^^ I give theft Books
for the. founding of a. College in this Colony'

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BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME
OF THE
PERKINS FUND

ADDRESSES, LECTURES
AXD OTHER PAPERS

ADDRESSES, LECTURES

AND

OTHER PAPERS

JAMES CLARKE WELLING, LL.D.
LATB PRESIDENT OP THB COLDMBIAN UKrVBESITT
WASHINGTON, D. 0,

CAMBRIDGE
prtnteD at tlje M'on&iDt l^tt&si
1904

. t 4 i '1

To the Children of
JAMES CLARKE WELLING
this Book Is dedicated, In loving Memory
of their Father.
C. L. D. W.

CONTENTS

CHAPTBR PAGE
Biographical Sketch. By Professor Charles
W. Shields, Princeton University ... ix
I. The Fundamental Elements of Intel
lectual Education  1
II. Life and Character of Joseph Heney . 26
III. WoEK IN English in the Colleges and
Peeparatoey Schools  63
rV". The Mecklenburg Dbclaeation of Inde
pendence, Mat 20, 1775  76
V. The Emancipation Proclamation . . . 125
VI. The Land Politics of the United States 156
VII. The States'- Rights Conflict ovee the
Public Lands  201
VIII. Slaveey in the Teeeitoeies  227
IX. Connecticut Federalism, oe Aeistocratic
Politics in a Social Democeaoy . . 266
X. The Bering Sea Aebiteation ; oe, " Pe
lagic Sealing " juridically consid-
eebd according to a Paeticulae Ana
logy of Municipal Law  312
XI. The Last Town Election in Pompeii . 338
XII. The Science of Univeesal Histoet: its
Method and its Relation to the Pht-
sicAL Sciences  361

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH i
James Clarke Welling, graduate of the Prince
ton class of 1844, and professor In 1870, was born In
Trenton, N. J., on July 14, 1825.
While in college he attained distinction as a classi
cal scholar and graceful writer, and for general excel
lence stood among the first In a class of sixty-five.
The professor of Latin and belles-lettres, Dr. James
W. Alexander, discerned In him those rare literary
qualities by which he was always distinguished, and
specially commended his essay on the " Causes of
Historical Discrepancy," for its maturity of thought
and style. He was also proficient In natural philoso
phy as then taught by Professor Joseph Henry, whose
magnetic discoveries he was afterwards able to vin
dicate against rival claimants in Washington. The
Princeton of that day, as represented by Professors
Henry and Stephen Alexander, with President Well
ing, has had a moulding influence upon the Smithso
nian Institution from Its origin.
After his graduation, Mr. Welling at first turned
his thoughts to the law as a profession. No doubt
his legal studies and tastes, which he never quite
abandoned, aided In fitting him for the career of
journalist and educator, to which he was destined.
He began his life work in 1848 in New York City,
as principal of the Collegiate Institute and writer on
1 Reprinted from the Princeton College Bulletin, April, 1895.

X BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
current topics in the higher class of journals. The
beauty, correctness, vigor, and variety of these pro
ductions of his facile pen soon attracted general no
tice, and In 1850 he was secured by Messrs. Gales
and Seaton as the literary editor of the National
Intelligencer, at Washington. This journal was then
a power throughout the country, with an Influence
such as no local or metropolitan press can now exert.
Its editorials, emanating from the seat of government,
as carefully written articles on national issues, became
almost authoritative with an intelligent class of read
ers. It was said that a copy of the National Intel
ligencer would indicate the respectability of any one
found reading it. For such a post he was specially
qualified by his judicial temperament, his facility
in writing, his accurate scholarship, his well-stored
memory, and his direct acquaintance with public men
and measures. As an old line Whig, he made the
policy of the paper conservative, constitutional, and
loyal ; at first supporting the Bell and Everett ticket
against the two sectional parties which were dividing
the nation, and then consistently voicing the Union
sentiment of the administration during the war. He
enjoyed the full confidence of President Lincoln, who
is known to have sought his counsel and had the aid
of his editorial pen in commending some Important
measures to the people. It was at this critical period
he advocated the President's proposition of emanci
pation, with compensation to loyal owners, the aboli
tion of slavery in the District of Columbia, and its
abolition throughout the Union by constitutional
amendment; but he questioned the validity of the
Emancipation Proclamation and strenuously opposed
the constitutionality of military commissions for the

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xi
trial of citizens In loyal States — a practice which
was subsequently condemned by the Supreme Court.
This is not the only instance in which his political
opinions were vindicated. The discussions of the
Intelligencer at this time often took the form of
elaborate papers on questions of international as well
as constitutional law, such as the Monroe Doctrine
and the seizure of Mason and Slidell, and exercised
an acknowledged influence on public opinion. Some
of them have been republished and are still cited
In works of history and jurisprudence. They formed
part of his equipment for a " Civil History of the
Civil War," which he projected as a needed comple
ment to the military history which hitherto has en
grossed the attention of our historical writers.
On the natural decline of the Intelligencer, he
withdrew from journalism, and after spending two
years partly In European travel and partly in the office
of clerk of the Court of Claims, he entered the aca
demic career to which the rest of his life was to be
devoted. This was In accordance with his expressed
opinion that periods of civil commotion are usually
followed by revivals of intellectual energy, " when
arms must yield to the gown, and when the statesman
and the scholar are called to untie with dextrous hand
those Gordian knots which the sword left uncut." In
1867 he was chosen president of St. John's College,
at Annapolis, Md., and in less than two years the
number of pupils advanced from ninety to two hun
dred and fifty. He received the honorary degree of
LL. D. from Columbia College, Washington, D. C, In
1868. At the same time the voice of his Alma Mater
called him to the chair of belles-lettres at Princeton,
with the prospect of a congenial field of study and In-

xii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
fluence. His public Introductory lecture at the Com
mencement, on " The Sources of Literary Inspiration,"
may be said to have heralded that enthusiasm for
English Letters by which the college has since been
so distinguished.
The high esteem of his former colleagues has been
fittingly expressed by Professor William A. Packard,
In the following tribute : —
" I have very warmly cherished recollections of Dr.
Welling. We lived side by side during the time of his
residence in Princeton, and I very soon began to know the
charm and value of a near personal friendship with one
possessed of a most sincere and genial nature, and of emi
nent and varied qualifications for his work and influence in
the professorship which he so ably filled.
" His thorough literary training and accomplishments for
his special work, and the large experience of his previous
life in Washington, in close contact with great public ques
tions and eminent public men, at once raised his depart
ment of instruction to a very high degree of prestige and
genuine interest. His lectures and personal intercourse
with students were peculiarly fitted to quicken and train
their taste in the best English literature, and to broaden
the horizon of their interest by the subjects for thought and
study which he set before them. His fidelity also in the
daily and detailed work of the class-room, and in the dis
charge of all the minor obligations of an active member of a
college faculty, was unfailing, and illustrated in a marked
way the genuine conscientiousness of Dr. WeUing's char
acter. " When he left us for the higher positions which he has
since filled with such eminent usefulness and success, we
deeply felt our loss, but have, throughout the years since,
heartily appreciated his wider influence in the service of
higher education, and his always ready sympathy in the

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xiii
prosperity of his Alma Mater and the experiences of his
former colleagues. His death has brought to us a deep
sense of personal bereavement."
After a year at Princeton he was recalled to Wash
ington, In 1871, to take the presidency of the institution
now known as the Columbian University. Here his ad
ministrative powers soon found full scope and activity.
He believed it possible to make the capital, in a sense,
the intellectual as well as political metropolis of the
country. Its libraries and museums, its Smithsonian
Institution, Its concourse of scientific men In the ser
vice of the government, Its great legislature and court
illustrating the origin and practice of law, all seemed
to him available as the proper environment and edu
cational plant of a national university. He was so
far successful that he obtained from Congress a new
charter with full university powers, and secured the
erection of an academic building in the heart of the
city, an enlarged corps of professors, the establish
ment of professional schools of law, medicine, and
science, and the foundation of a free endowment. In
the School of Law he became especially interested,
securing not only a large attendance of government
clerks as students, but courses of instruction by dis
tinguished jurists in Washington. At one time, his
friend, Governor William Beach Lawrence, of Rhode
Island, by his invitation delivered some university
lectures on International questions in our history,
which were attended by members of the diplomatic
corps, cabinet officers, and senators. His crowning
effort in this direction was his project, already ap
proved by the ablest publicists, for a school of com
parative jurisprudence, in which " the law of the civil-

xiv BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
ized world should be taught as a history and as a
philosophy, from the first rude germs of the clan stage
of human government up to the highest evolutions of
that International law which to-day sits supreme above
all politics and all conventions of men."
During this period he received several invitations
to the presidency of other leading colleges, besides
offers of lucrative editorships In New York, but his
friendship with Mr. Corcoran, the chief benefactor of
the Columbian University, held him loyally at his
post. He resigned it in June, 1894, with the hope of
devoting himself to the favorite studies and projected
works which would have made a congenial pastime
for the evening of his life.
Outside of his academic labors, his services were
sought in behalf of many other public Interests. As
President of the Corcoran School of Art, in which he
took a lively concern, he visited, in 1877, the prin
cipal galleries and studios of Europe, and procured
some valuable paintings. In 1884 he was appointed
a Regent of the Smithsonian Institution, and soon
afterwards elected Chairman of Its Executive Com
mittee. He was also at different times president of
the Philosophical Society, of the Anthropological
Society, of the Copyright League, of the Cosmos
Club, and various charitable associations. His ready
pen was at the command of every good cause, literary,
artistic, humane, or religious.
The life and services of such a man naturally sug
gest his personality. It is little to say that so prac
ticed a teacher was also an industrious student and an
accomplished scholar. He had the skill of a linguist,
as well as the taste of a writer, in his use of words,
which was copious, elegant, and forceful. He touched

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xv
nothing that he did not adorn. His familiarity with
the text of classical and English authors caused apt
quotations to flow easily from his pen and to enrich
his discourse. Yet he was no mere omnivorous reader.
He discriminated and digested the material of his read
ing, as was shown by the notes and clippings inserted
in his books for future reference. The Librarian of
Congress, INIr. Spofford, who knew him more than
twenty-five years, observes : " His frequent visits to
the library were always with a definite purpose. His
investigations were marked by a habit of thorough re
search characteristic of the careful scholar. He had
an instinctive habit of weighing evidence, and the true
critical spirit in dealing with authorities. He had a
marked fitness for historical investigation, and might
have become, had his associations permitted, one of
our best writers of history. His style of composition
was uniformly that of a man of refined taste, grave
and elevated when treating of weighty themes ; light
and free when dealing with the weapons of ridicule or
satire. Both in speech and in writing he was a purist,
though without pedantry, and whoever might succumb
to the ever-Increasing popular slang which corrupts
our noble English speech, one was always sure of find
ing Dr. Welling adhering to classic models of style.
He spoke and wrote against the attempts of certain
' reformers ' to destroy our orthography by the pho
netic system of spelling the language."
It was not strange that he liked Washington, with
its opportunities for keeping In touch with the higher
interests of civilization, its ever-changing game of pol
itics, its varied types of culture, Its personages gath
ered from every part of the land and of the world, Its
companionship of scholars and statesmen like Henry,

xvi BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Chase, Sumner, Blaine, Bayard, Wharton, Bancroft.
In such circles his fine conversational powers, his
wealth of personal, literary, and historical allusion,
his sallies of humor, and his gentleness made him
always welcome. The Columbian Historical Society,
in their memorial tribute, dwell upon the worth of
these engaging qualities : " No man ever ate less idle
bread. His social duties were important accessories
to his public employments ; and few men discharged
them so thoroughly and successfully as he. He had
hosts of acquaintances and ' troops of friends,' whom
he secured by willingness to serve them, and by a
politeness and consideration that amounted to a real
virtue." None of his friendships were quite the same as one
or two born of enthusiasm of his college days. For
these I gratefully let another speak : —
" Fifty-one years ago," says Justice Hagner, " I
made his acquaintance ; at that time our friendship
was formed, and It continued without Interruption to
the time of his death. ' He was my friend, faithful
and just to me.' I am glad to believe he would have
said the same of me.
" I never knew one in whose character and demeanor
time made less change. The rather serious college
youth, singularly diligent and studious, but cheerful
and light-hearted, simply ripened Into the Indefatiga
ble student and active man of business ; but he still
retained his elasticity of disposition and his youthful
feelings and manners. Full of active sympathy with
whatever surrounded him ; alert In his movements, as
in his mental activities ; his capacity for the enjoyment
of friendship appeared to Increase with his years.
" The wounds from the loss of friends are of those

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xvii
that heal slowly. But it is a satisfaction to me to
recall that on a visit received from him just before he
left Washington for the last time, his cheerfulness
and charm of manner and conversation were as marked
as ever, and to recall ' the touch of a vanished hand '
that gave no distressing presage It was to be the
last." President Welling died in the early morning of Sep
tember the 4th, 1894. As by a sudden translation, he
was spared the pain of an earthly parting from those
that he loved. Throughout life he had been a firm
and (ievout believer in the Christian religion, and
never wrote a line Inconsistent with such a faith.
Distinguished associates and friends attended him
to his burial. Memorial services were afterward held
in ^^'ashington, with appropriate addresses, and learned
societies recorded his varied services. The following
list of his publications, though far from complete, may
afford some glimpses of his literary activity in recent
years : —
1871. Fundamental Elements of Intellectual Educa
tion. Inaugural Address as President of
the Columbian College.
1874. The Mecklenburg Declaration of American In
dependence. North American Review.
Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. North
American Review.
1878. Life and Character of Joseph Henry. Bvlletin
of the Philosophical Society of Washington.
1888. The Law of Malthus. American Anthropolo
gist.
Anomalies of Sound Signals. Bulletin of the
Philosophical Society.

xTiii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
1889-94. Reports as President of the Columbian
Universiij'.
1889. The Atomic Philosophy, Physical and :\Ieta-
physioal. Presidential Addi-ess to the Philo
sophical Society, in Bulletin.
1890. Problems in Higher Education. Proceedings
of College Association of JTiddle States.
1891. Slavery In the Territories. Annual Report of
the American Historical Society.
1892. The Law of Torture. Presidential Address to
the Anthropological Society.
Connecticut Federalism, or Aristocratic Poli
tics In a Social Democracy. Lecture before
New York Historical Society.
The States' Rights Conflict over the Public
Lauds. Annual Report of the American
Historical Society.
1893. The Columbian University in Relation to Wash
ington as the Seat of a National Universitv.
The Last Town Election in Pompeii. Presi
dential Address to the Anthropological So
ciety.
W^ork In English in the Colleges and Prepara
tory Schools. Proceedings of the College
Association.
The Bering Sea Arbitration. Coliunhian Uni
versity Studies.
1894. The Science of Universal History : Its Method
and Its Relation to the Physical Sciences.
Dr. Welling contributed many papers of permanent
Interest to the " North American Review," the " Na
tion," the " ^Magazine of xVmerican History," and
innumerable articles of literary merit to the great

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH xix
daily journals. He Is known to have made transla
tions of Important French and German works, and It
Is hoped that he left valuable historical manuscripts
which may yet be published.
Charles W. Shields.

ADDRESSES, LECTURES, AXD
OTHER PAPERS

THE FUXDAJIENTAL ELEMENTS OF INTEL
LECTUAL EDUCATION'
The subject of Education offers a theme for discus
sion at once the most easy and most difficult ; the most
easy if we content ourselves with the rehearsal of com
monplaces on the topic, such as are universally received
among men ; and the most difficult if we undertake to
propound a theory of education which shall be In all
respects true without being trite, or novel without being
in some respects unsound. Education is a subject on
which men have been thinking and writing from the
very dawn of intellectual activity in the race, and yet
it is a subject on which men widely differ, even at the
present day, In regard to both the processes and the
objects of that higher training which looks to the best
attainable good of the human mind. This diversity
of credence and practice sjjrlngs. In a great degree,
from the fact that all Education is partly an Art and
partly a Science ; so much an art that it must ever
depend on the varying skill of different teachers, and
on the varying aptitudes of different learners,- but at
the same time so much a science that all forms of edu-
^ Inaugural Address as President of Columbian College, 1S71.

ADDRESSES
tion, having regard to any specific end, cannot be
equally good, and, among the various competing theo
ries of mental culture, there must be one which, on a
consideration of all the elements involved in the prob
lem, we can adjudge to be the best that the wit of man
has thus far been able to devise. For, however the
elements of the problem may differ according to the
capabilities of the teacher, the capacity of the scholar,
the ends which the scholar proposes to himself, and
the general wants of society In any given age, there
must still be a scheme of education which, " smoothed,
and squared, and fitted to Its place," shall be more
wise and more expedient than any other — a scheme
in which the applied art of education shall be based
on such scientific foundations as the nature of the case
may admit.
Accepting the theme thus suggested to me by the
proprieties and formalities of this occasion, I have, in
the first place, to inquire what Is the object which we
should set before us In determining the elements of
higher academic learning. For with the lower stages
of juvenile culture we are not directly concerned to
night, and, as to them, there is not so much room for
difference among educators. According to the terms
of the problem proposed by higher education, we are
called, as I conceive, not to discuss the special adapta
tion of specific educational studies designed to meet
the requirements of any particular vocation in indus
trial or professional life, but to investigate the funda
mental elements of that more liberal and generous
culture which looks to the symmetrical development
of the whole man in all his powers and capacities.
And as this is the object of higher academic educa
tion, it necessarily follows that any system of such

INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION
education must be defective if It omits from its p of
view any one of those essential studies by which the
human race has been advanced to its present civil,
social, intellectual, moral, and religious status. As in
ancient Egypt men were able, it is said, by the gradu
ated scales of the Nilometer, not only to measure the
depth of the fertilizing waters that covered the land,
but also to predict the extent of the coming harvest,
so from the standard of education in any age we may
not only gauge the degree In which it rises to the wants
of the present time, but may also forecast the destiny
it prefigures to the coming generation. Institutions of
higher learning are founded among men to perpetuate
and to transmit the existing stock of knowledge in all
those departments which conduce to the intellectual
progress of our race. Failing in this end, whether
from a defect In the methods or means of education,
they visibly fall below the standard erected for them
in the requirements of the living age. But they do
not subserve all the ends of their creation by achiev
ing this purpose alone. It is not enough for educa
tors, in the higher walks of their art, to preserve and
propagate the elements of didactic knowledge, but
they are bound so to impart these elements in all their
fullness and vitalizing power as to create the condi
tions of a growing advancement In learning and civili
zation. To accomplish these great objects, the teacher
must have equal regard to the number and quality of
the subjects taught, and to the method and order and
spirit of his instructions. " Teachers," says Bacon,
" are not ordained for transitory uses, but for the pro
gression of the sciences — ad sufficiendam soholem
sciential in scBCula." No university, it Is true, even
in all its Faculties, can teach, as Sir William Ham-

ADDRESSES
con has said, the omne scihile, but a university can
comprise in its curriculum such " a compend of the
past thought and cultivation of the race" as shall
be reduced to the shape and dimension best fitted to
be taken In by the minds of the present generation,
and therefore best fitted to promote the growth of
culture. It was from a disregard of this latter educational
requirement that the progress of mental culture was
arrested in Greece so soon as the pedagogues, who
succeeded the age of original Inquiry, contented them
selves simply with the existing state of knowledge,
instead of so learning it themselves and so teaching It
to their pupils as to propagate, with knowledge, the
love of it, and thus to stimulate and direct that spirit
of inquiry which leads to never ending conquests in
the world of Thought and of Nature. And so, too,
during the Middle Ages, knowledge came to a stand
still in Europe, not from any torpor of the mental
faculties among the Schoolmen, for never were men
more laborious and more acute than they ; but be
cause their mental activity revolved in the verbal
philosophy of Aristotle as if in a treadmill, and was
not suffered to go beyond the tether of that profes
sorial and didactic discipline which bound it to the
past, as If the past had contained In itself the be-all
and the end-all of human philosophy. They failed to
see in the successive stages of human history the step
ping-stones of an ever advancing progress. Under
such a theory science degenerated Into a mere logo
machy, and literature dwindled into a dry and formal
rhetoric. Education was still conducted In the Tri-
vium and Quadrivium of the cathedral and cloistral
schools with a vast expenditure of logical apparatus

INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION
brought to bear on topics which lacked the quality of
real truth, and which, from defects both of substance
and form, failed to afford either the basis or the in
struments of a higher intellectual proficiency. The
world was not then indeed without its Doctors, " di
vine " and " transcendental " and " irrefragable ; "
but from Peter Lombard, its famous Magister Sen-
tentiarum Sapientium, to John of Occam, its redoubt
able Doctor invincihilis, singularis, et venerabilis, it
was without teachers who rightly apprehended either
the elements or the methods of that true Intellectual
culture which teaches men not only what to know,
but also how to learn. It Is only in so far as the
Occidental nations have made learning reproductive
and progressive that " fifty years of Europe " are, as
Tennyson tells us, better than " a cycle of Cathay."
But even when It is said that higher academic edu
cation must at least aim to transmit the existing sum
of knowledge unimpaired, we have, by necessary im
plication, defined In a measure the methods and
means of university culture, for it Is obvious that the
essential factors of that knowledge which constitutes
the mental wealth of the present age must enter into
the constitution of any scheme of studies designed to
impart the higher education In Its completeness. The
education of the individual, as that of the race, may
be said, indeed, to depend, in the most comprehensive
sense of the word, on all those complex Influences of
the past and present which have combined to deter
mine the resultant Intellectual state of humanity.
The present is what the past has made it, and bears
in Its bosom the germs of the future. But confining
our view, as we do on this occasion, to a general sur
vey of the fundamental elements which enter Into the

o ADDRESSES
present constitution of human knowledge, we may say,
with Bacon, that out of the five and twenty centuries
over which the memory and learning of men extend,
we can hardly pick out six that were fertile in sciences
or favorable to their development. Speaking from
the point of view reached In his day, he adds : —
" Only three revolutions and periods of learning can be
properly reckoned — one among the Greeks, the second
among the Romans, and the last among us ; that is to say,
the nations of Western Europe."
In a stUl wider survey of human progress on the
line of man's intellectual education, It may be said
that three great civilizing nations have mainly deter
mined the quality and the range of those studies which
lay the basis of modern intellectual life and culture.
We derive from the Hebrews the rudiments of that
knowledge which ascertains the relations of man to
God, and which lays in Divine Theology the founda
tions of both theoretical and practical ethics. Of this
education, the family and the Christian Church are
at once the peculiar guardians and the most efficient
agents. But no scheme of university education can,
even on intellectual grounds, ignore the Wisdom that
cometh from above, and which is profitable to direct
in all things. The college which does not write Jeho-
vah-Nissi on Its banners has already written Ichabod
on its doorposts.
And as the elements of our religious culture have
been transmitted to us by the chosen people of God,
so the elements of our Intellectual and political educa
tion have been primarily derived from the Greeks and
Romans. It is the Greeks and the Romans who have
been the federal representatives of humanity In all

INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION
that pertains to the original institutes of secular learn
ing, literature, art, and polity — the great elements
which have mainly combined to make our intellectual
condition what it is to-day.
Now if it be true that a liberal education " con
sists In sharing in the best influences of the progres
sive intellectual refinement of man ; " If the present
age is not independent of the ages that have preceded
It ; but if the days of the race, as of the individual, are
bound each to each by a sort of natural piety, It needs
no elaborate argument to vindicate the place which
the Grecian and the Roman languages and literatures
must hold in any course of studies designed to furnish
the basis of an integral education of the intellect.
When Dr. Arnold, the honored Master of Rugby
School in England, first caught a view of Rome, as
he drew near to that " City of the soul " on the occa
sion of his visit to Italy in the year 1840, he ex
claimed : " Of earthly sights, this Is the third —
Athens and Jerusalem are the other two — the three
peoples of God's election, two for things temporal and
one for things eternal." As the thunders of Sinai
still peal through the Innermost recesses of man's
spiritual nature, so from the Acropolis of Athens we
still catch, as It echoes down the " corridors of Time,"
the reverberation of that resistless eloquence which
once " fulmined over Greece," while in Roman polity
and in Roman literature we still find the traditions of
a civilization which has become part and parcel of
modern times.
But it Is argued by some that for this very reason,
because the modern civilization has absorbed the best
elements of Greek and Roman life, we may omit the
cultivation of Greek and Roman letters in order to

ADDRESSES
devote the more attention to the modern literatures of
Italy, or France, or Spain, or Germany, with which we
stand In more direct and immediate relations.
In reply to this allegation, I have only to say that
when I am referred to the case of any scholar who,
after mastering the tongues and familiarizing himself
with the literatures of modern Europe, for purposes of
mental culture, has been content to turn away from the
great original fountains of culture in Greece and Rome,
it will be time enough to reconsider my estimate of
the place and value traditionally assigned to the an
cient classics. Shall we put the study of the German
in the place of the Greek? But we find Schiller, as
he says, delightedly walking under the intellectual sky
of Greece, that he may learn how to purify the strains
of his German muse. Shall we put the Italian in the
place of the Roman tongue ? But we find Dante in
his great poem referring to Aristotle as il maestro di
color che sanno, and turning a reverential eye to Vir
gil as to the source from which he derived the beautiful
style that has done him honor and immortalized the
Divina Commedia.
Some years ago, when the subject of education was
under discussion in the French Chamber of Deputies,
M. Arago, then a member of that body, is represented
to have held the following language : — •
" I ask for classical studies. I require them. I deem them
indispensable. But I do not think that they must necessarily
be in Greek and Latin. I wish that in certain schools these
studies should be superseded, at the pleasure of the munici
pal authorities, by a thorough study of our own tongue. I
wish that in every college it might be permitted to put in the
place of Latin and Greek the study of some living tongue.
I require even that the language thus substituted may be

INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 9
different according to the situation of the place — that at
Perpignan and at Bayonne, for instance, it may be Spanish,
at Havre the English, at Besangon the German."
I entirely concur in this view of the French physical
philosopher wherever the object of education Is partial
and not integral — aiming at professional or artisan
dexterity as a means of livelihood, rather than to
perfect the whole man by the full, harmonious, and
thorough development of his capacities. If It be the
mission of the French college, in the idea of Arago, to
equip the stores of Perpignan and Bayonne, of Havre
and Besangon, with fluent corresponding clerks and
dispatchful commissionaires, it cannot be doubted that
he has suggested the most expeditious means of reach
ing that object. But it has been commonly supposed
that University education aims at something higher
than this. It proposes to develop the whole man, that
he may. In the truest sense of the term, be an end to
himself, and not to the end that he may excel In any
single manipulation of handicraft life. This minor
and special education has, Indeed, Its uses, and for the
great mass of mankind It is the only form of educa
tion which can be adjusted either to their condition or
the wants of society ; but It Is not the education which
will keep the great channels of thought and culture
open to the Influx of the mighty current which has
thus far borne our race to higher and stiU higher lev
els in the world of science and in civilization. They
who would take the tide of modern civilization at its
flood in Germany or France, but who at the same
time would dam up the stream of knowledge as it has
descended to us from Greece and Rome, propose to
themselves a problem no more sensible than that of
the engineer who should think to improve the naviga-

10 ADDRESSES
tion of the Mississippi River below New Orleans by
cutting off its affluents, the Ohio and the Missouri.
While I thus advocate the right of tho ancient
classical tongues to retain their hereditary place in
the intellectual education ; and while I assert for them,
considered as instruments of education, an advantage
over the study of modern languages, I would not have
it supposed that I am indifferent to the scholarly cul
ture of our own noble language, and of that peerless
literature which we inherit as a birthright. I advocate
the study of ancient classics because I believe them
indispensable to the thorough study and scholarly ap
preciation of any modern language, or of any modern
literature, not excepting our own.
If, then, on historical and logical grounds, as well
as from considerations of scholastic discipline and
utility, we must claim for classical learning a neces
sary place in any scheme of university education, it is
equally easy to establish the right of tho higher mathe
matics to be included in any such scheme. Mathe
matical studies are an integral element, if not, as
some maintain, the starting-point, of that intellectual
reformation which dates from the time of Plato. And
men have curiously speculated what the Greek civili
zation might have become if the Greek education had
continued tfi be essentially mathematical, as it was in
the days of Plato. It was not until this education had
declined that the ancient astronomy became entangled
in a cumbrous apparatus of fixed and crystalline
spheres, — " With contrio and oooontrio soribblod o'or,
Cycle in opioyole, orb in orb," —
a system incapable of reduction to any foim of geo
metrical analysis, and which, therefore, failed to afford

INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 11
tho conditions of scientific progress, or to substantiate
itself to tho reason of men. It is because Numbers
and Form and Motion in periodic times are the prin-
cijda of the universe that the " Prinoipia " of Newton
can never perish from the memory of man. Whether
regarded as a means of discipline or as an instrument
of scientific research, the higher mathematics must
ever assert their appointed place in any theory of edu
cation which proposes either to strengthen the reason
of man or to explicate the phenomena of the universe.
If it be, as I have argued, the function of a Uni
versity not only to embody and perpetuate the exist
ing store of humsui knowledge, but also to consult for
" the progression of the Sciences," it necessarily fol
lows that the sciences based on physical research must
occupy a prominent place in any system of modern
intellectual education. Considered apart from the
modifying force of Christianity, our modern age dif
fers from tliat of Greece and Rome mainly by virtue
of those positive sciences which have shed such a sur
passing lustre on every path of modern art. And these
sciences, more than any others, contain in themselves
tho conditions and the presage of a never ending
advancement. Here ai'e the fountains of a knowledge
which wells up from the very bosom of Nature. Here
ai-e the rudiments of that " potential physics " which
enables the finite mind of man to re-think the thought
of God in creation, as, step by step, we retrace the
presence and working of the Law whose " seat is His
bosom, and whose voice is tlie harmony of the AVorld."
The Dervise of Balsora, in the Arabian tale, gave to
Baba Abdalla a precious ointment that opened the
eyes on which it was laid to behold all the riches hid
den in tlio eai'th ; but infinitely more precious is the

i2 ADDRESSES
eyesalve of Positive Science, which not only opens our
eyes to behold the riches of the earth, but purges our
intellectual vision, that It may read the works of God
with the light of reason, and no longer by the shadows
they cast In passing before the senses of man.
If it be a ground of just wonder that the devotees of
classical culture should have once denied to the physical
sciences their legitimate place In any scheme of uni
versity education, It remains none the less a duty to re
sist the pretensions of those who would assign to these
sciences a too exclusive position in the scholastic cur
riculum. Yet Mr. Herbert Spencer, in considering
the question, " What knowledge Is of most worth ? "
has not scrupled to say that the study of science
(meaning physical science) " is the best preparation
for every order of human activity."
Now, it cannot be doubted that an exclusive devo
tion to the physical sciences must wreak itself In a
practical paralysis or distorted growth of those fac
ulties which, under such a training, are left to pine
without cultivation. We hold with Sir William Ham
ilton, that " a knowledge drawn too exclusively from
without is not only Imperfect in itself, but makes
its votaries fatalists, materialists, pantheists ; If they
dare to think, it is the dogmatism of despair." And
hence it is that the great founder of the so-called
Positive Philosophy In France, M. Comte, has ven
tured to say that In his eyes " the heavens declare no
other glory than that of Hipparchus, of Kepler, of
Newton, and of aU the rest who have helped to estab
lish the laws of celestial phenomena." Such was the
blindness of this great thinker as he sat enthroned
amid the blazing hierarchy of the sciences, while to the
ears of even a heathen philosopher of the fourth cen-

INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 13
tury before Christ the planets rolled in their orbits
with a rhythmic music which attested the master hand
of the Divine Harmonist who first set the notes of
their grand diapason ; for the eyes of Plato were
opened to see that the starry heavens, resplendent as
they are with a beauty that surpasses " the beauty of
figures wrought by the hand of Daedalus," were set
before the mind of man to serve as " the patterns of
knowledge," and not to feed the vanity of star-eyed
Science. It Is In view of the extravagances which result from
the perversion of the physical sciences when thus misdi
rected In their aims and exaggerated In the aspirations
of their votaries, that we may next propound another
kind of studies which constitute a necessary part of
Intellectual education, as they also furnish a corrective
to the aberrations of a philosophy which moves exclu
sively in matter and In the phenomena of necessary
law. I allude to speculative philosophy, as well in Its
ontological as In its psychological departments, — a
study which, at Its very outset, as a modern writer has
remarked, calls up the great questions that pertain to
the foundations of our knowledge, with the possibility
of absolute truth, the limits of the human Intellect, the
reality and the nature of the distinction between object
and subject ; that is, the relation between the macro
cosm without us and the microcosm within us ; and, at
a higher point of inquiry, the relations of the Finite to
the Infinite, of the mind of man to the mind of God.
These tremendous questions will not down at our bid
ding. They have haunted the minds of thinking men
In all ages, and perpetually allure, as they perpetually
baffle, the human understanding. No man can be
called "educated" who remains ignorant of the at-

14 ADDRESSES
tempts that have been made by the great philosophers
of different ages, from the dawn of speculation In
Greece down to the present day, to furnish a solution,
more or less satisfying,. of these grand problems of hu
man being and destiny. And this we must say, while
freely admitting, with one who was the profoundest
critic of all existing systems in philosophy, as he was
also the profoundest speculative thinker of modern
times, that " the past history of philosophy has been
In a great measure a history only of variation and
error." " If," as he argues, " it be right to philoso
phize, we must philosophize to realize the right ; if to
philosophize be wrong, we must philosophize to mani
fest the wrong ; on either alternative, philosophize we
must." The study of metaphysics cannot be sundered
from the rational study even of physics. As Goethe
tersely sings : —
" Willst du ins Unendliche scbreiten ?
Geh nur im Endlichen nach alien Seiten."
As in the farthest stretches of our vision the horizon
of earth blends with and is lost in the ethereal blue of
the sky, so our ultimate speculations on the smallest
atom of matter or the vastest sphere In the stellar uni
verse lead from the earthly horizon of the physical
to the heavenly horizon of the metaphysical — from
the realm of the Finite to the realm of the Infinite in
Cause and Space and Time.
Nor Is this study unpractical or alien to human his
tory. The speculations of Plato enter as really into the
intellectual and moral education of the human race as
the poems of Homer, or the books of Euclid, or the " In
stitutes " of Justinian. It was the speculative philoso
phers of Greece who exalted the language of Greece to
be the vehicle of those great ethical truths which were

INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 15
deposited in the Hebrew mind by a long line of splen
did miracles, and by the cumbrous media of types and
shadows addressed to an unspiritual generation. It was
because the philosophers of Greece had unconsciously
filled an important place in the providential educa
tion of our race that Paul, the great Apostle of the
Gentiles, could stand on Mars Hill and preach to the
Athenians, in their own native language, the wonderful
works of God — a proclamation which, on the day of
Pentecost, required for Its f uU utterance the miraculous
tongues of flame. It was thus that St. Augustine, the
great expounder of dogmatic Christianity in his day,
delighted to confess In Plato a teacher second only to
the Teacher of Galilee, and it is thus that the philoso
phy of Aristotle has organized the thought of men for
twenty centuries, and under two dispensations — the
heathen and the Christian ; for it was not until Bacon
had written his ¦¦ Novum Organum " that the sceptre
was wrested from the hands of this Intellectual monarch
among the sons of men. At more than one period the
Christian Schools, as Jeremy Taylor expresses it, " have
drawn some of their articles through the limbecs of
Plato's philosophy," while the colossal figure of the
great Stagirlte casts such a mighty shadow across the
ages that on historic grounds. If no other, we must
study the nature and the bearings of Grecian specula
tion. And the later phases of modern inquiry, under
this head, whether In France, or Germany, or Great
Britain, or in our own country, must equally engage
our attention If we are to scale the empyreal altitudes
of thought, where " Alps on Alps arise."
If in Language and Literature, in Mathematics, in
the Physical Sciences, and in Speculative Philosophy,
we find the great fundamental elements of Intellectual

16 ADDRESSES
education, it is easy to perceive, as no less the law of
necessity than of nature, that this education must pro
ceed from the simple to the complex, from the concrete
to the abstract, from the empirical to the rational. I
do not fear that the art of education will ever be so far
divorced from the science of education as to leave much
room for error in fixing the order and succession of
the studies that look to the equable and symmetrical
development of the mental powers. If, as Horace says,
we cannot drive out nature with a fork, neither can we
prick on nature by a fork Into premature intellectual
activity without soon discovering the source of our error
by the mischiefs to which it leads.
I cannot concur, therefore, with Mr. Herbert Spen
cer, when, as an Inference from the manifold ways In
which our mental powers may be excited and culti
vated, he concludes that our most advanced modes of
teaching "are not right ones, or nearly the right ones."
This is the very " dogmatism of despair," and not an
inference justified by either the history or philosophy
of education. And he seems to have sufficiently an
swered himself on this point when. In another place,
he propounds the doctrine that " the education of the
child must accord both in mode and arrangement with
the education of mankind, considered historically ; or,
in other words, that the genesis of knowledge in the
individual must follow the same course as the genesis
of knowledge in the race." If, therefore, we would
know the logical order of studies in any given curric
ulum, we have but to learn their chronological order
in the evolution and development of human know
ledge. History is here our teacher — teaching us
what to learn and how to learn if we would stand on
the shoulders of the generations who have gone be
fore us.

INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 17
And hence it is easy to see that the number and
quality and arrangement of studies in a university
course are not arbitrarily fixed by educators, but are
the outgrowth of man's intellectual tendencies in the
past, and the highest expression of his Intellectual
wants in the present, as they are the indispensable
conditions of future intellectual progress. They are
not arbitrary, because they follow and reproduce the
chronological order of the Intellectual development in
human history. And this is the order, by following
which the student lives into the life of humanity, and
reaches out his hand to that .ideal man in whom Pas
cal personified the whole human race, — "a man who
never dies, and who learns perpetually." The golden
lamp of history sheds Its light along the track of the
past ages, that we may review the steps already trod
den by the great intellectual masters of the race, and
that we may resume in this generation the culture of
all the generations that have yet appeared on the
globe. Any general system of education which ac
complishes less than this must lead to retrogression
rather than to progress.
And It is this order of studies which best lends
itself to the purposes of professional culture and to
proficiency In any branch of technology. He who has
been thoroughly grounded In the elements of Intel
lectual education is fitted to approach the study of
Law, or Medicine, or Theology, as from a " coigne of
vantage " which gives him an incalculable superiority
over one who Is ignorant of the relation in which his
profession stands to the affiliated branches of human
learning and the existing intellectual status of human
ity. True, we cannot expect, in the present stage of
knowledges, to " drive all the sciences abreast," as

18 ADDRESSES
Leibnitz was said to do in his day, but we can aspire
to such a universality of study as shall reveal to us
the cross-lights by which the sciences reciprocally illus
trate each other, bound as they are to one another by
a certain tie of relationship which makes them mem
bers of an inseparable sisterhood, like that of which
Tasso spoke : — — " Ch' in esser belle
Mostran disparita ma somigliente."
" No perfect discovery can be made," says Bacon,
" on a flat or a level ; neither is It possible to discover
the more remote and deeper parts of any science. If
you stand but upon the level of the same science, and
ascend not to a higher science." And so, as he adds
in another part of his treatise on the " Advancement
of Learning," " if any man think philosophy and uni
versality to be idle studies, he doth not consider that
all professions are from thence served and supplied."
And this he took to be the great cause that had
hindered the progression of learning, " because the
fundamental knowledges have been studied but in
passage." And it is In immediate connection with this view of
his that he deplored the segregation which resulted
from the dedicating of foundations and dotations to
single branches of " professory learning." The foun
dations of university education should be as broad as
the realms of knowledge In the sciences and in the
arts of civilized life. In laying these foundations, we
must understand our epoch ; and in building on them,
we must look to the mark of our high calling.
The men who founded seats of learning in the past
¦ — the kings and queens and princes and prelates and
statesmen, and the more than princely merchants who

INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 19
have thus Immortalized their names — may be truly
said to have " builded wiser than they knew." Eton
College, on the banks of the Thames, was founded
by Henry VL, " to endure in all future time," as the
residence of " twentj'-five poor scholars, who were there
to learn grammar, and also of twenty-five poor and
infirm men, whose duty It should be there continually
to pray for the King's health and welfare so long as
he lived, and for his soul after he had departed this
life." But what a long line of illustrious men among
the temporal and spiritual rulers of England — states
men, warriors, divines, scholars, and poets — has gone
forth from those old monastic walls since the year
1440, when they were first dedicated to " Blessed
Marie of Etone beside Wyndsore." It is nearly five
hundred years since the first serge-clad scholar was
led to the feet of William of Wykeham at Winches
ter, and still with all the superadded lights of the
nineteenth century : —
" His seventy f aitbf ul boys, in these presumptuous days,
Leam the old truth, speak the old words, tread in the ancient ways ;
Still for their daily orisons resounds the matin chime ;
StUl linked in holy brotherhood, St. Catherine's steep they climb ;
Still to their Sabbath worship they troop by Wykeham's tomb —
Still in the summer twilight sing their sweet song of Home."
How has the name of Oxford been transfigured
from glory to glory as, taking its original title from
the cattle who here were wont to ford the shallows
of the Isis, it has since become the Mecca of British
scholarship, to which the tribes of English youth re
pair from year to year ! How has Cambridge length
ened her cords and strengthened her stakes since the
year 1110, when Master GIslebert, with three other
monks, hired a barn on the banks of Cam, in which to

20 ADDRESSES
give public lectures ! " Thus from this small source,"
as the chronicle has it, — " from this small source,
which has swollen into a great river, we now behold
the city of God made glad, and all England rendered
fruitful by many teachers and doctors issuing from
Cambridge, as from a most holy paradise."
As there Is no source of blessing so perennial as
that of those who open the well-heads of learning In a
dry and thirsty land, so there Is no form of benefi
cence which preserves and hallows the memory like
that which calls on the successive generations of men
to rise up and bless the founders and benefactors of
our colleges and universities. It Is thus that at Ox
ford and at Cambridge a round of stated days Is set
apart for the solemn and grateful commemoration of
all in their annals quorum henefacta late patent, to
quote the words of the Cambridge statutes under this
head. By what else in his unfortunate history Is
Henry VI. so favorably known as by the foundation of
that college whose antique towers are to-day his best
monument, as they " crown the watery glades " near
the royal castle of England ? " Nations and thrones
and reverend laws," says Sir Roundell Palmer, —
" have melted like a dream.
Yet Wykeham's works are green and fresh beside the crystal stream."
In the light that streams through the stained-glass
windows of his colleges at Winchester and at Oxford,
towering monuments as they are to his large-hearted
and clear-headed philanthropy, the world has actually
forgotten that it was this same munificent prelate who
rebuilt the royal castle of the British kings, erected
the grand nave of Winchester Cathedral, repaired the
highways of England, spanned her rivers with bridges

INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 21
of solid masonry, recovered the Hospital of St. Cross
from the rapacity of its masters, paid the debts of
insolvent prisoners, and maintained at his hospitable
board a retinue of daily pensioners.
How the name of Sir Thomas Gresham, the " Flower
of Merchants," as he was called in the days of Queen
Elizabeth, still smells sweet and blossoms in the dust,
— leaving behind him, in the college which first gave
shelter to the "Royal Society" of Newton and his
associates, a fragrance and splendor which surpass all
the flowers of chivalry that bloomed in the wide tract
of the ^liddle Ages. And hence It was that the lovers
and friends of the saintly Keble in England, after
he had sung the " Christian Year," and been gathered
to the sevenfold harplngs of the chantry in Heaven,
could find no memorial so suited to keep his name
forever green as that which they reared in the college
but recently dedicated to his memory, and which they
have placed in the galaxy of Oxford, where it shall
forever shine like a star in the firmament. If what
he loved to call " the Oxford moral tone " shall ever
die out at the university, we may be sure it will die
out last of all in Keble College.
That was a wise choice and a noble which the sturdy
burghers of Leyden made, when, after their dauntless
struggle against the power of Spain, they were, as a
reward for their valor, left to choose between the gift
of a university and Immunity from taxation. They
chose the former, and thereby enriched not only them
selves but their posterity to the latest generation.
And not their posterity alone, for It was a professor of
the University of Leyden who, as editor of the Leyden
" Nouvelles Extraordinaires " ^ In 1780, turned that in-
^ A copy of this periodical for a series of years, embracing the

22 ADDRESSES
flueutial organ of European public opinion in favor of
American independence at a time when John Adams,
our minister In Holland, could gratefully appreciate
the value of such a championship, and it was this
same professor who helped to mould the mind of John
Quiney Adams, whose name we cannot mention to
night with other than the reverence due to one who
filled the curule chair of the republic, and who was no
less illustrious for his scholarship than for his public
services. In this presence, I need but to recall the
fact that this student of Leyden University, after he
became President of the LTnited States, was among
the most steadfast friends, and in the hour of its
ereatest need oue of the most liberal benefactors of
o the Columbian College, to establish in his favor, and
in the favor of the university beyond the sea, an addi
tional claim to our gratitude.
History tells us how the star of Prussia paled before
the meteoric genius of Napoleon, and a scholarly
tradition also records that when, iu 1807, she had
gained a nomiu.il peace, the king sent for Fichte, the
celebrated professor and speculative philosopher, to
consult with him as to the best means for restoring
Prussian prestige and power. Fichte was true to his
character as a philosopher and a professor. He ad
vised the king, if he wished to regenerate Prussia, to
found a university which should make Berlin not only
the political capital of his kingdom, but the intellec
tual capital of Germany, and even of Europe. Such,
It is said, were the origin and motive of the U^nivor-
sity of Berlin, and from this heart of Prussia, as from
a deep aud ever gushing geyser, what a copious stream
term of John Adams's residence in Holland, may be found in the
Library of Congress.

INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 23
of learning has flowed out, not only to quicken that
kingdom, but to gladden the world ! And to-day, if
you would read the secret of Sadowa and of Sedan,
you must search for It, not in arsenals crammed with
needle-guns, but in universities and in public schools,
which make Prussia the most enlightened and there
fore the most powerful nation of Europe.
Shall our College, with its fair beginnings, become
a well-head of knowledge and of power throughout the
land ? How has Harvard College, from Its small
beginnings, grown Into a great university ? Let Pre
sident Felton answer : " John Harvard's gift, and the
contributions of successive friends of learning in the
early times, followed by the Hollises, the Alfords, the
]McLeans, the Gores, the Eliots, the Phillipses, the
Lawrences, the Appletons, the Grays " (time would
fail to name all the " saints " of the Harvard calendar),
" have made the institution what it Is to-day," —
the foremost university in the land. Our College,
from the mere felicity of its situation at this metro
politan centre, where society is broad, liberal, and
cultured, has many advantages. The learning of the
present day, It Is important to remark, no longer
courts the shades of the cloister, but walks abroad
along the highways of empire. Behold how, but a few
weeks ago, the hand of Bismarck turned from proto
cols and papers of state to indite an autograph letter
to a private citizen of Italy, the Count Trivulzio,
begging, In behalf of Professor Mommsen, the loan
of a few old Latin inscriptions which the professor
needed to clear up some disputed question in the
Roman history he is writing, not for Prussian schol
ars alone, but for the whole literary world. There
is nothing esoteric In the learning of our day. And

24 ADDRESSES
what advantages are ours, both for gaining and dif
fusing the blessings of highest culture ! For here, at
our very doors, we have the Smithsonian Institution,
perpetually working, under the guidance of Its illus
trious secretary, on the boundaries of knowledge in
all departments, thus literally fulfilling the will of
Its founder and exemplifying the highest function of
a university, by increasing and diffusing knowledge
among men. And here is the National Library of
Congress, with Its well-filled alcoves, open alike to
teachers and scholars for purposes of literary and sci
entific research ; and here, for the study of technology,
are the accumulated fruits of American Inventive
genius stored in the Patent Office ; and here, for the
progressive scientific study of astronomy, is the Na
tional Observatory ; and here is that no less learned
and useful school of practical geometers connected
with the Coast Survey ; and here are the gardens
which, under the keeping of the Agricultural Depart
ment, Invite to the study of botany, not in dry her
baria and in dryer tomes, but amid flowery walks
through which Shenstone would have loved to ramble
by the side of Linnaeus or Hasselqulst. And here,
for the student of law, are the highest seats of our
American Themis, as here, for the votaries of the
healing art, are the priceless treasures of the Medical
Museum, without any rival in the world among Insti
tutions of its kind ; and here, by the munificence of
him who stands at the head of the governing board of
Our College, is the Corcoran Gallery of the Fine Arts,
to keep alive the love of beauty in the soul of man.
God grant that the day may not be far distant when
our College, already a university in embryo, may be
able, by the munificence of its endowments, and there-

INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 25
fore by the range of its studies, to take advantage of
all these singular opportunities for promoting true
culture in all Its departments. " Learning," says a
modern educator, " may be got from books, but not
culture. This latter is a more living process, and
requires that the student shall at times close his
book, leave his solitary room, and mingle with his
fellow-men." Where can he do this so well and so
profitably as here, in this Capital of the Nation, —
here, where, as Bacon desiderated, we have " straitly
conjoined " the conditions both of contemplation and
action, " a conjunction like unto that of the two high
est planets — Saturn, the planet of rest and contem
plation, and Jupiter, the planet of civil society and ac
tion " ? When our university, from these high places
of the land, shall send her quickening beams through
out the length and breadth of the nation, we shall have
realized equally the prayers of its pious founders and
the patriotic aspirations of Washington and Jefferson,
of Madison and Monroe, as of their illustrious com
peers — but not till then. As they labored and prayed
for a national university at the seat of the national
government, so to this same end let us labor and pray
in our generation, that we may build worthily and
wisely and munificently on the foundations laid by the
Fathers. Aud thus, perhaps, in this the fiftieth year
of our academic history, the chime of the next Christ
mas bells shall sweetly blend with the trumpets of our
jubilee.

II
LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOSEPH HENRY i
Joseph Henry was born in Albany, N. Y., on the
17th of December, 1799. His grandparents on both
his father's and mother's side emigrated from Scotland
and landed in this country on the 16th of June, 1775,
the day before the battle of Bunker Hill. At the age
of seven or earlier, for what reason is unknown, he
went to live with his maternal grandmother, who re
sided at Gal way, in the county of Saratoga, N. Y.,
and his father having died soon afterwards, he con
tinued to dwell for years under her roof. At Galway
he attended the district school, of which one Israel
Phelps was the master, and having there learned how
" to write and cipher, too," he was placed at the early
age of ten in a store kept In the village by a Mr.
Broderick. Receiving from his employer every token
of kindness, and, indeed, of paternal Interest In his
welfare, the boy clerk, already remarkable for his
handsome visage, his slender figure, his delicate com
plexion, and his vivacious temper, became a great
favorite with his comrades, who, according to the cus
toms of the village store, were wont to saunter about
the door in summer, and to gather round the stove in
winter for the Interchange of such trivial gossip as
pertains to village life. Though released at this time
1 A paper read before the Philosophical Society of Washington,
October 26, 1878.

LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOSEPH HENRY 27
for the half of each day from the duty of waiting in
the store, that he might attend the sessions of the
common school in the afternoon, it does not appear
that he had as yet evinced any taste for books, not
withstanding the fact, as he afterwards recalled, that
his young brain was even then troubled at times with
the " malady of thought," as he lost himself in the
mazes of reverie or speculation about God and creation
— "those obstinate questionings of sense and outward
things," which the philosophical poet of England has
described as the natural misgivings of a " creature
moving about in worlds not realized." "Delight and
liberty," as was natural to a bright boy in the full
flush of his animal spirits, still remained the simple
creed of his childhood, until one day his pet rabbit
escaped from Its warren, and ran into an opening in
the foundation of the village church. Finding the
hole sufficiently large to admit of pushing his person
through it, he followed on all fours in eager pursuit of
the fugitive, when his eyes were attracted in a certain
direction by a glimmer of light, and groping his way
towards it, beneath the church, he discovered that it
proceeded from a crevice which led into the vestibule
of the building, and which opened immediately behind
a bookcase that had been placed in the vestibule, as
the depository of the village library. Working his
way to the front of the bookcase, he found himself in
the presence of all the literature stored on Its shelves,
and on his taking down the first book which struck his
eye, it proved to be Brooke's " Fool of Quality," a work
of fiction in which views of practical life and traits
of mystical piety are artfully blended, insomuch that
even John Wesley was inclined to except it from the
auto-dafe, which, after the manner of the curate and

28 ADDRESSES
barber in the story of Don Quixote, he would have
gladly performed upon the less edifying products of
the novel-writing imagination. Poring over the pages
of this fascinating volume, young Henry forgot the
rabbit in quest of which he had crept beneath the
church. It was the first book he had ever read with
zest, because it was the first book he had ever read at
the impulse of his " own sweet will." Mrs. Browning
has told us that we get no good from a book by being
ungenerous with it, by calculating profits — " so much
help by so much reading." — " It is rather when
We gloriously forget ourselves, and plunge
Soul-forward, head-long, into a book's profound,
Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth —
'T is then we get the right good from a book."
Such was the " soul-forward, head-long plunge "
which the boyish Henry now first took in the waters of
romance, rendered only the sweeter to him, it may be,
because, without affront to innocence, they took the
flavor of " stolen waters " from the stealth with which
they were Imbibed. From that time forth he made
frequent visits to this library, by the same tortuous
and underground passage, reading by preference only
works of fiction, the contents of which he retailed to
listening comrades around the stove by night, until,
in the end, his patron, who shared in his taste for such
"light reading," procured for him the right of access
to the library in the regular way, and no longer by the
narrow fissure In the rear of the bookcase.
At the age of fifteen he left the store of Mr. Brod
erick in Galway, and, returning to the place of his
birth, entered a watchmaker's establishment In Al
bany, but finding nothing congenial to his taste in the

LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOSEPH HENRY 29
new pursuit, be soon abandoned it. At this time he
had formed a sti-ong predilection for the stage. Two
or three years before, while living at Galway, he had
seen a play for tlie first time, on the occasion of a
casual visit to Albany ; and tlie impression it made
upon his mind was as vivid as that left by tlie perusal
of his fii-st novel. He described and reenaoted its
scenes for the wonderment of the Galway youth, and
now that he was living in Albany, he could give full
vent to his new inclination. His spare money was all
spent ill theati'ical aiuusements, until at length he won
his way behind the scenes, and procured admission to
tlie green room, where he learned how to put a play ou
the boards, and how to produce the illusion of stage
effects. Iu the skill with which he learned tlius early
to handle the apparatus of the stage, we may discern,
perhaps, the first faint prelude of the skill to which he
subsequently attained in handling the " levers and
screws " with which, accoi-ding to Goethe, the experi
mental philosopher seeks to extort from nature the
revelation of her mysteries.
Invited at this period of his life to join a private
theatrical association in Albany, known by the name
of " The Rostrum," the young enthusiast soon distin
guished himself among his fellow-membei-s of riper
years by the ingenuity of his dramatic combinations
and the felicity of his scenic effects, insomuch that he
was made president of the society. Meanwhile, the
watchmaker had left Albany, and young Henry, no
lonarer havinsr tlie fear of the silversmith's file and
crucible before his eyes, was loft free to follow the
lead of his dramatic tastes and aspirations. He di-a-
inatized a tale and prepared a comedy, botli of which
were acted by tlie association. Indeed, so much was

30 ADDRESSES
he absorbed In this new vocation, that our amateur
Rosclus seemed, according to all outward appearance,
in a fair way of making a place for himself among
the " perlwig-pated fellows who tear a passion to tat
ters " on the stage ; or, at the best, of taking rank
with the great dramatic artists who, standing In front
of the garish footlights, "hold the mirror up to na
ture," In a sense far different from that of the experi
mental philosopher, standing In the clear beams of
that lumen siccum which Bacon has praised as the
light that is best of all for the eyes of the mind. But
in the midst of these " unintelligible dumb shows,"
under which the unique and original genius of Henry
had thus far seemed to be masquerading, we have
now come to the time when his mind underwent a
great transfiguration, which revealed Its native bright
ness, — a transfiguration as sudden as It was great.
Minds richly endowed, If started at first on a wrong
track, may sometimes have, it would seem, an Intel
lectual conversion as marked as that moral conversion
which is often visible in the lives of great saints. It
certainly was so In the case of Henry. Overtaken
In the sixteenth year of his age by a slight accident,
which detained him for a season within doors, he
chanced. In search of mental diversion, to cast his eyes
upon a book which a Scotch gentleman, boarding with
his mother, had left upon the table in his chamber.
It was Dr. Gregory's Lectures on Experimental Phi
losophy, Astronomy, and Chemistry. It commences
with an address to the young reader, In which the
author stimulates him to deeper inquiry concerning
the familiar objects around him. " Ybu throw a
stone," he says, " or shoot an arrow upwards into the
air ; why does it not go forward in the air, and In the

LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOSEPH HENRY 31
direction you give it ? What force Is it that presses
it down to the earth ? Why does flame or smoke al
ways mount upward ? You look into a clear well of
water, and see your own face and figure, as if painted
there ; why is this ? You are told it is done by reflec
tion of light. But what is reflection of light?" etc.,
etc. These queries certainly are very far from repre
senting the prudens qiin'stio of Bacon in even its
most elementary form, but they opened to the mind
of young Henry an entirely " new world of thought
and enjoyment." His attention was enchained by this
book as it had not been enchained by the fiction of
Brooke, or by the phantasmagoria of the drama.^
The book did for him what the spirits did for Faust
when they opened his eyes to see the sign of the ma
crocosm, .and summoned him "to unveil the powers
of nature lying all around him." Not more effectual
was the call which came to St. Augustine, when, as
he lay beneath the shadow of the fig-tree, weeping in
the bitterness of a contrite soul, he seemed to hear a
voice that said to him : " Telle, lege ; telle, lege," and
at the sound of which he turned away forever from
the Ten Predicaments of Aristotle, and all the books
of the rhetoricians, to follow what seemed to him the
' He soon become so much interested in this book that its owner
gave it to him, and iu token of the i pcnh it had marked in his life.
Profcs-sor Henry ever aftinwards preserved it among the choicest
raon.jrials of his boyhood. In tho fly-leaf of the book the following
memorandum is founit, written by Professor Henry in tlie year ]8.'!7 :
"This book, altliou;;h by no menus a profound work, has, under Pro-
videuee, exerted a remarkable influence on my life. It accidentally
fell into my l\andg when 1 was about sixteen years old, and was the
first book, with the exception of works of fiction, that I ever read
witli attont Ion. It opened to me a now world of thought and eujoy-
meut, invested thing's before almost nnnotiood witli tlie highest inter
est, fixed my mind on tlie study of nature, and caused me to resolve
at the time of reading it lli.il I would devote my lile to the acquisition
of knowledge. — Joseph Uaury."

32 ADDRESSES
" lively oracles of God." No sooner had Henry re
covered from his sickness, than, obedient to the new
vision of life and duty which had dawned upon him,
he summoned his comrades of " the Rostrum " to meet
him In conference, formally resigned the office of
president, and, in a valedictory address, announced
to his associates that, subordinating the pleasures of
literature to the acquisition of serious knowledge, he
had determined henceforth to consecrate his life to
arduous and solid studies.
There are doubtless those who, In the retrospect of
Professor Henry's youth, as contrasted with the rich
flower and fruitage of his riper years, will please them
selves with curious speculations on what " might have
been," If his rabbit had never slipped its inclosure, if
there had been no crack in the wall behind the book
case, or if Gregory's Lectures had never fallen in his
way at the critical juncture of his life, much as the
great mind of Pascal pleased Itself with musing how
the fate of Europe might have been changed If the
Providential grain of sand in Cromwell's tissue had
not sent him to a premature grave ; or how the whole
face of the earth would have been changed If the nose
of Cleopatra had been a little shorter than it was, and
so had marred the beauty of face which made her, like
another Helen, the teterrima causa belli for a whole
generation. Such fanciful speculations, It seems to
me, are well calculated to Import Into the philosophy
of human life, and Into the philosophy of human his
tory, a theory of causation which Is as superficial as
it is false. As honest Horatio says to Hamlet In the
play, when the latter proposes to trace the noble dust
of Alexander the Great, In Imagination, until per
chance It may be found stopping a bunghole, I feel

LIFE AXD CHARACTER OF JOSEPH HENRY 33
like saying in the presence of such fine-spun specula
tions, " 'T were to consider too curiously to consider
so." The strong intellectual forces which are organic
In a great mind, as the strong moral and political
forces which are organic in society, do not depend for
their evolution, or for their grand cyclical movements,
on the casual vicissitudes which ripple the surface of
human life and affairs. To argue in this wise Is to
mistake occasion for cause, and by confounding what
Is transient and incidental with what is permanent
and pervasive, is to make the noblest life, with Its
destined ends and ways, the mere creature of accident,
and is to convert human history, with its great secular
developments, Into the fortuitous rattle and chance
combinations of the kaleidoscope. We may be sure
that Henry was too great a man to have lived and
died without making his mark on the age in which
his lot was cast, whatever should have been the time,
place, or circumstance which was to disclose the color
and complexion of his destiny. The strong, clear
mind, like the crystal, takes its shape and pressure
from the play of the constituent forces within it, and
is not the sport of casual influences that come from
without. Armed, however, with his new enthusiasm, the
nascent philosopher hastened to join a night school in
Albany, but soon exhausted the lore of its master.
Encountering next a peripatetic teacher of English
gr.ammar, he became, under the pedagogue's drill, so
versed in the arts of orthography, etymology, syntax,
and prosody, that he started out himself on a gram
matical tour through the provincial districts of New
York, and returning from this first field of his tri
umphs as a teacher, he entered the Albany Academy

34 ADDRESSES
(then in charge of Dr. T. Romeyn Beck) as a pupil
in its more advanced studies. Meanwhile, In order
to "pay his way" in the academy, he sought employ
ment as a teacher In a neighboring district school, this
being, as he afterwards was wont to say, the only office
he had ever sought in his life ; and In this office he
succeeded so well that his salary was raised from f 8
for the first month to the munificent sum of $15 for
the second month of his service ! From pupil in the
academy and teacher of the district school, he was
soon promoted to the rank of assistant in the academy,
and henceforward had ample means for the further
prosecution of his studies. Leaving the academy, he
next accepted the post of private tutor In the family
of the Patroon in Albany, Mr. S. Van Rensselaer;
and, devoting his leisure hours to the study of the
higher mathematics, in conjunction with chemistry,
physiology, and anatomy, he at this time purposed to ¦
enter the medical profession, and had made some ad
vances In this direction, when he was called, In the
year 1826, to embark In a surveying expedition, set
on foot under the auspices of the State government
of New York, for the purpose of laying out a road
through the southern tier of counties in that State.
Starting with his men at West Point, and going
through the woods to Lake Erie, he acquitted himself
so well in this expedition that his friends endeavored
to procure for him a permanent appointment as cap
tain of an engineering corps, which it was proposed
to create for the prosecution of other internal Improve
ment schemes ; but the bill projected for this purpose
having fallen through, Mr, Henry again accepted,
though with some reluctance, a vacant chair which
was offered him in the Albany Academy.

LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOSEPH HENRY 35
In connection with the duties of this chair, he now
conimeuoed a series of original experiments in natural
philosophy, — the first connected series which had been
prosecuted in this country. Dr. Hare, indeed, had
already invented the compound blowpipe, as Franklin
before him, by his brilliant but desultory labors, had
given an immense impulse to the science of electricity ;
yet none the less is it true that regular and systematic
Investigations, designed to push forward the bounda
ries of knowledge, abreast with the scientific workers
of Europe, had hardly been attempted at that era In
the United States.
The achievements of Henry in this direction soon
began to win for him an increase of reputation as well
as an Increase of knowledge ; but in the midst of the
fervors which had come to quicken his genius, he was
visited by the fancy (or was it a fact ?) that a few of
the friends who had hitherto supported him In his
high ambition were now beginning to look a little less
warmly on his aspirations. Suffering from this source
the mental depression which was natural to a sensitive
spirit, no less remarkable for Its modesty than for Its
merit, he found solace in the friendly words of good
cheer and hopefulness addressed to him by Mr. Wil
liam Dunlap.i While one day making, with Mr.
Henry, a trip down the Hudson River, on board the
same steamboat, Mr. Dunlap observed in the young
teacher's face the marks of sadness, and, on learning
its cause, he laid his hand affectionately on Henry's

' This Mr. Dunlap had been the manager of the Park Theatre in
New York, and combined with his dramatic vocation the pursuits of
litcraturo and the painter's art. lie wrote the History of Arts and
Designs in the United States, a work which was esteemed a standard
one at the date of its first publication, in 1834.

36 ADDRESSES
shoulder, and closed some reassuring advice with the
prophetic words, " Albany will one day be proud of
her son." The presage was destined to be abundantly
confirmed. Soon afterwards came the call to Prince
ton College, and, because of the wider career It opened
to him, the call was as grateful to Henry as its ac
ceptance was gratifying to the friends of that institu
tion. And shortly before this promotion, a new happi
ness had come to crown his life in his marriage to the
excellent lady who still survives him.
He entered upon the duties of his new post in the
month of November, 1832, and bringing with him a
budding reputation, which soon blossomed into the
highest scientific fame, he became the pride and orna
ment of the Princeton faculty. The prestige of his
magnets attracted students from all parts of the coun
try ; but the magnetism of the man was better far
than any work of his cunning hand or fertile brain.
It was in Princeton, as he was afterwards wont to say,
that he spent the happiest days of his life, and they
were also among the most fruitful In scientific dis
covery. Leaving the record of his particular achieve
ments at this epoch to be told by Mr. Taylor, who is
so well qualified to do them justice, I beg leave only
to refer to this period In the career of Professor Henry
as that In which it was my good fortune to come, for
the first time, under the personal Influence of the
great philosophical scholar, who, after being my teacher
in science during the days of my college novitiate at
Princeton, continued during the whole of his subse
quent life to honor me with a friendship which was as
much my support in every emergency that called for
counsel and guidance, as It was at all times my joy
and the crown of my rejoicing.

LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOSEPH HENRY 37
In the year 1847, when Professor Henry was in
the forty-eighth year of his ago, he was unanimously
elected by the Regents of the Smithsonian Institution
as its Secretary or Director. At that time the in
stitution existed only in name, under the organic act
passed by Congress for Its incorporation, in order to
give effect to the bequest of James Smithson, Esq.,
of London, who by his last will and testament had
given the whole of his property to the United States,
to found at Washington, under the name of the
" Smithsonian Institution," an establishment for " the
increase and diffusion of knowledge among men." It
does not need to be said that Professor Henry did
not seek this appointment. It came to him unsolicited,
but It came to him from the Board of Regents, not
only by the free choice of Its members, but also at the
suggestion and with the approval of European men of
science, like Sir David Brewster, Faraday, and Arago,
as also of American scientific men, like Bache and
Silliman and Hare. I well remember to have heard
the late George M. Dallas (a member of the constitu
ent Board of Regents by virtue of his office as Vice-
President of the United States) make the remark on
a public occasion, immediately after the election of
Professor Henry as Director of the Smithsonian Insti
tution, that the Board had not had the slightest hesi
tation in tendering the appointment to him " as being
peerless among the recognized heads of American
science." At the invitation of the Regents he drew up an
outline plan of the Institution, and the plan was
adopted by them on the 13th of December, 1847. The
members of this Society, living as they do beneath
the shadow of the great institution to which Smithson

38 ADDRESSES
worthily gave his name aud his estate, but of which
Henry was at once the organizing brain and the di
recting hand from the date of its Inception down to
the day of his death, do not need that I should sketch
for them the theory on which it was projected by Its
first Secretary, or that I should rehearse in detail the
long chronicle of the useful and multiform services
which in pursuit of that theory it has rendered to the
cause of science and of human progress. And, more
over, in doing so I should here again Imprudently
trench on the province assigned to my learned col
league. But I may be allowed to portray the method
and spirit which he brought to the duties of this exact
ing post, at least so far as to say that he proved him
self as great In administration as he was great in
original research ; as skillful In directing the scientific
labors of others as he was skillful in the conduct of his
own. Seizing, as with an intuitive eye, the peculiar
genius of an institution which was appointed to " In
crease knowledge " and to " diffuse " it " among men,"
he touched the springs of scientific inquiry at a thou
sand points in the wide domain of modern thought, and
made the results of that inquiry accessible to all, with
a catholicity as broad as the civilized world. And the
publications of the Smithsonian Institution, valuable
as they are, and replete as they are with contributions
to human knowledge, represent the least part of his
manifold labors in connection with the Institution.
His correspondence was immense, covering the whole
field of existing knowledge, and ranging, in the per
sons addressed, from the genuine scientific scholar In
all parts of the world, to the last putative discoverer
of perpetual motion, or the last embryo mathematician
who supposed himself to have squared the circle.

LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOSEPH HENRY 39
In accepting a post where he was called by virtue
of his office to fecundate the labors of other men
rather than his own, Professor Henry dlstinctlj' saw
that he was renouncing for himself the paths of sci
entific glory on which he had entered so auspiciously at
Albany and Princeton. He once said to me. In one
of the self-revealing moods In which he sometimes un
bosomed himself to his intimate friends, that In accept
ing the office of Smithsonian Secretary he was con
scious that he had " sacrificed future fame to present
reputation." He was In the habit of recalling that
Newton had made no discoveries after he was ap
pointed Warden of the Mint in 1695,^ and I believe
that the remark is historically accurate, unless we
should incline with Biot, against the better opinion of
Sir David Brewster, to place after that date the " dis
coveries " which Newton supposed himself to have
made in the Scriptural chronology and in the inter'
pretatlon of the Apocalypse, — discoveries which, when
ever made, provoked the theological scoff, as they
perhaps deserved the theological criticism, of the
polemical Bishop Warburton. Yet, having convinced
himself that It was a duty which he owed to the cause
of science to sink his own personality in the imper
sonal institution he was called to conduct, Henry
never paused for an Instant to confer with flesh and
blood, but moved " right onward " In the path of duty,
1 The effect of the wardenship on Newton's scientific labors may be
seen in the warmth with which he rebuked Flamsteed for purposing
to publish, in 1698, the fact that Newton was then engaged on a re
vision of the Horroxian theory of the moon. Newton wrote: "I do
not love to be printed on every occasion, much less to be dunned and
teased hy foreigners about mathematical things, or to be thought by
our own people to be trifling away my time when I should be about the
king's business."

40 ADDRESSES
with only the more of steadfastness, because he felt
that It was for him a path of sacrifice.
How sedulously he strove to maintain the Institu
tion In the high vocation to which he believed it was
appointed, no less by a sacred regard for the will of
its founder than by an intelligent zeal for the promo
tion of human welfare, is known to you all. And the
success with which he resisted all schemes for the
Impoverishment of the exalted function It was fitted to
perform In the service of abstract science is a tribute
at once to his rare executive skill, and to the native
force of character which made him a tower of strength
against the clamors of popular ignorance and the
assaults of charlatanism. Whatever might be the
consequences to himself personally, he was determined
to magnify its vocation and make it honorable. And
hence I do not permit myself to doubt that during the
long period of his administration as Secretary of the
Smithsonian Institution, covering a period of thirty
years, he has Impressed upon Its conduct a definite
direction which his successors will be proud to main
tain, not simply In reverence for the memory of their
illustrious predecessor, but also In grateful recognition
of the fruitful works which, in the pursuit of his
enlightened plans, will continue to follow him now
that he has rested from his labors.
The rest into which he has entered came to him in
a green old age, after a life as full of years as it was
full of honors. He was not only blest with an old
age which was serene and bright,
And lovely as a Lapland night,
but he also had that which, according to the great
dramatist, should accompany old age, — " as honor.

LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOSEPH HENRY 41
love, obedience, troops of friends." And the manner
of his death was in perfect keeping with the manner
of his life. Assured for mouths before the Inevitable
hour came that his days on earth were numbered, he
made no change in his daily official employments, no
change in his social and literary diversions. None
was needed. Surprise, I learn, has been expressed
that in the full prospect of death he should have
" talked " so little about it. But the surprise is quite
unfounded. Professor Henry was little In the habit
of talking about himself at any time. Yet to his
Intimate friends he spoke freely and calmly about his
approaching end. Two weeks before he died he said
to one such, a gentleman from New York, to whom he
was strongly attached, " I may die at any moment. I
would like to live long enough to complete some things
I have undertaken, but I am content to go. I have
had a happy life, and I hope I have been able to do
some good." In an hour's conversation which I had
with him six days before he died, he referred to the
imminence of his death with the same philosophic and
Christian composure. And perfectly aware as he was
on the day before he died, and on the day of his death,
that he had already entered the Dark Valley, he
feared no evil as he looked across it, but, poised in a
sweet serenity, preserved his soul in patience, at an
equal remove from rapture on the one hand, or any
thing like dismay on the other. For his friends he
had even then the same benignant smile, the same
warm pressure of the hand, and the same affable con
verse as of yore. With the astronomer Newcomb, he
pleasantly and intelligently discoursed about the then
recent transit of Mercury, — not unheedful of the
great transit he was making, but giving heed none the

42 ADDRESSES
less to every opportunity for the inquiry of truth.
Towards the attendants watching around his couch he
was as observant as ever of all the " small sweet cour
tesies " which marked consideration for others rather
than for himself, even in the supreme moment of his
dissolution. The disciples of Socrates recalled, with a
sort of pathetic wonder at the calm and intrepid spirit
of their dying master, that as the chill of the fatal
hemlock was stealing towards his heart, he uncovered
his face to ask that Crito should acquit him of a small
debt he owed to Esculapius ; and so In like manner I
recall that our beloved chief did not forget in the
hour of his last agony to make provision for the due
dispatch of a letter of courtesy, which on the day
before he had promised to a British stranger.
And so In the full possession of all his great mental
powers — In his waking hours filled with high thoughts
and with a peace which passed all understanding ; in
his sleep stealing away
" To dreamful wastes where footless fancies dwell,"
and talking even there of experiments In sound on
board the steamer Mistletoe, or haply taking note of
electric charges sent through imaginary wires at his
bidding ^ — the soul of Joseph Henry passed away
from the earth, which he had blessed and brightened
by his presence. He died ten minutes after twelve
o'clock on the 13th of May, 1878.
1 Professor Henry took great delight in the acoustical researches
¦nhich, during the closing years of his life, he made at sea, on board
the steamer Mistletoe, while it was in electricity that he won his first
triumphs as a scientific raan. That his first love and last passion in
science stUl filled his thoughts in his dying moments was attested by
the words which even then fell from his lips in sleep.

LIFE AND CH.ARACTER OF JOSEPH HENRY 43
From these imperfect notes ou the life of Professor
Henry, I pass to consider some of his traits and char
acteristics as a man.
He was endowed with a physical organization In
which the elements that composed it were not only fine
and finely mixed, but were cast in a mould remarkable
for its symmetry and manly beauty. The perfection
of his " outward man " was not unworthy of the " in
ward man " whom it enshrined, and if, as a church
father has phrased it, " the human soul is the true
Shechlnah," it may none the less be said that these
" fleshly nooks " of ours never appear to so much ad
vantage as when, transfigured by this Shechinah, they
offer to the Informing spirit a temple which is as stately
as it is pure. When Dr. Bentley was called to write
the epitaph of Cotes (that brilliant scholar of whom
Newton said that " if he had lived we might have
known something "), the accomplished master of words
thought it not unmeet to record that the fallen pro
fessor, who had been snatched away by a premature
death, was only " the more attractive and lovely be
cause the virtues and graces which he joined to the
highest repute for leaming were embellished by a
handsome person." The same tribute of admiration
might be paid with equal justice to the revered pro
fessor whose " good gray head " has just vanished
from our sight.
The fascination of Professor Henry's manner was
felt by all who came within the range of its Influence,
— by men with whom he daily consorted in business,
In college halls, and in the scientific academy; by
brilliant women of society, who in his gracious pre
sence owned the spell of a masculine mind which none
the less was feminine In the delicacy of Its percep-

44 ADDRESSES
tions and the purity of its sensibilities ; by children,
who saw in the simplicity of his unspoiled nature a
geniality and a kindliness which were akin to their
own. A French thinker has said that a mesure qu'on
a plus d' esprit on trouve quit y a pilus d'hommes
originaux. It was the breadth and catholicity of
Henry's intelligence which enabled him to find some
thing unique and characteristic In persons who were
flat, stale, and unprofitable to the average mind.
Gifted with a mental constitution which was " feel
ingly alive to each fine impulse," he possessed a high
degree of aesthetic sensibility to the beautiful In nature
and in art. It cannot be doubted that a too exclusive
addiction to the analytic and microscopic study of
nature, at the instance of science, has a tendency to
blunt in some minds a delicate perception for the
" large llvingness " of Nature, considered as a source
of poetic and moral inspiration, but no such tendency
could be discovered In the Intellectual habitudes of
Professor Henry. To a mind long nurtured by arts
of close and critical Inquiry Into the logic of natural
law he none the less united a heart which was ever
ready to leap with joy at " the wonder and bloom of
the world." When on the occasion of his first visit
to England, In the year 1837, he was traveling by
night In a stagecoach through Salisbury Plain, he
hired the driver to stop, while all his fellow passengers
were asleep, that he might have the privilege of in
specting the ruins of Stonehenge, as seen by moon
light, and brought away a weird " sense of mystery "
which followed him In all his after life. At a later
day, in the year 1870, after visiting the Aar Glacier,
the scene of Professor Agassiz's well-known labors, he
crossed over the mountain to the Rhone Valley, until.

LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOSEPH HENRY 45
at a sudden turn of the road, he canio fuU in the
presence of the majestic glacier of the Rhone. For
minutes he stood silent and motionless ; then, turning
to the daughter who stood by his side, he exclaimed,
with the tears running down his cheeks, " This Is a
place to die in. We should go no further."
And as he rejoiced in natural scenery so also was he
charmed with the beauties of art, whether as seen in
" the well-stained canvas or the featured stone," and
hence It was that he felt as much at home in the atelier
of the painter or sculptor as in the laboratory of the
chemist or the apparatus room of the natural philoso
pher, and exulted as sincerely in the Louvre or the
Corcoran Gallery of Art as In the cabinet of the
mineralogist or the museum of the naturalist.
He was as remarkable for the simplicity of his na
ture as for the breadth of his mind and the acumen of
his intellect. Those who analyze the nature and charm
of simplicity in a great mind suppose themselves to find
the secret of both In the fact that simplicity, allied
with greatness, works its marvels with a sweet uncon
sciousness of its own superior excellence, and it works
them with this unconsciousness because it Is greater
than it knows. Talent does what it can. Genius does
what it must. And in this respect, as an English
writer has said, there is a great analogy between the
highest goodness and the highest genius ; for under
the influence of either, the spirit of man, " whenever
it lifts up its head and shakes its locks," may scatter
light and splendor around it, without admiring itself
or seeking the admiration of others. And it was in
this sense that the simplicity of Henry's nature ex
pressed Itself In acts of goodness and in acts of high
Intelligence, with a spontaneity which hid from himself

46 ADDRESSES
the transcendent virtue and dignity of the work he
was doino- : and hence all his work was done without
the slightest taint of vanity or tarnish of self-compla
cency. As might be expected, he was a fervent lover of the
best literature. His acquaintance with the English
poets was not only wide but intimate. His memory
was stored with choice passages, didactic, sentimental,
witty, and humorous, which he reproduced at will on
occasions when they were apt to his purpose. His
familiarity with fiction dated, as we have seen, from
early boyhood, and in this fountain of the Imagination
he continued to find refreshment for the " wear and
tear " of the hard and continuous thought to which he
was addicted iu the philosopher's study. His know
ledge of history was accurate, and it was not simply a
knowledge of facts, but a knowledge of facts as seen in
the logical coherence and rational explanation which
make them the basis of historic generalization. The
genesis of the Greek civilization was a perpetual ob
ject of interest to his speculative mind, as called to
deal with the phenomena of Grecian literature, art,
philosophy, and polity.
He was a terse and forcible writer. If, as some have
said, It is the perfection of style to be colorless, the
style of Henry might be likened to the purest amber,
which, Invisible itself, holds in clear relief every ob
ject it envelops. Without having that fluent delivery
which, according to the well-known comparison of
Dean Swift, is rarely characteristic of the fullest
minds, he was none the less a pleasing and effective
speaker — the more effective because his words never
outran his thought. We loved to think and speak of
him as " the Nestor of American Science," and if his

LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOSEPH HENRY 47
speech, like Nestor's, " flowed sweeter than honey," it
was due to the excellent quality of the matter rather
than to any rhetorical facility of manner.
He was blest with a happy temperament. He re
corded in his diary, as a matter of thanksgiving, that
through the kindness of Providence he was able to
forget what had been painful in his past experiences,
and to remember only and enjoy that which had been
pleasui-abte. The same sentiment is expressed in one
of his letters. Armed with this sunny temper which,
like the dial, "marks only the hours that shine,"
he was in his family circle a perpetual benediction.
And in turn he was greatly dependent on his family
for the sympathy and watch-care due In a thousand
small things to one who never " lost the childlike in
the larger mind." His domestic affections were not
dwarfed by the exacting nature of his official duties,
his public cares, or his scientific vigils. He had none
of that solitary grandeur affected by isolated spirits
who cannot descend to the tears aud smiles of this
common world. He was never so happy as when in
Lis home he was communing with wife and children
around the family altar. He made them the confi
dants of aU his plans. He rehearsed to them his sci
entific experiments. He reported to them the record
of each day's adventures. He read with them his fa
vorite authors.^ He entered with a gleeful spirit Into
^ The foUowing extract from a diary, kept by one of his daughters,
is descriptive of his habits under this head : " Had father with us all
the evening. I modeled his profile in clay while he read Thomson's
Seasojis to us. In the earlier part of the evening he seemed restless
and depressed, bnt the influence of the poet drove away the cloud,
and then an expression of almost childlike sweetness rested on his
lips, singularly in contrast yet beautifully in harmony with the intel
lect of the brow above."
Or take this extract from the some diary : '" TTe were all up until

48 ADDRESSES
all their joys, with a sympathetic heart into all their
sorrows. And while thus faithful to the charities of
home, he was intensely loyal to his friends, and found
in their society the very cordial of life. Gracious
to all, he grappled some of them to his heart with
hooks of steel. The friendship, fed by a kindred love
of elegant letters, which stUl lends Its mellow lustre
to the names of Cicero and Attlcus, was not more
beautiful than the friendship, fed by kindred talents,
kindred virtues, and kindred pursuits, which so long
united the late Dr. Bache and Professor Henry In the
bonds of a sacred brotherhood. And this was but one
of the many similar intimacies which came to embellish
his long and useful career.
His sense of honor was delicate in the extreme. It
was not only that " chastity of honor which feels a
stain like a wound," but at the very suggestion of a
stain it recoiled as instantly as the Index finger of ]Mr.
Edison's tasimeter at the "suspicion " of heat. I met
him in 1847. when, soon after his election as Secre
tary of the Smithsonian Institution, he had just been
chosen to succeed Dr. Hare as Professor of Chemistry
In the iledical Department of the University of Penn
sylvania, at a salary double that which he was to re
ceive in Washington, and with half the year open to
free scientific investigation, because free from profes
sorial duties. It was, he said, the post which of all
a late hour, reading poetry with father and mother, father being the
reader. He attempted Coirper's Grave, by Mrs. Browning, but was
too tender-hearted to finish the reading of it. We then laughed over
the Address to the Mummy, soared to heaven with Shelley's Sl'i/IarJc,
roamed the forest with Bryant, culled flowers from other poetical
fields, and ended with Tam O'Shanter. I took for my task to recite
a part of the latter from memory, while father correeted, as if he were
' phaying schoolmaster. ' "

LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOSEPH HENRY 49
others he could have desiderated at that epoch in his
scientific life, but his honor, he added, forbade him to
entertain for a moment the proposition of accepting
It after the obligations under which he had come to
the interests represented by the Smithsonian Institu
tion. At a later day, after he had entered on his
duties in Washington, and found the position environed
with many difficulties, Mr. Calhoun came to him, and
urged his acceptance of a lucrative chair In a Southern
college, using as a ground of appeal the Infelicities of
his present post, and the prospect of failing at last to
realize the high designs he had projected for the man
agement of the Smithsonian Institution. Admitting
that It might be greatly to his comfort and advantage
at that time to give up the Smithsonian, he declined
at once to consider the proposal made to him, on the
ground that his " honor was committed to the Institu
tion." Whereupon Mr. Calhoun seized his hand, and
exclaimed, " Professor Henry, you are a man after my
own heart."
When in 1853, and again in 1867, he was entreated
to accept the presidency of Princeton College, the
college of his love and the scene of his " happiest
days," he Instantly turned away from the lure, as feel
ing that he could not love the dear old college so
much if he loved not more the honor and duty which
bound him to the establishment In Washington, with
which, for good or for evil, he had wedded his name
and fortune. And in all other concerns, from the
greatest to the least, he seemed like one
" Intent each lurking frailty to disclaim,
And guard the way of life from all offence.
Suffered or done."
The " Man of Ross," portrayed by the pencil of

50 ADDRESSES
Pope, was not more benevolent in heart or act than
Professor Henry. His bounty was large and free.
The full soul mantled in his eyes at every tale of woe,
and the generous hand was quick to obey the chari
table impulses of his sympathetic nature. This be
nevolent spirit ran like a silver cord through the tissue
of his Ufe, because it was interwoven in the very warp
and woof of his being, and because it was kept in con
stant exercise. It appeared not only in acts of kind
ness to the poor and afflicted, but interpenetrated his
whole demeanor, and informed all his conduct wher
ever he could be helpful to a fellow man. He did
good to aU as he had opportunity, from " the forlorn
and shipwrecked brother," who had already failed In
the voyage of life, to the adventurous young mariner
who sought his counsel and guidance for the success
ful launching of his ship from its ways. Many are
the young men who, in all parts of the land, could
rise up to-day and call him blessed, for the blessing
he brought to them by the kind word spoken and the
kind deed done, each in its season.
Unselfishness was a fundamental trait in the char
acter of Professor Henry, and he made the same trait
a fundamental one in his conception of the philoso
pher's high calling. The work of scientific inquiry
was with him a labor of love, not simply becanse he
loved the labor, bnt becanse he hoped by it to advance
the cause of truth and promote the welfare of man.
He never dreamed of profiting by any discovery he
made. He would not even have his salary increased,
so tenaciously did he hold to the Christlike privilege
of living among men "as one that serveth." This
was a crown which he would let no man take from
him. To the government he freely gave, in many

LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOSEPH HENRY 61
spheres of public usefulness, all the time he could
spare from his official duties. And It was in one of
these subsidiary public labors, as Chairman of the
Light-House Board, that he contracted, as he believed,
the disease which carried him to the grave.
A sense of rectitude presided over all his thoughts
and acts. He had so trained his mind to right think
ing, and his will to right feeling and right doing, that
this absolute rectitude became a part of his Intellectual
as well as moral nature. Hence In his methods of
philosophizing he was incapable of sophistical reason
ing. He sat at the feet of nature with as much of
candor as of humility, never importing into his obser
vations " the human being's pride," or the " mystical
predominance " of an overweening fancy. He was
sober in his judgments. He made no hasty generali
zations. His mind seemed to turn on " the poles of
truth." I could not dwell with enough of emphasis on this
crowning grace of our beloved friend if I should seek
to do full justice to my conception of the completeness
it gave to his beautiful character. But happily for
me I need dwell upon it with only the less of emphasis
because it was the quality which, to use a French
idiom, " leaped into the eyes " of all who marked his
walk and conversation. In the crystal depths of a
nature like his, transparent In all directions, we dis
cern as well the felicity as the beauty of that habit of
mind which is begotten by the supreme love of Truth
for her own sake, — a habit which is as much the con
dition of intellectual earnestness, thoroughness, and
veracity In penetrating to the reality of things, as of
moral honesty, frankness, sincerity, and truthfulness
in dealing with our fellow men. The great expounder

52 ADDRESSES
of the NIcomachean Ethics has taught us, and one of
our own moralists has amplified the golden thesis,^
that high moral virtue Implies the habit of " just elec
tion " between right and wrong, and that to attain
this habit we need at once an intelligence which is im
passioned and an appetite which is reflective. And
so in like manner all high intellectual virtue Implies
a habit of just election between truth and error, — an
election which men make, other things being equal,
according to the degree in which their minds are
enamored with the beauty of truth, as also in pro
portion to the degree in which their appetencies for
knowledge have been trained to be reflective and cau
tious against the enticements of error. I never knew
a man who strove more earnestly than Henry to make
this just election between right and wrong, between
truth and error, or who was better equipped with a
native faculty for making the wise choice between
them. He had brought his whole nature under the
dominion of truthfulness.
But while thus eager and honest In the pursuit of
truth, he had nothing controversial in his temper. It
was a favorite doctrine of his that error of opinion
could be most successfully combated, not by the nega
tive processes of direct attack, rousing the pride and
provoking the contumacy of its adherents, but rather
by the affirmative process of teaching, in meekness
and love, the truth that is naturally antagonistic to It.
The king of Sweden and Norway made him a Knight
of St. Olaf, but St. Olaf 's thunderous way of propagat
ing Christianity — by battering down the Idols of Nor
way with Thor's own hammer — is not the way that
his American votary would have selected. There was
^ Dr. James H. ThornweU, Discourses on Truth.

LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOSEPH HENRY 63
nothing iconoclastic In Henry's zeal for truth. He
believed that there is in all truth a self-evidencing
quality, and a redemptive power which makes It at once
a potent and a remedial force In the world. Hence he
never descended to any of those controversies which, in
the annals of science, have sometimes made the odium
scientificum a species of hatred quite as distinct, and
quite as lively, too, as its more ancient congener, the
odium theologicum. When once It was sought to
force a controversy of this kind upon him, and when
accusations were made which seemed to affect his per
sonal honor, as well as the genuineness of his scientific
claims, he referred the matter for adjudication to the
Regents of the Smithsonian. Their investigation and
their report dispensed him from the necessity of self-
defense. The simple truth was his sufficient buckler.
And this equanimity was not simply the result of
temperament. It sprang from the largeness of his
mind, as well as from the serious view he took of life
and duty. He was able to moderate his own opinions,
because, in the amplitude of his intellectual powers,
he was able to be a moderator of opinions in the
scientific world. You all know with what felicity and
intellectual sympathy he presided over the delibera
tions of this Society, composed as It Is of Independent
scientific workers in almost every department of mod
ern research. Alike in the judicial temper of his
mind and In the wide range of his acquisitions he was
fitted to be, as Dante has said of Aristotle, " the mas
ter of those who know."
And this power of his mind to assimilate knowledge
of various kinds naturally leads me to speak of his
skill in imparting it. He was a most successful edu
cator. He had many other titles of honor or office,

64 ADDRESSES
but the title of "Professor" seemed to rank them all,
for everybody felt that he moved among men like one
anointed with the spirit and power of a great teacher.
And he had philosophical views of education, extend
ing from its primary forms to Its highest culminations
— from the discipline of the " doing faculties " in
childhood to the discipline of the " thinking faculties "
In youth and manhood. No student of his left the Al
bany Academy, In the earlier period of his connection
with that institution, without being thoroughly drilled
In the useful art of handling figures, for then and
there he taught the rudimental forms of arithmetic,
not so much by theory as by practice. No student of
his left Princeton College without being thoroughly
drilled in the art of thinking as applied to scientific
problems, for then and there he was called to indoc
trinate his pupils In the rationale as well as in the
results of the inductive method. And I will venture
to add that no intelligent student of his at Princeton
ever failed, In after life, to recognize the useful place
which hypothesis holds in labors directed to the ex
tension of science, or failed to discriminate between a
working hypothesis and a perfected theory.
Pausing for a moment at this stage In the analysis
of Professor Henry's mental and moral traits, I can
not omit to portray the effect produced on the observer
by the happy combination under which these traits
were so grouped and confederated in his person as to
be mutual complements of each other. Far more si"--
nificant than any single quality of his mind, remark
able as some of his qualities were, was the admirable
equipoise which kept the forces of his nature from all
Interference with the normal development of an in
tegral manhood. He was courtly In his manners,

LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOSEPH HENRY 65
but it was the courtliness which springs from " high
thoughts seated in a heart of courtesy," and had no
trace of affectation or artiiiciality ; he was fastidious
in his literary and artistic tastes, but he had none of
that dilettantism which is " fine by defect and deli
cately weak ; " he was Imbued with a simplicity of heart
which left him absolutely without guile, yet he was
shrewd to protect himself against the arts of the de
signing ; he was severe in his sense of honor without
being censorious ; he was benevolent, yet inflexibly
just ; quick In perception, yet calm in judgment and
patient of labor ; tenacious of right without being
controversial ; benignant in his moral opinions, yet
never selling the truth ; endowed with a strong imagi
nation, yet evermore making It the handmaid of his
reason ; a prince among men, yet without the slightest
alloy of arrogance in the fine gold of his Imperial in
tellect ; In a word, good In all his greatness, he was
at the same time great In all his goodness. Such are
the limitations of human excellence in most of its
mortal exhibitions that transcendent powers of mind,
or magnificent displays of virtue exerted in a single
direction, are often found to owe their " splendid
enormity " to what Isaac Taylor has called " the spolia
tion of some spurned and forgotten qualities," which
are sacrificed in the pursuit of a predominant taste
or an overmastering ambition.^ The ^' Infirmities of
genius " often attest in their subjects the presence of a
mental or moral atrophy, which has hindered the full-
orbed development of one or more among their mental
1 The phrase, as originally applied by Taylor, is descriptive of cer
tain incomplete ethical systems, but it is equally applicable to certain
typical exemplifications of human character, in which " the strength
and the materials of six parts of morality have been brought together
wherewith to construct a seventh part."

56 ADDRESSES
and moral powers. But in Professor Henry no one
quality of mind or heart seemed to be in excess or
deficiency as compared with the rest. All were fused
together into a compactness of structure and homo
geneity of parts which gave to each the strength and
grace imparted by an organic union. And hence,
while he was great as a philosopher he was greater
as a man, for laying as he did aU the services of his
scientific life on the altar of a pure, complete, and
dignified manhood, we must hold that the altar which
sanctified his gifts was greater than even the costliest
offerings he laid upon it.
It will not be expected that I should close this paper
without referring to the religious life and opinions of
Professor Henry. If in moral height and beauty he
stood like the palm tree, tall, erect, and symmetrical,
it is because a deep religious faith was the tap-root of
his character. He was, on what he conceived to be
rational grounds, a thorough believer In theism. I
do not think he would have said, with Bacon, that he
" had rather believe all the fables In the Legend, the
Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal
frame is without a mind," for he would have held that
in questions of this kind we should ask not what we
would " rather believe," but what seems to be true on
the best evidence before us. He was In the habit of
saying that, next to the belief In his own existence,
was his belief in the existence of other minds like his
own, and from these fixed, indisputable points he rea
soned, by analogy, to the conclusion that there is an
Almighty Mind pervading the universe. But when
from the likeness between this Infinite Mind and the
finite minds made in His Image, it was sought, by a
priori logic or by any preconceived notions of man,

LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOSEPH HENRY 67
to infer the methods of the Divine working, or the
final causes of things, he suspected at once the intru
sive presence of a false as well as presumptuous
philosophism, and declined to yield his mind an easy
prey to Its blandishments. To his eyes much of the
free and easy teleology, with which an under-wise and
not over-reverent sciolism is wont to interpret the
Divine counsels and judgments, seemed little better
than a Brocken phantom, — the grotesque and dis
torted image of its own authors, projected on mist and
cloud, and hence very far from being the inscrutable
teleology of Him whose glory it is to conceal a thing,
and whose ways are often past finding out, because
His understanding is infinite.
As Professor Henry was a believer In theism, so
also was he a believer in revealed religion, In Chris
tianity. He had not made a study of systematic or
of dogmatic theology, as they are taught in the
schools, and still less was the interest he took in
polemical divinity, but he did have a theology which
for practical life is worth them all, — the theology of
a profound religious experience. He was a fresh Illus
tration of Neander's favorite saying: "Pectus facit
theologum." The adaptation of the Christian scheme
to the moral wants of the human soul was the palmary
proof on which he rested his faith In the superhuman
origin of that scheme. The plan had to him the force
of a theory which is scientific In Its exact conformity
to the moral facts it explains, when these facts are
properly known and fully understood.
Hence he was little troubled with the modern con
flict between science and religion. History, as well
as reason and faith, was here his teacher. He saw
that the Christian church had already passed through

58 ADDRESSES
many epochs of transition, and that the friction inci
dent to such transition periods had only brushed
away the incrustations of theological error, and height
ened the brightness of theological truth. In a world
where the different branches and departments of hu
man knowledge are not pushed forward pari passu, —
where " knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers," — he
held it nothing strange that the scientific man should
sometimes be unintelligible to the theologian, and the
theologian unintelligible to the scientific man. He
believed, with the old Puritan, that " the Lord has
more truth yet to break out of His holy word " than
the systematic theologian is always ready to admit ;
and as the humble minister and interpreter of nature,
he was certain that the scientific man has much truth
to leam of which he is not yet aware. There mast
needs be fermentation in new thought, as in new wine,
but the vintage of the brain, like the vintage of the
grape, is only the better for a process which brings
impurities to the surface, where they may be scummed
off, and settles the lees at the bottom, where they
ought to be. It is under the figure of a vintage that
Bacon describes the crowning result of a successful
inductive process. When this process has been com
pleted in any direction, it remains for a wider critical
and reconciling philosophy to bring the other depart
ments of knowledge into logical relation and corre
spondence with the new outlook that has been gained
on nature and its phenomena.
Erasmus tells us in his " Praise of FoUy." mingling
satire with the truth of his criticism, that in order to
understand the scholastic theology of his day, it was
necessary to spend six and thirty years in the study of
Aristotle's physics and of the doctrines of the Scotists.

LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOSEPH HENRY 69
What a purification of method has been wrought in
theology since the times of Erasmus ! And for that
purification the Church is largely indebted to the
methodology of modern science, in clearing up the
thoughts and rationalizing the intellectual processes
of men. The gain for sound theology Is here un
speakable, and amply repays her for the heavy bag
gage she has dropped by the way at the challenge of
science, — baggage which only impeded her march,
without reinforcing her artillery.
Hence, as a Christian philosopher. Professor Henry
never found it necessary to lower the scientific flag in
order to conciliate an obscurantist theology, and he
never lowered the Christian flag in order to conciliate
those who would erect the scientific standard over
more territory than they have conquered. He had
none of that spirit which would rather be wrong with
Plato than right with anybody else. He wanted to
follow wherever truth was in the van. But better
than most men, I think, he knew how to discriminate
between what a British scholar calls the duty of " fol
lowing truth wherever It leads us, and the duty of
yielding to the Immediate pressure of an argument."
He saw, as the same writer adds, that for whole genera
tions " the victory of argument may sway backwards
and forwards, like the fortune of single battles," but
the victory of truth brings In peace, and a peace which
comes to stay. He swept the scene of conflict with
the field-glass of a commander-in-chief, and did not
set up his trophies because of a brilliant skirmish on
the picket lines of science. But he believed in the
picket line, and rejoiced in every sharpshooter who
fought with loyalty to truth In the forefront of the
scientific army.

60 ADDRESSES
A man of faith, Professor Henry was a man of
prayer. But his views of prayer were perhaps pecu
liar in their spirituality. There was nothing mechan
ical or formal in his theory of this religious exercise.
He held that it was the duty and privilege of enlight
ened Christians to live in perpetual communion with
the Almighty Spirit, and In this sense to pray without
ceasing. Work was worship, if conducted In this
temper. He accepted all the appointments of nature
and Providence as the expressions of Infinite Wisdom,
and so in everything gave thanks.-' He believed that
familiarity with the order of nature and scientific
assurance of its uniformity need not and should not
tend to extinguish the Instinct or abolish the motives
of prayer by seeming to imply its futility, but should
rather tend to purify and exalt the objects of prayer.
The savage prays to his idol, that he may have success
in killing his enemies. The Hottentot whips and
worships his fetich In blind but eager quest of some
sensual boon, that he may consume it upon his lusts.
The prayers of the Vedic Books are the childish
^ The "sweet reasonableness" into which he had schooled his
temper was manifested by the great trial which befell him in the year
1865, when the Smithsonian building suffered from the ravages of a
fire, which destroyed all the letters written down to that date by
Professor Henry, as Smithsonian Secretary, in reply to innumerable
questions relating to almost every department of knowledge- Besides,
the Annual Report of the Institution in manuscript, nearly ready for
the press, a valuable collection of papers on meteorology, with written
memoranda of his own to aid in their digest, and countless minutes of
scientific researches which he purposed to make, all perished in the
flames. Yet he was more concerned about the loss of Bishop Johns's
library, which had been intrusted to his care, than about the loss of
his own papers and records. Referring to the latter in a letter written
to his friend, Dr. Torrey, a few days after the fire, he held the follow
ing language : " A few years ago such a calamity would have para
lyzed me for future efforts, hut in my present view of life I take it as
the dispensation of a kind and wise Providence, and trust that it will
work to my spiritual advantage."

LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOSEPH HENRY 01
prayers of .an unspiritual and childish peo])lc. " They
})ray," s.ays M:\x Miiller, "for the playthings of life,
for houses aud homes, for cows and horses, and they
plainly tell the gods that if they will only be kind and
gracious they will receive rich offerings in return."
And do ire, asks the critic of comparative religions,
we Christians of this nineteenth century, " do we do
much otherwise," if regard be had to the quality of
our petitions? Professor Henry held that it was both
the duty and privilege of enlightened Christians to
" do much otherwise " by praying preeminently, If not
exclusively, for spiritual blessings. And hence he
held that the highest natural philosophy combines
with the highest Christian faith to transfer the reli
gious thoughts, feelings, and aspirations of man more
and more from things seen to things unseen, and from
things temporal to things eternal. This view of his had
nothing of quietism or of mysticism in it. Still less
was It the expression of an apathetic stoicism. It was
only the philosopher's way of praying to the great
All-Father, In the spirit of St. Augustine, " Da quod
jubes, et jube quod vis."
I have made this reference to the opinions of Pro
fessor Henry on the relations of science to religion, as
also on the relations of natural philosophy to prayer,
not only for the light they shed on the character of the
man, but also for a reason which is peculiar to this
Society, and which it may be a matter of interest for
you to know. Immediately after his last unanimous
election as the president of our Society, he communi
cated to me his purpose to make the relations of sci
ence and religion, as also the true import of prayer,
the subject of his annual presidential address. He
gave me an outline of the views he intended to sub-

62 ADDRESSES
mit, and I have here given but a brief r^sum^ of them,
according to my recollections of the colloquy, which
was only one of many similar conferences previously
had on the same high themes. He said that it would
be, perhaps, the last time he should ever be called to
deliver a presidential address before the Society he
so much loved, and that he wished to speak as became
an humble patron of science, believing fully In her
high mission, and at the same time as an humble
Christian, believing fully In the fundamental truths
of Revelation. That he was not able to fulfill this
purpose will be as much a source of regret to you as
It is to me, but when I compare the valediction which
it was in his heart to utter with the peaceful end
which came a few months later to crown his days with
the halo of a finished life, I console myself with the
thought that no last words of his were needed to seal
on our hearts the lesson taught by his long and splen
did career. Being dead he yet speaketh.
It is, indeed, the shadow of a great affliction which
his death has cast upon our Society, but the light of
his life pierces through the darkness, and irradiates
for us all the paths of duty and labor, of honor and
purity, of truth and righteousness, In which he walked
with an eye that never blenched and a foot that never
faltered. We shall not see his face any more, beam
ing with gladness and with the mild splendor of chas
tened Intellect, but we shall feel his spiritual presence
whenever we meet in this hall. We shall never hear
his voice again, but its clear and gentle tones, as from
yonder chair he expounded to us the mysteries of
nature, will reecho in the chambers of memory with
only a deeper import, now that he has gone to join
the " dead but sceptred sovereigns who still rule our
spirits from their urns."

Ill
WORK IN ENGLISH IN THE COLLEGES AND PRE
PARATORY SCHOOLS!
For the purposes of the discussion to which I re
strict myself in this paper, It is assumed that by the
" study of English " Is meant the study of our mother
tongue with primary reference to its literature, and
that by English literature is meant the artistic expres
sion, in prose and verse, of the best mind of the
English-speaking race, that is, the " literature of
power " as distinguished, in the well-known terms
of De Quincey, from the "literature of knowledge."
In every work of high literary art we shall find certain
elements which are ponderable in terms of knowledge,
appealing, as they do, to the purely cognitive faculty,
and certain others, which are imponderable In terms
of mere knowledge because they appeal to feeling and
to the sense of beauty in the soul of man. The pon
derable elements lend themselves readily to critical
judgment and Intellectual appreciation. What Words
worth called " the exceedingly valuable chains of
thought " in his " Excursion " are quite ponderable by
the pure reason; indeed, they are sometimes quite
ponderous, but they do not weigh much in point of
literary art. The imponderable elements, though they
1 A paper read at the first annual convention of the Association of
Colleges and Preparatory Schools in the Middle States and MaryUnd,
December 2, 1893.

64 ADDRESSES
cannot be weighed quantitatively in the scales of the
pure reason, can be felt qualitatively in the mental
reactions which attest their presence wherever they
find the appropriate aesthetic sense, that Is, the spir
itual discernment which has been touched by senti
ment and culture Into the finer issues of aesthetic per
ception. The bloom-like beauty of Shelley's lyrical
verse; the recondite spirituality of Tennyson, half
concealed, half revealed by his Inimitable deftness of
touch ; the subtle Intuitions of human character fiashed
upon us by the spectroscopic genius of Browning, are
seen at once to be incommunicable by a cold and
matter-of-fact analysis, but It is for this very reason
that literary art comes In them to such fine and high
expression. It is not pretended that the "power" which is in
literature can be as directly and as easily transfused
from mind to mind as the " knowledge " which is in
liferature, but this fact makes only the stronger argu
ment for a more direct and a more Intense study of
the literature which has power In It than of the litera
ture that has only knowledge in it. It Is not pre
tended that the power In literature can be as certainly
transfused from mind to mind as the knowledge in
literature, but It is precisely because the former de
pends so much more than the latter on what is called
the " personal equation " that literary art demands a
specialized culture for Its due appreciation.
Such being the difficulties and such being the exac
tions of high literary art, it Is seen at once that the
presence and quality of this art ought to be best per
ceived and most surely felt in works of genius which
are bodied forth in the reader's vernacular tongue.
Our mother speech is the natural sounding-board of

ENGLISH IN PREPARATORY SCHOOLS 65
the emotions. Outside of his native speech the most
practiced literary critic may often err in his judgments,
as we may see in Jean Paul when he held it to be
" undoubted that there is nothing more splendid in the
English language than Young's ' Night Thoughts,' "
or as we may see in De Quincey when he averred
that " Paganism has no more brilliant master of com
position than Velleius Paterculus."
The order in which I shall here discuss the objects
and the stages of study In our vernacular tongue
would seem in large measure to dictate and to deter
mine the methods that should be pursued. In tlie
early stages of mental evolution very much will de
pend, of course, on the IMInerva in the student and
on the felicity or Infelicity of his home surroundings.
The important thing at the threshold of education is
to generate in the student what Gibbon called In his
own case " an invincible love of reading." Good di
gestion, If the mind be properly directed, wiU soon
wait on llterarj^ appetite. The youngster may, like
Shelley, begin with a fondness for ISlrs. Radcliffe's
novels, but this purely sensational love of reading
must not be allowed to go unchecked till It stifle the
fruits of taste and culture. The judicious aud sympa
thetic teacher may here injterpose with advantage, if
he have the taste as well as the wisdom which is
profitable for doctrine and correction. 1 say, " if he
have the taste as well as the wisdom," for he who
would teach the literature of power must himself feel
its power, at least for all the purposes of sympathetic
interpretation. While the youthfid memory Is plastic and retentive,
it should be made a repository of choice English liter
ature, especially of good English poetry. This sug-

66 ADDRESSES
gestion with regard to the quickening uses of memory,
when apfilied to poetry in early life, is supported by
high literary authority from Horace to Hallam. And
the choice may here be determined by motives which
are didactic, patriotic, sentimental, or humorous, as
well as for reasons which are preeminently cultural
and artistic. Poems which are freighted with thought,
like Goldsmith's " Traveller," or Informed by the Im
agination, like Bryant's " Waterfowl" (simple poems
are here instanced because they are level to the
youthful sense), if once stored in the chambers of
imagery, will be profitable In all after life for literary
inspiration and Intellectual refreshment. We can
not all hope to have the fathomless memory of Lord
Macaulay, but we can all envy him the pleasure to
which he confessed when, in once traveling by night
from Holyhead to Dublin, he tells us that he sat iu
the starlight on the deck of the ship, "and went
through 'Paradise Lost' in his head." ^ Satan and
Gabriel, with the ship's deck for a stage and with the
ship's lamps for footlights, became to him, he says,
"quite like two of Shakespeare's men," and he was
sorry when the sights and sounds of Dublin Bay
called him off from the colloquy between Adam and
the archangel Michael.
I venture, moreover, to suggest that the student
should not only familiarize himself with choice litera
ture, learned by heart in his early years, but should
also be encouraged to select and to cherish the masters
of style who shall have for him the lifting power of
high ideals in the art of expression. Not, indeed, that
he is to hold them for purposes of low and servile
imitation, but for purposes of high and liberal inspira
tion. Voltaire, we know, kept the " Athalie" of Racine

ENGLISH IN PRErAUATORY SCHOOLS 07
and the " Petit Carciue" of Massillon on his writing-
table. John Bright sustained his stately eloquence
at concert pitch by the constant study of Milton's
poetry. And the lover of literature will sometimes
enjoy best the literary art which is of another kind
than his own, as Byron, the poet of the passions, fed
his taste on Pope, the poet of correctness. The prose
style of ^lilton m.ay be of perennial use to set the
emotions in right time, though nobody In these days
of " all men's and every man's best style " would think
of opening its great organ -stops to intone over again
" the sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping
symphonies " which still reverberate in one of his
masterpieces. As the shades of the schoolhouse begin to close
around the growing boy, and as the visions of young
romance, whether evoked by the " Arabian Nights,"
by Bunyan's Pilgrim, or by Robinson Crusoe, begin
to fade into the light of common day, that is, Into
the dry light of knowledge, the youth is taking his
first steps from the realm of crude fancy into the
realm of crude cognition. This is a critical stage in
the psychological development of every boy. " It is
remarkable," says Goethe, " how the power of under
standing gets the start of that of expressing, so that a
man may comprehend all that he hears, while as yet
he can express but a very small part of It." Indeed
the cognitive faculty, if too much divorced from the
faculty of literary expression, may work to the partial
paralysis or even the partial atrophy of the letter, as
we must have all seen in the case of eminent scholars
who were dungeons of learning, but whose literary
style was as juiceless as the cylinder of Nebuchad
nezzar.

68 ADDRESSES
" Of all the arts in which the wise excel,
Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well,"
and though this couplet Is as true now as when Cum
berland first wrote it, we shall still find many a wise
man who does not know how to set his apples of gold
In pictures of silver, because he has never given due
care to the art of expression. This art of expression
comes only by the most painstaking and unremitting
practice, begun early and continued late. No " Open
Sesame " leads Into the Palace of Art, and no maun
dering of " Open Barley " or " Open Rye," borrowed
from the rhetoric books, can here be of the slightest
avail. We know from Juvenal that the Roman
schoolboys were drilled in constant thesis writing,
and that, for culture in the art of expression, they
were made to thumb Horace till the page grew dingy,
and to pore over Virgil till the soot from their lamps
made the volumes black. " Cum totus decolor esset
Flaccus, et htereret nigro fuligo Maroni."
It should be added that this hard, careful, and un
tiring practice in the art of literary expression Is espe
cially obligatory on the student of English style.
That master of our language, the late George P.
Marsh, was wont to hold it a more difficult accom
plishment among the English-speaking race to write
correct English than the Frenchman finds it to write
correct French. The inferiority of English prose to
French prose was matter of doctrine with Matthew
Arnold. And, as if this were not enough, Coleridge
has expressed the opinion (an opinion, I think, in
which the students of comparative literature will con
cur) that the genius of the English language demands
a denser body of thought as the condition of high

ENGLISH IN PREPARATORY SCHOOLS 69
literary polish than sirffices for the purpose of the
literary artist who works in certain other of the mod
ern tongues. Beauty of literary form, though not
fashioned primarily for the sake of containing the stint
of Intellectual or moral truth which It enfolds, will
always be found to require a certain solidity of sub
stance in the underlying thought. It was only the
statue fashioned by Pygmalion in solid Ivory which
the goddess of beauty quickened into life and feeling.
The mj'th may be treated as an allegory which, ac
cording to Coleridge, explains itself best in English
literary form.
There are those who would seem to hint to us that
the study of literary art is of the more bounden obli
gation on the men of this generation. We are told,
and not always sportively, that it is the ultimate mis
sion of positive science to disenchant the world of the
glamour wrought by the literature of power. " Know
ledge," they tell us, is destined not only to " grow from
more to more," but in the end to be all In all. In view
of the vast deltas of technical terminology washed down
by the swelling streams of modern science into our
dictionaries and our daily speech, a great literary artist,
the late James Russell Lowell, once confessed to the
fear that we may soon have to dredge for our English
through whole continents of scientific silt, and that
" the well of English undefiled " may at length run dry
because It will be filled up. Let there be no misgiv
ings of this kind. True It may be, as Huxley says, that
physical science. In these latter days, " has brought to
the front an inexhaustible supply of heavy artillery, of
a new pattern, warranted to drive solid bolts of fact
through the thickest skuUs." Literary art, speaking
to the souls of men through their mother-tongues, wiQ

70 ADDRESSES
continue to do its gentle spiriting in the face of this
" heavy artillery," even though it be charged with
smokeless powder. It would be better to say that the
exact sciences call for precision and correctness of
speech. That in fact they sometimes do promote feli
city as well as accuracy of literary expression we may
see in the example of Huxley himself, master of Eng
lish style as he is.
But culture of literary expression is not enough for
the scientific mind. The most illustrious votary of mod
ern science has warned us against the Nemesis which
may result from a too exclusive addiction to scientific
method. Darwin tells us in his autobiography that " up
to the age of thirty or beyond it " he found great plea
sure in poetry of many kinds, such as the works of Mil
ton, Gray, Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley,
but that after his mind became " a kind of machine for
grinding general laws out of large collections of facts,"
he was visited with " a curious and lamentable loss of
the higher aesthetic tastes." And the loss of these tastes
involved, he thought, not only a loss of happiness, but
might be presumed to have carried with it a possible
damage to his intellect and a more probable damage to
his moral nature. In this view he added that if he had
to live his life over again, he " would make it a rule to
read some poetry at least once every week."
I come In the next place to consider the historical, the
linguistic, and the philological side of literary art. I
hold, it will be seen, that we should approach the study
of English from its purely literary side, for purposes of
aesthetic culture rather than intellectual discipline. But
good style, as Dean Swift reminds us, " Is proper words
In proper j)laces," and good English style is proper
English words arranged in proper places according to

ENGLISH IN PREPARATORY SCHOOLS 71
English idiom. There comes a time when studies in
the history of English literature, studies in its chanoino-
forms, studies in English idiom, and studies in English
philology may be made ancillary to literary art, as they
certainly are necessary, at a certain stage of culture,
for the developed reason and the critical judgment. But
from studies of this kind we must not hope for too
much In the domain of either art or taste. Very true
it is, as Henry INIorley says, that " there Is a reason for
the form as well as the substance of every book that
man ever wrote." And the reasons for both, when we
take a gi-eat English classic in hand, should be studied
as an Integral part of liberal education. Indeed, studies
under this head should begin in the preparatory school,
and the conditions of admission Into the Freshman Class
of colleges should comprise examinations not only in
English idiom and In English literary forms, but also
in certain great English classics prescribed from time
to time (If possible with uniformity)' In the college
year books. Yet these studies in literature should
never be allowed to degenerate Into mere studies cd)out
literature; least of all should they be allowed to degen
erate into Dry-as-dustian commentations of the gram-
matici, — men whose learning, as Milton describes it,
lies In "marginal stuffings," and who, " like good sump-
ters, lay down their horse-loads of citations at your
door." It Is, we aU admit, of great importance that we
should know the lexical, the grammatical, and the pro-
sodical system of Chaucer, but must we all drudge in
the classroom over the six-text edition of the Chaucer
Society ? The economics of textual study has its divi
sion of labor, and there is a time for everything under
the sun. We read in the " Dunciad " that the critic
eye, when turned into " a microscope of wit " and

72 ADDRESSES
doomed to examine awork of art "bit by bit," will come
at last to see only " hairs aud pores." Philological sci
ence is indispensable In its time and place, but It should
not be allowed to exact on taste and culture in the class
room. All experience shows that collateral studies
about literature do not help us much toward the attain
ment of that which is inspiring in the direct study of
good literature. Grammar does not help us much in the
hour and article of composition, however much It may
afterward help us to correct with " phlegm " what we
may have written with " fury." And the uses of rhet
oric are here so ambiguous that Quintilian was much
puzzled to decide whether rhetoric were an " art " or a
" science," and Cicero tells us that his brother Quintus
was wont to say that one rhetoric master at a time was
enough for the whole Roman commonwealth.
" Of all facts concerning art," says Ruskin, " this Is
the one most necessary to be known, that while manu
facture Is the work of the hands only, art is the work
of the whole spirit of man, and as that spirit is, so is
the deed." Of all truths respecting art, this is the
one of which he holds the right understanding to be the
most " precious," and denial of which Is " the most
deadly." All history, indeed, points a moral against substi
tuting studies about literature for direct and sympa
thetic studies in literature. Greek literature main
tained Its high tradition so long as its natural sap
and blood were not tainted, but it went into decline
as soon as men sought for brilliancy In the cosmetic
arts of the rhetoric teachers. The Roman mind took
its quickening from Greek literature, and this quick
ening worked at first creatively, to the purposes of a
pure Latin style. But when masters of Latin style

ENGLISH IN PREPARATORY SCHOOLS 73
began to crack jokes over " the myrrh-pot of Isocrates,
the scent-boxes of his disciples, and the pigments of
Aristotle," — I quote from a letter of Cicero to Attl
cus — the time was close at hand when Roman litera
ture was ready to go to seed. And when Roman
literature went to seed in what is perhaps the best book
of rhetoric ever written, — I refer to the " Institutes "
of Quintilian, — we find that accomplished teacher
bewailing the fact that Greek, as taught In the Roman
schools of his day, had come to be regarded with a
kind of superstition, and so was, for the most part,
a hindrance rather than a help to Latin culture, while
everybody knows that the publication of the " Insti
tutes," a work deslgued to Show how orators could be
made, marks the date at which true eloquence became
extinct in Rome. What we call the Renaissance was
a rejuvenation wrought in the European mind by trans
fusing into It the power drawn from the literatures of
Greece and Rome, after the Intellectual life-blood of
Europe had been thinned by a too long and exclusive
nurture on the chopped logic of the schoolmen. To
day, when Greek has come to be taught for philology
rather than for literature, and when college graduates
who can at sight read Plato with understanding, or
Aristophanes with zest, have become almost an extinct
species, we are seriously discussing the place and value
of Greek in the college curriculum.
The sap that runs in a green tree and the blood
that courses in the veins of a living body are favorite
metaphors with Cicero when he would describe the
eloquence that has power In it. Emerson, in like
manner, refers to certain books which have power in
them when he says that they are "vital and sper-
matic." But books are " vital and spermatic " only

74 ADDRESSES
when the creative spirit from which they sprang Is per
mitted to work creatively, not when they are stretched
on the dissecting table for anatomical study.
Having made this plea for literary art, for the cul
ture of literary expression, for the study of philology
as ancillary to correctness of style, and for the direct,
constant, and sympathetic study of great English clas
sics, It remains to say, what hardly needs the saying,
that the literature of knowledge, and the knowledge
which concerns a due understanding of the literature
of power, must have their rights in English study ;
and that this knowledge, whether It be historical or
whether it be critical, should widen its horizons with
the expanding powers of the reason and with the grow
ing exactions of the critical faculty. The literature of
power in English being the best expression of great
writers, it follows that we should study great writers
in their individuality ; that is, in their biographies.
This literature of power being the best expression of
English mind, it follows that we should study a great
English classic In Its relation to the national psy
chology of which it Is the bright consummate flower ;
that is, we should study the element which is pecu
liarly or distinctively national in our typical English
writers. Talne's " History of English Literature," as
we all know, is a study In the national psychology of
the British race, with pieces justificatives drawn, by
way of illustration, from all that seemed to him best
In English literature. The literature of power in
English, though written not for a day but for all time,
must needs reflect the intellectual, civil, and social stir
of the time in which it appeared, and should therefore
be studied in that relation ; that is, in its relation to
history. This literature of power having come to

ENGLISH IN PREPARATORY SCHOOLS 75
expression in English idiom, It follows that we should
study this expression with the best resources and
clearest lights of linguistic science, that is, with the
appliances and helps of English philology, making
philology the handmaid of literary art, and not making
literary art the vassal and serf of philology. And,
finally, as the literature of power in English comes to us
at the end of a long literary tradition, which dates from
Greece and runs through Rome, Italy, France, Spain,
and Germany, it follows that the crown and culmina
tion of studies in English should lead us at length to
the comparative study of the best literature of the
whole world, so far as this best literature has given
color or complexion to the great English classics. The
individual student can here hope by himself to do only
a little ; but there is room here for laboratory stud
ies and for seminary studies in a thousand directions.
Such advanced studies, if kept vital and vitalizing by
being pursued at first hand, that is, with an adequate
knowledge on the part of each student in the tongues
and writers compared, may conduce as well to cath
olicity of taste as to breadth and purity of culture.
The literature of the world is really one, only some of
It Is written In Hebrew, some In Greek, some in Latin,
some In Italian, some in French, some in Spanish,
some In Portuguese, and some in English. George
Saintsbury tells us that he " would not dare to continue
criticising so much as a circulating library novel, if he
did not perpetually pay his respects to the classics of
many literatures."

IV
THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION OF INDE
PENDENCE, MAY 20, 17751
In the year 1819 the " Raleigh Register " surprised
its readers and the general public interested In histori
cal inquiries with the announcement that the people of
Mecklenburg County, In the State of North Carolina,
had, on the 20th day of May, In the year 1775, openly
declared their Independence of Great Britain, and In
terms so similar to those employed by Mr. Jefferson
In penning the national Declaration of July 4, 1776,
as to create the suspicion that he had borrowed a por
tion of his phraseology from the earlier paper. The
printed copy of the alleged Mecklenburg Declaration
of Independence, as then given to the public for the
first time, nearly forty-four years after the event it
signalizes, was accompanied with an historical state
ment purporting to have been written contemporane
ously with the original promulgation of the manifesto,
and to recite the circumstances in which the manifesto
had Its origin and motive.
According to this statement, it would appear that
in the spring of the year 1775 the leading personages
of Mecklenburg County held several detached meet
ings, in which the sentiment was freely expressed that
" the cause of Boston was the cause of all," and that
the first shock of British power in its encroachments
1 Reprinted from The North American Review for Apiil, 1874.

THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION 77
on American liberty, if not resisted there, would ulti
mately overwhelm the people of the whole continent
in a common calamity. In this state of public senti
ment, and moved, it Is said, by the solicitations of
others, Colonel Thomas Polk, the commanding officer
of the Mecklenburg militia, issued an order to each
captain's company In the county to elect two persons
from their number who should act as delegates at a
meeting to be held In the town of Charlotte, the county
seat, ou the 19tli of May in that year, " for the pur
pose of devising ways and means to aid and assist
their suffering brethren In Boston, and also generally
to adopt measures to extricate themselves from the
Impending storm."
It Is stated that a delegation from the militia com
panies met In conformity with this order at the time
and place appointed, and, by a fortuitous coincidence,
the news of the battle of Lexington, fought on the
preceding 19th of April, was brought by express to
the town of Charlotte on that same day. The tide of
popular Indignation, swollen, it Is said, by this exciting
intelligence, could no longer be restrained within the
bounds of moderation, and so, " after a full and free
discussion," the following Declaration of Independ
ence was unanimously adopted by the delegates : —
" Resolved, That whosoever directly or indirectly abetted
or in any way, form, or manner, countenanced the unchar
tered and dangerous invasion of our rights, as claimed by
• CTreat Britain, is an enemy to this countrj^, to America, and
to the inherent and inalienable rights of man.
" Resolved, That we, the citizens of Mecklenburg County,
do hereby dissolve the political bonds which have connected
us to the mother country, and hereby absolve ourselves
from all allegiance to the British crown, and abjure all

78 ADDRESSES
political connection, contract, or association with that nation,
who have wantonly trampled on our rights and liberties,
and inhumanly shed the blood of American patriots at Lex
ington. " Resolved. That we do hereby declare om'selves a free
and independent people, and of right ought to be a sover
eign and self-governing association, under the control of no
power other than that of our God and the general govern
ment of the Congress ; to the maintenance of which independ
ence we solemnly pledge to each other our mutual coBpera-
tion, our lives, our fortunes, and our most sacred honor.
'¦ Resolved. That as we now acknowledge the existence
and control of no law, or legal officer, civil or military,
within the county, we do hereby ordain and adopt as a rule
of life, all, each, and every of our former laws, wherein,
nevertheless, the crown of Great Britain never can be con
sidered as holding rights, privileges, and immunities or
authorities therein.
" Resolved, That it is further decreed, that aU, each, and
everj- military officer in this county is hereby reinstated in
his former command and authority, he acting conformably
to these regulations. And that every member present of
this delegation shall henceforth be a civil officer, namely, a
justice of the peace, in the character of a ' committee-man,'
to issue process, hear and determine all matters of contro
versy, according to said adopted laws, and to preserve
peace, union, and harmony in said county ; and to use every
exertion to spread the love of country and fire of freedom
throughout America, until a more general and organized
government be established in this province."
It is further stated that a number of by-laws were
adopted at the same time to protect the association
from confusion, and to regulate the general conduct
of the people as citizens. The meeting and Its delib
erations lasted, we are told, far into the night of the

THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION 79
19th, and indeed it was not until two o'clock in the
morning of the 20th of May that the work of the con
vention was completed.
A few days afterwards, proceeds the chronicler
(stni purporting to write on the 20th of May), Cap
tain James Jack, of Charlotte, was deputed as a mes
senger to convey a copy of these resolves and pro
ceedings to the Continental Congress then sitting in
Philadelphia, as also to deliver a letter addressed to
the North Carolina members in that body, — Messrs.
Richard Caswell, William Hooper, and Joseph Hewes,
— requesting them "to use all possible means to have
the said proceedings sanctioned and approved by the
general Congress." On the return of Captain Jack,
says the compiler of these annals, still professing to
write under the date of the alleged Declaration, he
reported that the proceedings were " individually ap
proved by the members of Congress, but that it was
deemed premature to lay them before the House."
And we are next informed that the regulations estab
lished at the time of the Declaration continued In
force for months afterwards ; that to them were due
the subsequent harmony and exertions of the Meck
lenburg people in the cause of liberty ; that the acts
of the delegation were also approved by the Council
of Safety which met In the year 1776 ; and that from
this delegation originated a court of inquiry whose
jurisdiction, we are told, was " as unlimited as tory-
ism " in the following years.
In the presence of such anachronisms the reader
perceives at once that we are called to deal with a
paper which, whatever may be said in defense of its
genuineness or authenticity as an historical record,
has been obviously antedated by its compiler. The

80 ADDRESSES
date which it bears on Its face is discredited by the
nature of Its contents. But the Declaration of Inde
pendence above given, and the historical memoran
dum published In the " Raleigh Register " of April
30, 1819, purported to be authenticated in their pre
sent shape by the following certificate : —
The foregoing is a true copy of the papers on the above
subject left in my hands by John McKnitt Alexander, de
ceased. I find it mentioned on file that the original book
was burned April, 1800; that a copy of the proceedings
was sent to Hugh Williamson, in New York, then writing a
history of North Carolina, and that a copy was sent to
General W. R. Davie. J. McKnitt.
At the date of the first publication of this paper, In
the year 1819, it was not known to the public, at least
outside of North Carolina, that the signature of " J.
McKnitt " stood for the name of Dr. Joseph McKnitt
Alexander, a son of the John McKnitt Alexander
from whom the paper purports to have been derived.
Nor was it known at that time that the certificate It
self differs In the most essential particulars from the
certificate affixed by the same hand to the copy placed
in the care of General Davie. It will subsequently
appear that the document thus mysteriously hidden
from sight for forty odd years was very unfortunate in
the auspices under which It emerged Into publicity.
The paper, at its appearance, was greeted with uni
versal expressions of amazement. Many among the
most prominent actors of the Revolutionary era were
then still living, and to them it came with an especial
surprise. A copy having found its way to John Adams,
he called the attention of Mr. Jefferson to the matter
in a letter under date of June 22, 1819, In which he

THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION 81
described It as "one of the greatest curiosities and one
of the deepest mysteries that had ever occurred to
him." " How is it possible," he added, " that this
paper should have been concealed from me to this
day? Had it been communicated to me In the time
of it, 1 know, if you do not know, that It would have
been printed in every Whig newspaper on this conti
nent. You know that if I had possessed it I would
have made the hall of Congress echo and reecho with
it fifteen months before your Declaration of Independ
ence." 1
The eloquent advocate of the Revolution expressed
himself in these emphatic terms under the impression,
of course, that the Mecklenburg resolutions were gen
uine, and that the historical statement accompanying
them was authentic. But Mr. Jefferson, in his reply,
written under date of July 9, 1819, avowed the opinion
that the paper purporting to emanate from Mecklen
burg was little better than " a very unjustifiable quiz."
In support of this opinion he instanced the following
grounds of susjiicion : —
" It appeals to an original book, which is burned ; to Mr.
Alexander, who is dead ; to a joint letter from Caswell,
Hewes, and Hooper, all dead ; to a copy sent to the dead
Caswell,'' and another sent to Dr. Williamson, now probably
dead, whose memory did not recollect, in the history he has
written of North Carolina, this gigantic step of its county
of Mecklenburg."
Mr. Adams, in writing again to another of his corre
spondents, Mr. William Bentley, on the 5t]i of July
in that same year, and therefore before Mr. Jeffer-
1 The Works of John Adams, vol. x. pp. 380, 3.S1.
" A mistake of Mr. Jefferson's. He intended to designate General
Davie, who was still living at that time.

82 ADDRESSES
son's reply could have been received, intimated the
opinion that Mr. Jefferson must have seen the paper
at the time of its appearance In 1775, because, adds
Mr. Adams, " he has copied the spirit, the sense, and
the expressions of it verbatim Into his Declaration of
the 4th of July, 1776." ^
In so writing, Mr. Adams referred, we need not
say, to certain forms of expression which are common
to the Declaration penned by Mr. Jefferson, and to
the document purporting to have been uttered by the
patriots of Mecklenburg on the 20th of May, 1775.
It was perceived at once that such phrases as " dis
solve the political bonds which have connected," etc. ;
" are, and of right ought to be," etc. ; " absolve our
selves from all allegiance to the British crown ; " " we
solemnly pledge to each other our mutual cooperation,
our lives, our fortunes, and our most sacred honor,"
¦ — were too many in number and peculiar in structure
to be accidental coincidences. And so a battle was
joined, wliich lasted for many years, between those
who, on the strength of the Mecklenburg paper,
charged Mr. Jefferson with stealing from It these
" choicest of his phrases," and those who sought to
vindicate him from this aspersion by Impeaching the
genuineness of the paper on the faith of which he was
accused. A little closer Inquiry into the merits of this ques
tion would have disclosed to both parties that the Issue
between them was mistakenly joined. For, in point
of fact, it is Richard Henry Lee, and not Mr. Jeffer
son, who is responsible for the introduction of all these
phrases Into the Declaration of Independence, except
one. The committee charged with the preparation of
1 John Adams's Works, vol. x. p. 381.

THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION 83
that Declaration had been instructed to draw it in
conformity with the resolution passed by Congress on
the 2d of July, 1776, which resolution, known to have
been penned by Richard Henry Lee, ran as follows : —
" Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right
miglit to be, free and inde pendent States ; that they are
absolved from all allegiance to the British crown; and
that all political connection between them and the state of
Great Britain is, and of right, ought to be, dissolved."
It will be seen, therefore, that as between Mr. Jeffer
son and the author of the Mecklenburg Declaration,
the only question that can arise under this head re
lates to the origin of the famous phrase in which they
both enunciate the pledge of "lives, fortunes, and
sacred honor." And from this phrase we ought to
rule out the words, " our lives and fortunes," for the
pledge of these was among the commonplaces of that
time. It occurs passim in the political literature of
1775 and 1776. It would appear, then, that those
who have sought to find in the Mecklenburg Declara
tion a " coigne of vantage " from which to discharge
their arrows at Mr. Jefferson's literary fame have
wasted their strength in an idle contention.^
A few years after Jefferson's death, the controversy
^ What gossamer fancies the human mind can weave when it in
vents both its facts and its explanations of them may be seen in a
curious tractate published by the Rev. Dr. Thomas Smyth of Charles
ton, iS. C, in the year 1847, under the title of the True Origin and
Source of the Mecklenburg and the National Declaration of Independ
ence, in which, assuming the genuineness of the former, he argues
that the authors of both, in the common use of certain peculiar ex
pressions, may have drawn their inspiration from a common source,
to wit, the Confessions, Covenants, and Bands of the Scotch Presby
terians in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ! Needless to add
that Dr. Smyth made this remarkable discovery with a pair of Presby
terian spectacles.

84 ADDRESSES
on this subject not having been yet composed, the
legislature of North Carolina took the matter in hand
as an Inquiry deeply concerning the legitimate pride
of the State, if, as many believed, it could be shown
by indubitable proofs that the patriotic citizens of
Mecklenburg had been the first of all the American
people to formulate in express terms that full-voiced
declaration which was not articulated by the chosen
representatives of the United Colonies until thirteen
months and more after the manifesto proclaimed at
Charlotte in the " Old North State." The emulous
North-Carolinian, noted among his countrymen as
much for his modesty as his merit, not unnaturally
dreamed again the dream of Joseph, and, as in a
vision, saw his sheaf standing upright, and the sheaves
of his brethren standing around and doing obeisance
to his sheaf.
A committee of the General Assembly of North
Carolina was appointed at the session of 1830-31 to
" collate and arrange " all the documents accessible
to them " touching the Declaration of Independence
by the citizens of Mecklenburg," as also to collect
new evidence in support of its genuineness and au
thenticity. The committee performed their task and
submitted a report,^ in which they expressed the opin
ion that the testimonials they had gathered respecting
the authenticity of the Declaration would be sufficient
to " silence incredulity." We proceed to give a digest
of this evidence, following the order in which the testi
monials are published by the committee.
' The Declaration of Independence by the Citizens of Mecklenburg
County on the SOth Day of May, 1775, wilh Accompanying Documents.
Published by the Governor, under the Authority and Direction of the
General Assembly of tlie State of North Carolina. Raleigh, 1831.

THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION 85
Captain James Jack, the bearer of the " Declaration " to
the Continental Congress at Philadelphia, being interrogated
in the year 1819, when he was eighty-eight years old, as to
the part he had taken in this transaction, certifies that he
delivered " a Declaration of Independence of May, 1775,"
to Richard Caswell and William Hooper, but does not fix
its precise date, merely premising that he " was privy to a
number of meetings " about that time.
Messrs. Alphonso Alexander, Amos Alexander, and J.
McKnitt certify in the year 1830 that they had frequently
heard WiUiam S. Alexander, deceased, say that he was in
Philadelphia on the day that General Washington left that
city to take command of the Northern army, and that he
then met Captain Jack, who informed him that he [Cap
tain J.] was there as " the bearer of the Declaration of In
dependence, made in Charlotte on the 20th day of May."
The Rev. Francis Cummins, writing in the year 1819,
" cannot as to date be so particular as he could wish," but
is " perfectly sure " that the Mecklenburg Declaration was
prior to the 4th of July, 1776.
General Joseph Graham, a son-in-law of John McKnitt
Alexander, certifies in the year. 1830 that, as " a lad about
half grown," he was present when the Declaration was
passed, and he fixes its date at May 20. He recalls the
interesting fact that one among the reasons offered for mak
ing the Declaration was " that the king or ministry had,
by proclamation, or some edict, declared the Colonies out
of the protection of the British crown," and recites other
incidents under this head.
Next comes an extract from an unpublished memoir by
the Rev. Humphrey Hunter, purporting to be a manuscript
account of the Revolutionary War in the South, but when
the memoir was compiled we are not authentically informed.
Mr. Hunter recites that the militia delegates met at Char
lotte on the 19th of May, 1775 ; that they passed the Decla
ration in the shape ascribed to it by John McKnitt Alex-

86 ADDRESSES
ander ; that on the next day it was publicly read at the
Court House door by Colonel Thomas Polk, and a copy
then drawn off and sent to Captain Jack to Philadelphia.
He further records that by-laws and regulations for the
government of a standing Committee of Public Safety were
enacted at the same time.
Messrs. George Graham, William Hutchison, Jonas Clark,
and Robert Robinson, some time in the year 1819 or 1820,
unite in a certificate, given at the request of Colonel Wil
liam Polk (son of Colonel Thomas Polk), to the effect that
the delegates met on the 19th of May, continued in session
till late in the night of that day, and formed several re
solves " which went to declare themselves and the people of
Mecklenburg County free and independent." They express
the belief th.at the Declaration was drawn by Dr. Ephraim
Brevard, whom they name as the sole secretary of the
meeting. John Simeson, in the year 1820, writing at the instance
of Colonel Williain Polk, certifies, with the hesitation inci
dent to what he calls " a precarious feeble old age," that
he is inclined to think the Declaration was drawn by Dr.
Brevard, " from his known talents in composition ; " that
" in substance and form it was like that great national act
agreed on thirteen months after ; " that it was passed " to
wards the close of May, 1775," and that he heard Colonel
Thomas Polk read it, together with a long sti-ing of griev
ances and a military order " appointing three men to secure
all the military stores for the county's use, — Thomas Polk,
John Pfifer, and Joseph Kennedy."
Isaac Alex.ander, in the year 1830, certifies that he was
present at Charlotte on the 19th and 20th of May when the
delegates, Ephraim Brevard being secretary of the meeting,
declared their independence of Great Britain.
Samuel Wilson certifies, without date, that the Declara
tion was made in May, 1776 ; that he was present, and
heard it read from the Court House door.

THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION 87
John Davidson, in the year 1830, states that he was then
" the only person living who was a member of that conven
tion ; " tliat " being far advanced in years and not having
his mind frequently directed to that circumstance," he can
give " but a very succinct history of the transaction," and
this, too. although he was a delegate from the same com
pany as John McKnitt Alexander. He is confident, how
ever, that " the Declaration of Independence by the people
of Mecklenburg was made public at least twelve months
before that of the Congress of the United States."
James Johnson certifies in the year 1827, when he was
seventy-three years old, to the general fact that Mecklen
burg County " declared independence and sent a man to
Philadelphia with the proceedings."
The foregoing digest comprises, we think, all the
essential facts disclosed by this testimony. The testi
mony Itself was held by the believers in the genuine
ness of the Mecklenburg Declaration to substantiate
the fact that such a Declaration was actually made,
and that it was passed on the 20th of May, in the
year 1775. On the strength of this evidence Dr.
Hawks, in his address ^ delivered before the New
York Historical Society on the 16th of December,
1852, held the following emphatic language : —
" First, then, no less than seven witnesses of the most
unexceptionable character swear positively that there was a
meeting of the people of Mecklenburg at Charlotte on the
19th and 20th days of May, 1775 ; that certain resolutions
distinctly declaring independence of Great Britain were
then and there prepared by a committee, read publicly to
the people by Colonel Thomas Polk, and adopted by accla
mation ; that they were present and took part in the pro
ceedings themselves, and that John McKnitt Alexander was
1 The MecTdenburg Declaration of Independence. A lecture by the
Rev. Francis L. Hawks, D. D., LL. D.

88 ADDRESSES
a secretary of the meeting. These seven swear positively
to the date, the 19th and 20th days of May, 1775. In
addition seven others, equally above suspicion, swe.ar that
they were present at precisely such a meeting as that de
scribed above. . . . Well, then, here are fourteen nnim-
peachable witnesses, who, either by positive statements as
to time, or by facts proved to have occurred on a particular
occasion, which facts do fix the time, — here, I say. are four
teen witnesses, who, if human testimony can prove anything,
do show beyond all peradventure that on the 20th of May.
1775. a certain paper was read and adopted in their hear
ing, whereby the people of Mecklenbra-g County did adjure
allegiance to the British crown, and did declare themselves
independent. Such a paper, then, was in existence on that
day, and was in the possession of the secretary, John Mc
Knitt Alexander."
If Dr. Hawks had wished to set the fallibility of
human testimony In the light of a signal example he
could not have written more to the purpose of those
who would guard themselves against a too easy cre
dulity in the case of his fourteen witnesses. With
their published testimony before him he has, inad
vertently we doubt not, misstated its most essential
particulars. He speaks of them all as having been
sworn. Not one of them was sworn. He says that
seven of them swear that John McKnitt Alexander
was a secretary of the meeting. Only one of tiiem
mentions Alexander as the sole secretary, and he was
the son-in-law of that gentleman. One other mentions
him as co-secretary with Brevard. Dr. Hawks says
that seven of them swear to the precise date of the
Declaration as May 20, 1775, and that the remaining
seven certify to facts which " fix the time " at the
same date. We shall soon see that the most signifi
cant of these facts directly rebut the inference that

THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION 89
he draws in the premises. And if under the bias of
a. parti pris it was possible for a man of Dr. Hawks's
perspicacity to fall into such loose allegations of sup
posititious fact, what might we not expect at the hand
of witnesses, however honest, with minds laboring
under the same prepossessions and staggering besides
under the burden of years ?
Hence this array of testimony did not avail to
" silence incredulity " at the time of Its official publi
cation. There were still those who urged, by way of
exception to its cogency, that no original manuscript
or printed copy contemporaneous with the date of the
alleged Declaration was now In existence. And the
reference which. In default of such primary proofs,
was made to copies at second hand served rather to
mystify than to elucidate the question at Issue. A
copy, it Is said, was given to Dr. Williamson, and
Governor Stokes avers In the year 1881 that he " well
recollects " to have seen It in Williamson's possession
in the year 1793, " together with a letter from John
McKnitt Alexander ; " but this copy has entirely dis
appeared. The copy given by Alexander to General
Davie Is certified to have been identical with that
published in the year 1819. Besides all these copies,
there Is still another which first came to light In Mar
tin's " History of North Carolina," published in the
year 1829.^^ Martin's recension of the document Is
different from Alexander's, but nobody knows the
source from which it Is drawn. Caput inter nubila
condit. Between these two copies — that of Martin
and that of Alexander — there are material differences
of phraseology In each resolution of the series com-
1 The History of North Carolina from the Earliest Period. By Fran
cois Xavier Martin. 2 vols. New Orleans, 1829.

90 ADDRESSES
posing the so-called Declaration, and one entire reso
lution contained In the Martin rendering is wanting
in the Alexander version.
In view of these discrepancies. It was from the first
an easy matter for the unbelievers in the genuineness
of the so-called Mecklenburg Declaration of Inde
pendence to justify their incredulity by pleading that,
as both the current versions could not be true copies
of the original. It was competent to reject them both
as uuhistorical until the one should be authenticated
to the exclusion of the other. After allowing all due
weight to the testimony of the venerable men who
alleged that they had participated in a meeting In
which " Independence " was declared, It still remained
easy to object that such evidence could not be deemed
conclusive when we reflect that they all testify on the
strength of mere memory, after a lapse of more than
forty or fifty years, concerning the peculiar phraseology
and exact import of resolutions which they had heard
only once, as read from the steps of a court house.^
And the attestation which they gave labored neces
sarily under the suspicion attaching to all testimony
given in answer to leading questions, for they were
not called to testify until their minds had been pre
occupied by the publications made on this subject In
the newspapers of the day between the years 1819 and
1 If anybody among those present might have been expected to
remember the events of the alleged meeting, it was certainly Colonel
William Polk, the son of Colonel Thomas Polk ; yet we find one of
the witnesses, John Simeson, to whom he had applied for information,
replying to him as follows : " Yourself, sir, in your eighteenth year,
and on the spot, — your worthy father the most popular and influ
ential character of the county, — and yet you cannot state much from
recollection." In point of fact, he left no written statement at all,
but procured testimony to contradict some points of John McKnitt
Alexander's story.

THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION 91
1880.^ Moreover, we know how easy it is for men to
accept and accredit as true anything which they do
not distinctly perceive to be false, especially when
their own incliuations jump with the prevalent emo
tions of the community in which they dwell. Libenter
homines id quod volunt credunt.
AYhile the question raised respecting the authenti
city and genuineness of the Mecklenburg Declaration
stood in the dubious attitude in which it had been left
by the publication of the North Carolina Legislature,
that indefatigable antiquarian and devoted student of
American history, the late Peter Force of Washington,
In compiling materials for his " American Archives,"
came upon a series of declaratory resolutions adopted
by " the Committee-men " of Mecklenburg County on
the 31st of ^lay, 1775. This manifesto, It appears,
had been widely disseminated at the time of its pro
mulgation, but the memory, as well of its existence as
of Its precise form and contents, had entirely faded
away from the public mind soon after the Revolu
tionary War. It was seen at once by Mr. Force
that these resolutions, comprising as they did In their
terms a virtual declaration of Independence, offered
themselves as " the missing link " which might serve
to Identify the ambiguous tradition of North Carolina
with a veritable fact in her documentary history .^ A
full copy of these resolutions reads as follows : —
1 Thus Captain James Jack begins his testimony as follows : " Hav
ing seen in the newspapers some pieces respecting the Declaration of
Independence by the people of Mecklenburg," etc. General Joseph
Graham says the resolutions reported to the meeting were, " as near
as I can recollect, in the very words we have since seen them several
times inprint.^'
2 Mr. Force announced the discovery of these resolutions in the
National Intelligencer of December 18, 1838. He found them at first,
as they had been partly reprinted, in the New York Journal of June

92 ADDRESSES
Chablottetown, Mecklenbukg County,
May 31, 1775.
This day the Committee of this county met and passed
the following resolves : —
Whereas, By an address presented to His Majesty by
both houses of Parliament in February last, the American
Colonies are declared to be in a state of actual rebellion, we
conceive that all laws and commissions confirmed by or
derived from the authority of the King and Parliament are
annulled and vacated, and the former civil constitution of
these colonies for the present wholly suspended, to provide
in some degree for the exigencies of this county in the pre
sent alarming period, we deem it proper and necessary to
pass the following resolves, viz. : —
I. That all commissions, civil and military, heretofore
granted by the crown to be exercised in these colonies, are
null and void, and the constitution of each particular colony
wholly suspended.
II. That the Provincial Congress of each Province, under
the direction of the great Continental Congress, is invested
with aU legislative and executive powers within their respec
tive provinces, and that no other legislative or executive
power does or can exist at this time in any of these colo
nies. III. As all former laws are now suspended in this Pro
vince, and the Congress has not yet provided others, we
29, 1775, and subsequently he met with another condensed copy of
them in the Massachusetts Spy of July 12 in that year. In the year
1847, Dr. Joseph Johnson found a copy of the entire series in the
South Carolina Gazette of June 13, 1775 ; and Mr. Bancroft, while
Minister\of the United States at London, discovered in the British
State Paper Office another copy of the entire series as preserved iu
the same journal, which, it appears, had been transmitted to the Brit
ish Secretary of State by the colonial governor of Georgia in the year
1775, that " his Lordship might see the extraordinary resolves of the
people of Charlottetown in Mecklenburg County." Governor Martin,
of North Carolina, also sent a copy to the British Secretary on the
30th of June in the same year.

THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION 93
judge it necessary, for the better preservation of good order,
to form certain rules and regulations for the internal gov
ernment of this county, until laws shall be provided for us
by the Congress.
IV. That the inhabitants of this county do meet on a
certain day appointed by the committee, and, having formed
themselves into nine companies (to wit, eight for the county
and one for the town), do choose a colonel and other mili
tary officers, who shall hold and exercise their several
powers by virtue of the choice, and independent of the
crown of Great Britain and former constitution of this pro
vince. V. That, for the better preservation of the peace and
administration of justice, each of those companies do choose
from their own body two discreet freeholders, who shall be
empowered eaeh by himself, and singly, to decide and de
termine all matters of controversy arising within said com
pany, under the sum of twenty shillings, and jointly and
together all controversies under the sum of forty shillings,
yet so as their decisions may admit of appeal to the Con
vention of the Select Men of the county, and also that any
one of these men shall have power to examine and commit
to confinement persons accused of petit larceny.
VI. That those two Select Men thus chosen do jointly
and together choose from the body of their particular com
pany two persons to act as constables, who may assist them
in the execution of their office.
VII. That upon the complaint of any persons to either
of these Select Men, he do issue his warrant directed to the
constable, commanding him to bring the aggressor before
him to answer said complaint.
VIII. That these select eighteen Select Men thus ap
pointed do meet every third Thursday in January, April,
July, and October at the Court House in Charlotte, to hear
and determine all matters of controversy for sums exceed
ing forty shillings, also appeals ; and in case of felony to

94 ADDRESSES
commit the person convicted thereof to close confinement
until the Provincial Congress shall provide and establish
laws and modes of proceeding in all such cases.
IX. That these eighteen Select Men thus convened do
choose a clerk to record the transactions of said convention,
and that said clerk, upon the application of any person or
persons aggrieved, do issue his waiTant to any of the con
stables of the company to which the offender belongs, direct
ing said constable to summon and warn said offender to
appear before said convention at their next sitting to an
swer the aforesaid complaint.
X. That any person making complaint, upon oath, to the
clerk, or any member of the convention, that he has reason
to suspect that any person or persons indebted to him in a
sum above forty shillings intend clandestinely to withdraw
from the county without paying the debt, the clerk or such
member shall issue his warrant to the constable, command
ing him to take said person or persons into safe custody
until the next sitting of the convention.
XI. That when a debtor for a sum above forty shillings
shall abscond and leave the county, the warrant granted
as aforesaid shall extend to any goods or chattels of said
debtor as may be found, and such goods or chattels be seized
and held in custody by the constable for the space of thirty
days, in which time, if the debtor fail to return and dis
charge the debt, the constable shall return the warrant to
one of the Select Men of the company, where the goods are
found, who shall issue orders to the constable to sell such a
part of said goods as shall amount to the sum due.
That when the debt exceeds forty shillings, the return
shall be made to the convention, who shall issue orders for
sale. XII. That all receivers and collectors of quit rents, pub
lic and county taxes, do pay the same into the hands of the
chairman of this committee, to be by them disbursed as the
public exigencies may require, and that such receivers and

THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION 95
collectors proceed no further iu their office until they be
approved of by, and have given to, this committee good and
sufficient security for a faithful return of such moneys when
collected. XIII. That the committee be aecountable to the county
for the application of all moneys received from such pubhc
officers. XrV. That all these officers hold their commissions dar
ing the pleasure of their several constituents.
XV. That this committee will sustain all damages to aU
or any of their officers thus appointed, and thus acting, on
account of their obedience and conformity to these rules.
XVI. That whatever person shall hereafter receive a
commissimi from the eroicn, or attempt to exercise any sttch
commisshn heretofore received, shall he deemed an enemy
to his country ; and upon confirmation being made to the
captain of the company in which he resides, the said com
pany shall cause biTn to be apprehended and conveyed before
two Select Men, who, upon proof of the fact, shall commit
said offender to safe custody, until the next sitting of the
committee, who shall deal with him as prudence may direct.
XVII. That any person refusing to yield obedience to
the above rules shall be considered equally criminal, and
liable to the same ponishment as the offenders above last
mentioned. XTTTT. That these resolves be in full force and virtue
until instructions from the Provincial Congress regulating
the jurisprudence of the province shall provide otherwise,
or the legislative body of Great Britain resign its unjust
and arbitrary pretensions with respect to America.
XIX. That the eight mihtia companies in this county
provide themselves with proper arms and accoutrements,
and hold themselves in readiness to execute the commands
and directions of the Gteneral Congress of this province and
this committee.
XX. That the committee appoint Colonel Thomas Polk

96 ADDRESSES
and Dr. Joseph Kennedy to purchase three hundred pounds
of powder, six hundred pounds of lead, one thousand flints,
for the use of the militia of this county, and deposit the
same in such place as the c6mmittee may hereafter direct.
Signed by order of the committee,
Eph. Brevard,
Clerk of the Committee.
It will be seen that these resolutions do not formally
declare Independence, but they assume its existence
as an accomplished fact which had been brought about
by the then existing posture of events. They premise
as their basis that the British Parliament by declar-
ins the Colonies in a state of actual rebellion had left
the people of America free to assume that all laws
and commissions emanating from the king or Parlia
ment were annulled and vacated, aud that the former
civil constitution of the Colonies was, for the present,
wholly suspended. To provide for the exigencies thus
created In IMecklenburg County, they ordain that all
civil and military commissions heretofore granted by
the crown are null and void, aud the constitution of
each particular Colony wholly suspended ; that aU
legislative and executive powers were then vested in
the Provincial Congress of each colony under the
direction of the Continental Congress ; that as all
former laws were then suspended in North Carolina,
and as the Congress of the province had not j'ct pro
vided others, the people of Mecklenburg should pro
ceed to form certain rules for the Internal government
of the county until laws should be provided by the
Congress ; that the military officers of the county
when chosen by the people should hold aud exercise
their several powers by virtue of the popular dioice,
" and iiidipcndent of the crown of Great Britain and

THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION 97
former constitution of this province ; " that what
ever person should hereafter receive a commission
from the crown or attempt to exercise any such com
mission heretofore received should be deemed an enemy
to his country ; that these resolutions should be " in
full force and virtue until instructions from the Pro
vincial Congress regulating the jurisprudence of the
province should provide otherwise, or the legislative
body of Great Britain resign its unjust and arbitrary
pretensions with respect to America ; " and finally,
as an evidence that these resolutions were not meant
to be brutum fidmen, they direct the eight militia
companies of the county to provide themselves with
proper arms and accoutrements, and Colonel Thomas
Polk and Dr. Joseph Kennedy were appointed to pur
chase on behalf of the county three hundred pounds
of powder, six hundred pounds of lead, and one thou
sand flints.
AYIth these resolutions before us, we are now able
to perceive that some of the aged men who between
the years 1819 and 1830 certified that they were pre
sent at a meeting in Charlotte on the 20th of May,
1775, and that the so-called Mecklenburg Declaration
of Independence was then and there adopted, must be
understood to have had the meeting of May 31, and
the declaration then made, in the intendment of their
minds. This Is made apparent, not only by the gen
eral drift of the later manifesto, meeting, as it does,
the precise conditions of the problem then presented
to the minds of the American people, but also by cer
tain particular facts to which these witnesses refer as
having happened contemporaneously with the date of
the Declaration, whatever may have been its substance
or form.

98 ADDRESSES
For instance, General Joseph Graham, one of the
most intelligent in their number, informs us that among
other reasons offered at the time for making the Dec
laration was the fact that " the king or Ministry had,
by proclamation or some edict, declared the Colonies
out of the protection of the British crown." Now this
statement is doubtless inspired by a reminiscence of
the proposition contained in the preamble of the series
adopted on the 31st of May ; for that preamble sub
stantially embodies the very reason which General Gra
ham says he remembers to have been put forth in justi
fication of the Declaration at the time it was made.
Yet he says that the Declaration took place on the 20th
of May, while making it plain that his recollections
were reverting to the meeting and manifesto of May
31. The whole discussion, which he rehearses as being
contemporaneous with the " Declaration," precisely fits
the political situation revealed by that document. The
echoes of the meeting held on that day must have been
still ringing in his ears when he reproduced the de
bates of the village hustings. He was only slightly
mistaken in the address he gave to them.
In like manner, Mr. John Simeson, In affirming that
three men, Thomas Polk, John Pfifer, and Joseph Ken
nedy, were appointed to secure military stores for the
county, on the same day when the Declaration was pro-
mulged, must have meant to designate the meeting held
on the 31st of May, for it was on that day that such a
committee as he describes was created, and he erred
only in adding one name too many to the list of Its
members. The repeated references, moreover, which the wit
nesses make to the " setting up a government for them
selves under the title of the Committee of Safety "

THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION 99
clearly point to the series of May 31. And the repre
sentations contained under this head in the so-called
Declaration of May 20, and in its accompanying his
torical appendix, as transmitted by John McKnitt Al
exander, are obviously nothing more than the " coun
terfeit presentments " of a memory striving to repro
duce the authentic transactions of May 31. Else we
must believe that IMecklenburg regulated " the general
conduct of her citizens " twice, at the two dates, which
stand only ten or eleven days apart.
Besides all this, the preponderance of the testimony
borne by the witnesses with respect to the person who
acted as secretary of the meeting which " declared in
dependence " points rather to the meeting of May 31
than to that alleged to have been held on the 20th pre
ceding. By only one witness is John McKnitt Alex
ander named as the clerk of the convention, while by
six Dr. Ephraim Brevard Is so designated, and another
witness names them both in this relation. As we have
record proof that Dr. Brevard was secretary of the
meeting which passed the resolves of May 31, it cer
tainly seems most probable that those who certify to
his presence as secretary at a meeting In which a dec
laration of independence was adopted have slightly
antedated and confounded their recollections by Identi
fying them with the published document of the year
1819, which, tiU the year 1837, assumed to wear, with
out a rival, all the dignities of a great event in the
annals of Mecklenburg.
It will thus be seen that the most significant facts
proved to have occurred contemporaneously with the
Mecklenburg manifesto, whatever its date and whatever
its purport may have been, " and which facts do fix the
time," in the idea of Dr. Hawks (and in fixing the

100 ADDRESSES
time ascertain also the nature of the declaration), are
precisely the grounds ou which we now can demon
strate that it was the meeting and declaration of May
31 to which the memory of these witnesses was Invol
untarily recurring. Even In assenting to another date
and another transaction, they certify to facts which ex
plode the very hypothesis they were cited to confirm.
But we are not left to rely only on historical proba
bilities and inferential reasoning in support of the
opinion that it was the manifesto of May 31, and not
one alleged to have been made on the 20th of that
month, which was dispatched by a messenger to the
Continental Congress at Philadelphia. Whatever was
the paper thus forwarded, we know that Captain Jack
was its bearer, and we have positive contemporaneous
evidence that the paper which he bore was the series
of resolves passed on May 31.
Before these resolves had been discovered by Mr.
Force, It was historically known that Josiah Martin,
the colonial governor of North Carolina, In a procla
mation under date of August 8, 1775, written on
board a British gunboat, the Cruiser, had aimed some
very wrathful thunderbolts against the seditious prac
tices of the North Carolina people, and among the
proceedings signalized for special reprobation are " the
resolves of a set of people styling themselves a Com
mittee of the County of Mecklenburg." He wrote : —
" I have seen a most infamous publication in the ' Cape
Fear Mercury,' importing to be resolves of a set of people
styling themselves a Committee of the County of Mecklen
burg, most traitorously declaring the entire dissolution
of the laws, government, and constitution of this country,
setting up a system of rule and regulation repugnant to the
laws and subversive of his Majesty's government."

THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION 101
Now, it was not known until the resolutions of May
31, 1775, had been brought to light that there was
any Mecklenburg manifesto about that time which
could answer to the description of Governor Martin,
except the resolves purporting to have been passed on
the 20th of May. Hence it was held, not without
much plausibility on the part of those who believed in
the genuineness of the latter, that Governor Martin
must have had a copy of them before him when he
penned the above-cited paragraph. Mr. Jones so
argued In his " Revolutionary History of North Caro
lina," published in the year 1834 ;i and Dr. Hawks
took up the same parable on this point in his first
publication on the "Mecklenburg Declaration," in
the "New York Review " of March, 1837.
It ought to have been seen that the paper of May
20, restricted as it is In its scope to Mecklenburg
County, could not have been intended by Governor
Martin when he denounced a paper "declaring the
entire dissolution of the laws, government, and con
stitution of this country ; " but after the discovery of
the later resolutions, no room was left for a doubt
that it was to them the governor alluded in his
proclamation. And thus what Mr. Jones had called
"the best evidence of the truth " of the earlier Decla
ration was cut away under his feet. For the pre
sumption that it was to them Governor Martin re
ferred did not long remain a mere presumption; it
was turned Into a certainty by the discovery subse
quently made, that just before the date of his procla
mation he had transmitted a copy of the resolves of
^ A Defence of the Mevolutionary History of the State of North Caro^
Una from the Aspersions of Mr. Jefferson. By Jo. Seawell Jones. Bos
ton, 1834.

102 ADDRESSES
May 31 to Lord Dartmouth, the British Secretary of
State for the Colonies, as being identical with the
copy sent off by express to Philadelphia. Mr. Ban
croft found the original of this letter In the British
State Paper Office. It was written by Governor
Martin from Fort Johnston, In North Carolina, under
date of June 30, 1775, and contains the following
Important reference to this topic : —
"The resolves of the Committee of Mecklenburg, which
your lordship will find in the inclosed newspaper, surpass
all the horrid and treasonable publications that the inflam
matory spirits of this continent have yet produced ; and
your lordship may depend its authors and abettors will not
escape whenever my hands are sufficiently strengthened to
attempt the recovery of the lost authority of government.
A copy of THESE resolves, I am, informed, was sent off by
express to the Congress at Philadelphia as soon as they
were passed in the committee."
With such contemporaneous evidence before us, we
are prepared to assert positively that the paper borne
by Captain Jack to the Continental Congress was the
manifesto of May 31, and not the alleged Declaration
of May 20, which was never printed till the year
1819. It is not often easy to prove a negative, but
In the present case we are able to prove that it was
not the "resolves of May 20" which were sent by
proving that It was a later set of resolves which was
sent. And as it is agreed on all hands that If there
was any declaration of independence made by the
people of Mecklenburg in the year 1775, It must be
sought in the paper that was sent to Philadelphia, it
follows that there was no such declaration as has been
imagined; for all admit that the paper of May 31
does not amount to a formal assertion of independ-

THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION 103
ence, brave and magnanimous as are Its declarations
of fact and principle.
It Is easy to understand, but not easy to justify,
the motives which have led the believers in the
genuineness of the so-called resolves of May 20 to
vilipend those of May 31. Thus Dr. Hawks, In an
address delivered at Charlotte on the 20th of May,
1857, in celebration of the "anniversary of the Meck
lenburg Declaration of Independence," has argued
that as the document of May 31 "shows that the men
who adopted It were not fools," a question presents
itself which, as he thinks, It Is not easy for those to
answer who disbelieve In the existence of " the greater
declaration." That question, as he formulates It, is
this : —
" How could men, not fools, suppose it was of the slight
est moment to the Continental Congress of all the Colonies
in America to know how Mecklenburg County, in North
Carolina, appointed her constables and justices of the peace,
the extent of jurisdiction given to the latter, the mode of
dealing with petty rogues and runaway debtors, and similar
matters ? What did the Continental Congress care for all
these things ? "
Forbearing criticism on the singular Inaccuracy of
Dr. Hawks in thus belittling the resolves of May 31
by taking no account of their Continental features, we
beg leave to say that the matter which he thinks so
piddling was then (in 1775) the great question of the
hour In America. The people of Massachusetts are
not commonly supposed to have been "fools" at this
juncture, and yet It is known that the congress of
this colony sent a "special post" on the 11th of
June, 1775, to confer with the Continental Congress
on this very subject, — the necessity of concerting

104 ADDRESSES
some form of civil government to take the place of
that which had lapsed under the then existing rupture
between the Colonies aud the crown; and this "post "
from Massachusetts must have been In Philadelphia
about the same time with Captain Jack from Meck
lenburg. ^ Cumberland County In New York asked
for directions under this same head at the hands of Its
colonial congress on the 6th of June, 1775.^ The
proceedings of the Virginian House of Burgesses on
the 14th of June, 1775, were entirely occupied with
this emergency of the political situation.^ Every
where in America this was the problem that most
engaged the thoughts of men, perplexed as they were
by the difficulties incident to that epoch of transition.
The people of Mecklenburg were the first to cut this
Gordian knot by their Incisive declarations made and
promulged on the 31st of May, 1775. It Is strange
that their descendants should be willing to tarnish
this singular ornament on the armorial shield of their
county to make room for a doubtful quartering. It
was not till months after May, 1775, as we learn
from the annals of that time, that the delegates in the
Continental Congress were ready for the step Initiated
by Mecklenburg.* The great m&,ss of the people of
North Carolina were not ready for this step, insomuch
that when the delegates from Mecklenburg In the
next Provincial Congress were charged by some " in
structions " drawn up by Dr. Ephraim Brevard to
vote for the application of these principles to the
whole colony, they effected nothing In that direction.^
1 See American Archives, fourth series, vol. ii. pp. 621, 955, 960.
Cf . p. 1842. 2 Ibid., p. 918.
3 Ibid., pp. 1210-1215.
* Ibid., vol. iv. pp. 1136-1140.
'' See these remarkable " instructions " in the Reverend William

THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION 105
Having thus shown that the intrinsic Importance
of the document, because of the relation It bore to the
political situation of the American colonies In the
year 1775, conspires with the documentary proof and
with Governor Martin's Information, obtained at the
time, to demonstrate that it was the resolves of May
31 which the Mecklenburg courier bore to Philadel
phia, we may add, c.v abundantia, that all these indi
cations are corroborated by the fact that so much of
these resolves as was of general interest — ¦ to wit, the
preamble, the first four resolutions, and the sixteenth
In the series — was reprinted at the North contempo
raneously with Captain Jack's sojourn near the Con
tinental Congress. It will be remembered by the
reader that among the witnesses cited by the North
Carolina Legislature in the year 1830, three men tes
tify that "they frequently heard William S. Alex
ander, deceased, say that he was at Philadelphia on
mercantile business In the early part of the summer
of 1775, say June; and that on the day that General
Washington left Philadelphia to take command of
the Northern army, he, the said William S. Alexan
der, met with Captain James Jack, who informed
him, the said William S. Alexander, that he, the said
James Jack, was there as the agent or bearer of a
declaration of independence, made In Charlotte on
the 20th day of May, 1775, by the citizens of Meck
lenburg." It is historically known that General Washington
set out from Philadelphia to take command of the
army at the North on the 23d of June, 1775. Cap-
Henry Foote's Skrtrhes of North Carolina, Historical and Biograph
ical, Illustrative of the Principles of a Portion of her Early Settlers,
p. 70.

106 ADDRESSES
tain Jack, it appears, was In Philadelphia at that
time as the bearer of a declaration made by the citi
zens of Mecklenburg, and less than a week after
wards we know that the essential portions of the dec
laration of May 31 were published In the Northern
newspapers. It is admitted that the resolutions of May 20 were not
published at the time of their alleged adoption, nor
until more than forty years afterwards. And yet we
are asked to believe that while the resolves of May
31, though pitched on a much lower key of patriotic
rhetoric, were widely disseminated at the time of their
promulgation, spreading, as we know they did, from
South Carolina to Massachusetts, none were found that
" moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped,"
to give publicity to the more magniloquent manifesto.
No wonder that John Adams, on his " sober second
thought," came to believe that the Alexander version of
the Mecklenburg Declaration was an impossibility. To
this effect he wrote as follows, under date of August
21, In the year 1819, and therefore not very long after
the first publication of Alexander's story : —
" I was on social and friendly terms with Caswell, Hooper,
and Hewes, every month of their existence in Congress ; with
Hooper, a Bostonian, and a son of Harvard, intimate and fa
miliar. Yet from neither of the three did the shghtest hint
of these Mecklenburg resolutions ever escape. Is it possible
that such resolutions should escape the vigilant attention and
scrutinizing, penetrating minds of Patrick Henry, E. H. Lee,
Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Gadsden, Mr. Rutledge, Mr. Jay, Mr.
Sherman, Mr. Samuel Adams ? Haud credo. I cannot be
lieve that they were known to one member of Congress on the
4th July, 1776." i
^ The Works of John Adams, vol. x. p. 383.

THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION 107
In so reasoning Mr. Adams did but draw an infer
ence justified by a logical conversion of the legal
maxim which declares that de non apparentibus et non
existcfitibus eadem est ratio. This " Mecklenburg Dec
laration of Independence " did not " put In an appear
ance " at Philadelphia, and hence he held that this fact,
under the circumstances, established a negative preg
nant against its existence In the year 1776. And what
is clear In the case of Mr. Adams is confirmed, not only
by the silence of all contemporary witnesses, but by the
express statements of some persons in North Carolina
who were in a position where they must have heard of
the Declaration if it had ever existed, but who testify
in the years 1776 and 1777 that no such Declaration
had come to their knowledge. For instance, it is in
credible that so Intelligent a citizen of North Carolina
as James Iredell, afterwards appointed by President
Washington one of the justices of the Supreme Court
of the United States, should not have known of this
manifesto, if It really appeared in the year 1775. Ire
dell was the early and intimate correspondent of Wil
liam Hooper. He was the brother-in-law and constant
correspondent of Samuel Johnston, that eminent North
Carolina patriot who more than any other was the
leader of his people In the years 1775 and 1776, and
who, as the President of the North Carolina Provin
cial Congress during these years, was the associate of
Colonel Thomas Polk, John McKnitt Alexander, and
other alleged signers of the Mecklenburg Declaration.
And yet we have the deliberate statement of Iredell,
made jn the year 1777, that " until very near the time "
when " the arbitrary obstinacy " of the king left " no
other alternative than Indefinite submission or unre
served resistance," he " never heard a man speak on

108 ADDRESSES
the subject of independence who did not speak of it
with abhorrence and indignation." * This positive tes
timony makes it impossible to believe that a whole
county of North Carolina had publicly declared inde
pendence in the year 1775.
And it cannot be said that th^e Fesolntions were not
known at the time because " they were deemed too vio
lent," or becanse " a secret was made of their exist
ence," for the resolutions really sent to Philadelphia
were not only commnnicated to the North Carolina
members of Congress, but were allowed by Captain
Jack to be publicly read while he was on his way
northwards. He recites in his testimony that when
passing through the town of Salisbury (the county-seat
of Rowan, about forty nules from Charlotte), on his
journey to Philadelphia, he found the General Court
in session, and, " at the request of the Court, he handed
a copy of the resolutions to Colonel Kennon, an at
torney, and they were read aloud in open Court." He
•further recites that on the evening after the public
reading of the resolutions, two gentlemen, whom he
names, called on him at his lodgings, and informed him
that they had heard of bnt one person who did not ap
prove of them, — a fact, by the way, of much signifi
cance in this discnssion. For it is on record that the
Committee of Bowan County, on the 1st day cfJune,
1775, had addressed a special communication to the
Committee of Mecklenburg County, asking for an inter
change of political proceedings, and expressing the
pious hope that, in answer to their united prayers, the
people of the two counties might be allowed to have
their chartered rights as British subjects, " with the
^ See McBee's Life and Correspondence of James IredeH, toL i. p.
544. Cf pp. 3i'l-oi3.

THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION 109
present House of Hanover in legal succession " as the
defenders of those rights.^ If there had been a Decla
ration of Independence at Charlotte on the 20th of
May, 1775, It is impossible that the fact should not
have been known at Salisbury, forty miles distant,
twelve days afterwards, and, in that event, the Rowan
committee would not have been so indiscreet as to plight
the allegiance of their Mecklenburg compatriots to the
House of Hanover.
Having thus traced the authentic history of the pa
per that was actually sent to Philadelphia, and having
shown that the contemporaneous documentary evi
dence, that the historical surroundings, that the inter
nal proofs, and that even the most salient facts con
tained in certificates procured to establish a contrary
hypothesis all point to the declaration of May 31, 1775,
as being the only one entitied to credence as a genuine
document, we might here safely rest our argument
and dismiss the further discussion of this long-mooted
topic. But if enough has been said to lead irresistibly
to the conclusion that the so-called Declaration of May
20 is uuhistorical and spurious, it stiU remains to
show that the honor of the Mecklenburg patriots Is
pledged to the same demonstration. For It Is impos
sible to believe in the verity of the alleged Declara
tion of May 20, without binding ourselves. In the
light of their subsequent conduct, to convict its as
sumed authors and abettors of base defection from
principle and of moral perjury.
It has been urged. Indeed, by Dr. Hawks and others,
in their defense of the alleged Declaration of May 20,
that the resolves of the following May 31 proceed on
^ See John H. Wheeler's Historical Sketches of North CarMnafrom
15S4iolS51, p. 365.

110 ADDRESSES
the assumption of the independence declared at the
earlier date. To this effect, referring to the resolves
of May 31, Dr. Hawks says : —
" The whole document, ... as it shows upon its face,
is the necessary consequence of a previous declaration of
independence and dissolution of connection with the parent
country, but will scarcely pass for a declaration of independ
ence itself."
This statement, we submit, exactly inverts the logi
cal relations of the two papers, and flies in the face of
evidence lying upon the surface of both. The pream
ble of the series passed on the 31st of May expressly
states the assumption on which the resolutions of that
date proceed, and this assumption Is no antecedent
declaration of the people of Mecklenburg, but a decla
ration of the British Parliament with regard to the
political status of the American Colonies. If there
had been a declaration of Independence on the 20th
of May, Is It at all probable that Its authors would
have ignored the existence of the fact eleven days
afterwards ? But, sooth to say, the alleged resolves
of May 20 are not simply ignored, — the hypothesis
of their existence is absolutely excluded by the par
ticular contents and general tenor of that later series
which we know to be authentic.
The resolves of May 31, so far from contemplating
anything like a formal or definitive separation from
Great Britain, distinctly avow that they are meant
to be purely provisional, temporary, and contingent
in their " force and virtue." They declare that the
former civil constitution of the Colonies is wholly sus
pended " for the present," and enact certain regular
tions for Mecklenburg until " the Provincial Congress

THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION 111
shall provide otherwise, or until the legislative body
of Great Britain resign its unjust and arbitrary pre-
tensio7is." If, then, the patriots of Mecklenburg did
proclaim independence on the 20th of May, 1775, they
took back their parlous words on the 31st of May,
ten or eleven days afterwards. Were they heroes of
the Bob Acres sort, that such an imputation should
be fastened to their honorable names on no better
evidence than that of a legend which is discredited
equally by contemporaneous history and by their own
acknowledged acts and principles ?
But the argument on this point does not end here.
The prime movers in the alleged Declaration of May
20 are said to have been Colonel Thomas Polk and
John McKnitt Alexander. Among the putative sign
ers of the paper, besides these conspicuous names, we
find the names of Waightstill Avery and John Pfifer,
whom we otherwise know to have been leading patri
ots of Mecklenburg at that time.
Now, it so happens that the four men whose names
we have thus particularized were elected to represent
the county of Mecklenburg in the Provincial Congress
of North Carolina, which met at Hillsborough on the
20th of August, 1775, only a few months after, as tra
dition affirms, the people of that gallant county had
solemnly and Irrevocably declared themselves Inde
pendent of the British crown. If there was a Declara
tion of Independence such as that represented by the
paper of May 20, we may be sure that these men
would not forswear it In the legislature of their native
colony, and before the eyes of their countrymen.
How, then, let us ask, did these Mecklenburg repre
sentatives demean themselves in that Provincial As
sembly ? As independent citizens or as loyal subjects

112 ADDRESSES
of King George III. ? On these points let us refer to
the law and to the testimony ; that is, to the official
minutes of this North Carolina Provincial Congress.
It appears, then, that on the 21st of August, 1775,
Messrs. Thomas Polk, John McKnitt Alexander,
John Pfifer, Waightstill Avery, Samuel Martin, and
James Houston — all reputed signers of the alleged
Declaration except the two last named — appeared
and took their seats in that body as delegates from
Mecklenburg. On the 23d of August a committee,
previously appointed for that purpose, reported a Test,
which they had prepared to be signed by all the mem
bers of the Congress In affirmation of their loyalty to
the crown, and In testimony to what they conceived to
be their constitutional and hereditary rights as British
subjects. The Test ran as follows : —
" We, the subscribers, professing our allegiance to the
king, and acknowledging the constitutional executive power
of government, do solemnly profess, testify, and declare
that we do absolutely believe that neither the Parliament
of Great Britain nor any member or constituent branch
thereof have a right to impose taxes upon these Colonies to
regulate the internal policy thereof ; and that all attempts
by fraud or force to establish and exercise such claims and
powers are violations of the peace and security of the people,
and ought to be resisted to the utmost," etc.
" In testimony whereof we have hereto set our hands,
this 23d of August, 1775."
This " Test of Loyalty and of Patriotism " was
signed by all the members of the Congress, and
among them by Thomas Polk, John McKnitt Alex
ander, John Pfifer, and Waightstill Avery, the dele
gates from Mecklenburg, who, we are told, on the
previous 20th of May had declared their independence

THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION 113
of Great Britain. Fancying himself present at the
adoption of that Declaration, Dr. Hawks exclaims :
" The deed was done ; these men had pledged all they
had, — lives, fortunes, honor ; and, true as steel, from
.that hour to this they never shrank from meeting that
pledge." What shall we say, then, of Colonel Thomas
Polk, who, besides signing the Test of Loyalty, was a
member of the committee which matured " a plan for
the regulation of the internal peace, order, and safety
of the Province," requiring all officers appointed under
it to subscribe the same Test ? What shall we say of
Waightstill Avery, who, at a later day, again sub
scribed this Test as a member of the North Carolina
Provincial Council ? What of John McKnitt Alex
ander, who, notwithstanding that he supposed himself
the clerk of the meeting which passed the Declaration,
and the custodian of its records, Is known to have
protested his loyalty to the British crown as late as
April 4, 1776, when, with his two colleagues, Robert
Irwin and John Pfifer (both reputed signers of the
Declaration), he put his name once more to the above-
recited Test as a delegate from Mecklenburg In the
North Carolina Provincial Congress which met at
Halifax in that year ?^ To suppose that these men had
made a " Declaration of Independence " on the 20th
of May, 1775, and had pledged their " lives, fortunes,
and most sacred honor " to maintain It, is to affix an
ineffaceable stigma to their characters, In view of what
we know to have been their subsequent acts and de
clarations. Nor Is this all. We have already seen how his
Excellency Governor Martin regarded the resolves of
May 31. In his proclamation of August 8, 1775, he
* See Force's American Archives, fourth series, vol. v. p. 1315.

114 ADDRESSES
had denounced them as " traitorous," yea, " most trai
torous," because " declaring the entire dissolution of
the laws, government, and constitution of this coun
try." This Mecklenburg manifesto Is, Indeed, very
far from being the only publication which his Excel
lency in that proclamation has denounced as " sedi
tious." But In testimony of their deep indignation
at all such calumnious charges, the members of the
North Carolina Congress, Including the delegates from
Mecklenburg, unanimously passed the following pre
amble and resolution on the 25th of August, 1775 : —
" A paper purporting to be a proclamation issued by his
Excellency, Josiah Martin, dated on board his Majesty's
ship Cruiser, at Cape Fear River, the 8th of August instant,
directed to the Moderator of the Provincial Convention at
Hillsborough, being read :
"Resolved unanimously, That the said paper is a. false,
scandalous, scurrilous, m,alicious, and seditious libel, tend
ing to disunite the good people of this province, and to stir
up tumults and insurrections dangerous to the peace of his
Majesty's government, and highly hijurious to the char
acter of several gentlemen of acknowledged virtiie and
loyalty ; and further, that the said paper be burned by the
common hangman."
So sedulous were the members of this Congress,
including the delegates from Mecklenburg, to keep
themselves in the odor of loyalty! Nor did they rest
satisfied with these protestations.
As if apprehensive that some one or another of
the associated colonies then represented in the Con
tinental Congress might wish to proceed further and
faster In the widening revolt than was compatible
with their own notions of duty and safety, these del
egates, including those from Mecklenburg, determined

THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION 115
to take precautions against being committed to any
rash measures in that direction. A plan of confeder
ation among the insurgent colonies had been broached
by Dr. Franklin in the Continental Congress on the
21st of July, 1775, for the purpose of consolidating
the desultory opposition they were then waging
against British aggression, and this plan was sub
mitted to the North Carolina Congress.^ But North
Carolina was not ripe for such a decisive step, and
accordingly the committee appointed to consider this
subject reported on the 4th of September, 1775, that
they " had taken into consideration the plan of gen
eral confederation between the United Colonies, and
are of opinion that the same is not at present eligible.
And it is also the opinion of the committee that the
delegates for this Province ought to be instructed not
to consent to any plan of confederation which may be
offered in an ensuing Congress, until the same shall
be laid before and approved by the Provincial Con
gress. That the present association ought to be fur
ther relied on for bringing about a reconciliation with
the parent state, and a further confederacy ought only
to be adopted in case of the last necessity."
The Articles of Association, adopted by the Conti
nental Congress October 20, 1774, commence with
the declaration that their adherents are " his Majesty's
most loyal subjects," and expressly avow allegiance to
the Crown.2 Moreover, as a loose and voluntary pact
of commercial non-intercourse, they had failed to meet
the growing demands of the time. Here, surely, was
an opportunity for the delegates from Mecklenburg,
if they had declared Independence on the 20th of
1 See Force's American Archives, fourth series, vol. ii. p. 1887; and
vol. iii. pp. 189, 196. ^ Ibid., vol. i. p. 913.

116 ADDRESSES
May, 1775, to make some show of a stand in defense
of their vantage-ground. But how entirely they shared
the prudential views of their associates in that Con
gress will sufficiently appear from the fact that, in
common with all the other delegates, they united In
the unanimous adoption of an ultra-loyal address to
the inhabitants of Great Britain, containing the most
vehement asseverations, not only of their " loyalty,"
but of their " devotion " to the British crown. A few
extracts wUl suffice to show the temper of this docu
ment : —
" Traitors, rebels, and every harsh appellation that malice
can dictate, or the virulence of language express, are the
returns which we receive to the most humble petitions and
earnest supplications. We have been told that independence
is our object ; that we seek to shake off all connection with
the parent state. Cruel suggestion ! Do iiot all our pro
fessions, all our actions, unifornrdy contradict this ?
" We again declare, and we invoke that Almighty Being
who searches the recesses of the human heart and knows
our most secret intentions, that it is our most earnest wish
and prayer to be restored with the other Colonies to that
state in which we and they were placed before the yea/r
1763, disposed to glance over any regulations which Britain
had made previous to this, and which seemed to be inju
rious and oppressive to these Colonies, hoping that at some
future day she will benignly interpose and remove from us
every cause of complaint."
The alleged signers of the Mecklenburg Declara
tion of Independence who were present in that body,
Messrs. Polk, Alexander, Pfifer, and Avery, united
in this solemn purgation of their consciences from all
taint of disloyalty to the British crown. As it is
impossible to believe that such men could have con-

THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION 117
sented to enact a wicked farce before high Heaven, we
should be willing on this ground alone to discard the
fiction which plaits a crown of thorns for their brows,
and puts them in a pillory for all time.
. We have seen that jMecklenburg County by her
resolves of May 31 had departed from the forms of
the British colonial government, and had set up a
temporary regime of her own. Other counties and
the entire colony had in some respects Imitated her
example. But mark in the following passages of the
same loyal Address how careful the members of this
Congress were to guard these acts against miscon
struction : —
" Whenever we have departed from the forms of the
Constitution, our own safety and self-preservation have dic
tated the expedient ; and if in any instance we have assumed
powers which the laws invest in the sovereign and his repre
sentatives, it has been only in defence of our persons, pro
perties, and those rights which God and the Constitution
have made inalienably ours. As soon as the cause of our
fears and apprehensions is removed, with joy will we return
these powers to their regular channels ; arid such institu
tions, formed from mere necessity, shall end with that
necessity which created them.
" These expressions flow from an affection bordering
upon devotion to the succession of the House of Hanover as
by law established, from subjects who view it as a monu
ment that does honor to human nature ; a monument capa
ble of teaching kings how glorious it is to reign over a
free people. These are the heartfelt effusions of men ever
ready to spend their blood and treasure, when constitii-
tionally called upon, in support of that succession of his
Majesty King George the Third, his crown, and dignity,
and who fervently wish to transmit his reign to future
ages as the era of common happiness to his people."

118 ADDRESSES
This language certainly does not sound much like
" the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence."
And yet Colonel Thomas Polk, the alleged " herald "
of that " Declaration," joined in this address to the
British people ; John McKnitt Alexander, the certi
fier of the " Declaration," united in these protestations
of unswerving loyalty ; Waightstill Avery and John
Pfifer, alleged signers of the " Declaration," shared
in these loyal prostrations before the British throne.^
If they were honest men, that Declaration must be
set down as the Invention of a later age. There is
not room even for interposing the deprecatory plea
that these Mecklenburg delegates may possibly have
been absent when this loyal Address was unanimously
approved, for a record of absentees was kept by the
secretary of the Congress, and their names do not
appear In that record. In very mercy to them, as
well as in justice to authentic history, we must assume
that there neither was nor could have been any such
Declaration. If contemporaneous testimony makes
Its existence historically incredible, the subsequent
acts and declarations of its reputed authors and sup
porters makes its existence morally impossible.
We conclude, therefore, without hesitation, that the
only supposition In the premises consistent with all
historical probability, with all the known facts, with
all contemporaneous documents, with the form and
pressure of the times, with the local surroundings of
^ It is not insinuated that there is anything derogatory to North
Carolina patriotism in these loyal professions. We are simply meas
uring the influence of the alleged Mecklenburg Declaration, to see if
we can discern .any signs of its existence at that date. " During the
course of my life and until the second petition of Congress in 1775,"
wrote John Jay, " I never did hear any American of any class or any
description express a wish for the independence of the Colonies."

THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION 119
the question, with all subsequent testimony as duly
weighed, and with the honorable character of the men
involved in these transactions, is the supposition that
the so-called ^lecklenburg Declaration of Independ
ence is a spurious document ; not necessarily a docu
ment conceived in fraud, but rather, as we are bound
to believe, a paper compiled by John McKnitt Alex
ander In an honest effort to reproduce, according to
the best of his recollection, the facts and declarations
contained In the genuine manifesto of May 31, after
that manifesto had been forgotten, as we know it soon
was. The precise terms of that manifesto In passing
out of his sight had passed out of his mind, and hence
it was easy for its acts and declarations to undergo a
rhetorical transfiguration which, when reduced to the
forms of speech, ran naturally Into a travesty of the
familiar phrases popularized In the common mind by
the national Declaration of Independence.
It is no part, however, of our duty to explain the
origin and genesis of the popular myth which came
to be superimposed on the actual facts of history by
a later tradition. It Is with the actual facts that we
are most concerned in this Inquiry. We are, Indeed,
willing to believe that there may have been a meeting
of Mecklenburg patriots at Charlotte on the 19th and
20th of May, 1775 (since it is In evidence that many
meetings were held about that time) ; it may be that
the news of the battle of Lexington was brought to
this meeting by express ; and that on this day a Com
mittee of Public Safety was organized under the im
pulse of that exciting Intelligence. But a Declaration
of Independence at that time is shown to be neither
credible nor possible.
And this fact would have been recognized at once

120 ADDRESSES
on the first publication of the paper in the year 1819,
if It had then been known that the precisely similar
paper which John McKnitt Alexander placed in the
hands of General Davie was expressly certified hy its
author to have been compiled from his recollections
without the aid of any written records whatsoever.
This fact is not openly stated In the certificate pub
lished by his son under the signature of " J. McKnitt "
In the year 1819. Whether the certificate in the two
cases was different, or whether J. McKnitt, that is,
Dr. Joseph McKnitt Alexander, omitted to reproduce
this important admission, we are unable to say.^ The
certificate attached to the " Davie copy " was published
(we believe for the first time) in the " North Carolina
University Magazine " of May, 1853, as part of an
article on the Mecklenburg Declaration from the pen
of the Rev. Dr. Charles Phillips, an eminent scholar
of North Carolina, and at that time a Professor in the
University at Chapel Hill.^ This certificate as cited
by him runs as follows : — ¦
1 It is now known by all interested in this historical inquiry (what
was not known at first) that the name of " J. McKnitt," under cover
of which the Mecklenburg Declaration appeared in the year 1819, was
really nothing more than the Christian name of Dr. Joseph McKnitt
Alexander, the son of John McKnitt Alexander ; and in the later
stages of the discussion much surprise has naturally been expressed
that this gentleman, in giving publicity to a paper received from his
father, should have disowned his father's name, and appeared in a
masquerade. We learn, however, that the name of" Alexander" was
once so common in Mecklenburg as hardly to afford the means of dis
criminating the individuals who bore it, and that for this reason Dr.
Joseph McKnitt Alexander sometimes dropped his patronymic. He
unfortunately did so in this instance, and hence the injurious suspi
cions that have arisen at a later day.
^ The " Davie copy " is now lost or mislaid. Deposited for a time
in the State Department at Raleigh, it was removed by Governor
Swain for the purpose of critically inspecting it, aud this critical

THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION 121
It may be worthy of notice here to observe that the fore
going statement, though fundamentally correct, may notUter-
ally correspojid with the original record of the transactio7is
of said delegation and court of inquiry, as all these records
and papers were burnt with the house on April 6, 1800 ; but
previous to that time of 1800 a full copy of said records,
at the request of Dr. Hugh Williamson, then of New York,
but formerly a representative in Congress from this State,
was forwarded to him by Colonel William Polk, in order
that those early transactions might fiU their proper place in
a history of this State, then writing by said Dr. WUUamson,
in New York.
Certified to the best of my recollection and belief, this
3d day of September, 1800. J. McK. Alexander.
It Is greatly to be regretted that this certificate
was not published at the same time that the so-called
Mecklenburg Declaration was first communicated to
the American public, in the year 1819. In the pre
sence of such a candid statement with regard to the
untrustworthlness of the document, it would have been
difficult to enlist the passions of raen in the struggle
which has been so long and so violently waged over
this paper. The apocryphal recollections of an old
man, who is careful to premise that they may not lit
erally correspond with the original record, would have
been received by all for what they were worth, with
out flinging at his head charges of forgery on the one
hand, and without making them the gospel of North
Carolina patriotism on the other.
It will be seen that In relegating the Mecklenburg
inspection brought to light the certificate, which Professor Phillips
published in the North Carolina University Magazine while Governor
Swain was the president of the University.

122 ADDRESSES
Declaration to the domain of fable we are doing no
despite to the memory of John McKnitt Alexander,
and least of all are we detracting from the fame of his
compatriots. It is only those who are pledged to the
contrary theory who can find any difficulty in confess
ing their veneration for these " gray forefathers of the
State." We have simply wiped the lichen and the
moss from their gravestones, that we might the better
place on their tombs a garland of immortelles.
Indeed, there is a sense in which we may be said to
magnify their transcendent repute for exalted patriot
ism by establishing the fact that, In the pious memory
of their descendants, they have been so easily con
verted from flesh-and-blood men into the demigods of
North Carolina story. It is only men of real worth
who can lend their names to cover the exaggerations of
the hero-worshiping fancy, for such men alone can send
forth from their personality an Influence strong enough
to plant In the minds of others, and especially of those
who cherish their memories, what Grote, the historian,
has aptly called " an oestrus for creating and an ap
petite for believing the legends of the past." It is
thus that the symmetrical and majestic proportions
of Washington's real character readily expand into
the colossal figure which Is conjured up by American
pride at the mere mention of his name. It Is a proof
as well of Lincoln's genuine greatness as of the pitying
tenderness with which his tragical and untimely end
was commiserated that he has been already canonized
in our national pantheon. The popular fictions which
consecrate and embellish the memories of departed he
roes are rarely the inventions of a voluntary decejition.
Such fictions spring up spontaneously In the breasts of
men as the natural reflex of a glory that was real In

THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION 123
their illustrious ancestors. It is enough to explain the
origin of these traditions, if at the bottom of them a
set of men are found peculiar enough to account for
the shadows projected by the fame of their Ideal ex-
ploits.i As Wordsworth sings, —
" Ne'er could the boldest eulogist have dared
Such deeds to paint, such characters to frame.
But for coeval sympathy prepared
To greet with Instant faith their loftiest claim."
The patriots of Mecklenburg In 1775 would seem
to have been men of this stamp and mould. Almost
more than any others among their contemporaries
they are shown to have had " understanding of their
times." If their fame be rested on the resolves of
May 31, It is safe to say that they were foremost in
the clear and logical conception which they had formed
of the civil status created for the American Colo
nies by the address of both Houses of Parliament to
the crown, adopted February 7, 1775, declaring the
Colony of ]Massachusetts in a state of " actual rebel
lion," and constructively passing the same sentence of
outlawry on all the other Colonies which were giving
her aid and comfort. This is glory enough for the
Mecklenburg fathers, and it is a glory which cannot
be plucked from their brows, even by those who would
fain put a false nimbus around their heads. It is an
inverted and illusory Image which, in the shape of
the long-cherished legend, looms to the eyes of their
1 What intractable materials the mythopoiesis can work into its
legends we may see in a tradition preserved in the Brevard family,
that their ancestor, Dr. Ephraim Brevard, was inspired to write the
Mecklenburg Declaration by the Westminster Confession of Faith !
The Mahabharata would have done as well if he had been supposed
equally familiar with it.

124 ADDRESSES
posterity, but, like other shadows, it proves the sub
stance true.
We are well aware that in bringing this pictorial
" tale of a grandfather " to the " dry light " of prosaic
truth we have discharged an ungrateful office. Men
are slow to give up " the mock pearls of history." We
still love to quote with a kindling enthusiasm the grand
sayings which Plutarch puts In the mouths of the an
cient heroes. We confess small thanks to NIebuhr
because he has dispelled for us the splendid corusca
tions with which " the mythopoeic fancy " has gilded
the auroral dawn of the Roman Empire. With the
Switzer we are loath to admit that the tale of William
Tell with his bow and arrow is hardly more authentic
than the story of Cock Robin, evaporated as It has
been Into a " solar myth," glancing from the legends
of Denmark in the pages of Saxo Grammaticus, and
from we know not how many chronicles besides in
other lands. And if history could be properly writ
ten, as poetry is written, — to express the ideally true
rather than the really true, — there might be as much
to admire in such superstitions of the head as In those
" superstitions of the heart " without which, as the
poet tells us, our human life would be poor indeed.
But when, as we have shown in the case of the Meck
lenburg patriots, It Is the sober facts which best illus
trate the true nobility of their characters, we do but
perform a duty equally to them and to the Muse of
History by seeking to rescue their memories from the
distortions of romance. ,

THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION!
The Emancipation Proclamation Is the most signal
fact in the administration of President Lincoln. It
marks, indeed, the sharp and abrupt beginning of
"the Great Divide" which, since the upheaval pro
duced by the late civil war, has separated the polity
and politics of the ante bellum period from the polity
and politics of the post bellum era. No other act of
Mr. Lincoln's has been so warmly praised on the one
hand, or so warmly denounced on the other ; and
perhaps it has sometimes been equally misunderstood,
In Its real nature and bearing, by those who have
praised it and those who have denounced It. The
domestic institution against which it was leveled having
now passed as finally into the domain of history as the
slavery of Greece and Rome, it would seem that the
time has come when we can review this act of Mr.
Lincoln's in the calm light of reason, without serious
disturbance from the Illusions of fancy or the distor
tions of prejudice.
In order to give precision and definiteness to the
inquiry here undertaken, it seems necessary at the
threshold to distinguish the true purport and opera
tion of the Emancipation Proclamation from some
things with which it is often confounded In popular
speech. In the first place. It Is proper to say that the
^ Reprinted from The North American Review for February, 1880.

126 ADDRESSES
Proclamation, In Its Inception and In Its motive, had
nothing to do with the employment of slaves as labor
ers iu the army. Fugitive slaves were so employed
long before the utterance of such a manifesto had been
contemplated, or the thought of It tolerated by the
President. Just as little was the Proclamation a neces
sary condition precedent to the enlistment of fugitive
slaves as soldiers In the army. Mr. Lincoln was averse
to the employment of negroes as soldiers at the time
he issued the preliminary Proclamation of September
22, 1862, and he remained In this state of mind until
the final edict was issued on the 1st of January fol
lowing. It was not until the 20th of January, 1863,
that Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts, received
permission to make an experiment In this direction.
We learn from the diary of Mr. Secretary Chase
that at a meeting of the Cabinet held on the 21st of
July, 1862, the President " determined to take some
definite steps in respect to military action and slav
ery." A letter from General Hunter having been
submitted, in which he asked for authority to enlist
" all loyal persons without reference to complexion,"
It appears that Messrs. Stanton, Seward, and Chase
advocated the proposition, and no one in the Cabinet
spoke against it ; but, adds Mr. Chase, " the President
expressed himself as averse to arming negroes." On
the next day the question of arming slaves was again
brought up, and Mr. Chase " advocated It warmly ; "
but the President was still unwilling to adopt this
measure, and proposed simply to issue a proclama
tion based on the confiscation act of July 17, 1862,
" calling on the States to return to their allegiance,
and warning the rebels that the provisions of that act
would have full force at the expiration of sixty days.

THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION 127
adding, on his own part, a declaration of his intention
to renew at the next session of Congress his recom
mendation of compensation to States adopting the
gradual abolishment of slavery, and proclaiming the
emancipation of all slaves within States remaining
In insurrection on the 1st of January, 1863." ^ So the
first intimation made to the Cabinet of a purpose to
proclaim the liberation of slaves In the Insurgent
States was made in connection with the President's
avowed opposition to the arming of negroes.
Writing from memory, Mr. Secretary Welles states,
in his " History of Emancipation," that the President,
"early In August" — he thinks it was the 2d of
August — submitted to the Cabinet " the rough draft "
of a proclamation to emancipate, after a certain day,
aU slaves in States which should then be In rebellion,
but that Mr. Seward argued against the promulgation
of such a paper at that time, " because it would be
received and considered as a despairing cry, a shriek
from and for the administration, rather than for
freedom." ^ He further records that the President,
impressed with this view, closed his portfolio, and did
not recur to the subject until after the battle of An-
tletam, which was fought on the 17th of September.
Writing In his diary under date of August 3, but
referring, doubtless, to the discussions held In the
Cabinet on the previous day,^ Mr. Chase records that,
" for the tenth or twentieth time," he urged the adop
tion of a vigorous policy against slavery in the seceded
States by " assuring the blacks of freedom on condl-
^ Warden's Life of Chase, p. 440.
2 Galaxy, December, 1872, p. 845.
' The meeting was held on a Saturday, according to Mr. Welles,
and the 3d of August, 1862, was a Sunday.

128 ADDRESSES
tion of loyalty, and by organizing the best of them in
companies and regiments." He further records that
Mr. Seward " expressed himself in favor of any mea
sures which could be carried into effect without pro
clamation, and the President said that he was pretty
well cured of objection to any measure, except want
of adaptedness to put down the rebellion, but did not
seem satisfied that the time had come for the adoption
of such a plan as I had proposed." ^
On the 22d of August, just one month after Mr.
Lincoln had first opened the subject of emancipation
to his Cabinet, he proceeded to take the whole country
into his confidence on the relations of slavery to the
war. On that day he wrote " the Greeley Letter," —
a letter written in reply to an earnest and Importunate
appeal In which, assuming to utter the " Prayer of
Twenty Millions," Mr. Greeley had called on the Pre
sident, with much truculence of speech, to issue a
proclamation of freedom to all slaves In the Confeder
ate States. As this letter was the first as well as the
most pithy and syllogistic public discussion which the
President ever gave to the subject in hand, it seems
proper not only to insert It here In its entirety, but,
as a matter of literary curiosity, to reproduce it in
Its original form. The following is a copy of the
letter : — Executive Mansion, Washington,
August 22, 1862.
Hon. Horace Greeley :
Dear Sir, — I have just read yours of the 19th ad
dressed to myself through the New York " Tribune." If
there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which
I may know to be erroneous I do not, now and here, con
trovert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may
1 Warden's Life of Chase, p. 446.

THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION 129
believe to be falsely drawn, I do not, now and here, argue
against them. If there be perceptible in it an impatient
and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend,
whose heart I have always supposed to be right.
As to the policy I " seem to be pursuing " as you say, I
have not meant to leave any one in doubt.
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way
under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority
can be restored, the nearer the Union will be " the Union as
it was." If there be those who would not save the Union,
unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not
agree with them. If there be those who would not save
the Union unless they could at the same time destroy
slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object
in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save
or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without
freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it
by freeing all the slaves I would do it ; and if I could save
it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do
that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do
because I believe it helps to save the Union ; and what I
forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to
save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe
what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more when
ever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I
shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors ; and
I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be
true views.
I have here stated my purpose according to my view of
official duty ; and I intend no modification of my oft-
expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be
free. Yours, A. Lincoln.
This letter appeared for the first time in the " Na
tional Intelligencer " of August 23, 1862.1
1 The letter came into my hands from the fact that I was one of

130 ADDRESSES
In his interview with the Representatives of the
Border States, held on the 10th of March, 1862, Mr.
Lincoln had said that, as long as he remained Presi
dent, the people of Maryland (and therefore of the
other Border States) had nothing to fear for their
peculiar domestic institution " either by direct action
of the government or by indirect action, as through the
emancipation of slaves In the District of Columbia or
the confiscation of Southern property " in slaves. In
that same interview, while making a confidential
avowal of these friendly sentiments, he had protested
against their public announcement at that juncture,
on the ground that " It would force him Into a quarrel
with 'the Greeley faction' before the proper time."
He twice intimated that such a quarrel was impend
ing, but added that "he did not wish to encounter
it before the proper time, nor at all if It could be
avoided." ^
It was no more than natural, therefore, that these
representatives, on the appearance of " the Greeley
Letter," should have read between Its lines a supposed
Indication of the President's purpose to break with
" the Greeley faction "at an early day. They believed
that the President, at the bottom of his heart, was in
sympathy with them, and with their theory of the war.-
They were not entirely disabused of this Impression
the editors of the Intelligencer, to which Mr. Liucoln sent it for publi
cation. The omitted passage — " Broken eggs can never be mended,
and the longer the breaking proceeds the more will be broken " —
"was erased, with some reluctance, by the President, on the represen
tation, made to him by the editors, that it seemed somewhat excep
tionable, on rhetorical grounds, in a paper of such dignity. But it cau
do no harm, at this late day, to reveal the homely similitude by which
Mr. Lincoln had originally purposed to reinforce his political warn
ings. 1 McPherson, Political History, p. 211.

THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION 131
even after his Interview with them on the 12th of
July, when he made a last Ineffectual appeal to them
in behalf of " emancipation with compensation to loyal
owners," and when he reinforced his appeal by urging
that the acceptance of such a policy would help to
relieve him from " the pressure " for military emanci
pation at the South.
The representatives from the Border States were
strengthened in their delusion by a corresponding
delusion of the Radical Republicans,^ who weakly sup
posed the President at this juncture to be a nose of
wax in the hands of what they called " the pro-slavery
faction." As late as the 10th of September, ten days
before the preliminary Proclamation of emancipation
was Issued, we find Mr. Chase lamenting In his diary
that the President " has yielded so much to Border
State and negrophobic counsels that he now finds It
difficult to arrest his own descent to the most fatal
concessions." ^ And this impatient insistence of his
Radical friends was repaid by the President with
gibes and sneers, as when, for instance, on this same
10th of September he taunted Mr. Chase with " the
Ill-timed jest" that some one had proposed, in view of
the Confederate Invasion of Pennsylvania, which was
then believed to be impending, that he (the Presi
dent) should Issue a proclamation " freeing all appren
tices In that State " — on the ground of military
necessity !
It was with a like festive humor that, on the 13th
1 The word "Radical " throughout this paper is used historically,
and not in any invidious sense. It is the term by which Mr. Lincoln
called the " Stalwarts " of that day, and by which they called them
selves. 2 Warden's Life of Chase, p. 471.

132 ADDRESSES
of September, he parried the arguments of the Chi
cago clergymen who had come to Washington in
order to press for a proclamation of freedom. To
their representation that the recent military disasters
"were tokens of divine displeasure, calling for new
and advanced action on the part of the President," he
shrewdly replied that, if it was probable that God
would reveal his will to others on a point so intimately
connected with the President's duty, it might be sup
posed that he would reveal it directly to the President
himself. To the argument that a proclamation of
freedom would summon additional laborers to help
the army, he replied by asking what reasou there was
to suppose that such a proclamation would have more
effect than the late law enacted by Congress to this
end ; and, if they should come In multitudes, how, he
asked, could they all be fed ? To the suggestion that
the able-bodied among them might be armed to fight
for the Union, he ironically replied, " If we were to
arm them, I fear that In a few weeks the arms would
be in the hands of the rebels." To the plea that emanci
pation would give a holy motive and a sacred object
to the war, he replied by saying that " we already
had an important principle to rally and unite the peo
ple, In the fact that constitutional government was at
stake — a fundamental idea going down about as deep
as anything."
It is true that at the close of his Interview the
President assured the Chicago committee that he had
not "decided against a proclamation of liberty to
slaves," and that " the subject was on his mind by
day and night more than any other ; " but this state
ment only served to bring into bold relief the little
faith he then seemed to have in a measure for which.

THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION 133
considered as a means to the ends proposed by its pa
trons, he could, with all his meditations, find no good
and sufficient reasons. It is true that, on the preced
ing 22d of July, Mr. Lincoln had said that he was
pretty well cured of objection to any measure against
slavery except " want of adaptedness to put down the
rebellion ;" and now, too, he publicly announced that
he " did not want to issue a document which the whole
world would see must necessarily be inoperative, like
the Pope's bull against the comet." It Is true that
he had previously sketched " the rough draft " of an
emancipation proclamation, but he had put It back in
his portfolio on the suggestion of Mr. Seward that
practical measures against slavery could be carried
Into effect " without proclamation." It Is true that
only a few days previously (" when the rebel army
was at Frederick " ') he had registered a vow in
heaven that he would issue a proclamation of emanci
pation so soon as the Confederates should be driven
out of Maryland ; but this was the conduct either of
a man who, in a perplexing state of Incertitude, re
solves his doubts by " throwing a lot In the lap " and
leaving " the whole disposing thereof to be of the
Lord," or, as I prefer to believe, it was that prudent
and reverent waiting on Providence by which the
President sought to guard against the danger of iden
tifying the Proclamation in the popular mind with a
panic cry of despair, in which latter case the hesita
tion of Mr. Lincoln only serves to set in a stronger
llo-ht the significant fact that other than considera-
tions of military necessity were held to dominate the
situation, for, if they alone had been prevalent, the
Proclamation could never have come more appropri
ately than when the military need was greatest.
1 September 6.

134 ADDRESSES
The proximate and procuring cause of the Procla
mation, as I conceive, is not far to seek. It was
issued primarily and chiefly as a political necessity,
and took on the character of a military necessity
only because the President had been brought to be
lieve that if he did not keep the Radical portion of
his party at his back he could not long be sure of
keeping an army at the front. He had begun the
conduct of the war on the theory that It was waged
for the restoration of the Union under the Constitu
tion as it was at the outbreak of the. secession move
ment. He sedulously labored to keep the war in this
line of direction. He publicly deprecated Its de
generation into a remorseless revolutionary struggle.
He cultivated every c^vallable alliance with the Union
men of the Border States. He sympathized with them
in their loyalty and in 'the political theory on which it
was based. But the most active and energetic wing
of the Republican party had become, as the war
waxed hotter, more and more hostile to this " Border
State theory of the war','' until, in the end, its fiery
and impetuous leaders did '^o* hesitate to threaten
him with repudiation- as.a-pbisa'i*'^! chief, and even be
gan in some cases t*.innt th^o i^pedieucy of withhold
ing supplies for the W?®cuti()fjn x^oTSie war, unless the
President should remn " gg^o-slavery generals " from
the command of our s lie/ s, and adopt an avowedly
antislavery policy In I'lef uture conduct of the war.
Thus placed between two stools, and liable between
them to fall to the 'ground, he determined at last to
plaut himself firn^^ly on the stool which promised the
surest and safest support.
I am able to state with confidence that Mr. Lincoln
gave this explanation of his changed policy a few days

THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION 135
after the preliminary Proclamation of September 22
had been issued. Tlie Hon. Edward Stanly, the mili
tary governor of North Carolina, Immediately on re
ceiving a copy of that paper, hastened to Washington
for the purpose of seeking an authentic and candid
explanation of the grounds on which Mr. Lincoln had
based such a sudden and grave departure from the
previous theory of the war. Mr. Stanly had accepted
the post of military governor of North Carolina at
a great personal sacrifice, and with a distinct under
standing that the war was to be prosecuted on the
same constitutional theory which had presided over
its Inception by the Federal government, and hence
the Proclamation not only took him by surprise, but
seemed to him an act of perfidy. In this view he
hastily abandoned his post, and came to throw up his
commission and return to California, where he had
previously resided. Before doing so he Sought an
audience with the President — In fact, held several
interviews with him — on the subject, and knowing
that, as a public journalist, I was deeply Interested In
the matter, he came to report to me the substance
of the President's communications. That substance
was recorded In my diary as follows : —
September 21th. — Had a call to-day at the " Intelli
gencer " office from the Honorable Edward Stanly, military
governor of North Carolina. In a long and interesting
conversation Mr. Stanly related to me the substance of sev
eral interviews which he had had with the President respect
ing the Proclamation of Freedom. Mr. Stanly said that the
President had stated to him that the Proclamation had be
come a civil necessity to prevent the Radicals from openly
embarrassing the government in the conduct of the war.
The President expressed the belief that, without the Procla-

136 ADDRESSES
mation for which they had been clamoring, the Radicals
would take the extreme step in Congress of withholding
supplies for carrying on the war — leaving the whole land
in anarchy. Mr. Lincoln said that he had prayed to the Al
mighty to save him from this necessity, adopting the very
language of our Saviour, " If it be possible, let this cup pass
from me," but the prayer had not been answered.
As this frank admission. In the length and breadth
here given to it, will doubtless wear an air of novelty
to many readers, and may excite suspicions in some
minds with regard to the accuracy of my chronicle,
the faithfulness of Mr. Stanly's report, or the sincer
ity of Mr. Lincoln in making his statements, it seems
proper to vindicate the authenticity of the record by
an appeal to other facts which abundantly corroborate
Its truth.
In his interview with the Border State Representa
tives on the 12th of July, 1862, the President had
implored them to relieve him from the Radical " pres
sure " by espousing with him the policy of emancipa
tion with compensation. This " pressure," he said,
was even then " threatening a division among those
who, united, are none too strong." On the next day,
after the failure of this Interview to make any Impres
sion on the Border State Representatives, the Presi
dent, for the first time, opened the subject of military
emancipation in a private conversation with two mem
bers of his Cabinet, — Mr. Seward and Mr. Welles.
The President then said, as Mr. Welles reports, that
emancipation " was forced upon him as a necessity,"
" was thrust at him from various quarters," but " had
been driven home to him by the conference of the pre
ceding clay." ^ On the 28th of the same month he
' Galaxy, December, 1872, p. 843.

THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION 137
wrote to IMr. Cuthbert Bullitt, of New Orleans, that it
was " a military necessity to have men and money, and
loe cannot get cither in sufficient numbers or amount
if we keep from or drive from our lines slaves coming
to them." ^ Even at this date, when the enlistment
of colored troops was not meditated, It will be seen
that Mr. Lincoln confessed himself obliged to make
concessions to the antislavery sentiment of his party
in order to procure supplies of men and money, and
thus early It was that, as a wary political pilot, he
kept his weather eye fixed on the thickening clouds
that rose higher and higher In the Northern sky, —
clouds full of muttered wrath against him so long as
he seemed to hold in leash the thuiiderbolt they were
ready to discharge on slavery. For he prefaced this
statement by saying that what he did and what he
omitted about slaves " was done aud omitted on the
same military necessity," — the necessity of having
men and money to carry on the war. And the Presi
dent's apprehensions were not entirely groundless on
this score. As early as In the month of May, 1862,
Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts, had not hesi
tated to say " in writing " that the people of that
State had come to " feel it a heavy draft on their
patriotism " that they should be asked " to help fight
rebels " without being allowed " to fire on the enemy's
magazine." And, In the very act of submitting the
preliminary Proclamation of September 22 to the
consideration of his Cabinet, the President avowed
that It was Issued under the menacing frown of this
" pressure ; " for when Mr. Montgomery Blair argued
against the timeliness of the measure, on the ground
that It might " put the patriotic element of the Border
1 Raymond, Life and State Papers of Abraham Lincoln, p. 481.

138 ADDRESSES
States In jeopardy," and even "carry those States
over to the secessionists," Mr. Lincoln replied that
" the difficulty was as great not to act as to act " ^ —
that Is, by not acting In the way proposed he feared
a disaffection among his party friends at the North
which would be as dangerous to the Union as the dis
affection likely to be produced by the Proclamation
among the Unionists of the Border States. The
President remembered that the Massachusetts Repub
lican Convention, held less than two weeks before,
had omitted to pass a vote of confidence in his Ad
ministration, but had voted that " slavery should be
exterminated." Even the Radical members of his
own Cabinet had come to think of him and to speak
of him as a political recreant. On the 12th of Sep
tember, ten days before the preliminary edict was
issued, Mr. Chase wrote of him as follows : " He has
already separated himself from the great body of the
party which elected him ; distrusts most those who
represent its spirit, and waits — for what? " ^
The Proclamation when it came put an end, of
course, to all this "pressure." Indeed, Mr. Chase
admitted, when the President read the paper to his
Cabinet, that It went " a step further than he had ever
proposed." He had proposed that each commander
of a department at the South should be Instructed to
proclaim emancipation within his district, assuring the
blacks of freedom on condition of loyalty, and organ
izing the best of them in companies and regiments.^
But Mr. Lincoln promised and threatened that, on the
1st of January, 1863, "all persons held as slaves within
1 Galaxy, December, 1872, p. 847.
^ Warden's Life of Chase, p. 471.
3 Ibid., pp. 440, 446.

THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION 139
any State, or designated part of a State, the people
whereof should then be in rebellion against the United
States, should be then, thenceforward, and forever
free," — a declaration which promised the largesse
of freedom alike to the " loyal blacks " who escaped
within our lines, and to the slaves who voluntarily
stood by their masters, because they were unwilling
to strike a blow for their own liberty.
If the Proclamation disarmed for a time the bitter
opposition of the Radicals, Its other political and
practical effects were such as abundantly justified the
long hesitation of the President In issuing It. It pre
cipitated a crisis which threatened to divide the friends
of the Union at the North by a new line of cleavage.
If Governor Andrew and his politic.il associates had
previously found it a " heavj^ draft " on their patriot-
Ism to sustain the President in his constitutional theory
of the war, it now became a heavy draft on the patri
otism of conservative Republicans and of war Demo
crats to sustain him in his new departure. New elec
tive affinities suddenly struck through the seething
mass of public opinion, and led to new political forma
tions. A spirit of political giddiness and revolt was
shed upon the people in the loyal States. In the
ensuing autumnal elections the Republican party was
defeated in great States like New York, Ohio, Indi
ana, and Illinois. When Congress met in December
the political signs of the times were full of portents.
There was " uneasiness In the popular mind." The
attitude of Europe toward us was " cold and mena
cing " where It did not express Itself " in accents of
pity " for a people " too blind to surrender a hopeless
cause." These are not my words, but the words of
Mr. Lincoln himself when, one year afterward, he was

140 ADDRESSES
called to review the political, civil, and military situa
tion created by the Emancipation Proclamation. The
utterance of the Proclamation, he said, " was followed
by dark and doubtful days." ^
The Emancipation Proclamation united the South,
where, however, there was but little room for further
consolidation. Leading citizens in that section who had
previously stood aloof from the war, so long as It was
conducted at the South In the name of secession against
the constitutional government at Washington, now
hastened to give in their adhesion to the Richmond
authorities. In his message of December, 1861, Mr.
Lincoln had said that " in considering the policy to be
adopted for suppressing the Insurrection," he had been
" anxious and careful that the inevitable conflict for
this purpose should not degenerate into a violent and
remorseless revolutionary struggle. . . . All indispen
sable means," he added, " must be employed," but " we
should not be In haste to determine that radical and
extreme measures, which may reach the loyal as well
as disloyal, are Indispensable." The Emancipation
Proclamation was accepted by these halting Unionists
at the South as an indication that the time for " radi
cal and extreme measures " had come in the judgment
of the President, and they acted accordingly. " For a
time," says Mr. Welles, the proclamation " failed to
strengthen the Administration In any section." ^
Its effect on the slaves at the South was such as Mr.
Lincoln had predicted In his interview with the Chi
cago deputation. Sanguine advocates of emancipation
by edict of the President had risked the confident
prophecy that it would be followed by a simultaneous
^ Raymond, Life and State Papers of Abraham Lincoln, p. 454.
2 Galaxy, December, 1872, p. 848.

THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAIM ATION 141
exodus of negroes from the South, and that such an
exodus would end the war by a coup de theatre. As
one of them wrote, " The plough would stand still in the
furrow, the ripened grain would remain unharvested,
the cows would not be milked, the dinners would not
be cooked, but one universal hallelujah of glory to
God, echoed from every valley and hill-top of rebel-
dom, would sound the speedy doom of treason." ^ This
bubble was pricked by the pen that wrote the Procla
mation. In all these respects the manifesto was compara
tively a failure. But it accomplished at once the great
end to which It was most Immediately directed by the
President, — it consolidated the Republican party, and
made it more intensely than ever " the war-party of
the country." It is true that veteran Republicans, like
Thurlow Weed, shrank in dismay from the measure ;
but in the great body of the party it kindled a new
flame of martial enthusiasm, albeit the " roads " In
New England did not " swarm " with volunteer sol
diers, as Governor Andrew had promised and pre
dicted, during the " pressure " period, would be the
case, provided the President would allow them to fight
" with God and human nature on their side." The
antislavery passions of the North, which had hitherto
been kicking In the traces, were now effectively yoked
to the war-chariot of the President. The Proclama
tion lessened for a time the number of his supporters,
but it gave to them almost the compactness of a Mace
donian phalanx. It put an end to political vacillation
and atermoiement. Not that the measure in either
matter or form was entirely satisfactory to the zealots
of emancipation, and not that the President, as Lord
' National Intelligencer, July 31, 1862.

142 ADDRESSES
Lyons wrote to his government, " had thrown himself
in the arms of the Radicals." While still refusing
to walk altogether In the ways of these extremists, he
established such a hold on the rank and file of the
Republican army that they followed him without fal
tering through the shadow of the dim eclipse which
obscured their fortunes in the autumn of 1862. A
year later, after the victory at Gettysburg and after
the fall of Vicksburg, when the shock of arms on a
hundred battle-fields had come to supply the country
with a new set of emotions, Mr. Lincoln was able to
say, " We have the new reckoning."
Doubtless there are those who, on the view here
presented, will tax Mr. Lincoln with undue subser
viency to party. But It is only just to remember that
he tried to avoid its necessity, as with strong crying
and tears ; that he was called in his political geometry
to deal with problems, not theorems ; and that he was
a tentative statesman, who groped his way a tatons,
not a doctrinaire. If there be heroes, as Carlyle con
ceives them, bathed in the eternal splendors, and pro
jected out of the eternities into the times and their
arenas, Lincoln did not profess to be of their number.
I pass to consider the force and effect of the Pro
clamation viewed in the light of constitutional and of
public law. And here, again, It is necessary to guard
against a confusion of Ideas. The question at Issue
does not concern the right of a belligerent to liberate
slaves, flagrante bello, by military order accompanied
with manucaption, or the right to enlist such liberated
slaves In his army, so long as the war lasts. The em
ployment of colored troops, as has been shown, did
not depend on the Emancipation Proclamation, for the
President was opposed to the arming of negroes when

THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION 143
he first embarked on his emancipation policy. The
questions presented by the Proclamation of January
1, 1863, in the shape actually given to It by Mr. Lin
coln, are these : —
Pirstly. Had the President of the United States,
In the exercise of his war powers, a right, under the
Constitution and by public law, to decree, on grounds
of military necessity, the emancipation and perpetual
enfranchisement of slaves ip the insurgent States and
parts of States ?
Secondly. Did such proclamation work, by Its own
vigor, the Immediate, the unconditional, and the per
petual emancipation of all slaves in the districts
affected by It ?
Thirdly. Did such proclamation, working propria
vigore, not only effect the emancipation of all existing
slaves in the insurgent territory, but, with regard to
slaves so liberated, did It extinguish the status of
slavery created by municipal law, insomuch that they
would have remained forever free, in fact and law,
provided the Constitution and the legal rights and
relations of the States under It had remained, on the
return of peace, what they were before the war ?
Unless each and all of these questions can be an
swered In the affirmative, the Emancipation Procla
mation was not authorized by the Constitution or by
international law, and so far as they must be answered
in the negative it was brutum fulmen. It remains,
then, to make inquiry under each of these heads : —
1. As everybody admits that the President, In time
of peace and In the normal exercise of his constitu
tional prerogatives, had no power to emancipate slaves,
it follows that the right accrued to him, if at all, from
the war powers lodged in his hands by public law

144 ADDRESSES
when, as Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy,
he was engaged in a life-and-death struggle with In
surgents, whose number, power, and legal description
gave them the character of public enemies. It is,
therefore, to public law, as enfolded in time of war
and for war purposes In the bosom of the Constitu
tion, that we are primarily to look for the authority
under which the President assumed to act.
Of international law no less can be said than has
been said by Webster : "If, for the decision of any
question, the proper rule is to be found in the law of
nations, that law adheres to the subject. It follows
the subject through, no matter Into what place, high
or low. You cannot escape the law of nations In a
case where it Is applicable. The air of every judica
ture is full of It. It pervades the courts of law of the
highest character, and the court of pie poudre, ay,
even the constable's court." ^
This international law, with all Its belligerent rights,
was everywhere present as a potent force in the civil
war between the United States and the Confederate
States, so soon as that war had assumed such charac
ter and magnitude as to give the United States the
same rights and powers which they might exercise In
the case of a national or foreign war, and everybody
admits that It assumed that character after the act of
Congress of July 13, 1861. But international law, in
time of war, is present with its belligerent obligations
as well as with Its belligerent rights, and what those
obligations are Is matter of definite knowledge so far
as they are recognized and observed In the conduct
and jurisprudence of civilized nations.
The law of postliminy, according to which persons
1 Webster's Works, vol. vi. p. 122.

THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION 145
or things taken by the enemy are restored to their
former state when they come again under the power
of the nation to which they formerly belonged, was
anciently held to restore the rights of the owner in
the case of a slave temporarily affranchised by mili
tary capture. And, if it be admitted that, as regards
slaves, this fiction of the Roman law has fallen Into
desuetude under the present practice of nations, It is
none the less true that the government of the United
States has eai-nestly contended, In its intercourse with
other nations, for the substantial principle on which
the rule is based. We insisted ou restoration or resti
tution In the case of all slaves emancipated by British
commanders In the War of 1812-15, and the justice
of our claim under the law of nations was conceded by
Great Britain when she signed the Treaty of Ghent,
and when, on the arbitration of Russia, she paid a
round sum, by way of indemnity, to be distributed
among the owners of slaves who had been despoiled
of their slave property.^ In the face of a precedent
so set and so adjudicated by these great powers acting
under the law of nations (and one of them subse
quently known as the leading antislavery power of the
civilized world), It would seem that, as a question of
law, the first interrogatory must be answered in the
negative. Slaves temporarily captured to weaken the
enemy and to conquer a peace are not lawful prize
of war by military proceedings alone — proclamation,
capture, and deportation. The more fully It be con
ceded that international law, in time and fact of war,
knows the slave only as a person, the more fully must
it be conceded that this law, by purely !iiilitary mea
sures, cau take no cognizance of him as a chattel, either
1 Lawrence's Wheaton, pp. 612, 659.

146 ADDRESSES
to preserve or to destroy the master's property right
under municipal law. It leaves questions about the
chattel to be settled in another forum, and by another
judicature than the wager of battle.
Nor does It help the matter to say that In a terri
torial civil war the Federal government Is clothed
with the rights of a constitutional sovereign In addi
tion to those of a belligerent ; for, though this state
ment Is entirely true, it Is not true that both of these
jurisdictions apply at the same time, or that It is
lawful to import the methods and processes of the
one Into the domain of the other. A government, for
instance, may proceed against armed rebels by the law
of war — killing them in battle If It find them in bat
tle array ; by public law, confiscating their property ;
by sovereign constitutional law, condemning them to
death, for treason, after due trial and conviction. But
each of these proceedings moves In a sphere of its own,
and the methods of the one sphere cannot be injected
into the sphere of the other. It would, for example,
be a shocking violation of both constitutional and
public law to shoot down Insurgent prisoners of war,
in cold blood, because they were " red-handed traitors,"
and because they might have been lawfully killed in
battle. The military capture of a slave and the con
fiscation of the owner's property rights In him fall
under separate jurisdictions, and they cannot both be
condensed into the hands of a military commander any
more than into the hands of a judge.
2. No principle of public law is clearer than that
which rules the war rights of a belligerent to be cor
relative and commensurate only with his war powers.
" To extend the rights of military occupation or the
limits of conquest by mere intention, implication, or

THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION 147
proclamation, would be," says Halleck, " establishing
a paper C07iqtiest infinitely more objectionable in its
character and effects than a paper blockade." ^ It is
only so far as and so fast as the conquering bellige
rent reclaims " enemy territory " and gets possession
of " enemy property " that his belligerent rights attach
to either. And hence, when ]Mr. Lincoln, on the 1st
of January, 1863, assumed authority, In the name of
" military necessity," but without the indispensable
occiipatio bellica, to emancipate slaves In the territory
held by the enemy, he contravened a fundamental
principle of the public law, — a principle equally
applicable to the relations of a territorial civil war
and of a foreign war. It is important to observe
that where this principle was guarded by the rights
and interest of foreign nations, as In case of the
Southern ports of entry while they were under the
power of the Confederate authority, it was sacredly
respected by our government. And in the light of
this doctrine it follows that the second of the ques
tions formulated above must also be answered In the
negative ; for as to large parts of the South Mr. Lin
coln had no de facto power when he assumed to liber
ate slaves hoih' cle facto and de jure within all the
" enemy territory " at that date.
3. Since the decision of Lord Stowell In the case of
the slave Grace,^ it has been an accepted doctrine of
jurisprudence that the slave character of a liberated
slave — liberated by residing on free soil — Is redinte
grated by the voluntary return of such slave to the
country of the master. Unless, therefore, the Procla-
1 Halleck, International Law, chapter xxxii. § 2. Cf. 2 Sprague's
Reports, p. 149.
^ 2 Haggard's Reports, p. 94.

148 ADDRESSES
mation of Freedom is held to have extinguished the
status of slavery In the States and parts of States af
fected by it, it would have conferred a very equivocal
boon on Its beneficiaries. For, unless the municipal
law of slavery were wiped out by the Proclamation,
and by conquest under it, what prevented a reenslave-
ment of such emancipated blacks as should return to
their homes after the war ? And this fact was made
apparent to Mr. Lincoln and to the whole country as
soon as an occasion arose for bringing the matter to
a practical test.
On the 18th of July, 1864, when the famous " peace
negotiations " were pending at Niagara Falls between
Mr. Greeley and certain assumed representatives of
the Confederate States, Mr. Lincoln wrote that he
would receive and consider " any proposition which
embraced the restoration of peace, the integrity of the
whole country, and the cdiandonrnent of slavery, and
which came by and with an authority that can conti'ol
the armies now at war against the United States."
It was seen that the emancipation of individual slaves,
even of all Individual slaves in the insurgent States,
was worth nothing without an abandonment of slavery
itself — of the municipal status In which the slave
character was radicated, and in which it might be
planted anew by a voluntary return to the slave soil.
It was seen, too, that the Proclamation of Freedom,
considered as a military edict addressed to " rebels in
arms," had created a misjoinder of parties as well as
a misjoinder of issues, for the authority which con
trolled the Confederate armies was not competent to
" abandon slavery " In the Insurgent States, though it
was competent to restore " peace and union " by sim
ply desisting from further hostilities. A misjoinder

THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION 149
of issues was also created, for each State, under the
Constitution as it stood, had a right. In the matter of
slaverj', to order and control its own domestic institu
tions according to Its own judgment exclusively ; and
the nation, by the conquest of its own territory, " could
acquire no new sovereignty, but merely maintain its
previous rights." ^ The Proclamation proposed to
leave the Institution of slavery undisturbed in certain
States and parts of States, while destroying it in cer
tain other States and parts of States. Hence, on the
supposition that the paper was to have full force and
effect after the war, while our civil polity remained the
same, a new distribution of powers as between certain
States and parts of States on the one hand, aud the
Federal government on the other, would have been
created by edict of the Executive.^ Without any ex
press change in the Constitution of the United States,
and without auy express change in the constitutions of
the Insurgent States, the status of persons on one side
of a State line, or even ou one side of a county line,
would have depended on munici^jal law ; on the other
side of such State or county line It would have de
pended on a military decree of the President. In
this strange mixture of what Tacitus calls " res dis-
sociabiles, principatum ac libertatem," it would have
been hard to tell where the former ended and the
latter began ; and to suppose that the civil courts, in
the ordinary course of judicial decision, could have
recognized such anomalies, while the rights of the
States under the Constitution were still defined by
that instrument, Is to suppose that judges decree jus
tice without law, without rule, and without reason.
1 2 Sprague's Reports, p. 148.
2 2 Kurd, Law of Freedom and Bondage, p. 787.

150 ADDRESSES
It is safe, therefore, to say that the third question
above indicated must equally be answered In the neg
ative. And even if it be held that the President's want of
power to issue the Proclamation without the accom
panying occupatio bellica and that the consequent want
of efficacy In the paper to work emancipation proprio
vigore were cured by actual conquest under It on the
part of the government, and by actual submission to
it on the part of the seceded States, Insomuch that it
would have operated the extinction of the slave status
in those States, it still remains none the less clear that,
without a change In the Constitution of the United
States prohibiting slavery In the South, the Procla
mation must have failed, with the rights of plenary
conquest limited by the Constitution, to insure the per
petual freedom of the slaves liberated under it ; for
what, under the rights still reserved to the States,
would have prevented the future reestablishment of
slavery at the South after the return of peace ?
Nobody was more quick to perceive or more frank
to admit the legal weakness and Insufficiency of the
Emancipation Proclamation than Mr. Lincoln. De
termined though he was never to retract the paper, or
by his own act to return to slavery any person who
was declared free by its terms, he saw that, in Itself
considered, it was a frail muniment of title to any
slave who should claim to be free by virtue of its
vigor alone. And therefore it was that, with a candor
which did him honor, he made no pretense of conceal
ing Its manifold infirmities either from his own eyes
or from the eyes of the people, so soon as Congress
proposed, in a way of undoubted constitutionality and
undoubted efficacy, to put an end to slavery every-

THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION 151
where in the Union by an amendment to the Consti
tution. Remarkino; on that amendment at the time
of its proposal, he said, " A question might be raised
whether the Proclamation was legally valid. It might
be added that it aided only those who came Into our
lines, and that It was Inoperative as to those who did
not give themselves up ; or that It would have no ef
fect upon the children of the slaves born hereafter ; in
fact, it could be urged that it did not meet the evil.
But this amendment Is a king's cure for all evils. It
winds the whole thing up." ^
In the light of these facts, of these principles, and of
Mr. Lincoln's own admissions, it would seem that the
Emancipation Proclamation was extra-constitutional —
so truly outside of the Constitution that It required an
amendment to the Constitution to bring the President's
engagements and promises inside of the Constitution.
And surely it will not be pretended that the President,
even on the plea of military necessity, has a right to
originate amendments to the Constitution, or to wage
war on States until they agree to adopt amendments
of his imposing. This would be to " theorize with bay
onets, and to dogmatize in blood." This would be to
make it competent for the President in time of war to
alter the fundamental law of the land by pronuncia-
miento — a mode of proceeding which falls not only
outside of the Constitution, but outside of the United
States — Into Mexico.
The Proclamation fell also outside of the jural rela
tions of slavery under international law. Conceding
that slaves, in time of war, are known under interna
tional law only as persons, we still have to hold that,
as residents of " enemy territory," the slaves here in
1 Raymond, Life and'State Papers of Abraham Lincoln, p. 646.

152 ADDRESSES
question were by the terms of that code as much " en
emies " of the United States as their masters.^ But
the Proclamation treated them as friends and allies.
In the eye of municipal law, they were property, and
the Proclamation acknowledged them as such in the
act of declaring them free ; but, as such, they were
confiscable only by due process of law, after manucap
tion ; and, whether they were confiscated under public
law or under sovereign constitutional law would sim
ply depend on the nature and terms of the confiscation
act adopted by Congress. If they were confiscated as
" enemy property " in order to weaken the enemy, the act
would fall under public law. If they were confiscated
in order to punish the treason of their owners, whereof
such owners had been duly convicted, the act would
fall under sovereign constitutional law. But the Pro
clamation assumed to confiscate the property rights of
the slave-owners without any process of law at all ; and
so it fell as much outside of public law as it fell outside
of constitutional law and of municipal law. Nor has
any amendment of public law as yet brought within the
sanctions of international jurisprudence the pretension
of a belligerent to alter and abolish, by proclamation,
the political and domestic institutions of a territory
within which he has, at the time, no de facto power.
On the contrary, the pretension is traversed by the latest
codifications of International law,^ and by the latest
publications of our own State Department.^ And hence
It Is no matter of surprise that the first international

^ " In war, all residents of enemy country are enemies." — Chief
Justice Waite (2 Otto, p. 194) , in common with all the authorities.
^ Bluntschli, Das moderne Volkerrecht, p. 306. (Lardy's French ver
sion obscures and misinterprets the text of the original on this point.)
3 Cadwalader, Digest, pp. 56, 57, 148, 151.

THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION 153
lawyers of the country, like the Honorable William
Beach Lawrence, and the first constitutional lawyers
of the country, like the late Benjamin R. Curtis, have
recorded their opinion as jurists against the legality of
the Emancipation Proclamation.
Lawyers, as Burke said at the beginning of the
American Revolution, " have their strict rule to go by,"
and they must needs be true to their profession, but
" the convulsions of a great empire are not fit matter
of discussion under a commission of Oyer and Termi
ner." The Emancipation Proclamation did not draw
its breath in the serene atmosphere of law. It was born
In the smoke of battle, and its swaddling-bands were
rolled In blood. It was In every sense of the word a
coup d'etat, but one which the nation at first condoned
and then ratified by an amendment to the Constitution.
As Mr. Welles says, " It was a despotic act In the cause
of the Union," — an act, he adds, "almost revolution
ary," and it was almost and not altogether revolution
ary simply because it fell short of the practical and
legal effects at which it was nominally aimed. It was
In fact martial law applied to a question of politics
and of polity ; and of martial law, Sir Matthew Hale
has said that " in truth and reality it is no law at all,
but something indulged." If we would look for Its
fountain and source, we must look to an institute which
makes small account of all human conventions and
charters, the lex talionis. The Proclamation was the
portentous retaliatory blow of a belligerent brought
to bay in a death-grapple, and who drops his " elder-
squirts charged with rose-water " (the phrase Is Mr.
Lincoln's), that he may hurl a monstrous hand-grenade,
charged with fulminating powder, full in the faces of
the foe. The phenomenon is as old as the history of

154 ADDRESSES
civil war ; and because he saw it was likely to reappear,
so long as human nature remains the same, Thucydides
had a presage that his history of the civil war between
Athens and Sparta would be " a possession forever."
" War," he wrote, " Is a violent master, and assimilates
the tempers of most men to the condition in which it
places them." So Cromwell, In the hour of his polit
ical agony, exclaimed against " the pitiful, beastly no
tion " that a government was to be " clamored at and
blattered at," because it went beyond law In time of
storm and stress.
And there is something worse than a breach of the
Constitution. It Is worse to lose the country for which
the Constitution was made ; but, if the defense of the
Proclamation can be rested on this ground, the fact
does not require us to teach for doctrine of law that
which is outside of law and against law. Mr. Jeffer
son held the Louisiana purchase to be extra-constitu
tional, but he did not try to bring it inside of the Con
stitution by construction. That he left to others. It
seems a waste of logic to argue the validity of Mr. Lin
coln's edict. It moved above law. In the plane of state
craft. Not that its author, In so proceeding, moved on
the moral plane of the insurgents. He wrought to save,
they to destroy, the Union. Not that he acted in malice,
for, as he protested, the case " was too vast for malicious
dealing." And not that he clearly foresaw the end of
his step from Its beginning. The fateful times in which
he acted the foremost part were larger than any of the
men who lived In them, tall and commanding as is the
figure of the benign war President ; and the events then
moving over the dial of history were grander than the
statesmen or soldiers who touched the springs that made
them move. It was a day of elemental stir, and the

THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION 155
ground Is still quaking beneath our feet, under the
throes and convulsions of that great social and political
change which was first definitely foreshadowed to the
world by the Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham
Lincoln.

VI
THE LAND POLITICS OF THE UNITED STATES'
We are all familiar with the large part which was
played In the history of Rome by her public lands.
They were the seed-plot of periodical public dissen
sions, and bore almost annually a larger crop of po
litical agitations than of economic products. Every
schoolboy knows the successive phases of this agra
rian struggle. In the whole of Italy, as in Rome,
two contending parties stood perpetually in presence
of each other. On the one side was an aristocratic
party contending for class privileges and proprietary
dominion ; on the other was a democratic party con
tending for larger measures of popular power and
for larger shares of beneficiary right In the adminis
tration of the public domain.
Questions of land dominion and of land distribution
have formed the ultimate ground of political division
and debate among men ever since the human race, in
the evolution of society, passed from political organi
zation on the basis of common blood, to political or
ganization on the basis of common territory. In this
western world of ours, from Its discovery by Colum
bus down to the epoch of the memorable " Monroe
Doctrine," the partition of the North and South
^ A paper read before the New York Historical Society, May 1,

LAND POLITICS OF THE UNITED STATES 157
American continents among the nations of Europe,
under alleged rights of discovery, of settlement, or of
conquest, formed the great animating motive of mari
time adventure and colonial enterprise for more than
three centuries, and gave rise to that tremendous
activity which was then displayed by the commercial
states of Europe in the fields of diplomacy, of war,
and of international politics. What Is true of Europe
as a whole, so long as the appropriation and distribu
tion of the New World were the procuring causes of
political dispute. Is equally true of the nations estab
lished on these continents, with their large tracts of
unoccupied land, offering a perpetual bait to immigra
tion, and laying the foundations of their internal policy
and public economy In questions relating to the man
agement of the public domain. It remains to add that
what is true of all the American nations Is especially
true of these United States. The great leading factor
in the formation of our governmental polity, and in the
subsequent divisions of party among us, has always
been, in the last analysis, a question relating more or
less directly to the distribution of the national domain
considered as the source and seat of political power.
The salient features of this perennial controversy will
engage our attention In the present paper.
The early cartography of North America was wild
and fantastic. Supposititious " ways trendin to Ca-
thaia " supplied the places of real bays or straits even
on Froblsher's maps of the continent, as elephants
supplied the place of towns on maps of Africa In the
days of Dean Swift. The colonization of America
besran at a time when so little was known about the
geography of the continent that the London Com
pany, organized for the settlement of Virginia, sent

158 ADDRESSES
forth Captain Newport, In 1608, with Instructions to
sail up the James River till he came to the Pacific
Ocean, as John Smith, of Pocahontas fame, was urged
by the Council to seek a new route to China by as
cending the Chickahomlny.^ The dimensions and
the geographical configurations of the several colonies
were not only Involved in much obscurity, but, owing
to the ambiguities of speech necessarily employed in
the attempt to describe their respective limits, the
metes and bounds of the several colonies were often
found to conflict, Insomuch that large areas, owing to
the overlap of conflicting jurisdictions, were sometimes
claimed by two or three, or even more, colonies at the
same time. At the beginning of the Revolutionary
War, for Instance, Virginia asserted a claim, by char
ter and by military occupation, to the whole north
western territory, and had actually annexed a large
part of that territory to her dominion, under the names
of Kentucky and lUinoIs. Massachusetts disputed
this claim as to what Is now the southern part of
Michigan and Wisconsin. Connecticut disputed it as
to other portions of what Is now Ohio, Indiana, Illi
nois, and Michigan. New York disputed It in part by
virtue of claims based on treaty stipulations with the
Six Nations, and so arrayed herself equally against
the claims of Virginia, Massachusetts, aud Connecti
cut.^ The British crown was the ultimate arbiter of all
dissensions arising from these Interfering claims so
long as the Colonies were In a state of political vassal
age ; but when the Declaration of Independence came
to break the bands which tied this litigation to the
^ John Smith, Discourses, etc., chap. vii.
^ The Public Domain, p. 161.

LAND POLITICS OF THE UNITED STATES 159
royal throne, the Continental Congress was charged
with that high umpirage. It had been charged with
this duty by common consent, even before the duty
was formulated by the Articles of Confederation. In
the Ninth of these Articles it was declared that " the
United States, In Congress assembled, shall be the
last resort on appeal In all disputes and differences
now subsisting, or that hereafter may arise, between
two or more States concerning boundary, jurisdiction,
or any other cause whatever." In addition to this
jurisdiction over the public territorial rights of the
States, it was further provided that " all controversies
concerning the private right of soil claimed under
different grants of two or more States" should be
determined by a like method of procedure.
This provision of the Articles of Confederation de
serves to be lifted Into prominence, because it was the
germ of that grander and more comprehensive umpir
age which afterward came to be lodged in the Supreme
Court of the United States, under the" Constitution.
A High Court of Admiralty, and this High Court of
Commissioners created from time to time for the set
tlement of Interstate controversies about matters of
territorial jurisdiction, were the only Federal judica
tures known under the Articles of Confederation.
Again and again was the Continental Congress in
voked for the pacification of public and private strifes
about land claims. Even before the Declaration of
Independence it was called to bear this hea'vy burden.
In January, 1776, the hardy people who had settled
on what was popularly called " the New Hampshire
Grants " petitioned Congress to recognize their Inde
pendence of New York, which from 1749 had asserted
a historic claim against New Hampshire to the polltl-

160 ADDRESSES
cal jurisdiction of the region covered by those grants.
When the Declaration of Independence came, without
any previous ascertainment of the status of Vermont,
her people felt that they had been left outside of the
Union, and In 1777 they formally declared themselves
to be " a free and independent State." In the unset
tled state of the conterminous limits of New York,
New Hampshire, and western Massachusetts, so far
as they bordered on this Green Mountain country,
there was at one time a conflict among all these
States as to the jurisdiction of parts of the territory
now comprised In the State of Vermont. In June,
1779, the Continental Congress formally intervened
to adjust this conflict by appointing a committee to
advise and consult with the litigant parties. This
committee failed to execute the business intrusted to
It, but the Congress, on the 24th of September fol
lowing, recommended that all the parties at variance
should " forbear vexing each other " for the time be
ing. The Vermont people, however, refused to have
their rights placed in such Indefinite abeyance, and
boldly announced that " as they were not included in
the thirteen United States, if necessitated to It they
were at liberty to offer or to accept terms of cessation
of hostilities with Great Britain without the approba
tion of any other man or set of men," and, furthermore,
that " In the absence of protection from Congress they
had not the most distant motive to continue hostilities
with Great Britain and maintain an important frontier
for the benefit of the United States, with the promise
of no other reward than the ungrateful one of being
enslaved by them." ^ British generals and emissaries
' Williams, History of Vermont, vol. i. p. 195. Cf. Vermont State
Papers, p. 120.

LAND POLITICS OF THE UNITED STATES ICl
from Canada sought for a season to profit by this
grave dissension, and to detach the people of Vermont
from the Continental alliance, wliile certain partisan
leaders of the Vermout pioneers kept up, on their part,
a shrewd parleying, now with the British authorities
for the purpose of conjuring the storm of war from
their borders, and now with the Continental Congress
for the purpose of coercing that hesitating body into
a compliance with their wishes, and a recognition of
their territorial Independence. This dalliance alter
nately with Congress and with the enemy was adroitly
pursued by the Vermont chieftains till the close of the
war, not without much current aspersion on their
loyalty, because of the ambiguous voices scattered in
their diplomatic correspondence, though, as we may
well believe, without just disparagement to their pa-
trlotlsm.i Alexander Hamilton tells us that even the
States which brought forward claims in opposition to
those of New York seemed more solicitous to dismem
ber her than to establish their own pretensions, while
small States like New Jersey, Rhode Island, and
Maryland betrayed a partiality for Vermont iu the
Continental Congress, until the alleged connection be
tween the Vermont leaders and the British authorities
In Canada led to a reaction in the case of the last-
named State.^
The disaffection of the Vermontese spread In 1781
to the adjoining counties of New York, and created a
revolt in certain regiments enlisted by that State on
the east bank of the Hudson. The Vermont govern
ment seized upon this territory on the Hudson for a
1 Elliot's Debates, vol. v. p. 10. Cf. Vermont State Papers, p. 142
et seq. 2 The Federalist, No. 7.

162 ADDRESSES
time, but speedily renounced its pretension on a calm
remonstrance made by Washington to Governor Chit
tenden. Governor Clinton was moved more than once
to repel these aggressions by force of arms, and Ver
mont, on her part, bated not a jot of her contumacy.^
While the controversy lasted, no quarrel between
Highland and Lowland clans in Scotland could have
been more bitter and Inveterate. The echo of the
feud still reaches us in the border minstrelsy of the
time, full of taunt and delight of battle.^
1 WUliam L. Stone, Life of Joseph Brant, vol. ii. pp. 179-208.
2 Here are a few snatches from one of these Tyrtsean lyrics : —
" Ho ! all to the borders, Vermonters, come down,
With your breeches of deerskin and jackets of brown ;
With your red woollen caps and your moccasins, come
To the gathering summons of trumpet and drum.
" Come down with your rifles ! Let gray wolf and fox
Howl on in the shade of their primitive rocks ;
Let the bear feed securely in pigpen and stall.
Here 's a two-legged game for your powder and ball.
" On our South come the Dutchmen, enveloped in grease,
And arming for battle while canting of peace ;
On our east crafty Meshech has gathered his band.
To hang up our leaders and eat out our land.

" Does the old Bay State threaten ? Does Congress complain ?
Swams Hampshire in arms on our borders again ?
Bark the war-dogs of Britain aloud on the lake ?
Let 'em come ! What they can, they are welcome to take.

" Come York, or come Hampshire, come traitors, come knaves.
If ye rule o'er our land, ye shall rule o'er our graves !
Our vow is recorded, our banner unfurled,
In the name of Vekmont we defy all the world ! "

LAND POLITICS OF THE UNITED STATES 103
The Continental Congress could not Intervene with
authority iu a controversy like this until it had been
clothed with plenary power under the Articles of
Confederation ; and before these Articles could be
concerted and ratified among all the thirteen States
a much larger question of territorial politics had to
be settled.
It has been already intimated that many of the
States, under the terms of their respective charters,
held vast unappropriated tracts of land in the unex
plored western country, extending In some cases
from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. By some of
these States It was at first claimed that, on the disso
lution of the tie which had formerly bound them to
the ilother Country, each separate State succeeded
to the right of eminent domain previously vested In
the Crown. The States so situated were quick to see,
in the prospective sales of their boundless landed pos
sessions, a vast capital from which they could indem
nify themselves for all the losses and expenditures
which fell to their share In the prosecution of the
Revolutionary War. But the States whose metes and
bounds were not of this expansible character were
just as quick to protest against the rank Injustice of
such a pretension. They held that as each State
could hope to succeed to the usufruct of Its unoccu
pied lands only after the achievement of independence
by the expenditure of the blood and treasure of all
the States, It was no less just than logical that all
such lands should be held and considered as the com
mon possession of the United States, to be adminis-
From Henry W. De Puy, Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Heroes
of '76, p. 405. "Crafty Meshech," in the third stanza, refers to
Meshech Weare, President of the Council of New Hampshire.

164 ADDRESSES
tered by Congress, and to be sold for the common
benefit of the Union.
The landed States were slow to relax their grasp on
their territorial possessions as the price of the Union.
The landless States were slow to pay the price of
Union at the expense of their rightful share in these
lands. Even when New Jersey and Delaware acceded
to the Confederation without having first obtained a
cession of these lands, they did so in the avowed hope
and expectation that the landed States would ulti
mately respond to the call of patriotism In this mat
ter. But Maryland, as we all know, was more persist
ent in refusing to ratify the Articles of Confedera
tion, and from 1776 down to 1781 kept reiterating
her demand in the ears of the Continental Congress,
that this vast unoccupied territory should be ceded
to the United States as a common property, " subject
to be parceled out by Congress into free, convenient,
and Independent governments In such manner and at
such times as the wisdom of that assembly should
direct." At first the Continental Congress, under the pre
dominance of the powerful landed States, had treated
this claim with a very gingerly reserve, and had
agreed to file the representation made by little Dela
ware In this matter only on condition that by so doing
no presumption was to be raised In favor of the claim
" set up or intended to be set up." But the discon
tent of the landless States was so outspoken, and the
refusal of Maryland to ratify. the Articles of Con
federation was so stubborn, that the Congress was
compelled in the end to Implore the landed States to
heed these clamors of their less richly endowed sisters,
and especially the Importunate demand of Maryland.

LAND POLITICS OF THE UNITED STATES 165
This It did by a formal resolution under date of Sep
tember 6, 1780.
It is known that New York took the lead In this
work of patriotic self-renunciation, and on the 1st of
]\Iarch, 1781, ceded her lands, with certain reserva
tions, to the general government for the benefit of
all the States then in the Union, or destined thereafter
to become members of the Union. On that same day
the delegates of Maryland signed the Articles of
Confederation, and made the organic union of the
thirteen colonies complete. But this consummation
was not reached until after the Revolutionary War
had been raging for five years, and until the revolted
colonies were almost in sight of that Treaty of Peace
which was signed about two years later. It will thus
be seen that It was an agrarian question which well-
nigh prevented the Union from ever being formed,
even under the stress of the great struggle which
Invited the States to confederate.
And no sooner had the Articles been ratified by
all the States than an occasion arose to tax the re
sources of our joung Continental jurisprudence. Not
only was Vermont tlie theatre of au agrarian civil
strife, but also in the Valley of Wyoming there was
a territorial controversy between the States of Con
necticut and Pennsylvania, which dated from the year
1754, and which had four times roUed the tide of
battle over its fields and hillsides. In 1782 a High
Court of Commissioners was appointed by Congress
to sit in Trenton, N. J., for the arbitration of a dis
pute which had not only drenched this valley with
fraternal blood, but which had more than once discon
certed the military plans of Washington. And even
after the feud had been superficially appeased by the

16G ADDRESSES
adjudication of the Court at Trenton, which decided
In favor of Pennsylvania,^ it broke out afresh at a
later day in the shape of an armed crusade proclaimed
by the Susquehanna Company, which claimed to hold
the Wyoming Valley under authority from Connecti
cut, and which, at a later stage of Its operations, pro
ceeded to recruit armed emigrants for the forcible
occupation of the disputed territory. This armed
emigration had its point d'appui in Hartford, and
was honored with the countenance and support of
men like Oliver Wolcott and Ethan Allen.
After the treaty of peace with Great Britain had
been signed, a new order of territorial complications
arose to embarrass the public councils. The people
of Vermont, it is true, relaxed for a time their pres
sure to be admitted Into the Union, and consoled
themselves with the thought that the Continental Con
gress, by denying to them the right of representation,
had at least forfeited the right of levying taxes on
their substance. The troubles in the Wyoming Val
ley proceeded in the meantime from bad to worse,
while in the southwestern part of the country a new
territorial disturbance came to perplex the interstate
relations of that section. I refer to the agitation
which now broke out for the formation of a new and
independent State west of North Carolina.
As early as 1776 North Carolina had provided, In
her Bill of Rights, " for the establishment of one or
more governments westward of that State." ^ The
movement had gathered such head in 1783 that the
foreseen creation of the western part of North Caro-
^ For findings of the court, see Journals of Congress, vol. viii. pp. 44
et seq.2 Ramsay, Annals of Tennessee, p. 284, cf . p. 439.

LAND POLITICS OF THE UNITED STATES 167
lina into a separate State led, In that year, to a mo
tion ill Congress that, whenever a fourteenth State
should be added to the Union, the Articles of Con
federation should be so amended as to require the
concurrence of ten States In cases before requiring
the concurrence of nine.^ The people Inhabiting this
western region proceeded in 1785 to constitute them
selves Into a State, without waiting for permission
either from North Carolina or from Congress.^ Erect
ing an independent State of their own mere motion,
they at the same time created an independent cur
rency of their own invention, consisting chiefly of
beaver-skins, deer-skins, raccoon-skins, and such like
peltries, together with " good distilled whiskey and
apple or peach brandy " at a fixed valuation per gal
lon, while, with genuine frontiersman pleasantry, it
was further enacted that the salaries of all officials In
the rising commonwealth should be paid in minh-
shins I The State thus improvised, with John Sevier
for Its titular governor, took to itself the name of
Franklin, though in the popular parlance of the day
it was commonly called by the name of Frankland, —
the land of the Franks. The Governor of North
Carolina soon proclaimed the seceding Franks In a
state of revolt, and this ban of Incivism was straight
way met by a doughty counterblast from Governor
Sevier. The agrarian secession spread even to the
adjoining counties of southwestern Virginia, and drew
an indignant remonstrance from Patrick Henry, then
governor of Virginia, whose legislature had just
passed an act making It treason to erect a new State
in any jjart of her territory without first obtaining
permission from the General Assembly. In 1785 the
i Elliot's Debates, vol. v. p. 92. ^ Ramsay, p. 293.

168 ADDRESSES
new State of Franklin began to treat with Its Indian
neighbors on an Independent footing, as also with the
Spanish authorities of the Mississippi Valley, in open
contempt of the constitutional prerogatives of the
Continental Congress.
It was in view of such proceedings, and of similar
mutterings In Kentucky, that, on the 7th of October,
1785, a motion was made In Congress by Massachu
setts, and seconded by Virginia, that a committee be
appointed to prepare a report expressing " the highest
disapprobation of Congress " in view of a disposition
on the part of the people In several districts of coun
try within the United States to be separated from the
States which have exercised constitutional jurisdiction
over them, and, further, signifying the intention of
Congress to support any State In its opposition to
" such unconstitutional attempts to destroy the funda
mental principle of the Union." ^ Mr. Howell, of
Rhode Island, proposed, on the same day, to make
constitutional provision for the erection of new States
within the territory of the Union by so amending the
Articles of Confederation that two thirds of the exist
ing States might authorize the creation and admission
of new States carved out of any part of the territory
of the United States, with the consent of the State
interested.^ Neither of these resolutions was adopted,
but they serve to attest the spirit of agrarian seces
sion, or of " squatter sovereignty," which was then
prevalent In different parts of the country.
In the year 1786 the seceders of Franklin opened
negotiations with North Carolina for a formal act
of separation. Invited, in turn, by the governor of
North Carolina to return to their allegiance, they
1 Journals of Congress, vol. x. p. 245. ' Ibid.

LAND POLITICS OF THE UNITED STATES 109
replied, through Governor Sevier, that they " would
rather suffer death, In all its various and frightful
shapes, than conform to anything disgraceful." ^
INIeanwhlle, John Sullivan, a soldier of fortune,
armed with the copious dialect of a swashbuckler,
was stirring up the Franks with his free lance. In the
effort to enlist their cooperation In a filibustering
expedition against the Spanish authorities. Bringing
his insolence under the very nose of the Continental
Congress, he addressed a rollicking and insulting let
ter to Gardoqui, the Spanish minister in New York
City, and actually proceeded to recruit soldiers in
South Carolina and Georgia for his " war of libera
tion." Writing to the governor of South Carolina he
truculently said that the period was close at hand
" when the Intrepid Tartars of the West, the inex
pugnable Kentucklans and the Franks, will dare to
proclaim that the Natchez shall be restored, either by
negotiation or by arms, and that the right of free
navigation of the Mississippi should no longer be
withheld by an Indolent, jealous, and Impolitic na
tion," to cite the " nice derangement of epithets "
with which he characterized the Spanish court and
people.^ It Is proper to remark that at this epoch the whole
southwestern part of the United States was thrown
Into a state of ferment by the well-understood dispo
sition of a majority of the States in Congress to sur
render the right of navigation of the Mississippi River
for the next twenty or twenty-five or thirty years.
Seven States — all of them Northern States — had
voted an act of tolerance for this untoward measure ;
1 Ramsay, p. 362.
^ American Museum, vol. iii. p. 438.

170 ADDRESSES
not willingly, but under the conceived necessities of
the political situation as reported to the Congress by
Mr. John Jay, the Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs. The very suggestion of such a policy startled
the whole Southwest from Its propriety. The legis
lature of Virginia lifted up Its voice in indignant pro
test, and declared, November 29, 1786, that such a
surrender would not only be violative of the natural
rights of the Western States, but would tend to de
stroy " that confidence In the wisdom, justice, and
liberality of the Federal councils" which it was so
necessary to preserve at a time when men were work
ing for an enlargement of the Federal authority.
From that time forth Patrick Henry walked no more
with the friends of a stronger Federal Union. Writ
ing from the city of Richmond (Virginia) under date
of December 7, 1786, Mr. Madison said, "I am entirely
convinced, from what I observe here, that unless the
project of Congress [for surrendering the navigation
of the Mlsslsslj)pl for twenty-five years] can be re
versed, the hopes of carrying this State into a proper
Federal system will be demolished." ^
When the echo of the proposed surrender reached
Mr. Jefferson, at Paris, he characterized the measure
as an " act of separation between the Eastern and
Western country, as a relinquishment of five parts
out of eight of the territory of the United States,"
and as " a clear sacrifice of the Western to the mari
time States." 2 The mind of Patrick Henry was so
"soured "by the project — the phrase Is Mr. Madi
son's — that he would not even attend the Philadel
phia Convention for forming the Constitution, in order
^ Madison's Works, vol. i. p. 264.
^ JefEerson's Works, vol. ii. pp. 105 and 153.

LAND POLITICS OF THE UNITED STATES 171
that he might be entirely free to oppose the instru
ment which should there be formed.^ This project for
" bartering away " the navigation of the Mississippi
well-nigh imperiled the ratification of the Constitution
by Virginia and North Carolina. The measure had
been supported in Congress by the vote of the seven
Northern States against the earnest opposition of the
Southern States. It was discussed In secret session.
In vain did the Southern delegates Implore permission
to advise their legislatures of what was meditated.
In vain did Grayson, of Virginia, and his colleagues
protest that such a surrender was a breach of the cove
nant made with Virginia when she ceded her " back
lands," because it would lower their market value,
and postpone Indefinitely their formation Into new
States ; that It would deprive the Western and South
ern States of a natural right ; that It would perma
nently fix the weight of population on the northern
side of the continent, and operate a virtual dismem
berment of the Union by occluding the Southern
States from spreading westward on the territory
allotted to them by the physical geography of the
country.^ The Spanish minister, Gardoqui, emboldened on his
part by the concessions made to the admitted strength
of the Spanish position in the Mississippi Valley, was
privately hinting to members of Congress, with a jocose-
ness exceeded only by Its effrontery, that " the people
of Kentucky would make good Spanish subjects, and
would become such for the sake of the privilege annexed
to that character." ^ He openly argued with Mr. Jay
1 Madison's Works, vol. i. pp. 264, 283.
2 Secret Journals of Congress, vol. iv. pp. 44-130.
3 Elliot's Debates, vol. v. p. 97.

172 ADDRESSES
(playing upon a well-known sensibility In New Eng
land) that the rapid settlement of the West would be
injurious to the old States.-^
We can now understand why it was that William
Grayson, when he came to be a member of the Vir
ginia Convention which sat, two years later, in judg
ment on the Constitution, opposed its ratification with a
vehemence second only to that of Patrick Henry. Re
ferring to this very Issue, Grayson exclaimed. In the
Virginia Convention : " I look upon this as a contest
for empire. . . . This contest of the Mississippi in
volves this great national contest ; that Is, whether one
part of the continent shall govern the other. The
Northern States have the majority, and will endeavor
to retain it. This is, therefore, a contest for dominion,
for empire." ^ Patrick Henry cited this same sectional
spectre, in order to frighten the Virginia Convention
from the ratification of the Constitution. He said :
" To preserve the balance of American power, it is es
sentially necessary that the right of the Mississippi
should be secured. . . . But the settlement of the
country will not be warranted by the new Constitution,
If It will not be forbidden by it." ^ Colonel Bloodworth
conjured up the same spectre in the North Carolina
Convention, for he, too, had been a member of the Con
tinental Congress of 1786, when the seven Northern
States were willing to accept this provisional surrender.
" When I was in Congress," he said, " the Southern
aud the Northern Interests divided at the Susque
hanna." * ^ Secret Journals of Congress, vol. iv. p. 52.
'^ Elliot's Debates, vol. iii. p. 305.
3 Bnd. pp. 352, 353.
* Ibid. vol. iv. pp. 167, 186.

LAND POLITICS OF THE UNITED STATES 173
North Carolina, we know, declined, on the 1st of Aug
ust, 1788, to ratify the Constitution, and largely because
of misgivings on this subject. Hence it was that, with
the view of quieting these misgivings, the Continental
Congress, on a motion made by her delegates, solemnly
resolved, on the 16tli of September, 1788, that the ru
mored disposition of Congress to surrender the naviga
tion of the Mississippi was [then J unfounded ; that the
free navigation of that river was a clear and essential
right of the United States ; and that no further pro
ceedings should be had In pursuance of the negotiations
authorized to be undertaken by Mr. Jay In 1786.^ In
the meantime eleven States had ratified the Constitu
tion, and so the whole subject of the navigation of the
Mississippi was handed over to the new government.
But Charles PInckney,of South Carolina, who had been
the file-leader of the Southern opposition In 1786, was
careful to acquaint President Washington with the
grounds of that opposition, for his information and
guidance In the conduct of future negotiations with
Spain.^ A great peril, as well as a great panic, had
now been safely overpast, but we can see that It was
a question of territory, with political dominion annexed,
which well-nigh defeated the adoption of the Constitu
tion, as at an earlier epoch In our annals it was a ques
tion of territory, with political dominion annexed, which
had long balked the ratification of the Articles of
Confederation. In justice to Mr. Jay, it should here be added that,
with the candor which- was an integral part of his
nature, he openly confessed, In 1788, that subsequent
developments In the shape of political "' circum-
1 Secret Journals of Congress, vol. iv. p. 453.
^ Correspondence of the Revolution, vol. iv. p. 300.

174 ADDRESSES
stances " and popular " discontents " had interposed
to render " questionable " the views and opinions
which In 1786 had seemed to him " advisable." ^ In
the game of applied politics — often a calculus of
probabilities among contingent events and imponder
able forces — a statesman may sometimes show more
wisdom In being fortuitously wrong as the event
turns out, than in being fortuitously right according
to a drift and posture of events which could not be
foreseen. The considerations which had reconciled
the foreign secretary to tolerate a temporary waiver
of our claim to the navigation of the Mississippi, as
a choice of evils. In 1786, were national and not sec
tional, from his point of view. Southern men like
Henry Lee, of Virginia, felt and acknowledged their
full force in view of the commercial distress which
then prevailed in the New England States, and for
which a commercial convention with Spain was held
to be the only remedy.^ The extremity of that dis
tress stirred the compassion of the friends of the
Union even in South Carolina.^
No wonder that Jay deplored " the private rage for
property " which at that time was suppressing public
considerations and national interests. Few people at
the present day have any adequate conception of the
wild agrarianism which, alike in its private and public
manifestations, was prevalent In the United States
from the conclusion of the Treaty of Peace, in 1783,
to the ratification of the Constitution, In 1788. It
was not only In Vermont and Pennsylvania, In North
Carolina and Virginia, that this spirit was rife. On
1 Secret Journals of Congress, vol. iv. p. 452.
^ Correspondence of the Revolution, vol. iv. p. 141.
" Elliot's Debates, vol. iv. p. 284.

LAND POLITICS OF THE UNITED STATES 175
the soil of Massachusetts It came to the surface in the
hideous shape of Shays's Rebellion, — a sort of social
and agrarian Jaquerie. Suppressed In Massachusetts
as a rebellion, It lingered as a discontent in her poli
tics, and spread a leaven of unrest In the neighboring
provinces of Vermont and Maine.^ Among the mem-
bers of the Massachusetts Convention which sat in
judgment on the Constitution in 1788 were eighteen
or twenty men who had been in Shays's army, while
many of the delegates sitting in It from the province
of Maine were " squatters on other people's lands." ^
In Connecticut this popular agitation took the form
of a real or affected fear that the Continental Con
gress would seize and appropriate the ceded and un-
ceded lands of the West for the benefit of the South
ern States.^ Convention after convention of alarmists
was called to emphasize this anti-Federal clamor.*
In New Jersey it took the form of a land-company
enterprise, offering special Inducements to encourage
immigration into that State, for the avowed reason
that the other States had not sufficiently considered
her landed rights in the Confederation, but had —
some of them, at least — reserved to themselves vast
tracts of unlocated land, by the sale of which to avoid
their comparative share In meeting the burdens of
Federal taxation.? New Jersey had, moreover, a
special ground of offense, because the Continental
Congress, after having affirmed, In 1782, the right of
her citizens to " a tract of land called Indiana," on
^ Life of Timothy Pickering, vol. ii. p. 374 ; Works of Madison,
vol. i. p. 278.
^ Correspondence of the Revolution, vol. iv. p. 207.
^ Stuart, Life of Jonathan Trumbull, p. 640.
* Connecticut Courant, passim, in 1784.
5 See Connecticut Courant, April 20, 1784.

176 ADDRESSES
the Ohio, had refused. In 1784, at the instance of
Virginia, to enforce that right, or even to entertain
It.i While the people of Vermont were weighing
the advantages of an exemption from Federal taxa
tion against the disadvantages of political isolation,
the friends of the Union In recusant Rhode Island
were mourning the loss of their share in the proceeds
from the sales of the ceded lands. In New York a
powerful land-company, with John Livingston at its
head, was bargaining with the Iroquois Indians for a
nine hundred and ninety-nine years' lease of a large
tract now embraced within the limits of the Empire
State, — a proceeding which was solemnly annulled
by the legislature of New York In 1788.^ Kentucky
was knocking at the door of Congress for admission
into the Union, and at the same moment, In 1788,
was holding, in the Virginia Convention, the balance
of power on the ratification of the Constitution by
that State, and so was in a position to decide whether
there would be any Union worth the entering.^ In
Pennsylvania the Insurgent leader of the Susquehanna
Land Company, John Franklin, had been arrested,
and in the latter part of the year 1787 had been de
ported to Philadelphia, that he might there be put on
trial for high treason against the State. In retalia
tion for this arrest, Timothy Pickering, the quarter
master-general of the Revolutionary army, and after
ward Secretary of State of the United States, was
kidnapped, carried into captivity, and held as a
hostage for the safety of the Connecticut land-robber.
In the would-be State of Franklin, John Sevier, had
1 Journals of Congress, vol. vii. p. 278 ; vol. ix, p. 45.
^ Araerican Museum, vol. iii. p. 448.
2 Madison's Works, vol. i. p. 399.

LAND POLITICS OF THE UNITED STATES 177
been arrested. Imprisoned, held for trial, violently
rescued by his adherents, declared civilly dead by the
authorities of North Carolina, and then had gone into
voluntary exile. South Carolina and Georgia were at
loggerheads on a question of their respective bound
aries. At the Muscle Shoals, In a bend of the Ten
nessee River, a band of land-pirates, composed of
Spaniards, runaway negroes, Cherokee Indians, Creek
Indians, refugee Canadians, and Tories, had long
terrorized the country far and wide In their vicinage.^
The Impotence of the Federal Union lent Itself to all
forms of agrarian disorder, even within the bounds of
the oldest and best settled States ; for something of
the frontiersman spirit still lingered at that day even
in our Atlantic States, with their tales of the border
rehearsed at the fireside, not as
" Old unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago,"
but as a vivid reminiscence of recent history In Indian
wars. The whole country seemed to be agonizing in
the last throes of political dissolution. Washington
wrote to John Jay, In 1786, that more of wickedness
than of Ignorance was mixed with our councils.^
Jefferson wrote to Madison, In 1787, that a separation
of the western part of the country from the Eastern
States must be supposed possible at every moment.^
Even a patriot so true as Richard Henry Lee, sunk
up to his eyes in a Slough of Despondency, could see
In the whole United States only " two very unprin
cipled parties," In the year 1787, — " one composed of
little insurgents, men In debt who wanted no law, and
^ American Museum, vol. ii. p. 3 of the Chronicle.
^ Life of John Jay, vol. i. p. 248.
^ Jefferson's Works, vol. ii. p. 153.

178 ADDRESSES
who wanted a share In the property of others, level
lers, Shaysltes, etc. ; " the other composed of men who
were " avariciously grasping at power and property,
aristocrats, Morrisites, etc.," as he denominated
them.i While these local troubles were becoming more and
more endemic in our body politic, the Continental
Congress had provided for itself a vast theatre on
which to exhibit the storm aud pressure of a territo
rial struggle for political power. Virginia, following
the example of New York, had completed her cession
to Congress In 1784. After the preliminary articles
of peace had been signed in 1782, many delegates In
Congress had urged that the Continental Congress
should proceed at once to define the western bounda
ries of the landed States and assume control over all
western territory of the Confederacy falling outside
of the limits of the States as thus defined, without
waiting for cessions from these States. In this
opinion the delegates from New Jersey and Mary
land were supported by the great authority of James
Wilson, of Pennsylvania ; but the prevalent sentiment
of Congress was in favor of waiting for a formal ces
sion of the western territory before concerting mea
sures for its sale and s^tlement.^
As regards the proper relations of the " back lands "
to the Federal Union, three divergent opinions were
in presence of each other at different periods under
the government of the Continental Congress : first,
that the lands should be ceded to the Union for fiscal
purposes alone, and that each State should retain the
political jurisdiction of the territory which It ceded ;
^ Observations, etc., p. 37.
2 Elliot's Debates, vol. v. p. 83.

LAND POLITICS OF THE UNITED STATES 179
second (a phase of opinion which gathered strength
after the preliminaries of the Treaty of Peace had
been signed), that the Continental Congress should
take possession of the " back lands," and assume para
mount jurisdiction over them as of natural right,
without deferring to the claims of the landed States ;
and third, that the Congress should adhere to its de
clared policy of waiting for a formal cession of these
lands, with the political jurisdiction annexed, before
proceeding to establish regulations for their govern
ment.^ That the last-named view prevailed, and neither of
the other two, is a fact of tremendous import In our
political history. If the land-ceding States had re
tained their political jurisdiction over the territory
as ceded by them for fiscal purposes alone, then new
States would have been carved out of this territory at
their instance, and not at the Initiative of Congress ;
the Federal government would have lacked a great
object of common political concern, and yet would
not have escaped the bone of contention offered by the
partially conceded territory, for the contention would
have been sure to arise on the proposed admission of
each new State that should have been formed under
the auspices of the mother State.
If the second view had prevailed, a strong flavor of
nationality would have been Infiltrated Into the gov
ernment, even under the Articles of Confederation.
For this view gave a large extension to the doctriue
of construction and of national prerogative right as
against the assumptions of the landed States.^
1 Md. pp. 59, 83, 87, 93. Cf. The Thomson Papers (N. Y. Histori
cal CoUections for 1878), pp. 145-151.
^ This difference of opinion as to the rights of the United States,

180 ADDRESSES
So soon as Virginia had completed her cession in
1784, Jefferson brought in a bill for the government of
the western territory, with a proviso against slavery
after the year 1800 in all the States, ten In number,
that should be formed out of It. This slavery restric
tion failed to be adopted, but, with this exception,
and with the omission of certain fantastic names for
the proposed new States, the Jefferson ordinance was
passed, April 23, 1784.
The next step in this territorial legislation was
taken by Rufus King, the distinguished grandfather
of the worthy gentleman who still adorns a historic
name at the head of this Society. On the 16th of
March, 1785, Mr. King submitted the following
resolution : " Resolved, That there shall be neither
slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the States
described In the resolve of Congress of the 23d day
of April, A. D. 1784, otherwise than in punishment of
crimes whereof the party shall have been personally
guilty. And that this regulation shall be an article
of compact and remain a fundamental principle of the
Constitution between the thirteen original States and
each of the States described In the said resolve of the
23d day of April, 1784." i
This resolution was referred to Messrs. King,
Howell, and Ellery. On the 6th of April following,
and of certain particular States, in the " back lands," crops out in the
debates of the Federal Convention. It was at the heel of a long dis
cussion turning on this difference that that body finally decided to
leave the whole matter in abeyance under the Constitution, by simply
providing that Congress should be empowered to make " all needful
rules and regulations respecting the territory " of the Union, without
prejudice to " any claims either of the United States or of any par
ticular State." Elliot's Debates, vol. v. pp. 494-497.
^ Papers of Old Congress, vol. xxxi. p. 327.

LAND POLITICS OF THE UNITED STATES 181
King reported the following modification of his mo
tion : "¦Resolved, That after the year 1800 of the
Christian era there shall be neither slavery nor invol
untary servitude in any of the States described in the
resolve of Congress of the 23d day of April, 1784,
otherwise than In punishment of crimes whereof the
party shall have been personally guilty. And that
this regulation shall be an article of compact and
remain a fundamental principle of the Constitution
between the thirteen original States and each of the
States described In the said resolve of the 23d day of
April, 1784, any implication or construction of the
said resolve to the contrary notwithstanding; Pro-
i)«(7ecZ always, That upon the escape of any person into
any of the States described in the said resolve of
Congress of the 23d day of April, 1784, from whom
labor or service Is lawfully claimed In any one of the
thirteen original States, such fugitive may be lawfully
reclaimed and carried back to the person claiming
his labor or service as aforesaid, this resolve notwith
standing." 1
This resolution was appointed for consideration on
April 14, but it was never called up for final ac
tion. ^
Meanwhile the bonds of the Confederation were
growing weaker and weaker, and the disposition of
this public domain, enlarged by the cession of Massa
chusetts In 1785 and of Connecticut in 1786, was seen
to be " an obvious and fruitful source of contest,"
^ Papers of Old Congress, vol. xxxi. p. 329.
^ Though the resolution is preserved in the handwriting of Rufus
King, his well-known views on the subject of slavery make it prob
able that he was overborne in the committee by his two colleagues,
and that for this reason he was iittle inclined to press for the adoption
of the regulation in its altered shape.

182 ADDRESSES
whether In the Union or outside of the Union, if It
were to be dissolved. In the Union, it would lead
to a contest for political preponderance between the
Northern and the Southern States. Outside of the
Union, it would lead, as Alexander Hamilton fore
warned, to a huge game of physical power between
the land-ceding and the non-land-ceding States, — the
former trying to regain their cessions, and the latter
trying to retain their hold on what each might regard
as Its proportionate share In a property which had
once been declared common.^ After two abortive at
tempts had been made by the Seventh and Eighth
Congresses to digest a new plan of government for
the ceded territory of the Union, It was In July, 1787,
when the spirit of giddiness and revolt among the
people and the States was at Its height, that the whole
subject of the government of the Northwest Territory
was reopened, and this renewed discussion It was which
led to the adoption of the " Memorable Ordinance of
1787," as It is popularly and properly called.
This ordinance put an Immediate interdict on sla
very, but the interdict was accompanied with the pro
viso suggested more than two years before, for the
rendition of fugitive slaves. In this shape it was
passed unanimously.^ What, now, were the grounds
of such a surprising unanimity among States which
had previously shown so much jealousy of each other
In this matter of the common territory ? The reason
is not far to seek. The ordinance of Jefferson was
comprehensive In Its scope, and, applying as It did to
territory to be ceded as weU as to territory already
1 The Federalist, No. 7.
^ That is, by the unanimous vote of the States. Only one member
of Congress voted against the measure.

LAND POLITICS OF THE UNITED STATES 183
ceded, it would have been applicable to new States
formed south of the Ohio as well as north of the Ohio.
The States of South Carolina, North Carolina, and
Georgia had not yet made their cessions, and the
Southern States, for economic as well as political
reasons, may have shrunk in 1784 from committing
themselves to all the length and breadth of Jeffer
son's antislavery policy. But In 1787 they may have
seen, in the lateral spread of the Northern States to
wards the west, the earnest and pledge of a similar
lateral spread of the Southern States In the same
direction, so soon as the opportunity should present
itself. It is certain that Southern members of Con
gress were quick to avail themselves of this territorial
precedent, so soon as the opportunity did present Itself
in the cession made by North Carolina three years
afterwards.^ To these special considerations It should perhaps be
added that in 1787 Southern statesmen seem to have
looked with more complacency on the westward growth
of the Union than Northern statesmen. The one soli
tary vote recorded against the ordinance of freedom
came from Abraham Yates, of New York. George
Clymer, of Pennsylvania, with the ordinance before
his eyes, did not hesitate to proclaim, on the floor of
the Federal Convention, that the encouragement of
the western country to form new States " was suicide
on the part of the old States." ^ " Of what use will
^ Mr. Madison hints that the primary motive of Congress in restrict
ing the spread of slavery in 1787 may have been not so much to pre
vent the interior dispersion of slaves already in the United States as
to discourage the importation of slaves from abroad, by narrowing the
space open to occupation by that unfortunate class of beings. Madi
son's Works, vol. iii. p. 165.
2 Elliot's Debates, vol. v. p. 487.

184 ADDRESSES
the western country be to the United States ? " queried
Fisher Ames, of Massachusetts, In 1790.1 "An in
eradicable dread of the coming power of the South
west lurked in New England, especially in Massa
chusetts," says Bancroft.^ Many of the Eastern and
Northern States had " back lands " of their own to
sell, and why should they be eager to Impoverish their
own fisc, deplete their population, and lower their
political prestige for the benefit of the West ? ^ Gor-
1 Life, Journal, and Correspondence of Rev. Manasseh Cutler, LL.D.,
vol. i. p. 135.
2 History of the United States, vol. vi. p. 263.
^ It was to these States that Grayson referred when, in writing to
Washington from his seat in the Continental Congress in May, 1785,
he beld the following language : " Several of the States are averse
to new votes from that part of the Continent [the western], and some
of them are now disposing of their own vacant lands, and of course
wish to have their particular debts paid, and their own countries
settled in the first instance, before there is any interference from
any other quarter." Correspondence of the Revolution, vol. iv. p. 103.
Nathan Dane, it is true, appeared before the Massachusetts legisla
ture in November, 1786, and made an argument for the proper dispo
sition of the western lands, but he considered them mainly as a source
of revenue to the Federal treasury. See full report of speech,
Pennsylvania Herald (Philadelphia), Nov. 29, 1786.
The Ordinance of 1787 was gratefully accepted in New England,
not only because it opened a path to freedom and enterprise, but also
because it opened for the States of the East a way of escape from the
impending peril of being stifled by a spawn of small-fry States at the
West. Under the Jefferson ordinance each of the ten States for which
it provided was entitled to enter the Union so soon as the number of
its inhabitants was equal to that of the smallest State already in the
Union, to wit, Delaware, with a population of only thirty-five thou
sand. Just a week before the Ordinance of 1887 was passed, Rufus
King referred in the Federal Convention to the urgent necessity of
altering an impolitic arrangement which made it possible for ten
new States to be added to the Union without a greater addition to
the population of the West than the number of people represented
by a single one of the original States, to wit, Pennsylvania. This con
sideration doubtless helps to explain the unanimity of Congress in

LAND POLITICS OF THE UNITED STATES 185
ham, of Massachusetts, openly avowed in 1787 that he
wished to see the Mississippi shut, for the advantage
of the Atlantic States.^
At the South, on the contrary, the friends of the
Union, even In reluctant North Carolina, were exulting
In the prospect that, because of their " large quanti
ties of uncultivated lands," the Southern States would
soon have greater weight In the Union than the North
ern.^ "The people and strength of America," said
Butler, of South Carolina, In the Federal Convention,
" are evidently bearing southwardly and southwest
erly." 3
But, apart from such prospective advantages, there
was another reason, based on grounds of private eco
nomics, why the Southern statesmen of 1787 easily
reconciled themselves to the passage of the ordinance
In the shape it finally took, with a proviso for the ren
dition of fugitive slaves. In 1785, a committee com
posed exclusively of Northern men had offered this
compromise to the Southern States in return for the
inhibition of slavery after the year 1800. But the
Southern delegates were not ready at that date for
such a transaction. The transaction Involved a politi
cal concession on the part of the North, — a conces
sion made in the well-understood hope at that time
that slavery would be of only temporary duration in
the Union.* The far-reaching consequences of the
passing the measure, as also the dispatch with which it was passed,
for at the time he spoke Mr. King expressed a fear that the evil was
'* irrevocable "as to one of these embryo States. Elliot's Debates,
vol. V. p. 280.
1 Elliot's Debates, vol. v. p. 103.
2 Ibid. vol. vi. p. 186. » Ibid. vol. v. p. 309.
* Such was the opinion of Oliver Ellsworth, of Connecticut. Even
as to the slave trade he said ; " Let us not intermeddle. As popula-

186 ADDRESSES
arrangement could not then be foreseen, though it
must have been seen that the regulation added a new
hardship to the lot of the slave. If the slave, to use
the language of feudal law, was already a villein in
gross, tied to the person of his master by the munici
pal law of the slave State, he now became, pro hac
vice, and In the eye of national law, a species of vil
lein regardant, tied to the soil of the slave State by-
Federal law. This latter feature was, however, so
secondary, as compared with the former, that many
determined haters of slavery in 1787 seem to have
conquered their repugnance to It ; perhaps it was be
cause the incident, being political In Its nature, and
resting back on the law of a slave State, may have
seemed to Involve no element of personal responsi
bility for the status of the slave. Even Washington,
with all his repulsion to slavery, was, says Bancroft,
" severe " to the runaway slave.^ The best men of
the South in that day were not unwilling to regard
slavery as a transitional and deciduous institution ;
yet, while It lasted, they wished to enjoy the full
usufruct of their slave labor. Hence the unanimous
compact made, in the Ordinance of 1787, for the
recapture of fugitive slaves. By this compact the
Southern States secured In the Northwestern Terri
tory a privilege they did not possess in the States, for
the States, at that time, were " uncharitable " to each
other (as Mr. Madison phrased It) in the matter of
returning fugitive slaves.
But this proviso In our Ordinance of freedom led
tion increases, poor laborers will be so plenty as to render slaves
useless. Slavery, in time, will not be a speck in our country." El
liot's Debates, vol. v. p. 458.
1 History of the United States, vol. vi. p. 179.

LAND POLITICS OF THE UNITED STATES 187
the way to a portentous after-birth in the labor-pangs
of that formative epoch In our annals. It was the
precursor of the fugitive-slave clause which came soon
afterwards to imbed Itself in the Constitution of the
LTnited States. Between the Continental Cono-ress
sitting In New York and the Federal Convention sit
ting in Philadelphia, in 1787, there was a constant
interchange, not only of ideas and proceedings, but
also of members ; for a few members of the one body
were members as well of the other body, and so the
fugitive-slave clause of the Ordinance trickled from
that Instrument into the Constitution, and the rendi
tion of fugitive slaves, after being an " article of com
pact " among the States as to the common domain,
became, nemine contradicente, an article of Constitu
tional agreement among the States as to their common
Unlon.^ In like manner, the clause of the Constitu
tion which forbids the States to i^ass any law " im
pairing the obligation of contracts " took Its norm
from the Ordinance, the text of which was expressly
cited by Rufus King, on the floor of the Federal
1 Elliot's Debates, vol. iv. p. 286 ; vol. v. p. 492. In the unanimity
with which this clause was adopted Judge Story finds " a, proof at
once of its intrinsic and practical necessity," as conceived by the
framers of the Constitution in 1787. "Without it," he says, "the
Union could not have been formed." (Prigg case, 16 Peters, 611.)
Judge McLean, on information and belief purporting to be derived
from Chief Justice Marshall, avers that without it " no Constitution
could have been adopted." (McQuerry case, 5 McLean, 478.) Such
negatives do not admit of strict proof, however great may be the
probability in their favor.
The statement contained in the "Declaration of Independence"
with which South Carolina accompanied her Ordinance of Secession in
1860, to the effect that a provision for the rendition of fugitive slaves
was made by Virginia " the condition of cession of the territory which
now composes the States north of the Ohio River," is entirely uuhis
torical, so far as I can discover.

188 ADDRESSES
Convention, as the justifying precedent for such a
regulation.! That the Ordinance fell before the eyes
of the Philadelphia Convention Is proved by the fact
that it was published In full In a Philadelphia news
paper, " The Pennsylvania Herald," on the 25th of
July, 1787. It is a remarkable fact that. In the
original documents connected with the passage of the
Ordinance, as still preserved in the Library of Con
gress at Washington, the clause providing for the
slavery interdict, accompanied with a proviso for the
rendition of fugitive slaves, is entirely In the hand
writing of Nathan Dane, while certain other amend
ments. In the body of the instrument, looking to more
liberal rules for the descent of property, are in the
handwriting of William Grayson, of Virginia.
While Southern statesmen, assembled in their
State conventions in 1788 to pass on the Constitution,
were recounting the advantages of the South under
that Instrument, to wit : The permission to import
slaves till 1808, and to recover their fugitive slaves
in all parts of America under Federal jurisdiction.
Northern statesmen, assembled in similar convention.
In their respective States, were recounting the advan
tages of the North under that same instrument, to wit,
as Mr. Wilson expressed it in Pennsylvania : That
the prohibition of the importation of slaves after 1808
would lay a foundation for ultimately banishing slav
ery from the country, while " the new States which
were to be formed would be under the control of Con
gress" [In their condition of territorial pupilage],
and, therefore, " slavery would never be Introduced
amongst them." This optimistic forecast of Mr. Wil
son was justified by the facts before him In 1788, for
1 Elliot's Debates, vol. v. p. 487.

LAND POLITICS OF THE UNITED STATES 189
the two Southern States which insisted, at the epoch
of the formation of the Constitution, on reservino- the
right to Import slaves till 1808, had Insisted on that
right for the benefit of existing States alone^ and
not for the benefit of any new States which might be
subsequently admitted Into the Union, while South
Carolina, less than a month after the passage of the
Ordinance of 1787, had ceded her western lands to
Congress, without making any reservation against the
prohibition of slavery In the territory so ceded.
But North Carolina, by her deed of cession in
1790 — the first concluded under the present Consti
tution — was careful to make reservation against the
right of Congress to establish any regulation tending
to emancipate slaves In the territory so granted. Here
was the entering wedge of that great dissidence be
tween the Northern and the Southern States which,
in the matter of the territories, was destined at a later
day to rive the Union in twain for a time. It was
the first beginning, under the Constitution, of that
long politico-agrarian struggle which finally culmi
nated In the outbreak of our late civil war.
In the year 1798, the Congress, in accepting a
cession of land from Georgia, volunteered to exempt
it from the antislavery clause of the Ordinance of
1787. The issue between the Northern and the South
ern States was here distinctly joined as to territory
every Inch of which fell outside of the limits embraced
in the so-called " compacts " of 1784 and 1787. The
Congress was here dealing with a virgin soil, and
^ The exact language of the Constitution is ; " The importation of
such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to
admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year
1808."

190 ADDRESSES
could wed it either to freedom or to slavery according
to Its own will and pleasure. Mr. Thatcher, of Mas
sachusetts, moved, in the House of Representatives, to
put an interdict on slavery In this territory. The
motion received only twelve votes. In the presence
of such a vote, we see at once that the Idea of an
equitable division of territory between the Northern
and the Southern States had already Imbedded Itself
in the political consciousness of the country. This
idea was. Indeed, openly avowed, in the course of the
debate on Thatcher's motion, by Robert Goodloe
Harper, of South Carolina.'-
We now come, In the order of time, to a new
stadium in the portentous progress of territorial poli
tics In the United States, — the acquisition of Louisi
ana by purchase from France. That that purchase
was abundantly justified by indispensable considera
tions of national safety, unity, and expediency will
now be denied by no American citizen ; but at the
time when Jefferson effected the purchase It was
complicated not only with grave questions of consti
tutional right but with still more burning questions
of sectional politics, arising from the antagonism be
tween the slave-holding and the non-slave-holding
States. At first, the Southern friends of the acquisi
tion sought to appease the discontents of Its Northern
opponents by representing that the terms of the treaty
made with France did not bind the United States to
admit any new States carved out of this territory. It
was so represented by John Taylor, of Carolina, in
the Senate, and by John Randolph, of Roanoke, in
the House of Representatives. It was a flimsy pre
tence which deceived nobody. In due time, Louisiana
1 Annals of Fifth Congress, vol. ii. p. 1306.

LAND POLITICS OF THE UNITED STATES 191
was admitted as a State, but not until Josiah Quiney,
of Massachusetts, had proclaimed, on the floor of the
House of Representatives, that by that act " the bonds
of the Union were virtually dissolved ; that the States
which then composed it were free from their moral
obligations, and that as it was the right of all, so it
would be the duty of some, to prepare definitely for a
separation, — amicably if they can, violently if they
must." It was the voice of the eloquent Northern
Gracchus protesting that the tabernacle of the Con
stitution, beneath which Massachusetts sat, could not
be stretched " to form a covering for the Inhabitants
of the Missouri and the Red River country." ^
The controversy which arose on the admission of
Missouri was but the normal projection and culmina
tion of the feud opened by the Louisiana purchase ;
aud the compromise by which that controversy was
temporarily composed did but give formal expression
to a geographical line of partition between the two
sections. The Idea which had before been implicit in
our politics now became explicit. It was this fact
which gave to the Missouri Compromise line its tre
mendous significance In the eyes of Mr. Jefferson.
He said that the question awoke him " like a fire-bell
In the night." He predicted that such a line of de
marcation between the two sections, when once con
ceived and held up to the angry passions of men,
would never be obliterated, but would be marked
deeper and deeper by every new irritation.
In studying our history by its epoch-making events,
we have to note that, with the advent of the Missouri
question, the slavery polemic In our country passed
from the forum of economical discussion and ethical
1 Speeches of Josi.ih Quiney, pp. 196, 214.

192 ADDRESSES
debate Into the arena of politics. The epoch of this
transition has, therefore, I repeat, a tremendous sig
nificance in our annals. Forty years later, the po
lemic passed from the arena of politics Into the field
of battle and shock of arms.
Meanwhile, in the first lull of the political storm ex
cited by the Missouri question, the southeastern limits
of the United States had been rounded off by the pur
chase of Florida from Spain, which was concluded in
1821. The acquisition was so obviously required by
considerations of national advantage and territorial
symmetry that it evoked no opposition, except from
those who saw in the limited terms of the treaty a
renunciation of certain territorial pretensions based
on the supposed extent of the Louisiana purchase.
Yet President Monroe acknowledged that he took, by
the Florida treaty, less territory than Spain was will
ing to grant, because of the repugnance with which
the eastern part of the Union had long viewed the
aggrandizement of the country towards the south and
west. So even here the spectre of sectional discord
loomed above the horizon of our national diplomacy. ^
Moreover, the State of Maine was admitted Into the
Union about this time, as a counterpoise to Missouri,
just as Kentucky and Vermont had been almost si
multaneously admitted as counteracting make-weights
at the beginning of the government under the present
Constitution. The Idea of a balance of power between
the trading and the planting States had formed the basis
of a compromise reached between these States In the
formation of the Constitution. In the progress of
events, this balance had been transferred from econo
mics to politics, and, therefore, from States pitted
1 Benton, Thirty Years' View, vol. i. p. 15.

LAND POLITICS OF THE UNITED STATES 193
against each other by difference In their industries to
States pitted against each other by a difference in
their social systems and political ideas. That is, the
sectional equilibrium of the States comprised in the
Union, from being avowedly economical aud latently
political, had now become avowedly political and la
tently economical. It is true that, In the closing
years of his service as a Senator from New York,
Rufus King had offered an olive-branch for the pacifi
cation of the standing feud between the sections.
He proposed that the proceeds of the sales of the
public lands should be applied to the emancipation of
slaves and to their colonization outside of the United
States. His plan of " compensated emancipation "
awoke no echo at the time, — It came too soon for men
whose ears were tingling with the strife of tongues ;
and when the echo did come, in the days of Abraham
Lincoln, it came too late for men whose ears were
stunned by the clash of arms. The Gulf Stream of
American politics wIU henceforth be found in the
trend of our national debates on the subject of slavery,
considered in its relation to the sectional equilibrium
between the North and the South, and this sectional
equilibrium will henceforth be dressed and redressed
within the Territories as the favorite seat of Its oscil
lations. It was this consideration which gave to the annexa
tion of Texas Its chief significance. Party lines as to
this measure were not, it Is true, distinctly drawn on
geographical premises, but nobody doubts that it was
the bearing of the question on the sectional equilib
rium which procured for the project its warm sup
port at the South, and its warm opposition at the
North. When the question of annexation was first

194 ADDRESSES
mooted, In 1837, John Quiney Adams avowed the
" solemn belief " that its consummation " would be,
ipso facto, a dissolution of the Union;" and on tho
eve of Its consummation, In 1844, the Legislature of
Massachusetts declared that such an act of admission
would have " no binding force whatever " on the people
of that State, — a passionate threat which soon gave
way before the sober second thought of her people as
expressed by the patriotic toast of her honored son,
Robert C. Winthrop, " Our country, however bounded,
still our country." The extension of slave territory
as an element of political power was at this time
justified by Southern statesmen, not only in our do
mestic politics, but even in our international diplo
macy. Interpreting the annexation of Texas to Mr.
Pakenham, the British minister at Washington, Mr.
Calhoun, then Secretary of State, wrote as follows,
under date of April 18, 1844 : " That which Is called
slavery is really a political institution, essential to the
peace, safety, and prosperity of those States of the
Union In which it exists. " ¦'¦
Then came the war with Mexico, a natural though
not an inevitable sequel of the annexation of Texas.
The war, In Its latter stages, was prosecuted with an
avowed sectional purpose, — the aggrandizement of
the Southern States by the acquisition of new terri
tory from which to carve out new States to redress
the wavering balance of power in favor of pro-slavery
politics. The Representatives and Senators of a ma
jority of the Northern States threw the " Wilmot
Proviso " In the opposite scale of the political balance.
From this time forth the bitter waters of our political
1 Twenty-Eighth Congress, First Session ; Senate Document 341, p.
53.

LAND POLITICS OF THE UNITED STATES 195
strife were a Marah which never grew sweet, and a
Meribah which knew no calm. In vain was It pro
posed by the South that the Missouri Compromise
line should be extended to the Pacific. In vain was
it proposed by the North that an absolute interdict
should be formally put on the spread of slavery in
any and every direction. In vain was it hoped that
the sectional feud had been composed by the compro
mise measures of 1850, — a series of measures in
which we meet precisely the same attempted recon
ciliation of Irreconcilable elements which has already
met us In the formation of the Ordinance of 1787,
for, as in 1787 the Southern States accepted an inhi
bition on the spread of slavery into the Northwestern
Territory If th^y could be favored with a compact for
the rendition of slaves, so now, in 1850, they accepted
the admission of California as a free State, and even
the prohibition of the slave traffic in the District
of Columbia, if they could be favored with a more
stringent law for the recaption of their fugitive slaves.
Four years later came the formal repeal of the
Missouri Compromise, with a fatuous effort to effect
a new solution of the slavery problem by changing
the field of its discussion from Congress to the Terri
tories. The people of each Territory were to be free
to prohibit or to establish slavery, " subject only to the
Constitution of the United States," as expounded by
the Supreme Court. This latter clause was the skulk
ing Guy Fawkes, secreted, with powder and dark lan
tern, in the Kansas and Nebraska bill, for the explosion
of the stately edifice reared on the basis of " Squatter
Sovereignty." Under the lead of this essentially
agrarian Institute, the question of slavery passed from
Congress to the territorial legislatures of Kansas

196 ADDRESSES
and Nebraska : from these courts of political pie
2}0udrc it passed to the Supremo Court of the United
States : fi-oiu the Supreme Court it passed to the
Dred Scott decision ; from the Drod Scott decision it
passed to a sectional scramble of Iiuiuigrauts from the
North and from the South for the fii"st occupation of
the disputed territory ; fi-om the scramblo of angry
and hostile immigrants it passed to armed politics in
Kansas ; from the tussle of armed politics iu Kansas
it passed to the formation of a powerful political
party, organized in every Northern Shvte, for a deter
mined resistance to the further spread of slavery on
the North American continent. As to the rest of this
eventful history, is it not vTitten in the election of
Abraham Lincoln ; in the attempted secession of
eleven slave-holding States ; iu the Titanic war for
the Union ; in the abolition of slavery by consti
tutional" amendment; and in the social and econo
mic unification, for the first time, of the whole Auiori-
can people within tiie bounds of their common Uuiou?
Henceforth we may labor for social and economio pro
gress without disturbance from the jar aud jostle of
the old sectional equilibrium.
From this abstract aud brief chronicle of our his
tory, it will be seen that the public lauds, as compli
cated with two distinct classes of States dift'erentiy
endowed under this head, or as complicated with two
distinct political economies, or ns complicated with
two distinct social systems comprised in tho same
Lrnion, have been the great controlling factor in our
Federal politics. At each stage of our national pro
gress, we mark the presence of an uiistablo }iolit;ical
equilibrium, in-oduoed by an antagonism of sectional
interests ; and this oscillation has always reached its

LAND POLITICS OF THE UNITED STATES 197
highest ascension and widest sweep In what Grayson,
of Virginia, called, in 1788, " a contest for empire "
through the possession of territory as the seat and
source of political power in the Union. At the very
threshold of our national life, in the formation of the
Articles of Confederation, it was a question between
the landed and the landless States. At the opening
of the Philadelphia Convention in 1787, it was at
first a question between the large and the small States,
and when this ground of discrimination was lost from
sight In the equality of suffrage, conceded alike to
small and to large States, In the Senate, It became a
question of comparative political power between the
planting and the trading States. This economic dis
tinction between these two classes of States was really
produced by the presence of slavery in the one section,
and by its absence from the other. As this fact became
more and more obtrusive, the lines of party formation
in the United States tended more and more to coin
cide with the geographical boundaries which separated
these two divergent social systems from each other, and
this schism In our body politic always came to Its clear
est line of cleavage in questions about territory, as the
earnest and pledge of political power. It was nomi
nally a struggle for the territories on the borders of
the Union. It was really a struggle for empire In the
government at Washington. From the beginning to
the end of our annals, it is questions of land which have
always created the great friction points and burning
points of American politics. The " irrepressible con
flict, " in Its form, was an agrarian struggle. It was
agrarian ambition which, for a season, made Virginia
unwilling to cede her public lands. It was an agrarian
clamor for equal rights In the common lands which

198 ADDRESSES
made New Jersey and Delaware loath to sign the
Articles of Confederation, and which caused Mary
land to hold out in stubborn resistance for the term of
five long and weary years. It was a feeling of agra
rian inequality which pitted the small States against
the large, In the opening discussions of the Philadel
phia Convention. And, finally, it was a question of
territorial politics, growing more and more clearly de
fined between the slave-holding and non-slave-holding
States, which at last brought " these two great repul
sive masses " Into the collision and shock of our civil
war. It is a far cry from the valley of Wyoming, be
fore the Constitution was formed, to the plains of
Kansas, where our civil war found its first prelusive
skirmish ; but the controversy in Wyoming was a
small battle In which territorial politics were accen
tuated with flint-locks, while the controversy In Kan
sas was a large battle in which territorial politics were
accentuated with Sharpe's rifles. In Wyoming, it was
a controversy between the Susquehanna Land Com
pany of Connecticut and the henchmen of the Penn
proprietary and his assigns. In Kansas, it was a con
troversy between the New England Emigrant Com
pany aud the " Border Ruffians " of Missouri. In
Wyoming, the controversy ultimated in an abortive
attempt to carve a new free State — the so-called
State of Westmoreland — out of the flanks of Penn
sylvania. In Kansas, the controversy ultimated in
an abortive attempt to carve a new slave State out of
soil which had been dedicated to freedom. In Wyo
ming, the hotbed of territorial politics produced a
partisan leader obscurely known to history by the
name of John Franklin. In Kansas, the hotbed of

LAND POLITICS OF THE UNITED STATKS 199
territorial politics produced a partisan leader con
spicuously known to history by the name of .John
Brown. From Wyoming to Kansas, and from Kansas
to " States dissevered, discordant, belligerent," the com
bat was constantly deepening in its elements and in
its issues, but it is always a combat about land.
As it was, in its form, a territorial struggle which
precipitated the great political land-slide attempted
by the seceding .States in 1861, so it was a modifica
tion of that same struggle, placed now on a military
footing, which helped to close our " bloody chasm."
If considerations of Federal politics had conspired
with the physical geography of the country, and with
Its economic necessities, to dictate the acquisition of
Louisiana in 1803, this same physical geography, and
these same economic necessities, conspired with our
Federal politics, in 1861, to decree that there should
be no scission in the political geography of the country,
and that no rival nation should be in a position to de
bar " the great West " from its natural right to the
free navigation of the Mississippi River. The seces
sion of Louisiana and of her sister States in the South
and Southwest opened, It Is true, a dreadful chasm
in the forum of national politics, but into that dread
ful chasm the armed chivalry of the land continued to
run for four long years, after the manner of Curtius
in the old Roman myth, until at last the chasm was
closed. The very acquisition of foreign territory, and
its incorporation Into our body politic, which seemed
to Josiah Quiney, in 1811, a sufficient cause for dis
solving the Union, became. In 1861, our coigne of
vantage in battling for " an Indestructible Union of
indestructible States."
When that steadfast Abdiel of the Union In South

200 ADDRESSES
Carolina, the late James L. Petlgru, was first informed
on the streets of Charleston, in 1861, that Louisiana
had passed an ordinance of secession, he exclaimed :
" Well, well, that is too bad ! Perhaps some show of
argument may be made for the pretended right of se
cession In one of the old thirteen States which made
the Union and the Constitution, but — Louisiana!
By the Infernal gods ! we bought that State, and she
certainly has no right to take herself out of the Union ! "
The grim pleasantry of the saying was meant to point
a deeper moral, the moral that the political geogra
phy of the country is inextricably blended with the
physical geography of the country, and that what God
has joined together no man can put asunder. Just
one hundred years ago William Grayson, of Virginia,
saw, as in prophetic vision, that the Mississippi Val
ley was to be the valley of decision for the swarming
multitudes of the South and West in their " contest
for empire " with the North and East. The real tug
of the contest came in a way which he foresaw as
little as Josiah Quiney, of Massachusetts, foresaw its
destined outcome ; for when the smoke of battle was
lifted from the bloody lists, at the close of our civil
war, It was seen that the Mississippi Valley had put
its determining weight in the scale of freedom, and
not, as some men wished and as other men feared, in
the scale of slavery. The agrarian politics of the
North were sometimes as short-sighted as the agrarian
politics of the South, but In all this strife, whether of
tongues or of swords, the stars in their courses were
fighting for " Liberty and Union, now and forever,
one and Inseparable."

VII
THE STATES'-RIGHTS CONFLICT OVER THE
PUBLIC LANDS'
Ever since the human race, In the evolution of
political society, passed from the stage of clan gov
ernment' to that of government based on territorial
occupation, questions about land, as the seat and sym
bol of political power, have formed the grounds of ul
timate civil debate among men. Questions of land,
whether arising from the impacts of population under
the pressure of a conscious or unconscious Malthu-
sianism, or whether arising from motives of pure and
simple political aggrandizement, have arrayed conti
nent against continent, people against people within the
bounds of the same continent, and state against state
within the bounds of the same confederation. The
inter-continental proportions of this great secular con
flict may be seen to-day In the eagles of war and di
plomacy gathering around the carcass of Africa In the
wake of the vultures formerly drawn by the ravin of
the slave trade. The desolating wars waged for the
establishment and maintenance of a balance of power
in Europe illustrate the sway of the same principle
among the great states comprised within the bounds
of that continent. The chronic conflict between the
states of the Germanic confederation, a conflict brought
to an end, in some of its acuter symptoms, on the field
^ A paper read before the American Historical Association, Decem
ber 27, 1888.

202 ADDRESSES
of Sadowa, and the bitter feud which so long obtained
between the slaveholding and non-slaveholding States
of the American Union, a feud brought to an end at
Appomattox, in Virginia, In the year 1865, will suf
fice to Illustrate the tremendous pressure of this same
principle within the bounds of the two greatest con
federations of the modern world. It is to some of
the salient features of " Land Politics " in the United
States that the present Inquiry will be directed.
The conflict over the public lands of the United
States has been essentially a States'-rights conflict
in point both of substance and of form. The roots
of the conflict are deeply planted in the colonial his
tory of the country. The American colonies, at the
outbreak of the Revolutionary War, had not learned
to love one another, or even to live together on terms
of good neighborhood. The points of political dif
ference between them were better defined than their
points of political unity. They differed from each
other In the nature of the charters by which they were
held and administered. And these administrative dif
ferences were aggravated by a difference In the social
and economic institutions of the several provinces. The
Eastern colonies were democratic In their social tissue,
being chiefly composed of moderate freeholders. The
Southern colonies had but few moderate freeholders,
and were dominated by a planting aristocracy, in whom
the possession of slaves had generated the virtues and
faults of feudalism, as described by Burke, — a spirit
of freedom fortified by the haughtiness of domination.
The population of the Middle colonies partook of a
blended character compounded from both of these ele
ments. These discriminations were distinctly recog
nized in the political literature contemporaneous with

CONFLICT OVER THE PUBLIC LANDS 203
the formation of the Constitution, and, as just stated,
are almost textually cited from a well-known pamphlet
of Richard Henry Lee.^
But the distinction which more than any other im
periled the formation of our political union at the
outbreak of the Revolutionary War was a distinction
based on a difference In the territorial claims of the
several colonies as organized by the Continental Con
gress for the maintenance of American Independence.
Several of the States comprised In the Union had
definite and circumscribed boundaries. Others had
indefinite and unclrcumscribed boundaries stretch
ing westward to the South Seas. By the " landless "
States It was maintained that the unoccupied western
territory, wrested from the British crown by the joint
exertions of the States united, should enure, In reason,
justice, and right, to the benefit of the United States.
The landless States differed, however, among them
selves in defining the terms on which the public lands
should be held for the usufruct of the Confederation,
all of them except Maryland holding that they should
be used simply for the fiscal benefit of the Union, while
the political jurisdiction should continue to vest in the
States to which this vast domain was nominally and
severally attached. Maryland, with a clearer insight
Into the conditions of the problem which Congress was
called to solve. Insisted that the political jurisdiction
of the territory should be ceded to the Union, In com
mon with the land itself, and that the said territory
should be subsequently parceled out Into free and in
dependent States for admission into the Union. The
great " landed " States of Massachusetts, Connecti
cut, New York, and Virginia scouted for a time this
1 See Ford's Pamphlets on the Constitution, p. 296.

204 ADDRESSES
arrogant pretension of the " landless " States. In the
successive stages and phases of this controversy the
States' rights over the public lands came to a sharp
definition. It was more and more accentuated, un
til at last the Maryland view prevailed. The great
landed States, with a few reservations not needing to
be recited In this general view, made a cession of their
lands, with political jurisdiction annexed, to the gov
ernment of the United States.
The political watershed of American history Is to be
found In this supreme determination of the territorial
question presented to the American people in the In
terval from 1776 to 1781 and 1782. It Is the " Great
Divide " which has determined all the political strat
egy of subsequent times In regard to the disposition
of the public lands. The dispute on this subject was
so sharp, and the contumacy of Maryland against the
pretensions of the landed States was so persistent,
that It was not until 1781 that she signed the Articles
of Confederation aud completed the formal bond of
the Union.i The Revolutionary War had meanwhile
been lasting five years. The country was already in
sight of the peace which came in 1783 to crown the
struggle for independence. But the conflict over the
public lands, instead of being appeased after 1781, was
only the more definitely brought Into the lists pre
pared for the joust and tourney of contending sections.
Virginia, the most commanding of all the States in
point of territorial possessions, had not yet completed
her cession. Maryland, in spite of her long delay, had
simply yielded her assent to the Articles of Confede
ration in the faith and hope that the example set by
^ H. B. Adams, Maryland's Influence upon Land Cessions to the
United States.

CONFLICT OVER THE PUBLIC LANDS 205
New York would be speedily followed by all the landed
States. Long before her, New Jersey had acceded to
the Union with the premise that she did so in the hope
and expectation that the landed States would ultimately
respond to the call of patriotism in this matter.
And after this controversy had wellnigh imperiled
the formation of the Union, it returned to vex the
negotiations connected with the conclusion of peace.
It was a States'-iights conflict over the public lands
which prevented, for a time, any agreement in the
Continental Congress as to the terras on which peace
should be concluded. Indeed, the question was dis
tinctly presented and discussed, whether, on the ces
sation of hostilities with Great Britain, It might not
become necessary for the landless States, with the
power of the Union at their backs, so far as they
could wield it, to take the State of Virginia in hand
aud reduce her to submission In the matter of her
landed pretensions. Threats of civil war and por
tents of civil war were freely bandied about at that
crisis on the floor of the Continental Congress. Per
sons are still living — the writer is one of them — who
witnessed that remarkable scene on the floor of the
United States Senate when, in 1856, the Hon. Benja
min F. Wade, of Ohio, naturally incensed at an ex
pressed approval of the assault made upon Senator
Sumner, openly challenged the Southern Senators
then and there to the ordeal of mortal combat. Ex
traordinary as that defiance was, even on the eve of
an armed conflict for the political possession of the
territories, it was but the loud reverberation of a simi
lar challenge uttered over the public lands in 1782,
when, as in 1856, some men were eager for the fray,
whUe others were seeking just as eagerly to put off

206 ADDRESSES
the evil day of military conflict over this burning
question. ' As this prologue to the swelling scenes of
our land politics at a later day is not so familiarly
known in our annals, it may be well to reproduce
some of its most striking notes.
It was while a hot discussion was pending in the
Continental Congress as to the terms on which peace
should be concluded with Great Britain, that this
whole controversy between the "landed" and the
" landless " States witnessed a sharp recrudescence.
The representatives of the landless States were not
eager for a peace which should enure to the special
benefit of the landed States, by leaving them in the
possession of a vast domain acquired by the common
blood and treasure of all the States. The representa
tives of the landed States were not eager for a peace
which should enure to the special benefit of the Union
at their expense. In support of the former view, a
special emphasis was laid by Its advocates on the
moral rights of the landless States and the moral
rights of the Union, as against the technical rights of
the landed States. In support of the latter view, a
special emphasis was laid by its advocates on the re
served and sovereign rights of States as against those
who would fain strip the landed States of possessions
admitted to belong to them before the war, and of
possessions which had not been surrendered by the
Articles of Confederation. The pure and simple terms
of this conflict over the public lands in 1782 will dis
tinctly appear from the following resume of the debate
which was had at that period over this topic.
John Rutledge, of South Carolina, on the 8th of
August, 1782, said that he did not enter into the war
for himself or for those inhabiting the lands on the

CONFLICT OVER THE PUBLIC LANDS 207
waters falling into the Atlantic, but for posterity, —
for those who would hereafter inhabit the country be
yond the mountains, to the extent formerly claimed
by the crown of Great Britain as belonging to these
thirteen States. He would continue the war forever
rather than be circumscribed in narrower bounds.^
John WItherspoon, of New Jersey, held that the fix
ing of the boundaries among the States could not be
made an ultimatum to the satisfaction of all the States ;
that the happiness of the people on this side of the
Alleghany Mountains was a sufficient object to Induce
them to enter into the war ; that some of the States
had their boundaries fixed and determined ; that the
State he had the honor to represent was one of them ;
that it had not entered Into the war, nor would it, he
believed, be ¦willing to continue It for the sake of
boundless claims of wild, uncultivated country, more
especially as it was a matter of dispute and would un
doubtedly occasion much contention among the States
as to whom the country. If ceded, would of right be
long. Mr. Telfair, of Georgia, " was for fixing our bound
aries to the Mississippi. As to our claims beyond that
to the South Sea, he would leave them to discretion."
In the formal "Statement of Facts and Observa
tions " drawn up by a Committee of the Continental
Congress, In 1782, to support the territorial claims
of certain States and of the United States (for the
instruction and guidance of our negotiators in con
cluding a Treaty of Peace with Great Britain, which
should also be a Treaty of Boundaries and Limits),
the following doctrines were laid down : —
" 1. That the territorial rights of the thirteen
1 The Thomson Papers, New York Historical Society Collections
for 1878, pp. 100 et seq.

208 ADDRESSES
United States, while in the character of British colo
nies, were the same with those defined in the instruc
tions given to Mr. J. Adams on the  day of Au
gust, 1779.
" 2. That the United States, considered as Indepen
dent sovereignties, have succeeded to those rights, or
[and it was on this ' or ' that the whole onus of the
controversy turned]
" 3. That if the vacant lands cannot be demanded
upon the preceding grounds, that Is, upon the titles
of the indi'vidual States, they can be deemed to have
been the property of his Britannic Majesty immedi
ately before the Revolution, and to be now devolved
upon the United States collectively tahen." ¦*
This third head is explicated in the body of the
report as follows : " The character In which the king
was seized was that of king of the thirteen colonies col
lectively taken. Being stripped of this character, its
rights descended to the United States for the follow
ing reasons : 1. The United States are to be consid
ered in many respects as an undivided independent
nation, Inheriting those rights which the king of Great
Britain enjoyed as not appertaining to any particular
State while he was, what they are now, the superin
tending governor of the whole. 2. The king of Great
Britain has been dethroned as king of the United
States by the joint efforts of the whole. 3. The very
country in question hath been conquered through the
means of the common labor of the United States." ^
The reading of this third clause, as thus expounded
In three dimenslous, was interrupted by a stern and
peremptory protest from the great landed State of
Virginia. 1 Tlie Thomson Papers, pp. 115, 116. ^ ^j^ p j39_

CONFLICT OVER THE PUBLIC LANDS 209
Mr. Bland, of that State, moved that the third
clause be expunged. The motion was seconded by
Arthur Lee. A long debate ensued. The members
from States of which the boundaries were fixed and
circumscribed defended the retention of the clause.
The members from States which claimed territory to
the Mississippi or the South Sea, as well as the mem
bers from States whose eastern boundary was unde
fined, opposed the retention of the clause. Mr. Madi
son avowed his willingness to retain the clause for the
sake of public policy. He said that the clause had
been Imported Into the discussion for the purpose of
reconciling all the States to the report, but at the
same time he expressed the opinion that " there was
no solid foundation In the argument." Yet he said
that he saw plainly " If the clause was struck out, sun
dry States would object to the rest of the report, and
therefore he was for Its standing." With a view,
however, to the concealment of the differences of
opinion which obtained on this topic, he thought it
improper that any vote should be taken on the pend
ing question.
Mr. Bland, however, Insisted that a vote should be
taken, and this brought Arthur Lee to his feet for the
defense of the Virginian position. He argued that
the supposition on which this third clause proceeded
was groundless, and that the reasoning by which it
was sought to defend the clause was fallacious. He
contended that the claim to the western territory
rested solely on the titles of the individual States,
and that the Congress had no authority but what it
derived from the States. The States, he said, were
Individually sovereign and independent, and upon
them devolved the rights of the crown within their

210 ADDRESSES
respective territories. Could the sovereignty of the
crown of Great Britain, he Inquired, devolve on the
United States In Congress assembled before such an
assembly existed ? If only after such an assembly had
existed under the Articles of Confederation, It would
still remain to inquire whence Is the sovereignty of
the United States derived ? Is It in the Confedera
tion? Is it In the Treaty of Alliance with France?
Does It really exist ? ^
John WItherspoon, of New Jersey, advocated in
this debate the extremest national view, in opposi
tion to the extreme States'-rights view championed by
Arthur Lee. He said : —
"The several States are known to the powers of
Europe only as one nation under the style and title
of the United States. This nation Is known to be
settled along the coasts to a certain extent. If any
European power wei'e admitted to establish colonies
or settlements behind them, what security could they
have for the enjoyment of peace ? What a source, "
he exclaimed, " of future wars ! "
Whether the uncultivated territory belonged to one
State or the other, was, he said, a matter of no con
cern to the European powers, but they could all see
the importance of the question to the general security
of the United States, and the principle could therefore
be a valuable one as a makeweight In the conduct of
negotiations for peace.
^ Recalling, besides, an old antagonism between himself and Frank
lin in the matter of the competing land-jobs known as those of the
Ohio Company and the Walpole Grant, Lee objected to Franklin as
one of the negotiators of peace, because Franklin was understood to
be interested in western lands, and had, therefore, a personal interest
in supporting the jurisdiction of the United States as against that of
Virginia. The Thomson Papers, p. 143.

CONFLICT OVER THE PUBLIC LANDS 211
The antagonism on this question was too wide and
deep to be bridged over by any compromise of opin
ions. The landed States would not yield their re
served rights. The landless States would not yield
their national claims and pretensions. And, as the
delegates from Virginia refused to practice the pru
dent menagement recommended by Madison, It only
remained to submit the question to the ordeal of a yea
and nay vote.
Yet if the question were brought to such a definite
Issue, it was seen that the dissidence would reveal a
split running through the ranks of the States embat
tled for the maintenance of their Independence, and
would reveal a damaging scission precisely at the mo
ment when It was most necessary that they should
present an undivided front in order to Insure advan
tageous terms in the negotiations for peace. It was,
we see, a States'-rights conflict over the public lands,
which for a time imperiled the conclusion of a treaty
of peace with Great Britain In 1782. As the bitter
feud between the two classes of States could not be
adjusted by an}' consensus of opinions, it only re
mained that for the present they should agree to dis
agree ou the point in controversy. It was moved and
carried that the whole report should be recommitted.
The States'-rights conflict over the public lands was
simply postponed.
This discordancy in the Continental Congress be
tween the defenders of States' rights and the upholders
of national rights in the matter of the public lands
came still more prominently to the front ou the 27th
of August, 1782. On that day a petition was pre
sented In Congress, signed by a number of inhabit
ants of " a tract of country called Kentuckey." The

212 ADDRESSES
petitioners alleged that they had taken an oath of
allegiance to the United States; that they considered
themselves subjects of the United States, and not
of Virginia ; that the charter under which Virginia
claimed that countiy had been dissolved; that In con
sequence of this dissolution, the country had reverted
to the crown of Great Britain, and that by virtue of
the Revolution the right of the crown devolved ou
the United States. Therefore they prayed the Con
gress to erect them Into a separate and independent
State, and admit them into the Federal Unlon.^
Arthur Lee, of Virginia, openly proclaimed that to
countenance such a petition as that was to Insult Vir
ginia. Accordingly he moved that the petition be not
received, but that It be referred to Virginia herself.
James Madison seconded the motion. He said :
" As to the supposition that the right of the crown
devolved on the United States, it was so extravagant
that it could not enter Into the thought of any man.
If the right of soil devolved, why not the right to the
quit-rents aud confiscated estates ? "
Mr. Williamson, of North Carolina, thought the
question raised between the States and the govern
ment was a very serious one, and that whenever It was
discussed It would be attended with most serious con
sequences, and he apprehended that the sword alone
could decide it. He wished it might be put off a very
long time, and not be reviewed In their time, nor in
the time of their children, or their grandchildren.^
Mr. McKean, of Delaware, was sensible that it was
a question of a very serious nature, but he thought
that it must be discussed. He was not for putting off
the discussion to so distant a day. He was not for
^ The Thomson Papers, p. 145. 2 Xbid. p. 147.

CONFLICT OVER THE PUBLIC LANDS 213
leaving it to posterity. He was willing to face It with
all its consequences, and hoped it would be decided
before the present war was concluded. If the people
of " Kentuckey " had taken an oath of allegiance to
the United States, he avowed a willingness to take
them by the hand. He was not afraid of Virginia.
He hoped no State In the Union would ever be so
great as to give laws to all the rest, and that none
would be suffered to acquire so much power that the
others could not control it.
Mr. Clark, of New Jersey, wanted to be informed
more particularly respecting the conduct and views of
Virginia with regard to the western country. . . .
He understood that the Virginians had it in contempla
tion to form the western country into distinct subordi
nate governments, and to send out lieutenant-governors
to rule them. This would be going on the plan of
Great Britain with regard to her former colonies,
and must bring on another revolution, which will be
attended with convulsion, and break the peace of the
Union. Mr. Howell, of Rhode Island, maintained that the
right of granting western lands now devolved on the
United States.
Mr. WItherspoon replied specifically to the argu
ment of Madison. He said that it certainly could
enter into the thoughts of men that the rights of the
crown had devolved ou the United States, because it
had entered into his thoughts. Into the thoughts of
the petitioners from Kentucky, and Into the thoughts
of very many sensible men at the beginning of the
present controversy. The western uncultivated lands
had early been spoken of as a fund for discharging
the debts that might be contracted in the war by the

214 ADDRESSES
United States. " It would appear a strange whim,"
said the New Jersey delegate, with genuine Scotch
pleasantry, " if a sentiment which occupied the minds
not only of speculative but of illiterate men, of the
bulk of the Inhabitants of many of the States, had no
solid foundation to rest on. For his part, he thought
it founded on truth, on justice, on the nature of things,
aud was warranted by the laws of society. This con
troversy was begun and the war was carried on by the
united and joint efforts of the thirteen States. By
their joint exertions, and not by those of any one
State, the dominion of Great Britain was broken, and
consequently the rights claimed and exercised by the
crown devolved on all, and not on any individual
State. Why should one State reap more advantage
than another? . . . With regard to the powers of
Congress, or of the United States collectively taken,
they could not be exactly defined in the Articles of
Confederation. Cases would arise for which no previ
ous provision could be made. These came under and
were decided by the great law of necessity, which was
admitted as a law of nations. It might happen that
a State would grow so powerful and so ambitious as
to be dangerous to the other States In the Union. In
such a case the law of necessity and of self-preserva
tion might compel the others by a sovereign act of
authority to abridge the power of that State, and even
to divide it into two or more distinct and independent
States." 1
It will thus be seen that the forcible reduction and
even the violent partition of States were matters of
public discussion in our Federal legislature more than
eighty years before another States'-rights conflict over
1 Ibid. pp. 145-150.

CONFLICT OVER THE PUBLIC LANDS 215
the public lands resulted in the military reduction of
the Confederate States, and In the partition of the
very State around which this battle of words was
waged In 1782. The States'-rights conflict Is older
than the Constitution. It found a forum in the Con
tinental Congress, as well as In that which afterwards
met In Washington. " There is no place," wrote
Abraham Baldwin, of Georgia, to Charles Thomson,
under date of February 4, 1786, " where the clashing
of State interests is so strongly marked as on the floor
of [the Continental] Congress."^
After the States'-rights conflict over the public
lands had Imperiled the formation of the Federal
Union and the conclusion of peace with Great Britain,
another phase of the same conflict returned to imperil
the possession of the Mississippi valley. Spain was
naturally angered by the stipulations of a secret article
which had been inserted in our treaty of peace with
England for the circumscription of her territorial
claims southward and westward on the North Ameri
can continent. " Castilian grandees went to bed and
dreamed of Invincible armadas," says John Fiske.
" Congress was promptly informed that until this af
fair should be set right the Americans need not ex
pect the Spanish government to make any treaty of
commerce with them ; and, furthermore, let no Amer
ican sloop or barge dare to show itself on the Missls-
.slppl below the Yazoo, under penalty of confiscation.
When these threats were heard in America, there was
great excitement everywhere, but It assumed opposite
phases In the North and in the South. The merchants
of New York and Boston cared little more about the
Mississippi River than about Timbuctoo, but they were
1 IHd. p. 204.

216 ADDRESSES
extremely anxious to see a commercial treaty cou"
eluded with Spain. Ou the other hand, the back
woodsmen of Kentucky and the State of Franklin
cared nothing for the trade on the ocean, but they'
would not sit still while their corn and their pork were
confiscated on the way to New Orleans. The people
of Virginia sympathized with the backwoodsmen, but
her great statesmen realized the importance of both
Interests and the danger of a conflict between them." ^
Such were the elements of this new States'-rights
conflict over public lands not yet reduced under our
national authority. The new political cotillon reveals
an entire change of partners In the contra-dance.
The extreme States' rights emphasized by Virginia in
1782 for the assertion of her separate and individual
claims are now emphasized in behalf of the rights not
only of her sister States in the South and of the
future States of the Southwest, but also in behalf of
Federal rights accruing to the benefit of the com
mon Union and newly placed under the safeguard of
the treaty of peace with England. The commercial
States of the North and East are now found ready to
sacrifice the political interests of the Southern States
and the economical Interests of the whole Union In
the Mississippi valley, with a view to the speediest
possible reestablishment of their own commercial pro
sperity, which had been blasted by the war. It was
Insisted by the Spanish envoy that the United States
should renounce the right to navigate the Missis
sippi below the Yazoo as the condition of procuring a
commercial treaty. John Jay, the foreign secretary,
recommended such a renunciation for the term of
twenty-five years. The seven States of Massachusetts,
^ John Fiske, The Critical Period of American History, p. 209.

CONFLICT OVER THE PUBLIC LANDS 217
New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New
York, New .Jersey, and Pennsylvania — all Northern
States — voted for the untoward measure against the
earnest opposition of all the Southern States then
represented in Congress, — Maryland, Virginia, North
Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. The measure
was discussed in secret session. The mouths of the
Southern delegates were gagged by the Northern
'majority, in spite of the vehement protests uttered by
Grayson, of Virginia, and by his colleagues, who
argued that such a surrender was a breach of the
national covenant made with Virginia when she ceded
her "back lands," because it would lower the value
of those lands in the market ; because it would post
pone indefinitely the formation of new States which
were to be carved out of them ; because it deprived the
Western and the Southern States of a natural right
vouchsafed to them by the physical geography of the
country ; and finally, because it operated a virtual dis
memberment of the Union by permanently fixing the
weight of population on the northern side of the con
tinent. A question of order was raised by the Southern
delegates on constitutional grounds against a motion
which proposed to compass a reversal of the instruc
tions previously given to the Secretary of State in the
matter of the Spanish treaty. The Articles of Con
federation required the concurrence of nine States to
establish regulations for the conclusion of a treaty,
and the previous instructions had been given by this
constitutional majority. But it was now proposed to
repeal these instructions by the vote of less than a
constitutional majority in such cases. In spite of this
remonstrance the Northern States adhered to their
determination.

218 ADDRESSES
No injunction of secrecy could keep a proposition
so important as this from reaching the ears of the
Southern people. The legislature of Virginia pro
tested against it In tones at once "loud and deep."
Indignation meetings were held In the South and
Southwest. New Jersey countermanded the action of
her delegates. Pennsylvania began to waver in her
policy on the subject. And though a few delegates
from the Eastern States, like Gorham, of Massachu
setts, were still frank enough to avow that the shut
ting of the Mississippi would be advantageous to the
Atlantic States, and that therefore they wished to see
it shut, the illiberal sentiment was openly denounced
by Madison as being " In strong contrast with the
principles of the Revolution and with the language of
American patriots." The hapless measure was finally
allowed to perish by pure inanition, for the want of
support from Its Eastern and Western parents. Even
Jay, Its foster-father, with a candor which does him
honor, was brought to disown this changeling off
spring of a distempered time. But Gardoqui, the
Spanish minister, was fain to recognize at the time
that the proposition had probably received Its death
blow from Virginia.^ We are therefore called to
thank this " Mother of States," not only for the great
Northwestern Territory which she ceded to the Union
and heljoed to dedicate to freedom, but also for the
great Southwestern territory (this side the Missis
sippi), which she helped to rescue from weak sur
render to a foreign power. In this States'-rights con
flict over the public lands she certainly deserved well
of the country.
How the tide of battle over the public lands ebbed
1 Correspondence of the Eevolulion, vol. iv. p. 187.

CONFLICT OVER THE PUBLIC LANDS 219
and flowed in the Continental Congress, from 1784 to
1787, is matter of too common history to call for de
tailed recital in this paper. I pause at this stadium
of the conflict simply to remark that it was at that
epoch that our land politics became complicated for
the first time with the question of slavery and its ex
tension ; with the question of slavery prohibition, and
the recapture of fugitive slaves. The conflict was
hushed by the Ordinance of 1787, because, under the
terms of that ordinance the Northern States bated
their breath to demand the prohibition of slavery In
only a limited part of the unoccupied territory, and to
concede a provision for the rendition of fugitive slaves
from that defined region. The Southern States bated
their breath to demand nothing more as to this region
(which they could never hope to occupy) than that it
should not be used as a harboring-place for their
escaping slaves. The differentiation of political opin
ions between the Northern and the Southern States
at that time, so far as they were influenced by slavery,
seems to have been based rather on the economical
than on the social or purely political aspects of the
Institution. ,
If the States'-rights conflict over the public lands
was composed for a time by the Ordinance of 1787,
the truce was only temporary. The debatable region
north of the Ohio River was taken forever out of the
doubtful wager of battle between the two sections of
the Union, but the wager of battle which had come to
a standstill iu the Continental Congress did but wave
Its red flag only the more violently in the eyes of the
Federal Convention which was then sitting within its
closed doors at Philadelphia. After the crisis be
tween the competing claims of the small States and of

220 ADDRESSES
the large States, the crisis between the competing
claims of the planting States and the commercial
States, the crisis between the States opposed to the
continuance of the slave-trade and the States favoring
it or winking at it, — after all these crises had been
successfully passed, the Convention stumbled on the
old rock of offense lying between the " landed " and
the "landless" States. Whether the vast public
territory then belonging to the Union had been sur
rendered (In the eye of constitutional and public
law) by the States separately ceding it or by Great
Britain In her treaty of peace, with Its definition of
the metes and bounds of the United States, was still
an open question between the two classes of States so
differently related to the public domain.
The land question had gathered head from a vari
ety of causes. Mr. Madison, In his notes of the debates
held In the Continental Congress in the early part
of the year 1783, when peace with Great Britain was
ill sight, explains how the States'-rights conflict over
the public lands, even at that early date, when Vir
ginia had not completed her cession, was complicated
with the abortive attempt of Congress to enucleate
a fiscal policy for the whole country.^ It was compli
cated besides with Federal relations of debit and credit
at this period, when each State was prone to conceive
itself a creditor as compared with Its sister States,
and when the Eastern States were especially convinced
that they were creditors as compared with the South
ern States. It was complicated, besides, with dynas
tic competitions arising between the old States aud
the foreseen new States, which were destined to be par
celed out from the Northwestern and Southwestern
1 Elliot's Debates, vol. v. p. 59.

CONFLICT OVER THE PUBLIC LANDS 221
•
territory, a species of jealousy which grew more and
more venomous as the prospect of such States loomed
more and more clearly above the political horizon in
1788. It was complicated, besides, with preferences
for conflicting land systems, — with the New England
preference for a township system, and with the South
ern preference for indiscriminate locations.^
3uch was the tangled political embroglio which the
Federal Convention was called to unravel when, in
the course of its deliberations, provision had to be
made for the admission of new States and for the
government of the Federal territory under the Consti
tution. The dissidence came at once to a sharp and
sheer division of opinions. Daniel Carroll, of Mary
land, true to the settled policy of his State, wanted an
express provision in the Constitution declaring that
nothing in that instrument should affect the right of
the United States to the "back lands." He would
like to have this provision agreed to unanimously,
but If such unanimity was impossible, he believed that
" all risks would be run by a considerable minority
sooner than give their concurrence." Williamson, of
North Carolina, intimated that his State was well dis
posed to surrender her Western lands, but that she
would not be coerced into it. Luther Martin, of
Maryland, emphasized the unreasonableness of forcing
the people of Virginia beyond the mountains, the
people west of North Carolina and of Georgia, and
the people In Maine northeast of Massachusetts, to
continue under the States now governing them. He
was unwilling that the small States should be called
to guarantee the Western claims of the large ones.
Gouverneur Morris expressed the opinion that if the
1 Madison's Works, vol. i. p. 318.

222 ADDRESSES
forced division of the large States was to be the ob
ject of the new system of government, it might be
expected that the gentlemen from the large States
would " pretty quickly leave " the Convention. Lu
ther Martin, in turn, expressed the opinion that If the
small States were expected to guarantee the territorial
claims of the large States, it would be found that the
representatives of the former would, with equal firm
ness, take their leave of the document then lying un
finished on the table of the Convention. Mr. Wilson,
of Pennsylvania, perceiving that the conflict of opin
ion under this head was irreconcilable, mildly pro
posed that nothing at all should be said on the liti
gated subject, either by way of affecting the claims of
the several States or of the United States. Madison,
too, with his mild wisdom, thought it best, on the
whole, that the Constitution should be silent on the
subject. So it was agreed to leave the whole matter
in statu quo, and to remit the thorny topic to the leg
islative and judicial departments of the proposed new
government ; that they might settle, as best they could,
a dispute too bitter for the Convention to allay.^ For
the nonce, it was found necessary to practice a policy
of discretion and silence as to the point iu controversy
between the two classes of States differently Interested
ill the disposition of the public lands. Such Is the
origin of the hesitating clauses In the Constitution
which run as follows : —
" New States may be admitted by the Congress into
this Union ; but no new State shall be formed or
erected within the jurisdiction of any other State ; nor
any State be formed by the junction of two or more
States or parts of States, without the consent of the
1 Elliot's Debates, vol. v. pp. 492-497.

CONFLICT OVER THE PUBLIC LANDS 223
legislatures concerned, as well as of the Congress.
Tlie Congress shall have power to dispose of, and
make all needful rules and regulations respecting,
the territory or other property belonging to the
United States ; and nothing in this Constitution shall
be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the
United States or of any particular State."
Such was the drawn battle between the " landed "
and the " landless " States in the Federal Convention
of 1787. What wonder that a grant of power, which
was rendered as colorless as possible to avoid giving
umbrage to either of the two classes of States pitted
against each other in this stage of the States'-rights
conflict over the public lands, should have opened the
flood-gates of controversy at a later day when a still
more immitigable cause of strife had come to envenom
the dispute which arose between two classes of States
divided by a difference in their political rivalries be
cause of a difference in their social institutions and
economic interests ? If an attempt had been made to
Insert in the Constitution a clear-cut definition of the
respective prerogatives of the several States and of the
United States in the matter of the territories and their
government, we see that the Convention would have
probably broken up without forming any Constitu
tion at all. Disputes between the States as to their
relative weight In the government because of a differ
ence in their size or the number of their population,
because of the repugnance of some States to the repre
sentation of slaves in the popular branch of Congress
and in the electoral college, because of the repug
nance of eleven States out of thirteen to the long tol
eration of the slave-trade, because of the reluctance
of the planting States to grant to Congress the power

224 ADDRESSES
of passing commercial laws, — these disputes were all
laid to rest by the compromises of the Constitution.
The one spectre which would not down was the shadow
of the conflict over the public lands.
The conflict adjourned from the lists of the Federal
Convention was resumed in the wider lists of the
States so soon as they were called to sit in judgment
on the Constitution for its ratification or rejection.
Men like .Grayson, of Virginia, who had helped to
pass the Ordinance of 1787, were swift to oppose the
adoption of the Constitution, among other reasons for
the paramount reason that the Northern States had
already shown a disposition to surrender the navi
gation of the Mississippi River, and that with the
powers conceded to them under the Constitution, they
would be able to effect their sinister purpose against
the Interests and the just political preponderance of
the Southern States. It was argued that the Eastern
States had adhered for a time to the right of the
South and West In the navigation of the Mississippi,
because it was then regarded as a balance for the
Newfoundland fisheries ; but now that those fisheries
had been secured to the North and East by the treaty
of peace, the States of the North and East had shown
a disposition to barter away the rights of the South and
West In the Mississippi Valley ; and it was predicted
that they would proceed to execute this design so soon
as they were vested with the new powers granted by
the Constitution. If the Mississippi River be shut
up, immigration. It was urged, would be stopped en
tirely. There would be no new States formed on the
western waters. The new government would be a
government of the seven Northern States. The con
test for the Mississippi involved, therefore, " a great

CONFLICT OVER THE PUBLIC LANDS 225
national contest," — that is, whether one part of the
continent should govern the other. The Northern
St.ates had the majority, and would endeavor to retain
it. " This was therefore a contest for dominion, for
empire." ^
It will thus be seen that the States'-rights conflict
over the public lands Imperiled the ratification of the
Constitution by the powerful State of Virginia. What
weight the same argument had in postponing the
ratification of the instrument by the State of North
Carolina is matter of recorded history In the debates
of her Convention and in the closing pages of the
Secret Journal of the Continental Congress In 1788.''^
After the Constitution had been adopted It cannot
surprise us to find that the first great issue ever joined
between the jurisdictional rights of a State and of the
United States should have arisen ou a question of the
public lands. The subject-matter of this controversy
was the famous Indiana tract, which fUls such a con
spicuous space in the transactions of the Continental
Congress. Virginia, by a formal act of her General
Assembly, had declared in 1779 that the claim of the
Indiana Company to certain lands " between the
Alleghany Mountains and the river Ohio, above the
mouth of the Little Kanawha Creek," was utterly
void, and of no effect. After the Constitution had
created a tribunal for the trial of controversies " be
tween a State and citizens of another State," the In
diana Land Company brought a suit in the Supreme
Court of the United States for the vindication of their
alleged rights as nullified by the act of the Virginia
legislature. Thereupon the Virginia legislature. In
1 Elliot's Debates, vol. iii. p. 365.
^ Secret Journals of Congress, vol. iv. p. 453.

226 ADDRESSES
December, 1792, solemnly declared that the decision
made by the State previous to the adoption of the
Constitution could not be called in question by any
other than the General Assembly of the Common
wealth " without a dangerous and unconstitutional
assumption of power ; " that the jurisdiction of the
Supreme Court of the United States could not extend
to a case which had been already decided by a compe
tent tribunal ; and, finally, that the State could not
be made a defendant In the Supreme Court at the
suit of any individual or individuals.^
As was to be expected, the ill-defined form of words,
contrived by the framers of the Constitution for the
purpose of slurring over an irreconcilable discordancy,
became a source of chronic dissension In Congress, as
well as of early appeal to the Supreme Court. The
antithesis between the " landed " and the " landless "
States in the Federal Convention passed, under the
Constitution, Into an antithesis between the Northern
and the Southern States. At first the conflict pur
ported to be based on economical distinctions of which
slavery was recognized to be the implicit cause. In
the year 1820 the implicit cause became explicit in
the terms of the Missouri Compromise line. In 1861
the States'-rights conflict over the public lands, con
sidered as the source and symbol of political power in
the Federal Union, passed from the forum of politics
Into the battle-fields of civil war. The successive
stages of this conflict in the halls of Congress, from
1790 to 1860, will be discussed in a separate chapter.
^ The subsequent stages of this States'-rights controversy may be
traced in Conway's Omitted Chapters of History, pp. 101, 102, 168-173.

VIII
SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES'
In every conflict of opposing and enduring forces in
the sphere of politics, we must distinguish between
the forces themselves and the point of their impact.
Yet it Is only as we take the forces at the point where
they impinge that we can ascertain either their nature
or their momentum, either the modes of their com
position or the resultant direction In which they are
tending at any given moment. The discovery of the
New World brought into the sphere of European poli
tics a vast complex of international forces which found
their first collisions in the conquest, partition, and set
tlement of the North and South American continents,
that Is, in the seizure and occupation of waste and dere
lict lands In the domain of savagery, to be exploited
under a higher civilization as new sources of economi
cal advantage, as new fields of religious propagand-
ism, and as new seats of political aggrandizement.
The Independence of the United States, followed
as It soon was by the independence of the Spanlsh-
^ This paper is in part the fruit of studies which began more than
thirty years ago, when, on the brink of our civil war, the writer was
called, as one of the editors of the National Intelligencer, to review
in that journal the successive phases of " Tlie Territorial Contro
versy." The point of view is of course entirely changed, for what
was then discussed as a lesson in politics is here discussed as a lesson
in history, with the difference of perspective that is implied in the
well-known saying of Freeman. [The paper was read at the meet
ing of the American Historical Association in December, 1891.]

228 ADDRESSES
American States, put the free play of these European
forces In circumscription aud confine, so far as they
had previously moved iu schemes of colonization or in
projects of the Holy Alliance proposing to make these
continents an appendix to the European equilibrium.
" The IMonroe doctrine," under the first of its heads,
was a notice served on European States by the gov
ernment of the United States that " the North and
South American continents, by the free and Independ
ent condition which they had assumed and main
tained (in the year 1823) were henceforth not to be
considered as subjects for future colonization by any
European power." From that day to this no Eu
ropean power has planted any new colony on any part
of the American continents. " The Monroe doctrine,"
under the second of its heads, declared It " Impossible
that the allied powers should extend their political
system to any portion of either continent without en
dangering our peace and happiness." From that day
to this the independent states of North and South
America have been free to work out their own destiny
apart from the dynastic schemes of Europe.
With the Declaration of Independence by the
United States there arose, however, a new order of
economical and political forces, and these new forces
could but generate a new order of problems when
they came to find new points of impact In the unoc
cupied territory comprised within the bounds of the
Federal Union. The most difficult of all these prob
lems, and therefore the point at which the conflict of
opposing forces has always been hottest, must still be
sought by the historian In questions relating to the
occupation and government of land considered as the
seat and symbol of economical precedence or political

SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES 229
supremacy. Everybody knows that the first great
dissidence among the States of the American Union
— a dissidence which parted States during the Revo
lutionary period as the distinction between Whig and
Tory parted individuals — was that which arose con
cerning the ownership and political disposition of the
so-called " back lands." How this question delayed
the ratification of the Articles of Confederation until
the Revolutionary War was approaching Its end is
matter of familiar history.
But It Is not so generally known, I think, that this
same question interposed an almost Insuperable barrier
to the conclusion of peace with England in 1783, and
wellnigh lighted up the flames of a civil war between
the " landed " and the " landless " States at the mo
ment of their free and independent autonomy. This
same unsettled problem so perplexed the deliberations
of the Federal Convention of 1787 that It was the one
question which the patriots and sages of that body
could neither solve nor abate. Hence It was that, as
I have shown iu a paper previously read before the
American Historical Associatlpn, they agreed to con
fess and avoid the then existing antithesis between the
" landed " and the " landless " States by leaving it
behind them in the limbo of indefinite abeyance. It
was because of an irreconcilable feud between these two
classes of States that the adherents of each in the con
vention could agree ou no form of words that should
ascertain the relative rights of each class and of the
United States In the matter of the new States that
were to be erected on what was then the unoccupied
territory formerly known as " the crown lands."
On the 18th of August, 1787, and on motion of
Mr. Madison, the committee of detail on the digest of

230 ADDRESSES
the Constitution was instructed to consider the expe
diency of adding to the prerogatives of the Federal
legislature an express grant of power to institute
temporary governments for new States arising on the
lands not yet occupied. A discussion of the clause
providing for the admission of new States Into the
Union brought the pending discord between the two
classes of States to a violent rupture. Those mem
bers who believed that the United States had estab
lished a rightful claim to the " back lands " previously
vested In the crown, but now wrested from the cro'wn
by the joint efforts of all the States, were vehement in
demanding an express recognition of this claim in the
terms of the Constitution, and when they could not
extort such a concession from members representing
States which had not yet ceded their unoccupied land,
they were compelled to satisfy themselves with a sim
ple plea that the Constitution should at least be silent
on the subject.
Even Daniel Carroll, of Maryland, representing a
State strenuous above all others in asserting the claims
of the Union to a proprietary and political interest In
the " back lands," was brought to such a mood of
despondency by the conflict of opinion on this whole
subject that, instead of pressing his motion that
" nothing in the Constitution should be construed to
affect the claims of the United States to vacant lands
ceded to them by the treaty of peace," he was fain
to withdraw that motion, and to propose that nothing
In the Constitution should be so construed as to alter
under this head " the claims of the United States or
of the individual States, but that aU. such claims
should be examined Into, and decided upon by the
Supreme Court of the United States."

SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES 231
It was immediately on the heel of this " irrepres
sible conflict of opposing and enduring forces " in the
matter of new States to be carved out of public
lands, that Gouverneur Morris moved to transfer the
whole conflict from the question of admitting new
States to the question of governing the territory con
sidered as property of the United States. He pro
posed that the Convention should agree to disagree as
to the application of the territorial clause to so much
of the public lands as was still in dispute between
two classes of States and the United States. Hence,
the origin of the territorial clause as It stands to-day
la the Constitution : " The Congress shall have power
to dispose of, and make all needful rules and regula
tions respecting, the territory or other property be
longing to the United States, and nothing in this
Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any
claims of the United States or of any particular
State." That is, this grant of power was made ab
solute for the purpose of Congressional legislation
respecting the territory, and was left as colorless, in
definite, and nugatory as possible in respect of Its
application to any conflicting claims which should be
put forward by either the United States or any of the
particular States at variance on this subject. And
this was avowedly done in order to blink and leave in
statu quo a feud which could not be adjusted, and in
order to remit to the Federal judiciary the settlement
of a question which the framers of the Constitution
felt themselves unable to solve. We thus see that the
same territorial quarrels which had dragged their slow
length along through the Revolutionary period were
the hissing serpents which came to the cradle of our
Infant Hercules before he was yet wrapped In the

232 ADDRESSES
swaddling bands of the Constitution ; and he had not
strength to throttle them. We see, too, that before
our present government had been framed the expedi
ent of referring to the Supreme Court any Gordian
knot which the politicians found themselves unable to
untie was accepted by our fathers as the salutary
makeshift of an Incompetent statesmanship.
It is because the " territorial clause," in respect
of its application to disputed territory covered by
it, represented a drawn battle between two classes
of States that It paved the way for any number of
drawn battles between any other two classes of States
which should subsequently find themselves at vari
ance as regards the public territory. Hoc fonte de-
rivata clades. The Congress of the United States,
after passing through an Odyssey of wanderings and
an Iliad of woes In this same matter of the public
territory aud its government, was compelled, in the
year 1854, to face the same deadlock with which the
framers of the Constitution had been confronted in
1787, and for the same reason, — the presence of two
opposing and equipollent forces pulling in opposite
directions. We shall see, too, that the politicians of
the later period were equally doomed to seek a rescue
from the Caudine Forks of an insolvable political di
lemma by invoking the succor of the Supreme Court
to determine for them the meaning of their own stat
ute when, in the case of the Kansas and Nebraska
bill, a disputed question had arisen under it, not only
between two classes of States in the bosom of the
Republic, but between two factions in the bosom of
the same political party.
In the discussion before us it is proposed to deal
with the government of the public territory only so

SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES 233
far as that government has been affected by the pre
sence of divergent ^iews concerning slavery In our
Federal councils. The subject of slavery appears for
the first time in this relation under cover of a bill
submitted by Mr. Jefferson in the Continental Con
gress on the 1st of March, 1784, for the temporary
government of the Western territory, " ceded or to be
ceded by individual States to the United States."
This bill provided for the prohibition of slavery, after
the year 1800, in the ten States proposed to be carved
out of the territory In question. This first attempt
to secure the restriction of slavery fell through, be
cause New Jersey had only one delegate present in Con
gress at that date, and therefore her vote could not
be counted to make the requisite majority of all the
States in favor of the measure. The States which
voted Ip the negative were Maryland, Virginia, North
Carolina, and South Carolina. Georgia was unrepre
sented. The bin was passed without the antislavery
restriction on the 23d of April, 1784.
On the 16th of March, 1785, Rufus King, of Mas
sachusetts, moved for the immediate prohibition of
slavery in all the States " described in the resolve of
Congress of April 23, 1784," and the motion was
committed for discussion by the vote of eight States
— Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina
voting In the negative, the vote of Georgia not being
counted, because she had but one delegate present,
and Delaware not being represented at all at that
moment. The territorial question was thus brought
before Congress for renewed debate, and this debate
resulted at length in the passage of the famous " Or
dinance of 1787 " on the 13th of July in that year.
That ordinance provided for the prohibition of slavery

234 ADDRESSES
iu the States to be formed In the Northwestern Terri
tory, but provided at the same time for the rendition
of fugitive slaves escaping from their owners to any
part of said territory.
We do not know at the present day all the procur
ing causes of the bargain that was made between the
delegates of the trading and of the planting States
who (with the exception of Peter W. Yates of New
York) gave their unanimous assent to this great mea
sure, the matrix and norm of all our earlier legisla
tion concerning the Territories. But we do know, on
the testimony of William Grayson of Virginia, that
the Southern delegates had " political reasons " as
well as economical reasons in voting as they did at
that juncture. It is obvious enough that the East
ern States voted for the ordinance from economical
motives combined with their moral and political re
pugnance to the spread of slavery. Tlieir gain was
immediate and patent. The Southern States, on their
part, gained new guards for the stability of slavery in
the States where it already existed, by the stipulation
for the recovery of their runaway slaves ; they gained
a reduction from ten to five, in the number of "¦ free
States " that were to be carved out of the territory In
the Northwest ; and they established a precedent which
could be pleaded, and which three years later teas
pleaded, for the parallel and lateral extension of
slaveholding States toward the west on the territory
afterward ceded.
The Ordinance of 1787, two days after its passage,
was communicated by Richard Henry Lee to General
Washington, then presiding over the Federal Coii-
veution. It was published at length in a Philadelphia
newspaper, and was formally cited in the debates of

SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES 235
the Convention. It doubtless furnished the germ
from which the fugitive-slave clause was planted in
the Constitution. The Ordinance of 1787 had con
verted the slave into a villein regardant as respects
the Northwest Territory. The Constitution now pro
posed to make him a villein regardant as respects the
territory comprised in the union of the States. In
virtue of these two provisions General Charles Cotes-
worth Pinckiiey could say in the South Carolina Con
vention of 1788 that the slaveholding States had
thereby " obtained a right to recover their slaves in
M'hatever part of America they may take refuge, which
was a right they had not before." (Elliot's Debates,
vol. Iv. p. 286.)
It was held alike by James Madison and Alexander
Hamilton that the Ordinance of 1787 had been passed
without the least color of authority under the Articles
of Confederation. But the Sixth Article of the Con
stitution provided that " all engagements entered into
before the adoption of the Constitution should be as
valid against the United States under this Constitu
tion as under the Confederation." This clause was
held to have brought the engagements of the Ordi
nance of 1787 under the sanctions of the new charter.
The first Congress which met under the Constitution
passed au act to adapt certain provisions of the ordi
nance to the Constitution ; and the State of Virginia
on the 30th of December, 1788, and therefore after
the ratification of the Constitution, assented to the
Fifth Article of the ordinance — being the only one
of the articles which required the assent of that par
ticular State.
In the debates had on the Constitution while It was
pending before the Conventions of the several States,

230 ADDRESSES
I do not find that " the territorial clause " was form
ally cited by more than a single individual, James
Wilson of Pennsylvania, and his reference to it, in
Its relation to slavery, was perhaps more optimistic
than critical. He expressed the opinion that the new
States which were to be formed out of the territory
ceded or to be ceded " would be under the control of
Congress in this particular, and slaves will never be
introduced among them." (Elliot's Debates, Iv. 452.)
Less than a month after the passage of the Ordi
nance of 1787 the legislature of South Carolina ceded
to the United States all her " right, title, and claim,
as well of soil as jurisdiction," to the territory lying
between her western boundary and the Mississippi
River. This cession was made on the 9th of August,
1787, in full view of the legislation of the Continen
tal Congress prohibiting slavery In the Northwest.
Yet no reservation was made by South Carolina in
favor of the right of her citizens to migrate to the
ceded territory with their slave property.
But when North Carolina came in the year 1790 to
make the cession of her " back lands," which bordered
more or less closely on the Northwest Territory, she
was careful to premise that the territory so ceded
should be laid out and formed into a State or States,
and that the Inhabitants of such State or States
" should enjoy all the privileges, benefits, and advan
tages set forth in the ordinance of the late [Conti
nental] Congress for the governrnent of the Western
territory of the United States, Provided, always,
that no regulations made or to be made by Congress
should tend to emancipate slaves." Congress ac
cepted the deed of cession with the condition annexed,
and organized the " Territory south of the Ohio " in

SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES 237
the same year. This Territory was admitted into the
Union as the State of Tennessee on the 1st of June,
1796. In the Interim no " regulation " was made by
Congress respecting slavery.
It is plain that the stipulation made by North
Carolina that no "regulations" should be made by
Congress " tending to emancipate slaves " In her ceded
territory, had been Inspired by the terms of the Con
stitution empowering Congress to " dispose of and
make all needful rules and regidations respecting
the territory belonging to the United States." As
showing the continuity of public thought In this mat
ter, it may be Interesting to state that the language of
the Constitution under this head was doubtless In
spired by the terms of the Resolution under which the
Continental Congress, on the 10th of October, 1780,
had requested the States to cede their vacant lands to
the United States. In that resolution it had been
promised that the said lands should be settled " at
such times and under such regulations as shall here
after be agreed on by the United States in Congress
assembled." The power of Congress to prescribe
" regulations " for the territory was therefore rooted
not only in the text of the Constitution but In the
past territorial policy of the government under the
Confederation. And for this reason it was that North
Carolina insisted in her deed of cession that Congress
should made no " regulations tending to emancipate
slaves." Congress In accepting the cession with the
condition annexed by this particular State had tram
meled its plenary power over the territory in question.
To this extent the idea of a partition of the public
territory between the planting and the trading States
had begun to Imbed Itself In our polity and politics.

238 ADDRESSES
This Idea was soon reenforced by the formal and
deliberate Initiative of Congress Itself. In the year
1798 Congress solicited from Georgia " any proposals
for the relinquishment or cession of the whole or any
part " of her unsettled territory, with a proviso that
any such ceded district should be erected Into a tem
porary government under the name of the " Missis
sippi Territory ; " and with a further proviso that this
temporary government should be "In all respects
similar to that existing In the territory northwest of
the river Ohio, exxepting and excluding the last article
made for the government thereof by the late [Conti
nental] Congress on the 13th day of July, 1787," that
Is, excepting and excluding the article which prohib
ited slavery. This Is the first case In the history of
the country under the present Constitution in which
Congress was left perfectly free to regulate slavery
in a Territory according to Its own will and pleasure.
It had inherited the " regulations " of the Northwest
Territory under this head from the Continental Con
gress. Its hands had been tied as to this subject by
North Carolina's deed of cession. But as regards the
territory carved from Georgia, Congress volunteered
of its own mere motion to make an exception In favor
of slavery. The Issue was distinctly brought to pub
lic notice while the Georgia cession bill was under
consideration in the House of Representatives.
Mr. George Thacher, of Massachusetts, moved to
strike out the clause which saved and excepted slavery
from the Inhibition prescribed by the Ordinance of
1787. An animated debate ensued. On the part of
" the South " it was argued, to cite the exact words of
Robert Goodloe Harper, of South Carolina, that " in
the Northwestern Territory the regulation forbidding

SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES 239
slavery was a very proper one, as the people inhabit
ing th.at part of the country were from parts where
slavery did not prevail, and they had of course no
slaves amongst them ; but in the Mississippi Territory
It would be very improper to make such a regulation,
as that species of property already exists, and persons
emigrating there would carry with them property of
this kind. To agree to such a proposition would
therefore be a decree of banishment to all the persons
settled there, and of exclusion to all those intending
to go there. He believed it could not therefore be
carried into effect, as it struck at the habits and cus
toms of the people." On the part of " the North " it
was held by Albert Gallatin, of Pennsylvania, that
the prohibition of slavery in the Mississippi Territory
could not produce " a worse effect than the same regu
lation In the Northwestern Territory ; " that the juris
diction of the United States was as complete in the
one case as in the other ; that to legalize slavery under
the temporary government of a Territory would be to
fasten it on the same country " for all the time it Is a
State ; " and that, it having been " determined that
slavery was bad policy for the Northwestern Territory,
he saw no reason for a contrary determination with
respect to this Territory." The sectional antithesis
on this subject being thus distinctly presented, the
House of Representatives rejected the amendment of
Mr. Thacher by an almost unanimous vote, only twelve
members voting iu its favor. The legislature of
Georgia formally closed with the bargain offered b}^
Congress, and on the 24th of April, 1802, passed an
act of cession which expressly stipulated that the
Sixth Article of the Ordinance of 1787, so far as it
prohibited slavery, " should not extend to the terri-

240 ADDRESSES
tory contained in the present act of cession." The
idea of a partition of public territory between the
slaveholding and the non-slaveholding States had now
obtained a formal recognition.
Yet the Congress of that day. In the very act of
making this concession to the spread of slavery in the
Southwest, was careful to accentuate Its discretionary
power to regulate slavery in the Territories. It was
ordained in the very bill which organized the territo
rial government of Mississippi that " no slave should
be Imported or brought Into It froni any port or place
outside of the United States." To understand the
purport of this " regulation," we must remember that
while Congress at that date, and until the year 1808,
could not, In legislating for the States, prohibit the
slave trade, It did not rest under any such disability in
legislating for the Territories. That is, the national
legislature, in the plenitude of its power over slavery
in the Mississippi Territory, conceded to the citizen of
any slaveholding State a right to migrate into that
Territory with his slave property, but not the right to
import slaves from abroad, and this, too, although
that right Inured to him so long as he retained his
domicile in a State which still tolerated the slave
trade. The slaveholding citizens, therefore, of States
which still tolerated the slave trade were shorn of a
measure of their " State rights " by the mere act of
migrating Into the Mississippi Territory, where they
came under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress.
The plenary and discretionary power of Congress
over slavery In the Territories was emphasized alike
by what It permitted and what It prohibited in the
premises. So prevalent at this date, and for many years later.

SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES 241
was the popular impression as to the power of Con
gress to regulate slavery In the Territories, that we
find individual citizens and organized communities in
the Northwest Territory petitioning Congress to re
scind or at least to suspend In their favor so much of
the Ordinance of 1787 as placed an interdict on slav
ery. Not to cite all these instances, It may suffice to
say that on the 25th of April, 1796, four settlers of
the " Illinois country," speaking in behalf of the in
habitants of St. Clair and Randolph counties. In the
Northwest Territory, presented a memorial to Con
gress representing that they were possessed of a num
ber of slaves, " the right of property In which the
Sixth Article of the Ordinance of 1787 seemed to
deny -without reason, and without their [the owners']
consent." Accordingly they prayed for the repeal of
that restriction and for the passage of au act affirm
ing their right to hold slaves " under such regulations
as may be thought necessary." Contemplating no
thing more than a provisional toleration of slavery,
they further asked Congress to declare " how far or
for what period of time masters of servants [slaves]
are to be entitled [in the Northwest Territory] to the
services of the children of parents born during such
servitude, as au Indemnity for the expense of bringing
them up in their infancy." The committee of the
House of Representatives to whom the memorial was
referred made a report adverse to the petition on the
12th of May, 1796, and the matter was dropped.
At a subsequent day a similar petition, proceeding
from a convention of the Inhabitants of Indiana Ter
ritory, held at Vincennes, William Henry Harrison,
the governor of the Territory, presiding, was sub
mitted to Congress. The committee of the House of

242 ADDRESSES
Representatives, to whom the memorial was referred,
reported adversely to the petition on the 2d of March,
1803, John Randolph, of Roanoke, being the author
of the Report. The committee deemed it "highly
dangerous and inexpedient to impair a provision
wisely calculated to promote the happiness and pro
sperity of the Northwestern country, and to give
strength and security to that extensive frontier." The
committee based their decision entirely on considera
tions of prudence and expediency, not at all on any
question as to the power of Congress over the sub
ject. The whole matter was again dropped. (House
Journal, vol. iv. p. 381, Second Session, Seventh Con
gress.) At a still later day, the Legislative Council and
House of Representatives of the Territory of Indiana
adopted a series of resolutions which Governor William
Henry Harrison approved, praying a suspension of
the Sixth Article of the Ordinance of 1787. As this
document emanated from the territorial legislature it
came before Congress with the force and effect of au
official proceeding. It was referred to a special com
mittee of the House of Representatives on the 6th of
November, 1807 ; this committee made an adverse
report In the premises, and the House concurred in
their denial of " popular sovereignty in the Territo
ries." The landmark of freedom set up by the Or
dinance of 1787 for the benefit of the Northwest
Territory was left undisturbed.^
Meanwhile a new and larger territorial question
had come to vex the councils of the nation. The
status of the Louisiana country, under the stipulations
of the treaty by which France ceded it to the United
1 Annals of Congress, Tenth Congress, First Session, page 919.

SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES 243
States, could but give rise to questions which were
entirely novel as to the constitutional power of Con
gress to regulate slavery in newly acquired territory,
and therefore in territory outside of the Constitution
at the date of Its adoption. It is known that the
treaty of cession contained a stipulation to this effect :
" The inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be in
corporated Into the Union of the United States, and
admitted, as soon as possible, according to the prin
ciples of the Federal Constitution, to all the rights,
advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United
States ; and In the meantime shall be maintained and
protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty,
property, and the religion which they profess."
A question was early raised as to the quality and
extent of the recognition Implied by the word " pro
perty," as used in this clause. By the opponents of
slavery It was contended that the term " property," as
here employed, could Import only such property as
was universally recognized " according to the principles
of the Federal Constitution," and therefore could not
extend to " property in slaves," which was purely the
creature of municipal law. But Congress soon came
to the resolution of such questions by erecting the
Louisiana country Into two municipal communities,
one of which, the southern, was called the "Terri
tory of Orleans," and the other of which, the north
ern, was called the "District of Louisiana." In
the southern territory the institution of slavery was
left undisturbed, but the Importation of slaves from
abroad was prohibited. The northern district was
summarily annexed to the jurisdiction of Indiana
Territory, and so became subject to the principles of
the Ordinance of 1787, including the Sixth Article,

244 ADDRESSES
which prohibited slavery. Again the discretionary
power of Congress over slavery in the Territories was
exemplified, and again did the policy of an equitable
partition of territory between " the North " and " the
South " receive a fresh affirmation.
Under a new charter of temporary government
given by Congress to the Territory of Orleans on the
2d of March, 1805, and under the terms of which any
implied restrictions on slavery had been expressly
repealed. It was held by many persons that even the
interdict previously laid on the slave trade from abroad
had been also repealed. It Is probable that this con
struction was not foreseen or Intended by Congress,
but In fact the foreign slave trade was revived for a
season at the port of New Orleans under color of such
an interpretation, and Its prosecution was winked at
by the Federal authorities. It should be recalled
that South Carolina, after having Interdicted the
foreign slave trade for a time, had revived it in 1804,
in prospect of its speedy termination by Federal en
actment after 1808, and a new activity was thereby
given to the nefarious traffic by vessels clearing from
the port of Charleston to the port of New Orleans.^
The attention of Congress having been called to
this subject by a member of the House of Representa
tives from South Carolina, Mr. David R. Williams,
and a committee having been raised on his motion to
consider "what additional provisions were necessary
to prevent an importation of slaves into the Territo
ries of the United States," this committee, of which
Mr. Williams was chairman, reported a resolution
condemnatory of the foreign slave trade as to " any
1 Annals of Congress, Sixteenth Congress, First Session, vol. i. pp.
263, 266.

SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES 245
of the Territories of the LTnited States." The reso
lution was adopted, and a committee was appointed to
bring in a bill pursuant to its terms, but the measure
failed to be acted on, notwithstanding the energy
¦with which it was pressed by Mr. Williams.
The foreign complications of the United States
¦with England and France, which, extending from the
beginning of our government, had resulted at last In
a war with the former power, came in 1812 to transfer
the stress of the sectional feud between " the North"
and "the South" from questions concerning the
power of Congress to regulate slavery in the Territo
ries to questions concerning the power of Congress to
regulate commerce, to pass embargo laws, and thus to
impair the rights of shipping property in the trading
States. The discontents of the Eastern States came
to a head in the Hartford Convention, and when these
discontents had been appeased by the repeal of the
embargo act and the return of peace, the sectional
feud again swayed back to the question of the Terri
tories, and In the years 1S19 and 1820 vented ItseK
In a fierce struggle over the admission of Missouri as
a slave-holding State, and over the organization of
Arkansas as a slave-holding Territory.
We have seen that an Impassable chasm had been
opened in the Federal Convention of 1787. between
two classes of States differently interested In the dis
position that should be made of the vacant lands, and
that this chasm was opened In the forum of the con
vention so soon as the question arose in that body as
to the constitutional provision that should be made for
the admission of new States into the Union. In the
year 1820. In this same matter of the public territory.
an irrepressible conflict arose between two classes of

246 ADDRESSES
States differing in their social systems, in their eco
nomic pursuits, and In their political predilections.
The impassable chasm between the States was here
opened in the forum of Congress on a question then
and there raised as to the terms and conditions on
which Missouri should be admitted into the Union
of States. The chasm had been temporarily closed in
1819 by the allowance of slavery In the bill organ
izing the Territory of Arkansas.
Missouri, after having been temporarily included In
the district annexed to the Territory of Indiana, and
after passing through other stages of territorial sub
ordination, had been erected into a separate Territory
by act of Congress, approved June 4, 1812. In this
act no restriction of any kind was laid upon slavery,
and greater legislative power was vested by Congress
In the General Assembly created under the act than
had been previously conceded to the legislature of any
Territory. What is called " the Missouri question " arose in
the first stage of its emergence, from an attempt made
in the House of Representatives to Insist on the pro
hibition of slavery In Missouri as the condition of her
admission Into the Union. It was proposed to put
this condition in the act of Congress authorizing the
Territory to frame a State constitution. The oppo
nents of this restriction, while generally admitting the
sovereignty of Congress over the Territories In the
matter of slavery, were unanimous In denying this
prerogative to Congress in the hour and article of ad
mitting a State into the Federal Union, for the obvious
reason that such a restriction. In the absence of any
constitutional power to Impose It, would be the exer
cise of arbitrary authority ; would impair the auto-

SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES 247
nomy of a " sovereign State ; " and would destroy the
equality of the States in a matter left free to each
under the Constitution. Southern statesmen like
McLane, of Delaware, and Lowndes, of South Caro
lina, frankly admitted the discretionary power of Con
gress to regulate slavery in the Territories. So far as
I can discover, John Tyler, of Virginia, then a mem
ber of the House of Representatives from that State
and afterwards President of the United States, was
the only person on the floor of either House of Con
gress who openly questioned It at that juncture.
Everybody knows that the scission between the
slaveholding and the non-slaveholding States in this
great crisis of our political history was closed by what
was called " the illssourl Compromise." That cele
brated compromise was brought forward in the shape
of an amendment to the bill which provided for
the Immediate admission of ilissourl as a slavehold
ing State, and provided further that slavery should
be forever prohibited " In all the territory ceded by
France to the United States, imder the name of
Louisiana, lying north of thirty-six degrees and thirty
minutes north latitude, excepting only such part
thereof as Is Included within the State of ^lissourl."
The Compromise was adopted In the Senate on the
17th of February, 1820, by a vote of thirty-four yeas
to ten nays. In the House of Representatives it was
passed by a vote of one hundred and thirty-four yeas
to forty -two nays. A partition of the territory of the
United States between the two classes of States at
variance was now enacted into the statute law of the
land. Florida was purchased from Spain in 1821, and was
erected iuto a Territory in 1822, with the toleration of

248 ADDRESSES
slavery, but not without the intervention of Congress
at a later day to revise certain " regulations " of the
Territory which moved in the matter of slavery and
its relations. The Legislative Assembly of Florida
undertook to impose discriminating taxes on the slave
property of non-residents. All such discriminating
taxes were formally disallowed by Congress, which
thus asserted its just supremacy over each of the Ter
ritories during the period of its territorial vassalage.
The passage of " the Missouri Compromise " marks
the close of an old order and the beginning of a new
in the secular controversy over the disposition and
regulation of slavery in the public territory. Mr.
Jefferson confessed at the time that this Missouri
question, " like a fire-bell in the night, awakened and
filled him with terror," as being "the knell of the
Union." He predicted again and again that the geo
graphical line fixed by that compromise, because it
" coincided with a marked principle, moral and politi
cal," and because It thereby created a clean and clear
line of cleavage between the slaveholding and the
non-slaveholding States, would never be obliterated,
but would be marked deeper and deeper by every
new irritation in our Federal politics. He saw with
the eye of a political philosopher that the controversy
between our two classes of States differently related
to the subject of slavery had passed from the sphere
of economics into the sphere of politics, and that, too,
into the sphere of politics made blood-warm by con
flicting Interests, and touched Into a fine frenzy by
conflicting views as to the ethics of slavery. From
the first there had been a tacit attempt to effect the
partition of public territory between the planting and
the trading States, and to the end that the pending

SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES 249
equilibrium between the two classes of States might
be maintained as far as practicable, it had not been
uncommon to provide for the twin admission of a
" slave State " and of a " free State " into the Federal
Union. But now the antithesis between the " slave
States " and the " free States " was distinctly articu
lated In the polity and politics of the country. Hence
forth the feud between them would be as internecine,
so Jefferson said, as the feud between Athens and
Sparta. He described from afar the advent of a new
" Peloponneslan War."
His -vision was true, but his analysis was Insufficient.
For In truth it was no fault of " the geographical
line " fixed by the Missouri Compromise that that line
was so portentous, and that forty years afterwards, as
Jefferson feared in 1820, it bristled with the bayonets
of " States dissevered, discordant, belligerent." The
fault was In the opposing and enduring forces which
eagerly confronted each other across the line, — forces
of thought and passion so persistent and Immitigable,
that even when the party leaders of each seemed to be
singing truce with their bugles, they were really mar
shaling their clans for new civic feuds of ever widen
ing sweep and ever deepening Intensity.
In the year 1845 the Republic of Texas was ad
mitted into the Union by joint resolution of both
Houses of Congress, and with a provision, inter alia,
that " the Missouri Compromise line," as a recognized
compact between the sections, should be applied to the
territory In case of Its partition Into States. The
idea of territorial " partition " was again embodied In
our polity and politics.
The annexation of Texas had for Its natural, If
not Its Inevitable, sequel, the war with Mexico, which

250 ADDRESSES
resulted in the treaty of peace concluded at Guada
lupe Hidalgo, and the ratifications of which were
exchanged between the two countries at Queretaro on
the 30th of May, 1848. By this treaty a vast acces
sion was made to the territorial possessions of the
United States. The annexation of Texas had been
avowedly prosecuted in the Interest of slavery, con
sidered as a political Institution. It was so inter
preted by Mr. Calhoun, as Secretary of State, in a
letter written by him to Mr. Pakenham, the British
minister, under the date of April 18, 1844. The
Mexican War, though declared by our Congress to
have been begun " by the act of Mexico," was held
by many at the South as well as at the North to have
been precipitated by the act of the Administration of
President Polk in ordering an advance of United
States troops on the territory In dispute between
Texas and Mexico. Supporters of the war at the
South had uot hesitated to call it " a Southern war,"
because it portended the aggrandizement of slavery
considered as a political institution. Such sectional
irritations could but excite a counter-irritation amons:
the representatives of " the North " in Congress. As
early as the 9th of August, 1846, on the Introduc
tion of a bill in the House of Representatives ap
propriating 12,000,000 to aid in the adjustment of
our difficulties with Mexico, Mr. David WUmot, of
Pennsylvania, brought forward his celebrated proviso,
drawn, mutatis mutandis, from the Ordinance of
1787, but denuded of the clauses enjoining the ren
dition of fugitive slaves. It was expressed In the fol
lowing terms : —
" Provided, that as an express and fundamental condition
to the acquisition of any territory from the Eepuhlic of

SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES 251
Mexico by the United States, hy virtue of any treaty which
may he negotiated between them, and to the use by the Ex
ecutive of the moneys herein appropriated, neither slavery
nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of
said territory, except for crime whereof the party shall be
duly convicted."
The bill with this proviso annexed was passed in
the House of Representatives by a vote of eighty-five
yeas to seventy-nine nays. The bill as thus amended
went to the Senate, where, by parliamentary strategy
(that is, by "talking It to death "), the opponents of
the bill caused It to fall through for want of time to
act upon it before the hour fixed for the adjournment
of Congress at that session. At the next session a
similar bill was passed, with a similar proviso, de
clared to be applicable " to all territory on the conti
nent of America which shall hereafter be acquired by
or annexed to the United States." The sweeping
proviso, after being adopted in committee of the whole,
was finally rejected in the House of Representatives
on the Sd of March, 1847, by a majority of only five
votes. The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was, therefore,
concluded and ratified in full sight of the sectional
exasperations It was designed to foment. Henceforth
the " territorial question " assumed vaster propor
tions, commensurate not only with the extent of the
newly acquired domain secured from Mexico, but also
with the growing rivalry of the two antagonistic sec
tions. The constitutional relations of the question
were complicated, besides, with recondite questions of
public law as to the force and effect of the local mu
nicipal law of Mexico In the matter of slavery. On
the one hand it was contended that the slaveholder

252 ADDRESSES
had no right to migrate to the new territory with his
slave property, because, by the constitution of Mexico,
the Institution of slavery, always the creature of posi
tive municipal law, could have no recognized existence
on the soil in question. On the other hand it was
argued that the territory of the United States, as the
common possession of the several States, was held
in trust by the Federal government for the common
enjoyment and equal benefit of all the people of the
United States, with all the rights, privileges, and im
munities severally secured by law to the Inhabitants
of the several States. It was further argued on this
side that, at the moment the new acquisition was
consummated, the antecedent municipal law of Mexico
was superseded by the Constitution of the United
States, which, proprio vigore, extended its sway over
the annexed domain, and placed the rights of the
slave-owner under its shield.
In this attitude of the question a proffer was made
by Southern members of Congress to effect a truce
between the sections by extending "the Missouri
Compromise line " to the Pacific Ocean. The pro
position was rejected by the Northern members, who,
In the stage which the controversy had now reached,
steadfastly resisted any further " partition " of terri
tory for the extension of slavery. Many were the
parleys held In hopes of effecting a political armistice.
By what is known as " the Clayton Compromise," so
named from the Delaware senator, Mr. John M.
Clayton, whose name It bears, It was proposed that
" the whole territorial question," as then pending In
relation to Oregon, California, and New Mexico, should
be referred to a special committee of eight senators,
four from " the North," and four from " the South,"

SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES 253
who should also be equally divided in a party sense
between Democrats and Whigs. In this committee
it was proposed by a Southern member to reaffirm
" the Missouri Compromise line " as a basis of settle
ment. The proposition was rejected by the Northern
members. This deadlock caused, as Mr. Calhoun after
ward said, " a solemn pause in the committee." When
all prospect of an agreement on " the Missouri Com
promise line " had vanished in this committee, it was
proposed by the Southern members to " rest all hope
of settlement on the Supreme Court as the ark of
safety." The refuge sought by the fathers in the Fed
eral Convention of 1787 now seemed the only asylum
open to their children In the Congress of 1848. The
fathers had eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth
were set on edge. A bill was matured In the com
mittee, providing for an appeal to the Supreme Court
of the United States from all decisions of a territorial
judge in cases of writs of habeas corpus, or other cases
where the issue of personal freedom should be involved ;
the bill was reported from the committee with the ap
proval of three fourths of their number, but, after
passing through the Senate, was defeated In the House
of Representatives by a vote of one hundred and
twelve nays to ninety-seven yeas. Five sixths of the
negative votes came from the Northern States.
After the failure of " the Clayton Compromise," a
bill organizing the Territory of Oregon was passed as
a separate measure, with a proviso annexed prohibit
ing slavery in the terms of the Sixth Article of the Or
dinance of 1787. President Polk In an elaborate
message to Congress justified his approval of the bill
by reasons drawn from the precedent set In the Mis
souri Compromise act of 1820, as reaffirmed at the an-

254 ADDRESSES
nexatlon of Texas. If William Grayson avowed that
the Southern delegates in the Continental Congress of
1787 had " political reasons " in voting for the pro
hibition of slavery in the Northwest Territory, Presi
dent Polk made no secret of the fact that he had
" political reasons " in accepting the prohibition of
slavery In Oregon — because it laid the basis of au
argument for the parallel and lateral spread of slavery
to the Pacific Ocean, on the old theory of an equitable
" partition " of territory between the two sections. So
persistent, we see, was the stress of political motives
in this struggle for a " partition of the Territories."
Rendered Impotent by its dissensions, the Federal
legislature, though clothed with plenary power over
the territory of the Union, had virtually abdicated its
functions with respect to the new domain acquired
from Mexico. We had " conquered a peace " from
Mexico, but had lost It among ourselves. In prudent
forecast of such disaster, Mr. Calhoun, with a patriot
ism which does him honor, had introduced a resolution
in the Senate on the 15th of December, 1847, shortly
after the opening of the Thirtieth Congress, declara
tive of the opinion that " to conquer Mexico and to
hold it either as a province, or to Incorporate it into
the Union, would be Inconsistent with the avowed ob
ject for which the war had been prosecuted [the re
dress of grievances] ; a departure from the settled
policy of the government, in conflict with its charac
ter and genius, and, in the end, subversive of all our
free and popular institutions." Mr. Webster was
equally earnest In reprobating the dismemberment of
Mexico, but these counsels of the two great opposing
leaders passed unheeded by the zealots who at that
time swayed the counsels of the administration.

SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES 255
On the 4th of I\Iarch, 1849, the administration of
Gen. Zachary Taylor was called to inherit the fateful
legacy bequeathed to it by his predecessor. He fa
vored the early admission of California and New Mex
ico as States, under constitutions which had been
prepared at their own initiative, in the absence of
enabling acts from Congress. Henry Clay, who had
returned to the Senate at this crisis to lend his great
abilities to the work of conciliation, proposed on the
29th of January, 1850, that the pending territorial
questions should be settled as part and parcel of the
wide agitations springing up from slavery in all Its
relations under the Constitution. The five measures
which he advocated, to "staunch the five bleeding
wounds of the country," were : (1) The immediate
admission of California as a State ; (2) the adjust
ment of the boundaries of Texas ; (3) a more effective
bin for the recovery of fugitive slaves ; (4) the abolition
of the slave traffic in the District of Columbia ; and (5)
the passage of organic acts for the territorial govern
ment of Utah and New Mexico. These propositions,
with all others pending on the same subject, were ou the
19th of April, 1850, referred to a select committee of
thirteen members, consisting of ]\Iessrs. Clay (chair
man), Cass, Dickinson, Bright, Webster, Phelps,
Cooper, King, ilason, Downs, Mangum, Bell, and
Berrien. This committee submitted a report cover
ing ail the points above enumerated, and accompanied
the report -with a bill which, from the comprehen
siveness of its scope, was called at the time " the Om
nibus BUI." This bUl, in its relation to the Territories,
pro-vlded for their organization by acts of Congress,
but declared that the legislative power under them
should not extend to the passage of " any law in re-

256 ADDRESSES
spect to African slavery." Pending the consideration
of this bill, Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, moved on
the 15th of ^lay to amend the bill by substituting for
the words, " iu respect to African slavery," the foUow
ing clause : " No law shall be passed Interfering with
those rights of property growing out of the Institution
of African slavery as it exists in any of the States of
the Union." At a later day a counter amendment
was proposed by Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, in the
following terms : " Provided, further. That nothing
herein contained shall be construed as authorizing or
permitting the introduction of slavery or the holding
of slaves as property -within said Territory." These
two amendments expressed the pro-slavery and the
antislavery antithesis. After an animated debate they
were both rejected in the Senate by a vote of 25 yeas
to 30 nays. Various other amendments having then
been offered and defeated, Stephen A. Douglas, of
Illinois, moved to strike out the words relating to
" African slavery," and to pro-vide that " the legislative
power of the Territory should extend to all rightful
subjects of legislation, consistent with the Constitution
of the United States." This amendment, after being
at first treated with almost unanimous contempt, re
ceiving only two votes, was finally adopted, and on the
31st of July, 1850, was incorporated In the Utah ter
ritorial bill, which was passed by a vote of 32 yeas to
18 nays. The lassitude of exhausted disputants rather
than the cohesion of clear-thoughted opinion was re
presented in this majority vote.
It was sought by this amendment to remit the
whole slavery discussion to the territorial legisla
tures, " subject only to the Constitution of the United
States," as interpreted by the Supreme Court. The

SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES 257
expedient was unhappily open to a double construc
tion at the moment of its invention. Some who fa
vored it at the North supposed that the Inhabitants
of a Territory would be left " perfectly free " to pro
hibit as well as to establish slavery during their period
of territorial dependence. Others who favored it at
the South repelled this assumption as extra-constitu
tional so far as the prohibition of slavery was con
cerned, and held that all legislation of a Territory
inimical to slavery would be null and void, because
inconsistent -with the Constitiition of the United
States. The bill as finally passed provided at first for
the organization of Utah alone, but a few days later
the Senate passed a similar bill for the territorial gov
ernment of New ^Mexico, and the House of Represent
atives ha-ving concurred In both, they were both signed
O ' >. O
by President FUlmore ou the 9th of September, 1850.
In order to measure by a few criteria the magnitude
and intensity of the opposing forces which had now
come to their impact on the public territory, It is only
necessary to recall the fact that, as early as the win
ter of 1811 15, the legislature of ^Massachusetts,
borrowing a leaf from the nullification history of
South Carolina, had declared by a solemn act, on the
eve of the annexation of Texas, that such an act of
admission " would have no binding force whatever on
the people of ^Massachusetts." On the other side the
legislature of Virginia declared on the 8th of ^Nlarch,
1847, that in the event of a refusal by Congress to
extend " the Missouri Compromise " line to the Pacific
Ocean, or in the event of the passage of the " Wilmot
Proviso," the people of that State " would have no
difficulty In choosing between the only alternative that
would then remain, of abject submission to aggression

258 ADDRESSES
and outrage on the one hand, or determined resistance
on the other, at all hazards and to the last extremity."
A similar resolution was reaffirmed by the Virginia
legislature on the 20th of January, 1849, accompa
nied with a request that the governor of the State, on
the passage of the " Wilmot Proviso," or of any law
abolishing slavery or the slave trade in the District of
Columbia, should immediately convene the legislature
in extraordinary session " to consider the mode and
measure of redress." Even after the so-called " com
promise measures of 1850 " had been enacted by Con
gress, declarations still more emphatic and proceed
ings still more positive were promulgated by the
legislatures of Mississippi and South Carolina.
" The great pacification " of 1850 had failed to
pacificate. How fond was the illusion wrought by it
may be read in the fact that though the two great
political parties of the country, the Whig and the
Democratic, had accepted " the compromise measures
of 1850 " in their respective " platforms " for the
presidential election of 1852, as putting " a finality "
to the slavery agitation and as the supreme test of
political orthodoxy ; and though the candidates of the
latter had prevailed over those of the former because
they were supposed to stand " more fairly and
squarely " on the basis of that adjustment, yet it was
reserved for the leaders of the Democratic party. In
this very matter of the Territories and their govern
ment, to reopen the whole slavery agitation with a
breadth and violence never before known in our an
nals. Because the surface of our political sea was at
that moment no longer swept by storm and tempest,
men flattered themselves with the hope that the winds
of sectional passion were dead, whereas they were only

SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES 259
tied for a season in the bag of Mollis. Their roar
might still be heard by those who had ears to hear.
Congress In 1853 and 1854 was called to organize
the Territory of Nebraska, carved out of that portion
of the Louisiana Purchase which, lying north of 36°
30' north latitude, was covered by the Missouri Com
promise of 1820 prohibiting slavery. At first the
Committee on Territories in the Senate, Stephen A.
Douglas being chairman, did not propose to disturb
the terms of that compromise ; but the territorial
bill for Nebraska, in respect of the legislative power
It conferred, was couched in the same terms as had
been prescribed in the bills for the government of
Utah and New Mexico. As those bills were meant to
leave these Territories tabulce rasce in the matter of
slavery and its relations. It was indeed hinted by the
committee that the " principles " on which those bills
proceeded were inconsistent with the retention of a
" compromise " which had placed an invidious limita
tion on popular sovereignty In the Territories, under
the guise of placing an invidious interdict on slavery.
After hesitating for a time on the brink of the chasm
which he saw to be yawning before him, Mr. Douglas,
on the 23d of January, 1854, iu the act of reporting a
bill for the organization of two Territories, one to be
called Nebraska and the other Kansas, boldly pro
claimed the doctrine that the Constitution and all
laws of the land extended to these Territories " excep)t
the Eighth Section of the Act preparatory to the ad
mission of Missouri Into the Union, approved March 3,
1820, which was superseded by the principles of the
legislation of 1850, commonly called ' the Compromise
Measures,' and is declared inoperative and void " —
that is, the terms of " the Missouri Compromise,"

260 ADDRESSES
which the committee of the Senate were " not pre
pared to depart from " when they made their first re
port, were now declared to have been already repealed
by the later compromises of 1850.
As two rays of light, when they impinge in the
physical realm, may so neutralize each other as to pro
duce darkness, so It would seem that two " compro
mises " when they impinge In the political sphere, may
so neutralize each other as to produce an explosion.
Certain it Is that the repeal of " the Missouri Compro
mise," while having for Its avowed object to effect the
sempiternal banishment of " the slavery agitation "
from the halls of Congress, and its localization In the
distant domain of the Territories, had for its conse
quences to set the whole nation by the ears. It threw
the apple of sectional discord into Congress, Into the
Supreme Court, into every home in the whole land.
How far our Federal politics In this recoil from a
recorded precedent and an established landmark had
swung from the moorings of the Constitution in the
matter of the Territories and the power of Congress
over them may be gauged by a single remark which
Mr. Calhoun dropped In the last speech he ever de-
lived in the Senate (it was on the 4th of March, 1850),
when he referred to the fact that as recently as during
the debate on the organization of Oregon Territory,
everybody in the Senate, If he mistook not, " had taken
the ground that Congress has the sole and absolute
power of legislating for the new Territories." Con
gress in 1855, smitten with paralysis by the shock of
"an irrepressible conflict " between the " free States "
and the " slave States," was compelled to declare Its
decheance as to a power so singly vested in it that Its
power was " sole," and so fully vested In It that its

SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES 261
power was " absolute." In fact, it was not the quality
or extent of the power, but the incidence of the power,
which led the politicians to shuffle it out of sight.
Tho first effect of the effort to " localize " the " sla
very agitation," by relegating It to the Territories,
was to precipitate a political and military crusade
alike from " the North " and from " the South " for
the speediest possible seizure and occupation of the
two strategic points of Kansas and Nebraska, which
had been so rashly uncovered by the tactical blunders
of politicians manoeuvring for a position. A second
effect of the new policy was to convert the form of the
Supreme Court into the champ-clos of a judicial tour
ney which, by its decision, served only the more to
embroil the fray it was sought to compose. The Dred
Scott decision Is commonly supposed to have placed
its aegis over the rights of slave property In the Ter
ritories during the interim of their subordination to
the power of Congress, but when the opinion of Chief
Justice Taney, which was read as the opinion of the
Supreme Court In that famous case, is collated and
compounded with the separate opinions of the Justices
who. It is supposed, " concurred " in that decision, this
conclusion is by no means clear or certain. Among
the " concurring " Justices there Is surely no one who,
whether for his learning or his character, is entitled
to greater weight than Mr. Justice Campbell. But
that great jurist, In passing on the merits of the case,
expressly stated that he did not " feel called upon to
decide the jurisdiction of Congress," and that " courts
of justice could not decide how much municipal power
may be exercised by the people of a Territory before
their admission Into the Union." Indeed the Dred
Scott decision did but render the confusion worse con-

262 ADDRESSES
founded. It was discovered at last that " the ark of
safety," to which our statesmen, from the origin of
the government, had looked for refuge from the tur
bulence of the " territorial question," could not out
ride the storm.
It remains, then, to say that the dogma of " popu
lar sovereignty in the Territories," never a principle
of the Constitution, and never striking any root In the
history of the country before the date of our Mexican
acquisitions, was a mere expedient and makeshift,
invented for the evasion of a duty which Congress
had become Incompetent to perform because of the
schism in our body politic — ¦ a schism created by the
wrench and strain of two distinct social systems con
tending for supremacy In the same national organ
ism. I have ventured on this long review not only for
the historic interest of Its separate stages, but also
for the light It sheds on the difference between the
opposing forces which at different epochs met and
Impinged at the same point of Impact — the public
territory. At the epoch of the ratification of the Ar
ticles of Confederation, at the conclusion of peace
with Great Britain in 1783, at the formation of the
Constitution in 1787, the great differentiation between
two classes of States had turned on the question of
the ownership, partition, and government of the un
occupied lands wrested from the British crown. The
condition of unstable equilibrium was here produced
by the presence and antagonism of two classes of
States differently endowed with territorial possessions.
Under the Constitution, from 1789 to 1860, this con
dition of unstable equilibrium resulted in the first
stadium of our history from the presence and antago-

SLAVERY IN TIIE TERRITORIES 203
nism of two cl.isses of States with different economic
systems, determined liy the waning profit of slave labor
iu the Northern States, and by the increasing profit
of slave labor in the Southern States. From an un
stable equilibrium swaying primarily in economics,
this sectional counterpoise passed, in its second sta
dium, to an unstable equilibrium swaying In party
politics ; and this second stadium was reached at the
advent of "the Missouri Compromise," with its geo
graphical line of discrimination between " the two
great repulsive masses," pitted against each other in
the same parallelogram of forces — the Federal Union.
From the year 1820 to the year 1860, the jar and
jostle of these great repulsive masses continued to in
crease in vehemence of momentum and In amplitude
of vibration, until at last they shook the Union to
pieces for a season, in the secession of the Confederate
States. It was natural and inevitable that this great oscil
lation of opposing and enduring forces should have
always come to its highest ascensions in the partition
and government of the common territory, because it
was there that the two contending sections could find
the freest field for political rivalry and hope for the
largest trophies of political conquest. After the
bargain had been struck In the Federal Convention
between the trading States of New England and the
planting States of South Carolina and Georgia, in
virtue of which the former secured the congressional
regulation of commerce, and the latter secured the
constitutional allowance of the slave trade till the
year 1808, it was foreseen at the time that two great
objects of sectional interest would still survive in the
Union — tho fisheries for the benefit of New Eng-

264 ADDRESSES
land, and the Mississippi Valley for the benefit of the
Southern States. This fact was not only foreseen,
but openly stated on the floor of the Federal Conven
tion.^ It does not need to be said that the question
of the Mississippi Valley opened an immensely wider
field for the play of economical and political forces
within the Union than the question of the fisheries.
The former, in Its newly emerging issues, was des
tined to supply recurring questions of purely sectional
and domestic politics. The latter, In Its newly emerg
ing issues, could but supply such questions In the
second degree, for In the first degree they are always
questions of international politics.
All this was clearly perceived, I say, in 1787 and
in 1788, when Patrick Henry and William Grayson
" thundered and lightened " in the Virginia Conven
tion against the ratification of the Constitution. The
struggle for the Territories under our present Consti
tution has always been, down to 1860, as Grayson
phrased It in 1788, " a contest for dominion — for
empire " in the Federal government. It has been a
contest on the one side for the protection and exten
sion of slave labor, with the order of economics and
politics which such a social system implies ; and a
contest on the other side, for the protection and ex
tension of free labor, with the order of economies and
politics subtended by a diversified system of industry.
The distinction between the opposing forces and the
point of their Impact was revealed at once when the
shock of battle came in 1860 ; for, with the first
shock of that battle, the question of the territories,
as a watchword and challenge between the two sec
tions, sank beneath the horizon of the national con-
1 Elliot's Debates, vol. v. p. 526.

SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES 265
sclousuess in the twinkling of an eye. The "terri
torial question " never had any significance, except
as, the earnest and pledge of political ascendency iu
the Federal Union ; and when the civil war came,
that significance was buried out of sight by the new
form which the impact had taken in passing from
words to blows. The antagonistic forces now stood
face to face In battle array. The house so long di
vided against itself had come at last to realize that, If
It was not to fall, It " must become all one thing or all
the other ; and so it came to pass, rather by the logic
of events than by the logic of human wisdom, that the
war for the political union of the States passed into
a war for the social and economical unification of the
American people. It is sorrow and shame that this
beneficent result could not have been reached without
the rage and pain of a great civil war ; but now that
It has been reached, the sorrow and shame of the old
epoch, with the rage and pain of the transition period,
are slowly but surely melting away into a new and
deeper sense of national unity, with its vaster prob
lems of duty and opportunity. The problems before
us are Indeed of Increased complexity and difficulty,
but they move no longer in the political dynamics of
two distinct civilizations, each boasting Its superiority
to the other, and each wasting Its energy by working
at perpetual cross-purposes with the other. The en
ergies formerly expended In the " Irrepressible conflict
of opposing and enduring forces " can now be con
served In the political dynamics of a unified civiliza
tion, and can be correlated into new forms of social
and economical evolution, without detriment to our
" indestructible Union of indestructible States."

IX

CONNECTICUT FEDERALISM, OR ARISTOCRATIC
POLITICS IN A SOCIAL DEMOCRACY i
Foe all the purposes of the discussion before us, the
State of Connecticut must be selected as the most typi
cal of the New England communities. She must be
so selected because of the greater simplicity of her
social tissue during the early colonial period ; because
of her priority In ordiiiating, under the new conditions
of American life, a purely independent and popular
form of self-government ; because of the preeminence
she had, through her representative men in the Federal
Convention, in determining the structure of our feder-
: ative policy ; ^ because of the active share she took In
j dressing the balances of the Constitution in the fateful
matter of slavery — thus helping to contrive the sec-
' tional equilibrium which she was afterward destined to
shake ; and, finally, because of the greater tenacity with
which she clung to the Federalist party In its origin,
in the period of its proud ascendency, and in the daj's
of Its decline down to the hour of its " dim eclipse "
I within the closed doors of the Hartford Convention.
\ Hartford is at once " the birthplace of American de-
^ An address before the New York Historical Society, November 18,
1890. 2 " The government of the United States to-day is in lineal descent
more nearly related to that of Connecticut than to that of any of the
other thirteen colonies.'' — John Fiske, Beginnings of New England,
p. 127.

CONNECTICUT FEDERALISM 267
mocracy " and the old historic stronghold of aristo- ]
cratie politics in the United States. The first written )
constitution ever adopted by the people iu the name of
the people was framed there in 1639. Hartford was
the metropolitan see of Federalism from 1790 to
1815. -^
The preponderant strength of the Federalists had
always been at the North. The preponderant strength
of the anti-Federalists, or Republicans, as they soon
came to call themselves, had always been at the South,
and so It came to pass that the line of cleavage between
the two parties was, from the first, identified In large
measure with geographical boundaries determined by
the greater or lesser prevalence of slavery in our coun
try. It was this aspect of the schism in our body poli
tic which gave to Washington his gravest concern, and
hence the warning he pointed in his Farewell Address
against " characterizing parties by geographical dis
criminations." It has been common to suppose that
this adjuration of the Pater patriae was meant to serve
as a general lesson in political didactics. In fact, the
warning was inspired by the most exigent cousidera-
tions of political opportunism at the moment when
Washington wrote, as we shall see in the sequel of
this paper.
The stratification of our politics by lines of geograph
ical latitude was well defined in Washington's day, at
least in the closing years of his second term. The
marks of the stratification had been detected by Madison
111 the different trends of opinion In the Federal Con
vention ; and in aU periods of political upheaval the
marks of this same stratification have come most visi
bly to the surface in the shape of disunion portents.
Sometimes the strain of this upheaval has come from

268 ADDRESSES
the South ; sometimes the strain has come from the
North ; sometimes the strain has come from both sec
tions at the same time, as, for instance, during the
administration of John Adams, when that " sectional
equilibrium " of which I have spoken was put into a state
of violent oscillation by the storm and pressure of our
Federal politics. Everybody Is familiar with this os
cillation as observed at the southern end of the beam,
for everybody has read, or read about, the famous Vir
ginia and Kentucky " Resolutions of '98." It was in
these resolutions, both emanating from Virginian pens,
that the State's-rights theory of our Federal compact
was put Into Its first concise and logical form of state
ment. In the Kentucky declaration of 1799 the Ill-
omened word "Nullification" first found a lodgment
in our political lexicon.
But It Is not so generally known, I think, that the
oscillation was equally pronounced at the New England
end of the beam, and that, in effecting what seemed a
necessary counterpoise against political " Jacobinism "
at the South, the heaviest of disunion weights were
put in the Northern scales by certain Federalist leaders
in Connecticut, who, from 1796 to the year 1800 and
later, set on foot an open propaganda for the dissolution
of the Union. That such an agitation was essayed by a
few New England Federalists In 1804 because of the
acquisition of Louisiana, with Its consequent disturb
ance of the sectional equilibrium between ¦' the North "
and " the South ; " in 1808 because of the oppressions
wrought by the Embargo policy of Jefferson ; in 1812
and later because of alleged perils and inequalities re
sulting from the war with England, are facts commonly
known. But that a similar agitation was originated
in Connecticut in the year 1796 ; that It obtained for

CONNECTICUT FEDERALISM 269
four years and longer, and that it was placed on the
grounds of a permanent incompatibility between the
politics of a slaveholding and of a non-slaveholding
community comprised iu the same civil polity, are
facts which, so far as I am aware, have not received
due notice from our historians.
It must not be supposed that the Federalists of Con
necticut, who led In this movement, were men who
welcomed disunion with gayety of heart. They wrought
to what they believed the destined and necessary end of
things, but they wrought with a " sad sincerity." It
may be safely affirmed that these bold advocates of
a reactionary Federalism were the first to seize and
enunciate In our politics the truth expounded at a
later date with startling emphasis by Abraham Lincoln,
when, in the year 1858, he nailed up on the hustings of
Illinois the clear-cut thesis that " this government could
not endure permanently half slave and half free."
The early emergence of this same slogan, iu terms
equally explicit but longer drawn out, is so interesting
for its deeper philosophy as well as for its surface
indications, that I propose to review at some length
the disunion crusade which was proclaimed by certain
of the Federalist leaders in Connecticut at the close of
the last century. We shall see how it was that an
aristocratic party, lodged In the bosom of a social
democracy, for the reason that It was so lodged,
undertoiok to Impress Into its service the forces of
industrial liberty, of social order, and even of Chris
tianity itself, as believed to be menaced by " French
Democracy " under the ascendency of Jefferson.
It Is known that the Connecticut " Courant,"
published at Hartford, was the recognized organ of the
Connecticut Federalists during the whole existence of

270 ADDRESSES
the Federalist party. It was not held too much to say
of this sheet. In the very hour when the disunion cloud
was lowering in the New England sky, that " the
'Courant' must be considered the political thermome
ter of Connecticut."^ The political newspaper at the
close of the last century was commonly conducted by
jiractical printers, who were editors rather in the
French than In the English sense of that term. The
newspaper was used by party leaders at that time as
their chosen vehicle for the dissemination of well-
.weighed opinions on all current Issues. They wrote
under assumed names. Hence It is that these periodi
cals swarm with communications from " Theramenes "
and " Agesilaus " and " Aristides ; " from " Cincinna-
tus " and " Marcellus " and " Cato ; " from " Pelham "
and " Burleigh " and " Hampden." Everybody knows
that the matchless papers of Hamilton, Madison, and
Jay in defense of the Constitution, while as yet it was
pending before the States, made their first appearance
as newspaper essays under the signature of " Publius."
When Hamilton and Madison crossed swords with
each other over Washington's Proclamation of Neu
trality in 1793, it was under the masquerade of " Pacifi-
cus " and " Helvidius " that they entered the public
lists. In like manner the Connecticut " Courant "
offered a closed field to all valiant knights of the
pen who were ready to shed the last drop of their Ink
for the honor of Federalism.^
' See letter of the Rev. Stanley Griswold to the Hon. Joshua Coit,
under date of March 20, 1798, as published in the Courant of May 21,
1 798. By the Republicans the Courant was denounced as "the organ
of Beelzebub " (Courant, October 0, 1800).
^ For the privilege of free access to the files of the Courant I am
indebted to Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull, the learned librarian of the
Watkinson Library, in Hartford, and to his accomplished assistant
Mr. Frank B. Gay.

CONNECTICUT FEDERALISM 271
After carefully turning the files of this print for the
years running from 1796 to 1801, and after comparing
them for the corresponding period with the files of the
" Columbian Centinel," the organ of Massachusetts
Federalism, I have no hesitation In giving the palm of
superiority to the Hartford journal. It is known that
Hartford became at an early day in our post-Revolu
tionary history the seat of wits and poets who made
Connecticut famous alike for political diatribe and for
satirical verse. Professor Henry A. Beers has truly
said that for twenty years, from 1787 to 1808, the city
of Hartford " was the literary headquarters of that
conservative party which favored a strong general
government, and opposed French Democracy." It
was here that Dr. Lemuel Hopkins mixed the black
drops of his " Guillotina," while Joel Barlow with his
slender pipe was meditating in mock heroics the praises
of "Hasty Pudding." It was here that the choicest
flowers of the " Political Greenhouse " were raised in
the Federalist hotbeds of 1799. It was here, as In a
whispering-gallery, that the voices of the " Echo "
poems were caught on a sounding-board and reechoed
throughout the land.
But the squibs and firecrackers of the satirical
bards did but kindle a straw blaze compared with the
burning and the shining lights of the able prose-writers
who kept up a constant torch-race in the contentions
of the periodical press. If pamphlets sometimes fell
In volcanic showers at this period, the newspaper was
a live volcano In a constant state of eruption. It is
among the ashes and scorise deposited by the eruptions
of the " Courant," at the date indicated, that I shall
rummage for fossil remains In our early politics.
A " Courant " writer under the signature of " Pel-

272 ADDRESSES
ham " was the first to break ground for a dissolution of
the Union by the voluntary and concerted secession of
the States north of the Potomac. The opening paper
of his series appeared under date of November 21, 1796,
while as yet Washington was in the presidential chair.
The writer addresses his appeal to all his " fellow citi
zens north of the river Potomac." He commences by
expressing the opinion that they had then " reached a
critical period in their existence ; " that " the question
must soon be decided whether we will continue a nation
at the expense of our union or sink encumbered with
the present mass of difficulty into confusion and
slavery ; " that "when the Constitution of the United
States was formed, it was deemed an object of the first
importance so to conduct that great national bond as
to bring together, in one firm union, the whole of the
States ; " that " as the interests of the various States
were diverse and In some degree opposite, mutual con
cessions were required to accomplish a purpose by all
thought desirable ; " that " those concessions were
made and a Constitution was agreed upon which seemed
to secure to the whole as many benefits and as much
freedom as was compatible with the frailties of human
nature ; " that " without undertaking to say from
which quarter of the country the most important con
cessions were gained," it " would not be an easy task
to discover anything like an equivalent gained by the
Northern States for the admission of the negroes into
the mass of the Inhabitants In the Southern States In
order to swell the size of their representation In the
general Congress ; " that " negroes were In all respects,
except in regard to life and death, the cattle of South
ern citizens," and as such were not entitled to be enu
merated among " people ; " that " If they had been

CONNECTICUT FEDERALISM 273
good for food the probability is that even the power of
destroying their lives would be enjoyed by their
owners as fully as it is over the lives of their cattle ; "
that " if to balance this claim, the Northern States had
demanded that three fifths of the whole number of
their horses and cattle should be added to the amount
of free persons, the claim would have been rejected
with indignation ; " that in the state of mind which
existed at the formation of the Constitution " reason
yielded to fear, and the aid of the Southern States
was considered by the Northern as of more Importance
than It was really worth."
The writer admits that "this sentiment will be
-viewed by many as bold, rash, and possibly destruc
tive in its consequences," but that none the less " It is
a question which merits consideration ; " that even " if
his object be as wicked as human depravity can ima
gine, examples are not wanting to countenance him."
" Whoever shall execrate," exclaims " Pelham," " let
the tongues of the Democrats ^ lie sealed iu silence, for
the machinations of Pandemonium are outstripped In
the career of guilt by the plots of Democratic citi
zens." The writer says that he " Is sensible that many
excellent men, and among them the most highly re
vered of all, the great, the beloved Washington, con
template the subject of this address with extreme anx
iety ; " that he " also views It with anxiety," but that
" there are other subjects more Interesting to us all "
[than the Union] .
It should be explained that the Farewell Address of
1 The writer explains in a note that wherever he " uses this word he
means nothing more by it than to point out a certain set of men who
choose to call themselves by that name, as a term of distinction, with
out any regard to its real signification."

274 ADDRESSES
Washington, with its earnest deprecation of parties
formed on lines of " geographical discriminations," had
been published in the Hartford " Courant " of Septem
ber 26, 1796, just about a month before the appearance
of " Pelham's " communication.
Undeterred, however, by that dissuasive, he proceeds
to arffue that " the Northern States can subsist as a
nation, a republic, without any connection with the
Southern ; " that a union of the former with the latter
" would be more desirable than a separation if the
Southern States were possessed of the same political
ideas ; " but In view of the fact that it had then " be
come a serious question whether we [the Northern
States] should give up our government, or part with
the States south of the Potomac, no man north of that
river, whose heart was not thoroughly Democratic,
could hesitate what decision to make." He avows the
belief that " the question [of disunion] is nearly ripe
for decision, aud that therefore the time had come
when the public mind should be employed in exam
ining It attentively, in order that when the period
arrives, the decision may be made coolly and with
firmness." He then states that in future papers he will consider
" some of the great events which will probably lead to
a separation of the United States ; " will show to the
Northern States " the Importance of retaining their
present Constitution even at the expense of a separa
tion ; " will " endeavor to prove the impossibility of a
union [between the two classes of States] for any long
period," as well from the contrariant moral and politi
cal sentiments as from the contrariant habits of the
Southern States, and, finally, " will examine carefully

CONNECTICUT FEDERALISM 275
to see whether we have not already approached the era
AVHEN THEY MUST BE DIVIDED." ^
In his second paper, in the " Courant " of December
12, 1796, " Pelham " commences by " correcting a mis
taken notion which," he says, " many people have con
ceived from reading his first address," to wit, that his
" object was merely to hold up the idea of a separation
as a scarecrow, to intimidate those who think differ
ently In politics from pursuing their favorite measures."
Accordingly he explains that the point of immediate
consideration In this second paper will relate to those
" great events which will probably lead to a separation
of the United States."
The first Important fact which furnishes the pro
logue to his swelling theme is " the general opposition
of sentiment which distinguishes the two great districts
of territory " — an opposition " obvious," he adds,
" both in politics and morals." John Adams was at
that moment the candidate of the Federalists for the
Presidency, and, pointing to the morbid humors of the
then pending canvass, " what," cries " Pelham," " is
the heaviest charge against the character of Adams at
the South ? " It is that " he -wishes to establish a mon
archy," while " all his friends (who comprise all the
citizens of the United States in the Northern Dis
trict except a few of the factious scattered in Penn
sylvania) are ranked In the same opprobrious list."
In view of the charges of " aristocracy " and " mon
archy " so freely denounced in the Southern States
against the Northern, the inference to be necessarily
drawn on both sides is that " the political sentiments
in the Northern and the Southern districts are directly
1 Whenever italics or capitals occur in these citations, they are
always found in the test of the Courant writer.

276 ADDRESSES
opposed to each other ; " for If, he adds, " the Southern
States believe that the Northern differ from them in
points of such high importance, that belief will forever
produce contention, discord, jealousy, and animosity."
"What is there," he exclaims, " to bind such discordant
bodies together ? "
He next Institutes a comparison between the moral,
religious, and economic habits of the Northern and
the Southern peoples respectively, in order to evince
the " total contrast between them In every particular."
" Which party," he asks, " is to yield for the sake of
the Union ? Is there to be an accommodation from
each, a partial reformation on their part, and a partial
depravation on ours ? " " There is little prospect of
the first event," he conceives, and, " Heaven defend
us," he cries, "from the latter." So far from any
abatement being likely to occur In this contrariety of
moral and political temper in the North and the South,
he predicts "its rapid Increase."
He next proceeds to show how "the existence of
slavery may be viewed as one forcible cause of a final
separation of the United States." The operation of
slavery to this end may be seen, he thinks, alike " in
a moral and a political sense." " Is there much prob
ability," he queries, " that a system so Inhuman and
discordant, so violent and bloody as that of slavery,
can possibly be kept In order for any length of time ? "
At this stage of his argument the papers of " Pel
ham " come to a sudden pause, before he has described
" the great events " which are likely to usher In a dis
solution of the Union, and the reader might suppose
that the lamentations of the Connecticut Jeremiah had
come to an end. Such seems to have been the opinion
of the late Professor Johnston, in his excellent little

CONNECTICUT FEDERALISM 277
" History of Connecticut," for he appears to have been
familiar with these two letters alone, and not to have
been aware that " Pelham " desisted from his screed
only for a season.
In this Interval of his silence the same parable was
taken up In the same journal by another correspondent,
equally able, who wrote under the signature of " Gus
tavus," purporting to be a citizen of the county of
New London In Connecticut.
" Gustavus " begins his series in the " Courant " of
July 3, 1797. He, too, proclaims in his exordium that
the people, of Connecticut " have now arrived at a
period In the political drama in which it becomes them
to pause, and seriously to contemplate the closing
scene, before the curtain is drawn and all liberty of
judging for themselves Is taken away. From the com
plexion of the past we must infer the future, and It
remains In us to determine what the future shall he —
whether the closing part of the performance shall add
strength and durability to our independent existence
or whether it shall be a tragical catastrophe in which
we are to behold our independence destroyed, our
selves confined to an unconditional vassalage, and
our country covered with lamentation and mourning."
..." At the time of the formation of the Consti
tution," he proceeds, " it was questionable how far it
would answer in practice. This problem could be
solved by experiment alone. To make the experiment
time was requisite. The necessary time has elapsed,
the experiment has been made, and the solution of
the problem is that under a wise administration the
theory of the Constitution is proved to have been just.''
He laments, however, that this theory has been rudely
disturbed by the Intrusion of " Gallicanism " into our

278 ADDRESSES
politics ; that " the plain and simple truth Is that the
French envied us our possession and set themselves
seriously to work to destroy It ; " that " with this con
stantly in view they have intrigued, they have flattered,
they have caressed, they have defrauded," until in the
end " It has become a serious question whether the citi
zens of the United States esteem the blessings they
possess under their own independent government worth
preserving." Considering the atrocities of the French
Revolution and considering the mournful fate of the
people at Cape Francois,! "Gustavus" thinks that
the people of the Southern States, before giving In
their adhesion to French Jacobinism, should have
put themselves on guard [against slave insurrections] ;
but " though they have had line upon line and precept
upon precept, they still continue to promote French
Interests by their elections, and French Interests must
ultimately prove their destruction. When this event
shall take place (and It Is not very distant), the
inhabitants of New England will be able to console
themselves with the reflection that they have unitedly
opposed It. They have opposed it In all constitutional
ways but one, and that is in the field. As the dernier
ressort, to this they will have recourse, for while they
are left with the liberty of fighting in their own de
fense, they will never tamely yield to any nation.
And while they are beholding their fellow citizens in
the Southern States sunk into servitude or massacred
bj^ their regenerated freedmen, the regret which they
would otherwise feel at the sight will be lessened by
the melancholy consciousness that the Southerners are
reaping the fruits of their own labors and receiving
the wages of their virtuous Democracy."
1 In St. Domingo, in the years 1792, 1793.

CONNECTICUT FEDERALISM 279
In his next paper, In the " Courant " of July 10,
1797, " Gustavus " predicts the imminent dangerof an
invasion of the United States by French arms, as a
natural consequence of the sympathy expressed for
France by anti-Federalist members of Congress, and
he concludes with a serious animadversion on the
alleged moderatlsm of certain Federalist members in
the House of Representatives — au animadversion
aimed perhaps at Joshua Coit of New London, though
he is not named. These moderates, the writer says,
" are veering over to the anti-Federal side of politics."
He counsels the people of Connecticut to " reject those
who are constantly whiffiing between foreign and do
mestic interests, whether they are i?i Congress or out
of it."
The next paper, published under date of July 24,
bristles with predictions of dire disaster in case Jeffer
son should be elected. " I pity my countrymen," says
" Gustavus," " if Jefferson is ' their man.' " " If he
is," the writer thinks that " the people of the United
States had better strike their colors, attend the funeral
rites of Liberty and Independence, assume the tri-
colored cockade, divide their years into decades, estab
lish French festivals as their days of worship, the red
cap of Liberty as their Deity, and Introduce fa ira and
carmagnole for their church music. Thomas Jeffer
son," he adds, ".would then dispense the rites of the
altar with pious alacrity, and Thomas Paine would be
his proper deacon to distribute the sacrament of the
Devil's communion." He then argues that " a divi
sion of the United States will be the probable conse
quence of French Influence In this country," and that
the machinations of French emissaries. In league with
Democratic politicians, are already working for a sep-

280 ADDRESSES
aratlon of the Western States from the Union. In
proof of this charge citations are made from the well-
known proclamations of Genet, from the proceedings
of certain Democratic societies, and, lastly, from the
letters which had then recently passed between Presi-
. dent Washington and Governor Shelby, of Kentucky.
" Gustavus," in the next paper of the series, July
31, 1797, undertakes to show that " the causes for a
division of the Union are In existence," and must In
due time produce their effect ; that " the seeds of dis
solution are sown ; " that " they have taken deep root
downward ; " that " they are shooting upward ; " that
" they are progressing on to maturity," and that " ere
long we shall behold them yielding fruit In abun
dance." He then states that for the nonce he will
suspend the question of disunion, and will confine
himself to current topics of political discussion, such
as Blount's conspiracy. Western plots with the Span
ish authorities at New Orleans, etc. Accordingly his
next paper, published under date of August 7, 1797,
is designed to show that French emissaries are at the
bottom of all these disorganizing schemes.
In his number for August 21, 1797, he resumes the
subject of disunion and says : " In looking at the
causes for a division of the Union, they are found to
be various. An opposition in Interest [between the
Northern and the Southern States] will first call our
attention." He maintains that this opposition of in
terest is not of recent date, but was " strongly exempli
fied within the walls of the Continental Congress, dur
ing the Revolutionary War." Although the men who
contemplated continental subjects on a more enlarged
scale, were able, by concession and coalition, " to keep
up the appearance of harmony, yet It was In truth the

CONNECTICUT FEDERALISM 281
appearance only." The appointment of Washington
as commander-in-chief of the army is cited as being-
no exception to this remark. But It is In the sectional
aspects of the slavery question that " Gustavus " finds
the main ground of his argument for the necessity of
disunion. To this effect he says : " In the Northern
States the accursed business of slavery is fast losing
ground. . . . The principle of slavery scarcely finds a
solitary advocate at the northward. In the Southern
States it Is still upheld, and on the continuance of it
rests their principal wealth. . . . The Northern peo
ple found it for their interest to free their slaves ; the
Southern people to rivet the chains of theirs. Here,
then, is another contending interest." He then points
the moral of his argument by referring to the bloody
example of St. Domingo as a warning to the Southern
States, in case the French government should establish
a colony upon Spanish territory in the vicinity of the
Southern States.
In his next number (August 28, 1797) the writer
dilates at much length on the " aristocracy of the
Southern planters," and on the essential incompati
bility of temper between the people of the Northern
States, who are opposed to slavery, and the people of
the Southern States, who " regard negroes as stand
ing on a middle basis between human beings and
the brute creation." He remarks that " the people at
the southward who have an influence on the elections
view this as a happy state of society — one which is
peculiarly eligible," while " the Northern people think
far otherwise." Hence, he says, a necessary antago
nism between the two sections " ou aU questions of na
tional Importance." "The Southerners would rather
overturn the government than have any change take

282 ADDRESSES
place In their aristocratic state of society." After fur
ther invidious reflections on the alleged "dissolute
ness " of the Southerners and their " total disregard
for all the sacred institutions of Christianity," he adds :
" As these causes exist in nature, It follows regularly
that the opposition [between the two sections] will
also exist, and it Is almost certain they will increase
In number and magnitude until, by their influence,
they have so attenuated the bond of the Union, which
is already much enfeebled, that some violent concus
sion will suddenly rend It asunder."
In his paper published on the 11th of September,
1797, he discusses the financial and economic objec
tions which might perhaps be alleged at the North
against a dissolution of the Union — such as the con
sequent destruction of the United States funding sys
tem, in which the capital of the North was specially
Interested, and seeks to show that this financial view
of the Issue is without much weight. In drawing
toward the close of his long discussion he sums up
as follows : " Having shown that the present enmity
to the government in the Southern States is not likely
to be obviated ; that It is progressing to a necessary
division of the Union ; that It Is better to have It take
place soon than to run the hazards of those conse
quences which must arise from some violent concussion
effecting It ; that the Northern States would be more
eligibly situated when united among themselves, under
a government of their choice, than whilst connected
as they are at present with the Southern States by
the Constitution, but disunited In their views and In
terests, I shall now retire to domestic seclusion, and
with a philosophical calmness contemplate the future
progress of my country as time bears it along." . . .

CONNECTICUT FEDERALISM 283
" It Is probable that I shall never be recognized as
any other than ' Gustavus.' My fellow citizens will
not, therefore, have It In their power, were they other
wise disposed, to distinguish me by popular favor."
He admits that the Union might still be saved by
a proper choice of rulers, but " If the people should
choose men of an opposite description, men who are
dishonest, opposed to government, opposed to peace,
aud men who ridicule Christianity, they must abide
the awful consequences, for awful they will be indeed.
They must expect to behold civil law trampled In the
dust, to see anarchy taking the seat of regular gov
ernment, with its hellish train of civil war with all
its horrors ; insecurity of life and property ; a mock
ery of justice ; fraud, perjury and murder, fire, sword,
famine and desolation marching in sanguinary pha
lanx, sweeping the country with the besom of destruc
tion, and leaving the silence of death in their train."
In the forecast of such horrors " Gustavus " comforts
himself with the reflection that " under the silver man
tle which is thinly scattered over his brow, he can
look forward, through a limited prospect, to its speedy
termination " for him, " but what," he exclaims, " will
be the fate of the myriads of my successors, just tread
ing the broad theatre of life ? "
In the concluding paper of his series, published
on December 11, 1797, the venerable writer discusses
the relation of Religion and Morality to politics, and
points with pride to the felicity of Connecticut as
illustrating this relation. He says : " The real be
liever in the Christian religion Is, so far as his moral
character is concerned, the best qualified for a legis
lator ; in the State of Connecticut since Its first organ
ization our civil policy has been regulated by men of

284 ADDRESSES
such views. . . . What is the state of society which
this has produced? Let the history of Connecticut
furnish the answer. It is an acknowledged fact In all
our sister States that in Connecticut there Is, aud not
only Is, but uniformly has been, the most peaceful,
the most orderly, and the best, intrinsically the best,
state of society of any In America. This is invari
ably ascribed to the wisdom and righteousness of our
rulers. Saying this is saying much In our favor. For
in New England may be found the happiest state of
society of any In the world, and of aU the New Eng
land States Connecticut holds the acknowledged pre
eminence." After adverting to the fact that there were a few
men, " usually denominated French partisans, Demo
crats, or Jacobins," who were seeking to Introduce
even into Connecticut a government and state of soci
ety similar to those of France, he piously adds : " We
have reason to bless God that we have comparatively
but few of them." He confirms this sense of relief by
stating, as the result of his " general observations,"
that the private morality of the Jacobin Democrats Is
no better than their politics. " That kind of govern
ment and that state of society which authorizes every
vice, which suspends all restraint, which winks at every
enormity, and which votes religion out of existence,
is," he says, " the state of society which would gratify
our French partisans."
It will be seen that the papers of " Gustavus " are
a polemic against Jefferson, and against his election
to the Presidency. That event w&,s indeed averted by
the election of John Adams, but when It was averted
by the narrow majority of three votes In the Elect
oral College, while Jefferson was seated in the vice-

CONNECTICUT FEDERALISM 285
presidential chair, It could be easily seen that "the
demon of Jacobinism " was not exorcised from the
body politic.
And now it Is that "Pelham" prepares to resume
his argument for the dissolution of the Union. In a
communication made to the " Courant " on March 19,
1798, he reminds his readers that " about two years
previously " he had sent to that journal for publi
cation " two papers of a series on a subject highly
interesting to the people of the United States." "At
that time," he says, " a division of the United States
had not become a topic of general reflection or con
versation. Persons of a timid character heard It men
tioned with a kind of dread approaching nearly to
horror. Even minds of a more bold and decided cast
shrunk from a consideration of it, as if they shud
dered at conviction." He then explains that "the
opinion of some persons to whom he ever submitted
had induced him at that period to relinquish the sub
ject,'' but that those very persons " had since em
braced his doctrines in their fullest latitude." It Is
probable, he thinks, that many others who differed
from him then have also experienced a similar change,
but whether the fact be so or not, he is "fully con
vinced that the moment is not far distant when a per
fect unity of sentiment oh this great national question
will pervade the northern part of the United States."
Under this impression he announces that he shall re
new the discussion, and he does so by republishing,
in extenso, the two papers which had appeared at the
close of the year 1796. ^ He now clinches his argu
ment for a dissolution of the Union by dwelling with
^ The first of these papers is republished in the Courant of March
19, 1798 ; the second, in the issue of March 26, 1798.

286 ADDRESSES
special emphasis on the strong disposition prevailing
at the South " to adopt the French notions of govern
ment." This third paper of " Pelham " appears in the
" Courant " of April 9, 1798.
In view of the French infection at the South he
thinks that New England can save her religion and
her civil system by nothing less than a separation from
the Southern States. He adds : " If after a serious
attention to the career of politics, every good man
should be persuaded that the best chance which is left
is for the preservation of part by the sacrifice^of part ;
if he Is morally assured that the plank on which his
existence depends cannot support both himself and his
neighbor to the shore, reason, justice, and conscience
will vindicate him in the adoption of every measure
necessary for his salvation. I view the United States
as reduced to this fatal necessity. The question is
simply this : Shall we part with the government, or
shall we who inhabit the territory North of the
Potomac attempt to preserve It for ourselves by shak
ing off the incumbrance which hangs upon us South
OF THE Potomac ? "
These shadows of the evils to come from French
Jacobinism, with adjurations for a dissolution of the
Union in order to save the peculiar civilization and
religion of New England, continue to meet us In the
" Courant " during the presidential canvass of the year
1800, when everybody saw that a final struggle was
impending between the adherents of Jefferson and the
adherents of John Adams. Shrill " election cries "
are echoed and reechoed In the columns of the Fed
eralist organ. Let us catch a few of their notes from a
long series of papers which appeared In the " Courant "
weekly from June 23, 1800, to October 6 In that

CONNECTICUT FEDERALISM 287
year. The author of this new series writes under the
signature of " Burleigh," and addresses himself not
only to the people of Connecticut, but to " the people
of the country at large."
" Should a Jacobin government be established," he
says in his first number, " and the Constitution of the
United States fall a sacrifice to it, the Northern States,
being much more generally Federalist, will be more
united . and better able to form a government for
themselves than the Southern ; or should the Southern
States agree on a new form of government. It will,
according to the spirit of a majority of the [Southern]
people, be Jacobinical." In the successive numbers of
his series " Burleigh " undertakes to show that Jeffer
son is animated by a spirit of " deadly hostility to the
Christian religion and to the Federal Constitution ; "
that the Democratic party had always been a pure
and simple party of negations, stubbornly resisting the
positive measures of the Federalists while proposing
none of their own ; that Jefferson could not consist
ently be a moderate ruler, and that, even if he could be,
" any mixing with Jacobinism would be like scattering
poison in the ailments of life ; " that as President
he would reverse the whole policy of the preceding
administrations and ostracize Federalist officials ; that
he would corrupt the sources of public Intelligence by
giving countenance to " vile publications ; " that the
Jacobin party, If intrenched in the Federal govern
ment, would subject the United States to France ;
that the election of Jefferson would probably lead to a
civil war, because " Jacobins in all countries are desti
tute of morality and religion," and because our Jaco
bins, being as depraved as any, " only want an oppor
tunity to be as cruel and abandoned as those of

288 ADDRESSES
France ; " that the United States are divided Into two
great territorial districts, and that the Southern dis
trict is incumbered with a multitude of slaves, who
will be the natural tools of Jacobinism In working the
horrors of a new and larger St. Domingo on Southern
soil ; that to avoid the calamity of sharing in all those
horrors, and perhaps with the hope of saving their
government, the Northern States would probably be
disposed to separate from the Union ; that disunion,
though "an evil of mighty magnitude, is less, far less
so, than anarchy ; " that the dividing line between the
North and the South Is hard to fix, but whether fixed
by the Potomac, the Delaware, or the Hudson, it
would undoubtedly make a border line of perpetual
hostility between the two sections and would be " crim
soned with the blood of the inhabitants ; " that the
animosities between the two sections would be enven
omed by the memory of their former amity ; that the
difficulties of the situation were increased for New
England by the fact that " the States of Pennsylvania
and New York were among the most Jacobinical States
in the Union ; " that " It would be hard to induce them
to join a peaceable body to the north of them," and if
they did join, " it would be harder still to keep them
quiet ; " that they would be dangerous neighbors, and
perhaps more dangerous still as allies ; that the two
belligerent sections, after long fighting, would prob
ably both fall into the arms of some European power,
or the one would enslave the other ; that France, dis
engaged from her projects of European conquest,
could easily land an army on our coasts ; that those
who thought our distance would exempt us from her
armed propagandism had but to remember that
" neither Alpine frosts, nor African suns, neither the

CONNECTICUT FEDERALISM 289
mountains of Switzerland, nor the deserts of Arabia
had hitherto restrained her fury or checked her ca
reer ; " that It -was fallacious to hope for a reconstruc
tion of the Federal government under Jefferson on
lines of social order or civil security ; that France had
constantly gone from bad to worse under Mirabeau,
Pcthlou, Brissot, Marat, Barrere, Collot d'llerbois,
Barras, Merlin, Sieyes, and Bonaparte ; that every
leading Jacobin, wherever found, should be regarded
" as a ravening wolf, preparing to enter our peace
ful fold, and to glut his deadly appetite on the vitals
of the country." ^
In view of these panic terrors, — terrors which
wrought the more pervasively throughout New Eng
land because they were armed with the powers of re
ligion and conscience as well as with the forces of
political prejudice, — it need not surprise us to discover
that, after the election of Jefferson was ascertained, a
tremendous revulsion of feeling should have ensued in
1 In the " Guillotina " for the New Year of 1797, published in the
Courant of January 9, 1797, we find the following lines, supposed to
be spoken by Swanwick, " the little poet of Democracy : " —
" This once, 0 France, bnt stretch thy arm,
And snatch us from impending harm.
Make Thomas master of the State
And Colonel Burr the vessel's mate.

And to prevent all future bickering,
Put Madison in place of Pickering.
Then, then, in closest bonds allied.
Oar country shall to France be tied ;
Dependent On her pleasure move.
And taste of sweet colonial love.
Then when France whistles we will run,
Bark, wag our tails, and gnaw the bone.
Trot at her heels, her battles fight.
And growl at all who come in sight."

290 ADDRESSES
Connecticut. Writer after writer In the " Courant "
was quick to show that the small electoral majority se
cured for Jefferson and Burr over Adams and Pinckney
had been secured to them by the representative votes
allotted to the Southern States in the name of three
fifths of their slaves, and not by the votes of freemen
enjoying a common elective franchise. " I may be mis
taken in my ideas of the New England people," writes
one of these remonstrants in the " Courant " of Feb
ruary 9, 1801, "but I will hazard the opinion that such
practices will not be submitted to for a great length
of time."
This angry prophet, as he sat like another Jonah
under his withered gourd, had forgotten that Roger
Sherman, the representative of Connecticut In the
Federal Convention, felt free to avow In that body in
1787 that the admission of the negroes Into the ratio
of representation did not seem to him " liable to such
insuperable objections," ^ while Oliver Ellsworth, we
know, dismissed the whole subject of slaves and their
increase (when considered as a ground of apprehen
sion) with the optimistic prophecy that " slavery in
time would not be a speck in our country." ^
At this early date we see It is proclaimed that an
effort should be made to save New England from the
infection of Jacobinism under the triumphant Demo
cracy of Jefferson. " Touch not Saguntum ! " was the
cry which the old Roman senators hurled against
Hannibal, when they would set a limit to the aggres
sions of the Carthaginians In Spain. " Touch not
Connecticut ! " was the cry which these old Federalist
chiefs hurled against Jefferson when they would set
a limit to the aggressions of Democracy at the South.
1 Elliot's Debates, vol. v. p. 395. 2 jjj^_ p^ ^gg^

CONNECTICUT FEDERALISM 291
" I have hoped to live and die," says one of the writers
for the " Courant " on August 20, 1800, " a witness to
the continued union and harmony of this best portion
of the human race, this little corner of the world, so
famous for Its stability and its thousand virtues." It
will be seen that Connecticut was already known as
" the land of steady habits," and that even some ninety
years ago " this little corner of the world " was not
without the modest assurance Inspired by a sense of
merit. Let It not be supposed that I have undertaken this
long study in the politics of a former period for the
sake of bringing a railing accusation against the old
Federalist party. I am frank to say that the old FedT
eralist party seems to me the noblest and purest of all
the political organizations that have ever existed in the
annals of the United States — first in the lustre of its
great names, George Washington, Alexander Hamil
ton, John Marshall, John Jay, Rufus King, and first
In the services it rendered to a sinking land, by re
deeming It from the anarchy of the Confederation, and
by giving to it a stable government under au invigor
ated Constitution. Nothing could be greater than the
glory of the party in its early days, unless, alas ! it be
the faults and foibles (the blunders worse than crimes)
which came to obscure that glory In Its later career.
Its leaders have suffered from the Nemesis of history.
Tlie_eyil that they did has lived after them in a cloud
of obloquy. The good that they did might have been
interred -with their bones, if happily It had not sur
vived in that magnificent piece of constructive states
manship, the Constitution of the United States. In
its germs our Constitution Is a hereditament from our

292 ADDRESSES
Aryan ancestors. Its elemental forms were revealed
to our fathers on the mounts of British history, as the
patterns of the tabernacle were revealed to Moses on
Sinai, but in its artistic shape the Constitution was a
Federalist creation.
It is true that the party fell on evil days, and fell
on evil tongues in the evil days of its sad declension.
It is not, as Gouverneur Morris said, that in the de
bauch of " Galilean" politics the Federalist party was
in the awkward position of the man who keeps sober
while all the rest of the company are drunk. It Is
not, as John Adams said, with a dash of Irish humor
in his Yankee wit, that the party committed suicide
and then laid the blame of Its murder on him. The
pity of it is that the party failed in critical conjunc
tures to have understanding of Its times. It omitted
to take at its flood the tide in human affairs which
leads on to fortune. It went in to swim when the
Atlantic was up, and got caught in the undertow.
The Federalist chieftains could never understand that
the great social and political cataclysm known as the
American and French revolutions was really one event
when considered as the sign and symbol of a new stage
in the social and political evolution of the human race.
They are more to be pitied than blamed for this lack
of perspicacity. Edmund Burke, with all his philo
sophy, could not perceive this truth. The old Whigs
of England could not perceive it. Still less could the
Tories perceive it at the close of the last century, but
the statesmen of England have learned the lesson well
enough to-day, and accordingly have reduced mon
archy to a> fiction of law, have placed the hereditary
House of Lords in a state of obsolescence, and have
condensed all real power In the House of Commons.

CONNECTICUT FEDERALISM 293
We now see that nations move en echelon In the for
ward march of democracy. America was foremost in
the files, and France was second, not simply by the
accident of her participation In our Revolutionary
struggle, but under the pressure of a chronic political
unrest which caused the coming event to cast long
shadows before It on the dial-board of French history.^
It Is a philosophical remark of Bagehot, in his
" Physics of Politics," that the principles of the French
Revolution are fitted to a new world in which society
has gone through Its early tasks, and reached a period
in which the " inherited organization Is already con
firmed, when the soft minds and strong passions of
youthful natures are fixed, and guarded by hard trans
mitted Instincts. Till then," he adds, " not equality
before the law Is necessary but inequality, for what is
most wanted is an elevated elite who know the law ;
not a good government seeking the happiness of Its
subjects, but a dignified and overawing government
getting Its subjects to obey." ^
The old Federalists could never perceive that they
had outlived the time when what the American people
most wanted was an " elevated elite," and therefore
they kept on contending for a strong and dignified
government which should be able to overawe the
masses who " do not know the law." ^ And so it came
^ The famous mots, " Nous dansons sur un volcan ; " " Aprfes nous
le deluge," are historical commonplaces. The Earl of Chesterfield,
writing from France in 1752, refers to the " Revolution principles "
then current in that country, and adds : " I foresee that before the
end of this century the trade of both king and priest will not be half
so good a one as it has been.'' Letters of Chesterfield (Lord Mahon's
edition), vol. ii. p. 237.
'^ Bagehot's Works, vol. iv. p. 447.
^ The Rev. Azel Backus, in preaching the funeral sermon of old )
Governor Oliver Wolcott in 1796, commented as follows on his sturdy/

294 ADDRESSES
to pass that the party fell into stages of decline, be
cause Its old-school jiatriotism was too Impracticable
to meet the changed conditions of American society ;
because in its horror of demagogy It sometimes sym
bolized with the dialect of aristocracy ; because it was
too prone to convert measures of administration into
engines of government, and sought to rule by execu
tive pression rather than by moral suasion ; because It
lacked a sense of humor and took Itself too seriously ; ^
because in the long coquetry with Aaron Burr It lost
the chastity of honor which feels a stain like a wound ;
because, In the days of its despondency. It sacrificed
principle to expediency ; and, finally, because in the
person of some among its typical leaders it came to
be Identified in the popular mind with portents of dis
union. And I have not thumbed these forgotten calendars
of the old Federalist star-gazers, as they watched the
signs of the times, at the close of the last century, be
cause I wished to show that portents of disunion had
loomed above the horizon at that early day, and were
as common at the North as at the South. If this had

conservatism : " He blushed at the thought of being ' the man of the
people ' in the modern sense. . . He set his face like a fiint against
all the specious sophistry of new political theories.''
When some Federalists in Harrison County, Va., wrote to President
Adams in 1798, under the fervors of the X. Y. Z. excitement, that
they hoped the " odious distinction of aristocrat and democrat " would
be f ojgotten in the presence of a foreign foe, he replied : ' ' The dis
tinction of aristocrat and democrat . . . will never be done away as
long as some men are taller and others shorter, some wiser and others
sillier, some richer and others poorer. . . . The distinction was in-
.. tended by nature for the order of society, and the benefit of mankind."
¦ — Columbian Centinel, August 18, 1798.
^ For a quaint specimen of this over-seriousness, see Annals of
Congress, Fifth Congress, vol. ii. p. 2094.

CONNECTICUT FEDERALISM 295
been my purpose, I could better have turned to the
debates of the First Congress under the Constitution.
The portents of this early period differed in kind
as well as in degree from those of a later day. They
sprang In New England from a sentiment of profound
despondency as to the capacity of the American people
for self-government. They sprang In Virginia, so far
at least as color and shape were given to them, by the
" Resolutions of '98," from a real or pretended fear
that the rights of the people were in danger of being
absorbed by the centralizing tendencies of the Federal
government. Men In New England threatened the
Union In prospect of Jefferson's election, because they
were startled from their propriety by the spectre of
French anarchy. Men in Virginia avowed their readi
ness in 1798 to " estimate the separate mass of Vir
ginia and North Carolina, with a view to their separate
existence," because they feared despotism. ^ The Fed
eralists of New England could not endure Virginian
democracy because they identified it with French
Jacobinism. The Republicans of Virginia could not
endure New England Federalism because they iden
tified It with British monarchy. Federalist leaders in
New England preached disunion to save religion and
morality. Republican leaders in Virginia began to
count the price of the Union to save personal liberty
and the reserved rights of the States. The Federalist
propagandists of disunion used slavery as their hea
viest make-weight, because they saw in it the source and
seat of an enduring antagonism between the North
and the South. The Republican propagandists of dis
union used the Alien and Sedition Laws as the lever of
their revolt, because they saw In those untoward mea-
> Jefferson's Complete Works, vol. iv. p. 245.

296 ADDRESSES
sures the racks and thumb-screws of a political inqui
sition. In our recoil from the " Resolutions of '98 " because
of the base uses to which they were subsequently put
in the cause of nullification and secession, and in the
obloquy rained upon the Hartford Convention, because
of the seditious designs imputed to its members, we
are apt to forget that confidence in the stability of the
Union has been a plant of slow growth In the United
States. It was not until our Federal bond had been
welded by the fervent heats and trip-hammer blows of
a great civil war that even we could feel assured of
its Indestructibility. Jefferson, with all his political
optimism, could not feel sure that our government was
in " the full tide of successful experiment " until he
took his weather-gauge from the serene height of the
presidential seat. The sky seemed gloomy enough
while John Adams was at the helm. He thought the
tiller shook even under the strong hand of George
Washington, and that It would continue to shake
unless the ship of state was put on her " Republican
tack " and took a Republican pilot aboard.
I have delved In these Old Red Sandstone Strata of
the archaic period in our national politics for the sake
of showing, In the first place, the deep sources of that
profound antagonism which for so many years arrayed
New England and especially Connecticut against the
administration of Jefferson. That sanguine political
philosopher could never quite understand either the
depth or the Intensity of the antipathy cherished for
him in New England.^ Even In the darkest days of
^ A few extracts from the Diary of the Rev. Thomas Robbins
D. D., an eminent Connecticut clergyman, wUl show the temper of

CONNECTICUT FEDERALISM 297
the Embargo, he wondered that the people of this sec
tion did not take joyfully the spoiling of their goods
when the people of the South endured still greater
losses from that hapless measure without a murmur of
repining. He did not scruple to ascribe to the New
England people a natural perversity of temper, like
that of the stiff-necked Jews, and he thought the best
use which the Republicans could make of them was
to keep them for the purpose of having somebody to
quarrel -with, outside of the Republican family, instead
of quarreling among themselves. In his second In
augural^ Address he covertly compared the Federalist,
clansmen of New England to Indian tribes under the
domination of their sachems and medicine-men. The
comparison has always seemed wanting in decorum,
but this ponderous banter of Jefferson has been re
deemed from opprobrium, at least as a specimen of
Virginian insolence and sectional vituperation, by the
fact that a typical son of New England, a Brahman
mind -with which Jefferson was regarded by the clergy of New Eng
land. Under date of May 8, 1800, he writes : " I do not believe that
the Most High will permit a howling atheist to sit at the head of the
nation." {Diary, vol. i. p. 114.) In the month of July, 1800, the rumor
reached Coimecticut that Jefferson was dead. Dr. Robbins records
the fact and adds : " It is to be hoped that the news is true." (Ibid.
p. lis.) Under date of September 25, 1800, he writes, " I have writ
ten seven numbers to show that Jefferson will never be President,
which have been published." [Ibid. p. 123.) On the 21st of Decemberj
ISOO, he records : " It appears probable that Jefferson will be our
President. I think I never heard bad tidings which gave me such a
shock. . . . Our only consolation is this, that the Lord reigns." {Ibid.
p. 127.) On the 2:Jd of February, 1801, he writes: "Was informed
that Mr. Jefferson is chosen President of the United States. I think it
is clearly a great frown of Providence." {Ibid. p. 132.) September
27, 1802 : " Some reports are circulating respecting Mr. Jefferson which
it is thought will render his character infamous." {Ibid. p. 181.) No
vember 9, 1808 : " I think Mr. Jefferson is sinking to the lowest
grades of contempt.'' (Ibid. p. 376.)

298 ADDRESSES
of her Brahmans, — I refer to Mr. Brooks Adams, —
has recently Instituted a serious comparison and tried
to run a sober parallel between the Puritan clergy of
Massachusetts and the howling priests of the Zuni
Indians.^ In the second place, I have lifted the curtain for a
moment on the joust and tourney of an old political
conflict for the sake of emphasizing what I believe
was the first clear enunciation of the theorem that
there must be " an Irrepressible conflict " between
Freedom and Slavery even when the twain are joined
In the lawful wedlock of organic law. This dogma
excited much repulsion when It was propounded in
public debate by the late William H. Seward, and it
fell upon many ears like a tocsin of civil war when, as
I have already said, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed his
belief that the Union could not survive as a house di
vided against itself, and would become either all slave-
holding or all free. This was a doctrine which the
framers of the Constitution could not receive in 1787,
and yet if history had taught anything with clearness
and emphasis at that date, it was that slavery, In grow
ing civilizations, had always and everywhere been a
transitional institution — that It had never survived
the expanding forces of national growth in any country,
in either ancient or modern times. The keen-eyed
publicists of the " Courant " had learned this lesson by
heart as early as 1796, and they kept dinning It In the
ears of the people, whether the people would hear or
whether the people would forbear. Much of passion
and of prejudice was mingled with their proclamations ;
but to this extent they had learned the true principles
of historical and political causation. Because the
^ Brooks Adams, Emancipation of Massachusetts, pp. 256-259.

CONNECTICUT FEDERALISM 299
American people would not and could not learn this
lesson from the Cassandras of Connecticut Federalism
in 1796, they were doomed to learn it In 1862 under
the agony and bloody sweat of civil war.
Finally, I have gathered these analects from the
political scribes who wielded such trenchant pens in
the service of old-time Federalism, that I might use the
fragments for the fresh illustration of what has always
seemed to me the most curious phenomenon InAineri.-
can politics, to wit, that a social democracy, like^ that
of New England, should have produced the most pro
nounced and the most inveterate type of aristocratic
politics ever witnessed in our annals, and that a feudal
aristocracy like that of slaveholding Virginia should
have produced the most pronounced and Inveterate
type of democratic politics that has ever existed In our I
party formations. The antithesis is striking. It Is__
not an antithesis which would have pleased an histo
rian like the late Lord ]\Iacaulay, for he liked an an
tithesis best when it was fetched from afar ; but this is
one that " jumps in our eyes " and fills them with con
trasted pictures at all points of view. The antithesis
confronts us as well in the religious Institutes as In the
social and political structure of the two communities.
In political and social structure New England was aT
democracy based on free labor with Its handicraft arts
— slavery was exceptional. Virginia was a social
feudalism based on predial and chattel slavery — free
labor and the handicraft arts were exceptional. In
New England distinctions of rank were functional —
functions of office, of character, or of public service,
because society at bottom was homogeneous. In Vir
ginia distinctions of rank were organic, because society
there was differentiated Into separate layers from top

300 ADDRESSES
to bottom, with a planting gentry at the top, poor
" white trash " in the middle, and slaves at the bot
tom. New England diffused political power through
the mass of her freemen, and then concentrated it
again in a few chosen leaders. Virginia concentrated
power from the first in a few Important county fami
lies. The unit of representation In New England was
the township. The unit of representation in Virginia
was the county. New England chose her " select-men "
by popular vote in town meeting. Virginia made her
" vestry-men" a close corporation. The New England
system Is seen at its best in great forensic orators, pop
ular agitators, social reformers — Harrison Gray Otis,
Samuel Adams, Fisher Ames, Daniel Webster, Rufus
Choate, William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips,
Charles Sumner. The Virginia system Is seen at its
best in great executive leaders, political philosophers,
constructive statesmen, constructive jurists — George
Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison,
George Mason, John Marshall.
In religion, during the whole pre-Revolutlonary
period, what was the " Established Order " In Con
necticut was dissent In Virginia, and what was the
" Established Church " in Virginia was dissent in Con
necticut. The Puritan clergy of New England were
often ascetic and severe, too often with a spice of the
Rev. Habakkuk Mucklewrath In their homlletical
methods. The Anglican clergy of Virginia were often
jovial and easy-going, too often of the tantivy sort,
bold timber-jumpers as they rode to the hounds In
the fox-chase, jolly good fellows who rejoiced to hold
their hearts In their hands, especially when hearts
were trumps, skilled discerners of spirits when sack
or canary was to be tried, and muscular Christians

CONNECTICUT FEDERALISM 301
who sometimes thrashed a whole vestry to keep the
peace in their parish Ziou.^ After the Declaration of
Independence, the socially aristocratic and prelatical
State of Virginia hastened to declare religious liberty.
The socially democratic and anti-prelatical State of
Connecticut adhered to the forms of her Congrega
tional Establishment tlU the year 1818. After the
Revolution, Episcopacy In Virginia, where it once
had been dominant, was called to suffer deliquium,^
whUe Episcopacy In Connecticut, where It once had
been oppressed, was called to take the lead in making
provision for the Episcopal succession.
It is impossible to make a study of the politics of
Connecticut at the close of the last century without
considering the prevailing politics in connection with
the prevailing religion of the State. The Congregar
tional clergy constituted the nucleus of the Federalist
party. If the Connecticut Federalist of the old school
was, as Professor Johnston avers, " almost a peculiar
type," the peculiarity of the type was largely due to the
fact that the leading men in the politics of the State
were also the leading men In the Congregational Es
tablishment, and, as such, had a religious as well as
a political antipathy to Jefferson. If In the politics
1 See Rev. S. D. McConnell, D. D., History of the American Epis
copal Church, p. 90.
^ Bishop Meade tells us in his Old Churches and Families of Vir
ginia (vol. i. p. 16), that among the Episcopal clergy, anterior to the
Revolution, the Rev. Devereux Jarratt was " almost alone in preach
ing and living according to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of
the Protestant Episcopal Church ; " while after the Revolution, this
same Mr. Jarratt once remarked to the Rev. Dr. Alexander that there
was a time in the religious history of Virginia when " he knew of but
one man in the ministry (Episcopal) whom he regarded as an experi
mental Christian." See Life of Archibald Alexander, D. D., by his
son James W. Alexander, D. D., p. 149.

302 ADDRESSES
of Connecticut, adds Johnston, a democratic element
" was supplied by the town meeting, the element of
dictatorship, which seems to lurk somewhere In demo
cracy, was In the select-men." And if, as he says,
in another place, the Congregational Church of Con
necticut was " a Calvin istic democracy undefined in
its powers," it was for that very reason a democracy
ever ready on occasiou " to claim the full powers of an
ecumenical council." Nobody better understood the
place and function of the Congregational clergy of
Connecticut than the Rev. Jedidiah Morse when In
his " American Geography " he described them as " a
kind of aristocratical balance In the very democratical
government of the State, which had happily operated
as a check upon the overbearing spirit of republican-
Ism." 1
Gershom Bulkeley, that soured Tacitus of the
Andros and post-Andros period, would fain persuade
us in his " Will and Doom " that the politics of Con
necticut, even In his day, were flavored with " a tang
of the Fifth Monarchy," which, he adds, " Is a very
churlish drug."^ However that may have been, It
is certain that zealotry In religion conspired with zeal
otry in politics to kindle the fires of much fanaticism
^ The American Geography (edition of 1789) , p. 219.
^ Bulkeley's Will and Doom, or the Miseries of Connecticut by and
under an Usurped and Arbitrary Power (1692), takes its title from the
fact that when taxpayers were inclined to question the authority of
the " revolutionary " government of 1689, after the overthrow of An
dros, the General Assembly ordered that it any persons refused to give
in a true account of their taxable property, it should be in the power
of the listers or General Court to rate them " will and doom," that is,
at discretion and without recourse. By the favor of Dr. Hoadley, the
learned librarian of the Connecticut State Library, to whom I am
indebted for many other courtesies, 1 have had the privilege of reading
this book in an edition of which he owns the only surviving copy.

CONNECTICUT FEDERALISM 303
in both during the period we are passing under re
view. In the strange vicissitudes of the times, when the
political heavens were passing away in Europe and
America, It seemed to many perfervid minds that the
end of the world was at hand. It is to be observed
that eschatological vagaries are specially liable to
haunt the over-hasty expositors of sacred prophecy
in times of civil convulsion and world-shaking catas
trophe. The imagery of the Holy Book easily lends
itself to the illusions of men who in such crises betray
more zeal than knowledge. Hence we find the Rev."
Andrew Lee adverting, in the Connecticut Election
Sermon of 1795, to the probable near approach of the
millennial era, as prefigured by the perturbations of
the French Revolution. A whole cycle of scriptural
prophecies was cited iu support of the hypothesis. The
Rev. Da-vid Austin, of Norwich, Conn., had become so
distraught In his wits by his study of the prophecies
that he ventured to proclaim that the personal reign
of the Messiah would begin on the fourth Sunday of
May, 1796, and refusing to be baffled by the failure
of his prediction, he subsequently went to New Haven
and there erected several large houses and built a
wharf on the Sound for the use of the Jews, whom he
invited to jissemble at that point on the eve of embark
ing for tjie Holy Land.^ That scourge of the Estab
lished Church of Connecticut, the Rev. John Cosens
Ogden, published a pamphlet In 1798 for the express
purpose of pouring ridicule on these millenary eccen
tricities. But this fierce polemic of Ogden was really
Inspired much more by the antagonisms of politics
than by the antagonisms of theology. Each lent to
1 Caulkins, History of Norwich, p. 285.

304 ADDRESSES
the other a double measure of bitterness, and wrath.
^ and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking.^
It would lead me too far afield at the heel of this
long discussion of aristocratic politics in a social
democracy if I should attempt anything like a formal
resolution of such an historical paradox Into the ele
ments which shall explain Its apparently contradictory
terms. The paradox early attracted the attention and
excited the curiosity of General Washington. While
he was resting from the toils of war at Mount Vernon,
and before as yet the Constitution of 1787 had been
framed, we find him confessing that he was puzzled to
account for the generation of " monarchical " ideas In
New England, when, as he thought, it would be more
natural to expect the emergence of such Ideas at the
South, where, however, they did not exist, in spite
of the fact that the natural distinctions of Southern
society might be expected with some show of reason
to produce them. He cau explain the paradox only
1 The vehemence of religio-political controversy at this time may
be seen in Ogden' s pamphlet, published anonymously, and entitled
" An Appeal to the Candid upon the Present State of Religion and
Politics in Connecticut." A few extracts will suffice: "President
Dwight is making great strides after universal control in Connecticut,
New England, and the United States over religious opinions and poli
tics. . . The President is attempting to direct all public affairs,
civil, ecclesiastical, literary, military, aud political. . . . At this time
Connecticut is more completely under the administration of a Pope
than Italy — is more an ecclesiastical dominion."
President Dwight was a grandson of Jonathan Edwards. Accord
ingly the polemical writer charges that the Congregational body is
aiming at " a Calvinistic Edwardsian supremacy " over the people of
Connecticut, as also over the education of all the Northern States, and
is pursuing its propaganda under the pressure of church discipline,
of missionary activities, of college control, and, finally, of millenary
theories and interpretations, in hope of attaining to a *' universal
dominion over the conscience."

CONNECTICUT FEDERALISM 305
on the assumption that there had been at that time a
political reaction in New England from the " level
ing " spirit which it was common to suppose had
existed there iu the earlier period even down to the
outbreak of the Revolution.' _
In point of fact, if AVashlngton had made a deeper
study of New England society he would have found
that with all the simplicity of its elements, It was re
markable for distinctions of rank — distinctions based
on reverence for age ; on deference to the clerical pro
fession ; on respect for official station (from that of
constable to that of governor) ; on repute for learning;
on the homage paid to that saving common sense,
which is the very cement of primitive communities ;
and, finally, on the gratitude due for conspicuous pub
lic service. These distinctions of rank were visible in
small things as well as great — in the seat occupied
at church as well as the place held in the eye of the
whole commonwealth. A people who under the ancien
regime of Connecticut were wont to regulate, by vote
of town meeting, the place of honor on each side of
the pulpit in a village church ; who legislated that
" Mrs. Green, the deacon's wife, be seated on ye fore
seat on the .women's side, and that Mercy Jiggles is,
by vote, seated on the third seat on the women's side,
where she is ordered by the town to sit " — (I quote
from the municipal statutes of New London in 1728) ^
— could not be justly taxed with Indifference to ques
tions of social caste and precedence, as social caste
and precedence were measured by the standards of a
nascent community in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. ^
1 Sparks, Writings of Washington, vol. ix. p. 247.
'•^ Caulkins, History of New London, p. 379.

306 ADDRESSES
I must add that the old electoral system of Con
necticut was ingeniously devised to promote the gene
sis of a natural aristocracy — the aristocracy of talents'
and virtues. Each freeman In the colony was required
in September of each year to name twenty men whom
he wished to have placed In nomination for the office of
" assistant " — the so-called " assistants " being the
dignitaries who composed the council, or colonial
senate. From the mass of nominations made at these
primary assemblies of the townships, the general
assembly, six months before each election, selected and
published the names of the twenty men who had re
ceived the highest number of nominating votes, and
these men alone could be voted for on the day of the
final election, when twelve out of the twenty were to
be elected. The names on the list were arranged
according to seniority of service In the case of those
who had previously held the office of "assistant," and
each name had to be voted for separately by each
voter according to its place on the list — a rule which
subjected the hindmost names to obvious disadvantage.
Under this electoral system the advance toward public
honors was necessarily slow. Only those who had be
come the objects of more or less general observation
throughout the whole colony could hope to be even
nominated for colonial office. As priority of advan
tage was given to names which stood at the head of the
list, and as these were the names of men who had pre
viously held office, it is easy to see how this electoral
expedient might conduce to permanence of official
tenure. As It was enjoined that affirmative votes
could alone be counted, while blanks were thrown
under the table, " It might easily happen," says Dr.
Hoadley, " that candidates who received more negative

CONNECTICUT FEDERALISM 307
than affirmative votes would, notwithstanding, be
declared elected, and those who had received more
affirmative than negative votes fail of being elected."
Under this system, says Gershom Bulkelej', the people
found it impossible to turn out their old rulers, " for
blank them as much as they will, it is to no purpose."'
It was in the nature of things that such a nominat
ing and voting system should have lent itself to the
selection and election of the proceres populi? If the
system explains how it was that office-holding became
chronic in certain cases. It also explains how It was
that the people of Connecticut, during the prevalence
of this system, were ruled by men of mark and of
approved public virtue. If the system did not lend
itself to the surprises of modern politics, with its
" ringsters " and Its "dark horses," so much the bet
ter for the system and for the people who lived under
it. John Adams used to say that " Connecticut had
always been governed by an aristocracy more decisively
than the empire of Great Britain," ^ and he thought
that half a dozen or at most a dozen families could
be named who had controlled that community down
to the year 1814. He makes a similar remark about
the natural aristocracy of Massachusetts under the old
dispensation. He says that he had seen " four noble
families rise up In Boston, the Crafts, Gores, Dawes,
and Austins, who were . as really a nobility as the
Howards, Somersets, etc., in England."
1 Bulkeley, Will and Doom, p. 85.
^ In a pamphlet published at Hartford in 1792, entitled The Se
curity of the Rights of Citizens of the State of Connecticut, the natural
effect of this electoral system in procuring the permanence of the Fed-<^
eralist council, or senate, and in " forming a strong body of active
influence for the purpose of strengthening the government," is expli
cated at length.
^ Life and Works of John Adams, vol. vi. p. 530.

308 ADDRESSES
Compared with the modern doctrine of rotation in
office — a doctrine so dear to demagogues, and In
matters of pure administration so costly to the people
— we might say that the annals of Connecticut office-
holding read like an abstract from the chronicles be
fore the Flood. The records would run as follows :
John Haynes, the first Govei'nor, governed eight years,
and he died. John Winthrop governed eighteen
years, and he died. William Leete governed seven
years, and he died. FItz John Winthrop governed
eighteen years, and he died. Gurdon Saltonstall
governed seventeen years, and he died. Joseph Tal-
cott governed seventeen years, and he died. Jonathan
Law governed nine years, and he died. Jonathan
Trumbull I. governed fourteen years, and he resigned.
Samuel Huntington governed nine years, and he died.
Jonathan Trumbull II. , son of Jonathan Trumbull I.,
governed eleven years and eight months, and he died.
Offices sometimes ran in families. Joseph Whiting
and his son John held the office of treasurer of the
colony for seventy-one years. Hezekiah Wyllys was
secretary of Connecticut for twenty-three years ;
George Wyllys, his son, was secretary for sixty-one
years, and Samuel Wyllys, his grandson, was secre
tary for fourteen years, each holding office of course
till he was gathered to his fathers. Offices sometimes
came In a troop to the same beneficiary, as In the case
of the pluralist who was clerk of his ecclesiastical
society, clerk of the school district, clerk of the town,
clerk of the probate court, clerk of the county court,
and clerk of the superior and supreme court of the
State. He held all these clerkships at the same time,
^nd of course he held them all till he died. It Is not
for us to commit the Irreverence of peering behind the

CONNECTICUT FEDERALISM 309
veil which hides from mortal eyes the employments of
the blessed after they have passed through the gates
of Paradise, but we may safely venture the opinion
that when this Puritan worthy met the Recording
Angel in heaven's chancery who wrote down Uncle
Toby's oath and then blotted it out with a tear, he in
timated in no ambiguous terms to that tender-hearted
and moist-eyed official that " they ordered this matter
better In Connecticut," and that clerks there were
expected to keep tears out of their ink and not to use
them for a blotter.
No wonder that these Connecticut saints were
strong believers In the doctrine of election, and that
they held the final perseverance of the saints to be
as blessed a doctrine in office-holding as In the five
points of Calvinism. No wonder, either, that Jeffer
son raised such a storm of indignation around his
head, when, at the beginning of his administration,
he removed Mr. Goodrich, the Federalist collector at
New Haven. And we shall better understand the
pathos of his remark, when in referring to the office-
holding class he said that " few die and none resign," '
If we remember that it was a propos of a Connecticut
officeholder who refused either to die or resign that
the remark was originally made. We can also under
stand the special wonder with which this whole pro
ceeding overcame the people of Connecticut If we
recall the fact that Jefferson appointed as Goodrich's
successor the venerable Samuel Bishop, when that
patriarch was iu the seventy-seventh year of his age,
and when therefore his expectation of life, and his
1 The exact words of Jefferson are, " Vacancies by death are
few ; by resignation, none." Jefferson's Complete Works, vol. iv. p.
404.

310 ADDRESSES
consequent expectation of life-tenure In office, were
reduced to the merest span !
If we would look for the keystone of the arch on
which the edifice of New England politics has been
built, we should look for It, of course, in her township
system. On this system a whole literature may be
found In the political writers of New England from
John Adams to John Fiske. The system conduces
directly to the nurture of a political life which Is vital
in every part ; which finds free play for Its exercise at
every local centre, and which at the same time pro
vides a means for the ready coordination of all these
centres of volition and action at the will of the most
commanding intelligence. Hence It was that Jeffer
son has found In the New England towns " the vital
principles" of government, and he has not hesitated
to pronounce them " the wisest invention ever devised
by the wit of man for the perfect exercise of govern
ment and for its preservation." He had winced
under the power of these townships while sitting In
his curule chair at Washington. "I felt the foun
dations of the government shaken under my feet by
the New England townships," he says, in allusion to
the stern resistance they made to his Embargo policy.
" There was not an individual," he adds, " in all their
States whose body was not thrown with all Its momen
tum into action, and although the whole of the other
States were known to be in favor of the measure, yet
the organization of this little selfish minority enabled
It to overrule the Union."
In view of such a testimony coming from Jefferson,
pronounced by John Fiske " the profoundest political
thinker " of America, it can excite no surprise that the
Federalist bards of Hartford should have " dropped

CONNECTICUT FEDERALISM 311
into poetry " whenever they mused in wonder, love,
and praise over the ancient township system, and
especially over its good old election methods, which
enabled the Federalists of Connecticut for so many
years to keep the old aristocratic council in its place
of power and to retain their " happy corner of the
world " In Its ancient ways. There is nothing dithy-
ramblc In these Yankee PIndars, but the most insen
sible reader can discern a glow of patriotic ardor even
in such doggerel rhymes as these : —
" Connecticut ! thou wondrous State !
Forever firm, forever great ;
Oft Faction here her tools employs,
And oft we hear a mighty noise.

But when the hour of trial 's o'er,
These short-lived tempests cease to roar ;
Sedition's vermin sink from day.
And all goes on the same old way!
Still the old Council keep their seats,
Still wisdom there with honor meets."

X
THE BERING SEA ARBITRATION
OR, "PELAGIC SEALING" JUKmiCAXLT CONSIDERED ACCORD
ING TO A PARTICULAR ANALOGY OF MUNICIPAL LAW 1
In the primeval state of man property is supposed
to have begun with the occupation of things for man's
personal use. The Roman law of occupation was at
once very simple and very strict. Wild animals, as
being in their natural state res nullius, were held to
be convertible Into property by occupation ; and this
for the sufficient reason that what belonged to nobody
could be made to belong to anybody who took It. Not,
indeed, that mere taking gave ownership or value, but
that it was only by the instrument of occupation, to
the ends of possession, that wild animals could be made
serviceable, and therefore valuable, to man. Hence,
In enunciating the maxim of the civil law, res nullius
occupanti conceditur, we must emphasize equally each
word in the sentence.
In consistency with this maxim, It was held in early
Roman law that the right of occupation which at
tached to wild animals was a pure ius hominis, belong
ing to any man who captured them, anywhere, for his
personal benefit, and not an ius dominii resulting from
ownership of the soil on which the wild animals were
found. The owner of the soil had, Indeed, a rlo-ht to
prohibit the entrance of a huntsman on his farm but
1 Originally published as one of the Columbian University Studies.

THE BERING SEA ARBITRATION 313
he could not claim the wild game which was killed or
captured on his premises, even when the killing or cap
ture was effected in violation of his Interdict. His
remedy was to sue for trespass. Yet as the land
owner, by his Interdict, could maintain, de facto, the
exclusive privilege of hunting on his own grounds, the
game found on his soil could be placed practically at
his exclusive command.^ In cases, therefore, where
the game found on land was sparse, casual, and uncer
tain, it could not be held to constitute any part of the
fructus of the farm ; but in cases where the game could
be singled out, as an object of economic signfficance, it
was competent to hold and consider it as fructus.
Hence the doctrine of Julian, when, as we read In the
" Digest," " he denied that hunting was fructus of a
farm, unless the fructus of the farm resulted from
hunting." ^ In another part of the " Digest " we read,
in consistency with this doctrine, that lucrative returns
from fowling, fishing, and hunting pertained to the
fructuary,^ and even where the hunting was not very
important, because it took place in the woods and
mountains of a landed estate, we are told that it could
be " fairly asserted " (that is, could be asserted In
equity) to constitute a part of the usufruct ; * while
this was clearly the case where a hunting-staff or a
working-plant was connected with the estate for the
express purpose of capturing game.^
With regard to animals which were partially do
mesticated, and which, by reason of their habits,
1 Digest, xli. 1, 3, §§ 1, 2.
2 Digest, xxii. 1, 26 : " Venationem fructus fundi negavit esse, nisi
fructus fundi ex venatione constet."
5 Digest, vii. 1, 9, § 5. « Digest, vii. 1, 62.
' Digest, xxxiii. 7, 12, §§ 12, 13.

314 ADDRESSES
whether natural or acquired, could be put under a
partial human control, a somewhat different rule
obtained. To the extent In which these animals,
by virtue of their habit for locality, could be made
self-subservient to the uses of man, It was held that
they became the qualified property of the owner who
had domesticated them, or who, by purchase or other
wise, had a right to profit from their custody. The
rule under this head, as laid down by Gains, is as
follows : —
" As to animals, which, from habit, are wont to go away
and return, such as pigeons and bees, Hkewise deer that are
wont to go to the woods and return, we have this rule
handed down, that if they cease to have a disposition to
return [revertendi animum'] they cease also to be ours, and
may become the property of the first takers ; and they seem,
moreover, to cease to have a disposition to return when they
may have abandoned the habit of returning." ¦'
The same doctrine meets us In the " Digest " ^ and
in the " Institutes." ^
It is easy to perceive the reasou and ground of this
rule of law. Certain animals, by reason of their ani
mus revertendi, can, without their knowing It, be made
subservient to the economic control of man. Sic vos
non vobis mellificatis apes. The animus revertendi,
as cited by Gains, Is not an Index of mansuetude. It
exists alike in wild bees and In tame bees,^ but In the
1 Gains, ii. § 68 : In lis autem animalibus quse ex consuetudine ab-
ire et redire solent, veluti eolumbis et apibus, item cervis qui in silvas
ire et redire solent, talem habemus regulam traditam, ut si revertendi
animum habere desierint, etiam nostra esse desinant, et fiant occupan-
tium ; revertendi autem animum videntur desinere habere cum rever
tendi consuetudinem deseruerint.
2 Digest, xli. 1, 5. ' Institutes, ii. 1, 15.
* Pufendorf is careful to note this fact, as bearing on the logic of

THE BERING SEA ARBITRATION 315
case of the latter it has been seized on by man as an
instinct which, under appropriate arrangements (that
Is, by the inclosure of bees in artificial hives), can be
made tributary to economic ends at a spot selected by
man and under his control. The animal's state of
mind is important only because it serves as an index
of the owner's prospect of retaining the animal in his
possession. Speaking in the language of the schools, we may
say that man is the client cause of bee husbandry.
The material with which he makes his hives is the
material cause. The tools ¦with which he constructs
hives are the instrujJientcd cause. The conditions
which prescribe the shape and structure of the hives
are the forinal cause, while economic gain is the fnal
cause of the whole proceeding. But in this array of
causes, It is the animus revertendi which conditionates
the whole process, and which, at bottom, is the condi-
tionating factor of the whole process. As the logic
of causation shifts -with -the point of view, if the point
of -view be shifted from the hives to the bees them
selves It must be said that the bees are the material
cause of bee husbandry, and that the animus rever
tendi is the instrumental cause of bee husbandry.
From this analysis It would appear that it is -the
qualified dominion of man over animals ha-ring an
ajiimus revertendi (that is, capable of being turned
to economic uses) which gives rise to a qualified
property in them. The right of free occupation
comes, as to them, under restriction, because they are
already the subjects of a prior, though qualified,
occupation.
the law. He says ; " Consuetudinem ad al-vearia sua ledenndi non
adsue-tudine hominnm, sed proprise naturs insiincta, habent; de
ofetero plane indoeiles." Pufendorf, De Jure Naturm, lib. iv. 6, 5.

316 ADDRESSES
As the commentators say, the occupation of ani
mals which are by nature feroi naturce. implies four
conditions : First, the animal at the time of capture
must be really and entirely res nullius. Secondly, It
must be taken with a view to possession. The man
who kills a wild bird merely to show his skill as a
marksman Is not an occupant in even an Inchoate
sense. He may be shooting merely for a wager.
Thirdly, the desire of possession, the animus possi-
dendi, must be authenticated and effectuated by some
definitive act which translates the desire of possession
Into an accomplished fact. The man who stumbles
on a honeycomb in the forest and who desires to pos
sess It does not make It his by marking the tree on
which he finds it, however fixed and sincere may be
his purpose to return and take the comb Into posses
sion at a future day.^ Fourthly, the thing occupied
must be of some value in use or exchange ; otherwise
the animus possidendi would not arise, and the act of
possession would not be put forth. Rats and mice
have an animus revertendi which man can only
deplore in economics, because their animus revertendi
cannot be made Important from a utilitarian point of
view. Dogs have an animus revertendi, but It Is held
by Blackstone that dogs have no intrinsic value at
common law, as being " creatures kept for whim and
pleasure " and not for food. Dogs have intrinsic
value In Greenland, because there they are made
ancillary to economic ends. A pack of dogs kept as
an instrument of hunting would seem to have Intrinsic
value. We see, therefore, that the law of occupation, as to
^ Gliick, Ausfuhrliche ErlSuterung der Pandecten, ser. xli. xiii. 174;
cf. also 7 Johnson (N. Y.) 16.

THE BERING SEA ARBITRATION 317
animals, has its ultimate foundation in the destination
of creatures fcra- natura' to subserve purposes of
human utility. Hence, it does not surprise us to find
that when the Roman jurists came to expound the
law of usufruct they brought that law into careful
coiirdinatlon with the law of occupation. The law of
occupation was subordinated to the law of usufruct.
Whatsoever grew on a farm and whatsoever could be
gathered from a farm (under the limitations pre
scribed by usufructuary law, to wit, ut boni viri arbi-
tniLu fraatiLv) was held to be fructus of the farm,
for tho reason that it had value in use and value in
exchange. Hence, if there were bees on a farm, it
was held that the usufruct of them pertained to the
fructuary.i The reference here is not to swarms of
wild bees flying across the fields or settling by acci
dent on a tree, for they are not property,^ but refer
ence is made to domesticated bees kept in a Iiive for
economic uses. In like manner we read in the same
relation that pigeons which are wont to be let loose
from a pigeon-house are liable to bo counted among
valuable assets in a proceeding at law for dividing an
estate among the co-heirs, and this for the reason that
" they arc our property so long as they have a habit
of returning to us." " If anybody shall capture
them," adds the text-writer, " we can properly bring
an action of theft against him."^
By parity of reason Pomponius argues, in another
place, with regard to a tame fowl, in which the ani
mus revertendi is the result of training and not, as in
bees, the result of natural instinct, that " if you should
> Digest, vii. 1, 9, § 1.
^ Digest, xlvii. 2, 26.
« Digest, X. 2, 8, § 1.

318 ADDRESSES
hunt down my tame peacock, when it had escaped
from my home, until it perishes, I shall, in such case,
have it in my power to bring an action of theft against
you, if anybody shall have commenced upon him an
act of appropriation." ^
The jurisprudence of the civilized world Is essen
tially one. The rule of the common law coincides
with the rule of the civil law in regard to domesti
cated animals which have an animus revertendi that
Is convertible to economic uses. Bracton early brought
the doctrine Into English jurisprudence as a direct
Importation from Roman law.^ " The little busy
bee " holds a high place in the legal literature of the
world, as well as in descriptive and didactic verse,
from the days of Homer to Dr. Watts. If Virgil
devotes a whole book of the Georgics to apiculture. It
is because of the place which apiculture had in Roman
economics. If the text-books from Gains to Black
stone take account of bees, It Is because of the pro
perty right which attaches to them. It has been ruled
that where bees escape from their owner's hive and
swarm on a neighbor's land the owner may reclaim
them If he can Identify them, though he becomes
liable to an action for trespass In entering on his
neighbor's land to repossess himself of them.^ The
inability of the owner of a personal chattel to retake
It on the premises of another without committing a
trespass does not In the least impair the owner's legal
Interest in the chattel. It only embarrasses the use
or enjoyment of It.*
1 Digest, xlvii. 2, 37.
2 1 Bracton (Twiss's ed.) 66, 67 ; cf. 2 Blackstone, 392-394
" 2 Devereux (N. C.) 162 ; 3 Binney (Pa.) 546.
« 15 WendeU (N. Y.) 550.

THE BERING SEA ARBITRATION 319
I have cited these principles In order to show In a
clear light the ingredients which, according to the
written reason of the Roman law and the rulings of
the common law, are held to create a property right
In animals having a habit of returning to a given spot,
if they are there placed under human custody for
economic ends. It is not, we see, the mere animus
revertendi which constitutes value, but the economic
uses to which that animtts revertendi can be put after
it has been husbanded by human art, and to which it
can be rightfully put, because it represents, at that
given spot, the husbandry of human labor and human
skill. Where the animus revertendi cannot be made
the basis of economic use, no effort is made by man to
husband it. Where the animus revertendi already
exists in the case of certain animals, but where it is
so vagrant, Inconsiderable, and unmanageable that it
cannot be counted on with any degree of economic
certitude, no effort is made by man to profit by It on
any considerable scale. The wild goose in all her
migrations has the Instinct of return to her breeding-
place, but It cannot be made the basis of economic
purpose or valuation beyond that vagrant purpose and
inconsiderable valuation which move in the right of
Individual capture — a right open to all men wherever
they find wild geese, unless they find them flying over
land which the proprietor has interdicted to the casual
sportsman. Modern jurisprudence, as everybody knows, has In
great measure transformed the right of game captiire
from an ius hominis into an ius dominii. Yet this
transformation has wrought no change in the reason
and ground on which value is attached to certain ani
mals ha'ving an animus revertendi. The rule of law

320 ADDRESSES
continues to depend entirely on the degree to which
that quality, under human regulation, can be utilized
for economic ends, and this utilization for economic
ends (as we see In the case of bees) Is most immedi
ately available In the case of animals which have, by
nature, an habitual disposition of return which so ties
them to a given place that the habit may be directly
used for economic purposes. The economic aptitudes
of such animals. If they be found in sufficient num
bers to make their Inclosure or husbandry an object of
gain, can be made at once the basis of economic com
putation — a basis of computation almost as fixed as
the soil to which they are tied by the habit of return.
For It Is precisely in proportion as the animus
revertendi of useful animals is a stable quality that It
lends Itself to economics. If at any place a breed of
homing pigeons could be found which should have,
hy nature, the homing Instinct, that breed would at
once be taken under human tutelage. The Industry
spent In creating and conserving a homing Instinct in
the artificial variety would be spent In protecting and
conserving the newly discovered breed which had,
by natural heredity, that valuable peculiarity; and,
other things being equal, still higher sanctions of pro
perty would attach to pigeons of such a breed, because,
so far as they were taken into human custody, a viola
tion of the property right In them would be still more
Injurious to the Interests of public and of private
economy based on the perpetuation of this more useful
variety. It would seem that these facts In the economics of
natural history and the rules of law which have been
based on them are not without their application to the
controversy now pending between the United States

THE BERING SEA ARBITRATION 321
and Great Britain with regard to the capture on the
high seas of fur seals which have their birthplace In
Alaska, and which in all their pelagic migrations are
known to have an animus revertendi which gives
to the breed a calculable value at the point of fixed
return. This animus revertendi, it is true, is not the
creation of human art in seals, anymore than in bees ;
but for the very reason that it has a fixed quality It
can be made, under proper control, the more tributary
to man's emolument. On the faith of this Instinct,
and of the property right which It conditionates and
assures so long as it is not disturbed, the government
of the United States has done infinitely more for the
Alaskan seals which it husbands than the most enthu
siastic apiculturlst has ever essayed to do for the honey
bees which he may have domesticated, and Inclosed in
patent hives of the latest construction and most costly
variety. The highest resources of statecraft, of ad
ministrative policy, of police control, and even of In
ternational diplomacy have been put In requisition for
the protection of the fur seal breed, on the ground that
the fur seal husbandry is a factor In our national eco
nomics, as well as In the economics of the world ; and
on the further ground that depredations committed on
the seal herds in their pelagic migrations must lead
eventually to the destruction of the fur seal species
In Alaska (as has happened elsewhere), and so must
inure to the economic detriment of the United States.
It is further argued that the capture of seals In their
periods of annual migration Is attended with circum
stances of wanton barbarity and of wasteful excess,
which should be prohibited In the Interest of public
and private morality.
The government of the United States avers that

322 ADDRESSES
the Alaskan seal is an amphibious animal, which has
its fixed home on Alaskan islands, and that from this
home it never long departs, because of Its fixed animus
revertendi ; that this fixed animus revertendi gives to
the breed an economic aptitude of great value ; that
the seal herds, in their periodical migrations, however
far they may roam from land, c*n still be definitely
related to the soil on which they increase and multi
ply ; that the destruction of seals in their passage to
their breeding-places, when the mother seals are heavy
with young, or the destruction of seals as they go
forth from the Alaskan rookeries to secure food on
the high seas In order to nurture their new-born pro
geny, involves a reckless waste of valuable animal life,
does despite to the qualified property right of the
United States, evicts by violence the habitual animus
revertendi which is the Instrument of that right, and
so tends to work the gradual but certain extinction,
for commercial ends, of a species In which the economy
of the civilized world has an interest ; that the United
States have in the seal husbandry of Alaska a vested
right. In so far as the value of the fur seals may be
said to have entered as a consideration into the pur
chase-money paid to Russia for Alaska, and in so far
as the annual value of the fur seal usufruct, farmed
out by the government of the United States, has been
administered with a sedulous regard to the preserva
tion of the breed.
The government of Great Britain is understood to
affirm that fur seals are Indisputably animals ferce
naturce ; that these have universally been regarded by
jurists as res nullius until they are caught ; that
property can vest in them only so long as a person has
reduced them Into possession by capture ; that the

THE BERING SEA ARBITRATION 323
qualified right of property for which the United States
contend in the case of the seal herds during their periods
of pelagic migration is not sound, either in fact or in
law, and that, as to such seal herds, on the high seas.
It Is not competent for the United States, or for any
" private interest " holding under them, to assert any
priority or preeminence of right. To this effect Sir
Julian Pauncefote, In his communication of April,
1890, held the foUowing language : —
" It has been admitted from the commencement that the
sole object of the negotiation is the preservation of the fur
seal species for the benefit of mankind, and that no con
siderations of advantage to any particular nation or of
benefit to any private interest should enter into the ques
tion." In a dispatch under date of May 22, 1890, Lord
Salisbury wrote : — •
" Her Majesty's government would deeply regret that
the pursuit of fur seals on the high seas by British vessels
should involve even the slightest injury to the people of the
United States. If the case be proved, they will he ready
to consider what measures can be properly taken for the
remedy of such injury, but they ivmdd be unable on that
ground to depart from a principle on which free commerce
on the high seas depends."
For the purposes of the following discussion It is
not pretended that the exploded doctrine of mare
clausum should be Installed in place and power to
protect an interesting and valuable species of ani
mals. The doctrine of mare lijberum, as expounded
by Grotius, need not be Impeached ; but the doctrine
of mare liberum is itself a juristic conquest — a con
quest which in the progress of juridical ideas among
the nations of the earth has been slowly gained over

ii24 ADDRESSES
the doctrine of mare clausum as formerly asserted by
Great Britain, Spain, and Portugal. The modern
doctrine is juristic in its genesis, and therefore cannot
come in conflict with the juristic rights of the United
States, if they have any, In the Alaskan seal herds
found on the high seas. The rationale of the doctrine
of mare liberum is well summed up by Hall when he
says : " It is commonly stated that the sea cannot be
occupied, It is Indivisible, Inexhaustible, and produc
tive, so far as It is productive at all, irrespectively of
the labor of man ; It Is neither physically susceptible
of allotment and appropriation, nor is there the reason
for Its appropriation which induced men to abandon
the original community of goods." ^
But the government of the United States main
tains that the Bering Sea, so far as It Is " productive "
of Alaskan seals, Is not now and will not long
remain a nursery of seals " irrespectively of the labor
of man." Much of labor has been expended by the
United States for the safeguarding of the seals in
their breeding-places. The sea has been patrolled by
American cruisers for the protection of the seal herds.
A " close season " has been concerted between the
governments of the United States and Great Britain
for the restriction of seal slaughter ; and it is because
the permanent protection of the seal herds calls for
International action beyond the maritime jurisdiction
of the United States that the arbitration of a mixed
commission has been Invoked, to the end that by its
verdict the "Important element of finality may be
secured " as between the two governments most imme
diately concerned, and to the further end that a firm
basis may be laid for the lasting settlement of the
^ Hall, International Law, p. 148.

THE BERING SEA ARBITRATION 325
question by providing for the adhesion of other gov
ernments. To the writer of this paper it does not seem that
the United States, in the purchase of Alaska from
Russia, bought along with It a mare clausum In the
Bering Sea. The United States could not buy more
than Russia had to sell. But the United States could
buy from Russia a right to the undisturbed enjoyment
of the Alaskan seal usufruct on sea, as well as on
land, for this Is a right which Russia enjoyed and a
right which, attaching as it does to animals having
the animus revertendi, Is rooted in a rule of reason
and of law as old as the property law of historical
jurisprudence. The rule was old In the days of
Gains. He says it Is one which in his day had been
" handed down " as settled law.
It has been well said by Sir Travers Twiss that
" the right of fishery comes under different considera
tions of law from the right of navigation, as the right
of fishery in the cypen sea within certain limits [the
¦•ihree-mile zone] may be the exclusive right of a
nation. The usus of all parts of the open sea, In
respect of navigation, Is common to all nations, but
the fructus is distinguishable in law from the usus,
and, in respect of fish or zoophltes or fossil sub
stances, may belong in certain parts [that is, within
the aforesaid zone] exclusively to an Individual
nation." ^
Sir Travers elsewhere argues that the right of fish
ing In the open sea is common to all nations " on the
same principle which sanctions the common right of
navigation, namely, that he ivho fishes in the open sea
does no injury to any one, and the products of the sea
1 Twiss, Law of Nations (in time of peace), 311.

326 ADDRESSES
are in this respect inexhaustible and sufficient for
all." 1
It would be Impossible to conceive a negative preg
nant more emphatic against the assumed right of fur-
seal capture, for such capture of Alaskan seals works
a positive "Injury " to the United States, and tends
to exhaust a supply which is not " Inexhaustible " and
not " sufficient for all." The freedom of the ocean
has no more vehement assertor than Calvo, yet he
admits that, by international convention, there may be
partial " derogations " from that freedom when such
" derogations " are " dictated by a maritime Interest
of first order, notably, the exploitation of coast fish
eries of an exceptional nature." And what can be
more " exceptional " than the exploitation of the
" maritime interest " which the United States have
in fur seals born on their own soil ?
As the animus revertendi Insures the owner's pro
perty right in Inclosed bees, when they have swarmed
(in such way as to be Identifiable) on the land of a
neighbor, though they cannot there be reclaimed with
out " trespass," it would seem not unreasonable to hold
that the owner's property right in inclosed seals should
be secured by their animus revertendi during the
period of their pelagic migrations, since, if they are
of right reclaimable at all, they are there reclaimable
without liability to indictment for " trespass." Writs
will not run either for the action in trover or of tres
pass on the case within the " no-man's-land " of the In-
appropriable ocean ; but the rules of right between
two nations ought to be essentially the same as the
rules of right between two Individuals, however differ-
1 Twiss, Law of Nations (in time of peace), 300 ; 1 Calvo, Droit
International. 481.

THE BERING SEA ARBITRATION 327
ent may be the rules of procedure. Though our Arch
bold cannot help us here, the great maxim, ^'- Iloueslc
virere; alleruni non Iccdere; snunv cuhpte tribuere,"
should certainly be as much the breviary of Inter
national Law in this year of grace as it was of Roman
Law under the Ciesars.
The right of each nation to claim jurisdiction over
its territorial waters to the extent of a marine league
from the coast line Is vindicated by Mr. Henry Sidg-
wick, among other reasons, ou the ground that " each
country should have the power of regulating the fish-
erics on its coast, to prevent wasteful exhaustion of
the supply r^ But to prevent the "wasteful exhaus
tion " of the seal supply, it Is as necessary that seals
should be protected iu their pelagic migrations as In
their breeding places ; and the qualified property en
joyed by the United States in the Alaskan seal herds,
by virtue of their animus revertendi, would seem to
justify the claim that that right should be as sacred
under international as under municipal law. It was
held under the Civil Law that whether au animal has
lost its aniirnis revertendi or not is a question of fact,
and that he who, while the animus still persists, seeks
to dislodge it by a premature capture has committed
upon that animal an act of theft.^ It Is on the fixed
quality of this animvs in the Alaskan seals, and on the
property right which it authenticates so long as it per
sists, that the owner, it would seem, may base a reason
able claim that his property right in them shall not
be divested by a premature, and therefore an unlawful,
capture. And the question of fact as to the persistency
of the animus does not depend at all on the distance
1 Henry SIdgwick, Elements of Politics, p. 241.
¦' Gliick, Pandecten, ser. xli., xiii., p. 46.

328 ADDRESSES
to which the normal excursions of the animal may ex
tend in its outgoings and Incomings. This distance,
if great, only embarrasses the vindication of the pro
perty right by embarrassing the pursuit of the animal.
It does not extinguish the right, if the animus con
tinues to be lodged In the animal. In the case of the
carrier-pigeon, the distance to which he extends his
flight, while preserving the animus revertendi, does
but increase his value. The honey-bee, the carrier-
pigeon, and the Alaskan seal have each a radius of
migration according to their kind. Ease or difficulty
of perquisition In the case of estrays affects legal reme
dies rather than legal rights, just as formerly in the
Isle of Man it was held to be no felony to take away
an ox or an ass, but only a trespass, because of the
difficulty In that little territory of either concealing or
carrying off such big quadrupeds ; while to steal a pig
or a fowl was punishable with death, because the
facility with which that crime could be committed
seemed to require a strong deterrent.^
To hold that the animus revertendi of Alaskan seal
herds Is sacred from assault within three miles from
the shore, but is open to marauders' violence at a dis
tance one mile further (while the animus revertendi
remains just as strong in the remoter as In the nearer
stretches of their migrations), Is to play fast and loose
with this rule of right, and so to convert it Into a de
lusion and a snare. The seal husbandman who should
learn that the animus revertendi of bees will protect
the owner's right In them indefinitely, even when it
runs on land where another has the ius dominii, but
that In the case of seals it will not run on salt water
more than three miles, though outside of that limit
^ 4 Stephen's Commentaries, 108.

THE BERING SEA ARBITRATION 329
nobody has a ius dominii to plead against it (and
though, too, it Is just as strong at a distance of four
miles or four hundred miles outside of that limit as at
a distance of one mile Inside of the limit), might be
sorely tempted to commit even a worse irreverence
than that of Mr. Bumble when, in his legal discomfi
ture, he exclaimed, " The Law Is a ass, a Idiot!"
For the purposes of this discussion It Is not pre
tended that the government of the United States, by
its unilateral act, has the right to declare, as a dictum
of International Law, that the capture of pelagic seals
is contra bonos mores. That maxim has a definite
meaning in law, and cannot be stretched to cover
newly emergent cases In International ethics. " Just
as the legal obligations of an individual are defined,
not by the moral ideal recognized In the society to
which he belongs, but by the laws In force within it, so
no state can have the right to demand that another
state shall act in conformity with a rule in advance of
the practical morality which nations in general have
embodied in the law recognized by them." ^ Nations
In general have not pronounced the capture of seals on
the high seas to be contra bonos mores. The reply of
Lord Salisbury under this head seems to be conclusive,
but It is a reply which moves, and was intended to
move, in static law alone. The argument of Mr.
Blaine moves in what we may call the dynamics of
International Law, because it moves in the direction
of that " moral ideal " which Is the perpetual point de
mire of an advancing civilization — a moral Ideal
accepted by Lord Salisbury himself when he says
that " her Majesty's government would deeply regret
that the pursuit of fur seals on the high seas by British
' Hall, International Law, p. 5.

330 ADDRESSES
vessels should involve even the slightest injury to the
people of the United States."
That the capture of mother seals heavy with young
Is as morally barbarous as It is economically wasteful
would seem to be clear In ethics. Under the Mosaic
law it was forbidden to take the mother bird with
her young. If she were found sitting upon her fledge
lings or upon eggs " In a nest on the ground or in
any tree." ^ The motive of the law was partly eco
nomic (to prevent the extinction of the bird species)
and partly humanitarian (to prevent cruelty to ani
mals and the human brutalizatlon which such cruelty
engenders). The economic motive of the law is so
obvious that it was caught up and enshrined In the
popular verse of the Carmen fSIonitorium, ascribed
to the Greek poet Phocylides, but commonly supposed
to have been written under his assumed name, in the
fourth century of the Christian era.^ The municipal
law of the civilized world inhibits the slaughter of
game during the breeding season.
For the purposes of this discussion It is not pre
tended that an assimilated " action In trover " should
lie In the forum of International Law against the
American or Canadian seal hunter who spears an
Alaskan seal on the high seas and converts It Into his
private property under color of the law of occupation ;
but it is hoped that the same property right which in
the case of honey-bees has been vindicated by the
Municipal Law of the civilized world, and the same
property right which in a suit at Common Law has
1 Dent. xxii. 6, 7.
^ Gaisford : Poetce Minores Grmci, 1823, vol. iii. pp. 252, 253.
MTj5eVoTe xP'h'rrri^ iriKphs yejqi avipl irevniTi.
jUTjSe Tis opviBas KaKiris a/ia travras eKeada)'
yUT^Tcpa S' iKTT puXlrots, ?»'' ^XV^ 'jrd^i TTJtrSe veofTffovs.

THE BERING SEA ARBITRATION 33l
been vindicated even In the case of dog whelps, musk-
cats, and monkeys — " because they are merchan
dise "1 — may now be found capable of substantiation
and protection under the aegis of international con
vention. The Alaskan seals find, for the time being,
a partial safeguard under the shield of the modus
vicendi concerted between the two governments. It
is simply proposed to put that safeguard under the
terms of a permanent and effective international
arrangement. As has been well said by the German jurist
Jhering, " He who battles for constitutional and
International law is none other than he who battles
for private law ; the same qualities which distinguish
him when struggling for his rights as an individual
accompany him In the battle for political liberty and
against the external enemy. What is sowed in pri
vate law is reaped in public law and the law of nations.
In the valleys of private law. In the very humblest
relations of life, must be collected, drop by drop, so
to speak, the forces, the moral capital, which the
state needs to operate on a large scale and to attain
Its ends." ^
As civilization advances, the law of occupation
recedes.^ That law finds to-day Its highest theatre In
the occupatio bellica of " grim-visaged war," but even
grim-visaged war has learned to " smooth its wrinkled
front " in the presence of private property. The
jurisprudence of the world should keep pace with the
jirudence of the world. Among writers ou the philo
sophy of law there is none who Is more Inclined to
1 3 Levinz, 336. ^ Jhering, The Struggle for Law, p. 93.
* See Gliick, Pandecten, ser. xli., xiii., pp. 29, 30, for an exposition
of this self-evident thesis.

332 ADDRESSES
glorify the law of force than Adolph Lasson; yet
Lasson is quick to acknowledge the diminishing sway
of the law of occupation. To this effect he says
that as the domain of positive law widens, the domain
of the law of occupation must needs shrink into a
narrower and narrower compass.^ And, at bottom,
under the circumstances and conditions of the arbitra
tion agreed upon, the question now pending between
the United States and Great Britain with regard to
the fur seals of Alaska is this, Will the property
rights of the civilized world and the interests of a
growing civility among nations be better subserved
by remitting the capture of seals ou the high seas to
the primeval law of occupation, or by putting that
law under the restrictions of international equity and
of a progressive humanity ?
Let It here be noted, says my learned colleague,
Prof. Henry E. Davis, that " this Is the question only
under the circumstances and conditions of the arbitra
tion agreed upon ; for, the arbitration out of the ac
count, this statement of the question would yield too
much on the part of the United States. The relation
of the United States to the seals is really analogous to,
if not identical with, that of the Individual who by do
mestication of animals ferce naturce, such as bees, has
acquired in them a recognizable and admitted property.
In the case of animals fercB naturce domesticated by
man the property right is clear. In the case of the
¦*¦ Lasson, Rechtsphilosophie, 606 : " Mit dem Rechtszustande erst
tritt die Forderung ein, dass fortan alle Eigenthnmsveranderung auf
rechtliche AVeise zugehe, und dass Eigenthum erworben und verloren
werde nur in den vom Rechte ausdriicklich vorgeschriebenen Formen,
die sich dem Principe der Gerechtigkeit miigliehst anzunahern trach-
ten. Auf engsten Raum beschrankt bleibt fortan die Occupation, die
blosse Aneignung der Sache aus eigenem Belieben."

THE BERING SEA ARBITRATION 333
seal we have an animal juridically ferae naturce In a
qualified sense only: for its animus revertendi is mat
ter of nature, not of art, and Is, besides, territorially
circumscribed In operation ; that is to say, in the case
of the seal the animus revertendi has and can have
operation only In respect of a territory the admitted
property and In the conceded dominion of the United
States. It Is as though we had a species of the bee
engendered, and capable of being engendered, upon a
given spot only, and by force of its nature ineradlcably
instinct with the disposition — nay, under the neces
sity — of returning to that spot. In such a case the
ius hominis really gives place to the ius dominii, and
the animal may justly be said to be no more res nul
lius than the tree and its fruit grown and growing on
the soil of an individual proprietor.
" The question, arbitration apart, might then fairly
be put thus : Given the seal, with its territorially cir
cumscribed animus revertendi as part of Its nature, —
indeed, part of the animal, as much so as its Instinct
to maintain its life by food, — is such au animal jurid
ically ye;-rt' natura'? or is it not, by force of this very
part of its being, a subject of property per se ?
" But, as above stated, the question, in view of the
arbitration, may, for the purposes of the argument, be
conceded to be as first expressed. And, the question
thus put, what Is its answer? "
It is not understood that the government of the
United States has waived any of its property rights In
Alaskan seals preliminarily to the Impending arbitra
tion. It has simply agreed to take the judgment of a
mixed commission on the foundation, nature, aud extent
of Its rights, aud expects, of course, to abide by that
judgment. It is certain that the author of this paper

334 ADDRESSES
has not Intended to abate those rights when, to the ex
tent of this argument, he seeks to Identify them with
the obligations and interests of that closer intercourse
among civilized nations which seems to call for their
free acknowledgment.
The iusfruendi of property in land carries with it
a right to the products of the land. The iusfruendi
of property In animals carries with it a right to the
natural increase of such animals ; and not to the natu
ral increase alone, but also to any increase which may
come from what the Roman lawyers have called the
right of " accession." The maxim of accession Is,
Accessio cedat principali, " Let the accesslonal thing
follow the principal thing." ^ The doctrines of acces
sion, says Blackstone,^ "are implicitly copied and
adopted by our Bracton in the reign of King Henry
IIL, and have since been confirmed by many reso
lutions of the courts." Wild pigeons joining a flock
of inclosed pigeons and wild bees joining a swarm
of inclosed bees, says Ortolan, are gathered to the
inclosed animals under the law of accession, and are
no more open to occupation than the animals origi
nally inclosed.^ The law of accession, we see, runs
with the law of occupancy, with the rule of animus
revertendi, and with the law of usufruct, whUe the
comment of Ortolan meets very neatly the plea of the
fur seal hunter who should allege that the seal which
he speared In the Bering Sea was probably a " foreign "
1 Digest, xxxiv. 2, 19, § 13. ^2 Blackstone, 404.
^ 1 Ortolan, " Explication Historique des Instituts, liv. ii. 366, 367 :
" Ainsi, que des pigeons, que des abeUles sauvages, attires par mes
pigeons, par mes abeilles doraestiques, viennent se joindre k eux et
s'^tablir dans mon colombier, dans mes ruches, meme k mon insu, ces
animaux, et le produit qu'ils y donneront, m'appartiennent ; celui qui
viendrait les y prendre commettrait un vol."

THE BERING SEA ARBITRATION 335
seal. There are, it Is understood, no foreign fur seals
in the waters covered by the pending arbitration, and
if there were they would, when found in the company
of the Alaskan seal herds, be gathered to those herds,
and would be as much the property of the Alaskan
seal husbandman as the members of the brood which
originally started out from the Pribyloff Islands.
And, when we consider the tie which binds the Alas
kan seal herds to the Alaskan soil, it seems proper to
ask whether these herds are more appurtenant to the
land In which they have their native home and to
which they have a fixed habit of return, or whether
they are more appurtenant to the seas In which they
make excursions? And whether, too, In point of
public and of private economy, the petty interest of
the pelagic sealer or the vast Interest of the United
States In the seal herds should be held " the princi
pal thing" In this great concernment? To ask such
questions is to answer them. The seal husbandry of
the pelagic hunter is vagrant, casual, and desolating.
The seal husbandry of the United States Is stable,
provident, and conservative, because it is based on
property rights resulting from ownership of the soil
on which the seals breed, from ownership of the herds
on that soil, from control over the herds within " the
three-mile zone," and from the legal rule of animus
revertendi, which ties them juridically to that soil.
The primeval law of occupation does not extend, as
has been already said, to animals which are the sub
jects of prior, though qualified, occupation. To place
amphibious animals, like seals, on the same level as
creatures ferce naturcR born and living In the sea, is
as illogical and unscientific as in point of juristic rea
son It Is violent and inequitable.

336 ADDRESSES
It Is at once a truism and a commonplace to say
that progress In the social, economical, and political
relations of the human race must of necessity work
with a constant reformative power on the body of law
from age to age. It is this dynamic conception of the
evolutionary process involved in the world's law-mak
ing which gives such a practical value to the study of
the world's historical and comparative jurisprudence;
for It is only by such a philosophical study that we
can attain to the grounds of a scientific forecast where
new social, civil, and international situations seem to
call for new jural arrangements. The civilized na
tions of the earth form to-day a close society Uhi
societas ibi ius. Ubi ius ibi obligatio. The Law of
Nations, it is true, has neither law-giver nor supreme
judge ; but it has Its own peculiar genius and its own
peculiar sanctions. " Its organ and regulator is Pub
lic Opinion. Its supreme tribunal is History, which
forms at once the rampart of justice and the Nemesis
by which injustice is avenged." In the moral prepa
rations which precede it, the Law of Nations comes
slowly and comes from afar, but critical conjunctures
are often the birth-pangs of its new deliverances ; for
though national morality Is but the modified reflex of
private morality, and though international morality
is but the modified reflex of national morality, it
is important to observe that when ameliorations of
moral conduct are demanded among civilized nations
they may often be more readily and speedily secured
than the ameliorations of moral conduct which are
demanded among Individual men in the figure of
civil society. So various, divergent, and mutable are
the free wills of Individual men that It Is Impossible
to concert among them a forward moral movement,

THE BERING SEA ARBITRATION 337
along the whole line, in the bosom of any large civil
community. The community of civilized nations, on
the other hand, is small in its membership ; the rela
tions of independent states to each other are compar
atively simple ; their actions and Interactions move
on the broader lines of public policy, and move, too.
In the sunlight of publicity. Where new moral and
legal departures are required in international inter
course, they may come suddenly with the opportunism
which paves the way for them. And they will come
to stay in a Christian civilization, because they repre
sent the sovereignty of moral ideas, and because they
spring from a growing faith in the moral order of the
universe. It will be seen that this whole discussion has
revolved around a single point of law, which, if well
taken, would seem to be determinative of the main
issue joined in the "Bering Sea Arbitration." A
doctrine of law does not vary with the magnitude of
the Issues that turn on it. If it is sufficient to reclaim
a flock of pigeons it ought to be sufficient to reclaim
a herd of seals. If it be good as between neighbors
under Municipal Law, it ought to be good as between
neighbor nations under International Law. No at
tempt has here been made to argue the American case
or to traverse the British case at auy other point. In
deed, the student of international law has nothing to
do with the American case as such or with the British
case as such. He seeks simply to find in the pending
litigation the rule of right which should obtain in a
government of the nations, by the nations, and for
the nations, to the end that righteousness may be as
much the law of the sea as the law of the land.

XI
THE LAST TOWN ELECTION IN POMPEII
(an archaeological study ov ROMAN MUNICIPAL POLITICS
BASED ON POMPEIAN WALL INSCRIPTIONS)'
It has now been many years since I traversed the
streets of Pompeii and began my study of its wall
inscriptions. It chanced that my first visit fell on a
day when the laborers engaged in the work of excava
tion were just laying bare the Interior walls of a large
mansion in the heart of the town. A French artist
stood by my side, with pencil in hand, to transfer to
his canvas the fresco (it was a picture of the goddess
Flora scattering roses in her train), which had lain
buried beneath its ashen shroud for 1800 years. But
as a student of archaeology I did not linger long over
the wall paintings of a Pompeian interior. Such
paintings, at their best estate, belong rather to the
category of house decoration than of high art. Hence
it is that I have always found myself greatly more In
terested in the inscriptions traced on the outside of the
Pompeian houses than in the formal and conventional
work of the journeymen artists who adorned the in
teriors with frescoes made to order according to the
predominant taste of the time.
Since my studies In this direction were first begun a
1 Address as retiring president of the Anthropological Society of
Washington, May 16, 1893.

THE LAST TO'SVN ELECTION IN POMPEII 339
%'ast addition has been made to tlie literature of the
Pompeian wall inscriptions, in such epigraphical works
as those of Orelli, of Garrucci, of Mommsen, and es
pecially of Zangemeister. The collection of the last-
named author is almost a complete repository of the
materials most essential to the archaeological investi
gator, and such an investigator wiU be most intelli
gently guided by a Belgian scholar who has made this
province peculiarly his ovra, so far as relates to the
political significance of the Pompeian wall inscrip
tions. I refer to a scholarly monograph under this
head by M. WiQems, a professor in the University of
Liouvain, who is otherwise known to historical students
by his masterly treatise on the " Public Administrative
Law of Rome from the Origin of the City down to the
Epoch of Justinian."^
Important archaeological " finds " in other parts of
what was once the Roman Empire have come besides of
late years to throw their cross-light on the electoral
methods which were in vogue at the time of Pompeii's
overthrow. In the year 1851 two brass tablets were
dug up in Spain near the town of Malaga, and on
these tablets were found engraved the fragments of a
municipal charter granted by the Emperor Domitian
to the towns of Salpensa and of Malaca between the
years 81 and 84 of the Christian era, — a date which
makes their enactment almost contemporaneous -with
the ruin of the Campanian town.^ In 1870 and 1874
several tablet.s containing the organic act granted by
Julius Caesar to the municipality of Urso, now Ossuna,
in Spain, were brought to light, and these precious
archives have been edited by Berlanga in Spain, by
' P. Willems, Les Elections Murdcipales b. Pompeii.
' Bmns, FoBles luris Romani AjUiqui, pp. 136-148.

340 ADDRESSES
Mommsen In Germany, by Giraud in France, and by
others.^ In the fragments of these several charters the whole
theory of Roman municipal government is expounded
in detail. From the constitution, for instance, of
Malaca we learn how candidates for public place were
put in regular nomination ; how supplementary can
didates could be selected by the presiding judge of
elections when a sufficient number of candidates failed
to be designated in the regular way by popular initia
tive ; how the elections were conducted; how the
ballots were cast and how counted ; how the result of
elections was to be decided when two or more candi
dates had an equal number of popular votes in the
same curia (or ward), or when two or more candidates
had carried an equal number of the curiae into which
the town was divided for electoral purposes ; how the
successful aspirants were sworn into office, etc. It
may be of interest to state, as Illustrating a trait of
manners at that time, that where two or more candi
dates had an equality of votes In Malaca, whether In a
single curia or in the number of cu,rice respectively
carried by each, the preference was to be given by law
to a married man over a bachelor, to a man who had
more children over a man who had comparatively
fewer, and, to the end that parentage might lose none
of its political privileges, the law further ordained that
two deceased children who had lived long enough to be
named should be counted as equal to one child still
surviving, while sons and daughters who had not de
ceased tin after reaching the age of puberty should be
counted on a perfect equality with their surviving
brothers and sisters.
' Bruns, Pontes luris Romani Antiqui, pp. 119-136.

THE LAST TOWN ELECTION IN POMPEII 341
The denizen of a town could become municeps, a
member of the voting population, by free birth, by
manumission, by adoption, or by naturalization. The
population of a town was divided into Decurlons,
Augustales, and Plebs, or the populace. The Decu-
rionate of a town comprised its foremost citizens, and,
on a small scale, corresponded in relative place and
power to the Senate In Rome. This Decurionate was
composed of a determinate number of members, gen
erally a hundred, and Its members were selected be
cause of their high social positions, their wealth, their
public spirit, and especially because of their presumed
capacity to bear the public burdens of that day, — that
Is, to dispense largess, furnish gladiatorial games, and
adorn the town with public buildings and monu
ments erected at their expense. It was in no sense a
self-perpetuating body. Its members were subject to
impeachment for crime or misdemeanor, and if any
Decurlon was successfully Impeached for crime or
misdemeanor, the prosecutor who took the brunt of
such an accusation was entitled, If otherwise qualified,
to step into the shoes of the dignitary whom he had
evicted. A public list of Decurlons was always kept
on exhibition in the Album or White List of the
town. This list was posted in the Forum, and was
revised every five years by the Duoviri (or Quatuor-
viri') ; that Is, by the chosen selectmen of the town.
The duty of selectmen in a Roman town corresponded
to that of burgomasters in an old Dutch town. The
Decurionate was kept full by appointments which
the Selectmen made from time to time when vacan
cies were created by death. To be eligible as a De
curlon a citizen had to be twenty-five years old and
to possess property worth at least 100,000 sesterces.

342 ADDRESSES
The Augustales were a corporation appointed origi
nally by Augustus from among the rich freedmen, to
occupy a place intermediate between the Decurlons
and the populace. It was their titular duty to watch
over the Lares, whose images the Emperor set up iu
the cross-roads. The body came In the end to he
composed of rich fools who were willing to pay for
costly public sacrifices, sumptuous public entertain
ments, and large popular assemblies.
The ordinary magistrates of a Roman municipality,
at the beginning of the Christian era, were two select
men, called Duoviri juri dicundo (there were some
times four of them, called Quatuorviri juri dicundo^,
who presided over the town and administered justice ;
two overseers of roads, markets, etc., called aedlles,
who superintended the public markets, inspected the
weights and measures of tradesmen, kept the roads in
repair, and distributed provisions to the needy; and
sometimes there was a quaestor, who took special charge
of the public chest and of the public disbursements,
when this duty was not distributed among the Duo
viri or aedlles.i
City officials were elected every year, generally in
the month of March, because the fiscal year was closed
on the last of June, and newly elected officers entered
on their functions on the first of July. The politics
of Rome and her municipalities had not yet reached
the stage of the "nominating convention." All can
didates were put In nomination by the spontaneous
acclamation of their friends. The modest but acqui
escent phrase of a modern politician that he " Is in
the hands of his friends " had its full and literal sig-
' There was no Quaestor iu Pompeii after the Roman colony dis
placed the old Oscau natives.

THE LAST TOWN ELECTION IN POMPEII 343
nific.ance in a Roman town. Anybody, man, woman,
or child, could make nominations and post them on
any wall space which he or she owned or the use of
which he or she was williug to hire for advertising:
purposes. The nominator wrote out the name of his
favorite, the office for which this favorite was desig
nated, and then begged the people to support his
recommendation. Sometimes he put his signature to
the appeal, and sometimes he blazoned the name of a
budding politician at the street corner without put
ting any sign-manual to the electioneering manifesto.
Sometimes the mere initials of a popular name were
deemed enough. Municipal statesmen dragged to
light in this spontaneous way, though each was doubt
less In his own eyes " the rose and expectancy of the
fair state," were wary against the risks of candida
ture when there was no prospect of an election. They
waited tiU they could see how the cat was likely to
jump. If their prospect of election seemed good they
went to the senior of the selectmen, who was ex officio
president of the election, and avowed themselves as
candidates for the post in connection -with which they
had been named. This open avowal of a wHlinguess
to stand was called a professio, and from that moment
a candidate's name was placed on the town " White
List " and exposed to the gaze of all the townsmen in
the most frequented part of the Forum.
Elections in Pompeii and elsewhere were not made
by a gregarious vote of all the people. Every to-wn
was divided into curice, or electoral precincts, and the
successful candidate was he who secured a majority of
the precincts, whatever might be his strength or weak
ness as measured by the total popular vote. Nobody
could pose as a candidate till after he had been en-

344 ADDRESSES
rolled on the White List, and every voter was limited
In his choice of candidates to the names published in
that list.
All the curiae of a town were summoned to an elec
tion by a simultaneous call addressed to the voters in
each. On election day the voters assembled by curice
in the Forum around the election booth, an enclo
sure marked off by ropes or by palisades (tabulatd)
or by bars (cancelW). The presiding magistrate then
read out the names of the candidates to be voted for
from the list which had been posted on the public
Album three market days before. The voters next
received the tablets on which to write the names of
the candidates, and at a given signal formed in line,
curia by curia, as each was selected by lot, and, pro
ceeding by a narrow raised walk (made of boards and
called the pons or ponticulus'),^ they entered man by
man Into the voting pen, and as they entered dropped
their ballot Into the baUot-box.^ This ballot-box was
watched by three public Inspectors, called rogatores.
Besides these public Inspectors it was competent for
each candidate to station an inspector of his own
choosing at the ballot-box to guard against frauds to
his disadvantage. All Inspectors, as well those of
private as those of public appointment, were sworn to
keep and return in good faith a correct tally of the
votes. With these preliminaries we are now prepared to
' Hence the origin of the Roman proverb, " Put men of sixty off
the bridge " (Sexagenarios de ponte), used to signify that any old man
might be " lagging superfluous on the stage." At the age of sixty
men were exempt from public service.
^ For a lively account of election riots at Rome, see Cicero : Epist.
ad Atticum, iv. 3. How ballots were " fixed," see Epist. ad Atticum,
i. 14.

THE LAST TOWN ELECTION IN POMPEII 345
understand the political statistics of Pompeii on the
occasion of Its last municipal election. Pompeii, as
everybody knows, was overwhelmed by an eruption
of Mount Vesuvius on the 23d and 24th of August,
in the year A. D. 79. Her two selectmen and her two
aedlles were therefore elected in the preceding month
of March and had entered on their functions on the
1st of July. Within the already excavated part of
the town the signs of that last municipal contest meet
us on every hand In the shape of political manifestoes
painted in red, scrawled In crayon, or cut with the
stylus on the surface of a thousand walls. From the
large number of these Inscriptions already recovered
it is plain that nearly two thousand of such proclama
tions must have been posted in the whole town. Some
of these, however, are evidently the vestiges of electo
ral contests in former years. The great majority of
them reveal the Roman electioneering process in the
first stage of Its manifestation, to wit, in the sponta
neous nomination of candidates. The first suggestion
of a new candidate was put forward as a " feeler,"
and, as has been just stated, proceeded from the neigh
bors, friends, or clients of any putative aspirant.
This suggestion was made in the terms of a conse
crated formula, and, to cite one example among a
thousand, ran as follows : " Phcebus, with his custo
mers, desires M. Holconius Priscus and Cains Gavins
Rufus as Duoviri." " Parthope, with Rufinus, desires
Helvius Sabinus as sedile." As a result of the spon
taneous nominations made In the year 79 we know
that only ten men, out of the hundred or more who
received a fillip of some kind, were willing to stand
the lisks of the electoral ordeal. For the office of
Duumvirate four citizens made a public professio.

346 ADDRESSES
We know their names, their residences, and in some
cases the quality of their supporters. Their names
were Marcus Holconius Priscus, otherwise known to
have been one of the most opulent citizens of Pompeii;
Lucius Celus Secundus, Caius Gavins Rufus, residing
In the northern part of the town, and Caius Calven-
tius Sittius Magnus. For the office of sedlle six can
didates put themselves in evidence : M. Casellius
Marcellus, M. Cerrlnius Vatia, L. Popldlus Secundus,
C. Cusplus Pansa, Cn. Helvius Sabinus, and L. Albu-
clus Celsus.
After the names of these candidates had been
posted on the municipal bulletin-board — I should
say the bulletin wall-space — it will be readily under
stood that there was a variation In the mode of popu
lar appeal. As voters In their selection of candidates
were confined to names on the official list, we observe
that all the electioneering appeals after a certain date
call for votes In behalf of some particular candidate
or candidates. A single example wIU suffice to Illus
trate the changed formula : " We beg you to vote for
Caius Gavins Rufus and Lucius Celus Secundus as
selectmen." " We beg you to vote for M. Casellius
Marcellus and L. Albucius Celsus as aedlles." ^
Labor leagues, guilds, sodalities, political clubs,
and religious associations had been of ancient date
In Pompeii. All such voluntary organizations, as we
^ The ordinary formula, written out In full, is " oro vos faciatis,"
or " oramus vos faciatis." Sometimes it is abbreviated into 0. V. F.,
and sometimes into 0\f . In the nominating stage of these inscrip
tions the word cupit is used interchangeably with rogat, and in the
voting stage the writer sometimes gives emphasis to his suffrage by
declaring that he votes for his favorite " with pleasure," " with eager
ness," or with " very great eagerness " (gaudens facit, cupidus facit,
cupidissimus facit).

THE LAST TOWN ELECTION IN POMPEII 347
learn from Tacitus,^ were suppressed at one time be
cause of the riots to which their rivalries had led, but
they soon reestablished themselves, and their active
intervention in this last town election may be read on
every wall. Labor leagues were factors in politics,
because every league had its patron, selected from
among the rich inhabitants of the town, and the patron
looked to his league for its organic support at the
nominating period and on election days — that is, the
leagues were political machines whose working gear
was lubricated by the rich man's sesterces. Local
and religious unions also took an active part In Pom
peian politics.
Amons: the labor leagues which bore a hand In
the municipal campaign of A. D. 79 were those of the
" Goldsmiths," the " Workers in Wood," the " Wheel
wrights," the " Fruiterers," the " Miller-Bakers," the
"Pastry Cooks," the "Poulterers," the "Dyers,"
the " B.arbers," the " Muleteers," the " Perfumers,"
the " Fishmongers," and, of course, the " Tavern-
keepers." Among clubs we find the names of the
" Ball- juggler s " (^Pilicrepi), of the "Farmers," of
the "Late Topers" (^Scribibi), of the "Sleepy-heads"
(^Bormicntes), and of the "Little Thieves" (^Furun-
cuUy, the last three being facetious names of which
the orio'in is as obscure to us as the origin of our
" Hunkers " and " Barn-burners " wiU probably be
to the archaeological student of American political
nomenclature In the year 4000 of our era. The club
of the " Late Topers " had their headquarters at the
tavern of one Edone (the Latinized spelling of her
name indicates that she was a Greek), situate between
No. 10 and No. 11 in the street of the Augustales,
^ Tacitus, Annalium, lib. xiv. 17. Cf. Suetonius, Julius Ccesar, § 42.

348 ADDRESSES
leading to the Forum. An inscription on the outside
of the inn announces that the Late Topers, in a body,
solicit the suffrages of the people for M. Cerrinlus
Vatia as aedile. (M. Cerrlnius Vatiam ^d. O. V.
F. SeribibI Universi rogant. Ser. Florus cum Fructo.)
Two doors further on the " Little Thieves " publish
their adhesion to Vatia In like manner (Vatiam ^d.
Furunculi rog.), and at the next entrance the " Sleepy
heads " call, as they say, with entire unanimity for
the nomination of the same " favorite son " of Pompeii.
It must be confessed iu my veracious chronicle of
the last town election in Pompeii that the aforesaid
M. Cerrinlus Vatia had the bad fortune to be sup
ported by all the self-styled "Tapsters," "Sluggers,''
and " Jeremy Diddlers" of the town. As Vatia was
also patronized by the men of bra-wn combined in
the labor union of the burly " Street Porters," and
appears to have been a favorite with the coarse Oscan
folk comprised In what was known as the " Campa
nian ward " of Pompeii, It Is to be feared that he
must be classified as a " sporting character," as a
" stalwart," or even as a " tough." It is very certain,
from the quality of his supporters, that his virtues
could not have leaned to the side of too much asceti
cism. We learn from the wall Inscriptions that two of
the guilds or sodalities which participated in this last
town election were formed under the auspices of reli
gion ; that is, of such religion as passed current in
Pompeii at that date. They were formed respectively
by the votaries of Isis and the votaries of the physical
Venus. Isis, the Egyptian goddess, whose worship
was suppressed again and again at Rorae by consuls
and emperors because of the licentious orgies con-

THE LAST TOWN ELECTION IN POMPEII 349
nected with her mysteries, had a temple and a strong
following In Pompeii. Indeed, she divided with
Venus the religious cult of the town, and we may
picture to our fancy the roystering crew of her devo
tees as, ou election day, they marched to the polls
with their dog-faced masks on their faces.^ The Isis
cult united on Cusplus Pansa and Helvius Sabinus
for the aedileship. But the physical Venus — not
the heavenly Venus, be it observed, but the Venus
fisica Pompeiana, as she is described on these walls
— was the patron goddess of this voluptuous town.
Her votaries announced that In this election they
would support Celus Secundus as Duumvir and Po
pldlus Secundus as aedile. In what is to-day called
the street of the SoprastantI, not far from the Forum,
we may remark on the wall of a shop the following
inscription, appropriately placed under a picture of
Bacchus : " Venus goes for Casellius as aedile." We
see that Bacchus and Venus were allied In Pompeian
politics as well as In the old mythology of the time.
Isis had her party and Venus had her party, but
Pudlcltia, the goddess of Chastity, appears to have
had none. There is certainly no trace on these walls
of auy " sodality for the preservation of chastity "
(^sodalitas pudicitioe servandoe), as we know there
once was in Rome.^
The preparation of wall surfaces for the reception
of inscriptions, and the writing of political advertise-
1 Isis was so popular in Pompeii that when her temple had at one
time been destroyed by an earthquake, probably by the earthquake
of A. D. 63, and when Numerius Popidius Celsinus had caused it to be
rebuilt from its foundation at his own expense, the Decurlons an
nexed him to their order at once, though at the time he was only six
years old. Orelli, vol. ii. p. 165.
2 OrelH, vol. i. p. 418.

350 ADDRESSES
ments upon them, was evidently a thriving branch of
business in Pompeii. We know the names of the
men employed in each of these callings. They were
the job printers and bill posters of the time. Among
the wall-surface preparators one Oneslmus and one
Victor seem to have been conspicuous. Among wall-
writers, Issus and Secundus and Fructus and Papillo
and Protogenes and Infantio have been careful to
hand down their names to us by appending them at
the bottom of the political announcements of which
they were the paid inscribers. Infantio at one time
had evidently made a "corner" in the advertising
business, for he writes that he had associated with
him In his trade, " here and everywhere," a trio of
partners — Florus, Faustus, and Sabinus — the first
case ou record, so far as I know, of a " trust " In bill-
posting ! Sometimes a thrifty citizen of Pompeii,
whose house was well situated for the purpose, would
rent out the whole broadside of his habitation for the
reception of public advertisements. A case In point
is that of the popular baker, Titus Genlalis Infantio
(was he a relative of Infantio the bill poster?), who
sold bread and cakes on the southeast corner of a
square not far from the middle of the via Nola. His
house suffers to this day almost as much from the
pock-marks of the political advertiser as from the
volcanic peltings of Vesuvius. It is speckled with
what Willems calls a veritable motley of electioneer
ing cries. It ought, perhaps, to be mentioned that
Mr. Cerrlnius Vatia, our candidate with the scurvy
following, appears to have employed careful scribes to
indite his name where It could be best seen by an
admiring public. Popidius Secundus, on the other
hand, engaged mere scribblers, who were careless

THE LAST TOWN ELECTION IN POMPEII 351
¦TV-
even In their spelling. It Is evident that he was not
a " liter'ry fellow."
We have said that the curia or tribus was the elec
toral unit of a town. The number of these curice
depended on the size of the town and the extent of Its
voting population. There were probably six wards
in Pompeii, and from the electoral announcements we
can conjecture the names of at least three of them :
the ward of the " Forum," comprising the squares in
its vicinity ; the ward of the " Campanlans," In the
northeastern part of the town, where the old Oscan
folk had their habitation ; and the ward of the " Salt
Yards," lying along the suburbs In the direction of
Herculaneum. On the wall of a house in Crooked
Street ( Vico Storto, as the Italians to-day call It) we
find this inscription, " Hurrah for the Salt-Yarders ! "
(Saliniensibus feliciter !) We may fancy that this
exultant Inscription was put up after the " Salt-Yard
ers " had gloriously carried their ward for their favo
rite candidates, and had thus saved Pompeii, as they
fondly hoped, for at least one year, when Vesuvius
came In the twinkling of an eye to put an end to low
ambition and the pride even of Duoviri, In this pub
lic-spirited municipality where, as Cicero tells us. It
was harder to become a Decurlon than to become a
Senator In Rome.^
As Pompeii voted by electoral precincts and not by
^ See the story in Macrobius, where, however, the point of the
pleasantry is not so much the diificulty of becoming a Decurlon in
Pompeii as the facility with which one could become a Senator in
Rome — by the favor of Julius Cassar. " Cicero f acilitatem Caesaris
in adlegendo Senatu inrisit palam. Nam cum ab hospite suo, C.
Mallio, rogaretur ut Decurionatum privigno ejus expediret, adsistente
frequentia, dixit : ' Romas, si vis, habebit ; Pompeiis difficile est.' "
Conviv. Saturnal. lib. vii.

352 ADDRESSES
a general vote of all the inhabitants. It is easy to see
that this arrangement lent itself to " trades " and
" combines " between candidates and their adherents
in the several wards. The aim of each candidate was
to secure a majority of the curice, however far he
might lag behind in the popular vote. Hence the
temptation to sell votes where they were not wanted
for votes where they could do the most good, — to
wit, In evenly divided curice. The evidences of such
" trades " and " deals " are abundant.^ For instance,
on the house wall of Rufinus, a man of good family
in Pompeii, but who evidently had a municipal bee
buzzing in his bonnet, we read this Inscription, put
there by some fugleman for L. Popidius Secundus:
" Rufinus, we beg you to vote for Popidius Secundus
as aedile. He is an excellent young man and worthy
of the commonwealth. Favor him and he will vote
for you." (Popidium Secundum ^d. D. R. P., Pro-
bisslmum Juvenem, O. V. F., Rufine, fave et Ille te
faciet.) On another wall we read : " Proculus, vote
for Sabinus as aedile, and he will vote for you."
This Proculus was evidently a political " worker "
and had a " machine." At a previous election we
find this appeal to him : " Proculus, put in your full
work (pfficium commoda') for your man Fronto." An
order from one of our own municipal " machines "
could hardly improve on such a choice bit of practical
politics. Sometimes these appeals are of the whining
or supplicatory kind, such as that addressed to one
Diadumenus at a former election. Somebody has
^ Such " trades " or " deals " were so common in Roman cities that
in the political vocabulary of the time there was a technical name for
the process of making them. It was called, " Coire ad deiciendum
alium houore."

THE LAST TOWN ELECTION IN POMPEII 353
¦written on his house : " O Diadumenus, I know that
you are going to vote for Lucretius as Eedile." Some
times a gleam of humor shines through these wall in
scriptions, as wheu Sabinus, who describes himself as
"usher" In the town theatre, and who therefore was
used to the sound of applauding audiences, declares
that he " votes " for M. Popidius Sabinus as Duumvir
" with applause " (cumplausu~).
It is some consolation to find that these " trades "
were concerted between the friends of candidates for
the aedileship and not of candidates for the office of
Duumvir, which latter had judicial duties attached
to it. Willems notes that among all these electioneer
ing appeals there is not one emanating from a Duum
vir in office at that time. These dignitaries appear to
have abstained from all " pernicious activity," at least
In the last town election held in Pompeii ; and yet
there was no civil service commission in Pompeii to
keep them In order. Where there was political cheat
ing we may be sure there was much of crimination and
recrimination. The fidelity of clansmen and of " heel
ers " was often called in doubt. For Instance, on the
wall of a house situate on the street which leads to
Stabia, and which was a popular thoroughfare, some
" heeler " of Caius Calventius Sittius, who, we remem
ber, was " running " for the office of Duumvir, has
addressed the following significant admonition to a
political confederate by the name of Ubonius : " Ubo-
nius, be on your guard ! " — " Keep your eye skinned,"
as we would say in modern parlance. This " heeler,"
I regret to say, like some of his congeners at the pre
sent day, was stronger In the art of voting a straight
ticket than in the art of Latin orthography, for his
spelling of " vigila " (which he spells " vigula ")

354 ADDRESSES
would have made Quintilian gasp. On another wall
we find some political friend of L. Popidius Secundus,
whose name has met us before in these unsavory
associations, flouring sarcasm on a fellow-worker who
was. It seems, not sufficiently wide awake to the then
pending " crisis " in Pompeian politics. He writes r
" O Infans, you are asleep, and you are electioneer
ing ! " Besides these, one Attains and one Maglus
are stigmatized on the walls of Pompeii as politi
cians who deserved the curse of Meroz, and who were
" sleeping " on the parapets of the citadel wheu they
should have been alert to foil the knavish tricks of
the adversary.
The word " Mugwump " Is said to be of Algon-
quian origin, but eighteen hundred years before our
learned colleague, Mr. J. C. Pilling, had published his
" Bibliography of Algonquian Languages " It would
seem that Pompeii had her Mugwumps, of somewhat
easy virtue, who satisfied themselves with making wry
faces in public when they swallowed an unsavory can
didate. At any rate, we have a wall inscription writ- ¦
ten by a man who gave only a squeamish support to
M. Cerrlnius Vatia, the same dubious worthy who
rejoiced in the patronage of the " Late Topers," of
the " Sleepy Heads," and of the " Little Thieves."
The inscription reads as follows : " M. Cerrlnius for
aedile. One man has his likes ; another man is liked.
I am squeamish. The man who is squeamish has his
likes." 1 The language is slightly enigmatical, but
^ In the compact Latin it is phrased and spaced as follows : —
" M. Cerrinium,
.Mi. Alter araat ; alter
-Amatur. Ego fastidio.
Qui fastidit, amat."

THE LAST TOWN ELECTION IN POMPEII 355
the meaning is clear. The writer means to say that
though he has what we should call to-d.ay " Mug-
wumplau proclivities," he yet has a liking for Cer
rlnius and intends to vote for him without asking too
nice questions for conscience' sake. Perfectly frank,
outspoken, and thorough-going, however, is the politi
cal enthusiasm of other partisans, who evidently
prided themselves on voting the " regular ticket " —
such as that of the henchman who appeared to have
supported one Quintus in some former election. He
writes : " The man who refuses to vote for Quintus
ought to be mounted on an ass."
The tavern and the eating-saloon were a political
power in Pompeii. Most of the women who took a
hand in Pompeian politics were, I regret to say, mem
bers of the " Tavern-keepers' Union " In Pompeii.
There was such an union in Pompeii, as abundantly
appears from the electioneering manifestoes. The
names of Pollla, of Statia, of Petronia, of Helpis
Afra, of Recepta, and others attached to these elec
toral broadsides, are significant at once of the hum
ble origin and of the disreputable profession of their
bearers. Sometimes they are associated with their
husbands in this political " tooting," and in at least
two cases the gray mare seems to have been the better
horse, for the woman puts her name before that of
her husband : ^ " Recepta, nee sine Thalamo," is the
^ It has sometimes been suspected that women voted in Pompeii,
because there are two or three wall inscriptions which may seem to
have such an implication ; but the statement is doubted by Willems
on what seems good grounds. In such phrases as " Little Sprite votes
for Claudius as Duumvir" (Claudium iiv. Animula facit) we may
much better suspect a pleasantry than a cold historical fact ; just as
when we read on another wall th.at " Venus goes for Casellius as
aadile " wo do not take the statement literally. Such pleasantries

356 ADDRESSES
quiet way In which one of these political landladies
tucks away her husband under her apron-string in
announcing their joint nominations.
That primary meetings and caucuses were some
times held in tavern halls we know from this tell-tale
Inscription on the wall of a hostelry : " Landlord
Selus, you did well In accommodating us with seats."
It is evident that the caucus had been a little larger
than usual on some night during the electoral can
vass ; that Landlord Selus had risen to the height of
a great emergency, and had determined that the meet
ing of his crapulous political customers should not be
broken up for want of sitting accommodations ! If
the " Loco-Foco match," suddenly Improvised on a
certain occasion to relight Tammany Hall, was suffi
cient to give its name for years to a great party In
the United States, who shall say that the provident
thoughtfulness of Landlord Selus might not well ex
cite the admiration of a Pompeian " heeler " ? How
far off seems the sound of these ancient tosspots, as
they jabber municipal politics over their cups of
sour wine, and yet how near It Is to us all, as we re
call the publications of our own " municipal reform
leagues " ?
Paidlo majora canamus. Let us turn from these
surface indications and these minute curiosities of
Pompeian politics to the deeper moral of our archaeo
logical study. We catch here the Institutes of Roman
are common enough in Cicero's Letters, where Mark Antony fignres
as ' ' the Trojan Lady." And then, if women voted in Pompeii, what
are we to do with the express statement of Aulus GeUius, who wrote
about this time, when he says that " between women and elections
there is no communion " ? The passage may be found in the seventh
book of his " Attic Nights," and seems to have been strangely over
looked by the critics.

THE L.\ST TOWN ELECTION IN POMPEII 357
municipal government in the transition epoch. Re
publican liberty was dead iu the city of Rome, but the
simulacrum of popular suffrage was allowed to survive
for a time in the remoter muuiclpallties. The servile
collar -ft-as fastened on the neck of the Roman people,
but the collar was gilded. The rude ovilia into which
the tribes had flocked on the Campus Martins were
converted into marble colonnades large enough to
afford standing room to the whole voting population
of Rome. Cicero tells us in one of his letters to
Atticus that even In his days they were proposing to
erect marble halls a mile long for political gather
ings.^ The halls were built aud dedicated by Augus
tus, but with the accession of Tiberius the farce of
popular elections was ended. All elections were trans
ferred from the Campus jNIartius to the Senate. Mu
nicipal autonomy was abolished. Rome had purchased
civil security at the price of political privilege, and
was content with her bargain. Most interesting would
it be to trace the successive stages of this great social
and political transformation, for it was social before
it was political, and it is in the later stages of this
transformation that the seeds of the European feudal
system were sown. The common people were cut and
carved by the swords of their masters into artificial
working gangs, and were planted on separate parcels
of land under an arbitrary tie of allegiance. The
unit of government passed from the clan with Its tie
of common blood to the feud with Its tie of common
land. If the land law of England still welters in the
dregs of feudalism (^in fcece feodoruni), as Sir Henry
Sumner Maine declares, it Is certain that the land
1 Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, iv. 16.

358 ADDRESSES
law of the feud drew its origin from the corruption
of the blood tie, as a bond of government, in the
last dregs of Romulus (m fcece RomuW), as Cicero
phrased it. In the redistribution of social elements
in this period of change, a separate and distinct stra
tification of social layers was being slowly effected
throughout the whole Roman Empire. The upper
classes were differentiated into finical strata based on
mere distinctions of rank, the aristocracy of place and
function, and no longer the aristocracy of character
and service. What with titular rights of precedence
among the Nobilissimi, the Illustres, the Spectabiles,
the Clarissimi, the Perfectissimi, and the Egregii,
the lines of social demarcation were arbitrarily drawn,
because they were purely artificial in their institution.
The public offices were gradually converted from posts
of public trust into the seats of a centralizing despot
ism, which called for posture-masters of servility rather
than for self-respecting rulers. The office of Decu
rlon, from being sought because of its honorable In
signia and Its social privileges, came to be loathed and
shunned for its intolerable burdens. Rich men hid
themselves from publicity, and, like the martyrs they
were, they wandered in deserts and in mountains and
in dens and caves of the earth to escape the pains and
penalties of office. They married slaves to work cor
ruption of blood in order to disqualify themselves for
public honors. They enlisted as common soldiers,
preferring the horrors of war to the terrors of office.
The only door of hope which opened to them a way of
escape from this valley of Achor was to be the father
of twelve children. The law of the Empire graciously
assumed that the father of twelve children had done
service enough to the state without being called to

THE LAST TOWN ELECTION IN POMPEII 359
make further contributions, and that he was likely to
have cumber enough at home without bending his
back to bear the burdens of the commonwealth. And
as every benedict could not hope that his -wife would
prove such a fruitful vine by the sides of his house
as to be the mother of twelve children, rich men at
length sullenly forswore matrimony on the plea that
they were tired of gendering servants who should be
at the behests of an insatiate and bloodthirsty popu
lace, which never wearied in Its cry for bread and
gladiatorial games.^
In like manner the labor unions, from being self-
protecting leagues which aimed to stimulate a whole
some emulation among their membership, were ulti
mately converted into so many bands of hereditary
bondsmen, tied to the trades in which they were born,
as serfs were tied to the soil on which they were born.
The unions themselves were crushed under the iron
wheel of imperial law.^ It became a rule of law that a
labor union could claim its runaway members as the
curials of a town could claim their runaway officials.
Theodosius launched his thunderbolt at the members
of labor leag-ues who deserted handicraft service In
the cities and betook themselves into the waste places
of the earth. He proclaimed that all such shirks
should be recovered from the solitudes Into which they
had fled, and should be bound afresh to the thral
dom of their task-masters. There was no exit from
the status of the laborer. The laboring masses were
reduced to a common level of degradation, with no
vicissitude except that determined by distinction of
labor castes. The feudal system was In full process
of formation. ^ Corpus luris Civilis, Novella, xxxviii.
2 Digest, xlviii. 22.

360 ADDRESSES
We see how true it is that the loss of freedom and
of Individual initiative brings with It the loss of all
other boons. " Sow liberty In a lagoon," says Serrigny,
" as at Venice, In her origin ; in a fen, as in Holland;
in a little Island, as In England, and there will spring
from It a nation great and glorious. . . . Give to
despots the whole earth, as the empire of Rome, the
capital city of the world, was given to the Caesars (or,
rather, as it was snatched by them), and they will raise
great armies, will build magnificent structures and
monuments, will create grand and beautiful highways,
will organize an administration regular, uniform, and
highly centralized, the Instrument of domination, will
achieve. If needs be, the conquest of the world. All
this will produce for the inhabitants of that nation
only ruin, misery, confiscation, desolation ; and from
all this there will emanate In the end only a putrid
corpse, ready to be trampled under foot by barba
rians." 1
1 Serrigny, Droit Public et Administratif Romain, vol. ii. p. 448.

XII
THE SCIENCE OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY
i
ITS METHOD AND ITS RELATION TO THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES '
Die Totalitat der Erscheinungen sind wir sicher zu umfassen,
wenn "wir sie uns nach Raum und Zeit geordnet denken, wenn wir
sagen Natur und Geschichte. — Droysen.
Since the days of Heracleitus, the universe, with
all that It contains, has been conceived as In a state
of perpetual flux, and as therefore having a history, —
a history of the fluxes, both quantitative and qualita
tive, which it has undergone In the process of time.
Sir Robert Ball tells us that by our telescopes and on
our photographs we can discern something like one
hundred million luminous stars, and that the visible
stars do not form the hundredth, probably not the
thousandth, probably not even the millionth, part of
the worlds which lurk unseen in the dark, unfathomed
caves of the upper ocean. Each of these worlds has a
history, if we could but know It. The solar system
has a history which the science of men is slowly spell
ing out. The round world which we inhabit has a
history, and all the sciences. In the ascending scales of
their successive evolution, combine to set that history
In a framework of periodic times and of systematic
ideas. Geology tells us how our Mother Earth through
long aeons of the primeval night-time was balancing
' Inaugural Address at the opening of the School of Graduate
Studies in the Columbian University, October 16, 1893.

362 ADDRESSES
and modulating the cosmic forces which were destined
in the end to prepare a theatre for man. In palaeon
tology we rehearse the story of epochs which have
long since been surmounted, and move among the van
ished forms of plants and animals which have long
since perished from the face of the earth. "At the
bottom of the ocean lie the mountains of former ages,
on the summits of the Andes and Himalayas are the
sands of ancient ocean-beds," while the ichthlan and
saurian monsters which lie sepulchred In those rock-
ribbed pyramids have been described as the " mum
mied Pharaohs " of an extinct animal dynasty. The
crystalline structures of our globe, themselves the re
sult of a long historical process, have In turn been
subjected to a thousand historical variations through
the action of light and heat, of air and wind and water,
of river denudation, of earthquake shock, and of
volcanic tremor. The sedentary formations washed
down from the mountain slopes are a historic deposit.
The vegetable mould had a long and dateless chrono
logy before it was friable enough to be ploughed by
earthworms, and Darwin has but pointed out In a
scientific way the place which earthworms have In the
economy of nature when he says that " it may be
doubted whether there are many other animals which
have played so important a part in the history of the
world as have these lowly organized creatures." ^ Even
protoplasm, at the point where we examine It with our
microscopes, is found to possess certain historical
properties beyond and above Its purely physical and
chemical constitution. Even germ-plasm, at the point
M'here Welsmann conceives It as the medium and
ground of heredity, is held to have attained a defi-
^ Darwin, Earthworms, p. 313.

THE SCIENCE OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY 363
nite architecture, which, for the time being, has be
come definite because it has been modified by being
transmitted historically.^
Nature, says Coleridge, through the whole vast
hierarchy of organic being, Is " prophetic of man."
After this prophecy had been fulfilled in the advent
of man, there was a needs be that human history
should come Into the foreground, and should be es
teemed history in the highest sense of the term, because
it marks the times and the stages of the perennial uni
versal flux In the highest of all realms. It is because
man is the " roof and crown of things " that history,
in the truest as well as the highest sense of the term,
becomes the record and the vehicle of his achieve
ments. The generations of men come and go like the
leaves of the forest, as old Homer sings, but the race
of man abides. The Science of Universal History has
for Its object to impart unity to the collective con
sciousness of the race by arranging and rehearsing the
main elements of that consciousness in the logical,
because the chronological, order of their evolution.
History is, therefore, the most comprehensive and at
the same time the most distinctive form of knowledge.
The connecting link between all the periods before
man. It is the golden clasp which binds the fixed past
of the human race to that undeveloped future which
ever lies before it, while in its chronicles of the living
present It holds the nations under our ken in the very
hour and article of their creative activities. What
we may call the formula of evolution Is to be seen
to-day at its highest estate In the advancing columns
of the most advanced civilizations. The work of
creation Is still going on, and is going on to-day at
^ Weismann, The Germ-Plasm, pp. 38-61.

364 ADDRESSES
the point of its highest ascension in the readjustments
of the cosmic order of human society. The tower of
Babel Is still building, and is building to-day wher
ever men are betrayed by confusion of thought and
purpose Into confusion of speech. The rational life of
man begins its pure and specific activity at the point
where, for his highest needs, he can no longer find
help from the instincts of his animal nature, and with
each advance In rationality he puts these instincts in
a growing circumscription and confine, that he may
the better live the higher life of reason. The science
of universal history is nothing more than an orderly
and reasoned exposition of the rational activities under
the pressure of which the human race has moved from
stage to stage In the subjugation of nature and In the
development of its distinctive rationality. For this
cause it Is that the history of the present time lands
the men of this generation, upon whom the ends of
the world are come, In the very thick of the " evo
lutionary process." There was a time in the history
of the solar system when the formula of evolution
came to expression in the genesis of the planetary
worlds ; at a later stage, in the genesis of the chemical
elements ; at a still later stage (and for our globe),
In the genesis of plants aud animals; at stIU later
stages, through the long cycles of geologic time, in the
transformation of species, until at length we witness
the arrival of man, endued with a psychical power to
arrest the forces of natural selection and to substitute
for them, in certain spheres and to a limited extent,
an intellectual selection of his own devising. It is
according to the measure of man's natural supremacy
that the whole plant and animal kingdom is put under
his sovereignty. In man, the centre of gravity of the

THE SCIENCE OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY 365
whole evolutionary process is shifted from mechanic
law to teleologic purpose, but to teleologic purpose
working in the framework of mechanic law, and for
this very reason working the more effectively because
assured of the fixed conditions on which it can operate
to purposes beyond and above mechanic law. The
forces of a natural selection which once worked blindly
on the animal side of man, for the differentiation of
races, while as yet a conscious mental purpose was
feeble in the world, are now capable of being put In
check on the physical side ; and, on the basis of such
arrested tendencies, a new order of evolution, working
psychically, above -'and beyond these natural differ
entiations, is slowly bringing the men of varied races
and tongues into a new species of moral and Intellect
ual integration — an integration which, moving among
the differential elements of civilized society, tends to
assimilate them more and more into harmony with
some predominant social synthesis. [It Is in the suc
cessive processes of the great moral and Intellectual
transformations which have been wrought in the civ
ilization of the world, by a transmitted and hereditary
culture, that the science of universal history finds
its choicest subject-matterT] What we may call the
potential of civilization, at any given epoch, is to
be determined for that epoch by marking the Index
of Its collective culture, and by gauging the com
pulsive force which that collective culture Impresses
on the vast complex of forces comprised iirpollticall
society.! Each individual man, says a British philosopher. Is
a microcosm of the whole Intellectual and moral world,
and, potentially speaking, may be said to contain
within himself " an undeveloped Infinity of Individ-

366 ADDRESSES
uals ; " so that " each man is, in possibility, all men,
and each life, renewed among other scenes, might be
multiplied Into a history of the world." ^
In a word, each individual man, as he comes into
the world, is destined to lead his highest life by virtue
of his organic connection with the life of the whole
human race, and It is the successive expansions and
overlaps of this race life, as witnessed in the progress
of men from savagery to barbarism, from barbarism
to the rudiments of civilization, and from the rudi
ments of civilization to the highest culminations which
civilization has reached to-day, that the science of
universal history aims to unfold in au orderly and a
logical continuity. In this way the calculus of uni
versal history, working with the fixed points which
mark the successive stages of the human race as It has
moved along the ascending gradients of the world's
culture, believes Itself to be working with the factors
of a positive knowledge in tentatively constructing
from time to time the line and the law of the social
evolution. The human mind, in the prosecution of scientific
discovery, moves along the lines of least resistance..!
The first sketch of the science of universal history
was laid in the world's moral order, not by accident
(there are no accidents In universal history), but
because the moral order, implicit in human society,
especially in the lower stages of the social evolution,
is more simple than the complicated mechanical order
which Is implicit in the physical world at the present
stage of the physical evolution ; and the moral order
of society Is not only more simple than the physical
order (which comes from afar, even from the founda-
^ Allen Butler, Ancient Philosophy, vol. i. p. 46.

THE SCIENCE OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY 367
tion of the world), but it is also more directly obtrusive
on the reflective reason of man, as he lives and moves
and has his being in civil society. The first expositors
of the universal moral order were tlie Prophets of
Israel, who were the politicians as well as the religious
guides of Israel. The moral order involved In the
family, by virtue of its natural constitution, was pro
claimed by them to be equally Involved, mutatis mu
tandis, in the clan, in the tribe, in the confederation
of tribes ; and this doctrine was affirmed by them to
hold good,Ynot only for social structures in Judea,
bv^for social structures throughout the whole habit
able world ; that is, this implicit moral order, residing
from necessity in civil society, was raised by them for
the first time into the forms of an explicit and univer
sal statement, as broad as humanity and as wide as
the then known world. " The genius of Israel," says
Renan, " was always beset with the problems of the
human race." ^ The solidarity of the race, on the
moral side of man, was so clearly perceived by the
Hebrew vindicators of the universal moral order that
they found in It the reason and ground why Jehovah
punished nations en masse. So it came to pass that
the Prophets figure among men as the moral reform
ers, the Protestants, the Puritans of their time, and
not of their own time alone, but of all time. " They
give us more than politics or statesmanship," says
Baron Bunsen, " because they portray human events
In the light of that world-history which transcends all
relations of time and of national peculiarity." It is
for this reason that Bunsen was wont to say that the
backbone of universal history runs through Jerusalem,
as thereby signifying that the moral order of the world
1 Renan Histoire du Peuple d'Israel, pp. 75, 477, 486, 487.

368 ADDRESSES
is the vertebral column of the social organism. The
moralities of human life, the elements of the world's
moral order, however they may vary In their angles of
Incidence and reflection with the ascending scales of
boclal culture, are always and everywhere essentially
the same, whether this moral order mirror itself in the
gnomic wisdom of Ptah-hetep among the Egyptians,
in the Proverbs of Solomon, in the Institutes of Con
fucius, In the NIcomachean Ethics of Aristotle, or in
the Offices of Cicero ; but the moral law which came
by Moses was fused Into a white heat by the con
suming zeal of the Hebrew Prophets, and, purified by
them from the concretions of pagan sensuality and
polytheism, it has ever since remained an Integral
part of the world's cIvIHzIng deposit. So sure were
they of this moral order that, as lights shining In a
dark place, they predicted Its final supremacy In a
reign of universal righteousness, extending over the
whole human family, thus striking the keynote of that
future state of terrestrial beatitude which meets us
not only in the Apocalypse of St. John and in the his
torical configurations of the church fathers, but in
the dialogues of Plato,i in the mythical oracles of the
Cumaean sibyl, as transfigured by the muse of Vergil,*
and even in the Idee of Immanuel Kaiit.^
If Judea had a genius for morals and for moral
conduct, Greece had a genius for letters and art, as
1 Phsedo : The Blessed Land pictured in the Tale of Simmias. Cf.
The Tale of Er in the Republic.
^ The Happy Land described iu the Fourth Eclogue ; —
'* Omnis feret omnia tellus :
Non rastros patietur humus, non yinea falcem."
^ Man sieht : die PhUosophie konne auch ihren ChUiasmus habe^. —
Id»e zu einer Allgemeinen Geschichte, achter Satz.

THE SCIENCE OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY 369
Rome had a genius for arms and polity. But we can
easily see why it was that the analytical and construc
tive intellect of the Greeks, as well as the practical
reason of the politic Romans, should have failed to
grasp the conception of historical universality In any
direction. Ancient society, among the Greeks and
Romans, was essentially heterogeneous and repellant
alike in Its Interior structure and in its external rela
tions. The Jew had his Court of the Gentiles at the
very entrance of his Holy Temple, and he looked for
ward to the day when all the nations of the earth
should be blessed In Abraham, the Father of the
Faithful. But the wall of partition between Greeks
and Barbarians, between conquering Romans and their
subject peoples, erected an impassable barrier to the
very concept of human solidarity. And this barrier
was as Infrangible on the moral as on the political
side. Even Aristotle, with all his learning and philo
sophy, thought It ethical to hold that Barbarians had
no rights which Greeks were bound to respect, — a
doctrine which we must not criticise too severely, in
'view of the conduct long allowed to themselves by
European Christians and even by the founders of the
American Commonwealth In their dealings with the
African race. The moral order as expounded by
Aristotle was pan-Hellenic, not cosmopolitan.
With the advent of Christianity a new theory of
human history, a new Weltanschauung, came to the
front. Christianity brought Into the world what we
may call an "enthusiasm for humanity," made that
enthusiasm as broad as the race, and In some of Its
later phases exalted that enthusiasm Into a fanatic
passion for martyrdom. The reflective reason of the
Christian Church early attempted to bring the drift

370 ADDRESSES
of the ages within the pur-view of a dogmatic philoso
phy of history. The first sketches of this dogmatic
philosophy^ to say nothing of the rude delimitations
of time essayed by Euseblus, may be found in the
writings of St. Epiphanius, of St. Jerome, of Orosius,
and others, but above all in the elaborate expositions
of St. Augustine in his De Civitate Dei. This same
method of philosophizing on theological lines alone
was naturally pursued during the Middle Ages, and
may be said to have gone out with a blaze of light in
the brilliant dialectic of Bossuet's Histoire Univer-
selle, which, like the arrow shot from the sounding
bow of Acestes, marked Its path with flame and then
vanished into the thin air, because it was not positive
enough In its aim, and was Indeed shot into a medium
too ethereal to sustain its flight.
Yet we shall do something less than justice to this
purely theological philosophy of history if we estimate
Its significance by the scientific value of the Imperfect
and one-sided inductions on which it was based, or by
the logical validity of the reasoning with which it was
buttressed under a fanciful and allegorical method
of scriptural exegesis. When St. Jerome finds a full-
orbed theory of eschatology in the Book of Daniel;
when St. Epiphanius, acutely generalizing the stages
of human history before Christ into " Barbarism,"
"Scythism," "Judaism," and "Hellenism," hangs
this differentiation for Its sufficient support on a single
text of Scripture ; ^ when St. Augustine projects his
' The text may be found in Colossians iii. 11, where St. Paul de
clares that in the renewal and transformation wrought by Christianity
there was to be neither "Greek" nor "Jew," neither "Barbarian"
nor " Scythian," but Christ was to be "all and in all," — a statement by
which the Apostle, as interpreted by Epiphanius, was held to signify
that "Barbarism," "Scythism," "Judaism,'' and " Hellenism " were

THE SCIENCE OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY 371
whole theory of human history along the line of six
successive ages, corresponding to the six demiurgic
days of the creative week in the Book of Genesis, ^
and finds that this same number of ages was typified
by the six waterpots which figured in the miracle of
Cana of Galilee,* we are not to infer that these theo
logical teachers drew their speculations out of the
biblical texts alone, by sheer force of allegorical exe
gesis. The texts were rather used (for polemical and
apologetic reasons) by way of accommodation to a
preconceived theory of human history deeply imbedded
in the Christian consciousness and resting on the
express doctrine that Christ came " in the fullness of
time." If in " the fullness of time," then the prior
stages of human evolution were preparatory to his
advent. These crude and primitive theories of the philosophy
of history are chiefly interesting to us as serving to
show the theorizing and philosophizing bent Impressed
on the early Christian mind in the presence of the
collective phenomena of human history, and as serving
further to show that all such theories of progress must
needs take their color and direction, their point of
departure and their norm, from the prevailing intel
lectual method of the epoch in which they appear.
The prevailing method of the Church Fathers was
theological, and hence they naturally turned to theo
logy for guidance aud succor In framing a philosophy
of history. As Christianity was the normal projection
of Judaism, and as the middle wall of partition between
human culture-stages preparatory to the coming of Christ. See the
Panarion, lib. i. and elsewhere.
1 De Genesi contra Manichceos, lib. i. ; De Trinitate, lib. iv. cap. 4,
and elsewhere.
^ Tractatus IX in Joannis Evangelium.

372 ADDRESSES
Jew and Gentile had now been broken down, the doc
trine of a world-wide morality, as taught by the Hebrew
seers, could henceforth be supplemented and com
plemented by the doctrine of a world-wide scheme of
human redemption, to be worked out on purely reli
gious lines.
The historical philosophy of St. Jerome and of St.
Augustine continued to be In the main the received
philosophy of the Schoolmen, so far as they had any
philosophy of history at all during the Middle Ages.
In that time of storm and stress, when the Barba
rians had brought a new social chaos Into Europe, It
was hard to see any "drift of the ages." And the
piecemeal structure of the feudal system — a form of
political organization in which each feudal molecule
was repulsive to every other — had well-nigh come to
destroy the very capacity of men to think en grand in
the sphere of humau society. The social elements had
been ground up from top to bottom, and were waiting
for new points of crystallization.
These new points of crystallization came with the
Renaissance period. In its flrst flush this time of
new birth brought to the European mind a season
of rejuvenation with all that was hot and heady in
the youthful senses. Next came a period of sobered
thoughtfulness, under the sway of that larger dis
course of reason which summoned the Humanists to
grapple with the deeper problems of secular history.
In the dawn of the Renaissance men were so absorbed
in looking backward to the Integral fountains of an
cient culture that they may well be pardoned If they
saw, at that stage, no forward movement in the stream
of time. It was not until they had gained a soberer
point of view in what we may call the autumn of the

THE SCIENCE OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY 373
Renaissance that they were prepared to grasp and to
construct a scheme of progress in the affairs and ideas
of the -o'orld.
Pattison in his Life of Isaac Casaubon has given
us a vivid picture of the sombre thought which suc
ceeded the wild outburst of joy and surprise when the
European mind first escaped from the swaddling-
bands of Scholasticism. A very malady of thought
now settled on the minds of thinking men as they
stood before the veiled Isis of history. They found
it difficult to construe an ascetic Christianity with the
flowers of Greek and Roman culture. A great step
was taken in bridging over the chasm between the
Pagan past and the Christian present when all that
was best in the literature of Greece and Rome was
accepted by scholastic thinkers as the propaedeutic of
theological culture. Universities were now founded
in quick succession to keep alive the tradition of hu
man learning. The dates at which the great univer
sities of Europe were founded translate themselves for
us into a philosophy of universal education, aud Into
a philosophy of universal history as well. From these
high points of observation the foremost minds of Eu
rope were preparing to get the bearings of man's col
lective thought. The human race, in the person of
its file-leaders, was for the first time " orienting "
itself. This process of Intellectual orientation began to
find clear expression in the seventeenth century. The
seventeenth century must ever remain a most interest
ing period for the philosophical student of history.
It was then that the foundations of the science of
universal history were for the first time securely laid
on the broad basis of the world's collective knowledge.

374 ADDRESSES
It was during this age that a few thoughtful scholars
rose to challenge the pretensions of the Ancients in
knowledge and of the Scholastics In philosophy. The
fact of the continuity of human history slowly dawned
on the perception of a few penetrating and clear
sighted intellects, and this sense of continuity came
at length to full aud clear expression in the now hack
neyed saying of Pascal, that the succession of men, as
measured along the lines of a progressive knowledge,
ought to be considered as " one same man who lives
always and learns continually." The saying was a
spark of light thrown out In that collision of wits
known in the literary history of the seventeenth cen
tury as the " Quarrel of the Ancients and the Mod
erns." ^ It was virtually a saying as old as the time
of St. Augustine,* but when the idea was hinted by
the Bishop of Hippo, while the ears of men were still
tingling with the stupendous crash of the Roman
Empire, it sounded in theological polemics rather
than in historical philosophy. The fallow ground of
the fifth century after Christ had no furrow in which
such a seed-corn could lodge, and no prepared soil in
which it could grow and fructify.
I have elsewhere remarked on the Insufficiency of a
statement made by the eminent historian, the late Dr.
Edward A. Freeman, when, In referring to the fruit
ful results of the comparative method as applied to
the phenomena of language, of mythology, of folk
lore, of politics, and of history, he characterizes that
^ For a compendious history of this famous " Quarrel " the reader
may consult the pages of Rigault, Histoire de la Querelle des Anciens
et des Modernes, Paris, 1856.
^ Sicut autem unius hominis, ita humani generis, quod ad Dei popu-
lum pertinet, recta eruditio per quosdam articulos temporum tanquam
setatum profecit accessibus." De Civitate Dei, lib. x. cap. 14.

THE SCIENCE OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY 375
method as a "discovery" of the nineteenth century
equal iu value to the revival of learning. The
comparative method Is as old as the reflective thought
of man. It was used by Aristotle in the field of poli
tics (he compared two hundred and fifty distinct
polities) as freely as It has ever been used in mod
ern times by Freeman or Herbert Spencer. But the
organon of comparative method failed to prove an
Instrument of highest knowledge in the hands of the
Stagirlte because he failed to perceive and apply iu
conuection with it an ancillarj' principle Indispensable
to its full fruitage, to wit, the continuity of human
history, as marked by the Gulf Stream of human pro
gress. He uot only failed to perceive the unity of
human history, but based his defense of the Greek
social system on its positive denial. That he should
have failed to perceive the continuity of human his
tory Is easily explained by the fragmentary state of
civil society in his day and by the smallness of the arc
through which the social oscillation of the race had
moved when it was passed by him in review. It was
only after the slow and gradual accumulation of social
changes had reached a certain height that the conti
nuity of the social movement could possibly come into
clear perspective. As Comte well says, " The strong
est head of all antiquity, the great Aristotle, was so
dominated by his age that he could not even conceive
of a society which was not necessarily founded on
slavery, the Irrevocable abolition of which began none
the less a few ages after him."
From the day when this line and law of continuity
became -visible to speculative minds In the phenomena
of history, It was seen that these phenomena could not
only be compared, but that they could be classified

376 ADDRESSES.
and grouped In a serial and successive order. And
when, at a later day, it came to be clearly conceived
that the bond of connection between events in their
series and successions was a genetic connection, a
positive Science of Universal History became possible,
and not before.
Since the day of Vico, the " philosophies " of history
have been in number numberless. Many and various
are the spirals and curves which the Ingenuity of men
has projected on the dial-plate of time. In evaluating
" the curve of progress," the speculative mind " loves
to trace the contortions of the unruly spiral, and
eschews a cusp as a historic anomaly." Too often,
indeed, these " philosophies " have been little more
than the counterfeit presentments of their framers, as
the Brocken phantom, at sight of which the traveler
sometimes starts on the Hartz mountains, is nothing
more than an enlarged shadow of himself, projected
on some floating tapestry of cloud and fog ; but since
the time when the law of a genetic continuity In the
facts of human history, as measured along the lines of
ethical, social, and Intellectual progress, has become
a fixed possession, the science of anthropology has
handed to the scientific student of history the tape-
lines and measuring-rods by which he can gauge the
very age and body of the time, the very order and
succession of human elaborations in the useful arts
and In social institutions. From that time forth the
philosophy of history marches side by side with the
science of history, science giving to philosophy its
fixed points of departure and Its angles of vision, and
philosophy giving to science the wider and higher
perspectives which come from "thought's interior
sphere."

THE SCIENCE OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY 377
A genetic conception of historical events is not
peculiar to our modern age. The peculiarity lies in
the universality and accuracy with which the concep
tion is applied under modern scientific method. King
Hezekiah, twenty-five hundred years ago, had a clear
conception of historical genetics when, in the sore tra
vail of Judea In his day, he exclaimed, " The children
are come to the birth and there is not strength to
deliver." By this genetic symbolism he pointed to
helpful measures of state which were likely to perish
In their birth-pangs for the want of a political oppor
tunism which was equal to the crisis. St. Paul wielded
this same genetic symbolism in the magnificent Imagery
under which he pictures the whole creation as groaning
and travailing In pain together till now. This same
genetic symbolism Is caught up Into verse by Matthew
Arnold when he would portray a religious doubter
wandering astray between an old faith which is extinct
and a new faith which has not yet come to Its f uU
nativity : —
" Wandering between two worlds ; one dead.
The other powerless to be bom."
But between this rhetorical conception of historical
genetics and the modern scientific conception of his
torical genetics there is a world-wide difference. The
scientific worth of a conception depends, not on single
observations used for purposes of literary emphasis,
but on whole masses of observations, generalized,
according to the homologies which they reveal, Into
principles of logical interpretation, and so made the
basis of scientific systematlzatlon.i Homological rea-
^ " Nicht die einfacht beobachtete Thatsache macht den Worth
einer Entdeckung aus, sondem die Art ihrer Verwendung und wa3
man daraus zu f olgem vermag." — Ambros, Geschichte der Musik, i.
p. 457.

378 ADDRESSES
soning depends, indeed, for Its deepest root and firmest
ground ou the facts of a genetic descent, and for this
cause has an obvious superiority over mere analogical
reasoning in every department of philosophy.
Philosophy is organized thought moving along the
lines of universality, and this organized thought b&.
comes real and actual in history only when it Is
checked and verified at every point of its advance by
the inductions of an exact and positive method. It
was not until the science of anthropology had staked
out the starting-points and the boundaries of the social
and civil evolution in the successive stages and stadia
of human culture that these fixed points could serve
as the framework of a true and coherent philosophy
of history. If there be a genetic connection among
the events of the social world ; if the days of the
human race, like the days of the individual man, are
bound each to each " by a natural piety " (and this is
what the genetic conception of history implies and
presupposes), then there must be an Inherent connec
tion in the series of events which mark the line and
compose the law of human progress ; and If there be
an inherent connection, then this connection must be
natural and necessary ; and if there be a natural and
necessary connection of humau events (so far as that
connection is Inherent and genetic), then the scientific
statement of that connection, in proportion to Its con
tinuity and Its universality, will lend itself to the pur
poses of real truth in point of content and of logical
perfection In point of form. There is, therefore, what
we may call a dialectic of history. In the discussions
rbf political society constant provision must be made
for vast processes of intellectual division and subdlvi-
,( sion, of political dissection and analysis. In order to

THE SCIENCE OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY 379
reach some new social, political, or economical synthe
sis. '^'To the extent in which there is a logic of events
anda natural order in the genetic evolutions of humau
society, there must be a dialectic of history. " What
reasou is to the Individual man, history is to the race,"
says Schopenhauer ; and as the individual man goes
through his dialectical processes In reaching the conclu
sions which govern his conduct, so political society has
its dialectical processes, organized on a vaster scale,
for the purpose of reaching the political readjustments
and the economic transformations required by a pro
gressive civilization. But when this dialectic of the
historic movement comes to be recapitulated in the
terms of a synoptical review, if it is to have truth for
its matter and logic for Its form. It must at all points
be subject to the syllogistic processes of a positive
science of history, and cannot be left to the free ex-
patlatlons of the philosophical intellect, even in the
case of a mind as Imperial as that of Kant or Hegel.
Kant, -writing in 1784, shows that he had missed the
whole dialectic scope of the social and civil evolution
by declaring that all secular history, beyond that of
Greece, was a terra incognita, and that the sole begin
ning of all true history was to be sought in the first
pages of Thucydides.^ Hume had said the same thing
before him. The attempt to construct a theory of
human progress on such a narrow basis of human
experiences was a predestined failure. It was as if
men should undertake to discuss the ontogenetic char
acters of a given animal without any knowledge of its
phylogenetic predecessors, or as If we should assume
to discuss the hierarchy of animal forms without a
knowledge of palaeontology. To-day we dig for the
1 Kant, Wtrke, Band iv. § 160 (Hartenstein's ed.).

380 ADDRESSES
beginnings of human history In the bone-caves of the
Somme valley, In the lake habitations of Switzerland,
in the kitchen-middens of Denmark, in the mounds of
the American aborigines, or wherever else the gray
forefathers of the human race have left the traces of
their primeval existence. With the mete-wand of the
comparative method iu our hands, as swayed along
the lines of a continuous genetic evolution, we can
enter the domain of kindred and tribes known to us
by only a few scattered relics that have come down
from the burled generations of men, aud with these
relics in our hands we can, by homological reasoning,
reconstruct the social states from which they sprang
as surely as the comparative anatomist rebuilds the
megatherium from Its mandible or the dinornis from
a fragment of Its femur.
All our processes of historical construction in the
domain of Cultur geschichte Imply at bottom a logical
process In the order of social evolutions. We do but
bring our subjective logic into correspondence with
the objective logic of human events. As paleonto
logy places in our hands a measuring rod by which
we read backward, In the successive forms of animal
life, from the highest to the lowest, so, in the succes
sive stages of human culture, we read backward from
the highest to the lowest that we may then reason
forward from the lowest to the highest. It was for
the want of such a critical and dialectical method that
a master of polemics like St. Augustine stumbled and
fell over the fossil remains of a gigantic molar tooth
which, as he tells us, he once discovered on the shores
of the Mediterranean, and which, because it was so
big that a hundred grinders like ours could have been
carved from it, he assumed to have originally be-

THE SCIENCE OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY 381
longed to one of the giants supposed to have lived
before the Flood. ^ If the good bishop had been
armed with the homological method of modern com
parative osteology, he would have known at once that
the tooth belonged to some huge beast of the primeval
period, and not to one of our antediluvian ancestors.
If it shall seem that I have been slow in leading up
to the main topic of this discourse, I beg leave to pre
mise that, by necessary implication, I had led up to it
in what I have called the first sketch of universal his
tory ; that is, of history with universality in it. As
it is Impossible to construe the actual facts of univer
sal history apart from the moral order lifted into con
sciousness by Judea, apart from the intellectual order
of Greece, apart from the political order of Rome,
apart from the religious order of Christendom, so,
from the date of the instauration of scientific method
it has become impossible to construe the fact and law
of human progress apart from the physical sciences.
The Science of Universal History has become to-day
the indispensable complement of these sciences, be
cause that history has come more and more to take
from them its regulative and its directive forces.
And these regulative forces, reacting on the mental
outlooks of men, have transformed for this generation
our whole maniere de voir. Each vantage ground of
truth gained from the conquered territory of Igno
rance and superstition is becoming more and more
tlie point d'appui of further assaults on the kingdom
and power of darkness. It is this war of mind against
1 Vidi ipse non solus, sed aliquot meeum in Uticensi littore mola-
rem hominis dentem tam ingentem, ut, si in nostrorum dentium
medulos minutatim concideretur, centum nobis videretur facere potii-
iqse. Sed Ulum gigantis alicuius fuisse crediderim. De Civitate Dei,
Jib. XV. cap. 9.

382 ADDRESSES
matter, of moral law against brute force, of scientific
foresight against blind natural selection, which is des
tined, in the scientific vision of Clifford, to put a
period to the fight of human poverty (so far as that
poverty results from false and unscientific economics),
In order that the human race, freed from the fetters
of a false public economy, may at length have " a free
hand and a free foot " with which to begin the fight
against inexactness of thought in all realms of study,
and against base aims and low Ideals in all depart
ments of human Inquiry. This is only another way
of saying that, in the stage of evolution which civil
society has reached to-day among the foremost nations
of the earth, economic questions are at the fore.
In the fluxes of human society, as in the fluxes of
nature, nothing Is done per saltum. Society has, In
deed, its dynamic movement which works to definite
ends and purposes by virtue of all the vis a tergo
which comes from the past generations, and by virtue,
too, of the new objective points which are found for
this vis a tergo by the clarified reason. This social
dynamic often works below the horizon of the collec
tive social consciousness, and therefore works blindly
and dimly, Instead of working with the clear prevision
of a teleologic purpose which can be verified by social
science. In each and every one of the next stages
which lie before It in the evolution of humanity, the
human race Is called to reproduce the conditions of an
intellectual childhood, and has to learn by making
mistakes. In this way, for the want of an experience
which has clarified itself into a directive rule of wise
conduct, much of the vis a tergo coming from the past
generations is dissipated in the futilities of unscien
tific politics ; but none the less do we see that a resi.

THE SCIENCE OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY 383
due of this dynamic is surety conserved and Is slowly
correlated Into the new and the successive forms of
human culture. As Tylor well says, "There is no
human thought so primitive as to have lost its bearing
on our owa thouaht, nor so ancient as to have broken
its connection with our own life." ^
The increasing purpose In social dynamics has its
laws of development and its laws of arrested growth.
The Intellectual attitude in which man stands to na^
ture wiU determine the extent of his dominion over
nature. There are certain necessary facts and laws
of nature which lie on the surface of things, and to
the extent in which they control human action they
may be said to enter into all the free activities of men
and to conditionate those activities. In the lower
stages of savagery man Is held in servile subjection to
even the surface facts of nature, and It Is this subjec
tion which constitutes the misery of savagery.
Where the surface facts of nature are observed
with minutest care, where the relations of the family
and of the whole social order are bound in a cast iron
system of ethics, politics, and economics, and trans
mitted from generation to generation by a rigid and
mechanical system of education, we have aU the natu
ral conditions which explain the stationary civilization
of a country so old and yet so unprogressive as the
empire of China. The deeper resources of nature are
a sealed book to the Chinese Intellect, and the whole
educational system of China Is Ingeniously contrived
to train the memory at the expense of the reason.
What wonder that men halt with their brains and
that women halt ^vith their feet In China, when brains
and feet are alike put in constriction ?
1 Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. ii. p. 409.

384 ADDRESSES
Besides the laws and facts of nature which lie on the
surface of things, there are other laws and facts in na
ture which reside In the deeper relations of things, —
laws and facts which, even in the most advanced civil
izations, have been of slow and late discovery by the
reflective reason of man. Now, to the extent in which
these laws and facts, after discovery, are seen to enter
into and to aggrandize the activities of men In the
figure of society, they may be said to energize the en
larged activities which they conditionate, and so must
needs accelerate the progresslonal force of society In
all directions. Everybody sees that our whole clvUi-
zation is to-day condltlonated by the new appliances of
modern life, — by the steam-engine, the telegraph, the
telephone, the electric light, and the thousand other
applications of scientific art. The new conditions thus
created are vastly more significant for their reflex in
fluence on the human mind than for their direct in
fluence on human conduct. The modifications which
these agencies have wrought In the mental habitudes
of men are indeed a thousand times more Important
than the modifications which they have wrought iu our
business relations and iu our social institutes. As
civilization takes more and more into its bosom the
resources and the agencies of a rational science, un
locking the deeper mysteries of nature, the forms of
civilization are correspondingly changed, and the rates
of the civilizing movement are correspondingly quick
ened. The civilized man of to-day Is a transformed
man living In a transformed environment, a transform
ing man living in an environment which he Is daily
transforming more and more according to the growing
wants and aspirations of advancing civilization. The
light of our best seeing and the thought of our best

THE SCIENCE OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY 385
thinking involuntarily turn to scientific method for
their justification. We live and think and act in a
world of concepts which science has slowly formed and
slowly clarified. And "as the way in which these
general conceptions are bound together has been de
termined for us by the previous thought of society, it
follows that our ancestors have made the world to be
what it is for us."
The subtle processes of the scientific mind have
penetrated more aud more deeply into the subtle pro
cesses of nature, and this penetration of the reason
into nature has retroacted on the reason Itself, and so
has retroacted on our whole social and economic sys
tem and even on our public morality. Everybody sees
that the discoveries of modern science have come, by
their daily uses and applications, to lay new burdens
of moral care as well as of intellectual accuracy and of
economic thrift on the whole generation which they
have invested with such vastly augmented physical
powers, and which they have endued mentally with
such a purified vision. As the scientific mind. In its
present attitude toward nature, has been of slow
genesis, so the greater mental exactitude wrought in
our habits by scientific method is a late endowment of
the human race, and may be said to have come in with
the era of experimentation in the search for scientific
truth iu the domain of nature. As has been well said
by a German thinker, " the more complete the con
quered power of nature Is, so much more splendid is
the progress of reason in its conquering freedom, for
so much the more excellent is the instrument which
has been won from nature for the service of reason.
In this way It is that the unlimited supremacy of rea
son over nature, through the operations of human free

386 ADDRESSES
agency, will bring about an universal harmony between
nature and human free agency." ^
The world Is coming to be governed more and more
by the verified thought of its collective intelligence,
and this verified thought is more and more a distilla
tion of scientific method. The problems which con
front every advanced civilization to-day, whether in
politics or economics. In sanitary reform or In criminal
jurisprudence, are essentially scientific problems, and
problems which increase In difficulty aud complexity
in proportion as civil society is translated further and
further from the " state of nature," and is raised into
higher and higher altitudes of moral observance and
intellectual foresight. The social problems of each
living age are set for it by the range and gear of Its
social forces. Questions of the blood tie, of marriage
law, and of rude atonement for crime dominated the
primeval clan. Questions of political status dominated
the Greek city-state. Questions of personal status
dominated the feudal system. Questions of a balance
of power dominated Europe after the great European
states had formed themselves around their several cen
tres, on the dissolution of the feudal system. As hu
man society has moved further and further from status
to contract, the individual opinion of men has been
more and more free to move more and more widely in
the domain of ideas, until at length we can say that
" Ideas govern the civilized world." * And the ideas
which govern the world to-day tend more and more
to incarnate themselves into new forms of social
right and new expedients of economic production and
^ Wachsmuth, Entwurf einer Theorie der Geschichte, p. 60.
^ See some interesting observations under this head in Bishop
Stubbs's Lectures on Mediceval and Modern History, pp. 208 et seq.

THE SCIENCE OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY 387
distribution, working reconstruct! veiy on the whole
existing figure of humau society. What we call " civ
ilization'' is Indeed nothing more nor less than a state
of coerced and unstable equilibrium resulting from
actions, reactions, and interactions in a vast complex of
moral, social, political, and scientific forces generated
by the restless acivity of the human intellect, and per
petually stirred into new forms of genetic activity, as
the condition of improving them in their working gear,
and of thereby increasing their resultant energy, so far
as they are comprised at any given epoch In what we
may call the " parallelogram of organized society."
It is the obvious lesson of universal history that the
stream of tendency sets more and more In all direc
tions toward the control of individual thought and
conduct by the moral and intellectual forces of the
collective social intelligence ; not indeed that the in
dividual is to be " withered " by such control, but
that he is to find only the freer and fuller play for all
his faculties under a perfected science of sociology.
Under such a perfected science men will have no
more right to think and act wrong concerning scien
tific questions In finance or currency, in taxation or
economics, than they have to think and act wrong to
day concerning scientific questions in geometry or as
tronomy, in physics or in chemistry. The bald enun
ciation of this Comtlau canon of positive science, ^
with Its applications to the phenomena of modern pol
itics, will suffice at once to ascertain the wide distance
^ Comte, Appendice G^n^ral au Systeme de Politique Positive :
Plan des Travaux Scientifiques n^cassaires pour r^organiser la Soci-
iti, Paris: 1S22 : " II n'y a point de liberty de conscience en astro
nomic, en physique, en chimie, en physiologic meme, en ce sens que
chacun trouverait absurde de ne pas croire de confiance aux principes
^tablis dans ces sciences par les hommes comp^tents."

388 ADDRESSES
at which we stand to-day from a perfected science of
human history, considered In its relation to the arts
of statesmanship. And this Comtlan canon ascertains
equally well the wildness of the unscientific dreams
with which a hysterical Socialism or a frantic Nihilism
would fain perplex or shatter the political framework
which enfolds the existing parallelogram of our so
cial forces. Their schemes proceed on the basis of a
process which Is cataclysmal and revolutionary. The
schemes of the scientific reformer proceed on the basis
of a process which Is genetic and evolutionary. But
even these Fata Morgana of the Socialist and An
archist may have their lesson for the student of uni
versal history.
To suppose, with Immanuel Kant, that the human
race, after having made progress through the past
ages, will at some future day come to a standstill, or
even begin to retrograde, is to presuppose that at some
time there may be among all mankind a suspension,
or even a reversed action, of all the motive powers
which have brought the human race to Its present
altitudes of scientific and philosophic observation.
The cavil ignores, besides, the momentum impressed
on modern civilization by all the vis a tergo that
stands behind it in the accumulated strivings of the
past generations, — strivings which, as transmitted to
us, have been harnessed Into new forms and vehicles
of social energy, working more and more dynamically.
In review of the past, who shall venture to say that
the Science of Universal History has wandered into
" the dark backward and abysm of time " to waft us
back a message of despair ? Is it in accordance with
the laws of historical probability that the human race
Is even approaching its terminal dynasty, when to-day.

THE SCIENCE OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY 389
more than ever before, the bosom of civilized society
is teeming with new births begotten by the Weltgeist
at the highest stage of its creative energy ? I answer,
No, not in the name of a subjective or philosophical
necessarianism, but In the name of positive science
pledged to a career of boundless conquest over the
forces of nature. I answer, No, In the name of all
the Hebrew seers and Christian sages who divined the
universality of the moral order and foretold a Reign
of Righteousness on the earth. I answer, No, In the
name of that clearly discovered law of human progress
which has come to-day to set the seal of history to the
forecast of prophecy. I answer, No, In the name of
that Renaissance period which not only found a new
earth for man through Columbus, and a new heaven
through Copernicus, but helped man to "find him
self " (so MIchelet phrases it) by helping him, with
observations however rude and imperfect, to get some
hint of his true bearings on the stormy sea of Uni
versal History. I answer, No, by all the agony and
bloody sweat of the countless generations which toiled
and suffered for us, and into the fruit of whose labors
we have entered. I answer, No, by all the battles
fought for truth and right which have been won in
the ages past, and I answer. No, a thousand times, in
the name of aU the battles fought for truth and right
which have been lost, but must be won.

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