Presented to the
LIBRARY of the
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
by
Ontaii o
Legislative Library
_::j-jryJf.K.BcU.XJ~ f
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by
JESSE T. PECK, D.D.,
1» the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.
GEO. C. RAND & AVERY, STEREOTYPERS AND PRINTERS, BOSTON.
To
Rev. REUBEN REYNOLDS, who taught him the alphabet, and afterwards, at an
important period of life, determined the sphere of his studies and labors ; to the memory
of his deceased sister, ELIZABETH, who gave him all the valuable instructions in the
art of speaking he ever received, and by the force of whose clear, thorough teaching,
and elevated Christian womanhood, his young mind was filled with noble aspirations;
to AMOS R. AVERY, M.D., whose gentle words^ and kind, persistent efforts, in th«
schoolroom and elsewhere, strongly aided his struggling boyhood ; to Rev. HENRY
HALSTEAD, under whose searching appeals, on the day of his conversion, he was power-
fully convinced of sin ; to Rev. D. D. WHEDON, D.D., one of his earliest and best
classical teachers, and who inspired his first hope of success in the use of the pen ; to
his excellent brother, GEORGE PECK, D.D., who in his childhood tenderly bore him to
school, who with truly paternal care superintended his education and preparation for the
ministry, and whose character as a man and minister has ever been his noblest model ;
to Rev. E. FOSTER, who almost literally compelled him to write this book ; and HIS
FAITHFUL WIFE, to whose energetic promptings, and constant, earnest encouragement,
he must refer all his important literary enterprises, —
THIS WORK
IS MOST RESPECTFULLY AND GRATEFULLY DEDICATED
BY THE AUTHOR.
iii
EMBELLISHMENTS.
FINE STEEL PORTRAITS.
COLUMBUS.
ROGER WILLIAMS.
COTTON MATHER.
WASHINGTON.
JOHN ADAMS.
BISHOP ASBURY.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.
JOHN JAY.
THOMAS JEFFERSON.
PATRICK HENRY.
JONATHAN EDWARDS.
CHIEF-JUSTICE MARSHALL.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS,
HENRY CLAY.
DANIEL WEBSTER.
CHIEF-JUSTICE McLEAN.
THEODORE FRELINGHUYSEN.
ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER.
CHARLES SUMNER.
MAJOR-GENERAL MITCHELL.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
SAMUEL LEWIS.
FRANCIS WAYLAND.
GENERAL GRANT.
BISHOP McILVAINE.
BISHOP SIMPSON.
COMMODORE FOOTE.
CHIEF-JUSTICE CHASE.
MAJOR-GENERAL HOWARD.
GEORGE T. DAY.
GEORGE PEABODY.
GEORGE H. STUART.
SCHUYLER COLFAX.
THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE.
THE time has come for the reconsideration of the history of the
United States. The moral revolution which our recent struggle has
developed indicates the existence of profounder principles and a loftier
purpose in the origin, structure, and development of the Great Republic,
than any heretofore distinctly recognized by historical writers. Ameri-
can history, within the last few years, has brought out vices so deep
and threatening, has shown in collision forces so formidable and terrific,
and has revealed a moral grandeur so far above the precedents of mod-
ern civilization, that there is reason to believe the wisest men of our
times will be compelled to reconstruct their theories of government and
of the powers and destiny of man.
The stand-point which reveals distinctly the force by which the im-
probabilities of our progress have been achieved must be more com-
manding than any which has heretofore only shown to the world an
energetic people struggling for ascendency among the nations of the
earth. If we are to obtain a view of the real contents of our historical
globe, it must certainly be by a clearer light and a more searching ex-
amination than any which have thus far revealed only its outer crust.
I am aware that I thus present the problems of American and also
of general history in a way to make any attempt to solve them appear
formidable and ambitious. It may well be supposed that the writer
would enter upon a task of such difficulty and magnitude with timid
shrinking and very humble anticipations. His only explanation is, that
the theory of moral and political as well as physical phenomena, if true,
when once clearly defined, is very simple. If, from the fragmentary or
elaborate teachings of clear minds and able pens along the line of nar-
rative or philosophical history, or from the revelations of the Holy Bible
and the Divine Providence, or by a candid, thorough, prayerful scrutiny
of the events of his times, he has been able to identify and clearly ex-
press the true and only principle which can adequately explain the facts
of our remarkable career, then he, or any man of good common under-
Tii
PREFACE.
standing, may search and think and write profitably, though by no means
exhaustively, in the use of that principle.
Let it therefore be stated, that the theory of this book is, that God is
the rightful, actual Sovereign of all nations ; that a purpose to advance
the human race beyond all its precedents in intelligence, goodness, and
power, formed this Great Republic ; and that religion is the only life-
force and organizing power of liberty. If this is true, then all writers
of American history must rise to this point of observation, or fail.
It may be stated, without ostentation, that the writer has been, for at
least a quarter of a century, a careful student of his country's history ;
this, however, without a thought of attempting any of the functions of an
historian. But gradually the principles recognized in this book assumed
distinctness and organic form in his views and convictions. In their
light, he entered, with all his powers of mind and heart, into the spirit
of the late war, on the freedom side, and waited, with perfect composure
and without a doubt, for the final result.
When the war closed, he felt, and frequently said, that a new book of
America must be written. He watched for its announcement, but failed
to see it. He was at length surprised to find himself urged to undertake
the task ; and, after much hesitancy and delay, he came to feel that it
was his imperative duty to commence, and leave the event with God.
Incapable, as he trusts, of the absurdity of any pretensions to origi-
nality in discovering either principles or methods of the divine govern-
ment, or of having in any sense superseded the labors of other men, he
simply claims to have made, with perfect candor and some thoroughness,
his humble contribution to what must be admitted to be a very impor-
tant, if not in some sense a newly-defined, method of American history.
He now commits his work to the candid consideration of his readers
and to the direction of Providence. If the devout recognition of God
in the character, purposes, and history of this country and government
shall be increased, and the loyalty of the American people to the great
Sovereign of nations in any degree strengthened, the object of the
author will be accomplished.
JESSE T. PECK.
ALBANY, September, 1867.
ANALYSIS AND AUTHORITIES.
THE Republic is here presented in five periods. The Period of
Preparation extends from' the discovery of America to the well-defined
inind-battles which introduce the War of the Revolution. It will be
illustrated by the likeness of Columbus, as the great representative of
the spirit of enterprise which manifested itself in discovery and coloni-
zation.
The Period of Independence extends through the Revolutionary War
to the adoption of the Constitution and the inauguration of the first
President. As the only possible suggestion of history upon the subject,
the likeness of Washington introduces this discussion.
The Period of Development includes the unprecedented growth of the
country up to the time of our Great Civil War. This, let it be observed,
is the growth of liberty and of good government under the control of
Christianity, — the enlightening, liberalizing power which has conserved
and developed our free institutions, and goes largely to account for our
material prosperity. Seeking for some one man whose character, labors,
and influence represent the largest, most pervading power of religion
over the masses, and whose methods of evangelism have wrought most
potentially in purifying and elevating our voting freemen, I have been
pointed, by an inevitable historical necessity, to Francis Asbury. A su-
perb likeness of this grand pioneer Christian hero will therefore b,e found
as the introduction to the Third Period.
The Period of Emancipation includes the great contest of liberty with
the slave-power, and means, not the liberation of slaves alone, but of the
nation. In the Period of Preparation, I speak of African slavery ; but,
in the Fourth Period, of American slavery and the emancipation of the
Republic. Abraham Lincoln takes his true historical position here.
In the Fifth Period, we glance at our country's future ; and we stand
before it with astonishment and awe, overwhelmed by the visions of
greatness which rise up before us. No man could fitly represent this
coming grandeur. We give you a likeness j but we mean by it express-
2 ANALYSIS AND AUTHORITIES.
ly to symbolize the genius of religion acting through science and hero-
ism for the security and development of the Great Republic of the fu-
ture. Gen. Mitchell was a Christian, a scholar, a hero. After a brief
but brilliant military career, he fell in his country's cause. He will,
therefore, never dishonor the symbol we have adopted.
Besides these five representative figures, we insert four groups of
distinguished Americans, all acknowledged Christians, or men who have
received their distinction from their Christian birth, education, and prin-
ciples. The first is a group of distinguished philanthropists. We have
selected these men from the large number of noble Americans whom we
deem most worthy of honor as lovers of their race.
The second is a group taken from the number of our great statesmen
and orators.
The third is a group of celebrated American divines. They repre-
sent the thorough Puritan and six different Christian denominations:
and, taken together, they are distinguished among the hosts of Christian
ministers who can be claimed exclusively by no church; whose reputa-
tion and influence as teachers of religion, and leaders of soul-liberty, make
them truly national.
The fourth is a group of civilians and warriors, whose opinions and
acts have entered largely into the history of American jurisprudence
and of the emancipation of the nation. Here also the choice has been
from a large number of truly great and national men, with the idea of
representing true Christianity, either direct and personal or generally
diffused, from different periods of our history, and portions of our
country.
Our readei's will discover that this volume, though not professing to
present the full details of our country's progress, will answer the most
valuable purposes of a new history of the United States, grouping the
more important events, and using them, with a large number of facts
not in any of our histories, to present to the American people a truthful
picture of the Great Republic as it is and ought to be.
Among the most valuable works quoted in this volume, it gives us
pleasure to mention Bancroft's and Hildreth's Histories of the United
States ; Cooper's Naval History of the United States ; Greene's Histori-
cal View of the American Revolution ; The Pulpit of the American
Revolution ; Sir Morton Peto's Resources and Prospects of America ;
Stevens's History of the Methodist-Episcopal Church ; Baird's Religion
in America ; Statistical History, by Goss ; Partridge on the Making of
the American Nation and on Democracy ; The Power of Prayer, by
IrenaBus Prime ; The American Conflict, by Greeley ; America Before
Europe, by Count de Gasparin ; Decisive Battles of the War, by Swin-
ton; The Eighth Census of the United States, by Kennedy; Our
Country, its Trials and Triumphs, by George Peck, D.D. ; Mineral Re-
ANALYSIS AND AUTHORITIES. 3
sources of the United States, by J. Ross Brown and James M. Taylor;
and Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United
States, by B. F. Morris, — a valuable " compilation," which the writer had
not seen until half of the copy of this work, including the Preface, had
been sent to the printer. The author would also gratefully acknowledge
his obligations to Alexander Delmar, Director of the Bureau of Statistics
at Washington, for important public documents; and to his friends,
named in the proper places, for valuable papers contributed from their
respective points of observation. If the authors of quotations have
been inadvertently omitted in our notes of reference, we hope this gen-
eral acknowledgment may be deemed sufficient.
In addition to the above, the author has consulted God in History, by
Reed ; God in History, by Gumming ; The Civil Policy and Civil War
r of America, by Draper ; Wyoming, its History and Romantic Adven-
tures, by George Peck ; New-York Convention Manual, by Hough ;
Appleton's American Cyclopedia ; Grant and Sherman, their Campaigns
and Generals, and Farragut and our Naval Commanders, by Headley ;
The Lost Cause, by Pollard ; The Women of the War, by Frank More ;
Putnam's Rebellion Record ; and a great variety of official documents
and reports.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION.
THE GOD OF NATIONS.
PAGE.
The God of the Hebrews . 13
The God of Ancient Gentile Peoples ......... 14
The God of Modern Nations 16
PERIOD I. — PREPARATION.
CHAPTER I.
THE DISCOVERT.
The Old Northmen .' 20
Columbus and the New World . 21
The Wisdom of God above the Folly of Man 22
CHAPTER II.
THE COUNTRY PROVIDED.
The Area of Freedom 25
Zone and Climates 25
Abundant Supplies for Future Want 27
CHAPTER III.
COLONIZATION OVERRULED.
France Unsuccessful 31
Spain meets with Insuperable Difficulties 32
The English, Dutch, and Swedes controlled 34
CHAPTER IV.
ENGLISH SUCCESS.
The Epoch and the First Colonists of Virginia 36
Despotism- and Religion in Virginia 38
6
(5 CONTENTS.
Grave Errors 41
God's Method 43
African Slavery 45
CHAPTER V.
RELIGION AND CIVIL LIBERTY IS VIRGINIA.
Neither Clear nor Dark 48
Providence and Progress ........... 50
Christianity the Life-force and Organizing Power of Liberty .... 52
Liberty asserts her Rights, and advances ........ 55
CHAPTER VI.
THE SOUTHERN GROUP COMPLETED.
Maryland 59
Delaware .............. 63
North Carolina 66
South Carolina 71
Georgia 76
Review 80
CHAPTER VII.
A NEW ENGLAND EMERGES FROM THE OLD.
Puritanism in England 85
The Puritans become Pilgrims in Search of Liberty . . . . . . 91
The Pilgrims have found Liberty 98
CHAPTER VIII.
COLONIZATION AND LIBERTY IN MASSACHUSETTS.
The Men and the Time 102
Plymouth Colony 104
Liberty reveals her Form and Strength .... .... 105
Colonies inciease ............ 107
Christianity and Freedom in Massachusetts . . . . . . . . 112
Limitations of Liberty in Massachusetts 116
CHAPTER IX.
THE NORTHERN GROCP COMPLETED.
Maine 121
New Hampshire 124
Connecticut 123
Rhode Island 130
New York 138
New Jersey .............. 140
Pennsylvania ............. 142
The Great West 147
Providence and War-discipline 149
CONTENTS.
PERIOD II. — INDEPENDENCE.
CHAPTER I.
MIND-BATTLES POINT TO A DISINTHRALLED NATIONAL LIFE.
The Right of Soil 152
The Rights of Trade 156
The Right of Representation and Free Legislation 158
The Right of Taxation 161
The Right of Free Speech, a Free Ballot, and a Free Press 163
The Right of Constitutional Liberty, and of Union for the Common Defence . 167
All these Rights denied, but never surrendered 173
Struggles of Religious and Civil Liberty in America 182
Accessory Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . • 189
A New Inspiration 200
CHAPTER II.
THE TIME CHOSEN SHOWS THE PROVIDENTIAL ADVENT OF
THE NATIONAL LIFE.
Historical Cycles must precede 208
Despotic Governments and Imperishable Ideas ....... 209
The Grand Crisis of History 211
CHAPTER III.
WAR INDICATES AN HEROIC NATIONAL LIFE.
Lexington and Bunker Hill . . . . . ... . . . . 215
Saratoga and Bennington 217
Trenton and Princeton . . . 222
War on the Sea 225
Cornwallis and Yorktown 233
The Heroism of the National Life ... 243
CHAPTER IV.
PATRIOTISM DEMONSTRATES A SUSTAINED NATIONAL LIFE.
Patriotism, British, and then American 247
Patriotism in Office 250
The True Inspiration of American Patriotism 252
CHAPTER V.
THE DECLARATION ASSERTS AN INDEPENDENT NATIONAL LIFE.
Wise Deliberation and Diplomacy 25$
The Declaration ',•.-; 264
Superior Wisdom 263
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VL
DISCIPLINE INSURES A VIGOROUS NATIONAL LIFE.
Trials from Poverty 274
Trials from Disloyalty and Treason . . . ^ k . . . . 277
Trials from Defeat 280
Trials from a Spirit of Compromise 284
CHAPTER VII.
HISTORY RECORDS AN ACKNOWLEDGED NATIONAL LIFB
The English acknowledge American Independence 288
European Governments acknowledge the new Nation 291
Would the American People acknowledge the Independence of the National Life ? 293
CHAPTER VHL
THE CONSTITUTION REVEALS AN ORGANIC NATIONAL LIFE.
The Old Articles of Confederation 302
The Federal Convention 306
The Constitution formed 309
CHAPTER IX.
TRUE CHRISTIANITY AN INDESTRUCTIBLE NATIONAL LIFE.
The Religious Element in the Formation of the Republic 320
The Religion of the Nation i.i Official Acts and Public Men .... 325
The Religion of America constructs a Grand and Durable Government . . 332
PERIOD III. — DEVELOPMENT.
CHAPTER I.
DEVELOPMENT OF POPULATION.
Increase of Population 336
Sources of Population 337
Character of Population . 338
The American Race 342
CHAPTER II.
DEVELOPMENT OF LIBERTY.
Personal Liberty 349
Justice and Loyalty in Liberty 350
Education and Religion in Liberty 351
Extent and Sphere of Liberty 353
CHAPTER III.
DEVELOPMENT OF GOVERNMENT.
A Popular Government 356
A Representative Government 358
CONTENTS. 9
A National Government 360
A Responsible Government ........... 366
A Strong Government 368
CHAPTER IV.
DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNAL RESOURCES.
Products of the Soil 376
Manufactures and Machines 380
Precious Metals 384
Other Minerals and Ores 392
CHAPTER V.
DEVELOPMENT OF COMMERCE.
Value of Exports 406
Imports and Exports 408
Internal Commerce 410
Shipping 413
CHAPTER VI.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE WAR-POWEB.
Self-respect of the Nation . . . . . . . . . . . 416
Sandwich and Queenstown ..419
Naval Engagements ............ 421
Campaigns from the West and East . . . . . . ' . . . 425
Washington and Baltimore 429
Plattsbnrg 431
New Orleans 433
' CHAPTER VH.
DEVELOPMENT OF LEARNING AND THB ARTS.
Public Schools 438
Sunday Schools 442
Academies 446
Colleges and Universities 448
The Press 452
Steam Navigation 455
Railroads 457
The Safety Steam-generator 461
Telegraphy 463
Architecture 468
Painting 470
Sculpture 472
Photography ».... 476
CHAPTER VIII.
DEVELOPMENT OF MANHOOD AND HUMANITY.
True Manhood . . . .* . . . .' 479
Asylums for the Deaf and Dumb 482
2
K) CONTEXTS.
Asylum.- for the Blind 484
Asylum- tor tin1 Insane ........... 4St'>
Asylums fur Idiots and Inebriates 490
CHAPTER IX.
DEVl.I.O!'Mi:N T OF NAT1RAL DLl'HAVITY.
Intemperance ............. 492
UrentiousncM 49.-,
Sociali>m ami Spiritism ........... 4%
Monnonisin .............. 490
( 'orruption in Religion and Politics ......... 5ut
CHAPTER X.
DEVELOI'.MKNT OV TUCK RELIGION.
The Protestant-Episcopal Church . ......... 51"
Congregational Churches ........... 51 >
The Bapti-t ( 'hurch '>•>:',
The l'iv>liyu'i ian ("hurch ........... '•>'•'•<>
The Metli":list-Eiiisi-()].al Church ^'•'•7
Other Chiirehes . . . . . . . . . . . . . .">4.">
The Ameriean IJiiile Society ........... ."i.'ij
The Ameri •:;!: Siin(liy--rhool I'liinn ......... 5;V>
The Ann riran Tnict Societv, Boston ......... ,">."> 4
The American Tract Society, New York . . . . . . . . 5."> i
The American Seamen's Friend Society ........ ">.V>
Youn^r Men's Christian Association ......... 5.">7
The Great Revival ............ :>*>'•>
1'ervailinjr Cliristianity ...,..,,,,., 561
PERIOD IV. — EMANCIPATION.
CHAPTER I.
AMERICAN SLAVERY.
Men enslaved ...
Mind sufijufjated ...
I lovennnent inthralled ..
Civilization fettered ..
Tlie Press and the Pulpit hound
CHAPTER II.
TIIK (JRKAT MORAL CONFLICT.
Christianity revolts ............ 57:;
Humanity pleads ............. r>7>)
.J'i-tirc (Iciiouni-es ............. 57'j
Political Panic- teinpori/.e ........... o^l
'1 li" Strain and th" Recoil .......... f,^:!
Another Grand Crisis in History .......... 587
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER III.
THE WAR OP SLAVERY AND FREEDOM.
Secession 590
Treason and Rebellion 593
Fort Sumter 598
Providential Adjustments 601
Bull Run 604
Ball's Bluff 612
Port Royal 614
Roanoke Island 617
Fort Donelson 619
Forts Jackson and St. Philip 625
"The Monitor" and "The Merri mack " 631
The Peninsula . . . . ' .' 634
Antietam 641
Vicksburg 643
Fredericksburg 646
Gettysburg 648
Shenandoah Valley 655
Lookout Mountain '..... 656
The Bloody March to Richmond 659
The Triumphal March from Atlanta to the Sea 662
Richmond 663
Christianity and the War 666
Murderous Revenge 672
CHAPTER IV.
THE TRIUMPH OP LIBERTT.
The Great Proclamation 676
Black Warriors 677
The Victories of Blood and of Truth 679
The Great Amendment , ' . ... 680
PERIOD V. — MISSION.
CHAPTER I.
THE NEW NATIOJT.
Organic Unity and Regenerated Patriotism • . . 686
The Transition 687
Impartial Suffrage 689
Universal Education '•?",.• *."•'. .* , 69°
The New American Church . . . . . . . ,. .. .•_'•,. • 692
The New American Manhood 694
12 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER II.
THE GREAT REPUBLIC IN* HISTORY.
Republicanism passes out of its Experimental into its Historical Period . . 698
The People, as Sovereigns, advance to the Hank of a First-class Power . . 700
Population, and Influence Abroad TOO
The Nations of Earth acknowledge, respect, and tnist the Great Republic . . 70:2
CHAPTER HI.
GOD IS THE SOVEREIGN.
Rebellion is Ruin 705
Loyal Obedience is Safety and Success 706
The United States a great Christian Power 707
The Representative of Progress 709
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
INTRODUCTION.
THE GOD OF NATIONS.
I PROPOSE to examine the history of the United States of
America from a Christian stand-point.
The divine administration of human affairs is a profound
study. There is reason to believe that no event in that
administration stands alone ; that, however small or com-
paratively unimportant, it must be in some way intimately
related to the grand scheme of a general Providence. I
am well aware that an effort to ascertain the position of the
great American Republic in that scheme, and correctly inter-
pret the acts of God in its origin, structure, and government,
is a very grave responsibility ; and I make the attempt with
much self-distrust, but with humble dependence upon God
for help.
Our task requires careful attention to the teachings of his-
tory in regard to the asserted rights of divine sovereignty.
The Hebrew commonwealth as well as the Jewish church
was a theocracy. The great Father sought thus to realize
the highest idea of government among men. He appeared
in personal form, revealing a glory infinitely above the glory
of man. He uttered words of deepest tenderness and love,
of highest wisdom and authority, that the people might be
subdued by his grace, and awed by his power. He traced
13
14 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
their laws upon tablets of rock, and openly took upon him-
self the vindication of their rights, and the punishment of
their crimes, that they might know and love and fear their
true and righteous Governor.
The HebreVs, in their folly, became restless under this
direct divine administration. Faith became unsteady, and
national sins obscured the spiritual power in which they had
been accustomed to confide. From the example of sur-
rounding nations, they were seized with an unconquerable
desire for a human sovereign. Had it been the recognition
of a human representative of divine sovereignty, there had
been no curse in it. But as events showed, and God revealed,
it was the practical rejection of Jehovah as the supreme
civil authority of the nation ; and endless direful calamities
followed. "And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken to
the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee : for
they have not rejected thee ; but they have rejected me, that
I should not reign over them." God permitted this uprising
of human rebellion that its extreme wickedness might ap-
pear. But he did not abdicate the throne : thereafter, as
before, he asserted all the rights of unimpaired sovereignty.
Let the summary judgments which fell upon the nation,
the anointing and dethroning of kings, the slaughters and
discomfitures in battle, the captivity in Babylon, and the
destruction of Jerusalem, attest the fact, that the rebellion
of man has no tendency to destroy or supersede the sover-
eignty of God.
THE GOD OF ANCIENT GENTILE PEOPLES.
Special divine government does not exclude, but reveals,
the general. It does not show the limitation, but the method,
of governmental prerogatives. Mistaken inferences from his
evident sovereignty over one nation are corrected by author-
ity. In another connection, but conclusively here, St. Paul
demands, " Is he the God of the Jews only ? Is he not also
THE GOD OF NATIONS. 15
of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also." Broadly and
triumphantly it is asserted, as in the Psalms, " God is the
King of all the earth." Grant that earthly potentates
reject him, and attempt to usurp his throne : faithful his-
tory reveals him still " the Lord of lords, and King of
kings."
The four great monarchies of the East filled up the space
allowed them, in human history ; and, one after another, the
divine Sovereign laid them aside. The prophet of God fore-
saw these startling events, and yet another of grander pro-
portions and significance : "And in the days of these kings
shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never
be destroyed ; and the kingdom shall not be left to other
people, but it shall break in pieces, and consume all these
kingdoms ; and it shall stand forever : " showing the con-
summation of all special purposes in one great, general pur-
pose,— the subordination of all anti-Christian civil powers
to the righteous rule of God's Messiah.
So the giving of the ceremonial and civil law to the Jews,
only organized preparatory events for the grand inaugura-
tion of that universal government, whose laws of order
were written on Sinai with the finger of God, and whose
law of liberty was traced on Calvary in the blood of the
Redeemer.
The great Jehovah visibly exercised the rights of sover-
eignty over Abraham and his descendants ; but he was none
the less arbiter of events in Egypt and Assyria. The God
who guided Israel through the sea and the desert and Jor-
dan dashed down the walls of Jericho, and overthrew the
vile idolaters of Canaan. The right to colonize the He-
brews implied the right to make summary disposition of
the corrupt nations, whose crimes had forfeited all rights in
the land " flowing with milk and honey."
He whose sovereignty punished rebellious Israel brought
proud Babylon into the dust. He whose justice over-
whelmed guilty Jerusalem buried the dishonored glory of
lg THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
Tyre and Athens and Rome. Cyrus and Alexander and
Tamerlane were as verily the chosen instruments of his
sovereign power as Nebuchadnezzar, Antiochus, or Titus.
He was no more a sovereign over the remnant of Israel
than over the hosts of Sennacherib when
" The Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed."
The history of the divine government, as set forth in the
Bible, and in contemporaneous records so far as they ex-
tend, shows clearly that God claimed to be the Supreme
Ruler of all nations, and that they rose and fell under the
control of his omnipotent hand.
THE GOD OF MODERN NATIONS.
Because distinct acts of divine sovereignty are recorded
in sacred history of ancient peoples and kingdoms only, is it
hence to be inferred that modern nations have no God?
Did he assert his divine prerogatives over Palestine and
Egypt and Rome, and renounce all control over England
and France, Austria and Prussia, Russia and America?
Was he scrupulously exact to watch over the establishment
of laws and dynasties, and punish national crimes, in olden
times ? and is he indifferent to the same great events amid
the ongoings and upheavals of later days ? Was it only in
the days of Saul and Rehoboam, Xerxes and Alexander,
Hannibal and Caesar, that it could be truthfully said, " For
promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west,
nor from the south : but God is the Judge ; he putteth down
one, and setteth up another " ?
To affirm this, it would be necessary to show, with respect
to rights, that asserted acts of divine control were then a
usurpation ; or that the human race has somehow since out-
grown the obligations of allegiance to the great Sovereign
of the universe; or that the government of God is based
upon accidental facts, and not upon unalterable relations.
Who would dare to assert either ?
THE GOD OF NATIONS. 17
To say this with respect to probabilities, it must be
assumed that the divine nature has changed ; so that he has
lost his regard for the right, or his fatherly concern for his
suffering children on earth ; so that he has now no purpose
to avenge the victims of an unjust judge, to arrest the
proud career of oppression, to execute justice and judgment
in the earth. It must be shown that his known interfer-
ences, by omnipotent crushing power, with nations and sov-
ereigns whose iniquities rose to heaven, were the result of
accident or impulse rather than of essential rectitude and
immutable principles. What man would dare to be so irrev-
erent as to say this ?
To affirm that the government of God over nations is un-
necessary, it must be assumed that men as individuals need
divine law, supervision, and aid, but, when organized into
communities, they lose their dependence and responsibility ;
that it is of the utmost importance to have divine control
over the minutest acts which bear upon the individual, but
none whatever over those momentous volitions which realize
or crush the dearest hopes of millions ; that the moral ele-
ment perishes as soon as the life of society becomes organic,
and indefinitely powerful for weal or woe ; that, as individ-
uals, our fellow-citizens are responsible to God, but as legis-
lative, judicial, and executive officers, they are wholly unac-
countable to him ; that a government can have no God, no
religion, no Bible, no prayers, no account to render to " the
Judge of all the earth ; " that the safety of the nation is
wholly in the wisdom and patriotism of men, or subject to
the mad ambition of demagogues, and the accidental whirl
of political campaigns, with no pitying eye looking down
from heaven, no hope from the interference of omnipotent
justice, no retribution awaiting the blood-thirsty tyrant.
He who has such ideas of God and man, of goodness and
sin, might assert that there is no necessity for practical
divine sovereignty over nations.
Finally, to deny the certainty of just as all-seeing and
18 THE GRKAT REPUBLIC.
all-pervading a control over modern as over ancient nations,
one must ignore all prophecy and all history. See what
subduing of kingdoms appears, what breaking-down of op-
pression, what turning and overturning, what arraignments
of rulers, what "gnawing of tongues for pain," what out-
beamings of the Sun of Righteousness, showing that the
grand prophetic era hastens when "the kingdom and do-
minion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole
heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the
Most Hiii'li. whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and
« O ^ L^ '
all dominions shall serve and obey him.'' See with what
linen-inn; accuracv. as in past ages, history is literally record-
O • O */ •/
ing the events of prophecy.
As certainly, therefore-, as it is now as ever the right of
God to reign ; that he is now. as in ancient times, the common
Father of our guilty race, the unchangeable "Judge of all
the earth; "that his great and free volitions are controlled
by principles of unerring righteousness : that men are. of
•' C; O
themselves, blind and reckless in regard to the dearest inter-
e<ts of man. and wickedness is intensified by power, so that
there is actually no hope for the down-trodden, but in God,—
as sure as the verification of prophecy by inevitable history,
so certainly is Jehovah to-day the Sovereign of all nations;
and the American Republic is responsible to him.
PEKUM* I
imtory of the wori. i> nuunng bat tfM fevtlopment «f ife ''--.< of freedom.
;,nv concerns itself only with thr and
:: <• process of its development. That history is this process of development, OB;* -
is the justification of God in history." — 1L
THE old civilization required a new life. The race de-
manded an accession of ideas, a new theatre for the exer*
of its powers and lizr. tion of the divine purpose
in the -creation. Up t< the close of the fifteenth cen-
tury, humai revealed little more than the
ingles o; repressions of despotism; and
God evidently intent v and nobler development of
the human race, a Iftr^r sphere for the manifestation of his
providence and the nx position of his plans of sovereign con-
trol over individuals and iwUions.
He had given to man, as man, a strong love of liberty,
the due expression and proper growth of which required
room for free and independent action. Amid the de?]x»tic
gMramments of the Old World, this would have been a mor*i
<4lifctiity. Such contiguity to old corrupt forms wouki
have resulted inevitably in the infection of any new
however just in itself. On the side of oppression, there
power; and A novel theory must have room aud oppor-
tunity to ' at.
THE DISCOVERY. 21
and sixty-five men, he sailed to Vineland, where Gudrid
" bore him a son called Snorre, who was the very first child
of European parents born in America."
It would seem that these " grim-visaged sea-kings of the
North " continued their explorations, and attempts at settle-
ments, down to 1347. But, by some strange influence of an
invisible power, they disappeared from the continent. God
threw a veil over it again until the plans of his wisdom
should mature. He shut it up from the further gaze of the
avaricious European until the fulness of the time was come ;
and then he produced the man, the idea, the impulse, which
led to its discovery.
COLUMBUS AND THE NEW WORLD.
Who can fail to trace the evidences of the Divine in the
history of Columbus ? Whence came the splendid poetry
of that conception, which gave to him another world in the
ideal before the knowledge of the real had become practica-
ble ? Why was he so far in advance of his age and contem-
poraries as to give him the reputation of a madman, not
among the low and the vulgar alone, but among scholars,
and courts far above htm in opportunities and learning ?
Whence that lofty heroism, that indomitable perseverance,
which knew no danger ; which defied poverty, jealousy, and
the boldest combinations of secular and ecclesiastical power ?
It was not human. It was too elevated and far-reaching,
too patient and enduring, too potent in resisting and wear-
ing out opposition, too fruitful in expedients, and creative
in resources, to admit of the idea for a moment. God only
could have furnished such amazing foresight, such superhu-
man energies. He felt the stirrings of divinity within him,
and claimed that he was inspired for his great mission of
discovery. Still unaware of the grand designs of that Provi-
dence which guided him through all his wonderful career,
he was, in his sphere, as verily the chosen instrument of
22 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
God as Moses or Joshua or Elijah. Heaven directed the
winds that filled his sails and brought him to the unknown
land. What he had discovered he did not know ; what im-
pulses he had given to thought and enterprise, what new life
he had poured into the mind of his age, he by no means
understood. How much more was necessary to the realiza-
tion of the plans of Providence, and who would be the hon-
ored agents of continental discoveries, he could not tell ; nor
was it in any way important. He had fulfilled his mission.
He was not to be the successful founder of empire. He
was not to wear the diadem of royalty. Neither heir nor
kindred was to be the inheritor of the vast domain which
rose up dimly before him. This was God's realm, and he
would take the charge of its great future. Columbus could
receive his discharge from cares and from earth. He was
henceforth immortal.
THE WISDOM OF GOD ABOVE THE FOLLY OF MAN.
It is intensely interesting to observe the control of superior
power over the devices of men for the accomplishment of
high providential purposes. The success of Columbus aroused
the spirit of enterprise ; and navigators from different nations,
with ideas wholly their own, embarked for new discoveries.
But how very absurd were their views ! how blind they
were with respect to their true mission !
Portugal and Spain were moved by cupidity to adven-
turous expeditions in search for gold ; but God used their
hardy mariners to reveal other lands in the Western oceans.
A Papal bull had divided the world of discovery between
them, assuming original proprietorship of unknown as well as
known portions of the globe ; but God roused the spirit of
exploration in another quarter.
John and Sebastian Cabot sailed in 1497, under the au-
spices of England, to look for land, but especially for a north-
western passage to Asia. It was not material what were their
THE DISCOVERY. 2-'J
views. They might be wild and irrational: but God conducted
them to the coast of Labrador, and made use of their enter-
prise to establish the claims of England to the first discovery
of the continent ; thus indicating a purpose to give the domi-
nant influence in the New World to the Anglo-Saxon race.
In 1498, the younger Cabot, a truly great mind, moved
by the same blind idea of the north-western passage, was
available in the divine plans , to open to the mind of Eng-
land new sources of wealth in his further discoveries, of
which he was never to become the proprietor. Why, let us
ask, were these illustrious navigators not permitted to live
and die in Venice, or to prosecute their adventures as Italians?
The answer plainly is, The Italian people were not suited in
the eyes of God to the task of founding the great empire of
freedom.
In 1551, the Portuguese thought they saw great gain in
the returns of the ships of Gaspar Cortereal, freighted with
Indians, torn from their hunting-grounds, and doomed to in-
exorable slavery ; but Providence intended and used the
voyages of this daring mariner to reveal to the world some
seven hundred miles of the North-American coast.
Three years later, it appeared that God had given to Ameri-
go Vespucci the idea of a new continent, and sent him out to
explore its hidden lands, and report, as he did, to Lorenzo de
Medici, the accession of an additional quarter to the globe ;
to which, as the only desirable reward of his enterprise, he
had the honor of giving his name.
France, in 1523, must also undertake the discovery of " a
western passage to Cathay ; " and to John Verrazzani of
Florence was conceded the honor of this fresh attempt to
gain the treasures of that fabled land for royal coffers. This
was upon the surface ; but a profounder purpose appeared
in conducting him to North Carolina, and far along the
coast southward and northward, where " the groves, spread-
ing perfumes far from shore, gave promise of the spices of
the East, and the color of the earth gave promise of abun-
24 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
dance of gold." As God willed, he brought to the knowledge
of the world the spacious harbors of New York and Newport,
and the rugged shores of New England ; but no French mon-
arch was ever to reign over this wonderful coast, the pur-
poses of which were yet wrapped in profoundest mystery.
The brave and reckless Ferdinand de Soto could march
with the air of a conqueror through Florida, as he had
done through Peru ; and advance to the Alleghanies and the
great Mississippi, as he did in 1542 : but he could bequeath
no permanent empire to the Spanish throne. The grand
Valley of the Mississippi was reserved by a higher Sover-
eign for the hosts of freedom in the great future.
So of every act in the scene of discovery, revealing at
the same time the narrow earthly schemes of human ambi-
tion, and the stern reservations and broad purposes of the
Infinite Mind. Whether thirst for gold or lust of power, am-
bition for fame or the vagaries of fevered brains, prompted
the efforts of kings and of daring navigators, human plans
were tolerated and developed just so far as the profound
purposes of God would allow, and no farther, and then de-
feated, or pressed into the service of the exalted power,
which in wisdom infinite rose above and ruled over all ; and
the divine plan of human freedom became the controlling
law of discovery upon the Western continent. So God or-
dained, and history reveals.
CHAPTER II.
THE COUNTRY PROVIDED.
" It is the goodliest soil under the cope of heaven ; the most pleasing territory of the
world. The continent is of a huge and unknown greatness ; and very well peopled and
towned, though savagely. The climate is so wholesome, that we have not one sick since
we touched the land." — LANE, 1585.
IF the time had come for the recognition of higher capa-
bilities of freedom and moral power in the human race, God
would certainly furnish territory large enough, and sufficient
in natural resources, for the development of a great and
numerous people. This he could do, and he only. " The
earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and
they that dwell therein." His omnipotent power called this
globe out of nothing when " the morning stars sang together,
and all the sons of God shouted for joy." " He stretcheth
out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth
upon nothing."
He, as sovereign Proprietor, could dispose of these conti-
nents and islands according to the laws of his infinite wisdom.
He might at his discretion assign them temporarily to the
wild beasts, or to roaming savages, or daring offenders against
his sovereign laws ; but, when the purposes of his providence
required it, he would surely order their possession by the
people designed to illustrate his creative power and his
administrative wisdom.
AREA, ZONE AND CLIMATES.
The vast extent of the Western "World favored the idea
of establishing here a model nation, with the opportunity of
4 25
26 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
working out, as an example to the nations, the problem of
government by the people. It was not necessary that the
whole of this domain should be given at once. There must be
room for enlargement ; and the gradual extension of territory
has accorded precisely with the exigencies of the Republic.
Not including the recent accession of Russian America, it
has reached 3,250,000 square miles : of land alone there are
3,010,370 square miles, or 1,926,686,800 broad acres ! This
is a "territory nearly ten times as large as that of Great
Britain and France combined ; three times as large as France,
Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, Spain, Portugal, Belgium,
Holland, and Denmark, together ; one and a half times as
large as the Russian Empire in Europe ; one-sixth less only
than the area covered by the fifty-nine or sixty empires,
states, and republics of Europe ; of equal extent with the
Roman Empire or that of Alexander."
This is ample for the present. It is large, like the plans
of God ; and how utterly vain it has been thus far, and
hereafter must be, for man to oppose these plans ! The great
Proprietor of earth will give his favored nation room.
The position at first assigned us on the continent strikingly
illustrates the divine wisdom. Had our lot fallen in extreme
latitudes, a symmetrical and full development of body and
mind would have been impossible. We are at a proper
remove from the eternal frosts of the north and the burn-
ing zone of the south. Taking a vast sweep through the
heart of a continent, from ocean to ocean, there are no
advantages possible to a cultivated people which are not
included in the country provided.
So wisely and beneficently has God chosen our inherit-
ance for us. Sir Morton Peto says, " As regards climate, the
whole of the United States is within the temperate zone.
The settler, however, in selecting his residence, can have any
temperature he chooses, from St. Petersburg to Canton. He
may settle in a cold or warm climate, according to his health,
his habits, his predilections, or the object which he seeks,
THE COUNTRY PROVIDED. 27
whether he desires to farm, to fish, to hunt, to graze cattle,
to cultivate garden-lands or vine-yards. He can select the
shores of the lakes or of the ocean, live on or above the
tidal waters of magnificent rivers, and have his choice of
mountain or valley."
ABUNDANT PROVISION FOR FUTURE WANT.
Nothing more strikingly indicates the mind and presence
of God than clear and extended foresight. Anticipating the
future by minute and ample arrangements for the demands
of an immense population is the work of Omniscience alone.
This our great Father has done everywhere ; a manifestation
of paternal beneficence which the inhabitants of earth in all
lands are under sacred obligations to recognize, and answer
with unfailing gratitude and love.
It is eminently so in this land of liberty. Who can look
out upon our extended and productive soil, our towering
mountains and Eden vales, our magnificent lakes and rivers,
and not feel that they are the creation of Infinite Power for
the most benevolent ends ? In their immense proportions and
exhaustless resources, in their wealth of beauty and over-
powering grandeur, they speak of God so distinctly, that all
must hear.
If Providence designed to build up a great nation of free-
men, he would demand of them a marked development of
taste, and imbue them with a love of the beautiful and the
sublime. But this would imply arrangements for the grati-
fication and development of the finer and more elevated
feelings of natural and cultivated humanity. A large, un-
interrupted plain would not have been suited to this pur-
pose. A land of morasses, and ditches of stagnant pools and
dikes, would want the inspiration which so high a purpose
implies. But no element of beauty or sublimity, no natural
source of inspiration, is lacking here. Graceful hills and
grand mountain -ranges break up the monotony of the
28 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
plains ; vastness and variety everywhere expand and elevate
the soul. Who can ascend one of our lofty heights, and
look out upon the panorama below and around him, without
feelings of wonder and delight? Whether you gaze upon
the extended shores of New England, the vast prairies of
the West, the gardens of the South, the forests of the North,
or the valleys and hills of the Pacific coast, you behold a
wealth of beauty and grandeur utterly beyond the power of
description.
The field of natural science is immense and inexhaustible.
If God had designed, as he surely did, that the American
people should be especially thoughtful and scholarly; that
choice minds should here develop their best powers of obser-
vation, analysis, and generalization, — he could not have more
distinctly indicated his plan than by the endless variety in
every department of natural history distributed through this
large territory. The lover of flowers, the entomologist, the
geologist, the mineralogist, indeed all students of Nature, find
here their most intense interest gratified.
How benignly did God in his works of old adjust all this
to the culture and development of a refined people ! How
evidently did he, moreover, design that our vast lakes and
navigable rivers and extended coast should call out the com-
mercial activity necessary to the highest civilization ! Dr.
Baird, in his " Religion in America," well says, " No con-
tinental country in the world, of equal extent, can compare
with the United States in regard to advantages for commerce.
On the north, the great lakes, and their outlet the St. Law-
rence, drain portions of ten States and Territories, which
include 112,649 square miles ; on the east, fifteen States
touch the Atlantic, and the portion of the country which
slopes in that direction contains 514,416 square miles ; the
Pacific slope contains 766,000 square miles ; while the four
States and a half which border on the Gulf of Mexico con-
tain 325,537 square miles. This leaves to the great Central
Basin, drained by the Mississippi and its branches, no less
THE COUNTRY PROVIDED. 29
than 1,217,562 square miles, in which are already at least
10,000,000 inhabitants." Our shore line reaches 33,069
miles, and " the extent of our navigable rivers is more than
40,000 miles."
How clear also is the divine purpose that the mechanical
exigencies of the coming ages here should be furnished with
materials and inducements to render available the strongest
propensities for invention and discovery, affording to the use-
ful arts their highest development, and providing that the
American mind should lead the world in the great depart-
ments of steam and electricity !
What resources of agriculture, what quantities of the
precious metals, of coal, iron, and timber, were produced here
long ages before they would be wanted, that when this goodly
land should swarm with an industrious, enterprising popula-
tion, there should be no want of bread, or valuable exchanges,
or materials for comfort and toil needed for the highest prog-
ress and destiny !
We mean not that any of the natural advantages enumer-
ated in this chapter are restricted to this country : but the}'
are here in a degree of perfection, in a richness of variety,
and upon a scale so vast as to indicate the largest designs of
a beneficent Creator with regard to the nation to be estab-
lished here. The immigrants with Newport affirmed that
" heaven and earth seemed never to have agreed better to
frame a place for man's commodious and delightful habita-
tion."
"Take four of the best kingdoms in Christendom," said
Sir Thomas Dale twenty-six years later, " and put them all
together, they may no way compare with this country,
either for commodities, or goodness of soil."
Let two contrasts suffice to place our views upon this gen-
eral subject in the strongest light. Russia, the most power-
ful despotic government on the globe, must forever suffer
from the severity of her climate and her vast fields of ice.
What but empire itself would her emperor riot give for the
30 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
single harbor of New York or of San Francisco, with sea
room for commanding the commerce and fighting the battles
of the world ? Is there no special Providence in shutting
up the greatest rival power on earth within the frozen
North, while the great oceans of the East and West, and
finally of the globe, furnish sea room for the nation of free-
men ?
England, the great representative of the transition state,
the power through which free principles are to pass out to
the nations of Europe and the East, has extensive colonies
and vast territory; but there is a wide difference between
her remote and scattered provinces and the compact ex-
tended domain of American freedom.
Now, let it be remembered that all these ample provisions
and adjustments were made in the remote past for a people,
and order of civilization, known. only to Omniscience, and how
clear the evidence that the Infinite Mind has prepared this
country for some notable progress in the history of the race,
and the manifestation of his power and glory in the exercise
of his own sovereignty !
CHAPTEK m.
COLONIZATION OVERRULED.
How quick was the love of gain to assume that a new
world was thrown open to its adventurers; that whether
the discovered land were ancient India or Ophir, or a suc-
cession of islands or a continent, it must be seized as the
rightful possession of craving selfishness to fill up the coffers
of individuals, of companies, and of monarchs, with shining
gold and precious gems ! But how distinctly did Providence
say. as colony after colony came to this virgin land, " I have
not chosen you " ! It reminds one of the scene in the house
of Jesse, when the prophet of God was there to anoint a
king. One after another, the sons of this Bethlehemite
passed by ; but the elect of Jehovah was not there. From
the shepherd's field came up at last the ruddy boy who
was the chosen monarch of Israel's hosts. Thus passed the
greedy throngs who thought to claim this magnificent in-
heritance, only to be whelmed by the surges of disaster
until " there was none of them."
FRANCE UNSUCCESSFUL.
Cartier, the gallant navigator of gallant France, could
resolve to colonize New France in the region of the St. Law-
rence, and in 1535 take his departure with absolution and
the benediction of the bishop ; but he must be defeated by
influences against which no human foresight could provide.
Roberval could feel the elevation of his commission from
Francis I. as " lord of the unknown Norimbza, and viceroy,
31
32 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
with full regal authority " * over New France ; but he must
be thwarted by contentions with his predecessor and rival,
Cartier. Fifty years later, the Marquis de la Roche would
try it again, but entirely fail. Chauvin and Pontgrave would
make the effort in 1600, but without success. Cham plain
could found a settlement, but no French nation. The French
monarch could cede by patent the whole Atlantic coast, from
the future Philadelphia to Montreal, to the noble Calvinist
De Monts, with religious toleration for the persecuted Hu-
guenots ; but hostile savages, fierce winds, and shipwrecks,
with successive discouragements to all future attempts of
sovereign and adventurers, would deny to the French people
the permanent occupancy of the future territory of freedom.
We mourn the tragic end of the colony of French Protes-
tants in Carolina attempted under the auspices of the great
Admiral Coligny, and we execrate the cruel Roman-Catho-
lic bigotry which doomed them to indiscriminate slaughter ;
but it was not possible that they should establish French
nationality here, nor that their murderers should ultimately
profit by their enormous crime. The Huguenots would at
length find a home in the bosom of the free Republic.
0
SPAIN MEETS WITH INSUPERABLE DIFFICULTIES.
Spain was heroic, and covetous of empire, and would defy
all hardships to gain it in the New World. Look at this
desperate struggle against the plans of Providence.
Columbus discovered America in 1492, for so God willed ;
but neither he nor his successors could make it a Spanish
province, nor convert it into a continent of Romanists. The
pope, as we have seen, commanded the division of " the
undiscovered world " between Portugal and Spain ; but the
Power above would not suffer the order to be obeyed.
The valiant Ponce de Leon, from his discovery of Florida
in 1513, dazzled with charms of wealth and power, struggled
* Bancroft, i. 22.
COLONIZATION OVERRULED. 33
with unparalleled energy for eight years to effect a perma-
nent settlement, in the vast territory called by that name,
on the Atlantic sea-board ; but an Indian arrow sent him to
Cuba to die.
The bewildering ambition of the reckless Narvaez, in a
similar attempt five years later, overwhelmed him and his
comrades with still more signal disaster.
In 1520, Lucus Vasquez de Ayllon, with the cruel purpose
of capturing Indians to be used as slaves on St. Domingo
plantations, discovered a fertile coast, which promised afflu-
ence and dominion; and obtained from the Spanish monarch
the right to conquer and govern "Chicora," the future South
Carolina : but calamity and disgrace terminated his proud
career.
Who can read without exciting interest the romantic
story of Francisco de Coronado, seduced by the false accounts
of the Franciscan friar Marcus de Niza, moving out from
Mexico with his grand army to search for the seven great
cities of " Cibola" and the fabled wealth of mighty princes,
enduring incredible hardships, traversing the wilds of Colo-
rado, and the Valley of the Del Norte, over the regions of
vast future States, large and rich enough for empires, and
then reporting as he did to the Emperor Charles V. that
" the region was not fit to be colonized " ? Who can trace
the history of this brave man, without reaching the convic-
tion that he was designed by Heaven as an explorer, while
his nation would not be permitted to appropriate his dis-
coveries ?
And with what feelings of wonder, and even pity, do we
follow the daring career of Ferdinand de Soto, seeking for
wealth and glory in the great Valley of the Mississippi,
dreaming of conquests and dominion, wearing out his heroic
men and his own iron constitution, at last bowing his stab-
born will to the only Power he could not defy, and sinking
beneath the turbid waters of the great river, without estab-
lishing the permanent control of his nation over a single
34 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
acre of the land to be required in after-ages for the develop
ment of the Great Republic !
Spaniards could become great discoverers and great con-
querors on the Western hemisphere; they could effect settle-
ments and establish governments which would remain fora
period longer or shorter, as Providence willed : but they could
on no .account annex to the Spanish monarchy the regions
set apart for "the union" of freemen, or hold their own
colonists to loyal obedience, against the instincts of inde-
pendence which would ultimately give law to the continent.
On the 8th of September, 1565, the bigoted Catholic Philip
II. " was proclaimed monarch of all North America ; " but
God did not sanction it. St. Augustine, by more than forty
years the oldest town in the United States, was founded in
the same year : but it did not grow and become great like
other cities of the Republic ; it could not be permanently
Spanish ; nor could the founding of the distant Santa Fe and
the establishment of New Mexico sixteen years later, under
the indomitable spirit of the Franciscan friar Augustin Ruyz,
change the ultimate current of history. Santa Fe would
in due time be the capital of a great republican State.
THE ENGLISH, DUTCH, AND SWEDES CONTROLLED.
God discriminates between men and occasions as well as
nations. The English were to be the founders of empire
here; but they could not begin successfully with a system of
heartless avarice. The daring attempts of Sir Humphrey
Gilbert and his half-brother Sir Walter Raleigh may suffice
as specimens of the discipline through which the nation
would learn its wrongs, and be led gradually to success. The
former might erect the standard of Britain over the mixed
peoples at the fishing-station of Newfoundland, then sink to
his grave in the ocean ; while the latter, after a most heroic
connection with American enterprise, would become a victim
of sovereign caprice, be dragged to the Tower of London,
and then to the block of the executioner.
COLONIZATION OVERRULED. 35
The Dutch, in 1610, could establish a brave working colony
on the river discovered by the adventurous Hudson, and ex-
tend New Netherlands into the region of the Delaware and
the Connecticut ; but the States-General would ultimately
resign the territory and the people to their predetermined
independence and the legitimate government of the United
States of America.
The Swedish monarch and his great prime minister could
form large plans of colonial power and grandeur in America ;
but the rich territory settled at so much expense was not to
be " New Sweden," but an important integral part of the
Great Republic.
CHAPTER IV.
ENGLISH SUCCESS.
WE now come to a most important period in the prepara-
tory history of the United States. Two grand representative
colonies will soon appear on the continent. Both will have
noble spirits as their leaders ; both will have brave truth and
damaging errors in their theories of man and of liberty.
They will test the strength of aristocracy on the one hand,
and of democracy on the other. One will bring out the
power of despotism and caste to grapple with the inherent
rights of man ; the other, the spirit of liberty to contend
with usurpation and repression. The one including the
most grievous wrongs will begin first. Virginia shall have
thirteen years the start of Massachusetts. Moreover, her
land shall be rich, and her climate mild and attractive; while
the land of the Pilgrims shall be rugged, and its winters
severe. Chivalry shall be sustained by royal favor and am-
ple wealth : Liberty shall be a fugitive from royal oppression,
and shall land on its rock-bound coast destitute and unpro-
tected. Then the eyes of two hemispheres for moie than
two hundred and fifty years shall watch the race.
THE EPOCH AND THE FIRST COLONISTS OP VIRGINIA.
The times were both threatening and auspicious. The
Reformation had broken up the foundations of Popery in
England ; but the Popish and Protestant tendencies began to
appear in politics. The bigoted James saw no safety but
from Prelacy, and no formidable danger but from Puritanism.
36
ENGLISH SUCCESS. 37
The noble sons of religious liberty who had served Elizabeth
with loyal devotion were superseded, and began to look
abroad for their future. The art of printing brought new
light to the age. It was time for the permanent colonization
of the New World bv the An do-Saxon race to bearin.
V O
We now catch a glimpse of the original material for an
English colony in Virginia. They were " noblemen, gentle-
men, and merchants, in and about London," " London adven-
turers." "Edward Maria Wingfield, a grovelling merchant of
the west of England," * was the first president of the coun-
cil. " Of one hundred and five on the list of emigrants, there
were but twelve laborers, and very few mechanics." But
Providence ordered that the noble and gallant Capt. John
Smith and the faithful Robert Hunt should be the representa-
tive men of State and Church. " Gorges, a man of wealth
and rank," and Sir George Popham, Lord Chief Justice of
England, would represent the aristocratic pretensions of the
future South ; and " vagabond gentlemen and goldsmiths "
would seriously interfere with the vigorous administration
of the heroic Smith. "When you send again," he wrote,
" I entreat you rather send but thirty carpenters, husband-
men, gardeners, fishermen, blacksmiths, masons, and diggers-
up of trees' roots, well provided, than a thousand of such
as we have." Other settlers came, some better, but, let us
honestly hope, none worse. As especially noteworthy, ninety
women, ''agreeable persons, young and incorrupt," came
" at the expense of the company, and were married to its
tenants, or to men who were able to support them, and who
willingly defrayed the costs of their passage." This experi-
ment was so successful, that, next year, " sixty more were
despatched, — maids of virtuous education, young, handsome,
and well recommended. The price of a wife rose from
one hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty pounds
of tobacco, or even more." How admirably simple, and
yet how evidently providential, this method of founding
* Bancroft, i. 120-124.
38 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
virtuous families, and building up the social fabric of
America !
DESPOTISM AND RELIGION IN VIRGINIA.
There was doubtless something of native independence
in the daring adventures of navigators and explorers who
found their way to the New World. But loyalty to sover-
eigns restrained and directed it The jealous eye of the
asserted divine right of kings was everywhere. The earth
belonged to them; and the only question was, how it should
be divided between them. The right of soil, whether in the
form of islands or continents, was in the monarch ; and he
might grant it to his loyal subjects in such quantities and
upon such terms as he pleased. Charters and rights might
be conceded and revoked at his royal pleasure ; and, how-
ever meritorious the discovery, whatever sacrifices were
made by the colonists, however exhausting the toil required
to subdue and cultivate the soil, the people were all the ser-
vants of the crown ; and, under such regulations as he should
be pleased to make, the ultimate benefits must inure to him.
Additional colonists were about to embark for Virginia,
and the rights of the crown must be carefully guarded.
" Thus the first written charter of a permanent American
colony which was to be the chosen abode of liberty gave to
the mercantile corporation nothing but a desert territory,
with the right of peopling and defending it; and reserved
to the monarch absolute legislative authority, the control of
all appointments, and the hope of ultimate revenue. To the
emigrants themselves it conceded not one elective franchise,
not one of the rights of self-government
" The summer was spent by the patentees in preparations
for planting a colony, for which the vainglory of the king
found a grateful occupation in framing a code of laws ; an
exercise of royal legislation which has been pronounced in
itself illegal. The superior council in England was permitted
to name the colonial council, which was constituted a pure
ENGLISH SUCCESS. 39
aristocracy, entirely independent of the emigrants whom they
were to govern ; having power to elect or remove its presi-
dent, to remove any of its members, and to supply its own
vacancies. Not an element of popular liberty was introduced
into the form of government." *
In May, 1569, three years later, the company received a
new charter from the king. But " the lives, liberty, and
fortune of the colonists were placed at the arbitrary will of
a governor, who was to be appointed by a commercial cor-
poration. As yet, not one valuable civil privilege was con-
ceded to the emigrants." f
How impossible that this should last forever ! How inevi-
table the inquiry, Is this right? And, if it made a subject of
despotism tremble to think it, he nevertheless would think,
" The king is a man, — only a man ; and I also am a man."
How natural and powerful the feeling of the struggling im-
migrant, (i I am glad I am so far away from the centre of
this despotism ! It cannot reach me quite so easily. This
country is very large ; the air is very free and the land abun-
dant here. I wonder if some portion of this grand inheritance
isn't mine ! At least, do I not own myself? "
You can see, in the very forms of the patents and charters
secured by the early settlers, this yearning for the rights of
a real second party ; the petitions, if not demands, of this
other high contracting power. It must be very deferential,
obsequious even ; but you can almost hear it say, " If you
will deal fairly with me, I will go ; if not, I will not." Gov-
ernors, proprietors, corporations, did not think, it is true, of
any considerable concessions to those below them ; but they
did show some disposition to take care of themselves, which
was something in the cautious advance of personal rights.
Let it, however, be remembered that the aristocratic forms
of civil government were fully sustained by ecclesiastical
power. The monarch, in the creed of the Church, was " king
by the grace of God." The organic life of the Church was
• Bancroft, i. 122, 123. t Ibid., i. 137.
40 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
interwoven in every fibre with the life of the State, and de-
manded the exercise of ecclesiastical authority from the sov-
ereign, as the supreme head of the Church ; and no devotion,
either of bigotry or patriotism, is so strong as religious devo-
tion. The British government and British aristocracy un-
derstood this well ; and, though it seemed an accident that
the impetuous Henry VIII. had become the sovereign ecclesi-
astic of the realm, the force of this fact in the British Con-
stitution was ever thereafter too highly valued and too
powerful to be waived or modified, except under a pressure
that was practically irresistible. And Virginia, the control-
ling and representative colony of the South, had, as we have
seen, received this spiritual despotism as a part of the abso-
lute government under which she was to found a great State,
and had undertaken the impossible task of harmonizing it
with the vindication and development of personal and civil
liberty. Military authority had the right to compel con-
formity to the Episcopal Church. Indifference was punish-
able with stripes, and infidelity with death, under the de-
cisions of courts-martial.
In 1619, a legislature met in the Old Dominion for the first
time. It was opened by prayer, as all decent legislative
bodies should be.
" The Church of England was confirmed as the Church of
Virginia. It was intended that the first four ministers should
each receive two hundred pounds a year. All persons what-
soever, upon the sabbath days, were to frequent divine service
and sermons both forenoon and afternoon ; and all such
as bore arms, to bring their pieces or swords." *
In 1621, anew constitution was granted; and, "simultane-
ously with this civil constitution, an ecclesiastical organiza-
tion was introduced. The plantations were divided into par-
ishes, for the endowment of which contributions were col-
lected in England. A glebe of a hundred acres, cultivated
by six indented tenants, was allowed by the company to each
clergyman ; to which was added a salary, to be paid by a
* Bancroft, i. 155.
ENGLISH SUCCESS. 41
parish tax. The governor was instructed to uphold public
worship according to the forms and discipline of the Church
of England, and to avoid ' all factions and needless novel-
ties/ — a caution, no doubt, against Puritan ideas, at this
time much on the increase in England, and not without par-
tisans even in Virginia." When "the first extant colony
statutes were enacted," " the first acts, as in many subsequent
codifications of the Virginia statutes, related to the Church.
In every plantation, there was to be a room or house ' for the
worship of God, sequestered and set apart for that purpose,
and not to be for any temporal use whatsoever ; ' also a place
of burial, ' sequestered and paled in.' Absence from public
worship, ' without allowable excuse,' exposed to the forfeiture
of a pound of tobacco, or fifty pounds if the absence contin-
ued for a month. The celebration of divine service was to
be in conformity to the canons of the English Church. In
addition to the usual church festivals, the 22d of March was
to be annually observed in commemoration of the escape
of the colony from Indian massacre. No minister was to be
absent from his parish above two months annually, under
pain of forfeiting half his salary ; or the whole of it, and his
cure also, if absent four months. He who disparaged a
minister without proof was to be fined five hundred pounds
of tobacco, and to beg the minister's pardon before the congre-
gation. The ministers' salaries were to be paid out of the.
first-gathered and best tobacco and corn ; and no man was
to dispose of his tobacco before paying his church-dues,
under pain of paying double. The proclamations formerly
set forth against drunkenness and swearing were confirmed
as law ; and the church-wardens were to present all such
offenders." *
GRAVE ERRORS.
With our present information, it is easy to see the strange
mixture of grave error with elevated truth in this ecclesias-
* Hildreth, i. 126, 127.
42 THE GKEAT REPUBLIC.
tical system. It is sad to behold minds so great grappling
with the serious questions of man's relation to God and eter-
nity, with the misleading idea that the human will can be
coerced, and human beings made devout, and fit for heaven,
by State authority. But an established religion, which makes
the courts the judges of orthodoxy; which compels attend-
ance at church ; which exacts from the people the support
of the parish by arbitrary taxes ; which gives to the govern-
ment all authority to create priestly orders and preferments, —
wholly disregards the great facts, that all piety must include
the voluntary surrender of the heart to God ; that nothing
is truly Christian which is not free ; that whatever in hu-
man action is merely the will of another is entirely without
a moral element; that a man forced to religious observ-
ances is so far merely a machine, with no more right to
the immunities of religion than the steam-engine. Upon
the contrary, so far as the attempt results in a sense of per-
sonal injury, of an unjust interference with the rights of
the soul, angry resentments are sure to follow, and men are
made worse by the system which proposes to secure their
highest interests.
True, there is room for law in the protection of religion,
in guarding the rights of religious assemblies, in preventing
disturbances on the Lord's Day, and suppressing social dis-
order, so far as it interferes with good neighborhood, and
tends to destroy the religious and social rights of commu-
nities ; but here the jurisdiction of the courts and the
power of the executive must end. However perverse men
may be in rejecting the true good, though, indeed, they may
go headlong to ruin in the abuse of their freedom, still God
permits it ; and man cannot, if he would, forcibly prevent it.
In the great work of personal humiliation, of reverence and
worship, of submission and trust, of preparation for death
and eternity, every man must act for himself To his own
master he must stand or fall.
It is the unquestionable duty of every man to attend
ENGLISH SUCCESS. 43
divine service on the Lord's Day, when it is not physically
or otherwise impracticable ; but, if the act is to be religious,
he must go freely, not by coercion. The support of religion
is undoubtedly a high duty: but every man must give "ac-
cording as he purposeth in his heart, not grudgingly or of
necessity; for God loveth a cheerful giver."
All these positions are very clear from our present stand-
point, and were doubtless seen dimly in the days of Ameri-
can colonization by many sound and penetrating minds.
But the grand error was in a religion established by law.
It was not that the English people, who had been born and
bred Episcopalians, should be Episcopalians in Virginia. It
was most natural that the forms of service to which they
were accustomed in England should be preferred in the Ne~w
World. It was doubtless so far healthful and wise as the
free action of choice preferred those modes of worship ; just
as other modes, adopted in other colonies, were best suited
to their habits of thought and feeling. At least, it was not
the province of civil law to forbid nor to enjoin these forms.
To establish Presbyterianism by law in Virginia, thereby
excluding the right of the people to become Episcopalians,
and to build up there the institutions of their venerated and
beloved church, would be a grievous wrong, but no greater
than to ordain Episcopalianism as the only lawful religion of
New England or any other portion of the land.
GOD'S METHOD.
It may be deemed strange that God did not so far over-
rule the prejudices of man as to secure freedom of religion
in America from the first. This, however, is not the divine
method. He allows the tares and the wheat to grow togeth-
er. He shows his own sacred regard for human freedom in
suffering the wrong to exert its power until hope of reform
is gone, and the time has fully come for restraint or retribu-
tion. Then his judgments are conclusive.
44 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
It is, moreover, by grappling with error that truth reveals
and augments its power. There were the asserted preroga-
tives of spiritual despotism, but the instinctive demand for
the rights of conscience rising up firmly against them. There
was the coerced attendance at church, but the gospel of lib-
erty rolling out from the pulpit. There were the pomp and
display of ceremonial worship, but the pure word of God
saying to the people, " Humble yourselves in the sight of the
Lord, and he shall lift you up." There were legal exactions
of tithes, but the revelation showing the moral value of
free, liberal giving. There was worldly conformity ; but there
was also the new life, in all its purifying exalting power,
quietly working from within, under the agency of the Holy
Ghost, seeking to develop to the gaze of men the great
transformation and complete emancipation of the race de-
signed to realize the purposes of God in the creation.
Let these two forces exist together in the trial period of a
people. Let them exhibit their wrong and right, their vile-
ness and purity, in contrast. Let them grapple till the supe-
rior power of the true and the good shall appear. Give them
time. Evil is exceedingly tenacious in this world. Its eradi-
cation must be the work of ages. God is the example o'f
patience and active energy, and " God is never in a hurry."
Through the vast cycles pf time, he maketh the wrath of
men to praise him, and the remainder he doth restrain.
Even we have lived long enough to see how wise and safe is
this great plan of Providence, and to know what dispositions
he would make of the attempt to establish a church by law
in the sphere of the future Republic of liberty. There was
no need of violence in resisting this usurpation. The periods
of preparation and independence would not end till it was
utterly overthrown by the action of power silent as the laws
of gravitation, but omnipotent as the arm of Jehovah. The
great privilege of free worship would then be all the more
valuable for the contrast; while the success of the right, in
its own vindication and independent development, would
ENGLISH SUCCESS. 45
be a sublime spectacle to angels and to men. In the mean
time, grave responsibilities would attach to the leaders of
oppression, against the will of God, now becoming so clear
and emphatic in its revelations.
SLAVERY IN THE SOUTH.
We must mention here one more restriction of human
rights, — the most intense form of despotism known among
men : we mean American slavery.
The spirit of this ancient wrong to humanity was inherent
in the British aristocracy. Essential caste elevated the privi-
leged classes above the common obligations of society, and
imposed corresponding burdens upon laborers. The relations
of employers and employed, landlord and tenant, were, to a
large extent, those of master and servant ; and this bondage,
as the effect of inevitable dependence, descended to succeed-
ing generations.
The laws of " indented tenants " adopted in this miniature
and pretentious aristocracy were slavery in essence. It was
simply an invention to avoid labor, and obtain for gentle-
men the avails of labor without just compensation. I wish
therefore distinctly to deny that the slave system was forced
upon the South by the cupidity of dealers in human flesh
and souls, and affirm that it was most evidently of English
origin. It is hence easy to see how naturally the imbecile
natives were subjected to unwilling and unrequited toil, and
reduced to cruel slavery.
It is also easy to explain the fact, that when Las Casas,
from blind philanthropy, sought to mitigate the horrors of
Indian servitude by simply changing the victims, the slave-
dealer had no difficulty in finding a market. Continental
despotism in the West-India Islands and elsewhere was not
left to enjoy a monopoly of this nefarious traffic. Hence,
when twenty negroes were brought to Jamestown, in Au-
gust, 1619, by a Dutch trading-vessel, to be exposed to sale
46 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
like brutes, it was " by the free consent and co-operation of
the colonists themselves," who purchased and held them,
"not as indented servants, but as slaves for life." *
True, it had come to be the general conviction in England
and upon the Continent, that Christians ought not to be re-
duced to slavery ; but captives in war and accredited pagans
were not included in this exemption. It may thus be ex-
plained how English traders in captured victims could have
immunity from punishment in Christian lands, and how
even sovereign princes could assert claims to the enormous
profits of the slave-trade.
The development of this system of flagrant injustice was
very gradual, and is not to be traced here, as it belongs to
another part of this work ; but we desire sufficient attention
to it now to show the startling fact of another powerful ac-
cession to the strength of despotism in the great representa-
tive colony of the South.
* Hildreth, i. 119.
CHAPTER V.
RELIGION AND CIVIL LIBERTY IN VIRGINIA.
" Not democracy in America, but free Christianity in America, is the real key to the
study of the people and their institutions." — GOLDWIN SMITH.
IT would seem that a hard problem had been raised, — hard
for man, but not too hard for the solution of Infinite Wisdom.
With what intense interest do we now inquire, How will God
himself release these fettered minds? How shall the rights
of man emerge from this sea of oppression ? Let us not be
in haste. It is God's question, and he takes time.
Let us turn our attention to the gradual development of
those principles, which, during this preparatory period, were
quietly to assert their vitality and rights, and ultimately re-
veal their power to constitute and maintain a free republic.
In all the history of colonization thus far traced, we see
the evident hand of God. He overruled the plans of men
in rejecting such colonists as were not adjusted to the pur-
poses of freedom. He chose the nation and the race of men
suitable to found an empire. Romanists were not allowed
the ascendency in the land appropriated to the future
"United States." Protestantism included freedom of con-
science, and would ultimately assert the rights of man in
church and in civil government. God, moreover, suffered the
vileness of immoral adventurers to destroy them, and steadily
brought forward the representatives of virtue and piety.
England was a religious country. The Reformation, under
Henry VIII. and Elizabeth and Edward, had asserted the
rights of conscience so far as to throw off the incubus of
47
48 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
Popery. James I. had given the people that marvel of in-
spiration, the English version of the Holy Bible. Religion
was the law of the land, and it was Protestant. The strug-
gles of bloody Mary and her bigoted husband Philip II. could
in no wise re-establish the spiritual despotism of the sover-
eign pontiff. Wickliffe and Cranmer, with their compeers in
godliness, had given a clear voice and majestic elevation to
the pulpit, and claimed high and holy rights for worship and
the press. The laws of England, and especially the Bible
and the Book of Common Prayer, had given to the nation, as
such, a God, a revelation of immortality and of redernpt'on
by Jesus Christ, and the grand idea of intercourse with
heaven. How important this adjustment to the purposes
of a new civilization in the Western hemisphere !
NEITHER CLEAR NOR DARK.
Grant that the standard of vital godliness was low ; that,
with the multitudes, religion was matter of form ; and that
the English aristocracy, generally, were grievous sinners:
still there were many notable exceptions; and a sense of
God and eternity pervaded the nation, and went everywhere
with British colonists.
With respect to the inner life, the doctrines of liberty, and
the personal rights and responsibilities of men, it must be
confessed, truth and error were strangely commingled. The
high assumptions of prelacy and of monarchy were anti-
Christian ; and there were interpretations of the Thirty-nine
Articles which seemed to interfere with the freedom of the
will. But the will would assert its own freedom, and, in
America, go on with the grand problem of human rights
with a manly independence of thought and expression here-
tofore but little known in the Old World. While, therefore,
we may not expect to find a perfect theology nor a true
system of government fully matured and strongly developed
in the infancy of these colonies, we shall find the germs of
RELIGION AND CIVIL LIBERTY IN VIRGINIA. 49
true religion and civil liberty everywhere, fresh and vigorous
with a new life.
a The advancement of the divine glory, by bringing the
Indians and savages resident in those parts to human civil-
ity and quiet government, was alleged as the principal mo-
tive of James's grant." The conversion of the Indians was
inserted in the charters and fundamental laws of all the
great pioneer colonies as a prime object of their grand un-
dertakings. When, therefore, in 1585, the English sought
to conciliate and improve the natives, they depended largely
upon the book of inspiration. " In every town which Hariot
entered he displayed the Bible, and explained its truths.
When, in 1619, measures were adopted ' towards the erect-
ing of a university and college/ it was also enacted, that, l of
the children of the Indians, the most towardly boys in wit,
and graces of nature, should be brought up in the first ele-
ments of literature, and sent from the college to the work
of conversion ' of the natives to the Christian religion."
True, there was much that was strangely inconsistent with
this lofty missionary purpose ; but the felt obligation was
acknowledged, and this acknowledgment was in evidence of
the pervading religious convictions of the parent country.
The patent of Raleigh was made to conform strictly to the
Christian faith, according to the Church of England. The
virtuous Lord Delaware would not assume the duties of
his high office in Virginia without a sermon from his chap-
lain, and the most solemn public recognition of Providence ;
and this was in harmony with public feeling in England.
Virginia must be taught the wrong of profligacy and
crime ; and God denied her the longer presence and high
administrative abilities of the noble and gallant Smith. The
colonists, four hundred and ninety at the time of his de-
parture for England, 1609, were "in six months, by indo-
lence, vice, and famine, reduced to sixty ; and they were so
feeble and dejected, that, if relief had been delayed but ten
days longer, they also must have utterly perished."
50 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
PROVIDENCE AND PROGRESS.
Jamestown seemed about to be deserted. These miserable
people embarked for England ; but, at the mouth of the
river, they met Lord Delaware with additional colonists and
abundant supplies. " The fugitives," says Bancroft, our great
national historian, K bore up the helm, and, favored by the
wind, were that night once more at the fort in Jamestown."
And now mark. "It was on the tenth day of June, 1610,
that the restoration of the colony was solemnly begun by
supplications to God. A deep sense of the infinite mercies
of his providence overawed the colonists who had been
spared by famine; the emigrants who had been shipwrecked,
and yet preserved ; and the new-comers, who found wretch-
edness and want where they had expected the contentment
of abundance. The firmness of their resolution repelled de-
spair. t It is,' said they, ' the arm of the Lord of hosts, who
would have his people pass the Ked Sea and the wilder-
ness, and then possess the land of Canaan.' Dangers avoided
inspire trust in Providence. ' Doubt not,' said the emigrants
to the people of England, ' God will raise our state, and
build his church in this excellent clime.' " At the beginning
of the day, they assembled in the little church, which was
kept neatly trimmed with the wild flowers of the country ;
and, " after solemn exercises of religion, they returned to
their houses to receive their allowance of food."
Soon thereafter came the noble Gates with " six ships,"
and "three hundred immigrants, a hundred kine, as well
as suitable provisions," and assumed the government. What
could a people, trained under the discipline of Providence,
say better than u God bless England, our sweet native coun-
try " ? what more appropriate than to give this invocation
of affectionate gratitude a prominent place in the service for
morning and evening prayer ?
About this time (August, 1611), "on the remote frontier,
we catch a glimpse of Alexander Whitaker, the self-denying
RELIGION AND CIVIL LIBERTY IN VIRGINIA. 51
1 Apostle of Virginia/ assisting in ' bearing the name of God
to the Gentiles.' " How striking the indication of deep re-
ligious convictions and a high providential mission !
Glancing back for a few years, we see the hand of God in
the rush of tender sympathy which brought the young and
beautiful Pocahontas to the rescue of Capt. John Smith,
the true founder of Virginia. We behold the war-club of the
stern Powhattan suspended over her fragile form as she pro-
tects the great white brave from instant death. Soon again
we see this youthful Indian princess threading her way
through the dark forests to save Jamestown from its im-
pending doom ; and we say, Surely she was God's chosen
instrument for the purposes of his own gracious providence.
Now we see "John Rolfe, an honest and discreet young
Englishman, moved, as he thinks, by the Holy Ghost, to labor
for the conversion of the unregenerated maiden." — "And
soon, in the little church of Jamestown, — which rested on
rough pine columns fresh from the forest, and was in a style
of rugged architecture as wild, if not as frail, as an Indian's
wigwam, — she stood before the font, that out of the trunk
of a tree had been hewn hollow like a canoe, ' openly re-
nounced her country's idolatry, professed the faith of Jesus
Christ, and was baptized.'" Soon she is the bride of the
zealous Rolfe ; a beautiful princess, " the first Christian ever
of her nation." Thus did God reveal the real humanity of
the aboriginal American tribes, their capabilities of cultiva-
tion and religion, and the mission of Christianity in winning
their confidence. Thus did he rebuke the murderous injus-
tice of converting them into enemies, slaughtering them on
their own hunting-grounds, and selling them as bondsmen to
unprincipled tyrants. Thus did he teach the world that a
purpose higher than the gratification of wicked avarice and
mad ambition had controlled him in founding a new empire.
Men were free and responsible. They could, for a time,
resist the plans of Divine Benevolence ; but grave lessons
of wisdom arose from the progress of providential plans.
52 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
Wisdom is the legitimate result of discipline in the hands
of God, however stern it may be.
RELIGION THE LIFE-FORCE AND ORGANIZING POWER OF LIBERTY.
Let us now pause to consider that religion is an active
principle, a powerful divine life, in the souls of men. One
of its first experimental effects is to impress the individual
with a strong sense of responsibility, with a conviction of
duty which no other person can discharge. It rouses and
releases the conscience ; and, upon the exercise of true faith
in the Redeemer, it imparts liberty from the bondage of
sin. The great preacher demonstrates the divinity and
verity of his mission by thus proclaiming " liberty to the
captive."
The world is long in coming to the comprehension of the
nature and scope of experimental religious freedom. Slowly,
however, the great truth is reaching the general intelligence,
that spiritual deliverance from the bondage of sin is the
clear announcement of God's will that there should be no
oppression in any part of the world ; that attempts to fetter
the souls and deny the just rights of men are offensive to
him ; and that each new man in Christ Jesus is invested with
prerogatives of liberty which make him superior to oppres-
sion and torture and death.
It is impossible that this should be a dormant power. It
is in itself a high inward sense of justice. It does not, in-
deed, prompt to rebellion even against usurpation and un-
righteous laws. It is the profoundest submission to the great
rule of right, and results in due consideration for the laws
of public order represented by " the powers that be." But
injustice is seen to be against God ; and the true mind, regen-
erate, learns at length that the rights of man and the rights
of God are inseparably connected. The assertion and vin-
dication of these rights must be contingent with respect to
time and circumstances, and must especially depend upon
RELIGION AND CIVIL LIBERTY IN VIRGINIA. 53
the progress of thought and the providential indications of
the age. But they are felt in a new form, and commence a
life of new vigor, from the moment of regeneration. They
may be suppressed by cruel power, or restrained from motives
of high discretion ; but they have a voice, and the ears of
souls will not fail to hear it. The quiet acts and utterances
of truth and right and holy laws, the meekness of suffering
without yielding to wrong, and especially the sublime com-
posure and triumph of martyrdom for the right to worship,
teach the profoundest lessons of liberty. It is thus that the
influence of true Christianity, silently it may be, but power-
fully, extends the spirit and the area of freedom ; and thus
that we are to explain the slow but certain progress of civil
and religious liberty together in England, and upon a larger
scale in America.
We must also recognize the blending of true religious
principles and power with all other civilizing forces, in pro-
ducing that subtle and pervading sense of right which all
men feel, and are sure in some form or other, sooner or later,
to manifest. This is, in part, the religion of creation, and the
direct work of the great Creator. Man emerges from bar-
barism under its living power. This is the source and reason
of the uprisings of individuals and masses in forms of even
savage resentment for wrongs which have been felt but un-
defined in the ages gone by, and have produced contortions
as of a man in his sleep scorched with fire, who springs up
at the moment of consciousness, and rushes he knows not
how nor where.
Long thinking and enduring ultimately give form to this
pervading invisible life-force of the nations. Revealed re-
ligion comes in to eliminate its vices, purify its feelings, exalt
its motives, and direct its energy. Divine communications
from heaven give it moderation, wisdom, and irresistible pow-
er; and thus the unity of the great moral forces which are
struggling for the emancipation of the race is found in God.
The incarnate Son is revealed as the great Liberator of
54 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
inthralled humanity ; and the cross, wrested from the bloody
hand of spiritual despotism, is held aloft as the truest, no-
blest emblem of freedom to the race.
All this has its unequivocal expression in the gradual de-
velopment of American liberty. If faithful history has made
one .thing clearer than another, it is that Christianity can
never retain its purity or its vital power, when, as in the hands
of Rome, it is forced into the service of oppression and per-
secution. From a captivity and perversion so violent and
vile it must be rescued before it is or can be the Christian
religion again. And, as a part of the same clear historic
revelation, we have come to understand that no attempt at
the establishment of a sound and durable free government
can be successful in the assertion of atheism, in the rejection
of the Holy Bible, or "trampling under foot the Son of God."
Whoever, therefore, should attempt to account for the
growth of liberty in England, and its final vindication and
triumph in America, without recognizing the vital organizing
power of Christianity, would inevitably fail. As well explain
and demonstrate the circulating system of the human body
without the blood, or the perfecting of grain or fruits with-
out the vitalizing forces of atmospheric air.
It is therefore to identify the life-power of this great sys-
tem of freedom that we have brought forward the small and
larger manifestations of true religion in the British nation,
and the earlier history of her first great colony in the New
World. It was necessary first to recognize the presence of
this holy principle, and mournfully to acknowledge its un-
natural alliance with the spirit of oppression ; and we must
wait yet longer for a full manifestation of the liberating
power of Christianity, a truer development of the great
spirit of the Reformation. In this place it has been our pur-
pose to present faithfully those indications of the influence
of this supernatural power which really existed, and could
alone account for such progress as had already been made in
that portion of our territory destined for ages to be the
RELIGION AND CIVIL LIBERTY IN VIRGINIA. 55
battle-ground of the great antagonist forces of freedom and
despotism.
LIBERTY ASSERTS HER RIGHTS, AND ADVANCES.
As early as the days of Edward, in 1547, "the ascendency
of Protestantism marked the era when England began to
foreshadow her maritime superiority." Under the fearless
Elizabeth, the same uprising of true Christianity " quickened
the spirit of nationality, and gave a new impulse to the peo-
ple." This impulse was never lost. It stirred the hearts of
noble pioneers, and gave vigor to emigrants. It struggled
with monarch and corporation until it extorted reluctant
but most valuable concessions. Protestantism colonized and
ultimately moulded Virginia. Let us step forward to the
month of April, 1619.
Sir George Yeardly arrived, and took charge of the colony,
with " commissions and instructions from the company for
the better establishing of a commonwealth." He announced
" that those cruell lawes by which the ancient planters had soe
long been governed were now abrogated, and that they were
to be governed by those free lawes which his majesties sub-
jects lived under in England ; " and, in order " that the planters
might have a hande in the governing of themselves, yt was
granted that a generall assemblie shoulde be helde yearly
once, whereat were to be present the governor and counsell,
with two burgesses from each plantation, freely to be elected
by the inhabitants thereof; this assemblie to have power to
make and ordaine whatsoever lawes and orders should by.
them be thought good and profitable for their subsistance."
Sir George, therefore, "sente his summons all over the
country, as well to invite those of the counsell of estate that
were absente, as also for the election of burgesses ; " and
on Friday, the thirtieth day of July, 1G19, a day memorable
in American colonial history, this grand free legislative assem-
bly met in James City, and God wras solemnly recognized
by prayer.
56 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
Their " great charter " sent over by Sir George Yeardly,
these keen-eyed, heroic freemen would not attempt " to cor-
rect or control ; " but they would cautiously provide for re-
dress " in case they should find aught not perfectly squaring
with the state of the colony." Brave, noble men ! How
bright these luminaries of freedom shine through the dim
haze of two and a half centuries !
" When the question was taken on accepting ' the great
charter,' we are not surprised to find that i it had the general
assent and the applause of the whole assembly,' and, let
it be observed, ' with thanks for it to Almighty God, and to
those from whom it had issued in the name of the burgesses,
and the whole colony whom they represented, the more so
as they were promised the power to allow or disallow the
orders of the court of the London company." *
This was a little alarming to royal despotism. The office
of treasurer was vacant. There might be necessity for as-
certaining whether this disloyal freedom had not gone too
far, even in the London Company; and the king determined
to settle the question by sending in four nominees for treas-
urer. Astonishing! They are all rejected; and "the Earl
of Southampton, the early friend of Shakspeare, was elect-
ed " ! " Having thus vindicated their own rights, the com-
pany proceeded to redress former wrongs, and to provide
colonial liberty with its written guaranties." Praise God !
Another test must come up from the colony. Argall had
pronounced sentence of death. The case went home on
appeal. The Earl of Warwick, and other powerful friends
of Argall, took this occasion to instruct these presuming
American Englishmen " that trial by martial law is the no-
blest kind of trial, because soldiers and men of the sword
were the judges ; " but " this opinion was reversed, and the
rights of the colonists to trial by jury sustained." How
grand the triumph !
Two 3'ears later, — namely, on the 24th of July, 1621, —
* Bancroft, i. 154-156.
RELIGION AND CIVIL LIBERTY IN VIRGINIA. 57
the colony received from the London Company, by the hands
of Sir Francis Wyatt, "a written constitution. The pre-
scribed form of government was analogous to the English
Constitution ; and was, with some modifications, the model
of the systems which were afterwards introduced into the
various royal provinces. Its purpose was declared to be,
' the greatest comfort and benefit to the people, and the pre-
vention of injustice, grievances, and oppression.' " * By this
important historical document, " the system of representative
government, and trial by jury, became in the new hemisphere
an acknowledged right;" and, on this ordinance, Virginia
erected the superstructure of her liberties. Thus Freedom
asserts her rights, and advances.
* Bancroft, i. 158.
CHAPTER VI.
THE SOUTHERN GROUP COMPLETED.
WE have found in Virginia the true character of that
great conflict between freedom and oppression which char-
acterized the preparatory period of American history. In
this leading colony we have, therefore, sought our principal
materials for illustrating this struggle as it went on in the
southern portion of the first "United States."
We have seen the gradual development of the plans of
Providence in that splendid country, and especially the evi-
dent purpose to bring the true and the false, the good and
the bad, in the forms of civil government, together, that they
might try their strength, and exhibit their respective attrac-
tions and repulsions in marked contrast.
We have found how anxiously vicious principles and op-
pressive institutions sought the alliance and support of reli-
gion, and in what forms of misinterpretation and misdirection
it is possible for Christianity to be combined with the most
flagrant injustice; and, again, how promptly and vigorously
all its pure principles and living energies move to the sup-
port of true liberty ; nay, rather, how inevitably Christianity
appears as the only soul and vitalizing force of liberty.
We are now to see these facts and developments upon a
more extended scale. We must, therefore, look into the
groupings around this pioneer colony, and see what addi-
tional evidence they afford of God in America, — planting
colonies, placing and training men, forming institutions, and
controlling antagonisms, for the ultimate formation of the
Great Republic of Liberty.
THE SOUTHERN GKOUP COMPLETED. 59
MARYLAND.
William Clayborne, first a surveyor for the London Com-
pany, then member of the Council, and then Secretary of
State, was the pioneer of Maryland. Virginia held in proud
esteem the fine harbors on the Chesapeake Bay, with the
navigable waters flowing into it, and intended to make this
portion of the coast the scene of an active and lucrative
commerce; and Clayborne had commenced the settlement
of the country, near the mouth of the Susquehanna, in the
interests of Virginia.
But Sir George Calvert, a true nobleman, who was intro-
duced to public life by the distinguished Sir Robert Cecil,
had become deeply interested in American colonization. He
was a Catholic, and evidently entertained the idea of found-
ing somewhere on the Western continent a State in which
his church could enjoy at least the benefits of free tolera-
tion. The first attempt was made in Newfoundland : but
the French were annoying, the clime was inhospitable ; and,
notwithstanding the immense sums of money lavished upon
the undertaking, it was a notable failure.
Why should they not go to Virginia ? There was ample
territory, and a most genial climate. But Virginia was Prot-
estant. Her great pioneers had some knowledge of the
grasping, oppressive power of Rome ; and they intended to
exclude her intolerance by an intolerance of their own
scarcely less censurable. However, Lord Baltimore would
go to Virginia, and see for himself. But he must take the
oath of allegiance ; and that was stringently anti-Catholic.
He refuses, and understands that there is no reasonable
prospect of forming a Roman-Catholic colony within the
jurisdiction of Protestant Virginia.
Fortunately for him, James had dissolved the London
Company, and cancelled the Virginia patents, resuming the
asserted rights of the crown over the soil. He had a warm
side toward the Catholics, and it was not difficult to per-
60 THE GKEAT REPUBLIC.
suade the monarch to grant a State to Lord Baltimore and
his heirs out of the territory claimed by Virginia; and he
saw proper to select her most important and valuable sea-
coast. The charter was issued, the boundaries were fixed ;
and in honor of Henrietta Maria, daughter of Henry IV.,
and wife of Charles I., the province was named Maryland.
These facts are important to our historical discussion.
Catholic Maryland is claimed as the first province of Ameri-
ca affording free toleration to religion. By remarkable dis-
criminations in its favor, extraordinary concessions of liberty
were made to it by the crown.
The second Lord Baltimore, to whom this patent was
given, was evidently a man of enlarged and liberal views,
beyond the restricting precedents and principles of the
bigoted sect to which he belonged. He seems to have con-
ceived ideas of liberty in advance of his times. There is little
room to doubt, that, from an English stand-point, he had fully
taken in the fact that Roman intolerance could be made the
precedent and apology for discrimination against the Catho-
lics ; and that, under certain circumstances, the question
would be, not so much which is right, as which is strongest
Relying, doubtless, upon the moral power of Rome finally
to triumph over and utterly exterminate all heretical gov-
ernments, he took the liberty of practically but quietly dis-
senting from the settled traditional policy of the sovereign
pontiff, and determined that religion should be free in Mary-
land. We must assume, either that Lord Baltimore was pro-
foundly versed in the art of dissimulation so fundamental
to Romanism, or that he was better than his church. The
great providential fact, however, is, that the toleration of a
most artful and damaging perversion of religion carries with
it full freedom for true Christianity, and opens the way for
that unrestrained competition of the right with the wrong
which Rome of her own accord never dares to invite,
and which is sure, finally, to result in the triumph of the
right. The danger of free religious toleration in Maryland,
THE SOUTHERN GROUP COMPLETED. 61
including Romanism as the dominant church, was, therefore,
only apparent. On the contrary, it was a necessity of Amer-
ican liberty, and the glory of the seventeenth century. It
was enough that God would see that the unscrupulous
power of the Roman hierarchy should never be able to re-
verse the decisions of her virtuous son, and assert her claims
to the right of proscription and persecution against the true
religion of Christ, destined to prevail mightily in this origi-
nal Catholic province.
It looks like a mere accidental exception in the life of a
capricious monarch, it may have been favoritism in return
for the boldness with which Rome acknowledged the right
of James to the crown of England, it certainly was a high
Providence, that this colony received concessions of freedom,
wholly exceptional in the history of American colonization.
K The charter, which in April, 1623, had passed the great
seal for i Avalon,' secured to the emigrants themselves an
independent share in the legislation of the province, of
which the statutes were to be established with the advice
and approbation of the majority of the freemen or their
deputies. Representative government was indissolubly con-
nected with the fundamental charter ; and it was especially
provided that the authority of the absolute proprietary
should not extend to the life, freehold, or estate of any emi-
grant. So far was the English monarch from reserving any
right of superintendence in the colony, that he left himself
without the power to take cognizance of what transpired ;
and, by an express stipulation, covenanted that neither he,
nor his heirs, nor his successors, should ever, at any time
thereafter, set any imposition, custom, or tax whatsoever
upon the inhabitants of the province." * Thus, through the
high statesmanship of Sir George Calvert, under Providence,
the right of the crown to tax this province was renounced
forever. It is God's method, in the midst of imperfections
and deformity, to provide himself with types of his exalted
designs. Thus did he cause a man of narrow mind and
* Bancroft, i. 242, 243.
62 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
despotic pretensions, and a man of extraordinary breadth of
view, subject to the power of restricting bigotry, to unite in
founding a model State, — a type of the glorious civil liberty
which in the next century was to become national on this
continent.
On Friday, the 22d of November, 1634, Leonard Calvert
(brother of Lord Baltimore) and about two hundred people,
most of them Roman-Catholic gentlemen and their servants,
set sail for the northern bank of the Potomac ; and, on the
twenty-seventh day of March following, they fixed the loca-
tion of their pioneeer town on the banks of the St. Mary's,
" four leagues from its junction with the Potomac." Thus
"religious liberty," says Bancroft, " obtained a home, its only
home in the wide world, at the humble village which bore
the name of St. Mary's." Read the immortal words in which
the birthright of Americans received its first expression:
" Whereas the enforcing of the conscience in matters of
religion hath frequently fallen out to be of dangerous con-
sequence in those commonwealths where it has been prac-
tised, and for the more quiet and peaceable government of
this province, and the better to preserve mutual love and
amity among the inhabitants, no person within this prov-
ince, professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall be anyways
troubled, molested, or discountenanced for his or her re-
ligion, or in the free exercise thereof."
True, there was an apparent limitation in the phrase " pro-
fessing to believe in Jesus Christ," and in the proviso that
" whatsoever person shall blaspheme God, or shall deny or
reproach the Holy Trinity, or any of the three persons
thereof, shall be punished with death;" yet it cannot be
denied that the great principle of religious liberty had be-
come a vital and practical power in this State.
After all the disorders of the protectorate, and notwith-
standing revolutions and counter-revolutions, in which, for
the time being, liberty was sometimes veiled, "Maryland,
like Virginia, at the epoch of the Restoration was in full
T-HE SOUTHERN GROUP COMPLETED. ()3
possession of liberty, based upon the practical assertion of
the sovereignty of the people." *
How sadly must we record the fact, in exact contrast with
all this, that slavery at length forced itself into this province,
and assumed to dictate and control it ! This vile institution
was not wanted in Maryland. If in her unpretending days
it was freely tolerated, or even welcomed, when the negroes
began to be numerous, and the price of their staples was, in
consequence, alarmingly reduced, and debts for slaves were
largely increased, Maryland, as well as Virginia and the
Carolinas, greatly desired and preferred white laborers. But
the English had become a nation of slave-dealers. Up to
1700, in twenty years, they " took from Africa about three
hundred thousand negroes, or about fifteen thousand a year."
The dealers must have a market; and the nefarious slave-
trade, which civilization has pronounced " piracy upon the
high seas," and which has just expired from the repeated
death-strokes of freedom, must fix its fetters on this noble
and rising State. Thus Maryland becomes a part of the
slaveholding group of the South, and bears her crushing
burden, in consequence, for some two hundred years.
This was not her true position. She was much more nat-
urally allied to the Middle and Eastern States. Her climate
gave the white laborer the advantage, and hence she had
more " white servants " than any other colony. She was the
most southern of the colonies which' joined with the East
for the defence of New York, paid her quota, and helped
to form "an imperfect confederacy" extending "from the
Chesapeake to Maine."
DELAWARE.
In the spring of 1631, the Dutch " planted a colony of
more than thirty souls," "just within Cape Henlopen, on
Lewes Creek ; " and thus by occupancy secured to the future
* Bancroft, i. 265.
64 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
State of Delaware the right to exist as an independent com-
monwealth. They built a fort, attached the arms of Hol-
land to a pillar, and named the country Swaanendael. Godyn,
Van Rensselaer, and their associates, in company with Pieter
Heyes (the commander of the emigrant-ship), Hosset, and De
Vries, did what they could to make this a Dutch province ;
but the colonists were murdered by Indians to avenge the
death of their chief, slain by authority of Hosset, the com-
mander. Wouter van Twiller, who superseded Minuet, could
not achieve success. The English swarmed everywhere, and
claimed this land as a part of the whole. Dutchmen could
live here, and on the Connecticut, and on the Hudson, where
the right of discovery and settlement was undoubtedly with
them ; but they could erect no States for Holland. The Eng-
lish, urged forward by religious zeal, resolved to occupy the
ground, and devote it to the rights of the people. And there
was soon another competitor.
Gustavus Adolphus, the great king of Sweden, claimed a
right for his subjects in the soil and traffic of America. He
would attempt colonization upon a vast scale. A grand com-
mercial company was to be formed, and all Europe invited
to take stock ; but he would not trouble the company to
govern the colony. " Politics," he said, " lie beyond the pro-
fession of merchants."
One thing in the views of this enlightened sovereign and
his company is worthy of note. " Slaves," they said, " cost
a great deal, labor with reluctance, and soon perish from
hard usage. The Swedish nation is laborious and intelli-
gent ; and surely we shall gain more by a free people with
wives and children." "To the Scandinavian imagination,
hope painted the New World as a paradise;" the proposed
colony as a benefit to the persecuted, a security " to the hon-
or of the wives and daughters " of those whom bigotry had
made fugitives ; a blessing to the " common man," to the
" whole Protestant world." It may prove the advantage,
said Gustavus, of " all oppressed Christendom."
THE SOUTHERN GROUP COMPLETED. 65
But the great question of the rights of conscience must
be fought out on the plains of Germany ; and Gustavus Adol-
phus led his brave troops to the conflict. Liberty of thought
and religion triumphed at Lutzen : but the funds raised for
the colony were ingulfed in the war, and the great hero
of liberty passed away, bequeathing to Germany and his
own loyal but bereaved subjects the grand colonial enter-
prise as " the jewel of his kingdom." Oxenstiern, " the wise
statesman, one of the great men of all time, the serene
chancellor," who felt himself to be the executive of the will
of Gustavus Adolphus, " renewed the patent, and extended
its benefits to Germany ; " saying, " The consequences will be
favorable to all Christendom, to Europe, to the whole world."
It seemed a singular providence that the " Key of Calmar
and the Griffin," bearing the emigrants who were to repre-
sent the deceased Swedish monarch and the great Oxen-
stiern, should be directed to the Bay of Delaware ; and that
the emigrants should plant their little colony, which was to
aid in founding an American State, within the disputed ter-
ritory of the Dutch, the Quakers, and the Puritans. The
Dutch would remonstrate, but did not then dare to defy
the immense power of Sweden ; the Quakers would finally
sell out, and the Yankees cluster elsewhere ; the Swedes
would stay for a few years, and finally be overwhelmed by
the Dutch ; the Dutch, in their turn, would be compelled to
submit to the English; and finally the representatives of
European nations would cease to be Swedes or Englishmen or
Dutch or Germans, but would become Americans, and the dis-
tinguished Lord Delaware would give his name to the State.
It is important to our inquiry to identify the sources of
light, which, according to the plans of God, were to converge
upon the land of the future Great Republic. I have, there-
fore, given position and consideration to the Scandinavian
movement, which, under the guidance of great minds, colo-
nized " New Sweden." True, this laudable effort terminated
disastrously, after a struggle of seventeen years; but the
66 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
Swedes brought with them from the Protestant Reformation
of Germany the grand ideas of liberty and the dignity of
labor. They rejected slavery, not, to be sure, from principles
of justice and humanity, but upon economical grounds ; and
history vindicates their opinions. The Dutch, who finally
triumphed over them, were not so clear in their doctrines of
political economy, and were unscrupulous with regard to the
rights of the African race. They, with the English, deeply
involved in the crime of kidnapping and selling " Guinea ne-
groes," sent the curse of slavery into New Netherlands, and
at length fastened it upon the State of Delaware. Here,
therefore, as well as in Virginia, the wrong of oppression cor-
rupted the morality and retarded the civilization of the peo-
ple ; and Delaware most unnaturally took her place in the
Southern group.
NORTH CAROLINA.
Raleigh failed to establish a colony in North Carolina;
but his attempts were valuable in the history of discovery,
and form an important link in the chain which connects the
American Republic with the best minds and best impulses
of the Old World. His daring as an adventurer, his heroism
as a military commander, his shrewdness as a manager of
both civilized and savage men, entitle him to a high rank
among the great men of his times. James owed him a
debt of gratitude that he repaid by acts of tyranny which
will add infamy to his name as long as it is remembered.
Raleigh's real crime was, failing to discover gold-mines in
Guiana. He was out of favor; and, "against law and against
equity," he must be shut up for long years like a felon : but
his elegant mind would devote these years to ennobling
literature. His ungrateful sovereign could, in his old age,
order him to execution ; but England and America would
embalm his memory as a great statesman and a splendid
philanthropist. Men perish ; but ideas and impulses live.
Raleigh left for his countrymen large information concern-
THE SOUTHERN GROUP COMPLETED. 67
ing the New World, and the enthusiasm of enterprise, which
would ultimately make that world available to the civiliza-
tion of succeeding ages, and the glory of the nation to the
narrow-minded bigotry of whose sovereign he fell a sacrifice.
It is especially as a man of liberal opinions, imbued with a
high sense of justice, that his relation to North Carolina and
the United States is held most sacred. The spirit which
moved him to resist the cruel orders against the nonconform-
ists, and every form of persecution for opinion's sake, was
essentially new English, and thoroughly American ; and the
influences which such men awake never cease to benefit
the race. The North -Carolinians perpetuate his memory by
the name of their capital ; and the nation, in the noble insti-
tutions which are true to his most thorough convictions.
But the time for a permanent colony, and the people to
found a State, would come. In 1663, Clarendon, Monk (Duke
of Albemarle), Lord Cramm, Lord Ashley Cooper, the Earl of
Shaftesbury, Sir John Colleton, Lord John Berkeley, Sir Wil-
liam Berkeley, and Sir George Carteret, " were constituted
the proprietors and immediate sovereigns" of "the Province
of Carolina." They were old men, and very avaricious.
They were high-born royalists,* and, so far as possible,
would stamp the future States with the impress of aristoc-
racy. They would drain the country of its resources, under
pretence of "a pious zeal for the propagation of the gospel."
They were to contend with numerous rivals for the right
of domain. Spain made Florida to extend over this whole
coast. The everlasting Puritans were hunting about there
for more room, more traffic, and more liberty ; and claimed
for themselves all " the region round about." The noncon-
formists of Virginia, shrinking from the exactions of a State
church, had fled to the forests, and, in 1663, probably formed
the first permanent settlement on Albemarle Sound, under
patronage of Sir William Berkeley, at the same time Gov-
ernor of Virginia and one of the proprietors of Carolina.
* Bancroft, ii. 129, et seq.
(}g THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
He was, however, more loyal to himself and to freedom than
to Virginia; " and, scorning the settlement from the Ancient
Dominion, established a separate government over men who
had tied into the woods for the enjoyment of independence,
and who had already, at least in part, obtained a grant of
their lands from the aboriginal lords of the soil." William
Drmnniond. a Scotch Presbyterian, became the Governor of
North Carolina ; and the people thought themselves happy
in being allowed to manage their own affairs. Their con-
o O
sciences were free, and "the child of ecclesiastical oppression
was s\vathed in independence." '
Planters from Barbadoes, seeking a place for the exercise
of their own discretion, had found their way to the Cape-
Fear River; and, in 1GGG, their colony in " Clarendon" num-
bered eight, hundred. But Sir John Yearnans, their gov-
ernor, was '• the son of a Cavalier, a needy baronet, who, to
mend his fortune, had become a Barbadoes planter. He
would impart no element of freedom to the prospective
State, and '•• Clarendon " must be allowed to disappear.
But the ideas of the aristocratic English Company en-
larged. They asked and received a new charter, which
gave them room for an empire. Their jurisdiction now ex-
tended from the Atlantic to the Pacific, over the territory
of North and South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama,
Mississippi, Louisiana, and large portions of Arkansas, Florida.
Missouri. Texas, and Mexico. The allegiance of the people
to the English monarch was to be only nominal. The soil
and the actual sovereignty belonged to the company ; but
the freemen must consent to the laws. Religion was to be
free ; but an aristocratic nobility was to give character to
the civil institutions of this vast territory.
Liberty in Carolina was to suffer further trials. The Earl
of Shaftesbury would become the guiding genius of the new
government ; and he would call to his aid the great sensa-
tional philosopher, John Locke, who believed in the power of
* Bancroft, ii. 135.
THE SOUTHERN GROUP COMPLETED. 69
his own reason to create political institutions from the ideal
forms of perfection floating in his own mind, without regard
to the actual condition and private necessities of a people so
simple, and near to nature, as the North-Carolinians. Shaftes-
bury and Locke were firmly opposed to arbitrary power, but
full of self-contradictions. They desired liberty, but sought it
in control by the nobility. They could not sympathize with
the simple feelings of the masses; proposed to give them
the avails of freedom by governing them ; and utterly dis-
carded democracy. Here, in Carolina, representation was to
exist in name ; but real political power was to be connected
with hereditary wealth. Two orders of nobility, earls and
barons, were provided for : one fifth of the land would be-
long forever to the proprietaries, another fifth to the nobili-
ty, reserving three-fifths only " for the people." The culti-
vators of the soil were to be perpetually degraded. " All
the children of the leet-men shall be leet-men, and so to
all generations;" and "negro slaves" were to be in the
absolute power of their masters. Of " the Grand Council,"
fifty in number, only " fourteen represented the Commons ; "
and their " term of office was for life." And, finally, " popular
enfranchisement was made an impossibility." In entire oppo-
sition to the first conceptions of freedom with which these
experimenters began, and against the wishes of Locke in
1669, executive and judicial power were placed beyond the
reach of the people. In a second draught of the constitu-
tion, the Church of England was established by law over a
population chiefly of nonconformists, who had fled to this
wilderness to obtain religious liberty.
This strange mixture of genius and folly, destined to be
alternately lauded to the skies and ridiculed as the product
of fevered brains, could become sovereign on paper, and in
royal decrees ; but it could never find its subjects. The rude
inhabitants of North Carolina had no use for this consum-
mate nonsense, and would not allow it to supersede their own
unpretending government, which sought simply the personal
-() THE GIIEAT KKPrr.LIC.
convenience and social rights of a self-developing population.
Lonu; after the vagaries of Locke and Shaftesbury were con-
signed to oblivion, lor more than fifty years, these primitive
regulations. •• confirmed by the population and re-enacted in
171-V continued to be the law of North Carolina.
Shaftesburv was an inlidel ; and doubtless, yielding to the
idea oi' a State religion as a political necessity, and, for the
time being, an indispensable part of an aristocratic govern-
ment, he relied upon the future development of the mate-
rialism concealed in the sensational philosophy of Locke, and
the philosophical scepticism of the age, to relieve his grand
colonv from what he deemed the superstitions of religion.
But his infidelity, with his theories of government, must give
place to the heart's devotion to God. and the truths of di-
vine revelation. Even the quaint and humble teachings of
William Edmonson the Quaker would be joyfully welcomed
to supply the long-felt spiritual wants of the people ; and the
land of the dreamy splendors of aristocratic despotism and
philosophic infidelity would become a quiet and grateful re-
treat to the eccentric but truly devout George Fox. whose
honest searchings of heart had reduced him and his followers
to the sternest simplicity and the most sublime self-denial.
With characteristic humility, he could say he found the
people " generally tender and open." and he had made - a
little entrance for truth." More pretentious men would
have said the people of North Carolina are turning Quakers;
while the candid historian must say the religion of the heart.
represented in the very plainest style, showed itself superior,
*• i »/ i
in adaptation to the wants of men. to either the formalism
of a State religion or the cool cruelty of inlidelitv.
While, therefore, we now see distinctly the hand of God
in overruling the schemes of men in the ibrmin<>- period oi'
CJ O I
{\u< State, we see also the same divine plan which we have
found elsewhere. The right and the wrong, the true and
the false, must come together, reveal their contrasts, and pass
through their struggles upon the same arena. Liberty was
THE SOUTHERN GROUP COMPLETED. 71
to be the grand law of Carolina ; but it must show its right
to power and duration by meeting and putting down the
tyranny from which it had in vain attempted to flee. Pure
religion must have a home in the hearts of the people ; but
it must contend with the wit and sarcasm of Shaftesbury and
the blind materialism of Locke. The State would be slave,
and group itself with Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware ;
but the period of emancipation, though long delayed, would
finally come. The institutions introduced by the power of
wealth and ambition, and sustained by the most persistent
energy, would finally give place to those of primitive sim-
plicity and divinely-inspired truth, though the spirit of re-
jected assumptions of authority and caste would descend
through a thousand invisible channels to vex and distress the
poor, and betray the proud folly of its deluded votaries.
SOUTH CAROLINA.
The boundaries of States within the territory of the fu-
ture Republic could not be determined in Europe. Grasping
proprietaries and dreaming speculators could fix them on
paper, and sovereigns define them in charters and edicts,
conceding kingdoms and empires to a few men or an individ-
ual ; but God, the great proprietor of the continent, adjusted
the settlements and the distinct jurisdictions to his own plans.
There was room for another State in Carolina on the sea-
board. Turbot said it was the " beauty and envy of North
America," destined rather, as we painfully know, to become
" the plague-spot " on the face of the nation.
The proprietaries founded a settlement of turbulent men
in the vicinity of Beaufort, in January, 1670. They were
under the superintendence of Joseph West, and were to be
governed in the name of the company by William Sayle,
most likely a Presbyterian. This first location was soon
abandoned.
The grand model of a perfect government had just been
72 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
completed by Locke and Shaftesbury ; and South Carolina was
to bo the scene of its complete demonstration. At least the
idea of caste, of government by hereditary wealth, of a long
line of illustrious families, a splendid nobility, and the deg-
radation of labor, must introduce itself early, must set up
its pretensions at the very foundation of South Carolina ; for
it was to make its most desperate struggle here against true
republican equality. For near two hundred years, it would
contend against the most sacred rights of man ; but it would
be promptly met by stubborn democratic antagonisms with
a vigor which promised and finally obtained a triumph.
The people were furnished at once with a copy of the
splendid Utopian scheme which was to make them nobles
and lords, and secure them indemnity from toil ; but the ma-
jority co-aid see no use for it. They were not ready. The
demands for shelter and bread were too urgent then for the
enjoyment of paper rank and artificial dignities. Repre-
sentative government would commence at the same time
that the claims of aristocratic government were set up.
They were to battle for centuries, and must face each other
promptly. Then there was the " landgrave," consisting of
John Locke, Sir John Yeamans. and James Carteret ; and
there were the representatives of the people. The High
Church with its partisans would, of course, be with the
former; but, for the present, the latter would show the great-
est strength, and govern in their own simple way. But '• the
aristocracy " would gain one great point. Slavery should be
recognized and established from the verv beginning. In the
other States of the Southern group, this vile institution was
thrust upon the people after they began to develop the re-
sources of the soil, and their own energies, in the natural
way; but South Carolina was slave from its verv foundation
upward. This would at least provide that the planters should
be saved from the servility of labor, and make them " gen-
tlemen." It miicht lav the foundation for an hereditary aris-
* •/
tocracy. and, at some future day, realize the splendid ideas
THE SOUTHERN GROUP COMPLETED. 73
of the founders of the colony. The climate favored the
plan of labor by Africans rather than Europeans ; but it
suggested nothing with regard to the destruction of their
original rights, and their reduction to the position of chattels.
About 1672, a few people settled on Oyster Point, which
gradually rose to the rank of a town, and was named for
Charles, the reigning monarch. A century later, it became
the growing commercial city of Charleston, a place of high-
est distinction in the trade and history of the South.
Now South Carolina becomes an attractive country to the
adventurers of New England and of New York ; and they
come to its magnificent groves, its land of flowers and sunny
skies, to seek an easier home. But especially the " impov-
erished Cavalier " and the High-Churchman see in this rising
colony strong inducements to emigrate, to attempt to im-
prove their fortunes, and build up an aristocratic government
and a State religion. But with them came, as Providence
willed, the intelligent industrious dissenters, fleeing from
discomfort and proscription at home to the wilds of Ameri-
ca, where they hoped to enjoy the sacred rights of con-
science, and freedom of worship. This steady advance of
parallel columns in the rising armies of Oppression and Lib-
erty cannot be an accident. It has been too long continued,
and implies the potent adjustment of too many contingencies,
to admit of the thought for a moment. It is here precisely
that we see the hand of God in the special preparations for
the future triumphs of the right.
Let us now turn to another grand movement in the devel-
opments of Providence. We have seen how disastrously the
attempts of French Protestants, under the great Coligny,
failed in Carolina. In a preceding chapter, we mourned over
the bloody destruction sent to their settlement by Spanish
cruelty under the domination of Rome. They were then
laboring for the aggrandizement of France, from whose per-
secuting tyranny they fled ; and they could not succeed : but,
10
74 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
as we saw, the Huguenots would eventually find a home in
the bosom of American freedom.
" John Calvin, by birth a Frenchman, was to France the
Apostle of the Reformation." God gave him and his fellow-
laborers great success in winning souls in that populous and
powerful kingdom. The struggle which arose with the Ro-
mish Church was protracted and fearful. Bloody supersti-
tion exacted its hecatombs of victims. The wily Madame
de Maintenon controlled the weak and bigoted Louis XIV.
The tolerating Edict of Nantes was revoked, and Justice bled
in her vales and in her high places. The humble peasant
and the noble prince fell together in witness of the truth,
that Jesus Christ had power on earth to forgive sins, without
the presence of ghostly confessor or intervening priest.
God was glorified in the humble boldness and triumphant
suffering of the martyrs of France.
A signal providence now appears, as in the days of the
apostles, in the dispersion of the saints. The north of Ger-
many, London, New England, New York, and other parts,
received accessions of skill and industry in the useful and
elegant arts from the bloody fields of France, at the same
time that the paradise above received the souls, and the
catacombs of Paris the bodies, of unnumbered thousands " for
the testimony of Jesus."
"But the warmer climate" of South Carolina "became
the chief resort of the Huguenots." Finally, from their
baptisms of blood, came " the fugitives from Languedoc on
the Mediterranean, from Rochelle and Saintange and Bor-
deaux, the provinces on the Bay of Biscay, from St. Quentin,
Poictiers, and the beautiful Valley of Tours, from St. Lo and
Dieppe. Men who had the virtues of the English Puritans,
without their bigotry, came to the land to which the toler-
ant benevolence of Shaftesbury had invited the believer of
every creed." *
* Bancroft, ii. 180, 181.
THE SOUTHERN GEOFP COMPLETED. 75
In Charleston and vicinity, these noble people found their
home ; and how grateful must have been the return of the
holy sabbath, when parents and children moved over the
waters, or through their groves of palmetto perfumed with
the odors of liberty and love, to their quiet church in Charles-
ton, where, with songs of gratitude and humble prayers, they
remembered their sorrows and their deliverance, and listened
to the simple and exalting truths of the gospel, with " none to
molest or make them afraid " ! We must needs emerge from
the sea of martyrdom to understand their joy. Well said
Judith, the wife of Pierre Manigault, " God hath done great
things for us in enabling us to bear up under so many tri-
als ; " and well might the pseans of victory rise from the
church of the Huguenots in Charleston.
Let us, however, note that this was God's gracious plan by
which South Carolina should receive some of her best blood
and noblest citizens from sunny France, and a strong infusion
of liberty from the firm and sturdy Protestantism of the
French Calvinists. Other portions of the United States
shared in the benedictions, which, under God, arose from the
horrors of Romish persecution.
We can now still better understand how it was that " the
company of courtiers" could not succeed well in establish-
ing their splendid forms of aristocratic government ; and why
their weakness must constantly appear, and gradually yield
before the gathering power of the people, whose ideas of
the rights and dignity of self-government rose with every
new emergency : for God had sent enough of the nonconfor-
mists of Virginia, the dissenters of England, and the Hu-
guenots of France, into South Carolina, to make the battle
for liberty heroic, and finally successful.
In process of time, however, the centre of the Southern
group would remove from Virginia to South Carolina, where
slavery was fundamental, and revealed its utmost malig-
nity.
76 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
GEORGIA.
Spanish pride was slow to surrender the rights of discov-
ery claimed on the Atlantic coast. The treaty which Eng-
land had extorted was held to be of no binding force, and
the resumption of jurisdiction over Carolina was only a
question of time. But these pretensions were becoming
every year more impracticable. So far from yielding to
them. England determined to crowd down still nearer to St.
Augustine. In 1717, it was seriously proposed -'to plant a
ne\v colony south of Carolina, in a region that was heralded
as the most delightful country of the universe." The time
was at hand, but under providential auspices entirely differ-
ent from the spirit of avarice which controlled the British
courtiers.
From the dark and loathsome prisons, where, simply for
the crime of poverty, thousands of British subjects sighed
and pined away their precious lives, a wail of distress came
up. which fell upon the ears of the noble philanthropist,
James Oglethorpe ; and his whole soul promptly respond-
ed to the voice of agony. lie went into those cells; he
listened to the tales of woe; he gazed upon the haggard
forms of wealth's suffering victims; he took up and echoed
their wail, until all England shuddered at the cry for justice
which smote the ears of lords and commons, of king and
subjects; and multitudes came out of their cells to breathe
again the pure air of heaven.
Oglethorpe interpreted Providence correctly. There must
be an advance step in the humanizing power of government.
These poor suflerers must get away from an administration
of law, which in theory, and very largely in English practice,
made the protection of property the grand aim of govern-
ment, and would, therefore, imprison a man for a trilling
debt, or hang him for petty theft. Even the savage wilds
of America might be a grateful retreat from such merciless
barbarity. Oglethorpe would found a colony; and George II.
THE SOTJTHEEN GROUP COMPLETED. 77
would grant a charter for the use of the famous country
" between the Savannah and the Altamaha, stretching from
the Atlantic to the Pacific," wholly and solely " in trust for
the poor." "Non sibi, sed aliis" was the noble motto
upon the corporate seal. Not for themselves, but for others,
did Oglethorpe and his friends undertake this grand enter-
prise.
This great man could not be induced to intrust to others
the execution of a plan so difficult, requiring so much sacri-
fice, and having such high claims to the patronage of God.
In November, 1732, with "about a hundred and twenty
emigrants," he embarked for the scene of his future toil.
After a voyage of fifty-seven days, he reached Charleston ;
exchanged civilities with the South-Carolinians ; and in Jan-
uary, 1733, located the principal town where Savannah now
stands. The emigrants soon arrived at their long-sought
home ; houses combining comfort with economy were con-
structed for the residence of governor and people alike;
and the great prison-philanthropist had become the founder
of a State which was to be "the place of refuge for the dis-
tressed people of Britain and the persecuted Protestants of
Europe."
The preparatory period of Georgian history is of high
moral significance, and of grave importance in this discus-
sion. The philanthropy of Oglethorpe was no transient
sentiment. It arose from a high sense of man's responsi-
bility to God. It was, therefore, living, vigorous, and prac-
tical. It was deeply imbued with religious principle and
motives, and therefore was consistent in its treatment of
men under all circumstances.
No promptings of avarice or ambition dictated cruelty
to the native race. Tomo-chichi, chief of the Yamacraws,
made to the governor a present of " a buffalo-skin painted
on the inside with the head and feathers of an eagle," and
beautifully said, "The feathers of the eagle are soft, and
signify love ; the buffalo-skin is warm, and is the emblem
78 T1IH CHEAT HKL'Ur.LIC.
of protection : therefore love and protect our little fami-
lies."--no vain appeal to a. heart so noble as that of Ogle-
thorpe. His fame spread among the natives of the forest.
Thev came from far oiF and near at his call to hear words
of peace, and accept his powerful protection. " We are
come." said the chief of Coweta. '/- twenty-five days' journey
to see von. I was never willing to go down to Charleston,
le-t I should die on the way; but when I heard you were
come, and that vou are good men. I came down that I might
hear good things." -—•• Call back," said Oglcthorpe. - your
kindred who loved you; recall the Yamnssees. that they
may he buried in peace among their ancestors, and may see
their graves before thev die." How beautiful the prompt-
ings of true Christianity! No wonder the Creeks and, Chero-
kees. and distant nations, numerous and powerful, sought and
received his kindly intervention to settle their tribal feiuK
and protect them from the cruel aggressions of the white
man. "The good faith of Oglethorpe in the offers of peace,
his noble mien, and sweetness of temper, conciliated the con-
fidence of the red men; and he in his turn was pleased with
their simplicity, and sought for means to clear the glimmer-
ing ray of their minds, to guide their bewildered reason,
and teach them to know the God whom they ignorantly
adored."*
We'll may the "persecuted Protestants" come hither from
Salzburg with their "Bibles, hymn-books, catechisms. a'id
books of devotion." beginning their " pilgrimage clieerfullv
in the name of (iod;" "after a discourse and prayer and
benediction." conversing as thev go. on the banks of the
Rhine, amid "hvmns and pravers. of justification and of
sanctification. and of standing fast in the Lord." How di-
vinely upborne were they amid the perils of a terrific storm
at sea as they raised their voices in prayer and song amidst
the tempest. " and {'eared no evil" How delightful to see
these " wayfaring men " met at Charleston bv the paternal
* Baiierof:, ii. 42.?, >< ff<j.
THE SOUTHEKN GROUP COMPLETED. 79
Oglethorpe, and conducted to the site of their own town !
They named it " Ebenezer : " and here they would sojourn
only for a time ; for their " home was beyond the skies."
"The grand success of Oglethorpe made the colony in-
crease rapidly by volunteer emigrants. 'His undertaking
will succeed/ said Johnson, the Governor of South Carolina ;
' for he nobly devotes all his powers to serve the poor, and
rescue them from their wretchedness.' ' He bears a great
love to the servants and children of God,' wrote the pastor
of Ebenezer. He has taken care of us to the utmost of
his ability. God has so blessed his presence and his regu-
lations in the land, that others would not accomplish in many
years what he has brought about in one." *
" Taking with him Torno-chichi and others of the Creeks,"
he returned to England in the interests of his colony. Feb. 6,
1736, he came back with three hundred emigrants, among
whom was the afterwards distinguished John Wesley, glow-
ing with missionary zeal, but as yet without evidence of the
new life within. Charles Wesley, thereafter to be one of the
greatest of lyric poets, was the governor's secretary. The
pious Moravians were here, and mark the presence of Chris-
tian faith in this new accession to the population of Georgia.
They landed, and ascended a rising ground not far from
Tybee Island, " where," said Wesley, " they all knelt, and re-
turned thanks to God for having safely arrived in Georgia."
We have proceeded far enough to find in this province
the ample and active presence of divine power, which we
have identified thus far everywhere in the formation of
these States ; and we should confidently expect to find this
agency developing and organizing here the elements of a
free government.
The laws were few, and exceedingly simple. The trustees
governed the colony in the absence of the governor. But
the civil rights of the people depended chiefly upon the
humane influence of Oglethorpe and his high sense of jus-
* Bancroft, iii. 425.
$0 THE CHEAT REPUBLIC.
tice. When he was absent, the people mourned, and thought
the laws of the trustees too stringent. Under control of the
highest motives, and hoping to prevent a monopoly of lands,
thev had unwisely ordained that the right of soil should
descend only to males. Far in advance of their times, they
enacted a stringent prohibitory liquor-law, which, high as it
was in its just morality, could not be enforced. They also
took a firm stand against slavery, which secures them an
elevated place in history, and speaks decisively for the effec-
tive power of Christianity in the judgments and life of Ogle-
thorpe. " No settlement was ever before established on so
humane a plan." In London, in 1734, it could be truthfully
said in praise of Georgia, " Slavery, the misfortune, if not
the dishonor, of other plantations, is absolutely proscribed.
Let avarice defend it as it will, there is an honest reluctance
in humanity against buying and selling, and regarding those
of our own species as our wealth and possessions." " The
name of slavery is here unheard, and every inhabitant is
free from unchosen masters and oppression." " Slavery,"
said Oglethorpe, ''is against the gospel as well as the funda-
mental law of England. We refused, as trustees, to make
a law permitting such a horrid crime." Brave words of a
noble man ! Happy had it been for the great State of
Georgia if they had been heeded. But we must take mourn-
ful note of the fact that the influence of those who were
termed '• the better sort of people in Savannah" finally pre-
vailed ; and against her own principles, against the high-
souled will of her noble founder, against the gospel as well
as the fundamental law of England, this -horrid crime" was
committed ; and, in other years, Georgia would, so far as pos-
sible, expiate her crime by the blood of her best citizens.
REVIEW.
Thus have we passed over the original colonies of the
Southern group. Later, Florida and the Gulf States would
THE SOUTHERN GKOUP COMPLETED. 81
be added to their number, and four in the Central West
receive the blighting curse ; and fifteen great States, other-
wise free, become the slaveholding confederated South.
The institution extended itself, by sufferance, speedily
through several of the Middle and Eastern States, but
yielded, not so much, we fear, to the force of principle as to
the resistance of the climate, — too cold for the negro, and
returning much higher profits from the labor of free white
people.
Here, again, our urgent question returns: If God in-
tended this vast and splendid country for the occupancy of
freedom, and for the development of a powerful homoge-
neous people, why did he suffer the intrusion of this antago-
nist institution ? Why must the grand natural development
of liberty be obstructed, and in so many ways defeated, *by
an antagonism so direct, and armed by the fearful power of
human selfishness ?
There is, as we understand, but one answer to these
interrogations. Man is free : and, in a state of trial, the
power to do right must involve the power to do wrong;
the appreciation and concession of personal rights upon
the principles of common brotherhood and humanity
must imply the power to withhold those rights upon prin-
ciples of selfishness and oppression. The disposition to
justice and benevolence must depend upon the extent to
which the great social law of Jesus Christ, "All things
whatsoever ye would that men should do to yon, do ye
even so to them," has taken possession of the soul, and con-
trolled its perverted self-love. The social wrongs of the
world are in direct opposition to the divine law of morality
expressed in another form, " Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself." The rights of man will be universally con-
ceded and fully honored, when by the new creation, and the
advancement of civilization, this law of love is universally
obeyed. Because it is not, and perverted self-love rises
above this great law of right, slavery is possible ; and, since
82 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
God did not forcibly interfere with human liberty, the bit-
ter wrongs of slavery fell upon our Southern States.
But God does frequently, by special interference, inter-
rupt and control the wrong tendencies of men. When such
restraint becomes a higher necessity than the indulgence of
abused freedom, then the abuse comes to an end, affording
another illustration of the revealed fact, "He maketh the
wrath of man to praise him, and the remainder he doth
restrain."
But there is in the toleration of slavery a still higher
manifestation of the divine purpose. He proposes no me-
chanical coerced freedom in this Great Republic, no feeble,
ephemeral growth of liberty, such as might be the result
of arbitrary protection and untried strength, but a sturdy,
masterly power, such as can only be the result of discipline,
of vigorous exercise and severe habit. What, then, could
be a higher manifestation of Divine Wisdom than to allow
this intense form of despotism to rise up in the very midst
of free institutions? If it must exist anywhere upon the
globe, it would seem well to import it even, to gather its
scattered elements from every part of the world, and con-
dense them into their most dreaded and terrific forms,
within the broad domain consecrated to freedom. Then let
oppression do its worst. Let it spread like leprosy upon
the body politic, and see whether or not it has power to
destroy the life of the nation. Bring up to the contest the
truest, purest form of social right known among men, and
see whether it can grapple, first with the moral, and then
with the physical force of tyranny. Let the dreaded con-
flict have a wide field and an ample range of time ; endow
the vile usurpation with all the power of wealth and social
distinction, with political skill and the highest culture ; and
let it demonstrate its most subtle and most daring force,
that the world may see whether civil and social wrong has
any limits, or whether it has power to subjugate, and stamp
into the earth, the liberties of the race.
THE SOUTHERN GROUP COMPLETED. 83
All this has been done before the eyes of men and angels
and God, and we are permitted to behold the glorious tri-
umph of the right. This day, liberty in the United States
of America is more perfectly denned, and armed with a more
potential life, than could ever have been possible if " the
vilest slavery that ever saw the sun," "the sum of all vil-
lanies," had not been here to assault and try its strength,
and, by the severest discipline to which the right on earth
was ever subjected, augment and develop its power, and
energize its action. Such transcendent skill has character-
ized the plans of God, that, by striking down oppression in
America, he has destroyed its dominant force, for the whole
race, and for all time to come.
CHAPTER VII.
i
A NEW ENGLAND EMERGES FROM THE OLD.
" The two or three main ideas which constitute the basis of the social theory of th«
United States were first combined in the Northern British Colonies, the States of New
England. They now extend their influence over the whole American world." — DH
TOCQUEVILLE.
WE now turn to a different quarter of the heavens, and
behold the morning star of freedom rising. Its soft and
pleasing light gives promise of a charming day.
We have traced the plans and movements of Providence
in the colonization of the South. We have seen the princi-
ple of liberty, struggling with old aristocratic forms, gradu-
ally gaining position, and working its way upward and out-
ward with the growing population. We have been struck
with its simplicity, vitality, and power.
At the same time, the principle and passion of despotism
have shown great strength. They have insisted with energy
upon the divine right of kings, upon the hereditary claims
of the governing class, and upon the right of sovereignty
over the New World. Whatever they have yielded to the
spirit of manly independence, rousing itself in Europe, and
assuming greater boldness in America, they have yielded
slowly, and with great reluctance. They continue through
the whole period of preparation, varying with the narrow or
broader views of the reigning sovereign, sustained by the
usurpations of a State religion, and finally grasping and tena-
ciously holding all the power of human slavery. We watch
the struggle with alternate hope and fear. We almost in-
voluntarily ask, Will the power of despotism extend over
the western hemisphere, and last forever ? Is there no home
80 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
But her problem was difficult. She was obliged and dis-
posed to carry the movement commenced by Henry VI IT.
forward to its legitimate results. lie had released the king-
dom from the political domination of Home : she must sever
it from the spiritual domination. She must show that the
Church of England, under the supreme control of the British
sovereign, was as verily the true Catholic Church as when
under the control of the Roman pontiff. She was Protest-
ant as against the assumptions of the pope, rather than as
against the superstitious rites and heretical dogmas of the
Church of Borne. She expected, therefore, and not wholly
without reason, to be able, by queenly grace and authority,
to induce Catholic conformity to the rule of the new virtual
pontillj and substantially the old Catholic Church.
Cranmer had done much to prepare the way for this re-
sult. In many respects a very great and good man, he was
yet a temporizer. With his conscience roused, and his heart
essentially Protestant, he deprecated persecution, and de-
voutly wished for the growth of true spiritual Christianity.
But. as a distinguished leader of the English hierarchy, he
founded the Church of England with high notions of priestly
authority and political expediency. It is, therefore, not a
reason for surprise that he ultimately forfeited the confidence
of botli parties, and fell a victim to his own inconsistencies.
But Elizabeth must persist in her efforts at conformity to
the divine right of prelacy and the State religion. Roman-
ists, accustomed to the art of dissimulation, would to some
extent seem to conform, but finally show that the supreme
headship of the pontiff at Rome was essential to Romanism:
and the Virgin Queen would feel the blow of excommunica-
tion, while her subjects were absolved from their allegiance
by a power that sovereigns had not ceased to dread.
But Elizabeth must grapple with another formidable
power. The Reformation was not a mere effort at political
emancipation. " Luther had based his reform upon the sub-
lime but simple truth which lies at the basis of morals,—
A NEW ENGLAND EMERGES FROM THE OLD. 87
the paramount value of character, and purity of conscience ;
the superiority of right dispositions over ceremonial exac-
tions ; " and against all papal and prelatical pretensions, im-
plying the confessional, indulgences, and priestly absolution,
had insisted upon "justification by faith alone." It was only
necessary for these grand doctrines to gain a clearer utterance
to insure their propagation and spiritual power. They were
essentially true, and hence immortal, and destined to win their
way to the ends of the earth.
England had long since received the evangelical leaven.
Wickliffe and his Bible, and a host of illustrious confessors
and martyrs, had sent these great truths down deep into the
religious consciousness of the nation ; and they were destined
to survive all persecution, and work their way up to the sur-
face, and all the more promptly and powerfully, now that
papal authority was renounced by the head of the realm.
Freedom of thought precedes freedom of expression, and
leads directly to it. " The spirit of inquiry rebelled against
proscription." Conformity to Romish superstitions and
pompous ceremonies, as a matter of " expediency," was de-
nounced as a crime ; and it soon began to be evident that
multitudes of the English people did not allow that they
had escaped from one form of ecclesiastical despotism to be
immediately involved in another. In other words, the spirit
of true piety would assert its right to worship God accord-
ing to the dictates of its own conscience.
"The austere principle was now announced, that not even a
ceremony should be tolerated, unless it was enjoined by the
word of God. And this was Puritanism. The Church of
England, at least in its ceremonial part, was established by
an act of parliament or a royal ordinance. Puritanism, zeal-
ous for independence, admitted no voucher but the Bible, —
a fixed rule which it would allow neither parliament nor
hierarchy nor king to interpret. The Puritans adhered to
the Established Church as far as their interpretations of the
Bible seemed to warrant, but no farther, not even in things
gg THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
of indifference. They would yield nothing in religion to
the temporal sovereign ; they would retain nothing that
seemed a relic of the religion which they had renounced.
They asserted the equality of the plebeian clergy, and direct-
ed their fiercest attacks against the divine right of bishops,
as the only remaining stronghold of superstition. In most
of these views, they were sustained by the reformers of the
continent." *
Here was a revolt from authority that was no sudden
impulse, no transient passion. It was Conscience rising up
to assert her rights ; it was deep-seated conviction ; it
was true manhood, ' under the inspirations of a new life, —
the life of the age, the life of the Reformation, — gradually
becoming " the life of God in the soul of man."
What would temporal and spiritual sovereignty do with
it ? Why, rise up and crush it. Its most numerous repre-
sentatives were "plebeians," common people. What right
had they to " prophesy " or to find fault with " the Church " ?
How could they expect consideration or mercy ? It was of
no use to parley with such obstinate heretics. Down with
them ! No, your Majesty : you do not understand these
people. Some of your wisest counsellors see the roots of
this " evil " striking deeper down- than you think. This is
a new England coming up which you have not known be-
fore : it is not merely Brown and " the conventicles ; " it is
the spirit of the age. Be careful how you treat it It will
rock the throne of England, and conduct royalty itself to
the block, if you don't take your foot off of it.
But power enthroned is blind, and the terrible contest will
go on. In 1571, the Thirty-nine Articles become the law of
the land. Parliament exacts belief, at first, only in those
which relate to the confession and the sacraments. But
even this show of toleration will soon disappear. The order
for absolute conformity is promulgated, and Protestant Po-
pery shows its persecuting, murderous spirit.
* Bancroft, i. 279.
A NEW ENGLAND EMERGES PROM THE OLD. 89
In 1583, Whitgift was in power, and there was no further
pretence of toleration. The forbearing disposition of Puritan-
ism was also wearing out. Those who wished only to reform
the Church of England, not to raise a new sect, could no
longer restrain the more ardent of their number ; and " sepa-
ratists" began to talk and act defiantly. What if two men
were hung for distributing Brown's " Tract on the Liberty
of Prophesying " ? " Independents " were fast rising above
the fear of death. The spirits who dared dissent were be-
coming very numerous : twenty thousand soon appeared
at the conventicles; and nothing but utter extermination
would put an end to this revolt from the usurpations of a
State religion. >•<
The weak, perfidious James would finally undertake to do
this. At first, the Puritans were misled by his bland and
flattering airs, his protestations of faith in the purity of their
principles and lives ; and began to trust him : but it was a
false confidence. He was too imbecile and licentious to be
honest. " The conference at Hampton Court," granted to the
nonconformists with a show of fairness, brought out his true
character. Foiled in his reliance upon argument, he soon
dispensed with it, and substituted despotic authority in its
place. "I will have none -of that liberty as to ceremonies,"
said he : " I will have one doctrine, one discipline, one religion
in substance and in ceremony. Never speak more to that
point how far you are bound to obey." " I will make them
conform, or I will harry them out of the land ; or else,
worse, only hang them : that's all." " If any would not be
quiet, and show their obedience, they were worthy to be
hanged."
Archbishop Whitgift was " the power behind the throne,"
and he was pleased. He had said before the conference, " I
have not been greatly quiet in mind, the vipers are so many;"
but the king's idea of "hanging" was wonderfully satisfac-
tory. "Your Majesty speaks by the special assistance of
God's Spirit," said he. Bishop Bancroft, on his knees, ex-
12
90 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
claimed that his heart melted for joy u because God had given
England such a king, as, since Christ's time, has not been."
But how grievously mistaken were these representatives
of persecuting, blasphemous bigotry ! As though the thrust
of a sword could kill a thought, or the axe of an executioner
could slaughter a principle !
The struggles of " dissent " from ceremonial worship es-
tablished by law had at length reached the result thus ad-
mirably summed up by Mr. Hildreth : " As the other tra-
ditions of the Church fell more and more into contempt, the
entire reverence of -the people was concentrated upon the
Bible, recently made accessible in an English version, and
read with eagerness, not as a mere form of words to be sol-
emnly and ceremoniously gone through with, but as an in-
spired revelation, as indisputable authority in science, politics,
morals, and life. It began, indeed, to be judged necessary by
the more ardent and sincere, that all existing institutions in
Church and State, all social relations, and the habits of every-
day life, should be reconstructed, and made to conform to
this divine model. Those who entertained these sentiments
increased to a considerable party, composed chiefly, indeed,
of the humble classes, yeomen, traders, and mechanics, but
including also clergymen, merchants, landed proprietors, and
even some of the nobility. They were derided, by those not
inclined to go with them, as Puritans [an honorable evi-
dence of their elevated standard of purity in heart and life] :
but the austerity of their lives and doctrines, and their con-
fident claim to internal assurance of a second birth and
special election as the children of God, made a powerful im-
pression on the multitude ; while the high schemes they en-
tertained for the reconstruction of society brought them into
sympathy with all that was great and heroic in the nation." *
In 1604, parliament showed an astonishing increase of Pu-
ritan strength. The advocates of freedom in religion were
a majority in the commons; and the boldness with which
» Hildreth, i. 153, 154.
A NEW ENGLAND EMERGES FROM THE OLD. 91
they defended their views showed that ruthless oppression
had failed, and the contest must go on. " The interests of
human freedom were at issue on the contest."
THE PURITANS BECOME PILGRIMS IN SEARCH OF LIBERTY.
The light of the Reformation would now, as ever hereafter,
be the guide of freedom. Luther had said, " The gospel is
every man's right, and it is not to be endured that any one
should be kept therefrom. But the evangel is an open doc-
trine : it is bound to no place, and moves along freely under
heaven, like the star which ran in the sky to show the wiz-
ards from the East where Christ was born. Do not dispute
with the prince for place. Let the community choose their
own pastor, and support him out of their own estates. If the
prince will not suffer this, let the pastor flee into another
land, ( and let those go with him who will, as Christ teaches.' "
These words are great, and, in the main, wise, as the
promptings of inspiration ; and they predict the plans of
Providence for the emancipation of conscience, and the ex-
tension of religious and civil freedom in the New World.
We have thus fully identified the spirit and the movement
out of which the colonization of New England and the lib-
erties of our country arose. We must now leave the great
mass of the Puritans to struggle with the usurpations of
prelacy and the divine right of kings ; to battle their way up
to the great Revolution ; to reveal their high virtues amid
bloody persecutions and unjust inflictions of power, — intend-
ed only to be " a terror to evil-doers and a praise to them that
do well," — until the head of the royal oppressor rolls in the
dust ; then to reveal their energy and their follies amid the
prosperity of the Protectorate ; and again to suffer under
the reigns of profligacy and bigotry after the Restoration,
sometimes stealing away alone to pray, and daring even
death itself to meet in " conventicles," and listen to the gos-
pel from the lips of men who would peril their lives for
92 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
" the liberty of prophesying ; " then scattered abroad like
the primitive saints after the stoning of Stephen, holding up
the cross amid foreign people, and calling wandering strangers
to the fountain of God's blessed word ; and finally becoming
a diffused element of freedom, a leaven of godliness amid
the nations, and especially the English, to appear in power
and glory after many days.
We must step back a few years to the later period of
Elizabeth's reign, where, in the north of England, we shall
find a small company, " a poor people," who " became en-
lightened by the word of God," " presently both scoffed and
scorned by the profane multitude, and their ministers urged
with the yoke of subscription ; " led by suffering " to see
that the beggarly ceremonies were monuments of idolatry,"
and that the lordly power of the prelates ought not to be
submitted to. Many of them, "whose hearts the Lord had
touched with heavenly zeal for his truth," resolved, " what-
ever it might cost them, to shake off the anti-Christian bond-
age, and, as the Lord's free people, to join themselves by a
covenant into a church estate in fellowship of the gospel."
" Of the same faith with Calvin, heedless of acts of parlia-
ment, they rejected ' the offices and callings, the courts and
canons,' of bishops, and, renouncing all obedience to human
authority in spiritual things, asserted for themselves an un-
limited and never-ending right to make advances in truth,
and ' walk in all the ways which God had made known or
should make known to them.' " * John Robinson, " a man
not easily to be paralleled," was the pastor of this despised
and persecuted primitive flock.
Probably through the agency of William Brewster, their
attention was directed to Holland, " where, they heard, was
freedom of religion for all men." They loved their home ;
but they would leave it, and live anywhere, only so that they
could have liberty to pray and prophesy according to the
dictates of conscience.
* Bancroft,;. 299-301.
A NEW ENGLAND EMERGES FKOM THE OLD. 93
In 1608, after a costly failure the year before, the men
had moved out to their ship ; but the vigilance of the gov-
ernment, which made it a crime to flee from persecution,
detected them. " A company of horsemen appeared in pur-
suit, and seized on the helpless women and children who had
not yet adventured on the surf. Pitiful it was to see the
heavy care of these poor women in distress : what weeping
and crying on every side ! " At last the magistrates, seeing
no way to punish them for devotion to their husbands and
fathers, " glad to be rid of them on any terms," suffered them
to depart, " though, in the mean time, they, poor souls ! en-
dured misery enough."
Robinson, Brewster, and their little church, were now on
the water; and henceforth they were " pilgrims." They were
shortly in Amsterdam, but had no assurance that this was
their home. " They knew that they were PILGRIMS, and looked
not much on those things, but lifted up their eyes to heaven,
their dearest country, and quieted their spirits."
In 1609, they were in Ley den, when " they saw poverty
coming on them like an armed man." However, " careful to
keep their word, and painful and diligent in their callings,"
they soon reached " a comfortable condition, grew in the gifts
and grace of the Spirit of God, and lived together in peace
and love and holiness." " Never," the magistrates said, " did
we have any suit or accusation against any of them." Noble
testimony ! Now the hope of prosperity dawned upon them.
" Many came there from different parts of England, so as they
grew a great congregation." They seemed to approach near
to " the primitive pattern of the first churches," " such was
the humble zeal and fervent love of this people towards God
and his ways, and their single-heartedness and sincere affec-
tion one towards another." *
But they were not to remain here. God would make use
of the bitter hatred of James, reaching to the Continent,
and of the shyness of their brother Puritans, and of poverty
* Bancroft, i. 303.
94 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
and crushing toil, to stir them up to seek a permanent set-
tlement in the New World. Even " their children, sharing
their parents' burdens, bowed under the weight, and were
becoming decrepit in early youth."
God would thrust them out, but not under the patronage
of Holland. Englishmen were to found the great governing
colonies of the New World. Persecuted, and exiled from
their native land, the " Pilgrims " were yet loyal English
patriots, and would seek reconciliation with their govern-
ment, so as to go out in search of a new province for James,
their bitter persecutor.
John Carver and Robert Cushman made the attempt, in
the name of the Church of the Pilgrims, in 1617. They took
over "the Seven Articles;" proposed to have "liberty to settle
in the most northern parts of Virginia," " to live in a distinct
body by themselves." They would consent to the Thirty-nine
Articles, of course with their own Calvinistic interpretation;
and " towards the king, and all civil authority derived from
him, including bishops, whose civil authority they alone rec-
ognized, they promised, as they would have done to Nero
or the Roman pontiff, ' obedience in all things, — active if
the thing commanded be not against God's word, or passive
if it be/ "
The Virginia Company and the London Company thought
favorably of so good a prospect of adding new resources to
their colonies by such accessions of industry and persistent
energy as these men represented ; but they must refer the
matter to higher authority. The great Lord Bacon was to
be consulted before their petition could be granted by " the
king, for liberty of religion, to be confirmed under the king's
broad seal." Bacon was an active patron of the colonists
everywhere, and, from the necessities of philosophy, inclined
to free toleration. This, however, was theory merely. Prac-
tically he was "a crown courtier and an intolerant statesman."
He therefore answered, " Discipline by bishops is fittest for
monarchy of all others. The tenets of separatists and sec-
A NEW ENGLAND EMERGES FROM THE OLD. 95
taries are full of schism, and inconsistent with monarchy.
The king will beware of Anabaptists, Brownists, and others
of their kinds : a little connivancy sets them on fire. For
the discipline of the Church in colonies, it will be necessary
that it agree with that which is settled in England, else it
will make a schism and a rent in Christ's coat, which must
be seamless ; and, to that purpose, it will be fit, that by the
king's supreme power in causes ecclesiastical, within all his
dominions, they be subordinate under some bishop and bish-
opric of this realm. This caution is to be observed, that
if any transplant themselves into plantations abroad who
are known schismatics, outlaws, or criminal persons, they
be sent for back upon the first notice."
Let the reader mark, that Providence did by no means in-
tend to release his people from the strengthening power of
severe discipline. He therefore, in this crisis of their strug-
gles for self-emancipation, brought them into direct collision
with the most stringent and vicious forms of oppressive bigot-
ry. Still they were to be allowed to go. James, the Pharaoh
of his country and times, must think the enlargement of his
dominions " a good, an honest motive j and fishing was an
honest trade, the apostles' own calling." He would refer the
matter to the prelates of Canterbury and London, and go on
with his persecutions against the Puritans of Lancashire. In
the mean time, a " promise of neglect " was all the anxious
Pilgrims could obtain, and all the plans of God would allow.
Discipline cleared up their vision, and they reasoned well.
" If there should afterwards be a purpose to wrong us, though
we had a seal as broad as the house-floor, there would be
means enough found to recall or reverse it. We must rest
herein on God's providence." Thus they were brought to
the most perfect renunciation of dependence upon man, and
to the simplest forms of trust in God.
They were, however, to be reached by another temptation.
The want of means turned even the iron-willed Robinson to
the Dutch ; but this unwise expedient was overruled.
9Q THE GUEAT REPUBLIC.
At List, in 1010, -the Virginia Company" - in open court
demanded our ends of going ; which being related, they said
the thing was of Clod, and granted ;i large patent.''
Resolved no\v not "to meddle with the Dutch, or to de-
pend too much on the Virginia Company." relying upon Clod
and their own endeavors, they made ready to depart.
Onlv a part of the community could embark at a time in
'• The Speedwell " and " The Mayflower :" so the pastor re-
mained with those who were to be left behind, and Brewster
went forward with "such of the youngest and strongest as
freely offered themselves."
God must be solemnly recognized in fasting and prayer.
" Let us seek of God a right way for us and for our little
ones, and for all our substance.'' Read now the lofty breath-
ings of liberty from the consecrated soul of Robin-on. in his
farewell address : —
" 1 charge you. before God and his blessed angels, that you
follow me no farther than you have seen me follow the Lord
Jesus Christ. The Lord has more truth yet to break forth
out of his llolv Word. 1 cannot sufficiently bewail the con-
dition of the reformed churches, who are come to a period
in religion, and will go at present no farther than the in-
struments of their reformation. Luther and Calvin weie
great and shining lights in their times ; yet they penetrated
not into the whole counsel of God. 1 beseech you re-
member it, --'tis an article of your church covenant. -
that you be ready to receive whatever truth shall be made-
known to you from the written word of God." These far-
reaching instructions may well be deemed equivalent to the
.suggestions of inspirations.
One scene more before the departure. " When the ship
was ready to carry us away," writes Edward Winslow, " the
brethren that staid at Levden ai:;ain solemnly sought the
» o •/ O
Lord with us and for us; feasted us that were to go at our
pastor's house, being large; where we refreshed ourselves,
after tears, with singing of psalms, making joyful melody
A NEW ENGLAND EMERGES FROM THE OLD. 97
in our hearts as well as with the voice, there being many
of the congregation very expert in music : and, indeed, it
was the sweetest melody that ever mine ears heard. After
this, they accompanied us to Delfthaven, where we went to
embark, and there feasted us again ; and after prayer per-
formed by our pastor, when a flood of tears was poured
out, they accompanied us to the ship, but were not able
to speak one to another for the abundance of sorrow to
part. But we only, going aboard, gave them a volley of
small-shot and three pieces of ordnance ; and so, lifting
up our hands to each other and our hearts for each other
to the Lord our God, we departed."
It would seem very strange that any sifting or reduction
of this small force for the founding of free institutions in
the New World should be required or even allowed. But
God sees not as man sees. He who, for an important mili-
tary undertaking, reduced the army of Gideon, made choice
of one of the two vessels chartered to bear the Pilgrims to
America. " The Speedwell," unseaworthy, could return to
England, "and those who are willing return to London,
though this was very grievous and discouraging;" while
" The Mayflower, " freighted with " one hundred and two
souls," could move on to her providential destination. " On
the sixth day of September, 1620, thirteen years after the
first colonization of Virginia, two months before the conces-
sion of the grand charter of Plymouth, without any warrant
from the sovereign of England, without any useful charter
from a corporate body, the passengers in ' The Mayflower '
set sail for a new world, where the past could offer no favor-
able auguries." * They propose to make the mouth of the
Hudson; but, under the guidance of Providence, they are
sailing toward " the rock-bound coast," named years before,
by the gallant Capt. John Smith, New England.
See that frail " pilgrim craft afloat upon the waste of wa-
ters " ! Will not she go down amid the surges of ocean as
* Bancroft, i. 308.
98 THE GUE AT REPUBLIC.
she " leaps madly from billow to billow " ? No : those are the
chosen of God. No surges of ocean can overwhelm them,
from which they will not emerge ; no weapon formed against
them can prevail. In the land of oppression, they had sighed
for liberty. They had tasted its sweets, and seen its golden
light, until at length, as God ordained, in comparison with
it, property and home and friends lost their power to charm ;
and they would go to a wild and savage land in pursuit of
one object alone, — ''freedom to worship God." There was
no danger to "The Mayflower." She was "the ark of a
deluged world." She would bear proudly and gallantly her
precious burden to her predestined haven. "The model Re-
public was in ' The Mayflower.' "
THE PILGRIMS HAVE FOUND LIBERTY.
The ocean was very boisterous, and the voyage one of ex-
treme peril ; but, after sixty-five days of sailing and praying,
"The Mayflower" rounded the hook of Cape Cod, and cast
anchor in a quiet harbor. The landing, however, must not
be made until they had determined the fundamental form of
their government; and thus they wrote and covenanted: —
'• In the name of God, amen. We whose names are under-
written, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign, King James,
having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement
of the Christian faith, and honor of our king and country, a
voyage to plant the first colonv in the northern parts of Vir-
ginia, do, bv these presents, solemnlv and mutuallv. in the
> »/ »/ «/ -
presence of God. and one of another, covenant and combine
ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better
ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends afore-
said ; and, by virtue hereof, to enact, constitute, and frame
such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and
oflices, from time to time, as shall be thought most conve-
nient for the general good of the colony. Unto which we
O £j «/
promise all due submission and obedience."
A NEW ENGLAISTD EMERGES FEOM THE OLD. Q9
How admirably clear and concise is this great document!
Never were more important words written by uninspired
men. They were no rebels against the crown of England ;
and hence they declare their loyalty to James, their lawful
sovereign according to apostolic order. But they formed
"a civil body politic," and thus asserted the right to self-
government. Who had a right to forbid them ? They had
suffered every thing but death, sacrificed all the endearments
of home, become pilgrims on earth, all to be free ; and they
would be free, they were free : and as if all unconscious of
the nobleness of soul which gave formal utterance to these
exalted principles, and regardless of the fearful struggles it
would cost to maintain them, they resolved to act as law-
makers and civil rulers, simply and only "for the general
good of the colony."
But it should be henceforth impossible to misunderstand
them. They were not a company of mercenary adven-
turers. Their personal convenience and worldly interests
were all subordinate to a lofty Christian purpose, which men
purely selfish would find it impossible to comprehend. They
had undertaken this whole daring enterprise " for the glory
of God, and advancement of the Christian faith." This is
the highest conception of man on earth, the loftiest moral
grandeur within the range of human thought and expres-
sion ; and, despite all the frailties and errors inevitably hu-
man appearing in their future, history nobly vindicates the
sincerity and practical effectiveness of this high resolve.
The record and the deeds are immortal.
And let it not be forgotten that this was clear, unquestion-
able advance in the assertion of human rights. In the Pil-
grims, the race had stepped forward of its boldest ventures
in the direction of civil liberty. There had been republics
before ; high claims had been set up for the rights of man in
the Old World and the New, and death-struggles had been
risked to vindicate them: but "this was the birth of popular
constitutional liberty." *
« Bancroft, i. 310.
100 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
Well indeed it was that an attempt so bold, and defiant
of precedents and power, an achievement so improbable,
should be undertaken " in the name of God ; " that a covenant
so holy, and bearing in its bosom the fate of uncounted mil-
lions, should be made " in the presence of God," and avowed-
ly and sincerely " for the glory of God and the advancement
of the Christian faith." In this alone there was hope of
success ; and we shall see, as we advance, that our Pilgrim
Fathers had thus identified and recognized the essential life-
force of the great American system, — the vital active sov-
ereignty of God. Well, therefore, did President Stiles say,
in 1783, "It is certain that civil dominion was but the
second motive, religion the primary one, with our ances-
tors, in coming hither, and settling this land. It was not
so much their design to establish religion for the benefit of
the State, as civil government for the benefit of religion,
and as subservient, and even necessary, to the peaceable
enjoyment and unmolested exercise of religion, — of that
religion for which they fled to these ends of the earth."
CHAPTER VIH.
COLONIZATION AND LIBERTY IN MASSACHUSETTS.
" Soon after the Reformation, a few people came over for conscience' sake. This
apparently trivial incident may transfer the great seat of empire into America." —
JOHX ADAMS.
OUR Christian emigrants land on Cape Cod, just in the rear
of our present beautiful Provincetown ; but they touch the
land only to thank God, and begin the work of exploration
for the site of their town. Their home is yet in " The May-
flower." It was chilly November. " It snowed, and did blow
all the day and night, and froze withal." They must be in
haste to prepare for their shivering families a cover from
the storms of winter. Standish and Bradford could not wait
sixteen days for repairing the shallop. Regardless of perils
from the Indians, they pushed out by land, but found no
place for a settlement. The shallop was now out coasting
for some fair haven and for the land of promise ; but those
who landed to search "were tired marching up and down
the steep hills and deep valleys, which lay half a foot thick
with snow." Thanks to Providence, the Indians had buried
a little corn there for this dreadful time of need. Brave
men continue the search. The war-whoop and death-arrows
salute them as they rise from their morning prayers. " The
Mayflower " moves along the coast, and seems about to wreck
amid a storm of dreadful fury ; but God moves a sailor to cry
out to her frightened pilot, "About with her, or we are cast
away! " " About " she turns, skims over the surf, arid is safe.
Noble men are on the land ; demands are urgent : but they
will by no means break the holy sabbath. On Monday they
101
102 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
are in " The Mayflower," and she moves cautiously. At length,
on the " eleventh day of December, old style, the exploring
party of the forefathers land " on the rock henceforth to be
sacred in history as the place on which New-England freedom
first firmly set her foot and began her mighty work.
Such men as our Pilgrim sires would not have been the
world's choice for the founding of a new empire, at least not
with the unpropitious events which crowded around Plym-
outh Rock. But what wisdom and foresight could have
been more evidently infinite ? The Pilgrims were a hardy
race, a firm, enduring stock. Trained to self-reliance under
the direct guidance of Providence, baptized in the sea of
suffering, they had the certain combinations of vast and
irresistible power. Purer, nobler blood never flowed in An-
glo-Saxon veins. Religion was their element, their grand
controlling power. They must worship. The triune Jehovah
had revealed himself to them, and they were divinely moved
to adore him in spirit and in truth, in public and in private ;
and when, in the land of their birth, they found they could
not, they fled as from the plague, ready to go to the ends
of the earth for the privilege of hearing the pure gospel
preached, and offering up fervent prayers without the pres-
ence of a domineering, execrable censorship.
They threw open the Holy Bible, and bade their sons
and their daughters look in and see heaven's own light
with their own eyes, before they were tempted to believe
that only a dismal night of scepticism and woe was reserved
for this guilty state.
What could be more evident than the movement of a
God among the suffering ones of the Old World, in stirring
the spirft of enterprise, pouring dauntless courage into
their throbbing bosoms, selecting the choicest among them,
imbuing them with the spirit of a new social system, and
COLONIZATION AND LIBERTY IN MASSACHUSETTS. 103
guiding them to the chosen land ? What but Divinity
could have produced such recognitions of his sovereign
authority, the acceptance of a mission so mysterious and so
difficult, and the high resolves and sustained energy mani-
fest in every step of their wonderful career ?
They were here at length to toil, to battle, to pray, and
at length to die, but not until they had sent their heroic
blood coursing down through the veins of future generations
to the end of time. Here they would bravely enact the
pledges of their farewell address on the strand of Delfthaven
on the morning of their embarkation. " We are actuated,"
they said, " by the hope of laying some foundation, or making
way for the propagation of the kingdom of Christ to the re-
mote ends of the earth, though we shall be but the stepping-
stones to others." "Laying some foundation." Yes; and
what a foundation they laid ! The lapse of ages will but
suffice to show its amazing solidity and breadth. " The king-
dom of Christ." How sublimely their ideas of government
and the destiny of man rose above the grovelling concep-
tions of avarice and ambition ! " The propagation of the
kingdom of Christ to the remote ends of the earth." Did
ever a feeble colony venture upon the heaving bosom of the
ocean, to plant themselves upon a foreign shore amid wild
and merciless savages, for such an object as this ? The truth
is, the whole movement was, in all its grand features, super-
human, a clear demonstration of a reigning Divinity in the
affairs of men.
The period of this colonization was timely. Had it been
" immediately on the discovery of the American continent,
the old English institutions would have been planted un-
der the powerful influence of the Roman-Catholic religion ;
had the settlement been made under Elizabeth, it would have
been before activity of the popular mind in religion had con-
ducted to a corresponding activity in politics ; " ' had it
been before the orders for conformity and the bitter perse-
cutions for attempts to exercise the rights of conscience,
* Bancroft, i. 308.
104 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
New England might have been settled, like Virginia, by the
advocates of prelacy and the divine right of kings. The
deadly incubus of caste, and of aristocratic exemptions from
labor, and the expenses of government, would have borne
down New England to the level of the old civilization. But
the omniscient God had all these contingencies before him,
and controlled the events which were likely to interfere with
the certainty and high moral purposes of his general plan.
Hence it was not courtiers nor nobles, not the scions of worn-
out pretending families, but hard-handed, brave-souled, prac-
tical men, who were to colonize New England ; and, at the
right time, Providence sent them out on their great mission.
PLYMOUTH COLONY.
Who can describe the gratitude and joy of these wander-
ing pilgrims ? True, they were shivering with cold ; they were
surrounded by savages whose hostility they must dread even
when they seemed to be friendly. Fierce hunger gnawed
at their vitals, and gaunt famine stared them in the face ;
but their Christian heroism endured the trial. They knelt
as they stepped upon the rock, and poured out their souls
in prayer to Him whose glory they sought ; and he heard
and answered.
They proceeded at once to build a town ; and what should
they call it ? On the map made by Capt. Smith, the harbor
had been called " Plymouth." They had finally sailed from
Plymouth in dear Old England. It was providential : they
were in Plymouth again in New England ; and Plymouth it
should be.
Now God appeared in charge of this vast but unimposing
interest. He moved the savages to say, " Welcome, English-
men ! " or, when they would not listen to moderate counsel,
he would permit the redoubtable Standish to scatter them
as chaff before the wind. He would give the emigrants
Indian corn and fish and game enough to keep the colony
COLONIZATION AND LIBERTY IN MASSACHUSETTS. 1Q5
from extinction by starvation, and yet he would drive them
by hunger and want to the cultivation of the soil.
They had commenced to exercise the rights of freemen ;
but would this be tolerated ? Would the crown be satisfied
with assurances of loyalty in every thing not in conflict with
the word of God, and grant them civil and religious freedom?
It was at least very improbable.
At the end of a year, thirty-five additional colonists arrived;
and Cushman was with them. He brought a patent for the
Pilgrims from the Council for New England. This made
Massachusetts distinct from Virginia. They could not be
identical. Their settlements were too remote ; and they were
to represent rival, and in some respects antagonist ideas of
man and liberty. They must demonstrate their theories, and
try the strength of their opposing principles, quite apart from
each other, before the great facts of their unity could become
evident and practical.
Cushman would make but a brief stay ; lecture the peo-
ple severely " on the sin and danger of self-love ; " gather
his cargo of " furs, sassafras, clapboards, and wainscots," worth
about twenty-four hundred dollars; and hasten back to report
to " the merchant adventurers " the prospects of their invest-
ments in money and Puritan industry for seven years. He
would also become "a confidential agent" of the Plymouth
Colony in London. We can but wish he had brought over
a supply of provisions in " The Fortune," as the colonists were
near to starving ; and that he had succeeded in securing a
charter of liberty from the government : but they must do
without this charter until they have full opportunity to
strengthen their self-reliance, and battle energetically with
conservative repression at home.
LIBERTY REVEALS HER FORM AND STRENGTH.
How much we wish that good John Robinson could come
from Leyden with the company left behind, when the Pil-
14
106 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
grims sail from Delfthaven ! He would be a power in the
struggles with the crown. But he never came. By the
cruel plottings of " the adventurers in England." he was re-
fused a passage ; and the Church of the Pilgrims must be
denied the privilege of hearing the voice and receiving the
care of their own beloved pastor, that bigoted Churchmen
might force upon them the yoke of a State religion and the
services of a dreaded ritual. This, as it was fit, would be
one of the first issues with the despotism from which they
had fled. " The character of the Church had for many years
been fixed by a sacred covenant. As the Pilgrims landed,
their institutions were already perfected. Democratic liberty
and independent Christian worship at once existed in Amer-
ica." * This principle they could therefore by no means give
up. u For the first eight yeaf s, there was no pastor " but
Robinson in Holland. " Lyford, sent out by the London part-
ners," makes the attempt to bring them under the control
of Church authority ; but he is rejected, and expelled from
the colony. They prefer to worship in their own simple
way, and wait the action of Providence to give them a pas-
tor after their own hearts. The fort they had erected for
defence against the Indians became their house of worship,
as near to heaven and acceptable to God as any gorgeous
cathedral in England. " Brewster, the ruling elder, and such
private members as had the gift of prophecy, officiated as
exhorters. On Sunday afternoons, a question was propound-
ed, to which all spoke who had any thing to say." -J- So the
Pilgrims stand firm, and refuse yet to come under the bond-
age of ceremonies. I suppose the Yankees have the irrev-
erence to smile, even at this day, when they read, that, in
1623, Robert Gorges, the son of Sir Ferdinand, " appointed
lieutenant-general of New England, with power l to restrain
interlopers ' not less than to regulate the affairs of the corpo-
ration," brought with him one " Morrill, an Episcopal clergy-
man, who was provided with a commission for the superin-
* Bancroft, i. 313. t Hildreth, i. 175.
COLONIZATION AND LIBERTY IN MASSACHUSETTS. 107
tendence of ecclesiastical affairs. Instead of establishing a
hierarchy, Merrill, remaining in New England about a year,
wrote a description of the country in verse ; while the civil
dignity of Robert Gorges ended in a short-lived dispute with
Weston. They came to plant a hierarchy and a general
government, and they produced only a fruitless quarrel and
a dull poem." *
" The grand charter of Plymouth " neither advanced nor
impeded New England in matters of civil liberty. Neither
their independence nor thrift waited for charter rights. Go-
ing on with their characteristic plan of managing for them-
selves, they bought out the " English adventurers," whose
capital had furnished the means for beginning their colony.
Submitting to a monopoly from eight of their own number
for six years, they began to assert the rights of property in
their own labor, and work their way up to business independ-
ence.
And all this was done in the name of religion, and in
firm dependence upon Almighty God. His guidance was
humbly invoked upon every occasion, and the promotion of
his glory avowed as the grand motive of all their resistance
o i/ c>
to tyranny, and vigorous efforts to constitute a government
upon the basis of justice. To divest the history of Massa-
chusetts of its divine element would be to utterly destroy it.
COLONIES INCREASE.
Plymouth will soon be the centre of a neighborhood of
colonies. Englishmen were rapidly coming to the apprehen-
sion that a splendid empire would some day arise in America.
A lucrative trade seemed to be easily within reach, and they
promptly grasped for advantages which might soon be be-
yond reach.
^ An early attempt at a settlement near Weymouth had
resulted disastrously. This was now renewed. But the most
* Bancroft, i. 326.
108 THE GEE AT KEPUBLIC.
important demonstration began in 1624, near Cape Ann. It
was meant to be a profitable business enterprise; but it
received a higher impulse from " White, a minister of Dor-
chester, a Puritan, but not a Separatist. Roger Conant,
having already left New Plymouth for Nantasket," became
the agent and the hero of this adventure. The merchants,
discouraged by the want of profits, settled honorably with
those they had employed, and gave up " the unprofitable
scheme ; " but Conant, " inspired as it were by some supe-
rior instinct," united with White and a few others, determined
to persist in the endeavor to establish a colony ; " and, mak-
ing choice of Salem as opening a convenient place of refuge
for the exiles for religion, they resolved to remain as sen-
tinels of Puritanism on the Bay of Massachusetts."
In 1628, four years later, a more formidable combination
of Puritan strength and enterprise appears in England for
the religious colonization of New England. " The constraints
of the English laws, and the severities of the English hie-
rarchy," threw the advocates of freedom more fully than ever
upon the care of Providence. Great names, and men full of
business energy and religious zeal, are found in the organi-
zation which followed. They wished " a charter from the
crown," obtained the friendship of the Earl of Warwick and
Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and secured from the Council of
Plymouth for New England " a large district on the Charles
River." " Endicott, who, ' ever since the Lord in mercy had
revealed himself unto him,' had maintained the straitest
judgment against the outward form of God's worship as
prescribed by English statutes ; a man of dauntless courage,
and that cheerfulness which accompanies courage ; benevo-
lent, though austere ; firm, though choleric ; of a rugged
nature, which his stern principles of nonconformity had not
served to mellow, — was selected as a ' fit instrument to begin
the wilderness-work.' " With " his wife and family, the hos-
tages of his irrevocable attachment to the New World," he
arrived in September. His party, with those he found there,
COLONIZATION AND LIBERTY IN MASSACHUSETTS. 1Q9
numbered some fifty or sixty ; and with these he " founded
the oldest town in the colony, soon to be called Salem," and
with eagle eye began to move about the future " hub of the
universe."
" Thomas Walford, a blacksmith," was now at Charles-
town ; " William Blackstone, an Episcopal clergyman," was
on the opposite peninsula ; " Samuel Maverick, son of a
pious nonconformist minister," but " himself a prelatist,"
was on " the island now known as East Boston ; " and " strag-
glers " were " at Nantasket and farther south." A small be-
ginning, one would say, for the elegant commercial city of
Boston, " the Athens of America," only a little more than
two hundred years ago. Let us hope that " the unruly com-
pany in what is now Quincy " profited by the faithfulness
of our Puritan governor, who " visited them in person,"
and " rebuked them for their profane revels, and monished
them to look there should be better walking."
We now come to an epoch of great importance in the
history of America. A new monarch had ascended the
throne of England. Urged by "the time-serving courtier,
Lord Dorchester," and prompted by fear of the Dutch, who
u were already trading in the Connecticut River," and the
French, who " claimed New England as within the limits of
New France," and discouraged by the repeated failures
of " the prelatical party," and finally moved by " an offer of
' Boston men ' that promised good to the plantation," on
the 4th of March, 1629, " a few days only before Charles I.,
in a public State paper, avowed his purpose of reigning
without a parliament, the broad seal of England was put to
the letters-patent for Massachusetts."
" The charter, which was cherished for more than half a
century as the most precious boon, constituted a body politic
by the name of the Governor and Company of the Massa-
chusetts Bay in New England." The " governor, deputy, and
eighteen assistants," were to be " elected annually by the
freemen or members of the corporation." This was a most
HO THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
important concession, made by a despotic sovereign. Provi-
dence directed the profligate Charles II. to record the judg-
ment, that " the principle and foundation of the charter of
Massachusetts was the freedom of liberty of conscience ; "
and would see that the privileges it conferred should be
passed over unimpaired to the struggling Puritans of New
England. The advocates of prelacy and civil despotism
would not emigrate in large numbers to the land of trials
and fanatical reformers; but swarms of praying Pilgrims
would come hither, and be sure to construe every word of
the charter, and the very neglects of the king, in favor of
their own asserted rights. This alone was necessary to found
successfully the great free State of Massachusetts.
With this charter came a goodly company of emigrants,
and just in time to revive the drooping spirits of the rem-
nants of former colonists settled in and about Salem.
Charlestown received a portion of the new population, and a
town was laid out " about the hill." Higginson, the ordained
teacher of Salem, availed himself of the press to rouse atten-
tion in England to the claims of this new country, and was
successful. " The concessions of the Massachusetts charter
seemed to the Puritans like a summons from heaven, inviting
them to America ; " and on they came.
The 28th of July, 1629, marks another grand transition
period in the history of freedom in America. On this day,
" Matthew Cradock, governor of the company," proposed
"the transfer of the government of the plantation to those
that should inhabit there;" and this would bring "persons
of worth and quality " to the New World. " Wealthy com-
moners, zealous Puritans, were confirmed in the desire of
founding a new and a better commonwealth beyond the At-
lantic, even though it might involve the sale of their heredi-
tary estates, and hazard the inheritance of their children."
Now the noble Winthrop appears with his eleven associ-
ates, who " bound themselves in the presence of God, by the
word of a Christian, that if, before the end of September,
COLONIZATION AND LIBERTY IN MASSACHUSETTS.
an order of the court should legally transfer the whole
government, together with the patent, they would them-
selves pass the seas to inhabit and continue in New Eng-
land." Singularly enough, " two days after this covenant
had been executed, a general consent appeared, by the
erection of hands, that the government and patent should
be settled in New England." Henceforth the officers of the
colony would reside in the midst of the people.
The new emigration set forward ; and, " during the season
of 1630, seventeen vessels brought over not far from a thou-
sand souls, beside horses, kine, goats, and all that was most
necessary for planting, fishing, and ship-building."
John Winthrop was elected governor, and he was a man
of rare excellences. Mild, loving, and firm, he was well
adapted to overcome the discontents of his comrades. A
royalist and conformist at home, he, nevertheless, had a
strong desire for "gospel purity," and the highest forms
of liberty under the British Government. He would be an
heroic representative of the transition period from the Ref-
ormation to Republicanism, an inflexible defender of order
and progressive freedom.
Salem did not suit Winthrop as the head of the colony.
Looking for a better place, on the 17th of June, 1630, he
sailed into Boston Harbor ; and, as the result of the exami-
nation, headquarters were soon removed to Charlestown ; and
Boston, with its populous environs, soon begins its career of
greatness and wealth as the commercial and civil metropolis
of a great State.
It is not necessary to trace farther the growth of colonies
in Massachusetts. We have advanced far enough to obtain
a clear and comprehensive view of the vital principles
which constructed and developed the civil and religious
institutions of the Commonwealth. Let us now observe a
little more minutely the application and limitations of these
principles.
112 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
CHRISTIANITY AND FREEDOM IN MASSACHUSETTS.
We have seen with what a profound sense of responsibility
to God the Puritans renounced their homes in England, and
became pilgrims in quest of liberty. It is not now, how-
ever, their acknowledgment of God merely that requires our
attention. The argument is deeper. The question is, What
power was alone sufficient to produce the phenomena which
have passed before us ? In examining the history of dis-
coveries in America, and considering the colonization of Vir-
ginia and the minor members of the Southern group, we
have found that restless vagrancy and ambitious avarice
could produce daring adventure, and heroic efforts to found
despotic institutions. We have seen also the struggles of a
purer vitalizing force in the midst of these dominant im-
pulses, gradually forcing its way to position as the true and
rightful forming power of nations.
In the movement now under consideration, the representa-
tive colonists are stripped of all State patronage, and are
exiles first in a land of civilization, and then in a land of sav-
ages. Simple subsistence would seem to be enough to tax
their highest energies. If comfort and abundance should be
achieved, it must, one would say, be the result of an entire
devotion to worldly pursuits. But they make a mere inci-
dent of worldly pursuits. Their grand absorbing object is
the worship and glory of God. They see that freedom of
conscience for themselves is indispensable to this result. A
clearer light shines deep down into their souls, and far out
into the world and the future, and reveals liberty from thral-
dom of sin, from oppressions of governments civil and eccle-
siastical, as the inherent, inalienable right of all good men.
Whence but from heaven could this light come ? The world,
in its Highest efforts of reason, has refused to supply it. The
light from God is clear and searching and steady. Coming
from this source, how evidently would it be adequate to
reveal the spirit and designs of human freedom as deter-
COLONIZATION AND LIBERTY IN MASSACHUSETTS. H3
mined in the original creation of mind, and to show the
enormous crime of usurpation which denies, and attempts to
crush, these inborn rights !
In the same way must we account for that firm adherence
to right amidst the storms of persecution and the trials
of colonization which the history of the Pilgrims reveals.
What need had they to go to Amsterdam or Leyden or
Plymouth ? They had nothing to do but " conform " to the
wicked exactions of despotic power, and go on and prosper
like other subjects of the British crown. But the souls of
the martyrs were in them. Suffering and right were to them
infinitely preferable to royal favor and a dishonored con-
science. And how came it so? No worldly power, no selfish
philosophy, ever gave them or others this lofty heroism while
they floated with the mass of unquestioning sycophants in
the wake of power. Admitting, however, that the plans of
God for the emancipation of thought and conscience had
matured ; that he had opened a virgin hemisphere for the
planting and growth of a higher, purer civilization; and
that he himself would undertake, by the discipline of suffer-
ing and inward regeneration, to provide the men for the
movement which would illustrate these grand designs : what
could have been more appropriate than the strange power
of endurance and enterprise for the vindication of liberty
which we have seen in these Puritan Pilgrims ?
Just as evidently would the active agency of God in the
souls of the colonists connect inseparably the rights of
conscience and civil liberty. It is, however, in exact con-
formity with this theory of the providential colonization
of New England, that the conflict should show our Puritan
sires constantly engaged in the spirit of earnest prayer; that,
when they formed the basis of constitutional government in
"The Mayflower," they should do every thing in the name of
God, and in solemn dependence upon his wisdom and grace;
that all attempts to coerce them should utterly fail, serving
only to render more illustrious their supreme devotion to
15
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
exalted principle. It is thus easy to explain the undeniable
, fact that they stepped boldly forward of their nation and
/ age in announcing new powers of humanity, and demonstrat-
I ing the capability of man for a higher range of honor and
glory on earth than had ever before been deemed possible.
This is God in history, God in America.
The illustrations of these positions, and especially of the
inseparable identity of the rule of God and the develop-
ment of the higher forms of liberty in the minds of the
Puritans, are so numerous and striking, that selections are
difficult.
" To the European world, the few tenants of the huts and
cabins of Salem were too insignificant to merit notice. To
themselves, they were' chosen emissaries of God ; outcasts
from England, yet favorites with Heaven ; destitute of se-
curity, of convenient food, and of shelter, and yet blessed as
instruments selected to light in the wilderness the beacon of
pure religion. The emigrants were not so much a body pol-
itic as a church in the wilderness, seeking, under a visible
covenant, to have fellowship with God, as a family of adopt-
ed sons."
" The New World shared in the providence of God : it had
claims, therefore, to the benevolence and exertions of man.
What nobler work than to abandon the comforts of England,
and plant a church without a blemish, where it might spread
over a continent ? "
" The ill success of other plantations could not chill the
^j^rising enthusiasm. Former enterprises had aimed at profit :
I the present object was purity of religion. The earlier settle-
ments had been filled with a lawless multitude : it was now
proposed to form a " peculiar government," and to colonize
THE BEST."
When officers were to be elected at a very full General
Court, u it was resolved that the business should be proceeded
'on with its first intention, which was chiefly the glory of
God ; and to that purpose its meetings were sanctified by
COLONIZATION AND LIBERTY IN MASSACHUSETTS. H5
the prayers and guided by the advice of two faithful min-
isters in London." :
And there were faithful ministers with the colonies. The
liberal .Samuel Skelton, and "the able, faithful, and grave
Francis Higgins," — the one elected pastor, and the other
teacher, in Salem, — took care that the people should not
ptrish for lack of knowledge.
"The enjoyment of the gospel as the dearest covenant
that can be made between God and man was the chief object
of the emigrants." They therefore took care to organize
their churches after the simple model of their own under-
standing of worship and the condition of the primitive Chris-
tian Church. Thus Winthrop, Dudley, Isaac Johnson, and Wil-
son became a church by covenant, — " the seminal centre of
the ecclesiastical system of New England ; " and honest John
Wilson was chosen the first pastor of " the first church of
Boston." Roger Williams, renowned in the ecclesiastical and
civil history of the Republic and the world, came hither to
accomplish a mission not yet understood ; but he must have
his place here among the worthies whose religion required
and could produce freedom from " Episcopal and malignant
practices." Cotton, Eliot the Apostle to the Indians, and
a host of faithful godly men, appear in the train, all breath-
ing devout tempers and manly independence.
Winthrop, the scholar, the statesman, and future govern-
or of Massachusetts, may represent the spirit of the whole
movement. " I shall call that my country," he said in a let-
ter to his honored father, " where I may most glorify God,
and enjoy the presence of my dearest friends. Therefore
herein I submit myself to God's will and yours, and dedicate
myself to God and the Company with the whole endeavors
both of body and mind. The conclusions which you set
down are unanswerable ; and that cannot but be a pros-
perous action which is so well allowed by the judgments
of God's prophets, undertaken by so religious and wise
* Bancroft, i. 347-351.
11(5 THE GEE AT REPUBLIC.
worthies in Israel, and indented to God's glory in so special
a service." This is the statesmanship of New-England col-
onization.
LIMITATIONS OF LIBERTY IN MASSACHUSETTS.
The reader will observe that we have written not to eulo-
gize any thing, nor defend every thing, in the Puritan charac-
ter or opinions or administration. We have examined their
history with one object alone, — to identify the divine in the
origin and development of American institutions, and place
the action of Providence in clear relief before the world.
It is now time to admit that much which was merely
human mingled with the divine in this movement, and that
the liberty of Puritanism had its limitations, and required, as
it received, the accession of other elements to make it ge-
nial, practical, and thoroughly American.
Its theology included the Calvinistic interpretation of the
Thirty-nine Articles, the strong tendency of which was not
only to harmonize the permission of moral evil with the di-
vine plans, Hut to make sin in itself a part of those plans..
The practical effect would naturally be to weaken hope in
moral appeals to individual responsibility, and strengthen
the idea of coercion, of which, in the most rigid forms of
faith, God would be the great example in every thing. The
first grand obstacle, therefore, that liberty must meet in the
New World, would be the theoretical limitation of the will.
Carried to what would seem its legitimate extreme, this
limitation would be fatal to liberty ; for, if the soul itself is
not free, there can be no freedom anywhere.
But it is not in the nature of mind to make this limitation
thoroughly practical. The instantaneous action of volition,
and the freedom of choice, will make place for the fact of
accountability : and, if the limitation of the will is held to be
absolute, the freeness of the act and the guilt of the trans-
gression will claim its place by its side ; and, with more or
less attempt at reconciliation, freedom will become the great
COLONIZATION AND LIBERTY IN MASSACHUSETTS. U7
practical law of human life. This was Puritanism. In its
first forms, it was a prompt, bold, and indignant protest
against the infringements %of liberty by the usurpations of
kings and prelates ; then it was the most patient and en-
during of all forms of suffering among men ; and finally it
was the uprising of an innate sense of justice, that would
bear down every thing which dared to oppose it. This was
the real freedom of the will ; and the Puritans asserted it, in
the most energetic form possible to man, by daring heroic
action. They were, therefore, the most thorough Protestants
(protest-ants) in the world. It was vain to say that this
grand resurrection of liberty did not belong to their system.
They made it belong ; and, practically, all limitations of the
will were forced to conform to the rising power of personal
freedom.
If, however, there was something in the severe doctrines of
Calvin which suggested, and had a strong tendency to pro-
duce, intolerance, that tendency would be greatly strength-
ened by long connection with systems of despotic power ;
and, when the misrule of authority was thrown off, authority
itself in favor of the right would be likely to be retained.
While the enormous wrong of a formal ritualistic State re-
ligion would appear, it might be deemed a grand achieve-
ment to establish a pure, simple, saving religion by law ;
and this was the real direction and grave error of the Puri-
tan mind. While their whole souls rose up in resistance to
every attempt to compel men to do wrong, they esteemed
it a high virtue and a moral necessity to compel them to do
right.
This will explain the rigid exactions of the colonial gov-
ernment in favor of the sabbath, going to church, paying
the minister, and the like, which gave the Puritans the repu-
tation of " blue lights." These were excellent things to do ;
but the religious power of man could not be coerced. The
same explanation is true of the exclusiveness of "the stand-
ing order " by which it was affirmed that men were ruined
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
if they used their liberty in the establishment of the English
Church, or attempted to disturb the rights of "the Lord's
people " by introducing the " pestilent heresy " of Arminian-
isin into New England. It explains, but by no means vindi-
cates, Puritan intolerance. It is both curious and lament-
able to see the extreme spirit of Protestantism reaching
the very prescriptive bigotry of Romanism, and the brave
assertion of Puritan rights resulting in the bitter persecuting
intolerance of prelacy ; and yet historical fidelity compels
the admission. We must confess, however reluctantly, that
the spirit of proscription and intolerance in New England is
exactly identical with the same spirit which we found in
Virginia.
Hence, when John and Samuel Browne would not consent
to the Congregationalism of Salem, and " gathered a company
in which ' the common-prayer worship ' was upheld," no mat-
ter how " sincere in their affection for the good of the plan-
tation," away with them ! " Should the hierarchy intrude
on the forests of Massachusetts with the ceremonies which
their consciences scrupled ? Should the success of the colony
be endangered by a breach of its unity, and the authority
of its government overthrown by the confusion of an ever-
recurring conflict ? They deemed the co-existence of their
liberty and of prelacy impossible," and it should not obtrude
itself into the inheritance of the Lord's people. No argu-
ment could avail. " The supporters of the liturgy were re-
buked as separatists; their plea was reproved as sedition,
their worship forbidden as a mutiny : and the Brownes were
sent back to England as men i factious and evil-conditioned,'
who could not be suffered to remain within the limits of the
grant, because they would not be conformable to its govern-
ment. Thus was Episcopacy professed in Massachusetts, and
thus was it exiled." *
Roger Williams was astounded both by the development
V of intolerance he found in the colony, and at the continued
* Bancroft, i. 349, 350.
COLONIZATION AND LIBERTY IN MASSACHUSETTS. H9
nominal connection of the colonists with the English Church. \
" On landing at Boston, he found himself unable to join its
church. He had separated from the Establishment in Eng-
land, which wronged conscience by disregarding its scruples :
they were an ' unseparated people,' who refused to renounce
communion with their persecutors. He would not suffer the
magistrate to assume jurisdiction over the soul by punishing
what was no more than a breach of the first table, an error ;,
of conscience or belief. They were willing to put the whole
Decalogue under the guardianship of the civil authority. The
thought of employing him as a minister was therefore aban-
doned ; and the Church of Boston was, in Wilson's absence,
commended to t the exercise of prophecy.' " He would soon
become a pilgrim in the midst of pilgrims, an exile from the
land of his adoption ; for he had the temerity to assert that .
" no one should be bound to worship, or to maintain a wor-
ship, against his own consent." " The civil magistrate may
not intermeddle even to stop a church from apostasy and
heresy : his power extends only to the bodies and goods
and outward estate of men." To the minds of the Puritans,
these were monstrous heresies. There could be no room for
such a man in Massachusetts. He must go away, or be
punished till he will submit.
The Antinomians, fresh from the school of Genevan the-
ology, and determined to carry out the system of Calvin to
what they deemed its extreme logical results, must obtrude
their heretical notions upon " the Lord's heritage," and accuse
even the Puritans of being " priest-ridden magistrates," " un-
der a covenant of works." They had been emancipated from
the bondage of the law. The Holy Spirit lived in and con-
trolled them, and his teachings were superior " to the minis-
try of the Word." Anne Hutchinson, a woman of ability
" and profitable and sober carriage," was their leader. " John
Wheelright, a silenced minister," and " Henry Vane, the gov-
ernor of the colony," sustained her. Indeed, the orthodox |
faith and the State religion were in peril ; for " scholars, and
\
120 THE GEE AT REPUBLIC.
members of the magistracy, and the General Court, adopted
her opinions." What was the remedy ? Not argument, not
the advancing light of reason and the skilful interpretation
of the word of God. It was too early for this. The law
must exclude such persons from the jurisdiction of the colony.
,The ministers insisted, and the civil magistrates exiled Wheel-
right, Anne Hutchinson, and Aspinwall from the territory
[of Massachusetts, as " unfit for the society of its citizens."
" The rock on which the State rested was religion. A com-
mon faith had gathered and still bound the people together.
They were exclusive ; for they had come to the outside of
the world for the privilege of living by themselves. Fugi-
tives from persecution, they shrank from contradiction as
from the approach of peril. And why should they open their
asylum to their oppressors ? Religious union was made the
bulwark of the exiles against expected attacks from the
hierarchy of England. The wide continent of America in-
vited colonization : they claimed their own narrow domains
for the brethren. Their religion was their life : they wel-
comed none but its adherents; they could not tolerate the
scoffer, the infidel, or the dissenter ; and the whole people
met together in their congregations. Such was the system,
cherished as the stronghold of their freedom and happi-
ness."^ It is unnecessary to extend the history. The
Quakers and the Roman Catholics, the witches and the
infidels, shared the same fate; a few even suffering the
death-penalty for heretical contumacy. True religious free-
dom must bide its time in Massachusetts.
* Bancroft, i. 368.
CHAPTER IX.
THE NORTHERN GROUP COMPLETED.
As we found Virginia the representative colony of the
Southern, so we find Massachusetts the representative of the
Northern group. In discussing the principles which controlled
the formation of Puritanic institutions in this colony, I have,
to a large extent, described those of all New England and
the Middle States. Marked divergences will appear in de-
tail; but in the grand fundamental position, that true religion
is the life and organizing force of liberty, they all agree.
Christian regeneration, freeing the soul of the individual
from the bondage of sin, becomes the origin of cravings for
outward freedom. Persecution in some form becomes the
occasion for asserting these sacred rights ; and the high con-
trol of Providence converts the Puritan into the Pilgrim, and
the Pilgrim into the founder of a State.
MAINE.
The district of Maine, which had been colonized by the
French, and entered by Pring and Waymouth and Argall,
was temporarily colonized by the English in 1607. Popharn,
the Chief Justice of England, and Gorges, the Governor of
Plymouth, were the movers and patrons of the first expedi-
tion to this country. On the 8th of August, our adven-
turers reached " America, near the mouth of the Kennebec,
and, offering public thanks to God for their safety, began
their settlement under the auspices of religion, with a gov-
10
122 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
eminent framed as if for a permanent colony ; " but the colo-
nists were not of the right stamp, and after a severe winter
and many misfortunes, leaving the dead body of their presi-
dent, George Popham, as if in charge of the right of soil,
they returned to England, and " did coyne many excuses "
for their failure.
This hardy territory, which had been included in the
enormous grant made to the enterprising Capt. Smith and his
companions in 1620, and became a portion of New England to
be ruled absolutely by the Plymouth Company, was granted
in part to the Pilgrims in 1G23. A patent was conceded
to Gorges and Mason ; and their far-famed " Laconia" includ-
ed the whole country between the sea, the St. Lawrence, the
Merrimack, and the Kennebec ; " and, under the auspices of a
company of merchants, permanent settlements were formed
on the banks of the Piscataqua."
But the bigoted and indomitable Gorges was not satisfied.
Three years later, he set himself thoroughly at work to coun-
teract the Roman Catholics and the French monarch in their
determined purpose to claim the eastern coast of North
America. His effort, however, resulted in the grand failure
of Sir William Alexander and his timid Scotch settlers, with
his splendid paper order of nobility, and a war with New
France, in which the English gained a barren victory, and
received the surrender of the starved garrison of Quebec;
but, under the genius of Richelieu, they were compelled
to surrender all their conquests, and the French extended
their boundary down into the district of Maine as far as the
Penobscot.
To encourage agriculture, " a district of forty miles square,
named Lygonia, and stretching from Huntswell to the Ken-
nebunk, was set apart for the first colony of farmers ; " but
the emigrants were ridiculed and discouraged by the more
successful patrons of the forest and the sea.
The persistent Gorges, however, was not to be discour-
aged. He obtained a right to the whole territory between
THE NORTHERN GROUP COMPLETED. 123
the Kennebec and New Hampshire. He accepted ths ap-
pointment of Governor-General of New England, that he
might set forward the enterprise ; bat Providence, much to
the satisfaction of Massachusetts, defeated his plans.
Maine is small in 1636 ; but she has succeeded in the or-
ganization of a court at Saco, and will struggle on against
wind and tide until she falls into the arms of Massachusetts.
It is vain to contend against destiny. Gorges is dead. Piscafr-
aqua, Gorgeana, and Wells could, "by unanimous consent,
form themselves into a body politic ; " but they were too weak
for so formidable an undertaking. Massachusetts stretched
her old convenient grant over the territory ; and in May,
1652, Maine lost her " independence," very much to the com-
fort, it would seem, of those who preferred stability and
strength to struggle and mere form. Let us rejoice that the
privileges of the English Church in the district were not to
be interfered with.
In May, 1677, when Charles II. had succeeded the Pro-
tectorate, and the Indian war was raging, Massachusetts is
relieved of Maine by royal orders. The king does not like
to have these Puritans cover too much ground. They may
become impertinent and troublesome some day. He, more-
over, wants the territory for Monmouth, his reputed son.
Of course, the king could do as he liked ; but Yankee shrewd-
ness came to the help of the great colony. Her represen-
tative men ascertained the rightful owners of the grant to
Gorges, and quietly bought out " the State of Maine " for
some six thousand dollars. Massachusetts found both the
French and the Duke of York in her way ; but as " pro-
prietary " she organized the government, using " a little
gentle force " when it was absolutely necessary.
The religion of Maine was thus far only partly Puritan.
It appears not to have assumed any decided character. But
it must be noticed, that all the attempts at colonization in
that territory were made under strictly worldly influences.
It was, in truth, a most persistent attempt, upon the part of
124 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
the great experimental Gorges, to secure a foothold in New
England for rovaltv and prelacy, free from Puritan control;
and our readers have seen that these attempts were a most
extraordinary succession of failures.
We- shall henceforth iind Puritan zeal and energy produ-
cing a new life in that distiict of Massachusetts. Let us hope
that the Pilgrims propagated in Maine their love of liberty
with as little as possible of their intolerance. The struggle
between the prerogatives of the crown and the people went
on. until, under the lead of Providence, a strong, vigorous
Protestant State rose up to maintain the liberty of her peo-
ple, and take her position in the Great American Republic.
NEW HAMPSHIRE.
From the discovery of this territory by Martin Pring, in
IGOo, to its formal annexation to Massachusetts on the 1 ith
of April, 1G42, there wa.s comparatively little prosperity in
New Hampshire.
Mason covered the territory with a patent, which pro-
duced abundance of lawsuits. In the meantime, the inhabit-
ants themselves, about Dover and Portsmouth, obtained title
to the sod, which was decidedly favorable to progress; and a
small number of people, about IGol, settled on the " ; '• t raw-
berry Bank " of the Piscataqua : but the country loiin' re-
4/ I/O
mained a wilderness. In IG-jo, Portsmouth had only "be-
tween fifty and sixty families."
After a struggle with proprietaries, and various adverse
influences, for a period of forty years, the people reached the
conviction that an independent colony was impracticable in
that rugged country, and hence deliberately handed them-
selves over to the strong and prosperous colony of Massa-
chusetts. We must with this fact remember that these set-
tlers were not generally Puritans. They were without the
energy and organizing power of that strange people.
A little "worldly wisdom" seems to have already crept in
THE NORTHERN GROUP COMPLETED. 125
among the Massachusetts Puritans ; for they, with true pro-
priety, conceded that their religious system could not be
forced upon the new territory ; and an order was adopted in
General Court, " that neither the freemen nor the deputies of
New Hampshire were required to be church-members."
For a long period, the fact was perfectly evident that this
was not a Puritan " State ; " but with the liberty conceded,
and the infusion of Puritan energy, it might be hoped that
the future of New Hampshire would be prosperous. At least,
our Massachusetts " Jonathan," walking off with Maine in
one pocket and New Hampshire in the other, was a little in
danger of worldly pride, one would say.
The coming of the " royal commissioners " to assert the
prerogatives of the crown in Massachusetts, of course seri-
ously disturbed the future State of New Hampshire ; and
when the commissioners were, by formal proclamation, re-
fused the right of holding a court, at the bar of which the
colony was summoned to appear, New Hampshire was in-
volved in the embryo rebellion ; and, some thirteen years
later, — July 24, 1679, — her territory was arbitrarily de-
tached from Massachusetts, and made a royal province. The
people met in " General Assembly " to consider the matter,
when the infusion of the Puritan element became very evi-
dent ; and thus they wrote to Massachusetts : " We acknowl-
edge your care for us, we thankfully acknowledge your kind-
ness, while we dwelt under your shadow ; owning ourselves
deeply obliged, that, on our earnest request, you took us
under your government, and ruled us well. If there be
opportunity for us to be anywise serviceable to you, we
shall show how ready we are to embrace it. Wishing the
presence of God to be with you, we crave the benefit of
your prayers on us, who are separated from you."
But how will New Hampshire respond to the act of royal
" prerogative," aiming at the utter destruction of her liber-
ties? Let the following spirited words of the Assembly
answer : " No act, imposition, law, or ordinance, shall be
12(1 Tin-: (;I:;:AT i;i:;'i'i;Lic.
vali 1. u;d"ss made by the As-^mbly. and approved by the
people. " Brave, noble words! 1'Yeble, indeed, the i;>.ony
wa-. Vriut would be it- power to cope with the form! lable
strenjth of the British ival.u '.' Phvsieally nothing, out
morailv ample : for Col had moved New Ham])-!):, -e up bv
the side of Massachusetts and Virginia in the great struggle
for national freedom; nor was she to be intimidated by
threat- or demonstrations of tyrannical power.
Th'> irrepressible Ma -on was again in sight, bound to claim
all the land by proprietary right ; but the "granite " colonial
government vras an insuperable obstacle to his grasping
schemes, lie returns to England for a redress of grievances.
*^' *^.
and. find- Ivd \vard Canfield a suitable instrument of his sin-
ister designs. The king was easily propitiated by - one-'ifth
part of all the quit-rents for the support of the government ; "
and Canfield was sure of his salary, having " a mortgage
on the whole province for twenty-one years '' as security.
and with certain prospects of "an abundant harvest of lines
and forfeitures" as perquisites. He was in ecstasies, and wa-
villain enough to boast openly of his purpose '• to wrest a
fortune from the sawyers and lumber-dealers of New Hamp-
shire.'' :
But what strange men he met when he came to take pos-
session of his grand estates ! They did not know him ; they
'questioned his rights; they would indeed (jh-c him '• two
hundred and fifty pounds" (which, to tell the truth, he was
very glad to get); "but they would not yield their liber-
ties: and the governor in anger dissolved the Assembly."
This was a new issue. Such an assumption of power had
been hitherto unknown in Xew England. " Liberty and ref-
ormation" began to ring out from the excited but inconsid-
o O
erate multitude. This was treason against the king; and
poor •'• Edward (love, an unlettered enthusiast." must suffer
for it three years '• in the Tower of London."
Meanwhile Canfield began to look after his perquisites.
* Butxroft, ii. 110. 117.
THE NORTHERN GROUP COMPLETED. 127
Taxes and arbitrary fees, violent arrests, imprisonments, and
false reports of invasions, only made the " granite " men more
obstinate than ever.
The ministers, Canfiejd thought, having something of the
Puritan rebel in them, were exciting the people to re-
sist; and they must be suppressed. Moody, of Portsmouth,
"replied to his threats by a sermon, and the Church was in-
flexible." He would now assert the jurisdiction of the Church
of England, and command festivals and feasts, and the Lord's
Supper, free to the people indiscriminately, and the use of
" the English Liturgy ; " but the ministers and the people said
« No ! " " The governor himself appointed a day on which
he claimed to receive the elements at the hands of Moody,
after the forms of the Church of England ; " but the stern old
Puritan saw nothing honorable or right against godly sim-
plicity. He could submit to be "prosecuted, condemned,
and imprisoned ; " but no living man could compel him to be
subject to carnal ordinances. Canfield sent word to Eng-
land, " that, while the clergy were allowed to preach, no true
allegiance could be found : " " there could be no quiet till the
factious preachers were turned out of the province." The
king must certainly send round " a ship of war;" for, " with-
out some visible force to keep the people of New Hampshire
under, it would be a difficult or impossible thing to execute
his Majesty's commands or the law of trade."
But the people are not frightened. They are even
violent. The men have " clubs," and the wives " hot water,"
for the sheriff and his officers, when they come to enforce
the governor's unlawful exactions.
Canfield at last was in as complete despair as Sancho
Panza when he came into possession of "that same island."
He was " governor," no doubt ; but he could only see the
sumptuous viands which his appetite craved, and he was
thoroughly sick of his government. In despair, he wrote
imploringly to the government in England, " I shall esteem
it the greatest happiness in the world to be allowed to re-
128 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
move from this unreasonable people. They cavil at the
roval commission, and not at my presence. No one will be
accepted by them who puts the king's commands in exe-
cution.'' „
We have traced these developments of liberty, under the
promptings of religion, far enough to perceive their perfect
idenl it v with the spirit which colonized New England, and
would ultimately constitute the Great American Republic.
CONNECTICUT.
We trace the settlement of this country from about the
8th of October, 1035, when people from the neighborhood of
Boston came to found Hartford and Windsor and Wethers-
field. Sixty Pilgrims, including women and children, started
to travel with their stock and effects through the forests to
the Valley of the Connecticut. They were bound for " the
Far West:' in the almost unknown wilds of Connecticut;
and through the perils of a hard winter, the people living
on the milk of the browsing kine, journeyed to the home of
their future independence. Their numbers had diminished,
and -the army of the Lord" was very much sifted by the
way ; but enough were left in the spring, and of the right
kind, to organize a good, strong, free, civil government.
Other Pilgrims found their way to "the new llesperia of
Puritanism;" but the grand colony of about a hundred trav-
elled on foot, through the pathless forests of Massachusetts,
to "the delightful banks" of the Connecticut. They were
superior people. John llaynes. formerly Governor of Mas-
sachusetts, and the unrivalled Hooker, were the great and
true representatives of State and Church ; and many were
from the wealthy and more intelligent families.
Now the new colony is surrounded with perils. The Pe-
quods are hostile, and are about to succeed in forming most
formidable combinations for the extermination of these wdiite
intruders. But the heroic exile, Roger Williams, with un-
THE NORTHERN GROUP COMPLETED.
exampled bravery, penetrates their wilds ; presents himself
meekly, but fearlessly, in the midst of their council of war ;
and, by the help of God, dissolves the grand conspiracy.
The Pequods, however, are desperate, and determined to pro-
voke war. " To John Mason, the staff of command was de-
livered at Hartford by the venerated Hooker ; and after
nearly a whole night, spent, at the request of the soldiers, in
importunate prayer by the very learned and godly Stone,
about sixty men, one-third of the whole colony, aided by John
Underbill and twenty gallant recruits, whom the forethought
of Vane had sent from the Bay State, sailed past the
Thames." This Christian army would keep the holy sabbath
on the way, and would open an honorable parley with the
savages before firing a gun ; but there was no alternative.
They must fight and conquer, or their wives and children
would fall the bleeding victims of savage ferocity.
The war is begun, and by bullets and swords, and raging
flames, against bows and arrows : it is a war of extermination.
How terrible the necessity ! How sad the record of history !
Peace has come; and now these thinking, worshipping
pioneers proceed to construct a government. Its grand funda-
mental provisions are very few and simple ; but centuries of
advancing civilization will hardly be able to improve them.
A free, equal, representative government, a republic of jus-
tice, are the few words which express the whole.
One such independent sovereignty, it would seem, ought
to be enough for " the State of Connecticut." But the peo-
ple will be their own judges. In 1638, we see another Pu-
ritan colony rising up at New Haven " under the guidance
of John Davenport as its pastor, and of the excellent The-
ophilus Eaton, who was annually elected its governor for
twenty years, till his death."
Here was " austere, unmixed Calvinism ; but the spirit of
humanity had sheltered itself under the rough exterior."
u Under a branching oak," while it was yet cold, the people
gathered, and listened to the solemn words of Davenport.
17
130 THE f'-i^AT iM-:rrr,Lic.
They had l.)cen, " like tlie Son of man. led into the wilder-
ness to be tempted." After ;i day of fasting and prayer,
they rested their first form of government on a. simple plan-
tation-covenant,— that "• all of them would be ordered by
the rules which the Scriptures held forth to them."
They would recognize the rights of the Indians, and ob-
tain fairly a title to their lands.
hi another year, assembled in a barn, they sought to per-
fect their organization ; and, by the influence of Davenport,
it was solemnly resolved that the Scriptures are the perfect
rule of a commonwealth ; that the purity and peace of the
ordinances to themselves and their posterity were the great
end of civil order; and that church-members only should be
tree burgesses." ;; Eaton, Davenport, and five others, were
the ' seven pillars ' for the Xew Haven of wisdom in the
wilderness." Other towns, as they arose, followed their unique
example ; and the Bible became the grand statute-book of
Xew Haven, and the elect were its freemen.
This is Connecticut, substantially, for the whole period
of preparation now under consideration. They will increase
in numbers and wisdom ; but they are " gospellers and psalm-
singers" to the end of the world, and all over creation.
We deplore the narrowness which moved these stern
primitive legislators to limit the right of franchise to mem-
bers of the church ; but we bear to them profound respect
for their loyal devotion to the grand truths of revelation,
and their sincere homage to the "'Lord of lords, and King
of kiiv'-s." In this they caught the true American thought
o t/ o c;
and principle, in the neglect of which, we, as a nation, have
suffered the most severe and well-deserved chastisements.
RHODE ISLAND.
The history of this State can never be separated from the
character, opinions, and enterprise of Roger Williams.
We have already seen, that, when lie entered Massachu-
THE NORTHERN GROUP COMPLETED.
setts, he was in advance of the general sentiment of the Pu-
ritans on the question of religious liberty. On the one hand,
he would not consent to even a nominal connection with
Prelacy : that he had calmly and deliberately renounced
forever. On the other hand, he rose to the clearest concep-
tion of religious freedom known among men. However
wrong the Church might be, it was not the right of any man
nor any government forcibly to correct the wrong, even to
save the Church from the most destructive heresy. Though
it was the highest, noblest right for every man to consecrate
himself to the service of God, no man, no number of men,
had the right to compel him to this service. Eoger Williams
was more than a Puritan. He was the great mind ordained
of Providence to advance beyond the position of indignant
protest against oppression, to the revelation that the highest
right must itself be the result of a freedom which might be
abused by consenting to the deepest wrong*. He was the
first true type of the American freeman, conceding fully to
all others the high-born rights which he claimed for himself.
This was farther than Puritanism could lead the race ; and, for
the present, it was not ready to follow.
Roger Williams could not join the Church in Boston. It
was vain to attempt to make him pastor of Salem. He
could try it once and again ; but the spirit of the place
and the standard of the people cramped him. He was too
bold and outspoken against the intolerance of his brethren
to stay there. Nor did God intend that he should remain
in Plymouth. He must be thrust out to lead the nation
on toward the goal of their providential future.
He was a very troublesome man for bigotry to manage.
He was too good, apparently, to be persecuted ; too strong in
his logical position and defence to be put down by argu-
ment. "An unbelieving soul," he said, " is dead in sin." To
force him from one kind of worship to another " was like
shifting a dead man into several changes of apparel." " No
one should be bound to worship, or to maintain a worship,
132 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
against his own consent." No man ought to bo disfranchised
because he was not a member of the Church. ''The re-
moval of the yoke of soul oppression, as it will prove an act
of mercy and righteousness to the enslaved nations, so it is
of binding force to engage the whole, and every interest
and conscience to preserve the common liberty and peace."
lie denied the right to coerce a man to take the freeman's
oath; but would not he himself be compelled to take it?
No ; he refused : and such was the firm dignity of his bear-
ing. '' that the government was forced to desist from that
proceeding."
But he was living under a religion established by law, —
not Prelacy, but Puritanism, in which intolerance was just as
vile to him, and just as determined against a nonconformist.
"The ministers got together, and declared any one worthy
of banishment who should obstinately assert that • the civil
magistrate might not intermeddle., even to stop a church
from apostasy and heresy.' " lie was under the ban of the
Church ; but the people would have him for a '• teacher."
They were punished by the loss of lands ; and he would
unite with them in t; letters of admonition unto all the
churches whereof any of the magistrates were members,
that they might admonish the magistrates of their injustice."
This was treason, and the storm coming on was too severe
for his church. They forsook him, and even his wife turned
against him. lie will promptly assert his right of with-
drawal. Hear him : "My own voluntary withdrawing from
all these churches, resolved to continue in persecuting the
witnesses of the Lord, presenting light unto them, I confess
it was mine own voluntary act ; yea, 1 hope the act of the
Lord Jesus, sounding forth in me the blast, which shall, in his
own holy season, cast down the strength and confidence of
those inventions of men."
When arraigned before the civil magistrates, he " main-
tained the rocky strength of his ground ; ready to be bound
and banished, and even to die in New England," rather than
be untrue to his honest convictions.
THE NORTHERN GROUP COMPLETED. 133
"At a time when Germany was the battle-field for all
Europe in the implacable wars of religion, when even Hol-
land was bleeding with the anger of vengeful factions, when
France was still to go through the fearful struggle with big-
otry, when England was gasping under the despotism of
intolerance, almost half a century before William Penn
became an American proprietary, and two years before
Descartes founded modern philosophy on the method of
free reflection, Roger Williams asserted the great doctrine
of intellectual liberty. It became his glory to found a State
upon that principle, and to stamp himself upon its rising
institutions in characters so deep, that the impress has
remained to the present day, and can never be erased with-
out the total destruction of the work." * " He was," contin-
ues Bancroft in one of his most eloquent passages, "the
first person in modern Christendom to assert in its plenitude
the doctrine of the liberty of conscience, the equality of opin-
ions before the law ; and, in its defence, he was the harbinger
of Milton, the precursor and the superior of Jeremy Taylor."
But before the bar of " civil liberty " in Massachusetts his
doom was sealed. The stern urgency of Cotton seems to
have been almost necessary to prevent, even then, a revolt
from prescriptive bigotry. But the act was recorded. The
immortal Williams was an exile ; but, in the struggle, so
much light had forced itself into the surrounding darkness,
that an apologetic tone was assumed in explaining and vin-
dicating the decree. It was necessary to preserve inviolate
the "oaths for making trial of the fidelity of the people,"
and to avert a movement which seemed likely " to subvert
the fundamental state and government of the people."
It was not absolutely insisted that he should go out among
the savages in the severity of the winter. He might remain
till spring; but even this was not without danger to the
stability of Puritan freedom. There were many in Salem
who loved Roger Williams, and who hung upon his lips
* Bancroft, i. 375.
THE GUI: AT iiEPur.Lic.
with intense delight. " The people were much taken with
the apprehension of his godliness."
The Tear of his contagious opinions determined the gov-
ernment to end the matter in a summary way. He was
condemned to sail immediately for England. But once more,
as God willed, he would disobey. In the midst of winter he
went out, not knowing whither he went; and, '"'for fourteen
weeks, he was sorely tossed in a bitter season, not knowing
what bread or bed did mean."
But God had made him friends amono; the savages. lie
O O
had, some time before, risked his rights as a citizen to affirm
in a pamphlet that they were not to be forcibly dispossessed
of their lands, but were to be bargained with for their homes,
like white men. He had gone out into their wigwams and
hunting-grounds to preach to them Jesus and the resurrec-
tion ; and his deep sympathy and holy sacrifice in their
behalf had awakened in these savage bosoms the most
ardent gratitude and affection. Exiled from Massachusetts,
"he was welcomed by Massasoit;" and "• the barbarous heart
of Canonicus, the chief of the Narragansetts, loved him as
his son to the last gasp." " The ravens," he said, " fed me in
the wilderness." It was thus that the grand pioneer of
freedom was disciplined for his task.
In June of 163G, we find this prince of exiles, with
only five companions, landing from a frail Indian canoe, in
a wilderness, outside of any patent claims of civilized men.
and very thankful, he said, " that ever-honored Gov. "Win-
throp wrote to me to steer my course to the Narragansett
Bay, encouraging me from the freeness of the place from
English claims or patents. I took this prudent motion as
a voice from God."
The spot on which these Pilgrims from '*' the land of Pil-
grims " first placed their feet is marked, by tradition, as sa-
cred to liberty. AVilliams named it Providence ; and so it is
to this day, the beautiful and capital city of the State found-
ed by his enlightened philanthropy. " I desired," said he,
THE NOETHEBN GEOUP COMPLETED. 135
" it might be for a shelter for persons distressed for con-
science." Noble monumental record of a noble man !
Now, for a time, he cannot study much. He has no slaves,
like Virginians, to fell the trees, and raise him bread. He
has no great colony, like Cotton or Davenport, to see that he
is supported from government tithes. " My time," he writes,
" was not spent altogether in spiritual labors ; but day and
night, at home and abroad, on the land and water, at the
hoe, at the oar, for bread."
His title to the soil of his colony came legitimately, and by
fair stipulation, from the Narragansetts, and bore the signa-
tures of the Indian princes, Canonicus and Miantonomoh. It
is a large, splendid territory, he thought, as he looked out
upon his domain of freedom, and said it is " my own as truly
as any man's coat upon his back." But he would be no
grand monopolist of the gifts of God ; indeed, he " reserved
to himself not one foot of land, not one tittle of political
power, more than he granted to servants and strangers."
The government he founded was to be "a pure democ-
racy," controlled by the will of a majority ; but this should
be "only in civil things," and over all was the sovereignty
of God.
In 1643, Williams goes to England to settle the relations
of his colony with " the mother-country." The colonies were
under control of Warwick, with a council of five peers and
twelve commons. Fortunately for Rhode Island, that noble
philanthropist, Henry Vane, was of the latter. Parliament
was surprised and deeply interested by the " printed Indian
labors of Roger Williams, the like whereof was not extant
from any part of America." The favorable impression made
by the great missionary led " both houses of Parliament to
grant unto him, and friends with him, a free and absolute
charter of civil government for those parts of his abode."
Thus the oppressed of all lands would, it seemed, be guar-
anteed a home for " soul-liberty, with full power and author-
ity to rule themselves."
136 THE UKEAT KEPUBLIC.
Roger Williams returned from England under •'•' the Pro-
tectorate," free to pass unharmed through the land of his ban-
ishment ; to be met on the waters of his own Narragansett by
a Ueet of boats bearing the freemen of his colony, who with
o */ -
gratitude, and shouts of welcome, hailed him as the founder
and defender of their liberties, so that he was really " ele-
vated and transported out of himself." Let oppressed, per-
secuted Virtue learn to dare and to wait. The time of her
triumph will surely come.
But how will this grand little " democracie " succeed in
its wild experiment ? There are " hardiness and tumults," we
learn, at its " assemblies," called together "' by the drum or
the voice of a herald," under a tree, or by the sea-side. No
wonder ; for here were "' Anabaptists and Antinomians. fana-
tics and infidels;" unpromising materials, one would say, out
of which to construct a self-governing State. But one pure.
clear, lofty mind will <ruide the whole. Thev will have trood
J *,
men for officers, and may safely put on to their records,
"Oner popularitie shall not, as some conjecture it will, prove
an anarchic, and so a common tirannie ; for we are exceed-
ing desirous to preserve every man safe in his person, name,
and estate."
There was still danger. Coddington had obtained from
the executive council of State in England " a commission
for governing the islands ; " and Williams must go to Eng-
land again to preserve the integrity of his prospective State.
He succeeded, and the gratitude of the people would have
made him governor ; but he was wiser than they. He refused
all honors, but gave a true account of the valuable efforts
of Sir Henry Vane in their behalf. Their letter to him
sums up the history of the early colonization of Khode Is-
land, and will complete the presentation of those features of
its history most important to our discussion. On the 27th
of August. 1054, they wrote. " From the first beginning of
the Providence Colonv. vou have been a noble and true friend
«/ •/
to an outcast and despised people : we have ever reaped the
THE NORTHERN GROUP COMPLETED. 137
sweet fruits of your constant loving-kindness and favor.
We have long been free from the iron yoke of wolfish bish-
ops ; we have sitten dry from the streams of blood spilt by
the wars in our native country ; we have not felt the new
chains of the Presbyterian tyrants, nor, in this colony, have
we been consumed by the over-zealous fire of the (so-called)
godly Christian magistrates ; we have not known what an
excise means ; we have almost forgotten what tithes are ;
we have long drank of the cup of as great liberties as any
people that we can hear of under the whole heaven : when
we are gone, our posterity and children after us shall read
in our town-record your loving-kindness to us, and our real
endeavor after peace and righteousness."
Roger Williams is a Christian and a minister, and he will
found a church. He is a Baptist, and his church will be ex-
clusive immersionists ; but he will rise above precedents, and
take no pains to establish the line of succession. He and
his simple-minded people will baptize each other, and go on
to serve the Lord, and proclaim the doctrine of justification
by faith with might and main, and God will be with them.
His denomination will feel obliged to restrict " communion "
to those baptized as they understand it, and will accept the
decrees as they understand them ; but the complete and
stringent accountability of every man will be the ground
of their practical appeals in all lands, and of their battle-cry
of freedom to the end of the world. K
As the central power of the Southern group removed
from Virginia to South Carolina, where she arose as the
only original and most intensely slave State, so the centre
of the Northern group removed from Massachusetts to
Rhode Island, where Roger Williams, her noblest representa-
tive of freedom, exiled from her territory for his brave pro-
test against intolerance, unfurled the banner of unrestricted
liberty on the banks of the Narragansett.
Every step of this advance movement in the clear asser-
tion of the great American idea was made under the direc-
18
138 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
tion of a hi^h-souled, Christian minister, and indicates the
O
divine control in the development and organization of free-
dom on the Western continent.
The colonial history of Vermont is included in that of
New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and New York, and evolves
no additional principle for consideration in this part of our
work.
New England, from the period of colonization, will go on
with the development of her peculiar institutions under ex-
treme difficulties. Her battles with prerogatives will pass
her through the severest ordeals of suppression and tyranny,
and lead to the union of her colonies, the development of
her States, and her final incorporation into the grand union
of freedom.
NEW YORK.
On the fourth day of September, 1009. just as Champlain
was entering the future State of New York from the north,
the gallant Henry Hudson rounded Sandy Hook, and "The
Half-moon " cast anchor. He had sailed in search of " the
north-west passage " to Asia, under direction of the famous
East-India Company ; and ended a long, perilous voyage in
the discovery of the Hudson River.
This gave New York, with boundaries entirely undefined,
to the Dutch by right of discovery. In 1010, Providence
inspired the English with a wholesome dread of the •' art
and industry of the Dutch,'' and thus defeated a proposed
alliance with the East-India Company for the joint coloni-
zation of Virginia, which would have probably destroyed
English independence in America.
After long and characteristic hesitation, the States-Gen-
eral gave authority to private adventurers to make "four
successive voyages to any passage, haven, or country they
should thereafter find ;" and in 1014 a ileet of '• five small
vessels " sailed for America, bearing as commanders the fii-
moiis Hendrick Christaenson of Cleve, and •• the worthy
THE NORTHERN GROUP COMPLETED. 139
Adriaen Block." Shipwreck did not destroy the courage, nor
defeat the objects, of these daring navigators. Their dis-
coveries on the northern coast of America resulted in a
grant to the explorers from the assembly of the States-
General of " a three-years' monopoly of trade with the ter-
ritory between Virginia and France, from forty to forty-five
degrees of latitude." Their charter, given on the llth of
October, 1614, named the extensive regions NEW NETHER-
LANDS. John Smith had that same year called the northern
part NEW ENGLAND.*
This provided for a conflict of jurisdiction between Eng-
land and Holland, and the latter seemed at that time much
more likely to succeed than the former. This was an era of
great ambition and boundless prospects upon the part of the
United Provinces, now glorying in their freedom after a long
and desperate struggle to achieve it. We almost tremble to
see how likely the colonists of the Anglo-Saxon race were
soon to be crowded off from the continent by the grasping
power of France, Holland, and Spain. But the plans of God
would not permit it. These hardy adventurers were here,
not to establish a permanently Dutch province, but to act
an important part in founding several strong States of the
Eepublic of freedom. After various conflicts with New Eng-
land and the agents of Lord Baltimore, conquering New
Sweden, and bringing into striking contrast the right of
free toleration and the institution of slavery, the govern-
ment of Holland was finally superseded by that of England.
"New Amsterdam " soon disappeared from the map of Amer-
ica; and early in October, 1664, "for the first time, the
whole Atlantic coast of the old thirteen States was in posses-
sion of England." t
The spirited little Eepublic had grappled heroically witH
the combined powers of France and England for the rights
of free navigation, not for herself alone, but for the world ;
and by the noble patriotism of William of Orange, the
* Bancroft, ii. 275, 276. t Ibid., ii. 315.
140 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
bravery ami genius of Do Ruyter and Tromp, and the power-
ful pen of (Irotius, she had gained the grandest triumph of
the age. — the '-rights of neutral flags" upon the high seas.
She had recovered her own European territory ; but as a
nation she appears no more in our history, except as an ally
and friend of the Ho public of American liberty.
Wo must not, however, fail to mark the providence which
made a free Protestant republic ''the mother of lour of our
States," and gave to our country the cool, strong blood of
the Hollander to mingle with that of the fiery Celt, the pro-
gressive Anglo-Saxon, the sturdy German, and the polished
French, to produce the purest, noblest type of the ne\v Amer-
ican race. We may hence also trace to a common origin the
great Reformation, the love of civil freedom, which became
alike ineradicable in New York and Newr England.
The settlement of the Empire State will henceforth go on
in the ordinary way amid stirring rivalries and fierce antago-
nisms; but her struggles will be those of the rising nation,
and the spirit of the people will be grandly expressed in
1091 bv the haughtv accusation of a royal governor, "There
•/ o «.- J O
are none of you but what are big with the privileges of
Englishmen and Magna Charta."
NEW JERSEY.
Ill the spring of 1GG4, the Duke of York " assigned to
L J c_>
Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, both proprietaries
of Carolina, the land between the Hudson and the Dela-
ware. In honor of Carteret. the territorv, with nearly the
»,- ' «/
same bounds as at present, except on the north, received
the name of New Jersey." :
Moved by avarice to encourage population, these "lords
of the soil " made liberal concessions to the people. They
promised " security of persons and property under laws to
be made by an assembly composed of die governor and
* Bancroft, ii. 315.
THE NOETHEEN GEOUP COMPLETED.
council, and at least an equal number of representatives of
the people ; freedom from taxation, except by the colonial
assembly ; a combined opposition of the people and the
proprietaries to any arbitrary impositions from England;
freedom of judgment, conscience, and worship to e very-
peaceful citizen. " * Thus early did scheming, selfish men
come to be aware, that, to achieve success with Americans,
they must at least make profession of respect for American
ideas.
Swedish farmers soon appeared here and there in New
Jersey ; Dutch families might have been found about Bur-
lington; and, in 1618, traders took up a position, which be-
came a permanent settlement, on Bergen Heights. In 1664,
the Quakers found a quiet retreat "south of Raritan Bay:"
and the New-England Puritans contrived to get a claim for
a home on the Raritan ; but they could not mix up with the
ungodly. They must have their own jurisprudence. They
would treat honorably with the Indians for their lands ; and,
" with one heart, they resolved to carry on their spiritual and
town affairs according to godly government." Like them-
selves, ever on the alert, when in May, 1668, the first
"colonial legislative assembly convened at Elizabethtown,
they were there to transfer the chief features of the New-
England codes to the statute-book of New Jersey." f
It was but a slight matter for these brave, plain people
to dash aside the claims set up by Maryland to the land
they had received by double right through the Duke of
York and the natives of the soil. Just as easy was it
to repudiate the demands of Berkeley and Carteret for
quit-rents upon their farms. It was a mere trifle, — only
a half-penny an acre ; but it was the right which they
questioned. The mere intimation of a purpose to enforce
this unlawful exaction cost Carteret his office, and sent him
to England for a redress of grievances.
West New Jersey was purchased by the Quakers of the
* Bancroft, ii. 316. t Ibid., ii. 318.
142 THE GUKAT REPUBLIC.
aged Berkeley in 1074 ; and to this wilderness they came for
rest, guided, as they helieved, by the light within. And
what form of government will they adopt?
The Friends in England, sustaining the relation of proprie-
taries for honest convenience, not to i; lord it over God's her-
itage." received the views of the feeble colonists, and said.
- The CONCESSIONS are such as Friends approve of. AVe lay a
foundation for after-ages to understand their libertv as Chris-
tians and as men, that they may not be brought into bond-
age but by their own consent; for we put THE POWER L\ TIII-:
PEOPLE." And all the rights recognized by a pure democracy
v «.•
are defined and guarded in their fundamental laws adopted
on the third day of March, 1GTT: "All and every person in
the province shall, by the help of the Lord and these funda-
mentals, be free from oppression and slavery."
How lovingly the savages responded to the gentle jus-
tice of these Friends! "Yon are our brothers." they said;
'•and we will live like brothers with you. AVe will have a
wide path for yon and us to walk in. If an Englishman
falls asleep in this path, the Indian shall pas- him bv. and
say. -lie is an Englishman; he is asleep; let him alone.'
The path shall be plain : there shall not be in it a stump
to hurt the feet."
The principal settlements of New Jersey were begun.
They would go on and prosper, and others would be added,
until the population was sullicient fora State. The partition
was at length broken down, and New Jersey was numbered
with " the old thirteen."
PENNSYLVANIA.
William Perm was a thorough Quaker, lie had been the
counsellor of the Friends in New Jersey, and seen them
multiplied and prosperous. lie purchased East New Jersey
from the heirs of Carteret; but he desired to obtain a grant
on the west side of the Delaware for the enlargement of
the domain of peace. After much skilful management and
THE NORTHERN GROUP COMPLETED. 143
"great opposition," he finally obtained a charter from
Charles II. in 1680; and thus he writes March 5, 1681:
"After many writings, watchings, solicitings, and disputes
in council, my country was confirmed to me under the great
seal of England. God will bless it, and make it the seed
of a nation. I shall have a tender care of the government,
that it be well laid at first."
He was now the sole proprietor of a vast and fertile terri-
tory, including " three degrees of latitude by five degrees of
longitude west from the Delaware," — enough for a kingdom ;
and, two months after he received his charter, he writes to
the scattered settlers the following letter : " MY FRIENDS, I
wish you all happiness here and hereafter. These are to
lett you know that it hath pleased God in his Providence
to cast you within my Lott and Care. It is a business, that
though I never undertook before, yet God has given me an
understanding of my duty and an honest minde to doe it
uprightly. I hope you will not be troubled at your change
and the king's choice ; for you are now fixt, at the mercy
of no governour that comes to make his fortune great.
You shall be governed by laws of your own making, and
live a free, and, if you will, a sober and industrious people.
I shall not usurp the right of any, or oppress his person.
God has furnisht me with a better resolution, and has given
me his grace to keep it. In short, whatever sober and free
men can reasonably desire for the security and improve-
ment of their own happiness, I shall heartily comply with.
I beseech God to direct you in the way of righteousness,
and therein prosper you, and your children after you. I am
your true friend." Happy, indeed, were these Pennsylvania
Quakers to be under the government of a man so thorough-
ly honest and paternal. Impartial history must, in spite of
all criticism, award to him the credit of fully redeeming
these liberal pledges.
With but a small fortune, quite reduced by expensive
lawsuits in defence of his persecuted brethren, Penn had
144 THE (;HI:AT itKPur.Lic.
now an opportunity of ample remuneration for all his sacri-
fices ami toil, by "the sale of domains." For a monopoly
of the Indian trade, he was oifered -six thousand pounds
and an annual revenue." Will he yield to the temptation?
Hear him: " 1 will not abu^e the love of God. nor act un-
worthy of his providence, by defiling what came to me
clean. No : let the Lord guide me by his wisdom to honor
his name, and serve his truth and people, that an example
and a standard may be set up to the nations. There may be
room there, though not here, for the holy experiment."
Subject only to the careless negligence or capricious exac-
tions of a weak kinu% Perm was now an absolute sovereign
O' O
over a growing and confiding people. Was this right?
Would he hold on to this power, and attempt to give it
hereditary descent? Hear him atrain: •• For the matter of
* c_
liberty. I purpose that which \i extraordinary. — to leave my-
self and successors no power of doing mischief; that the
will of one man may not hinder the good of a whole
country. It is the great end of government to support
power in reverence with the people, and to secure the people
from the abuse of power; for liberty without obedience is
confusion, and obedience without liberty i- slavery."
Noble words, and as real and sincere as they are noble.
How hiirh he rose above the governmental theories of English
c C3
civilization !
If it be asked. " How came this man to be so nobly superior
to the selfishness of his time?" we must candidly answer. His
views of himself and his fellow-men arose directly from his
conceptions of God. Glance at his history, and you see this
distinctly. Bred an Independent, he became, at twelve
years, serious and thoughtful. It was only necessary for
him to hear a Quaker at Oxford to start the train of spirit-
ual thought and expression which would expel him for
nonconformity. From his own father's hand he received
the first personal violence for the freedom he claimed for
his conscience. Becoming a studied and travelled gentle-
o a
THE NORTHERN GROUP COMPLETED. 145
man, his way was open to preferment ; but he had met and
once more heard his old friend Thomas Loe, and his spirit-
ual consciousness was at once attentive to " the voice within,"
and " William Penn was a Quaker again, or some very
melancholy thing." " God," said he, " in his everlasting
kindness, guided my feet in the flower of my youth, when
about two and twenty years of age." In jail for the free
action of conscience, he said, " Religion is my crime and my
innocence : it makes me a prisoner to malice, but my own
freeman." For asserting his rights, and professing his faith,
through the press, he was a prisoner in the Tower until he
should learn the virtues of conformity. " My prison shall be
my grave" was his noble answer. To the king he wrote
grandly, " The Tower is to me the worst argument in the
world." He was at large once more, but had spoken at a
"conventicle," and was again under arrest. "Not all the
powers on earth shall divert us from meeting to adore our
God who made us," said the lofty soul of this prince of men.
When the magistrate remonstrated with him, he answered,
u I prefer the honestly simple to the ingeniously wicked."
His notes of freedom rang out from Newgate : " If we cannot
obtain the olive-branch of toleration, we bless the provi-
dence of God, resolving by patience to out weary persecu-
tion, and by our constant sufferings to obtain a victory more
glorious than our adversaries can achieve by their cruelties."
He was before a committee of the Commons to plead for
liberty, not for the Quakers merely, but for all. " We must
give the liberty we ask," said he : " we cannot be false to our
principles, though it were to relieve ourselves ; for we would
have none to suffer for dissent on any hand." To the
electors in a canvass he said, " Your well-being depends upon
your preservation of your right in the government. You
are free ; God and nature and the constitution have made
you trustees for posterity. Choose men who will, by all
just and legal ways, firmly keep and zealously promote
your power."
19
146 TIIE GREAT HEPUBLIC.
This was the man, who, under the crown, was intrusted
with the civil liberties of Delaware, a good part of New
Jersev, and the vast State of Pennsylvania. Who could
have any doubt as to what he would do? With the great
sovereign of human liberty before his eyes, and fresh from
the cruel sufferings borne for conscience' sake in his native
land, he hastened to the field of his mission across the
waters. With his heart glowing with love, he entered the
land of his inheritance, " a free colony for all mankind," to
try "THE HOLY EXPERIMENT." Swedes, Dutch, and English
hailed him as a common protector and friend ; and wild
savages were quiet as lambs at his feet, when they had heard
his words, and gazed deep down into his heart under " the
large elm-tree at Shakamaxon." " We will live," responded
the Lenni Lenapes, "in love with William Penn and his
children as long as the moon and the sun shall endure;" and
no Quaker ever perished from Indian arrow. - We have
done better," said the Quakers, " than if, with the proud
Spaniards, we had gained the mines of Potosi. We may
make the ambitious heroes, whom the world admires, blush
for their shameful victories. To the poor, dark souls round
about us, we teach their RIGHTS AS MEN."
We have no reason to trace the action of these humane
principles in the formation of a government. The people,
so far as Penn could make them, were free as air. They
might assemble as a general convention, or by represen-
tatives. They preferred the latter, and, in the simplicity of
their faith, listened to the voice within to give them their
laws; and be assured this voice would suggest nothing but
pure freedom to a Quaker. Swedes, Finns, Dutch, and
English were completely and alike invested with the rights
of freemen, and could exult in the language of Lawrence
Cook, "It is the best day we have ever seen." Penn had
founded in the New World a pure democracy.
It was not, to be sure, to be all sunshine. The great pro-
prietor, who had reserved nothing for himself, must leave
THE NORTHERN GROUP COMPLETED. 147
his people to their own wisdom. There would be divisions
among them for a time. Delaware must set up for herself
and finally his Majesty's commissioners must come to vex
the honest Quakers. But they had passed through the fire
in other days. They would vindicate the hopes of their
founder, and, amid the praises of the world, sustain their own
liberties with the noblest moral heroism.
THE GREAT WEST.
We have thus traced the history of God's providence in
the settlement of all the original thirteen States, so far as
to identify the religious force active in their colonization and
the foundation of their respective systems of civil liberty.
The Northern group, commencing thirteen years later than
the Southern, has shown great vigor, and attracted a hardy,
enterprising population, and, before the war of the Revolu-
tion, reached a commanding position in all the elements of a
growing civilization.
But the Northern group was far from being completed.
Within the bosom of the great wilderness, stretching out
over the vast prairies, and on over the Rocky Mountains to
the Pacific, lay the great States and Territories of the West.
The boundary-line between the Southern and Northern group
was not at once clearly defined. The institution of slavery
alone would determine it. During the period now under
consideration, the colonies were alike free to adopt or reject
the system of slave-labor, as States are free, if they will, to
violate all moral principle, and fix upon themselves the guilt
of crime which will some day demand a fearful and bloody
retribution. And, with notable exceptions, there was a
strange want of conscience in the North, which required the
demonstration, that the nature of the soil and the severity
of the climate would not allow reliance upon slave-labor, to
place it clearly on the side of emancipation. Slowly the
beginnings of this foul system of oppression in the North dis-
148 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
appeared; and free labor moved southward, until the famous
Mason and Dixon's Line became distinct, and the equally
famous Missouri Compromise stretched the line between the
two groups farther west. But the boundary between free-
dom and slavery was not physically indicated in the West
and South-west. The interference of God's providence was
necessary to save large portions of the Mississippi Valley and
the Pacific coast from the deep stain ; and hence the popula-
tion went into these territories from American States and
from Europe, firmly fixed against slavery. The struggle
went on for two generations: and, under the divine control,
the area of freedom extended so rapidly as to parallel, and
at length fairly outstrip, the progress of slavery ; and the
Northern group completed embraced, in addition to her large
portion of the old thirteen, the vast territories and teeming
population of Vermont, Ohio, Indiana. Michigan. Illinois.
Wisconsin. Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska. Dacotah. Col-
orado. New Mexico, Utah. Montana. Nevada. California, Ore-
gon, Washington, and Idaho. What could resist the spirit
of freedom under guidance of Providence, controlling the
millions who would inhabit a region so immense in extent,
and inexhaustible in resources ?
Slavery struggled hard for predominance over the southern
portion of this great West, and thus over the nation; and if
the talents and shrewdness, the political scheming and wealth,
of men could have produced it, this result would have been
inevitable. The final defeat of this grasping tyranny, and the
grand triumph of liberty in the West, argue a reigning
Divinity in the affairs of men. The battle was at length
fairly joined ; and, when it reached its colossal proportions,
the parties were so large and potent, and so nearly balanced,
as to bring out before the eyes of men the extreme force
and terrific energy of both slavery and freedom. This the
purposes of God required ; and all the efforts of humanity
during a hundred years were utterly inadequate to pre-
vent it.
THE NORTHERN GROUP COMPLETED. 149
PROVIDENCE AND WAR-DISCIPLINE.
To complete our view of the colonization period of Amer-
ican history, it is necessary to glance at the question of
dominant races on the continent.
The aboriginal tribes were numerous, and in many respects
powerful, when the white men first appeared. Though sup-
posed to have already commenced their steady decline, they
were estimated at one hundred and eighty thousand souls.
A much larger estimate was made subsequently. The num-
ber of immigrants was for a generation so small as to make
it fearfully probable that they would be overwhelmed by
their savage foes whom they had taught to fight, and whose
cruel ferocity they had roused to the extreme of vindictive
rage.
At length they found an opportunity of acting in concert
with one white nation engaged in bloody war with another ;
and the French and Indian War was to overwhelm the Eng-
lish, and subjugate or expel them from the continent. This
contest was to reach proportions at first hardly deemed pos-
sible. Indeed, if God intended the final ascendency of the
Anglo-Saxons here, he evidently intended that they should
be themselves so small and feeble, and their rivals should be
so numerous and powerful, that their triumph would be
clearly the work of his own hand. Spaniards held their
position with great tenacity, and crowded strongly from
Florida on the south, and Mexico on the west. The Dutch
were very strong on the Hudson and the Delaware, and were
crowding New England hard in the Valley of the Connecti-
cut. The boundaries of New France were stretching for-
midably from the St. Lawrence round into the Valley of the
Mississippi. England had but a small strip of the Atlantic
coast, and much of that was disputed territory. Who could
have believed that New Spain, New Sweden, and New Amster-
dam, would, one after another, disappear under the spreading
power of the little bands gathering around Jamestown and
150 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
Plymouth Rock ? And yet they did disappear. An invisible
agency most evidently moved within the outward forms of
social life, and secured the result which the plans of Provi-
dence required.
France might with apparently good reason expect to suc-
ceed. Her territory was so large, her energy so powerful,
and her alliance with savage tribes so formidable, that there
seemed almost a moral certainty that the Atlantic slope must
yield to the ascendency of French arms and ideas ; and, if
so, the final triumph of Popery on the Western continent
was inevitable. Two bloody wars, must settle the question.
It is not our duty to trace their history ; but the purpose of
God came out at last when the brave English ascended to
" the Heights of Abraham." and Montcalm, Quebec, and
French domination, fell before the heroic Wolf and his com-
rades in arms.
Under (lod, the Americans in sufficient numbers had en-
tered the conflict to secure the triumph of England over
France, and received a military discipline which would pre-
pare America to triumph over England.
I
of fn
LIFE.
1 the fulness
KOFT.
ed; no
'eates
o it,
^
'e it
om
TS
E?-':- i:i the i:
outward
no libertv. It can /,c it whei, i-.v-
». j
and provide for it ; or it can assault an
is. that the eman. ipati bought a.
mental tyranny in the regeneration. '»
of organized liberty. :umtc> n -s
follow. Oppression in for a time too s.troovr
inner force. The people may bo wanting in -
views, or in public spirit, or in completeness of 61
i discipline may be required to bring them .up
point of proper resistance. The contest once com:
However. CPD never bo ended but by the triumph of tlu
In tbif examination of the early history of our court
w* httVf retdbed a period in which the mental conflict
' r of the Revolution must bv shnrj)«r. and
tt" ' I'lty is to trace the |jn»prew of this
. or as to determino the <;hf.iructer of
eft hich presided over the content nod fir
PERIOD II.
INDEPENDENCE.
CHAPTER I.
MIND-BATTLES POINT TO A DISINTHRALLED NATIONAL LIFE.
"As interesting mankind, the question was, Shall the Reformation, developed to the fulness
of free inquiry, succeed in its protest against the middle ages ? " — BANCROFT.
ESSENTIAL freedom is in the mind. If this is inthralled, no
outward forms can make a man free. Government creates
no liberty. It can recognize it when it exists, respond to it,
and provide for it ; or it can assault and repress it. Hence it
is, that the emancipation of thought, and deliverance from
mental tyranny in the regeneration, become the precursors
of organized liberty. The legitimate result does not always
follow. Oppression may be for a time too strong for the
inner force. The people may be wanting in clearness of
views, or in public spirit, or in completeness of organization.
Stern discipline may be required to bring them up to the
point of proper resistance. The contest once commenced,
however, can never be ended but by the triumph of the right.
In this examination of the early history of our country,
we have reached a period in which the mental conflict pre-
ceding the War of the Revolution must be sharper, and bet-
ter defined. Our duty is to trace the progress of this war
of principle, so far as to determine the character of the
effective power which presided over the contest, and finally
controlled the result.
151
154 THF. <;;;KAT RKPur.Lie.
Majostv tear up the giant trees of the American forests as
to eradicate it. The Assembly convened under this very
charter would vindicate the rights of property "against arbi-
trarv taxation " at all ha/ards. Not an inch would they
vield to despotic exactions. '-The governor shall not lay
any taxes or ympositions upon the colony, their lands, or
commodities, other way than bv authority of the General
*/ * *
Assembly, to be levyed and ymployed as the said Assembly
shall appoynt."
Now. the origin of this controversy was farther back. If
these colonists had a right, as individuals, to the soil on which
they lived, if the right of discover}' was not a right to mo-
nopolize the continent, then the king, in granting patents to
adventurers, had no right to pre-empt this vast domain, and
exclude, at pleasure, the individuals and families who were
to reclaim it from the wild beasts. Then they were men, and
not merelv loyal subjects of the king: and their right to tin-
soil came through a great law of the Creator to which kings
as well as people are subject. Then an attempt to govern
them as mere tenants at will, or dispose of the avails of their
industry as serfs, was oppressive ; and. when the Virginians
stood ii}) inflexibly against it, they began to assort the rights
which man had assailed, and which God would defend. This
was the opening battle in the war of independence, and the
colonists triumphed.
The Plymouth Colony could obtain no " royal patent; yet
their claim to their land was valid, according to the principles
of English law as well as natural justice." :
One after another, the colonies set up the rights which
belong only to freeholders. Companies, as the profits of
their investments were exceedingly small, and the balance
was not nnfreqnently against them, were more easily shaken
off than the king. The value of proprietary estates was
seen to be in the increase of the population, and the con-
tentment and thrift of the people: hence extravagant de-
* Bancroft, i. 3i><>.
A DISINTHRALLED NATIONAL LIFE. 155
mands became unprofitable, and concessions to settlers were
steadily accumulating in the form of vested rights. The
transfer of the official residences and headquarters from Eng-
land to Massachusetts was one of the great steps indicating
progress in the right direction. But on the 23d of July,
1664, his Majesty's commissioners arrived ; and they would
assume control over this question of the right of soil, and
all other questions.
" The lands " claimed by the settlers in Massachusetts, the
royalists said, "belonged to Robert Gorges;" but these Puritan
intruders had " made themselves a free people." " The right
of England to the soil, under the pretence of discovery, they
derided as a Popish doctrine, derived from Alexander VI. ;
and they pleaded, as of more avail, their just occupation, and
their purchase from the natives ;" " and, as the establishment
of a commission with discretionary powers was not specially
sanctioned by their charter, they resolved to resist the orders
of the king, and nullify his commission." *
In 1672, Carteret began to think it time to collect his
quit-rents of half a penny an acre from the New-Jersey Puri-
tans ; but they resisted the lawyers with the very primitive
doctrine, that " the heathen, as the lineal descendants of Noah,
had a rightful claim to their lands." They chose, therefore,
to get their titles from the Indians, refuse to pay their "quit-
rents " to parties who never had lawfully owned the soil, and,
by act of assembly, to drive away " Mr. Carteret," and keep
him away, until he could learn not to speak of " quit-rents "
for " the lands belonging of right to New-Jersey freemen."
These are specimens of the contest which arose inevitably
in this virgin land. Titles acquired from the natives by
honest contract, or acquired under the primal laws of dis-
covery and occupation by hardy Christian enterprise, or
obtained by concessions wrung from proprietaries, compa-
nies, or the crown, as the result of firmness in asserting the
right, were so many victories in the great mind-struggle
which preceded the wars of the Revolution.
* Bancroft, ii. 79.
156 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
THE RIGHTS OF TRADE.
As soon as the feeble colonists began to discover native
products which could he converted into articles of traffic, or
to produce from the soil a little corn and tobacco, companies
and proprietaries began to dictate tho laws of trade. exact
revenue, and establish grand monopolies, the tendency of
which was to impoverish the settlers, and enrich the govern-
ing classes. When, therefore, the spirit of Virginians rose
sullieiently high to say. "For the encouragement of men to
plant store of corn, the price shall not be restricted, but
it shall be free for every man to sell it as deare as he can."
they used brave words, which contained the fundamental
principle of free and successful trade.
In 1022. the commerce of New England began to attract
>, o
attention. These Puritans were likely to have advantages,
which, in the judgment of men '•• at, home," from whose op-
pression they had tied, were of very questionable right. " In
the second year after the settlement of Plymouth, five and
thirty sail of vessels went to fish on the coasts of New Eng-
land, and made good voyages. The monopolists appealed
io King James; and the monarch, preferring to assert his own
extended prerogatives rather than to regard the spirit of
the House of Commons, issued a proclamation which forbade
any to approach the northern coast of America, except with
the special leave of the Company of Plymouth or of the
Privy Council. It was monstrous thus to attempt to seal
up a laruv portion of an immense continent."5 Will the at-
tempt succeed ? " Your patent." said Sir Edward Coke to
Gorges, " contains many particulars contrary to the laws and
privileges of the subject: it is a monopoly, and the ends of
private gain are concealed under color of planting a colony.
Shall none visit the seacoast for fishing? This is to make a
monopoly upon the seas, which wont to be free. If von alone
are to pack and dry fish, you attempt a monopoly of the
wind and the sun/' It was in vain for Sir CJeorge Culvert to
* Bancroft, i. 325.
A DISENTHRALLED NATIONAL LIFE. 157
growl, " The fishermen hinder the plantations ; they choke
the harbors with their ballast, and waste the forests by im-
provident use." The Commons were determined. The bill
repealing this odious patent " passed without amendment"
James refused his assent; but neither that nor his royal orders
already quoted availed any thing. Both patent and orders
went down with the monopoly of the company in a struggle
with a handful of Pilgrims representing the principles of
eternal justice.
In 1642, the Virginians come up to this question again.
Under the administration of Sir William Berkeley, they assert
their rights in the clearest and most dignified language.
" Freedom of trade," they insist, " is the blood and life of a
commonwealth."
Spain and Portugal were greedy of the profits of trade ;
and, based upon the enterprise of discovery, sanctioned by
the authority of Rome, they resolved upon a monopoly of
the commerce of the world, and " denounced the severest
penalties " against those who should dare to intrude. God,
however, made use of the commercial freedom of Holland to
antagonize this usurpation, and wrest from the usurpers the
dominion of the seas. Then the Dutch, in their turn, became
the commercial monopolists of Europe.
England rose up to dispute this sovereignty of the
ocean. Cromwell resisted Holland, and established the fa-
mous Navigation Act. He was friendly to the colonies;
and, intending to make America the great commercial inter-
est of the commonwealth, he accorded to her the unrestricted
sale of her great staple in all the markets of the world.
Monarchy restored returned immediately to its old pas-
sion for revenues, and determined upon monopolies of Amer-
ican trade, and especially of the tobacco-trade, as the means
of accomplishing the purpose. Charles "invoked the au-
thority of the Star Chamber to assist in filling his exchequer
by new and onerous duties on tobacco." He sent commis-
sioners to buy up the whole crop. The colonists dared to
158 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
resist; and he would try other proclamations, restricting the
markets to London, determined in some way, by '• his will
and pleasure, to have the sole pre-emption of all tobacco."
Whenever it seemed necessary, for the time being, to con-
sent to the measures which sought to forge commercial fet-
ters for the colonists, it was done with such caution as to
give no historical advantage to tyranny.
In 1663, "the importation of European commodities into
the colonies, except in English ships from England," was pro-
hibited by a stringent law. Even exchanges between New
England and the Southern colonies were prohibited ; and
duties were levied upon little articles of traffic between these
future States, the same as on foreign goods. Americans were
forbidden to manufacture articles which would compete with
England; and this odious system of monopoly was fortified
by all the cruelty that ingenuity could crowd into at least
'• twenty-nine acts of Parliament."
The contest must, therefore, go on. The right to cripple
and virtually destroy American trade, so fiercely asserted,
was just as persistently denied, until the battles of mind
resulted in blood.
THE RIGHT OF REPRESENTATION AND FREE LEGISLATION.
We have seen that one of the first instincts of colonists,
whether under the patronage of England, or refugees from
her tyranny, was to provide laws for the protection of per-
sonal and social rights, and the preservation of public order.
This necessity, at first acquiesced in by all parties, at length
became a question of vigorously-contested prerogative.
In 1021. Virginia received through Sir George Yeardley
a written constitution for '• the great comfort and benefit
of the people, and the prevention of injustice, grievances.
and oppression ;" and " the system of representative govern-
ment, and trial by jury, thus became in New Hemisphere an
acknowledged right." This concession was, however, only
A DISINTHEALLED NATIONAL LIFE. 159
indirectly from the crown, and would be recalled whenever
the caprice of tyranny suggested it.
Virginia, however, would and did make her own laws.
"There is more likelihood," she said distinctly in the ears
of power, " that such as are acquainted with the clime and
its accidents may upon better grounds prescribe our advan-
tages than such as shall sit at the helm in England."
Maryland, one day in advance of Virginia, in the house of
Robert Sly, claimed through her lawful representatives the
right of independent legislation.
The other colonies of the Southern group followed in the
train. Severe contests arose ; but the future Republic never
retraced her steps.
The Pilgrims, as we have seen, asserted their right of self-
government in " The Mayflower." This right they never
surrendered. " The Bay State " resisted every encroach-
ment upon her fundamental rights, and, in 1634, enacted
" the test oath," requiring from every freeman sworn alle-
giance, " not to King Charles, but to Massachusetts."
No charter granting prerogatives of government could as
yet be obtained. The Plymouth colonists would like to have
it, would try hard, and expend much money in an attempt
to get it ; but, if they failed, they would surrender no right,
and omit no act necessary to vindicate the righteous prerog-
atives of God's freemen.
" Relying upon their original compact, the colonists gradu-
ally assumed all the prerogatives of government ; even the
power, after some hesitation, of capital punishment. No less
than eight capital offences are enumerated in the first Plym-
outh code, including treason or rebellion against the colony,
and ' solemn compaction or conversing with the Devil.' Trial
by jury was early introduced ; but the punishments to be in-
flicted on minor offences remained, for the most part, discre-
tionary. For eighteen years, all laws were enacted in gen-
eral assembly of all the colonists. The governor chosen
annually was but president of a council, in which he had
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
a double vote. It consisted first of one, then of five, and
finally of seven councillors, called ' assistants.' So little were
political honors coveted at New Plymouth, that it became
necessary to inflict a fine upon such as, being chosen, declined
to serve as governor or assistant. None, however, were to
be obliged to serve for two years in succession." :
New Hampshire asserted the rights of self-government, and
with great boldness defied the measures of power.
By the people on the Island of Rhode Island, it was
" unanimously agreed upon that the government which this
body politic doth attend unto in this island, and the jurisdic-
tion thereof in favor of our province, is a democracie of
popular government ; that is to say, it is the power of the
body of freemen orderly assembled, or major part of them,
to make or constitute just lawes by which they will be regu-
lated, and to depute from among themselves such ministers
as shall see them faithfully executed between man and
man."
In November, 1681, there was a legislature of true repre-
sentatives of the honest people in West New Jersey ; '•' of men
who said thee and thou. and wore their hats in presence of
beggar or king." "They framed their government on the
basis of humanity. Neither faith nor wealth nor race was
respected. They met in the wilderness as men, and founded
society on equal rights." f
New York, in public assembly held in 1G83, said, " Supreme
legislative power shall forever be and reside in the governor.,
council, and people met in general assembly."
Pennsylvania in IG'J.'J. in contest with Fletcher, governor
under William and Marv, would not allow that their leinsla-
*/ ' O
tive acts required even " the great seal of the proprietary."
•' We know the laws to be our laws," the ": poor men " who
"represented the people" said; '"and we are in the enjoy-
ment of them. The sealing does not make the law, but the
consent of governor, council, and assembly."
* Ilildreth, i. 175. t Bancroft, ii, 360.
..
A DISINTHRALLED NATIONAL LIFE. 161
Thus one colony after another took up the same position
in effect ; and the Northern group also became a unit in af-
firming the right of the people to make laws for themselves.
The statutes of freedom, rising directly up from Nature,
defining practical justice according to the subtle, all-pervad-
ing public sense, in distinction from the sophistries of learned
dishonesty, became the materials of State governments, and,
at length, of the fundamental constitution of the Great Re-
public.
THE EIGHT OF TAXATION.
The home government assumed the right to tax the
American colonists wholly in the interests of the crown,
allowing them no representation in Parliament. This was
the grand question at issue : Had the government of Eng-
land the right to judge for the people of America, with-
out information direct from them, what they ought to
pay ? Was the king in council the lord paramount of the
colonies, so that he could, at discretion, appropriate such
avails of the labor of men, virtually expatriated, as he
chose? The American people said, "No. Taxation with-
out representation is oppression. We cannot, will not,
submit to it."
At first, this seemed to England a mere freak of these colo-
nists ; an indication that indulgence had produced haughti-
ness, and contempt of authority ; and it was deemed only a
question of convenience how far this should be indulged, and
when it should be effectually put down.
But gradually it assumed the proportions of a grave issue,
and became a question of principle, which could not be
determined by mere prerogative.
As early as 1624, the voice of Virginia, as we have seen
in another connection, was clear and firm upon this ques-
tion. Let her words of independent manhood be repeated :
" The governor shall not lay any tax or ympositions upon
the colony, their lands or commodities, otherway than by
21
THE OREAT REPUBLIC.
the authoritic of the General Assembly, to be lev veil and
ymploved as the said Assembly shall appoynt." Mark the
InnoHiao-e. "The governor shall not." No weak petition,
O "T5 A
no words of imploring suffering, but words of authority,
bringing out thus early the feeling of sovereignty in the
colonists, destined to appear in the world's future as a new
function of our common manhood.
In IGo-i, this contest began to assume distinctness in
Massachusetts. The mild and liberal Winthrop, cautiously
representing the crown, finally .suggested that the power in
question resided in the " assistants." But no influence could
allay the spirit of personal independence which Providence
intended to develop. Officers were not masters in America ;
certainly not upon questions of civil rights so sacred as
those which then pressed upon the hearts of Xewr England's
bravest, noblest men.
'• The people established a reformation of such things as
they judged to be amiss in the government;" and. among
other things, a "law against arbitrary taxation" was passed.
" None but the immediate representatives of the people
might dispose of lands, or raise money. Thus early did
Massachusetts echo the voice of Virginia, like the moun-
tains replying to the thunder, or like deep calling unto
deep." :-
In 1G83, New York, in her first free Assembly under
English rule, responded to Virginia and Massachusetts in
the same clear, ringing notes of freedom, " No tax shall be
assessed, on any pretence whatever, but by the consent of
the Assembly."
<; It were madness," cried out the Quakers of West New-
Jersey against the Duke of York, " to leave a free country to
plant a wilderness, and give another person an absolute
right to tax us at will. The King of England cannot take
his subjects' goods without their consent."
Let this controversy go on for a quarter of a century, till
* Ban Toft, i. 367.
A DISENTHRALLED NATIONAL LIFE. 163
royalty returns from its banishment, and Puritanism in Eng-
land is reduced to cruel subjection amid the death-throes of
liberty, and what will then be the condition of the contest
in the New World ? Then, it is presumed, prerogatives may
be absolute in New England. Parliament formally assumed
it ; and the subsidy of " five per cent on all merchandise
exported from or imported into the kingdom of England,"
or " any of his Majesty's dominions thereunto belonging,"
granted to Charles II., was made by express definition to
apply to the American colonies.
But the king could by no possible means obtain his five-
per-cent subsidy from America. The temper of the people
would not allow it. It was unlawful. The colonies were
not bound by any act of Parliament, unless expressly named ;
and it was useless to levy the tax.
Nor would a hundred-years' conflict subdue American
resistance to such high-handed injustice. The final decis-
ion was in Boston Harbor, where the resistance of the people
to " taxation without representation " dashed the cargo of
tea into the ocean. The people of these colonies could listen
to the growl and murmur of power ; they could bleed, and,
if need be, die, in defence of their rights : but they could by
no means bow down their necks to the yoke of oppression.
God had sent them to America for an entirely different
purpose.
THE RIGHT OF FREE SPEECH, A FREE BALLOT, AND A FREE PRESS.
The time had come when " the freemen of every town in
the Bay State were busy in inquiring into their liberties and
privileges." Said the representative of royal prerogative,
" Elections cannot be safe there long ; " but the people an-
swered by publishing boldly their understanding of human
rights, and going on with the " elections."
The English Government began to realize that to enforce
the high prerogatives of the crown in America would re-
quire absolute and continuous subjugation. This was no
164 THB GREAT REPUBLIC.
trifle ; and the men in power roused themselves to a more
vigorous and determined effort.
" The general patent of New England was surrendered "
by royalists " to the king." The Plymouth Colony, greatly
desiring release from the overshadowing influence of her
powerful neighbor, determined to secure of the king "a
confirmation of their respective grants," and a repeal of the
Massachusetts patent. The company was arraigned before
the court. Terrible persecutions followed. The malicious
cruelty of the infamous Laud condemned men to the most
horrible mutilations for the crime of longing to be free.
Wentworth stirred up the resentment of power firmly
resisted. " The very genius of that nation of people," he
said, " leads them always to oppose, both civilly and ecclesi-
astically, all that ever authority ordains for them." The
faithful Prynne stood before the bar of tyranny a second
tune for daring to write and speak, to print and publish, his
principles. " I thought," said Lord Finch, " that Prynne had
lost his ears already ; but there is something left yet : " and
an officer of the court displayed the mutilated organs. " I
pray to God," replied Prynne, " you may have ears to hear
me. Christians," said he, as he presented the stumps of his
ears to be grubbed out by the hangman's knife, " stand fast,
be faithful to God and your country, or you will bring on
yourselves and your children perpetual slavery." This was
the noblest heroism, the highest moral grandeur. The spirit
of the martyrs was in this life-and-death struggle for liberty.
Its friends were " enforced by heaps to desert their native
country. Nothing but the wide ocean, and the savage des-
erts of America, could hide and shelter them from the fury
of the bishops." But even this poor resort was soon denied,
and Puritan sufferers were forbidden the right of expatria-
tion.
In the mean time, two grand movements in New England
revealed the presence and active power of Providence in
behalf of liberty. The people were about to exercise their
A DISINTHKALLED NATIONAL LIFE. 165
rights in an election. Conservatism was alarmed. The de-
termined Cotton delivered a sermon to the masses of assem-
bled freemen " against rotation in office." But the people
boldly advanced ; and now for the first time the ballot-box,
the palladium of American liberty, appeared. It was hence-
forth to be the grand reliance of the people, and must and
should be free.
By the side of the ballot a free press promptly arranged
itself. It began to sound out its notes of liberty in 1639, and
no power on earth could thenceforth silence or destroy it
Let us see what further these feeble colonists will do. In
firm and dignified language they will attempt remonstrance
against the cruel tyranny which seeks to deprive them of
vested rights, and cautiously warn the king by foreshadow-
ing the probable future. " If the patent be taken from us,
the common people will conceive that his Majesty hath
cast them off, and that hereby they are freed from their
allegiance and subjection, and therefore will be ready to
confederate themselves under a new government for their
necessary safety and subsistence, which will be of dangerous
example unto other plantations, and perilous to ourselves
of incurring his Majesty's displeasure."
But God interposed. Before this remonstrance reached
the throne, the Scots had risen against Romish prayers
and the superstitions of Prelacy. The monarch went down,
and the colonists had twenty years of neglect in which to
grow. " Twenty-one thousand two hundred " emigrants had
reached New England before the Long Parliament. They
had come in "two hundred and ninety-eight ships," "and
the cost of the plantations had been almost a million of
dollars." " In a little more than ten years, fifty towns and
villages had been planted; between thirty and forty churches
built ; and strangers, as they gazed, could not but acknowl-
edge God's blessing on the endeavors of the planters." *
The liberty embodied in the commonwealth could not well
* Bancroft, i. 415.
I
166 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
avoid extending its influence to the New 'World. In March,
1643, in response to the petitions of the colony presented by
Hugh Peters and his two colleagues, as special messengers,
charged with the general duty of vindicating colonial rights,
the House of Commons publicly acknowledged that " the
plantations in New England had, by the blessing of the
Almighty, had good and prosperous success, without any
public charge to the parent State ; " " and their imports and
exports were freed from all taxation " " until the House of
Commons shall take action to the contrary."
For the time being, the people breathed more freely. The
blessings of firmness in the defence of the right were begin-
ning to appear, and liberty must gather strength for the
terrific battles yet to come. American freemen would, when-
ever emergency required, show that the elective franchise
was, with them, no merely nominal thing. By choosing for
important responsibilities "men of the inferior sort," and
rejecting every man nominated by an aristocratic caucus,
the people of Boston took occasion to teach the magis-
trates that they were not to receive dictation from power,
even amongst themselves. The freedom of the ballot, free
speech, and a free press, had become so dear to the people,
that they would be guarded by the most vigilant care, and
defended at all hazards. They were the very soul of Amer-
ican liberty. In 1683, the people of New York in a free
Assembly said, " Every freeholder and freeman shall vote for
representatives without restraint ; no freeman shall suffer
but by judgment of his peers ; and all trials shall be by a
jury of twelve men." Said the Quakers of West New Jersey,
" The General Assembly shall be chosen, not by the confused
way of cries and voices, but by the, balloting-box. Every
man is capable to choose or be chosen. We lay a founda-
tion for after-ages to understand their liberty as Christians
and as men, that they may not be brought into bondage
but by their own consent; for we put THE POWER IN THE
PEOPLE."
A DISENTHRALLED NATIONAL LIFE. 167
THE RIGHT OF CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERTY, AND OF UNION FOR THE
COMMON DEFENCE.
Daring the early history of the American colonies, the pen
had been busy. In every settlement, there were documents
and records, which, in strong rhetoric and stern logic, defined
the rights of the people. These gradually combined in the
forms of fundamental law; and the era of constitutions
came on.
In May, 1635, "to limit the direction of the Executive,
the people demanded a written constitution ; and a commis-
sion was appointed " " to frame a body of grounds of laws in
resemblance to a Magna Charta," " to serve as a bill of rights.
The ministers, as well as the General Court, were to pass
judgment upon the work." Cotton would lead the people
to seek their model in " the laws from God to Moses." Re-
ligion controlled every thing ; and this stern old Puritan di-
vine wrote to his " friends in Holland," " The order of the
churches and the commonwealth is now so settled in New
England by common consent, that it brings to mind the new
heaven and new earth wherein dwells righteousness."
The era of neglect, and consequent unparalleled prosperity,
which preceded the Restoration, the people thought favorable
for giving more definite constitutional form to a " body of
liberties." The magistrates, who had acquired a love of
power, hardly saw the necessity for it ; but the people saw
it, and Cotton had already prepared what he thought would
serve the purpose, and probably prevent something more
radical and disloyal, fortifying every part of it with texts of
Scripture.
But to Nathaniel Ward of Ipswich belongs the honor of
framing " the fundamental code," which combined " the hu-
mane doctrines of the common law with the principles of
natural right and equity, as deduced from the Bible." "After
mature deliberation, this ' model,' which, for its comprehen-
siveness, may vie with any similar record from the days of
168 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
Magna Charta, was adopted in December, 1641, as ' The
Body of Liberties ' of the Massachusetts Colony."
This was a representative government, including in gen-
eral and in detail nearly all the great essential rights of free-
men. These Puritan minds were, however, yet a little hazy
on the subjects of slavery and religious toleration. " There
shall never be any bond-slaverie, villanage, or captivitie
amongst us, unless it be lawful captives taken in just warres,
and such strangers as willingly selle themselves or are sold
to us; and these shall have all the liberties and Christian
usages which the law of God, established in Israel concerning
such persons, doth morally require. This exempts none from
servitude who shall be judged by authoritie." "If any
man stealeth a man or mankind, he shall surely be put to
death."
Witchcraft was classed with blasphemy, and provided with
the punishment ordered in the laws of Moses. The crimes
now recognized in civilized countries as capital offences, and
several in addition, were punishable with death.
The practice and forms of religion were free to the virtu-
ous and orthodox.
Thus fairly commenced the formal assertion of constitu-
tional rights, which would be repeated by different colonies
and combinations, until the celebrated Articles of Confedera-
tion issued from an American Congress, and finally the noble
Constitution of the United States of America came from
the people in representative convention assembled at the
close of the Revolutionary War.
The year 1643 marks an important epoch in the progress
of American liberty. The desire for union amongst the
colonies, which had been seeking expression since the Pequod
War in 1637, assumed definite form. " The united colonies
of New England " were " made all as one." The alleged
motives for the confederacy were " protection against the
encroachments of the Dutch and the French, security against
the tribes of savages," and " the liberties of the gospel in
purity and peace."
A DISENTHRALLED NATIONAL LIFE. 169
Connecticut, jealous of the leadership of Massachusetts,
demanded for each State a negative on the acts of the con-
federation. Massachusetts refused ; and Connecticut was
driven, by fear of the Dutch, to waive her doctrine of
State rights. Plymouth Colony led the way in determining
that the acts of the confederation should have no force until
they were " confirmed by a majority of the people."
This first form of the Union included " the colonies and
separate governments of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecti-
cut, and New Haven."
The guidance of Providence thus early appeared in the
growth and elevation of national ideas. They were ap-
parently the result of increasing illumination on the great
subjects of human rights and despotic assumptions, and of a
common danger of rivals and enemies in the immediate
neighborhood of the colonies. But, if the wisest men of the
tunes foresaw but dimly that another much more formidable
necessity for union would arise, God, under whose direc-
tion the nation was forming, saw that coming necessity
clearly, and provided for it.
It is natural to ask why the plantations of Providence
and Rhode Island were not admitted into this confederacy.
The answer, we presume, ought to be substantially that
assigned for not taking in the people beyond the Piscata-
qua : " They ran a different course, both in their ministry
and civil administration." They would not be Puritans.
The old prejudice against Roger Williams is very evident.
The Puritans had too high a sense of the sacredness of their
orthodoxy to seem to indorse the grievous heresies of Provi-
dence by political association with them. The Island of
Rhode Island could not be admitted, ostensibly because the
friends of Anne Hutchinson had refused the jurisdiction of
Plymouth. If there was a deeper reason, it was probably
in the fact that they were nonconformists with respect to
the Church of the Puritans.
These facts are due here, notwithstanding their exposure
22
170 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
of the pitiable narrowness of the governing minds of the
Massachusetts Colony, that our readers may see how pro-
found were the religious convictions which formed the
foundation of our national organizations. The erroneous
application of these convictions does not impair their his-
torical verity or importance. It is easy for us to see, that,
without them, no part of our peculiar national organization
would have been possible.
This New-England union, imperfect as it was, and reveal-
ing alarmingly as it did the stern antagonisms of National
and State rights, was nevertheless of great importance, as
the bold assumption of the right of union for the common
defence. This, in the eyes of English despotism, was con-
spiracy and constructive treason ; but, under the control
of God, it was a prudent advance in the career of republi-
can liberty, the beginning of national organization. Like
every other essential right, when once asserted by the
American people, it was to be steadily maintained until it
should be triumphantly vindicated and formally acknowl-
edged by the civilized world.
A broader representation of the people took place in
New York in 1690. Delegates from Massachusetts, Plym-
outh, Connecticut, and New York, met, in response to a
call from the General Court of Massachusetts, to agree upon
plans for the invasion of Canada. "And it is worthy of
remark, that the Massachusetts Government, which made
the call, was the government which sprang up between the
overthrow of Andros and the arrival of the new charter,
and in which the popular element was more freely mingled ;
and the New- York Government, which accepted it, was the
government of Leisler, which sprang directly from an up-
rising of the people. Thus the earliest utterance of the
people's voice was a call for union ; " * but this union was
for war.
As we have before seen, another and highly important
* Greene's Historical View of the American Revolution, pp. 69, 70, et seq.
A DISENTHRALLED NATIONAL LIFE.
congress assembled in Albany on the 19th of June, 1754. To
the colonies of New England and New York were now
added those of Pennsylvania and Maryland. Twenty-five
delegates, representing seven colonies, met, " ostensibly to
renew the treaty with the six nations, really to take counsel
together about a plan of union and confederacy."
Benjamin Franklin appears among the distinguished men
of this Congress. His calm deliberation and keen insight
had discovered the necessity for union, and a plan for its
consummation. The idea of independence was held in abey-
ance for the present ; but the union of men and means for
common security seemed to many as no more than the dic-
tate of common prudence.
The extreme difficulty of the undertaking soon appeared;
for after the perplexing labors of the Congress had brought
out its best ideas in the form of a virtual though not osten-
sible constitution, the provincial assemblies condemned it
as having "too much of the prerogative in it." England
condemned it for a reason exactly opposite, — it had " too
much of the democracy." The great purpose of the Con-
gress failed ; but the moral effect was of the highest im-
portance. The facts and principles brought out by this
comparison of views could never go out of existence.
Through their representative men, they became the common
property of the colonies, and greatly strengthened the pur-
pose to preserve with inviolable fidelity the liberties of the
people, while all just demands of the crown were to be loy-
ally met. The feeling of the necessity of unity became
stronger as the danger became more threatening. " War
was at the door ; war on the seaboard ; war all along their
northern and their western frontier."
In 1765, the Massachusetts House of Representatives saw
the stamp act impending, and resolved to ask counsel from
the other colonies. In a circular, Samuel White, their speaker,
invited their several assemblies " to appoint committees to
meet in the city of New York, on the first Tuesday in Octo-
172
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
ber next, to consult together on the present circumstances
of the colonies, and the difficulties to which they are and
must be reduced by the operation of the acts of Parliament
for levying duties on the colonies ; and to consider of a gen-
eral and united, dutiful, loyal, and humble representation of
their condition to his Majesty and the Parliament ; and to
implore relief."
Nine colonies were now represented by twenty-seven dele-
gates, who met in the city of New York on the 7th of Octo-
ber, in obedience to the call of Massachusetts. " Then James
Otis first took John Dickinson by the hand." " Then Lynch
and Gadsden and John Rutledge of South Carolina first sat
on the same bench with Thomas McKean and Caesar Rodney,
of the counties that were to become Delaware; and Philip
Livingston of New York, and Dyer of Connecticut, to com-
pare feelings and wishes, as ten years later, when the horizon,
now so dark, was already glowing with the swift approach of
day, they were to meet and compare them again." * It was
a great achievement for liberty to bring such men together.
The result of this Congress was a petition to the king in
language profoundly respectful, but firm and dignified; a
petition to Parliament equally calm, but with more freedom
of expression ; and " a declaration of rights and grievances " to
the people of England and America, " claiming the right of
taxing themselves, either personally or by representatives
of their own choosing, the right of trial by jury, and the
right of petition." f
These were all State-papers of very great merit, showing
that God had prepared minds of the clearest discrimination
and highest culture to lead the struggle for American lib-
erty. The Congress of 1765 accomplished its mission. It
had given clear definition and great enlargement and assur-
rance to its statesmen, and, through them, to the people gen-
erally. It had also ascertained and increased 'the providen-
tial unity and the true patriotism which would decide the
* Greene, p. 75. t Ibid., p. 77.
A DISINTHRALLED NATIONAL LIFE. 173
contest. There was henceforth no necessity that the British
nation should misunderstand the issues between them and
their American colonies. No right-minded man could fail to
see that simple justice would secure perpetual and devoted
loyalty ; persistent oppression, revolution.
ALL THESE RIGHTS DENIED, BUT NEVER SURRENDERED.
Let us examine more minutely the sharpest points of this
battle of mind with mind. A crisis of the gravest impor-
tance came on. The Long Parliament was in power, and, in
a famous case, had assumed "the right to reverse the decisions
and control the government of Massachusetts." This was
the grand question of the age, and the Puritans in America
were instantly roused. Neither parliament nor king should
be allowed this style of sovereignty. The commonwealth
of England was Puritan ; but she must not usurp authority
over the Puritans of New England.
Cromwell was kind and plausible. He wished them to sur-
render their charter, and would give them another, broader,
better, than the old. But these Americans were shrewd and
far-seeing. The Stuarts might return to the throne ; and to
yield the charter now would be to be without it then. Policy
in England had to grapple with a statesmanship in the New
World which was amazing to men in power. " An order
from England," thundered liberty across the waters, " is preju-
dicial to our chartered liberties, and to our well-being in this
remote part of the world. We have not admitted appeals
to your authority; being assured they cannot stand with the
liberty and power granted by our charter, and would be
destructive to all government. The wisdom and experience
of that great council, the English Parliament, are more able
to prescribe rules of government, and judge causes, than
such poor rustics as a wilderness can breed up ; yet the vast
distance between England and these parts abates the virtue
of the strongest influences. Your counsels and your judg-
174 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
ments can neither be so well grounded, nor so seasonably
applied, as might either be useful to us, or safe for yourselves,
in your discharge, in the great day of account. If any mis-
carriage shall befall us when we have the government in our
own hands, the State of England shall not answer for it."
What words are these for " such poor rustics " to use !
But, members of Parliament, it will be safer for you to heed
them. You are going to the judgment: do you hear?
Yes ; and we yield. " We encourage no appeals from your
justice. We leave you with all the freedom and latitude
that may, in any respect, be duly claimed by you." Thus
another grand crisis had passed.
The Stuarts did indeed return, and with them their heredi-
tary dread of liberty, and love of irresponsible power ; and
soon a formal and obstinate assertion of legislative suprem-
acy over the colonies commenced.
Charles II. was acknowledged in Massachusetts ; but a
weak and dissolute man had no power to understand the
value of growing colonies, fostered by parental care, and
their loyalty consecrated by freedom. He must immedi-
ately take measures to make these ambitious, headstrong
Puritans feel the force of kingly prerogatives. The four
colonies, he believed, had united for the express " purpose
of throwing off dependence on England." Royal commis-
sioners were soon on their way to bring these rebels under
due subjection.
The people took the alarm, and moved promptly for the
protection of their invaluable rights. " The patent " was
intrusted to prudent hands, and was soon safe from the
clutches of tyranny. An appeal was made to God, in hum-
ble fasting and prayer, for the protection of liberty.
On the 23d of July, 1664, the fleet arrived in Boston Har-
bor, ostensibly to subdue the Dutch, but really to sustain
the commissioners, who had come "with full authority to
provide for the peace of the country, according to the royal
instructions and their own discretion."
A DISINTHRALLED NATIONAL LIFE. 175
•
In anticipation of this formidable usurpation of the crown,
the General Court of Massachusetts had with great delibera-
tion, and under the lead of such men as Bradstreet, Haw-
thorne, Mather, and Norton, prepared " a declaration of
natural and chartered rights."
They are " to choose their own governor, deputy-gov-
ernor, and representatives ; to admit freemen on terms to
be prescribed at their own pleasure ; to set up all sorts of
offices, superior and inferior, and point out their places ; to
exercise by their annually-elected magistrates and deputies
all power and authority, legislative, executive, and judicial ;
to defend themselves by force of arms against every aggres-
sion ; and to reject, as an infringement of their right, any
parliamentary or royal imposition prejudicial to the country,
and contrary to any just act of colonial legislation."
These were no idle words. They were solemnly uttered
and recorded, never to be revoked. The commissioners
were received with studied coolness; and there was no more
certain method of securing the contempt and ridicule of the
people than to show them any attention, or even to be
found willingly in their company ; while the remonstrance of
the people to the king was in a style of stern directness and
dignified statesmanship which must have made the capri-
cious despot tremple on his throne. Read it : —
"Dread Sovereign, — the first undertakers of this planta-
tion did obtain a patent, wherein is granted full and absolute
power of governing all the people of this place by men chosen
from among themselves, and according to such laws as they
should see meet to establish. A royal donation, under the
great seal, is the greatest security that may be had 'in human
affairs. Under the encouragement and security of the
royal charter, this people did, at their own charges, trans-
port themselves, their wives and families, over the ocean,
purchase the land of the natives, and plant this colony, with
great labor, hazards, cost, and difficulties ; for a long time
176 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
wrestling with the wants of a wilderness, and the burdens of
a new plantation ; having also now about thirty years en-
joyed the privilege of government within themselves, as
their undoubted right in the sight of God and man. To
be governed by rulers of our own choosing, and lawes of
our own, is the fundamental privilege of our patent.
" A commission under the great seal, wherein four persons
(one of them our professed enemy) are empowered to re-
ceive and determine all complaints and appeals according to
their discretion, subjects us to the arbitrary power of stran-
gers, and will end in the subversion of our all.
" If these things go on, your subjects here will either be
forced to seeke new dwellings, or sink under intolerable
burdens. The vigor of all new endeavors will be enfeebled ;
the king himself will be a loser of the wonted benefit by
customs exported and imported from hence into England ;
and this hopeful plantation will, in the issue, be ruined.
" If the aime shall be to gratify some particular gentlemen
by livings and revenues here, that will also fail for the
poverty of the people. If all the charges of the whole
government by the year were put together, and then
doubled or trebled, it would not be counted for one of those
gentlemen a considerable accommodation. To a coalition in
this course the people will never come ; and it will be hard
to find another people that will stand under any consider-
able burden in this country, seeing it is not a country where
men can subsist without hard labor and great frugality.
" God knows, our greatest ambition is to live a quiet life
in a corner of the world. We came not into this wildernesse
to seek great things to ourselves ; and, if any come after us
to seeke them heere, they will be disappointed. We keep
ourselves within our line. A just dependence upon and
subjection to your Majestie, according to our charter, it is
far from our hearts to disacknowledge. We would gladly
do any thing within our power to purchase the continuance
of your favorable aspect ; but it is a great unhappiness to
A DISENTHRALLED NATIONAL LIFE. 177
have no testimony of our loyalty offered but this, — to yield
up our liberties, which are far dearer to us than our lives,
and which we have willingly ventured our lives, and passed
through many deaths, to obtain.
" It was Job's excellency, when he sat as king among his
people/ that he was a father to the poor. A poor people,
destitute of outward favor, wealth, and power, now cry unto
their lord the king. May your Majesty regard their cause,
and maintain their right ! it will stand among the marks of
lasting honor to after-generations." *
But what were these words of solemn warning and en-
treaty to a man governed by the most degrading passions,
in the midst of sycophant courtiers and flirting courtesans ?
The commissioners must go on, and bring under this
haughty, rebellious spirit. "There is fear," said the mon-
arch, " of their breaking from all dependence on this nation."
Indeed there is, your Majesty ; and God will use your des-
potic folly to accomplish the very result which you seek
to prevent by absolute power.
The commissioners at length determined to bring on a crisis
in this controversy. They appointed a court, and summoned
the colony to appear as defendant ; but the General Court
of the colony " forbade the procedure. The commissioners
refused to recede. The morning for the trial dawned : the
parties had been summoned ; the commissioners were pre-
paring to proceed with the cause ; when, by order of the
court, a herald stepped forth, and, having sounded the trum-
pet with due solemnity, made a public proclamation, in the
name of the king and by authority of the charter, declaring
to all the people of the colony, that in observance of their
duty to God, to the king, and to their constituents, the Gen-
eral Court could not suffer any to abet his Majesty's honor-
able commissioners in their proceeding." t
This was the first overt act of the Revolution, which would
* Bancroft, ii. 80, 81. t Idem ii. 85.
a
178 THE GBEAT REPUBLIC.
require, a hundred years to render lucid, formidable, and ef-
fective. The king's letter rebuking the disloyalty of Massa-
chusetts was to be considered. The General Court was con-
vened, and the morning was spent in prayer. Six elders
solemnly appealed to God for help in this great crisis. Sun-
dry persons appeared disposed to yield to the king, wh&se dis-
pleasure they greatly feared. " We must as well consider God's
displeasure as the king's," said Willoughby. "Prerogative
is as necessary as law," pleaded the friends of loyalty. " Pre-
rogative is not above law," retorted the inflexible Hawthorne.
Obedience was refused, and the grand issue once more settled.
Some of the colonies were not, for the present, ready to acqui-
esce in the resistance of Massachusetts. The people were in
a transition state, and would not unhesitatingly follow their
leaders. Feeble attempts were made to conciliate the crown ;
but the general result was a much closer union, and a firmer
advance in the progress of republican freedom.
Fortunately for the colonies, the French war with England
for final ascendency on this continent now commenced, and
America could again grow by neglect. Commerce greatly
enlarged ; and wealth from Spain and Italy, France and Hol-
land, began to pour in upon the colonists. Portsmouth must
have been very prosperous, as it could afford " sixty pounds
a year to the college," and plenty of "schismatics to the
Church;" while New Hampshire abounded "in rebels to the
king." New England rose in the elements of prosperity,
until, in 1675, the population was estimated at fifty-five
thousand people.
But the grand controversy was now to be renewed. Charles
II. had at length fully determined upon the destruction of
the great charter. " The colony resolved, if it must fall, to
fall with dignity. Religion had been the motive of the set-
tlement : religion was now its counsellor. The fervors of
the most ardent devotion were kindled ; a more than usually
solemn form of religious observance was adopted ; a synod
of all the churches in Massachusetts was convened to in-
A DISINTHRALLED NATIONAL LIFE. 179
quire into the causes of the dangers of New-England liberty,
and the mode of removing the evils." *
Messages, remonstrances, despotic edicts, prayers, and en-
treaties followed each other. Magistrates, "their brethren
the deputies," and the people, deliberated for two weeks
prayerfully ; and the final decision came out in these memora-
ble words : " Ought the government of Massachusetts submit
to the pleasure of the court as to alteration of their charter?
Submission would be an offence against the Majesty of
heaven. The religion of the people of New England, and
the court's pleasure, cannot consist together. By submission,
Massachusetts will gain nothing. The court design an essen-
tial alteration destructive to the vitals of the charter." "We
ought not to act contrary to that way in which God hath
owned our worthy predecessors, who in 1638, when there
was a quo warranto against the charter, durst not submit.
In 1664, they did not submit to the commissioners. We,
their successors, should walk in their steps, and so trust in
the God of our fathers that we shall see his salvation. Sub-
mission would gratify our adversaries, and grieve our friends.
Our enemies know it will sound ill in the world for them to
take away the liberties of a poor people of God in the wil-
derness. A resignation will bring slavery upon us sooner
than otherwise it would be, and will grieve our friends in
other colonies, whose eyes are now upon New England, ex-
pecting that the people there will not, through fear, give a
pernicious example unto others.
" Blind obedience to the pleasure of the court cannot be
without great sin, and incurring the high displeasure of the
King of kings. Submission would be contrary unto that
which has been the unanimous advice of the ministers, given
after a solemn day of prayer. The ministers of God in New
England have more of the spirit of John Baptist in them,
than now, when a storm hath overtaken them, to be reeds
shaken with the wind. The priests were to be the first
that set their foot in the waters, and there to stand till the
* Bancroft, ii. 121.
180 THE GREAT EEPUBLIC.
danger be past. Of all men, they should be an example,
to the Lord's people, of faith, courage, and constancy. Un-
questionably, if the blessed Cotton, Hooker, Davenport,
Mather, Shepherd, Mitchell, were now living, they would,
as is evident from their printed books, say, ' Do not sin in
giving away the inheritance of your fathers.'
" Nor ought we submit without the consent of the body of
the people. But the freemen and church-members through-
out New England will never consent hereunto : therefore
the government may not do it.
" The civil liberties of New England are part of the inher-
itance of their fathers ; and shall we give that inheritance
away ? Is it objected that we shall be exposed to great suf-
ferings ? Better suffer than sin. It is better to trust the
God of our fathers than to put confidence in princes. If we
suffer because we dare not comply with the wills of men
against the will of God, we suffer in a good cause, and shall
be accounted martyrs in the next generation and at the
great day." Sublime words ! No language can reach a
higher moral elevation. The act followed the words as the
thunder follows the lightning. " The deputies consent not,
but adhere to their former bills."
The charter fell ; and there was left for the people no
guaranty of their rights but their own inflexible integrity,
and the sleepless vigilance of omnipotent justice.
Let us now turn to the rising State of New York. In
1683, the people in lawful assembly thus define their inalien-
able rights. Let us read the whole passage from which we
have made important extracts for their proper places : " Su-
preme legislative power shall forever be and reside in the
governor, council, and people met in general assembly.
Every freeholder and freeman shall vote for representation
without restraint. No freeman shall suffer but by judgment
of his peers, and all trials shall be by a jury of twelve men.
No tax shall be assessed, on any pretence whatever, but by
the consent of the Assembly. No seaman or soldier shall be
A DISENTHRALLED NATIONAL LIFE.
quartered on the inhabitants against their will. No martial
law shall exist. No person professing faith in God by Jesus
Christ shall at any time be anyways disquieted, or ques-
tioned for any difference of opinion." Leisler and Milborn,
too rash in their assertions of freedom, expired on the gal-
lows; but even the royalist assembly which consented to
their execution, finally re-affirmed the rights of freemen in
the strong words of the grand old declaration quoted above.
Mark also the broad-minded statesmanship of the West-
Jersey Quakers. In response to the attempt of the Duke
of York to " extort customs of the ships ascending to New
Jersey," they say, " The customs imposed by the government
of New York are not a burden only, but a wrong. By what
right are we thus used ? The King of England cannot take
his subjects' goods without their consent. This is a home-
born right, declared to be law by diverse statutes." They
were heard, and they deserved to be.
These people are very meek and harmless apparently ; but
let the minions of power tread upon them here in America,
and they will soon feel the recoil of independent manhood.
Byllinger assumes the right to nominate their lieutenant-
governor ; and what do these Quakers do ? Why, simply
change their constitution, bring forward the free ballot, and
elect their own governor. They are Americans, not serfs.
These may suffice as specimens of the conflict between
liberty and prerogative, between the colonies and England,
* before the bloody war of the Revolution commenced. It
was a contest of intellectual giants in the field of human
rights. The victory seemed for a long time undetermined ;
but the greatest of all facts in the political history of the
world was, that, in a struggle of more than a hundred and
fifty years, not a right belonging to freemen could be
wrenched from these feeble colonists by any power which
despotism could command. This proves incontestably that
God himself had assumed control of the great mind-battle
in progress on this continent.
182 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
STRUGGLES OF RELIGIOUS AND CIVIL LIBERTY IN AMERICA.
We may now recognize the fact, that collisions of mind
were going on at the same time within the colonies. It
might not be expected that the people would be equally
clear in their apprehensions of personal and social rights, nor
perfectly harmonious in their ideas of the best method of
promoting them. They would not therefore advance simul-
taneously toward the result intended by Providence, and
which rose up but dimly before them. It would rather be
highly probable that there would be many and serious dif-
ferences among them, and that they would reveal alarming
tendencies to anarchy on the one hand, and despotic rule on
the other ; while some of the great wrongs of their father-
land would seek to transfer themselves here, changing only
the form and the objects of oppression.
We have seen that the irrepressible desire for " freedom
to worship God " was the grand impulse which colonized New
England, and that God made use of the stern conscience, the
experimental piety, and severe discipline, of Calvinistic Puri-
tanism, to establish irrevocably, as against the assumptions of
English despotism, the right to worship God in spirit and in
truth in the New World.
We have seen, however, that the Puritan spirit could not,
without accessoiy force, carry forward Christian civilization
quite to the point of universal toleration.
We shall now see that civil and religious liberty act vitally
upon each other; that they are so intimately related, that
one cannot be perfect without the other. We shall there-
fore see Puritanism in its transition state, struggling against
its own reservations to realize the highest idea of true
liberty. This contest will reveal the sharpest antagonisms,
but steady advance toward the goal of true national liberty
and unity.
In 1G41, the great " model " of a free government ordained
that " all the people of God who were orthodox in judg-
A DISINTHRALLED NATIONAL LIFE. 183
merit, and not scandalous in life, had full liberty to gather
themselves into a church estate, to exercise' all the ordi-
nances of God, and from time to time to elect and ordain
all their officers, provided they be able, pious, and ortho-
dox." The rights of conscience could not be ignored in this
grand fundamental document. There must be "liberty," "full
liberty ; " but, alas ! it was only for the " orthodox." Thus far,
but, for the present, no farther.
Five years passed, and very clearly two distinct tenden-
cies might be traced in the leading New-England colonies,
— a disposition to an easier toleration of diverse opinions
amongst Americans, and an increased strictness of judgment
against the encroachments of England. In 1646, the tone is
apologetic, and quite liberal. Jeremy Taylor even, in an
argument for liberty, had said, "Anabaptism is as much
to be rooted out as any thing that is the greatest pest and
nuisance to the public interest." The Puritans say that cer-
tain wild and turbulent spirits, " whose conscience and reli-
gion seemed only to set forth themselves, and raise contentions
in the country, did provoke us to provide for our safety by
a law that all such should take notice how unwelcome they
should be unto us, either coming or staying. But for such
as differ from us only in judgment, and live peaceably
amongst us, — such have no cause to complain ; for it hath
never been as yet put in execution against any of them,
although such are known to live amongst us."
But, on the other hand, it was said, " If the king, or any
party from him, should attempt any thing against this com-
monwealth," it was the common duty " to spend estate and
life and all, without scruple, in its defence." " If the Par-
liament itself should hereafter be of a malignant spirit, then,
if the colony have strength sufficient, it may withstand any
authority from them to its hurt." This was the precise spirit
of the Revolution ; and the attempt to conciliate nonconform-
ist colonies aimed directly at the increase of strength in the
incipient union, to provide for contingencies thus distinctly
184 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
seen more than a hundred years before the war of blood
actually began.
Now " great questions about the authority of magistrates
and the liberty of the people" come up. The "assistants"
had become a little too exacting in the intervals of legisla-
tive sessions. " You will not be obeyed," said the people by
the lips of Hawthorne. Parties began to reveal distinctness
of organization. The popular party were jealous of the
ministers; for they now favored the magistrates, which seemed
to them the party of order. Eliot, however, the Apostle to
the Indians, did not hesitate to show his dissent from his
brethren, and very boldly came forward in defence of the
people. He would have rotation in office, even against the
mild and philanthropic Winthrop. The contests which fol-
lowed revealed " a presbyterial spirit." of which thorough
Puritanism was very much afraid. The voice of Winthrop
was. as usual, soothing and instructive. ''Civil liberty," he
said, "is the proper end and object of authority ; and we can-
not subsist without it. It is a liberty to that only which is
good, just, and honest. This liberty von are to stand for,
o *J •/ *
with the hazard not only of your goods, but, if need be, of
your lives. Whatsoever crosseth this is not authority, but a
distemper thereof." He '- retained the affectionate confi-
dence of the colony."
Liberty of conscience now came again boldly to the front.
It was impossible that it should be forever in abeyance,
shut up. as it had been in Massachusetts, to the simple right
to be Congregational Puritans. " Why have not we a right,
in this great, free country, to be Presbyterians, Episcopalians,
Anabaptists, if we choose?" some courageous people would
say. And the courts began to show liberal tendencies.
Winthrop said the rule of hospitality required more mod-
eration and indulgence; but the Calvinists sternly insisted
that this tendency, if unrestrained, was sure " to eat out the
power of godliness."
In Plvmouth. the proposition was boldly made " for a full
A DISINTHRALLED NATIONAL LIFE. 185
and free toleration of religion to all men, without excep-
tion against Turk, Jew, Papist, Arian, Socinian, Familist, or
any other." This was terrible to Winslow. He wrote to
Winthrop, "You would have admired to have seen how
sweet this carrion relished to the palate of most of them."
Delay defeated the measure, and the battle moved back to
Massachusetts.
The ministers, in the mean time, stood firm against all
encroachments of liberty from the mother-country. The
people trusted them. " It had been as unnatural for a right
New-England man to live without an able ministry, as for
a smith to work his iron without a fire." " The union be-
tween the elders and the State could not, therefore, but
become more intimate than ever ; and religion was vene-
rated and cherished as the security against political subservi-
ency." *
It was now 1651 ; and Puritan intolerance, severely pressed
by the advancing liberties of the age, became convulsive in
its struggles to maintain its position. Saltonstall deplored
these severities. If they had been liberal, they might have
been "the eyes of God's people in England." Sir Henry
Vane had wisely suggested that " the oppugners of the con-
gregational way should not, from its own principles and
practice, be taught to root it out."
But Dudley said, "God forbid our love for the truth
should be grown so cold, that we should tolerate errors ! I die
no libertine." Cotton was inflexible. " Better tolerate hypo-
crites and tares than thorns and briers." Ward responded,
" Polypiety is the greatest impiety in the world. To say
that men ought to have liberty of conscience is impious
ignorance." " Religion," said Norton, " admits of no eccen-
tric notions."
In 1649, the people of Massachusetts resolved, quite
against the will of their magistrates, to put their laws into
the form of a complete code, with specified penalties affixed.
* Bancroft, i. 443."
186 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
A committee of two magistrates, two ministers of the gos-
pel, and two men directly from the people, accomplished this
delicate task ; and- the first published code of this colony
went into full effect. Would it show a clear advance in the
direction of liberty ? No : it was yet too early for this. As
might have been expected, when these old representatives
of Puritanic justice put pen to paper, they went promptly
back to what they deemed first principles, and adopted the
sternest measures to check and utterly put down the weak-
ness and vice of toleration.
They had demanded for themselves simply liberty to do
right. This they would concede to all others : nothing
more, upon the peril of their souls. Hear them : " Albeit
faith is not wrought by the sword, but the Word, never-
theless, seeing that blasphemy of the true God cannot be
excused by any ignorance or infirmity of human nature,/
no person in this jurisdiction, whether Christian or Pagan,
shall wittingly and willingly presume to blaspheme his holy
name, either by wilful or obstinate denying the true God, or
his creation or government of the world ; or shall curse God ;
or reproach the holy religion of God, as if it were but a
public device to keep ignorant men in awe ; nor shall utter
any other eminent kind of blasphemy of like nature or
degree." If they did, the penalty was death.
Hear them again ; they are terribly in earnest : "Although
no human power be lord over the faith and consciences of
men, yet because such as bring in damnable heresies, tend-
ing to the subversion of the Christian faith, and destruction
of the souls of men, ought duly to be restrained from such
notorious impieties, any Christian within this jurisdiction,
who shall go about to subvert or destroy the Christian faith
and religion by broaching and maintaining any damnable
heresies, as denying the immortality of the soul, or resurrec-
tion of the body ; or any sin to be repented of in the regen-
erate ; or any evil done by the outward man to be accounted
sin ; or denying that Christ gave himself a ransom for our
A DISINTHKALLED NATIONAL LIFE. 187
sins ; or shall affirm that we are not justified by his death
and righteousness, but by the perfections of our own works ;
or shall deny the morality of the fourth commandment ; or
shall openly condemn or oppose the baptizing of infants; or
shall purposely depart the congregation at the administra-
tion of that ordinance ; or shall deny the ordinance of magis-
tracy, or their lawful authority to make war, or to punish
the outward breaches of the first table ; or shall endeavor
to seduce others to any of the errors and heresies above
mentioned," — any such were liable to banishment.
"Jesuits were forbidden to enter the colony, and their
second coming was punishable with death. Another law a
few years after subjected to fine, whipping, banishment, and
finally to death, any who denied the received books of the
Old and New Testament to be the infallible word of God." *
These were fearful crimes, in the main enormous heresies,
beyond a doubt ; and the horror with which they were con-
templated shows the depth and strength of religious princi-
ple and feeling which controlled the spirits of these noble
men. But assuming that civil force and legal penalties
were for such sinners, and that only the good and the ortho-
dox were entitled to the blessings of protection and citizen-
ship, they reached the point where Puritan logic took on its
most subtle and obstinate fallacy, and beyond which it could
not pass.
Arrests, whipping, imprisonment, banishment of Ana-
baptists and Quakers upon pain of death, would be possible
for a while longer.
Religion, however, was not to be a subjugated element in
New England : it was to be the guide of civil law and the
paramount power of the land. " New England," the Puri-
tan said, " was a religious plantation, not a plantation for
trade. The profession of the purity of doctrine, worship,
and devotion, was written on her forehead." " We all," said
the constitution of the oldest confederacy, " came into these
* Hildreth, i. 370.
188 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
parts of America to enjoy the liberties of the gospel in
purity and peace." " He that made religion as twelve, and
the world as thirteen, had not the spirit of a true New-
England man." " New England was the colony of con-
science." These transcendent facts, united with convictions
of exclusive rights, produced intolerance, but with "another
spirit," under the conduct of Omniscience, would lead to the
highest, noblest forms of organic freedom.
Outside of New England, religious freedom was firmly and
steadily advancing. But God had not changed the order of
his providence. The sun of American liberty would rise in
the east. The morning star to the Western continent sent
forth a mild and beautiful radiance from the little common-
wealth of Rhode Island.
We may now distinctly see the character and mission of
the Puritans. They were the Protestants of liberty. God
had given them that singular combination of meekness and
self-respect, of self-abnegation and sharply-defined individu-
ality, which dashed aside the minions of power, while they
humbly acknowledged the sacredness of the traditional
authority under which they suffered all the horrors of
martyrdom. They were bold, persistent protestants against
the bitter wrongs inflicted by king, prelates, and parliament,
but devoted friends of the crown and church of England.
Imbued with the feelings and purposes of religious, irresisti-
ble destiny, they rose up against the tyranny which op-
pressed them in the Old World ; and they would resist to
the death the same tyranny in the New. With respect to
the Church, they were not separatists ; with respect to the
Government, they were royalists : but holding that God was
above both Church and State, and that nothing belonged
legitimately to the British Constitution which was in the
slightest degree contrary to the Holy Bible, they appealed
from cruel laws to the statutes from Heaven, and from
tyrants to God. Puritanism was therefore Christian loyalty
to God, and to British sovereignty subjected to the divine
A DISIXTHRALLED NATIONAL LIFE. 189
will. As the Lord's people, they were his representatives :
they would therefore arraign royalty for its crimes, and
punish heretics. Precisely here Puritanism alone reached
its ultimate power in behalf of liberty.
ACCESSORY FORCES.
Let us now observe how evidently the grasp and reach of
that power which presided over the mental struggle that pre-
ceded the War of Independence exceed every thing merely
human. The combinations which seem to have most of
finite man in them must be of materials which lie im-
mediately about him, or at least are easily accessible, and
whose relations are naturally and superficially suggested.
When, however, a work is to be accomplished which is too
profound and vast for delegated human wisdom, too good
and important to be intrusted to human discretion, you
may then see how wide the circle of power, how numerous
and improbable, how distant and unlike each other, are the
agencies and elements which produce the result that all
sound minds must declare is the work of God. In nothing
is this more evident than in the great combinations now
under review for the structure of the American Republic.
From Italy, France, Spain, Holland, and England, God
called up the men and movements for the discovery and
colonization of the continent. Under his controlling hand,
the strongest went down, and the weakest rose to power :
the first became last, and the last became first. From the
ruling classes in England he brought forward " gentlemen "
who would try the strength of aristocratic power for the for-
mation of States in the South, and place within fair reach of
liberty the grand antagonist force with which it was to grap-
ple in deadly conflict, and over which it must finally triumph.
- From the middle and laboring classes of the same country
he summoned the mind and the muscle which would illus-
trate the force and sphere of man, as man, in conducting
190 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
the grand movements of civilization belonging to all subse-
quent ages and to all climes. He wrought up the solid
qualities of the British yeomanry, by severest discipline, into
the hardiest and boldest of pioneers. He imbued them with
the sternest devotion to his righteous law, and thrust them
out to found, by the action of conscience, a new England on
the Western continent Using one species of force as far
and long as its spirit would permit, and moving liberty
under its agency as far forward as the imperfect, undeveloped
personal freedom of one class of free agents would allow, at
precisely the right time he brought forward such other
forces as the progress of his plans required.
The first necessity of the Puritans was help to release
themselves from traditional attachment to the Church of
England as the religion of the realm established by law.
They looked upon all the assumptions and exactions of
Prelacy with feelings of indescribable horror ; but all these
they regarded as perversions of the true Church of England :
while upon the State policy, which assumed the care of the
Church, and absorbed and controlled its power as vital to
the government, they looked with superstitious reverence.
" We separate," said the ministers, " not from the Church of
England, but from its corruptions. We came away from the
common prayer and ceremonies in our native land, where
we suffered much for nonconformity. In this place of liberty
we can not, will not, use them. Their imposition would be
a sinful violation of the worship of God."
The Separatists in England had shocked their ecclesiastical
piety by denouncing not merely the wrongs of Prelacy, but
the Church of England itself. They battled " come-outers "
with a zeal scarcely less furious than that with which they
attacked the persecuting bishops and magistrates. But, in
the course of this two-sided conflict, the thought must have
forced itself home, that some day they might be compelled
either to separation or guilty conformity. They were at-
tempting the impossible.
A DISENTHRALLED NATIONAL LIFE. 191
The Pilgrims of Plymouth were in advance of the Massa-
chusetts Puritans, and from them the leaven of church inde-
pendence spread through all the colonies. The Congrega-
tionalists of Salem and Boston were slowly moving towards
outward separation ; while in reality they had already com-
menced the formation of a State church of their own.
Roger Williams thundered in their ears the crimes of their
ungodly attempts at conformity on the one hand, and of ec-
clesiastical tyranny on the other, and then retired to the
companionship of savages, and finally to Rhode Island, that
he might be free, and, in the hands of God, become the found-
er of religious, and hence of civil, liberty in America.
Providence, as we have seen, compelled the Catholics under
Lord Baltimore to make contribution to the sum of forces
gathering to sweep away the restrictions thrown around
liberty. This must have been a most suggestive and per-
plexing rebuke to intolerance in New England and Virginia.
Romanism would nevertheless be historically true to its fun-
damental principles ; while the expediency of free worship
would make a free and finally a Protestant State of Mary-
land. Let us read again the words from the colony of Lord
Baltimore, which laid the foundation of the present goodly
structure upon which we look with so much pleasure :
"No person within this province, professing to believe in
Jesus Christ, shall be anyways troubled, molested, or dis-
countenanced for his or her religion, or in the free exercise
thereof." Notwithstanding the limitation implied here, which
might be used against infidels and atheists, these strong
words went very far towards the exact expression of Ameri-
can thought.
The colony founded by the free States of Holland on the
banks of the Hudson had brought with them much of the
true spirit of the Reformation. They had not proceeded far
in the growth of civil institutions before they thought proper
to record a silent but powerful protest against the limitations
of religious liberty rising up from Roman usurpations on the
192 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
Continent, repeating themselves in church prerogatives in
England, and now so strongly attempted in America. Let
us consider the words included in the first great State-
paper announced by the freemen of New York : " No per-
son professing faith in God by Jesus Christ shall at any time
be anyways disquieted or questioned for any difference of
opinion." Still nearer to the true American idea than the
announcement from Maryland. The necessity of at least a
profession of faith in God by Jesus Christ in order to secu-
rity was apparently invidious; but they were not to be
" questioned."
Virginia, up to 1643, revealed the spirit of ecclesiastical
bigotry and proscription from the side of Prelacy as Massa-
chusetts had from Puritanism. " All ministers are to use the
Liturgy, and to conform to the Church of England : the gov-
ernor and council to compel nonconformists ' to depart the
colony with all conveniency.' No Popish recusant is to hold
any office ; and all Popish priests are to be sent out of the
colony within five days after their arrival. Travelling and
shooting on the sabbath are made punishable by fines." *
It was not until 1776 that Virginia was emancipated from
the legal domination of the Church of England. " By the
influx of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians and other dissenters,
especially Baptists, into the upper counties, the Episcopalians
had become a minority of the people. But they still had a
majority in the assembly ; and it was only after warm de-
bates that Jefferson and George Mason procured the passage
of a law repealing all the old disabling acts, legalizing all
modes of worship, releasing dissenters from parish-rates, and
suspending their collection until the next session, — a suspen-
sion made perpetual in 1779, and the more readily as most
of the clergymen of the Church of England were Tories." f
So far, in this fundamental particular, was Virginia Ameri-
canized ; and she was stronger because of it in the War ef
Independence. The battle was not ended, and we shall come
to it again.
* Hildreth, i. 336. t Ibid., Hi. 384.
A DISINTHRALLED NATIONAL LIFE. 193
In the great governmental theory formed for Carolina in
1670 by Shaftesbury and Locke, it was provided that none
could be freemen who did not acknowledge a God and the
obligation of public worship. The Church of England was
to be supported at the public expense, — a provision inserted
by the proprietaries against the opinion of Locke, who wished
to put all sects on the same footing. Any seven freemen,
however, might form a church or religious society, to be
recognized and tolerated, provided its members admitted the
rightfulness of oaths, — a provision which excluded Quakers.
By another provision, it was decreed that " every freeman of
Carolina shall have absolute power and authority over his
negro slaves, of what opinion and religion soever."
In 1676, a colony of dissenters came to Carolina under
Blake, the brother of the famous admiral. Twenty years
thereafter, Joseph Blake was appointed governor by Arch-
dale. He was a dissenter, and the little company became
stronger by an accession from Massachusetts. They estab-
lished Dorchester, twenty miles from Charleston ; and, in
1698, John Cotton, son of the "famous Cotton/' organized a
Congregational church in Charleston, which survived the
War of the Revolution and the ecclesiastical proscription of
Carolina and New England.
In 1703, "the Churchmen, though not a third part of the
inhabitants, happened to have a majority of one in the Assem-
bly :" and "an act was passed requiring all members of As-
sembly to take the sacrament according to the rites of the
Church of England ; or, if they thought themselves unquali-
fied for that solemnity, to subscribe a declaration of their
adhesion to that church." The dissenters and Archdale re-
monstrated ; but the proprietaries approved, and the Church
of England was, in 1705, established by law.
It was not till 1784, that, "by the second constitution of
South Carolina, the l Christian Protestant religion ' was de-
clared to be the established religion of that State. All per-
sons acknowledging one God, and a future state of rewards
194 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
and punishments, were to be freely tolerated : if, in addition,
they held Christianity to be the true religion, and the Old
and New Testaments to be inspired, they might form churches
of their own, entitled to be admitted as a part of the Estab-
lishment" * Thus much the dissenters had extracted from
the prelatists by majorities led by great statesmen, after a
long and desperate struggle.
From the State of Georgia came a stronger influence in
favor of liberty. Light from the clear mind of Oglethorpe
travelled through the darkness of ages, and mingled at
length with the brightest revelations from heaven.
About this period, the constitution in .Massachusetts
u seemed to guarantee the entire freedom of religious opin-
ions, and the equality of all sects ; yet the legislature, being
left with authority to compel the support of the ministers, and
attendance on service, acted up to the full measure of their
authority, inflicting heavy penalties for heterodox opinions."
New Hampshire and Connecticut enacted similar laws ; and
we pass out of the period of preparation and independence,
leaving the Congregationalists in New England the standing
order, and their form of religion established by law.
We may now generalize by referring to another distinct
religious movement. George Fox came forward to show
the world " that the kingdom of God is within ; " that tyr-
anny is of a man's own conceptions ; and that liberty is of
the soul, and not of kings or nobles or commons ; that the
grand bane of life is pride, and all artificial distinctions are
of the Devil ; that prince and subjects, lords and beggars, are
men, only men, suffering under a common bondage, with
one only hope, and that must be revealed by the voice of
God in the soul. For the rest, kings and protectors and
presidents, who followed not the light within, were usurpers
and tyrants. Men were free only as they were governed by
God. Conscience was supreme, because it was the voice of
God. Men might meditate, be still, suffer, die, but never
obey a man against the inward monitor.
* Hildreth, iii. 383.
A DISINTHRALLED NATIONAL LIFE. 195
There was room amid the upheavals of the age for such
a man as this. How anxiously the people asked, " Is this the
light for which I have been straining my darkened sight ?
Is it true that I can bid adieu to these bewildering worldly
fictions, renounce and defy the usurpations of tyrants, and
retire into myself, and find rest ? " They felt moved to try it
In vast throngs they did; and presently the sacrifice was
ready : the victims of fines, imprisonments, banishment, and
torture, were innumerable. And what lessons of endurance
for conscience' sake they taught the age and the world !
How the moral rose above the physical amid the serene
composure of passive suffering and tranquil martyrdom !
How mightily the levelling power of justice wrought through
the " quietism " of conscious right to dash down the proud
pretenders to despotic power, and lift up the masses to the
dignity of manhood !
God would allow even their fanaticism to illustrate their
virtues ; their tortures and dying to rebuke the madness of
oppression ; and finally their cruel exile to bring to America
the doctrine of equal rights, and found States to illustrate
the principles and reveal the weaknesses of a pure democ-
racy. He would permit them to become thorns in the sides
of Puritan and Prelatical bigotry and proscription, until
enough of them were murdered, and the rest were hurled
away, to show that another inspiration was needed to move
the world forward to the full realization of the divine idea of
human freedom. They laid the foundations of religious lib-
erty in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, New Jersey, and Dela-
ware. They fulfilled their mission, took their place in history
as warnings to tyrants, and against worldly folly and corrup-
tion, and waited to be absorbed into the life of the nation
they had so powerfully helped to form. Christian liberty
must be aggressive : Friends could not be aggressive, and
they could lead freedom no farther.
Let it now be asked whether the infidel, worldly spirit is
not equal to this task ; whether this power may not take up
196 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
liberty where the chief religious movements of the prepara-
tory period have left it, and complete the release of the na-
tional life, and the thorough Americanization of our foreign
and home-born population. It shall have a fair opportunity
to make the experiment. God will allow it to do its best,
under the most favorable auspices, by the hand of its most
brilliant representative man.
From the same England whence came the Prelatists, the
Papists, the Puritans, and the Quakers, later in the struggle
came Thomas Paine to sound the blast of freedom so loud
and clear, that the whole civilized world must hear it. He
seemed the appointed leader of the Revolution. He was
voice for the dumb, courage for the timid, daring and defi-
ance for the handful of the oppressed against the host of
their oppressors.
But his career was brief. He wrote of " common sense,"
and " the rights of man " as a being of time merely, a crea-
ture of accident. He abridged the scope of these rights
from the infinite to the finite, from the eternal to the tem-
poral, from the grand whole of being to a miserable frag-
ment. He found himself without adequate motives and
power. He was a man. — a mere man ; at length, a very
vile man. He could teach the people to hate ; but there was
no organizing power in hatred. They idolized, and then de-
spised him. When they saw that he would leave them with
" no hope, and without God in the world," they broke away
from him. His rage was terrible, but impotent. He fled
from the land of the Bible to the land of infidelity like a suf-
fering demon seeking an easier hell. He had burst upon
the world a brilliant luminary, and suddenly went out amid
the horrors of a darkness that could be felt. He showed how
far an infidel, worldly spirit could carry liberty, attracted the
gaze of anxious multitudes, scoffed, and died.
Education must seek its place among the accessory forces
of liberty in the earlier period of our nation's history. A
high degree of culture had appeared in the vigorous intel-
A DISENTHRALLED NATIONAL LIFE. 197
lects of the legislators and ministers of the colonies. It
would be difficult to find more sturdy thinkers, more skilful
dialecticians, or more complete masters of language, than the
leading statesmen and divines of the age under review.
But a new race was rising up. Vigorous, daring young
Americans were coming upon the stage. What would be the
direction of their minds under the stimulating power of free-
dom ? It was plain, they must be educated ; but how and
where ? True, the sons of wealth might be sent home to
college ; but this would tend to produce a privileged class,
while the great mass of the rising generation would grow
up in stubborn, dangerous ignorance. America must have
her own institutions of learning.
As early as 1621, the London Company undertook "to
establish plans of education " in Virginia. " The Bishop of
London collected and paid a thousand pounds towards a
university ; which, like the several churches of the colony
was liberally endowed with domains." *
Seminaries of learning were not numerous in the South ;
but they were sufficient to show the intelligent enterprise of
the great patrons of learning in the age of colonization ; and
coming in as tributaries to the culture of American children
educated in England, and the drilling of here and there a
family by a thoughtful, cultivated mother at home, they helped
to save the land from the crimes and desolations of general
ignorance.
In New England, the movement for general education was
thoroughly characteristic. In 1636, " six years after the ar-
rival of Winthrop, the General Court voted a sum equal to
a year's rate of the whole colony towards the erection of a
college. In 1638, John Harvard bequeathed to the college
one-half of his estate and all his library." f It was hence
called Harvard College. "The infant institution was a fa-
vorite. Connecticut and Plymouth, and the towns in the east?
often contributed little offerings to promote its success ; the
» Bancroft, i. 179. t Ibid., i. 459.
198 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
gift of the rent of a ferry was a proof of the care of the
State ; and once, at least, every family in each of the colonies
gave to the college at Cambridge twelve pence, or a peck of
corn, or its value in unadulterated wampumpeag ; while the
magistrates and wealthier men were profuse in their liberal-
ity. The college, in return, exerted a powerful influence in
forming the earlier character of the country." *
But it was not college-learning only that the liberal-minded
Puritans sought to promote. Custom, and finally law, pro-
vided that " none of the brethren shall suffer so much bar-
barism in their families as not to teach their children and
apprentices so much learning as may enable them perfectly
to read the English tongue." *
One most important purpose for which they insisted upon
general education appears in their venerable code in quaint
and characteristic style : " It being one chief project of that
old deluder, Sathan, to keep men from the knowledge of the
Scriptures, as in former times keeping them in an unknown
tongue, so in these latter times by persuading men from the
use of tongues, so that, at least, the true sense and meaning
of the original might be clouded with false glosses of saint-
seeming deceivers, and that learning might not be buried in
the graves of our fathers," it was ordered " that every town-
ship, after the Lord hath increased them to the number of
fifty householders, shall appoint one to teach all children to
write and read ; and, when any town shall increase to the
number of one hundred families, they shall set up a gram-
mar-school, the masters thereof being able to instruct youth
so far as they may be fitted for the university." The colonies
of Connecticut, Plymouth, and New Haven, enacted the same
law. After some rather plain promptings from Massachu-
setts, " the General Court of Plymouth," in 1657, required by
law " the towns to tax themselves for the support of minis-
ters and grammar-schools."
Thus we discover the foundation of the New-England
* Bancroft, i. 459.
A DISINTHKALLED NATIONAL LIFE. 19Q
common-school system, which has risen to be its strength and
its glory. It had due relation to the grammar-school and
the university ; but " every child as it was born into the
world was lifted from the earth by the genius of the country,
and, in statutes of the land, received as its birthright a pledge
of the public care for its morals and its mind." *
Rhode Island did not promptly unite with other New-
England colonies in this great movement. The zeal of Roger
Williams and his people for pure religion made them sus-
picious of too much of the human, especially in religious
education, and carried them into the region of superstition,
leading them to expect direct instruction from heaven which
would supersede the human and prevent the peril. Doubt-
less the scholarly old Puritans had some reference to these
good people when they wrote of " saint-seeming deceivers."
Within the period now before us, in 1696, Maryland passed
a law establishing free schools. The measures adopted for
the support of the system did not, however, go into proper
effect until 1723. The arrangements were liberal, and men
were appointed to employ " good schoolmasters, members of
the Church of England, men of pious and exemplary lives
and conversation, and capable of teaching well the grammar,
good writing, and the mathematics, if such can conveniently
be got."
These were apparently small beginnings ; but they were
of the most vital importance. They indicate a vigorous ele-
ment of national strength, to be developed chiefly in the
Northern States.
Powerful and perpetual, the mission of education was
not, however, alone to complete the liberation of mind and
the constitution of freedom. The bondage of the Puritan
was in his conscience, and this mere human learning could
not reach. As an accessory force, education had done its
best, and could not emancipate even the New-England mind
from the power of bigotry and public injustice.
* Bancroft, i. 458, 459.
200 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
A NEW INSPIRATION.
Recognizing, as historical fidelity has compelled us to do,
the great facts of the limitation, if not the exhaustion, of all
the important forces which have passed before us, it is time to
bring prominently forward that power, which, released from
outward restrictions, and brought into thorough legitimate
action, would complete the liberation of the American mind,
and, by vitalizing and organizing liberty, prepare it for its
mission of power among men.
The Bible was the great book of the Puritans. They
received it as the revelation of God, and would allow no man
to shut it, or wrest it from them. It was everywhere with
them. In its light they undertook to form their system of
government, their churches, and their schools. Whatever
of traditional bigotry they had inherited, or of proscriptive
exclusiveness had arisen from the recoil of their free spirits
from the assaults of persecution, the pure truth of the Bible
would work quietly, but steadily and bravely, against it.
Their tendency to rigid formalism it would antagonize ; and,
so far as the free consent and the trusting faith of individuals
would allow, it would bring to their souls the power of the
atonement, and the new life " born of the Spirit."
To a large extent, this power from above pervaded the
masses, and gave them the right to say, " This is the victory
that overcometh the world, even our faith." Sufficient intro-
version, and a clear, strong development of this force, would
have given them liberty completed : undue attention to the
external and to the outward battles of technical Puritanism
brought them to their limits, and demanded help.
Many of the Puritans were Presbyterians. They came in
considerable numbers about the commencement of the civil
war in England, and at the period of the Restoration. The
Dutch who began the settlement of New York were Pres-
byterians; the Germans who came into Pennsylvania and
Northern Virginia were generally Presbyterians; the Hu-
A DISINTHRALLED NATIONAL LIFE. 201
guenots from France were nearly all Calvinists and Presby-
terians. All these had separate organizations corresponding
with their traditions in the Old World. They assumed dif-
ferent names accordingly, but were all Presbyterian in dis-
tinction from Episcopal. From Scotland and Ireland came
multitudes of very devout but very rigid Presbyterians.
The first presbytery was organized in Philadelphia in 1705.
In these incipient churches was much of the indomitable,
unconquerable spirit of the Scotch Presbyterians, but also the
devout glowing piety of John Knox and the martyr-heroes
of the Reformation.
Here we identify again the vital power which liberated
the soul from the fetters of sin, and which bore heavily
against the bondage of Puritanism. Practically independent
of all limitations, the great preachers and noble laymen of
this church moved into the future with the blast of freedom
sounding from their lips ; and extensive revivals, and the con-
sequent extension of liberty, showed that from this great
evangelical communion would come large accessions to the
common vital power which would emancipate the nation.
The Episcopal Church, trammelled by State prerogatives,
and fearfully restricted by formalism and aristocratic preten-
sions, nevertheless bore in its bosom much of the life of God,
a part of which had come down from the days of Cranmer
and Latimer, Burnet and Butler, but a much larger propor-
tion of which came from the great revival of the eighteenth
century. Its extremes would repel each other; but the
church of the Wesleys, of Oglethorpe, and of Bishops White
and Hobart, would make large contributions to the aggre-
gation of spiritual power which would contend mightily with
the intolerance of caste, and give most effective aid to the
nation struggling to be free.
The life of God in the soul of the devout Quaker wrought
powerfully on the same side.
The Baptists, in their fervent piety and native independ-
ence, contained in large measure the spirit which was des-
202 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
tined to achieve completed liberty for the American nation.
They were at first chiefly from Wales, then from England
and the Continent ; but, from whatever country they came,
they loved liberty. If there were tendencies to exclusive-
ness in any of their doctrines and their single mode of bap-
tism, these were practically overcome by the deep and ear-
nest spirit of piety, which, by inevitable laws, connected them
with the goodly fellowship of believers everywhere, and with
the freedom-side of all the great controversies of Church and
State.
The great Roger Williams, though, as we have seen,
deemed irregular in his views and acts with regard to the
baptismal succession, was nevertheless, in a strong sense, a
Baptist. Concerning him and his brethren, Chief Justice
Story said, " In the code of laws established by them in
Rhode Island, we read, for the first time since Christianity
ascended the throne of the Caesars, the declaration that con-
science should be free, and men should not be punished for
worshipping God in the way they were persuaded he re-
quires."
Let me now be distinctly understood. Ecclesiastical organ-
izations may, in their peculiar structure and sectarian cast,
be for or against the doctrines of liberty ; but, in the lib-
erty wherewith Christ hath made them free, they are not
sectarian, they are not exclusive. This we have identified
in all as the common life-force by which God intended to
organize, perfect, and develop civil and religious freedom on
this continent for the world. Its origin was divine, its chan-
nel the Bible, and its scope the world. There is yet another
grand historical development of this common life-force of the
Great Republic.
Now let us look to England again. " Man's extremity," says
Augustine, " is God's opportunity." " While Seeker was de-
ploring the demoralization of England, as threatening to
' become absolutely fatal,' and the aged Burnet saw ' immi-
nent ruin hanging over the Church' and over the whole
A DISENTHRALLED NATIONAL LIFE.
203
Keformation ; while Watts was writing that * religion was
dying in the world,' and Butler, that ' it had come to be taken
for granted that Christianity was no longer a subject of in-
quiry, but at length was discovered to be fictitious ; ' when,
in fine, the Anglican Church had become * an ecclesiastical
system, under which the people of England had lapsed into
heathenism, and nonconformity was rapidly in course to be
found nowhere but in books ; ' and meanwhile, across the
Channel, rationalistic infidelity was invading the strongholds
of the Reformation, and the French philosophers were spread-
ing moral contagion through Europe, — God was preparing
the means, apparently disconnected, but providentially coinci-
dent, which were to resuscitate the ' dying ' faith, and intro-
duce the era of modern evangelism in the Protestant world." *
From Oxford came an indigent student, who, by faith in
Jesus, after lying prostrate on the ground for whole days in
silent or vocal prayer, had received a new life from heaven.
This was George Whitefield, soon to become the greatest
preacher of his age. His rebukes of sin in high places were
too scathing, and his appeals to the conscience too over-
whelming, for the churches : and it was well ; for no church
could hold his audiences. Ten, fifteen, and even twenty
thousand anxious human beings gathered in the fields to
hear from his lips the way of salvation by faith. The Holy
Spirit fired his great soul with a zeal which no ocean or con-
tinent could limit. Scarcely had the echoes of his voice died
away in England before it broke upon the ears of New Eng-
land, rousing the slumbering " orthodoxy " of " the standing
order," and pouring a new life-current through the masses
from Maine to Georgia. Back and forward over the ocean
and the continents this wonderful man flew like the wind,
until it seemed that he was the very angel of the Apoca-
lypse, " having the everlasting gospel to preach unto men."
This was the very spirit which moved the great Edwards,
and the multitudes around him, during " the great awaken-
ing ; " which gave such zeal and holy power to Payson and
* Stevens's History of Methodism, i. 33.
204 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
the Tennants, causing thousands to cry out for mercy, and
then to triumph in " the blood of the Larnb." These great
revivalists were of the school of Calvin in divinity : and
thus God brought the powerful principle of "soul-liberty" to
wrestle with the assumed limitations of the will in the same
individuals ; and the limitations, however firmly guarded by
careful logic, opposed no effective resistance to the power of
a free gospel and a triumphant faith. Whatever might be the
metaphysics of freedom, and whatever its relations to God's
plans, it was nevertheless a great fact, which was now rapidly
translating itself into action, and opening a new world to the
American mind.
A little English boy had been snatched from the upper
window of a house in flames. His mother had, with special
devotion and remarkable grasp of intellect, consecrated him
henceforth to God. He had become a student at Oxford,
and then an awakened sinner, and then a missionary to
Georgia, " to convert the Indians," as he supposed, but, in
God's purposes, to bring him into communication with Peter
Bohler, and the spirit of deep and living German piety.
He was at length at home a new man, and before the gath-
ered multitudes in groves and fields, proclaiming " liberty to
the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that
are bound."
The whole kingdom was moved. The Anglican Church
received a new infusion of spiritual life ; the missionary spirit
was roused. Wesley was in Ireland. Many received the word
which was in demonstration of the " Spirit and of power."
Barbara Heck and Philip Embury were among them. They
had fled from Romish persecutions in the Palatinate in
Germany; but God brought them thence in time to receive
the new life through the labors of this great evangelist.
And they were soon in John Street, New York. Humbly
they sought to win the approbation of Heaven, and the souls
of men, by proclaiming the " liberty wherewith Christ had
made them free." In October, 1766, these servants of the
A DISIN THRALLED NATIONAL LIFE.
205
Most High God founded a church, which would send its life
through the new nation, and, in a century, number more
than a million of souls.
Here was a form of the Reformation which belonged to
.the universal religion. No restrictions of creed or of spirit
shut it up in cloisters, bound it in conscience, or erected a
barrier between it and the mass of mankind. It moved
over the oceans, and out into the forests ; proclaimed its glad
tidings in the West Indies, and amid the Puritans in New
England. At length there appeared a man at its head, a
grand pioneer bishop, directing its heralds, and organizing
its bands for the conquest of the world. Asbury was in
his saddle, moving from city to city, from town to country,
over mountains and rivers, far out into the frontier, pro-
claiming the glorious liberty of redemption, and gathering
the weeping throngs into the fold of the Redeemer.
Now, precisely here is the mistake of historians. They
regard religion as a thing by itself; the great revivals under
Whitefield and Edwards, Asbury and Payson, as isolated
spiritual movements, having no connection with the great
events of national history : whereas they constitute the
very soul of civil life and political development.
When Whitefield and Jesse Lee moved through New Eng-
land, they were the heralds of freedom. They bore a new
revelation to the Puritan mind, which at first roused the
most obstinate resistance, but soon quickened the inner life,
and extended it to the life of the State ; at length sweeping
away every vestige of intolerance, and revealing the mar-
vellous identity of the liberty for which the Pilgrims fled to
America, which honest Episcopalians, Quakers, Baptists, and
Methodists were demanding at their hands, and which Christ
came to proclaim to universal man.
When Asbury and Coke and Strawbridge opened the
batteries of freedom in Maryland, they swept down the re-
strictions which Romanism had thrown around the con-
science, and proclaimed emancipation from the fetters of
206 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
priest-craft. As they moved through Virginia and the Car-
olinas, they sounded the death-knell of Prelatical tyranny,
and thundered in the ears of oppressors the crime of
slavery.
" The fervid spirit of Edwards, seeing with Bossuet, in all
history, only the * history of redemption.' dreamed, in his
New-England retirement, of a millennium which was to
dawn in the New World, and thence burst upon the nations,
and irradiate the globe." *
v Recognizing this spirit of evangelization as truly abroad
upon its mission of love and liberating power, Dr. Baird
says, u No American Christian who takes a comprehensive
view of the progress of religion in his country, and con-
siders how wonderfully the means and instrumentalities em-
ployed are adapted to the extent and the wants of that
country, can hesitate for a moment to bless God for having,
in his mercy, provided them all. Nor will he fail to recog-
nize in the Methodist economy, as well as in the zeal, the
devoted piety, and the efficiency of its ministry, one of
the most powerful elements in the religious prosperity of the
United States, as well as one of the firmest pillars of their
civil and political institutions." f
This divine afflatus, limited, as we have shown, to no age
or sect or clime, was powerful and evident in the days of
which we write.
Liberty received its new inspiration from the baptisms
of love which came in the fresh evangelism of the great
Reformation, and moved out to become truly national in the
American Republic.
* Stevens's Methodist-Episcopal Church, i. 18.
t Baird'a Religion in America, p. 497.
CHAPTER H.
THE TIME CHOSEN SHOWS THE PROVIDENTIAL ADVENT
OF THE NATIONAL LIFE.
"America is therefore the land of the future, where, in the ages that lie before us, the
burden of the world's history shall reveal itself. It is the land of desire for all who are
weary of the historical lumber-room of old Europe." — HEGEL.
" Westward the course of empire takes its way." — BERKELEY.
IT is to be observed that God does not make abrupt and
arbitrary changes in the social state, as man would fre-
quently prefer to do. He does not produce a tree before
the seed, the germ, and the growth ; no more does he sud-
denly project upon the world a completed form of civil and
political order. With much longer delay than we can com-
prehend, through the conflicts of ages he carries truth on to
its destination in the future. Sometimes it appears spar-
kling upon the surface like the gurgling mountain rill, reveal-
ing its fertilizing power by the freshness of the verdure
upon its banks ; and then, plunging from sight amid arid
sands and desert wastes, it appears again with accumulated
power farther on towards the great ocean.
Slowly, therefore, it might be expected the great prepara-
tions for a new era of freedom would move on under the
guidance of Providence ; and in the fulness of time the
plans of God would be evident to men. As numerous
attempts had sufficiently shown, it was rashness in man to
precipitate events. The result could only be the exposure of
human folly, and the destruction of hopes based upon mere
finite discretion and power ; but God could use even these
experiments and calamities to correct the mistakes of men.
207
208 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
HISTORICAL CYCLES MUST PRECEDE.
Time must be allowed for human depravity to work out its
legitimate results. This was realized in the antediluvian age ;
and the desolations of the Flood were the appropriate termi-
nation of the first grand epoch of human madness and sin.
The moral and political force of learning and the arts
must be accurately measured ; and this occurred in the
history of Greece, under the genius of Aristotle, Themis-
tocles, and Solon.
The irresistible energy of the sword must work out its
results ; and this was done in the life of Rome.
The competency of a symbolic religion must be ascer-
tained; and this had been seen in the extraordinary develop-
ment of the Hebrew institutes and people, reaching back to
the infancy of the race.
Old and decaying systems of human wisdom and folly
must be crumbled to atoms to make way for the foundations
of modern civilization ; and this was achieved by the wander-
ing, barbarous hordes of Tamerlane and Gengis Khan.
The age of chivalry had reached its climax and spent its
force in the wild and fiery crusades to the Holy Land.
Feudal rights and lordly pretensions had expired under
the agency of their own usurpations and the rising power of
the masses.
Spiritual and temporal despotism had tried their strength,
separately and combined, in grappling with the inherent,
rights of man ; and all questions of human progress had been
answered by the aggrandizement of the sovereign alone.
Compromise between the most concentrated individualism
and the rising power of the people had done its best, and
rapidly completed its circle back to the unmitigated tyranny
in which it had its origin.
Then the time had come for projecting upon the plane of
human vision the grand experiment of government by the
people. Had it been earlier, its appeal to enlightened reason
would have been far less conclusive and powerful.
PKOVIDENTIAL ADVENT OF THE NATIONAL LIFE.
209
DESPOTIC GOVERNMENTS AND IMPERISHABLE IDEAS.
The patriarchal principle arises naturally out of the con-
stitution of the human mind and the existence of family.
It was adapted to a perfect, moral condition. Had this con-
tinued, it would undoubtedly have remained, as it was, at
first, God's mode of conducting a universal theocracy. This
primitive, simple, and charming method of order gave place
to monarchy, which, under the power of extending depravity,
became the vilest usurpation.
But it was still a favorite method, and nTust be tried over
and over again. Its natural development in one form, it was
assumed, could not be accepted as demonstration of its
inadequacy in another. Its growth and extension gave it
power to command respect, and win the confidence of vast
generations of men ; while its violent abuses, its revolutions
and decay, it was presumed, were attributable to accidental
defects in men, or obtrusive modifying circumstances over
which it would be possible for superior wisdom to exert
adequate control.
Time was necessary to allow it to prove historically its
inadequacy to solve the great political problems ever return-
ing to perplex the thoughtful and the wise. It must fail, in
the hands of numberless dynasties, in all its endless variety
of forms, with every conceivable advantage, in order to
loosen its hold upon the confidence of men. Its popular
power must be virtually destroyed to make way for the true
principle of civil order, upon a scale sufficiently large to
insure its success.
To understand this historical teaching, it must be remem-
bered that ideas are imperishable. Individuals and nations
pass away; but their acts remain. In numberless forms, their
acquisitions of experience and philosophy diffuse themselves
through the social fabric, and descend with their precise and
legitimate power amid the antagonisms of the future.
This result does not depend upon historical organizations.
27
210 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
It requires no authorized supervision of facts or principles
to preserve them. It is in their nature to perpetuate them-
selves. New generations, as they arise, do not determine the
influences which shall surround them, nor the point in
civilization at which they will commence their own experi-
ments : they are themselves, in soul, body, and spirit, the
product and embodiment of the past. To this constitu-
tional provision may be added the influence of recorded and
contemporaneous history.
It is thus that we account for the traditional and philo-
sophical forces which operate upon the social order from the
vast cycles of the past, amid the dissolutions of time and
the decay of nations ; and thus that we explain the tedious
but ultimately effectual lessons of wisdom which the world
learns from the records of folly.
We may therefore understand that time had been allowed
for the school of ages, and a notable preparation for the in-
troduction of a new social order was evolved from the chaos
of anarchy and despotism.
Indications of the grand fundamental fact, that the power
of government resides in the people, accordingly appeared in
the history of Providence and the developments of empirical
systems ; but the great decisive movement of freedom must
bide its time. The impression of its necessity must be
profound and pervading before its advent into the scenes of
battle through which it must pass : and just time enough for
this had elapsed, when it appeared to assert its right to do-
minion over the destinies of men ; not immediate, universal
dominion, — certainly not in its outward forms ; for we are
not of the number who believe that formal republicanism
has any natural or divine right to take forcible possession of
the world. And yet we believe fully that its mission is uni-
versal. It is to be the visible or invisible animus which shall
inhabit the body politic of all the peoples under the sun ;
and, for precisely the reason that its advance to rank and
power must be gradual, it must for ages co-exist with other
and antagonist forms.
PROVIDENTIAL ADVENT OF THE NATIONAL LIFE. 211
THE GRAND CRISIS OF HISTORY.
But as the reality of government by the people could not
have earlier moved »up to its central position among the
powers of the earth, so neither could it have been longer
delayed without an entire change in the fundamental laws
of human progress and incalculable harm to the race. When
the combinations began to appear for the organization of the
American Republic, there was nothing for dissatisfied intellect
to take hold of. All other forms had been tried, and proved
wholly unsatisfactory. Without something clearly in ad-
vance of former experiments, the action of liberty must
have recoiled upon itself; and erratic and irrepressible vio-
lence must have crushed the hopes and changed the destinies
of millions.
God, who had guided the elements and superintended the
preparations of more than five thousand years, knew well the
grand crisis in which the hopes of longing, restlese minds
must pass over to another and more enduring reliance.
Besides, for the great mission of a model Republic, there
was none too much time. How much time in the great
cycles of the world's future remained, certainly none but
Omniscience could tell. We are not, however, of the number
convinced by the hypothesis, that we are now in the middle
period of the world's history. The rising, towering grandeur
of moral ideas and events indicates to us rather the strong
probability that the world has not yet passed its vigorous
youth ; and precisely this is what we mean by the position,
that, for the mission of the great model Republic, there was
none too much time. During its infancy, not half its power
to bless mankind could appear. Immense as are its advan-
tages during the development of its minority, its grand
providential task must be accomplished after it reaches its
majority.
Not the lofty purposes of government merely, but the ris-
ing power of every other force upon which the destiny of
212 THE GKEAT REPUBLIC.
the race depends, indicates a vast sweep of redeeming agen-
cies in the world's future for the realization of the divine
idea in the creation and the atonement.
It was evident that some great crisis in history was at
hand. Men were in death-struggles as the representatives
of the dying past and the oncoming future. There was yet
vitality enough in tyranny to make a formidable effort to
tighten its grasp of power in England and in America.
It was confident of success. It had yet at command a
vast enginery of torture and coercion. It could avail itself
of ecclesiastical pains and penalties. It had all the advan-
tage of an ancient aristocracy and a splendid hereditary
nobility. Its attractions included all the pomp and circum-
stance of a State-religion, and the gorgeous splendor of
courts and courtiers, decorations and crowns. The enormous
wealth of ages had accumulated in the coffers of the govern-
ing classes. Learning and the arts gathered around the seat
of despotic power. A defiant military spirit had emerged
from wars with Continental armies. A new energy had ap-
peared upon the sea. The " invincible Armada " had been
scattered to the winds, and England was rising to greatness
as a maritime power. Men of rare gifts had risen up to
execute the commands of royalty, while defeated liberty
was branded with the crime of regicide.
All this appeared, to bring up to their highest point of in-
solence the usurpations which insulted and defied the yearn-
ings of the people for freedom. Human nature could endure
the suspense no longer. The grand crisis had come.
The life of a new nation had been long waiting for its in-
carnation. The birth-throes of a century announced its
advent. God revealed his attendant guardian-power, and
exalted the new-born prince, through its baptisms of blood,
to a dominion before unknown in the history of the world.
CHAPTER III.
WAR INDICATES AN HEROIC NATIONAL LIFE.
" For they got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own
arm save them ; but Thy right hand, and Thine arm, and the light of Thy countenance,
because Thou hadst a favor unto them." — Ps. xliv.
IF the encroachments of power were to be resisted, who
were to do it ? There was no king and council or parlia-
ment to declare war ; to say, " Thus far shalt thou come, and
no farther." The people had already said and done enough
to show that they felt themselves to be in possession of rights
which no power on earth might defy with impunity. They
began to feel and act like freemen ; like a nation having at
least the right and the duty of self-defence. Precisely what
it meant they seem not to have inquired ; but individuals,
towns, colonies, felt the throbbings of a new life. Why should
they all feel so much alike ? Why should it be just as im-
possible to enforce stamp-duties in one portion of America
as in another ? Why should the attempt to land cargoes of
tea, the test of the great question of taxation without repre-
sentation, produce the same uprising of the people, and call
out the imperious " No " in Boston and New York and Balti-
more and Charleston ? Evidently there was a strange unity
manifesting itself under the action of Providence. They
were a people, a power on earth ; and an assault upon the
lives of a small number, any number, would show that it
was upon all, and that the life of a new nation was here to
thrill the souls of the people from Maine to Georgia.
Neither king nor parliament knew what had occurred in
America. They thought they were dealing with a few proud
213
214
THE GKEAT KEPUBLIC.
colonists who had been spoiled by indulgence. They had
no idea of the advent of this new national life. They had,
however, only to try a simple experiment, and they would
find it.
The people of Boston, in the matter of the tea, had been
decidedly riotous, and must be punished ; otherwise their
example would be contagious. They would simply close up
the harbor, and remove the seat of government to Salem.
The famous " Boston Port Bill " was designed for this pur-
pose; but, in the hands of Providence, it served simply to show
that the right to resist arbitrary government was in the peo-
ple. An invisible power had made them one. The colonies
of Rhode Island, promptly assembling, assured Massachusetts
of hearty sympathy, and made the first suggestion of a Con-
tinental Congress. Connecticut, in legislature assembled,
took similar action. New York, Philadelphia, and Maryland
uttered their notes of indignation, and made the cause of
Boston their own. The House of Burgesses in Virginia ap-
pointed the first day of June, IV 74, when the oppressive
bill was to go into operation, u a day of fasting and prayer."
They were promptly dissolved by their royalist governor,
Dunmore : but they as promptly re-assembled, and declared
that " an attack upon one colony was an attack upon all ;
threatening ruin to the rights of all, unless repelled by the
united wisdom of the whole."
Gage was in Boston, and his ships and materials of war
were in the harbor. He came out with full powers, as com-
mander-in-chief and governor, " for better regulating the
government of Massachusetts Bay." The acts of despotic
power were commenced. Boston was no longer a capital
city. The British authorities removed to Salem.
Resistance was everywhere ; but who should direct it ? The
people could not act in mass. They must avail themselves
of the representative principle already asserted and firmly
established here. Who should take the lead ? The brave
little State of Rhode Island, where the heroic Williams had
AX HEROIC NATIONAL LIFE.
215
reared aloft the standard of unrestricted liberty, had made
the first suggestion ; and it was fitting that she should lead
the van. Two days in advance of Massachusetts, she ap-
pointed the first delegates to the first American Congress.
Other colonies, North and South, rapidly followed ; and on
the fifth day of September, 1774, the national life showed
itself represented and embodied in a Congress of fifty-three
delegates assembled in the city of Philadelphia, from Rhode
Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, New
York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, Mary-
land, North Carolina, and South Carolina, — twelve States just
coming into form as distinct but mutually dependent civil
governments. Georgia, at present restrained by power, was
not yet in Congress ; but her people would soon triumph, and
her representatives would show that she also belonged to the
new nation. The war-power of the " Union " was now a
visible reality. A rich, haughty, and populous kingdom
might despise it, but not with impunity. God had called
together this Congress, and he was in it.
The war must now begin ; and England would slowly
come to the knowledge of the fact, that, when she fired
upon a company of " disloyal people," she had killed Ameri-
can citizens.
LEXINGTON AND BUNKER HILL.
A common feeling of danger had produced the beginnings
of military organization amongst the colonists. A small
amount of military stores had been collected at Concord,
some twenty miles from Boston. Gates ordered the destruc-
tion of these military stores. He had four thousand men
under his command, and with these he determined to end
this rebellion. On the 19th of April, 1775, a detachment of
eight hundred men, sent out to strike a decisive blow, met
at Lexington, six miles from Concord, about one hundred
" minute-men " of the colony with arms in their hands, who
were peremptorily ordered to " lay down their arms, and dis-
216 THE GEE AT EEPUBLIC.
perse." It was very strange that they did not do it They
stood up, and received the fire of his Majesty's well-dressed
troops. Eight fell dead, the first " martyrs of the Revolu-
tion." The survivors retired to join other " minute-men "
on the hill ; and the next fire was returned. The " regulars "
fled in their turn; and soon the whole British column was in
rapid retreat, with minute-men swarming on their front flank
and rear ; and the whole detachment would have been cap-
tured but for the arrival of re-enforcements under Lord Percy..
With the utmost caution, the British forces made their way
to Bunker Hill, with a loss of three hundred men killed and
wounded. The American loss was about eighty-five. The
startling news flew over New England, and Boston was soon
in a state of siege. When the British forces found protection
under the guns of the fleet, they felt relieved. They were
no cowards ; but they now knew that the colonists would
fight, and that to conquer the rebellion was no child's play.
The patriotism of the provincials was roused. Assurances
of support came to Massachusetts from New Hampshire
to Virginia and the Carolinas ; and men, with such arms as
they could get, gathered to the camp of freedom outside
of Boston. In the mean time, the Green-Mountain Boys
rallied under stern old Ethan Allen, who on the 10th of May
appeared suddenly in the midst of the fort at Ticonderoga,
and demanded its surrender " in the name of the great Jeho-
vah and the Continental Congress," — an authority which the
British commander did not choose to resist.
In the afternoon of the seventeenth day of June, 1775, twelve
hundred men under Col. Prescott, with a few from New
Hampshire under Stark, having six pieces of artillery behind
a redoubt hastily thrown up, waited the attack of three thou-
sand British regulars, commanded by Gens. Howe and Pigot,
and covered by destructive batteries in Boston and a terrific
fire from war-vessels in the harbor. But these volunteers
do not flee. How strangely cool they are ! From hills and
roofs and steeples, and from worlds invisible, eyes look down
AN HEROIC NATIONAL LIFE. 217
upon the scene, while the most intense anxiety pervades the
spectators. On move the powerful assailants until within a
hundred yards of this handful of freemen, when suddenly
a sheet of flame rises up from behind the redoubt : volley
after volley rolls from the little band of heroes ; and sud-
denly the regulars break and flee. A fire so steady, and an
aim so deadly, no troops could endure. From this moment,
provincial volunteers rose to the rank of a respectable and
dreaded enerny. Again the British forces were led up to
the attack, and again they recoiled from the terrific fire
of the Americans. Not until the third desperate assault, and
the ammunition of the colonists was exhausted, did they retire
to take up another position, and form the nucleus of the
Continental Army under command of the newly-appointed
commander-in-chief, the immortal Washington.
For nearly a hundred years, the battles of Lexington and
Bunker Hill have been under review. They have taken
their position as great historical events. They revealed the
resolute purpose of right to stand up firmly against might
They settled the question of resistance to despotic force by
the force of liberty. They showed that numbers, backed
by enormous power, could neither overawe nor conquer a
handful of men sustained by the arm of God. The great
disproportion between these human forces in battle seemed
as if intended to render illustrious the divine power which
controlled the conflict.
SARATOGA AND BENNINGTON.
In the spring of 1777, combinations were formed in Cana-
da for the invasion of the United States. A brilliant army
of eight thousand men, " besides a large number of Canadian
boatmen, laborers, and skirmishers," all under command of
Gen. Burgoyne, advanced by the way of Lake Champlain.
We held the Fort of Ticonderoga under St. Clair ; but the
British, dragging their cannon to the top of a high hill south
and west from the fort, compelled its evacuation. Our forces
218 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
retired southward. The baggage and stores were taken to
Skenesborough (now Whitehall) by water, while the principal
army moved by land east of the lake. Disaster attended
the retreat. Burgoyne pushed on with such energy as to cap-
ture all the stores despatched to Skenesborough ; and twelve
hundred men stopping at Hubberton were attacked by the
British under Fraser and Reidesell, and completely routed.
Some fled disgracefully, others made a stout resistance ; but
the triumph of the enemy was complete. Some two hun-
dred were taken prisoners ; and the fugitives gathered by St.
Clair united with his main command, which, after seven days
of toil and suffering, joined Schuyler on the Hudson.
Burgoyne, in the mean time, slowly struggled through the
forest, and the obstructions which had been thrown in his
way by the Americans, and soon appeared on the Hudson
with all the spirit of a conqueror. He had thus far swept
every thing before him, and had reached his first great ob-
jective point with the loss of only two hundred men. He
felt himself sufficiently at leisure to bring up his stores, and
re-adjust his command, before driving the rebel Americans
into the clutches of Clinton, who, according to the plan of the
campaign, was advancing from New York, capturing our posts
on the Hudson, expecting to meet Burgoyne in the neighbor-
hood of Albany.
He now issued a new proclamation, calling for ten depu-
ties from each township to assemble at Castleton, to organize
under Gov. Skene a loyal government over a conquered
country. He expected the prompt submission of " the Green-
Mountain Boys," just now smarting under the act of Congress
refusing to acknowledge their State independence ; but he
was deceived. The patriotism of Vermont was too profound
and pervading to be destroyed by trials, however severe or
unjust they might be.
Burgoyne determined to make the campaign comprehen-
sive and decisive. He therefore sent out " Col. St. Leger
with two hundred regulars, Sir John Johnson's Royal Greens,
AN HEROIC NATIONAL LIFE. 219
some Canadian Rangers, and a body of Indians under Brant,
to harass the New- York frontier from the west." * Rallying
his neighbors to repel this assault, the gallant Herkiraer fell,
mortally wounded. St. Leger laid siege to Fort Schuyler,
our most western post, near the head of the Mohawk, com-
manded by Gansevoort and Willett. A sally under Willett
repelled the enemy; but four hundred brave Americans fell in
the conflict, or under the merciless strokes of savages after
they were prisoners of war.
Another collateral plan of the campaign developed itself
on the east of the Hudson. Burgoyne sent out Col. Baum,
with a strong detachment of Germans, English Canadians,
and Indians, as far as Bennington, " to try the affections of
the country, to mount Reidesell's Dragoons, to complete Pe-
ters's corps of loyalists, and to obtain a larger supply of cat-
tle, horses, and carriages," all of which seemed quite prac-
ticable and judicious ; but the brave Stark, at the head of the
New-Hampshire volunteers, was there, and, pointing his fin-
ger toward the British, said, "There they are! We beat
to-day, or Molly Stark's a widow ! " Baum, seeing the danger
began to intrench, and sent in haste to Burgoyne for re-
enforcements. But the impetuous Stark led up his volunteers
in four columns in front and rear ; and, after a hot engage-
ment of two hours, the works of the enemy were carried.
There was a fearful slaughter among the Germans, and many
of the survivors were taken prisoners.
Burgoyne came up to re-enforce the British ; but, as Provi-
dence ordered, at the same time Warner appeared on the
field with his regiment from Manchester, and the battle raged
till dark, when victory turned on the side of liberty. The
Americans had slain two hundred of their foes; taken "near
six hundred prisoners, a thousand stand of arms, as many
swords, and four pieces of artillery ; " having only fourteen
killed, and forty-two wounded." The victory was complete,
and " Molly Stark " was not " a widow." The failure of these
» Hildreth, iii. 201.
220 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
two incidental movements of the campaign had seriously
changed the aspect of affairs before the great conflict came
on. The work had been so hot, that Burgoyne found his
Indian and Canadian allies unreliable. They scattered to
the winds. In the mean time, the courage of the -Americans
rose to the highest pitch. Volunteers poured in from all di-
rections. Col. Brown with a party of Lincoln's militia had
dashed into the British fort at the outlet of Lake George,
taken three hundred prisoners, and a fleet of vessels and
bateaux, thus destroying the communications of Burgoyne
with his base of supplies.
Gates, by order of Congress, had superseded Schuy-
ler ; and on the 19th of September, 1777, the Americans with
six thousand men confronted the British with about nine
thousand on Behmus Heights. As the enemy came up
on the left, the impetuous Morgan fell upon him with such
fury as to break his ranks ; and his men became temporarily
confused. But heroes from New Hampshire under Cilley,
Scammell, and Hale, and from New York under Van Court-
landt and Henry Livingston, and two regiments from Con-
necticut, moved up to the conflict. It was three o'clock in
the afternoon, and the battle raged till dark. The British
and Germans fought with desperate valor. The contested
field was won and lost again and again. The Americans
rushed upon the cannon of the enemy, and captured them
several times ; but they were as often recaptured. The Brit>
ish left, re-enforced by the Germans, advanced with intre-
pidity ; but they were confronted by Learned with four
regiments from Massachusetts and one from New York.
More than five hundred British, and nearly three hundred
Americans, had fallen, when night arrested the carnage.
The news electrified the American people. They rushed
to arms, and swarmed to the scene of conflict. The situation
of Burgoyne had become critical. He would, however, in
the midst of his perils, show the bravery and skill of a good
commander. Early the next morning, he sent out a recon-
AN HEROIC NATIONAL LIFE. 221
•
noitring party of fifteen hundred choice men ; but they were
promptly and furiously assailed by Poor's New-Hampshire
brigade. The gallant but perfidious Arnold, superseded for
his insubordination the day before, fired by the sound of
battle, appeared on the field, dashing from rank to rank on
his powerful charger, throwing new courage into the bosoms
of the patriot volunteers. The enemy's right fell back to pre-
vent being cut off from the main army, and his left staggered
and broke. The gallant Fraser fell, mortally wounded. Ar-
nold forced an entrance within the enemy's works ; his horse
was killed under him; he was wounded, and his column
hurled back. Col. Brook, with Jackson's Massachusetts regi-
ment, assailed a German brigade, overwhelmed them, and
captured their camp-equipage and artillery. Again and again
the British rallied, and charged upon these brave men ; but
they were invulnerable. Night again came on, and the bleed-
ing heroes slept upon the field. Burgoyne, under cover of
darkness, skilfully changed his position, and, at dawn of the
third day, appeared in battle array. But the great victory
was already won. We catch a glimpse of the brave Lin-
coln, falling, dangerously wounded, in a skirmish ; the burial
of the heroic Fraser on the hill ; the angelic tenderness of
the Baroness de Reidesell amid the wounded of our foes,
with her children nestling by her side ; the burning build-
ings of Gen. Schuyler ; and then of the desperate retreat
of the enemy six miles to Saratoga, amid drenching rains,
frightful mud, and tangled forests. But it is of no avail.
The proud Burgoyne surrenders five thousand six hundred
and forty-two veteran soldiers to the victorious Gates, leav-
ing near four thousand dead and wounded on the fields of
slaughter.
Let us pause to reflect. The British army, composed
chiefly of regulars, brave, and ably commanded, outnumbered
the American raw recruits by nearly one-third. Congress
had ventured the dangerous experiment of changing com-
manders on the eve of a great battle. Schuyler, who, as
222 THK (iHEAT REPUBLIC.
results showed, deserved only the gratitude of his country,
had fallen under the injustice of rivalry and suspicion ; and
Gates, in no way his superior in command, unknown to many
of the noble men who were to fight and conquer or die for
their country, out of sight and danger during the slaughter
»' 7 O C"
of his troops; the ammunition short, and the commissariat
in a revolution from a change of its head ; Arnold, the best
fighting general on the field, in disgrace; and the heroes of
Bennington claiming and taking their discharge from the
expiration of time. — amid all these adverse facts, what was
the natural result to be expected ? Surely nothing less than
the utter defeat of the army of liberty. But the crisis of the
war had come, and God was the commander of the American
forces that day. The proud army of invasion from the North
was destroyed, and the heroes of liberty moved on to their
future conflicts, with a fresh inspiration from heaven.
TRENTON AND PRINCETON.
The distinguished military abilities of Washington began
to appear as well in his retreats as his advances. In Europe,
his masterly skill in tactics was at length eulogized as indi-
cating the highest rank among the great commanders of
modern times. Few generals, it was believed, could have
kept so small an army together, for so long a time, in the
presence of so formidable a foe. Few could have saved his
men as he did when he lost New York, and his forts, and
munitions of war. on the heights above the city, and espe-
cially when he lost New Jersey. The haughty tone and pat-
t. «/ O v
ronizing airs of the British commander in his famous procla-
mation showed that he believed, and with good reason, that
the war was virtually ended.
When the Howes thought it safe to go into winter-quar-
ters, and finish their task at their ease in the spring; just as
the effects of their proclamation as king's commissioners be-
gan to appear in the abandonment of the American cause by
AN HEROIC NATIONAL LIFE. 223
Tucker, president of the New-Jersey convention that formed
the State constitution ; by Allen and Galloway, members of
Congress from Pennsylvania ; and as McKean and Kawley
had been recalled by the convention of Delaware for giving
her votes in favor of independence, — while treachery was in
the air he breathed, and every support of freedom seemed
shaking to its fall, Washington was busy re-organizing his
army. Not a word to Congress, or in councils of war, about
surrendering his suffering men, or making terms with the
enemy, but the most powerful and dignified appeals to Con-
gress and the people to give him soldiers, — not militia who
so frequently fled at the first fire, and communicated panic to
the continentals ; not a mass of temporary men whose term of
service would expire, and leave him without fighting-men on
the eve of a battle. He insisted upon having national troops,
who, despite all the prejudice against a standing army,
were to serve during the war ; and, by the moral power which
true greatness alone can inspire, he had finally brought up
his forces to seven thousand men.
Before the sixty days had expired, during which the
British general had graciously permitted rebel Americans to
return to their allegiance and accept his Majesty's pardon, and
just before the terms of service for many of his troops had
expired, Washington determined to attack his antagonist
amid the holiday festivities of his soldiers. Fifteen hundred
Hessians were at Trenton. On the evening of Christmas, he
crossed the Delaware, about nine miles above Trenton,
with two thousand five hundred men and six pieces of artil-
lery. He had ordered Cadwallader to cross with two corps
of militia in front of Trenton and below at the same time ;
but floating ice prevented. It required the whole night and
the most resolute efforts for Washington to cross with his
men. Near four o'clock in the morning, he commenced his
march on Trenton, amid a violent snow-storm, in two col-
umns, led by Greene and Sullivan, with Stark's regiment of
New-Hampshire troops in advance. They reached the lies-
224 THE GREAT KEITIiLIC.
sians at eight. A.M., and found them sleeping after their
Christmas debauch. They were completely surprised. Their
commander fell, mortally wounded, while attempting to form
his men. Kesistance was vain. The light horse and a small
number of infantry escaped to Bordentown ; hut the expe-
dition was completely successful. Washington recrossed the
Delaware with a thousand prisoners and six cannon, leaving
his proud enemy to wonder how a dying antagonist could
strike a blow so sudden and decisive. While the Hessian
prisoners were parading through the streets of Philadelphia,
the British were prudently withdrawing from Trenton to
Princeton.
Cornwallis. detained by Howe from his intended voyage
to England on account of the astonishing activity of the
Americans and the capture of the Hessians, assumed the
command. The great Fabian general would show that he
could assume the offensive whenever it was prudent to do so.
Cornwallis moved his army immediately for an attack on
Washington at Trenton. He encamped for the night ; and
Washington, sustained in his own judgment by a council of
war, resolved neither to wait for an attack, nor to cross the
Delaware in face of his enemy. He quietly sent away his
baggage, kindled blazing camp-fires, left a detachment at
work throwing up intrenchments in hearing of the enemy,
and at midnight suddenly moved on Princeton in the rear of
Cornwallis. Three regiments had been left there, two of
which were on the march for Trenton. The first regiment
met was attacked by Mercer and his militia. lie fell, mor-
tally wounded ; and the regiment, getting away, moved on
toward Trenton. The second regiment made a stout resist-
ance, but broke and fled. The regiment in town threw
themselves into the college; but the cannon of Washington
soon compelled them to surrender.
Cornwallis, who had anticipated an easy victory over the
feeble Americans early in the morning, was astounded by the
roar of cannon in his rear, and immediately comprehended
AN HEEOIC NATIONAL LIFE. 225
the designs of Washington. The British were just begin-
ning to appreciate the profound military genius with which
they had to contend. It was a startling fact, that they had
an antagonist whom it was of no use to defeat ; who was just
as much alive after he had been crushed, and driven from
New York and New Jersey, as before ; and whose plans of de-
fence or attack could never be known except by the roar
of his cannon and the charges of his brave army. Corn-
wallis, of course, started in hot haste for New Brunswick, to
save his military stores. Washington knew his business too
well to run any further risks ; and, just as Cornwallis thought
he was about to reach him, he quietly passed away with his
three hundred Princeton prisoners to Morristown.
Though he was reduced to the greatest straits by the
retiring of soldiers whose term of office expired, and found
his men miserably provisioned and clothed, and his skeleton
regiments constituting but an apology for an army, yet the
moral effects of his late movements were most salutary.
Courage came again to the American heart ; and the fame
of Washington, after nearly three years of consummate gen-
eralship, began to reach the ears and understandings of
warriors and princes abroad.
WAR ON THE SEA.
Our first warlike movement on the water was in 1613,
when Capt. Argall went from Virginia with eleven small
vessels, fourteen guns in all, to the coast of Nova Scotia, to
capture the French port of St. Sauveur. It was an easy task,
as the French were entirely without artillery.
Capt. Argall, on his way back, dashed into the harbor
of New York, frightened the Dutch terribly, and took pos-
session of New York; leaving them, however, as entirely
Dutch as before. They kept the government in the hands
of their own nation for some fifty years thereafter.
The first American decked vessel was built in New York
29
226 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
by Skipper Adraen Block in 1614. New England built her
first vessel of any size at or near Boston, in 1633. Capt.
Gallop's naval engagement with the Narragansett Indians
for the rescue of Capt. Oldham's pinnace, which had been
seized and the captain murdered, was our first fight on the
water ; and it was brave and victorious.
About 1666, the career of the buccaneers commenced, and
the daring exploits of the famous Capt. Kidd followed.
There is, however, more of romance than history in the
frightful tales told of him to excite our childish fears.
The capture of Port Royal in Acadia (now Annapolis,
Md.) in 1710, and the failure of the attempt upon the
French possessions on the St. Lawrence in 1711, are the
next important events of our naval history.
The whale-fisheries then became the naval school for
American seamen.
War with Spain was declared in 1739, and native Ameri-
cans began to exercise their skill in naval warfare. In 1714,
a large number of the transports sent against Cuba were
built by the colonists.
The year 1744 found the English at war with France.
This furnished the American colonists their first opportunity
to undertake by sea and land an enterprise of importance.
Without aid from England, the commander of our little co-
lonial marine, Capt. Edward Tyng of Massachusetts, with
twelve small vessels besides the transports, sailed for Louis-
burg, an important port commanding the entrance of the
St. Lawrence. The co-operating land-forces, 4,070 strong,
all from New England, were commanded by Col. William
Pepperell of Maine. Commodore Warren of the British
navy arrived, with a part of the southern squadron from the
West Indies, in time to take command. After forty-seven
j
davs' vigorous sie<re, and a severe cannonade, Louisburu; sur-
* ^ O
rended. The peace of Aix la Chapelle arrested for the time
being the opening career of American bravery on the sea.
It was 1748. The American colonies had now been little
AN HEEOIC NATIONAL LIFE.
227
more than a century struggling upward, and they numbered
something over a million of souls. The growth of naviga-
tion had been very rapid. That year five hundred vessels
sailed from Boston, and four hundred and thirty entered
her port ; while the shipping from and to Portsmouth, N.H.,
New York, Philadelphia, Newport, RL, and Perth Amboy,
N. J., was quite extensive.
Peace was of short duration. The two nations could not
live together on this continent. "The old French war"
was opened on the 17th of May, 1756 ; which, though it
furnished little opportunity for naval enterprise, ended in the
complete destruction of French power in America. This
result, so largely due to the energy of the Earl of Chatham,
harmonized with the evident purposes of Providence, and
left the colonies, with the military discipline they had re-
ceived, free to go on in the accumulation of power for the
great struggle which was rapidly approaching. Peace was
declared Feb. 10, 1763; and France ceased the struggle
for territory here, holding nothing above Louisiana. The
colonies were then to prepare for the great conflict with the
mother-country, now just at hand.
The first overt act of hostility between the colonies and
England was the famous chase between the Providence
packet " Hannah " and the British schooner " GaspeV' How
characteristic for the Yankee craft to lead " The Gaspe," which
she could not fight, on to a bar where she must remain
until a company on shore was extemporized to attack and
destroy her during the night! On "The Gaspe" was shed
the first blood of the Revolution. This daring adventure pro-
duced great indignation in England. But neither a thousand
pounds sterling for the arrest of the leader from Providence,
nor five hundred pounds to any informer, nor the commis-
sion of inquiry under the great seal of England, sitting for .
five months, could secure the least information for the crown.
England did not comprehend this mysterious event ; America
did not. It was little Rhode Island opening the War of In-
228 THE (JKEAT EEPUBLIC.
dependence. This was in 1772 : the battle of Lexington was,
as we have seen, in 1775.
The lirst engagement on the water, after the opening of
the war. was between a lumber-sloop of Machias, Me., and
'•The Margaretta." Capt. Moore had not heard of the war;
but the news had reached the Maine lumbermen, and they
promptly resolved upon the capture of "The Margaretta." It
was Sunday, and the captain and his, men. seeing danger,
escaped from the church through the window, lie moved
his vessel, as he thought, to a place of safety, but was fired
upon, and summoned to surrender, from a high bluff. He
moved farther, and would have run away, rather than fight;
but the ugly-looking Yankee craft came down upon him
suddenly and roughly. '''The Margaretta" was boarded, her
commander shot down; and, after the fall of twenty men on
both sides, the British vessel was surrendered. Though su-
perior in numbers and armament, she could by no means
resist the dreadful energy with which she was assailed. The
volunteer crew of the lumber-sloop sailed without a com-
mander, but made one on the way to the battle. Jeremiah
O'Brien has the historic honor of conducting the forces of
this Lexington of the seas.
We shall now see the slow growth of the naval power of
the Republic. The persistent idea in America that this was
a temporary struggle for certain rights under the crown,
and not a war between equals, rendered the action of the
colonies slow, and their preparations inadequate, both on
the land and on the sea. The Americans were looking
anxiously to the ocean: but it was not till the loth of Oc-
tober, 177-3. that Congress passed a law initiating the or-
ganization of naval arrangements; and not till the 10th of
November of the same year that Massachusetts "'established
courts of admiralty, and enacted laws for the encouragement
J • O
of nautical enterprises."'
On the 13th of December following. Congress ordered
<— - o
* Cooper's Naval History of the United States, p. 37.
AN HEEOIC NATIONAL LIFE. 229
thirteen ships of war built ; and on the 22d of December,
1775, Eseck Hopkins was appointed commander-in-chief.
Thus began the navy of the United States.
Commodore Hopkins soon made a dash at New Provi-
dence, where his marines behaved with the steadiness and
gallantry which have ever since characterized the men of
our navy when brought into action on land or on the sea.
About a hundred cannon, a large quantity of other mili-
tary stores, and the governor, were the trophies of his vic-
tory.
The first considerable naval engagement under orders of
Congress was on the 6th of April, 1776. Commodore Hop-
kins, with a part of his squadron, fell in with " The Glasgow,"
a large ship of twenty guns. "The Cabot" boldly attacked
the stranger, delivering her broadside skilfully; but her metal
was too light for important effect. She dexterously moved
away from her enemy ; and " The Alfred " came up hand-
somely into her place, and delivered her fire. " The Andrea
Doria " came into action, and did her best ; while " The
Providence " moved under the stern of " The Glasgow," and
blazed away in vigorous style.
Capt. Howe, soon perceiving that he was in danger if
he continued the fight, shook off his spunky little assailants ;
and " The Glasgow," by dexterous sailing, escaped after con-
siderable damage.
This affair, which at first was taken for an important vic-
tory, produced, when the true history came to be known,
extreme mortification among the American people, and cost
the commodore and several of his commanders the loss of
position.
By way of compensation for the escape of " The Glasgow,"
our spirited little " Lexington," Capt. Barry, fell in with the
armed tender " Edward," and in a brave fight of an hour cut
her nearly to pieces, and captured her.
The famous Capt. Paul Jones now comes in sight. In com-
mand of "The Providence," he mistook an English fast>sail-
230 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
ing war-frigate for a large merchantman. Finding his mistake,
he tacked ship; and "The Providence" '• showed her heels."
The chase continued for four hours ; and the stranger gained
so rapidly as to get within musket-shot; when, to the aston-
ishment of the British commander, just as he was sure of
his prize, she edged away, tacked, filled all her sails, and bore
directly down on her antagonist. Passing within pistol-shot,
she sailed away before the wind ; and, before the commander
of " The Salisbury " had fairly recovered from his surprise,
" The Providence " was out of reach.
"The Providence" was a lively little craft. She led off
" The Milford," thirty-two guns, for hours, just keeping out
of reach of harm ; while " The Milford " kept up a roaring
fire for the whole time, without giving " The Providence "
a single shot. She glided about like the spirit of the sea,
gathering up her prizes as if by magic.
Independence was now declared, and we had war in ear-
nest, on the ocean as well as on the land.
-The Andrea Doria," Capt. Biddle, even outdid "The
Providence " in the number of her exploits and captures.
In the mean time, Boston had been evacuated ; but, as no
notice of the fact could reach the British ships at sea, some
thirty sail fell into our hands.
The Connecticut brig " Defence " leaving Plymouth on
the 17th of June, 1T7G, Capt. Harding soon heard the noise
of an engagement. Crowding sail for the scene, he came
up with four light American schooners, which had been en-
gaged with two British transports, using metal too heavy
for them.
Capt. Harding made his arrangements for battle, and
moving boldly in between the transports, " within pistol-
shot," called out to the enemy to '' strike." " Ay, a}", I'll
strike ! " responded a voice from the largest vessel ; and a ter-
rific broadside instantly followed. The action was very severe?
and lasted for an hour, when both British transports struck,
and " The Defence " led away her prizes, containing nearly
AN HEKOIC NATIONAL LIFE. 231
two hundred British soldiers, with Lieut-Col Campbell, com-
mander of the regiment. She had eight men wounded ;
while the transports, besides many wounded, lost eighteen
killed, including Major Menzies, who gave the defiant an-
swer to the challenge of Capt. Harding. The next morning,
" The Defence," notwithstanding she had suffered a good deal
aloft, made sail, and, discovering a stranger, overhauled and
captured her. She proved to be another transport with more
than a hundred British soldiers ; and these, with those taken
by " The Doria," raised the number of prisoners from one of
the best corps of the British army to about five hundred
men.
"We now see the brave Capt. Wickes with his extempo-
rized squadron sailing entirely around Ireland, and sweep-
ing the seas of every craft not too heavy for him to engage ;
and then mournfully watch the gallant little " Lexington," as,
at the close of a second hotly-contested engagement, she
strikes her flag to the English " Alert ; " and then see " The
Reprisal," foundering upon the banks of Newfoundland, and
the gallant Wickes, with every man on board but the cook,
perishing in the water.
Presently Capt. Gustavus Conyngham appears amid the
strife. He is in " The Surprise ; " and on the 7th of March,
1777, he dashes up to the Harwich packet "Prince of Orange,"
and captures her so suddenly, that he walks quietly down into
her cabin, and salutes her commander and his passengers at
breakfast. The captain, by this little transaction, became
involved in a French intrigue, and was imprisoned, his cut-
ter seized, and his prizes were released. English confidence
in France was thus, for the time being, restored ; and, with
perfect assurance, vessels were sent to Dunkirk to convey
Capt. Conyngham and his men to England to be "tried as
pirates."
American enterprise had, however, forestalled this action.
Another cutter was promptly purchased at Dunkirk. Capt.
Conyngham and his people were ingeniously released j and,
232 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
on the 18th of July, they were out on the water in " The
Revenge," a name terribly prophetic. She took prizes every
day, many of which were soon placed to our credit on our
account with Spain. Having suffered from a gale, artfully
disguised, she slipped into an English port, and refitted, took
in supplies in Ireland, made a cruise of unprecedented suc-
cess among the English shipping, refitted in Ferrol, and
sailed for home.
These daring movements in British waters made a sensa-
tion. Mr. Deane, writing to Robert Morris, says that the
cruise of Capt. Wickes " effectually alarmed England, pre-
vented the great fair at Chester, occasioned insurance to
rise, and even deterred the English merchants from ship-
ping goods in English bottoms at any rate ; so that, in a
few weeks, forty sail of French ships were loaded in the
Thames with freight, — an instance never before known."
In the same letter, with regard to the exploits of Conyng-
ham, he says, "In a word, Conyngham, by his first and
second bold expeditions, is become the terror of all the
eastern coast of England and Scotland, and is more dreaded
than Thurot was in the late war."
Glancing back a little, we find Capt. Mugford in " The
Franklin " capturing " The Hope," with " fifteen hundred bar-
rels of powder and a large quantity of intrenching tools, gun-
carriages, and other stores," and taking his valuable prize
into Boston " in sight of the British squadron." Then Capt.
Robinson, in " The Sachem," fell in " with an English letter of
marque, a Jamaica-man, and captured her after a sharp ac-
tion ; " and, as a reward for his bravery, he was made com-
mander of the fine historic vessel " The Andrea Doria." She
was a mischievous craft, and was so well known to the Brit-
ish navy, that " The Racehorse," twelve guns, Lieut. Jones,
was sent out expressly to capture her. Off Porto Rico, Capt.
Robinson saw the stranger bearing down upon him, and
had hardly time to prepare for action before he received her
broadside. A very sharp contest of nearly two hours fol-
AN HEROIC NATIONAL LIFE. 233
lowed, when the Englishman found herself fearfully crippled,
her commander and a large number of her men being slain ;
and she struck her colors to " The Andrea Doria." Capt.
Robinson came safely and proudly into Philadelphia, leading
as a prize " The Racehorse," sent defiantly out to capture
him. The British could never have the satisfaction of mak-
ing " good and lawful prize " of " The Andrea Doria." She
had done her work, and was burnt by American orders,
" when the evacuation of Fort Mifflin gave the British the
command of the Delaware," into which they went, to be
driven out after a terrible contest with galleys claiming
those waters as their home.
We have now followed the young and rising American
navy far enough to see, that, in the hands of Providence, our
experimental people found themselves as much at home in
war on the sea as on the land ; that the American marines
were a powerful arm of the Revolutionary service ; and that
the proud reliance of England on her naval strength was
utterly vain against a power that could simultaneously create
a navy, and command victories on an element for which the
feeble colonists were supposed to be wholly unprepared.
Here, on the sea as on the land, we see that " the race is
not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong ; " but " God is
the Judge. He putteth down one, and setteth up another."
Let us now turn again to the land.
CORNWALLIS AND YORKTOWN.
Early in April, 1780, Lord Cornwallis appeared in com-
mand of the British army in the South. He was a fearless
commander, and evidently indulged a feeling of contempt
for American rebels. He sought for our little suffering army
with the eagerness of a conqueror. He met them under
command of Gates, near Camden, S.C., attacked them with
impetuosity, and swept them from the field. Gates and
Caswell were borne away by the flying volunteers ; and
30
234 THE CHEAT REPUBLIC.
De Kalb, who stood firmly with his small band of continen-
tals, fell, mortally wounded. His men, taken in Hank,
broke, and iled for their lives. The army of Freedom left
nine hundred dead on the field, and as many prisoners in
the hands of the British. The track of their retreat, strewn
with arms, knapsacks, and broken wagons, indicated a crush-
ing defeat. Some three or four days after, Gates, the hero
of Saratoga, found himself eighty miles from the scene of
his disaster, at Charlotte, N.C., with only two hundred men.
Would not this end the war in the South ?
In the mean time, the daring Sumter had dashed into a
convoy on its way to Cornwallis from the South, and cap-
tured it with two hundred prisoners ; but Tarletou, a foe by
whom he was well matched, moving with great celerity,
rushed into his camp while his tired men in fancied security
sought rest and refreshment, recaptured the British stores,
released their prisoners, killed a hundred and fifty men, and
took three hundred prisoners. The news of this disaster
met Gates at Charlotte. What now was to prevent the
abandonment of the struggle in complete despair ? There
was no American army worth the name in either of the
Carolinas. Gates, stripped of his laurels, and tleeing from
the foe he dared not meet, was, by order of Congress and
appointment of Washington, superseded by Greene.
Cornwallis renewed his supplies, and, as a warning to
others, hung a lew Americans who had before, in their ex-
tremity, accepted British protection ; then moved on with
the spirit of a conqueror.
Marion, the bold partisan leader, came out from, the swamps
of the Pedee, and, dashing about amongst the Tories of the
North-west district, made them very uncomfortable.
Sumter, though vanquished, was not yet dead. Gathering
his scattered forces around him, and uniting them with a few
from over the mountains, he soon showed that an heroic life
survived the calamities of defeat.
Cornwallis moved on North to find a foe if he could, and
AN HEROIC NATIONAL LIFE. 235
complete his campaign by a triumphant march through the
conquered territory. He did not know the American peo-
ple, nor the power which guided their strange career.
Irregular multitudes of " insurgents " appeared before
Augusta ; but, upon the approach of the British forces, they
suddenly disappeared. Ferguson was sent out to intercept
them. Moving close along the base of the mountains, he
was to destroy, capture, or disperse whatever " rebels " he
might find. But, to his astonishment, he was suddenly con-
fronted by two thousand mounted rough backwoodsmen,
commanded by Shelby and Sevier, future governors of Ken-
tucky and Tennessee. He saw his danger, and made haste
to retreat. Very despicable foes they were ; but a thousand
of them were after him with their fleetest horses and best
rifles. It was a mad break-neck race of thirty-six hours;
and the British commander was at length brought to bay
at King's Mountain. Ferguson was amazed. Enemies
seemed to spring from the ground to stare at him with fiery
eyes, and gnash their teeth in defiance of his proud superi-
ority. He threw up hasty defences, and fought bravely.
Volley after volley rolled out from his veterans, and charge
after charge of the British bayonets drove the cold steel into
the bosoms of these struggling freemen; but their trusty
rifles flashed with unerring aim, and they returned every
charge with desperate valor, rushing into the arms of death
to save their bleeding country. Such terrific onsets no foe
could resist. Ferguson fell, and the victory was gained.
Eight hundred men surrendered to the survivors of the thou-
sand from the mountains. These backwoodsmen were not
very refined in the art of war. Caring little for forms, they
hung ten of the most odious of their prisoners ; and, dashing
again into the forests, they disappeared as suddenly as they
came.
Cornwallis now thought it time to be more prudent, and
commenced a retrograde movement. The wild, furious men
who had annihilated Ferguson's command began to appear
23 G THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
formidable. Retiring to Wirmsborough, S.C., he waited for
the arrival of re-enforcements. Three thousand under Les-
lie were on their way from New York ; but, hearing of
Ferguson's disaster and the retreat of Cornwallis, they re-
embarked for Charleston.
Marion again came out of his swamp, and threatened the
communication of the British with Charleston. The vi<n-
o
lant Tarletun drove him back. Sumter appeared suddenly
in the iield, and, this time, was more than a match for his old
adversary Tarleton. The British attacked furiously, and were
bravely repulsed ; but Sumter fell, dangerously wounded,
and his men dispersed.
Greene now commenced in good earnest the re-organization
of the army in the South. " He found the troops without
pay. and their clothing in tatters. There was hardly a dol-
lar in the military chest. Subsistence was obtained entirely
by military impressment." ^ A few drafted men came from
North Carolina. Morgan with his Maryland regiment, and
" Washington's dragoons of Lee's corps," appeared across
Broad River on the left and rear of the enemy ; •• while the
main body encamped on the Pedee to cover the fertile dis-
trict to the northward, and to threaten the British communi-
cation with Charleston."!
A new enemy now appeared in the field. The perfidious
Arnold, anxious to show his gratitude to the British for his
fifty thousand dollars, the reward of his treachery, and for
his promotion to the rank of brigadier, sent out an -Address
to the Inhabitants of America." and a " Proclamation to the
Officers and Soldiers of the Continental Army." hoping to ex-
cuse his treason, and seduce honest patriots from their loyalty
to freedom. In this he signally failed. The- American sol-
O ^
diers scorned him and his proclamation. lie was in the field
with sixteen hundred men, chietly Tories, on his way from
New York to join Cornwallis.
Washington had been obliged to contend with the spirit
* Hildreth, iii. 328. f Ibid., p. 29.
AN HEROIC NATIONAL LIFE. 237
of revolt in the New-Jersey and Pennsylvania lines : but
firm patriotism, and the spirit of conciliation, triumphed over
these formidable trials also ; and the army of Liberty, which
had so recently seemed to be utterly annihilated, now gath-
ered about the proud British commander in formidable
numbers.
The gallant Baron Steuben brought together a small force
in Virginia, and watched Arnold, who, with the ferocity of a
savage, was burning and destroying the country he had
deserted. Fearing to be taken prisoner, as well he might,
he hastily retreated to Portsmouth beyond the reach of the
French fleet, which threatened his communications. In the
mean time, a brief naval engagement sent the worsted French
fleet back to Newport.
Lafayette, on his way to join the army of the South,
hearing of this, the fourth failure of the navy from France,
halted his command at Annapolis " in a great state of desti-
tution, without shoes, hats, or tents."
Now the plot thickens. Tarleton is sent out to attack
Morgan, whose hope of safety was in crossing the Broad
River before Tarleton reached him, or running the risk of
a battle. He preferred the latter, and at " the Cowpens "
waited the coming-up of the enemy. The attack was furi-
ous and terrible. Morgan seemed to retreat, and the Brit-
ish rushed on in pursuit, when the continentals turned sud-
denly upon their pursuers, and poured into their ranks a
fire so deadly, that they recoiled and broke. The flying mi-
litia wheeled, charged upon the British cavalry, and routed
them; and the brave Tarleton's command scattered and fled,
leaving more than six hundred dead and wounded on the
field, with all their baggage and artillery in the hands of the
foe they had so recently despised.
Cornwallis had moved up rapidly to rescue his favorite
commander; but he was too late. He could only receive
him and his few remaining horsemen as fugitives from the
field of destruction. Leslie came up with his two thousand
238 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
men from New York, and Cornwallis resolved upon the bold-
est measures to retrieve his losses in the two great defeats
under Ferguson and Tarleton. He burned all his stores and
superfluous baggage, and, " converting his whole army into a
light-infantry corps," dashed on to destroy Morgan's force
before he could cross the Catawba. But this enterprising
commander was thoroughly alive to his danger, and pushed
forward with such rapidity as to gain the opposite bank,
with all his men and stores, two hours before the British van
reached the river; and God sent the waters, which produced
a sudden rise in the Catawba, and rendered it impossible for
Cornwallis to follow.
Hearing of the American victory at "the Cowpens,"
Greene had strained every nerve to form a junction with Mor-
gan, which he accomplished on the 21st of June. Assuming
the command of Morgan's men, and calling out the militia
to guard the fords, he hoped to hold Cornwallis until the
main body of his army came up. But one detachment of
the British dashed aside the militia under Gen. Davidson,
and secured the ford. The energetic Tarleton overwhelmed
another small body of militia, and the forces of Cornwallis
crossed the river.
Greene now pushed on for the Yadkin ; but the race was
so close, that Cornwallis captured several of his wagons.
At Guilford Court-house, Greene met his main army, now
numbering two thousand three hundred men; and, by the
celerity of his movements, he gained another advantage over
his wily antagonist, crossing with his men over into Virginia,
where Cornwallis did not attempt to pursue him. Newbern,
whither the North-Carolina authorities had fled at the ap-
proach of the British, was attacked, and destroyed with all
its stores, by a British force from Wilmington; and the people
of the State were again called upon to make their submis-
sion, and the well-disposed to join the British army. There
were numerous Tories in those parts; but they were begin-
ning to doubt the safety of open disloyalty to their country.
AN HEROIC NATIONAL LIFE. 239
Fearless partisan troops dashed in wildly among them, and
taught them caution ; and severe exemplary punishment
very frequently fell upon those who were caught in the
act of rebellion. Greene showed himself an adept in tactics.
He was not strong enough to risk a battle ; but he worried his
antagonist by his sudden movements, and held the Tories
in check by seeming almost ubiquitous. His suffering sol-
diers were full of patriotic energy ; and, though they could
frequently be tracked to the place of their uncertain repose
by the blood from their bare feet, they were ready for an-
other rapid march, or skirmish with the British, or to dash
into a neighborhood of Tories at any moment of the day
or night.
Fresh troops came up from Maryland, Virginia, and North
Carolina ; and now, numbering about four thousand five hun-
dred men, Greene determined to risk a general engagement.
Cornwallis, reduced to less than half this number, thought it
safe to rely upon superior valor and discipline, and accepted
the challenge. On the 15th of March, 1781, the battle near
Guilford Court-house was fought. The struggle was severe.
The victory wavered between the contending armies. The
British finally gained the field, but with the loss of five hun-
dred men, and were so< crippled, that they did not dare to
attempt pursuit ; while the Americans lost four hundred, and
effected an orderly retreat : but a large part of the militia
disbanded, and rendered the campaign again critical.
Cornwallis found himself driven to act on the defensive.
His array, bleeding and nearly starved, commenced a re-
treat on Wilmington, N.C. ; and Greene boldly marched into
South Carolina, and ordered Lee to unite with Marion, and
attack Rawdon's communications with Charleston. Corn-
wallis had failed to penetrate the designs of his antagonist
until it was too late to prevent them ; and he imitated them
by pushing boldly into Virginia to join the forces under
Arnold and Phillips.
Rawdon, by a circuit through the edge of a swamp, gained
240 THE GREAT BEPTTBLIC.
the rear of Greene's army ; but the American commander
formed his men, and faced him so quickly as to defeat the
intended surprise. The British line was now furiously as-
saulted in front and on both flanks, while Washington's horse
fell upon their rear. Lord Rawdon ordered up his reserves ;
and the veteran Maryland regiment, under Granby, gave
way before the British bayonet. Confusion, and a retreat
of Greene's troops over the hill, followed ; but the American
cavalry rushed into the British lines, held them in check,
and brought away the cannon the infantry had left. Greene
went into camp twelve miles from the battle-ground for
temporary rest.
In the mean time, Lee and Marion had attacked and taken
Fort Watson, between Camden and Charleston ; and the re-
leased patriots between the Pedee and the Santee flew to
arms. Rawdon, alarmed for his communications, abandoned
Camden, and " retreated to Monk's Corner." The Ameri-
cans took Fort Motte, Orangeburg, Fort Granby, and Au-
gusta. Uniting his forces with Lee, an attack was made
upon the main stronghold of the British at "Ninety-six;"
but Rawdon approaching, re-enforced by three regiments
from Ireland, Greene retired ; and swamps fifteen miles broad,
and a circuit of seventy miles, the only practicable route,
separated the hostile armies.
Greene had now relieved a large part of South Carolina,
and shut up the British to a small territory between the
Santee and the Lower Savannah. A season of comparative
quiet followed, neither party being prepared to commence
aggressive movements.
In April, 1781, Lafayette appears in command of a small
New-England force to observe Phillips and Cornwallis in
Virginia, just in time to save Richmond from the clutches of
Phillips, who hastened to unite his forces with those of Corn-
wallis to aid in the vain attempt to prevent the junction
of Lafayette and Wagner.
Count de Grasse approaching the Chesapeake with a
AN HEKOIC NATIONAL LIFE. 241
powerful French fleet, and the British commander fearing,
with reason, an attack of the allied armies and the French
just arrived from Newport, orders were sent to Cornwallis
to take up, for the present, some strong position in Virginia.
But Washington and Rochambeau determined to leave New
York undisturbed, and make a vigorous effort against Corn-
wallis. Lafayette was therefore ordered to cut off his retreat
into North Carolina.
Greene was now again in the field. Uniting his continen-
tals to Pickens's militia and Marion's dashing corps, he moved
towards the enemy, now commanded by Col. Stuart. The
bloody battle of Eutaw Springs followed. Both armies fought
with the bravery and skill of veterans. The Americans,
after a fierce conflict, broke the English left, and seemed upon
the verge of a great triumph, when a body of British threw
themselves into a stone house ; and, while Greene's men
were attempting in vain to dislodge them, Stuart's veterans
repulsed a cavalry attack, and gained the rear of the Ameri-
cans, and compelled them to retreat. The army of Congress
numbered a few more than two thousand, and the British a
few less. Of this small force, the British lost some seven
hundred men, and the Americans nearly as many.
The victory of this fiercely-contested field was claimed by
both parties ; but all the fruits of victory were with the
Americans. The British retreated to Monk's Corner ; and,
being shut up between the Cooper and Ashley, they had no
power to extricate themselves.
The sufferings of Greene's soldiers were dreadful. They
were barefoot, and almost destitute of clothing. They must
go back to the Santee Hills to rest.
At length, the long-expected French fleet appeared in
American waters. Count de Grasse, after a cautious defen-
sive engagement with a portion of the English fleet, safely
conducting a large number of merchantmen into a place
of safety, and convoying another large fleet so far towards
France as to be out of danger, by skilful manoeuvring
31
242 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
entered the Chesapeake about the last of August. The Brit-
ish Admiral Graves, now commanding the combined British
fleet, arriving off the mouth of the bay on the 5th of Sep-
tember, was greatly astonished to find De Grasse securely
inside with twenty-four ships of the line. After four most
distressing failures, the French fleet now became able to ren-
der most effective service. The count, put into immediate
communication with Lafayette, sent ships to block up James
and York Rivers, and thus prevented the retreat of Corn-
wallis, who intrenched himself strongly at Yorktown. Send-
ing three thousand French troops to re-enforce Lafayette,
De Grasse at once ordered his fleet to sea. Avoiding a gen-
eral engagement, he succeeded in covering the French fleet
from Newport under Du Barras, who availed himself of a
favorable moment to slip into the bay with his invaluable
cargo of military stores and heavy guns for the siege of
Yorktown. Arrangements for the contemplated attack on
Cornwallis were promptly consummated by Washington, De
Grasse, and Rochambeau. The French and American forces
were brought down the Chesapeake in transports, and were
soon united under Lafayette at Williamsburg. Gov. Nel-
son came up with three thousand five hundred Virginia
militia, and the whole besieging army rose to sixteen
thousand men. The British forces, about eight thousand
strong, with the advantage of their strong defences, firmly
but anxiously waited the attack. Two advance redoubts
were stormed, one by the French, the other by the Americans
Tinder Alexander Hamilton, whose thirst for military glory
had thrown him into the lines. These rival forces rushed
to their objects with the greatest daring. Both were irresisti-
ble, and these " redoubts were included in the second par-
allel." The works about Yorktown began to crumble under
the guns of the assailing forces. A brave sally was attempted,
and failed. " As a last resort, Cornwallis thought of passing
his army across to Gloucester, forcing a passage through the
troops on that side, and making a push for New York ; but
AN HEEOIC NATIONAL LIFE. 243
a violent storm drove his boats down the river, and even
that desperate scheme had to be abandoned." * The long-
dreaded end had come at length. For more than fourteen
months, this brave commander had struggled against destiny
with incredible energy. He entered the field with the air
of a conqueror. He fought pitched battles ; he marched and
suffered, advanced and retreated ; blew up his stores ; dashed
into the ranks of his enemies, and scattered them to the
winds ; received coolly the most astounding defeats of his
auxiliary expeditions ; and, when at length brought to bay,
he planned his defences skilfully, and made the best of his
failing munitions of war. But he saw at length that it was
all in vain ; and, like a true soldier, he resolved to spare the
further effusion of blood, and surrendered his forces, now sev-
en thousand in number, to Washington, as prisoners of war.
This grand event in the South had at length answered to
the capture of Burgoyne in the North, and the War of
American Independence was virtually ended.
THE HEROISM OF THE NATIONAL LIFE.
The bravery of war is not of itself true heroism. It
appears on both sides ; is no certain evidence of the right, or
guaranty of victory ; and may be evinced, in a high degree,
by heaven-daring offenders against the claims of God and
the rights of man.
Nor would the reckless courage of individuals, or of com-
panies of American volunteers, in separate and unorganized
warfare, give hope of success against the sturdy, well-planned
measures of a powerful nation for a period of eight long
bloody years. But the following great facts appear appro-
priately to conclude this chapter.
The resistance of force by arms came after a war of prin-
ciples had been going on for a hundred and fifty years.
The rights of freemen had been searched out and defined
* Hildreth, iii. 369.
244 TIIE GREAT REPUBLIC.
with the vigor of the keenest logic and the clearness of
light. The usurpations of despotism had exhausted argu-
ment, prerogative, and administrative ability; and at length
had drawn the sword with the avowed purpose of subjugating
or destroying the colonists, who could not be overawed.
When this crisis came on, individual patriots found whole
communities with them : the menaced colonies found all
other colonies promptly arranged by their side. When
the necessity for State action arose, inchoate but real
States appeared with the habits of independent legislation
already formed, and under the direction of a statesmanship
of which any people might be proud. When the peril of
irregular, unorganized warfare was seen, a living nation
appeared clothed with representative powers to consolidate
the belligerent forces, and exalt the struggle to national dig-
nitv. This was the mysterious common life of a frrowinu;
«/ •/
people. Few could comprehend its character, or explain its
origin. It was not anticipated ; it was hardly invoked ; it
was certainly not well understood. And yet it was here,
throbbing in the bosoms of three millions of people, and
orrmuiziirj;- the scattered elements of a nation into the
o o
power of a formidable unity, without uttering a word in
regard to its predestined independence.
If any man had asked the wisest American. " What is the
character of this life?" he would probably have answered,
'• Feeble, uncertain, very humble, and limited in its aim."
If the same question had been put to an English absolutist,
he would have said, "There is nothing of it: a few brief
ebullitions of passion, and it is gone." But a profounder
insight into the philosophy of history and the plans of God
would have revealed the life of a new and powerful nation
throbbing with energy, and instinct with a heroism which
would measure its power, not by the numbers of its men.
but by the divine justice of its cause. This is true heroism.
Hence, when the British Government coolly calculated the
force and expense of overwhelming this rebellion, the Ameri-
AN HEROIC NATIONAL LIFE.
245
can Congress and people made no dependence upon the
probability of matching them by similar strength. They
only knew that their country was to be invaded by formi-
dable armies, sustained by enormous power at home, and
that they were to resist by such means as tlffey had, and to
be identified with liberty, whether in honor or disgrace ;
simply believing, that, with a just God on their side, they
ought to triumph : they surely would triumph.
Thus all human calculation of chances must be thrown to
the winds. For instance, raw recruits cannot fight veterans ;
citizen commanders cannot match scientific experienced
generals; soldiers well dressed, well armed, well fed, and
promptly paid, must conquer the hungry, barefoot, and
uncompensated ; superior numbers, with inexhaustible re-
cruits, must subdue small numbers ; successive defeats must
finally annihilate a few poor and ill-provisioned men. These
and a multitude of other military aphorisms, true beyond a
doubt in a comparison of merely human forces, were all
utterly at fault in a war of tyranny with God and liberty ;
and the rapidly-accumulating consciousness of this super-
human power supplied and revealed the heroism of the
national life.
CHAPTER IV.
PATRIOTISM DEMONSTRATES A SUSTAINED NATIONAL LIFE.
" In short, it was ultimately owing to this influence of the God of heaven that the
thoughts, the views, the purposes, the speeches, the writings, and the whole conduct, of
those who were engaged in this great affair, were so overruled as to bring into effect the
desired happy crait." — CHAUNCY.
LOVE of country is God's provision for promoting the sta-
bility and regular development of civil institutions. The
wandering tribes of barbarism make no progress in agricul-
ture, in the arts or sciences. Scythians, Indians, Gypsies,
know little of the blessings of home ; and their unnumbered
o J
generations live and die without the advantages of civiliza-
tion. They have shown, it is true, enough of preference for
one land over another to indicate the presence of the ori-
ginal tendency, but so little as to deprive them of its
intended practical results, and show, that, in the long ages,
violence has been done to one of the best provisions of the
creation.
Patriotism, or love of country, is perfectly consistent with
philanthropy, or love of the human race. As the best possi-
ble good to man, as man, is found in the highest development
of domestic and home institutions, so, on the other hand, the
strongest, purest love of our own country implies the truest
devotion to the wants and rights of universal man. There
is, therefore, never any conflict between real patriotism and
true philanthropy. In a low state of cultivation, the love
of country may degenerate into degrading selfishness, and
give to war all the horrors of barbarism ; but Christian re-
finement extends all patriotism into the sphere of true
justice and general benevolence.
A SUSTAINED NATIONAL LIFE. 247
PATRIOTISM, BRITISH, AND THEN AMERICAN.
The love of country which our ancestors brought to
America was essentially British. Of their devotion to the
fatherland they gave the strongest possible evidence. They
were British by birth and education; British of choice.
They believed heartily that England was the grandest,
noblest part of earth ; that her wealth, learning, heroism,
and antiquity made her the centre of the globe, and the
grand type of civilization. They fully believed in an heredi-
tary monarchy, and considered devoted loyalty to the crown
the soul of honor. The upheavals of the Protectorate
were exceptional. After the surges of passion subsided, they
longed for a king. Cromwell would have been immensely
more popular if he had been a sovereign in form, as he was
in fact. With this love of monarchy was incorporated a
strong love of liberty, which is as truly and essentially Eng-
lish as her patriotism. When, therefore, these American
forefathers endured for long years the oppression of a tyranny
which was directly opposed to the spirit of Magna Charta
and the British Constitution, they gave a very strong evi-
dence of devoted patriotism. They intended to give one
more, yet stronger. To flee across the ocean, subdue the
forest and the savages, and yet claim only the rights be-
longing to British subjects, and, with loyal devotion, hand
over all their acquisitions of empire to their sovereign, was
this additional evidence of patriotic devotion to England,
to which they were pledged in heart and soul. But, in
course of time, it fully appeared that neither the folly of
man nor the wisdom of God would allow it. They were
slowly taught that this was their country ; and, almost im-
perceptibly, their patriotism passed over from the country
of their birth to the country of their adoption.
And a new race of native Americans had risen up here,
who knew no other country but this. They loved its " bil-
lowy heights " and delightful vales, its wild forests and its
248 TnE CKEAT REPUBLIC.
growing towns, its mighty rivers and inland seas; they
loved its rocks and snow-capped mountains, its genial skies
and balmy air, and especially its broad impress of free-
dom, and stamp of the Infinite everywhere; and grew great
in muscle, mind, and heart, as they felt the power of this
great country in their aspirations and plans.
The transition made included a revolution in opinions as
well as in interest. This, Americans began to feel, is our
country. We found it here waiting for us. God gave it to
our fathers and to us ; and it belongs to us, and surely not to
those who denied us the rights of British subjects at home
and in America. Thus patriotism here became strongly
identified with love of liberty. Slowly the minds of the
people awoke to the dangers arising from caste in society
and the exclusive privileges of the governing classes ; and,
just in proportion as freedom in this great country became
real, Americans increased in patriotic devotion.
The attachment, at first naturally fixed on the physical
beauty and greatness of the country, passed over to its
growing institutions. Americans began to love the freedom
of thought and speech, of the ballot and the press, which had
grown up here, they hardly knew how. They loved the
birthplace of their children and the graves of their fathers,
but vastly more their rising free schools and their "freedom
to worship God;" and, if they did acknowledge a foreign
sovereign, they gloried in the right of electing their own
legislators, and judging for themselves when the adminis-
tration of law was just and when it was oppressive. This
seemed a country made for all these things ; and they loved
it. American patriotism was, therefore, eminently rational.
It was not merely of the senses, nor was it merely tradi-
tional and hereditary. It was discriminating, and hence
inspiring as a new revelation. Its thinking, its impulses,
and its possibilities, were new. No such grasp, such ele-
vation of patriotism, it may be safely affirmed, had ever
before been known in history.
A SUSTAINED NATIONAL LIFE. 249
Let it now be asked," Will this national life be sustained ?"
The answer to this question must be comprehensive and
far-reaching. It is to be found, not in one period merely,
but in the whole history and profoundest philosophy of the
Republic. We shall reach the great fact upon which it
depends, and state it more formally, hereafter ; but we begin
the answer here.
As the life of a new nation has gradually rolled up be-
fore us, we have marked its beauty and its vigor : but we
have been compelled instinctively to fear that it would be
overwhelmed ; that its antagonisms would be too strong
for its intrinsic power. It was very vigorous during the
mental conflicts which preceded the war. Would it endure
the ordeal of blood ? The answer is in part before us.
The representative battle-scenes of the Revolution have re-
vealed a heroism which could resist the firmest onsets of
power, and finally wear out the resolution of despotism.
But why did it ? Whence this heroism in battle, this pa-
tience in unparalleled suffering ?
Precisely here the deep and pervading patriotism of the
American people presents itself. Love of country was at
first individual. Each man, woman, and child was conscious
of its presence and growing power. The single citizen
would have asserted it in some form if he had known he
was alone, if no other American cared for his country. It
was, however, most agreeable to find his neighbors possessed
of the same feeling ; and when the dark hour came on, which
made each man a hero, and every volunteer feel as if he
could fight the British nation, alone, what thrills of joy
flashed through the hearts of the country as it began to
appear that patriotism was the absorbing sentiment of the
whole people ! At length, it was evident that American pa-
triotism was organic ; that it was not now the love of Eng-
land, but first and everywhere the love of America and her
incipient institutions of liberty. It was not the love of a
British colony, of a dependency upon a foreign power, but
3*
250 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
of the new empire of freedom rapidly rising up under the
guiding influence of a comprehensive Providence. It was
the patriotism of a new Christian nation : it must, therefore,
be a strong defence of the national life.
PATRIOTISM IN OFFICE.
We have seen the discriminating and energized character
of American patriotism among the people : let us now in-
quire what were its manifestations when exalted to rank and
power. The great leaders of resistance to oppression rise
up before us as men of giant intellects and astonishing wis-
dom. Their statesmanship was bewildering to the represen-
tatives of despotism, who began by despising them. Their
State-papers and forensic discussions are to-day the admira-
tion of the world ; but their love of country rises high
above all other qualities of greatness, and must stand fore-
most in the explanation of success.
It must be remembered, that, if the Americans failed to
vindicate their rights, every member of the Continental
Congress would be found guilty of treason. When these
great men calmly took their seats to organize resistance to
the British army, each one of them knew that he put his life
in jeopardy ; that failure in the contest would require the
sacrifice of responsible leaders in wyhat must be regarded as
a grand conspiracy against the British crown. Diplomatic
agents, and officers of state, would be involved in the general
ruin. And yet what manly firmness, what self-abandonment,
do these representative men reveal ! Their country rose
above all selfish considerations; and for eight long years
they sto<3d in the breach, to rise or fall with the rights of
freemen.
True, all were not reliable. Men who at first promised
well showed weakness of mind and nerve when the grand
crisis came on. The numbers of men who were at their
posts in the periods of extreme peril sometimes seemed
A SUSTAINED NATIONAL LIFE. 251
exceedingly small ; but this made no difference with Wash-
ington, Jefferson, and Adams, with Franklin, Livingston, and
Witherspoon. When the immortal Patrick Henry cried,
" Give me liberty, or give me death," he uttered the sublime
sentiment of these great statesmen and their compatriots in
rank, as well as of the American people generally.
Treason to liberty tested the strength of this patriotic
devotion. Poverty and suffering made the blaze burn all
the more brightly. The blandishments of baffled power
had no influence against its calm assertion and unflinching
vindication. History is slowly bringing to light the wisdom
of Providence in the elevated Christian leadership of the
American struggle for liberty.
In the army, the dreadful sufferings of the rank and file
were shared by their officers. Men whose exalted position
would have entitled them to comforts, if not luxuries, en-
dured long and weary marches, slept on the ground, ate their
half-rations, or suffered with hunger, all with uncomplain-
ing dignity. To save their country, no sacrifice was too
great, no suffering too hard to endure.
Washington, the grand type of American patriotism, was
not merely a cool and skilful commander, was not merely
willing to risk his life as the most distinguished chief of
what England regarded a treasonable revolt from the authori-
ty of the crown ; but he was " the father of his country."
He came forward at the call of Congress, when there was no
army to command, no treasury whence to draw the support
of an army if he should be able to organize one ; when the
art of war and the ability to command must be learned and
acquired. He took the position of commander-in-chief, and
held it through the war, refusing all pay, standing firm amid
jealousy, slander, and treason ; and, when all earthly hope
seemed to be dying around him, he was found on his knees,
calmly lifting up his tearful eyes to heaven, praying to God
to save his bleeding country. This was patriotism : this
was the embodiment, in a single man, of the feeling and
determination and hope of the American nation.
252 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
THE TRUE INSPIRATION OF AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.
To understand the strength and patient endurance of this
love of country, we must refer to the evidence, already de-
veloped, of a divine plan to constitute an empire of freedom
on the Western continent; we must recall the deep religious
devotion of our chivalrous and Puritan sires ; we must ap-
preciate the moulding power of reverence for God. and con-
secration to his holy service and worship; and, finally, the
new. divine inspiration of ideas and principles. These great
facts were everywhere present as the struggle came on ; and
they imparted an exaltation to the patriotism of the Revo-
lution which atheism could never give, nor infidelity com-
prehend. Controlling public acts recognized it ; deep humil-
iation and fervent prayer revealed the dependence of the
nation upon it, and the faith which inspired the masses of
the people with unconquerable energy.
On the Gth of July, 1775, the Continental Congress
concluded a public manifesto in the following memorable
words : —
-With an humble confidence in the mercy of the supreme
and impartial Judge and Ruler of the universe, we most
devoutly implore his divine goodness to protect us happily
through this great conflict; to dispose our adversaries to
reconciliation upon reasonable terms, and thereby relieve
the empire from the calamities of civil war."
The twentieth day of the same month was, by order of
Congress, observed as a day of fasting, humiliation, and
prayer, in view of -' the present critical, alarming, and ca-
lamitous state of the colonies." Let us now see how this
proclamation was received by the immortal Washington and
the brave army under his command. In the American ar-
chives, vol. ii., page 1708, we find the following order : —
"HEADQUARTERS, CAMBRIDGE, July 1C), 1775.
" The Continental Congress earnestly recommend that
Thursday next, the 20th inst, be observed by the inhabitants
A SUSTAINED NATIONAL LIFE.
253
of all the English colonies upon this continent as a day of
public humiliation, fasting, and prayer, that they may with
united hearts and voice unfeignedly confess their sins before
God, and supplicate the all-wise and merciful Disposer of
events. The general orders that day to be religiously ob-
served by the forces under his command exactly in manner
directed by the proclamation of the Continental Congress.
It is therefore strictly enjoined on all officers and soldiers
(not upon duty) to attend divine service at the accustomed
places of worship, as well in the lines as the encampments
and quarters; and it is expected that all those who go to
worship do take their arms, ammunition, and accoutrements,
and are prepared for immediate action if called upon. If, in
the judgment of the officers, the work should appear to be
in such a state of forwardness as the utmost security of the
camp requires, they will command their men to abstain from
all labor upon that solemn day."
Solemn day, verily. A struggling nation, with their little
army of heroes mangled and bleeding, under authority of
Congress and their glorious military chief, all prostrate before
God, confessing their sins, and imploring help ; they who
feared not the face of clay, who could bare their bosoms to
the storm of war, and would bow to no tyrant upon the face
of the earth, all humbly and reverently kneeling before the
great Jehovah, — this was the heroism of the Revolution,
the patriotism which demonstrates a sustained national life.
CHAPTER V.
THE DECLARATION ASSERTS AN INDEPENDENT NATIONAL
LIFE.
" You will think me transported with enthnsiasm ; but I am not I am well aware of
the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost us to maintain the declaration ; yet, through
all the gloom, I can see that the end is more than worth all the means, and that posterity
will triumph in that day's transaction." — JOHN ADAMS.
" Jefferson poured the soul of the continent into the monumental act of Independ-
ence."— PRESIDENT STILES.
WRITTEN words must represent facts or principles, or they
are powerless. Many declarations of independence have
been promulgated with great rhetorical display ; but they
have perished with the subsidence of passion and the men
who gave them origin.
In like manner, a premature announcement of American
independence would have brought only disgrace upon her
suffering people, and ruin to her cause. The declaration
could only be potential when sustained by great underlying
realities. It was because the people of these colonies had
sufficient reasons for separation from Great Britain ; because
Providence had allowed the institutions of tyranny to exert
their legitimate influence on minds formed for a higher,
nobler life ; because, amid the mind-battles of more than a
century, the shackles of the soul had been so far shaken off,
that a real independence was felt and lived everywhere from
Maine to Georgia, from the Atlantic sea-board to the Alle-
ghanies ; because God had led the people to Teal self-protec-
tion, and to all the high functions of government, — that it
was safe and right to make the declaration. Said Samuel
Adams, " Is not America already independent ? Why not,
then, declare it?"
2M
VRATION
" ') it me irnn«portcd with enthnsiasr
'•xxi and tr
••id is more than worth all the meaiis, eud that po??
..AM*.
'tat« ioHu tl«. nionumental act of Independ-
mt •
.
her
Mail* '
ticn, an«'
was safe and rigl
Adams, " Is not
then, declare it?
n $<> far shaken off,
<i everywhere from
-;»ojj?d fco ti
t'»^eal self-pi ^
guTernnient, — tb
lanition. Said Sai,
•ndent? Why not,
© i EAT STATES m i
AN INDEPENDENT NATIONAL LIFE. 257
he had heretofore communicated with Lord North, the fol-
lowing burning words : " You are a member of Parliament,
and one of that majority which has doomed my country to
destruction. You have begun to burn our towns, and mur-
der our people. Look upon your hands : they are stained
with the blood of your relations ! You and I were long
friends : you are now my enemy, and I am yours." But he
did not resist the opinion of the considerate Jay, and another
appeal was made to the king. It was written by Dickinson
of Pennsylvania, and contained these words : " We beseech
your Majesty to direct some mode by which the united
applications of your faithful colonists to the throne, in pur-
suance of their common councils, may be improved into a
happy and permanent reconciliation; and that, in the mean
time, measures may be taken for preventing the further
destruction of the lives of your Majesty's subjects; and that
such statutes as more immediately distress any of your
Majesty's colonies may be repealed." Surely this was suffi-
ciently humble and deferential. But the people of England
must not interpret the petition for justice as the language
of craven submission. The American people would do
nothing now as colonies. They were a nation ; and their
Congress alone could negotiate terms of peace. Their
address to the British nation was calm and unanswerable.
Their thanks to the officers of the city of London, who
opposed a manly resistance to the despotic measures of the
crown and parliament, were expressed in language most
dignified and sincere. The American Congress would not
be misunderstood ; and thus they write : " North America
wishes most ardently for a lasting connection with Great
Britain on terms of just and equal liberty ; less than which,
generous minds will not offer, nor brave and free ones
receive."
Evidently it was no part of the scheme of our fathers to
erect an independent government in the Western hemi-
sphere. They were subjects of the British crown ; and so
2-53 TUE GREAT REPUBLIC.
intruded, with unaffected loyalty, to remain. But that Prov-
idence which had guided them through all their wonderful
career unfolded to them their hi<2;h destination Lrraduallv.
O *- - *s
Dependence upon a foreign government was evidently
incompatible with the divine plans of a model government
for the instruction of the race. God would conduct the
people of the new nation through such discipline and suffer-
ings as would lead them to a clear understanding of his pur-
poses, and secure them from the fatal error into which
such pliable, brilliant men as Dickinson would lead them.
It required yet a full year of stern, cruel, bloody war, to
bring the masses up to the position occupied by their daring
leaders, and produce the Declaration.
Washington reached the camp around Boston. He re-
ceived the enthusiastic congratulations of officers and civil-
ians with true diffidence and noble dignity. " Now be strong
and very courageous," said Trumbnll. governor of Connecti-
cut. - May the God of the armies of Israel give you wisdom
and fortitude, cover your head in the dav of battle and
danger, and convince our enemies that all their attempts to
deprive these colonies of their rights and liberties are vain!"
Washington replies, with the calmness of a great Christian
statesman and warrior. '• The cause of our common country
calls us both to an active and dangerous duty : Divine Provi-
dence, which wisely orders the affairs of men. will enable us
to discharge it with fidelity and success."
In the mean time, Richard Penn made all possible haste to
cross the water, and lay the humble petition, drawn up by
Dickinson, at the foot of the throne ; but George the Third
O
would not see him. "The king and his cabinet," said Suf-
folk. " are determined to listen to nothing from the illegal
Congress, to treat with the colonies onlv one by one, and in
no event to recognize them in any form of association." By
every act, and in the most vehement language, the king
'• showed his determination to prosecute his measures, and
force the deluded Americans into submission." At length.
AN INDEPENDENT NATIONAL LIFE. 259
his insulting proclamation, which followed, but did not deign
to be an answer to, the humble petition borne by Penn,
reached the colonies. Thoughtful men said, " While Ameri-
ca is still on her knees, the king aims a dagger at her heart."
Woman felt her indignation roused. The wife of John Adams
wrote to her husband, when her house was a hospital, " This
intelligence will make a plain path for you, though a dan-
gerous one. I could not join to-day in the petitions of our
worthy pastor for a reconciliation between our no longer
parent State, but tyrant State, and these colonies. Let us
separate : they are unworthy to be our brethren. Let us re-
nounce them ; and instead of supplications, as formerly, for
their prosperity and happiness, let us beseech the Almighty
to blast their counsels, and bring to nought all their devices."
James Warren wrote to Samuel Adams in Congress, " The
king's silly proclamation will put an end to petitioning.
Movements worthy of your august body are expected, —
a declaration of independence, and treaties with foreign
powers."
Congress felt that the hour of final separation was at
hand, and advised New Hampshire and South Carolina to
set up State governments, independent of Great Britain,
" during the continuance of the present dispute."
Pennsylvania, under the lead of Dickinson, while the great
Franklin stood up alone for the rights of America, said to
her delegates in Congress, " We strictly enjoin you, that you,
in behalf of this colony, dissent from and utterly reject any
propositions, should such be made, that may cause or lead
to a separation from our mother-country, or a change of the
form of this government." Delaware, Maryland, and New
Jersey, seemed to be swaged by the powerful influence of
Pennsylvania, and reached similar results. Under these cir-
cumstances, Congress could not enact its own views. They
must wait for the people, the only real source of power
here: but they appointed Harrison, Franklin, Johnson,
Dickinson, and Jay a secret " committee for the sole purpose
260 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
of corresponding with friends in Great Britain, Ireland, and
other parts of the world;" and funds were appropriated
" for the payment of such agents as they might send on this
service." Jefferson said, " There is not in the British Em-
pire a man who more cordially loves a union with Great
Britain than I do ; but, by the God that made me, I will
cease to exist before I yield to a connection on such terms
as the British Parliament propose : and in this I speak the
sentiments of America."
Thomas Paine, before he became a blasphemous infidel,
among other words which rang through the hearts of the
people, said, " Every thing that is right or natural pleads for
separation. Even the distance at which the Almighty hath
placed England and America is a strong and natural proof
that the authority of the one over the other was never the
design of Heaven. It is not in the power of Britain or of
Europe to conquer America, if she does not conquer herself
by delay and timidity."
The sixth day of April, 1776, witnessed the close of the
colonial system, and the first formal act of independence.
The ports of the Old Thirteen were, by act of Congress,
opened to all the world " not subject to the King of Great
Britain."
In May following, Congress adopted, against all tempo-
rizers, a proposition made by John Adams, that " each one
of the united colonies, where no government sufficient to
the exigencies of their affairs had as yet been established,
should adopt such government as would, in the opinion of
the representatives of the people, best conduce to the hap-
piness and safety of their constituents in particular, and of
America in general." A committee, consisting of John
Adams, Edward Rutledge, and Richard Henry Lee, was then
appointed to draught a preamble to the resolution. In
this we discover the bold and determined spirit of John
Adams, who held Lee firmly by his side. The preamble
declared it to be " absolutely irreconcilable with reason and
AN INDEPENDENT NATIONAL LIFE. 261
good conscience for the people of these colonies now to
take the oaths and affirmations necessary for the support of
any government under the crown of Great Britain; and
that it was necessary that the exercise of every kind of
authority under the crown should be totally suppressed,
and all the powers of government exerted under the
authority of the colonies, for the preservation of their
peace, and their defence against their enemies."
This was really the whole question of independence, and
it called out a most vigorous debate. Some men of true
patriotism indorsed it in principle and fact, but deemed it
premature ; others denounced it, as leading to immediate
anarchy and ruin ; but the majority rose to the greatness of
the occasion, and adopted it. " The Gordian knot is cut,"
said John Adams, as he thought seriously and profoundly
upon the great issues pending upon that action, and the
highly responsible part he had taken in securing it.
In the mean time, Virginia was preparing to advance to
the front in the leadership of this grand movement. One
hundred and thirty of her most distinguished men were
chosen by the people to assemble in convention, and take
the charge of their provincial and civil rights in this impor-
tant crisis. On the fifteenth day of May, 1776, resolutions
reported by Archibald Carey were adopted unanimously
(one hundred and twelve delegates being present), in which
the State of Virginia decreed u that their delegates in Con-
gress be instructed to propose to that body to declare the
united colonies free and independent States, absolved from
all allegiance or dependence upon the crown or parliament
of Great Britain ; and that they give the assent of this col-
ony to such declaration, and to measures for forming for-
eign alliances and a confederation of the colonies: provided
that the power of forming government for, and the regula-
tion of the internal concerns of, each colony, be left to the
respective colonial legislatures."
Her famous Declaration of Rights, reported from a com-
262 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
inittee of thirty-two illustrious men, including such names
as Carey, Henry, Blair, Randolph, Madison, and Mason, was
soon adopted ; and " Virginia presented herself at the bar
of the world, and gave the name and fame of her sons as
hostages that her public life should show a likeness to the
highest ideas of right and equal freedom among men." *
It was the will of the people of Pennsylvania that this
colonial legislature, whose functions had expired by the act
of the Revolution, and whose instructions, under the influ-
ence of the proprietary and the lead of Dickinson, had for-
bidden her delegates to vote for the declaration of independ-
ence, should be superseded by their own representatives.
This great change was announced by a gathering of more
than four thousand people, under the lead of John Bayard
and Daniel Roberdeau ; and the convention and representa-
tives in Congress came forward to place this great common-
wealth in harmony with her sister States and the spirit of
the age.
Finally, the maturer judgment of the nation was calmly
expressed by her greatest representative citizen, the illus-
trious Washington, in these few calm, decisive words : " A
reconciliation with Great Britain is impracticable, and
would be in the highest degree detrimental to the true
interest of America. When I first took the command of the
army, I abhorred the idea of independence ; but I am now
fully convinced that nothing else will save us."
On the seventh day of June, Richard Henry Lee, in the
name of Virginia, offered in Congress the decisive resolu-
tion, " That these united colonies are, and of right ought to
be, free and independent States; that they are absolved
from all allegiance to the British crown ; and that a plan of
confederation be prepared, and transmitted to the respective
colonies for their consideration and approbation."
After careful thought, the final action on this momentous
question was postponed until the second day of July. In
* Bancroft, viii. 383.
AN INDEPENDENT NATIONAL LIFE. 263
the interval, great events had occurred. Oar struggling
army had been driven from Canada ; Howe, with forty-five
ships " laden with troops," had approached the coast ; the
whole British fleet, with a strong land-force, had been gal-
lantly defeated in the harbor of Charleston by a small force
under command of the brave Moultrie, in spite of the incom-
petency and vacillation, not to say treachery, of his supe-
rior officer, Gen. Lee ; and the delegates in Congress of
twelve of the old thirteen States appeared in their seats,
with instructions fresh from the people, to declare the sepa-
ration of these colonies from the British crown. And on this
memorable day the representatives of these twelve colonies,
without a dissenting vote, did resolve, " That these United
Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent
States ; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the
British crown; and that all political connection between
them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be,
totally dissolved."
"At the end of this great day," says Bancroft, "the mind
of John Adams heaved like the ocean after a storm." " The
greatest question," he wrote, " was decided, which was ever
debated in America ; and a greater, perhaps, never was nor
will be decided among men. When I look back to 1761, and
run through the series of political events, the chain of
causes and effects, I am surprised at the suddenness as well
as greatness of this revolution. Britain has been filled with
folly, and America with wisdom."
Jefferson, John Adams, Franklin, Sherman, and Robert R.
Livingston, had been appointed to prepare a Declaration in
accordance with the resolution of independence offered by
Lee, seconded by John Adams, and adopted, with an appro-
priate addition, on the second day of July. They brought
forward their report. Thomas Jefferson was the honored
writer of this immortal document, which, with but one im-
portant amendment, was adopted, as he wrote it, by the
representatives of twelve States without a dissenting vote.
264 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
The delegates from New York still waited for instructions,
soon to eome from a convention of the people; but her
master-minds, with Jay at their head, most heartily con-
curred in the great act, to which, as soon as permitted, they
put their names. Let us now read and carefully ponder this
Magna Charta of American liberty.
THE DECLARATION.
" When, in the course of human events, it becomes neces-
sary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have
connected them with another, and to assume among the
powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which
the laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent
respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should
declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
" We hold these truths to be self-evident, — that all men are
created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness ; that, to secure these rights,
governments are instituted among men, deriving their just
powers from the consent of the governed ; that, when-
ever any form of government becomes destructive of these
ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and
to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such
principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them
shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long estab-
lished should not be changed for light and transient causes ;
and, accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are
more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to
right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are
accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpa-
tions, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design
to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it
is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide
AN INDEPENDENT NATIONAL, LIFE. 265
new guards for their future security. Such has been the
patient sufferance of these colonies, and such is now the
necessity which constrains them to alter their former system
of government. The history of the present King of Great
Britain is a history of1 repeated injuries and usurpations, all
having, in direct object, the. establishment of an absolute
tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be sub-
mitted to a candid world : —
" He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome,
and necessary for the public good.
" He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of imme-
diate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their
operation till his assent should be obtained ; and, when so
suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
" He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation
of large districts of people, unless those people would relin-
quish the right of representation in the legislature, — a right
inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only.
"He has called together legislative bodies at places un-
usual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their
public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into
compliance with his measures.
" He- has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for
opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of
the people.
" He has refused, for a long time after such dissolutions, to
cause others to be elected ; whereby the legislative powers,
incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at
large for their exercise ; the State remaining, in the mean
time, exposed to all the danger of invasion from without,
and convulsions within.
" He has endeavored to prevent the population of these
States ; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturaliza-
tion of foreigners, refusing to pass others to encourage their
migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appro-
priations of lands.
266 -THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
" He has obstructed the administration of justice by refus-
ing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
" He has made judges dependent on his will alone for the
tenure of their offices and the amount and payment of their
salaries.
" He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent
hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out
their substance.
" He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing
armies, without the consent of our legislatures.
" He has affected to render the military independent of
and superior to the civil power.
" He has combined with others [that is, with the Lords and
Commons of Britain] to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign
to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws ; giving
his assent to their acts of pretended legislation, — for quarter-
ing large bodies of armed troops among us ; for protecting
them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders
which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States ;
for cutting off our trade with all parts of the world ; for im-
posing taxes on us without our consent ; for depriving us,
in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury ; for trans-
porting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences ;
for abolishing the free system of English law in a neighbor-
ing province, establishing therein an arbitrary government,
and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an
example and fit instrument for introducing the same abso-
lute rule into these colonies ; for taking away our charters,
abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering, fundamen-
tally, the forms of our government ; for suspending our
own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with
power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
k' He has abdicated government here by declaring us out
of his protection, and waging war against us.
"He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt
our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
AN INDEPENDENT NATIONAL LIFE. 267
" He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign
mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation,
and tyranny already begun, with circumstances of cruelty and
perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and
totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
" He has constrained our fellow-citizens taken captive on
the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become
the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall
themselves by their hands.
" He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and
has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers
the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare
is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and
conditions.
" In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned
for redress in the most humble terms : our petitions have
been answered only by repeated injury. A prince whose
character is thus marked by every act which may define a
tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
" Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British
brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of
attempts made by their legislature to extend an unwarranta-
ble jurisdiction over us ; we have reminded them of the cir-
cumstances of our emigration and settlement here ; we have
appealed to their native justice and magnanimity; and we
have conjured them, by the ties of our common kindred,
to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably inter-
rupt our connections and correspondence. They, too, have
been deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity. We
must therefore acquiesce in the necessity which denounces
our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of man-
kind, enemies in war ; in peace, friends.
" We therefore, the representatives of the United States of
America in General Congress assembled, appealing to the
Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our inten-
tions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good
268 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that
these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND
INDEPENDENT STATES ; that they are absolved from all alle-
giance to the British crown ; and that all political connection
between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought
to be, totally dissolved ; and that, as free and independent
States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace,
contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other
acts and things which independent States may of right do.
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance
on the protection of DIVINE PROVIDENCE, we mutually pledge
to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred
honor."
SUPERIOR WISDOM.
Pausing to consider the history and character of this
great State-paper, we are impressed with the evidences of
superhuman wisdom, under the guidance of which these
results were reached.
If clear-sighted statesmanship had prevailed in the Brit-
ish Parliament, and especially if a wise sovereign had been
on the throne of England, there would have been no hope
of American independence. As we have seen, the Ameri-
cans might have been easily conciliated. They had no idea
of separating from England. It was necessary to bring
them to this result by the severest trials. They must be
made to feel the weight of oppression, almost unparalleled
in the history of freemen, before they could be brought to
the conviction that this was the will of Providence. We
are inclined to accept the construction of Kev. George Duf-
field, pastor of the Third Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia,
in his famous sermon, with John Adams for a hearer, when
the cause of independence was trembling in the balance in
Pennsylvania. He " drew a parallel between George the
Third and Pharaoh, and inferred that the same provi-
dence of God which had rescued the Israelites intended to
AN INDEPENDENT NATIONAL LIFE. 269
free the Americans " * Beyond a doubt, the providence of
God alone will explain this infatuation, this judicial blind-
ness.
How clearly we mark the hand of God in the patience
which delayed this act of formal separation until every fact
and principle it involved had been examined over and over
in the most searching discussions, and the whole nation had
been penetrated by a conviction of its high justice and
inevitable necessity ! Had a few rash leaders brought on
this contest prematurely, or a few headstrong men enacted
and proclaimed the overt act of independence, the self-
respect and caution of the American people would have
rejected it, and assisted in bringing its authors to condign
punishment. What sovereign control there must have been
over all resentments, restraining all angry passions, and pre-
venting all rashness, until the time for action had fully
come, — until the catalogue of grievances, such as no people
under heaven had ever suffered, was completely full, and the
vindication of the declaration was beyond the reach of a
doubt !
What majestic minds rose up, under God, to take the
lead ; to show, by the calmest, clearest statesmanship, that
not a single step was taken but as the result of a necessity
forced upon the people by the arbitrary acts of the British
government ; to be of the people, and yet the leaders of
the people in the midst of the storm ; to define the rights of
the American people, not as demanded by accident or pas-
sion, but as based upon immutable principles ; and coolly
advance, step by step, in the way to independence, amid
the provocations of tyranny and the carnage of war, only
as Providence clearly opened the way ! God makes great
men for great occasions. He gave to suffering, bleeding
America her Adams and Jefferson, her Lee and Rutledge,
her Jay and Franklin, her Marion and Washington, with
their compeers in patriotism and wisdom ; raising them far
* Bancroft, viii. 385.
270 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
above the ordinary level of even great men in all the high
qualities which prepared them to grapple with the problems
of their times.
And the principles of the great Declaration had been slowly
evolved from the chaos of anarchy and despotism, during
a period of more than three hundred years, under the same
great Providence. So distinctly had they been written upon
the current history of civil governments and religion, that
plain people saw them, and rendered them into their own
dialect. When, in May, 1776, Virginia was in her transition
state from dependence to independence, and her people were
electing and instructing the delegates to her assembly of
freemen, these strange words came from the people of Buck-
ingham County, and fell upon the ears of its delegates, Charles
Patterson and John Cahill : " We instruct you to cause a
total separation from Great Britain to take place as soon as
possible ; and a constitution to be established, with a full
representation, and free and frequent elections. As Ameri-
ca is the last country of the world which has contended for
her liberty, so she may be the most free and happy, taking
the advantage of her situation and strength, and having the
experience of all before to profit by. The Supreme Being
hath left it in our power to choose what government we
please for our civil and religious happiness : good govern-
ment, and the prosperity of mankind, can alone be in the
divine intention. We pray, therefore, that, under the superin-
tending providence of the Ruler of the universe a govern-
ment may be established in America, the most free, happy,
and permanent that human wisdom can contrive and the
perfection of man maintain." Let the reader look at this
profound Christian revelation of the philosophy of freedom
and government: "The Supreme Being hath left it in our
power to choose what government we please for our civil
and religious happiness; good government, and the prosperity
of mankind, can alone be in the divine intention : " and prayer
to " the Supreme Ruler of the universe " for the superintend-
AX INDEPENDENT NATIONAL LIFE. 271
ing care is indispensable to the formation and maintenance of
good government. Oh, this is splendid ! How devoutly we
adore the Spirit above and around and through all, who gave
to the minds of this new providential nation so clear and
divine an idea of the advanced position now to be assumed
in the development of human destiny.
It is delightful to read from the pen of the great civil
commander of the forces of independence, John Adams, as
his heart glowed over the great irrevocable resolution of the
2d of July, " It is the will of Heaven that the two coun-
tries should be sundered forever. It may be the will of
Heaven that America shall suffer calamities still more wast-
ing, and distresses yet more dreadful. If this is to be the
case, the furnace of affliction produces refinement in States,
as well as individuals ; but I submit all my hopes and fears
to an overruling Providence, in which, unfashionable as the
faith may be, I firmly believe."
Thus the great wisdom, which alone could so order the new
Republic as to render its cause successful, is seen by the
American people to be from above ; and the extraordinary
character of our great charter of liberty is clearly explained.
When, for our separate and equal station among the nations
of the earth, our patriotic fathers refer to " Nature and to
Nature's God," and they say, " We hold these truths to be
self-evident, — that all men are created equal ; that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights ;
that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi-
ness ; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted
among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of
the governed," — we are led, by light from the celestial
world, into the very depths of civil and political wisdom, and
are put in possession of the profoundest principles of right
and freedom ever known to man, — a power which would
ultimately destroy all the forms of oppression and injus-
tice which the infirmities of men, or the capital wrongs
ef our future constitution, might leave amongst us. Well
THE UI;I-;AT REPUBLIC.
might those sages of the great Revolution, when they were
about to pledge their lives, their fortunes, and sacred honor
-for the support of this Declaration," solemnly appeal to "the
Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of their in-
tentions," and assume their high and sacred responsibilities
•• with a firm reliance on the protection of DIVINE PROVIDENCE."
Thus have we ascertained that the Declaration reveals a
national life, independent of Great Britain, but humbly
reliant upon the arm of God.
How utterly unlike the tendencies of despotism, away
from God, and hence, of necessity, away from political wis-
dom ! How clearly does the rule of a divine Sovereign
exalt the thoughts of a free people to firm faith in his direc-
tion, and the ultimate triumph of the right!
The breadth and reach of the great " Declaration " can
be distinctly seen from this stand-point alone. It was by
inspiration from Heaven that ''Jefferson poured the soul of
the continent into the monumental act of independence."
CHAPTER VI.
DISCIPLINE INSURES A VIGOROUS NATIONAL LIFE.
" These adventurous worthies, animated by sublimer prospects, dearly purchased this
land : they and their posterity have defended it with unknown cost, in continual jeopardy
of their lives, and with their blood." — SAMUEL COOKE.
WE value that most which costs us most. Whatever
comes to us without a struggle, without trials, we are likely
to part with without regrets. But blessings gained by years
of toil and suffering we hold as inexpressibly valuable to us,
and would make great sacrifices to retain. Hence it was that
American liberties were so dear to the brave men of the Revo-
lution. They knew their cost, and clung to them with the
utmost tenacity. Hence the immensely higher estimate we
place upon our noble institutions since our recent death-
struggle to defend them. American history ought to explain
to all men, with sufficient distinctness, the reasons for the
depth and glow of American patriotism.
Discipline is strength. The unused muscle is without
power ; but the arm of the blacksmith is vigorous and able.
The neglected mind is feeble, and an object of pity ; but the
mental vigor of the scholar commands our respect and
admiration. The heart unaccustomed to virtue or piety is
easily captivated by vice ; but the practised Christian is a
moral hero in the conflicts of temptation and sin.
So the life of a nation springing up by sudden and suc-
cessful revolution is effeminate and temporary ; but the life
which passes with severe trials from generation to generation,
which wears for agonizing years its galling chains, and bat-
tles its way out of inthralment amid the sufferings of blood,
274 TIIK CUE AT REPUBLIC.
and feels in its progress to power all the pressure which mal-
ice can inspire, is likely to endure. It moves on to higher
rank and mightier conflicts with a vigor which no easy life
could insure.
TRIALS FROM POVERTY.
\Var is enormously expensive; and one of the first prob-
lems of belligerent powers is how to subsist an army. Six-
hours cannot pass before demands will be made upon the
commissariat which would startle an inexperienced man.
When the American people took up arms in defence of
their liberties, they had no treasury, no funds. Before there
could be any thing for the military chest, some plan of
finance must be devised that would actually create funds.
The colonies first in the struggle immediately began the
ruinous but apparently inevitable policy of issuing bills of
credit. They could be used at first with some success; but
thev were not money. They were promises to pay ; and, in
proportion as their redemption in specie became difficult or
impossible, they depreciated, and finally became valueless.
Congress reluctantly adopted this dangerous policv. which,
while it would postpone for a while the demand for hard
money, could not prevent its return with greatly increased
urgency. The only dependence of the forming nation was
upon the colonies ; and their embarrassments on their own
account seriously interfered with the financial credit based
upon their local resources. In June. 177-5. Congress, at the
suggestion of New York, issued two millions of continental
oc
bills of credit for the immediate relict of the army: but
this was very soon exhausted ; and as it was exchanged for
necessary supplies, like the colonial bills, it soon began to be
regarded as something less than money. The Canadians
O ^
could not be induced to take continental money ; and our
army in the North was subsisted with the greatest difficulty.
For the rest, the only expedient was to issue more paper-bills;
and in a year and a half they had risen to twenty millions.
A VIGOROUS NATIONAL LIFE. 275
The credit of this money had been quite well kept up by
the patriotism of the people and the reputation of our
distinguished men ; but it had at length become so abun-
dant, that no existing power could prevent its depreciation.
An attempt to loan five millions at four per cent; the experi-
ment of a lottery ; the authority of Congress given to Wash-
ington to punish all who refused to receive the nation's
money, and thus disparage continental credit; and the
attempt of a New-England convention to establish by law
the prices of necessary commodities, — all showed the public
distress, while they afforded very inadequate relief. It was
quite in vain for Congress to resolve that their bills " ought
to pass current in all payments, trade, and dealings, and be
deemed equal in value to the same nominal sums in Spanish
dollars;" that those who refused them were "enemies of the
United States ; " and to menace offenders with " forfeitures
and other penalties." The traders could invent methods of
evading all such regulations. If a piece of paper was not a
dollar, and no man would give a dollar for it, no law could
make it buy a dollar's worth of provisions.
In the mean time, the army was often driven to the great-
est extremes of suffering. The demands of nature justified
unlawful seizures of food ; the people were indulgent ; and
various providential resources preserved our poor soldiers
from actual starvation.
In March, 1778, after having issued ten millions, then
two millions, then a million, and then another million, of
continental bills of credit, the depreciation became so alarm-
ing, that renewed efforts to obtain a loan became indispen-
sable. The public money sank to three or four to one. In
these times of distress, men were found who were " endeav-
oring by every means of oppression, sharping, and extor-
tions, to procure enormous gains ; " and commissaries were
authorized to seize and receipt for necessary provisions
"purchased up or engrossed by any person with a view of
selling the same." We blush for our race at these revela-
276 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
tions of intense meanness ; and, as we meet these creatures
in human form in the history of other times and our own,
we feel that the halter of Cromwell ought to be the protec-
tion of right.
Washington burned with indignation at these outrages in
Pennsylvania. To Reed he wrote, " It gives me very sincere
pleasure to find that the Assembly is so well disposed to second
your endeavors in bringing those murderers of our cause —
the monopolizers, forestallers, and engrossers — to condign
punishment. It is much to be lamented that each State, long
ere this, has not hunted them down as pests to society, and
the greatest enemies we have to the happiness of America.
I would to God that some one of the more atrocious in each
State were hung in gibbets upon a gallows five times as
high as that prepared for Haman ! No punishment, in my
opinion, is too severe for the man who can build his great-
ness upon his country's ruin."
" Laws unworthy the character of infant republics," said
Congress, " are become necessary to supply the defects of
public virtue, and to correct the vices of some of her sons."
For, after government had purchased clothing of some of
these sharpers in Boston " at the most extravagant rate of
from ten to eighteen hundred per cent," they demanded pay
before they would deliver the goods ; "thereby adding to ex-
tortion the crime of wounding the public credit," " mani-
festing a disposition callous to the feelings of humanity, and
untouched by the severe sufferings of their countrymen,
exposed to a winter's campaign in defence of the common
liberties of their country." The accusations in this particu-
lar instance were denied, and probably the goods were really
of more value than any amount of continental money;
but the bitter complaints of Congress show the extreme of
suffering in the army and the nation for the want of means
to clothe and feed the men who were exposing life and en-
during incredible hardships to preserve the life of liberty.
Sixty-seven millions of dollars in continental paper-money
A VIGOROUS NATIONAL LIFE. 277
were expended during the year 1778, raising the aggregate
amount outstanding to $113,456,269; and the depreciation
was six and eight dollars to one.
In May, 1780, a committee from Congress visited the
camp : and from their report we learn " that the army was
five months unpaid ; that it seldom had more than six days
provisions in advance, and was, on several occasions, for sun-
dry successive days, without meat; that the army was des-
titute of forage ; that the medical department had neither
sugar, tea, chocolate, wine, nor spirits ; and that every
department was without money, or even the shadow of
credit."
We need not pursue this subject further. We all under-
stand that the currency of the nation, raised at length to
$369,547,027, was finally valueless ; and we may see the
severity of the trials through which, in consequence, the
nation was compelled to pass; what shiverings from cold,
and gnawings of hunger, tested the fortitude of our brave
soldiers ; what sufferings of their wives and little ones, as
the means of their scanty subsistence became worthless on
their hands ; what demands upon economy checked all dis-
position to luxury among the great civilians and warriors,
who stood together, a colossal tower of strength and wisdom,
during those days of peril ; what grand lessons of financial
skill, and finally what trust in Providence, were taught this
nation by the extreme poverty of her people, her States,
and her General Government.
TRIALS FROM DISLOYALTY AND TREASON.
Some men there were whose mental processes could not
keep up with the progress of events. They were English-
men by birth and in spirit, and Koyalists from principle and
habit, They were " Tories " of course, honest let us trust,
and yet none the less enemies to the American nation in its
struggles for independence. Others were stupid, and had no
278 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
power to understand the nature of the contest ; craven cow-
ards, with no intellectual ability to discover the superior
safety of the right, and that the right was with the Ameri-
can Republic. They were " Tories " because they thought
the king was sure to triumph in the conflict with a few
feeble colonists, without an army, without a navy, without
veteran officers, or money to procure the materials of war.
They were excessively impudent, and brutally cruel.
Here was a source of the greatest trial and danger. In
New York, in New Jersey, throughout the South, and all
along the Northern frontier, they were spies, mingling with
our forces ; detecting and revealing to our enemies the plans
of every campaign ; harboring and feeding the British, and
withholding, whenever it was possible, the means of subsist-
ence from their brethren in the American army ; conducting
the secret or public expeditions of the enemy through
routes otherwise unknown, and impracticable to them ; and
not unfrequently, with their own hands, applying the torch
to the houses of their suffering neighbors. They became
the instinctive allies of the merciless savages, and joined in
their shouts of triumph, reeking in the blood of their own
brethren. These internal foes must be met and conquered,
must be tracked to their hiding-places, and overwhelmed
with disaster and disgrace, at the same time that the vete-
rans of Clinton and Howe, Burgoyne and Cornwallis, must
be met and conquered in the field. How sensibly, then, did
Hawley write to Gerry, " Can we subsist, did any State ever
subsist, without exterminating traitors? It is amazingly
wonderful, that, having no capital punishment for our intes-
tine enemies, we have not been utterly ruined before now."
When the loyal people of New York were rejoicing over
the Declaration of Independence, " a large number of the
wealthier citizens looked on with distrust; and the Epis-
copal clergy showed their dissatisfaction by shutting up the
churches." *
* Hildreth, iii. 141.
A VIGOROUS NATIONAL LIFE.
279
When Howe, the British commander, entered Philadelphia
in triumph, "he found many to welcome him ; among others,
Duche, the late chaplain of Congress, who presently sent a
letter to Washington, advising him to give over the ungodly
cause in which he was engaged." *
This great commander, while he bore upon his heart the
burden of the war, with all the sufferings of his soldiers,
with whom he endured every deprivation as a father, was
obliged to know that he was the object of cruel jealousy,
and that, even in Congress, men were forming combinations
for his overthrow. Richard Henry Lee and Samuel Adams
gave influence to the disaffection towards Washington. The
Pennsylvanians, smarting under the mortification of losing
Philadelphia, sought to strengthen the increasing prejudice.
Mifflin lent his splendid abilities to ripen the plot. Gates,
who aspired to be commander-in-chief, corresponded with
Mifflin and Conway, with the view of hastening the down-
fall of Washington. And what was his offence ? Simply
that he did not render his feeble band of famished continen-
tals and militia everywhere superior to the well-fed and
well-clothed hosts of the British veteran army. For want
of shoes, the marches of his army "had been tracked in
blood ; " " for want of blankets, many of the men were obliged
to sit up all night before the camp-fires ; " " more than a
quarter part of the troops were reported unfit for duty,
because they were barefoot and otherwise naked : " and he
had the greatness to withdraw them from action when they
were in danger of annihilation, and to endure calmly all the
obloquy of impetuous discontent, while he carefully pre-
served the only possibility of future success.
To add to the cares of Washington, and bring upon the
national cause the greatest peril, Benedict Arnold, a chiv-
alrous, daring warrior, turned traitor, and had just escaped,
with his life and infamy, to join the enemies of his country,
after having made all his arrangements to surrender West
Point, with its men and munitions of war, to the British.
* Hildretb, iii. 221.
280
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
Thus were the hearts of American patriots tried. Thus
did the follies of some, who, if honest, were exceedingly sim-
ple, and the treason of reckless, unprincipled men, unite to
try the brave spirits upon whose integrity the cause of
American liberty depended.
TRIALS FROM DEFEAT.
The invasion of Canada, commenced under Schuyler,
Aug. 30, 1775, resulted in the capture of the bold Ethan
Allen, who was sent to England in irons, and the death of
the gallant Montgomery in a desperate attack upon Quebec.
Arnold was borne from the field, severely wounded ; and
the remains of the spirited army of invasion went into
winter-quarters behind ramparts of frozen snow.
Oglethorpe, the senior general in the British army, having
declined the command in America, Gen. Howe received
the appointment; and the forces designed to subdue the
freemen of the colonies were raised to more than forty
thousand men.
Dunmore, in Virginia, by proclamation roused the negro
slaves and indented apprentices to accept arms, and take
the field against their masters, promising them liberty as
their reward. Soon he deemed himself strong enough for
aggressive action; and Norfolk was bombarded, and then
committed to the flames. He ascended the rivers, and
burned and plundered, with the ferocity of a savage, the
province of which he claimed to be governor.
In the spring of 1776, our poor army in Canada suffered
from hunger and the small-pox, of which Thomas, then in
command, died. Four hundred men surrendered to a party
of Canadians and Indians. Thirteen thousand men now
confronted our reduced and suffering patriots. Sullivan
ordered an attack upon one division of the enemy, which
was repulsed with the loss of two hundred and thirty men
killed, wounded, and prisoners. Wayne was wounded, and
A VIGOROUS NATIONAL LIFE. 281
Thompson (who commanded the detachment) and Col. Ir-
ving were among the prisoners. All offensive measures
in that quarter must now be abandoned, and our brave
Northern army must seek safety in retreat from Canada,
"disgraced, defeated, discontented, dispirited, diseased, un-
disciplined, eaten up with vermin ; no clothes, beds, blankets,
nor medicines ; and no victuals but salt pork and flour, and
a scarce supply of that." These words from John Adams
indicate the severity of suffering through which our patriotic
soldiers were compelled to pass, and the bitter trials of the
nation.
We had gathered a flotilla of sixteen vessels on Lake
Champlain. These, after a severe engagement, were swept
from the waters; and Crown Point fell into the enemy's
hands.
In August of this year, the whole army of the Republic
scarcely numbered twenty thousand men. One-fifth of
these were sick, and another fifth were away on detached
duties, when Washington was confronted by Gen. Howe
with twenty-four thousand disciplined troops. All attempts
to prevent their landing on Long Island were unavailing.
A sharp, spirited battle took place between fifteen thousand
British and five thousand Americans. Sullivan and Sterling
were made prisoners ; and New York, the commercial me-
tropolis of the United States, fell into the hands of the
enemy, to be held till the war was ended.
The soldiers now became unsteady under fire, and broke
in so disgraceful a manner as to extort from Washington
the indignant demand, " Are these the men with whom I
am to defend America ? " He was driven from York Island
altogether. Fort Washington, and the works on Harlem
Heights, under command of Magraw, were suddenly attacked
by four columns. Four hundred men of the enemy fell in
the onset : but our men, demoralized, refused to man the
works ; and the fort, with two thousand prisoners and a
great quantity of artillery, fell into the hands of the British.
34)
282 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
The time of enlistment for many of the continentals
expired, and multitudes left before their time. Thus Wash-
ington saw his little army rapidly melting away. Reduced
to some four thousand men, he conducted a masterly retreat
southward, and finally rccrossed the Delaware. New Jersey
was lost to the Republic for the present.
This was a dark day for America. Disaffection spread in
Pennsylvania. Lee, too self-conceited to be subordinate,
virtually repudiated Washington's orders, and aspired to a
separate command.
A British fleet, bearing six thousand troops, now appeared
off Newport ; and that harbor was lost.
During the winter of 1777, Washington was at Morris-
town, N. J. lie had retired from Princeton too weak to
strike another blow. " His troops were exhausted : many
had no blankets; others were barefoot; all were very
thinly clad." : He joined a few skeletons of regiments
which had been detached from the army of the North, and
a few volunteers ; and thus our brave men. hardly fit to be
called an armv, shivering with cold and suffering from him-
»,' ' O O
o;er, waited the orders of their cvrcat commander. Ao;ain
O ; o C3
the country was scoured for men. Those who had been
left for the comfort of needy families, and many who had,
for reasons of cowardice or from sinister motives, evaded
their country's call, were now brought into camp ; and the
army was re-organized.
The tone of England, in the mean time, may be judged
by a single fact. American commissioners proposed that
captured British seamen brought into French ports should
be exchanged for so many American prisoners of war. Lord
Stormont replied, '• The king's ambassador receives no appli-
cation from rebels, unless they come to implore his Majesty's
pardon;' The note which contained these haughty words
was promptly returned for his lordship's " better consider-
ation."
* Hildretti, ill. 170.
A VIGOROUS NATIONAL LIFE. 283
The summer campaign gave no decisive advantage to the
Americans anywhere. We lost our important defences in
the Highlands on the Hudson, and in September fought the
disastrous battle of the Brandywine ; and Philadelphia fell
into the hands of the enemy.
Our forces in the South were quite inadequate to defend so
large a territory against a foe so formidable ; and the Caro-
linas were treated by the British as conquered territory.
The Indians were officered, and trained to deeds of
cruelty for which the vilest enemies in civilized warfare
could not fail to blush in shame. Let the reader trace these
savages, with their Tory allies under Butler and Brant,
through the massacre of Wyoming, in the vivid pages of
" Wyoming, its History, Stirring Incidents, and Romantic Ad-
ventures," by George Peck, D.D., and he will have some
idea of the horrors through which America passed to the
triumphs of the Revolution.
We may now pause to wonder how the struggling forces
of Freedom were sustained through these years of agony.
Why did they not abandon the effort? They were a mar-
vel to their enemies, to themselves, and to the civilized world.
Again and again the English thought they were conquered ;
that they had exhausted their last resources of men and
money ; and that, from very anguish of soul, they must sub-
mit to their enemies. But no. A Being above all human
events would not permit them to yield. A courage that
knew no danger, a fortitude that defied all suffering, was
given them from above, rendering them actually invincible.
If they had passed on in uninterrupted triumph to easy-
success, if they had never felt the horrors of poverty, the
bitterness of treachery and defeat, they would have known
nothing of the value of freedom, and have entered upon the
struggles of re-organization, with no adequate patience, or
wisdom or patriotism, to sustain a form of government so
new and so exceedingly critical. But God had sifted and
tried them that they might be equal to their task.
284 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
TRIALS FROM A SPIRIT OF COMPROMISE.
To a superficial eye, it might have seemed a hopeful fact
that the American colonists had strong advocates in the
British Parliament; that noble friends of liberty opposed
with matchless argument and faithful warnings every meas-
ure of oppression which the king and his ministers imposed
upon the colonies : but it is precisely here that we discover
the origin of our greatest peril. If Pownal and Fox and
Burke could h*ave succeeded in tearing the mask from the
eyes of George the Third, and unveiling the depth of disgrace
into which he was plunging the nation; could they have
made ministers believe, what they so confidently affirmed,
that they could not conquer America, and that the war
would rob England of the brightest jewel in her crown, — the
odious Stamp Act would have been promptly repealed, taxa-
tion without representation would have been abandoned, and
then, so far as we can see, all idea of independence would
have perished in America. It was from her friends that the
greatest danger to Liberty arose. Their sense of justice
was truly exalted ; their plea for humanity worthy of their
noble rank. They were honored in the right ; but the men
they addressed were judicially blinded. Their hearts were
hardened, like the heart of Pharaoh ; for God evidently in-
tended to lead out his people " with a high hand and an
outstretched arm."
Kindred dangers arose on every hand. Petition after pe-
tition went from the American colonists to the crown. Had
any one of these been heeded, and the heavy yoke upon their
necks been lightened, the rising nationality of freedom
would have been crushed in its beginnings. It reminds us
of the oppressive decisions of Rehoboam. Strange infatua-
tions, now as then, had seized the monarch ; for " the cause
was from the Lord."
When, in 1774, Galloway proposed to Congress his meas-
ures of compromise, they were rejected by a majority of
A VIGOROUS NATIONAL LIFE. 285
only a single vote. Who controlled that single vote ? We
tremble to think of so narrow an escape.
When temporizers, led on by Dickinson, a man of splen-
did abilities, and the most captivating style of manners and
rhetoric, had it in their power, again and again, to postpone
the declaration of independence, and to secure a last humil-
iating petition to the throne, how marked the Providence
that denied even the royalist Penn an audience with the
king, or access to official power, to present it, and which
made it the occasion of a most despotic and cruel proclama-
tion, denouncing the colonists and their congress as rebels,
and, in effect, menacing their immediate subjugation or utter
extermination !
What strength of self-interest in the various proprietary
governments! what plausibility in the peace doctrines of
the Quakers, and in pleas for loyalty from legislators and
capitalists, from merchants and lawyers, who saw nothing
but ruin in resistance to the power of England ! .Especially
what power did the leaders of compromise acquire, when it
arose from the boldest and firmest remonstrants against ty-
ranny, and promised to accept nothing but justice, which the
British Government, it was with reason affirmed, would ulti-
mately yield !
The apathy of Congress amid the general distress of 1779
added to the public peril. Many of its strongest men left
it for various reasons, wholly incompatible with the high
trust committed to them by the people. The number in
attendance was frequently reduced below thirty, and even
below twenty-five.
Finally, when the triumphant leaders of the British army
came with the sword in one hand and the olive-branch in
the other, offering " peace and liberty and wealth " in the
place of bloody war and insupportable suffering, sus-
tained by the whole influence of the Church of England at
home and in America, how improbable it was that the offers
of pardon would be rejected ! But God gave to the Ameri-
286
THE" GREAT REPUBLIC.
can nation a high-souled honor, a sacred regard for prin-
ciple, an unconquerable bravery, which exalted them above
the blandishments of hypocrisy as well as the terrors of
war. He nerved the souls of Jefferson and Henry, of Adams
and Jay, and, above all, of the immortal Washington, with a
patriotism so incorruptible, that they led the nation through
the perils of smiles and of tears, of bribery and of blood,
with a firmness and devotion which made them a sublime
spectacle to enemies and friends.
By such discipline did God separate the precious from the
vile, drive away or destroy the cowardly timidity and craven
selfishness unfit for use in constructing the Temple of Lib-
erty, and nerve with highest energy the master-spirits chosen
to lead the hosts of Freedom in the ages to come.
Thus have we found and brought forward the facts which
clearly justify the proposition which stands at the head of
this chapter, — discipline insures a vigorous national life.
CHAPTER VII.
HISTOKY RECORDS AN ACKNOWLEDGED NATIONAL LIFE.
" O Peace, thou welcome guest, all hail ! Thou heavenly visitant, calm the tumults
of nations, and wave thy balmy wing over this region of liberty ! . . . May this great
event excite and elevate our first, our highest acknowledgments to the Sovereign Mon-
arch of universal nature, to the Supreme Disposer and Controller of all events ! Let
this our pious, sincere, and devout gratitude ascend in one general effusion of heartfelt
praise and hallelujah, in one united cloud of incense, even the incense of universal joy
and thanksgiving to God, from the collective body of the United States." — PRESIDENT
STILES.
THE neighborhood of nations requires mutual concessions.
It is not merely the question of each, whether it has a right
to exist, or whether its institutions are sound and benign in
their influence upon the people. As individuals are under
obligations to be good and acceptable neighbors, so each
nation is bound to be a peaceable and useful member of the
family of nations. Every other member of the great fam-
ily has a right to exact it. The happiness and prosperity
of the whole depend upon it.
When, therefore, colonies, however remote from the
home government, assert their independence, they are
greatly concerned in the question of acknowledgment. Are
they right ? Do the principles of their uprising commend
themselves to sound reason, to the approval of leading
minds, to the men in power in other nations ? Have they
vindicated their nationality ? Are they a nation with the
indispensable resources, rights, and powers of separate in-
dependent government ?
Until these questions are answered, there is still cause for
anxiety with regard to the new experiment. There was
cause for anxiety in America.
287
Till: CKKAT
THE ENGLISH ACKNOWLEDGE AMERICAN INDEPI.NDKNi F,.
Before tlio commencement of actual hostilities, the popu-
lar feel inn; was strongly with the government. The Ameri-
cans were rebels, and his Majesty must subdue them at all
ha/anls. Writers and speakers vied with each other in
opposing <iH ideas of future separation. There was. how-
ever. one exception. Dean Tucker, in a published pam-
phlet. urged upon Parliament a peaceful release of the
colonies from all obligations of loyalty to the British
crown. It is true, he placed it upon grounds of forfeiture :
hut the principle of American independence was conceded
even by his proposition, that the way should be open for
the return of anv colon v repenting its attempt to live with-
out the mother-country.
Burke would not tolerate the noble proposition of Tucker.
though lie was a warm friend of the colonies. His desire
for reconciliation, however, carried with it a confession of
American riirht<. which had been denied, and formed the
nucleus of an opposition, which fmallv gathered around it a
» ^
strong public sentiment in favor of American independence.
In a recent election, the mini-try had obtained an over-
whelming majority in favor of coercion. Lord North could
go on with his measures for the suppression of rebellion,
but not heartily; for even he was. in principle and feeling,
really opposed to the war. Officially, he favored the king;
but. personally, the colonies This fact was of great moral
importance to America.
The minority had strength among the merchants, who
were not long in discovering that free colonies fostered by
the British Government, or even an independent nation
with the best resources of a continent at command, would
furnish a more lucrative trade than a subdued, oppressed.
and discouraged people. The principles of civil libertv.
now apparently endangered in the whole kingdom, were
roused to a new and vigorous life hv the American strv'r-
AN ACKNOWLEDGED NATIONAL LIFE. 289
gle ; and the English dissenters were firm and really formi-
dable in their opposition to the tyrannical measures of the
king and his ministers. Some portions of the old Whig
party, led by the Marquis of Rockingham, the Earl of
Chatham, Pownal and Johnstone, and urged forward by the
eloquence of Burke, Barre, Dunning, and Fox, revealed
the nucleus of a power which gave voice and effect to the
English sense of justice, and would finally bring up the
convictions and moral force of the British nation to the ac-
knowledgment of American independence.
Jamaica petitioned Parliament most earnestly against
the " plan, almost carried into execution, for reducing the
colonies into the most abject state of slavery." At that
time, however, remonstrance was in vain. Resolutions
against the oppressive measures of the ministry, offered by
Burke and Hartley, and sustained by the most powerful elo-
quence, were promptly voted down ; but they were a voice
for justice which the civilized world must hear. Wilkes,
Lord Mayor of London, led the power of that great city in
official and public expression of " abhorrence " of all meas-
ures for " the oppression of their fellow-subjects in the
colonies."
. Good men were on opposite sides in this struggle. The
great John Wesley, whose loyalty was a part of his religion,
wrote and published his earnest advice to the colonies to
submit to the crown ; while Oglethorpe had earlier the
broad views which Wesley subsequently reached, and, as
we have seen, refused to act as commander-in-chief of the
British army of forty thousand men ordered to subjugate
the colonies, for which he felt an interest truly paternal.
At the opening of Parliament, Oct. 6, 1775, Gen. Conway
and the Duke of Grafton abandoned their official positions
rather than be longer identified with this unrighteous tyran-
ny, and joined the opposition.
The Declaration of Independence discouraged many of
the English advocates of conciliation, and gave strength to
3?
290 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
the idea that rebellion must first be crushed before over-
tures of peace could be made. But the victorious march
of the Howes through Long Island, New York, and Xc\v
Jersev. encouraged even Lord North to bring forward new
measures of conciliation. He declared his real sentiments,
which had been from the first opposed to forced taxation ;
and his humane feelings, really revolting from the murder-
ous acts which he had felt obliged to promote, gave power-
ful influence to the public sentiment, which brought the
people of Great Britain to the acknowledgment of American
independence.
France, roused by the sympathies of her people, came
forward to help the struggling colonies at the expense of a
perilous war with England ; and this gave great additional
strength to the opposition, and led to a new commission
for conciliation. Bv the spring of 1778. the demand for
«/ i o
peace had become importunate in England ; and as the hon-
orable commissioners under Lord North's Conciliatory Act
— the Earl of Carlisle. William Edwin, afterward Lord Auk-
land, and Gov. Jolmstone — could ccain no audience with
' O
Congress (still officially regarded and treated as a rebel
assemblv), it was comma; to be thoroughly understood
» / o O */
that there could be no peace but by the acknowledgment
of the independence of the United States. This, so far
from operating against the public desire for peace, deepened
and extended it. When a noble earl said in his place,
•• My lords, you cannot conquer America," he gave expres-
sion to the profoundest convictions of the British people ;
and this was the predetermined acknowledgment of our
independence.
Spain now came forward as a party to the war, aiming
chiefly at the recovery of her territorial rights in America,
but incidentally contributing to the general dissatisfaction
in England with the war against America,
O O
The capture of Burgoyne and his armv, the consummate
1 O J t/ *
skill of Washington in the recovery of New Jersey, and the
AN ACKNOWLEDGED NATIONAL LIFE. 291
indomitable persistence of the armies with their allies result-
ing in the surrender of Cornwallis, brought this feeling to a
crisis ; and no ministry could stand before it. The king's
speech in November, 1781, breathed nothing but slaughter ;
but on the first division, the House of Commons showed that
the war party was losing its power. The motion, that " any
further attempt to reduce the Americans by force would be
ineffectual and injurious," was lost by a majority of only
forty-one. A little more than a month later, a motion for
K an address to the king to put a stop to the war " was lost
by only a single vote. Five days later, " a similar motion was
carried," and the British people had acknowledged the inde-
pendence of America.
EUROPEAN GOVERNMENTS ACKNOWLEDGE THE NEW NATION.
The sword had been wielded with sufficient effect to usher
in the period of diplomacy. In 1780, brave John Adams
appears in Paris with power from the American Congress to
form treaties of peace and commerce. He was, however, too
impetuous for the cautious Vergennes, and was soon trans-
ferred to Holland. Finding .the way gradually opened, and
obstructions thrown in his way overcome, he matured and ef-
fected a treaty with the States-General at the Hague ; and
the heroic government of Holland was the first in the world
to acknowledge the independence of the United States of
America ; a distinction of which she may well be proud, and
for which the Great Republic will never cease to be pro-
foundly grateful.
In the mean time, our struggling country encountered a
new peril from the offer of the Empress of Russia to mediate
between the contending parties. The desire of England for
peace may be seen in the proposition, that the German em-
peror should be associated with the empress in this media-
tion. Such had been the discouragements of Southern
members from the success of the British army at the battle
TIII-: <;I:I:AT IIKITDLIC.
i)l' Catuden. and the conquest of South Carolina and Geor-
gia, that Congress was induced to waive the demand for a
formal acknowledgment of independence, insisting onlv
upon virtual independence; hut. hv the blessings of Provi-
dence, complications arose, which destroyed all the combina-
tions formed under the auspices of the Fmpress of llus-qa,
and once more our rising nation escaped a ruinous tempta-
tion. The honest, firm, and fearless spirit of Franklin, who
was our representative at Paris, was doubtless the most fjr-
midable obstacle in the way of a treaty urged by the South
against the determined resistance of New England, which
would have sacrificed the national life for which the American
people had shed their blood like water. When the Marquis
of Iiockingham. who openly advocated the independence of
these colonies, had succeeded Lord North. Adam< and Frank-
lin were approached with some official overtures of peace,
with every advantage excepting formal independence. Sir
Guv Carlton and Admiral Digby were empowered to approach
Washington and the Congress with the same propositions:
and Oswald, a British merchant, was sent to Paris to ascer-
tain of Franklin the American ultimatum, and returned with
the information that "' independence, a satisfactory boundary,
and a participation in the fisheries, would be indispensable
requisites in a treaty." ;
Iiockingham. the friend of America, died, and Shelburn.
from the school of Chatham, succeeded him. His private
opinions, however, were of no avail, '['he British people
demanded peace, and neither ministry nor king could silence
their demand.
Just at this time, the news reached Furope that the British
Admiral llodney had almost literally destroyed the French
Meet under Count de Grasse in the West Indies. This had.
of course, a strong tendencv to strength the diplomacy of
o • »/
Knii'land, while it increa>ed the desire of France to reach the
end of the1 war. But America was linn. At length, an act
* IliUlreth, iii. 4 1C.
AN ACKNOWLEDGED NATIONAL LIFE.
293
of Parliament authorized negotiations on the basis of Frank-
lin's previous announcement. Oswald met Franklin and Jay
in Paris with full powers to conclude a peace with certain
" colonies " in America. Jay, however, firmly refused to
treat in behalf of British " colonies ; " and Oswald soon pro-
cured amended prerogatives to make peace with " the
United States of America."
Not exactly in accordance with instructions, but prompted
by what seemed to be sufficient reasons, Franklin and Jay
negotiated a separate peace with Oswald in behalf of Eng-
land ; not, however, to take effect until approved by France.
Vergennes was too noble to take offence at so critical a mo-
ment, and resumed negotiations, to which Spain also was a
party.
At length, on the 19th of April, 1783, — just eight years
from the opening of this fearful war, — the proclamation
of peace issued by Congress reached the army at New-
burg. The Revolutionary War was ended, and the inde-
pendence of America was acknowledged by Holland, Eng-
land, France, and Spain. What exultant joy rang through
the camp of those scarred veterans ! What ecstasies of de-
light thrilled the American people.
The great task of constructing and consolidating a free
government was not yet completed. Formidable difficulties
threatened the new nation on every side ; but the same calm
endurance, lofty patriotism, and trust in God, which had
borne us through the struggles of war, would sustain us
through the conflicts of opinion which must inevitably fol-
low. Men rose to sight, and disappeared ; armies combined,
and melted away ; local selfishness warred with the general
good : but the nation lived.
WOULD THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ACKNOWLEDGE THE INDEPENDENCE OF
THE NATIONAL LIFE?
This would seem a strange question ; and yet history re-
veals the astonishing fact, that the acknowledgment to come
294 TIIE GKI:AT REPUBLIC.
from the American people themselves would be the hardest
to obtain, and the longest withheld, of any upon which true
national freedom and dignity were made to depend.
The doctrine of " State rights " arose in the earliest at-
tempts at national organization. It was indeed a very grave
problem, how the separate States could retain sufficient
power for efficient internal government, and at the same
time- concede the prerogatives required to constitute a
nation. The question was too profound and far-reaching
to be easily or suddenly solved. The greatest minds stag-
gered under the pressure of its difficulties, and most extreme
and opposite views were advanced by men of high merit as
statesmen.
The time had come when some of these difficult questions
must be settled. To the General Government belonged the
right of eminent domain. The public lands were rightfully
the property of the whole people, not of the States sever-
ally ; and the people, individually, were represented, not by
the legislatures of the several States, but by the Congress,
of the nation. It was indispensable, therefore, that ques-
tions of State boundaries should be settled with the least
possible delay ; that Congress should begin to see its
sources of revenue in the unsettled lands, and the field for
enlargement in the forming of new States, released from
O O
State claims. If the concessions required were refused,
then perilous conflict between the General and State Gov-
ernments would soon follow. New York set the example
of ceding lands to the General Government which she
claimed in the West. Virginia had ceded vast territories,
but claimed the whole of Kentucky ; and all that was done
in this direction indicated the crude, unsettled state of affairs
at the close of the war, and the reluctance with which the
States parted with anv asserted rights in favor of the nation.
1 v
To discharge the debts of the United States, especially to
meet the demands of the army, five per cent impost duty
was proposed to the States. All, excepting Georgia and
AN ACKNOWLEDGED NATIONAL LIFE. 295
Rhode Island, had formally or virtually consented. Just
as Morris, struggling with the grave financial difficulties
of the nation, began to hope for relief from this source,
Rhode Island utterty refused her consent; Virginia imme-
diately repealed her act acquiescing in the measure ; and
Georgia, having only just returned to the Union, could do
nothing in the premises. Where, then, was the treasury
of the nation to find money to meet the eight millions due
for the service of the pending year, and pay the army and
other current expenses of the government? Loans slowly
gathered from Holland ; and $1,111,111 magnanimously
furnished by France, notwithstanding the slight in the
matter of the treaty, rendered a little aid, but could hardly
be felt in so desperate a financial struggle.
In the mean time, the discontent of the army became
alarming. Notices .appeared about the camp at Newburg
of a meeting of officers to consider the condition of affairs ;
and an inflammable address, written by Capt. Arm-
strong, an aide-de-camp of Gates, was circulated among
the men, showing a dangerous conspiracy to coerce Con-
gress, or take the redress of grievances into their own
hands. Fortunately, Washington was too wise and great
to fall into such a snare. He boldly superseded this un-
lawful assemblage . by one appointed by himself, in which
he so energetically denounced the incipient treason, that
no one dared to assume the responsibility of the measure.
But would the army acknowledge the nation in its poverty,
and utter inability to pay their honest dues, and secure
them from suffering ? The highest faith in their patriotic
devotion hardly dared to affirm it.
There was again uneasiness at Newburg. Some three
hundred soldiers from Pennsylvania wrote insolently to
Congress, demanding pay. Part of a corps started from
Lancaster to Philadelphia, and they were joined by troops
from the barracks under seven sergeants; and for three
hours these insurgent soldiers beleaguered Congress and the
296 TIIE GREAT REPUBLIC.
Council of Pennsylvania, demanding their pay and a re-
dress of grievances. There was too much sympathy with
them among the creditors of Congress and the militia to
relieve Congress from this disgrace. Only Washington was
great enough for this trying crisis. As soon as the intel-
ligence reached him. he ordered fifteen hundred men to
Philadelphia, who dispersed the insurgents. Congress
adjourned to Princeton.
Massachusetts was not free from the spirit of insubordina-
tion. Maine began to move for an independent State or-
ganization; and, still more, taxes were enormously high.
The courts attempting to enforce their payment were some-
times assailed by mobs. Discontent spread among the
people, until acts of violence threatened the overthrow of
the government. Shay's Rebellion had to be put down by
loyal troops under command of Gen. Lincoln, and the
loss of several lives was the result ; and yet the American
army did finally acknowledge American independence, and
were disbanded amid the strongest demonstrations of i^rati-
o o
tude and mutual affection.
But the acknowledgment of one man transcends all
others. Washington had reached the greatest height of
popular influence and power. He had, with unaffected
modesty and self-distrust, accepted the position of gravest
responsibility and greatest personal danger in this war of
revolution. No one knew better than himself what must
follow to him if the colonies failed in their struggle, first for
right, and then for independence. No one knew better than
he the desperate nature of this undertaking. Humanly
speaking, the probabilities were all against success. But
the people had seen him move calmly into the field of
danger. They had seen him attracting to the standard of
Liberty the old and the young, and seen the confused masses
reduced to order and efficiency by the firmness of his com-
mand and the strength of his military wisdom. They had
seen him stand up in the face of the enemy with colossal
AN ACKNOWLEDGED NATIONAL LIFE. 297
majesty when his feeble army was reduced by expiration
of time, by desertions, and by slaughter on the field of
battle. They had seen him great enough to retreat in the
teeth of reproaches from his own countrymen when an
engagement would imperil the army and the sacred cause
for which they were ready to battle and to die. They had
seen him share with his soldiers the sufferings of hunger,
O o '
of long and weary marches, of cold, and of sleeping upon the
ground. They had seen his struggles for the army when
the poverty of his country denied them necessary clothing
and tents to protect them from the cold, and the scanty
pittance they had so severely earned for their suffering fami-
lies at home. They had seen him rise above all sectional-
ism and personal jealousy and treasonable conspiracies
when he had failed to accomplish impossibilities. They
had seen him in the might of his firm will punishing cow-
ardice and disloyalty, until they did not dare to whisper their
complaints or treason, lest he should somehow hear them ;
and yet winning the hearts alike of the roughest and hardiest
and the noblest and most polished of men. They had seen
that his courage was no passion ; that his fortitude was no
temporary resolution to suffer when he could not avoid it ;
that he was just as calm and firm after a defeat as after a vic-
tory ; just as thorough and great in his appeals when Con-
gress was paralyzed, or the nation apparently sinking from
exhaustion, as he was grateful for the noble endeavors to
achieve apparent impossibilities. They had seen him mov-
ing in strength to and fro amid the perils of the camp for
eight years, and all this time firmly refusing all pay, receiv-
ing not one penny for his valuable services, and handing
over literally every thing that his indefatigable industry and
great talents and the noble sacrifice and zeal of his country
could gather to the comfort and relief of the men under his
command. Finally, they had seen him on his knees in
prayer to God.
He had triumphed sublimely over the armed foes of his
208 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
country, — over poverty, jealousy, and ignorance, over perils
the most imminent and fearful. — and gathered around him
the most sac-red affections and gratitude of a nation. What
wouM he expect in return? A kingdom. Surely nothing
less, the world, in the light of history, would answer. Indeed
he was a king. — a sovereign of hearts, and, we may almost
sav. of American destiny.
But the test came. Republican ideas had been very
popular in oratory, and very inspiring in promise ; but the
soldiers were starving in de.-pite of them. They seemed to
be wanting in power. They could not create bread nor
money, for bills of credit were neither; and the distress of
the hour would combine with the lingering love of mon-
archy which the people had inherited, and the treason
of selfish ambition, to offer Washington a crown. Col.
L.iwis Nicola, then of Pennsylvania, but a foreigner by
birth, would be made the bearer of this tempting offer.
Now look at the man. See the storm of wrath gathering
in his great soul and lowering upon his brow. Hear the
words of indignant, scathing rebuke which fall from his lips.
See the fawning sycophants trembling, and fleeing from his
presence as from the face of terrific inexorable justice.
Washington a king? — a traitor to the country he had so
long struggled to free? — to the liberties for which the
people had bled for eight years? No! What did all this
long agony of the American colonists mean? Simply a
change of masters ? — a military despotism ? No! it meant
''liberty or death:" and the whole moral significance of
the American spiiii. and the battles of mind and blood for a
hundred and fifty years, wen- represented and impersonated
in Washington. He could only think the thoughts and feel
the yearnings of America. He was free, and America was
free.
We may now see the British army retire from New York,
from Long Island, from " the United States of America,"
Washington takes leave of his companions in arms, bathed
AN ACKNOWLEDGED NATIONAL LIFE, 299
in tears. He is hailed in Philadelphia, and everywhere, as the
deliverer of his country. Loud hurrahs ring at his approach.
The eyes of gratitude gaze at his stately form, dimmed with
tears. Flowers are strewed in his path by fair hands.
Smiling affection wreaths his brow with the garland of
laurel and roses. But he hastens on. He is at Annapolis,
before Congress, delivering his farewell address ; and these
are its closing words: "Having now finished the work
assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of action ; and
bidding an affectionate farewell to this august body, under
whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my commis-
sion, and take my leave of all the employments of public
life." The grandest act recorded in history. Moral sub-
limity could rise no higher.
Mifflin was in the chair. Providence had arranged that
one who had been with good reason suspected of plotting
for the removal of Washington, when gloom enveloped the
camp and the nation, should attempt to give voice to the
feelings of that great hour. Mifflin thus responded : " The
United States, in Congress assembled, receive, with emotions
too affecting for utterance, the solemn resignation of the
authority under which you have led their troops with suc-
cess through a perilous and doubtful war. Called upon by
your country to defend its invaded rights, you accepted the
sacred charge before it had found alliances, and while it was
without friends or a government to support you. You have
conducted the great military contest with wisdom and forti-
tude, invariably regarding the rights of the civil power,
through all disasters and changes. You have, by the love
and confidence of your fellow-citizens, enabled them to dis-
play their martial genius, and transmit their fame to pos-
terity. You have persevered, till these United States, aided
by a magnanimous king and nation, have been enabled,
under a just Providence, to close the war in freedom, safety,
and independence ; on which happy event we sincerely join
you in congratulations. Having defended the standard of
300 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
liberty in this Now World, having taught a lesson useful to
those who inilict and to those who feel oppression, you
retire from the great theatre of action with the blessings of
your fellow-citizens: but the srlory of Your virtues will not
»/ o «/ •/
terminate with your military command; it will continue to
animate remotest ages."
Washington had acknowledged the independence of the
national life; the American people had acknowledged it,
but with one grand and damaging reservation. Virginia,
and the Southern States generally, insisted upon setting the
State above the Nation ; that the first devotion of loyalty
was to the State ; that nothing belonged to the General
Government but what had been formally conceded to it; and
that the Union was a simple confederacy, from which either
of its members, sovereign in itself, might withdraw at pleas-
ure. Strange, therefore, as the fact may appear, while sove-
reigns and courts abroad acknowledged the new nation as a
free and independent nation, many of the States, as such,
denied it ; and history must wait ninety years before it
could record this latest acknowledgment of the independent
national life in the United States of America.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE CONSTITUTION REVEALS AN ORGANIC NATIONAL LIFE.
" Every nation, when able and agreed, has a right to set up over themselves any form
of government which to them may appear most conducive to their common welfare." —
LANGDON.
CONSTITUTIONS grow. They are not the sudden product of
genius or talent. They cannot be resolved into perfect
maturity by any body of men. Their materials, like inor-
ganic matter in chaos, seem to be floating about amid the
confusion of ages, seeking affinities and organization. A
careful study of history, however, will reveal the vital
element of Christian liberty, surviving all changes, and
superior to all antagonist forces, slowly attracting to itself
the materials of its growth, and in all its local manifesta-
tions holding secret but indissoluble connections with all the
true principles of liberty on the globe.
Magna Charta, so fundamental to the British Constitution,
was not the creation of the powerful nobles in conflict with
King John. It was the grand original right of man, which
had been felt and asserted somewhere in all the ages, but
which had been long denied, insulted, and stamped out
of sight. It must, then, assert itself, claim a human voice to
utter its demands and enforce its authority, that the race
might not believe it dead, or forever powerless against
oppression. And, when it was once expressed, it was not for
England alone, but for the world. It slowly, but with steady
progress, leavened the masses, so that British freedom from
henceforth embodied a thought, a grand fact, which could
never be safely ignored. The conflicts of Puritanism with
301
302 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
despotic power showed the pressure and strength of this
life-force on its wav to the New World.
v
Now freedom begins to show dimly its constitutional form
in the colonies, — first in its indignant utterances against the
tyrannical acts of the mother-country ; then in the strong
State-papers, which showed inchoate State authority ante-
dating the formal organization of independent government ;
then in the bonds of union, which indicated a common
interest and common life in the separate colonies ; then in
the organized State governments which rose up amid the
birth-throes of the great Revolution.
A project of union was brought before Congress, by
Franklin, in 1775; but it could only show the conviction of
its necessities, and the difficulty of ascertaining of what
the unity of the colonies consisted.
THE OLD ARTICLES OP CONFEDERATION.
When the declaration of independence destroyed the
unity which the colonies had formerly recognized in the
British crown, and left them to ascertain and define the pro-
founder and less evident ties, which, as parts of a new nation,
bound them together, they sought to define in words the
sense in which they were separate States, and at the same
time a General Government. A most difficult thing to do.
The history of the effort affords a striking illustration of
the fact, already stated, that reliable constitutions are not
made, but grow. In June, 1776, a committee of one from
each State was appointed to draught a project of national
government, then simply understood as a confederacy of colo-
nies. Samuel Adams, Sherman, Dickinson, and John Rut-
ledge, were of the number of this important committee ; a
sufficient guaranty that the effort would be able, and faith-
ful to the people, so far as the progress of events had de-
fined the possibilities of national organization. Dickinson
drew the document in twenty articles. But the report
AN ORGANIC NATIONAL LIFE. 3Q3
proved at once the difficulties of the task, and the inevi-
table demand for mutual concessions. Repeated attempts
were made to consider and adopt it; but the difficulty of
agreement, and the disturbed condition of Congress, driven
from Philadelphia, deferred the final vote for six months.
The Articles of Confederation were at length sanctioned by
Congress, and went to the States for their "immediate and
dispassionate action." In the document accompanying the
Articles, it was well said, " that to form a permanent Union,
accommodated to the opinions and wishes of the delegates of
so many States, differing in habits, produce, commerce, and
internal police, was found to be a work which nothing but
time and reflection, conspiring with a disposition to concili-
ate, could mature and accomplish."
During the following winter, only New Hampshire, New
York, North Carolina, and Virginia accepted the Articles
" without objections." After proposing " various amend-
ments," however, all the States, excepting New Jersey, Del-
aware, and Maryland, adopted them. These States had no
difficulty in pointing out valid objections to the plan ; for it
was really very imperfect : but New Jersey and Delaware
yielded to the urgent entreaties of Congress. Maryland
stood alone for two years in resisting the ratification, which
prevented the official promulgation of the Articles.
To reach even a confederation, the following grave and
perplexing questions must be settled : —
How should the votes in Congress be given? Virginia
was large, populous, and central ; and she said, " According to
population : " but she was overruled, and the vote was to be
by States ; and not less than nine States were required to
determine any question of grave importance.
How should taxes be levied ? The East said, " According
to population ; " but the South said, " No : slave labor is not
so profitable as white."
The casting vote which settled this controversy fell upon
New Jersey ; and she gave it to the South, against the North,
exempting forever slave property from taxation."
304 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
In the result, real estate alone became the basis of taxa-
tion ; but, as the General Government had no power to fix
the valuation, this measure was fatal to the confederacy.
To whom should the Western lands belong ? This was, as
we have already seen, a very difficult question. A prompt
and unrestricted concession of the right of eminent domain
to the nation would have been just and wise, and this was
urged by the States holding no claims in the Great West ;
but the claiming States made an obstinate resistance. The
severe contest was ended, for the time being, by such partial
concessions to Congress as led to acquiescence, if not
approval ; and the government began to exercise a territorial
sovereignty, which would ultimately be a source of vast
revenue, but which, for a long period, was more troublesome
than profitable. This controversy being settled, on the first
day of March, 1781, Maryland yielded, signed the Articles
of Confederation, and they became the law of the land.
Navigation was made dependent exclusively upon the will
of each State, and the control of imports as well ; thus bar-
ring the right of the United States to prohibit the slave-
trade.
The States, in the mean time, refused to commit the settle-
ment of future land-claims and boundaries, north-west of
the Ohio, to the United States ; thus providing for an almost
interminable contest of jurisdiction in the future.
The most obstinate prejudices against a standing army
had frequently paralyzed the efforts of Washington and Con-
gress to raise continental forces to give greater reliableness
and efficiency to American arms ; and now the States would
peremptorily deny to the General Government military
control over their separate jurisdictions. There should not
be one grand national army, but thirteen armies. How
utterly destructive of government this must have been, had
there not been vital power in the underlying unity, which,
when emergency demanded, would rise up, and reveal its
strength, despite the vicious assumptions of "State rights"!
AN ORGANIC NATIONAL LIFE.
305
The United States might declare war, and make peace,
and make treaties ; but " the power reserved to the States
over imports and exports, over shipping and revenue,"
really destroyed the force of these concessions.
The States must share in " the right of coining money,
the right of keeping up ships of war, land-forces, forts, gar-
risons," and must make their own laws of treason.
Finally, it must require the unanimous vote of the thir-
teen States to adopt or amend the Articles of Confederation.
Well might it be said, " A government which had not
power to levy a tax, or raise a soldier, or deal directly with
an individual, or keep its engagements with foreign powers,
or amend its constitution without the unanimous consent of
its members, had not enough of vital force to live." *
If now it is asked, Was there no indication in the old con-
federation of an organic national life, I answer, with great
satisfaction, that the assumption by Congress, that the most
extended territory, however diverse in local interests and
prejudices, might be included in one Great Republic, was a
fundamental position, distinguishing this modern from the
ancient republics of Greece and Rome, and conforming
bravely to the future plans and developments of Providence.
The right of citizenship and the franchise had been settled
variously in the States according to caprice or prejudice.
" One State disfranchised Jews, another Catholics, another
deniers of the Trinity, and another men of a complexion
different from white;" but " the Articles of Confederation and
Perpetual Union made no distinction of class, and knew no
caste but the caste of humanity." f That which gave
reality to the Union was the article which secured to " the
free inhabitants " of each of the States " all privileges and
immunities of free citizens in the several States." South
Carolina and Georgia, moved by their prejudice against
color, resisted this broad national assumption, but without
success. The General Government had absurdly admitted
* Bancroft, ix. 446.
39
t Ibid., 447.
306 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
the word " free," thereby discriminating against slaves ; but
they could by no means be induced to make color alone the
basis of proscription. " Congress, while it left the regula-
tion of the elective franchise to the judgment of each State,
in the Articles of Confederation, in its votes, and its treaties
with other powers, reckoned all the free inhabitants, with-
out distinction of ancestry, creed, or color, as subjects or
citizens," thus conforming to the civilization of the age. It
must be considered strange that this grand principle should
again be in contest, and require the conflicts of near a cen-
tury, extending down to this very day, for its complete vin-
dication.
Finally, as in all these respects the American Republic
presented thus early a complete contrast with the republics
of Greece and Rome, so also did it rise immeasurably above
them in its consideration for the individual man. In the
ancient republics, the people existed for the government,
and they failed : in this great modern experiment, the
government would exist for the people, and it would suc-
ceed ; for the people would ultimately eradicate its vices,
and identify and conserve the true elements of its vitality,
and conditions of its growth. The Articles of Confederation
would be superseded, but not until they had been the means
of bringing distinctly to the view of the American people the
inherent viciousness of the doctrine of State rights, demon-
strating clearly the inadequacy and utter impracticability
of a mere confederation of independent States, and usher-
ing in the era of organic nationality under the new and
permanent Constitution of the United States of America.
THE FEDERAL CONVENTION.
For four years and a half the confederated States had
struggled on with all the burdens of enormous debts, and
no power to raise money to pay ; of conflicting jurisdiction
between the Nation and the States; with peril of incipient
AN ORGANIC NATIONAL LIFE.
307
rebellion, and the confusion of various governmental func-
tions without proper classification and division of labor;
and a general feeling of discouragement was the result.
The French and English people had expected great im-
provements from the confederation, but with no good
reason. The want of power was evident upon the face of
the document ; and the conviction that there must be some
change in the direction of a vital union and stronger gov-
ernment was becoming general. New York proposed a
most radical change in the Articles immediately after their
adoption. Massachusetts followed in the same track. Vir-
ginia, at length, invited a convention of all the States to
consider the question of duties and commerce generally ;
and in September, 1786, delegates from Virginia, Delaware,
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York, assembled in
Annapolis. The discussions, of course, brought under search-
ing review the radical defects of the General Government,
nnd resulted in the calling of a General Convention, to be
held in the following May, to consider amendments to the
Articles of Confederation, and propose such changes as would
be " adequate to the exigencies of the Union."
The old Continental Congress had expired. It had been
a power in the earth. It had carried on a frightful war for
eight years, and reached the most magnificent and improba-
ble results. Its functions had subsided with the extraordi-
nary condition of society which originated them; and it
passed away in silence, leaving to the future historian the
grateful task of recording its heroic achievements, under
such deprivations and limitations as would have utterly
destroyed any assembly not vigorously sustained by Divine
Providence. The life of the nation survived the slow decay
and final extinction of this its first visible body, and
promptly appeared in the Congress of the confederation.
Soon eliminating other incongruous elements, it would take
the form of the Congress of the United States of America,
under the new constitution.
308
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
The convention to which the task of preparing this im-
portant document was assigned assembled in Philadelphia on
the fourteenth day of May, 1787. It was not, however, until
the twenty-fifth, eleven days later, that a quorum of States
appeared in Independence Hall. Washington was very
properly called to preside over this august body. It included
many of K the most illustrious citizens of the States ; men
highly distinguished for talents, character, practical knowl-
edge, and public services. The aged Franklin had sat in the
Albany Convention of 1754, in which the first attempt had
been made at colonial Union. Dickinson, who sat in the
present convention as one of the members from Delaware,
William S. Johnson of Connecticut, and John Rutledge of
South Carolina, had participated in the Stamp-Act Congress
of 1765. Besides Washington, Dickinson, and Rutledge,
who had belonged to the Continental Congress of 1774, there
were also present, from among the members of that body,
Roger Sherman of Connecticut, William Livingston, Govern-
or of New Jersey, George Read of Delaware, and George
Wythe of Virginia ; and of the signers of the Declaration
of Independence, besides Franklin, Read, Wythe, and Sher-
man, Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, and Robert Morris,
George Clymer, and James Wilson, of Pennsylvania. Eigh-
teen members were at the same time delegates to the Con-
tinental Congress ; and, of the whole number, there were
only twelve who had not sat at some time in that body. The
officers of the Revolutionary army were represented by
Washington, Mifflin, Hamilton, and Charles Cotesworth
Pinckney, who had been colonel of one of the South-Caro-
lina regiments, and at one time an aide-de-camp to Washing-
ton. Of those members who had come prominently forward
since the Declaration of Independence, the most conspicu-
ous were Hamilton, Madison, and Edward Randolph, who
had lately succeeded Patrick Henry as Governor of Virginia.
The members who took the leading part in the debates were
Madison, Mason, and Randolph, of Virginia ; Gerry, Gorham,
AN ORGANIC NATIONAL LIFE.
309
and King, of Massachusetts ; Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, and
Franklin, of Pennsylvania ; Johnson, Sherman, and Ellsworth,
of Connecticut ; Hamilton and Lansing, of New York ;
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, of South Carolina, the latter
chosen governor of that State the next year ; Patterson, of
New Jersey; Martin, of Maryland; Dickinson, of Delaware;
and Williamson, of North Carolina." *
It is evident, that, in this historic convention, God had
brought together in a very remarkable degree the strength,
experience, and wisdom of the nation ; and the task under-
taken required all, and more than all, they could command.
THE CONSTITUTION FORMED.
Let us now glance at the difficulties of the work taken in
hand by these distinguished men. A government of free-
dom by the people themselves had been now experimented
only far enough to show the evils which threatened its de-
struction. The great men of the nation had become con-
servative by the very necessities arising from the novelty
and extreme difficulties of their experiment. Jefferson,
almost the only representative man who had full faith in the
competency of the people to form and sustain a democratic
government, was abroad. There was little danger of rash-
ness in such an assembly. But it was certain that the great-
est distinctness of individual opinions and most obstinate
local prejudices would appear.
We may now wonder at the wisdom which controlled their
final decisions ; at the nice and accurate balances of the
Constitution they produced ; the delicate adjustment of re-
served and conceded rights between the people and the gov-
ernment, between the several States and the Union, and
between the legislative, the executive, and judicial depart-
ments. In each of these particulars, there were almost in-
finite chances for fatal mistake, and but a single one for
* Hildreth, iii. 483, 484.
310 THE GEE AT REPUBLIC.
perfect success. What surer evidence of divine guidance
do we need than the superhuman skill shown in the clear
definitions of rights which came from the chaos following the
death-struggle for liberty ? Not merely were the complicated
difficulties which arose from a crude and forming state of
society to be overcome, the destructive errors of empirical
systems to be avoided, the strong tendencies to dissolution
and anarchy to be counteracted, but the vast future was to
be provided for, — emergencies which at that time did not
exist even in conception, states of society which no human
sagacity could foresee, powers to grapple with and crush an-
tagonisms which did not then appear even in the sphere of
possibility, all requiring a compass and reach of wisdom which
is under no condition the natural attribute of man.
We cannot wonder that there was at first confusion of ideas
in the convention ; that Washington and his compeers in this
great Qrisis trembled for the fate of their country.
We are compelled to admit that this distinguished body
seemed to have forgotten their true dependence. There
does not appear to have been that devout temper of mind,
that humble, fervent spirit of prayer, which had pervaded
the Revolution. In accounting for the success of their efforts,
and for the great wrongs which found place in the Constitu-
tion, one event must be mentioned as of the utmost historical
importance. For long days they labored, apparently in vain :
anarchy and ruin alone stared them in the face. At length,
Dr. Franklin arose, and said, " I will suggest, Mr. President,
the propriety of nominating and appointing, before we sepa-
rate, a chaplain to this convention, whose duty it shall be
uniformly to assemble with us, and introduce the business
of each day by an address to the Creator of the universe
and the Governor of all nations, beseeching him to preside in
our councils, enlighten our minds with a portion of heavenly
wisdom, influence our hearts with a love of truth and jus-
tice, and crown our labors with complete and abundant suc-
cess." "The doctor sat down," says Mr. Dayton of New
AN ORGANIC NATIONAL LIFE.
311
Jersey ; " and never did I behold a countenance at once so
dignified and delighted as was that of Washington at the
close of this address. Nor were the members of the con-
vention generally less affected. The words of the venerable
Franklin fell upon our ears with a weight and authority
even greater than we may suppose an oracle to have had
on a Roman senate." How delightful this revelation of
a returning sense of propriety to these representatives of a
religious people ! What honor it reflects upon the American
sage and the Father of his Country, as well as upon " the
members of the convention generally " ! and what hope it
inspires that threatening dangers will be averted, and God
appear in the words which would define our constftutional
liberties !
With what mortification, then, must the Christian histo-
rian record the fact, that " the motion was evaded by an
adjournment. It was feared, according to Madison, lest*
prayers for the first time, at that late day, might alarm the
public by giving the impression that matters were already
desperate." * Alas ! what blindness can come over the
mind of a man ! what wrong can be done by the adroitness
of an astute politician !
While, however, we mournfully record the success of the
intrigue which prevented the official enactment of this meas-
ure, so high in dignity and profound in wisdom, we can-
not doubt that the open acknowledgment of God in the
address and resolution offered by Franklin, and the gene-
ral and hearty mutual response which followed, were an-
swered by the divine recognition and blessing. Both the
right of this sublime proposal, and the wrong of the dispo-
sition made of it, appear in the result.
It is not necessary for us to follow in detail the struggles
in the convention between the smaller and larger States.
The former feared that their interests would be compromised
by a strong consolidated government ; but they were paci-
* Hildreth, iii. 495.
312 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
fied by the concession of an equal vote with the largest
States in the Senate of the United States.
The advocates of " States rights," as against a strong Cen-
tral Government, were those from Connecticut, New Jersey,
and Delaware, with a majority from Maryland and New
York. The delegates from New Hampshire had retired
from the convention ; and Rhode Island had become so fear-
ful of a destruction of her influence by a consolidated Gen-
eral Government, that she had declined to send delegates to
the convention. The "National Party," as it was then
termed, represented Virginia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania,
North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. How strange
these facts appear to us at the present day ! Precisely at
this point, the peril of the nation and the control of Provi-
dence appear. If New Hampshire and Rhode Island had
been present, they would doubtless have voted with the
" States-rights " party, and no General Government would
have been possible.
It must be determined by whom the House of Represen-
tatives should be chosen. Sherman, sustained by Gerry, the
States of South Carolina and New Jersey, and a portion
of Connecticut and Delaware, vehemently opposed election
by the people. Had God suffered them to succeed, there
would, so far as we can see, have been a complete end to
the attempt to found a true republic. How wisely, then,
was it ordered that Wilson, Madison, and Mason should
stand up to defend successfully the rights of the people!
Thus, against numbers and influence and the highest proba-
bility, God preserved inviolate another fundamental prin-
ciple of our Great Republic.
Hamilton was not easily reconciled to democracy in any
form. He was sustained by Wilson in demanding an abso-
lute executive veto on the acts of Congress. This would
have been the establishment of an insufferable despotism,
which God would not permit.
Two most important concessions were made to the Gen-
AN ORGANIC NATIONAL LIFE. 313
eral Government, — in giving it power to veto all State laws
in conflict with the Constitution or " inconsistent with the
harmony of the Union," and fully investing it with the
treaty-making power. Without these, no nation could have
been constituted.
The most formidable difficulty arose from the institution
of slavery. The conflict was long and perilous ; but it
ended in a compromise which gave the slave States a three-
fifths representation for their human chattels. Cautiously
avoiding the name of slavery, it tolerated the institution in
substance, and provided for the rendition of " persons held
to service." This was the grand vice of the great Consti-
tution. But the demand was imperative. Davis, of North
Carolina, expressed the true spirit of this persistent wrong
when he arose and said " it was time to speak out. He
saw that it was meant by some gentlemen to deprive the
Southern States of any share of representation for their
blacks. He was sure that North Carolina would never con-
federate on any terms that did not rate them at least as
three-fifths. If the Eastern States meant, therefore, to ex-
clude them altogether, the business was at an end." The
opponents of the vile institution yielded exactly where
they should have stood firm ; and the irrepressible conflict
was handed down to the great future. If it be said that
without this compromise there could have been no national
union, we answer, This is to affirm that men would defeat
the great national plans of God by simply doing right ;
that, to secure the future of the United States, it was neces-
sary to incorporate into its fundamental law an indorse-
ment of the largest and most complicated crime known
among men, — a statement which cannot be written or
read without a feeling of horror. No : the true national
spirit loathed the corruption which so far marred the work
of the convention, and shamelessly confronted the funda-
mental doctrine of human freedom, for the support of which
the American Republic was instituted, and threw the faith
314
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
of the nation firmly back on to the Declaration of Inde-
pendence, as the clear and unalterable definition of its
principles.
But the nation was to be further humiliated by the per-
sistent determination of the South to provide for the im-
portation of slaves. The grand committee of detail, to
whom the project of a constitution had been committed to
perfect it, reported against taxing imports, which was so far
the triumph of the Southern purpose to steal the bodies
and souls of men in Africa, force them across the high seas,
and coin money from their sale and unpaid labor. This
attempt to render constitutional a traffic so inhuman, and
revolting to all the feelings of justice and honor, brought
on a storm of indignation. King " denounced the admis-
sion of slaves as a most grievous circumstance to his mind ;
and he believed it would be so to a great part of the people
of America." " He had hoped that some accommodation
would have taken place on this subject; that at least a
time would have been limited for the importation of slaves.
He never could agree to let them be imported without
limitation, and then be represented in the national legis-
lature." Governeur Morris declared slavery " was a nefari-
ous institution. It was the curse of Heaven on the States
where it prevailed." He drew in vivid contrast the deso-
lations of the South by slavery, and the prosperity of
the North with the labor of freemen ; and then demanded,
" Upon what principle is it that the slaves shall be com-
puted in the representation ? Are they men ? Then make
them citizens, and let them vote. Are they property?
Why, then, is no other property included ? " " The admis-
sion of slaves into the representation, when fairly ex-
plained, comes to this, — that the inhabitant of Georgia and
South Carolina, who goes to the coast of Africa in defiance
of the most sacred laws of humanity, tears away his fellow-
creatures from their dearest connections, and damns them
to the most cruel bondage, shall have more votes in a
AN OKGANIC NATIONAL LIFE. 315
government instituted for the protection of the rights of
mankind than the citizen of Pennsylvania and New Jersey,
who views with a laudable horror so nefarious a practice."
Now listen to a voice from the South : " South Carolina,"
said C. Pinckney, " can never receive the plan if it prohib-
its the slave-trade. In every proposed extension of the
powers of Congress, that State has expressly and watchfully
excepted the power of meddling with the importation of
negroes." The battle was a severe one ; but Southern
tenacity again triumphed, so far as to give free license to
the infamous traffic in slaves for twenty years. For giving
the majority to this wicked act, the North received " the
unrestricted power of Congress to enact navigation laws,"
— a miserable consideration for the utter sacrifice of right
o
in favor of the most consummate villany the human race
ever knew.
Still another degradation must, be fastened upon the
nation, to appease the foul spirit of slavery. Without
debate, the infamous clause went into the Constitution,
" bearing," says Hildreth, " the plain marks of a New-Eng-
land hand," — "No person held to service or labor in one
State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall,
in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be dis-
charged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered
up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor
may be due."
We may now place together, as the grand facts of this
period of our history which stand out distinctly against the
true spirit and aim of the new government, the failure to
adopt the motion of Franklin, providing for a solemn recog-
nition of the sovereignty of God by daily prayer in the
Constitutional Convention ; the entire omission of the name
and authority of Jehovah from the Constitution ; the recog-
nition of the right of property in man ; and the infamous
toleration of the slave-trade, and the rendition of slaves.
These all show that no moral or political millennium had
316
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
come ; that sin was yet mighty in the earth ; and that
years of heroic battle for the right must precede the
triumph of those principles of American freedom denned by
the immortal Declaration.
But marked progress had been made in the development
of national unity. Compared with the old Articles of Con-
federation, the Constitution was a bold advance in asserting
the rights and functions of the nation, as such, in triumph-
ing over local prejudices and sectional demands, advocated
under the name of " State rights."
The question sent to the several State conventions, in
submitting , the plan for approval, was not whether it was
perfect or satisfactory in its details, but whether, on the
whole, it should be accepted as the best that could be
obtained. Four months of desperate efforts to find the true
organic unity of the nation had reached this result, and
could do no more. Should the Constitution be ratified and
tried, or anarchy and civil war be preferred ?
Two parties had been developed by the struggles of this
trying period. The Federalists wanted a strong, centralized
government. Dissatisfied with what they termed the weak-
ness of the plan agreed upon by the Convention, they sub-
mitted to it with the hope of amending it in the direction
of greater power. The Democrats opposed it, as tending to
a central despotism. They would have defeated it; but
hoping finally to secure amendments granting more power
to the States, and fearing the most calamitous results if
it should be rejected, one State after another formally
ratified it. The most desperate efforts were made to secure
a conditional approval ; but, as this would have been fatal,
the efforts of a large and powerful stateinanship finally
secured an unconditional ratification from Delaware, Penn-
sylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts,
New Hampshire, Maryland, South Carolina, Virginia, and
New York. Several of these States, following the lead of
Massachusetts, sent forward with their official notice of
AN ORGANIC NATIONAL LIFE. 317
ratification various fundamental amendments, which served
chiefly to show what concessions the sections had made for
the sake of unity. North Carolina imposed conditions ; and
Rhode Island was too democratic to hold a convention.
These two States could not, therefore, be counted ; but, as
the vote of the nine States was conclusive, the new Consti-
tution became the organic law of the nation.
For three hundred years, God had been steadily and visi-
bly moving the elements of civil liberty and moral power
for the accomplishment of this grand result. The most
improbable combinations had been formed ; the resources of
remote islands and continents had been gathered ; peoples
of distant origin, and tongues unknown to each other, had
been drawn together by forces which they little understood ;
the most formidable arrangements of power had been dashed
to atoms; and minds utterly diverse in opinions, prejudices,
and culture, had been quietly moulded by invisible agency
to render this sublime result possible. .But the American
people were no longer floating bodies of aimless adven-
turers ; nor mere separate colonies, dependent upon the will
of a distant power; nor independent confederate States.
They were a new, vigorous, and completely organized nation.
CHAPTER IX.
TRUE CHRISTIANITY AX INDESTRUCTIBLE NATIONAL LIFE
" The jrrcat comprehensive truths written in letters of living li/ht on every pau-c of
our liistory are these: Human happiness lias no perfeet security lint freedom, freedom
none luit virtue, \'irtue none liut knowledge ; and neither freedom nor virtue has any
vi;_ror or immortal hope except in the principles of the Christian faith and in the sanctions
of the Christian religion." — PKESIDENT QITINCV.
A FORM of government is to be distinguished from the life
<>[' a nation. Peoples find themselves thrown into neigh-
borhood relations, and a social order rises up from the very
necessities of contiguity, reciprocal wants and acts of kind-
ness They may increase so much in numbers, and reach
over a territory so far, as to have the magnitude and the
outward forms of a nation. They mav organize with all
•/ \;
the laws of civil society, make treaties, and perform all
other acts of national sovereignty; and yet they may be
without any essential pervading vitality. Angry disputes
and sectional jealousies will separate and destroy them.
Their local organizations and civil liberties will become a
prev to the ambition of the most powerful chief and his
bands of marauders. Xo national life will appear to rescue
the common government from the hand of violence, or pre-
serve the organization from dissolution.
Then a despotic ruler may assert sovereignty over
provinces near or remote. Conquered territory may be
annexed, bv the action of force, to a kingdom of vast
resources and military power; but if nothing" homogeneous
appears, if there are no common bonds of interest and
mutual dependence, if no vital force circulates through the
AN INDESTRUCTIBLE NATIONAL LIFE.
319
whole, when the restraints of power are removed, disintegra-
tion, revolution, and separate independ'encies, become inevi-
table.
There are various forming influences and organizing forces
which enter into the combinations of separate governments.
They collect and associate and develop until they reach
their limits ; and then, unless they are supplemented by
others of greater vigor, and compass of effect, the national
organism goes into decay. Its life is shown to be tem-
porary, and goes out before our eyes. Whenever the com-
binations are arbitrary and in defiance of geographical or
other physical facts, or when they are accidental, prompted
by mere temporary convenience, and against historical affini-
ties and moral necessities, they soon break up, and end in
anarchy, or perhaps in destructive war. The length of time
that heterogeneous peoples may be kept together in civil
compacts is of no importance in this discussion. This is
generally a question of power ; and also, doubtless, of the
ulterior designs of Providence in regard to the timely
development of organizing forces which shall show work
designed to last through the ages to come.
Such has been the ceaseless round of rise and decline, of
the growth and decay, of nations, that many have doubted
strongly whether there is any such thing as an indestructi-
ble national life. It seems to have been largely concluded
that nations must follow the analogy of human bodies ; pass
their infancy, youth, manhood, and decay, by inevitable
laws : and it must be confessed that there is much in the
ceaseless revolutions of civil society to render this view
plausible. We are, however, convinced that it is a grand
fallacy. Its assumptions and arguments are all regardless
of the great fact and power of right in human organiza-
tions. The right, the good, the true, must certainly be
immortal. Let the law of justice have its place, let God
control the organization and administration of government,
let human obstructions to the plans of the Infinite dis-
320 TIIK CHEAT I'.KrUHLIC.
appear, and tlic will of Cod be enacted in organic and statute
law and maintained »in the administration, and there is no
reason why a nation* should not be as orderly in develop-
ment, as vital and indestructible, as any form of life on this
earth.
The grand question is. whether this can be. whether it is.
or will be. anywhere realized. We now direct our attention
to the solution of this question, feeling that every step in
the logical progress is upon solid rock.
THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN THE FORMATION (JF THE REPUBLIC.
The nations are like their gods. The ideas which a
people entertain of the Supreme Power will mould their
opinions and control their actions. In other words, the
religion of a government will determine its character, and
settle the question of its duration.
Hero-worship is one form of religious devotion. The
highest wisdom of a people under its control will be simply
human. The real or assumed virtues of the hero will be
the highest type of public virtue ; while his vices will be as
much matters of imitation and admiration as though they
were virtues. Hence the governments which deified war-
o
riors were bloodthirsty and cruel. Those who exalted to
the honors of worship the patrons of inebriety and lust
became deeply depraved in private and public morals.
The gods and goddesses of Greece and Rome were the
creations of corrupt imaginations, and apologies for the
deepest degradation. Hence the life of these nations could
only endure till these natural and acquired elements of
corruption had wrought out their legitimate results. There
was. moreover, an assault upon the rights and requirements
of the one true God in this guilty idolatry, which must
bring down his displeasure upon them, and result in their
signal destruction.
Take a modern instance of the power of religious opinion
AN INDESTKUCTIBLE NATIONAL LIFE. 321
and the rejection of the true worship to destroy freedom.
France, in its terrific revolution, saw the violent culmination
of theoretical and practical infidelity. When the blas-
phemous atheists of those degenerate times installed a
prostitute as the Goddess of Reason, abolished the Christian
sabbath, and decreed that death is an eternal sleep, they
prepared the way for the power of faction ; for the murder
of thousands of the best citizens and the worst ; for the sub-
version of all right, and the enthronement of passion as the
sovereign of the hour.
The liberties of England were never consolidated until
the worship of God became national ; and never endangered,
excepting as the rights of the individual conscience were
denied as to the modes of that worship.
The struggles of Puritanism intensified the religious con-
sciousness of the nation, and brought forward the grand
principle of the Reformation, — the rights of the individual
conscience, — demanding prompt acknowledgment from the
throne. The power of the Reformation, but gradually
developed, was, under the surface, more active and influ-
ential than could be evident in the forms of a State religion
and a forced external conformity. It moulded the thinking
and the deepest convictions of the masses, imperceptibly
constructed the great controlling laws and administration
of the kingdom, and bore the people onward toward truer
liberty by the action of a broad and deep and irresistible
current.
It was evidently the divine purpose that it should con-
duct in England its grand preparations for constructing and
inspiring a government of liberty in the New World. In
the Old, it could insist upon the right ; it could appeal from
the decisions of man to the Searcher of hearts ; it could be
overborne and crucified, but not destroyed. It rose with
a new power from its baptisms of blood, and gathered its
friends and representative heroes for an advent to a scene
of development and influence hitherto unknown.
41
322 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
It may here with propriety be re-affirmed that Christianity
was the guiding power of American colonization, and the
forming force of American institutions.
When the people came to Virginia, they came to estab-
lish religion by law as the divine right of Prelacy in the New
World. When they moved out among the Indians, their
first object was to make them Christians. The Quakers
came to New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere, that
they might follow, without obstruction, the light within ;
the Huguenots came to this virgin land that they might
worship the true God, with no bloody persecutions, no
reeking St. Bartholomews, for the exercise of a sincere
conscience ; the Roman Catholics sought a home in Balti-
more that they might plant their degenerate faith in the
New World; and the Puritans of New England were in
America for no other reason than that they might secure
freedom to worship God. The Congregationalists felt that
there was something pleasing to God in the very act of
independence in the individual Church. The Presbyterians
meant nothing but acceptable service to the God of order
in the strict conventional responsibilities of the presbytery,
the synod, and the assembly. The Baptists believed that
Rhode Island was a model State, under the genius of Roger
Williams, in the free exercise of immersion, and the great
power assigned to spiritual thought, true conscience, and
devout worship. The Methodists came into all the land like
a flaming fire, to consume iniquity, and show that creeds
and dogmas were all nothing without true conversion, and
reformation .of life. Upon the whole, the really great com-
mon universal idea and prevalent power of the American
colonies was religion. Whatever might be held subject to
expediency, this could not. Whatever might be subjugated,
compromised, surrendered, this could not. If any thing was
truly American, it was the feeling of worship.
We have seen how its defective education and slow de-
velopment brought its various theories into spirited collis-
AN INDESTRUCTIBLE NATIONAL LIFE. 323
ions ; how indispensable it was that its errors should be
eliminated, and its pure principles should shine out without
obstruction. And we have seen, also, that American Chris-
tianity was growing to power under at least two new con-
ditions : first, that it was master here, and not subordinate, —
umpire, and not convict; that, instead of asking leave of
the civil power to exist, it would decide rather what else
but itself should exist here. Slowly, but obviously, Chris-
tian right, Christian justice, rose to the head of affairs, and,
instead of humbly pleading for toleration, claimed the right
to denounce and put down every form of iniquity known
among men. Next it gradually awoke to the fact that the
weapons of its warfare were not carnal, but spiritual, and
mighty, through God, to the pulling-down of strongholds.
The force of traditional prerogatives and prescriptive usage
became weaker every year; and the holy Bible rose in
clearness and power as the great standard of appeal. The
redundant appendages of pure, simple Christianity, which
had come down from Papal authority, were seen rapidly
falling off and disappearing. Simple and more simple every
day became the great truth, that a free, personal application
of the blood of Christ alone cleansed from sin, and that only
the pure in heart were blessed ; and the great Reformation
(re-formation) of souls and society which followed the plain,
honest, searching publication of divine truth, proved that
the tabernacle of God was with men, and that the spirit of
humble Christianity was from heaven.
Hence appeared more and more distinctly the great fact,
that soul-liberty revived in the regeneration was the essence
and type of civil liberty, and that there could be no gov-
ernment entitled to permanence and universal sway that
did not acknowledge the sovereignty of God, the rights of
man, and the principles of eternal justice. Then vanished
the obstructions which had been thrown around the indi-
vidual conscience ; and State after State, and finally the
General Government, declared the worship of God to be
324
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
free, and man to be personally accountable to God alone for
the honest fulfilment of religious obligation.
Just in proportion as the freedom of discussion in this fair
field should work out the Popish element of coercion in
religion, and give ascendency to the pure forms of experi-
mental and practical Christianity, it would become a power
in the new nation. It would, moreover, exert a vast influ-
ence upon the thinking and convictions of statesmen and
educators, in the exaltation of justice and every form of
public virtue. It would slowly but powerfully mould the
laws and administrative government of the country. Private
and public men would be imperceptibly controlled by its
holy teachings, sin would be discountenanced as a reproach
to any people, and righteousness invoked, which alone ex-
alteth a nation. Far from being always ostensible and out-
wardly exacting, this humble, quiet spirit would silently
permeate all public bodies, and powerfully control all public
functionaries.
All this became historical in America. For though pure
religion was far from being universal in the period of inde-
pendence, and though for ages to come great public wrongs
would assert their right to place amid the institutions of
American freedom, they kept their position against the
energetic protest of divine Christianity ; and one after an-
other yielded to the vigor of a force which they could in
no wise withstand. Men and manners, institutions and
administrations, practically acknowledged the presence of a
silent influence which had, from the beginning, asserted its
right to be the dominant power of the nation.
This at length may be claimed to be the most sacred
faith of the people : The Bible, freely read, and interpreted
according to the best judgment of the individual, is the
great standard of right and justice, — the guide to purity on
earth, and happiness in heaven ; God is the great Sovereign
of nations ; no law, no usage, however venerable in prece-
dent or high in authority, to be considered legitimate or
AN INDESTRUCTIBLE NATIONAL LIFE. 325
permanent, if at war with the will of God ; the most fearless
condemnation of sin, the most complete recognition of the
brotherhood of the race, the most humble trust in the Re-
deemer, and the most thorough forms of gospel evangelism,
are the most acceptable to the people. This is the religion
of the Great Republic.
THE RELIGION OF THE NATION IN OFFICIAL ACTS AND PUBLIC MEN.
•
Let us now see the action of this great public force
through the representatives of the people.
On the 16th of March, 1776, Mr. William Livingston,
pursuant to leave granted, brought in a resolution for
appointing a fast ; which, being taken into consideration, was
agreed to as follows : " In times of impending calamity and
distress, when the liberties of America are eminently en-
dangered by the secret machinations of a vindictive admin-
istration, it becomes the duty of these hitherto free and
happy colonies, with true penitence of heart and the most
reverent devotion, publicly to acknowledge the overruling
providence ,of God; to confess and deplore our offences
against him ; and to supplicate his interposition for averting
the threatened danger, and prospering our strenuous efforts
in the cause of freedom, virtue, and prosperity. The Con-
gress, therefore, considering the warlike preparations of the
British ministry to subvert our invaluable rights and privi-
leges, and reduce us by fire and sword, by the savages of
the wilderness, and our own domestics, to the most abject
and ignominious bondage ; desirous, at the same time, to have
people of all ranks and degrees duly impressed with a sol-
emn sense of God's superintending providence, and of their
duty devoutly to rely, in all their lawful enterprises, on his
aid and direction,— -do earnestly recommend that Friday, the
seventeenth day of May next, be observed by the said colo-
nies as a day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer, that we
may, with united hearts, confess and bewail our manifold
326 THE GREAT KEPUBLIC.
sins and transgressions, and by a sincere repentance, and
amendment of life, appease his righteous displeasure, and,
through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, obtain
his pardon and forgiveness; humbly imploring his assist-
ance to frustrate the cruel purposes of our unnatural ene-
mies, and, by inclining their hearts to justice and benevo-
lence, prevent the further effusion of kindred blood. But
if, continuing deaf to the voice of reason and humanity,
and inflexibly bent on desolation and war, they constrain us
to repel their hostile invasions by open resistance, that it
may please the Lord of hosts and the God of armies to ani-
mate our officers and soldiers with invincible fortitude, to
guard and protect them in the day of battle, and to crown
the continental arms, by sea and land, with victory and suc-
cess ; earnestly beseeching him to bless our civil rulers, and
the representatives of the people, in their several assem-
blies and conventions; to preserve and strengthen their
Union ; to inspire them with an ardent, disinterested love
of their country ; to give wisdom and stability to their
counsels, and direct them to the more efficacious "measures
for establishing the rights of America on the most honorable
and permanent basis; that he would be graciously pleased
to bless all his people in these colonies with health and
plenty, and grant that a spirit of incorruptible patriotism,
and of pure undefiled religion, may universally prevail, and
this continent be speedily restored to the blessings of peace
and liberty, and enabled to transmit them inviolate to the
latest posterity. And it is recommended to Christians of all
denominations to assemble for public worship, and abstain
from all servile labor, on said day."
This was the statesmanship of the Revolution, — a clear,
calm recognition of God, and u the merits and mediation of
Jesus Christ," as our only hope of " pardon," and the " assist-
ance " which our struggle for liberty required. And let it
not be supposed that this was a sudden ebullition of fear.
It was so often repeated, and these holy principles were
AN INDESTRUCTIBLE NATIONAL LIFE. 327
asserted in such a variety of forms, in language and acts of
such deep solemnity, as to show clearly a firm, unalterable
faith in the attributes and promises of God, in the efficacy
of Christ's mediation, and in the power of prayer.
On the eleventh day of December of the same year, we
find these noble representatives of struggling freedom
adopting a report from a committee, consisting of Mr. With-
erspoon, Mr. E. H. Lee, and Mr. Adams, couched in the fol-
lowing language : " Whereas, The war in which the United
States are engaged with Great Britain has not only been
prolonged, but is likely to be carried to the greatest
extremity; and whereas it becomes all public bodies, as
well as private persons, to reverence the providence of God,
and look up to him as the supreme Disposer of all events
and the arbiter of the fate of nations : therefore
" Resolved, That it is recommended to all the United
States, as soon as possible, to appoint a day of solemn fasting
and humiliation, to implore of Almighty God the forgiveness
of the many sins prevailing among all ranks, and to beg the
continuance and assistance of his providence in the prose-
cution of the present just and necessary war. The Congress
do also, in the most earnest manner, recommend to all the
members of the United States, and particularly the officers,
civil and military, under them, the exercise of repentance
and reformation ; and further require of them the strict
observation of the articles of war, and particularly that part
of the said articles which forbids profane swearing and all
immorality, of which all such officers are desired to take
notice."
These grave and formal recognitions of fundamental,
evangelical truth are truly national, promulgated in language
of deepest solemnity by the highest authority of the people,
corresponding precisely with the tone and expressions of that
immortal document, the Declaration of Independence, which
in this place we present again : " We therefore, the repre-
sentatives of the United States of America in General Con-
328
THE GREAT EEPUBLIC.
gress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the
world for the rectitude of our intentions ; . . . and for the
support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the pro-
tection of DIVINE PROVIDENCE, we mutually pledge to each
other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." Before
such appeals, tyrants must have stood awe-struck and
trembling, as in the presence of inevitable doom.
When the storm of war was still raging, and it would
seem that nothing could divert for a moment the attention
of these wonderful men from the immediate preparation
which the contest required, on the llth of September,
1777, we find them gravely considering and adopting the
report of a committee on a memorial of Dr. Allison and
others, asking for means for a supply of the Holy Scriptures.
And what do they say ? Sceptically, u We attend to the exi-
gencies of the war : we have neither time nor disposition to
consider questions of religion ; we leave them to clergymen
and enthusiasts " ? No. They say, " That the use of the Bible
is so universal, and its importance so great, that your com-
mittee refer the above to the consideration of Congress ; and,
if Congress shall not think it expedient to order the impor-
tation of types and paper, the committee recommend that
Congress will order the Committee of Commerce to import
TWENTY THOUSAND BIBLES from Holland, Scotland, or else-
where, into the different ports of the States of the Union."
"Wherefore it was moved and carried, That the Committee
of Commerce be directed to import twenty thousand copies
of the Bible." The embargo prevented the carrying-out of
this worthy enterprise; and in 1782 we find another "Na-
tional Act in behalf of the Bible." Mr. Kobert Aitkin of
Philadelphia proposed to Congress to print an edition of
the Scriptures. The matter was given to a committee, who,
with the chaplains, thoroughly examined the copy he sub-
mitted, and reported in favor of the measure : whereupon
it was
"Resolved, That the United States, in Congress assembled,
AN INDESTRUCTIBLE NATIONAL LIFE.
329
highly approve of the pious and laudable undertaking of
Mr. Aitkin, as subservient to the interests of religion, as well
as an instance of the progress of the arts in this country ;
and being satisfied, from the above report, of his care and
accuracy in the execution of the work, they recommend
this edition of the Bible to the inhabitants of the United
States, and hereby authorize him to publish this recom-
mendation in the manner he shall think proper." Thus
did the Holy Bible become the great and only national book
of the United States of America, and the only definition of
the religion of the nation.
We have seen how devoutly the fathers of the Revolution
turned to God for help in the day of battle. Did they forget
in the hour of victory the principles which had controlled
them in their deepest distress ? Surely no ! When the glo-
rious news arrived from the battle of Saratoga, Congress set
apart the eighteenth day of December, 1777, as a day of
solemn thanksgiving and praise throughout the United
States ; and, upon the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown,
" Congress resolved to go in a body to the Dutch Lutheran
Church to return thanks to Almighty God for crowning the
allied arms with success ; and issued a proclamation, appoint-
ing the thirteenth day of December, 1781, as a day of gen-
eral thanksgiving and prayer on account of this signal
interposition of Divine Providence." " God," — in the judg-
ment of these great representative men, — " Almighty God,
had crowned the American arms with success ; " and they
were soon, as a body, reverently bowed before him, to render
thanks to him for the triumph of the people in their bloody
conflict with oppression.
The War of the Revolution was over; and on the twenty-
sixth day of August, 1783, the immortal Washington was
summoned to Congress to receive the official congratulations
of his countrymen. The expressions of gratitude and
eulogy were dignified, but exceedingly strong ; and it is in-
tensely interesting to know with what feelings he came out
330
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
of this fearful struggle. The following words conclude his
terse and appropriate reply : " Perhaps, sir, no occasion may
offer, more suitable than the present, to express my humble
thanks to God, and my grateful acknowledgments to my
country, for the great and uniform support I have received
in every vicissitude of fortune, and for the many distin-
guished honors which Congress has been pleased to confer
upon me in the course of the war." Washington renders
" humble thanks to God," the Being who, as we have seen,
had been so devoutly addressed in the prayers urgently
invited by Congress for the success of the American arms.
In the great act of the resignation, we find him alluding
reverently to " the patronage of Heaven," and his " gratitude
for the interposition of Providence." Who can read, with-
out profound emotion, the following language ? — "I consider
it an indispensable duty to close this last act of my official
life by committing the interests of our dearest country to
the protection of Almighty God ; and those who have the
superintendence of them, to his holy keeping." Immortal
sage, honored of God and man ! — may the inspirations of
thy exalted statesmanship fall upon the future represen-
tatives of American liberty !
We have thus before us the devout manner in which the
Father of his Country passed through the eight years of his
military life. Let us now observe the spirit with which he
began his civil career. On the thirtieth day of April, 1789.
he who had surrendered his sword to the people he had
saved, at the very time when, according to the history of
human ambition, he should have used it to fasten upon them
the chains of a military despotism, was inaugurated the first
Chief Magistrate of the new nation. With unaffected dig-
nity and humility, he had mentioned the anxieties and self-
distrust which mingled with his gratitude and joy ; and
he then added, " Such being the impressions under which I
have, in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the
present station, it would be peculiarly improper to omit in
AN INDESTRUCTIBLE NATIONAL LIFE. 331
this first official act my fervent supplications to that
Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides
in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can
supply every human defect, that his benediction may con-
secrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the
United States a government instituted by themselves for
these essential purposes ; and may enable every instru-
ment, employed in its administration, to execute with suc-
cess the functions allotted to his charge. In tendering this
homage to the great Author of every public and private
good, I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not
less than my own, nor those of my "fellow-citizens at large
less than either. No people can be bound to acknowledge
and adore the invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of
men more than the people of the United States. Every
step by which they have advanced to the character of an
independent nation seems to have been distinguished by
some token of providential agency; and in the important
Revolution just accomplished, in the system of their united
government, the tranquil deliberations and voluntary con-
sent of so many distinct communities from which the event
has resulted cannot be compared with the means by which
most governments have been established, without some re-
turn of pious gratitude, along with a humble anticipation
of the future blessings which the past seems to presage. The
reflections arising out of the present crisis have forced them-
selves too strongly upon my mind to be suppressed. You
will join with me, I trust, in thinking that there are none
under the influence of which the proceedings of a new and
free government can more auspiciously commence." Thus
spake the great Washington, — the broadest, truest represen-
tative man of his country and of his age. He felt the heavy
pressure of this hitherto unequalled responsibility, and bore
his burden immediately to the throne of grace. He could not
perform his first official act without presenting his " fervent
supplications to that Almighty Being who presides over the
332 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
councils of nations, and whose providential aid can supply
every human defect ; " and, u in tendering this homage to
the great Author of every public and private good," he
believes that he expresses the sentiments of the members
of Congress, and of his " fellow-citizens at large," not less
than his own; states most forcibly the paramount obliga-
tion of the American people to "acknowledge and adore
the invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men ; " and
solemnly affirms "that every step by which they have
advanced to the character of an independent nation seems
to have been distinguished by some token of providential
agency." With what profound satisfaction do we find here
thus vigorously and reverently stated, as if from the very
heart and intellect of the Great Republic, the broad, funda-
mental idea under the control of which this book is written !
THE RELIGION OF AMERICA CONSTRUCTS A GRAND AND DURABLE
GOVERNMENT.
We have seen that the outward forms of the nation were
marred with great defects, and that vices utterly inconsistent
with the fundamental principles of liberty sought to incor-
porate themselves into the organic law, and, by obstinate
persistence and astute scheming, obtained an apologetic,
deprecatory expression in that great instrument ; but we
have also seen that the grand, fundamental fact of repub-
lican freedom took its position of rank and power to fight
the battles of justice through the ages, and to triumph glo-
riously when the fulness of time had come.
But we may now glory in the potential reason why right
triumphed over might in the War of Independence ; why
the true theory of government emerged with such clear-
ness and vigor from the conflicts with English despotism ;
why the freedom of speech and the press, the ballot and
the pulpit, triumphed over the restrictions which Papal big-
otry had for ages imposed upon the energies of mind and
AN INDESTRUCTIBLE NATIONAL LIFE.
333
the struggles of modern civilization ; why there was power
enough in conceded rights to eradicate the most inveterate
evils which had come down from the past. God was the
recognized Sovereign of the nation. In the spirit of true
humility, all the great achievements of the past were
ascribed to him ; and, in fervent prayer, all the difficult
problems and severe trials of the future were confided to
his infinite wisdom and sovereign control.
Besides, and above all that could be found in the convic-
tions and acts of men, there was the historical development
of a divine plan for establishing a nation in advance of any
that had gone before in the great principles of civil and
religious liberty, and providing for a new development of
Christian civilization. Hence, and hence only, the amazing
foresight and prospective adjustments of that forming age, —
provisions as complete for future unknown emergencies as
for those which were present. For this reason, despite all
its imperfections and wrongs condemned for future destruc-
tion, the government has risen in majesty and glory, while
rival theories have paled before its steady and increasing
light. Philosophical attempts to show its impracticability,
and malignant prophecies of its failure, have alike disap-
peared amid the splendors of its march, until jealous tyrants
have alternately eulogized and cursed it ; and the longing
eyes of the oppressed of all nations have turned to it as the
star of hope amid the darkness of despotism. How evidently,
therefore, is the whole system pervaded by the elements of
an immortal life ! The religious influence which presided
over its councils, and gave more than human energy to its
contending armies, has entered into every organ and tissue
of the body politic, and rendered clear as light the fact of a
divine purpose in its organization and development.
American liberty — what language can express the glow
of rapture with which we contemplate it? We feel the
thrill of its life and the throb of its joy as it courses through
our veins. Liberty to think and utter our thoughts ;
334 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
liberty to write and print and read, and no fear of servile
police or loathsome cells or murderous injustice ; liberty
to study and proclaim God's holy word, kneel at his sacred
altar, and claim for ourselves the blood of atonement, with
no intervening priest, and no artificial terrors from the thun-
ders of the Vatican, — with what gratitude ought we to rec-
ognize privileges so exalted, as the gift of Providence alone !
But if God be the author of the American system, then
here is our grand reliance for permanence and prosperity.
We need not be alarmed at the threatening rivalry of selfish
politicians, nor the murmurings of sectional strife. Our
gallant ship of State will mount the foaming crest, or plunge
into ocean deeps, with no peril or harm. Amid the wailings
of the storm, you shall hear from her towering mast the
joyous cry of " Land ahead ! " to hush every fear, and fill
every throbbing heart with joy. The ambitious partisan
may sound the alarm of impending ruin, — ruin upon a
given contingency, and ruin upon the exact opposite : but,
by. the hand of power which guides our destiny, mere poli-
ticians will hereafter, as before, be used or swept aside like
cobwebs; while our glorious Republic will move on, in the
sphere of a wise and comprehensive Providence, to accom-
plish her great mission. The life-power of the nation is
indestructible.
PUR!
or
•
| • "'V-. .. '
•f one aiu. I to th« URIM*
N«< ft th stion, all *lfcrt
• T.r.d from rSc
North Pole to the
THE stirring events which have passed before ti> indicate
t grand providential preparation for the organized develop-
Mt of Christian ciyilizr.tv i. This purpose would, of
rse, require a nunieroi
The severe trials of the Revolution had seriouglv retarded
immigration. In 1775, the est ,f population mide by
were as follows : —
.*ehtwctt8 . . . 400,000 ' ) 'cnnsylvarua .-'•0,000
nshire .
150,000
50,678
192,000
Maryland . .
Virginia . .
North Carolina
. 320,000
. 650.000
250,000
South ttarolw* .
130,000
Total .
ic plans of Go<i for tb
PERIOD III.
DEVELOPMENT.
CHAPTER I.
DEVELOPMENT OF POPULATION.
" Whilst our old European centre is like a volcano, consuming itself in its own crater,
the two nations, Oriental and Occidental, proceed unhesitatingly toward perfection, — the
one at the will of one man, the other by liberty. Providence has confided to the United
States of America the care of peopling, and of gaining over to civilization, all that
immense territory which extends from the Atlantic to the South Sea, and from the
North Pole to the Equator." — Louis NAPOLEON.
THE stirring events which have passed before us indicate
a grand providential preparation for the organized develop-
ment of Christian civilization. This purpose would, of
course, require a numerous population.
The severe trials of the Revolution had seriously retarded
immigration. In 1775, the estimates of population made by
Congress were as follows : —
Massachusetts .
New Hampshire
Rhode Island .
Connecticut
New York .
New Jersey
400,000
150,000
50,678
192,000
250,000
130,000
Pennsylvania .
Maryland .
Virginia . .
North Carolina
South Carolina
Total .
350,000
320,000
650,000
300,000
225,000
3,017,678
In a brief period, the plans of God for the ingathering of
the people upon a larger scale would be evident and effectual.
335
336 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
INCREASE OF POPULATION.
The country soon became more attractive to those who
desired to improve their circumstances. The immense
forests of valuable timber, the fisheries, the broad acres of
productive grain-lands, and the extraordinary facilities for
manufacturing and commerce, invited enterprise from every
country of the Old World.
There was, moreover, in the idea of liberty, a charm
which the aristocratic governments of Europe could in no
way counteract. In the absence of steam and telegraphs,
and on account of the limited circulation of newspapers,
information forced its way slowly, but at length widely,
through the masses ; and, soon after the close of the Revo-
lutionary War, considerable numbers found means to trans-
port themselves to this land of liberty and plenty.
In 1800, the United States numbered 5,305,925 ; in 1810,
7,239,815; in 1820, 9,638,121; in 1830, 12,866.020; in
1840, 17,069,453; in 1850, 23,191,876 ; in 1860, 31,443,322;
including Indian tribes, &c., 31,747,514 ; and, at the close
of 1866, the number had risen to 34,605,882.
Sir Morton Peto remarks that " there is nothing in the
Old World to equal this rate of progress. The population
of Great Britain and Ireland in 1800 was 16,000,000, and
in 1861 was under 30,000,000. Since 1830, the population
of the United States has increased 19,000,000, whilst that
of our kingdom has increased less than 6,000,000."
In 1860, the fifteen then slaveholding States contained
12,240,000 inhabitants ; a gain, in ten years, of 2,627,000, or
27.33 per cent. The nineteen free States, seven Territories,
and District of Columbia, contained 19,201,546 persons;
showing an increase, in ten years, of 5,598,603, or 41.24
per cent. The whole gain in the decade from which most
of our figures are taken was 8,225,603 souls; and from
1860 to 1866 the increase was 3,162,560.
DEVELOPMENT OF POPULATION.
339
The employments of our foreign-born population strik-
ingly indicate their habits of thought and feeling, and the
character of their influence upon American industry and
society. The public registers give their occupations only
to a limited extent, and yet sufficiently for our present
purpose. Of, say two millions, 872,317 are laborers;
764,837, farmers; 407,524, mechanics; 231,852, merchants;
49,494, servants ; 39,967, miners; 29,484, mariners ; 11,557,
weavers and spinners ; 5,246, seamstresses and milliners ;
7,109, physicians; 4,326, clergymen; 3,882, clerks; 3,634,
tailors; 3,474, shoemakers; 3,120, manufacturers; 2,676, law-
yers; 2,490, artists; 2,310, masons; 2,016, engineers ; 1,528,
teachers; 1,272, bakers; 945, butchers; 729, musicians; 705,
printers; 647, painters ; 631, millers; 588, actors.
These figures show that the people were used to work in
the Old World, and that they came here to work.
The employments of a large number of the whole nation
at any one time will furnish a broader view of the character
of the American population.
In 1860, there were about 8,217,000 heads of families.
The occupations of some 6,000,000, of various conditions,
were as follows : —
Apprentices ....
55326
Drivers
19,521
19,001
Drusffists .
11,031
Barbers
11,140
Farmers & Farm-laborers
3,219,574
Bar-keepers ....
Blacksmiths . .
13,263
112 357
Gardeners
21,323
40,070
Boarding-house Keepers .
Bricklayers ....
12,148
14,311
Harness-makers .
12,728
11,647
Brickmakers ....
Butchers •
13,736
30 103
Innkeepers . . . .
Jewellers
22,818
10,175
Carpenters ....
242 958
969,301
Cabinet-makers . . .
Carters
29,223
21,640
Laundresses .
Lumbermen .
38,633
15,929
Civil Engineers . . .
Clerks
27,437
184,485
Lawyers and Judges
Mantua-makers . .
33,980
35,165
Clergymen
37 529
48,925
Coach-makers ....
19 180
123,378
Coopers
43.624
Millers .
37,281
340
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
Milliners 25,722
Miners 147,750
Overseers 37,883
Peddlers 16,594
Painters and Varnishers . 51,695
Plasterers ..'... 13,116
Printers 23,106
Public Officers . . . 24,693
Physicians & Surgeons . 55,055
Railroad Men .... 36,567
Saddlers 12,756
Sawyers 15,000
Seamstresses .... 90,198
Servants 559,908
Shoemakers .... 164,608
Students 49,993
Stonecutters .... 19,825
Tailors and Tailoresses . 101,868
Tanners 10,491
Teachers 110,469
Teamsters 34,824
Tinsmiths 17,412
Tobacconists .... 21,413
Wheelwrights .... 32,693
It thus appears that more than one-half of the whole
are employed in agricultural pursuits, while nearly all are
engaged in some useful business. Only 12,236 bar-keepers
and 21,413 tobacconists, included in the above tables, are
engaged in labor that is harmful to society. This small num-
ber, compared with the grand army of productive industry
and professional honor, affords the highest encouragement
to the future of our country. If it follows that the time
given to the cultivation of mind and the fine arts must be
less, and the standard of intelligence, on the whole, propor-
tionally lower, it maybe justly claimed that practical knowl-
edge is more general, anfl society more healthy.
The attempts at aristocratic distinctions in the Southern
portion of the United States, and the release of large num-
bers from the pursuits of industry, have not proved favorable
to the cultivation of sound learning ; while the popular sen-
timent rendering the labor of the hands dishonorable has
produced results sufficiently disastrous to serve as a warning
against all endeavors to establish here a form of society so
entirely anti-American.
A much graver question relates to the moral character of
our population. Of course, the various nationalities brought
together here must include every variety of opinions, habits,
and condition. The grades of civilization from many por-
tions of Europe extend downward even below the semi-
barbarous state. Crimes of the grosser kind must become
DEVELOPMENT OF POPULATION. 341
correspondingly frequent. Lust and revenge are rank, and
possibly ferocious in many instances. Offences against per-
son and property will render both insecure in proportion
as these barbarous elements prevail. Crowded cities, afford-
ing most victims and most convenient concealment, will
include large and dangerous numbers of thieves and mur-
derers; and the false ideas of liberty which pervade the
lower forms of society in Europe will encourage the emi-
gration of multitudes of their vilest men and women. Now,
if it be a vice, it is one not easily remedied, apparently, —
that these human beings, who are yet hardly human, may
suddenly become American citizens ; and, though without a
single qualification for the high and sacred responsibilities of
freemen, they are as potential at the ballot-box as an equal
number of our most intelligent and Christian citizens.
The religious creeds and institutions of large numbers
who come to us claim the first and highest obedience for a
foreign ecclesiastical prince, and make loyalty a mere matter
of temporary convenience, liable to be disturbed and over-
thrown by causes wholly concealed from the ordinary
observation of the American people.
Candor also compels the acknowledgment, that no small
number of vicious people in this country are born here, and
that the antagonisms to virtue are, to a shameful extent,
of native origin and growth ; while the highest virtues, both
of Church and State, are alike of foreign and of domestic
origin ; the whole resulting in the stern fact, that, in our
mixed population, the extremes of virtue and vice confront
each other, and all the grades of human character that can
be found in any civilized country are here strongly marked
and vigorously developed.
To complete this brief analysis of American population, it
is imperative to bring prominently forward the fact, that a
high sense of religious responsibility brought the founders
of our free institutions here. As the rights of conscience
were extensively denied in the Old World, and fully con-
342 THE GHEAT IlEI'UBLIO.
ceded in the New, yearnings for the privilege of free worship
brought multitudes to the wilds of America who would have
been otherwise more comfortable in the land of their birth.
Providence thus secured numerous accessions to the Chris-
tian population of the Republic; and, from the first, moral
and religious influences largely predominated in the several
o «/ i
colonies. The full development of this organic force will be
noticed in another chapter. Here the claim, manifestly true,
is, that the broad liberty which the earlier citizens of the
Republic brought with them, and passed through the death-
struggles of the Revolution to establish, was vitally Christian ;
and that only the growing power of this controlling element
can explain the high moral status of American citizens, on
the whole.
THE AMERICAN RACE.
By the large comprehensions and mysterious selections of
living materials for the formation of this new nation, Provi-
dence has clearly indicated a purpose to produce a popula-
tion differing from any before known. In other countries,
peoples utterly strange to each other, and diverse in origin,
language, and religion, are brought into juxtaposition: but,
from the nature of aristocratic governments, they are only
subjects ; they never do, never can, become an organic
unit. In the United States, it is quite otherwise. Here
men must cease to be Anglo-Saxon, Teutonic, Sclavonic, or
Celt, and, by the very force of our free institutions, become
Americans, — simply and only Americans, — at once sover-
eign and subject. Hence in a period longer or shorter,
according to circumstances which are neither fundamental
nor permanent, republican ideas take possession of incoming
peoples, gradually, but at length entirely, mastering and dis-
placing all predilections in favor of despotic or even mild
monarchical institutions; and the most profound religious
prejudices slowly, and almost imperceptibly, yield to the
grand idea of free toleration, and the paramount rights of
DEVELOPMENT OF POPULATION.
343
conscience ; so that Romish bigotry is modified to an extent
alarming to the hierarchy, sworn to implicit obedience to
the sovereign pontiff! In opinions, religious and political,
the people will differ ; but, in the sense and rights of per-
sonal responsibility, they tend rapidly to unity. Immense
as is the influx of population, we affirm the deliberate con-
viction, that the process of homogeneous Americanization
follows it so closely as to avert the most imminent perils to
our free institutions, and furnish strong ground for the
belief that God himself controls the mixing-up of nations
here, for the grand purpose of making one, immensely
stronger and nobler than either of them could possibly be.
Conventional arrangements of foreign origin which relate
to exclusive education, religion, and government, are very
tenacious, and not unfrequently rise to menacing propor-
tions, as antagonists to the system of free schools, free
churches, and a free Republic; but while the history of the
contest furnishes ample reasons for eternal vigilance, and
firm, manly independence, it does in no way indicate the
ultimate triumph of European despotism on this continent,
or the fundamental perversion of our great providential
scheme of self-government.
Free schools, tending to universal education, bear with
them their own vindication, make their own proselytes, and
produce the intelligence which must render them superior
to the assaults of ignorance and bigotry ; and even coerced
sectarian education with an anti-republican animus, by the
mere force of contiguous free thinking and free acting, and
the permeating vital forces of a free government, imper-
ceptibly assimilates the common faith of Christian liberty.
It, moreover, appertains to unrestricted truth to show its
superiority to prescriptive error. An open field and a fair
fight is all it demands, all it will allow. The wrong has no
chance of ultimate triumph in such a contest. God will not
permit it. The inherent weakness of bigotry and injustice
becomes evident in such a country as this. When they rise
344 THE G TIE AT REPUBLIC.
up and bluster and threaten, before alarmists have ceased to
litter their warnings of impending destruction to freedom
and the right, they have gone down under the heavy blows
which men, women, and children are so free to wield against
them here.
The press, untrammelled, arrays itself on one side and the
other in this Titanic war; but how evidently and rapidly, if
it be vile, does its vileness destroy its power to rule against
the educated, Christianized freedom of the land! and how
soon must il tell the tale of its disgrace by extinction, or
falling back upon the patronage of the openly vicious! On
the other hand, when was it ever known that a free, truth-
ful, fearless, Christianized press finally lost caste in America
by standing up boldly for private and public virtue, and
advocating the true republican rights of man ? It may have
passed through fiery trials, and fallen, for a time,' under the
ban of infidel vice and party corruption ; but short indeed
must be the life that has not been long enough to see
schools of infidelity, and parties becoming corrupt from pros-
perity or vile leadership, disappear before the triumphant
power of an enlightened public opinion, led on by a free
press and an unfettered church. Thus forming, moulding,
assimilating all to itself, the Great Republic of America goes
on with the process of constructing a race of its own,
strangely and even miraculously adjusted to its providen-
tial purposes, and the accomplishment of its grand mission
among the governments of the earth.
o o
If, now, it be asked how has all this become possible, and
what is the vitalizing force which is thus transforming peo-
ples of various and antagonistic governments into one, we
adirm, without hesitancy, it is the Sovereign of nations,
God Omnipotent, who " maketh the wrath of man to praise
him." unfolding the plans of the Christian dispensation,
purging the people by the iires of law and of justice; it is
the gospel, the potent, at length the nearly omni-potent,
spread of truth from heaven ; a free, open Bible ; the bap-
DEVELOPMENT OF POPULATION. 345
tisms of light and love, which are fast converting our nine-
teenth century into one grand Pentecost. It is the voice
of resurrection, saying, " Arise, shine ; for thy light is come,
and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee."
The unity of the American race includes also the mingling
of blood, which, subject to the control of true instincts and
sound conventional propriety, obeys the physiological laws
of animal regeneration and strength, and must gradually
bring out proportions and powers fitted for great achieve-
ments,— a physique which shall rise to possibilities, only
indicated by the endurance and stalwart might of our armies
in all the wars through which we have yet passed.
Our varied climates, invigorating air, and inevitable ac-
tivity, have contributed to this result. In subduing the for-
ests, cultivating our vast prairies, and developing the mechan-
ical industry and commerce of the country, our people have
added much to the size of bone and strength of muscle, the
power of nerve and energy of will, which tend to give the
true American unparalleled powers of endurance and triumph
in any field of conflict which God may require him to enter.
No doubt, disobedience to the laws of health, and deep-
seated immoralities, have often antagonized and defeated this
great providential plan of forming a mighty race of men
for achievements above the reach of dwarfed and enfeebled
humanity. It is the mission of true Christian education to
counteract these depraved tendencies; the grand purpose
of a true inward and outward regeneration, and a progres-
sive scientific system of moral and physical health, to rescue
our new and vigorous race from these destructive agencies,
and test the rights of purified, elevated humanity to long
life and great deeds in a sphere as much above that which
we have yet reached, as our present is above that of the
wasting savages of these continental forests.
Then the magnificent scenery of our mountains and rivers
and lakes, the vastness of our country, and the ever-increas-
346 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
ing demands upon our utmost powers, will come in to help
God and conscience make us great.
Freedom relieved from the taint of slavery, and the sove-
reign rights of freemen exercised by Americans, without
the restrictions of caste, will give dignity and power to the
true American; while the far-famed ingenuity, industrv. ver-
satility, and energy of the Republic will render her exhaust-
less resources available.
"With these advantages, under the prestige of a mighty
past, and with these healthy, vitalizing forces working against
our vices, thirty-four millions six hundred and five thousand
eight hundred and eighty-two American people are now,
under the control of Providence, moving onward in the
front ranks of modern Christian civilization.
CHAPTER II.
DEVELOPMENT OF LIBERTY.
_i
" Freedom of a low and limited order is mere caprice. Freedom does not exist as
original and natural. Rather must it be first sought out and won, and that by an in-
calculable medial discipline of the intellectual and moral powers. Freedom is spirit in its
completeness. Society and the State are the very conditions in which freedom is realized.
Reason is the comprehension of the divine work. The strength of a nation lies in the
reason incorporated in it. The conception of God constitutes the general basis of a
people's character." — HEGEL.
THE earliest struggles of liberty are indications of torture
under the wrongs of oppression. Men in pain seek relief;
and the right to relief from the miseries inflicted by des-
potism is an instinct which moves the sufferer to act in
self-defence, without waiting for a logical vindication : hence
the violence which struggles with power, without regard to
the question whether there is any hope or possibility of
relief, but which must sometimes be followed by a conviction
of impotence, and a feeling of sullen despair, and finally of
unavoidable submission.
But God does not permit this submission to pass into sat-
isfaction. He rouses up the soul to a consciousness of its
individuality, of its own dignity, of its felt claims to freedom,
He stirs up the reason ; and a higher sense of justice takes
position, and begins to question the rights of despotic rulers,
and to demand release from exactions which are unjust and
oppressive. When these demands are resisted and denied,
then comes the question of power. If the reason is low,
and its arguments are unreliable, the attempts at self-vindi-
cation are likely to be premature and reckless. In the
higher exercise of reason, two questions are considered, —
347
348 THE GllEAT REPUBLIC.
can the wrong be conquered by force ? and are not moral
means, without force, due under the circumstances, and
hopeful of success?
The founders of the Great Republic had passed through
all these stages, — first in England, then in America. They
had shown the higher manifestations of reason in the per-
sistent struggles of logic before resistance in battle. They
had passed through the conflicts of the Revolution, and found
themselves free, in the sense of release from foreign domi-
nation. They had, moreover, settled the form of govern-
ment, determined that it should not be monarchical, but
republican; that it should not be irresponsible, but consti-
tutional ; that it should be democratic, but representative ;
that the paramount allegiance of the citizen should be to
the General Government, and all State authority should
adjust itself to the good of the nation. This was the evi-
dent purpose ; and it was undeniably in the scope and in-
tention of the Constitution which superseded the old Arti-
cles of Confederation. But it was not universally acknowl-
edged. It was contested by the States-right party, through
a period of nearly a hundred years, with great ability and
zeal ; and the opposition to a true nationality finally led to
treason and blood. The question was left to the arbitrament
of the sword ; and the vindication of national over State
sovereignty followed one of the most gigantic and cruel
wars of modern times.
This, however, was the growth of liberty. The freedom
of the individual seemed, at first, all that could be expected,
and almost too much to ask. Deliverance from persecution
on account of religious belief and practice, from unjust and
tyrannical executions, seemed the greatest blessing that could
be conferred. When, however, the struggle rose to a com-
plete emancipation from foreign power, and American inde-
pendence had been proclaimed, vindicated, and acknowl-
edged, large ideas of personal rights were the natural result ;
and the growth of national feeling and intelligence was at
DEVELOPMENT OF LIBERTY. 349
first slow, revealing only gradually its organic existence
and power. When, however, it rose distinctly to sight, it
was found to be the true American idea ; and the feeling
that the national character and rights of the people must
outgrow, or conquer by force, all local and State assumptions
inconsistent with it, at length became strong and irresistible.
r
PERSONAL LIBERTY.
It was not easy to ascertain precisely what the colonists
had gained. Liberty was the word instinctively used to
express it ; but the people, generally, were far from a clear
apprehension of the meaning of the term. The great
statesmen of the Revolution excluded from the idea many
of the radical and irresponsible notions of the masses, but
differed widely as to what it did actually include. Indeed,
broad and comprehensive views of liberty cannot be claimed
for the times in which our republican institutions had their
birth. From the very necessities of historical civilization,
these must be an outgrowth from the radical principles,
obtaining position a,mid the life-and-death struggles of a
great revolution.
Reflection is subsequent to passion or sentiment; and,
when it commences its examinations, it condemns and
excludes much which feeling asserts and demands. Con-
sciousness finds free volitions within. The mind, from the
mere love of power, exercises itself in willing; takes excur-
sions in various directions to show to itself that it can deter-
mine one way and another, — that it can resolve exact
opposites. It receives and repels influences from without ;
weighs motives, and first accepts, then rejects them ; even
choosing to be governed, apparently, for the mere independ-
ence of the thing, by those which are felt and acknowledged
to be by far the less in strength and claims.
This is primary liberty, the starting-point of all free action
and free institutions; and, in the perverseness of human
350
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
nature, it is very likely to assert boldly, and even defiantly,
the right to do wrong. To realize the full force of the im-
O O
portant distinction between the ability to do wrong and the
liberty to do wrong requires thought, moral culture, and,
finally, regeneration. It is the province of discipline, under
divine inspiration and guidance, to bring out the conscience
of liberty. Then, when the soul proposes to itself free
action, finds itself acting freely, it begins to ask, " Is this
right ? " Then it begins to realize that there are limitations
to freedom ; in other words, that there are great laws of free
action grounded in our relations to other men and to God.
JUSTICE AND LOYALTY IN LIBERTY.
Justice is an element so broad and far-reaching, that it is
not easily nor soon understood. It defines itself in laws for
self-protection; and this involves the protection and rights
of others, and finally rises to the dignity of constitutional
law, assuming to have found the fundamental and perma-
nent right as between man and man.
But both the idea and the expression of justice must,
of necessity, be imperfect and inadequate in the earlier
attempts to define constitutional rights. Constitutions,
therefore, as we have before said, are not made, but grow ;
and pure justice, as it is the rarest and most precious ele-
ment of fundamental government, so it is the least likely
and the latest to have full sway in the systems of fallen and
depraved humanity. This must be the true explanation of
the unquestionable but humiliating fact, that the struggles
of a hundred years in this republic of liberty have been
over the question, How much, or rather how little, justice
can we dispense to man as man, and establish a govern-
ment of freedom for ourselves ? Slowly, therefore, has true
liberty developed itself even here ; sometimes seeming to
diminish rather than enlarge, to retrograde rather than
advance. But we can now see, that, upon the whole, the
DEVELOPMENT OF LIBERT*. 351
progress has been powerful and really grand. Now it is
known and almost universally felt among the governing
minds of America, that justice, fair, full, impartial justice,
is indispensable to liberty, is the very soul of liberty.
Almost as slowly has the great fact come to the surface,
that true loyalty is a fundamental element of liberty ; that
we must be governed to be free. Wild, ultra democracy
denies this; licentious passion denies it: but calm reason
affirms it, history asserts it, revelation demands it.
A republican government must be outwardly and formally
a government by majorities; and, when the free elections of
the people have placed a man in office, he is and must be
the officer until he is superseded according to due forms
of law. If it is alleged that he is unjust, and that he has
transcended or made a vicious and oppressive use of his
power, the appeal is not to private judgment, not to public
passion, but to the umpire provided by the Constitution.
Obedience, one of the hardest things for a republican to
learn, is one of the first and most imperative obligations of
freemen in a free government. Rejected, superseded by
individual obstinacy or confederate passion, lawless anarchy
and headlong rebellion must be the result.
We say that a republic must be ostensibly governed by
majorities ; but in reality it is far otherwise. Sad experience
shows us that by low intrigue a small number of political
demagogues may dictate candidates and control elections ;
and that, were there no counteracting forces, the govern-
ment would be irredeemably lost amid contending factions,
or the people in their millions subjected to the merciless
tyranny of a contemptible minority or a military despotism.
EDUCATION AND RELIGION IN LIBERTY.
Intelligence, sound and widely diffused, is not a mere con-
tingency or accidental fact of free institutions such as ours :
it is a part of them. Liberty, in its highest, truest sense,
352
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
cannot be known apart from it. There is not only the
primary fact that the people are the government, that they
must therefore be sufficiently educated to understand the
simple but mutual principles of the government, and the
true sphere and responsibilities of the elective franchise,
but they must be qualified to grapple with and triumph
over the astute scheming of corrupt leaders.; at least they
must reveal ability to hurl these men occasionally from
power, so as to compel them, by their fears, to a degree of
caution which will secure the liberties of the people. t
But mere secular learning leaves selfishness undisturbed,
or rather stimulates its growth, and multiplies its expedients
for mischief. The tendency of mental increase in corrup-
tion is to make men rivals in intrigue, not antagonists to
political vice : hence the multiplication of demagogues by
schools of " philosophy, falsely so called," has come to be a
well-known and generally-recognized fact.
There must, therefore, be a special element in the intel-
ligence of freemen; a distinct controlling animus which
will make it broad and true and safe ; a spirit of patriotism
which subordinates and finally destroys the natural selfish-
ness ; which raises patriotism to the dignity of philanthropy,
and enthrones justice over the passions and the will, in the
heart, in the family, and in the nation. This is loyalty to
God, a principle and a feeling given in the new birth, which,
" sufficiently produced," exalts the human to the sphere of
the divine, and resolves the government of liberty into the
will of God.
In our present mixed state as to individual and public
regeneration, only a slight approximation to this sublime
standard is possible. Happy for us that enough of this
" good and perfect gift from the Father of lights," this " wis-
dom that is from above, which is first pare, then peaceable,
gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits,
without partiality and without hypocrisy," has been given
to man to show its existence, reveal its power, and secure
DEVELOPMENT OF LIBERTY. 353
our liberties; while the "earthly, sensual, and devilish" are
sufficiently evident to inspire our hatred and dread, and
move the people to more general and earnest heart-yearn-
ings after the spirit of Christ for the soul of the nation.
How we long for the day when we can claim for the Ameri-
can Republic, without mortifying reservations, a well-defined
place within the circle of the divine beatitudes ! — " Happy
is that people that is in such a case ; yea, happy is that
people whose God is the Lord."
Here we reach a position from which we can announce
the fact, that government by a republic may be perfectly
safe in the hands of the majority, or under the control of
the whole people, swayed by the power of a small minority.
It is useless for the American people longer to shut their
eyes to the inevitable fact, that governing mind is a crea-
tion of God ; that the power and the will to govern are
inborn where there is a providential designation to the
functions and responsibilities of office. Setting aside, as
we have done, the vain pretenders whose dishonest usur-
pations of power are an offence to God and man, we have
risen to a contemplation of humanity re-formed for the high
prerogative of representing God in the government of men ;
and even now we see that the general intelligence is too
broad and clear-sighted to be long misled or misgoverned,
and too largely imbued with common sense to refuse to be
represented or led by men of superior wisdom and goodness.
EXTENT AND SPHERE OF LIBERTY.
In consequence of the natural blindness of souls, it has
come to be a very urgent question, How far shall liberty
extend? — who shall be free? It is mortifying that this
could ever be a question in the Great Republic. It must
be acknowledged that we did for a long time ask, " May
a man of heterodox faith be free?" But we outgrew our
Prelatical bigotry in Virginia and our Puritanic bigotry in
45
354
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
New England, and found, to onr abundant relief, that it was
perfectly safe to hand over Anabaptists and State Church-
men, Papists, Jews, and Quakers, to the mercy of God and
free inquiry.
We did ask, " May the tawny Indian and the swarthy
African be free? Must not liberty be restricted to the
white race, and denied to darker color ? " Heaven pity us !
How long we struggled to find out what tinge of color should
mark the impassable boundary between liberty and bondage !
and how grandly, at length, have we risen to know that a
man is to be free because he is a man ! Let us boast as lit-
tle as possible over the fact that a part of us have reached
this great plain truth only in the last period of the nine-
teenth century of the Christian era.
But the reasons are now sufficiently evident why liberty,
even in our favored country, has been so slow of growth.
Including, as it does, our own reflective consciousness of
personal freedom, a rectified conscience, a clear sense of
justice, a devoted loyalty, a broad intelligence, a sincere
piety for the people generally, and the public and govern-
mental recognition of the universal manhood of man, we may
not expect the spontaneous growth of liberty, nor its rapid
development. The more reason have we, therefore, to be
profoundly grateful for the certain historical evidence of its
sure and steady advance to strength and dominant power on
this continent.
CHAPTER III
DEVELOPMENT OF GOVERNMENT.
" Hitherto the world has assumed some inherent antagonism between freedom and
centralization. A true democracy has as last established itself, that not only develops
an intenser centralization than despotism ever boasted, but that develops and also vin-
dicates it by a completer freedom than ever before could be permitted." — PARTRIDGE.
IT cannot be said that society in America was ever resolved
into its original elements. The first successful emigrants
came here with no feeling of reckless anarchy, no idea of
release from the restraints of law. If there were some
vicious and irresponsible men among them, who fled from
needed control or merited punishment at home, they were
never strong enough to overwhelm the stern representatives
of order placed by Providence at the head of affairs. Gov-
ernment in some form was clearly recognized in the organi-
zations of companies, in grants and charters at home ; and
the power of control, however falsely conceived or unwisely
located, was, from the first, evident and vigorous. This was
so far civilization, in distinction from barbarism.
A POPULAR GOVERNMENT.
Government by the people came to this land in " The May-
flower," and began at once a career of development which
has never been successfully resisted. The idea of govern-
ment by an oligarchy came to the South earlier. It asserted
hereditary rights, and gathered to itself the power of king
and council, nobles and proprietaries, the church and the
sword. It antagonized and suppressed the will of the peo-
355
356 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
pie ; and the people, in their turn, stood up against it calmly,
but firmly, and wrenched from it one concession after anoth-
er, until, by the struggles of a hundred and fifty years, they
overthrew and utterly destroyed it.
In the mean time, the people were the government in fact,
and of right. It is interesting to observe that the preten-
sions of oligarchy in America have always been subject to
the will of the people, sometimes shrinking from sight to
avoid a storm and the wreck of property interests, and some-
times, with an ill grace, yielding to the claims of constitutional
law. When, however, it exerted ostensible power, it was
obliged first to seduce the people from their allegiance to
God and the right, prostitute them to its own level of
demoralization and injustice, and thus make them the fit
instruments of usurpation and oppression.
But the inchoate United States were never without gov-
ernment by the people. While their legal relations to the
crown of Great Britain were loyally acknowledged, they
arranged promptly and everywhere to supply the defects of
the home government by the quiet organization of their own
power. It may be naturally supposed that those earlier forms
of democratic government were very crude and imperfect;
but whoever studies them carefully will perceive that they
contained nearly all the great principles of justice and the
most profound elements of constitutional law.
The parent government of the Great Kepublic was a pure
democracy, — a government by all the people. They were
few in number, and their acts of legislation were the voice
of the whole. Their great concern was liberty. Oppression
had taught them so thoroughly, and the steady light of
Christianity revealed to them so clearly, the way to obtain
it, that they were resolved from the first that they would
keep in their own hands whatever authority they could
wrest from the grasp of the king. It may be regarded as
strange that they did not bring with them a love of monar-
chy so strong that it would be their first and only thought,
DEVELOPMENT OF GOVERNMENT. 357
as the power of the king of England so far declined as to
suggest the possibility, and at length the necessity, of Amer-
ican independence. But it was exactly and sternly other-
wise. The entire period of preparation was, as we have
seen, pervaded by the idea of a democracy. The public acts
of the people all indicated the conviction that they were
their own rulers; that no man was ever born to be king
over them. So clear and general and lasting was this im-
pression, that we must refer it to the providence of God.
It availed nothing with the statesmen of these early times
to suggest that all attempts at republican government had
been utter failures ; that the people were too ignorant and
selfish to establish a firm and enlightened government.
Something within them said, " We are free, and no man or
number of men shall wrest our liberties from us : others
could not, but we can govern ourselves. Paganism could
form no bond of union strong enough to hold the republics
of Greece and Rome together ; but Christianity can do for us
what no other system of religion ever did, ever could do,
for any people. God will help us, and we can be free."
They had heard a solemn voice pronounce the potent word,
"Ephrata!" and their eyes were open. They could see that
a new dispensation of government was dawning upon the
race; that they were the vanguard of liberty in a new
world : and with the vision came a feeling of power that
was too mighty for the despotism of the old and dying past.
This was God, slowly bringing to the inhabitants of earth
the knowledge of the fact that he is the Sovereign of na-
tions; that the regeneration originates a new and all-per-
vading sense of justice ; and this alone realized the idea
and the fact of equality among men, and complete subordi-
nation to the will of God. Here it was to be demonstrated
that " He whose right it is to reign would reign until he had
put all enemies under his feet." The doctrine of liberty
and of equal rights is wrapped up in this announcement;
is utterly and forever inseparable from it.
358 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
But this, with every other great truth, was militant in
America. It must fight for its place among the philosophies
and politics of its times ; and so it did through the genera-
tions, achieving its progressive and final triumphs amid the
sweat and grime, the tears and blood, of battling ages. But
its triumph is at length complete. The people, the whole
people, are the acknowledged rulers of the Great Republic.
A REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT.
It soon became, of course, impossible for the people to
assemble en masse for purposes of legislation and adminis-
trative law ; and they were sufficiently sensible to adopt a
system of representation. The great legal maxim, " What
a man does by another he does himself," was well under-
stood : and hence the great " town-meetings," which were
available for local purposes, became convenient for the
earliest use of the elective franchise ; and the orderly use
of the ballot chose men to whom matters of general interest
to neighborhoods could be submitted.
These contiguous colonies had interests in common ; and
they could not meet as a whole for the settlement of colonial
policy, but they could meet by their representatives. Hence
conventions and commissions of various kinds began to
struggle with this immense problem of unity, and com-
menced the search, through mists and darkness profound,
for those subtle principles and spheres of prerogatives
which belonged to the whole, and to separate them from
duties and powers which were local in their rights and
necessities.
This was not only convenient on account of numbers, but
it was indispensable for the security of wisdom. These grave
deliberations upon matters vital to the commonwealth could
thus be intrusted to men of calmer, broader, riper thought
than can be expected from the great whole of any com-
munity. And such men were here. Men of long and pro-
DEVELOPMENT OF GOVEKNMENT. 359
found experience in problems of State came with the earliest
settlers ; and it is of intense interest now to mark the shrink-
ing diffidence with which these great men accepted positions
of trust actually thrust upon them by the will and necessities
of the people.
We must, however, concede that the true idea of repre-
sentation has been slow in reaching its exact definitions and
place in this Republic. It was a grand propriety that
assumed from the first that a Christian man was, all other
things being equal, far the most eligible for official rank ;
that true religion would qualify a man for the better, safer
exercise of the elective franchise : but it was a narrow judg-
ment that disfranchised all others, and a still narrower
opinion that excluded from the right of the ballot all Chris-
tians, however pure, unless they were members of a particular
church. Property qualifications were more naturally sug-
gested, but they were not consistent with republican equali-
ty of rights; nor could it ever be made to appear that either
wisdom or patriotism dwelt alone in the purse. Still more
absurd was the notion, that the right of the vote depended
upon the color of the skin ; as though honesty and fidelity,
social wants and available intelligence, were of the com-
plexion rather than of the soul. And the extreme of all
absurdity and injustice was the idea that disfranchised slaves
should become the basis of free representation, and that the
same arbitrary minds which should rob the black man of his
inborn rights should confer these rights upon themselves.
From all these ideas, foreign to the doctrine of liberty, it
has been necessary to free the people. It may seem strange
to us that they could ever obtain rank and influence, in any
part of our country, with those who seemed predestined by
Providence as the pioneers of representative liberty. But
we must again come to the remembrance of the great fact,
so frequently recurring in these discussions, that every great
principle must have its conflicts ; that this is the trial state
for all political virtue: and then the slow development of
360
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
the great law of universal right, in a government of repre-
sentation from the governed, will become intelligible, how-
ever impatient may have been our waiting.
With our rapidly-increasing millions of population and
wealth, representation has not only become clearer in truth
and broader in spirit, but more extended in reach and irre-
sistible in eifect. In our municipal and civil bodies, our legis-
lative, judicial, and executive departments of the states and
the nation, representation receives its contents, significance,
and responsibilities from the personal rights and conse-
quence of thirty-four millions of freemen, and all their vast
interests of education, religion, and commerce. Our consuls
in every port, and our ministers plenipotentiary abroad, rep-
resent the moral power of living, growing millions, rapidly
accumulating wealth, pure, free Christianity, inviolable unity,
unparalleled energy, and an invincible army and navy. In
this vital potency, the government of the Great Republic is
everywhere. It reaches to the ends of the earth, to protect
its citizens, and seize its criminals. Well may its represen-
tatives feel that their country confers on them high honor,
and that, in their humblest mission, they are rendered truly
great. Well may the American citizen mention his nation
anywhere with feelings of honorable satisfaction and sus-
tained confidence.
A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT.
A careful study of the growth of American history will re-
veal the curious but important fact, that Providence rendered
necessary all the essential measures for organizing liberty.
Left to themselves, the people would have been quite satis-
fied with government by towns or neighborhoods, or, at
most, of single colonies. But God permitted danger to be-
come one of the first of all the combining forces. They soon
found it unsafe to exist in fragmentary communities. The
savages were too hostile and powerful. They must combine ;
DEVELOPMENT OF GOVERNMENT. 361
and, to do this, they must find those subtle, common interests
and rights which constitute the larger unities.
There were, moreover, questions of boundary and juris-
diction, not between themselves merely, but between the ho-
mogeneous English colonists and the French from the North
and North-west, the Dutch from the Hudson, and the Span-
iards from the South and South-west. Encroachments from
all directions demanded defence, — first by diplomacy, and
then, as they thought, by the sword. Defence required con-
federacy ; and, however obstinate and threatening internal
rivalry and collision, the pressure of invasion from with-
out was allowed to increase until union was an absolute ne-
cessity, and sectional jealousies were held in abeyance by
extreme peril from menacing or actual hostile invasions.
The English colonies, therefore, went into the great French
and Indian wars a unit, which was the foreshadowing
and the actual beginning of the great union which made
them a nation.
The common danger from the tyranny of the home gov-
ernment, as we have before seen, tended strongly to the
same result. If, when one class of dangers subsided, the
colonies showed again the internal repulsions that threat-
ened to break the tender ties which began to bind them
together, and destroy the divine plans of organic, vital
union, then God allowed the prompt development of new
dangers to absorb colonial interest; and immediately these
tender, fretted ties began to grow again. And thus it has
been as generations have come and gone. Our unity has
been fostered by our perils from the rivalry and hostility of
other nations.
But the larger, broader unity, which indicated national
power, appeared and disappeared alternately during the pe-
riod of preparation. In the mean time, narrower local
boundaries, on the basis of colonial neighborhood, began to
reveal themselves more and more distinctly ; and, at the
declaration of independence, thirteen distinct Common-
3G2 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
wealths, or States, appeared with the forms of local, inde-
pendent governments well defined, all for reasons of de-
fence against enemies who interfered in various ways w-ith
the providential purposes of a free government. Hence
arose our grand civil and political system, — State con-
stitutions, State legislatures, judicial and legislative func-
tions, with their high incumbents, all occupying their seats
of power by the free election, and during the will, of the
people. To these original thirteen were added from time to
time the free civil organizations of new States, North and
West, South and South-west, until thirty-seven States are
now organic and vital, with well-defined republican forms of
government. This great result, we have seen, has arisen from
the ideas of defence which first brought contiguous colonies
into close confederation; which made the protection of their
own firesides and property, their harbors and liberties, first
in importance and in order of time. The convictions which
gave paramount consideration to common dangers and des-
tiny arose subsequently, leaving the organizations which
were first for local protection free in the period of develop-
ment, to devote themselves to the advancement of produc-
tive industries, education, and commerce. With respect to
the Great Republic, they simply form component parts of
an organic whole, and provide wisely for all the advantages
of a division of labor.
One of the evidences of divine control in the organization
of this government is in the fact that actual unity existed
before it was known to the people. God. who had called
these separate colonies to this virgin land, arranged the
elements of a grand Union, far in advance of the concep-
tions of man. Common blood, common sufferings, common
dangers, and a common destinv, <>Taduallv brought to the
O J v s \ */
nation of colonists the great good sense of harmony, and
ultimately the unsuspected fact that they were one nation.
God had predetermined this result; and he would super-
intend all the jealous rivalries, the bitter sectional auimosi-
DEVELOPMENT OF GOVERNMENT. 363
ties, which were in the way of its realization. He would
clear up the vision of the people, and slowly unfold to their
view the plan of a great organic national life.
On the morning of the 5th of September, 1774, the
first Continental Congress assembled in Carpenter's Hall,
Philadelphia. There were forty-four and soon fifty-two
delegates from all " the old thirteen " except Georgia. Here
were many of the great founders of our free institutions,
and they argued with the skill of experienced statesmen.
Richard Henry Lee said, " Our rights are built on a fourfold
foundation, — on Nature, on the British Constitution, on char-
ters, and on immemorial usages. The Navigation Act is a cap-
ital violation of them all." " There is no allegiance without
protection," said John Jay ; " and emigrants have a right to
erect what government they please. I have always with-
held my assent from the position, that every man discover-
ing land does it for the State to which he belongs." Roger
Sherman declared, " The colonies are not bound to the king
or crown by the act of settlement, but by their consent to
it. There is no other legislature over them but their
respective assemblies. They adopt the common law, not
as the common law, but as the highest reason." " But Rut-
ledge thought that the British Constitution gave them a
sufficient foundation; and Duane, that the law of Nature
would be a feeble support." *
After a severe struggle, it was resolved to vote by colo-
nies; and thus the equal rights of the future small States
were conceded. A plan of compromise was introduced by
Galloway, proposing a union between Great Britain and the
colonies, " so ingeniously defended, that even the clear-
headed Jay was led to adopt it." This gave it influence,
and it only failed by one vote. This was another of our
providential escapes, not the last time that God interfered
to save the American people from the danger of compro-
mises when a great principle was involved.
* Greene, pp. 84, 85.
364
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
From this Congress went out a "bill of rights," an
address to the king, another to the people of Great Britain,
one to the British Provinces, and one to the Province of
Quebec. " When your lordships," said Lord Chatham, " look
at the papers transmitted to us from America, when you
consider their decency, firmness, and wisdom, you cannot
but respect the cause, and wish to make it your own." The
memory of Lord Chatham is dear to the heart of every
American. " Non-importation, non-exportation, non-con-
sumption " of British goods were the high-souled resolves
which went out from this Congress. " Negotiation, suspen-
sion of commerce, and war," said Jay, " are the only three
things. War is, by general consent, to be waived at present.
I am for negotiation, and suspension of commerce."
The most important effect of these grave deliberations
had been to reveal and strengthen the union of the colo-
nies, which more distinctly indicated the existence of a new
nation on this continent. Josiah Quincy wrote, " Permit
me to congratulate my countrymen upon the integrity and
wisdom with which the Congress have conducted. Their
policy, spirit, and union have confounded their foes and
inspired their friends."
Before adjournment, provision was made for calling
another Congress. The War of the Revolution commenced,
and the representatives of the people were again called
together. They met on the 10th of May, 1775, in the State
House in Philadelphia, that grand old Hall of Independence,
still well preserved, and sacred in the feelings of the Ameri-
can nation.
This was the Congress from which came, as we have seen
in another part of this work, the Declaration of Independ-
ence and the old Articles of Confederation, and which fought
the great battles of diplomacy resulting in the acknowledg-
ment of our national independence. It had been irregularly
constituted. There were no general laws of representation,
nor election ; there was no constitution. It was necessary,
DEVELOPMENT OF GOVERNMENT. 365
that, by whatever bodies elected, they should honestly repre-
sent their constituents ; that they should have the confidence
of the people, so far as that, willing or reluctant, confiding
or doubting, they would respect them as the rulers of
the land. It must be a voluntary or conceded obedience.
Force could not be the method of law, nor the means of
loyalty. There would be criticism, just and unjust; there
would be wild and fiery spirits to manage. Men from dif-
ferent regions, with various prejudices, must yield to the
government of men. most of whom they had never known.
They must surrender many of their most cherished opinions,
and go to slaughter and death at the command of this
body, cautiously assuming legislative, executive, and judicial
responsibilities forced upon them by invisible power. How
was all this to be done ? This was God's question, and
clearly did he answer it. He held the brain of the nation
steady during all these perilous days and years, and brought
order out of chaos, revealing his governing hand in the grad-
ual formation and progressive development of an organic
nation.
It will, however, be seen that the exigencies of war had
been the means of this political organization and unity.
For mere defence and internal growth, civil governments
had been instituted in the different colonies, founding thir-
teen States. But what was at first only resistance to force
for self-preservation had now risen to the dignity of a war
for national existence and rights. God had so far made the
wrath of man to praise him as to compel the declaration of
independence, as the result of long-continued acts of British
oppression; and at length, by murderous injustice and cruel
war, he would allow the continuance of oppression under
the same sovereign control, until the people had risen,
through discipline and blood, to the power of self-govern-
ment; and the remainder of wrath he would restrain.
The return of peace removed the outside pressure which
had forced the people together. Individual independent
366 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
interests and sectional jealousies, as we have seen, rose up
in anger to assert their rights ; and God still had in charge
the problem of consolidating and developing a political
government suited to a great and free nation, — a problem
which rose immediately and distinctly above the reach of
human wisdom and power.
A RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT.
The growth of ideas in the Republic, from the first inau-
guration of Washington, is most remarkable ; and, in this
country, ideas are power. The exigencies of the nation
found the government expansive and adjustable to a re-
markable degree. Free discussion in the preliminary assem-
blies, the choice of men under Providence, notwithstanding
the intrigues of demagogues and the perils of great political
crises and vigorous forensic conflicts, with a certain indispen-
sable amount of broad statesmanship, gradually perfected our
system. The powers and duties of the Executive were care-
fully defined by law, so that even, the administration of a
bad President cannot destroy our liberties. The cabinet
grew up with the immense increase of public business, and
surrounded the President with Ministers of State, of War,
and of Finance, with officers in charge of the Post Office
and the business of the Interior. These, with the official
expounder of the public law, became the advisers of the
Executive, the supporters of his legitimate power, and the
administrators of immense departments of public business.
Their associate council might be marred by the perverseness
of an incumbent ; but under the vigilant eye of the Senate
and House of Representatives, and the more jealous watch-
fulness of the people, long progress in any disastrous policy
would be highly improbable, and ultimate ruin morally
impossible. On the whole, the guaranties of the people are
largely increased by these combinations, hardly anticipated
or discoverable by the reason of our wisest men, and there-
fore the more evidently the work of God.
DEVELOPMENT OF GOVERNMENT. 367
It cannot be claimed that executive power is yet per-
fectly defined, nor its necessary limits all clearly known ; but
a President of the United States has only to violate the
spirit of the Constitution, or intimate a disposition to tran-
scend his legitimate prerogatives, to bring out with almost
miraculous promptness and irresistible energy the remedies
lying within the Constitution and the intelligent patriotism
of the nation.
The judiciary of the Republic arose partly out of the
experience of the past and the records of history, but more
out of the emergencies and legal necessities of a growing
people. Very recent modifications show that its forms are
deemed susceptible of improvement ; but its vital functions
are unimpaired. The extreme democratic tendencies of
States, making judges elective directly by the people, and
only for a term of years, is yet an experiment, and may be
reversed. This measure has not been adopted by the
General Government; and there is a feeling %quite general
among the people, that the judges of law ought to be lifted
above the reach of party power and political campaigns.
All this, with every other contingency, can be easily brought
to obey the commands of experience and the will of the
nation.
Collisions between the different departments of the gov-
ernment are known to be possible. Thus far, however, they
have been very rare, and limited to opinions and asserted
rights, without the perpetration of treason. Calmly and
steadily the Government goes on, however great the strain
upon the Constitution, and however imminent the perils
from perverse judgment or sectional strife.
The law-making power of the people represented in Con-
gress may overstep the limits of well-defined powers, only,
however, to be promptly checked by the Supreme Court.
The Executive and Congress may reveal grave differences
in principle and policy ; but both are responsible to the
judiciary, and all, finally, to the people. So far, in the midst
3G8 THE GEE AT REPUBLIC.
of the severest tests ever endured by any government, the
Republic has shown itself capable of resisting its enemies
from without, counteracting its dangerous tendencies from
within, and coming out of every struggle with its principles
better defined, and its effective power largely enhanced.
There is, therefore, nothing in our history to indicate the
probability of our overthrow, or the loss of our liberties,
by the abuse of power.
In the mean time, the period of development, so far as it
has advanced, has witnessed the elimination of many of our
political vices, especially those which tended to sectionalize
our people and intensify personal hostility ; and the founda-
tions now appear of a broader, firmer unity than has ever
before seemed possible. Our civil and political institutions
are more perfectly assimilated ; our mutual responsibilities
are better defined; and from our great extremes, North and
South, East and West, we are drawn more compactly
together than at any former period of our history. Our
increasing millions are becoming more homogeneous in
spirit ; and the feeling of mutual dependence is stronger as
events subject our intelligence and patriotism to severer
tests.
A STRONG GOVERNMENT.
History not unfrequently reverses our judgments. The
most natural suggestion of a free democracy was the largest
possible liberty for the individual and for the local State :
in other words, the concessions to the General Govern-
ment, it was determined, should be as few, and the reserva-
tions as many, as possible. It is not, therefore, matter of
surprise, that at first the conceded prerogatives of the
nation should be utterly inadequate, and that the questions
of power which would inevitably arise would originate
strong and even angry discussions. The old controversy
between Federals and Democrats, and the protracted strug-
gle between State and National rights, were most natural,
DEVELOPMENT OF GOVERNMENT. 369
and really inevitable. Boundaries so obscure as those be-
tween civil and political jurisdictions must, of necessity, be
contested : and, so far as a due degree of moderation was
possible in the contest, it was not to be regretted ; for it
must be conceded that distinctions are so difficult, and sacri-
fices of private and local rights for the national good are so
exacting upon human selfishness, and, moreover, that the
danger of anarchy on the one hand, and despotism on the
other, is so great, that long-continued, searching discussions,
the severest analysis, such as can result from the collisions
of stern intellects only, can bring out the exact truth which
will stand the test of history, and render local and general
government by the whole people practicable and harmo-
nious. All this, we must freely acknowledge, was too criti-
cal and perilous for the conduct of human wisdom ; and yet
the higher gratitude is inspired for the superhuman con-
trol which has prevented our ruin, and gradually revealed
and established the principles of our unity in harmony with
our complete independence. " And as, in every State, each
town, while performing some of the functions of govern-
ment for itself, and possessing all the machinery which the
performance of them required, looked to the State govern-
ment for the performance of other functions, and cheerfully
submitted to the curtailment of municipal authority, and the
partial subordination which such relations towards the State
required ; so was it only by the sacrifice of certain rights
that the States could build up a central power strong enough
to perform for them those indispensable acts of general gov-
ernment which they could not perform for themselves."
Just as certainly, therefore, as the plans of God required
the establishment, on this continent, of a great, free, and in-
dependent nation, so certainly must personal and State
claims, inconsistent with this purpose, yield to the impera-
tive demands of the General Government.
But it was inevitable that the asserted prerogatives of the
* Greene, p. 135.
370 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
subdivisions of our great territory should be bold and demon-
strative. Falsely assuming that States were primary, and
that the authority of the General Government was derived
from the States, to justify the denial of any new claim of the
nation, it was deemed sufficient to show that the States sev-
erally had never made that concession. In the mean time,
the General Government was cautious and paternal, moving
forward slowly, and even timidly, when it might have assert-
ed its rights peremptorily as the paramount law of the land.
It was not from the States, but from the people, that the Re-
public derived its powers. Not a third of the future States
had existence when the people, by the choice of presi-
dential electors, and members of the House of Represen-
tatives, formally assumed the government under the Consti-
tution. While the House of Representatives, without which
government would, of course, be impossible, came directly
from the people, the States, as such, were represented by the
Senate. But the functions of senators were derived from the
people, and they would be compelled to act as component
parts of a popular government ; for the people, not as isolat-
ed members of a State, but as American citizens, as freemen
having rights in common with the whole American nation,
which these senators would be bound to respect, would
reach and control them. Congress would therefore make
States, not be dependent upon and governed by them ;
and when, in the last resort, it became necessary to test and
forever settle the question of relative prerogatives, the peo-
ple, as Americans, would rise up, and put down all sectional
assumptions as against the nation.
It was necessary not only that this security of the Gov-
ernment should be in the original inherent and asserted
rights of its citizens, regardless of state, county, city, and
town* boundaries, but gradually the forms of constitutional
and statute law must be adjusted to this high necessity, so
that disorders might be suppressed, or rebellion put down,
in accordance with the highest dignity and demands of pub-
DEVELOPMENT OF GOVERNMENT. 371
lie order. Hence the Constitution expressly declares Con-
gress shall have power " to declare war, grant letters of
marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on
land and water ; to raise and support armies ; to provide and
maintain a navy; to make rules for the government and reg-
ulation of the land and naval forces ; to provide for calling
forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress
insurrections, and repel invasions ; to provide for organizing,
arming, and disciplining the militia ; " finally, " to make all
laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into
execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested
by this Constitution in the Government of the United States,
or in any department or office thereof."
These are fundamental provisions for a strong govern-
ment ; but the actual strength of the government will de-
pend upon the legislation under this constitution, and the
administration of the laws it enacts. Now, the history of
Congress shows the caution to which we have already re-
ferred ; and when the fears of the people were roused, and
a central despotism began to be dreaded, amendments were
adopted which would secure the people their just rights
against all usurpation : and Congress joined with the sev-
eral States, to say, in effect, that no form of religion should
be established by law ; the freedom of speech and the press,
and the right of petition, should not be abridged ; the peo-
ple should have a right to bear arms ; the houses of citizens
should not be invaded by quartering soldiers upon them in
times of peace, nor, in war, contrary to law. Amendments
were adopted to guarantee the people against unreasonable
search; to secure the rights of justice through a grand jury,
and of trial by a jury of their countrymen ; to forbid that
they should be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without
due process of law ; and to save them from excessive bail,
fines, and cruel and unreasonable punishment. The rights
enumerated should "not be construed to deny or dispar-
age others retained by the people;" and it was said ex-
372 TTTR GREAT REPUBLIC.
pressly, that " the powers not delegated to the United States
by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are
reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Let it thus be observed, that with the highest sense of
justice, and with the utmost paternal care, the Government
of the United States guards the rights of the people. But
let it also be observed, that it does this in such a manner as
to reserve and strengthen the central power required to vin-
dicate those rights, and secure the integrity of the nation in-
violate. For instance, the right of the people to bear arms
still left the Articles intact conceding to Congress the control
of the militia, and making " the President Commander-in-
chief of the army and navy of the United States, and of the
militia of the several States when called into actual service
of the United States." The reserved rights not to be in-
fringed were those " retained by the people ; " and, what all
fair construction must allow to be completely destructive of
the absurd doctrine of State sovereignty as against the Gen-
eral Government, the Tenth Article of Amendments speaks
of " powers not delegated to the United States by the Consti-
tution, nor prohibited by it (the Constitution) to the States ; "
or, in other words, the powers not necessary for the full and
vigorous exercise of the General Government " are reserved
to the States respectively, or to the people." But the sover-
eignty was in the Constitution, and the General Government
the judge. Fully to sustain the argument of this chapter,
to show that this permanent sovereignty of the nation was
derived from the people, and not from the States, we have
only to refer to the preamble of the Constitution, — " We the
people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect
union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide
for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and
secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and posterity, do
ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States
of America." " The people " ordain the Constitution : the
Constitution, with its necessary and ample provisions for
DEVELOPMENT OF GOVEKNMENT. 373
amendments, is the definition of the powers delegated to the
United States by the people, and of the acts which the States
are not permitted to do. All other powers " are reserved to
the States respectively, or to the people."
In the light of these amendments, the prohibition of all
State acts, and the exercise of all powers which could in any
wise interfere with the permanent sovereignty of the nation,
becomes very evident.
Article I., section 10, reads, " No State shall enter into any
treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and
reprisal ; coin money ; emit bills of credit ; make any thing
but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts ; pass
any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the
obligations of contracts ; or grant any title of nobility.
" No State shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay
any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what
may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection-
laws ; and the net produce of all duties and imposts laid by
any State on imports or exports shall be for the use of the
treasury of the United States ; and all such laws shall be
subject to the revision and control of the Congress.
" No State shall, without consent of Congress, lay any
duty of tonnage, keep troops or ships of war in time of peace,
enter into any agreement or compact with another State
or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually
invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of
delay."
How utterly incompatible all this is with every act of
secession, and all such assumptions of " State rights " as have
been relied upon to justify treason, all who can read or
understand must know.
One thing more. " The writ of habeas corpus " is a very
sacred privilege ; but the founders of our government fore-
saw that contingencies might arise in which this privilege
would seriously interfere with the administration of justice
or the prompt suppression of rebellion. The Constitution
374 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
therefore provided that " the privilege of the writ of habeas
corpus shall not be suspended, unless when, in cases of rebel-
lion or invasion, the public safety may require it." Then, of
course, it may and ought to be suspended.
Let the provisions for an effective government now be care-
fully summed up as follows : The people as a nation are an
organic unit. They are so, not by the loss of their individu-
ality or personal rights, but by the maintenance of them.
They have made their own government, and are pleased with
it. They have thrown around it such guards, and so imbued
it with their own life, that no man, nor number of men, can
by any possibility destroy it, unless by actual force. It is
invested, therefore, with the strength of all our growing mil-
lions, acting under control of common principles and one
common life. In its fullest expression, this is the will of God
as manifested in the mental constitution and fortified by rev-
elation, — the free responsible action of the human soul.
" With Christianity came individual rights as the necessary
consequence of individual responsibilities ; the right of decid-
ing and acting for self in civil society, as a necessary conse-
quence of the obligation to answer for self at the bar of
God."* How these freemen have considered it proper to
use this right, we have seen ; and a grand consolidated Re-
public rises up before us as the result.
It is now more distinctly understood than heretofore that
our .government must be strong a§ well as free. Our ex-
tended domain, and still more extended commercial and dip-
lomatic relations, suggest it, and the ambition of sectional
leaders demonstrates it. The government of the United
States is strong in the freedom, the affections, the union, the
moral power, of its people : hence it is, that, when the exi-
gencies of the nation demand it, immense armies, sustained
by inexhaustible resources of wealth, intelligence, and vir-
tue, can be commanded with unprecedented promptness, and
concentrated in unparalleled energy. If the people find
* Greene, p. 109.
DEVELOPMENT OF GOVEKNMENT. 375
obstructions in their way, they remove them. If usurpers
attempt to destroy their national unity, they crush them ac-
cording to due forms of law. When enemies become peni
tent and harmless, the sovereign people are magnanimous.
This is what we mean by a strong government. When all
citizens, in time of danger, are soldiers and patriots by in-
stinct, and the government is invested with full power to
command them at discretion, and the reign of God over the
career and destiny of the Republic is the most sacred faith
of the people, we may well adopt the words at the beginning
of this chapter: "A true democracy has at last established
itself, that not only develops an intenser centralization than
despotism ever boasted, but that develops and also vindicates
it by a completer freedom than could ever before be permit-
ted."
On the fourth day of July, 1776, the grandest fact in history
was the Declaration of American Independence. Less than
a hundred years have passed ; and the exclamation, " I am an
American citizen," has become the proudest claim and surest
guaranty possible to a human being.
CHAPTER IV.
DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNAL RESOURCES.
" The more a man is versed in business, the more he finds the hand of Providence
everywhere." — CHATHAM.
THE field to be surveyed in this chapter is very large.
The facts condensed from a great variety of sources are
of the greatest importance to the American people, and
fundamental to our argument. The materials are ample for
a volume ; but those which properly belong to this historical
discussion may be brought within the compass of a few
pages.
It is not material from which census of American products
we gather our figures. The decade now passing, and ending
with 1870, will furnish many startling facts, showing the
growth of the country during the great war of emancipa-
tion, which will increase the scope of the argument, bringing
out the plans and acts of God in the great American system.
We have, however, now before us more than we are likely to
comprehend or appreciate.
PRODUCTS OF THE SOIL.
The soil is the first grand source of American wealth.
Farming is the most natural and most important occupation
of large numbers of our people. The census of 1860 shows,
that, out of 8,217,000, more than 3,000,000 were engaged
in this department of industry. The proportion exceeds
one-third of all heads of families and others laboring for
themselves. In the year above named, there were improved
370
DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNAL KESOURCES. 3fJ
lands, 116,110,720 acres; lands enclosed, but not improved,
244,101,818 acres; outside lands, a large proportion tillable,
1,466,969,862 acres.
The farms of the Republic in 1850 were estimated at
$3,271,575,000; in 1860, $6,645,045,000, — an increase of
a hundred and three per cent in ten years.
It cannot be claimed that agriculture has reached any
thing like perfection in the United States. The farms are
so large, so many productions are so nearly spontaneous,
and the lands, with even negligent cultivation, produce so
abundantly, and withal the price of labor is so high, that the
people generally lack the stimulus felt in England to make
the most of every foot of ground. Enough progress, it is
true, has been made in agricultural chemistry, and the use
of fertilizers, to show that American lands respond to the
various modes of scientific farming as generously as the
most highly-cultivated lands of Europe, and to show that
the capabilities of the soil are practically without limits.
But our productions, notwithstanding our negligence in
cultivation, and waste in harvesting, are actually enormous.
The following tables show the produce of 1860 : —
Wheat, bushels, .... 173,104,924
Indian Corn, , 838,792,740
Oats, , 172,643,185
Barley, „ 15,825,898
Buckwheat, , 15,571,818
Pease and Beans, „ 15,061,995
Bye, „ . . . . 21,101,380
Potatoes, „ • . . . 111,148,867
Sweet Potatoes, , 42,095,026
Clover-seed, „ 956,188
Grass-seed, „ 900,040
Flax-seed, „ . . . . 566,867
Wine, gallons, .... 1,627,242
Cane Molasses, 15,000,000
Maple „ „ 1,597,000
Sorghum „ „ 6,749,123
Wool, pounds, . . . 60,264,913
48
378
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
Butter, pounds, .
. 460,000,000
103,663,927
10,991,996
Flax, „
4,720,145
Tobacco, ,,
. 434,209,461
Rice, ,,
. 187,107,032
Ginned Cotton, ,, . .
. 2,104,096,500
Silk Cocoon, ,,
11,944
Maple-sugar, ,,
Cane ,, ,,
. 40,120,205
. 230,982,000
Honey.
Beeswax, ,,
. 23,366,357
1,322,787
Hay, tons,
19,083,896
Hemp, ,,
Orchard Produce, value, dollars,
74,493
. 20,000,000
Market ,, ,, ,,
. 16,159,498
Animals slaughtered, ,, ,,
Home-made Manufactures, ,, ,,
. 213,618,692
. 24,546,876
It ought to be stated that the most rapid increase of
products from the soil is in our great North-west. Take a
few facts in illustration of this unparalleled growth. Grain
and flour were shipped from Milwaukie, Wis., as follows : —
Tear.
1841
1845
1850
1852
1855
1860
1862
Bushels.
4,000
143,260
820,033
1,772,753
3,758,900
9,995,000
18,712,380
Shipments eastward from Michigan ports, chiefly from
Chicago : —
Year.
1858
1859
1860
1861
1862
1863
Bushels.
27,879,293
25,829,753
43,211,448
69,489,113
78,214,675
74,710,664
DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNAL RESOURCES. 379
" The production of grain in the North-western States
of America is estimated to have increased from 218,463,583
bushels in 1840 to 642,120,366 bushels in 1860. The eight
food-producing States west of the Lakes embrace an area
of 262,549,000 acres, of which only 52,000,000 acres were
under cultivation in 1860. Having regard to the rapid
progress of cultivation, and the immense extent of territory
remaining to be tilled, I think it is not to be questioned that
there is ample room and scope for increased production ; in
fact, I look upon the exportation of grain from these States
as only to be limited by want of facilities for transporta-
tion." *
California, so recently considered valuable only for its
extensive gold-fields, now raises large quantities of grain in
excess of the wants of her population. " In 1861, the export
of wheat from San Francisco amounted to 2,379,617 bushels,
valued at $2,550,820 ; and the export of flour to 186,455
barrels, valued at $1,001,894. In 1863, California is esti-
mated to have produced 11,664,000 bushels of wheat, and
5,293,000 bushels of barley."
In 1866, large numbers on the Atlantic slope received
their bread for months from the vast and splendid ranches
of California, where an average of forty bushels of wheat to
the acre is not at all unusual. In cereals, vegetables, and
fruit, the productions of this State are unrivalled, and almost
incredible.
California is one of the greatest grazing countries in the
world. Its foothills and mountains are covered with wild
oats, which furnish a very rich food for cattle, horses, and
sheep. On the coast, and far back into the interior, the
various grains and grasses cure on the stalk ; and the cattle
grow fat on them during the long drought of the summer.
The cattle-ranches take in thousands of acres each, on the
mountains, of such land as would be of no value in the
East ; while the vast old Spanish ranches, leagues in extent,
* Resources and Prospects of America, by Sir Morton Peto, pp. 56-58.
380
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
cover the valleys, and are occupied by thousands of sheep
and cattle, under the care of " herders," who stay with them
constantly. In 1863, there were 3,000,000 sheep in Cali-
fornia, since which the flocks have increased immensely.
The number of horses in this State advanced in ten years
from 27,719 to 160,610. Cattle have increased in propor-
tion; and in every class of domestic animals are included
some of the bestrblooded stock in the world.
In the United States, in 1860, we numbered 87,000,483
useful live animals, estimated at $1,089,329,915. Our
immense grazing-fields are therefore easily converted into
wealth, in the form of wool, hides, butter, cheese, &c. This
resource of the United States is capable of indefinite
increase.
Our vast surplus of Indian corn is easily converted into
ready money by fattening our herds of swine. Exact esti-
mates here are difficult ; but it is approximately true to say,
that, in the year of the last census, some 3,000,000 were
slaughtered, their estimated value being $35,000,000. To
this sum add $15,000,000, the cost of packing and trans-
portation, and this one department of trade reaches $50,-
000,000; while the value of all the animals slaughtered
in the United States in 1860 amounted to $213,000,000.
The products of the great Southern staples deserve special
mention. Cotton, spinning-jennies, and Whitney's cotton-
gin, connect us with the largest industries of the world. In
1820, we produced 430,000 bales of cotton ; in 1850, 2,755,-
257 bales ; in 1860, 4,675,770 bales, or 2,104,096,500 pounds.
The cash value of this product, from 1850 to 1855, amounted
to $491,477,517.
MANUFACTURES AND MACHINES.
We are not professedly a manufacturing people. The
country is too large, there are too many departments of
productive industry, and labor is too high. Our citizens
are, moreover, too much averse to routine and fixed posi-
DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNAL RESOURCES. 381
tions to make the best use of their mechanical powers. -In
Europe, restrictions to certain trades amount almost to caste,
and in Asia quite. The father's employment becomes that
of the son, and so on, generation after generation. The
boy sees little but his father's trade, knows little else. He
begins to learn it by observation as soon as he is capable of
intelligent perception. He grows up with fellow-craftsmen,
hears hardly any thing else, and, at a lawful age, sits down
to his seven-years' trade as a matter of course. England is
in this way turned into one vast workshop. Hence, also,
the great skill in manufacturing costly fabrics acquired in
France, Belgium, Germany, and Thibet.
But it is quite otherwise in America. Here, if the boy
does not like the trade of his father (and he is pretty sure not
to like it), he immediately looks for something else ; and
hereditary skill and experience are very generally lost If
he does not take a fancy to the occupation he has chosen, he
dashes off, and tries something else. Then there is a species
of personal ambition and pride which is quite American ; and,
though it may lead to good results in some instances, it is
very likely to be injurious. Every child expects to rise
higher than his parents. He knows he has better oppor-
tunities for education. He wishes a more elevated, or
at least a more lucrative, employment. He has no idea,
therefore, of settling down on the old homestead, and making
a life-drudgery of his father's trade. He will be off for the
West, or to the city, or to the gold-fields of California. He
has an idea that he may be in the Legislature or Congress
yet; that he shall come back, a governor or, president, to
visit his parents, and confer honor upon them in their old
age. At least, he expects to become a great merchant and
a millionnaire, a lawyer, minister, doctor, school-teacher, or
politician, and in some way rise to distinction and useful-
ness, or, at the very worst, get his living by his wits.
Now, these changing, experimenting, rushing tendencies
produce a few great men, but many more failures. They
382
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
give vigor and rapidity of development to the nation, but,
it may be feared, at the expense of solid virtue and patient
perfection. If a hundred to one of our young men would
be content with the avocations of honest industry to which
they are suited, there would be much more stability and
happiness, and a much stronger development of the mind
and heart and wealth of the nation.
But, at all events, it may be asked, "How are a large
relative number of splendid mechanics and a manufacturing
people to be made of our hot-brained American youth?"
It may be fairly answered, that this is impossible. But there
will, nevertheless, be a real and considerable success from
American genius and tact, and an ample accession of trained
artisans from abroad. So far has this providential arrange-
ment for compensation proceeded, as to make our past
highly respectable, and to render all necessary independ-
ence certain in the future.
The manufacture of cotton fabrics in the United States
has increased rapidly. New England, in 1860, employed
3,959,297 spindles, using 237,844,854 pounds of cotton,
producing goods valued at $80,301,535; the Middle
States, 861,661 spindles, 75,055,666 pounds, value of goods,
$26,272,111 ; in the remaining States, this class of fabrics
manufactured amounted to $8,564,280. In the whole
country, we employed that year 45,315 males and 73,605
females, making 118,920 operatives; an increase of 20,964
in ten years. The value of our cotton manufactures for
the year was $115,137,926 ; an advance of 76 per cent since
1850.
In the manufacture of woollen and mixed goods, in 1860,
we employed a capital of $35,520,527 ; 28,780 males, and
20,120 females; 639,700 spindles, and 16,075 looms, work-
ing up 80,000,000 pounds of wool, with 16,008,625 of cotton.
The value of the raw material was $40,360,300 ; and of the
manufactured goods, $68,865,963 ; an increase of fifty-one
per cent in ten years.
DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNAL RESOURCES. 383
"The total value of domestic manufactures (including
fisheries and the products of the mines), according to the
census of 1850, was $1,109,106,616. The product of the
same branches for the year ending June 1, 1860," would
reach " an aggregrate value of nineteen hundred millions of
dollars; an increase of more than eighty-six per cent in
ten years, exceeding the increase of even the white popu-
lation by a hundred and twenty-three per cent."
Our various manufactories have thus given " employment
to about 1,100,000 men and 285,000 women, or 1,385,000
persons ; and direct support to 4,847,500 persons, or nearly
one-sixth of the entire population."
These facts exalt our manufacturing interests, far above
the popular estimate, to the first rank of importance among
the industries of the country.
Extensive manufactures carry with them a large amount
of machine-making. Our ample steam and water power
are made extensively available by our skilful machinists for
the production of enormous wealth. " The construction of
hydraulic machinery, of stationary and locomotive steam-
engines, and all the machinery used in mines, mills, fur-
naces, forges, and factories, in the building of roads, bridges,
canals, railways, &c., and for all other purposes of the
engineer and manufacturer," produced returns from "ma-
chinists' and millwrights' establishments, in 1850, amounting
to $27,998,344; and in 1860, not including the sewing-
machine, to $47,118,550."
The proud distinction of inventing the sewing-machine
belongs to America. It is an invention of the greatest prac-
tical importance. " It has opened avenues to profitable and
healthful industry for thousands of industrious females, to
whom the labors of the needle had become wholly unre-
munerative, and injurious in their effects." The manufac-
ture and sale of the machines has become a lucrative busi-
ness. In 1860, in nine States, 116,330 machines were made,
worth $5,605,345. In 1861, we exported machines to the
amount of over $61,000.
384
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
The value of clothing made in twelve States and the
District of Columbia rose, chiefly by the power of this in-
valuable machine, from $43,678,802 in 1850 to $64,002,975
in 1860 ; an increase of $20,324,173, or seventy-three per
cent, in ten years.
The rapid progress of the Americans in the invention
of labor-saving machines, largely employed in the various
departments of husbandry, is worthy of special attention.
Though the honor of inventing and bringing first to
practical use the threshing-machine belongs fairly to the
Scotchmen Michael Menzies and Andrew Meikle, the idea
soon thoroughly seized the practical American mind. In
1833, a strange instrument, invented by Obed Hussey of
Ohio, it was said, " cradled wheat as fast as eight persons
could bind it." Within the brief period which has since
elapsed, inventions and improvements in machinery have
wrought a complete revolution in the despatch and economy
of farming in America. Fairs and exhibitions have greatly
stimulated the spirit of invention ; and " the Great Exhibi-
tion of 1851 " placed American implements for farming uses
at the head of the world.
In 1850, the value of our manufactures in this depart-
ment amounted to $6,842,611. In 1860, the amount rose
to $17,802,514; an increase of one hundred and sixty per
cent.
The value of agricultural implements employed in the
United States in 1860 reached $246,118,141. You may
add for wagons, carts, and wheelbarrows, $11,796,991 ; mak-
ing an aggregate of $257,915,132. Cotton-gins, hoes, shovels,
spades, and forks, are omitted.
PRECIOUS METALS.
" On the nineteenth day of January, 1848, ten days before
the treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo, James W. Marshall, while
engaged in digging a race for a sawmill at Caloma, about
DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNAL RESOURCES. 385
thirty-five miles eastward from Sutter's Fort, found some
pieces of yellow metal, which he and the half-dozen men
working with him supposed to be gold." He collected a
large number of specimens, and submitted them to Isaac
Humphrey, an experienced miner from Georgia, who saw, at
a glance the evidence of " rich diggings." He went to the
locality of Marshall's discovery, and immediately commenced
washing out the precious metal, making an ounce or two a
day. Others, of course, promptly joined him, using pans, or
" rockers " of their own construction. On the 15th of March,
the following announcement was made in the California
paper at San Francisco : —
"In the newly-made raceway of the sawmill recently
erected by Capt. Sutter, on the American Fork, gold has
been found in considerable quantities. One person brought
thirty dollars to New Helvetia, gathered there in a short
time." This vast country now belonged to the United
States ; and Americans were beginning to look through it to
see what were the prospects for future wealth in this new
addition to the Great Republic. Of course, the above
announcement produced a stir among them; and, on the
29th of May, the same papeT announced its suspension, and
said, " The whole country from San Francisco to Los Ange-
les, and from the seashore to the base of the Sierra Nevada,
resounds with the sordid cry of ' Gold, gold, gold ! ' while the
field is left half planted, the house half built, and every thing
neglected but the manufacture of picks and shovels, and
the means of transportation to the spot, where one man
obtained a hundred and twenty-eight dollars' worth of the
real stuff in one day's washing; and the average for all
concerned is twenty dollars per diem."
From this the excitement spread abroad through every
part of the United States and in foreign countries ; and 1849
became distinguished as the year of the hegira to the New
Eldorado, and the beginning of a new era in the wealth of
the United States and the basis of commerce.
49
386 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
The processes adopted for obtaining the precious metal
illustrated the American genius. Scientific mining was not
known. But various inventions and unparalleled enter-
prise supplied all defects. The pan, the rocker, the torn,
the flume, the shaft, the tunnel, the prospecting, the wander-
ing and rushing from place to place, the ditches, the dams,
the turning of rivers, the quarrying of quartz, the stamps,
the blankets, the vats, the races, the quicksilver, the
blasting, the hydraulics, and innumerable other methods of
gathering the shining dust, all indicated the passionate vio-
lence and the unconquerable energy of the American people.
Towns sprang up in the gulches and on the foot-hills ; the
beds of rivers were explored for miles and miles ; whole re-
gions were torn up by the blast, the pick, the shovel, and the
hose ; hills and small mountains were literally blown or washed
to pieces ; and the mining-belt stretched the length of the
Pacific coast, and far up on the Sierras. Europeans and
Asiatics mingled in the strife ; and the population of the
State increased with unprecedented rapidity.
Mining processes have at length become much more regu-
lar and economical. New inventions have superseded not
only the rustic implements of 1849 and 1850, but the best
heretofore known ; and though many of the metallurgic pro-
cesses established by science have yet to be introduced for
separating the precious metals from their ores, and exhaust-
ing the localities prematurely abandoned, it must be admitted,
that, as a whole, the processes of mining for gold and silver
have advanced rapidly under the inventive genius of the
American mind.
The discovery of silver in Washoe is an event of historic
importance. Gold was found in Gold Canon, a little tribu-
tary of Carson River, in 1849. Miners, however, did not like
the locality. There was so much silver mixed with the gold
as to reduce the price of dust to from ten to twelve dollars
per ounce, whereas " that obtained from the western slope of
the Sierra usually sold for seventeen or eighteen dollars."
DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNAL RESOURCES. 387
In 1859, a quartz lode was found on what is now known
as Goldhill. " Two months later, some miners, in following
up a placer-bed in which the gold was mixed with about an
equal weight of silver, came on the lode from which the
metal had been washed down." This was the famous " Coin-
stock Lode," the discovery of which formed Virginia City
and the State of Nevada, and introduced a new era in the
mining wealth of the continent. " It is now the most pro-
ductive mineral vein in the world. A strip of land six
hundred yards wide, and three miles long, yields $12,000,000
annually." James Walsh, an intelligent quartz-miner from
Grass Valley, seems to have been the first to detect the real
value of the " dark-gray stone " found here, a ton and a half
of which he sent to San Francisco, where it was sold for
$3,000 per ton. He and some of his friends bought four-
fifths of 1,800 feet for $22,000, or $14 a foot. So rapidly
did the estimate of this claim rise, that, before the end of
the year, its market-value was $1,000 a foot. " The silver-
panic " in Washoe soon exceeded the former gold-panic in
California. Discoveries in Esmeralda, Humboldt, Reese River,
and other localities, followed, and at length the mines which
gave new impulse and development to Oregon and Wash-
ington, and founded the Territories and future States of
Idaho and Montana.
Let the following estimates, made by the superintendent
of the mint at San Francisco, indicate the results of these
various discoveries, and this unparalleled energy.
Gold and silver from California, Oregon, Nevada, and
Washington Territory : —
1861 $43,391,000
1862 . . . . . . . 49,370,000
1863 ....... 52,500,000
1864 63,450,000
1865 . . ,v . . . . 70,000,000
The second report of J. Ross Brown, just finished, gives
as the product of gold, the last year, $70,000,000; and of
Nevada silver, $19,000,000.
388
THE GREAT EEPCTBLIC.
The estimate for 1866 is as follows: —
California . . . ^.. . . $25,000,000
Montaua . . .' ;. . . 18,000,000
Idaho . . . V . . . 17,000,000
Colorado 17,000,000
Nevada 16,000,000
Oregon .... .-,-,..:. . 8,000,000
Other sources 5,000,000
Total . . . $106,000,000
In the mean time, the capital in business circulation
in California must have been in the neighborhood of
$30,000,000, and some $10,000,000 are shipped annually to
the mines to pay current mining-expenses. In a recent
financial crisis in Europe, the power of American wealth
from the mines appeared, in the export from San Francisco
of $12,000,000 of gold and silver in sixty days. The first
eight months of 1866, the shipments of specie from San
Francisco amounted to $27,729,010. It is safe to consider
our gold-fields and silver-mines practicably inexhaustible.
Some idea of "the importance of the gold and silver
mines of the Pacific coast on the national welfare " may be
obtained from the fact, that " the product of these metals,
for a single year," exceeds in amount all the gold and
silver in the national treasury, and in all the banks in all
the States : —
Bullion in the Treasury, Aug. 1, 1865 .
Banks at New York, at same date, held
Banks at Boston and Philadelphia
National Banks in the United States
State Banks, outside of those, estimated .
Amounting in the aggregate to
$61,000,000
5,000,000
600,000
1,600,000
1,500,000
$69,700,000
Whereas the products of the mines of the Pacific coast in
1866 amount to at least $106,000,000.
The whole "amount of treasure manifested for exporta-
tion from San Francisco" from 1849 to 1865, inclusive, was
DEVELOPMENT OP INTERNAL RESOURCES. 389
$740,832,623. To this must be added some $50,000,000
in use in the Pacific States and Territories ; for gold jewelry,
silver plate, and specimens of nuggets and rich ores, say
$5,000,000 ; gold-dust buried by miners in distant camps,
some $5,000,000 more. Dust, coin, and bars carried away
by miners, and not manufactured, must swell this additional
amount, in sixteen years, to $200,000,000. In round num-
bers, therefore, the yield of precious metals from our Pacific
fields, in sixteen years, must have risen to the enormous
sum of $1,000,000,000.
We must now glance at the mining regions east of the
Rocky Mountains. These include portions of the Territories
of New Mexico, Colorado, and Montana; Minnesota, north-
west of Lake Superior, and upon the eastern slope of the
Alleghany range; the States of Georgia, South Carolina,
North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland ; and recently gold
has been found in New Hampshire. The yields from the
various auriferous and argentiferous localities in these States
and Territories cannot be accurately ascertained.
The deposits of gold at the United-States mint and its
branches, between 1804 and 1866, from the States traversed
by the Appalachian gold-field, are reported as follows : —
Virginia : $1,570,182.82
'North Carolina 9,278,627.67
South Carolina 1,353,663.98
Georgia . . . . . . 6,971,681.50
Alabama 201,734.83
Aggregate . . . $19,375,890.80
If we assume, what is doubtless true, that about an equal
amount passed into manufactures or foreign commerce, with-
out deposit for coinage, the aggregate production woul$
be about $40,000,000, of which fully three-fourths, or
$30,000,000, was mined between 1828 and 1848.
Nuggets were found in North Carolina from 1799 to 1835,
varying from a pound and a half to twenty-eight pounds.
390
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
"The auriferous veins of Colorado are represented to
be from six inches to nine feet in width. Gov. Evans
claims, that, in most of the lodes now worked, the quartz
rock yields an average of thirty-six dollars per ton, but that
a production threefold greater may be expected when the re-
duction of ores reaches the perfection of a scientific assay."
From Montana, the yield was estimated as follows : —
1863
1864
1865
1866
Amounting to
$2,000,000
5,000,000
6,000,000
12,000,000
$25,000,000
" The assays of argentiferous galena have exhibited results
from $100 to $1,700 per ton."
It is hardly necessary to say that the vast fields of wealth
in the newer portions of our country remain to be thoroughly
explored.
It is carefully estimated that the production of gold and
silver in the world in 1866 amounted to $210,000,000, of
which $80,000,000 were from the United States. By com-
parison with the foregoing, it will be seen that the figures
relating to our country are far below the facts.
Copper is an immense source of wealth in the. United
States. The copper regions of Lake Superior have long
been famous the world over. Kecent discoveries on the
Pacific coast have brought out enormous accessions to this
wealth. Some of these deposits were known before California
became a State of the Republic. Dr. Trask, however, State
geologist from 1851 to 1854, brought forward evidence that
valuable copper ore was found in nearly every county.
Nothing of importance was done toward the development
of these mines until 1860, when Hiram Hughes discovered
the famous Napoleon Mine among the Gopher Hills in Cala-
veras County. Not understanding the character of his dis-
covery, he sent " a lot of the ore to San Francisco, where
DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNAL RESOURCES. 391
it was pronounced thirty per cent copper ore, and worth
about a hundred and twenty dollars per ton." The copper
excitement then commenced ; and it has raged at different
times up to the present, fairly equalling, if not exceeding,
the excitement from the discovery of gold and silver.
The most important mining districts from which ores have
been exported are Copperopolis, Table Mountain, Napoleon,
Lancha Plana, Campo Seco, and Copper Hill, in Calaveras
County, the Newton in Cosumnes, Hope Valley in Ama-
dor County, the Buchanan in Fresno County, the Osos in
San Louis Obespo County, the Soledad in Los Angeles
County, the Rockland in Oregon, the Pea-vine in Nevada,
the Favorita and Sauce in Lower California, and the Wil-
liams Fork in Arizona.
Of these, the best developed, and, thus far, the most pro-
ductive, are the Copperopolis Mines, in Salt-spring Valley,
Calaveras County, about thirty-five miles nearly east from
Stockton. " The lode on which the Union, Keystone, Em-
pire, Calaveras, and consolidated mines are located, passes
through this valley, in the direction of north, 30° west. It
has been more or less developed for about fifteen miles.
There seem to be four other nearly parallel lodes, from a
few feet to six miles' distance from the main lode. This
cupriferous belt has been traced, with comparatively slight
interruptions, from this valley to the American River ; its
general course being about north, 15° west."
" The Union " contains, in all probability, " the largest body
of yellow sulphurets of copper ever discovered." The stock-
holders have never been obliged to pay assessments. In
December, 1862, it paid a dividend of $11,000 a share ; and,
" during the year 1863, the dividends amounted to $20,000
per share, clear of all expenses." Since this time, the yield
has been prudently withheld from the public. It is alleged,
that, " in the winter of 1863, the firm paid Mr. Reed, one of
the original locators, $60,000 in cash for nine hundred and
seventy-eight feet." " In 1864, Mr. Hardy, another of the
392
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
original locators, it is stated, sold his interest in the mine to
O ' ' •
the same firm for $650,000." The extent of wealth and
business in these copper-mines is such as to justify the con-
struction of a railroad to Stockton, thirty-five miles, chiefly
for freight.
Doubtless many other mines of this valuable ore are to be
developed, adding to the increasing wealth of the Pacific
States. The lodes are innumerable, and practically inexhaust-
ible.
OTHER MINERALS AND ORES.
Quicksilver is very abundant in California. " Cinnabar is
the only valuable ore of the mercury of commerce, which is
prepared from it by sublimation. It is a sulphide (sulphuret)
of mercury, composed, when pure, of quicksilver 82.21, sul-
phur 13.8 ; in which case it is a natural vermilion, and iden-
tical with the vermilion of commerce." There are mines
of cinnabar at Almaden, near Cordova, in Spain, Idria in
Upper Carmithia, in China, Japan, and in Pluanca Vilica in
South Peru. One of the richest mines, however, thus far
discovered, is at New Almaden, some thirteen miles from
San Jose*, Cal. Prof. B. Silliman, jun., states that " a charge
of 101,000 pounds, of which 70,000 were composed of this
rich ore, 31,000 pounds of ' granza,' or ordinary ore, and
48,000 pounds of adobes, worth four per cent, making a total
charge of 105,800 pounds, yielded, on the day of our visit,
460 flasks of mercury, at seventy-six pounds and a half to
the flask."
The ore mined and reduced in 18r« 5 amounted to 16,000
tons, or'31,948,400 pounds ; yieldir ± 47,194 flasks, or 3,604,-
46 5£ pounds, of quicksilver.
During ten months of 1866, the product of quicksilver
from this mine was 30,029 flasks.
Large quantities are used in the mines of California ; but
the extent of the yield may be inferred from the fact that
quicksilver was exported from New Almaden to New York,
DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNAL RESOURCES.
393
Great Britain, Mexico, China, Peru, Chili, Central America,
Japan, Australia, Panama, and Victoria, V. I., as follows : —
1859
1860
1861
1862
1863
1864
1865
3,399 flasks.
9,448 „
35,995 „
33,745 „
26,014 „
36,918 „
47,194
Other mines add to this production of wealth : —
Guadaloupe, average flasks per month . . 150
New Idria, ,, ,,,,»>• • • 500
Knox and Redington, ,, ,, . . 300
We must be content with a simple catalogue of the prin-
cipal mineral species hitherto recognized in California and
the adjoining States and Territories : —
Actinolite.
Alabaster.
Andalusite.
Antimony (sulphuret).
Antimony, ochre.
Agates and carnelian.
Arsenic.
Arsenolite.
Asbestos.
Azurite (blue carbonate of copper).
Biotite.
Bitumen.
Blende.
Borax.
Boracic acid.
Carbonate of magnesia.
Cassiterite.
Cerusite (carbonate of lead).
Chalcedony.
Chalcopyrite (yellow copper-ore) .
Chloride of silver.
Chrysocolla (silicate of copper).
00
Chromic iron.
Chrysolite.
Cinnabar.
Corundum.
Copper, native.
Copper glance.
Derbyshire spar.
Diallogite (carbonate of manganese).
Diamond.
Dolomite.
Embolite.
Emerald nickel.
Feldspar.
Fluorspar.
Galena (sulphuret of lead).
Garnet.
Gold (crystalline).
Gold and tellurium.
Gray copper-ore.
Graphite.
Gypsum.
Hematite (specular iron-ore).
394
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
Hessite.
Hornblende.
Hyalite.
Idocrase.
Iodide of mercury.
Ilmenite.
Iron-ores.
Iridostnine.
Iron pyrites.
Jasper.
Kerargyrite.
Lignite.
Limonite.
Made.
Magnesite (carbonate of magnesia).
Magnetite.
Malachite (green carbonate of copper) .
Manganese, oxide.
Manganese, carbonate of.
Mercury.
Mercury, iodide of.
Mispickel.
Molybdate of lead.
Molybdenite.
Mountain cork.
Nickel.
Orthoclase.
Opal, — semi-opal.
Pearl spar.
Petroleum.
Platina.
Proustite (light-red silver-ore).
Pyrargyrite (dark-red silver-ore).
Pyrolusite.
Pyropbyllite.
Pyroxene.
Pyromorphite (phosphate of lead).
Pyrrhotine (magnetic pyrites).
Quartz.
Red oxide of copper.
Ruby silver (pyrargyrite).
Salt-rock salt.
Schorl-selenite.
Selenide of mercury.
Silver, native.
Silver (telluret of).
Smoky quartz.
Sphene.
Stephanite (brittle sulphuret of sil.).
Stibnite.
Stroymeyerite.
Sulphur.
Sulphuret of silver.
Sulphuret of iron.
Telluret of silver.
Tetrahedrite (gray copper).
Tellurium and gold (tetradymite).
Tin-ore (oxide of tin).
Topaz.
Tourmaline.
Tremolite.
Tungstate of manganese.
Variegated copper-ore.
Vitreous copper.
Zinc.
Coal is found in sufficient quantities on the Pacific slope to
be of great importance. It is not of the best quality. The
carboniferous formations from which the coals of Pennsyl-
vania and the Mississippi Valley are taken do not exist on the
Pacific slope ; but coal has been found in all the other great
groups of rocks. " The brown coal of Germany, of nearly
the same geological age as that of the Oregon mines, has
been worked for many years with profit." Bellingham Bay,
DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNAL RESOURCES. 395
in the extreme north-west of Washington Territory, furnishes
coal of compensating quality and quantity. The quality of
that taken from Coos Bay is above the average on the coast.
Considerable quantities have also been brought into the
San-Francisco market from Monte Diabolo. The growth
and promise of the coal-trade on the Pacific coast may be
indicated by the following estimate of imports into San
Francisco since 1860 : —
Foreign Co«Js. Eastern. Domestic.
Tons.
Tons.
Tons.
. 23,045
40,955
8,635
. 65,905
29,035
21,305
.>, . . . 40,625
41,655
36,265
. . . 39,085
44,330
52,135
,'..'. 1 . . . 54,600
48,955
50,495
./ . . . 45,675
26,815
. 74,760
; nine months) . 48,375
13,127
66,177
1860
1861
1862
1863
1864
1865
These figures show a very large relative increase of coals
in use from the Pacific coal-fields; a tendency which is
likely to increase.
But the great coal-regions of the United States are in the
East, and chiefly in Pennsylvania.
Anthracite " coal was first employed at a forge in Wyo-
ming Valley, close to the scene of its production, by a
blacksmith, in 1775. In 1778, a nailer in the same place is
known to have employed it in his factory ; and, twenty years
after (that is, in 1808), he contrived a grate for burning it
as fuel in his house. It was not, however, until 1829, that
any extensive mining operations were commenced at that
most appropriately named village, Carbondale ; which, about
1832, began to send regular supplies of coals to Philadel-
phia. The construction of railroads, the increase of popula-
tion, and the consequent increase in the price of other
articles of fuel, soon, however, stimulated the supply of
coal." *
* Sir Morton Peto, 173-175.
396
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
Tons.
States.
Tons.
2,690,786
Iowa .
. 41,920
1,265,600
Alabama
. 10,200
728,400
Washington .
. 5,374
473,360
Missouri .
. 3,880
438,000
Rhode Island
. 3,800
285,765
Michigan
. 2,320
165,300
Georgia
. 1,900
101,280
Arkansas
200
Bituminous coal first appeared in Philadelphia in 1845 ;
and, in 1860, the quantity "raised" in the United States was
6,218,080 tons. The sources of this supply were as follows : —
States.
Pennsylvania
Ohio
Illinois
Virginia .
Maryland
Kentucky
Tennessee
Indiana .
Now, add to this the amount of anthracite coal from Penn-
sylvania, — 8,115,842 tons, — and you have the aggregate of
« coals raised in the United States in 1860, 14,333,992 tons."
For the sake of comparison, we give the following coal
produce of the world during the same year, or from the re-
turns nearest that year : —
. Tons.
Great Britain 71,979,765
United States 14,333,922
Prussia, Saxony, and Hanover . . 12,000,000
Belgium 8,900,000
France 7,900,000
Spain 3,000,000
Japan, China, Borneo, and Australia . 2,000,000
British Possessions, North America . . 1,500,000
Austrian Empire 1,162,900
Russian Empire ..'... 1,500,000
Grand Total .... 121,000,000
Of this large amount, 14,333,922 tons from the United
States must be regarded as a small proportion, especially in
view of the fact that our territory includes " nearly three-
fourths of the coal-areas of the principal coal-producing
countries of the world."
It must be considered, however, that our country yet in-
DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNAL RESOURCES.
397
eludes immense forests of excellent fuel. Wood is more or
less available everywhere, and abundant in many portions
of our States : as this diminishes, and as railways and steam
navigation increase, facilitating and cheapening the passage
of freight, our immense and inexhaustible coal-fields will be
proportionally developed, and this source of wealth largely
increased.
Petroleum, or rock-oil, has been known to exist for a long
period. In Sicily, the Island of Zante, and on the shores of
the Caspian, on the banks of the Irrawaddy, and in the col-
ony of Trinidad, this article has been found and used, but
not in such quantities as to attract general attention.
In America, the most remarkable discoveries have been
recently made ; and, by American enterprise, it has become
an article of great commercial importance : while the phe-
nomena connected with its production are objects of great
interest, and astonishing even to men of science.
The Indians are said to have known of rock-oil in Oil-
creek Valley, and used it for medicinal purposes. An arti-
cle in "The Massachusetts Magazine," as early as 1791, de-
scribed the locality, and stated that soldiers collected oil at
the springs, and found it to be good for rheumatism and a
gentle purgative.
But Mr. Patterson of Pennsylvania first converted this
production to a practical use for lubricating the machinery
of a cotton-factory in Pittsburg. This was in 1845. Some
ten years later, the Pennsylvania Rock-oil Company was
formed in New York, with Professor Silliman at its head.
The company collected surface-oil only, until 1858, when
Col. Drake commenced sinking a well. After one failure,
he "struck oil" at a depth of seventy-one feet. "On the
tools being withdrawn, oil rose to within five inches of
the surface. This well yielded at once four hundred, and
afterwards a thousand, gallons a day."
Another excitement now came on, equalling, if not ex-
ceeding, the rage for gold and silver and copper in Califor-
398 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
nia. Lands in the neighborhood of the Drake Well rose to
fabulous prices. Wells were sunk in great numbers. Some
" prospectors " sunk fortunes in sinking wells ; but others
rose suddenly from extreme poverty to affluence in a day.
The first " flowing well " was on the farm of a poor man by
the name of Funk. Oil was struck in June, 1861 ; and the
well immediately began to pour out two hundred and fifty
barrels a day. It flowed on for fifteen months, and then
ceased. Another, on the Tarr Farm, " yielded two thousand
barrels daily ; and the Empire Well yielded three thousand
barrels daily."
It was now difficult to obtain vessels for the oil, and vast
quantities flowed away in " Oil Creek." A glut in the mar-
ket resulted ; but this was temporary. Prospecting went
on ; new discoveries followed. Towns and cities sprang up
as if by magic. Flat-boats and various craft went down
the Alleghany freighted with oil; and the Atlantic and
Great Western Railway was driven forward with great en-
ergy to reach the " oil regions," and claim its share in the
enormous " carrying " profits of this new and wonderful dis-
covery.
" Corey," a poor farm, became a central city. In four
years, it reached some 10,000 inhabitants; had "nearly
twenty banks, and two newspapers." " The quotations made
in the oil exchange at Corey, whether of oil, gold, or bread-
stuffs, influenced Wall Street," and its business rose to some
$15,000,000 annually. All this in four years. Oil City,
and especially Pithole, rose to the rank of rivals in excite-
ment and business.
Of course, great fluctuation would occur in this novel busi-
ness. Many would expend thousands, and even millions,
and fail to find the flowing oil. Some of the most pro-
ductive wells would become " sullen," irregular, and then
cease to flow. Thousands would bitterly rue the day when
they invested their all in oil ; while the sudden affluence of
others would throw upon the Fifth Avenue and into Sara-
toga a new race of aristocrats.
DEVELOPMENT OF INTERNAL RESOURCES. 399
The statistics of this trade are yet quite imperfect. Some
idea of its growing importance may be obtained, however,
from the exports of a few years. They were as follow : —
Tear. Gallons.
1862 10,887,701
1863 28,250,721
1864 31,792,972
1865 42,273,508
The yield of the entire oil-district of Pennsylvania was
estimated from 80,600 to 90,000 barrels a week ; say 400,000
barrels per annum. "The quantity forwarded from the
stations of the Atlantic and Great Western Eailway was 533
barrels in 1863, and 675,028 barrels in 1864." « The aver-
age prices show a heavy rise, despite the largely-increased
production : " —
PETROLEUM IN NEW YORK, PER GALIX3N.
In 1860, Crude, 28 cents. . 1864, 41 cents.
„ Refined, 28 „ . „ 39 „
„ ,, in bond, 44 ,, . ,, 65 „
„ free, 51 „ „ 74 „
The supply must be considered inexhaustible; while the
demand will inevitably increase, adding another source of
enormous wealth to the people of the United States.
Iron is an indispensable agent of civilization. To have
left the territory of the United States destitute of this valu-
able metal would not agree with the theory of this book,
that God had predetermined to constitute here a large, free,
and independent nation. No such strange omission or con-
tradiction can occur in the divine puposes and action. Who-
ever from the beginning entertained the true idea of the
plans of Providence must have expected to find here abun-
dant supplies of a material without which independence
would have been quite impossible.
Iron-ore, fit for all the ordinary uses of industry, and
capable of being wrought into the finest of steel, is abundant
400
THE GKEAT BEPUBUC.
in America. The following table shows the work done in
the several States during the year 1860 : —
States.
Tons ore mined.
Tons pig iron.
Value.
New Hampshire
Vermont
1,000)
4,500 >
3,224
$92,910
Massachusetts .
25,000
13,700
403,000
Connecticut
. 20,700
11,000
379,500
New York-
. 176,375
63,145
1,385,208
Pennsylvania .
. 1,706,476
553,560
11,427,379
New Jersey
57,800
29,048
574,820
Maryland
. 79,200
30,500
739,600
Ohio .
. 228,794
94,647
2,327,261
Indiana .
375
9,375
Michigan
. 17,900
10,400
291,400
Wisconsin
4,500
2,000
40,000
Missouri
42,000
22,000
575,000
Kentucky
73,600
23,362
534,164
Virginia
. 23,217
9,096
251,173
Tennessee
53,220
18,417
457,000
Total .
. 2,514,282
884,474
$19,487,790
Product in 1850
.
.
13,491,898
Difference (41.4 per cent)
$5,995,892
Look at these figures. Here are 884,474 tons of pig-iron
prepared in a single year, worth $19,487,790. Contrasted
with the year 1850, it is an advance of nearly $6,000,000.
" Bar and other rolled iron amounted to 406,298 tons, of the
value of $22,248,796 ; an increase of 39.5 per cent over the
united products of the rolling mills and forges, which, in 1850,
were of the value of $15,938,786. This large production of
over one and a quarter million of tons of iron, equivalent to
ninety-two pounds for each inhabitant, speaks volumes for
the progress of the nation in all its industrial and material
interests. The manufacture of iron holds relations of the
most beneficial character to a wide circle of important inter-
ests, intimately affecting the entire population. The proprie-
tors and miners of ore, coal, and limestone lands ; the owners
and improvers of woodlands, of railroads, canals, steamboats,
DEVELOPMENT OP INTERNAL RESOURCES. 401
ships, and of every other form of transportation ; the pro-
ducers of food, clothing, and other supplies ; in addition to
thousands of workmen, merchants, and capitalists, and their
families, — have directly participated in the benefits resulting
from this great industry. It has supplied the material for
an immense number of founderies, and for thousands of
blacksmiths, machinists, millwrights, and manufacturers of
nails, hardware, cutlery, edged tools, and other workers in
metals, whose products are of immense aggregate value,
and of the first necessity. The production of so large a
quantity of iron, and particularly of bar-iron, and the
demand for additional quantities from abroad, tell of the
progress of the country in civil and naval architecture and
all the engineering arts ; of the construction of railroads and
telegraphs, which have spread like a net over the whole
country; of steam engines and locomotives; of spinning,
weaving, wood and metal working, milling, mining, and other
machinery ; and of all the multiform instruments of science,
agriculture, and the arts, both of peace and of war ; of the
manufacture of every conceivable article of convenience or
luxury of the household, the field, or the factory." The aggre-
gate statistics of iron exhibit the extent to which the general
condition of the people has been improved by this great agent
of civilization during the ten years embraced in this retrospect.
" The materials for the manufacture of iron-ore, coal, and
other fuel, water-power, &c., are so diffused, abundant, and
cheap, that entire independence of foreign supplies appears
to be alike desirable and attainable at no distant period ; "
practicable, we may add, at any time determined by the
convenience or political economy of the American people.
Technical chemistry is just beginning to reveal its power
to enhance the wealth and comfort of our people. Its prod-
ucts in 1850, exclusive of white lead, ochres, paints, var-
nish, glue, perfumes, cements, pot and pearl ashes, &c.,
amounted to nearly $5,000,000 ; since which time, this
practical science has made rapid advances.
51
402 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
Gas manufactured for illumination and other purposes
amounted, in a single year, to 5,000,000,000 cubic feet,
worth about $13,000,000.
Salt was manufactured in 1860 as follows : —
States. Bushels. Value.
Massachusetts . . . 30,900 7,874
New York . . . 7,521,335 1,289,511
Pennsylvania . . 604,300 154,264
Ohio .... 1,744,240 276,879
Virginia . . . 2,056,513 478,684
Kentucky . . . 69,665 21,190
Texas .... 120,000 29,800
California . . . 44,000 7,100
Total . . 12,190,953 $2,265,302
In 1850, we employed 340 establishments in the manufac-
ture of salt, producing $2,177,945 in value of this article,
indispensable for culinary and other purposes.
These created supplies are all marvellous, and equally so
are the exact adjustments of our developing resources to
the wants of our growing population. Well does Mr. Ken-
nedy speak of " that beneficent law of compensation which
pervades the economy of Nature, and, when one provision
fails for her children, opens to them another in the exhaust-
less storehouse of her material resources, or leads out their
mental energies upon new paths of discovery for the supply
of their own wants. Thus, when mankind was about to
emerge from the simplicity of the primitive and pastoral
ages, the more soft and friable metals no longer sufficed for
the artificer ; and veins of iron-ore revealed their wealth and
use in the supply of his more artificial wants, and became
potent agents of his future progress. When the elaboration
of the metals and other igneous arts were fast sweeping the
forests from the earth, the exhaustless treasures of fossil-fuel,
stored for his future use, were disclosed to man ; and, when
the artificial sources of oil seemed about to fail, a substitute
DEVELOPMENT OP INTERNAL RESOURCES. 403
was discovered, flowing in almost perennial fountains from
the depths of these same carboniferous strata."
Now, let the reader pause, and inquire, "Whence are
all these wonderful adaptations, these various elements of
national prosperity ? Who formed this continent with a
variety so vast, and materials so rich for the development of
a great population ? " God, let us reverently answer, formed
the land, with its immense agricultural resources. He made
the silver and the gold. His are the cattle upon a thousand
hills. It would seem that no man could be so much an
atheist as to deny to Omnipotent Power the glory of this
splendid creation. Just as unworthy of us would be the
denial of his omniscient wisdom in the exact adjustment
of so fine a portion of a large continent to the purposes of
a great free people ; in the wide and improbable combina-
tions which brought our ancestors here, and gave them the
energy to grapple with the formidable difficulties of a new
country, conquer their liberties, and then turn themselves
so promptly and vigorously to the avocations of peaceful
industry ; in the inspirations of genius, seen in their inven-
tions, the growth of inquiry, with population leading to a
system of railroads, telegraphs, and internal commerce, so
vast as to outrun the calculations of enthusiasts, and bewil-
der the political economists of other nations. Who but God
could have foreseen the gathering of these thirty-four mil-
lions here in an era so momentous in the history of the
race, and provided for it ? made them the representatives
of principles so vital to the civilization of the world, and
imbued them with the spirit and energy, the high moral
qualities, necessary to defend and develop them ? drawn
attention, at the right time, to the concealed treas-
ures of a continent, and produced the business energy to
develop them ? We know absolutely that such wisdom
and power, such combinations and achievements, are not
the prerogatives of mere man. With what gratitude, there-
fore, should we ascribe them to Him whose are " the king-
404
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
dom and the power and the glory for ever" ! How thankfully
should we acknowledge the Providence which has infused
into the minds of so large a number of this great nation
the spirit of true Christian enterprise and Protestant liberty,
and given to the purest forms of Christianity in the world
the disposal of all these immense resources ! Surely the
infidelity which would refuse here to acknowledge and
reverence the Infinite Being would be most impious, and
deserving of signal retribution.
CHAPTER V.
DEVELOPMENT OF COMMERCE.
" The consequences will be favorable to all Christendom, to Europe, to the whole
world." — OXENSTIERN.
THE commerce of this country has great providential
advantages. Our extended coast-line includes innumerable
bays, river-entrances, and harbors, so that the shipping of
the world can reach our Atlantic and Pacific States with the
greatest convenience. External commerce seems thus to
have been indicated by the Creator of this continent upon
a scale of greatness corresponding with the purpose of estab-
lishing here a large and prosperous nation. God makes
only what he wants. The exercise of his creative power
might therefore be studied, with the reasonable hope of
ascertaining, to a great extent, the plans of his providence.
True, his acts are largely prospective. For ages, the pur-
poses of his special creations may remain unavailable and
unappreciated : they are, however, thus the stronger evi-
dences of his omniscient control. As the exigencies of a
nation arise, the urgent demands of progressive civilization
appear. How instructive and inspiring to find that they
have been all anticipated by the foresight of the great
Creator; that He whose wisdom is infinite, even in the
original formation of a continent, provided amply, and in
the most minute detail, for every emergency of the coming
ages ! This must be God. No finite power or wisdom could
possibly produce such results ; and surely nothing could be
more grateful to the intelligent mind than the recognition
of this most important fact.
405
406
THE GREAT EEPUBLIC.
VALUE OF EXPORTS.
It is not much more than two centuries since our exports
were a small quantity of furs, sassafras, clapboards, and
wainscoting, and a little corn and tobacco ; hardly enough to
deserve a name in the commerce of the world, and yet
enough, as we have seen, to rouse the jealousy of England,
and secure arbitrary requisitions on the trade of the colonists
for the support of the crown.
The following figures will indicate, imperfectly however,
the development of the country in the materials of trade.
From 1847 to 1860, our exports were as follows: —
From
The sea .
Products of 1847
. $3,468,033
$2,
1850
824
,818
$3
1855.
,516,894
I860.
$4,156,480
The forest
. 5
,996,073
7,
442
,503
12,603
,837
13,738
,559
Agriculture
. 68,450
,383
26,
547
,158
42
,567
,476
48,451
,894
Tobacco . i
. 7
,242
,086
9,
951
,023
14
,712,468
15,906
,547
Cotton
. 53
,415
,848
112,
315
,317
88
,143
,844
191,806
,555
Manufactures
. 10
,476
,345
20,
136,967
28
,833
,299
39,803
,080
Raw produce
. 1
,526
,076
1,
437
,680
2
,373
,317
2,279
,308
Specie and bullion
62,620
18,069
,580
53
,957
,418
56,946
,851
The increase in national resources and wealth is thus
shown to be constant and very rapid. The discovery and
development of the gold-mines in California serve largely to
explain a remarkable advance in our exports for the year
1851. They rose from $151,000,000 to $218,000,000.
In 1862, we supplied foreign countries with American
products as follows : —
Great Britain
France
British North America
Hamburg and Bremen
Spanish West Indies
British West Indies
China and Japan
Brazil .
$105,898,554
. 26,014,181
18,652,012
12,672,646
10,626,642
6,928,527
4,328,506
. 2,748,249
DEVELOPMENT OF COMMERCE. 4Q7
British East Indies and Australia .... $3,520,663
Holland and her Possessions 3,237,022
Belgium , . 3,192,691
Hayti and St. Domingo 3,088,108
New Granada and Venezuela ..... 2,968,871
British Possessions in the Mediterranean . . . 1,859,460
Mexico 1,840,720
Italy 1,560,361
Chili 1,010,051
Denmark and Danish West Indies .... 1,007,667
Liberia and Ports in Africa * . . . . 994,112
Spain and Canary Islands . . . . . 990,449
Buenos Ayres and Argentine Republic . . . 974,279
French West-India Colonies 924,515
Portugal and her Colonies 708,029
Peru 571,652
Sandwich Islands 496,983
Turkey 444,397
Uruguay 290,259
Russia 153,471
Central America . 115,640
Pacific Islands 100,414
Sweden and Norway 78,773
Austria 35,615
Total . . . . . $213,069,519
When we consider the facts brought forward in this chap-
ter showing the resources of the American Republic, we
are impressed with the conviction, that we have but just
fairly entered upon our great career of commercial pros-
perity. The increase of our population, and the consequent
demands for home consumption, can in no way keep pace
with the rapid development of our agricultural, mineral, and
mechanical resources. It is fair to conclude, that, as the rate
of increase in exports has been thus far largely in advance of
population, our exports are to advance with our increase
of industrial citizens and the consequent increased develop-
ment of our resources. To estimate the future, the relations
of submarine telegraphy and steam navigation to commerce
must be carefully considered.
408
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
IMPORTS AND EXPORTS.
The laws of exchange must, of course, extend to distant
continents and islands, and tend strongly to make neighbor-
hood of nations. In our growing civilization, we must want
articles produced or manufactured by other people, and they
must want the productions of our land and industry. Equi-
table exchange of commodities would hence become desirable.
This is the great function of external commerce. But even
a superficial view of such a country as ours would suggest
the superabundance of the necessary means of life and hap-
piness, and abundance of many of the luxuries of life, from
our own soil and mines and handicraft ; and that, though the
doctrines of " free trade " were to become the law of the
land, the " balance of trade " ought to be largely in our favor.
And so it unquestionably would be, were it not for the grow-
ing follies and prodigality of our people. Preference for
foreign over American fabrics and wares of equal and even
superior value, and the extravagance of fashions dictated in
a foreign capital, discourage home manufactures, and run up
a heavy account against us in European markets. A protec-
tive tariff, however high, has thus far shown but little power
to combat these American vices, and make up the losses
they produce. Our policy in this respect has not been suf-
ficiently settled and steady to determine historically the
results of protection as compared with free trade.
The following table will be valuable to our readers, as it
will show the amount of our foreign trade for some seven-
teen years, and the proportion of imports and exports for
the same time : —
Years.
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848
Imports.
$108,435,035
117,254,564
121,691,797
146,545,638
154,998,928
Exports.
$111,200,046
114,646,606
113,488,516
158,648,622
154,032,131
DEVELOPMENT OF COMMERCE. 40 9
Years. Imports. Exports.
1849 . . . $147,851,439 $145,755,820
1850 . . . 178,138,318 151,898,720
1851 . . . 216,224,932 218,381,011
1852 . . . 212,945,442 209,658,366
1853 . . . 167,978,647 230,976,157
1854 . . . 304,562,381 278,241,064
1855 . ' . . 261,468,520 275,156,846
1856 . . . 314,639,942 326,964,908
1857 . . . 360,890,141 362,960,682
1858 . . . 282,613,150 324,644,421
1859 . . . 338,765,130 356,789,462
1860 . . . 362,163,941 400,122,296
It thus appears that our trade with foreign nations ad-
vanced steadily on the whole, and very nearly quadrupled,
during this growing period of our history; reaching in a
single year the enormous sum of $762,286,237, and showing
a balance in our favor of $37,958,355.
Our exports from the products of agriculture are rapidly
increasing. They reached, in 1861, $101,655,000 ; and in
1862, $124,561,000. This indicates the future commercial
greatness of our favored country. The youngest of the
great nations, we have already outstripped all but one. Great
Britain alone exceeds us.
During the late war, the fluctuation in the value of gold
rendered it difficult to estimate the commerce of the coun-
try. It is, however, very creditable to our people, that in
1865 they imported only $234,000,000, saving $128,000,-
000 as compared with 1860. ' At the close of the war, trade
rose again very rapidly: so that, during the fiscal year
ending June 30, 1866, our exports (specie value) amounted
to the unprecedented sum of $415,965,459, and our imports
(specie value) to $423,975,036 ; declared value, $437,640,354.
The same year we received customs-duties, $179,046,651;
being forty-one per cent of the total imports. It thus ap-
pears that a protective tariff is convenient as a method of
adjusting our balance-sheet in trade with nations abroad.
52
410 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
INTERNAL COMMERCE.
Only a limited view of our commercial activity can be
obtained from the estimates of our foreign trade. Vast as this
is, it is very greatly exceeded by the traffic among ourselves.
The immense extent and variety of our country, with an in-
dustrious, enterprising population, amounting in the aggre-
gate to 34,605,882 souls, must produce an internal trade of
very great magnitude.
Mr. W. E. Baxter, member of the British Parliament, in
his book on America says, " It is astonishing to observe the
vast quantities of produce in course of transit throughout the
country. Huge steamboats on the Mississippi and the Ala-
bama are loaded to the water's edge with bales of cotton.
Those on the Ohio are burdened with barrels of pork, and
thousands of hams. Propellers on the lakes are filled with
the finest wheat from Wisconsin and Michigan. Canal-boats
in New York and Pennsylvania are deeply laden with flour.
Railroad-wagons are filled with merchandise, and locomo-
tives struggle in the Western wilds to drag trains richly
freighted with the productions of every country under the
sun. The United States reminded me, sometimes, of a great
ant-hill, where every member of the community is either
busy carrying a burden along a beaten pathway, or hasten-
ing away in search of new stores to increase the national
prosperity."
In 1860, our internal sail tonnage and our enrolled and
licensed tonnage reached nearly 3,000,000 tons. "Such an
amount of tonnage shows an immense internal traffic. If
we multiply it by ten, we shall not get at more than the
average result of the deliveries of goods by American ves-
sels employed in navigation of limited duration and ex-
tent." * This estimate makes our internal trade between
our States and Territories, east and west, north and south,
about equal to that of Great Britain with all her provinces.
* Sir Morton Peto's Resources of America, p. 224, et seq.
DEVELOPMENT OF COMMERCE. 4H
It must be observed that our means of carrying commodi-
ties for trade among ourselves are very inadequate. The
business enlarges so rapidly as to make it apparently impos-
sible to reach the demand by the utmost capacity of our
vessels, cars, and wagons. Wind and steam and horse-
power are all in requisition to carry westward " groceries,
including sugar and salt, dry-goods, hardwares, empty bar-
rels, machinery and castings, soda, pearl and pot ash, earthern-
ware, boots, shoes and hats, copper, tin and lead, drugs, medi-
cines, and dies, furniture and oil-cloth, crockery, green and
dried fruits, rolled iron, hemp and cordage, brown sheeting
and bagging, marble, cement, lime and plaster, paper, rags,
and stationery, oysters, nails and spikes, salted meats and
fish, tobacco and cigars, and carriages and wagons ; " and
eastward, " agricultural products, cotton, corn, flour, seeds,
live stock, butter, cheese, and eggs, poultry, pork, beef, and
other meats (both fresh and salted), lard and tallow, ma-
nure, lumber, malt, petroleum, hides, lead, raw tobacco, and
wool and woollen yarn." There is, moreover, an immense
trade in staves, of which there were brought into Buffalo
alone, in 1862, 30,500,000, and lumber amounting to 125,-
000,000 feet. Ores shipped on Lake Superior the same
year were worth $4,000,000. "The imports of lake fish at
Buffalo, in 1860, amounted to 26,655 barrels." Enterprise
is straining every nerve to provide for this internal carrying-
trade. From 1850 to 1860, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan,
and Wisconsin extended their railroads from 1,275 miles to
nearly 10,000 miles ; adding more than 8,000 miles in ten
years. Corresponding increase is seen in all directions ; and
yet our thoroughfares are literally choked with freight, the
product of American lands, ingenuity, and industry.
A glance at the California trade, via Panama, will help
the reader to an idea of what is going on in this country ;
and yet it may be considered impossible fully to grasp and
comprehend it We have been at work in earnest on the
Pacific coast, only since 1849 ; and more than a thousand
412
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
vessels annually enter and clear at the port of San Francisco.
The trade with China, Japan, Europe, and the islands of the
Pacific, is growing to large proportions ; but the principal
business is with the old States. The travel and transpor-
tation over the Isthmus of Panama, in the year ending 30th
of September, 1862, may be seen in the following figures : —
Passengers towards the Pacific, 21,456 Towards Atlantic, 9,706
Gold
Silver ,,
Jewelry ,,
American mails ,,
English mails ,,
Extra baggage
Freight by weight ,,
Freight by measure ,,
$4,444,268
$578,062
232,886 Ibs.
35,565 „
345,547 „
54,758,378 „
737,684 ft.
$34,605,407
14,286,935
31,964 Ibs.
10,127 „
217,901 „
20,061,601 „
32,279 ft.
A careful study of this table will show that the passengers
chiefly go from the Atlantic to the Pacific; while the gold
and silver, in much the largest quantities, move from the
Pacific to the Atlantic coast. Returns from Panama show
that transactions between the Pacific coast and other parts
of the United States, in 1862, amounted to $40,000,000.
Of course, the war has interfered with the current of trade ;
but it has opened up new sources of wealth, and stimulated
the business energy of the people. As the country south
returns to its industrial pursuits, and the equilibrium of gov-
ernment is restored, the free action of trade will show a
large advance beyond the figures we have submitted. There
will, however, be no change in the argument. I repeat,
it is not material from what particular period our facts are
taken ; for the data above are so large as to baffle our com-
prehension. The inevitable increase of the future can hardly
add to the strength of our convictions. Already, and every-
where, the provisions for a vast population, and the devel-
opment of a great Christian civilization, rise immeasurably
above all finite power, and reveal the plans and acts of God
in the constitution and moral purposes of this new creation.
DEVELOPMENT OF COMMERCE. 413
SHIPPING.
It is an obvious suggestion, that a commerce so vast must
require a large amount of shipping. The following facts
will show this interest as it was in American hands before
the civil war : The estimate given in the last census shows
that our tonnage, at the end of the fiscal year 1851, was
3,772,439 tons. If to this we add the tonnage since built,
and officially reported as 3,589,200 tons, it will show a total
of 7,361,639 tons. But our loss in ten years, by decay,
wreck, and other causes, was 1,821,827 ; leaving, as actually
reported June 30, 1861, 5,539,812 tons. Of this amount,
" the State of New York owned 1,740,940 tons, or nearly
thirty per cent of the whole. During the same fiscal year,
the tonnage built was 233,194 tons ; of which New York
built 46,359 tons, or nearly twenty per cent." Maine took
the lead as a ship-building State ; New York was the second ;
Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and other States, followed.
The immense value of this large property in tonnage
owned by our people in 1861, both as a source of temporary
profit to the owners and as an active means of extending
abroad and at home the commerce and manufactures of the
country, can scarcely be over-estimated. Assuming the aver-
age value per ton at forty dollars, the worth of this ton-
nage may be stated at $221,592,480.
"The superior capacity and very fine character of the
American merchant-ships will be appreciated by all who
remember the beautiful class of sailing-vessels which were
formerly on the New- York and Liverpool stations as what
were called liners. Those vessels were the very best ves-
sels of their class, and they no doubt acquired wide celebrity
for American shipping." "The fame of these celebrated
vessels has enabled the Americans not only to possess them-
selves of the largest proportion of the emigration-trade, but
also to lay on lines of packets between Havre, Marseilles,
Hamburg, Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Panama, the West Indies,
414
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
and various parts both of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans."
This compliment from an intelligent Englishman (Sir Morton
Peto), fine as it is, only partly indicates the facts as they
were, and may yet be again under a wise and paternal
policy upon the part of the government.
It is, however, matter of profound regret that the course
of certain Englishmen and the British Government made
our valuable merchant-marine the prey of pirates under the
rebel flag, and nearly swept American vessels from the seas.
The effect has been a severe depression of the business
of ship-building, and the transfer of a vast proportion of the
American carrying-trade to English bottoms. The high
prices of materials and labor, and the taxation resulting
from the war, render it impossible for the American ship-
builders and merchants to reclaim these lucrative occupa-
tions, and restore our commerce to its legitimate channels.
The solution of this problem is yet to come from the fruitful
resources of the American mind.
The business of the United States upon the ocean, large
as it has been, is destined to extend itself to such propor-
tions as to place the Great Republic, at no distant day, at the
head of commercial nations. Her merchant-marine, under
the direction of sound political economy and the protection
of her powerful navy, is destined to be still more in the
future than in the past the admiration of the world.
CHAPTER VI.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE WAR-POWER.
" I was born among the hardy sons of the ocean, and I cannot so doubt their courage
or their skill. If Great Britain ever obtains possession of our present little navy, it will
be at the expense of the best blood of the country, and after a struggle which will call for
more of her strength than she has ever found necessary for a European enemy." — STORY.
WAR is a great evil, a crime, indeed, when it assumes
the form of aggression upon the rights or safety of a nation ;
but force in defence of the right against force in the wrong
is an absolute necessity and a high moral right. In watch-
ing the progress of a country, it is therefore indispensable to
mark the development of its power to defend itself and
enforce its just demands. The war of 1812 sufficiently
tested this question.
It was to be expected that the wars of Napoleon with
England and nearly the whole of Europe would, in some
way, involve the United States. Our commercial relations
were extensive; and the " orders in council " of Great Britain,
and the famous Berlin, Milan, and Bayonne decrees by
Napoleon, mutually retaliatory, and designed to cripple
each other, had the effect of despotic assaults upon the
international rights of neutrals, and were exceedingly dis-
astrous to the commerce of the United States. The em-
bargo, the non-intercourse and non-importation acts of Con-
gress, were intended for self-defence ; but the tendency of
the whole was to compel the Republic to choose between the
two great belligerents, or to come into collision with both.
The Republicans, under the lead of Jefferson, were exceed-
ingly hostile to England, but inclined to favor France. The
415
416 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
Federalists were opposed to war, especially with England.
The election of Madison to the high office of President was
a triumph of the Republican, or new Democratic party, and
a precursor of war. The judgment of Mr. Madison was
against it ; but influenced, it was alleged, by the hope of a
second term, he was carried foward by the current, and be-
came gravely responsible for the final decision.
SELF-RESPECT OF THE NATION.
No sovereign power can with safety allow the violation
of its flag. The redress may not be hi open hostilities;
prudence may require delays : but remonstrance and ener-
getic protests at least should show that the government
understands its rights, and will protect its citizens.
Our merchantmen, denied the freedom of the ocean, for-
bidden on the one hand to carry English goods to any
European port, and, on the other, to carry goods of any
description which had not been examined in England,
were sure to be victimized by the French or the English.
The British insisted on the right of forcible search for
articles contraband of war; which was, of course, a high
indignity to free Americans upon the seas. Under pretence
of some violation of " orders in council," — which orders
America held to be in violation of international law, and
therefore not binding, — our merchantmen were seized, and
the rights of property sacrificed.
The true remedy was, no doubt, a very difficult question.
The United States could not venture, unprepared, to declare
war ; and the contest between parties rendered any decision
doubtful in policy at home and in effect abroad. The expe-
dient of an embargo on foreign vessels seemed to be natural,
but it .was destructive to our own trade ; and, as it aided
Napoleon in his attempts to destroy the commerce of Great
Britain, it was tolerated by France, and regarded as virtually
hostile to England. The purposes of the embargo were, to a
DEVELOPMENT OF THE WAK-POWEK. 417
large extent, impracticable, as our navy was not capable of
enforcing it, and the administration shrank from the responsi-
bilities of war. But the self-respect of the nation rose with
the increase of dangers ; and more stringent enforcement acts
were passed, which made our own merchants cry out in dis-
tress, but which indicated the purpose of the government to
compel England at least to respect our flag. It seemed a
severe deprivation to the American people ; but Congress
passed the non-intercourse and non-importation acts, which,
so far as it was possible to enforce them, would deny to
those who refused our rights on the seas and in foreign ports
the benefits of American markets, and, distressing as it was,
began a new era in the development of home resources and
the protection of home industry.
There was another grievous wrong in the pretensions of
England. She denied to her citizens the right of expatria-
tion. She claimed the right of .impressing into the British
service all English-born subjects, wherever found. To en-
force this claim, also, she assumed the right of search ; and
for this purpose, our ships, dominated by British guns, were
arrested on the high seas ; and, with no careful discrimination
as to the real citizenship of the men, they were taken vio-
lently from under our flag, and consigned to an odious war-
service or to loathsome prisons. That so gross an outrage
would be long endured by a people of courage and spirit
could not be reasonably expected, and great efforts at some
accommodation were made by England. She was by no
means anxious for an additional war.
A large number of impressed sailors in the British navy
claimed to be American citizens, and the right of England
to coerce them was assumed ; while they must prove that
they were American citizens, or suffer the penalties due to
deserters from his Majesty's service. When the war com-
menced, twenty-five hundred of these men affirmed their
American rights, and, refusing to fight against their country,
" were committed to Dartmoor and other prisons." The
418 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
British Government alleged as an excuse for this enormous
wrong, that, if they did not compel the services of these
men, half their naval force might set up the claim to be
American citizens. This, while it is a fallacy that would
excuse any acts of aggression and injustice whatsoever
against other nations, was, to say the least, a poor compli-
ment to British patriotism. The Americans expressed no
fears of this kind with regard to their citizen soldiers or
sailors.
There was, obviously, but one alternative, — England must
repeal her " orders in council." and desist from her insults to
the flag of the United States by her forcible search for goods
contraband of war and the impressment of seamen, or she
must accept war. The former she declined to do ; the latter
she dreaded : she would therefore negotiate.
Lord Erskine was well disposed toward America. He
agreed -with our representative here upon a treaty which
would have averted the war ; but, when it was sent home
for confirmation, Canning rejected it. This was matter of
severe mortification to the president, and the greatest annoy-
ance to the people : for the administration had relaxed the
stringency of retaliatory measures ; and the people, for a
brief time, rejoiced in the opening prospects of commerce,
and relief from the perils of war. There seemed, however,
now no way to avoid the dreaded conflict ; and war was
declared by Congress on the 18th of June, 1812.
With an army numbering on paper 36,700, but an actual
force of only 10,000 men, half of whom were raw recruits,
we were now at war with a powerful nation. On the water,
"we had three firstrdass frigates, 'The President,' 'The Consti-
tution,' and 'The United States;' 'The Congress' and 'Essex,'
frigates of the second class ; ' The John Adarns,' which was
soon laid up as unfit to cruise ; 'The Wasp' and 'The Hornet,'
sloops-of-war; 'The Argus,' ' Siren,' 'Nautilus,' 'Enterprise,'
and 'Vixen,' brigs. Three second-class frigates, 'The Chesa-
peake,' ' Constellation,' and ' John Adams/ were undergoing
DEVELOPMENT OF THE WAR-POWER. 419
repairs. These, with a hundred and seventy gunboats, and
three old frigates too rotten to be repaired, constituted the
entire American navy." *
Our population, however, had largely increased. The third
census (1810) showed that the United States numbered
5,862,093 free whites; 1,191,364 slaves ; all others, 186,446 ;
making a population of 7,239,903 souls. We had, in effect,
therefore, more than twice the strength of the nation in our
Revolutionary struggle with Great Britain ; and our antago-
nist, worried by her death-struggles with Napoleon, was still
fighting for supremacy on the Continent, and the suppression
of what she deemed a colossal and destructive revolutionary
power.
SANDWICH AND QUEENSTOWN.
Henry Dearborn was appointed first major-general, with
command of the Northern Department. Hull, Governor of
Michigan Territory, was made a brigadier-general, and with
some eighteen hundred men, the militia of his own Territory
included, undertook the conquest of Canada, a territory then
including, in the Upper and Lower Provinces, some four hun-
dred thousand people. It was very discouraging that his ves-
sel of supplies was overhauled and captured at Fort Amhersi>
burg. He, however, moved on as far as Sandwich. In the
absence of McArthur's detachment, he now numbered some
eight hundred men. He was about to be attacked by Brock
with seven hundred and thirty regulars and militia, and six
hundred Indians under the renowned Tecumseh. " Though
he at first refused," he at length responded to a challenge to
surrender, thus saving " the effusion of blood ; " and as a mat-
ter of prudence, if not necessity, included McArthur's com-
mand among the prisoners of war handed over to the British.
This, it must be confessed, was not a very encouraging com-
mencement of the war.
About the 9th of October, Commodore Elliot, taking com-
* Hildreth, 2d Series, iii. 364, 365.
420
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
mand on Lake Erie, succeeded in cutting out "The Adams "and
" The Caledonia " from under the guns of Fort Erie. This
brought up the spirits of the troops along the frontier, and they
were anxious to make another attack upon Canada. Gen. Van
Rensselaer determined to gratify them, and selected Queens-
town as the point of attack. Every movement, however,
showed a want of preparation for the brave attempt. As the
supply of boats was entirely inadequate, he could only pass
over two or three hundred men, who were exposed to a
galling fire from a battery sweeping the river and the
American shore. Col. Van Rensselaer, a. relative of the
general, soon fell, severely wounded; but he gave orders to
storm the battery, which was promptly and gallantly done by
Capt. Ogilvie and Capt. Wool, and the British were driven
into a stone house. Gen. Brock, who came up hastily,
was slain. While the enemy held the stone house, and
annoyed our little army with a musketry-fire, some five or
six hundred more Americans, with a single piece of artillery,
got across the river. For the want of tools, no intrench-
ments were attempted.
In the mean time, a body of Indians rushed out from the
woods, and assailed a straggling body of militia, who fled
before them, producing a serious panic in the American
forces ; but our citizen-soldiers were brave, and, as they
always have done, began on the battle-field to learn how
to fight. Lieut-Col. Scott, who had crossed as a volunteer,
put himself at the head of a few regulars, and promptly re-
pulsed the Indians.
The British general, Sheafe, now advanced from Fort
George ; and the sound of his musketry alarmed the militia
on the American side, and they denied the right of their
commanders to lead them into Canada. Our forces, engaged
in attempting to fall back to the river, were thrown into
confusion, and compelled to surrender.
We had lost in this ill-managed affair, in killed, wound-
ed, and prisoners, a thousand men; the British, about a
hundred.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE WAR-POWER. 421
Neither party seemed anxious to go on with the war.
Negotiations for peace were attempted, it must be admitted, in
good faith. The British " orders in council " had been quietly
repealed ; but their obstinate adherence to the right of search,
and the impressment of seamen taken violently from under
our flag, rendered all negotiations fruitless. Nothing could
be more aggravating to a free and honorable nation. " Up-
wards of six thousand cases of alleged impressments were
recorded in the Department of State ; and it was estimated
that at least as many more might have occurred of which no
information had been received. Castlereagh himself admitted,
on the floor of the House of Commons, that an inquiry insti-
tuted early in the preceding year had discovered in the
British fleet thirty-five hundred men claiming to be impressed
Americans." * Federalists,, as well as Democrats, felt the
galling effects of this bitter wrong ; and the war-spirit rose in
the Republic, though, as a nation, we were never united in
the war.
NAVAL ENGAGEMENTS.
Commodore Rogers had collected in the harbor of New
York as many vessels of our little navy as possible, and, upon
the declaration of war, moved out promptly to sea. " The
Constitution," Capt. Hull, attempting to join Rogers, fell in
with the British squadron, and, after a desperate race of
four days, escaped into Boston. Without waiting for orders,
he at once put to sea, making a fearless cruise in search of
the Jamaica fleet. Not meeting with any adventure equal
to his ambition, he returned ; and, cruising in the Gulf of
St. Lawrence, he spied "The Guerriere," an English war-
frigate, Capt. Dacres. The prospect of an engagement was
immediately clouded by the appearance of three other hos-
tile ships and a brig. A chase soon began, — one of the most
exciting and remarkable in history. Capt. Hull found him-
self in the midst of the squadron of Commodore Broke,
* Hildreth, 2d Series, iii. 349.
422 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
with three sail on his starboard quarter, and three more
astern. It was not a question whether " The Constitution "
alone could fight the whole British squadron, but whether
her commander and men had skill and energy enough to
baffle all the efforts of the British squadron to bring on an
engagement. This desperate nautical contest commenced
on Friday, July 17; and at length, after exhausting all the
skill and power at their command, " the English ships all
hauled to the northward and eastward, fully satisfied, by a
trial that had lasted nearly three days and as many nights,
under all the circumstances that can attend naval manoeu-
vres, from reefed topsail to kedging, that they had no hope of
overtaking their enemy." *
" The Constitution," after a daring cruise, which showed
that she was neither worried nor intimidated, went into port
to prepare for further adventures.
In the mean time, " The Essex," Capt. Porter, soon after the
departure of Rogers, got to sea, and took valuable prizes
almost at her leisure. Among them was the frigate
"Minerva," thirty-six guns, conveying a large number of
British troops, about a hundred and fifty of whom were
made prisoners.
"A few days after this success, ' The Essex ' made a
strange sail to windward." As she was disguised as a mer-
chantman, the stranger bore down upon her fearlessly, and
opened fire ; when suddenly " The Essex " " knocked out
her ports, and opened upon the enemy." Surprised and
panic-stricken, the Englishmen " left their quarters, and ran
below." Capt. Porter took easy possession of his prize,
which proved to be " his Majesty's ship * Alert,' Capt.
Langham, mounting twenty eighteen-pound cannon, and
with a full crew."
Let us now return to " The Constitution." She had gained
a world-wide reputation for the naval skill of her commander
and men in avoiding an unequal combat with a whole Brit-
* Cooper's Naval History of the United States, p. 256.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE WAR-POWER. 423
ish squadron. She was restless for a fight with some worthy
antagonist, with a fair chance to test her prowess in battle.
For this she did not have to wait long. She fell in with a
daring craft, evidently searching for her. Both parties pre-
pared for action. Firing a few guns as they approached,
and moving dexterously to prevent being raked, they seemed
willing to fight at close quarters.
"At six o'clock, the enemy bore up, and ran off under his
three topsails and jib, with the wind on his quarter. As
this was an indication of a readiness to receive his antago-
nist in a fair yard-arm and yard-arm fight, ' The Constitu-
tion ' immediately set her maintop-gallant-sail and foresail
to get alongside. At a little after six o'clock, the bows of the
American frigate began to double on the quarter of the
English ship ; when she opened with her forward guns, draw-
ing slowly ahead with her greater way, both vessels keeping
up a close and heavy fire as their guns bore. In about ten
minutes, or just as the ships were fairly side by side, the
mizzen-mast of the Englishman was shot away ; when the
American passed slowly ahead, keeping up a tremendous
fire and luffed short round the bows of the enemy to pre-
vent being raked. In executing this manoeuvre, the ship
shot into the wind, got sternway, and fell foul of her antago-
nist. While in this situation, the cabin of ( The Constitution '
took fire from the close explosion of the forward guns of
the enemy, who obtained a small but momentary advantage
from his position. The good conduct of Mr. Hoffman, who
commanded in the cabin, soon repaired this accident ; and a
gun of the enemy's, that threatened further injury, was dis-
abled. As the vessels touched, both parties prepared to
board. The English turned all hands up from below, and
mustered forward with that object; while Mr. Morris, the
lirst lieutenant, with his own hands endeavored to lash the
ships together. Mr. Alwyn, the master, and Mr. Bush,
the lieutenant of the marines, were upon the taffrail of
' The Constitution ' to be ready to spring. Both sides now
424 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
suffered by the closeness of the musketry ; the English
much the most, however. Mr. Morris was shot through the
body, the bullet fortunately missing the vitals ; Mr. Alwyn
was wounded in the shoulder ; and Mr. Bush fell by a bullet
through the head. It being found impossible for either
party to board in the face of such a fire, and with the heavy
sea that was on, the sails were filled; and, just as 'The Con-
stitution' shot ahead, the foremast of the enemy fell, carry-
ing down with it his mainmast, and leaving him wallowing
in the trough of the sea a helpless wreck." *
Re-adjusting his ship, and taking a raking position, Capt.
Hull saw the English Jack hauled down from the stump of
the mizzen-mast, and the great battle was over. His prize
was " The Guerriere," Capt Dacres, one of his most persistent
antagonists in the remarkable contest of naval skill, so re-
cently terminating in one of our greatest naval triumphs.
" The Constitution " was soon refitted, and ready for sea ;
while " ' The Guerriere ' was completely dismasted, had
seventy-nine killed and wounded, and, according to the
statement of her commander in his defence before the court
which tried him for the loss of his ship, she had received no
less than thirty shot as low as five sheets of copper beneath
the bends." All this had occurred within two hours, the
whole period of the engagement; and the most destructive
execution must have been within thirty minutes.
It is vain, at this distance of time, to attempt to describe
the joy of the American people as the news of this great
naval triumph flew over the land. It was hailed as decisive
evidence that the boasted superiority of the British on the
seas was at an end.
This impression was deepened by the grand victory of
Commodore Decatur, in " The United States," over " The
Macedonian," thirty-eight guns, Capt. Garden, after a most
desperate engagement, in which " The Macedonian," a beauti-
ful ship with forty-nine guns, was almost literally cut to
* Cooper's Naval History of the United States, pp. 258, 259.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE WAR-POWER. 425
pieces. The terrific conflict in which "The Wasp," Capt.
Jones, triumphed over and captured " The Frolic," Capt.
Whinyates, heightened the enthusiasm of the American
people, and produced most important moral effects bearing
upon the historical power of the two nations.
Our first naval defeat was on the first day of June, 1813,
when " The Chesapeake " was captured by " The Shannon,"
after a most heroic struggle on both sides.
Subsequent engagements were numerous, great gallantry
being displayed on both sides, the results varying, but,
upon the whole, very clearly vindicating the prophetic
judgment of Story, placed at the head of this chapter.
CAMPAIGNS FROM THE WEST AND EAST.
Harrison, rallying troops for the defence of Indiana with-
out regard to form, was made a brevet major-general of
Kentucky. On his way to the scene of action, information
reached him from Washington that Winchester had been
placed in command ; while he, with the rank of a brigadier-
general, was to defend Indiana and Illinois. The West,
however, already beginning to be a power in the nation,
demanded and secured the appointment of Harrison to the
chief command of the Western army, now raised to the
nominal force of ten thousand men.
Harrison was brave and active. He determined to destroy
some hostile Indian settlements, and then by a bold dash, if
possible, recover Detroit. But the crude masses of volun-
teers under his command, not having yet learned to obey,
were not an army ; and his plans were frustrated. Capt.
Taylor now appears, foiling with skill and bravery the attack
of the Indians upon Fort Harrison, on the Wabash. It is
interesting to see these two future presidents in their young
manhood thus gallantly coming into the field together.
They were both to display great generalship, endure severe
trials, rise high in popular favor, be exalted to the first place
426 THE GEEAT REPUBLIC.
of distinction in the Republic, if not in the world, and both
to fall by death soon after their respective inaugurations.
Gen. Dearborn attempted a demonstration in the direction
of Montreal, which evidently, for want of capacity in the
commander, became a disastrous failure. Smyth, after his
valorous and " grandiloquent proclamations," made another
disgraceful failure on the Niagara frontier.
In the winter of 1813, Harrison made his second attempt
to reach Detroit. As a preliminary measure, Winchester
was ordered to occupy the Rapids. He reached this objec-
tive point without casualty, and was immediately drawn into
an attempt to relieve Frenchtown, where our little army was
attacked by Proctor from Maiden. Winchester was taken
prisoner, and induced to surrender his command. The bar-
barous treatment of the prisoners from the British and their
Indian allies disgraced their victory. The advancing troops
of Harrison met the fugitives from Frenchtown ; and, pru-
dently abandoning his plan of attacking Maiden, he was
compelled to content himself for the present by fortifying
the Rapids, named, for the governor of Ohio, Fort Meigs.
As an evidence, however, of the confidence of the govern-
ment, he was soon raised to the rank of major-general.
Jackson now appears in the South, taking the responsibility
of disobeying orders, that he might perform a great act of
humanity in marching his men four hundred and sixty miles
back to Nashville and disbanding them near their homes.
Wilkinson had contrived, without bloodshed, to get possession
of the fort at Mobile ; the only " victory " on land we have
been permitted to record since the success of Capt. Taylor
at Fort Harrison.
In the summer of 1813, the gallant Perry moved the
small nucleus of his fleet out into Lake Erie. With nine ves-
sels and fifty-five guns, he confronted the British squadron,
commanded by Capt. Barclay, with six vessels and sixty-
three guns. Having a hundred and fifty of Harrison's
men on board, he aimed to reach and assault the fort at Mai-
DEVELOPMENT OF THE WAE-POWER. 427
den. The two fleets met j and, after a desperate engagement
of three hours, every ship of the British squadron struck to
the victorious Perry. He now promptly converted such of
his prizes as were manageable into transports, and conveyed
Harrison's troops across the lake. Proctor, consulting his
prudence, burned the fort at Maiden, and commenced his
retreat. Harrison was once more on his way to Detroit. In
two. days he overtook Proctor's rear, and captured all his
stores and ammunition. The main body of the British, some
eight hundred in number, were drawn up in order of battle
" near the Moravian town," with Tecumseh and his Indians
on the right in a swamp. Johnson with his mounted men
rushed upon them with such fury, that they were completely
overpowered, threw down their arms, and surrendered.
" Proctor and his suite, with some two hundred men, escaped
by timely flight." * The Indians fought desperately; but the
renowned Tecumseh was slain, probably by Johnson's own
hand, and his braves were killed or dispersed.
It was now the spring of 1814 ; and the war party in Eng-
land rose in spirits as the British had triumphed over the
great Napoleon, and they demanded the exemplary chastise-
ment of the democrats of America. The veterans of the
English army were to be brought over for this purpose.
Brown, now a major-general, was a man of courage ; and
Scott, now a brigadier, stood by his side, burning with desire
to prove that the Americans were competent to resist and
conquer the British regulars. They obtained permission to
attempt another invasion of Canada. This expedition re-
sulted in the severe battle of Bridgewater, or Lundy's Lane.
Crossing the lake from Buffalo on the 2d of July, our army
of about three thousand five hundred men had the good for-
tune to receive the surrender of Fort Erie. Scott advanced
with intrepidity to attack the British under Riall ; and a
smart but brief engagement drove the enemy from his in-
trenchments, from Chippewa, and from Queenstown, with the
* Hildrcth, 2cl Series, iii. 437, 438.
428 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
loss of some five hundred men, while the loss of the Ameri-
cans was about three hundred. Fort George, however, still
manned by the British, was promptly re-enforced ; and both
parties prepared for a severe conflict.
On the 25th of July, Scott, with a thousand men, fear-
lessly advanced, and suddenly encountered the whole of
Eiall's army. In a brief time, near a third of Scott's force
had fallen before ^the terrific fire of the enemy. Scott, how-
ever, again and again rallied his men to the onset. . By his
orders, Major. Jessup reached the enemy's rear, and pressed
him severely, making many prisoners; among them Gen.
Riall, retiring, severely wounded, from the front. " Brown
now came up with Ripley's brigade, which was ordered
between Scott and the enemy." The British park of artil-
lery, raised to nine pieces, was the key of his position ; and
Col. James Miller was ordered to storm it, which he did in
gallant style, driving the artillery-men from their guns at
the point of the bayonet. Ripley brought up the Twenty-
third, and secured the guns. Porter's volunteers promptly
supported him on the right; and Jessup soon reached the
front, routing a British brigade on his way.
The enemy, now re-enforced by Drummond, made a des-
perate effort in the darkness of the night to recover their
guns. The Americans, however, were on their guard ; and,
after three terrific assaults, the British recoiled from their
fire and bayonets, and retired from the field of slaughter.
Brown and Scott, severely wounded, were compelled to
retire, leaving all the regimental officers wounded, and seven
hundred and forty-three men dead or wounded. The loss
of the British was eight hundred and seventy-eight The
Americans had at length risen to the greatness of the emer-
gency. They had fought a desperate battle, and gained a
decisive victory ; but, for the want of horses, they could
not take away their trophies/and retired, under command of
Ripley, to care for their wounded. The British, unopposed,
returned to the battle-ground, and reclaimed their guns.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE WAR-POWER. 429
WASHINGTON AND BALTIMORE.
About the middle of August, " a new and large British
fleet," commanded by Cockburn, appeared in the Chesapeake,
bearing four thousand of Wellington's veterans under Ross.
President Madison at length began to realize the danger,
and to show an utter incapacity to make provisions against
it. Gov. Winder of Maryland made the best dispositions in
his power for the defence of his State, and especially of Balti-
more. But, by the 20th, the Potomac was blockaded, and the
main fleet had ascended the Patuxent as far as Benedict,
and landed Ross, with forty-five hundred men, within fifty
miles of Washington. Without horses, these indefatigable
soldiers and sailors marched through the heat, which was
to them almost insufferable, dragging three pieces of light-
artillery, and carrying munitions of war. On this dreadful
march, exhausted and encumbered as they were, they might,
it would seem, have been cut to pieces without difficulty ; but,
quite unopposed, they reached Bladensburg on the 24th, in
no condition to commence an engagement. At that instant,
the Americans should have made the attack with vigor; and
by sudden victory saved their capital and the honor of the
nation. We cannot avoid thinking, that if Brown and Scott
with the men of Lundy's Lane, or Jackson from New Orleans,
had been in command, this would have been done ; but the
president and other civilians and amateur warriors were
there to distract the counsels of Winder and his officers, and
communicate their fears to the men.
In the mean time, the British, ready to sink from fatigue,
were led on to the attack : the battle of Bladensburg was lost,
and the veterans of Wellington marched into Washington.
The Capitol, the President's House, and all the public build-
ings but the Patent and General Post Offices, were committed
to the flames. Valuable papers and the public library were
consumed, — a piece of Vandalism which nothing in civilized
warfare could excuse.
430 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
It would seem that Providence had now placed the Repub-
lic at the disposal of England. But strange events indicated
an opposite result. A tremendous tornado came on, add-
ing to the horrors of war, and seeming to threaten the
Capitol with completed destruction. The British column
about to fire the only remaining government building,
alarmed at the gathering forces of Nature, now marshalled by
God himself as if to do a work which the confused army had
failed to do, fled to the nearest edifices for protection, many
of which were dashed to the ground by the fury of the storm,
burying numbers of men amid their ruins. Then an explo-
sion at Greenleaf 's Point, more likely providential than acci-
dental, killed or wounded nearly a hundred more of these
grim, fearless warriors: and the exaggerated fears of the
British commander assumed that a formidable "army of
indignant citizen-soldiers were mustering on the Heights of
Georgetown," and large forces were gathering from the
South, to overwhelm him before he could escape their just
vengeance ; and he hastened his men toward their ships at
Benedict, where he embarked writh the satisfaction of a
retreating enemy rescued from imminent perils, when, in
point of fact, there had been no army on his track ; and
it was twenty-four hours before the frightened Americans
could gather courage enough to venture on to Capitol Hill,
and disarm some sixty British invalids left in care of the
wounded.
God, no doubt for purposes of discipline, suffered this ex-
treme mortification to a proud, presumptuous people, and
then directly interfered to prevent a subjugation which
would have endangered his own purposes.
In less than two weeks, the British fleet came up the
Chesapeake, landed their army at North Point, and made a
bold combined attack upon Baltimore ; expecting, doubtless,
no more formidable obstacles in the way of its intended
destruction than they had found in approaching the doomed
capital. But from the indications at Washington in the
DEVELOPMENT OF THE WAR-POWER. 431
midst of the conflagration, and the prompt action of good
sense and courage, arraying ten thousand men for the de-
fence of Baltimore, it was evident God had at length said to
these hitherto invincible men, '-'Thus far, and no farther."
A severe engagement and a brave defence, in which the
British Gen. Ross was slain, soon resulted in the retreat of the
British army. Taking advantage of rain and darkness, they
re-embarked, and left the Baltimoreans to their triumphs.
"The Star-spangled Banner," written by Key on board a
British ship, where he was forcibly detained during the
action, commemorates in fitting strains the rising heroism of
America represented on the bloody field of Baltimore.
PLATTSBURG.
We may now again turn our eyes to the North. Other
veterans from the wars with Napoleon came to join in
the conquest of America. Prevost, on the 1st of Septem-
ber, advanced upon Plattsburg with ten thousand men.
McDonough's squadron had providentially just anchored in
Plattsburg Bay. Macomb with three thousand men, includ'
ing many invalids, had been left in command of the town.
Volunteers from New York and \rermont, to the number of
three thousand, now came at his call to join his little army ;
but what could be the hope of resistance to the formidable
force which Prevost led up to the attack ? Nothing, unless
God should interfere. Prevost menaced Macomb in front, but
sent a strong force to ford the river above. Now, while they
are searching for the ford, let us turn our eyes to the lake.
"The British fleet, commanded by Commodore Downie,
consisted of a new ship of thirty-seven guns, a new brig of
sixteen, the two sloops captured from the Americans the
year before, and mounting eleven guns each, besides twelve
gunboats, — ninety-five heavy guns to the whole squadron,
which was manned by a thousand seamen from Quebec." :
* Hildrcth, 2d Scries, iii. 518. 519, et seq.
432 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
McDonough's squadron consisted of "The Saratoga," twenty-
six guns, the brig "Eagle," twenty guns, the schooner
" Ticonderoga," seventeen guns, the schooner " Preble," seven
guns, and ten gunboats. With his largest vessels, he lay
directly across the harbor, his gunboats forming a second
line against the intervals between the ships. Downie was
thus obliged to attack " bows on, which he did gallantly,
reserving his fire till he came to close action." His largest
vessel was soon crippled, and hastily anchored beyond the
reach of harm. A " British sloop standing on to gain a
raking position was so disabled, that she drifted down on the
American line, and was taken." Another, driven from her
berth, drifted ashore. The American schooner " Preble " was
then driven from her anchorage, and "The Ticonderoga"
was vigorously attacked and completely disabled on one
side ; but McDonough, by " winding," brought the other side
to bear. Downie, attempting to imitate him, failed ; and
after a brave action, lasting two hours and a half, the British
flag was lowered. The victory was complete. Prevost,
hearing of this result, abandoned his search for the ford, and
retreated with his army of veterans in a panic, leaving his
wounded and much of his baggage and stores behind.
In the mean time, Brown, shut up in Fort Erie, had sent
pressing messages to • Izard for re-enforcements. Taking a
strong force, and leaving the glory of defending Plattsburg
to Macomb, he marched off toward the Niagara frontier.
Before he reached Fort Erie, however, the lion-hearted Brown
had determined upon a sortie. Issuing at mid-day with his
chosen men, he " surprised the British batteries some two
miles in advance of their camp, exploded their magazines,
and spiked their guns ; took some four hundred prisoners ;
and skilfully retired, having inflicted upon the enemy a loss
of nearly a thousand men. Drummond, as soon as he could
move, raised the siege, and retired behind the Ghippewa." *
* Hildreth. 2d Series, iii. 520, 521.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE WAR-POWER 433
NEW ORLEANS.
The indomitable Jackson had taken the responsibility to
resist an attack of the British on Fort Bowyer, in which they
were aided by the Spanish and Indians. This was a ma-
terial point, as its capture would not only open a harbor to
the French privateersmen from Barataria Bay, but it would
give the British a fair opportunity to approach New Orleans.
Jackson rallied the militia, and, without regard to men or
money, poured a destructive fire into the British squadron,
burned up their best ship, " The Hermes," and sent the whole
fleet away in haste, with the loss of two hundred and thirty-
two men. Lafitte, the leader of the buccaneers, rejected
with disdain the offer of an honorable rank for himself and
his outlaws in the British army ; and, shrewdly conducting
his intrigues, gave himself, with all his valuable information,
to the Americans. This enabled them to set forward an
expedition from New Orleans, under Commodore Patterson,
for an attack upon the pirates. The expedition was com-
pletely successful, the Americans capturing ten vessels, with
twenty guns.
The blaze of light from Plattsburg, Fort Erie, and Mobile
Bay, and the triumphs on the sea of " The Peacock " and
"The Wasp," were, however, soon clouded. The latter,
after a hard battle with "The Avon" (which she conquered
and sunk) and taking several prizes, must have gone down
alone, as she was never heard from after ; and Chauncey was
shut up by Yeo in Sackett's Harbor. We had not, at this
time, a national vessel at sea.
Izard's boastful expedition, with six thousand men, against
Drummond, behind the Chippewa, completely failed. Think-
ing that the confinement of Chauncey's fleet at Sackett's Har-
bor, and of Brown in command there, would leave the British
at full liberty to re-enforce Drummond, he refused to attack,
blew up Fort Erie, and retired.
Discontent, which now became general, especially in New
434 THE GEE AT REPUBLIC.
England, gave additional strength to the Federalist opposi-
tion, and culminated in the famous Hartford Convention.
We greatly needed a decisive victory.
New Orleans now seemed a doomed city. A formidable
British fleet approached, bearing four thousand sailors and
marines and twelve thousand veterans, "commanded by
Packingham, Kean, Lambert, and Gibbs, able and experi-
enced generals of Wellington's late Peninsular army ; whence,
also, the troops had mostly been drawn." *
Jackson, upon returning to New Orleans, found every thing
in confusion. The defences he had commenced were in
dilapidation. The squadron on the water was entirely
inadequate, and really no army was at his command
But his daring genius and indomitable will supplied every
thing. He soon made drilled soldiers of raw recruits, now
gathering at his call, of the citizens of New Orleans, who
knew him too well to refuse to drill when he ordered, and
of "the noble-hearted, generous free men of color," who
sprang to arms with the greatest alacrity when he announced
their hearty welcome : he made soldiers even of Lafitte and
his fugitive buccaneers, and of the convicts whom he released,
all of whom became orderly and daring warriors under the
inspiration of one powerful mind.
When the British landed two thousand light troops, under
Kean, from the Bayou Benevenu, about fifteen miles from
New Orleans, Jackson found himself at the head of five
thousand men of all kinds, only about a thousand of whom
were regulars. He did not wait for the enemy to approach,
but left Carroll and the Louisiana militia in charge of the
city, and moved at once to the attack.
Coffee, who, by forced marches, came up in time with
his brigade, was sent to the right. Jackson moved directly
upon the enemy in front, and the schooner " Caroline "
opened upon his left. Night had come on ; but the impetu-
ous Jackson would not wait for the day. The battle raged
* Hildreth, 2d Scries, iii. 559.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE WAR-POWER. 435
furiously until the British found security from further
assault between the old and the new levee. Jackson, having
astonished Wellington's veterans by the vigor and skill of
his attack, and taught them caution, which gave him time,
retired within his main lines of defence. The enemy wait-
ing for re-enforcements from the fleet, Jackson used every
moment in strengthening his works. His rampart was con-
structed of cotton-bales : the ditch in front was broad and
deep, and both were extended into the swamp. The British
sent hot shot into our ship " Caroline," and burned it to the
water's edge ; but " The Louisiana " was towed away, and
saved for future action.
The next day, the enemy opened furiously upon Jackson's
line " with artillery, bombs, and Congreve rockets : " but they
were answered so frightfully by the five heavy guns of the
Americans, and the raking fire of " The Louisiana," that fur-
ther advance was impossible ; and, after seven hours' des-
perate fighting, the British retired.
Just at this crisis, Jackson had to direct his attention to
the city; and as there seemed danger of a pusillanimous sur-
render under orders of the legislature, then in session, he
despatched Glayborne to watch them, who, though governor,
acting under martial law, promptly obeyed Jackson's orders.
He, believing he was conforming to the iron will of his com-
mander, " placed a military guard at the door of the hall, and
broke up the legislative assembly."
The intrepid general then scoured the city for shrinking
cowards, ordered a registration of all the male inhabitants,
and went on with his fortifications. He directed Gen. Mor-
gan to erect defences on the right bank of the river similar
to those on the left, and his orders were obeyed. The Ken-
tucky militia, two thousand two hundred and fifty strong,
arrived ; and, though only part of them had arms, the rest
were ordered to the works.
On the eighth day of January, 1815, the grand final attack
of the British was made, under command of Sir E. Packing-
436
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
ham in person. Thornton was directed to make a night-
attack upon Morgan on the right bank of the river, which
he did with bravery ; and, Morgan's militia becoming un-
steady, this attempt was successful. In the mean time, the
main British force, under Packingham, covered by the terrific
fire of six eighteen-pounders, advanced with the degrading
cry of "booty and beauty" as their watchword. The col-
umn moving by the river carried an advanced American
redoubt, the guns of which had raked the whole British
lines as they came up. The main column, commanded by
Gibbs and Kean, was hurled against Carroll's division, near-
est the swamp. The storming-party encountered the ditch,
and fell in large numbers before the unerring aim of the
American sharpshooters and the belching fires of nine pieces
of heavy artillery. They could not endure this storm of
death. They staggered and recoiled. Sir Edward, in
attempting to rally them, was slain ; Gibbs fell, mortally
wounded ; Kean was dangerously wounded ; and Lambert,
succeeding to the command, withdrew his mangled forces,
calling back Thornton from his advantageous position on the
opposite side of the river. The battle of New Orleans was
gained, apparently, by the heroism and intrepidity of one
great man, and the brave troops under his command ; but
God, who " maketh wars to cease from the ends of the earth,"
had determined to end this frightful contest, and usher in
the era of peace.
The joy with which the people hailed the announcement
of the treaty, agreed to by commissioners and ratified by the
British Government, indicated their decided aversion to the
war ; while the administration, by waiving utterly the great
question of the right of search, to resist which the war was
commenced, made sufficient acknowledgment of the highest
indiscretion, either in declaring war, or in consenting to a
peace which did not secure the only grave point in dispute.
The glorious victory of Jackson alone saved the president
and the war Democrats from overwhelming disgrace.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE WAR-POWER. 437
In the mean time, it had fully appeared, on the land and
on the sea, that the war-power of the Republic was in the
people ; that it was not in the administration nor in a stand
ing army, but in the freedom of American citizenship. These
men from the farm, the shop, the store, and the study, would
not come first into action with the skill of veterans ; but
they would include all the elements of a grand military
force, and the war-power of the nation would be developed
in the field. This, therefore, may be considered as Ameri-
can history in advance of the world, — the people in the
midst of peaceful industry are their own standing army.
CHAPTER VII.
DEVELOPMENT OF LEARNING AND THE ARTS.
" Consent to bad government is consent to ruin. Good government can come only of
general intellectual and moral development." — PARTRIDGE.
EDUCATION in the United States has received considerable
attention ; and, while we do not boast of great learning,
history will accord to us a degree of comparative progress
quite equal to our age. The first wants of a new people
are physical. Attention must be given to clearing away
the forests, cultivating the soil, mechanical industry, and
trade. The people must construct roads, bridges, houses,
barns, churches, ships, and whatever else will provide them
food, clothing, shelter, and the means of commerce. These
are necessities ; and hence the useful precede the fine arts.
Our rapid development and real greatness withdraw atten-
tion from the fact of our recent origin as a people. It
could hardly be credited, that, dating from the Declaration
of Independence, we have not yet completed the first cen-
tury of national existence. We are still very largely occu-
pied with the rough labor of pioneers, slowly subjecting the
soil of our vast territory to imperfect cultivation. These
are facts eminently fit to be considered in estimating our
real and relative progress in learning and the arts.
PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
In the year ending June, 1860, about five millions of our
population were at school. About one-sixth of our people
are doubtless receiving tuition. A large proportion of them
438
DEVELOPMENT OF LEARNING AND THE ARTS. 439
are children from five to fifteen years of age, who are in our
common schools. These institutions are fundamental in the
United States. They began early in our history, and formed
a part of the constitutional provisions of Massachusetts and
Pennsylvania.
The idea of imparting the rudiments of an education
without charge to the children of the Republic was a New-
England idea, and it grew up from small beginnings to be
a thoroughly American idea. It was opposed, on the one
hand, to the neglect and degrading ignorance which per-¥
vaded the lower classes in England ; and, on the other, to
the aristocratic feeling that education was for the children
of gentlemen, and they were to be kept apart from the
children of the common people. To the thinking philan-
thropist, there was a deep and destructive vice in this gen-
eral ignorance and in these invidious distinctions. Schools,
therefore, began to be provided for all. But this idea, like
all others of great value, must contend for its position. Two
public enemies of the common schools have been very
determined in their opposition. The affectations of caste,
esteeming the common mind vulgar, and the higher bred
entitled to the distinction of exclusiveness in the manner
if not in the fact of education, have long withheld the sup-
port which these great institutions of philanthropy have
needed and deserved, and in whole States prevented their
effective organization.
Romish bigotry contends for the right of exclusive educa-
tion from public funds, that children, not merely their own,
but as many others as they can control, may be educated
Catholics at the public expense. The Government of the
States generally treats them as Americans. It makes no
objections to denominational schools ; but they cannot be
the public schools which the people, as Americans, support.
Taxes must be equal and privileges equal under the law.
Differences may exist, and be provided for by individuals
and churches ; but, as States and a General Government, we
440 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
can know but one class, and they are citizens. We can have
but one basis of taxation, and that is the public interest ;
and but one obligation, and that is to afford equal privileges
to all. Of course, just so far as the anti-American idea of
exclusive Roman-Catholic education at the expense of the
State extends, it interferes with our noble scheme of equal
educational privileges. It is a disguised or open public en-
emy of a fundamental part of our free institutions. The
contest on this issue is not yet concluded. Catholics, prop-
erly Americans, sometimes give expression to the correct
idea of citizenship; contending that their people are not
Irish, not German, not Italian, but American. Foreign in-
fluence and the hereditary bigotry of the sect, however, for-
bid this growing feeling to adjust itself to our system of
free schools. The patronage received from this source is,
therefore, quietly extended or reluctantly tolerated by the
priests, because it cannot be prevented.
Notwithstanding these adverse influences, public schools
are moving forward with free thought, and under the pro-
tection of the enlightened public opinion which they so
powerfully aid in forming. Their progress may be seen not
only in the increasing millions who attend them, but in the
extension of the system into parts of the country where
they have been before unknown, and in the improved build-
ings and grounds appropriated to them. So strong are
they becoming in the affections of the people, that any
amount of money may be had for their convenience and
enlargement The country schoolhouse is now generally
found to be a neat and commodious building, with finely-
cultivated and shaded grounds about it; and, not unfre-
quently, the conveniences of the gymnasium are beginning
to appear, showing an appreciation of physical with intel-
lectual education. This is particularly true of the cities.
Some of our common-school houses are magnificent struc-
tures, costing as high as a hundred thousand dollars, and even
more.
DEVELOPMENT OF LEARNING AND THE AKTS. 441
The branches taught in the common schools are increas-
ing, and raising the general standard of education in our
midst. Not merely reading and orthography, geography
and writing, arithmetic and grammar, but the higher Eng-
lish, the natural sciences, mathematics, and the languages, are
taught most thoroughly. Our graded schools have all the
advantages of classification and division of labor, affording
opportunity for graduation from the lowest section of the
primary to the high school, which is frequently a first-class
academy, fitting our children well for college or for business-
life ; and all without charge to the pupil.
It is falsely alleged by Romanists that these are infidel
schools. It is true, they do not teach sectarian Christianity ;
but they are thoroughly imbued with the great fundamental
principles of the true religion. The Bible is very frequent-
ly read as a part of the opening services of the school, and
most appropriately used as a text-book ; and the children
absorb from this great common revelation, as well as from
other text-books, and from the devout minds of many of
their teachers, true ideas of God, revelation, and the duties
of morality and piety. In many of these schools, prayer
is devoutly offered, and the spirit of true worship slowly
imparted. The Lord's Prayer is devoutly repeated in con-
cert; and the singing — a frequent daily exercise — brings
out the glowing sentiment of gratitude and love for the
Saviour of men.
True Christianity is so extensively diffused among the
masses, that it comes in like the sunlight through the pores
of society, and diffuses its genial influences through the
schools. The great leaders of public education are very
generally devout Christians ; and our common education is
thus becoming largely, and in the best sense, Christian.
The feeling of invidious caste is gradually wearing away,
and the children of the wealthiest and best citizens are not
unfrequently found in our public schools.
As one of the strong historical facts of the Republic, it
442
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
should be stated that large numbers of our best business
and public men have received their education only from the
common schools ; while multitudes of scholars and literary
men are indebted to this fundamental American institution
for their thoroughness in higher academic and collegiate
education. The larger benefits of the common-school sys-
tem appear, however, in the fact of their pervading, quiet
influence upon the citizenship of our country ; the general
intelligence and elevation they impart to the freemen upon
whom the elective franchise and the government of the
nation devolve rendering it morally impossible to deceive,
and finally wrest from our patriot princes, the people, the
liberties which, by reading, song, instruction, and prayer,
become the high trust of each individual and of the whole
combined. It would seem almost unnecessary to suggest to
the American people the sacred duty of guarding and de-
veloping their public schools as the source of patriotic
devotion, and the indispensable means of high Christian
civilization. If it were possible to conceive of the wreck
of this system upon the rock of sectarian bigotry, we might
well say the days of the Republic are numbered.
SUNDAY SCHOOLS.
The Sunday school has, beyond question, become in
America a truly national institution. No man writes a true
history of the United States who fails to give it prominent
position. As a legitimate product of the great revival of
spiritual religion, — first in England, and then in America, —
it seemed very humane to assemble poor children together
on the Lord's Day, and teach them to read. It was most
fortunate, that, to the devout Christian minds engaged in
this benevolent enterprise, the Holy Scriptures should be
at once regarded as the appropriate text-book for the more
advanced among the children. Soon, quite naturally, por-
tions of these sacred revelations were committed to memory,
DEVELOPMENT OF LEARNING AND THE ARTS. 443
lessons were explained, and the most happy results were
seen in the true conversion and great moral improvement
of many of the children.
As the efforts of good men and women extended, the in-
stitution began to assume definite form, and the plans of
God in regard to it became more evident. It was seen at
length to arise directly out of the Church, to be a legiti-
mate outgrowth of Christianity, an institution of God, and
thoroughly organic as a grand department of missionary
labor and effective discipleship.
The Sunday school thus comes in appropriately to supple-
ment the public schools. It is free to all, it uses in a proper
manner holy time, its labors are a noble charity, and it be-
comes more eminently and distinctly religious than the com-
mon school can be. It is universally known that children
who attend these schools will be taught sacred history and
geography, the fall and sinfulness of man, the redemption of
the world by Jesus Christ, the divine agency of the Holy
Spirit in the production of goodness, the regeneration of
man, and the hope of everlasting life ; the extreme wicked-
ness of idolatry, theft, murder, adultery, and Sabbath-break-
ing; the propriety and duty of penitence, and faith in the
Saviour of the world ; membership in the Church of Christ,
and a life of strict honesty, holiness, and love. They will
be gradually raised to noble views of God and duty, to the
highest conceptions of private and public virtue ; and from
purest motives they will be led, so far as practicable, to be-
come genuine patriots and broad-minded philanthropists.
And all this, not from mere human instruction, but from the
legitimate appropriation of forces coming directly from
God in answer to many fervent prayers, resulting in true
conviction for sin, and genuine conversion by the power of
the Holy Spirit, through the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So far as this extends, the reformation, both of character
and manners, among these children, becomes radical, and
truly astonishing. The legitimate result is not to make
444
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
them Sunday scholars of another grade, not to produce any
new independent organization, but to lead them directly
into the visible Church of God. From the Sunday schools
come the best instructed, most intelligent, reliable Christians
of the age ; and we behold here the grand nursery of the
Church of the future.
But a still wider influence goes out from this great provi-
dential institution. On the sabbath, the education of the
week is extended into its legitimate sphere, imbued more
deeply with the spirit of right and of justice ; and its defects
are measurably supplied. Like a diffusible stimulant, the
inspirations of the Sunday school enter every organ and tis-
sue of the body politic ; and who would question its health-
giving power ? Through the more thoughtful and devout,
negligent and wicked children come to feel the wrong of
sin, and the duty of a holy life. Through the children, the
parents come to be largely impressed with the value of the
Bible, the worth of the soul, and the need of a Saviour.
Thus, through the Sunday school, quiet missionary influences
reach the courts and lanes, the garrets and cellars, of our
crowded cities ; the sick and the poor are relieved, and the
ignorant are instructed; not unfrequently other schools,
and even churches, are founded ; thus showing the pioneer
agency of this institution in the hands of the Church. Young
people learn to love the sabbath and the privileges of the
sanctuary, the Bible-class, and the company of the good, and
are here comparatively guarded against the attractive and
ruinous influences of popular sinful pleasures. Thus teach-
ers and officers are provided for Sunday schools, and the
institution re-acts powerfully and usefully upon itself. Thus
scholars, writers, professional men, and statesmen become
imbued with the spirit of truth and justice, and the great
public functions of popular sovereignty become healthful,
free, and powerful in their action ; a broad-minded philan-
thropy becomes prevalent, and at length national.
We affirm that these are not only the legitimate, but the
DEVELOPMENT OF LEARNING AND THE ARTS. 445
actual historical results of thorough Sunday-school instruc-
tion, under the guidance of the Church, as a part of the
great whole of religious influence, and a method of moral
power now clearly providentially indicated.
It requires, therefore, no great sagacity to see that the
institution has already become a part and a mode of the
national life ; that it has ceased to be experimental, and has
become historical ; and that both those who make and those
who write history must recognize this vitalizing force of the
modern ages. Those who ignore or neglect this great power
in this last half of the nineteenth century are unhistorical.
And especially must the present and future development of
the Republic of Liberty depend upon this and all other forms
of culture which purify the heart, correct the judgment, and
recognize God as the great Sovereign of mind, and Source
of moral power.
Let it not be deemed strange, therefore, that this institu-
tion is slowly correcting its own mistakes, gradually per-
fecting its course of study, and making its literature ; and
that great public men in the United States, governors
and judges, senators and assembly-men, learned gentlemen
and splendid women, as well as the most humble, are sitting
down humbly every Lord's Day before their classes of little
ones, rich and poor, to give and receive lessons from the word
of God.
The Sunday school is one grand reliance for the Christian
culture of freemen, and the constitution of a pure, exalted
statesmanship. It is, we repeat, truly national in the United
States of America.
In 1786, Bishop Asbury, of the Methodist -Episcopal
Church, established the first Sunday school proper on the
Western Continent. In 1861, the number of Sunday-school
children in the Republic was estimated to be considerably
above three millions. Since that time, the numbers in attend-
ance have increased rapidly ; the Sunday-school force of the
Methodists alone having reached over a million and a half.
446
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
It is even more important to state, that the institution is
revealing more distinctly its organic life. It rises up as the
great training department of the Church, full of energy and
missionary power. Its graded classes and normal discipline
give it order in " theory and practice," and secure perma-
nence as well as rapid development. Let American states-
men and philanthropists cherish the Sunday school.
ACADEMIES.
The word "academy," as commonly used in this country, has
a peculiar meaning. It applies to intermediate institutions
between common schools and colleges. We have seen, that,
in our public schools, the highest grade reaches the acade-
mies, and becomes, to some extent, a scientific and classical
school, actually free to all. The growing intelligence of our
children and young people of both sexes, however, requires
institutions of higher grade ; and they are found in nearly
every county, and especially at the centres of distinct com-
munities, in buildings of great beauty and convenience, with
regular gradations of studies and classes. They are under
the direction of teachers and executive officers generally
well educated, sometimes masters of their respective sciences
and of the art of teaching ; thus furnishing to our more
aspiring and promising young people a sound symmetrical
education, which answers a good purpose for business and
professional life, or a preparation for college.
In all these institutions, the languages, the natural sciences,
and mathematics are taught, and in some of them with great
thoroughness. Their students number from perhaps thirty
to five hundred each, many of whom remain from one to
three years, and others for even a longer period, going
through a practical or preparatory course of great value,
and securing a mental drill and development which give
them great power in the future. The number of students
now annually issuing from our academies, seminaries, and
DEVELOPMENT OF LEARNING AND THE ARTS. 447
collegiate institutes, is becoming so large as to perceptibly
elevate the average range of general intelligence and the
standard of national character. Germany might as well do
without her gymnasium as America without her academy.
These institutions are sometimes founded and supported
by the counties and municipalities, and partially endowed
by the State ; but much more generally they are erected by
the churches. The great Christian denominations, while they
omit from their courses of instruction and discipline every
thing which is peculiarly sectarian, feel the obligation imper-
ative to provide liberally for the education of their own chil-
dren and the general public under the thorough transforming
influence of Christianity. They insist that true education
must recognize God and his holy word ; must present Christ
in .the atonement, and the Holy Ghost in regeneration, as
the restorer of heart and intellect and volition to their ori-
ginally-intended righteousness. While, therefore, they seek
thus to guard against infidel demoralization in the higher
training of their young men and women, they look for the
divine blessing upon their schemes of science and true wis-
dom.
The churches expend large sums of money, freely given
by the rich and the poor, to build, and, at least in part,
endow, these institutions. It is a form of Christian enter-
prise in which their very best minds, lay and clerical, expend
their most sacrificing and consecrated efforts, not unfre-
quently for a lifetime, actually to rear the national fabric
in soundness, strength, and beauty. These schools, to a
greater or less extent under the patronage of the evangelical
churches, have ceased to be regarded as ecclesiastical estab-
lishments for local or sectarian purposes, and come to be
considered, as they really are to a large degree, great public
vitalizing forces in every commonwealth for the proper cul-
ture of the rising generation, the growth of the State, and
the exaltation of the Republic.
Thus, in the most enlightened as well as the darkest age
448 THE GEE AT REPUBLIC.
of the world, the Church appears as the grand conservator of
learning, the regenerator of society, and the strength of the
nation.
We also use the word " academy " in its higher sense. The
Military Academy at West Point ; the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences, Boston, founded in 1780 ; the Connec-
ticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, founded in 1799 ; the
Academy of Natural Science, Philadelphia, founded in 1818;
the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, established in
1807 ; the National Academy of Design, and the Medical
Academy, at New York, — are all institutions of high grade
for improvement in the arts and sciences. The historical,
classical use of the term " academy " is not so frequent here
as on the continent of Europe. It is, however, sometimes
applied generally to all the higher institutions of learning.
COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES.
In a former part of this work, we have seen that the broad
common sense and true statesmanship which regard high
mental culture, under the control of religion, as vital to the
Commonwealth, came with our fathers to this country.
This spirit incorporated the Bible, the pulpit, the public
school, and the college into the very framework of society ;
and there, despite the rage of infidels, Romanists, and char-
latans, they have ever since remained, not as dead in opera-
tive elements, but living, expanding forces, without which
the growth of our nation would have been utterly impossible.
Let any man who doubts the soundness of this conclusion
undertake to account for our national development and
power, leaving out the Bible, the pulpit, the common school,
and the college, and he will soon convict himself of inex-
cusable superficiality and ridiculous narrowness of thought
and opinion.
It cannot be claimed that the greatest wisdom has con-
trolled our higher educational movements in this country.
DEVELOPMENT OF LEARNING AND THE AKTS. 449
We have shown and felt, in this respect as well as others,
the weakening influence of ultra democracy. More regard
for the general, and not less for the particular, more for the
whole, though not less for the local interests of the people,
or, in other words, stronger centralization, would have given
us fewer but much better colleges and universities, and a
much riper, broader scholarship. We have not unfrequently
wasted our means by localizing tendencies and divisions, thus
producing a large number of colleges and universities quite
unworthy of the name.
If we have in this manner subjected ourselves to just criti-
cism, and even damaging ridicule, we have, nevertheless,
increased our academic popular power, and done in this
what we do in every thing, — allowed the free range of facts
and elective affinities to correct our opinions and revise our
actions. We have learned, to some extent, where are our
true centres, and what are our true methods. We are slowly
accumulating the logic of age: for though our history includes
but a small number of years, and denies us the moral force
of a venerable antiquity, the rush of events in our new
country crowds our brief years with so large a number of
facts, and so much vitalizing force, that time, actually brief,
.becomes virtually long ; and it is no vain boast that we are
much older than our years. It will be found to be historical
at length, as it certainly is philosophical, that republican
liberty rapidly multiplies the ages by its powerful attractions
of wisdom and facts, the vigor of its thinking, the reckless-
ness of its ventures, and the velocity of its movements.
These strange elements of a new measurement of duration
are gradually coming to the surface; but they are only
beginning to be recognized by thinkers in America and
Europe. They will force their own acknowledgment when
a few years have gone by, and it comes to appear, that in
vitalizing power, if not in the numbers of their alumni, Yale
and Michigan are older than Cambridge and Oxford.
The State and the Church are separate in America, and
450 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
so they will ever remain ; while religion and political wisdom
in Europe will slowly approach, and finally reach, the Ameri-
can standard of moral freedom in all the great conditions
of Christian progress. In the mean time, the two great
thoughts and facts, the Church and the State, are slowly
revealing their common identity of life, development, and
mission. In the spirit of this truth, wherever in this country
the State institutes a college or university, Christian life fills
and develops it, or it dies. Wherever the Church organizes
a college or university, the State incorporates it, and some-
times (more rarely heretofore than it will hereafter) assists
in endowing or supporting it with the Christian wealth of
a Christian State ; and whether its patronage includes money
or land, or only influence, it absorbs the rising goodness and
talent, the public virtue and power, which the Church,
through her institutions, generates. Hence it is that we can-
not know education nor the State, in the Great Republic,
apart from the influence of the Church.
Here therefore, as elsewhere, we are not surprised to find
the Church, in her evangelical departments, the great organ-
izer and inspirer of educational enterprise. The Bible,
prayer, and regeneration come in to give life ancj direction
to study and training; and consciously or unconsciously,
officially or unofficially, the highest institutions of learning
in America take their mould and receive their distinction
from ecclesiastical life and action. Let the following table
of facts illustrate these remarks. It is imperfect ; but, com-
piled by the Andover, Lane, and Chicago Societies of Inquiry,
it is reliable for the purposes of this discussion.
Professors Conversions Ministry
Colleges. Students, of Religion, during Year, in View
Amherst . . . .218 151 50 38
Allegbany , 93 27 26
Appleton .... 319 75 10 15
Bates 48 31 13
Beloit ..... 194 92 21 44
Bowdoin 121 38 13
DEVELOPMENT OF LEARNING AND THE ARTS. 451
Professors Conversions Ministry
Colleges.
Students.
of Religion.
during Year.
in Viei
Brown University .
. 190
130
4
50
Burlington
. 99
22
6
Chicago University .
. 280
75
30
Cornell
. 516
150
102
9
Columbia
. 65
15
11
Dartmouth
. 234
100
20
20
Dickinson
. 120
80
40
20
Eleutheria
. 32
5
G-enesee
. 81
55
19
Hamline
. 339
155
25
10
Hanover .
. 39
15
Harvard
. 419
80
24
Hamilton
. 164
78
11
42
Illinois Wesleyan University
. 298
95
30
15
Indiana State University .
. 253
50
21
4
Indiana, Asbury
. 368
Kenyon
. 143
48
31
Louisburg
. 95
59
33
Madison
. 130
102
10
74
Marietta
. 46
27
McKendree .
. 130
17
19
11
Miami ....
. 67
18
Michigan
. 280
121
19
Middlebury .
. 53
20
1
12
New Jersey .
. 232
69
50
North-western University .
. 135
85
60
Oberlin
. 1,145
624
200
Ohio, Wesleyan
. 162
118
100
73
Otterbein
. 225
90
20
10
Rutgers
. 105
46
3
25
Shurtleff
. 185
150
5
61
Pennsylvania .
. 104
65
18
48
Trinity ....
. 59
41
18
Union ....
. 150
44
8
18
Vermont University
. 38
18
5
2
Wabash
. 150
48
40
17
Washington and Jefferson
. 142
82
3
47
Western Reserve
. 126
59
25
10
Wesleyan University
. 133
114
' 40
Wilberforce University
. 42
24
6
Williams
. 190
118
30
18
Yale
500
229
40
452 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
To a very large extent, the intelligent liberality inspired
by our holy religion has produced these institutions ; and
they are hence thoroughly pervaded by the religious spirit.
With what propriety, therefore, is one day in every year
devoted by the evangelical churches to fervent prayer to
God for his blessing on the colleges of our land !
Our universities are generally colleges, and not, as
on the continent of Europe, a higher grade for advancing
the education of graduates from the gymnasium or college ;
nor, as in England, grand corporations, including colleges,
fellowships, sinecures, professorships, and their ancient and
peculiar traditions. We have, however, several universities,
including schools of law, medicine, and divinity. \
Learning in America, it may be conceded, is rather gen-
eral than great or profound ; but we can claim an increasing
number of scholars who are recognized and felt throughout
the scientific and literary world.
THE PRESS.
In 1822, Lord John Russell mentioned before the House
of Lords "the multiplication and improvement in news-
papers, as gratifying evidences of the augmented wealth and
expanding culture of the middle classes in Great Britain."
Some eighty years later, Mr. Kennedy said of America,
" A free press has become the representative, and, for the
masses, the organ, of that free speech which is found indis-
pensable to the development of truth, either in the religious,
the political, the literary, or the scientific world." Both
these remarks are now receiving their fulfilment in the
United States. Our periodical literature has become one
of our grand "popular educators;" and the "augmented
wealth and expanding culture " of our free citizens have
given, at the same time, evidence of the power of a free
press, and scope for the development of its power. The
United States has been called "a newspaper-reading na-
DEVELOPMENT OF 'LEARNING AND THE AETS. 453
tion." In 1860, we published 4,051 papers and periodicals,
amounting to 927,951,548 copies, valued at $39,678,043;
which would be 34.36 copies to each white man, woman,
and child of the country. Our book-printing amounted to
$11,843,459; job-work, to $7,181,213. In twenty States,
— New England, Western, and Middle, and the District of
Columbia, — the work of the press, in its various depart-
ments, reached, in the single year 1860, $39,678,043.
The increase of this power is beyond all parallel. A single
religious publishing-house has turned out more than twelve
bound books a minute for every working minute of a year ;
an indication of the reading-matter actually demanded and
paid for by the American people.
It is of little avail to attempt to estimate the power of
the press in this Republic. It has its vicious elements ; is
seized by infidels, Romanists, spiritists, and demagogues to
mislead the people for selfish ends, or to promote a perverted
class interest. But this exceptional use of the great power
of the nineteenth century does byno means render its free-
dom questionable, or its influence, as a whole, pernicious. Its
teachings, good and bad, illustrate the freedom of true re-
publicanism ; while its collisions of mind and principle reveal
the safety of free discussion, and bring out with enhanced
power all the great doctrines of liberty. Licentiousness in
the press as well as in every thing else must, of course, be
suppressed ; but the Americans are sensitive with regard to
any other limitations. The purest and noblest in our nation
say, " Let the battle go on ; let error and fiction war with
truth ; let the selfish passions of leaders and parties dash
against the fortress of liberty ; let infidelity and superstition
assault the pure principles of the gospel and the true church
of God : there is no danger."
" Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again ;
The eternal years of God are here :
While Error, wounded, writhes in pain,
And dies amid her worshippers."
454 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
In the art of printing, the Americans have made great
improvements. Conceding priority in experimental inven-
tions for stereotyping to Vander Mey in Leyden, Ged of
Edinburgh, M. Firmin Didot, France, and the Earl of Stan-
hope, England, it may be affirmed that American genius has
carried the art to its highest present point of utility. The
same may be claimed in regard to electro typing, an impor-
tant branch of electro-metallurgy ; a department of industrial
art, the power of which, for convenience, beauty, economy,
and despatch, cannot be regarded as yet fully developed.
Type-setting and distributing-machines, invented by Wil-
liam H. Mitchell of New York, and C. W. Felt of Salem,
Mass., indicate the labor-saving power of genius, and mark
the progress of practical art in America.
Perhaps nothing more distinctly indicates this progress
than the contrast between the printing-press used by Frank-
lin, and preserved in Washington as a sacred relic, and the
rapid power-press of to-day. England, through the inven-
tive genius of William Nicholson in 1790, may claim the
honor of commencing experiments which led to the inven-
tion of power-presses. Friederich Kb'nig of Saxony, begin-
ning in 1804 under the patronage of T. Bentley and R
Taylor of London, made vigorous efforts in this direction,
but did not reach practical success. He abandoned the at-
tempt to work a hand-press by power. He, however, by
the help of A. F. Bauer, a German of Stuttgard, made fur-
ther experiments; and Nov. 28, 1814, "The London Times"
was printed on a steam-press constructed secretly by these
Germans.
Cowper and Applegath, both Englishmen, gave new form
and considerable advancement to this important department
of mechanism ; producing a cylinder-press which struck off
six thousand two hundred copies per hour, and worked daily
for more than ten years.
In the mean time, " Isaac Adams of Boston, Mass., took
up the problem abandoned by Konig. of working a hand-
DEVELOPMENT OF LEARNING AND THE ARTS. 455
press by power, and succeeded in making the machine de-
scribed in his patents of 1830 and 1836." The success
realized -by Mr. Adams in these experiments was largely in
advance of his predecessors.
But to Richard M. Hoe, of New York, the world is in-
debted for complete success. In 1847, he made " a perfect
machine, on the cylinder of which the types are held by
friction between bevelled column-rules." Thus at length
was produced a complete revolution in the art of printing.
" The ten-cylinder presses, such as are used in New York and
London by the leading journals, strike off fifteen thousand
impressions per hour. They are only employed for news-
papers of large circulation."
Setting types by machines, stereotyping, electrotyping,
the use of power-presses, and the statistics of the periodical
and book trade, sufficiently prove that the Americans are a
reading people.
STEAM-NAVIGATION.
When Watt brought his great invention of the steam-
engine to practical perfection, men were by no means aware
of the revolution it would produce in the navigation and
locomotion of the world.
Before its power could be appreciated or applied, numerous
unsuccessful efforts would, of course, be made. Experiment-
ers in England and France up to 1730, Jonathan Hull in
1736, the Count d'Auxiron, the Periers, the Marquis de
Jouffry, and M. des Blancs, from 1774 to 1796, made praise-
worthy efforts, but with no practical results. John Fitch of
Pennsylvania, in 1786, succeeded in propelling a small skiff
by steam, and in subsequent attempts, in 1790, on the Dela-
ware, obtained so much success as to justly entitle him to the
credit of establishing the practicability of steam-navigation ;
but his efforts fell short of the complete triumph which
seemed to be just before him. Rumsey of Virginia, on the
Potomac in 1787, and in England in 1793, made progress in
456
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
this direction. Enough had been done prior to the experi-
ments of Miller and Symington in Scotland, in 1788, to secure
to America the claim of priority in this great discovery, so
clearly as never to have been successfully controverted. Chan-
cellor R. R. Livingstone of New York, Oliver Evans of Phil-
adelphia, and John Stevens of Hoboken, N. J., made experi-
ments which rendered still clearer the practicability of future
success, but did not quite reach it.
Well, therefore, was it remarked by the committee of the
first Universal Exhibition in 1851, that "many persons in
various countries claim the honor of having first invented
small boats propelled by steam ; but it is to the undaunted
perseverance and exertions of the American Fulton that is
due the everlasting honor of having produced this revolu-
tion both in naval architecture and navigation." In u The
Clermont" of "a hundred and sixty tons burden, a hun-
dred and thirty feet long, eighteen feet wide, and seven feet
deep, on the morning of Aug. 7, 1807, Fulton, with a few
friends and mechanics and six passengers, started from New
York for Albany, leaving on the shore an incredulous and
jeering crowd." This was the first steamboat excursion
in the world. It was successful, and commenced a new era
in navigation and commerce, rendering the name of Robert
Fulton immortal, and conferring imperishable honor upon the
country which gave him birth.
Stevens came very near anticipating his great countrymen
in the credit of their success. His competing steamer, forced
to avoid the New- York waters by the monopoly granted by
the legislature to Livingstone and Fulton, pushed out boldly
into the Atlantic, and reached Philadelphia in safety; thus
becoming the pioneer in ocean steam-navigation. " In 1818,
' The Savannah,' a New- York-built ship, with side-wheels,
and propelled by steam and sails, crossed the Atlantic to St.
Petersburg, via Liverpool ; reaching the latter place, direct
from New York, in twenty-six days, and returning in safety."
Thus to American genius and daring belongs the first honor
DEVELOPMENT OF LEARNING AND THE ARTS. 457
of the great revolution in ocean-navigation, as well as that
on internal waters.
In fifty years from the first trip of "The Clermont" on
the Hudson, the number and influence of steamboats and
steamships had exceeded computation. The world is alive
with the quickened activity which has resulted to mind and
commerce. Time, beyond computation, is saved in the
transaction of business. The style of convenience in moving
over the waters, and the nearer approach of nations, con-
tribute to general improvement in civilization and the real-
ized brotherhood of man. In all this we cannot fail to see
the distinct manifestation of God. His were the waters and
caloric ; his the timber, the metals, and the fuel ; his the
mind and the muscle. He made them all, and controlled
the time and the place of their mysterious combinations;
thus revealing clearly his purpose, in the colonization and
government of this country, to advance the race boldly
beyond all former standards and methods of civilization.
RAILROADS.
To England fairly belongs the first honor of this great
invention and the use of steam-locomotives. The begin-
nings, of course, were very small and rude ; but they demon-
strated the fact that steam-power could be rendered available
for impelling carriages and removing freight on land. The
development of this power has been very rapid both in
Europe and America. It began in this country in 1829 ;
and the decade immediately under review marks a splendid
advance in this great method of civilization and progress.
Previous to 1850, our railroads " sustained only an unim-
portant relation to the internal commerce of the country.
Nearly all the lines then in operation were local or isolated
works, and neither in extent nor design had begun to be
formed into that vast and connected system, which, like a
web, now covers every portion of our wide domain, enabling
58
458
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
each work to contribute to the traffic and value of all, and
supplying means of locomotion and a market, almost at his
own door, for nearly every citizen of the United States."
Only one line of road, the various links of the New- York
Central, connected the tide-waters of the East with the great
internal basins of the country ; and this was encumbered
with such tolls in the interest of the Erie Canal, as to amount
to an embargo on freight.
The next line, extending from Boston to Ogdensburg, was
completed within the year 1850. The New- York and Erie
was next ; and this was opened April 22, 1851. The next
was the Pennsylvania, which completed its " mountain divis-
ion in 1854." The Baltimore and Ohio, fifth in time, was
opened in 1853. " The Tennessee River, a tributary of the
Mississippi, was reached in 1850 by the Western and Atlan-
tic Railroad of Georgia; and the Mississippi itself, by the
Memphis and Charleston Railroad, in 1859. In the extreme
North, the Atlantic and St. Lawrence, now known as the
Grank Trunk, was completed early in 1853. In 1858, the
Virginia system was extended to a connection with the Mem-
phis and Charleston and with the Nashville and Chattanooga
Railroads."
"The eight great works named, connecting the interior
with the seaboard, are the trunks or base lines upon which
is erected the vast system that now overspreads the whole
country. They seem as outlets to the interior for its prod-
ucts, which would have little or no commercial value with-
out improved highways, the cost of transportation over which
does not equal one-tenth of that of our ordinary roads."
The following will exhibit the number of miles of rail-
roads constructed in te|i years, from 1850 to 1860: —
STATES.
Increase In
Ten Years.
MILES.
Maine 226.58
New Hampshire .... 191.27
Vermont . 277.18
STATES.
Increase in
Ten Years.
MILES.
Massachusetts 237.22
Rhode Island 39.92
Connecticut . 190.74
New-England States 1,1(32.91
DEVELOPMENT OP LEAENING AND THE ARTS.
459
Increase in
STATES.
New York
Ten Years.
MILES.
1,298.74
353.97
1,620.15
97.50
126.90
STATES.
Ohio .
New Jersey .
Indiana
Pennsylvania ....
Delaware : .
Maryland
Middle Atlantic States .
Virginia
Michigan
Illinois
Wisconsin
Minnesota
Iowa
3,497.26
1,256.01
640.92
698.97
760.50
380.50
Kansas
North Carolina ....
South Carolina ....
Georgia
Florida
Interior States North .
California
Oregon .
Southern Atlantic States,
Alabama
3,736.90
610.66
797.30
255.25
306.00
Pacific States . . .
New-England States . .
Middle Atlantic States .
Southern Atlantic States .
Gulf States
Mississippi
Louisiana
Texas
Gulf States ....
Arkansas . . . . .
1,969.21
38.50
1,197.92
489.72
Interior States South . .
Interior States North . .
Pacific States ....
Total in United States .
Tennessee
Kentucky
Interior States South .
1,726.14
Increase In
Ten Years.
MILES.
2,325.48
1,897.90
457.30
2,757.40
902.61
679.67
9,020.36
70.05
3.80
73.85
1,162.91
3,497.26
3,736.90
1,969.21
1,726.14
9,020.36
73.85
21,186.63
Let the reader observe that we began this ten years with
8,588.79 miles of railroad in operation in the whole United
States, costing $296,260,128 ; during the progress of the de-
cade, we increased 21,186.63 miles, at a cost of $838,192,781 ;
making 29,775.42 miles of road, costing $1,134,452,909.
This progress is so great, that we cannot extend our concep-
tions or reason so as fully to grasp and comprehend it. In
the decades to come, additions will be still more incompre-
hensible.
These roads, it was estimated by Mr. Kennedy, "trans-
ported in the aggregate at least eight hundred and fifty tons
of merchandise per annum to the mile of road in operation.
Such a rate would give twenty-six million tons as the total
460 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
annual tonnage of railroads for the whole country. If we
estimate the value of this tonnage at a hundred and fifty
dollars per ton, the aggregate value of the whole would be
three billion nine hundred million dollars. Vast as this com-
merce is, more than three-quarters of it has been created
since 1850.
Up to the close of 1866, we had extended our lines so as
to reach 36,890 miles ; making about thirty-eight per cent
of all the railroads in the world. In all Europe there are
50,117 miles, in North and South America 40,866 miles,
in Asia 3,660 miles, in Great Britain and Ireland 13,286
miles, in France 3,082, and in Prussia 5,704, miles of rail-
road. In the United States there are eighty-one square
miles to each mile of railroad, and a mile of railroad to
each thousand inhabitants. In Great Britain and Ireland,
the proportion is nine miles of area to one of railroad, and
one mile of road to each 2,189 of population ; and in France
the ratio is twenty-four square miles, and 4,172 of population,
to one mile of railroad.
One of the two grandest enterprises of the age is the Trans-
continental Railroad connecting the Atlantic and Pacific
Oceans, and bringing America and Asia into neighborhood
relations. The Union Pacific Railroad is now rapidly moving
westward. It reached the Rocky Mountains in September,
1867, — a distance of five hundred and seventeen miles from
Omaha, Nebraska, where it connects with the great Eastern
systems of roads centring at St. Louis, Chicago, Boston, and
New York. The California Central is building from the
Pacific Ocean, eastward, to meet the Union Pacific ; and they
have already tunnelled the Sierra Nevadas, and hasten to
meet their Eastern co-laborers at the earliest possible mo-
ment.
By this road, New York is within a week of San Francis-
co ; and, by steam, Asia is within twenty-eight days of our
great port on the Pacific. With these connections, the vast
trade of Europe with Eastern Asia must cross this continent,
DEVELOPMENT OF LEARNING AND THE ARTS. 461
and San Francisco and New York be raised to a position of
commercial enterprise heretofore unequalled.
This vast work was boldly commenced by the United
States in the midst of our gigantic civil war. Individual
capital is munificently aided by the government with a grant
of twelve thousand eight hundred acres of land to every mile
of road ; to which are added United-States bonds, for the
least expensive portion, sixteen thousand dollars per mile ;
the next class, thirty-two thousand dollars; and, for the
mountain section, forty-eight thousand dollars per mile.
This immense undertaking is now (fall of 1867) more than
half completed. The cars will doubtless pass from ocean
to ocean early in the year 1870.
In the mean time, American genius has rapidly improved
the comfort of railroad travelling. We may now at our
pleasure enjoy our saloons and refreshments in the splendid
cars fitting up for this and other roads ; and, when weary, at
night we can retire to our state-rooms, and enjoy our repose,
and wake in the morning to find that we have moved as
rapidly and safely in the hours of sleep as in the day.
THE SAFETY STEAM-GENERATOR.
We have not reached the highest perfection in the use of
steam. Invention and discovery ought to reduce the bulk
and expense of steam-apparatus, and secure us against the
possibility of explosions. In this connection, it gives us great
pleasure to introduce to our readers a recent invention by
our fellow-countryman, THOMAS MITCHELL of Albany, N.Y.,
which promises to accomplish these invaluable results. It
has been examined and fully indorsed by scientific men and
practical engineers. John Johnson, LL.D., Professor of
Natural Science in the Wesleyan University at Middle-
town, Conn., in a letter to the inventor, says, " Having been
favored with an opportunity to witness the working of your
recently-invented safety steam-generator, I take pleasure in
462 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
expressing my views of it. The impression made upon my
mind is altogether favorable ; and, if I may not affirm posi-
tively that it is the greatest invention of the age, I can say,
conscientiously, that I believe it will have the effect very
considerably to increase the importance and value of steam
as a motive-power, by diminishing both the cost of its per-
fection and the danger of its use. I am happy to say that
I consider your invention one of great importance and inter-
est, as it cannot fail of coming into general use very soon."
Other testimonials express the same and even stronger
convictions, without reservation. I have seen the movement
of this beautiful invention as employed in working machine-
ry; and I cannot see how it can fail to revolutionize the
whole system of available steam-power in mechanism, loco-
motion, and steam-navigation. From the following descrip-
tion by the inventor, the reader will receive a clear idea of
the steam-generator : —
" This generator takes the place of steam-boilers. Its con-
struction is simply a cast-iron cylinder, lying horizontally
within a furnace ; which furnace is formed of two-eighths of
an inch wrought-iron plates riveted together, with a space
between of about one inch. This space is kept filled with
water, thus protecting the iron case from the effects of the
heat. The water thus heated is pumped into the generator.
From this water, there is an open pipe into the air, so that
no pressure is possible. The generator is made to rotate by
the steam-pump, making about two revolutions per minute
over the fire in the furnace ; thus securing an equal tempe-
rature in its metal, and, of course, obviating the injurious
effects of unequal expansion and contraction, and therefore
giving it ,the greatest possible durability. One of these
cylinders of ten-horse power is only thirty inches long by
twenty diameter. There is a valve constructed like a safety-
valve, on which a scale of figures is made. A spring, or
weight, is placed on any of these, giving any number of
pounds of water-pressure desired. The pump is kept con-
DEVELOPMENT OF LEARNING AND THE ARTS. 463
stantly in operation. There is a half-inch water-pipe passing
through the trunnions of the generator horizontally, which
does not revolve, made tight by stuffing-boxes, and contain-
ing holes on its upper side about two inches apart, and about
a sixteenth of an inch in size. The water, passing into the
generator through this pipe, becomes so highly heated, that
it foams out of these little nozzles, and, coming in contact
with the surrounding highly-heated steam, becomes steam
itself before touching the metal of the generator. Suppose
it is desired to run at sixty pounds of steam : the water-
valve is set at this figure. The generator is now heated to a
degree which will convert the water let into it immediately
into steam : thus sixty pounds of steam is produced in
about five seconds. This pressure, being equal to the water-
pressure, prevents the introduction of any more water ; and,
there being no water in the generator from which to make
steam, the steam cannot rise above the sixty pounds, and
that, too, without regard to the degree of heat in the furnace.
The two pressures, being thus equally balanced, render ex-
plosions impossible. Now, as the steam-pressure is reduced
by use, that remaining lets just water enough into the gene-
rator to keep up the corresponding pressure, thereby secur-
ing a steady supply of steam without regard to the quantity
being used, and limited only by the amount of water a given
size of cylinder is capable of converting into steam."
i
TELEGRAPHY.
Telegraphic communication began by the use of signals.
Roman generals and North-American Indians alike availed
themselves of this convenient method of overcoming distance
and time. Fires, flags, symbols formed of blocks of wood,
illuminated letters, figures, telescopes, and mirrors were
among the means adopted for this purpose.
The way for the electric telegraph was prepared by the
discovery, "about the year 1729, that the shock could b«
464 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
transmitted long distances through conducting media with
great rapidity ; " by the invention of the Leyden jar ; the
experiments of Franklin ; " firing alcohol by an electric
charge, sent through wires, under water, across the Schuyl-
kill in 1748;" and the Voltaic pile, discovered in 1800. In
1747, Dr. Watson discovered that " the earth itself and
intervening bodies of water might be made use of to com-
plete the electric circuit." The names of Lesage of Geneva,
Lamond of France, Reizen of Germany, Don Francisco Salva,
and Sr. Betancourt, are connected with important experi-
ments extending from 1774 to 1797. On the track of this
discovery appear the names of Francis Ronalds, England, in
1816; Harrison G. Dyer, New York, in 1827; and Sb'mmer-
ing, Germany, beginning his experiments in 1809.
The discoveries in electro-magnetism, commencing with
Oersted of Copenhagen in 1819, opened a new era in the
scientific efforts tending to the solution of this important
problem. Then appear the names of Schweigger of Halle;
Ampere of France; Prof. Steinheil of Munich ; Cooke, Wheat-
stone, Barlow, and William Sturgeon, of England ; all of
whom made their contributions to the accumulating elec-
trical thought of the age.
Another stage of progress is distinctly marked by the
experiments of Prof. Henry, made in Albany, N.Y., in 1828-
1830, greatly multiplying available magnetic force by the
use of a covered wire. " The current was so increased in in-
tensity, that the electric telegraph was at once made practi-
cable for any distance." Now Baron Schelling of St. Peters-
burg, Councillor Gauss, and Prof. Weber of Gottingen, enter
the field, bringing their valuable experiments down to 1834.
In 1836, Prof. Daniell, England, discovered the method of
sustaining a continuous current; and Prof. Faraday, Eng-
land, brought forward the inductive current ; both important
steps in advance toward the great practical result destined
to distinguish the age in which we live.
In 1832, at Havre, on board the packet-ship " Sully," our
DEVELOPMENT OF LEARNING AND THE AETS. 465
great countryman, Prof. SAMUEL FINLEY BRUCE MORSE, con-
ceived the true idea of the electro-magnetic telegraph, and
proceeded at once to make the drawings, which, after the
most thorough legal sifting, have demonstrated his claim to
be considered the true inventor of a system of telegraphic
communication with all the essential apparatus required to
render electro-magnetic and chemical power available in the
grand system of telegraphy which now extends throughout
the world.
Slowly and carefully Prof. Morse advanced in the prepara-
tion of his machine and in practical experiments ; bringing
out his invention successfully in New York in 1835, and
producing communications through a circuit of half a mile.
He then came before the government for an official recog-
nition of his great discovery, but shared the usual fate of
genius, — delays and vexations which seemed to be endless.
Discouraged at home, he went abroad. England and France
then had the opportunity of becoming the first great patrons
of one of the greatest benefactors of the race ; but they
suffered national prejudice, forms, and doubts to deprive them
of this honor. Returning to his own government, and passing
through conflicts and trials almost unendurable, he retired,
on the last night of the session of 1842-1843, in complete
despair. " But in the morning — the morning of March 4,
1843 — he was startled with the announcement, that the
desired aid of Congress had been extended in the midnight
hour of the expiring session, and thirty thousand dollars
placed at his disposal for his experimental essay between
Washington and Baltimore. In 1844, the work was com-
pleted, and demonstrated to the world the practicability and
the utility of the Morse system of electro-magnetic tele-
graphs." :
In consequence of these vexatious delays, he was antici-
pated, in the production of the first actual working telegraph,
by Prof. C. A. Steinheil of Munich, in 1836. It was brought
* Appleton's Cyclopaedia.
5'J
4C6 THE GEEAT REPUBLIC.
forward under the patronage of the Bavarian Government,
and extended twelve miles, using the earth to complete the
circuit.
About the same time, Mr. William F. Cooke, a student at
Heidelberg, taking his hint from the experiments of Prof.
Moncke, commenced a series of experiments, which, through
the assistance of Prof. Wheatstone, resulted in the English
telegraph. The electro-chemical telegraph was brought to
this country in 1849 by the inventor, Mr. Alexander Bain.
It was a valuable improvement ; but for legal reasons, and
by arrangement, it has been incorporated with the working
system of Morse. Prof. Wheatstone has continued his labors
with important results. In the mean time, " Mr. Alfred Vail
of New York, M. Frouient in France, Royal E. House of
Vermont, David E. Hughes of Kentucky, and Jacob Bret
in Great Britain," invented printing-telegraphs, which are
doubtless of great value in the art. The system of Mr.
House " is regarded as one of the most wonderful and com-
plete of the extraordinary inventions developed by the tele-
graph." To him belongs the honor of the first printed
despatch ever produced upon a telegraph-line. It was sent
in the autumn of 1847 from Cincinnati to Jefferson ville.
Experiments are, of course, rapidly progressing. Defects
are eliminated and excellences combined, while the invention
of Prof. Morse remains the grand basis of the whole, and the
great practical method of telegraphy for the largest portions
of the world. Indeed, it is a most unusual thing for any
original inventor to include so nearly and so fully all the
fundamental principles of a great public improvement as did
Prof. Morse. The civilized world combines to recognize his
claim, and extend to him the highest honors. From the
sovereigns and governments of France, Russia, Prussia, Swe-
den, Belgium, Holland, Austria, Sardinia, Tuscany, Rome,
Denmark, Spain, and Turkey, and from citizens of England,
he has received testimonials of gratitude such as have never
been the lot of any American citizen.
DEVELOPMENT OF LEARNING AND THE ARTS. 467
To him also belongs the honor of originating the sub-
marine telegraph. He " laid the first submarine telegraph-
lines in New- York Harbor in the autumn of 1842, and
received at the time, from the American Institute, a gold
medal for that achievement ; " and it is claimed that the first
suggestion of the Atlantic telegraph was made " in a letter
from Mr. Morse to the Secretary of the United-States Treas-
ury, dated Aug. 10, 1843."*
I mentioned the American trans-continental railroad as one
of the two greatest enterprises of the age. The Atlantic
telegraph is unquestionably the other.
From the first successful experiments of Mr. Morse in New-
York Harbor, submarine telegraphy went on rapidly. The
great leading mind in the struggles of twelve years, extend-
ing from 1854 to July 27, 1866, resulting in placing the Old
and the New World in almost instantaneous connection, was
Cyrus W. Field, — a name which must ever stand high, not
merely in the annals of America, but of the world. Dis-
tinguished no less for his humility than for his high sense of
justice, he awards to the great scientific men and noble
patrons of progress in England the highest praise for their
indispensable co-operation and unparalleled exertions uniting
to secure for this great providential movement complete suc-
cess; but the world combines to place the crown upon the
head of our distinguished fellow-countryman, CYRUS W. FIELD.
It is now wholly unnecessary to trace the steps by which
this grand result was reached. It is enough, that, through-
out the length and breadth of our land, we can read at our
homes the great events transpiring in Europe on the same
day of their occurrence, and even in anticipation of time
by the clock.
When we consider the genius by which this result has
been achieved, and think of Franklin, Morse, and Field, with
their great co-laborers in the field of discovery ; when we
* For a full and valuable history of the telegraph, I refer the reader to Appleton's
Cyclopaedia, articles " Telegraph " and " Morse."
468
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
see the gathering neighborhood of nations, and the grand
unity of the race coming out of the confusion and strife
of six thousand years, — we are constrained to exclaim, in
the language of the first telegraphic despatch in the world's
history, penned by an American woman, " What hath God
wrought ! "
Up to 1866, there were sixty-one important submarine or
telegraph cables, amounting to ten thousand two hundred
and thirty-one miles. The first commenced operation in
1851 ; but they had, at the above date, accomplished jointly
three hundred and thirteen years of telegraphic work.
Look, now, at the results of railroad and telegraphic com-
munication, and behold the literal, of which the spiritual
was seen by our great Christian poet a hundred years in
advance : —
" Mountains rise, and oceans roll,
To sever us, in vain."
ARCHITECTURE.
Civil, military, and naval architecture may be regarded as
progressive in the United States. It is treated as belonging
to the useful rather than the fine arts. The utilitarian ten-
dency of the republican mind shows itself in this depart-
ment of industry. Our best architects study the practical
and useful first, the elegant and beautiful if they have time.
Many of them are good mechanics, have built houses for the
convenience of poor men ; and the developments of genius,
lifting them above the toil of handicraft, bringing them into
the sphere of the beautiful, have generally been amid the
limitations and discipline of poverty and the constant demand
for cheap plans and low prices.
The achievements of our clever artists are, on this account,
the more creditable, and, at the same time, the more useful.
We, moreover, harmonize with the tendencies of our times.
The really grand in architecture seems to belong to other
DEVELOPMENT OF LEARNING AND THE ARTS. 469
ages. The obelisks, pyramids, temples, palaces, and tombs
of Egypt will never be reproduced nor imitated in America
or elsewhere. The magnificent temples of India, and the
grand and imposing structures of Greece and Rome, belong
wholly to the past. Paganism could exceed Christianity in
the enormous wastes of power which struggled to symbolize
the greatness of their conceptions of the gods. It has long
since exhausted its resources in these efforts, and lapsed into
barbarism in its attempts at architecture as well as its modes
of living.
The early Christians introduced in their splendid cathedrals
a much purer ideal of God and worship, but gave undue
position to ornaments in their church architecture and dec-
orations. This era also, we believe, has departed, not to re-
turn. There will, probably, be no other specimens of imposing
grandeur and inspiring beauty thrown around the simple
worship of the Lord Jesus, at all comparable to those which
still remain in Europe the admiration and wonder of trav-
ellers.
The movement in this department of art is away from the
physical toward the spiritual. Hence simplicity and beauty
have taken the place of grandeur and extravagance ; a fact
which shows clearly that America is in harmony with the
age. The manifestations of tyranny, which absorb the toil
and means of a generation of millions for the aggrandize-
ment of the sovereign, are superseded by the Christian utili-
ties, which distribute resources of enjoyment among the
masses. Pyramids and cathedrals are the types of the dead
past ; railroads, steamboats, telegraphs, chaste, convenient
church-edifices, and halls of learning, the types of the pres-
ent. We have no lamentation for the departure of the
symbols of despotism, paganism, and corrupted Christianity,
but rather glory in the fact that the Great Republic leads the
world in the direction of the useful, the beautiful, and the
true. This is the direction of democratic freedom and pure
Christianity.
470 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
In the mean time, under the control of simple good sense,
our artists and artisans, acting in harmony, are keeping pace
with the advancing wealth and culture of our people.
Palatial residences, fine public buildings, and especially
beautiful houses of state and of worship, are rising up rapidly
around us. We can, it is true, show but few specimens of
pure Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian ; but we have preserved and
used something of the spirit of them all, while the semi-
Gothic, Old English, Romantique, and various composites, are
giving an air of wealth and taste to our church and other
o o
edifices.
PAINTING.
We are not disposed to make pretentious claims of prog-
ress in the fine arts in America. This would be absurd, as
we are yet in the infancy of national life. We are quite con-
tent with the simple truth, which shows a real and relative
development of taste worthy of our land and our freedom.
In portraits, we began in Boston as early as 1667 ; but, ac-
cording to Mr. Tuckerman, the colony now known as Rhode
Island was the scene of our earliest art.* Here Smybert began
his work, and by a copy of a cardinal by Vandyke, placed
in Yale-College Gallery, kindled the fires of genius in the
soul of young Alston, so famous in a later day. In Pennsyl-
vania, Benjamin West arose from obscurity to become the
great representative of American genius, and give distinction
to our country by such productions of his master skill as
« Christ Rejected," and « Christ healing the Sick."
Jarvis, the eccentric nephew of John Wesley, came for-
ward to attract attention. His " Perry at Lake Erie," and
numberless other productions, combined with his genial social
qualities to make him a general favorite. The " Ariadne " of
Vanderlyn was also " regarded as a miracle of beauty."
* It gives us pleasure to refer to "American Artist-Life," by Mr. H. T. Tuckerman, —
a new work of great value. We are under special obligations to the publishers, G. P
Putnam & Son, for the use of the j:roof-shcets in advance of publication.
DEVELOPMENT OF LEARNING AND THE ARTS. 471
" Henry In man, than whom no votary of the pencil in
America had more of the true traits of artist-genius, whose
few refined and graceful compositions, and portraits of
Wordsworth, Chalmers, Macaulay, and others, amply attest
his skill and originality, was cut off in the prime of his years
and his faculties. Thomas Cole, a landscape-painter, as truly
alive to the significance of our scenery as a subject of art
as is Bryant as one of poetry, and who united graphic pow-
ers with poetical feeling, had but just reached his meridian
when he passed away." *
Charles Wilson Peale, an honest mechanic, found the spirit
of art stirring within him, and became a student of West ;
rose to distinction as a portrait-painter, and contributed much
to the progress of art and natural history by his museum in
Philadelphia, and his influence in founding the Pennsyl-
vania Academy of Fine Arts, to seventeen annual exhibitions
of which he was a contributor.
Rembrandt Peale, second son of Charles Wilson, added to
the reputation of his family and his country by his brilliant
talents as a painter. His " Roman Daughter," " Court of
Death," and portrait of Washington, gave him an enviable
fame as a spirited idealist as well as a truthful delineator.
The name of Charles Loring Elliott, born in Scipio, N.Y.,
1812, has become historical in American art. He is justly
celebrated for the accuracy of his likenesses. Fraser, Trurn-
bull, Stuart, and Durand have also added lustre to the art-
fame of their country.
Frederick Edwin Church was born at Hartford, Conn., in
1826. His spirited drawings and brilliant colorings have raised
him to the highest position as a representative of American
art at home and abroad. His famous view of Niagara Falls,
in the judgment of English critics, " in the rush of the waters
and the fine atmospheric effects, realizes the idea of sound
as well as of motion, and has done more than any other
of its class to impress Europeans with a knowledge and
* Tuckcrman's American Artist-Life, p. 10.
472 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
appreciation of American art." * But we cannot give even
a catalogue of our deserving historical portrait and landscape
painters.
" Within the last few years, the advance of public taste
and the increased recognition of art in this country have
been among the most interesting phenomena of the times.
A score of eminent and original landscape-painters have
achieved the highest reputations, private collections of
pictures have become a new social attraction, exhibitions of
works of art have grown lucrative and popular, buildings
expressly for studios have been erected, sales of pictures
by auction have produced unprecedented sums of money,
art-shops are a delectable feature of Broadway, artist-recep-
tions are favorite re-unions of the winter, and a splendid
edifice has been completed devoted to the Academy, and
owing its erection to public munificence ; while a school
of design is in successful operation at the Cooper Institute.
Nor is this all : at Rome, Paris, Florence, and Dusseldorf, as
well as at Chicago, Albany, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Boston, and
New York, there are native ateliers, schools, or collections,
the fame whereof has raised our national character, and en-
hanced our intellectual resources as a people." f
SCULPTURE.
In this department of the fine arts, American genius has
reached a very high distinction. A few names are sufficient
to represent the progress of our brief history.
Horatio Greenough was a native of Boston, born in 1805.
He was a natural sculptor from his boyhood. While a col-
lege-student, he formed the model after which Bunker-hill
Monument was constructed. In 1825, he was in Rome.
Here he enjoyed the instructions of Thorwaldsen, but learned
more from his fellow-students. At Boston again, in 1826, we
* Appleton's Cyclopaedia, art. " Church, Frederick Edwin."
t Tuckerman, p. 12.
DEVELOPMENT OF LEARNING AND THE ARTS. 473
find him modelling busts of John Quincy Adams, Chief Jus-
tice Marshall, and others. But soon again he is in Italy, with
his residence in Florence. His first marked encouragement
came from James Fennimore Cooper, who commissioned him
to execute the " Charity Cherubs." This act of Mr. Cooper
was highly appreciated, and gratefully acknowledged. From
the example and influence of this distinguished American he
received numerous orders from his countrymen for busts and
other pieces of statuary, the most important of which is the
colossal statue of Washington, now standing in the eastern
grounds of the Capitol. A memorial of this worthy artist,
by Mr. H. T. Tuckerman, has done much to preserve the
record of his labors and moral worth. He says, " Horatio
Greenough left a void not only in the thin rank of our sculp-
tors, but among the foremost of Art's intelligent and eloquent
advocates and expositors. Not soon will be forgotten his
copious ideas, independent spirit, and genial fellowship. No
American artist has written more effectually of the claims
and defects of art-culture among us."
Hiram Powers was born in Woodstock, Vt, July 29, 1825.
His early life was that of an ordinary American farmer's boy.
At length he worked his way to Cincinnati, where he showed
his mechanical genius and business capacity in connection
with a clock-maker. A German sculptor awakened in him
the desire to be an artist, and taught him to model in plaster.
Then, for seven years, he had the charge of the Western
Museum in the wax-work department. In 1835, he began
at Washington a successful career in modelling busts of dis-
tinguished men. Then, under the patronage of Nicholas
Longworth, he went to Italy; since which, Florence has been
his home. He now needs neither eulogist nor monument.
His " Eve," " Greek Slave," and " Fisher-Boy," with numer-
ous other miniature works, give him a world-wide fame, and
reflect the highest honor upon his country. He has led the
way in departing from the ideal, and embodying in marble a
loving devotion to Nature and truth.
474 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
Thomas Crawford, a native of New-York City, was bora
an artist, March 22, 1814. He began to draw and sketch as
soon as he was able to move a pencil. His studies were con-
ducted first with a wood-engraver ; then with Messrs. Frazer
and Launitz, monumental sculptors, in his native city ; and
at the school of the National Academy of Design. After pro-
ducing indications of talent in portrait busts, he was found
at Rome in the summer of 1835. Here he spent several
years of the most devoted study and labor in the studio of
Thorwaldsen. During this time, his almost incredible devo-
tion and splendid genius produced many fine pieces, and
raised the hopes of his friends to a very high degree. In
1839, he brought out his celebrated " Orpheus." This secured
him the patronage of the Hon. Charles Sumner in an order
from Boston for a copy in marble, which, exhibited with
other works from Mr. Crawford, formed the opening to a
career of the greatest success. His studios in the Plaza
Barberini were highly attractive to men of genius from all
countries. His colossal equestrian statue of Washington,
twenty-five feet high, for the State of Virginia ; his grand
historical and allegorial pieces; his figure of Liberty, in group
with allegorical representations of the Arts, Commerce, and
Civilization, for the new Capitol, — are works of the highest
merit. Finally, the colossal statue of the Genius of America
is a fitting crown for the Capitol at Washington and the
genius of the artist.
I cannot deny myself the pleasure of mentioning one
other name, — Mr. E. D. Palmer. In the city of Albany is a
quiet studio which any gentleman of taste may feel himself
privileged to enter. It is the home of calm thought, pure
sentiment, bold conception, and chaste imagination. It is
where the artist studies and toils from pure affection for the
beautiful and the true. It is where the "Infant Ceres" throws
out the light of a soul through marble features; where "The
Morning and Evening Star " shine in bass-relief with a soft
radiance indicating the very incarnation of light ; where the
DEVELOPMENT OF LEARNING AND THE ARTS. 475
" Spirit's Flight," with the eyes of the mother resting on the
symbol of the atonement, and a true child "full of graceful
simplicity," fixes the gaze of tenderness and love. Then look
at the "Indian Girl." She has found a crucifix, and holds it
carefully and inquiringly in her right hand : in her left,
loosely held as if forgotten, are the feathers gathered for the
adornment of native grace, — beautiful, touching, spiritual.
There the " White Captive" seems ready to speak, while you
are mute with sympathy and admiration. "The moment
chosen by the sculptor is evidently that when the full con-
sciousness of her awful fate is awakened, — perhaps the
morning after the capture, when, no longer fearing pursuit,
the savages despoil their beautiful victim, and gloat over her
anguish. She is no longer breathlessly hurried onward, but
standing there in the wilderness, desolate and nude, realizes
through every vein and nerve the horrors of her situation ;
but virgin purity and Christian faith assert themselves in
her soul, and chasten the agony they cannot wholly subdue.
Accordingly, while keen distress marks her expression, an
inward comfort, an elevated faith, combines with and sub-
limates the fear and pain. Herein is the triumph of the
artist. The ' White Captive ' illustrates the power and
inevitable victory of Christian civilization. Not in the face
alone, but in every contour of the figure, in the expression
of the feet as well as the lips, the same physical subjugation,
and moral self-control, and self-concentration are apparent.
The ' beauty and anguish walking hand in hand the down-
ward road to death ' are upraised, intensified, and hallowed
by that inward power born of culture, and that elevated trust
which comes from religious faith." *
These and many other works of exquisite art are only in
part the outward manifestations of the inner life of thought
and feeling of our fellow-citizen, — Mr. E. D. Palmer, too
diffident to allow himself to be named, and yet so far almost
unconsciously demonstrative as to add lustre to the future
of American art.
* Tuckerman's American Artist, "Palmer."
476 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
Compelled as we are to pause here, we can only ask our
readers to stand reverently before the great Creator of mind
and genius, and adore the wisdom, the power and love, so
richly blended in these splendid creations.
PHOTOGRAPHY.
This means the art of depicting objects by means of
light. Priestley seems to have been the first to discover by
chemical experiments that this was possible. The experi-
ments of Schule, a Swedish philosopher, who shared with
Priestley the honor of discovering ox}^gen gas, tended further
to demonstrate this possibility. The names of Count Rum-
ford, Mr. Wedgwood, and Sir Humphry Davy, are also men-
tioned as having made valuable contributions to discov-
eries in this field. Daguerre in France in 1839, and, about
the same time, Talbot in England, invented methods "for the
fixation of the images of the camera obscura;" and the results
were deemed of great importance. The process came to be
called the daguerrotype, in honor of the distinguished French
discoverer ; and the pictures of outward objects were exceed-
ingly sharp and fine.
It is, however, to Dr. Draper of the New-York University
that the world is indebted for the discovery that likenesses
could be taken by light from the living presence. Dr. Draper
announced his discovery in the London, Edinburgh, and
Dublin philosophical magazines ; and it is believed that he
carried the art to so high a degree of perfection, that some
of his portraits have not been excelled. " This great im-
provement was accomplished at a time when the inventor of
the daguerrotype had given it up as impossible." *
From this point, experiments have advanced until photog-
raphy has become an immense business in the United States
and elsewhere. The various forms of the art are so well
known as hardly to need description. Ambrotype and pho-
* Appleton's Cyclopaedia, art. " Photography."
DEVELOPMENT OF LEARNING AND THE AETS. 477
tograph portraits have nearly superseded the old daguerro-
types in popular use, but not in real artistic perfection.
The result of the whole is to give to people of the most
ordinary means the luxury of likenesses painted by the sun,
which preserve the features of friends living and dead. The
discovery is, therefore, of great value. The miniature in oil
was so costly, that only the few could afford it ; hence pho-
tography is a very large accession to the happiness and
improvement of the masses, as well as the wealthy and most
highly cultivated.
It has come to be applied to depicting landscapes and copy-
ing manuscripts with great distinctness and beauty, and is a
grand accession to the convenience and perfection of the
portrait-painter and engraver. Large as is the field of this
art, its applications are destined to be still farther extended.
It undoubtedly deserves to rank high among the astonishing
discoveries of our own eventful times.
Thus have we endeavored to present the development of
learning and the arts in America, that our readers may see
how high above mere human possibility the mind of the
Great Republic has been raised by the direct power of God.
CHAPTER VIII.
DEVELOPMENT OF MANHOOD AND HUMANITY.
" The Americans are a very old and a very enlightened people, who have fallen upon
a new and unbounded country, where they may extend themselves at pleasure, and which
they may fertilize without difficulty. This state of things is without a parallel in the
history of the world." — DE TOCQUEVILLE.
THERE is a higher, more important progress than the merely
physical, — a greatness that rises above the greatness of
wealth and commerce, and quite as far above the merely
intellectual.
If the effect of climate or the configuration of our conti-
nent had been to make us earthly and sensual, and, as a
nation, we had become only large consumers and large tra-
ders, the period of development in our history had been only
the animalization of the race with an enormous growth of
individualism, which would have made us the contempt and
scorn of all pure intelligences on earth and in heaven. The
Western continent, it has been noticed, is concave toward the
sky ; while the Eastern is convex. Our rivers run from the
outer rims toward the great inward trough, and so seek
the sea by the way of the Mississippi ; therefore, it has been
very learnedly explained, our minds run downward, earth-
ward, and we are material, naturally an'd necessarily mate-
rialists : while the land of the Europeans and Asiatics arches
towards the centre, and their waters are drained each way
towards the oceans; therefore the Europeans and Asiatics
by great physiological laws look up, and are inevitably
religious, superstitious.
478
DEVELOPMENT OF MANHOOD AND HUMANITY. 479
If this argument were not a most ridiculous conceit, and
therefore utterly unworthy of serious consideration, and if
the tendencies were exactly what this physical theory of the
moral man assumes, we have a strong and triumphant answer
in the facts ; for, despite the convexity of the East and the
concavity of the West, materialism and sensuality are rank
and extended in both hemispheres. Even the present forms
of religion are compelled to resist the downward tendency
of fallen human nature, everywhere, by the most heroic
exertions ; an era of rationalistic scepticism and another of
kindred ritualism not unfrequently following rapidly on the
track of great religious reformations.
TRUE MANHOOD.
The great truth is, that, in the Orient as well as the Occi-
dent, men can.be good and great only by aid from above.
Under the action of this inspiration, selfishness and corrup-
tion, there as here, recede, and give place to all the en-
nobling feelings and acts of regenerated humanity. There
and here, human pride and ambition substitute the material
for the spiritual, the worship of the fine arts for the worship
of the great Architect of the heavens and the earth, of
church architecture instead of the Holy Being to whom
these stately, magnificent edifices are consecrated. In Amer-
ica, just as much, and no more, must be conceded. With-
out the regeneration and the new life, we are earthly and
sensual, exactly like Europeans ; and tend to idolatry in
some form, like the Asiatics : while, just like both, under
the power of the great spiritual resurrection, despite the
concavity of our part of the globe, our nations are refined
and exalted ; and we rise in the scale of greatness to the
highest spirituality and benevolence. One grand announce-
ment includes us all. " Ye must be born again " reveals at
once the reasons for our despair and our hope.
In the new moral creation, we have a marked development
480 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
of the native capabilities of man, and learn how the disabili-
ties of our race may be effectually helped, and our inherent
vices eradicated. There man begins to live for man in
distinction from self. It cannot be controverted, just so far
as the power of experimental religion extends in reforming
and moulding the nature of a man, he moves from littleness
to greatness, from selfishness to beneficence ; humility takes
the place of pride ; chastity, the place of lust ; honesty, the
place of fraud ; love, the place of hatred ; truth, the place of
falsehood; industry and enterprise, the place of idleness and
decay. These are all great elements of true manhood ;
and the growth is so visible, that a man who denies it simply
condemns himself for absurdity or dulness, narrowness or
falsehood.
Just as in individuals, so in nations. So far as the regene-
ration of human nature advances, so far the nation rises in
character and moral power. For all great moral achieve-
ments of the race, sin is the infancy of a people, righteousness
their manhood. Virtue begins to reveal its strength under
the cross, and piety unfolds its power in the exercise of true
faith, — "faith that works by love, and purifies the heart."
True manhood appears in its types. The first Adam was
a man combining the powers and susceptibilities directly
created by infinite perfection. His descendants were less
than men by all their infidelity, disloyalty, depravity, false-
hood, sorrows, groans, and dying. The second Adam was a
man, — a God, it is certain, but nevertheless a man, a typal
man ; and as the race became less than men by receding
from the first typal man, so they become men just as they
approach the second. In his fullest form, the second man
was the Lord from heaven ; and thus the divine in union
with the human becomes the highest type of manhood. Just
as the human race becomes imbued with the grace and power
of God under the power of the second man, who becomes to
believing sinners " a quickening spirit," do they approach this
highest type of manhood.
DEVELOPMENT OF MANHOOD AND HUMANITY. 481
The true manhood of a nation will therefore be, first the
regenerated manhood of the Fall ; then, so far as the new
life succeeds, the restored manhood of Eden ; and thence the
developed manhood of the old in the new creation.
Let it be remarked, then, as a matter of fact, that the grow-
ing greatness of the American nation is, so far as it has
advanced, the progressive development of the new manhood.
This is seen in the individual instances of reformation in the
domestic Edens, which come of the restoration of love ; the
social elevation, which makes vice disgraceful, and installs
virtue and piety as the dominant forces of reason; and in the
grand uprising of a whole people, courting martyrdom to
honor and secure a grea-t principle.
We must reckon as the result of the regeneration, not only
the persons in whom it is developed as a new life, but those
in whom any divine influences have found room and liberty
to begin their work. The general faith in the being of God ;
the public universal acknowledgment that Jesus is the
Christ, that he is the only hope of the world ; the condemna-
tion of professing Christians for their improprieties and sins;
and the universal homage paid to goodness, with the equally
universal acknowledgment of the duty and necessity of
reformation in order to perfect happiness and safety, — must
be referred to the same source. These all broaden and
heighten the manhood of our nation. Then comes the
elevating power of science, confirming the truth and
reflecting the glory of Christianity ; then the spirit of the
press, imbued with the life of a great regeneration, moving
the world mightily God-ward ; then the broad expansion of
liberty, accepting and proclaiming the universal brotherhood
of man ; finally the uplifting of the lowest, and the conse-
quent rising of the whole to the sphere of power which
reveals the inevitable, the indestructible, the endlessly-pro-
gressive, in the national life. This era of the Great Republic
dawns upon us to-day.
It would happen, of course, in the coming of generations,
Cl
482 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
under such quickening influences, that individual minds,
highly susceptible and broadly formed, would grow to dis-
tinguished greatness. Hence, though not thoroughly Chris-
tian, yet reached and stimulated by Christian forces, Franklin
and Webster rose in statesmanship above Mirabeau and
Talleyrand. Hence Washington and Lincoln, deeply imbued
with the religious spirit, were greater than Jefferson and
Calhoun. Thus Williams and Edwards, Marshall and Mc-
Lean, Judson and Olin, rose higher in historic renown than
other men of equal mental greatness, and approached very
nearly to the sublime purity and majestic strength of true
manhood. But the elevation of the common mind by the
power of a pervading Christian life, until justice is enthroned
by the will of the people, will be a broader, greater fact.
From this epoch in the nation's history, the approach to
typal manhood will be more rapid and more thoroughly
sustained.
ASYLUMS FOR THE DEAF AND DUMB.
Works of humanity follow promptly the development of
true manhood under the benevolent influence of Christianity.
The best Christian minds of all countries, from mere love of
the race, inquire anxiously after the welfare of the suffering
and unfortunate. " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself"
is the second great commandment of our beneficent Christi-
anity ; and the law of action toward the needy is distinctly
announced by our Saviour, — "All things whatsoever ye
would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."
Not merely the authority of these commands, but the actual
feeling of regenerated natures, and the longing desires of
enlightened good men in the spirit of a religion of love,
move them to make efforts to relieve distress, to exalt char-
acter, and enlarge the sphere and amount of positive enjoy-
ment and usefulness. Hence it is that institutions for the
education of the deaf and dumb, the blind, the insane, the
DEVELOPMENT OF MANHOOD AND HUMANITY. 483
intemperate, and the idiot, arise in Christian countries, and
are not found in heathen lands.
As is usual in all great developments of civilization, the
first efforts made for the deaf and dumb were crude and un-
satisfactory, — a kind of feeling around in the dark after facts
and agencies which only revealed their dim outlines. The
code of Justinian held deaf-mutes incapable of the legal
management of their affairs ; and the wisest philosophers
regarded the calamities of these unfortunates irremediable.
In the middle ages, they were debarred from the rights of
feudal succession.
To Pedro Ponce, a. Benedictine monk of Spain, belongs the
honor of one of the first recorded* attempts to educate the
deaf and dumb. He died in 150-4. Bouet followed, a half-
century later. The Germans claim the precedence of a full
century for efforts attended with success recorded by Rodolph
Agricola, and thus make the successful endeavors of Parch, a
clergyman of Brandenburg, to educate his deaf-mute daugh-
ter by pictures, contemporary with those of Ponce. In the
seventeenth century, small advance is asserted in this humane
endeavor. The great error, however, was in attempting to
educate by articulation ; and it was reserved for the Abbe
de 1'Epee of France to originate the great movement which
resulted in the use of signs, the natural language of deaf-
mutes, and to found the first institution for their education.
From this went out suggestions and teachers which founded
schools in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Holland, and Spain.
"It was only from this time" (1755 to 1760) " that the duty
of educating them began to take hold of the public con-
science." About the same time, the efforts of Thomas Braid-
wood in Scotland, and Samuel Heinecke in Saxony, came to
public notice.
Our own system was brought from the school of De 1'Epee,
in 1816, by our distinguished citizen, Thomas H. Gallaudet,
whose equally distinguished son has done so much to perfect
and extend the system in America.
484 TIIK HKKAT r;i-:rrr,Lic.
As late as 1850, there were only a hundred and eighty
institutions for the deaf and dumb in the world, numbering
about six thousand pupils. There were about eighty small
schools in Germany, forty-five in France, and twenty-two in
the British Isles.
Our highly-vahied pioneer institution in Hartford was
opened in 1817. The next began in New York, in the same
year; and the next in Pennsylvania, in 1820. Kentucky fol-
lowed in 1823, Ohio in 1829, and Virginia in 1830. In J834.
we had six institutions, thirty-four teachers, and four hun-
dred and sixty-six pupils ; in I860, twenty-two institutions,
a hundred and thirty teachers, and two thousand pupils.
It is easy to see that the work must be largely extended, as,
in 1860, the number of deaf-mutes had reached fifteen thou-
sand and seventy-seven.
These institutions cost the several States about three
hundred and fifty thousand dollars annually ; while over a
million and a half has been invested in buildings, grounds,
&c. The Columbia Institution in Washington is an ad-
vance movement designed further to perfect the system, and
extend to these unfortunates the benefits of a college-course.
ASYLUMS FOR THE BLIND.
The appeal of the blind to our sympathies and humanity
is perhaps still more touching. Shut out as they are from.
the world of external beauty ; denied the pleasure of looking
upon the landscape with its hill and dale, its flowers and
fruit ; not permitted to see the countenances of those they
love, nor read a line of all the world of literature so acces-
Mble to us, — it would be really strange if Christian benefi-
cence should make no efforts to improve their condition.
'•' LTIopital Imperial des Quinze Vingts was founded by
St. Louis in 1200, and still exists. It, however, makes no
efibrts to instruct its three hundred inmates. Valentine
llaiiy, receiving his hints from the success of the Abbe de
DEVELOPMENT OP MANHOOD AND HUMANITY. 485
x
1'Epee in relief of the deaf-mutes, determined to see if the
blind could not be aided by the sense of touch. Letters,
maps, and finally books, were printed in relief: blind children
touched them, and soon commenced to read.
This good work began to assume form in Paris in 1784,
and in Liverpool in 1791; extending through France and
England, and finally through all Europe.
In the United States, in 1860, 12,635 were blind; being
one to every 2,470 of the whole population. This, however,
is only two-fifths of the number in Great Britain and Ireland,
and three-fifths of the number in France. The causes of
this difference in our favor have not yet been so well defined
as to belong to historical records. But we have sufficient
numbers to excite our deepest interest and most liberal ef-.
forts.
Our institutions for the blind began in Boston in 1833.
In 1860, they numbered twenty-three, and a thousand one
hundred and twenty-six pupils and inmates; and so sure is
the progress, that we may regard it as morally certain, that
this unfortunate class will be well provided for by the provi-
dent wisdom of our Christian States.
The culture of so many good minds, otherwise completely
dormant, is not only humane as a relief to deprivation and
suffering, but a clear gain to the world. The Bible is the
great book of the blind ; and it is intensely interesting to see
with what fixed attention they trace, by the sense, of touch,
the name and revelations of God, and the plan of redemption
by Jesus Christ.
The educated blind manifest great love of music, and
some of them considerable talent. They sing, and touch the
instrumental keys and strings, with a delicacy and tender-
ness quite peculiar to themselves ; while their cheerful piety
very largely sustains the Christian hope which founded their
institutions. Surely no philanthropy rises to a nobler eleva-
tion than that which becomes " eyes to the blind."
486
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
ASYLUMS FOR THE INSANE.
Perhaps no sufferers appeal more piteously to the Chris-
tian philanthropist than the insane. It is amazing to see
how long they were considered and treated as beyond the
reach of remedy, mad enemies of all, fit only to be shut
up within dark prisons and darker cells, under control of
physical power only. God only knows what tortures have
been endured from this sad mistake, what rage and horror
have resulted from a sense of injustice upon the part of
those who were only partially insane, having sense enough
of conscious right to make the wrongs of imprisonment
and personal abuse severe and dreadful. It is hardly yet a
hundred years since the light of true reason began to dawn
upon the problem, " Can any thing be done to ameliorate the
condition of the insane ? "
The first movement in this direction was a general cura-
tive hospital in Philadelphia, instituted by philanthropists,
and incorporated in 1751. The charter, under the title of
" the constitutors of the Pennsylvania Hospital," provided
for " the reception and cure of lunatics." The hospital was
opened on Feb. 11, 1752 ; and thenceforward one of its
departments was specially appropriated to that class of pa-
tients.
To Virginia belongs the honor of establishing the first
institution exclusively for the improvement of the insane-
Under an act of incorporation, passed Nov. 10, 1769, a hos-
pital was opened at Williamsburg about Sept. 14, 1773. In
the war, the buildings were occupied as barracks for the
colonial troops ; but, after the war, they were restored to
their legitimate use.
The New- York Hospital was chartered by the Earl of
Dunmore in 1771. It was opened Jan. 3, 1791 ; and insane
patients were admitted in 1797. These were all the formal
efforts made for this humane purpose before the beginning
of the nineteenth century ; and " the character of the treat-
DEVELOPMENT OF MANHOOD AND HUMANITY. 487
ment was more custodial than curative." Still they were
beginnings of great historical value, as they indicate the
genesis and growth of philanthropic feeling and inquiry in
this important direction.
In 1791, the benevolent Dr. Pinel, amid the horrors of the
French Revolution, gave his thoughts anxiously to the relief
of maniacs. " He was connected with the Bicetre Hopital,
in which many of the insane were confined in cells, and
loaded with manacles and chains. After repeated solicita-
tions, he at length obtained permission from the public au-
thorities to remove these torturing implements of bodily
restraint. He commenced by relieving an English captain
who had been chained for forty years. The result was so
favorable, that he relieved eleven others in the course of the
day, and, in a few days, forty-one more. Thus began a move-
ment of humanity which spread rapidly over Europe and
America, and which, in the relief it has extended and the
blessings it has conferred, has had no parallel in the history
of Christian civilization.
About the same date, William Fuke, of York, England, in-
augurated a more humane treatment for the insane by found-
ing the Friends' Retreat for the Insane at York, opened
in 1796.
In 1808, a separate building for the insane was erected at
the New- York Hospital.
In 1797, seven acres of land were given to the State of
Maryland by Mr. Jeremiah Yellot of Baltimore, " on con-
dition that the government should found a hospital for the
treatment of insanity and general diseases." This institution
was not opened until 1816.
The Friends of Philadelphia "formed an association in
1812; obtained a charter; erected a building near the vil-
lage of Frankford, but now within the limits of the city of
Philadelphia ; and under the title, ' Asylum for the Relief of
Persons deprived of the Use of their Reason,' the institution
was opened in May, 1816."
488
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The McLean Asylum for the Insane, a branch of the
Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, was opened on
the 6th of October, 1818.
Up to 1830, we had five insane asylums. The Blooming-
dale Asylum, New York, dates in 1821 ; the asylums at
Hartford, Conn., and at Lexington, Ky., 1824 ; Stanton, Va.,
and Columbia, S.C., 1828 : since which period these institu-
tions have extended rapidly throughout the States, regarded
everywhere as indispensable to Christian civilization.
As a material portion of the history of this humane move-
ment, we mention with high satisfaction the efforts of Miss
Dorothea L. Dix to improve the whole system for the treat-
ment of the insane. Her enlightened, self-sacrificing, and
successful endeavors place her among the foremost philan-
thropists of her sex and age. Her name and acts deserve
to be written in letters of gold, and transmitted to coming
generations.
In the mean time, visits to the hospitals of Europe by Dr.
Pliny Earle in 1839, and, later, by Dr. Ray; the Association
of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the
Insane, suggested by Dr. Francis T. Stribling, superintend-
ent of the Western Lunatic Asylum of Virginia, at Stan-
ton ; and " The American Journal of Insanity," started in July,
1844, by Dr. Amariah Brigham, afterwards edited by Dr. John
P. Gray and his associates of the asylum at Utica, N.Y. ;
with many other agencies conducted by our most enlight-
ened philanthropists, — have contributed largely toward the
improvement of institutions and means for the accomplish-
ment of these most beneficent ends.
The cause conducted so largely by private benefactors,
and then chiefly by the several States, has at length become
national. Congress, by the wise appropriations of sums at
different times for grounds and buildings, amounting in the
aggregate to $473,040, makes the people of the United
States as such the benefactors of their most unfortunate
brethren. " The Government Hospital for the Insane was
DEVELOPMENT OF MANHOOD AND HUMANITY. 489
specially intended for the insane of the army, the navy, the
revenue-cutter service, and the indigent of the District of
Columbia. It is situated on the eastern shore of the Poto-
mac River, within the limits of the District of Columbia, and
about two miles south of the Capitol in Washington. The
principal building, constructed of brick, is seven hundred
and twenty feet in length. Its architectural plan and inter-
nal arrangements are among the best which have resulted
from the experience and the studies of many able men em-
ployed in this speciality. A farm of a hundred and ninety-
five acres belongs to the establishment." Dr. Charles H.
Nichols, its first superintendent, deserves great credit for the
perfection of the building commenced under his direction in
May, 1853, and completed in 1862. Its number of patients,
beginning in 1855 with sixty-three, had increased, up to
1861, to a hundred and eighty.
According to the eighth census, the insane of the United
States and Territories numbered 23,999. In 1859, 4,140
were admitted to thirty hospitals ; and 1,728, or 41.7 per cent,
were discharged as cured. Forty per cent may be regarded
as the average of cures from all classes of patients considered
as a whole; whereas, of cures placed under proper treatment
within the first year, from sixty to seventy out of every
hundred recover.
This is wonderful : it is the clearest possible demonstration
of the advance in humanity which constitutes one of the chief
glories of the nineteenth century. Instead of thinking of
our suffering brethren as shut up in dark dungeons, chained
to stone floors, looking out through iron grates, and raving
in anguish at evils which they can in no way comprehend,
we may now look at them in splendid buildings, with prudent
access to large airy halls and beautiful grounds, their con-
finement and ills relieved by medical and moral . treatment
from skilful men and gentle nurses, with all the sanitary
blessings of wholesome air, wholesome food and beverage,
490
THE GKEAT REPUBLIC.
beautiful and fragrant flowers, and inspiring landscapes.
Who can estimate the value of such a change ?
ASYLUMS FOB IDIOTS AND INEBRIATES.
Another class of human beings calling for pity are idiots ;
of whom there were in our States and Territories, in 1860,
18,865, or one in every 1,666 of our population.
The idea of doing any thing for the benefit of these mind-
less ones is wholly modern and Christian ; and now we see,
through the exhaustless skill and patience of humane sci-
entific men and kind women, these unfortunates also slowly
returning to consciousness and perception, and gradually
rising to the exercise of reason, and even usefulness.
Inebriates, the most criminal and yet pitiable of all de-
mented people, are also at length finding an asylum from
the reach of their relentless murderers, the dealers in intoxi-
cating liquors; and hope dawns upon minds and families
over which has heretofore brooded only the darkest, deepest
despair. At Binghamton, N.Y., and San Francisco, Cal.,
are the two parent homes for the inebriate, for the Atlantic
and Pacific slopes ; to be followed, let us trust, by others,
until this also shall take its place among the great Christian
movements of this noble country.
CHAPTER IX.
DEVELOPMENT OF NATURAL DEPRAVITY.
" Let us consider, that, for the sins of a people, God may suffer the best government to
be corrupted or entirely dissolved; and that nothing but a general reformation can give
good ground to hope that the public happiness will be restored by the recovery of the
strength and perfection of the State ; and that Divine Providence will interpose to fill
every department with wise and good men." — PRESIDENT LANGDON.
IF, in any land beneath the sun, human nature might be
expected to exhibit natural freedom from sin, and from
infancy grow up to angelic manhood, it surely ought to be
here. It would be difficult to mention one condition of
natural perfection outside of the moral character of man, as
man, which God has omitted in the preparation of this coun-
try. We have found, moreover, an evident purpose to bring
extraordinary moral power to bear upon the judgments,
feelings, and purposes of the race in this Republic, with the
view of accomplishing the most for human nature that can
be done by means divine and human. But what are the
facts? Evidently, there is no paradise here. We have
utterly failed to demonstrate the natural purity of souls.
We can boast of no national perfection growing up under
the natural laws of development. Indeed, we have not even
a state or country or city or neighborhood where depravity
does not show itself, rising up so directly out of the natural
moral condition as to suggest strongly that it must be
hereditary. Every family finds rebellion against the right
in its nursery, and even in the cradle. The neglect of even
the sterner forms of discipline will soon reveal its absolute
necessity ; and all assumptions of the righteous tendency
491
492
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
of childhood are painfully corrected by the production, as
well as the influence, of pernicious example. Penal laws
must go into every statute-book. The police, the seats of
justice, the penitentiaries, the houses of correction, must be
everywhere. The States of this Union are no exception to
the moral delinquencies of peoples and governments ; and
historical fidelity requires the chapter I am about to write.
INTEMPERANCE.
Love of strong drink is at least as natural to Americans
as to any people ; and it is cultivated to a depth and extent
of vice which can gather no comfort from comparison with
other countries.
Official reports for 1860 show that we were then employ-
ing 1,138 establishments in the manufacture of spirituous
liquors, producing 80,453,089 gallons of whiskey, high wines,
and alcohol, 3,397 gallons of brandy, gin, &c., and 4,152,480
gallons of New-England rum ; being a total of 88,002,988
gallons of strong liquors to circulate chiefly among our own
people, and be used as a beverage just so far as a vicious
appetite and depraved public sentiment, urged on by a vile
class interest, can secure this result.
To this must be added 970 establishments for the man-
ufacture of beer, yielding 3,239,545 barrels annually, to
stupefy and poison our citizens. The estimated value of
these pernicious liquors was $42,255,311 ; and, making all
proper allowance for those portions used for mechanical and
medicinal purposes, we have here one intimation as to the
cost of this ruinous indulgence. It is, however, only an in-
timation ; for these liquors, before they get to the people,
are multiplied by incredible dilutions. Their cost is increased
by enormous profits ; and the whole price which supports
manufacturers, jobbers, and retail dealers and their fami-
lies, — many of them in splendid attire, furniture, and equi-
page, — comes from consumers, who are thus wickedly im-
i
DEVELOPMENT OF NATURAL DEPRAVITY. 493
poverished ; and multitudes of helpless women and children
are reduced to the extreme of wretchedness, and perhaps
of crime. To this expense must be added, for these poor
people to pay, the cost of clerk-hire and agencies, bar-keep-
ers and rents, until the frightful aggregate rises above the
reach of accurate estimate. Then taxes on the grand list
must be added to the burdens of the people to support the
poor-houses, penitentiaries, and hospitals required to sustain
this accursed traffic. But the deep depravity, the wreck of
virtue, and the untold horrors, which must be traced directly
to this crime, can by no means be estimated in this world ;
and it is the disgrace of our country, that, in so many of our
States, the guilty traffic is sustained by law.
With less than half our present population, it was estimated
that we sent into the realms of the dead thirty thousand
drunkards a year, and that •" one-fourth of the families of
the United States were sufferers " from this vicious habit.
Some of our great men, like Dr. Benjamin Rush, sought to
rouse the people to their danger. The strong ground of the
Methodist-Episcopal Church, in her discipline and administra-
tion against the use of intoxicating drinks, saved multitudes
from ruin, and helped mightily to create the public sentiment
out of which temperance societies arose, — a movement which
began in Moreau, Saratoga County, N.Y., in 1808, at the sug-
gestion of Dr. B. J. Clark, and which has swept over a large
part of the civilized world. If we must confess that the vice
of dram-drinking did, at the close of the last century and
the beginning of the present, go far toward fixing upon
us the disgrace of being a nation of drunkards, it may be
accepted as some relief that this great reform arose under
the guidance of American philanthropists. Their heroic
struggles, under the old pledge, to abstain from the use of
spirituous liquors ; and the pledge of total abstinence from
all that can intoxicate, dating from August, 1836 ; the or-
ganization of the Washingtonians in 1840, with all their
successes and failures, — indicate the depth of their con-
494
THE GKEAT REPUBLIC.
victions that a destructive vice was preying upon the public
morals and health. Sons of Temperance, Rechabites, Cadets
of Temperance, Good Templars, Dashaways, and other bene-
ficial societies, sought in other ways to exterminate the evil.
The boldest measure of a virtuous and Christian people to
protect themselves from this public wrong dates from Maine
in 1851. Her legislature came forward with a law that pro-
hibited, under severe penalties, the sale of this pernicious
beverage ; and prohibitory laws were adopted by several
States. Around this question of the right and efficiency of
absolute prohibition the battle has raged for many years,
saving vast multitudes, and even whole towns, for the time
being, from the dreadful scourge, and rousing all the energy
of wicked men in defence of their traffic, with the fell purpose
of saving their unrighteous and enormous profits from the
interdict of law. In the mean time, the constitutional right
of the suffering people to protect themselves by law from
this baleful scourge has been established by the written
opinions of the ablest jurists of our land, and, finally, by
appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States.
With the record of the American Temperance Union and
its subordinate and cognate organizations on the pages of
history; with such names on the roll of philanthropy as
Dr. Beecher, Marsh, Neal Dow, and Gough ; and with the
grand reforms actually accomplished in America, in England,
and on the Continent, — we have some relief from the odium
which otherwise adheres to our national honor. But the
battle is by no means ended. The churches, the schools, the
lovers of the race in our midst, and the virtuous press, are
rousing to the conflict with a new vigor ; while all the vices
of the land are combined in the resistance. This war will
now rise to grander proportions than ever before ; and CHRIS-
TIAN REGENERATION, TOTAL ABSTINENCE, AND ABSOLUTE PROHIBITION,
will be the rallying-cry of the good and the brave on the
side of the right. The struggle will be long and varied in
results ; but it can never end until our country is saved.
DEVELOPMENT OF NATURAL DEPRAVITY. 495
LICENTIOUSNESS.
Whatever may be the desire prompted by self-respect, we
cannot be faithful to the history of our nation without ac-
knowledging that the crimes of lust are alarmingly preva-
lent in the United States. We have no desire to avail our-
selves of statistics to show the extent of prostitution in our
great cities, nor would it be any relief to demonstrate the
fearful and even deeper degradation of France or England.
It is sufficient to know that the extent in the United States
of this common ruin furnishes sad evidence that depravity
has its home in the passions, in the very fountains of domes-
tic and social life. We cannot, therefore, feel that we have
fathomed our private and social corruptions when we have
searched with painful thoroughness the abodes of public and
shameless vice, or the secret retreats of blushing crime in
houses of assignation. The marred visage, the trembling
limbs, the excitable nerves, the prescriptions of physicians,
and the disruption of domestic ties, tell how rapidly splendid
hypocrisy is leading its victims to the doom of the shame-
less debauchee.
To a kindred origin we must ascribe much of the levity
with which, in large circles, the marriage-contract is regarded.
The number of divorces, and the corrupt adjustment of law
to the convenience of this form of social vice, are shameful
evidences of the want of public virtue. We must, moreover,
recognize " the serpent in the dove's nest," and come to the
understanding, that licentious abuse of marital rights, lead-
ing to the crimes of abortion and infanticide, — crimes more
befitting the savage or barbarous state than a land of Chris-
tian civilization, — are alarmingly frequent, threatening the
most sacred obligations and highest hopes of our country.
No man can write faithful history, and ignore these humili-
ating facts. We see the perils with which this tide of vice
and woes threatens our beloved land, and unite with those
who lift up the voice of warning. Let the mothers and
496
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
daughters of America know their danger. Let the wisdom
of domestic education, and a more refined conscience, assert
their rights in our imperilled homes. Let the pulpit and
the press be honest, searching, and prudent in endeavoring to
correct the popular judgment. Indeed, philanthropists and
reformers of every grade must go to the bottom of these
vices and dangers, and take the remedies which the gospel
nffords. These alone are radical and of prevalent power.
SOCIALISM AND SPIRITISM.
America cannot claim any distinction in socialistic folly
equal to that given to France by St. Simon and Charles
Fourier, and to England by Robert Owen. But we must
confess to the presence of this leaven of iniquity in our
midst. Starting from the extremes of religious fanaticism
on the one hand, and infidelity on the other, a few minds in
America reached similar results, in the destruction, for them-
selves and their followers, of all the cardinal virtues. These
men, of course, " drew away disciples after them," and led
them out to experiment the dreams of diseased imaginations.
One class of fanatics seized upon the idea of religious per-
fection, and became delirious with the excitements of animal
fervor, which, to their conceptions, elevated them far above
ordinary Christians, and freed them entirely from sin; then
from the possibility of sin ; then exalted them to the sphere
of new revelations, which gave to their own imaginings the
authority of the divine mind; and finally made them su-
perior to law and human control, sanctifying their vilest
passions, and rendering supremely right and meritorious in
them all the vices which degrade and destroy society. Of
course, these fanatical spirits had no use for the Bible : the
vagaries of their own fevered brains were of higher authority.
They could not well endure even the outward restraints of
common decency ; and they only wanted leaders of sufficient
shrewdness to render this monomania available in schemes
DEVELOPMENT OF NATURAL DEPEAVITY. 497
of socialism which would reduce depravity to a system, and
surround it with an air of comfort and outward elegance to
make it seem a new order of civilization. Of course, multi-
tudes of these deluded people would become too crazy to be
gathered into a new community : some would wander from
home, and become ranging mendicants, exciting ridicule and
pity ; others would be humanely arrested, and shut up in the
mad-house ; others would die from exhaustion or premature
disease, or by their own hands, leaving but a comparatively
small number to become the obedient subjects of some im-
perial fanatic, who can with perfect ease extort money,
purchase lands, build houses, and embower himself amid the
groves and flowers and luxuries of an Eastern harem. He
has only to isolate himself and his degraded people sufficient-
ly from the scrutiny of society to be beyond the reach of
popular indignation and civil law, and expose enough of the
outward beauties gathered around him by unlimited power
to excite stupid wonder and admiration, and grant to his
deluded proselytes sufficient license to make them contented
with a paradise of sin ; and, while he can master disease and
avoid death, he can claim greatness and success.
It is not our purpose to dignify the examples of temporary
triumph over the weakness of human nature by naming their
heroes, or writing a directory to any establishment surviving
the wrecks of those which have gone before. Socialism
is mentioned, however, that its vices may be identified and
avoided, and that we may not be accused of shrinking from
due acknowledgment of the wrongs and dangers which
spring up amid our free institutions.
To the mind of the great infidel experimenter, Robert
Owen, it seemed naturally suggested that the fertile lands
and democratic freedom of America would furnish a fair
field in which to demonstrate his theory of "A New State of
Society," "The Formation of Human Character," " The Ration-
al System" of life, and "The New Moral World." Over-
whelmed by the rising self-respect and indignation of the
63
498 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
English people, he emigrated to America. Thirty thou-
sand acres of land, and residences for two thousand people,
on the Wabash River, in the very heart of the Great West,
would do for the beginning of New Harmony in Indiana.
Here he would place his fulcrum for the overthrow of Chris-
tianity, and the destruction of all governments that interfered
with the self-development of the natural man, and imposed
restraints upon natural affinities of the human race. But
his logical sequences refused to follow. Less than four
years sufficed to show this New Harmony a very Bed-
lam of discord, to dash all his mad schemes to atoms, and
send him back to England to repeat his experiments and
failures at Orbiston in Lanarkshire, at Tytherly in Hamp-
shire, and in the city of London. Invited to Mexico by the
government, he made another grand effort and grand failure
in the New World ; and there this brilliant socialistic lumi-
nary burst and went out before the eyes of men.
These two forms of gregarious vices are enough to show
that they may arise alike under a monarchy or a republic,
and that steady Christian illumination will ultimately dissi-
pate their darkness.
A form of fanaticism, differing in no essential practical
principle or result from those we have described, and begin-
ning here with* " spirit-rappings," has not yet fully spent its
force. To Americans it hardly needs description or exposure.
It is enough to mark it as allied to ancient forms of necro-
mancy, demoniacal possessions, and sleight of hand, by which
the unwary may be seduced for a time into the belief that
unexplained connections between matter and mind, the
manipulations of cunning hands, and the low, ungrammatical,
senseless ravings of crazed brains, constitute a new system
of revelation from the spirit-world, that must supersede the
teachings of the Bible, and overthrow all established sys-
tems of religion, philosophy, and government. In historical
reality, however, they only show, like all kindred forms of
fanaticism, power to use ranting declamation, personal in-
DEVELOPMENT OF NATUEAL DEPRAVITY.
fluence, the press and the passions, to destroy all sense of
religion and responsibility from the soul, break up the
holiest family ties, and let loose upon society a set of wan-
dering vagrants, whose very breath is moral pestilence, and
whose haunts are the scenes of frenzied delirium, and " the
hot-beds of vice."
It is of no consequence to us as a nation, but simple mat-
ter of historic justice, to say, that, if our Republic was the
scene of the latest outbreak of this old and foul superstition,
our itinerant deceivers have found their largest number of
votaries, and held their most profitable seances, under
monarchical governments; which is sufficient to rebuke the
attempts of some of their intelligent speakers and writers to
charge the origin and support of fanatical vagaries upon
republican institutions, and lead us to mourn a common
exposure and a common disgrace.
MORMONISM
is another form of human folly and vice, which has helped
to give " bad eminence " to our country. There is really
nothing new in this movement of the fanatical spirit. Long
before the days of Joseph Smith and his transparent fraud of
"the plates," and the supernatural translations of their records,
there had been multitudes of men who gave themselves
out for inspired prophets, who assumed to command the
obedience of deluded men and women, who made their own
blasphemous ravings superior to the revelation of God, and
took advantage of religious longings for the vilest purposes.
Alas for the weakness of poor human nature ! It is pre-
pared by Satan to be the victim of cunning fraud and
degrading passions. In whatever country depravity may
find its centres for the time being, it furnishes only occa-
sion for common mortification and sorrow.
But the organized strength and political importance of
this great fraud entitle it to a more extended notice. Joseph
Smith, the' founder of Mormon ism, -was born at Sharon.
Windsor County, Vt., Dec. 23, 180-5; and killed at Carthago,
111., June 27, IS 14. At the age of ten, he moved with his
parents to Palmyra, Wavne County, X.Y." lie LTIVW up idle.
.- */ «/
dissolute, and ignorant. '• In 1833, upwards of sixty of the
most respectable citizens of Wayne County testified that the
Smith family were of immoral, false, and fraudulent charac-
ter, and that Joseph was the worst of them." His pretended
discovery of the plates in the earth "in a hill near Manches-
ter. Ontario County," from which the Book of Mormon was
translated, was acknowledged by himself to be false. The
three witnesses whom he had induced to perjure themselves
to certify to the appearance of the Angel Moroni, and the de-
livery of the miraculous book, afterward quarrelled with him,
and denounced him as an impostor. Ample internal evidence
condemns the Book of Mormon as a. poorly-concealed and
low fiction. It was written as an historical noyel by Solomon
Spalding. a graduate of Dartmouth College ; and copied by
Sidney Pxigdon. a man employed in a printing-office in Pitts-
burg, where Spalding left it for examination. The testimony
of those who had seen and heard it read in part or in whole,
and especially that of Spalding's wife after his death, is con-
clusive upon this point. The manuscript was returned to her
and produced after the Book of Mormon was published. She
says. - I am sure that nothing would grieye my husband
more, were lie living, than the use which has been made of
his work." The air of antiquity which was thrown about the
composition doubtless suggested the idea of converting it
to the purposes of delusion. Thus, an historical romance,
with the addition of a few pious expressions and extracts
from the Sacred Scriptures, has been construed into a new
Bible, and palmed off upon a company of poor deluded fa-
natics as divine.
From this book, Smith and his family began to preach
a new religion. Foolish, idle, and easily-deluded people
gathered about him; and at Manchester, N.Y., April G. 1830.
DEVELOPMENT OF NATURAL DEPRAVITY. 501
a the Church of the Latter-day Saints " was formed. Reve-
lations soon began to be announced, pretended miracles
were asserted, and the fatal delusion began to spread.
Under the direction of their leader, this rabble of vile
enthusiasts settled in Kirtland, 0. ; where their frauds upon
neighboring communities so excited the indignation of the
people, that they drove them from their midst as an insup-
portable nuisance. They fled to Missouri, where many x>ut-
rages were committed. They were driven from Jackson
County and from Clay County, and at length located at
Far West. Further exposures of their iniquitous and trea-
sonable plans were made, under oath, by Thomas B. March,
president of "the twelve apostles," and Orson Hyde, another
of their apostles. Their organized band of avenging Danites,
and their bold threats of a war of extermination against their
opposers, brought them into violent collision with the people
of Missouri. The governor called out the militia. Smith
and Rigdon were arrested and imprisoned under charge of
" treason, murder, and felony ; " but Smith escaped from jail,
and Rigdon was released by writ of habeas corpus. The
Mormons agreed to leave the State, and, to the number of
thousands, moved on to Commerce, 111. ; and Smith, by pre-
tended revelation, ordered the people to build there the city
of Nauvoo. Land had been presented to him by Dr. Isaac
Gallard; and the prophet, by the sale of lots, realized a
fortune estimated at over a million of dollars.
Indulged by a vicious and extraordinary charter granted
by the Legislature of Illinois, Smith was now a man of im-
portance. He was mayor of Nauvoo, first president of the
Church, and commander-in-chief of the Nauvoo Legion, with
the rank of lieutenant-general. A hotel was erected in which
Smith and his family should have place " from generation
to generation for ever and ever." " A revelation " now pro-
nounced Smith " seer, translator, prophet, apostle of Jesus
Christ, and elder of the Church ; " and profanely said, " The
church shall give heed to all his words and commandments
502 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
which he shall give unto you; for his word shall ye receive
as if from my own mouth, in all patience and faith." *
Thus did this vile, blasphemous deceiver rise to the posi-
tion of absolute power ; and under its shield, and with pre-
tended revelations, he commenced, more boldly than before,
to gather about him deluded women, and give authority to
the licentious doctrine of polygamy. His criminal practices
became unendurable to many of his own followers. They
denounced and prosecuted him, and, by the sworn testimony
of insulted virtuous women, fixed upon him and his leading
supporters the crimes which destroy society, and bring upon
guilty offenders the wrath of God. The heads of the
church, fearing the violence of the storm which was gather-
ing, published a denial of the doctrines of polygamy ; but no
such mendacity could blind the eyes of personal witnesses of
their persistent efforts to give to general prostitution the pro-
tection of municipal law in the name of religion.
This arch-criminal and his leading disciples refused to obey
the law, until they were persuaded that it was useless, and
submitted to be imprisoned. One form of illegal violence
had given pretext for another : the mob assaulted the jail ;
and the two Smiths, Joseph and Hiram, were shot dead.
Brigham Young, an uncultivated but shrewd and powerful
man, born at Whitingham, Vt., June 1, 1801, and who had
joined the Mormons at Kirtland in 1832, soon appeared with
•sufficient native force to put down all rivals, and assume the
supreme power, which, at the moment of death, had fallen
from the arch-deceiver Smith. Henceforward this one dar-
ing, unscrupulous mind becomes the organizer of this grand
system of concentrated abominations.
Brigham Young was too shrewd to attempt the develop-
ment of this scheme of iniquity in the midst of civilization,
and very easily invented the " revelations," which led the
reckless outlaws beyond the Rocky Mountains, on to the
great American plateau stretching westward to the Sierra
* See Appleton's American Cyclopaedia, article " Mormons."
DEVELOPMENT OF NATURAL DEPRAVITY. 5Q3
Nevadas. This region of vast solitudes, but capable of suc-
cessful cultivation, and of sustaining a very large population,
was a fitting place for the planting of this now formidable
colony of corruption. Young reached the region of the
Great Salt Lake, July 24, 1847 ; and the great body of the
Mormons, in the fall of 1848. Here they have built a city
and a vast temple. From this point they have sent out
their missionaries to different parts of the world, and espe-
cially to Great Britain, whence they have brought large
numbers of men and very much larger numbers of women
to be the victims of their gross deceptions and base passions.
Here they have openly avowed the system of polygamy, and
glory in the number and comeliness of the abused and sacri-
ficed females who crowd their harems. Here they show a
pretended obedience to civil rulers, but organize treason, and,
for the present, defy the Government. From this point they
extend their towns and labors, cultivating new fields, and
consorting at pleasure with hostile Indians in their savage
assaults upon helpless emigrants. Well may the scathing
denunciations of our Saviour to the scribes and Pharisees
be addressed to them : " Woe unto you, hypocrites ! for ye
compass sea and land to make one proselyte ; and, when he
is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than
yourselves."
It is unnecessary to trace this great iniquity farther. It
is sufficient to say that it must go on until it is fully devel-
oped and has spent its force. Government has no right
forcibly to prevent religious delusion as such; but it has
full power to suppress outlawry, prevent conspiracy against
its own sovereignty, and protect its citizens in their rights
among the vagrants who brand them as " Gentiles," and per-
secute them for the exercise of the purest forms of Christian
worship. How long this desired discipline may be delayed,
we may not know ; but mutual jealousies and angry recrim-
inations amongst themselves, the rising self-respect of the
Government, and the hardly restrained indignation of the
504 THE GEE AT REPUBLIC.
American people, indicate that the time for retribution, or
submission to the laws of the land, draws nigh.
In the mean time, there is the least possible apology for
charging this monstrous, morbid growth upon true repub-
licanism, as it has for a long time depended mainly for main-
taining and increasing its population upon its annual throngs
of proselytes from the subjects of monarchies in England or
on the continent of Europe. It is useless to attempt a refer-
ence of this or any other form of private or social vice to
any method of civil government. It is simply and only a
development of natural depravity. God's answer to this
shameless effrontery, as to the great Mohammedan apostasy,
is quietly corning to the ears of men, and will soon be audi-
ble in the solemn announcements of retributive justice.
CORRUPTION IN RELIGION AND POLITICS.
It cannot be claimed that in America more than else-
where the sacred name of religion has never been misap-
plied, nor that the Church has been in all cases preserved
from dangerous error. Men bring to the consideration of
religious as well as other questions darkened intellects and
depraved hearts. A common tendency to substitute per-
verted human reason for divine omniscience and revelation
in matters of faith appears in rationalistic infidelity alike in
Germany, England, and America. No matter where or in
what form it appears, this sceptical spirit seeks the satisfac-
tion of felt religious want without the new birth and a life
of self-denial. The churches of the United States in com
mon with Christendom have felt the paralyzing effects of
unbelief and of the spirit of a naturalistic philosophy,
which alike deny to the thirsty soul the pure waters of life,
and fail to realize in time the true hope of immortality. Just
in proportion as this pride of intellect has predominated over
simple faith in the Bible and in the Christ of history, religion
has revealed weakness instead of vitality and power.
DEVELOPMENT OF NATURAL DEPRAVITY. 505
It must, moreover, be stated that the great apostasy from
Rome has become numerically strong in America. An accu-
rate estimate of this pervading power requires a glance at
its general organization.
According to " The Pontifical Annual for 1866," the
Catholic census for the world includes 57 cardinals (6 of
whom are bishops), 43 priests, and 8 deacons. Of the 57,
29 reside at Rome, the others abroad. There were at that
date 11 " vacant hats." There were, moreover, 12 patriarch-
al sees, 154 archiepiscopal, and 692 episcopal. " To these
must be added 226 sees in partibus infidelium, — 30 arch-
bishoprics, and 196 bishoprics. Of the patriarchs, 5 belong
to the Eastern, and 7 to the Latin churches ; 'of the arch-
bishops, 24 to the former, and 134 to the latter ; and of the
bishops, 46 are Eastern, and 646 Latin. In the 5 parts of
the world are 96 sees, which hold their authority directly
from Rome. The number of apostolic vicars is 101 ; of
delegations, 5 ; of prefectures, 21 ; of abbeys and prelate-
ships of no diocese, 14. Pius IX. has raised 12 cathedrals
to the rank of metropolitan churches; has erected 4 arch-
bishoprics and 96 bishoprics ; and has created 15 vicarates,
1 delegation, and 6 prefectures."
According to the latest statistical statements, there are in
the Roman-Catholic Church 310,000 monks and nuns. The
male orders have the following membership : Franciscans,
50,000; School Brethren, 16,000; Jesuits, 8,000 ; Congrega-
tions for nursing the sick, 6,000 ; Benedictines, 5,000 ; Do-
minicans, 4,000 ; Carmelites, 4,000 ; Trappists, 4,000 ; Laza-
rists, 2,000 ; Piarists, 2,000 ; Redernptionists, 2,000, &c. The
female orders count about 190,000 members, of which 20,000
nuns are in America.
A glance at these figures will show the sources of our
Catholic population, and the organized power which lies be-
hind the propagandism which blindly seeks to convert this
Republic to a vast province of ecclesiastical Rome. The
annual emigration from Europe includes numbers of Ro-
506 THE QREAT REPUBLIC.
manists quite sufficient to explain the ratio of Catholic
increase in America.
Adopting the rough estimate of 2,000 Roman Catholics to
one priest, there were supposed to be 4,400,000 in the United
States in 1860. " In 1808, there was 1 Catholic to 68
Protestants; in 1830, 1 to 29 ; in 1840, 1 to 18 ; in 1850,
1 to 11 ; in 1860, 1 to 7. That is, between 1840 and 1860,
the increase was 125 upon each 100, while the nation only
increased by 36 to 100." In 1861, they reckoned in the
United States 7 provinces, 48 dioceses, 3 vicarates, 45 bish-
ops, 2,317 priests, 2,517 churches, 1,278 stations and chapels,
49 ecclesiastical institutions, and a population of between
4,000,000 and 5,000,000.
To understand the Romanism of to-day, and accurately
measure the dangers with which it threatens our free Repub-
lic, the following facts must be carefully studied : —
First, published statistics of the Roman Catholics in this
country must be considered as quite unreliable. They in-
clude large masses of immigrants, who here utterly ignore
practical Christianity. They are simply baptized Catholics,
educated in that faith, but have no other claims to Christian
character. In regard to the great public vices, they can in no
way be distinguished from the mass of unregenerate wicked
men. If the right of Romanists to membership were to
depend, like other professed Christians, upon regular and
virtuous, not to say holy, lives, instead of baptism, auricular
confession, and absolution ; if thorough discipline were to re-
nounce those who are a scandal to the name of Christian, —
their numbers would be in no way formidable here or else-
where. If all baptized Protestants were to be reckoned as
members of their respective churches, without regard to
their voluntary acceptance of church relations, and in the
absence of Christian discipline, our numbers would be
swelled to such proportions as to quiet the fears of rela-
tive increase in numbers and power.
Let us next turn to the claim set up by the Romish
DEVELOPMENT OF NATURAL DEPRAVITY. 50 7
Church with respect to jurisdiction and prerogative, and
observe its relation to modern civilization. The pope's
encyclical letter, addressed, Dec. 8, 1864, to all Catholic bish-
ops, must be good authority. He informs the public, that,
upon coming to the chair of St. Peter, he " beheld a horrible
tempest stirred up by so many erroneous opinions, and the
dreadful and never-enough-to-be-lamented mischiefs which
redound to Christian people from such errors;" and as his
predecessors had exerted their apostolic authority against
all " heresies," so he had " condemned the prominent most
grievous errors of the age." But he found it necessary to
come forward again with apostolic authority to arrest espe-
cially the alarming doctrine of freedom in the exercise of
religion. From totally false notions of social government,
he says, men " fear not to uphold that erroneous opinion
most pernicious to the Catholic Church and to the salvation
of souls, which was called by our predecessor, Gregory XVI.,
the insanity (deliria mentum), — namely, that ' liberty of con-
science and of worship is the right of every man ; and that
the right ought, in every well-governed State, to be pro-
claimed and asserted by the law ; and that the citizens pos-
sess the right of being unrestrained in the exercise of every
kind of liberty, by any law, ecclesiastical or civil, so that they
are authorized to publish and put forward openly all their
ideas whatsoever, either by speaking, in print, or in any
other method.' " This " liberty of conscience and of worship "
is denounced as " the liberty of perdition," and, in the lan-
guage of St. Leo, as a " most mischievous vanity." It is
affirmed, moreover, on the authority of " our most wise and
courageous predecessor, St. Felix, that it is certain that it
is advantageous for sovereigns, when the cause of God is in
question, to submit their royal will according to his ordi-
nance to the priests of Jesus Christ, and not to prefer it
before them." Among the things condemned and to be utter-
ly put down by bishops and all the faithful is the propo-
sition, that " Protestantism is nothing more than another
508 THE or.r.AT in:rui3Lic.
form of the sanctioncMl Christian religion, in which it is
possible1 to l>e equally plea-ing to God as in tlie Catholic
Church." Biblical societies are mentioned among the
" pests " which "• are frequently rebuked in the severest
terms " in the encyclicals and allocations. Nothing is
more heterodox than to affirm that " kings and princes are
not onlv exempt from the jurisdiction of the Church, but are
superior -to the Church in litigated questions of jurisdiction ;
and that the Church ought to be separated from the State,
and the State from the Church."
It is thus seen that every principle that is held dear to
America is denounced by the very highest Romish authority.
It is. moreover, held by the Catholic Church to be a great
grievance, that in some of the States. '•' in the matter of the
tenure of ecclesiastical property, she conforms to the general
laws providing for this object. These laws, however, are
based on principles which she cannot accept without depart-
ing from her practice from the beginning, as soon as she was
permitted to enjoy liberty of worship. They are the ex-
pression of a distrust of ecclesiastical power as such, and are
the fruit of the misrepresentations which have been made of
the action of the Church in past ages. As well might the
civil power prescribe to her the doctrines she is to teach,
and the worship with which she is to honor God. as to im-
pose on her a system of holding her temporalities which is
alien to her principles, and which is borrowed from those
who have rejected her authority."
We must not. therefore, expect our Roman-Catholic citizens
to be satisfied with the laws of public trusts which are
framed for all the churches indiscriminately, and the Ameri-
can people as a whole. Their system cannot bend to us: our
legislation must, therefore, accommodate itself to them.
There is much in all this which seems sufficiently menacing
to the liberties of the world, and of our Republic in particu-
lar. But it is worth while to note that these attempts at
ecclesiastical domination are not successful in Europe. The
DEVELOPMENT OF NATURAL DEPRAVITY. 509
reception of the encyclical on the part of the political press
and legislatures in Catholic countries was decidedly unfa-
vorable. The leading Catholic minds of France, Austria,
Spain, Portugal, and Italy, gave unmistakable evidence of
alarm at so daring an attempt to revive and give favor to
the Romish doctrines of the dark ages ; and the demand for
free toleration is much more urgent in Catholic Europe on
account of these absurd pretensions.
In the mean time, the temporal power of the pope, so per-
sistently affirmed from highest Romish authority to be abso-
lutely indispensable to the integrity of the Catholic Church, is
really destroyed. Certainly not the power of the Emperor of
France to maintain the pope's authority over the little rem-
nant of the former magnificent patrimony of St. Peter, but
the power of the pope to maintain temporal sovereignty
against the uprising freedom of his own subjects, is entirely
gone. Much less could this claim, absurdly based upon the
necessities of religion, be maintained for a single week
against the free Catholics of the former Papal States. In
other words, the assertions of this lordly authority are as
haughty and imperious as in the days of Leo X. ; but they
inspire no such terror, and produce general contempt instead
of alarm. True, the essential Roman-Catholic Church has
not changed : but the world has changed ; her people have
changed. In Italy, the very seat of her power, the sentence
of excommunication is alike disregarded by prince and court,
bishop and priest; and it may be justly said that there is not
a sovereign or nation in the world for whom the thunders
of the Vatican have any terrors. This is simple history ; and
it is certain that the eyes of the most enlightened Catholic
countries are turned away from the church of repression
toward Christian civilization and progress.
It may seem to us that the rapid gains of Romanism in
the United States indicate a purpose to transfer the seat of
priestly domination to America ; and this may be true. But
the purpose will Ml. Whether it be more dangerous to
510 THE (', It EAT UEPUI5L1C.
have a larger number of Catholics here, and a smaller num-
ber in Ireland and on the Continent, we might be unable to
say; but it is so evidently a part of (Jod's plan for bringing
the darkness to the light, that it is no irreverence to say. he
evidently does not fear it. The battle is coming on : but we
are certain that the Bible will conquer.
Xearlv allied to the great apostasy of which we have
«/ *J
written is corruption in politics. The freedom granted to
the citizen by the government of the people may be greatly
abused. Demagogues mav use it for selfish ends; nartv
o O .. ' 1 »
spirit may rise above national claims; bad men may aspire
to office, and succeed ; bribery and misrepresentation may
determine an election, pass laws, and corrupt the seats of
justice. All this has occurred here, and it is no relief to us
to show that it is so everywhere ; that bribery and corrup-
tion in elections are reduced to a system in England, and so
utterly shameless as to allow of no attempt to deny them
or obviate their damaging power. If it be true In theory
that all this is easier and more likely to occur in a republic
than under a constitutional monarchy, it is not true in fad.
These are vices which do not inhere in systems of govern-
ment. They are back of all governments. They arise from
a common depravity, indicate a common danger, and re-
quire a common remedy. The race is coming to feel the
imperative demand for a divine regeneration of society, the
grand model of which is found in every true Christian in
whose heart, purposes, motives, and acts, old things have
passed away, and all things become new.
Until this grand consummation is reached in the common
humanity of our nation, we must battle with political dis-
honesty. We shall find the very bulwarks of civil liberty
clandestinely or fearlessly -assailed. Politicians will put for-
ward candidates wrho are deemed '• available." without due
regard to virtue or capability ; parties and individuals will
give and receive bribes for votes ; the most salutary laws
will be sacrificed, and the most perilous license will be
DEVELOPMENT OF NATURAL DEPRAVITY. 511
pledged, for the votes of a corrupt organization supposed
to hold the balance of power. Hundreds of thousands of
the people's money will be granted to a fallen church, for
fear of losing its votes ; and thus in a free country the church
of absolutism and repression will be as munificently endowed
by the corruption of parties as though it were established
and supported by law. Just in proportion to the develop-
ment of our common depravity will be the ascendency of
unprincipled men and vile women, and the danger to our
free institutions.
For our safety from the effects of all social and na-
tional crimes, we must look to God, and do the right.
That we are not overwhelmed, but, on the contrary, rising in
moral force before the eyes of the nations, is due to the fact
that experimental Christian power is mighty in the land :
and, amid all the storms and perils of sin, " the Lord of hosts
is with us ; the God of Jacob is our refuge."
CHAPTER X.
DEVELOPMENT OF TRUE RELIGION.
" Religion, as such, is reason in the soul and heart. Thus freedom in the State is
preserved and established by religion." — HEGEL.
THUS far in the history of the Great Republic, we have
found everywhere the presence of a power stronger than the
power of man, producing the principles, vitalizing the facts,
and controlling the developments, which were evidently
essential to the success of a great Christian government.
We have also found bold and persistent antagonisms
to this providential effort to advance the human race be-
yond all its precedents in intelligence, goodness, and power.
Sometimes these antagonisms have appeared in the form of
kingly oppression and bloody war ; sometimes of unfaithful-
ness to the plans of God, and rights of man ; sometimes of
deeply-seated and strongly-developed immorality : but, in
all cases, this rebellion against the true and the right has
been traceable directly to the scriptural account of the fall
and depravity of man.
We shall still behold these opposite forces in determined,
and sometimes fierce, collision. Intensely interesting as the
conflict has been, it is destined to become much more so.
The spirit of oppression assumes various forms; but it is
always the same. It seems to be chiefly malicious toward
man ; but its real war is with God. Since the temptation in
Eden, the Prince of Darkness has never abandoned the pur-
pose to rule and destroy this splendid creation ; but no
usurpation of power has been conceded, no right of divine
sovereignty surrendered. The active assertion of absolute
512
CHAPTER X.
DEVELOPMENT OF TRUE
"Religion, as such, is reason in the sonl and heart. Thus freedom in tV
preserved and estal dished by religion." — HEGEL.
THUS far in the history of the Great Republic, we have
found everywhere the presence of a power stronger than the
power of man, producing the principle?, vitalizing the i'a
and controlling the developments, which were evidently
essential to the
We h;*v«» u
yoiiu «i
Sometimes th^
kingly 0|>ju; >-
ness to the pla
deeply-seated
all oases, this
been trace--- ;
and aepruvtfi *:
We shall >:
and sornetiiiiep
conflict has bee
The spirit uf
of a groat Christian government.
i I'-'M and por*i«»tent antagonisflM
.-*: a-.tv!:^ * tfco hurnan nice be-
*iiuv*, '" ^ po'
s<-ii;,:
M
always the fam<;. •
man ; but its real .war
Le forces in
Intensely interesting as the
Jestined to become much more so.
it i«--i,i:ios various forms; but it is
ia§ to be chiciiy malicious toward
with Uod. Since the temptation in
Kdeu, the Prince ol ' '. • m h&# nover abandoned the pur-
nose to rule and de> plendid creation ; but no
usurpation of power has been conceded, no right of divine
sovereignty surrendered. The active assertion of absolute
612
ty S.$.XaXL.y-
DEVELOPMENT OF TRUE RELIGION. 515
calm the church of our fathers, witnessing ever to the ancient
and pure faith, l the truth as it is in Jesus/ the ancient
creeds, and the apostolic order of Christ's Church. Her
ministers may prove faithless at her altars, and fall into
deadly error; but no personal defection of these can stifle the
great voice ever sounding forth from her sublime ritual,
echoing the voices of apostles and confessors and martyrs.
" Another characteristic of the Episcopal Church adapts it
eminently to the needs of our times. She is the very sym-
bol of AUTHORITY AND OF LAW. She claims to be divinely in-
stituted. Her ministry derives its power from God, and not
from man. She recognizes divers orders in the ministry, and
demands submission, deference, and godly obedience, from
one to the other. How admirably is she thus qualified
to train her children into reverence for and obedience to
authority, — the authority of parents, of magistrates, of
rulers !
" The subject suggests to us the great mission which this
church has to fulfil towards the American nation and peo-
ple, and especially the part we are to perform in the new
era upon which the nation has just entered. All danger to
the stability of the government has passed away, — danger,
I mean, from material sources. But a mightier, a sterner
test yet awaits it. Its salvation or its ruin must depend
upon moral forces. War tested its strength : peace will test
its virtue. An unprecedented career of prosperity opens
before us, and especially in this section of the Republic.
" What are the perils, which, as patriot churchmen, we are
bound to prepare for, and from which we earnestly believe
the Church of Christ offers an ark of refuge ? They divide
themselves into two classes, two great antagonistic forces, —
Romanism and Infidelity, spiritual tyranny and spiritual
license.
" Romanism, with its wonderful sagacity as a human polity,
its keen insight into the future, has long acted upon the con-
viction that the seat of power in this Republic is to be the
516 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
Valley of the Mississippi. Hence the persevering and too
often successful efforts to secure a foothold in every settle-
ment of the West. Hence the accumulation of property,
purchased, to a great extent, by the contributions of propa-
gandist societies in Europe, whose treasuries are filled by
men hostile to our institutions. Hence the establishment of
schools of every grade, to monopolize, if possible, the edu-
cation of our youth, and that, too, by men and women
trained in the cloisters of the Old World, and whose first
love and highest duty are towards an Italian prince, and not
to American nationality. This formidable power, more
formidable because . it holds enough truth to hide from
men's eyes its gigantic errors, and is so earnest in practical
benevolence as to make men forget its past history of cru-
elty and oppression, — this corrupt church is a real danger
to the Republic. Speaking by its pontifical head, it pro-
claims that liberty of conscience, of speech, of thought, and
of the press, all that we hold dearest as American citizens
and Christians, are delusions to be exploded, and eradicated
from men's minds.
" Over against this peril rises the opposite, — the Antichrist
of Infidelity, threatening to sweep away all the old foun-
dations of our faith, — even the sure Corner-stone which
human builders have ever rejected, but which was in the
beginning, is now, and ever shall be, the Rock of salvation.
Immigration is rapidly bringing to our shores vast numbers
who have identified Christianity with the civil and ecclesias-
tical despotisms of the Old World, and who, in their intense
re-action from such baneful influences, have adopted the
wildest forms of unbelief. This foe to Christ and his
Church is not idle. It has its schools, its pulpits, and its
presses. It tends directly, and by a headlong descent, to
socialism and to anarchy. It makes light of marriage; it
profanes unblushingly God's holy day. Its end is death, —
death to all which we have prized as most precious in the
legacy of our departed statesmen and Christian fathers.
DEVELOPMENT OF TRUE RELIGION". 517
" What mind of man can estimate the responsibility of the
Church's mission at such a crisis ? How shall we fulfil it ?
how rise to the greatness, the grandeur, of the situation ?
These are questions which may well stir our souls to their
very depths.
" Her first great mission must be to bear witness to the
truth, — • the truth as it is in Jesus,' — to the old and ever-
lasting gospel, ' the power of God unto salvation/ Against
infidelity she must lift up ceaselessly the standard of her
Lord ; ' contending earnestly for the faith once delivered to
the saints,' the infallibility of God's holy word, and the
full and free salvation offered to man through the atoning
sacrifice of the Lamb of God upon the cross, — ( a full, per-
fect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the
sins of the whole world.'
" ' Preach the everlasting gospel : ' this seems to be now
the message of her ascended Lord. Tell the heedless, reck-
less, dying millions, of salvation, of the cross, of eternal life :
this is their profoundest want, deny it as they may; and this
is our highest work. We need great-hearted, mighty preach-
ers, as in days of old. We need men of the boldness of St.
Peter at Pentecost ; of St. Paul's death-defying heroism at
Ephesus, at Corinth, at Jerusalem ; of the loving tenderness
of St. John. We need the jealous love of the truth which
dwelt in Athanasius and Augustine ; the burning eloquence
of the golden-mouthed John of Antioch, and Gregory of
Nazianzen. We need men of Luther's boldness and Me-
lancthon's tenderness, the fearlessness of Latimer, the judi-
ciousness of Hooker, and the fervid piety of Leighton and
of Ken. May the Lord give the word, that great may be
the company of the preachers !
" Against Romanism our testimony must be no less strong
and clear. We must assert the claims of the Reformed
Catholic Church of Christ to be the Church of the apostles
and of early days, cleansed of the defilements of the dark
ages. We must expose the pretensions of that corrupt
518 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
church, by showing her real weakness, her partial truth,
to be the most dangerous form of error. We must awaken
to a consciousness of the great trust Christ has committed to
our hands. We must be wise to discern the times, and to
neglect no instrumentality which may hasten the coming of
the kingdom of God."
The general statistics of the Protestant-Episcopal Church
for 1866 show 34 dioceses, 44 bishops, and 2,486 priests and
deacons ; the whole number of clergy, 2,530 ; parishes, 2,305 ;
communicants added, 14,138 ; present number of communi-
cants, 161,224 ; Sunday-school teachers, 17,570 ; scholars,
157,813 ; contributions, $3,051,669.64.
This church has under its charge 14 colleges, 9 theological
seminaries, and 24 academies. Episcopalians attach high
importance to sound and varied learning in every depart-
ment of society. They publish 10 weekly periodicals, 5
monthlies, and 1 quarterly.
CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES.
Congregationalism, as we have seen, came to this land with
the Pilgrim Fathers. It is to be distinguished from Puritan-
ism, though the Puritans were Congregationalists. As a mode
of church government, it claims conclusive authority in re-
gard to definitions of faith, and spiritual, financial, and disci-
plinary control for the individual church. The field of their
greatest prosperity is New England ; but they have extended
their labors into other parts of the United States. They
numbered, at last reports, 2,719 ministers, 268,015 communi-
cants, and 283,798 Sunday-school scholars. In 1860, they
had 2,334 churches, valued at $13,327,511, accommodating
956,351 people. The American Home Missionary Society
(chiefly Congregationalist), in the year 1865, sustained 802
home missionaries at an expense of $189,965; and, through
the American Board, they sent abroad 90 missionaries, be-
sides male and female helpers. These laborious and self-
DEVELOPMENT OP TBUE EELIGION". 519
sacrificing men and women have honored their Master, and
the whole Christian Church, by the most exemplary purity,
devotion, and efficiency in the hardest foreign fields; and
are still moving on with the evident approbation and bless-
ing of God. The Congregationalists are vigorous workers
through the American Tract Society, the American Sunday-
school Union, and among the freedmen of the South.
They publish 6 weekly periodicals and 4 able quarterlies.
In the department of education, they labor chiefly through
schools and colleges which are not ostensibly denominational,
and exert a widely-diffused influence in favor of the broadest
education of the masses and the highest culture of public
men.
With respect to their patriotism and Christian power in
the formation, development, and defence of this Republic, in
proportion to their numbers, history awards them a very
high position. In our account of the struggle for colonial
independence, so large a space was, of necessity, given to
Congregational influence, that less is required here. We
refer our readers especially to a large part of the period
of preparation. Rev. B. F. Morris* says their "form of
church government is democratic. It was of Puritan birth ;
and, like the faith of the Puritans, it came fresh and vigor-
ous from the word of God. It is the embodiment and prac-
tice of the American doctrine of popular sovereignty
applied to church government, as it is to all the civil affairs
of the nation. Each church is an independent Christian
democracy, where all the members have a right to a voice
in the government of the church, and whose decisions are
subject to no reversal by any other ecclesiastical tribunal.
The Bible is regarded as the text-book in theology and
politics in Church and State, as it is in the form of church
government ; and, holding the Bible as the standard of form
as well as of faith, the Puritans and their descendants con-
stitute their ecclesiastic form after the pattern set them
* Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States, p. 421.
520 THB GREAT KEPUBLIC.
in the Bible. The fruits of their faith and purity every-
where abound.
" ' The principles of their religious system have given birth
and vigor to the republican habits and republican virtue
and intelligence of the sons of New England/ The Congrega-
tional churches were not only schools of Christian faith, but
of freedom, in which the ministers were the teachers, and
the people the pupils ; and whence came the men and women
to fight and pray for freedom and the battles of the Revolu-
tion. During the Revolution, there were in New England
575 ministers and 700 Congregational churches, almost all of
which were in active sympathy with the cause of liberty.
In every possible way, they gave manifold proofs of their
patriotism. It is no violence to truth to affirm, that, without
the devotion and earnest activity of these churches, the
Revolution never could have been effected. Their faith, and
form of church government, were in harmony with the
reigning spirit of liberty, and energized with all the efforts
of patriots with piety and ardor, and infused into that great
conflict those Christian ideas and principles which impart a
divine dignity and grandeur to a people struggling to be
free."
Rev. George Mooar says,* " It has been the peculiar for-
tune of these churches to stand intimately connected with
the civil life of the two Anglo-Saxon nations. Great writers
not of their communion have given them the credit of
preserving the constitutional freedom of England. Certain
it is that these churches furnished the ecclesiastical ammu-
nition for the fight which the Independents made under
Vane and Milton and Cromwell. Certain it is that the
Congregational churches of England now take the lead,
as for years past they have done, in those movements which
promise the final severance of the Church from the State.
But it is in our own country that these churches have their
eminent record in behalf of civil freedom and all that enters
* Addisonian Lecture, San Francisco, Nov. 9, 1865.
DEVELOPMENT OP TRUE RELIGION. 521
most vitally into the prosperity of a free nation. It was
given to them, and is a glory which no other churches can in
the same sense share, that they founded, and their polity
entered fundamentally into, this American Republic. The
compact which the Pilgrims of 4 The Mayflower ' signed was
* the birth of popular constitutional liberty.' I speak not at
random, nor in the spirit of empty self-gratulation. When
De Tocqueville began his investigations in America, he began
at Boston, and with the town-meeting. He finds that the
purest and most distinctive elements of the American nation
are to be found where the town-system prevails. 'The
farther we go to the South ' (this is his language), 'the less
active does the business of the township or parish become.
It has fewer magistrates, duties, and rights ; the population
exercises a less immediate influence on affairs ; the public
spirit of the local community is less excited, and less influ-
ential.' This town-system fades out in just the proportion
that we recede from the region, east and west, where Con-
gregational influence and emigration have prevailed ; for
the town-system had its origin in the Congregational Church.
The typical school-system of America had the same birth.
The American college had its origin in Harvard and Yale,
founded by Congregational churches. The republican spirit
was earliest and strongest in New England. The church
polity of those States, says a Tory writer, ' had hardened them
into republics.' John Wise's book concerning that polity was
reprinted twice at the Revolutionary epoch, and was read
with new interest, we doubt not, by men who took a promi-
nent part in the organization of the independent nation.
If there be any church polity which may be called Ameri-
can, it is this. It was born of the same impulse which gave
us free institutions. It was thought out by the men who
planted those institutions. All its affinities ally it to the
American history and character.
" It is a significant fact, confirming what has just been said,
that, in the region covered by the late Rebellion, only one
00
522 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
church of this name existed before the war. It was in no
close connection with the sisterhood it claimed. It may be
doubted, indeed, whether it did not rather disown such con-
nection. The spirit of these churches was too Puritan and
free to allow of their existence on slave soil. But no sooner
had freedom asserted its sway there than twenty such
churches were planted in three months, carrying with
them the same seeds of loyalty which their sister churches
had before borne across New York to Ohio and the great
North-west.
" And why did we have that bitter and fierce onset upon
the Puritan States, unless, in those cities and towns of the
forefathers, there dwell in more perfect development than
elsewhere those radical principles which have led on and still
lead the nation ? That eminent Kentuckian, Robert J. Breck-
enridge, who has so gallantly led the loyal thinkers of his
State, wrote, in the height of the recent struggle, ' I never
doubted, and now less than ever, that the roots of whatever
produces freedom, equality, and high civilization, are more
deeply set in New England than in any equal population on
the face of the earth.' Let me not be arrogant enough to
claim that all this comes from the influence of the churches
in which these had their early home ; but the calm, philosoph-
ical inquirer, whether he be native or foreign, who shall go
beneath those surfaces of rugged soil and climate which
seem now to be the universal solvents of social problems,
will not rest till he trace an intimate connection between
those churches and the freedom of this whole land. Such a
one, reading to-day the telegrams which tell with what over-
whelming majorities Massachusetts keeps her place, as of old,
at the head of Union States, cannot fail to remember, that
in sight of her sandy cape the Pilgrims signed their civil
compact, and that on her soil they asserted and illustrated
the freedom of the local church. So is it again demon-
strated that the pure free churches of God are lights of
nations as well as of souls : they are the salt of the political
as well as of the moral earth."
DEVELOPMENT OF TE.UE RELIGION. 523
THE BAPTIST CHURCH.*
" The Baptists claim that they have been, from the first,
the true and undeviating conservators of the rights of man
to self-government and soul-liberty. Early in the present
century, the King of Holland appointed his chaplain, Dr.
Dermont, and Dr. Ypeig, professor of theology at Gronin-
gen, to prepare a history of the Dutch Baptists, with the
purpose of tendering them State patronage if their origin
seemed to warrant it. The work of these thorough histo-
rians was published at Breda in 1819 ; and the king at once
offered them support from the State treasury, which they
declined, as irreconcilable with their holy principle of per-
sonal liberty, and responsibility to "God. These historians
say, ' The Baptists may be considered as the only Christian
community which has stood since the days of the apostles,
and as a Christian society which has preserved pure the doc-
trines of the gospel through all ages.' They add, that ' the
perfectly correct external and internal economy of the Bap-
tist denomination goes to confute the erroneous notion of the
Catholics, that their communion is the most ancient.' This
testimony harmonizes exactly with that of Sir Isaac Newton,
who said, ' The Baptists were the only Christians who had
never symbolized with the Church of Rome.' And John
Locke puts the case more strongly still when he says, ' The
Baptists were from the beginning the friends and advocates
of absolute liberty, just and true liberty, equal and im-
partial liberty.' John Milton, the champion of republican-
ism against Salinasius, was a Baptist, and exerted the greatest
possible influence as a secretary to the council of State, under
Cromwell, in establishing the constitutional rights and reli-
gious liberties of Great Britain.
" As the time approached for the colonies to shake off the
civil yoke of Great Britain, the Baptists of America seized
the opportunity to break off also every trammel of religious
* From a very able paper by Eev. THOMAS AKMITAGE, D.D.
524 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
tyranny in the g'overnment of the colonies themselves, as
they should come to assume the independency of States.
Their American history had been little else than a perpetual
struggle for toleration among Protestant sects ; and as they
claimed that they never were Protestants coming out of the
Church of Rome, because they had never been in it or of it,
but had been the outside ' heretics ' of all ages, they deter-
mined to spare no effort to make the power and breadth of
their principles felt in founding the grandest empire of the
earth. Their principles were radical, rooted in the man-
hood of man, and covering all his responsible relations toward
both God and man.
" The Baptists had been so schooled in conscience, and so
scourged into unconquerable resistance to tyranny at the
hands of the Puritans in New England, Episcopalians in
Virginia and Georgia, and Catholics in Maryland, that they
were prompted by every honorable incentive to organize
in the most spirited manner for the Revolutionary contest.
Scarcely was the first shot fired at Lexington before every
Baptist on the continent sprang to his feet, and hailed the
echo as the pledge of his deliverance from foreign and
domestic oppressors. In the field, and out of the field, they
were among the first to sacrifice and suffer for the American
cause.
"The first Continental Congress was held in Philadelphia
in 1774, two years before the Declaration of Independence.
It had been in session little more than a week when Bap-
tist committees memorialized it for a general redress of
grievances. On the 14th of October, they obtained a hear-
ing, in which they besought Congress to secure the rights of
conscience for all. Here they met with determined resist-
ance from the Massachusetts delegation, who insisted, that,
with them, l it was a matter of conscience to support minis-
ters by law,' and that the Baptists denied ' them the liberty
of conscience in denying their right to do so.'
" Yet, while the State-church party were resorting to every
DEVELOPMENT OF TRUE RELIGION. 525
expedient for the defeat of full religious freedom, the masses
of the people began to see that the principles of the Bap-
tists were to shape the future civil government of the
country. Benjamin Franklin was their firm friend. Patrick
Henry became their able defender, against the persecu-
tions of the Episcopal Church, at the Virginia bar. But
they were indebted most of all to Thomas Jefferson and
James Madison. Jefferson seems to have been greatly
assisted by the Baptists in forming those clear and com-
prehensive democratic ideas which have immortalized him
as the apostle of democracy. Curtis states, on the authority
of Mrs. Madison, ' that there was a small Baptist church
which held its monthly meetings for business at a short
distance from Mr. Jefferson's house, eight or ten .years
before the American Revolution. Mr. Jefferson attended
these meetings for several months in succession. The pastor,
on one occasion, asked him how he was pleased with their
church government. Mr. Jefferson replied, that it struck
him with great force, and had interested him much ; that he
considered it the only form of true democracy then existing
in the world, and had concluded that it would be the best
plan of government for the American colonies'
"After all, it was in Virginia that the Baptists fought their
great battle. As early as 1606, every form of religion had
been prohibited in the colony, but that of the Established
Church of England, on pain of arrest and imprisonment.
Four years later, the code of Sir Thomas Dale required every
person in the colony to pass a satisfactory examination of
their faith at the hands of the Episcopal clergy ; and, on re-
fusal to do so, ' for the first time of refusal to be whipped ;
for the second time to be whipped twice, and to acknowl-
edge his fault upon the sabbath day in the congregation ;
and, for the third time, to be whipped every day until he
hath made the same acknowledgment, and asked forgiveness
of the same ; and shall repair to the minister to be further
instructed as aforesaid.' In 1623, a tax was levied for the
526 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
support of the Episcopal ministry. In 1643, the Grand
Assembly enacted 'that none should preach but the clergy
of the Establishment, and enjoined the governor to see to
it 'that all nonconformists depart the colony.' The year
1661 brought an enactment of greater stringency; namely,
• that every nonconformist should pay a fine of twenty pounds
sterling for every month that he should absent himself from
the Episcopal Church ; and, if absent for a year, he should
be arrested, and required to give security for his good
behavior, or be imprisoned. Besides, the Grand Assembly
decreed that ' all persons who refused to have their children
christened ' by a lawful minister ' shall be amerced two
thousand pounds of tobacco.' The result was, that no Bap-
tist church was publicly organized till 1714 ; and the or-
ganization then effected was due principally to the Act of
Toleration, passed under William and Mary. But, for a
hundred years after that, the magistrates and clergy resorted
to every possible subterfuge to evade the Toleration Act.
Obsolete laws were hunted up, and no form of violence left
untried to crush them out. Dr. Hawks says, in his ' History
of the Protestant-Episcopal Church in Virginia,' that 'no
dissenters in Virginia experienced, for a time, harsher treat-
ment than did the Baptists. They were beaten and impris-
oned ; and cruelty taxed its ingenuity to devise new modes
of punishment and annoyance.' In 1775, messengers from
sixty Baptist churches met to consider their duty to God and
their country. They memorialized the State Convention, —
that convention which instructed the Virginia delegates to
Congress to declare independence. Of that memorial, which
covered the whole question of civil and religious freedom,
' The Journal ' says, ' An address from the Baptists of this
colony was presented to the convention, and read, setting
forth, that, . . . alarmed at the oppression which hangs over
America, they had considered what part it would be proper
for them to take in the unhappy contest ; and had determined,
that, in some cases, it is lawful to go to war ; and that we
DEVELOPMENT OF TRUE RELIGION.
ought to make military resistance to Great Britain in her un-
just invasion, tyrannical oppression, and repeated hostilities.'
The deputation which waited upon the convention consisted
of Rev. Messrs. Walker, Williams, and Roberts. They suc-
ceeded in enlisting three of its members in their cause of
full religious freedom; namely, Jefferson, Madison, and Henry,
who submitted the document to the body. Its effect was
powerful upon the whole country. Dr. Hawks says, in refer-
ence to this effect, ' The Baptists were not slow in discover-
ing the advantageous position in which the political troubles
of the country had placed them. Their numerical strength
was such as to make it important to both sides to secure
their influence : they knew this, and therefore determined to
turn the circumstances to their profit as a sect. Persecution
had taught them not to love the Establishment, and now they
saw before them a reasonable prospect of overturning it
entirely. In their association, they had calmly discussed the
matter, and resolved on their course : in this course they
were consistent to the end.'
"In 1779, all things being now ready for a final vote, the
question was settled, and the Establishment was finally put
down. The Baptists were the principal promoters of this
work, and, in truth, aided more than any other denomination
in its accomplishment. After their final success in this mat-
ter, their next efforts were to procure the sale of the church
property. Inch by inch was gained, and point by point
taken up. I?or fifteen years, the Baptist General Committee
continued its labors. In 1785, the Baptist General Conven-
tion pressed the legislature for the passage of the Act for
Establishing Religious Freedom, which was accomplished
through the efforts of Mr. Madison. Two years after this,
the Act for incorporating the Episcopal Church was re-
pealed ; and, in the same year, the Baptists commenced an
agitation, through their General Committee, upon the repeal
of the glebe laws, which resulted in the sale of those enor-
mous estates which had been appropriated to the Established
528 THE CHEAT REPUBLIC.
Church by order of the legislature. Says Dr. Hawks, ' That
vote decided the fate of the glebes. The war which they
(the Baptists) had waged against the church was a war of
extermination. They seemed to have known no relentings,
and their hostility never ceased for seven and twenty years.
They avenged themselves for their sufferings by the almost
total ruin of the church.' Thus after a most stubborn resist-
ance, hair's-breadth after hair's-breadth, the last vestige of
religious oppression was swept away in Virginia. Still, it
was not till the year 1832 that Massachusetts fully took
her place side by side with Virginia on the subject of re-
ligious liberty ; and Connecticut did so but a few years
sooner.
" A few words upon the influence of the Baptists in forming
the General Government must close this paper. The Con-
stitution of the United States was adopted in 1787. Imme-
diately thereafter (March, 1788), the Virginia Baptist General
Committee took up this question for discussion, * Whether
the new Federal Constitution, which had now lately made
its appearance in public, made sufficient provision for the
secure enjoyment of religious liberty.' After full investiga-
tion, it was unanimously agreed ' that it did not' The
committee then consulted with Mr. Madison as to what could
be done in the case, who recommended them to address Gen.
Washington upon the subject. They also sought the co-ope-
ration of the Baptists in other States of the Union ; and sent
out Elder John Leland as their representative, who secured
their cordial co-operation. The sixth article in the new Con-
stitution read, ' No religious test shall ever be required as a
qualification to any office or public trust under the United
States.' In August, 1789, the Baptists sent a well-digested
and formal address to Washington on the subject by a dele-
gation from their body. He pronounced their position right,
and the next month he carried through Congress this amend-
ment : ( Congress shall make no law respecting an estab-
lishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.'
DEVELOPMENT OF TRUE RELIGION. 529
This is a part of our present Constitution. The correspond-
ence on that occasion is worthy of the men whom it im-
mortalizes on both sides. The Baptists said to Washington,
' When the Constitution first made its appearance in Vir-
ginia, we, as a society, had unusual smugglings of mind,
fearing that the liberty of conscience, dearer to us than
property or life, was not sufficiently secured. Perhaps our
jealousies were heightened by the usage we received in Vir-
ginia under the royal government, when mobs, fines, bonds,
and prisons were our frequent repast.' To which the Presi-
dent replied, ' If I could have entertained the slightest
apprehension that the Constitution framed by the Conven-
tion, when I had the honor to preside, might possibly en-
danger the religious rights of any ecclesiastical society,
certainly I would never have placed iny signature to it ; and,
if I could now conceive that the General Government might
ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience
insecure, I beg you will be persuaded that no one would be
more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers
against the horrors of spiritual tyranny and every species of
religious persecution.' Since that time, no body of Ameri-
can Christians has been more faithful to the government, or
has done more to perpetuate our liberties, than this denomi-
nation during the early periods of its history. They sup-
ported the war of 1812 as unanimously and as earnestly as
that of 1776.
" With reference to the late Rebellion, the facts are too
recent in the public mind to need repetition here. The Bap-
tists of the South went with the South, and those of the
West and East and North stood by the National Govern-
ment with most remarkable unanimity."
Baptist statistics for 1866 show in the United States 609
associations, 12,955 churches, 8,346 ordained ministers, 92,-
957 baptized, and 1,094,806 members ; * colleges, 30 ; the-
ological schools, 14; periodicals, 36, of which 24 are weekly,
* American Baptist Almanac, 1868.
67
530 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
10 monthly or semi-monthly, and 2 quarterly; expended for
foreign missions, for the year, $220,000 ; home missions,
about $240,000 ; money for the Publication Society, $90,000 ;
Bible Society, $44,000 *
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.!
"The Presbyterian Church has contributed its due propor-
tion to the moral and civil development of the United States.
We do not propose to contrast its influence with that of other
churches, but, by simple and direct statements of the part
which it took in our early history, to connect its official and
individual acts with the growth of our free institutions.
" There are five principal sources from which the Presby-
terian Church of this country has drawn its members, — the
English Puritans, the Dutch Calvinists, the French Hugue-
nots, the German Calvinists, and, more largely than from
any other, the Scotch and Scotch-Irish Presbyterians.
"'The history of American colonization is the history of
the crimes of Europe.' The same remark might be made
of the sources of American Presbyterianism. The English
religious persecutions drove out the Puritans, and, in still
larger numbers, the Scotch and Scotch-Irish. The Germans
came to this country under similar pressure. The infamous
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes drove out the French
Huguenots ; and Holland ' had long been the gathering-place
of the unfortunate.' With a common love of liberty, and
deep religious principle, these made the broad foundation
of the present Presbyterian Church. It has been estimated,
that, by the year 1750, their number, outside of New Eng-
land, amounted to between one and two hundred thousand.
" The first beginnings of the Presbyterian Church proper
date back to about 1680. In 1716, there were four presby-
teries, associating the churches in Long Island, the Jerseys,
* Letter of Rev. O. B. STONE.
t From an admirable paper by Rev. ROBERT STRONG, A.M.
DEVELOPMENT OF TRUE RELIGION. 531
Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, with scattered churches
in the Carolinas, all united under the Synod of Philadelphia.
The growth of the church from this period was constant and
rapid, by reason of large immigrations; until, in 1788, a
General Assembly was constituted, associating the synods
and presbyteries after the model of the Church of Scotland.
It will be seen from this how widely the church was extend-
ed, and over how large a part of the country its influence
reached.
" Its character and influence may be fairly though indirectly
judged from its sources. Its members came to this country
to seek for religious and political freedom. Having found a
place for its exercise, they established their principles in pro-
portion to their power. What Bancroft says of East Jersey,
is true, in a measure, of other sections, and the other sources
of our church : ' Scottish Presbyterians, of virtue, education,
and courage, blending a love of popular liberty with reli-
gious enthusiasm, came to East Jersey in such numbers as
to give to the rising Commonwealth a character which a
century and a half has not effaced.' They were friends
of education, of strict morals, and of the sabbath. As mem-
bers of God's Church, they upheld his laws as supreme.
As citizens of the State, they were devoted to freedom and
justice. In our struggle for independence, we find them
invariably on the right side; the first to suffer, the first
to fight, the first to declare for independence ; prominent
among its supporters; and stamping on the new-formed
government those principles of popular freedom, represen-
tation, and confederation, which were their distinguishing
traits.
" In making these broad statements, we intend no ungener-
ous comparisons, nor do we claim for these men exclusively
the parentage of freedom. Bancroft's words are both beauti-
ful and true : ' American independence was the work, not of
one, nor of a few, but of all ; and was ratified, not by Congress
only, but by the instincts and intuitions of the nation ; just
532 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
as the sunny smile of the ocean comes from every one of its
million of waves.' But it is fair, and our definite object, to
inquire how far this church nurtured, and was in sympathy
with, these popular instincts.
"The Presbyterian Church, by its government and spirit,
is pre-eminently republican. Its ministers are equal among
themselves. Its churches are united by presbyteries and
synods under a General Assembly. The authorities over
the individual are a series of graded courts, composed of
ministers and ruling elders, with the right of appeal for the
maintenance of religious liberty and justice. ' Ruling elders
are properly representatives of the people, chosen by them
for the purpose of exercising government and discipline in
connection with pastors and ministers.' The great repub-
lican principles of our National Constitution are thus evi-
dently in accord with the principles which our church has
drawn from the Bible for its government. So, again, in its
spirit, the church is also republican. Its doctrines of grace,
called, since Calvin's day, Calvinism, make all men funda-
mentally equal before God ; and they recognize no other
distinction between man and man than such as is the result
of the sovereign grace of God working in him without re-
gard to condition, class, or previous merit. The doctrinal
spirit of the church thus fits the outward form of our
government. The church sends out the influences of its
fundamental principles into the State of which its members
are citizens.
" It is only to be expected, then, that we shall find the
Presbyterian Church in this country acting prominently in
vindication of its liberties and government, as well as pro-
moting religion. ' We shall find,' says Bancroft, ' that the
first voice publicly raised in America to dissolve all con-
nection with Great Britain, came, not from the Puritans of
New England, or the Dutch of New York, or the planters
of Virginia, but from Scotch-Irish Presbyterians.' The refer-
ence here is to the famous Mecklenburg Declaration. Once
DEVELOPMENT OF TRUE RELIGION. 533
more : the first declaration for independence from the con-
stituted authorities of a State came from North Carolina in
April, 1776, and can be traced to the same influences.* This
reached Congress six weeks before the National Declaration
was made. These facts are not sufficiently known in the
country, not even among Presbyterians. They are not set
forth here as in rivalry with Lexington and Massachusetts,
but as fruits of identically the same principles and spirit.
They show how the religious element in the country was
everywhere foremost, and all sections hand in hand, in the
struggle for liberty. The spirit of our people was shown,
also, by the organized voice of our church. The Synod of
New York and Philadelphia nerved her people for the com-
ing conflict, a year before the Declaration of Independence,
by a pastoral letter ; and appointed also a day of prayer for
the country and for Congress, which was continued year by
year till the close of the war. As this was our record at the
beginning of the war, so was it sustained at the close by
another pastoral letter from the General Synod, calling upon
the churches to return thanks to God, and, at the same time,
congratulating them ' on the general and almost universal
attachment of the Presbyterian body to the cause of liberty
and the rights of mankind.'
" From this brief summation of facts, let us turn back to the
Mecklenburg Declaration. In May, 1775, a convention of
delegates, twenty-seven in number, chosen by the people
from the militia districts of Mecklenburg County, N.C., met
at Charlotte to discuss their political oppressions and rights.
Their decisions were to be binding on all the people. In
view of the acts of these representatives, and our present
purpose, it is important to trace their religious connection.
They were, every one of them, Presbyterians; one a minister;
their president, secretary, and seven others, ruling elders.f
These issued the famous Mecklenburg Declaration of Inde-
* Bancroft, viii. 352 ; Foote's Sketches of North Carolina, pp. 43, 44.
t Foote's Sketches, pp. 34-44.
534 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
pendence, from which we give one spirited extract : 'Resolved,
3d, That we do hereby declare ourselves a free and independ-
ent people; are, and of right ought to be, a sovereign and
self-governing association, under the control of no power
other than that of our God and the general government of
the Congress : to the maintenance of which independence we
solemnly pledge to each other our mutual co-operation, our
lives, our fortunes, and our most sacred honor.'
" The most casual reader will notice the analogies in lan-
guage and sentiment between this and the National Declara-
tion, which was fourteen months later.
" We have illustrated thus the warm attachment of Pres-
byterians and their church to our national principles of
liberty, and also their distinguished services. Two points
remain to be illustrated, — the influence of their republican
principles on our government, and their services in securing
complete religious liberty.
"On the first point, the proofs must necessarily be indirect.
The framers of our Constitution followed no model directly
but rather built on fundamental principles. Yet the Pres-
byterian churches of the Reformation presented to them
a model government, in which these principles were fully
recognized, — religious republics, with stable and true foun-
dations, defended by great arguments drawn both from the
rights of man and the revelation of God. Our adoption, not
only of the great principles, but of analogous details, shows
the force of the influence exerted. Hon. W. C. Preston of
South Carolina says, * Certainly it is the most remarkable
and singular coincidence, that the constitution of the Pres-
byterian Church should bear such a close and striking re-
semblance to the political Constitution of our country.'
" On the second point, we have the testimony of Ban-
croft : ' The rigid Presbyterians proved in America the sup-
porters of religious freedom.'
"In the colonial period, Congregationalism was established
in most of New England, except Rhode Island. In all south
DEVELOPMENT OF TKUE RELIGION. 535
of New England, Episcopacy was the favored form. In both
sections, other churches existed by toleration. Now, in oppo-
sition to any kind of church establishment, even for them-
selves, it has been asserted, and may be fairly claimed, that
Presbyterians urged and secured the doctrine of religious
liberty, — the entire independence of Church and State.
Their record on this point was just as clear in those new
States, where their influence had become overwhelming, as
in those where they had not the supremacy. They proved
to be above temptation. Their services during the war,
throughout the country, were so distinguished, and their
position so prominent, that no other denomination could
have competed with them in securing favors from the Gen-
eral Government. But they never made a move in this
direction. On the contrary, they felt compelled, by a dec-
laration of synod, * That they ever have renounced, and still
do renounce and abhor, the principles of intolerance,' to
allay the apprehension that they, in turn, might prove intol-
erant.
" One point was still left undebated ; viz., the policy of
establishing and supporting all religions, as against the lib-
erty and independence of all. On this point, the decisive
and final struggle was in Virginia. A bill for the support
of religion in all denominations, by means of a general
assessment of the people, was introduced in 1777. It was
opposed, on principle, by Baptists, Quakers, and Presbyteri-
ans ; fought against by petitions, memorials, and conventions;
the agitation ranging through seven years. The honor of
the long struggle belongs to all three parties : the power
was exerted mainly by the Presbyterians. At the last wa-
vering moment, in 1784, when the legislature seemed dis-
posed still to press the measure, the Rev. John B. Smith, on
behalf of the Presbytery of Hanover, was heard for three
successive days against it. ' This decided the matter : the
whole scheme was abandoned.' The great principle of the
rightful independence of Church and State, new then, old
536 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
and glorious now, was thus established. It was adopted by
the smaller States on each side of Virginia, — Maryland and
Delaware, the Carolinas and Georgia, — and in 1789 was
incorporated into the Federal Constitution."
The following extract is from the report of Professor
Henry B. Smith to the General Conference of the Evan-
gelical Alliance at Amsterdam : —
" Outside of New England, where Congregationalism has
the' ground, the Presbyterian churches extend, in various
subdivisions, throughout the country. The main branch of
the church was divided, in 1838, on divers questions of doc-
trine and polity. The two main divisions are popularly, not
ecclesiastically, known as Old School and New School. The
Old School, 1867, reports 35 synods, 176 presbyteries, 2,622
churches, 2,302 ministers, 246,350 communicants, and con-
tributions to the amount of $3,731,164. In its foreign mis-
sions it has 40 churches, 330 ministers and teachers, and
1,200 members. The New School, 1867, reports 23 synods,
109 presbyteries, 1,870 ministers, 161,539 communicants,
163,242 Sunday-school scholars, and contributions of $3,-
106,870 for all its objects. Its increase last year was 10,938
members, and nearly $1,000,000 in contributions." Meas-
ures are in progress for uniting these two departments of
the church ; which it is earnestly hoped may succeed.
In all the great departments of education, literature, and
missionary effort, the Presbyterians are among the most
enlightened, self-sacrificing, and energetic of our Christian
citizens. The Old School publish 11 weekly periodicals, 4
monthlies, and 2 quarterlies, of the highest grade ; the New
School, 11 weeklies, 10 monthlies, 1 semi-monthly, and 1
quarterly, of high literary merit. The Presbyterians sup-
port numerous colleges and seminaries, generally not osten-
sibly denominational; and, while they labor earnestly to cir-
culate their own literature, they give their most devoted
energies to the American Bible Society, and all the other
great American institutions.
DEVELOPMENT OF TRUE RELIGION. 537
THE METHODIST-EPISCOPAL CHURCH.*
" As surely as the sun makes the day, religion has made
this Republic. In the building of our free institutions, the
churches have been the great formative agencies. Each
has had its own work, and left its peculiar impress. Al-
though the youngest of the great Christian organizations, we
claim, that, in forming the character and determining the
place of this nation in history, the Methodist-Episcopal
Church has been among the most influential.
" The itinerant system of ministerial labor was precisely
adapted to the wants of a new and growing country.
" The older churches had local strength ; but they lacked
the instrumentalities whereby the gospel could be made to
keep pace with the advancing lines of settlement and the
spread of population. Myriads of immigrants were leaving
the shores of the Old World to seek a home in the New. Mul-
titudes of our own people were annually migrating from the
seaboard, and the abodes of civilization, to explore the wilds
that lay westward. The older Christian bodies saw the
people passing away from churches and ministers, but had
no aggressive force, no arm of sufficient length, no agency
sufficiently mobile, to follow the rapid march.
"The Methodist itinerancy supplied the lacking means. It
rendered it possible to maintain regular religious service in
any little neighborhood where there was a single family
willing to open their house for divine worship, and entertain
the minister for a day. The class-meeting bound the con-
verts together in the bonds of tender Christian love, and, in
the hour of spiritual peril, brought to the help of each the
strength of Christian friendship. The quarterly meeting,
with its generous hospitality and social enjoyments, its three
or four stirring sermons, its love-feast, with its rich experi-
ences and thrilling songs, 'was a holy festival, worth all the
saints' days in the calendar. The annual conferences were
* From an able paper by Rev. J. T. CRANE, D.D.
68
538 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
councils of war, where Christian soldiers told of their victories
with tears of joy, and where they laid their plans for bolder
campaigns and more extended conquests.
" Methodism not only sought out the people, but won
them. From the very beginning, the great Head of the
Church crowned its labors with wonderful success. Organ-
izing its feeble scattered societies in 1784, with only 83
preachers and 15,000 members, it numbered, seven years
thereafter, 259 preachers and 63,269 members. In 1816,
fifty years from the date of Philip Embury's first sermon,
there were 695 preachers and 214,235 members. In 1866,
at the close of a hundred years of evangelical labor, the
Methodist-Episcopal Church numbered a mighty host of
7,576 ministers and 1,032,184 members.
" Meanwhile, the Church, broad and elevated in her plans,
and active and strong to execute them, has entered into
every department of legitimate labor, and gathered with an
unwearied hand all the elements of evangelical power and
efficiency. Our sabbath schools reported last year (1866)
153,039 officers and teachers, and 914,587 scholars, with
2,542,000 volumes in the libraries ; while the children's
paper ('The Sunday-school Advocate') circulated 300,000
copies, and the expenses of the schools amounted to $285,-
0<iO for the year. Statistics for 1867 show that we have
1.145,184 communicants, 30,571 preachers, and more than
1,000,000 Sunday-school scholars. In the department of
religious publication, we have the book concern, with 7
depositories in our principal cities, with an aggregate capital
of $1,213,000, and sales amounting, in 1866, to $1,245,000.
The church also publishes 9 papers, with a weekly circu-
lation of 147,000 copies, besides an able and successful 'Quar-
terly Review.' For the general education of the people, we
have 23 colleges, 3 theological schools, and 84 seminaries or
academies; in all, 110 institutions of learning, with 770 in-
structors and 22,305 students. In the year named, the
church expended $275,000 for foreign, and $254,000 for
DEVELOPMENT OF TRUE RELIGION. 539
domestic missions; contributed $107,000 for the gratuitous
circulation of the Scriptures ; collected $23,349 for the Tract
cause; gave $19,850 for the Sunday-school Union, and $50,-
000 to aid weak societies in the erection of houses of wor-
ship ; and at the same time has made, chiefly for purposes
of education and church extension, a grand Memorial Cen-
tenary Collection, amounting to $7,000,000. This exhibit
of numbers and results belongs to the original family of
Methodism on this continent, — the Methodist -Episcopal
Church. Eight other organizations, numbering more than
1,000,000, identical in doctrine, and differing little in usage,
have arisen from the parent stock.
" It will thus be seen, that, by a fair estimate, the Method-
ists mould the principles and influence the actions of about
one-third of our entire population.
" The Methodist-Episcopal Church has not gained its great
numerical strength by any indirection. We have not courted
the suffrages of the frivolous, the worldly, or the wicked, by
flattering them with the promise of an easy way to heaven.
For the whole hundred years of our history, we have borne
a steady testimony against wrong, urged the necessity of
inward and outward holiness, the reality of spiritual religion,
and the value of high attainments in the divine life.
"The simple, just, and generous theology of Methodism
has been the means, in the Divine Hand, of saving the nation
from fatal religious error, and of breathing a new life into
the older religious organizations.
" A century ago, the religious state of the country was very
far from being satisfactory to the pious and the thoughtful.
"The prospect was dark. Without virtue as well as intelli-
gence among the people, free institutions are impossible.
New-born liberty was in danger of perishing in its infancy.
A new spirit on the part of the churches was needed. Some
more efficient instrument of aggressive warfare, some new
agency strong enough and bold enough to cope with the
evils of the age, was required. God was not limited, indeed,
540 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
to any one mode of accomplishing his great purposes ; yet
nono will dispute the fact that he chose Methodism as the
chief agency for doing the work. He called to this ministry
Dr. Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury, and their fellow-
laborers; men of deep piety and fervent zeal, men of mighty
faith and courage and energy. They did not appear with
a novel system of theology. The great doctrines of the
Triune God, of human depravity, a general atonement and
universal grace, and man's consequent just accountability,
were the theme and the life of sermon, song, and prayer.
The people heard and felt. The heart of the nation was
reached, and its conscience was roused. A new church
organization, fresh, vigorous, laborious, shot up into sudden
strength, and began its career of evangelical power. The
older churches caught the inspiration ; and a new era of
religious faith and hope, and bold aggressive movement
against the enemy, was inaugurated. Thus the tide of
spiritual death which threatened to overwhelm the nation
was arrested ; and large numbers of the people were deeply
imbued with the feeling of personal liberty against despotr
ism on the one hand, and licentiousness on the other. All
this immense moral power has wrought against every species
of bondage, and in favor of the true republican liberty which
is triumphant in the United States to-day.
" Methodism, at the very beginning, joined battle with the
sins that threatened national ruin. There is a gigantic crime
which has haunted the footsteps of civilization through all
human history. As soon as a people emerge from barbarism,
and begin to realize their superiority over the savages
around them, they are tempted to take advantage of their
strength to enslave the weak and the helpless. And slavery
is sure to curse the oppressor. The plagues which smote the
Egyptians are but the symbols of the multiform evils which
this crime against humanity brings in its train. Sooner or
later, it rolls a Red Sea of slaughter and woe upon those who
deny justice and mercy. The early Methodists spoke out
boldly against the wrong.
DEVELOPMENT OF TRUE RELIGION. 541
" Intemperance is another gigantic evil, the sin and the
shame of our Christianity and our civilization. The rule of
Mr. Wesley, incorporated into the discipline of the infant
societies at the very dawn of Methodism, not only prohibits
intoxication, but forbids buying or selling spirituous liquors,
or drinking them, unless in cases of extreme necessity.
As early as 1780, it was resolved to disown those who
distil grain into liquor. This was almost half a century
before Dr. Nott, Dr. Beecher, and others who are commonly
regarded as the pioneers of the Temperance reform, began
their labors. Let it be remenbered, too, that the Methodist-
Episcopal Church advanced at once to the true ground, —
total abstinence from all that intoxicates. Here, also, the
church has borne a steady testimony from the beginning.
" The spirit of Methodism harmonizes with the spirit of
liberty, and tends to strengthen in the popular mind the
principles upon which free institutions are based. When
religion enters into the heart, and becomes the master-
passion, it cannot fail to influence the mental attitude in
regard to all questions which have in them a moral element.
Not only will it demand care and caution in coming to con-
clusions, but often supply 'the premises by which the conclu-
sion is reached. He who receives cordially and in good faith
a system of religious doctrine, will find, that by virtue of a
certain mental process which is too subtile and swift to need
language, or even allow its use, it supplies the light by
which he views, and the rule by which he measures, a thou-
sand other things.
"The generous theology of Methodism favors civil liberty.
Personal freedom, the ballot, popular education, equality be-
fore the law for all citizens, are the natural corollaries of the
doctrines of a general atonement and universal grace. No
system less broad can justify the republican argument, or
become the inspiration and the organizing power of univer-
sal liberty. They who are convinced that Jesus Christ, by
the grace of God, tasted death for every man, must be bold,
542 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
indeed, if they dare to oppress their fellows, denying them
their rights. Thus the theology of Methodism has infused
a silent yet powerful element into our political life, incul-
cating a broad humanity, recognizing the divine interest in
every human being, and asserting everywhere fraternity
and the rights of all races and all men.
'• Americans reason. As they pass from the house of God
to the civil assembly of the citizens, they cannot in either
place wholly forget what they hear in the other. lie who
glowed with patriotic delight as he listened to the enuncia-
tion of republican doctrines, demanding equal rights for all
men, because God created them free and equal, rejoiced
when the pulpit proclaimed salvation for all. He who
listened to the arguments of the Methodist ministry, and was
convinced that God is no respecter of persons, and went
thence to the popular meeting, and heard the great truths
of i he Declaration of Independence, felt that his religious
belief, and the American theory of civil government, rest on
the same foundation of eternal truth. Thus Methodism has
re-enforced the fundamental principles of our Republic, and
strengthened their hold upon the popular mind.
'• And. while Methodism has thus been powerfully progres-
sive in its influence upon our civil institutions, it has always
carried with it those salutary tendencies which make prog-
ress safe and real. Revolutions do not always lead to free-
dom. A people may break the chains of tyranny, and stand
for a moment free, but, having no solid religious conviction
O O
to keep them from excess, destroy by folly what they
bought with blood. Methodism has cast the prophetic salt
into the fountain of our national life. Turning many from
sin to righteousness, and warring everywhere against the
vices which unfit men for good .citizenship, laying upon all
within her pale the strong restraints of her preaching and
her discipline, she checks the passions which are destructive
to law and public order. Preaching a free salvation in free
churches., to which the poor, and the stranger of our own or
DEVELOPMENT OP TRUE RELIGION. 543
other lands, were welcome, she has built up the nation in the
principles of rational liberty, not less really and effectually
than she has strengthened the walls of the general Church.
" The MethodistrEpiscopal Church, by its peculiar organi-
zation, has tended powerfully to the preservation of our
national unity. In 1784, when our church adopted its
ecclesiastical organization, it was the first among the re-
ligious bodies of the country to affirm the rightful inde-
pendence of the American people, and recognize the new
government; thus binding all our people to loyalty and civil
obedience. On Thursday, May 28, the Conference met in
New York, Bishops Coke and Asbury being both in attend-
ance. By order of the Conference, an address to President
Washington was prepared ; and, on the second day of the
session, the bishops waited upon him, and performed the
office assigned them, Bishop Asbury reading the address.
In the name of the church, they congratulate Washington
on his 'appointment to the presidentship of these States,'
recognize his great services, and declare that they ' place as
full confidence in his wisdom and integrity for the preserva-
tion of those civil and religious liberties which have been
transmitted to us by the providence of God, and the glorious
Revolution, as we believe ought to be reposed in man.' They
speak also of ' the most excellent constitution of these States,
which is at present the admiration of the world ; ' and pledge
their fervent prayers for him, and the welfare of the nation
over which he was called to preside.
" Washington made a fit reply, thanking them, and the
society which they represented, ' for the demonstration of
affection ; ' expressing a hope, that, ' by the assistance of Di-
vine Providence,' he would ' not altogether disappoint the
confidence reposed in him ; ' and assuring them ' in particu-
lar, that he took in the kindest part the promise they made
of presenting their prayers at the throne of grace for him ;
and that he likewise implored the divine benediction on
them and their religious community/
.")44 THE GREAT IlEITISLIC.
'- Its language having become inapplicable, by reason of the
abrogation of the Act of Confederation and the adoption of
the Constitution, the 23d Article of Religion was changed so
as to recognize the Constitution of the United States as the
<_j
supreme law of the land ; and a new clause was added,
affirming that • the said States are a sovereign and inde-
pendent nation* as if the author of the change had receive'!
prophetic warning of the events of later days. With its
whole weight, our church gravitates in the direction of
national unity. The church itself is a unit. ' litly joined
together, and compacted by that which every joint suppli-
eth.' The common pastorate of all the ministers over all
the churches, the methods of distributing ministerial service,
the mode of supervision by means of the presiding eldership,
and the general superintendence, are so many strong cords
wherewith to ' undergird the ship.' Every pastor and every
society feels an interest in every other., because, by the law
of the church, they are liable at any time to be brought
into the closest relations. The rapid interchange of pastors
through all the land has tended to preserve both ministry
and laity from local narrow views, and make their love for
the church in its unity equal to their regard for the local
society. Both ministry and laity are trained to love
and respect the whole church. Every individual man
shares the pain of every local failure and the joy of every
victory. Every church is but one wheel in the vast en-
ginery, and feels every impulse and every jar. however
remote the cause. The same pulse throbs throughout the
whole body, from the heart to the farthest extremity.
"A church thus compactly organized, instinct in every fibre
with zeal, energy, and courage, wielding a living theology,
harmonizing so perfectly with the spirit of our civil insti-
tutions, winning the suffrages of so vast a multitude, and
binding them together in so warm a brotherhood, could not.
fail to infuse a lar^e measure of its own distinctive spirit
O •»-
into the nation's life."
DEVELOPMENT OF TETJE RELIGION. 545
OTHER CHURCHES.
LUTHERANS. — The Lutheran Church numbers, in all, 421
synods, 1,644 ministers, 2,915 congregations, and 323,8#5
communicants. Of these, there are connected with the Gen-
eral Synod 23 synods, 695 ministers, 1,255 congregations, and
110,450 communicants. The rest are embraced in other
synods. There is a general synod at the South. A new
synod is projected, on the basis of a more strict adherence
to the symbols. A convention for this object was held at
Reading, Penn., in December, 1866, attended by representa-
tives from 15 synods; but no further action has yet been
taken. The two Western Scandinavian synods number
40,000 members. The emigration from Scandinavia alone
last year was 29,000, chiefly Lutheran. There are 29
Lutheran periodicals in the United States (14 of which are
in the German language), 15 theological schools, and 17
colleges.
REFORMED CHURCH IN AMERICA. — Churches, 444 ; ministers,
461; candidates, 8; communicants, 57,846; Sunday-school
scholars, 46,411 : contributions for congregational objects,
$765,980; for benevolent objects, $277,209. Its last synod,
by a vote of 109 to 10, submitted the question of dropping
the words "Dutch" and "Protestant" from its title, and
adopting the name of " The Reformed Church in America ; "
and the change has been effected. They have a theological
seminary with 34 students, and two colleges with 264 stu-
dents. They have thoroughly organized and efficient boards
of education ; publication and domestic and foreign missions,
with foreign missions in India, China, and Japan.
i
GERMAN REFORMED. — This church has 2 synods, 29 classes,
476 ministers, 1,162 churches, 109,258 communicants, 11,088
baptisms, 5 colleges, 3 theological schools, and 9 periodicals :
contributions for benevolent objects, $60,882. The Tercen-
546 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
tenary of the Heidelberg Catechism was duly celebrated, and
an excellent edition of the same was issued. In connection
with this, more than $100,000 were raised for the colleges
o£ the church. It is proposed to drop the word " German "
from the title of the church.
THE UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH was formed in 1853 by
a union of the Associate Presbyterian and Associate Re-
formed Churches. It reports, 1867, 7 synods, 54 presby-
teries, 543 ministers, 717 congregations, 63,489 members,
and $1,277,204 contributions. In the eight years of its
history, it has increased in its ministry from 408 to 543 ;
and in its contributions, from an average of forty-one cents
per member to an average of nine dollars. It has mission-
ary presbyteries in India, China, Syria, and Oregon. It is
antislavery and close communion in its character.
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES (the style
of the Southern Church) was formed by a union of the Old
and New School Churches (South) during the war. They
report, 1867, 10 synods, 46 presbyteries, 66,528 communi-
cants, 829 ministers, 1,290 churches. The contributions are
set down as $409,282. There are 340 churches and 4 pres-
byteries from which there is no report. The numbers given
are probably much below the facts. There is no present
prospect of re-union with the Northern churches.
THE CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES, North and South,
are re-united. They had, before the war, 588 ministers, and
48,600 members.
THE REFORMED PRESBYTERIANS in the North have two synods;
one of about 100, the other of about 60 ministers.
THE UNITED BRETHREN IN CHRIST (organized 1744) is " Ar-
minian in doctrine^ and Methodistic in polity." It has 4,255
DEVELOPMENT OF TRUE RELIGION. 547
preaching places, 3,297 societies, and 91,570 members; con-
tributions, $341,279.
THE MORAVIANS. — 89 mission stations ; 307 preaching
places ; 213 missionaries, male and female, and 882 assistants ;
expended, $120,189. Under the religious instruction of the
Unitus Fratrum, there are 177,669 persons in Europe and
America. The adult communicants number 14,240.
THE FRIENDS, or QUAKERS, of the orthodox side, number
54,000.*
FREEWILL BAPTISTS. — This denomination of evangelical
Christians numbers (including Canada West) 31 yearly and
147 quarterly meetings, 1,264 churches, and 56,738 mem-
bers. They have a biblical school and three colleges ; a print-
ing establishment, publishing a quarterly review, a weekly,
and a sabbath-school paper semi-monthly. They practise
baptism by immersion. They are Arminian with respect to
the doctrine of freewill, and are open communists.
Concerning other evangelical churches and religious or-
ganizations, such information as our limited space will allow,
in addition to what has been already given, will be found in
the following statistical tables : —
SUMMARY AND RESULTS.
Churches. Ministers Members.
MethodistrEpiscopal Church . . 14,889 1,032,184
MethodistrEpiscopal, South . . 7,495 708,949
African Methodist-Episcopal . . 2,613 53,670
Protestant Methodist . . . 1,560 105,120
Evangelical Association . . . 727 51,185
African Zion Methodist-Episcopal . 661 30,600
Wesleyan Methodist ... 400 25,620
Free Methodist .... 136 3,655
Primitive 64 1,805
Total 28,545 2,012,788
* The above statistics are taken chiefly from the Report of Rev. HENRY B. SMITH, D.D.
548
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
Churches.
Baptist Church
Freewill Baptist .
Campbellite Baptist
Anti-mission * ~ :
Winebrenarians
Tunkers
Six-principle Baptist
Seventh-day Baptist
Total
Ministers.
7,869
1,050
1,000
700
273
100
72
62
11,126
Members.
1,041,003
56,738
200,000
50,000
23,800
20,000
3,000
6,796
1,401,337
Presbyterian, Old School
Presbyterian, New School
Cumberland
Southern Presbyterian .
United Presbyterian
Reformed Presbyterian .
Associate Reformed
Associated Presbyterian .
Total
2,346
287,360
1,779
138,074
1,150
103,062
840
560
67,900
119
16,660
91
2,581
41
1,000
6,926
616,637*
AGGREGATE NUMBERS.
Denominations.
Ministers.
Members.
Methodists
. . 28,545
2,012,788
Baptists .
. 11,148
1,401,337
Presbyterians .
. 6,705
616,637
Congregationalists
. 2,719
268,015
Episcopalians .
^ . 2,530
161,224
Lutherans
. 2,533
269,985
United Brethren
. 1,677
102,983
German Reformed
505
91,200
Reformed (Dutch)
436
54,268
Moravian .
40
5,859
Friends .
.
94,672
Minor sects . V"
230
37,600
Grand total
57,068
5,116,568
* Some discrepancy between the statistics given in different places is inevitable, for the
reason that they represent the facts at different periods. Simultaneous and full reports
of the several churches do not exist. This, however, does in no way affect the argument
for which these figures are brought forward.
DEVELOPMENT OF TRUE RELIGION.
549
HOUSES OF WORSHIP.
Denominations.
Methodists
Baptists .
Presbyterians .
Roman Catholics
Congregationalists
Episcopalians
Lutherans
Christians .
Union
Cumberland Presbyterians
German Reformed
Universalists
Freewill Baptists
Friends
Reformed Dutch
United Presbyterians .
Unitarians
Tunkers .
Reformed Presbyterians
Mennonites
Jewish
Adventists
Winebrenarians .
Swedenborgians .
Seventh-day Baptists .
Moravians .
Spiritists .
Shakers
Six-principle Baptists .
Minor sects
Total
Church Edifices.
Accommodations.
Value.
. 19,883
6,259,799
$33,093,371
. 11,221
3,749,553
19,799,378
. 5,061
2,088,838
24,227,359
. 2,550
1,404,437
26,774,119
. 2,334
956,351
13,327,511
. 2,145
847,296
21,665,698
. 2,128
757,637
5,385,179
. 2,068
681,016
2,518,045
. 1,366
371,899
1,370,212
820
262,978
914,256
676
273,697
2,422,670
664
235,219
2,856,095
530
148,693
2,789,295
765
269,084
2,544,507
440
211,068
4,453,850
389
1,312,275
1,312,275
264
138,213
4,438,316
163
67,995
162,956
136
48,897
386,635
109
36,425
137,960
77
34,412
1,135,300
70
17,120
101,170
65
27,700
74,175
58
15,395
321,200
53
17,864
107,200
49
20,316
227,450
17
6,275
7,500
12
5,200
41,000
8
1,^90
8,150
26
14,150
895,100
54,147 20,281,792 $173,497,932*
From reliable statistics of the population of the United
States, and of the evangelical churches, Rev. D. Dorches-
* Taken from the census of 1860. It cannot be claimed that the figures are absolutely
correct ; but they can be relied upon to show, in general, the relative material progress of
the several denominations.
550
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
ter has ascertained that the ratio of communicants to
the inhabitants ten years of age and upwards was as fol-
lows : —
In 1800, one communicant for 10 5-6 inhabitants.
„ 1832, „ „ „ 7 1-3
„ 1843, „ „ „ 5 4-25
„ 1850, „ „ „ 4 31-33
„ I860, „ „ ,, 4 2-8
"During this same period, the population has increased
nearly sixfold ; but the communicants of evangelical churches
have increased nearly fourteen and one-half fold, or the in-
crease of church-membership has been two and a half times
greater than the population." This progress is most encour-
aging.
It would certainly be a wrong use of language to call
these dry statistics. They point directly to the great doc-
trine of the atonement by the death of Christ, to the inspira-
tion of the Holy Scriptures, the publication of the gospel by
authority of God, the privilege of believing prayer, the new
creation by the Holy Spirit; to the great reformation of
heart and life, of principles and manners, distinguishing civ-
ilization from barbarism. What man will claim the ability
to estimate the influence upon the morals and piety of this
nation which has come from all the sermons, and other
pastoral labors, of more than fifty thousand ministers of the
gospel, with those of their predecessors, since the landing of
the first Christian colonists on this continent ? Who will
venture to describe the power of all the prayers, exhorta-
tions, tears, and examples of the unquestionably good among
the more than five millions of enrolled laboring Protestant
Christians of the country, and the multitudes who have gone
before them ? Were it possible to abstract all these benign
influences from our history, the world would then see how
dark a moral night would have set in upon this fair portion
DEVELOPMENT OF TEUE RELIGION. 551
of the globe without them. We can, however, now say,
unequivocally, that the Holy Bible, the Christian pulpit,
Christian education, the religious press, and experimental
piety, have been the chart of our liberties, the inspiration
of our patriotism, the regeneration of civil society, and the
exaltation of the national character.
As a clear result, these States are proclaimed to the world,
in their fundamental laws, to be Christian States ; thus rep-
resenting the common faith of the people. By authority
of Congress, chaplains have been from time to time appointed
to implore the blessing of God upon the Senate and House
of Eepresentatives, and "all in authority." By law, this
religious provision is extended to our army and navy.
The holy sabbath is recognized in the Constitution. Of
this the President is duly informed, by express provision, in
Art. I., sect. 7. Dr. Adams says, " In adopting this provision,
it was clearly presumed by the people that the President of
the United States would not employ himself in public business
on Sunday. The people had been accustomed to pay special
respect to Sunday from the first settlement of the country.
They assumed that the President also would wish to respect
the day. The people, in adopting the Constitution, must
have been convinced that the public business intrusted to
the President would be greater in importance and variety
than that which would fall to the share of any functionary
employed in a subordinate station. The expectation and
confidence, then, manifested by the people of the United
States, that their President will respect their Sunday by
abstaining from public business on that day, must extend,
a fortiori, to all employed in subordinate stations." Senator
Frelinghuysen, before Congress, in 1836, said, " Our prede-
cessors wisely determined, in accordance with the sentiments
of at least nine-tenths of our people, that the first day of the
week should be the sabbath of our government. This public
recognition is accorded to the sabbath in the Federal Con-
stitution. The President of the United States, in the dis-
552 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
charge of the high functions of his legislative department, is
relieved from all embarrassment on Sunday. Both Houses
of Congress, the offices of the State, Treasury, War and Navy
Departments, are all closed on Sunday." And again : " The
framers of the Constitution, and those who for many years
administered it, doubtless had in their eye the first day, the
sabbath of the Christian religion. They were legislating,
not for Jews, Mohammedans, infidels, pagans, atheists, but
for Christians ; and, believing the Christian religion the only
one calculated to sustain and perpetuate the government
about to be formed, they adopted it as the basis of the infant
Republic. This nation had a religion, and it was the Chris-
tian religion. Christianity is the religion of this country,
and, as such, is recognized in the whole structure of its
government, and lies at the foundation of all our civil and
political institutions : in other words, Christianity, as really
as republicanism, is part and parcel of our laws."
GENERAL CHRISTIAN SOCIETIES.
THE AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY, during the first ten years of
its history, circulated 439,580 copies of the Bible ; the second
decade, 1,549,848 copies; the third, 2,510,156 copies; the
fourth, 6,772,338 copies; the fifth, 10,138,044 copies: thus
furnishing to the needy by gift, and at very low rates to those
desiring to purchase, in all their various dialects, 21,409,966
copies of the Holy Scriptures. The Missionary, Tract, and
Sunday-school Societies have felt this strong influence, and,
in return, become grand pervading agencies for reaching the
world. Orphan asylums, penitentiaries, hospitals, soldiers'
honies, homes for the friendless, and, indeed, the haunts of
the most degrading vices, have been reached by this indis-
pensable means of instruction, comfort, elevation, and sal-
vation.
The funds furnished by business industry, and very largely
by pure Christian liberality, show the public confidence in
DEVELOPMENT OF TEUE KELIGION. 553
the Bible Society, and the providential supply of its benev-
olent demands. During the first ten years, the figures
reached $449,552.73 ; the second decade, $954,897.94 ; the
third, $1,233,039.95; the fourth, $3,042,632.44; and the
fifth, $4,754,850.68 : making the grand total in fifty years,
up to 1866, of $10,434,953.74.
The receipts from all sources, for the year ending 1867,
coming from thirty-nine States and Territories, and from
"twelve foreign countries, which have contributed small
amounts," were $734,089.14; and the entire number of
volumes issued by the society during fifty-one years is
22,667,926. Thus a great national book is circulated every-
where under the patronage of national men, for the purifi-
cation and elevation of national patriotism.
THE AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION, at their annual meet-
ing in 1830, resolved, " in reliance upon divine aid, within
two years to establish a Sunday schoolj in every destitute
place where it is practicable, throughout the Valley of the
Mississippi." In eighteen months, 2,867 schools were estab-
lished, and 1,121 visited and revived. In the year 1833, this
resolution was extended in time, and enlarged to embrace
the Southern States generally. It was reported, that, in
nine years, there had been established in connection with
the society, or by its direct agency, 14,550 Sunday schools,
containing 109,000 teachers and 760,000 scholars. Accord-
ing to the report in 1860, during the eleven years preceding,
the missionaries of the society organized about 20,000 new
schools, containing about 760,000 scholars, taught by 127,000
teachers. During these years, the number of schools visited,
aided, and strengthened by these missionaries, was much
greater. During the past year (1866-7), these missionaries
organized 1,671 new schools, having 10,559 teachers and
67,204 scholars. They visited and aided 6,090 schools, hav-
ing 45,175 teachers and 351,485 scholars. They visited
35,924 families; distributed 9,821 Scriptures and books, and
554 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
other Sunday -school requisites, amounting to $15,332.*
Who can estimate the national power of these regenerat-
ing agencies, forming and directing the rising generations
of American citizens?
THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY (Boston). — This institution,
essentially New England in principles and spirit, after some
twelve years of independent labors in the circulation of
Christian tracts and other religious literature, was merged
in the American Tract Society in New York. In 1859,
determining to send forth everywhere publications thorough-
ly antislavery, it resumed its distinct organization. Since
that time, it has accomplished a work of the greatest na-
tional importance.
" It has furnished its publications to laborers, clerical and
lay, wherever they were needed and there was a call for
them. Sailors and landsmen ; the poor and neglected in our
cities and large towns, as well as in the sparsely-populated
portions of the country; various institutions, educational,
humane, reformatory, and penal; sabbath schools, feeble
churches," and especially the soldiers of our army and the
freedmen of the South, — have been cared for and instructed
by the agents and publications of this society. " It has re-
ceived for its charitable operations, from May 1, 1859, to May
1, 1867, eight years, $38,688.977 : of this amount, $243,787.-
41 have been expended in the gratuitous distribution of re-
ligious books, papers, tracts, &c. During the same time, the
number of books, tracts, &c., published, has been 16,091,276 ;
copies of periodicals of different kinds, 24,541,700. Total,
40,632,976." f
THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY (New York). — This institu-
tion has on its list 3,800 distinct publications, "of which 775
are volumes."
* From a paper by Rev. S. B. S. BISSELL.
t From a paper hr Rev. WILLIAM C. CHILD, D.D.
DEVELOPMENT OF TRUE RELIGION. 555
"Among the home publications are 900 in foreign lan-
guages for immigrants, thousands of whom have thus been
enabled to read ' in their own tongue the wonderful works
of God/ with great joy, and often with saving benefit.
" Of the periodicals, a total of over 106,000,000 copies
have been issued, or, at present rates, 6,000,000 yearly, to
500,000 subscribers.
" Of the other home publications, 21,000,000 volumes have
been printed, and 2,295,000,000 pages of tracts, — a flood
of gospel truth which has certainly told with immense power
on the character and destiny of America. Probably there is
no inhabited country in the land where some of these publi-
cations might not be found, and no citizen of the United
States who is not indirectly benefited by their effects.
" Annual grants of our home publications are made to the
destitute, amounting to some $50,000 ; and these have gone
to working Christians, for circulation in prisons and hospi-
tals, in sabbath schools and mission schools, in cities and in
remote and lonely hamlets, to soldiers, and to sailors on our
inland waters, and in hundreds of outward-bound vessels
from every corner of the globe.
" Besides large amounts thus granted for foreign nations, a
total of $560,000 in money has been granted from the first
year to the present, to aid the missionaries, at twenty different
stations in heathen lands, to print for this mission-work certain
books which the society approves ; and thus 3,750 different
publications have been issued abroad, including over 500
volumes in 141 languages.
" Of the good results of colportage a volume might be
written, and yet but a small part be told. In 26 years, it
has done a work equal to that of one man for 4,137 years;
it has sold 8,550,000 volumes, and granted 2,300,000 ; it has
made 9,596,000 visits, in more than half of which prayer
was offered or a personal appeal made ; it has found 1,292,-
000 Protestant families neglecting evangelical worship, 833,-
000 Romanist families; 494,000 Protestant families without
556 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
Bibles, and 800,000 with no other religious book. It has,
to a good degree, met the wants of a rapidly-advancing popu-
lation, where no book-stores, schools, or churches existed ;
where the message of salvation would not otherwise have
been borne.
"The amount received and expended, from its commence-
ment to this time, is over $9,000,000.
"Among the reasons for its success, we notice the fact
that the whole plan of operation is such as to secure re-
sponsibility and efficiency. The foresight and liberality of
friends have given the society a large and commodious
building, where, with twenty steam-presses, tens of thousands
of stereotype plates, and every facility for composing, print-
ing, binding, and storing, its publications reach the number
of 4,000 books, 30,000 tracts, and 20,000 papers, daily. So
large and powerful a Christian agency operating upon the
masses must be an effective force for the improvement of
national character." *
THE AMERICAN SEAMAN'S FRIEND SOCIETY is the concentration
of earnest sympathy for those who "do business in great
waters." Christian philanthropy finds in seamen an im-
portant class of men, capable of great excellence, and liable
to the most destructive vices. Without our consent, they
will be regarded abroad as representatives of a Christian
nation. With what propriety, therefore, are the most self-
sacrificing and devoted efforts made to give them, on land
and on the sea, the means of grace and Christian culture !
This society has been in operation less than half a century,
and it now has its chaplaincies in almost every part of the
world. At home and abroad, our seafaring men are cared
for : our Bethel churches and ships, our " homes " and hos-
pitals, invite them to the blessings of holy worship and
Christian hospitality. They are treated not so much as
sailors as men ; and thousands of them are noble represen-
* From a paper by Rev. W. W. RAND.
DEVELOPMENT OF TRUE RELIGION. . 557
tatives of American Christianity, and many become truly
devoted missionaries in foreign lands.
Libraries of some 40 or 50 volumes each provide them
valuable reading on shipboard. " Up to this time, Oct. 25,
1867, nearly 2,500 of them have been put afloat in the navy
and merchant service, composed of over 100,000 volumes,
and accessible to about 115,000 seamen at sea. The system
is making a revolution in the conduct and character of sea-
men on shipboard. Up to May 1, 1867, a few of these libra-
rians had reported 518 hopeful conversions at sea through
the influence of these books." *
YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS/)*
" The origin and progress of Young Men's Christian Asso-
ciations in America must always be cause of thankfulness
to God. They were adopted from Germany and England ;
and Providence has kindly aided their permanent establish-
ment in this Western World.
" Who can recall, without a thrill of pleasure, the Samari-
tan labors of the New-Orleans Association, when, in 1858, a
fearful epidemic swept the streets of that city as with the
besom of destruction ? Or who can contemplate, unmoved,
the organized and fruitful sympathy, which, from its well-
spring in the bosom of the New- York Association, flowed in
an abundant and still enduring stream to minister comfort
to the little ones of Norfolk and Portsmouth, Va., smitten
orphans by a pitiless pestilence ? Blessed memories are
there, too, of the firemen's meetings, inaugurated in Philadel-
phia, — an instrumentality owned of the Master, and there
and elsewhere made the means of many a soul's salvation.
Nor can we forget the system of tent-preaching, by which,
in our larger cities, the poor have had the gospel preached
unto them.
* From a paper by Rev. II. LOOMIS, D.D.
t From a paper by FRANK W. BALLABD.
558 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
" No other agency has yet been discovered in which are
combined, to the same degree, those desirable constituent
elements, — catholicity, economy, sympathy, originality, pro-
gressiveness, efficiency, and vitality.
" The meetings, the rooms, the library, the lectures, and
the friendships of a well-appointed Christian association are
calculated to attract and satisfy all the merely temporal
cravings of a mind and heart not pre-occupied with vice;
while many a sorrowing subject of depravity has found in
them an invitation to repentance, and an antidote to the
poison of previous evil companionships. Superadd to these
merely material attractions the exercise of that positive
religious influence which is professedly the main feature of
a Christian Association, and the institution is made to assume
no subordinate position in the moral machinery of the world.
It becomes at once, and so remains, an indispensable adjunct
to the Church, and, as thousands of new-born souls will tes-
tify, a means of grace both owned and blessed of God.
" The Christian Association, in proportion to its member-
ship and their activity, becomes a moral police wherever it
is established ; arresting the vicious in their mad career ;
preventing much of the sin that promises to ripen into
crime; removing or diminishing, so far as its influence ex-
tends, the teeming temptations of city life ; and attracting
towards itself the confidence and love of those whose rescue
has thus been wrought. By its well-arranged system of
practical fraternity, the institution provides employment for
the unemployed, homes and churches and friends for the
stranger, nurses and physicians for the sick; and all this
without other incentive than the consciousness of dischar-
ging duty, and the hope of winning souls to Christ.
" The annual conventions invariably concentrate the deep-
est sympathies of the Christian people in whose cities they
are held. At Montreal, in June, 1867, more than 500 dele-
gates, from 106 localities, and representing an equal number
of associations, held their sessions during several days, amid
DEVELOPMENT OF TRUE RELIGION. 559
the solemn surroundings of crowds, — at times numbering
3,000 souls. And it has become the rule, that revivals of
religion are the blessed legacies left behind as precious
souvenirs wherever the conventions have been held.
"A central organ has been successfully published during
the past year, called l The Quarterly/ which, under the
editorial supervision of the Executive Committee resident at
New York, has found favor with the associations, and has a
self-supporting circulation of 2,000 volumes.
" Several associations have received from liberal friends of
the cause large sums of money towards erecting permanent
buildings for their accommodation. In New York, more than
$250,000 will be invested in a home for the association of
that city; the association in Chicago has already erected
and occupied a splendid structure ; while Washington, Bos-
ton, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, and other cities, will soon be
enriched by similar noble Christian edifices.
"Most of the associations are enjoying the presence
of the Master's spirit ; and their prayer-meetings, Bible-'
classes, monthly meetings, and social gatherings, have usual-
ly abounded in good results of glory to God.
"There are some 250 Young Men's Christian Associations
in this country, aggregating about 40,000 members, and
composed of memberships varying from 16 to near 4,000
souls each. The largest organization in the country, and
one of the most active, is that of Brooklyn, N.Y., which had,
in June, 1867, 3,895 members. Among the other important
and influential societies are those of New York, 1,600 mem-
bers; Boston, 2,300 ; Philadelphia, 2,500 ; Providence, 1,3 00;
Troy, 1,258 ; Chicago, 1,000 ; Cincinnati, 500 ; Baltimore,
712; Harrisburg, 600; Washington City, 650; Pittsburg,
526.
" The power of such an institution as we have here de-
scribed, in doing the work of Christ among the young men
of democratic, republican America, and in promoting sterling
patriotism, can scarcely be over-estimated."
560 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
THE GREAT REVIVAL.
At length there is place for a revival of religion in the
history of a great nation. The Christian life is no accident-
al fact, no temporary influence, to be merely a subject of
wonder or ridicule, and then pass out of sight. Religion is
no mere segment of the great circle of philosophy : it is
the inner force, the vitalizing power, of all philosophy, — the
life and exposition of history. A revival of religion is a
revival of the nafional life. So far as it extends, the ten-
dency to insubordination is broken down ; the very propen-
sities which give to all governments their most serious trouble
are reduced to control, and finally eradicated ; the reign of
justice and of love begins, in the individual soul, to give
strength and force to all right dispositions, growing and en-
larging perpetually. This is true religion, — a revival of
the right, the just, and the true. Now, let it extend until it
subdues, reduces to order, and saves hundreds, thousands,
throughout our various communities : is this nothing in his-
tory, nothing to a nation ?
It was the fall of 1857. There had been a sudden and
appalling overthrow of the business plans and prosperity of
the city and country. Various reasons for this revulsion
were given by political economists; but they were very
conflicting and unsatisfactory. At length the thought began
to move among the churches and business-men, that this was
God arresting the headlong worldly schemes of men, and
warning them not to set their affections on things on the
earth. These convictions began to appear in the several
churches ; and they soon found a rallying-point and a com-
mon expression in a noonday prayer-meeting. The room
was filled ; then another and another. Soon a large church
was opened; then others in other parts of the city; then
parlors in splendid residences, hotel drawing-rooms, vast
public halls, and theatres, were converted into prayer-rooms.
Christian men and women, old people and children, rich
DEVELOPMENT OF TRUE RELIGION. 561
men and poor, all gathered daily, sometimes twice in the
day, reverently to worship God, the great Sovereign of men.
It was strange. Citizens who had heretofore shown no special
interest in experimental religion, very rich merchants, high-
minded lawyers, physicians, and laborers, — some recognized
as virtuous, deserving, but unconverted, others as grossly prof-
ligate,— all wept together over their sins, and triumphed to-
gether, when one after another, to the number of thousands,
they passed " from darkness to light, and from the power of
Satan to God." Those who had been suddenly reduced from
affluence to poverty rejoiced, and thanked God, with tears,
that they had been brought by discipline to choose a better
and more enduring treasure. Many who were still prosper-
ous seemed to hear ringing through their whole being the
demand, u What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the
whole world, and lose his own soul?" and body, mind, prop-
erty, and talents were all freely laid upon the altar of God.
PERVADING CHRISTIANITY.
The great revival was no longer local : it was a movement
— a grand, wide-spreading movement — away from vice and
perdition towards virtue, holiness, and heaven. All agencies
seemed to wait its commands, and bow to its control. If
suggestions, appointments, or direction from some responsi-
ble head, representing all the Church, were required, God
had prepared the Young Men's Christian Associations, and
adapted them to this very necessity. The religious press,
of course, but the secular press just as submissively, surren-
dered its best services and most valuable columns to give the
world due information of this grand movement. Railroads
and steamboats bore the messengers of mercy rapidly from
place to place, and rendered almost ubiquitous the multitudes
given up altogether to labor for the salvation of men. The
great national mail bore the tidings of salvation and the call
to repentance over the continent ; and the telegraph flashed
5G2 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
the news of conversions, and words of warning and comfort,
to dear IVieirls hundreds and thousands of miles away. The
ships of our harbors bore out, with every sail, voung con-
verts, of various nations and tongues, to tell the glad tidings
in other lauds, and establish centres of prayer and revival
inlluenees on distant continents and islands. Daily prayer-
meetings extended from town to town, from city to country,
from state to state, and from land to land, until they literally
encircled the globe, and countless multitudes were saved by
faith in Christ.
How distinctly, now, does this power from God identify
itself with "the new inspiration" which decided the mind-
battles ushering in the period of American independence !
The life of (rod in man is soul-liberty, — is the clearest, full-
est expression of freedom possible to human apprehension.
And it is precisely thus that the life of the Church mani-
fests itself as the life of the nation. Each individual created
anew in Christ Jesus, each truly Christian family, each evan-
gelical denomination, with all its enlightening agencies, ap-
pears wrestling with the vices which destroy men, and throw
societv into disorder; sustaining virtue and law; concentrat-
ing and then diffusing the elements of a high Christian civili-
zation everywhere ; bearing down all unjust enactments, and
superseding them by a higher, broader, nobler equity. This
divine, vitalizing force — the onlv thing so subtle and irre-
Cj */ O
sistible that it can literally permeate the social and civil
organism, and master the evils which prey upon the rights
of men — becomes at once attractive to every truth in the
political condition, joins it to the grand unity of national
strength, and thus reveals itself as the vitalizing force and
organizing power of liberty. It is living justice. Remove
it, destroy it, and liberty is dead ; extend it through all the
governments of earth, and the world is free.
PI: in oo iv.
EMANCIPATION.
CHAPTER I
AMBUCAN SLA VERT.
*Wfc«t execrations should tii statesman tx- loadea with, who, permitting one-naif the
Otfeens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms the one into despot.*, and
the other into enemies, — destroying the morals o; > : -, aad the amor patriot of tb
other' And car. -3 ot"« natio vhcn ire have removed their
pepplo th*t their liberties are th* gift
of God ? for my cor t God ... just, and that jut.
tice cannot sleep • i can take sides with us in
such a con test."
IN another part of this work, we hav* aeen that slavery in
Americn wa« a ite result of caste in Kn^land. The
distincti«>n Wtwoon labor and government became usurpa-
tion aad a£f»M«ion. The i ioa that certiiin elates were born
to j*er\»: was die comp!em« nt of the feeling that wealth and
htL! r An lit red it«ry nobility
C v v •*
harmonized with the doctrine f»t' hereditary government and
hereditary subjection. True, the formal assertion of this doc-
, yi its legit
England at the titne whijn this deadly evil began to work in
the colony. of Virginia; but it was vital and practical in the
customs of society, and it came here in the form of inden-
tured apprenticeship It most conveniently adopted from
the Spaniards th?.' practice of enslaving the helpless India
and when, in 1620, the Dutch landed twenty negroes ai
PERIOD IV.
EMANCIPATION.
CHAPTER I.
" What execrations should the statesman be loaded with, who, permitting one-half the
citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms the one into despots, and
the other into enemies, — destroying the morals of the one part, and the amor patriot of the
other ! And can the liberties of a nation be thought secured, when we have removed their
only firm basis, — a conviction in the minds of the people that their liberties are the gift
of God 1 Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that jus-
tice cannot sleep forever. The Almighty has no attribute that can take sides with us in
such a contest." — JEFFERSON.
IN another part of this work, we have seen that slavery in
America was a legitimate result of caste in England. The
distinction between labor and government became usurpa-
tion and oppression. The idea that certain classes were born
to serve was the complement of the feeling that wealth and
high birth were a release from labor. An hereditary nobility
harmonized with the doctrine of hereditary government and
hereditary subjection. True, the formal assertion of this doc-
trine, in its legitimate consequences, was not common in
England at the time when this deadly evil began to work in
the colony of Virginia ; but it was vital and practical in the
customs of society, and it came here in the form of inden-
tured apprenticeship. It most conveniently adopted from
the Spaniards the practice of enslaving the helpless Indians ;
and when, in 1620, the Dutch landed twenty negroes at
603
564 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
Jamestown, and offered them for sale as slaves, it was not
difficult to find customers.
The slave-trade, which had been in progress for more than
four hundred years, was at this time led on by Portugal, and
became an extended and lucrative traffic by maritime na-
tions generally. It had no reference to color ; but when a
few black men were brought from Africa, and exchanged
for Moorish captives, it was found that they were a strong,
powerful race of men, and they soon became a coveted
article of traffic. The African slave-trade thus began, under
the patronage of Prince Henry III., son of John I. of Por-
tugal, in 1418. It received a new impulse from the great
revival of commercial activity following the discovery by
Columbus, and the entrance of Africa by the enemies of the
race.
MEN ENSLAVED.
The first great fact which deserves to be mentioned here
is, that slaves were human beings. In each of these plain,
muscular bodies was a soul, formed, by the power of God,
to think and feel, to reason and will, — a soul with a con-
science, capable of enjoying and suffering, redeemed by the
blood of Christ, and stamped with immortality.
Each slave might be taught to fear God and read his holy
Word, exercise saving faith in Christ, receive forgiveness of
sins, and be thrilled with the hope of heaven. And the
grandest fact of his natural being was, that he was free.
God had made his power of volition a fundamental part of
him. He had a right to breathe this free air, walk abroad
when he pleased, work and earn his living, support and
educate his family, keep around him the dear objects of
paternal love, and obey the laws of chastity.
But this cruel love of personal ease and aggrandizement,
this lust of power, came in, and robbed him of all these
rights. It bound his body, so that it could not go where his
interest and duty required ; it seized his hands, his feet, his
AMERICAN SLAVERY. 567
the legislature, he must learn his utter impotence. No
man could be a ruler, in any controlling sense, who showed
the least hesitancy with regard to the usurpations of slavery.
The construction of State sovereignty must be so ex-
tended and stringent as utterly to exclude the interference
of the General Government with State despotism. All this
was easy ; for the few who deemed themselves born to rule
had very little difficulty in making and interpreting law for
the multitude, accustomed, from generation to generation, to
know their places.
Slavery must also rule the General Government. It must,
therefore, dictate candidates, decide the elections, and con-
trol the administration. It will be almost incredible in
history, but it is now known to the world, that, in all this,
it succeeded. For three-quarters of a century, it seemed
impossible to pass a law in Congress that had the least
tendency towards emancipation, or the amelioration of the
condition of the black race ; or to avoid adopting a measure
which was demanded, to increase the securities and extend
the power of slavery. Equally hopeless was any attempt to
bring forward a candidate for the presidency who was not
known to favor the peculiar institution, or firmly pledged to
guard its interests. Even the sacred right of petition must
be frowned down and stamped under foot, lest the ears of
slaveholders should be reached by a word in behalf of human
freedom in the South, and the friends of the institution be
insulted by some intimations of a popular sentiment, some-
where in the Union, against this " sum of all villanies." This
was not mere pretence : it was sober, downright earnest-
ness ; studied, persistent purpose, rising up from the very
foundations of Southern society, handed down from sire to
son, and well judged to be an absolute necessity for the
preservation of slavery.
When the rapid growth of the free States, and the exten-
sion of population into the North-west, over-balanced the
South in the councils of the nation, there was only one
568 THE GKEAT REPUBLIC.
alternative, — guaranties from the free States, or secession.
Slavery must rule the nation, or destroy it.
Nor can we claim that these enormous burdens were
lightened by the growth of mind, the refinement of man-
ners, or the patronizing customs, of the South. Neither the
conceded kindness of a portion of the Southern planters to
their slaves, nor the power of Southern hospitality, nor the
skill and courtesy of leading politicians, could ever mean
liberty to the people, black or white, South or North ; nor
imply the right of free principles to a controlling influence
in the government.
CIVILIZATION FETTERED.
The great foundations of civilization are laid in con-
science, in an accurate sense of justice; but slavery obliter-
ates the broadest distinctions between right and wrong, and
reconciles men to robbery. It crushes the feeling of per-
sonal rights upon the part of the slave, and brings the
slave-owner to consent to a life of dishonesty. It makes
licentiousness, with its brood of vices, so convenient and
irresponsible as to demoralize a whole people under shield
of popular social license. And this must produce a low
standard of civilization. It ought not to be surprising to
find in a country so polluted a few living in splendor, but
the many in squalid hovels ; a few in brilliant costume, but
the multitude in rags ; a few having the appearance of edu-
cated softness and polished lassitude, while the great num-
bers, white or colored, show the low breeding and aniraali-
zation of menials, scorned and contemned whether they
do right or wrong, vulgar and filthy in word and appear-
ance.
Civilization seeks to increase the productiveness of the
soil and all the common blessings of life ; but slavery de-
mands a large area of land, runs over it slightly, impover-
ishes, and abandons it. It makes labor dishonorable, and, for
its white population, substitutes hunting, fishing, idleness,
AMERICAN SLAVERY. 5G9
and general dissipation. There will hence be a few palatial
residences with costly furniture and sumptuous tables, amid
multitudes of huts with broken chairs, benches, beds of straw,
and the coarsest food.
Civilization struggles to educate ; but slavery, as we have
seen, denies education to the slave and to the masses of the
poor whites. Hence vast majorities of the people will not
be able to read or write ; will be shut out of the great world
of letters, and consigned to a night of virtual barbarism. To
avoid danger from liberalizing tendencies, school-books must
be subjected to a narrow censorship, and all sentiments
of personal freedom for the millions thoroughly expurgated.
Sons and daughters of the ruling class must be sent abroad
to be educated ; or teachers must be imported, and their
instincts of humanity suppressed.
Civilization requires a pure, experimental Christianity and
a true literature; but slavery allows neither.
THE PRESS AND THE PULPIT BOUND.
When the great crisis came, how long a time had elapsed
since a man could safely publish a paper, or circulate tracts
and volumes, which, with outspoken honesty and thorough-
ness, sympathized with the slave, and advocated his right to
freedom ! Nothing could be more inevitable in th*1 <4ave
States than the subjection of the press to the imperious
dictation of the system. And just as inevitable was the
submission of the party press in the free States, if the votes
of this domineering interest were to be won for the success
of candidates. No political party whose periodical press ad-
vocated emancipation, immediate or gradual, could hope for
this vote, or had the remotest chance of success.
Nothing can be more vital to liberty than the independ-
ence of the pulpit ; but no minister of Christ could preach
in a land of slavery, freed from the shackles of popular
opinion, nor at all, unless it was known that he would com-
570
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
pel the great law of love to harmonize with bonds and coer-
cion.
This is not all. The national pulpit must either denounce
or tolerate robbery : it must either bear full and decided
testimony against " man-stealing " and its mildest as well as
its most brutal sequences, or it must subordinate its teach-
ing to the great dominant idea of unity, and smother con-
science in sympathy for slaveholding misfortunes. And thus
it was. When we thought and felt that every thing must
bow to the one sentiment of confraternity, we preached care-
fully, or not at all, the great common rights of manhood
and the fearful crimes of slavery.
All this, let it be observed, in a land of liberty, — the
land of the great Declaration. And, thus far, this power
had been mightier than the power of foreign oppression.
Against that we rose in the strength of our manhood, and
hurled it to the ground ; but to this we bowed, until its
lordly dictations and insulting menaces became natural and
tolerable, and until we had actually manufactured an entire
department of law and logic and gospel and etiquette to
accommodate and defend it.
Thus the slave-power grew and smiled, and preached and
prayed, and raved and swore, until the cup of its iniquity
was full ; and this is where the moral struggle that immedi-
ately preceded the war of emancipation found us.
CHAPTER II.
THE GREAT MORAL CONFLICT.
" After-ages will moralize on the hallucination under which an exceptional and transi-
tional state of things, marking the last phase in the existence of an old feudal monarchy,
has been regarded and confidentially propagated as the normal and final state of man." —
GOLDWIN SMITH.
COULD this state of American subjection to a foreign idea
last forever? Was it possible that the domination of the
slave-power would be final in the Great Republic, and the
purposes of freedom, to which this splendid country was
so early consecrated, utterly overthrown ? If the compara-
tive skill, the daring and persistent purpose, of men could
decide it, the answer would be clearly, Yes. If the wrong
could hold its conquests by power, by bold and unscrupulous
talent trained in the art of politics for many long years;
if astute scheming upon the part of the few could control
the many, — there could be no question: we were des-
tined to be a great nation of usurpers and despots ; to live
and rankle in corruption, and die under the visitations of
God, remembered but to be despised and execrated wherever
history should record our name. But if truth and right were
imperishable, if true religion was in the conflict, if God would
decide the question, then the answer was, No.
But we must not forget that the plans of God develop
slowly ; that they include a vast sweep of redeeming agen-
cies, dealing with wrongs deeply rooted, and coming down
from long-distant ages. Venerable in antiquity and hoary
in crime, slavery had only yielded in one country, to reveal
its strength in another; and here, in this land of liberty, it
671
572 THE GREAT BEPUBLIC.
gathered its power for its last and desperate conflict with
the rights of man. It may not, therefore, be deemed strange,
that, upon the part of the right, the preparations for the
grandest and most appalling battle of all time should be
long, profound, and finally irresistible.
In 1786, Washington said, "I never mean, unless some
particular circumstances should compel me to it, to possess
another slave by purchase ; it being among the first wishes
of my heart to see some plan adopted by which slavery in
this country may be abolished by law."
Jefferson, writing from Paris in 1788, said, "We must
wait with patience the workings of an overruling Provi-
dence, and hope that that is preparing the deliverance of
these our suffering brethren. When the measure of their
tears shall be full, when their tears shall involve heaven
itself in darkness, doubtless a God of justice will awaken to
their distress, and by diffusing light and liberty among their
oppressors, or at length by his exterminating thunder, mani-
fest his attention to things of this world, and show that they
are not left to the guidance of blind fatality."
John Jay, in 1780, said, "An excellent law might be made
out of the Pennsylvania one, for the gradual abolition of
slavery. Till America comes into this measure, her prayers
to Heaven will be impious. This is a strong expression ; but
it is just. I believe God governs the world ; and I believe
it to be a maxim in his as in our court, that those who ask
for equity should grant it."
Monroe, before the Virginia Convention, said, "We have
found that this evil has preyed upon the very vitals of the
Union, and has been prejudicial to all the States in which it
has existed."
Henry Laurens of South Carolina wrote to his son, Aug.
14, 1776, " You know, my son, I abhor slavery. I was born
in a country where slavery had been established by British
kings and parliaments, as well as by the laws of that coun-
try, ages before my existence. I found the Christian reli-
THE GREAT MORAL CONFLICT. 573
gion and slavery growing together under the same authority
and cultivation. I, nevertheless, disliked it. In former days,
there was no combating the prejudices of men, supported
by interest. The day, I hope, is approaching, when, from
principles of gratitude, as well as justice, every man will
strive to be foremost in showing his readiness to comply
with the golden rule."
Patrick Henry said, u Slavery is detested ; we feel its fatal
effects; we deplore it with all the pity of humanity. It
would rejoice my very soul to know that every one of my
fellow-beings was emancipated. I believe the time will come
when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamen-
table evil."
These are only specimens of the honest and prophetic
announcements of our great men, from the foundations of
our government; and they show conclusively that the in-
stitution of slavery was as anti-American as it was anti-
Christian.
Against these high inspirations of wisdom, and all the warn-
ings of history in this Republic, for near a century, slavery
advanced until it had reached the climax of insolence and
oppression, which, in the preceding chapter, we traced up to
our own period. Surely it was time for " the uprising of a
great people."
CHRISTIANITY REVOLTS.
One thing was indestructible. The law of Jesus Christ,
" All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to
you, do ye even so to them," was not made to be annihilated
by human power, however proud and defiant it might be-
come. " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" was the
law of Christian life, written, not upon tables of stone, but
upon the hearts of the regenerate of all time and all lands,
and would ultimately gain the mastery over proud, oppres-
sive selfishness. Accordingly, a very bold and formidable
demonstration against slavery came from religious justice,
574 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
and love for the race. We do not claim that it was at first
pure, unmixed Christianity. In its bursts of indignation, it
not unfrequently revealed an unchristian temper, and a dis-
position to prompt and summary justice not in harmony with
the laws and plans of God ; and when it was, without due
consideration, claimed that the Holy Bible justified slavery,
and the solid conservatism of the churches rose up in the
way of radical reformers, a few denounced the Bible and the
churches. But this rashness was gradually counteracted.
Sound exegesis soon rescued the Bible from the undeserved
reproach of sanctioning slavery; and members of the churches,
in numbers constantly increasing, showed that their love of
justice was superior to all prescriptive usages. The great
principles of righteousness, utterly denying the right of
property in man, were found to have their very strongest
security and expression in divine revelation and in the fun-
damental doctrines of the Church.
Agitation was fearful to the timid, and most honestly dis-
couraged by a very strong conservatism in the Church and
Nation. It seemed likely to sweep away the very founda-
tions of public order, and result in the wildest anarchy. No
doubt, denunciation sometimes assumed a bitterness, and
measures of reform a recklessness, which few right-minded
men would now attempt to justify; but, on the other hand,
the cool complacency, the endless delays, of conservatism,
the apologies for slavery, and, finally, the studied attempts
to vindicate it in the face of its vile corruptions and atroci-
ties, were very provoking.
In the mean time, it began to appear that God was in the
midst of the storm ; that he suffered, if he did not actually
order, this terrific agitation to break up the reign of stupid-
ity and death. It was, in fact, the trump of resurrection to
the slumbering justice of the Church and the Nation. There
was really no danger.
Of course, as suppression began to appear hopeless, the
principles of the conflict began to release themselves; and a
THE GREAT MORAL CONFLICT. 575
potent Providence compelled men to take sides in the great
battle, the moral grandeur of which few men could distinctly
see, none could comprehend. Conservative Christians and
churches in the North began to reveal a strength of anti-
slavery principle which had been hardly suspected.
In the South, members of the churches, and the ministry,
seemed shut up to a fatal blindness. For many years, they
generally conceded the wrong of the system ; but they felt
the power of that terrorism which was everywhere, and
shrank from the mission of " liberty to the captives," upon
which they were sent by their great Master. They excused
the wrong, and at length placed themselves at the head of its
violent defenders. Thus it must be mournfully confessed that
Southern churches committed a crime for which the atone-
ment required has been bloody, protracted, and terrible.
When will the hour of forgiveness come ? Let us mingle
our tears of penitence with theirs. We have been too deep-
ly involved in their guilt to avoid a frightful participation
in the demand for retribution ; and it may be feared that we
have not yet exhausted the cup of our merited sorrow.
But, all this time, true Christianity never wavered. Its
great historic truth of the brotherhood of the race came
out more and more distinctly ; and, even from the lips of
" unreasonable men," it was a grand gospel, the very evan-
gel of God to the oppressed American mind.
Ardent and perhaps not very well regulated men in the
Church took it up, and rang it through the land, until con-
servatism was startled, said it was perverted, and made to
mean " another gospel ; " then affirmed that it was an old
truth, and that, in obedience to its behest, the Church had
always cared most wisely for both master and slave. But
at length great and grave conservative men began to speak
with authority to the men who held human bodies and souls
in thraldom, and say, " Let the oppressed go free," so irre-
sistibly did the right work its way to the surface, and, amid
the roar of battle, compel the people to listen to its procla-
mation.
576 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
True, schism rent church organizations here and there ;
secession spurned what it thought an ecclesiastical monster,
and fled away, to be alone, or form new combinations, which
would give voice to justice in the name of God.
Then slavery reached out its arm to grasp more power,
and dominate over more millions ; and the Church came sud-
denly up to the question, Would she submit to these new
aggressions, or risk her threatened losses ? This was the first
great public test which indicated that the age of compro-
mises was worn out and must soon be laid aside. And the
Church endured the trial. Challenged to show her submis-
sion and her shame, by accepting the advance of the slave-
power Northward, or be torn asunder and go out of the way,
she dug down after her old principles, and found them sound
and bright as ever. She threw herself upon the arm of God,
and dared to do right. The crash came; and one after
another of the great denominations received the blows of
the tyrant, looked mournfully upon their severed members,
and, bowing reverently before God, found that their strength
was in justice.
In the land of the slave there were found souls strong
enough to endure the trial, and, in the face of the vilest
persecution, deny the right of property in man. Faith in
God, and the ultimate triumph of the right, brought up from
the South to the throne of grace many fervent prayers, and
into the ranks of God's liberating army many strong, brave
men. Loyalty, first to the truth, and then to the govern-
ment, cost something there ; and its day of recognition and
honor before earth and heaven was sure to come.
HUMANITY PLEADS.
The first great mission of truth in this grand upheaval
was to show the wrong of the slave-system by the sufferings
of its victims. The fair exterior of this pagan temple was
always to be seen. The worshippers at its shrine were proud
of it.
THE GREAT MORAL* CONFLICT. 57J
See the soft luxuriance of its petted domestics, their com-
fortable and even splendid costumes, their sumptuous, fair,
and boasted indolence ! See the fond attachment of these
house-servants to their master and mistress, the devoted
love between the children of fortune and the enslaved
children of slaves ! See how reluctant they are to leave their
masters ! — how they beg not to be sold away from the home
of their childhood ! Most of all, see those multiplied thou-
sands of converted, praying slave Christians ! — how they
sing and jump and shout in exultant joy, in despite of their
bonds ! And see how comfortable we are while these black
people do oar bidding, toil for us, and surround us with lux-
urious elegance ! Is it not a beautiful system, a glorious
structure ?
But the age had become inquisitive. Groans and sighs
were heard faintly from the inside of this temple. It was
getting old ; and openings here and there let in the light,
and revealed miserable objects to the eyes of strangers ; and
men, persistent, — impertinent if you will, — demanded to
know what .was done inside.
Scores, hundreds, fled away, guided by the north star;
and they told horrid tales, and showed wounds fresh and
bleeding, and scars deep and old. A wail came up from the
rice-swamps, and the world heard it. The baying of blood-
hounds, and the screech of lacerated victims, came from the
dark woods and bloody streams. What did it all mean?
Was this Christian slavery ? — a loving, voluntary, coveted,
civilized bondage ? The world absolutely would know.
Timid honesty, from the heart of the slave empire rising
lip in such formidable proportions amid the institutions of
republican liberty, whispered explanations of these wounds
and scars, these wailings and tears, — these men and women
were not willing slaves ; in large numbers they had. to be
scourged to their task ; and the brooding horrors of fear
alone could keep them in bondage ; their occasional joy,
and their affectionate gratitude, told that they were human,
73
578 THE OttKAT ItKPlTIJLIC.
if they were " chattels," and could respond to kind treat-
ment ; that they could be Christians by the grace of God,
if thev were denied the privilege of reading the word of
God. But nothing in all this had prevented, or could pre-
vent, the absolute demand for force. Why did not those ser-
vants go where they pleased? work where they could make
honest bargains and obtain honest wages? Why could not
f/tci/ be the judges as to whether they would learn to read,
or were well used ? and why could they not, in the absence
of white witnesses, come into court, testify to the violence
inflicted upon them, and receive justice? No: the truth
must come out, and go abroad the world over, — it was a
system of cruel coercion. Travellers would tell tit ; poets
would echo its wail; and the pen would turn away from
fiction, and write truth, stranger, wilder, more terrible, than
fiction.
And what was to be the response to all this ? From
Christianity, as we have seen, clear, strong, unequivocal con-
demnation, with a kind but peremptory demand for free-
dom. But this condemnation and demand were unheeded :
and "the sighing of the poor and the needy" went on.
Then pity began to weep and to plead. Christian humanitv
entreated." Let these poor people change their residences and
employers if they desire it. Let them learn to read God's
holv word. They long to know for themselves what con-
solation it has for mourning captives and for penitent sin-
ners : let them read it." Even natural humanity said. " Don't
strike again! See how the blood gushes, how the flesh
quivers! Don't strike again; don't tear that infant Irom its
mother's arms ; don't sell these poor people away from their
little ones, and chain them together like felons, and drive
them off into the swamps. — husbands, wives, and children.
— far and forever away from each other."
There was no possibility of suppressing this cry of hu-
manity: it became increasingly tender and earnest; it
swelled louder and louder its notes of plaintive sorrow; it«
THE GREAT MORAL CONFLICT. 579
circle of prayer and weeping spread wider and wider. Never
before were such pleadings addressed to God or man ; never
was the ear of man so utterly deaf, never the ear of God so
quick and listening.
JUSTICE DENOUNCES.
There was another voice for the ear of oppression, — a
. deeper, sterner, more commanding voice. For what purpose
was it said, " Rob not the poor, because he is poor ; neither
oppress the afflicted in the gate : for the Lord will plead
their cause, and spoil the soul of those that spoiled them " ?
Surely this was not simply an announcement for the people
then to hear and forget. It must have been a great fact for
all time, an inevitable law which God would certainly exe-
cute in his righteous wisdom everywhere. Then it spake in
tones of authority to these masters as well as to oppressors
of old, " Rob not that poor man ; I am his witness, and I am
your omniscient Judge : I will be his advocate. You have
cruelly beaten him to get more labor out of him for yourself,
and you give him no wages. But you have committed a
higher crime than this : you have robbed him of himself, and
made him your slave. The day of retribution is coming."
Oh, this is dreadful ! But listen again : " Go to now, ye rich
men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon
you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are
moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered ; and the rust
of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your
flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for
the last days. Behold, the hire of the laborers who have
reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud,
crieth; and the cries of them which have reaped are en-
tered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth." Read thought-
fully one word more : " Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry
of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be
heard."
Thus did justice thunder in the ears of slaveholders their
580 THE GREAT REPUBLIC
crime and their impending calamities. They might see with
their own eves the beginnings of retribution. There were,
in vast extent, all desolate and valueless, the fields which
had been reaped by those who had been denied their wages.
There were the figures of the census, showing the border
sla\e States cursed by some strange power, and, as compared
with the free States by their side, doomed to inferiority;
and. more frightful still, these figures showed the alarming
relative increase of the black over the white population.
What could that mean ?
Then there were prophets in these latter days. Grave,
devout old negroes were on their knees night and day in
prayer. They returned from their interviews with God,
alarmed for the fate of their masters. Perhaps no intelligi-
ble words were spoken ; but the deep sigh and the ominous
shake of the head meant justice. Many poor black men
were listeners, and understood the still small voice when
it said, *• The cries of them which have reaped are entered
into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth." How quick and
prompt is that subtle public sense which blanches the faces
of oppressors when the word '• insurrection " is whispered !
The quakings of fear when the armless hand appears writing
on the wall are the beginnings of justice.
Just before the storm broke, justice had a thousand
tongues. The warnings came from violent and fanatical
men, from great and good men, from political economists,
from sober judges, from profound statesmen. Men every-
where could feel it. There was sorrow in the air. There
were signs of wrath in the clear skvas well as in the gather-
*' O
ing storm-cloud. Great and wise men of other lands gave
the alarm. They told us, in books, in periodicals, in mes-
sages of kindness from across the sea, that we were Hearing
the fatal gulf. Flippant jests and loud bravado did but in-
crease the awful apprehensions which came to the souls of
men from this quickened sense of God's all-pervading jus-
tice.
THE GREAT MORAL CONFLICT. 581
POLITICAL PARTIES TEMPORIZE.
We must now return to the human side of this threaten-
ing controversy. Men would not hear. Party spirit and
sectional feeling rose high. Many shrewd men had their
theories of relief and safety. Politicians sternly opposite
to each other indicated a purpose to rule the storm. Here
and there were men who said, " Be just, do the right, and God
will avert our perils : " but the men strongest before the peo-
.ple said, "We must make concessions;" meaning, chiefly, there
is no other way to majorities.
There had been other storms and threatened destruction
in other days ; and, in the midst of one of these storms, there
had been a strong, bold attempt to fix a line between free-
dom and slavery in this Republic, as though two utterly in-
compatible and fiercely hostile institutions could permanently
agree to rule a great nation. Slavery was uneasy within its
limits. It could not be restricted. It must have more ter-
ritory, or die. An empire had been added to its domain in
Texas ; but this was not enough. Its covetous eyes were
fixed upon the great North-west. There, above the line of
the Missouri Compromise, must ultimately lie the balance
of power in the nation; and it must be gradually won.
Political schemers in the North would yield this territory,
enough for a State at a time, for votes to secure the success
of a party. And quietly the proposition came before Con-
gress to make a new State of enormous size, much of it
above the lirie, and take up the line, leaving it open for the
introduction of slavery. It was not a question to be settled
by reason nor by history. The one party must do it, or fail.
The other party must do it, or fail. The nation must do' it,
or the South would secede.
Then the cry of danger came up from the American Sen-
ate and House of Representatives. A few faithful men were
there who did not fear the imperious edicts of the slave-
power, nor the threat of breaking up the government, nor
TUI-: <;i:KAT KKiTHLir.
tlic bludgeon, the bowie-knife, or the pistol. They (eared
Clod, and reverenced justice. Thev sent out their notes of
alarm, and the people were startled. Could it he possible
that slaverv entertained the thought of moving northward?
Then1 \vas the line, the great compromise line, that could not
hi> taken up nor passed over. The South had pleaded com-
promises from the davs of the Constitutional Conven-
tion, and they MI rely would respect the Missouri Compro-
mi>e. No: they would not. It was against the right to
take slaverv wherever the masters emigrated, and it must
•/
come up.
The outcry from Northern freemen was a little stronger
and more threatening than usual. Something must he con-
ceded ; and, for the sake of getting rid of the line, the terri-
tory of the proposed State should he cut in two. and one of
the new States might he free if the people insisted. It was
done, and the line was destroyed. Henceforth it was an
open question. The people were sovereign, and they could
decide for themselves whether their new Stales should he
free or slave. This was plausible. The South had no doubt
but this doctrine of popular sovereignty could be managed
so that Kansas would be certainly a slave State, and Nebras-
ka probably.
In the North, and especially in New England, a new idea
seemed to come up, move about, and gather power: '•' If it is
to be a question of enterprise and majorities, we will try it
Let the compromise line go." For once. " the wise " had been
•' taken in their own craftiness." The race was a hard one ;
but the free spirit was roused, and it triumphed. If the doc-
trine of the people's sovereignty was fairlv adhered to. Kan-
sas would be a free State. l>ut no thanks to political parties.
This was the people. Parties truckled and bargained as
aforetime ; but they were gradually losing their hold of the
popular will. The freemen of the North began to feel that
their liberties were endangered, and to show strong symp-
toms of a purpose to take the direction of affairs into their
THE GREAT MOKAL CONFLICT. • 583
own hands. They could not control the nominations ; but
they could emigrate and vote. They did ; and this was the
movement from which the slave-power in America received
its first significant check.
THE STRAIN AND THE RECOIL.
To the Southern mind, this rapid increase of Northern
freemen, and hence the use that could be made of " popular
sovereignty," was a revelation. It showed clearly that the
control of the government by the ballot was no longer se-
cure. As the people began to organize, the dominant major-
ity drew closer to the slave-power ; and the administration
showed a strong purpose to add patronage to party tactics
against the people, now evidently determined to commence
a new struggle for liberty. The representatives of free
principles won a decided majority in Kansas. Slavery, fol-
lowing its instincts, tried first brute force ; but John Brown,
and other brave spirits on the border, showed this to be
dangerous, and, in that form, certainly hopeless. The
people, in what they deemed a legitimate way, organized
a provisional State government, and, without slavery, ap-
plied for admission into the Union. The advocates of
slavery organized, adopted a proslavery constitution, and
appealed to Congress. The fearful crisis thus brought on
is, for the present, sufficiently known. Slavery, with all the
power of government patronage, undertook the desperate
task of forcing a slave constitution and government on to
the people of a free, inchoate State, against the expressed
will of a majority of its people. This was an open repu-
diation of the doctrine of popular sovereignty : it was
more, — it was, by fair construction, treason against the
fundamental principles of the Republic. The issue was
joined between the parties of freedom and slavery ; and the
distinguished Mr. Douglas of Illinois ultimately refused to
go with his party against his own doctrine of " popular sov-
584 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
ereignty." But lie joined issue with Abraham Lincoln, who
said, " 1 believe this government cannot permanently endure
half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be
dissolved ; I do not expect the house to fall : but I do expect
that it will cease to be divided. Either the opponents of
slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it
where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in
the course of ultimate extinction ; or its advocates will push
it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States,
old as well as new, North as well as South." Mr. Seward
made his famous announcement concerning this contest
in these words: "It is an irrepressible conflict between
opposing and enduring forces ; and it means that the
United States must and will, sooner or later, become
either entirely a slaveholding nation, or entirely a free-
labor nation."
Henceforth, therefore, there would be no attempt to con-
ceal the aggressions of the slave-power ; and the advocates of
freedom must gather to the battle, and conquer, or be utterly
overthrown.
Contrary to the indignant rhetoric of Mr. Webster, in
which he asserted the impossibility of such an event, slavey
was formally legalized in the vast Territory of New Mexico,
and. beyond a doubt, as the result of dictation from Wash-
ington.
Under the leadership of Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, the
Senate of the United States was to be tested, and the ad-
vanced doctrines of the slave-power were formally indorsed.
A series of resolutions, all for this one purpose, included the
following: "Resolved, That negro slavery, as it exists in fif-
teen States of this Union, composes an important portion of
their domestic, institutions, inherited from their ancestors,
and existing at the adoption of the Constitution, by which
it is recognized as an important element in the apportion-
ment of powers among the States; and that no change of
opinion or feeling on the part of the non-slaveholding States
THE GKEAT MOEAL CONFLICT. 585
of the Union, in relation to this institution, can justify them
or their citizens in open or covert attacks thereon, with a
view to its overthrow ; and that all such attacks are in man-
ifest violation of the mutual and solemn pledge to protect
and defend each other given by the States respectively on
entering into the compact which formed the Union^; and
are a manifest breach of faith, and a violation of the most
solemn obligations."
Mr. Harlan of Iowa moved to amend this defiant resolu-
tion by the following : " But the free discussion of the mo-
rality and expediency of slavery should never be interfered
with by the laws of any State or of the United States ; and
the freedom of speech and of the press on this and every
other subject of domestic and national policy should be
maintained inviolate in all the States." This amendment
was promptly voted down, and the original resolution was
adopted. The vote stood twenty-five yeas, and thirty-six
nays. Another of these famous resolutions read, " Resolved,
That neither Congress nor a territorial legislature, whether
by direct legislation, or legislation of an indirect and un-
friendly character, possesses power to annul or impair the
constitutional right of any citizen of the United States to take
his slave-property into the common Territories, and there
hold and enjoy the same while the territorial condition re-
mains." This was adopted by thirty-five yeas to twenty-one
nays. Thus did the Southern oligarchy set up the claim, that
slavery was the normal state of all our vast Territories ; and
that, if they became free, it must be by the success of the
free voters in a struggle against an institution already estab-
lished, and fortified by custom and law. If this were true,
then, in reality, the United States had ceased to be a gov-
ernment and nation of freedom, and existed simply for the
purposes and in the spirit of oppression.
Another resolution declared, that " all acts of individuals
or of State legislatures to defeat the purposes or nullify the
586 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
requirements of the fugitive-slave law, and the laws made
in pursuance of it, are hostile in character, subversive of the
Constitution, and revolutionary in their effect." Thus the
free citizens of the free States were to be firmly held to
the obligation to arrest, and forcibly return to bondage, all
struggling, panting slaves who had reached their territory.
One other step in advance was to be demanded ; but that
was deferred for consideration in the Democratic National
Convention, which met in Charleston, S.C., on the '2-}(\ of
April, 1800.* This was a most important meeting. It was
to be settled whether Northern men would endure a fur-
ther strain for the sake of the oligarch v. The resolutions
»/
proposed re-affirmed the right of slaveholders to take their
slave - property into the Territories, and there hold it ;
but. in addition, they asserted the duty of the government
to protect them in this right. This was the last step in
advance now proposed by the slave-power ; but it was one
step too far. Many distinguished men felt that they had
long enough submitted to the domination of a power that
they really abhorred. They were now asked to commit
the whole United-States Government to stand up with any
number, however small, and, by force, enable them to
establish slavery in any Territory against the will of a
majority of the people ; and this demand was argued in
a way to extend the duty of protection into the free States
arid to the slave-trade. To this they could not, would not,
consent. The Southern delegates, declining all attempts at
compromise, withdrew, organized apart, and adjourned. The
majority also adjourned without making a nomination.
The rest is known. Our readers now understand what we
mean by the strain and the recoil. The free spirit of the
North had been so long crushed by the bony hand of this
inexorable tyranny, that, in very agony, it writhed out of
its grasp.
* The American Conflict, by Horace Grecley, p. 309, et scq.
THE GKEAT MORAL CONFLICT. 587
ANOTHER GRAND CRISIS IN HISTORY.
As, before the great Revolution, the gathered power of free-
dom had reached a point at which it must assert itself, —
a period in history in which the right of foreign domination
must be resisted by force, or become absolute and perpetual ;
so now it began to appear, that, for the questions of power
between freedom and slavery, the hour of decision was at
hand. Despotism had become defiant, and would brook no
control. It had thrown off all disguise, and openly demand-
ed simple, absolute, unconditional submission. On the other
hand, the rights of liberty could no longer be ignored. They
had risen calmly and slowly to a position of firmness and
self-respect, which began to say to the slave-power, " Thus far,
and no farther." The time had come in which the question
could not be settled by threats nor by argument. The South
must now take by force what it had so imperiously de-
manded, or own that the day of its insolent dictation had
passed. The North must prepare to resist, even to death,
the assaults which would soon be made, or own its subjection
to this imperious despotism.
There would, it was true, be one more appeal to the bal-
lot ; but this, so far as the slave-power was concerned, was
merely nominal. Simply to gain time, they named their
candidate, but took measures which they were perfectly
aware would result in his defeat. Old party lines were an-
nihilated ; and, from the chaos, two, only two, grand parties
could be seen distinctly revealing their outlines, — one the
party of freedom and loyalty, the other of slavery and re-
bellion.
Men became grave and solemn under the power of these
momentous events. Not America alone, but the world, was
interested. Liberty could not falter and die here for this
continent merely. Slavery could not now complete its usur-
pations and consolidate its power for America only. Clear-
sighted philanthropists in England and on the continent of
588 TIIE GREAT REPUBLIC.
Europe knew that we were making history, not for ourselves
alone, but for the race. Hence the grand divisions of men
which were forming here, promptly extended themselves
around the globe. Freedom and oppression revealed their
indissoluble unities, and prepared for the battle.
One question only remained to be settled : Would the
representatives of liberty in the United States be firm?
would they receive calmly the menaces of destruction to
their cherished government, and of cruel, bloody war, and
move steadily on to the clear, final announcement of the
•Teat decision? Another grand crisis of history had come.
O a i/
The crisis had passed. ABRAHAM LINCOLN was elected Pres-
ident of the United States. The clock of ages struck, and
the human race moved into the opening period of a new
dispensation.
TUB WAI-
"Mk
I made. that tb« »<. nr- x,-.-
Soul! I rfv ««•'.
as his. If Kentucky ;<! **•
.inner. I owe .1 ptnu
own St;>ft " — HJnrat C
* tbo
North 10 retiet H
k
leaders.
This would .*
tion
iatness. It
j
of Sou
i or sober reflec-
reasons for
beu 11 wise to
of tree-
nl of fre* jiri*..
•d world to the *
rebellion, »
authority
; the wail of sorrow
; the track of desu
?«*d Kpectacle beibre the
&# heart of the Grval
1453 upon the»*j graver th
wen couid not thiuk
CHAPTER III.
THE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM.
" MR. PRESIDENT, — I have heard with pain and regret a confirmation of the remark
I made, that the sentiment of disunion has become familiar. I hope it is confined to
South Carolina. I do not regard as my duty what the honorable senAtor seems to regard
aa his. If Kentucky to-morrow unfurls the banner of resistance, I never will fight under
that banner. I owe a paramount allegiance to the whole Union, a subordinate one to my
own State." — HENRY CLAY.
FROM the final public decision of the freemen of the
North to resist at any cost the aggressions of slavery, to
the bloody attack of the rebels upon American soldiers, the
time was brief. But a few momentous events must occur,
and these were hastened by the impatience of Southern
leaders.
This would seem to have been the time for sober reflec-
tion ; for broad, statesmanlike views of the true reasons for
our national greatness. It would surely have been wise to
have carefully considered the distinctive influence of free-
dom in making us a nation ; the direct antagonism of slavery
to republican liberty; the evident favor of Providence, shown
in the rapid, powerful development of free principles ; the
deep-seated aversion of the civilized world to the institution
of slavery ; the improbability that rebellion, however power-
ful, could succeed against national authority and resources ;
the fearful carnage of civil war; the wail of sorrow that must
come up from our happy homes ; the track of desolation over
the fields of blood ; the sad spectacle before the world of
destructive violence in the heart of the Great Republic.
Beyond a doubt, reasonings upon these graver themes were
suppressed. Southern men could not think their own
680
590 THB GREAT REPUBLIC.
thoughts, nor utter their true sentiments. When the first
O '
overt acts of treason were perpetrated, a large majority of
the people were opposed to the movement. If they could
have been organized, they might have triumphed over their
intolerant, aspiring leaders ; but, as Southern society was
constituted, this was impossible. The large majorities were
used to being governed ; and the resistance of sound wisdom
was soon overwhelmed by the surges of passion. The rebel
press and the leaders of public sentiment ordered patriotism
and tearful love of the national Union and the old flag to be
silent ; and it was silent !
SECESSION.
'The historian of the Southern Confederacy has placed on
record the contempt for freemen of the North, and the
self-complacency of the South, which had been cultivated
and diffused everywhere for three-quarters of a century, and
which ought to be mentioned as the first grand error that
made secession possible. " The intolerance of the Puritans,
the painful thrift of the Northern colonists, their external
forms of piety, their jaundiced legislation, their convenient
morals, their lack of the sentimentalism which makes up the
half of modern civilization, and their unremitting hunt after
selfish aggrandizement, are traits of character which are
yet visible in their descendants. On the other hand, the col-
onists of Virginia and the Carolinas were, from the first,
distinguished for their polite manners, their fine sentiments,
their attachment to a sort of feudal life, their landed gen-
try, their love of field-sports and dangerous adventures, and
the prodigal, improvident aristocracy that dispensed its stores
in constant rounds of hospitality and gayety." " Slavery es-
tablished in the South a peculiar and noble type of civiliza-
tion." "The civilization of the North was coarse and
materialistic: that of the South was scant of shows, but
highly refined and sentimental." * Lamentable as it is, the
* The Lost Cause, by E. A. Pollard, pp. 50, 51.
THE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 593
" It is no spasmodic effort that has come suddenly upon us :
it has been gradually culminating for the last thirty years."
Mr. Keitt said, " I have been engaged in this movement ever
since I entered political life." Mr. Ehett said, " The secession
of South Carolina is not an event of a day ; it is not any
thing produced by Mr. Lincoln's election, or by the non-exe-
cution of the fugitive-slave law : it has been a matter which
has been gathering head for thirty years." Thus was this
grand conspiracy deliberately nurtured, ostensibly in the in-
terests of the South, but really to give power to an oligarchy
against the liberties of mankind. It had been managed
with great skill, and chiefly by a few ambitious men. It
was virtually conceded that the people were not generally
in favor of the measure. Mr. Mullin said, " If we wait for
co-operation, slavery and State rights will be abandoned, and
the cause of the South lost forever." Mr. Edmund Ruffiu of
Virginia said "he wished Virginia was as ready as South
Carolina ; but, unfortunately, she was not." No : the people
loved their government, and did not wish to sacrifice it on
the altar of sectional ambition. Mr. Alexander H. Stephens
of Georgia, in his celebrated speech in which 'he undertook
to stem the tide of ruin, said most truthfully, " Some of our
public men have failed in their aspirations, that is true ; and
from that comes a great part of our trouble." Had Mr.
Stephens stood firmly to his position, his history would have
closed grandly; but his fatal adherence to State rights led
him to say that he should go with his State. He went, and,
by accepting high office under the rebel government, gave
reason to suspect that he was not wholly free from the per-
sonal ambition to which he had so correctly ascribed the
dangers of the Republic.
TREASON AND REBELLION.
The first overt act of rebellion was the ordinance of seces-
sion. It was an open, formal renunciation of the authority
75
594 THE OI1EAT nKPFT'.LTC
of the United States. Very grave questions arose from this
net. Should the law immediately assert its prerogatives, fill
the places of national trust made vacant by the conspirarv.
and arrest the leading conspirators'.' Would the govern-
ment promptly increase its defences and the number of men
in arms within its rebellious territory? No. Whether wise
or unwise, it would forbear: it was great, magnanimous.- and
paternal, and would only remonstrate : it would do nothing,
that, in the slightest degree, could be construed into hos-
tility.
In the mean time, rebellion went on. The South imme-
diately began to arouse her people for stern war. Her mem-
bers of Congress kept their places, and uttered bold, defiant
treason in the House of Representatives and in the Senate.
But Northern men replied with forbearance, or not at all.
Conservatives were allowed to take the lead. Representa-
tives of strong States were ready to pledge the repeal of all
obnoxious laws, and promise that there should be no obsta-
cles thrown in the way of the recovery of fugitive slaves.
Most condescending compromise measures were brought for-
ward ; but Southern men defeated them. A Peace Congress
was called, in which the greatest exertions were made to
satisfy the proud, defiant spirit that seemed to have no other
purpo>e but to increase the irritation and to gain time.
Rrnve. patriotic men from the border on both sides did their
utmost to reach some pacific result: but it was literallv im-
possible. A few men of broad national views stood up man-
fully lor the honor and dignity of their country ; but thev
Avere overwhelmed by the power of treason on the one hand,
and conciliation on the other. Only God could have prevent-
ed and did prevent the passage of measures which would
have condemned the Republic to irredeemable disgrace.
When the last grand crisis came, and only two votes were
needed to compromise the government in behalf of th<^
slave-power, Southern men refused the A'otes; and it was all
OA'er. Once more the voice of the Great Sovereign Ava«
heard saying. "Thou shalt not bow down to them.''
THE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 595
But rebellion went steadily on. The Executive was with-
out nerve. He declared that the government had no power
to coerce a State. There was treason in the cabinet. The
Secretary of the Treasury was a Southern man ; and he had
managed so as to reduce the nation to the very verge of
bankruptcy. The Secretary of War was a Southern conspir-
ator ; and he had sent off all the arms within his reach to
the South. Mr. Pollard, their own historian, says, " It had
been supposed that the Southern people, poor in manufac-
tures as they were, and in the haste for the mighty contest that
was to ensue, would find themselves but illy provided with
arms to contend with an enemy rich in the means and muni-
tions of war. This disadvantage had been provided against by
the timely act of one man. Mr. Floyd of Virginia, when
Secretary of War under Mr. Buchanan's administration, had,
by a single order, effected the transfer of a hundred and
fifteen thousand improved muskets and rifles from the Spring-
field Armory and Watervleit Arsenal to different arsenals
at the South. Adding to these the number of arms distrib-
uted by the Federal Government to the States in preceding
years of our history, and those purchased by the States and
citizens, it was safely estimated that the South entered
upon the war with a hundred and fifty thousand small
arms of the most approved modern pattern, and the best
in the world." Thus had this faithless cabinet minister
availed himself of his high position to betray the govern-
ment he was sworn to defend. He made an additional
bold attempt to supply the rebels with heavy ordnance ; but
the prompt uprising and loyal resistance of citizens of Pitts-
burg defeated this treacherous order. The Secretary of the
Interior, also a Southern secessionist, had suffered an enor-
mous fraud in connection with his department, tending to
shake the public confidence in government securities. The
obsequious power at the head of the Navy Department had
scattered our ships-of-war over the world ; so that, at the
opening of hostilities, we had but twelve vessels belonging
59G THE CHEAT REPUBLIC.
to the home squadron ; and only three of these, with a store-
ship in the harbor of New York, were in Northern waters.
Thrre was. moreover, treason in the army. Several dis-
tinguished generals and subordinate officers of the regular
army resigned their commissions, and appeared in command
of the organizing forces of rebellion. Finallv, Bri^.-Gen.
O O i/O
Twigu's turned over his whole army in Texas, with prop-
erty amounting to $1,209,500, besides real estate, to Gen.
Ben M'Culloch, representing the rebels in that State. Thus,
by one act of most dishonorable treason, the United States
lost full one-half of her entire military force.
It would seem that Providence permitted the government
of freedom to come up to this terrible crisis, and commence
its struggle for life, in a state of absolute helplessness.
According to all human appearance, ruin was inevitable.
In the mean time, the public property in the South was
seized by the conspirators. One after another, our forts and
arsenals, post-offices and vessels, were surrendered to the
rebels, or violently seized ; and on the ninth day of February.
1801. by a convention in Montgomery, Ala., assembled at the
call of South Carolina, the great act of treason was consum-
mated by the formal organization of the Confederate States
of America. The Confederate Congress elected Jefferson
Davis, of Mississippi. President ; and Alexander II. Stephens,
of Georgia, Vice-President. With protestations of a desire
for peace, but a readiness for war. this treasonable organiza-
tion entered upon its career of blood and ruin in the spirit
of triumph. Mr. Davis said in Stephen, Ala.. •• Your border
States will gladly come into the Southern Confederacy with-
in sixty days, as we will be their only friends. England will
recognize us, and a glorious future is before u,-. The grass will
grow in the Northern cities, where the pavements have been
worn oil' bv the tread of commerce. We will carry war where
it is easy to advance, where food for the sword and torch await
our armies in the densely-populated cities; and. though they
may come and spoil our crops, we can raise them as before,
THE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 5Q7
while they cannot rear the cities which took years of indus-
try and millions of money to build."
Mr. Stephens said of this new government, " Its founda-
tions are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth,
that the negro is not equal to the white man ; that slavery,
subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal
condition. This our new government is the first in the his-
tory of the world based upon this great physical, philosophical,
and moral truth. This stone, which was rejected by the
first builders, is become the chief stone of the corner in our
new edifice. I have been asked, What of the future ? It
has been apprehended by some that we would have arrayed
against us the civilized world. I care not who or how many
they may be : when we stand upon the eternal principles
of truth, we are obliged to and must triumph."
See also with what complacency this otherwise truly great
man alludes to the future of the old United States, and the
gracious arrangements made for their accommodation, as, one
after another, they should by necessity turn to the glorious
Confederacy for protection. " Our growth," he says, " by
accessions of other States, will depend greatly upon whether
we present to the world, as I trust we shall, a better govern-
ment than that to which they belong. If we do this, North
Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas cannot hesitate long;
neither can Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri. They will
necessarily gravitate to us by an imperious law. We made
ample provision in our constitution for the admission of other
States. It is more guarded, and wisely so I think, than the
old Constitution on the same subject ; but not too guarded
to receive them so fast as it may be proper. Looking to the
distant future, and perhaps not very distant either, it is not
beyond the range of possibility, and even probability, that
all the great States of the North-west shall gravitate this
way. Should they do so, our doors are wide open to receive
them, but not until they are ready to assimilate with us in
principle. The process of disintegration in the old Union
598 THE OH EAT REPUBLIC.
may he expected to go on with almost absolute certainty.
We are no\v the nucleus of a growing power, which, if we
are true to ourselves, our destiny, and our high mission, will
become the controlling power on this continent."
FORT SUMTER.
When the undisguised treason of South Carolina appeared,
Major Robert Anderson, a gallant Kentuckian, had com-
mand of seventy men, with headquarters at Fort Moultrie.
Regarding this position as critical and unsafe, he quietly
removed his small garrison to Fort Sumter. It was farther
from Charleston, and a better fort. This the leaders of the
Rebellion considered an offence to the nation of South Caro-
lina. Their papers denounced it as an act of hostility, and
in violation of an express understanding with the govern-
ment. Mr. Floyd professed to be very indignant at this
breach of faith, and demanded that Mr. Buchanan should
order our troops to evacuate the forts in Charleston Harbor.
As the President hesitated, and Floyd saw no further oppor-
tunity of serving the cause of secession without danger to
himself, he made this the occasion of his resignation, and
O
went deliberately from under the eyes of the government
over to her deadly foes.
In the mean time, the volunteers from South Carolina,
and then from other Southern States, came into Charleston
in great numbers, armed and drilled, ready to open the war.
They immediately took possession of Fort Moultrie. and
commenced a vigorous improvement of all their military
defences.
The feeling of concern and alarm began to extend through
O o o
the North. Timid, conservative men joined with the rebels
to entreat Mr. Buchanan not to do any thing that would irri-
tate the South, or provoke hostilities; while brave, manly,
patriots demanded that Fort Sumter should be immediately
re-enforced and provisioned. The Legislature of South Caro-
THE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 599
Una resolved, that " any attempt by the Federal Government
to re-enforce Fort Sumter will be regarded as an act of open
hostility, and a declaration of war." Gen. Dix, then Secre-
tary of the Treasury, had attempted, but too late, to save
two or three vessels at Mobile and on the Mississippi, and
had sent that despatch which thrilled the patriotic heart of
the nation, — " If any man attempts to haul down the
American flag, shoot him on the spot."
Government determined to make an effort to relieve our
garrison. For this purpose, " The Star of the West," a small
steamer, left on the night of the 5th of June, with two
hundred and fifty men and a supply of food, for Fort Sumter.
She reached the waters off the city of Charleston on the
9th ; and, as she moved up toward Fort Sumter, " she was
fired upon from Fort Moultrie and a battery on Morris Is-
land, and, being struck by a shot, put about, and left for New
York, without even communicating with Major Anderson." *
Thus the conspirators commenced the war.
On the third day of March, P. G. T. Beauregard was com-
missioned by Jefferson Davis as a brigadier-general, and
placed in command of all the forces at Charleston. On the
day following, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated President
of the United States.
A small number of vessels had been collected, and sent to
the relief of Fort Sumter ; the President frankly and humane-
ly sending word to the men leading the Rebellion, that these
vessels were not to make war upon them, but " to supply Fort
Sumter with provisions only ; and that, if such attempt be not
resisted, no effort to throw in more arms or ammunition will
be made, without further notice, or in case of an attack upon
the fort."
Under instructions from Mr. Walker, Confederate Secretary
of War, Gen. Beauregard, on the llth of April, demanded
the surrender of the fort, which Major Anderson' promptly
declined. After notice of a single hour, at half-past four,
* Greeley, i. 412.
THE (III EAT REPUBLIC.
A.M.. on the twelfth day of April, 1801, the first gun was fired
at Fort Sumter, from Fort Johnson, by Mr. Ruflin of Vir-
ginia, who craved the privilege as a distinguished honor.
This gun awoke the nation from its slumbers. To the Con-
federate rebels it was the signal of the complete triumph of
i he slave-power and the death-knell of the Union : in fact,
however, it was the death-knell of slavery, and the formal
announcement of a new era of liberty to the continent and
the world.
The conflict was short. Immediately the fires of Moul-
trie, Cumming's Point, and the floating-battery, answered
the signal iran from Johnson ; and a sheet of llame encir-
CD O
cled the doomed fort and its gallant defenders.
Major Anderson made no hasty response. As was fitting,
for two hours and a half this rebel fire poured its missiles
upon the government fort without a note of response, that the
world might know that the Confederates began the war. At
length the guns of Major Anderson told the world that the
nation would resist, and fight for its life. For thirty-four
hours, this storm of ruin fell upon Fort Sumter, to be answered
by the few guns of the Republic amid suffocating smoke and
the flames of every thing combustible. The provisions of
the little garrison were almost exhausted, their guns dis-
mounted, their ammunition nearly gone. A chivalrous feel-
ing ro-e in the hearts of the assailants toward their heroic
countrvmen in their imperilled condition. Mr. Wi'^fall of
•- O
Texas risked his life to induce Major Anderson to cease re-
sistance. Representatives of the conspirators took up the
negotiation, ami the fort was surrendered. The brief de-
spatch of Major Anderson to his government, dated April IS.
1801. will explain the whole: " Having defended Fort Sum-
ter for thirty-four hours, until the quarters were entirely
burned, the main gates destroyed, the gorge-wall seriously
injured, the magazine surrounded by flames, and its door
closed from the effects of the heat, — four barrels and three
cartridges of powder only being available, and no provisions
THE WAR OP SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 601
but pork remaining, — I accepted terms of evacuation offered
by Gen. Beauregard (being the same offered by him on the
llth instant, prior to the commencement of hostilities), and
marched out of the fort on Sunday afternoon, the 14th in-
stant, with colors flying and drums beating, bringing away
company and private property, and saluting my flag with
fifty guns."
!f. is not as a battle between armies that this event is to
be considered ; for it was simply seventy men in a beleaguered
fort, with nothing in preparation for war, maintaining with
the greatest heroism the honor of their nation and flag to the
last moment, against some seven thousand men with all
the munitions of war and perfection of appointments which
money or science could provide. Not a man had been killed
(God so ordered), excepting one by the bursting of a gun
in firing the salute. But enough had been done to " fire the
Southern heart," and to awaken in the breasts of patriot
Americans the spirit which would rise to vindicate the na-
tion's honor, and save our liberties.
PROVIDENTIAL ADJUSTMENTS.
We have seen, that, whether willing or otherwise, American
freemen were brought sternly up to confront this menacing
despotism. No cringing submission, no humiliating com-
promise, could avert the danger. All the endeavors of
men, however rash or grave, were baffled by a power to a
large extent unseen. Thus did God indicate that the time
o
had come for a final settlement of this grand question of
the continents and the ages.
The war, as it advanced, would show that vast sums of
money were required to meet its expenses ; and, in the re-
duced condition of government finances, faith in God,
and confidence in the people, took the place of visible re-
sources. We were compelled to fight. The bayonet was at
our breasts. The shouts of defiance from the gathering
THE (.;I:I-:AT KEPUIJLIC.
hosts of rebellion were ringing- in our ears. The overt acts
of treason were rapidly impoverishing us. and taking away
the means of resistance. There was no alternative but to
rise in arms, or hand over the fairest country and best
government in the world to the hopeless rule of an odious
tyranny. In such a crisis, how manifestly the wisdom of
God rise- above the folly of men ! It soon began to appear
that he had given to the friends of the government every-
where a large amount of surplus wealth, and a disposition
to use it freely in defence of the public liberties. It was,
moreover, a striking consideration that the rich and exhaust-
less mines of gold and silver on the Pacific slope, and on both
sides of the Hocky Mountains and the Sierra Xevadas. had
been hid away during the long ages, and then discovered
and developed just in time to meet this grand emergency.
Without the large annual yield of the precious metals from
these mines, it may be safely said that the resources for the
war would have been soon exhausted, and the absolute destruc-
tion of trade must have compelled a premature accommoda-
tion. Equally providential was the fact, that the death-
struggle of the slave-power to get control of our Paciiic em-
pire in advance of the crisis signally failed. God stirred up
the spirit of a few brave men to light that battle on the
coast ; and they were Christian men, Christian ministers in-
deed, who moved to the front in the conilict. and. at the risk of
obloquy and personal violence, led on the moral battles which
saved that grand inheritance for freedom. This was Provi-
dence : it was God forecasting, and providing for contingen-
cies utterly beyond the reach of human sagacity.
And men were as indispensable as money, — not mere
numbers; for nothing is more unreliable than the calcula-
tions of physical theorists as to just how many men it will
require to secure success to a revolution or to overwhelm a
rebellion. When we say men were required, we mean not
merely the hundreds of thousands, the millions, to rise at the
nation's call, and rush to the field of conflict; but we mean
THE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 603
true men, strong men, with a powerful, enduring physique,
and mental force to sustain it ; patriotic men, who cared
more for their country and liberties than ipr wealth or com-
fort, or even life itself; brave men, who would not shrink
from the flashing steel or the belching cannon ; men who
were willing to be taxed to the last dollar if need be ; men
imbued with the high faith of religion, and who could go
into battle from their knees, and with songs of praise to the
Lord of hosts as their great commander : such men were
required, and God had provided them in unnumbered thou-
sands. The men of the churches, the very choicest young men
from the prayer and class room, from the Sunday school, and
the rooms of Christian associations, were everywhere seen
gathering around the flag, ready to consecrate it by their
prayers, and bathe it in their tears and their blood. They
were the very life and soul of the grand army of Fre'edom.
But these brave citizens must be led ; and it was a grave
question who should be at the head of the nation when this
frightful contest should come on. It must, moreover, be de-
cided while yet an impenetrable veil hung over the dreadful
future then just at hand. There was no wisdom in us equal
to the selection of this man. We had our favorite candi-
dates : we were grieved when they seemed strangely pushed
aside, and a new man, a plain, untried man, rose up to receive
our suffrage. I affirm that the people did not know this
man ; did not understand why he must be the choice of our
leaders. We voted for him mechanically, blindly, to a large
extent, simply understanding that he was a brave advocate
for liberty; that he had not bowed down to slavery, and trust-
ing that he would not; that be was a great debater, and a
defeated candidate for the United-States Senate ; that he
had a reputation for honesty and integrity, — all sterling
qualities : but there were a thousand more, who, so far as
we could see, had these to an equal degree, and a few who
had much higher claims to statesmanship. We did not
select him. He was brought forward, put into our hands,
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
;m<l placed at the head of the government, by One who
knew the coming events, and the man to guide the nation
through the storm.
The same is true with regard to the leading minds in and
out of Congress, and eminently so with regard to the com-
t; f
manders of our army and navy. How blind were most of
our appointments! and how uncertain, in consequence, were
our battles and campaigns ! But at the right time, wrhen
the crisis demanded it, how strangely did an unseen Power
bring forward the men, and especially the one great com-
mander, to lead our armies through carnage and strife to the
final triumph of liberty! In how few instances did the pop-
ular ideas and the judgment of Providence coincide ! but
how clearly were the acts of God vindicated ! No matter
how obscure and unpretending the man ; God chose him :
and we at length saw him, — the man, apparently the only
man, for the strand emergency. Thus did Omniscient Wis-
O «/
dom adjust the conditions of our final success.
BULL RUN.
On the 10th of July. 1861, thirty thousand men moved
out, under Gen. M;Dowell, to offer battle to an army of
twenty thousand Confederates, under Gen. Beauregard, at
Manassas. As auxiliary forces, the government had eighteen
thousand men in the Shenandoah Valley, under Gen. Pat-
terson, confronting eight thousand under Gen. J. E. John-
ston at Winchester. Gen. Patterson was ordered to oc-
cupy the attention of Gen. Johnston, and prevent him
from re-enforcing Beauregard.
MvDo well's forces moved in four divisions, commanded
respectively by Gen. Tyler, Col. Hunter, Col. Ileint/elman,
and Col. Miles. These men were brave, but undisciplined.
Their inarch to the field of conflict was irregular and
retarded. This, with the difficulty of bringing up his trains,
left Gen. M'Dowell a day behind his plans, — an impor-
THE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 605
tant day to the Confederates. He reached his headquar-
ters, at Centre ville, on the 18th. A reconnoissance in force,
under Gen. Tyler, was immediately ordered, who, too im-
petuous, opened an artillery-fire, which at once notified
the enemy of the contemplated attack, and changed the
plan of the action ; for Beauregard was just completing
his arrangements to commence the offensive, when he dis-
covered that he might receive his antagonist on his chosen
ground, and with the advantage of his field-works. Tyler,
not content without an engagement, then deployed his
infantry along the run at Blackburn's Ford, and ordered
them to fire into the woods. As this was a material point
of the Confederates, they responded briskly ; and Tyler
found it prudent to withdraw his men.
The prelude to the great battle occupied the 19th and the
morning of the 20th. In the mean time, M'Dowell had
changed his plan.
Eight brigades of the Confederates confronted the Union
army, guarding aU the fords. A large portion of John-
ston's forces had escaped Patterson, and joined Beauregard.
This brought also to the Confederates the superior military
skill of Gen. Johnston, who ranked Beauregard, and who
upon all occasions showed the cool deliberation and steady
valor of a good commander.
The Confederate generals now resolved to take the initia-
tive; and, on the night of the 20th, orders were despatched to
cross the creek at the lower fords, and attempt to turn the
Union left. Before these orders reached their destination,
Gen. M'Dowell had commenced the attack. Most unfor-
tunately, this was Sunday morning, God's day of rest. Hunt-
er's and Heintzeknan's divisions, being behind Tyler's, were
delayed three hours beyond the time appointed in getting
to their position across Sudley's Ford, where the first main
attack was to be made. Tyler, prompt as usual, moved up
to his place at Stone Bridge, and at half-past six precisely,
the time appointed, fired his signal gun. Evans, on the ex-
(306 TIIE GREAT REPUBLIC.
trenic rebel left, was occupied some three hours by the noise
of Tyler's cannonade ; but, observing a large column of men
mo vin^ through the woods toward his rear, he changed front,
o o
and, in half an hour, threw his demi-brigade in order of battle
in the way of the advancing Union troops. Burnside's men
came first into action ; Porter's next debouched from the
woods, and formed on the right; Sykes, with his eight hun-
dred regulars and Griffin's battery, took position promptly
on the left ; and the Great battle began. Re-enforcements
o O
came to the support of Evans on the Confederate side.
Col. Bee with a part of his brigade from Johnston's army,
Col. Bartow with a portion of his brigade, and Imboden
and Richardson with six additional pieces of artillery, came
up. and entered vigorously into the conflict. The rebels' right,
in the woods, was pressed severely by Sykes's battalion. Col.
Bee, now in command of the Confederates, resisted with
great bravery and strength ; but the Union troops pressed
him back, and soon became masters of that part of the field.
They swept across Young's Branch, and forced the enemy up
the slope to the top of the hill. Hampton, with his famous
legion, rushed in to restore the battle, but, as Johnston said,
"only helped to render efficient service in maintaining the
orderly character of the retreat from that point.'' On the
top of the ridge stood Col. Jackson with his brigade,
dressed and calm as on a public parade. '•' There." said Bee.
" is Jackson, standing like a stone icall ; " and ever thereafter
he was •• Stonewall Jackson."
Let us now turn to another part of this bloody field.
The movement of Evans to meet Hunter had left an open-
ing in the Confederate lines. From the tops of trees it was
seen that Evans was receding from the lire of Hunter's men.
His re-enforcements coming up increased his stubborn resist-
ance, but without decisive effect. Tyler ordered Sherman
and Keyes to move up to Hunter's left. This was done
promptly ; but, the enemy yielding to the energy of Hunter's
forces. Sherman, reporting to McDowell, was ordered to join
THE WAR OF SLAVEKY AND FREEDOM. 607
in the pursuit of the enemy, who were falling back to the
Sudley-sp rings Road. K eyes formed on the left; and Heintzel-
man swept over the conquered field, and came up vigorously
into action.
Victory for the grand army of the Republic now seemed
certain. M'Dowell had three divisions, including some
eighteen thousand men in admirable position ; and, flushed
with victory, they were ready to move on, and finish the
battle.
Johnston and Beauregard, seeing the critical condition of
their army, ordered up fresh troops. The brigades of Holmes,
Early, Bonham, and Ewell, with the batteries of Pendleton
and Albertis, promptly entered the struggle. The Confeder-
ate commanders rode rapidly four miles to the front, and
threw themselves into the places of dreadful slaughter.
Johnston seized the colors of the Fourth Alabama, and of-
fered to lead the attack. Gen. Beauregard leaped from his
horse, and, turning his face to his troops, exclaimed, "I
have come here to die with you!" The courage of their
fainting army rose again. Many of the broken troops, frag-
ments of companies, and individual stragglers, were re-formed,
and brought into action. The battle was restored, and now
raged furiously on the plateau around the Henry and the
Robinson Houses. The brigades of Bee, Evans, Bartow,
Bonham, Jackson, Hampton's legion, and Fisher's regiment,
with the batteries of Irnboden, Pendleton, Albertis, and
others, now formed a new line of battle ; and they were as-
sailed with terrific energy by Union forces under com-
mand of Wilcox and Howard, supported by parts of Porter's
brigade and Palmer's cavalry on the right, Franklin and
Sherman in the centre, and Keyes on the left. The batteries
of Rickett and Griffin were on the right, and that of Rhode
Island on the left. Schenck's brigade and Ayres's battery
on the other side of the run, and nine thousand men under
Miles at Centreville, were in reserve.
The enemy's right now rushed to the charge ; and Jack-
60S THE GI1EAT REPUBLIC.
son hurled his column against and broke the Union centre.
The Confederates gained a temporal'}' success, taking the
plateau, and capturing several guns; but the Union infantry
moved up in heavy force, and regained the field. Once more
victory perched on the banners of Liberty, and a certain tri-
* ^ •
uinph seemed just at hand.
It was now two o'clock. Fresh troops from Johnston's
army came up. Reserves were brought forward, and another
dreadful contest came on. The Confederates came forward
\vith ringing cheers and dreadful energy, which threatened
to carry all before them. Keyes charged up the slope,
through rebel cavalry and infantry, and took the Rob-
inson House. A still fiercer conflict raged on the Union
right, around the Henry House. The lines surged one
way and the other. Griffin's and Rickett's batteries were
captured and recaptured. "Three times the Confederates
overran Griffin's battery, and three times they were repulsed ;
while thrice also the Union batteries surged in vain against
the Confederate position.'" : The battle hung in suspense.
The heat was dreadful ; and the suffering of the Northern
troops was almost beyond endurance.
The Confederate commander now ordered up Ewell's,
Ilohues's. and Early's brigades, who had been guarding the
fords against the demonstrations of Miles and Richardson.
These fresh troops burst upon the Union lines with dreadful
fury. MT)oweil brought up Howard's brigade, almost fresh:
Tyler swept through the abatis, and, carrying the batteries
at the stone bridge, deployed in the open country beyond.
Schenck, with his fresh brigade, dashed across the stone bridge.
and moved on to the right of the enemy. The third grand
crisis of the battle had come; when suddenly on the enemy's
left, more than a mile distant, the front of a column was seen
in motion. By signals, Beauregard was warned to "• look
out for the enemy's advance on the left.'' Was it Patterson,
with his eighteen thousand fresh troops, to relieve the pant-.
* Decisive Buttles of the War, by Swinton, pp. 13-42.
THE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 609
ing, bleeding freemen, and decide at once this dreadful
struggle? or was it the long-expected remaining forces of
Johnston, moving up to give sudden triumph to the mangled
hosts of slavery ? All eyes were strained to catch the light
of the banners. u At this moment," says Beauregard, " I must
confess, my heart failed me. I could not tell to which army
the waving banners belonged." He gave to Col. Evans
orders for Johnston to make hasty preparations for a re-
treat. Gazing still at the advancing column, a gust of wind
shook out the folds of the flag ; and it was the stars and
bars. " Col. Evans/' exclaimed Beauregard, his face lighting
up, " ride forward, and order Gen. Kirby Smith to hurry up
his command, and strike them on the flank and rear ! " Cheer
after cheer rose from the Confederate ranks. Horror seized
the bleeding, panting Union men. On, on, came the proud
column, with their weapons of death glittering in the sun. In
a few moments more, they struck our staggering ranks in
flank and rear. Early's fresh brigade, coming up at the in-
stant, fell upon our right flank ; and Gen. Beauregard led
on his now fierce and rallying hosts in the centre. It was
too much for our wearied, bleeding volunteers, sweltering
under a Southern sun, to endure. They were forced down
the long-contested hill ; and the battle of Bull Run was lost.
The heroic efforts of our generals to re-form their columns
were but partially successful. A battery, dashing to the
rear for a re-supply of ammunition, was supposed to be in
retreat ; and a panic began. Masses of troops, demoralized,
surged against each other. A shot from Kemper's rebel bat-
tery struck the horses of a wagon, crossing Cub-Run
Bridge : the vehicle was overturned, and the passage
obstructed. Amid the confusion, the Confederate artillery
began to play upon the masses rushing for the obstructed
bridge ; and a scene which beggars all description followed.
Horses, cannon, men, and carriages were crushed together
in one tumultuous ruin; members of Congress, gala-day
spectators, who had been waiting to echo the exultant shout
77
T1IE C.KEAT REPUBLIC.
of a Union victory, and join the hosts of freedom as they
moved in triumph '* on to Richmond,'' were now struggling
for their lives amid the surging mass rushing toward
Washington.
The Confederates seemed stunned by the appalling sight,
and paralyzed by the effects of their victory : so suddenly
and unexpectedly had they been rescued from ruin, that
commanders and men seemed not to have strength enough
remaining to endure their joy. There was no pursuit equal
to the opportunity. The only movement of importance of
this kind attempted was checked by a single battery, with a
column of brave men from the reserves at Centreville ; and
the Confederate chieftains gave up their hosts, first to de-
lirious joy, and then to repose.
The Union men were without power to think, command.
or obey, until they had reached their quarters at Alexandria.
So little of the true promptness and energy of a successful
campaign appeared in the rebel army, that a courageous
commander, with a small body of men, soon turned back on
the track of the route, and, gathering up at his leisure
enormous quantities of lire-arms, heavy ordnance, and am-
munition, brought them in safety to the Union camp.
Several things in this first terrible battle for the preser-
vation of the Union seem at first inexplicable. Why did
not the reserves under Miles move promptly down upon the
enemy when the crisis came, and the fords were neaiiv
abandoned to concentrate all the rebel forces in the second
grand crisis of the battle'.' Perhaps their commander re-
ceived no orders: certain it is that he was in no condition
to understand or execute them. Richardson, his next in
command, literally implored permission to move, but was
not allowed. Thus nine thousand fresh troops listened to
the noise of the battle, which was at length literally destroy-
ing their companions in arms, without being allowed to march
to their relief. Why were not fresh re-enforcements brought
up from the stations in the rear, and hurried on from Washing-
THE WAR OF SLAVEBY AND FREEDOM. 611
ton ? The infatuated Union authorities were too sure of an
easy conquest to give room to ordinary prudence. Why did
not Patterson detain Johnston at "Winchester with half the
number of men, and make our victory certain ? or, at least,
why did he not follow Johnston with such celerity as to over-
take him on the grand field of action ? or, at the very least,
why did he not fall upon that body of men detained for'
the want of railroad conveyance, and prevent the appear-
ance of that splendid column on the field in the last grand
crisis ? To all this it may be answered, that there was con-
fusion of orders from headquarters, or that the time of large
numbers of Patterson's three-months' men had expired.
But all the explanations given are inadequate. How
easily could all these conditions have been controlled by the
Hand above us ! The time had not come. What depths of
humiliation for our national sins were yet to be reached !
what severity of discipline, what struggles for justice, before
God could permit our arms to triumph ! Had the onset been
delayed till our army organizations and drills began to ap-
proximate true military order; had the transportation of troops
and supplies been prompt, so as to have brought our forces
into action on Friday, as was intended, instead of Sunday ;
had Hunter and Heintzelman been able to get their forces
into position on the enemy's right before the firing of Tyler's
signal gun ; had the commander of the reserves retained his
sobriety and self-control ; had Patterson moved promptly, and
engaged Johnston only for twenty-four hours, — how certain
would have been our victory ! But God would not permit
any of these contingencies to control the result : if he had,
and the Union troops had moved on to immediate and suc-
cessive conquests, we should to-day have been a nation of
slaveholders ; and the cry of injustice would now rise up to
Heaven against us. We had learned the character of our
foe, gained successes sufficient to demonstrate our patriotism
and power on the battle-field, and received a discipline of
inestimable value. This was all Providence intended.
612 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
BALL'S BLUFF.
The freemen of the nation were humbled and roused by
the disaster of Bull Run. Volunteers from every part of
the country poured into Washington; and the Army of the
Potomac was re-oro;anized under Gen. George B. M'Clellan.
o o
Iii September, he held his first grand review, and seventy
tliou.-aiid men moved with great military precision at his com-
mand ; but still the number increased, until absolute neces-
sity for space crowded back the rebel forces in the immediate
vicinity of Washington, resting upon the laurels of Manas-
sas.
On the 20th of October, Gen. M-'Clellan ordered Gen.
Stone to •" keep a good lookout on Leesburg, to see if dem-
onstrations made by Gen. M;Call from Dranesville had in-
duced the Confederates to retire ; " and Capt. Philbrick, from
the Fifteenth Massachusetts, with a few men, was ordered
to cross, by the way of Harrison Island, to the Virginia
shore, and reconnoitre. They ascended Ball's Bluff for this
purpose ; but the only appearance of a hostile force was a
small camp of rebels not well guarded. Col. Devens was direct-
ed to send five companies of his regiment quietly, and attack
the camp at daybreak. Col. Lee, Twentieth Massachusetts,
was to take charge of the island with four companies, and
send one of them over to the Virginia shore to wait the re-
turn of Col. Devens. Col. Devens accordingly crossed, and
drew up his five companies just at daylight. Scouts were
sent out, who reported that they could find no camp. Col.
Devens advanced to within a mile of Lecsburir. and, seein<>*
o- O
no enemy, halted in a wood, reported to Gen. Stone, and
waited further orders.
At seven, A.M., he discovered a company of riflemen, and
three of cavalry; but they retired as they were approached.
Col. Devens then fell back to the bluff, where he received orders
from Gen. Stone to remain. He found he had twenty-eight olli-
cers, and six hundred and twenty-live men. At about twelve,
THE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 613
M., with his little army in an open field of about six acres,
he was attacked by musketry from the surrounding woods.
Falling back nearly to the edge of the bluff, he was re-en-
forced by Col. E. D. Baker with his brave California regi-
ment, who immediately saw that our men were in a critical
condition, and would have called them away ; but it was too
late : they were already engaged. Col. Baker was a sena-
tor, and might have excused himself from danger ; but his
patriotism and bravery would not allow it. He had seen
the demon of rebellion loose, and raging in our midst, and
his soul of fire could not be restrained. While his over-
whelming eloquence pleaded for his country in the senate-
chamber, there was treason in the air, treason in the army
and navy, treason in the cabinet, treason in the halls of
congress ; and he could not stay. He rushed to the field to
be compromised, sacrificed by a mistake, a crime. Where
was the responsibility ? No one could tell. He did not in-
quire. His simple exclamation, " This is a bad business," lin-
gers upon our ears to-day like the knell of death.
Col. Baker, as the highest officer in the field, assumed the
command. He promptly arranged the order of battle. The
Fifteenth Massachusetts, Col. Devens, six hundred and fifty-
three men, was on the right ; the Twentieth Massachusetts,
Col. Lee, three hundred and eighteen men, in the centre ; the
California regiment, Lieut-Col. Wistar, and the New- York
Tammany regiment, Col. Milton Cogswell, in the rear of the
California regiment, on the left, — one thousand nine hun-
dred men in all.
These brave Union soldiers were hardly formed before they
were attacked by rebel infantry from the woods. A desperate
struggle of two hours ensued. Col. Baker exposed himself
like a common soldier. His brave and gallant bearing amid
the slaughter gave courage to his diminishing forces, and
made him a mark for rebel bullets. A little before five o'clock,
he fell, shot through the head. The rebel who shot him fell
instantly pierced by the bullets of the brave soldiers who
(314 THE CHEAT REPUBLIC.
rushed to save their idolized commander. His body was
borne away in mournful triumph.
Col. Cogswell, seeing our men rapidly falling, took the
brave resolution of cutting his way through to Edwards
Ferrv, onlv three miles distant, where Gen. Stone had a
strong force unemployed ; but. in the attempt, he met a
fresh Mississippi regiment advancing from the direction of
the ferry expressly to cut off the retreat. Our troops gave
way, and rushed down the bluff, to find no provision for
their escape. The rebels advanced, and poured into the
struggling, helpless mass a most destructive fire. The single
flat-bottomed boat was over-loaded, fired into, and sunk.
'•' The life-boat and skiff were upset and lost, and the work
of unresisted slaughter went on." :
A few escaped in the darkness to tell the tale of another
frightful disaster to the arms of the Republic. Why re-en-
forcements were not sent from Edwards Ferry, why there
were no transports to provide against casualties on the
banks of a deep river, no one can tell: we only know that
our troops were left to be slaughtered, that our beloved
Baker had fallen, and that the fair fame of the nation was
once more tarnished.
PORT ROYAL.
As an evidence of the elastic power of the United States,
in contrast with the twelve ships of all kinds available when
the war began, on the 24th of October, 1861, six months
from the attack on Sumter, a fleet of fifty sail, under Rear-
Admiral S. F. Dupont, moved out grandly from Hampton
Roads with sealed orders. So wrell had the secret of its des-
tination been kept, that the excited people, whether Union-
ists or Rebels, could not tell where the intended blow was
likely to fall.
Soon, off Cape Hatteras, this proud fleet encountered a
most furious storm. It was a crisis in the faith of our loyal
* Greek}-, i. 623.
THE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 615
people. It seemed as if God was angry with us, and had
commissioned the winds of heaven to destroy us.
At length, however, the storm abated ; and Sunday evening
fourteen sail of the scattered fleet hove in sight. Monday
noon the flag-ship " Wabash," and some thirty-six more vessels,
joined the squadron off Port Royal. t
Tuesday, while the admiral was making his dispositions for
battle, he was attacked by three rebel gunboats ; which, how-
ever, were soon willing to retire.
Fort Walker on Hilton Head, with twenty-three guns, and
Fort Beauregard on Bay Point, with fifteen guns, guarded
the entrance to Port-Royal Sound. At nine o'clock Thursday
morning, " The Wabash" gave the signal for advance, and led
the way; and the " Susquehanna," "Mohican," "Seminole,"
"Pawnee," "Unadilla," "Pembina," "Bienville," "Seneca,"
"Curlew," "Penguin," "Ottawa," and "Vandalia," vessels se-
lected for their light draught, followed in single file, with
ports open, and bristling with heavy guns. The first attack
was destined for Fort Walker. Beyond the entrance of the
harbor lay the little rebel fleet, under command of Tat-
nall, but recently an honored officer of the American navy.
Still farther in the rear was " a fleet of steamboats, that had
come from Charleston to witness the destruction of the
Yankee fleet."
As Dupont approached Hilton Head, a tremendous fire
was opened upon him from Fort Walker ; but he moved on
in silence until three vessels were in position, when their
broadsides were delivered ; and " the shot and shell from
seventy-five guns fell in one wild crash on the fort." He
moved on; and, one after another, the ships followed, deliv-
ering their fire while in motion. Thus the wooden vessels
were at no time stationary targets for the artillery of the
fort ; and, moving in a splendid elliptical circle, they poured
a constant fire, first into " Walker," and then into " Beaure-
gard." An eighty-pound rifle-ball went clear through the
mast of "The Wabash;" another pierced her after-magazine.
616 THE GREAT HEPUBLIC.
letting the water into it : but she kept on her sublime way,
proudlv leading the long file of flaming ships; Capt. Ro-
gers said. "'The Wabash' was a destroying angel; hugging
the shore ; calling the soundings with cold indifference;
slowing the engine so as to give only steerage-way ; signal-
ling the vessels their various evolutions ; and. at the same
time, raining shell, as with target-practice, too fast to count.''
The gunboats fount! an available position in a cove, and
commenced an enfilading fire on Hilton Head. At twelve, M.,
Admiral Dupont gave the signal, and his ships withdrew for
his men to rest, and take refreshments ; but the gunboats
kept up a galling fire.
At three o'clock, P.M., just as Admiral Dupont was about
to commence again his dreadful circuit of death, the firing
from the forts ceased. Capt. Rogers rowed directly to Fort
Walker, and found it deserted. He promptly raised the stars
and stripes above the ruins. No pen can describe the elec-
trical effect of this sight. For five hours, these grim mariners
and the army of Gen. Sherman had endured the perils, or
watched the progress, of this terrific battle ; and now the
flag of their country waved in triumph in token of victory.
Cheers rose from thousands of heroes; and ''The Star-span-
gled Banner" rang out through the Southern air.
(Jen. T. W. Sherman landed his troops, and assumed
command. It is impossible to exaggerate the happy effects
of this victory. The government of the Republic had re-
sumed its functions within the territory of South Carolina.
Port Royal promptly rose to importance as a naval depot.
Her piers and docks were alive with improvements. This
first great achievement of the navy had filled the country
with triumphant joy. Our disasters on land were well-nigh
forgotten. The rebel coast was thrown into the greatest
alarm. Dupont. the naval hero, whose praise was upon the
lips of patriots everywhere, moved from place to place ; and,
driving the rebel forces inland, he raised the flag of our
O O
Union over Fort Clinch, Fernandina, and St. Augustine,
THE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 617
Fla. ; and the whole coast of Georgia was held by his
squadron." *
ROANOKE ISLAND.
Jan. 11 and 12, 1862, Commander L. M. Goldsborough
left Fortress Monroe with a fleet of thirty-one steam gunboats,
mounting ninety-four guns, accompanied by eleven thousand
five hundred men under command of Gen. Ambrose E.
Burnside. This army was mainly from New England ; and
its three brigades, commanded by Gens. Foster, Reno, and
Parke, " embarked with their materiel on some thirty to for-
ty steam transports." The expedition had been fitted out,
chiefly in New York, to break the silence in the East.
Roanoke Island was included in the rebel command of
Ex-Gov. Henry A. Wise. His force was notoriously in-
adequate for so important a defence ; and he made the most
energetic appeals to the Confederate War Department for in-
crease of men and means. He was, however, simply ordered
to repair to his post. The rebel Secretary of War, Benjamin,
despised the Union forces and people, and showed, as did the
improvident Southern people generally on the Eastern bor-
der, the slackness resulting from their disastrous victory at
Manassas.
Arriving at Hatteras Inlet on the 13th, our ships met with
great difficulty and some serious disasters in attempting to
cross the bar. It was the 5th of February before our fleet
and stores could be re-adjusted, and the order given to move.
On that day, sixty-five vessels passed slowly up Pamlico and
Croatan Sounds, and anchored within ten miles of Roanoke
Island. At eight o'clock, A.M., on the 6th, the fleet moved ;
and at eleven o'clock it was arrested by a storm, and delayed
till ten, A.M., of the next day. Passing through the Roanoke
Inlet, a rebel fleet of seven gunboats appeared, but, moving
before our vessels, showed no disposition to engage. At
* Farragut and our Naval Commanders, by Headley, p. 135 : see also the whole chap-
ter.
78
618 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
twelve, M.. our fleet came under fire of a strong battery known
as Fort Bartow. when the rebel gunboats, which had evidently
intended to lead us there to destruction, paused, and joined
in the battle. Our brave men tore away, or moved over, the
pik's intended to obstruct their advance. '• Soon." says Mr.
Pollard. " the air was filled with heavy reports, and the sea
was disturbed in every direction by fragments of shell.
Explosions of shell rang through the air; and occasionally a
large hundred-and-twenty-four pounder thundered across the
waves, and sent its ponderous shot in the midst of the flotilla.
At times, the battery would be enveloped in the sand and
dust thrown up by shot and shell." The rebel flag-ship. '• The
Curlew," was struck by a hundred-pound shell from '- The
Southfield," and soon enveloped in flames ; the propeller
'•" Forrest " was disabled ; and the remainder of the rebel fleet
retired finally from the conflict. The barracks of the enemy
were consumed by our fire, and heroic efforts were required
to subdue the flames bursting from the fort.
By eleven o'clock at night. Gen. Burnside had landed seven
thousand live hundred men within two miles of the fort.
Through a long, rainy night, these heroic men crouched in the
marsh, eagerly waiting for the dreadful work of the morning.
Before them was Fort Bartow, a substantial earthwork, with
abatis, moat, and ten guns; farther on, batteries Huger and
Blanchard. with fourteen Lnins. Leading to Bartow was a
•> O O
single causeway swept by the enemy's guns, and, on either
hand, bou's, which could be passed only with the greatest dif-
•/ O
faculty; and they were crossed by an intrenchment. behind
which the rebels intended to make a desperate stand.
At the word, our heroic men rushed upon the enemy's line,
and carried it with the utmost gallantry. Here among the
slain iell a brave and splendid voungman. 0. Jennings Wise,
-L «/ O
son of the governor. Fighting through the morass, up to
within easy range of the guns from the fort. Burnside's
troops, finding it impracticable to obey the order to turn the
enemy's flank through the marsh, were ordered to charge
THE WAR OP SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 619
over the causeway. " The order was obeyed with such prompt-
ness and energy as to defy all resistance : then, throwing
themselves down to escape a fire of grape from the batteries,
part of the Fifty-first New- York, with Hawkins's Zouaves
and the Twenty-first Massachusetts, instantly rose, and rushed
over the rebel breastworks, chasing out their defenders, and
following them in their retreat, securing by their impetuosity
the capture of a large number, as no time was given for
their escape from the island." *
The results of this grand achievement were of the greatest
importance. Remaining forts and batteries fell ; the rebel
fleet was pursued ; and, there being no hope of escape, it was
burned by its own men. Mr. Pollard says we " had taken
six forts, forty guns, nearly two thousand prisoners, and up-
wards of three thousand small arms ; secured the water-ave-
nues of Roanoke River, navigable for a hundred and twenty
miles ; got possession of the granary and larder of Norfolk,
and threatened the back door of that city." The fall of
Newbern, after a tremendous battle, was a direct sequence of
the triumph on Roanoke Island : the time had come for the
pride of the Rebellion to be humbled.
FORT DONELSON.
Let us now turn our eyes to the West. We there see
Missouri saved to the Union by the prompt decisions and
energetic action of Capt (afterwards Gen.) Lyon, who
fell in the moment of victory, greatly lamented by the
American people ; the formidable and imposing measures
of Gen. Fremont, and the famous, terrific charge of his
" body-guard ; " the treason of Gov. Jackson, with his
pretences to take Missouri out of the Union against the de-
clared will of a large majority of her people ; the reckless
attack upon his own State by the rebel general Price, and
the cruel siege and slaughter at Lexington. We see also
* Greeley, ii. 76.
G20 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
the gathering of Union forces from the West, — men whose
pioneer habits had prepared them for this war, and whose
large intelligence and clear-sighted patriotism had deter-
mined them to hew their way to the mouth of the Missis-
sippi ; we see the first iron-clad fleet afloat on the Mis-
sissippi, commanded by the brave, devout, and energetic
Commodore Foote ; and we catch the first sight of Gen. U. S.
Grant, the great American, whose calm judgment, keen
eye, and desperate valor, were to shed undying lustre
upon our arms and nation.
The Confederates, finding that Kentucky and Missouri
had settled down into their proper position as loyal States
of the Union, determined to repudiate the doctrine of State
rights, and made war upon their brethren in slave territory.
They determined to take military possession of the •• upper
centre zone " of the West, lying above the Tennessee River.
This enormous task was intrusted to the command ol
Gen. Albert Sydney Johnson, an officer formerly of high
repute in the regular army of the United States. When
the war broke out, he had control of our forces on the Pa-
cific, with headquarters at Alcatraz. San Francisco. As he
evidently waited his opportunity to turn his command
against his country, and tear from the head of the nation
her golden crown, California, Oregon, and the Territories
of our vast Pacific empire, were saved from the horrors of
the Rebellion by the sudden, unannounced arrival of Gen.
Simmer, who promptly relieved the future rebel general of
his command. True to his purposes of treason, he soon
found his way to the Southern army, where he was recog-
nized as first in importance among the commanders of
treason.
Commodore Foote with his formidable war-fleet, and Gen.
Grant, now intrusted with the command, under Gen.
Ilalleck, of a large military district, had agreed upon the
plan of their campaign. The Cumberland and Tennessee
Rivers were guarded by Forts Henry and Donelson. These
THE WAK OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 621
were the keys to the upper and lower centre zones of this
great war of the West; and after the preludes of Belmont,
where Grant gained a surprising advantage over the rebels,
and destroyed the camp, but was flanked, and obliged to
retire; and of Mill Springs, where Gen. Thomas gained
our first brilliant victory on land, — Grant and Foote moved
boldly into the rebel territory to attempt the reduction of
these forts. The combined land and naval attack upon
Fort Henry was ordered for the 6th of February, 1862.
Grant was to move to the rear of the fort to co-operate with
Foote, and to prevent the escape of the garrison ; but the
energetic naval commander ran up the Tennessee to within
cannon-shot of the enemy, and commenced the action with
such promptness and spirit, and dashed the rebel batteries to
pieces with such fury, that the garrison surrendered to the
commodore before Gen. Grant could force his way to his
intended position.
Johnson saw his danger, and, resolving to defend Nash-
ville at Donelson, threw into the fort sixteen thousand of his
best troops. The works had been constructed under the eye
of a skilful engineer, and were very strong. Its river-defences
were admirable ; but, for the arrest of land-forces, the place
was badly chosen. Anticipating the approach of Gen.
Grant from Fort Henry directly toward a line of hills which
would command the works, the Confederates took possession
of these hills, shielding their forces by a line of earthworks,
rifle-trenches, and abatis. By the greatest exertions, they
were completed before Grant arrived.
Gen. Grant, with two divisions of fifteeen thousand men,
reached his position on the afternoon of the 12th. The
second division, under Brig.-Gen. C. F. Smith, moved to the
left; and the first, under Brig.-Gen. J. A. M'Clernand, to
the right. On the morning of the 13th, the action com-
menced by a furious cannonade. In the afternoon, a bold
attempt was made to take an important point by assault, in
which the forces of Grant were vigorously repulsed by the
Confederates.
622 THK CHEAT REPUBLIC.
Friday the 14th, Commodore Foote appeared with his
noble ileet of iron-dads, gunboats, and transports, bringing
ample supplies of rations and ammunition and ten thousand
men. all welcomed by ringing cheers from the army. This
splendid re-enforcement, constituting a third division under
Gen. Low. Wallace, was ordered to take position between the
commands of Gens. M'Clernand and Smith. The 14th was
occupied by Gen. Grant in getting the troops just arrived
into position. Commodore Foote. having perfect confidence
in his iron-cladsj moved up promptly, and commenced the
action ; but he met a far different reception from that at
Fort Henry. The rebels had arranged two formidable bat-
teries so as to take frightful effect by plunging fire upon the
vessels of the fleet. They consisted of eight thirty-two-
pounders, three thirty-two-pound carronades, one ten-inch
and one eight-inch columbiad, and one rifled thirty-two-
pounder. The rebels reserved their fire until the com-
modore brought up his fleet within less than four hundred
yards of their batteries : then they suddenly opened with
so terrific a fire as to soon end the strife on the water
side of the fort. This action lasted only an hour and a half;
but fifty-four patriots were killed or wounded, while not a
Confederate was killed, nor had their batteries received any
injury! The American people had learned one more lesson;
and the brave commodore retired to repair his fleet, while
Grant prepared to reduce the fort by siege. ITe was one
of those extraordinary men who could fiu'ht with the most
•; e^
chivalrous daring, or wait in perfect self-command until his
time should come.
Two days had sufficed to show the army of the Republic
that the Confederate general had prepared this position for a
most stubborn defence, to cripple and send out of the action
a valuable and trusted fleet, and also to convince the rebel
chiefs in command that Fort Donelson must soon become
untenable. A Confederate council of war, therefore, resolved
upon a desperate effort to clear the only practicable road to
Nashville.
THE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 623
At five o'clock on the morning of Saturday, the 5th, they
moved out to assault M'Clernand's division promptly drawn
up in order of battle, — the right under M< Arthur, the centre
under Oglesby, and the left under W. H. L. Wallace. Adroitly
taking advantage of a ravine, the Confederates gained the
rear of the Union right flank. Sustained by a corresponding
movement by Pillow's whole line, they swept the Union right
brigade from their position. Buckner brought up his forces,
and furiously attacked M'Clernand's left, commanded by Col.
W. H. L. Wallace. The Union infantry stood firm, and poured
in so deadly a fire from rifles and batteries, that the rebels
recoiled, and settled back, greatly demoralized. The brigade
of Oglesby was overborne by the masses brought to bear upon
them by Pillow, who followed up his successes vigorously,
and pays the Union troops the compliment to say, " They did
not retreat, but fell back fighting, and contesting every inch
of ground." Col. Wallace's brigade stood firm as a rock
against all the shocks of superior numbers of perfectly des-
perate rebels: but, about to be enveloped by Buckner's divis-
ion, Wallace withdrew his men ; and at nine, A.M., by throw-
ing their whole force upon one-third of the Union army,
the first purpose of the Confederates had succeeded, and the
road to Nashville was cleared.
Gen. Lew. Wallace, on M'Clernand's left, had sent one
brigade to the assistance of the right ; only, however, to be
overborne by the advancing tide of Confederate success.
Seeing the critical condition of the army, Gen. Wallace
now despatched his remaining force under Col. Thayer,
who moved up at double-quick, and deployed on the top of
the hill, forming a firm wall against the Confederate advance,
and behind which the troops, who had not fled, but retired
to refill their cartridge-boxes, could re-organize. He reminds
us of Stonewall Jackson on the heights of Manassas. Just
at the time when the Confederates were in triumph over
their supposed victory, moving eagerly up the slope, they
met a fire so deadly, that they recoiled and retired. Drawn
624 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
up again out of range, they were forced to another attack,
and were again repulsed with severe loss.
Gen. Grant now appeared on the field. He had been
absent in conference with Commodore Foote, arranging the
future of the campaign. Then the firm greatness and bold
daring of the commander appeared. He afterwards said,
" I saw that either side was ready to give way if the other
showed a bold front. I took the opportunity, and ordered
an advance along the whole line." Wallace, on the right,
was simply ordered to retake the ground he had lost in the
morning ; Smith, to storm the enemy's works in front. Gen.
Smith put himself at the head of Lauman's brigade in
battalion, with Cook's brigade in line of battle on its left, to
cover that flank, and make a feint against the front. Buck-
ner's column, seeing the danger, moved up rapidly to attack
the storming party, but staggered back under the Union fire
as often as they returned to the onset. The Union troops,
" tearing away the abatis, rushed forward, and seized the
breastworks." Buckner with his men took shelter within
the defences, and left the brave Union men in possession of
the heights which commanded the main works of the
enemy.*
Let us now return to Wallace. He promptly obeyed his
orders. He assailed Pillow's troops with such fury as to
overwhelm him on the ground he had wrested from the
Union forces in the morning, and drove him within his own
lines. This was a dreadful day's work : some two thousand
men on each side were strewn over the bloody field, ghastly
in death, or agonizing with pain from their severe wounds.
The Confederate forces had been successful everywhere till
they struck against Wallace on the hill and the great com-
mander appeared on the field. They had missed their only
possible opportunity of escape, received the rallying energy
of the troops they supposed they had destroyed, and were
shut up within their defences now dominated by Union guns.
* Swinton, p. 78, and the whole description of the battle.
THE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 625
On that dreadful Saturday night, there was no rest for the
exhausted troops on either side. On the cold, frozen field,
amid the peltings of rain, sleet, and snow, the defenders of
liberty must lie upon their arms : but not a murmur arose
from their lips ; they were there to conquer or die.
There was another council of war in the rebel fort. It
was a time of terror and deep perplexity. We know the
result. Floyd was too guilty a coward to share the fate
of his companions in arms, and handed over the command
to Pillow. Pillow remembered his base treachery, and, fear-
ing the recoil of justice, passed over the command to Buck-
ner, who had both the courage and discretion to share the
fate of his brethren in rebellion. Floyd and Pillow made
their escape with the men they could possibly smuggle away.
Buckner sent a flag of truce to Grant to know his terms,
and received for answer, " No terms other than unconditional
and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to
move immediately upon your works." Forgetting the sol-
dier in his mortification, Buckner characterized the terms as
" ungenerous and unchivalric," and accepted them.
The battle of Fort Donelson was over. Nine thousand men
surrendered at discretion, and the Union flag floated grace-
fully over the fort.
This was the Bull Run of the West : it was more ; for it
broke up the whole line of Confederate defences, saved Mis-
souri, Kentucky, and a large part of Tennessee, from the
power of rebellion, moved the usurped government of trea-
son two hundred miles down the Mississippi, gave us Nash-
ville, prepared the way for the grand and costly triumphs of
Shiloh and Stone River, and, by its moral effects, took away
courage from rebellion, and gave it to freedom.
FORTS JACKSON AND ST. PHILIP.
While the nation waited for the slow development of the
plans of M'Clellan, at Washington active minds were busy
79
626 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
with the question, What can be done in the mean time ? The
West, as we have seen, answered by moving down the Mis-
sissippi, and fighting the terrible but decisive battles of
Donelson and Shiloh. One distinct meaning of all this
was, that the great artery of Western trade must be opened
to the Gulf.
Gen. B. F. Butler believed that he could aid this great
effort by troops from the East, and operations from the out-
lets of the Mississippi. Encountering many and formidable
difficulties, he was at length on Ship Island with thirteen
thousand and seven hundred men.
On the third day of February, 1SG2, Capt. David Glascoe
Farragut sailed from Hampton Roads in k- The Hartford."
He had been appointed to command a powerful tleet which
was to unite with Gen. Butler in an attempt to gain control
of the Lower Mississippi. This fleet consisted of forty-seven
armed vessels : eight of them were large steam sloops-of-war.
seventeen heavily-armed steam gunboats, two sailing sloops-
of-war, and twenty-one mortar-schooners. "The whole num-
ber of guns and mortars was three hundred and ten, many
of them very heavy and very good." ; The secrecy with
which these formidable land and naval forces had been
directed created the most excited public interest. Various
theories of their destination were intimated; the North hop-
ing that something would be done, and the South dreading
the blow wherever it might fall. All doubt was at an end
when Farragut and Butler met in consultation on Ship
Island.
The defences of New Orleans were such as to give plausi-
bility to the popular idea, that they were absolutely invulner-
able. Twiggs, of infamous Texas memory, had been supersed-
ed by Major-Gen. Lovell. who had fully completed an interior
line of fortifications, which were deemed secure against any
force the United States could bring to bear upon them. In
the extreme necessities of the Confederacy, however, the
•/ s
* Grcelcy, ii. 87, 88.
THE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 627
troops and materials of war which Gen. Lovell, by great
industry, had collected to make these works available, were
ordered away to contend with Grant and Buell. Two large
iron-clads, " The Louisiana " and " Mississippi," which the citi-
zens of New Orleans thought were to sink any vessels of war
which might by any means come within their reach, were
not finished. The exterior line of defence, including Forts
Jackson and St. Philip, seventy-five miles below New Or-
leans, was made as strong as means within the power of the
rebels would permit. A first formidable obstruction to the
passage of our fleet having been washed away, another, less
difficult to manage, was constructed of " eleven dismantled
schooners, extending from bank to bank, strongly moored,
and connected by six heavy chains." *
Glancing now for a moment at New Orleans, we find the
people given up to pleasure. With the utmost contempt for
Northerners, they talked and laughed about the spectacle of
a mad attack upon their invulnerable forts, which was about
to add a new zest to their entertainments. Balls, parties,
theatres, operas, and the like, were the incidents of every
twenty-four hours.
On the 16th of April, the American fleet moved up the
river to attack the forts. As they neared the scene of the
combat, they saw corning down upon them a huge fire-ship.
With blazing wood and turpentine and tar, it threw its glare
over the scene ; and, roaring with flame, it floated directly
toward our fleet. Our men, it would seem, ought to have
been stupefied with horror,, as it moved on until its flames
must, in a few moments, be communicated to our vessels of
war. But there were no signs of panic1: commands were
coolly given and obeyed. A small company from " The Iro-
quois " entered a row-boat, moved up fearlessly, and, grap-
pling the ship of fire, towed it away to the bank, where it
could burn itself out at leisure.
On the morning of the 17th, we were within two and a
* Pollard, p. 250.
628 THE GEE AT REPUBLIC.
half miles of the forts ; and, at nine o'clock, the guns of Fort
Jackson opened upon our fleet. Capt. Porter, in command
of our mortar-vessels, directed the fire in response, and
trained his guns, so that, by ten o'clock, their terrible mis-
siles began to reach their object. Three more fire-rafts
came menacingly down to consume our valuable ships ; but
they were disposed of with the same coolness and bravery
as the first. For a whole week, the roar of cannon and mor-
tars told the frightful power of the combatants ; but the only
apparent effect on the fort was an alarming fire from our hot
shot, which threatened to consume every thing combustible
it contained. The fire was, however, finally subdued. A
change in the position of the fleet was necessary ; and, after
a council of war, Capt. Farragut calmly decided that some,
at least, of his vessels of war must pass the forts. " What-
ever is to be done," he said, " must be done quickly. When,
in the opinion of the flag-officers, the propitious time has
arrived, the signal will be made to weigh, and advance to
the conflict." An officer of a French vessel which had been
up to the forts told Capt. Farragut that it was impossible to
pass them. His reply was, "I am ordered to go to New
Orleans, and. I intend to go there."
Farragut could depend upon the prompt obedience and
extraordinary skill of his commanders and men. He says,
" Every vessel was as well prepared as the ingenuity of her
commander and officers could suggest, both for the preser-
vation of life and the vessels."
Capt. Bell, with "The Pinola," "Itasca," "Iroquois," "Ken-
nebec," and "Winona," had been despatched to perform
the difficult task of cutting away the obstructions which the
Confederates had established near the forts. A rocket from
the fort gave our daring men a momentary light ; and, with
chisels and hammers, they assaulted the chains. A storm
of shot and shell fell upon them : but they wrought on until
the chains parted ; and slowly the vessels swung around,
leaving the channel -clear. Three days after, a gallant recon-
* TFIE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. ()29
noissance, 'and a gun from " The Itasca," announced that the
passage was still open. At two o'clock, the signal rose on
the flag-ship ; and the men promptly prepared for the dread-
ful work before them. Some had slept quietly ; others had
paced the decks with nervous anxiety; but many of our
men had been engaged in solemn prayer.
"The Hartford," with the flag of Capt. Farragut, "The Rich-
mond," and "The Brooklyn," moved up close to the west bank,
opening fire upon Fort Jackson as they advanced. " The Ca-
yuga," "Pensacola," "Mississippi," "Oneida,"" Varuna," "Ka-
tahdin," "Kineo," and " Wissahickon" passed close along the
eastern shore, responding to the fire of Fort St. Philip. Capt.
Bell, commanding a third line, consisting of " The Sciota,"
" Iroquois," " Pinola," " Winona," " Itasca," and " Kennebec,"
moved between the two other divisions. The mortar-boats,
under Capt. Porter, kept their position, and opened a new
and most terrific fire upon the forts; while "The Harriet
Lane," "Westfield," "Owasco," "Clinton," "Miami," "The
Jackson," and " The Portsmouth," attacked the water-battery
below the fort. The roar of these guns, the rolling thun-
ders of the forts and batteries, the blazing shells streaming
in circles through the air, made the scene terribly sublime.
Capt. Bailey, with "The Cayuga," first drew the fire of
the forts as he passed through the opening in the obstruc-
tions. He, however, ran close under the guns of Fort St.
Philip, which received broadside after broadside of grape
and canister as his whole line passed safely through this
frightful gantlet. "The Pinola," "Sciota," and "Iroquois,"
of Capt. Bell's line, also rushed through unharmed.
The most terrible destruction seemed to centre upon the
flag-ship " Hartford." A frightful fire-ship came down, with
the ram "Manassas" in its rear. Moving as if directed by an
evil spirit, it came directly on toward " The Hartford." Far-
ragut's guns kept up their fire as though no danger were
near. Sheering a little, he avoided the fire-raft for a moment,
poured in a most destructive broadside upon Fort Jackson,
630 THE GEE AT REPUBLIC.
•and ran aground. The fire-ship dashed against him, and in-
stantly the rigging of "The Hartford" was in flames. At this
awful moment, there was no disorder : the firemen turned
the hose upon the flames; the engines tugged away, and
moved the vessel from the ground ; the orders of Farragut
were calm and imperious, and promptly obeyed ; the gun-
ners served their guns, and fired as regularly as if they were
out of harm ; the flames were subdued ; and the head of the
noble ship was turned upward, and rushed by the forts.
The terrible ram "Manassas" drove her huge iron beak furi-
ously into the starboard gangway of "The Brooklyn," firing
from her opened hatchway at the smoke-stack of the latter
as she came up, whose bags of sand protected her smoke-
pipe, and her ingenious chain-armor saved her hulk. The
ram passed on, and " The Brooklyn " rushed up the stream.
Still under the raking fire of Fort Jackson, she was furiously
assailed by a large rebel steamer; but she hurled against her
a heavy broadside, and sent her out of the fight. Next,
abreast of Fort St. Philip, with only thirteen-feet soundings,
she brought all her guns to bear, and poured in a storm of
grape and canister that silenced the fort; while the men
were seen from the masts of " The Brooklyn," by the blaze
of her shells, running in terror for a place of safety.*
The apparently impossible was achieved. Farragut's
squadron had passed the forts, the rebel squadron was de-
stroyed, and the great battle was over. The sequel of this
naval engagement, which will ever be renowned in history,
rapidly developed. Our vessels of war moved on to New
Orleans, silencing every battery on their way. The scene
in the city beggars all description. We have no pleasure
in detailing the anguish and the rage of these misguided
people. Their obstinacy and insolence, however unwise,
were perfectly natural. The flag of rebellion was hauled
down, and the stars and stripes waved in its place. The
rebel army, under Lovell, had wisely left the city to the
* See Greeley, ii. pp. 83-93 ; also Headley's Farragut, pp. 67-69.
THE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 631
mercy of its conquerors. Ships and cotton had become, by
their own hands, blazing masses of fire on the water : their
stores were consumed, or given up to pillage ; their forts
were surrendered; their costly munitions of war were de-
stroyed or captured ; their capital was taken ; and the
American fleet moved boldly up the Mississippi to be hailed
with shouts of joy by the fleet from above. Europe saw
that there was no safety in acknowledging the Confederacy.
"THE MONITOR" AND "THE MERRIMACK."
In the ordinary materials of a navy, the Confederates could
not rival the United States. It was, therefore, a just con-
clusion upon their part, that, by at least one iron-clad, they
must be made stronger than the Union at any given place
or time. For this purpose, they raised our fine ship " Merri-
mack," cut her down, and covered her with enormous plates
of iron, weighing in all over seven hundred tons. They
furnished her also with a strong cast-iron beak, designed to
be driven furiously into the sides of our wooden vessels, and
sink them.
She was finished, and had received her battery of eight
nine-inch Dahlgren, and four seven-and-a-half-inch Brooks
rifle-guns, by the fifth day of March, 1862.
At about one o'clock on the 8th, she was seen, in company
with two gunboats, rounding Sewall's Point, and advancing
toward Newport News. Her advent had been for some time
expected and dreaded ; and, now that she actually appeared,
all true hearts were moved with dread.
Receiving the terrific broadsides of "The Congress" as
she passed, without showing the least concern, she bore down
upon " The Cumberland." The fire of both these brave ships
was well delivered ; but their heavy shot glanced from the ar-
mor of " The Merrimack," doing her no harm. Presently, with
a full head of steam, she drove her strong beak into the side
of " The Cumberland," and opened a chasm, through which
632 THI-: <;KKAT REPUBLIC.
the water rushed ; and she began at once to fill and settle.
Tier brave officers and men resolved never to strike her col-
ors to the defiant rebel monitor; and, firing broadside after
broadside, they went down with their colors living.
-The Congress" had been eniraired by "'•' The Jamestown"
c o o «/
and •• Yorktown." consorts of " The Merrimack ;" and. attempt-
ing to escape, she ran aground. She gallantly maintained
the unequal fight until the crushing shot of" The Merrimack "
had torn her almost literally to pieces, and she had taken fire
in several places ; then, to save her wounded from the
ilauies, she lowered her ilag.
•• The Minnesota," " Roanoke," and - St. Lawrence," at-
tempting to escape one after another, ran aground in water
so shallow, that they could not be reached by the monster,
.or they would have been destroyed with the utmost ease.
Evening coming on. "The Merrimack" with her two attend-
£j O
ants turned her prow toward Norfolk. Her Confederate offi-
cers and men, proud of her achievements, had no doubt of
being able to finish the destruction of our squadron in the
morning, and move on to New York if they pleased. The
joy in Norfolk, and soon throughout the Confederacy, was
unbounded, only equalled by the dismay and forebodings at
Fortress Monroe a~.;d through the North.
At eight o'clock that evening, a small, low, nondescript
vessel made her appearance : it was Ericsson's '•' Monitor."
commanded by Capt. John Lorimer Worden. But, seeing her
diminutive size, the hearts of our brave officers and men
sank within them.
The night wore away; and. early on the 9th of March.
•• The Merrimack " came out airain. Moving deliberately
a o «/
toward " The Minnesota," she saw what, in derision, was
termed a " Yankee cheese-box," steam directly up by her side.
The great battle promptly began. The heavy shots of" The
Merrimack" rolled harmless from the turret of "The Moni-
tor ;" and her commander, amazed at the audacity of the little
craft, and seeing that he could not penetrate her armor.
THE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 633
dashed over her to crush and sink her : but this also failed.
In the mean time, a shot from " The Monitor " found way into
the armor of " The Merrimack," and she began to leak. She
turned suddenly, and hurled her missiles at u The Minnesota "
and " The Oregon ; " but " The Monitor " slipped in between
her and her victims. Angry at this impertinence, gathering
frightful momentum, she drove her beak fiercely at the little
" Monitor," and, shivering her own timbers, passed by, leaving
only a dent in tho armor of the mysterious, audacious little
craft. After four hours' conflict, mortified and crippled, the
monster rebel limped away ; and her career of destruction
was ended.
It is useless to attempt a description of the results of this
great battle. The exultation passed from the rebels to the
friends of the government. Our surviving naval heroes
could only cheer, and offer thanks to God for their deliver-
ance. The American people, and presently the world, knew
that a complete revolution in naval warfare had been wrought,
as it were, in a day. There are no limits to the effect of this
grand historic triumph of liberty in Hampton Roads.
But how came this mighty little stranger here at this
precise juncture ? The genius and science of Ericsson had
triumphed. The government had made a cautious contract
with him ; and he had, with incredible energy, embodied his
original elaborate thoughts in this little floating, masked,
turreted battery.
If, in his wandering search for patronage, France or Eng-
land had seized this invention ; if the timid confidence of our
government had been delayed a single day ; if there had
been one particle less of executive ability in the great
Swedish American ; if there had been one failure in mate-
rial, or the adjustments of numerous parts of this wonderful
combination of inventions constructed in so many different
places ; finally, if the ocean had been wild arid perilous, so as
to have detained "The Monitor," — our squadron in Hampton
Roads must have been utterly ruined, the blockade broken,
80
034 THE GIIEAT REPUBLIC.
and our wooden ships everywhere dashed to pieces and
sunk. But God superintended this whole affair. All these
contingencies were in his hand ; and every one of them
obeyed his will to save a favored nation.
THE PENINSULA.
The winter had worn away; the early spring was rapidly
passing; and the vast Army of the Potomac was still engaged
in drilling in and around Washington. President Lincoln,
who always acted for the people, ordered an advance.
Gen. MfClellan had under his immediate command about
oiK1 hundred thousand men. With this splendid force he
moved upon Yorktown; but not deeming it prudent to at-
tack Mag-ruder, who had only about seven thousand men in
command, he '-sat down" before the town, and -sent to
Washington for siege guns." He continued thirty davs in-
trenching, and preparing to open fire upon the enemy's works
by breaching batteries. He would have been ready by the
Gtli of May; but, on the 4th, he discovered that there were no
rebels there : Magruder had retreated, with the purpose of
finding a better place for resistance. A prompt pursuit fol-
lowed, under (Jen. George D. Stoneman. Hooker, under com-
mand of Heintzelman, reached the enemy's new position
at Williamsburg. and, with characteristic impetuosity, ad-
vanced at once to battle, intending to give him no time for
preparation. Gen. J. E. Johnston, commander of the Confed-
erate forces, had hastened his troops to meet Gen. M'Clellan
and defend Richmond. Gen. Hooker was therefore confront-
ed by Long-street in force ; and a fierce and terrible con-
flict ensued. By some strange oversight, this brave com-
mander was left to contend against enormous odds for nine
hours without re-enforcements. At length. Gen. Hancock,
bv order of Gen. Sutnner. reached the enemy's left, and by a
» •/ •/
brilliant charge drove him from his position at the point of
the bavonet.
THE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 635
This desperate battle cost us fifteen hundred and seventy-
five men in killed, wounded, and missing ; but it compelled
the Confederates to retreat, leaving more than a thousand
wounded on the field.
Gen. Franklin's division had been sent by Gen. M'Clellan
up York River to West Point. He was joined by Gen. Dana
with a part of Gen. Sedgwick's division. After a severe
engagement, the enemy, composed in part of Wade Hamp-
ton's legion and Whiting's Texan division, withdrew.
Gen. Stonernan now moved to open communication with
Gen. Franklin. Gen. Smith's division followed on the direct
road to Richmond.
The Confederates, deeming Norfolk unsafe, abandoned it,
blowing up and burning every thing that could be destroyed,
including the renowned "Merrimack" and two other iron-
clads unfinished. The city was surrendered to Gen. Wool
by the civil authorities.
Norfolk in our hands, and " The Merrimack " destroyed, our
fleet, under command of Commodore Rogers, now moved up
the James River to within eight miles of Richmond. This
brought him immediately under the enemy's heavy guns at
the famous Drury's Bluff, two hundred feet above the water,
with the river obstructed by piles and vessels ; sharp-shooters
and infantry in rifle-pits greatly increasing his danger.
His men fought bravely, until the bursting of a hundred-
pound Parrott on " The Naugatuck " added a new terror to
the situation ; and the fleet moved down the river.
M'Clellan's forces were now on the Chickahominy, a slug-
gish stream passing through a miserable, sickly swamp. At
New Bridge, on the 24th of May; the hostile forces came
into collision. The battle was fierce ; but the triumph of the
government forces compelled the retreat of the rebels, and
removed the contest to Seven Pines or Fair Oaks, on the
direct road to Richmond.
On the 31st of May, at one o'clock, P.M., the bloody battle
of Fair Oaks was initiated by an overwhelming attack
C3G 'nn-: GUI-: AT REPUBLIC.
from Gen. D. II. Kill's division on Gen. Casey, who was not
quite prepared for it. Prodigies of valor were achieved by
both sides on this dreadful field. Men fell, wounded and
dvimr. or slain in heaps. Distinguished officers, in laru-e nuin-
*/ i_- •
hers, were sacrificed as of no value. The advantage was
decidedly with the Confederates, until a quarter-past three
o'clock, P.M.. when Gen. Heintzel man's division came warmly
into the battle. The rebel commander-in-chief fell danger-
ously wounded. The command devolving upon Gen. G. W.
Smith, he was suddenly paralyzed, and borne from the field.
Jefferson Davis, in person, led a rebel charge to repel the
advancing columns of the Republic. The spirited command
of Gen. Sedgwick now came in between Heintzelman and
Couch, and poured a torrent of canister from his twenty-
four guns; and Sedgwick. moving his columns gallantly for-
ward, swept the field. Farther to the right the battle raged,
where Gen. Abercrombie was fighting against overwhelming
forces : and Gorman's brigade of Sedgwick's division moved
promptly to his assistance : other regiments, under Gen. Burns,
came up under a most destructive enfilading lire ; and. as they
were in danger of being overwhelmed, the voice of Burns,
" Steady, men, steady ! " rolling along their ranks, was an-
swered by cheer after cheer, and the rebels were checked.
Farther still to our right the Confederate forces were hurled
against our ranks, where Gens. Sunnier, Sedgwick, Dana,
Burns, and Gorman, with the greatest bravery and skill, com-
manded our men. At eight o'clock, P.M.. the rebels gave
up the contest for the day, and left our forces in possession
of the field.
There was more fighting on the next day ; but the Confed-
erates were not fierce and hopeful as before. It was the
sequel of a great battle already decided. Neither party
could crush the other; but the advantage was decidedly with
us. M'Clellan's despatch to the War Department said, - The
victory is complete, and all credit is due to our officers
and men."
THE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 637
Next morning, June 2, a bold reconnoissance by Gen.
Hooker to within four miles of Richmond showed no enemy
but pickets.
Gen. Robert E. Lee was now in command of the Confed-
erates, and had evidently resolved to collect all his forces
to resist M'Clellan and save Richmond. June 25, we were
vigorously attacked by A. P. Hill at Mechanicsville. D. P.
Hill's and Longstreet's divisions came into action ; but our
brave men repulsed them with dreadful slaughter. M'Call's
reserves, who had never before been in battle, behaved with
the courage and daring of veterans.
M'Clellan, perceiving that the enemy would soon be
strongly re-enforced, withdrew our troops to what he deemed
a better position. This order was obeyed at some risk, as
our forces were compelled, while they were foiling back, to
resist furious onsets of the enemy. We were at length ready,
and the terrible battle of Gaines's Mill immediately followed.
Stonewall Jackson, generally supposed to be in the Shenan-
doah Valley, at the most critical moment of the battle came
on to the field with his splendid corps, and fell upon our
right flank with the greatest fury. The carnage was dread-
ful. After a long and brave resistance, overwhelmed by num-
bers, Porter's infantry were compelled to fall back ; when
he opened upon the Confederates with eighty cannon, and
checked their advance. Cook charged their right flank with
his cavalry, but was received with such a withering fire,
that his horses became utterly unmanageable, and, by their
wild movements, threw some of Porter's men into confu-
sion. At this critical moment, French's and Meagher's men
rushed with cheers to the front, and the enemy postponed
the battle till morning. During the night, however, our
forces were withdrawn across the Chickahominy. This
movement enabled the enemy to claim a victory, and cost
us the loss of our base of supplies, with enormous quantities
of military stores.
During these contests, there was the greatest consternation
G38 THE GUKAT I1EITBLIC.
in Richmond. '• The Confederate Congress had adjourned in
such liaste as to show that the members were anxious to pro-
vide for their own personal safety. President Davis sent
his family to North Carolina, and a part of the government
archives were packed ready for transportation. At the rail-
road depots were piles of baggage awaiting transportation;
and the trains were crowded with women and children, going
to distant points in the country, and escaping from the alarm
and distress in Richmond.'"1
What must have been the surprise of the rebels, when the
next morning, after the display of such bravery and strength.
i «/ •/
the Union army had commenced a most perilous retreat from
the Chickahominy towards the James River! The pursuit,
at first cautious in the extreme, became a succession of most
violent assaults from an army roused b}' all the moral effects
of a great victory. At Malvern Hill, while two-thirds of his
men were vet struo;aling to disengage themselves from the
J l^Cv O G Z5
swamps of the Chickahominy and the furious attacks of the
enemy, Gen. M'Clellan found it necessary to make a bold
stand to stive the Army of the Potomac from destruction.
On the first day of July, Jackson moved on to the attack,
with Whiting's division on his left, D. II. Hill's on the right,
and Swell's in the centre. Iluger's and Magruder's men came
up to join in the action, while Longstreet and A. P. Hill were
held in reserve. The forces of D. II. Hill advanced against
our right ; but they were swept down by a lire that no men
could resist. Jackson sent his own division and a part of
Swell's to Hill's support ; but success on that part of the field
was impossible. On our left. Magruder ordered fifteen thou-
sand infantry to charge. '-There was." says Pollard, •• a run
of more than six hundred yards up a rising ground, an un-
broken Hat beyond of several hundred yards, one hundred
pieces of cannon behind breastworks, and heavy masses of
infantry in support. The brigades advanced bravely across
the open field, raked by the fire of the cannon and large
* Pollard, p. 211.
THE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 639
bodies of infantry. Some were broken, and gave way ;
others approached close to the guns, driving back the in-
fantry, compelling the advanced batteries to retire to escape
capture, and mingling their dead with those of the enemy.
To add to the horrors of the scene, and the immense
slaughter in front of the batteries, the gunboats increased
the rapidity of their broadsides ; and the immense missiles
came through the air with great noise, tearing off the tree-
tops, and bursting with loud explosions. Towards sunset,
the concussion of artillery was terrific. The hill was clothed
in sheets of flame ; shells rained athwart the horizon ; the
blaze of the setting sun could scarcely be discerned through
the canopy of smoke which floated from the surface of the
plains and rivers. Piles of dead lay thick, close to the
enemy's batteries ; and the baleful fires of death yet blazed
among the trees, where our shattered columns had sought an
imperfect cover behind the slight curtain of the fort." Night
came on to stop this dreadful carnage. The rebels retired,
feeling that they had not strength enough left for what they
had hoped would be a grand final triumph. They had failed
in their brilliant charge, and innumerable fugitives carried dis-
may to Richmond. Our right was unbroken. We had gained
a great victory, and yet Gen. M'Clellan fled from it as from a
crushing defeat. The rebel brigadier-general J. R Tremble
says, " The next morning, by dawn, I went off to ask for
orders, when I found the whole army in the utmost disorder ;
thousands of straggling men, asking every passer-by for their
regiment; ambulances, wagons, and artillery obstructing
every road ; and altogether, in a drenching rain, presenting
a scene of the most woful and disheartening confusion."
Just when our splendid troops, with spirits still unbroken,
were expecting every moment to receive the order to
advance through these shattered rebel forces to Richmond,
which was now so nearly helpless at their feet, they were
ordered to retreat. It was too much to bear. Some cursing,
and gnashing their teeth with rage, others weeping with
040 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
disappointment, these noble men were hurried away to seek a
place of safety, leaving multitudes of their dead and wounded
to the care of the enemy.
For three months of excessive caution, these heroic men
had fought their way up to within four miles of Richmond,
during which the Confederates had every opportunity to rally
all their men. and prepare for the conflict ; and they had used
it with the utmost industry and skill. After one continuous
battle, lasting seven days, during which they had suffered in-
credible hardships, amid the carnage of battle-fields and the
mire and miasma of the swamps, and seen more than fifteen
thousand of their brave comrades slaughtered, wounded, or
captured, they had at length wrenched victory from the
"rasp of their deadlv enemies, and were vet eighty-six thou-
o */ *• ^ *••
sand men of unfaltering courage and unconquerable prowess;
but the}' were now to leave their fields of heroic daring in
disgrace! Never was obedience a sterner test of loyalty ;
but thev obeyed. The campaign of the Peninsula was over :
and our enraged, dispirited army must haste to unite with
Pope's command to save Washington.
Cedar Mountain, and '• the second Bull Run " as it is com-
monly called, followed not long after ; and, while men and
parties differed as to the responsibility, the disgrace came
upon the nation to heighten the dissatisfaction with the con-
duct of the war.
Why were all these disasters ? Why did not our brave
and superb army of the Potomac capture the rebel capital ?
Why, instead, must our own capital be menaced in conse-
quence of disgraceful defeat, when our forces were apparent-
ly strong enough to achieve victory ? By many it will be
answered, they were not well commanded; by others, that
they were not properly re-enforced, and were attempting
impossibilities. Only one answer, however, can be final.
The nation was not yet ready to do justice. If we had
closed the war then, there would have been no proclamation
of liberty.
THE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 641
ANTIETAM.
The Confederate idea of carrying the war into the North
had been delayed much longer than was intended ; but the
result of M'Clellan's Peninsular campaign, and Pope's defeat
at " the second Bull Run," determined this question. On
the first day of September, Gen. Lee, with a large por-
tion of the Army of Virginia, moved towards Maryland:
on the 6th he was in Frederick City, from which he
marched his aggressive force to the severe defeat of South
Mountain.
On the 16th, these old antagonists, M'Clellan and Lee,
with large armies, met on the field of Antietam. The im-
petuous Hooker hurled his brave division against the veter-
ans of Stonewall Jackson, and compelled them, after a
dreadful conflict, to recede from their position. Early came
forward to replace Jackson's division, which, however, un-
subdued, would soon re-appear on the field. Rickett and
Meade now moved forward with spirit, and drove back the
rebel lines. Hood's division, which had disappeared, came
up again with great energy. Doubleday's " best brigade "
moved forward in double-quick, and seized the crest of
the hill. Their brave commander, Hartsuff, fell, severely
wounded ; but they held this critical point alone for half an
hour. Rickett's division marched boldly to this centre, but
recoiled from the terrific fire of the foe. Mansfield came to
their help, but was driven back. On our right, Doubleday's
guns destroyed a rebel battery. Rickett's men rallied and
stood firm, but were not able to advance. Hooker brought
up Crawford's and Gordon's brigades and Mansfield's troops
to his aid, and commenced a forward movement, to carry the
woods ; but, receiving a severe wound, was compelled to
retire from the field. Sumner, now in command here,
brought up to the bloody cornfield Sedgwick's division of
his own corps. The rebel M'Laws, after a severe night's
march, moved into the field to the support of Jackson, and,
(j42 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
with Walker's and Early's divisions, assailed our brave men
with dreadful energy, and retook the cornfield, but re-
coiled from the murderous fire of our batteries. Franklin,
with his fresh troops, now appeared in the battle. He
sent Slocum to the centre, and ordered Smith to retake the
contested ground. Rushing suddenly upon the rebels, they
were swept from the field, which thereafter remained in our
hands.
For four dreadful hours, French's division of Sumner's
corps withstood the onsets of the Confederates, having
gained an advanced position at the close of the day. Rich-
ardson's division of the same corps came into action, the
Irish brigades being conspicuous for gallant and fearless bear-
ing. The enemy now attempted to turn, first the left, and
then the right, of this division, but were repulsed with heavy
loss. They then charged with desperation upon the centre,
but were hurled back with great slaughter. The brave
Gen. Richardson fell, and Hancock took his place. Fur-
ther attempts of the rebels showed that they had been seri-
ously weakened by their losses ; and the night closed the
action here, leaving the advantage with us.
In the afternoon, M-Clellan ordered up a large number of
Porter's corps, held till then in reserve. Burnside. now re-
enforced, charged across the bridge and up the hill, and
took the heights. A. P. Hill's division, coming up fresh
from Harper's Ferry, rushed upon our ranks, now disor-
dered by victory, and hurled them back ; but, recoiling from
the terrific fire of our batteries, they made no attempt to
cross the bridge. The lion-hearted Jackson, after recon-
noitring, declined the attempt to obey the orders of Lee to
turn our right, and wrench a victory from the firm, deter-
mined ranks of our bleeding freemen. So closed, indeci-
sively, " the bloodiest day that America ever saw." * More
than eighty-seven thousand Union men and at least sixty
thousand Confederates entered the field ; while the iium-
* Greeley, ii. 211.
THE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 643
bers, courage, and skill of the forces actually engaged were
so nearly balanced, that a decisive victory was impossible.
Some twenty thousand Americans on both sides fell that
day, bleeding or dead. The Confederates fled from Mary-
land, and sought refuge beyond the lines.
VICKSBURG.
Let us now return to the West. There we find our brave
freemen still struggling to remove rebel obstructions to the
navigation of the Mississippi. The rebel flag yet floated
over Vicksburg and Port Hudson.
Farragut and Porter moved up the river. The noble fleet
came down from abovej under Flag-officer Davis, successor
to the gallant Foote. A portion of Farragut's squadron shot
by the blazing, roaring batteries; and the North-west and
the East shook hands on the great Mississippi. On the 27th
of June, a most terrific bombardment commenced. The
brave fleet "steaming up stream, in front of the city, the
gunboats delivered broadside after broadside at the batteries,
while the mortar-ketches from below filled the air with
bombs." For eighteen days, this storm of fire and iron hail
fell upon " The Queen City of the Bluffs " and its formidable
batteries, to be answered only by belching flames and frown-
ing defiance. At length, an ugly ram, — " The Arkansas," —
mailed and fearless, came out, and showed power to trample
down our frailer wooden crafts. Farragut, too wise and
brave to risk his noble fleet, shot down the river; and
u Vicksburg ! " was shouted by ten thousand voices, as " the.
Gibraltar of the Confederacy."
The problem of Vicksburg now came back upon Grant
and his army of Western heroes. For one whole year, this
cool, great mind struggled with this problem ; much of the
time in the midst of disasters and difficulties which would
have overwhelmed almost any other man. But the Great
Republic, at length, had found her man. The dashing, chiv-
(J44 THE CHEAT REPUBLIC.
alrous commander of Donelson was as calm and patient as
he was energetic and daring.
lie had made five desperate attempts to reach the rear of
Yicksburg. and failed : the sixth was now resolved upon.
It would have been earlier adopted; but it was so perilous,
that Gen. Grant had deemed it his duty to try every possible
method involving less of hazard to his army.
On the 20th of March, 1863. Gen. M-Clernand's corps, fol-
lowed as soon as possible by ammunition and provisions and
bv M-Pherson's corps, moved across the country, thirty-five
miles from Milliken's Bend, to a point below New Carthage.
Admiral Porter ran the gantlet of the batteries, and. with
several vessels and transports, reached the place of rendez-
vous. On the 30th of April, the troops were quietly ferried
over the river, opposite Bruinsburg. In the mean time.
Sherman made a very pretentious demonstration towards
Haynes's Bluff, which so far deceived the Confederates
as to call off attention from Grant and his movements
below. At the right time, however, he disappeared from
the menaced point, and moved rapidly on to Grant's line.
May 1, M-Clernand's corps, and Logan's division of M-Pher-
son's. fought the spirited battle of Port Gibson, with five
thousand rebels under Gen. Bowen, and beat them, both
parties losing heavily.
Gen. J. E. Johnston was now cormnander-in-chief of the
rebel armies of the West ; and he, understanding the power
of his antagonist, was gathering forces at Jackson, the capi-
tal of Mississippi, to resist his advance. But Grant's forces
were there before he was prepared ; and, having no chance
of successful resistance, he retired. Gen. Sherman promptly
destroyed railroad bridges and military stores, and moved
on after Grant, who had suddenly faced about, and was on
the rapid march towards Vicksburg.
Gen. Pemberton, the rebel commander of this stronghold,
thought the whole Confederacy depended upon it, and, dis-
obeying the orders of Johnston to evacuate it and save his
THE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 645
army, sent a strong force to strike what he supposed to be
Grant's line of communications. But Grant had no commu-
nications. He had boldly swung loose from his base of
supplies at Grand Gulf, and moved out fearlessly into the
enemy's territory, to fight his men, and compel him to feed
his army. Finding his mistake when it was too late, Pem-
berton sought to return, without a battle, to the defences of
Vicksburg ; but the movements of the Union troops were too
rapid to allow it. Finding Grant's men moving up to Ed-
ward's Station, he was compelled to form in order of battle
on Champion Hills. This was " a position of great natural
strength," and the conflict was very severe. It is frightful
to think of the result if Grant had been crushed that day
between the forces of Pemberton and Johnston : but Gen.
Johnston could not organize a sufficient force, and repair
the track of war, in time to come into this decisive action ;
and Pemberton was overthrown. His scattered forces, rush-
ing to their fortifications, carried dismay to the citizens of
Vicksburg, whose hope had been strong that Gen. Grant and
his forces would meet their destruction in their desperate
attempts to reach the rear of their city.
The last obstacle to the advance of the conqueror was
swept away ; and, just eighteen days from the crossing of
the Mississippi, he moved up to a position near the fortifi-
cations of Vicksburg.
It was the 10th of May when the doomed city was fully
invested. Then brave and desperate assaults, mines and
counter-mines, thundering cannonades, bursting shells, and
storming canister, followed each other in terrific violence,
until the morning of the glorious 4th of July; when the
suffering garrison stacked their arms, and twenty-seven
thousand Confederates surrendered to the veteran com-
mander who that day grandly represented the calm, irre-
sistible power of the Great Republic. Three days after, as
a legitimate sequence, Port Hudson was surrendered to Gen.
Banks, and the solemn pledges of the West had been fully
£46 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
redeemed : the great Mississippi was open, from its source
to the Gulf.
FREDERICKSBURG.
Gen. Burnside now commanded the Army of the Poto-
mac. He had not coveted this heavy responsibility. It
was forced upon him when the government was literally
and painfully searching for a man.
He resolved upon the direct line to Richmond, through
Fredericksburg. His intentions were too soon ascertained
by his antagonist, Gen. Lee. His advance reached Fal-
mouth, on the Rappahannock, opposite Fredericksburg, too
late for a surprise. There was a further most unfortunate
delay in the arrival of pontoons for crossing his army. This
enabled the Confederates to make ample preparations to
receive their assailants.
The town, lying directly under our guns, was at our
mercy ; but Marye's Heights, in its rear, with formidable
defences, was to be the principal scene of the bloody strife.
On the night of the llth and 12th of December, our pon-
toons, laid amid storms of rebel missiles costing us three
hundred men, were deemed practicable ; and our brave
troops began to rush over. To drive in the enemy's ad-
vance, and clear the town, was but a brief work. Opposite
Franklin's corps of forty thousand men, on our left, behind
the strongest defences, lay Stonewall Jackson, with his veter-
ans, his left commanded by A. P. Hill. Opposite the superb
divisions of Hooker and Stunner, numbering sixty thousand,
was Longstreet, whose men, with Jackson's, brought the
rebel army up to about eighty thousand.
At precisely this moment it should have been seen that
an attack upon Marye's Heights, against formidable walls,
and in the face of three hundred cannon raking every inch
of our ground, with eighty thousand brave men, skilfully
commanded, in the rear, was impracticable. The army
should have been promptly and quietly withdrawn during
THE WAR OF SLAVEEY AND FREEDOM. 647
the night, and an attempt made to turn the enemy's posi-
tion ; but Gen. Burnside dreaded more the moral effect,
upon the minds of an irritated nation, of a retrograde move-
ment, than he did the cannons and breastworks of Lee.
Couch's division, under cover of a dense fog, formed for
the assault. Brave and noble men they were ! When the
sun came up and dispelled the mist, they obeyed the order,
and moved up to be swept down by the storm of death from
rebel guns. There was no flinching, no hesitancy. On
they pressed, sublimely rising above the fear of death, and
seemed almost ready to triumph; when they dashed against
a solid stone wall, from behind which the guns of the rebels
poured destruction into their ranks. They could by no
possible exertions advance farther, but stood firmly up to
the dreadful slaughter. At length, when two-thirds of their
number had fallen, the bleeding, staggering survivors were
led away, for others, equally brave, to take their places.
Rank after rank, during all that long and dreadful day, our
men, some of them fresh recruits who had never seen a
battle, were led up to that stone wall to be swept down like
grass, and with no hopes of success.
Franklin, on the left, came into action too late for deci-
sive effect ; but, defying death, his men rushed against rebel
columns and defences. Commanded immediately by Rey-
nolds and Bayard, they went into action to conquer or die.
Meade's division, and a large number of Hooker's, re-en-
forced these struggling heroes, and fought with the utmost
gallantry. Portions of A. P. Hill's rebel corps were over-
powered and separated by their dreadful energy ; and two
hundred prisoners were taken. Here, as success seemed to
be just at hand, the fresh troops of Early and D. H. Hill
rushed to the front. They had marched all night from Port
Royal, and came up in time to turn the scale against us.
The carnage of that dreadful day defies all description.
It was the same everywhere ; moving on calmly, or rushing
impetuously ; falling, dead and wounded together, in writh-
048 THK GREAT REPUBLIC.
ing. gory piles of martyrs to liberty. Fifteen thousand men.
as brave as ever marched to the field of death, had fallen,
dead or wounded, or were prisoners, reserved for a harder
fate.
The next morning, Burnside was determined to make
another assault: but the stern remonstrance of Sumner,
sustained by other commanders, controlled his desperate
purpose ; and. after facing his antagonist for two days, he
withdrew his forces across the river, the keenest sufferer of
all the suffering millions upon whose ears the news of that
day's disaster fell.
Burnside, a brave soldier, a noble man. and a good division
commander, was relieved by Hooker. Bold, dashing, irre-
sistible in command of forces which he could fairly wield,
Hooker wras, nevertheless, quite inadequate to the respon-
sibilities of commanding a vast au^ressive armv. The par-
O •/ _L
tial successes and ultimate failure of Chancellorsville fol-
lowed Fredericksburo; ; and the scene of conflict changed.
O * O
GETTYSBURG.
In the judgment of Lee and the Confederate authorities
at Richmond, the time had now fully come to advance in
earnest into the territory of freedom. The Union forces had
just been twice beaten, and must be supposed to be greatly
demoralized. The time of considerable numbers of men
had expired, and they were mustered out. The anxious
politicians of France and England, making nothing of South
Mountain and Antietam, and turning their eyes from the
West, argued from the Peninsular campaign, and from Fred-
ericksburg and Chancellorsville, that the grand catastrophe
of the Great Republic was at hand ; and it is probable that
rebel emissaries near their courts had reason for saving that
«/ o
a bold and successful advance into the North would be fol-
lowed by a recognition of the Confederacy. The rebel army
was in the highest spirits, and believed it was absolutely in-
THE WAR OF SLAVEEY AND FEEEDOM. 649
vincible. These brave and desperate men longed to com-
mence their proud march through the fields of rich and
abundant supplies, for the destruction of Philadelphia, Balti-
more, and Washington ; and even New York and Boston
seemed to them to be within the reach of their irresistible
power.
Immense preparations had been made for the grand inva-
sion. During the first days of June, this movement com-
menced. Soon Hooker, who was on the alert, found Lee's
advance at Culpeper. Presently he was pouring troops
through the Shenandoah Valley. Ewell dashed across into
Maryland, and, as the van of a large army of invasion, pro-
duced the greatest alarm, extending through Pennsylvania
into the North. Hooker did not dare to uncover Washing-
ton until Lee left the Shenandoah Valley. The Confederate
general had thus ample time to bring up his forces ;
and, by the 24th of June, he was ready to follow Ewell
across the Potomac. Ewell was already in Pennsylvania :
Chambersburg and Carlisle had been entered in triumph ;
and Harrisburg, the capital, was menaced by his advance.
Hanover and York were soon reached by other rebel forces.
In the mean time, under the prompt orders of Gov. Cur-
tin, the hardy sons of Pennsylvania were rallying to the
defence of their noble State. At Harrisburg and at Colum-
bia, they were gathering to dispute the passage of the Sus-
quehanna and the rebel advance on Philadelphia.
The Army of the Potomac showed the unconquerable
spirit of the North. Re-organized, and strengthened by re-
cruits moving to the front at the call of their beloved Pres-
ident, Hooker was soon at Frederick, Md., with a powerful
force, making demonstrations towards Lee's communications
at Harper's Ferry. Lee's advance upon Harrisburg was now
arrested. The army of the United States, he discovered,
was not, as he had supposed, broken and powerless, hovering
about the defences of Washington to preserve its existence,
but a strong, active force, too formidable to be left in his rear.
82
650 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
A retreat was not to be thought of. The moral effect upon
his proud army of invasion, and on his own reputation, would
be perilous in the extreme : besides, it was too late ; a great
battle was inevitable. He wisely called in his troops, and
began to threaten our communications. Hooker asked Gen.
Halleck, now commander-in-chief at Washington, for ten thou-
sand troops at Harper's Ferry to join with Slocum's- corps,
and make a vigorous demonstration in the rear of the rebel
force. Being refused, he resigned ; and our government again
tried the perilous experiment of a change of commanders
on the eve of a great and decisive battle. Gen. G. G. Meade
was advanced to the command. Greatly surprised, he, how-
ever, acted promptly. On the 29th of June, he issued his
orders, and moved his army from Fredericksburg, deter-
mined to give battle.
The two armies, marching at right angles, came unexpect-
edly into collision at Gettysburg. Gen. Meade had selected
his battle-field on Pipe Creek. Gen. Lee had resolved to
wait for an attack. But Providence selected the field : and
it was well ; for, to all human appearance, the future of the
armies, and perhaps of the nation, depended upon it.
On the morning of the 1st of July, a Union force of cav-
alry, under Buford, was reported as being in Gettysburg.
Gen. A. P. Hill moved up with two divisions of his corps to
drive Buford away. Hill attacked at once, but found him-
self dealing with a strong, wily antagonist. Buford kept his
forces active, but chiefly in reserve; until, at about ten o'clock,
A.M., as he expected, the head of Reynolds's column appeared,
commanded by the gallant Wadsworth. Without waiting
for orders, he resolved to aid and relieve Buford. He moved
to the rear of the town, beyond Seminary Ridge, and was
attacked before he had time to form a line, and with but
one brigade and a single battery at command. The brave
and daring Gen. Reynolds ordered his men to charge ; when
he was struck by a rebel bullet, and fell, mortally wounded.
His heroic command, energized rather than disheartened
THE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 651
by this great disaster, rushed forward with such impetuosity
as to sweep every thing before them ; taking the whole rebel
brigade, including their commander, prisoners. At this mo-
ment, Davis's Mississippi brigade appeared on the right, rush-
ing for our only battery ; but they were overwhelmed, and
also taken prisoners. Doubleday's and Robinson's divisions
of our first corps, and Fender's rebel division, now reached
the field ; and the battle raged with still greater fury. At
noon, the gallant first corps, greatly diminished by the
numbers of their slain, stood firm ; and the Union troops
had thus far been superior to their assailants. At one, P.M.,
Howard came up with our eleventh corps, and moved to
the west and north of Gettysburg. Jackson's veterans, now
commanded by Ewell, marched rapidly up from the Susque-
hanna, and, seizing a superior position, broke through the
weak centre of the extended Union line, and took five thou-
sand prisoners.
It was not till late in the afternoon that Gen. Meade re-
ceived intelligence of the battle in progress and the death
of Gen. Reynolds. He ordered Gen. Hancock to Gettys-
burg to survey the field, and report. This brave man ar-
rived just in time to meet the fugitives from our great dis-
aster, with the Confederates in hot pursuit. He assisted our
noble Gen. Howard in rallying the troops and forming a
new line of battle, presenting so firm a front as to induce
the Confederate commander to pause. Night came on, and
we were not destroyed.
Meade, perceiving that the field of the great battle had
been determined for him, ordered his main army to march ;
and all night these brave men pressed forward, so that, in the
morning, all but the sixth corps had reached their positions.
On the morning of the 2d, Lee saw that he was in the
midst of a great battle, which, entirely contrary to his in-
tentions, had been brought on by his own troops. God,
and not the great commanders, controlled events that day.
Gen. Lee determined upon his order of battle. Ewell
052 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
moved against our right on Gulp's Hill, occupied by the
twelfth corps and Wadsworth's division of the first. Gen.
Hill threatened our centre on Cemetery Hill, where the
eleventh corps stood by the side of Robinson's and Double-
day's divisions of the first, connecting with Hancock's sec-
ond corps. But the principal attack was to be delivered by
Longstreet upon our left under Gen. Sickles, who, instead
of making firm connection with Hancock's left, as Gen.
Meade expected, had thrown his right half or three-quarters
of a mile forward of Hancock's flank. At four o'clock, Long-
street's forces moved boldly upon our left, which, exposed by
the peculiar position of Sickles's corps, could not resist the
shock. Fighting desperately, we were flanked and broken ;
and the Confederates, rushing up the ravine with exultant
shouts to seize Little Round Top, the key of the position,
met Vincent's brigades, which grappled with them in
fierce conflict. Woods's brigade re-enforced Vincent* Both
these brave men fell amid the dreadful carnage ; but, by the
death-struggles of these two heroic brigades, the position
was saved. In the mean time, Longstreet's right advanced
with great intrepidity, enveloping Sickles's left ; Birney's
division was compromised, and driven over the ridge ; Sic-
kles was borne from the field, severely wounded. Humphrey's
division, handled with consummate skill, and fighting des-
perately, gained the crest, and formed bravely and defiantly,
with only three thousand men. Hancock promptly re-en-
forced him ; and the Confederates, exhausted, recoiled from
a fire too severe for their strength or courage.
Terrific battles raged on Humphrey's left. There Barnes's
division went down, and Caldwell's division lost half their
number. Ayers's regulars rushed in : but the Confederates
were soon thundering at their flank and rear ; and they
bravely cut their way through to Little Round Top, leaving
nothing to protect our centre. The Confederates moved up
with the hope of completing their triumph, but saw sud-
denly before them the unbroken ranks of the fifth and
THE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 653
sixth corps. They hesitated ; and Crawford's division of
Pennsylvania reserves moved down upon them with such
fury, that they fell back, and adjourned the conflict till
another night should pass. These heroic Confederates slept
on their arms in the wheat-field.
At six o'clock, P.M., Ewell formed Jackson's veterans in
two columns, — one attacking Cemetery Hill; the other,
Gulp's Hill. So many of our forces had been removed from
Gulp's Hill, that Ewell's troops easily entered our works,
and remained for the night. Early's brigades swept away
such portions of the ill-fated eleventh corps as remained,
and gained a foothold on Cemetery Hill within our works ;
but the brave resistance of our artillerists, and the rapid and
powerful advance by Carroll's brigade of the second, hurled
them back, and the battle of the 2d of July was closed.
On the 3d of July, Lee made his last terrible assault
upon the Union forces on the heights of Gettysburg. He
determined upon a grand cannonade and charge by Long-
street's corps, and expected great assistance from Ewell
against our right, who retained and re-enforced his impor-
tant position on Gulp's Hill ; but, before daylight, Gen.
Meade hurled the twelfth corps upon Ewell's advance, and
by successive struggles, lasting till near noon, drove his men
from the invaluable position they had left on the afternoon
of the 2d to aid their struggling brethren in arms.
At one o'clock, P.M., a hundred and fifty-five rebel cannon
opened their terrific fire upon our ranks of embattled free-
men ; and for three dreadful hours this frightful cannonade
continued. Eighty Union guns replied from Cemetery Ridge
and Cemetery Hill, producing, in grandeur of display, " the
greatest artillery combat that ever occurred on this conti-
nent." But prudent energy and military science had pro-
tected our men, so that the casualties from the rebel guns
were comparatively few.
At three o'clock, P.M., Pickett's assaulting columns, number-
ing, with their supports, about eighteen thousand superb
654 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
veterans, moved slowly and steadily out from the front of
Seminary Ridge. Our wise artillery commander had econo-
mized ammunition and strength ; and, at precisely the right
moment, he poured into them a fire so destructive, that per-
fect order seemed a physical impossibility. Pickett's left sup-
porting division, under Heath, staggered, and fell back : his
right supporting column, writhing in death-agonies, fell in
the rear. On, on, came the calm, dreadful columns, clos-
ing up their ranks, as heavy missiles from Union cannon
ploughed through them.
Our infantry reserved their fire until these heroic men
had reached almost to Hancock's front. Suddenly a storm
of bullets from Stanard's brigade fell upon their right ; then
a withering fire from the divisions of Gibbon and Hays, with
canister from Woodruff's battery. At this point, the Con-
federates responded ; but they were swept down in numbers
so appalling, that they broke and fled ; and fifteen hundred
men, with their colors, rushed for safety to the ranks of our
grim warriors, and surrendered.
The right of the attacking column was assailed with so
deadly a fire from Hall's and Harrow's brigades and the
brave Green-mountain regiments, that they fell into the cen-
tre. Still Pickett sternly held his assaulting column to its
dreadful task, and hurled his men against the brigade of
Gen. Webb, which, for the moment, seemed to give way ;
and daring rebels leaped our breastworks, and terrible hand-
to-hand death-struggles ensued. Col. Devereux, of the Nine-
teenth Massachusetts, begged permission of Gen. Hancock
to lead his men into the very centre of this destructive
conflict; and it was granted. Col. Mallon's Forty-second
New- York was ordered up with him, and Harrow's brigade
followed. Our colors waved in the breach ; the rebels fell
in heaps of dead and wounded ; the survivors broke and fled
in dismay, or surrendered to our brave men ; and the victory
was ours.
The glorious 4th witnessed the retreat of Lee's shattered
THE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 655
columns from the field of Gettysburg, and the surren-
der of Vicksburg to Grant. A day of loftier triumph had
never shone upon the Great Republic.
SHENANDOAH VALLEY.
This fine portion of Virginia was destined to be the scene
of almost innumerable conflicts. Here the renowned Stone-
wall Jackson met Shields, and recoiled from his terrible
blows ; then, moving swiftly to meet Fremont, fell suddenly
upon Kenerly, and crushed him ; drove Banks from Stras-
burg, and delivered battle at Winchester ; failed to destroy
seven thousand men, or even capture their principal trains,
with twenty thousand victorious veterans ; compelled the
President to call off McDowell's troops from re-enforcing
M'Clellan on the Peninsula ; fought and retreated by turns ;
eluded his gathering pursuers by the celerity of his move-
ments ; and, when he was expected to dash into Washington,
suddenly fell upon our forces in death-struggles on the Chick-
ahominy.
In this valley, the chivalrous Sheridan struck, with stun-
ning blows, the reckless Early, fighting him desperately and
beating him at Opequan, then, two days later, at Fisher's
Hill.
Sheridan, having chased his antagonist out of the val-
ley, dashed through its principal towns as far as Staunton, and
destroyed railroads, forage, and every thing else that could
sustain a rebel army, made a flying visit to Washington.
Early, informed of this, resolved to make a desperate effort
during his absence to retrieve his fortunes. He made a hasty
night-march, and, just at break of day, fell upon our un-
suspecting troops at Cedar Creek; killing, scattering, and
taking them prisoners, almost without resistance. All efforts
to rally our flying men were useless : every brigade rushing
up to stay the tide was overwhelmed. The rebels seized our
camp and provisions, taking twenty-four guns and twelve
hundred prisoners.
G5G Tin-: GREAT REPUBLIC.
Sheridan, on his return from Washington, had slept at
AYinchester. Humors threw him early into the saddle.
Riding rapidly south, he learned the news of his disaster,
and then met the fugitives of his beaten army. Address-
ing words of encouragement to them in the most pleasant
and assured manner, and deliberately re-forming his lines,
he ordered an attack, which, after a dreadful struggle, over-
whelmed the rebels, restored our guns and many of our
prisoners, and virtually destroyed Gen. Early's army.
LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN.
Gen. Rosecrans, with his brave Western men, had defeated
Price at luka, Van Dorn at Corinth, and Bragg (after four
days' hard fighting) at Stone River. lie fought his way to
Chattanooga, the key to a campaign against the rebels of
Georgia. After a desperate and disastrous engagement at
Chickamauga, he was superseded, and resigned his immediate
command into the hands of Gen. George II. Thomas, whose
almost incredible skill and energy saved our army from
destruction on that field of slaughter.
Gen. Burnside now appeared in East Tennessee, where the
old flag was hailed with tears and shouts of joy by multi-
tudes, who. in the midst of unparalleled suffering, had pre-
served their patriotism unimpaired since the beginning of
the war.
Gen. Grant was now appointed to the command of our
forces in the West. Our army was in distress at Chattanoo-
ga, with scanty subsistence, and their long communications
i:i the greatest peril. The eleventh and twelfth corps,
under Hooker, were ordered to re-enforce Grant ; and twenty
thousand men were moved from the Rapidan to the Tennes-
see in eight days. It was a special Providence. Our com-
munications had been cut. and millions in supplies destroyed,
for which our brave men were nearlv starving. Bragg felt
i- OO
curtail) of completing1 the victorv of Chickamauira.
THE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 657
At this critical moment, Grant arrived. He made his
dispositions promptly to open up a shorter line of supplies,
and connect Chattanooga with Hooker's command at Wau-
hatchie. Hazen, with eighteen hundred men of Brig.-Gen.
Smith's division, dropped quietly down the river on pontoon-
boats, passing the rebel pickets, and constructing a bridge
for the passage of our army ; Smith moved down with the
balance of his four thousand men ; and Bragg awoke on
the morning of the 28th to find the heights rising up
from Lookout Valley in our possession. We were, moreover,
safe from famine, as our supplies now reached us by eight
miles of wagon-road, instead of twenty-eight over a fright-
ful mountain-road as before. Soon the astonished rebels saw
the head of Hooker's columns winding through the mountain
gorges. These effective forces, so far as they knew, were far
below Washington on the Rapidan ; but now they formed in
battle-array right before their eyes.
On the night of Oct. 29, Geary was furiously attacked ;
but he was on his guard, and his assailants were re-
pulsed with dreadful slaughter. Sherman was rapidly
coming up with his army from the Big Black by the
way of Memphis ; and Grant, with some anxiety, waited
his arrival. Longstreet was beleaguering Burnside at
Knoxville ; and Grant wished to fight this battle promptly,
and re-enforce Burnside. Sherman soon reported in per-
son ; and, Nov. 23, Grant's movements commenced. Sheri-
dan's and Wood's divisions of Granger's corps seized Orchard
Ridge, and held it. Geary, on the 24th, capturing pickets
at the bridge, extended his force to the base of the moun-
tain. At eleven, A.M., our guns opened a terrific fire.
Hooker's men were ordered to charge up the mountain
at the very muzzles of the enemy's guns ; and they
moved promptly. Up those heroes toiled, over rocks,
through ravines, and around precipitous cliffs, until about
twelve, when Geary's men rounded the peak, and they were
(J5S THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
ordered to pause. But they could not, would not, hear : on
they rushed, till they reached the summit, and hurled their
astonished foes over the precipitous eastern declivities of
the mountain. The battle was above the clouds. It was
soon dark, and the carnage ceased. Geary was here re-en-
enforced by Carlisle from the fourteenth corps ; and the
enemy tied, leaving twenty thousand rations to our men.
By daylight, eight thousand of Sherman's men were over
the river. Others crossed rapidly ; and he fought his way
up. and carried the north end of Mission Ridge. Thomas
pushed forward Howard's corps till it united with Sher-
man. Hooker's brave men gallantly charged the enemy,
and took Mission Ridge, capturing large numbers of pris-
oners.
Sherman attacked at daylight on the 25th. A fierce
and bloody conflict raged till three, P.M. Message after mes-
sage came to Grant that we were beaten ; but he calmly
waited for Hooker's advance. Judging that the crisis had
come, he rode bravely along the ranks, saving:, in his strong.
•/ «' v_
brief way, " Men. get ready: I want you ! " Cheers answered
the call of their beloved commnnder-m-cliief. Thomas now
received orders ; and Baird. Ward, and Sheridan's divisions
rushed forward, driving the rebels from their rifle-pits. On
they pressed, in the face of grape and canister from more
than thirty pieces of artillery. The ridge was gained ; and
our brave men had achieved a victory that opened the door
to Georgia. Sherman and Hooker pursued the flying forces,
while Thomas promptly organized the expedition for the re-
lief of Burnside and our noble patriots of East Tennessee.
Before our men had time to rest, they were dashing on
towards Knoxville under the tireless Sherman ; and making
the last eighty-four miles, over dreadful roads, in three days,
they soon convinced Longstreet that he must raise the siege.
Our brave, hard-fighting, suffering men at Knoxville hailed
their deliverers with transports of joy.
THE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 659
THE BLOODY MARCH TO RICHMOND.
Experience had taught the government that concentra-
tion was indispensable to success. The clear mind of Mr.
Lincoln saw this ; and, waiting patiently until he was sure
the people saw it, he brought forward the measure, and
Congress adopted it, creating the office of Lie utenantr Gen-
eral : and on the second day of March, 1864, upon his nomi-
nation, Ulysses S. Grant was confirmed Lieutenant-General
by the Senate, and, under the President, command er-in-chief
of all the armies of the United States. In notifying Gen.
Grant of his appointment, Mr. Lincoln said, "As the country
herein trusts you, so, under God, it will sustain you." Gen.
Grant, in his reply, said, " I feel the full weight of the
responsibilities now devolving on me ; and I know, that, if
they are properly met, it will be due to those armies " [the
" noble armies " mentioned above], " and, above all, to the
favor of that Providence which leads both nations and men."
Never did two men rise more grandly up to the highest
responsibilities: God was, to their great minds, the sover-
eign and the trust of the nation.
Gen. Grant announced that his headquarters would be in
the field, and, for the present, with the Army of the Poto-
mac, now raised to more than a hundred thousand troops.
They were re-organized in three corps, — the second com-
manded by Hancock, the fifth by Warren, and the sixth by
Sedgwick ; the whole under the general orders of Major-
Gen. Meade. The ninth corps, under Burnside, was subse-
quently added.
A grand campaign now received form in the quiet, colos-
sal mind of the LieutenantrGeneral, commanding, in effect, a
million of men. It comprised two great features. The
Army of the Potomac, moving towards Richmond, would
seek the rebel army of Northern Virginia, their main force
under Gen. R. E. Lee ; and Gen. \V. T. Sherman, command-
ing the departments of Ohio, Cumberland, Tennessee, and
000 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
Arkansas, would move eastward from Chattanooga, and seek
the other great army of the Rebellion under Gen. J. K.
Johnston. The two forces were to be sustained by auxiliary
commands, all concentrating at Richmond. We were amazed
at the greatness of the conception, pleased by its simplicity,
and rendered hopeful by its unity of design. Now. for the
first time, the military power and grandeur of the United
States would appear.
All thinirs being ready, on the niirht of the 3d and
C O »/ ' e--
4th of May, Gen. Grant's army moved. He crossed the
Rapidan in the face of his antagonist commanding eighty
thousand veterans, and fought the terrible battle of the
Wilderness ; where, during three dreadful days, on both
sides, probably, thirty thousand men fell in the struggles of
death. lie penned the famous despatch, " I propose to fight
it out on this line if it takes all summer," and followed Lee
rapidly to Spottsylvania Court-house. Here another terrific
battle was fought, in which some twenty thousand of our
brave men fell, killed or wounded. Grant, believing that he
had intlicted upon the enemy all the injury practicable at
that place, and having stormed one set of breastworks and
been arrested before another, proceeded quietly to Hank his
antagonist. Tie made a desperate effort to reach the North
Anna first, and throw his army between Lee and Richmond:
but the rebels had the interior line and the best roads.
\Vhen. therefore, Grant reached this point, he found them
directly in his track, protected by formidable works pro-
vided for just this contingency. Warren and Hancock
bravely forced the passage of the river, but to find Lee
strongly intrenched in a position which could only be taken
at an enormous expense of life. Gen. Grant, therefore,
ordered his men to recross the river ; and the next Gen.
Lee knew of him, he was on the direct way to Richmond.
Soon, confronted by Lee in a position not to render an en-
gagement desirable, Grant made another flank movement,
with the view of crossing the Chickahominy ; and accepted
THE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 661
battle at Cold Harbor. Here, on a portion of the old battle-
ground of M'Clellan and Lee, a most destructive engage-
ment occurred. Near ten thousand of our brave men fell
in less than half an hour. In killed, wounded, and missing,
we sacrificed thirteen thousand one hundred and fifty-three
men; and the battle was not decisive. Grant performed
another perilous flank movement ; crossed the Chickahominy,
despite the resistance of his foes ; dashed across to the James ;
and was soon heard thundering from the south of Rich-
mond.
Butler had been firmly intrenched at Bermuda Hundred,
and had made various movements for the destruction of
railroads, taking Petersburg, &c. He met with some suc-
cesses, but failed to produce that powerful diversion in
favor of Grant which was to form an important part of the
campaign.
Sheridan had been almost ubiquitous, — now hanging like
a storm-cloud around the flanks of the enemy, now cutting
his communications and destroying his supplies, and now
fighting desperate battles with rebel cavalry, — displaying
everywhere those dashing qualities, directed by the clearest
judgment, which have placed him by the side of the best
cavalry and corps commanders known in history.
We had fought our way to the end of that line ; we had
placed hors de combat some forty thousand of the enemy :
but, alas ! this had cost us, in killed, wounded, and prison-
ers, nearly one hundred thousand men. We had adopted
the only alternative, — pursuing and fighting our foes when
we could find them, and, by bold and skilful tactics, avoiding
a conflict when necessary. We had diminished the force
threatening Washington from sixty thousand to twenty
thousand men. We had impaired the strength of the
enemy, rendering it impossible for him to regain it; and
developed the enormous resources of the nation, filling up
our wasting ranks with unfailing recruits. We had made
our bloody march to Richmond.
G62 THE GKEAT REPUBLIC.
THE TRIUMPHAL MARCH FROM ATLANTA TO THE SEA.
Gen. Sherman had fought his way to Atlanta, and, by a
series of brilliant engagements, had seized this southern
stronghold of the Confederacy. Well might the rebel
authorities ask, •' What will he attempt next ?" They were,
doubtless, men of great sagacity; but it may be presumed,
that, in all their theories, they did not include the slightest
conception of what was about to occur.
It was a natural suggestion to the minds of the Southern
CO
people, and taken up by the brave and chivalrous Hood, that
Sherman was now so far from his base of supplies, that his
communications could be easily cut, and his whole army de-
stroyed. With this idea, Hood was soon in his rear, breaking
up railroads, and preparing obstructions to the Union retreat.
Sherman pursued him as if his very life depended upon it,
until he drove him so far as to develop another part of the
grand campaign, under command of the indomitable Thomas,
with headquarters at Nashville; and the next Gen. Hood
knew of him, he had burned the rebel works at Atlanta and
much of the city, simply putting it out of the power of the
enemy to use them, and was on his way towards the Atlantic
Ocean. Men North and South looked on with amazement.
Our splendid army, severed from its base of supplies, was
marching madly into the very heart of the enemy's country.
What would the Confederates do ? The chivalrous South
proudly answered, " Rise in mass, and destroy them.''
Gen. Hood could not hope to overtake Sherman. He, how-
ever, moved on to his destruction in the verv engagements
•/ O O
intended for him by Gen. Grant, under the cool, strong gen-
eralship of Thomas.
The rising which was to destroy Sherman did not occur.
The skirmishes on his way could hardly be termed battles.
He swept through a rich country, over a breadth of thirty
miles, his army faring sumptuously, dashing away all oppos-
ing forces, and destroying railroads and the supplies of war.
THE WAR OP SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 663
The world held its breath as he passed out of sight, but
cheered with unparalleled enthusiasm when he reported from
Savannah. He had performed the triumphal march " from
Atlanta to the sea ; " he had destroyed the richest granary
of Confederate supplies, severed their communications,
flanked Charleston, and compelled its evacuation ; and
moved up grandly to within supporting distance of Grant
at Richmond.
RICHMOND.
The commander-in-chief of the armies of the Great Re-
public had not reached his position to sit down to the work
of a quiet siege ; nor was he there simply to take Richmond.
His great theory of breaking up the Rebellion by destroying
its armies appears everywhere. One attack, therefore, fol-
lows another; one day's failure is succeeded by another
day's effort. His wily foe, with the view of compelling him to
loose his terrible hold, sends all the force he can spare into
the Shenandoah Valley to menace Washington. Grant can-
not be frightened. He makes the necessary provisions to
meet that emergency by the genius of Sheridan, and holds
on to the throat of the Rebellion. One of his collateral
plans requires that Fort Fisher should be taken ; and Butler
undertakes it, without success. Grant hands over the task
to Gen. Terry, and it is done. His brave troops are beaten
off from one line of communication, and he attacks another.
The enemy rejoices in silencing his guns on one front, and
presently they are thundering away on another. A terrific
mine is sprung, and an assault fails ; but a charge in
another quarter immediately taxes all the energies of the
rebels. He positively gives them no rest. Their successive
beating to quarters, their exhausting vigils and charges, are
actually painful to see. If any demanded, « Why don't he
take Richmond ? " the answer plainly was, " He is not there
for that purpose. He is simply seeking to destroy the rebel
armies of Lee and Johnston." For this he had struggled to
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
get between Lee and his fortifications ; for this he de-
spatched Sheridan to destroy railroads and canals, and cut off
supplies, and prevent re-enforcements ; for this he dashed
up to Washington, on his way to Tennessee, when he thought
Thomas would delay his attack upon Hood until the grand
opportunity had passed ; for this he ordered Sherman to
drive ruin through the heart of the Confederacy, and come
up in the rear of Richmond, forcing Johnston to move con-
stantly nearer and nearer to the common vortex ; finally,
for this he waived all means of hopeful attack which did
not include the shutting-up of every way of escape to the
rebel army.
The grand crisis had come at last. The great campaign
was about to close at the rebel capital, in and near which,
by the vast combinations of one great mind, every vital ele-
ment of the Rebellion had been literally compelled to gather.
The final orders were given, and the army of freemen
moved to its desperate work. The fighting was terrific ; but
there was no vieldino-. On, on. our brave heroes pressed :
v
one position after another yielded to their valor: they
stood firm amid grape and canister and bursting shells ;
rushed fearlessly upon the gleaming bayonet; stormed
through the breach at the cannon's mouth ; assailed the re-
treating foe with lono; miles of blazing fire ; until that
o O O
morning of Sunday, the second day of April, 1865, came,
and the trembling chief. Jefferson Davis, received in his pew,
in the midst of the service, that ominouk despatch from the
heroic Lee, " My lines are broken in three places. Richmond
*/
must be evacuated this evening."
Richmond had fallen ! The glorious intelligence was
flashed over the Union. The dismay and the screeching,
the rush and the whirl, the fleeing throng and the roaring
flames, at the capital of the Rebellion ; and the ringing of
bells, the notes of thrilling joy from bands of music, and
shouts of freemen in ecstasies, in every part of the North. —
made this day memorable in the annals of the Republic.
THE WAR OP SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 665
The last desperate struggles of Gen. Lee were painful to
behold. They were very bloody, but all of no avail. The
toils of the great commander were too strong for him to
break through. The terms were truly magnanimous. The
Army of Northern Virginia surrendered.
The final surrender of Johnston to the gallant Sherman,
after instructions from the government, and council with
his noble friend Gen. Grant, soon followed ; and the War of
the Rebellion was ended.
The Confederates intended it for a grand moral and phys-
ical triumph of slavery ; the government at Washington
intended it for the restoration of the Union ; God intended
it for the destruction of slavery, and the full development
of his plans of freedom on this continent. God's plans tri-
umphed, and the war closed.
The storm is past !
So soon, so fast,
The sulphurous cloud hath hurried by
That hung so heavy on the sky, —
A dark, oppressive canopy !
It parts so gently as we gaze,
We wonder at the morning haze.
How swift it came
With march of name !
And, while we paused to dream of war,
The rush of battle broke afar,
And through the smoke shone not a star :
We only saw by battle-gleams
The startling image of our dreams.
Its earthquake tread
We heard with dread ;
And far-off nations, wondering, gazed,
As high the flame of battle blazed,
And loud the shout of war was raised.
The days were dark ; we paled with fear ;
And summer skies were sad and drear.
We saw the brave,
Both gay and grave,
M
666 THE GIIEAT REPUBLIC.
In awful combat haste to die,
And sink so low and silently,
As if such life were but a sigh :
The battle-greed, unsated still,
Of friend and foe yet sought its fill.
It seems a spell ;
So quick it fell,
And Implied the cannon's deafening boom,
And set ajar the doors of doom
To brothers sitting in the gloom :
It fell like beauty from a cloud
On us so long in sadness bowed.
It spans the sky
In victory.
The bow of Peace is firmly set
Against the storm-cloud's front of jet,
Upraised by gleaming bayonet :
We see the harmless lightning's play ;
The thunder dies in peace away.
Xow homeward pour,
From fields of gore,
The broken columns of the brave ;
Their tattered banners proudly wave :
Behind them lingers not a slave.
But, ah ! the sleeping tarry long :
They only live in deathless song.
The prayers we said
Are answered.
In God's own way we own 'twas done:
The price was great ; and God alone
Unsevcred keeps the Union one.
And still we pray, O God of peace !
In Freedom's reign let battles cease.*
CHRISTIANITY AND THE WAR.
The religion of Jesus allows no personal resentments : it
requires love for hatred, and meekness under suffering. Nor
will it permit national injustice or unrighteous retribution;
but it requires the magistrate to protect the right, and
punish aggressors who seek to destroy civil government.
"He i.s the minister of God for this very thing," and " he
* Uwi-'Iit Williams.
THE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 667
beareth not the sword in vain." When, therefore, liberty is
assailed, the executive justice of the nation must defend it,
and destroy the power which would overthrow it.
Hence, when the Great Rebellion broke out, as in the days
of the Revolution, the pulpit sounded the alarm, and the
holiest Christian ministers and laymen called the nation to
the defence of liberty. As in Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and
other places threatened by the foe, distinguished preach-
ers of the gospel led their people to the defence, wrought
with their own hands in constructing field-works, or, when
allowed, took their places in the ranks. In very large num-
bers, they filled distinguished positions in the army, or fought
with common soldiers, and shared to the utmost their dan-
gers and sufferings. They served as chaplains, and per-
formed the offices of religion for the well, the sick, and the
dying.
THE CHRISTIAN ALLIANCE, under the active agency of Rev.
C. C. Goss, in April, 1861, began a series of most vigorous
efforts for the relief and religious instruction of the soldiers.
He at once instituted means for the distribution of reading-
matter ; and large numbers of our soldiers were soon per-
mitted to read in the camp their own valued church and
secular periodicals and other useful literature. As the voice
of the Christian Alliance sounded out in warm, earnest ap-
peals, noble citizens, ministers, publishers, responded ; and the
means of mental relief and support came into their depots,
and were passed out in steady streams. Kind visitations,
faithful religious instruction and services, and unnumbered
offices of kindness, accompanied these supplies of mental
aliment.
THE SANITARY COMMISSION arose from the earnest and hu-
mane examinations of distinguished philanthropists into the
condition, perils, and wants of our vast armies in the field.
It was ascertained that the legally-appointed methods of
medical and surgical treatment, and supplies of food and
nursing for the sick, were not, and could not be, sufficiently
008 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
prompt and tender to meet the wants of our suffering,
bleeding thousands in the camp and on the battle-field.
They were dyinu; in larire numbers — dying; in agonies in-
»,' i/ O O \J O O
describable — for the want of attention. These facts were
brought out, and the heart of the nation was moved. Plans
for organizing relief were promptly submitted to the gov-
ernment ; and on the 9th of June, 1861, " a commission of
inquiry and advice, in respect of the sanitary interests of
the United-States forces," was appointed. Henry W. Bel-
lows, D.D., was at its head ; and, in an incredibly short time,
an army of philanthropists moved into the field, and ample
stores of medicines, clothing, and food suitable for the sick,
were supplied by the liberal. The Commission, with its of-
fices of kindness, and by its generous hands and sympathizing
hearts, was everywhere. — upon the battle-field, in the hospi-
tals, on the track of advance and retreat, bearing away the
wounded, putting the cup of cold water to the lips of the
dying, dressing wounds, nursing the sick, and thus saving
thousands of valuable lives. Money flowed into their treas-
ury like water. California alone gave $1,233,831.31 ; other
Pacific States and Territories, with the greatest liberality,
added to these contributions ; till the aggregate amount from
that coast swelled to the large sum of $1,473,407.07, — all to
send relief to our suffering soldiers in the field of slaughter.
o O
From every State and every town in the loyal Union, and
from other countries far off and near, these supplies came in,
amounting in all, from Dec. 4, 1862, to Jan. 1, 18G6, to
$4,924,048.99. The world stood amazed before these efforts
of humanity, rising up from the pervading Christian sense
of the American people.
THE UNITED-STATES CHRISTIAN COMMISSION arose from the
conviction, that, with relief for the bodies of our soldiers,
there was an imperative demand for more thorough atten-
tion to the wants of their souls. Just as the Sanitary Com-
mission came in to supplement the labors and supply the
defects of the medical staff and commissariat of the army,
THE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 669
the Christian Commission came in to the aid of chaplains
and other Christian philanthropists, to give the blessings of
experimental Christianity, with temporal supplies, to our
needy soldiers.
It was organized in Philadelphia on the 16th of Novem-
ber, 1861, in response to a call from the Young Men's Chris-
tian Association. George H. Stewart, Esq., its most promi-
nent man, and a multitude of other noble philanthropists,
devoted time and wealth and prayers to this great enter-
prise until the war was over.
"In both means and men there was no lack, but a
steady and rapid growth, of abundance, without a parallel
in the history of Christian charities. Every day of its ex-
istence seems to have given the Commission a wider range,
and a firmer hold upon the affection and confidence of the
churches and patriots of the land. In the first year, its
receipts amounted to $231,000 ; in the second year, they
reached $916,837; in the third year, $2,282,347. From
January to May of the fourth and last year of its activity,
the donations were $2,228,105."
For the whole period of its services, from the 16th of
November, 1861, to May, 1866, in cash, services, provisions,
clothing, &c., its Christian charities and labors for the relief
of our soldiers were estimated at $6,291,107.68. Dele-
gates commissioned, 4,859, — working in the aggregate,
without compensation, 185,562 days; boxes of stores and
publications, 95,066 ; Bibles, Testaments, and other portions
of Scripture, 1,466,748 ; hymn and psalm books, 1,370,953 ;
knapsacks, books in paper and flexible covers, 8,308,052 ;
bound library-books, 296,816; magazines and pamphlets,
767,861 ; religious weekly and monthly periodicals, 18,126,-
002; pages of tracts, 39,104,246; "Silent Comforter," &c.,
8,572; sermons preached by delegates, 58,308; prayer-
meetings held by delegates, 77,744 ; letters written by dele-
gates for soldiers, 92,321.*
* For the above extracts and figures, I am indebted to Rev. T. A. FERNLET.
670 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
"The homo-comforts, provisions, delicacies, clothing, and
ten thousand appliances, for the relief of the suffering, which
people showered upon the army, were conveyed to the sol-
diers through the hands of volunteer laborers fresh from
home, whose only pay for their toil was the blessing of
God, and the gratitude and hnppiness of those for whom
they labored. Coffee-wagons, called by the soldiers • Chris-
tian artillery,' were drawn along the lines, furnishing the
men with hot coffee, fresh toast, &c., during the battle. On
the field, gathering up the wounded; in the field-hospitals,
bathing and dressing wounds; by the side of the dying,
offering prayer, or snatching a few last words for the be-
reaved family at home, — these laborers were found in large
numbers. It was estimated by the officers and surgeons of
the Army of the Potomac, that, during the Wilderness cam-
paign alone, at least three thousand lives were saved, besides
all the suffering alleviated. But while these men carried
in one hand bread which perisheth, in the other they carried
the bread of heaven. While they labored to heal the wounds
of the body, they also aided the wounded soul to step into
the fountain opened, and be healed." ^
WOMAN IN THE WAR was an angel of mercy. From the
common walks of virtuous life, from the hio-hest circles of
' O
culture and affluence, Christian women entered the hospitals
and the fields of blood, to sacrifice comfort, health, and even
life itself, to relieve our sick and dying soldiers; to bless
them with woman's tenderness, her gentle voice, her kind
instructions, and faithful prayers. From Maine to California.
they bore incredible hardships, toiled night and day in
societies, festivals, and fairs, and in manufacturing lint and
bandages for the wounds of our martyr-heroes.
Christian labor went beyond direct army-work ; and
noble, heroic men volunteered without pay to bear all the
trials of the camp and the march and the field, rushing into
the very jaws of death to save souls. Everywhere the build-
* Communication of Rev. C. P. LYFOHD.
THE WAR OF SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. 671
ing of rude chapels, faithful preaching, and meetings for
prayer, frequently amid the bursting of shells, revealed the
noblest Christian heroism in the work of regeneration. Gra-
cious revivals and conversions, numbering hundreds and
thousands, resulted from these self-sacrificing labors.
Let it now be observed that every church in the loyal
North, in all their official bodies, sustained the government
by the most hearty resolutions, the outpouring of their
treasures and men, and the boldest action. The religious
life poured through the nation's heart to its very extremi-
ties, giving great force to these words from our beloved
President, Abraham Lincoln. They were spoken in response
to a thoroughly loyal message, through their committee, of
the General Conference of the Methodist-Episcopal Church,
in the midst of the bloody march of Grant to Richmond.
" Nobly sustained as the government has been by all the
churches, I would utter nothing which might in the least
appear invidious against any. Yet, without this, it may
fairly be said that the Methodist-Episcopal Church, not less
devoted than the best, is, by its greater numbers, the most
important of all. It is no fault in others that the Methodist
Church sends more soldiers to the field, more nurses to the
hospitals, and more prayers to Heaven, than any. God bless
the Methodist Church, bless all the churches ! And blessed
be God, who, in this our great trial, giveth us the churches ! "
No mind in America rose more grandly up to the reli-
gious significance of the war than that of Abraham Lincoln.
Let us record the solemn words uttered in his last inaugu-
ral address : " Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray,
that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.
Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled
by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited
toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of hlood drawn with
the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as
was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said,
4 The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous alto-
gether.'"
G72 THE CHEAT REPUBLIC.
MURDEROUS REVENGE.
The nation was in triumph. A day had burst upon our
sky more glorious than any which ever before shone upon
any land beneath the sun. Joy and gratitude swelled the
hearts of our free millions. The Rebellion was crushed ;
slavery was dead. Peace came, with her rich consolations.
to bless our land, so long distressed and bleeding.
Xo oppressed heart, no tired brain, felt such relief as the
heart and brain of Abraham Lincoln. Xo spirit of haughty
triumph appeared. Ho had tears for the suffering and the
bereaved, pity for the conquered, and pardon for the rebel-
lious. He was the grandest type in existence of a great,
magnanimous, conquering, Christian nation.
From these heights of exultant joy, the millions of Ameri-
can citizens were suddenly plunged into the deepest distress.
Abraham Lincoln was slain ! The hand of a vile assassin
had taken away the most precious life on the continent.
Xo intelligence so direful ever burdened the telegraphic
wires, no sorrow so deep and awful ever settled down
upon the heart of a nation.
At twentv-two minutes past seven o'clock, on the morn-
hif of the l-")th of April. ISGo. the great and good Mr. Lin-
O O
coin breathed his last.
The last expression of the vileness of slavery, the fell
revenge of expiring oppression, the concentrated malignity
of thirty years, struck the highest, purest representative of
American freedom ; and he died for the country, which, in
the hands of God, he had lived to save.
War and darkness o'er the nation gloomed ;
Terror ruled the Capitol. The chief,
Still great in death, lay pale and unentombed,
Embalmed in myriad flowers of love and grief;
While round him sadly, higher, day by day,
The dirges rose and slowly died away.
What reek we now the assassin's word or blow?
The struggling Samson with his dying prayer
THE WAE OF SLAVEEY AND FEEEDOM. 673
Did Dagon's temple with its gods o'erthrow,
And plant the holier shrine of Freedom there.
Foul Treason tangled in his meshes lies,
While radiant Truth soars upward to the skies.
'Tis done ! Bear slowly out the sleeping form,
The mighty dead. Triumph succeeds the strife.
He saw the sun arise beyond the storm,
And drank from him the glorious tides of life.
Oh ! death is but the hero's tranquil rest
When nations honor, and when Heaven has blest.
Now bear him slowly out by muffled drum,
Ye soldiers, comrades whom he loved so well ;
Around him let the mighty heroes come
Whose stars their fields of death and victory tell :
Bow low, and tenderly that name repeat, —
Your watchword in advance or dark retreat.
Now bear him out where seaport cities rise,
And wealth and commerce on the nations wait ;
Where masts and spires, encircling, kiss the skies
In THE EEPUBLIC'S eastward golden gate.
A nation's moan rises the mountains o'er ;
Atlantic answers the Pacific shore.
Now rest him here ; for, lo ! the people come, —
The high, the low, — his children all, they seem, —
With ashy face, and lips of marble, dumb.
This pageant vast — 'twere like a mighty dream
Of some far planet, where the light of day
Had for etei nal ages died away.
But no : earth yet may claim Jehovah reigns ;
The nation of the free is still his care :
He, though the great may die, the right maintains ;
He gently bends to heed the lowliest prayer :
And, now crushed hearts of nations to him call,
He heeds their cry ; he marks the sparrow's fall.
Homewiird still bear him on. There shall he rest
'Mid prairie-flowers that hail the golden sun,
When Freedom's States, from east to glorious west,
For God and Truth and Liberty are one.
Ye heroes, who for freedom lie so low,
The noble soul of Lincoln joins you now.
Build high the monument ; the storied bust
Crown with flowers ; let childhood's tender years
With beauty bend lamenting o'er his dust,
And hallow deathless glory with their tears ;
Then on the skies the bright inscription read, —
HlS NOBLEST MONUMENT 18 A NATION FREED.
85
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
Arise, MY COUNTRY ! gird thec for the fight;
Lead on the van of nations yet to come :
The heavens are arming for the struggling right,
And star-eyed Freedom seeks her sunset homo ;
Immortal Hope to glory guides thy way ;
And Time's last twilight kindles into day.*
* Burial of Lincoln. By L. W. P.
CHAPTER IV.
THE TRIUMPH OF LIBERTY.
" As for me, I dare not, will not, be false to Freedom. Where the feet of my youth
were planted, there, by Freedom, my feet shall ever stand. I will walk beneath her ban-
ner ; I will glory in her strength. I have seen her friends fly from her, her foes gather
around her ; I have seen her bound to the stake ; I have seen them give her ashes to the
winds : but, when they turned to exult, I have seen her again meet them face to face,
resplendent in complete steel, brandishing in her right hand a flaming sword red with
insufferable light. I take courage. The people gather around her. The Genius of America
will at last lead her sons to freedom." — SENATOR BAKER.
" We know how to save the Union. The world knows we know how to save it. In
giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free, — honorable alike in what we
give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last, best hope of
earth. Other means may succeed : this could not, cannot, fail. The way is plain, peace-
ful, generous, just, — a way, which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God
must forever bless." — ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
AMID the carnage of terrific battle, it was almost impos-
sible not to ask, Why must this desolating war continue ?
why must our brave troops be slaughtered, and no decisive
victory follow? Some there were who thought they saw
the reason in the crying injustice of slavery. It began to
be most earnestly said that Providence demanded justice
as the condition of victory. Was it true that the American
people had not yet comprehended the meaning of this
dreadful chastisement, — that God would lead them througli
their trials to see their great sin, and renounce it? Did
God intend to destroy slavery by this war? Many thought
so ; a few said it in eloquent words, and appealed to Heaven
in fervent prayer for this result. Among others, the Prot-
estant ministers of Chicago and vicinity intensely believed
it, and sent a deputation to lay their views before the Presi-
dent. They were kindly received ; and, while he held his
own opinions in abeyance, he drew out their strongest ar-
075
076 TITE riREAT REPUBLIC.
guments in favor of emancipation by proclamation, as a war
measure, and their answers to objections not his own.
lie said, " I raise no objections against it on legal or con-
stitutional grounds ; for, as commander-in-chief of the army
and navy in time of war. I suppose I have a right to take
any measure which may best subdue the enemy." He was
simply anxious to know the state of the public mind, the
degree of advancement in the track of his own profound
judgments, lie had checked his own commanders because
they were in advance of the people : but he at length came
to the conviction that the people would sustain him ; and
hence, on the twenty-second day of September, 1862, he
issued a proclamation containing these words : " On tbe
first dav of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand
»- »/ ' •/
eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves in
any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof
shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be
then, thenceforward, and forever free."
The people were electrified. Good men were filled with
delight and <>ratitnde. The rebels were wild with fury.
O V
The Northern enemies of the President denounced it as a
most tyrannical assumption of power : but, having taken his
position, he was immovable; and according to promise, when
the hundred days had expired, he issued
TilE GREAT PROCLAMATION.
" I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by
virtue of the power in me vested as commander-in-chief of
the army and navy of the LTnited States in time of actual
armed rebellion against the authority and government of
the United States, and as a fit and necessary war-measure
for suppressing said rebellion, do on this first day of Jan-
uary, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred
and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do,
publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days
THE TRIUMPH OF LIBERTY. 677
from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as
the States, and parts of States, wherein the people thereof
respectively are this day in rebellion against the United
States, the following ; to wit " [the names of the rebel States,
with exceptions, are then mentioned],
" And, by virtue of the power and for the purpose afore-
said, I do order and declare, that all persons held as slaves
within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and
henceforward shall be, free ; and that the executive govern-
ment of the United States, including the military and naval
authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom
of said persons.
" And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be
free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-
defence ; and I recommend to them all, that, in all cases
when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.
"And I further declare and make known that such per-
sons, of suitable condition, will be received into the armed
service of the United States, to garrison forts, positions, sta-
tions, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said
service.
" And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of jus-
tice, warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity,
I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and gra-
cious favor of Almighty God."
Thus spake the wisest, best man of our times ; and near
four millions of slaves leaped at once into liberty ! From
that moment, God commanded victory to the armies of Free-
dom.
BLACK WARRIORS.
Prejudice against color so thoroughly pervaded the North
as well as the South, that the government did not at first
entertain the idea of admitting Africans to the army. The
ino,st determined purpose was manifested to fight their bat-
078 THK GI:I:AT REPUBLIC.
ties, but allow tbcm no opportunity to fight for themselves.
Dreadful reverses, and the absolute necessity for men, joined
with the devoted loyalty of the blacks to the government,
overcame these scruples. People of color showed most val-
uable kindness to Union men attempting to escape iroin
rebel prisons, by furnishing food and relief to famishing
soldiers, and as guides to our armies. At length, they
met with a friendly reception as "contrabands;" and finally
thev rose to the dignity of soldiers in the army of Freedom.
The proclamation indicated some of the perilous methods in
which they might serve their country, and they moved
promptly into all the positions declared open to them. The
outcry of the rebels against this measure, characterizing it as
a barbarous attempt to encourage all the horrors of insurrec-
tion, and their terrible threats and proclamations of retali-
ation, were strangely inconsistent. From the first moment
of hostilities, they availed themselves of the services of their
able-bodied slaves to strengthen their army ; and if the slaves
did not appear in the rank and file, yet their hard field-labors
released others, and added them to the fighting force. Indeed,
as no insurrection, no acts of barbarism, followed, and our
strong colored troops were performing prodigies of valor,
in their last extremity the rebels undertook to devise a
method of making soldiers of their slaves ; but it was too
late. Indeed, it might be unsafe for them, but safe for the
nation ; for the instincts of the slaves were in favor of liberty.
When the world saw the promptness with which, to the
number of 1 7 8.1 > To. they volunteered to enter the army,
the ease with which they accepted the most stringent disci-
pline, their noble military bearing, and the desperate valor
with which they charged the enemy or led a storming col-
umn, there was no longer any question as to the rank and
value of black warriors. A recognition of the true manhood
of the oppressed race was thus, by act of Providence, forced
upon the American people. This was the second great
triumph of liberty.
THE TEIUMPH OF LIBERTY. 679
THE VICTORIES OF BLOOD AND OF TRUTH.
The American people had passed through unparalleled suf-
ferings. Our dead, fallen in the struggle, numbered at least
325,000 ; and some 200,000 had gone into the spirit-world
fighting for slavery. More than half a million of the American
people had perished to settle the question, whether America
should be slave or free ; and the wail of sorrow, coming up
from every part of the land, pierced the heavens. Great
was our anguish, and great had been our crime ; but God's
purposes in regard to the United States were now becom-
ing more evident, and men were awed before the majesty
of his power. We began to realize " the mission of great
suffering." Our victories were not merely over the em-
battled hosts of rebellion, but over the prejudices of ages.
We had conquered ourselves. See what opinions had gone
down in this struggle, and what truths had taken their place !
We thought slavery was chiefly a misfortune : we had learned
that it was an enormous individual and national crime. We
thought it could be met by concessions, but learned that it
must be destroyed. We thought it could be eradicated by
truth, but learned that it could go out only in blood. We
thought the war must be one of white men, but learned that
the slaves were to have place and rank in the battle for free-
dom. We thought we could save the Union, and concede
" the right" of property in man ; but we learned that liberty
and Union must stand or fall together. We thought we were
fighting for the sovereignty of the government, but learned
that we were fighting to emancipate the negroes and the
nation. We thought, when the war was over, we must then
deal with slavery as we might be able, but learned that the
war could not be ended until we had " proclaimed liberty
throughout the land to all the inhabitants thereof." We
thought the manhood of slaves must be the result of long
and almost impossible culture ; but we learned that it was
in their very being, and must have recognition and justice
GSO THE <;I:I-;AT RKITBLIC.
before the era of education could begin. Finally, we had
learned that God had determined to extend to the nation the
regeneration which had long been recognized as the privi-
lege of the individual only. So grandly rose truth in its
new incarnation to enter upon its broader, mightier mission
to the world.
THE OH EAT AMENDMENT.
The Great Proclamation had released the slaves in the ter-
ritory dominated by the Confederacy, and, with what seemed
anomalous inconsistency, left in slavery those who were
within the actual sovereignty of the United-States Govern-
ment. This showed, not the principles or wishes of the Presi-
dent, but his loyal obedience to the Constitution. He would
not advance a single step in favor of his most sacred princi-
ples without the clear authority of law; but the nation
must make the great fundamental change.
When the Constitution was established, it seemed to have
but one great task ; which was. to work out of itself the wrong
of a blind, almost concealed, indorsement of slavery. Broad
and strong and sound in the main as it was, it was not equal
to the work of shielding so enormous a vice from the blows
which would be levelled at it by the hand of justice. Some
there were, who, even in the earliest days of its authority,
foresaw that it must some time purge itself from this vice, or
be overthrown by it. Nothing could be logically clearer; and
yet the power and sophistry of class interest and astute
political leaders bewildered the people, and nearly succeeded
in making the vilest tyranny and most odious caste appear
to be the true intent of the fundamental law. It was only
when the ruin which had been so long and insidiously work-
ing within the government broke out in overt acts of rebel-
lion that the nation roused itself to the necessity of casting
out from the Constitution this wan-ing element of defiant
oppression. Accordingly, on the thirty-first davof Januarv.
e_> */ •• »•' * *
18ti-57 the great amendment was finally adopted by Congress
THE TEIUMPH OF LIBERTY. 681
Subsequently indorsed by the required numbers of States, it
became Article XIII. of the Constitution; namely: "Sect. 1.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a pun-
ishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly
convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place
subject to their jurisdiction. Sect. 2. Congress shall have
power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."
This achievement, reserved for our own day, was the strong-
est possible development of essential liberty. Other previous
amendments were of comparatively small importance. There
are some to follow, which will render more distinct and un-
deniable the equality of all men before the law, and make
still clearer acknowledgment of the humble dependence of
our great providential nation upon the arm of Almighty
God.
It was, of course, indispensable that the States should adjust
their civil governments to this grand development of national
freedom. This they are now in the act of doing. Amid the
agonies of revolution, under authority practically irresisti-
ble, the oligarchy yields to democracy, and the Declaration
of Independence comes out distinctly to take its place in the
State governments. " We" now of modern times, we South
and North, we the representative power of the nation, in
Congress, conventions, and legislatures assembled, now, as
did the Revolutionary fathers, " hold these truths to be self-
evident, — that all men are born free and equal, and endowed
by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and among
these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ; and that
all true governments derive their just powers from the con-
sent of the governed." These grand old announcements are
at length to be thoroughly practical in the Great Republic,
and take their place in essence and form in the Constitu-
tions of the Nation and the States. This is development
such as ought to mark the century just following the great
year of 1776.
Other amendments yd to be made, whether general or
082 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
local, radical or conservative, liberalizing or guarding the
fundamental law, are of comparatively little importance.
They may be tried, found imperfect and improved, or im-
practicable and abandoned ; but this advance is organic and
irrevocable.
At the close of this remarkable period, we look back with
amazement at the events which have occurred. It may well
be said, there have been no other such ten years of history
on this continent. The work of long ages seems to have
been crowded into a few brief years. The most sanguine
reformers did not expect to live long enough to see revo-
lutions so grand, and all in favor of liberty; but we have
seen them, and are constrained to say, " It is the Lord's
doings, and it is marvellous in our eyes."
" It is the third buge«ttl* * ».; •«» !^
moment
" ATI rs
•«, ihi{ wor.
A * ' just
passed could i " i * •'&&. It
is true, we have :aUw, the
same physical re-ouiv ••># but we
have changed ; and, in ou- A - present a
strong contrast to almost a!J a^» !-«-;:•* . <,<,~ , ^ky th>m ?3ro
tracted, desolating war.".
The strength of the Great RepitUi*' >i .f«n partially
for we have lie*.1
own people. Looking at the devt
and the achievements of our arms, in tb»« «iiiTideH?
are compelled to ahk, What woul. ?-*vc bo*'-
war hud been against invasion ir-vm »
Look at the men brought into th« .£ i
of onr loyal citutens. From April i5,
.e several
s amounted t«> -, ^,656,553 are
.ates and Territories
O
683
PERIOD V.
MISSION.
CHAPTER I.
THE NEW NATION.
" It is the third huge gate of barbarism, the monarchical gate, which is closing at this
moment. The nineteenth century hears it rolling on its hinges." — HUGO.
" America is now the grandest combination of power, stability, unity, freedom, and
happiness, the world has seen." — PARTRIDGE.
A REVOLUTION so great as that through which we have just
passed could not leave us precisely the same as before. It
is true, we have the same country, the same climates, the
same physical resources of wealth and happiness : but we
have changed ; and, in our changed condition, we present a
strong contrast to almost all nations emerging from pro-
tracted, desolating wars.
The strength of the Great Republic has been but partially
tested ; for we have been at war with a large portion of our
own people. Looking at the development of our resources,
and the achievements of our arms, in this divided state, we
are compelled to ask, What would they have been if our
war had been against invasion from a foreign foe ?
Look at the men brought into the field from the numbers
of our loyal citizens. From April 15, 1861, to April 15,
1865, the calls of the President charged against the several
States amounted to 2,759,049 men. Of these, 2,656,553 are
credited, showing that the Northern States and Territories
083
THE GIM-: AT iiKPL'BLlC.
actuallv sent this largo number of men into the great strug-
gle, lacking only 102,400 of the whole number called for;
and these were rapidly coming in when the close of the war
arrested the people in their march to the field. Besides
the above. 120.000 "emergency men'' and ITS. 070 colored
troops sprang to arms, at the call of the government, to save1
their country and their liberties.
On the 1st of March, 18GO, our military force of all arms,
officers, and men, amounted to 000.001. On the 1st of May.
1SG~>. — just two months later. — the number had swelled,
by enlistments alone, to 1,000,010. According to the public
judgment of the most enlightened of other nations, these
facts are without a parallel in history.
Of our brave citizen-soldiers, there were, during the war.
killed, wounded, and missing, 441,310; while the killed,
wounded, and missing of our rebel foes reached 700.700:
making the frightful aggregate of victims to this Rebellion
*^ - L_^ OO (_/
1.207.081,
YTlieii the war closed, we held of our Confederate foes
0^.so2 as prisoners of war ; while the whole number of men
surrendered to our arms amounted to 174.223.
Now, when we place by the side of these exertions of
power, and exhaustions of numbers, the fact, that our popu-
lation steadily increased during the whole period of the war.
we shall have' some idea of the moral force of people, with
which we enter upon our future mission.
Look at the cost of the war. As a single {'act toward an
approximate estimate, consider, that, for the five years ending
June 30, 1SOO. the expenditures for the war and navy de-
partments increnxcfl more than $300,000,000. Add the
amount paid for pensions (already between $15.000,000 and
$10,000,000 annually), add also the interest of the public
war debt, the expenditures of the loyal States for bounty,
relief of soldiers through the great commissions and other-
wise, the maintenance of military force in the rebel States
during their unsettled condition, the enormous destruction
THE NEW NATION. 687
alone ; but we love our whole country. Southern patriots
have suffered by the assault made upon its integrity, and
Northern people in its defence, as hardly any people ever
suffered before ; and now the whole land, baptized in tears
and blood, is unspeakably dear to us all. Woe to the nation
which shall attempt to place hostile foot upon it ! Every
inch of this vast country is now sacred soil, — sacred to liber-
ty and to God.
True, the time has not yet come for the largest, fullest
realization of this regeneration of national patriotism. The
bitter prejudices of a generation at least must pass away
before its obstacles will be removed, and the love of country
throughout our growing millions shall reach the national
breadth and power which now rises up before us as our cer-
tain destiny. True, also, the task of experimental Christian-
ity, in grappling with our personal and national vices, is
hard, and practically endless. Just so far, however, as it
advances, it will extend our patriotic devotion to our whole
great country into the sphere of a true philanthropy, and
proportionally increase its power.
THE TRANSITION.
The history of reconstruction cannot now be written. It
is not yet accomplished. The chaos immediately following
a bloody war and a great revolution must have time to re-
solve itself into order. Popular legislation and a passing
administration cannot lead as promptly to executive strength
as could a pure-minded, absolute despotism. There will, of
necessity, be a great variety of opinions as to the methods
of rehabilitating States resolved by rebellion into their in-
organic elements. Party spirit will struggle hard for the
mastery, and only by degrees will the true methods of wis-
dom evolve from the strife. We shall not, therefore, chroni-
cle the contests or the decisions that are seeking to iden-
tify the facts and principles which must assume the mastery
in our final adjustments and future developments.
THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
A few things incident to our critical, transition period, we
have distinctly seen. The feeling of revenge, gradually nar-
rowing the scope of its hostility, and triumph moderating into
magnanimity and fraternity, point the way to a hopeful future.
In the mean time, it has been evident that our released mil-
lions could not, without help, wisely and safely assume their
new relations of independence and equality before the law ;
and hence tiie Freedmen's Bureau has been an absolute neces-
sity. It has been shown by indisputable facts that former
rebel masters would seek to invent methods of virtually re-
manding them back to slavery; that they would not. with-
out the presence and authority of the General Government,
deal with their former slaves as freemen, nor would they
all render obedience to civil national law without the pres-
ence of a power competent to enforce it. Hence acts of
Congress for the reconstruction of State governments have
included adequate military force; and obstinate local injus-
tice has been, in some instances, compelled to yield to the
power of a strong national government, now, more than in
any former period of our history, beginning to be known
and realized as everywhere present,
In the mean time, it can be affirmed with gratitude that
regenerating influences from the various churches have found
their way through our distracted South ; and, subduing rebel-
i/ O
lion against God. they have inspired consideration and love
lor man, until it may be claimed that the most hostile parties
are gradually losing their asperities. Around and within
i/
the newly-organized churches of the South a true and noble
citizenship is rising up in loyal obedience to the government
and to God. Thus another indication of the true power of
reconstruction reveals itself.
It is not yet. however, time to write the history of this
great regenerating force in its work of re-organizing civil
society. The loyal people, white and colored, by thousands
and tens of thousands, are getting their places in the Church
of Christ ; and, just so far as this work extends, the strength
and harmony of the new nation appeal's.
THE NEW NATION.
IMPARTIAL SUFFRAGE.
The vindication of justice in a free government requires
a free* ballot. Loyal men must be allowed to^ express their
wishes as to their representatives. They must choose their
own rulers, and, subordinately to the Constitution, make the
laws of their own States, and bear their just part in the law-
making, judicial, and executive departments of the General
Government.
The growth of ideas on this subject has been very rapid
in this country during the period of emancipation. The
basis of suffrage has been changed ; the privilege has been
greatly extended : but the questions raised have not yet been
settled. The partiality of the old nation seems to have
been marked in the new for destruction. The persistent pur-
pose manifested by disloyal men to reclaim the control of
government in their respective States, and to resume the
positions in the General Government which would enable
them, as in other days, to control the nation, has been used,
in the providence of God, as the means of giving the ballot
to the black men of the South. This decision we regard as
irreversible ; and it is utterly impossible to over-estimate its
importance. The colored people are peaceable and loyal.
They seem to want only simple justice. Their good be-
havior amid the great changes which have been going on
in their favor has astonished both enemies and friends.
They have no disposition to fight for their rights ; but
going in vast numbers as they now do to the polls, by the
side of their former masters, they can protect themselves.
Heaven and earth proclaim this just. It is as surely the
order of Providence as was the Great Proclamation. God
would not permit the war to close till liberty was proclaimed ;
he would not permit the South to settle down upon any
policy of reconstruction until their former slaves, the victims
of hoary oppression, were proclaimed to be men, and, as
men, were permitted to exercise the rights of freemen. For
690 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
the poor oppressed race it was a proud day when they
first went to the polls in the District of Columbia, and
wielded the ballot, which demonstrated their emancipation,
and proclaimed their right and ability peacefully to defend
their freedom. Here men would have arrested this innova-
tion ; but right onward it moved, until the very obstinacy
of rebels became its most potent instrument, and in every
State of the South the stalwart men of the proscribed race
were seen marching to the polls. So much is irrevocable.
It seems nowr difficult to tell when our people of color in
the Northern States will be admitted to the same privilege ;
nor can it now be said what will be the basis of suffrage
when the nation is finally settled : it surely will not be the
color of the skin. The new light of the Great Revolution
has destroyed forever the darkness of this gross absurdity.
It certainly will include loyalty to the nation. Treason in
the Great Republic has slain its right to vote. It may be
that the American people will be able to find some standard
of intelligence which belongs to true responsible civil man-
hood, and that the right of the ballot will be as broad as this
ascertained leural manhood. But whatever may be its basis,
•/
when the new nation is completed, the asserted, conceded
right of suffrage will be impartial.
UNIVERSAL EDUCATION.
Free as our noble country is, there has hitherto been too
much of caste in the privileges of education. We have felt
the power of wealth and rank to some extent, and more of
prejudice, in the superior opportunities for learning afforded
the children of fortune. Our great common-school system
has battled bravely with this odious discrimination ; but it
has not been broad enough nor hiu;h enough to realize the
O o O
true idea of universal education. The slave-system at least
must be dashed down before we dared to say and insist that
every child in the United States should learn to read and
THE NEW NATION. 691
write. But that formidable barrier to progress is gone ; and
now the school-book, the pen, and the pencil follow the gos-
pel in the track of the sword. Christian people, naturally
and of right foremost in every great missionary work,
promptly moved American citizens to care for the four mil-
lions freed from the shackles of slavery, and save them and
the nation from the perils which must arise from their igno-
rance. Freedmen's-aid societies in various forms, local and
general, sprang up in every part of the country ; and vigorous
educational measures were adopted, and extended to many
parts of the South. These associations showed in the abun-
dance of their funds, and supplies in kind, and in the aston-
ishing self-sacrifice and moral courage of volunteer instruct-
ors, how deep and pervading were the convictions of the
American people that slaves were not freed to become the
victims of anarchy and reckless passion. " The needy must
be fed, and all must be educated, and prepared for citizen-
ship," was the prompt and universal judgment of the North,
the East, and the West, and of many noble patriots in the
South.
These voluntary associations, in their pioneer investiga-
tions and labors, brought to the nation and the government
a large amount of information in regard to the destitute,
suffering condition of millions of freed people and " poor
whites." They exposed promptly, and frequently at the
risk of their lives, the cruel injustice of many former mas-
ters, and lawless villains who had never owned a slave. They
powerfully moved and influenced the government to the or-
ganization of " The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and
Abandoned Lands," which, under the superintendence of our
noble Christian major-general, 0. 0. Howard, became their
effective co-laborer in this field of sacrifice and generous toil.
This, as was fitting, identified the nation with the great
paternal work of relieving and educating the nation's wards.
They gave to the missionary workers in these perilous fields
military protection from the hand of ruthless violence, paid
(192 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
the fare of teachers, and, as far as practicable, furnished
buildings for the work of instruction.
At length the Christian churches, whose ministers and
members had given largely and wrought effectively through
these voluntary societies, and co-operated with all their hu-
manizing, secular measures, believing that the time had come
to make the philanthropic labors of the nation more thor-
oughly Christian than heretofore, began a system of edu-
cation in connection with evangelical missionary work among
the freedinen and other people of the South. This, while
it brought a new and vital force into the field, furnished the
societies with another accession of co-operative labor ; so that
now we have working side by side, and in departments of
the same general field, all the freed men's-aid societies, the
Freedmen's Bureau, and all the great evangelical churches.
At last reports, their combined labors had established and
maintained among these needy people 1,309 schools, in
charge of 1,0-58 teachers, numbering 90,513 pupils. There
are. moreover, reported 782 Sunday schools, with 70.G10
scholars. Thus moves on the work of education among
the freedmcn. Of these pupils, 15,248 are paying tuition
amounting to £11,377.03 per month.
Let our readers accept these facts as a part of the evi-
dence that universal education will become the character-
istic of the new nation.
THE NEW AMERICAN CHURCH.
There is a sense in which we can speak of the Church
of England as we shall never be able to speak of the
Church of the United States of America, Episcopalianism
is established bv law in England. It is the legal religion of
./O O O
the kingdom : all other forms of worship are tolerated merely.
This, let us trust, will never be true of any denomination in
the Great Republic. We are nobly emancipated from a
form of churchshii) so thoroughly condemned by revelation,
O »/ •/
philosophy, and history ; and it need not be feared that we
THE NEW NATION. 693
shall ever hereafter be re-inthralled. Most happy are we to
notice that the upheavals of society in England promise
deliverance to the Church in that nation from political dicta-
tion.
It must not, however, be assumed, that, in America, we have
only a confused mass of conflicting sects. Such an opinion
of American Christianity would be wholly superficial and
untrue. While we glory in the freedom of opinion, and ad-
mit the historical circumstances which have made us several
large ecclesiastical organizations, we exalt the grace of God
which has made us one Church. In the great object of wor-
ship, the triune Jehovah, in simple, absolute dependence upon
a common Saviour, in the pervading power of the new life,
we are and always have been one.
But the Church of the new nation will have a broader,
more powerful unity than the Church of the past. The fun-
damental facts of our old brotherhood are more evident and
imposing than before. The upheavals of a great moral
revolution have summarily disposed of the feeling of differ-
ence, always stronger than the reality. Our method of unity
is not that of despotic authority, vbut of development. We
have reversed the theories of Europe. For a thousand years,
they have sought unity by repression ; we have found it in
liberty : and the unity of Christian work is the grandest,
most potential fact of the age. The new American Church
will therefore be, not the Church of prescriptive dogma, but,
in a sense higher, stronger, than the old, the Church of vital-
ized and harmonized action.
The Great Revolution has released the intellect and heart
and enterprise of the American Church from the restraints
imposed by a powerful internal despotism. It will now,
therefore, be broader and freer in its outspoken veracity,
its gushing sympathies, and aggressive labor, than heretofore.
God has spoken to her in a voice that will ring in her ears
till the day of judgment, saying, " Move to the front in this
great battle of liberty ! If you allow again the reign of
694 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
caste or political corruption, you are responsible. ' The weap-
ons of your warfare are not carnal, but spiritual, and mighty
through God to the pulling-down of strongholds.' The
well-springs of life are within you : pour its streams into
dead men, and social, civil organisms, everywhere. Send the
power of soul-liberty throbbing through the hearts of the
people and the nations. 'Stand fast in the liberty wherewith
Christ hath made you free, and be not entangled again in the
yoke of bondage.' " If these orders are heard and obeyed,
the new American Church will be a living, united, free,
evangelical Church, the vital force and grand working power
of the new nation.
THE NEW AMERICAN MANHOOD.
A man is narrow and weak when he is not willing that
another human being shall be a man. The manhood of
America, strong as has been its development, has been limit-
ed by its selfishness, its prejudices, its exclusiveness. In
every attempt to announce his own freedom, the American
citizen has felt his self-contradictions. In every indulgence
of national pride, he has b^en humbled by national injustice.
At home or abroad, in his jubilant praises of republican free-
dom, he has been arrested, and stung to madness, by the
abrupt response, '-Look at your four millions of slaves !"
Only in one condition for a hundred years has an American
been a man, always and everywhere a true man; that is, in
a genuine Christian life that revealed a plain, clear, working
antagonism to America's great wrong. Humbling as is the
confession, in all our cringing, apologetic submission to this
grandest, vilest despotism, we have been less than men; and
there has been enough of this to dwarf the general manhood
of the nation.
Thanks to God only, we have done with that; and we are
stronger, greater, than we were. It is true, the emancipa-
tion is not yet universal ; but it will be. The fiat has gone
forth. No true American will hereafter be awed into silence
THE NEW NATION. 695
by insulting threats of violence when he undertakes to ex-
pose a vice or denounce a great injustice. The press and
the pulpit will speak out in any part of our great country
in the cause of the defrauded, the poor, and the helpless.
So thorough and bold are the workings and outpushings of
Liberty, that she will go everywhere. She will paralyze the
hand that seizes a man to bind upon him the fetters of
slavery.
And the new nation is more humane for its justice. No
vindictive spirit is born of Freedom's struggle and triumph.
No deeper sympathy, no truer love, has ever honored the
manhood of man than that, which, in the might of Christian
justice, arose to strike off the fetters of slavery, and which,
in the spirit of Jesus, is now endeavoring to " beat our swords
into ploughshares, and our spears into pruning-hooks ; " and
love still aspires to absolute dominion in the new American
manhood.
The free spirit of science and the true genius of art, the
heroism of truth and the omnipotence of prayer, will power-
fully crowd forward our manhood march toward its typal per-
fection ; and it will include every American, every man.
"I verify the fact, that America is one of the most moral
and enlightened nations on earth. I verify the fact, that, if
democratic levelling be detestable, America has at least
known how to extract from it what makes the man, — con-
science. If certain acts of violence have taken place, the
electoral contest in America has almost always preserved
complete liberty. These orators of the different parties arriv-
ing like princes to the sound of salutes of artillery; these
assemblies of ten thousand, twenty thousand, auditors ; these
vast questions, in which the fate of nations is involved, dis-
cussed from the shores of the Atlantic to the recesses of
the desert, — all this is a spectacle which does not -lack
majesty ; " * and which, we may add, fitly characterizes the
new nation.
* America before Europe, by COUNT DB GASPABIN, pp. 374, 375.
696 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
See the poet's prophecy rapidly passing into history : —
On the rocks we read the story
Of the revolutions grand
Which in ages past and hoary
Swept o'er mountain, sea, and land :
There we trace the mighty stages
Of the world's historic time;
And we mark the buried ages
By their monuments sublime.
Out of fiery storms of forces,
Out of cycles never calm,
Nature, in her mystic courses,
Shapes the mammal and the palm.
History points with solemn finger
To her records dim and old ;
And, as thoughtfully we linger,
Still the lesson there is told.
Through the struggles and the burnings,
Through the stern and frantic strife,
Through the nations' fierce tipturnings,
Put they on a fresher life ;
Then they pass to higher stages
Both of greatness and renown :
In the conflict of the ages
Glory doth the nations crown.
Lo ! we feel the wild upheaval
Of a nation's hidden fires :
Right is battling with the Evil,
And the smoke to heaven aspires ;
War, tumultuous and red-lighted,
Swecpeth with sirocco blast ;
And our green young land is blighted
As the tempest whirleth past.
Not the death-throe of the nation
Is this wild and awful hour :
'Tis its painful transformation
To a nobler life of power .
As the fossils huge were buried
In the massy folds of rock,
So our saurian crime is hurried
To its death-throe in the shock.
'Ncath the Union's broad foundations
Shall the monster Slavery lie,
While the coming generations
Ponder o'er the mystery.
On to years of coming glory,
Through a long triumphal prime,
On through paths of deathless story,
Shall the Union live sublime.
THE NEW NATION. 697
Nobler, freer, and more glorious,
Shall the future Union be :
O'er the despot's rod victorious,
All the lands its strength shall see.
North and South in one dominion,
One in freedom evermore,
O'er one land on loving pinion
Shall the lordly eagle soar :
Northern lake and Southern harbor, «
Cotton-field and prairie wide,
Seaside slope and greenwood arbor,
All shall boast the Union's pride.
On, through all the stormy trial,
God shall bring us on our way :
Let us meet the stern denial ;
Let us watch and wait and pray.
Up from all this tribulation
We shall rise a nobler land,
And in peerless exaltation
'Mid the nations envied stand.
Welcome storm and fire and peril !
Fields Elysian yet shall rise
O'er our war-worn wastes and sterile,
Wrought by freemen's sacrifice.*
* The Union as it Shall Be, by DWIGHT WILLIAMS.
CHAPTER II.
THE GREAT REPUBLIC IN HISTORY.
" A nation of such men is the only true national unity, and is alone tit to enter with
other such nations into those grander combinations of economy, of harmony, and of the
progress and ambitions of peace, for which the world prepares." — PARTRIDGE.
THE place of the Great Republic in the history of the
race is now becoming distinct and important. Arguing
from the character and government of God, it might have
been inferred, and was. long ages ago, that he would some-
where, and at some time, undertake to establish a govern-
ment which should conform in its principles to the plans of
the creation. There are reasons to believe, as we trust this
discussion has shown, that this is that grand attempt. The
country, the colonization, the independence, the develop-
ment, the government, and the emancipation, all under the
controlling power of the Christian religion, clearly indicate
it. In the prosecution of this great providential purpose,
the following results have become evident.
REPUBLICANISM PASSES OUT OF ITS EXPERIMENTAL INTO ITS
HISTORICAL PERIOD.
That is often an experiment to the eyes of men which
cannot be so to the mind of God. Representing the human
view, we concede the fact, that governments attempted by
the people, in the history of the world, have been unsuccess-
ful experiments. We need not trace them. They have
been the recoil of natural freedom from the usurpations
of tyranny, the change and multiplication of the agents of
698
THE GREAT REPUBLIC IN HISTORY. 699
oppression without the possibility of freedom, or the bold
daring of a few brave patriots; all, however, under the
genius of Paganism or some corrupted form of Christianity.
How, in the light of these histories, our venerated fathers
could venture to make another experiment, must have seemed
strange to the believers in " the divine right of kings ; " but
they resolved to make it. Whether the clear definitions of
civil and political rights could be reached by the representa-
tives of the people ; whether a few feeble colonists could
resist the oppression of a mighty nation, and, by eight years
of bloody war, establish their independence ; whether the
Constitution adopted could be sustained as the fundamental
law of the land, until it had triumphed over and worked out
its own vices ; whether the freedom of the ballot and elec-
tions could be maintained ; whether minorities would submit
to majorities ; whether the permanence of executive govern-
ment could be secured without a dynasty and an hereditary
nobility; whether a nation made up of people separated
by State lines could vindicate its sovereignty ; whether the
people could put down a great rebellion ; and whether a re-
public could grapple with and ultimately destroy the intensest
form of despotism known among men, — were questions
of most critical experiment. But, under the control of
Providence, they are all settled ; and wise men abroad have
just ceased to speak of the Republic of America as a
grand experiment, destined to a signal failure. It has passed
through the severest tests to which a nation has ever been
subjected, and endured them all ; emerging at last, with the
smile of a seraph, from its baptisms of blood. True, it is
still militant. The spirit of liberty is aggressive, and has
many formidable enemies. From the past, however, we
learn the manner in which it will fight its battles. Faithful
to the principles of liberty, loyal to the Sovereign ab&ve,
ultimate triumph is certain. Great as are the events which
we have sketched in the experimental period of our nation,
its history has now just fairly begun.
700 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
THE PEOPLE, AS SOVEREIGNS, ADVANCE TO THE RANK OF A FIRST-
CLASS POWER.
The rank of a civil power must depend partly upon its
population, partly upon its internal resources and external
commerce, and partly upon the numbers and perfection of its
army and navy. In these respects, the Great Republic has,
by general consent, taken its place by the side of the first
nations of the globe. But, in modern civilization, profounder
facts must be considered. The laws of increase in popula-
tion, the laws of unity, the development of physical and
moral force and executive power, the spirit of governmen-
tal institutions, the progress of intelligence and virtue, and
the guidance and approval of Providence, must determine the
relative position of any people among the nations of the
world. In all these respects, hereditary sovereigns have
watched their new rivals across the ocean, anxiously expect-
ing to witness their failure, until the last grand crisis has
passed, and at length the people of America take their
place by the side of the mightiest princes ; and no haughty
power affects to despise or dares to insult them. Indeed,
the affectation of superiority over the Great Republic in the
elements of a growing, vital civilization, in the energies and
resources of a great government, has passed away from the
most powerful nations of earth ; while the ease and mag-
nanimity, the firmness and influence, of the government of
the American people in such august presence, demonstrate
their rank as a first-class power.
POPULATION, AND INFLUENCE ABROAD.
Thus we enter upon our future mission ; and, regarding
the regular laws of increase as they have been established
through a great number of years, our official census shows,
that, in 1880, we shall have a population of 56,450,241 people ;
in 1890, 77,266,989; in 1900, only thirty-two years hence,
THE GREAT REPUBLIC IN HISTORY. 7Q1
we shall number 100,355,802 ! Assuming that there is to
be no great judicial interruption by decree of Providence,
what grandeur of development is before us ! Looking for-
ward only a generation, the results of God's great plans for
this vast continent are positively overwhelming.
But the growth of population is not to be considered
alone : it is only one condition of real progress. We may
look out upon the future increase of all the products of the
soil, the advance in all the useful and elegant arts, the prog-
ress in discoveries, in manufactures, and commerce, the
development of our mines, of our institutions of learning,
of our great and powerful American manhood, with the
spirit of a living, renovating Christianity pervading the whole ;
and we may form some idea of what is before us.
But all this must come in to swell our influence abroad.
We have passed the period when it is desirable to think
of it as the power of legitimate protection ; &nd it would
be equally unworthy of us to consider our coming greatness
as the ability to overawe or triumph over other nations,
small or great. Rather let it be considered as an indication
of a responsibility so high and extended as to call for the
profoundest humility and the noblest sense of justice. Our
influence over the governments of the Western continent
must not be that of overshadowing greatness, but of mag-
nanimous fraternal kindness. To the nations of Europe we
must present an example of liberal opinions, sustained by
firm integrity and high-souled international right. How
utterly unworthy of the Great Republic would be airs of
superiority in strength or wisdom ! How much have we yet
to learn from other nations ! how long shall we have reason
to dig in their mines of greater antiquity ! and how much
that is great and true in the liberty-loving millions of the
Old World will demand our recognition !
702 T11E GREAT REPUBLIC.
THE NATIONS OF EARTH ACKNOWLEDGE, RESPECT, AND TRUST
THE GREAT RKPUHLIC.
If it be matter of grave importance for us as a nation
to know what are our accumulating elements of power, and
in what manner we are entering upon the historical period
of our mission, it is also matter of decided interest to know
in what spirit we are received by the great family of nations.
This is not a recent question. It began to receive its answer
immediately after the Declaration of Independence ; but now
it assumes a new aspect. The question is no longer one of
patronage, but of the matured, decisive response to the per-
manent establishment of this new element among the gov-
ernments of earth. Now that it can no longer be regarded
as exceptional or experimental, how is it regarded ?
The answer is most grateful to the American people.
Diplomatic relations are desired and established between
the United States and all the nations of the civilized world.
There is the highest regard for our rights and opinions.
Our citizenship commands the most fraternal and honored
consideration. Our free institutions and rapid growth have
come to be the admiration of the greatest statesmen, as well
as of the masses of Europe. English lords do not hesitate
to quote our financial policy and discretion as a model for
the British Empire. The French emperor imitates our pop-
ular elections, by submitting to the people, in some form, the
question of his crown : when he attempts to impose a gov-
ernment upon Mexico, he demands a vote ; when he deter-
mines to annex provinces to his empire, he calls the people
to vote ; when he proposes the transfer of Venice from
Austria to Italy, the people are asked to express their will.
When an Italian prime minister wishes to adopt free tol-
eration and universal equality of religious rights in the
new nation, he refers to the Great Republic as his model.
Scandinavia opens the way for evangelical Christianity.
THE GREAT REPUBLIC IN HISTORY. 703
a constitutional government for reconstructed Germany ;
and even Austria dashes aside the Concordat, and her em-
peror talks, in Hungary and at home, of a free government.
What is all this but a spontaneous homage to the great
and free institutions of our own noble Christian Republic?
From our Pacific metropolis we communicate directly
with Asia. Our commerce follows rapidly in the track of
our Christian missionaries; and by both we are becoming
extensively known by the millions of China, Japan, Bur-
mah, and India. The silent, powerful workings of Christian
liberty must inevitably accompany our progress.
These facts indicate clearly our position in history, and
our future mission.
CHAPTER III.
GOD IS THE SOVEREIGN.
" We recognize God as the Supreme Disposer of our national affairs : our peace ami
true prosperity depend upon our allegiance to him and his eternal principles of justice
and right." — CALIFORNIA COXF. OF .M. E. Cnuncii, 18G7.
THE history, which, in its principal and controlling facts,
lias passed before us, has shown the hand of God so distinct-
ly, that it must be a strange blindness which can conceal it.
lie appears everywhere, not only as the Creator of our great
continent, but as the grand, directing Providence, the «;ra-
' ' O * O
cious Sovereign, of the nation. We have his laws, not only
in the book of revelation, but in the spirit of liberty which
he has imparted to our government ; in the Christian char-
acter of our institutions ; in the succession of facts rising-
above the power, and contrary to the inclinations, of men.
These all reveal his stern condemnation of our personal and
national sins, and his divine approval of individual and
national virtue, of the true spirit of worship and piety
throughout the land. We know his will. His orders to us
are as distinct and peremptory as though the}' had been
written upon the fair face of the heavens, or proclaimed in
an audible voice to every ear from his throne above. We
know, that, as our Sovereign, he forbids us to worship idols ;
to be a nation of swearers, murderers, or adulterers; to steal,
bear false witness, or covet houses or beasts, people or lands,
which belong to our neighbors ; that he requires us to keep
sacred the holy sabbath, and to honor fathers and mothers ;
to love him with all our hearts, and our neighbors as our-
o
selves. We know that all our attempts to enslave men are
GOD IS THE SOVEREIGN. 7Q5
denounced by his law and his administrative justice in our
guilty land; and that he requires justice of us, — clear, dis-
tinct, elevated, universal justice. We know, that, as our
great common Ruler, he disallows all our dishonesty, politi-
cal corruption, intemperance, and bribery. If the plea of
ignorance with regard to the will of a sovereign could ever
avail for any nation, after the marvellous revelations of God
in our history, it certainly cannot avail for us.
REBELLION IS RUIN.
We must obey. To be found in the wrong in the midst
of such distinct and sublime revelations must be a grave of-
fence ; but to be a nation of deliberate, practical atheists must
be the highest crime. If our rulers dare to defy God ; if they
treat his holy laws with contempt, profane his sabbaths, blas-
pheme his name, become corrupt in character and in adminis-
tration, — they will call down wrath upon us. If the people
— the great body of the people, who are the source of civil
and political justice — become corrupt and oppressive, forget-
ting the lessons which have been taught them by unparal-
leled mercies and the most awful judgments, we may now
certainly know that overwhelming disasters are before us.
If the Church should become recreant to her holy trust, now
that she has been shown so clearly her high position and
responsibility; if her ministers should become proud and
ambitious, her members earthly and sensual, and her pure,
spiritual life be sacrificed for forms and a dead ritualism ; if
the vain pretensions of philosophy and science should super-
sede the pure, simple, and honest revelations of God's word,
— we shall be cursed for such ecclesiastical and national
crimes. We know that this is God's method of dealing with
fallen churches and infidel peoples. Let the wrath which
has fallen upon the Jew and the Pagan, the Mahometan and
the Christian, for proud defiance of God, be our solemn
warning. We are not above Almighty Power : we can by
706 T11K OIIKAT itioruuLic.
no possible means go beyond the reach of Infinite Justice.
True, the life of liberty is indestructible : but this vitalizing,
pervading, immortal power may be transferred to other
people; and we may go down amid the shouts of defiance
and the wailings of despair, and the very name of the Great
Republic become a hissing and a byword forever. Beyond
all question, rebellion against God — intentional, persistent,
prevailing rebellion — would overwhelm this nation in de-
struction.
LOYAL OBEDIENCE IS SAFETY AND SUCCESS.
Let God be honored ; let righteousness, which exalteth a
nation, prevail everywhere ; let the Church become purer
as she enlarges, more exalted in her sense of duty, clearer in
her vision as she looks out upon her future responsibilities;
let the ballot become the emblem of liberty and justice,
and the life of divine love permeate the nation, inspiring and
exalting rulers, lifting up the poor and distressed, vitalizing
all legislation and administration of law, — and we are safe.
It is in the light of this grand revelation of power, in the
presence of these great equities, that our future rises up
sublimely before the eyes of men and angels to-day.
It is time for ns to believe, without reservation, in the
eternal safety of justice, in the infallible wisdom of God's
revelations, and the absolute security of a nation ruled by a
high and all-pervading sense of God, — God everywhere;
God in every thing, infusing life into the public organism,
health and vigor into the nation's patriotism ; giving intelli-
gence, breadth, and elhciency to the nation's philanthropy.
What power can prevail against a people rendering loyal
obedience to a Sovereign so high, so pure, so omnipotent ?
" If God be for ns, who can be against ns ? " In the presence
of such a possibility even, the very conception of our nation's
future is sublime. Let this loyal devotion to the right, to
God, prevail over our personal and national vices ; let the
regeneration of our humanity, under the redeeming agency
• GOD IS THE SOVEREIGN.
of the great Messiah, go on until purified by divine power
and invigorated by divine inspirations, according to the now
distinctly manifested purposes of our great Sovereign, — and
this nation shall stand forth " fair as the moon, clear as the
sun, and terrible as an army with banners."
THE UNITED STATES A GREAT CHRISTIAN POWER.
We have seen that God has intended the Great Republic
for this, and this only. Whoever seeks to destroy the
religious faith of its people, or their sound, trusting devotion
to the purifying, eievating doctrines of Jesus Christ, is the
enemy of our government ; for, with this destroyed, it has
absolutely no basis on which to rest. It has no other
reason for existing, only that a grand Christian power was
the choice and purpose of God for this Western continent
and that its lead in the march of justice before the eyes of
men was required for the great future. In point of fact,
therefore, no treason in this land is so guilty as moral treason ;
no enmity to republican liberty is so perilous as enmity
against God ; no disloyalty so menacing as infidelity. We
certainly cannot exist as a nation of atheists.
With what humble gratitude, therefore, have we traced
in our remarkable history the Christian elements of our
national character ! How strong we have felt as we have
seen clearly that God, and not man, provided the place, and
formed the plan, of our national existence ; that the Christian
religion, embodying the purest principles known in the
world, became the very first, and ultimately the controlling,
organizing power of our government ! How vigorously has
this principle wrestled with oppression, and dashed it to the
ground ! How thoroughly has this, and this alone, wrought
against our own personal and national vices ! How evi-
dently has this only eradicated any one of these vices ! How
quickly, in the absence of the laws and dominion of Jesus
Christ, would they rise against and overpower us !
708 THE GREAT REPUBLIC.
Let no man, therefore, no number of men, attempt to rob
us of this our glory. We are not a Pagan or Mahometan,
but a Christian power. As such, we are closing up the first
century of our national existence; as such, we have put
down our most infidel vice, American slavery, and entered
upon the second great era of the development of liberty.
We must now go on to perfect our system as a great system
of Christian government. Our laws must all be rendered
just and equal. From our State and National Constitutions
the last vestige of oppression and infidelity must be elimi-
nated, and God enthroned in all our forms of government
and social life. Personal regeneration must extend until
political corruption shall become improbable, unpopular, im-
possible ; until the only way to preferment shall be that of
Christian patriotism, and an honest, broad, and noble philan-
thropy. Then the laws which shield the public enemies in
the sale of intoxicating liquors, or in any way poisoning the
public morals, will disappear from our statute-books, and
ample protection to innocent sufferers will take their place.
Do you say this can never be? Never? Then the re-
generation which God extends to some men cannot extend
to others; then the gospel of Christ is a failure, and uour
preaching is vain ; " then, in the grand conflict of ages, vice
is to prove itself more than a match for virtue ; then the
word of unchangeable truth, that " righteousness shall cover
the earth as the waters cover the sea/' shall be demonstrated
a failure. This cannot be. Long and terrible indeed will
be the conflict ; but the triumph is going on before our eyes.
Its type is in every man created anew in Christ Jesus. Its
progress is in the accumulating numbers of " the sacramental
host of God's elect," and in the masterly style in which our
national virtues triumph over vile forces and untoward events
mighty enough to destroy any government not sustained by
Omnipotent Power. Unwavering faith in the ultimate tri-
umph of the right reposes to-day securely on the verities of
history as well as upon the unalterable veracity of God.
GOD IS THE SOVEREIGN. 709
Let us, therefore, confidently expect the gradual but cer-
tain development of Christian principles in the Republic,
and believe in its future greatness as a Christian power.
Let us contemplate the immense resources of this country in
agriculture, precious metals, commerce, and moral influence,
all wielded by the hand and for the purposes of Christian
justice. How immense must be its influence in every part
of the world against despotism of every form ! How inev-
itably will it blend with all forms of liberty everywhere,
lifting up the down-trodden and oppressed of every land
beneath the sun! How potentially will it command wars
to cease, and all the forces of Christian civilization to march
on for the conquest of the world !
THE REPRESENTATIVE OF PROGRESS.
We have seen how rapid has been the development of
this nation under the genial, vitalizing power of Christianity.
Its material progress, so remarkable, is but the beginning and
the least fact of this development. The growth of ideas and
the advance of principles are much more important and re-
markable. Take, as the central fact of this grand movement,
religious liberty. With what giant strength this human
right has lifted up the superincumbent mass of despotic in-
tolerance under which it rested, and exploded its authority
like the eruptive force of volcanic fires! With what un-
conquerable might it has triumphed over antagonist bigotries,
and moved out to proclaim everywhere " freedom to worship
God " ! This is the American development of a grand old
truth, and in it the moral power of the Great Republic is felt
to the ends of the earth. In the great work of extending
and applying this power, however, our mission is not yet
accomplished ; nor will it be until the last vestige of religious
despotism is swept away from Italy, Spain, Austria, and the
world. And with religious intolerance will pass away all
other forms of oppression. The free spirit of true Christianity,
710 THE GliKAT KKPUHLIC.
wherever it goes, works out the problem of soul-liberty, and
tends to universal emancipation. The great fact of this
mission of progress is, that it is the mission of peace, and not
of war ; of love, and not of blood. Our example must shine
in uninterrupted light, Our literature — volume and peri-
odical — will pass into other languages, and it will be the calm
expression of liberty. Our representative citizenship will
assume the dignity, and command the consideration, through-
out the world, due to great organic living truth. Our inis-
sionaries of religion, with the most scrupulous obedience to
all governments in which they are found, will be perpet-
ual representatives of progress in the true American spirit.
Our foreign ministers and consuls, with influence ever in-
creasing, will be the calm, clear, manly expositors of the
doctrine of liberty for princes, courts, and people. Our ships
abroad will be laden with the word of God, and messages of
salvation to the perishing. " Liberty to the captives " will
move over the world by our grand steam-navies, and flash
through the air by our telegraphs ; and the power of our
growing prosperity, under the genius of Christianity, will be
the silent, pervading influence which will blend harmoniously
with all freedom everywhere as the grandest missionary of
progress ever known among men.
THE END.
GKO. C. RAND A AVERT, Stercotypci-g and Printers, Boston.
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