"Shall Cromwell have a statue?" : oration ... before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of the University of Chicago, Tuesday, June 17, 1902

Qass
Book.

Bi^

2

'jLud^.

^
K

"Shall Cromwell Mave a Statue?"

ORATION

BY

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS

BEFORE THE PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY OF
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO,

Tuesday, June 17, 1902.

BOSTON

C H A R L E S E . L A U R I A T CO
1902.

C^&l

.U/\

'LX*

" Whom doth the king delight to honour? that is the question of
questions concerning the king's own honour. Show me tlie man
you honour; I know by that symptom, better than by any other,
what kind of man you yourself are. For you show me there what
your ideal of manhood is ; what kind of man you long inexpressibly
to be, and would thank the gods, with your whole soul, for being if
you could."

" Who is to have a Statue? means. Whom shall we consecrate
and set apart as one of our sacred men ? Sacred ; that all men may
see him, be reminded of him, and, by new example added to old
perpetual precept, be taught what is real worth in man. Whom do
you wish us to resemble? Him you set on a high column, that all
men, looking on it, may be continually apprised of the duty you ex-
pect from them." — Thomas Carlyle, '•'' Latfer-Day Pamp/i/ets."
(i8so.)

*i

SHALL CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?

ff

At about 8 ()\'l()ck of the afternoon of September Srd,
1658. the day of Wori-ester and of Dunbar, and as a
great teni})est was wearing itself to rest, Oliver C'roniwell
died. He died in London, in the palace of Whitehall :
-that palace of the great banqueting hall, through whose
central window Charles 1. had walked forth to the scaf-
fold a little less than ten years before. A few weeks
later, " with a more than regal solenniity," the body of
the great Lord Protector was carried to Westminster
Abbey, and there buried •• amongst Kings." Two years
then elapsed : and, on the twelfth anniversary of King
Charles's execution, the remains of the usurper, having
been disinterred ])y a unanimoias vote of the C^onvention
Parliament, were hung at Tyburn. The trunk was then
buried under the gallows, while C^romweirs head was set
on a pole over the roof of Westminstei- Llall. Nearly
two centuries of execration ensued, until, in the sixtli
generation, the earlier verdict was challenged, and the
question at last asked : — '' Shall Cromwell have a statue ?"
Cromwell, the traitor, the usurper, the execrable murderer
of the martyred Charles I At first, and for long, the
suggestion was looked upon almost as an impiety, and.
as such, scornfully repelled. Not only did the old loyal
King-worship of England recoil from the thought, but.
indignantly appealing to the church, it declared that no
such distinction could be granted so long as there re-
mained in the prayer-book a form of supi)lication for
•• King Charles, the Martyr." and of •• praise and thaid<s-
giving for tiie wonderful deliverance of these kingdoms
from the great i-ebellion, and all the other miseries and
oppressions conseijuent thereon, under which they had so
long groaned." None the less, the demand was insistent :
and at last, V»ut <mly after two full centuries had elapsed

.4

and. a third was well advanced, was the verdict of 1661
reversed. Today the bronze effigy of Oliver Cromwell, - —
massive in size, rugged in feature, characteristic in atti-
tude, — stands defiantly in the yard of that Westminster
Hall, from a pole on the top of which, twelve scoi-e
years ago, the flesh crumbled from his skull.

In this dramatic reversal of an accepted verdict, — this
complete revision of opinions once deemed settled and
immutable, — there is, I submit, a lesson, — an academic
lesson. The present occasion is essentially educational.
The Phi Beta Kappa oration, as it is called, is the last,
the crowning utterance of the college year, and very
})roperly is expected to deal with some fitting theme in a
kindred spirit. I propose to do so today ; but in a fash-
ion somewhat exceptional. The phases of moral and in-
tellectual growth through which the English race has
])assed on the subject of Cromwell's statue afford, I sub-
mit, to the reflecting man an educational study of excep-
tional interest. In the first place, it was a growth of two
centuries ; in the second place it marks the passage of a
nation from an existence under the traditions of feudalism
to one under the principles of self-government ; finally it
illustrates the gradual development of that broad spirit
<»t' tolerance which, coming with time and study, measures
the men and events of the past independently of the
])rejudices and passions which obscure and distort the
iuunediate vision.

We, too, as well as the English, have had our " Great
Rebellion." It came to a dramatic close thirty-seven
years since ; as theirs came to a close not less dramatic
some seven times thirty-seven years since. We, also, as
they in their time, formed our contemporaneous judg-
ments and recorded our verdicts, assumed to be irrever-
sible, of the men, the issues and the events of the great
conflict ; and those verdicts and judgments, in our case
as in theirs, will unquestionably be revised, modified, and

in not a few cases wholly reversed. Better knowledge,
calmer reflection, and a more judicial frame of mind
come with the ])assage of the years: in time passions
subside, prejudices disappear, truth asserts itself. In
Enoiand this ])rocess has been goino- on for over two cen-
turies and a half, with what result Cromweirs statue
stands as proof. W(^ live in another age and a different
environment ; and, as fifty years of Europe out-measure
in their growi^h a cycle of Cathay, so I hold one year
of twentieth century America works more progress in
thought than thirty-seven years of Britain during the in-
terval between its (irreat Rebellion and ours. We who
took active part in the Civil War have not yet wholly
vanished from the stage ; the rear guard of the (Irand
Army, we linger. To-day is separated from the death
of Lincoln by the same number of years only whicli
separated ''the Glorious -Revolution of 1688" from the
execution of Charles Stuai-t : yet to us is already given
to look back on the events of whicli we were a part with
the same persjjective effects with which the Victorian
Englishman looks back on the men and events of the
Commonwealth .

I propose on this occasion to do so ; and reverting to
my text, — " Shall Cromwell have a Statue " — and read-
ing that text in the gloss of Carlyle's Latter-] )<ii/
Parnphh't utterance. I (]note you Florace's familial- ])ie-
cept,

Mutato nomine, de te
FahuUt narvotiir.

and ask abruptly, '• Shall Robert E. Lee have a Statue ?
1 propose also to offer to your consideration some reasons
why he should, and. assuredly, will have one. if not now.
then presently.

Shortly after Lee's death, in October. 1870. leave was
asked in t)ie Ignited States Senate, by Mr. McCreery, of

Kentucky, to introduce a Joint Resolution providing for
the return of the estate and mansion of Arllnj^ton to
the family of the deceased Confederate (-omniander-in
chief. In view of the use which liad then already been
made of Arlington as a military cemetery, this pro])osal,
involving, as it necessarily did. a removal of the dead,
naturally led to warm debate. The proposition was one
not to be considered. If a defect in tl;e title of the
gov^ernment existed, it must in some way be cured, as,
subsequently, it was cured. But I call attention to the
debate because Charles Sumner, then a Senator from
Massachusetts, participated in it, using the following
language : — '•' Eloquent Senators have already charac-.
terized the proposition and the traitor it seeks to com-
memorate. I am not disposed to speak of General Lee.
It is enough to say he stands high in the catalog\ie of
those who have imbrued their hands in their country's
blood. I hand him over to the avenging pen of History."
This was when Lee had been just two months dead ; but,
three-quarters of a century after the Protector's skull
had been removed from over the roof of Westminster
Hall. Pope, wrote in similar spirit :

" See Cronnvell, damiiM to everlasting fame ; "

and, sixteen vears later, — foui-hfths of a century after
Cromwell's disentombment at Westminster and reburial
at Tyburn, — a period from the death of Lee equal to
that which will have elapsed in 1950, (xray wrote of the
Stok« Pogis churchyard —

" iSome mute inglorious INIilton here may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's bloo<l."

And now, a century and a half later, Cromv/eH's statue
looms defiantly up in front of the Parliament House.
When, therefore, an appeal is in such cases made to the
" avenging pen of History," it is well to bear this in-
stance in mind, while recalling perchance that other line

of a greater than Pope, or Gray, or Sumner, —

'^ Tims tlie wliirlig'if^ ot" time briii^^s in his revenges."

Was then Robert E. Lee a '' traitor " — was he also
guilty of his "eonntry's blood?" These questions I propose
now to discuss. I am one of those who. in other days, was
arrayed in the ranks which (confronted Lee ; one of those
whom Lee baffled and beat, but who. finally. l)affled and
beat Lee. As one thus formerly lined up against him,
these (juestions 1 propose to discuss in the calmer and
cooler, and altogether more leasonable light which comes
to most men, when a whole generation of the human race
lies buried between them and the issues and actors upon
which we undertake to pass.

Was Robert E. Lee a traitor? Technically. I think
lie was indis})utably a traitor to the United States : for a
traitor, as I understand it technically, is one guilty of
the crime of treason ; or. as the Century Dictionary puts
it, violating his allegiance to the chief authority of the
State : while treason against the United States is specifi-
cally defined in the Constitution as '^ levying war " against
it. or "giving their enemies aid and comfort." That
Robert E. Lee did levy war against the L^nited States
can. I suppose, no more be denied than that he gave
" aid and comfort " to its enemies. This technically ; but,
in history, there is treason and treason, as there are
traitors and traitors. And. furthermore, if Robert E,
Lee was a traitor, so also, and indisputably were George
Washington. Oliver Cromwell, John Hampden. and
William of Orange. The list might be extended indef-
initely ; but these will suffice. There can be no question
that every one of those named violated his allegiance,
and gave aid and comfort to the enemies of his sover-
eign. Washington furnishes a precedent at every point.
A Virginian like Lee. he was also a British subject ; he
had fought under tlie British flag, as Lee had fought under

8.

that of the United States ; when, in 1776, Virginia
seceded from the British Empire, he " went with his
State," just as Lee went with it eighty-five years later ;
subsequently Washington commantled armies in the field
designated by those opposed to them as *' rebels," and
whose descendants now glorify them as "• the rebels of
'76," much as Lee later commanded, and at last surren-
dered, much larger armies, also designated " rebels " by
those they confronted. Except in their outcome, the
cases were, therefore, precisely alike ; and logic is logic.
It consequently appears to follow, that, if Lee was a
traitor, Washington was also. It is unnecessary to in-
stitute similar comparisons with Cromwell, Hampden and
William of Orange. No defence can in their cases be
made. Technically, one and all, they undeniably were
traitors.

But there are, as I have said, traitors and traitors, —
CataHnes, Arnolds and Gorgeis, as well as Cromwells,
Hampdens and Washing-tons. To reach any satisfactory
conclusion concerning a candidate for '•• everlasting fame,"
— whether to praise him or to damn him, — enroll hinx
as saviour, as martyr, or as criminal, — it is, therefore,
necessary still fui'ther to discriminate. The cause, the
motive, the conduct must be passed in review. Did tur-
pitude anywhere attach to the original taking of sides,
or to subsequent act ? Was the man a self-seeker ?
Did low or sordid motives impel him ? Did he seek to
aggrandize himself at his country's cost ? Did he strike
with a parricidal hand ?

These are grave questions : and, in the ease of Lee,
their consideration brings us at the threshold face to face
with issues which have perplexed and divided the country
since the day the United States became a country. They
perplex and divide historians now. Legally, technically,
— the moral and humanitarian aspects of the issue whoUy
apart, — which side had the )iest of the argument as to

9

the rights and the wrongs of the ease in the great de-
bate which led up to the Civil War? Before entering,
however, on this well-worn, — I might say, this threadbare
— theme, as I find myself compelled in briefest way to
do, there is one preliminary very essential to be gone
through with. A species of moral })urgation. l^earing
in mind Dr. .Johnson's advice to Boswell, on a certain
memorable occasion, we should at least try to clear our
minds of cant. Many years ago, but only shortly before
his death, Richard Cobden said in one of his truth-telling
deliverances to his Rochdale constituents, — "I really be-
lieve I might be Prime Minster. If I would get up
and say you are the greatest, the wisest, the best, the
happiest ])eople in the woi'ld, and keep on repeating that,
1 don't doubt but what 1 might be Prime Minister. I
have seen Prime Ministers made in my experience pre-
cisely by that process." The same great apostle of
homely sense, on another occasion liluntly remarked in
a similar spirit to the House of Connnons, — " We gener-
ally sympathise with everybody's rebels but our own."
In both these res])ects I submit we Americans are true
descendants from the Anglo-Saxon stock : and nowhere
is this more unpleasantly apparent than in any discussion
which may arise of the motives which actuated those of
our countrymen who did not at the time see the issues
involved in our Civil War as we saw them. Like those
wdiom Cobden addressed, we like to glorify our anc-estors
and ourselves and we do not particularly care to give
ear to what we are pleased to term unpatriotic, and, at
times, even treasonable, talk. In other words, and in
plain, unpalatable, English, our minds are satui-ated with
(^ant. Only in the case of others do we see things as
they really are. Then, ceasing to be antagonistic, we are
nothing unless critical. So, when it comes to rebellions,
we. like Cobden's Englishmen, are wont almost invaria-
bly to sympathize with everybody's rebels but our own.

10

Our souls go forth at once to Celt, Pole, Hungarian,
Boer and Hindoo : ])ut, when we are concerned, language
quite fails us in which adequately to depict the moral
turpitude which must actuate Confederate or Filipino
who rises in resistance against what we are pleased really
to consider, as well as call, the best and most benefi-
cent government the world has yet been permitted to see,
— Our Government. This, I submit, is cant, — pure cant ;
and at the threshold of discussion we hspd best fi-ee our
minds of it, wholly, if we can : if not wholly, then in so
far as we can. Philip the Second of Spain, when he
directed his c^rusade in the name of God, Church and
(xovernment, against William of Orange, indulged in it
in quite as good faith as we : and as for Charles " the
Martyr" and the '* sainted " Laud, for two centuries after
Cromwell's head was stuck on a pole, all England every
Sunday lamented in sackcloth and ashes the wrongs in-
flicted by sacrilegious hands on those most assuredly well-
meaning rulers and men. All depends on the point of
view : and, during our own Civil War, while we unceas-
ingly denounced the wilful wickedness of those who bore
parricidal arms against the one immaculate authority yet
given the eye of man to look upon, tlie leading news-
paper of the world was referring to us in perfect good
faith " as an insensate and degenerate people." An
English member of Parliament, speaking at the same
time in eipiaUy good faith, declared that, throughout
the length and breadth of Great Britain, public senti-
ment was almost unanimously on the side of " the South-
erners," — as ours was on the side of the Boers, — be-
cause our " lebels " were "■ fightino- against one of the most
grinding, one of the most galling, one of the most irri-
tating attem})ts to establish tyi'annical government that
ever disgraced the history of the worhl."

Upon the correctness or otherwise of these judgments
1 do not care to pass. They certainly cannot be recon-

11

(riled. Tlie sIngU' point I make is that they were, when
maik'. the expre.ssion of views honestly and sincerely en-
tertained. We sympathize with Oreat l^ritaiu's rebels;
Great Hi-itain syni})athized with our rebels. Our rebels
in 1862. as theirs in 1900. sincerely believed they were
ivsistiny an iniquitous attempt to deprive them of their
rights, and to establish over them a ^- orinding," a
''galliui; ■■ and an *• irritatiu-; " "tyrannical government."
We in 1861. as (ireat Britain in 1898, and Charles "the
Martyr" and Philip of Spain some centuries earlier, fully
lielicved that we were engaged in (rod's wt)rk while we
trod under foot the -rebel" and the "traitor." Presently,
as distance lends a more correct perspective, and things are
seen in tlieir ti-ue ])roi)ortions. we will get perhaps to
realize that our case furnishes no exception to the general
rule : and that we. too, like the English " generally sym-
pathize with everybody's rebels but our own." Justice
inav then be done.

Having entered this necessary, if somewhat liopeless
caveat, let us address ourselves to the (ptestion — legally,
teclmically. — again let me say not morally and not
to the rights and the wrongs of the case in the great
debate which led up to the Civil War/ The answer
necessarily turns on the abstract right of what we term
a Sovereign State to secede from the Union at such time
and for such cause as may seem to that wState proper and
sufHcient. The issue is settled now : irrevocably and for
all time decided : it was not settled forty years ago, and
the settlement since made has ])een the result not of
reason. ])ased on historical evidence. l)ut of events and
of force. To pass a fair judgment on the line of con-
duct pui-sued by Lee in 1861, it is necessary to go back
in tiiought and imagination, and see things, not as they
are. but as they W(Me. If we do so, and accept the judg-
ment of some of the more modern students and investi-
gators of liistoiy. — either wholly unprejudiced or with

12

a distinct Union bias, — it would seem as if the weight
of argument falls into what I will term the Confederate
scale. For instance. Professor Goldwin Smith. — an
Englishman, a life-long student of history, a friend and
advocate of the Union during the Civil War, the author
of one of the most compact and readable narratives of
our national hfe, — Prof. Smith has recently said — " Few
who have looked into the history can doubt that the
Union originally was. and was generally taken by the
parties to it to be, a compact, dissoluble perhaps most
of them would have said, at pleasure, dissoluble certainly
on breach of the articles of Union." * To a like effect,
but in terms even stronger, Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge, now
a Senator from Massachusetts, has said, not in a ])olitical
utterance but in a work of liistorical character, — "• When
the Constitution was adopted by tlie votes of States at
Philadelphia, and accepted l>y tlie votes of States in
popular conventions, it is safe to say that there was not
a man in the country from Washington and Hamilton
on the one side, to George Clinton and George Mason
on the othei-, who regarded the new system as anything
but an experiment entered upon by the States and fi'om
which eacli and every State had the right peaceably to
withdraw, a rig-ht which was very likely to be exercised."!

Here are two explicit statements of the legal and
technical side of the argument made by authority to
which no exception can be taken, at least by those of
the Union side. On them, and on them alone, the case
for the abstract light of secession might be rested, and
we could go on to the next stage of the discussion.

I am unwilling, however, so to do. The issue involved

is still one of interest, and I am not disposed to leave it

on the mere dictum of two authorities, however eminent.

In the first place I do not altogether concur in their

statement ; in the next place, this discussion is a mere

* Atlantir Monthly Mac/azine (March, 1902) vol. 89 p. 305.
j Webster, American Statesman Series, p. 172.

13

threshing of straw unless we get at the true inwardness
of the situation. When it conies to subjects — political
or moral — in which human beings are involved, meta-
physics are scarcely less to be avoided than cant ; alleged
historical facts ai'e apt to prove <leceptive ; and I confess
to grave suspicions of h)gic. Old time theology, for
instance, with its pitiless reasoning, led the world into
very strange places and much bad company. In reaching
a conclusion, therefore, in which a verdict is entered on
the motives and actions of men, acting either individually
or in masses, the moral and sentimental must be quite
as much taken into account as the legal, the logical and
the material. This, in the present case, I propose presently
to do ; but, as I have said, on the facts even I am un-
able wholly to concur with Professor Smith and Mr. Lodge.
Mr. Lodge, for instance, cites Washington. But it so
chances Washington put himself on record upon the
point at issue, and his testimony is directly at variance
with the views attributed to him by Mr. AYebster's bio-
graphei'. What are known in history as the Kentucky
lesolutions, drawn up by Thomas Jefferson, then Vice-
President, were passed by the Legislature of the State
whose name they bear in November, 1798. In those
resolutions the view of the framers of the Constitution as
to ihe original scope of that instrument accepted by
Prof. Smith and Mr. Lodge was first set forth. The
principles acted upon by South Carolina on the 20 th of
December, 18G0, were enunciated by Kentucky Novem-
ber 10, 1798. The dragon's teeth were then sown.
Washington was at that time living in retirement at Mt.
Yernon. When, a few weeks later, the character of those
resolutions became known to him, he was deeply concerned,
and wrote to Lafayette, — " The Constitution, according
to their interpretation of it, would be a mere cipher ; "
and again, a few days later, he expressed himself still
more strongly in a letter to Patrick Henry, — " Measures

14

are systeiuatically and pertinaciously pursiu^d wliieli must
eventually dissolve the Union, or produce coercion. "' *
Coercion ^Vashington thus looked to as the remedy to
which recourse could properly be had in case of any
overt attempt at secession. But, so far as the f ramcrs
of the Constitution as a whole were concerned, it seems
to me clear that, acting as wise men of conflicting views
naturally would act, they did not care to incur the danger
of a shipwreck of their entire scheme by undertaking to
settle, distinctly and in advance, abstract questions, tlic
discussion of which was fraught with danger. In so far
as they could, they, with great practical shrewdness, left
those questions to be settled, should they ever ])rcsent
themselves in concrete form, under the conditions whicli
might, then exist. I^ie trutli seems to be that the mass
of those composing the Convention of 1787, working
under the guidance of a few very able and ext'cedingly
practical men, of constructive mind, builded a great deal
better than they knew. The delegates nu4 to harmonize
trade differences : they ended by perfecting a scheme of
political union that had broad consequences of whicli they
little dreamed. If they had dreamed of them, the fabric
would never have been completed. That Madison. Mar-
shall and Jay were equally blind to consequences does
not follow. They probably designed a nation. If they
di<l, however, they were too wise to take the public into
tlieir confidence : and, today, no impartial student of our
constitutional history can doubt for a moment that eacli
State ratified the form of government submitted in the
firm belief that at any time it (.-ould withdraw therefrom.
Probably, however, the more far-seeing. — and. in the long
run, they alone count, — shared with Washington in the
belief that this withdrawal would not l>e unaccompanied

* Washington's Works, vol. xi, pp. 378, 380.

15

by practical diffiinilty.* And, attei- all is said and done,
tho legality of secession is somewhat of a metaphysical
abstraction so long' as the right of revolution is inalien-
able. As matter of fact it was to might and revolution
the Soiith appealed in 1861 ; and it was to coercion the
government of the Union had recourse. So with his su-
preme good sense and that political insight at once in-
stinctive and unerring, in respect to which he stands
almost alone, Washington foresaw this alternative in 1798.
He looked u])on the doctrine of secession as a heresy :
but. none the less, it was a heresy then preached, and to
which many, not in \ irginia only hut in New England
also, pinned their political faith. Even the Devil is pi-o-
verbially entitled to his due.

So far, however, as the abstract cpiestion is of conse-
quence, as the utterances of Prof. Smith and Mr. Lod^-c
conclusively show, the Secessionists of 1861 stand in his-
tory's court by no means without a case. In that ease.
moreover, they implicitly believed. From generation to
generation they had grown up indoctrinated with the gospel.
or heresy, of State Sovereignty, and it was as much part
of their moral and intellectiud being as was clanship of the
Scotch highlanders. In so far they were right, as Governor
John A. Andrew said of John Brown. Meanwhile, prac-
tically, as a commoii-seused man, leading an every day ex-
istence in a world of actualities, John Brown was not
right : he was, on the contrary, altogether wrong, and
richly merited the fate meted out to him. It was the
same with the Secessionists. That, in 1861, they could reallv
have had faith in the practicability, — the real working
efficiency, — of that peaceable secession which they pro-
fessed to ask for, and of which they never wearied of
talking, I cannot believe. I find in the record no real
evi<lence thereof,

* Doiin I'iatt, Oeurye II . 'I'fioina.s, p. bS.

16

Of the high-type Southron, as we sometimes designate
him, I would speak in terms of sincere respect. I know
him chiefly by hearsay, ha\dng come in personal contact
only with individual representatives of the class ; but such
means of observation as 1 have had confirm what I
recently heard said by a friend of mine, once Governor
of South Carolina : and so far as I know, the only man
who ever gave the impossible plan of reconstruction at-
tempted after our Civil "War a firm, fair and intelligent
trial. He at least put forth an able and honest effort to
make effective a policy which never should have been de-
vised. Speaking from " much and varied experience," I
recently heard Daniel H. Chamberlain say of the '' typ-
ical southern Gentleman " that he considered him •' a dis-
tinct and really noble growth of our American soil. For,
if fortitude under good and under evil fortune, if endur-
ance without complaint of what comes in the tide of
human affairs, if a grim clinging to ideals once charming,
if vigor and resiliency of character and spirit under de-
feat and poverty and distress, if a steady love of learning
and letters when lil)raries were lost in flames and the
wreckage of war, if self-restraint when the long delayed
relief at last came, — if, 1 say, all these qualities are
})arts of real heroism, if these qualities can vivify and
ennoble a man or a i)eople, then our own South may lay
claim to an honored place among the differing types of
our great common race." Such is the matured judgment
of the Massachusetts Governor of South Carolina during
the Congressional reconstruction period ; and, listening to it,
I asked myself if it was descriptive of a Southern fellow-
countryman, or a Jacobite Scotch chieftian anterior to
-the '45."

The Southern statesmen of the old slavery days, — the
antediluvian i)eriod which preceded our mid-century cat-
aclysm,— were the outcome and representatives of what has
thus been described. As such they presented a curious ad-

17

, mixtiuo of (|ualities. Masterful in temjHn-, dear of purpose,
with a finu »,aasp on principle, a high sense of honor
antl a moral per('e})tion developed on its peculiar lines, a»
in the case of Calhoun, to a (luality of distinct hardness,
they were yet essentially aV)stractionists. Political metaphy-
sicians, they were not prai'tical men. They did not see
things as they really were. They thus, while discussing
their •• forty -bale theories " and the '' })atriarchal institution "
in connection with States rights and nnlliiication, failed to
I'calize that on the two essential features of their policy, —
slavery and secession, — they were contending with the stars
in their courses. The whole world was moving irresistibly
in the direction of nationality and an ever increased recog-
nition of the rights of man : while they, on both of these
vital issues, were proclaiming a crusade of reaction.

Moreover, what availed the views or intentions of the
framers of the Constitution? What mattered it in 18<>0
whether they, in 1787. contemplated a Nation or only a
uioi'e com})act federation of Sovereign States ? Kealitit^s
have an unpleasant way of asserting their existence. How-
ever it may have been in 1788, in 1860 a Nation had
grown into existence. Its i)eaceful dismemberment was im-
possible. The complex system of tissues and ligaments,
the growth of seventy years, could not be gently taken
apart, without woiuid or hurt : the separation, if sepa-
lation there was to l)e, involved a tearing asunder, su})ple-
nienting a liberal use of the knife. Their professions to
the contrary notwithstanding, this the Southern leaders failed
not to realize. In point of fact, therefore, believing fully
in the abstract legality of secession, and the justice and
sufficiency of the grounds on which they acted, theii- appeal
was to the inalienable right of revolution; and to that nn'ght
l)V which alone the right could be upheld. Let us )>ut
casuistry. meta})hysics and sentiment aside, and come to
actualities. The secessionist recourse in -ISGl was to the
sword: and to the sword it was meant to have recourse.

18

I have thus far spoken only of the South as a whole.
Much has been said and written on the subject of an al-
leged conspiracy in those days of Southern men and leaders
against the Union : of the designs and ultimate objects of
the alleged conspirators : of acts of treachery on their part,
and the part of their accomplices, towards the government,
of which they were the sworn officials. Into this phase
of the subject I do not propose to enter. , That the lead-
ers in Secession were men with large views, and that
they had matured a comprehensive policy as the ultimate
outcome of their movement, I entertain no doubt. They
looked unquestionably to an easy military success, and the
complete establishment of their Confederacy ; more remotely,
there can be no question they contemplated a policy of
extension, and the estaVdishment along the shores of the
Gulf of Mexico and in the Antilles of a great semi-tropical,
slave-labor republic ; finally, all my investigations have
tended to satisfy, me that they confidently anticipated an
early disintegration of the Union, and the accession of
the bulk of the Northern States to the Confederacy,
New England only being sternly excluded therefrom —
'' sloughed off," as they expressed it. The capital of the
new Confederacy was to be Washington ; African servitude,
luider reasonable limitations, was to be recognized through-
out its limits ; agriculture was to be its ruling interest,
with a tariff and foreign policy in strict accord there \\dth.
*' Secession is not intended to break up the present gov-
ernment, but to perpetuate it. We go out of the Union,
not to destroy it, but for the purpose of getting further
guarantees and security,'" — this was said in January, 1861;
and this in 1900 — "-And so we believe that, with the
success of the South, the ' Union of the Fathers,' which
the South was the principal factor in forming, and to
which she was far more attached than the North, \\'Ould
have been restored and re-established : that in this Union,
the South would have been again the dominant people.

19

the controlling power." Conceding the necessary premises
of fact and law, — a somewhat considerable concession, but,
perhaps, conceivable, — conceding these, I see in this po-
sition, then or now, nothing illogical, nothing provocative
of severe criticism, certainly nothing treasonable. Acting
on sufficient grounds, of which those thus acting were tlie
sole judge, proceeding in a way indisputably legal and reg-
ular, it was proposed to reconstruct the Union in the light
of experience, and on a new, and, as they considered, an
improved basis, without New England. This cannot prop-
erly be termed a conspiracy ; it was a legitimate policy
based on certain assumed data legal, moral and economi-
cal. But it was in reality never for a moment believed
that this programme could be peaceably and quietly carried
into effect ; and the assent of New England to the ar-
rangement was neither asked for, assumed nor expected.
New England was distinctly relegated to an outer void,

— at once cold, dark, inhospitable.

As to participation of those who sympathized in these
views and this policy in the councils of the government,
so furthering schemes for its overthrow while sworn to
its support, I hold it unnecessary to speak. Such were
traitors. As such, had they met their deserts, they should
at the proper time and on due process of law, have been
arrested, tried, convicted, sentenced and hanged. That in

7 7 7 ^

certain well-remembered instances this course was not pur-
sued, is, to my mind, even yet much to be deplored. In
such cases clemency is only another form of cant.

Having now discussed what have seemed to me the
necessary preliminaries, I come to the particular cases of
Virginia and Robert E. Lee. The two are closely interwoven,

— for Virginia was always Virginia, and the Lees were,
first, over and above all, Virginians. It was the Duke
'f Wellington who, on a certain memorable occasion, in-
dignantly remarked in his delightful French- English —
" Mais avant tout je suis gentilhonune Anglais.'' So might
'lave said the Lees of Viru'inia of themselves.

20

As respects Virginia, moreover. 1 am fain to say there
was in the attitude of the State towards the Confederacy,
and, indeed, in its bearing throughout the Civil War.
something which appealed strongly, — something unselfish
and chivalric, — worthy of Virginia's highest record. His-
tory will, I think, do justice to it, Virginia, it must be
remembered, while a Slave State was not a Cotton State.
This was a distinction implying a differencje. In Virginia
the institution of slavery existed, and because of it she was
in close sympathy with her sister Slave States : but, while
in the (^otton States slavery had gradually assumed a purely
material form, in Virginia it still retained much of its
patriarchal character. The slave there was not a mere
transferable chattel ; practically, and to a large extent, he
was attached to the house and the soil. This fact had
a direct l>earing on the moral issue : for slavery was one
thing in Virginia, (juite another in Louisiana. The Vii-
ginian pride was moreover proverbial. Indeed, I doubt if
local feeling and patriotism and devotion to the State
ever anywhere attained a higher development than in the
community which dwelt in the region watered by the
Potomac and the James, of which Riclmiond was the
political centre. We of the North, especially we of New
England, were Yankees : but a Virgininan was that, and
nothing else. I have heard of a New Engiander, of a
Green Mountain boy, of a Rhode Islander, of a '• Nutmeg,"'
of a '• Blue-nose "* even, l)ut never of a Massachusettensian.
The word somehow does not lend itself to the mouth,
any more than the thought to the mind.

But Virginia was strongly attached by sentiment as well
as interest to the Union. The Inrth-place of Washington,
the mother of States, as well as of Presidents, •* The Old
Dominion." as she was i-alled, and fondly loved to call
herself, had never been affected by the nullification here-
sies of South Carolina ; and the long line of her eminent
public men. though, in 1860. sliowing marked signs of a

21

deterioratinj;' standard, still retained a prominence in the
national eouncils. If fJohn 15. Floyd was Seci'etary of the
Interior. Winfield Seott was at the head of the Army.
Torn by conflicting feelings, Virginia still held to the Na-
tion, nnwilling to sever her connection with it hecanse of
the lawfnl election of an anti-slavery President, even by a
distinctly sectional vote. For a time she even stayed the
fast flooding tide of secession. l)ringing about a brief l)ut
important reaction. Those of us old enough to remember
the drear and anxious Winter which followed the election
and precedeil the inauguration of Lincoln, recall vividly the
rav of bright hope which, in the midst of its deepest gloom,
then came from Virginia. It was in early February. Up
to that time the record was unbroken. Beginning with
South Carolina on the 20th of Deceml)er, State after State,
meeting in convention, had with signifi(!ant unanimity passed
ordinances of secession. Each successive ordinance was felt
to be the equivalent to a renewed declaration of war. The
outlook was dark indeed ; and. amid the fast gathering
gloom, all eyes, all thoughts, turned to Virginia. She
represented what were known as the Border States, her
at'tion it was felt would largely influence, and might control,
theirs. John Letcher was then Governor of Virginia, — a
States Rights Democrat, of course ; but a Union man. By
him the legislature of the State was in December called
together in special session, and that legislature passed
what was known as a convention bill. Practically Vir-
ginia was to vote on the question at issue. Events moved
rapidly. South Carolina had seceded on tlie 20th of De-
cember: Mississippi on the 8th of January: Alabama and
Florida only three days later on the 11th; Georgia
followed on the 19th ; Louisiana on the 2Gth, with Texas
on the 1st of February. The procession seemed unending ;
the record unbioken. Not without cause might the now
thoroughly frighten«'(l friends of the Union have exclaimed
with Macbeth —

22

*' What ! will the line stretch out to the crack of doom ?
Another yet? A seventh?"

If at that juncture the Old Dommion by a decisive vote
had followed in the steps of the Cotton States it im-
plied censequences which no man could fathom. It involved
the possession of the national capitol, and the continuance
of the Government. Maryland would inevitably follow the
Virginian lead ; the recently elected President had not yet
been inaugurated ; taken wholly by surprise, the North was
divided in sentiment : the loyal spirit of the country was
not aroused. It was thus an even question whether, on
the 4th of March, the whole machinery of the de facto
government would not be in the hands of the revolutionists.
All depended on Virginia. This is now forgotten ; none
the less, it is history.

The Virginia election was held on the 4th of February,
the news of the secession of Texas — seventh in the line
— having been received on the 2nd. Evidently, the action
of Texas was carefidly timed for effect. Though over
forty years ago, I well remember that day, — gi'ay, over-
cast, wintry, — which succeeded the Virginia election.
Then living in Boston, a young man of twenty-five, 1
shared, — as who- did not ? — in the common deep depression
and intense anxiety. It was as if a verdict was to be
that day announced in a case invoKang fortune, honor,
life even. Too harassed for work, I remember leaving my
office in the afternoon to seek relief in physical activity,
for the ponds in the vicinity of Boston were ice-covered
and daily' thronged with skaters. I was soon among the
number, gloomily seeking unfrequented spots. Suddenly I
became aware of an unusual movement in the throng
nearest the shoi'e, whei-e those fresh from the city arrived.
The skaters seemed crowding to a common point : and a
moment later they scattered again, with cheers and ges-
tures of relief. An arrival fresh from Boston had brought
the first bulletin of yesterday's election. Virginia, speaking

23

against secession, had emitted no uncei'tain sound. It was
as if a weiglit had been taken off the mind of everyone.
The tide seemed turned at last. F'or myself, I remember
my feelings were too deep to find expression in words or
sound. Something stuek in my throat. I wanted to l>e
by myself.

Nor did we over-estimate the importance of the event.
If it did not in the end mean reaction, it did mean time
gained : and time then, as the result showed, was vital.
As AVilliam H. Seward, representing the President-elect in
Washington, wrote during those days : — '"• The people of
the District are looking anxiously for the result of the
Virginia election. They fear if Virginia resolves on sect's-
sion, Maryland will follow : and then Washington w ill
be seized. *** The election tomorrow ])robably determines
whether all the Slave States will take the attitude of
disunion. Everybody around nic thinks that that will
make the separation irretrievable, and involve us in fla-
grant civil war. Practically everybody will despair." A
day or two later the news canu^ •• like a gleam of sun-
shine in a storm." The disunion movement was checked,
perhaps would be checkmated. Well might Seward, with
a sigh of profound relief, write to his wife : — "-At least.
the danger of conflict, here or elsewhere, before the 4th of
March, has been averted. Time has been gained." * Time
was gained : and the few weeks of precious time thus
gained thiough the expiring effi^rt of union sentiment in
Virginia involved the vital fact t>f tlu- peaceful delivery
four weeks later, of the helm of state into the hands of
Lincoln.

Thus, be it always remembered. Virginia did not U\kv
its plaice in the secession movement bei-ause of the election
of an anti-slavery president. It did not raise its hand
against the national government from mere love of any ])c-
culiar institution, or a wish to jn-otect and to perix-tuatr it.
*Sewiir(1 (it ]\'<(i<fii7i(itnii. vol. ii.. ]>. .")<I2.

•24

It refused to he precipitated into a civil convulsion ; and
its refusal was of vital moment. The ground of Virginia's
final action was of wholly another nature, and of a nature
far more creditable. Virginia, as I have said, made State
Sovereignty an article, — a cardinal article, — of its political
creed. So, logically and ponsistently, it took the position
that, thouah it might be unwise for a State to secede, a
State which did secede could not, and should not be coerced.

To us now this position seems worse than illogical ; it
is impossible. So events proved it. Yet, after all, it is
based on the great fundamental principle of the consent
of the governed : and, in the days immediately preceding
the war, something very like it was accepted as an article
of correct political faith by men afterwards as strenuous
in su})port of a Union re-established by force, as Charles
Sumner, Abraham Lincoln, William H. Seward, Salmon P.
Chase and Horace Greeley. The difference was that, con-
fronted by the overwhelming tide of events, Virginia adhered
to it ; they, in presence of that tide, tacitly abandoned it.
In my judgment, they were right. But Virginia, though
mistaken more consistent, judge<l otherwise. As I, have
said, in shaping a practical outcome of human affairs logic
is often as irreconcilable with the dictates of worldly wis-
dom as are metaphysics with connnon sense. So, now. the
issue shifted. It became a question, not of slavery or of
the wisdom, or even the expediency, of secession, but of
the right of the National Government to coerce a Sovereign
State. This at the time was well understood. The extre-
mists of the South, coimting u})on it, coiuited with absolute
confidence ; and openly proclaimed their reliance in debate.
Florida, as the representatives of that State confessed on
the floor of Congress, might in itself be of small ac-
count ; l)ut Florida, panoplied with sovereignty, was henniied
in and buttressed against assault by })rotecting sister States.

So, in . his history, J ames F. Rhodes asserts that —
•* The four men who in the last resort made the decision

25

that bej^an the war were ex-Senatoi- Chestnut, Lieutenaiit-
Col. Chisliohu. Captain Lee, all three South Carolinians,
and Koger A. I'ryor, a Virginia secessionist, who two days
before in a sj)eeeh at the Charleston Hotel had said, " I
will tell your Governor what will put Virginia in the
Southern (M)nfedera('y in less than an hour Ity Shrewsbury
clock. Strike a blow I "' * The blow was to be in rej)ly to
what was accepted as the first overt effort at the national
coercion of a Sovereign State, — the attempted relief of
Sumter. That attempt, — unavoidable even if long de-
ferred, the necessary and logical outcome of a sitiuitiou
which had become impossible, — that attempt, construed
into an eifort at coercion, swept Virginia from her Union
moorings.

Thus, when the long-deferred hour of fateful de«*ision
came, the position of Virginia, be it in historical justice
said, however impetuous, mistaken or ill-advised, was taken
on no low oi- sordid or selfish grounds. On the contrar}',
the logical assertion of a cardinal article of acce})ted polit-
ical faith, it was made generously, chivalrously, in a spirit
almost altruistic : foi-, from the outset, it was manifest Vir-
ginia had nothing to gain in that conflict of which she
nmst ])erforce be the battle-ground. True ! hei' leading
men doubtless believed that the struggle would soon be
brought to a triumphant close, — that Southern chivalry
and fighting cpialities would win a ([uick and easy victory
over a more materially minded, even if not craven. North-
ern mob of fanatics and cobblers and pedlars, officered by
preachers ; but, lK)wever thus deceived and misled at the
outset, Virginia entered on the struggle others had initiated,
for their ])rotection and in their behalf. She thrust herself
between them and the tempest they had invoked. Tech-
nically it may have been treasonal)lc : but her attitude was
consistent, was bohl, was chivalrous:

■ Hluides. I'liifeil Sfafes. vol. iii., ]). M4'.t.

•26

"An lionourable nmrderer if you will;

For naught flid he in hate but all in honour."

So nmc'h for Virginia : and now as to Robert E. Lh^^.
More tlian once already, on occasions not unlike tins, have
I quoted Oliver Wendell Holmes's remark in answer to
the quei'V of an anxious mother as to when a child's
education ought to begin, — '•' About 250 years before it
is born:" and it is a fact, — somewhat necessitaria!! ,
doubtless, but still a fact, — that every man's life is largely
moulded for him far back in the ages. We philosophic*^
freely over fate and free will, and one of the excellent
commonplaces of our educational system is to instill into
the minds of the children in our common-schools the idea
that every man is the architect of liis own life. An ad-
mirable theory to teach : but, happily foi- the race, true
only to a very limited extent. Heredity is a tremendous
limiting fact. Native force of character, — individuality, —
doubtless has something to do with results ; but circum-
stances, ancestry, environment have nuu'h more. One mau
possibly in a hundred has in him the inherent force to
make his conditions largely for himself ; but even h^,
moves influenced at every step from cradle to grave by
ante-natal and birth conditions. Take any man you please,
— yourself, for instance ; now and again the changes of
life give opportunity, and the individual is equal to thie
occasion, — the roads forking, consciously or instinctively
he makes his choice. Under such circumstances, he usu-
ally supposes that he does so as a free agent. The
world so assiunes, holding him responsible. He is noth-
ing of the sort : or at best such only in a very limited
degree. The other day one of our humorists took occa-
sion to philosophize on this topic, delivering what might
not inaptly l)e termed an occasional discourse api3ro})riatf^
to the 22iul of February. It was not only worth read-
ing, but in liumor and sentiment it was somewhat sug-
gestive of the melancholy .Jacques. '' We are made, brick

27

by brick, of influences, patiently built up around the
frame work of our born dispositions. It is the sole pro-
cess of construction : there is no other. Every man,
woman and child is an influence. Washington's disposi-
tion was born in him, he did not create it. It was the
architect of his character ; his character was the artihiteet
of his achievements. It had a native affinity for all in-
fluences fine and great, and gave them hospitable welcome
and permanent shelter. It had a native aversion for all
influences mean and gross, and passed them on. It chose
its ideals f oi' him : and out of its patiently gathered
materials, it built and shaped his golden character.

"■ And we give huii the credit."

Three names of Virginians are impressed on the military
records of our civil war — indelibly impressed. — Winfield
Scott, George Henry Thomas and Kobert Edward Lee :
The last most deeply. Of the thi-ee, the first two stood
by the flag ; the third went with his State. Each, when
the time came, acted conscientioush', impelled l)y the purest
sense of loyalty, honor and obligation, taking that course
which, nnder the circumstances and according to his lights.
seemed to him right : and each doubtless thought he acted
as a free agent. To a degree each was a free agent :
to a much greater degree each was the child of anterior
conditions, hereditary sequence, existing circumstances, —
in a word of human environment, moral, material, intel-
lectual. Scott or Thomas or Lee, being as he was, and
things being as things were, could not decide otherwise
than as he did decide. Considei- them in (U'der : Scott fiist :

A Virginian by birth, earh' association and marriage,
Scott, at the breaking-out of the V\\'\\ \\ ar, had not
lived in his native State for fV>rty years. Not a jilanter,
he held no broad acres and owned no slaves. Essentially
a soldier, he was a citizen of the United Stat(^s : and.
for twenty years, had been the (xeneral in command of
its army. When, in April. 1861. Virginia passed its oi-

28

(linance of secession, he was well advanced in his seventy-
fifth year, — an old man, he was no longer equal to
active service. The course he would pursue was thus
largely luai'ked out for him in advance ; a violent effort
on his part could alone have forced him out of his trod-
den path. When subjected to the test, what he did was
infinitely credital)le to him, and the obligation the cause
of the Union lay under to him during the critical period
between December, 1860, and June, 1861, can scarcely
be overstated ; but, none the less, in doing as he did, it
cannot be denied he followed what was foi' him the line
of least resistance.

Of George Henry Thomas, no American, North or
South, — above all, no American who served in the Civil
War, — whether wearer of the blue or the gray, — can
speak, save with infinite respect, — always with admiration,
often with love. Than his, no i-ecord is clearer from stain.
Thomas also was a Virginian. At the time of the break-
ing-out of the Civil War, he held the lank of Majoi- in
that regiment of cavalry of which Lee, nine years his
senior in age, was Colonel. He never hesitated in his
course. True to the flag from start to finish. Wil-
liam T. Sherman, then General of the Army, in the
order announcing the death of his friend and class-mate
at the Academy, most pro^ierly said of liim : "■' The very
impersonation of honesty, integrity and honor, he will
stand to posterity as the heau ideal of the soldier and
gentleman. " More tersely, Thomas stands for character
personified. Washington himself not more so. And now
having said this, let iis come again to the choice of
Hercules, — the parting of those terrible ways of 1861.

Like Scott and Lee, Thomas was a Virginian ; but,
again, there are Virginians and Virginians. Thomas was
not a Lee. When, in 1855, the second United States
cavalry was organized. Jefferson Davis being Secretaiy of
War, Captain Thomas, as he then was and in his thirty-

29

ninth yeai-. was ap})ointt'(l its junior Major. Between that
time and April, 180 1. tifty-one officers ai-e said to have
home commissions in that regiment, thirty-one of whom
were from the South : and of those thirty-one, no less
than twenty-four entered the Confederate sei-vice, twelve
of whom, among them Robert E. Lee, Albert Sidney
Johnston and John B. Hood, became General officers. The
name of the Virginian, (ieorge H. Thomas, stands first
of the faithful seven : but. Union or Confederate, it is
a record of great names, and fortunate is the people, great
of necessity their destiny, w^hich in the hour of exigency,
on the one side or the other, naturally develops from
the roster of a single regiment men of the ability, the
disinterestedness, the cajjacity and tlie ohai'aeter of Lee,
Thomas, Johnson and Hood. It is a record which in-
spires confidence as well as pride.

And now of the two men — Thomas and Lee. Though
born in Virginia, (ren. Thomas was not of a peculiarly
Virginian descent. By ancestiy% he was, ou the father's
side, Welsh ; P^reneh on ^ that of the mother. He was
not of the old Virginia stock. Born in the southeastern
])ortit)n of the State, near the North Carolina line, we are
told that his family, dwelling on a "• goodly home prop-
erty," was •' well to do '" and eminently •' respectable "" :
but, it is added, there ''• were no cavaliers in the Thomas
family, and not tlie remotest trace of the Pocahontas
blood. " When the war l^roke out, in 18til, Thomas had
been twenty-one years a commissioned officer ; and during
those years he seems to have lived almost everywhere,
except in Virginia. It luul been a life at military stations :
his wife was from New York : his home was on the
I ludson rather than on the Nottoway. In his native State
h(; owned no pro))erty, land or chattels. Essentially a
soldier, when the hour for choice came, the soldier dom-
inated the Virginian. He stood l)y the flag.

Not so Lee : for to Lee I now come. Of liim it mi^ht.

80

and in justice must, be said, that he was more than
of the essence, he was of the very quintessence of Vir-
ginia. In his case, the roots and fibres struck down and
spread wide in the soil, making him of it a part. A son
of the revolutionary "Light Horse Harry," he had married
a Custis. His children represented all there was of
descent, blood and tradition of the Old Dominion, made
up as the Old Dominion was of tradition, blood and
descent. The holder of broad patrimonial acres, by birth
and marriage he was a slave-owner, and a slave-owner of
the patriarchal type, holding " slavery as an institution, a
moral and political e^dl." Every sentiment, every memory,
every tie conceivable boiind him to Virginia ; and, when
the choice was forced upon him, — had to be made, — sacri-
ficing rank, career, the flag, he threw in his lot with Vir-
ginia. He did so, with open eyes and weighing the
eonsequences. He at least indulged in no self-deception —
wandered away from the path in no cloud of political
metaphysics, — nourished no delusion as to an early and easy
triumph. " Secession," as he wrote to his son, " is nothing
])ut revolution. The framers of our Constitution never ex-
hausted so nuich labor, wisdom and forbearance in its for-
mation, and surrounded it with so many guards and
securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member
of the confederacy at will. It is idle to talk of secession."
I^ut he also believed that his permanent allegiance was
ilue to Virginia ; that her secession, though revolutionary,
l>ound all Virginians and ended their connection with and
duties to the national government. Thereafter, to remain
in the United States army would be treason to Virginia.
So, two days after Virginia passed its ordinance, he, being
then at Arlington, resigned his commission, at the same
time writing to his sister, the wife of a Union officer, —
•• We are now in a state of war which will yield to
nothing. The whole South is in a state of revolution, into
i-ihich Virginia, after a long struggle, has been drawn ;

31

and, though I recognize no necessity for this state of
things, and would have foreborne and pleaded to the end
for redress of grievances, real or su})posed, yet in my own
person I had to meet the question whether I should take
part against my native State. AVith all my devotion to
the Union, and the feeling of loyalty and duty of an
American citizen, I have not been able to make up my
mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children,
my home. I have, therefore, resigned my commission in
the army ; and, save in defense of my native State, I
(jope I may never be called on to draw my sword." Two
days before he had been unreservedly tendered, on behalf
of President Lincoln, the command of the Union army
then immediately to be put in the field in front of Wash-
Jngton, — the command shortly afterwards held by General
McDowell.

So thought and spoke and wrote and acted Robert E.
Lee in April, 1861. He has, for the decision thus
reached, •'been termed by some a traitor, a deserter, almost
an apostate, and consigned to the " avenging pen of His-
tory." I cannot so see it ; I am confident posterity ^^^ll
ruot so see it. The name and conditions being changed,
those who uttered the words of censure, invoking -'• the
uvenging pen," did not so see it — have not seen it so. Let
us appeal to the record. What otherwise did George
Washington do under circumstances not dissimilar? What
would he have done under circumstances wholly similar?
I^ike Lee, Washington was a soldier : like Lee, he was a
Virginian before he was a soldier. He had served under King
"xeorge's flag: he had sworn allegiance to King George;
his ambition had been to hold the royal connnission.
Presently Virginia seceded from the British empire, — re-
nounced its allegiance. What did Washington do ? Ho
threw in his lot with his native province. Do you hold
isim then to have been a traitor, — to have been false to
ms colors ? Such is not vour verdict : such has not been

32

the verdict of liistoiy. He acted conscientiou.sly. loyally,
as a son of Virginia, and according- to liis lights. Will
you say that Lee did otherwise ?

Bnt men love to differentiate : and of drawing of distinc-
tions there is no end. The cases were different, it will l)e
argued : at the time Virginia renoimced its allegiance
Washington did not hold the King's commission, indeed
he never held it. As a soldier he was a provincial always.

— he bore a Virginian commission, True I Let the dis-
tinction he conceded ; then assume that the darling wish
of his younger heart had hcen granted to him, and that he
had received the King's commission, and held it in 1775 ; —
what course would he then have pursued V What course
would you wish him to have pursued? Do you not wish.

— do you not know, — that, circumstanced as then he would
have been, he would have done exactly as Robert E. Lee
did eighty-six years later. He would tii-st have resigned
his commission : and then arrayed himself on the side of
Virginia. Would you have had him do otherwise ? And
so it goes in this world. In sucla cases the usual form
of speech is : '•^ (^h I that is different I Another case alto-
gether I '" Yes, it is different : it is another case. For
it makes all the difference in the woi-ld with a man \\'ho
argues thus, whether it is his ox that is gored or that of
the other man I

And here in preparing this address I must fairly
acknowledge having encountered an ()l)stacde in my path
also. When considering the courwe of another, it is always
well to ask one's self the (juestion — What woidd you
yourself have done if similarly placed ? Warmed by my
argiunent, and the great precedents of Lee and of Wash-
ington, 1 did so here. 1 and mine were and are at least
as much identified with Massachusetts as was Lee and
his with Virginia : — traditionally, historically, by blood
and memory and name, we with the Puritan Common-
wealth as they with the Old Dominion. What, I asked

33

myself, would I have done had Massachusetts at any time
arrayed itself against the eommon countiy, though with-
out my sympathy and assent, even as Virginia arrayed it-
self against the l^nion without the sympathy and assent
of Lee in 1861? The (|uestion gave me i)ause. And
then I must confess to a sense of the humor of the
situation coming over me, as ] found it answered to my
hand. The case had already arisen : the answer had heen
given ; nor had it lieeu given in any uncertain tone. The
dark and disloyal days of the earlier years of the cent-
ury just ended rose in memory, — the days of the Em-
bargo, the Loopard and the Chexajicake, and of the
Hartford Convention. The course then taken by those in
political contiol in Massachusetts is recorded in history.
It verged dangerously close on that pursued by Virginia
and the South fifty years later : and the (juarrel then
was foreign ; it was no domestic l)roil. One of my name,
from whom I claim descent, was then prominent in pub-
lic life.-' He accordingly was called upon to make the
choice of Hercules, as later was Lee. He made liis
choice : and it was for the (common country as against
his section. The result is matter of history. Because he
was a LTnion man and held country higher than State or
})arty, John (^uincy Adams was in 1808 driven from
office, a successor to him in the United States Senate
was elected long before the expiration of his term, and
he himself was forced into what at the time was regarded
as an honorable exile. Nor was the line of conduct then
by him pursued, — that of unswerving loyalty to the Union.
— ever forgotten or wholly forgiven. He liad })ut country
above party ; and party leaders have long memories. Even
so broad-minded and clear-thinking a man as Theodore
Parker, when delivering a eulogy upon ,1. (^. Adams,
forty years later, thus ex])ressed himself of this act of
supreme self-sacrifice and loyalty to Nation ratliei- than
to State : — " To mv mind, that is the woi'st act of his

u

public life ; I cannot justify it. I wish I could find some
reasonable excuse for it. '*** However, it must be con-
fessed that this, though not the only instance of injustice,
is the only case of servile compliance with the Executive to
be found in the whole life of the man. It was a grievous
fault but grievously did he answer it ; and if a long life of
unfaltering resistance to every attempt at the assumption
of power is fit atonement, then the expiation was abun-
dantly made." *

What more, or worse, on the other side, could be said
of Lee ?

Perhaps I shoidd enter some plea in excuse of this
diversion : but, for me, it may explain itself, or go un-
explained. Confronted with the question what would I
have done in 1861 had positions been reversed and Mas-
sachusetts taken the course then taken by Virginia, I
found the answer already recorded I would have gone
with the Union, and against Massachusetts. None the
less, I hold Massachusetts estopped in the case of Lee.
'^ Let /the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung";
but,..^I submit, however it might be with me or mine,
it "does not lie in the mouths of the descendants of the
New England Federalists of the first two decennials of
the nineteenth century to invoke '' the avenging pen of
History" to record an adverse verdict in the case of any
son of Virginia who threw in his lot with his State in
1861^
^^I'hus much for the choice of Hercules. Pass on to
what followed. Of Robert E. Lee as the commander of
the Army of Northern Virginia, — at once the buckler and
the sword of the Confederacy, — I shall say few words. I
was in the ranks of those opposed to him. For years I
was face to face with some fragment of the Army of
Northern Virginia, and intent to do it harm ; and during
those years there was not a day when I would not have
* Wvrks (Loudon, I8O0) vol. iv., pp. 1-34-156.

35

drawn a deep breath of relief and satisfaction at hearing
of the death of Lee, even as I did draw it at hearing of
the death of Jackson. But now, looking back through a I
perspective of nearly forty years, I glory in it, and in /
them as foes, — they were worthy of the best of steel. /
I am proud now to say that I was their countryniaif
Whatever differences of opinion may exist as to the course
of Lee when his choice was made, of Lee as a foe and the ,
commander of an army, but one opinion can be entertained.
Every inch a soldier, he was as an opponent not less
generous and humane than formidable, a type of highest
martial character ; — cavitious, magnanimous and bold, a
very thunderbolt in war, he was self-contained in \nctory,
but greatest in defeat. To that escutcheon attaches no
stain.

I now come to what I have always regarded, — shall
ever regard, — as the most creditable episode in all Amer-
ican history, — an episode without a blemish, — imposing,
dignified, simple, heroic. I refer to Appomattox. Two men
met that day, representative of American civilization, the
whole world looking on. The two were Grant and Lee,
— types each. Both rose, and rose unconsciously, to the
full height of the occasion, — and than that occasion there
has been none greater. About it, and them, there was no
theatrical display, no self-consciousness, no effort at eff'ect.
A great crisis was to be met ; and they met that crisis as
great countrymen should. Consider the possibilities ; think
for a moment of what that day might have been ; — you
will then see cause to thank God for much.

That month of April saw the close of exactly four
years of persistent strife, — a strife which the whole civil-
ized world had been watching intently. Democracy, — the
capacity of man in his present stage of development for
self-government, — was believed to be on trial. The \vish
the father to the thought, the prophets of evil had been
liberal in prediction. It so chances that my attention

36

has been .specially drav/n to the European xitteiances of
that time : and, read in the clear light of subsequent
history, I use words of moderation when I say that they
ai'e now both inconceivable and ludicrous. Staid journals,
grave public men, seemed to take what was little less
than pleasure in pronouncing that impossible of occurrence
which was destined soon to occur, and in ctommitting
themselves to readings of the book of fate in exact op-
position to what the muse of history was wetting the pen to
record. Volumes of unmerited abuse and false vaticination,

— and volumes hardly less amusing now than instructive,

— could be garnered from the columns of the London
Times, — volumes in which the spirit of contemptu-
ous and patr(mizing dislike sought expression in the pro-
foundest ignorance of facts, set down in bitterest words.
Not only were republican institutions and mans capacity
for self-government on trial, but the severest of sentences
was imposed in advance of the adverse verdict, assumed
to be inevitable. Then, suddenly, came the dramatic cli-
max at Appomattox, — dramatic, I say. not theatrical, —
severe in its simple, sober, matter-of-fact nuijesty. The
world, I again assert, has seen nothing like it ; and the
world, instinctively, was conscious of the fact. I like to
dwell on the familial- circumstances of the day ; on its
momentous outcome : on its far-reaching lesults. It affords
one of the greatest educational object-lessons to be found
in history ; and the actors were worthy of the theatre,
the auditory and the play.

A mighty tragedy was drawing to a close. The breath-
less world was the audience. It was a bright balmy April
Sunday in a quiet Virginia landscape, with two veteran
armies confronting each othei- : one. game to the death,
completely in the grasp of the othei'. The future was at
stake. What might ensue? What might not ensue?
Woidd the strife end then and there? Would it die in a
death grapple, ojily to rea})pear in that chronic foi-m of a

37

vanquished Imt iiuloinitahle people writhing and struggling
in the grasp of an insatiate but only nominal victor?
Such a struggle as all European authorities united in con-
fidently predicting ?

Tlie answer depended on two men, — the captains of the
contending forces. Grant that day had Lee at his mercy.
He had but to close his hand, and his opponent was
crushed. Think what then might have resulted iuul those
two men been other than they were, — had the one been
stern and aggressive, the other sullen and unyielding.
Most fortunately for us, they were what and who they
were — Grant and Lee. More, I need not, could not
say : — this only let me add, — a people has good right to be
proud of the past and self-contident of its future when on
so great an occasion it naturally develops at the front men
who meet each other as those two met each other then.
Of the two, I know not to which to award the palm. In-
stinctively, unconsciously, they vied not unsuccessfully each
with thy other, in dignity, nuignanimity, simplicity.

•' Si fVactiis illabutur urbi?
IiiipaviiUini t'erieiit niiua-."

With a home no longer his, Lee then slieathed his
sword. With the silent dignity of his subsequent life,
after he thus accepted defeat, all are familiar. He left
behind him no querulous memoirs, no exculpatory vindi-
cation, no controversial utterances. For him, history might
explain itself, — posterity formulate its own verdict. Sur-
viving Api)omattox but a little more than five years, those
years were not unmarked by incidents very gratifying to
American recollection ; for we Americans do, I think,
above all things love magnanimity, and appx-eciate action
at once fearless and generous. We all remember how by
the grim mockery of fate, — as if to test to the uttermost
American capacity for self-government, — Abrahaiu Lincoln

.38

was snatched away at the moment of crisis from the helm
of state, and Andrew »Johnson substituted for him. I
think it no doubtful anticipation of historical judgment
to say that a more unfortunate selection could not well
have been made. In no single respect, it is safe to say,
was Andrew Johnson adapted for the peculiar duties which
Booth's pistol imposed upon him. One of Johnson's most
unhappy, most ill-considered convictions was that our Civil
War was a conventional old-time rebellion ; — that rebellion
was treason : — that treason was a crime ; and that a crime
was something for which punishment should in due cour.se
of law be meted oiit. He, therefore, wanted, or thought
he wanted, to liave the scenes of England's Convention
Parliament and the Restoration of 1660 re-enacted here,
as a fitting sequel of our great conflict. Most fortiuiately,
the American people then gave evidence to Europe of a
capacity for self-restraint and self-government not traceable
to English parentage, or precedents. No Cromwell's head
grinned from our Westminster Hall: no convicted traitor
swung in chains : no shambles dripped in blood. None
the less Andrew Johnson called for '' indictments," and one
day demanded that of Lee. Then outspoke Grant, — Gen-
eral of the Army. Lee, he declared, was his prisoner.
He had surrendered to him, and in reliance on his woi'd.
He had leceived assurance that so long as he quietly
remained at his home, and did not offend against the law,
he should not be molested. He had done so, and, so long
as Grant held his commission, molested he should not be.
Needless, as pleasant, to say what Grant then grindy in-
timated did not take place. Lee was not molested; nor
did the Geneial of the Army indignantly fling his com-
mission at an accidental Presidents feet. That, if necessary,
he would have done so, I take to be quite indubitable.
Of Lee's subsequent life, as head of Washington College,
I have but one anecdote to offer. I believe it to be typical.
A few months ago I received a letter from a retired army

39

officer of hi<i-]i character from which T extract the following : —
Lee was essentially a Virginian. His sword was Virginia's,
and I fancy the State had higher claims upon him than
had the Confederacy, just as he su])posed it had than the
United States. But, after the surrender, he stood firndy
and unreservedly in favor of loyalty to the Nation. A
gentleman told me this anecdote. As a l)oy he ran away
from his Kentucky home, and served the last two years
in the rebel ranks. After the war he resumed his studies
imder Lees presidency : and on one occasion, delivered as
a college exercise an oration with eulogistic reference to
the " Lost Cause," and what it meant. Later, General, i
then President Lee sent for the student, and, after praising I
his composition and delivery, seriously warned him against \
holding or advancing such views, impressing strongly u]>on
him the unity of the Nation, and urging him to devote
himself loyally to maintain the integrity and the honor
of the United States. The kindly paternal advice thus
given was, 1 imagine, typical of his whole jxjsf hcllmn
life." Let this one anecdote suffice. Here was magna-
nimity, philosoph3\ true patriotism : the })ui'e American
spirit. Accepting the situation loyally and in a manlv.
silent way, — without self-consciousness or mental reserva-
tion, he sought by precept and yet more by a great ex-
ample, to build up the shattered community of which lie
was the most observed representative in accordance with
the new conditions imposed by fate, and through consti-
tutional ai'tion. Talk of traitors and of treason I The man
who pursued that course and instilled that spirit had not,
could not have had, in his whole being one drop of
traitors blood or conceived a treacherous thought. His
lights mav have been wronji:, — accordin<i' to our ideas then
and now they were wrong, — but they were his lights, and
in acting in full accordance with them he was right.

But, to those thus speaking, it is since sometimes re-
})lied. — " Even tolerance may be carried too far. and is

^0

apt theu to verge (lungerovisly on what may be better
described as moral indiffereuee. It then, humanly speaking,
assumes that there is no real ri<iht or real wrona" in eol-
lective human action. But put yourself in hi-s place, and
to those of this way of thinking Philip II. and William of
Orange. — Charles I. and Cromwell, — are nuich the same;

— the one is as good as the other, provided oidy he acted
according to his lights. This will not do. Some moral
test must be applied, — some standard of right and wrong.

•'It is by the recognition and acceptance of these that
men prominent in history must be measured, and ap-
proved or condemned. To call it our Civil War is but
a mere euphemistic way of referring to what was in fact
a slave-holders* rebellion, conceived and put in action for
no end but to perpetuate and extend a system of human
servitude, a system the relic of barbarism, an insult to
advancing humanity. To the furtherance of this rebellion
Lee lent himself. Right is right, and treason is treason,

— and, as that which is morally wrong cannot be right, so
treason cannot be other than a crime. Why then be-
cause of sentiment or sympathy or moral indifference seek
to confound the two? Charles Stuart and Cromwell
could not both have been right. If Thomas was right, Lee
was wrong. "

To this I would reply, that we, who take another view,
neither confound, nor seek to confound, right with wrou"-,
or treason with loyalty. We accept the verdict of time ;
but, in so doing, we insist that the verdict shall be in
accordance with the facts, and that each individual shall
be judged on his own merits, and not stand acquitted or
condemned in block. In this respect time works wonders,
leaving few conclusions wholly unchallenged. Take, for
instance, one of the final contentions of Charles Sumner,
that, following old world precedents, fomided, as he claimed
in reason and patriotism, the names of battles of the
war of the rebellion should be removed from the resi-

41

mental colors of the national army, and from the army
lejfister. He })ut it on the ground that, from the re-
pnldies of antiquity down to our days, no civilized nation
ever thought it wise or j)atriotie to preserve in conspie-
uous and dura))le foi-ni the mementoes of victories won
over fellow citizens in civil war. As the sympathizing
orator said at the time of Sunmer's death — " Should the
son of South Carolina, when at some future day de-
fending the Republic against some foreign foe, be re-
minded by an inscription on the colors floating over him,
that under this flag the gun was fired that killed his
father at Gettysburg? "" This assuredly has a plausible
sound. " His father ; "" yes, perhaps. Though even in the
immediately succeeding generation something might well be
said on the other side. Presumably, in such case, the
father was a brave, an honest and a loyal man, — con-
tending for what he believed to be right : — for it, lay-
ing down his life. Gettysburg is a name and a memory
of which none there need ever feel ashamed. As in most
battles, there was a victoi- and a vanquished : but on that
day the vanquished, as well as the victor, fought a stout
fight. If, in all recorded warfare there is a deed of arms
the name and memory of which the descendants of those
who i)articipated thei-ein should not wish to see obliterated
from any record, be it historian's page or battle-flag, it
was the advance of Pickett's Virginian division across
that wide valley of death in front of Cemetery Ridge.
1 know in all recjorded warfare of no finer, no more
sustained and deadly feat of arms. 1 have stood on
either battle field, and, in scope and detail, carefidly
compared the two : and, challenging denial, I affirm that
the nuu-h vaunted charge of Napoleon's guard at Water-
loo, in fortitude, discipline and deadly energy will not
beai- comparison with that other. It was boy's work be-
side it. There, brave men did all that the bravest men
cvnld do. Whv then shouhl the son of one of those

42

who fell coming up the long ascent, or over our works
and in among our guns, feel a sense of wrong becaust^
" Gettysburg " is inscribed on the flag of the battery a
gun of which he now may serve ? On the contrary, I
should suppose he would there see that name only.

But. supposing it otherwise in the case of the son. —
the wound being in such case yet fresh and green, —
how would it be when a sufficient time has elapsed tn
afford the needed perspective ? Let iis suppose a grand-
son six venerations removed. What Enoiishman, be he
Cavalier or Roundhead by descent, — did his ancester
charge with Rupert or Cromwell, — did he fall while
riding with levelled point in the gi-ini wall of advancing
Ironsides, or go hopelessly down in death l>eneath their
thundering hoofs, — what descendant of any Englishman
who there met his end. but with pride would read the
name of Nasliy on his regimental flag? What Frendunau
would consent to the erasure of Ivry or Moncontoiu- ".'
Thus in all these matters. Time is the great nuigiciaii.
It both mellows and transforms. The Englishman of to-
day does not apply to Cromwell the standard of loyalty
or treason, of right and wrong, applied after the Restoi'ation :
nor again does the twentieth century confirm the nine-
teenth's verdicts. Even slavery we may come to regard
as a phase, pardoiud)le as passing, ifi the evolution of a
race.

' I hold it will certainly l)e so with our CHvil War.
The year 1965 will look upon its causes, its incidents
and its men with different eyes from those with which
we see them now. — eyes wholly different from those with
which we saw forty years ago. They, — foi* we by that
time will have rejoined the generation to which we be-
longed, — - will recognize the somewhat essential fact, in-
dubitably true, that all the honest con^dction, all the
loyalty, all the patriotic devotion and self-sacrifice were not
then, any more than all the courage, on the victor's side.

48

True ! the moral right, the spirit of nationality, tin?
sacred caiise of humanity even, were on our side : l>ut,
among those opposed, and who in the end went down,
were men not less sincere, not less devoted, not less tiuly
patriotic according to their lights than he who among us
was first in all those qualities. Men of whom it was and
is a cause of pride and confidence to say — '' They too
were countrymen I '"

Typical of those ' men, — most typical, — was Lee. He
represented, individualized, all that was highest and best
in the Southern mind and the Confederate cause, — the
loyalty to State, the keen sense of honoi' and personal
obligation, the slightly archaic, the almost patriarchal, love
of dependent, family and home. As I have moie than
once said, he was a Virginian of the Virginians. He
represents a type which is gone, — hardly less extinct than
that of the great English nobleman of the feudal times,
or the ideal head of the Scotch clan of a later period :
but just so long as men admire courage, devotion, patriot-
ism, the high sense of duty and personal honor, — all in
a word which go to make up what we know as Charac-
ter, — just so long will that type of man be held in
affectionate, reverential memory. They have in them all
the elements of the heroic. As Carlyle wrote more than
half a century ago, so now — '' Whom do you wish to
resemble ? Him you set on a high column. Who is to
have a statue ? means. Whom shall we consecrate and set
apart as one of our sacred men ? Sacred : that all men
may see him. V)e reminded of him, and. by new example
added to old j)ei'petual precept, be taught what is real
worth in man. Show me the man you honor : I
know by that symptom, better than by any othei-. what
kind of man you yourself are. For you show me there
what your ideal of manhood is : what kind of man you
long inexpressibly to be, and would thank the gods, witli
your whole soul, for being if you could."

•44

Tt is all a question of time : and the time is, probably,
not quite yet. The wounds of the gi-eat War are not
altogether healed, its personal memories are still fresh, its
passions not wholly allayed. It would, indeed, be a
wonder if they were. But, 1 am as convinced as an un-
illumined man can be of anything future, that when such
time does come, a justice not done now, will be done to
those descendants of Washington, of Jefferson, of Rutledge,
and of Lee who stood opposed to us in a succeeding
generation. That the national spirit is now supreme and
the nation cemented, I hold to be unquestionable. That
property in man has vanished from the civilized world, is
due to our Civil War. The two are worth the great
price then paid for them. But wrong as he may have
been., and as he was proved by events in these respects, the
Confederate had many great and generous qualities ; he also
was brave, chivalrous, self-sacrificing, sincere and patriotic.
So I look forward with confidence to the time when
they too will be i'e})resented in our national pantheon.
Then the query will be answered here, as the query in
regard to Cromwell's statue put sixty years ago has re-
cently been answered in England. The bronze effigy of
Kobert E. Lee. mounted on his chai"ger and with the in-
signia of his Confederate rank, will from its pedestal in
the nation's capitol look across the Potomac at his old
home at Arlington, even as that of Cromwell dominates
the yard of Westminster upon which his skiUl once looked
down. When that time comes, Lee's monument will be
educational. — it will typify the historical appreciation of all
that goes t<i make up the loftiest ty]:)e of character, mili-
tary and civi(% exemplified in an opponent, once dreaded
but ever respected : and, above all, it will symbolize and
connnemorate that loyal acceptance of the consequences of
defeat, and the patient upbuilding of a people under new
conditions by constitutional means, which 1 hold to be the
greatest educational lesson America has yet taught to a
once skeptical but now silenced world.

LBAp'lO

"Shall Cromwell Have a Statue?"

ORATION

BY

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS,

BEFORE

THE PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO,

TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 1902.