Mathew Brady Studio

HARPER'S WEEKLY.

[NOVEMBER 14, 1863.

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(Previous Page) under proper leadership they will fight as well as the men of any other race.

If Adjutant-General Thomas achieves his present purpose he will secure a most respectable name in history.

HARPER'S WEEKLY.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1863.
THE ELECTION.

NEW YORK has followed in the footsteps of Pennsylvania and Ohio, and gone for the Government by twenty thousand majority. The Legislature is strongly Union, and the State ticket is elected throughout. It is only a pity that the election for Governor and Congressmen had not taken place this year: the State would have not then been disgraced by a Copperhead delegation at Washington, and a halting, semi-loyal, semi-disloyal Governor at Albany. However, for what we have received let us all be duly thankful.

It was noticeable that, contrary to common experience, that class of persons who in other countries would be known as "the better class," i. e., men of education and means, almost invariably voted the Union ticket. In former times as many merchants voted the Democratic ticket as any other. Now there seem to be no Democrats among the taxpayers. The riots appear to have drawn a broad line of demarkation between loyal and disloyal men, and every one who has any thing to lose hastens to take his place in the ranks of those who are opposed to arson and murder. It looks as though the Copperheads were killing the old Democracy about as thoroughly as the "blue light" worthies killed the old Federalists.

The Government has now been fairly and squarely endorsed by the people of every Northern State—except New Jersey, which does not count. And it only remains for Mr. Lincoln to prosecute the work he has before him with the same energy and perseverance which have thus far characterized his Administration, and all, in God's appointed time, will be well with the country.

DOMESTIC MANUFACTURERS.

THERE are a number of articles in use in this country which can not be dispensed with. We consume a great deal more sugar than Louisiana and Texas could produce, even under the most tranquil regime. Our people consume large quantities of tea and coffee, spices and hides, which can not possibly be produced in this country. We require likewise drugs, dyes, and various other minor articles of which the cost is moderate, all of which must come from abroad. Of these commodities the consumption is not likely to decrease, and the supply will be derived, hereafter as heretofore, from foreign parts.

Bat the aggregate of all these articles, which can not be obtained except from abroad, is very small in comparison with the export of food from this country. It might be expressed by the numeral 1, if our food exports, which are absolutely required by Europe, were expressed by the figure 3. If our imports of manufactures ceased altogether we should export three dollars for every dollar we imported, and the course of exchange throughout the world would run in favor of the United States.

No one who has studied trade on great general principles, and has realized the resources and progressive development of this country, can have failed to perceive that at some day, sooner or later, the focus of commerce and finance was destined to be removed from London, Frankfort, and Paris to New York, and the great clearing-house of the commercial operations of the business world was to be established finally in this city. This would have been at some time accomplished, even without political or revolutionary accidents, through the simple agency of the Asiatic trade, which, in the ordinary course of events, under the influence of steam and telegraphs, must naturally centre at New York instead of London. But the slaveholders' rebellion has precipitated matters, and the prospect now is that we are going so largely to diminish our consumption of European manufactures, and increase our own, that in a very brief period of time what is vulgarly known as the balance of trade will turn permanently in our favor, and New York will be the general mart for the exchanges of the world.

To descend to details. Every manufactured article imported from Europe now pays an average duty of 30 per cent., payable in gold. The present premium on gold makes that duty equivalent to 45 per cent. If gold should rise to 160 or 170, as it did last January, the duty would be 60 per cent. And the embarrassment of the importer is not limited by the premium on coin. To do business safely he must watch the gold market hour by hour. If he sells goods he must instantly buy his exchange, or run the risk of seeing his profits swept away by a fluctuation caused by the speculative schemes of the Jews of William Street. If he buys his bills when he receives his goods a fall in gold may

compel him to sell them at a heavy loss. So that really there is no business in this country, except faro-banking, which is so purely speculative and gambling in its nature as importing foreign goods.

The remedy is simply in home manufacturing. Within a year quite a number of German importers have turned their attention to manufacturing in this country. They have imported the raw material, where it could not be produced here, and they have imported the work-men. Factories of all kinds have been established in this city and in the neighborhood, and the articles produced have realized handsome profits for the manufacturers. There is no earthly reason why we should not make all the hardware, all the dry goods, and all the articles of luxury and virtue which are required even by the most fastidious of the rich.

On such subjects appeals to patriotic feeling always fall dead. But interest will govern all classes. And the fact that now, and hereafter for some years, we can and shall be able to make every manufactured article in this country cheaper than it can be imported from abroad, will pretty surely lead to a manufacturing furor among our people. This is one of those popular manias which can be commended. Any man who undertakes, seriously and energetically, to manufacture here the articles we have heretofore imported from abroad, will realize a fortune by the enterprise, and will furthermore have the satisfaction of having done his share toward emancipating his country from dependence on foreign nations.

BRADY'S GALLERY.

THERE are very few establishments in the city better worth visiting than the Photographic Gallery of Mathwe Brady, to whom this journal is indebted for nine-tenths of the portraits we publish. Nowhere else can so extensive and in one sense so valuable a collection of art treasures be witnessed. For the last twenty years there has hardly been a celebrity in this country who has not been photographed here; and when the history of American photography comes to be written Brady, more than any other man, will be entitled to rank as its Father.

Many of us can still remember the old gallery at the corner of Fulton Street and Broadway, where Mr. Brady first began to photograph prominent characters for the sake of mere fame. People used to stroll in there in those days to see what new celebrity had been added to the little collection, and "the last new portrait at Brady's" was a standing topic of conversation. Pretty soon the city began to migrate northward, and Brady moved to the well-known rooms in 359 Broadway, where he made his reputation. There, by great exertion and labor, he amassed a collection of portraits which is probably unrivaled in the world. The Presidents and Secretaries during live or six consecutive administrations; Senators and Congressmen complete for an equal period of time; soldiers, sailors, divines, editors, doctors, merchants; Garibaldi, Kossuth, Jenny Lind, Sontag; every body, male or female, American or foreign, who had any claim to distinction, was sooner or later inveigled by the indefatigable Brady into his parlor, and left his or her head there. The consequence was, as we said, an accumulation of portraits absolutely unequaled—constituting materials for history of the very highest value. What would we not give now for such a portrait gallery of the revolutionary days?

When the war broke out Brady attempted higher aims. With a camera he accompanied the army to the battle-fields of Bull Run and Gettysburg, and seized, with mathematical accuracy and artistic skill, scenes that will be historical. Another camera went from his house to Charleston, and will presently show us the effect of Gilmore's Greek fire on the cradle of treason. This deviation from the old track has not, however, diminished Brady's eagerness for portraits. The Prince of Wales and suite, the Russian Admiral and staff, the French and British Admirals, and a host of other celebrities, native and foreign, have been added to his collection since he moved to the corner of Tenth Street.

If any man deserves credit for accumulating materials for history, that man is M. B. Brady.

THE OLD GAG.

WE all owe Mr. Beecher our gratitude for the pleasant and plucky way in which he battled with the mob in Liverpool, Manchester, and London. His perfect self-possession, his readiness, his jovial wit, gave him the victory throughout. Another orator might have withered the mob with sarcasm, but be melted them with humor. He turned the laugh against them. He parried their blows, and. at the same time struck home. There is no public speaker in the country so well fitted to do what he has done as Mr. Beecher, and the work he has begun in England will doubtless be continued by others, until a profound and powerful impression is made upon British common sense.

It surprises many that Mr. Beecher had to confront the mob in England, since he and all men of his views can now speak freely here at home. But the spirit against which he speaks, and against which the people of this country fight, is always and every where the same. Whether it is hanging a man in Georgia for saying that God made all men free, or burning a slave in Carolina because he is trying to seize his liberty, or murdering a man or child in New York because of their color, or by a "respectable mob" stifling discussion in Boston, or trying to stifle it in Liverpool, Manchester, or London, Slavery

is the same old tyrant, to whom free speech is as dangerous as a match to gunpowder, and which always seeks victory by brute force.

In this country we have had enough of this kind of tyranny. Under the Constitution we have discovered that no one man's opinions are any more sacred than another's. If Southerners like slavery, they may say so. If Northerners hate it, they may say so; and the Constitution protects each in the expression of his views. In the celebrated Union-as-it-was, which it seems we are going to have spite of the Vice-President, it was quite the other way. But in the Union-as-it-is we have got the gag out of our mouths. Nor does it look as if it were likely to be forced into any bold mouth on British soil! Of course, every man knows that it is the American pimps and panders of slavery in England who, suborning a few natives of their own kind, endeavored to stop, by threats and open riot, the meetings which Mr. Beecher addressed. The old serpent dies hard. But its head being under the heel of civilization, religion, common sense, and common humanity, whether it dart its poison in a great rebellion, or wriggle in a riot, or hiss in Copperhead speeches at home, and brawling interruption of public meetings abroad, its convulsions are but the throes of death.

THE THING TO BE DONE.

"WHY should General Butler bother himself about the future?" cries a wiseacre. "Isn't it plain that the thing to be done is to fight?" Yes; and why should General Gilmore trouble himself about the range of his guns? Isn't it plain that the thing to be done is to reduce Charleston? Is fighting all that we have to do? If Lee were defeated in Virginia and Bragg routed in Georgia, is then the work over, and our only duty to summon the troops home? If General Gilmore does not calculate the range of his guns, how can he take Charleston? If the loyal people of the country do not consider how they can secure peace, of what use is fighting?

Does any body seriously suppose that, when the two rebel armies are defeated, Davis & Company are going to say that they give it up, or that elections are to be held immediately in Georgia or Virginia without the supervision of the national authorities? Yet if fighting is all, when fighting stops the old order of things returns. Or take Tennessee at this moment. Thanks to its loyal men and the army of the Cumberland, with that of Burnside, the military forces of the rebels are expelled. Must Andrew Johnson, therefore, be recalled? And if, in the State of Tennessee, which has been always at least half loyal, a Governor must be maintained by the appointment of the United States, is it likely that a milder treatment will answer for any wholly disloyal State? Or is Andrew Johnson a usurper and the rebel Governor of Tennessee still the lawful chief magistrate of that State?

Is a man very foolish if he considers the plan of his house when he begins to dig the cellar? Do you tell him that it is absurd to talk of his library and the size and shape of his dining-room, and the bow-window here, and the hat closet there, when the foundations of the cellar are not laid? Do you constantly say to him that his business is to lay the cellar and let the library and dining-room take care of themselves? Not unless you have lost your common sense. And it is exactly the same thing with the war? When the fighting is over, then what? Is that the end? When the cellar is laid, is there nothing more to be done?

There is a great deal more to be done. The Government of the country is to be settled upon immovably secure foundations; and the sooner our minds consider what those foundations are the sooner peace will come. There is no plainer duty of patriotism than the constant discussion of the significance of the war—its causes, its origin, its methods—in order that the country may acquire some adequate advantage for the tremendous struggle. Does any body think that we have undergone these three years in order that Jefferson Davis may return into the Senate of the United States? And yet how soon is he likely to be convicted of treason in the district where it was committed? The Constitution, according to the Copperhead gospel, is sufficient to secure the success of a rebellion, but not to maintain its own authority. The chief Copperheads in New York claim that they are better Union men than Union men themselves, because they go for fighting and conciliation. By their own confession, then, there is something more than fighting to be thought of. But if the gentle Copperheads may consider what they will do after fighting, why is General Butler so culpable that he also reflects what Union men shall do after fighting? The gentle Copperheads ought not to forget that the time is past in this country when it was "constitutional" for Davis and his political allies North and South to say and do exactly what they chose, and "unconstitutional" for their political opponents to do the same. We may even add, thanks to Jeff Davis, that, though his rebellion does not destroy the Union, it does destroy the despotism which nullified the Constitution and used the Union-as-it-was for its tool.

THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF DESIGN.

Inter arma non silent artes. The fine arts are still eloquent amidst the roar of cannon and through the thick smoke of battle rises slowly and steadily the rich and well-proportioned building, the new Academy of Design. The corner-stone was lately laid upon a soft and genial day. Men eminent in art, in letters, in oratory, spoke their cheering and consecrating words. It was, as Mr. Vice-President Gray remarked, the first temple of art upon this continent built and directed by the artists themselves. Nor was the time ill-chosen; for, as Mr. Godwin eloquently declared, the great civil strifes among nations have been the tempestuous spring and seed-time for the glorious summer of all manner of intellectual fruits.

The subscription of the fund for the Academy

building has been one of the most remarkable events of this memorable year. More than a hundred thousand dollars were subscribed within a few months or weeks, and this amidst the constant strain of the vast private subscriptions for the war. It is a fact too significant for Americans to forget, and too significant for foreigners to mention. It is very doubtful if Mr. Charles Mackay, who found plenty of time to say last summer that it was generally conceded the Union was hopelessly gone, found a moment to state that the men who were giving their children to fight and their money to support the war were also wise enough, as well as rich enough, to be taking care that the future of the country which they intended to redeem should abound in every influence of beauty and truth. The readiness of the subscription to the Academy fund was the measure of the confidence of New York in the maintenance of the Union. The future will own its grateful debt to the artists of to-day in New York, that they knew themselves and their countrymen so well that they chose this hour as the one in which to begin their work.

And, indeed, as the temple rises into graceful completion, who shall say that its developing strength and symmetry, dedicated to the service of the purest beauty, do not fitly symbolize that vaster structure of Union and Liberty, which, with steady strokes and sweat and blood, the brave hearts and hands of the people are building? The event was more significant than the newspapers made it. But History, looking for the proofs of the national purpose and faith and spirit, will not forget it.

KNOWING WHAT YOU WANT, BUT NOT HOW TO GET IT.

"I CAN see," lately said a cynic, "that in the North there are but two parties: one knowing exactly what it wants, and the other apparently entirely ignorant of what it wants."

It is perfectly true. There are but two parties, and they are well described by the critic. One wants the maintenance of the Union. Its policy is therefore perfectly clear. It ardently supports every measure which will secure and confirm that result. The other wants political power, and it doesn't see exactly how to get it. That explains its conflicting assertions and contradictory action. In Ohio it declared for peace at any price. Ohio roared its contempt from the lake to the river. In Iowa therefore it declared for the war, and against the conduct of the war. That also was of no use. In New York it declared itself the strongest war party. Its success, therefore, in New York would show only that it was stupidly wrong in Ohio, and reveal the fact that it had no principle whatever in regard to the Union and the country, and was every where merely bobbing round to discover how it might return to power. In the State of New York the ticket of this party was supported by men who radically and utterly disagree upon the question of the war, or who, at least, profess to disagree. The M'Clellan wing and the Ben Wood wing equally supported the nominations. But is Manager Wood's war policy that of General McClellan? and, if not, which wing has stultified itself?

The party calling itself "the Democracy" professes to be the strong war party. Yet a great defeat of the Union arms would have helped their ticket. They claim to he the true Union party. Yet Jefferson Davis and every rebel leader wishes their success. Which are the dupes or the deceivers, the Copperhead leaders or the rebel chiefs? A party, therefore, which sees that the steady and victorious prosecution of the war must annihilate it, yet which has no hope of securing power but by seeming to favor the war, will inevitably present the appearance which the cynical critic described, of not knowing what it wants.

Yet it is not the end, but the means, of which it is ignorant. It wants political power at any price. Nor is it too harsh to say that if it could procure that ascendency by favoring immediate peace, upon the basis of compromise or separation, looking to future reconstruction, it would not hesitate to adopt that platform. Its misfortune is that it ruled by virtue of its alliance with a system which permanently paralyzed the Constitution, and is now seeking to destroy it. That system and its rebellious effort are equally doomed. And as they go, so go their props and appendages. As slavery sinks, so disappears forever a party which called itself democratic to serve slavery, and consequently repudiated every democratic principle whatever.

A scorpion girt with fire knows what it wants, but seems utterly confused because it knows not how to get it. It wants life; but how shall it pass through the fire?

THE AGRICULTURAL BUREAU.

WHILE we have been engaged in this engrossing war a new Department of the Government has been established, and has risen to the highest practical value. Its operations are necessarily so quiet and private that its worth and scope have hardly been properly estimated. Establishing the most trusty relations with every part of the country, and receiving the most accurate and detailed accounts of the variety, extent, progress, and result of all the crops in the country, it sends every month into the hands of every farmer in the land, if he chooses to take it and read it, a full description of the precise condition of the agriculture of the United States. It thus destroys speculation in food. It shows what the crop is, and inferentially what the price ought to be. It distributes flowers, and fruit, and vegetables, and grain, and trees. It supervises the experiments which single cultivators might feel themselves to be too poor to try, and disseminates the results. Its machinery gives it facilities which no private farmer can command; and the great benefit which France has always derived from its agricultural bureau will be renewed and surpassed in the United States.

No institution could be more advantageous to the farmer, and none deserves from him a more cordial and effective sympathy. Every farming