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(Previous
Page) aground, but escaped at high tide. The land batteries prevented
the success of this raid, the most prominent among them being the Curtis House
Battery.
MISSING.
Boom! boom! boom!
'Twas the sullen signal-gun;
And through the early morning
gloom
It pealed like the trump of a
dreadful doom; And the tired sleeper woke with a start, And wondered what should
be his part In the tragedy that must soon begin; Whether the Right should lose
or win,
And where he should be when the
day was done.
But his reverie could not last:
"Fall in! fall in!" was the cry;
And with one thought of the happy
past, One glance that was suddenly, lovingly cast At a picture that nestled
close to his heart, A glance that made the warm tears start, One breathing of
prayer, one cheery word
To the mustering ranks, he
grasped his sword And sprung to the front to do or die.
Then a hundred cannon roared,
And a hundred bugles blared,
And over the ramparts the heroes
poured
With bayonet fixed and flashing
sword;
And across the plain, where the
storm of death Came sweeping down with its fiery breath,
And up the hill, where the surly
foe
Like an ambushed lion was
crouching low,
They marched, tho' they knew it
was death they dared.
His voice was steady and clear,
His heart was cheerful and
strong;
In his face there lingered no
line of fear, The fire in his eye had dried the tear, And cheerily rung his word
of command As he shouted back to his gallant band. They were falling fast, but
he did not quail, And steadily up, through the leaden hail, He led his confident
braves along.
Right up to the rampart grim
Where the rebel flag was
floating;
Right up to the awful crater's
rim
The sturdy veterans followed him.
"Forward! boys, forward!" they
heard him cry; Then a blast of death went howling by,
And when it had passed he was
lying still, And his braves were staggering down the hill, And the air was rent
with the rebel shouting.
Oh, who can tell the rest?
Is he lying silently now
With the frozen clods above his
breast? Alas! God knoweth what is best;
But better, far better, our poor
hearts say, To pour out his life in the fiery fray Than slowly to die in the
loathsome cell Of a terrible Southern prison hell:
God knoweth the best—to His will
we bow.
HARPER'S WEEKLY.
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1865.
PEACE AGAIN.
THE gentlemen who find comfort in
the visits of Mr. BLAIR or of any one else to JEFFERSON DAVIS or any other
rebel, must not suppose that they monopolize
the wish for peace, nor that those who estimate such visits at their exact value
are an extreme war party. Neither need they delude themselves with the fancy
that it is a profitable thing to send secret agents to sound the intentions of
the rebel chiefs because Lord NORTH sent commissioners to ascertain the views of
the Continental Congress. The effort to assimilate this rebellion to the
American revolution, in whatever manner it may be made, must inevitably fail.
The rebels do not appeal to the right of revolution to redress wrongs otherwise
without remedy ; they plead the right of secession to be exercised at their
discretion.
If this truth is borne steadily
in mind it will be seen that the difficulty is one that does not admit of
compromise or terms of surrender. It is a defiance of national sovereignty,
based upon a different interpretation of the fundamental law. There can be but
two parties : the party of the national sovereignty at all hazards, and the
party of its enemies. A third party is impossible, because there can be no
compromise of supreme sovereignty. It may be sacrificed, it may be reduced, but
then it becomes another thing. It has ceased to be supreme. In our case it is a
contest of powers. Is the nation supreme ? Is the State supreme? Supreme and
sovereignty are both words with a distinct meaning; and there can be no
difficulty in seeing that one must yield to the other, and in the nature of
things the yielding must be entire. The State must surrender absolutely the
essential powers known as sovereign, or the nation must. There is no compromise
between life and death. While the body is living in the least there is no death.
The attribute of supreme sovereignty is indivisible.
Now it is easy to see that all
DAVIS or any rebel can say is one of two things. He may say that he will
acknowledge the national supremacy, or he may promise that he will do so
provided the Government will accede to some condition he may name. He must say
one of these things, or he must fight on without saying any thing. But if he
says the last, he can not be listened to, and if he agrees to the first he will
do so without being asked. What then is gained by incessantly knocking at his
door and politely inquiring whether he has made up his mind?
If there are those who believe
that the Government is bent upon war without reason and without end, they are
not to be persuaded. In their view, whatever the Government does is
wrong. They are like children in
the sulks. If you try to pacify them by the most contrary expedients it is
equally useless. If you walk or sit, if you talk or are silent, it is all the
same. It is the essence of discontent to be discontented ; and human ingenuity
was never yet without a plausible excuse for the wildest contradictions and
absurdities. An old Cavalier would as soon have named his son Praise God or
Zealin-the-land as an opponent of the war be appeased or satisfied with any act
of the Government.
But those who see this, and who
knew from the beginning what the issue of all such peace embassies must be, are
not to be lightly called an extreme war party because they understand the matter
better than the dabblers in hopeless projects of peace.
The words, " extreme war party,"
are used as a term of contempt or censure. But how are they contemptible who
insist upon maintaining civil order against causeless rebellion ? and why should
they be censured who demand an unconditional surrender of armed rebels? If by "
extreme war party" is meant those who wish for vengeance, then the term
describes a very few people so few, that most men do not know of their
existence.
For there is no wish of
vengeance, but only of peace that shall endure. We have very little doubt that
when the rebels have acknowledged the authority of the Government, and have
assented either to emancipation or to a peaceful and legal trial of the
question, they will find that the people do not favor a wholesale confiscation;
that they do not clamor for the blood of the rebel leaders, who have caused more
precious blood to flow than they could atone for if they bled until the end of
the world ; that they ask two things only, but ask them with a power not to be
denied Reunion and Liberty, without which there can be no Peace.
A
SCAPE-GOAT.
THE bitter denunciation of
JEFFERSON DAVIS by some of the rebel newspapers is merely a fierce cry for a
scape-goat. In their extremity it is a relief to cast the responsibility of
disaster upon some conspicuous person, and as DAVIS from his position must have
many enemies who will immediately echo the cry, he is selected. There is no
indication of any able leader among them. Indeed not one of the rebel civil
chiefs has shown the least genius for affairs. Their Congress is an assembly of
such commonplace talent that no member is more prominent than another. Compared
with other revolutionary assemblages, the Long Parliament, the Continental
Congress, the French Convention, it is ludicrously weak and unimportant. On the
one hand, it registers DAVIS'S orders; and on the other, it does not dare to
expel Mr. FOOTE. It has displayed neither sagacity, eloquence, nor vigor, and
will be remembered only to be despised.
Indeed, the glamour of the
rebellion has faded away. There was a tune when it was a kind of fashion to
ascribe to its leaders superior intellectual and statesmanlike qualities ; but
the time is rapidly approaching when it will be seen that men who arbitrarily
swayed others by appeals to ignorance and prejudice are no more entitled to be
called statesmen than those who live by the unpaid labor of others and buy and
sell human beings like cattle are entitled to be called gentlemen. JEFFERSON
DAVIS, especially, was contrasted as a statesman and a gentleman with
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. But when the historian comes
to record the patient benignity and cheerful sincerity of private manner of the
President, his lofty, humane faith in man, liberty, and the republic, his wise
prudence and sagacious perception of the course of public sentiment and of the
possibilities of action, and compares them with the cold reserve of DAVIS'S
personal intercourse, the specious falsehood and base hostility to human rights
of his official papers, and the mad scurrility of his tirades in public speech,
the historian will see and declare that, in an age and country of Christian
civilization, the tricks and quibbles of a desperate effort to outwit the human
instincts are as unworthy the name of statesmanship as the abject terror of
Mumbo Jumbo is unworthy the name of religion. Survey the field of the rebellion,
hear and read all that it has said and written, and then answer whether
civilization has gained one hope or the human race a single inspiration from all
its words and deeds. The world struggling forward toward a higher well being
feels its heart cheered and stimulated by the mere effort of Greece against
Persia, of the cities against the barons, of the field of Magna Charta, of the
great English, French, and American revolutions. But what generous word or
thought or aim can literature cherish or art immortalize in this dreary attempt
to destroy a mild and equal Government in order to confirm and perpetuate a
revolting injustice?
The exclamation against DAVIS is
only a cry of despair. The call for LEE means no more.
General LEE is a weak man and a good soldier.
He is not a great or remarkable general. He gave but half a heart to the cause
he fights for. He will doubtless fight for it to the end; and when the end
appears he would probably wish at least to fall upon the field.
But the rebellion would be no
more hopeful if he were made absolute Dictator. The Rebel Congress have passed
an act requiring the President to appoint a General-in-Chief. But DAVIS, of
course, does not forget that whoever may be General-in-Chief he is the
constitutional Commander of the General ; and he reminds his faithful lieges
that LEE has already been in command of all the rebel armies, and would not
undertake to command in the field also. He adds, that whenever it is practicable
for General LEE to assume the entire command, without leaving the army in the
field, he will cheerfully appoint him.
But undoubtedly these two men
have hitherto acted in concert. If they have not, DAVIS is not the man to be set
aside. Whenever they differ he will control LEE or there will be trouble. It
matters little. Trouble enough there must be in any case. Neither thanksgivings,
nor fastings, nor generalissimos can prevent it.
FRANCE IN MEXICO.
THE last incident in the French
conquest of Mexico will suggest to every thoughtful American that we are
drifting insensibly and inevitably into new political complications. We do not
say drifting in any offensive sense, nor to insinuate that we could change the
course of events. While we are straining all our power to restore domestic
peace, it can not be expected that we should escape the danger of foreign
movements which would not be attempted except for our disturbed condition. And
those who have complained that we did not prevent the advance of France in
Mexico show that their pride is greater than their wisdom, and betray a curious
ignorance of the actual situation. We were not in a condition to interfere, and
therefore we did wisely not to remonstrate. We stated to France our traditional
policy on the question, but we did not bluster or threaten. Those who complained
that we did not can now decide, upon calm reflection, whether the resolution of
Mr. HENRY WINTER DAVIS would have been a dignified or self respecting foreign
dispatch from the State Department. The Senate, by declining to adopt it, has
saved the true honor of the country.
The Monroe doctrine, although it
was merely what Mr. EVERETT called " an executive declaration," and although it
never received any official sanction from Congress, yet has been universally
adopted as the absolutely indisputable policy of this Government toward all
European governments which should endeavor to establish a foothold upon this
continent. As it is popularly understood, the Monroe doctrine declares that the
United Stales will drive every European power from our neighborhood. But if it
really means that we deny to independent governments upon this continent the
right to ask the assistance or even the presence of Europeans within their
domain, then it is an absolute contradiction of our own fundamental principle of
the right of the people to govern themselves.
The truth is, it does no such
thing. In view of the probable design of the Holy Alliance in Europe to compel
the return to Spain of some of her American colonies which had declared and
maintained their independence, and had been recognized by the United States,
President MONROE, in December, 1823, said that "we could not view any
interposition for the purpose of oppressing them or controlling in any other
manner their destiny, by any European power, in any other light than as a
manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States." This can
not be thought to contemplate opposition to a friendly request of assistance
unless we intended to disregard international honor. In another part of the same
message the President said that the American continents " are henceforth not to
be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European government."
That the cession to France of
certain provinces of Mexico by the viceroy whom France maintains in that country
must be considered a case of such colonization is clear. Mexican provinces
regulated by French armies are virtually French colonies. But what the duty of
the United States may be under the circumstances is not so evident. The
situation demands the utmost sagacity and not the least swagger. There is
nothing in the world easier than to strike an attitude and cry hands off. But
before defying any of the Great Powers to mortal combat upon such a point it is
well to calculate every chance. When OLIVER CROMWELL had thoroughly pacified
England he turned his eyes abroad. But while the fields of Dunbar and Worcester
were yet to fight his eyes and soul were centred there.
THE
BLACK LAWS.
ILLINOIS has repealed her black
laws, and indeed she could hardly help wiping the stain from her face when her
neighbor Missouri was lifting her whole body out of the slough. The black laws
of Illinois, although Illinois is a free State, were as much a part of the code
of slavery as any slave law of Arkansas or Mississippi ; for they were the work
of what was called the
Democratic party, and that party was the
minister of slavery. In Illinois, for instance, all col
ored persons were presumed to be
slaves unless they could prove themselves to be free ; in other words, were held
to be guilty until they proved their innocence : thus directly reversing the
first humane maxim of the common law. By another act, if any negro or mulatto
came into the State and staid ten days, he was to be fined fifty dollars, and
sold indefinitely to pay the fine.
We read such things
incredulously, in the light of today. The wicked folly of selecting for outrage
a special class of the population, and that class the most innocent and
defenseless, is so like a caprice of Ashantee society, or a measure of
Patagonian statesmanship, that it is quite impossible to believe that it was
tolerated in the great, prosperous, and enlightened State of Illinois. It
explains the curiously inhuman and heartless tone of Mr. DOUGLAS in speaking of
the colored race. He lived in the midst of this senseless and fierce prejudice,
and he rose by pandering to it.
The black laws of Illinois were
another proof of the fearful demoralization which slavery had wrought in this
country, and upon which it counted for easy success in its rebellion. When
slavery saw that PIERCE and BUCHANAN, two successive Presidents, were its most
abject tools ; when it saw every Northern city ready to take by the throat any
man who fiercely denounced it ; when it saw even in Boston a rich merchant and
noted citizen named FAY, with the Mayor of the city, turning a meeting for
condemnation of slavery into the street; when it read such laws as these of
Illinois; when it saw the city of New York cringing beneath its frown and
fawning upon its contemptuous smile, how could it help believing that
FRANKLIN PIERCE wrote the truth to JEFFERSON
DAVIS when he said that , the blood would flow this side of Mason and Dixon's
line rather than the other, and suppose, with
ROBERT TOOMBS, that any man could drink all the
blood that would be shed in the war.
Now that Illinois has repealed
her black laws, is it too much to hope that New York will do the same thing? The
Constitution of the State allows colored citizens to vote, provided that they
have lived twice as long in the State and county, and paid twice as much tax as
any other voter. The other voters may be ignorant and brutal sots, who are
nuisances and pests in any country, and these may he intelligent, industrious,
thrifty, valuable citizens ; but the Constitution of New York, enslaved by the
same mean and inhuman prejudice which dictated the black laws of Illinois,
declares that ignorance and brutality are politically preferable to intelligence
and thrift.
If intelligence is to be the
condition of active citizenship, it is a test which every body can understand,
and which most people will approve. But to make it dependent upon complexion is
as wise as to rest it upon the color of the hair or the breadth of the
shoulders. The monstrous subjection of this country to the prejudice against
color is not, as many who are under its influence suppose, "a natural instinct;"
it is only the natural result of a system which arbitrarily and forcibly makes
color the sign of hopeless servitude. If red haired men or men over six feet in
height were enslaved and imbruted for centuries, there would be exactly the some
"natural aversion" to them which is gravely alleged by many otherwise sensible
people against the colored race.
Missouri has emancipated herself;
Illinois has thrown off her black laws. Suppose that sensible men and women now
emancipate themselves from the black law of a most cruel and senseless
prejudice.
OUR
CANADIAN NEIGHBORS.
THE Message of the
Governor-General of Canada, the debate in the Canadian Parliament, and the
extradition of BURLEY, the Lake Erie raider, show that the Canadian authorities
mean to enforce neutrality. It is only the truth to say that the conduct of the
Canadian Government is much more friendly than that of the British. It reveals
the same disposition to maintain the spirit of a true neutrality which
WASHINGTON showed in 1793, and the United States Government in the case of the
alleged Russian privateer in the Crimean war. If the British Government had
shown the same alacrity in respecting honest obligations; if it had stopped the
rams before Mr. ADAMS virtually threatened to demand his passports; if it had
refused to harbor the rebel privateers after they had escaped ; or if it had
honorably tried to prevent their escaping; if it had not quibbled and strained
every point against us, that Government would not have forfeited the respect of
every honorable American.
The attitude of our neighbors
upon occasion of the first serious violation of neutrality from their soil, at
once mollifies the jealous suspicion with which they have been regarded as
virtual abettors of the rebels. Now that we see that they are not abettors, we
can tolerate their sympathy, which is the result of ignorance of the merits of
the case. The Canadians, like most foreigners, remember the ancient tone of the
Government of the United States ; but they forget that that tone was given to it
by the very faction now in rebellion. That tone was the expression of a spirit
essentially anti-American, made up of ignorance on the one hand and of slave
driving insolence upon the other. And it (Next
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