Page images
PDF
EPUB

We wish that the North should never would have shown the arrogant aim of the led by conquest to attempt a tyran- stronger claimant to be untenable. But now nical, a forcible, an unreal reunion; we wish every such hope is at an end. The victory to save the North from the danger of military of General Meade must tend to prolong the pre-eminence, as well as the South from the war for a considerable period. While Mr. disgrace and pain of military subjugation. Lincoln remains in office, as we have often Secondly. Though we wish the South to shown, there was little hope for peace. Unbe independent, we wish it to be weak. We til there seems no longer any possibility of have no sympathy with, we most strongly military success, until the people of the condemn, the fanatics at the South who have North in general, and by a great majority, hoped, and perhaps yet hope, to found a great admit the conquest of the South to be imempire on the basis of slavery. We do not possible, we do not believe that the Demobelieve that predial slavery such as exists in cratic party or any other party will stake the Slave States is a possible basis for a good their hopes of success upon an avowed and and enduring commonwealth; and we have declared peace policy. They would incur a no words to express our abhorrence of the no- great and obvious risk of defeat if they did so. tion which the advocates of the South, in the The mention of a peace, which is thought to South, advance so freely that it is the only be degrading during a war which is thought good basis of a commonwealth. We wish to be glorious, must always be unpopular, that the area of slavery should be so small, and is apt to be deemed a sort of treason. that, by the sure operation of economical For a long period to come, the North will causes, and especially by the inevitable ex- now have a sufficient store of plausible hope, haustion of the soil which it always pro- and while that is the case in a country like duces, slavery should, within a reasonable America, where the spirit of electioneering time, be gradually extinguished. is the spirit of politics, no great peace party will ever be possible.

Thirdly. For obvious reasons, we wish that these results should be obtained as soon, and that civil war should cease as soon, as possible.

We do not think that the riots at New York materially modify these conclusions. They show the extreme unpopularity of the conscription in that city, the weakness of the Municipal Government, the disposition of the Democratic State Governor to temporize with a Democratic mob rather than to support a Republic Federal Administration. But they hardly show more than this. They do not prove Mr. Lincoln to be unable to raise for a considerable time many men and some money. In New York he may not enforce the conscription, but elsewhere he can and will; and while a war Government has

If we compare the recent news with these fixed wishes as with a sort of standard, the result is plain. First. We shall rejoice at the reduction of Vicksburg and Port Hudson by the Federal armies. The best mode of confining slavery within fixed limits is the conquest by the North of the line of the Mississippi. If that great river could bound slavery on the west, and sea on the east, its extinction could not be delayed for very many years—not longer, probably, than it would be desirable that so great and prevad-sufficient men, sufficient money, and plausiing a social change should be delayed. The gradual and felt approach of such an event is almost as great a benefit as the event itself. But we must regret the defeat of General Lee's invasion of the North. If, as we not long since proved at some length, the South had been able to acquire and retain a considerable portion of Northern territory, the North could not have believed that it was possible for it to conquer the South. The war would have ceased for the simplest of all causes, from the winning of such a success on the part of the weaker combatant as

ble hope, any peace is beyond probability.

The feeling of a calm observer of these great events will, therefore, we believe, be a very mingled one. He will rejoice at the prospect of limiting the area of slavery, but he will regret the stimulus given to the warlike passion of the North, the prolongation of the civil war, the continuance also of suffering in Lancashire, and the opportunity which has been given to the people of New York to expose the weakness of their Municipal Government, their hatred of the Negro, and their turbulence.

OF AMERICA: A VOICE FROM THE CROWD. | God wills, and darkly works his will,

[blocks in formation]

I PRAISE your Jackson and your South!
No, I've no taste at all that way;
Those words are not sweet in my mouth,

Though dear they are to some, you say;
A trick of speech I've somehow caught

From Wilberforce's-Clarkson's graves ; I can't hate freedom as I ought;

Or love your barterers of slaves: In fact, if I the truth must tell,

I think your Jackson and his crew Accurst of God, are fit for hell,

Though they may fight, and conquer too.

Time was when nobly England rose,

And grandly told earth of man's rights;
Slavery and wrong her ancient foes,

In these, you say, she now delights.
Her voice that once so sternly spoke,
And, speaking, smote slaves' fetters off,
That antique utterance is your joke,

A grand-dame's tale at which you scoff.
Your Times has taught us what to say,
That years must change, and so must thought;
Jackson's your Cromwell of to-day:

Ah, ours for rights, not fetters, fought.

Clasp you the hands that wield the whip!

Press you the palms that rivet chains!

My curse will through my clenched teeth slip,
I'd brand your heroes all as Cains.
For cotton, and through envy, sell
Your nobler notions if you can;

I will not, and I hold it well,

I loathe these men who deal in man, Scoff, sneer, or jest; let him who likes, Prate of their courage and their worth, Right and not Might my fancy strikes, Though Might, not Right, may rule the earth.

At times, God, for his own good will,

Gives hell, o'er men and nations rule;
But Right, though crushed, I hold right still,
Though worldly-wise ones call me fool.
Brute force has Cossacked nations down,
Yet Cossacks I do not adore,

Than Poland's Bashkirs- nay, don't frown, -
I do not love your Jacksons more.
No, cavaliers that women sell,

To their great nobleness I'm blind:
Heroes who cash their children-well,
They're not exactly to my mind.

One's flesh and blood, you know, are here,
Dear to one, not as current gold;
I would not be a cavalier,

By whom his son or daughter's sold;
Curse those who sell their blood to lust,
Their very flesh to stripes and toil;
I spit at such-the thought I trust,
Of such should make my blood to boil.
The very meanest thing I see,

A cringing beggar whining here,
Rather a thousand times I'd be,
Than a girl-selling cavalier.

His wisdom's hidden from our eyes; Yet my faith rests upon him still,

To judge and scourge he will arise. Wrong seems to conquer often ;- Kight Seems to be conquered; - watch and wait; The years bring seeing to our sight, Truth's triumph cometh soon or late. Therefore success I seem to see

Makes me not in the evil trust, Nor seems its triumphs sure to me, Rather its failure. God is just.

[blocks in formation]

For the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Class of Williams College which was graduated in 1813.

BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

LONG since a gallant, youthful company
Went from these learned shades. The hand of
Time

The years of half a century since that day.
Hath scored upon the perishing works of man
Forth to the world they went in hope, but some
Fell at the threshold, some in mid-career
Sank down, and some who bring their frosty
brows,

A living register of change, are here,

And from the spot where once they conned the words

Written by sages of the elder time

Look back on fifty years. Large space are they
Of man's brief life, those fifty years; they join
Its ruddy morning to the paler light
Of its declining hours. In fifty years
As many generations of earth's flowers
Have sweetened the soft air of spring, and died.
As many harvests have, in turn, made green
The hills, and ripened into gold, and fallen
Before the sickle's edge. The sapling tree
Which then was planted stands a shaggy trunk,
Moss-grown, the centre of a mighty shade.
In fifty years the pasture grounds have oft
Renewed their herds and flocks, and from the
stalls

New races of the generous steed have neighed
Or pranced in the smooth roads. In fifty years
Ancestral crowns have fallen from kingly brows
For clownish heels to crush; new dynasties
Have climbed to empire, and new commonwealths
Have formed and fallen again to wreck, liks clouds
Which the wind tears and scatters. Mighty names
Have blazed upon the world and passed away,
Their lustre lessening, like the faded train
Of a receding comet. Fifty years
Have given the mariner to outstrip the wind
With engines churning the black deep to foam,
And tamed the nimble lightnings, sending them
On messages for man, and forced the sun
To limn for man upon the snowy sheet
Whate'er he shines upon, and taught the art
To vex the pale dull clay beneath our feet
With chemic tortures, till the sullen mass

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[blocks in formation]

POETRY.-Lenox, 434. The Little People, 434. Gortschakoff to Great Britain, 473.

SHORT ARTICLES.-La Vie de Cesar, 447.

Iliad in Nuce, by T. Carlyle, 447. German Translations of Kingsley's Poems, 456, The Pope and Dr. Liszt, 480. The National Museum at Naples, 480. Programme of the International Statistical Congress, 480.

PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY

LITTELL, SON & CO.,
30 BROMFIELD STREET, BOSTON.

For Six Dollars a year, in advance, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded free of postage.

Complete sets of the First Series, in thirty-six volumes, and of the Second Series, in twenty volumes, handsomely bound, packed in neat boxes, and delivered in all the principal cities, free of expense of freight, are for sale at two dollars a volume.

ANY VOLUME may be had separately, at two dollars, bound, or a dollar and a half in numbers.

ANY NUMBER may be had for 13 cents; and it is well worth while for subscribers or purchasers to complete any broken volumes they may have, and thus greatly enhance their value.

[blocks in formation]
« EelmineJätka »