arti- 
sans, and  professional  men,  could  have  lived  through. 
Mary  Cragin  was  drowned  in  the  Hudson  River,  and 
it  w^as  long  before  a  woman  could  be  found  to  take  her 
place.     Xoyes  made  overtures  to  Abigail  Mervnn,  his 


NEW  FOUNDATIONS.  413 

first  disciple,  whom  he  still  loved  in  the  spirit.  Abigail 
would  not  listen.  She  is  still  alive,  I  may  add,  and 
Noyes  still  dreams  of  drawing  her  back  into  his  fold. 
Sister  Skinner  became  the  female  leader ;  but  she  is 
now  living  at  Wallingford ;  and  I  think  that  Sister 
Joceh'n,  a  poetess,  may  now  be  considered  as  the  pre- 
siding goddess  of  Oneida  Creek.  But  as  power  is  only 
held  by  sj-mpathy,  her  spells  may  be  shared  by  the  two 
singers.  Sister  Alice  and  Sister  Harriet.  I  speak  as 
one  who  has  lived  under  the  charm.  In  spite  of  their 
rude  fare  and  their  hard  life,  strange  people  came  and 
joined  them  ;  a  Massachusetts  preacher,  a  Canadian 
trapper,  a  reader  for  the  London  press.  Of  all  these 
converts  to  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  he  who  might  have 
been  counted  on  as  the  man  least  likely  to  be  useful  to 
such  a  colony,  the  Canadian  tra})per,  proved  in  the  end 
to  be  the  actual  founder  of  their  fortunes.  As  yet,  the 
Saints  had  given  themselves  heart  and  soul  to  the 
land,  like  those  Shakers  from  whom  Xoyes  (as  Elder 
Frederick  told  me)  had  learnt  his  first  lesson  in  social 
economy ;  but  the  arts  of  growing  apples,  potting 
pears,  and  making  syrups,  are  too  common  in  America 
for  anybody  to  think  of  making  a  fortune  by  them. 
The  Family  did  its  best;  its  best  was  very  good.  Last 
year,  as  I  saw  by  their  books,  they  sold  twenty-five 
thousand  dollars  worth  of  preserved  fruits.  But  the 
lawns  and  gardens,  the  stately  home,  and  the  busy 
mills  of  Oneida,  were  not  made  out  of  apple-trees  and 
peach-trees.  They  came,  in  the  main  part,  from  the 
cunning  hands  of  Sewell  Newhouse,  this  Canadian 
trapper. 

One  of  the  great  trades  of  America  is  that  of  traps. 
Traps' are  wanted  of  many  kinds,  for  the  land  is  covered 
with  vermin,  from  the  huge  bear  of  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains down  to  the  common  field-mouse ;  but  the  Yan- 

35* 


414  NEW  AMERICA. 

kee  mechanic,  so  prolilic  in  the  matter  of  cork-screws, 
sewing-frames,  and  nut-crackers,  has  left  the  manufac- 
ture of  traps  to  Solingen  and  Elberfeld,  so  that  western 
and  northern  America  have  been  hitherto  supplied 
with  traps  from  beyond  the  Rhine.  i!Tow,  Brother 
]S"ewhouse,  when  he  settled  down  to  machine  work  at 
Oneida  Creek,  saw,  as  an  old  trapper,  that  the  German 
article,  though  good  and  even  cheap  in  its  way,  might 
be  much  improved;  and  taking  the  thing  in  hand,  he 
soon  made  it  lighter  in  weight,  simpler  in  form,  more 
deadly  in  spring.  The  Oneida  Trap  became  the  talk 
of  Madison  County  and  of  the  State  of  New  York. 
Orders  for  it  poured  in ;  mechanics  were  employed, 
forges  were  built ;  and  in  a  few  months  the  German 
article  was  a  saleless  article  in  the  IsTew  York  stores. 
In  a  single  year  the  Family  made  eighty  thousand  dol- 
lars of  profit  by  their  traps ;  and  although  the  income 
has  fallen  oiF  since  others  have  begun  to  imitate  this 
product  of  the  Saints,  the  revenue  derived  from  the 
sale  of  Oneida  Traps  is  still  about  three  thousand 
pounds  English  money  in  the  year. 

At  first  thought,  there  seems  to  be  something  comic 
in  the  fact  of  a  kingdom  of  heaven  being  dependent 
for  its  daily  bread  on  the  sale  of  traps.  As  I  walked 
through  the  forges  with  Brother  Hamilton,  I  could  not 
help  saying  that  such  work  seemed  rather  strange  for 
a  colony  of  Saints.  He  answered,  with  a  very  grave 
face,  that  the  Earth  is  lying  under  a  curse,  that  vermin 
are  a  consequence  of  that  curse,  that  the  Saints  have 
to  make  war  upon  them  and  destroy  them,  —  whence 
the  perfect  legitimacy  of  their  trade  in  traps !  It  is 
not  in  the  State  of  New  York,  where  every  man  is  a 
pleader  and  a  casuist,  that  any  one  is  found  at  a  loss 
for  arguments  in  favor  of  that  which  brings  grist  to 
his  mill. 


XE  W  FO  UNI)  A  TIONS.  4  ]  o 

Anyhow,  they  made  the  traps,  and  then  the  traps 
made  them. 

What  ma}'  be  called  the  home  affairs  of  the  Family 
seem  to  have  been  keeping  pace  with  their  outward 
and  commercial  progress.  The  theory  of  ruling  the 
more  disorderly  spirits  by  means  of  sympathy,  was 
raised  from  an  idea  into  a  science  ;  and  the  chief  busi- 
ness of  the  evening  meetings  has  now .  become  the 
evolution  of  this  sympathy  as  a  ruling  power  b}- means 
of  free  criticism.  I  was  present  at  one  of  these  meet- 
ings, when  Sydney  Jocelyn,  a  son  of  the  poetess  of 
Onoida  Creek,  was  subjected  to  a  searching  public 
inquiry.  Brother  Pitt  led  the  way,  describing  the 
young  man,  mentally  and  morally,  pointing  out,  with 
seeming  kindliness,  but  also  with  astonishingfrankness, 
all  the  evil  things  he  had  ever  seen  in  Sydney  —  his 
laziness,  his  sensuality,  his  love  of  dress  and  show,  his 
sauciness  of  speech,  his  lack  of  reverence.  Noyes, 
Hamilton,  and  Bolls  followed,  with  observations  almost 
equally  severe ;  then  came  Sister  Jocelyn,  the  culprit's 
mother,  who  certainly  did  not  spare  the  rod;  and  after 
her  rose  up  a  cloud  of  witne^es.  Most  of  these  per- 
sons spoke  of  his  good  deeds,  and  two  or  three  hinted 
that,  with  all  his  faults,  Sydney  was  a  man  of  genius, 
a  true  saint,  a  credit  to  Oneida ;  but  the  balance  of 
testimony  was  decidedl}^  against  the  prisoner  on  his 
trial.  'No  man  is  allowed  to  reply  in  person  and  on 
the  spot.  A  friend  may  put  in  a  good  word,  so  as  to 
modify  harsh  and  unfiiir  judgments;  but  the  person 
under  censure  must  retire  from  the  ordeal  to  his 
chamber,  sleep  on  the  catalogue  of  his  virtues,  so 
abundantly  filled  up  by  his  associates;  and  if  he  has 
anything  to  say  either  in  acceptance  or  in  refusal  of 
the  heavy  charges  made  against  him  by  word  of  mouth, 
he  must  put  that  answer  into  wi'iting,  addressed  to  the 


416  NEW  AMERICA. 

whole  community  in  the  meeting-room,  not  to  any  in- 
dividual traducer  by  name. 

On  the  evening  after  this  testimony  had  been  heard 
against  Sydney  Jocelyn,  the  following  letter  in  reply 
was  read  in  the  great  hall:  — 

To   THE   Community. 

I  take  this  occasion  to  express  my  thanks  for  the  criticism  and 
advice  I  received  last  evening,  and  for  the  sincerity  that  was  mani- 
fested. 

I  wish  to  thank  Mr.  Noyes  for  his  sincerity,  especially  in  regard  to 
times  long  past.  I  well  remember  when  I  felt  very  near  him  and  used 
to  converse  freely  with  him  ;  and  I  consider  those  my  happiest  days. 
I  have  always  regretted  my  leaving  him  as  I  did.  I  loved  him,  and 
I  am  sure  that  had  I  continued  Avith  him,  I  should  have  been  a 
better  man  and  a  greater  help  to  him  and  the  Community.  I  am 
certain  that  my  love  for  him  tlien  has  helped  me  a  great  deal  since, 
and  has  been  steadily  growing  ever  since,  in  spite  of  adverse  cir- 
cumstances, and  in  my  darkest  hours  his  spirit  shone  forth  and 
strengthened  me  and  helped  to  dispel  evil  spirits.  I  wish  to  con- 
fess my  love  for  Mr.  Hamilton  and  my  confidence  in  him  as  a  leader. 
I  thank  him  sincerely  for  his  long-continued  patience  with  me  and 
his  untiring  eflforts  to  bring  me  near  to  Christ  and  the  Community. 

I  confess  Christ  the  controller  of  my  tongue  and  a  spirit  of  hu- 
mility. Std.vev. 

"What,  however,  struck  me  most  about  these  criticisms, 
next  to  their  obvious  use  in  the  art  of  governing  men 
who  have  set  aside  the  human  laws,  w^as  not  so  much 
their  candor  as  their  subtlety.  Many  of  the  observa- 
tions were  extremely  delicate  and  deep,  showing  fine 
powers  of  analysis  sharpened  by  daily  practice 

I  should  not  omit  to  say,  that,  although  many  young 
men  bore  witness  against  Sydney,  no  young  woman 
had  anything  to  say  about  him.  The  elder  ladies  were 
free  enough,  and  one  ancient  dame  exhibited  a  frank- 
ness which  would  have  been  hard  for  a  Gentile  youth 
to  bear  in  silence.     The  reason  of  thin  was,  not  that 


NEW  FOUNDATIONS.  417 

the  girls  all  liked  him,  and  refrained  from  criticism, 
but  that,  as  girls  and  young  women,  they  could  have 
had  little  to  do  with  him,  and  could  therefore  have  told 
none  of  his  faults.  But  here  we  are  touching  on  one 
of  the  deepest  of  the  many  mysteries  of  Oneida 
Creek. 

The  Family  has  no  lawyer,  no  doctor,  in  its  ranks ; 
on  the  other  hand,  it  affects  to  have  no  quarrels,  and 
to  enjoy  perfect  health.  Following  the  old  rule  of 
America  —  a  rule  derived  from  provincial  England  — 
the  Family  breaks  its  fast  at  six  in  the  morning,  dines 
at  twelve,  sups  at  six  in  the  evening;  very  much  as 
the  Arabs,  and  the  children  of  nature  everywhere,  eat 
and  drink,  at  sunrise,  noon,  and  sunset.  A  few  of  the 
weaker  saints  eat  flesh  of  bird  and  beast ;  the  more 
advanced  eat  onl}^  herbs  and  fruit.  Brother  I^^oj^es 
eats  flesh  from  habit,  but  very  little  of  it,  having 
proved  by  trial  that  it  is  not  necessary  for  his  health. 
A  party  of  the  Saints  went  up  into  Canada  last  fall, 
under  Newhouse,  to  trap  beaver ;  they  had  five  weeks 
of  very  hard  life,  and  came  back  from  the  forests 
strong  and  well.  IS'one  of  the  Familv  drink  wine  or 
beer,  unless  it  be  a  dose  of  either  cherry-wine,  or 
gooseberry-wine,  taken  as  a  cordial.  I  tasted  three 
or  four  kinds  of  this  home-made  wine,  and  agree  with 
Brother  JS'oyes  that  his  people  will  be  better  without 
such  wicked  drinks. 


418  ^V^f^  AMEBIC  A. 

CHAPTER  LVn. 

PANTAGAMY. 

How  shall  I  describe,  in  English  words,  the  inner- 
most social  life  so  freely  opened  to  my  view  by  these 
religious  zealots  of  Oneida  Creek?  To  an  Arab 
family  I  could  easily  shape  the  matter,  so  as  to  leave 
out  nothing  of  importance  to  my  tale,  for  the  Arabs 
have  derived  from  their  fathers  a  habit  of  calling 
things  by  the  simplest  names.  We  English  have 
another  mood,  that  of  hushing  up  nature  in  a  fine 
sense  of  silence ;  of  spending  our  curiosity  on  facts 
about  trees,  birds,  fishes,  insects ;  while  we  are  care- 
fully putting  under  dark  covers  anything  that  relates 
to  the  life  and  nature  of  man. 

George  Cragin,  one  of  Mary  Cragin's  sons,  a  young 
man  of  parts  and  culture,  above  all,  of  erect  moral 
feeling,  fresh  from  college,  where  he  has  taken  his 
medical  degree,  told  me  in  one  of  our  morning  ram- 
bles, as  he  might  have  told  a  brother  whom  he  loved, 
the  whole  history  of  his  heart  —  the  first  budding  of 
his  aftections  —  the  way  in  which  his  love  was  treated 
—  his  sense  of  shame  —  his  passionate  desires — his 
training  in  the  arts  of  self-restraint  and  self-control  — 
(which  is  the  discipline  of  his  life  as  a  religious  man), 
from  the  moment  of  adolescence  down  to  the  very 
hour  in  which  we  talked  together  at  Oneida  Creek. 
That  little  history  of  one  human  soul,  in  its  secret 
sti'ivings,  is  the  strangest  story  I  have  ever  either 
heard  or  read.  I  wrote  it  down  from  the  young  man's 
lips,  as  we  sat  under  the  apple-trees — that  tale  of  all 
he  had  ever  felt,  and   learned,  and   suftered,  in  the 


PANTAGAMY.  419 

school  of  love ;  tokl,  as  he  told  it,  with  a  grave  face, 
a  modest  manner,  and  in  a  scientific  spirit;  but  I  have 
no  right  to  print  one  line  of  the  conl^ssion  which  lies 
before  me  now.  I  saw  at  Oneida  Creek  a  hundred 
records  of  a  similar  kind,  though  most  of  them  were 
less  complete  in  detail  and  in  plan.  Some  day,  in  the 
coming  years,  such  records  may  be  gained  for  science, 
and  become  the  bases,  perhaps,  of  new  theories  in 
physiology  and  economics.  At  present  they  are  sealed, 
and  must  be  sealed.  "  They  are  laid  up,"  said  Brother 
Bolls,  "  these  histories  of  emotion,  until  society  is 
ready  to  receive  and  use  them;  when  philosophers 
begin  to  study  the  life  of  man  as  they  now  study  that 
of  bees,  we  Bible  Communists  shall  be  asble  to  supply 
them  with  a  multitude  of  cases  carefully  observed." 

The  very  core  of  their  domestic  system  is  a  relation 
of  the  sexes  to  each  other,  which  they  call  "  a  com- 
plex marriage."  A  community  of  goods,  they  say, 
implies  a  community  of  wives.  Brother  Noyes  main- 
tains that  it  is  a  blunder  to  say  either  that  a  man  can 
only  love  once  in  his  life,  or  that  he  can  only  love  one 
object  at  a  time.  "Men  and  women,"  he  says,  "find 
universally  that  their  susceptibility  to  love  is  not  burnt 
out  by  one  honeymoon,  or  satisfied  by  one  lover.  On 
the  contrary,  the  secret  history  of  the  human  heart 
will  bear  out  the  assertion  that  it  is  capable  of  loving 
any  number  of  times,  and  any  number  of  persons ; 
and  that  the  more  it  loves,  the  more  it  can  love.  This 
is  the  law  of  nature."  Hence,  in  the  Bible  Family 
living  at  Oneida  Creek,  the  central  domestic  fact  of 
the  household  is  the  complex  marriage  of  its  members 
to  each  other,  and  to  all ;  a  rite  which  is  to  be  under- 
stood as  taking  place  on  the  entrance  of  every  new 
member,  whether  male  or  female,  into  association ; 
and  which  is  said  to  convert  the  whole  body  into  one 


420  NEW  AMERICA. 

marriage  circle ;  every  man  becoming  the  husband 
and  brother  of  every  woman ;  every  woman  the  wife 
and  sister  of  every  man.  Marriage  itself,  as  a  rite 
and  as  a  fact,  they  have  abolished  forever,  in  the  name 
of  true  religion  ;  declaring  their  belief  that  so  selfish 
and  exclusive  an  institution  will  be  spurned  by  all 
honest  churches  the  very  next  moment  after  the  world 
is  rid  of  the  false  idea  that  love  is  an  act  of  sin. 

That  I  may  not  be  suspected  of  coloring  by  a  word 
or  tint  the  actual  practice  of  this  strange  fraternity,  I 
will  give  the  statement  of  his  social  theory,  drawn  up 
for  me  by  ISToyes  himself:  — 

Brother  I^oyes  on  Love. 

"The  Communities  believe,  contrary  to  the  theoi-y 
of  sentimental  novelists  and  others,  that  the  affections 
can  be  co-ntroUed  and  guided,  and  that  they  will  pro- 
duce far  better  results  when  rightly  controlled  and 
rightly  guided,  than  if  left  to  take  care  of  themselves 
without  any  restraint  or  guidance.  They  entirely  re- 
ject the  idea,  tliat  love  is  an  inevitable  fatality  which 
must  have  its  own  course.  They  believe  the  whole 
matter  of  love  and  its  expression  should  be  subject  to 
enlightened  self-control,  and  should  be  managed  for 
the  greatest  good.  In  the  Communities  it  is  under 
the  special  supervision  of  the  fathers  and  mothers :  in 
other  words,  of  the  wisest  and  best  members,  and  is 
often  under  discussion  in  the  evening  meetings,  and 
is  also  subordinate  to  the  institution  of  criticism.  The 
fathers  and  mothers  are  guided  in  their  management 
by  certain  general  principles,  which  have  been  worked 
out  and  are  well  understood  in  the  Communities. 
One  is  termed  the  principle  of  the  ascending  fellow- 
ship.    It  is  regarded  as  better  for  the  young  of  both 


PANTAGAMT.  421 

sexes  to  associate  in  love  with  persons  older  than 
themselves,  and,  if  possible,  with  those  who  are  spir- 
itual, and  have  been  some  time  in  the  school  of  self- 
control.  This  is  only  another  form  of  the  popular 
principle  of  contrast.  It  is  well  understood  by  phys- 
iologists that  it  is  undesirable  for  persons  of  similar 
characters  and  temperaments  to  mate  together.  Com- 
munists have  discovered  that  it  is  not  desirable  for 
two  inexperienced  and  unspiritual  persons  to  rush  into 
fellowship  with  each  other :  that  it  is  far  better  for 
both  to  associate  with  persons  of  mature  character 
and  sound  sense. 

"Another  general  principle,  well  understood  in  the 
Communities,  is,  that  it  is  not  desirable  for  two  persons 
to  become  exclusively  attached  to  each  other — to 
worship  and  idolize  each  other — however  popular  this 
experience  may  be  with  sentimental  people  generally. 
They  regard  exclusive  idolatrous  attachment  as  un- 
healthy and  pernicious,  wherever  it  may  exist.  The 
Communists  insist  that  the  heart  should  be  kept  free 
to  love  all  the  true  and  worthy,  and  should  never  be 
contracted  with  exclusiveness,  or  idolatry,  or  purely 
selfish  love  in  any  form. 

"Another  principle  well  known,  and  carried  out  in 
the  Community,  is,  that  no  person  shall  be  obliged  to 
receive,  at  any  time,  or  under  any  circumstances,  the 
attention  of  those  whom  they  do  not  like.  The  Com- 
munities are  pledged  to  protect  all  their  members 
from  disagreeable  social  approaches.  Every  woman  is 
free  to  refuse  every  man's  attentions. 

"Still  another  principle  is,  that  it  is  best  for  men  in 
their  approaches  to  women,  to  invite  personal  inter- 
views through  the  intervention  of  a  third  party,  for 
two  important  reasons,  viz. :  first,  that  the  matter  may 
be  brought,  in  some  measure,  under  the  inspection  of 

36 


422  ^^W  AMERICA. 

the  Community,  and  secondly,  that  the  women  may 
decline  proposals,  if  they  choose,  without  embarrasa- 
ment  or  restraint. 

"Under  the  operation  of  these  general  principles, 
but  little  difficult}'  attends  the  practical  carrying  out 
of  the  social  theory  of  the  Communities.  As  fast  as 
the  members  become  enlightened,  they  govern  them- 
selves by  these  very  principles.  The  great  aim  is  to 
teach  every  one  self-control.  This  leads  to  the  greatest 
happiness  in  love  and  the  greatest  good  to  all " 

The  style  of  living  at  Oneida  Creek  gives  a  good 
deal  of  power  to  women,  much  beyond  what  they 
enjoy  under  law;  and  this  increase  of  power  is  a 
capital  point  in  every  new  system  of  social  order  in 
the  States.  Something  of  this  increased  power  of  the 
female  at  Oneida  Creek,  I  have  seen  and  felt;  and 
Brother  Hamilton  assures  me  there  is  much  of  charm 
and  inj&uence  in  the  woman's  life,  which  I  have  not 
been  able  to  see  and  feel.  The  ladies  all  seem  busy, 
brisk,  content ;  and  those  to  whom  I  have  spoken  on 
this  point,  all  say  they  are  very  happy  in  their  lot. 
Perhaps  there  is  one  exception  to  the  rule :  that  of  a 
lady,  whose  name  I  shall  not  mention,  as  she  dropped 
some  hint  that  she  might  one  day  think  of  going  home 
to  her  friends. 

At  first,  the  world  waged  war  upon  Oneida  Creek, 
as  it  had  done  upon  Putney ;  making  jokes  against 
free-love,  loading  pistols  against  community  of  goods. 
Noyes  claims,  not  only  in  his  contest  with  Baptist  and 
Congregational  preachers,  but  in  his  more  dangerous 
conflicts  with  Madison  farmers  and  herdsmen,  that  the 
kingdom  of  Christ  established  on  Oneida  Creek  should 
be  judged  as  a  whole.  The  sexual  principle,  he  says, 
is  the  helpmeet  of  the  religious  principle ;  and  to  all 


PANTAOAAIY.  423 

complaints  from  without,  he  answers,  "Look  at  our 
happy  circle ;  we  work,  we  rest,  we  study,  we  enjoy  : 
peace  reigns  in  our  household ;  our  3'Oung  men  are 
healthy,  our  young  women  bright;  we  live  well,  and 
we  do  not  multiply  beyond  our  wishes!  " 

By  time  the  enmity  of  the  world  has  been  overcome ; 
the  quicker,  since  the  world  begins  to  see  that  the 
members  of  this  community,  though  they  may  be 
wrong  in  their  interpretatioji  of  the  New  Testament, 
are  in  real  earnest  as  to  living  the  word  which  they 
profess.  Brother  Noyes  is  now  popular  in  this  neigh- 
borhood, where  the  people  judge  his  disciples  by  the 
results. 

But  a  prophet  may  not  waste  his  life  upon  a  little 
farm,  teaching  his  disciples,  by  his  own  example,  how 
to  live.  iSToyes  finds  that  he  has  work  to  do  on  a 
larger  scale  and  in  a  wider  field :  a  new  faith  to 
expound,  an  intellectual  conquest  to  achieve  ;  and  for 
these  ends  of  his  living  as  a  witness,  it  is  needful  for 
him  to  reside  a  good  deal  in  New  York,  at  the  centre 
of  all  moral,  of  all  commercial,  of  all  spiritual  activi- 
ties and  agencies;  where  the  Bible  newspaper,  called 
The  Circular,  is  edited  and  published  by  his  son. 
Enough  for  him  that  he  visits  the  two  settlements  of 
Wallingford  and  Oneida  from  time  to  time ;  received 
as  a  prophet,  and  implored,  like  the  prophets  of  old, 
to  mediate  daily  between  man  and  God. 

The  Family  at  Oneida  Creek  consists  of  about  three 
hundred  members,  a  number  which  these  Bible  Com- 
munists say  is  found  by  trial  to  be  large  enough  to 
foster  and  develop  the  graces  and  virtues  which  belong 
to  a  perfect  Society.  Applicants  for  admission  are 
refused  from  day  to  day.  Three  or  four  oft'ers  to  come 
in  have  been  refused  while  I  have  been  lodging  at  the 
Creek;  the  system  of  life  here  practised  being  simply 


424  NEW  AMERICA. 

regarded  as  experimental.  The  foundations,  Brother 
Noyes  tells  me,  are  now  regarded  as  having  heen  laid. 
"When  the  details  have  been  wrought  out,  other  Fami- 
lies will  be  formed  in  New  York  and  in  the  Xew 
England  States. 

Before  I  left  Mount  Lebanon,  I  had  some  conversa- 
tion with  Elder  Frederick  about  these  people.  "You 
may  expect  to  see  the  Bible  Families  increase  very 
fast,"  said  Frederick,  who  looks  upon  their  growth 
with  anything  but  a  friendly  eye ;  "  they  meet  the 
desires  of  a  great  many  men  and  women  in  this 
country :  men  who  are  weary,  women  who  are  fan- 
tastic ;  giving,  in  the  name  of  religious  service,  a  free 
rein  to  the  passions,  with  a  deep  sense  of  repose. 
"Women  find  in  them  a  great  field  for  the  affections. 
The  Bible  Communists  give  a  pious  charter  to  Free 
Love,  and  the  sentiment  of  Free  Love  is  rooted  in  the 
heart  of  New  York." 


CHAPTER   LVIIL 

YOUNG   AMERICA. 

"We  do  not  multiply  beyond  our  wishes,"  said 
Noyes,  in  summary  of  the  many  beauties  and  advan- 
tages of  what  he  and  his  people  call  the  new  Bible 
Order.  "  The  baby  question  is  the  great  question  of 
the  world,"  cried  Brother  Wright,  among  the  Spiritu- 
alists of  Providence.  What  do  these  reformers  mean  ? 
In  a  score  of  different  places,  people  have  founded  an 
annual  baby  show,  at  which  they  give  prizes  to  the 


YOUNG  AMERICA.  425 

best  specimen  of  baby-beauty ;  so  many  dollars  (or  the 
dollars'  worth)  for  tine  teeth,  for  bright  eyes,  for 
chubby  cheeks,  for  fat  arms  and  hands,  for  the  thou- 
sand nameless  merits  which  a  jury  of  ladies  can  assert 
in  these  rosy  yearlings.  What  do  these  facts  imply  ? 
Is  infant  beauty  becoming  rare  ?  Has  the  public  mind 
been  roused  to  a  consciousness  of  the  decline  ?  These 
things  can  hardly  be :  since  Young  America  crows 
and  laughs,  and  is  quite  as  fat,  as  rosy,  and  hilarious, 
as  either  Young  England  or  Young  France.  Do  the 
facts  suggest  that  babies  are  growing  scarce  on  this 
American  soil  ?  If  this  were  the  case,  a  great  many 
people  would  cry  "Amen"  to  Brother  Wright's 
announcement  that  the  baby  question  is  the  chief 
question  of  these  latter  times  ! 

Now,  I  have  been  told  that  one  result  of  the  rapid 
growth  in  society  and  in  the  household  of  disturbing 
female  creeds,  is  a  fact  of  which  the  wiser  men  and 
graver  women  of  New  England  —  the  great  majority 
of  sound  and  pious  people  —  think  very  much,  though 
they  seldom  allude  to  it  in  public. 

What  have  I  seen  and  heard  in  this  country,  leads 
me  to  infer  that  there  is  a  very  strange  and  rather 
wide  conspiracy  on  the  part  of  women  in  the  upper 
ranks  —  a  conspiracy  which  has  no  chiefs,  no  secreta- 
ries, no  head-quarters;  which  holds  no  meetings,  puts 
forth  no  platform,  undergoes  no  vote,  and  yet  is  a  real 
conspiracy  on  the  part  of  many  leaders  of  fashion 
among  women;  the  end  of  which  —  if  the  end  should 
over  be  accomplished — would  be  this  rather  puzzling 
fact:  —  there  would  be  no  more  baby-shows  in  this 
country,  since  there  would  be  no  longer  any  Ameri- 
cans in  America. 

In  Providence,  the  capital  of  Rhode  Island,  a  model 
city  in  many  ways  —  beautiful   and  clean,  the  centre 

36* 


426  NJ'^^V  AMERICA. 

of  a  thousand  noble  activities  —  I  held  a  conversation 
on  this  subject  with  a  lady,  who  took  the  facts  simply 
as  she  said  they  are  known  to  her  in  Worcester,  in 
Springfield,  in  New  Haven,  in  a  hundred  of  the  purest 
cities  of  America,  and  she  put  her  own  gloss  and 
color  upon  them  thus:  —  "A  woman's  first  duty  is  to 
look  beautiful  in  the  eyes  of  men,  so  that  she  may  at- 
tract them  to  her  side,  and  exert  an  influence  over 
them  for  good  ;  not  to  be  a  household  drudge,  a  slave 
in  the  nursery,  the  kitchen,  and  the  school-room. 
Everything  that  spoils  a  woman  in  this  respect,  is 
against  her  true  interest,  and  she  has  a  right  to  reject 
it,  as  a  man  would  reject  an  impost  that  was  being 
laid  unjustly  on  his  gains.  A  wife's  first  thought 
should  be  for  her  husband,  and  for  herself  as  his  com- 
panion in  the  w'orld.  jSTothing  should  be  ever  allowed 
to  come  between  these  two."  I  ventured  to  ask  the 
lady,  her  husband  sitting  by,  whether  children  do 
come  between  father  and  mother;  saying  that  I  had 
two  boys  and  three  girls  of  my  own,  and  had  never 
suspected  such  a  thing.  "  They  do,"  she  answered 
boldly;  "they  take  up  the  mother's  time,  they  im- 
pair her  beauty,  they  waste  her  life.  If  you  walk 
down  these  streets"  (the  streets  of  Providence)  "you 
will  notice  a  hundred  delicate  girls  just  blushing  into 
womanhood ;  in  a  year  they  will  be  married ;  in  ten 
years  the}^  will  be  hags  and  crones.  No  man  will 
care  for  them,  on  the  score  of  beauty.  Their  hus- 
bands will  find  no  lustre  in  their  eyes,  no  bloom  upon 
their  cheeks.  They  will  have  given  up  their  lives  to 
their  children." 

She  spoke  with  fervor,  and  with  a  fixed  idea  that 
what  she  was  saying  to  me  might  be  said  by  any  lady 
in  open  day  before  all  the  W'Orld ;  unconscious,  as  it 
eeemed  to  me,  that  while  proudly  insisting  on  worn- 


YOUNO    AMERICA.  427 

an's  rights,  she  and  those  for  whom  she  spoke  were 
ready  to  abandon  all  woman's  duties ;  unconscious 
also,  as  it  seemed  to  me,  that  in  asserting  the  loss  of 
beauty,  as  a  consequence  of  domestic  cares,  she  and 
those  who  think  with  her  were  assuming  the  very  fact 
which  almost  every  father,  almost  every  husband,  would 
deny.  Yet,  in  pious  Boston  and  Philadelphia,  no  less 
thuan  in  wicked  ITew  Orleans  and  ]^ew  York,  this  objec- 
tion to  become  a  mother  in  Israel  is  one  of  those  radi- 
cal facts  which  (I  am  told)  must  be  admitted,  whether 
for  good  or  evil;  the  rapid  diminution  of  native-born 
persons  being  matter  of  record  in  many  public  acts. 
What  my  Saratoga  friend  said  to  me  about  his  coun- 
trywomen having  no  descendants  left  alive  in  a  hun- 
dred years,  expresses  the  fears  of  many  serious  men. 

Kow,  this  assertion  of  the  growing  scarcity  of  na- 
tive-born children  in  the  United  States  will  probably 
be  new  and  strange  to  many ;  since,  in  England,  we 
are  constantly  hearing,  in  the  first  place,  of  the  rapid 
growth  of  the  population  in  America,  as  compared 
with  Europe ;  and  in  the  second  place,  of  the  high 
value  which  is  set  in  that  new  country  on  every  indi- 
vidual child.  In  some  districts,  also,  the  rule  which 
we  find  in  the  iTew  England  States,  and  among  the 
higher  classes  in  Pennsylvania  and  j^ew  York,  is  not 
observable.  In  Ohio  and  Indiana,  and  generally,  in- 
deed, in  the  western  country,  the  female  prides  her- 
self on  her  brood  of  darlings,  and  the  Missouri  boss, 
not  having  a  fine  lady  for  a  wife,  rejoices  in  his  regi- 
ment of  stalwart  sons.  Here,  in  New  England,  in 
New  York,  it  is  wholly  ditferent  from  what  we  see  in 
yon  healthy  and  vigorous  western  cities.  It  may  be 
only  fashion,  it  may  be  only  frenzy,  but  for  the  pass- 
ing moment,  America  (I  am  told)  is  wasting  for  the 
want  of  mothers.     In  the  great  cities,  among  those 


428  N^W  AMERICA. 

shoddy  queens  who  live  in  monster  hotels,  among 
those  nobler  ladies  who  live  in  their  own  houses,  it  is 
extremely  rare  to  find  a  woman  who  has  such  a  brood 
of  romping  boys  and  girls  about  her  as  an  ordinary 
English  mother  is  proud  to  give  her  country.  The 
rule  as  to  number  of  offspring  is  rather  that  of  Paris 
than  that  of  London, 

On  a  point  of  so  much  delicacy,  I  should  wish  to  be 
understood  as  speaking  with  all  reserve,  and  subject 
to  a  happy  correction  of  an}^  unconscious  errors,  A 
stranger  must  not  expect  to  see  down  into  all  the 
depths  of  this  mystery  of  domestic  life.  Ladies  m.ay 
be  shy  of  debating  such  topics,  and  with  men  who 
are  not  their  physicians,  it  is  right  that  they  should 
abstain  from  conveying  their  creed  by  hints.  But 
the  fact  that  many  of  these  delicate  and  sparkling 
women  do  not  care  to  have  their  rooms  full  of  rosy 
darlings  is  not  a  matter  of  inference.  Allusions  to 
the  nursery,  such  as  in  England  and  Germany  would 
be  taken  by  a  young  wife  as  compliments,  are  here 
received  with  a  smile,  accompanied  by  a  shrug  of  un- 
doubted meaning.  You  must  not  wish  an  American 
lady,  in  whose  good  graces  you  desire  to  stand,  many 
happy  returns  of  a  christening  day;  she  might  resent 
the  wish  as  an  offence;  indeed,  I  have  known  a  young 
and  pretty  woman  rise  from  a  table  and  leave  the 
room,  on  hearing  such  a  favor  expressed  towards  her 
by  an  English  guest, 

Now,  what,  if  this  is  true,  can  be  the  end  of  such  a 
fashion  among  the  upper  classes,  except  the  rapid  dis- 
placement of  the  old  American  stock?  Statesman, 
patriot,  moralist,  here  is  a  question  to  engage  your 
thoughts !  The  Irish  and  the  Germans  rush  into 
every  vacant  space.  Is  it  pleasant  for  any  one  to 
consider  that  in  three  or  four  generations  more  there 


YOUNG  AMERICA.  429 

may  be  no  Americans  left  on  the  American  soil  ?  In 
the  presence  of  such  a  possibility,  have  the  noble 
churches,  the  many  conservative  schools  of  New  Eng- 
land, no  mission  to  assume? 

The  tale  which  seems  to  be  so  sadly  written  on  the 
floor  of  every  room  you  enter,  is  also  told  at  large  in 
the  census  returns.  Where  are  the  American  States 
in  which  the  birth-rate  stands  the  highest  in  propor- 
tion to  the  number  of  people  ?  Is  it  found  highest  in 
pious  New  Hampshire,  in  moral  Vermont,  in  Sober 
Maine  ?  All  fancies,  all  analogies,  would  have  led  us 
to  expect  it ;  but  the  facts  are  wholly  out  of  keeping 
with  conjecture.  In  these  three  pious,  moral,  and 
sober  States,  the  birth-rate  is  lowest.  The  only 
States  in  which  there  is  a  high  and  healthy  rate  of 
natural  increase,  are  the  wild  countries  peopled  by 
new  settlers,  —  Oregon,  Iowa,  Minnesota,  Mississippi, 
—  States  in  which,  it  is  said,  there  are  few  fine  ladies 
and  no  bad  fashions.  Strangest  of  all  strange  things 
is  the  example  set  to  the  rest  of  these  States  by  Mas- 
sachusetts, the  religious  centre  of  New  England,  the 
intellectual  light  of  the  United  States.  In  Massachu- 
setts, the  young  women  marry ;  but  they  seldom  be- 
come mothers.  The  women  have  made  themselves 
companions  to  their  husbands;  brilliant,  subtle,  solid 
companions.  At  the  same  time  the  power  of  New 
England  is  passing  over  to  the  populous  West,  and  a 
majority  of  the  rising  generation  of  Boston  is  either 
of  German  or  of  Irish  birth. 

This  rather  dismal  prospect  for  Young  America  is 
not  a  consequence  of  the  Germans  and  Irish  put  to- 
gether exceeding  the  natives  in  number.  Those  na- 
tionalities are  large,  no  doubt ;  but  as  yet  they  have 
not  turned  the  scale.  The  list  of  marriages  still 
exhibits  a  preponderance  of  natives ;  and  it  is  only 


430  ^^^^  AMERICA. 

when  you  come  to  the  register  of  births  that  the  ac- 
count runs  all  another  way. 

Under  the  constitution  of  the  United  States,  num- 
bers are  strength  ;  numbers  make  the  laws ;  numbers 
pay  the  taxes";  numbers  vote  away  the  land.  Power 
lies  with  the  majority ;  and  the  majority  in  Massachu- 
setts is  going  over  to  the  Irish  poor,  to  the  Fenian 
circles  and  the  Molly  Maguires.  At  present  the 
foreigners  count  only  one  in  five ;  but  as  more  chil- 
dren are  being  born  to  that  foreign  minority  than  to 
the  native  majoritj^,  the  proportions  are  changing 
every  year.  In  twenty  years,  those  foreign  children 
will  be  the  majority  of  men  in  Massachusetts. 

How  will  the  intellectual  queens  of  Boston  bear  the 
predominance  of  such  a  class  ? 


CHAPTER  LXIX. 

MANNERS. 

"What  do  you  think  of  this  country  ?"  said  to  me 
an  English  lady,  who  had  spent  two  years  of  her  life 
in  the  Middle  States,  Ohio  and  Kentucky.  Though  I 
had  then  been  five  whole  days  in  New  York,  I  had 
not  come  to  a  final  judgment  on  the  virtues  of  thirty 
millions  of  people ;  so  I  answered  my  friend  with  a 
cowardly  evasion,  that  it  seemed  to  me  a  free  country. 
"Free !"  cried  the  lady  with  a  shrug;  "you  are  fresh 
to  it  now ;  when  you  have  lived  here  three  or  four 
months,  I  shall  be  glad  to  learn  what  you  have  seen 
and  thought.     Free  !     The  men  are  free  enough  ;  but, 


MANNERS.  431 

then,  what  they  call  their  freedom,  /should  style  their 
impudence." 

Those  words  are  often  in  my  thoughts;  never  more 
than  they  have  been  to-day,  Avhile  strolling  through 
these  streets  of  Philadelphia,  now  that  I  have  fuliilled 
my  terms  and  travelled  over  ten  thousand  miles  of 
American  ground.  A  lady  fresh  from  May  Fair,  used 
only  to  the  ways  of  well-bred  men,  to  the  silent  ser- 
vice of  her  maid  and  groom,  would  be  sure  to  fall,  like 
my  questioner,  into  the  error  of  supposing  that  the 
only  liberties  to  be  found  in  America  are  the  liberties 
which  people  take  with  you. 

All  men  of  Teutonic  race  are  apt  to  cast  big  looks 
on  the  strangers  whom  they  meet  by  chance.  It  is  a 
habit  of  our  blood.  The  IsTorse  gods  had  it ;  and  we, 
their  heirs,  can  hardly  ever  see  an  unknown  face,  an 
unfamiliar  garb,  without  feeling  in  our  hearts  the 
longing  to  hoot  and  pelt.  In  presence  of  a  strange 
man,  a  gentleman  puts  on  his  armor  of  cold  disdain,  a 
rough  looks  out  for  a  convenient  stone.  "We  bear  this 
impulse  with  us  on  our  journeys  to  and  fro  about  the 
earth ;  Englishmen  carrying  it  in  the  form  of  pride, 
Americans  in  the  form  of  brag.  Of  course,  it  is  not 
the  way  with  all.  Men  of  large  hearts,  of  wide  expe- 
rience, of  gentle  nurture,  will  neither  wrap  their  pride 
in  an  offensive  coldness,  nor  obtrude  their  power  in  a 
boastful  phrase.  But  some  of  the  rank  and  file,  hav- 
ing neither  large  hearts  nor  wide  experience,  nor 
gentle  nurture,  will  always  do  so ;  enough  of  them, 
perhaps,  to  create  in  a  stranger's  mind  the  impression 
that  this  English  reserve,  this  Yankee  brag,  are  notes 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race.  I  shall  not  say  which  of 
these  two  methods  of  announcing  our  riches,  gifts, 
titles,  powers,  and  possessions — our  strength,  our 
glory,  our  superiority  —  is  the  more  galling  to  men  of 


432  N^W  AMEBIC  A. 

another  stock;  Italians  and  Frenchmen  tell  me  they 
have  given  the  palm  of  offence  to  our  haughty  and 
unbending  pride.  A  Yankee  says  to  them  plainly, 
either  in  word  or  look:  "I  am  as  good  as  you  are — 
better;"  they  know  the  worst  at  once.  An  English- 
man says  nothing  ;  they  have  no  defence  against  him; 
and  his  silence  is  both  galling  and  intrusive.  Kow, 
we  English  are  apt  to  judge  American  shortcomings 
very  much  as  Frenchmen  and  Italians  judge  our  own, 
with  the  addition  of  a  family  pique ;  so  that  our 
cousins  of  this  other  side  come  out  from  such  trials  of 
their  imperfections  very  much  tattered  and  torn. 

In  an  old  country  like  England,  where  society  is 
stronger  than  among  our  cousins  in  this  new  home 
— where  personal  fancies  are  held  in  check  by  public 
sentiment,  acting  in  the  name  of  fashion  —  ordinary 
men  and  women  are  apt  to  consider  smoothness  of 
surface,  softness  of  voice,  conformity  of  style,  as  of 
higher  moment  than  they  would  appear  to  judges  of 
the  stamp  of  Mill.  Of  course,  no  man  of  the  world, 
even  though  he  should  happen  to  be  a  philosopher, 
will  despise  the  charms  of  a  good  manner.  The  lady 
who  sits  next  to  me  at  dinner,  being  well-dressed, 
speaking  in  low  tones,  eating  her  food  daintily,  smil- 
ing on  occasion  sweetly,  does  me,  by  her  presence, 
a  positive  service.  The  gentleman  across  the  table, 
who  is  always  telling  the  company,  in  looks  and  tones, 
that  he  is  as  good  as  they  are  —  better  than  they  are — 
takes  all  flavor  from  the  dish,  all  bouquet  from  the 
wine.  Manners  may  be  no  more  than  the  small  circu- 
lating coinage  of  society;  but  when  these  bits  of  silver 
have  the  true  mint-mark  upon  them,  they  will  pass 
for  all  that  they  are  worth  in  every  place,  at  every 
hour  of  the  day.  In  the  moment  of  a  quick  demand 
f  few  cents  in  the  purse  may  be  of  higher  value  to  a 


MANNERS.  433 

man  than  a  bag  of  dollars  laid  up  in  a  bank.  What 
makes  a  good  manner  of  so  much  worth  as  to  have 
raised  it  into  one  of  the  fine  arts,  is  the  fact  that  in 
th  '  iVee  commerce  ^f  men  and  women,  none  but  the 
minor  debts  of  society  are  likely  to  arise  between 
guest  and  guest.  In  the  street,  in  the  hotel,  in  the 
railway-train,  a  man's  character  hardly  ever  comes 
into  play.  What  a  man  is  may  be  of  little  account  to 
the  passer-by ;  what  he  does  may  either  gladden  that 
passer-by  with  delightful  thoughts,  or  torture  him  into 
agonies  of  shame. 

The  Yankee  of  our  books  and  farces  —  the  man  who 
was  forever  whittling  a  yard  of  stick,  putting  his  heels 
out  of  window,  grinding  his  quid  of  pig-tail,  squirting 
his  tobacco-juice  in  your  face,  while,  in  breathless  and 
unsuspecting  humor,  he  ran,  to  your  amazement  and 
amusement,  through  a  string  of  guesses,  reckonings, 
and  calculations,  as  to  what  you  were,  whence  you 
came,  what  you  were  doing,  how  much  money  you 
were  worth  —  as  to  whether  you  were  single  or  mar- 
ried, how  many  children  you  had,  what  you  thought 
of  everything,  and  whether  yoar  grandmother  was  alive 
or  dead — that  full  embodiment  of  the  great  idea  of 
Personal  Freedom  is  not  so  common  and  so  lively  as 
he  would  seem  to  have  been  some  twenty  years  ago. 
Seeking  for  him  everywhere,  finding  a  shadow  of  him 
only,  and  that  but  seldom,  I  have  missed  him  very 
much ;  an  element  of  extravagance  and  humor  that 
would  have  been  very  welcome  to  me  in  long,  grave 
journeys,  which  were  often  a  thousand  miles  in  silence. 
In  the  wagon  from  Salt  Lake  to  Kearney,  in  the  boat 
from  Omaha  to  St.  Louis,  in  the  car  from  Indianapolis 
to  New  York,  I  have  often  longed  for  the  coming  of 
one  of  those  vivacious  rattles,  who  used  (as  we  have  read) 
to  poke  his  stick  into  your  ribs,  his  nose  into  your  con- 
st 


434  '         N^W  A3IERIGA. 

versation,  to  tel]  3'ou  every  thing  he  did  n't  know,  and 
to  pull  out  your  eye-teeth  generally  ;  hut  he  no  more 
came  in  answer  to  my  wish  than  the  witty  cabman 
comes  in  Dublin,  the  stolid  Pasha  in  Damascus,  the 
punctilious  Don  in  Madrid  —  those  friends  of  our 
imagination,  whom  we  love  so  much  on  paper,  and 
whom  Ave  never  meet  in  our  actual  lives ! 

In  the  room  of  this  lost  humorist,  you  find  at  your 
elbow  in  the  car,  in  the  steamboat,  at  the  dinner-table, 
a  man  who  may  be  keen  and  bright,  but  who  is  also 
taciturn  and  grave ;  asking  few  questions,  giving  curt 
answers;  a  man  occupied  and  reserved;  on  the  whole, 
rather  English  in  his  silence  and  his  pride  than  Yankee 
(of  the  book  pattern)  in  his  loquacity  and  his  smartness. 
Perhaps  he  whittles;  perhaps  he  chews;  assuredly  he 
spits.  What  impels  a  man  to  whittle  when  he  is  busy 
—  while  he  is  planing  a  campaign,  composing  an  epic, 
mapping  out  a  town  ?  Is  it  an  English  habit,  lost  to 
us  at  home,  like  rocking  in  arm-chairs  and  speaking 
through  the  nose  ?  I  hardly  think  so.  Is  it  a  relic  of 
some  Indian  custom  ?  The  Algonquins  used  to  keep 
their  reckonings  by  means  of  cuts  and  notches  on  a 
twig;  and  when  Pocahontas  came  to  England,  her 
followers  brought  with  them  a  bundle  of  canes,  on 
which  they  were  to  keep  accounts  of  what  they  saw 
among  the  Pale-faces.  Whittling  may  be  a  remnant 
of  this  Indian  custom ;  and  the  gentleman  resting  on 
the  next  bench  to  me,  without  a  thought  of  Pocahontas 
and  her  people,  may  be  wliittling  notes  for  his  election- 
speeches  on  his  stick.  I  wonder  whether  he  learned 
to  chew  at  school  ?  I  wonder  how  he  felt  when  he  first 
put  pig-tail  into  his  mouth  ? 

In  a  railway-train,  in  a  ball-room,  in  the  public 
street,  you  have  much  to  do  with  a  man's  habits  and 
behavior,  not  much  with  his  virtues  and  acquirements. 


MANNERS.  435 

In  my  jouruey  from  Columbus  to  Pittsburg,  I  spent 
about  twenty  hours  in  company  with  a  Missouri  boss. 
Now  boss  is  a  master  (the  word  is  Dutch,  and  has  gone 
westward  from  oSTew  York).  In  London  he  would 
have  been  a  capitalist,  in  Cairo  an  effendi ;  in  one  city 
he  would  have  had  the  bearing  of  a  gentleman,  in  the 
other  he  would  have  had  the  aspect  of  a  prince,  lie  Avas 
a  good  fellow,  as  I  came  to  know ;  but  he  made  no  ap- 
proach in  his  dress,  in  his  speech,  in  his  bearing,  to 
that  elegant  standard  which  in  Europe  denotes  the  gen- 
tleman. A  fine  lady  would  not  have  touched  him  with 
her  fan. 

Whence  comes  that  nameless  grace  of  style,  —  that 
tender  and  chivalric  bearing,  which,  in  rounding  off 
all  angles,  smoothing  away  all  knots,  makes  a  man  ap- 
pear lovely  and  acceptable  in  the  eyes  of  all  his  fellows  ? 
Is  it  an  affair  of  race  ?  We  English  have  it  only  in 
degree ;  a  little  more  perhaps,  naturally,  than  the 
Dutch.  It  is  a  gift  that  never  comes  to  ns  easil}^  and 
at  once ;  we  have  to  toil  for  it  long,  and  w^e  seldom 
win  it  when  we  try.  No  man,  says  an  old  adage,  has 
a  fine  accent,  an  easy  carriage,  a  perfect  presence, 
whose  grandmother  was  not  a  lady  born ;  for  in  society, 
as  in  heraldry,  it  takes  three  generations  of  men  to 
make  a  gentleman.  Thus,  in  our  common  speech,  we 
impl}^  by  a  good  manner  a  gentle  descent,  and  by  the 
term  high  breeding  we  express  our  sense  of  personal 
charm. 

But  this  common  use  of  language  fails  to  express 
and  explain  the  action  of  a  general  rule.  Among 
Gothic  tribes,  in  whom  the  tendency  towards  individual 
freak  is  strong,  this  outward  and  conceding  softness  of 
demeanor  may  be  slow  to  come  and  swift  to  go ;  it 
may  only  come  to  men  who  have  ease  and  leisure, 
brightened  by  moral  culture,  and  by  intellectual  toil. 


43G  yEW  AMERICA. 

In  the  Latin,  in  the  Greek,  in  the  Arab,  it  would  al- 
most seem  as  though  it  required  uo  time  to  grow,  no 
effort  to  improve.  An  Italian  rustic  has  often  a  finer 
manner  than  an  English  earl.  Why  is  this  so?  Not 
because  country  habits  are  a  liberal  education,  as  the 
poets  feign  ;  an  English  plough-boy  having  no  rival 
in  Europe  for  gross  stupidity  and  awkwardness,  unless 
he  can  lind  his  mate  in  that  Dutch  peasant  whose 
name  of  "'boor"  has  passed  into  our  language  as  the 
fullest  expression  for  lout  and  clown.  Even  the  Italian, 
elegant  as  his  bearing  always  is,  cannot  stand  in  com- 
parison with  the  more  supple  Greek.  A  native  of 
Athens,  Smyrna,  Ehodes,  will  fleece  you  with  a  grace 
that  more  than  half  inclines  you  to  forgive  him  for  the 
cheat.  But  he,  again,  must  yield  the  palm  before  the 
easy  and  unstudied  beauty  of  an  Arab's  mien ;  a  man 
whose  every  gesture  is  a  lesson  in  the  highest  of  social 
arts.  When  you  are  in  an  Eastern  city,  even  in  an 
Eastern  desert,  the  question  is  forever  springing  to 
your  lips — who  taught  yon  muleteer  to  bow  and  smile  ; 
who  gave  that  fluent  grace  to  yon  tawny  Sheikh  ?  A 
lad}^,  coming  into  an  Arab's  camp  at  night,  would  feel 
no  dread,  unless  she  had  been  -svarned  hj  previous 
trials :  for  the  Sheikh,  under  whose  canvas  tent  she 
may  find  herself,  has,  in  a  perfection  rarely  seen,  that 
gift  of  gait  and  speech  which  in  the  w^est  is  only  to  be 
sought,  not  always  to  be  found,  in  men  of  the  highest 
rank.  How  does  the  Bedouin  gain  this  princely  air? 
Not  from  his  wealth  and  power — a  herd  of  goats,  a 
flock  of  sheep,  are  his  sole  estate ;  not  from  his  mental 
eftbrts — he  can  hardly  read  and  write.  The  Sheikh 
who  inspires  this  confidence,  so  far  from  being  a  prince, 
a  priest,  bound  by  his  nature  and  his  habit  to  do  right, 
ma}'  be  a  thief,  an  outlaw,  an  assassin,  after  his  kind, 
with  the  scorch  of  fire  and  the  stain  of  blood  upon 


MANNERS.  437 

that  hand  Avhieh  he  waves  with  a  bewitching  grace. 
i"ct  he  looks  the  prince.  All  Orientals  have  tliis  name- 
less charm.  A  Syrian  peasant  welcomes  you  to  his 
stoneliut,  makes  his  sign  of  the  cross,  and  hopes  that 
"Peace  will  be  with  you,"  after  a  fashion  which  a 
caliph  could  not  mend.  Ease  is  the  element  in  which 
he  lives ;  grace  seems  to  have  become  his  second  nature ; 
and  he  moves  with  the  dignity  of  his  high-born  mare. 
When  you  quit  the  East,  you  leave  some  part  of 
that  fine  air,  that  flattering  courtesy,  behind  3'ou.  Less 
of  it  is  found  in  Alexandria  than  in  Cairo ;  less  in 
Smyrna  than  at  Damascus.  Sailing  westward,  you  will 
lose  it  more  and  more ;  by  a  scale  of  loss  that  might 
be  measured  on  a  chart.  Speaking  roundly,  the  gift 
of  seeming  soft  and  gracious,  which  we  call  by  the 
name  of  Manner,  declines  in  a  regular  order  from 
East  to  West ;  in  Europe,  it  is  best  in  Stamboul,  worst 
in  London ;  in  the  world  (so  far  as  I  have  seen),  it  is 
best  in  Cairo,  worst  at  Denver  and  Salt  Lake.  And 
the  rule  which  governs  the  ends  of  these  great  chains, 
holds  good  for  all  the  links  between  them ;  the  finer 
courtesies  of  life  being  more  apparent  in  St.  Louis 
than  Salt  Lake;  in  Xew  York  than  in  St.  Louis;  in 
London  than  in  Js^ew  York;  in  Paris  than  in  London ; 
in  Rome  than  in  Paris ;  in  Athens  than  in  Rome ;  in 
Stamboul  than  in  Athens;  in  Cairo  and  Damascus 
than  in  Stamboul.  If  I  ever  go  westward  to  Cali- 
fornia, I  shall  expect  to  find  the  manners  worse  in  San 
Francisco  than  they  are  at  St,  Louis  and  Salt  Lake. 

37* 


438  ^^W  AMEBIC  A. 


CHAPTER  LX. 

LIBERTIES. 

Will  any  one  learned  in  the  ways  of  nature  say 
what  is  the  cause  of  a  decline  in  manners  which  may 
be  noted  at  every  stage  of  a  journey  from  the  Usbeyah 
to  Pennsylvania  Avenue  ?  What  is  the  secret  of  the 
art  itself?  Whence  comes  this  gentle  craft,  of  which 
the  Saxon  has  so  little,  the  Persian  has  so  much? 
Man  for  man,  a  Persian  is  less  noble  than  an  Arab,  an 
Arab  than  a  Gaul,  a  Gaul  than  a  Briton ;  why  then 
should  the  lower  race  excel  the  higher  in  this  subtle 
test  of  bearing?  Is  manner  nothing  more  than  a 
name  for  the  absence  of  liberty?  Is  that  soft  reserve, 
that  bated  voice,  that  deprecating  tone,  no  more  than 
a  sacrifice  of*  individual  force  to  social  order  ?  Are 
we  polite  because  we  are  not  ourselves  ?  In  short,  is 
a  good  manner  a  liberal  accomplishment  or  onl}'  a 
slavish  grace  ? 

Two  facts  may  be  taken  as  proved.  1.  That  charm 
has  scarcely  any  aftection  for  bus}'  commonwealths. 
No  free  people  has  much  of  it  to  spare;  no  servile 
nation  is  \vith()ut  it  in  abundance.  In  America,  the 
Xegro  has  it,  the  Cheyenne  has  )iot ;  in  Europe,  the 
Greek  has  more  of  it  than  the  Gaul ;  in  Asia,  the 
Persian  and  Hindoo  have  more  of  it  than  the  Arme- 
nian and  the  Turk.  2.  It  is  rarely  found  among  men 
of  the  highest  genius.  Whether  in  arts  or  letters, 
manner  means  mediocrity :  mannerism  of  style  is  but 
a  name  for  the  absence  of  individuality,  of  invention, 
of  original  power.  Men  who  show  great  force  of 
character   cannot   show  a  fine  manner,  which  implies 


TABERTIES.  489 

polish,  smoothness,  and  conformity.  Hence,  men  of 
the  higher  genius  are  called  eccentrics  and  originals. 

Might  not  a  rule  be  laid  down  which  should  express 
an  approach  to  the  truth  in  some  such  words  as  these: 
a  people  has  this  exceeding  grace  of  spirit  in  exact 
proportion  to  the  length  and  strength  of  the  despotism 
under  which  it  has  heen  schooled  ? 

I  do  not  say  that  such  will  be  found  the  final  form 
of  this  rule.  As  yet  we  have  few  materials,  and  no 
fixed  principles,  for  a  science  of  the  Life  of  Man. 
But  if  a  large  experience  and  induction  were  at  some 
future  time  to  show  that  such  is  the  truth,  the  fact 
would  serve  to  explain  some  points  which  in  our 
present  state  of  knowledge  give  us  so  great  pleasure. 
Men  of  poetic  habits,  when  they  hear  of  nations  fall- 
ing ofif  in  manners  as  they  gain  in  liberty  and  power, 
are  apt  to  grieve,  and  almost  to  despair.  That  nations 
do  fall  oft"  in  manners  with  the  advance  of  freedom 
and  prosperity,  is  one  of  those  facts  which  are  open, 
obvious,  uniform ;  written  in  every  figure,  told  in 
every  glance.  Go  where  you  list,  from  Jerusalem  to 
Florence,  from  Paris  to  New  York,  the  tale  is  every- 
where the  same.  The  Eftendine  families  in  Zion  are 
noticed  as  being  far  less  aftable,  now  that,  after  Arab 
measure,  they  are  rich  and  free,  than  when  the  Holy 
City  was  an  Arab  camp,  governed  by  a  pasha  of  two 
tails,  administering  his  rough  injustice  in  the  Jaffa 
gate.  A  Greek  is  far  less  winsome  in  his  ways,  less 
sweet  and  pleasant  to  have  about  you,  now  that  he 
has  ceased  to  be  a  slave.  The  Roman  Jew,  so  smooth- 
ly spoken,  so  obsequious  to  your  wish,  in  the  days  of 
yore,  has  now  put  on  a  saucy  and  audacious  air.  Free 
Florence  has  lost  her  name  for  sweet  and  tender 
courtesy  since  she  has  ceased  to  gaze  into  the  Aus- 
trian's eyes,  and  make  humble  love  to  the  Austrian's 


440  ^^EW   AMERICA. 

boot.  France  threw  clown  her  repute  for  hows  and 
smiles,  when  she  rose  up  in  her  wrath  to  slay  her  ty- 
rants and  break  her  chains.  Yes,  with  the  growth  of 
liberty,  the  school  of  manners  seems  to  be  everywhere 
decaying.  A  Suabian  is  less  polite  in  Omaha  than  in 
Augsburg ;  a  Munster  man  in  Baltimore  than  in 
Cork.  Fritz  will  not  say  "good  evening"  to  you  on 
Lake  Erie,  Pat  will  not  touch  his  cap  to  you  in  New 
York.  Are  not  these  changes  the  result  of  general 
laws?     And  if  they  be,  what  are  those  laws? 

If  it  should  appear  that  the  fine  favor  which  we  call 
manner  is  but  a  note  and  sign  of  long  submission  to 
a  master's  will,  you  may  find  in  the  fact  some  grain 
of  consolation  even  when  a  passing  rowdy  squirts  his 
tobacco  on  your  boots.  This  negro  at  the  corner  will 
brush  them  clean ;  doing  his  service  for  you  with  a 
soft  alacrity,  a  submissive  laughter,  to  charm  your 
heart.  Yesterday,  this  fellow  was  a  slave,  subject  to 
cuifs  and  stripes,  compelled  to  cringe  and  fawn.  His 
son  will  have  a  way  of  his  own ;  and  his  son's  son, 
with  a  vote  at  the  poll,  a  balance  at  the  bank,  will  not 
be  found  so  meek  in  spirit  as  to  lie  in  the  dust  at  your 
descendant's  feet.  Like  every  free  man  born  on  this 
American  soil,  he  w'ill  probably  say  in  gait  and  tone, 
"Ask  me  not  to  serve  you,  —  am  I  not  as  good  as 
you?" 

It  is  well  to  know  that  the  rough  liberties  for  which 
our  cousins  have  exchanged,  as  a  rule,  the  deferential 
habits  of  their  fathers,  are  of  a  solid  and  fruitful  kind. 
If  they  have  sold  their  birthright  of  civility,  they  have 
not  sold  it  for  a  mess  of  pottage.  Indeed,  they  may 
be  said  to  have  made  a  very  good  market  of  their 
manners  ;  having  got  in  return  for  them  houses,  votes, 
schools,  wages ;  a  splendid  present  for  themselves,  a 


LIBERTIES.  441 

magnificent  future  for  their  children.    They  have  risen 
in  society ;  they  have  ceased  to  he  servants. 

The  relation  of  a  French  cook,  of  an  English  hutler, 
of  a  Swiss  valet,  to  his  master,  is  a  thing  unknown  in 
this  country,  whether  you  search  for  it  on  the  Oliio, 
on  the  Delaware,  on  the  sea-shore.  Here  you  have 
no  masters,  no  servants.  No  native  white  will  serve 
another.  Ask  your  friends  in  Richmond,  in  New 
York,  about  the  birthplace  of  their  domestics ;  you 
will  find  that  their  serving  men  and  serving  women 
are  all  either  Irish  or  negro.  A  lady  cannot  get  a 
native  maid,  her  husband  cannot  get  a  native  groom. 
Tempt  a  street  huckster  with  as  many  dollars  as  would 
buy  you  a  dozen  clerks,  and  the  chances  are  many 
that  he  will  sa}^:  "I  am  as  good  as  you ;  I  have  the 
same  vote  as  you ;  I  can  go  into  Congress  as  well  as 
you ;  I  may  be  President  as  soon  as  you ; "  and  the 
facts  as  between  you  and  him  are  mainly  as  he  puts 
them.  A  working  tailor  lives  at  the  White  House. 
One  of  the  most  popular  Presidents  since  Washington 
died,  was  a  log-cleaver,  a  woodsman.  In  this  free 
country  all  careers  lie  open.  They  have  always  been 
so  in  3'on  Northern  States ;  and,  since  the  War,  this 
Northern  rule  is  fast  becoming  the  law  for  every  part. 
Even  in  Virginia  there  will  soon  be  no  mean  whites. 
Li  Ohio,  birth  is- nothing;  in  Cincinnati,  I  have  heard 
it  said,  that  no  man  has  any  need  for  a  grandmother. 
Each  man  must  make  himself  Nor  does  it  greatly 
matter  what  a  man  has  been  some  dozen  years  ago ; 
one  year  is  an  age  in  this  swift  country;  indeed,  this 
liberal  dealing  runs  to  such  excess,  that  if  a  fellow  has 
a  smooth  tongue,  and  keeps  himself  clean,  the  fact  of 
his  having  passed  a  term  in  Auburn  will  not  weigh 
heavily  on  his  neck.  Morrisey,  the  New  York  gam- 
bler, once  a  pugilist,   then  a  prisoner,  afterwards  a 


442  N^W  AMERICA. 

faro-banker,  may  wear  white  kid,  and  give  his  vote  in 
the  Capitol.  To  pluck,  to  enterprise,  to  genius,  every 
office  in  the  land  is  open  prize. 

Xo  white  native,  therefore,  need  despair  so  far  as  to 
sink  into  the  grade  of  servant:  the  position,  as  he 
would  call  it,  of  a  stranger  and  a  slave.  If  he  should 
fall  so  low,  he  would  be  lost  forever  in  the  minds  of 
his  former  friends,  like  a  Brahman  who  had  forfeited 
his  caste. 

Nor  do  you  find  among  these  free  citizens  of  the 
Great  Republic  much  of  that  show  of  deference  which 
in  France  and  England  would  be  understood,  on  both 
sides,  as  the  expectation  of  a  silver  coin.  Ko  native 
American  ever  takes  a  vaiL  A  driver  in  the  street  may 
cheat  you,  but  he  will  not  take  from  you  a  cent  be- 
yond his  claim.  ^S'o  porter  will  accept  a  gift  of  service ; 
no  messenger  will  accept  a  reward  for  haste.  Some- 
times a  news-boy  will  object  to  receiving  change  out 
of  a  greenback ;  more  than  once  I  have  had  my  couple 
of  cents  thrown  back  into  my  lap.  Thus  it  happens 
that  no  one  ever  proffers  help  in  your  little  straits ; 
for  no  one  being  employed  in  looking  out  for  doles, 
your  trouble  is  not  his  affair.  When  you  are  either 
young  to  the  country,  or  careless  of  its  ways,  you  may 
have  to  fetch  water  to  your  room,  lift  your  box  into 
the  car,  take  your  letter  to  the  post ;  in  short,  do  every 
little  act  for  yourself  which  would  be  done  for  you  in 
London  for  a  shilling,  in  Paris  for  a  franc.  Where  no 
man  needs  your  vails,  no  man  watches  to  do  you  good. 
Help  yourself,  —  this  is  a  stranger's  motto  and  neces- 
sity in  these  free  States. 

Perhaps,  the  liberty  which  is  more  than  any  other 
likely  to  amuse  a  traveller  in  this  country,  is  the  free- 
dom with  which  every  one  helps  himself  to  anything 
he  may  want.     In  a  railway-car,  anybody  who  likes 


LIBERTIES.  443 

it  will  sit  clown  in  your  place,  push  away  3'our  satcliel, 
seize  upon  your  book.  Thought  of  asking  your  leave 
in  the  matter  may  not  occur  to  him  for  hours.  I 
lent  a  book  to  a  man  in  the  car  at  St.  Louis ;  he  kept 
it  two  days  and  nights ;  and  then  asked  me  if  I  was 
reading  it  myself.  On  my  saying  yes,  he  simply  an- 
swered, "It  is  amusing  ;  you  will  have  a  good  time." 
On  the  Pennsylvania  central  line,  a  lady  entered  into 
my  state-room,  on  pretence  of  looking  out  upon  a 
river;  she  kept  m}-  seat,  for  which  I  had  paid  an  extra 
fare,  until  her  journey  ended.  If  you  ask  for  any  dish 
at  dinner,  your  neighbor,  should  the  fancy  take  him, 
will  snatch  a  portion  of  it  from  beneath  your  nose. 
When  I  was  leaving  Salt  Lake  City,  Sister  Alice,  the 
daughter  of  Brigham  Young,  put  up  some  very  fine 
apples  in  a  box  for  me  to  eat  by  the  w^ay  ;  at  a  station 
on  the  Plains  I  found  that  a  lady,  a  fellow-passenger 
in  the  wagon,  had  been  opening  my  box,  and  helping 
herself  to  the  fruit;  and  when  she  saw  me  looking  at 
her,  with  some  surprise  perhaps  visible  on  my  face, 
she  merely  said,  "I  am  trying  whether  your  apples  are 
better  than  mine."  In  the  western  country,  a  man  will 
tire  oft"  your  pistols,  try  on  your  gauntlets.  Any  one 
thinks  himself  at  liberty  to  clean  his  clothes  with  your 
brushes,  run  his  hair  through  your  comb,  and  warm 
himself  in  your  great-coat. 

These  things  are  not  meant  to  be  offensive.  A  fel- 
low gives  and  takes;  lends  you  a  buffalo-hide  on  a 
frosty  night;  helps  himself  to  your  drinking-cup  at  the 
morning  well.  The  manner  is  not  fine ;  but  the  hearti- 
ness is  pleasant,  and  you  would  be  unintelligible  if 
you  made  complaint.  Every  one  you  meet  has  the 
way  which  in  Europe  would  be  called  original. 


444  NEW  AMERICA. 

CHAPTER  LXI. 

LAW    AND    JUSTICE. 

When  Secretary  Seward  put  to  me  the  question 
which  every  American  puts  to  an  Englishman  travel- 
ling in  the  United  States,  "Well,  sir,  what  do  you 
think  of  our  country?"  I  ventured  to  reply,  partly  at 
least  in  jest,  "I  find  your  country  so  free  that  nobody 
seems  to  have  any  rights."  As  in  all  such  sayings, 
there  was  some  exaggeration  in  these  words;  yet  they 
convey  an  impression  dwelling  on  my  mind.    ^ 

]S'o  men  in  the  world,  not  even  we  English,  from 
whom  they  derive  the  virtue,  boast  so  constantly,  and 
with  so  much  reason,  of  being  a  law-loving,  a  law- 
abiding  people  as  these  Americans.  Having  no  State 
religion,  no  authentic  Church,  they  seem  to  cling  to 
the  written  Law,  whether  it  be  that  which  was  fixed 
by  the  Constitution,  that  which  has  been  voted  by 
Congress,  or  only  that  which  is  defined  by  the  Supreme 
Court,  as  to  a  rock  in  the  midst  of  a  storm. 

Few  things  in  this  free  countr}^  stand  above  the  reach 
of  cavil.  That  light  which  in  Europe  is  said  to  beat 
upon  a  throne,  here  beats  upon  every  object,  whether 
high  or  low.  Nothing  can  be  done  in  secret ;  no  one 
is  permitted  to  live  in  private.  Every  man  drives  in  a 
glass  coach,  and  everybody  flings  a  stone  at  him  as  he 
dashes  past.  Censure  is  the  world's  first  duty  ;  in  some 
societies,  such  as  the  Bible  Communists',  criticism  is 
adopted  as  the  only  governing  power.  Life  is  a  Broad- 
way procession.  From  the  elegant  frivolities  of  a  la- 
dy's boudoir  in  Madison  Square,  down  to  the  midnight 
follies  enacted  in  the  cellars  of  the  Louvre,  everything 


LAW  AND  JUSTICE.  445 

in  yon  city  of  New  York  is  known,  is  seen,  is  judged 
by  public  opinion.  The  pulpit  is  accused,  the  press 
suspected,  the  government  condemned.  Capital  is 
assailed  and  enterprise  is  watched.  Each  man  thinks 
for  himself,  judges  for  himself,  about  the  most  deli- 
cate, the  most  sacred  things  —  love,  marriage,  prop- 
erty, morality,  religion.  Law  and  justice  do  not  always 
escape  this  rage  for  popular  debate ;  but  by  common 
assent  of  minds,  they  are  regarded  as  the  very  last  sub- 
jects to  be  handled,  and  only  then  to  be  touched  with 
reverential  hand. 

Whether  it  be  constitutional,  general,  state,  or  only 
municipal,  Law  is  nobly  respected  by  the  native  Amei-- 
ican.  The  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  is  treated  in 
Washington  with  a  degree  of  respect  unknown  to 
lawyers  in  Europe  ;  a  respect  akin  to  that  which  is 
paid  to  an  archbishop  in  Madrid  and  to  a  cardinal  in 
Rome.  The  State  Judges  take  the  places  in  society 
held  among  us  by  bishops.  Even  the  village  justice, 
though  he  is  elected  by  the  crowd,  is  always  styled 
the  squire. 

This  deference  to  the  Law,  and  to  every  one  who 
wears  the  semblance  of  lawful  authority,  is  so  complete 
in  America,  as  to  occasion  a  traveller  some  annoyance 
and  more  surprise.  Every  dog  in  office  is  obeyed  with 
such  unquestioning  meekness,  that  every  dog  in  office 
is  tempted  to  become  a  cur.  It  is  rare,  indeed,  to  find 
a  servant  of  the  public  civil  and  obliging.  He  may 
be  something  better,  but  assuredly  he  is  neither  help- 
ful nor  deferential.  A  news-boy  w^ill  not  serve  you 
with  a  'Ledger,'  an  '  Liquirer,'  unless  he  likes.  A 
policeman  hardly  condescends  to  show  you  the  nearest 
way.  A  railway-guard  will  put  you  in  this  car,  in 
that  car,  among  the  ladies,  among  the  rowdies,  among 
the  smokers,  just  as  he  lists.     A  crowd  of  busy  and 

3S 


446  NEW  AMEBIC  A. 

free  Americans  will  stand  about,  and  bear  this  in- 
solence of  authority  with  a  shrug,  saying  they  cannot 
help  it.  When  coming  up  from  Richmond  by  the 
night  train,  Mr.  Laurence  Oliphant,  myself,  and  many 
more,  arrived  at  Acquia  Creek  about  one  o'clock ;  the 
passage  thence  to  Washington  takes  four  hours  ;  and 
as  we  were  much  fatigued,  and  had  only  these  four 
hours  for  rest,  we  bes-o-ed  that  the  kevs  of  our  berths 
might  be  given  to  us  at  once.  "I'll  attend  to  you 
when  I  'm  through,"  was  the  onh*  answer  we  could 
get;  and  we  waited  —  a  train  of  ladies,  young  folks, 
gentlemen  —  until  the  man  had  arranged  his  ati'uirs, 
and  smoked  his  pipe,  more  than-  an  hour.  Yet  not 
one  word  was  said,  except  by  Mr.  Oliphant  and  myself. 
The  man  was  in  office ;  excuse  enough  in  American 
eyes  for  doing  as  he  pleased.  This  is  the  kind  of 
circle  in  which  they  reason ;  take  away  his  office,  and 
the  man  is  as  good  as  we  are;  all  men  are  free  and 
equal ;  add  office  to  equality,  and  he  rises  above  our 
heads.  More  than  once  I  have  ventured  to  tell  my 
friends,  that  this  habit  of  deferring  to  law  and  lawful 
authority,  good  in  itself,  has  gone  with  them  into 
extremes,  and  would  lead  them,  should  the}'  let  it 
grow,  into  the  frame  of  mind  for  yielding  to  the  usur- 
pation of  any  bold  despot  who  may  assail  their  liberties, 
like  Csesar,  in  the  name  of  law  and  order ! 

Sometimes,  this  profound  respect  for  Law  gives  rise 
to  singular  situations.  I  may  name  two  cases,  one  of 
which  was  told  me  at  Clear  Creek,  near  Denver,  the 
other  in  Cass  Township,  Pennsylvania. 

Black  Bear,  a  Cheyenne  warrior,  who  had  scalped  a 
white  man,  was  arrested  b}-  the  people  of  Denver. 
Across  the  English  border  he  would  have  been  tried 
on  the  spot  and  hung,  there  being  no  doubt  whatever 
about  his  guilt ;  but  the  American  people  have  such 


LAW  AND  JUSTICE.  447 

loftv  regard  for  the  forms  of  justice,  that  they  will  not 
suffer  a  murderer  to  be  tried  for  his  life,  except  under 
all  the  delicate  conditions  of  a  white  man's  court. 
Black  Bear  was  brought  from  Colorado  to  Washington, 
two  thousand  miles  from  the  scene  of  his  crime ;  he 
had  clever  counsel  to  defend  him ;  and  the  chief 
witnesses  of  his  crime  being  far  away,  the  juiy  gave 
him  the  beneiit  of  all  their  doubts.  Acquitted  by  the 
court,  he  became  a  lion  in  the  city,  especially  among 
romantic  women.  He  was  taken  to  the  Indian  bureau  ; 
he  was  allowed  to  shake  hands  with  the  President ; 
pistols  and  belts  were  given  to  him  ;  and  he  returned 
to  the  Cheyenne  camp  a  big  chief,  appearing  to  his 
own  people  to  have  been  decorated  and  promoted  by 
the  white  men,  for  no  other  cause  than  that  of  having 
taken  their  brother's  scalp. 

William  Dunn,  of  Cass  Township,  Pottsville,  was  a 
manager  of  mines  for  the  New  York  and  Schuylkill 
Company ;  a  gentleman  and  a  man  of  science,  with  a 
great  command  over  the  coalfields  of  that  picturesque 
and  prosperous  region  of  Pennsylvania.  I  have  spent 
some  days  in  that  fine  district,  where  I  heard  this 
story  from  the  lips  of  his  successor.  Dunn  was  going 
about  his  duty,  in  the  public  street,  in  open  day,  when 
an  Irish  workman  met  him  face  to  face,  and  with  an 
insolent  gesture  asked  for  a  holiday.  "  You  cannot 
have  it,"  said  Dunn  ;  "  go  back  to  your  work,"  With- 
out a  word  more,  the  Irishman  drew  a  pistol  from  his 
belt  and  shot  him  dead.  The  murderer,  taken  red- 
handed,  in  the  public  street,  standing  by  the  body  of 
his  victim,  was  brought  to  trial  in  Pottsville  and  — 
acquitted.  In  that  great  coalfield,  with  towns  and 
cities  Vvdiicli  have  grown  up  in  the  forest  in  a  dozen 
years,  the  Irisli  are  sixty  thousand  strong.  They  are 
very  poor,  they  are  grossly  illiterate  ;  but  every  man 


448  N'EW  AMERICA. 

has  a  vote,  and  the  sixty  thousand  vote  together  aa 
one  man.  Hence  they  carry  all  elections  in  the  coal- 
field; elect  the  judges,  serve  on  the  juries,  control  the 
courts.  Among  these  men  there  is  a  secret  society 
called  The  Molly  Maguires,  the  name  and  hahits  of 
which  they  have  introduced  from  Ireland.  The  judge 
who  tried  this  murderer  was  elected  by  the  Molly 
Maguires  ;  the  jurors  who  assisted  him  were  them- 
selves Molly  Maguires.  A  score  of  Molly  Maguires 
came  forward  to  swear  that  the  assassin  was  sixty 
miles  from  the  spot  on  which  he  had  been  seen  to  fire 
at  William  Dunn.  Counsel  submitted  that  this  was 
one  of  the  many  cases  of  mistaken  identity  which 
adorn  our  legal  annals ;  the  judge  summed  up  the 
case  in  the  spirit  of  this  suggestion  ;  and  the  jurors 
instantly  returned  a  verdict  of  Not  Guilty.  That 
ruffian  is  still  alive.  The  great  company  whose  servant 
had  been  slain  could  do  nothing  but  engage  another 
in  his  place.  One  gentleman  to  whom  they  offered 
the  post,  replied  that  he  would  not  take  it  unless  he 
could  be  armor-plated. 

AYhen  you  speak  of  this  case  to  the  eminent  men 
of  the  Pennsylvania  bar,  thej^  answer  that  these  people 
cannot  be  punished,  and  that  you  must  wait  and  work 
for  a  better  state  of  things.  "  These  criminals,"  they 
say,  in  substance,  "are  not  Americans  ;  they  come  to 
us  from  Europe  ;  squalid,  ignorant,  brutal ;  they  drink, 
they  quarrel,  they  form  secret  associations ;  in  their 
own  country  they  paid  their  rent  with  a  blunderbuss, 
in  this  country  the}'  ask  for  a  holiday  with  a  pistol, 
and  demand  an  advance  of  wages  with  a  blazing 
torch.  But  what  are  we  to  do  ?  Can  we  close  our 
ports  against  these  immigrants  ?  Should  we  change 
our  judicial  system,  the  pride  of  thirty-six  millions  of 
solid  and  steadfast  people,  to  punish  a  mob  of  degraded 


POLITICS.  449 

Irish  peasants?"  So  tliey  allege,  \vith  a  noble  con- 
fidence in  moral  growth,  that  this  evil  must  be  left  to 
cure  itself;  as  they  reckon  it  will  do  in  five-and- 
twenty  years.  "  The  children  of  these  Molly  Ma- 
guires,"  says  the  keen  and  brilliant  ma^'or  of  Phila- 
delphia, Morton  M' Michael,  "will  be  decent  people; 
we  shall  put  them  through  our  schools  and  train  them 
in  our  ways  ;  their  children,  again,  will  be  rich  and 
good  Americans,  who  will  hardly  have  heard  of  such 
a  society  as  the  Molly  Maguires." 


CHAPTER  LXIL 


POLITICS. 


Society  (the  vohintary  grouping  of  many  units  for 
their  common  help)  is  made  and  held  together  by  the 
poise  and  balance  of  two  radical  powers  in  man  — 
akin  to  those  centrifugal  and  centripetal  forces  which 
compel  the  planets  to  revolve  about  the  sun — the 
separating  spirit  of  freedom,  and  the  combining  spirit 
of  union.  Always  acting,  and  in  opposite  ways,  these 
forces  hold  each  other  in  check ;  that  shaking  masses 
into  units,  this  drawing  units  into  masses ;  and  it  is 
only  in  their  nice  adjustment  to  each  other  that  a 
nation  can  enjoy  political  life  in  the  midst  of  social 
peace.  In  all  living  men,  these  powers  of  separation 
and  attraction  are  nearly  equal,  like  the  corresponding 
forces  in  all  moving  matter;  but  some  races  of  men 
have  a  little  more  of  the  first  power,  others  have  a 
little  more  of  the  second  power.  The  Latin  race  has 
a  quicker  sense  of  union  than  the  Gothic  race ;  the 

38* 


450  ^^EW  AMERICA. 

Gothic  race  has  a  keener  love  of  liberty  than  the 
Latin  race.  Each  may  be  capable  of  uniting  public 
order  with  personal  independence ;  but  the  paths  by 
which  they  will  separately  arrive  at  such  an  end, 
diverging  from  the  conmion  line,  will  reach  tlicir  goal 
by  loops  and  zigzags  hardly  perceptible  to  each  other. 
A  Latin  people  will  dread  the  liberty  for  which  it 
longs ;  a  Gothic  people  will  distrust  the  government 
of  its  choice.  Compare  the  structure  of  a  Teutonic 
Church  with  that  of  the  Roman  Church  ;  compare  the 
political  life  of  America  with  tliat  of  France!  Rome 
has  a  compactness  of  organization,  to  which  neither 
London,  Augsburg,  nor  Geneva  can  attain;  while 
London,  Augsburg,  and  Geneva  have  a  freedom  to 
which  Rome  cannot  even  aspire.  Li  France,  again, 
the  tendency  of  public  thought,  not  of  a  school,  of  a 
party  only,  but  of  the  solid  people,  is  to  sustain 
authority  against  the  demands  of  personal  right;  in 
America,  on  the  contrary,  the  action  of  all  political 
bodies,  of  all  colleges  and  corporations,  of  all  private 
teachers,  agitators,  and  philosophers,  is  directed,  now 
consciously,  now  unconsciously,  towards  weakening 
the  public  force  in  favor  of  individual  rights.  France 
has  not  lost  her  love  of  liberty,  nor  America  forgotten 
her  respect  for  law ;  for  these  are  elementary  instincts 
in  the  human  heart ;  without  which,  in  some  form  of 
combination  and  adjustment,  societ}',  as  we  understand 
it,  could  not  be.  But  in  the  large  results  of  thought, 
in  the  wide  action  of  politics,  one  nation  is  always 
tending  towards  military  rule,  the  second  nation 
towards  popular  rule ;  France  seeking  safety  in  the 
drill,  the  discipline,  the  armaments  of  a  camp. 
America  in  the  agitations  of  a  pulpit,  in  the  explo- 
sions of  a  press,  in  which  every  man  has  an  unlicensed 
right  of  speech  and  thought. 


POLITICS.  451 

Each  of  these  tendencies  implies  a  peril  of  its  own. 
If  the  Latin  is  apt  to  sacrifice  independence  to  empire, 
the  Teuton  is  no  less  apt  to  sacrifice  empire  to  inde- 
pendence. In  France,  the  danger  lies  ia  too  mnch 
compression  —  in  America  it  lies  in  too  much  separa- 
tion—  of  the  political  units. 

For  twenty  j-ears  before  the  AVar  broke  out,  the 
tendency  of  men  in  the  United  States  towards  separa- 
tion had  been  excessive  ;  not  in  one  society,  but  in  all 
societies ;  not  in  one  body,  but  in  all  bodies ;  not 
between  race  and  race  only,  but  between  men  of  the 
same  race ;  not  in  the  States  only,  but  in  the  Churches  ; 
not  in  politics  and  religion  only,  but  in  science,  in 
literature,  in  social  life.  Until  the  War  came  down 
upon  the  nation  like  a  judgment,  rousing  it  from  a 
trance,  the  moral  atmosphere  of  America  had  been 
charged  with  the  fire  of  secession ;  almost  every  man 
of  intellectual  force  and  native  genius  in  the  country, 
either  being  or  seeming  to  be,  driven  by  the  force  of 
some  inward  spring  from  his  obedience  to  natural 
rules  and  national  laws.  Society  rights,  class  rights, 
property  rights, —  state  rights,  county  rights,  township 
rights, —  land  rights,  mining  rights,  water  rights, — 
church  rights,  chapel  rights,  temple  rights, —  personal 
rights,  sexual  rights  —  the  rights  of  labor,  of  divorce, 
of  profession  —  the  rights  of  polygamy,  of  celibacy, 
of  pantagamy  —  negro  rights,  Indian  rights,  equal 
rights,  woman's  rights,  babies' rights :  these  are  but 
samples  of  the  names  under  which  a  common  senti- 
ment of  division  had  taken  shape  and  grown  into  an 
actual  power.  "What  man  of  mark  then  raised  his 
voice  for  unity  ?  Who  cared  for  the  central  govern- 
ment unless  he  could  mint  it  into  dollars,  turn  it  into 
patronage  and  power?  Who  taught  the  poor  to  feel 
reverence  for  the  law?     Were  the  rich,  the  learned. 


452  ^EW  AMERICA. 

tlic  intellectual  members  of  this  proud  community 
ever  seen  in  those  days  at  yonder  White  House? 
"What  poet,  what  scholar,  what  divine,  then  made  it 
his  religion  to  respect  a  freedom  which  was  guarded 
and  controlled  by  the  general  vote  ?  A  man  of  genius 
here  and  there  took  office,  chiefly  in  some  foreign  city; 
going  far  away  from  his  native  soil,  to  a  place  in  which 
he  could  forget  his  country,  while  he  made  a  tale,  a 
poem,  a  morality,  of  the  messages  and  memories  of  a 
foreign  race  and  a  distant  age.  Irving  went  to  the 
Alhambra.  Bancroft  sailed  for  London.  Rich  amused 
himself  in  Paris.  Hawthorne  mused  in  Liverpool ; 
Motley  pored  over  papers  at  the  Hague.  Power 
migrated  to  Florence,  Mozier  and  Story  pitched  their 
tents  in  Rome.  Longfellow,  dallying  with  the  Golden 
Legend,  seemed  to  have  forgotten  the  poetic  themes 
which  lay  about  his  home.  Xo  one  seemed  to  ap- 
preciate American  scenery,  no  one  appeared  to  value 
American  law.  For  a  moment  everything  brightest 
in  the  land  lay  under  an  eclipse. 

ISTot  a  few  of  the  more  brilliant  men  —  the  younger 
lights  of  the  Xew  England  schools  —  renounced  their 
citizen  rights,  and  even  while  they  yet  lived  in  Massa- 
chusetts, in  Connecticut,  in  Rhode  Island,  declared 
themselves  by  a  public  act  set  free  from  all  future 
loyalty  to  the  United  States.  It  is  said  that  Ripley, 
Dana,  Hawthorne,  Channing,  Curtis,  Parker,  some  or 
all,  laid  down  their  common  rights  in  the  American 
courts,  when  they  undertook  to  raise  a  new  society  at 
Brook  Farm.  Boyle,  Smith,  and  Koyes,  were  only 
three  in  a  thousand  clever  men  —  born  in  Kew  Eng- 
land, nurtured  in  its  societies,  educated  in  its  schools, 
licensed  to  preach  its  gospels  —  who  seceded  from  the 
Great  Republic;  mocking  its  defenders,  and  contemn- 
ini>:  its  institutions.     "Ha!"  roared  Noyes,  the  idol- 


POLITICS.  453 

breaker,  "  do  you  fancy  that  heaven  is  a  republic,  that 
a  majority  governs  in  the  skies,  tliat  angelic  ofHces  are 
elective,  that  God  is  a  president,  that  His  ministers  are 
responsible  to  a  mob  ?"  And  the  crowds  who  heard 
him,  answered  —  ISTo  ! 

In  the  church  it  was  much  the  same  as  in  the 
political  field.  That  old  and  stately  church  which  has 
the  root  of  its  life  in  the  mother  country,  has  long  ago 
ceased  to  be  the  popular  church  of  America,  if  numbers 
may  be  taken  as  a  certain  test  of  power ;  but  even 
this  church  of  an  upper  class,  of  an  aristocracy, 
rich,  decorous,  educated,  had  not  been  able  wholly  to 
escape  that  rage  for  rending  and  dividing  which  pos- 
sessed its  neighbors.  The  preachers  struck,  so  to 
speak,  for  higher  wages ;  when  some  of  the  laymen, 
hurt  by  a  display  of  worldly  motives  closely  akin  to 
those  which  govern  affairs  in  Wall  Street,  quitted 
their  fold  for  that  of  the  Bible  Communist,  that  of 
the  Shaker,  that  of  the  Universalist. 

The  Wesley  an  body,  numerically  the  largest  church 
in  these  States,  parted  into  two  great  sects  —  a  Meth- 
odist Episcopal  Church  North,  and  a  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church  South  ;  a  division  which  was  provoked, 
not  caused,  by  the  importance  just  then  suddenly  ac- 
quired by  the  negro  question.  In  the  northern  section 
of  the  Methodist  church,  there  was  a  further  trouble 
and  a  second  split,  on  account  of  conscientious  scru- 
ples as  to  bishops'  powers  and  laymen's  rights ;  the 
latter  point  being  mainly  raised  on  the  question  whether 
Methodist  laymen  might  sell  rum.  A  new  religious 
body,  now  of  very  great  strength,  the  Wesleyan  Meth- 
odist Church  in  the  United  States,  grew  out  of  this 
secession.  Indeed,  eight  or  nine  sects  have  been  formed 
out  of  the  original  church  of  Wesley  and  Whitfield, 


454  NEW  AMEBIC  A. 

without  counting  those  seceders  who  have  gone  out 
bodily  from  the  rest. 

Next  iu  importance  as  to  numbers  come  tlie  Bap- 
tists ;  a  body,  like  the  Methodists,  fired  with  holy  zeal ; 
which  was  found  strong  before  the  world,  the  fiesh, 
the  devil,  yet  weak  in  the  presence  of  this  seceding 
spirit.  In  a  very  short  time  this  body  was  divided 
into  Old  School  Baptists  (called  by  their  enemies  Anti- 
tffort  Baptists),  Sabbatarians,  Campbellites,  Seventh- 
day  German  Baptists,  Tunkers,  Free-will  Baptists, 
with  their  sub-section  of  Free  Baptists ;  and  into  some 
minor  parties. 

In  the  Congregational  Church,  which  prides  itself 
on  holding  in  its  ranks  the  most  highly  educated  min- 
isters and  professors  in  the  United  States,  there  arose 
endless  divisions,  including  Millennialists,  Taylorites, 
and  the  strange  heresy  of  the  Perfectionists,  founded 
by  one  of  their  students  at  Yale  College.  From  the 
Millennialists,  who  fancied  the  world  was  about  to  end 
and  the  judgment  to  come,  sprang  the  Millerites,  who 
said  it  would  end  on  a  particular  day.  The  Perfec- 
tionists, who  declared  that  the  world  was  already  at 
an  end,  that  the  judgment  had  come  down  upon  us, 
parted  into  Pntneyites  and  Oberlinites ;  sects  which 
threw  dirt  upon  each  other,  and  laughed  and  mocked 
when  any  of  their  opposing  brethren  fell  into  sin. 

A  great  unrest  invaded  the  retreat  of  the  Moravian 
village  of  Bethlehem,  iu  the  pretty  Lehigh  mountains  ; 
where  young  men  took  to  questioning  book  and  law  ; 
until  the  Moravians  of  Pennsylvania  lost  some  customs 
which  had  hitherto  marked  them  as  a  peculiar  church. 

No  sect  escaped  this  rage  for  separation,  for  inde- 
pendence, for  individuality;  neither  Unitarian,  nor 
Omish,  nor  Piver  Brethren,  nor  Winebrennarians,  nor 
Swedenborgians,  nor   Schwenkfelders.     Perhaps  the 


POLITICS.  455 

Come-outers  may  be  taken  as  the  final  froit  of  this 
seceding  spirit;  since  they  separated  tliemselves  from 
the  older  churches,  from  the  dead  and  dying  churches, 
as  they  call  them,  for  secession's  sake,  and  solely  in 
the  hope  of  breaking  down  the  religious  bodies  in 
which  they  had  been  reared.  These  Conie-outers  have 
two  articles  of  faith:  one  social,  one  dogmatic;  they 
believe  that  man  and  woman  are  equal,  and  that  all 
the  churches  are  dead  and  damned. 

Society  had  to  go  through  these  trials ;  and  she 
cannot  be  said  to  have  got  through  her  maladies  with- 
out man}'  a  wound  and  scar;  since,  in  the  slackening 
of  all  ties  and  ligatures,  men  had  begun  to  toy  with 
some  of  her  most  sacred  truths.  Property  was  at- 
tacked. In  the  press,  and  in  the  pulpit,  it  was  said 
that  all  private  wealth  was  stolen  frem  the  general 
fund,  that  no  one  had  a  right  to  lay  up  riches,  that  no 
man  could  pretend  to  the  exclusive  holding  in  either 
wife  or  child.  Doctors  took  up  their  parable  against 
the  sanctity  of  marriage ;  women  began  to  doubt 
whether  it  w^as  well  for  them  to  love  their  husbands 
and  to  nurse  their  children.  Some  ladies  set  the 
fashion  of  laughing  at  mothers ;  nay,  it  became  in 
Boston,  Richmond,  and  New  York,  a  sign  of  high 
breeding  to  be  knowm  as  a  childless  wife.  Wretches 
arosT;  in  every  city  in  the  land,  some  of  them  men, 
more  of  them  women,  who  professed  to  teach  young 
wives  the  secret  arts  by  which  it  is  said,  that  in  some 
old  countries,  such  as  France,  the  laws  of  nature  have 
often  been  set  aside.  Many  a  great  house  is  shown 
in  ISTevv  York,  in  which  resided  creatures  of  the  night 
who  imported  into  America  this  abominable  trade. 

Religion,  science,  history,  morality,  were  thrust  aside 
by  these  reformers,  as  clogs  on  individual  liberty. 
What  was  a  canon,  a  commandment,  to  a  man  resolved 


456  NEW  AMEBIC  A. 

on  testing  eveiythinf^  for  himself?  Excess  of  freedom 
led  a  few  to  Communism,  a  few  into  Free-love.  What, 
in  truth,  is  this  dognui  of  perfect  freedom,  except  the 
right  of  every  man  to  have  his  own  will  done,  even 
though  his  will  should  take  the  form  of  wishing  to 
possess  his  neighbor's  house  and  his  neighbor's  wife? 
Some  of  these  brave  reformers,  like  Noyes  and  Mahan, 
seized  a  religious  feeling  as  the  groundwork  for  their 
faith  ;  others  again,  like  the  Owenites  and  Fourierites, 
made  a  scientific  axiom  serve  their  turn ;  while  yet  a 
third  and  more  poetic  class.,  the  enthusiasts  of  Brook 
Farm,  embraced  a  mystical  middle  term,  making  a 
god  of  Nature  and  of  Justice.  All  these  schools  of 
practical  socialists  seceded  from  the  world,  renouncing 
in  terms,  either  express  or  tacit,  their  allegiance  to  the 
United  States. 

What  noble  spirit,  it  was  said,  could  suffer  itself  to 
be  enslaved  by  canons,  dogmas,  precedents,  and  laws? 
Every  man  was  now  to  be  a  law  unto  himself.  Lib- 
erty was  to  have  its  day.  The  final  stage  of  freedom, 
as  it  verges  into  chaos,  is  the  stage  in  which  no  one 
has  any  rights  left  him  to  enjoy ;  and  in  man}-  parts 
of  America  this  stage  of  progress  had,  on  the  evening 
of  the  War,  been  nearly  reached. 

Family  life  was  hardly  less  disturbed  by  this  intrud- 
ing spirit  of  separation ;  disputes,  arising  on  the  do- 
mestic hearth,  being  carried  into  public  meetings  and 
female  congresses,  held  to  debate  the  most  fanciful 
points  of  difference  between  male  and  female,  husband 
and  wife,  parent  and  child.  Women  raised  their 
voices  against  nursing  babies,  against  the  sanctity  of 
wedlock,  against  the  permanence  of  marriage  vows. 
They  asserted  rights  which  would  have  grieved  and 
puzzled  such  models  of  their  sex  as  Lady  Rachel 
Tiussel  and  Lady  Jane  Grey.    Caroline  Dall  demanded 


NOH TH  AND  SOUTH.  457 

that  woman  sliould  have  the  riglit  to  hibor  in  any  pro- 
fession she  might  care  to  adopt.  Margaret  Fnller 
taught  her  female  readers  to  expect  equality  in  the 
married  state.  Mary  Cragin  preached  the  doctrine  of 
Free-love  for  woman,  and  practised  what  she  pi-eached. 
Eliza  Farnham  urged  a  revolt  of  woman  against  man, 
declaring  that  the  female  is  intrinsically  nobler  than 
the  male. 

What  a  glorious  strength  of  constitution  this  young 
society  must  have  had  to  endure  with  so  little  waste 
the  shock  of  so  many  forces !  What  energy,  what 
solidity,  what  stamina  in  the  young  Saxon  republic ! 


CHAPTER  LXin. 

NORTH    AND    SOUTH, 


If  the  negro  question  lent  a  pretext  to  the  rage  of 
North  and  South,  the  cause  of  that  strife  in  Charleston 
harbor  which  brought  on  civil  war,  lay  closer  to  the 
core  of  things  than  any  wish  on  the  part  of  these 
Southern  gentry  to  maintain  their  property  in  slaves. 
The  negro  was  a  sign,  and  little  more.  Even  that 
broader  right  of  a  State  to  live  by  its  own  lights  —  to 
make  and  unmake  its  laws — to  widen  or  contract  its 
enterprise  —  to  judge  of  its  own  times  and  seasons  — 
to  act  either  with  or  without  its  fellow  States  —  was 
but  a  pretext  and  a  cry.  The  causes  which  have  whit- 
ened these  Virginia  battle-fields  (in  the  midst  of  which 
I  write)  lay  deeper  still.  A  planters'  Avar  could  not 
have  lived  a  month,  a  seceders'  war  could  not  have 

39 


458  NEW  AMERICA. 

lived  a  year.  The  lists  were  drawn  in  another  name, 
the  passions  welled  from  a  richer  source.  No  such 
bcij^garly  stake  as  either  of  these  engaged  a  million  of 
English  brothers  in  mortal  strife.  But  when  did 
nations  ever  close  in  combat  with  the  actual  cause  of 
war  emblazoned  on  their  shields  ?  Nations  have  a  way 
of  doing  great  things  on  poor  grounds;  of  checking 
Russia  in  the  name  of  the  silver  key,  of  making  Italy 
on  account  of  one  hasty  word.  Men  are  the  same  in 
every  clime.  The  prize  for  which  the  South  contended 
against  the  North,  was  nothing  less  than  the  Principle 
of  National  Life. 

What  idea  should  lie  at  the  root  of  all  social  habits, 
all  political  creeds,  in  this  great  republic  ?  In  the  con- 
stitution, itself  a  compromise,  the  make-shift  of  a  day, 
this  question  had  been  left  an  oj^en  gap.  Every  year 
had  seen  that  opening  widen ;  and  sagest  men  had 
often  said,  that  such  a  question  never  could  be  closed, 
except  in  the  old  way,  by  a  sovereign  act  of  sacrifice. 

On  one  side  of  a  faint  and  failing  line  lay  these 
Southern  States,  peopled  for  the  most  part  by  a  race  of 
Cavaliers  ;  men  brave  and  haughty,  the  representatives 
of  privilege,  education,  chivalry ;  a  class  in  whom  the 
graces  which  come  of  birth,  of  culture,  of  command, 
had  been  developed  to  a  high  degree.  On  the  other 
side  of  that  line,  lay  yon  Northern  States,  peopled  for 
the  greater  part  by  men  of  Puritan  descent ;  shrewd 
merchants,  skilful  artisans,  the  representatives  of 
genius,  enterprise,  equality ;  a  class  in  whom  the  vir- 
tues which  spring  from  faith,  ambition,  and  success, 
were  all  but  universal. 

Here  stood  the  lotus-eater,  with  his  airs  and  lan- 
guors, his  refinements  and  traditions  ;  there  stood  the 
craftsman,  with  his  head  full  of  ideas,  his  heart  full  of 
faith,  his  arm  full  of  strength.  Which  was  to  give  the 
law  to  this  Great  Republic? 


NORTH  AND   SOUTH.  459 

In  the  South,  you  had  a  gentle  class  and  a  servile 
class.  One  fought  and  ruled ;  one  labored  and  obeyed. 
Between  these  two  sections  of  the  Southern  people 
yawned  a  mighty  gulf,  —  a  separating  chasm  of  lineage, 
form,  and  color;  for  the  higher  breed  was  of  pure  old 
English  blood,  offspring  of  men  who  had  been  the 
glories  of  Elizabeth's  court;  while  the  lower  breed 
was  of  African  descent,  ofl'spring  of  the  mango  plain 
and  the  ague  swamp,  children  of  men  who  had  held 
the  basest  rank  even  among  savages  and  slaves.  No 
bridge  could  be  thrown  across  that  chasm.  No  touch 
of  nature,  it  was  thought,  would  ever  be  able  to  make 
the  extremes  of  black  and  white  of  kin.  In  the  eyes 
of  their  lords  and  ladies, — most  of  all  in  those  of  their 
ladies,  —  these  colored  tenders  of  the  rice-field  and  the 
cotton-plant  were  not  men  ;  they  were  only  cattle,  wdth 
the  rights  which  belong  to  mules  and  cows ;  the  right 
to  be  fed  and  lodged  in  return  for  work,  and  to  be 
treated  mercifu-Uy  —  after  their  kind.  In  many  of 
these  States  the  colored  people  dared  not  learn  to  read 
and  write ;  they  could  not  marry,  and  hold  on  truly, 
man  and  wdfe,  to  each  other ;  they  had  no  control  over 
their  own  children ;  they  could  not  own  either  pigs, 
ducks,  cows,  or  other  stock ;  nor  were  they  suffered  to 
buy  and  sell,  to  hire  out  their  labor,  to  use  a  family 
name.  Against  each  other  they  had  certain  remedies 
for  wrong ;  against  the  white  man  they  had  none.  To 
use  the  sadly  memorable  phrase  of  Chief  Justice 
Taney,  a  negro  had  no  rights  which  a  white  man  was 
bound  to  respect ;  in  other  words,  he  had  none  at  all. 

It  is  much  to  say  that  among  men  so  tempted  to 
abuse  of  power,  there  was  less  waste  of  life  than  in  any 
other  slave  society,  even  on  the  American  soil.  Vir- 
ginia was  a  paradise  compared  with  Cuba  and  Brazil. 
Some  touch  of  softness  in  the  lord,  some  sleam  of 


4G()  NEW  AMERICA. 

piety  in  the  mistress,  had  sufficed  to  keep  the  very 
worst  planters  of  English  blood  free  from  the  brutali- 
ties which  were  daily  practised  in  the  Spanish  and 
Portuguese  cities  farther  south.  Charleston  was  not 
a  pleasant  place  for  a  negro  slave ;  the  law  was  not 
with  him  in  his  need ;  oftentimes  he  had  to  bear  the 
bitter  fruits  of  a  tyrant's  wratli.  He  was  only  too 
familiar  with  the  lash,  the  chain,  the  blood-hound,  and 
the  jail ;  but  still,  when  weighed  against  the  slave's 
condition  in  Havana,  in  Rio,  in  San  Domingo,  his  life 
was  that  of  a  spoiled  and  petted  child.  The  test  of  a 
people's  happiness  is  the  law  of  its  reproduction.  If 
a  race  is  crushed  beyond  a  certain  point,  nature  pro- 
tests against  the  wrong  in  her  own  emphatic  way. 
The  race  declines.  Now  the  negro  has  been  dying 
away  in  every  slave  society  on  the  American  soil,  save 
only  on  that  which  has  been  ruled  by  men  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race.  Bad  as  our  rule,  and  that  of  our 
otFslioots  in  Virginia  and  the  Carol inas,  may  have  been, 
the  fact  is  legible  on  every  part  of  this  continent,  in 
every  island  of  the  adjacent  seas,  that  these  English 
planters,  and  they  alone,  have  given  the  African  a 
chance  of  life.  We  put,  from  first  to  last,  five  hun- 
dred thousand  negroes  on  the  soil  of  our  thirteen 
colonies ;  we  made  them  toil  and  sweat  for  us ;  still, 
we  treated  them  on  the  whole  with  so  much  mercy, 
that  they  are  now  nine  times  stronger,  counting  them  by 
heads,  than  the  number  of  their  imported  sires.  In 
Spanish  America,  instead  of  the  negroes  of  the  present 
hour  being  nine  times  stronger  than  their  fathers,  they 
scarcely  count  one  half  the  original  tale.  This  is  a  little 
fact  —  recorded  in  a  line;  but  what  tragedies  of  woe 
and  death  it  hides !  "When  the  great  account  is  made 
up, — when  all  that  we  have  done,  —  all  that  we  have 
left  undone,  —  is  urged  against  us,  may  we  not  plead 


NOMTH  AND  SOUTH.  4G1 

this  increase  of  the  negro  under  our  dominion  as  some 
small  set-ofl"  to  our  many  sins? 

A  tourist  from  the  Old  World — one  of  the  idler 
classes  —  found  himself  much  at  home  in  these  coun- 
try mansions.  The  houses  were  well  planned  and  built; 
the  furniture  was  rich ;  the  table  and  the  wine  were 
good ;  the  books,  the  prints,  the  music,  were  such  as 
he  had  known  in  Europe.  He  found  plenty  of  horses 
and  servants ;  spacious  grounds,  tine  woods,  abundant 
game.  In  one  place  he  got  a  little  hunting;  in  a 
second  place  a  little  fishing.  I^early  all  the  young 
ladies  rode  well,  danced  well,  sang  well.  The  men 
were  frank,  audacious,  hospitable.  AVhat  was  unsightly 
in  the  place  was  either  far  away  from  a  stranger's  eyes, 
or  made  to  look  comical  and  picturesque.  He  heard 
of  slavery  as  a  jest,  and  went  down  to  the  plantation 
to  see  a  play.  Sam  was  called  up  before  him  to  grin 
and  yelp.  A  dance  being  on,  and  the  can  of  punch 
going  round  as  the  negroes  hopped  and  sang,  he  would 
go  home  from  the  scene  merrily  confused,  and  with 
an  idea  that  the  darkey  rather  loved  his  chains.  In 
Missouri  and  Virginia  I  have  seen  enough  to  know 
how  easily  tourists  may  be  deceived  by  the  lightness 
and  laughter  of  a  negro  crowd.  A  colored  man  is 
plastic,  loving,  docile ;  for  a  kindly  word,  for  a  drink 
of  whisky,  for  a  moment's  frolic,  he  will  sing  and 
dance.  He  is  very  patient,  very  slow.  In  Omaha  I 
found  a  rowdy  beating  a  black  lad  in  the  street  and 
inquired  the  cause:  —  "me  say  nigger  have  right  to 
vote,"  said  the  lad;  "disgel'man  say  nigger  ain't  folks 
nohow."  The  lad  made  no  complaint  of  being  beaten : 
indeed,  he  laughed  as  though  he  liked  it.  If  the  white 
man  had  been  his  master,  he,  too,  would  have  smiled, 
and  I  should  possibly  have  thought  it  a  pretty  jest. 

The  South  was  made  pleasant  to  its  English  guest ; 
89  * 


462  NEW  AMERICA. 

for  the  people  felt  that  the  English  were  of  nearer  kin 
to  them  than  their  Yankee  brethren.  A  sunny  sky, 
a  smiling-  hostess,  an  idle  life,  and  a  luxurious  couch, 
led  him  softly  to  forget  the  foundations  on  which  that 
seducing  fal:)ric  stood. 

In  the  Northern  States  such  a  lotus-eater  would 
have  found  hut  little  to  his  taste.  The  country- 
houses —  except  in  the  neighborhood  of  Philadelphia, 
where  the  fine  old  English  style  is  still  in  vogue  — 
w^ere  not  so  spacious  and  so  splendid  as  in  the  South ; 
the  climate  was  much  colder ;  and  the  delights  of 
louno-iiior  were  much  less.  He  had  nothiuo-  to  do,  and 
nobody  had  time  to  help  him.  The  men  being  all 
intent  on  their  aifairs,  they  neither  hunted,  fished,  nor 
danced ;  they  talked  of  scarcely  anything  but  their 
mills,  their  mines,  their  roads,  their  fisheries ;  they 
were  always  eager,  hurried,  and  absorbed,  as  though 
the  universe  hung  upon  their  arms,  and  they  feared  to 
let  it  fall.  The  women,  too,  were  busy  with  a  care 
and  trouble  of  their  own.  ISo  idle  mornings  in  the 
library,  in  the  green-bouse,  on  the  lawn,  could  be  got 
from  these  busy  creatures,  who  were  gone  from  the 
breakfast-table  to  the  school-room,  to  the  writing-desk, 
to  the  sewing-frame,  long  before  the  guest  had  played 
out  his  fund  of  compliments  and  jokes.  It  was  true 
that  when  they  could  be  got  to  talk  about  science, 
politics,  and  letters,  he  found  them  read  to  the  highest 
pt)int  —  full  of  the  last  fact,  the  last  movement,  the 
last  book;  bright  and  knowing  people,  who  let  nothing 
pass  thiem,  and  with  the  habit  of  turning  their  acquire- 
ments to  instant  use ;  sometimes  making  bim  do  ser- 
vice in  an  unexpected  way.  But  he,  an  idler  in  the 
land,  had  no  enjoyment  in  their  rapid  talk.  They 
thought  of  him  little,  of  their  own  projects  much. 
When  he  w^anted  onlv  to  loll  and  dream,  his  host  had 


NORTH  AND  SOUTH.  4G3 

lo  meet  a  banker  in  the  city,  liis  hostess  liad  to  teach 
a  class  ill  tlie  village-scliooL  He  must  amuse  himself, 
he  was  always  being  told,  until  the  afternoon.  There 
was  the  coal-mine  to  see,  the  new  bridge  to  inspect, 
the  steam-harroAv  to  test.  What  did  he  care  about 
coal,  and  bridge,  and  harrow!  lie  would  smoke  a 
cigarette,  and  take  the  very  next  train  for  Richmond. 
In  these  sunny  Southern  houses,  with  their  long 
verandas,  their  pleasant  lawns,  no  man  was  busy,  no 
woman  was  in  haste.  Every  one  had  time  for  wit,  for 
compliment,  for  small  talk.  The  day  went  by  in  gos- 
sip. ISo  man  there  ever  thought  of  working,  for  to 
work  was  the  slave's  office.  Work  was  io-noble  in 
these  cities.  Society  had  said,  "  Thou  shalt  not  labor, 
and  escape  the  curse;"  and  white  men  Avould  not  put 
their  hands  to  the  plough.  "  Work ! "  said  a  stout  young 
fellow  in  Tennessee  to  a  man  from  whom  he  was  ask- 
ing alms,  "  thank  God,  I  li^ve  never  done  a  stroke  of 
work  since  I  was  born ;  I  am  not  going  to  change ; 
you  ma}^  hang  me  if  you  like,  but  you  shall  never 
make  me  work."  In  these  sad  words  spoke  the  spirit 
of  the  South.  "In  one  thing  we  were  wrong,"  said 
to  me  a  Georgian  gentleman  ;  "  our  pride  would  not 
let  us  teach.  We  had  scarcely  any  professors  in  the 
South.  Our  people  were  well  trained  and  grounded; 
we  had  some  good  scholars  and  more  good  speakers ; 
but  we  had  to  send  into  our  enemies'  schools,  to  Cam- 
bridge and  New  Haven,  for  our  teachers,  whether 
male  or  female ;  and  they  almost  taught  our  cliildren 
to  be  Yankees."  Teaching  was  work,  and  a  Georgian 
could  neither  work  nor  recognize  the  dignity  of  work. 
In  one  of  those  passionate  storms  which  sometimes 
swept  across  these  languid  cities,  the  evils  of  this  bor- 
rowed life  being  clear,  it  was  proposed  to  found  a 
great  I^niversity  in  the  South,  and  to  invite,  by  liberal 


4(34  NEW  AMERICA. 

cliaii\^,  the  most  eminent  men  of  literature  and  scienee 
from  Europe,  and  also  from  the  ISTorth;  among  them, 
Prof.  Agassiz,  who  was  to  have  been  installed  their 
chief.  "And  how  about  our  social  standing?"  asked 
the  great  professor,  from  whom  I  heard  these  details. 
There  came  the  rub.  The  social  standing  of  a  teacher 
in  the  South !  A  teacher  could  not  hope  to  hold  any 
standing  in  the  slave  society,  and  thereupon  the  pro- 
posal to  invite  the  l:)est  men  to  come  over  from  Oxford 
and  Berlin,  as  well  as  from  Boston  and  IsTew  Haven, 
tumbled  to  the  ground. 

In  the  Northern  cities  you  had  neither  a  gentle  class 
nor  a  servile  class.  In  their  stead  you  had  men  of 
learning,  business,  enterprise ;  men  of  as  pure  and 
lofty  lineage  as  the  Southern  chivalry,  with  fresher 
notions,  hardier  habits,  and  a  larger  faith.  The  Mid- 
dle Ages  and  the  Modern  Ages  could  not  come  to- 
gether and  live  in  peace;*  each  would  be  master  in 
the  Great  Republic,  —  on  the  one  side  Chivalry,  with 
its  glories  and  its  vices ;  on  the  other  side,  Equality, 
with  its  ardor  and  its  hopes. 

AVhich  of  these  two  principles  —  Privilege,  Equal- 
ity— was  to  govern  this  Great  Republic? 


COLOR.  465 


CHAPTER  LXIV. 

COLOR. 

One  chance  the  white  man  had,  and  still  might 
have — of  living  here,  in  Virginia,  also  down  in  Ala- 
bama, Mississippi,  and  the  Carolinas,  a  social  and 
political  life  apart  from  his  English  brother  in  Penn- 
sjdvania,  Massachusetts,  and  Ohio  ;  but  the  course  to 
be  taken  by  him  is  one  from  which  it  is  commonly 
believed  that  his  pride  must  revolt,  and  his  taste  re- 
coil,— a  family  alliance  with  the  negro  race. 

Long  before  the  ugly  word  miscegenation  came  into 
use,  and  young  damsels  in  ringlets  and  chignons  stood 
up  in  public  pleading  for  a  mixture  of  breeds,  many 
sincere,  and  some  serious,  men  had  proached  the 
dogma  of  a  saving  quality  in  the  negro  blood.  Chan- 
ning  had  prepared  the  way  for  Anna  Dickenson.  In 
their  flowery  prose,  the  New  England  teachers  had 
bestowed  upon  their  negro  client  in  the  South  an 
emotional  nature  far  above  anything  that  his  poor 
white  brother  in  the  North  could  boast.  On  the  hard 
and.  selfish  side  of  his  intellect,  a  white  man  might  be 
cursed  with  keener  power;  the  point  was  moot;  but 
in  all  that  concerned  his  moral  nature,  —  the  religious 
instincts,  the  family  affections,  the  social  graces, — the 
negro  was  declared  to  be  a  softer,  sweeter,  and  supe- 
rior being.  He  was  far  more  sensitive  to  signs  and 
dreams,  to  the  voice  of  birds,  to  the  cries  of  children, 
to  the  heat  of  noon,  to  the  calm  of  night.  He  had  a 
finer  ear  for  song,  a  quicker  relish  for  the  dance.  He 
loved  color  with  a  wiser  love.  He  had  a  deeper 
yearning  after  places ;  a  fresher  delight  in  worship  ;  a 


4GG  N^W  AMERICA. 

livelier  sense  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God.  These  faney 
pictures  of  the  negro  —  drawn  in  a  New  England 
study,  a  thousand  miles  from  a  rice-field  and  a  cotton 
plantation  —  culminated  in  Uncle  Tom. 

Many  good  people  in  the  North  had  begun  to  think 
it  would  be  well  for  these  pale  and  bilious  shadows 
of  the  South,  to  marry  their  sons  and  daughters  to 
such  highly-gifted  and  emotional  creatures,  with  a 
view  to  restoring  the  strength  and  thickening  the 
fibre  of  their  race.  When  the  War  broke  out,  this 
feeling  spread ;  as  it  raged  and  stormed,  this  feeling 
deepened :  and  now,  when  the  War  is  over,  and  the 
South  lies  prostrate,  there  is  a  party  in  New  England, 
counting  women  in  its  ranks,  who  would  be  glad,  if 
they  could  find  a  way,  to  marry  the  whole  white  popu- 
lation, living  south  of  Richmond,  to  the  blacks.  Again 
and  again  I  have  heard  men,  grave  of  face  and  clean 
of  life,  declare  in  public,  and  to  sympathizing  hearers, 
that  a  marriage  of  white  and  black  would  improve  the 
paler  stock.  In  every  case  these  marriages  were  to 
happen  a  long  way  off.  I  have  met  more  than  one 
lady  who  did  nut  shrink  from  saying  that,  in  her  be- 
lief, it  would  be  a  great  improvement  for  some  of  the 
fair  damsels  of  Charleston  and  of  Savannah  to  wed 
black  husbands.  I  never  met  a  lady  who  said  it  would 
be  well  for  her  own  girls  to  do  so. 

The  War  has  wrought  a  change  in  favor  of  the 
negro,  who  is  now  a  petted  mortal  in  the  North,  to  be 
mcMitioned  as  "the  colored  gentleman,"  not  as  "the 
damned  black  rascal "  of  former  times.  He  rides  in 
the  street-cars;  he  has  a  right  to  sit  by  his  white 
brother  in  a  railway ;  he  may  enter  the  same  church, 
and  pray  in  the  adjoining  pew.  Public  men  make 
speeches  for  him,  female  lecturers  expound  him.  I 
liave  heard  Captain  Anthony,  a  New  England  orator. 


COLOR.  467 

declare  that  if  he  wanted  to  find  a  good  heart  in  the 
Southern  States,  he  should  look  for  it  under  a  sable 
skin;  if  he  wanted  to  iind  a  good  head,  he  should  look 
for  it  under  woolly  hair.  That  strange  thing  was  said 
in  Kansas,  in  one  of  the  cleverest  speeches  I  have  ever 
heard. 

The  fact  is,  the  negro  is  here  the  coming  man. 
Parties  being  nicely  poised,  the  dark  men  being 
likely  to  get  votes,  they  are  even  now,  in  view  of  that 
heirship,  courted,  flattered,  and  cajoled.  During  the 
War  the  negro  proved  himself  a  man  :  — the  black  and 
brown  lads  who  rushed  into  yon  fort  (now  held  by 
Harry  Pierman  and  his  imps)  made  all  their  fellows 
men  forever. 

Six  years  ago,  as  I  am  told,  no  lady  in  Boston,  in 
JSTew  York,  in  Philadelphia,  could  bear  to  have  a 
negro  servant  near  her:  a  black  man  drank  and  stank; 
he  was  a  cheat,  a  liar,  a  sot,  a  thief.  I  do  not  find 
this  feeling  wholly  gone:  here  and  there  it  may  linger 
for  many  years  ;  but  it  is  greatly  changed ;  and  I  have 
heard  very  dainty  ladies  in  Boston  and  New  York, 
express  a  liking  for  the  negro  as  a  household  help. 
He  is  neat  and  willing ;  quick  with  his  hand ;  good- 
humored,  grateful.  Some  of  his  race  are  handsome, 
with  the  grace  and  style  which  are  held  the  signs  of 
blood.  Here,  in  Eichmond,  and  at  all  hotels  from 
New  York  to  Denver,  negroes  serve  at  table,  shave 
and  dress  you,  clean  your  boots,  and  wait  upon  your 
person.  In  the  many  hundreds  who  have  been  about 
me,  I  have  never  heard  one  saucy  word,  never  seen 
one  sulky  scowl. 

One  of  the  negroes  whom  we  saw  in  Leavenworth 
was  asked  whether  he  would  marry  and  settle,  seeing 
that  he  had  saved  a  good  deal  of  money.  "No,  sar; 
me  not  marry:  n6  white  lady  have  me,  and  me  not 


468  NEW  AMERICA. 

have  white  woman  who  marry  me  for  money."  On 
being  asked  wliy  he  could  not  court  and  win  a  woman 
from  his  own  people,  he  exclaimed,  "Lord,  sar!  you 
not  think  I  marry  a  black  nigger  wench?"  Yet  the 
fellow  was  a  full-blooded  negro,  black  as  a  piece  of 
coal. 

That  the  negro  is  litted,  by  his  humor,  by  his  indus- 
try, by  his  sociality,  for  a  very  high  form  of  civil  life, 
may  be  safely  assumed.  Some  negroes  are  rich  and 
learned,  practise  at  the  bar,  preach  from  the  pulpit, 
strut  upon  the  stage.  Many  have  a  great  desire  to 
learn  and  to  get  on.  Here  is  Eli  Brown,  head  waiter 
in  the  Richmond  hotel ;  a  man  with  a  bright  eye,  a 
sharp  tongue,  a  quick  hand.  A  few  months  since  he 
was  a  slave.  He  learned  to  read  in  secret,  and  in 
daily  fear  of  the  lash  ;  since  he  got  his  freedom,  he 
has  learned  to  write.  In  this  black  lad,  I  have  found 
more  sense  of  right  and  wrong,  of  policy  and  justice, 
than  in  half  the  platform  orators  of  the  schools.  "Tell 
me,  Eli,  do  you  want  a  vote?"  I  said  to  him  in  the 
after-dinner  chat,  as  he  stood  behind  my  chair.  "Not 
now,  sir,"  he  replied;  "I  have  not  read  enough  yet, 
and  do  not  understand  it  all.  Sometime  I  would  like 
to  vote,  like  the  others ;  in  twenty  or  twentj'-five 
years."  Is  not  a  man  with  so  much  sense  fitter  for 
the  franchise  than  a  pot-house  yelper,  who  does  not 
know  how  much  he  has  still  to  learn  ? 

Last  night,  I  went  with  Eli  round  this  city ;  not  to 
see  its  stores  and  bars,  its  singing-rooms  and  hells; 
but  bent  on  a  series  of  peeps  into  the  negro  schools. 
They  are  mostly  up  in  garrets  or  down  in  vaults ;  poor 
rooms,  with  scant  supplies  of  benches,  desks,  and 
books.  In  some,  the  teacher  is  a  white ;  in  many  he 
is  either  a  black  or  half-caste.  Old  men,  young  lads, 
were    equally  intent    on    learning   in    these    humble 


COLOR.  469 

Bchools ;  fellows  of  sixty  pottering  with  the  pen,  and 
flat-nosed  little  urchins  tugging  at  their  ABC.  All 
were  working  with  a  w^ill ;  bent  on  conquering  the 
first  great  obstacles  to  knowledge.  These  men  are 
not  waiting  for  the  world  to  come  and  cheer  them 
with  its  grand  endowments  and  its  national  schools ; 
they  have  begun  the  work  of  emancipating  themselves 
from  the  thraldom  of  ignorance  and  vice.  In  Rich- 
mond only  there  are  forty  of  these  negro  schools. 

In  the  front  of  men  inspired  by  such  a  spirit,  the 
planters  cannot  aftbrd  to  lie  still  and  rust  in  their 
ancient  pride.  Knowledge  is  power,  and  the  weaker 
man  always  goes  to  the  wall.  But  though  the  planter 
may,  and  must,  prepare  himself  to  compete  with  a 
new  class  on  his  own  estate,  does  it  follow  that  he 
must  mix  his  blood  with  that  of  his  former  slave  ? 

The  feeling  of  aversion  to  the  negro  as  an  associate, 
even  for  a  passing  moment  in  a  room,  a  church,  a  rail- 
way carriage,  though  it  may  be  softening,  as  the  negro 
grows  in  freedom,  wealth,  and  culture,  is  very  strong; 
not  only  here,  in  Richmond,  where  the  negro  was  a 
chattel,  to  be  bought  and  sold,  starved,  beaten,  spat 
on,  by  his  lordly  brother,  but  in  the  West  and  North, 
in  Indianapolis,  Cincinnati,  and  Chicago,  far  away 
from  the  sights  and  sounds  of  a  servile  class.  Since 
the  "War  was  closed,  a  negro  has  a  legal  right  to  enter 
any  public  vehicle  plying  in  the  streets  for  hire  ;  but, 
in  many  cases,  he  dares  not  exercise  his  right.  A 
cabman  would  not  drive  him ;  a  conductor  would  not 
let  him  step  into  a  ladies'  car.  In  passing  through 
Ohio,  a  State  in  which  the  colored  folks  are  numerous, 
being  struck  by  the  absence  of  all  dark  faces  from  the 
cars,  I  went  forward  to  the  front  of  our  train,  and  there, 
between  the  tender  and  the  'luggage  van,  found  a 
separate  pen,  filthy  beyond  words  to  suggest,  in  which 

40 


470  ^'E  w  A mmiCA. 

were  a  dozen  free  negroes,  going  the  same  road  and 
paying  the  same  fare  as  myself.  "  Why  do  these  ne- 
groes ride  apart — why  not  travel  in  the  common 
cars?"  I  asked  the  guard*  "Well,"  said  he,  with  a 
sudden  lightning  in  his  eyes,  "they  have  the  right; 
but,  damn  them,  I  should  like  to  see  them  do  it. 
Ugh!"  The  ugly  shudder  of  the  guard  recalled  a 
black  expression  of  Big  Elk,  one  of  my  Cheyenne 
comforters  on  the  Plains.  Here,  in  Virginia,  all  the 
railway  companies  have  posted  orders  to  the  effect 
that,  w-hen  a  negro  has  paid  his  fare,  he  may  ride  in 
any  ear  he  pleases,  subject  to  the  common  rules;  but, 
gracious  heavens !  what  negro  dares  to  put  his  feet  on 
the  white  man's  steps  ?  Sam  likes  his  free  condition  : 
at  times,  he  may  air  his  liberty  offensively  under  his 
former  master's  nose ;  but  he  also  loves  his  skin  ;  and 
in  a  land  where  every  man  carries  a  revolver,  fingering 
it  as  freely  as  in  England  we  should  sport  with  a  cigar- 
case,  Sam  knows  how  far  he  may  go,  and  where  he 
must  stop.  Habits  are  not  changed  by  a  paper  law ; 
and  the  day  of  a  perfectly  free  and  friendl}-  intercourse 
between  whites  and  blacks  is  yet  a  long  way  off. 

In  Massachusetts  and  Ehode  Island,  you  will  hear 
it  said,  in  favor  of  miscegenation,  that  this  scheme  for 
blending  races  and  mixing  blood  is  no  new  method ; 
but  one  which  had  long  prevailed  in  Virginia,  Caro- 
lina, and  Alabama.  Your  teachers  tell  you  that  mis- 
cegenation is  a  fact,  not  a  theory,  a  Southern  habit,  not 
a  Northerii  project.  They  take  you  into  the  streets, 
hotels,  and  barbers'  shops ;  they  bid  you  look  at  these 
yellow  negroes,  some  pale  as  Moors,  some  white  as 
Spaniards ;  and  they  ask  you  to  tell  them  whence  come 
these  Saxon  features,  these  blue  gray  eyes,  these  deli- 
cate hands  ?  They  show  you  a  negress  with  golden 
hair.     Do  such  things  prove  that  the  white  blood  will 


COLOR.  471 

not  mingle  witli  the  black?  Sail  to  Newport,  ride  to 
Saratoga.  These  idling  places  swarm  with  colored 
servants;  every  man,  every  woman  of  whom  might  be 
put  in  evidence  of  the  truth.  What  is  seen  in  iS^ew- 
port,  in  Saratoga,  is  also  seen  at  ISTiagara,  at  Long 
Branch,  at  Lebanon  Springs,  at  every  watering-place 
in  this  Republic.  !North  of  the  Potomac,  it  is  a  rare 
thing  to  find  a  pure  African  black.  Many  of  your 
house-servants  are  half-castes,  more  still  are  quadroons 
and  octoroons.  Broad  traces  of  either  English  or 
Spanish  blood  may  be  seen  in  nearly  all ;  in  the  color, 
in  the  carriage,  in  the  contour,  in  the  style.  This  pale 
white  negro,  Pete,  has  the  air  of  a  grandee.  Eli,  my 
friend  here,  has  the  bearing  of  a  judge.  Who  knows 
where  Pete,  where  Eli,  got  that  lofty  air?  Li  Virginia, 
in  Carolina,  the  black  squat  face,  with  its  huge  lips,  its 
low  forehead,  its  open  nostrils,  is  seen  in  every  street. 
It  is  not  a  comely  face  to  look  on  :  though  the  folks 
who  wear  this  form  and  hue  are  not  such  brutes  as 
they  are  sometimes  called.  Many  of  them  are  bright 
and  thriving;  Harry  Pierman  is  a  fullblooded  negro. 
But  even  in  Richmond  these  colored  people  have  a 
large  admixture  of  Saxon  blood.  Eli  Brown  is  a  half- 
caste  ;  so  is  Pete ;  most  of  these  clever  lads,  our  ser- 
vants, are  quadroons.  It  is  certain,  therefore,  as  the 
E"ew  England  teachers  say,  that  miscegenation,  instead 
of  being  a  new  thing  in  the  South,  has  been  known 
and  practised  for  many  years. 

Thus  far,  however,  it  has  been  practised  only  on  one 
side, —  on  the  male  side ;  and  the  new  plan  for  mixing 
the  blood  of  white  and  black  appears  to  be  only  a 
branch  of  that  mighty  theory  of  reform,  now  agitating 
and  unsettling  all  society  —  the  theory  of  equal  rights 
for  sex  and  sex.  Hitherto,  miscegenation  has  been 
open  to  men,  denied  to  women.     Male  Saxon  life  has 


472  NEW  AMERICA. 

long  been  passing  into  negro  veins ;  and  that  shrewd 
observer,  Captain  Anthony,  -who  said  he  slionld  look 
for  a  good  heart  under  a  sable  skin,  a  good  head  under 
woolly  hair,  gave  this  strange  reason  for  his  faitli  in 
negro  courage  and  negro  talent  —  that  the  best  blood 
of  Virginia  and  Carolina  flows  in  the  veins  of  this  col- 
ored race.  For  ten  generations,  he  asserts,  the  youth 
of  this  English  gentry  has  been  given  up  to  negro  para- 
mours ;  nearly  all  that  time  the  breeding  of  slaves  for 
the  market  has  been  a  trade  in  these  Southern  parts. 
No  sense  of  shame,  he  says,  either  prevented  a  father 
from  giving  his  heir  a  pretty  quadroon  for  a  playmate, 
or  from  afterwards  selling  the  fruits  of  their  illicit  love. 
When,  according  to  Captain  Anthony,  his  youth  was 
spent,  his  heart  was  sear,  and  his  brain  was  dull,  this 
heir  of  a  gentle  house  was  married  to  a  white  woman, 
who  bore  him  children  and  preserved  his  name.  Is  it 
not  clear,  asked  the  speaker,  that  the  strength  and 
freshness  of  that  gentle  family  should  be  sought  for  in 
negro  ranks  ? 

Why,  the  reformer  then  comes  in  and  asks,  if  such 
things  can  be  allowed  on  one  side,  why  not  on  the 
other?  If  it  be  right  for  a  man  to  love  a  negro  mis- 
tress, why  should  it  De  wrong  for  a  woman  to  wed  a 
negro  husband  ?  Thus  it  would  appear  from  a  review 
of  facts  and  sentiments,  that  this  sudden  and  alarming 
theory  of  miscegenation  is  no  more  than  an  effort  to 
make  free  for  all  that  which  is  now  only  free  for  some; 
an  effort  to  give  legal  standing,  moral  sanction,  to  what 
is  already  a  habit  of  the  stronger  sex. 

But  among  this  stronger  sex,  with  the  rare  exception 
of  a  poet  here,  a  philosopher  there,  this  idea  of  intro- 
ducing a  fashion  of  love  and  wedlock  among  white 
w^omen  and  black  men  excites  the  wildest  rage.  Gen- 
tlemen sitting  at  table,  sipping  soup,  picking  terapin, 


COLOR.  473 

will  clench  tlicir  hands  and  gnaw  their  lips  at  an}'  allu- 
sion to  the  subject.  Americans  are  not  squeamish  as 
to  jokes  ;  but  you  must  not  jest  in  their  society  about 
the  loves  of  black  men  for  white  women.  Merely  for 
paying  a  compliment  where  it  is  thought  he  should 
not,  a  negro  would  be  flogged  and  tarred  and  hung. 
No  punishment  would  be  deemed  brutal  and  fierce 
enough  for  such  a  sinner.  A  friend  who  knew  what 
he  was  saying,  told  me  in  the  western  countr}'  that  he 
had  seen  a  negro  seized  by  a  mob  for  having  insulted 
a  white  girl;  his  oft'ence  was  that  of  giving  the  girl  a 
kiss,  with  an  appearance  of  aiming  at  a  further  free- 
dom ;  and  on  the  girl  screaming  for  assistance,  he  was 
collared  by  a  soldier,  a  native  of  Ohio,  and  dragged 
into  Fort  Halleck,  where  he  was  cuft'ed  and  kicked, 
tarred  and  feathered,  set  on  fire,  skinned  alive,  and 
finally  stuck,  half-dead,  in  a  firkin,  and  exposed  on 
the  open  Plains,  until  his  flesh  was  eaten  away  by 
wolves  and  hawks. 

My  friend,  who  told  me  this  story,  a  Missourian  by 
birth,  a  soldier  in  the  War,  had  no  conception  that  I 
should  be  shocked  by  such  details,  that  I  should  con- 
sider the  punishment  in  excess  of  the  offence,  that  I 
shouldthink  the  Ohio  soldierguilty  of  a  grievous  crime. 
In  the  Western  country  life  is  lightly  held  and  lightly 
taken.  ISTo  one  puts  the  high  value  on  a  drop  of  blood 
which  we  of  the  elder  countr}'  set  upon  it.  A  white 
man  counts  for  little  —  less  than  for  a  horse  ;  a  black 
man  counts  for  nothing — less  than  for  a  dog.  All 
this  I  knew;  and  therefore  I  could  understand  my 
friend. 

A  time  may  perhaps  come,  as  poets  feign  and 
preachers  prophesy,  when  the  negro  man  and  the 
Saxon  woman  will  be  husband  and  wife;  but  the  day 
when  they  can  go  to  church  together,  for  the  celebra- 

40  - 


474  NEW  AMEBIC  A. 

tioii  of  thoir  miirriage  rites,  without  exciting  tlie 
wrath,  provoking  the  revenge,  of  these  masculine 
protectors  of  white  women,  is  evident!}'  a  long  way 
off. 


CHAPTER  LXV. 

RECONSTRUCTION. 

In  the  great  contest  now  going  forward  in  every 
part  of  this  Republic  as  to  the  safest  theory  of  recon- 
struction,—  that  is  to  say,  as  to  the  principle  and  plan 
on  which  the  New  America  may  be  built  up  —  every 
party  seems  to  have  put  the  Union  in  its  front.  Un- 
der the  dome  of  yon  glorious  New  Capitol,  men  from 
the  North  and  from  the  South  appeared  to  be  equally 
eloquent  and  ardent  for  the  flag.  All  speakers  have 
the  word  upon  their  lips,  all  writers  have  the  symbol 
in  their  style.  Unity  would  seem  to  be,  not  onl}-  the 
political  religion  of  men  in  ofHce,  but  the  inspiration 
of  every  man  who  desires  to  serve  his  country.  No 
other  cry  has  a  chance  of  being  heard.  Not  to  join 
in  this  popular  demand  is  to  be  guilty  of  a  grave 
offence.  "We  are  all  for  the  Union,"  said  to  me  a 
Virginian  lady  not  an  hour  ago,  "the  Union  as  it  was, 
if  we  may  have  it  so;  our  sole  desire  is  to  stand  where 
we  stood  in  '61."  So  far  as  you  can  hear  in  Rich- 
mond, this  expression  would  appear  to  convey  the 
ii-eneral  wish.  North  of  the  Potomac,  too,  the  desire 
to  have  done  with  the  past  live  years  of  trouble  and 
dissension  is  universal. 

In  the  new  elections,  everv  candidate  for  office  has 


RECONSTRUCTION.  475 

been  forced  by  tbo  public  passion,  though  often 
against  his  will,  to  adopt  this  watch-crj  of  the  nation 
for  himself  and  for  his  friends;  while  he  has  found 
his  protit  in  denouncing  his  enemies  and  their  parti- 
sans as  disunionists,  —  a  denunciation  which,  in  the 
present  temper  of  men,  is  taken  to  imply  all  the  worst 
treacheries  and  corruptions,  present  and  to  come ;  in 
fact,  to  clothe  a  man  with  such  uncleanness  of  mind 
and  body  as  lay  in  the  Hebrew  phrase  of  a  whited-wall. 
Union  is  a  word  of  grace,  of  sweetness,  and  of  charm. 
Everybody  takes  it  to  himself,  everybody  claims  it  for 
his  section.  Disunion,  a  word  so  musical  in  Rich- 
mond, Raleigh,  New  Orleans,  not  thirty  months  ago, 
is  now  a  ban,  a  stigma,  a  reproach.  Its  day  is  past. 
Republicans  call  their  Democratic  rivals  disunionists; 
Democrats  describe  their  Republican  adversaries  as 
disunionists.  Each  section  writes  the  word  Union  on 
its  ticket,  and  the  shout  of  this  common  word  from 
the  opposite  camps  is  apt  to  confuse  a  free  and  inde- 
pendent elector  when  he  comes  to  vote. 

Even  here,  in  Richmond,  the  capital  of  a  proud  and 
fallen  cause,  in  which  the  streets  are  yet  black  with 
fire,  around  which  the  fields  are  yet  sick  with  blood, 
there  is  scarcely  any  other  cry  among  the  wise,  the 
moderate,  and  the  hopeful.  A  few,  unquestionably, 
cling  with  a  passionate  warmth  to  the  memory  of  the 
past;  but  every  day,  as  it  goes  by,  is  thinning  the 
ranks  of  these  sentimental  martyrs.  The  young,  who 
feel  that  their  life  is  before  them,  not  behind,  are  all 
coming  round  to  a  larger  and  more  practical  view  of 
facts.  They  see  that  the  battle  has  been  fought,  that 
the  prize  for  which  they  struggled  has  been  lost. 
Slavery  is  gone.  State  rights  are  gone.  The  dream 
of  independence  is  gone.-  Men  who  are  hopelessly 
compromised  by  events  —  who  feel  that  the  victorious 


476  ^^W  AMERICA. 

States  can  never  again  intrust  them  with  political 
power — may  urge  on  their  fellows  the  merit  and  the 
virtue  of  despair;  but  the  younger  men  of  this  nation 
feel  that  sullenness  and  silence  will  not  help  them  to 
undo  the  victories  of  Sherman,  Sheridan,  and  Grant. 
Excepting  in  the  society  of  women  —  a  class  of  gener- 
ous and  noble,  but  illogical  and  impracticable  reason- 
ers  —  not  many  persons  in  the  South  (I  am  told)  re- 
gard the  prospect  of  reunion  with  a  free  and  powerful 
republic,  just  awakening,  at  their  instance,  to  a  con- 
sciousness of  its  colassal  might,  with  any  other  feeling 
tlian  a  proud  and  eager  joy. 

Richmond  is  not,  just  now,  in  a  mood  of  much 
emotion ;  since  she  fell  into  Northern  hands  her  habit 
has  been  that  of  a  proud  and  cold  reserve ;  yet  so  soon 
as  the  pending  elections  roused  in  her  a  little  life,  her 
enthusiasm,  such  as  it  was,  ran  Avholly  in  the  form  of 
the  ancient  flag.  At  a  dinner  party  given  in  this  city 
the  other  day,  a  politician  proposed  as  a  toast,  "  The 
fallen  flag."  "  Hush,  gentlemen  !  "  said  a  son  of  Gen- 
eral Lee,  "this  sort  of  thing  is  past.  We  have  no 
flag  now  but  the  glorious  Stars  and  Stripes,  and  I 
will  neither  fight,  nor  drink,  for  any  other." 

From  the  tone  and  temper  of  such  political  debate 
as  one  hears  in  Richmond,  I  see  no  reason  to  suspect 
(with  some  of  the  IS^cw  \^ork  papers)  that  this  patriot- 
ism of  Virginia  is  the  result  of  either  fear  or  craft ; 
for  in  my  poor  judgment,  no  disaster,  however  dark, 
no  privation,  however  keen,  could  have  driven  these 
proud  Virginian  gentry  into  pleading  for  a  renewal 
of  friendly  relations  on  other  than  the  usual  grounds 
of  political  science.  The  return  to  wiser  feelings  on 
the  part  of  these  vanquished  soldiers  seems  to  have 
been  the  natural  consequence  of  events.  The  life 
before  them  is  a  new  life.     Slavery  is  gone,  and  the 


RECONSTRUCTION.  477 

hatreds  provoked  by  slaveiy  are  going.  Men  have  to 
look  their  fortunes  in  the  face,  and  it  is  well  that  they 
should  do  it  without  suftering  their  judgment  to  be 
warped  by  the  disturbing  passions  so  commonly  found 
on  a  losing  side.  How  are  the  jDlanters  to  maintain 
their  place  —  not  in  the  Great  Republic  only,  but  in 
Carolina  and  Virginia?  At  present  they  are  an  aris- 
tocracy without  a  servile  class.  They  have  great 
estates;  but  they  have  no  capital,  no  mills,  no  ships, 
no  laborers.  They  are  burdened  with  enormous 
del)ts.  They  have  scarcely  any  direct  and  indepen- 
dent intercourse  with  foreign  nations.  Worse  than 
all,  they  are  surrounded,  in  their  fields  and  in  their 
houses,  by  a  population  of  inferior  race.  Does  it 
need  any  more  than  a  little  good  sense  to  perceive 
that  the  English  gentry  in  the  South  may  fiiid  their 
best  account  in  a  partnership  with  the  English  citizens 
of  the  North,  even  though  these  latter  should  impose 
on  the  repentant  prodigals  a  forgiving  kinsman's 
terms  ? 

The  blacks  are  strong  in  numbers,  clanish  in  spirit ; 
they  are  fond  of  money,  and  have  the  virtue  to  earn 
and  save.  Can  you  prevent  the  negroes  from  growing 
rich,  from  educating  their  children  at  good  schools, 
from  aspiring  to  othces  of  trust  and  power?  They 
will  rise  both  individually  and  in  classes.  The  day  is 
not  far  distant  when,  in  States  like  Alabama  and  South 
Carolina,  the  race  may  be  swift  and  hard  between  the 
black  planter  and  the  white.  When  that  day  comes, 
will  it  not  be  well  for  the  white  man  to  have  gained 
for  himself  some  support  in  the  power  and  enterprise 
of  his  brother  in  the  I^orth  ? 

In  these  semi-tropical  parts  of  the  Republic  a  white 
man  faints  where  the  black  man  thrives.  N"ature  has, 
therefore,  put  the  white  planter  at  a  disadvantage  on 


478  ^^^  A3IERICA. 

tins  Southern  soil.  For  a  dozen  years  to  come,  per- 
liaps  more,  the  negroes,  who  were  only  yesterday  in 
chains  and  poverty,  may  be  sorely  tried ;  for  thej-  are 
rooted  to  the  soil ;  they  have  neither  trades  nor  call- 
ings ;  they  are  ignorant  of  letters ;  they  have  very 
little  money ;  scarcely  any  of  them  have  friends.  Be- 
fore them  stands  a  world  in  which  they  are  free  to 
labor  and  free  to  starve.  At  first,  they  must  be  ser- 
vants in  the  families,  toilers  on  the  plantations,  in 
which  they  have  recently  been  slaves;  yet  in  some 
cases  the  negro  has  already  become  a  planter  on  his 
own  account,  having  gained,  in  a  few  months,  a  supply 
of  tools  and  a  lease  of  lands. 

Take  the  example  of  my  friend  Henry  Pierman,  a 
negro,  who  has  planted  himself  out  yonder  in  Har- 
rison's Fort,  in  a  log-cabin,  amidst  the  reek  and  stench 
of  the  great  battle-fields.  As  no  white  man  would 
rent  such  land,  the  lady  who  owns  it,  poorer  and  less 
proud  than  she  was  in  former  years,  has  been  glad  to 
let  a  great  patch  of  forest  to  Henry.  The  log-hut  has 
but  a  single  room,  and  in  this  one  room  he  lives  with 
his  black  and  comely  wife,  his  four  young  imps,  and 
a  brood  of  cocks  and  hens.  Harry  was  a  slave  until 
Grant  tore  his  way  through  these  formidable  lines, 
when  he  became  free  by  the  great  act  of  war  which 
made  all  his  people  free.  Happily  for  him,  he  had 
been  a  domestic  slave  in  one  of  those  rich  Virginian 
households  in  which  nobody  cared  about  the  laws. 
One  of  the  young  ladies,  more  for  fun  than  with  serious 
thought,  had  defied  the  police  and  the  magistrate  by 
teaching  him  to  read.  Her  father  being  the  Governor 
of  Virginia,  she  snapped  her  pretty  fingers  at  the 
judge.  Harry  read  the  Bible,  and  became  a  member 
of  the  Baptist  church.  Like  all  his  brethren,  he  is 
keenly  alive  to  religious  passion,  subject  to  dreams 


RE  CONS  TR  UG  TION.  479 

and  voices,  one  of  which  had  told  him,  he  asserts, 
while  he  was  yet  a  youth  and  a  slave,  that  he  would 
one  day  become  a  free  man,  would  marry,  would  have 
children,  and  would  rent  a  farm  of  his  own.  Many 
years  went  by  before  his  dream  came  out,  but  he 
prayed  and  waited ;  in  the  end  he  found  that  this 
promise  of  his  youth  was  kept.  So  soon  as  the  liber- 
ating armies  entered  Richmond  he  left  his  old  place, 
though  his  master  had  been  kind  to  him,  and  Avished 
to  keep  him  as  a  servant  on  hire  ;  but  the  passion  to 
be  free  was  in  his  veins;  voices  called  him  from  the 
city  into  the  fields ;  and,  without  money,  ploughs, 
scythes,  seed,  horses,  stock  of  any  kind,  with  only  his 
black  wife  to  help  him,  and  his  three  youngsters  to  feed, 
he  threw  himself  on  the  forest  land.  Last  year,  his 
trial-year,  was  found  to  be  bitter  work,  but  he  had 
put  his  soul  into  his  task,  and  he  got  on.  Up  early 
and  late,  pinching  his  back  and  his  belly,  he  was  able 
to  send  a  few  onions  and  tomatoes,  a  little  corn  and 
wood,  to  market.  This  produce  bought  him  tools, 
and  paid  his  rent  in  kind.  By  patience  he  got  through 
the  winter  months,  In  the  second  year  his  enterprises 
have  extended  to  a  hundred  and  forty  acres,  and  he 
has  now  the  help  of  two  other  negroes,  one  of  them 
his  wife's  father,  whom  he  has  lodged  in  another  of 
these  soldiers'  huts.  One-fourth  of  his  produce  pays 
the  rent ;  the  remaining  three-fourths  he  divides  into 
two  equal  portions,  one  of  which  he  gives  to  his  negro 
helpers,  the  other  he  retains  for  himself  and  wife. 
Henry  is  clever,  pushing,  devout ;  for  his  children,  if 
not  for  himself,  he  is  ambitious.  One  of  his  two  lads 
is  shortly  to  begin  his  school-work  ;  at  present  he  must 
toil  upon  the  farm.  "I  heard  dc  angel  say  in  my 
dream,"  he  said  to  me  with  simple  faith,  "  dat  I  bring 
up  my  children  in  de  fear  of  de  Lord ;  and  how  man 


480  ^^£^W  AMEBIC  A. 

bring  dem  up  in  fear  of  cle  Lord,  unless  lie  teach  dem 
to  read  and  write?" 

The  field  of  enterprise  for  working-men  like  Henry 
Piernian  is  extremely  wide.  Two-thirds  of  the  soil 
of  Virginia  arc  still  uncleared;  indeed  this  old  and 
lovely  State  is  everywhere  rich  in  mines,  in  water- 
ways, in  wood  and  coal,  which  a  splendid  and  careless 
people  have  left  to  wait  and  rot.  Each  year  will  see 
the  band  of  negro  farmers  grow  on  these  Virginian 
waste  lands ;  and  when  the  colored  people  have  grown 
rich  and  educated,  how  can  they  be  kept  from  social 
and  political  power?  In  some  States  of  the  South, 
they  are  many:  in  one  State,  South  Carolina,  they 
count  more  than  half  the  population ;  so  that  South 
Carolina,  standing  by  itself  and  governed  by  universal 
suftrage,  would  vote  itself  a  negro  legislature,  perhaps 
a  negro  governor.  These  dark  people  are  growing 
faster  than  the  pale.  In  time  they  will  own  ships  and 
mines,  banks  and  granaries ;  and  when  they  have 
gathered  up  money  and  votes,  how  will  the  white  man 
be  able  to  hold  his  easy  and  safe  supremacy  in  these 
semi-tropical  States  unless  by  union  with  his  white 
brethren  in  the  North? 

Of  course,  while  every  hope  and  every  fear  may  be 
thus  impelling  !North  and  South  to  reunite,  each  sec- 
tion may  still  desire  to  construct  the  IsTew  America  on 
terms  best  suited  to  itself.  Deprived  by  the  war  of 
their  slaves,  laden  with  debts,  both  personal  and  ter- 
ritorial, the  Southern  planters  would  like  to  rejoin  the 
ancient  league  as  equals,  if  it  may  be,  as  more  than 
equals.  Under  the  old  Constitution  they  were  more 
than  equals,  since  they  voted  for  themselves  and  for 
their  slaves ;  and  what  they  were  aforetime  they  would 
like  to  be  again. 

But  Northern  statesmen,  flushed  with  their  recent 


RECONSTRUCTION.  481 

glories,  have  no  mind  to  put  back  the  sword  into  its 
sheath,  until  they  shall  have  fully  secured  the  objects 
for  which  they  fought;  one  of  which  objects  is,  to 
prevent,  in  future,  a  Charleston  planter  from  exer- 
cising in  the  national  councils  a  larger  share  of  power 
than  falls  to  the  lot  of  a  manufacturer  of  Boston,  a 
banker  of  New  York.  Such  larger  share  of  power 
the  Constitution  had  given  to  the  Charleston  planter, 
on  account  of  his  holding  property  in  slaves ;  repre- 
sentation in  the  Capitol  being  based  on  population ; 
five  negroes  counting  for  three  free  men ;  and  the 
masters  voting,  not  for  themselves  only,  but  for  their 
slaves.  The  strife  of  policy-  rages  for  the  moment 
wholly  around  this  point. 

The  two  moderate  parties,  between  which  the  strug- 
gle of  the  coming  years  will  mainly  lie,  are  the  Re- 
publican and  the  Democrat.  The  Republicans,  strong 
in  the  I^^orth,  are  weak  in  the  South  ;  the  Democrats, 
strong  in  the  South,  are  weak  at  the  North ;  but  each 
party  has  its  organization  and  its  followers  in  every 
State  of  the  Republic.  They  have  other  points  of 
difierence ;  but  the  chief  contention  now  dividing 
them,  is  as  to  what  guaranties  shall  be  demanded 
from  the  rebellious  States  before  they  come  into  Con- 
gress and  take  their  chances  in  the  fight  for  power. 

The  Republicans  say,  that  all  white  men  in  the 
Union,  that  is  to  say,  all  the  voters,  should  be  made 
equal  to  each  other  before  the  ballot-box ;  that  each 
man  should  poll  once  and  for  himself  only,  with  no 
distinction  of  North  or  South.  The  black  man  they 
leave  out  of  their  account;  he  is  to  them  as  a  minor, 
a  woman  ;  having  no  rights  at  the  poll  and  in  the 
legislature.  This  change  in  the  law  of  voting  cannot 
be  made  and  put  into  force  until  the  Constitution  shall 
have   been    hrst   amended.     That   charter    based    the 

41 


482  NEW  AMERICA. 

power  of  representation  on  population,  without  regard 
to  the  number  of  voters.  The  negroes  counted  as 
people,  and  their  masters  got  the  political  profit  of 
their  presence  on  the  soil.  In  the  Old  America,  the 
planters  who  exercised  this  power  may  have  fairly 
represented  the  negro  mind,  so  far  as  negroes  had 
opinions  and  emotions ;  but  this  Old  America  is  gone 
for  ever;  the  planter  can  no  longer  answer  for  his 
slave ;  and  his  claim  by  the  old  law  to  give  this  vote 
on  the  black  man's  behalf,  must  be  done  away.  In 
future,  all  white  men  in  the  United  States  must  have 
an  equal  power  at  the  poll;  hence,  the  Republicans 
have  framed  a  bill,  amending  the  Constitution  so  far 
as  to  base  the  representation  in  Congress  not  on  the 
number  of  persons,  but  on  the  number  of  voters.  A 
majority  in  the  new  Congress  is  certain  to  be  of 
opinion  that  this  bill  should  pass. 

The  Democrats  assert  that  any  amendment  of  the 
Constitution  is  illegal,  revolutionary,  needless.  They 
say,  and  in  theory  they  rightly  say,  that  representation 
should  be  based  on  population ;  on  a  great  natural 
fact,  easilj^  ascertained,  capable  of  proof;  not  on  a 
whims}',  a  convenience  of  the  day,  a  mere  local  act, 
which  may  be  passed  to-day,  re-called  to-morrow. 
They  clench  the  doctrine  which  the  moderate  section 
among  liepublieans  profess  to  have  adopted,  that  a 
black  man'  in  his  pres'ent  state  of  ignorance,  is  not  fit 
to  vote;  but  then  they  add,  that  as  the  black  man 
shall  not  vote  himself,  his  more  liberal  and  eniiirhtened 
neighbor,  like  the  electoral  classes  in  a  European 
state,  should  be  allowed  to  cast  his  vote  into  the  urn. 
These  Democrats  have  the  great  advantage  of  seeming 
to  stand  by  the  law  and  Constitution,  but  their  reason- 
ing against  the  constitutional  bill  is  seen  to  be  futile 
and  unsound.     President  Johnson  and  his  cabinet  are 


RE  CONS  TR  UCTION.  488 

of  opinion  that  this  Constitutional  Amendment  should 
not  pass. 

Each  party  finds  a  certain  amount  of  sympathy  in 
the  hostile  camp.  The  Northern  Radicals  object  to 
the  Constitutional  Amendment  as  illegal  and  unneces- 
sary ;  asserting,  with  the  Democrats,  that  representa- 
tion should  be  based  on  natural  population,  not  on  the 
number  of  legal  voters ;  asserting,  with  the  Republi- 
cans, that  all  white  men  should  have  equal  rights  in 
the  urn  ;  and  declaring,  in  the  face  of  both  these 
parties,  that  the  negro  should  be  allowed  to  give  his 
vote  for  himself  In  like  manner,  the  Southern 
moderates,  while  they  hold  to  many  doctrines  which 
the  North  will  not  indorse,  are  not  unwilling  to  unite 
with  them  on  the  terms  of  equal  rights  proposed  by 
the  Republicans.  This  party  of  peace  and  compromise 
is  perhaps  the  strongest,  numerically,  in  the  South; 
but  the  hopes  of  more  fanatical  men  have  been  so 
hotly  fanned  by  President  Johnson  and  his  agents, 
that  calm  and  reasonable  counsels  have  been  heard 
among  the  old  governing  classes  with  a  certain  stiff- 
ness and  impatience. 

"We  need  not  judge  these  parties  with  heat  and 
haste.  After  her  losses  in  the  field,  the  South  may 
easily  persuade  herself  that  she  has  a  right  to  ask  for 
much,  and  to  take  whatever  advantages  she  can  of  the 
divided  counsels  of  her  foes. 


4 ^.[  iVA'  w  ami: HI C A . 


CHAPTER  LXVI. 

UNION. 

The  main  obstacle,  then,  to  a  Union,  such  as  late 
events  have  made  possible,  and  the  interests  of  all 
parties  would  suggest,  is  not  the  temper  of  either 
North  or  South,  but  the  existence  of  a  paper-law,  for 
which  every  American  has  been  trained  to -express  a 
veneration  almost  equal  to  that  which  he  professes  for 
the  "Word  of  God. 

If  any  human  effort  of  the  pen  is  sacred  in  the  eyes 
of  these  people,  it  is  their  Constitution,  Indeed,  a 
stranger  in  the  land  can  hardly  comprehend  the  rever- 
ence —  sometimes  rising  into  awe  —  with  which  brave 
Virginians,  practical  Pennsylvanians,  bright  ISTew 
Englanders,  always  speak  of  their  Organic  law.  Apart 
from  the  affection  borne  to  it  by  a  great  people,  that 
organic  law,  from  whatever  point  of  view  it  is  re- 
garded, fails  to  impress  a  student  of  politics  as  being 
the  highest  effort  of  human  genius.  It  is  less  than  a 
hundred  years  old,  and  has  none  of  the  halo  which 
comes  of  time.  It  was  not  a  growth  of  the  soil  and 
of  the  English  mind,  but  an  exotic,  drawn  from  the 
foreign  and  artificial  atmosphere  of  France.  On  the 
day  of  its  adoption  it  was  no  more  than  a  compromise, 
and  ever  since  that  day  it  has  stood  in  the  way  of 
progress  in  the  United  States.  The  principles  em- 
bodied in  it  are  in  direct  antagonism  to  that  splendid 
document,  which  often  lies  by  its  side  in  the  text- 
books— the  Declaration  of  Independence ;  for  the 
Constitution  denies  that  all  men  are  free  and  equal, 


UNION.  485 

and  refuses  to  large  classes  of  the  people  the  pursuit 
of  their  own  happiness. 

Who  can  forget  how  often,  and  with  what  success, 
that  Constitution  has  been  cited  in  evidence  that  the 
negro  slave  was  not  considered  by  the  founders  of  this 
Republic,  as  a  human  being?  If  all  men  are  pro- 
nounced free  and  equal,  by  the  fact  of  their  birth,  it  is 
only  too  obvious  that  creatures  held  in  bondage  are 
not  men.  But  every  one  knows  that  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  set  forth  the  true  and  final  views  of 
those  founders,  while  the  Constitution  expressed  no 
more  than  the  political  compromises  of  a  day.  The 
very  men  who  signed  it  wished  it  to  be  amended ;  in 
the  first  convulsion  which  has  tried  the  political  fabric 
of  this  country,  it  is  found  to  be  the  cause  of  a  thou- 
sand disasters.  It  has  brought  the  country  to  such  a 
stand  that  years  may  possibly  elapse  before  the  facts 
which  have  been  accomplished,  and  which  cannot  be 
reversed,  can  be  set  in  harmonious  relation  to  the 
paper-laws. 

While  Americans  are  busy,  unmaking  and  amending 
their  Constitution,  may  they  not  fairly  put  to  them- 
selves the  question,  What  is  the  use  of  this  record? 
At  best,  when  the  letter  of  a  constitution  is  true  in 
every  detail  — true  to  the  designs  of  God  in  His  moral 
government  of  men,  true  to  the  life  and  hope  of  the 
people  in  whose  name  it  is  drawn  up  —  it  is  only  a 
definition  of  facts.  It  is  a  thing  of  the  past ;  a  record 
of  what  the  people  have  been,  and  of  what  they  are. 
But  the  act  of  defining  is  also  one  of  narrowing, 
limiting,  restricting.  AVhy  should  the  life  of  a  great 
continent  be  narrowed  down  to  a  phrase  ?  Plow  can 
a  progressive  country  pretend  to  limit  its  powder  of 
future  growth  ?  By  what  right  may  a  free  common- 
wealth presume    to  restrain  ihe  march   of  ideas  and 

41  * 


48G  ^J'^^V  AMERICA. 

events  ?  In  a  despotic  state,  where  men  are  neither 
free  nor  equa],  Avherc  growth  is  not  expected,  where 
prosperity  is  not  desired,  a  paper  law,  unchanging  as 
that  of  the  Medes  and  Persians,  may  have  reason  for 
existence  ;  for  under  sucli  a  rule  the  people  can  never 
hope  to  rise  i)ito  that  highest  state  of  being  a  law  unto 
themselves.  In  a  country  like  America,  a  real  con- 
stitution should  l)e  a  vital  fact,  not  a  piece  of  paper, 
and  a  dubious  phrase.  England  never  had  a  written 
constitution.  How  could  she  have  ?  Her  constitution 
is  her  life.  All  that  she  has  ever  been,  ever  done,  ever 
suffered  —  these  are  her  constitutions,  because  they 
are  herself  What  would  she  gain  by  trying  to  write 
down  this  story  in  a  dozen  articles?  She  would  gain 
a  set  of  manacles.  jSTo  dozen  phrases  could  express 
the  whole  of  her  vitalities.  Some  of  these  are  ob- 
vious, others  latent;  no  one  can  remember  all  the 
past,  no  one  can  foresee  all  the  future.  Why  not  be 
content  to  let  the  nation  live  ?  Would  any  sane  man 
think  of  making  a  constitution  for  a  garden,  of  hang- 
ing a  paper  chain  on  the  stems  of  plants?  Yet  men 
in  a  free  soil  have  Avider  possibilities  of  change  in 
them  than  trees  and  flowers.  Could  anybody  dream 
of  devising  a  constitution  for  sciences  like  chemistry, 
astronomy,  and  physics  ?  Where  you  have  power  of 
growth,  you  must  have  order,  method,  understanding; 
not  a  final  theory,  not  an  infallible  law. 

And  what  are  the  advantages  derived  from  a  Con- 
stitution ?  Are  you  afraid  that  people  would  forget 
their  principles  and  betray  their  freedom,  unless  they 
were  restrained  from  wandering  by  these  paper  notes  ? 
That  is  the  common  fear.  But  see  whaf  this  fear 
implies,  and  say  whether  all  that  it  implies  is  just.  As 
men  cannot  wander  from  their  own  natures,  their 
own  instinotR    and   passions,  you   have  to  assume  that 


UNION.  487 

your  Constitution  has  a  life  apart  from  that  of  your 
people ;  that  it  is  a  political  fiction,  not  a  moral  and 
social  truth.  If  the  Constitution  exists  in  the  blood 
and  brain  of  this  bright  and  tenacious  people  —  if  it 
be  the  genuine  product  of  what  they  have  done,  of 
what  they  are  —  you  need  not  fear  its  being  forgotten 
and  betrayed.  K  it  is  an  alien  statute,  what  right 
have  you  to  force  it  upon  them  ? 

In  the  present  state  of  feeling  with  respect  to  the 
Constitution,  I  do  not  think  that  anybody  would  be 
heard  with  patience  who  should  propose  to  set  the 
people  free,  by  putting  it  to  a  decent  end.  The  time 
for  such  a  work  may  come.  At  present  no  one  dreams 
of  doing  more  than  amending  a  defective  instrument 
in  several  places ;  so  as  to  cast  away  some  of  the  ver}' 
worst  articles  inserted  in  it  by  the  slave  proprietors. 
Only  the  radicals  propose  to  bring  it  into  harmony 
with  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  But  while 
the  political  doctors  are  at  work  upon  it,  may  it  not 
be  worth  their  while  to  consider — Whether  it  would 
not  be  better  to  confine  their  task  to  cutting  away  the 
obnoxious  parts?  "Why  not  open  the  Constitution  by 
removing  its  restrictions  ?  Why  add  to  a  document 
which  they  admit  to  be  defective?  They  know  that 
if  this  paper  barrier  had  not  stood  in  their  way,  the 
difierences  between  North  and  South  would  have 
ended  with  the  defeat  of  Lee.  Why  then  prepare 
fresh  difficulties  for  their  children,  by  adding  new 
compromises  to  the  organic  statutes? 

In  a  few  years,  North  and  South  will  be  one  again ; 
state  rights  will  have  been  forgotten,  and  the  negro 
will  have  found  his  place.  A  free  Republic  cannot 
hope  to  enjoy  the  repose  of  a  despotic  State ;  to  com- 
bine the  repose  of  Pekin  with  the  movement  of  San 
Francisco,  the    order  of  Miako   with    the  vitality  of 


488  ^^f^  AMERICA. 

Kew  York.  Ebb  and  flow  may  bo  predicted  of  the 
future;  at  one  time  public  thought  "will  be  found 
cbbiug  towards  separation,  personalit}',  and  freedom; 
another  time  it  will  be  found  flowing  again  towards 
union,  brotherhood,  and  empire ;  but  the  tides  of 
sentiment  may  be  expected  to  roll  from  East  to  ^Yest, 
from  "West  to  East,  without  provoking  a  second  wreck. 
That  article  left  uncertain  in  the  Constitution,  as  to  the 
power  of  any  one  State  to  part  from  its  fellows  without 
their  leave,  has  been  now  defined  by  facts.  "War  on 
that  question  will  not  come  again ;  but  heats  will 
come,  passions  will  be  roused,  and  orators  will  take 
the  field,  even  though  the  sword  may  not  again  bo 
drawn  ;  one  side  in  the  fray  waxing  eloquent  on  the 
rights  of  man,  the  other  side  on  the  power  of  States. 
"Who  shall  say  which  fury  burns  with  the  whiter  rage  ? 
One  party  will  take  its  stand  on  personal  freedom,  the 
other  will  take  its  stand  on  national  strength.  These 
forces  are  immortal.  One  age  will  fight  for  indepen- 
dence, a  second  will  fight  for  empire,  just  as  either  the 
Saxon  or  the  Latin  spirit  shall  happen  to  prevail. 
"When  these  two  powers  are  in  poise  and  balance, 
then,  and  then  onl}-,  will  the  republic  enjoy  the 
hijrhest  share  of  freedom  with  the  widest  share  of 
power. 

WHien  the  armies  came  into  collision  after  the  fall 
of  Fort  Sumter,  the  true  banner  of  the  war  was  raised, 
and  the  battle  was  accepted  on  a  broader  ground.  The 
issue  of  the  fight  was  then,  —  "What  principle  shall  the 
Great  Republic  write  upon  her  flag  ?  Shall  her  society 
be  founded  on  the  principles  of  Chivalry,  or  on  the 
principles  of  Equality?  Shall  industry  be  branded  as 
i^rnoble  ?  Shall  the  ^N'ew  America  be  a  slave  empire 
or  a  free  commonwealth  ? 

Under  these  walls  of  Richmond  the  battle  of  that 


UNION.  489 

principle  was  fairly  fought;  with  a  skill,  a  pride,  a 
valor,  on  either  side  to  recall  the  charges  at  Naseby 
and  at  Marston  Moor ;  but  the  Cavaliers  went  down, 
and  the  Middle  Ages  then  lost  their  final  field. 

When  the  reign  of  that  martial  and  seceding  spirit 
came  to  its  close  in  the  midst  of  rout  and  fire,  the 
milder  spirit  of  Unity  and  peace,  which  had  only  slept 
in  the  heart  of  these  American  hosts,  came  up  to  the 
front.  A  new  order  was  commenced ;  not  in  much 
strength  at  first ;  not  without  fears  and  failings ;  yet 
the  reign  of  a  nobler  sentiment  was  opened,  and  every 
eye  can  see  how  far  it  is  daily  gaining  in  strength  and 
favor;  even  though  it  has  to  contend  against  craft  and 
passion  more  fatal  than  the  sword.  Years  may  elapse 
before  this  Union  sentiment  in  the  South  is  strong 
with  all  the  riches  of  its  strength ;  but  the  heralds 
have  blown  their  horns,  and  the  soldiers  have  raised 
their  flag.  Fulness  of  life  must  come  with  time; 
enough  for  the  hour  that  the  desire  for  Unity  has  been 
born  afresh. 

Yes;  here  in  Richmond,  among  these  gallant  swords- 
men of  the  South,  on  whom  the  war  has  fallen  with 
its  deadliest  weight — men  broken  in  their  fortunes, 
widowed  in  their  afifections  —  many  admit,  and  some 
proclaim,  that  they  have  made  a  surprising  change  of 
front.  They  are  still  the  same  men  as  before  the  war, 
but  they  have  wheeled  about  and  set  their  faces  another 
way.  Some,  it  has  been  said,  cannot  make  this 
change ;  they  had  their  part  in  the  past,  and  with 
the  past  they  fell.  Men  whose  last  act  was  to  burn 
this  city,  when  they  fled,  leaving  these  blackened 
walls,  these  broken  columns,  these  empty  thorough- 
fares, as  a  message,  a  memorial  of  their  despair,  may 
think  they  have  the  right  to  be  heard,  and  to  be  con- 
sidered in  these  Southern  cities ;  but  it  is  coming  to  be 


490  NEW  AMERICA. 

uuderstood  that  if  the  past  is  theirs,  for  weal  and  woe, 
there  is  a  future  before  the  world  in  which  they  can 
have  no  share.  The  victors  have  set  their  mark  upon 
them,  so  that  they  shall  fill  no  further  office  of  com- 
mand. Their  friends  may  grieve  over  this  exclusion; 
but  the  nation  has  to  live  ;  and  the  rank  and  file  of  the 
South  will  not  punish  itself  forever,  even  for  the  sake 
of  those  who,  in  their  enthusiasm,  may  have  misled  it 
into  death.  In  fact,  the  tide  has  turned ;  the  same  sea 
rolls  and  swells ;  but  the  ebb  of  separation  has  become 
the  tide  of  Union. 

Though  late,  a  goodly  number  of  these  planters  see 
that  their  Hery  haste,  their  brave  impatience,  their 
impetuous  valor,  had  urged  them  on  too  fast  and  far ; 
so  fast,  that  in  their  rage  for  liberty  they  would  have 
murdered  law;  so  far,  that  in  their  quest  for  indepen- 
dence they  would  have  sacrificed  empire.  In  their 
passion  to  be  free  they  had  forgotten  the  saying  power 
and  virtue  which  belong  to  order,  balance,  equipoise 
of  powers.  To  gain  their  darling  wish — the  right  to 
stand  alone  —  they  would  have  rent  societ}^  to  shreds, 
and  put  the  world  back  in  its  course  a  thousand  years. 
They  see  their  error  now,  and  would  undo  their  work; 
BO  far  as  such  a  deed  can  ever  be  done.  A  few  still 
hug  their  pride  and  weakness;  reading  no  promise 
in  the  skies ;  and  courting  the  fate  of  Poland  for  the 
South.  Others  among  them  may  be  silent ;  scanning 
these  crumbling  streets,  yon  Yankee  sentinels,  those 
shouting  negroes  in  the  lane,  with  bitter  smile ;  but 
time  is  doing  upon  these  sad  spirits  its  healing  work. 
They  feel  that,  having  lost  their  cause,  they  must 
yield  to  nature; — an  Anglo-Saxon  cannot  sink  into 
a  Pole. 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  here,  in  Richmond,  the 
banner  of  Robert  Lee  is  trodden  in   the  mire :  it  is 


UNION.  491 

not;  ncitlicr  should  it  be,  since  tliat  banner  gleamed 
only  over  men  who  had  armed  to  defend  a  canse  in 
which  they  found  much  glory  and  felt  no  shame.  I 
only  say  that  the  banner  of  Lee  has  been  rolled  to  its 
staff,  and  put  awa}^  among  things  of  the  past,  wnth 
much  of  the  chivalric  error,  the  romantic  passion,  of 
the  South,  laid  up  and  smoothed  among  its  folds. 
Good  sense,  if  not  fraternal  love,  has  been  restored  to 
these  gallant  people;  who  fee  well  enough  that  the 
past  is  past,  that  rage  is  vain,  that  the  light  is  over, 
that  a  place  in  the  country  may  yet  be  won.  At  pres- 
ent they  are  nothing;  less  than  the  mean  whites  ;  less 
than  their  own  nesToes.  The  situation  cannot  last. 
"Most  of  our  young,"  said  a  Virginian  to  me  just 
now,  "  are  in  favor  of  going  in  : "  that  is  to  say,  of 
compromising  the  dispute,  and  taking  their  seats  in 
Congress:  "they  do  not  like  seeming  to  desert  their 
old  generals,  but  they  want  to  live ;  and  they  won't 
stand  out  forever."  These  younger  men,  against 
whom  the  victors  entertain  no  grudge,  have  nearly 
forgotten  the  past  live  years.  Youth  keeps  its  eyes  in 
front,  and  there  it  sees  nothins;  but  the  flas;. 

Hence  it  comes  that  in  these  very  streets  of  Rich- 
mond, men  who  were  yesterday  on  horseback,  charging 
for  the  Confederate  device,  are  now  heard  whispering 
of  the  Stars  and  Stripes,  with  a  regret  not  feigned,  an 
affection  not  put  on.  "Our  grand  mishap,"  said  to 
me  a  Georgian  soldier,  not  an  hour  ago,  "was  our 
change  of  flag;  we  should  have  kept  the  old  silk;  we 
should  have  gone  out  boldly  for  the  Union;  we  should 
have  put  yon  Yankees  on  the  outer  side ;  we  should 
have  taken  our  ground  on  the  Constitution,  making 
our  enemies  the  Seceders ;  then,  we  should  have  won 
the  light,  for  all  the  "West  would  have  been  with  us ; 
and,  instead  of  stamping  about  these  blackened  avails 


492  ^^W  AMERICA. 

to-day,  we  should  have  had  our  pickets  at  iSTiagara, 
our  sentries  at  Faneuil  Hall."  Perhaps  he  is  right. 
But  is  not  this  regret  of  the  Georgian  an  after-stroke? 
Was  any  such  thought  as  that  of  liolding  on  hy  the 
old  flag,  of  preserving  the  Great  Eepublic,  to  be  found 
in  the  Southern  States  wlieu  the  war  came  down  ? 
The  rage  was  then  for  separation.  If  wiser  thoughts 
have  come,  have  they  not  come  by  trial,  in  the  wake 
of  strife  and  loss  ?  Those  who  now  put  their  faith  in 
Uuiou,  who  look  to  the  Capitol,  to  the  "White  House, 
for  safety,  held  in  those  years  by  another  doctrine ; 
putting  their  trust  in  freedom,  independence,  person- 
Si\\iy.  That  dogma  failed  them ;  isolation  would  not 
work;  personality  would  not  pay.  Law  and  policy 
were  against  them ;  the  instincts  of  society  were  too 
strong  for  them.  They  fought  for  their  scheme  of 
separation ;  they  failed ;  and,  failing,  lost  both  prize 
and  stake ;  all  that  for  which  they  had  tempted 
fortune,  nearly  all  that  wliich  they  had  put  upon 
the  die. 

Happily  for  the  world,  they  failed  and  lost ;  failed 
by  a  law  of  nature,  lost  by  an  ordinance  of  Heaven. 
I^o  calamity  in  politics  could  have  equalled  the  success 
of  a  slave  empire,  founded  on  the  ruin  of  a  strong 
republic.  All  free  nations  would  have  felt  it, — all 
honest  men  would  have  suffered  from  it;  but  even 
with  their  mistaken  cause,  their  retrograde  policy, 
their  separatist  banner,  what  a  fight  they  made !  Men 
who  can  perish  gloriously  for  their  faith — however 
false  that  faith  ma}'  be  —  will  always  seize  the  imagi- 
nation, hold  the  affections,  of  a  gallant  race.  Fight- 
ing for  a  weak  and  failing  cause,  these  planters  of 
Virginia,  of  Alabama,  of  Mississippi,  rode  into  battle 
as  they  would  have  hurried  to  a  feast ;  and  many  a 
man  who  wished  them  no  profit  in  their  raid  and  fray, 


UNION.  493 

could  not  help  riding,  as  it  were,  in  line  with  their 
foaming  froni,  dashing  with  them  into  action,  follow- 
ing their  fiery  course,  with  a  flashing  eye  and  a  hound- 
ing pulse.  Courage  is  electric.  You  caught  the  light 
from  Jackson's  sword,  you  flushed  and  panted  after 
Stuart's  plume.  Their  sin  was  not  more  striking  than 
their  valor.  Loyal  to  their  false  gods,  to  their  obsolete 
creed,  they  proved  their  personal  honor  by  their  deeds; 
these  lords  of  every  luxury  under  heaven,  striving 
with  hunger  and  with  disease,  and  laying  down  their 
luxurious  lives  in  ditch  and  breach.  All  round  these 
walls,  in  sandy  rifts,  under  forest-leaves,  and  by  lonely 
pools,  lie  the  bones  of  young  men,  of  old  men,  who 
were  once  the  pride,  the  strength  of  a  thousand  happy 
Anglo-Saxon  homes.  "Would  that  their  sin  could  be 
covered  up  with  a  little  sand  ! 

Out  on  yon  lovely  slope  of  hill,  from  the  brow  of 
which  the  reddening  woods  and  winding  waters  of 
beautiful  Virginia  gladden  the  eyes  of  men  for  leagues 
and  leagues,  the  pious  iCTorth  has  gathered  into  many 
beds,  under  many  white  stones,  the  ashes  of  her  illus- 
trious dead ;  of  youths  who  came  down  from  their 
farms  in  Ohio,  from  their  mills  in  Vermont,  from  their 
schools  in  Massachusetts;  the  thew,  the  nerve,  the 
brain  of  this  great  family  of  free-men ;  who  came 
down,  singing  their  hymns  and  hallelujahs;  giving  up 
ease,  and  peace,  and  love,  and  study,  to  save  their 
country  from  division,  from  civil  war,  from  political 
death.  Singing  their  hymns,  they  fainted  by  the 
wayside ;  shouting  their  hallelujahs,  they  were  stricken 
in  the  trench  and  in  the  field.  New  England  gave  its 
best  and  bravest  to  that  slope.  I  know  a  street  in 
Boston,  from  every  house  in  which,  death  has  taken 
spoil ;  in  the  houses  of  poet  and  teacher,  I  have  seen 

42 


494  ^SW  AMERICA. 

Rachel  mourning  with  a  proud  joy  for  the  sons  who 
will  jicver  come  back  to  her  again.  These  heroes 
sleep  on  the  hill-side,  in  the  city  which  defied  and 
slew  them ;  they  have  entered  it  as  conquerors  at  last; 
and  hero  they  will  keep  their  silent  watch,  the  senti- 
nels of  a  bright  and  holy  cause.  All  glory  to  them, 
now  and  for  evermore  ! 

Out,  too,  in  yon  swamps  and  wastes,  by  the  deserted 
breastwork,  by  the  fallen  fort,  by  the  rank  river-margin, 
lie  the  ashes  of  a  broken  and  ruined  host;  of  young 
men,  of  old  warriors,  who  rode  up  from  the  cotton 
lands  of  Louisiana,  from  the  country-houses  of  Georgia, 
from  the  rice-fields  of  Carolina,  to  fight  for  a  cause  in 
which  they  had  learned  to  feel  their  right ;  soldiers  as 
honest,  as  brave,  and  proud  as  any  of  their  stronger 
and  keener  foes.  But  the  strong  were  right,  and  the 
right  were  strong;  and  the  weaker  side  went  down  iu 
their  fierce  embrace.  They  fell  together;  their  duty 
done,  their  passion  spent.  Many  a  tender  ofiice,  many 
a  solemn  greeting,  passed  between  these  falling  bro- 
thers, who  spoke  the  same  tongue,  who  muttered  the 
same  prayer,  who  owned  one  country  and  one  God. 
They  died  on  the  same  field,  and  whitened  on  the 
same  earth.  Still,  here  and  there,  some  pious  hand 
picks  up  their  bones  together,  just  as  the  warriors  fell 
in  battle,  and  laying  them  side  by  side,  leave  the  two 
brothers  who  had  come  to  strife,  victor  and  vanquished, 
unionist  and  seceder,  to  sleep  the  long  sleep  in  a  com- 
mon bed. 

Would  it  were  always  thus!  would  that  the  pious 
North,  noble  in  its  charity  as  in  its  valor,  would  con- 
done the  past !  The  dead  are  past  offending  any  more, 
and  the  pious  tongue,  in  presence  of  a  soldier's  dust, 
should  ask  no  question  of  state  and  party,  but  lay  the 


UNION.  495 

erring  prodigal  bj  his  brother's  side.  Yon  sunny 
Richniond  slope,  on  which  the  setting  sun  appears  to 
linger,  tipping  with  pink  the  fair  white  stones,  should 
be  for  North  and  South  alike  a  place  of  rest,  a  sign 
of  the  New  America;  an  imperishable  proof  of  their 
reconciliation,  no  less  than  an  everlasting  record  of 
their  strife. 


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PUBLICATIONS  OF  J.  B.  LIPPINGOTT  &  CO. 

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LimXCOTT'S  PRONOUNCING  GAZET- 
TEER   OF  THE  WOULD, 

OR     GEOGRAPHICAL     DICTIONARY. 

Revised  Edition,  -with  an  Appendix  containing  nearly  ten 
thousand  new  notices,  and  the  most  recent  Statistical  Informa- 
tion, according  to  the  latest  Census  Returns,  of  the  United 
States  and  Foreign  Countries. 

Lippincott's  Pronouncing  Gazetteer  gives— 

I. — A  Descriptive  notice  of  the  Countries,  Islands,  Rivers, 
Mountains,  Cities,  Towns,  etc.,  in  every  part  of  the  Globe, 
with  the  most  Recent  and  Authentic  Information. 

II. — The  Names  of  all  Important  places,  etc.,  both  in  their 
Native  and  Foreign  Languages,  with  the  PRONtJNCiATioN 
of  the  same — a  Feature  never  attempted  in  any  other  Work. 

III. — The  Classical  Names  of  all  Ancient  Places,  so  far  as 
they  can  be  accurately  ascertained  from  the  best  Authori- 
ties. 

IV. — A  Complete  Etymological  Vocabulary  of  Geographical 

Names. 

V. — An  elaborate  Introduction,  explanatory  of  the  Principles 
of  Pronunciation  of  Names  in  the  Danish,  Dutch,  French, 
German,  Greek,  Hungarian,  Italian,  Norwegian,  Polish, 
Portuguese,  Russian,  Spanish,  Swedish,  and  Welsh  Lan- 
guages. 

Comprised  in  a  volume  of  over  two  thousand  three  hundred 
imperial  octavo  pages.     Price,  $10.00. 

From  the  Hon.  Horace  Mann,  LL.D., 

Late  President  of  Antioch  College. 

I  have  had  your  Pronouncing  Gazetteer  of  the  World  before  me 
for  some  weeks.  Having  long  felt  the  necessity  of  a  work  of  this 
kind,  I  have  spent  no  small  amount  of  time  in  examining  yours.  It 
seems  to  me  so  important  to  have  a  comprehensive  and  authentic 
gazetteer  in  all  our  colleges,  academies,  and  schools,  that  I  am  in- 
duced in  this  instance  to  depart  from  my  general  rule  in  regard  to 
giving  recommendations.  Your  work  has  evidently  been  prepared 
with  immense  labor;  and  it  exhibits  proofs  from  beginning  to  end 
that  knowledge  has  presided  over  its  execution.  The  rising  genera- 
tion will  be  greatly  benefited,  both  in  the  accuracy  and  e.-ctcnt  of 
their  information,  should  your  work  be  kept  as  a  book  of  reference 
on  the  table  of  every  professor  and  teacher  in  the  country. 


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