He held Washington in higher esteem even than Colonel Talmadge; and differed from him in many particulars relative to his character. It was my good fortune to sit and listen, more than once, to discussions between these venerable men. It was always amicable and eminently instructive. Wolcott was an admirer of Mrs. Washington, Talmadge was not. Talmadge was a military man, and saw a healthy discipline only in obedience to superiors, and exacted in his own family what he deemed was proper in that of every man. Accustomed himself to a strict obedience to the commands of his superiors, and deeming Washington almost incapable of error, he thought hardly even of Mrs. Washington when she manifested a disposition the slightest to independence of her husband. Wolcott did not see her in the camp, but only as the wife of the President of the United States--mistress of the Presidential mansion, and affably dispensing the duties of hostess there--receiving, entertaining, and socially intermingling in the society admitted to the Presidential circle.
At that period there was more of ceremony and display in the higher circles of official society than at this time. The people had seceded from a monarchical government, and established a democratic one; but the prestige of t.i.tular and aristocratic society still lingered with those high in office, of distinguished position, and wealth. Many of those most prominent about the Government had spent much time in Europe, and had imported European manners and customs, and desired to see the court etiquette of the mother country prevail at the court of the new Government. Time and the inst.i.tutions of democracy had not effected that change in the practices of the people, which the Revolution and the determination to control and direct their own government had in their sentiments.
Mr. Jefferson affected to despise this formal ceremony, and the distinctions in society encouraged by monarchical inst.i.tutions, and sustained by authority of law--though coming from a State and from the midst of a people whose leading and wealthiest families had descended directly from the n.o.bility and gentry of England, and who affected an aristocracy of social life extremely exclusive in its character, while professing a democracy in political organization of the broadest and most comprehensive type. His sagacity taught him that the inst.i.tutions of a democratic government would soon produce that social equality which was their spirit, in the ordinary intercourse of the people--that he who enjoyed all and every privilege, politically and legally, given under its Const.i.tution and laws, possessed a power which ultimately would force his social equality with the most pretentious in the land.
In truth, the government was in his hands, and he would mould it to his views, and society to his status.
The inst.i.tutions of government everywhere form the social organization of society. Men are ambitious of distinction in every government, and aspire to control in directing the destinies of their country--are justly proud of the respect and confidence of their fellow-men, and will court it in the manner most likely to secure it. Now and then, there are to be found some who are insensible to any fame save that given by wealth--who will wrap themselves up in a pecuniary importance, with an ostentatious display of their wealth, and an exclusiveness of social intercourse, and are contented with this, and the general contempt. Such men, and such social coteries, are few in this country.
Fortunately, wealth which is only used as a means of ostentatious display is worthless to communities, and its possessor is contemptible.
"Wealth is power" is an adage, and is true where it is used to promote the general good. Without it no people can be prosperous or intelligent, and the prosperity and intelligence of every people is greatest where there is most wealth, and where it is most generally diffused. This is best effected by democratic inst.i.tutions, where every preferment is open to all, and where the division of estates follows every death. No large and overshadowing estates, creating a moneyed aristocracy, can acc.u.mulate, to control the legislation and the people"s destinies under such inst.i.tutions. No privileged cla.s.s can be sustained under their operation; for such a cla.s.s must always be sustained by wealth hereditary and entailed, protected from the obligations of debt, and prohibited from division or alienation.
Mr. Jefferson had studied the effects of governments upon their people most thoroughly, and understood their operation upon the social relations of society, and the character and minds of the people. He was wont to say there was no hereditary transmission of mind; that this was democratic, and a Caesar, a Solon, or a Demosthenes was as likely to come from a cottage and penury as from a palace and wealth; that virtue more frequently wore a smock-frock than a laced coat, and that the inst.i.tutions of every government should be so modelled as to afford opportunity to these to become what nature designed they should be--models of worth and usefulness to the country. Every one owes to society obligations, and the means should be afforded to all to make available these obligations for the public good. Nature never designed that man should hedge about with law a favored few, until these should establish a natural claim to such protection, by producing all the intellect and virtue of the commonwealth. This was common property, and wherever found, in all the gradations and ranges of society, should, under the operations of law, be afforded the same opportunities as the most favored by fortune. "In all things nature should be teacher and guide."
These doctrines are beautiful in theory, and are well calculated to fasten upon the minds of the many. They have been, time and again, incorporated into the const.i.tution of governments, and have uniformly produced the same disastrous results. They are equally as fallacious as the declaration "that all men are born free and equal," which, with those above, has won the public approbation in spite of experience. The equality of intellect is as certainly untrue as the equality of stature; the one is not more apparent than the other. Transcendent intellect is as rare as an eclipse of the sun. It manifests itself in the control of all others--in forming the opinions and shaping the destinies of all others. This is a birthright--is never acquired, admits of great cultivation, receives impressions, generates ideas, and makes wonderful efforts. Cultivation and education gives it these, but never its vigor and power. In whatever grade or caste of society this is born, it soon works its way to the top, disrupts every band which ties it down, and naturally rises above the lower strata, as the rarefied atmosphere rises above the denser. This higher order of intellect will naturally control, and as naturally protect its power.
From such, a better government may always be expected; and without this control, none can be wholesome or permanent.
CHAPTER XVI.
PARTY PRINCIPLES.
ORIGIN OF PARTIES--FEDERAL AND REPUBLICAN PECULIARITIES--JEFFERSON"S PRINCIPLES AND RELIGION--DEMOCRACY--VIRGINIA AND Ma.s.sACHUSETTS PARTIES --WAR WITH FRANCE--SEDITION LAW--LYMAN BEECHER--THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR-- "HAIL COLUMBIA" AND "YANKEE DOODLE."
The Federal and Republican parties of the nation had their rise and formation out of the two principles of government--the one descending, as by inheritance, from the mother-country, and the other growing out of the formation of the governments established in the early organization of the colonies. A republican form of government was natural to the people. It had become so from habit. They had, in each colony, enjoyed a representative form; had made their own laws, and, with the exception of their Governors and judicial officers, had chosen, by ballot, all their legislative and ministerial officers. Most of the principles and practices of a democratic form of government, consequently, were familiar to them. The etiquette of form and ceremony preserved by the Governors, conformed to English usage. This was only familiar to those of the ma.s.ses whose business brought them in contact with these ministerial officers and their appendages.
These were continued, to some extent, for a time; but Jefferson saw that they must soon cease, and yield to a sensible, simple intercourse between the officials of the Government and the people. This was foreshadowed in the Declaration of Independence, drafted by him.
Immediately upon the success of the Revolution, and the organization of the General Government, he enunciated the opinions and principles now known as Jeffersonian or democratic. It has been charged upon him, that he borrowed his principles from the leaders of the French Revolution, as he did his religion from Voltaire and Tom Paine.
Jefferson was an original thinker, and thought boldly on all subjects.
He had studied not only the character and history of governments, but of religions, and from the convictions of his own judgment were formed his opinions and his principles. His orthodoxy was his doxy, and he cared very little for the doxy of any other man or set of men. His genius and exalted talents gave him a light which shines in upon few brains, and if his religious opinions were fallacious, there are few of our day who will say that his social and political sentiments were or are wrong. As to his correctness in the former, it is not, nor will it ever be, given to man to demonstrate. This is the only subject about which there is no charity for him who differs from the received dogmas of the Church, and to-day his name is an abomination only to the Federalists and the Church.
Jefferson was made Secretary of State by General Washington, and was at once the head and representative man of the democracy of the country.
There was, however, no organized opposition to the Administration of Washington. But immediately upon the election of Adams it begun to take shape and form, under the leadership of Jefferson. The two parties were first known as the Virginia and Ma.s.sachusetts parties. Jefferson had been elected Vice-President with Adams, and before the termination of the first year of the Administration the opposition was formidable in Congress. Governor Wolcott was of opinion that Adams destroyed the Federal party by the unwise policy of his Administration. He said he was a man of great intellect, but of capricious temper, incapable from principle or habit of yielding to the popular will. He certainly saw the palpable tendency of public feeling, and must have known its strength: instead of attempting to go with it, and shape it to the exigencies his party required, he vainly attempted to stem the current, defy it, and control it by law. He disregarded the earnest entreaties of his best friends, counselling only with the extremists of the Federal party: the result was the Alien and Sedition Laws. Pickering warned him, and he quarrelled with him. He would not conciliate, but punish his political foes. He loved to exercise power; he did it unscrupulously, and became exceedingly offensive to many of his own party, and bitterly hated by his political enemies. The Alien and Sedition Laws emanated from the extremists of the Federal party, and were in opposition to the views of Adams himself--yet he approved them, and determined to execute them. He knew these laws were in direct opposition to the views and feelings of an immense majority of the people; and with these lights before him, and when he had it in his power to have conciliated the ma.s.ses, he defied them.
Mr. Adams was unaccustomed to seek or court public favor; his a.s.sociations had never been with the ma.s.ses, and he understood very little of their feelings; when these were forced upon him, he received their manifestations with contempt, and uniformly disregarded their teachings. All these defects of character were seized upon by the opposition, to render odious the Federal party.
Mr. Jefferson placed himself in active opposition, and was known at an early day as the candidate of the opposition to succeed Adams. Our difficulties with France, and the action of Congress in appointing Washington commander-in-chief of the American forces, brought Washington into contact with Adams on several occasions; and especially when Washington made his acceptance of the office conditional upon the appointment of Hamilton as second in command, Adams thought he had not been respectfully treated, either by Congress or Washington; and there were some pretty sharp letters written by Washington in relation to the course of Adams.
Jefferson was opposed to the French war. The aid afforded by France in our Revolution had made grateful the public heart, and the people were indisposed to rush into a war with her for slight cause. The pen of Jefferson was never idle: he knew the general feeling, and inflamed it, and what the consequences to the country might have been, had not the war come to an abrupt and speedy end, there are no means of knowing.
The trial and conviction of Lyon and Cooper under the Sedition Law, aroused a burst of indignation from the people. Still it taught no wisdom to Mr. Adams. He was urged to have their prosecutions abandoned, but he refused. After conviction, he was seriously pressed to pardon these men, in obedience to the popular will, but he persistently refused, and Lyon was continued in prison until liberated by the success of the Republican party, and the repeal of the offensive and impolitic laws soon after.
Adams professed great veneration for the character of Washington, and he was doubtless sincere. Yet he never lost sight of the fact that it was he who had seconded the motion when made in Congress by Samuel Adams to appoint Washington commander-in-chief of the armies of the Revolution, or that it was he who suggested it to Samuel Adams, and that he sustained the motion in a speech of burning eloquence. He felt that this conferred an obligation and that Washington was at times unmindful of this. He was more exacting than generous, and more suspicious than confiding. In truth, Adams had more mind than soul; more ambition than patriotism, and more impulse than discretion. Yet the country owes him much. He was a great support in the cause of the Revolution, and his folly was to charge too high for his services. The people honored him--they have honored his family, and will yet make his son President. He received all they could give, and his littleness crept out in his desire for more.
General Washington"s estimate of men was generally correct. He understood Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Burr. I do not think he was personally attached to any one of them; yet he appreciated them as the public now do. He had need of the talents of Hamilton and Jefferson.
The organization of the Government required the first minds of the country; and Washington was the man to call them to his side. In nothing did he show more greatness than in this. He knew Jefferson was without principle, but he knew that he was eminently talented; he could forget the one, and call to his aid the other. His confidence in the integrity of Hamilton was stronger, as well as in his ability. Upon all matters of deep concern to the country he consulted both, and these consultations often brought these two men into antagonistical positions before him, and upon important public matters--one of which was the const.i.tutionality of a United States Bank. To each of these, when the charter of the bank was before him, he addressed a note requesting their opinions upon its const.i.tutionality. Jefferson replied promptly in a short, written opinion, not well considered or ably argued, as was his wont; denying the const.i.tutionality of such an inst.i.tution. This opinion was handed to Hamilton, who pleaded public duties as the cause of delay on his part, for not furnishing an opinion. It came at last, and was able and conclusive, as to its const.i.tutionality. But it was terrible in its slashing and exposure of the dogmatical sophisms of Jefferson. From that time forward there were bitter feelings between these two eminent men.
Intellectually, Hamilton had no equal in his day. It is ridiculous to compare him with Burr, which is often done by persons who should know better, because they have all the evidence upon which to predicate a conclusion. The occasion was open to both, equally, to discover to the world what abilities they possessed. They equally filled eminent positions before the nation, and at a time when she demanded the use of the first abilities in the land. What each performed is before the world.
Men having talent will always leave behind some evidence of this, whether they pa.s.s through life in a public or private capacity.
Flippant pertness, with some wit, is too often mistaken for talent--and a still tongue with a sage look, will sometimes pa.s.s for wisdom. But wherever there is talent or wisdom, it makes its mark.
The evidences of Hamilton"s abilities are manifested in his works. They show a versatility of talent unequalled by any modern man. He was conspicuous for his great genius before he was fifteen years of age; he was chief-of-staff for General Washington before he was twenty, and before he was thirty, was admitted to be the first mind of the country.
As a military man, every officer of the army of the Revolution considered him the very first; as a lawyer, he had no equal of his day; as a statesman, he ranked above all compet.i.tion; as a financier, none were his equal, and an abundance of evidence has been left by him to sustain this reputation in every particular.
What has Burr left? Nothing. He still lives, and what his posthumous papers may say for him, I cannot say; but I know him well, and consequently expect nothing. As a lawyer, he was mediocre; as a statesman, vacillating and without any fixed principles; as an orator, (for some had claimed him to be such,) he was turgid and verbose--sometimes he was sarcastic, but only when the malignity of his nature found vent in the bitterness of words. His private conduct has, in every situation, been bad. He was one of the Lee and Gates faction to displace Washington from the command of the army. He decried the abilities of Washington. He violated the confidence of General Putnam, when his aide, in seducing Margaret Moncrief, (whose father had intrusted her to Putnam"s care.) He violated his faith to the Republican party, in lending himself to the Federal party to defeat the known and expressed will of the people, and the Republican party, by contesting the election before Congress of Mr. Jefferson. In the Legislature of New York, his conduct was such as to draw on him the suspicion of corruption, and universal condemnation. Contrast his public services with his public and private vices, and see what he is--the despised of the whole world, eking out a miserable existence in hermitical seclusion with a woman of ill-fame.
There resided as minister of the Congregational Church, at that time, in Litchfield, Lyman Beecher. He was a man of short stature; remarkable dark complexion, with large and finely formed head; his features were strong and irregular, with stern, ascetic expression. He was naturally a man of great mind, and but for the bigoted character of his religion, narrowing his mind to certain contemptible prejudices and opinions, might have been a great man. Reared in the practice of Puritan opinions, and a.s.sociated from childhood with that strait-laced and intolerant sect, his energies, (which were indomitable) and mind, more so perverted as to become mischievous, instead of useful. He was a propagandist in the broadest sense of the term--would have made an admirable inquisitor--was without any of the charities of the Christian; despised as heretical the creed of every sect save his own, and had all of the intolerant bitterness and degrading superst.i.tions of the Puritans, and persecutors of Laud, in the Long Parliament. In truth, he was an immediate descendant of the Puritans of the seventeenth century, and was distinguished for the persecuting and intolerant spirit of that people. He seemed ever casting about for something in the principles or conduct of others to abuse, and delighted to exhaust his genius in pouring out his venom upon those who did not square their conduct and opinions by his rule. At this time, 1820, the admission of Missouri into the Union gave rise to the agitation of the extension of slavery. This was a sweet morsel under and on his tongue. He at once commenced the indulgence of his persecuting spirit, in the abuse of slavery, and slave owners. His own immediate people had committed no sin in the importation of the African, and the money acc.u.mulated in the traffic was not blood-money.
The inst.i.tution had been wiped out in New England, not by enfranchis.e.m.e.nt, but by sale to the people of the South, when no longer useful or valuable at home; and all the sin of slavery had followed the slave, to barbarize and degrade the people of the South. The fertility of his imagination could suggest a thousand evils growing from slavery, which concentrating in the character of those possessing them, made them demons upon earth, and fit heritors of h.e.l.l, deserving the wrath of G.o.d and man.
It was palpable to the scrutinizing observer, that it was not the sin of slavery which actuated the zeal of Beecher. The South had held control of the Government almost from its inception. The Northern, or Federal party, had been repudiated for the talents and energy of the South. Its principles and their professors were odious--the conduct of its leading representatives, during the late war, had tainted New England, and she was offensive to the nostrils of patriotism everywhere. Her people were restless and dissatisfied under the disgrace. They were anxious for power, not to control for the public good the destinies of the country; but for revenge upon those who had triumphed in their overthrow. Their people had spread over the West, and carried with them their religion and hatred--they were ambitious of more territory, over which to propagate their race and creed; yet preparatory to the great end of their aims, and the agitation necessary to the education of their people upon this subject, they must commence in the pulpit to abolish some cursing sin which stood in their way.
They had found it, and a fit instrument, too, in Lyman Beecher, to commence the work. It was the sin of slavery. It stood in the way of New England progress and New England civilization. New England religion must come to the rescue. There was nothing good which could come from the South; all was tainted with this crying sin. New England purity, through New England Puritanism, must permeate all the land, and effect the good work--and none so efficient as Beecher. The students of the law-school had a pew in his little synagogue--it was after the fashion of a square pew, with seats all around, and to this he would direct his eye when pouring out his anathemas upon the South, Southern habits, and Southern inst.i.tutions; four out of five of the members of the school were from the South.
It was his habit to ascribe the origin and practice of every vice to slavery. Debauchery of every grade, name, and character, was born of this, and though every one of these vices, in full practice, were reeking under his nose, and permeating every cla.s.s of his own people; when seven out of every ten of the bawds of every brothel, from Maine to the Sabine, were from New England, they were only odious in the South. I remember upon one occasion he was dilating extensively upon the vice of drunkenness, and accounting it as peculiar to the South, and the direct offshoot of slavery, he exclaimed, with his eyes fixed upon the students" pew: "Yes, my brethren, it is peculiar to the people who foster the accursed inst.i.tution of slavery, and so common is it in the South, that the father who yields his daughter in wedlock, never thinks of asking if her intended is a sober man. All he asks, or seems desirous to know, is whether he is good-natured in his cups." Before him sat his nest of young adders, growing up to inherit his religion, talents, and vindictive spirit. Instilled into those from their cradles were all the dogmas of Puritanism, to stimulate the mischievous spirit of the race to evil works. Admirably have they fulfilled their destiny.
To the preaching and writings of the men and women descended from Lyman Beecher has more misery ensued, than from any other one source, for the last century. "Uncle Tom"s Cabin" has slain its hundreds of thousands, and the sermons of Henry Ward Beecher have made to flow an ocean of blood.
The example of Pymm, Cromwell, Whaley, and Goff, and their fate, has taught the Puritans no useful lesson. They seem to think to triumph in civil war, as their ancestors did, regardless of the danger that a reaction may bring to them, is all they can desire. The fate of these men has no warning. Reactions sometimes come with terrible consequences. They cannot see Cromwell"s dead body hanging in chains.
They will not remember the fate of Whaley and Goff, whose bones are mouldering in their own New Haven, after flying their country and, for years, hiding in caves and cellars from the revengeful pursuit of resentful enemies. The Pymms and the Praise-G.o.d-bare-bones of the thirty-ninth Congress may and (it is to be hoped) will yet meet the merited reward of their crimes of persecution and oppression.
At the time of which I write, there were many remaining in Connecticut who partic.i.p.ated in the conflicts and perils of the Revolution. These men were all animated with strong national sentiments, and felt that every part of the Union was their country. They idolized Washington, and always spoke with affectionate praise of the Southern spirit, so prominent in her troops during the war. The conduct of the South (and especially that of Georgia toward General Greene, in donating him a splendid plantation, with a palatial residence, upon the Savannah River, near the city of Savannah, to which he removed, lived, and in which he died,) was munificent, and characteristic of a n.o.ble and generous people.
But these were pa.s.sing away, and a new people were coming into their places. The effects of a common cause, a common danger, and a united success, were not felt by these. New interests excited new aspirations.
The nation"s peril was past, and she was one of the great powers of the earth, and acknowledged as such. She had triumphantly pa.s.sed through a second war with her unnatural mother, in which New England, as a people, had reaped no glory. In the midst of the struggle, she had called a convention of her people, with a view of withdrawing from the Union. Her people had invited the enemy, with their blue-light signals, to enter the harbor they were blockading, and where the American ships, under the command of one of our most gallant commanders, had sought refuge. They were sorely chagrined, and full of wrath. They hated the South and her people. It was growing, and they were nursing it. Even then we were a divided people, with every interest conserving to unite us--the South producing and consuming; the North manufacturing, carrying, and selling for, and to, the South. The harmony of commerce, and the harmony of interest, had lost its power, and we were a divided people. The breach widened, war followed, and ruin riots over the land.
The South was the weaker, and went down; the North was the stronger, and triumphed--and the day of her vengeance has come.
In that remote time, the chase after the almighty dollar had commenced, and especially in New England, where every sentiment was subordinate to this. Patriotism was a secondary sentiment. Hypocritical pretension to the purity of religion was used to cover the vilest practices, and to shield from public indignation men who, praying, pressed into their service the vilest means to make haste to be rich. The sordid parsimony of ninety-hundredths of the population shut out every sentiment of generosity, and rooted from the heart every emotion honorable to human nature. Neighborhood intercourse was poisoned with selfishness, and the effort to overreach, and make money out of, the ignorance or necessities of these, was universal. These degrading practices crept into every business, and petty frauds soon became designated as Yankee tricks. There was nothing enn.o.bling in their pursuits. The honorable profession of law dwindled into pettifogging tricks. Commerce was degraded in their hands by fraud and chicanery. The pernicious and grasping nature everywhere cultivated, soon fastened upon the features.
Their eyes were pale, their features lank and hard, and the stony nature was apparent in the icy coldness of manner, in the deceitful grin, and lip-laugh, which the eye never shared, and which was only affected, when interest prompted, or the started suspicions of an intended victim warned them to be wary. The climate, and the inhospitable and ungenerous soil, seemed to impart to the people their own natures.
The men were all growing sharp, and the women, cold and pa.s.sionless; the soul appeared to shrivel and sink into induration, and the whole people were growing into a nation of cheats and dastards. Such was the promise for the people of New England, in 1820. Has it not been realized in the years of the recent intestine war? The incentive held out to her people to volunteer into her armies, was the plunder of the South. The world has never witnessed such rapacity for gain as marked the armies of the United States in their march through the South.
Religion and humanity were lost sight of in the general scramble for the goods and the money of the Southern people. Rings were s.n.a.t.c.hed from the fingers of ladies and torn from their ears; their wardrobes plundered and forwarded to expectant families at home; graves were violated for the plates of gold and silver that might be found upon the coffins; the dead bodies of women and men were unshrouded after exhumation, to search in the coffins and shrouds to see if valuables were not here concealed; and, in numerous instances, the teeth were torn from the skeleton mouths of the dead for the gold plugs, or gold plates that might be found there. Nor was this heathenish rapacity confined to the common soldier; the commanders and subalterns partic.i.p.ated with acquisitive eagerness, sharing fully with their commands the h.e.l.lish instincts of their race.
They professed to come to liberate the slave, and they uniformly robbed or swindled him of every valuable he might possess--even little children were stripped of their garments, as trophies of war, to be forwarded home for the wear of embryo Puritans, as an example for them in future. Such are the Yankees of 1863-4, and "67. They now hold control of the nation; but her mighty heart is sore under their oppression. She is beginning to writhe. It will not be long, before with a mighty effort she will burst the bonds these people have tied about her limbs, will rea.s.sert the freedom of her children, and scourge their oppressors with a whip of scorpions.
Such men as Talmadge, Humphries, and Wolcott are no more to be found in New England. The animus of these men is no longer with these people.
The work of change is complete. Nothing remains of their religion but its semblance--the fanaticism of Cotton Mather, without his sincerity--the persecuting spirit of Cotton, without the sincerity of his motives. Every tie that once united the descendants of the Norman with those of the Saxon is broken. They are two in interest, two in feeling, two in blood, and two in hatred. For a time they may dwell together, but not in unison; for they have nothing in common but hatred. Its fruit is discord, and the day is not distant, when these irreconcilable elements must be ruled with a power despotic as independent, whose will must be law unto both. It is painful to look back fifty years and contrast the harmony then pervading every cla.s.s of every section with the discord and bitterness of hate which subst.i.tutes it to day. Then, the national airs of "Hail Columbia" and "Yankee Doodle" thrilled home to the heart of every American. To-day, they are only heard in one half of the Union to be cursed and execrated. To ask a lady to play one of these airs upon the harp or piano, from the Rio Grande to the Potomac, would be resented as an insult. The fame of Washington and John Hanc.o.c.k mingled as the united nations; but the conduct of the sons of the Puritan fathers has stolen the respect for them from the heart of half of the nation; and now, even the once glorious name of Daniel Webster stirs no enthusiasm in the bosoms which once beat joyfully to his praise, as it came to them from New England.
Those who from party purposes proclaim peace and good will, only deceive the world, not themselves, or the people of the South. Peace there is; but good will, none. When asked to be given, memory turns to the battle-fields upon Southern soil, the b.l.o.o.d.y graves where the chosen spirits of the South are sleeping, and the heart burns with indignant hatred. Generations may come and pa.s.s away, but this hatred, this cursed memory of oppressive wrong will live on. The mothers of to-day make for their infants a tradition of these memories, and it will be transmitted as the highlander"s cross of fire, from clan to clan, in burning brightness, for a thousand years. The graveyards will no more perish than the legends of the war that made them. They are in our midst, our children, the kindred of all are there--and those who are to come will go there--and their mothers, as Hamilcar did, will make them upon these green graves swear eternal hatred to those who with their vengeance filled these sacred vaults.
We are expected to love those whose hands are red with the blood of our children; to take to our bosoms the murderers and robbers who have slain upon the soil of their nativity our people, and who have robbed our homes and devastated our country; who have fattened Southern soil with Southern blood, and enriched their homes with the stolen wealth of ours. Are we not men, and manly? Do we feel as men? and is not this insult to manliness, and a vile mockery to the feelings of men? We can never forget--we will never forgive, and we will wait; for when the opportunity shall come, as come it will, we will avenge the d.a.m.ning wrong.
This may be unchristian, but it is natural--nature is of G.o.d and will a.s.sert herself. No mawkish pretension, no hypocritical cant, can repress the natural feelings of the heart: its loves and resentments are its strongest pa.s.sions, and the love that we bore for our children and kindred kindles to greater vigor in the hatred we bear for their murderers.
CHAPTER XVII.
CONGRESS IN ITS BRIGHTEST DAYS.