It was late in the history of the world before Europe
and America became known to each other. During
the first fifteen centuries of the Christian era Europe
was unaware of the vast continent which lay beyond
the sea. Asia had ceased to influence her. Africa had not
begun. Her history was waiting for the mighty influence
which America was to exercise in her affairs through all the
future ages.
Men had been slow to establish completely their dominion
over the sea. They learned very early to build ships. They
availed themselves very early of the surprising power which the
helm exerts over the movements of a ship. But, during many
ages, they found no surer guidance upon the pathless sea than
that which the position of the sun and the stars afforded. When
clouds intervened to deprive them of this uncertain direction, they
were helpless. They were thus obliged to keep the land in view,
and content themselves with creeping timidly along the coast.
But at length there was discovered a stone which the wise
Creator had endowed with strange properties. It was observed
that a needle brought once into contact with that stone pointed
ever afterwards steadfastly to the north. Men saw that with
a needle thus influenced they could guide themselves at sea as
surely as on land. The Mariners’ Compass untied the bond
which held sailors to the coast, and gave them liberty to push
out into the sea.
Just when sailors were slowly learning to put confidence in
the mariners’ compass, there arose in Europe a vehement desire
for the discovery of unknown countries. A sudden interest
sprang up in all that was distant and unexplored. The strange
fables told by travellers were greedily received. The human
mind was beginning to cast off the torpor of the Middle Ages.
As intelligence increased, men became increasingly eager to
ascertain the form and extent of the world in which they dwelt,
and to acquaint themselves with those unknown races who were
their fellow-inhabitants.
Portugal and Spain, looking out upon the boundless sea, were
powerfully stirred by the new impulse. The Courts of Lisbon
and Madrid swarmed with adventurers who had made discoveries,
or who wished the means to make them. Conspicuous among
these was an enthusiast, who during eighteen years had not
ceased to importune incredulous monarchs for ships and men
that he might open up the secrets of the sea. He was a tall
man, of grave and gentle manners, and noble though saddened
look. His eye was gray, “apt to enkindle” when he spoke of
those discoveries in the making of which he felt himself to be
Heaven’s chosen agent. He had known hardship and sorrow in
his youth, and at thirty his hair was white. He was the son of
a Genoese wool-comber, and his name was Christopher Columbus.
In him the universal passion for discovery rose to the dignity of
an inspiration.
No sailor of our time would cross the Atlantic in such ships
as were given to Columbus. In size they resembled the smaller
of our river and coasting vessels. Only one of them was decked.
The others were open, save at the prow and stern, where cabins
were built for the crew. The sailors went unwillingly and in
much fear—compelled by an order from the King. With such
ships and such men Columbus left the land behind him and
pushed out into these unknown waters. To him there were no
dangers, no difficulties—God, who had chosen him to do this
work, would sustain him for its accomplishment. He sailed on
the 3rd of August 1492. On the 12th of October, in the dim
light of early morning, he gazed out from the deck of his little
ship upon the shores of a new world. His victory was gained;
his work was done. How great it was he himself never knew.
He died in the belief that he had merely discovered a shorter
route to India. He never enjoyed that which would have been
the best recompense for all his toil—the knowledge that he had
added a vast continent to the possessions of civilized men.
The revelation by Columbus of the amazing fact that there
were lands beyond the great ocean, inhabited by strange races of
human beings, roused to a passionate eagerness the thirst for
fresh discoveries. The splendours of the newly-found world
were indeed difficult to be resisted. Wealth beyond the wildest
dreams of avarice could be had, it was said, for the gathering.
The sands of every river sparkled with gold. The very colour
of the ground showed that gold was profusely abundant. The
meanest of the Indians ornamented himself with gold and jewels.
The walls of the houses glittered with pearls. There was a
fountain, if one might but find it, whose waters bestowed perpetual
youth upon the bather. The wildest romances were
greedily received, and the Old World, with its familiar and
painful realities, seemed mean and hateful beside the fabled
glories of the New.
Europe then enjoyed a season of unusual calm—a short respite
from the habitual toil of war—as if to afford men leisure to enter
on their new possession. The last of the Moors had taken his
last look at Granada, and Spain had rest from her eight centuries
of war. In England, the Wars of the Roses had ceased. After
thirty years of hard fighting and huge waste of life and property,
the fortunate English had been able to determine which branch
of a certain old family was to rule over them. Henry VII.,
with his clear, cold head, and his heavy hand, was guiding his
people somewhat forcibly towards the victories of peace. Even
France tasted the joy of repose. The Reformation was at hand.
While Columbus was holding his uncertain way across the great
Atlantic, a boy called Martin Luther was attending school in a
small German town. The time was not far off, but as yet the
mind of Europe was not engrossed by those religious strifes
which were soon to convulse it.
The men whose trade was fighting turned gladly in this idle
time to the world where boundless wealth was to be wrung
from the grasp of unwarlike barbarians. England and France
had missed the splendid prize which Columbus had won for
Spain. They hastened now to secure what they could. A
merchant of Bristol, John Cabot, obtained permission from the
King of England to make discoveries in the northern parts of
America. Cabot was to bear all expenses, and the King was to
receive one-fifth of the gains of the adventure. Taking with
him his son Sebastian, John Cabot sailed straight westward
across the Atlantic. 1497 A.D. He reached the American continent,
of which he was the undoubted discoverer. The
result to him was disappointing. He landed on the
coast of Labrador. Being in the same latitude as England, he
reasoned that he should find the same genial climate. To his
astonishment he came upon a region of intolerable cold, dreary
with ice and snow. John Cabot had not heard of the Gulf
Stream and its marvellous influences. He did not know that
the western shores of northern Europe are rescued from perpetual
winter, and warmed up to the enjoyable temperature
which they possess, by an enormous river of hot water flowing
between banks of cold water eastward from the Gulf of Mexico.
The Cabots made many voyages afterwards, and explored the
American coast from extreme north to extreme south.
The French turned their attention to the northern parts of
the New World. The rich fisheries of Newfoundland attracted
them. A Frenchman sailed up the great St. Lawrence river.
After some failures a French settlement was established there,
and for a century and a half the French peopled Canada, until
the English relieved them of the ownership.
Spanish adventurers never rested from their eager search after
the treasures of the new continent. An aged warrior called
Ponce de Leon fitted out an expedition at his own cost. He
had heard of the marvellous fountain whose waters would restore
to him the years of his wasted youth. He searched in vain.
The fountain would not reveal itself to the foolish old man, and
he had to bear without relief the burden of his profitless years.
But he found a country hitherto unseen by Europeans, which
was clothed with magnificent forests, and seemed to bloom with
perpetual flowers. He called it Florida. He attempted to
found a colony in the paradise he had discovered. But the
natives attacked him, slew many of his men, and drove the rest
to their ships, carrying with them their chief, wounded to death
by the arrow of an Indian.
Ferdinand de Soto had been with Pizarro in his expedition to
Peru, and returned to Spain enriched by his share of the
plunder. He did not doubt that in the north were cities as
rich and barbarians as confiding. An expedition to discover new
regions, and plunder their inhabitants, was fitted out under his
command. No one doubted that success equal to that of Cortes
and Pizarro would attend this new adventure. The youth of
Spain were eager to be permitted to go, and they sold houses and
lands to buy them the needful equipment. Six hundred men, in
the prime of life, were chosen from the crowd of applicants, and
the expedition sailed, high in courage, splendid in aspect, boundless
in expectation. 1539 A.D. They landed on the coast of Florida,
and began their march into the wilderness. They had
fetters for the Indians whom they meant to take captive.
They had bloodhounds, lest these captives should escape.
The camp swarmed with priests, and as they marched the festivals
and processions enjoined by the Church were devoutly observed.
From the outset it was a toilsome and perilous enterprise; but
to the Spaniard of that time danger was a joy. The Indians
were warlike, and generally hostile. De Soto had pitched
battles to fight and heavy losses to bear. Always he was victorious,
but he could ill afford the cost of many such victories.
The captive Indians amused him with tales of regions where
gold abounded. They had learned that ignorance on that subject
was very hazardous. De Soto had stimulated their knowledge
by burning to death some who denied the existence of gold
in that country. The Spaniards wandered slowly northwards.
They looked eagerly for some great city, the plunder of whose
palaces and temples would enrich them all. They found nothing
better than occasionally an Indian town, composed of a few
miserable huts. It was all they could do to get needful food.
At length they came to a magnificent river. European eyes
had seen no such river till now. It was about a mile in breadth,
and its mass of water swept downward to the sea with a current
of amazing strength. It was the Mississippi. The Spaniards
built vessels and ferried themselves to the western bank.
There they resumed their wanderings. De Soto would not
yet admit that he had failed. He still hoped that the plunder
of a rich city would reward his toils. For many months the
Spaniards strayed among the swamps and dense forests of that
dreary region. The natives showed at first some disposition to
be helpful. But the Spaniards, in their disappointment, were
pitiless and savage. They amused themselves by inflicting pain
upon the prisoners. They cut off their hands; they hunted
them with bloodhounds; they burned them at the stake. The
Indians became dangerous. De Soto hoped to awe them by
claiming to be one of the gods, but the imposture was too
palpable. “How can a man be God when he cannot get bread
to eat?” asked a sagacious savage. It was now three years since
De Soto had landed in America. The utter failure of the expedition
would no longer conceal, and the men wished to return
home. Broken in spirit and in frame, De Soto caught fever and
died. His soldiers felled a tree and scooped room within its
trunk for the body of the ill-fated adventurer. They could not
bury their chief on land, lest the Indians should dishonour his
remains. In the silence of midnight the rude coffin was sunk
in the Mississippi, and the discoverer of the great river slept
beneath its waters. The Spaniards promptly resolved now to
make their way to Cuba. They had tools, and wood was abundant.
They slew their horses for flesh; they plundered the
Indians for bread; they struck the fetters from their prisoners
to reinforce their scanty supply of iron. They built ships enough
to float them down the Mississippi. Three hundred ragged and
disheartened men were all that remained of the brilliant company
whose hopes had been so high, whose good fortune had been so
much envied.
For many years European adventurers continued to
resort to the American coast in the hope of finding
the way to immediate wealth. Some feeble attempts
had been made to colonize. Here and there
a few families had been planted, but hunger or the Indians
always extinguished those infant settlements. The great idea
of colonizing America was slow to take possession of European
minds. The Spaniard sought for Indians to plunder. The
Englishman believed in gold-mines and the north-west passage
to India. It was not till America had been known for a hundred
years that men began to think of finding a home beyond
the Atlantic.
The courage and endurance of the early voyagers excite our
wonder. Few of them sailed in ships so large as a hundred
tons burden. The merchant ships of that time were very
small. The royal navies of Europe contained large vessels, but
commerce was too poor to employ any but the smallest. The
commerce of imperial Rome employed ships which even now
would be deemed large. St. Paul was wrecked in a ship of
over five hundred tons burden. Josephus sailed in a ship of
nearly one thousand tons. Europe contented herself, as yet,
with vessels of a very different class. A ship of forty or fifty
tons was deemed sufficient by the daring adventurers who
sought to reach the Land of Promise beyond the great sea.
Occasionally toy-ships of twenty or twenty-five tons were used.
The brother of Sir Walter Raleigh crossed the Atlantic in such
a ship, and perished in it as he attempted to return to England.
It was not a pleasant world which the men and women of
Europe had to live in during the sixteenth century. Fighting
was the constant occupation of the Kings of that time. A year
of peace was a rare and somewhat wearisome exception. Kings
habitually, at their own unquestioned pleasure, gathered their
subjects together, and marched them off to slay and plunder
their neighbours. Civil wars were frequent. In these confused
strifes men slew their acquaintances and friends as the
only method they knew of deciding who was to fill the throne.
Feeble Commerce was crushed under the iron heel of War. No
such thing as security for life or property was expected. The
fields of the husbandman were trodden down by the march of
armies. Disbanded or deserted soldiers wandered as “masterless
men” over the country, and robbed and murdered at their
will. Highwaymen abounded—although highways could
scarcely be said to exist. Epidemic diseases of strange type,
the result of insufficient feeding and the poisonous air of undrained
lands and filthy streets, desolated all European countries.
Under what hardships and miseries the men of the
sixteenth century passed their days, it is scarcely possible for
us now to conceive.
The English Parliament once reminded James I. of certain
“undoubted rights” which they possessed. The King told
them, in reply, that he “did not like this style of talking, but
would rather hear them say that all their privileges were derived
by the grace and permission of the sovereign.” Europe,
during the sixteenth century, had no better understanding of
the matter than James had. It was not supposed that the
King was made for the people; it seemed rather to be thought
that the people were made for the King. Here and there some
man wiser than ordinary perceived the truth, so familiar to us,
that a King is merely a great officer appointed by the people to
do certain work for them. There was a Glasgow professor who
taught in those dark days that the authority of the King was
derived from the people, and ought to be used for their good.
Two of his pupils were John Knox the reformer, and George
Buchanan the historian, by whom this doctrine, so great and
yet so simple, was clearly perceived and firmly maintained.
But to the great mass of mankind it seemed that the King had
divine authority to dispose of his subjects and their property
according to his pleasure. Poor patient humanity still bowed
in lowly reverence before its Kings, and bore, without wondering
or murmuring, all that it pleased them to inflict. No
stranger superstition has ever possessed the human mind than
this boundless mediæval veneration for the King—a veneration
which follies the most abject, vices the most enormous, were not
able to quench.
But as this unhappy century draws towards its close, the
elements of a most benign change are plainly seen at work.
The Bible has been largely read. The Bible is the book of all
ages and of all circumstances. But never, surely, since its first
gift to man was it more needful to any age than to that which
now welcomed its restoration with wonder and delight. It took
deep hold on the minds of men. It exercised a silent influence
which gradually changed the aspect of society. The narrative
portions of Scripture were especially acceptable to the untutored
intellect of that time; and thus the Old Testament was preferred
to the New. This preference led to some mistakes.
Rules which had been given to an ancient Asiatic people were
applied in circumstances for which they were never intended or
fitted. It is easy to smile at these mistakes. But it is impossible
to over-estimate the social and political good which we now
enjoy as a result of this incessant reading of the Bible by the
people of the sixteenth century.
In nearly all European countries the King claimed to regulate
the religious belief of his subjects. Even in England that
power was still claimed. The people were beginning to suspect
that they were entitled to think for themselves—a suspicion
which grew into an indignant certainty, and widened and
deepened till it swept from the throne the unhappy House of
Stuart.
A little way into the seventeenth century America became
the refuge of those who would not receive their faith at the
bidding of the King. The best part of American colonization
resulted from the foolish and insolent oppressions of Europe.
At the beginning, however, it was not so. It was from an impulse
of vagrant blackguardism that the first American colony
sprang.
Sir Walter Raleigh spent a large fortune in
attempting to colonize Virginia. He succeeded in
directing the attention of his countrymen to the
region which had kindled his own enthusiasm, but
his colonies never prospered. Sometimes the colonists returned
home disgusted by the hardships of the wilderness. Once they
were massacred by the Indians. When help came from England
the infant settlement was in ruins. The bones of unburied
men lay about the fields; wild deer strayed among the untenanted
houses. Once a colony wholly disappeared. To this
day its fate is unknown.
Sir Walter was enduring his long captivity in the Tower,
writing his “History of the World,” and moaning piteously
over the havoc which prison-damps wrought upon his handsome
frame. The time had now come, and his labours were
about to bear fruit. The history of Virginia was about
to open. It opened with meagre promise. 1606 A.D. A charter
from the King established a Company whose function was to
colonize—whose privilege was to trade. The Company sent
out an expedition which sailed in three small vessels. It consisted
of one hundred and five men. Of these one-half were
gentlemen of broken fortune; some were tradesmen; others
were footmen. Only a very few were farmers, or mechanics, or
persons in any way fitted for the life they sought. Morally the
aspect of the expedition was even more discouraging. “An
hundred dissolute persons” were on board the ships. The respectable
portions of the expedition must have gone into very
little room.
But, happily for Virginia, there sailed with these reprobate
founders of a new empire a man whom Providence had highly
gifted with fitness to govern his fellow-men. His name was
John Smith. No writer of romance would have given his hero
this name; but, in spite of his name, the man was truly heroic.
He was still under thirty, a strong-limbed, deep-chested, massively-built
man. From boyhood he had been a soldier—roaming
over the world in search of adventures, wherever hard blows
were being exchanged. He was mighty in single combat.
Once, while opposing armies looked on, he vanquished three
Turks, and, like David, cut off their heads, and bore them to
his tent. Returning to England when the passion for colonizing
was at its height, he caught at once the prevailing impulse.
He joined the Virginian expedition; ultimately he became its
chief. His fitness was so manifest, that no reluctance on his
own part, no jealousies on that of his companions, could bar
him from the highest place. Men became Kings of old by the
same process which now made Smith a chief.
The “dissolute persons” sailed in their ships up the James
river. Landing there, they proceeded to construct a little town,
which they named Jamestown, in honour of the King. This
was the first colony which struck its roots in American soil.
The colonists were charmed with the climate and with the
luxuriant beauty of the wilderness on whose confines they had
settled. But as yet it was only a wilderness. The forest had
to be cleared that food might be grown. The exiled gentlemen
laboured manfully, but under grievous discouragements. “The
axes so oft blistered their tender fingers, that many times every
third blow had a loud oath to drown the echo.” Smith was a
man upon whose soul there lay a becoming reverence for sacred
things. He devised how to have every man’s oaths numbered;
“and at night, for every oath, to have a can of water poured
down his sleeve.” Under this treatment the evil assuaged.
The emigrants had landed in early spring. Summer came
with its burning heat; supplies of food ran low. “Had we
been as free from all sins as from gluttony and drunkenness,”
Smith wrote, “we might have been canonized as saints.” The
colonists sickened and died. From those poor blistered fingers
dropped for ever the unaccustomed axe. Before autumn every
second man had died. But the hot Virginian sun, which proved
so deadly to the settlers, ripened the wheat they had sowed in
the spring, and freed the survivors from the pressure of want.
Winter brought them a healthier temperature and abundant
supplies of wild-fowl and game.
When the welfare of the colony was in some measure secured,
Smith set forth with a few companions to explore the interior of
the country. He and his followers were captured by the Indians,
and the followers were summarily butchered. Smith’s composure
did not fail him in the worst extremity. He produced
his pocket-compass, and interested the savages by explaining its
properties. He wrote a letter in their sight—to their infinite
wonder. They spared him, and made a show of him in all the
settlements round about. He was to them an unfathomable
mystery. He was plainly superhuman. Whether his power
would bring to them good or evil, they were not able to determine.
After much hesitation they chose the course which
prudence seem to counsel. They resolved to extinguish powers
so formidable, regarding whose use they could obtain no
guarantee. Smith was bound and stretched upon the earth,
his head resting upon a great stone. The mighty club was uplifted
to dash out his brains. But Smith was a man who won
golden opinions of all. The Indian chief had a daughter, Pocahontas,
a child of ten or twelve years. She could not bear to
see the pleasing Englishman destroyed. As Smith lay waiting
the fatal stroke, she caught him in her arms and interposed
herself between him and the club. Her intercession prevailed,
and Smith was set free.
Five years later, “an honest and discreet” young Englishman
called John Rolfe loved this young Indian girl. He had a sore
mental struggle about uniting himself with “one of barbarous
breeding and of a cursed race.” But love triumphed. He
laboured for her conversion, and had the happiness of seeing her
baptized in the little church of Jamestown. Then he married
her. After a time he took her home to England. Her appearance
was pleasing; her mind was acute; her piety was sincere;
her manners bore picturesque evidence of her forest upbringing.
The English King and Court regarded her with lively interest
as the first-fruits of the wilderness. Great hopes were founded
on this union of the two races. She is the brightest picture—this
young Virginian wife and mother—which the history of
the doomed native races presents to us. But she did not live
to revisit her native land. Death parted her very early from
her husband and her child.
When Smith returned from captivity the colony was on the
verge of extinction. Only thirty-eight persons were left, and
they were preparing to depart. With Smith, hope returned to
the despairing settlers. They resumed their work, confident in
the resources of their chief. Fresh arrivals from England
cheered them. The character of these reinforcements had not
as yet improved. “Vagabond gentlemen” formed still a large
majority of the settlers—many of them, we are told, “packed
off to escape worse destinies at home.” The colony, thus composed,
had already gained a very bad reputation: so bad that
some, rather than be sent there, “chose to be hanged, and were.”
Over these most undesirable subjects Smith ruled with an
authority which no man dared or desired to question. But he
was severely injured by an accidental explosion of gunpowder.
Surgical aid was not in the colony. Smith required to go to
England, and once more hungry ruin settled down upon
Virginia. 1610 A.D. In six months the five hundred men whom
Smith had left dwindled to sixty. These were already
embarked and departing, when they were met by Lord
Delaware, the new governor. Once more the colony was
saved.
Years of quiet growth succeeded. Emigrants—not wholly
now of the dissolute sort—flowed steadily in. Bad people bore
rule in England during most of the seventeenth century, and
they sold the good people to be slaves in Virginia. The victims
of the brutal Judge Jeffreys—the Scotch Covenanters taken at
Bothwell Bridge—were shipped off to this profitable market. In
1688 the population of Virginia had increased to 50,000. The
little wooden capital swelled out. Other little wooden towns
established themselves. Deep in the unfathomed wilderness
rose the huts of adventurous settlers, in secluded nooks, by the
banks of nameless Virginian streams. A semblance of roads
connected the youthful communities. The Indians were relentlessly
suppressed. The Virginians bought no land; they took
what they required—slaying or expelling the former occupants.
Perhaps there were faults on both sides. Once the Indians
planned a massacre so cunningly that over three hundred Englishmen
perished before the bloody hand of the savages could
be stayed.
The early explorers of Virginia found tobacco in extensive
use among the Indians. It was the chief medicine of the
savages. Its virtues—otherwise unaccountable—were supposed
to proceed from a spiritual presence whose home was in the
plant. Tobacco was quickly introduced into England, where it
rose rapidly into favour. Men who had heretofore smoked only
hemp knew how to prize tobacco. King James wrote vehemently
against it. He issued a proclamation against trading in an
article which was corrupting to mind and body. He taxed it
heavily when he could not exclude it. The Pope excommunicated
all who smoked in churches. But, in defiance of law and
reason, the demand for tobacco continued to increase.
The Virginians found their most profitable occupation in
supplying this demand. So eager were they, that tobacco was
grown in the squares and streets of Jamestown. In the absence
of money tobacco became the Virginian currency. Accounts
were kept in tobacco. The salaries of members of Assembly,
the stipends of clergymen, were paid in tobacco; offences were
punished by fines expressed in tobacco. Absence from church
cost the delinquent fifty pounds; refusing to have his child
baptized, two thousand pounds; entertaining a Quaker, five
thousand pounds. When the stock of tobacco was unduly large,
the currency was debased, and much inconvenience resulted.
The Virginians corrected this evil in their monetary system by
compelling every planter to burn a certain proportion of his
stock.
Within a few years of the settlement the Virginians had a
written Constitution, according to which they were ruled. They
had a Parliament chosen by the burghs, and a Governor sent
them from England. The Episcopal Church was established
among them, and the colony divided into parishes. A college
was erected for the use not only of the English, but also of the
most promising young Indians. But they never became an
educated people. The population was widely scattered, so that
schools were almost impossible. In respect of education, Virginia
fell far behind her sisters in the North.
A little more than two centuries ago New England
was one vast forest. Here and there a little space
was cleared, a little corn was raised; a few Indian
families made their temporary abode. The savage
occupants of the land spent their profitless lives to no better
purpose than in hunting and fighting. The rivers which now
give life to so much cheerful industry flowed uselessly to the
sea. Providence had prepared a home which a great people
might fitly inhabit. Let us see whence and how the men were
brought who were the destined possessors of its opulence.
The Reformation had taught that every man is entitled to
read his Bible for himself, and guide his life by the light he
obtains from it. But the lesson was too high to be soon learned.
Protestant princes no more than Popish could permit their subjects
to think for themselves. James I. had just ascended the
English throne. His were the head of a fool and the heart of
a tyrant. He would allow no man to separate himself from
the Established Church. He would “harry out of the land”
all who attempted such a thing; and he was as good as his
word. Men would separate from the Church, and the King
stretched out his pitiless hand to crush them.
On the northern border of Nottinghamshire stands the little
town of Scrooby. Here there were some grave and well-reputed
persons, to whom the idle ceremonies of the Established Church
were an offence. They met in secret at the house of one of
their number, a gentleman named Brewster. They were ministered
to in all scriptural simplicity by the pastor of their choice—Mr.
Robinson, a wise and good man. But their secret meetings
were betrayed to the authorities, and their lives were made
bitter by the persecutions that fell upon them. They resolved
to leave their own land and seek among strangers that freedom
which was denied them at home.
They embarked with all their goods for Holland. But when
the ship was about to sail, soldiers came upon them, plundered
them, and drove them on shore. They were marched to the
public square of Boston, and there the Fathers of New England
endured such indignities as an unbelieving rabble could inflict.
After some weeks in prison they were suffered to return home.
Next spring they tried again to escape. This time a good
many were on board, and the others were waiting for the return
of the boat which would carry them to the ship. Suddenly
dragoons were seen spurring across the sands. The shipmaster
pulled up his anchor and pushed out to sea with those of his
passengers whom he had. The rest were conducted to prison.
After a time they were set at liberty, and in little groups they
made their way to Holland. Mr. Robinson and his congregation
were reunited, and the first stage of the weary pilgrimage
from the Old England to the New was at length accomplished.
Eleven quiet and not unprosperous years were spent in
Holland. The Pilgrims worked with patient industry
at their various handicrafts. 1609 A.D. They quickly gained the
reputation of doing honestly and effectively whatever
they professed to do, and thus they found abundant employment.
Mr. Brewster established a printing-press, and printed books
about liberty, which, as he had the satisfaction of knowing,
greatly enraged the foolish King James. The little colony
received additions from time to time as oppression in England
became more intolerable.
The instinct of separation was strong within the Pilgrim
heart. They could not bear the thought that their little colony
was to mingle with the Dutchmen and lose its independent
existence. But already their sons and daughters were forming
alliances which threatened this result. The Fathers considered
long and anxiously how the danger was to be averted. They
determined again to go on pilgrimage. They would seek a
home beyond the Atlantic, where they could dwell apart and
found a State in which they should be free to think.
1620 A.D. On a sunny morning in July the Pilgrims kneel upon the
sea-shore at Delfthaven, while the pastor prays for the
success of their journey. Out upon the gleaming sea a
little ship lies waiting. Money has not been found to
transplant the whole colony, and only a hundred have been
sent. The remainder will follow when they can. These hundred
depart amid tears and prayers and fond farewells. Mr.
Robinson dismissed them with counsels which breathed a pure
and high-toned wisdom. He urged them to keep their minds
ever open for the reception of new truths. “The Lord,” he
said, “has more truth to break forth out of his holy Word. I
cannot sufficiently bewail the condition of the Reformed
Churches, who are come to a period in religion, and will go at
present no further than the instruments of their reformation.
Luther and Calvin were great and shining lights in their times,
yet they penetrated not into the whole counsel of God, but,
were they now living, would be as willing to embrace further
light as that which they first received. I beseech you, remember
that you be ready to receive whatever truth shall be made
known to you from the written Word of God.”
Sixty-eight years later, another famous departure from the
coast of Holland took place. It was that of William, Prince of
Orange, coming to deliver England from tyranny, and give a
new course to English history. A powerful fleet and army
sailed with the prince. The chief men of the country accompanied
him to his ships. Public prayers for his safety were
offered up in all the churches. Insignificant beside this seems
at first sight the unregarded departure of a hundred working-men
and women. It was in truth, however, not less, but even
more memorable. For these poor people went forth to found a
great empire, destined to leave as deep and as enduring a mark
upon the world’s history as Rome or even as England has
done.
The Mayflower, in which the Pilgrims made their voyage,
was a ship of one hundred and sixty tons. The weather proved
stormy and cold; the voyage unexpectedly long. It was early
in September when they sailed; it was not till the 11th November
that the Mayflower dropped her anchor in the waters of
Cape Cod Bay.
It was a bleak-looking and discouraging coast which lay before
them. Nothing met the eye but low sand-hills, covered
with ill-grown wood down to the margin of the sea. The Pilgrims
had now to choose a place for their settlement. About
this they hesitated so long that the captain threatened to put
them all on shore and leave them. Little expeditions were
sent to explore. At first no suitable locality could be found.
The men had great hardships to endure. The cold was so excessive
that the spray froze upon their clothes, and they resembled
men cased in armour. At length a spot was fixed upon.
The soil appeared to be good, and abounded in “delicate
springs” of water. On the 23rd December the Pilgrims landed,
stepping ashore upon a huge boulder of granite, which is still
reverently preserved by their descendants. Here they resolved
to found their settlement, which they agreed to call New Plymouth.
The winter was severe, and the infant colony was brought
very near to extinction. They had been badly fed on board
the Mayflower, and for some time after going on shore there
was very imperfect shelter from the weather. Sickness fell
heavily on the worn-out Pilgrims. Every second day a grave
had to be dug in the frozen ground. By the time spring came
in there were only fifty survivors, and these sadly enfeebled
and dispirited.
But all through this dismal winter the Pilgrims laboured at
their heavy task. The care of the sick, the burying of the
dead, sadly hindered their work; but the building of their little
town went on. They found that nineteen houses would contain
their diminished numbers. These they built. Then they surrounded
them with a palisade. Upon an eminence beside their
town they erected a structure which served a double purpose.
Above, it was a fort, on which they mounted six cannon; below,
it was their church. Hitherto the Indians had been a
cause of anxiety, but had done them no harm. Now they felt
safe. Indeed there had never been much risk. A recent
epidemic had swept off nine-tenths of the Indians who inhabited
that region, and the discouraged survivors could ill afford to
incur the hostility of their formidable visitors.
The Pilgrims had been careful to provide for themselves a
government. They had drawn up and signed, in the cabin of
the Mayflower, a document forming themselves into a body
politic, and promising obedience to all laws framed for the
general good. Under this constitution they appointed John
Carver to be their governor. They dutifully acknowledged
King James, but they left no very large place for his authority.
They were essentially a self-governing people. They knew
what despotism was, and they were very sure that democracy
could by no possibility be so bad.
The welcome spring came at length, and “the birds sang in
the woods most pleasantly.” The health of the colony began
somewhat to improve, but there was still much suffering to
endure. The summer passed not unprosperously. They had
taken possession of the deserted clearings of the Indians, and
had no difficulty in providing themselves with food. But in
the autumn came a ship with a new company of Pilgrims.
This was very encouraging; but unhappily the ship brought no
provisions, and the supplies of the colonists were not sufficient
for this unexpected addition. For six months there was only
half allowance to each. Such straits recurred frequently during
the first two or three years. Often the colonists knew not at
night “where to have a bit in the morning.” Once or twice
the opportune arrival of a ship saved them from famishing.
They suffered much, but their cheerful trust in Providence and
in their own final triumph never wavered. They faced the difficulties
of their position with undaunted hearts. Slowly but
surely the little colony struck its roots and began to grow.
The years which followed the coming of the Pilgrims were
years through which good men in England found it bitter to
live. Charles I. was upon the throne; Laud was Archbishop
of Canterbury. Bigotry as blind and almost as cruel as England
had ever seen thus sat in her high places. Dissent
from the Popish usages, which prevailed more and more in the
Church, was at the peril of life. A change was near. John
Hampden was farming his lands in Buckinghamshire. A
greater than he—his cousin, Oliver Cromwell—was leading his
quiet rural life at Huntingdon, not without many anxious and
indignant thoughts about the evils of his time. John Milton
was peacefully writing his minor poems, and filling his mind
with the learning of the ancients. The Men had come, and the
Hour was at hand. But as yet King Charles and Archbishop
Laud had it all their own way. They fined and imprisoned
every man who ventured to think otherwise than they wished
him to think: they slit his nose, they cut off his ears, they gave
him weary hours in the pillory. They ordered that men should
not leave the kingdom without the King’s permission. Eight
ships lay in the Thames, with their passengers on board, when
that order was given forth. The soldiers cleared the ships, and
the poor emigrants were driven back, in poverty and despair,
to endure the misery from which they were so eager to
escape.
New England was the refuge to which the wearied victims
of this senseless tyranny looked. The Pilgrims wrote to their
friends at home, and every letter was regarded with the interest
due to a “sacred script.” They had hardships to tell of at
first; then they had prosperity and comfort; always they had
liberty. New England seemed a paradise to men who were
denied permission to worship God according to the manner
which they deemed right. Every summer a few ships were
freighted for the settlements. Many of the silenced ministers
came. Many of their congregations came, glad to be free, at
whatever sacrifice, from the tyranny which disgraced their
native land. The region around New Plymouth became too
narrow for the population. From time to time a little party
would go forth, with a minister at its head. With wives and
children and baggage they crept slowly through the swampy
forest. By a week or two of tedious journeying they reached
some point which pleased their fancy, or to which they judged
that Providence had sent them. There they built their little
town, with its wooden huts, its palisade, its fort, on which one
or two guns were ultimately mounted. Thus were founded
many of the cities of New England.
For some years the difficulties which the colonists encountered
were almost overwhelming. There seemed at times even to be
danger that death by starvation would end the whole enterprise.
But they were a stout-hearted, patient, industrious
people, and labour gradually brought comfort. The virgin soil
began to yield them abundant harvests. They fished with such
success that they manured their fields with the harvest of the
sea. They spun and they weaved. They felled the timber of
their boundless forests. They built ships, and sent away to
foreign countries the timber, the fish, the furs which were not required
at home. 1643 A.D. Ere many years a ship built in Massachusetts
sailed for London, followed by “many prayers of the
churches.” Their infant commerce was not without its
troubles. They had little or no coin, and Indian corn
was made a legal tender. Bullets were legalized in room of
the farthings which, with their other coins, had vanished to pay
for foreign goods. But no difficulty could long resist their
steady, undismayed labour.
They were a noble people who had thus begun to strike
their roots in the great forests of New England. Their peculiarities
may indeed amuse us. The Old Testament was their
statute-book, and they deemed that the institutions of Moses
were the best model for those of New England. They made
attendance on public worship compulsory. They christened
their children by Old Testament names. They regulated female
attire by law. They considered long hair unscriptural, and
preached against veils and wigs.
The least wise among us can smile at the mistakes into which
the Puritan Fathers of New England fell. But the most wise
of all ages will most profoundly reverence the purity, the
earnestness, the marvellous enlightenment of these men. From
their incessant study of the Bible they drew a love of human
liberty unsurpassed in depth and fervour. Coming from under
despotic rule, they established at once a government absolutely
free. They felt—what Europe has not even yet fully apprehended—that
the citizens of a State should be able to guide the
affairs of that State without helpless dependence upon a few
great families; that the members of a Church ought to guide
the affairs of that Church, waiting for the sanction of no patron,
however noble and good. It was one of their fundamental laws
that all strangers professing the Christian religion and driven
from their homes by persecutors, should be succoured at the
public charge. The education of children was almost their
earliest care. The Pilgrims bore with them across the sea a
deep persuasion that their infant State could not thrive without
education. Three years after the landing, it was reported of
them among the friends they had left in London, that “their
children were not catechised, nor taught to read.” The colonists
felt keenly this reproach. They utterly denied its justice. They
owned, indeed, that they had not yet attained to a school, much
as they desired it. But all parents did their best, each in the
education of his own children. In a very few years schools
began to appear. Such endowment as could be afforded was
freely given. Some tolerably qualified brother was fixed upon,
and “entreated to become schoolmaster.” And thus gradually
the foundations were laid of the noble school system of New
England. Soon a law was passed that every town containing
fifty householders must have a common school; every town of
a hundred householders must have a grammar school. Harvard
College was established within fifteen years of the landing.
The founders of New England were men who had known at
home the value of letters. Brewster carried with him a library
of two hundred and seventy-five volumes, and his was not the
largest collection in the colony. The love of knowledge was
deep and universal. New England has never swerved from her
early loyalty to the cause of education.
Every colonist was necessarily a soldier. The State provided
him with arms, if poor; required him to provide himself, if rich.
His weapons were sword, pike, and matchlock, with a forked
stick on which to rest his artillery in taking aim. The people
were carefully trained to the use of arms. In the devout spirit
of the time, their drills were frequently opened and closed with
prayer.
Twenty-three years after the landing of the Pilgrims the
population of New England had grown to twenty-four thousand.
Forty-nine little wooden towns, with their wooden churches,
wooden forts, and wooden ramparts, were dotted here and there
over the land. There were four separate colonies, which
hitherto had maintained separate governments. They were
Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Haven. There
appeared at first a disposition in the Pilgrim mind to scatter
widely, and remain apart in small self-governing communities.
For some years every little band which pushed deeper into the
wilderness settled itself into an independent State, having no
political relations with its neighbours. But this isolation could
not continue. The wilderness had other inhabitants, whose
presence was a standing menace. Within “striking distance”
there were Indians enough to trample out the solitary little
English communities. On their frontiers were Frenchmen and
Dutchmen—natural enemies, as all men in that time were to
each other. 1643 A.D. For mutual defence and encouragement, the
four colonies joined themselves into the United Colonies
of New England. This was the first confederation in a
land where confederations of unprecedented magnitude were
hereafter to be established.
The Puritans left their native England and came to
the “outside of the world,” as they called it, that
they might enjoy liberty to worship God according
to the way which they deemed right. They had
discovered that they themselves were entitled to toleration.
They felt that the restraints laid upon themselves were very
unjust and very grievous. But their light as yet led them no
further. They had not discovered that people who differed
from them were as well entitled to be tolerated as they themselves
were. We have no right to blame them for their backwardness.
Simple as it seems, men have not all found out, even
yet, that every one of them is fully entitled to think for himself.
1631 A.D. And thus it happened that, before the Pilgrims had enjoyed
for many years the cheerful liberty of their new home,
doctrines raised their heads among them which they
felt themselves bound to suppress. One February day
there stepped ashore at Boston a young man upon whose
coming great issues depended. His name was Roger Williams.
He was a clergyman—“godly and zealous”—a man of rare
virtue and power. Cromwell admitted him, in later years, to a
considerable measure of intimacy. He was the friend of John
Milton—in the bright days of the poet’s youth, ere yet “the
ever-during dark” surrounded him. From him Milton acquired
his knowledge of the Dutch language. He carried with him to
the New World certain strange opinions. Long thought had
satisfied him that in regard to religious belief and worship man
is responsible to God alone. No man, said Williams, is entitled
to lay compulsion upon another man in regard to religion. The
civil power has to do only with the “bodies and goods and outward
estates” of men; in the domain of conscience God is the
only ruler. New England was not able to receive these sentiments.
Williams became minister at Salem, where he was held
in high account. In time his opinions drew down upon him
the unfavourable notice of the authorities. The General Court
of Massachusetts brought him to trial for the errors of his
belief. His townsmen and congregation deserted him. His
wife reproached him bitterly with the evil he was bringing
upon his family. Mr. Williams could do no otherwise. He
must testify with his latest breath, if need be, against the
“soul oppression” which he saw around him. The court heard
him, discovered error in his opinions, declared him guilty, and
pronounced upon him sentence of banishment.
All honour to this good and brave, if somewhat eccentric
man. He of all the men of his time saw most clearly the beauty
of absolute freedom in matters of conscience. He went forth
from Salem. He obtained a grant of land from the Indians,
and he founded the State of Rhode Island. Landing one day
from a boat in which he explored his new possessions, he climbed
a gentle slope, and rested with his companions beside a spring.
It seemed to him that the capital of his infant State ought to be
here. He laid the foundations of his city, which he named
Providence, in grateful recognition of the Power which had
guided his uncertain steps. His settlement was to be “a shelter
for persons distressed for conscience.” Most notably has it been
so. Alone of all the States of Christendom, Rhode Island has
no taint of persecution in her statute-book or in her history.
Massachusetts continued to drive out her heretics; Rhode
Island took them in. They might err in their interpretation of
Scripture. Pity for themselves if they did so. But while they
obeyed the laws, they might interpret Scripture according to the
light they had. Many years after, Mr. Williams became
President of the colony which he had founded. The neighbouring
States were at that time sharply chastising the Quakers
with lash and branding-iron and gibbet. Rhode Island was
invited to join in the persecution. Mr. Williams replied that
he had no law whereby to punish any for their belief “as to
salvation and an eternal condition.” He abhorred the doctrines
of the Quakers. In his seventy-third year he rowed thirty
miles in an open boat to wage a public debate with some of the
advocates of the system. Thus and thus only could he resist
the progress of opinions which he deemed pernicious. In beautiful
consistency and completeness stands out to the latest hour
of his long life this good man’s loyalty to the absolute liberty of
the human conscience.
1651 A.D. And thus, too, it happened that when seven or eight men
began to deny that infants should be baptized, New
England never doubted that she did right in forcibly
trampling out their heresy. The heretics had started a
meeting of their own, where they might worship God apart
from those who baptized their infants. One Sabbath morning
the constable invaded their worship and forcibly bore them
away to church. Their deportment there was not unsuitable to
the manner of their inbringing. They audaciously clapped on
their hats while the minister prayed, and made no secret that
they deemed it sin to join in the services of those who practised
infant baptism. For this “separation of themselves from God’s
people” they were put on trial. They were fined, and some of
the more obdurate among them were ordered to be “well
whipped.” We have no reason to doubt that this order was
executed in spirit as well as in letter. And then a law went
forth that every man who openly condemned the baptizing of
infants should suffer banishment. Thus resolute were the good
men of New England that the right which they had come so far
to enjoy should not be enjoyed by any one who saw a different
meaning from theirs in any portion of the Divine Word.
1656 A.D. Thus, too, when Massachusetts had reason to apprehend the
coming of certain followers of the Quaker persuasion,
she was smitten with a great fear. A fast-day was
proclaimed, that the alarmed people might “seek the
face of God in reference to the abounding of errors, especially
those of the Ranters and Quakers.” As they fasted, a ship was
nearing their shores with certain Quaker women on board.
These unwelcome visitors were promptly seized and lodged in
prison; their books were burned by the hangman; they themselves
were sent away home by the ships which brought them.
All ship-masters were strictly forbidden to bring Quakers to the
colony. A poor woman, the wife of a London tailor, left her
husband and her children, to bring, as she said, a message from
the Lord to New England. Her trouble was but poorly bestowed;
for they to whom her message came requited her with
twenty stripes and instant banishment. The banished Quakers
took the earliest opportunity of finding their way back. Laws
were passed dooming to death all who ventured to return. A
poor fanatic was following his plough in distant Yorkshire,
when the word of the Lord came to him saying, “Go to
Boston.” He went, and the ungrateful men of Boston hanged
him. Four persons in all suffered death. Many were whipped;
some had their ears cut off. 1661 A.D. But public opinion, which has
always been singularly humane in America, began to
condemn these foolish cruelties. And the Quakers had
friends at home—friends who had access at Court.
There came a letter in the King’s name directing that the
authorities of New England should “forbear to proceed further
against the Quakers.” That letter came by the hands of a
Quaker who was under sentence of death if he dared to return.
The authorities could not but receive it—could not but give
effect to it. The persecution ceased; and with it may be said
to close, in America, all forcible interference with the right of
men to think for themselves.
The Quakers, as they are known to us, are of all sects the
least offensive. A persecution of this serene, thoughtful, self-restrained
people, may well surprise us. But, in justice to New
England, it must be told that the first generation of Quakers
differed extremely from succeeding generations. They were a
fanatical people—extravagant, disorderly, rejecters of lawful
authority. A people more intractable, more unendurable by
any government, never lived. They were guided by an “inner
light,” which habitually placed them at variance with the laws
of the country in which they lived, as well as with the most
harmless social usages. George Fox declared that “the Lord
forbade him to put off his hat to any man.” His followers were
inconveniently and provokingly aggressive. They invaded
public worship. They openly expressed their contempt for the
religion of their neighbours. They perpetually came with
“messages from the Lord,” which it was not pleasant to listen
to. They appeared in public places very imperfectly attired,
thus symbolically to express and to rebuke the spiritual nakedness
of the time. After a little, when their zeal allied itself
with discretion, they became a most valuable element in
American society. But we can scarcely wonder that they
created alarm at first. The men of New England took a very
simple view of the subject. They had bought and paid for
every acre of soil which they occupied. Their country was a
homestead from which they might exclude whom they chose.
They would not receive men whose object was to overthrow all
their institutions, civil and religious. It was a mistake, but a
most natural mistake. Long afterwards, when New England
saw her error, she nobly made what amends she could, by giving
compensation to the representatives of those Quakers who had
suffered in the evil times.
When the Pilgrims left their native land, the belief
in witchcraft was universal. England, in much
fear, busied herself with the slaughter of friendless
old women who were suspected of an alliance with
Satan. King James had published his book on Demonology a
few years before, in which he maintained that to forbear from
putting witches to death was an “odious treason against God.”
England was no wiser than her King. All during James’s life,
and long after he had ceased from invading the kingdom of
Satan, the yearly average of executions for witchcraft was
somewhere about five hundred.
The Pilgrims carried with them across the Atlantic the
universal delusion, which their way of life was fitted to
strengthen. They lived on the verge of vast and gloomy
forests. The howl of the wolf and the scream of the panther
sounded nightly around their cabins. Treacherous savages
lurked in the woods watching the time to plunder and to
slay. Every circumstance was fitted to increase the susceptibility
of the mind to gloomy and superstitious impressions.
But for the first quarter of a century, while every ship brought
news of witch-killing at home, no Satanic outbreak disturbed
the settlers. The sense of brotherhood was yet too
strong among them. Men who have braved great dangers
and endured great hardships together, do not readily come
to look upon each other as the allies and agents of the Evil
One.
In 1645 four persons were put to death for witchcraft.
During the next half century there occur at intervals solitary
cases, when some unhappy wretch falls a victim to the lurking
superstition. It was in 1692 that witch-slaying burst forth in
its epidemic form, and with a fury which has seldom been
witnessed elsewhere.
In the State of Massachusetts there is a little town, then
called Salem, sitting pleasantly in a plain between two rivers;
and in the town of Salem there dwelt at that time a minister
whose name was Paris. In the month of February the daughter
and niece of Mr. Paris became ill. It was a dark time for
Massachusetts; for the colony was at war with the French
and Indians, and was suffering cruelly from their ravages.
The doctors sat in solemn conclave on the afflicted girls, and
pronounced them bewitched. Mr. Paris, not doubting that it
was even so, bestirred himself to find the offenders. Suspicion
fell upon three old women, who were at once seized. And then,
with marvellous rapidity, the mania spread. The rage and fear
of the distracted community swelled high. Every one suspected
his neighbour. Children accused their parents; parents accused
their children. The prisons could scarcely contain the
suspected. The town of Falmouth hanged its minister, a man
of intelligence and worth. Some near relations of the Governor
were denounced. Even the beasts were not safe. A dog was
solemnly put to death for the part he had taken in some
satanic festivity.
For more than twelve months this mad panic raged in the
New England States. It is just to say that the hideous cruelties
which were practised in Europe were not resorted to in the
prosecution of American witches. Torture was not inflicted to
wring confession from the victim. The American test was
more humane, and not more foolish, than the European. Those
suspected persons who denied their guilt, were judged guilty
and hanged; those who confessed were, for the most part, set
free. Many hundreds of innocent persons, who scorned to
purchase life by falsehood, perished miserably under the fury
of an excited people.
The fire had been kindled in a moment; it was extinguished
as suddenly. The Governor of Massachusetts only gave effect
to the reaction which had occurred in the public mind, when he
abruptly stopped all prosecutions against witches, dismissed all
the suspected, pardoned all the condemned. The House of
Assembly proclaimed a fast—entreating that God would pardon
the errors of his people “in a late tragedy raised by Satan and
his instruments.” One of the judges stood up in church in
Boston, with bowed down head and sorrowful countenance,
while a paper was read, in which he begged the prayers of the
congregation, that the innocent blood which he had erringly
shed might not be visited on the country or on him. The
Salem jury asked forgiveness of God and the community for
what they had done under the power of “a strong and general
delusion.” Poor Mr. Paris was now at a sad discount. He
made public acknowledgment of his error. But at his door
lay the origin of all this slaughter of the unoffending. His part
in the tragedy could not be forgiven. The people would no
longer endure his ministry, and demanded his removal. Mr.
Paris resigned his charge, and went forth from Salem a broken
man.
If the error of New England was great and most lamentable,
her repentance was prompt and deep. Five-and-twenty years
after she had clothed herself in sackcloth, old women were still
burned to death for witchcraft in Great Britain. The year of
blood was never repeated in America.
The great continent on which the Pilgrims had landed
was the home of innumerable tribes of Indians.
They had no settled abode. The entire nation
wandered hither and thither as their fancy or their
chances of successful hunting directed. When the wood was
burned down in their neighbourhood, or the game became
scarce, they abandoned their villages and moved off to a more
inviting region. They had their great warriors, their great
battles, their brilliant victories, their crushing defeats—all as
uninteresting to mankind as the wars of the kites and crows.
They were a race of tall, powerful men—copper-coloured, with
hazel eye, high cheek-bone, and coarse black hair. In manner
they were grave, and not without a measure of dignity. They
had courage, but it was of that kind which is greater in suffering
than in doing. They were a cunning, treacherous, cruel
race, among whom the slaughter of women and children took
rank as a great feat of arms. They had almost no laws, and
for religious beliefs a few of the most grovelling superstitions.
They worshipped the Devil because he was wicked, and might
do them an injury. Civilization could lay no hold upon them.
They quickly learned to use the white man’s musket; they
never learned to use the tools of the white man’s industry.
They developed a love for intoxicating drink passionate and
irresistible beyond all example. The settlers behaved to them
as Christian men should. They took no land from them; what
land they required they bought and paid for. Every acre of
New England soil was come by with scrupulous honesty. The
friendship of the Indians was anxiously cultivated—sometimes
from fear, oftener from pity. But nothing could stay their
progress towards extinction. Inordinate drunkenness and the
gradual limitation of their hunting-grounds told fatally on their
numbers. And occasionally the English were forced to march
against some tribe which refused to be at peace, and to inflict a
defeat which left few survivors.
1646 A.D. Early in the history of New England, efforts were made to
win the Indians to the Christian faith. The Governor of
Massachusetts appointed ministers to carry the gospel
to the savages. Mr. John Eliot, the Apostle of the
Indians, was a minister near Boston. Moved by the pitiful
condition of the natives, he acquired the language of some
of the tribes in his neighbourhood. He went and preached
to them in their own tongue. He printed books for them.
The savages received his words. Many of them listened to his
sermons in tears. Many professed faith in Christ, and were
gathered into congregations. He gave them a simple code of
laws. It was even attempted to establish a college for training
native teachers; but this had to be abandoned. The slothfulness
of the Indian youth, and their devouring passion for strong
liquors, unfitted them for the ministry. These vices seemed
incurable in the Indian character. No persuasion could induce
them to labour. They could be taught to rest on the Sabbath;
they could not be taught to work on the other six days. And
even the best of them would sell all they had for spirits. These
were grave hindrances; but, in spite of them, Christianity made
considerable progress among the Indians. The hold which it then
gained was never altogether lost. And it was observed that in all
the misunderstandings which arose between the English and the
natives, the converts steadfastly adhered to their new friends.
During the first forty years of its existence, the
great city which we call New York was a Dutch
settlement, known among men as New Amsterdam.
1609 A.D. That region had been discovered for the
Dutch East India Company by Henry Hudson, who was still
in search, as Columbus had been, of a shorter route to
the East. The Dutch have never displayed any aptitude
for colonizing. But they were unsurpassed in mercantile
discernment, and they set up trading stations with much judgment.
Three or four years after the Pilgrims landed at
Plymouth, the Dutch West India Company determined to enter
into trading relations with the Indians along the line of the
Hudson river. They sent out a few families, who planted
themselves at the southern extremity of Manhattan Island.
A wooden fort was built, around which clustered a few wooden
houses—just as in Europe the baron’s castle arose and the huts
of the baron’s dependants sheltered beside it. The Indians sold
valuable furs for scanty payment in blankets, beads, muskets,
and intoxicating drinks. The prudent Dutchmen grew rich,
and were becoming numerous. 1643 A.D. But a fierce and prolonged war
with the Indians broke out. The Dutch, having taken
offence at something done by the savages, expressed
their wrath by the massacre of an entire tribe. All the
Indians of that region made common cause against the dangerous
strangers. All the Dutch villages were burned down.
Long Island became a desert. The Dutchmen were driven in
to the southern tip of the island on which New York stands.
They ran a palisade across the island in the line of what is now
Wall Street. To-day, Wall Street is the scene of the largest
monetary transactions ever known among men. The hot fever
of speculation rages there incessantly, with a fury unknown
elsewhere. But then, it was the line within which a disheartened
and diminishing band of colonists strove to maintain
themselves against a savage foe.
1645 A.D. The war came to an end as wars even then required to do.
For twenty years the colony continued to nourish under
the government of a sagacious Dutchman called Petrus
Stuyvesant. Petrus had been a soldier, and had lost a
leg in the wars. He was a brave and true-hearted man, but
withal despotic. When his subjects petitioned for some part
in the making of laws, he was astonished at their boldness.
He took it upon him to inspect the merchants’ books. He
persecuted the Lutherans and “the abominable sect of
Quakers.”
It cannot be said that his government was faultless. The
colony prospered under it, however, and a continued immigration
from Europe increased its importance. But in the twentieth
year, certain English ships of war sailed up the bay, and,
without a word of explanation, anchored near the settlement.
Governor Petrus was from home, but they sent for him, and he
came with speed. He hastened to the fort and looked out into
the bay. There lay the ships—grim, silent, ominously near.
Appalled by the presence of his unexpected visitors, the
Governor sent to ask wherefore they had come. His alarm was
well founded; for Charles II. of England had presented to his
brother James of York a vast stretch of territory, including the
region which the Dutch had chosen for their settlement. It
was not his to give, but that signified nothing either to Charles
or to James. These ships had come to take possession in the
Duke of York’s name. A good many of the colonists were
English, and they were well pleased to be under their own
Government. They would not fight. The Dutch remembered
the Governor’s tyrannies, and they would not fight. Governor
Petrus was prepared to fight single-handed. He had the
twenty guns of the fort loaded, and was resolute to fire upon
the ships. So at least he professed. But the inhabitants begged
him, in mercy to them, to forbear; and he suffered himself to
be led by two clergymen away from the loaded guns. It was
alleged, to his disparagement, afterwards, that he had “allowed
himself to be persuaded by ministers and other chicken-hearted
persons.” Be that as it may, King Charles’s errand was done.
The little town of fifteen hundred inhabitants, with all the
neighbouring settlements, passed quietly under English rule.
And the future Empire City was named New York, in honour
of one of the meanest tyrants who ever disgraced the English
throne. With the settlements on the Hudson there fell also
into the hands of the English those of New Jersey, which the
Dutch had conquered from the Swedes.
It was not till the year 1682 that the uneventful
but quietly prosperous career of Pennsylvania
began. The Stuarts were again upon the throne
of England. They had learned nothing from
their exile; and now, with the hour of their final rejection at
hand, they were as wickedly despotic as ever.
William Penn was the son of an admiral who had gained
victories for England, and enjoyed the favour of the royal
family as well as of the eminent statesmen of his time. The
highest honours of the State would in due time have come
within the young man’s reach, and the brightest hopes of his
future were reasonably entertained by his friends. To the
dismay of all, Penn became a Quaker. It was an unspeakable
humiliation to the well-connected admiral. He turned his son
out of doors, trusting that hunger would subdue his intractable
spirit. After a time, however, he relented, and the youthful
heretic was restored to favour. His father’s influence could not
shield him from persecution. Penn had suffered fine, and had
lain in the Tower for his opinions.
Ere long the admiral died, and Penn succeeded to his
possessions. It deeply grieved him that his brethren in the
faith should endure such wrongs as were continually inflicted
upon them. He could do nothing at home to mitigate the
severities under which they groaned, therefore he formed the
great design of leading them forth to a new world. King
Charles owed to the admiral a sum of £16,000, and this doubtful
investment had descended from the father to the son. Penn
offered to take payment in land, and the King readily bestowed
upon him a vast region stretching westward from the river
Delaware. Here Penn proposed to found a State free and self-governing.
It was his noble ambition “to show men as free and
as happy as they can be.” He proclaimed to the people already
settled in his new dominions that they should be governed by
laws of their own making. “Whatever sober and free men
can reasonably desire,” he told them, “for the security and
improvement of their own happiness, I shall heartily comply
with.” He was as good as his word. The people appointed
representatives, by whom a Constitution was framed. Penn
confirmed the arrangements which the people chose to adopt.
Penn dealt justly and kindly with the Indians, and they
requited him with a reverential love such as they evinced to no
other Englishman. The neighbouring colonies waged bloody
wars with the Indians who lived around them—now inflicting
defeats which were almost exterminating—now sustaining
hideous massacres. Penn’s Indians were his children and most
loyal subjects. No drop of Quaker blood was ever shed by
Indian hand in the Pennsylvanian territory. Soon after Penn’s
arrival he invited the chief men of the Indian tribes to a conference.
The meeting took place beneath a huge elm-tree. The
pathless forest has long given way to the houses and streets of
Philadelphia, but a marble monument points out to strangers
the scene of this memorable interview. Penn, with a few companions,
unarmed, and dressed according to the simple fashion
of their sect, met the crowd of formidable savages. They met,
he assured them, as brothers “on the broad pathway of good
faith and good will.” No advantage was to be taken on
either side. All was to be “openness and love;” and Penn
meant what he said. Strong in the power of truth and kindness,
he bent the fierce savages of the Delaware to his will.
They vowed “to live in love with William Penn and his
children as long as the moon and the sun shall endure.” They
kept their vow. Long years after, they were known to recount
to strangers, with deep emotion, the words which Penn had
spoken to them under the old elm-tree of Shakamaxon.
The fame of Penn’s settlement went abroad in all lands.
Men wearied with the vulgar tyranny of Kings heard gladly
that the reign of freedom and tranquillity was established on the
banks of the Delaware. An asylum was opened “for the good
and oppressed of every nation.” Of these there was no lack.
Pennsylvania had nothing to attract such “dissolute persons”
as had laid the foundations of Virginia. But grave and God-fearing
men from all the Protestant countries sought a home
where they might live as conscience taught them. The new
colony grew apace. Its natural advantages were tempting.
Penn reported it as “a good land, with plentiful springs, the
air clear and fresh, and an innumerable quantity of wild-fowl
and fish; what Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would be well-contented
with.” During the first year, twenty-two vessels arrived,
bringing two thousand persons. In three years, Philadelphia
was a town of six hundred houses. It was half a century from
its foundation before New York attained equal dimensions.
When Penn, after a few years, revisited England, he was able
truly to relate that “things went on sweetly with Friends in
Pennsylvania; that they increased finely in outward things and
in wisdom.”
The thirteen States which composed the original
Union were, Virginia, Massachusetts, Connecticut,
Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Delaware,
Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey,
North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.
1732 A.D. Of these the latest born was Georgia. Only fifty years had
passed since Penn established the Quaker State on the
banks of the Delaware. But changes greater than
centuries have sometimes wrought had taken place.
The Revolution had vindicated the liberties of the British
people. The tyrant house of Stuart had been cast out, and
with its fall the era of despotic government had closed. The
real governing power was no longer the King, but the Parliament.
Among the members of Parliament during the rule of Sir
Robert Walpole was one almost unknown to us now, but deserving
of honour beyond most men of his time. His name was
James Oglethorpe. He was a soldier, and had fought against
the Turks and in the great Marlborough wars against Louis
XIV. In advanced life he became the friend of Samuel
Johnson. Dr. Johnson urged him to write some account of
his adventures. “I know no one,” he said, “whose life would
be more interesting: if I were furnished with materials I should
be very glad to write it.” Edmund Burke considered him “a
more extraordinary person than any he had ever read of.”
John Wesley “blessed God that ever he was born.” Oglethorpe
attained the great age of ninety-six, and died in the year 1785.
The year before his death he attended the sale of Dr. Johnson’s
books, and was there met by Samuel Rogers the poet. “Even
then,” says Rogers, “he was the finest figure of a man you ever
saw; but very, very old—the flesh of his face like parchment.”
In Oglethorpe’s time it was in the power of a creditor to imprison,
according to his pleasure, the man who owed him money
and was not able to pay it. It was a common circumstance that
a man should be imprisoned during a long series of years for a
trifling debt. Oglethorpe had a friend upon whom this hard
fate had fallen. His attention was thus painfully called to the
cruelties which were inflicted upon the unfortunate and helpless.
He appealed to Parliament, and after inquiry a partial remedy
was obtained. The benevolent exertions of Oglethorpe procured
liberty for multitudes who but for him might have ended
their lives in captivity.
This, however, did not content him. Liberty was an incomplete
gift to men who had lost, or perhaps had scarcely ever
possessed, the faculty of earning their own maintenance. Oglethorpe
devised how he might carry these unfortunates to a new
world, where, under happier auspices, they might open a fresh
career. 1732 A.D. He obtained from King George II. a charter by
which the country between the Savannah and the
Alatamaha, and stretching westward to the Pacific, was
erected into the province of Georgia. It was to be a refuge
for the deserving poor, and next to them for Protestants suffering
persecution. Parliament voted £10,000 in aid of the
humane enterprise, and many benevolent persons were liberal
with their gifts. In November the first exodus of the insolvent
took place. Oglethorpe sailed with one hundred and twenty
emigrants, mainly selected from the prisons—penniless, but of
good repute. He surveyed the coasts of Georgia, and chose a
site for the capital of his new State. He pitched his tent where
Savannah now stands, and at once proceeded to mark out the
line of streets and squares.
Next year the colony was joined by about a hundred German
Protestants, who were then under persecution for their beliefs.
The colonists received this addition to their numbers with joy.
A place of residence had been chosen for them which the devout
and thankful strangers named Ebenezer. They were charmed
with their new abode. The river and the hills, they said, reminded
them of home. They applied themselves with steady
industry to the cultivation of indigo and silk; and they prospered.
The fame of Oglethorpe’s enterprise spread over Europe. All
struggling men against whom the battle of life went hard looked
to Georgia as a land of promise. They were the men who
most urgently required to emigrate; but they were not always
the men best fitted to conquer the difficulties of the immigrant’s
life. The progress of the colony was slow. The poor persons
of whom it was originally composed were honest but ineffective,
and could not in Georgia more than in England find out the
way to become self-supporting. Encouragements were given
which drew from Germany, from Switzerland, and from the
Highlands of Scotland, men of firmer texture of mind—better
fitted to subdue the wilderness and bring forth its treasures.
1736 A.D. With Oglethorpe there went out, on his second expedition
to Georgia, the two brothers John and Charles Wesley.
Charles went as secretary to the Governor. John was
even then, although a very young man, a preacher of
unusual promise. He burned to spread the gospel among the
settlers and their Indian neighbours. He spent two years in
Georgia, and these were unsuccessful years. His character was
unformed; his zeal out of proportion to his discretion. The
people felt that he preached “personal satires” at them. He
involved himself in quarrels, and at last had to leave the colony
secretly, fearing arrest at the instance of some whom he had
offended. He returned to begin his great career in England,
with the feeling that his residence in Georgia had been of much
value to himself, but of very little to the people whom he sought
to benefit.
Just as Wesley reached England, his fellow-labourer George
Whitefield sailed for Georgia. There were now little settlements
spreading inland, and Whitefield visited these, bearing to them
the word of life. He founded an Orphan-House at Savannah,
and supported it by contributions—obtained easily from men
under the power of his unequalled eloquence. He visited
Georgia very frequently, and his love for that colony remained
with him to the last.
Slavery was, at the outset, forbidden in Georgia. It was opposed
to the gospel, Oglethorpe said, and therefore not to be
allowed. He foresaw, besides, what has been so bitterly experienced
since, that slavery must degrade the poor white labourer.
But soon a desire sprung up among the less scrupulous of the
settlers to have the use of slaves. Within seven years from
the first landing, slave-ships were discharging their cargoes at
Savannah.
In the month of December 1620, the Pilgrim Fathers
landed from the Mayflower. Their landing takes
rank among our great historical transactions. The
rock which first received their footsteps is a sacred
spot, to which the citizens of great and powerful States make
reverential pilgrimages. And right it should be so; for the
vast influence for good which New England exerts, and must
ever exert, in the world’s affairs, has risen upon the foundation
laid by these sickly and storm-wearied Pilgrims.
A few months previously another landing had taken place,
destined in the fulness of time to bear the strangest of fruits. In
the month of August a Dutch ship of war sailed up the James
river and put twenty negroes ashore upon the Virginian coast.
It was a wholly unnoticed proceeding. No name or lineage had
these sable strangers. No one cared to know from what tribe they
sprang, or how it fared with them in their sorrowful journeying.
Yet these men were Pilgrim Fathers too. They were the first
negro slaves in a land whose history, during the next century
and a half, was to receive a dark, and finally a bloody, colouring
from the fact of Negro Slavery.
The negro slave trade was an early result of the discovery of
America. To utilize the vast possessions which Columbus had
bestowed upon her, Spain deemed that compulsory labour was
indispensable. The natives of the country naturally fell the
first victims to this necessity. Terrible desolations were wrought
among the poor Indians. Proud and melancholy, they could not
be reconciled to their bondage. They perished by thousands
under the merciless hand of their new task-masters.
1542 A.D. Charles V. heard with remorse of this ruin of the native
races. Indian slavery was at once and peremptorily
forbidden. But labourers must be obtained, or those
splendid possessions would relapse into wilderness.
Spanish merchants traded to the coasts of Africa, where they
bought gold dust and ivory for beads and ribands and scarlet
cloaks. They found there a harmless idle people, whose simple
wants were supplied without effort on their part; and who,
in the absence of inducement, neither laboured nor fought.
The Spaniards bethought them of these men to cultivate their
fields, to labour in their mines. They were gentle and tractable;
they were heathens, and therefore the proper inheritance
of good Catholics; by baptism and instruction in the faith their
souls would be saved from destruction. Motives of the most
diverse kinds urged the introduction of the negro. At first the
traffic extended no further than to criminals. Thieves and
murderers, who must otherwise have been put to death, enriched
their chiefs by the purchase-money which the Spaniards were
eager to pay. But on all that coast no rigour of law could
produce offenders in numbers sufficient to meet the demand.
Soon the limitation ceased. Unoffending persons were systematically
kidnapped and sold. The tribes went to war in the
hope of taking prisoners whom they might dispose of to the
Spaniards.
England was not engaged in that traffic at its outset. Ere
long her hands were as deeply tainted with its guilt as those of
any other country. But for a time her intercourse with Africa
was for blameless purposes of commerce. And while that
continued the English were regarded with confidence by the
Africans. 1557 A.D. At length one John Lok, a shipmaster, stole five
black men and brought them to London. The next Englishman
who visited Africa found that that theft had
damaged the good name of his countrymen. His voyage
was unprofitable, for the natives feared him. When this was
told in London the mercantile world was troubled, for the
African trade was a gainful one. The five stolen men were
conveyed safely home again.
This was the opening of our African slave-trade. Then, for
the first time, did our fathers feel the dark temptation, and thus
hesitatingly did they at first yield to its power. The traffic in
gold dust and ivory continued. Every Englishman who visited
the African coast had occasion to know how actively and how
profitably Spain, and Portugal too, traded in slaves. He knew
that on all that rich coast there was no merchandise so lucrative
as the unfortunate people themselves. It was not an age when
such seductions could be long withstood. The English traders
of that day were not the men to be held back from a gainful
traffic by mere considerations of humanity.
1562 A.D. Sir John Hawkins made the first English venture in slave-trading.
He sailed with three vessels to Sierra Leone. There,
by purchase or by violence, he possessed himself of three
hundred negroes. With this freight he crossed the
Atlantic, and at St. Domingo he sold the whole to a
great profit. The fame of his gains caused sensation in England,
and he was encouraged to undertake a second expedition. Queen
Elizabeth and many of her courtiers took shares in the venture.
After many difficulties, Hawkins collected five hundred negroes.
His voyage was a troublous one. He was beset with calms;
water ran short, and it was feared that a portion of the cargo
must have been flung overboard. “Almighty God, however,”
says this devout man-stealer, “who never suffers his elect to
perish,” brought him to the West Indies without loss of a man.
But there had arrived before him a rigorous interdict from the
King of Spain against the admission of foreign vessels to any
of his West Indian ports. Hawkins was too stout-hearted to
suffer such frustration of his enterprise. After some useless
negotiation, he landed a hundred men with two pieces of cannon;
landed and sold his negroes; paid the tax which he himself had
fixed; and soon in quiet England divided his gains with his
royal and noble patrons. Thus was the slave-trade established
in England. Three centuries after, we look with horror and
remorse upon the results which have followed.
In most of the colonies there was unquestionably a desire for
the introduction of the negro. But ere many years the colonists
became aware that they were rapidly involving themselves in
grave difficulties. The increase of the coloured population alarmed
them. Heavy debts, incurred for the purchase of slaves, disordered
their finances. The production of tobacco, indigo, and
other articles of Southern growth, exceeded the demand, and
prices fell ruinously low. There were occasionally proposals
made—although not very favourably entertained—with a view
to emancipation. But the opposition of the colonists to the
African slave-trade was very decided. Very frequent attempts
to limit the traffic were made even in the Southern colonies,
where slave labour was most valuable. 1787 A.D. Soon after the
Revolution, several Slave-owning States prohibited the
importation of slaves. The Constitution provided that
Congress might suppress the slave-trade after the lapse of twenty
years. But for the resistance of South Carolina and Georgia
the prohibition would have been immediate. 1807 A.D. And at length,
at the earliest moment when it was possible, Congress
gave effect to the general sentiment by enacting “that
no slaves be imported into any of the thirteen United
Colonies.”
And why had this not been done earlier? If the colonists
were sincere in their desire to suppress this base traffic, why
did they not suppress it? The reason is not difficult to find.
England would not permit them. England forced the slave-trade
upon the reluctant colonists. The English Parliament
watched with paternal care over the interests of this hideous
traffic. During the first half of the eighteenth century Parliament
was continually legislating to this effect. Every restraint
upon the largest development of the trade was removed with
scrupulous care. Everything that diplomacy could do to open
new markets was done. When the colonists sought by imposing
a tax to check the importation of slaves, that tax was repealed.
Land was given free, in the West Indies, on condition that the
settler should keep four negroes for every hundred acres. Forts
were built on the African coast for the protection of the trade.
So recently as the year 1749 an Act was passed bestowing
additional encouragements upon slave-traders, and emphatically
asserting “the slave-trade is very advantageous to Great Britain.”
There are no passages in all our history so humiliating
as these.
It is marvellous that such things were done—deliberately,
and with all the solemnities of legal sanction—by men not unacquainted
with the Christian religion, and humane in all the
ordinary relations of life. The Popish Inquisition inflicted no
suffering more barbarously cruel than was endured by the
victim of the slave-trader. Hundreds of men and women, with
chains upon their limbs, were packed closely together into the
holds of small vessels. There, during weeks of suffering, they
remained, enduring fierce tropical heat, often deprived of water
and of food. They were all young and strong, for the fastidious
slave-trader rejected men over thirty as uselessly old. But the
strength of the strongest sunk under the horrors of this voyage.
Often it happened that the greater portion of the cargo had to
be flung overboard. Under the most favourable circumstances,
it was expected that one slave in every five would perish. In
every cargo of five hundred, one hundred would suffer a miserable
death. And the public sentiment of England fully
sanctioned a traffic of which these horrors were a necessary
part.
At one time the idea was prevalent in the colonies that it
was contrary to Scripture to hold a baptized person in slavery.
The colonists did not on that account liberate their slaves. They
escaped the difficulty in the opposite direction. They withheld
baptism and religious instruction. England took some pains to
put them right on this question. The bishops of the Church
and the law-officers of the Crown issued authoritative declarations,
asserting the entire lawfulness of owning Christians.
The colonial legislatures followed with enactments to the same
effect. The colonists, thus reassured, gave consent that the
souls of their unhappy dependants should be cared for.
Up to the Revolution it was estimated that three hundred
thousand negroes had been brought into the country direct
from Africa. The entire coloured population was supposed to
amount to nearly half a million.
There was at the outset considerable diversity of
pattern among the governments of the colonies.
As time wore on, the diversity lessened, and one
great type becomes visible in all. There is a
Governor appointed by the King. There is a Parliament chosen
by the people. Parliament holds the purse-strings. The
Governor applies for what moneys the public service seems to
him to require. Parliament, as a rule, grants his demands; but
not without consideration, and a distinct assertion of its right
to refuse should cause appear. As the Revolution drew near,
the function of the Governor became gradually circumscribed by
the pressure of the Assemblies. When the Governor, as representing
the King, fell into variance with the popular will, the
representatives of the people assumed the whole business of
government. The most loyal of the colonies resolutely defied
the encroachments of the King or his Governor. They had a
pleasure and a pride in their connection with England; but
they were at the same time essentially a self-governing people.
From the government which existed before the Revolution it
was easy for them to step into a federal union. The colonists
had all their interests and all their grievances in common. It
was natural for them, when trouble arose, to appoint representatives
who should deliberate regarding their affairs. These
representatives required an executive to give practical effect to
their resolutions. The officer who was appointed for that purpose
was called, not King, but President; and was chosen, not
for life, but for four years. By this simple and natural process
arose the American Government.
At first Virginia was governed by two Councils, one of which
was English and the other Colonial. Both were entirely under
the King’s control. In a very few years the representative
system was introduced, and a popular assembly, over whose
proceedings the Governor retained the right of veto, regulated
the affairs of the colony. Virginia was the least democratic of
the colonies. Her leanings were always towards monarchy.
She maintained her loyalty to the Stuarts. Charles II. ruled
her in his exile, and was crowned in a robe of Virginian silk,
presented by the devoted colonists. The baffled Cavaliers sought
refuge in Virginia from the hateful triumph of Republicanism.
Virginia refused to acknowledge the Commonwealth, and had
to be subjected by force. When the exiled House was restored,
her joy knew no bounds.
The New England States were of different temper and different
government. While yet on board the Mayflower, the
Pilgrims, as we have seen, formed themselves into a body
politic, elected their Governor, and bound themselves to submit
to his authority, “confiding in his prudence that he would not
adventure upon any matter of moment without consent of the
rest.” Every church member was an elector. For sixty years
this democratic form of government was continued, till the
despotic James II. overturned it in the closing years of his
unhappy reign. The Pilgrims carried with them from England
a bitter feeling of the wrongs which Kings had inflicted on
them, and they arrived in America a people fully disposed to
govern themselves. They cordially supported Cromwell. Cromwell,
on his part, so highly esteemed the people of New England,
that he invited them to return to Europe, and offered
them settlements in Ireland. They delayed for two years to
proclaim Charles II. when he was restored to the English
throne. They sheltered the regicides who fled from the King’s
vengeance. They hailed the Revolution, by which the Stuarts
were expelled and constitutional monarchy set up in England.
Of all the American colonies, those of New England were the
most democratic, and the most intolerant of royal interference
with their liberties.
New York was bestowed upon the Duke of York, who for a
time appointed the Governor. Pennsylvania was a grant to
Penn, who exercised the same authority. Ultimately, however,
in all cases, the appointment of Governor rested with the King,
while the representatives were chosen by the people.
In the year 1740 there fell out a great European war.
There was some doubt who should fill the Austrian
throne. The emperor had just died, leaving no son
or brother to inherit his dignities. His daughter,
Maria Theresa, stepped into her father’s place, and soon made
it apparent that she was strong enough to maintain what she
had done. Two or three Kings thought they had a better right
than she to the throne. The other Kings ranged themselves on
this side or on that. The idea of looking on while foolish
neighbours destroyed themselves by senseless war, had not yet
been suggested. Every King took part in a great war, and sent
his people forth to slay and be slain, quite as a matter of course.
So they raised great armies, fought great battles, burned cities,
wasted countries, inflicted and endured unutterable miseries, all
to settle the question about this lady’s throne. But the lady
was of a heroic spirit, well worthy to govern, and she held her
own, and lived and died an empress.
During these busy years, a Virginian mother, widowed in
early life, was training up her eldest son in the fear of God—all
unaware, as she infused the love of goodness and duty into
his mind, that she was giving a colour to the history of her
country throughout all its coming ages. That boy’s name
was George Washington. He was born in 1732. His father—a
gentleman of good fortune, with a pedigree which can be
traced beyond the Norman Conquest—died when his son was
eleven years of age. Upon George’s mother devolved the care
of his upbringing. She was a devout woman, of excellent sense
and deep affections; but a strict disciplinarian, and of a temper
which could brook no shadow of insubordination. Under her
rule—gentle, and yet strong—George learned obedience and
self-control. In boyhood he gave remarkable promise of those
excellences which distinguished his mature years. His schoolmates
recognized the calm judicial character of his mind, and
he became in all their disputes the arbiter from whose decision
there was no appeal. He inherited his mother’s love of command,
happily tempered by a lofty disinterestedness and a love
of justice, which seemed to render it impossible that he should
do or permit aught that was unfair. His person was large and
powerful. His face expressed the thoughtfulness and serene
strength of his character. He excelled in all athletic exercises.
His youthful delight in such pursuits developed his physical
capabilities to the utmost, and gave him endurance to bear the
hardships which lay before him.
Young gentlemen of Virginia were not educated then so
liberally as they have been since. It was presumed that
Washington would be a mere Virginian proprietor and farmer,
as his father had been; and his education was no higher than
that position then demanded. He never learned any language
but his own. The teacher of his early years was also the
sexton of the parish. And even when he was taken to an
institution of a more advanced description, he attempted no
higher study than the keeping of accounts and the copying of
legal and mercantile papers. A few years later, it was thought
he might enter the civil or military service of his country; and
he was put to the study of mathematics and land-surveying.
George Washington did nothing by halves. In youth, as in
manhood, he did thoroughly what he had to do. His school
exercise books are models of neatness and accuracy. His plans
and measurements made while he studied land-surveying were
as scrupulously exact as if great pecuniary interests depended
upon them. In his eighteenth year he was employed by Government
as surveyor of public lands. Many of his surveys were
recorded in the county offices, and remain to this day. Long
experience has established their unvarying accuracy. In all
disputes to which they have any relevancy, their evidence is
accepted as decisive. During the years which preceded the
Revolution he managed his estates, packed and shipped his own
tobacco and flour, kept his own books, conducted his own correspondence.
His books may still be seen. Perhaps no clearer
or more accurate record of business transactions has been kept
in America since the Father of American Independence rested
from book-keeping. The flour which he shipped to foreign
ports came to be known as his, and the Washington brand was
habitually exempted from inspection. A most reliable man;
his words and his deeds, his professions and his practice, are
ever found in most perfect harmony. By some he has been
regarded as a stolid, prosaic person, wanting in those features
of character which captivate the minds of men. It was not so.
In an earlier age George Washington would have been a true
knight-errant with an insatiable thirst for adventure and a
passionate love of battle. He had in high degree those
qualities which make ancient knighthood picturesque. But
higher qualities than these bore rule within him. He had
wisdom beyond most, giving him deep insight into the wants of
his time. He had clear perceptions of the duty which lay to
his hand. What he saw to be right, the strongest impulses of
his soul constrained him to do. A massive intellect and an
iron strength of will were given to him, with a gentle, loving
heart, with dauntless courage, with purity and loftiness of aim.
He had a work of extraordinary difficulty to perform. History
rejoices to recognize in him a revolutionary leader against
whom no questionable transaction has ever been alleged.
The history of America presents, in one important feature, a
very striking contrast to the history of nearly all older countries.
In the old countries, history gathers round some one grand
central figure—some judge, or priest, or king—whose biography
tells all that has to be told concerning the time in which he
lived. That one predominating person—David, Alexander,
Cæsar, Napoleon—is among his people what the sun is in the
planetary system. All movement originates and terminates in
him, and the history of the people is merely a record of what he
has chosen to do or caused to be done. In America it has not
been so. The American system leaves no room for predominating
persons. It affords none of those exhibitions of solitary,
all-absorbing grandeur which are so picturesque, and have been
so pernicious. Her history is a history of her people, and of no
conspicuous individuals. Once only in her career is it otherwise.
During the lifetime of George Washington her history
clings very closely to him; and the biography of her great chief
becomes in a very unusual degree the history of the country.
While Washington’s boyhood was being passed on
the banks of the Potomac, a young man, destined
to help him in gaining the independence of the
country, was toiling hard in the city of Philadelphia
to earn an honest livelihood. His name was Benjamin
Franklin; his avocations were manifold. He kept a small
stationer’s shop; he edited a newspaper; he was a bookbinder;
he made ink; he sold rags, soap, and coffee. He was also a
printer, employing a journeyman and an apprentice to aid him
in his labours. He was a thriving man; but he was not
ashamed to convey along the streets, in a wheelbarrow, the
paper which he bought for the purposes of his trade. As a boy
he had been studious and thoughtful; as a man he was prudent,
sagacious, trustworthy. His prudence was, however, somewhat
low-toned and earthly. He loved and sought to marry a
deserving young woman, who returned his affection. There was
in those days a debt of one hundred pounds upon his printing-house.
He demanded that the father of the young lady should pay
off this debt. The father was unable to do so. Whereupon the
worldly Benjamin decisively broke off the contemplated alliance.
When he had earned a moderate competency he ceased to
labour at his business. Henceforth he laboured to serve his
fellow-men. Philadelphia owes to Franklin her university, her
hospital, her fire-brigade, her first and greatest library.
He earned renown as a man of science. It had long been his
thought that lightning and electricity were the same; but he
found no way to prove the truth of his theory. 1752 A.D. At length he
made a kite fitted suitably for his experiment. He stole
away from his house during a thunder-storm, having told
no one but his son, who accompanied him. The kite was
sent up among the stormy clouds, and the anxious philosopher
waited. For a time no response to his eager questioning was
granted, and Franklin’s countenance fell. But at length he felt
the welcome shock, and his heart thrilled with the high consciousness
that he had added to the sum of human knowledge.
1766 A.D. When the troubles arose in connection with the Stamp Act,
Franklin was sent to England to defend the rights of
the colonists. The vigour of his intellect, the matured
wisdom of his opinions, gained for him a wonderful
supremacy over the men with whom he was brought into
contact. He was examined before Parliament. Edmund
Burke said that the scene reminded him of a master examined
by a parcel of schoolboys, so conspicuously was the witness
superior to his interrogators.
1777 A.D. Franklin was an early advocate of independence, and aided
in preparing the famous Declaration. In all the councils of
that eventful time he bore a leading part. He was the
first American Ambassador to France; and the good
sense and vivacity of the old printer gained for him
high favour in the fashionable world of Paris. He lived to
aid in framing the Constitution under which America has enjoyed
prosperity so great. 1799 A.D. Soon after he passed away. A few
months before his death he wrote to Washington:—“I
am now finishing my eighty-fourth year, and probably
with it my career in this life; but in whatever state of
existence I am placed hereafter, if I retain any memory of
what has passed here, I shall with it retain the esteem, respect,
and affection with which I have long regarded you.”
The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, which gave a brief
repose to Europe, left unsettled the contending
claims of France and England upon
American territory. 1748 A.D. France had possessions
in Canada and also in Louisiana, at the extreme south, many
hundreds of miles away. She claimed the entire line of the
Mississippi river, with its tributaries; and she had given effect
to her pretensions by erecting forts at intervals to connect her
settlements in the north with those in the south. Her claim
included the Valley of the Ohio. This was a vast and fertile
region, whose value had just been discovered by the English.
It was yet unpeopled; but its vegetation gave evidence of
wealth unknown to the colonists in the eastern settlements.
The French, to establish their claim, sent three hundred soldiers
into the valley, and nailed upon the trees leaden plates which
bore the royal arms of France. They strove by gifts and persuasion
to gain over the natives, and expelled the English
traders who had made their adventurous way into those recesses.
The English, on their part, were not idle. A great
trading company was formed, which, in return for certain
grants of land, became bound to colonize the valley, to establish
trading relations with the Indians, and to maintain a
competent military force. This was in the year 1749. In that
age there was but one solution of such difficulties. Governments
had not learned to reason; they could only fight. Early
in 1751 both parties were actively preparing for war. That war
went ill with France. When the sword was sheathed in 1759,
she had lost not only Ohio, but the whole of Canada.
1754 A.D. When the fighting began it was conducted on the English
side wholly by the colonists. Virginia raised a little
army. Washington, then a lad of twenty-one, was
offered the command, so great was the confidence already
felt in his capacity. It was war in miniature as yet. The
object of Washington in the campaign was to reach a certain
fort on the Ohio, and hold it as a barrier against French encroachment.
He had his artillery to carry with him, and to
render that possible he had to make a road through the wilderness.
He struggled heroically with the difficulties of his position,
but he could not advance at any better speed than two
miles a-day; and he was not destined to reach the fort on the
Ohio. After toiling on as he best might for six weeks, he
learned that the French were seeking him with a force far outnumbering
his. He halted, and hastily constructed a rude intrenchment,
which he called Fort Necessity, because his men
had nearly starved while they worked at it. He had three
hundred Virginians with him, and some Indians. The Indians
deserted so soon as occasion arose for their services. The
French attack was not long withheld. Early one summer
morning a sentinel came in bleeding from a French bullet. All
that day the fight lasted. At night the French summoned
Washington to surrender. The garrison were to march out with
flag and drum, leaving only their artillery. Washington could
do no better, and he surrendered. Thus ended the first campaign
in the war which was to drive France from Ohio and Canada.
Thus opened the military career of the man who was to drive
England from the noblest of her colonial possessions.
But now the English Government awoke to the necessity of
vigorous measures to rescue the endangered Valley of the Ohio.
A campaign was planned which was to expel the French from
Ohio, and wrest from them some portions of their Canadian
territory. The execution of this great design was intrusted to
General Braddock, with a force which it was deemed would
overbear all resistance. Braddock was a veteran who had seen
the wars of forty years. Among the fields on which he had
gained his knowledge of war was Culloden, where he had borne
a part in trampling out the rebellion of the Scotch. He was a
brave and experienced soldier, and a likely man, it was thought,
to do the work assigned to him. But that proved a sad miscalculation.
Braddock had learned the rules of war; but he
had no capacity to comprehend its principles. In the pathless
forests of America he could do nothing better than strive to
give literal effect to those maxims which he had found applicable
in the well-trodden battle-grounds of Europe.
The failure of Washington in his first campaign had not deprived
him of public confidence. Braddock heard such accounts
of his efficiency that he invited him to join his staff. Washington,
eager to efface the memory of his defeat, gladly accepted
the offer.
1755 A.D. The troops disembarked at Alexandria. The colonists, little
used to the presence of regular soldiers, were greatly
emboldened by their splendid aspect and faultless discipline,
and felt that the hour of final triumph was at
hand. After some delay, the army, with such reinforcements
as the province afforded, began its march. Braddock’s object
was to reach Fort Du Quesne, the great centre of French influence
on the Ohio. It was this same fort of which Washington
endeavoured so manfully to possess himself in his disastrous
campaign of last year.
Fort Du Quesne had been built by the English, and taken from
them by the French. It stood at the confluence of the Alleghany
and Monongahela; which rivers, by their union at this
point, form the Ohio. It was a rude piece of fortification, but
the circumstances admitted of no better. The fort was built of
the trunks of trees; wooden huts for the soldiers surrounded
it. A little space had been cleared in the forest, and a few
patches of wheat and Indian corn grew luxuriantly in that rich
soil. The unbroken forest stretched all around. Three years
later the little fort was retaken by the English, and named
Fort Pitt. Then in time it grew to be a town, and was called
Pittsburg. And men found in its neighbourhood boundless
wealth of iron and of coal. To-day a great and fast-growing city
stands where, a century ago, the rugged fort with its cluster of
rugged huts were the sole occupants. And the rivers, then so
lonely, are ploughed by many keels; and the air is dark with
the smoke of innumerable furnaces. The judgment of the
sagacious Englishmen who deemed this a locality which they
would do well to get hold of, has been amply borne out by the
experience of posterity.
Braddock had no doubt that the fort would yield to him
directly he showed himself before it. Benjamin Franklin looked
at the project with his shrewd, cynical eye. He told Braddock
that he would assuredly take the fort if he could only reach it;
but that the long slender line which his army must form in its
march “would be cut like thread into several pieces” by the
hostile Indians. Braddock “smiled at his ignorance.” Benjamin
offered no further opinion. It was his duty to collect horses
and carriages for the use of the expedition, and he did what was
required of him in silence.
The expedition crept slowly forward, never achieving more
than three or four miles in a day; stopping, as Washington said,
“to level every mole-hill, to erect a bridge over every brook.”
It left Alexandria on the 20th April. On the 9th July Braddock,
with half his army, was near the fort. There was yet
no evidence that resistance was intended. No enemy had
been seen; the troops marched on as to assured victory. So
confident was their chief, that he refused to employ scouts,
and did not deign to inquire what enemy might be lurking
near.
The march was along a road twelve feet wide, in a ravine,
with high ground in front and on both sides. Suddenly the
Indian war-whoop burst from the woods. A murderous fire
smote down the troops. The provincials, not unused to this
description of warfare, sheltered themselves behind trees and
fought with steady courage. Braddock, clinging to his old rules,
strove to maintain his order of battle on the open ground. A
carnage, most grim and lamentable, was the result. His undefended
soldiers were shot down by an unseen foe. For three
hours the struggle lasted; then the men broke and fled in utter
rout and panic. Braddock, vainly fighting, fell mortally
wounded, and was carried off the field by some of his soldiers.
The poor pedantic man never got over his astonishment at a
defeat so inconsistent with the established rules of war. “Who
would have thought it?” he murmured, as they bore him from
the field. He scarcely spoke again, and died in two or three
days. Nearly eight hundred men, killed and wounded, were
lost in this disastrous encounter—about one-half of the entire
force engaged.
All the while England and France were nominally at peace.
But now war was declared. The other European powers fell
into their accustomed places in the strife, and the flames of war
spread far and wide. On land and on sea the European people
strove to shed blood and destroy property, and thus produce
human misery to the largest possible extent. At the outset
every fight brought defeat and shame to England. English
armies under incapable leaders were sent out to America and
ignominiously routed by the French. On the continent of
Europe the uniform course of disaster was scarcely broken by a
single victory. Even at sea, England seemed to have fallen
from her high estate, and her fleets turned back from the presence
of an enemy.
The rage of the people knew no bounds. The admiral who
had not fought the enemy when he should have done so, was
hanged. The Prime Minister began to tremble for his neck.
One or two disasters more, and the public indignation might
demand a greater victim than an unfortunate admiral. The
Ministry resigned, and William Pitt, afterwards Earl of Chatham,
came into power.
And then, all at once, the scene changed, and there began a
career of triumph more brilliant than even England had ever
known. The French fleets were destroyed; French possessions
all over the world were seized; French armies were defeated.
Every post brought news of victory. For once the English
people, greedy as they are of military glory, were satisfied.
1759 A.D. One of the most splendid successes of Pitt’s administration
was gained in America. The colonists had begun to lose
respect for the English army and the English Government,
but Pitt quickly regained their confidence. They
raised an army of 50,000 men to help his schemes for the
extinction of French power. A strong English force was sent
out, and a formidable invasion of Canada was organized.
Most prominent among the strong points held by the French
was the city of Quebec. Thither in the month of June came a
powerful English fleet, with an army under the command of
General Wolfe. Captain James Cook, the famous navigator,
who discovered so many of the sunny islands of the Pacific, was
master of one of the ships. Quebec stands upon a peninsula
formed by the junction of the St. Charles and the St. Lawrence
rivers. The lower town was upon the beach; the upper was
on the cliffs, which at that point rise precipitously to a height
of two hundred feet. Wolfe tried the effect of a bombardment.
He laid the lower town in ruins very easily, but the upper town
was too remote from his batteries to sustain much injury. It
seemed as if the enterprise would prove too much for the English,
and the sensitive Wolfe was thrown by disappointment and
anxiety into a violent fever. But he was not the man to be
baffled. The shore for miles above the town was carefully
searched. An opening was found whence a path wound up the
cliffs. Here Wolfe would land his men, and lead them to the
Heights of Abraham. Once there, they would defeat the French
and take Quebec, or die where they stood.
On a starlight night in September the soldiers were embarked
in boats which dropped down the river to the chosen landing-place.
As the boat which carried Wolfe floated silently down,
he recited to his officers Gray’s “Elegy in a Country Churchyard,”
then newly received from England; and he exclaimed at
its close, “I would rather be the author of that poem than take
Quebec to-morrow.” He was a man of feeble bodily frame, but
he wielded the power which genius in its higher forms confers.
Amid the excitements of impending battle he could walk, with
the old delight, in the quiet paths of literature.
The soldiers landed and clambered, as they best might, up the
rugged pathway. All through the night armed men stepped
silently from the boats and silently scaled those formidable cliffs.
The sailors contrived to drag up a few guns. When morning
came, the whole army stood upon the Heights of Abraham ready
for the battle.
1759 A.D. Montcalm, the French commander, was so utterly taken by
surprise that he refused at first to believe the presence of the
English army. He lost no time in marching forth to meet his
unexpected assailants. The conflict which followed was fierce
but not prolonged. The French were soon defeated and put to
flight; Quebec surrendered. But Montcalm did not make that
surrender, nor did Wolfe receive it. Both generals fell in the
battle. Wolfe died happy that the victory was gained.
Montcalm was thankful that death spared him the
humiliation of giving up Quebec. They died as enemies;
but the men of a new generation, thinking less of the accidents
which made them foes than of the noble courage and
devotedness which united them, placed their names together
upon the monument which marks out to posterity the scene of
this decisive battle.
France did not quietly accept her defeat. Next year she
made an attempt to regain Quebec. It was all in vain. In
due time the success of the English resulted in a treaty of peace,
under which France ceded to England all her claims upon
Canada. Spain at the same time relinquished Florida. England
had now undisputed possession of the western continent, from
the region of perpetual winter to the Gulf of Mexico.
A century and a half had now passed since the first
colony had been planted on American soil. The
colonists were fast ripening into fitness for independence.
They had increased with marvellous
rapidity. Europe never ceased to send forth her superfluous
and needy thousands. America opened wide her hospitable
arms and gave assurance of liberty and comfort to all who came.
The thirteen colonies now contained a population of about three
million.
They were eminently a trading people, and their foreign commerce
was already large and lucrative. New England built
ships with the timber of her boundless forests, and sold them to
foreign countries. She caught fish and sent them to the West
Indies. She killed whales and sent the oil to England. New
York and Pennsylvania produced wheat, which Spain and Portugal
were willing to buy. Virginia clung to the tobacco-plant,
which Europe was not then, any more than she is now, wise
enough to dispense with. The swampy regions of Carolina and
Georgia produced rice sufficient to supply the European demand.
As yet cotton does not take any rank in the list of exports. But
the time is near. Even now Richard Arkwright is brooding
over improvements in the art of spinning cotton. When these
are perfected the growing of cotton will rise quickly to a supremacy
over all the industrial pursuits.
England had not learned to recognize the equality of her
colonists with her own people. The colonies were understood
to exist not for their own good so much as for the good of the
mother country. Even the chimney-sweepers, as Lord Chatham
asserted, might be heard in the streets of London talking boastfully
of their subjects in America. Colonies were settlements
“established in distant parts of the world for the benefit of
trade.” As such they were most consistently treated. The
Americans could not import direct any article of foreign production.
Everything must be landed in England and re-shipped
thence, that the English merchant might have profit. One exemption
only was allowed from the operation of this law—the
products of Africa, the unhappy negroes, were conveyed direct
to America, and every possible encouragement was given to
that traffic. Notwithstanding the illiberal restrictions of the
home government, the imports of America before the Revolution
had risen almost to the value of three million sterling.
New England had, very early, established her magnificent
system of Common Schools. For two or three generations these
had been in full operation. The people of New England were
now probably the most carefully instructed people in the world.
There could not be found a person born in New England unable
to read and write. It had always been the practice of the
Northern people to settle in townships or villages where education
was easily carried to them. In the South it had not been
so. There the Common Schools had taken no root. It was
impossible among a population so scattered. The educational
arrangements of the South have never been adequate to the
necessities of the people.
In the early years of America, the foundations were laid of
those differences in character and interest which have since produced
results of such magnitude. The men who peopled the
Eastern States had to contend with a somewhat severe climate
and a comparatively sterile soil. These disadvantages imposed
upon them habits of industry and frugality. Skilled labour
alone could be of use in their circumstances. They were thus
mercifully rescued from the curse of slavery—by the absence of
temptation, it may be, rather than by superiority of virtue.
Their simple purity of manners remained long uncorrupted.
The firm texture of mind which upheld them in their early
difficulties remained unenfeebled. Their love of liberty was not
perverted into a passion for supremacy. Among them labour
was not degraded by becoming the function of a despised race.
In New England labour has always been honourable. A just-minded,
self-relying, self-helping people, vigorous in acting,
patient in enduring—it was evident from the outset that they,
at least, would not disgrace their ancestry.
The men of the South were very differently circumstanced.
Their climate was delicious; their soil was marvellously fertile;
their products were welcome in the markets of the world; unskilled
labour was applicable in the rearing of all their great
staples. Slavery being exceedingly profitable, struck deep roots
very early. It was easy to grow rich. The colonists found
themselves not the employers merely, but the owners of their
labourers. They became aristocratic in feeling and in manners,
resembling the picturesque chiefs of old Europe rather than mere
prosaic growers of tobacco and rice. They had the virtues of
chivalry, and also its vices. They were generous, open-handed,
hospitable; but they were haughty and passionate, improvident,
devoted to pleasure and amusement more than to work of any
description. Living apart, each on his own plantation, the education
of children was frequently imperfect, and the planter
himself was bereft of that wholesome discipline to mind and to
temper which residence among equals confers. The two great
divisions of States—those in which slavery was profitable, and
those in which it was unprofitable—were unequally yoked together.
Their divergence of character and interest continued
to increase, till it issued in one of the greatest of recorded wars.
Up to the year 1764, the Americans cherished a deep reverence
and affection for the mother country. They were proud of
her great place among the nations. They gloried in the splendour
of her military achievements; they copied her manners
and her fashions. She was in all things their model. They
always spoke of England as “home.” To be an Old England
man was to be a person of rank and importance among them.
They yielded a loving obedience to her laws. They were
governed, as Benjamin Franklin stated it, at the expense of
a little pen and ink. When money was asked from their
Assemblies, it was given without grudge. “They were led by
a thread,”—such was their love for the land which gave them
birth.
Ten or twelve years came and went. A marvellous change
has passed upon the temper of the American people. They have
bound themselves by great oaths to use no article of English
manufacture—to engage in no transaction which can put a
shilling into any English pocket. They have formed “the inconvenient
habit of carting,”—that is, of tarring and feathering
and dragging through the streets such persons as avow friendship
for the English Government. They burn the Acts of the
English Parliament by the hands of the common hangman.
They slay the King’s soldiers. They refuse every amicable proposal.
They cast from them for ever the King’s authority.
They hand down a dislike to the English name, of which some
traces lingered among them for generations.
By what unhallowed magic has this change been wrought so
swiftly? By what process, in so few years, have three million
people been taught to abhor the country they so loved?
The ignorance and folly of the English Government wrought
this evil. But there is little cause for regret. Under the fuller
knowledge of our modern time, colonies are allowed to discontinue
their connection with the mother country when it is their
wish to do so. Better had America gone in peace. But better
she went, even in wrath and bloodshed, than continued in paralyzing
dependence upon England.
For many years England had governed her American colonies
harshly, and in a spirit of undisguised selfishness. America was
ruled, not for her own good, but for the good of English commerce.
She was not allowed to export her products except to
England. No foreign ship might enter her ports. Woollen
goods were not allowed to be sent from one colony to another.
At one time the manufacture of hats was forbidden. In a liberal
mood Parliament removed that prohibition, but decreed that no
maker of hats should employ any negro workman, or any larger
number of apprentices than two. Iron-works were forbidden.
Up to the latest hour of English rule the Bible was not allowed
to be printed in America.
The Americans had long borne the cost of their own government
and defence. But in that age of small revenue and profuse
expenditure on unmeaning continental wars, it had been often
suggested that America should be taxed for the purposes of the
home Government. Some one proposed that to Sir Robert
Walpole in a time of need. The wise Sir Robert shook his
head. It must be a bolder man than he was who would attempt
that. A man bolder, because less wise, was found in due time.
1764 A.D. The Seven Years’ War had ended, and England had added a
hundred million to her national debt. The country was
suffering, as countries always do after great wars, and it
was no easy matter to fit the new burdens on to the
national shoulder. The hungry eye of Lord Grenville searched
where a new tax might be laid. The Americans had begun
visibly to prosper. Already their growing wealth was the
theme of envious discourse among English merchants. The
English officers who had fought in America spoke in glowing
terms of the magnificent hospitality which had been extended to
them. No more need be said. The House of Commons passed
a resolution asserting their right to tax the Americans. No
solitary voice was raised against this fatal resolution. Immediately
after, an Act was passed imposing certain taxes upon silks,
coffee, sugar, and other articles. The Americans remonstrated.
They were willing, they said, to vote what moneys the King required
of them, but they vehemently denied the right of any
Assembly in which they were not represented to take from them
any portion of their property. They were the subjects of the
King, but they owed no obedience to the English Parliament.
Lord Grenville went on his course. He had been told the
Americans would complain but submit, and he believed it.
Next session an Act was passed imposing Stamp Duties on
America. The measure awakened no interest. Edmund Burke
said he had never been present at a more languid debate. In
the House of Lords there was no debate at all. With so little
trouble was a continent rent away from the British Empire.
1765 A.D. Benjamin Franklin told the House of Commons that America
would never submit to the Stamp Act, and that no
power on earth could enforce it. The Americans made
it impossible for Government to mistake their sentiments.
Riots, which swelled from day to day into dimensions
more “enormous and alarming,” burst forth in the New England
States. Everywhere the stamp distributers were compelled to
resign their offices. One unfortunate man was led forth to
Boston Common, and made to sign his resignation in presence
of a vast crowd. Another, in desperate health, was visited in
his sick-room and obliged to pledge that if he lived he would
resign. A universal resolution was come to that no English
goods would be imported till the Stamp Act was repealed. The
colonists would “eat nothing, drink nothing, wear nothing that
comes from England,” while this great injustice endured. The
Act was to come into force on the 1st of November. That
day the bells rang out funereal peals, and the colonists wore the
aspect of men on whom some heavy calamity has fallen. But
the Act never came into force. Not one of Lord Grenville’s
stamps was ever bought or sold in America. Some of the
stamped paper was burned by the mob; the rest was hidden
away to save it from the same fate. Without stamps, marriages
were null; mercantile transactions ceased to be binding; suits
at law were impossible. Nevertheless the business of human
life went on. Men married; they bought, they sold; they went
to law;—illegally, because without stamps. But no harm came
of it.
England heard with amazement that America refused to obey
the law. There were some who demanded that the Stamp Act
should be enforced by the sword. But it greatly moved the
English merchants that America should cease to import their
goods. William Pitt—not yet Earl of Chatham—denounced
the Act, and said he was glad America had resisted. 1766 A.D. Pitt and the merchants triumphed, and the Act was
repealed. There was illumination in the city that
night. The city bells rang for joy; the ships in the Thames
displayed all their colours. The saddest heart in all London
was that of poor King George, who never ceased to lament
“the fatal repeal of the Stamp Act.” All America thrilled
with joy and pride when news arrived of the great triumph.
They voted Pitt a statue; they set apart a day for public rejoicing;
all prisoners for debt were set free. A great deliverance
had been granted, and the delight of the gladdened people
knew no bounds. The danger is over for the present; but
whosoever governs America now has need to walk warily.
It was during the agitation arising out of the Stamp Act that
the idea of a General Congress of the States was suggested. A
loud cry for union had arisen. “Join or die” was the prevailing
sentiment. The Congress met in New York. It did little more
than discuss and petition. It is interesting merely as one of the
first exhibitions of a tendency towards federal union in a country
whose destiny, in all coming time, this tendency was to fix.
The repeal of the Stamp Act delayed only for a little the
fast-coming crisis. A new Ministry was formed, with the Earl
of Chatham at its head. But soon the great Earl lay sick and
helpless, and the burden of government rested on incapable
shoulders. Charles Townshend, a clever, captivating, but most
indiscreet man, became the virtual Prime Minister. The feeling
in the public mind had now become more unfavourable to
America. Townshend proposed to levy a variety of taxes from
the Americans. The most famous of his taxes was one of threepence
per pound on tea. All his proposals became law.
This time the more thoughtful Americans began to despair
of justice. The boldest scarcely ventured yet to suggest revolt
against England, so powerful and so loved. But the grand final
refuge of independence was silently brooded over by many. The
mob fell back on their customary solution. Great riots occurred.
To quell these disorders English troops encamped on Boston
Common. The town swarmed with red-coated men, every one
of whom was a humiliation. Their drums beat on Sabbath, and
troubled the orderly men of Boston, even in church. At intervals
fresh transports dropped in, bearing additional soldiers, till a
great force occupied the town. The galled citizens could ill brook
to be thus bridled. The ministers prayed to Heaven for deliverance
from the presence of the soldiers. The General Court of
Massachusetts called vehemently on the Governor to remove
them. The Governor had no powers in that matter. He called
upon the court to make suitable provision for the King’s troops,—a
request which it gave the court infinite pleasure to refuse.
1770 A.D. The universal irritation broke forth in frequent brawls between
soldiers and people. One wintry moonlight night in
March, when snow and ice lay about the streets of
Boston, a more than usually determined attack was
made upon a party of soldiers. The mob thought the
soldiers dared not fire without the order of a magistrate, and
were very bold in the strength of that belief. It proved a
mistake. The soldiers did fire, and the blood of eleven slain or
wounded persons stained the frozen streets. This was “the
Boston Massacre,” which greatly inflamed the patriot antipathy
to the mother country.
Two or three unquiet years passed, and no progress towards
a settlement of differences had been made. From all the
colonies there came, loud and unceasing, the voice of complaint
and remonstrance. It fell upon unheeding ears, for England
was committed. To her honour be it said, it was not in the
end for money that she alienated her children. The tax on tea
must be maintained to vindicate the authority of England. But
when the tea was shipped, such a drawback was allowed that
the price would actually have been lower in America than it
was at home.
The Americans had, upon the whole, kept loyally to their
purpose of importing no English goods, specially no goods on
which duty could be levied. Occasionally, a patriot of the more
worldly-minded sort yielded to temptation, and secretly despatched
an order to England. He was forgiven, if penitent.
If obdurate, his name was published, and a resolution of the
citizens to trade no more with a person so unworthy soon
brought him to reason. But, in the main, the colonists were
true to their bond, and when they could no longer smuggle they
ceased to import. The East India Company accumulated vast
quantities of unsaleable tea, for which a market must be
found. 1773 A.D. Several ships were freighted with tea, and sent
out to America.
Cheaper tea was never seen in America; but it bore upon it
the abhorred tax which asserted British control over the property
of Americans. Will the Americans, long bereaved
of the accustomed beverage, yield to the temptation, and barter
their honour for cheap tea? The East India Company never
doubted it; but the Company knew nothing of the temper of
the American people. The ships arrived at New York and
Philadelphia. These cities stood firm. The ships were promptly
sent home—their hatches unopened—and duly bore their rejected
cargoes back to the Thames.
When the ships destined for Boston showed their tall masts
in the bay, the citizens ran together to hold council. It was
Sabbath, and the men of Boston were strict. But here was an
exigency, in presence of which all ordinary rules are suspended.
The crisis has come at length. If that tea is landed it will be
sold, it will be used, and American liberty will become a byword
upon the earth.
Samuel Adams was the true King in Boston at that time.
He was a man in middle life, of cultivated mind and stainless
reputation—a powerful speaker and writer—a man in whose
sagacity and moderation all men trusted. He resembled the
old Puritans in his stern love of liberty—his reverence for the
Sabbath—his sincere, if somewhat formal, observance of all
religious ordinances. He was among the first to see that there
was no resting-place in this struggle short of independence.
“We are free,” he said, “and want no King.” The men of
Boston felt the power of his resolute spirit, and manfully followed
where Samuel Adams led.
It was hoped that the agents of the East India Company would
have consented to send the ships home; but the agents refused.
Several days of excitement and ineffectual negotiation ensued.
People flocked in from the neighbouring towns. The time was
spent mainly in public meeting; the city resounded with impassioned
discourse. But meanwhile the ships lay peacefully
at their moorings, and the tide of patriot talk seemed to flow in
vain. Other measures were visibly necessary. One day a
meeting was held, and the excited people continued in hot debate
till the shades of evening fell. No progress was made.
At length Samuel Adams stood up in the dimly-lighted church,
and announced, “This meeting can do nothing more to save
the country.” With a stern shout the meeting broke up. Fifty
men disguised as Indians hurried down to the wharf, each man
with a hatchet in his hand. The crowd followed. The ships
were boarded; the chests of tea were brought on deck, broken
up, and flung into the bay. The approving citizens looked on
in silence. It was felt by all that the step was grave and
eventful in the highest degree. So still was the crowd that no
sound was heard but the stroke of the hatchet and the splash of
the shattered chests as they fell into the sea. All questions
about the disposal of those cargoes of tea at all events are now
solved.
This is what America has done; it is for England to make
the next move. Lord North was now at the head of the British
Government. It was his lordship’s belief that the troubles in
America sprang from a small number of ambitious persons, and
could easily, by proper firmness, be suppressed. “The Americans
will be lions while we are lambs,” said General Gage. The King
believed this, and Lord North believed it. In this deep ignorance
he proceeded to deal with the great emergency. He closed
Boston as a port for the landing and shipping of goods. He
imposed a fine to indemnify the East India Company for their
lost teas. He withdrew the Charter of Massachusetts. He
authorized the Governor to send political offenders to England
for trial. Great voices were raised against these severities.
Lord Chatham, old in constitution now, if not in years, and
near the close of his career, pled for measures of conciliation.
Edmund Burke justified the resistance of the Americans. Their
opposition was fruitless. All Lord North’s measures of repression
became law; and General Gage, with an additional force
of soldiers, was sent to Boston to carry them into effect. Gage
was an authority on American affairs. He had fought under
Braddock. Among blind men the one-eyed man is king;
among the profoundly ignorant, the man with a little knowledge
is irresistibly persuasive. “Four regiments sent to
Boston,” said the hopeful Gage, “will prevent any disturbance.”
He was believed; but, unhappily for his own comfort, he was
sent to Boston to secure the fulfilment of his own prophecy.
He threw up some fortifications and lay as in a hostile city.
The Americans appointed a day of fasting and humiliation.
They did more. They formed themselves into military companies;
they occupied themselves with drill; they laid up stores
of ammunition. Most of them had muskets, and could use
them. He who had no musket now got one. They hoped that
civil war would be averted, but there was no harm in being
ready.
Sept. 5, 1774 A.D. While General Gage was throwing up his fortifications at
Boston, there met in Philadelphia a Congress of delegates,
sent by the States, to confer in regard to the
troubles which were thickening round them. Twelve
States were represented. Georgia as yet paused timidly
on the brink of the perilous enterprise. They were notable
men who met there, and their work is held in enduring honour.
“For genuine sagacity, for singular moderation, for solid
wisdom,” said the great Earl of Chatham, “the Congress of
Philadelphia shines unrivalled.” The low-roofed quaint old
room in which their meetings were held, became one of the
shrines which Americans delight to visit. George Washington
was there, and his massive sense and copious knowledge were a
supreme guiding power. Patrick Henry, then a young man,
brought to the council a wisdom beyond his years, and a fiery
eloquence, which, to some of his hearers, seemed almost more
than human. He had already proved his unfitness for farming
and for shop-keeping. He was now to prove that he could utter
words which swept over a continent, thrilling men’s hearts like
the voice of the trumpet, and rousing them to heroic deeds.
John Routledge from South Carolina aided him with an
eloquence little inferior to his own. Richard Henry Lee, with
his Roman aspect, his bewitching voice, his ripe scholarship, his
rich stores of historical and political knowledge, would have
graced the highest assemblies of the Old World. John Dickenson,
the wise farmer from the banks of the Delaware, whose
Letters had done so much to form the public sentiment—his
enthusiastic love of England overborne by his sense of wrong—took
regretful but resolute part in withstanding the tyranny of
the English Government.
We have the assurance of Washington that the members of
this Congress did not aim at independence. As yet it was their
wish to have wrongs redressed and to continue British subjects.
Their proceedings give ample evidence of this desire. They
drew up a narrative of their wrongs. As a means of obtaining
redress, they adopted a resolution that all commercial intercourse
with Britain should cease. They addressed the King, imploring
his majesty to remove those grievances which endangered their
relations with him. They addressed the people of Great Britain,
with whom, they said, they deemed a union as their greatest
glory and happiness; adding, however, that they would not be
hewers of wood and drawers of water to any nation in the
world. They appealed to their brother colonists of Canada for
support in their peaceful resistance to oppression. But Canada,
newly conquered from France, was peopled almost wholly by
Frenchmen. A Frenchman of that time was contented to
enjoy such an amount of liberty and property as his King was
pleased to permit. And so from Canada there came no response
of sympathy or help.
Here Congress paused. Some members believed, with
Washington, that their remonstrances would be effectual.
Others, less sanguine, looked for no settlement but that which
the sword might bring. They adjourned, to meet again next
May. This is enough for the present. What further steps the
new events of that coming summer may call for, we shall be
prepared, with God’s help, to take.
England showed no relenting in her treatment of the Americans.
The King gave no reply to the address of Congress.
The Houses of Lords and of Commons refused even to allow that
address to be read in their hearing. The King announced his
firm purpose to reduce the refractory colonists to obedience.
Parliament gave loyal assurances of support to the blinded
monarch. All trade with the colonies was forbidden. All
American ships and cargoes might be seized by those who were
strong enough to do so. The alternative presented to the
American choice was without disguise—the Americans had to
fight for their liberty, or forego it. The people of England had,
in those days, no control over the government of their country.
All this was managed for them by a few great families. Their
allotted part was to toil hard, pay their taxes, and be silent. If
they had been permitted to speak, their voice would have vindicated
the men who asserted the right of self-government—a
right which Englishmen themselves were not to enjoy for many
a long year.
1775 A.D. General Gage had learned that considerable stores of ammunition
were collected at the village of Concord, eighteen
miles from Boston. He would seize them in the King’s
name. Late one April night eight hundred soldiers set
out on this errand. They hoped their coming would be unexpected,
as care had been taken to prevent the tidings from being
carried out of Boston. But as they marched, the clang of bells
and the firing of guns gave warning far and near of their
approach. In the early morning they reached Lexington.
Some hours before, a body of militia awaited them there. But
the morning was chill and the hour untimely, and the patriots
were allowed to seek the genial shelter of the tavern, under
pledge to appear at beat of drum. Seventy of them did so,
mostly, we are told, “in a confused state.” Major Pitcairn
commanded them to disperse. The patriots did not at once
obey the summons. It was impossible that seventy volunteers
could mean to fight eight hundred British soldiers; it is more
likely they did not clearly understand what was required of
them. Firing ensued. The Americans say that the first shot
came from the British. Major Pitcairn always asserted that he
himself saw a countryman give the first fire from behind a wall.
It can never be certainly known, but there was now firing
enough. The British stood and shot, in their steady unconcerned
way, at the poor mistaken seventy. The patriots fled
fast. Eighteen of their number did not join the flight. These
lay in their blood on the village green, dead or wounded men.
Thus was the war begun between England and her colonies.
The British pushed on to Concord, and destroyed all the
military stores they could find. It was not much, for there had
been time to carry off nearly everything. By noon the work
was done, and the wearied troops turned their faces towards
Boston.
They were not suffered to march alone. All that morning
grim-faced yeomen—of the Ironside type, each man with a musket
in his hand—had been hurrying into Concord. The British
march was mainly on a road cut through dense woods. As
they advanced, the vengeful yeomanry hung upon their flanks
and rear. On every side there streamed forth an incessant and
murderous fire, under which the men fell fast. No effort could
dislodge those deadly but almost unseen foes. During all the
terrible hours of that return march the fire of the Americans
never flagged, and could seldom be returned. It was sunset
ere the soldiers, half dead with fatigue, got home to Boston.
In killed, wounded, and prisoners, this fatal expedition had cost
nearly three hundred men. The blood shed at Lexington had
been swiftly and deeply avenged.
The encounters at Lexington and Concord thoroughly
aroused the American people. The news rang
through the land that blood had been spilt—that
already there were martyrs to the great cause.
Mounted couriers galloped along all highways. Over the bustle
of the market-place—in the stillness of the quiet village church—there
broke the startling shout, “The war has begun.” All
men felt that the hour had come, and they promptly laid aside
their accustomed labour that they might gird themselves for
the battle. North Carolina, in her haste, threw off the authority
of the King, and formed herself into military companies.
Timid Georgia sent gifts of money and of rice, and cheering
letters, to confirm the bold purposes of the men of Boston. In
aristocratic and loyal Virginia there was a general rush to
arms. From every corner of the New England States men
hurried to Boston. Down in pleasant Connecticut an old
man was ploughing his field one April afternoon. His name
was Israel Putnam. He was now a farmer and tavern-keeper—a
combination frequent at that time in New England, and
not at all inconsistent, we are told, “with a Roman character.”
Formerly he had been a warrior. He had fought the Indians,
and had narrowly escaped the jeopardies of such warfare. Once
he had been bound to a tree, and the savages were beginning
to toss their tomahawks at his head, when unhoped-for rescue
found him. As rugged old Israel ploughed his field, some one
told him of Lexington. That day he ploughed no more. He
sent word home that he had gone to Boston. Unyoking his
horse from the plough, in a few minutes he was mounted and
hastening towards the camp.
Boston and its suburbs stand on certain islets and peninsulas,
access to which, from the mainland, is gained by one isthmus
which is called Boston Neck, and another isthmus which is
called Charlestown Neck. A city thus circumstanced is not
difficult to blockade. The American Yeomanry blockaded
Boston. There were five thousand soldiers in the town; but
the retreat from Concord inclined General Gage to some measure
of patient endurance, and he made no attempt to raise
the blockade.
The month of May was wearing on, and still General Gage
lay inactive. Still patriot Americans poured into the blockading
camp. They were utterly undisciplined, and wholly without
uniform. The English scorned them as a rabble “with
calico frocks and fowling-pieces.” But they were Anglo-Saxons
with arms in their hands, and a fixed purpose in their minds.
It was very likely that the unwise contempt of their enemies
would not be long unrebuked.
On the 25th, several English ships of war dropped their
anchors in Boston Bay. It was rumoured that they brought
large reinforcements under Howe, Burgoyne, and Clinton—the
best generals England possessed. Shortly it became known
that Gage now felt himself strong enough to break out upon his
rustic besiegers. But the choice of time and place for the encounter
was not to be left with General Gage.
On Charlestown peninsula, within easy gun-shot of Boston,
there are two low hills, one of which, the higher, is called
Bunker Hill, and the other Breed’s Hill. In a council of war
the Americans determined to seize and fortify one of these
heights, and there abide the onslaught of the English. There
was not a moment to lose. It was said that Gage intended to
occupy the heights on the night of the 18th June. But Gage
was habitually too late. On the 16th, a little before sunset,
twelve hundred Americans were mustered on Cambridge Common
for special service. Colonel Prescott, a veteran who had
fought against the French, was in command. Putnam was
with him, to be useful where he could, although without specified
duties. Prayers were said; and the men, knowing only
that they went to battle, and perhaps to death, set forth upon
their march. They marched in silence, for their way led them
under the guns of English ships. They reached the hill-top
undiscovered by the supine foe. It was a lovely June night—warm
and still. Far down lay the English ships—awful, but
as yet harmless. Across the Charles river, Boston and her
garrison slept the sleep of the unsuspecting. The “All’s well”
of the sentinel crept, from time to time, dreamily up the hill.
Swift now with spade and mattock, for the hours of this midsummer
night are few and precious—swift, but cautious, too,
for one ringing stroke of iron upon stone may ruin all!
When General Gage looked out upon the heights next morning,
he saw a strong intrenchment and swarms of armed men
where the untrodden grass had waved in the summer breeze a
few hours before. He looked long through his glass at this
unwelcome apparition. A tall figure paced to and fro along
the rude parapet. It was Prescott. “Will he fight?” asked
Gage eagerly. “Yes, sir,” replied a bystander; “to the last
drop of his blood.”
It was indispensable that the works should be taken, and a
plan of attack was immediately formed. It was sufficiently
simple. No one supposed that the Americans would stand the
shock of regular troops. The English were therefore to march
straight up the hill and drive the Americans away. Meanwhile
reinforcements were sent to the Americans, and supplies of
ammunition were distributed. A gill of powder, to be carried
in a powder-horn or loose in the pocket, two flints and fifteen
balls, were served out to each man. To obtain even the fifteen
balls, they had to melt down the organ-pipes of an Episcopal
church at Cambridge.
At noon English soldiers to the number of two thousand
crossed over from Boston. The men on the hill-top looked out
from their intrenchments upon a splendid vision of bright
uniforms and bayonets and field-pieces flashing in the sun.
They looked with quickened pulse but unshaken purpose. To
men of their race it is not given to know fear on the verge of
battle.
The English soldiers paused for refreshments when they
landed on the Charlestown peninsula. The Americans could
hear the murmur of their noisy talk and laughter. They saw
the pitchers of grog pass along the ranks. And then they saw
the Englishmen rise and stretch themselves to their grim morning’s
work. From the steeples and house-tops of Boston—from
all the heights which stand round about the city—thousands
of Americans watched the progress of the fight.
The soldiers had no easy task before them. The day was
“exceeding hot,” the grass was long and thick, the up-hill
march was toilsome, the enemy watchful and resolute. As if
to render the difficulty greater, the men carried three days’
provision with them in their knapsacks. Each man had a
burden which weighed one hundred and twenty pounds in
knapsack, musket, and other equipments. Thus laden they
began their perilous ascent.
While yet a long way from the enemy they opened a harmless
fire of musketry. There was no reply from the American
lines. Putnam had directed the men to withhold their fire till
they could see the white of the Englishmen’s eyes, and then to
aim low. The Englishmen were very near the works when the
word was given. Like the left-handed slingers of the tribe of
Benjamin, the Americans could shoot to a hairbreadth. Every
man took his steady aim, and when they gave forth their volley
few bullets sped in vain. The slaughter was enormous. The
English recoiled in some confusion, a pitiless rain of bullets
following them down the hill. Again they advanced almost to
the American works, and again they sustained a bloody repulse.
And now, at the hill-foot, they laid down their knapsacks and
stripped off their great-coats. They were resolute this time to
end the fight by the bayonet. The American ammunition was
exhausted, and they could give the enemy only a single volley.
The English swarmed over the parapet. The Americans had
no bayonets, but for a time they waged unequal war with stones
and the butt-ends of their muskets. They were soon driven out,
and fled down the hill and across the Neck to Cambridge, the
English ships raking them with grape-shot as they ran.
They had done their work. Victory no doubt remained with
the English. Their object was to carry the American intrenchments,
and they had carried them. Far greater than this was
the gain of the Americans. It was proved that, with the help
of some slight field-works, it was possible for undisciplined
patriots to meet on equal terms the best troops England could
send against them. Henceforth the success of the Revolution
was assured. “Thank God,” said Washington, when he heard
of the battle, “the liberties of the country are safe.” Would
that obstinate King George could have been made to see it!
But many wives must be widows, and many children fatherless,
before those dull eyes will open to the unwelcome truth.
Sixteen hundred men lay, dead or wounded, on that fatal
slope. The English had lost nearly eleven hundred; the
Americans nearly five hundred. Seldom indeed in any battle
has so large a proportion of the combatants fallen.
The Americans, who had thus taken up arms and resisted
and slain the King’s troops, were wholly without authority for
what they had done. No governing body of any description
had employed them or recognized them. What were still more
alarming deficiencies, they were without a general, and
without adequate supply of food and ammunition. 1775 A.D. Congress
now, by a unanimous vote, adopted the army, and
elected George Washington Commander-in-Chief of the patriot
forces. They took measures to enlist soldiers, and to raise
money for their support.
When Washington reached the army before Boston, he found
it to consist of fourteen thousand men. They were quite undisciplined,
and almost without ammunition. Their stock of
powder would afford only nine rounds to each man. They could
thus have made no use of their artillery. Their rude intrenchments
stretched a distance of eight or nine miles. At any moment
the English might burst upon them, piercing their weak
lines, and rolling them back in hopeless rout. But the stubborn
provincials were, as yet, scarcely soldiers enough to know
their danger. Taking counsel only of their own courage, they
strengthened their intrenchment, and tenaciously maintained
their hold on Boston.
From a convenient hill-top Washington looked at his foe.
He saw a British army of ten thousand men, perfect in discipline
and equipment. It was a noble engine, but, happily for
the world, it was guided by incompetent hands. General Gage
tamely endured siege without daring to strike a single blow at
the audacious patriots. It was no easy winter in either army.
The English suffered from small-pox. Their fleet failed to secure
for them an adequate supply of food. They had to pull down
houses to obtain wood for fuel, at the risk of being hanged if
they were discovered. They were dispirited by long inaction.
They knew that in England the feeling entertained about them
was one of bitter disappointment. Poor Gage was recalled by
an angry Ministry, and quitted in disgrace that Boston where
he had hoped for such success. General Howe succeeded to
his command, and to his policy of inactivity.
Washington on his side was often in despair. His troops
were mainly enlisted for three months only. Their love of
country gave way under the hardships of a soldier’s life. Washington
was a strict disciplinarian, and many a free-born back
was scored by the lash. Patriotism proved a harder service
than the men counted for. Fast as their time of service expired
they set their faces homeward. Washington plied them
with patriotic appeals, and even caused patriot songs to be sung
about the camp. Not thus, however, could the self-indulgent
men of Massachusetts and Connecticut be taught to scorn delights
and live laborious days. “Such dearth of public spirit,”
Washington writes, “and such want of virtue, such fertility
in all the low arts, I never saw before.” 1776 A.D. When January
came he had a new army, much smaller than the old,
and the same weary process of drilling began afresh.
He knew that Howe was aware of his position. The inactivity
of the English general astonished Washington. He could explain
it no otherwise than by believing that Providence watched
over the liberties of the American people.
In February liberal supplies of arms and ammunition reached
him. There came also ten regiments of militia. Washington
was now strong enough to take a step.
To the south of Boston city lie the Heights of Dorchester. If
the Americans can seize and hold these heights, the English must
quit Boston. The night of the 4th of March was fixed for the
enterprise. A heavy fire of artillery occupied the attention of
the enemy. By the light of an unclouded moon a strong working-party
took their way to Dorchester Heights. A long train
of waggons accompanied them, laden with hard-pressed bales of
hay. These were needed to form a breastwork, as a hard frost
bound the earth, and digging alone could not be relied upon.
The men worked with such spirit, that by dawn the bales of hay
had been fashioned into various redoubts and other defences of
most formidable aspect. A thick fog lay along the heights, and
the new fortress looked massive and imposing in the haze.
“The rebels,” said Howe, “have done more work in one night
than my whole army would have done in a month.”
And now the English must fight, or yield up Boston. The
English chose to fight. They were in the act of embarking to
get at the enemy when a furious east wind began to blow,
scattering their transports and compelling the delay of the
attack. All next day the storm continued to rage, and the
English, eager for battle, lay in unwilling idleness. The vigorous
Americans never ceased to dig and build. On the third
day the storm abated. But it was now General Howe’s opinion
that the American position was impregnable. It may be that
he was wisely cautious; it may be that he was merely fearful.
But he laid aside his thoughts of battle, and prepared to evacuate
Boston. On the 17th the last English soldier was on
board, and all New England was finally wrested from King
George.
Even yet, after months of fighting, the idea of final
separation from Great Britain was distasteful to a
large portion of the American people. To the
more enlightened it had long been evident that no
other course was possible, but very many still clung to the
hope of a friendly settlement of differences. Some, who were
native Englishmen, loved the land of their birth better than
the land of their adoption. The Quakers and Moravians were
opposed to war as sinful, and would content themselves with
such redress as could be obtained by remonstrance. Some, who
deeply resented the oppressions of the home Government, were
slow to relinquish the privilege of British citizenship. Some
would willingly have fought had there been hope of success, but
could not be convinced that America was able to defend herself
against the colossal strength of England. The subject was discussed
long and keenly. The intelligence of America was in
favour of separation. All the writers of the colonies urged
incessantly that to this it must come. Endless pamphlets and
gazette articles set forth the oppressions of the old country, and
the need of independence in order to the welfare of the colonies.
Conspicuous among those whose writings aided in convincing
the public mind stands the unhonoured name of Thomas Paine
the infidel. Paine had been only a few months in the colonies,
but his restless mind took a ready interest in the great question
of the day. He had a surprising power of direct, forcible argument.
He wrote a pamphlet styled “Common Sense,” in which
he urged the Americans to be independent. His treatise had,
for those days, a vast circulation, and an extraordinary influence.
1776 A.D. The time was now ripe for the consideration by Congress of
the great question of Independence. It was a grave and
most eventful step, which no thinking man would lightly
take, but it could no longer be shunned. On the
7th of June a resolution was introduced, declaring “That the
United Colonies are and ought to be free and independent.”
The House was not yet prepared for a measure so decisive.
Many members still paused on the threshold of that vast change.
Pennsylvania and Delaware had expressly enjoined their delegates
to oppose it; for the Quakers were loyal to the last.
Some other States had given no instructions, and their delegates
felt themselves bound, in consequence, to vote against the
change. Seven States voted for the resolution; six voted
against it. Greater unanimity than this was indispensable.
With much prudence it was agreed that the matter should
stand over for two or three weeks.
On the 4th of July the Declaration of Independence was
adopted, with the unanimous concurrence of all the States. In
this famous document the usurpations of the English Government
were set forth in unsparing terms. The divinity which
doth hedge a King did not protect poor King George from a
rougher handling than he ever experienced before. His character,
it was said, “was marked by every act which can define
a tyrant.” And then it was announced to the world that the
Thirteen Colonies had terminated their political connection with
Great Britain, and entered upon their career as free and independent
States.
The vigorous action of Congress nerved the colonists for their
great enterprise. The paralyzing hope of reconciliation was
extinguished. The quarrel must now be fought out to the end,
and liberty must be gloriously won or shamefully lost. Everywhere
the Declaration was hailed with joy. It was read to the
army amidst exulting shouts. The soldiers in New York expressed
their transference of allegiance by taking down a leaden
statue of King George and casting it into bullets to be used
against the King’s troops. Next day Washington, in the dignified
language which was habitual to him, reminded his troops
of their new duties and responsibilities. “The general,” he said,
“hopes and trusts that every officer and soldier will endeavour
so to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier, defending the
dearest rights and liberties of his country.”
England put forth as much strength as she deemed
needful to subdue her rebellious colonists. She
prepared a strong fleet and a strong army. She
entered into contracts with some of the petty German
princes to supply a certain number of soldiers. It was a
matter of regular sale and purchase. England supplied money
at a fixed rate; the Duke of Brunswick and some others supplied
a stipulated number of men, who were to shed their blood
in a quarrel of which they knew nothing. Even in a dark age
these transactions were a scandal. Frederick of Prussia loudly
expressed his contempt for both parties. When any of the
hired men passed through any part of his territory he levied on
them the toll usually charged for cattle—like which, he said,
they had been sold!
So soon as the safety of Boston was secured, Washington
moved with his army southwards to New York. Thither, in
the month of June, came General Howe. Thither also came
his brother, Lord Howe, with the forces which England had
provided for this war. These reinforcements raised the British
army to twenty-five thousand men. Lord Howe brought with
him a commission from King George to pacify the dissatisfied
colonists. He invited them to lay down their arms, and he
assured them of the King’s pardon. His proposals were singularly
inopportune. The Declaration of Independence had just
been published, and the Americans had determined to be free.
They were not seeking to be forgiven, and they rejected with
scorn Lord Howe’s proposals. The sword must now decide
between King George and his alienated subjects.
Lord Howe encamped his troops on Staten Island, a few
miles from New York. His powerful fleet gave him undisputed
command of the bay, and enabled him to choose his point of
attack. The Americans expected that he would land upon
Long Island, and take possession of the heights near Brooklyn.
He would then be separated from New York only by a narrow
arm of the sea, and he could with ease lay the city in ruins.
Washington sent a strong force to hold the heights, and throw
up intrenchments in front of Brooklyn. General Putnam was
appointed to the command of this army. Staten Island lies
full in view of Brooklyn. The white tents of the English army,
and the formidable English ships lying at their anchorage, were
watched by many anxious eyes, for the situation was known to
be full of peril. Washington himself did not expect success in
the coming fight, and hoped for nothing more than that the
enemy’s victory would cost him dear.
After a time it was seen that a movement was in progress
among the English. One by one the tents disappeared. One
by one the ships shook their canvas out to the wind, and moved
across the bay. Then the Americans knew that their hour of
trial was at hand.
Aug. 27, 1776 A.D. Putnam marched his men out from their lines to meet the
English. At daybreak the enemy made his appearance.
The right wing of the American army was attacked,
and troops were withdrawn from other points to resist
what seemed the main attack. Meanwhile a strong
English force made its way unseen round the American left, and
established itself between the Americans and their intrenchments.
This decided the fate of the battle. The Americans
made a brave but vain defence. They were driven within their
lines after sustaining heavy loss.
Lord Howe could easily have stormed the works, and taken
or destroyed the American army. But his lordship felt that his
enemy was in his power, and he wished to spare his soldiers
the bloodshed which an assault would have caused. He was to
reduce the enemy’s works by regular siege. It was no part of
Washington’s intention to wait for the issue of these operations.
During the night of the 29th he silently withdrew his broken
troops, and landed them safely in New York. So skilfully was
this movement executed, that the last boat had pushed off from
the shore before the British discovered that their enemies had
departed.
But now New York had to be abandoned. Washington’s
army was utterly demoralized by the defeat at Brooklyn. The
men went home, in some instances, by entire regiments. Washington
confessed to the President of Congress with deep concern
that he had no confidence “in the generality of the troops.” To
fight the well-disciplined and victorious British with such men
was worse than useless. He marched northwards, and took up
a strong position at Haerlem, a village nine miles from New
York. But the English ships, sweeping up the Hudson river,
showed themselves on his flank and in his rear; the English
army approached him in front. There was no choice but
retreat. Washington crossed his soldiers over to the Jersey
side of the river. The English followed him, after storming a
fort in which nearly three thousand men had been left, the
whole of whom were made prisoners.
The fortunes of the revolted colonies were now at the very
lowest ebb. Washington had only four thousand men under
his immediate command. They were in miserable condition—imperfectly
armed, poorly fed and clothed, without blankets, or
tents, or shoes. An English officer said of them, without extreme
exaggeration, “In a whole regiment there is scarce one
pair of breeches.” This was the army which was to snatch a
continent from the grasp of England! As they marched towards
Philadelphia the people looked with derision upon their
ragged defenders, and with fear upon the brilliant host of
pursuers. Lord Howe renewed his offer of pardon to all who
would submit. This time his lordship’s offers commanded some
attention. Many of the wealthier patriots took the oath, and
made their peace with a Government whose authority there was
no longer any hope of throwing off.
Washington made good his retreat to Philadelphia, so hotly
pursued that his rear-guard, engaged in pulling down bridges,
were often in sight of the British pioneers sent to build them
up. When he crossed the Delaware he secured all the boats
for a distance of seventy miles along the river-course. Lord
Howe was brought to a pause, and he decided to wait upon the
eastern bank till the river should be frozen.
Washington knew well the desperate odds against him. He
expected to be driven from the Eastern States. It was his
thought, in that case, to retire beyond the Alleghanies, and in
the wilderness to maintain undying resistance to the English
yoke. Meantime he strove like a brave strong man to win
back success to the patriot cause. It was only now that he
was able to rid himself of the evil of short enlistments. Congress
resolved that henceforth men should be enlisted to serve
out the war.
Winter came, but Lord Howe remained inactive. He himself
was in New York; his army was scattered about among
the villages of New Jersey, fearing no evil from the despised
Americans. All the time Washington was increasing the number
of his troops, and improving their condition. But something
was needed to chase away the gloom which paralyzed the
country. Ten miles from Philadelphia was the village of
Trenton, held by a considerable force of British and Hessians.
At sunset on Christmas evening Washington marched out from
Philadelphia, having prepared a surprise for the careless garrison
of Trenton. The night was dark and tempestuous, and the
weather was so intensely cold that two of the soldiers were
frozen to death. The march of the barefooted host could be
tracked by the blood-marks which they left upon the snow. At
daybreak they burst upon the astonished Royalists. The Hessians
had drunk deep on the previous day, and they were ill
prepared to fight. Their commander was slain as he attempted
to bring his men up to the enemy. After his fall the soldiers
laid down their arms, and surrendered at discretion.
1777 A.D. A week after this encounter three British regiments spent a
night at Princeton, on their way to Trenton to retrieve
the disaster which had there befallen their Hessian
allies. Washington made another night march, attacked
the Englishmen in the early morning, and after a stubborn
resistance defeated them, inflicting severe loss.
These exploits, inconsiderable as they seem, raised incalculably
the spirits of the American people. When triumphs like
these were possible under circumstances so discouraging, there
was no need to despair of the Commonwealth. Confidence in
Washington had been somewhat shaken by the defeats which
he had sustained. Henceforth it was unbounded. Congress
invested him with absolute military authority for a period of
six months, and public opinion confirmed the trust. The infant
Republic was delivered from its most imminent jeopardy by the
apparently trivial successes of Trenton and Princeton.
France still felt, with all the bitterness of the vanquished,
her defeat at Quebec and her loss of Canada.
She had always entertained the hope that
the Americans would avenge her by throwing off
the English yoke. To help forward its fulfilment, she sent
occasionally a secret agent among them, to cultivate their good-will
to the utmost. When the troubles began she sent secret
assurances of sympathy, and secret offers of commercial advantages.
She was not prepared as yet openly to espouse the
American cause. But it was always safe to encourage the
American dislike to England, and to connive at the fitting out
of American privateers, to prey upon English commerce.
The Marquis de Lafayette was at this time serving in the
French army. He was a lad of nineteen, of immense wealth,
and enjoying a foremost place among the nobility of France.
The American revolt had now become a topic at French dinner-tables.
Lafayette heard of it first from the Duke of Gloucester,
who told the story at a dinner given to him by some French
officers. That conversation changed the destiny of the young
Frenchman. “He was a man of no ability,” said Napoleon.
“There is nothing in his head but the United States,” said
Marie Antoinette. These judgments are perhaps not unduly
severe. But Lafayette had the deepest sympathies with the
cause of human liberty. They may not have been always wise,
but they were always generous and true. No sooner had he
satisfied himself that the American cause was the cause of
liberty than he hastened to ally himself with it. He left his
young wife and his great position, and he offered himself to
Washington. His military value may not have been great;
but his presence was a vast encouragement to a desponding
people. He was a visible assurance of sympathy beyond the
sea. America is the most grateful of nations; and this good,
impulsive, vain man has ever deservedly held a high place in
her love. Washington once, with tears of joy in his eyes, presented
Lafayette to his troops. Counties are named after him,
and cities and streets. Statues and paintings hand down to
successive generations of Americans the image of their first and
most faithful ally.
Lafayette was the lightning-rod by which the current of
republican sentiments was flashed from America to France.
He came home when the war was over and America free. He
was the hero of the hour. A man who had helped to set up a
Republic in America was an unquiet element for old France to
receive back into her bosom. With the charm of a great name
and boundless popularity to aid him, he everywhere urged that
men should be free and self-governing. Before he had been
long in France he was busily stirring up the oppressed Protestants
of the south to revolt. Happily the advice of Washington,
with whom he continued to correspond, arrested a course which
might have led the enthusiastic Marquis to the scaffold. Few
men of capacity so moderate have been so conspicuous, or have
so powerfully influenced the course of human affairs.
Spring-time came—“the time when Kings go out
to battle”—but General Howe was not ready.
Washington was contented to wait, for he gained
by delay. 1777 A.D. Congress sent him word that he was to
lose no time in totally subduing the enemy. Washington could
now afford to smile at the vain confidence which had
so quickly taken the place of despair. Recruits flowed
in upon him in a steady, if not a very copious stream.
The old soldiers whose terms expired were induced, by bounties
and patriotic appeals, to re-enlist for the war. By the middle of
June, when Howe opened the campaign, Washington had eight
thousand men under his command, tolerably armed and disciplined,
and in good fighting spirit. The patriotic sentiment was
powerfully reinforced by a thirst to avenge private wrongs.
Howe’s German mercenaries had behaved very brutally in New
Jersey—plundering and burning without stint. Many of the
Americans had witnessed outrages such as turn the coward’s
blood to flame.
Howe wished to take Philadelphia, then the political capital
of the States. But Washington lay across his path, in a strong
position, from which he could not be enticed to descend. Howe
marched towards him, but shunned to attack him where he lay.
Then he turned back to New York, and embarking his troops,
sailed with them to Philadelphia. The army was landed on the
25th August, and Howe was at length ready to begin the summer’s
work.
The American army waited for him on the banks of a small
river called the Brandywine. The British superiority in numbers
enabled them to attack the Americans in front and in flank.
The Americans say that their right wing, on which the British
attack fell with crushing weight, was badly led. One of the
generals of that division was a certain William Alexander—known
to himself and the country of his adoption as Lord
Stirling—a warrior brave but foolish; “aged, and a little deaf.”
The Americans were driven from the field; but they had fought
bravely, and were undismayed by their defeat.
A fortnight later a British force, with Lord Cornwallis at its
head, marched into Philadelphia. The Royalists were strong
in that city of Quakers—specially strong among the Quakers
themselves. The city was moved to unwonted cheerfulness.
On that September morning, as the loyal inhabitants looked
upon the bright uniforms and flashing arms of the King’s
troops, and listened to the long-forbidden strains of “God save
the King,” they felt as if a great and final deliverance had been
vouchsafed to them. The patriots estimated the fall of the
city more justly. It was seen that if Howe meant to hold
Philadelphia, he had not force enough to do much else. Said
the sagacious Benjamin Franklin,—“It is not General Howe
that has taken Philadelphia; it is Philadelphia that has taken
General Howe.”
The main body of the British were encamped at Germantown,
guarding their new conquest. So little were the Americans
daunted by their late reverses, that, within a week from the
capture of Philadelphia, Washington resolved to attack the
enemy. At sunrise on the 4th October the English were
unexpectedly greeted by a bayonet-charge from a strong American
force. It was a complete surprise, and at first the success
was complete. But a dense fog, which had rendered the surprise
possible, ultimately frustrated the purpose of the assailants.
The onset of the eager Americans carried all before it. But as
the darkness, enhanced by the firing, deepened over the combatants,
confusion began to arise. Regiments got astray from
their officers. Some regiments mistook each other for enemies,
and acted on that belief. Confusion swelled to panic, and the
Americans fled from the field.
Winter was now at hand, and the British army returned to
quarters in Philadelphia. Howe would have fought again, but
Washington declined to come down from the strong position to
which he had retired. His army had again been suffered to
fall into straits which threatened its very existence. A patriot
Congress urged him to defeat the English, but could not be persuaded
to supply his soldiers with shoes or blankets, or even
with food. He was advised to fall back on some convenient
town where his soldiers would find the comforts they needed so
much. But Washington was resolute to keep near the enemy.
He fixed on a position at Valley Forge, among the hills, twenty
miles from Philadelphia. Thither through the snow marched
his half-naked army. Log-huts were erected with a rapidity of
which no soldiers are so capable as Americans. There Washington
fixed himself. The enemy was within reach, and he
knew that his own strength would grow. The campaign which
had now closed had given much encouragement to the patriots.
It is true they had been often defeated, but they had learned
to place implicit confidence in their commander. They had
learned also that in courage they were equal, in activity greatly
superior, to their enemies. All they required was discipline and
experience, which another campaign would give. There was no
longer any reason to look with alarm upon the future.
In the month of June, when Howe was beginning to
win his lingering way to Philadelphia, a
British army set out from Canada to conquer
the northern parts of the revolted
territory. 1777 A.D. General Burgoyne was in command. He was resolute
to succeed. “This army must not retreat,” he said, when
they were about to embark. The army did not retreat. On a
fair field general and soldiers would have played a part of which
their country would have had no cause to be ashamed. But
this was a work beyond their strength.
Burgoyne marched deep into the New England States. But
he had to do with men of a different temper from those of New
York and Philadelphia. At his approach every man took down
his musket from the wall and hurried to the front. Little discipline
had they, but a resolute purpose and a sure aim. Difficulties
thickened around the fated army. At length Burgoyne
found himself at Saratoga. It was now October. Heavy rains
fell; provisions were growing scanty; the enemy was in great
force, and much emboldened by success. Gradually it became
evident that the British were surrounded, and that no hope of
fighting their way out remained. Night and day a circle of fire
encompassed them. Burgoyne called his officers together. They
could find no place for their sorrowful communing beyond reach
of the enemy’s musketry, so closely was the net already drawn.
There was but one thing to do, and it was done. The British
army surrendered. Nearly six thousand brave men, in sorrow
and in shame, laid down their arms. The men who took them
were mere peasants, no two of whom were dressed alike. The
officers wore uncouth wigs, and most of them carried muskets
and large powder-horns slung around their shoulders. No
humiliation like this had ever befallen the British arms.
These grotesque American warriors behaved to their conquered
enemies with true nobility. General Gates, the American commander,
kept his men strictly within their lines, that they might
not witness the piling of the British arms. No taunt was
offered, no look of disrespect was directed against the fallen.
“All were mute in astonishment and pity.”
England felt acutely the shame of this great disaster. Her
people were used to victory. For many years she had been
fighting in Europe, in India, in Canada, and always with brilliant
success. Her defeat in America was contrary to all expectation.
It was a bitter thing for a high-spirited people to hear
that their veteran troops had surrendered to a crowd of half-armed
peasantry. Under the depressing influence of this calamity
it was determined to redress the wrongs of America.
Parliament abandoned all claim to tax the colonies. Every
vexatious enactment would be repealed; all would be forgiven,
if America would return to her allegiance. Commissioners
were sent bearing the olive-branch to Congress. Too late—altogether
too late! Never more can America be a dependency
of England. With few words Congress peremptorily declined
the English overtures. America had chosen her course; for
good or for evil she would follow it to the end.
A great war may be very glorious, but it is also
very miserable. Twenty thousand Englishmen
had already perished in this war. 1778 A.D. Trade
languished, and among the working-classes
there was want of employment and consequent want of food.
American cruisers swarmed upon the sea, and inflicted enormous
losses upon English commerce. The debt of the country
increased. And for all these evils there was no compensation.
There was not even the poor satisfaction of success in our unprofitable
undertaking.
If it was any comfort to inflict even greater miseries than she
endured, England did not fight in vain. The sufferings of
America were very lamentable. The loss of life in battle and
by disease, resulting from want and exposure, had been great.
The fields in many districts were unsown. Trade was extinct;
the trading classes were bankrupt. English cruisers had
annihilated the fisheries and seized the greater part of the
American merchant ships. Money had well-nigh disappeared
from the country. Congress issued paper-money, which proved
a very indifferent substitute. The public had so little confidence
in the new currency, that Washington declared, “A waggon-load
of money will scarcely purchase a waggon-load of provisions.”
But the war went on. It was not for England, with her high
place among the nations, to retire defeated from an enterprise
on which she had deliberately entered. As for the Americans,
after they had declared their resolution to be independent, they
could die, but they could not yield.
The surrender of Burgoyne brought an important ally to the
American side. The gods help those who help themselves. So
soon as America proved that she was likely to conquer in the
struggle, France offered to come to her aid. France had always
looked with interest on the war; partly because she hated
England, and partly because her pulses already throbbed with
that new life, whose misdirected energies produced, a few years
afterwards, results so lamentable. Even now a people contending
for their liberties awakened the sympathies of France.
America had sent three Commissioners—one of whom was
Benjamin Franklin—to Paris, to cultivate as opportunity offered
the friendship of the French Government. For a time they
laboured without visible results. But when news came that
Burgoyne and his army had surrendered, hesitation was at an
end. A treaty was signed by which France and America
engaged to make common cause against England. The King
opposed this treaty so long as he dared, but he was forced to
give way. England, of course, accepted it as a declaration of
war.
Spain could not miss the opportunity of avenging herself
upon England. Her King desired to live at peace, he said, and
to see his neighbours do the same. But he was profoundly interested
in the liberties of the young Republic, and he was bound
by strong ties to his good brother of France. Above all, England
had in various quarters of the world grievously wronged
him, by violating his territory and interfering with the trade of
his subjects. And so he deemed it proper that he should waste
the scanty substance of his people in equipping fleets and armies.
When his preparations were complete he joined France and
America in the league, and declared war against England.
The fleets of France and Spain appeared in the English
Channel, and England had to face the perils of invasion. The
spirit of her people rose nobly to meet the impending trial.
The southern counties were one great camp. Voluntary contributions
from all parts of the country aided Government to equip
ships and soldiers. The King was to head his warlike people,
should the enemy land, and share their danger and their glory.
But the black cloud rolled harmlessly away, and the abounding
heroism of the people was not further evoked. The invading
admirals quarrelled. One of them wished to land at once; the
other wished first to dispose of the English fleet. They could
not agree upon a course, and therefore they sailed away home
each to his own country, having effected nothing.
The war spread itself over a very wide surface. In the north,
Paul Jones with three American ships alarmed the Scotch coast
and destroyed much shipping. Spain besieged Gibraltar, but
failed to regain that much-coveted prize. On the African coast,
the French took Senegal from the English, and the English took
Goree from the French. In the West Indies, the French took
St. Vincent and Granada. On the American Continent, from
New York to Savannah, the same wasteful and bloody labour
was ruthlessly pursued.
The remaining years of the war were distinguished by few
striking or decisive enterprises. The fleet sent by France sailed
hither and thither in a feeble manner, accomplishing nothing.
When General Howe was made aware of its approach, he abandoned
Philadelphia and retired to New York. Washington
followed him on his retreat, but neither then nor for some time
afterwards could effect much. Congress and the American
people formed sanguine expectations of the French alliance, and
ceased to put forth the great efforts which distinguished the
earlier period of the war. The English overran Georgia and the
Carolinas. The Americans captured two or three forts. The
war degenerated into a series of marauding expeditions. Some
towns, innumerable farm-houses, were burned by the English.
Occasional massacres took place. With increasing frequency,
prisoners were, under a variety of pretexts, put to death. On
both sides feeling had become intensely bitter. On both sides
cruelties of a most savage type were perpetrated.
To the very end Washington’s army was miserably supplied,
and endured extreme hardships. Congress was a weak, and, it
must be added, a very unwise body. The ablest men were in
the army, and Congress was composed of twenty or thirty persons
of little character or influence. They had no authority to impose
taxes. They tried to borrow money in Europe, and failed.
They had only one resource—the issue of paper currency, and
this was carried to such a wild excess that latterly a colonel’s
pay would not buy oats for his horse. Washington ceased to
have the means of purchasing. Reluctantly, and under
pressure of extreme necessity, he forcibly exacted supplies of
meat and flour from the neighbourhood. Not otherwise could
he save his army from dissolution and the country from ruin.
But there was one respect in which the cause grew constantly
in strength. Men do not fight for eight years, in a war like
this, without learning to hate each other. With a deep and
deadly hatred the American people hated the power which
ruthlessly inflicted upon them such cruel sufferings. Under the
growing influence of this hatred, men became soldiers with increasing
alacrity. The hardships of soldier-life no longer
daunted them, so long as they had the English to resist. The
trouble of short enlistments had ceased, and Washington was at
length at the head of an army, often ill fed and always ill clad,
but disciplined and invincibly resolved that their country should
be free.
The Americans had a strong fortress at West Point,
on the Hudson river. It was one of the most important
places in the country, and its acquisition
was anxiously desired by the English. Possession
of West Point would have given them command of the Hudson,
up which their ships of war could have sailed for more than a
hundred miles. But that fort, sitting impregnably on rocks
two hundred feet above the level of the river, was hard to win;
and the Americans were careful to garrison effectively a
position so vitally important.
In the American army was an officer named Arnold, who had
served, not without distinction, from the beginning of the war.
He had fought in Canada when the Americans unsuccessfully
invaded that province. His courage and skill had been conspicuous
in the engagements which led to the surrender of
Burgoyne. He was, however, a vain, reckless, unscrupulous
person. He had by extravagance in living involved himself in
debt, which he aggravated hopelessly by ill-judged mercantile
speculations. He had influence with Washington to obtain the
command of West Point. There is little doubt that when he
sought the appointment it was with the full intention of selling
that important fortress to the enemy. He opened negotiations
at once with Sir Henry Clinton, then in command of the English
army at New York.
Clinton sent Major André to arrange the terms of the contemplated
treachery. A mournful interest attaches to the name
of this young officer: the fate which befell him was so very
sad. He was of French descent—high-spirited, accomplished,
affectionate, merry-hearted. It was a service which a high-principled
man would scarcely have coveted. But André
desired eagerly to have the merit of gaining West Point, and
he volunteered for this perilous enterprise.
Sept. 1780 A.D. At midnight Major André landed from the boat of a British
ship of war, at a lonely place where Arnold waited him.
Their conference lasted so long that it was deemed unsafe
for André to return to the ship. He was conducted to
a place of concealment within the American lines, to
await the return of darkness. He completed his arrangement
with Arnold, and received drawings of the betrayed fortress.
His mission was now accomplished. The ship from which he
had come lay full in view. Would that he could reach her!
But difficulties arose, and it was resolved that he must ride to
New York, a distance of fifty miles. Disguising himself as he
best could, André reluctantly accepted this very doubtful
method of escape from his fearful jeopardy.
Within the American lines he had some narrow escapes,
but the pass given by Arnold carried him through. He was
at length beyond the lines. His danger might now be considered
at an end, and he rode cheerfully on his lonely journey.
He was crossing a small stream—thick woods on his right hand
and his left enhanced the darkness of the night. Three armed
men stepped suddenly from among the trees and ordered him
to stand. From the dress of one of them, André thought he
was among friends. He hastened to tell them he was a
British officer, on very special business, and he must not be
detained. Alas for poor Major André, they were not friends;
and the dress which deceived him had been given to the
man who wore it when he was a prisoner with the English,
in place of a better garment of which his captors had stripped
him.
André was searched; but at first nothing was found. It
seemed as if he might yet be allowed to proceed, when one of
the three men exclaimed, “Boys, I am not satisfied. His boots
must come off.” André’s countenance fell. His boots were
searched, and Arnold’s drawings of West Point were discovered.
The men knew then that he was a spy. He vainly offered
them money; they were incorruptible. He was taken to the
nearest military station, and the tidings were at once sent to
Washington, who chanced to be then at West Point. Arnold
had timely intimation of the disaster, and fled for refuge to a
British ship of war.
André was tried by a court formed of officers of the American
army. He gave a frank and truthful account of his part
in the unhappy transaction—bringing into due prominence the
circumstance that he was brought, without intention or knowledge
on his part, within the American lines. The court judged
him on his own statement, and condemned him to be hanged
as a spy.
His capture and sentence caused deep sensation in the English
army, and every effort was made to save him. But Washington
was resolute that he should die. The danger to the
patriot cause had been too great to leave any place for relenting.
There were dark intimations of other treasons yet unrevealed.
It was needful to give emphatic warning of the perils
which waited on such unlawful negotiations. André begged
that he might be allowed to die a soldier’s death. Even this
poor boon was refused to the unhappy young man. Since the
awful lesson must be given, Washington considered that no circumstance
fitted to enhance its terrors should be withheld.
But this was mercifully concealed from André to the very last.
Ten days after his arrest, André was led forth to die. He
was under the impression that his last request had been granted,
and that he would die by the bullet. It was a fresh pang
when the gibbet, with its ghastly preparations, stood before
him. “How hard is my fate,” he said; “but it will soon be
over.” He bandaged his own eyes; with his own hands
adjusted the noose to his neck. The cart on which he stood
moved away, and poor Major André was no longer in the world
of living men. Forty years afterwards his remains were
brought home to England and laid in Westminster Abbey.
During the later years of the war the English kept
possession of the Southern States, which, as
we have seen, they had gained so easily. 1781 A.D.
When the last campaign opened, Lord
Cornwallis with a strong force represented British authority in
the South, and did all that he found possible for the suppression
of the patriots. But the time was past when any real progress
in that direction could be made. A certain vigorous and
judicious General Greene, with such rough semblance of an
army as he could draw together, gave Lord Cornwallis many
rude shocks. The English gained little victories occasionally,
but they suffered heavy losses, and the territory over which
they held dominion was upon the whole becoming smaller.
About midsummer, the joyous news reached Washington
that a powerful French fleet, with an army on board, was
about to sail for America. With this reinforcement, Washington
had it in his power to deliver a blow which would break
the strength of the enemy, and hasten the close of the war.
Clinton held New York, and Cornwallis was fortifying himself
in Yorktown. The French fleet sailed for the Chesapeake, and
Washington decided in consequence that his attack should be
made on Lord Cornwallis. With all possible secrecy and
speed the American troops were moved southwards to Virginia.
They were joined by the French, and they stood before Yorktown
a force twelve thousand strong. Cornwallis had not
expected them, and he called on Clinton to aid him. But it
was too late. He was already in a grasp from which there was
no escaping.
Throughout the war, the weakness of his force often obliged
Washington to adopt a cautious and defensive policy, which
grievously disappointed the expectations of his impatient
countrymen. It is not therefore to be imagined that his leadership
was wanting in vigour. Within his calm and well-balanced
mind there lurked a fiery energy, ready to burst forth when
occasion required. The siege of Yorktown was pushed on with
extraordinary vehemence. The English, as their wont is, made
a stout defence, and strove by desperate sallies to drive the
assailants from their works. But in a few days the defences
of Yorktown lay in utter ruin, beaten to the ground by the
powerful artillery of the Americans. The English guns were
silenced; the English shipping was fired by red-hot shot from
the French batteries. Ammunition began to grow scarce. The
place could not be held much longer, and Clinton still delayed
his coming. Lord Cornwallis must either force his way out
and escape to the North, or surrender. One night he began to
embark his men in order to cross the York river and set out on
his desperate march to New York; but a violent storm arose
and scattered his boats. The men who had embarked got back
with difficulty, under fire from the American batteries. All
hope was now at an end. In about a fortnight from the opening
of the siege, the British army, eight thousand strong, laid
down its arms.
The joy of America over this great crowning success knew
no bounds. One highly emotional patriot was said to have
expired from mere excess of rapture. Some others lost their
reason. In the army, all who were under arrest were at once
set at liberty. A day of solemn thanksgiving was proclaimed
and devoutly observed throughout the rejoicing States.
1782 A.D. Well might the colonists rejoice, for their long and bitter
struggle was now about to close. Stubborn King George would
not yield yet. But England and her Parliament were sick
of this hopeless and inglorious war. The House of
Commons voted that all who should advise the continuance
of the war were enemies to the country. A new
Ministry was formed, and negotiations with a view to peace
were begun. The King had no doubt that if America were
allowed to go, the West Indies would go—Ireland would go—all
his foreign possessions would go; and discrowned
England would sink into weakness and contempt. But
too much heed had already been given to the King
and his fancies. Jan. 20, 1783 A.D. Peace was concluded with France
and Spain, and the independence of America was at length
recognized.
Eight years had passed since the first blood was shed at
Lexington. Thus long the unyielding English, unused to
failure, had striven to regain the lost ascendency. Thus long
the colonists had borne the miseries of invasion, not shaken in
their faith that the independence which they had undertaken to
win was well worth all it cost them. And now they were free,
and England was the same to them as all the rest of the world,—“in
peace, a friend; in war, a foe.” They had little left them
but their liberty and their soil. They had been unutterably
devastated by those eight bloody years. Their fields had been
wasted; their towns had been burned; commerce was extinct;
money had almost disappeared from the country. Their public
debt reached the large sum of one hundred and seventy million
dollars. The soldiers who had fought out the national independence
were not paid till they showed some disposition to
compel a settlement. There was nothing which could be called
a Government. There were thirteen sovereign States, loosely
knit together by a Congress. That body had power to discuss
questions affecting the general good; to pass resolutions; to
request the several States to give effect to these resolutions.
The States might or might not comply with such request.
Habitually they did not, especially when money was asked for.
Congress had no power to tax. It merely apportioned among
the States the amounts required for the public service, and each
State was expected to levy a tax for its proportion. But in
point of fact it became utterly impossible to get money by this
process.
1786 A.D. Great hardships were endured by the labouring population.
The impatience of a suffering people expressed itself in
occasional sputterings of insurrection. Two thousand
men of Massachusetts rose in arms to demand that the
collection of debts should be suspended. It was some weeks
before that rising could be quelled, as the community generally
sympathized with the insurgents. During four or five years
the miseries of the ungoverned country seemed to warrant the
belief that her war of independence had been a mistake.
But a future of unparalleled magnificence lay before this
sorely vexed and discouraged people. The boundless corn-lands
of the west, the boundless cotton-fields of the south, waited to
yield their wealth. Pennsylvania held unimagined treasures of
coal and iron—soon to be evoked by the irresistible spell of
patient industry. America was a vast store-house, prepared by
the Great Father against the time when his children would have
need of it. The men who are the stewards over its opulence
have now freed themselves from some entanglements and hindrances
which grievously diminished their efficiency, and stand
prepared to enter in good earnest upon that high industrial
vocation to which Providence has called them.
There had been periods during the war when confidence in
Washington’s leadership was shaken. He sustained many
reverses. He oftentimes retreated. He adhered tenaciously
to a defensive policy, when Congress and people were burning
with impatience to inflict crushing defeat upon the foe. The
deplorable insufficiency of his resources was overlooked, and the
blame of every disaster fell on him. And when at length the
cause began to prosper, and hope brightened into triumph, timid
people were apt to fear that Washington was growing too
powerful. He had become the idol of a great army. He had
but to signify his readiness to accept a throne, and his soldiers
would have crowned him King. It was usual in the revolutions
of the world that a military chief should grasp at supreme
power; and so it was feared that Washington was to furnish
one example more of that lawless and vulgar lust of power by
which human history has been so largely dishonoured.
But Washington sheathed his sword, and returned gladly to
his home on the banks of the Potomac. He proposed to spend
his days “in cultivating the affections of good men, and in the
practice of the domestic virtues.” He hoped “to glide gently
down the stream which no human effort can ascend.” He
occupied himself with the care of his farm, and had no deeper
feeling than thankfulness that he was at length eased of a load
of public care. The simple grandeur of his character was now
revealed beyond possibility of misconception. The measure of
American veneration for this greatest of all Americans was full.
Henceforth Mount Vernon was a shrine to which pilgrim feet
were ever turned—evoking such boundless love and reverence
as never were elsewhere exhibited on American soil.
Washington saw from the beginning that his
country was without a government. Congress was
a mere name. There were still thirteen sovereign
States—in league for the moment, but liable to be
placed at variance by the differences which time would surely
bring. Washington was satisfied that without a central government
they could never be powerful or respected. Such a
government, indeed, was necessary in order even to their
existence. European powers would, in its absence, introduce
dissensions among them. Men’s minds would revert to that
form of government with which they were familiar. Some
ambitious statesman or soldier would make himself King, and
the great experiment, based upon the equality of rights, would
prove an ignominious failure.
The more sagacious Americans shared Washington’s belief on
this question. Conspicuous among these was Alexander Hamilton—perhaps,
next to Washington, the greatest American of
that age. Hamilton was a brave and skilful soldier, a brilliant
debater, a persuasive writer, a wise statesman. In his nineteenth
year he entered the army, at the very beginning of the
war. The quick eye of Washington discovered the remarkable
promise of the lad. He raised him to high command in the
army, and afterwards to high office in the government. It was
Hamilton who brought order out of the financial chaos which
followed the war. It was Hamilton who suggested the convention
to consider the framing of a new Constitution. Often,
during the succeeding years, Hamilton’s temperate and sagacious
words calmed the storms which marked the infancy of the great
Republic. His career had a dark and bloody close. 1804 A.D. In his forty-seventh year he stood face to face, one
bright July morning, with a savage politician named
Aaron Burr—a grandson of Jonathan Edwards the great divine.
Burr had fastened a quarrel upon him, in the hope of murdering
him in a duel. Hamilton had resolved not to fire. Burr fired
with careful aim, and Hamilton fell, wounded to death. One of
the ablest men America has ever possessed was thus lost to her.
1783 A.D. Immediately after the close of the war, Hamilton began to
discuss the weakness of the existing form of government.
He was deeply convinced that the union of the States, in
order to be lasting, must be established on a solid basis;
and his writings did much to spread this conviction among his
fellow-countrymen. Washington never ceased from his retirement
to urge the same views. Gradually the urgent need of a
better system was recognized. It indeed soon became too
obvious to be denied. Congress found it utterly impossible to
get money. Between 1781 and 1786, ten million dollars
were called for from the States, but only two million and a
half were obtained. The interest on the debt was unpaid; the
ordinary expenses of the government were unprovided for.
The existing form of government was an acknowledged failure.
Something better had to be devised, or the tie which bound the
thirteen States would be severed.
1787 A.D. Hamilton obtained the sanction of Congress to his proposal
that a convention of delegates from the several States
should be held. This convention was to review the
whole subject of the governing arrangement, and to
recommend such alterations as should be considered adequate
to the exigencies of the time. Philadelphia, as usual, was
the place of meeting. Thither, in the month of May, came
the men who were charged with the weighty task of framing a
government under which the thirteen States should become a
nation.
Fifty-five men composed this memorable council. Among
them were the wisest men of whom America, or perhaps any
other country, could boast. Washington himself presided.
Benjamin Franklin brought to this—his latest and his greatest
task—the ripe experience of eighty-two years. New York sent
Hamilton—regarding whom Prince Talleyrand said, long afterwards,
that he had known nearly all the leading men of his
time, but he had never known one on the whole equal to
Hamilton. With these came many others whose names are
held in enduring honour. Since the meeting of that first Congress
which pointed the way to independence, America had seen
no such Assembly.
The convention sat for four months. The great work which
occupied it divided the country into two parties. One party
feared most the evils which arise from weakness of the governing
power, and sought relief from these in a close union of the
States under a strong government. Another party dwelt more
upon the miserable condition of the over-governed nations of
Europe, and feared the creation of a government which might
grow into a despotism. The aim of the one was to vest the
largest possible measure of power in a central government.
Hamilton, indeed—to whom the British Constitution seemed
the most perfect on earth—went so far as to desire that the
States should be merely great municipalities, attending only,
like an English corporation, to their own local concerns. The
aim of the other was to circumscribe the powers accorded to the
general government—to vindicate the sovereignty of the individual
States, and give to it the widest possible scope. These two
sets of opinions continued to exist and conflict for three-quarters
of a century, till that which assigned an undue dominion to
what were called State Rights, perished in the overthrow of the
great Rebellion.
Slowly and through endless debate the convention worked
out its plan of a government. The scheme was submitted to
Congress, and thence sent down to the several States. Months
of fiery discussion ensued. Somewhat reluctantly, by narrow
majorities, in the face of vehement protests, the Constitution
was at length adopted under which the thirteen States were
to become so great.
Great Britain has no written Constitution. She has her laws;
and it is expected that all future laws shall be in tolerable
harmony with the principles on which her past legislation has
been founded. But if Parliament were to enact, and the
Sovereign to sanction, any law at variance with these principles,
there is no help for it. Queen, Lords, and Commons are our
supreme authority, from whose decisions there lies no appeal. In
America it is different. There the supreme authority is a written
Constitution. Congress may unanimously enact, and the President
may cordially sanction, a new law. Two or three judges,
sitting in the same building where Congress meets, may compare
that law with the Constitution. If it is found at variance with
the Constitution, it is unceremoniously declared to be no law,
and entitled to no man’s obedience. With a few alterations,
this Constitution remains in full force now—gathering around
it, as it increases in age, the growing reverence of the people.
The men who framed it must have been very wise. The people
for whom it was framed must possess in high degree the precious
Anglo-Saxon veneration for law. Otherwise the American
paper Constitution must long ago have shared the fate of the
numerous documents of this class under which the French
vainly sought rest during their first Revolution.
Each of the thirteen States was sovereign, and the government
of America hitherto had been merely a league of independent
powers. Now the several States parted with a certain
amount of their sovereignty, and vested it in a General Government.
The General Government was to levy taxes, to coin
money, to regulate commercial relations with foreign countries,
to establish post-offices and post-roads, to establish courts of
law, to declare war, to raise and maintain armies and navies,
to make treaties, to borrow money on the credit of the United
States. The individual States expressly relinquished the right
to perform these sovereign functions.
These powers were intrusted to two Houses of Legislation
and a President. The House of Representatives is composed of
two hundred and forty-three members. The members hold
their seats for two years, and are paid five thousand dollars
annually. Black men and Indians were not allowed to vote;
but all white men had a voice in the election of their representatives.
To secure perfect equality of representation, members
are distributed according to population. Thus, in 1863 a member
was given to every 124,000 inhabitants. Every ten years
a readjustment takes place, and restores the equality which the
growth of the intervening period has disturbed.
The large States send necessarily a much larger number of
members to the Lower House than the small States do. Thus
New York sends thirty-one, while Rhode Island sends only two,
Delaware and Florida only one. The self-love of the smaller
States was wounded by an arrangement which resembled absorption
into the larger communities. The balance was redressed in
the constitution of the Upper Chamber—the Senate. That
body is composed of seventy-six members, elected by the legislatures
of the States. Every State, large or small, returns two
members. The small States were overborne in the Lower
House, but in the Senate they enjoyed an importance equal to
that of their most populous neighbours. The senators are
elected for six years, and are paid at the same rate as the
members of the House of Representatives.
The head of the American Government is the President. He
holds office for four years. Each State chooses a number of
persons equal to the total number of members whom it returns
to the Houses of Legislation. These persons elect the President.
They elect also a Vice-President, lest the President should be
removed by death or otherwise during his term of office. All
laws enacted by Congress must be submitted to the President.
He may refuse to pass them—sending them back with a statement
of his objections. But should both Houses, by a vote of
two-thirds of their number, adhere to the rejected measures, they
become law in spite of the President’s veto. The President
appoints his own Cabinet Ministers, and these have no seats in
Congress. Their annual reports upon the affairs of their departments
are communicated to Congress by the President, along
with his own Message. The President is Commander-in-Chief
of the Army and Navy. With concurrence of the Senate, he
appoints ambassadors, judges of the Supreme Court, and other
public officers.
Every State has a government after the same pattern, composed
of two Houses of Legislation and a Governor. These
authorities occupy themselves with the management of such
affairs as exclusively concern their own State, and have, therefore,
not been relinquished to the General Government. They
legislate in regard to railway and other public companies. They
see to the administration of justice within their own territory,
unless in the case of crimes committed against the Government.
They pass such laws as are required in regard to private property
and rights of succession. Above all, they retained all the
powers of which they were ever possessed in regard to slavery.
The Constitution gave Congress authority to suppress the importation
of slaves after the year 1808. Not otherwise was the
slave-question interfered with. That remained wholly under
the control of the individual States.
But the men who framed this Constitution, however wise,
were liable to err. And if they were found in after years to
have erred, what provision—other than a revolution—was made
for correcting their mistakes? A very simple and very effective
one. When two-thirds of both Houses of Legislation deem it
necessary that some amendment of the Constitution should be
made, they propose it to the legislatures of the several States.
When three-fourths of these judicatories adopt the proposal, it
becomes a part of the Constitution. There have been in all
fifteen amendments adopted, most of them very soon after the
Constitution itself came into existence.
And now the conditions of the great experiment are adjusted.
Three million Americans have undertaken to govern themselves.
Europe does not believe that any people can prosper in
such an undertaking. Europe still clings to the belief that, in
every country, a few Heaven-sent families must guide the
destinies of the incapable, child-like millions. America—having
no faith in Heaven-sent families—believes that the millions are
the best and safest guides of their own destinies, and means to
act on that belief. On her success great issues wait. If the
Americans show that they can govern themselves, all the other
nations will gradually put their hands to the same ennobling work.
1789 A.D. The first step to be taken under the new Constitution was to
elect a President. There was but one man who was
thought of for this high and untried office. George
Washington was unanimously chosen. Congress was
summoned to meet in New York on the 4th of March. But
the members had to travel far on foot, or on horseback. Roads
were bad, bridges were few; streams, in that spring-time, were
swollen. It was some weeks after the appointed time before
business could be commenced.
That Congress had difficult work to do, and it was done
patiently, with much plain sense and honesty. As yet there
was no revenue, while everywhere there was debt. The General
Government had debt, and each of the States had debt. There
was the Foreign Debt—due to France, Holland, and Spain.
There was the Army Debt—for arrears of pay and pensions.
There was the Debt of the Five Great Departments—for supplies
obtained during the war. There was a vast issue of paper
money to be redeemed. There were huge arrears of interest.
And, on the other hand, there was no provision whatever for
these enormous obligations.
Washington, with a sigh, asked a friend, “What is to be done
about this heavy debt?” “There is but one man in America
can tell you,” said his friend, “and that is Alexander Hamilton.”
Washington made Hamilton Secretary to the Treasury. The
success of his financial measures was immediate and complete.
“He smote the rock of the national resources,” said Daniel
Webster, “and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth. He
touched the dead corpse of the public credit, and it sprang
upon its feet.” All the war debts of the States were assumed
by the General Government. Efficient provision was made
for the regular payment of interest, and for a sinking fund
to liquidate the principal. Duties were imposed on shipping,
on goods imported from abroad, and on spirits manufactured
at home. The vigour of the Government inspired public confidence,
and commerce began to revive. In a few years the
American flag was seen on every sea. The simple manufactures
of the country resumed their long interrupted activity.
A National Bank was established. Courts were set up, and
judges were appointed. The salaries of the President and the
great functionaries were settled. A home was chosen for the
General Government on the banks of the Potomac; where the
capital of the Union was to supplant the little wooden village—remote
from the agitations which arise in the great centres of
population. Innumerable details connected with the establishment
of a new government were discussed and fixed. Novel as
the circumstances were, little of the work then done has required
to be undone. Succeeding generations of Americans have
approved the wisdom of their early legislators, and continue unaltered
the arrangements which were framed at the outset of the
national existence.
Thirty years of peace succeeded the War of Independence.
There were, indeed, passing troubles with the Indians, ending
always in the sharp chastisement of those disagreeable savages.
1804 A.D. There was an expedition against Tripoli, to avenge certain
indignities which the barbarians of that region had
offered to American shipping. There was a misunderstanding
with the French Directory, which was carried to a
somewhat perilous extreme. 1789 A.D. A desperate fight took
place between a French frigate and an American frigate,
resulting in the surrender of the former. But these
trivial agitations did not disturb the profound tranquillity of the
nation, or hinder its progress in that career of prosperity on
which it had now entered.
Washington was President during the first eight years of the
Constitution. 1799 A.D. He survived his withdrawal from public life only
three years, dying, after a few hours’ illness, in the sixty-eighth
year of his age. His countrymen mourned him
with a sorrow sincere and deep. Their reverence for
him has not diminished with the progress of the years. Each
new generation of Americans catches up the veneration—calm,
intelligent, but profound—with which its fathers regarded the
blameless Chief. To this day there is an affectionate watchfulness
for opportunities to express the honour in which his name
is held. To this day the steamers which ply upon the Potomac
strike mournful notes upon the bell as they sweep past Mount
Vernon, where Washington spent the happiest days of his life,
and where he died.
America was well contented during many years to
be merely a spectator of the Great European War.
In spite of some differences which had arisen, she
still cherished a kindly feeling towards France—her
friend in the old time of need. She had still a bitter
hatred to England, her tyrant, as she deemed, and her cruel
foe. But her sympathies did not regulate her policy. She had
no call to avenge the dishonour offered to royalty by the people
of France. As little was it her business to strengthen France
against the indignation of outraged monarchs. Her distance
exempted her from taking any part in the bloody politics of
Europe, and she was able to look quietly on while the flames of
war consumed the nations of the Old World. Her ships enjoyed
a monopoly. She traded impartially with all the combatants.
The energies of Europe were taxed to the uttermost by
a gigantic work of mutual destruction. The Americans conveyed
to the people thus unprofitably occupied the foreign
articles of which they stood in need, and made great gain of
their neighbours’ madness.
1806 A.D. But the time came when France and England were to put
forth efforts more gigantic than before, to compass the
ruin of each other. England gave out a decree announcing
that all the coasts of France and her allies were
in a state of blockade, and that any vessels attempting to trade
with the blockaded countries were liable to seizure. At that
time nearly all the Continent was in alliance with France.
Napoleon replied by declaring the British Isles in a state of
blockade. These decrees closed Europe against American
vessels. Many captures were made, especially by English
cruisers. American merchants suffered grievous losses, and
loudly expressed their just wrath against the wicked laws
which wrought them so much evil.
There was another question out of which mischief arose.
England has always maintained that any person who has once
been her subject can never cease to be so. He may remove to
another country; he may become the citizen of another state.
English law recognizes no such transaction. England claims
that the man is still an English subject—entitled to the advantages
of that relation, and bound by its obligations. America,
on the other hand, asserted that men could lay down their
original citizenship, and assume another—could transfer their
allegiance—could relinquish the privileges and absolve themselves
from the obligations which they inherited. The Englishmen
who settled on her soil were regarded by her as American
citizens and as nothing else.
Circumstances arose which bestowed dangerous importance
upon these conflicting doctrines. England at that time obtained
sailors by impressment. That is to say, she seized men who
were engaged on board merchant vessels, and compelled them to
serve on board her ships of war. It was a process second only
to the slave-trade in its iniquity. The service to which men
were thus introduced could not but be hateful. There was a
copious desertion, as opportunity offered, and America was the
natural refuge. English ships of war claimed the right to search
American vessels for men who had deserted; and also for men
who, as born English subjects, were liable to be impressed. It
may well be believed that this right was not always exercised
with a strict regard to justice. It was not always easy to distinguish
an Englishman from an American. Perhaps the
English captains were not very scrupulous as to the evidence on
which they acted. The Americans asserted that six thousand
men, on whom England had no shadow of claim, were ruthlessly
carried off to fight under a flag they hated; the English Government
admitted the charge to the extent of sixteen hundred men.
The American people vehemently resented the intolerable pretension
of England. Occasionally an American ship resisted it,
and blood was freely shed.
1807 A.D. When England and France decreed the closing of all European
ports against commerce, America hastened to show that she
could be as unwise as her neighbours. Congress prohibited
commerce with the European powers which had
so offended. The people, wiser than their rulers, disapproved
this measure; but the Government enforced it. The
President was empowered to call out militia and employ armed
vessels to prevent cargoes of American produce from leaving
the country. It was hoped that England and France, thus
bereaved of articles which were deemed necessary, would be
constrained to repeal their injurious decrees.
Thus for four years commerce was suspended, and grass grew
on the idle wharves of New York and Philadelphia. The
cotton and tobacco of the Southern States, the grain and timber
of the North, were stored up to await the return of reason to the
governing powers of the world. Tens of thousands of working
people were thrown idle. The irritation of the impoverished
nation was fast ripening towards war.
America wanted now the wise leadership which she enjoyed
at the period of her revolutionary struggle. Washington had
never ceased to urge upon his countrymen the desirableness of
being on good terms with England. But Washington was dead,
and his words were not remembered. Franklin was dead,
Hamilton had fallen by the murdering hand of Aaron Burr.
There was a strong party eager for war. The commercial towns
on the sea-board dreaded the terrible ships of England, and
desired to negotiate for redress of grievances. The people of
the interior, having no towns to be bombarded, preferred to try
their strength with England in battle. Some attempts
at negotiation resulted in failure. June 18, 1812 A.D. At length Congress
ended suspense by passing a Bill which declared war
against Great Britain.
It was a bolder challenge than America supposed it to be.
England, indeed, had her hands full, for the power of her great
foe seemed to be irresistible. But even then the axe was laid
to its roots. In that same month of June Napoleon crossed the
river Niemen and entered Russia upon his fatal march to
Moscow. A few weeks before, the Duke of Wellington had
wrenched from his grasp the two great frontier fortresses of
Spain, and was now beginning to drive the French armies out
of the Peninsula. England would soon have leisure for her new
assailant; but all this was as yet unseen.
When war was declared, England possessed one thousand
ships of war, and America possessed twenty. Their land forces
were in like proportion. England had nearly a million of men
under arms. America had an army reckoned at twenty-four
thousand, many of them imperfectly disciplined and not yet
to be relied upon in the field. Her treasury was empty. She
was sadly wanting in officers of experience. She had declared
war, but it was difficult to see what she could do in the way of
giving effect to her hostile purposes.
But she held to these purposes with unfaltering tenacity.
Four days after Congress had resolved to fight, England repealed
those blockading decrees which had so justly offended the Americans.
There remained now only the question of the right of
search. The British Minister at Washington proposed that an
attempt should be made to settle peaceably this sole remaining
ground of quarrel. The proposal was declined. The American
war party would not swerve from its unhappy determination.
The first efforts of the Americans were signally unsuccessful.
They attacked Canada with an army of two thousand five hundred
men. But this force had scarcely got upon Canadian ground
when it was driven back. August, 1812 A.D. It was besieged in Fort Detroit
by an inferior British army and forced to surrender. The
unfortunate General Hull, who commanded, was brought
to trial by his angry countrymen and sentenced to be shot. He
was pardoned, however, in consideration of former services.
A second invasion followed, closed by a second surrender.
During two other campaigns the Americans prosecuted their
invasion. Ships were built and launched upon the great lakes
which lie between the territories of the combatants. Sea-fights
were fought, in one of which the American triumph was so complete
that all the British vessels surrendered. Many desperate
engagements took place on shore. Some forts were captured;
some towns were burned. Many women and children were
made homeless; many brave men were slain. But the invaders
made no progress. Everywhere the Canadians, with the help
of the regular troops, were able to hold their own. It was a
coarse method of solving the question which was in dispute
between the countries, and it was utterly fruitless.
At sea a strange gleam of good fortune cheered the Americans.
It was there England felt herself omnipotent. She, with her
thousand ships, might pardonably despise the enemy who came
against her with twenty. But it was there disaster overtook her.
1812 A.D. During the autumn months a series of encounters took place
between single British and American ships. In every
instance victory remained with the Americans. Five
English vessels were taken or destroyed. The Americans
were in most of these engagements more heavily manned and
armed than their enemies. But the startling fact remained.
Five British ships of war had been taken in battle by the
Americans; five defeats had been sustained by England. Her
sovereignty of the sea had received a rude shock.
The loss of a great battle would not have moved England
more profoundly than the capture of these five unimportant
ships. It seemed to many to foretell the downfall of her maritime
supremacy. She had ruled the seas because, heretofore,
no other country produced sailors equal to hers. But a new
power had now arisen, whose home, equally with that of
Britannia herself, was upon the deep. If America could achieve
these startling successes while she had only twenty ships, what
might she not accomplish with that ampler force which she
would hereafter possess? England had many enemies, all of
whom rejoiced to see in these defeats the approaching decay of
her envied greatness.
Among English sailors there was a burning eagerness to wipe
out the unlooked-for disgrace which had fallen upon the flag.
A strict blockade of American ports was maintained. On board
the English ships which cruised on the American coasts impatient
search was made for opportunities of retrieving the
honour of the service.
Two English ships lay off Boston in the summer of 1813, under
the command of Captain Broke. Within the bay the American
frigate Chesapeake had lain for many months. Captain Broke
had bestowed especial pains upon the training of his men, and
he believed he had made them a match for any equal force. He
and they vehemently desired to test their prowess in battle.
He sent away one of his ships, retaining only the Shannon,
which was slightly inferior to the Chesapeake in guns and in
men. And then he stood close in to the shore, and sent to
Captain Lawrence of the Chesapeake an invitation to come
forth that they might “try the fortune of their respective
flags.”
From his mast-head Captain Broke watched anxiously the
movements of the hostile ship. Soon he saw her canvas shaken
out to the breeze. His challenge was accepted. The stately
Chesapeake moved slowly down the bay, attended by many
barges and pleasure-boats. To the over-sanguine men of Boston
it seemed that Captain Lawrence sailed out to assured victory.
They crowded to house-top and hill to witness his success. They
prepared a banquet to celebrate his triumphant return.
June 1, 1813 A.D. Slowly and in grim silence the hostile ships drew near. No
shot was fired till they were within a stone’s-throw of
each other, and the men in either could look into the
faces of those they were about to destroy. Then began
the horrid carnage of a sea-fight. The well-trained
British fired with steady aim, and every shot told. The rigging
of their enemy was speedily ruined; her stern was beaten
in; her decks were swept by discharges of heavy guns loaded
with musket-balls. The American firing was greatly less
effective. After a few broadsides, the ships came into contact.
The Shannon continued to fire grape-shot from two of her guns.
The Chesapeake could now reply feebly, and only with musketry.
Captain Broke prepared to board. Over decks heaped with
slain and slippery with blood, the Englishmen sprang upon the
yielding foe. The American flag was pulled down, and resistance
ceased.
The fight lasted but a quarter of an hour. So few minutes
ago the two ships, peopled by seven hundred men in the pride
of youth and strength, sailed proudly over seas which smiled
in the peaceful sunlight of that summer evening. Now their
rigging lies in ruins upon the cumbered decks; their sides are
riven by shot; seventy-one dead bodies wait to be thrown
overboard; one hundred and fifty-seven men lie wounded and
in anguish—some of them to die, some to recover and live out
cheerless lives, till the grave opens for their mutilated and disfigured
forms. Did these men hate each other with a hatred so
intense that they could do no less than inflict these evils upon
each other? They had no hatred at all. Their Governments
differed, and this was their method of ascertaining who was in
the right! Surely men will one day be wise enough to adopt
some process for the adjustment of differences less wild in its
inaccuracy, less brutish in its cruelty than this.
This victory, so quickly won and so decisive, restored the confidence
of England in her naval superiority. The war went on
with varying fortune. The Americans, awakening to the greatness
of the necessity, put forth vigorous efforts to increase both
army and navy. Frequent encounters between single ships
occurred. Sometimes the American ship captured or destroyed
the British; more frequently now the British ship captured or
destroyed the American. The superb fighting capabilities of
the race were splendidly illustrated, but no results of a more
solid character can be enumerated.
1814 A.D. Meanwhile momentous changes had occurred in Europe.
Napoleon had been overthrown, and England was enjoying
the brief repose which his residence in Elba afforded.
She could bestow some attention now upon her American
quarrel. Several regiments of Wellington’s soldiers were sent
to America, under the command of General Ross, and an attack
upon Washington was determined. The force at General Ross’s
disposal was only three thousand five hundred men. With
means so inconsiderable, it seemed rash to attack the capital of
a great nation. But the result proved that General Ross had
not under-estimated the difficulties of the enterprise.
The Americans utterly failed in the defence of their capital.
They were forewarned of the attack, and had good time to prepare.
The militia of Pennsylvania and Virginia had promised
their services, but were not found when they were needed.
Only seven thousand men could be drawn together to resist the
advance of the English. These took post at Bladensburg, where
there was a bridge over the Potomac. The English were greatly
less numerous, but they were veterans who had fought under
Wellington in many battles. To them it was play to rout the
undisciplined American levies. They dashed upon the enemy,
who, scarcely waiting to fire a shot, broke and fled towards
Washington in hopeless confusion.
That same evening the British marched quietly into Washington.
General Ross had orders to destroy or hold to ransom
all public buildings. He offered to spare the national property,
if a certain sum of money were paid to him; but the authorities
declined his proposal. Next day a great and most unjustifiable
ruin was wrought. The Capitol, the President’s residence, the
Government offices, even the bridge over the Potomac—all were
destroyed. The Navy-yard and Arsenal, with some ships in
course of building, were set on fire by the Americans themselves.
The President’s house was pillaged by the soldiers before it was
burned. These devastations were effected in obedience to
peremptory orders from the British Government, on whom rests
the shame of proceedings so reprehensible and so unusual in the
annals of civilized war. On the same day the British withdrew
from the ruins of the burning capital, and retired towards the
coast.
The Americans were becoming weary of this unmeaning war.
Hope of success there was none, now that Britain had no other
enemy to engage her attention. America had no longer a ship
of war to protect her coasts from insult. Her trade was extinct.
Her exports, which were fourteen million sterling before the
war, had sunk to one-tenth of that amount. Two-thirds of the
trading classes were insolvent. Most of the trading ships were
taken. The revenue hitherto derived from customs had utterly
ceased. The credit of the country was not good, and loans
could not be obtained. Taxation became very oppressive, and
thus enhanced extremely the unpopularity of the war. Some of
the New England States refused to furnish men or money, and
indicated a disposition to make peace for themselves, if they
could not obtain it otherwise.
Feb. 11, 1815 A.D. Peace was urgently needed, and happily was near at hand.
Late one Saturday night a British sloop-of-war arrived
at New York bearing a treaty of peace, already ratified by
the British Government. The cry of “Peace! peace!”
rang through the gladdened streets. The city burst into
spontaneous illumination. The news reached Boston
on Monday morning, and Boston was almost beside herself
with joy. A multitude of idle ships had long lain at her
wharves. Before night carpenters were at work making them
ready to go to sea. Sailors were engaged; cargoes were being
passed on board. Boston returned without an hour’s delay to
her natural condition of commercial activity.
British and American Commissioners had met at Ghent, and
had agreed upon terms of peace. The fruitlessness of war is a
familiar discovery when men have calmness to review its losses
and its gains. Both countries had endured much during these
three years of hostilities; and now the peace left as they had
been before the questions whose settlement was the object of
the war.
1814 A.D. The treaty was concluded on the 24th December. Could the
news have been flashed by telegraph across the Atlantic,
much brave life would have been saved. But seven
weeks elapsed before it was known in the southern
parts of America that the two countries were at peace. And
meanwhile one of the bloodiest fights of the war had been
fought.
New Orleans—a town of nearly twenty thousand inhabitants—was
then, as it is now, one of the great centres of the cotton
trade, and commanded the navigation of the Mississippi. The
capture of a city so important could not fail to prove a heavy
blow to America. An expedition for this purpose was organized.
Just when the Commissioners at Ghent were felicitating themselves
upon the peace they had made, the British army, in
storm and intolerable cold, was being rowed on shore within a
few miles of New Orleans.
Sir Edward Pakenham, one of the heroes of the Peninsula,
commanded the English. The defence of New Orleans was
intrusted to General Jackson. Jackson had been a soldier from
his thirteenth year, and had spent a youth of extraordinary
hardship. He was now a strong-willed, experienced, and skilful
leader, in whom his soldiers had boundless confidence.
Pakenham, fresh from the triumphs of the Peninsula, looked
with mistaken contempt upon his formidable enemy.
Jackson’s line of defence was something over half a mile in
length. The Mississippi covered his right flank, an impassable
swamp and jungle secured his left. Along his front ran a deep
broad ditch, topped by a massive wall of earth. In this strong
position the Americans waited the coming of the enemy.
1815 A.D. At daybreak on the 8th January the British, six thousand
strong, made their attack. The dim morning light
revealed to the Americans the swift advance of the red-coated
host. A murderous fire of grape and round shot
was opened from the guns mounted on the bastion. Brave men
fell fast, but the assailants passed on through the storm and
reached the American works. It was their design to scale the
ramparts, and, once within, to trust to their bayonets, which
had never deceived them yet. But at the foot of the ramparts
it was found that the fascines and scaling-ladders, which had
been prepared for the assault, were now amissing! The men
mounted on each other’s shoulders, and thus some of them forced
their way into the works, only to be shot down by the American
riflemen. All was vain. A deadly fire streamed incessant
from that fatal parapet upon the defenceless men below. Sir
Edward Pakenham fell mortally wounded. The carnage was
frightful, and the enterprise visibly hopeless. The troops were
withdrawn in great confusion, having sustained a loss of two
thousand men. The Americans had seven men killed and the
same number wounded.
Thus closed the war. Both countries look with just pride
upon the heroic courage so profusely displayed in battle, and
upon the patient endurance with which great sacrifices were
submitted to. It is pity these high qualities did not find a
more worthy field for their exercise. The war was a gigantic
folly and wickedness, such as no future generation, we may
venture to hope, will ever repeat.
On the Fourth of July 1826 all America kept holiday. On
that day, fifty years before, the Declaration of Independence was
signed, and America began her great career as a free country.
Better occasion for jubilee the world has seldom known. The
Americans must needs do honour to the Fathers of their Independence,
most of whom have already passed away; two of whom—John
Adams and Thomas Jefferson—died on this very day.
They must pause and look back upon this amazing half century.
The world had never seen growth so rapid. There were three
million of Americans who threw off the British yoke; now
there were twelve million. The thirteen States had increased
to twenty-four. The territory of the Union had been
prodigiously enlarged. 1803 A.D. Louisiana had been sold by
France; 1820 A.D. Florida had been ceded by Spain. Time after
time tribes of vagrant Indians yielded up their lands
and enrolled themselves subjects of the Great Republic.
The Gulf of Mexico now bounded the Union on the south, and
the lakes which divide her from Canada on the north. From
the Atlantic on the east, she already looked out upon the Pacific
on the west. Canals had been cut leading from the great lakes
to the Hudson, and the grain which grew on the corn-lands of
the west, thousands of miles away, was brought easily to New
York. Innumerable roads had been made. The debt incurred
in the War of Independence had been all paid; and the still
heavier debt incurred in the second war with England was being
rapidly extinguished. A steady tide of emigration flowed westward.
Millions of acres of the fertile wilderness which lay
towards the setting sun had been at length made profitable to
mankind. Extensive manufactories had been established, in
which cotton and woollen fabrics were produced. The foreign
trade of the country amounted to forty million sterling.
The Marquis Lafayette, now an old man, came to see once
more before he died the country he had helped to save, and took
part with wonder in the national rejoicing. The poor colonists,
for whose liberties he had fought, had already become a powerful
and wealthy nation. Everywhere there had been expansion.
Everywhere there were comfort and abundance. Everywhere
there were boundless faith in the future, and a vehement, unresting
energy, which would surely compel the fulfilment of
any expectations, however vast.
When Europeans first visited the southern parts of
America, they found in abundant growth there a
plant destined to such eminence in the future
history of the world as no other member of the
vegetable family ever attained. It was an unimportant-looking
plant, two or three feet in height, studded with pods somewhat
larger than a walnut. In the appropriate season these pods
opened, revealing a wealth of soft white fibre, embedded in
which lay the seeds of the plant. This was Cotton. It was
not unknown to the Old World, for the Romans used cotton
fabrics before the Christian era. India did so from a still remoter
period. But the extent to which its use had been carried
was trivial. Men clothed themselves as they best might in
linen or woollen cloth, or simply in the skins of the beasts
which they slew. The time was now at hand when an ampler
provision for their wants was to be disclosed to them. Socially
and politically, cotton has deeply influenced the course of
human affairs. The mightiest conquerors sink into insignificance
in presence of King Cotton.
The English began to cultivate a little cotton very soon after
their settlement in America. But it was a difficult crop for
them to handle. The plants grew luxuriantly, and when
autumn came the opening pods revealed a most satisfying
opulence. The quantity of cotton produced excited the wonder
of the planters. But the seeds of the plant adhered tenaciously
to the fibre. Before the fibre could be used the seeds had to be
removed, and this was a slow and therefore a costly process. It
was as much as a man could do in a day to separate one pound
of cotton from the seeds. Cotton could never be abundant or
cheap while this was the case.
But in course of time things came to pass in England which
made it indispensable that cotton should be both abundant and
cheap. In 1768 Richard Arkwright invented a machine for
spinning cotton vastly superior to anything hitherto in use.
Next year a greater than he—James Watt—announced a greater
invention—his Steam Engine. England was ready now to begin
her great work of weaving cotton for the world. But where
was the cotton to be found?
Three or four years before Watt patented his Engine, and
Arkwright his Spinning-frame, there was born in a New England
farm-house a boy whose work was needed to complete
theirs. His name was Eli Whitney. Eli was a born mechanic;
it was a necessity of his nature to invent and construct. As a
mere boy he made nails, pins, and walking-canes by novel processes,
and thus earned money to support himself at college. In
1792 he went to Georgia to visit Mrs. Greene, the widow of
that General Greene who so troubled Lord Cornwallis in the
closing years of the War of Independence. In that primitive
society, where few of the comforts of civilized life were yet
enjoyed, no visits were so like those of the angels as the visits
of a skilful mechanic. Eli constructed marvellous amusements
for Mrs. Greene’s children. He overcame all household difficulties
by some ingenious contrivance. Mrs. Greene learned to
wonder at him, and to believe nothing was impossible for him.
One day Mrs. Greene entertained a party of her neighbours.
The conversation turned upon the sorrows of the Planter. That
unhappy tenacity with which the seeds of cotton adhered to the
fibre was elaborately bemoaned. With an urgent demand from
England for cotton, with boundless lands which grew nothing
so well as cotton, it was hard to be so utterly baffled.
Mrs. Greene had unlimited faith in her friend Eli. She
begged him to invent a machine which should separate the seeds
of cotton from the fibre. Eli was of Northern upbringing, and
had never even seen cotton in seed. He walked to Savannah,
and there, with some trouble, obtained a quantity of uncleaned
cotton. He shut himself up in his room and brooded over the
difficulty which he had undertaken to conquer.
All that winter Eli laboured—devising, hammering, building
up, rejecting, beginning afresh. He had no help; he could not
even get tools to buy, but had to make them with his own
hands. At length his machine was completed—rude-looking,
but visibly effective. Mrs. Greene invited the leading men of
the State to her house. She conducted them in triumph to the
building in which the machine stood. The owners of unprofitable
cotton lands looked on with a wild flash of hope lighting up
their desponding hearts. Possibilities of untold wealth to each
of them lay in that clumsy structure. The machine was put in
motion. It was evident to all that it could perform the work
of hundreds of men. Eli had gained a great victory for mankind.
In that rude log-hut of Georgia, Cotton was crowned
King, and a new era opened for America and the world.
Ten years after Whitney’s Cotton-gin was invented, a huge
addition was made to the cotton-growing districts of America.
In 1803 Europe enjoyed a short respite from the mad Napoleon
wars. France had recently acquired from Spain vast regions
bordering on the Gulf of Mexico, and stretching far up the
valley of the Mississippi, and westward to the Pacific. It was
certain that peace in Europe would not last long. It was
equally certain that when war was resumed France could not
hold these possessions against the fleets of England. America
wished to acquire, and was willing to pay for them. It was
better to sell to the Americans, and equip soldiers with the
price, than wait till England was ready to conquer. Napoleon
sold, and America added Louisiana to her vast possessions.
Mark well these two events—the invention of a machine for
cheaply separating the seeds of cotton from the fibre, and the
purchase of Louisiana from the French. Out of these events
flows the American history of the next half century. Not any
other event since the War of Independence—not all other
events put together, have done so much to shape and determine
the career of the American people.
When America gained her independence slavery existed
in all the colonies. No State was free from
the taint; even the New England Puritans held
slaves. At an early period they had learned to
enslave their Indian neighbours. The children of the Pilgrims
owned Indians, and in due time owned Africans, without remorse.
But the number of slaves in the North was always
small. At first it was not to the higher principle or clearer
intelligence of the Northern men that this limited prevalence
of slavery was due. The North was not a region where slave
labour could ever be profitable. The climate was harsh, the soil
rocky and bleak; and labour required to be directed by intelligence.
In that comparatively unproductive land the mindless
and heartless toil of the slave would scarcely defray the cost
of his support. At the Revolution there were half a million
of slaves in the colonies, and of these only thirty to forty thousand
were in the North.
It was otherwise in the sunny and luxuriant South. The
African was at home there, for the climate was like his own.
The rich soil yielded its wealth to labour in the slightest and
least intelligent form. The culture of rice, and tobacco, and
cotton supplied the very kind of work which a slave was fitted
to perform. The South found profitable employment for as
many Africans as the slave-traders were able to steal.
And yet at the Revolution slavery enjoyed no great degree
of favour. The free spirit enkindled by the war was in violent
opposition to the existence of a system of bondage. The presence
of the slaves had disabled the South from taking the part
she ought in the War of Independence. The white men had
to stay at home to watch the black. Virginia, Washington’s
State, furnished a reasonable proportion of troops; but the
other Southern States were almost worthless. Everywhere in
the North slavery was regarded as an objectionable and decaying
institution. The leaders of the Revolution, themselves
mainly slave-owners, were eagerly desirous that slavery should
be abolished. Washington was utterly opposed to the system,
and provided in his will for the emancipation of his own
slaves. Hamilton was a member of an association for the
gradual abolition of slavery. John Adams would never own
a slave. Franklin, Patrick Henry, Madison, Munroe, were
united in their reprobation of slavery. Jefferson, a Virginian,
who prepared the Declaration of Independence, said that in
view of slavery “he trembled for his country, when he reflected
that God was just.”
In the convention which met to frame a Constitution for
America the feeling of antagonism to slavery was supreme.
Had the majority followed their own course, provision would
have been made then for the gradual extinction of slavery.
But there arose here a necessity for one of those compromises
by which the history of America has been so sadly marked.
When it was proposed to prohibit the importation of slaves,
all the Northern and most of the Southern States favoured
the proposal. But South Carolina and Georgia were insatiable
in their thirst for African labour. They decisively refused to
become parties to a Union in which there was to be no importation
of slaves. The other States yielded. Instead of an immediate
abolition of this hateful traffic, it was agreed merely
that after twenty years Congress should be at liberty to abolish
the slave-trade if it chose. By the same threat of disunion the
Slave States of the extreme South gained other advantages.
It was fixed by the Constitution that a slave who fled to a
Free State was not therefore to become a free man. He must
be given back to his owner. It was yet further conceded that
the Slave States should have increased political power in proportion
to the number of their slaves. A black man did not
count for so much as a white. Every State was to send
members to the House of Representatives according to its population,
and in reckoning that population five negroes were to
be counted as three.
And yet at that time, and for years after, the opinion of the
South itself regarded slavery as an evil—thrust upon them by
England—difficult to be got rid of—profitable, it might be, but
lamentable and temporary. No slave-holder refused to discuss
the subject or to admit the evils of the system. No violence
was offered to those who denounced it. The clergy might
venture to preach against it. Hopeful persons might foretell
the approach of liberty to those unhappy captives. Even the
lowest of the slave-holding class did not yet resent the expression
of such hopes.
But a mighty change was destined to pass upon the tone of
Southern opinion. The purchase of Louisiana opened a vast
tract of the most fertile land in the world to the growth of
cotton; Whitney’s invention made the growth of cotton profitable.
Slave-holding became lucrative. It was wealth to own
a little plantation and a few negroes; and there was an eager
race for the possession of slaves. Importation alone could not
supply the demand. Some of the more northerly of the
Southern States turned their attention to the breeding of slaves
for the Southern markets. Kentucky and Virginia became
rich and infamous by this awful commerce.[1] While iniquity
was not specially profitable, the Southern States were not very
reluctant to be virtuous. When the gains of wickedness became,
as they now did, enormous, virtue ceased to have a footing
in the South.
During many years the leader of the slave-owners was John
C. Calhoun. He was a native of South Carolina—a tall,
slender, gipsy-looking man, with an eye whose wondrous depth
and power impressed all who came into his presence. Calhoun
taught the people of the South that slavery was good for the
slave. It was a benign, civilizing agency. The African attained
to a measure of intelligence in slavery greatly in advance
of that which he had ever reached as a free man. To
him, visibly, it was a blessing to be enslaved. From all this
it was easy to infer that Providence had appointed slavery for
the advantage of both races; that opposition to this Heaven-ordained
institution was profane; that abolition was merely an
aspect of infidelity. So Calhoun taught; so the South learned
to believe. 1850 A.D. Calhoun’s last speech in Congress warned the
North that opposition to slavery would destroy the Union.
His latest conversation was on this absorbing theme. A
few hours after, he had passed where all dimness of
vision is removed, and errors of judgment become impossible!
It was very pleasant for the slave-owners to be taught that
slavery enjoyed divine sanction. The doctrine had other
apostles than Mr. Calhoun. Unhappily it came to form part
of the regular pulpit teaching of the Southern churches. It
was gravely argued out from the Old Testament that slavery
was the proper condition of the negro. Ham was to be the
servant of his brethren; hence all the descendants of Ham
were the rightful property of white men. The slave who fled
from his master was guilty of the crime of theft in one of its
most heinous forms. So taught the Southern pulpit. Many
books, written by grave divines for the enforcement of these
doctrines, remain to awaken the amazement of posterity.
The slave-owners inclined a willing ear to these pleasing assurances.
They knew slavery to be profitable; their leaders
in Church and State told them it was right. It was little
wonder that a fanatical love to slavery possessed their hearts.
In the passionate, ill-regulated minds of the slave-owning class
it became in course of years almost a madness, which was
shared, unhappily, by the great mass of the white population.
Discussion could no longer be permitted. It became a fearful
risk to express in the South an opinion hostile to slavery. It
was a familiar boast that no man who opposed slavery
would be suffered to live in a Slave State; and the slave-owners
made their word good. Many who were suspected of
hostile opinions were tarred and feathered, and turned out of
the State. Many were shot; many were hanged; some were
burned. The Southern mobs were singularly brutal, and the
slave-owners found willing hands to do their fiendish work.
The law did not interfere to prevent or punish such atrocities.
The churches looked on and held their peace.
As slave property increased in value, a strangely horrible
system of laws gathered around it. The slave was regarded,
not as a person, but as a thing. He had no civil rights; nay,
it was declared by the highest legal authority that a slave had
no rights at all which a white man was bound to respect. The
most sacred laws of nature were defied. Marriage was a tie
which bound the slave only during the master’s pleasure. A
slave had no more legal authority over his child “than a cow
has over her calf.” It was a grave offence to teach a slave to
read. A white man might expiate that offence by fine or imprisonment;
to a black man it involved flogging. The owner
might not without challenge murder an unoffending slave; but
a slave resisting his master’s will might lawfully be slain. A
slave who would not stand to be flogged, might be shot as he
ran off. The master was blameless if his slave died under the
administration of reasonable correction—in other words, if he
flogged a slave to death. A fugitive slave might be killed by
any means which his owner chose to employ. On the other
hand, there was a slender pretext of laws for the protection
of the slave. Any master, for instance, who wantonly cut out
the tongue or put out the eyes of his slave, was liable to a
small fine. But as no slave could give evidence affecting a
white man in a court of law, the law had no terrors for the
slave-owner.
The practice of the South in regard to her slaves was not
unworthy of her laws. Children were habitually torn away
from their mothers. Husbands and wives were habitually
separated, and forced to contract new marriages. Public whipping-houses
became an institution. The hunting of escaped
slaves became a regular profession, and dogs were bred and
trained for that special work. Slaves who were suspected of
an intention to escape were branded with red-hot irons. When
the Northern armies forced their way into the South, many of
the slaves who fled to them were found to be scarred or mutilated.
The burning of a negro who was accused of crime was
a familiar occurrence. It was a debated question whether it
was more profitable to work the slaves moderately, and so
make them last, or to take the greatest possible amount of
work from them, even although that would quickly destroy
them. Some favoured the plan of overworking, and acted
upon it without scruple.
These things were done, and the Christian churches of the
South were not ashamed to say that the system out of which
they flowed enjoyed the sanction of God! It appeared that
men who had spent their lives in the South were themselves
so brutalized by their familiarity with the atrocities of slavery,
that the standard by which they judged it was no higher than
that of the lowest savages.
When the State of Louisiana was received into the
Union in 1812, there was left out a large proportion
of the original purchase from Napoleon. As
yet this region was unpeopled. It lay silent and
unprofitable—a vast reserve prepared for the wants of unborn
generations. It was traversed by the Missouri river. The
great Mississippi was its boundary on the east. It possessed,
in all, a navigable river-line of two thousand miles. Enormous
mineral wealth was treasured up to enrich the world for
centuries to come. There were coal-fields greater than those
of all Europe. There was iron piled up in mountains, one of
which contained two hundred million tons of ore. There was
profusion of copper, of zinc, of lead. There were boundless
forests. There was a soil unsurpassed in fertility. The climate
was kindly and genial, marred by neither the stern winters of
the North nor the fierce heats of the South. The scenery was
often of rare beauty and grandeur.
This was the Territory of Missouri. Gradually settlers from
the neighbouring States dropped in. Slave-holders came, bringing
their chattels with them. They were first in the field, and
they took secure possession. The free emigrant turned aside,
and the slave-power reigned supreme in Missouri. The wealth
and beauty of this glorious land were wedded to the most gigantic
system of evil which ever established itself upon the earth.
By the year 1818 there were sixty thousand persons residing
in Missouri. The time had come for the admission of this Territory
into the Union as a State. It was the first great contest
between the Free and the Slave States. The cotton-gin, the
acquisition of Louisiana, the teaching of Calhoun, had done
their work. The slave-owners were now a great political power—resolute,
unscrupulous, intolerant of opposition. The next
half century of American history takes its tone very much from
their fierce and restless energy. Their policy never wavered.
To gain predominance for slavery, with room for its indefinite
expansion, these were their aims. American history is filled
with their violence on to a certain April morning in 1865, when
the slave-power and all its lawless pretensions lay crushed among
the ruins of Richmond.
When the application of Missouri for admission into the
Union came to be considered in Congress, an attempt was made
to shut slavery wholly out of the new State. A struggle ensued
which lasted for nearly three years. The question was one of
vital importance. At that time the number of Free States and
the number of Slave States were exactly equal. Whosoever
gained Missouri gained a majority in the Senate. The North
was deeply in earnest in desiring to prevent the extension of
slavery. The South was equally resolute that no limitation
should be imposed. The result was a compromise, proposed by
the South. Missouri was to be given over to slavery. But it
was agreed that, excepting within the limits of Missouri herself,
slavery should not be permitted in any part of the territory
purchased from France, north of a line drawn eastward and
westward from the southern boundary of that State. Thus far
might the waves of this foul tide flow, but no further. So
ended the great controversy, in the decisive victory of the South.
The North participated in the gains of slavery. The
cotton-planter borrowed money at high interest
from the Northern capitalist. He bought his goods
in Northern markets; he sent his cotton to the
North for sale. The Northern merchants made money at his
hands, and were in no haste to overthrow the peculiar institution
out of which results so pleasant flowed. They had no
occasion, as the planter had, to persuade themselves that slavery
enjoyed special divine sanction. But it did become a very
general belief in the North that without slave-labour the cultivation
of Southern lands was impossible. It was also very
generally alleged that the condition of the slave was preferable
to that of the free European labourer.
All looked very hopeless for the poor negro. The South
claimed to hold him by divine right. She looked to a future of
indefinite expansion. The boundless regions which stretched
away from her border, untrodden by man, were marked out for
slave territory. A powerful sentiment in the North supported
her claims. She was able to exercise a controlling influence
over the Federal Government. It seemed as if all authority in
the Union was pledged to uphold slavery, and assert for ever
the right of the white man to hold the black man as an article
of merchandise.
But even then the awakening of the Northern conscience
had begun. On the 1st of January 1831, a journeyman
printer, William Lloyd Garrison, published in Boston the first
number of a paper devoted to the abolition of slavery. This is
perhaps the earliest prominent incident in the history of Emancipation.
It was indeed a humble opening of a noble career.
Garrison was young and penniless. He wrote the articles, and
he also, with the help of a friend, set the types. He lived
mainly on bread and water. Only when a number of the paper
sold particularly well, he and his companion indulged in a bowl
of milk. The Mayor of Boston was asked by a Southern
magistrate to suppress the paper. He replied that it was not
worth the trouble. The office of the editor was “an obscure
hole; his only visible auxiliary a negro boy; his supporters a
few insignificant persons of all colours.” The lordly Southerners
need not be uneasy about this obscure editor and his paltry
newspaper.
But the fulness of time had come, and every word spoken
against slavery found now some willing listener. In the year
after Garrison began his paper the American Anti-slavery
Society was formed. It was composed of twelve members.
Busy hands were scattering the seed abroad, and it sprang
quickly. Within three years there were two hundred anti-slavery
societies in America; in seven years more these had
increased to two thousand. The war against slavery was now
begun in earnest.
The slave-owners and their allies in the North regarded with
rage unutterable this formidable invasion. Everywhere they
opposed violence to the arguments of their opponents. Large
rewards were offered for the capture of prominent abolitionists.
Many Northern men, who unwarily strayed into Southern
States, were murdered on the mere suspicion that they
were opposed to slavery. 1835 A.D. President Jackson recommended
Congress to forbid the conveyance to the South,
by the mails, of anti-slavery publications. In Boston a mob
of well-dressed and respectable citizens suppressed a meeting
of female abolitionists. While busied about that enterprise,
they were fortunate enough to lay hold of Garrison, whose
murder they designed, and would have accomplished, had not a
timely sally of the constables rescued him from their grasp. 1833 A.D. In Connecticut a young woman was imprisoned for teaching
negro children to read. Philadelphia was disgraced
by riots in which negroes were killed and their houses
burned down. Throughout the Northern States anti-slavery
meetings were habitually invaded and broken up by the allies
of the slave-owners. The abolitionists were devoured by a zeal
which knew no bounds and permitted no rest. The slave-owners
met them with a deep, remorseless, murderous hatred,
which gradually possessed and corroded their whole nature. In
this war, as it soon became evident, there could be no compromise.
Peace was impossible otherwise than by the destruction
of one or other of the contending parties.
The spirit in which the South defended her cherished institution
was fairly exemplified in her treatment of a young clergyman,
Mr. Lovejoy, who offended her by his antipathy to slavery.
Mr. Lovejoy established himself in Alton, a little town of
Illinois, where he conducted a newspaper. Illinois was itself a
Free State; but Missouri was near, and the slave-power was
supreme in all that region. Mr. Lovejoy declared himself in
his newspaper against slavery. He was requested to withdraw
from that neighbourhood; but he maintained his right of free
speech, and chose to remain. The mob sacked his printing-office,
and flung his press into the river. 1837 A.D. Mr. Lovejoy
bought another press. The arrival of this new machine
highly displeased the ruffianism of the little town of
Alton. It was stored for safety in a well-secured building,
and two or three well-disposed citizens kept armed watch over
it. The mob attacked the warehouse. Shots were exchanged,
and some of the rioters were slain. At length the mob succeeded
in setting fire to the building. When Mr. Lovejoy
showed himself to the crowd he was fired at, and fell pierced
by five bullets. The printing-press was broken; the newspaper
was silenced; the hostile editor was slaughtered. The offended
majesty of the slave-power was becomingly vindicated.
The decaying energies of Spain were sorely wasted by
the wars which Napoleon forced upon her. Invaded,
conquered, occupied, fought for during years
by great armies, Spain issued from the struggle in
a state of utter exhaustion. It was impossible that a country
so enfeebled could maintain a great colonial dominion. Not
long after the Battle of Waterloo all her American dependencies
chose to be independent, and Spain could do nothing to
prevent it. Among the rest, Mexico won for herself the privilege
of self-government, of which she has thus far proved herself
so incapable.
Lying between the Mississippi and the Rio Grande was a vast
wilderness of undefined extent and uncertain ownership, which
America, with some hesitation, recognized as belonging
to Mexico. It was called Texas. The climate was
genial; the soil was of wondrous fertility. 1829 A.D. America
coveted this fair region, and offered to buy it from Mexico.
Her offer was declined.
The great natural wealth of Texas, combined with the almost
total absence of government, were powerful attractions to the
lawless adventurers who abounded in the South-Western States.
A tide of vagrant blackguardism streamed into Texas. Safe
from the grasp of justice, the murderer, the thief, the fraudulent
debtor, opened in Texas a new and more hopeful career.
Founded by these conscript fathers, Texan society grew apace.
1836 A.D. In a few years Texas felt herself strong enough to be
independent. Her connection with Mexico was declared
to be at an end.
The leader in this revolution was Sam Houston, a Virginian
of massive frame—energetic, audacious, unscrupulous—in no
mean degree fitted to direct the storm he had helped to raise.
For Houston was a Southerner, and it was his ambition to gain
Texas for the purposes of the slave-owners. Mexico had
abolished slavery. Texas could be no home for the possessor
of slaves till she was severed from Mexico.
When independence was declared, Texas had to defend her
newly-claimed liberties by the sword. General Houston
headed the patriot forces, not quite four hundred in
number, and imperfectly armed. Santa Anna came
against them with an army of five thousand. The Texans
retreated, and having nothing to carry, easily distanced their
pursuers. At the San Jacinto, Houston was strengthened by
the arrival of two field-pieces. He turned like a lion upon the
unexpectant Mexicans, whom he caught in the very act of crossing
the river. He fired grape-shot into their quaking ranks.
His unconquerable Texans clubbed their muskets—they had
no bayonets—and rushed upon the foe. The Mexicans fled in
helpless rout, and Texas was free. The grateful Texans elected
General Houston President of the republic which he had thus
saved.
1837 A.D. No sooner was Texas independent than she offered to join
herself to the United States. Her proposals were at
first declined. But the South warmly espoused her
cause and urged her claims. Once more North and
South met in fiery debate. Slavery had already a sure footing
in Texas. If Texas entered the Union, it was as a Slave State.
On that ground avowedly the South urged the annexation; on
that ground the North resisted it. “We all see,” said Daniel
Webster, “that Texas will be a slave-holding country; and I
frankly avow my unwillingness to do anything which shall
extend the slavery of the African race on this continent, or add
another Slave-holding State to the Union.” “The South,” said
the Legislature of Mississippi, speaking of slavery, “does not
possess a blessing with which the affections of her people are so
closely entwined, and whose value is more highly appreciated.
By the annexation of Texas an equipoise of influence in the
halls of Congress will be secured, which will furnish us a permanent
guarantee of protection.”
It was the battle-ground on which all the recent great battles
of American political history have been fought. It ended, as
such battles at that time usually did, in Southern victory. In
March 1845 Texas was received into the Union. The slave-power
gained new votes in Congress, and room for a vast extension
of the slave-system.
Mexico was displeased with the annexation of Texas,
but did not manifest so quickly as it was hoped she
would any disposition to avenge herself. Mr. Polk,
a Southern man, was now President, and he governed
in the interest of the South. A war with Mexico was a
thing to be desired, because Mexico must be beaten, and could
then be plundered of territory which the slave-owners would
appropriate. 1846 A.D. To provoke Mexico the Unready, an army
of four thousand men was sent to the extreme south-western
confines of Texas. A Mexican army of six
thousand lay near. The Americans, with marvellous audacity,
erected a fort within easy range of Matamoras, a city of the
Mexicans, and thus the place was in their power. After much
hesitation the Mexican army attacked the Americans, and
received, as they might well have anticipated, a severe defeat.
Thus, without the formality of any declaration, the war was
begun.
President Polk hastened to announce to Congress that the
Mexicans had “invaded our territory, and shed the blood of our
fellow-citizens.” Congress voted men and money for the prosecution
of the war, and volunteers offered themselves in multitudes.
Their brave little army was in peril—far from help,
and surrounded by enemies. The people were eager to support
the heroes, of whose victory they were so proud. And yet
opinion was much divided. Many deemed the war unjust and
disgraceful. Among these was a young lawyer of Illinois,
destined in later years to fill a place in the hearts of his countrymen
second only to that of Washington. Abraham Lincoln
entered Congress while the war was in progress, and his first
speech was in condemnation of the course pursued by the
Government.
The war was pushed with vigour at first under the command
of General Taylor, who was to become the next President; and
finally under General Scott, who, as a very young man, had
fought against the British at Niagara, and, as a very old man,
was Commander-in-Chief of the American Army when the great
war between North and South began. Many officers were there
whose names became famous in after years. General Lee and
General Grant gained here their first experience of war. They
were not then known to each other. They met for the first
time, twenty years after, in a Virginian cottage, to arrange
terms of surrender for the defeated army of the Southern
Confederacy!
The Americans resolved to fight their way to the enemy’s
capital, and there compel such a peace as would be agreeable to
themselves. The task was not without difficulty. The Mexican
army was greatly more numerous. They had a splendid cavalry
force and an efficient artillery. Their commander, Santa Anna,
unscrupulous even for a Mexican, was yet a soldier of some
ability. The Americans were mainly volunteers who had never
seen war till now. The fighting was severe. At Buena-Vista
the American army was attacked by a force which outnumbered
it in the proportion of five to one. The battle lasted for ten
hours, and the invaders were saved from ruin by their superior
artillery. The mountain passes were strongly fortified, and
General Scott had to convey his army across chasms and ravines
which the Mexicans, deeming them impracticable, had neglected
to defend. Strong in the consciousness of their superiority to
the people they invaded—the same consciousness which supported
Cortes and his Spaniards three centuries before—the
Americans pressed on. At length they came in sight of Mexico,
at the same spot where Cortes had viewed it. Sept. 14, 1847 A.D. Once
more they routed a Mexican army of greatly superior
force; and then General Scott marched his little army
of six thousand men quietly into the capital. The
war was closed, and a treaty of peace was with little delay
negotiated.
America exacted mercilessly the penalty which usually
attends defeat. Mexico was to receive fifteen
million dollars; but she ceded an enormous territory
stretching westward from Texas to the Pacific.
One of the provinces which composed this magnificent prize
was California. The slave-owners had gone to war with Mexico
that they might gain territory which slavery should possess for
ever. They sought to introduce California into the Union as a
Slave State. But Providence interposed to shield her from a
destiny so unhappy.
1848 A.D. Just about the time that California became an American
possession, it was discovered that her soil was richly
endowed with gold. On one of the tributaries of the
Sacramento river an old settler was peacefully digging a
trench—caring little, it may be supposed, about the change
of citizenship which he had undergone—not dreaming that the
next stroke of his spade was to influence the history, not merely
of California, but of the world. Among the sand which he lifted
were certain shining particles. His wondering eye considered
them with attention. They were Gold! Gold was everywhere—in
the soil, in the river-sand, in the mountain-rock; gold in
dust, gold in pellets, gold in lumps! It was the land of old fairy
tale, where wealth could be had by him who chose to stoop down
and gather!
Fast as the mails could carry it the bewildering news thrilled
the heart of America. To the energetic youth of the Northern
States the charm was irresistible. It was now, indeed, a reproach
to be poor, when it was so easy to be rich.
The journey to the land of promise was full of toil and danger.
There were over two thousand miles of unexplored wilderness
to traverse. There were mountain ranges to surmount, lofty
and rugged as the Alps themselves. There were great desolate
plains, unwatered and without vegetation. Indians, whose dispositions
there was reason to question, beset the path. But
danger was unconsidered. That season thirty thousand Americans
crossed the plains, climbed the mountains, forded the
streams, bore without shrinking all that want, exposure, and
fatigue could inflict. Cholera broke out among them, and four
thousand left their bones in the wilderness. The rest plodded
on undismayed. Fifty thousand came by sea. From all countries
they came—from quiet English villages, from the crowded cities
of China. Before the year was out California had gained an
addition of eighty thousand to her population.
These came mainly from the Northern States. They had no
thought of suffering in their new home the evil institution
of the South. 1850 A.D. They settled easily the constitution of
their State, and California was received into the Union
free from the taint of slavery.
It was no slight disappointment to the men of the South.
They had urged on the war with Mexico in order to gain new
Slave States, new votes in Congress, additional room for the
spread of slavery. They had gained all the territory they
hoped for; but this strange revelation of gold had peopled it
from the North, and slavery was shut out for ever. To soothe
their irritation, Henry Clay proposed a very black concession,
under the disgrace of which America suffered for years in the
estimation of all Christian nations. The South was angry, and
hinted even then at secession. The North was prosperous. Her
merchants were growing rich; her farmers were rapidly overspreading
the country and subduing waste lands to the service
of man. Every year saw vast accessions to her wealth; and
her supreme desire was for quietness. In this frame of mind
she assented to the passing of the Fugitive Slave Law. Heretofore
it had been lawful for the slave-owner to reclaim his slave
who had escaped into a Free State; but although lawful, it was
in practice almost impossible. Now the officers of the Government,
and all good citizens, were commanded to give to the
pursuer all needful help. In certain cases Government was to
defray the expense of restoring the slave to the plantation from
which he had fled. In any trial arising under this law, the
evidence of the slave himself was not to be received; the oath
of his pursuer was almost decisive against him. Hundreds of
Southern ruffians hastened to take vile advantage of this shameful
law. They searched out coloured men in the Free States,
and swore that they were escaped slaves. In too many instances
they were successful, and many free negroes as well as escaped
slaves were borne back to the miseries of slavery. The North
erred grievously in consenting to a measure so base. It is just,
however, to say, that although Northern politicians upheld it as
a wise and necessary compromise, the Northern people in their
hearts abhorred it. The law was so unpopular that its execution
was resisted in several Northern cities, and it quickly passed
into disuse.
The great Louisiana purchase from Napoleon was
not yet wholly portioned off into States. Westward
and northward of Missouri was an enormous
expanse of the richest land in the Union, having
as yet few occupants more profitable than the Indians. Two
great routes of travel—to the west and to the south-west—traversed
it. The eager searcher for gold passed that way on
his long walk to California. The Mormon looked with indifference
on its luxuriant vegetation as he toiled on to his New
Jerusalem by the Great Salt Lake. In the year 1853 it was
proposed to organize this region into two Territories, under the
names of Kansas and Nebraska. Here once more arose the
old question—Shall the Territories be Slave or Free? The
Missouri Compromise had settled that slavery should never
come here. But the slave-owners were able to cancel
this settlement. 1854 A.D. A law was enacted under which the
inhabitants were left to choose between slavery and
freedom. The vote of a majority would decide the destiny of
these magnificent provinces.
And now both parties had to bestir themselves. The early
inhabitants of the infant States were to fix for all time whether
they would admit or exclude the slave-owner with his victims.
Everything depended, therefore, on taking early possession.
The South was first in the field. Missouri was near, and
her citizens led the way. Great slave-owners took possession
of lands in Kansas, and loudly invited their brethren from other
States to come at once, bringing their slaves with them. But
their numbers were small, while the need was urgent. The
South had no population to spare fitted for the work of colonizing,
but she had in large numbers the class of “mean whites.”
In the mean white of the Southern States we are permitted to
see how low it is possible for our Anglo-Saxon humanity to fall.
The mean white is entirely without education. His house is a
hovel of the very lowest description. Personally he walks in
rags and filth. He cannot stoop to work, because slavery has
rendered labour disreputable. He supports himself as savages
do—by shooting, by fishing, by the plunder of his industrious
neighbours’ fields and folds. The negro, out of the unutterable
degradation to which he has been subjected, looks with scorn
upon the mean white.
1855 A.D. The mean whites of Missouri were easily marshalled for a
raid into Kansas. The time came when elections were
to take place—when the great question of Slave or Free
was to be answered. Gangs of armed ruffians were
marched over from Missouri. Such a party—nearly a thousand
strong, accompanied by two pieces of cannon—entered the little
town of Lawrence on the morning of the election day. The
ballot-boxes were taken possession of, and the peaceful inhabitants
were driven away. The invaders cast fictitious votes
into the boxes, outnumbering ten or twenty times the lawful
roll of voters. A legislature wholly in the interests of slavery
was thus elected, and in due time that body began to enact
laws. No man whose opinions were opposed to slavery was to
be an elector in Kansas. Any man who spoke or wrote against
slavery was to suffer imprisonment with hard labour. Death
was the penalty for aiding the escape of a slave. All this was
done while the enemies of slavery were an actual majority of
the inhabitants of Kansas!
And then the Border ruffians overran the country—working
their own wicked will wherever they came. The outrages they
committed read like the freaks of demons. A man betted that
he would scalp an abolitionist. He rode out from the little
town of Leavensworth in search of a victim. He met a gentleman
driving in a gig, shot him, scalped him, rode back to town,
showed his ghastly trophy, and received payment of his bet.
Men were gathered up from their work in the fields, ranged in
line, and ruthlessly shot to death, because they hated slavery.
A lawyer who had protested against frauds at an election was
tarred and feathered; thus attired, he was put up to auction and
sold to the highest bidder. The town of Lawrence was attacked
by eight hundred marauders, who plundered it to their content—bombarding
with artillery houses which displeased them—burning
and destroying in utter wantonness.
But during all this unhappy time the steady tide of Northern
immigration into Kansas flowed on. From the very outset of
the strife the North was resolute to win Kansas for freedom.
She sought to do this by colonizing Kansas with men who hated
slavery. Societies were formed to aid poor emigrants. In
single families, in groups of fifty to a hundred persons, the
settlers were promptly moved westward. Some of these merely
obeyed the impulse which drives so many Americans to leave
the settled States of the east and push out into the wilderness.
Others went that their votes might prevent the spread of
slavery. There was no small measure of patriotism in the
movement. Men left their comfortable homes in the east and
carried their families into a wilderness, to the natural miseries
of which was added the presence of bitter enemies. They did
so that Kansas might be a Free State. Cannon were planted on
the banks of the Missouri to prevent their entrance into Kansas.
Many of them were plundered and turned back. Often their
houses were burned and their fields wasted. But they were a
self-reliant people, to whom it was no hardship to be obliged to
defend themselves. When need arose they banded themselves
together and gave battle to the ruffians who troubled them.
And all the while they were growing stronger by constant reinforcements
from the east. There were building, and clearing,
and ploughing, and sowing. In spite of Southern outrage
Kansas was fast ripening into a free and orderly community.
1859 A.D. In a few years the party of freedom was able to carry
the elections. A constitution was adopted by which
slavery was excluded from Kansas. 1861 A.D. And at length,
just when the great final struggle between slavery and
freedom was commencing, Kansas was received as a
Free State. Her admission raised the number of States in the
Union to thirty-four.
The conflict deepened as years passed. The Abolitionists
became more irrepressible, the Slave-holders
more savage. There seemed no hope of the law
becoming just. The American people have a deep
reverence for law, but here it was overborne by their sense of
injustice. The wicked law was habitually set at defiance, and
plans were carefully framed for aiding the escape of slaves. It
was whispered about among the negroes that at certain points
they were sure to find friends, shelter, and safe conveyance
to Canada. Around every plantation there stretched dense
jungles, swamps, pathless forests. The escaping slave fled to
these gloomy solitudes. They hunted him with bloodhounds,
and many a poor wretch was dragged back to groan under
deeper brutalities than before. If happily undiscovered, he
made his way to certain well-known stations, a chain of which
passed him safely on to the protection of the British flag. This
was the Underground Railway. Now and then its agents were
discovered. In that miserable time it was a grave offence to
help a slave to escape. The offender was doomed to heavy fine
or long imprisonment. Some died in prison of the hardships they
endured. But the Underground Railway never wanted agents.
No sooner had the unjust law claimed its victim than another
stepped into his place. During many years the average number
of slaves freed by this agency was considerably over a thousand.
The slave-holders made it unsafe for Northerners of anti-slavery
opinions to remain in the South. Acts of brutal violence—very
frequently resulting in murder—became very
common. 1860 A.D. During one year eight hundred persons were
robbed, whipped, tarred and feathered, or murdered for
suspected antipathy to slavery. The possession of an anti-slavery
newspaper or book involved expulsion from the State;
and the circulation of such works could scarcely be expiated
by any punishment but death. In Virginia and Maryland it
was gravely contemplated to drive the free negroes from their
homes, or to sell them into slavery and devote the money thus
obtained to the support of the common schools! Arkansas did
actually expel her free negroes. The slave-holders were determined
that nothing which could remind their victims of liberty
should be suffered to remain.
1858 A.D. It was well said by Mr. Seward that they greatly erred who
deemed this collision accidental or ephemeral. It was
“an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring
forces.” All attempts at compromise would be
short-lived and vain.
The most influential advocate of the numerous compromises
by which the strife was sought to be calmed, was Henry Clay
of Kentucky. Clay was much loved for his genial dispositions,
much honoured and trusted in for his commanding ability.
For many years of the prolonged struggle he seemed to stand
between North and South—wielding authority over both.
Although Southern, he hated slavery, and the slave-holders had
often to receive from his lips emphatic denunciations of their
favourite system. But he hated the doctrines of the abolitionists,
too, and believed they were leading towards the dissolution
of the Union. He desired gradual emancipation, and along
with it the return of the negroes to Africa. His aim was to
deliver his country from the taint of slavery; but he would
effect that great revolution step by step, as the country could
bear it. At every crisis he was ready with a compromise. His
proposals soothed the angry passions which were aroused when
Missouri sought admission into the Union. 1850 A.D. His, too,
was that unhappy compromise, one feature of which was
the Fugitive Slave Bill. If compromise could have
averted strife, Henry Clay would have saved his country. But
the conflict was irrepressible.
The slave-power grew very bold during the later years of its
existence. The re-opening of the slave-trade became one of the
questions of the day in the Southern States. The Governor of
South Carolina expressly recommended this measure. Southern
newspapers supported it; Southern ruffians actually accomplished
it. Numerous cargoes of slaves were landed in the
South in open defiance of law, and the outrage was unrebuked. 1859 A.D. Political conventions voted their approval of the traffic,
and associations were formed to promote it. Agricultural
societies offered prizes for the best specimens of
newly imported live Africans. It was even proposed that a
prize should be offered for the best sermon in favour of the
slave-trade! Advertisements like this were frequent in Southern
newspapers—“For sale, four hundred negroes, lately landed on
the coast of Texas.” It was possible to do such things then.
A little later—in the days of Abraham Lincoln—a certain
ruffianly Captain Gordon made the perilous experiment of
bringing a cargo of slaves to New York. He was seized, and
promptly hanged, and there was no further attempt to revive
the slave-trade. Thus appropriately was this hideous traffic
closed.
The hatred of the North to slavery was rapidly growing.
In the eyes of some, slavery was an enormous
sin, fitted to bring the curse of God upon the land.
To others, it was a political evil, marring the unity
and hindering the progress of the country. To very many, on
the one ground or the other, it was becoming hateful. Politicians
sought to delay by concessions the inevitable crisis.
Simple men, guiding themselves by their conviction of the
wickedness of slavery, were growing ever more vehement in
their abhorrence of this evil thing.
John Brown was such a man. The blood of the Pilgrim
Fathers flowed in his veins; the old Puritan spirit guided all
his actions. From his boyhood he abhorred slavery; and he
was constrained by his duty to God and man to spend himself
in this cause. There was no hope of advantage in it; no desire
for fame; no thought at all for himself or for his children.
He saw a huge wrong, and he could not help setting himself to
resist it. He was no politician. He was powerless to influence
the councils of the nation, but he had the old Puritan aptitude
for battle. He went to Kansas with his sons to help in the
fight for freedom; and while there was fighting to be done,
John Brown was at the front. He was a leader among the
free settlers, who felt his military superiority, and followed
him with confidence in many a bloody skirmish. He retired
habitually into deep solitudes to pray. He had morning and
evening prayers, in which all his followers joined. He would
allow no man of immoral character in his camp. He believed
that God directed him in visions; he was God’s servant, and
not man’s. The work given him to do might be bitter to the
flesh, but since it was God’s work he dared not shrink from it.
When the triumph of freedom was secured in Kansas, John
Brown moved eastward to Virginia. He was now to devote
himself in earnest to the overthrow of the accursed institution.
The laws of his country sanctioned an enormous wickedness.
He declared war against his country, in so far as the national
support of slavery was concerned. He prepared a constitution
and a semblance of government. He himself was the head of
this singular organization. Associated with him were a
Secretary of State, a Treasurer, and a Secretary of War.
Slavery, he stated, was a barbarous and unjustifiable war,
carried on by one section of the community against another.
His new government was for the defence of those whom the
laws of the country wrongfully left undefended. He was
joined by a few enthusiasts like-minded with himself, and he
laid up a store of arms. He and his friends hung about plantations,
and aided the escape of slaves to Canada. Occasionally
the horses and cattle of the slave-owner were laid under contribution
to support the costs of the campaign. Brown meditated
war upon a somewhat extensive scale, and only waited the
reinforcements of which he was assured, that he might proclaim
liberty to all the captives in his neighbourhood. But reason
appeared for believing that his plans had been betrayed to the
enemy, and Brown was hurried into measures which brought
swift destruction upon himself and his followers.
Harper’s Ferry was a town of five thousand inhabitants,
nestling amid steep and rugged mountains, where the Shenandoah
unites its waters with those of the Potomac. The
National Armoury was here, and an arsenal in which were
laid up enormous stores of arms and ammunition. Brown resolved
to seize the arsenal. It was his hope that the slaves
would hasten to his standard when the news of his success
went abroad. And he seems to have reckoned that he would
become strong enough to make terms with the Government,
or, at the worst, to secure the escape to Canada of his armed
followers.
1859 A.D. One Sunday evening in October he marched into Harper’s
Ferry with a little army of twenty-two men—black and
white—and easily possessed himself of the arsenal. He
cut the telegraph wires; he stopped the trains which
here cross the Potomac; he made prisoners of the workmen
who came in the morning to resume their labours at the arsenal.
His sentinels held the streets and bridges. The surprise was
complete, and for a few hours his possession of the Government
works was undisputed.
When at length the news of this amazing rebellion was
suffered to escape, and America learned that old John Brown
had invaded and conquered Harper’s Ferry, the rage and alarm
of the slave-owners and their supporters knew no bounds. The
Virginians, upon whom the affront fell most heavily, took
prompt measures to avenge it. By noon on Monday a force of
militiamen surrounded the little town, to prevent the escape of
those whom, as yet, they were not strong enough to capture.
Before night fifteen hundred men were assembled. All that
night Brown held his conquest, till nearly all his men were
wounded or slain. His two sons were shot dead. Brown,
standing beside their bodies, calmly exhorted his men to be firm,
and sell their lives as dearly as possible. On Tuesday morning
the soldiers forced an entrance, and Brown, with a sabre-cut in
his head, and two bayonet-stabs in his body, was a prisoner.
He was tried, and condemned to die. Throughout his imprisonment,
and even amid the horrors of the closing scene, his
habitual serenity was undisturbed. He “humbly trusted that
he had the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, to
rule in his heart.”
To the enraged slave-owners John Brown was a detestable
rebel. To the abolitionists he was a martyr. To us he is a
true, earnest, but most ill-judging man. His actions were unwise,
unwarrantable; but his aims were noble, his self-devotion
was heroic.
In this year America made her decennial enumeration
of her people and their possessions. The industrial
greatness which the census revealed was an astonishment,
not only to the rest of the world, but even
to herself. The slow growth of the old European countries
seemed absolute stagnation beside this swift multiplication of
men and of beasts, and of wealth in every form.
The three million colonists who had thrown off the British
yoke had now increased to thirty-one and a half million! Of
these, four million were slaves, owned by three hundred and
fifty thousand persons. This great population was assisted in
its toils by six million horses and two million working oxen.
It owned eight million cows, fifteen million other cattle,
twenty-two million sheep, and thirty-three million hogs. The
products of the soil were enormous. The cotton crop of this
year was close upon one million tons. It had more than
doubled within the last ten years. The grain crop was twelve
hundred million bushels—figures so large as to pass beyond
our comprehension. Tobacco had more than doubled since
1850—until now America actually yielded a supply of five
hundred million pounds. There were five thousand miles of
canals, and thirty thousand miles of railroad—twenty-two
thousand of which were the creation of the preceding ten
years. The textile manufactures of the country had reached
the annual value of forty million sterling. America had provided
for the education of her children by erecting one hundred
and thirteen thousand schools and colleges, and employing one
hundred and fifty thousand teachers. Her educational institutions
enjoyed revenues amounting to nearly seven million
sterling, and were attended by five and a half million pupils.
Religious instruction was given in fifty-four thousand churches,
in which there was accommodation for nineteen million hearers.
The daily history of the world was supplied by four thousand
newspapers, which circulated annually one thousand million
copies.
There belonged to the American people nearly two thousand
million acres of land. They had not been able to make
any use of the greater part of this enormous heritage. Only
four hundred million acres had as yet become in any measure
available for the benefit of man. The huge remainder lay unpossessed—its
power to give wealth to man growing always
greater during the long ages of solitude and neglect. The
ownership of this prodigious expanse of fertile land opened to
the American people a future of unexampled prosperity. They
needed only peace and the exercise of their own vigorous industry.
But a sterner task was in store for them.
During the last few years the divisions between North and
South had become exceedingly bitter. The North was becoming
ever more intolerant of slavery. The unreasoning and passionate
South resented with growing fierceness the Northern abhorrence
of her favoured institution. In the Senate House one
day a member was bending over his desk, busied in writing.
His name was Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts. He was
well known for the hatred which he bore to slavery, and his
power as an orator gave him rank as a leader among those who
desired the overthrow of the system. While this senator was
occupied with his writing, there walked up to him two men
whom South Carolina deemed not unworthy to frame laws for
a great people. One of them—a ruffian, although a senator—whose
name was Brooks, carried a heavy cane. With this
formidable weapon he discharged many blows upon the head
of the unsuspecting Sumner, till his victim fell bleeding and
senseless to the floor. For this outrage a trifling fine was imposed
on Brooks. His admiring constituents eagerly paid
the amount. Brooks resigned his seat, and was immediately
re-elected. Handsome canes flowed in upon him from all parts
of the slave country. The South, in a most deliberate and
emphatic manner, recorded its approval of the crime which he
had committed.
To such a pass had North and South now come. Sumner
vehemently attacking slavery; Brooks vehemently smiting Sumner
upon his defenceless head—these men represent with perfect
truthfulness the feeling of the two great sections. This cannot
last.
A new President fell to be elected in 1860. Never had an
election taken place under circumstances so exciting. The
North was thoroughly aroused on the slave question. The
time for compromises was felt to have passed. It was a death-grapple
between the two powers. Each party had to put forth
its strength and conquer, or be crushed.
The enemies of slavery announced it as their design to prevent
slavery from extending to the Territories. They had no power
to interfere in States where the system already existed. But,
they said, the Territories belong to the Union. The proper condition
of the Union is freedom. The Slave States are merely
exceptional. It is contrary to the Constitution to carry this
irregularity where it does not already exist.
The Territories, said the South, belong to the Union. All
citizens of the Union are free to go there with their property.
Slaves are property. Slavery may therefore be established in
the Territories, if slave-owners choose to settle there.
On this issue battle was joined. The Northern party nominated
Abraham Lincoln as their candidate. The Southerners,
with their friends in the North—of whom there were many—divided
their votes among three candidates. They were defeated,
and Abraham Lincoln became President.
Mr. Lincoln was the son of a small and not very prosperous
farmer. He was born in 1809 in the State of Kentucky, but
his youth was passed mainly in Indiana. His father had chosen
to settle on the farthest verge of civilization. Around him
was a dense, illimitable forest, still wandered over by the
Indians. Here and there in the wilderness occurred a rude
wooden hut like his own, the abode of some rough settler regardless
of comfort and greedy of the excitements of pioneering.
The next neighbour was two miles away. There were
no roads, no bridges, no inns. The traveller swam the rivers
he had to cross, and trusted, not in vain, to the hospitality of
the settlers for food and shelter. Now and then a clergyman
passed that way, and from a hasty platform beneath a tree the
gospel was preached to an eagerly-listening audience of rugged
woodsmen. Many years after, when he had grown wise and
famous, Mr. Lincoln spoke, with tears in his eyes, of a well-remembered
sermon which he had heard from a wayfaring
preacher in the great Indiana wilderness. Justice was administered
under the shade of forest trees. The jury sat upon a log.
The same tree which sheltered the court, occasionally served
as a gibbet for the criminal.
In this society—rugged, but honest and kindly—the youth
of the future President was passed. He had little schooling;
indeed there was scarcely a school within reach, and if all the
days of his school-time were added together they would scarcely
make up one year. His father was poor, and Abraham was
needed on the farm. There was timber to fell, there were fences
to build, fields to plough, sowing and reaping to be done.
Abraham led a busy life, and knew well, while yet a boy, what
hard work meant. Like all boys who come to anything great,
he had a devouring thirst for knowledge. He borrowed all the
books in his neighbourhood, and read them by the blaze of the
logs which his own axe had split.
This was his upbringing. When he entered life for himself,
it was as clerk in a small store. He served nearly a year there,
conducting faithfully and cheerfully the lowly commerce by
which the wants of the settlers were supplied. Then he comes
before us as a soldier, fighting a not very bloody campaign
against the Indians, who had undertaken, rather imprudently,
to drive the white men out of that region. Having settled in
Illinois, he commenced the study of law, supporting himself by
land-surveying during the unprofitable stages of that pursuit.
Finally he applied himself to politics, and in 1834 was elected
a member of the Legislature of Illinois.
He was now in his twenty-fifth year; of vast stature, somewhat
awkwardly fashioned, slender for his height, but uncommonly
muscular and enduring. He was of pleasant humour,
ready and true insight. After such a boyhood as his, difficulty
had no terrors for him, and he was incapable of defeat. His
manners were very homely. His lank, ungainly figure, dressed
in the native manufacture of the backwoods, would have spread
dismay in a European drawing-room. He was smiled at even
in the uncourtly Legislature of Illinois. But here, as elsewhere,
whoever came into contact with Abraham Lincoln felt that he
was a man framed to lead other men. Sagacious, penetrating,
full of resource, and withal honest, kindly, conciliatory, his
hands might be roughened by toil, his dress and ways might be
those of the wilderness, yet was he quickly recognized as a born
king of men.
During the next twenty-six years Mr. Lincoln applied himself
to the profession of the law. During the greater portion of
those years he was in public life. He had part in all the
political controversies of his time. Chief among these were
the troubles arising out of slavery. From his boyhood Mr.
Lincoln was a steady enemy to slavery, as at once foolish and
wrong. He would not interfere with it in the old States, for
there the Constitution gave him no power; but he would in
noway allow its establishment in the Territories. He desired
a policy which “looked forward hopefully to the time when
slavery, as a wrong, might come to an end.” He gained in a
very unusual degree the confidence of his party, who raised him
to the presidential chair, as a true and capable representative
of their principles in regard to the great slavery question.
South Carolina was the least loyal to the
Union of all the States. She estimated very
highly her own dignity as a sovereign State. She
held in small account the allegiance which she
owed to the Federal Government. Twenty-eight years ago
Congress had enacted a highly protective tariff. 1832 A.D. South
Carolina, disapproving of this measure, decreed that it
was not binding upon her. Should the Federal Government
attempt to enforce it, South Carolina announced her purpose
of quitting the Union and becoming independent. General
Jackson, who was then President, made ready to hold South
Carolina to her duty by force; but Congress modified the tariff,
and so averted the danger. Jackson believed firmly that the
men who then held the destiny of South Carolina in their hands
wished to secede. “The tariff,” he said, “was but a pretext.
The next will be the slavery question.”
1860 A.D. The time predicted had now come, and South Carolina led
her sister States into the dark and bloody path. A convention
of her people was promptly called, and on the
20th of December an Ordinance was passed dissolving
the Union, and declaring South Carolina a free and independent
republic. When the Ordinance was passed the bells of Charleston
rang for joy, and the streets of the city resounded with the
wild exulting shouts of an excited people. Dearly had the joy
of those tumultuous hours to be paid for. Four years later,
when Sherman quelled the heroic defence of the rebel city,
Charleston lay in ruins. Her people, sorely diminished by war
and famine, had been long familiar with the miseries which a
strict blockade and a merciless bombardment can inflict.
The example of South Carolina was at once followed by
other discontented States. Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi,
Louisiana, and Florida hastened to assert their independence,
and to league themselves into a new Confederacy. They
adopted a Constitution, differing from the old mainly in these
respects, that it contained provisions against taxes to protect
any branch of industry, and gave effective securities for the
permanence and extension of slavery. They elected Mr. Jefferson
Davis President for six years. They possessed themselves
of the Government property within their own boundaries. It
was not yet their opinion that the North would fight, and they
bore themselves with a high hand in all the arrangements which
their new position seemed to call for.
After the Government was formed, the Confederacy was
joined by other Slave States who at first had hesitated. Virginia,
North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Texas, after
some delay, gave in their adhesion. The Confederacy in its
completed form was composed of eleven States, with a population
of nine million; six million of whom were free, and three
million were slaves. Twenty-three States remained loyal to the
Union. Their population amounted to twenty-two million.
It is not to be supposed that the free population of the seceding
States were unanimous in their desire to break up the
Union. On the contrary, there is good reason to believe that a
majority of the people in most of the seceding States were all
the time opposed to secession. In North Carolina the attempt
to carry secession was at first defeated by the people. In the
end that State left the Union reluctantly, under the belief that
not otherwise could it escape becoming the battle-ground of the
contending powers. Thus, too, Virginia refused at first by
large majorities to secede. In Georgia and Alabama the minorities
against secession were large. In Louisiana twenty thousand
votes were given for secession, and seventeen thousand against
it. In many cases it required much intrigue and dexterity of
management to obtain a favourable vote; and the resolution to
quit the Union was received in sorrow by very many of the
Southern people. But everywhere in the South the idea prevailed
that allegiance was due to the State rather than to the
Federation. And thus it came to pass that when the authorities
of a State resolved to abandon the Union, the citizens of
that State felt constrained to secede, even while they mourned
the course upon which they were forced to enter.
It has been maintained by some defenders of the seceding
States that slavery was not the cause of secession. On that
question there can surely be no authority so good as that of
the seceding States themselves. A declaration of the reasons
which influenced their action was issued by several States,
and acquiesced in by the others. South Carolina was the first
to give reasons for her conduct. These reasons related wholly
to slavery, no other cause of separation being hinted at. The
Northern States, it was complained, would not restore runaway
slaves. They assumed the right of “deciding on the propriety
of our domestic institutions.” They denounced slavery as sinful.
They permitted the open establishment of anti-slavery
societies. They aided the escape of slaves. They sought to
exclude slavery from the Territories. Finally, they had elected
to the office of President, Abraham Lincoln, “a man whose
opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery.”
Some of the American people had from the beginning held
the opinion that any State could leave the Union at her pleasure.
That belief was general in the South. The seceding States did
not doubt that they had full legal right to take the step which
they had taken, and they stated with perfect frankness what
was their reason for exercising this right. They believed that
slavery was endangered by their continuance in the Union.
Strictly speaking, they fought in defence of their right to secede.
But they had no other motive for seceding than that slavery
should be preserved and extended. The war which ensued
was therefore really a war in defence of slavery. But for the
Southern love and the Northern antipathy to slavery, no war
could have occurred. The men of the South attempted to break
up the Union because they thought slavery would be safer if the
Slave-owning States stood alone. The men of the North refused
to allow the Union to be broken up. They did not go to war
to put down slavery. They had no more right to put down
slavery in the South than England has to put down slavery in
Cuba. The Union which they loved was endangered, and they
fought to defend the Union.
Mr. Lincoln was elected, according to usage, early
in November, but did not take possession of his
office till March. In the interval President
Buchanan remained in power. This gentleman was
Southern by birth, and, as it has always been believed, by
sympathy. He laid no arrest upon the movements of the
seceding States; nay, it has been alleged that he rather sought
to remove obstacles from their path. During all these winter
months the Southern leaders were suffered to push forward their
preparations for the approaching conflict. The North still hoped
for peace, and Congress busied itself with vain schemes of conciliation.
Meetings were held all over the country, at which an
anxious desire was expressed to remove causes of offence. The
self-willed Southerners would listen to no compromise. They
would go apart, peacefully if they might; in storm and bloodshed
if they must.
1861 A.D. Early in February Mr. Lincoln left his home in Illinois on
his way to Washington. His neighbours accompanied
him to the railroad depôt, where he spoke a few parting
words to them. “I know not,” he said, “how soon I
shall see you again. A duty devolves upon me, which is, perhaps,
greater than that which has devolved upon any other
man since the days of Washington. He never would have
succeeded except for the aid of Divine Providence, upon which
he at all times relied. I feel that I cannot succeed without the
same divine aid which sustained him, and on the same Almighty
Being I place my reliance for support; and I hope you, my
friends, will all pray that I may receive that divine assistance
without which I cannot succeed, but with which success is
certain.”
With these grave, devout words, he took his leave, and passed
on to the fulfilment of his heavy task. His inauguration took
place as usual on the 4th of March. A huge crowd assembled
around the Capitol. Mr. Lincoln had thus far kept silence as
to the course he meditated in regard to the seceding States.
Seldom had a revelation involving issues so momentous been
waited for at the lips of any man. The anxious crowd stood so
still, that to its utmost verge the words of the speaker were
distinctly heard.
He assured the Southerners that their fears were unfounded.
He had no lawful right to interfere with slavery in the States
where it existed; he had no purpose and no inclination to interfere.
He would, on the contrary, maintain them in the enjoyment
of all the rights which the Constitution bestowed upon
them. But he held that no State could quit the Union at
pleasure. In view of the Constitution and the laws, the Union
was unbroken. His policy would be framed upon that belief.
He would continue to execute the laws within the seceding
States, and would continue to possess Federal property there,
with all the force at his command. That did not necessarily
involve conflict or bloodshed. Government would not assail
the discontented States, but would suffer no invasion of its constitutional
rights. With the South, therefore, it lay to decide
whether there was to be peace or war.
A week or two before Mr. Lincoln’s inauguration Jefferson
Davis had entered upon his career as President of the Southern
Republic. Mr. Davis was an old politician. He had long advocated
the right of an aggrieved State to leave the Union; and
he had largely contributed, by speech and by intrigue, to hasten
the crisis which had now arrived. He was an accomplished
man, a graceful writer, a fluent and persuasive speaker. He
was ambitious, resolute, and of ample experience in the management
of affairs; but he had many disqualifications for high
office. His obstinacy was blind and unreasoning. He had
little knowledge of men, and could not distinguish “between
an instrument and an obstacle.” His moral tone was low. He
taught Mississippi, his native State, to repudiate her just debts.
A great English statesman, who made his acquaintance some
years before the war broke out, pronounced him one of the
ablest and one of the most wicked men in America.
In his Inaugural Address Mr. Davis displayed a prudent
reserve. Speaking for the world to hear—a world which, upon
the whole, abhorred slavery—he did not name the grievances
which rendered secession necessary. He maintained the right
of a discontented State to secede. The Union had ceased to
answer the ends for which it was established; and in the exercise
of an undoubted right they had withdrawn from it. He
hoped their late associates would not incur the fearful responsibility
of disturbing them in their pursuit of a separate political
career. If so, it only remained for them to appeal to arms, and
invoke the blessing of Providence on a just cause.
Alexander H. Stephens was the Vice-President of the Confederacy.
His health was bad, and the expression of his face
indicated habitual suffering. He had nevertheless been a laborious
student, and a patient, if not a very wise, thinker on the
great questions of his time. In the early days of secession he
delivered at Savannah a speech which quickly became famous,
and which retains its interest still as the most candid explanation
of the motives and the expectations of the South. The old
Government, he said, was founded upon sand. It was founded
upon the assumption of the equality of races. Its authors
entertained the mistaken belief that African slavery was wrong
in principle. “Our new Government,” said the Vice-President,
“is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations
are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the
negro is not equal to the white man—that slavery is his natural
and normal condition.” Why the Creator had made him so
could not be told. “It is not for us to inquire into the wisdom
of His ordinances, or to question them.” With this very clear
statement by the Vice-President, we are freed from uncertainty
as to the designs of the Southern leaders, and filled with thankfulness
for the ruin which fell upon their wicked enterprise.
It is a very curious but perfectly authenticated fact, that notwithstanding
the pains taken by Southern leaders to show that
they seceded merely to preserve and maintain slavery, there were
many intelligent men in England who steadfastly maintained
that slavery had little or nothing to do with the origin of the
Great War.
When his Inaugural Address was delivered, Mr.
Lincoln was escorted by his predecessor in office
back to the White House, where they parted—Buchanan
to retire, not with honour, into a kindly
oblivion; Lincoln to begin that great work which had devolved
upon him. During all that month of March and on to the
middle of April the world heard very little of the new President.
He was seldom seen in Washington. It was rumoured
that intense meditation upon the great problem had made him
ill. It was asserted that he endured the pains of indecision.
In the Senate attempts were made to draw forth from him a
confession of his purposes—if indeed he had any purposes.
But the grim silence was unbroken. The South persuaded
herself that he was afraid—that the peace-loving, money-making
North had no heart for fight. She was even able to believe,
in her vain pride, that most of the Northern States would
ultimately adopt her doctrines and join themselves to her
Government. Even in the North there was a party which
wished union with the seceding States, on their own principles.
There was a general indisposition to believe in war. The
South had so often threatened, and been so often soothed by
fresh concessions, it was difficult to believe now that she meant
anything more than to establish a position for advantageous
negotiation. All over the world men waited in anxious
suspense for the revelation of President Lincoln’s policy.
Mercantile enterprise languished. Till the occupant of the
White House chose to open his lips and say whether it was
peace or war, the business of the world must be content to
stand still.
Mr. Lincoln’s silence was not the result of irresolution. He
had doubt as to what the South would do; he had no doubt as
to what he himself would do. He would maintain the Union;—by
friendly arrangement and concession, if that were possible;
if not, by war fought out to the bitter end.
He nominated the members of his Cabinet—most prominent
among whom was William H. Seward, his Secretary of State.
Mr. Seward had been during all his public life a determined
enemy to slavery. He was in full sympathy with the President
as to the course which had to be pursued. His acute
and vigorous intellect and great experience in public affairs
fitted him for the high duties which he was called to discharge.
So soon as Mr. Lincoln entered upon his office the Southern
Government sent ambassadors to him as to a foreign power.
These gentlemen formally intimated that the six States had
withdrawn from the Union, and now formed an independent
nation. They desired to solve peaceably all the questions growing
out of this separation, and they desired an interview with
the President, that they might enter upon the business to which
they had been appointed.
Mr. Seward replied to the communication of the Southern
envoys. His letter was framed with much care, as its high
importance demanded. It was calm and gentle in its tone, but
most clear and decisive. He could not recognize the events
which had recently occurred as a rightful and accomplished
revolution, but rather as a series of unjustifiable aggressions.
He could not recognize the new Government as a government
at all. He could not recognize or hold official intercourse with
its agents. The President could not receive them or admit
them to any communication. Within the unimpassioned words
of Mr. Seward there breathed the fixed, unalterable purpose of
the Northern people, against which, as many persons even then
felt, the impetuous South might indeed dash herself to pieces,
but could by no possibility prevail. The baffled ambassadors
went home, and the angry South quickened her preparations
for war.
Within the bay of Charleston, and intended for the defence
of that important city, stood Fort Sumpter, a work of considerable
strength, and capable, if adequately garrisoned, of a prolonged
defence. It was not so garrisoned, however, when the
troubles began. It was held by Major Anderson with a force
of seventy men, imperfectly provisioned. The Confederates
wished to possess themselves of Fort Sumpter, and hoped at
one time to effect their object peaceably. When that hope
failed them, they cut off Major Anderson’s supply of provisions,
and quietly began to encircle him with batteries. For some
time they waited till hunger should compel the surrender of
the fort. But word was brought to them that President
Lincoln was sending ships with provisions. April 11, 1861 A.D. Fort Sumpter was
promptly summoned to surrender. Major Anderson
offered to go in three days, if not relieved. In reply
he received intimation that in one hour the bombardment
would open.
About daybreak on the 12th the stillness of Charleston bay
was disturbed by the firing of a large mortar and the shriek of
a shell as it rushed through the air. The shell burst over Fort
Sumpter, and the war of the Great Rebellion was begun. The
other batteries by which the doomed fortress was surrounded
quickly followed, and in a few minutes fifty guns of the largest
size flung shot and shell into the works. The guns were admirably
served, and every shot told. The garrison had neither
provisions nor an adequate supply of ammunition. They were
seventy, and their assailants were seven thousand. All they
could do was to offer such resistance as honour demanded.
Hope of success there was none.
The garrison did not reply at first to the hostile fire. They
quietly breakfasted in the security of the bomb-proof casemates.
Having finished their repast, they opened a comparatively
feeble and ineffective fire. All that day and next the Confederate
batteries rained shell and red-hot shot into the fort.
The wooden barracks caught fire, and the men were nearly
suffocated by the smoke. Barrels of gunpowder had to be
rolled through the flames into the sea. The last cartridge had
been loaded into the guns; the last biscuit had been eaten;
huge clefts yawned in the crumbling walls. Enough had been
done for honour; to prolong the resistance was uselessly to
endanger the lives of brave men. Major Anderson surrendered
the ruined fortress, and the garrison marched out with the
honours of war. Curiously enough, although heavy firing had
continued during thirty-four hours, no man on either side was
injured!
It was a natural mistake that South Carolina should deem
the capture of Fort Sumpter a glorious victory. The bells of
Charleston chimed triumphantly all the day; guns were fired;
the citizens were in the streets expressing with many oaths the
rapture which this great success inspired, and their confident
hope of triumphs equally decisive in time to come; ministers
gave thanks; ladies waved handkerchiefs; male patriots quaffed
potent draughts to the welfare of the Confederacy. On that
bright April Sunday all was enthusiasm and boundless excitement
in the city of Charleston. Alas for the vanity of human
hopes! There were days near at hand, and many of them too,
when these rejoicing citizens should sit in hunger and sorrow
and despair among the ruins of their city and the utter wreck
of their fortunes and their trade.
By many of the Southern people war was eagerly desired.
The Confederacy was already established for some months, and
yet it included only six States. There were eight other Slave
States, whose sympathies it was believed were with the seceders.
These had been expected to join, but there proved to exist
within them a loyalty to the Union sufficiently strong to delay
their secession. Amid the excitements which war would
enkindle, this loyalty, it was hoped, would disappear, and the
hesitating States would be constrained to join their fortunes to
those of their more resolute sisters. The fall of Fort Sumpter
was more than a military triumph. It would more than double
the strength of the Confederacy, and raise it at once to the
rank of a great power. Everywhere in the South, therefore,
there was a wild, exulting joy. And not without reason; for
Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Texas now
joined their sisters in secession.
In the North, the hope had been tenaciously clung to that
the peace of the country was not to be disturbed. This dream
was rudely broken by the siege of Fort Sumpter. The North
awakened suddenly to the awful certainty that civil war was
begun. There was a deep feeling of indignation at the traitors
who were willing to ruin their country that slavery might be
secure. There was a full appreciation of the danger, and an
instant universal determination that, at whatever cost, the
national life must be preserved. Personal sacrifice was unconsidered;
individual interests were merged in the general
good. Political difference, ordinarily so bitter, was for the
time almost effaced. Nothing was of interest but the question
how this audacious rebellion was to be suppressed and the
American nation upheld in the great place which it claimed
among men.
Two days after the fall of Fort Sumpter, Mr. Lincoln
intimated, by proclamation, the dishonour done to the laws
of the United States, and called out the militia to the extent
of seventy-five thousand men. The Free States responded
enthusiastically to the call. So prompt was their action,
that on the very next day several companies arrived in Washington.
Flushed by their easily-won victory, the Southerners
talked boastfully of seizing the capital. In a very short space
there were fifty thousand loyal men ready to prevent that, and
the safety of Washington was secured.
The North pushed forward with boundless energy her warlike
preparations. Rich men offered money with so much
liberality that in a few days nearly five million sterling had
been contributed. The school-teachers of Boston dedicated
fixed proportions of their incomes to the support of the Government,
while the war should last. All over the country the
excited people gathered themselves into crowded meetings, and
breathed forth in fervid resolutions their determination to
spend fortune and life in defence of the Union. Volunteer
companies were rapidly formed. In the cities ladies began to
organize themselves for the relief of sick and wounded soldiers.
It had been fabled that the North would not fight. With a
fiery promptitude unknown before in modern history the people
sprang to arms.
Even yet there was on both sides a belief that the war would
be a short one. The South, despising an adversary unpractised
in war, and vainly trusting that the European powers would
interfere in order to secure their wonted supplies of cotton,
expected that a few victories more would bring peace. The
North still regarded secession as little more than a gigantic
riot, which she proposed to extinguish within ninety days.
The truth was strangely different from the prevailing belief
of the day. A high-spirited people, six million in number,
occupying a fertile territory nearly a million square miles in
extent, had risen against the Government. The task undertaken
by the North was to conquer this people, and by force
of arms to bring them and their territory back to the Union.
This was not likely to prove a work of easy accomplishment.
When the North addressed herself to her task, her
own capital was still threatened by the rebels.
Two or three miles down the Potomac, and full in
view of Washington, lies the old-fashioned decaying
Virginian town of Alexandria, where the unfortunate
Braddock had landed his troops a century before. The
Confederate flag floated over Alexandria. A rebel force was
marching on Harper’s Ferry, forty miles from Washington;
and as the Government works there could not be defended,
they were burned. Preparations were being made to seize
Arlington Heights, from which Washington could be easily
shelled. At Manassas Junction, thirty miles away, a rebel
army lay encamped. It seemed to many foreign observers that
the North might lay aside all thought of attack, and be well
pleased if she succeeded in the defence of what was still left
to her.
But the Northern people, never doubting either their right
or their strength, put their hand boldly to the work. The first
thing to be done was to shut the rebels in so that no help could
reach them from the world outside. They could grow food
enough; but they were a people who could make little. They
needed from Europe supplies of arms and ammunition, of clothing,
of medicine. They needed money, which they could only
get by sending away their cotton. To stop their intercourse
with Europe was to inflict a blow which would itself prove
almost fatal. Four days after the fall of Fort Sumpter, Mr.
Lincoln announced the blockade of all the rebel ports. It was
a little time after till he had ships enough to make the blockade
effective. But in a few weeks this was done, and every rebel
port was closed. The grasp thus established was never relaxed.
So long as the war lasted, the South obtained foreign supplies
only from vessels which carried on the desperate trade of
blockade-running.
Virginia completed her secession on the 23rd April. Next
morning Federal troops seized and fortified Alexandria and the
Arlington Heights. In the western portions of Virginia the
people were so little in favour of secession that they wished to
establish themselves as a separate State, loyal to the Union.
With no very serious trouble the rebel forces were driven out
of this region, and Western Virginia was restored to the Union.
Desperate attempts were made by the disloyal Governor of
Missouri to carry his State out of the Union, against the wish
of a majority of the people. It was found possible to defeat
the efforts of the secessionists and retain Missouri. Throughout
the war this State was grievously wasted by Southern raids, but
she held fast her loyalty.
Thus at the opening of the war substantial advantages had
been gained by the North. They were not, however, of a
sufficiently brilliant character fully to satisfy the expectations
of the excited people. A great battle must be won. Government,
unwisely yielding to the pressure, ordered their imperfectly
disciplined troops to advance and attack the rebels in
their position at Manassas Junction.
General Beauregard lay at Manassas with a rebel force variously
estimated at from thirty thousand to forty thousand men.
In front of his position ran the little stream of Bull Run, in
a narrow, wooded valley—the ground rising on both sides
into “bluffs,” crowned with frequent patches of dense wood.
General M’Dowell moved to attack him, with an army about
equal in strength. July 21, 1861 A.D. It was early Sunday morning when
the army set out from its quarters at Centreville. The
march was not over ten miles, but the day was hot,
and the men not yet inured to hardship. It was ten
o’clock when the battle fairly opened. From the heights on the
northern bank of the stream the Federal artillery played upon
the enemy. The Southern line stretched well nigh ten miles,
and M’Dowell hoped, by striking with an overwhelming force
at a point on the enemy’s right, to roll back his entire line in
confusion. Heavy masses of infantry forded the stream and
began the attack. The Southerners fought bravely and skilfully,
but at the point of attack they were inferior in number,
and they were driven back. The battle spread away far among
the woods, and soon every copse held its group of slain and
wounded men. By three o’clock the Federals reckoned the
battle as good as won, for the enemy, though still fighting, was
falling back. But at that hour railway trains ran close up to the
field of battle with fifteen thousand Southerners fresh and eager
for the fray. This new force was hurried into action. The
wearied Federals could not endure the vehemence of the attack;
they broke, and fled down the hill-side. With inexperienced
troops a measured and orderly retreat is impossible; defeat is
quickly followed by panic. The men who had fought so bravely
all the day now hurried in wild confusion from the field. The
road was choked with a tangled mass of baggage-waggons,
artillery, soldiers and civilians frenzied by fear, and cavalry
riding wildly through the quaking mob. But the Southerners
attempted no pursuit, and the panic passed away. Scarcely
an attempt, however, was made to stop the flight. Order was
not restored till the worn-out men made their way back to
Washington.
This was the first great battle of the war, and its results
were of prodigious importance. By the sanguine men of the
South it was hailed as decisive of their final success. President
Davis counted upon the immediate recognition of the Confederacy
by the Great Powers of Europe as now certain. The
newspapers accepted it as a settled truth that “one Southerner
was equal to five Yankees.” Intrigues began for the succession
to the presidential chair—six years hence. A controversy arose
among the States as to the location of the Capital. The success
of the Confederacy was regarded as a thing beyond doubt.
Enlistment languished; it was scarcely worth while to undergo
the inconvenience of fighting for a cause which was already
triumphant.
The defeat at Manassas taught the people of the North that
the task they had undertaken was a heavier task than they
supposed, but it did not shake their steady purpose to perform
it. On the day after the battle—while the routed army was
swarming into Washington—Congress voted five hundred
million dollars, and called for half a million of volunteers. A
few days later, Congress unanimously resolved that the suppression
of the rebellion was a sacred duty, from the performance
of which no disaster should discourage; to which they
pledged the employment of every resource, national and individual.
“Having chosen our course,” said Mr. Lincoln,
“without guile, and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust
in God, and go forward without fear and with manly hearts.”
The spirit of the North rose as the greatness of the enterprise
became apparent. No thought was there of any other issue
from the national agony than the overthrow of the national foe.
The youth of the country crowded into the ranks. The patriotic
impulse possessed rich and poor alike, and the sons of
wealthy men shouldered a musket side by side with the penniless
children of toil. Once, by some accident, the money which
should have paid a New England regiment failed to arrive in
time. A private in the regiment gave his cheque for a hundred
thousand dollars, and the men were paid. The Christian
churches yielded an earnest support to the war. In some
western churches the men enlisted almost without exception.
Occasionally their ministers accompanied them. Sabbath-school
teachers and members of young men’s Christian associations
were remarkable for the eagerness with which they obeyed the
call of their country. It was no longer a short war and an
easy victory which the North anticipated. The gigantic character
of the struggle was at length recognized; and the North,
chastened, but undismayed, made preparations for a contest on
the issue of which her existence depended.
General M’Dowell had led the Northern army
to a defeat which naturally shook public confidence
in his ability to command. A new general was
indispensable. When the war broke out, a young
man—George B. M’Clellan by name—was resident in Cincinnati,
peacefully occupied with the management of a railroad.
He was trained at West Point, and had a high reputation for
soldiership. Several years before, Mr. Cobden was told by
Jefferson Davis that M’Clellan was one of the best generals the
country possessed. He was skilful to construct and organize,
but his power to direct successfully the movements of great
armies engaged in actual warfare was still unproved.
General M’Clellan was appointed to the command of the
army a few days after the defeat at Bull Run, and sanguine
hopes were entertained that he was about to give the people
victory over their enemies. He addressed himself at once to
his task. From every State in the North men hastened to his
standard. He disciplined them and perfected their equipment
for the field. In October he was at the head of two hundred
thousand men—the largest army ever yet seen on the American
continent.
The rebel Government, which at first chose for its home the
city of Montgomery in Alabama, moved to Richmond so soon
as Virginia gave in her reluctant adherence to the secession
cause. Richmond, the gay capital of the Old Dominion, sits
queen-like upon a lofty plateau, with deep valleys flanking her
on east and west, and the James river rushing past far below
upon the south—not many miles from the point where the
“dissolute” fathers of the colony had established themselves
two centuries and a half ago. To Washington the distance is
only one hundred and thirty miles. The warring Governments
were within a few hours’ journey of each other.
The supreme command of the rebel forces was committed to
General Robert E. Lee—one of the greatest of modern soldiers.
He was a calm, thoughtful, unpretending man, whose goodness
gained for him universal love. He was opposed to secession,
but believing, like the rest, that he owed allegiance wholly to
his own State, he seceded with Virginia. It was his difficult
task to contend nearly always with forces stronger than his
own, and to eke out by his own skill and genius the scanty
resources of the Confederacy. His consummate ability maintained
the war long after all hope of success was gone; and
when at length he laid down his arms, even the country against
which he had fought was proud of her erring but noble son.
Thomas Jackson—better known as “Stonewall Jackson”—was
the most famous of Lee’s generals. In him we have a
strange evidence of the influence which slavery exerts upon the
best of men. He was of truly heroic mould—brave, generous,
devout. His military perception was unerring; his decision
swift as lightning. He rose early in the morning to read the
Scriptures and pray. He gave a tenth part of his income for
religious uses; he taught a Sunday class of negro children; he
delivered lectures on the authenticity of Scripture; when he
dropped a letter into the post-office, he prayed for a blessing on
the person to whom it was addressed. As his soldiers marched
past his erect, unmoving figure, to meet the enemy, they saw
his lips move, and knew that their leader was praying for them
to Him who “covereth the head in the day of battle.” And
yet this good man caused his negroes—male and female—to be
flogged when he judged that severity needful. And yet he
recommended that the South should “take no prisoners”—in
other words, that enemies who had ceased to resist should be
massacred. To the end of his life he remained of opinion that
the rejection of this policy was a mistake. So fatally do
the noblest minds become tainted by the associations of slave
society.
During the autumn and early winter of 1861 the weather
was unusually fine, and the roads were consequently in excellent
condition for the march of an army. The rebel forces
were scattered about Virginia—some of them within sight of
Washington. Around Richmond it was understood there were
few troops. It seemed easy for M’Clellan, with his magnificent
army, to trample down any slight resistance which could be
offered, and march into the rebel capital. For many weeks
the people and the Government waited patiently. They had
been too hasty before; they would not again urge their general
prematurely into battle. But the months of autumn passed,
and no blow was struck. Winter was upon them, and still
“all was quiet on the Potomac.” M’Clellan, in a series of
brilliant reviews, presented his splendid army to the admiration
of his countrymen; but he was not yet ready to fight. The
country bore the delay for six months. Then it could be
endured no longer, and in January Mr. Lincoln issued a
peremptory order that a movement against the enemy should
be made. M’Clellan now formed a plan of operations, and by
the end of March was ready to begin his work.
South-eastward from Richmond the James and the York
rivers fall into Chesapeake bay at a distance from each other of
some twenty miles. The course of the rivers is nearly parallel,
and the region between them is known as the Peninsula.
M’Clellan conveyed his army down the Potomac, landed at
Fortress Monroe, and prepared to march upon Richmond by
way of the Peninsula.
Before him lay the little town of Yorktown—where, eighty
years before, the War of Independence was closed by the
surrender of the English army. Yorktown was held by eleven
thousand rebels. M’Clellan had over one hundred thousand
well-disciplined men eager for battle. But he deemed it injudicious
to assault the place, and preferred to operate in the
way of a formal siege. The rebels waited till he was ready to
open his batteries—and then quietly marched away.
M’Clellan moved slowly up the Peninsula. In six weeks he
was within a few miles of Richmond, and in front of the forces
which the rebels had been actively collecting for the defence of
their capital. These forces were now so strong that M’Clellan
deemed himself outnumbered, and sought the protection of his
gunboats on the James river. The emboldened rebels dashed
at his retreating ranks. His march to the James river occupied
seven days, and on every day there was a battle. Nearly
always the Federals had the advantage in the fight. Always
after the fight they resumed their retreat. Once they drove
back the enemy, inflicting upon him a crushing defeat. Their
hopes rose with success, and they demanded to be led back
to Richmond. M’Clellan shunned the great enterprise which
opened before him, and never rested from his march till he lay
in safety, sheltered by the gunboats on the James river. He
had lost fifteen thousand men; but the rebels had suffered even
more. It was said that the retreat was skilfully conducted,
but the American people were in no humour to appreciate the
merits of a chief who was great only in flight. Their disappointment
was intense. The Southern leaders devoutly
announced “undying gratitude to God” for their great success,
and looked forward with increasing confidence to their final
triumph over an enemy whose assaults it seemed so easy to
repulse.
Nor was this the only success which crowned the rebel arms.
The most remarkable battle of the war was fought while
M’Clellan was preparing for his advance; and it ended in a
rebel victory.
At the very beginning of the war the Confederates bethought
them of an iron-clad ship of war. They took hold of
an old frigate which the Federals had sunk in the James river.
They sheathed her in iron plates; they roofed her with iron
rails. At her prow, beneath the water-line, they fitted an iron-clad
projection, which might be driven into the side of an
adversary. They armed her with ten guns of large size.
The mechanical resources of the Confederacy were defective,
and this novel structure was eight months in preparation. 1862 A.D. One morning in March she steamed slowly down the
James river, attended by five small vessels of the
ordinary sort. A powerful Northern fleet lay guarding
the mouth of the river. The Virginia—as the iron-clad had
been named—came straight towards the hostile ships. She
fired no shot; no man showed himself upon her deck. The
Federals assailed her with well-aimed discharges; but the shot
bounded harmless from her sides. She steered for the Cumberland,
into whose timbers she struck her armed prow. A huge
cleft opened in the Cumberland’s side, and the gallant ship
went down with a hundred men of her crew on board. The
Virginia next attacked the Federal ship Congress. At a
distance of two hundred yards she opened her guns upon this
ill-fated vessel. The Congress was aground, and could offer no
effective resistance. After sustaining heavy loss, she was
forced to surrender. Night approached, and the Virginia drew
off, intending to resume her work on the morrow.
Early next morning—a bright Sunday morning—she steamed
out, and made for the Minnesota—a Federal ship which had
been grounded to get beyond her reach. The Minnesota was
still aground, and helpless. Beside her, however, as the men
on board the Virginia observed, lay a mysterious structure,
resembling nothing they had ever seen before. Her deck was
scarcely visible above the water, and it supported nothing but
an iron turret nine feet high. This was the Monitor, designed
by Captain Ericsson;—the first of the class of iron-clad turret-ships.
By a singular chance she had arrived thus opportunely.
The two iron-clads measured their strength in combat, but their
shot produced no impression, and after two hours of heavy but
ineffective firing, they separated, and the Virginia retired up
the James river.
This fight opened a new era in naval warfare. The Washington
Government hastened to build turret-ships. All European
Governments, perceiving the worthlessness of ships of the old
type, proceeded to reconstruct their navies according to the light
which the action of the Virginia and the Monitor afforded them.
The efforts of the North to crush the rebel forces in Virginia
had signally failed. But military operations were not confined
to Virginia: in this war the battle-field was the continent.
Many hundreds of miles from the scene of M’Clellan’s unsuccessful
efforts, the banner of the Union was advancing into
the revolted territory. The North sought to occupy the Border
States, and to repossess the line of the Mississippi, thus severing
Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas from the other members
of the secession enterprise, and perfecting the blockade which
was now effectively maintained on the Atlantic coast. There
were troops enough for these vast operations. By the 1st of
December 1861, six hundred and forty thousand men had enrolled
themselves for the war. The North, thoroughly aroused
now, had armed and drilled these enormous hosts. Her foundries
worked night and day, moulding cannon and mortars.
Her own resources could not produce with sufficient rapidity
the gunboats which she needed to assert her supremacy on
the western waters, but she obtained help from the building-yards
of Europe. All that wealth and energy could do was
done. While the Confederates were supinely trusting to the
difficulties of the country and the personal prowess of their
soldiers, the North massed forces which nothing on the
continent could long resist. In the south and west results
were achieved not unworthy of these vast preparations.
1861 A.D. During the autumn a strong fleet was sent southward to the
Carolina coast. Overcoming with ease the slight resistance
which the rebel forts were able to offer, the expedition
possessed itself of Port Royal, and thus commanded
a large tract of rebel territory. It was a cotton-growing
district, worked wholly by slaves. The owners fled,
but the slaves remained. The first experiment was made here
to prove whether the negro would labour when the lash did
not compel, and the results were most encouraging. The
negroes worked cheerfully and patiently, and many of them
became rich from the easy gains of labour on that rich soil.
In the west the war was pushed vigorously and with success.
To General Grant—a strong, tenacious, silent man, destined
ere long to be Commander-in-Chief and President—was assigned
the work of driving the rebels out of Kentucky and Tennessee.
His gunboats ran up the great rivers of these States and took
effective part in the battles which were fought. The rebels
were forced southward, till in the spring of 1862 the frontier
line of rebel territory no longer enclosed Kentucky. Even
Tennessee was held with a loosened and uncertain grasp.
March 1862 A.D. In Arkansas, beyond the Mississippi, was fought the
Battle of Pea Ridge, which stretched over three days,
and in which the rebels received a sharp defeat. Henceforth
the rebels had no footing in Missouri or in Arkansas.
New Orleans fell in April. Admiral Farragut with a powerful
fleet forced his way past the forts and gunboats which composed
the insufficient defence of the city. There was no army
to resist him. He landed a small party of marines, who
pulled down the Secession flag and restored that of the Union.
The people looked on silently, while the city passed thus easily
away for ever from Confederate rule.
There was gloom in the rebel capital as the tidings of these
disasters came in. But the spirit of the people was unbroken,
and the Government was encouraged to adopt measures equal
to the emergency. A law was enacted which placed at the
disposal of the Government every man between eighteen and
thirty-five years of age. Enlistment for short terms was discontinued.
Henceforth the business of Southern men must be
war, and every man must hold himself at his country’s call.
This law yielded for a time an adequate supply of soldiers, and
ushered in those splendid successes which cherished the delusive
hope that the Slave-power was to establish itself as one of the
Great Powers of the world.
The slave question, out of which the rebellion sprang,
presented for some time grave difficulties to the
Northern Government. As the Northern armies
forced their way southwards, escaped slaves flocked
to them. These slaves were loyal subjects; their owners were
rebels in arms against the Government. Could the Government
recognize the right of the rebel to own the loyal man?
Again: the labour of the slaves contributed to the support of
the rebellion. Was it not a clear necessity of war that Government
should deprive the rebellion of this support by freeing all
the slaves whom its authority could reach? But, on the other
hand, some of the Slave States remained loyal. Over their
slaves Government had no power, and much care was needed
that no measure should be adopted of which they could justly
complain.
The President had been all his life a steady foe to slavery,
but he never forgot that, whatever his own feelings might be,
he was strictly bound by law. His duty as President was, not
to destroy slavery, but to save the Union. When the time
came to overthrow this accursed system, he would do it with
gladdened heart. Meanwhile he said, “If I could save the
Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could
save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could
save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would do it.”
From the very beginning of the war escaped slaves crowded
within the Federal lines. They were willing to perform any
labour, or to fight in a cause which they all knew to be their
own. But the North was not yet freed from her habitual tenderness
for Southern institutions. The negroes could not yet
be armed. Nay, it was permitted to the owners of escaped
slaves to enter the Northern lines and forcibly to carry
back their property. May 26, 1861 A.D. General M’Clellan pledged himself
not only to avoid interference with slaves, but to
crush with an iron hand any attempt at insurrection on
their part. Aug. 31. General Fremont, commanding in Missouri,
issued an order which gave liberty to the slaves of
persons who were fighting against the Union. The President,
not yet deeming that measure indispensable, disallowed it. A
little later it was proposed to arm the blacks, but to that also
the President objected. He would do nothing prematurely
which might offend the loyal Slave States, and so hinder the
restoration of the Union.
But in War opinion ripens fast. Men quickly learned,
under that stern teacher, to reason that, as slavery had caused
the rebellion, slavery should be extinguished. Congress met
in December, with ideas which pointed decisively towards
Abolition. Measures were passed which marked a great era in
the history of slavery. The slaves of men who were in arms
against the Government were declared to be free. Coloured
men might be armed and employed as soldiers. Slavery was
abolished within the District of Columbia. Slavery was prohibited
for ever within all the Territories. Every slave escaping
to the Union armies was to be free. Wherever the
authority of Congress could reach, slavery was now at an end.
But something yet remained. Public sentiment in the North
grew strong in favour of immediate and unconditional emancipation
of all slaves within the revolted States. This view was
pressed upon Lincoln. He hesitated long; not from reluctance,
but because he wished the public mind to be thoroughly made
up before he took this decisive step. At length his course was
resolved upon. July, 1862 A.D. He drew up a Proclamation, which
gave freedom to all the slaves in the rebel States. He
called a meeting of his Cabinet, which cordially sanctioned
the measure. After New Year’s Day of 1863
all persons held to slavery within the seceded territory were
declared to be free. “And upon this act”—thus was the Proclamation
closed—“sincerely believed to be an act of justice,
warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke
the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious
favour of Almighty God.”
This—one of the most memorable of all State papers—gave
freedom to over three million slaves. It did not touch
slavery in the loyal States; for there the President had no
authority to interfere. But all men knew that it involved the
abolition of slavery in the loyal as well as in the rebellious
States. Henceforth slavery became impossible on any portion
of American territory.
The deep significance of this great measure was most fully
recognized by the Northern people. The churches gave thanks
to God for this fulfilment of their long-cherished desire. Congress
expressed its cordial approval. Innumerable public meetings
resolved that the President’s action deserved the support
of the country. Bells pealed joyfully in the great cities and
quiet villages of the east, and in the infant settlements of the
distant west. Charles Sumner begged from the President the
pen with which the Proclamation had been signed. The
original draft of the document was afterwards sold for a large
sum, at a fair held in Chicago for the benefit of the soldiers.
The South, too, understood this transaction perfectly. It
was the triumphant and final expression of that Northern
abhorrence to slavery which had provoked the slave-owners to
rebel. It made reconciliation impossible. President Davis
said to his Congress that it would calm the fears of those who
apprehended a restoration of the old Union.
It is a painful reflection that the English Government
utterly misunderstood this measure. Its official utterance on
the subject was a sneer. Earl Russell, the Foreign Secretary
of that day, wrote to our ambassador at Washington that the
Proclamation was “a measure of a very questionable kind.”
“It professes,” he continued, “to emancipate slaves where the
United States cannot make emancipation a reality, but emancipates
no one where the decree can be carried into effect.”
Thus imperfectly had Earl Russell yet been able to comprehend
this memorable page of modern history.
M’Clellan’s ignominious failure disappointed but
did not dishearten the Northern people. While
M’Clellan was hasting away from Richmond, the
Governors of seventeen States assured the President
of the readiness of their people to furnish troops. The
President issued a call for an additional three hundred thousand
men; and his call was promptly obeyed.
M’Clellan lay for two months, secure but inglorious, beside
his gunboats on the James river. General Lee, rightly deeming
that there was little to fear from an army so feebly led,
ranged northwards with a strong force and threatened Washington.
The Federal troops around the capital were greatly
inferior in number. President Lincoln summoned M’Clellan
northwards. M’Clellan was, as usual, unready; and a small
Federal army under General Pope was left to cope unaided
with the enemy. Pope received a severe defeat at Manassas,
and retired to the fortifications of Washington.
Sept. 17, 1862 A.D. General Lee was strong enough now to carry the war into
Northern territory. He captured Harper’s Ferry, and passed
into Maryland. M’Clellan was at length stimulated to
action, and having carried his troops northwards, he
attacked Lee at Antietam. The Northern army far
outnumbered the enemy. The battle was long and
bloody. When darkness sank down upon the wearied combatants
no decisive advantage had been gained. M’Clellan’s
generals urged a renewal of the attack next morning. But
this was not done, and General Lee crossed the Potomac and
retired unmolested into Virginia. M’Clellan resumed his customary
inactivity. The President ordered him to pursue the
enemy and give battle. He even wished him to move on
Richmond, which he was able to reach before Lee could
possibly be there. In vain. M’Clellan could not move. His
horses had sore tongues and sore backs; they were lame; they
were broken down by fatigue. Lincoln had already
been unduly patient. But the country would endure
no more. Nov. 5, 1862 A.D. General M’Clellan was removed from command
of that army whose power he had so long been
able to neutralize; and his place was taken by General
Burnside.
Burnside at once moved his army southwards, for it was not
yet too late for a Virginian campaign. He reached the banks
of the Rappahannock, beside the little town of Fredericksburg.
He had to wait there for many weary days till he obtained
means to cross the river. While he lay, impatient, General
Lee concentrated all the forces under his command upon the
heights which rose steeply from the opposite bank of the
stream. He threw up earthworks and strongly intrenched his
position. There he waited in calmness for the assault which
he knew he could repel.
When Burnside was able to cross the Rappahannock, he lost
no time in making his attack. One portion of his force would
strike the enemy on his right flank; the rest would push
straight up the heights and assault him in front. A slight
success in the flanking movement cheered General Burnside.
But in the centre his troops advanced to the attack under a
heavy fire of artillery which laid many brave men low. The
Northern soldiers fought their way with steady courage up the
height. They were superior in numbers, but the rebels fought
in safety within a position which was impregnable. The battle
was no fair trial of skill and courage, but a useless waste of
brave lives. Burnside drew off his troops and re-crossed the
Rappahannock, with a loss of twelve thousand men—vainly
sacrificed in the attempt to perform an impossibility.
In the west there had been no great success to counter-balance
the long train of Confederate victories in the east.
The year closed darkly upon the hopes of those who strove to
preserve the Union. The South counted with certainty that
her independence was secure. The prevailing opinion of Europe
regarded the enterprise which the North pursued so resolutely,
as a wild impossibility. But the Northern people and Government
never despaired of the Commonwealth. At the gloomiest
period of the contest a Bill was passed for the construction of a
railroad to the Pacific. The Homestead Act offered a welcome
to immigrants in the form of a free grant of one hundred and
sixty acres of land to each. And the Government, as with a
quiet and unburdened mind, began to enlarge and adorn its
Capitol on a scale worthy of the expected greatness of the
reunited country.
Hitherto the men who had fought for the North
had been volunteers. They had come when
the President called, willing to lay down
their lives for their country. Already
volunteers had been enrolled to the number of one million and
a quarter. But that number had been sadly reduced by
wounds, sickness, and captivity, and the Northern armies had
not proved themselves strong enough to crush the rebellion. 1863 A.D.
A Bill was now passed which subjected the entire male population,
between eighteen and forty-five, to military duty when
their service was required. Any man of suitable age could
now be forced into the ranks.
The blockade of the Southern ports had effected for many
months an almost complete isolation of the Confederates from
the world outside. Now and then a ship, laden with arms and
clothing and medicine, ran past the blockading squadron, and
discharged her precious wares in a Southern port. Now and
then a ship laden with cotton stole out and got safely to sea.
But this perilous and scanty commerce afforded no appreciable
relief to the want which had already begun to brood over this
doomed people. The Government could find soldiers enough;
but it could not find for them arms and clothing. The railroads
could not be kept in working condition in the absence of
foreign iron. Worst of all, a scarcity of food began to threaten.
April 10, 1863 A.D. Jefferson Davis begged his people to lay aside all thought of
gain, and devote themselves to the raising of supplies for the
army. Even now the army was frequently on half
supply of bread. The South could look back with just
pride upon a long train of brilliant victories, gained
with scanty means, by her own valour and genius.
But, even in this hour of triumph, it was evident that her
position was desperate.
The North had not yet completely established her supremacy
upon the Mississippi. Two rebel strongholds—Vicksburg and
Port Hudson—had successfully resisted Federal attack, and
maintained communication between the revolted provinces on
either side the great river. The reduction of these was indispensable.
General Grant was charged with the important enterprise,
and proceeded in February to begin his work.
Grant found himself with his army on the wrong side of the
city. He was up stream from Vicksburg, and he could not
hope to win the place by attacks on that side. Nor could he
easily convey his army and siege appliances through the swamps
and lakes which stretched away behind the city. It seemed
too hazardous to run his transports past the guns of Vicksburg.
He attempted to cut a new channel for the river, along which
he might convey his army safely. Weeks were spent in the
vain attempt, and the country, which had not yet learned to
trust in Grant, became impatient of the unproductive toil.
Grant, undismayed by the failure of his project, adopted a
new and more hopeful scheme. He conveyed his soldiers
across to the western bank of the Mississippi, and marched
them southward till they were below Vicksburg. There they
were ferried across the river; and then they stood within reach
of the weakest side of the city. The transports were ordered
to run the batteries of Vicksburg and take the chances of that
enterprise.
When Grant reached the position he sought, he had a difficult
task before him. One large army held Vicksburg; another
large army was gathering for the relief of the endangered
fortress. Soon Grant lay between two armies which, united,
greatly outnumbered his. But he had no intention that they
should unite. He attacked them in detail, and in every action
he was successful. The Confederates were driven back upon
the city, which was then closely invested.
For six weeks Grant pressed the siege with a fiery energy
which allowed no rest to the besieged. General Johnston was
not far off, mustering an army for the relief of Vicksburg, and
there was not an hour to lose. Grant kept a strict blockade
upon the scantily-provisioned city. From his gunboats and
from his own lines he maintained an almost ceaseless bombardment.
The inhabitants crept into caves in the hill to find
shelter from the intolerable fire. They slaughtered their mules
for food. They patiently endured the inevitable hardships of
their position; and their daily newspaper, printed on scraps of
such paper as men cover their walls with, continued to the end
to make light of their sufferings, and to breathe defiance against
General Grant. But all was vain. On the 4th of July—the
anniversary of Independence—Vicksburg was surrendered with
her garrison of twenty-three thousand men much enfeebled by
hunger and fatigue.
The fall of Vicksburg was the heaviest blow which the Confederacy
had yet sustained. Nearly one-half of the rebel territory
lay beyond the Mississippi. That river was now firmly
held by the Federals. The rebel States were cut in two, and
no help could pass from one section to the other. There was
deep joy in the Northern heart. The President thanked
General Grant for “the almost inestimable service” which he
had done to the country.
But long before Grant’s triumph at Vicksburg another
humiliation had fallen upon the Federal arms in Virginia.
Soon after the disaster at Fredericksburg, the modest Burnside
had asked to be relieved of his command. General Hooker
took his place. The new chief was familiarly known to his
countrymen as “fighting Joe Hooker,”—a title which sufficiently
indicated his dashing, reckless character. Hooker
entered on his command with high hopes. “By the blessing
of God,” he said to the army, “we will contribute something to
the renown of our arms and the success of our cause.”
After three months of preparation, General Hooker announced
that his army was irresistible. The Northern cry
was still, “On to Richmond;” the dearest wish of the
Northern people was to possess the rebel capital. Hooker
marched southward, nothing doubting that he was to fulfil the
long frustrated desire of his countrymen. His confidence
seemed not to be unwarranted; for he had under his command
a magnificent army, which greatly outnumbered that opposed
to him. But, unhappily for Hooker, the hostile forces were
led by General Lee and Stonewall Jackson.
On the 1st of May, Hooker was in presence of the enemy on
the line of the Rappahannock. Lee was too weak to give or
accept battle; but he was able to occupy Hooker with a series
of sham attacks. All the while Jackson was hasting to assail
his flank. His march was through the Wilderness—a wild
country thick with ill-grown oaks and a dense undergrowth—where
surprise was easy. Towards evening, on the 2nd,
Jackson’s soldiers burst upon the unexpectant Federals. The
fury of the attack bore all before it. The Federal line fell
back in confusion and with heavy loss.
In the twilight Jackson rode forward with his staff to
examine the enemy’s position. As he returned, a North
Carolina regiment, seeing a party of horsemen approach, presumed
it was a charge of Federal cavalry. They fired, and
Jackson fell from his horse, with two bullets in his left arm
and one through his right hand. They placed him on a litter
to carry him from the field. One of the bearers was shot down
by the enemy, and the wounded general fell heavily to the
ground. The sound of musketry wakened the Federal artillery,
and for some time Jackson lay helpless on ground swept by
the cannon of the enemy. When his men learned the situation
of their beloved commander, they rushed in and carried him
from the danger.
Jackson sunk under his wounds. He bore patiently his
great suffering. “If I live, it will be for the best,” he said;
“and if I die, it will be for the best. God knows and directs
all things for the best.” He died eight days after the battle,
to the deep sorrow of his countrymen. He was a great soldier;
and although he died fighting for an evil cause, he was a true-hearted
Christian man.
During two days after Jackson fell the battle continued at
Chancellorsville. Lee’s superior skill in command more than
compensated for his inferior numbers. He attacked Hooker,
and always at the point of conflict he was found to be stronger.
Hooker discovered that he must retreat, lest a worse thing
should befall him. After three days’ fighting he crossed the
river in a tempest of wind and rain, and along the muddy
Virginian roads carried his disheartened troops back to their
old positions. He had been baffled by a force certainly not
more than one-half his own. The splendid military genius
of Lee was perhaps never more conspicuous than in the defeat
of that great army which General Hooker himself regarded as
invincible.
The Confederate Government had always been eager
to carry the contest into Northern territory. It
was satisfying to the natural pride of the South,
and it was thought that some experience of the
evils of war might incline the Northern mind to peace. Lee
was ordered to march into Pennsylvania. He gathered all the
troops at his disposal, and with seventy-five thousand men he
crossed the Potomac, and was once more prepared to face the
enemy on his own soil. The rich cities of the North trembled.
It was not unlikely that he should possess himself of Baltimore
and Philadelphia. Could he once again defeat Hooker’s army,
as he had often done before, no further resistance was possible.
Pennsylvania and New York were at his mercy.
Lee advanced to the little Pennsylvanian town of Gettysburg.
Hooker, after marching his army northwards, had been relieved
of the command. A battle was near; and in face of the enemy
a new commander had to be chosen. Two days before the
hostile armies met, General Meade was appointed. Meade was
an experienced soldier, who had filled with honour the various
positions assigned to him; but it was seemingly a hopeless task
which he was now asked to perform. With an oft-defeated
army of sixty thousand to seventy thousand men, to whom he
was a stranger, he had to meet Lee with his victorious seventy-five
thousand. Meade quietly undertook the work appointed
to him, and did it, too, like a brave, prudent, unpretending
man.
July 1, 1863 A.D. The battle lasted for three days. On the first day the Confederates
had some advantage. Their attack broke and
scattered a Federal division with considerable loss. But
that night the careful Meade took up a strong position
on a crescent-shaped line of heights near the little town.
Here he would lie, and the Confederates might drive him from
it if they could.
July 2. Next day Lee attempted to dislodge the enemy. The key of
the Federal position was Cemetery Hill, and there the
utmost strength of the Confederate attack was put
forth. Nor was it in vain; for part of the Federal line was
broken, and at one point an important position had been taken
by the Confederates. Lee might fairly hope that another day’s
fighting would complete his success and give him undisputed
possession of the wealthiest Northern States. His loss had
been small, while the Federals had been seriously weakened.
Perhaps no hours of deeper gloom were ever passed in the
North than the hours of that summer evening when the telegraph
flashed over the country the news of Lee’s success. The
lavish sacrifice of blood and treasure seemed in vain. A million
of men were in arms to defend the Union, and yet the northward
progress of the rebels could not be withstood. Should
Lee be victorious on the morrow, the most hopeful must despond.
July 3. The day on which so much of the destiny of America hung
opened bright and warm and still. The morning was
occupied by Lee in preparations for a crushing attack
upon the centre of the Federal position; by Meade, in carefully
strengthening his power of resistance at the point where he was
to win or to lose this decisive battle. About noon all was completed.
Over both armies there fell a marvellous stillness—the
silence of anxious and awful expectation. It was broken by a
solitary cannon-shot, and the shriek of a Whitworth shell as it
rushed through the air. That was the signal at which one hundred
and fifty Confederate guns opened their fire. The Federal
artillery replied, and for three hours a prodigious hail of shells
fell upon either army. No decisive supremacy was, however,
established by the guns on either side, although heavy loss was
sustained by both. While the cannonade still continued, Lee
sent forth the columns whose errand it was to break the Federal
centre. They marched down the low range of heights on which
they had stood, and across the little intervening valley. As
they moved up the opposite height the friendly shelter of Confederate
fire ceased. Terrific discharges of grape and shell
smote but did not shake their steady ranks. As the men fell,
their comrades stepped into their places, and the undismayed
lines moved swiftly on. Up to the low stone wall which
sheltered the Federals, up to the very muzzles of guns whose
rapid fire cut every instant deep lines in their ranks, the heroic
advance was continued.
General Lee from the opposite height watched, as Napoleon
did at Waterloo, the progress of his attack. Once the smoke of
battle was for a moment blown aside, and the Confederate flag
was seen to wave within the enemy’s position. Lee’s generals
congratulate him that the victory is gained. Again the cloud
gathers around the combatants. When it lifts next, the Confederates
are seen broken and fleeing down that fatal slope,
where a man can walk now without once putting his foot upon
the grass, so thick lie the bodies of the slain. The attack had
failed; the battle was lost; the Union was saved.
General Lee’s business was now to save his army. “This
has been a sad day for us,” he said to a friend, “a sad day;
but we can’t expect always to gain victories.” He rallied his
broken troops, expecting to be attacked by the victorious
Federals; but Meade did not follow up his success. Next day
Lee began his retreat. In perfect order he moved towards
the Potomac, and safely crossed the swollen river back into
Virginia.
The losses sustained in this battle were terrible. Forty-eight
thousand men lay dead or wounded on the field. Lee’s army
was weakened by over forty thousand men killed, wounded,
and prisoners. Meade lost twenty-three thousand. For miles
around, every barn, every cottage contained wounded men.
The streets of the little town were all dabbled with blood.
Men were for many days engaged in burying the dead, of whom
there were nearly eight thousand. The wounded of both armies,
who were able to be removed, were at once carried into hospitals
and tenderly cared for. There were many so mangled that
their removal was impossible. These were ministered to on the
field till death relieved them from their pain.
The tidings of the victory at Gettysburg came to the Northern
people on the 4th of July, side by side with the tidings of the
fall of Vicksburg. The proud old anniversary had perhaps
never before been celebrated by the American people with
hearts so thankful and so glad. Mr. Lincoln, who had become
grave and humble and reverential under the influence of those
awful circumstances amid which he lived, proclaimed a solemn
day of thanksgiving for the deliverance granted to the nation,
and of prayer that God would lead them all, “through the
paths of repentance and submission to the divine will, to unity
and fraternal peace.”
The deep enthusiasm which, in those anxious days, thrilled
the American heart, sought in song that fulness of expression
which speech could not afford. Foremost among the favourite
poetic utterances of the people was this:—
BATTLE-HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword;
His Truth is marching on.
I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I have read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps;
His Day is marching on.
I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel—
“As ye deal with My contemners, so with you My grace shall deal;”
Let the Hero born of woman crush the serpent with His heel,
Since God is marching on.
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat;
Oh! be swift, my soul, to answer Him; be jubilant, my feet,—
Our God is marching on.
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
These strangely musical verses were sung at all public meetings
in the North, the audience ordinarily starting to their feet
and joining in the strain, often interrupted by emotion too
deeply stirred to be concealed. President Lincoln has been
seen listening to the hymn with tears rolling down his face.
When the Battle of Gettysburg was fought there were many
hundreds of Northern officers captive in the Libby prison—a
huge, shapeless structure, once a tobacco factory, standing by
the wayside in a suburb of Richmond. A false report was
brought to them that the rebels had gained. There were many
sleepless eyes and sorrowing hearts that night among the
prisoners. But next morning an old negro brought them the
true account of the battle. The sudden joy was too deep for
words. By one universal impulse the gladdened captives burst
into song. Midst weeping and midst laughter the Battle-Hymn
of the Republic was caught up until five hundred voices were
joining in the strain. There as elsewhere it was felt with unutterable
joy and thankfulness that the country was saved.
The victory at Gettysburg lifted a great load from the hearts
of the Northern people. There was yet a work—vast and
grim—to be accomplished before a solid peace could be attained,
but there was now a sure hope of final success. It was remarked
by President Lincoln’s friends that his appearance underwent a
noticeable change after Gettysburg. His eye grew brighter;
his bowed-down form was once more erect. In the winter after
the battle part of the battle-ground was consecrated as a cemetery,
into which were gathered the remains of the brave men
who fell. Lincoln took part in the ceremony, and spoke these
memorable words: “It is for us the living to be dedicated here
to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus
far so nobly advanced. It is for us to be here dedicated to the
great task remaining before us; that from these honoured dead
we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave
the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve
that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation,
under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government
of the people—by the people and for the people—shall not
perish from the earth.”
Even before the disasters of Gettysburg and Vicksburg,
and while General Lee was still pursuing a
course of dazzling success, it had become evident to
many that the cause of the South was hopeless. A
strict blockade shut her out from the markets of Europe. Her
supplies of arms were running so low, that even if she could
have found men in sufficient numbers to resist the North, she
could not have equipped them. Food was becoming scarce.
Already the pangs of hunger had been experienced in Lee’s
army. Elsewhere there was much suffering, even among those
who had lately been rich. The soldiers were insufficiently provided
with clothing. As winter came on, they deserted and
went home in crowds so great that punishment was impossible.
The North had a million men in the field. She had nearly
six hundred ships of war, seventy-five of which were iron-clads.
She had boundless command of everything which could contribute
to the efficiency and comfort of her soldiers. The rolls of
the Southern armies showed only four hundred thousand men
under arms, and of these it was said that from desertion and
other causes seldom more than one-half were in the ranks.
Money was becoming very scarce. The Confederate Government
borrowed all the money it could at home, but the supply
received was wholly out of proportion to the expenditure. A
loan was attempted in England; and there proved to be there a
sufficient number of rich but unwise persons to furnish three
million sterling—most of which will remain for ever unpaid to
the lenders. No other measure remained but to print, as fast
as machinery could do it, Government promises to pay at some
future time, and to force these upon people to whom the Government
owed money. These promises gradually fell in value. In
1862, when the rebellion was young and hopes were high, one
dollar and twenty cents in Government money would purchase
a dollar in gold. In January 1863 it required three dollars to
do that. After Gettysburg it required twenty dollars. Somewhat
later it required sixty paper dollars to obtain the one
precious golden coin.
It became every day more apparent that the resources of the
South were being exhausted. Even if the genius of her generals
should continue to gain victories, the South must perish from
want of money and want of food. There was a touching weakness
in many of her business arrangements. Government appealed
to the people for gifts of jewellery and silver plate, and
published in the Richmond newspapers lists of the gold rings
and silver spoons and teapots which amiable enthusiasts bestowed
upon them! When iron-clad ships of war were needed
and iron was scarce, an association of ladies was formed to collect
old pots and pans for the purpose! The daring of these
people and the skill of their leaders might indeed gain them
victories; but it was a wild improbability that they should
come successfully out of a war in which the powerful and sagacious
North was resolute to win.
1864 A.D. The Northern Government, well advised of the failing resources
of the South, hoped that one campaign more
would close the war. Bitter experience had corrected
their early mistakes, and they had at length found a
general worthy of his high place. Grant was summoned eastward
to direct the last march on Richmond. The spirit of the
country was resolute as ever. The soldiers had now the skill of
veterans; enormous supplies were provided; everything that
boundless resources, wisely administered, could do, was now done
to bring the awful contest to a close.
When the campaign opened, Grant with one hundred and
twenty thousand men faced Lee, whose force was certainly less
by one-half. The little river Rapidan flowed between. The
Wilderness—a desolate region of stunted trees and dense undergrowth—stretched
for many miles around. At midnight on the
3rd of May, Grant began to cross the river, and before next
evening his army stood on the southern side. Lee at once
attacked him. During the next eight days there was continuous
fighting. The men toiled all day at the work of slaughter,
lay down to sleep at night, and rose to resume their bloody
labour in the morning, as men do in the ordinary peaceful business
of life. Lee directed his scanty force with wondrous skill.
It was his habit to throw up intrenchments, within which he
maintained himself against the Federal assault. Grant did not
allow himself to be hindered in his progress to Richmond.
When he failed to force the Confederate position he marched
southward round its flank, continually obliging Lee to move forward
and take up a new position. His losses were terrible.
From the 5th to the 12th of May he had lost thirty thousand
men in killed, wounded, and missing. The wounded were sent
to Washington, and trains of ambulances miles in length, laden
with suffering men, passed continually through the capital, filling
all hearts with sadness and gloomy apprehension. The cost was
awful, but General Grant knew that the end was being gained.
He knew that Lee was weakened irrecoverably by the slaughter
of these battles, and he wrote that he would “fight it out on
this line, if it should take all summer.”
Grant found that a direct attack on Richmond was as yet
hopeless, and he marched southwards past the rebel capital to
the little town of Petersburg, twenty-two miles off. His plan
was to wear down the rebel army by the continual attack of
superior forces, and also to cut the railways by which provisions
were brought into Richmond. By the middle of June he was
before Petersburg, which he hoped to possess before Lee had
time to fortify the place against him. It might have been taken
by a vigorous assault; but the attacking force was feebly led,
and the opportunity was missed.
And now there began the tedious bloody siege of Petersburg.
The armies had chosen their positions for the final
conflict. The result was not doubtful. General Lee was of
opinion, some time before, that the fortunes of the Confederacy
were desperate. The Northern Government and military
leaders knew that success was certain. Indeed General Grant
stated afterwards that he had been at the front from the very
beginning of the war, and that he had never entertained any
doubt whatever as to the final success of the North.
All around Petersburg, at such distance that the firing did
not very seriously affect the little city, stretched the earthworks
of the combatants. Before the end there were forty miles of
earthworks. The Confederates established a line of defence.
The Federals established a line of attack, and gradually, by
superior strength, drove their antagonists back. Lee retired to
a new series of defences, where the fight was continued. The
Federals had a railway running to City Point, eleven miles
away, where their ships brought for them the amplest supplies.
Lee depended upon the railways which communicated with distant
portions of Confederate territory. These it was the aim of
Grant to cut, so that his adversary might be driven by want of
food from his position. The outposts of the armies were within
talking distance of each other. The men lay in rifle-pits or
shallow ditches, watching opportunity to kill. Any foe who
incautiously came within range died by their unerring fire. For
ten long months the daily occupation of the combatants had
been to attack each the positions of the other. The Confederates,
by constant sallies, attempted to hinder the advance of
their powerful assailant. Grant never relaxed his hold. He
“had the rebellion by the throat,” and he steadily tightened his
grasp. By City Point he was in easy communication with the
boundless resources of the North. Men and stores were supplied
as he needed them by an enthusiastic country. On the
rebel side the last available man was now in the field. Half
the time the army wanted food. Desertions abounded. It was
not that the men shunned danger or hardship, but they knew
the cause was hopeless. Many of them knew also that their
families were starving. They went home to help those who
were dearer to them than that desperate enterprise whose ruin
was now so manifest. The genius of Lee was the sole remaining
buttress of the Confederate cause.
Once the Federals ran an enormous mine under a portion of
the enemy’s works. In this mine they piled up twelve thousand
pounds of gunpowder. They had a strong column ready to
march into the opening which the explosion would cleave.
Early one summer morning the mine was fired. A vast mass
of earth, mingled with bodies of men, was thrown high into air.
The Confederate defence at that point was effaced, and the
attacking force moved forward. But from some unexplained
reason they paused and sheltered themselves in the huge pit
formed by the explosion. The Confederates promptly brought
up artillery and rained shells into the pit, where soon fifteen
hundred men lay dead. The discomfited Federals retired to
their lines.
When Grant began his march to Richmond, he took care that
the enemy should be pressed in other quarters of his territory.
General Sherman marched from Tennessee down into Georgia.
Before him was a strong Confederate army, and a country
peculiarly favourable for an army contented to remain on the
defensive; but Sherman overcame every obstacle. He defeated
his enemy in many battles and bloody skirmishes. His object
was to reach Atlanta, the capital of Georgia. Atlanta was of
extreme value to the rebels. It commanded railroads which
conveyed supplies to their armies; it had great factories where
they manufactured cannon and locomotives; great foundries
where they laboured incessantly to produce shot and shell.
Sherman, by brilliant generalship and hard fighting, overcame
all resistance, and entered Atlanta, September 2. It was a
great prize, but it was not had cheaply. During those four
months he had lost thirty thousand men.
When Sherman had held Atlanta for a few weeks, he resolved
to march eastward through Georgia to the sea. He had a magnificent
army of sixty thousand men, for whom there was no
sufficient occupation where they lay. On the sea-coast there
were cities to be taken. And then his army could march northwards
to join Grant before Petersburg.
Nov. 15, 1864 A.D. When all was ready Sherman put the torch to the public
buildings of Atlanta, telegraphed northwards that all
was well, and cut the telegraph wires. Then he started
on his march of three hundred miles across a hostile
country. For a month nothing was heard of him.
When he re-appeared it was before Savannah, of which he
quickly possessed himself. His march through Georgia had
been unopposed. He severely wasted the country for thirty
miles on either side of the line from Atlanta to Savannah. He
carried off the supplies he needed; he destroyed what he could
not use; he tore up the railroads; he proclaimed liberty to the
slaves, many of whom accompanied him eastward. He proved
to all the world how hollow a thing was now the Confederacy,
and how rapidly its doom was approaching.
At the north, in the valley of the Shenandoah, a strong Confederate
army, under the habitually unsuccessful General Early,
confronted the Federals under Sheridan. Could Sheridan have
been driven away, the war might again have been carried into
Pennsylvania or Maryland, and the North humbled in her
career of victory. But Sheridan was still triumphant.
Oct. 19, 1864 A.D. At length General Early effected a surprise. He burst
upon the Federals while they looked not for him. His
sudden attack disordered the enemy, who began to retire.
Sheridan was not with his army; he had gone to Winchester,
twenty miles away. The morning breeze from the
south bore to his startled ear the sounds of battle. Sheridan
mounted his horse, and rode with the speed of a man who felt
that upon his presence hung the destiny of the fight. His army
was on the verge of defeat, and already stragglers were hurrying
from the field; but when Sheridan galloped among them, the
battle was restored. Under Sheridan the army was invincible.
The rebels were defeated with heavy loss, and were never again
able to renew the war in the valley of the Shenandoah.
The Slave question was not yet completely settled. The Proclamation
had made free the slaves of all who were rebels, and
nothing remained between them and liberty but those thin lines
of gray-coated hungry soldiers, upon whose arms the genius of
Lee bestowed an efficacy not naturally their own. But the Proclamation
had no power to free the slaves of loyal citizens. In
the States which had not revolted, slavery was the same as it
had ever been. The feeling deepened rapidly throughout the
North that this could not continue. Slavery had borne fruit in
the hugest rebellion known to history. It had proclaimed irreconcilable
hostility to the Government; it had brought mourning
and woe into every house. The Union could not continue
half-slave and half-free. The North wisely and nobly resolved
that slavery should cease.
Most of the loyal Slave States freed themselves by their own
choice of this evil institution. Louisiana, brought back to her
allegiance not without some measure of force, led the way.
Maryland followed, and Tennessee, and Missouri, and Arkansas.
In Missouri, whence the influence issued which murdered Lovejoy
because he was an abolitionist—which supplied the Border
ruffians in the early days of Kansas—the abolition of slavery
was welcomed with devout prayer and thanksgiving, with joyful
illuminations and speeches and patriotic songs.
One thing was yet wanting to the complete and final extinction
of slavery. The Constitution permitted the existence of
the accursed thing. If the Constitution were so amended as
to forbid slavery upon American soil, the cause of this huge
discord which now convulsed the land would be removed. A
Constitutional Amendment to that effect was submitted to the
people. In the early months of 1865, while General Lee—worthy
to fight in a better cause—was still bravely toiling to
avert the coming doom of the Slave Empire, the Northern
States joyfully adopted the Amendment. Slavery was now at
length extinct. This was what Providence had mercifully
brought out of a rebellion whose avowed object it was to
establish slavery more firmly and extend it more widely.
But freedom was not enough. Many of the black men had
faithfully served the Union. Nearly two hundred thousand of
them were in the ranks—fighting manfully in a cause which
was specially their own. There were many black men, as
Lincoln said, who “could remember that with silent tongue,
and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet,
they had helped mankind to save liberty in America.” But
the coloured people were child-like and helpless. They had to
be looked upon as “the wards of the nation.” 1864 A.D. A Freedmen’s
Bureau was established, to be the defence of the
defenceless blacks. General Howard—a man peculiarly
fitted to give wise effect to the kind purposes of the nation—became
the head of this department. It was his duty to provide
food and shelter for the slaves who were set free by military
operations in the revolted States. He settled them, as he
could, on confiscated lands. After a time he had to see to the
education of their children. In all needful ways he was to keep
the negroes from wrong till they were able to keep themselves.
Four years had now passed since Lincoln’s election furnished
the slave-owners with a pretext to rebel. Another election
had to be made, and Lincoln was again proposed as the Republican
candidate. The Democratic party nominated General
M’Clellan. The war, said the Democrats, is a failure; let us
have a cessation of hostilities, and endeavour to save the Union
by peaceful negotiation. Let us put down slavery and rebellion
by force, said the Republicans; there is no other way. These
were the simple issues on which the election turned. Mr. Lincoln
was re-elected by the largest majority ever known. “It is
not in my nature,” he said, “to triumph over any one; but I give
thanks to Almighty God for this evidence of the people’s resolution
to stand by free government and the rights of humanity.”
March 4, 1865 A.D. He was inaugurated according to the usual form. His
Address was brief, but high-toned and solemn, as beseemed
the circumstances. Perhaps no State paper ever
produced so deep an impression upon the American
people. It closed thus:—“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 bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of
unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood
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, ‘The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous
altogether.’ With malice towards none, with charity for
all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right,
let us finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds,
to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his
widow and his orphans—to do all which may achieve and cherish
a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
1864-5 A.D. During the winter months it became very plain that the
Confederacy was tottering to its fall. These were the bitterest
months through which Virginia had ever passed. The army
was habitually now on short supply. Occasionally,
for a day, there was almost a total absence of food.
One day in December Lee telegraphed to Richmond
that his army was without meat, and dependent on a little bread.
And yet the soldiers were greatly better off than the citizens.
Provisions were seized for the army wherever they could be found,
and the owners were mercilessly left to starve. The suffering
endured among the once cheerful homes of Virginia was terrible.
Every grown man was the property of the Government. It
was said the rich men escaped easily, but a poor man could not
pass along a street in Richmond without imminent risk of
being seized and sent down to the lines at Petersburg. At
railroad stations might be constantly seen groups of squalid
men on their way to camp—caught up from their homes and
hurried off to fight for a cause which they all knew to be desperate—in
the service of a Government which they no longer
trusted. It was, of course, the earliest care of these men to desert.
They went home, or they surrendered to the enemy. The spirit
which made the Confederacy formidable no longer survived.
General Lee had long before expressed his belief that without
the help of the slaves the war must end disastrously. But all
men knew that a slave who had been a soldier could be a slave
no longer. The owners were not prepared to free their slaves,
and they refused therefore to arm them. In November—with
utter ruin impending—a Bill was introduced into the Confederate
Congress for arming two hundred thousand negroes.
It was debated till the following March. Then a feeble compromise
was passed, merely giving the President power to
accept such slaves as were offered to him. So inflexibly resolute
were the leaders of the South in their hostility to emancipation.
It was wholly unimportant. At that time Government
could have armed only another five thousand men; and
could not feed the men it had.
The finances of the Confederacy were an utter wreck. Government
itself sold specie at the rate of one gold dollar for
sixty dollars in paper money. Feb. 17, 1864 A.D. Mr. Davis, by a measure
of partial repudiation, relieved himself for a short space
from some of his embarrassments; but no device could
gain public confidence for the currency of a falling
power. A loaf of bread cost three dollars. It took a month’s
pay to buy the soldier a pair of stockings. The misery of the
country was deep, abject, unutterable. President Davis came
to be regarded with abhorrence, as the cause of all this
wretchedness. Curses, growing ever deeper and louder, were
breathed against the unsuccessful chief.
General Grant, well aware of the desperate condition of the
Confederates, pressed incessantly upon their enfeebled lines.
He had one hundred and sixty thousand men under his command.
Sheridan joined him with a magnificent force of cavalry.
Sherman with his victorious army was near. Grant began to
fear that Lee would take to flight, and keep the rebellion alive
on other fields. March 29, 1865 A.D. A general movement of all the forces
around Richmond was decided upon. Lee struggled
bravely, but in vain, against overwhelming numbers.
His right was assailed by Sheridan, and driven back
with heavy loss—five thousand hungry and disheartened men
laying down their arms. April 1. On that same night Grant
opened, from all his guns, a terrific and prolonged
bombardment. April 2. At dawn the assault was made. Its strength
was directed against one of the Confederate forts.
The fight ceased elsewhere, and the armies looked on.
There was a steady advance of the blue-coated lines; a murderous
volley from the little garrison; wild cheers from the excited
spectators. Under a heavy fire of artillery and musketry
the soldiers of the Union rush on; they swarm into the ditch
and up the sides of the works. Those who first reach the
summit fall back slain by musket-shot or bayonet-thrust, but
others press fiercely on. Soon their exulting cheers tell that
the fort is won. Lee’s army is cut in two, and his position
is no longer tenable. He telegraphed at once to President
Davis that Richmond must be evacuated.
It was Communion Sunday in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church,
and President Davis was in his pew among the other worshippers.
No intelligence from the army had been allowed to
reach the public for some days. But the sound of Grant’s guns
had been heard, and the reserve of the Government was ominous.
Many a keen eye sought to gather from the aspect of the
President some forecast of the future; but in vain. That
serene self-possessed face had lost nothing of its habitual reticence.
In all that congregation there was no worshipper who
seemed less encumbered by the world, more absorbed by the
sacred employment of the hour, than President Davis. The
service proceeded, and the congregation knelt in prayer. As
President Davis rose from his knees the sexton handed him a
slip of paper. He calmly read it. Then he calmly lifted his
prayer-book, and with unmoved face walked softly from the
church. It was Lee’s message he had received. Jefferson
Davis’s sole concern now was to escape the doom of the traitor
and the rebel. He fled at once, by special train, towards the
south. Then the work of evacuation commenced. The gunboats
on the river were blown up; the bridges were destroyed;
the great warehouses in the city were set on fire, and in the
flames thus wickedly kindled a third part of the city was consumed.
All who had made themselves prominent in the rebellion
fled from the anticipated vengeance of the Federals. The
soldiers were marched off, plundering as they went. Next
morning Richmond was in possession of the Northern troops.
Among the first to enter the capital of the rebel slave-owners
was a regiment of negro cavalry.
April 4, 1865 A.D. About midnight on Sunday Lee began his retreat from the
position which he had kept so well. Grant promptly
followed him. On the Tuesday morning Lee reached a
point where he had ordered supplies to wait him. By
some fatal blunder the cars laden with the food which
his men needed so much had been run on to Richmond, and
were lost to him. Hungry and weary the men toiled on, hotly
pursued by Grant. Soon a hostile force appeared in their
front, and it became evident that they were surrounded.
April 7. General Grant wrote to General Lee asking the surrender of
his army, to spare the useless effusion of blood. Lee
did not at first admit that surrender was necessary,
and Grant pressed the pursuit with relentless energy. Lee
wrote again to request a meeting, that the terms of surrender
might be arranged. April 9. The two leaders met in a
wayside cottage. They had never seen each other before,
although they had both served in the Mexican War, and Lee
mentioned pleasantly that he remembered the name of his
antagonist from that time. Grant drew up and presented in
writing the terms which he offered. The men were to lay
down their arms, and give their pledge that they would not
serve against the American Government till regularly exchanged.
They were then to return to their homes, with a
guarantee that they would not be disturbed by the Government
against which they had rebelled. Grant asked if these terms
were satisfactory. “Yes,” said Lee, “they are satisfactory.
The truth is, I am in such a position that any terms offered to
me must be satisfactory.” And then he told how his men had
been for two days without food, and begged General Grant to
spare them what he could. Grant, generously eager to relieve
his fallen enemies, despatched instantly a large drove of oxen
and a train of provision waggons. In half an hour there were
heard in the Federal camp the cheers with which the hungry
rebels welcomed those precious gifts.
Lee rode quietly back to his army, where the surrender was
expected. When its details became known, officers and men
crowded around their much-loved chief, to assure him of their
devotion, and to obtain a parting grasp of his hand. Lee was
too deeply moved to say much. “Men,” he said, with his
habitual simplicity, “we have fought through the war together,
and I have done the best I could for you.” A day
or two later the men stacked their arms and went to their
homes. The history of the once splendid Army of Northern
Virginia had closed.
Lee’s surrender led the way to the surrender of all the Confederate
armies. Within a few days there was no organized
force of any importance in arms against the Union. The War
of the Great Rebellion was at an end.
When the closing operations against Richmond were
being arranged, President Lincoln went down to
General Grant’s head-quarters at City Point, and
remained there till Lee’s surrender. He visited
Richmond on the day it was taken, and walked through the
streets with his little boy in his hand. The freed slaves
crowded to welcome their deliverer. They expressed in a thousand
grotesque ways their gratitude to the good “Father Abraham.”
There had been dark hints for some time that there
were those among the Confederates who would avenge their
defeat by the murder of the President. Mr. Lincoln was
urged to be on his guard, and his friends were unwilling that
he should visit Richmond. He himself cared little, now that
the national cause had triumphed.
April 9, 1865 A.D. He returned unharmed to Washington on the evening of
Lee’s surrender. The next few days were perhaps the
brightest in his whole life. He had guided the nation
through the heaviest trial which had ever assailed it.
On every side were joy and gladness. Flags waved,
bells rang, guns were fired, houses were lighted up; the thanks
of innumerable grateful hearts went up to God for this great
deliverance. No heart in all the country was more joyful and
more thankful than Mr. Lincoln’s. He occupied himself with
plans for healing the wounds of his bleeding country, and
bringing back the revolted States to a contented occupation of
their appointed places in the Union. No thought of severity
was in his mind. Now that armed resistance to the Government
was crushed, the gentlest measures which would give
security in the future were the measures most agreeable to the
good President.
On the 14th he held a meeting of his Cabinet, at which
General Grant was present. The quiet cheerfulness and hopefulness
of the President imparted to the proceedings of the
council a tone long remembered by those who were present.
After the meeting he drove out with Mrs. Lincoln, to whom he
talked of the good days in store. They had had a hard time,
he said, since they came to Washington; but now, by God’s
blessing, they might hope for quieter and happier years.
In the evening he drove, with Mrs. Lincoln and two or three
friends, to a theatre where he knew the people expected his
coming. As the play went on the audience were startled by a
pistol-shot in the President’s box. A man brandishing a dagger
was seen to leap from the box on to the stage, and with a wild
cry—“The South is avenged!”—disappeared behind the scenes.
The President sat motionless, his head sunk down upon his
breast. He was evidently unconscious. When the surgeon
came, it was found that a bullet had pierced the brain, inflicting
a deadly wound. He was carried to a house close by. His
family and the great officers of State, by whom he was dearly
loved, sat around the bed of the dying President. He lingered
till morning, breathing heavily, but in entire unconsciousness,
and then he passed away.
At the same hour the President was murdered a ruffian broke
into the sick-room of Mr. Seward, who was suffering from a
recent accident, and stabbed him almost to death as he lay in
bed. His bloody work was happily interrupted, and Mr. Seward
recovered.
The assassin of Mr. Lincoln was an actor called Booth, a
fanatical adherent of the fallen Confederacy. His leg was broken
in the leap on to the stage, but he was able to reach a horse
which stood ready at the theatre door. He rode through the
city, crossed the Potomac by a bridge, in the face of the sentinels
posted there, and passed safely beyond present pursuit. A week
later he was found hid in a barn, and well armed. He refused
to surrender, and was preparing to fire, when a soldier ended
his miserable existence by a bullet.
The grief of the American people for their murdered President
was beyond example deep and bitter. Perhaps for no man
were there ever shed so profusely the tears of sorrow. Not
in America alone, but in Europe also—where President Lincoln
was at length understood and honoured—his loss was
deeply mourned. It was resolved that he should be buried
beside his old home in Illinois. The embalmed remains were
to be conveyed to their distant resting-place by a route which
would give to the people of the chief Northern cities a last
opportunity to look upon the features of the man they loved
so well. The sad procession moved on its long journey of nearly
two thousand miles, traversing the States of Maryland, Pennsylvania,
New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.
Everywhere, as the funeral train passed, the weeping people
sought to give expression to their reverential sorrow. At the
great cities the body lay in state, and all business was suspended.
At length Springfield was reached. The body was taken to
the State House. His neighbours looked once more upon that
well-remembered face, wasted, indeed, by years of anxious toil,
but wearing still, as of old, its kind and placid expression.
Four years before, Lincoln said to his neighbours, when he
was leaving them, “I know not how soon I shall see you again.
I go to assume a task more difficult than that which has devolved
upon any other man since the days of Washington.”
He had nobly accomplished his task; and this was the manner
of his home-coming.
The Great Rebellion was at an end. It was not
closed by untimely concessions which left a discontented
party, with its strength unbroken, ready
to renew the contest at a more fitting time. It
was fought out to the bitter end. The slave-power might be
erring, but it was not weak. The conflict was closed by the
utter exhaustion of one of the combatants. Lee did not surrender
till his army was surrounded by the enemy and had been
two days without food. The great questions which had been
appealed to the sword were answered conclusively and for ever.
The cost had been very terrible. On the Northern side, two
million seven hundred thousand men bore arms at some period
of the war. Of these there died in battle, or in hospital of
wounds received in battle, ninety-six thousand men. There died
in hospital of disease, one hundred and eighty-four thousand.
Many went home wounded, to die among the scenes of their
infancy. Many went home stricken with lingering and mortal
disease. Of these there is no record but in the sad memories
which haunt nearly every Northern home.
The losses on the Southern side have not been accurately
ascertained. The white population of the revolted States numbered
about a fourth of the loyal Northern population. At
the close of the war the North had a full million of men under
arms. The Southern armies which surrendered numbered one
hundred and seventy-five thousand. When to this is added
the number who went home without awaiting the formality of
surrender, it appears probable that the Southern armies bore
to the Northern the same proportion that the population did.
Presumably the loss bore a larger proportion, as the deaths
from disease, owing to the greater hardships to be endured,
must have been excessive in the rebel army. It must be under
the truth to say that one hundred and fifty thousand Southerners
perished in the field or in the hospital.
The war cost the North in money seven hundred million
sterling. It is impossible to state what was the cost to the
South. The Confederate debt was supposed to amount at the
close to thirty-five hundred million dollars; but the dollar
was of so uncertain value that no one can tell the equivalent in
any sound currency. Besides this, there was the destruction
of railroads, the burning of houses, the wasting of lands, and,
above all, the emancipation of four million slaves, who had
been purchased by their owners for three or four hundred
million sterling. It has been estimated that the entire cost
of the war, on both sides, was not less than eighteen hundred
million pounds sterling.
Great wars ordinarily cost much and produce little. What
results had the American people to show for their huge expenditure
of blood and treasure?
They had freed themselves from the curse of slavery. That
unhappy system made them a byword among Christian nations.
It hindered the progress of the fairest section of the country.
It implanted among the people hatreds which kept them continually
on the verge of civil war. Slavery was now extinct.
For three-quarters of a century the belief possessed Southern
minds that they owed allegiance to their State rather than to
the Union. Each State was sovereign. Having to-day united
itself with certain sister sovereignties, it was free to-morrow to
withdraw and enter into new combinations. America was in
this view no nation, but a mere incoherent concourse of independent
powers. This question had been raised when the
Constitution was framed, and it had been debated ever since.
It was settled now. The blood shed in a hundred battles,
from Manassas to Petersburg, expressed the esteem in which
the Northern people held their national life. The doctrine of
States’ Rights was conclusively refuted by the surrender of
Lee’s army, and the right of America to be deemed a nation
was established for ever.
It was often said during the war that republican institutions
were upon their trial. It was possible for the war to have
resulted so that government by the people would ever after
have been deemed a failure. It has not been so. The Americans
have proved conspicuously the capacity of a free people to
guide their own destinies in war as well as in peace. They
have shown that the dependence of the many upon the few is
as unnecessary as it is humiliating. They have rung the knell
of personal government, and given the world encouragement to
hope that not the Anglo-Saxon race alone, but all other races
of men will yet be found worthy to govern themselves.
Terrible as the cost of the war has been, have not its gains
been greater? The men who gave their lives so willingly have
not died in vain. America and the world will reap advantage,
through many generations, by the blood so freely shed in the
great war against the Southern slave-owners.
In all civil strifes, until now, the woe which waits
upon the vanquished has been mercilessly inflicted.
After resistance has ceased, the grim scaffold is
set up, and brave men who have escaped the
sword stoop to the fatal axe. It was assumed by many that
the Americans would avenge themselves according to the
ancient usage. Here, again, it was the privilege of America
to present a noble example to other nations. Nearly every
Northern man had lost relative or friend, but there was no cry
for vengeance; there was no feeling of bitterness. Excepting in
battle, no drop of blood was shed by the Northern people. The
Great Republic had been not merely strong, resolute, enduring—it
was also singularly and nobly humane.
Jefferson Davis fled southward on that memorable Sunday
when the sexton of St. Paul’s Church handed to him General
Lee’s message. He had need to be diligent, for a party of
American cavalry were quickly upon his track. They followed
him through gaunt pine wildernesses, across rivers and
dreary swamps, past the huts of wondering settlers,
until at length they came upon him near a little town
in Georgia. May 10, 1865 A.D. They quietly surrounded his party. Davis
assumed the garments of his wife, and the soldiers saw at first
nothing more formidable than an elderly and not very well-dressed
female. But the unfeminine boots which he wore led
to closer inspection, and quickly the fallen President stood
disclosed to his deriding enemies.
There was at first suspicion that Davis encouraged the assassination
of the President. Could that have been proved, he
would have died, as reason was, by the hand of the hangman.
But it became evident, on due examination being made, that he
was not guilty of that crime. For a time the American people
regarded Davis with just indignation, as the chief cause of all
the bloodshed which had taken place. Gradually their anger
relaxed into a kind of grim, contemptuous playfulness. He
was to be put upon his trial for treason. Frequently a time
was named when the trial would begin; but the time never
came. Ultimately Davis was set at liberty.
What were the Americans to do with the million of armed
men now in their employment? It was believed in Europe that
these men would never return to peaceful labour. Government
could not venture to turn them loose upon the country. Military
employment must be found for them, and would probably be
found in foreign wars.
While yet public writers in Europe occupied themselves with
these dark anticipations, the American Government, all unaware
of difficulty, ordered its armies to march on
Washington. May 23, 24, 1865 A.D. During two days the bronzed veterans
who had followed Grant and Sherman in so many
bloody fights passed through the city. Vast multitudes
from all parts of the Union looked on with a proud but
chastened joy. And then, just as quickly as the men could be
paid the sums which were due to them, they gave back the
arms they had used so bravely, and returned to their homes.
It was only six weeks since Richmond fell, and already the
work of disbanding was well advanced. The men who had
fought this war were, for the most part, citizens who had freely
taken up arms to defend the national life. They did not love
war, and when their work was done they thankfully resumed
their ordinary employments. Very speedily the American
army numbered only forty thousand men. Europe, when she
grows a little wiser, will follow the American example. The
wasteful folly of maintaining huge standing armies in time of
peace is not destined to disgrace us for ever.
What was the position of the rebel States when the war
closed? Were they provinces conquered by the Union armies, to
be dealt with as the conquerors might deem necessary; or were
they, in spite of all they had done, still members of the Union,
as of old? The rebels themselves had no doubt on the subject.
They had tried their utmost to leave the Union. It was impossible
to conceal that. But they had not been permitted to
leave it, and they had never left it. As they were not out of
the Union, it was obvious they were in it. And so they claimed
to resume their old rights, and re-occupy their places in Congress,
as if no rebellion had occurred.
Mr. Lincoln’s successor was Andrew Johnson, a man whose
rough vigour had raised him from the lowly position of tailor
to the highest office in the country. He was imperfectly
educated, of defective judgment, blindly and violently obstinate.
He supported the rebels in their extravagant pretensions. He
clung to the strictly logical view that there could be no such
thing as secession; that the rebel States had never been out of
the Union; that now there was nothing required but that the
rebels, having accepted their defeat, should resume their old
positions, as if “the late unpleasantness” had not occurred.
The American people were too wise to give heed to the logic
of the President and the baffled slave-owners. They had preserved
the life of their nation through sacrifices which filled
their homes with sorrow and privation, and they would not be
tricked out of the advantages which they had bought with so
great a price. The slave-owners had imposed upon them a
great national peril, which it cost them infinite toil to avert.
They would take what securities it was possible to obtain that
no such invasion of the national tranquillity should occur
again.
It was out of the position so wrongfully assigned to the
negro race that this huge disorder had arisen. The North,
looking at this with eyes which long and sad experience had
enlightened, resolved that the negro should never again divide
the sisterhood of States. No root of bitterness should be left
in the soil. Citizenship was no longer to be dependent upon
colour. The long dishonour offered to the Fathers of Independence
was to be cancelled; henceforth American law would
present no contradiction to the doctrine that “all men are born
equal.” All men now, born or naturalized in America, were
to be citizens of the Union and of the State in which they
resided. No State might henceforth pass any law which should
abridge the privileges of any class of American citizens.
An Amendment of the Constitution was proposed by Congress
to give effect to these principles. March 30, 1870 A.D. It was agreed to by
the States—not without reluctance on the part of some.
The Revolution—so vast and so benign—was now
complete. The negro, who so lately had no rights at
all which a white man was bound to respect, was now
in full possession of every right which the white man himself
enjoyed. The successor of Jefferson Davis in the Senate of the
United States was a negro!
The task of the North was now to “bind up the nation’s
wounds”—the task to which Mr. Lincoln looked forward so
joyfully, and which he would have performed so well. Not a
moment was lost in entering upon it. No feeling of resentment
survived in the Northern mind. The South was utterly exhausted
and helpless—without food, without clothing, without
resources of any description. The land alone remained.
Government provided food—without which provision there
would have been in many parts of the country a great mortality
from utter want. The proud Southerners, tamed by hunger,
were fain to come as suppliants for their daily bread to the
Government they had so long striven to overthrow.
With little delay nearly all the rebels received the pardon of
the Government, and applied themselves to the work of restoring
their broken fortunes. Happily for them the means lay
close at hand. Cotton bore still an extravagantly high price.
The negroes remained, although no longer as slaves. They
had now to be dealt with as free labourers, whose services
could not be obtained otherwise than by the inducement of
adequate wages. In a revolution so vast, difficulties were inevitable;
but, upon the whole, the black men played their part
well. It had been said they would not consent to labour
when they were free to choose. That prediction was not fulfilled.
When kindly treated and justly paid, they showed
themselves anxious to work. Very soon it began to dawn upon
the planters that slavery had been a mistake. Those of their
number who were able to command the use of capital found
themselves growing rich with a rapidity unknown before.
Under the old and wasteful system, the growing crop of cotton
was generally sold to the Northern merchant and paid for to
the planter before it was gathered. Now it had become possible
to carry on the business of the plantation without being in
debt at all. Five years after the close of the war, it is perhaps
not too much to say that the men of the South would have
undergone the miseries of another war rather than permit the
re-imposition of that system which they, erringly, endured so
much to preserve.
Wars have been, in general, made by Kings to serve
the purposes of their own ambition or revenge.
This war was made by the American people, and
willingly fought out by their own hands. The men
who fought were nearly all Americans, and mainly volunteers.
They were regarded with the deepest interest by those who
remained at home. Ordinarily, the number of soldiers who die
of diseases caused by the hardships they endure is greater than
the number of those who die of wounds. The Americans were
eager to save their soldiers from the privations which waste so
many brave lives. They erected two great societies, called the
Sanitary Commission and the Christian Commission. Into the
coffers of these societies they poured money and other contributions
to the amount of four million sterling. The Sanitary
Commission sent medical officers of experience into the armies
to guide them in the choice of healthy situations for camps; to
see that drainage was not neglected; to watch over the food of
the soldiers, and also their clothing; to direct the attention of
the Government to every circumstance which threatened evil to
the health of the army. Its agents followed the armies with a
line of waggons containing all manner of stores. Everything
the soldier could desire issued in profusion from those inexhaustible
waggons. There were blankets and great-coats and
every variety of underclothing. There were crutches for the
lame, fans to soothe the wounded in the burning heat of summer,
bandages, and sponges, and ice, and even mosquito-netting for
the protection of the poor sufferers in hospital. Huge wheeled-caldrons
rolled along in the rear, and ever, at the close of battle
or toilsome march, dispensed welcome refreshment to the wearied
soldiers.
The Christian Commission undertook to watch over the
spiritual wants of the soldiers. Its president was George
H. Stuart, a merchant of Philadelphia, whose name is held in
enduring honour as a symbol of all that is wise and energetic
in Christian beneficence. Under the auspices of this society
thousands of clergymen left their congregations and went to
minister to the soldiers. A copious supply of Bibles, tracts,
hymn-books, and similar reading matter was furnished. The
agents of the Commission preached to the soldiers, conversed
with them, supplied them with books, aided them in communicating
with friends at home. But they had sterner duties than
these to discharge. They had to seek the wounded on the field
and in the hospital; to bind up their wounds; to prepare for
them such food or drink as they could use;—in every way possible
to soothe the agony of the brave men who were giving
their lives that the nation might be saved. Hundreds of ladies
were thus engaged tending the wounded and sick, speaking to
them about their spiritual interests, cooking for them such dishes
as might tempt the languid appetite. The dying soldier was tenderly
cared for. The last loving message was conveyed to the
friends in the far-off home. Nothing was left undone which
could express to the men who gave this costly evidence of their
patriotism the gratitude with which the country regarded them.
It resulted from the watchful care of the American Government
and people, that the loss of life by disease was singularly
small in the Northern army. There never was a war in which
the health of the army was so good, and the waste of life by
disease so small.
When the war was over, the Americans addressed themselves,
sadly and reverently, to the work of gathering into national
cemeteries the bones of those who had fallen. The search was
long and toilsome, for the battle-ground had been a continent,
and men were buried where they died. Every battle-field was
searched. Every line by which an army had advanced, or
by which the wounded had been removed, was searched.
Sometimes a long train of ambulances had carried the wounded
to hospitals many miles away. At short intervals, during that
sad journey, it was told that a man had died. The train was
stopped; the dead man was lifted from beside his dying companions;
a shallow grave was dug, and the body, still warm,
was laid in it. A soldier cut a branch from a tree, flattened
its end with his knife, and wrote upon it the dead man’s name.
This was all that marked his lowly resting-place. The honoured
dead, scattered thus over the continent, were now piously
gathered up. For many miles around Petersburg the ground
was full of graves. During several years men were employed
in the melancholy search among the ruins of the wide-stretching
lines. In some cemeteries lie ten thousand, in others
twenty thousand of the men who died for the nation. An iron
tablet records the name of the soldier and the battle in which
he died. Often, alas! the record is merely that of “Unknown
Soldier.” Over the graves floats the flag which those who sleep
below loved so well. Nothing in America is more touching
than her national cemeteries. So much brave young life given
freely, that the nation might be saved! So much grateful
remembrance of those who gave this supreme evidence of their
devotion!
Long ago thoughtful men had foreseen that a permanent
union between slave communities and free
communities was impossible. Wise Americans
knew that their country could not continue “half
slave and half free.” Slavery was a fountain out of which
strife flowed perpetual. There was an incessant conflict of
interests. There was a still more formidable conflict of feeling.
The North was humiliated by the censure which she had to
share with her erring sisters. The South was imbittered by
the knowledge that the Christian world abhorred her most
cherished institution. The Southern character became ever
more fierce, domineering, unreasoning. Some vast change was
known to be near. Slavery must cease in the South, or extend
itself into the North. There was no resting-place for the
country between that universal liberty which was established
in the North, and the favourite doctrine of the South that the
capitalist should own the labourer.
The South appealed to the sword, and the decision was against
her. She frankly and wisely accepted it. She acknowledged
that the labouring-man was now finally proved to be no article
of merchandise, but a free and responsible citizen. That
acknowledgment closed the era of strife between North and
South. There was no longer anything to strive about. There
was no longer North or South, in the old hostile sense, but a
united nation, with interests and sympathies rapidly becoming
identical. It has been foretold that America will yet break up
into several nations. What developments may await America
in future ages we do not know. But we do know that the only
circumstance which threatened disruption among the sisterhood
of States has been removed, and that the national existence of
America rests upon foundations at least as assured as those
which support any nation in the world.
The South had laid aside all thought of armed resistance, and
in perfect good faith had acquiesced in the overthrow of slavery.
Her leaders did not, however, consent readily to those guarantees
of future tranquillity which the North demanded. At the close
of the war eleven States were without legal State government;
and the North would not permit the restoration of the forfeited
privilege until those constitutional changes were accepted by
which the political equality of the negro was secured. It had
become an easy thing to consent that the negro should be free;
it was very hard to consent that he should sit in the State
Legislatures, and exercise an influential voice in framing laws
for those who had lately owned him. Several States withheld
their concurrence from arrangements which humiliated them so
deeply, desperately choosing rather to deny themselves for the
time the privilege of self-government and to live under a government
in whose creation they had no part. Very grave evils
resulted from their pertinacious adherence to this unwise choice.
Their affairs were necessarily taken charge of by the Federal
executive, and President Grant sent them rulers from Washington.
Unworthy persons were able by dexterous intrigue to
gain positions of control, and hastened southwards, with no
purpose to heal the wounds of the war; intent merely to plunder
for their own advantage the impoverished and suffering States.
The finances of the South were in extreme disorder. Public
debt had increased enormously during the war; but the North
averted the difficulty which this increase might have caused by
insisting that no debt incurred for the purposes of the rebellion
should be recognized as a public obligation. The temporary
rulers of the South gave prompt attention to the possibility of
obtaining loans, ostensibly for the restoration of railroads and
other necessary works. It was not yet realized how fatally
wasted the South had been, and men hastily concluded that her
advantages of soil and climate must secure for her a rapid
financial recovery. Cherishing such expectations, capitalists on
both sides of the Atlantic were found willing to make loans on
the credit of various Southern States. These moneys were
applied only in very small measure to the uses of the States in
whose name they were obtained; the larger portion was feloniously
appropriated by the unscrupulous persons whose position
gave them the opportunity of doing so. Afterwards, when
the fraud was fully exposed, the defrauded States repudiated
the obligation to repay moneys which they had not received,
and which, as they averred, had been borrowed by persons who
were in no sense their servants. The good name of the South
suffered deeply and her recovery was seriously hindered by
these unhappy transactions.
The inevitable difficulties of reconstruction were seriously
aggravated by the violent conflict of opinion which raged
between President Johnson and Congress. The President would
not sanction the conditions which Congress considered it necessary
to make with the South, and he steadily vetoed all measures
which were at variance with his theory that the rebels were
entitled to be received without stipulation. His resistance was
not practically important, for the country was united, and Congress
was able to pass all its measures over the veto of the
President. The irritation caused by his opposition to the public
wish grew, however, so intense, that it led to his impeachment
and trial before the Senate, with a view to his forcible removal
from office. His enemies failed to secure a conviction, although
they came so near that one additional hostile vote would have
brought Mr. Johnson’s presidency to an abrupt close. So
smoothly does the constitutional machinery of America now
move, that the trial and expected deposition of the head of the
government were not felt either by the commercial interests of
the country or in the carrying on of public business.
For five years after the end of the war some of the Southern
States continued to refuse the terms insisted upon by the inflexible
North, and continued to endure the evils of military rule.
Gradually, however, as time soothed the bitterness of defeat,
they withdrew their refusal and consented to resume their
position in the Union on the conditions which were offered to
them. In 1870 President Grant was able to announce the
completed restoration of the Union which his own leadership
had done so much to save.
The industrial recovery of the South was unexpectedly slow.
The industrial arrangements of the country were utterly overthrown.
Population had diminished; capital had disappeared;
cultivation, excepting of articles necessary for food, had ceased;
many of the coloured labourers had fled northwards, and the
labour of those who remained had to be arranged for on conditions
altogether new and unknown. The reconstruction of the
shattered fragments of an industrial system was inevitably a tedious
and difficult work. But the wholesome pressure of necessity,—laid
equally on white men and on black,—obliged both to adapt
themselves to the circumstances in which they were placed.
The planters drew together as many labourers as they could
obtain and were able to pay for, and cultivated such portions of
their lands as they could thus overtake. The negroes were
always ready to serve any man who paid regular wages; but
it very often happened, at the outset, that there was no man
with money enough to do that. In such cases the negroes
cultivated for their own behoof. The progress made in reconquering
the neglected soil was very slow. But in that fertile
land no effort of man is suffered to go without a bountiful
reward. Every succeeding crop left the cultivator a little
richer than he had been before. Every seed-time witnessed a
larger area under cultivation, until at length the quantity of
cotton produced is as large as it had ever been before the war,
and promises steadily to increase. A new and better industrial
system gradually arose—less picturesque than that which had
been destroyed, but no longer founded in wrong, and therefore
more enduring and more beneficial to master as well as to
servant.
The rebellion had drawn forth into energetic exercise among
the Northern people a patriotic sentiment which nerved them
for every measure of self-devotion. But war cherishes also
into exceptional strength the evil that is in humanity, and this
patriot war exerted an influence not less unhallowed than other
wars have done. The fluctuating value of the currency and
consequently of all commodities, the unprecedented opportunities
of acquiring sudden wealth, fostered widespread corruption in
the cities. Reckless personal extravagance, a frantic haste to
become rich by whatever means, and a general decay of commercial
morality, characterized the years which followed the
restoration of peace. Political society, at no time distinguished
by its elevation of moral tone, was deeply tainted. Even
among the men whom President Grant had chosen as worthy of
his fullest confidence there were some who yielded to the prevailing
influence, and the President had the mortification of
finding that several members of his Cabinet had incurred the
shame of corrupt transactions. Habitual embezzlement was
practised in the management of the finances of large cities.
The municipal government of New York had fallen into hands
exceptionally rapacious and base, and the career of the plunderers
was not arrested till the city had been robbed of many
million dollars.
For several years after the close of the war the industrial interests
of America seemed to prosper exceedingly. Her foreign
trade increased rapidly. The thriving people purchased freely of
the costly luxuries imported from Europe, and the gains of merchants
were liberal. New factories arose; villages swelled into
towns; emigrants to the number of three hundred and fifty thousand
annually hastened to exchange the poverty of Europe for the
plenty of this land of promise; a million persons were added
every year to the population. New railways were laid down
at the rate of five to six thousand miles annually, involving
an annual expenditure of thirty to forty million sterling.
The confiding capitalists of Europe furnished the means
requisite to sustain this perilously rapid increase. The census
of 1870 reported that during ten years the wealth of the
people had nearly doubled, and that their annual earnings
now amounted to two thousand million sterling. It seemed
as if, for the first time in history, a prolonged and costly
war had been waged without pecuniary disadvantage to the
combatants.
But the inevitable retribution was not abandoned; it was
only delayed. Sept. 1873 A.D. While the currents of commercial activity still
flowed with unwonted swiftness and smoothness, the failure of
a large financial house in New York gave the signal
for a panic, which speedily assumed an aspect of unprecedented
severity. Business stood still; the exchanges
were closed; the banks ceased to give out
money; the payment of debts became impossible. In a short
time the intensity of the excitement passed away, leaving a
deep-seated depression, which continued for six years. It was
now discovered that men had been deluding themselves with a
merely visionary prosperity—that all values had been wildly
inflated; and it became the sad and surprising experience of
very many that their fancied wealth had, in part or wholly,
disappeared. Factories were closed; artisans were unable to
obtain employment; wages fell, step by step, till in many
industries they had undergone reductions which were not
less than forty per cent. All stocks and every description
of property sank lamentably in value; railway companies
and other borrowers of foreign capital discontinued payment
of the promised interest; immigration almost ceased—for
who would now seek a home in this afflicted and impoverished
land?
America emerged from those miserable years with her vitality
undiminished; with her financial position improved; with her
industrial system organized, for the first time, upon a basis of
rigorous economy; with the views of her people corrected, and
their character braced by adversity. The operatives who were
unable to find employment in the cities of the east had made
their way westward, and were now contributing to the greatness
of the nation by cultivating the soil. Personal extravagance
ceased, and the imports of foreign commodities fell one-third.
On the other hand, the exports increased largely. America had
for many years been accustomed to use an amount of foreign
goods very much larger than she was able to pay for by her own
surplus productions. In settlement of the excess, she endured a
drain upon her store of the precious metals, or she neutralized
it for the time by the loans which her people obtained abroad.
Now all this was changed. America exported so largely of her
manufactures and of the products of her soil, and restricted so
carefully her purchase of foreign commodities, that now she
has to receive from foreigners an annual balance which exceeds
fifty million sterling. And during the painful years through
which she passed, while nearly all European countries continued
to add to their public indebtedness, America continued to reduce
hers. Her debt, which at the close of the war amounted to six
hundred million sterling, thirteen years later was only four
hundred million.[2] And whereas at one period an amount equal
to one-half of her present debt was owing to foreigners, it is
now, to the extent of five-sixths, owing to her own citizens.
Her currency, which had been long at a discount, rose in value,
step by step, till it stood at par. After seventeen years of an
inconvertible currency specie payments were resumed, without
the slightest inconvenience to the commerce of the country.
America looked to England for sympathy when the
rebellion began. England had often reproached
her, often admonished her, in regard to the question
of Slavery. The war which threatened her existence
was a war waged by persons who desired to perpetuate
slavery, and who feared the growing Northern dislike to the
institution. The North expected the countenance of England
in her time of trial. It was reasonable to expect that the deep
abhorrence of slavery which had long ruled in the mind of the
English people would suffice to decide that people against the
effort to establish a great independent slave-empire.
Most unfortunately, that expectation was not wholly fulfilled.
The working-men of England perceived, as by intuition, the
merits of the dispute, and gave their sympathy unhesitatingly to
the North. In the cotton-spinning districts grievous suffering
was endured, because the Northern ships shut in the cotton of
the South and deprived the mills of their accustomed supply.
It was often urged that the English Government should take
measures to raise the Northern blockade. Hunger persuades
men to unwise and evil courses; but hunger itself could never
persuade the men of Lancashire to take any part against the
North. So genuine and so deep was their conviction that the
Northern cause was right.
But among the aristocratic and middle classes of England it
was different. Their sympathy was in large measure given to
the South. They were misled by certain newspapers, in which
they erringly trusted. They were misled by their admiration
of a brave people struggling against an enemy of overwhelming
strength. They were misled by an unworthy jealousy of the
greatness of America. Thus unhappily influenced, they gave
their good wishes to the defenders of the slave-system. The
North felt deeply the unlooked-for repulse; and a painful
alienation of feeling resulted.
A variety of circumstances occurred which strengthened this
feeling. A few weeks after the fall of Fort Sumpter, England,
having in view that there had been set up in the South a new
Government which was exercising the functions of a Government,
whether rightfully or otherwise, acknowledged in haste the
undoubted fact, and recognized the South as a belligerent power.
This the North highly resented; asserting that the action of
the South was merely a rebellion, with which foreign countries
had nothing to do. A few months later the British mail-steamer
Trent was stopped by a rash American captain, and two gentlemen,
commissioners to England from the rebel Government,
were made prisoners. The captives were released, but the indignity
offered to the British flag awakened a strong sentiment
of indignation which did not soon pass away. Yet further:
there was built in a Liverpool dockyard a steam-ship which it
was understood was destined to serve the Confederacy by destroying
the merchant shipping of the North. The American
Ambassador requested the British Government to detain the
vessel. So hesitating was the action of Government, that the
vessel sailed before the order for her detention was issued. For
two years the Alabama, and some other ships also fitted in
English ports, scoured the seas, burning and sinking American
ships, and inflicting enormous loss upon American commerce.
These circumstances increased the bitter feeling which prevailed.
The American Government held that England had failed to
perform the duty imposed upon her by international law, and
had therefore made herself responsible for the depredations of
the Alabama. English lawyers of eminence expressed the
same unacceptable opinion; and a few years after the
war closed the English Government wisely determined
to seek the settlement of the question. 1869 A.D. There was
arranged by the Foreign Secretary and the American Minister
a treaty, in terms of which the subject was disposed of by
a reference to the arbitration of impartial persons. This
treaty was sent to Washington for confirmation, according to
the judicious American rule that treaties with foreign powers
must receive the sanction of the Senate. But American feeling
was not yet prepared for any adjustment of differences which
had wounded the nation so deeply. It was not that the terms
of the proposed settlement were objected to; it was rather that
no immediate settlement was desired. The American people
chose that the question should, for the time, remain an open
question. Their irritation had not yet subsided, and many of
them solaced their angry minds with the purpose that, when
England was again involved in some one of those European
embarrassments which habitually beset her, this matter of the
Alabama should be pressed to a settlement. The Senate gave
effect to the general wish by withholding sanction from the
treaty, and President Grant instructed his minister at the
English Court to abstain from further negotiation.
1871 A.D. But the passage of a little time calmed the irritation of the
not implacable Americans. England renewed her proposal
to refer the dispute to arbitration, coupling the
offer with an expression of regret that injuries so grave
had been inflicted upon the shipping of America. She further
consented that the arbitrators should guide themselves
by a definition of neutral duties so framed that, in effect, it
condemned her conduct, and made an adverse decision inevitable.
America accepted the proposal, and a dispute which at
an earlier period would have brought upon two nations the
miseries of a great war was found to come easily within the
scope of a peaceful arbitration. The transaction is of high
importance, for it is the largest advance which has yet been
made towards the settlement of national differences by reason
rather than by brute force.
The arbitrators were five persons, named by the Queen, the
President, the King of Italy, the President of Switzerland, and
the Emperor of Brazil. Their deliberations were conducted in
the tranquil city of Geneva, remote from the influence of the
disputants. America presented a statement of her wrongs, and
of the compensation to which she deemed herself entitled. Her
case was stated with much ability, and it produced numerous
and painful evidences that the neutrality with which England
regarded the conflict had been a neutrality very full of sympathy
with the slave-holders. But the claim tabled was extravagantly
large. America argued that England should indemnify her for
the expenses of the war-ships which were employed to pursue
the piratical cruisers. She argued that, since her ship-owners
had been compelled to sell their ships to foreigners, England
should bear the losses arising from these enforced sales. Above
all, she alleged that the prolongation of the war after the battle
of Gettysburg was traceable to the influence of the pirate-ships;
and she made the huge demand that England should refund to
her the cost of nearly two years of fighting. The arbitrators
gave judgment that England was responsible for the property
destroyed by the Alabama and the other cruisers, and ordained
that she should repair the wrong by a payment of three million
sterling. The claim for losses arising indirectly out of these
unhappy transactions was rejected.
When the claims of sufferers by the piratical vessels were
investigated it was found that the arbitrators had over-estimated
them. The American Government, having satisfied
every authenticated demand, found itself still in possession of
about one million of the English money. It was the wish of
many Americans that this sum should be restored to England,
but Congress did not rise to the height of this generosity.
When the Alabama dispute was closed, there remained no
cause of alienation between the two countries. All good men
on both sides of the Atlantic desire earnestly that England and
America should be fast friends. It was possible for England,
by bestowing upon the North that sympathy which we now
recognize to have been due, to have bound the two countries
inalienably to each other. Unhappily the opportunity was
missed, and a needless estrangement was caused. But this was
not destined to endure, and it has long ago passed wholly away.
England and America now understand each other as they have
never done before. The constant intercourse of their citizens
is a bond of union already so strong that no folly of Governments
could break it. It may fairly be hoped that the irritations
which arose during the war have been succeeded by an
enduring concord between the two great sections of the Anglo-Saxon
family.
The chosen career of the American people is a career
of peaceful industry. Wisely shunning the glories
and calamities of war, they have devoted themselves
to the worthier labour of developing the
resources of the continent which is their magnificent heritage.
During four years they had been obliged to give their energies
to a war, on the successful issue of which the national existence
depended. When those sad years were over, and the conflict
ceased, they turned with renewed vigour to their accustomed
pursuits.
The industrial greatness of America is still, in large measure,
agricultural. Nearly one-half of her people live by the cultivation
of the soil. Upwards of three-fourths of the commodities which
she sells to foreigners are agricultural products. The total
value of the crops which she gathered in 1878 was not less than
£400,000,000. The strangers who help to build up her power
are drawn to her shores by the hope of obtaining easy possession
of fertile land. Her progress in the manufacturing arts has
been very rapid, but it cannot rival the giant growth of her
agriculture.
The agricultural system of America is eminently favourable
to cheap production. Unoccupied lands are the property of the
nation, and are made over to cultivators on easy terms, and in
many cases gratuitously. A rent-paying farmer is practically
unknown; the farmer owns the land which he tills. His farm
has cost him little, and as the invariable improvement in value
cancels even that, it may be said that it has cost him nothing.
The average farm of the Western States is one hundred and
sixty acres. It is cultivated almost without outlay of money.
The farmer and his family perform the work of the farm, with
the help of a neighbour at the great eras of sowing and reaping.
This help is requited in kind, and therefore costs nothing
in money. The rich, deep, virgin soil asks for no manure
during many years. The sole burden upon the farm is the
maintenance of the farmer and his family, and of the four oxen
or mules which share his toils. His local taxation is trivial.
His national taxation is less than one-half of that which the
English farmer bears.[3] The evil of distance from the great
markets of the world is neutralized by the low charge for
which his grain is carried on railway or canal.[4] His husbandry
is careless, insomuch that two acres of land in the valley of the
Mississippi yield no more than one acre yields in England.[5]
But if his agriculture is rude it is constantly improving; and,
meanwhile, it is so inexpensive that he can send its products to
England, four thousand miles away, and undersell the farmer
there. A vast revolution, whose results we as yet imperfectly
appreciate, is in progress around us. The antiquated, semi-feudal
land-system of England totters to its fall, unable to sustain
itself in presence of the more free and natural system of
the West.
Immigration languished during the earlier years of the war.
The distracted condition of the country, and the fears in regard
to its future so widely entertained in Europe, formed sufficient
reason why men who were in search of a home should avoid
America. But when success crowned the efforts of the North,
her old attractiveness to the emigrating class resumed its power.
It came then to be pressed upon the public mind that the progress
of the West was frustrated by want of adequate communication.
There was no railway beyond the Missouri river.
From that point westward to the Pacific communication depended
upon a rude system of stage-coaches, or the waggon of an
adventurous pioneer. It was a journey of nearly two thousand
miles, across an unpeopled wilderness. The hardship was extreme,
and the dangers not inconsiderable; for the way was
beset by hostile Indians, and the traveller must be in constant
readiness to fight. This vast region, composed mainly of rich
prairie land, was practically closed against progress. The resources
of the country, as it seemed, could not be developed
excepting near the margins of the continent, or by the borders
of her great navigable rivers.
It was now determined to construct a railway which should
connect the Atlantic with the Pacific, and open for the use of
man the vast intervening expanse of fertile soil. Stimulated
by liberal grants of national land, two companies began to
build—one eastward from San Francisco, the other westward
from the Missouri. As the extent of land given was in strict
proportion to the length of line laid down, each of the companies
pushed its operations to the utmost. The work was done in
haste, and, as many then thought, slightly; but experience
has proved its sufficiency. 1869 A.D. In due time the
lines met; the last rail was laid down, not without
emotion, such as befitted the completion of a work so great.
By the help of electricity the blows of the hammer which drove
home the last spike were made audible in the chief cities of the
east. The union of east and west was now complete, and many
millions of acres of rich land, hitherto inaccessible, were added
to the heritage of man. The savage occupants of these lands
were remorselessly pushed aside. The Indians had been dangerously
hostile to the workmen who constructed the railway,
and they showed some disposition to offer unpleasant interruption
to the trains which ran upon it. They were now gathered
up and placed in certain “reservations,” which it was well understood
would be reserved for Indians only till white men had
need of them. When the railroad was newly opened, travellers
could occasionally look out from the windows upon a vast
plain dark with innumerable multitudes of buffaloes plodding
sullenly on their customary migrations. Herds of antelopes
were seen fleeing before this new invader of their quiet lives.
The prairie-dog, sitting upon his mound of earth, watched with
curious eye the unwonted disturbance. All wild creatures were
now wantonly slain, or driven far away. A steady tide of
emigration flowed to the west. In the neighbourhood of the
railway, the little wooden farm-house became frequent; beside
stopping-places, villages arose, and swelled out into little towns;
the towns of the olden time increased rapidly and prospered.
The settlers planted trees of quick growth, and gradually, as
the line of settlement stretched westward, the monotony of
those dreary plains was brightened with groves, and dwellings,
and cultivated fields.
Iowa, Indiana, Illinois ceased to be regarded as belonging
to the west, and took rank as old and fully settled central
States. Beyond the Missouri a new career opened for Kansas
and Nebraska. Down to the beginning of the war these States
had been claimed and fought for by the slave-power. Day by
day now the railway brought long trains laden with immigrants—Russian
Mennonites fleeing from persecution in Church and
despotism in State; Germans escaping from military conscription;
Englishmen and Irishmen leaving lands where the
ownership of the soil was impossible excepting to a few.
Texas—once the refuge of men seeking exemption from the
restraints which criminal law imposes—even Texas prospered,
and under the genial influence of prosperity became respectable.
Her population has risen in eight years from eight hundred
thousand to two million. Much of her vast area[6] still lies
untilled; but much of it has been reclaimed for the use of man.
Her railways still traverse dreary forests, and great, unpeopled
plains; but they also carry the traveller past many smiling
villages, and many thriving cities where a prosperous commerce
is maintained, where schools and churches abound. They reveal
to him well-appointed farm-buildings; fields rich with bountiful
crops; jungles where the peach, the orange, the banana, the
pomegranate grow luxuriantly under the fostering heat of a
semi-tropical sun; vast areas roamed over by myriads of slight,
active-looking Texan cattle, the rearing of which yields wealth
to the people. In many of the Texan cities two contrasted
types of civilization—the old Mexican and the young American—live
peaceably side by side. The palace-car meets the ox-team
and the donkey with his panniers. The blanketed Indian,
the Mexican in poncho and sombrero, the American in his
faultless broadcloth, mingle harmoniously in the streets.
Handsome mansions such as abound in the suburbs of eastern
cities are near neighbours to antique Mexican dwellings, built
of adobe, with loopholed battlements, and walls which show
still the bullet-marks of forgotten strifes.
As the enormous mineral resources of the Rocky Mountains
became more certainly ascertained, crowds were attracted in
hope of sudden wealth, and the States which include the richer
portions of the range became the home of a large population.
In the remote north-west wheat crops of astonishing opulence
rewarded the simple husbandry of the settler. The law that
cultivated plants are most productive near the northern limit of
their growth was illustrated in the happy experience of Dakotah
and northern Minnesota, where the growing of wheat has
now become one of the most lucrative of industrial occupations.
The railways of those States are being extended with
all possible rapidity, and each extension is followed by a fresh
influx of settlers. Farmers of experience from the older and
less productive States are drawn to the north-west by the
unrivalled advantages which soil and climate present. During
the year 1878 not less than five million acres of land
were purchased in northern Minnesota for immediate cultivation.[7]
America has never been satisfied with mere agricultural greatness.
The ambition to manufacture was coeval with her origin,
and has grown with her growing strength. Twenty years after
the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers there were bounties offered
in Massachusetts for the encouragement of the manufacture of
linen, woollen, and cotton cloths. When the Arkwright spinning
machinery was introduced into England, the Americans
were eager to possess themselves of an improvement so valuable.
But the English law which prohibited the export of
machinery was inflexibly administered, and the models prepared
in secret for shipment to America were seized and confiscated.
But no discouragement repressed the enterprising colonists.
The beginnings of their great textile industries were sufficiently
humble. The earliest motive-power applied to cotton machinery
was the hand; next to it, and as an important advance, came
the use of animal-power.[8] But the growth of demand was
rapid, and before the close of last century the application of
water-power was universal.
The increase of consumption was more rapid in America than
the increase of production, and it had to be met by considerable
imports of English goods. England, with abundant capital
and low-priced labour, was able to produce more cheaply than
America, and the struggling native manufacturer had to complain
of a competition against which he was not able to support
himself. He appealed to the Government for protection, and
was influential enough to obtain that which he desired. For
many years the subject of the tariff was keenly disputed. The
Northern manufacturers were habitually seeking increased protection,
which the Southern planters, having no kindred interests
to protect, were often unwilling to grant. The rates
imposed rose or fell with the strength of the contending
parties and the political exigencies of the time. 1861 A.D. At length, immediately after the representatives of the
South had quitted Congress, and the friends of protection were
absolute, a highly protective tariff was enacted. Duties, the
mass of which range from thirty to fifty per cent., with some
very much larger, were imposed on nearly all foreign commodities
landed at American ports. Under this law, with only
slight modification, the foreign commerce of America has been
conducted for the last eighteen years, and there has not yet
manifested itself any change in American opinion which
warrants the expectation of an early return to a more liberal
system.
The large protection now enjoyed, and the active demand
occasioned by the war, stimulated the increase of productive
power. Within twelve years the machinery engaged in cotton-spinning
had doubled, rising from five to ten million spindles.
The increase in many other industries was equally rapid. Side
by side with this undue development there appeared the customary
fruits of a protective policy. There was a general
disregard of economy, a prevailing wastefulness which seemed
to neutralize the advantages enjoyed, and leave the manufacturer
still in need of additional protection. But a new competition
had now arisen, against which protection could not be gained.
It was no longer foreign competition which marred the fortune
of the native manufacturer; it was the still more deadly competition
which resulted from excessive production at home.
Especially when the panic of 1873 diminished so suddenly the
purchasing power of the American people, it was seen that
even if the manufactures of Europe had been wholly excluded,
America could no longer consume the commodities which her
machinery was able to produce.
During the years of misery which followed the panic, American
manufacturers gained experience of the “sweet uses” of
adversity. It was incumbent upon them now above all things
to study cheapness. Wages were reduced; improved appliances
by which cost might be lessened were eagerly and successfully
sought for; economy in every detail was studied with anxious
care. The result gained was of high national importance. In
a few years the American manufacturers found, in regard to
many articles of general consumption, that they were now able
to produce as cheaply as their rivals in England, and that they
were wholly independent of that legislative protection which
hitherto had been regarded as indispensable.
As the skill and care of the native producer increased, the
purchases which America required to make from foreigners
underwent large diminution. Her imports in 1878 were smaller
by one-third than they had been in 1873. She ceased to purchase
railroad iron, and diminished by more than eight-tenths
her purchases of other descriptions of iron. She almost ceased
to use European watches, having signally distanced us in that
branch of industry. She diminished by nearly one-half her
use of foreign books and other publications. Where formerly
she had required the earthen and glass wares of Europe to the
value of thirteen million dollars, seven million now sufficed.
Her use of foreign carpets fell to one-tenth; of foreign cottons
and woollens to one-half; of manufactures of wood to one-third;
of manufactures of steel to a little over one-third. April, 1879 A.D. And
in explanation of this record of decay our Secretary of
Legation at Washington contributes the ominous suggestion:—“The
decreased importation of the articles referred
to has been due in a great measure to the substitution
in the markets of this country of articles of American manufacture.”
But the Americans were not contented with this limitation
of their purchases from foreign producers. A desire to become
themselves exporters of manufactured articles sprang up during
the years of depression which followed the panic. Under the
pure democracy of America a general desire translates
itself very quickly into Government action. 1877 A.D. The Secretary
of State addressed to his consuls in all parts of
the world a request that they would collect for him all information
fitted to be useful to American manufacturers who
sought markets for their wares in foreign countries. The
answers have put him in possession of a mass of information
such as no Government ever before took the trouble to gather
regarding the conditions of foreign markets, and the openings
which existed or might be created in each for American manufactures.
The growth of this trade has thus far been steady,
but not rapid, and even now it has reached only moderate
dimensions. In 1870 American manufactures were exported
to the value of fifteen million sterling, while in 1878 the value
had risen to twenty-seven million. Chief among the articles
which make up this respectable aggregate are cotton cloths,
manufactures of wood, of leather, of iron and steel, including
machinery, tools, and agricultural implements. America sells
to foolish nations which have not yet grown out of their fighting
period, fire-arms, cartridges, gunpowder, and shell, to the
extent of nearly a million and a half sterling. The multiplicity
of articles which leave her ports show how keenly her foreign
trade is being prosecuted. She sends household furniture, made
by machinery, and sells it at prices which to the British cabinet-maker
seem to be ruinous. She sends cutlery and tools of
finish and price which fill the men of Sheffield with dismay, but
do not apparently stimulate them to improvement. She sends
watches manufactured by processes so superior to those still
practised in Europe that the Swiss manufacturers have explicitly
acknowledged hopeless defeat. She sends medicines,
combs, perfumery, soap, spirits, writing-paper, musical instruments,
glass-ware, carriages. All these are articles for which, but
a few years ago, she herself was indebted to Europe. Now she
supplies her own requirements, and has an increasing surplus
for which she seeks markets abroad. Her policy of protection
has been costly beyond all calculation; but those who upheld it
now point with reasonable pride to the splendid place which
America has taken among the manufacturing nations of the
Earth.
The Pilgrim Fathers carried with them to New
England a deep persuasion that the people of the
State which they went to found must be universally
educated. Not otherwise could the enduring success
of their great enterprise be hoped for. It was their care
from the very outset to provide in such manner as circumstances
enabled them for the education of their children. The
germ of a free-school system is to be found in each of their
youthful settlements. The records of the European countries
of the time would be searched in vain for evidence of a sentiment
so deeply seated, so widely prevalent, so enlightened as
the New England desire that all children should be educated.
Its sincerity was proved by the willingness of the people to
submit to taxation in the cause. In the early days of Connecticut
one-fourth of the revenues of the colony was applied
to the support of schools. Long before the revolution, schools
maintained by public funds and free of charge to the pupils
had extended widely over the New England States. This
love of education has never cooled. When the colonists
gained their independence and established themselves as an
association of freemen, conducting their own public affairs,
a new urgency was added to the necessity that all should be
educated. It was clearly seen, even then, that while ignorant
men might be serviceable subjects of a despotism, only
educated citizens were capable of self-government. Northern
America sought to build the fabric of republican institutions
upon the solid and durable foundation of universal enlightenment.
In the Southern States the aristocratic tendencies which
the slave-system fostered were adverse to the education of the
poor. The slave-owners desired submission; their property
was not improved in value, but the reverse, by education.
While America was still a dependency, a question was put to
the Governor of Virginia by the English Commissioners for
Foreign Plantations. “I thank God,” replied the Governor,
“there are no free schools or printing-presses, and I hope we
shall not have these hundred years.” The Governor’s hope
was more than fulfilled. The common-school system was almost
unknown in the South while slavery existed. It became
criminal to teach a slave to read; the poor white had no desire
to learn, and no one sought to teach him. At the close of the
rebellion the mass of the Southern population were as little
educated as the Russian peasants are to-day. But peace was
no sooner restored than the eager desire of the negroes for education
was met by the generous efforts of the North. Northern
teachers were quickly at work among the negro children. So
soon as the means of the ruined States permitted, the common-school
system of the North was set up. It entailed burdens
which they were then ill able to bear. But these burdens have
been borne with a willingness which is evidence that the South
now recognizes her need of education. Notwithstanding their
poverty, some of the States yield for school purposes a rate of
taxation larger for each member of the population than is that
of England.
The American people manifest a profound and, as recent
reports indicate, an increasing interest in their system of common
schools. It is not merely or chiefly the personal advantage
of the individual citizen which concerns them. It is the greatness
and permanence of the State.[9] “Free education for all
is the prime necessity of republics.” Institutions which rest
altogether upon popular support demand, as essential to their
safety, the support of an instructed people. It was the same
conviction which impressed itself upon Great Britain when,
having conceded household suffrage, she hastened to set up a
compulsory and universal system of education, that the dangers
likely to arise from the ignorance of the new electors might be
averted. Moreover, the Americans believe firmly that without
educated labour eminence in the industrial arts is not attainable.
According to an estimate which has grown out of
the experience of employers, the educated labourer is more
valuable by twenty-five per cent. than his ignorant rival. Here
is a source of national wealth which no wise State will disregard.
It is the American theory that the State—the associated
citizens—has a proprietary interest in each of its members.
For the good of the community, it is entitled to insist that
every citizen shall become as effective as it is possible to make
him; to expend public funds in order to that result is therefore
a warrantable and remunerative outlay.
Looking thus upon the value of public instruction, the
American people have borne willingly the heavy costs of the
common school. They suffer taxation ungrudgingly at a rate
which, for the smaller population of England and Wales, would
amount to nine million sterling instead of the four million
actually expended. Nor is this the easy product of lands set
apart for educational purposes at a time when land was valueless.
Many of the States wisely set apart one-sixteenth of
their land to uphold their schools. But in many of the old
States the appropriation was not respected; too often, especially
in the South, the endowment was applied to other uses. The
revenue derived now from any description of endowment does
not exceed five per cent. of the whole; the remainder comes
from State or local taxation. At one time, in some of the
States, fees were charged from the pupils. But the opinion
came to be widely entertained that this charge impaired in
many ways the efficiency of the system. Six or eight years
ago fees were discontinued, and now the schools of the nation
are free to all. The Americans witness with approbation
the increase of their expenditure on education. During the
ten years which preceded the rebellion this expenditure
was doubled; again, during the ten years which followed
it was trebled. It has now grown to nearly eighteen million
sterling—a sum larger than all the nations of Europe
unitedly expend for the same purpose. Large as it is, however,
it is equal to no more than two-thirds of the sum
which Britain still expends upon her military and naval preparations.
The common school is used by all classes of the American
people. At one time there existed among the rich a disposition
to have their children educated with others of their own social
position, and many private schools sprang up to meet their
demand. As the common schools have increased in efficiency,
and consequently in public favour, this disposition has weakened,
and private schools have decayed. Their number is much
smaller now than it was ten years ago, and continues to diminish.
With one unhappy exception, the common school satisfies the
requirements of the American people. The leaders of the
Roman Catholic body perceive that its influences are adverse
to the growth of their tenets, and do not cease to demand the
means of educating their children apart from the children of
those who hold religious beliefs differing from theirs. But
their proposals meet with no favour beyond the limits of their
own denomination, and even there only partial support is given.
The American Roman Catholic is more apt than his brethren in
Europe to fall into the disloyal practice of independent judgment.
It has not been found possible to alienate him wholly
from the common school.
It is of interest to inquire in what measure the American
people have been requited by the success of their common-school
system for the vast sums which they expend on its maintenance.
At first sight the statistics of the subject seem to return a discouraging
reply to such an inquiry. When the census of 1870
was taken it disclosed a high percentage of illiteracy. Seventeen
adult males and twenty-three adult females in every
hundred were wholly uneducated—numbers almost as high as
those of England at the same period. But the special circumstances
of the country explain these figures in a manner which
relieves the common school of all blame. The larger portion of
this illiteracy had its home in the Southern States and among
the coloured population, whose ignorance had been carefully
preserved by wicked laws and a corrupted public feeling.
Again, America had received during the ten years which preceded
the census an immigration of four and a half million
persons. The educational condition of those strangers was low,
and their presence therefore bore injuriously upon the averages
which were reported. The common school must be judged in
the Northern States and among the native white population,
for there only has it had full opportunity to act. And there it
has achieved magnificent success. In the New England States
there is not more than one uneducated native of ten years and
upwards in every hundred. In the other Northern States the
average is scarcely so favourable. The uneducated number
from two up to four in every hundred.
It thus appears that the common school has banished illiteracy
from the North. The native American of the Northern States
is almost invariably a person who has received, at the lowest, a
sound primary education. The efforts by which this result has
been reached began with the foundation of each State, and have
been continued uninterruptedly throughout its whole history.
In the rising industrial competition of the time, it must count
for much that American artisans are not only educated men
and women, but are the descendants of educated parents. A
nation which expends upon education a sum larger than all the
nations of Europe unitedly expend; which contents itself with
an army of twenty-five thousand soldiers; whose citizens are
exempt from the curse of idle years laid by the governments of
Continental Europe upon their young men,—such a nation
cannot fail to secure a victorious position in the great industrial
struggle which all civilized States are now compelled to wage
for existence.
From the very dawn of her history, America has
been a powerful factor in the solution of many
great European problems. In the early days of
her settlement she offered a welcome refuge from
the oppression and poverty of the Old World. Her assertion
of independence inflamed the impulses which were preparing
the French Revolution with all its unforeseen and incalculable
consequences, and hastened the coming of that tremendous occurrence.
Throughout the half century of struggle by which
Europe vindicated her freedom, it was a constant stimulus to
patriot effort to know that, beyond the sea, there was a country
where men were at liberty to prosecute their own welfare unimpeded
by the restraints which despotism imposes. A constant
light was thrown by American experience upon the questions
which agitated Europe. Men accustomed to be told that
they were unfit to bear any part in the government of their
country, saw men such as they themselves were enjoying political
privileges in America, and governing a continent to the general
advantage. Men accustomed to be told that State support was
indispensable to the existence of the Church, saw religion
becomingly upheld in America by the spontaneous offerings of
the people. Methods of government altogether unlike those of
Europe were practised in America; and Europe had constant
opportunity of judging how far these methods surpassed or fell
short of her own. Europe lived under a system of government
which scarcely regarded individual rights, and cared supremely
for the interests of the State—meaning ordinarily by that the
interests or caprices of a very few persons. In America the
State was an organization whose purpose was mainly the protection
of individual rights. On the eastern shores of the
Atlantic the belief still prevailed that in every nation the
Almighty had conveyed to some one man the right to deal as
he pleased with the lives and property of all the others. On
the western shores of the Atlantic a great nation acted on the
theory that national interests were merely the interests which
the aggregated individual citizens had in common,[10] and that
government was nothing more than an association of persons
whose duty it was to guide those interests in conformity with
the public desire. The American doctrine extended into Europe,
and contributed in no inconsiderable degree to the growth of
liberal ideas and the overthrow of despotism. The sustained
exhibition upon a scale so vast of freedom in thought and
action, with its happy results in contentment and prosperity,
could not fail to impress deeply the oppressed nations of Europe.
Here were a people who made their own laws, who obeyed no
authority which was not of their own appointment, to whom
decrees, and ukases, and all the hateful utterances of despotism
were unknown. Here were millions of men enjoying perfect
equality of opportunity to seek their own welfare; here was
life free from the burden of a class inaccessibly superior to the
great mass of the people. The daily influences of American
life sapped the fabric of privilege, and helped the European
people to vindicate the rights of which they had been deprived.
The influence which America exerts upon the currents of
European history must continue to increase in power. Her
population, reinforced as it is by emigration from less happily
circumstanced countries, grows more rapidly than any European
population. Her artisans are better educated than those of
any other country, and they are therefore more effective for
industrial purposes. They are free from the burden of military
service, which in Continental Europe absorbs those years of a
young man’s life when the hands gain expertness and the mind
forms habits of industry. In the capacity of mechanical invention—the
breath of life to an industrial nation—they are manifestly
superior to Europe. The competition of this intelligent,
ingenious, rapidly increasing people, fired by an ambition to
become great as a manufacturing nation, cannot fail to influence
directly and powerfully the industrial future of the European
nations.
As the population and the wealth of America increase, the
testimony which her example bears in favour of individual
right and absolute freedom of thought will become more conspicuous
and influential. The rebuke which her attitude of
universal peace and her inconsiderable military expenditure
administer to the diseased suspicions and measureless waste of
Europe will become more emphatic, perhaps even in some
degree more effective, than it has yet proved to be. Thus far,
the teaching of America in regard to the maintenance of huge
armies in time of peace has been rejected as inapplicable to the
existing circumstances of Europe. But it may fairly be hoped
that in course of years the industrial competition of a great
people who have freed themselves from heavy burdens which
their competitors still bear will enforce upon Europe economies
of which neither governments nor people are as yet sufficiently
educated to perceive the necessity.
America has still something to learn from the riper experience
and more patient thinking of England. But it has been her
privilege to teach to England and the world one of the grandest
of lessons. She has asserted the political rights of the masses.
She has proved to us that it is safe and wise to trust the people.
She has taught that the government of the people should be
“by the people and for the people.”
Let our last word here be a thankful acknowledgment of the
inestimable service which she has thus rendered to mankind.
The reconstruction of the Union was completed during
General Grant’s term of office. The Presidentship
of his successor, Mr. Rutherford B. Hayes,
was uneventful. It was not on that account the
less fruitful in good results. The complete amalgamation of
the North and the South could only be the work of time.
President Hayes helped forward this useful work. He visited
the South in his first year of office, and was everywhere well
received.
The Census of 1880 showed the population of the United
States to be upwards of fifty million. The increase during the
previous ten years had been eleven million and a half, or at
the extraordinary rate of more than a million a year.
During Mr. Hayes’ Presidentship, two questions became
prominent, and sharply divided political parties. These were,
the resumption of cash payments, and the reform of the Civil
Service.
1878 A.D. The Currency Controversy is remarkable for having brought
the President into conflict with Congress. The Bland
Silver Bill, making the silver dollar a legal tender, was
passed by large majorities both in the House of Representatives
and in the Senate. President Hayes had no faith in
the doctrine of bi-metallism, and he vetoed the Bill. The Bill
was re-passed in both Houses by a two-thirds majority, and
became law in spite of the presidential veto. The conflict subjected
the Constitution to a severe strain. But the crisis passed
quietly, showing how well-grounded is the faith of the Americans
in the fitness of their Constitution to meet all exigencies.
The demand for a reform in the Civil Service had been growing
for years. The revelations of electoral corruption filled
men of independent spirit with shame and confusion. The evil
practices were not confined to a particular party. Republicans
and Democrats were equally unscrupulous. It was proved by
strict inquiry that in two States the majority for President
Hayes himself had been obtained by fraudulent means. The
constitutional custom which makes every office in the Civil
Service, from the highest to the lowest, change hands whenever
power is transferred from one party to another, was felt to be
the root of the evil.
1881 A.D. When President James Garfield assumed office in March
1881, he announced his intention of dealing firmly and
earnestly with the question of administrative reform.
Garfield’s election to the dignity of President was unexpected.
The chief Republican candidates were General
Grant, who had previously held the office for two terms, Secretary
Sherman, and Senator Blaine. In the Republican convention
held at Chicago for the selection of a candidate, General
Garfield acted as manager of the party which supported Sherman.
When he was first proposed he declined to become a
candidate. It was only when Sherman’s success was seen to be
impossible, and when all the parties opposed to Grant coalesced
in favour of Garfield, that his name came to the front. He
was ultimately chosen unanimously as the Republican candidate,
on the ground that he divided the party the least. In
the election itself, which was mainly determined by the vote of
New York State, Garfield defeated his Democratic opponent
General Hancock by 219 votes to 185.
Comparatively little was known about the new President
before he was elected. Even in America his selection was a
surprise. The chief fact that was known about him was that
he had risen, like Abraham Lincoln, from the humblest origin.
He had been born in a log-hut in the forest of Ohio. He had
begun life on the tow-path as a driver of mules which dragged
a canal boat between Cleveland and Pittsburg. By his own
energy alone he had risen. He had been a professor, a preacher,
a successful soldier, a practical lawyer, a bold and ready party
leader. Throughout life he had been noted for fearless honesty.
In his public career, no taint of corruption was found attaching
to any part of his conduct. The man who should undertake to
reform the abuses in the official system of America must himself
have clean hands, and Garfield’s hands were clean.
General Garfield’s election was held to be a great triumph for
the Republican party, but especially for that section of it which
advocated Civil Service reform. He had made no secret of his
opinions on that subject. In the outline of his political creed
which he issued soon after his selection as Republican candidate
he expressed his agreement with those who urged the necessity
of “placing the Civil Service on a better basis.” The remedy
to which he pointed was that “Congress should devise a method
that will determine the tenure of office.” In his inaugural
address on assuming office, he intimated his intention of taking
steps to apply this remedy. Two objects, he said, must be
aimed at. The one was to protect the executive against “the
waste of time and the obstruction to public business caused by
the inordinate pressure for place.” The other was to protect
the holders of office “against intrigue and wrong.” To effect
both objects, he would “at the proper time ask Congress to fix
the tenure of the minor offices of several executive departments,
and prescribe grounds upon which removals shall be made.”
Further, he announced his purpose “to demand rigid economy
in all expenditures of the Government, and to require honest and
faithful service of all the executive officers, remembering that
their offices were created, not for the benefit of the incumbents
or their supporters, but for the service of the Government.”
These declarations did not give unmixed satisfaction to the
Republican party. The anti-reform section of it, which still
holds by President Jackson’s maxim, “The spoils to the victors,”
regarded them as in some sense a declaration of war. It is certain
that to the hopes of place-hunters they were a serious blow.
For his honest desire to rid the public offices of these pests, and
at the same time to purify the Government, the President was
made to pay a terrible penalty. Within the railway station at
Washington he was shot in the back by a man named Charles
Guiteau, who for several days had been importuning the authorities
at White House for place.
The useless and utterly wanton crime sent a thrill of horror
through America, through England, through the civilized world.
The shot did not at once prove fatal; but that only made the
cruelty of the deed the more intense. For eleven weeks through
the heat of summer (July 2 till September 19) the President’s
life trembled in the balance. He bore his sufferings with marvellous
patience and fortitude. The calamity brought out the
manly strength and the simple beauty of his character with the
brilliancy of sunset.
“In the reproof of chance
Lies the true proof of men.”
Seldom if ever before has there been so striking an instance of
misfortune raising a good man to world-wide renown. Hardly less
beautiful than the President’s cheerful endurance was the heroic
devotion of his wife. “It is no exaggeration to say,” said Mr.
James Russell Lowell, the American Minister in London, “that
the recent profoundly-touching spectacle of womanly devotedness,
in its simplicity, its constancy, and its dignity, has moved
the heart of mankind in a manner without any precedent in
living memory.”
During the whole of these “eleven agonizing weeks” the bed
of the dying President was the centre of interest to men and
women of all ranks in both hemispheres. “The whole civilized
world,” said Mr. Lowell, “gathered about it; and in the
breathless suspense of anxious solicitude listened to the difficult
breathing, counted the fluttering pulse, was cheered by the
momentary rally, and saddened by the inevitable relapse.”
At length the end came with startling suddenness. It was
followed by a universal wail. All humanity mourned, as if it
had lost a brother. The sentiment pervaded all classes, from
crowned heads to humble peasants. The Queen of England
was foremost in her offers of sympathy, not only with the sorrowing
widow and mother, but also with the bereaved nation;
and stanch Republicans were fain to acknowledge “how true a
woman’s heart may beat under the royal purple.” The English
Court was ordered to go into mourning, as for one of royal
blood and ancient lineage. The act was as graceful and as wise
as it was unprecedented. The head of the young Republic was,
by the spontaneous act of the head of the ancient Kingdom,
recognized in his due place as one of the community of monarchs
and princes. A hundred years ago, who could have anticipated
such an event?
It would be a mistake to suppose that the death of President
Garfield created the warm feelings of sympathy between England
and America which the event revealed. It is true, however,
that the event opened at once the hearts and the eyes of
both peoples, and brought to light the depth and the strength
of their brotherhood, in a way that nothing else could have
done. The brotherly feelings on the part of England were
heartily and even touchingly reciprocated in America. After
the coffin of the deceased President had been closed, only one
wreath was allowed to rest on it; and that was the wreath sent
by the Queen of England. To the world this was a token of
peace and good-will firmly established between England and
America—of the oneness of the English-speaking race, in their
common homage to President and to Queen. If the result
shall be to strengthen permanently the bond between the
kindred peoples—to root out jealousies and smooth over asperities,
to produce generosity in the midst of rivalry and co-operation
in good works—President Garfield will not have died in
vain.
“He was no common man,” said Mr. Lowell, in his graceful
and eloquent panegyric, “who could call forth, and justly call
forth, an emotion so universal, an interest so sincere and so
human.” And that is no common country which can produce
such a man, and give him the opportunity of achieving
greatness. Garfield’s career teaches many lessons; but it shows
nothing more clearly than the great possibilities which his
country opens up to honesty and persevering labour. “The
poor lad who at thirteen could not read, dies at fifty the tenant
of an office second in dignity to none on earth; and the world
mourns his loss as that of a personal relative.”
“The soil out of which such men as he were made is good
to be born on, good to live on, good to die for and to be
buried in.”
The peace and naturalness with which Vice-President Arthur
at once succeeded to the presidential functions, without shock
to the political system and without detriment to the national
honour, justifies the pride of the Americans in the stability of
their institutions.
