MASTER NEGATIVE NO. 93-81611- MICROFILMED 1993 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES/NEW YORK as part of the "Foundations of Western Civilization Preservation Project" Funded by the NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES Reproductions may not be made without permission from Columbia University Library COPYRIGHT STATEMENT The copyright law of the United States - Title 17, United States Code - concerns the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. » Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or other reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research." If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excess of "fair use," that user may be liable for copyright infringement. This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copy order if, in its judgement, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of the copyright law. A UTHOR: HUFF, JOHN W. TITLE: EXAMINATION OF MACAU LAY'S ESSAY PLA CE: PHILADELPHIA DA TE: 1892 ! S»* ' COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT Rim Tor.RAPHTr M^rROFORM TARGET O^i^l Material as FilmeT^xisting Bibliographic Record Master Negative # 936 ' R162 *^r .^r'i- .-'*» Huff, John W .' '■• ' •■ ExaiBination of Macaulay's Essay on Renke's History of the pcpes . with a few contributions to the preBs on other subjects No place 1892 I'^'d^UH r 5 3 *- D5 p i^l ^f? h n Restrictions on Use. TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA FILM SIZE: S-^JiC^I IMAGE PLACEMENT: lA^HA IB UB _^^^^ ^ ^ ^ DATE FILMED: .C_2-^^_:. ^^^^l^^^ FILMED BY: RF.SHARCH PTTPUrA TIONS, TNC WOO REDUCTION RATIO: _i _/jjBi? l()C . — _„_ r~~" 1 iUllwl Association for information and image Management 1100 Wayne Avenue, Suite 1100. Silver Spring, Maryland 20910 301/587-8202 Centimeter 1 2 3 Inches 8 IN i tiimi i ii!iiiJ>iw . ii>tw IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMIIIMIIIIM. |telMtliliil ll G WVC.2. in the Cttit of |lcut l|ox-U ifeaxg ^^(^ ^ P-' '^^y^^-'-r '^^■'^y^^f^ \\ \?f MA^a«<»«i«H«.guu>>«Mid^.^^ V AN EXAMINATION OF MAC A UL AY'S ESSAY ox RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES: WITH A FEW CONTRIBUTIOXS TO THE PRESS ox .■ t 4 (' \ OTHER SUBJECTS. BY JOHN W. HUFF. riilVATELV PRINTED. 1892. Iri, sil'la... MjMae. ' ti [p <^ 1 y U3 CD CT:' Xok^'JL^a 37014 5 ,»jsweji«.i«fc'Wirf»'««?<^ ..Muj» .jMM^jWMKIeSHt ' I,* «*■*'■»*».- 1« ^Tk.^,tssf- f^ v A , ims : Mm^tim3»!'«lmS*?t considered a work of human policy. But Mr. Macaulay's reason- ing and illustrations would not apply to this restricted application of the term. The ecclesiastical organization of the Roman Catholic Church is but an integral, though a very important, part of the chundi. If the term be applied to include those fundamental doc- trines of Ciiristianity which are held in common by the Church of Rome and by all orthodox Protestant churches, the Church of Rome cannot be spoken of as wholly a work of human policy, because to the precise extent that she embodies scrij)tural truths does she exhibit the residt of Divine policy. Plainly, then, if the Roman Catholic Chiu-ch be solely a work of human policy, Mr. Macaulay has drawn conclusions favorable to that church not recognized in the premises, because he attributes to a work of human policy the re- sults of the operation of those living truths which have, and which ever will have, an energy in themselves deeply to affect the human mind. But, if the term Church be used in its generic sense, so as to in- clude as well some of the doctrines of Ciiristianity as the ecclesiastical organization of the Roman Catholic Church, Mr. Macaulay's splendid illustrations relative to the antiquity of the church lose most of their force, unless they be assumed to refer to the antiquity of the truths whieh the Church of Rome embodies. The distinction is a very important one, and Protestant writers have rarely borne it in mind. In the early age of the Christian era, the doctrines of Christianity were associated with a t)eculiar ecclesiastical or ^ . 27 integrity, depends on his acquaintance with very different elementsof knowledge. He cannot be said to have been ready to die for the doctrine of transubstantiation, as Mr. Macaulay asserts, — but rather for that system of which transubstantiation is only a part. With a choice specimen of human virtue like Sir Thomas IMore, Mr. Macaulay considers the doctrine of transubstantiation a kind of proof charge. " A faith," says he, "• which stands that test will stand any test." Now, it should be recollected that transub- stantiation is not presented, as a test of our faith, exclusively on its own merits. It is associated with a creed which is regarded by Roman Catholics with far more reverence than the Bible. It is considered a })rofound and incompiehensible mystery. Therefore it would be very unwise to assume that Romanists analyze the doctrine with that vigorous closeness they would analyze any dogma not embodied in the Roman Catholic creed. Mr. Ma- caulay has erred in relation to this doctrine in the same way most Protestant writers have erred. Protestants may present the over- whelming argument against the real presence to the Catholic, and exhaust their })Owers of reasoning to drive it home to his mind. They may point out to him that it contradicts the evidence of our senses. They may show him that, by discarding that evidence, he t writers appear to think. But if this reservation does not affect the truth of his proposition concerning divinity, it very materijilly affects the correctness of his reasoning concerning the progress of knowledge upon a false theo- logical system, because the reasoning that would induce th(^ I>rah- min to examine the truth of the geography bound uj) with the mythology of his rtdigion may induce the Catholic to examine the premises on which he is re(]uired to believe the doctrine of tran- substantiation, and thus lead him to f|uestion the truth of a sys- tem which embodies such an element in its creed. No learning'', no sagacity jiffbrds security against the greatest errors relating to the invisible world. But on what ^jremises are we to know what are >1. 31 errors relating to the invisible world ? Not on Scripture certainly, for Scripture reveals nothing definite concerning it. But we can- not be cognizant of errors without being to the same extent coo-- nizant of truths relative to that world. Now, if revelation teaches us nothing definite on the subject, and if no learning, no sagacity affords any security against errors relating to it, what is the stan- dard by which opinions relative to the invisible world are declared to be erroneous or true ? If Scripture is not that standard, our learning and sagacity must be that standard, for, independent of a natural and a supernatural, it can have no other basis. If our learning and sagacity constitute that basis, it is a contradiction in terms to say that learning and sagacity cannot decide what are errors and what are truths relative to the spiritual world, — that is, of course, if we s{)eak of errors and truths concerning that world on any other hy- [)othesisthan thatopinions which are irreconcilable with oneanother cannot all possibly be true. All that the Scripture teaches us con- cerning futurity is embodied in general terms. Happiness or misery, dependent on virtuous and vicious conduct in this world, sums up what has been revealed to us. Much that may be in- cluded in the term fanaticism may not be inconsistent either with the reward of the righteous, or with the punishment of the wicked; and yet we may declare what is fanatical, and what is not fanatical, upon premises as indisputable as any which can be produced to sub- stantijite any axiom in political science. Bayle and Ciiillingworth, says Mr. Macaulay, two of the most skeptical of mankind, turned Catholics from sincere conviction. The illustration would have been more to the purpose if it had included a reference to their learning or sagacity. The question arises in our mind, skepticism relative to what things ? Unless the term be used with reference to some specific conditions, it is without meaning. A man may doubt on one point, and believe on anotherpoint. He might, with reason, be skeptical concerning the Cock Lane ghost, and very reasonably believe in the earthquake of Lisbon. Jefferson and Paine were two of the most skeptical of men ; so were Ilobbes and Hume. Yet Jefferson and Paine abhorred, in their inmost hearts, a monarchical government. Hume and Ilobbes, with equal sincerity, doubted the beneficial tendency of any other kind of government. Besides, Mr. Macaulay should have stated that, though Bayle and Chillingworth became Catholics in youth, neither was a Catholic in mature age. Chillingworth not only again became a Protestant, but he was 32 unciiK^stionably the ablest defender of Protestantism that ever ap- peared. It is scarcely necessary to say tliat Bayle's system of free thinkinjij was more antagonistic to Catholicism than to Protestant- ism. If Johnson had applicnl the same powers of mind to the in- vestigation of the second sig]it,the Cock Lane ghost, and llieeartli- qjiake of Lisbon, which he made to bejir upon tlie investigation of the authenticity of Ossian, Mr. Macaulay's ilhistration would have been more to the purj)ose. With res[)ect to Ossian, Johnson analyzed and doubted; the absurdities of tlie Cock Lane ghost ajul the second sight he believed, but did not analyze. For tliese reasons ]Mr. Macaulay has ceased to wonder at any va- garies of superstition. But if tliey are reasons why he sliouhl cease to wonder, tliey are equally reasons why lie sliould never have begun to wonder. The fact is, they are not reasons at all either why we should wonder, or why we should cease to wonder, at the vagaries of superstition, because^ they are not the premises on which alone we are enabled to decide whether any given notion is or is not superstitious. lie has seen men, he says, not of mean talents, or neglected education, w(dl-read scholars, exjX'rt logi- cians, keen observers of life and manners, [)ro[)hesying, interpre- ting, talking unknown totigues, working miraculous cures, coming down with messages from God to the I louse of Conmions. lie has seen an old woman, with no tah^its beyond the cunning of a for- tune-teller, and with the education of a scullion, exalted into a prophetess, and surrounded by tens of thousands of devoted fol- lowers, many of whom were, in station and knowledge, immeas- urably her suj)eriors ; and all this in th(^ nineteenth century, and all this in London. " Yet why not?" he asks; '' for of the dejilings of God with man no more has been revealed to the nineteenth century than to the first, or to London than to the wildest parish in the Hebrides." We also have ceased to " wonder at any vagaries of superstition." Yet not because "'no more of the d(^alings of God with man has been revealed to the nineteenth centurv tlum to the first" — for, if that were our rule of judging, we should be unable to know what sup(M-- stition is, much less its vagaries. Our reason for not wondering at these superstitions is that the great mass of mankind, among whom superstitions are prevalent, never investigate the laws which govern their belief relative to the invisible world, or to any subject which is not susceptible of direct proof. . 33 The love of the tangible, the love of the real, always has pre- vented the great proportion of mankind from examining the premi- ses upon which the purely deductive notions of mankind are based. Some may be '^expert logicians" on a given subject, while their lucubrations on an equally plain subject may well claim fel- lowship with the haziest lucubrations of the veriest scullion. A well-read scholar may fail as egregiously concerning subjects which do not lie in the line of his investigations as the tradesman in the pursuit of an avocation he has not learned. Else how can we ac- count for the vagaries of opinion on questions which do not concern either a higher power or a future state? We have known a " well-educated" man, skilled in many branches of science, spend many years of an active life in attempting to refute Sir Isaac Newton's liypothesis of gravitation. We have known a man pro- foundly skilled in prominent departments of physical science reply to one who asked his opinion concerning a theological dogma, that he did not presume to settle such questions for himself, but confidently left such matters to the care of his religious advisers. Yet the world generally is not disagreed concerning the accuracy of Newton's hypothesis. And the world, we believe, would attach little import- ance to the oi)inions of one on matters which he had never inves- tigated, even though he that offered such opinions should be eminent in various branches of science. Many well-educated men have embraced the vagaries of superstition ; but so have many insane men reasoned profoundly on questions which do not belong to that category. Yet educated men are not generally prone to superstition, and insane men are usually considered incom- petent judges of any subject which involves cautious observation and accurate ratiocination. Mental pathology furnishes many in- stances where a morbid state of feeling concerning subjects which have not been carefully investigated has produced monomania. Ilence the anomaly. The belief in crude supei-stitions is quite as often the result of morbid feeling -as of incautious thinking; and that the feelings of reputed wise men are often asill-regulatedas those of the vulgar portion of mankind experience amply testifies. The fact is, though an educated man may embrace vulgar superstitions, he fur- nishes merely an exception to the rule that educated men are not su[)erstitious. lie is but the exception to a great general fact. The wise, the educated portion of mankind alone furnish us with the standard by which we are competent to declare notions super- .SM^JK 34 stitions, and they alone present us with tlie premises by wliicli we are enabled to combat these superstitions. *' The liistory of Catholicism strikingly iUustrates these obser- vations. Durinor the last seven centuries the i)ublic mind of Europe has made constant progress in every department of secidar know- ledge. But in religion we can trace no constant i)r()gress. The ecclesiastical history of that long period is the history of movement to and fro. Four times since the authority of the Church of Rome was established in Western Christendom has the human intel- lect risen ui) against her yoke. Twice she remained completely vic- torious. Twice she came forth frou) the conflict bearing th(,» marks of cruel wounds, but with the principleof life still strong williin her. When we reflect on the tremendous assaults which she has survived, we And it difficult to conceive in what way she is to perish." We submit that tlie history of Catholicism does not illustrate ^Ir. INIacaulay's observations. These observations, except in a xn-y meager sense, are not true; and even in this meager sense they furnish no support whatever to the hypothesis which he has en- deavored to establish. His observations concern the non-pro- gressiveness of revealed religion. Yet he draws conclusions from these observations to support an hypothesis which involves a very different meaning of the term religion—a meaning to whieh his observations are not a{)plicable. The tei-m religion is us«m1 in at least three very distinct senses. In the Hrst sense, it means an em- bodied stock of truths, as in the phrase Revealed Religion. In the second sense, it may be said to represent the aggregate of all those relations denoted by such terms as righteousness and holiness. In the third sense, the term isa[)plied to any given system of religious belief. The adjective religions includes no meaning which is not in- volved in one or the other of the deflnitions we have given. When we speak of a religious movement, the word movement expresses all the action which the term denot-es, while tiie adjective is merely the relation we haveatlirmed of the movement. Hence the phrase denotes merely the movc^nentof religionists, or movements which involve the progress or decline of any given system of faith; or of those changes in society which modify the influence of any particular system upon the mind of man. But the term progress may mislead. We use the term in this connection to include the greater degree in which a given theological system may impress the mind compared with the degree in which it has heretofore impressed it. { -,'' K { \ 35 'V Now tlie observations of IVIr. Macaulay apjdy to revealed religion alone. When he refers to a swaying to and fro of the religious move- ments of the last seven centuries, he cannot refer to a swaying to and fro of revealed truths, because such an expression is as crude as it is absurd; and besides, according to his own showing, this stock of truth is susce[)tible neither of diminution nor of augmentation. Therefore there is no connection between his observations and the history of those movements which he assumed to illustrate his ob- servations; and this want of connection furnishes a striking proof that all his observations on the subject are worthless relative to the hypothesis which they are assumed to establish. Mr. Macaulay states his premises with great care; but he fails in the first instance in which he attempts to apply them. But the paragraph which we have (pioted not only furnishes no support to his hypothesis, but it is contradictoryand inconsistent. The history ofthelastseven centuries, he says, is the history of movement to and fro. But it does not follow that the impulse forward would not include more elements of power than the reaction of that impulse. The rise of the tide of the ocean presents the phenomenon of a swaying to and fro, yet it does not follow that the tide is not constantly advancing, notwith- standing the petty wave-reactions that apparently prevent this movement. He says that in religion we can trace no constant pro- gress. The word constant, on his hypothesis, is clearly an expletive. If we can trace progress in the least degree, his liyjjothesis is as clearly disproved as thougli this progress was exhibited with un- varying constancy. The progress of religion, of which Mr. Macaulay S[)e{jks, must evidently refer to the progress of Protestantism. His allusions concern this a|)plication of the term ; and if we can show, from his own words, that Protestantism has progressed, we shall have presented a refutation of his entire argument. Now, if no progress has taken place, if that spirit which is the strength as well as the characteristic element of Protestantism, has not more powerfully and extensively developed itself during the lapse of time, then Mr. Macaulay should have represented the Church of Rome as remaining com[)letely victorious after the last two of her four mem- orable conflicts with those who had risen up against her yoke instead of coming forth from the conflict "bearing the marks of cruel wounds, but with the principle of life still strong within her." The result of the last two conflicts proves that the Church of Rome ■igm-ttmmmatrJXMm^^ 36 lost much of her strength. The strengtli, thus lost, Protestantism gained. The revolt of the Ljinguedocian provinces, and tlie deep stirring of the human mind by the higli-souled Wi(dif, thougli unsuccessful, proved that niiglity forces were maturing whicli would ultimately burst forth vvitii terrible effect on Catholic Christendom. The first insurrection against the Churcli of Rome scarcely arose when it was quelled. An insurrection still more powerful arose; it was crushed, though with far greater difhculty than the first insurrection. Slowly, but surely, did the elements of opposition gather in- creased force, until they burst forth witli a momentum tliat was irresistible. The time-honored boundaries of the Church, though ably and des[)erately defended, were irreparably broken. Then came the reaction. ]>ut Protestantism had aecpiired a positive na- tional basis — a basis from which she lias not been shaken. Thus oriofinated new conditions in the relijiious world. In the last me- morable conflict with the Church of Rome, new elements were involved in the result. This contest originated in ji Catholic country, and was occasioned as much by the corruptions of the Catholic Chiu'ch as by the {)olitical grievances with which these cor- ruptions were associated. Unfortunately, the corruptions of the church were identified with Christianity. This association, indepen- dent of other causes, necessitated a reaction. The reaction came — a revulsion in favor of a somewhat modified form of that system with which the revolutionists of Fnince had been taught to con- sider Christianity indissolubly blended. This modification was a step towards Protestantism, for on the Catholic Church alone was the energy of the skeptics expended. But we must close. We might, we think, have shown that the historical djita which Mr. ^Iiicaulay has furnished us are fatal to his own hvpothesis. We mifj^ht have alluded to the cir(;umstance that those nations of Europe which were most powerful at the period of the Reformation, and for fifty years subse(juently to the time of Luther, luive either exhibited immistakable symptoms of decline, or chan":es adverse to Catholicism. We mijiht have shown the de- cadence of Spain, of Portugal, of Italy. We might have alluded to the circumstance that France, at one time the very hotbed of Catholicism, drove a pope from the Holy City to end his days in mournful exile, a pope whose successor was restored to his domin- ions only through the dominancy of the powerful anti-Catholic ' 37 nations of Northern Europe. We might have exhibited the growth of these nations, and shown how they have absorbed the power once wielded by the despotisms of Southern Europe. We might have referred to our own vast continent — a continent discovered by a Catholic and consecrated to Catholicism — where Protestantism has realized its fairest fruits, the first-offering of still fairer fruits yet to come. But our article is already extended beyond reasonable limits. The vitality of Protestantism is the history of the last three hundred years. Conditions more unfavorable than those un- der which it has won its way to its present exalted position almost exceed the range of possibility. The Church of Rome is a relic of bygone times. Though still powerful, the day of her ascendency has long since passed. Every page of her history since the Reformation, rightly read, exhibits the proof of this very important fact — that the state of mind which at one time afforded her the means of existence has been constantly undergoing transformation into a state of mind uncongenial to the dominancy of any exclusive hierarchical system. Though she may never be directly overcome by an outward pressure, yet by coming in contact with thosedestructiveforcesconstantly evolved by the restless activity of the human mind, she will so dwindle away that the sem- blance of her former self will scarcely be recognized. The elements of decay are bound up in her very constitution. P^very system has an inevitable tendency to become modified by the lapse of time. But where, in a given system, radical defects are inseparable from its very framework — where a cankerous disease ramifies tiiroughout its entire economy — where rottenness andsoundness, bar- renness and fruit, truth and error, are embraced in one common intertexture, the result must be more than modification. Time cannot fail to dissolve so incongruous an association. Whatever is sound, whatever is fruitful, whatever is true, can never lose its health- ful vigor. But that which is barren, false, and therefore unprofit- able, cannot, in the nature of things, enchain the reverence of mankind in an advanced state of religious, social, and political progress. Protestantism imposes no trammels on this high development, and therefore it contains within itself the elements of progression. No amount of force can shake its deep foundations, because no force can be assumed which can alter the structure of the hu- man mind. Hence it is the inseparable accompaniment of intellec- .^,- ■•■m^^, ■■■■>■ '9i^m'mfiimi''^'f'.>''^0'>*'>^^^'''*^'^'* "^ 38 tutil activity. Hence its characteristic principle, freedom of tliink- ing, has withstood the desperate assaults of the tyrannical systems of all time. With the progress of civilization, with refinement of morals, with purity of religion, it is inseparably identified. It is adapted to all states of society, to all conditions of mankind, to every system of positive belief. What the waves of the ocean can- not dash to pieces, they wear away. What Protestantism cannot immediately subdue it will irreparably undermine. It is bound up in the very heart's core of civilized society. Its development lias been coetaneous with every great step of liuman progress. Its strenfT^th lies in the unfettered exercise of the mind. And it will, we have no doubt, flourish with augmented vigor when the despot- isms of Southern Europe shall have been chronicled only as the dark phases of society in man's pilgrimage towards the goal of religious and political perfection. We feel confident that it will be infused into all our elements of being when some remote ancestorof the "trav- eller who shall take his stand on London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's," may, with a feeling akin to that which, on a memorable occasion, heaved the breast of England's stateliest historijin, stand beneath the lofty dome of St. Peter's, and muse on The Decline and Fall of the Second Roman Empire:. CHURCH AND STATE. No. I. Dr. Hodgson is a patient and unwearied writer. It would require a bold eye to sweep the orbit in which he has proposed to move. To as- sume that the arguments which are spread throughout his communi- cations are inconclusive, without making any attempt to show in what respect they are so, would be begging the question in controversy. Yet to follow a long-winded opponent through the minute sinuosities of his reasoning — even though a plentiful crop of fallacies, which would vitiate every fundamental position he has assumed, should await the gathering — is no slight task. Had I the ability, I have not the time, to accomplish it with any degree of satisfaction to myself. Still, I may be permitted, I trust, to state my conviction, after having read Dr. Hodgson's articles with much care and attention, and with an honest endeavor to un- derrate the importance of nothing that he has advanced, that no really sound argument can be urged against the propriety of introducing a lay delegation into the supreme councils of our Church. The few lingering doubts I had entertained on the subject he has done me the favor to remove. True, this opinion may be prematurely expressed, for the Doctor may not be half done. We may not be permitted for a year or two to gaze on the matured fruit of so marvellously protracted a gestation. By way of apology for the liberty I have taken to express this conviction, I propose to examine an argument to which Dr. Hodgson appears to attach much importance — an argument to which he repeatedly and confidently alludes — an argument which, if unsound, will render worth- less a large portion of his elaborately wordy communications. This argument, I conceive, involves one of the most blundering and naked fallacies I have ever seen in print. Dr. Hodgson considers the assumption, that our system of church government is inimical to civil and religious liberty, to be wholly chimerical. Whether this assumption be well or ill-founded, it is not my purpose to inquire. Every candid and reflecting mind must at least acknowledge that, whatever may be assumed to be the ultimate tenden- 5 (39) ■n^imsi^XOm-i.is^ 40 cies of this system, there is no ground for immediate apprehension, in view of the ov(M-wludming influence of public sentiment — a sentiment whicli is reflected, to a certain extent, in the practical conduct of every reli/)osp that they should acknowledge practically the obligation to elect good m(^n to civil office, and also, what would (in Dr. Hodgson's opinion) be very natuial, that they should elect the same men to the church legislature." Sttp- pose that these men shoubl complain of the inconvenience, after having spent the winter at Washington or Ilarrisburg, of leaving their homes and travelling to distant places, to attend the General or Dioc(»san Con- ventions, and should suggest the pro[)riety of holding tlH\se conventions at the close of the sessions of Congress, and at the State Capitals during the sessions of the State Legislatures. Sftppose that they should advocate the new aiTangement on the score of economy, inasmuch as *'lhe mileage paid by the Stjite government would serve for the Church as well as the State. This consideration," Dr. Hodgson thinks, "-could not fail to have its influence, inasmuch as many delegates to ecclesias- tical bodies are deterred from attending them in consequence of the ex- pense." Here closes the concatenation of suppositions; and the Doctor boldly, brojully, and dogmatically affirms. • "The next [)roposition," he says, '' a/id it would very soon he made, would be that, as the lay ukmu- bers of the civil legislature and of the church are the same, and all good and true men having the good of the Church and of th»^ State equally at heart, the business of church legislation could easily be at- tended to in the national councils, allowing the clergy ji distinct n^prt^- seniation. A/id every principle whicfi can, with any plansihilit y^ he urged in favor of lay delegation in supreme church councils, ar'jues as forcihly in faror of clerical delegates in the national councils.*' The Doctor should have gone a stej) farther. He should have sup. posed that this proposition would be acce{)ted. He should have sup- posed that the Church and State would be united. AVhat then ? Why, the Church and State would be united. He would thus have ])roved that a lay delegjition not only tends to produce, but that it infallibly pro- duces, a union of Church and State. He would thus luive augmented the force of his manifold suppositions. But, in fact, why suppose that we should add so im[)ortant a link to so magnificent a chain? How does Dr. Hodgson know that the proposition to unite the Church and the Slate would be made? Why not know that it would be accej)ted? Why not know that the Church and State would be united? Whv not know L 45 that a lay delegation infallibly produces a union of Church and State?. AV'hy suppose any thing at all ? In the first illustration, Dr. Hodgson attempts to work out his conclu- sions by means of a dark picture in which "leading and ambitious men" occupy the foreground. In the present illustration, the picture is reversed. The "leading and ambitious men" have disappeared; and, in their stead, we have "good men and true ; men who have the good of the Church and of the State equally at heart." To estimate "fairly and fully" the tendency of any system we must, " in our reasoning," place it in circum- stances of the highest prosperity, and then suppose all the conditions to be [)resent which will enable us to work out the conclusion at which we wish to arrive relative to what we have affirmed to be its " natural results," and covertly assume the absence of all those elements which it might prove highly inconvenient for us to take into consideration. Tliis method is [)rofoundly and strikingly suggestive. It is also highly convenient, for it will enable us to prove the existence of any- thing simply by supposing it to exist. If that method of proof will not enable us to silence a sturdy opponent, we can prove our proposition to be true by affirming that we knoio it to be so. Our opponent must then perforce make his best bow, and retire from the field. In the first illustration, I repeat, the tendency to the result so ardently deprecated is deduced from the chance which is afforded to work out ambi- tious schemes. In the second, the conclusion is conveniently arrived at by supposing the existence of the very tendencies required to be proved ; in other words, the tendency of a lay delegation to produce a union of Church and State is deduced from its supposed tendency to produce the result in (question. Dr. Hodgson thus reasons in a complete circle. He arrives at his conclusion that a lay delegation tends to unite the Church and the State by supposing certain conditions to exist which, in his opinion, are competent to produce this union ; and he then infers these conditions to exist because they are what he assumes to be the " natural results" of a lay delegation. That is to say, he proves his conclusion by his premises, and his premises by his conclusion. He seems to be totally forgetful of the fact that his conclusion is hypothecated on the assump- tion that the " natural results" of a lay delegation include a tendency to the union of Church and State, which is begging the proposition to be proved. 1. We thus see that, in the first illustration. Dr. Hodgson undertakes to prove that a lay delegation tends to do what, by his own distinct ad- mission, it does not tend to do, inasmuch as all tendencies to the union of Church and State are at present held in abeyance. 2. In the second illustration, his modes of proving the said tendency 46 47 may be generalized by stating tbat he covertly assumes two propositions as true which are clearly absurd : 1. That a result will necessarily haf)- pen where conditions can be imagined by which it might probjibly happen. 2. That no conditions adequate to prevent the said result can be logically assumed to exist. With respect to the first, I re})ly thus : AVater and other fluids exist, by which Dr. Hodgson may be drowned. Ergo^ Dr. Hodgson must necessarily be drowned. With resj)ect to the second, I reply thus: But Dr. Hodgson is a cautious man, and avoids deep water ; accordingly, he may not be drowned. And with respect to his side of the argument, he wisely retrains from und;lish sense. The second is its strict and le'Titimate American sense. In England the Church is co extensive with the State; and hence an infidel is there as much a laynum as the most upright religionist when (Compelled by law to pay tithes tovvai-d the sup[)ort of the Established Church. In the United States, there is II \ * K 49 no Established Church. Hence, in relation to the State, or in relation to a Church supported by statute law, there are no laymen. Accordingly, to obtain laymen, we must enter within the precincts of the various re- licrious sects in our land. Consequently, in the United States a layman is'one who is so correlative to a clergyman that both are members of a religious sect. • To which of these meanings does Dr. Hodgson refer in the quotation I have made from his essay ? If he assigns to the term its English sense, I reply that in this sense no lay delegation is claimed in the United States. Therefore, the principle which he has enunciated has nothing to do with the question in controversy. If he employs the term in its American sense, the fallacy of his ar- crument is transparent. The argument virtually assumes that the distri- bution of a oiven amount of ecclesiastical power among certain nidtvt- dnah of the'religious class of our citizens is a legitimate reason why a class of religionists, as such, should form a constituent part of the crovernin.^ machinery of the State. Dr. Hodgson forgets that the laity and the cler-y are simply distinct individuals of some sectarian kind of the reli-ious class in the Slate. Else what becomes of the non- reli-ionists"who, according to this argument, would form no part of the Sta^e' As well might the Grand Masters of the Masonic lodges in the United States affirm that any principle which would justiiy the investi- ture of the governed members of their order with a share in the supreme power of their organization is an equally good reason for introducing a delegation of INIaster Masons in the councils of the State ; for the distinc- tion'between the clergy and the laity is no more a State-created distinc- tion than is the distinction between a Master Mason and an Apprentice Mason a State-created distinction. Any principle which is good to support the argument of Dr. Hodgson is quite as good to support the incorporation of any private mechanical or other association with the State in a case where the majority of its members claim a share m the supreme power of the organization against a minority who aflirm that it is as reasonable to unite the said association with the State as to accede the justness of the claim. - I would have no minister of the Gospel in Congress," Dr. Hodgson says, " until he has given up his parchments as an elder in the church. Nor'would I allow any layman to unite civil and ecclesiastical power in his possession, by sitting in the civil legislature and in the supreme coun- cils of the church." Here the English and the American sense of 'Mayman" are so con- founded as to produce a fallacy which Dr. Hodgson may clearly see it he will inform us how a man can unite two things which the statute law ,j.-*-;'>wr> -vnwirrf ■-r:M':'XZSr'''T^^vr'^'''^ \ I 50 of the land does not permit him to unite. Cannot he see that, as a layman, no man can hokl civil otFice in our land? As a citizen, a man may share in the supreme power of the State; and as a hiyman, he may share in the supreme power of a given cliurcli. To sj)eak of tlie civil power which lie holds as lay power is just as absurd as it is to sj)eai< of the civil power which a Master Mason may exercise in Congress as Ma- sonic [)0vver. '' I liold in almost equal detestation," Dr. Hodgson further remarks, *'a lay-governed Church, and a [)riest-governed State." Again, I ask: To which of the two senses of the term "lay" must we umlerstand liim to refer? To the English or to the American sense? It is possible for Dr. Hodgson to detest more things tlian one. If he refers to the Englisli sense, his illustration has no applicability to the present controversy. If he refers to the American sense, his argument involves a twofold absurdity, as far as it is designed to bear on the ques- tion which he has undertaken to discuss. In the first place, it covertly assumes that the government which the laity of the M. E. Church pro- pose to establish is an exclusively lay government, whereas it is a lay and clerical government which is claimed. Dr. Hodgson would thus be forced to include in his detestation a clerical-governed church, inasmuch as the churcli, in the case assumed, would be governed as much by the clei-o-y as the laity. In the second place, it assumes that the claim of a non-ruling member of a specific religious association in the State to have a share in the supreme governing power of the said religious as- sociation, and the claim of a ruling member of this association to con- nect his religion directly laith the State through distinct representation in our State and national councils, are claims of almost equivalent value. As well might we affirm that the claim of a non-ruling Mason to participate in the supreme governing power of his order, and the claim of a ruling Mason to conn(^ct his organization directly with the State, are of almost equivalent value. This last passage. Dr. Hodgson has been kind enough to explain, for the benefit of Mr. Isaiah Toy, in a Pickwierkian sense. He detests the chair, not the chairman. He wishes us to understand that he detests the system of admitting laymen into the supreme councils of the church; not that he detests the laymen. But has he never heard of a certain young woman who kicked her lover's dog out of the house, and thus caused him to depart, after remarking to her : " If you respect me, you should respect my dog; else I am liable to share your kicks for thoroughly supporting him !" When I affirm that Dr. Hodgson rebukes sin, I speak quite as metonymically as he affirms that he s[)eaks himself when he declares that he refers to a lay-governed church in the abstract. i X 51 not in the concrete, as the object of his detestation. Dr. Hodgson de- tests Catholicism. A Catholic would not be a Catholic unless he com- bined within himself those detestable qualities which, in their tont ensemble, constitute Catholicism. " To rebuke Catholicism" is a metonymical figure of speech. Hence we must rebuke the Catholic who combines within himself those qualities which, abstracted, are assumed to be the objects of detestation. To oppose Catholicism, we must oppose Catholics. To oppose lay delegation, Dr. Hodgson must oppose lay-delegationists. As laymen, he would neither oppose nor de- test them. But, as lay-delegationists, he must both oppose and detest them. Why? Because they approve and support lay delegation. In plain terms, when Dr. Hodgson affirms that he detests a lay-governed church, he jdainly affirms that to the extent laymen are lay-delegationists, they are the proper objects of his detestation. But, according to Dr. Hodgson's argument, our P'ederal Union is a priest-governed State. Why? Because, according to the law of the land, every clergyman who is a citizen has as much voice in selecting our ruler as any other man. By the same law, every clergyman, ccEteris pari- hns, is just as eligible to its highest offices as any other citizen. If Dr. Hod-'-son affirms that no one is admitted into our national councils as a clergyman, I re[)ly that no one is admitted into those councils as a lay- man. Hence, as both laymen and clergymen have equal privileges before the law relative to civil honors, it is logical to conclude, agree- ably to Dr. Hodgson's premises, that the American Union is a priest-gov- erned State, inasmuch as the power which the clergy have in the State is as much priest power as the power which the laity exercise in the State is lay power, and inasmuch as Dr. Hodgson has asserted that a church which is partly lay-governed is a /ory-governed church. In Essay No. 8, Dr. Hodgson says : " There would be as much pro- priety in ministers clamoring for distinct representation, by ministers, in the several de[)artments of civil government, as there is in this de- mand of laymen for a distinct representation, by laymen, in the councils of the church." I ask, in which sense, the American or the English, are we to under- stand the term *' laymen?" If in the English sense, the illustration, as I have stated, once and again, has no relation to the present controversy. I will cheerfully admit that it is just as reasonable that religionists should be distinctly represented by religionists in the councils of the State as that civilians should be distinctly represented by civilians in the councils of the Church. But that is not the question we are discussing. If Dr. Hodgson refers to the American sense, the argument amounts simply to this: It is just as reasonable for the ruling members of a private asso- «■■■■ Hi 52 ciation to be distinctly represented in tl.e General Government, as for a non-ruling member of lliat association to be distinctly represented in the particular government of that specific association. The laity might, therefore, apply the same argument, and say: It is just as reasonable that we should l)e distinctly represented, as laymen, in the General Gov- ernment, as that ministers should be distinctly represented in the su- preme councils of the church ; and thus logically, on Dr. Hodgson's own premises, prove the necessity of a union of Church and State. Dr. Hodgson's argument affords another illustration of reasoning in a circle. Th^e reader will observe that the question in controversy is strictly one of disputed classification. The whole argument de[)ends on the meaning of the term h?/man. Dr. Hodgson can show the claim of the ministry to be distinctly represented in the councils of the State, and the claim of the laity to be distinctly represented in the sui)renie councils of their specific church, to be of equivalent value, only by assigning to the term ''lay" a nvnining which I have designated its English sense. Hypothecating his conclusion on the assumption of the°existence of a union of Church and State, agreeably to this employ- ment of the term, he thence argues that a lay delegation as naturally involves a union of Church and State as a distinct representation of ministers in the councils of the State. This is a self-evident proposi- tion. Why? Because, when presented in its naked simplicity, it amounts to the declaration that a united Ciiurch and State are a united Church and State, whether the union be produced by clergymen or l)y those who are not clergymen. Thus, Dr. Hodgson conveniently proves that a lay delegation argues in favor of a union of Church and State, by assigning to the term /«?/ a meaning which implies tlie exist- ence of a union of Church and State. He thus covertly assumes the truth of his proposition as the basis o^" proving the said proposition. If, however, the term "lay" be used in its American sense, there is no analogy between the two claims. To grant the claims of the clergy, would be" to unite the Church and the State. To grant the claims of the laity would not involve the union of Church and State; else the Church and State are already united in all Churches in the United States except the Roman Catholic and the Metliodist Episcopal Church. The fallacy of Dr. Hodgson's argument may also be clearly seen by recrardincT it from another point of view. Il is, or it is not, legitimate to infer the measure of power the ministry should enjoy in the State, from the measure of power possessed by the laity in the Church. If the negative be admitted, Dr. Hodgson's argument is worthless. If the affirmative be claimed, he has assumed a premise of a very compre- i 53 4^ hensive character. It follows, then, that if the laity have the mone}^- [)Ower of the Church, the clergy ought to possess the money-power of the State. The argument proves quite as much for administrative power as for legislative power. The laity fill administrative offices in the Church ; therefore the clergy should fill administrative offices in the State. The laity are stewards and trustees in the Church ; therefore the clergy should be postmasters and sheriffs in the State. Tiie Doctor aj^pears to have forgotten the caution which Mr. Macaulay gives relative to the danger of assuming as true an extensive major premise which may include a number of minor premises which it would be sitry inconve- nient to advance. Not only so, but Dr. Ilodgson^s argument logically involves the very thing which he so earnestly deprecates. By forcibly dragging in the State as a party to the question in discussion, he has unconsciously in- voked an element which nullifies his whole argument. This argument works in two directions : If the measure of power enjoyed by the laity in the Church is the measure of power which the ministry should enjoy in the State, it follows that the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church should either share their supreme power with the laity, inasmuch as they have, as individual citizens, as much power in the State as the laity have as individual citizens, or they are usurpers of political power, according to the same principle that the laity are usurpers of ecclesiastical power, when participating with the ministry in the supreme functions of their church government. Hence, on precisely the same hypothesis which he brings forward to show that a clerical delegation in the State, and a lay delegation in the Church, are claims of equivalent value, the State may chiim a share in the power of the Church equal to that whicli is represented by the aggregate votes of the ministers, as citizens, in the State, inasmuch as this claim would be of the same value as that urged by Dr. Hodgson. Hence, to disprove the claims of the laity. Dr. Hodg- son makes use of an argument which, if sound, proves that to the ex- tent that ministers exercise the elective franchise in the State, our noble republic is a priest-governed State. Dr. Hodgson may handle his logical knife in whatever way he pleases. It is sure to cut his fingers. 55 THE BASIS OF SUFFRAGE. Mr. BeliSle -.^Dear Sir. — As the conductor of a public journal, you have neces- sarily devoted inucli attention to questions of a political character. Accord iny^ly, if you will permit the liberty I take, I would respectfully request you to show ine why, other things being equal, a person of African descent, born in this country, has not as valid a claim to the privilege of the elective franchise as a white man. I make tliis request because, after prolonged reflection, I have been unable to arrive at any reason clearly proving that a white man ought to possess the elective franchise which does not prove, at the same time, that a person of African descent ought to possess it. An exhaustive answer to my inquiry would much oblige, Respectfully yours, Oct. 20, 1858. Publics. Remarks. — In reply to the questioQ of our correspondent. " Plblius." so respectfully asked — " Why, other things being equal, a person of African de- scent, born in tliis country, has not as valid a claim to the privilege of the elec- tive franchise as a white man?" — we shall go back to first principles of the organic law. And we presume " Publius " will agree with us in the assertion that all rights of a political or legal character are created by the fundamental iiistrument ufon which the laws of a country are based. 'I'his being a demonstrative fact, tiierc can be no valid claim for usurping a i)rivi- lege which ^/la^ instrument does not confer. The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States reads thus : — We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, estab- lish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the hlcssiuffs of liberty to ourselves and our pos- terity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. Here we have, in the organic charter of our country, an absolute declaration of the purposes and objects which led to the union of the States, among which was that for " securing the blessings of liberty to gursklves and our POSTERITY." Now, the reasonable inference is, that, if those who drew up that Constitution, and those who adopted it, were white men, they drew it up and adopted it for tiie purpose of self-protection by ignoring the right of the Afri- can race to the franchises of government. We have no right to go beyond their action, for that action and that Constitution are still the organic law of (54) I the land. But, if our correspondent can show that the men who made and adopted the Constitution of the United States were African, and tue are their posterity, then is the scale reversed, and we will acknowledge that they have ** as valid a claim to the elective franchise" as white men. We will go fur- ther, and say, they alone have the right to its exercise. Until, however, Pur- Lius can demonstrate to us that a white man is the offspring of a Negro — or that the white ra(;e is the progenitors of the African, we must content our- selves with the action of our constitution-makers, and admire their wisdom in reference to the disfranchisement of the colored race. ^Ir. Bklisle: Dear sir — I thank you for your courteous response to my inquiry. That it is unsatisfactory is due, perhaps, to myself — not to you. I asked, " Why, other things being equal, a person of Afri- can descent, born in this country, has not as valid a claim to the privi- lege of the elective franchise as a white man ?" In reply to this question, you affirm that " all rights of a j)olitical or legal character are created by the fundamental instrument on which the laws of a country are baaed.''' Pardon me for deeming this proposition somewhat vague. Colored per- sons undoubtedly have civil rights. Hence, it is only necessary to show that such persons have civil rights to prove, according to your own showing, that they are entitled to the franchises of government, inas- much as these rights are of a legal character, and inasmuch as all such rights are, according to your own assumption, "created by the funda- mental instrument upon which the laws of a country are based." The argument may be thus syllogistically presented : — 1. A- 11 rights of a legal character are created by the fundamental instrument on which the laws of a country are based : Civil rights are of a legal character : Therefore, civil rights are created by the fundamental instrument, etc. 2. Whoever possesses civil rights possesses rights created by the fundamental in- strument on which the laws of a country are based : Colored persons enjoy civil rights : Therefore^ colored persons enjoy rights created by the fundamental instrument, etc. If this reasoning be sound, your conclusion that there can be " no valid claim for usurping a privilege which that instrument does not con- fer," is inapplicable to the case in point, for the privilege, thus assumed to be usurped, rests, according to your own showing, upon a legal basis. Your language relative to " usurpation" seems to be susceptible of diverse interpretations. Do you mean to assert that the fact that a given organic law does not confer a privilege claimed is adequate proof that the claim is invalid, and therefore should not be conceded ? Or do you mean to affirm that no claim can be valid which usurps any- 6 I 56 tiling^ Or do you mean to affirm that it is usurpation to claim anytliing whicli tlie organic law of a land does not confer? 1 accept, for the sake of the argument, either or all of these alter- natives. Accordingly, it follows that our forefathers, when they declared tlieir independence of Great Britain, usurped the privileges they claimed, because tliey claimed what the organic law of tlie British realm did not confer; and, hence, they liad no valid claim to their Independence. Your reference to the preamble to our National Constitution would seem to imply your conviction that our right to the elective franchise is derivable from that Constitution. This view seems to me to be clearly erroneous, except with reference to aliens; and even aliens exercise tlie privileges conferred on them by Congress mediately through forms im- posed by State, in contradistinction to Federal, law. Tlie qualilications of citizenship are prescribed by the sovereign [;Ower of the several Staters, not by the United States. No native inhabitant of a State c;in derive his rio^ht to the elective franchise from the Federal ojovernment, but irom the State in which he was born or resides. Hence, the only law which can be affirmed to be organic with reference to his claims to the eh^c- tive franchise is the Constitution of said State. Accordingly, if any State confers the elective franchise on its native-born inhabitants of African descent, and invests them with all the immunities and privileges which its white inhabitants enjoy, no arguments drawn from the assumed tact that white persons formed and adopttnl the Federal Constitution can be pleaded as an offset to the validity of their claim to the elective fnm- chise. The Federal government has nothing to do with the conditions of their citizenship. Thus, in several States of the Union, colored per- sons habitually exercise tlie elective franchise, and vote lor represent- atives who help to make laws for our Union. 1 admit that one of the leading objects which led to the Union of the States was " to secure the blessings of liberty to oirsklvks and oiii POSTERITY." But I cannot agree with you *Mhat the reasonable infer- ence from this language is that, if those who drew up the Constitution, and those who adopted it, were white men^ they drew it up and adopted it tor the purpose of self -protection^ by ignoring the right of the Atricjin race to the franchises of government ;" because you have incorporattnl in your inference an assumption that white men solely drew u[) and adopted the Constitution, which is assuming the proposition to be {)roved. But granting, for the sake of the argument, what I will not grant as the fact in the case, that white men alone formed and ado[)ted that Con- stitution, the inference would by no means be clear that they formed and adopted it tor the purpose of se//'-protection by ignoring the right of the i ? 1^ 67 African race to the franchises of government. The " reasonableness" of your inference is hypothecated on the assumption that the liberties of our forefathers and their descendants were regarded as insecure, by those who drew up and adopted our Federal Constitution; unless the rights of the African race to the franchises of government were ignored— an as- sumption I cannot concede without substantial proof. As well might we affirm that, because those who drew up and adopted our Federal Consti- tution were white men, they drew it up and adopted it for the purpose of se//-protection by ignoring the right of the Indians to acquire the fran- chises of government; and yet the Supreme Court of the United States lias declared that there is no constitutional impediment to the enfran- chisement of the Indians. Had I space, I would assign several reasons why I regard your inference as eminently unreasonable. At present I will simply state that individuals of the African race were voting members of several of the constituencies represented by those who drew up the Federal Constitution. Hence, the assumption that white men had the right, in the Federal Convention, to ignore rights which rested upon precisely the same basis whence the right of ignoring claimed by you can alone be assumed to be deducible, involves, in my opinion, a clear contradiction in terms. You affirm that " we have no right to go beyond the action" of those who framed the Federal Constitution. Excuse me for reminding you that you have done the very thing which you assert I have no right to do. Not only so, but your affirmation is grounded on the assumption that the "action" referred to was what you claim it to be, which is begging the proposition to be proved. Prove first that the rights of the African race were ignored by those who drew up and adopted the Fed- eral Constitution, and then it will be time to inquire whether it is legiti- mate to go beyond their action. Y'our statement that it is incumbent on me, in order to disprove your assumption, to show that the white race is descended from the African, or the African from the white race, can scarcely be considered appli- cable to the question under discussion ; for, even granting that the white race never has conferred the elective franchise on persons of the Afri- can race, it is, without doubt, logically conceivable that they might have conferred it upon them. Very respectfully yours, Nov. 6, 1858. PUBLIUS. Remarks.— The extreme prolixity of our correspondent's remarks precludes us from replying in extenso. In fact, it needs but a few words to dissipate the technical points upon which his hypothesis is based. The question submitted 58 for us to answer is: " Why, otlier things beinf? equal, a person of African de- scent, born in this country, has not as valid a claim to the priviu'^ie of the elective franchise as a white man ?" Our response was and is because the or- ii'anic law of the lan(i(/oes not confer that validity ui)on the colored race, but expressly and unequivocally disfranchises them. This is clearly and incontro- vertibly indicated in the Preamble to our National Constitution, and we as- serted then, as we assert now, that so long as that Constitution remains the fundamental instrument upon which the laws of the country are based, we have ?io r/eynnd those which the laws of the land confer. They have the "civil right" to marry among themselves — to receive the benefits of our schools — to exercise the rights of conscience — to accumulate property— to buy and sell — to engage in any lawful business. These are " civil rights" con- ferred on, and guaranteed to all — rights which were given to them by the ac- tion of the Convention which framed our National Constitution. But, when it comes to the law-making prerogative, their right to that privilege is de- nied, and, we think, very properly. To this, however, our correspondent ob- jects, by premising a syllogism asserting, that " individuals of the African race were voting members of several of the constituencies represented by those who drew up the Federal Constitution." This assertion is erroneous, and we defy Publics to cite a single instance where negroes voted for members to that Convention — for he knows that every State in the Union at that time, except one, was a slaveholding State, and the colored race were not allowed to vote. I^robably our correspondent has based his untenable assumptions upon the parenthetical portion of his question—" other things being ecpial" — as applicable to the African race. We have never admitted the equality, if he applies it comparatively to the white man — for there is just as wide a ditierence in all the characteristics of nature between the African and the white races as there is between daylight and darkness. Our forefathers were cognizant of this inferiority when they constitutionally ignored their right to the elec- tive franchise — and those states which permit negro suffrage by virtue of property qualifications have done so in direct violation of the Federal Con- stitution. We see nothing in the specialties of Publius's syllogisms to change our former views, and we mean to liold him strictly to his original proposition — the question of right. Mr. Belisle : Dear Sir — When I state that I have sent you but a portion of what I have written, I trust you will believe that I have not wantonly trespassed on the columns of your excellent little Journal. I will now be as brief as my time and my skill will permit. 1. You think but a few words are required to "dissi[)ate the technical points'* upon which my '^ hypothesis" is based. I answer, that I have presented no hypothesis, and have brought forward no technical points. You took the lead in the discussion ; I followed you ; and all the argu- ^ .> 59 ments I adduced, and all the terms I employed, lie, as far as I can see, within the domain of general reasoning. 2. Your response to the question I propounded " was and is," you say, *' because the organic law of the land expressly and unequivocally dis- franchises" colored persons. But the proof of this affirmation has not been fortbcoming. Where is this expression to be found? You still beg tlie (juestion in controversy. The terms "our" and *' ourselves" are as- suredly as predicable of members of the African, as of the white race. Accordingly, to show that, when used in the preamble to our National Constitution, their application is specifically restricted to the white race, you are required to go beyond that instrument. But you affirm we have no right to go beyond it. Hence, if we have no right to go be- yond it, and if the specific restriction you claim for the white race is not named in it, it follows that the said specific restriction is not demon- strable, inasmuch as you have hopelessly closed up all the avenues through which any demonstration could be attempted. If the specific restric- tion you claim is contained in the instrument, produce it, and the ques- tion is settled. 3. No one, you say, ever disputed the fact that colored persons pos- sess civil rights. But you do not seem to perceive that the admission of this fact renders your postulate worthless. Unless you correct your [)ostulate, my syllogisms are fatal to your reasoning. 4. Civil rights, you affirm, were given to colored persons "by the ac- tion of the Convention which framed our National Constitution." I would be much obliged to you if you would s})ecifically indicate the "ac- tion" by which, in the Federal Convention, civil, as distinguished from other rights, were given colored persons. " When it comes to the laic- making prerogative," you say, "their right to that privilege is denied." Please give me the specific part of those proceedings where that right is denied. I refer, of course, to free, native-born persons of African de- scent ; for I cannot suppose you to claim that the civil rights you speak of were conferred on the slaves of the Federal Union. 5. You deny my assertion that " individuals of the African race were voting members of several of the constituencies represented by those who drew up the F'ederal Constitution." My statement rests on the authority of Mr. Curtis, late Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. " At the time of the ratification of the Articles of Confederation," says Mr. Curtis, " all free, native-born inhabitants of the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and North Carolina, though descended from African slaves, were not only citizens of those States, but such of them as had the other neces- 60 sary qualifications possessed the franchise of electors on ef/ftalferms with other citizens." (P. 572, Report of tlie Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in the Dred Scott case, published by D. Appleton & Co.) He quotes the language of the statutes conferring the privileire. I have never seen any refutation of his statement. If such a refutation exists, I would thank you for directing my attention to it. In your assumption that my statement cannot be true because every State in the Union, excepting one, was a slave-holdiug State, I can see no logical connection between your premise and your conclusion. No argument is pertinent to your purpose except the disproof of tlie above statement, resting, as it does, on the authority of one of tlie most learned constitutional lawyers in the United States. All else seems to me mere speculative assumption, proving nothing for your argument, and notiiing against mine. G. I have either obscurely stated, or you have strangely misconceived, the purport of the question I proposed. If I were to say that, ot/)er things being equal, men exhale more carbonic acid than women, I would assert a fact; but the statement would not imply the assumption that men and women are equal; for, the absolute equality of the sexes once admitted, it would be incorrect to affirm that men exhale more carbonic acid than women. In my question, I do not assume that I believe in the absolute equality of tlie two races, or that it is necessary that you should believe in their equality. What I mean is this: Granting, either as the fact in the case, or, for the sake of the argument, that a native-born per- son of African descent possesses such (jualifications — namely, that the said person is of the male sex, that he is of full age, that he is not a crimi- nal, etc. etc., — as are deemed necessary for the exercise of the elective franchise by a native-born person of the white race, what rational ground is there for not conceding his claim to the elective franchise which is not conclusive against the claim of a white man to the same privilege? But, admitting, for the sake of the argument, that I do assume the African to be equal to the white race, I cannot see in what respect this assumption would render untenable any argument I have brought for- ward. The onus prohandi in this discussion rests on you. You affirm that our National Constitution ignores the right of any member of the African race to the franchises of government. I deny the assertion, and call for tlie proof. Here the issue is clearly joined. It is >our duty to bring forward the proof of your proposition. 7. It is your intention, you state, to hold me strictly to the question of right. I am willing to abide the judgment of the reader whether I have shirked any question legitimately belonging to this discussion. K 61 You answer my question by laying down a postulate. If your postulate is incorrect, you certainly do not wish to hold me to it. If it is cor- rect, I have syllogistically shown that the African race have the rights which you affirm our National Constitution ignores. Very respectfully yours, Nov. 20, 1858. PuBLius. Remarks.— When onr corrospondent, Pubt.tus, asked us to explain to him the reason " why, other things being eciuah a person of African descent, born in this conntry* has not as valid a claim to the privilege of the elective franchise?" we supposed he would confine himself to the question propounded, liut. instead, the reader will perceive that he has rambled ever the entire field of syllocristieal reasoning, and instituted for oitr replication a dozen ques- tions altogether irrelevant to the original interrogatory. The whole point in dispute is"ipon the validity of the colored man's right to the elective fran- chise. It does not require Justice Curtis or any other liio:h functionary of law to decide the controversy, and we cannot see why Pubi.ius should select an isolated portion of the Dred Scott decision to justify his side of the issue, when we are satisfied he detests from his very heart the whole tenor of Curtis's posi- tion! We based our answer to the question of our correspondent upon con- stitutional grounds, and alluded to the Preamble of our Federal Constitution because that instrument is the fundamental basis of all our laws. The char- ter o( our national liherties and elective prerogatives does ?io^ and never did, recognize the African race as citizens of the United States, and, therefore, does not, and never did, authorize their right to the elective franchise. This fact has been again and again decided ; for persons of African descent have, over and over again, applied to the proper authorities for passports to foreign countries, which applications have as often been refused, because of the non- citizenship of the applicants. Hence, the assertion of Judge Curtis, as quoted by Publics, that " at the time of the ratification of the Articles of Con- federation, all /ree, native-born inhabitants of the States," etc., amounts to nothing— because we affirmed and do still affirm that we have no right to go heuond the organic law of our land to adduce evidence substantiating the validity of their claims. At the time of the ratification of the Articles of Confederation the negro may have had all the social, moral, civil, and legal rights our correspondent claims ; but the ratification of those Articles, which v.^AS previous to the adoption of our Constitution, put the seal of disfranchise- meiit upon the descendants of the African race, the moment the event occurred. This explains the language found in the Fourth Article of that Confederation, which reads : — "The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse amon^ the people of the different States in this Union, the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States." Here is a complete repudiation of the citizenship of colored persons by the -Articles of the Confederation" themselves, the very instant they were 62 adopted and became the organic law of our Federal Union. And, as if to leave 710 doubt or misconception on the matter. Article Ninth further declares that the National Congress, under those Articles, shall "agree upon the number of land forces, and to make reipiisitions from each Stato for its (piota, in propor- tion to the number of ivhite inhabifanfs in such .State." Now. us the de- scendants of the African race had never participated in creating this country a "free and independent nation," and being of iiiferiov blood, and incapaci- tated by nature for the rational enjoyment of that kind of freedom recpiired by the superior descendants of the Caucasian race, our constitution-makers re- fused to give them the ri>jhts of sutlVage. Had they been considered cifizeus, they would have been subjected to military duty as ivh/fe men. If /Ary were recognized as citizens, the " Articles of Confederation," as well as our Federal Constitution,and the Constitutions of the several States, allow them a privilege which is not given us, by exempting them//7>m military duty and draft. \\i}v(i is incontrovertible evidence that they never were, in a national sense, reco*"-. nized as citizens of the United States, and their incompetency to become citizens, so far as constitutional legalities are concerned, has prevented them from exercising rights of elective franchise in all the States, except in a few instances, where they are permitted to vote on property (lualitications against the authority of the General Government. Nearly all the State Con- stitutions confine the elective prerogatives to ichite citizens; tho.se which do not employ the word icJiite generalize the expression by using the term citi- zens or inliahitauts, with the implied understanding that descendants of the African race are not citizens, because of their constitutional disqualifications. AV'e have thus presented to PrBUus indisputable authority showing why the colored race have *' not as valid a claim to the privilege of the elective fran- chise as the white man ;" and, if he is unable to "see in what respect this as- sumption renders untenable" any of his arguments, it is no fault of ours. We are not responsible for his obtuseness, and we do not take upon ourselves tlie onus probandi of what our correspondent a.s.serts. He asked us to answer a certain (piestion-we have done so. We have no room to follow him in all ' his syllogisms, synecdoches, postulates, theorisms, liypothetical syncretisms, ai.d other abstractions, and trust he will, in future, cotifine his remarks to the mat- ter in (piestion. Mr. Bklisle: Dear Sir— If victory belonrrs to bim who most do. The "assertion of Justice Curtis," you state, " amounts to no- thing, because we have affirmed, and still atlirm, that we /i(fre no rff/ht to go hpyand the onjanic law of our land to adduce evidence substan- tiating the validity of their claims.^' This is decidedly cool. Justice Curtis su[)ports my assertion, and disproves yours. If his authority is sound, colored persons have the rights which you deny. But it amounts to nothing, forsooth, because we have no right to go beyond the Consti- tution to establish the validity of their claim to the elective franchise! Again I ask — as I have before vainly a^ked — vvhy, if we cannot go be- yond that instrument, do you not show where, in that instrument, the claim of the white race to the elective franchise is specifically ad- mitted, and that of colored persons specifically denied ? No exclusive restriction of the elective franchise to the white race is found in the or- ganic law of our land. If such restrictive clause exists, be kind enough to point it out. If it does not exist, why call the Constitution of the United States the charter of our national libei-ties any more than the charter of the national liberties of the colored man? Can you not an- swer that question ? G. " At the time of the ratification of the Articles of Confederation," you say, " the negro nuiy have had all the rijzhts our correspomlent claims; but the ratification of those Articles, which was previous to the adoption of our Constitution, put the seal of disfranchisement u[)on the descendants of the African race the moment the event occurred." IIovv ', ^ 65 the ratification of an Article conveying certain privileges and franchises is the re[)udiation of the privileges it conveys, is, I confess, quite beyond my comprehension ; and it will be unkind of you to permit me to go un- enlightened. The Fourth of the Articles of Confederation you regard as a " com- plete repudiation of the citizenship of colored persons by the Articles of the Confederation themselves, the very instant they were adopted, and became the law of our Federal Union." This Article you quote as follows : — " The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and inter- course among the people of the different States in this Union, the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds^ and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States." Where^ I ask, is the re})udiation ? Colored persons are not named in this Article. The clause sim[)ly S[\ys, free inhabitants, not free white inhabitants. Is the African the only race which furnishes vagabonds to the community ? It is humiliating to be compelled to answer such bald, puerile, unsupported assertions when every reader of American history knows that this very Article was under consideration by the Con- tinental Congress on the 25th of June, 1778, at which time the dele- gates from South Carolina moved to amend it by inserting after the word "free," and before the word " inhabitants," the word " white," so that the privileges and immunities of general citizenship would be se- cured only to white persons. Two States voted for the amendment ; eight i^tixlts against it; and the vote of one State was divided. To show that the citizenship of colored persons was clearly repudiated, you quote from the Ninth of the Articles of the Confederation, which re- quires the National Congress "to agree upon the number of land forces, and to make retpiisitions from each State for its quota, in pro[)ortion to the number of white inhabitants in such State." Your conclusion from this Article is utterly worthless against the emphatic and unequivo- cal interpretation given to the Fourth Article by the members of the Continental Congress themselves. But your argument proves entirely too much. If colored persons were disfranchised because the Conti- nental forces were to be levied in proportion to the white inhabitants in each State, women and children were entitled to the elective franchise for the same reason. 7. Again you say, " Our Constitution-makers refused to give the de- scendants of the African race the rights of suffiage." In the name of all that is manly and honorable in dialectical warfare, please give us the chapter or clause in which that refusal is recorded. 66 You state that the exemption from military duty and draft of col ored persons is incontrovertible proof that they were never recognized, in a national sense, as citizens of the United States. Wliat is a citizen of a State, or of the United States ? If the possession of the elective fran- chise is equivalent to citizenship, then colored |)ersons, in five of tlie States under the old Confederation, had that privih^g<'. The assertion tliat they were never citizens because they were exempted from mili- tary duty is not only contradicted by the fact that their citizenship is clearly established by the most umiuestionable of tests, nanndy, the possession of the elective franchise, but it amounts to the assumption that the exem{)tion of one class of persons in the community from duties devolving on others is per se equivalent to their disfranchise- ment; in which — [)ardon my obtuseness — lean see no connection be- tween the premise and the conclusion. The remainder of your rejoinder is merely naked, unsup[)orted asser- tion, to which the term argument cannot be applied even by way of courtesy. Your reverence for the petitio prhiclpii is quite oriental. ^'You liave presented me," you say, "with indis{)Utable authority showing wiiy the colored race have not as valid a claim to the elective franchise as the white man." How did you show it? By atlirming tiiat tiic organic law of our land expressly denies their claim. I ask where ? Tliis ques- tion you consider irrelevant, and have not condescended to answer it. You say that I have not confined myself to the question in dispute, but you have scrupulously failed to show in what respect I have evaded it. Hence, I am autliorized in concluding that the itidispulahle authority you refer to is your own statement. Witli you the statement of a propo- sition seems to be the proof of it. If the assertion of a proposition will not produce conviction, you reassert it; and if the reassertion of it is unsuccessful, you charge an op[)onent with obtuseness. ^sow, this may be a very convenient mode of argumentation with you ; but you must excuse me for regarding it as puerile to those who really wish to dis- cuss a question fairly and manfully. And now, with my best wishes for your health and prosperity, I leave the discussion with you, and with the reader who has been so kind as to accompany us. Very truly yours, PuiiLIUS. Remarks. — The magnanimity of our esteemed correspondent, Purmus, is exceedingly commendable. He has satisfied himsdf Wv^ii all the arguments we have adduced to prove his original question are not snflicient for the pur- pose, and declares them of uo account. We certainly thought we had given • I 1 67 him pretty strong and sound reasons, but it is, we must confess, hard work to convince a man against his will. When he asks ns the question, '* Why. other things being equal, a person of African descent, born in this country, has not as valid a claim to the privilege of the elective franchise as a while man ?" we declare that it was because his right to the elective prerogative was not deducible from any organic law in reference thereto. In justification of this position, we cited the preamble to our Federal Constitution, where it is dis- tinctly and unequivocally declared that the people of the United States sanc- tioned the Constitution as framed, for the purpose of providing " for ihe common defence," and of securing "the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our pos- terity:' We showed that, in the convention which created that Constitution, there was not a solitary " person of African descent," consequently neither they, nor their descendants, who could have, under any possible construction of the sentence, been included within the meaning of the term to "secure the bless- ings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity:' We further showed that the African race were not the offspring of the white race— that we are not ^/« en- children, nor their progenitors. And having shown this y^ry plainly, the in- ference was irresistible, that the delegates very wisely ^■^?iomZ the citizenship of the African race, though " born in this country;" therefore, their "claim to the privilege of the elective franchise" was denied from the commencement of our Federal Union. Hence, having no claim— e\en that of citizenship- there can be no validity of claim. To this our correspondent excepts, assert- ing that such logic is not pertinent to the issue. But, notwithstanding his varied researches in law matters and legal decisions, his views are directly an- tagonistic to those of Judge MacLean, who gave the first constitutional de- cision respecting the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, in the case of Harvey Mil- ler vs. George W. Querry, and other high judicial authority. We prefer to go to the fountain head for decisive opinions; and, as we find the organic law of the land on our side of the question, we have chosen to invoke its aid in answering the question of our correspondent, rather than institute answers to the irrelevant interrogatories thrust at us, which grew out of technical assump- tions on his part. We close the controversy, therefore, by asserting that— as the Negro has no citizenship, he is 7iof legally entitled to vote, and therefore has no " valid claim to the elective franchise:' 1858. 68 69 BROOKS AS A LEXICOGRAPHER. To give a new word to our language is occasionally a proof of more than ordinary intellectual power. When it denotes an idea so distinctly novel that no existing word adequately represents it, such contribution is unquestionably a valuable addition to our intellectual stock. True, it is necessary to distinguish between two important classes of such words: namely, those which represent new ideas solely evolved from profound thinking; and those which happily express what otherwise would re- quire detailed periphrasis. Those who construct, or those who suggest the use of, either class of words are, in a measure, entitled to the thanks of mankind. In the category of those who have unintentionally rendered such service to humanity, we have no hesitation in giving a cons[)icuous place to Preston 8. Brooks. It is true that, by darkening the canvas of that line historical picture in which posterity shall at once behold the glory and the shame of our noble country, he has brought out in im- mortal beauty the figure of the gentle, the learned, and the eloquent Sumner. It is true that, like him who received immortality sinq)ly because of the wondrous magniticence of the P^phesian Temple, his celebrity will be due to the JovE-like proportions of the living temple he sought to dishonor. These are advantages restricted to himself, and to that magnanimous constituency which he has so faithfully reflected. But the advantages we speak of are those which he has rendered to civilized mankind. Preston S. Brooks has added a word to our language ; and for this he deserves our thanks. He has not, it is true, given us such a word as could be evolved only from patient and earnest reflection; for such thinking exists only in refined and cultivated society. Besides, his act was the most emphatic of protests against mental culture. Tiie hatred which the Japanese exhibits towards the civilization of Western Europe is genial sentimentality when compared with his ineradicable disgust for all that widens the range of intellectual progress. Now, whether the sense of all verbs is derived from that of nouns is a question we leave to 9 philosophical grammarians. But that the sense of the verb to Brooks is derived from no other source than from Preston S. Brooks, of South Carolina, we shall, against all odds, be prepared to maintain till our dying day. The only objection to this conclusion worth a moment's consideration is that so important a verb can be derived from so insig- nificant a noun. But this objection is more specious than sound. A worm is none the less a worm, though it founders the noblest vessel that cleaves the mighty deep. A rat is none the less a rat, though he gnaws the most valuable parchment that ever recorded a patent of nobility. To argue the non-existence of a ship or of a patent of nobility because of the vilenessof the instruments to which their destruction is due, is ecpiiv- alent to arguing that the P^ounder of our religion is not the Saviour of men because he was betrayed by Judas. The objection is therefore dismissed with contempt. Now, the vast circumlocution which the verb to Brooks will enable us to economize is wonderful. To acquire the ability to express, by one word, all the disagreeable qualities which we can affirm of one act, is an augmentation of our stock of knowledge which a grateful man will only be too ready to admit. Hereafter, when we wish to assert that a . iNIisrepresenting the Dogs of Maryland and Delaware, The complement of specifications would thus seem to be complete; and we therefore respectfully commend it to the attention of the Rev. Mr. Quigley. A dog, it is admitted, is but a dog; yet, like all sentient beings, he has a claim to some consideration on the part of mankind. To belie him is to lessen his chances for protection and support. In proof of this observation, we appeal to the well-known proverb: " Give a dog a bad name, and hang him." The dog has noble characteristics ; and to weaken our respect for these by disparaging statements concerning his actions and habits is to do him injustice ; and no true Christian would do injustice to the meanest of God's creatures. Fiat justitia, ruat ccelum. He has physical courage, and mankind holds this quality in deservedly high estimation. He has not moral courage, it is true, for that is predicable of rational beings alone ; but he is not thence to be depreciated, for multitudinous bipeds lack the same quality. If Providence has withheld certain attributes from him, it has, in its compensative provisions, furnished him with others which wc do not possess at all, or possess only in a very limited degree. The dog is never a 72 flunkey or n toady. lie never fawns at the footstool of power, for he is equally obedient to the master and the slave; and herein the canine has an advantage over the human race, which too often " Crooks the pliant hinges of the knee that thrift may follow fawning." The very worst thing you can say of him is, that the royal road to his affections lies through liis belly. But what saitli Peter Pindar? — " The royal road to human hearts, you'll find, Is through the guts, or I mistake mankind." He is, it is true, satisfied with liis condition, and never indicates liis dissatisfaction with the evils tluit surround him. But if this self-com- placency reveals an ignoble disposition we might, if we should look sharply, perceive slight traces of such a disposition in a race of ani- mals of far higher grade. Again: a noble dog, like all noble animals, never vexes and oppresses a poor, sick, weakly member of his race. Oh, no! He seeks a foe wor- thy of his prowess. A noble tnanj a fortiori^ never oppresses a feeble brother — a truism which might seem trite, were it not so frequently overlooked. For the quality we have mentioned, some dogs will bear favorable comparison with some members of our own race. For these reasons, we conceive it to be our duty to stand up for our canine friends against all undiscerning disparagement; and we further- more conceive it to be our unquestioned right to insist that any one who stands forward, self-commissioned, to describe the boundaries beyond which it shall hereafter be considered unchristian and unministerial to express opinions on given subjects, shall not be oblivious of the claims to consideration and respect of any creature, however insignificant, whose status will be directly or indirectly affected by opinions which, with equal practicability, may be subjected to the same salutary censor- ship. To do otherwise, would be a violation of the Golden Rule. Lest the motive last assigned for the discharge of a clear and unec^ui vocal duty might seem to Mr. Quigley too exacting — inasmuch it has proved sig- nally inefficacious when aj)pealed to in behalf of creatures far worthier of his notice, we hasten to place the duty on practical grounds : When ^Ir. Long was in Maryland his canine inhabitants were among his constitu- ents. All is changed. This constituency is now represented by Mr. Quigley ; and to be untrue to it would prove him to be a faithless repre- sentative of its interests. These interests have been assailed. The fact cannot be gainsaid. Shall we furnish the proof? ** There is as much diflerence," says Mr. Long, " between a genuine ,. \ ^ ^ 4 X 73 negro dog, and a gentleman's dog, as there is between an oyster-cart horse, and an Arabian charger." " His tail is cut midway, and his ears are cropped." AYhen the master's spaniel approaches him, he "skulks to one side." " If the spaniel attacks him he makes no resistance ; he falls flat on the ground, turns on his back, curves his cut tail between his legs, and appeals to the magnanimity of his master's dog, and says by actions, Oh, don't ! I am but a poor slave of a slave !" Now this specious and sophistical depreciation of the cliaracter of the dog may be the first link in a chain of events big with disaster to many of his race. It may be the means of withholding from him many op[)or- tunities which he might otherwise have enjoyed of rising, agreeably to his due position, in a scale of canine precedence. It may be the means of depressing his energies to a point below even their present humble development. 1. The affirmation that a dog, when thus attacked by his master's spaniel, will assume a dorsal position while his tail will describe the arc of a circle around his abdomen, is clearly inadmissible, for the sutfi- cient reason that it would indicate a degree of humility equal to the mental prostration of many members of a higher race not a thousand miles from his habitat ; and that is inconceivable. The statement can- not, therefore, be regarded as trustworthy. " His tail is cut midway ; and his ears are cropped." The first clause of this description reveals sufficient faultiness of observation to justify us in casting discredit on the assertion. Mr. Long does not state whether the tail is cut in its transverse, or in its longitudinal axis. This is a determinable question, and, as we are not bound to accept any statement liable to two different interpretations, we may be excused for hold- ing suh judice our opinions on the matter until further developments are made. At all events, the dog has the benefit of the doubt. 2. Moreover, the assertion that the tails of the nearo's do^rs are cut at all ought to rest on unequivocal induction. Mr. Long has not seen all the dogs of all the slaves in Maryland and Delaware. No statistics reveal to us their exact number; and when w^e bear in mind how many dogs are conceived and born, mature and die, in the interval which sep- arates one decennial period from another, nothing but the faintest ap- proximation to a knowledge of the real facts in the case is presumable ; yet there is no qualification in Mr. Long's language. He makes no ex- ception to the rule ; and the reliability of his testimony on the subject may hence well be doubted. 3. The dog, says Mr. Long, seems to say by his actions, " Oh, don't !" Seems tp whom ? Why, to Mr. Long. Tiiis seeming is suspicious. Darkened and jaundiced by the murky atmosphere around him, his 74 perceptions must have been indistinct ; or, at all events, liis impressions must have been tinged by the hue of surrounding conditions. Mr. Quigley would have regarded the matter with different eyes. It is mean, by gratuitous implications and retlections, to restrict a poor dog's range of enjoyments, as would undoubtedly be the case, were Ins normal status among his race inferrable from such representations of his conduct — which rei)resentations, as we have shown, rest upon the flimsiest of grounds. If every bad as well as every good word we utter acts and reacts, for all that we know to the contrary, to all eternity, it is demonstrable that the consequences of such misrepresentation can never be adecpiately ap- preciated. To this description of the negro dog's condition may be due, in the mind of anotiier man, a grave misconception ; and from such miscon- ception may follow the dog's consignment to a position which debars him from the immunities of a dog who, because he belongs to the slave's master, is never to be presumed so far to forget his dignity as uncon- sciously to form across his umbilical region, by means of his caudal a{)- pendage, the segment of a circle. Whatever mentality such auspicious circumstances might have produced would, through this misconce[)tion, lie hopelessly in abeyance. But this is not all. Th(» manifestation of this sup[)Osed mentality would create ideas in our own minds; unmani- fested, the ideas would be uncreated ; i'ryo, these ideas must be regarded as hopelessly lost. The gravity of tiie case is still further augmented by the fact that the ideas thus created by the dog's culture would suggest to our mind other ideas, which in turn would suggest still others, and thus mijiht have orijiinated trains of tiiiiiking which our imaiiination, in its loftiest flight, would fruitlessly attempt to circumscribe. To think that by thoughtless disparagement of one member of the brute creation, so much thinking should forever remain undeveloped I What a conception ! A dog, if he is but a dog, is entitled to justice. That justice, as we have shown, ^Ir. Lonu: has not accorded to him. If he that would steal a lamb would steal a sheep, it follows that he that would misrepresent a dog would, a fortiori^ misrepresent a man. Now to (lef«^nd men from misrepresentation is to carry coals to New Castle; for they can defend themselves. It is the part of true magnamiuity to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves. We trust that Mr. Quigh'y, after giving the subject the consideration due to his own reputation, and to the gravity of the occasion, will not fail to appreciate the exigency which requires him to hurry up the charge. Mastiff. PiiiLADKLi'iHA. March 19, 1858. ^. : -i i AN AIM IN LIFE. A stp:adfast purpose to be, or to do anything is usually so sure an indication that we shall accomjdish what we seek, that, the purpose once formed, our success may be considered already more than half attained. Everything really worthy the attention of mankind has its price; and the price of eminent distinction in any department either of active or intellectual life is a constant devotion to the pursuit of our choice. But a wise man is careful to select that field which will yield him the most abundant fruit. "It is an uncontrolled truth," says Dean Swift, "that no man ever made an ill figure in the world who understood his own talents, nor a good one who mistook them." Had Sir Isaac Newton cultivated poetry with as much assiduity as he cultivated the sciences, and had Milton neglected poesy for the mathematics, the probability is that the world would luive never seen either the " Principia" or the " Paradise Lost." So conscious was either where his strength lay that we have not the smallest doubt that each foresaw his immortality with a prescience almost akin to inspiration. Hence, whether our talents be one or ten, we shall leave our mark on the society in which we live just in proportion as they are patiently cul- tivated and skilfully directed. The reader will pardon the triteness of this observation, if he will recall to mind how numerous are the in- stances which suggest its statement. We are frequently pointed, with a feeling of contempt, to the eclat which surrounds the name of a per- son of mean intellect. Yet it not unfrequently happens that the very eclat which provokes our contempt has resulted from a degree of concen- tration of mind which it would have been well for us to imitate. Talent may have been given with a sparing hand ; but how careful and assid- uous its culture ! In such cases, the one idea is ever uppermost in the mind. It often absorbs every other. And a very wise man may quite unconsciously pay a heavy tribute to rear the cunningly w^rought fabric ; thoujjh he is of course in blissful ignorance that he does so. A man with one talent may attain a goal which will elude the eager grasp of a man with ten talents. Like the tortoise in the fable, he goes 76 77 straight forward to his object. The other stops to sleep by tlie way, and wakes to find his competitor the winner. But let us never aim at anything which is beneath the dignity of a wise man's mark. We may expend as much physical energy in chasing the gossamer that floats along the meadow as in reaping a field of grain. Yet, without labor, no really useful purposes or solid enjoyments are attainable. The true pliilosophj- of lite consists in so directing the application of our pliysical and intel- lectual resources that we may, with the least expenditure of" material, realize the amplest gain. To do this consciously and intelligently is to have what we call an aim in life. And the aim will be a good or a bad one according as our motives are disinterested and {)ure, or dishonest and selfish ; according as our guiding impulse is cunning, or tliat which seeks the greatest good of the greatest number. To have an aim in life, reader, is your duty, because thereby you can most eft^iciently discharge the obligations you owe to your Father in Heaven, and to your fellow-man. Recollect, that good as well as bad habits may be acquired. A dull subject will be rendered attractive where the attention is continued and earnest, not spasmodic and dilatory. To give this attention, much less labor is required than the uninitiated sup- pose. Even the fatigue which it produces is overshadowed by the ad- vantages which we very soon feel that it affords. The horizon soon begins to clear, and a serene and lofty pleasure ushers in with the dawn. Labor then becomes pastime. We feel that we are beut a conclusive refutation of his assumption we give in his own words : — "When we find any ellipsis in a writer's sentence, it behooves us not to be dogmatical in our assertions [to what but 'assertions' does the word ' dog- matical' apply ?] as to what words he has omitted ; nor ought we to accuse him of inaccuracy because his sentence, according to our Jii/i)i(/ up of it, is un- granmiatical, when there is another way of filling it up; and [when ?] accor- ding to tliat filling up [of it ?] the language will be found to be correct." (p. 223.) The italics are his own. A more significant illustration of contra- dictory teaching is rarely seen. That a writer's words should express his meaning is, without doubt, the supreme law of composition. Within a paragraph or two of that in wiiich the assumed error from Lindley Murray is pointed out, there occurs the following sentence : "If the reader will carefully examine this passage, he will see that the nominative to tlie verb, 'have ever been,' is in the singular number; and there- fore the verb should have been in the singular." (p. 5.) - L I 87 Here the omission of the word that before "therefore" gives to the sentence a meaning which the author did not intend. The affirmation is that the verb is required to be in the singular because the reader will see that the nominative to the verb is in the singular number; whereas the truth of the proposition is not dependent on any such contingency. The propositions meant to be affirmed are, that the nominative to the verb is singular, and that, because of that circumstance — namely, that the nominative is in the singular — the verb should be in the singular. The following sentence, as well as the one which we have just criti- cised, might be selected as a favorable text to illustrate radical fauliiness in the construction of a sentence, and to test the skill of a youthful writer in composition : — "So faulty is the construction of this sentence, that, besides the 'and which' error in it, the relative adverb 'therefore,' that follows those words, has really not any antecedent that is grammatically connected with it." (p. 22.) What are the grammatical relations of the clause "besides the 'and which' error?" Mr. Moon j?ieans to say that the sentence from Lindley Murray is faulty in two respects : First, because it contains the " and ivhich'' error. Secondly, because the relative adverb which follows these words has no antecedent which is grammatically connected with it. But mark what he sai/s : The relative adverb "therefore" has really not any antecedent which is grammatically connected with it besides [in addition to] the "and which" error in the sentence! What is the antecedent of tlie word this, in the following sentence? "They omit the pronoun in sentences where its presence is really necessary to the grammatical arrangement of the words. This has been done by Lindley Murray, on page 305. He there says," etc. (p. 24.) This what? How much better it is to say: "An instance of its omission occurs in the work of Lindley Murray, who, on page 305, says," etc. The following sentence is very faulty: — " The word consonant ... is a noun or name of certain letters of the alpha- bet." (p. 98.) Why not say: "The word consonant is a noun, and the name of certain letters of the alphabet" ? The omission we have indicated renders the followinof sentence un- grammjitical : — "From the consideration of Lindley Murray's errors in the use of verbs, let us now turn to [that of ?J liis errors in the use of adverbs." (p. 11.) 88 Mr. Moon says : — li It is evident that all Lindley Murray's study . . . did not teach hhn to speak accurately." (p. 30.) If the commission of several verbal errors is correctly assumed to render nugatory tlie authority of a given grammarian, assuredly the Bad Engllsli of Mr. IMoon must be pronounced a grammatical failure. But we cannot imitate the equanimity of our author when speakiufr of Mr. E. S. Gould :— ''When a would-be critic of my language is unable to see the faults in his own, I smile at the expression of his benevolent intentions ; an.l, while thanking him very cordially for his proffered services, decline to place myself under his tuition." (p. 07.) Despite the grammatical {)eccability of Mi-. Moon, we confess our in- debtedness to him—an indebtedness whicli, had his modesty and rev- erence borne any just [)roportion to his acumen, would, without doubt, have been much augmented. Unlike The Nation, we welcome such volumes a:, that of Bad EihjUsIi. We regard tiieir increase in the light in which a ^n-eat philosopher re- garded the multiplication of books in general : " There seemeth to be a superfluity of books : but shall no more books be made? Ay, make GOOD HOOKS, which, like the rod of Moses, siuill devour the serpents of the enchanters." 1869. MACAULAY. Ix an article in the London Quarterly Review for April, 18G8 entitled *' Lord Macaulay and his School," the writer says : — " The judgment of foreign nations may be accepted as a tolerably fair sample of tlie judgment of posterity. Already, both on the Continent and in the United States, Lord Macaulay is almost always quoted with qualification or reserve. 7> Kven conceding the correctness of this dictum, one of the illustrations brought forward in its su})port we consider as inadmissible. In a literary sense, the American people can scarcely be regarded with truth as a foreign nation in relation to the countrymen of Macaulay. Given an equal degree of mental power, culture, industry, and impartiality, the iud'zments of Americans and Enjilishmen concernino; the ultimate intel- lectual standing of each other seem to us to be substantially of equal weight. In the recognition of this fact lies, we think, the sting of the rebuke which Macaulay administered, many years ago, to certain English tourists of Tory proclivities : — *' Mr. Southey," he says, "never speaks of the people of the United States with that pitiful affectation of contempt by which some members of his party have done more than wars or tariffs can do to excite mutual enmity between two communities formed for mutual friendship. Great as the faults of his mind are, paltry spite like this has no place in it. Indeed, it is scarcely conceivable that a man of his sensibility and his imagination should look without pleasure and national pride on the vigorous and splendid youth of a great people, whose veins are filled with our blood, whose minds are nourished with our literature, and on whom is entailed the rich inheritance of our civilization, our freedom, and our glory." So utterly out of proportion is the literary nutriment we return the mother country in exchange for what we get, that it is difficult to see what specific value, other things being equal, there is in the " quali- fication" or *' reserve" with which an American, in contradistinction to an P^nglishman, quotes an author whose reputation looms so grandly above that of common autliors, that an English writer of zeal, learning, and 90 91 skill is interested in fixing his rank in the judgment of posterity. Hence, in a case in which it is quite conceivable that the assumed qualification or reserve may be due to the circumstance that the merits of an author may transcend, as well as be below, our standard of general excellence, we regard with some suspicion this implied compliment to our perspi- cacity. This suspicion is not weakened by the fact that the most eflfective assaults on the reputation of INIacaulay have been made not by continental writers, not by Ameri(;ans — but by Englishmen. The reason is obvious. Englishmen have in greater abundance, and have readier access to, the materials by which certain statements of the essayist and historian can be verified or impugned. Tlie qualifi<;ation or reserve with which Macaulay is cpioted in America will, in all likelihood, be augmented or lessened in (h'gree precisely in the proportion in which his assumi)tions, inferences, and statements are effectively sup[)orted or assailed. The im[)uting of critical sagacity and judgment to our coun- trymen in matters of this kind merely amounts, when analyzed, to a compliment, reflectively, on our English friends themselves. The value of the Continental estimate of an English author is, we think, scarcely less liable to be overstated. Germany, rather than na- tions foreign to it, seems to us to have fixed the generally recognized position of Goethe in the scale of intellectual eminence. What capable Englishman or American would accept as adequate the most imj)artial French estimate of the genius of John Milton? Even Ciiateaubriand could not translate the first few lines of ''l*aradise Lest" without per- petrating a grave error. Accordingly, in those departments of litera- ture in which form, rather than matter, is transcendently [)rominent, the judgment of an educated countryman, rather than that of an educated foreigner, is likely to have final value. It was as an artist-writer that Macaulay won his fame ; as a master of composition his reputation, we think, will reach a distant posterity ; and that Englishmen and Americans are quite as well fitted as foreigners to judge of wliat constitutes genuine skill in construction we shall believe until we have further evidence to the contrary than has yet been furnished us. To be overpraised is undoubtedly one of the serious embarrassments of intellectual distinction. Yet there are generally a few who are not even momentarily confused by the halo with which a crowd of undiscerning disciples invest an author of eminence. Many years before the Hisforl/ of J^Jur/Zand appeiimd, Sir James Mackintosh ha ^ and tenderly admonished him to " holdfast to simplicity, which survives ail the fashions of deviation from it, and which a man of genius so fertile has few temptations to forsake." Nevertheless, Sir James re- garded his young friend as "a writer of consummate ability," as one who, at an early age, had " mastered every species of composition." AVhen the reputation of Macaulay had fairly bloomed, Edgar A. Poe said of him : — ( I T The few wl)o regard Macaulay as a terse, forcible, and logical writer, full of thought, and abounding in original views, often sagacious, and never otherwise tlian admirably expressed — appear to us precisely in the right. The many who look upon him as not only all this, but as a comprehensive and profound thinker, little prone to error, err essentially themselves." Here praise is thoughtfully qualified by judges of recognized compe- tenc(\ But it is tlie fate of genius to be underrated as well as overpraised ; and the very intensity and multiplicity of the efforts wliich have been made, in high quarters, to becloud the fame of Macaulay are inveisely the most significant of all proofs of the unassailable basis on which it rests. Capable men seldom have ji burning desire to cast tlu; horoscope of mediocrity. Eliminate from his reputation, if you will, whatever is due to the inaccuracies and erroneous inferences which the reviewer has assumed to exist in his " History" and '• Essays," and there is scarcely a perceptible diminution in value of the splendid residue. What remains is Macaulay. There may be many persons who, sinnrly or in combination, might have gathered the facts in his *' History;" but who, besides him, could have marshalled them in so magnificent an array? The entire train of his reasoning in the introductory paragraphs to his Essay on Ranke's History of the Popes seems to us to be demonstrably fallacious. Yet the manner in which the two general propositions con- tained in these paragraphs are set forth is, we think, justly commended by Toe "as a model for the logician and the student of belles lettres.'" " Macaulay could never be made to understand," says the reviewer, "that there are whole classes of subjects on which certainty is unattainable." We believe, on the conti-ary, that no writer of equal ability in modern times has, on the whole, more resolutely devoted himself to those sub- jects with respect to which certainty is approximately attainable. He did not scruple, says J. Stuart Mill, to pronounce impossible the generali- zation of ^'the modes of investigating truth and estimating evidence, by which so many important and recondite laws of nature have, in the various sciences, been aggregated to the stock of human knowledge" — a task which, we think, Mr. Mill is conceded fairly to have accomplished. 92 Thus, in relation to one of the most elaborate and important fields of investigation, Macaulay denied certainty to be attainable where com- parative certainty has been attained. The reviewer has endeavored, with apparent self-gratulation, to imi- tate what he is pleased to regard as the trick of Macaulay's style. The attempt suggests an illustration from a line verbal ci'itic, who regarded Macaulay as the most accurate stylist of the age. " Painting their faces to look like Macaulay," says Poe, " some of our critics manage to resemble him, at leiigtli, as a Massaccian does a Kalfaellian virgin; and, except that the former is feebler and thinner tlian the other — suggesting the idea of its being the ghost of the other — not one connoisseur iti ten can per- ceive any difference. But then, unhappily, even the street lazzaroni can feel the distinction.^^ Feeble efforts to imitate the lively, staccato movement of the essayist have often been made; but how many, besides iMacaulay, iiave acquired the " trick" of such writing as tliis : — " A mightier poet, tried at once b^'pain, danger, poverty, obloquy, and blind- ness, meditated, undisturbed by the obscene tumult wliich raged all around him, a song so sublime and so lioly that it would not have misbecome the lips of those ethereal Virtues whom he saw, with that inner eye wliich no calamity could darken, Hinging down on the jasper pavement their crowns of amaranth and gold" ? In opulence, variety, and charm of illustration, Macaulay moves in a sphere all his own. To him who seeks intellectual recreation tliere is a fervid, healthy, robust energy in his style tluit is fascination itself. So marvellous is his skill in composition, that we venture to say that there are few good judges of style who have not paused, in the j)erusal of one of his finest passages, to examine critically the mere mechanism of his sentences. His eye, '' in a fine frenzy rolling," seems to sweep the orbit of ancient and modern literature. His culture vastly enriches his genius; and his genius gives intense life and glow to everything he touches. Not only did he know liow to say a thing ; but he eminently had something to say. Yet, so deftly does he combine the tact of the rhe- torician and the dexterity of the logician, that his diction scarcely bates one jot of elegance in passages conspicuous for argumentative skill. 18G9. ^ U IN MEMORIAM. It is with feelings of profound sadness that we chronicle the loss of our dear and honored friend, Tillinghast King Collins. AVe knew him in the full fiush of health and vigor, and we witnessed the closing years of his life, uhen, sustained by the recollection of duties well performed, and consoled by an earnest and unquestioning faith in the Redeemer of mankind, he " drew the draper}^ of his couch about him. And lay down to pleasant dreams." As a shock of corn fully ripe, he was gathered to the great granary of his Fatiier. It is spiritually healthful to linger at the shrine of the good and the true — of those who have unmurmuringly "borne the burden" in the " heat of the day" — of those who, amid great tribulation, have been " weighed in the balance," and not been " found wanting." Left, at an early age, with a widowed mother, and a younger brother and sister, to encounter the great battle of life, he went forth to the con- test with a precocious understanding of the circumstances which sur- rounded him, and a joyous consciousness of the ultimate realization of his desire. In the darkest hour of his struojgles he never for a moment lost his bounding energy ; never for a moment did he *' bate one jot of heart or hope ;" never for a moment did he fail to show a calm and sunny temper. When success had crowned his efforts, his honors were quietly and meekly borne. Even the conspicuous reverses which occasionally marked his career were due to the abnormal development of a frank and generous nature. He always looked on the bright side of life ; and when he did a favor his kindly manner of doing it enhanced immeasurably the value of the act. T. K. Collins was born in this city on the 14th of October, 1802. His great-grandfather on his father's side emigrated from Ireland to Rhode Island during colonial times. His great-grandfather on his i "i 94 mother's side was a Welslinian, a lawyer by profession, wlio resided on an island in the Delaware Kiver. His father was n sailor, and a native of Cranston, R. I. 1 1 is mother was born near Trenton, N. J. When thirteen years old he entered the wareroom of ^Nlathew Carey, whose history during a hii'ge part of his life is the history of Pliiladel- phia. Shortly afterwards, he was received into the printing-otrice of James Maxwell, at tliat period proprietor of oih^ of the largest establish- ments in tliis city. From this office he graduated a thorough printer of rare skill, energy, and fertility of invention. From Philadelphia he removed to AVashington, and was employed by Peter Force, and successively by Duff Green and Gales c<: Scalon, all Avell-known printers and i)ublishers. Returning to l*liila^^W^ iJj ** ? '-^rj .■*»4 ^'\' I < -•jiif ' •h \ A aC { ■.Jiiaf tr '■¥■■■■,«(' ■ # ■? ..*.'^" ^ X \ i '^ \