European Confederate Loan

HARPER'S WEEKLY.

[APRIL 11, 1863.

226

OUR COUNTRY'S DEAD.

NOT those who sleep beneath the sod, To meet us here no more;

We blessed the very path they trod Unto a holier shore.

Still smiling, as we said,

"These dear ones are not dead,
Nor even lost, but only gone before."

Here, by our side, the dead we meet!

Our dead—their presence palls Upon us, as their lagging feet

Tread where the sunlight falls. Honor may call in vain,

They answer not again—

Death has closed up their ears to Freedom's calls.

When rings the clarion voice of War

War against truth and right;
When Treason triumphs over law,

These dead rise in our sight, And fix their ghastly eyes

Where Freedom's banner lies,

As if their very glance her stars should blight!

You can not speak of liberty

But they will cringe, and sigh,

And wonder if they'll ever see

Such days as have gone by. They plant for future years Myriads of gloomy fears,

And love to count how thick the crop will be!

Away with them! Bury these dead!

They but defile our land:

Away with them! and in their stead

Bid loyal freemen stand! Look up—look up on high! See victory draw nigh!

Know that your country's freedom is at hand!

HARPER'S WEEKLY.

SATURDAY, APRIL 11, 1863.

THE CONFEDERATE LOAN IN

EUROPE.

THE rebel agents, it seems, have succeeded in persuading some speculative bankers in Europe to undertake the negotiation of a Confederate loan of $15,000,000. The money is wanted to pay for the steamers which Englishmen are building "for the Emperor of China," and any sacrifice would be cheerfully undergone to procure it. It is called a "cotton loan." The bonds covenant that the Confederate States will pay to the holder, in twenty years from date, the sum of money expressed in the bond, or, if the holder prefers, will deliver to him, at a point within the Confederate States, at any time between the date of the bond and the expiration of six months after the conclusion of peace, a quantity of raw cotton equivalent to the value of the bond, estimating the cotton at 5 1/2 d. per pound.

The British journals give prominence, in connection with this loan, to the house of Erlanger, of Paris and Frankfort, and wish to have it understood that it is a continental enterprise. As, however, the cotton is to be valued in sterling, and the coupons are to be paid in the same money, the real operators in the affair must be Englishmen. The London Times, which has uniformly decried our securities, and called upon the crown lawyers to prosecute any one who tried to negotiate a loan for the United States, comes out warmly in favor of the rebel bonds, and has already puffed them to a premium.

Well, we don't know that we have any right to complain. If we can stand the fitting out of rebel privateers in England, we can also endure the negotiation of rebel loans in the same country. It is not precisely what we expected. But life is full of similar disappointments. There are a good many English capitalists who are investing money in our stocks; and we suppose the nicely moral publicists of Great Britain will contend that strict neutrality requires us to suffer other capitalists, with Southern proclivities, to invest their means in "cotton bonds." For the sake of the latter, it will be a pity if the Southern guerrillas burn up all the cotton at the South; and it will be a still greater pity if Jeff Davis should repeat for their benefit the repudiation he so successfully practiced in the case of Mississippi. But this is not our business.

If we are true to ourselves, and, in the homely language of the President, "keep steadily pegging on" at the work of suppressing the rebellion, the adventurous speculators who have taken these bonds will by-and-by find that their debtor has ceased to exist. The season for active operations has already commenced; and if our generals and admirals are as dashing and as lucky as they were at this time last year, the foreign loan of $15,000,000 to the rebels will prove of no more substantial use to them than the Alabama or the Florida.

LORD LYONS'S DISPATCH

A MOST curious and important dispatch from Lord Lyons to Earl Russell, dated Washington, November 17, 1862, has been published in the British papers and is reproduced here. In this

dispatch Lord Lyons states that on his arrival at New York from Europe, on 8th November ult., he was waited upon by "the Conservative leaders," who were exulting in the triumphs achieved by the Democratic party at the elections in Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and New York; that "foreign mediation" was the thought uppermost in their minds; that they dreaded its coming too soon, as "a premature proposal of foreign intervention would afford the radical party a means of reviving the violent war spirit, and of thus defeating the peaceful plans of the conservatives;" that the success of such a proposal required that "it should be deferred till the control of the Executive Government should be in the hands of the Conservative party;" that these leaders so talked as to lead Lord Lyons to perceive that they "desired to put an end to the war, even at the risk of losing the Southern States altogether;" that their aim was "an armistice to be followed by a convention;" that "the more sagacious members of the party are well aware that the probable consequence of an armistice would be the establishment of Southern independence;" but that they deem it "wiser to agree to separation than to prosecute a cruel and hopeless war;" that "if their own party were in power, they would be disposed to accept an offer of mediation ......and would desire that the offer should come from the Great Powers of Europe conjointly."

These astounding statements will be read with amazement and indignation by the loyal thousands who voted the Democratic ticket in New York, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Whatever may be the views of the Democratic or Conservative leaders, who made such haste to parade their country's agony before a foreign embassador, the masses of the Northern people, Democratic or Radical, Conservative or Republican, most certainly have never entertained any desire for foreign intervention, but on the contrary, from first to last, at every and all times, have most strenuously and emphatically protested against foreign interference, and averred their intention to resist it at all hazards.

Nor is there the least shadow of ground for stating that the party which triumphed at the recent elections has ever expressed or entertained a desire for the termination of the war by the division of the country; but, on the contrary, it is notorious that throughout the States where the Democracy are dominant the people have all along been, and are still, resolutely set upon the prosecution of the war, at any and all costs, by every lawful and available method, until the rebellion is finally crushed.

To state, as Lord Lyons has done, that the Democratic party would, on obtaining the control of the Government, welcome foreign intervention as a means of ending the war and securing the independence of the South, is a libel so gross that his lordship owes it to himself to let the public know the names of the "Conservative leaders" who so basely traduced their fellow-countrymen.

That there is, in this city, a nest of malignant Copperheads, who have no more notion of patriotism than the reptile to which they owe the sobriquet they bear; men who would sell out American independence for a rise of a penny a pound in cotton, or the profit on a shipment of wooden buttons and bowie-knives to South Carolina—whose principles are sordid as their views are narrow and contracted—" Russell's Diary" long since informed us. He, too, was taken in and crammed by these pretended Democratic leaders: deceived by their glib talk, and fascinated by their Champagne and turtle, he allowed himself to be so thoroughly humbugged by them that his letters informing the Times there would be no war were published simultaneously with the accounts of the bombardment of Sumter. That the same clique should have been equally successful with the poor driveling creature who succeeded Russell is no wonder; but is it possible that so astute a diplomatist as Lord Lyons was similarly humbugged? Or are we to suppose that the real leaders of the Democracy, the men who will control the country if the Democrats carry the election in 1864, did actually tell these Englishmen that they were for the ruin of the United States, and in favor of a foreign commission to divide our estate?

This dispatch requires explanations, or the "Conservative leaders" will have a difficult account to render to the public.

THE LOUNGER.

ABOUT GENTLEMEN.

"WAS the Lounger oblige a friend, whenever it will come in conveniently, by saying what it is that the modern English novels, magazines, and better sort of newspapers mean when they use the word gentleman? There are obviously several grades in their estimation. What is the highest, according to any received understanding in soundly 'good society' in England?

"May we not, without the least loss of self-respect, allow that there is an ideal of the gentleman in England that we do not see in America? Are there not in Europe artists, so to speak, accomplished in the minor social benevolences and graces, whom we, with the best opportunity that the country affords in such accomplishment, can not rival? And do not such social artists establish a standard style, a school of mere manners, of which there are innumerable imitators? And is not an evident attempt to succeed in this style required of those who would meet the modern English ideal of gentleman in this grade? " 'Gentlemen,' as a mere statement of family descent,

etc., is not intended in these inquiries. Yet the question arises, would any man with a very strong and uncontrollable individuality of character pass muster as a gentleman of the finest type in English society—as, for instance, an irrepressibly humorous man, an exceedingly apathetic, or an extremely vehement man, allowing that every where there are unquestionable exaggerations of all these types? Does a good, simple-hearted, well-bred, and carefully-nurtured English girl of the better sort of the quiet middle-class ever feel quite satisfied that a Frenchman or other foreigner is a perfect gentleman? And is there not an incurable confusion of ideas which leads an Englishman to suppose that one who has not the technical style can not have the essential qualities of a gentleman? He takes it for granted that every honest man wishes to be a gentleman, and that, if he does not conform to the external fashion, which is the easiest part of it, he is not and does not care to be one. Hence, when in traveling he meets men who disregard this external standard, he sets them down for rogues if not ruffians, and acts accordingly.

"This accounts to the writer, at least, for certain experiences of Englishmen traveling in this country, which he is confident no sober American could have encountered. Does the Lounger's experience confirm this? Has the Lounger seen any Englishman who has been in Washington since the war commenced who did not evidently want to say, 'Mr. Lincoln is not even a gentleman?' meaning simply, 'Mr. Lincoln may be an honest sort of man in a crude way, and perhaps even with some eccentric talent, but without common sense, or he would certainly have learned to conform to the standard of the gentleman.'

"As custom establishes the meaning of words, and as the definition given by modern English literature and opinion to the word gentleman is confined to manners and not to character, may we not freely admit that, in this sense, the President is not a gentleman, and yet be proud of his character, his tact, his nice instincts, his prophetic dignity? If we admit that his stories sometimes drop in where the technical 'gentleman' would not put them, must we be ashamed of it? It would be a very good thing to have a gentleman, even in the sense of a person of excellent polish. But may we not say that 'polish' is not of the last importance just here and now?

      "A CORN-HILL HOER."

The note of our correspondent touches the subject of a very profitless discussion which is suggested by Trollope's and Russell's book, and the talk of certain persons in "society." As Mr. Russell informs us, he fell, upon his arrival in this country, into certain circles which had much to say of the vulgarity of the rail-splitter. Yet doubtless all the persons in such circles were partisans of Mr. Buchanan, who spat upon carpets in London, and who betrayed his country. That is to say, they could consider a man "gentlemanly" who in his private manners was unclean, and in his discharge of supreme public trusts was false. Doubtless, also, the same persons considered the Marquis of Hartington "a gentleman," and the young officer who reproved him "ungentlemanly." It is clear that in such minds there is no accurate standard whatever either of what is morally or socially gentlemanly.

There is no doubt, as our correspondent suggests, that there is a certain standard of manners by which the English novel and current opinion measure a man to determine if he be a gentleman; and, with our social subservience to English precedents, it has been somewhat adopted here. But the different organization of our society plays the most ludicrous pranks with this standard. Where social position and hereditary wealth are united the standard becomes and remains tolerably fixed. Where they are both fluctuating the criticism by such a standard is futile. There is a polish and ease of manner known as gentlemanly because persons of confirmed social position and fortune often have it. But it is precisely the quality which sharpers most easily imitate. The criticism of this kind directed against the President, of which Russell and Trollope speak, was itself a proof of the want of what is truly gentlemanly upon the part of those who expressed it. For the very essence of a gentleman, in any large and noble sense, is that he instinctively distinguishes between character, which is the eternal fact, and manner, which is the most transitory of appearances. Gentlemanliness, like every human quality, has a kernel and a shell. The nut may be sound and sweet in every particle, however rough the envelope, as it may be utterly foul and rotten, however smooth and pretty the skin.

The sting of social satire is its exposure of this discrepancy. The satirist strips off the mask, and wipes away the paint, and reveals the haggard, horrid features. He pulls out the false teeth; he wrenches off the false calves; he tears out the padding, and shows the decrepit, lame, shivering reality. He sits at the feast as Socrates sat at the banquet of Alcibiades. The philosopher fixed his eyes upon a lovely guest. Fairest of women she seemed, but under his glance she wavered and shrank; she shuddered and changed; and, slipping to the floor, glided away, a loathsome serpent.

In this country we have had Lamias enough in high places. Since "gentlemen" of fine manners have plunged us into this fearful war by the most unscrupulous and incredible dishonor, let us see what gentlemen of less manners and loftier honesty can achieve in establishing a permanent peace and saving the national honor. Washington for many a year has swarmed with technical "gentlemen" and "ladies," and a society composed of such was the very hot-bed of the most infamous treason and falsity. The historian of the war will do his work very imperfectly if he does not reveal the influence of that kind of social blandishment upon our troubles. For the power of manners, however subordinate, is not to be denied. And the historian of the war will equally fail if he does not count it among our signal good fortunes that when the very nationality of America was to be tried by fire, the chief magistrate and representative man of the people was truly a representative, even to exaggeration, of those qualities which are American as distinguished from European.

FROM A DIARY.

THIS morning Dash met Blank at Maillard's, where he was taking a cup of chocolate. Blank asked him if he had joined the Union Club.

"Why do you insult me by such a question?" rejoined Dash.

"Insult?"

"Why, yes. Do you think a gentleman wishes to belong

to a club which refuses to expel a traitor, even if it does not actually receive his money in dues? Is there no self-respect left?"

"Oh," said Blank, quietly, "you are speaking of the affair at the corner of Twenty-first Street and the Avenue?"

"Of course," replied Dash.

"Well, my dear boy, you are behind the age. That is the Disunion Club."

I lately dined in company with one of those inane young gentlemen who, as Theodore Winthrop says in "Cecil Dreeme," praise slavery and think they are aristocratic. The young gentleman went on for sense time, when Mrs.— said to him, politely,

"If you sympathize with the rebels, why don't you go and join them?"

"I, Madame? I assure you I am perfectly loyal." "Indeed?"

"Why, certainly, only I stand by the Government, not by the Administration."

"So Vallandigham says."

"I mean I am no Abolitionist."

"So Brooks says."

"That is, I am afraid we are alienating the South."

"So Tom Seymour says."

"In other words, I am a Union man, but I don't think war can restore it."

"So Toucey says."

"But, my dear Madame, the war is unconstitutionally carried on."

"So George Ticknor Curtis says."

"I mean that our liberties are in danger."

"So Fernando Wood says."

"Well, but isn't the war fratricidal?"

"So Ben Wood says."

"Come, then, isn't it hopeless?"

"So the London Times says."

"Yes, my dear Madame, but what on earth do you say?"

"I say that whoever stands against the Administration in this war stands against the Government. I say that whoever says he is no Abolitionist means that he intends to embarrass the war. I say that whoever is afraid of alienating the South is afraid of irritating a snake that has already stung him. I say that whoever thinks that force can not restore the Union does not know that Union is the most irresistible instinct of the American people. I say that whoever says the war is unconstitutionally carried on is in danger of being split by the tempest in which he is trying to split hairs. I say that whoever says our liberties are imperiled by the Government and not by the rebellion, works and prays for the success of the rebellion and the annihilation of all civil liberty and order. I say that whoever calls the war fratricidal has no more conception of national honor than lottery-dealers are said to have of honesty. I say that whoever considers the cause of the United States hopeless hates that cause in his heart, and is utterly ignorant of the character of the people and of the facts of the situation. That is what I say, and that is what every truly American man and woman says and believes."

The young gentleman made no reply. But the next day, at the Club, he said to a friend, "I dined yesterday at Mrs. —'s, What an awful Abolitionist she is!"

— tells me that the other day he was coming to Rochester from Lockport upon the railroad, and was presently attracted by the sound of a warm debate between two persons near him. The whole car became gradually interested and attentive. The debate was upon the necessary topic; and after a great deal of talk upon the part of Copperhead about the sovereign rights of States and the destruction of liberty by the Government, he said, frankly,

"The fact is, that I approve of slavery, and I hope to see the day when it will be introduced throughout the country. It is the best thing for the negro, and it develops fine traits in the master. I have lived at the South, and I admire Southern society. It is a great mistake to suppose that there is any restriction of free speech. A gentleman may say any thing he chooses. I have heard all kinds of sentiments expressed there. I am entirely in favor of slavery. The slaves are better off than the working classes at the North. If I am not mistaken, the time is not very far distant when the prejudice against slavery will disappear."

— says that he heard this oration to the end, and being fresh from a conversation with Eagle, who had told him a tale of his Southern travel, he immediately took part in the conversation.

"You say, Sir, that you like slavery; that it seems to you a proper and desirable system of society; and that you believe the prejudice against it will disappear. Of course no man of sense would stop to argue such propositions with you. Slavery is done for in this country. It has plunged into a civil war, and it is already drowning in the blood it has shed. But you said also that it is a great mistake to suppose that there is any restriction of free speech in the slave region. Now, Sir, my name is —, my address is —. Last week I was talking with a friend of mine, Mr. Eagle, for whose perfect veracity I vouch. He was traveling on business in Georgia in 1858. He was sitting in a car, as you are now. He was surrounded by Southerners, as you are by Northerners. The conversation fell upon politics, and he naturally and quietly expressed his views. He said that slavery ought to be restricted to the Slave States, just as you say that it ought to go every where in the country. He said that he thought slavery wrong, just as you say that you think it right. The whole earful of passengers became immensely excited. They denounced him as a d—d Abolitionist. They said he had no business in the South. They got hotter and hotter, and at length resolved to stop the train and hang him up to a tree by the side of the track; and it was with great difficulty that a few more sensible passengers succeeded in saving my friend's life. So much, Sir, for no restriction of free speech. My friend, traveling in a car in a region of slavery, says that he prefers freedom, and his life is immediately threatened; and he is a watched and suspected man until he gets beyond the border. You sit here in a car in a land of liberty, and say that you prefer slavery, and our only emotion is mingled amusement and disgust. The different emotion of the two cars shows exactly the difference between the civilization of Free and of Slave States. In the latter, when a man says, 'I love liberty,' there is a thrill of fear. In the former, when a man says, 'I love slavery,' there is a smile of contempt."

—says that the face of Copperhead turned blue, but he made no reply.

A POOR "ARTICLE" OF REBEL.

THE most pitiful and mean of all rebels are those who have escaped from the rebel section to the North, and devote their time and tongues to the abuse of the Government whose protection they have sought. The inexorable despotism of the rebel sway, the enormous prices of living, the certainty of rebel conscription have driven them away. They reach a city where they can say just what they please, where the aspect of life and the means of living are as little affected as possible by this bloody attempt of a faction to overthrow the Government, and they openly express their delight in (Next Page)