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THE "DANIEL WEBSTER" AT
POINT ISABEL, TEXAS.
WE publish on
page 225,
from a drawing by Government draughtsman, a view of
Point
Isabel Texas, with the
steamer
Daniel Webster lying oil the coast. Point Isabel was a place of note
in the
Mexican war, and the name will be familiar to on readers. The Webster
arrived here from thence, on Saturday, March 30, with United States troops.
The reporter of the Associated
Press states :
"When the Webster sailed there
were left at
Fort Brown one company Third Artillery, Captain
Dawson commanding, and two companies of Second Cavalry,
Captain Stoneman commanding. The posts in the
upper par of Texas had generally been abandoned, and the troop, were being
concentrated on the sea-coast. Colonel Backus was at Fort Brown, and two
companies Third Infantry under Major Sibley, were expected soon. The Indians
followed the march of the troops, and committed great havoc among the people,
killing some and running off their stock. Major Sibley chastised some of the
savages. Great fear is felt all along the line of the Rio Grande, and indeed the
whole frontier, of attack from Indians. Cortinas was understood to be simply
waiting the departure of the Federal troops to recommence operations on a larger
scale than heretofore, and in which he was checked by the army of last year.
" The Daniel Webster passed the
Star of the West about two hundred miles off
Tortugas. The Daniel Webster has had a remarkably pleasant passage, and the
troops on board are all in fine health. When they reached Key West they found
the people very much excited, and apparently not inclined to furnish them with
fresh water ;but finding that the troops were determined to take by force, if
necessary, whatever supplies were needed, they complied with the request,
although with very ill grace. The troops which arrived here on Saturday in the
Daniel Webster proceeded to Fort Hamilton Saturday night, where they will remain
until further orders are received from headquarters."
HARPER'S WEEKLY.
SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 1861.
THE PRINCIPLE OF CENTRALIZATION.
GOVERNOR PICKENS, of South Carolina, in a
Message recently transmitted to the Legislature of that State, asserts that
South Carolina has " made an advance in the science of government by engrafting
the fundamental right of a separate and independent State to withdraw from any
confederacy that may be formed, whenever her people, in sovereign convention
assembled, shall so decide."
We will not stop to question the
merit of the " advance" which South Carolina is here said to have made. But we
must say, in justice to the ancients, that Governor Pickens is stealing their
laurels. If it be a credit to establish separate governments, and to maintain
separate nationalities on either side of each mountain ridge or river, the glory
is due to the men who lived a thousand years ago or thereabouts. Governor
Pickens and his State are borrowing the scanty honors of the barons of the
Middle Ages. For they it was who invented the system of small nationalities, and
an endless series of secessions.
The events of the past few months
have done much to shake our belief in the teachings of history, and in the grand
old truths which are preached in the lives of such men as
George Washington and
Benedict Arnold. But still, facts are facts, and can not be controverted. It is
a fact, for instance, that before Charlemagne, France consisted of a series of
small nations like South Carolina, all warring against each other, and wasting
their strength in internecine contests ; that he united them under one head,
after which they began to prosper ; and that when his empire broke up, the "
right of withdrawing from the empire whenever the people shall so decide" was
invoked by various constituent parts of his realm, and France relapsed again
into a congeries of independent States, which instantly made war on each other,
and fought for centuries, breeding races of ignorant paupers, until another
great man forcibly reunited the whole under one head, when, once more, France
began to prosper. It is a fact again that, a thousand years ago, more or less,
the little island from which our ancestors came was divided into no less than
seven distinct kingdoms—to say nothing of Scotland ; and that these kingdoms,
all of which insisted on separate national rights, were steeped in the deepest
barbarism ; from which none of them emerged until the whole seven began to be
united under one head. It is a fact that Italy—notwithstanding occasional gleams
of energy and prosperity at Genoa and Venice—has never enjoyed any real national
strength from the time of the Caesars, when it was under one head, until now,
when the Kingdom of Italy is reconstituted. The same is true of Spain, Germany,
and Russia.
In a word, the history of all
nations is the same. At first, in a state of nature, every man is his neighbor's
enemy, and fights him when occasion offers. By-and-by he discovers that
friendship and mutual assistance are better than fighting, and he agrees to an
association for mutual benefit. This is the village. This village naturally goes
to war with neighboring villages, and, for several generations—as the history of
our Indian tribes proves--these village wars go on, until some day the
communities make the discovery which the individual had made before—that peace
and co-operation are
better than war and disunion.
Then several villages unite together, and form a county, a tribe, a State, or a
province. The province or tribe or State follow the time-honored example, and
war with other provinces, tribes, or States, until exhaustion and ripened
intelligence teach them, too, the lesson that it is better to be friends than
foes. Then several of the tribes or provinces or States unite, and constitute A
NATION. This is the history of Great Britain ; it is the history of France; the
history of Spain ; the history of Germany ; the history of Russia; and, we
venture to say, it will be the history of America notwithstanding secession.
So far from the doctrine of
secession being an improvement in political science invented by South Carolina,
it is, on the contrary, one of the oldest of the doctrines of barbarous nations
in the dark ages. Nothing is commoner, in ancient history, than the rebellions
of minorities against the decision of majorities. It is ripened experience and
enlarged civilization which alone have taught and enforced the great truth that
minorities must yield to majorities, and yield peaceably ; and the same great
teachers have also taught us that the tendency of civilization is toward the
destruction of small and the consolidation of great nationalities.
The natural tendency of the wild
man is to rebel against all authority, especially that which is not directly
palpable to his senses. The natural tendency of the civilized man is to bow to
constituted authority for the sake of its advantages. The idea of the Indian is
to declare his little clan independent of all control save his own. This is what
he calls independent national existence. The idea of the civilized man, on the
contrary, is to widen as far as possible the limits of the nation to which he
belongs. He knows that in doing so he must sacrifice some of his wishes ; but he
wisely calculates that the gain he will realize from an enlarged nationality and
freedom from strife will more than compensate him.
In one word, civilization
centralizes. Barbarism divides. When the Roman Empire was in its glory, all the
civilized world obeyed implicitly the decrees and the officers of the Senate.
When it fell into ruin every province, every proconsulate, every town, and every
castle set up for itself. Shall it devolve upon the future historian to report
that when the United States were in their glory, the acts of the Congress were
obeyed from the frontier of Russia to the frontier of Mexico ; but that the
moment they broke up not only did each State deny the central authority, but
many counties repudiated the power of their States, cities derided the superior
control of counties, and strong places throughout the country arrogated to
themselves an independent robber sovereignty?
THE PUBLIC CREDIT.
IT must be a matter of
satisfaction to every true-hearted citizen that the public credit has begun to
improve. In the spring of 1860 United States Sixes were worth at least 15 per
cent. premium. In November of the same year a political panic, assisted by the
flooding of the market with bonds stolen from the Indian trust fund, caused them
to decline to 6 @ 7 discount. In February last, after the secession of the
Cotton States, they were barely salable at 90 1/4 per cent. Now, in April, the
Secretary of the
Treasury asks for $8,000,000, and is offered $34,000,000 at an
average of 93 50/100 per cent. The public credit is evidently improving.
In point of fact, there never
existed any sufficient reason for the depreciation of Government bonds which has
been witnessed. If the whole fifteen slave States had seceded from the Union,
the remaining nineteen free States would have been abundantly able to pay the
interest on the Federal debt, and to make arrangements for the principal at
maturity. The decline in national credit proceeded from a want of back-bone in
our financial community, and the knavish tricks of stock speculators.
The success of the new loan
renders the negotiation of the Southern loan a matter of comparative certainty.
Pride will oblige the wealthy men of the South to subscribe for their loan, now
that the Northern loan has gone off so well.
The people in both sections will
realize, in due time, that if they wish to enjoy the luxury of a Government they
must pay for it. Savages retrench themselves in selfish independence, and leave
their chiefs to support themselves by plundering the weak and levying toll on
the cowardly. Civilized nations tax themselves voluntarily for the support of
their Government, and the more onerous the tax the clearer the evidence of the
satisfaction of the governed. Certain efforts which have lately been made to
break down the credit of both Governments prove, that if we have still primitive
people among us, they are powerless to oppose the en-lightened will of our
people.
IN publishing last week the
diagram of the "Ups and Downs of the States," we accidentally omitted to give
due credit for it to Professor WM. MITCHELL GILLESPIE, LL.D., of Union College,
to whom is due the conception
and the development of this
striking manner of presenting to the eye at a single glance relations and
variations which the largest study of mere numerical tables could with
difficulty suggest.
THE LOUNGER
THE ACADEMY AGAIN.
LAST week we stopped in our tour
through the Academy exhibition just as we were entering the third room. Stop a
moment longer and look at these two notices of the Academy, which have fallen in
our way since last week. One of them begins in this melancholy way :
'I It is in an eminent degree
dispiriting to be forced to chronicle, year after year, the deterioration of the
Academy exhibitions. Fewer good pictures, about the same number of tolerable
ones, and an enormous increase of rubbish. If the annual exhibitions be
practically, as they are in theory, an indication of the condition of painting
in this country, the conclusion is inevitable, either that the Academy fails to
fulfill its contemplated ends, or that the conditions essential to the steady
growth of art do not yet exist among us."
How doleful that is ! On the
other hand, The Crayon, which is the especial organ of Art, says, in a cheerful
strain:
"The collection, numbering 576
works, is not quite so large as that or last year, nor is it so interesting,
there being too few figure-subjects, which are always essential to render an
exhibition effective. There are, nevertheless, many striking and excellent
works—works that indicate a steady and rigorous growth of art."
There it is ! One man looks round
the galleries and says, "Well, at least art is steadily growing among, us."
Another looks about, shakes his head, and sighs, "Well, art hasn't even begun
among us." Let us chime in with the more cheerful critic, and enter the Third
Gallery.
This is devoted to the small
pictures; but, unluckily, small pictures require to be seen separately to be
fully appreciated. Here they press and squeeze, and, so to speak, overlap each
other, so that they can not be fairly seen. All pictures want elbow-room. But
the Third Gallery of the Academy is always like a crush at a ball—the simplest
country girl and the most-gorgeous dowager are crowded into equal obscurity. The
Third Gallery is the Grune Gewolbe of the exhibition, where the jewels and
precious bits are heaped and massed so that even diamonds look dull. Do I mean
to say that there are any diamonds here ? Perhaps. Look for yourself.
No. 297 is the Astronomer, by W.
H. Beard. This picture the Lounger saw in Buffalo last autumn, and spoke of it
then. Mr. Beard has opened a new vein of humor—the comedy of animal life. Of
course the comedy is in the spectator's mind, and not in the animal's
consciousness. It is the same spirit in which Koulbach illustrates the Reinike
Fuchs and Grandville, Fontaine. Yet there is positive humor in the round-eyed
owl on the bald mountain peak. The picture is a pleas-ant sarcasm. No. 334 is
Mr. Church's sole contribution to the exhibition, the Star in the East. It is
remarkable for the brilliancy of the star, and the illustration of his singular
mastery of light.
There are other pictures to be
seen here, but we will pass on, reserving the right to visit the Green Vault
again ; and so we enter the Fourth Gallery.
No. 349 is Grimalkin's Dream, by
Beard. The sleek cat sleeps, and dreams of fine fat poultry in her grasp,
standing in the cloud-land of dreams, erect and humanly conscious, like Puss in
Boots, as she displays her trophies. No. 374, The Culprit, is Eastman Johnson's
best picture this year. It is a mere sketch, by no means so elaborately finished
as the Husking, but a very faithful bit of nature. A little boy sits sullen upon
a high stool in the corner. It is a good little boy, but some-thing has gone
wrong. A cloud suddenly over-casts the sunny sky. It is all boy, and a happy
picture. It must have been in Gallery number Four that the first critic I have
quoted to-day conceived his article upon the exhibition. So let us hasten,
before we surrender and entirely agree with him, to enter the Fifth Gallery.
A charming Portrait of a Lady,
No. 424, by W. Oliver Stone, disposes us not to assent to the theory of the
constant deterioration of American art. And No. 428, The Highlands from
Shrewsbury River, by Kensett, makes us laugh that theory to scorn. It is a
beautiful picture. The deep, soft shade of the hill-side, the glassy summer calm
of the water, the idling sails, the universal rest—does this stream flow around
Lotos-islands, or out of the land of dreams ? The quiet power, the grace, the
transparency, the fidelity, and refinement of imagination, which are synonymous
with his name, are all in this lovely work of Kensett's. A little beyond we come
to the largest picture in the exhibition, No. 440, Dolce Far Niente—Italian
Peasants—by William Page. When we sit down before this picture we ask no more of
American art, for we think only of Venetian. Tintoretto might have painted this,
or Paul Veronese—shall we dare to whisper, or Titian? Mr. Page evidently thinks
that the Venetian masters understood the possibility of the art of painting more
fully than any others ; that they knew how far pigments can go, and what key is
necessary for a symmetrical picture. Therefore when you or I say that Tintoret
might have painted this, I suppose we mean that Page has studied him as a great
master of color, as you or I might have studied Jeremy Taylor, or Milton, or
Addison as great masters of the language—by no means insinuating that any thing
is imitated, in the baser sense.
The depth, and richness, and
transparency of color in this work—the fleshiness of the flesh—the unshrinking
imitation of the facts of nature in the costume and details—the vivid
portraiture of the picturesque brutishness of the Campagna peasant, and the
hopeless sadness of the impression of Italian country life, are equally
remarkable here with the total want of power of composition—whatever that may
be. It is not a question into which you
and I, who are in a great hurry,
and are rapidly using up our space, wish to enter now : and the picture is so
masterly and delightful in many ways that we ought to congratulate the Academy
upon such a prize in the exhibition, and reserve our meditations upon the
question whether the copying faithfully in form, and color, and chiaro-'scuro of
any object whatsoever makes a picture ? Only let us ask as we turn away, sure to
return to this seat many times in the season, if it be so, why are not Murillo's
Madonnas as fine as Raphael's?
No. 489, Bears on a Bender, is a
picture of Beard's, of which the Lounger has spoken before. The fidelity to bear
nature is not less striking than the grotesque humor of the picture. And so we
go on into the Sixth Gallery. No. 533, Gems for the Market, by Frank Howland, is
a rich, glittering picture of Circassian Girls in a Slave-boat going to
Constantinople, attended by eunuchs and guards. It is a vivid glimpse of the
mingled bestiality and magnificence of Oriental life. The girls have the list.
less, sugary prettiness of ignorant puppets, for they are scarcely more, and the
sensuality, ferocity, and languor of their guardians are admirably depicted. It
is a spirited and effective picture. No. 551, Indian Summer, by Jervis McEntee,
is one of the best landscapes in the galleries. The dreamy pervasive haze of the
pensive season is most delicately and truthfully rendered ; but the fault a
Lounger would naturally find with the picture is, that so poetic an aspect of
nature implies a more interesting pas-sage of scenery than the painter has
chosen. In a picture of Indian Summer the eye craves dreamy distances of shining
haze—the ghosts of hills that glimmer out of sight—a winding stream arched by a
bridge—" a shallop flitting silken-sailed"—gold heaps of corn on a creaking
wagon which drowsy oxen draw, while the driver lounges behind and cuts a
sunflower with his lazy lash, brushing the asters as he goes. It is not fair to
measure this excellent picture of McEntee's by any standard so arbitrary as
this—nor do I mean to do so. Mr. McEntee is too thoughtful and—in the old
sense—painful, an artist, not to know thoroughly why he selects one scene rather
than another; and his Indian Summer is another indication of the rapidity with
which his fine eye and faithful hand are raising him to the heights of fame.
—Here we stop for the present,
and pass out. If other visits shall reveal other pictures as good as those
already named, a loyal Lounger will not fail to mention them—quite sure, in the
mean time, that, as long as an Academy exhibition will furnish even as many good
pictures as this, we need not give up all hope of American art.
STICK TO YOUR LAST.
VERDI, the composer, has been
elected a deputy to the Italian Congress, and has therefore declined alluring
engagements from Russia and France. The Lounger's neighbor Terence is of opinion
that Verdi is a fool for so doing ; that he makes a huge mistake. " Isn't he a
musician?" cries Terence—" then why doesn't he stick to his trade ? Ne sutor
ultra crepidam." (Terence graduated last year.) " Let the shoemaker stick to his
last, as Apelles said to the cobbler who found fault with the slipper the artist
had painted."
Terence says it of Verdi; but he
means it of some people nearer home. Ile is polite, and does not wish to be
personal, and so castigates inferentially. " Melodus is a poet," he said,
speaking of a distinguished political gentleman ; " why doesn't he stick to
poetry?"
" Bosh !" replied his friend
Plautus, to whom Terence made the remark - " and you are a stockbroker; why the
d— don't you leave politics alone, and stick to stockbroking? Yes, and why
doesn't your brother," continued Plautus, energetically, carrying the war into
Africa, as the classical Terence would allow if the debate were upon any other
subject—" why doesn't your brother, who is a dry-goods merchant, stick to his
dry goods—and your cousin, who is a wet-goods merchant, to his wet goods—and
your uncle, who is a hatter, to his hats—and his brother, who is a watchmaker,
to his watches—and his nephew, who is a manufacturer, to his manufactures—and
his niece's husband, who is an iron man, to his iron— and the masons to their
mortar, and the farmers to their plows, and the carpenters to their rules ?
That's your argument, is it : Let every man stick to his trade, and not meddle
with politics?
"Well, then, tell use who the —"
(Plautus is profane when he is excited) "are to meddle with then? The
politicians, of course, because politics is their trade. And they are
notoriously the rottenest scamps in the country." (Plautus is vehement upon
these occasions.) Then you propose that all the men of intelligence, and
capacity, and honesty, who have every thing at stake under the Government, shall
stand aside and let the rotten scamps who have made the name politician
synonymous with all that is false, rule the country? That is where you come to,
with your absurd talk about poets, and mechanics, and merchants, and lawyers,
and clergymen having no business to meddle in politics.
" Why, Terence—bless your poor
addled poll!--it has not yet got through your brain, it seems, that in our
system, where the people are the Government, politics is the peculiar and sacred
business of every citizen. Are your uncle, and brother, and cousins, are all
your relations any less citizens because they are dealers in wet and dry goods?
Why, in this country, even stock-brokers may be citizens; and when they are so,
if they don't meddle with politics they don't do their duty, and they deserve
every thing they get. Politics is or are—for I don't care a cent for grammar in
a matter of this importance—the last of every citizen in the country, and, by
Jove! let him stick to it. And when you or any of your tribe come puling round
with your weak twaddle about people's minding their own business—you must excuse
me, really ; but, by Jove ! I hope you will be told to your face that it is just
such white-livered sneaks as you, who leave and have left the Government to
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