The presidential election showed that the outburst of bigotry had done more harm to friends than enemies of liberty. The Democrats lost Maryland, but gained Pennsylvania and four other Northern States. This enabled them to retain the Presidency and the Senate, as well as to recover the House of Representatives, where they had become weaker than the Republicans. The party of freedom polled eight times as many votes as in 1852, and made its first appearance in the electoral colleges. It carried eleven States. The Whigs had accepted the Know Nothing nominee; and both these neutral parties soon dissolved.
Anarchy in Kansas had been suppressed by United States dragoons; but they did not prevent the adoption of a pro-slavery const.i.tution by bogus elections. Buchanan promptly advised Congress to admit Kansas as a slave State, and declared she was already as much one as Georgia or South Carolina. This opinion he based on the Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court, that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in any territory. Douglas insisted on the right of the people of Kansas to "vote slavery up or down." They were enabled by the joint efforts of Republicans and Northern Democrats to have a fair chance to say whether they wished to become a slave State or remain a territory; and the latter was preferred by four-fifths of the voters.
V. The South called Douglas a traitor; but leading Republicans helped the Illinois Democrats, in 1858, to elect the Legislature which gave him another term in the Senate. He might have become the next President if his opponent in the senatorial contest, Abraham Lincoln, had not led the Republican party into the road towards emanc.i.p.ation. On June 16, 1858, he said, in the State convention: "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved--I do not expect the house to fall--but I do expect it will cease to be divided.
It will become all one thing or all the other." Seward took the same position, four months later, in his speech about the "irrepressible conflict." Lincoln held that summer and autumn a series of joint debates with his opponent, before audiences one of which was estimated at twenty thousand. The speeches were circulated by the Republicans as campaign doc.u.ments; and Lincoln"s were remarkable, not only for his giving no needless provocation to the South, but for his proving that slavery ought not to be introduced into any new territory or State by local elections. He represented Douglas as really holding that if one man chooses to enslave another no third man has any business to interfere; and he repudiated the decision in the Dred Scott case, that coloured people "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." He had more votes that fall than Douglas; but the latter"s friends were enabled by the district system to control the Legislature. Douglas was sent back to the Senate. Lincoln gained the national reputation which made him President.
The congressional elections were more favourable to the Republicans than in 1856, for Northern indignation was growing under the stimulus, not only of the new wrong to Kansas, but of attempts to annex Cuba and revive the slave trade. Plans for emanc.i.p.ation were still discussed in the South; and the agitation had reached even Texas. Helper"s _Impending Crisis_ had gained circulation enough in his own State, North Carolina, to alarm the slaveholders. They knew that they const.i.tuted only three-tenths of the Southern voters, and that the proportion was less than one-sixth in Maryland. Helper proved that emanc.i.p.ation would be greatly to the advantage of many men who held slaves, as well as of all who did not. When this was found out by the majority in any Southern State, slavery would begin to fall by its own weight. It had been kept up by popular ignorance; but the prop was crumbling away. This way of emanc.i.p.ation might have been long; but it would have led to friendly relations between whites and blacks, as well as between North and South.
What was most needed in 1859 was that all friends of freedom should work together, and that no needless pretext should be given for secession.
Garrison still insisted on disunion, and predicted that the South would not "be able to hold a single slave one hour after the deed is done,"
but he also maintained, as most abolitionists did, that nothing would be more foolish than trying to excite a slave insurrection. Precisely this greatest of blunders was committed at Harper"s Ferry. If the attempt had been made six months later, or had had even a few weeks of success, it might have enabled the slaveholders to elect at least one more President. The bad effect, in dividing the North, was much diminished by John Brown"s heroism at his trial and execution; but great provocation was given to the South, and especially to Virginia, which soon turned out to be the most dangerous of the rebel States. Business men were driven North by the dozen from cities which were preparing for war.
The quarrel between Northern and Southern Democrats kept growing fiercer; and the party broke up at the convention for 1860 into two sectional factions with antagonistic platforms and candidates. Douglas still led the opposition to those Southerners who maintained that the nation ought to protect slavery in the territories. A third ticket was adopted by neutrals who had been Whigs or Know Nothings, and who now professed no principle but a vague patriotism. The Republicans remained pledged to exclude slavery from the territories; but they condemned John Brown, and said nothing against the Fugitive Slave Law or in favour of emanc.i.p.ation in the District of Columbia. Their leaders had favoured free trade in 1857; but the platform was now made protectionist, in order to prevent Pennsylvania from being carried again by the Democrats.
Illinois and Indiana were secured by the nomination of Lincoln. He was supported enthusiastically by the young men throughout the North: public meetings were large and frequent; torchlight processions were a prominent feature of the campaign. The wealth and intellect of the nation, as well as its conscience, were now arrayed against slavery; but the clergy are said to have been less active than in 1856. Lincoln had the majority in every Northern State, except New Jersey, California, and Oregon. He also had 17,028 votes in Missouri, and 8042 in other slave States which had sent delegates to the Republican convention. Not one of the Southern electors was for Lincoln; but he would have become President if all his opponents had combined against him.
VI. The South had nothing to fear from Congress before 1863, but she had lost control of the North. Kansas would certainly be admitted sooner or later; and there would never be another slave State, for the Republican plan for the territories was confirmed by their geographical position.
The free States might soon become so numerous and populous as to prohibit the return of fugitives, abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, repeal the clause of the Const.i.tution which allowed representation for slaves, and forbid their transportation from State to State. It was also probable, in the opinion of Salmon P. Chase, afterwards Secretary of the Treasury, and of many leading Southerners, that under Federal patronage there might soon be a majority for emanc.i.p.ation in Maryland, Kentucky, and other States (see _Life of Theodore Parker_, by Weiss, vol. ii., pp. 229, 519). The vote of thanks given to Parker in 1855 by the hearers of his anti-slavery lecture in Delaware, showed that abolitionism would eventually become predominant in the Senate, as it was already in the House of Representatives.
This prospect was especially alarming to the comparatively few men who owned so many slaves that they could not afford emanc.i.p.ation on any terms. Their wealth and leisure gave them complete control of politics, business, public opinion, and social life in the cotton States; where both press and pulpit were in bondage. Their influence was much less in the farming States than in 1850; but they had since come into such perfect union among themselves, as to const.i.tute the most powerful aristocracy then extant. Their number may be judged from the fact that there were in 1850 about six thousand people in the cotton States who owned fifty slaves or more each.
It was in the interest of these barons of slavery that South Carolina seceded soon after the election, and that her example was followed by Georgia and all the Gulf States before Lincoln was inaugurated. The Garrisonists wished to have them depart in peace; but there was a strong and general preference for another compromise. Lincoln and other Republicans insisted that the territories should be kept sacred to freedom, and that "The Union must be preserved." The question was settled by those aggressions on national property which culminated in the bombardment of Fort Sumter. Lincoln"s call to arms was answered by a great uprising of the united North. Loyalty to the nation burst forth in so fierce a flame that abolitionists who had been trying for many years to extinguish it now welcomed it as the destined destroyer of slavery.
War had been declared for the sole purpose of suppressing rebellion; and nothing more could at first have been attempted without violating the Const.i.tution. Fugitives were sent back promptly by Federal generals, and anti-slavery songs forbidden in the camps. This policy seemed necessary to keep the North united, and prevent secession of doubtful States.
Some of those already in revolt might thus, it was hoped, be induced to return voluntarily, or be conquered easily. These expectations were soon disappointed. A few of the slave States were kept in subjection by military force; but the people of the others united in a desperate resistance, with the aid of the slaves, who supplied the armies with food and laboured without complaint in camps and forts. But little was accomplished by the immense armies raised at the North; for the discipline was at first lax, and the generals were inefficient. Many defeats of Union armies by inferior forces showed how difficult it is for a nation that has enjoyed many years of peace to turn conqueror.
VII. The innate incompatibility of war and liberty was disclosed by the unfortunate fact that even Lincoln was obliged to consent unwillingly to war measures of a very questionable sort; for instance, the conscription and that Legal Tender Act which was really a forced loan, and which has done much to encourage subsequent violations of the right of property by both Republicans and Democrats in Congress. More harm than good was done to the Union cause by arbitrary arrests for talking and writing against the war. Phillips declared, in December, 1861, that "The right of free meetings and a free press is suspended in every square mile of the republic." "At this moment one thousand men are bastilled." Hale and other Republican Senators remonstrated; and so patriotic an author as Holmes said that teapots might be dangerous, if the lids were shut. All political prisoners but spies were released by the President early in 1862; and there were no more arbitrary arrests except under plea of military necessity.
Failures of Union generals encouraged opposition to the war from men who still preferred compromise; and their disaffection was increased by the pa.s.sage, in March, 1863, of a bill establishing a conscription and putting all the people under martial law. The commander of the military district that included Ohio issued orders which forbade "declaring sympathy for the enemy," and threatened with death "all persons within our lines who harbour, protect, feed, clothe, or in any way aid the enemies." These orders were denounced as unconst.i.tutional at a public meeting before more than ten thousand citizens. Many wore badges cut from the large copper coins then in use and bearing the sacred image and superscription of Liberty. This practice brought the nickname "Copperheads" upon people who longed to have the South invited back on her own terms. Such a policy was recommended at the meeting by Vallandigham, who had recently represented Ohio in Congress. He called upon the people to vote against the "wicked war," and said he would never obey orders aimed against public discussion.
For this speech he was arrested at night, by soldiers who broke into his house, tried by court-martial, and sentenced on May 7, 1863, to imprisonment during the remainder of the war. A writ of _habeas corpus_ was refused by the United States Court, which admitted itself "powerless to enforce obedience." At the clang of war, laws are silent.
Indignation meetings in great cities voted that "The Union cannot be restored without freedom of speech." Loyal newspapers regretted that Vallandigham was under "a penalty which will make him a martyr." A pet.i.tion for his release was sent to Lincoln, who had not ordered the arrest and admitted that it was not justified by the speech. He concluded that the culprit"s behaviour towards the army had been so dangerous that he had better be sent South, beyond the lines. This was done at once; but the agitator was allowed to return through Canada in the last summer of the war. Even Lincoln found it difficult to respect individual liberty under the pressure of military necessity. A strong government was needed; and that fact has opened the way for Congress to interfere with private business, for instance in changing the tariff, during the latter part of the century much more frequently and extensively than had been done before. Another significant fact is that the old controversy about internal improvements has died away since our government was centralised by war; and much money is wasted under that pretext by Congress.
VIII. The impossibility of putting down the rebellion without interfering with slavery gradually became plain, even to men who had formerly hated abolitionism. The only question was how to turn what was the strength of the Confederacy into its weakness. In March, 1862, Congress forbade the army to return fugitives; and many thousand fled into the Union camps, where they did good service, not only as teamsters and labourers, but even as soldiers. The number under arms amounted finally to more than a hundred thousand; and they did some of the best fighting that took place during the war. The colour prejudice at the North yielded slowly; but the leading Republicans saw not only the need of more soldiers, but the justice of setting free the wives and children of men who were risking death for the nation. An Emanc.i.p.ation League was formed during the first gloomy winter of the war; and Frederick Dougla.s.s said on the Fourth of July amid great applause: "You must abolish slavery, or abandon the Union"; "for slavery is the life of the rebellion."
Lincoln was already thinking of setting free the slaves in all the States which should continue in rebellion after the close of the year; and his draft of a proclamation, announcing this purpose, was read to the Cabinet on July 22, 1862. The army in Virginia had been so unfortunate that summer as to cause a postponement; but the victory of Antietam was followed by the publication, on September 22d, of the formal notice that emanc.i.p.ation might be proclaimed on the 1st of January. How welcome the new policy was to loyal citizens may be judged from the approbation expressed by the clergy of all denominations, even the New School Presbyterian, Episcopalian, and Roman Catholic. When New Year"s Day dawned there was much doubt whether the promise would be fulfilled. Abolitionists and coloured people met in Boston and other cities, and waited hour after hour, hoping patiently. It was evening before the proclamation began to pa.s.s over the wires. It promised freedom to all slaves in Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina, besides most of those in Louisiana and Virginia. Tennessee and some other States were not mentioned, because held to have been brought back into the Union. There was to be freedom thenceforth wherever the Stars and Stripes waved. No wonder that the news caused great audiences to shout or weep with joy, and many to spend the night in praise and prayer. The North was now inspired by motives amply sufficient to justify even a war of conquest; and her men and money were given freely, until superiority in resources enabled General Grant to close the war in April, 1865. The revolted States came back, one by one, and left slavery behind. Even where it had not been formally abolished, it was practically extinct. Dougla.s.s was right in saying "It was not the destruction, but the salvation of the Union, that saved the slave."
An amendment to the Const.i.tution, which swept away the last vestiges of slavery, and made it for ever impossible in the United States, was adopted on December 18, 1865. It had been proposed two years before; but the a.s.sent of several States then actually in revolt would have been necessary to secure the majority of three-fourths necessary for adoption of an amendment. It was by no means certain that even the nominally loyal States would all vote unanimously for emanc.i.p.ation. In order to increase the majority for the Thirteenth Amendment, the admission of Nevada and Colorado as States was voted by Congress, despite some opposition by the Democrats, in March, 1864. Nevada had a population of less than 43,000 in 1870. There were not 46,000 people there in 1890, and there had been a decline since 1880. It is not likely that her inhabitants will ever be numerous enough to justify her having as much power in the Senate as New York or Pennsylvania. Senators who represent millions of const.i.tuents have actually been prevented from pa.s.sing necessary laws by Senators who did not represent even twenty-five thousand people each. Nevada is still the worst instance of such injustice; but it is by no means the only one; and these wrongs can never be righted, for the Const.i.tution provides that. "No State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate."
The Thirteenth Amendment did not, I think, come into force a day earlier than it would have done if Nevada had never been admitted, for the _bona-fide_ States came forward with unexpected willingness. Colorado was not fully admitted before 1876. Lincoln"s favouring the bills for admitting these States was a serious error, though the motive was patriotic. His beauty and grandeur of character make the brightest feature of those dark, sad years. No name stands higher among martyrs for freedom.
IX. There is no grander event in all history than the emanc.i.p.ation of four million slaves. This was all the more picturesque because done by a conquering army; but it was all the more hateful to the former owners.
They refused to educate or enfranchise the freedmen, and tried to reduce them to serfdom by heavy taxes and cruel punishments for petty crimes.
The States which had seceded were kept under military dictators after the war was over; and their people were forced to accept the Fourteenth Amendment, which gave protection to coloured people as citizens of the United States.
In 1867 there were twenty-one Northern States; but only Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont gave the ballot freely to illiterate negroes without property. Ma.s.sachusetts had an educational test for all voters; there were other restrictions elsewhere; and no coloured men could vote in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, or the North-west. In fact, very few had ever voted anywhere when Congress gave the suffrage to all the freed men for their own protection, with no discrimination against illiteracy.
The result of this measure in the District of Columbia was that unscrupulous politicians gained strong support from needy and ignorant voters of all colours. Public money was spent recklessly; taxation became oppressive; and the public debt grew to alarming size. On June 17, 1874, when Grant was President and each branch of Congress was more than two-thirds Republican, the House of Representatives voted, ten to one, in favour of taking away the suffrage, not only from the blacks who had received it seven years before, but even from the whites who had exercised it since the beginning of the century. All local government was entrusted to three commissioners appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. There was no opposition; for the arrangement seemed only temporary. It proved permanent. Even taxation without representation has been thought better than negro suffrage; and the citizens of the national capital remain in 1899 without any voice in their own munic.i.p.al government.
The problem has been still more difficult in those eleven States which had to accept negro suffrage, in or after 1867, as a condition of restoration to the Union. The extension of franchise made in all the States by the Fifteenth Amendment, in 1870, seemed such a blessing to the Republicans that Frederick Dougla.s.s was much censured for holding that it might possibly have been attained without special supernatural a.s.sistance. It soon became plain, however, that Congress ought to have given the spelling-book earlier than the ballot. The suffrage proved no protection to the freedman; for his white neighbours found that he could be more easily intimidated than educated. Congress tried to prevent murder of coloured voters by having the polls guarded by Federal troops and the elections supervised by United States marshals. The _Habeas Corpus_ Act was suspended by President Grant in districts where the blacks outnumbered the whites. It was hard to see what liberty had gained.
The negro"s worst enemies were his own candidates. They had enormous majorities in South Carolina; and there, as Blaine admits, they "brought shame upon the Republican party," "and thus wrought for the cause of free government and equal suffrage in the South incalculable harm."
Between 1868 and 1872 they added ten millions by wanton extravagance to the State debt. Large sums were stolen; taxes rose to six per cent.; and land was a.s.sessed far above its value, with the avowed purpose of taking it away from the whites. Such management was agreed at a public meeting of coloured voters under Federal protection, in Charleston, in 1874, to have "ruined our people and disgraced our State." Negro suffrage was declared by the New York Evening Post to have resulted in "organising the ignorance and poverty of the State against its property and intelligence."
This took place all over the South, and also in Philadelphia, New York, and other northern cities. Here the illiterate vote was largely European; and the corruption of politics was facilitated by the absorption of property-holders in business. There was great need that intelligent citizens of all races, parties, and sections should work together to reform political methods sufficiently to secure honest government. Some progress has already been made, but by no means so much as might have been gained if the plundered taxpayers at the South had made common cause with those at the North in establishing const.i.tutional bulwarks against all swindlers whose strength was in the illiterate and venal vote.
Unfortunately, prejudice against negroes encouraged intimidation; and fraud was used freely by both parties. When elections were doubted, Republican candidates were seated by Federal officials and United States soldiers. These latter were not resisted; but the Southern Democrats made b.l.o.o.d.y attacks on the negro militia. One such fight at New Orleans, on September 14, 1874, cost nearly thirty lives. What was called a Republican administration collapsed that day throughout Louisiana; but it was soon set up again by the army which had brought it into power.
At last the negroes found out that, whoever might conquer in this civil war, they would certainly lose. They grew tired of having hostile parties fighting over them, and dropped out of politics. The Republicans held full possession of the presidency, both branches of Congress, the Federal courts, the army, the offices in the nation"s service, and most of the State governments; but they could not prevent the South from becoming solidly Democratic. The new governments proved more economical, and the lives of the coloured people more secure. The last important result of negro suffrage in South Carolina and Louisiana was an alarming dispute as to who was elected President in 1876. The ballot has not been so great a blessing to the freedmen as it might have been if it had been preceded by national schools, and given voluntarily by State after State.
These considerations justify deep regret that emanc.i.p.ation was not gained peaceably and gradually. Facts have been given to show that it might have been if there had been more philanthropy among the clergy, more principle among the Whigs, and more wisdom among the abolitionists.
CHAPTER V. EMERSON AND OTHER TRANSCENDENTALISTS
I. The best work for liberty has been done by men who loved her too wisely to vituperate anyone for differing from them, or to forestall the final verdict of public opinion by appealing to an ordeal by battle.
Such were the men who took the lead in establishing freedom of thought in America. Very little individual independence of opinion was found there by Tocqueville in 1831; and the flood of new ideas which had already burst forth in England was not as yet feeding the growth of originality in American literature. This sterility was largely due to preoccupation with business and politics; but even the best educated men in the United States were repressed by the dead weight of the popular theology; and Channing complained that the orthodox churches were "arrayed against intellect." The silence of the pulpit about slavery is only one instance of the general indifference of the clergy to new ideas. We shall see that at least one other reform was opposed much more zealously. The circulation of new books and magazines from Europe was r.e.t.a.r.ded by warnings against infidelity; and colleges were carefully guarded against the invasion of new truth.
Intercourse with Europe was fortunately close enough for the brightness of her literature and art to attract many longing eyes from New England.
Goethe, Schiller, Fichte, Jean Paul, Mme. de Stael, and Rousseau won readers in the original, as well as in translations; and the influence of Sh.e.l.ley, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Carlyle increased rapidly.
Plato and Kant found many worshippers, and a few students. The plain incapacity of orthodoxy to solve the pressing moral and intellectual problems of the day permitted young people who knew nothing about science to welcome the idea that the highest truth is revealed by intuitions which transcend experience and should supersede logic. This system is peculiarly that of Sch.e.l.ling, who was then expounding it in Germany; but the credit for it in America was given to his disciples, and especially to Coleridge. A few admirers of these authors formed the Transcendental Club in Boston, in September, 1836; and the new philosophy made converts rapidly. Severity of climate and lack of social amus.e.m.e.nts favoured introspection. Thinkers welcomed release from the tyranny of books. Lovers of art were glad of the prospect of a broader culture than was possible in the shadow of Puritanism. Reformers seized the opportunity of appealing from pro-slavery texts and const.i.tutions to a higher law. Friends of religion hoped that the gloom of the popular theology would be dispelled by a new revelation coming direct from G.o.d into their souls.
II. A mighty declaration of religious independence was made on July 15, 1838, when Emerson said to the Unitarian ministers: "The need was never greater of new revelation than now." "It cannot be received at second hand." There has been "noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus."
"Cast aside all conformity, and acquaint men at first hand with Deity." "The old is for slaves." Much controversy was called out by the publication of this address. It was preceded by another in which educated men were told that they must believe themselves "inspired by the Divine Soul which inspires all men." "There can be no scholar without the heroic mind." "Each age must write its own books." Emerson had also sent out in 1836 a pamphlet ent.i.tled _Nature_; and one of its first readers has called it "an "open sesame" to all thought, and the first we had ever had." Still more important were the essays on "Heroism" and "Self-Reliance," which were part of a volume published in 1841. Then Emerson"s readers were awakened from the torpor of submission to popular clergymen and politicians by the stern words: "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist." "Insist on yourself: never imitate."
"The soul looketh steadily forwards." "It is no follower: it never appeals from itself." The Russian Government was so well aware of the value of these essays as to imprison a student for borrowing them. A Lord Mayor in England acknowledged that their influence had raised him out of poverty and obscurity. Bradlaugh"s first impulse to do battle for freedom in religion came from Emerson"s exhortation to self-reliance.
The author"s influence was all the greater, because he was already an impressive lecturer. There was much more demand, both in England and in America, between 1830 and 1860, for literary culture and useful knowledge than was supplied by the magazines and public libraries.
The Americans were peculiarly dest.i.tute of public amus.e.m.e.nts. Dancing, playing cards, and going to the theatre were still under the ban; and there was not yet culture enough for concerts to be popular. There was at the same time much more interest, especially in New England, in the anti-slavery movement than has been called out for later reforms; for these have been much less picturesque. The power with which Phillips and Parker pleaded for the slave was enough to make lectures popular; but I have known courses attended, even in 1855, by young people who went merely because there was nowhere else to go, and who came away in blissful ignorance of the subjects. Deeper than all other needs lay that of a live religion. Emerson was among the first to satisfy this demand.
His earliest lecture, in 1833, took a scientific subject, as was then customary; but he soon found that he had the best possible opportunity for declaring that "From within, or from behind, a light shines through upon things and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all." Invitations were frequent as early as 1844, though the audience was usually small; and his genius became generally recognised after his return, in 1848, from a visit to England. There scholarship was high enough to give him, as early as 1844, thousands of readers for that little book on _Nature_, of which only a few hundred copies had been sold in America. Invitations to lecture came from all parts of Great Britain, and in such numbers that many had to be declined. The aristocracy of rank as well as of intellect helped to crowd the halls in Manchester, Edinburgh, and London. Once at least, he had more than two thousand hearers. The newspapers reported his lectures at such length that much of his time was spent in writing new ones. He had not intended to be anyone"s guest; but invitations were so numerous and cordial, that he could seldom escape into solitude. He wrote to his wife, "My reception here is really a premium on authorship."
Success in England increased his opportunities, as well as his courage, to speak in America. Invitations grew more and more frequent, and compensation more liberal. His thrilling voice was often heard, thenceforth, in the towns and cities of New England. In 1850, he went to lecture at St. Louis, and met audience after audience on the way. During the next twenty years he spent at least two months of discomfort, every winter, lecturing in city after city throughout the free States.
Everywhere he gave his best thought, and as much as possible of it, in every lecture. Logical order seemed less important; and he spent much more time in condensing than in arranging the sentences selected from his note-books. Strikingly original ideas, which had flashed upon him at various times, were presented one after another as if each were complete in itself. The intermixture of quotations and anecdotes did not save the general character from becoming often chaotic; but the chaos was always full of power and light. Star after star rose rapidly upon his astonished and delighted hearers. They sometimes could not understand him; but they always felt lifted up. Parker described him in 1839 as pouring forth "a stream of golden atoms of thought"; and Lowell called him some twenty years later "the most steadily attractive lecturer in America." These young men and others of like aspirations walked long distances to visit him or hear him speak in public. The influence of his lectures increased that of the books into which they finally crystallised. In 1860, he had made his way of thinking so common that his _Conduct of Life_ had a sale of 2500 copies in two days. His readers were nowhere numerous, outside of Boston; but they were, and are, to be found everywhere.
Lovers of liberty on both sides of the Atlantic were brought into closer fellowship by books singularly free from anti-British prejudice; but he was so thoroughly American that he declared, even in London, that the true aristocracy must be founded on merit, for "Birth has been tried and failed." This lecture was often repeated, and was finally given in 1881 as his last word in public. Introspective and retiring habits kept him for some time from engaging actively in the reforms which were in full blast about 1840; but Lowell said he was "the sleeping partner who has supplied a great part of their capital." His words about slavery were few and cold before the Fugitive Slave Bill was pa.s.sed in 1850.
Indignation at this command to kidnap made him publicly advise his neighbours to break the wicked law. He spoke in support of a Free Soil candidate in 1852, and for the Republican party in 1854; but John Brown called out much more of his praise than any other abolitionist. The attempt of the Garrisonians to persuade the North to suffer the seceders to depart in peace won his active aid; but the speech which he tried to deliver on their platform, early in 1861, was made inaudible by a mob of enthusiasts for maintaining the Union by war. He rejoiced in emanc.i.p.ation; but it was not achieved until he had lost much of his mental vigour. This, in fact, was at its height between 1840 and 1850.
His last volumes were in great part made up of his earliest writings.
There was no change in his opinions; and his address in 1838 was fully approved by him when he re-read it shortly before his death.
His most useful contribution to the cause of reform was the characteristic theory which underlies all he wrote. In the essays published in 1841, he states it thus: "Every man knows that to his involuntary perceptions a perfect faith is due."... "We know truth when we see it." From first to last he held that "Books are for the scholar"s idle hours."... "A sound mind will derive its principles from insight."... "Truth is always present; it only needs to lift the iron lids of the mind"s eye to read its oracles." This was a doctrine much more revolutionary than Luther"s. Emerson proclaimed independence of the Bible as well as of the Church. His innate reverence was expressed in such sayings as "The relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so pure, that it is profane to interpose helps." Love of spontaneity made him declare that "Creeds are a disease of the intellect." It was in his indignation at the Fugitive-Slave Law that he said, "We should not forgive the clergy for taking on every issue the immoral side." His treatment of religious inst.i.tutions was not perfectly consistent; but the aim of all his writings was to encourage heroic thought. He wrote the Gospel of Nonconformity. Personal knowledge of his influence justified Bishop Huntington in saying that he has "done more to unsettle the faith of the educated young men of our age and country in the Christianity of the Bible than any other twenty men combined."
How desirous Emerson was to have the inner light obeyed promptly and fully may be judged from his describing his own habit of writing as follows: "I would not degrade myself by casting about for a thought, nor by waiting for it."... "If it come not spontaneously, it comes not rightly at all." Much of the peculiar charm of his books is due to his having composed them thus. Again and again he says: "It is really of little importance what blunders in statement we make, so only that we make no wilful departure from the truth."... "Why should I give up my thought, because I cannot answer an objection to it?"... "With consistency, a great soul has simply nothing to do."... "Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said to-day."...
"I hope in these days we have heard the last of conformity and consistency. Let the words be"... "ridiculous henceforward." This is not meant for mere theory. We are told often that "Virtue is the spontaneity of the will."... "Our spontaneous action is always the best."... "The only right is what is after my own const.i.tution, the only wrong what is against it."
III. The pa.s.sages quoted in the last paragraph are of great importance; for they did more than any others to abolish slavery. Its defenders appealed to the Bible as confidently as to the national Const.i.tution; but the Garrisonians declared with Emerson, that "The highest virtue is always against the law." They were confident that they knew the truth as soon as they saw it, and had no need to answer objections. The same faith in spontaneous impressions inspired the suffragists, of whom the next chapter will give some account. Agitations against established inst.i.tutions sprang up thickly under the first step of Transcendentalism. Church, State, family ties, and business relations seemed all likely to be broken up. Lowell says that "Everybody had a mission (with a capital M) to attend to everybody else"s business."...
"Conventions were held for every hitherto inconceivable purpose."
"Communities were established where everything was to be in common but common sense." The popular authors about 1840 were mostly Transcendentalists; and nearly every Transcendentalist was a Socialist.
Some forty communities were started almost simultaneously; but not one-half lasted through the second year. One of the first failures was led by a man who had been working actively against slavery, but who had come to think that the only way to attack it was to try to do away with all private property whatever. Brook Farm lasted half a dozen years, with a success due partly to the high culture of the inmates, and partly to some recognition of the right of private ownership. The general experience, however, was that a Transcendentalist was much more willing to make plans for other people, than to conform in his own daily life to regulations proposed by anyone else. The very multiplicity of the reforms, started in the light of the new philosophy, did much to prevent most of them from attaining success. We have seen how slavery was abolished; but no one should regret the failure of most of the Transcendentalist schemes.