The Compromises of Life
 
 The 
 Compromises of Life 
 
 AND OTHER LECTURES AND 
 ADDRESSES 
 
 Including Some Observations on 
 
 Certain Downward Tendencies 
 
 of Modern Society 
 
 By 
 HENRY WATTERSON
 
 Copyright, 1903, by 
 FOX, DUFFIELD & COMPANY 
 
 Published, October, 1903 
 
 <Cbe ijCrotB pres?, Jftcw gorfc
 
 Publishers Note 
 
 In issuing this volume of "Lectures and Addresses " 
 the publishers are induced by many considerations to 
 believe that they meet a requisition of the reading pub 
 lic. Few writers in the last three decades have been 
 more noted, few speakers heard by larger audiences, 
 than the editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal. As 
 the successor of Prentice, he carried forward the work 
 of that eminent and brilliant man to yet further 
 achievement; succeeding, before he was thirty years of 
 age, in combining the newspapers of the Kentucky 
 metropolis and in creating out of the union a journal 
 of national influence and celebrity. 
 
 Although an untiring journalist, versed in the varied 
 lore of newspaper organism and management, Mr. 
 Watterson early became a favorite in political conven 
 tions and on the hustings, a popular lecturer, and a 
 captivating occasional speaker. He led the Southern 
 wing of the Liberal movement in 1872 a member 
 of the famous Quadrilateral, his colleagues being Mr. 
 Samuel Bowles, Mr. Murat Halstead, and Mr. Hor 
 ace White whose labors, though not so designed, cul 
 minated in the nomination of Horace Greeley for 
 President. Henceforward he occupied a conspicuous 
 position in the councils of the Democratic party, 
 largely its platform-maker from 1876 to 1892. He 
 was the close friend of Mr. Tilden, presiding over the 
 National Convention which nominated the Sage of 
 Greystone for President, and, later on, his personal 
 representative upon the floor of the Lower House of
 
 Publishers Note 
 
 Congress. He accepted this seat in Congress at Mr. 
 Tilden s urgency and against his own inclinations, de 
 clining a re-election. With this exception, he has per 
 sistently refused office. "I resolved," he said, on one 
 occasion, when offered a distinguished position, "when 
 a very young man, that I would not perpetrate the 
 mistake of Greeley and Raymond." 
 
 A notable figure wherever he has appeared, Mr. 
 Watterson s relation to the public questions of his time 
 has been that of a leader, who, having reached his own 
 conclusions, took no thought of the consequences. He 
 stood for the pacification of the country and the rec 
 onciliation of the sections upon the acceptance of the 
 three final amendments to the Constitution, which he 
 described as the Treaty of Peace between the North 
 and the South, when not another voice on his own 
 side of the line could be heard in his support, and lived 
 to see his policy universally accepted. He stood for 
 the public credit and a sound currency, with scarcely 
 any but a silent following in his own party, during the 
 Greenback craze and through the succeeding Free 
 Silver agitation, still living to see his course vindicated 
 by the results. Mainly through his efforts the old 
 black-laws were removed from the statute-books of 
 Kentucky, and the Kentucky negro was invested, with 
 out the violence which marked other of the old Slave 
 States, with his new rights of citizenship. 
 
 Years before Lamar delivered his eulogy of Sum- 
 ner, and while Grady was a school-boy, Mr. Watter- 
 son was passing backward and forward between the 
 two embittered sections laying the foundation for the 
 epoch-making utterances of those great orators. 
 Through all his writing and speaking one dominant 
 note will be found the national destiny and the 
 homogeneity of the people charity and tolerance 
 constituting a key to his life-long labor of love. 
 
 VI
 
 Publishers* Note 
 
 In this volume the publishers reproduce only such 
 political expressions as seem to be historic and are in 
 a sense non-partisan, omitting merely campaign and 
 convention speeches, which, however striking, relate to 
 contemporary interests. 
 
 The lectures show for themselves. The addresses, 
 beginning with the memorial to Prentice, delivered 
 upon the invitation of the Legislature of Kentucky in 
 1870, to the "Ideal in Public Life," delivered in 1903. 
 on the occasion of the Emerson centenary, including 
 the dedication of the Columbian Exposition, in 1892, 
 the Cross-swords speech of 1877 m tne National 
 Cemetery at Nashville, and the many intermediate 
 contributions to the patriotic spirit of the time, notably 
 the Grand Army reception upon its first encampment 
 on Southern soil in 1895, will need no word of in 
 troduction to appreciative Americans. 
 
 In the form of an "Appendix " the publishers add 
 to these addresses a series of articles from the Courier- 
 Journal which seem to have more than ephemeral in 
 terest. These relate to "certain downward tendencies 
 in what is known as the Smart Set of Fashionable So 
 ciety." They created a prodigious sensation when 
 they appeared, hardly less in London than in New 
 York and Newport and other seats of the mighty 
 Four Hundred, being translated into French and Ger 
 man, and made the text in Paris and Berlin for a 
 critical revival among both the lay-preachers of the 
 press and the leaders of the pulpit and the schools. 
 The first of these articles was drawn out by a lamen 
 table tragedy, and they grew into a series, under the 
 provocation of the newspaper criticisms which followed. 
 Although more than a year has passed, they continue 
 to be made the subjects of comment and controversy 
 among those who delight to moralize on this particular 
 theme; yet nothing was further from their author s 
 
 vii
 
 Publishers Note 
 
 purpose, Mr. Watterson declares, than a social or 
 ethical crusade, his sole aim being, in the discharge of 
 his daily newspaper duties, "to take account of passing 
 events and to shoot folly as it flies." 
 
 Vlll
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. IN MEMORIAM 
 
 PAGE 
 
 GEORGE DENNISON PRENTICE . . . . . 3 
 
 II. LECTURES 
 
 THE COMPROMISES OF LIFE 29 
 
 THE SOUTH IN LIGHT AND SHADE 59 
 
 MONEY AND MORALS . . ... . . 102 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 137 
 
 JOHN PAUL JONES , .. . . . ... . 181 
 
 III. ADDRESSES 
 
 THE AMERICAN NEWSPAPER . . r 225 
 
 A PLEA FOR PROVINCIALISM , , * - . . 260 
 
 THE NATION S DEAD , . , t . . . . 276 
 
 THE NEW SOUTH . ... ,.. . , . . . 288 
 
 LET Us HAVE PEACE . . . . . . . 294 
 
 OUR EXPANDING REPUBLIC . . ... . 300 
 
 A WELCOME TO THE GRAND ARMY ..... 313 
 
 THE PURITAN AND THE CAVALIER ..... 318 
 
 ix
 
 Contents 
 
 PACK 
 
 THE REUNITED SECTIONS 326 
 
 FRANCIS SCOTT KEY 331 
 
 GOD S PROMISE REDEEMED 344 
 
 THE MAN IN GRAY 348 
 
 HEROES IN HOMESPUN 356 
 
 THE HAMPTON ROADS CONFERENCE .... 363 
 THE IDEAL IN PUBLIC LIFE 370 
 
 IV. SPEECHES 
 
 THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION BILL 385 
 
 ENGLAND AND AMERICA 406 
 
 RECIPROCITY AND EXPANSION 412 
 
 FAREWELL TO THE KENTUCKY TROOPS .... 428 
 BLOOD THICKER THAN WATER 438 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 CERTAIN DOWNWARD TENDENCIES IN THE SMART SET OF 
 FASHIONABLE SOCIETY 
 
 A FLOCK OF UNCLEAN BIRDS 455 
 
 APPROACHING THE LIMIT 455 
 
 THOSE UNCLEAN BIRDS AGAIN . . . . -457 
 THE SMART SET, THE NEWSPAPERS, AND THE TRUTH . 463 
 STILL HARPING ON MY DAUGHTER 473
 
 I 
 
 IN MEMORIAM
 
 GEORGE DENNISON PRENTICE 
 
 George Dennison Prentice was born in a little, old- 
 fashioned New England cottage on the outskirts of the 
 village of Preston, in Connecticut, December 18, 
 1802, which came that year, as I find by reference 
 to a chronological table, on a Saturday, and was at 
 tended by a north-east gale that swept down the coast 
 and over the country far and near. He died in a Ken 
 tucky farm-house, on the banks of the Ohio River, ten 
 miles below the city of Louisville, just before the 
 break of Saturday, January 22, 1870, while an un 
 toward winter flood roared about the lonely spot. Be 
 tween the tempest of his coming and the tempest of his 
 going flowed a life-current many-toned and strong; 
 often illuminated by splendid and varied achievements, 
 and sometimes overcast by shadowy passions, struggles, 
 and sorrows; but never pausing upon its journey dur 
 ing sixty-seven years, nor turning out of its course; a 
 long life and a busy, joining in uncommon measure 
 thought to action, and devoting both to the practice of 
 
 * A Memorial Address delivered by invitation of the Legislature of 
 Kentucky, in the Hall of the House of Representatives, at Frankfort, 
 February ^^ t 1870. 
 
 3
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 government, the conduct of parties, and the cultivation 
 of belles-lettres. For this man was a daring partisan 
 and a delightful poet; the distinguished advocate of a 
 powerful political organization; a generous patron of 
 arts ; a constant friend to genius. In violent and law 
 less times he used a gun with hardly less effect than a 
 pen, being regarded at one time as the best pistol-shot in 
 Kentucky. By turns a statesman, a wit, a poet, a man 
 of the world, and always a journalist, he gave to the 
 press of his country its most brilliant illustrations, and 
 has left to the State and to his progeny by all odds the 
 most unique, if not the largest, reputation ever achieved 
 by a newspaper writer. You recognized these things, 
 and the Legislature of Tennessee recognized them, when 
 his death was described in the resolutions of both assem 
 blies as a "public bereavement." Such an honor was 
 never paid the memory of any other journalist; and, 
 although you have signalized yourselves no less than 
 him, it is my duty, and I assure you it is a very great 
 satisfaction, to thank you on behalf of the profession 
 which owes this, among so many obligations, to the 
 genius of Prentice. 
 
 There are some names that have a mysterious charm 
 in them that go directly from the ear to the heart like 
 echoes from a world of beauty and enchantment that 
 whisper to us somehow of song and blossom whose 
 very shadows are fragrant and seductive. Rupert and 
 Tasso and Diderot, Richter and Schiller and Chateau- 
 
 4
 
 George Dennison Prentice 
 
 briand, Sheridan and Byron and Maurice of Saxe, are 
 of this nature, and represent, in one sort and another, 
 what might be called the knight-errantry of civilization. 
 Prentice belongs to the same class. What Rupert was 
 in the saddle, and Diderot and Richter were in the 
 fight for free opinions; what the friend of Madame 
 Recamier was in letters and diplomacy ; what Sheridan 
 was in the Commons; what Byron and Tasso and Mau 
 rice of Saxe were in the airy world of adventure, half 
 actual and half myth Prentice was to the press. But 
 mention of his name, like mention of the others, does 
 not recall the broils and battles in which he engaged; 
 nor does it suggest those hard and dry realities, which, 
 in common with his fellow-men, he had to encounter 
 and endure. Much the reverse. It tells us of the 
 princely and the splendid, the pleasant and the fanciful ; 
 and because of this many persons have erroneously con 
 ceived his work to have been as the play of others, 
 idealizing him as one whose genius was so scintillating 
 and abundant that its flashes fell from him in spite of 
 himself, like the stars that were cast from the armor of 
 the magic buckler in the legend. Scintillant and 
 abundant he was, but also a rare scholar and a pro 
 digious drudge overflowing with both the energy and 
 the poetry of life admirably poised and balanced by 
 the two forces which we understand as imagination 
 and intellect. Burke s description of Charles Townsend 
 seems a not inept sketch of George D. Prentice. I am 
 
 5
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 using Burke s own language: "There certainly never 
 arose in this country a more pointed or a more finished 
 wit, and, where his passions were not concerned, a more 
 refined, exquisite, and penetrating judgment." Dur 
 ing a third of a century he was, as Hazlitt said of Cob- 
 bett, a sort of fourth estate in the politics of America. 
 Whatever cause he espoused he defended by a style of 
 argument that was never trite nor feeble, nor muddy 
 nor complex, but was luminous and strong, enriched 
 by all that was necessary to establish it and decorate it, 
 and suited exactly to the temper of the times and the 
 comprehension of the people, which he rarely failed to 
 hit between the acorn and the hull. In considering 
 his career, however, I shall ask leave to speak of him 
 rather as I knew him in his own person than as he was 
 known to the public through the transactions in which 
 he bore a part. I take it for granted that you are not 
 at all curious to learn what opinion I or any man 
 may entertain of this or that political event; and, at 
 the very best, opinions will differ on these points, leav 
 ing us in the end nothing assured or distinct. If we 
 would understand history, we must study the men who 
 made it; and, in order to get a clear notion of their 
 characters and motives, we need take rather the spirit 
 than the record of their lives. I shall detain you, there 
 fore, neither by a moral upon the political experience of 
 Kentucky, nor a narrative of the ups and downs of a 
 bygone political generation. I wish to give you instead 
 
 6
 
 George Dennison Prentice 
 
 a homely, and, as far as I may be able, a graphic picture 
 of George D. Prentice as he was known to his familiars ; 
 for I suppose I need not tell you that he was a man of 
 many marked traits and peculiarities of manner, of 
 voice, of appearance, and even of gait, as well as of 
 genius. 
 
 The newspapers have already acquainted you with 
 the leading points in his career. That he was born, as 
 I have stated, in 1802; that he was taught by his 
 mother to read the Bible with ease when a little over 
 three years of age ; that he studied under Horace Mann 
 and Tristam Burges at Brown University, where he 
 became a famous Latin and English scholar, reciting 
 the whole of the twelfth book of the /Eneid from 
 memory for a single lesson, and committing, in like 
 manner, such books as Kames s "Elements of Criti 
 cism" and Dugald Stuart s "Philosophy"; that he be 
 gan as an editor in Hartford, coming thence to Ken 
 tucky to write a life of Henry Clay, and remain 
 ing here to establish the Louisville Journal, in 1830; 
 and that he made it the most celebrated and popu 
 lar newspaper in America, and himself the most con 
 spicuous journalist of his time, are matters of fact 
 which need not be elaborated. They belong to biog 
 raphy. Of his marriage, after his wife had been 
 taken from him, he was himself not averse to speak 
 ing, and dwelt upon her memory with a self-ac 
 cusing sorrow, which was sincere and touching. I 
 
 7
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 had never the happiness of knowing her, but from the 
 representation of those who had reason to remember 
 her hospitality or to bless her bounty, there can be no 
 doubt that she was a most charming woman. He 
 loved to refer to her as a girl, and it is curious that she 
 is the only woman I ever heard him speak of with 
 genuine warmth and tenderness, although there were 
 many good and gentle women who had been his life 
 long friends. "I have not had credit," he said, on one 
 occasion, "for being a devoted husband; but, if I had 
 my life to go over, that is the only relation I would not 
 alter; she was the wisest, the purest, the best, and the 
 most thoroughly enchanting woman I ever knew." 
 Most persons will call to mind the verses which he ad 
 dressed to her. Verses are not always truth-tellers, 
 but in this instance they expressed the impulses of a 
 nature which, readily impressed by all things agreeable, 
 could not be drawn out to the full by one of less grace 
 of mind and heart. His affection for his children was 
 likewise intense, and the loss of his elder son he never 
 recovered from. I know of nothing more affecting than 
 his fondness for a little, fair-haired, bright-eyed boy, a 
 grandson, who bears his name, and who used often to 
 come and visit him and spend whole afternoons in his 
 room ; for you will understand that he lived in the office 
 slept and ate and worked there seldom quitting it. 
 Strangers supposed that he was decrepit, and there 
 existed an impression that he had resigned his old place 
 
 8
 
 George Dennison Prentice 
 
 to a younger and more active spirit. He resigned noth 
 ing. I doubt whether he ever did more work, or bet 
 ter work, during any single year of his life than dur 
 ing this last year. He said, on January I, 1869, 
 "I will make the last years of my life the best years of 
 my life, and I shall work like a tiger ;" and he did work 
 like a machine which seemed to have no stop in it. In 
 a note to Mr. Haldeman, two or three months ago, he 
 wrote: "I work twenty-four hours a day, and the rea 
 son I do not work any more is because the days are no 
 longer." I have had some personal knowledge of the 
 working capacity of the two newspaper writers in this 
 country who have been reputed the readiest and most 
 profuse ; but I never knew anyone who could write as 
 much as Prentice in a given time, or sustain the quan 
 tity and quality of his writing for so long a time. Mr. 
 Raymond used to run abroad when fagged out, and 
 Mr. Forney takes frequent recreative intervals. Pren 
 tice was unresting. He actually averaged from fifteen 
 to eighteen hours a day, and kept this up month after 
 month, turning out column upon column of all sorts of 
 matter, "from grave to gay, from lively to severe." 
 The only testiness he ever exhibited was when his work 
 was interrupted ; and yet, withal, he had leisure for 
 abundant intercourse with his yoke-mates, and would 
 every now and then appear like a sudden apparition, to 
 one or another, with something curious or comical to 
 say. But he never laughed at his own conceits. He 
 
 9
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 would sit at a table dictating the drollest things in a 
 slow, precise, subdued tone of voice, unmoved and grave 
 of aspect, while subdued laughter went round the room. 
 I heard him once say to an amanuensis whom he had 
 newly engaged, "Now, all I ask of you is write down 
 what I tell you, but above all don t you watch my 
 mouth like a cat watching a rat-hole." He was a care 
 ful as well as a voluminous writer; set great store by 
 accuracy of expression and exactness in marks of punc 
 tuation, and was an erudite grammarian, versed in all 
 the schools, though wedded to his own. He invariably 
 revised the manuscript of his amanuensis, and read his 
 own proof-sheets. And yet, except to have his matter 
 appear correctly, he was indifferent to it. He used to 
 say, "Use no ceremony with my copy. A man who 
 writes as much as I do cannot expect to hit the nail 
 always on the head." But he did hit it nearer and 
 oftener than anybody else. He was much attached to 
 Mr. Shipman, and had perfect confidence in the taste 
 and judgment of that able writer and scholar. Some 
 times he would scribble a paragraph, not over nice, but 
 always funny, intended to be struck out by Shipman. 
 Not infrequently the wit got the better of Shipman s 
 scruples, and the paragraph went in, which seemed to 
 amuse Prentice vastly. He was by no means sensitive 
 to what we call the "proprieties," and regarded many 
 of the conventional notions of society as affected and 
 absurd, and entitled to scant respect. He once told me 
 
 10
 
 George Dennison Prentice 
 
 a story of his having horrified the steady old Whigs of 
 Louisville soon after he began to edit the Journal, and 
 in the midst of the Clay and Jackson war, by riding to 
 the race-course in an open carriage with Mrs. General 
 Eaton, who happened to be passing through the city 
 just after the notable scandal at Washington. At that 
 time he was full and erect, rosy-cheeked and brown- 
 haired, with an eye which at sixty-seven was still mar 
 vellous for its beauty and brightness, beaming with a 
 clear, warm, and steady light. 
 
 Prentice was twenty-seven years old when he came to 
 Kentucky. He was obscure and poor. The people 
 were crude and rough. The times were boisterous. 
 Parties were dividing upon measures of government 
 which could not, in their nature, fail to arouse and em 
 bitter popular feeling, and to the violence of conflicting 
 interests was added the enthusiasm which the rival 
 claims of two great party chieftains everywhere excited. 
 In those days there was no such thing as journalism as 
 we now understand it and pursue it. The newspaper 
 was but a poor affair, owned by a clique or a politician. 
 The editor of a newspaper was nothing if not personal. 
 Moreover, the editors who had appeared above the 
 surface had been men of second-rate abilities, and had 
 served rather as squires to their liege lords, the politi 
 cians. This latter at least Prentice reformed at once 
 and altogether. He established the Louisville Journal; 
 he threw himself into the spirit of the times as the pro- 
 II
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 fessed friend of Mr. Clay and the champion of his prin 
 ciples; but he invented a warfare hitherto unknown, 
 and illustrated it by a personal identity which very soon 
 elevated him into the rank of a party leader as well as a 
 partisan editor. I fancy that the story of giants, which 
 has come down to us through the nursery, illustrates the 
 suggestion that in the early days of the world there was 
 room for the play of a gigantic individuality, which 
 population and civilization exclude from modern life. 
 Originally men went out singly in quest of adventure, 
 and a hero was, in faith, a giant; then they moved in 
 couples, next in clusters. We now travel in circles. 
 Combinations are essential. One man is nothing by 
 himself. Our very political system is an organism of 
 "rings"; and the journal of to-day no longer represents 
 the personal caprices and peculiarities of its editor, but 
 stands as the type of a class of public opinion quite apart 
 from the reach of individual influence. Personal jour 
 nalism is a lost art. Journalism is now a distinct pro 
 fession to which the individual editor holds the relation 
 which the individual lawyer holds to the courts ; and as 
 oratory is becoming less and less essential to the practice 
 of law, so mere literary skill is becoming less and less 
 essential to the practice of journalism. Mr. Prentice, 
 the most distinguished example of the personal journal 
 ism of the past, leaves but one other behind him, and 
 when Greeley goes there will be no one left, and we 
 shall hardly see another. As Shakespeare said of the 
 
 12
 
 George Dennison Prentice 
 
 players, "they die and leave no copy." Prentice, like 
 Greeley, knew nothing and cared less for the machinery 
 of the modern newspaper; its multitude of writers, re 
 porters, and correspondents to be handled under fixed 
 laws known to a common usage; its tangled web of 
 telegraphy; its special departments and systematic 
 mechanism. For details of this sort he had no concern. 
 They belonged to a journalism very different from that 
 in which he had made his fame. But he adapted himself 
 to their needful exactions with cheerfulness; and he 
 wrote as readily and vigorously in an impersonal char 
 acter as he had done, when he was not only writing 
 solely in his own person, but when there was no know 
 ing at what moment he might not be called upon to 
 back his bon mot by a bullet. 
 
 From 1830 to 1861 the influence of Prentice was 
 greater than the influence of any political writer of the 
 time ; and it was an influence directly positive and per 
 sonal. It owed its origin to the union in his person of 
 gifts which no one had combined before him. He had, 
 to build upon, an intellect naturally strong and practi 
 cal, and this was trained by rigid scholarship. He pos 
 sessed a keen wit and a poetic temperament. He was 
 brave and aggressive ; and, though by no means quarrel 
 some, he was as ready to fight as to write, and his lot 
 was cast in a region where he had to do a good deal of 
 both. Thus, the business of an editor requiring him 
 to do the writing and fighting for his party, he did not 
 
 13
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 A 
 
 lack opportunities for manly display; and be sure he 
 made every occasion tell for its full value. It is now 
 generally admitted that he never came off worsted in 
 any encounter, physical or intellectual. In his combats 
 he displayed parts which were both signal and showy; 
 overwhelming invective, varied by a careless, off-hand 
 satire, which hit home ; or strong and logical, or plausi 
 ble and pleasing argument, that brought out the salient 
 points of his subject and obscured the weak ones; or nip 
 ping, paragraphic frost that sparkled and blighted; or 
 quiet daring that was over-reckless of consequences. 
 Who can wonder that he became the idol of his party ? 
 Who can wonder that he was the darling of the mob? 
 But with these great popular gifts, he was a gentleman 
 of graceful and easy manners, genial among men, gal 
 lant among women, a sweet poet, a cultivated, chival 
 rous man of the world. I am not making a fancy sketch, 
 although it looks like one ; because where will you go to 
 find the like? It is easy enough to describe second or 
 third-rate abilities. They belong to a class, and may 
 be arrayed under a standard. But it is impossible to 
 compare Prentice with any man. He was as great a 
 partisan as Cobbett; but Cobbett was only a partisan. 
 He was as able and as consistent a political leader as 
 Greeley; but Greeley never had Prentice s wit or ac 
 complishments. I found in London that his fame is 
 exceeded by that of no American newspaper writer; 
 
 4
 
 George Dennison Prentice 
 
 but the journalists of Paris, where there is still nothing 
 but personal journalism, considered him a few years 
 ago as the solitary journalist of genius among us. His 
 sarcasms have often gone into Charivari, and several of 
 his poems have been translated. The French adore 
 I esprit. They admire that which is abusive and brave. 
 How could they fail to put a great estimate upon Pren 
 tice, who might have ranked with Sainte-Beuve as a 
 critic, and certainly surpassed Rochefort as a master of 
 invective. 
 
 For five and thirty years his life marked an uninter 
 rupted success. He cared not at all for money, but 
 what he needed he had, and there was no end to the 
 evidence of his fame and power which constantly 
 reached him. His imagination, nevertheless, took a 
 melancholy turn, and threw out, in the midst of wild 
 and witty partisan bursts, flashes of a somewhat morbid 
 kind. It is not strange that, as he aged, he withdrew 
 himself from very close and active human intercourse. 
 His ambition, fitful at most, deserted him. His domes 
 ticity, to which he was attached, was gone. Society 
 bored him. All his faculties remained clear and full; 
 but the motive for effort was wanting, and he worked 
 because it was his nature to work. He would have 
 died else. He once quoted a verse of a fine poem of 
 Mangan s, which reflected his mood and seemed to rep 
 resent his condition : 
 
 IS
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 "Homeless, wifeless, flagonless, alone; 
 
 Not quite bookless though, unless I choose, 
 With nothing left to do except to groan, 
 
 Not a soul to woo except the muse. 
 Oh, this is hard for me to bear, 
 
 Me, that whilom lived so much en haut, 
 Me, that broke all hearts, like chinaware, 
 
 Twenty golden years ago." 
 
 He let his hair and beard grow long, and was careless 
 in his dress. People thought him thoroughly broken 
 down as they saw him on the street heedless, as he 
 always had been, of passers-by, or in his room wearing 
 his brown and tattered robe. They should have seen 
 him enlivened by a glow of work or feeling, and in his 
 shirt-sleeves, as lithe of limb and jaunty of carriage as 
 a boy; no man of his age was ever more active. He 
 once assured me that he had never had a headache in 
 his life. It was not the infirmity of age which carried 
 him off, but a disorder which a younger man might have 
 resisted as feebly as he did. 
 
 Prentice appeared as an author twice only. His 
 biography of Henry Clay is a clever piece of political 
 special pleading. The narrative, however, is meagre 
 and rather turgid. It was not the story, but the argu 
 ment, which he had at heart ; for the book was written 
 to serve a campaign purpose. His little volume of 
 witticisms from the Louisville Journal is more repre 
 sentative. In his preface he expressed a doubt whether 
 
 16
 
 George Dennison Prentice 
 
 such a republication would bear the test of time. "I 
 know," he said, "that such things do not keep well." 
 But they have kept pretty well so far. I can recall no 
 book of wit and humor, not even the collections of 
 Hook and Jerrold, in which the salt is fresher or more 
 savory ; and the student of that brevity which is the soul 
 of wit can hardly find a better model of all that is neat, 
 racy, and concise. Of these paragraphs most are good, 
 but the best are those which were cracked over the head 
 of poor Shadrach Penn. Prentice in his last days spoke 
 of Penn as an able and sincere man, but wanting sadly 
 in nerve and humor. "In six months," said Prentice, 
 "I pelted him out of his senses and into a libel suit." It 
 must have been terrible, indeed, upon Penn, and did 
 finally drive him away from Louisville to St. Louis, 
 where he died. Penn could say nothing could not 
 write a sentence that Prentice did not seize upon it 
 and turn it to his own account. Penn unguardedly 
 speaks of "lying these cold mornings curled up in bed." 
 Prentice retorts that "this proves what we ve always 
 said, that ymi lie like a dog. " Penn comes back 
 angrily with something about Prentice s setting up a 
 "lie factory," to which Prentice rejoins, "if we ever do 
 set up a lie factory, we will certainly swing you out for 
 a sign." Penn says he has "found a rat-hole." Pren 
 tice says, "that will save you your next year s rent." 
 Penn says he has met one of Prentice s statements 
 squarely. "Yes," said Prentice, "by lying roundly." 
 
 17
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 Then Penn, wearied out, says he will have no 
 more to do with Prentice. "Well," says Prentice, 
 tauntingly, "if he is resolved to play dummy we will 
 torture him no longer. We never could be cruel to 
 dumb animals." Finally, when Penn was driven from 
 the field, Prentice wrote: "The Advertiser of yesterday 
 contained a long valedictory from Shadrach Penn, its 
 late Editor. Shadrach, after a residence of twenty- 
 three years in this city, goes to spend the rest of his life 
 and lay his bones in St. Louis. Well, he has our best 
 wishes for his prosperity. All the ill-will we ever had 
 for him passed out long ago through our thumb and 
 forefinger. His lot, hitherto, has been a most ungentle 
 one, but we trust his life will prove akin to the plant 
 that begins to blossom at the advanced age of half a 
 century. May all be well with him here and hereafter ! 
 We should, indeed, be sorry if a poor fellow whom we 
 have been torturing eleven years in this world should 
 be passed over to the devil in the next." Rough joking 
 this, but characteristic of the times. The Journal was 
 crowded with it, along with a deal that was neither 
 rough nor humorous. That, for example, was a neat 
 reply to Dickens s complaint that at Louisville he was 
 not able to find water enough to clean himself. "And 
 the great Ohio River," said Prentice, "right at hand." 
 And to the young lady who threatened to stamp on his 
 paper: "She had better not; it has little eyes in it" 
 
 18
 
 George Dennison Prentice 
 
 The sewing-girls of New York devoted one day to sew 
 ing for the benefit of the Polish exiles. Prentice said 
 this was a beautiful instance "of the needle turning to 
 the pole," and Punch afterward appropriated the con 
 ceit. 
 
 On his poems Prentice himself put no great account. 
 They were thrown off idly. He wrote verses, he said, 
 as a discipline, or for recreation. He did not stand 
 "Up to the chin in the Rubicon flood." The best 
 thing he did is perhaps the "Closing Year," which has 
 many good lines and bold images, and will always be 
 a favorite recitative. The "Lines on my Mother s 
 Grave" and the "Lines to my Son" are also pathetic. 
 I once heard Albert Pike recite the "Lines on my 
 Mother s Grave," to a stag party in Washington, so 
 touchingly that there was not a dry eye in the room. 
 But, after all, the fame of Prentice must stand not upon 
 any single piece of work which he did, but upon the 
 purpose and influence of his whole life; its realization 
 of every public demand ; its adaptation to every party 
 need ; its current readiness and force ; its thorough con 
 sistency from first to last. He did more for others and 
 asked less for himself than any public man of his day. 
 He put hundreds of men into office, but he was never a 
 candidate for office himself. He relied exclusively upon 
 his newspaper, and by this agency alone rose to fame. 
 Many young writers imagine that polish is a fine thing; 
 
 19
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 and so it is. But polish without character is mere 
 veneering. That which is really good in literature and 
 journalism is that which is representative, the product of 
 the spirit of the country or the time. Prentice was a 
 perfect interpreter of his own times ; and when that is 
 said we say of him what can only be said with truth of 
 two or three of his contemporaries. His personality 
 was diffusive as well as ardent. He had a temper vehe 
 ment and daring; but he held it under good control. 
 Now that he is gone there is no one to succeed him; 
 and I doubt whether, if it were possible, it would be 
 safe to trust to another the power which, as far as he 
 himself was concerned, he used so unselfishly and so 
 sparingly. There was a time when the splendor of his 
 fame was very captivating to me, as I dare say it was 
 to thousands of other ambitious youths, particularly of 
 the West and South. But you will believe me sincere 
 when I tell you, paraphrasing the words of Tyndall 
 upon Faraday, how lightly I hold the honor of being 
 Prentice s successor compared with the honor of having 
 been Prentice s friend. His friendship was energy and 
 inspiration. His "mantle" is a burden I shall never 
 pretend to carry. 
 
 He lived out nearly the allotted span, having well- 
 nigh reached the Psalmist s threescore years and ten. 
 The joy of life was gone. He grew old of heart. Few 
 of the dear ones remained to him, and those that did 
 remain hardly belonged to his generation. 
 20
 
 George Dennison Prentice 
 
 "The mossy marbles rest 
 On the lips that he has prest 
 
 In their bloom; 
 And the names he loved to hear 
 Have been carved for many a year 
 
 On the tomb." 
 
 He was exasperated by the Beecher-Stowe Byron 
 scandal, and wrote all the editorials that appeared in 
 the Courier- Journal on that subject. Most of them he 
 read to me, as was his habit when anything seriously in 
 terested him ; and I shall never forget how, reading one 
 of them, he broke down once, twice, and finally alto 
 gether; his voice hoarse; his utterance tremulous; the 
 tears raining down his cheek, when he arose silently 
 and glided out of the room. It was not decrepitude. 
 It was feeling; true feeling, too, for, excepting a few 
 trifling exaggerations which marked his style of writ 
 ing when he was deeply moved, the article was vigor 
 ous and compact. 
 
 Born in winter, he died in winter. He came in a 
 gale which blew across the Eastern sea, and his life was 
 borne out on the ebb of a mighty flood in the West. 
 It was stormy, as we know, from the beginning to the 
 end. I have described the place where he died as 
 lonely. It was the home of his son, a farm-house just 
 upon the water s edge. Mr. Prentice quitted the office 
 on Christmas eve to go to the country to spend the holi 
 days. He was unusually well and cheerful. A few 
 
 21
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 days before he had prepared at my request and confided 
 to my keeping a lengthy manuscript which he had writ 
 ten with his own hand. It is an autobiographic memo 
 randum of the leading dates and events of his life, and, 
 though the writing must have been painful, it is neat 
 and clear. He said gloomily on one occasion, "I hope 
 you won t let me snuff out like a tallow candle," but he 
 had no thought of "snuffing out" when he bought the 
 Christmas presents for the little grandson. The rest 
 came quickly, however, and may be told in a line. A 
 cold ride of ten miles, an influenza, pneumonia, weeks 
 of prostration. The deluge came during his illness. 
 The river swelled out of its banks. The waters gath 
 ered around about, reaching the very door-sill. He lay 
 in an upper chamber and could hear them moaning like 
 echoes of his own regrets. He will hear them never 
 more. He is beyond the fever and the worry and the 
 fret and the tumult of this world. He is dead. 
 
 He sleeps now in beautiful Cave Hill Cemetery, the 
 Louisville place of burial, whither on the Monday after 
 he died his remains were conducted with all the honor 
 ing circumstance and ceremony which the living can 
 pay to the dead; and he lies by the side of the little 
 family group that went before him. Happy reunion! 
 How peaceful, tranquil, satisfying! How gently it 
 seems to round and smooth the turmoil of a life, which, 
 brilliant as it was, had its bitter sorrows and cares. I 
 have given in another place a poem of Koerner which 
 22
 
 George Dennison Prentice 
 
 he was fond of, and recited sometimes. But I may 
 repeat it here. It is somewhat autobiographical, and 
 runs in this wise: 
 
 "What though no maiden tears ever be shed 
 
 O er my clay bed ; 
 Still will the generous night never refuse 
 
 To weep her dews; 
 And though no friendly hand garland the cross 
 
 Above my moss, 
 Yet will the dear, dear moon tenderly shine 
 
 Down on that sign ; 
 And, though the passer-by songlessly pass 
 
 Through the long grass; 
 There will the noontide bee pleasantly hum 
 
 And warm winds come ; 
 Yes, you at least, ye dells, meadows and streams, 
 
 Stars and moon-beams, 
 Will think on him whose weak, meritless lays 
 
 Teemed with your praise!" 
 
 The music sounds like his own. He was himself a 
 poet of the fields, the skies, the flowers, "the dells, 
 meadows and streams, stars and moon-beams." 
 
 Perhaps no man was ever followed to the grave by a 
 more touching demonstration of public interest. Few 
 men ever lived who inspired so much personal sympathy. 
 There was in his faults something that took hold of the 
 popular fancy ; and he united in himself three elements 
 at least that never fail to exert a powerful influence 
 among the people. He was brilliant, brave, and gen 
 erous. He was an intellectual match for any man. He 
 23
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 was physically and mentally afraid of no man. He 
 gave bountifully to all comers. There was buried 
 within him a superb nature, and his death for a moment 
 lights up the vestibule in which he is placed by the side 
 of three famous friends of his, making a group which 
 will always be the pride and glory of this country. 
 
 Clay, Crittenden, Marshall, and Prentice. They 
 were contemporaries in stirring times ; and it is much to 
 say of Prentice that he borrowed no light from them, 
 but that he let the glow and sparkle of his genius fall 
 upon their lives, and that they were brighter for it. 
 They are contemporaries once more in the radiance of 
 the everlasting. The statesman whose genius for com 
 promise so long deferred the day of wrath ; the senator, 
 who gave the last effort of a noble life to avert the long- 
 impending strife of sections; the orator, who might 
 have vied with either, and was his own worst enemy; 
 the journalist, who helped launch a party against the 
 winds and currents, and was its steadiest and truest 
 pilot as long as a single battered fragment tossed upon 
 the waters all are gone now, and stand, side by side, 
 peers in the Court of last resort. Prentice rests in a 
 quiet spot, where the violets which he loved to sing, 
 and the meadow-grass, that grew greener in his song, 
 shall presently come and grow above him; where the 
 stars which he made into a thousand images shall shine 
 by night; where the quiet skies that gave the kindliest 
 joy to his old age shall bend over his grave. He is 
 24
 
 George Dennison Prentice 
 
 dead to a world of love and pity and homage. But so 
 long as there is a gravestone upon that hillside, so long 
 as there is a newspaper printed in the beautiful Anglo- 
 Saxon tongue, which he understood so well, and wrote 
 so well, the descendants of this generation, alike from 
 near and far, will seek out curiously and piously the 
 place where they laid him. The man is dead. But 
 Prentice is not dead.
 
 II 
 
 LECTURES 
 
 27
 
 THE COMPROMISES OF LIFE* 
 
 It is given out by those who have investigated the 
 subject, and who think they have got at the facts, that 
 the earth which we inhabit is round. I shall take this 
 for granted, therefore, and observe that its movement 
 is rotary. Hogarth s line of beauty and grace repre 
 sents a simple, serpentine curve. The rainbow of 
 hope and promise is semicircular. The broad surface 
 of the ocean, stretching away as far as eye can see in 
 calm or storm a dream of peace or a nightmare of 
 horrors is one vast oval of wave and sky. And life, 
 which we are told is rounded by a sleep, must conform 
 to nature s laws, or beat itself against the walls within 
 whose rugged circumference nature dwells, for, as nat 
 ure abhors a vacuum, so she detests an angle, particu 
 larly in ideas, engineering, and women. 
 
 It is well to walk in a straight line, but the man who 
 piques himself upon doing this, looking neither back 
 ward nor forward, nor to the right nor the left, is 
 likely after a while to strike something, and, unless his 
 heart is of stone, or iron, be sure it will not be the 
 obstruction that yields the right of way. 
 
 29
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 Thackeray once wrote a queer little essay entitled "A 
 Plea for Shams." It was merely a protest against 
 brute literalism and an appeal for what certain cynics 
 used to call French courtesy. 
 
 "Tell only the truth," exclaims the adage, "but do 
 not always tell the truth," which means that we are 
 not obliged to tell all we know merely because we 
 know it and it is true. "Who gives this \voman away?" 
 says the clergyman in the half-empty, dim-lighted 
 church. "I could," whispers a voice away down the 
 darkling aisle. "I could, but I won t," a very sensible 
 conclusion, as we must all allow. 
 
 I am to talk to you this evening about the Com 
 promises of Life. That means that I am to talk to you 
 about a great many things connected with the journey 
 twixt Dan and Beersheba; for, as I have said, the 
 world we live in is a compromise with warring elements 
 and the Government we support is a compromise with 
 conflicting interests, while life, itself, is but a com 
 promise with death. If each man and each woman on 
 our planet took the law into their hands, and stood for 
 their individual, inalienable, abstract rights, resolved 
 to have their will, or die, the result might vindicate 
 the everlasting verities, but it would ultimately leave 
 mankind and womankind in the position of the two 
 feline controversialists who are supposed to have argued 
 out their differences to a logical conclusion in the good 
 County Kilkenny, some centuries ago. Happily, it is 
 
 30
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 otherwise. Reasonable people take their cue from nat 
 ure, whose law is live and let live, and, as a conse 
 quence, we have love and marriage, trade and barter, 
 politics and parties, banks and babies, railroads and 
 funerals, courts of equity and churches and jails, all 
 regulated by a system of time-tables arranged some 
 where beyond the stars and moving toward that shore 
 less ocean which we call eternity, and which will pres 
 ently engulf us every one. 
 
 You will, I dare say, think me both paradoxical and 
 heterodoxical when I declare to you that Truth is 
 sometimes a great liar, that is to say that that may be 
 true to the letter which is false to the spirit, and, vice 
 versa; Truth, made by malice and cunning to serve the 
 purpose of the basest wrong. On the other hand, 
 there are certain lies, which we call white lies, because 
 they are meant to do no ill, or mischief, but the 
 rather are intended to spare sensibilities and to save 
 trouble. Often they do neither; not infrequently they 
 aggravate both. There is no one among us, I am sure, 
 who has not had occasion to lament the miscarriage of 
 some honest, amiable fiction, contrived as we thought 
 most ingeniously to prevent White from knowing just 
 what Black said, or did, and for putting everybody in a 
 good humor. The angel who takes account of these 
 things may sigh over them, though I fancy in the end, 
 as was observed of Uncle Toby, he will blot them off his 
 book with a tear ; because, after all, they are only com- 
 
 31
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 promises between fact and fancy, whose roots, spring 
 ing from love, or pity, have been watered by human 
 kindness. 
 
 A quaint old friend of mine, whose copious draughts 
 from the well of English picturesque were only equalled 
 by his great integrity of character and goodness of 
 heart, met a lady acquaintance at an evening party, 
 and the conversation turned upon real estate, in which 
 the two had considerable interest. 
 
 "Mrs. Grundy," says my friend, "you shorely didn t 
 sell that lot o your n on Preston Street for five hundred 
 dollars?" 
 
 The lady said she certainly had. 
 
 "Why, bless me," says my friend, "you could a got 
 six hundred for it!" 
 
 Next day the lady s agent called on my friend, offer 
 ing an exact duplicate of the lot in question and de 
 manding the advance price, according to the terms of 
 the conversation of the previous evening. 
 
 "Why, bless me," exclaimed my friend, "did I tell 
 her that? Dear, dear! Why, I was only a-enter- 
 tainin of her!" 
 
 This was the gentleman who, being asked on the 
 witness-stand how he made his living, naively replied: 
 "A-going of security and a-paying of the debt." 
 
 In neither of these instances was he strictly accurate ; 
 and yet, I venture to believe that, in that land where 
 he long ago went to make his home forever, he has paid 
 
 32
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 whatever penalty was fixed on the harmless compro 
 mises which his amiability sometimes made with the 
 ruder things of this world. 
 
 In short, life, which is full enough of corners, every 
 corner having it briers and brambles, would be unen 
 durable if people always yielded to the impulse of the 
 moment, and nothing to good sense and good feeling, 
 blurting out the truth just as the humor seized them. 
 
 The truth to-day is not always the truth to-morrow. 
 Each day is a kaleidoscope, changing its forms and fig 
 ures with every hour, from grave to gay, from lively to 
 severe, from morn to noon, from noon to dewy eve, and 
 he is the wisest who makes the most happiness, who 
 inflicts least suffering, and, if now and then he has to 
 throw a few flowers over a waste place here and there 
 to lure some poor soul into the illusion that it is a gar 
 den, who shall speak the word that wakes the spell and 
 spoils the conceit? Not I, indeed, for I firmly believe 
 that 
 
 "Where ignorance is bliss, 
 Tis folly to be wise." 
 
 Since that unlucky misundertanding between Adam 
 and Eve in the Garden of Eden which proved so disas 
 trous to both of them, and some of whose consequences 
 you and I are still discharging through love s clearing 
 house, there has been quite a rivalry between the man 
 and the woman each to get a little the better of the 
 
 33
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 other. You will remember that, most ungallantly, most 
 ungraciously, and, I must add, most imprudently, Adam 
 sought to cast the entire burden of blame in the matter 
 of the apple upon Eve. In point of fact, he turned 
 State s evidence. Well, from that day to this, Eve 
 has been making a play to square the account with 
 Adam, and, as a result, Adam has had much the 
 worst of it. 
 
 On a certain bleak winter night, when, quite numb 
 with cold, he has left his boots in the hall below, and 
 slipped off his outer garments at the bedroom door, he 
 enters cautiously, gropes his way to the bedside, and, 
 satisfying himself the wife is asleep, he begins to rock 
 the cradle, first gently, then with greater energy. At 
 last, when he is nearly frozen, and wholly nonplussed 
 by the profoundness of the slumber of his better half, 
 a sleepy voice, in which he fancies he detects a faint 
 gurgle of irrelevant mirth, exclaims : "Oh, come to bed 
 the baby isn t in that cradle!" On another occa 
 sion, an old friend of mine was going home at one of 
 the "wee short hours ayont the twal ," accompanied by 
 a young journalist, who, of course, had to keep late 
 hours all journalists do so, you know and when 
 they had reached the point where their paths diverged 
 the elder said to the younger: "What in the world shall 
 I say when I get home?" And the younger, some three 
 years married, replied, with ready resource and cheerful 
 ness: "Be assured, my dear Isaac, it is much best to speak 
 
 34
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 the truth. I shall go at once and waken my wife, and 
 frankly tell her the press broke down !" 
 
 It is much best to speak the truth ! Yes, but I think 
 it would be best of all if Adam and Eve came to some 
 understanding about these matters; if they reached 
 some mutual agreement; if they compromised them, so 
 to say. 
 
 "And these few precepts, son-in-law," observed an 
 over-facetious paterfamilias at breakfast the day after 
 the wedding, "when you get off with the boys and play 
 the noble game, quit when you have lost what you can 
 afford, go home and tell Maria, and it will be all right. 
 If you drink a drop too much, realize it, go home to 
 Maria, who will bathe your brow, and it will be all 
 right. But on one point, dear son-in-law, let me ad 
 monish you. Where there is a woman you lie! In 
 order that in some moment of effusion, or inebriety, you 
 may not by chance slip your trolley and tell the truth, 
 accustom yourself to lying!" 
 
 The woman is in perpetual fear of the man s nature ; 
 not his natural wickedness, or depravity; but his re 
 dundant vitality, exposed to the temptations that 
 habitually assail it. And well she may be. Well for 
 him, well for her, well for us all. A world of wild 
 beasts we should become, except for her restraining 
 moral force, her exquisite sense of good and evil, her 
 tenderness and love. We make jokes at her expense. 
 We rally and tease her. 
 
 35
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 " Ah, gentle dames, it ga s me greet, 
 
 To think how mony counsels sweet, 
 How mony lengthened, sage advices, 
 The husband fra the wife despises!" 
 
 And, half amused, yet half afraid and half ashamed, 
 we picture her 
 
 " Gathering her brows like gathering storm, 
 Nursing her wrath to keep it warm." 
 
 But "for a that and a that," we, too, know where to 
 draw the line, and we do draw it every mother s son 
 of us who is worth salt enough to pickle him at love 
 and duty, at the home, the shrine where love and duty 
 meet, to sing on earth the song of the angels in Heaven. 
 
 But let us not grow sentimental. Having drawn 
 the line, let us draw the curtain. Affection compro 
 mises all things. It is where there is no love, out, out 
 upon the storm-laden ocean of life in the world of 
 affairs, where men meet in furious contention, where 
 the play of The Rivals is not a comedy, but a tragedy, 
 where all is strife commercial, political avarice play 
 ing at hide-and-seek with honor, and expediency pour 
 ing lies into the pliant ear of ambition every man for 
 himself, the devil to get the hindmost each tub to 
 stand on its own bottom it is here where the shoe 
 pinches, here that good men, great men, know the true 
 need and meaning of tolerance, the God-like wisdom of 
 the spirit of compromise. 
 
 36
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 Of what value were Jay Gould s millions of what 
 value a single one of his dollars if over and beyond 
 his wants a penny was gained at the cost of the blood 
 and tears of one good man or woman ? Of what value 
 were Napoleon s victories? But, stay! Let me relate 
 a parable, a fable with a moral, which might have 
 happened any time these years of wondrous, romantic 
 achievement upon the modern arena of battle our field 
 of the cloth of gold the Stock Exchange. 
 
 A young man of four or five and twenty, poorly clad, 
 much under the average height, eyes deep-sunken and 
 of piercing blackness, thin, pale lips, wanders vacantly, 
 restlessly, about this Stock Exchange. He roams in 
 and out of its galleries like a caged lion. He gazes 
 wistfully over the balconies into the seething pit below. 
 He sees men pushing, hauling, howling, money-mad. 
 Day in and day out the same ; always the same ; though 
 not for him. But, why not? Why not? He knows no 
 one who could secure him access there. He has not a 
 dollar, even if he could obtain access. And yet he has 
 evolved out of the darkness and desolation that sur 
 round him a secret which, if he had the opportunity and 
 the means of applying it, would yield him mill 
 ions. 
 
 Accident throws this young man into the society of 
 a young woman nearly as poor as himself, but beautiful 
 and bright and noble. He loves her. She loves him. 
 In the confidence of that love he discloses his secret to 
 
 37
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 her. She listens, amazed, delighted. When he has 
 finished his recital she exclaims : 
 
 "Why, with this astonishing knowledge, how comes 
 it you are in rags?" 
 
 "Alas," says he, "I have not a penny in the world. 
 I have not a friend in the world. With a knowledge 
 that has power to revolutionize the fiscal universe, I 
 am as helpless, hopeless as a child !" 
 
 This woman is a woman of genius. She is a woman 
 of action. She seizes the situation with the instinct of 
 her nature. 
 
 "Why," she exclaims, "I have very little money ; but 
 you need very little. Take it. I know the President 
 of the Stock Exchange. I will introduce you to him. 
 He will introduce you upon the floor. You, and this 
 wondrous discovery of yours, will do the rest." 
 
 He falls upon his knees. He clasps her in his arms. 
 He will go and get his millions. He will make her his 
 wife nay, they will be married at once they will not 
 delay a moment, because before to-morrow s day and 
 night are over they will be rich, famous, and will live 
 forever happy, loving one another and doing good all 
 the rest of their days. 
 
 They are married. She is true to her word. He is 
 true to his. He appears in the midst of that mad 
 throng this strange little man with the miraculous 
 secret. No one observes him ; no one divines his secret ; 
 only the President of the Stock Exchange, to whom 
 
 38
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 he has been presented, and who has admitted him to 
 the floor, has a friendly eye upon him. But his lines 
 laid and, his little all upon them, that awful secret 
 begins to work like magic. A thousand dollars is 
 quickly ten thousand, ten thousand a hundred thousand, 
 a hundred thousand a million, a million fifty millions, 
 and, amid the crash of fortunes and the fury of such a 
 tempest as the world never knew before, the President 
 comes down from his seat, and the young, the veritable 
 young Napoleon of finance, is personally made known 
 to the money kings and princes, some of whom he has 
 ruined, others of whom he has crippled, and all of 
 whom he has brought to his feet! 
 
 And the woman who has enabled him to do all this? 
 Oh, she has been in the gallery up there. She has seen 
 it all. First frightened, then appalled, then delirious 
 with joy, she has watched every turn of the wheel and 
 known what turned it and who. The day is hardly 
 half over. But the battle is fought and won. She 
 bids him come come to the arms of a loving wife 
 come to the rest of a happy home come, with riches, 
 honors, all that fortune can give to man, e en to that 
 blessed peace that passeth understanding. Oh, no. He 
 is not going to do anything of the kind. He has only 
 ruined half the Stock Exchange. He is going back 
 to ruin the other half. Ah, well what would you 
 say of that man if, going back to ruin the other half, 
 he lost all he had gained, including his original stake, 
 
 39
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 and found himself at midnight, his mystery exploded 
 and his fair young bride lying dead there before him, 
 dead of grief and despair? What would you say if he 
 found himself alone, abandoned and locked safely and 
 forever in prison walls? 
 
 You know the story of Napoleon. It is related by 
 Metternich that during that famous interview at Dres 
 den, that lasted, without food or interruption, from 
 eight in the morning till eight at night, he, represent 
 ing the Allied Powers, offered Napoleon peace with a 
 larger France than he had found, and the confirmation 
 of his dynasty, and that Napoleon refused it. He 
 wanted all or nothing. He was going to ruin the other 
 half. So he rushed upon Austria, and England, and 
 Russia who were still able to stand against him and 
 Waterloo and before the day was over he found him 
 self a General without an army, an Emperor without 
 a throne, flying for his life, to be caught and locked up 
 like the ill-starred, unthinking, though brilliant, ad 
 venturer that he was. He had lost all, including his 
 original stake 
 
 " He fought, and half the world was his, 
 
 He died without a rood his own ; 
 And borrowed of his enemies 
 Six foot of ground to lie upon." 
 
 Do you not think he had better have compromised 
 with the Powers before it was too late? I do, and, 
 standing, as I have often stood, beneath that lofty dome 
 
 40
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 in the Hospital of the Invalides in Paris, and looking 
 down into that marble crypt upon the wondrous tomb 
 below, and conceiving the glory meant to be there cele 
 brated it has seemed to me a kind of gilded hell, with a 
 sleeping devil, planned by fiends incarnate to lure men, 
 and particularly French men, to perdition. And I 
 never leave that place, with its dreary splendor, that 
 somehow the words of a poor, ragged French poet do 
 not come singing into my heart : 
 
 " Oh, if I were Queen of France, 
 
 Or still better Pope of Rome, 
 I d have no fighting men abroad, 
 
 No weeping maids at home ; 
 All the world should be at peace. 
 
 And if Kings must show their might, 
 Let those who make the quarrels 
 
 Be the only ones to fight." 
 
 I would compromise war. I would compromise 
 glory. I would compromise everything at that point 
 where hate comes in, where misery comes in, where 
 love ceases to be love and life begins its descent in the 
 shadow of the valley of death. 
 
 I would not compromise Truth. I would not com 
 promise the Right. I would not compromise con 
 science and conviction in any matter of pith and mo 
 ment involving real duty. There are times when one 
 must stand and fight, when one must fight and die. 
 But such times are exceptional; they are most excep- 
 
 41
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 tional; one cannot without making himself ridiculous 
 be always wrapping the flag around him and marching 
 down to the foot-lights, to display his extraordinary 
 valor and virtue. And, in the long intervals, how 
 often the best of us are mistaken as to what is Truth, 
 as to what is Right, as to what is Duty. Too often 
 they are what we would have them to be. Too often 
 that which we want to do becomes that which we 
 ought to do. 
 
 It will hardly be denied by those who know me that 
 I have opinions and adhere to them with some steadi 
 ness. On occasions I am afraid that I have expressed 
 them with too great plainness and positivity, and too 
 little regard to the opinions of others. Well, there 
 are moments when the thought comes to my mind that 
 the other fellow, who doesn t agree with me or my 
 opinions, may not be such a bad fellow after all ; maybe 
 both of us are right; maybe neither of us; for, in the 
 end, how rarely things come round just as they were 
 planned; yet still the world goes jogging along, pre 
 cisely as if you and I did not live in it. 
 
 Why should neighbors, who ought to be friends and 
 brothers, quarrel about transactions that can never pen 
 etrate their roof-tree s shade ? Why should differences 
 about public affairs a thousand miles away make pri 
 vate enmities at home? I am sure I never loved any 
 man less because he did not agree with me. I may think 
 him a fool of course and tell him so if he isn t a 
 
 42
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 bigger man than I am, or, better, if he is one of those 
 big-hearted creatures who will only laugh at me but 
 I shall not question either his motive or his sincerity. 
 Those are his prerogatives, as they are mine, and, if I 
 think him a fool, there is no law compelling me to keep 
 his company; only I do keep it all the same, because, 
 somehow, in spite of our occasional tiffs, we just natu 
 rally love one another, and, kneeling by the bedside of 
 a sick child, or standing before the grave of a dead 
 comrade, how mean and paltry seem the discussions we 
 had about bimetallism and monometallism, and high 
 tariff and low tariff, and the line! What is Lilly 
 O Killarney, the Hawaiian maiden from Blarney Cas 
 tle, what is she to me, or I to her, that I should weep 
 for her? What is it to you whether raw sugar be on 
 the dutiable list, or free? To us in Kentucky now 
 who always take sugar in ours but that is a mere 
 quibble of words, and I will not pursue the theme ! 
 
 Thank God we live in a free land. It is every 
 man s business to believe something, or to fancy that he 
 does. It is every man s duty to vote, and he ought to 
 vote according as he thinks, or as he thinks he is think 
 ing. That makes what we call politics. That makes 
 what we call parties. They are the glory of free in 
 stitutions. And then, after we have finished voting as 
 we thought we were thinking, we disperse to our sev 
 eral homes, leaving a huddle of gentlemen, who pass as 
 our representatives, to go to Washington. We call 
 
 43
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 them politicians. They call themselves statesmen. 
 We pay them though not very adequately to run 
 the Government. Well, they go to Washington and 
 they run it the Government and, if they don t suit 
 and they generally don t we turn them out and 
 send others to take their places, and so on ad infinitum. 
 And thus we keep up free America, permeated by free 
 institutions and free ideas, and a free, but sometimes a 
 ribald press. 
 
 Now and then, w r e get a man at Washington who is 
 clever enough to stay there a long, long time; and he 
 becomes a leader; a great leader; a great Republican 
 leader; or a great Democratic leader; he knows his 
 business ; but, in reality, he has lost his identity ; for you 
 just follow any two of these leaders, after they have 
 fought that sham battle on the floor which has so 
 edified their constituents in the gallery you just 
 follow them downstairs or upstairs, and see how snugly 
 they take their cold tea together; they have been there 
 so long that they understand one another; they under 
 stand one another too well, perhaps ; they actually love 
 one another ; they are obliged to ; they know too much ; 
 they could not afford anything else. They, at least, 
 have learned how to compromise everything except their 
 seats in Congress. 
 
 But if it be wise to agree to disagree one with an 
 other about the affairs of this world toward the deter 
 mination of which no one of us has more than his sin- 
 
 44
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 gle vote, why should we grow angry and dispute about 
 the affairs of the world to come, toward the determina 
 tion of which no one of us has any vote at all ? 
 
 I cannot rid myself of the impression that there are 
 many roads leading to Heaven. To be sure, I know 
 nothing about it, actually, and, as a matter of fact, 
 because I have never been there; though I have some 
 times thought I might be, and have always nursed the 
 hope that I was on the way. But what way? Well, 
 I have had some advantages. I was born in the Presby 
 terian Church, baptized in the Catholic Church, edu 
 cated in the Episcopal Church, and married into the 
 Church of the Disciples. I came so near being made 
 a Doctor of Divinity once that it took the interposition 
 of two bishops and a school-master to limit the investi 
 ture to that of Common Law. I do not think myself 
 wanting in seriousness as to religion, or sincerity of 
 allegiance to that sublime faith which has come to us 
 from Calvary. But, for the life of me, I have never 
 had it in my heart to hate any human being because he 
 chose to worship God according to his conscience. 
 
 Perusing the story of the dark ages, when men were 
 burnt at the stake for the heresy of refusing to bow to 
 the will of the majority, it is not the voice of the 
 Protestant or Catholic that issues from the flames and 
 reaches my heart, but the cry of suffering man, my 
 brother! To me a saint is a saint, whether he wears 
 wooden shoes, or goes barefoot; whether he gets his 
 
 45
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 baptism out of a font of holy water blessed by the 
 Church of his adoration, or whether, dripping from 
 head to heels, he comes up from the waters of Jordan 
 shouting the hallelujah of his forefathers! From my 
 very boyhood the persecution of man for opinion s sake 
 no matter for what opinion s sake has aroused 
 within me the only devil I have ever personally known. 
 When I was a child, some six or seven years old, I 
 had an experience which has pursued me through life 
 and whose impressions have colored all my after 
 thoughts. I was spending the winter with my grand 
 parents. My grandfather was a Southern planter. 
 He was the owner of a great plantation. He was mas 
 ter of many slaves. Among these slaves was Isaac, a 
 likely young fellow, who was good to me, and carried 
 me afield in the early mornings and told me stories by 
 the cabin log-heap in the evenings, and became, accord 
 ing to the fashion of those times, my Uncle Isaac. 
 One day my Uncle Isaac was ordered by the Overseer 
 to be whipped for some peccadillo. I did not under 
 stand the meaning of what was going forward, but I 
 watched with serious, childlike interest. The man 
 was brought out and bound, the Overseer standing ex 
 pectant, brandishing that dreadful weapon of his. My 
 Uncle Isaac looked at me. He looked at me in a poor, 
 weak, beseeching way. Then I realized it all. I 
 went straight up to the Overseer and put forth my 
 little plea. The Overseer was a Legree. There 
 
 46
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 stood his victim, and he was not to be deprived of his 
 prey. The lash was raised with one hand while I was 
 held back with the other. Then the devil I spoke of 
 just now, or, was it some Angel? inspired me with 
 superhuman strength. I bit the brute s hands till they 
 bled, I scratched his face as he lifted me in his arms to 
 set me out of reach, I screamed like one distraught. 
 For half a minute I was more than that giant s match. 
 At last they bore me away and locked me up in an 
 upper chamber, where I ran about shrieking and beating 
 upon the doors and windows. I can still see the dark 
 green of the closed shutters. I can still hear that black 
 man s cries. But there were no more whippings while 
 I remained on that plantation. My grandfather was 
 so impressed that he made me a deed of gift to my 
 Uncle Isaac, and, afterward, when I grew toward man 
 hood, I gave him his freedom. He fell upon the field 
 of battle wearing a blue uniform, and that s the only 
 "nigger" I ever owned, thank God! But that early 
 shock set me a lesson in the true relation of human 
 freedom to despotic power, which has abided with me 
 ever since, branching out in every direction where I 
 have thought I saw the strong lording it over the weak, 
 whether by pressure of the mailed hand, or the mere 
 force of numbers. As a consequence, I have spent the 
 greater part of my life in the minority and in opposi 
 tion! 
 
 Near the upper end of the Lake of Geneva, in 
 47
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 Switzerland, there is a famous old castle. Seen from 
 the lake, it is an incongruous white pile of towers and 
 gables and bastions. But it will repay the tourist to 
 go ashore and to cross the drawbridge which admits 
 him to an inner and nearer view. Even in this practi 
 cal and enlightened age, when dungeons no longer 
 yawn to swallow the helpless and racks are no more 
 raised to torment the proscribed, and when they who 
 are freest seem least to be jealous and proud of their 
 freedom, it is impossible for any thoughtful man to 
 come here and to stand w r ithin these walls, and to go 
 away again without having his love of liberty refreshed 
 and his detestation for oppression renewed, for it was 
 here that the patriot Bonnivard passed seventeen 
 years, chained to one of the stone pillars of the Castle 
 keep, suggesting the motive for Byron s immortal poem, 
 "The Prisoner of Chillon." 
 
 In this light, the Castle of Chillon becomes at once 
 a fortress and a shrine, from which there is as little 
 chance of escape for free and loving hearts to-day as 
 during the long, dark night of its blood and terror 
 there was for its victims. 
 
 You are shown the Star Chamber, which they called 
 The Hall of Justice. You pass into the torture-room, 
 and behold its cruel, horrible implements. You de 
 scend the narrow, winding stairway into the Vesti 
 bule of Executions. On the one hand is the stone bed 
 on which the condemned spent their last night upon 
 
 48
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 earth, and, on the other, the dungeon reserved for 
 those who were not given the happiness to die. And 
 there just before you in the wall next to the lake 
 is the casement through which they slid the bodies of 
 the slain. 
 
 You enter the dungeon. It is just as Byron describes 
 it in his poem. The seven columns are there, and the 
 scant clefts in the rocks which admit a little sunlight. 
 Upon three of the columns still hang the iron rings 
 that held the chains that fastened the prisoners. 
 Around the column to which Bonnivard was chained 
 for seventeen years appear the marks worn by his foot 
 steps, and, just above them carved by himself his 
 name in rude letters, and close by it the names of 
 Byron and Victor Hugo. They are all gone now, the 
 hero of the fourteenth century, the singers of the nine 
 teenth ; contemporaries at last before the eternal throne ; 
 but from those letters that repeat their names there 
 rings out from the rocks a voice that seems to irradiate 
 the gloom and to echo round the globe. 
 
 " Chillon! Thy prison is a holy place! 
 
 And thy sad floor an altar for twas trod 
 Until the very steps have left a trace, 
 
 Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod 
 By Bonnivard ! May none these marks efface, 
 
 For they appeal from tyranny to God !" 
 
 I have seen worse places, ranker, darker, fouler places, 
 but never one more hideous in its suggestiveness, be- 
 
 49
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 cause, the story of Bonnivard and the poem of Byron 
 apart, therein is concentrated and typified all that was 
 brutal in feudalism, all that was cruel in bigotry, all 
 that was heroic in resistance. They did not know any 
 thing about the compromises of life in those days. 
 Might alone was right, and the axe, the gibbet, and the 
 stake were the arguments which power relied on to 
 carry forward its campaigns of education and reform. 
 
 I have said that the Government under which we 
 live is a compromise between conflicting interests. It 
 is less so now than it once was, but it must always rest 
 upon the basis of compromise, and, assuredly, except for 
 many compromises in the beginning, it would never 
 have existed at all. 
 
 No one can read the story of the struggle for free 
 dom in America without an awe-struck sense of the 
 presence of God s hand from first to last. 
 
 The long debate between loyalty and liberty was 
 vexed by painful doubts of what was right and what 
 was wrong, and the resort to arms was full of practical 
 difficulties. The Colonies were not all alike, nor were 
 they of one mind. They were but sparse communities, 
 lying wide apart. They were scattered along the At 
 lantic seaboard. There were no railways, or telegraph ; 
 and the voice of old Samuel Adams in Massachusetts 
 could not reach the ears of young Thomas Jefferson 
 in Virginia even through the medium of that spiritual 
 telephone, which, they knew not how, or why, made 
 50
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 their hearts to beat together. But the unseen hand of 
 God was there to point the way; He assembled the 
 Continental Congress ; wrote the sublime Declaration ; 
 summoned armies into the field and placed Washington 
 at their head; and, against incredible odds, internal 
 and external, he won a battle that was to emancipate 
 millions. 
 
 The trial did not end here. 
 
 When the Revolutionary War was over a nation had 
 still to be formed ; and here again the hand of God in 
 the work of forging a government amid a chaos and of 
 framing a Constitution out of the insubstantial fabrics 
 of the patriot s dream of liberty. They came, these 
 nation-makers, with the blessing of God upon them, and 
 what they could not agree upon they compromised. If 
 they had not, who shall tell the altered course of his 
 tory? I tremble to think what the world might be 
 to-day, except for the spirit of patriotic and reasonable 
 concession which brought Madison and Jay and Ham 
 ilton together in the advocacy of a plan of government 
 entirely acceptable to no one of them. They compro 
 mised some things which gave infinite trouble to their 
 descendants. They left open to double construction 
 some things which afterward led the way to a great 
 war of sections, imperilling the good they had done 
 their country in the making of the Constitution as well 
 as the good that had been done to man in the Declara 
 tion of Independence and the War of the Revolution. 
 
 51
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 What then ? Why, they dug the foundations of human 
 freedom broad and deep; they laid the foundations of 
 popular government high and strong; and the proof is 
 that here it is this blessed moment, a monument of the 
 wisdom of those compromises which are made in faith 
 and love, for God s sake and for man s sake. 
 
 I have lived through an epoch of sore travail. I was 
 born in the national capital and grew to manhood there. 
 I was brought into close, personal contact with the men 
 who made disunion possible. I saw the struggle to 
 save the Union ; and the struggle to destroy it. I saw 
 the good men of the North and the good men of the 
 South bravely, nobly join heart and hand to maintain 
 the compromises on which the Union rested. I saw 
 those compromises one by one sink beneath the waves 
 of sectional bitterness, artfully stimulated, and partisan 
 interest, craftily pointed. I knew the secret springs of 
 personal ambition which were playing upon the popular 
 credulity, and lashing it into a frenzy. As one of the 
 day s reporters for the Associated Press, I stood by the 
 side of Lincoln when he delivered his first inaugural 
 address, and as I looked out over that vast throng of 
 assembled Americans, wrought to fury by the passions 
 of the time, I knew that it meant war; and I thought 
 the heart within me, boy s that it was, would break, 
 for I loved my country, its glorious traditions, its 
 glorious Union, its incalculable uses to liberty and 
 humanity. 
 
 52
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 There was no sunshine in the heavens. There was 
 no verdure on the hills. All seemed lost. Hate and 
 strife ruled the hour; and, one side as resolute as the 
 other, the dove took her flight from earth, leaving the 
 raven in her nest. 
 
 But all was not lost. God was with us even then, 
 though we did not see Him, and He builded wiser than 
 we knew, because are we not here this night, proud and 
 happy, our Republic stronger than ever it was, all the 
 old contentions settled, the monster of slavery gone for 
 ever, the monster of secession gone forever, our Gov 
 ernment the marvel of the ages, rescued from every 
 assault which has menaced and shattered feudal mon 
 archies and dynasties ; the flag flying at last as Webster 
 would have had it fly, bearing upon its ample folds, as 
 it floats over the land and the sea, those words, dear to 
 every American heart, union and liberty, now and for 
 ever, one and inseparable! All was not lost, though 
 perilously near it. 
 
 As I go back from the age of achievement in which 
 we live, to the age of experiment from which we 
 emerged tracing the early footsteps of the pathfinders 
 noting how some faltered and some fell by the way 
 how some doubted and passed to the rear how, even 
 Gouverneur Morris, the beau sabreur of liberty, and 
 Timothy Pickering, its shield-and-buckler, and Josiah 
 Quincy, its very torch, goaded by a mistaken sense of 
 wrong, as later on the leaders of the South were lured 
 
 53
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 by an economic fallacy, into the quagmire of secession 
 one colossal figure rises before me. From 1820, when 
 over the admission of Missouri to Statehood the slavery 
 question began its checkered career of strife and blood, 
 to 1850, when the sections seemed to have arrived at a 
 definite understanding, the great heart and firm hand 
 of Henry Clay, supported by his irresistible personality, 
 held the scales so true in the balance that neither ex 
 tremist could get in his work of disintegration. Even 
 Calhoun was forced to alight from his high horse and 
 to yield, under the guise of a compromise, the case 
 of South Carolina. Even Jackson, Clay s relentless 
 enemy, was obliged to sign Clay s compromise Tariff 
 Act as part of the price of his own Force Bill. 
 
 1 am a Free Trader in the sense that I believe 
 the Government has no right either constitutional or 
 equitable to levy and collect a dollar of taxation except 
 for its own support, while Mr. Clay was a Protection 
 ist and the father of a protective system which I think, 
 and have always thought, fallacious as an economic 
 policy, both oppressive and unjust as a method of rais 
 ing revenue; but, when I recall the crises of 1820, of 
 1 832-33, and of 1850, theories of taxation sink into in 
 significance before the transcendent issue of the national 
 integrity, until, losing sight of the Protectionist, I stand 
 reverent in the presence of the Unionist. 
 
 I once heard Mr. Fillmore relate that on a certain 
 occasion Mr. Webster had said to him, "Fillmore, I 
 
 54
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 like Clay I very much regard Clay but he rides 
 
 rough, d d rough." Yet Clay s was the genius of 
 
 compromise which actually piloted the sections away 
 from secession and war during forty years of national 
 development, making the final resort to arms so unequal 
 as to be futile. I am prouder of being a Kentuckian 
 because Clay was a Kentuckian, prouder of my Virginia 
 pedigree because Clay was born in Virginia. He came 
 into the world a peace-maker one of those peace-mak 
 ers who would have peace if he had to fight for it 
 dominancy so fused with conciliation, so reasonable, and 
 sagacious, as to inspire admiration while it compelled 
 obedience. More truly even than Webster was he an 
 American; the antitype, as he was the file-leader, of 
 Lincoln, whom Grady not inaptly designated "the first 
 typical American." 
 
 I never saw him, never heard his voice, never took 
 his hand though I have passed many happy hours be 
 neath the roof of his Ashland, and carry in priceless 
 estimation the memory of the loved ones there for 
 notwithstanding that I grew up in Washington and 
 was old enough to understand something of public men 
 and affairs when he died, mine was the Democrat, not 
 the Whig camp, and in those days party lines were 
 already inexorable. A very young man, a student of 
 letters indeed, as I may say with the young ladies in 
 "The Vicar of Wakefield," "of Shakespeare and the 
 musical glasses" and quite a walking arsenal of 
 
 55
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 audacity and misinformation, I was disparaging Mr. 
 Clay, whose speeches did not read up to their reputa 
 tion, in favor of Mr. Webster, whose sonorous rhetoric 
 had captivated me, when my father, an old-line, dyed- 
 in-the-wool Jackson Democrat, interposed to rebuke 
 my unguarded loquacity. "My son," said he, "this is 
 not the first time I have heard you express those opin 
 ions. They discredit nobody but yourself. I don t 
 care how Mr. Clay s speeches read, or what you think 
 of him; he was the greatest orator I ever heard, a 
 patriot, and a born leader, a veritable king of men." 
 Those who remember the Old Fogy, and my relations 
 to him, need not be told that I subsided at once. But, 
 as I have grown older in years, and, may I not hope, 
 a little in wisdom and grace as I have come to realize 
 in the practical business both of politics and life both 
 of the fireside and the forum what it means to give 
 and take particularly to endure the clearer do I see, 
 the more do I reverence the character and the genius of 
 our backwoods Chatham, our homespun Commoner, 
 our incomparable Harry of the West, with his master 
 ful spirit, his undoubting, indefatigable patriotism, his 
 great, good heart. 
 
 I never think of Mr. Clay that I do not think of 
 Mr. Elaine. It will be a solace to me in my old age, 
 in case I am vouchsafed an old age, to recall the cir 
 cumstance that, enjoying a sufficient intimacy with that 
 eminent man to know him well to have a direct per- 
 
 56
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 sonal knowledge of his affairs that no heat, or fric 
 tion, of party interest or passion, could in high party 
 times swerve me from doing justice to his public and 
 private worth. Like Clay he was a parliamentary 
 chieftain of talents unsurpassed ; like Clay, of resistless 
 personal charm; like Clay, the victim of a baseless, 
 shameful calumny. Clay, Douglas, Blaine the tri 
 umvir of captivating party leaders, as Clay, Webster, 
 and Calhoun were the triumvir of resplendent senators 
 and statesmen take off your hats to them, young men, 
 and, imitating their devotion to their duty as they saw 
 it, try to avoid the excess, the riot of manhood, which 
 sometimes led them astray, while you cultivate the self- 
 denial and self-repression you will find in the lives of 
 Washington, of Calhoun, and of Lincoln. 
 
 The generation which fought to a finish the irre 
 pressible antagonisms our fathers had compromised 
 deciding for all time that the Government is a nation, 
 and not a huddle of petty sovereignties, that the Con 
 stitution is the law, fixed and organic, and not a rope 
 of sand is passing away. I can scarcely realize that I 
 belong to that generation, that I, too, have borne a part 
 in the consideration of problems, toward the solution 
 of which the best efforts of the best men have been but 
 as the blind leading the blind. What mistakes we 
 have made! What weaklings we have been! And 
 how helpless, except for some saving grace in the Amer 
 ican character and destiny! Happy it is that so many 
 
 57
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 of us survive to tell the tale! Three hundred years 
 ago there would have been fewer by half. In the good 
 old days of the Inquisition and the Star Chamber we 
 should have reached our ends, have compassed our de 
 signs, by torturing and killing those who got in our 
 way. Let us give thanks to God that we have fallen 
 upon gentler times; that we may do our love-making 
 and our law-making as we do our ploughing, in a 
 straight furrow; that it is the close of the nineteenth, 
 not the opening of the sixteenth of the centuries. Even 
 the tax-gatherer is to be preferred as a steady visiting ac 
 quaintance, to the headsman, and journalism, with all 
 its imperfections, offers a fairer field for human invest 
 ment than the battle-axe of the middle ages.
 
 THE SOUTH IN LIGHT AND SHADE* 
 
 Of every people it may be said, "by their jokes ye 
 shall know them." Men are least restrained in their 
 mirth, and give therein the largest play to their likes 
 and dislikes. The humor of Fielding, Thackeray tells 
 us, is wonderfully wise and detective ; it flashes upon a 
 rogue and lightens up a rascal like a policeman s Ian- 
 thorn. The same may be said of the humor of Rabe 
 lais, though the objects of its ridicule are not always 
 cheats and scamps. The difference between opera 
 bouffe and Anglo-Saxon farce represents the difference 
 between the life of the French and the life of the Eng 
 lish. With Americans it is not the snob and the hus 
 band who are satirized ; our jocosity embraces chiefly 
 the small boy, the widow, and the mother-in-law, re 
 serving for its most palpable hits the bully, the vision 
 ary speculator, the gamester, and the commercial agent. 
 Thus American humor may be divided into two classes 
 that which relates to fighting and that which relates 
 to money. In the South this general classification 
 grows still narrower, gaining, however, in whimsicality 
 and local color what it lacks in breadth. 
 
 There can be no mistaking the origin of the story of 
 
 *i77. 
 
 59
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 the traveller who asked a Mississippian whether it 
 was worth his while to carry a pistol, and was 
 told: "Well, stranger, you mout move around here 
 more n a year an never need a pistol, but ef you should 
 happen to need one, you d need it powerful." Equally 
 characteristic is the record of a well-known Tennessee 
 case. The principal witness for the commonwealth 
 testified that he was sent to get a fresh pack of cards, 
 that he got them, and, returning, sat down in the grass. 
 Here he balked in his testimony, and would go no fur 
 ther. At last, after cross-questioning and coaxing had 
 been exhausted, the judge threatened him with fine 
 and imprisonment, whereupon he said: "Please, your 
 honor, if I must tell why I drapped in the jimson 
 weeds, I suppose I must. It was just, your honor, to 
 look over the herds, and mark the bowers." The fol 
 lowing no less reflects the local color of the ante-bellum 
 days: Two Kentuckians went to settle their bill at a 
 hotel in Boston. There being a dispute about the 
 amount, one of them grew angry and began to 
 swear, when the other said: "Remember, John, who 
 you are. Remember you are a Kentuckian. Pay the 
 bill and shoot the scoundrel" Parson Bullen, in his 
 funeral oration over the dead body of Sut Lovingood, 
 observed : 
 
 "We air met, my brethering, to bury this ornery cuss. 
 He had bosses, an he run em ; he had chickens, an he 
 fit em; he had kiards, an he played em. Let us try 
 
 60
 
 The South in Light and Shade 
 
 an ricollect his virtues ef he had any an forgit 
 his vices ef we can. For of sick air the kingdom of 
 heaven!" 
 
 Such incidents as these could not happen, and there 
 fore could not be humorously narrated, in any part of 
 the world except the South. 
 
 In the old steam-boating times the typical Southerner 
 was pictured as a ranting, roving blade, who wore a 
 broad-brimmed Panama hat and a great watch-fob, who 
 was an expert in the decoction and disposition of 
 mixed drinks, who ended all his sentences with "By 
 Gawd, sir," and thought no more of betting "a likely 
 nigger-boy" on a "bobtail flush" than you or I would 
 think of betting a button on the result of a Presidential 
 election. It was he who was to be encountered during 
 the winter anywhere and all the way from Cairo to 
 New Orleans ; during the summer at any of the water 
 ing-places, from Saratoga to Newport. He travelled 
 with a dusky valet, a silver-headed cane, two ruffled 
 shirts, and a case of hair-triggers. His morning meal 
 was a simple Kentucky breakfast "three cocktails and 
 a chaw of terbacker." His amusements were equally 
 simple and few : he could clip the wing of a mosquito at 
 ten or fifteen paces ; could stop the launching of a life 
 boat to tell his terrified fellow-passengers the last good 
 story from "Georgy" ; could pull to a shoestring, as the 
 saying went, and draw a tanyard ! He affected blooded 
 stock, particularly game-cocks. To him the pedigree 
 
 61
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 of a race-horse, like a question in constitutional lore, 
 was a sacred subject, to be tampered with under penalty 
 of death. He had the faculty of losing his money, and 
 other people s money, with charming indiscrimination, 
 if not with delightful indifference, at all games of 
 chance, from chuck-a-luck to brag. That such an 
 animal would fight was a matter of course; he would 
 fight anything, preferring, indeed, the "tiger." 
 
 The invention of the comparatively modern pastime 
 called by the fastidious English "American whist," to 
 escape its more vulgar appellation of "draw-poker," 
 was to him the discovery of another world. He felt 
 as the ancient monarch would have felt had the new 
 amusement for which he offered a reward really come 
 into being. It struck him, and it stuck to him. Its 
 very nomenclature tickled his fancy, beginning with its 
 descriptive soubriquet "draw-poker." He was in the 
 habit of drawing on his commission merchant, on his 
 revolver, and on his imagination, and here was a chance 
 to draw on all three at one and the same time. He 
 was himself a poker a poker of fun at all men, a 
 poker of nonsense in the face and under the nose of 
 Providence. Then the titles of the hands were de 
 scriptive. There were "fulls" and "flushes," and was 
 not his own life a perpetual see-saw between the two? 
 for when he was not flush he was sure to be full, and 
 vice versa. 
 
 In those days there were no bloated bondholders. 
 62
 
 The South in Light and Shade 
 
 We had not even risen to the dignity of the insurance 
 agent. Capital was really timid, and, for the most 
 part, was represented in the South, as far as the East 
 was concerned, by the peddler, the colporteur, and the 
 vendor of lightning-rods. These, who made them 
 selves familiar with Southern thoroughfares only, were 
 impressed by the manners of our swaggering hero ; they 
 stood abashed before his bullying; they were amused 
 by his vulgarity; being for the most part unversed in 
 the ways of the world, except that of trade, they were 
 bound to fall into mistakes. Not unnaturally, there 
 fore, they mistook the Southern swashbuckler for the 
 Southern gentleman, and carried home a daguerreotype 
 of Southern life taken from their adventures, which, 
 as we may conjecture, were never of the nicest. The 
 South, on its part, got its view of the North from the 
 wandering middlemen who were best known to it ; and 
 thus a mutual misconception sprang into existence 
 taking its ideas and examples, not from the better classes 
 of society, but from the worst. The truth is, that behind 
 these the good people of the North and South lived, 
 moved, and had their being: in the one section, relying 
 upon thrift and industry to build up fortunes; in the 
 other section, victims to circumstance rather than de 
 sign, accumulating debts as they accumulated slaves. 
 I am sure that I am not mistaken in this; and, indeed, 
 events are verifying it. After years of contention and 
 war, the obstructive forces are passing away, and what 
 
 63
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 do we see? Why, in the South, looking northward, 
 we see a race, kindred to ourselves, a little less effusive, 
 but hardly less genial, already disciplined and equipped 
 to struggle against the winds and the waves. In the 
 North, looking southward, the philosophic observer 
 sees, not a huddle of lazy barbarians, composed in large 
 part of murderers and gamblers, but a great body of 
 Christian men and women, who have had a hard strug 
 gle with fate and fortune, but who have stood against 
 the elements with a fortitude that contradicts the 
 characteristics formerly imputed to them ; he sees the 
 master of yesterday the toiler of to-day ; he sees the mis 
 tress of the mansion, still a gentlewoman in the truest 
 sense, striving and saving, patching, piecing, and pinch 
 ing to make both ends meet ; he sees, in short, a people, 
 born to the luxury of a rich soil and a warm climate, 
 and inured to nothing except the privations of disas 
 trous war and unexpected poverty, throwing themselves 
 bravely into the exigencies of real life; nowhere indo 
 lent and idle ; nowhere demoralized ; everywhere cheer 
 ful, active, and sober. 
 
 It is not of these, however, that I am going to speak 
 to-night. The homely story of their ups and downs 
 will pass into the humor of the future. I wish to 
 introduce here a lower order to talk of the comicali 
 ties and whimsicalities of Southern life, embodied in 
 the exploits of the howling raccoon of the mountains 
 and the musings of the epic hero who, describing him- 
 
 64
 
 The South in Light and Shade 
 
 self, said: "I am a fighter from Bitter Creek; I m a 
 wolf, and this is my night to howl. I ve three rows of 
 front teeth, and nary tooth alike. The folks on Bitter 
 Creek are bad; the higher up you go, the wuss they 
 are; and I m from the head-waters" This type is the 
 offspring of a class, and, as humor itself springs from 
 the nether side of nature, he must needs play a consid 
 erable part in the veracious chronicle of Southern life. 
 Running over the pages of Professor Longstreet s 
 amusing volume of "Georgia Scenes," certainly a most 
 faithful, as well as a most graphic, series of pen-pictures 
 of the South, one is agreeably impressed by the absence 
 of venality and blood-thirstiness which marks the vari 
 ous narrations. The table of contents embraces all 
 manner of inland adventure, from a gander-pulling to a 
 shooting-match, including such suggestive chapters as 
 "The Horse-swap," "The Debating Society," "The 
 Militia Drill," and "The Fox Hunt." "The Life and 
 Adventures of Bill Arp" is a continuation of the same 
 class of incidents, narrated by the principal actor, in 
 backwoods English. Both volumes, however, are 
 bounded by purely local confines. The yarns spun by 
 Sut Lovingood, who describes himself as "a nateral 
 born dern d fool," have been more fortunate; at least 
 one of them has travelled across the Atlantic, where, 
 translated into French, it enlivens a scene in one of the 
 ingenious dramas of M. Victorien Sardou. Sut Lovin 
 good is described as "a queer, long-legged, web-footed, 
 
 65
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 short-bodied, hog-eyed, and white-haired" creature, 
 mounted on "a nick-tailed, bow-necked, long, poor, 
 pale, sorrel horse" a compound of ignorance and cun 
 ning, half dandy and half devil, perpetually entangled in 
 "a net-work of bridle-reins, crupper, martingales, 
 straps, stirrups, surcingles, and red ferreting." He 
 tells his own story in the wildest of East Tennessee jar 
 gon, being a native of that beatific region, and is, of 
 course, the hero of his own recitals. These, be it said, 
 are quite as often at his expense as in glorification of 
 his exploits. There is an extravagant oddity in his ex 
 perience which rarely fails to arrest attention. On 
 one occasion he tells how, seeing for the first time "a 
 biled shirt," he desires to emulate the wearer and imi 
 tate the fashion. He broods over the mystery of biled 
 shirts. He roams in the mountains and dives into the 
 philosophy of biled shirts. At length, he discovers in 
 a female friend an original genius. She has no more 
 practical knowledge of starch than himself; but she 
 has heard that flour, boiled to a certain consistency 
 and smeared over a given surface of textile fabric, will 
 stiffen it. So she undertakes the job, makes the paste, 
 douses Lovingood s homespun into it, and, being in a 
 hurry, he puts it on before it is dry. He goes to the 
 grocery to show himself, drinks deeply, and falls asleep ; 
 the shirt congeals upon him, and when he wakes in a 
 hay-loft he is a sight to see. How to escape becomes 
 at once a problem. At length, to make a long story 
 
 66
 
 The South in Light and Shade 
 
 short, he loosens the edges of the tails of the unman 
 ageable garment, and tacks these to the four sides of 
 the hole in the floor by which entrance is had to the hay 
 loft, and plunges through to the ground below with 
 what consequences one may imagine. 
 
 On another occasion, the Lovingood family being 
 about to starve, and there being no horse to plough with, 
 Sut s father agrees to be horse and pull the plough, en 
 acting the part perfectly until he gets into a nest of yel 
 low-jackets, when considering it his duty to act as a 
 horse would act he runs away, destroying plough, 
 gear, and all, much to the consternation of his son, who 
 plays the part of ploughman. Again, being greatly en 
 raged with a local preacher, Sut resolves upon revenge, 
 and goes to camp-meeting to accomplish his purpose. 
 The culmination of this exploit he tells thus : 
 
 "I tuck a seat on the steps of the pulpit an kivered 
 as much of my face with my han s es I could, to show 
 I was in yearnest. Hit tuck powerful, for I hearn a 
 sort o thankful kin of buzz all over the congregashun. 
 Thur were a monstrous crowd in that grove, for the 
 weather was fine and beleevers was plenty. The par 
 son give out an they sung that good ole hym : 
 
 " * Thur will be mournin*, mournin , mournin here, 
 And mournin , mournin , mournin there, 
 On that dread day to come. 
 
 "Thinks I, kin it be possible anybody has tole the ole 
 varmint what s goin to happen to him? An then I 
 low d nobody know d it but me, an I was comforted. 
 He nex tuck his tex , which was powerfully mixed with 
 
 67
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 brimstone an trim d with blue an red flames. Then 
 he opened. He commenced onto the sinners. He 
 threatened em orful, tried to skeer em with the wust 
 varmints he could think of, an arter a while, he got 
 onto the subject of hell-sarpints, an he dwelt on it. 
 He tole em how the ole hell-sarpints d sarve em ef 
 they didn t repent ; how both hot an cold they d crawl 
 over their naked bodies; how they d rap their tails 
 roun their necks, poke their tongues down their throats, 
 an hiss in their ears. I seed thet my time had come. 
 I had cotched seven or eight pot-bellied lizzards, an* 
 had em in a narrer bag thet I had made a purpose. 
 So, when he war a rarin an a tearin an a ravin onto 
 his tip-toes, an a-poundin ov the pulpit, onbeknowns 
 to anybody I ontied my bag ov reptiles, put the mouf ov 
 hit onto the bottom ov his briches-leg, an begun a 
 pinchin ov their tails. Quick as gunpowder they all 
 took up his leg, makin a noise like squirrels climbin a 
 shell-bark hickory, or a sycamin . He stopt rite in the 
 middle of the word damnation. He looked for an 
 instant like he were listenin for somethin . His ter 
 rific features stopped the shoutin . You could a hearn 
 a cricket jump. Jess about this time one ov my liz 
 zards pops his head out n the parson s shirt-collar, wag- 
 gin his ole brown neck an surveyin of the congrega- 
 shun. The parson seed it, an it war too much for 
 him. He got his tongue, the old varmint, an he cries : 
 Tray for me, brethren! pray for me, sisteren! I is 
 rastlin with the arch enemy, rite now ! Pray for me 
 an save yerselves! For the hell-sarpints hav got 
 me! " 
 
 I have abridged the details, which, though very 
 comic, are, it must be owned, very coarse. The book 
 abounds with similar burlesque. It is not real life, 
 
 68
 
 The South in Light and Shade 
 
 indeed, but an attempt, in a rough way, to travesty the 
 shams of the crude life sought to be portrayed and 
 satirized. The orthography is really original, if noth 
 ing else, not at all imitative either of Yellowplush or 
 Artemus. The author of the book lived and died 
 among the scenes he describes a quiet, sombre East- 
 Tennessean, George Harris by name. His contribu 
 tions were made in the first place to a journal in Nash 
 ville, and collected thence into a volume. The value 
 of this may not be great, but its quaintness is unde 
 niable. 
 
 About thirty years ago there appeared in the New 
 Orleans Picayune a sermon which attracted imme 
 diate attention and attained wide currency. It was at 
 once recognized as a genuine transcription. It pur 
 ported to have been delivered by a volunteer preacher, 
 who, making his livelihood as captain of a flat-boat, 
 happened to "lay up" over Sunday by a Mississippi 
 landing. An idle crowd being collected, he organized 
 an impromptu congregation, and produced a discourse 
 which has obtained a standard place in our comic litera 
 ture. He began: 
 
 "I may say to you, my brethering, that I am not an 
 edicated man, an I am not one o them as believes an 
 edication is necessary in a minister of the Gospel; for 
 I believe the Lord edicates his preachers jest as he wants 
 em to be edicated ; and although I says it as ought not 
 to say it, in the State of Alabamy, where I live, there s 
 no man what gits bigger congregashuns nor what I gits. 
 
 69
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 "There may be some here to-day, my brethering, as 
 don t know what persuasion I am uv. Well, I must 
 say to you that I am a Hard-shell Baptist. Thar is 
 some folks as don t like the Hard-shell Baptists, but, 
 as fur as I sees, it s better to have a hard shell than no 
 shell at all. You see me here to-day, my brethering, 
 dressed up in fine clothes ; you mout think I was proud. 
 But I am not proud, my brethering. For, although I ve 
 been a preacher of the gospel for nighly twenty year, 
 an am capting of that flat-boat at your landing, I am 
 not proud, my brethering. 
 
 "I am not a-gwine to tell you adzactly whar my tex 
 is to be found; suffice it to say it s in the leds of the 
 Bible, and you ll find it somewhere between the first 
 chapter of the book of Generations and the last chapter 
 of the book of Revolution ; and ef you ll go an sarch 
 the scripters, you ll not only find my tex thar, but a good 
 many other texes as will do you good to read, and when 
 you shall find my tex you shall find it to read 
 thus: 
 
 " An he played upon a harp of a thousand strings 
 sperrits of just men made perfick. 
 
 "My tex, my brethering, leads me, in the fust place, 
 to speak of sperrits. Thar is a great many kinds of 
 sperrits in the world. In the fust place, thar s sperrits 
 as some folks calls ghosts and thar s sperrits of turpen 
 tine, and thar s sperrits as some folks calls liquor, an 
 I ve got as good a article of them kind o sperrits on my 
 flat-boat as was ever fetched down the Mississippi 
 River ; but thar s a good many other kin o sperrits, for 
 the tex says he played upon a harp of a thousand strings 
 sperrits of just men made perfick. 
 
 "But, I ll tell you what kind of sperrits as are meant 
 in the tex, my brethering. It s FIRE. That s the kind 
 of sperrits as is meant in the tex, my brethering. Now, 
 of course, ther is a great many kinds of fire in the 
 
 70
 
 The South in Light and Shade 
 
 world. In the fust place, there s the common sort of 
 fire you light your pipe with, and there s fox-fire and 
 camphire, fire afore you re ready and fire-an -fall-back, 
 and many other kinds of fire ; for the tex says he played 
 upon a harp of a thousand strings sperrits of just men 
 made perfick. 
 
 "But I ll tell you the kind of fire as is meant in the 
 tex, my brethering. It is Hell-fire! An that s the 
 kind of fire a good many of you are coming to ef you 
 don t do better nor what you have been doin , for he 
 played upon a harp of a thousand strings sperrits of 
 just men made perfick. 
 
 "Now, the different sorts o fire in the world may be 
 likened to the different persuasions of Christians in the 
 world. In the fust place, we have the Tiscopalians. 
 And they are a high-sailin an a hifalutin set, and may 
 be likened onto a turkey-buzzard a-flying up in the air, 
 an he goes up, an up, an up, ontil he looks no bigger n 
 your finger-nail, an the fust thing you know he comes 
 down and down, and is a-fillin hisself on the carcass 
 of a dead hoss by the side of the road, for the tex says 
 he played upon a harp of a thousand strings sperrits 
 of just men made perfick. 
 
 "Then thar is the Methodists, and they may be lik 
 ened unto a squirrel a-climbin up into a tree, for the 
 Methodists believes in gwine on from grace to grace till 
 they gits to perfection; an so the squirrel goes up an 
 up, an jumps from limb to limb and from branch to 
 branch, and the fust thing you know he falls, an down 
 he comes, kerflumix, for they is always fallin from 
 grace; for the tex says he played upon a harp of 
 a thousand strings sperrits of just men made per 
 fick. 
 
 "An then, my brethering, thar s the Baptists, ah. 
 An they have been likened to a possum on a simmon- 
 tree ; and thunders may roll and the yearth may quake ; 
 
 71
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 but that possum clings thar still, ah; and you may 
 shake one foot loose, an the other s thar, ah! and you 
 may shake all feet loose, an he wraps his tail around 
 the limb, an clings, an clings forever, for he played 
 upon a harp of a thousand strings sperrits of just men 
 made perfick. " 
 
 Irreligious as this may seem, grotesque and prepos 
 terous, it is not overstated. In the old time, and on 
 the borders of civilization, such sermons were by no 
 means uncommon. They are still to be heard in the 
 "back settlements," as they are called ; and, while those 
 who make them pass for what they are worth as preach 
 ers, their sincerity goes unchallenged. 
 
 It was doubtless the publication of Professor Long- 
 street s "Georgia Scenes," in 1840, which suggested a 
 continuous story upon the same stage of action, and in 
 1842 "Major Jones s Courtship" appeared. The 
 author of this homely, natural, and amusing fiction, 
 Mr. W. T. Thompson, an editor in Savannah, is still 
 alive. In 1848 he followed his first production with 
 "Major Jones s Sketches of Travel," which possess a 
 value as contemporaneous pictures beyond and above 
 their humor, abundant as that is. The "Courtship," 
 however, is a novel, originally meant as a travesty, to 
 which time has lent a sort of pathos. It is a graphic 
 portraiture of the interior life of the South. Rough 
 and ready as the farce is, it is never vulgar. Its char 
 acters are few, simple, and virtuous. It deals with 
 
 72
 
 The South in Light and Shade 
 
 clean homespun. It carries the mind back to the old 
 brick church, the innocent picnic, the rural Fourth of 
 July celebration, the Christmas frolic. 
 
 Joseph Jones, only son of the Widow Jones, liv 
 ing near the village of Pineville, in Georgia, is 
 a well-to-do young farmer. He is in love with 
 Mary Stallins, daughter of the Widow Stallins, a 
 near neighbor. Joseph has grown up on the planta 
 tion, an honest, affectionate, moral young man; Mary 
 has gone off to boarding-school, and comes home a 
 belle. The adventures are bounded on the one side by 
 the barnyard, on the other side by the hearthstone. 
 Over all a pair of rugged roof-trees cast their kindly 
 shade. The story runs along like a brook, without 
 effort or concealment. There is no villain in the piece 
 only a would-be wit, called Cousin Pete, who is in 
 troduced as a tease. The tribulations of the lovers are 
 very slight; but there is throughout the narrative a 
 naturalness which, being nowhere strained for its fun, 
 is really captivating. As an example, I cannot forbear 
 quoting the culmination of the courtship. You will 
 understand that our hero has had many struggles and 
 trials bringing himself to the point of popping the 
 question ; that, although he is almost sure of his sweet 
 heart, he cannot muster courage enough to make a 
 direct proposal ; that everybody is in the secret and ap 
 proves the match. How the deed was finally done he 
 shall tell himself: 
 
 73
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 "Crismus eve I put on my new suit, and shaved my 
 face as slick as a smoothin iron, and after tea went over 
 to old Miss Stallinses. As soon as I went into the 
 parler, whar they was all settin round the fire, Miss 
 Carline and Miss Kesiah both laughed rite out. 
 
 " There! there! ses they, I told you so! I know d 
 it would be Joseph. 
 
 What s I done, Miss Carline ? ses I. 
 You come under little sister s chicken bone, and 
 I do believe she know d you was comin when she put 
 it over the dore. 
 
 " No, I didn t I didn t no such thing, now, ses 
 Miss Mary, and her face blushed red all over. 
 
 " Oh, you needn t deny it, ses Miss Kesiah, you 
 belong to Joseph now, jest as sure as ther s any charm 
 in chicken bones. 
 
 "I know d that was a first rate chance to say some 
 thing, but the dear little creeter looked so sorry and 
 kep blushin so, I couldn t say nothin zackly to the 
 pint ; so I tuck a chair and reched up and tuck down the 
 bone and put it in my pocket. 
 
 " What are you gwine to do with that old chicken 
 bone now, Majer? ses Miss Mary. 
 
 " I m gwine to keep it as long as I live, says I, as a 
 Crismus present from the handsomest gall in Georgia. 
 
 "When I sed that, she blushed worse and worse. 
 
 " Ain t you shamed, Majer? ses she. 
 
 " Now you ought to give her a Crismus gift, Joseph, 
 to keep all her life, sed Miss Carline. 
 
 " Ah, ses old Miss Stallins, when I was a gall we 
 used to hang up our stockin s 
 
 " Why, mother! ses all of em, to say stockin s right 
 before 
 
 "Then I felt a little streaked too, cause they was all 
 blushin as hard as they could. 
 
 " Highty-tity, ses the old lady ; what monstrous 
 
 74
 
 The South in Light and Shade 
 
 finement to be shore ! I d like to know what harm there 
 is in stockin s. People nowadays is gittin so mealy- 
 mouthed they can t call nothin by its rite name, and I 
 don t see as they s any better than the old time people 
 was. When I was a gall like you, child, I use to hang 
 up my stockin s and git em full of presents. 
 
 "The galls kep laughin and blushin . 
 Never mind, ses Miss Mary, Majer s got to give 
 me a Crismus gift won t you, Majer? 
 
 " Oh, yes, ses I, you know I promised you one. 
 But I didn t mean that, ses she. 
 I ve got one for you, what I want you to keep all 
 your life; but it would take a two-bushel bag to hold 
 it, ses I. 
 
 " Oh, that s the kind, ses she. 
 But will you promise to keep it as long as you 
 live? ses I. 
 
 " Certainly, I will, Majer. 
 
 " Monstrous finement nowadays old people don t 
 know nothin about perliteness," said old Miss Stallins, 
 jest gwine to sleep with her nittin in her lap. 
 
 " Now, you hear that, Miss Carline, ses I. She 
 ses she ll keep it all her life. 
 
 " Yes, I will, ses Miss Mary but what is it? 
 
 " Never mind, ses I ; you hang up a bag big enough 
 to hold it, and you ll find out what it is, when you see 
 it in the mornin . 
 
 "Miss Carline winked at Miss Kesiah, and then 
 whispered to her then they both laughed and looked 
 at me as mischievous as they could. They spicioned 
 something. 
 
 You ll be shore to give it to me, now, if I hang up 
 a bag? ses Miss Mary. 
 
 " And promise to keep it ? ses I. 
 
 " Well, I will, cause I know that you wouldn t give 
 me nothin that wasn t worth keepin . 
 
 75
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 "They all agreed they would hang up a bag for me 
 to put Miss Mary s Crismus present in, on the back 
 porch, and about ten o clock I told em good evenin 
 and went home. 
 
 "I sot up till midnight, and when they was all gone 
 to bed, I went softly into the back gate, and went up to 
 the porch, and thar, shore enough, was a great big 
 meal-bag hangin to the jice. It was monstrous un 
 handy to get to it, but I was termined not to back out. 
 So I sot some chairs on top of a bench, and got hold of 
 the rope and let myself down into the bag; but, just as 
 I was gettin in, it swung agin the chairs, and down they 
 went with a terrible racket; but nobody didn t wake 
 up but Miss Stallins s old cur dog, and here he come 
 rippin and tearin through the yard like rath, and round 
 and round he went tryin to find what was the matter. 
 I scrooch d down in the bag, and didn t breathe louder 
 nor a kitten, for fear he d find me out, and after a while 
 he quit barkin . The wind begun to blow bominable 
 cold, and the old bag kep turnin round and swingin 
 so it made me sea-sick as the mischief. I was afraid 
 to move for fear the rope would break and let me fall, 
 and thar I sot with my teeth rattlin like I had a ager. 
 It seemed like it would never come daylight, and I do 
 believe if I didn t love Miss Mary so powerful I would 
 froze to death ; for my hart was the only spot that felt 
 warm, and it didn t beat more n two licks a minit; 
 only when I thought how she would be supprised in 
 the mornin , and then it went into a canter. Bimeby 
 the cussed old dog come up on the porch, and began to 
 smell about the bag, and then he barked like he thought 
 he d treed something. Bow! wow! wow! ses he. 
 Then he d smell agin, and try to get up to the bag. 
 Git out ! ses I, very low, for fear the galls mout hear 
 me. Bow! wow! ses he. Begone! you bominable 
 fool, ses I, and I felt all over in spots, for I spected 
 
 76
 
 The South in Light and Shade 
 
 every minit he d nip me, and what made it worse, I 
 didn t know wharabouts he d take hold. Bow! wow! 
 wow! Then I tried coaxin Come here, good fel 
 low, ses I, and whistled a little to him, but it wasn t 
 no use. Thar he stood and kep up his everlasting 
 whinin and barkin all night. I couldn t tell when 
 daylight was breakin only by the chickens crowin , and 
 I was monstrous glad to hear em, fir if I d had to stay 
 thar one hour more, I don t beleeve I d ever got out of 
 that bag alive. 
 
 "Old Miss Stallins come out first, and as soon as she 
 seed the bag, ses she: 
 
 What upon yearth has Joseph went and put in 
 that bag for Mary? I ll lay it s a yearlin or some live 
 animal, or Bruin wouldn t bark at it so. 
 
 "She went in to call the galls, and I sot thar, shiv- 
 erin all over so I couldn t hardly speak if I tried to 
 but 1 didn t say nothin . Bimeby they all come runnin 
 out on the porch. 
 
 ;< My goodness! what is it? ses Miss Mary. 
 
 " Oh, it s alive, ses Miss Kesiah ; I seed it move. 
 
 " Call Cato, an make him cut the rope, ses Miss 
 Carline, and let s see what it is. Come here, Cato, 
 and get this bag down. 
 
 Don t hurt it for the world, ses Miss Mary. 
 
 "Cato untied the rope that was round the jice 
 and let the bag down easy on the floor, and I tumbled 
 out, all covered with corn-meal from head to foot. 
 
 " Goodness gracious! ses Miss Mary, if it ain t the 
 Majer himself. 
 
 " Yes, ses I, and you know you promised to keep 
 my Crismus present as long as you lived. 
 
 "The galls laughed themselves almost to deth, and 
 went to brushin off the meal as fast as they could, 
 sayin they was gwine to hang that bag up every Cris 
 mus till they got husbands, too." 
 
 77
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 Of course, Major Jones marries his sweetheart, and, 
 as we learn from his book of travels, published many 
 years afterward, the union was in every respect a happy 
 one. 
 
 I have hurried over these illustrations of Southern 
 life, in order that I may reach, and give myself a little 
 time to dwell upon, my old friend, Captain Simon 
 Suggs, of the Tallapoosa Volunteers. He is to the 
 humor of the South what Sam Weller is to the humor 
 of England, and Sancho Panza to the humor of Spain. 
 Of course, he is a sharper and a philosopher. But he 
 stands out of the canvas whereon an obscure local 
 Rubens has depicted him as lifelike and vivid as Gil 
 Bias of Santillane. His adventures as a patriot and a 
 gambler, a moralizer and cheat, could not have pro 
 gressed in New England, and would have come to a 
 premature end anywhere on the continent of Europe. 
 Although a military man of great pretension, Captain 
 Suggs never threw out a skirmish-line or dug a rifle- 
 pit. He scorned to intrench himself. He played his 
 hand, at no time of the best, "pat," as it were. He 
 "spread it," as certain players do in the game called 
 "Boaston," and, indeed, to speak truth, it was generally 
 "a spread misery," for the career of this man, from the 
 cradle to the grave, was one long, ambitious effort to 
 acquire fortune by making the pleasures and recreations 
 of life tributary to its material development, and so, 
 abjuring scriptural injunctions touching the sweat of 
 
 78
 
 The South in Light and Shade 
 
 the brow, to compel fortune to "call" him, when he 
 had provided himself a certainty. If this did not suc 
 ceed, he at least made a struggle whose failure deserves, 
 as it has received, historic record. No one can read the 
 story of his life without rising from its perusal invigor 
 ated and refreshed. 
 
 Simon Suggs was the son of a Hard-shell Baptist 
 preacher, Jeddiah Suggs by name. Tradition tells, ac 
 cording to the chronicle, "how Simon played the 
 snatch game on Bill" (a sable companion in the corn 
 field), "and found an exceeding soft thing in his aged 
 parent." I must quote a bit of this* : 
 
 "The vicious habits of Simon were, of course, a sore 
 trouble to his father, Elder Jeddiah. He reasoned, 
 he remonstrated, and he lashed [but all in vain]. One 
 day the simple-minded old man returned rather unex 
 pectedly to the field where he had left Simon and a 
 black boy called Bill at work. The two were playing 
 seven-up in a fence-corner; but, of course, the game 
 was suspended as soon as they saw the old man s ap 
 proach. Simon snatched up the money, answering Bill s 
 demurrer with, Don t you see daddy s down upon us 
 with a armful of hick ries? Anyhow, I was bound to 
 win the game, for I hilt nothin but trumps. Another 
 thought struck him. It might be that his father did not 
 know they had been playing cards. He resolved to 
 pretend that they had been playing mumble-the-peg. 
 The old man came up. 
 
 " So, ho, youngsters; you in the fence-corner an the 
 
 * In this and the following quotations the text of the authorized edition 
 is not followed exactly, but is judiciously condensed. 
 
 79
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 crop in the grass. Simon, what in the round yearth 
 have you an that nigger been a-doin ? 
 
 "Simon said, with the coolness of a veteran, that 
 they had been playing mumble-the-peg, which he pro 
 ceeded to explain. 
 
 " So, you git down on your knees, says old Jeddiah, 
 to pull up that nasty little stick with your mouth? 
 Let s see one of you try it now. 
 
 "Bill, being the least witted, did so, and just as he 
 was strained to his fullest tension, down came one of 
 the preacher s switches. With a loud yell, Bill plunged 
 forward, upsetting Simon, and both rolled over in the 
 grass. A card lay upon the spot where Simon had sat. 
 
 What s this, Simon ? said his father. 
 
 The jack o dimonts, said Simon, coolly, seeing 
 that all was lost. 
 
 What was it doing down thar, Simon ? 
 
 " I had it under my leg to make it on Bill the fust 
 time it come trumps. 
 
 What s trumps, Simon? This with irony. 
 
 ;< Nothin s trumps, says Simon, doggedly, sense you 
 come an busted up the game. 
 
 To the mulberry, both on ye, in a hurry; I m 
 a-gwine to correck ye, said old Jeddiah. After Bill 
 had received his quantum in Simon s presence, the 
 father turned to his son and said: Cross them hands, 
 Simon. 
 
 Daddy, says Simon, tain t no use. 
 
 "Why not, Simon? 
 
 " Jess bekase it ain t. I m a-gwine to play cards as 
 long as I live. I m a-gwine to make my livin by em. 
 So what s the use o lickin me about it ? 
 "Old Mr. Suggs groaned. 
 
 " Simon, says he, you are a poor, ignor nt creeter. 
 You ve never been nowhar. Ef I was to turn you off, 
 you d starve. 
 
 80
 
 The South in Light and Shade 
 
 * I wish you d try me, says Simon, and jess see. 
 
 " Simon! Simon! You pore onlettered fool! Don t 
 you know that all card-players and chicken-fighters an 
 horse- racers goes to hell? 
 
 I kin win more money in a week, says Simon, 
 than you kin make in a year. 
 
 Why, you idiot, don t you know that them as plays 
 cards allers loses their money? 
 
 Who wins it, then, daddy? says Simon. 
 
 "This was a poser, and in the conversation which 
 ensued Simon added to his advantage. At last, to sat 
 isfy his father that he really had a genius for his chosen 
 profession, he offered to bet him what silver he had 
 against the old blind mare and immunity from the im 
 pending chastisement, that he could turn up a jack from 
 any part of the pack. 
 
 " Me to mix em? said old Jeddiah. 
 "Yes. 
 
 " It can t be done, Simon! No man in Augusty, no 
 man on the face of the yearth, can do it. 
 
 I kin do it, says Simon. 
 
 " An only see the back of the top card ? 
 
 " Yes, sir. 
 
 " An all of em jest alike? 
 
 " More alike n cow-peas. 
 
 It s ag in natur , Simon but giv m to me. 
 
 "The old man turned his back to Simon, sat down on 
 the ground and deliberately abstracted the jacks from 
 the pack, slipping them into his sleeve. As I am bettin 
 on a certainty, he muttered, it stands to reason thar s 
 no harm in it; I ll get all the money the boy has, and 
 the lickin will do him jest that much more good. At 
 length he was ready. So was Simon, who, all the while, 
 had been surveying his father s operations over his 
 shoulder. 
 
 " Now, daddy, says Simon, nary one of us ain t got 
 
 81
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 to look at the cards whiles I am a-cuttin em ; it spiles 
 the conjuration. 
 
 Very well, Simon, said Jeddiah, with confidence. 
 
 " And another thing: you must look me right hard 
 in the eye. 
 
 To be sure to be sure. Fire away. 
 
 "Simon walked up to his father. The two gazed 
 upon each other. Wake, snakes ! day s a-breakin , says 
 Simon, with a peculiar turn of his wrist. Rise, jack. 
 He lifted half a dozen cards gently from the top of the 
 pack and presented the bottom one to his father. 
 
 "It was the jack of hearts. 
 
 "Old Jeddiah staggered back. Merciful master! 
 says he, ef the boy hain t ! Go, my sou, go. A father s 
 blessin with ye! 
 
 " And yit, murmured Simon, as he moved away, 
 they say kerds is a waste of time. " 
 
 With such a start in life, it could hardly be expected 
 that the career of the youthful Simon Suggs, whatever 
 its triumphs, would add to the world s stock of harm 
 less pleasure. He had at a very tender age evolved 
 out of his consciousness the theory that mother-wit can 
 beat book-learning at any game. "Human natur an 
 the human family is my books," said Simon, "and I ve 
 seen few but what I could hold my own with. Just 
 give me one o these book-read fellers, a bottle o liquor, 
 an a handful of the dockymints, and I m mighty apt to 
 git all he s got an all he knows, an teach him in a 
 gineral way a wrinkle or two into the bargain. Books 
 ain t fit n for nothing but to give little children goin to 
 school, to keep em out n mischief. If a man s got 
 
 82
 
 The South in Light and Shade 
 
 mother-wit, he don t need em ; ef he ain t got it, they ll 
 do him no good, no how." This was Simon s philoso 
 phy. His faith consisted in an ineradicable belief that 
 he could whip the tiger in a fair fight. Many defeats 
 had in nowise discouraged him; he had an explanation 
 for each, which at least satisfied his own mind. He 
 had girded up his loins, he had studied the cue-papers, 
 and he was at length master of a system. Nothing was 
 wanting but money enough to carry it out, and this he 
 was as sure of raising at short-cards as he was that the 
 day or night would come when he would get the upper 
 hand of the beast, and wear his hide the remainder of 
 his life as a trophy. Half of his sublime aspiration was 
 realized. One fair morning he found himself pos 
 sessed of a hundred and fifty dollars, the accumulation 
 of many smart local operations for, after quitting the 
 parental roof and wandering far and near for twelve or 
 fifteen years, he had married and settled in Tallapoosa. 
 It was the largest sum he had ever had at one time be 
 fore. His dream was about to be realized. He would 
 at once go to Tuscaloosa, then the capital of Alabama, 
 beard the tiger in his lair, clean out the legislature, 
 vindicate his genius and opinions, and live like a fight 
 ing-cock off the proceeds. Considering the magnitude 
 of the proposed expedition, Simon s means, it must be 
 owned, were a little short. "But, what s the odds!" 
 said he, when he started on his foray, "what s the odds 
 luck s a fortune." A hundred and fifty was as good 
 
 83
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 as a thousand and fifty perhaps better. He reached 
 Tuscaloosa in safety, having picked up an extra twenty- 
 dollar note by the way, and had hardly bolted down his 
 supper before, like Orlando, he set out in quest of ad 
 venture in point of fact, to seek the tiger. Presently 
 he espied a narrow stairway, with a red light gleaming 
 above it. He waited for no further assurance. He 
 boldly mounted the stairs and knocked at the door. 
 
 Holloa! said a voice within. 
 
 Holloa yourself," says Simon. 
 
 What do you want? said the voice. 
 
 A game, says Simon. 
 
 What s the name? said the voice. 
 
 Cash, says Simon. 
 
 Then another voice said : Let Cash in. The door 
 was opened and Simon entered, half-blinded by the sud 
 den burst of light, which streamed from the chandeliers 
 and lamps, and was reflected in every direction by the 
 mirrors which walled the room. Within this magic 
 enclosure were tables covered with piles of doubloons, 
 silver pieces, and bank-notes, and surrounded by eager 
 but silent gamesters. As Simon entered he made a rus 
 tic bow, and said in an easy, familiar way : 
 " Good-evenin , gentlemen. 
 "No one noticed him, and the Captain repeated: 
 I say, good-evenin , gentleman. 
 "Notwithstanding the emphasis with which the words 
 were re-spoken, there was no response. The Captain 
 was growing restive and felt awkward, when he over 
 heard a conversation between the two young men, who 
 stood at the bar, which interested him. They had mis 
 taken him for General Thomas Witherspoon, of Ken 
 tucky. Simon could, of course, have no reasonable ob-
 
 The South in Light and Shade 
 
 jection to be taken for the rich hog-drover, and, having 
 mentally resolved that, if he was not respected as such 
 during the evening, it would be no fault of his, he saun 
 tered up to the faro-table, determined to bet his money 
 while it lasted with the spirit and liberality which he 
 imagined General Witherspoon would have displayed 
 had that distinguished citizen been personally present. 
 
 Twenty-five-dollar checks, said he, and that 
 pretty tolerably d d quick. 
 
 "The dealer handed him the desired symbol, and he 
 continued with a careless air, Now grind on. He put 
 the whole amount on a single card, and it won; he 
 repeated five times, and still won; he was master of 
 nearly two thousand dollars. The rumor that he was 
 a wealthy sportsman from Kentucky had spread through 
 the room, which, joined to his turn of luck, drew a little 
 group about the table. The Captain thought his time 
 had come. He put up fifteen hundred dollars on the 
 deuce. This was amazing, and a little bandy-legged 
 dry-goods clerk, who looked on, observed: 
 
 " My Lord, General! I wouldn t put up that 
 much on a single turn. 
 
 "Simon turned upon him, and glowered. You 
 wouldn t, wouldn t you ? Well, I would. And I tell 
 you, young man, the reason you wouldn t bet fifteen 
 hundred dollars on the duce. It s because you ain t got 
 no fifteen hundred dollars to bet. 
 
 "This sally was conclusive as to the wit of the sup 
 posititious General. The deuce won, and that settled 
 any remaining doubt as to his identity. It made him a 
 hero. Simon took his good fortune, however, with 
 calm deliberation, responding with courtesy, but dig 
 nity, to the ovation which began to be extended. I do 
 admit, said he, that it is better just the least grain in 
 the world better than drivin hogs from Kentucky an 
 sellin em at four cents a pound. At this point one of 
 
 85
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 the young men who had mistaken him for General 
 Witherspoon approached, and, stretching out his hand, 
 said: 
 
 Don t you know me, uncle? 
 
 "Captain Suggs drew himself up with as much dig 
 nity as he supposed General Witherspoon would have 
 assumed, and said that he did not know the young man 
 in his immediate presence. 
 
 " Don t know me, uncle! said the young man some 
 what abashed. Why, I m little Jimmy Peyton, your 
 sister s son. She s been expecting you for several days. 
 
 "All very well, Mr. James Peyton, said Simon, with 
 some asperity, but this is a cur us world, and tolerably 
 full of rascally impostors; so it stands a man in hand 
 that has got somethin , like me, to be pretty particu 
 lar. 
 
 " Oh, said several in the crowd, you needn t be 
 afraid ; everybody knows he s the Widow Peyton s son. 
 
 Wait for the waggin, gentlemen, says Simon. 
 I m a leetle notionary about these things, an I don t 
 want to take a nephy thout he s giniwine. This young 
 man mout want to borrow money o me. 
 
 "Mr. Peyton protested against such a suggestion. 
 
 Very good, says the Captain, approvingly ; I 
 mout want to borry money of him. 
 
 "Mr. Peyton expressed his willingness to share his 
 last cent with his uncle. 
 
 " So far so good/ says the Captain ; but it ain t 
 every man I d borry from. In the fust place, I must 
 know ef he s a gentleman. In the second place, he must 
 be my friend. In the third place, I must think he s 
 both able an willin to afford the accommodation. 
 
 "These sentiments were applauded, and the Captain 
 continued: Now, young man, just answer me a few 
 plain questions. What s your mother s first name? 
 
 " Sarah, said Mr. Peyton, meekly. 
 
 86
 
 The South in Light and Shade 
 
 " Right so far, says Simon. Now, how many chil 
 dren has she? 
 
 Two me and brother Tom. 
 
 " Right ag in, says Simon, and, bowing to the com 
 pany, Tom, gentlemen, were named arter me warn t 
 he, sir? this last with great severity. 
 
 He was, sir his name is Thomas Witherspoon. 
 
 "Simon affected great satisfaction. Come here, 
 Jeems. Gentlemen, I call you one and all to witness 
 that I rekognize this here young man to be my proper, 
 giniwine nephy my sister Sally s son; an I wish him 
 rispected as sich. Jeems, hug your old uncle. 
 
 "After many embraces and much gratulation, during 
 which Simon shed tears, he resumed his fight with the 
 tiger. But the fickle goddess, jealous of his attentions 
 to the nephew of General Witherspoon, turned darkly 
 upon him. He lost all his gains as fast as he had won 
 them, and with the same calm composure. Indeed, he 
 made merry with his multiplying disasters, such as 
 Thar goes a fine, fat porker, and That makes the 
 whole drove squeal. At length he had not a dollar 
 left. My friend, said he to the dealer, could an old 
 Kentuckian as is fur from home bet a few mighty slick 
 fat bacon hogs ag in money at this here table? Of 
 course he could, and presently had bet off the biggest 
 drove that had ever entered Alabama. 
 
 " Jeems, says he. 
 ; Yes, uncle. 
 
 " Jeems, my son, I m a leetle behind to this here 
 gentleman here, an I m obliged to go to Greensboro by 
 to-night s stage to collect some money as is owin to me. 
 Now, ef I should not be back home when my hogs 
 come in es likely I may not be do you, Jeems, take 
 this gentlemen to wharever the boys put em up, and 
 see to it that he picks out thirty of the very best of the 
 drove. D ye mind, my son ? 
 
 87
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 "This was entirely satisfactory to the dealer, and, 
 having settled like a gentleman, Simon took his nephew 
 into a corner of the room, and says he, thoughtfully: 
 Jeems, has your mother bought her pork yit? 
 
 "Mr. Peyton said she had not. 
 
 Well, Jeems, you go down to the pen when the 
 drove comes in, an pick her out ten of the best. Tell 
 the boys to show the new breed them Berkshires. " 
 
 Mr. Peyton made his grateful acknowledgments, and 
 the two started back to rejoin the company. But 
 Simon paused. "Stop," says he. "You moutn t have 
 a couple o hundred about you that I could use until I 
 get back from Greensboro, mout you ?" 
 
 Mr. Peyton had only about fifty, but he could raise 
 the rest, which he did at once. Then there was a good 
 deal of joking and drinking, and Simon, finding that 
 General Witherspoon had unlimited credit at the bar, 
 treated the whole company to a champagne supper. 
 At last, at four o clock in the morning, he and James 
 Peyton repaired to the Greensboro coach. Just before 
 entering this vehicle, Simon stopped to bid an affection 
 ate adieu to his nephew. He was very full. 
 
 " Jeems, says he, I say, Jeems. I may forgit them 
 
 fellers, but they ll never forgit me. I m if they 
 
 do. Being assured that they never would, he contin 
 ued : Jeems, has yer mother bought her hogs yit ? 
 
 " No, sir, says Peyton. You know you told me to 
 take ten of your hogs for her don t you recollect? 
 
 " Don t do that, says Simon. 
 
 " No, Uncle? 
 
 "TAKE TWENTY! "
 
 The South in Light and Shade 
 
 The military career of Captain Suggs sustained the 
 character he had secured for himself in civil life. He 
 commanded at Fort Suggs during the Creek war. His 
 company of Tallapoosa Volunteers were sometimes 
 dubbed by his political adversaries "The Forty 
 Thieves," but this was afterward proved to be a slander. 
 There were only thirty-nine of them. They and their 
 gallant chief were never engaged in regular combat 
 with the Indians, but their exploits upon watermelons 
 and hen-roosts made them famous. Notwithstanding 
 these, however, the close of the Creek war found Simon 
 as poor as he had been when it began. The money 
 which he had obtained by such devious, yet difficult, 
 operations had melted away. At length, Mrs. Suggs 
 informed him that "the sugar and coffee were nigh 
 about out," and that there were "not above a dozen 
 j ints an middlin s, all put together, in the smoke 
 house." To a man of Suggs s affection this state of 
 destitution was most distressing. He pondered over it 
 with bitter anguish. Then he rose and paced the floor. 
 Presently his features were set, his mind was fixed. 
 "Somebody must suffer," said he. He would go to a 
 camp-meeting, he would get religion, he would enter 
 the ministry and build a church. He did not doubt 
 that his versatile talents would carry him through this 
 new part, and he was more than justified by the result. 
 He went up to be prayed for, he toiled three days with 
 the evil spirits, and when he had made himself the ob- 
 
 89
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 ject of universal sympathy and hope, he shouted "halle 
 lujah," and from a miserable, impenitent sinner became 
 at once an exhorter with surprising revivalistic talents. 
 
 " Ante up, brethering, he cried ; ante up ! I come 
 in on nary pa r, an see what I drawed. This is a game 
 whar everybody wins. You jest stick to the devil when 
 he raises yer and raise him back, and he can t turn you 
 off. In the service of the church you allers holds four 
 aces. This was a new style of religious illustration; 
 but it took amazingly, and in a few days Simon devel 
 oped his purpose to enter the ministry and build a 
 church, ef he could git help. It was agreed that a 
 collection should be taken ; that the proceeds should be 
 placed in the hands of the Rev. Belah Bugg, in trust, 
 and that Simon should be sent back to Tallapoosa, re 
 joicing in his new-found grace. In passing around 
 through the congregation Simon s appeals were at once 
 persuasive and peculiar. Stack em up, brethering, says 
 he, and don t be bashful or backward. They ll size 
 theyselves any way you pitch em in. Don t you see 
 me? Ain t you proud of me? I m a hoary old sinner, 
 but I kin draw to a meetin -house, an git a whole con 
 gregation. Three hundred dollars were thrown into 
 the hat. After the collection Brother Bugg said: 
 Well, Brother Suggs, well done, thou good and faith 
 ful servant. Let s go and count it out. I ve got to 
 leave presently. 
 
 No, says Simon, solemnly, I can t do that. 
 
 Why, Brother Suggs, says Brother Bugg, what 
 are the matter? 
 
 "Simon looked at him for a moment sadly, and says 
 he, Brother Bugg, it s got to be prayed over fust His 
 whole face was illuminated. It looked like a torchlight 
 procession. 
 
 90
 
 The South in Light and Shade 
 
 Well, says Bugg, let s go to one side and do it. 
 
 No, says Simon, sweetly. 
 
 "Mr. Bugg was impressed, but uncertain. He gave 
 a look of inquiry. 
 
 "Says Simon: You see that krick swamp? I m 
 gwine down in thar; I m gwine into that lonely swamp, 
 an I m gwine to lay this means down so, an I m gwine 
 to git on these kn-e-e-s, an I m n-e-v-e-r gwine to git up 
 ontil I feel its blessin . An nobody ain t got to be thar 
 but me jess me an the good spirits as goes with me. 
 
 "The Rev. Belah Bugg was overcome. He could not 
 say a word. He wrung the hand of the new convert, 
 and wished him God-speed. Simon struck for the 
 swamp, where his horse was already hitched and wait 
 ing. He mounted and rode musingly away. Ef I 
 didn t do them fellers to a crackin , says he, Til never 
 bet on two pa r ag in. They are pretty peart at the 
 game theyselves ; but live and let live is my motto, an , 
 arter all, gen us and experience ought to count for 
 somethin in the long run. " 
 
 At various times in his life, Simon appeared before 
 the courts to answer for his sins; but he never failed 
 to come off with flying colors. His last appearance 
 was as a witness before the grand jury. It was an 
 especial panel, embracing the judge of the circuit and 
 all the leading lawyers. 
 
 " Captain Suggs, said the foreman, did you play a 
 game of cards last Saturday night in a room above Ster- 
 ritt s grocery? 
 
 1 Yes, sir, says Simon, I did. 
 
 What game of cards did you play, Captain Suggs ? 
 
 Well, sir, says Simon, it was a little game they 
 call draw-poker. 
 
 91
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 1 You played for money, Captain Suggs ? 
 
 No, sir; we played for chips. 
 "This stumped the foreman; but a talented Alex 
 ander, who happened to be on the jury, put in: 
 
 " Of course, of course, you played for chips, Captain 
 Suggs. But you got your chips cashed at the close of 
 the game, didn t you? 
 
 I don t know how that was, said Simon ; es for 
 me, I had no chips to cash. " 
 
 It was ever thus with Simon, and it was this which 
 saved him. He rarely had any "chips to cash." He 
 was always in a good humor, he was always a willing 
 soul, he was always ready, and he was always short. 
 In his old age he repented of his sins; he had learned 
 by a long life, full of rich experience, that his own 
 motto, "honesty is the best policy," was true. He 
 pinned his faith to that ; and he stood to it. In conse 
 quence, he was elected sheriff of Tallapoosa County 
 a Whig county he being the first Democrat who ever 
 carried it. He died, and had a public funeral, and 
 upon his tombstone may be seen inscribed to this day 
 the following inscription: 
 
 "Sacred to the memory of 
 
 CAPTAIN SIMON SUGGS, 
 
 Of the Tallapoosa Volunteers. 
 
 He never hilt an opportune hand in his life; but 
 when he drew upon eternity, it is believed he made an 
 invincible in the world to come !" 
 
 92
 
 The South in Light and Shade 
 
 I take it that there there is no one here this evening 
 who has not heard of the killing of McKissick. It 
 created no little commotion throughout Coon Creek 
 settlement, not only on account of the circumstances 
 attending the homicide, but because McKissick was 
 Jim Gardner s fourth man. According to Joe Furgu- 
 son s testimony, "Mr. McKissick were sittin in his 
 back store a-playin of his fid-dell not thinkin of 
 bein stobbed, nor nothin of the kind when the pris 
 oner at the bar comes in an stobs Mr. McKissick; 
 whereupon he seizes a i on mallet, lights out o the 
 window, lips the fence, an clars hisself." Circum 
 stances so heinous the law could not brook. The judge 
 sent for the prosecuting attorney, and observed that this 
 time Jim Gardner must go up; but, when the case 
 came to trial, the defence poured in unexepectedly 
 strong. Six or seven witnesses testified that, though a 
 dangerous man when roused, Gardner was peaceful 
 and unaggressive ; that his various killings had been in 
 self-defence, and that, if people would let him alone, 
 he d let them alone. As a last resort, the prosecution, 
 seeing Billy Driver in the court-house, and observing a 
 dreadful scar upon his neck from a wound inflicted by 
 the prisoner some years before, called him to the stand. 
 
 " Mr. Driver, said the State s attorney, do you 
 know the prisoner at the bar? 
 "What, Gar ner there? 
 " Yes, sir, Gardner there. 
 
 93
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 " Oh, yes. I know Gar ner. 
 
 " How long have you known him? 
 
 " What, Jim Gar ner? 
 
 Yes, sir, Jim Gardner. 
 
 Well, Jedge you see I disremember riggers, but 
 as man an boy it s gwine on twenty years mout be 
 twenty-one or it mout be nineteen and a half thar or 
 tharabouts. 
 
 Where did you get that scar across your neck, Mr. 
 Driver? 
 
 1 This ere scar, sir? 
 
 " Yes, sir, that scar. Didn t it result from a wound 
 inflicted by the prisoner at the bar, sir? 
 
 "What, Gar ner? 
 
 Yes, sir, Gardner. 
 
 " Oh, yes, that was Gar ner. No doubt about that. 
 
 Now, sir, tell the jury how it happened. 
 
 Well, you see, me an a parcel o the boys was 
 pitching dollars down to the cross-roads, and Jim Gar 
 ner he was lyin on the grass, a-keepin the score. Arter 
 we d run the pot up to fifteen dollars it mout ha been 
 sixteen, and then ag in it moutn t ha been more n four 
 teen one o the boys says, Le s go up to the grocery 
 an git a drink. We all lowed we d go, an, jes for 
 devilment not thinkin thar was any harm in it, you 
 know I ups an knocks Jim Gar ner s hat off, and says 
 he, You cussed, bow-legged, mandy-shanked, knock- 
 kneed, w r eb-footed, tangle-haired vermint, if you do that 
 ag in I ll cut your ornery throat for you. Well, we 
 gits a drink and goes back to the cross-roads, an in 
 about a hour, or a hour an a half it mout ha been 
 two hours one o the boys says ag in, Le s go up to the 
 grocery an git a drink. So we was gwine along to the 
 grocery to git a drink, and jes for devilment, you know 
 an not thinkin Gar ner was in yearnest I ups an 
 knocks his hat off, an the fust thing I know d he whips 
 
 94
 
 The South in Light and Shade 
 
 out a knife and ducks it into my throat. I didn t have 
 no weapon nor nothin , so I lowed I d better put a little 
 daylight tween me an Gar ner, and I sorter sidled off, 
 like, he follerin ; but, Lord ! I know d I had the bottom 
 an the hills, and that he couldn t ketch up with me. 
 So every now an then I d stop an let him closer, jes to 
 devil him. Arter a while, however, he picks up a hay- 
 fork ( 
 
 " Stop, sir ! Was that hay-fork of wood or iron ? 
 
 " It mout ha been o wood, or it mout ha been o 
 iron, or it mout ha been o steel, or 
 
 How many teeth did it have? 
 
 Well, you see, when I see Jim Gar ner pick up 
 the hay-fork, thinks I, I better put a little more day 
 light between me an him, an I disremember the num 
 ber o teeth it mout ha been two, and then ag in it 
 mout ha been four, may be five I was in a bit of a 
 hurry, an I didn t exactly count em. 
 
 " Go on, sir! 
 
 I did go on, sir, an presently we got in sight o 
 my house, an my wife happened to be comin out to cut 
 some wood, and as I rin past her to get out o Gar ner s 
 way, she fetched him with the axe. 
 
 Exactly, but for which he would have killed you. 
 "What, Gar ner? 
 
 Yes, sir, Gardner. 
 
 " Oh, in course in course. It stands to reason. 
 Thar warn t no other door for me to get out of, an he 
 would ha been in that if my wife hadn t downed him 
 with the axe. 
 
 How far is it from the cross-roads to your house, 
 Mr. Driver? 
 
 Bout a mile, or a mile an a half, Jedge may be 
 two mile. I never measured it axactly. 
 
 " Now, Mr. Driver, will you tell the court what 
 sort of a man you consider the prisoner at the bar? 
 
 95
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 "What, Gar ner? 
 
 Yes, sir, Gardner. 
 
 I do no nothin ag in Gar ner, sir. 
 
 Don t you think him a desperate character, sir? 
 
 What, Gar ner? 
 
 Yes, sir, Gardner. 
 
 No, sir; I never hearn Gar ner so called. 
 
 Why, you say he cut your throat almost from ear 
 to ear, followed you with an iron or steel hay-fork for 
 two miles, and was only prevented from taking your 
 life by the interposition of your wife. 
 " What, Gar ner? 
 
 1 Yes, sir, Gardner. 
 
 I can t swear he didn t, sir. 
 
 Then, if you don t consider him a desperate char 
 acter, what do you consider him ? 
 
 What, Gar ner, sir? 
 
 Yes, sir, Gardner. 
 
 1 Well, your honor, of course Gar ner is a clever 
 man I ve know d of him gwine on to twenty years 
 mout be twenty-one, an ag in it moutn t be but nine 
 teen and a half an I should say that Gar ner is a man 
 that it won t do to go a-projeckin with him. " 
 
 There used to be, and I fear there still are, a good 
 many men in the South with whom "it won t do to go 
 a-projeckin ." It is true that we have reformed that 
 indifferently, and we hope, in time, to reform it alto 
 gether; howbeit, there is a deal of misconception 
 abroad touching the character of our murderers. They 
 are not, as is stated so often, young gentlemen of the 
 first families. On the contrary, they are with us, as 
 elsewhere, low fellows mere brutes and bullies. 
 
 96
 
 The South in Light and Shade 
 
 There is, perhaps, more stealing than killing in the 
 North, and more killing than stealing in the South, 
 because the criminal classes of each section go for that 
 which is cheapest, safest, and most abundant money or 
 blood, as the case may be ; but crime is crime the coun 
 try over, and nothing could be more unjust than the 
 assumption of superior morality by the inhabitants of 
 any part of it. No people in the world are more 
 homogeneous than the people of the United States. 
 Where differences exist they are purely exterior. The 
 self-governing principle, the vestal fire of our Anglo- 
 Saxon race, is strong enough and warm enough to 
 maintain our system of Anglo-Saxon freedom and law 
 to the farthest ends of the Republic. Like a touch of 
 nature, making the whole Union kin, it joins the States, 
 and should be left in each to do its work in its own 
 way. The methods which suit one State may not suit 
 another; but in all we may safely trust the result to 
 the good sense and good feeling, shaped by the inter 
 est and guided by the intelligence, of the greater num 
 ber, sure that in the South, no less than in the North, 
 the conservative forces of society, left to themselves, 
 will prevail over violence and wrong. Much, if not 
 most, of the disorder of the last few years has been 
 directly traceable to a conflict of jurisdictions, State 
 and Federal. Between the two stools justice fell to 
 the ground, while malefactors made their escape. It is 
 absurd to suppose that any civilized people, living 
 
 97
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 within the sound of church-bells, can love lawlessness 
 for its own sake. 
 
 If the manhood of the South were less true than it 
 is, it would be held to its standards by the womanhood 
 of the South. During our period of savage conten 
 tion this shone with a sweet and gracious lustre, which 
 dazzled even those against whom it was directed, so 
 that the worst which was said of the Southern woman 
 by soldiers whom only the laws of war made her ene 
 mies, related to her fidelity in what they considered a 
 bad cause. But if in time of war she was plucky, pa 
 tient, and sincere, her triumphs have been tenfold 
 greater during a peace which has spread before her 
 harder trials still; the transition from wealth to pov 
 erty, with its manifold heart-burnings and mischances, 
 joining the sharp pangs of memory to the grievous bur 
 dens of every-day life; the unfamiliar broomstick and 
 the unused darning-needle; the vacant clothes-chest and 
 the empty cupboard 
 
 "The desecrated shrine, the trampled ear, 
 The smould ring homestead and the household flower, 
 Torn from the lintel." 
 
 I know nothing more admirable in all the world of 
 history or romance than the blithe, brave woman of 
 the South, grasping the realities of life in hands yet 
 trembling with the interment of its ideals, and plant 
 ing upon the grave of her first and only love signals 
 98
 
 The South in Light and Shade 
 
 of fortitude and honor, cheerfulness and gentleness, to 
 be seen and followed by her children. These she would 
 have inherit with the misfortunes of the South, the 
 pride of the South not expressed in noisy vaunt and 
 scorn of honest toil, in idleness and repining, but in a 
 noble nature and a gift for work. 
 
 In the full meridian of their prosperity, the people 
 of the South were an easy-going, pleasure-loving people. 
 You will not have failed to observe, in the rude examples 
 of Southern humor which I have cited, the conspicuous 
 part played by the literature of the pictorial paste 
 boards, by cards and gaming. It could not be other 
 wise if they should be true to nature and reality. Men 
 who dwell upon great estates, who are surrounded by 
 slaves, who have few excitements or cares, are likely 
 to grow indolent. The Southern gentleman had plenty 
 of time, and he thought he had plenty of money to lose. 
 A wide veranda, a party of agreeable neighbors, ice- 
 water to burn and Havana cigars, a brisk little black 
 boy to keep off the flies, and a bright little yellow boy 
 to pass about the nutmeg that was the ideal state. 
 Of course the lower orders imitated and vulgarized, 
 as I have shown, the luxurious habits of the upper. 
 The crash came ; and, like the unsubstantial pageant of 
 a dream, the pretty fabric fell. The great and the 
 small, the good and the ill, were buried under one com 
 mon ruin. There is hardly anything left of the gilded 
 structure. It is no longer fashionable or respectable to 
 
 99
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 fribble the days away in idle, costly pleasure. Battle- 
 scarred, time-worn, and care-worn, the South that is, 
 is most unlike the South that was. There is something 
 truly pathetic in the spectacles of altered fortune which 
 everywhere meet the eye ; for in the old life there were 
 very few shadows. Such as there were gathered them 
 selves about the negro cabins. 
 
 I have purposely omitted the humors of the Southern 
 black, because, amusing though they be, they are not 
 essentially racy of the soil. The negro is an African 
 in Congo or in Kentucky, in Jamaica or in Massachu 
 setts. His humor is his own, a department to itself, 
 embracing, amid much that is grotesque, more that is 
 touching ; for his lot has been as varied as his complex 
 ion, and ever and ever of a darksome hue. I know 
 nothing that appeals so directly to the intellects and 
 sensibilities of thoughtful men as the treatment he has 
 received among us, North and South, in the present and 
 in the past, and I declare that when I think of him, 
 funny as he may seem to be, I am moved by any other 
 than mirthful suggestions. I look back into that by-gone 
 time, and I see him, not as a squalid serf, picturesque in 
 his rags, or as we behold him on the minstrel stage 
 the clown in the pageant making merry with cap and 
 bell but as an image of impending sorrow crouched 
 beneath the roof-tree, God s shadow upon the dial of 
 American progress, whose cabalistic figures the wisest 
 have not been able to read. I turn away dismayed. I 
 100
 
 The South in Light and Shade 
 
 dare not look upon the scene and laugh, if he is to be 
 a part of it. I only know, and to that degree I am 
 happy, that slavery is gone with other bag and baggage 
 of an obsolete time; that it is all gone the wide 
 veranda filled with pleasure-loving folk ; the vast estate, 
 without a reason for its existence or a purpose in the 
 future ; the system which, because it was contented, re 
 fused to realize or be impressed by the movements of 
 mankind. 
 
 All, all has passed away. The very life which made 
 it possible is gone. The man who, being able to pursue 
 his bent, lives to amuse himself, is hardly more thought 
 of now than the poor parasite who seeks to live and 
 thrive off the weaknesses and vices of his betters. 
 Never again shall the observation of the Governor of 
 North Carolina to the Governor of South Carolina be 
 quoted as a wise, witty, and relevant remark; never 
 again shall the black boy s dream of happiness be 
 realized in the polishing of an unexpected pair of boots. 
 If proselytism be the supremest joy of mankind, New 
 England ought to be supremely happy. It is at length 
 the aim of the Southron to out- Yankee the Yankees, to 
 cut all the edges, and repair his losses by the success 
 ful emulation of Yankee thrift. Taking a long view 
 of it, I am not sure it is best for the country, although, 
 as matters stand, I know it to be better for the South. 
 
 101
 
 MONEY AND MORALS* 
 
 Last winter as I was about setting out to fill a round 
 of lecture engagements I received a letter from an old 
 friend of mine saying he had seen it stated in the news 
 papers that I was going to talk about money and morals 
 and adding regretfully that, as he had very little of 
 either, he would come and hear me. Let me hope that 
 those of you who have done me the honor to come here 
 to-night have not been drawn out by a similar state of 
 destitution. Because, to be in the beginning entirely 
 candid and confidential with you, it is not my purpose 
 in undertaking a few guesses at truth touching those 
 great forces of life and thought, to dwell overlong upon 
 the economic aspects of the one, or the abstract relations 
 of the other. Whatever may have been my offences in 
 that regard, and on occasions past and gone, it is my 
 present wish rather to avoid than to invite, or provoke, 
 controversy; though, as a matter of fact, I do not be 
 lieve that, since the days of the bard who "wrote like 
 an angel and talked like poor Poll," the man has lived 
 who could argue a case better, or more to his own satis 
 faction when there happened to be no one to listen to 
 
 * 1888. 
 1 02
 
 Money and Morals 
 
 him, or to answer him than I can myself. And yet, 
 on the other hand, if we would only allow ourselves to 
 see it, there is scarcely any question, public or private, 
 which has not two sides to it, and on which some com 
 mon ground might not be found by the man who should 
 seek honestly to ascertain the actual facts involved, and, 
 although agreement as to conclusions might not always 
 follow, certainly much of the bitterness of disagree 
 ment would be struck out of the record. 
 
 Indeed, I am inclined to believe that we are, as a rule, 
 nearest to being in the wrong when we are most positive 
 and emphatic. It was, you will remember, William 
 Lamb, afterward Lord Melbourne, who said: "I wish 
 I could be as sure of anything as Tom Macaulay is of 
 everything." The New England deacon on our own 
 side of the water put this idea subjectively and wittily, 
 when, coming out of church on a Sunday, he observed 
 to the neighbor, between whom and himself there had 
 been a coolness, "Brother Jones, after listening to the 
 discourse of our beloved pastor to-day upon Christian 
 charity, I think you and I ought to shake hands and be 
 friends again. Now, as I can t give in, you must." 
 That man was a humorist no less than a philosopher, 
 and knew that he was, in reality, confessing himself to 
 have been in the wrong. It is a thousand pities that 
 humor, which is to philosophy what the dews of Heaven 
 are to the earth, does not descend of tener into our hearts 
 and minds, to moisten and soften what it finds there; 
 103
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 showing us through each reflecting globule and prism 
 the pains we take to make ourselves and others 
 wretched; and all in our own selfishness and conceit. 
 And so, my friends, in what I am going to say to you 
 to-night I shall at least not be pragmatical ; though, as I 
 happen to have the floor, and can t give in, why, in case 
 of disagreement, you must ! 
 
 Take the map of North America and fix it in your 
 mind s eye. Behold, what an empire! Caesar never 
 looked upon the like. Napoleon, in his wildest dreams, 
 conceived nothing so magnificent and vast. See how it 
 takes up its line of travel with the North Star ; how it 
 coasts along the frozen seas of Alaska and Labrador; 
 how it sweeps round the capes of the Newfoundland, 
 losing itself a moment in the mist; how it skips, as it 
 were, over His Majesty s Dominions, to deepen into the 
 pine forests and granite hills of New England, with in 
 land oceans for its jewels and the great Niagara for its 
 crown of diamonds; how it journeys in palace coaches 
 and vestibule trains through the glorious North and the 
 teeming South, until, dropping its rich fruitions into the 
 Gulf Stream, it fades at last into a vision of Paradise 
 under the Southern Cross, amid the silence and the soli 
 tude of eternal summer. What a wealth is here to 
 elevate the mind ; to inspire the heart ; to make us proud 
 of our country and ourselves ! What historic memories 
 crowd every foot of the way, tracing the prowess of our 
 land and race in the bones of heroes that reach to the 
 104
 
 Money and Morals 
 
 borders of the Polar mystery, to the bones of heroes that 
 have enriched the soil of the Montezumas, marking, in 
 peace and war, in the triumphs of the senate and the 
 field, in the nobler achievements of the laboratory and 
 the workshop, the progress of a people who have already 
 revolutionized the New World and put the Old to 
 blush, and who are destined ultimately to absorb all the 
 resources of the earth and air, and all the arts and pow 
 ers of man in his state of final and complete develop 
 ment. Is there anything to mar the prospect? Is 
 there anything to dim the light, or to darken the scene? 
 Is there anything across the great highway of the future 
 to obstruct our march of triumph and glory as a nation 
 and a people? Yes, I think that there is; and, recur 
 ring to my text, and still keeping money and morals in 
 mind, nor yet forgetting our extradition treaties and 
 our detective system, I answer without hesitation 
 Canada and Mexico. Yes, Canada and Mexico ; Can 
 ada, the ready asylum of gentlemen who have more 
 money than legal right or moral title to it ; Mexico, the 
 flowery home of gentlemen who, with or without 
 money, have no morals to speak of. In other days, the 
 gentleman possessed of an obliquity with respect to 
 money, or the gentleman who had made himself re 
 sponsible for a funeral not sanctioned by morals, 
 found an easy retreat on this side of the Rio Grande. 
 You will remember that when the lawyer heard 
 from his client the whole story of the homicide, 
 105
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 and advised the survivor to fly, the client was most 
 indignant. 
 
 "What, fly?" said he. "Ain t I already in Texas?" 
 The Lone Star has deepened into forty-five stars 
 since then; so that now the excursionist who would 
 escape the importunities of the sheriff and the blandish 
 ments of the court must put the Sierras betwixt himself 
 and official civility, or else go to Canada direct, which, 
 on account of its accessibility, I suppose, seems to have 
 gained greatly of late in the favor of those tourists who 
 disdain Cook s tickets and have no time to wait for pass 
 ports. And so it is that I use Canada and Mexico as 
 geographic expressions of a thought that irresistibly calls 
 up the genial defaulter and the able embezzler, to say 
 nothing about the obliging but absconded cashier of the 
 savings-bank, and the delightful custodian of the trust 
 fund, that is, alas, no more ; and not, as terms of ill-will 
 or offence toward those friendly neighbors who, as in 
 the case of Texas before them, will one day rap at our 
 outer gates for admission into our sisterhood of States. 
 I am sure that there is no one here to-night, who is 
 old enough to have invaded an apple orchard, or robbed 
 a watermelon patch, who has not many a time reflected 
 what a great thing it is to have plenty of money. All 
 of us have turned that matter over in moments of reflec 
 tion, dejection, and embarrassment; in day-dreams, see 
 ing a fairy ship come home from India, and building 
 castles in the air off the proceeds of the sale of the cargo ; 
 1 06
 
 Money and Morals 
 
 in those yet deeper and more disappointing dreams of 
 the dead of night, when sleep has triumphed over toil 
 and care, and the wheels of fancy, going round and 
 round the darkened chamber, have revealed to us at last 
 the lucky number in the phantom lottery. Who has 
 not thought of the good he would do with it ; of how he 
 would minister here to the wants of the poor and there 
 to the needs of his friend? What spendthrift but has 
 paid his debts oft" the usufruct of his visions? How 
 many a wealthy beggar, a golden sorrow ever pressing 
 about his heart, rich in dollars, though relatively poor 
 for money, like all things else in life except love and 
 duty, is relative how many a millionaire, encumbered 
 by his possessions, yet unable to meet the demands of 
 those inexorable creditors, Conscience, Thought & Co., 
 but has wished a thousand times over that money was a 
 vision, and only a vision? 
 
 I say that money is relative, and it is very relative. 
 The man who has ten millions of dollars cuts a poor 
 figure by the man who has two or three hundred 
 millions of dollars; while the man who has only a 
 measly million is, in the estimation of these, a kind of 
 pauper. The man who has a hundred thousand dol 
 lars of income and a hundred and fifty thousand dollars 
 of wants is worse off than the man who has nothing and 
 wants his dinner. There are men, dwelling in the 
 great money centres, who contrive to eke out a scanty 
 livelihood on fifty thousand dollars a year, and who, 
 107
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 discounting the cost of living there and here, are unable 
 to conceive how any man can possibly get on here for 
 less than twenty-five thousand dollars a year ; whereas, 
 I have an impression, that, if I should go out into this 
 community with a search-warrant even out into this 
 audience, manifest as are its evidences of wealth and 
 culture I might be able to find a few persons who 
 manage to make both ends meet on half that sum. 
 
 But this is by no means all. Money is not only rela 
 tive; it is full of illusions and delusions. From the 
 poor creature who is sure he will get it somehow, he 
 doesn t know nor care much how, and who goes into 
 debt on the strength of his expectations, to the poor 
 creature who has no hope in particular, but who loves 
 to talk about it ; from the wan woman in the attic, wait 
 ing for the letter that never comes, to the brave and 
 honest lad by the furnace, who doubts not that the ham 
 mer in his hand is a wizard s wand as it often is and 
 who never means to let it go until he has struck fortune 
 out of the dregs and dross of the earth ; from the capi 
 talist in his counting-house, to whom money is now a 
 master and now a slave, but always an attending geni, 
 to the young fellow behind the counter who gets seven 
 dollars a week for selling prints and playing baseball on 
 Sundays ; yea, from the little maiden out-o -doors, hang 
 ing up the clothes and singing her song o sixpence 
 
 "Pocket full o rye," 
 1 08
 
 Money and Morals 
 
 to the Queen in her royal robes and in the kitchen, 
 "Eating bread and honey" 
 
 prince, peasant, philosopher, statesman, and warrior, 
 all of us have at one time or another had a touch from 
 that fatal wand, which has brought so much happiness, 
 and so much wretchedness into the world, and will con 
 tinue to do so as long as the world endures. 
 
 For money is the first, greatest of the material facts 
 of which life is composed; it is the pivot about which 
 everything else revolves; the piston-rod that drives all 
 else. Whether we take counsel of the New Testament 
 and regard the love of it as "the root of all evil," or fall 
 in with the cynicism of Heine that "money is god, and 
 Rothschild is his prophet," no man can afford to disre 
 gard it, or to leave it out of his account. Bacon calls it 
 "the baggage of virtue," but even he admits that, though 
 it hindereth the march, "it cannot be spared, or left be 
 hind." It is the one thing universally used and abused ; 
 universally coveted and reviled. All men affect to hold 
 it lightly, and all men I am afraid secretly hanker after 
 it. For my own part though not as a rule given to 
 the pharisaic mood I am thankful to God that to me 
 it has been at all times an instrument and not an end, 
 and that, with debts paid and a shot in the locker, I 
 would about as soon be myself as a gold mine, for all 
 the further good that money can do me. Indeed, I was 
 never happier in my life than when, to escape the 
 109
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 humiliation of borrowing from an uncle whose politics 
 I did not approve, I went with my watch to an uncle 
 who had no politics at all and got $50 on it, and I never 
 knew what it was to be thoroughly unhappy, until I 
 had acquired a considerable income, with its accumula 
 tion of wants, and was brought into close, personal inti 
 macy with those charming friends of the man who has 
 what they call credit in bank, Mr. Promissory Note, 
 and Messrs. Renewal, Discount & Co. 
 
 Nevertheless, it is a good thing to have plenty of 
 money, honestly obtained, and a still better thing if this 
 money be honestly applied. The camel s passage 
 through the needle s eye may have been easier in those 
 old days than the rich man s entrance into the gates of 
 Heaven particularly if it happened to be a very small 
 camel and a very large needle and yet, on the other 
 hand, there must have been many a rich man gone to 
 Heaven, for we have the record of many a good one here 
 on earth; men who have served God and loved their 
 fellow-men ; and 
 
 "Given freely of their store 
 To the needy and the poor." 
 
 I should hate to think that money is a positive bar to 
 salvation; and that it is an actual sin to seek and to 
 gain much of it. But it is undoubtedly true, that it 
 does harden and corrupt ten times to the one time that it 
 elevates and softens. The man who trades in money is 
 no
 
 Money and Morals 
 
 apt to take on some of the brittleness of the metal of 
 which it is composed. He gets in time to measure 
 everything and everybody by that one metallic standard. 
 It is his business constantly to think how he may rub 
 two dollars together and make three of them, or better, 
 four, or five, or six. Capital we are told is timid. That 
 is because it has no heart in it. But it has eyes and ears, 
 and makes up for its lack of courage by a craft that 
 rarely trusts, except on good security, and never tires, 
 except when the plate is passed, and is always suspicious 
 and alert. How many a good fellow have I not known 
 turned into a bad fellow by the possession of money; 
 how many a generous fellow who has entered a bank all 
 grace to come out all gall ; and how few the cases where 
 money has enlarged the mind and amplified the soul. 
 
 Our literature is full of illustrations, some of them 
 humorous and some of them pathetic, showing the ills 
 that wealth, particularly sudden wealth, has brought to 
 individuals and to families. But we need not these 
 fictitious examples. We are continually meeting in our 
 daily walks and ways instances that point the moral and 
 adorn the tale of great expectations come to naught by 
 actual realization and delightful visions of the fancy 
 turned to ashes of dead-sea fruit in the hand of posses 
 sion. 
 
 It is my belief that the world has been much misled 
 by some of its best maxims, or, rather, let me say, by the 
 misinterpretation of some of its most accepted maxims, 
 in
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 There is no one of these which appears in so many lan 
 guages, and puts itself in such a variety of phrase, as 
 that which urges us to persevere in all things. Perse 
 verance, we are told, conquers all things. Then we are 
 told that labor conquers all things. Then we are told 
 that love conquers all things. Now perseverance will 
 divert no man from the uses to which he was born; 
 labor will not create out of a clod a painter, or a poet ; 
 and love, for all its enchantments and powers, never yet 
 made a silk purse out of a sow s ear, though sometimes 
 very young people think so. Perseverance may apply 
 itself to mistaken objects; and then it becomes vicious. 
 Labor may be misdirected, and so be wasted. And, in 
 seeking to conquer, love, like many other heroes, often 
 falls a victim to its own excesses. How many a man 
 has started out in the world, saying, "I will be a power, 
 I will sacrifice everything to power," or, "I will be rich, 
 I will sacrifice everything to riches," to find, before the 
 journey was half over, not merely that no one of the 
 material things of life brings happiness, but that happi 
 ness itself shifts its foot from time to time, that failing 
 utterly to please or satisfy us at five-and-forty, which 
 delighted us at five-and-twenty. Oftenest, the sacrifice 
 is made to failure ; but, even where success is attained, 
 it fails somehow to bring us what we expected of it. 
 
 An eminent public man once said to me in the pres 
 ence of a great domestic bereavement: "I got into the 
 Senate of the United States when I was just turned 
 112
 
 Money and Morals 
 
 thirty, and by an unusual act of perfidy and treason on 
 the part of a supposed friend, lost my seat two or three 
 years later. From that day to this, the last fifteen 
 years, the sole end and object of my existence, my 
 one aim in life, has been to get that seat back 
 again. At last this wish has been fulfilled, and 
 what does it matter after all?" I once heard a Presi 
 dent of the United States say: "For twenty years I was 
 a candidate for President. Every four years Pennsyl 
 vania sent a delegation to the National Convention to 
 urge my nomination. Every four years we came away 
 beaten and disappointed. Finally, when I had given it 
 up, when it had ceased to be an object of ambition or 
 desire with me, when all of the friends I loved and 
 wanted to reward were dead, and most of the enemies 
 I hated and had meant to punish were turned my 
 friends, I was nominated and elected, and here I am, an 
 old man, full of trials and troubles, with scarcely one 
 joy in the world." 
 
 You doubtless remember how Webster and Clay, at 
 the very zenith of their eminence and fame, deplored 
 their entrance into public life. They had, to the un 
 thinking multitude, achieved the greatest success, and 
 were in possession of all that should accompany old 
 age, as honor, love, obedience, troops of friends; but 
 these things were valueless in their eyes. Each of them 
 had set his heart on one object, the White House, and, 
 failing of that, each saw himself a beaten and broken
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 old man, defeated in the race of life and cheated out of 
 something he had brought himself to believe honestly 
 belonged to him. A little while before his death, Mr. 
 George D. Prentice said to me: "If Mr. Clay had been 
 elected President he would have been the wretchedest 
 man that ever lived, because he would have been proved 
 the biggest liar that ever lived." "How was that, Mr. 
 Prentice?" I asked. "Why, sir," the old journalist re 
 plied, "Mr. Clay was a candidate, an aspirant for the 
 Presidency, during nearly thirty years. He was a 
 warm, impulsive man, with a genius for making friends. 
 Unconsciously he had plastered the public service over 
 three plies deep with promises, real or implied prom 
 ises which could not by any possibility be discharged. 
 He was an honorable, generous, self-respecting man, and 
 when these promises came to maturity and were pre 
 sented for payment, and he realized the situation, it 
 would have embittered his life and broken his heart." 
 There is a lesson, and a true one, for those who lament 
 the loss of that which they cannot get, as it is a sermon 
 against the overweening desire for any particular thing. 
 You may trust me when I say I am so far sincere 
 in believing self-repression in this regard true wisdom, 
 that I rather think the young fellow who is very much 
 in love with a girl and finds her very hard to get, had 
 better let her go and seek him a wife elsewhere. There 
 must be, away down in the feminine intuition, some 
 potent reason impelling a woman to fly from the im- 
 114
 
 Money and Morals 
 
 portunities of a lover, and when at last, as the saying is, 
 she marries him to get rid of him, he had best look to it. 
 
 In short, and in fine, my argument is that we are 
 constantly setting our heart and hope upon the posses 
 sion of some one of the tangible things of life, as office, 
 or money, or an establishment, or a wife, thinking fail 
 ure therein failure in life, and success therein success in 
 life, when, if we could know the truth in advance, that 
 is the very object from which we should start back 
 with horror. 
 
 Success in life is happiness. The successful man, 
 the happy man is the man who believes his old wife the 
 loveliest woman in the world, the vine-covered cottage 
 he calls his home the dearest spot on earth, and who 
 wouldn t swap his ragged, red-headed, freckled-face 
 brats for the best-looking and best-dressed kids of the 
 proudest of his neighbors. Men in their places are the 
 men who stand. The material, the tangible things of 
 life, essential as they are under right conditions to hap 
 piness and comfort, do not, of themselves, bring happi 
 ness and comfort. Millions of money will not save a 
 sensitive man from the tortures of a sore toe. Infinite 
 fame will not save a proud man from the torments of a 
 debt he is unable to pay. I repeat that success in life 
 is happiness, and its seat is in the heart and mind ; not 
 in the stomach or the pocket. 
 
 And this brings me to what I was saying awhile ago 
 about Canada and Mexico. Let us recur to them, or,
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 rather, to some of our late neighbors and friends who 
 have found those countries so attractive that they have 
 gone to pay them indefinite visits. 
 
 Do you know that for many of those men I have 
 a sympathy which I cannot repress, and would not re 
 press if I could? I don t believe that every man who 
 has come short of his accounts is necessarily a scoundrel. 
 I don t believe that every refugee must needs be a thief 
 at heart. I believe that in many cases there was no 
 original purpose to steal, and, in many other cases, if all 
 the facts could be got at, it would be found that down 
 to the very hour of flight there was an honest purpose, 
 even an honest effort, to repair the wrong done in the 
 heat of sanguine expectation or the recklessness of de 
 spair. In cases of official delinquency how often the 
 first false step arose from the official s failure to keep 
 his public and private accounts separate and distinct. 
 Of a sudden he discovers a discrepancy. He promises 
 himself to make this good. A year passes. The gap is 
 wider still. He takes a risk. This fails, of course. 
 Then he loses his head. And then he makes the fatal 
 plunge, and down he goes into the vortex. 
 
 How many breaches of trust begin in those good in 
 tentions with which that very hot place with the very 
 short name is supposed to be paved. Indeed, the gam 
 bling mania, in some form or other, seems to be well- 
 nigh universal, and the gambler never expects to lose. 
 There is always before his mind s eye the mirage of that 
 116
 
 Money and Morals 
 
 capital prize in the lottery of life, or that winning hand 
 in the game of his choice. Even among those who 
 habitually play for money, it has been observed that 
 they laugh when they win and swear when they lose, 
 just as if it was not a certainty, when they sat down at 
 table, that they must inevitably either do the one thing 
 or the other, eliminating from the proceeding any possi 
 ble surprise. One would fancy that such persons ought 
 to be more stoical. But it is not so. Each sitting is to 
 them as though it were their last, and, as no man delib 
 erately plays to lose, he is correspondingly angry when 
 he fails to win. But what a fatal mistake is made by 
 that man who lays his hand upon a dollar he cannot 
 honestly call his own. 
 
 And I know something about that myself. When 
 I was a lad I had an experience which has lasted me a 
 lifetime. I was elected by my schoolmates one of the 
 editors of the periodical of our literary society, and by 
 successive re-elections, term after term, the entire man 
 agement of that ambitious serial at length came into my 
 hands. I was editor and managing editor and secretary 
 and treasurer a bad combination wherever it is found. 
 Well, one day of course, it was at the precise moment 
 when I was required to make my official report it 
 always happens so I discovered that I lacked four dol 
 lars and fifty cents of money enough to balance my 
 books. I must either get that money or falsify those 
 books. Well, I did not have the money I had spent 
 117
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 it. I had not only spent it, but had overdrawn my own 
 private account. I was simply aghast. After lying 
 awake a whole night in alternate anguish and specula 
 tion, I rose in the morning haggard but resolute. I 
 went directly to the guardian angel who had charge of 
 my fiscal affairs and made a clean breast of it. 
 
 "And what is the amount of this defalcation?" says 
 he. 
 
 "Four dollars and fifty cents," I gasped. 
 
 I remember to this day, I can see at this moment, 
 the half queer, half threatening expression that came 
 over those kindly, weather-bronzed features as, hand 
 ing me a check, he said : 
 
 "There, my boy; there are five dollars. It is an 
 ugly piece of business. Don t let it ever happen again." 
 
 And it never has. 
 
 Among those persons who appropriate to their own 
 use money that does not belong to them, seeking those 
 dark-alley short-cuts to fortune that end in disgrace, it 
 has always seemed to me that they are the worst who 
 masquerade as pillars of the church or pose as models of 
 commercial integrity and virtue. Such a man not only 
 robs those who have trusted him and believed in him, 
 adding hypocrisy to felony, but he commits an even 
 greater moral crime by the shock he inflicts upon our 
 common faith in human nature. 
 
 I recall a curious episode of this kind which happened 
 a few years ago in the directory of a bank in one of our 
 118
 
 Money and Morals 
 
 great cities. A certain member of the board was found 
 to have duplicated warehouse receipts to a considerable 
 amount borrowed of the bank on those collaterals. His 
 friends raised the money, paid the notes, and the matter 
 was hushed up. Not, however, without the earnest 
 protest of two of the delinquent s colleagues, who 
 thought, or who said they thought, it compromising 
 with crime that it was not fair to allow such a 
 scamp to be turned loose on an unsuspecting community. 
 Finally, however, their moral susceptibility yielded to 
 entreaty and they acquiesced in the concealment. Less 
 than a year later one of these gentlemen fled to Mexico, 
 leaving behind him a hundred thousand dollars worth 
 of duplicated warehouse receipts. His surviving part 
 ner in morality was indignant beyond expression. He 
 went about wringing his hands, rolling his eyes and 
 stigmatizing the villany right and left. Six months 
 later this gentleman s turn came round. He ran away 
 to Canada, leaving behind him half a million of money 
 raised on bogus security. And, now what do you sup 
 pose came to pass? Why, the original sinner the 
 man who, though so vehemently denounced, had been 
 saved by the generosity of his friends and the silence of 
 the bank once more a prosperous merchant actually 
 served as foreman of the grand jury that indicted the 
 other two ! 
 
 Hypocrisy, we are told by the witty Frenchman, is 
 the homage vice pays to virtue. It is also the mask 
 119
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 behind whose smug features pretended virtue seeks to 
 work off her self-righteous shams. Nor is it an exclu 
 sive possession of the criminal classes. We encounter 
 it in the best society, setting up for a lady of fashion ; 
 in the church, setting up for a philanthropist; in the 
 Board of Trade, setting up for a most enterprising 
 patriot. Which of us has not had his ringers burned 
 by corner lots bought in cities that never were and 
 never will be in the name of development and public 
 spirit, to find no relief in watered stock, no matter how 
 coolly and copiously that may have been applied? 
 Which of us does not recall the obliging friend, who, 
 if it is any accommodation to us, will let us in upon 
 the ground-floor of a financial edifice, having three or 
 four cellars beneath it, and laid, at bottom, in a cave 
 of winds ? Which of us has not his hard-luck story to 
 tell of the neighbor, having an infinite deal of horse- 
 sense and an illimitable knowledge of horse-flesh, with 
 his inevitable "tip" as to the "sure winner" in the com 
 ing race? 
 
 But, and more s the pity, there be hypocrisy and 
 hypocrisy. There is a kind of hypocrisy that goes 
 maundering through the world mistaking itself for 
 virtue and never finding itself out. And then there 
 is a hypocrisy that springs rather from cowardice than 
 fraud, and that is to be pitied. How many a man has 
 lied to save appearances, who might as well have told 
 the truth and gone about his business. The only hon- 
 120
 
 Money and Morals 
 
 est hypocrites, Hazlitt reminds us, are the play-actors 
 who change their characters with every performance, 
 wearing the robes of a king to-day, and the rags of a 
 beggar to-morrow. Nay, the woods are full of hypo 
 crites, unconscious hardly less than conscious; pious 
 hypocrites, who deceive themselves more than they de 
 ceive anybody else, to end at last in the ditch ; bullying 
 hypocrites, who, like poor Acres, really fancy they can 
 fight, until brought to shame by their own folly. In 
 the great Credit Mobilier scandals it was not so much 
 the ownership of stock that brought the disgraces, as 
 the denial of it. 
 
 Each age has its idiosyncrasy. We speak of the 
 golden age, of the iron age, and so forth. Each coun 
 try has its virtues and its vices ; its crown of glory and 
 its crown of thorns. Find out a nation s sin and you 
 shall know that nation s danger. As for ourselves, we 
 should be most concerned for our own. Never mind 
 about Europe, about Asia, about Africa, what is the 
 matter with America? That is the question for us to 
 ponder unceasingly, to investigate with an enlightened 
 self-accusing sense of justice without fear or favor, 
 seeking to decide it fairly. 
 
 What, then, is the trouble with us? Is it the 
 failure of our municipal methods and processes to 
 give efficient and good government to our great cities? 
 That is a menace to our centres of population. 
 But I hardly think it far-reaching enough to bode na- 
 121
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 tional ruin. Is it the race question at the South? 
 That, too, is a great peril to the people who live there. 
 It is a problem, the solution of which the wisest have 
 not been able to compass ; the end of which the most sa 
 gacious cannot see. I know so much about it that I long 
 ago ceased to theorize at all. My hope and faith are 
 embarked in one direction only; in a process of evolu 
 tion involving the elevation and education of both 
 races ; and in a simple, childlike trust in God, who can 
 raise up as He has cast down, and who doeth all things 
 well. Is it the labor question, the social question, the 
 question of free and fair elections? I think not so 
 organically. In a democratic republic, where all things 
 are open to all men, there can never be any general 
 motive or occasion for a resort to combustible agencies 
 and revolutionary expedients. Left to the operation of 
 our electoral and representative machinery, those ques 
 tions ought in time to settle themselves. We are not 
 shut in by feudal bonds and tenures, the bursting of 
 which means blood and terror. We are not the slaves 
 of custom, bound to class distinction and artificial con 
 vention, which, growing obsolete, can only be annihi 
 lated by dynamite in the hands of anarchy. The poor 
 est babe that steals timidly and unnoticed into the world 
 by the back door has the same chance of becoming Presi 
 dent of the United States with the richest that ever 
 shook its tiny fists at the announcing heralds, or pulled 
 the whiskers of its millionaire paternity. Agrarianism 
 122
 
 Money and Morals 
 
 has no place here. Against the pick-axe of the leveller 
 and the brand of the incendiary we may safely leave 
 the result, under God, with the noiseless snowfall of 
 ballots, which soon or late will swallow up the political 
 organism that is persistently and consciously faithless to 
 its duty. 
 
 Someone may be disposed to ask me whether the 
 greatest evil that threatens us is not the tariff? Well, 
 my friends, that old sinner has been sinning a long time, 
 I do admit; and he is a very tough and a very smooth 
 citizen, into the bargain. He has grown very rich and 
 very proud, and wears a mighty ruffle to his shirt, and 
 a great watch-fob dangling by his capacious stomach. 
 He makes himself exceedingly active and aggravating 
 about election time, and is at all times more or less self- 
 complacent and boastful, blind of one eye and deaf in 
 one ear, though seeing more and hearing more than is 
 good for anybody to see and hear, because half of what 
 he knows is not true, while, as to the other half, it were 
 best forgotten. But I do not despair even of our dear, 
 delightful, audacious old friend, High Tariff. He has 
 had a good deal of fat fried out of him latterly, and is 
 not nearly so stout as he was. I know what I am talk 
 ing about when I tell you that he has recently been 
 caught taking more than one furtive look into the sweet 
 face of that star-eyed divinity, who has, from the first, 
 stretched out her hands to save, and not to hurt, him, 
 and I have thought I observed upon those stern, iron- 
 123
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 clad features of his a certain pleased expression, if not 
 an actual smirk. No, no ; I am not in the least afraid 
 of the tariff. That will come round all right; and, 
 meanwhile, no matter how high you build it, I can live 
 under it and enjoy myself as long and as much as the 
 rest can. 
 
 Indeed, I am afraid of no single political issue at this 
 moment parcelling the people out on the right and on 
 the left within party lines. Speaking as a philosopher, 
 and in a historic spirit, the entire present stock in trade 
 of both our parties, of all our parties, makes up the sum 
 of what I call rather small politics. There has never 
 been a time in the history of the country where there 
 was less cause for apprehension from the drift and tenor 
 of current partisan contention. The differences that 
 disturb us are trifles as light as air, compared with the 
 dangers and difficulties which distressed our grand 
 fathers, our fathers, and those of us who are old enough 
 to remember times that did, indeed, "try men s souls." 
 
 I have, in my own day, seen the republic outlast an 
 irrepressible conflict sown in the blood and marrow of 
 the social order. I have seen the Federal Union, not 
 too strongly put together in the first place, come out of 
 a great war of sections stronger than when it went into 
 it, its faith renewed, its credit rehabilitated, and its 
 flag flying in triumph and honor over sixty millions of 
 God-fearing men and women, thoroughly reconciled 
 and homogeneous. I have seen the Constitution of the 
 124
 
 Money and Morals 
 
 United States survive the strain, not merely of a recon- 
 structory ordeal and a Presidential impeachment, but 
 of a disputed count of the electoral vote, a Congres 
 sional deadlock, and an extra constitutional tribunal, 
 yet, standing as firm as a rock against the assaults of 
 its enemies, yielding itself with admirable flexibility to 
 the needs of the country and the time. And, finally, I 
 saw the gigantic fabric of the Federal Government 
 transferred from hands that had held it for a quarter 
 of .a century to other hands without so much as a pro 
 test or a bloody nose, though the fight at the finish had 
 been so close a single blanket might have covered both 
 contestants for the Chief Magisterial office. He who 
 has seen these things, who has borne his part in the 
 awful responsibilities pressing from day to day on all 
 men, bringing with each night a terror with every 
 thought of the morrow, is not going to lose much sleep 
 about what is now going on at Washington, or whether 
 Bill Jones s pension is increased a dollar or a dollar 
 and a half a week, or the duty on slip-ups is altered 
 from forty-two specific to thirty-seven and one-half ad 
 valorem. Certainly, we want to be frugal in our ex 
 penditures, just in our appropriations, and otherwise 
 careful of the people s money. We want to go slow in 
 the matter of new legislation and innovations of every 
 sort. But parties are too evenly balanced, and the 
 issues that divide them arise too much out of questions 
 of mere expediency, or local, or selfish, or party interest 
 125
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 to excite any man unduly unless he wants an office, and 
 wants it bad. 
 
 The history of a hundred years of Constitutional 
 Government in America the story and the moral les 
 son of all our parties may be summed up in a single 
 sentence: That when any political society in this coun 
 try thinks it has the world in a sling, public opinion 
 just rears back upon its hind legs and kicks it out. The 
 real danger before us a danger having its sources 
 deeply laid in the roots of human nature peculiarly 
 fostered by our peculiar structure the Damocles sword 
 perpetually hanging above us is a moral danger, and 
 it springs directly from the relation of money to the 
 moral nature of the people. 
 
 We have no great aristocratic titles, or patents of 
 nobility; and the simplest standard is the money stand 
 ard. "Put money in thy purse" seems to have become 
 a national motto. If this limited itself to fiscal, or 
 even commercial, pursuits, it might not be so bad. But 
 we find it everywhere. From the ten-thousand-a-year 
 pulpit to the hundred-thousand-dollar seat in the Sen 
 ate of the United States, the trail of the trade-mark is 
 over us all. I remember some doggerel verses which 
 went the rounds of the newspapers when I was a boy, 
 and, though I have not seen them in print from that 
 day to this, I can still recall a few of them. They had 
 some relevancy then; how much greater their applica 
 tion now. They rattled off somewhat in this wise : 
 126
 
 Money and Morals 
 
 "As with cautious step we tread our way through 
 This intricate world as other folks do, 
 May we each on his journey be able to view 
 The benevolent face of a dollar or two ; 
 The gospel is preached 
 For a dollar or two; 
 Salvation is reached 
 
 For a dollar or two ; 
 You may sin sometimes, 
 But the worst of all crimes 
 Is to find yourself short 
 Of a dollar or two !" 
 
 And so on for quantity. But how true it was and it 
 is ! How ready we are to forgive the sins of the rich, 
 to forget how they got their money, to stick our feet 
 under their mahogany, to eat of their food and drink of 
 their wine ! How little of the old, primitive morality, <f^ 
 with its fine distinction of right and wrong, remains to 
 our great cities! What a struggle it is to get money 
 for money s sake alone. Money, money, nothing but 
 money! When old Agassiz was offered a thousand 
 dollars a lecture for a hundred consecutive lectures, and 
 turned away from the tempter, saying: "Oh, go along 
 with you ! What time have I to waste on money-mak 
 ing," there were those who thought he was bereft of his 
 senses. Would to God we had an Agassiz or two in 
 every community throughout this land! But honor 
 able poverty seems to have become one of the lost arts. 
 Fame without money is left to second-rate aspirants. 
 The genius of the country is no longer engaged upon 
 127
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 works of patriotic devotion, on works of the imagina 
 tion, on works of humble piety. It is engaged in busi 
 ness, in commerce, in constructive enterprises, in devel 
 opment in money-making. The young fellow with a 
 head on his shoulders and a heart in his bosom turns his 
 back upon public life, and takes to that which pays 
 surest and best cash in hand. "I cannot," he says to 
 himself, "afford to surrender freedom and affluence at 
 home to take poverty and slavery at Washington, to go 
 to Congress for five thousand a year, when I can make 
 five-and-twenty in an office which costs me nothing to 
 get and to keep, and of which I am master. I will 
 make my fortune first, and then, if I have a mind to, I 
 can buy me a seat in the Senate of the United States." 
 Sensible man, perhaps, though, at this rate, how long 
 shall it be before we have crushed all generous man 
 hood beneath this hard, metallic load and come out of 
 the struggle for wealth a nation of the merest money 
 changers? It is certain that we can carry none of it 
 with us when we go hence ; and, when we are required 
 by the Master to give an account of our stewardship, 
 what shall it profit us if we point to our hoarded 
 millions and exclaim, "There, dear Lord"? Believe 
 me, there is more happiness to be got of the coining of 
 one kind thought in this world, and at the same time a 
 surer correspondence with the world to come, than may 
 be extracted from a mint of money. 
 
 I am far from believing that the happiest people are 
 128
 
 Money and Morals 
 
 the poorest. But no more are the richest. The dolor 
 of the one and the ennui of the other have passed 
 into a proverb. Yet there is no country in the 
 world quite so happy, and yet relatively quite so 
 poor, as Switzerland. There, and I am afraid there 
 only, shall we find the ideal Jeffersonian Democracy. 
 The government is simple and frugal. The officials 
 are paid barely their living, and elections being annual, 
 there is no motive for corruption. They are held, in 
 fact, in the churches, and on Sunday. One of the 
 greatest of modern Swiss statesmen, a man who had 
 been many times President of the republic, died in a 
 dingy little apartment at Berne, and after his death it 
 was discovered that, to obtain the needful medicines and 
 comforts during his last illness, he had pawned a service 
 of silver, presented him by the government of the 
 United States for his invaluable counsels as our referee 
 at the Geneva Conference. There was a brave, a pure, 
 and a poor man for you ; one who scorned to beg as he 
 would have scorned to steal, going confidently to his 
 God without so much as a franc to pay Charon his fer 
 riage across the stream. 
 
 Diogenes, seeking an honest man, might in the his 
 tory of the Irish Union come up with a parallel case in 
 poor old Hussey Bergh, who refused all the gold that 
 England could offer him, abandoned the borough of 
 Kilmainham, for which he sat, and which the British 
 Ministry guaranteed him for life, voted against the bill 
 129
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 which robbed his country of its freedom, and was found 
 dead in his bed, with sixpence on the mantel and a 
 paper on which was scrawled: "Ireland forever and be 
 damn d to Kilmainham !" 
 
 They don t do political business that way nowadays, 
 except in that Alpine fortalice of freedom and virtue, of 
 which I was speaking. The humble Switzer, in his 
 chalet by the mountain side, with barely enough to sus 
 tain life, and not a sou to spare, is the happiest man in 
 the world. There is no country on earth which illus 
 trates so vividly the truth of Goldsmith s inspired 
 couplet 
 
 "111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 
 Where wealth accumulates, and men decay," 
 
 for Switzerland is no richer now than it was five hun 
 dred years ago, while the men who in 1870 mustered 
 on the Swiss frontier to warn off the warring French 
 and Germans from the desecration of Swiss soil were as 
 rugged and as valiant as the men who followed Rudolph 
 von Erlach across the German border to victory and in 
 dependence, and rallied by the side of Arnold von Win- 
 kelred, at Sempach, against the combined hordes of 
 Burgundy and Austria, away back when the world was 
 putting on its jack-boots and the centuries but begin 
 ning their teens. I stand with head uncovered, rever 
 ently, in the presence of these poor, proud, and brave 
 mountaineers ; and have sometimes thought that, if ever 
 130
 
 Money and Morals 
 
 I should become an exile from my own country, there 
 is the one spot in the world where I might live with 
 some sort of happiness and contentment. 
 
 But enough of this. To come back to our own time 
 and country, let us cast about us and see where we 
 stand ; let us sum up the case, as it were, and, consider 
 ing the point from which we started, let us take counsel 
 of the past and the present, and, by the light thus sup 
 plied, let us try and look into the future. 
 
 With the money standards so high and the moral 
 standards so low, the pessimist may not unreasonably 
 ask what hope for us there is in the outlook. There is 
 much hope in spite of all that has been said, and all that 
 may be said, as to the darker side of the picture. That 
 hope lies in the better development of the national char 
 acter and in the more complete realization of the ideals 
 embraced by our national institutions. 
 
 I have always believed in the power, and in the ulti 
 mate triumph, of moral forces and organized ideas, and 
 shall never surrender that belief to the claim that there / 
 is more of bad than of good in human nature. I am 
 something of a Methodist in the conceit that, under the 
 benign influence of intelligence and morality, we are 
 perpetually and steadily going on from grace to grace 
 toward perfection, and, though we may not reach the 
 halcyon days predicted, I believe, to come in the twen 
 tieth century, by a recent fable at least, not until we 
 have reached the millennium promised us by an older
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 great speeches which Shakespeare has put into the 
 mouths of his heroes none seems to me to bear with it 
 so much wisdom and comfort as the words addressed 
 by Wolsey to the one lone follower who survived 
 his fall: 
 
 "Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition. 
 By that sin fell the angels ; how then can man, 
 The image of his Maker, hope to win by it? 
 Love thyself last; cherish those hearts that hate thee; 
 Corruption wins not more than honesty ; 
 Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace 
 To silence envious tongues ; be just and fear not ; 
 Let all the ends thou aimest at be thy country s, 
 Thy God s and truth s; then if fallest thou, O Crom 
 well! 
 Thou fallest a blessed martyr !" 
 
 There is an epitome of all the world has to give and 
 to take away, done by one who had trod every path of 
 glory, and sounded all the depths of honor, to find, 
 w r hen it was too late, how weak is the strength 
 of pride, how poor, how ignoble the power of 
 money. We must cast forth the devil of party spirit, 
 and kill the Money Devil outright, if we are to reach 
 the summit of our destiny. The statesmanship which 
 is to lead us thither must address itself somewhat more 
 to the moral nature of the people ; it must seek, indeed, 
 to unite tradition and progress, going forward at all 
 times, but never forgetting the humble homespun 
 sources of our being as a nation and as a people. 
 134
 
 Money and Morals 
 
 If I were delivering a sermon to the people of New 
 England I would say to them : "Because you have struck 
 these rocks with the force of a genius and a virtue 
 which nobody denies, and made them to blossom like 
 the rose, don t imagine that there is no other genius, 
 no other virtue in the world. Go down South and 
 bathe in the sunshine you shall find there! Soften 
 some of the harder fibres! Lop off some of the brittle 
 edges! Take a lesson, or two, from the old-time 
 planter s simplicity, honor, and truth. You will feel 
 the better and be the better for doing so." And, if 
 I were delivering a sermon to those same planters of 
 the South, I would say to them: "Gentlemen, all this 
 clinging to a personal and social superiority, which 
 does not exist, is sheer folly and pride. The Yankees 
 are just as good as you are, and in many things they 
 know a great deal better than you do how to get on in 
 the world. Take a turn among them. Look into their 
 domestic economies, rejecting nothing on account of its 
 trade-mark. Send some of your boys up there to school 
 and let them learn how to work for a living. In many 
 cases, it will be merely a revisitation of the home of 
 their forefathers, for many of the greatest families of the 
 South trace back their origin to the blood and loins of 
 the Pilgrim Fathers." 
 
 Thus would I revitalize and blend the good that is 
 in one section with the good that is in the other section, 
 bringing both to a better comprehension of the truth 
 J35
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 great speeches which Shakespeare has put into the 
 mouths of his heroes none seems to me to bear with it 
 so much wisdom and comfort as the words addressed 
 by Wolsey to the one lone follower who survived 
 his fall: 
 
 "Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition. 
 By that sin fell the angels ; how then can man, 
 The image of his Maker, hope to win by it? 
 Love thyself last ; cherish those hearts that hate thee ; 
 Corruption wins not more than honesty ; 
 Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace 
 To silence envious tongues; be just and fear not; 
 Let all the ends thou aimest at be thy country s, 
 Thy God s and truth s; then if fallest thou, O Crom 
 well! 
 Thou fallest a blessed martyr !" 
 
 There is an epitome of all the world has to give and 
 to take away, done by one who had trod every path of 
 glory, and sounded all the depths of honor, to find, 
 when it was too late, how weak is the strength 
 of pride, how poor, how ignoble the power of 
 money. We must cast forth the devil of party spirit, 
 and kill the Money Devil outright, if we are to reach 
 the summit of our destiny. The statesmanship which 
 is to lead us thither must address itself somewhat more 
 to the moral nature of the people ; it must seek, indeed, 
 to unite tradition and progress, going forward at all 
 times, but never forgetting the humble homespun 
 sources of our being as a nation and as a people. 
 134
 
 Money and Morals 
 
 If I were delivering a sermon to the people of New 
 England I would say to them: "Because you have struck 
 these rocks with the force of a genius and a virtue 
 which nobody denies, and made them to blossom like 
 the rose, don t imagine that there is no other genius, 
 no other virtue in the world. Go down South and 
 bathe in the sunshine you shall find there! Soften 
 some of the harder fibres ! Lop off some of the brittle 
 edges! Take a lesson, or two, from the old-time 
 planter s simplicity, honor, and truth. You will feel 
 the better and be the better for doing so." And, if 
 I were delivering a sermon to those same planters of 
 the South, I would say to them: "Gentlemen, all this 
 clinging to a personal and social superiority, which 
 does not exist, is sheer folly and pride. The Yankees 
 are just as good as you are, and in many things they 
 know a great deal better than you do how to get on in 
 the world. Take a turn among them. Look into their 
 domestic economies, rejecting nothing on account of its 
 trade-mark. Send some of your boys up there to school 
 and let them learn how to work for a living. In many 
 cases, it will be merely a revisitation of the home of 
 their forefathers, for many of the greatest families of the 
 South trace back their origin to the blood and loins of 
 the Pilgrim Fathers." 
 
 Thus would I revitalize and blend the good that is 
 in one section with the good that is in the other section, 
 bringing both to a better comprehension of the truth 
 135
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 that we are the most homogeneous people on the face of 
 the globe, differing in nothing except in external char 
 acteristics and local habits ; and thus would I lure our 
 great Republic away from the pitfalls that engulfed old 
 Rome, and plant it anew upon the sure foundations of 
 morality and manhood, the only genuine sources of a 
 nation s wealth. 
 
 And now, my friends, I am done. I have said 
 my say. I entreat you to take these things in 
 heart and mind, believing them the honest emana 
 tions of one who has travelled far and wide in this 
 great land of ours. I have been in every State and 
 Territory of the Union, and have yet to go away from 
 one of them where I had not found something to make 
 me proud of my country. And when you go hence to 
 night, whatever else you may be proud of, be proudest 
 of all that each and every one of us is an American 
 citizen. All of us may not sit in the high places. 
 All of us may not get the capital prizes. But 
 there is no one among us, however lowly his lot, who 
 cannot be happy a better citizen and a more prosper 
 ous man because he is happy loving work for work s 
 sake and his own work for its own sake and along the 
 entire journey from the cradle to the grave, rinding 
 
 "Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks. 
 Sermons in stones, and good in everything." 
 
 136
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN* 
 
 The statesmen in knee-breeches and powdered wigs 
 who signed the Declaration of Independence and 
 framed the Constitution the soldiers in blue-and-buff, 
 top-boots, and epaulets who led the armies of the Revo 
 lution were what we are wont to describe as gentle 
 men. They were English gentlemen. They were not 
 all, nor even generally, scions of the British aristocracy ; 
 but they came, for the most part, of good Anglo-Saxon 
 and Scotch-Irish stock. 
 
 The shoe-buckle and the ruffled shirt worked a spell 
 peculiarly their own. They carried with them an air 
 of polish and authority. Hamilton, though of obscure 
 birth and small stature, is represented by those who 
 knew him to have been dignity and grace personified ; 
 and old Ben Franklin, even in woollen hose, and none 
 too courtier-like, was the delight of the great nobles 
 and fine ladies, in whose company he made himself as 
 much at home as though he had been born a marquis. 
 
 When we revert to that epoch the beauty of the scene 
 which history unfolds is marred by little that is un- 
 
 * Lincoln Union, Auditorium, Chicago, February 12, 1895. 
 137
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 couth, by nothing that is grotesque. The long proces 
 sion passes, and we see in each group, in every figure, 
 something of heroic proportion. John Adams and 
 John Hancock, Joseph Warren and Samuel Adams, 
 the Livingstons in New York, the Carrolls in Mary 
 land, the Masons, the Randolphs, and the Pendletons 
 in Virginia, the Rutledges in South Carolina what 
 pride of caste, what elegance of manner, what dignity 
 and dominancy of character! And the soldiers! 
 Israel Putnam and Nathanael Greene, Ethan Allen 
 and John Stark, Mad Anthony Wayne and Light 
 Horse Harry Lee, and Morgan and Marion and Sum- 
 ter, gathered about the immortal Washington Puri 
 tan and Cavalier so mixed and blended as to be indis 
 tinguishable the one from the other where shall we 
 go to seek a more resplendent galaxy of field-marshals? 
 Surely not to Blenheim, drinking beakers to Marlbor- 
 ough after the famous victory; nor yet to the silken 
 marquet of the great Conde on the Rhine, bedizened 
 with gold lace and radiant with the flower of the no 
 bility of France! Ah, me! there were gentlemen in 
 those days ; and they made their influence felt upon life 
 and thought long after the echoes of Bunker Hill and 
 Yorktown had faded away, long after the bell over 
 Independence Hall had ceased to ring. 
 
 The first half of the Republic s first half-century of 
 existence the public men of America, distinguished for 
 many things, were chiefly and almost universally dis- 
 138
 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 
 tinguished for repose of bearing and sobriety of be 
 havior. It was not until the institution of African 
 slavery had got into politics as a vital force that Con 
 gress became a bear-garden, and that our law-makers, 
 laying aside their manners with their small-clothes, fell 
 into the loose-fitting habiliments of modern fashion and 
 the slovenly jargon of partisan controversy. The 
 gentlemen who signed the Declaration and framed the 
 Constitution were succeeded by gentlemen much like 
 themselves but these were succeeded by a race of party 
 leaders much less decorous and much more self-confi 
 dent; rugged, puissant; deeply moved in all that they 
 said and did, and sometimes turbulent; so that finally, 
 when the volcano burst forth flames that reached the 
 heavens, great human bowlders appeared amid the glare 
 on every side ; none of them much to speak of according 
 to rules regnant at St. James and Versailles ; but vigor 
 ous, able men, full of their mission and of themselves, 
 and pulling for dear life in opposite directions. 
 
 There were Seward and Sumner and Chase, Corwin 
 and Ben Wade, Trumbull and Fessenden, Hale and 
 Collamer and Grimes, and Wendell Phillips, and Hor 
 ace Greeley, our latter-day Franklin. There were 
 Toombs and Hammond, and Slidell and Wigfall, and 
 the two little giants, Douglas and Stephens, and Yan- 
 cey and Mason, and Jefferson Davis. With them 
 soft words buttered no parsnips, and they cared little 
 how many pitchers might be broken by rude ones. The 
 139
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 issue between them did not require a diagram to explain 
 it. It was so simple a child might understand. It 
 read, human slavery against human freedom, slave labor 
 against free labor, and involved a conflict as inevitable 
 as it was irrepressible. 
 
 Long before the guns of Beauregard opened fire upon 
 Fort Sumter, and, fulfilling the programme of extrem 
 ism, "blood was sprinkled in the faces of the people/ 
 the hustings in America had become a battle-ground, 
 and every rood of debatable territory a ring for contro 
 versial mills, always tumultuous, and sometimes san 
 guinary. No sooner had the camp-fires of the Revolu 
 tion which warmed so many noble hearts and lighted 
 so many patriotic lamps no sooner had the camp- 
 fires of the Revolution died out, than there began to 
 burn, at first fitfully, then to blaze alarmingly in every 
 direction, a succession of forest fires, baffling the ener 
 gies and resources of the good and brave men who 
 sought to put them out. Mr. Webster, at once a 
 learned jurist and a prose poet, might thunder exposi 
 tions of the written law, to quiet the fears of the slave 
 owner and to lull the waves of agitation. Mr. Clay, 
 by his resistless eloquence and overmastering person 
 ality, might compromise first one and then another of 
 the irreconcilable conditions that threw themselves 
 across the pathway of conservative statesmanship. To 
 no purpose, except to delay the fatal hour. 
 
 There were moving to the foreground moral forces 
 140
 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 
 which would down at no man s bidding. The still, 
 small voice of emancipation, stifled for a moment by 
 self-interest playing upon the fears of the timid, recov 
 ered its breath and broke into a cry for abolition. The 
 cry for abolition rose in volume to a roar. Slowly, 
 step by step, the forces of freedom advanced to meet 
 the forces of slavery. Gradually, these mighty, dis 
 cordant elements approached the predestined line of 
 battle; the gains for a while seeming to be in doubt, 
 but in reality all on one side. There was less and less 
 of middle-ground. The middle-men who ventured to 
 get in the way were either struck down or absorbed by 
 the one party or the other. The Senate had its Gettys 
 burg; and many and many a Shiloh was fought on the 
 floor of the House. Actual war raged in Kansas. 
 The mysterious descent upon Harper s Ferry, like a 
 fire-bell in the night, might have warned all men of the 
 coming conflagration ; might have revealed to all men 
 a prophecy in the lines that, quoted to describe the 
 scene, foretold the event 
 
 "The rock-ribbed ledges drip with a silent horror of 
 
 blood, 
 And Echo there, whatever is asked her, answers: 
 
 Death. " 
 
 Greek was meeting Greek at last; and the field of 
 politics became almost as sulphurous and murky as an 
 actual field of battle. 
 
 141
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 Amid the noise and confusion, the clashing of intel 
 lects like sabres bright, and the booming of the big ora 
 torical guns of the North and the South, now definitely 
 arrayed, there came one day into the Northern camp 
 one of the oddest figures imaginable; the figure of a 
 man who, in spite of an appearance somewhat at outs 
 with Hogarth s line of beauty, wore a serious aspect, 
 if not an air of command, and, pausing to utter a single 
 sentence that might be heard above the din, passed on 
 and for a moment disappeared. The sentence was preg 
 nant with meaning. The man bore a commission from 
 God on high! He said: "A house divided against it 
 self cannot stand. I believe this Government cannot 
 endure permanently half free and half slave. I do not 
 expect the Union to be dissolved ; I do not expect the 
 house to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be 
 divided." He was Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 How shall I describe him to you ? Shall I speak of 
 him as I first saw him immediately on his arrival in the 
 national capital, the chosen President of the United 
 States, his appearance quite as strange as the story of 
 his life, which was then but half known and half told, 
 or shall I use the words of another and a more graphic 
 word-painter? 
 
 In January, 1861, Colonel A. K. McClure, of Penn 
 sylvania, journeyed to Springfield, 111., to meet and 
 confer with the man he had done so much to elect, but 
 whom he had never personally known. "I went di- 
 142
 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 
 rectly from the depot to Lincoln s house," says Colonel 
 McClure, "and rang the bell, which was answered by 
 Lincoln himself opening the door. I doubt whether I 
 wholly concealed my disappointment at meeting him. 
 Tall, gaunt, ungainly, ill-clad, with a homeliness of 
 maner that was unique in itself, I confess that my heart 
 sank within me as I remembered that this was the man 
 chosen by a great nation to become its ruler in the 
 gravest period of its history. I remember his dress as if 
 it were but yesterday snuff-colored and slouchy pan 
 taloons; open black vest, held by a few brass buttons; 
 straight or evening dress-coat, with tightly fitting 
 sleeves to exaggerate his long, bony arms, all supple 
 mented by an awkwardness that was uncommon among 
 men of intelligence. Such was the picture I met in the 
 person of Abraham Lincoln. We sat down in his 
 plainly furnished parlor, and were uninterrupted dur 
 ing the nearly four hours I remained with him, and, 
 little by little, as his earnestness, sincerity, and candor 
 were developed in conversation, I forgot all the gro 
 tesque qualities which so confounded me when I first 
 greeted him. Before half an hour had passed I learned 
 not only to respect, but, indeed, to reverence the 
 man." 
 
 A graphic portrait, truly, and not unlike. I recall 
 
 him, two months later, a little less uncouth, a little 
 
 better dressed, but in singularity and in angularity 
 
 much the same. All the world now takes an interest 
 
 143
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 in every detail that concerned him, or that relates to 
 the weird tragedy of his life and death. 
 
 And who was this peculiar being, destined in his 
 mother s arms for cradle he had none so profoundly 
 to affect the future of human-kind? He has told us 
 himself, in words so simple and unaffected, so idiomatic 
 and direct, that we can neither misread them, nor im 
 prove upon them. Answering one who, in 1859, had 
 asked him for some biographic particulars, Abraham 
 Lincoln wrote: 
 
 "I was born February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, 
 Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of 
 undistinguished families second families, perhaps I 
 should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, 
 was of a family of the name of Hanks. . . . My 
 paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, emigrated 
 from Rockingham County, Va., to Kentucky about 
 1781 or 1782, where, a year or two later, he was killed 
 by the Indians, not in battle, but by stealth, when he 
 was laboring to open a farm in the forest. . . . 
 
 "My father (Thomas Lincoln) at the death of his 
 father was but six years of age. By the early death of 
 his father, and the very narrow circumstances of his 
 mother, he was, even in childhood, a wandering, labor 
 ing boy, and grew up literally without education. He 
 never did more in the way of writing than bunglingly 
 to write his own name. . . . He removed from 
 Kentucky to what is now Spencer County, Indiana, in 
 my eighth year. ... It was a wild region, with 
 many bears and other animals still in the woods. 
 . . . There were some schools, so-called, but no 
 qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond 
 
 144
 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 
 readin , writin , and cipherin to the rule of three. If 
 a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to 
 sojourn in the neighborhood he was looked upon as a 
 wizard. . . . Of course, when I came of age I 
 did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, 
 write, and cipher to the rule of three. But that was 
 all. . . . The little advance I now have upon 
 this store of education I have picked up from time to 
 time under the pressure of necessity. 
 
 "I was raised to farm work . . . till I was 
 twenty-two. At twenty-one I came to Illinois, Ma- 
 con County. Then I got to New Salem . . . 
 where I remained a year as a sort of clerk in a store. 
 Then came the Black Hawk War; and I was elected 
 captain of a volunteer company, a success that gave 
 me more pleasure than any I have had since. I went 
 the campaign, was elated, ran for the Legislature the 
 same year (1832), and was beaten the only time I 
 ever have been beaten by the people. The next, and 
 three succeeding biennial elections, I was elected to the 
 Legislature. I was not a candidate afterward. Dur 
 ing the legislative period I had studied law and re 
 moved to Springfield to practise it. In 1846 I was 
 elected to the lower house of Congress. Was not a 
 candidate for re-election. From 1849 to 1854, inclu 
 sive, practised law more assiduously than ever before. 
 Always a Whig in politics, and generally on the Whig 
 electoral tickets, making active canvasses. I was 
 losing interest in politics when the repeal of the Mis 
 souri Compromise aroused me again. 
 
 "If any personal description of me is thought desir 
 able, it may be said that I am in height six feet four 
 inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing on an average 
 one hundred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, 
 with coarse black hair and gray eyes. No other marks 
 or brands recollected." 
 
 145
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 There is the whole story, told by himself, and brought 
 down to the point where he became a figure of national 
 importance. 
 
 His political philosophy was expounded in four elab 
 orate speeches; one delivered at Peoria, 111., October 
 16, 1 854; one at Springfield, 111., June 16, 1858; one at 
 Columbus, O., September 16, 1859, and one, February 
 27, 1860, at Cooper Institute, in the city of New York. 
 Of course, Mr. Lincoln made many speeches and very 
 good speeches. But these four, progressive in charac 
 ter, contain the sum total of his creed touching the or 
 ganic character of the Government and at the same 
 time his personal and party view of contemporary af 
 fairs. They show him to have been an old-line Whig 
 of the school of Henry Clay, with strong emancipation 
 leanings ; a thorough anti-slavery man, but never an ex 
 tremist or an abolitionist. To the last he hewed to 
 the line thus laid down. 
 
 Two or three years ago I referred to Abraham Lin 
 coln in a casual way as one "inspired of God." I 
 was taken to task for this and thrown upon my defence. 
 Knowing less then than I now know of Mr. Lincoln, 
 I confined myself to the superficial aspects of the case ; 
 to the career of a man who seemed to have lacked the 
 opportunity to prepare himself for the great estate to 
 which he had come, plucked as it were from obscurity 
 by a caprice of fortune. 
 
 Accepting the doctrine of inspiration as a law of the 
 146
 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 
 universe, I still stand to this belief; but I must qualify 
 it as far as it conveys the idea that Mr. Lincoln was not 
 as well equipped in actual knowledge of men and af* 
 fairs as any of his contemporaries. Mr. Webster once 
 said that he had been preparing to make his reply to 
 Hayne for thirty years. Mr. Lincoln had been in un 
 conscious training for the Presidency for thirty years. 
 His maiden address as a candidate for the Legislature, 
 issued at the ripe old age of twenty-three, closes with 
 these words, "But if the good people in their wisdom 
 shall see fit to keep me in the background, I have been 
 too familiar with disappointment to be very much 
 chagrined." The man who wrote that sentence, thirty 
 years later wrote this sentence: "The mystic chords of 
 memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot- 
 grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this 
 broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, 
 when again touched, as surely they will be, by the 
 angels of our better nature." Between those two sen 
 tences, joined by a kindred, sombre thought, flowed a 
 life-current 
 
 "Strong, without rage, without o erflowing, full," 
 
 pausing never for an instant; deepening while it ran, 
 but nowise changing its course or its tones ; always the 
 same; calm; patient; affectionate; like one born to a 
 destiny, and, as in a dream, feeling its resistless force. 
 It is needful to a complete understanding of Mr. 
 147
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 Lincoln s relation to the time and to his place in the 
 political history of the country, that the student peruse 
 closely the four speeches to which I have called atten 
 tion ; they underlie all that passed in the famous debate 
 with Douglas; all that their author said and did after 
 he succeeded to the Presidency. They stand to-day as 
 masterpieces of popular oratory. But for our present 
 purpose the debate with Douglas will suffice the most 
 extraordinary intellectual spectacle the annals of our 
 party warfare afford. Lincoln entered the canvass un 
 known outside the State of Illinois. He closed it re 
 nowned from one end of the land to the other. 
 
 Judge Douglas was himself unsurpassed as a stump- 
 speaker and ready debater. But in that campaign, from 
 first to last, Judge Douglas was at a serious disadvan 
 tage. His bark rode upon an ebbing tide; Lincoln s 
 bark rode upon a flowing tide. African slavery was the 
 issue now; and the whole trend of modern thought was 
 set against slavery. The Democrats seemed hopelessly 
 divided. The Little Giant had to face a triangular op 
 position embracing the Republicans, the Administra 
 tion, or Buchanan Democrats, and a little remnant of 
 the old Whigs, who fancied that their party was still 
 alive and thought to hold some kind of balance of 
 power. Judge Douglas called the combination the 
 "allied army," and declared that he would deal with 
 it "just as the Russians dealt with the allies at Sebas- 
 topol that is, the Russians did not stop to inquire, 
 148
 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 
 when they fired a broadside, whether it hit an English 
 man, a Frenchman, or a Turk." It was something 
 more than a witticism when Mr. Lincoln rejoined, "In 
 that case, I beg he will indulge us while we suggest to 
 him that those allies took Sebastopol." 
 
 He followed this centre-shot with volley after volley 
 of exposition so clear, of reasoning so close, of illustra 
 tion so pointed, and, at times, of humor so incisive, that, 
 though he lost his election though the allies did not 
 then take Sebastopol his defeat counted for more than 
 Douglas s victory, for it made him the logical and suc 
 cessful candidate for President of the United States two 
 years later. 
 
 What could be more captivating to an out-door audi 
 ence than Lincoln s description "of the two persons who 
 stand before the people of the State as candidates for 
 the Senate," to quote his prefatory words? "Judge 
 Douglas," he said, "is of world-wide renown. All 
 the anxious politicians of his party . . . have been 
 looking upon him as certainly . . . to be Presi 
 dent of the United States. They have seen in his 
 round, jolly, fruitful face, post-offices, land-offices, mar- 
 shalships and cabinet appointments, chargeships and 
 foreign missions, bursting and spreading out in wonder 
 ful exuberance, ready to be laid hold of by their greedy 
 hands. And as they have been gazing upon this attrac 
 tive picture so long, they cannot, in the little distraction 
 that has taken place in the party, bring themselves to 
 149
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 give up the charming hope; but with greedier anxiety 
 they rush about him, sustain him, and give him marches, 
 triumphal entries, and receptions, beyond what in the 
 days of his highest prosperity they could have brought 
 about in his favor. On the contrary, nobody has ever 
 expected me to be President. In my poor, lean, lank 
 face nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were 
 sprouting." 
 
 As the debate advanced, these cheery tones deepened 
 into harsher notes; crimination and recrimination fol 
 lowed ; the two gladiators were strung to their utmost 
 tension. They became dreadfully in earnest. Per 
 sonal collision was narrowly avoided. I have recently 
 gone over the entire debate, and with a feeling I can 
 only describe as most contemplative, most melancholy. 
 
 I knew Judge Douglas well; I admired, respected, 
 loved him. I shall never forget the day he quitted 
 Washington to go to his home in Illinois to return no 
 more. Tears were in his eyes and his voice trembled 
 like a woman s. He was then a dying man. He had 
 burned the candle at both ends from his boyhood; an 
 eager, ardent, hard-working, pleasure-loving man ; and, 
 though not yet fifty, the candle was burned out. His 
 infirmities were no greater than those of Mr. Clay; not 
 to be mentioned with those of Mr. Webster. But he 
 lived in more exacting times. The old-style party 
 organ, with its mock heroics and its dull respectability, 
 its beggarly array of empty news-columns and cheap 
 150
 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 
 advertising, had been succeeded by that unsparing, tell 
 tale scandal -monger, modern journalism, with its 
 myriad of hands and eyes, its vast retinue of detectives, 
 and its quick transit over flashing wires, annihilating 
 time and space. Too fierce a light beat upon the pri 
 vate life of public men, and Douglas suffered from this 
 as Clay and Webster, Silas Wright and Franklin Pierce 
 had not suffered. 
 
 The Presidential bee was in his bonnet, certainly; 
 but its buzzing there was not noisier than in the bon 
 nets of other great Americans, who have been dazzled 
 by that wretched bauble. His plans and schemes came 
 to naught. He died at the moment when the death of 
 those plans and schemes was made more palpable and 
 impressive by the roar of cannon proclaiming the reality 
 of that irrepressible conflict he had refused to foresee 
 and had struggled to avert. His life-long rival was at 
 the head of affairs. No one has found occasion to come 
 to the rescue of his fame. No party interest has been 
 identified with his memory. But when the truth of 
 history is written, it will be told that, not less than 
 Webster and Clay, he, too, was a patriotic man, who 
 loved his country and tried to save the Union. He 
 tried to save the Union, even as Webster and Clay had 
 tried to save it, by compromises and expedients. It 
 was too late. The string was played out. Where 
 they had succeeded he failed; but, for the nobility of 
 his intention, the amplitude of his resources, the splen-
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 dor of his combat, he merits all that any leader of 
 losing cause ever gained in the report of poster 
 ity; and posterity will not deny him the title of 
 statesman. 
 
 In that great debate it was Titan against Titan ; and, 
 perusing it after the lapse of forty years, the philosophic 
 and impartial critic will conclude which got the better 
 of it, Lincoln or Douglas, much according to his sym 
 pathy with the one or the other. Douglas, as I have 
 said, had the disadvantage of riding an ebb-tide. But 
 Lincoln encountered a disadvantage in riding a flood- 
 tide, which was flowing too fast for a man so conserva 
 tive and so honest as he was. Thus there was not a 
 little equivocation on both sides foreign to the nature 
 of the two. Both wanted to be frank. Both thought 
 they were being frank. But each was a little afraid of 
 his own logic; each was a little afraid of his own fol 
 lowing; and hence there was considerable hair-splitting, 
 involving accusations that did not accuse and denials 
 that did not deny. They were politicians, these two, 
 as well as statesmen; they were politicians, and what 
 they did not know about political campaigning was 
 hardly worth knowing. Reverently, I take off my hat 
 to both of them ; and I turn down the page ; I close the 
 book and lay it on its shelf, with the inward ejacula 
 tion, "there were giants in those days." 
 
 I am not undertaking to deliver an oral biography 
 of Abraham Lincoln, and shall pass over the events 
 152
 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 
 which quickly led up to his nomination and election to 
 the Presidency in 1860. 
 
 I met the newly elected President the afternoon of 
 the day in the early morning of which he had arrived 
 in Washington. It was a Saturday, I think. He came 
 to the Capitol under Mr. Seward s escort, and, among 
 the rest, I was presented to him. His appearance did 
 not impress me as fantastically as it had impressed 
 Colonel McClure. I was more familiar with the 
 Western type than Colonel McClure, and while Mr. 
 Lincoln was certainly not an Adonis, even after prairie 
 ideals, there was about him a dignity that commanded 
 respect. 
 
 I met him again the forenoon of March 4 in his 
 apartment at Willard s Hotel as he was preparing to 
 start to his inauguration, and was touched by his un 
 affected kindness; for I came with a matter requiring 
 his immediate attention. He was entirely self-pos 
 sessed ; no trace of nervousness ; and very obliging. I 
 accompanied the cortege that passed from the Senate 
 chamber to the vast portico of the capitol, and, as Mr. 
 Lincoln removed his hat to face the vast multitude in 
 front and below, I extended my hand to receive it, but 
 Judge Douglas, just beside me, reached over my out 
 stretched arm and took the hat, holding it throughout 
 the delivery of the inaugural address. I stood near 
 enough to the speaker s elbow not to obstruct any gest 
 ures he might make, though he made but few; and 
 153
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 then it was that I began to comprehend something of 
 the power of the man. 
 
 He delivered that inaugural address as if he had been 
 delivering inaugural addresses all his life. Firm, 
 resonant, earnest, it announced the coming of a man ; of 
 a leader of men; and in its ringing tones and elevated 
 style, the gentlemen he had invited to become members 
 of his political family each of whom thought himself 
 a bigger man than his master might have heard the 
 voice and seen the hand of a man born to command. 
 Whether they did or not, they very soon ascertained 
 the fact. From the hour Abraham Lincoln crossed 
 the threshold of the White House to the hour he went 
 thence to his death, there was not a moment when he 
 did not dominate the political and military situation 
 and all his official subordinates. 
 
 Mr. Seward was the first to fall a victim to his own 
 temerity. One of the most extraordinary incidents 
 that ever passed between a chief and his lieutenant came 
 about within thirty days after the incoming of the new 
 administration. On April i Mr. Seward submitted to 
 Mr. Lincoln a memorandum, entitled "Some Thoughts 
 for the President s Consideration." He began this by 
 saying: "We are at the end of a month s administra 
 tion, and yet without a policy, either foreign or domes 
 tic." There follows a series of suggestions hardly less 
 remarkable for their character than for their emana 
 tion. They make quite a baker s dozen, for the most 
 154
 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 
 part flimsy and irrelevant ; but two of them are so con 
 spicuous for a lack of sagacity and comprehension that 
 I shall quote them as a sample of the whole : 
 
 "We must change the question before the public," 
 says Mr. Seward, "from one upon slavery, or about 
 slavery, to one upon union or disunion" as if it had 
 not been thus changed already and "I would demand 
 explanations from Spain and France, energetically, at 
 once, . . . and, if satisfactory explanations are 
 not received from Spain and France, I would convene 
 Congress and declare war against them. ... I 
 would seek explanations from Great Britain and Rus 
 sia, and send agents into Canada, Mexico, and Central 
 America to arouse a vigorous spirit of continental inde 
 pendence on this continent against European interven 
 tion." 
 
 Think of it! At the moment this advice was seri 
 ously given the head of the State by the head of the 
 Cabinet supposed to be the most accomplished states 
 man and astute diplomatist of his time a Southern 
 Confederacy had been actually established, and Europe 
 was only too eager for some pretext to put in its oar, 
 effectually, finally, to compass the dissolution of the 
 Union and the defeat of the Republican experiment in 
 America. The Government of the United States had 
 but to make a grimace at France and Spain ; to bat its 
 eye at England and Russia, to raise up a quadruple 
 alliance, monarchy against democracy, bringing down 
 155
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 upon itself the navies of the world, and double assur 
 ing, double confirming the Government of Jefferson 
 Davis. 
 
 In concluding these astounding counsels, Mr. Sew- 
 ard says: 
 
 "But whatever policy we adopt, there must be an 
 energetic prosecution of it. 
 
 "For this purpose it must be somebody s business to 
 pursue and direct it incessantly. 
 
 "Either the President must do it himself and be all 
 the while active in it, or devolve it on some member of 
 his Cabinet. 
 
 "Once adopted, all debates on it must end and all 
 agree and abide. 
 
 "It is not in my especial province; but I neither 
 seek to evade nor assume responsibility." 
 
 Before hearing Mr. Lincoln s answer to all this, con 
 sider what it really implied. If Mr. Seward had sim 
 ply said : "Mr. Lincoln, you are a failure as President, 
 but turn over the direction of affairs exclusively to me, 
 and all shall be well and all be forgiven," he could not 
 have spoken more explicitly and hardly more offensively. 
 
 Now let us see how a great man carries himself at a 
 critical moment under extreme provocation. Here is 
 the answer Mr. Lincoln sent Mr. Seward that very 
 night : 
 
 "Executive Mansion, April I, 1861. 
 "Hon. W. H. Seward: 
 
 "My Dear Sir: Since parting with you I have 
 been considering your paper dated this day and entitled 
 
 156
 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 
 some thoughts for the President s consideration. The 
 first proposition in it is, we are at the end of a month s 
 administration and yet without a policy, either domes 
 tic or foreign. 
 
 "At the beginning of that month in the inaugural I 
 said : The power confided to me will be used to hold, 
 occupy, and possess the property and places belonging 
 to the Government, and to collect the duties and im 
 ports. This had your distinct approval at the time; 
 and taken in connection with the order I immediately 
 gave General Scott, directing him to employ every 
 means in his power to strengthen and hold the forts, 
 comprises the exact domestic policy you urge, with the 
 single exception that it does not propose to abandon 
 Fort Sumter. 
 
 "The news received yesterday in regard to Santo 
 Domingo certainly brings a new item within the range 
 of our foreign policy, but up to that time we have been 
 preparing circulars and instructions to ministers and 
 the like, all in perfect harmony, without even a sug 
 gestion that we had no foreign policy. 
 
 "Upon your closing proposition that Whatever 
 policy we adopt, there must be an energetic prosecu 
 tion of it. 
 
 " For this purpose it must be somebody s business 
 to pursue and direct it incessantly. 
 
 " Either the President must do it himself and be 
 all the while active in it, or devolve it upon some mem 
 ber of his Cabinet. 
 
 " Once adopted, debates must end, and all agree 
 and abide. I remark that if this be done, I must do 
 it. When a general line of policy is adopted, I appre 
 hend there is no danger of its being changed without 
 good reason, or continuing to be a subject of unneces 
 sary debate; still, upon points arising in its progress, 
 
 157
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 I wish, and suppose I am entitled to have, the advice 
 of all the Cabinet. Your obedient servant, 
 
 "A. LINCOLN." 
 
 I agree with Lincoln s biographers that in this letter 
 not a word was omitted that was necessary, and not a 
 hint or allusion is contained that could be dispensed 
 with. It was conclusive. It ended the argument. 
 Mr. Seward dropped into his place. Mr. Lincoln 
 never referred to it. From that time forward the un 
 derstanding between them was mutual and perfect. So 
 much so that when, May 21 following, Mr. Seward sub 
 mitted to the President the draft of a letter of instruc 
 tion to Charles Francis Adams, then Minister to Eng 
 land, Mr. Lincoln did not hesitate to change much of 
 its character and purpose by his alteration of its text. 
 This original copy of this despatch, in Mr. Seward s 
 handwriting, with Mr. Lincoln s interlineations, is still 
 to be seen on file in the Department of State. It is safe 
 to say that, if that letter had gone as Mr. Seward wrote 
 it, a war with England would have been, if not inevita 
 ble, yet very likely. Mr. Lincoln s additions, hardly 
 less than his suppressions, present a curious contrast 
 between the seer in affairs and the scholar in affairs. 
 Even in the substitution of one word for another, Mr. 
 Lincoln shows a grasp both upon the situation and the 
 language which seems to have been wholly wanting in 
 Mr. Seward, with all his experience and learning. It 
 is said that, pondering over this document, weighing in 
 158
 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 
 his mind its meaning and import, his head bowed and 
 pencil in hand, Mr. Lincoln was overheard murmur 
 ing to himself: "One war at a time one war at a 
 time." 
 
 While I am on this matter of who was really Presi 
 dent while Abraham Lincoln occupied the office, I may 
 as well settle it. We all remember how, in setting up 
 for a bigger man than his chief, Mr. Chase fared no 
 better than Mr. Seward. But it is sometimes claimed 
 that Mr. Stanton was more successful in this line. 
 Many stories are told of how Stanton lorded it over 
 Lincoln. On a certain occasion it is related that the 
 President was informed by an irate friend that the Sec 
 retary of War had not only refused to execute an order 
 of his, but had called him a fool into the bargain. "Did 
 Stanton say I was a fool?" said Lincoln. "Yes," re 
 plied his friend, "he said you were a blank, blank fool !" 
 Lincoln looked first good-humoredly at his friend and 
 then furtively out of the window in the direction of 
 the War Department, and carelessly observed: "Well, 
 it Stanton says that I am a blank fool, it must be so, for 
 Stanton is nearly always right and generally means 
 what he says. I think I shall just have to step over and 
 see Stanton." 
 
 On another occasion Mr. Lincoln is quoted as say 
 ing: "I have very little influence with this Administra 
 tion, but I hope to have more with the next." 
 
 Complacent humor such as this simply denotes as- 
 159
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 sured position. It is merely the graciousness of con 
 scious power. But there happens to be on record a 
 story of a different kind. This is related by Gen. 
 James B. Fry, Provost Marshal General of the Army, 
 on duty in the War Department. 
 
 As General Fry tells it, Mr. Stan ton seems to have 
 had the right of it. The President had given an order 
 which the Secretary of War had refused to issue. The 
 President thereupon came into the War Department 
 and this is what happened. In answer to Mr. Lin 
 coln s inquiry as to the cause of the trouble, Mr. Stan- 
 ton went over the record and the grounds for his action, 
 and concluded with: "Now, Mr. President, these are 
 the facts, and you must see that your order cannot be 
 executed." 
 
 Lincoln sat upon a sofa with his legs crossed I am 
 quoting General Fry and did not say a word until 
 the Secretary s last remark. Then he said in a some 
 what positive tone: "Mr. Secretary, I reckon you ll 
 have to execute the order." 
 
 Stanton replied with asperity: "Mr. President, I 
 cannot do it. The order is an improper one and I can 
 not execute it." 
 
 Lincoln fixed his eye upon Stanton, and in a firm 
 voice, and with an accent that clearly showed his de 
 termination, he said : 
 
 "Mr. Secretary, it will have to be done." 
 
 "Stanton then realized" I am still quoting General 
 1 60
 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 
 Fry "that he was overmatched. He had made a 
 square issue with the President and been defeated, not 
 withstanding the fact that he was in the right. Upon 
 an intimation from him, I withdrew and did not wit 
 ness his surrender. A few minutes after I reached my 
 office I received instructions from the Secretary to carry 
 out the President s order. Stanton never mentioned 
 the subject to me afterward, nor did I ever ascertain 
 the special, and no doubt sufficient reason, which the 
 President had for his action in the case." 
 
 Once General Halleck got on a high horse, and de 
 manded that, if Mr. Lincoln approved some ill-natured 
 remarks alleged to have been made of certain military 
 men about Washington, by Montgomery Blair, the 
 Postmaster-General, he should dismiss the officers from 
 the service, but, if he did not approve, he should dis 
 miss the Postmaster-General from the Cabinet. Mr. 
 Lincoln s reply is very characteristic. He declined to 
 do either of the things demanded. He said : 
 
 "Whether the remarks were really made I do not 
 know, nor do I suppose such knowledge necessary to a 
 correct response. If they were made, I do not approve 
 them; and yet, under the circumstances, I would not 
 dismiss a member of the Cabinet therefor. I do not 
 consider what may have been hastily said in a moment 
 of vexation . . . sufficient ground for so grave a 
 step. Besides this, truth is generally the best vindica 
 tion against slander. I propose continuing to be my 
 self the judge as to when a member of the Cabinet shall 
 be dismissed." 
 
 161
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 Next day, however, he issued a warning to the mem 
 bers of his political family, which, in the form of a 
 memorandum, he re^d to them. There is nothing 
 equivocal about this. In language and in tone it is the 
 utterance of a master. I will read it to you, as it is 
 very brief and to the purpose. The President said : 
 
 "I must myself be the judge how long to retain and 
 when to remove any of you from his position. It would 
 greatly pain me to discover any of you endeavoring to 
 procure another s removal, or in any way to prejudice 
 him before the public. Such endeavor would be a 
 wrong to me, and much worse, a wrong to the coun 
 try. My wish is, that on this subject no remark be 
 made, nor any question be asked by any of you, here 
 or elsewhere, now or hereafter." 
 
 Always courteous, always tolerant, always making 
 allowance, yet always explicit, his was the master-spirit, 
 his the guiding hand ; committing to each of the mem 
 bers of his Cabinet the details of the work of his own 
 department; caring nothing for petty sovereignty; but 
 reserving to himself all that related to great policies, 
 the starting of moral forces and the moving of organized 
 ideas. 
 
 I want to say just here a few words about Mr. Lin 
 coln s relation to the South and the people of the South. 
 
 He was, himself, a Southern man. He and all his 
 
 tribe were Southerners. Although he left Kentucky 
 
 when but a child, he was an old child; he never was 
 
 very young; and he grew to manhood in a Kentucky 
 
 162
 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 
 colony ; for what was Illinois in those days but a Ken 
 tucky colony, grown since somewhat out of proportion ? 
 He was in no sense what we in the South used to call 
 "a poor white." Awkward, perhaps; ungainly, per 
 haps, but aspiring; the spirit of a hero beneath that 
 rugged exterior; the soul of a prose-poet behind those 
 heavy brows ; the courage of a lion back of those patient, 
 kindly aspects ; and, before he was of legal age, a leader 
 of men. His first love was a Rutledge; his wife was 
 a Todd. 
 
 Let the romancist tell the story of his romance. I 
 dare not. No sadder idyl can be found in all the short 
 and simple annals of the poor. 
 
 We know that he was a prose-poet ; for have we not 
 that immortal prose-poem recited at Gettysburg? We 
 know that he was a statesman ; for has not time vindi 
 cated his conclusions? But the South does not know, 
 except as a kind of hearsay, that he was a friend; the 
 sole friend who had the power and the will to save it 
 from itself. He was the one man in public life who 
 could have come to the head of affairs in 1861, bringing 
 with him none of the embittered resentments growing 
 out of the anti-slavery battle. While Seward, Chase, 
 Sumner, and the rest had been engaged in hand-to-hand 
 combat with the Southern leaders at Washington, Lin 
 coln, a philosopher and a statesman, had been observing 
 the course of events from afar, and like a philosopher 
 and a statesman. The direst blow that could have 
 163
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 been laid upon the prostrate South was delivered by 
 the assassin s bullet that struck him down. 
 
 But I digress. Throughout the contention that pre 
 ceded the war, amid the passions that attended the war 
 itself, not one bitter, prescriptive word escaped the lips 
 of Abraham Lincoln, while there was hardly a day that 
 he was not projecting his great personality between some 
 Southern man or woman and danger. 
 
 Under date of February 2, 1848, from the hall of the 
 House of Representatives at Washington, while he was 
 serving as a member of Congress, he wrote this short 
 note to his law partner at Springfield : 
 
 "Dear William : I take up my pen to tell you 
 that Mr. Stephens, of Georgia, a little, slim, pale- 
 faced, consumptive man, with a voice like Logan s" 
 (that was Stephen T., not John A.), "has just con 
 cluded the very best speech of an hour s length I ever 
 heard. My old, withered, dry eyes" (he was then not 
 quite thirty-seven years of age) "are full of tears yet." 
 
 From that time forward he never ceased to love Ste 
 phens, of Georgia. 
 
 After that famous Hampton Roads conference, when 
 the Confederate Commissioners, Stephens, Campbell, 
 and Hunter, had traversed the field of official routine 
 with Mr. Lincoln, the President, and Mr. Seward, the 
 Secretary of State, Lincoln, the friend, still the old 
 Whig colleague, though one was now President of the 
 United States and the other Vice-President of the 
 164
 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 
 Southern Confederacy, took the "slim, pale-faced, con 
 sumptive man" aside, and, pointing to a sheet of paper 
 he held in his hand, said: "Stephens, let me write 
 Union at the top of that page, and you may write 
 below it whatever else you please." 
 
 In the preceding conversation Mr. Lincoln had inti 
 mated that payment for the slaves was not outside a 
 possible agreement for reunion and peace. He based 
 that statement upon a plan he already had in hand, to 
 appropriate four hundred millions of dollars to this 
 purpose. 
 
 There are those who have put themselves to the pains 
 of challenging this statement of mine. It admits of no 
 possible equivocation. Mr. Lincoln carried with him 
 to Fortress Monroe two documents that still stand in 
 his own handwriting; one of them a joint resolution to 
 be passed by the two Houses of Congress appropriating 
 the four hundred millions, the other a proclamation to 
 be issued by himself, as President, when the joint reso 
 lution had been passed. These formed no part of the 
 discussion at Hampton Roads, because Mr. Stephens 
 told Mr. Lincoln they were limited to treating upon 
 the basis of the recognition of the Confederacy, and to 
 all intents and purposes the conference died before it 
 was actually born. But Mr. Lincoln was so filled with 
 the idea that next day, when he had returned to Wash 
 ington, he submitted the two documents to the members 
 of his Cabinet. Excepting Mr. Seward, they were all 
 165
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 against him. He said : "Why, gentlemen, how long is 
 the war going to last? It is not going to end this side 
 of a hundred days, is it? It is costing us four millions 
 a day. There are the four hundred millions, not count 
 ing the loss of life and property in the meantime. But 
 you are all against me, and I will not press the matter 
 upon you." I have not cited this fact of history to 
 attack, or even to criticise, the policy of the Confeder 
 ate Government, but simply to illustrate the wise mag 
 nanimity and justice of the character of Abraham Lin 
 coln. For my part, I rejoice that the war did not end 
 at Fortress Monroe or any other conference but 
 that it was fought out to its bitter and logical conclu 
 sion at Appomattox. 
 
 It was the will of God that there should be, as God s 
 own prophet had promised, "a new birth of freedom," 
 and this could only be reached by the obliteration of the 
 very idea of slavery. God struck Lincoln down in the 
 moment of his triumph, to attain it; He blighted the 
 South to attain it. But He did attain it. And here 
 we are this night to attest it. God s will be done on 
 earth as it is done in Heaven. But let no Southern 
 man point finger at me because I canonize Abraham 
 Lincoln, for he was the one friend we had at court 
 when friends were most in need ; he was the one man in 
 power who wanted to preserve us intact, to save us from 
 the wolves of passion and plunder that stood at our 
 door; and as that God, of whom it has been said that 
 1 66
 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 
 "whom He loveth He chasteneth," meant that the 
 South should be chastened, Lincoln was put out of the 
 way by the bullet of an assassin, having neither lot nor 
 parcel, North or South, but a winged emissary of fate, 
 flown from the shadows of the mystic world, which 
 ^Eschylus and Shakespeare created and consecrated to 
 tragedy ! 
 
 I sometimes wonder shall we ever attain a journalism 
 sufficiently upright in its treatment of current events to 
 publish fully and fairly the utterances of our public 
 men, and, except in cases of provable dishonor, to leave 
 their motives and their personalities alone? 
 
 Reading just what Abraham Lincoln did say and did 
 do, it is inconceivable how such a man could have 
 aroused antagonism so bitter and abuse so savage, to 
 fall at last by the hand of an assassin. 
 
 We boast our superior civilization and our enlight 
 ened freedom of speech ; and yet, how few of us when 
 a strange voice begins to utter unfamiliar or unpalata 
 ble things how few of us stop and ask ourselves, May 
 not this man be speaking the truth after all? It is so 
 easy to call names. It is so easy to impugn motives. 
 It is so easy to misrepresent opinions we cannot answer. 
 From the least to the greatest what creatures we are of 
 party spirit, and yet, for the most part, how small its 
 aims, how imperfect its instruments, how disappointing 
 its conclusions! 
 
 One thinks now that the world in which Abraham 
 167
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 Lincoln lived might have dealt more gently by such a 
 man. He was himself so gentle so upright in nature 
 and so broad of mind so sunny and so tolerant in tem 
 per so simple and so unaffected in bearing a rude 
 exterior covering an undaunted spirit, proving by his 
 every act and word that 
 
 "The bravest are the tenderest, 
 The loving are the daring." 
 
 Though he was a party leader, he was a typical and 
 patriotic American, in whom even his enemies might 
 have found something to respect and admire. But 
 it could not be so. He committed one grievous offence ; 
 he dared to think and he was not afraid to speak ; he 
 was far in advance of his party and his time ; and men 
 are slow to forgive what they do not readily under 
 stand. 
 
 Yet, all the while that the waves of passion were 
 breaking against his sturdy figure, reared above the 
 dead-level, as a lone oak upon a sandy beach, not one 
 harsh word rankled in his heart to sour the milk of 
 human kindness that, like a perennial spring from the 
 gnarled roots of some majestic tree, flowed thence. He 
 would smooth over a rough place in his official inter 
 course with a funny story fitting the case in point, and 
 they called him a trifler. He would round off a logical 
 argument with a familiar example, hitting the nail 
 squarely on the head and driving it home, and they 
 1 68
 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 
 called him a buffoon. Big wigs and little wigs were 
 agreed that he lowered the dignity of debate; as if de 
 bates were intended to mystify, and not to clarify truth. 
 Yet he went on and on, and never backward, until his 
 time was come, when his genius, fully ripened, rose 
 to emergencies. Where did he get his style? Ask 
 Shakespeare and Burns where they got their style. 
 Where did he get his grasp upon affairs and his knowl 
 edge of men ? Ask the Lord God who created miracles 
 in Luther and Bonaparte! 
 
 Here, under date of November 21, 1864, amid the 
 excitement attendant upon his re-election to the Presi 
 dency, Mr. Lincoln found time to write the following 
 letter to Mrs. Bixby, of Boston, a poor widow who had 
 lost five sons killed in battle. 
 
 My Dear Madam: I have been shown in the files 
 of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant- 
 General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of 
 five sons who have died gloriously on the field of bat 
 tle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words 
 of mine which should attempt to beguile you from a 
 loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from ten 
 dering you the consolation that may be found in the 
 thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that 
 our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your 
 bereavement and leave you only the cherished memory 
 of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must 
 be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar 
 of freedom. 
 
 Yours very sincerely and respectfully, 
 
 A. LINCOLN. 
 169
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 Contrast this exquisite prose-poem with the answer 
 he made to General Grant, when Grant asked him 
 whether he should make an effort to capture Jefferson 
 Davis. "I told Grant," said Lincoln, relating the in 
 cident, "the story of an Irishman who had taken Father 
 Mathew s pledge. Soon thereafter, becoming very 
 thirsty, he slipped into a saloon and asked for a lemon 
 ade, and while it was being mixed he leaned over and 
 whispered to the bartender : Av ye could drap a bit o 
 brandy in it, all unbeknown to myself, I d make no fuss 
 about it. My notion was that if Grant could let Jeff 
 Davis escape all unbeknown to himself, he was to let 
 him go. I didn t want him." 
 
 When we recall all that did happen when Jefferson 
 Davis was captured, and what a white elephant he be 
 came in the hands of the Government, it will be seen 
 that there was sagacity as well as humor in Lincoln s 
 illustration. 
 
 I have said that Abraham Lincoln was an old-line 
 Whig of the school of Henry Clay, with strong free- 
 soil opinions, but never an extremist or an abolitionist. 
 He was what they used to call in those old days "a 
 Conscience Whig." He stood in actual awe of the 
 Constitution and his oath of office. Hating slavery, he 
 recognized its constitutional existence and rights. He 
 wanted gradually to extinguish it, not to despoil those 
 who held it as a property interest. He was so faithful 
 to these principles that he approached emancipation, 
 170
 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 
 not only with great deliberation, but with many mis 
 givings. He issued his final proclamation as a military 
 necessity; as a war measure; and even then, so just was 
 his nature that he was, as I have shown, meditating 
 some kind of restitution. 
 
 I gather that he was not a civil service reformer of 
 the school of Grover Cleveland, because I find among 
 his papers a short, peremptory note to Stanton, in which 
 he says: "I personally wish Jacob Freese, of New Jer 
 sey, appointed colonel of a colored regiment, and this 
 regardless of whether he can tell the exact color of 
 Julius Caesar s hair." 
 
 His unconventionalism was equalled only by his 
 humanity. No custodian of absolute power ever exer 
 cised it so benignly. His interposition in behalf of 
 men sentenced to death by courts-martial became so 
 demoralizing that his generals in the field united in a 
 round-robin protest. Both Grant and Sherman cut the 
 wires between army headquarters and the White 
 House, to escape his interference with the iron rule of 
 military discipline. 
 
 A characteristic story is told by John B. Ally, of 
 Boston, who, going to the White House three days in 
 succession, found each day in one of the outer halls a 
 gray-haired old man, silently weeping. The third day, 
 touched by this not uncommon spectacle, he went up to 
 the old man and ascertained that he had a son under sen 
 tence of death, and was trying to reach the President. 
 171
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 "Come along," said Ally, "I ll take you to the Presi 
 dent." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln listened to the old man s pitiful story, 
 and then sadly replied that he had just received a tele 
 gram from the general commanding imploring him not 
 to interfere. The old man cast one last heart-broken 
 look at the President, and started shuffling toward the 
 door. Before he reached it Mr. Lincoln called him 
 back. "Come back, old man," he said, "come back! 
 The generals may telegraph and telegraph, but I am 
 going to pardon that young man." 
 
 Thereupon he sent a despatch directing sentence to 
 be suspended until execution should be ordered by him 
 self. Then the old man burst out crying again. "Mr. 
 President," said he, "that is not a pardon, you only 
 hold up the sentence of my boy until you can order him 
 to be shot!" 
 
 Lincoln turned quickly and, half smiles, half tears, 
 replied: "Go along, old man, go along in peace; if your 
 son lives until I order him to be shot, he ll grow to be 
 as old as Methuselah!" 
 
 I could keep you here all night relating such inci 
 dents. They were common occurrences at the White 
 House. There was not a day of Lincoln s life that he 
 was not doing some act of charity; not like a senti 
 mentalist, overcome by cheap emotion, but like a brave, 
 sensible man, who knew where to draw the line and 
 who made few, if any, mistakes. 
 172
 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 
 I find no better examples of the peculiar cast of his 
 mind than are interspersed throughout the record of his 
 intercourse with his own relatives. His domestic corre 
 spondence is full of canny wisdom and unconscious 
 humor. In particular, he had a ne er-do-well step 
 brother, by the name of Johnston, a son of his father s 
 second wife, of whom he was very fond. There are 
 many letters to this Johnston. One of these I am go 
 ing to read you, because it will require neither apology 
 nor explanation. It is illustrative of both the canny 
 wisdom and unconscious humor. Thus: 
 
 "SPRINGFIELD, January 2, 1851. 
 
 "Dear Brother: Your request for eighty dollars I 
 do not think it best to comply with now. At the va 
 rious times I have helped you a little you have said : 
 We can get along very well now, but in a short time 
 I find you in the same difficulty again. Now this can 
 only happen through some defect in you. What that 
 defect is I think I know. You are not lazy, and still 
 you are an idler. I doubt whether since I saw you you 
 have done a good, whole day s work in any one day. 
 You do not very much dislike to work, and still you 
 do not work much, merely because it does not seem to 
 you you get enough for it. This habit of uselessly 
 wasting time is the whole difficulty. It is vastly im 
 portant to you, and still more to your children, that 
 you break the habit. . . . 
 
 "You are now in need of some money, and what I 
 propose is that you shall go to work, tooth and nail, 
 for somebody who will give you money for it. Let 
 father and your boys take charge of your things at 
 home, prepare for a crop and make the crop, and you 
 
 173
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 go to work for the best money wages you can get, or 
 in discharge of any debt you owe, and, to secure you 
 a fair reward for your labor, I promise you that for 
 every dollar you will get for your labor between this 
 and the ist of May, either in money, or in your in 
 debtedness, I will then give you one other dollar. By 
 this, if you hire yourself for ten dollars a month, from 
 me you will get ten dollars more, making twenty dol 
 lars. . . . 
 
 "In this I do not mean that you shall go off to St. 
 Louis or the lead mines in Missouri, or the gold mines 
 in California, but I mean for you to go at it for the 
 best wages you can get close to home in Coles County. 
 If you will do this you will soon be out of debt, and, 
 what is better, you will have acquired a habit which 
 will keep you from getting in debt again. But if I 
 should now clear you out of debt, next year you would 
 be just as deep in debt as ever. 
 
 "You say you would almost give your place in 
 Heaven for seventy or eighty dollars? Then you value 
 your place in Heaven very cheap, for I am sure you 
 can, with the offer I make, get the seventy or eighty 
 dollars for four or five months work. 
 
 "You say if I will lend you the money, you will 
 deed me the land, and, if you don t pay the money back, 
 you will deliver possession. Nonsense! If you can 
 not now live with the land, how will you then live 
 without it? 
 
 "You have always been kind to me, and I do not 
 mean to be unkind to you. On the contrary, if you 
 will but follow my advice, you will find it worth 
 eighty times eighty dollars to you. 
 
 "Affectionately your brother, 
 
 "A. LINCOLN." 
 
 Could anything be wiser, sweeter, or delivered in 
 174
 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 
 terms more specific yet more fraternal ? And that was 
 Abraham Lincoln from the crown of his head to the 
 soles of his feet. 
 
 I am going to spare you and myself, and the dear 
 ones of his own blood who are here to-night, the repeti 
 tion of the story of the awful tragedy that ended the 
 life of this great man, this good man, this typical Amer 
 ican. 
 
 Besides that tragedy, most other tragedies, epic and 
 real, become insignificant. "Within the narrow com 
 pass of that stage-box that night were five human be 
 ings; the most illustrious of modern heroes, crowned 
 with the most stupendous victory of modern times; his 
 beloved wife, proud and happy; two betrothed lovers 
 with all the promise of felicity that youth, social posi 
 tion, and wealth could give them; and a young actor, 
 handsome as Endymion upon Latmus, the idol of his 
 little world. The glitter of fame, happiness, and ease 
 was upon the entire group, but in an instant everything 
 was to be changed with the blinding swiftness of en 
 chantment. Quick death was to come on the central 
 figure of that company. . . . Over all the rest 
 the blackest fates hovered menacingly; fates from 
 which a mother might pray that kindly death would 
 save her children in their infancy. One was to wan 
 der with the stain of murder on his soul, with the curses 
 of a world upon his name, with a price set upon his 
 head, in frightful physical pain, till he died a dog s 
 175
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 death in a burning barn. The stricken wife was to 
 pass the rest of her days in melancholy and madness ; of 
 those two young lovers, one was to slay the other, and 
 then end his life a raving maniac!"* No book of 
 tragedy contains a single chapter quite so dark as that. 
 
 And what was the mysterious power of this mysteri 
 ous man, and whence? 
 
 His was the genius of common-sense; of common- 
 sense in action; of common-sense in thought; of com 
 mon-sense enriched by experience and unhindered by 
 fear. "He was a common man," says his friend, 
 Joshua Speed, "expanded into giant proportions; well 
 acquainted with the people, he placed his hand on the 
 beating pulse of the nation, judged of its disease, and 
 was ready with a remedy." Inspired he was truly, as 
 Shakespeare was inspired; as Mozart was inspired; as 
 Burns was inspired; each, like him, sprung directly 
 from the people. 
 
 I look into the crystal globe that, slowly turning, tells 
 the story of his life, and I see a little heart-broken boy, 
 weeping by the outstretched form of a dead mother, 
 then bravely, nobly trudging a hundred miles to obtain 
 her Christian burial. I see this motherless lad grow 
 ing to manhood amid scenes that seem to lead to noth 
 ing but abasement ; no teachers ; no books ; no chart, ex 
 cept his own untutored mind; no compass, except his 
 own undisciplined will; no light, save light from 
 
 * Hay and Nicolay s Life. 
 176
 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 
 Heaven ; yet, like the caravel of Columbus, struggling 
 on and on through the trough of the sea, always toward 
 the destined land. I see the full-grown man, stalwart 
 and brave, an athlete in activity of movement and 
 strength of limb, yet vexed by weird dreams and 
 visions; of life, of love, of religion, sometimes verging 
 on despair. I see the mind, grown at length as robust 
 as the body, throw off these phantoms of the imagina 
 tion and give itself wholly to the work-a-day uses of 
 the world ; the rearing of children ; the earning of bread ; 
 the multiplied duties of life. I see the party leader, 
 self-confident in conscious rectitude ; original, because it 
 was not his nature to follow; potent, because he was 
 fearless, pursuing his convictions with earnest zeal, and 
 urging them upon his fellows with the resources of an 
 oratory which was hardly more impressive than it was 
 many-sided. I see him, the preferred among his fel 
 lows, ascend the eminence reserved for him, and him 
 alone of all the statesmen of the time, amid the derision 
 of opponents and the distrust of supporters, yet unawed 
 and unmoved, because thoroughly equipped to meet the 
 emergency. The same being, from first to last; the 
 poor child weeping over a dead mother ; the great chief 
 sobbing amid the cruel horrors of war; flinching never 
 from duty, nor changing his life-long ways of dealing 
 with the stern realities which pressed upon him and 
 hurried him onward. And, last scene of all, that ends 
 this strange, eventful history, I see him lying dead there 
 177
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 in the capitol of the nation, to which he had rendered 
 "the last, full measure of his devotion," the flag of his 
 country around him, the world in mourning, and, ask 
 ing myself how could any man have hated that man, I 
 ask you, how can any man refuse his homage to his 
 memory? Surely, he was one of God s own; not in 
 any sense a creature of circumstance, or accident. Re 
 curring to the doctrine of inspiration, I say, again and 
 again, he was inspired of God, and I cannot see how 
 anyone who believes in that doctrine can believe him 
 as anything else. 
 
 From Caesar to Bismarck and Gladstone the world 
 has had its statesmen and its soldiers men who rose 
 from obscurity to eminence and power step by step, 
 through a series of geometric progression as it were, each 
 advancement following in regular order one after the 
 other, the whole obedient to well-established and well- 
 understood laws of cause and effect. They were not 
 what we call "men of destiny." They were "men of 
 the time." They were men whose careers had a begin 
 ning, a middle, and an end, rounding off lives with his 
 tories, full it may be of interesting and exciting event, 
 but comprehensive and comprehensible; simple, clear, 
 complete. 
 
 The inspired ones are fewer. Whence their emana 
 tion, where and how they got their power, by what 
 rule they lived, moved, and had their being, we know 
 not. There is no explication to their lives. They rose 
 178
 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 
 from shadow and they went in mist. We see them, 
 feel them, but we know them not. They came, God s 
 word upon their lips; they did their office, God s mantle 
 about them; and they vanished, God s holy light be 
 tween the world and them, leaving behind a memory, 
 half mortal and half myth. From first to last they 
 were the creations of some special Providence, baf 
 fling the wit of man to fathom, defeating the machina 
 tions of the world, the flesh and the devil, until their 
 work was done, then passing from the scene as mysteri 
 ously as they had come upon it. 
 
 Tried by this standard, where shall we find an exam 
 ple so impressive as Abraham Lincoln, whose career 
 might be chanted by a Greek chorus as at once the pre 
 lude and the epilogue of the most imperial theme of 
 modern times? 
 
 Born as lowly as the Son of God, in a hovel ; reared 
 in penury, squalor, with no gleam of light or fair sur 
 rounding; without graces, actual or acquired; without 
 name or fame or official training; it was reserved for 
 this strange being, late in life, to be snatched from ob 
 scurity, raised to supreme command at a supreme mo 
 ment, and intrusted with the destiny of a nation. 
 
 The great leaders of his party, the most experienced 
 and accomplished public men of the day, were made to 
 stand aside; were sent to the rear, while this fan 
 tastic figure was led by unseen hands to the front and 
 given the reins of power. It is immaterial whether we 
 179
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 were for him, or against him ; wholly immaterial. 
 That, during four years, carrying with them such 
 a weight of responsibility as the world never witnessed 
 before, he filled the vast space allotted him in the eyes 
 and actions of mankind, is to say that he was inspired of 
 God, for nowhere else could he have acquired the wis 
 dom and the virtue. 
 
 Where did Shakespeare get his genius? Where did 
 Mozart get his music? Whose hand smote the lyre of 
 the Scottish ploughman, and stayed the life of the Ger 
 man priest? God, God, and God alone; and as surely 
 as these were raised up by God, inspired by God, was 
 Abraham Lincoln; and a thousand years hence, no 
 drama, no tragedy, no epic poem will be filled with 
 greater wonder, or be followed by mankind with deeper 
 feeling than that which tells the story of his life and 
 death. 
 
 1 80
 
 JOHN PAUL JONES* 
 
 I am to tell you a true story, as thrilling and as 
 romantic as any one of the fictions of Walter Scott, 
 as cut-and-thrust as any one of the melodramas of Al 
 exander Dumas. I am to present you a hero equally 
 valorous with Quentin Durward, equally picturesque 
 with Athos, Aramis, and D Artagnan. We shall set 
 out upon our adventures from a little fishing hamlet 
 on the north shore of the Firth of Solway in Scotland ; 
 shall sail thence to the Capes of the Chesapeake by way 
 of Jamaica and St. Kitts and the Caribbean Sea; and, 
 before we have come to a certain mooring, we shall 
 get a glimpse of the Guinea coast and the slave trade. 
 We shall quit the hazards of the deep for a season to 
 set up for a country gentleman upon an estate we have 
 inherited just outside old Williamsburgh in Virginia; 
 to crack a bottle of Madeira, it may be, with Colonel 
 George Washington, and to tread a measure in the 
 giddy mazes of the dance to the twang of Mr. Thomas 
 Jefferson s fiddle. Here the war tocsin, echoing from 
 Lexington and Bunker Hill, shall find us and shall 
 stir us to action again; and, summoned by the Marine 
 
 * United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, March 7, 1902. 
 
 181
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 Congress, we shall go to Philadelphia to tell the 
 Continental Congress how to set about the making of 
 a navy. The resolution of Congress ordaining the en 
 sign of the Republic shall proclaim our commission as 
 Post Captain. We shall loosen the first American flag 
 from its pennant. And then, in our smart blue frock, 
 with its brass buttons and buff facings, having given 
 proof of capacity and mettle in home waters, we shall 
 cross the ocean once more this time in command of 
 a frigate and shall carry despatches from the Rebel 
 Government in America to Dr. Franklin in Paris, an 
 nouncing the surrender of Burgoyne to Gates at Sara 
 toga. We are but just turned thirty, mark you; as 
 handsome as the traditional prince in the fairy tale; 
 a trifle under height, but strongly knit and stalwart, 
 with olive complexion and gray, eagle eyes, and masses 
 of tumbling black hair. We have learned to speak 
 French with just enough accent to give piquancy to 
 a sweet Scotch barytone, modulated by long usage in 
 tropic and semi-tropic climes. The good old Doctor 
 takes us to his arms love lasting, fatherly love at 
 sight. Nay, there is a great Duchesse; a great, royal 
 Duchesse; who does yet more than this; for, rich be 
 yond the dreams of avarice, and romantic even beyond 
 the dreams of the French women of her time, she opens 
 her heart and purse, and gives us countenance and 
 money, and with her own fair hand intrusts us with 
 the jewelled chronometer of her royal grandsire, the 
 182
 
 John Paul Jones 
 
 most famous of the historic Admirals of France. But, 
 let us not anticipate too much; let us begin at the be 
 ginning; for it is to John Paul Jones, the father and 
 founder of the American navy, that I refer, and of 
 whom I am about to speak. 
 
 For more than a hundred years no name in history 
 has been subjected to a misimpression at once so 
 gross and so general as that of this world-renowned 
 hero. In the mind s eye of the casual reader he was 
 a wondrous sea-fighter indeed, but a sea-fighter of 
 questionable credentials. Even friendly historians speak 
 of him as "the daring corsair," unfriendly historians 
 as "a freebooter," outright. "Half pirate, half pa 
 triot" is the grudging epigram allowed him by neutral 
 pens, having no motive for malevolence or misrepre 
 sentation. In a word, it is told that he was the merest 
 adventurer, who played a brilliant but unimportant 
 part in the drama of the American Revolution, who 
 lived the life of a rover and died neglected in a foreign 
 land. What wonder that the novel-writers and the 
 play-makers upon such jaundiced historic warrant 
 have wrought havoc with his fame, have done his very 
 glory to death, in their absurd romances and empty 
 theatricals. 
 
 Yet was the career of this Bayard of the Ocean, this 
 Wizard of the Briny Deep, as open as an open book. 
 He was the trusted friend of Washington and Frank 
 lin and Jefferson. His genius blew the breath of life 
 183
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 into the sea-dreams of the young Republic, his words 
 and deeds inspiration to the dawning sea-power of the 
 New World. Although by grace of his own Gov 
 ernment, for a little while a Russian Admiral and by 
 that of the French King a Chevalier of France, he held 
 but one commission, that of the United States of 
 America; and when he died, the ranking officer of the 
 American navy, in the splendor of a ripening man 
 hood, far and away the most famous sea-captain of 
 the age rich as riches went those days in this world s 
 goods the French Legislative Assembly, then in ses 
 sion, stood while the resolution to attend his funeral 
 was passed. Gouverneur Morris, the American Min 
 ister, who had witnessed his will but a few hours be 
 fore his death, was so overcome by the tidings that he 
 took to his bed. Three weeks later there came to his 
 address, in Paris, direct from the hand of Washing 
 ton, orders to take charge of our complicated inter 
 ests in European waters particularly with respect to 
 the Barbary pirates and had he lived a week longer 
 he would have been made Admiral of France, with au 
 thority completely to overhaul and reorganize the 
 French navy. There was what would even now be 
 called a considerable bank account to his credit, for 
 this canny Scotch laddie had been equally thrifty and 
 daring, and left a goodly property to the two sisters 
 who survived him. Seven or eight years after his death 
 it is related that Napoleon, stung by the phenomenal 
 184
 
 John Paul Jones 
 
 exploits of Nelson, exclaimed: "Berthier, how old was 
 Paul Jones when he died?" Berthier answered: "I 
 think he was about forty-five, sire." "Mon Dieu!" ex 
 claimed the Corsican; "if Paul Jones were alive now 
 France would have an Admiral!" 
 
 John Paul was the son of a poor Scotch gardener. 
 He was born in the village of Arbigland and parish 
 of Kirkbean, July 6, 1747. He died at Paris, July 18, 
 1792. During the forty-five intervening years he made 
 his mark upon two hemispheres. 
 
 Solway Firth was his cradle, and before he had 
 entered his teens he was a sailor. "That s my boy, 
 John," said old John Paul, the gardener, his father, 
 to Mr. Younger, the ship-owner of Whitehaven, as a 
 small fishing-yawl beat up against an ugly squall in the 
 offing, "never fear! He ll fetch her in. This isn t 
 much of a blow for him." The lad was only twelve 
 years old; but the ship-owner was so impressed that 
 then and there he took him off as an apprentice; put 
 him aboard one of his trading vessels bound for the 
 Chesapeake, and started him on that career of exploit 
 and achievement which ended only with his life. An 
 elder brother, William Paul, had preceded him to Vir 
 ginia. This William Paul, adopted by a kinsman of 
 the name of Jones, had taken the name of Jones; in 
 course of time it was agreed that, if William Paul 
 Jones died intestate, little John Paul should succeed to 
 the inheritance; and this actually coming to pass ex- 
 185
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 plains how John Paul became John Paul Jones. Dur 
 ing John Paul s life and even after his death some 
 very ridiculous and wholly unfounded stories more or 
 less to his discredit were told to account for a trans 
 action as commonplace as the transfer of property. 
 Involved in a contemplated duel with Arthur Lee, 
 which was happily averted, Lee exclaimed to a confer 
 ence of mutual friends against Jones s origin and 
 change of name as denying him the recognition of an 
 equal under the code of honor, when General Wayne 
 the famous Mad Anthony hotly replied: "Sir, no 
 one in this country can earn credit for himself by try 
 ing to bar Paul Jones from the rights of a gentleman. 
 It makes no difference who his parents may have been 
 or how many times he may have changed his name, 
 the American people will never sustain a man in the 
 pretence of barring from a gentleman s privileges the 
 conqueror of the Drake and the Serapis!" As a mat 
 ter of fact, he never changed his name at all, merely 
 adding Jones to John Paul, and he was but twenty- 
 seven years of age when, succeeding to the Virginia 
 estate, this happened. Immediately thereafter, getting 
 together some cash of his own out of his seafaring en 
 terprises, and being tired of the merchant service per 
 haps disgusted by the slave trade, of which he had a 
 not unprofitable glimpse having made a voyage or two 
 to Africa and back to the region about Pimlico Sound 
 he resolved to give up roaming and to settle down 
 1 86
 
 John Paul Jones 
 
 to the life of a country gentleman and landed proprie 
 tor in what was then a seeming paradise and the foun 
 tain-head of the Colonial aristocracy founded by Sir 
 Walter Raleigh and Captain John Smith. 
 
 There is abundant proof that he was cordially re 
 ceived and stood with the best while he pursued the 
 sylvan idyl he had planned for himself. A handsome 
 young fellow, fresh from a life of adventure, with land 
 and slaves and money, is not held at arm s length by 
 a provincial society, however exclusive. Paul Jones be 
 came something more than a local favorite a social 
 lion and soon found occasion to signalize himself. 
 
 Already the times were out of joint. The storm of 
 revolution and war was about to break. Being at a 
 ball in Norfolk, which was attended by some sprigs 
 of His Majesty s navy belonging to a sloop then riding 
 at anchor in Hampton Roads, an event occurred which 
 greatly endeared Paul Jones at least to the ladies there 
 about. I shall relate this in the words of the young 
 fire-eater himself. In a letter to his friend, Joseph 
 Hewes, later on Chairman of the Marine Committee 
 and signer of the Declaration of Independence, written 
 the day after the event, he says: 
 
 "The insolence of these young officers, particularly 
 when they had gotten somewhat in their cups, was in 
 tolerable, and there could be no doubt that they rep 
 resented the feeling of the service generally. As you 
 may hear imperfect versions of an affair brought on 
 
 187
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 by the insolence of one of them, I will take the liberty 
 of relating it: In the course of a debate, somewhat 
 heated, concerning the state of affairs, a lieutenant of 
 the sloop-of-war, Parker by name, declared that in case 
 of a revolt, or insurrection, it would be easily sup 
 pressed if the courage of the Colonial men was on a 
 par with the virtue of the Colonial women. 
 
 "I at once knocked Mr. Parker down, whereupon 
 his companions seized him and all hurried from the 
 scene. . . . Expecting naturally that the affair 
 would receive further attention, I requested Mr. 
 Granville Hurst, whom you know, to act for me; sug 
 gesting only that a demand for satisfaction should be 
 favorably considered, and that he should propose pis 
 tols at ten paces; place of meeting, Craney Island; 
 time at the convenience of the other side. 
 
 "To my infinite surprise, no demand came; but this 
 morning on the ebb tide the sloop-of-war got under 
 way and sailed, it is said, for Charleston." 
 
 This Joseph Hewes, Jones s closest friend, was sub 
 sequently, as I have said, one of the North Carolina 
 signers of the Declaration of Independence, an emi 
 nent and patriotic citizen, who, as a member of the 
 Marine Committee, became virtually the first Secre 
 tary of the American navy. To the hour of his death, 
 in 1779, there was maintained between him and the 
 young sailor-planter a constant, confidential corre 
 spondence, which clearly reveals the character of his 
 protege, showing him to have been nothing of the 
 swashbuckler, or self-seeking soldier of fortune, but a 
 sensitive, high-minded man, full of original ideas and 
 noble aspirations. 
 
 1 88
 
 John Paul Jones 
 
 From his boyhood Paul Jones had been a student 
 and the keeper of good company. On one occasion he 
 had the misfortune to be obliged to strike down a 
 mutinous sailor, who, transferred to another ship, sub 
 sequently died. The youthful captain, brought to trial, 
 was acquitted. In answer to the question, "Are you 
 satisfied in your conscience that you used no more force 
 than was necessary to preserve discipline in your ship?" 
 Jones replied: "Sir, I would say that it became neces 
 sary to strike the mutinous sailor. Whenever it be 
 comes necessary for a commanding officer to strike a 
 seaman, it is also necessary to strike with a weapon. 
 The necessity to strike carried with it the necessity to 
 kill or to completely disable the mutineer. I had two 
 brace of loaded pistols in my belt and could easily have 
 shot him. I struck with a belaying-pin, in preference, 
 because I hoped I might subdue him without killing 
 him. But the result proved otherwise. I trust that the 
 Court will take due account of the fact that, though 
 provided with pistols, carrying ounce balls, necessarily 
 fatal weapons, I used a belaying-pin, which, though a 
 dangerous, is not necessarily a fatal weapon." 
 
 Paul Jones reached Philadelphia at the bidding of 
 the Marine Committee of Congress July 18, 1775. 
 He was at once taken into confidential relations, 
 placed upon a committee of experienced persons to 
 consider naval ways and means, and promised a com 
 mission as soon as there was official authorization. 
 189
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 There followed many vexatious delays and some dis 
 appointments. Even thus early sectional jealousies be 
 gan to show themselves, and since Washington, a Vir 
 ginian, had been named General-in-Chief of the army, 
 John Adams, the foremost representative of New Eng 
 land, claimed the lion s share of the navy captains and 
 got it. He seems to have been particularly hostile to 
 Jones. And hereby hangs a tale. The handsome Scot 
 became quite a beau in the society of the Quaker City, 
 and of this society the gayest centre was the mansion 
 of the Carrolls, of Carrollton, where Jones was a con 
 stant and favored guest. At an evening party, which 
 included both the future President and the embryo Ad 
 miral, Mr. Adams, who was nothing if not pedantic, 
 undertook to recite in French to a company of young 
 ladies thoroughly versed in that language a fable of 
 Fontinelle. It may be assumed that neither his accent 
 nor his version was strictly Parisian ; and, after he had 
 gone, the young ladies turned to Mr. Jones and asked 
 what he thought of Mr. Adams s French, when Jones, 
 with something of the superciliousness of the coxcomb, 
 along with the audacity of youth, exclaimed: "It is 
 fortunate that Mr. Adams s politics is not as English 
 as his French, because, if it was, he would be a Tory !" 
 The epigram cost him dear. An Adams is never to 
 be trifled with. The bon-mot in due season reached the 
 ears of the sturdy old patriot, and when the list of the 
 new navy appointments appeared the name of John 
 190
 
 John Paul Jones 
 
 Paul Jones, who had reason to expect nothing less 
 than a Captaincy, led only the First Lieutenants! 
 
 War equally upon sea and land is a great leveller. 
 Mr. Adams had his way. But, of the "political skip 
 pers," as his nominees came to be called, but one, 
 Nicholas Biddle, made his mark ; all too soon gloriously 
 passing from the scene; while of the rest, the ranking 
 officer was dismissed from the service after his first 
 cruise, and the others fell into innocuous desuetude, sur 
 viving the war, leaving Jones alone to give the world 
 assurance that we were possessed of a navy. It is a 
 suggestive coincidence that Jones was first to receive 
 his commission, that it was he who hoist the first 
 flag of the Continental Congress, and that, later on, 
 the resolution of Congress defining the Stars and 
 Stripes as the ensign of the Republic named him to 
 command the crack frigate of the time. This was 
 enough. It squared the account. Jones accepted it as 
 more than compensation as an augury of the future. 
 "The flag and I are twins," said he; "born the same 
 hour from the same womb of destiny. We cannot be 
 parted in life or in death. So long as we can float we 
 shall float together. If we must sink, we shall go down 
 as one." 
 
 October 17, 1777, is a red-letter day in Amer 
 ican annals. On that day the best accredited, the 
 haughtiest, and most self-confident of British com 
 manders yielded his army and his sword to the Amcr- 
 191
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 icans. Outgeneralled by Schuyler all the way from 
 Fort Edward to Ticonderoga, flayed alive by Stark at 
 Bennington, harassed from Bemis Heights by Morgan, 
 and finally in the open at Freeman s farm and at Still- 
 water, beaten and dismayed by the intrepidity and the 
 dash of Arnold, John Burgoyne surrendered to Ho 
 ratio Gates at Saratoga Springs. It was the turning- 
 point in the War of the Revolution. It snatched the 
 cause of the Colonials from the jaws of despair. It 
 secured us the alliance with France. That John Paul 
 Jones was the naval captain chosen to carry the news 
 to Europe in the first Yankee frigate that ever crossed 
 the ocean seems a kind of disposition of Providence: 
 for no other man could have done what he did with 
 the succeeding opportunity; and yet there were both 
 method and foresight in the circumstance. Jones gave 
 good reason why an armed cruiser should be sent 
 abroad. He gave good reason why he himself should 
 command her. In the end, he more than justified his 
 promises. But of that later on. In the stanch frigate 
 Ranger he sailed from Portsmouth, N. H., and cleared 
 the Isles of Shoals at daylight the morning of No 
 vember i, 1777, having received the evening before 
 sealed despatches from Congress to its foreign repre 
 sentatives, and returning by the courier that brought 
 them the assurance, "I will spread this news through 
 France in thirty days." He did actually cast anchor 
 in the Loire just below Nantes, December 2d, follow- 
 192
 
 John Paul Jones 
 
 ing, in thirty-two days time, an unexampled passage, 
 and, posting direct to Paris, placed his priceless mes 
 sage with its accompanying documents in the hands of 
 Dr. Franklin early the morning of the 5th. And here 
 begins in reality the career of this truly wonderful 
 man. 
 
 He was now just passed thirty years of age. He 
 was among living seamen unsurpassed in varied, all- 
 around experience. His soul was permeated by the 
 spirit of the Revolution. Above all, he was a man of 
 genius, of God-given genius ; shaped and pointed by the 
 cool intrepidity of a level head and the noble prompt 
 ings of an heroic heart. By a flash of prescience the 
 great old doctor recognized in the handsome young 
 sailor the born leader of men. He was hardly less a 
 captivator of women. Miss Edes-Herbert speaks of 
 him as "exquisitely handsome," and of his features as 
 "delicate almost to the point of effeminacy." But let 
 me read you a more elaborate and precise description. 
 I quote from contemporary French authority: 
 
 "A man of about thirty-eight years; five feet seven 
 inches tall ; slender in build ; of admirably symmetrical 
 form, with noticeably perfect development of limbs. 
 His features are delicately moulded, of classical cast, 
 clear-cut, and, when animated, mobile and expressive 
 in the last degree, but, when in repose, sedate almost 
 to melancholy. His hair and eyebrows are black, and 
 his eyes are large, brilliant, piercing, and of a peculiar 
 dark gray tint that at once changes to lustrous black 
 
 193
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 when he becomes earnest or animated. His complex 
 ion is swarthy, almost like that of a Moor. 
 
 "He is master of the arts of dress and personal 
 adornment, and it is a common remark that, notwith 
 standing the comparative frugality of his means, he 
 never fails to be the best-dressed man at any dinner 
 or fete he may honor by attending. His manners are 
 in comport with his make-up. His bearing is that of 
 complete ease, perfect aplomb, and also martial to the 
 highest degree; but he has a supple grace of motion 
 and an agile facility of gait and gesture that relieve 
 his presence of all suspicion of affectation or stiff 
 ness. 
 
 "To all these charms of person and graces of man 
 ner he adds the power of conversation, a store of rare 
 and original anecdotes, and an apparently inexhaust 
 ible fund of ready, pointed wit, always apropos and 
 always pleasing, except on the infrequent occasions 
 when he chooses to turn it to the uses of sarcasm and 
 satire. Next to the magic of his eyes is the charm of 
 his voice, which no one can ever forget, man or 
 woman, who has heard it. It is surely the most 
 musical and perfectly modulated voice ever heard, and 
 it is equally resistless in each of the three languages he 
 speaks English, French, and Spanish. 
 
 "It is difficult, when one sees the Chevalier Paul 
 Jones in the affairs of society or hears his discourse at 
 dinner-table or in salon, to believe that this is one and 
 the same person as the ruthless sea-fighter; hero of the 
 most desperate battles ever fought on the ocean, and, 
 for the first time in history, the conqueror of those 
 who had conquered the sea! 
 
 "In all his personal habits he is moderate, not given 
 to excesses of any kind, either of food or of drink, but 
 always temperate and under the most perfect self-com 
 mand." 
 
 194
 
 John Paul Jones 
 
 Such was the man who had come to France to bring 
 tidings of the first great American victory on land, and 
 to launch in European waters a series of exploits un 
 exampled on the sea; to carry the Colonial rebellion 
 home to the very doors of Britain; to give the world 
 assurance that the shadowy figures seen but dimly 
 across the Atlantic Ocean were real men, and not mere 
 martial figures of speech and myths of political fancy; 
 to confirm the French alliance which his arrival fore 
 shadowed and hastened, and, dazzling the sensibilities 
 of contemporary mankind, to send a name down the 
 ages to keep company with the names of Rodney and 
 Drake and Nelson. 
 
 Jones encountered the impediments and delays in 
 cident to the peculiar situation to which he had at once 
 to address himself. While he went to Paris, and later 
 on made an official though clandestine visit to Amster 
 dam to inspect a cruiser under contract and construc 
 tion there, he had left the Ranger in the dock-yard at 
 Brest. When he returned he found that his second in 
 command, Simpson, had stirred up some dissatisfaction 
 among the crew. Indeed, he learned that Simpson had 
 been assuming some wholly superfluous airs of author 
 ity. He lost no time in calling Simpson down. "Mr. 
 Simpson," said he, "I command this ship. I command 
 this ship by virtue of my senior rank, by virtue of the 
 resolution of Congress dated June Hth last, and 
 by virtue of the order of the Commissioners dated Jan- 
 J95
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 uary i6th last. But I waive these considerations. As 
 far as you are concerned, I will say only that I com 
 mand this ship by virtue of the fact that I am person 
 ally the best man aboard, a fact which I shall cheer 
 fully demonstrate to you at your pleasure." 
 
 Simpson was a brave man. But he desired no further 
 proof or parley. There was in consequence no demon 
 stration, and all was made ready to sail April loth, it 
 being now the latter part of March, 1778. 
 
 The day before this important event the Duchesse 
 de Chartres gave a luncheon to Captain Jones at her 
 villa just outside of Brest, where her husband, the 
 Duke, was in naval authority. This Duke, afterward 
 the famous Philippe Egalite, had met Jones three 
 years before off Hampton Roads, and a liking had 
 sprung up between them. The Duchesse, introduced 
 to the young Colonial by her husband himself, took a 
 fancy to him; a very serious and lasting fancy, as it 
 proved; a fancy that meant patronage and standing at 
 Court, and money; for this royal personage royal by 
 nature as well as by birth this Adelaide de Bourbon, 
 great-granddaughter of the Grand Monarch, and 
 mother of the yet-to-be citizen king was the richest 
 princess in Europe. At the luncheon which she gave 
 to Jones were the chief officers of the French fleet 
 riding at anchor in the harbor, among them, of course, 
 the ranking Admiral, Count D Orvilliers. Naturally 
 the company talked "shop" at table, and the famous 
 196
 
 John Paul Jones 
 
 battle off Malaga, in which the Duchesse s grand 
 father, the Count de Toulouse, had commanded the 
 French, coming up for review, Jones showed such sur 
 prising knowledge of every detail, and defended so 
 skilfully the tactics of his hostess s progenitor, that, in 
 a burst of enthusiasm and gratitude, she caused to be 
 brought from her jewel-case a Louis Quinze watch of 
 rare design and great value, which her grandfather had 
 worn, and presented this to Jones. Though taken 
 aback, the embryo hero had wit and presence of mind 
 enough to say: "May it please your royal highness, if 
 fortune favor me, I shall one day lay an English frigate 
 at your feet." How faithfully he kept the promise we 
 shall presently see. 
 
 Thus it was that Captain John Paul Jones put to 
 sea in the Yankee frigate Ranger, the Stars and Stripes 
 flying from her mast-head, saluted by the guns of 
 D Orvilliers as he passed the French fleet the first 
 salute from foreign guns that flag ever received and 
 thus he began the career of havoc and glory which 
 made his name a terror to English hearts from the 
 Isles of Scilly to the Hebrides, from the Texel to the 
 Bay of Biscay, a terror that deepened into hate, red 
 olent of falsehood and defamation, and, with narrow- 
 minded and ignorant people, surviving even to this 
 present day. 
 
 This initial cruise in foreign waters lasted from 
 April loth to May 8th, and extended from Brest 
 197
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 Roadstead through St. George s Channel northwardly 
 and out around Land s End and back by the West 
 Irish coast, embracing a descent upon St. Mary s 
 Isle, the seat of Castle Selkirk, and upon the port of 
 Whitehaven, the first to carry off the Earl of Selkirk 
 a prisoner of war, the second to destroy shipping assem 
 bled in Whitehaven harbor. The Earl of Selkirk was 
 not at home, and adverse winds limited the contem 
 plated destruction to a single ship. But Jones was 
 more fortunate in the open sea, where late in the 
 afternoon of April 24th he encountered and cap 
 tured His Majesty s sloop-of-war, the Drake, twenty 
 guns and one hundred and fifty-seven officers and 
 men, "after a hard-fought battle," as he describes 
 it, "of one hour and four minutes pure and simple 
 broadsiding at close range." Jones had one hundred 
 and twenty-six, all hands at quarters, and eighteen 
 guns. The Drake s battery embraced sixteen nine- 
 pounders and four four-pounders; Jones s guns were 
 only fourteen nine-pounders and four sixes. The like 
 had never been known before. When Jones brought 
 his prize back to Brest the Frenchmen could hardly 
 believe the evidence of their own senses. That an Eng 
 lish man-of-war could be made to surrender to an in 
 ferior enemy seemed inconceivable. But there was the 
 proof before their eyes, and from that moment Jones 
 was immortal. Splendid were the fetes in his honor. 
 He had swept the English coast; he had made two 
 198
 
 John Paul Jones 
 
 forays on English soil; he had taken six prizes, saving 
 three of them; and, strangest of all, he had forced an 
 armed English cruiser of superior metal to strike her 
 colors, had taken her bodily and alive, and had lived to 
 fetch her into a French port. 
 
 I shall not dwell upon the many things that fol 
 lowed. With all his honors thick upon him he was 
 not, as the old saying hath it, yet out of the woods. He 
 had much to encounter; vexatious delays inevitable to 
 French red-tapism; numerous obstructions, the off 
 spring of official bungling on the part of the American 
 representatives; another serious bout with poor Simp 
 son, a not ill-intentioned nor an uncourageous simple 
 ton; some serious financial difficulties promoted by 
 wrangling among the commissioners and the fiscal au 
 thorities, and finally relieved only by the belated sale 
 of his captures and the realization of prize-money he 
 counted on and had a right to, long before he got it; 
 the ultimate loss of the Ranger, which was ordered 
 home, and a great deal of wearisome journeying be 
 tween Brest and Paris. Jones carried himself, all the 
 circumstances considered, with forbearance and forti 
 tude. Franklin backed him from first to last, even 
 John Adams concurring ; but he had to wait a long 
 time more than half a year for the clouds of un 
 certainty, of suspense bordering at times on despair, to 
 roll by. His appeals to the King of France, to the 
 Ministers and the Court, albeit supported by the in- 
 199
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 dorsement of the American Commissioners and the yet 
 more potent influence of the Duchesse de Chartres, 
 seemed for months to fall upon deaf ears. Indeed, it 
 was at last through the direct agency of this noble lady 
 that Jones obtained audience of the King. It came 
 about in the afternoon of December 17, 1778, and 
 lasted for more than an hour. Louis was impressed, 
 as all were impressed who came in contact with 
 this fascinating man-at-arms. As a consequence the 
 royal command was issued directing the Minister of 
 Marine what to do; and, by the middle of February, 
 Jones was superintending the reconstruction of an old 
 East Indiaman, Le Duras, which had been assigned 
 him, with permission to levy upon the French for what 
 recruits he required, and at the same time by an order 
 upon the Treasury for the necessary funds to complete 
 her armament. 
 
 Despair was now succeeded by elation. The 
 Duchesse de Chartres, not satisfied with what she had 
 done, sent for our hero and presented him a purse 
 containing nearly fifty thousand dollars for his per 
 sonal expenses; a sum equal in purchasing power to a 
 hundred or even a hundred and fifty thousand dollars 
 in our day. Five or six years later, when Jones was 
 flush of money, he proposed the repayment of this sum. 
 The Duke de Chartres, now the Duke of Orleans, 
 whom he approached on the subject, said : "If you men 
 tion it to her she will dismiss you from her presence 
 200
 
 John Paul Jones 
 
 and banish you from her esteem forever. She^did not 
 lend the money to you, she gave it to the cause." No 
 ble, hapless lady! She deserved far better of fate than 
 she received! 
 
 In honor of his friend, Dr. Franklin, Jones changed 
 the name of his ship from Le Duras to the Bon- 
 homme Richard ; and thus the name of "poor Richard," 
 the peaceful philosopher of pre-Revolutionary fame, 
 became intertwined forever with the greatest single 
 feat of arms on land, or sea, of which the annals of 
 battle give us any account; fit associates indeed, since, 
 next to Washington, Franklin will survive in history 
 as the father of Colonial independence and the progeni 
 tor of the American Republic. When Jones finally set 
 sail it was a little squadron he was supposed to com 
 mand; for three other vessels sailed with him, the Al 
 liance, the Pallas, and the Vengeance. But, as it fell 
 out, Jones had no real power; was so circumscribed as 
 to be really master only of his own ship ; and, as the se 
 quel proved, he was very nearly destroyed by the Al 
 liance, a fine new Yankee-built frigate, commanded by 
 a certain Pierre Landais, a half-crazy adventurer and 
 disgraced naval officer, who, while commanding a mer 
 chant vessel in American waters, had picked up a Con 
 tinental commission by chance and fraud, and who very 
 nearly ruined the expedition. It seems a miracle that 
 he did not; for, beginning by fouling the Richard the 
 first day out, he ended by twice pouring into her square 
 201
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 broadsides at critical moments during her combat with 
 the Serapis. 
 
 "At daybreak, August I4th," says Jones in his re 
 port to Dr. Franklin, "the little squadron under my 
 orders sailed from the Road of Groix." The cruise 
 lasted fifty days. It embraced a circuit of the British 
 Islands from west to east, and sailing north about, 
 ended in the Texel October 3, 1779. Never be 
 fore, or since, was there such a cruise, either as to 
 obstacles to be met and overcome, or as to dazzling and 
 romantic achievement. It was sufficiently audacious in 
 its conception. But in execution it was sublime, for 
 what stretch of fancy could prefigure the possibility of 
 a commander losing his own ship, yet coming off from 
 the bloodiest of duels victorious and in possession of 
 the ship of his superior adversary? 
 
 This duel between the Bonhomme Richard and the 
 Serapis was fought the evening of Thursday, Sep 
 tember 23, 1779, between the hours of 7.15 and 
 11.30 o clock, off Flamboro Head, a promontory 
 which juts out from the English coast into the North 
 Sea very nearly opposite the Texel, an island port of 
 the Netherlands. The Serapis was the finest of Eng 
 lish frigates, and but newly off the stocks. The 
 Richard was an old East India tub, done over. The 
 Serapis carried guns that threw three hundred and 
 fifteen pounds of metal to the broadside. The 
 Richard s guns would not throw more than two hun- 
 202
 
 John Paul Jones 
 
 dred and fifty-eight. The Serapis was manned by 
 three hundred and seventeen of the best men in the 
 British naval service, commanded by one of the bravest 
 and most skilful English naval officers, Captain, after 
 ward Sir Richard Pearson. The Richard was manned 
 by a mixed crew of Frenchmen, Americans, and other 
 foreigners picked up at random, embracing, all told, 
 three hundred and ten fighting men. In the midst of 
 the action Jones had to displace his master gunner on 
 account of incapacity, if not of insubordination. Twice 
 during the action the Richard was raked by her con 
 sort, the Alliance, commanded by the traitor Landais, 
 and was otherwise so riddled as to become nearly un 
 manageable. After all was over she sank to the bot 
 tom of the sea. At no time was she a match for the 
 Serapis. The crucial point was that Jones succeeded 
 in locking his wretched hulk with the English frigate 
 hard and fast, and of keeping her so, and then, re 
 ducing the battle to a man-to-man affair, of ending with 
 the complete ascendancy of his motley tatterdemalions, 
 inspired by his dauntless spirit and deployed by his in 
 comparable skill. 
 
 At 10 o clock, after nearly three hours of fighting, 
 Jones s gun-room battery exploded. His ship dis 
 abled and afire, his flag almost shot from its ensign 
 gaff and trailing in the water astern, amid a mo 
 mentary lull in the action the American was hailed 
 by the Englishman and asked if he had struck his 
 203
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 colors. "No!" cried Jones, "I have only just begun 
 to fight." 
 
 The one objective point with Jones was to keep the 
 two ships locked together until he was ready to board 
 the Serapis and carry all by storm. The one hope of 
 the Englishman was to cut loose, when his superior 
 guns would sink the Richard in five minutes. Seeing 
 the French commandant of marines quit his post upon 
 the quarter of the Richard s deck, which covered the 
 point of the English deck, where the chains of the two 
 vessels were fouled, Jones leaped among the panic- 
 stricken marines like a tiger among calves. Thence 
 forward he commanded this exposed position himself. 
 There he stood, alternately laughing and swearing, 
 laughing in English and swearing in French, as the 
 exigency seemed to require; with his own hands firing 
 musket after musket as they were loaded and passed 
 to him by the men at his side, until, having lost fifteen 
 shot down by his deadly aim, the English ceased to 
 make any effort to cut loose. Jones s cocked hat blew 
 overboard. A midshipman brought him another. 
 "Never mind the hat, my boy," cried Jones, "put it 
 back in the cabin. I ll fight this out in my scalp," 
 cool as if on dress parade, with death and destruction 
 all about him. Then there came another peril. The 
 master-at-arms, John Burbank, believing that the Ri 
 chard was sinking, opened the orlop-hatch and released 
 two hundred English prisoners confined below. Jones, 
 204
 
 John Paul Jones 
 
 enraged, struck the dastard down. Fortunately, not 
 exceeding fifty of the liberated prisoners reached the 
 upper deck. The rest were held in check, and finally 
 subdued and made to work at the pumps; for the ship 
 was in reality sinking. Meanwhile, however, the fire 
 from the Richard s tops did not slacken, and was most 
 effective. The English crew had been steadily driven 
 to cover by this fire. Pearson s lower guns, although 
 they continued to rake the Richard, were useless, be 
 cause they had done all the damage they could, and 
 swept but an empty and abandoned shell. It was the 
 sure fastening that kept the Richard afloat. Finally, 
 between 10 and u o clock, the decisive moment ar 
 rived. This was the order of Jones to make an effort 
 to drop from the main yard-arm of the Richard some 
 hand-grenades through the hatch and into the lower 
 tier of the Serapis. Let Henry Gardner, master gun 
 ner in room of Arthur Randall, wounded and re 
 moved, tell the story: 
 
 "In obedience to this I had a couple of buckets of 
 grenades whipt up into the top, and with Midship 
 man Fanning and two seamen lay out on the yard- 
 arm with a slow-match. 
 
 "The hatch was not entirely open, the cover only 
 having been slewed round, probably by one of our 
 shot earlier in the action, leaving a triangular opening 
 about two feet at the widest part. As the ships were 
 rocking slightly in the swell, it took a pretty good aim 
 to throw a grenade through so small an opening. 
 
 205
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 Still, Fanning did it at the third trial, when a terrible 
 explosion occurred in the enemy s lower tier, by which 
 the whole of the hatch was blown open, and so much 
 noise, flame, and smoke made that we at first thought 
 it was the magazine. 
 
 "We soon afterward learned that the explosion was 
 caused by the powder-monkeys of the enemy bringing 
 up cartridges faster than they could be used, and leav 
 ing them strung along the deck in the wake of the 
 guns, some of the cartridges being broken open and 
 loose powder falling out of them. Nathaniel Fan- 
 ning s hand-grenade had exploded in the midst of these 
 cartridges, firing the whole train. Not less than fifty 
 of the enemy s crew were killed or crippled by the 
 explosion. 
 
 "After the battle the prisoners said, without excep 
 tion, that they had no more stomach for fighting after 
 the explosion, and were induced to return to their guns 
 and resume firing only by their strict discipline and the 
 example of their first lieutenant, who told them that 
 if they would hold out a few minutes longer the 
 Richard would surely sink." 
 
 The rest is soon told. In the beginning, Gardner 
 relates, Jones had some trouble getting the Frenchmen 
 to stand to their guns. By this time he had them 
 nearly crazy with excitement. He was scarcely able to 
 restrain them until he was ready to board. At length 
 the signal was given. "Now is your time, John!" 
 cried Jones to John Mayrant, "go in!" and over the 
 rail they went, Mayrant, though already twice severely 
 wounded, leading the way. The onset was terrific. 
 They swarmed, like so many devils, driving the Eng- 
 206
 
 John Paul Jones 
 
 lish before them, while from the Richard s tops the 
 murderous fire continued. Pearson was a brave man. 
 He was an able commander. But he saw the futility 
 of further resistance, and, with his own hands seizing 
 the ensign halyards of the Serapis, he struck his flag 
 himself. Catching a glimpse of Dale, through the 
 smoke, on the Richard s quarter-deck, Mayrant cried, 
 "He has struck; stop the firing. Come on board, 
 Dick, and take possession." Then followed the stran 
 gest scene in naval history. Dale swung himself upon 
 the main deck of the Serapis, where the brave, but 
 beaten, Pearson stood awaiting him. "Sir," said Dale, 
 "I have the honor to be the first lieutenant of the ship 
 alongside, which is the American Continental ship, 
 the Bonhomme Richard, under command of Commo 
 dore Paul Jones. What ship is this?" 
 
 "His Britannic Majesty s late battle-ship Serapis," 
 sadly replied Pearson, "and I am Captain Richard 
 Pearson." 
 
 "Pardon me, Captain," said Dale. "In the hurry 
 of the moment I forgot to state that I am Richard Dale, 
 and I must request you to pass to the ship alongside." 
 
 At this moment the first lieutenant of the Serapis 
 came up, and, observing Dale s uniform, asked Cap 
 tain Pearson if the enemy had struck. "No, sir," said 
 Pearson, "I have struck." 
 
 "Then," said the English lieutenant, "I will go be 
 low and order the men to cease firing." 
 207
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 "Pardon me, sir," said Dale, "I will attend to that ; 
 you will yourself please accompany Captain Pearson 
 to the ship alongside." 
 
 They did so, finding Jones ready to receive them with 
 his gracious and beautiful courtesy. The scene is thus 
 described by Jones himself : 
 
 "Captain Pearson now confronted me, the image of 
 chagrin and despair. He offered me his sword with a 
 slight bow, but was silent. His first lieutenant fol 
 lowed suit. I was sorry for both of them, for they 
 had fought their ship better and braver than any Eng 
 lish ship was ever fought before, and this fortune of 
 war came hard to them. I wanted to speak, but they 
 were so sad and dignified in their silence I hardly knew 
 what to say. Finally I mustered courage, and said, as 
 I took the swords and handed them to Midshipman 
 Potter at my elbow: Captain Pearson, you have 
 fought heroically. You have worn this sword to your 
 credit and to the honor of your service. I hope your 
 sovereign will suitably reward you. He bowed again, 
 but made no reply; whereupon I requested him and his 
 lieutenant to accompany Mr. Potter to my cabin." 
 
 The battle was over, the victory won. There was 
 nothing now to do but look to the wounded, to bury 
 the dead and to steer for port. Although it was past 
 midnight the moon in a cloudless sky made it light as 
 day. The Richard was cut away from her fouling 
 chains, the sea being in a dead calm, and she drifted off 
 a helpless wreck, seven feet of water in her hold, many 
 shot-holes below the water-line, her guns disabled, upon 
 208
 
 John Paul Jones 
 
 her decks only a mass of dead and debris. Flames in 
 creased the horror of the scene. Out of all that crew 
 but one hundred able-bodied men remained to care for 
 the survivors, to hold the prisoners and to manage the 
 captive ship. Let Jones relate the last scene of all that 
 ended the brief but glorious career of the Bonhomme 
 Richard. I quote from his diary: 
 
 "No one was now left aboard the Richard but our 
 dead. To them I gave the good old ship for their 
 coffin, and in her they found a sublime sepulchre. She 
 rolled heavily in the long swell, . . . settled 
 slowly by the head and sank peacefully in about forty 
 fathoms. The ensign gaff, shot away in the action, 
 had been fished out of the water and put in its place, 
 and our torn and tattered flag was left flying when we 
 abandoned her. As she plunged down by the head at 
 the last her taffrail rose momentarily in the air; so the 
 very last vestige mortal eyes ever saw of the Bon 
 homme Richard was the defiant waving of her uncon- 
 quered and unstricken flag as she went down. And, 
 as I had given them the good old ship for their sepul 
 chre, I now bequeathed to my immortal dead the flag 
 they had so desperately defended for their winding- 
 sheet!" 
 
 It is so easy to deal in superlatives. But who ever 
 heard of the like ? One-third less the calibre of his ad 
 versary, with fewer men as to numbers, and they picked 
 up at random, an old hulk against a new frigate, what 
 can account for it? The gallant Captain Pearson, of 
 the Serapis, was asked this question on the court-martial 
 209
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 that followed the disaster. As a tribute to the Ameri 
 can navy, I must read you his answer. It will be 
 remembered that, as the action began, Captain Pearson 
 said to his next in command, "This must be Paul 
 Jones, and we are going to have trouble." On his 
 court-martial, Captain Pearson being asked, "Has it 
 been your experience that French seamen display so 
 much stubbornness and courage?" replied: 
 
 "No, sir. But to be perfectly clear in this case, I 
 must inform the Court that long before the close of 
 the action it became apparent that the American ship 
 was dominated by a commanding will of the most un 
 alterable resolution, and there could be no doubt that 
 the intention of her commander was, if he could not 
 conquer, to sink alongside. And this desperate resolve 
 of the American captain was fully shared and fiercely 
 seconded by every one of his ship s company without re 
 spect to nationality. And, if the Court may be pleased 
 to entertain an expression of opinion, I will venture to 
 say that if French seamen can ever be induced by their 
 own officers to fight in their own ships as Captain 
 Jones induced them to fight in his American ship, the 
 future burdens of His Majesty s navy will be heavier 
 than they have heretofore been." 
 
 Was ever such a tribute paid by one brave man to 
 another? 
 
 Thus ended the greatest sea-fight of ancient or mod 
 ern times. To Europe, to the world, it was a revela 
 tion. Jones took his prize into the Texel. He had a 
 long, wearisome time of it thereafter in his diplomatic 
 210
 
 John Paul Jones 
 
 and fiscal relations; but of his name and fame and 
 standing as a naval commander there could not be and 
 there was not the least equivocation. The King of 
 France made him a Chevalier and presented him a 
 sword. Paris went wild. The doors of the Palais 
 Royal, where reigned the Duchesse de Chartres, soon to 
 be the Duchesse d Orleans, flew open wide. 
 
 Defying convention, the Duchesse assigned a suite of 
 apartments to her hero and entertained him as though 
 he, too, had been born to the purple. She gave a great 
 banquet in his honor. It was at this banquet that 
 Jones fulfilled the promise he had made when, carrying 
 the chronometer of the old Count de Toulouse for 
 a timepiece he had first sailed in the Ranger. Choos 
 ing an opportune moment he asked the Duchesse if she 
 remembered that, when two years before she had so 
 honored him, he had said that if fortune favored him 
 he would lay an English frigate at her feet. She re 
 membered it well. Jones had the sword of Pearson 
 near at hand. Releasing this from its leathern case 
 ment and placing it before her, he said : 
 
 "May it please your royal highness, it would be 
 inconvenient, if not embarrassing, to undertake the 
 literal fulfilment of my promise. The English 
 frigate, however, rides in the harbor of 1 Orient with 
 French colors flying from her mast-head. The best 
 that I can do to keep my word is to lay at your feet 
 the sword of the noble officer who commanded that 
 
 211
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 English frigate. I have the honor to surrender to the 
 loveliest of women the sword surrendered to me by the 
 bravest of men the sword of Captain the Honorable 
 Richard Pearson, of His Britannic Majesty s late bat 
 tle-ship the Serapis." 
 
 To this day, among the treasured heirlooms of the 
 house of Bourbon-Orleans, this trophy is held not only 
 as priceless, but as most impressive and unique. 
 
 Jones was now the lion of the time, envied and some 
 times feared of men, adored of women. Did he fall in 
 love? Had he already fallen in love? Was there a 
 place in this fierce bosom for the tender passion? If 
 we take the word of the play-makers and the novel- 
 writers, he must have had half a hundred ladyloves, 
 for each of them and there are quite half a hundred 
 of them ! saddles him at least with one ; a true sailor, 
 having a sweetheart in every port. But history has 
 somehow failed to verify the conceits of romance. 
 The story that he could have had any amorous connec 
 tion with Catherine of Russia is preposterous, though 
 there is some reason to suspect that the puissant and un 
 scrupulous Empress had designs not wholly official 
 when she induced him to lend her his genius and his 
 sword, and made him admiral. The one woman with 
 whom his name is linked, and linked forever who, 
 from the hour she met him just after the famous sea- 
 fight to the hour of his death, fourteen years afterward, 
 stood nearest him, and, figuratively speaking, never 
 212
 
 John Paul Jones 
 
 quitted his side for whose sweet sake he seemed to 
 live, and, lest there be some scandal, for whose future 
 he provided before he went hence was Adele Aimee 
 de Thelison. 
 
 She was a natural daughter of Louis XV. by 
 Madame de Bonneval, one of the many mistresses of 
 that shameless monarch. She grew up in the court cir 
 cles, a foster-child of the old Marchioness de Marsan, 
 and a protegee of the Duchesse de Chartres. Jones 
 may have met her before his cruise in the Richard. It 
 does not appear, however, that any intimacy sprang up 
 between them until he returned from that cruise. 
 Thenceforward she is his bonne camarade when in 
 Paris; his constant, confidential correspondent when 
 away from Paris. He was thirty-two, she twenty-one 
 relative ages which do not allow us to assume a state 
 only of a platonic friendship. Yet in the many letters 
 that survive, not an incriminating word. During the 
 fourteen years of their relationship, not a breath of 
 scandal. Evil to them that evil think. This cheva 
 lier, without fear and without reproach, stood between 
 the very wind and the royal waif the wind had blown 
 him. Almost in her arms he died ; and, he being gone, 
 she disappears amid the mists that envelop the reign of 
 blood and terror as though she had never existed. 
 Beautiful spirit ! sprung from a line of kings, though it 
 may be from a line of courtesans, to irradiate for a 
 while the life of a hero, then to fade away like an ex 
 213
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 halation of the evening into the night of oblivion, leav 
 ing not a shade behind ! 
 
 Would that history could say of Horatio Nelson 
 what this chapter says of John Paul Jones ! 
 
 I shall not speak of the Russian episode except as an 
 episode, for it was nothing more. The War of the 
 Revolution was ended. Jones had closed his accounts 
 with the Marine Committee. We had no battle-ships, 
 nor need of them, and, though he was now technically 
 our ranking naval officer, there being no employment 
 for him, he was free to accept service of Catherine; it 
 was urged upon him, indeed, by Jefferson; though, as 
 Franklin said it must be, it was a great mistake. "No 
 man," exclaimed the doughty old doctor, "who had 
 learned his lessons of battle, as Jones had, in the school 
 of liberty, could ever serve acceptably in the cause or 
 promote the aims of despotism." 
 
 This proved to be as wise as it was far-seeing. 
 Jones s genius gained the admiration of the great Su- 
 warrow, with whom he acted conjointly against the 
 Turks, but that admiration cost him nearly two years 
 of humiliation and disappointment, and sowed the seeds 
 of the disorder that hastened his death. 
 
 He entered the Russian service as rear-admiral in the 
 early spring of 1788, and on a two-years leave of ab 
 sence quitted it in the late autumn of 1789. En route 
 to St. Petersburg he had been commissioned America s 
 plenipotentiary to Denmark. Returning by way of 
 214
 
 John Paul Jones 
 
 Vienna, he was the object of continuous distinction, 
 finally reaching Paris, which, more than any other place, 
 had been his home, the last of May, 1790. 
 
 He took up his abode in a little house, having a gar 
 den, in the Rue de Tournon, which he had purchased, 
 and here, with a few brief intervals of absence, he lived 
 until the dread messenger not dreaded by him came 
 to find him, his boots on, ready to meet man s final foe- 
 man half way, and, as it were, cap-a-pie. When 
 Madame Arbergne, his housekeeper, entered his apart 
 ment, about 9 o clock the evening of July 18, 1792, 
 Jones lay face downward across the middle of his 
 couch, his arms outstretched, one hand clutching the 
 counterpane, the other yet holding in its grasp the 
 watch which Adelaide of Orleans had given him, her 
 portrait upon the dial, by which he had always timed 
 himself in battle. Fit finale for such a valiant! 
 
 But let us retrace our steps a few weeks. Jones on 
 his return from Russia had found France in convul 
 sions. His friend, the King, was a captive in his own 
 palace. His other friends, Lafayette and Mirabeau, 
 were vainly attempting to stem the tide of revolution. 
 Events swept onward with resistless velocity and force. 
 Monarchy was gone. The convention was the state. 
 Although Jones stood aloof, divided between his love of 
 freedom and his loyalty to the royal master who had 
 so honored him, a man of such resplendent genius and 
 renown could not remain obscure. It was purposed to 
 215
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 reorganize the French navy from its foundation, and 
 he had been selected for the task. Had he lived a week 
 longer he would have been commissioned Admiral of 
 France. 
 
 Just one week before the end a supper was given in 
 his honor by the leaders of the revolution at the Cafe 
 Timon. Jones, though obviously a sick man, appeared 
 to be mending and, alive with intellectual fire, was 
 never more gracious and charming. Cambon was 
 there, and Carnot, Barere, and Philippe Egalite, his 
 old friend the Duke of Orleans. Lovingly, royally 
 they feted and feasted him. At last, in response to the 
 toast, "The Coming Admiral of France," Jones rose 
 upon his feet and spoke to them. As an illustration of 
 character this speech is notable ; as his last public utter 
 ance it deserves to be remembered and preserved. Al 
 low me to read it to you. After a few prefatory obser 
 vations, he said : 
 
 "You all know my sentiments. I do not approve, I 
 cannot in conscience approve, all that you have done, 
 are doing, and, alas, intend yet to do. But I feel that 
 I ought to take advantage of this perhaps my last 
 opportunity to define clearly my attitude. 
 
 "Whatever you do now, France does. If you kill 
 my good friend the King, France kills him; because, 
 as things are now ordered, the group of which a great 
 majority is present here is France. Louis XIV. once 
 said: I am the State. You can say that you are the 
 State with more truth. 
 
 "My relations with the people across the Channel 
 
 216
 
 John Paul Jones 
 
 are known to all. Their enemies must be my friends 
 everywhere; those whom they hate, I must love. As 
 all here know, as all France knows, the progress of 
 the French people toward liberty, and the promise that 
 progress gives of new might to the French nation, fill 
 the rulers of England with alarm and resentment. 
 The day when this alarm will turn to hostility and this 
 resentment be expressed by blows is not far off. 
 
 "When that day comes, if I am able to stand a deck, 
 I shall make no point of rank. I shall raise no ques 
 tion of political opinion. I shall only ask France to 
 tell me how I can best serve her cause. 
 
 "You have brought back to my ears the sound of 
 many voices giving forth the lusty cheers of brave men 
 in battle. Some of the faces of those men were of the 
 American mould; but more were the faces of French 
 men. Some of those voices sounded in my native 
 tongue, but more in the language of France. The 
 Richard s crew was, as you know, considerably more 
 than half Frenchmen. I cannot be immodest enough 
 to say that I found it easy to teach them the art of 
 conquering Englishmen. But I trust you will not 
 think me vainglorious if I say that, in that combat, I 
 at least did what, unfortunately, some French officers 
 have not of late years done I simply let my French 
 men fight their battle out. Now, I promise you that, 
 if I live, in whatsoever station France may call me to 
 lead her sons, I shall always, as I have done, when 
 meeting the English or any other foe, let my French 
 men fight their battle out. 
 
 "Citizens, we have to-day heard from the lips of the 
 President of your Assembly the solemn warning, Our 
 country is in danger! That admonition has come 
 none too soon. Already the hosts of oppression are 
 gathering upon your frontier. It is not the wish of 
 those who wear the crowns of Europe that France 
 
 217
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 shall be free. Not long ago another country was in 
 danger. Its people wished to be free, and though it 
 was a land far across the sea, the hosts of despotism 
 found it out and descended upon it. They were the 
 hosts of a king, and some of them he hired like working 
 oxen from other kings. 
 
 "The struggle was long. For almost eight years the 
 sound of cannon, the glare of the torch, and the wail 
 ing of widows and orphans filled that land. Truly it 
 was in danger. But all that is past now and why? 
 Because France, brave, ehivalric France, alone of all 
 nations in the world, interposed her mighty arm to help 
 the weak, and stay from its smiting the hand of the 
 oppressor. 
 
 "I have no title to speak for that country. But I 
 can speak for one citizen of it. Count me with you. 
 Enroll me in those hosts of deliverance upon whom 
 the Assembly to-day called to rise en masse in defence 
 of their lives, their liberties, and those whom they love. 
 I am, as you see, in feeble health. Would that I were 
 strong as when I long ago brought to France the news 
 of Liberty s first great victory in the New World! 
 
 "But ill as I am, there is yet something left of the 
 man not the Admiral, not the Chevalier but the 
 plain, simple man whom it delights me to hear you call 
 Paul Jones, without any rank but that of fellowship, 
 and without any title but that of comrade. So now I 
 say to you that whatever is left of that man, be it never 
 so faint or feeble, will be laid, if necessary, upon the 
 altar of French Liberty, as cheerfully as a child lies 
 down to pleasant dreams!" 
 
 These are noble sentiments. They are expressed 
 with a freedom and lucidity which recall the manner 
 and method of Abraham Lincoln. Indeed, Jones, who 
 218
 
 John Paul Jones 
 
 had learned to speak and to write as Lincoln had 
 learned, slowly, surely, and by his own unaided efforts, 
 much resembled Lincoln in the simple force, the direct 
 ness, and clearness of his style. 
 
 It was not to be. His course was run. The after 
 noon of July 1 8th he passed in the garden of his little 
 house in the Rue de Tournon surrounded by his 
 friends. They could not disguise from themselves the 
 ominous truth; but he was cheerful even to gayety. 
 About 5 o clock Gouverneur Morris witnessed his will. 
 Somewhat fatigued he retired to his apartment. Three 
 hours later they found him dead. 
 
 When notice of his death reached the National As 
 sembly all proceedings stopped ; standing, and in silence, 
 the vote was passed to attend his funeral ; and, except 
 for the chaos that followed, his mortal remains, instead 
 of being lodged in the foreign burying-ground tem 
 porarily, as was supposed, would have been committed 
 to the Pantheon. More than fifty thousand dollars 
 a great sum in those days lay to his credit in bank. 
 Even the King during his illness had found time out of 
 his own sorrows to send him messages of cheer. 
 
 Gouverneur Morris, at once advised that the great 
 admiral had passed away, was so overcome that he was 
 struck down with nervous prostration. A few weeks 
 after a package arrived from America. It contained 
 his commission, signed by Washington, to be chief of 
 the movement to extirpate the Barbary pirates, along 
 219
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 with a letter of effusion and eulogy from Jefferson, 
 who, anticipating this present exigency, two years be 
 fore had thus written "the President" (that is Wash 
 ington) "directs me to say that it does not seem neces 
 sary to indicate the identity of that naval commander, 
 to whom all eyes would be turned should the United 
 States be able to fit out a squadron of magnitude suit 
 able to form a command for an officer of high rank 
 and extraordinary distinction." Yet, in the face of all 
 this, there are those who think he died a stranger in a 
 strange land, obscure and poor. 
 
 It is good for us as Americans, and it is particularly 
 good for us upon the threshold of the new century, 
 which has opened its portals without disclosing its se 
 crets to us, to turn back a century and to retrace the 
 baby footsteps leading from the roof-tree that over 
 hung Liberty Hall in days that tried men s souls to 
 the Arch of Triumph which spans the Campus Martius 
 of the Great Republic in days which shall equally try 
 their wisdom and their self-control. It is good to re 
 member what we were in considering what we are 
 and what we shall be. We are not likely to forget 
 Washington, and the statesmen and warriors who sur 
 rounded him; nor Franklin, nor Jefferson, nor Ham 
 ilton. But who shall tell us of Paul Jones, and the 
 heroes who served with him, and the progeny that 
 succeeded him? Who shall remind us of Dale and 
 Mayrant, and Henry Gardner and the little French- 
 22O
 
 John Paul Jones 
 
 man, Girard, and of Decatur, and Barney, and Bain- 
 bridge? The Stocktons and the Perrys came down 
 into our own time, as did Morris and Stuart, and their 
 fame has may I call it so? a modern "tag" attached 
 to it. The "landlubbers," being at home, were able 
 to take care of their posthumous interests. Not so the 
 simple sailor folk; and I go back to the twilight time 
 of Paul Jones, and Nick Biddle and Preble and old 
 Isaac Hull and the rest, with a feeling that I am in 
 some sort their attorney before the court of last resort. 
 The mists of the oceans envelop them. The moon 
 beams and the stars shine for them by night. But the 
 light of the sun in the meridian of his glory has failed 
 somehow to blaze down upon the page that bears their 
 names and deeds. I would recall them to you. At- 
 this moment, when we are passing nay, when we have 
 already passed from the humiliating position of a 
 huddle of provincial sovereignities into the wide open 
 sea, freighted by the movements of mankind a World 
 Power and the greatest of World Powers let us not 
 forget the homespun sources of our being, nor the men 
 who laid the sure foundations on which we stand. 
 
 It was the navy in the War of 1812 that secured us 
 a footing in the court of arms. It was the navy in 
 the sectional war, through its blockade of the South 
 ern ports, that made the Confederacy impossible. 
 What shall I say that has not been said of Dewey and 
 Manila? And of Santiago, the finishing stroke? The 
 
 221
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 lads we send out from Annapolis do their work far 
 away from their base. They have the opportunity to 
 make few friends, and no partisans on shore. But, in 
 proportion as they are removed from the direct vision 
 of their own countrymen, they are brought under the 
 direct vision of the world at large. They are not 
 vedettes ; because they are not under orders to run away 
 at the first fire. They are not pickets; because they 
 must sustain the brunt of the attack, and sometimes 
 all the attack, without support. They cannot get 
 away. Except as the winds and the waves direct, they 
 must stand and fight. Paul Jones began it. Dewey 
 and Sampson and Schley and Evans ended it ; and there 
 are "others," as the saying hath it, not forgetting Hob- 
 son and Victor Blue. Forgive me! I did not mean 
 to be personal. I mean merely that the navy of the 
 United States has not had just quite its "even" with 
 the army; that it has a right to it; and that in the 
 coming years, when what our great Mahan calls "sea 
 power" has come to be understood, it will get it; and, 
 when it gets it, though Decatur, the Perrys, and Far- 
 ragut will stand high, and Porter will stand high, and 
 Dewey will stand high, the name of John Paul Jones, 
 even like that of Abou Ben Adhem, "will lead all the 
 rest." 
 
 222
 
 Ill 
 
 ADDRESSES 
 
 223
 
 THE AMERICAN NEWSPAPER* 
 
 It will not be considered irrelevant, I trust, if, 
 standing in the presence of an association of editors, 
 I proclaim a long-cherished and well-defined belief in 
 societies which build themselves upon the noble prin 
 ciple of mutual admiration; nor will you charge me 
 with an excess of loyalty if I add that, while respect 
 ing them the more the larger and the stronger they be 
 come, I am by no means indifferent to their advan 
 tages where they are not so imposing and numerous, 
 but happen to be reduced within the compass of quad 
 rilateral lines. Because, my friends, all considerable 
 eminence springs in a measure out of that which is 
 called in common life the co-operative system. We 
 are living in an epoch not of miracles but of mechan 
 ics; of multitudinous social, scientific, and professional 
 complexities; and instead of its being true that a man 
 of parts gets on faster and fares better without assist 
 ance and encouragement, the reverse is true. One 
 mind aids another; one hand holds up another; one 
 heart cheers another; and, as a man is really an able " 
 man, the greater need and use he has for his supports, 
 
 * Indiana Press Association, Indianapolis, May I, 1873. 
 225
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 for that reserved force, without which battles could 
 never be .won, nor great edifices constructed, nor po 
 litical organisms set in motion, nor newspapers made 
 up and issued. Neither is this indispensable help 
 purely muscular and artificial; it is often spiritualistic 
 and intellectual, illustrating the homely saying that 
 "two heads are better than one, though one is a sheep s 
 head." 
 
 . Men of genius have in all times sought association 
 and moved in clusters. There was the Shakespearean 
 cluster; there was the cluster which collected itself 
 about the figure of old Sam Johnson; and there is in 
 our day and country a notable cluster circling around 
 Agassiz and giving to Boston the title of the Modern 
 Athens; a mutual admiration society which Holmes 
 has boldly avowed and defended, but which wants for 
 no defence, being a most natural and reasonable broth 
 erhood of poets, savants, and men of affairs. This so 
 ciety has been represented in courts, in senates, and in 
 cabinets, and its members, scarcely more by the special 
 gifts of each than by the honest help and appreciation 
 of all, are known throughout the world. 
 
 You will recall that the lion in the fable, who was 
 shown a picture representing one of his race lying pros 
 trate beneath the foot of a triumphant human animal, 
 observed, in his facetious, leonine way, that the situa 
 tion would be reversed if a lion, instead of a mortal, 
 had been the artist. Now it is given the journalist to 
 226
 
 The American Newspaper 
 
 be at once the lion and the artist, a creator and a critic; 
 to depict his own profession; to extol and magnify it; 
 to write it up, as the saying goes; and, despite some 
 occasional delinquencies and disfigurements in his 
 method, he has used this advantage so industriously 
 and at times so skilfully that journalism has come to 
 be what it was not when he first gave out the conceit 
 "a veritable Fourth Estate." The freedom of the 
 press, obtained at length even more securely by the 
 victories it is achieving over dependence and subsidy 
 than by the liberality of the laws which guarantee it, 
 is a sort of popular religion ; and so truly is our journal 
 ism realizing the pretty commonplaces with which it 
 once, in the days of its bondage and gloom, consoled 
 itself, so thoroughly is it coming to reflect the thoughts, 
 the customs, and the manners of the age, and to be 
 actually and not figuratively 
 
 "a map of busy life, 
 Its fluctuations and its vast concerns," 
 
 that thoughtful people, paraphrasing the race-course 
 epigram of Randolph of Roanoke, are beginning to ask, 
 if the press controls the country who is to control the 
 press? It is this suggestive inquiry, considered both 
 as a matter of professional ethics and a question of 
 popular interest considered with reference to the 
 strength and weakness of American journalism, its 
 power and its shortcoming, what it is and what it is 
 227
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 like to be to which I shall ask your attention and beg 
 your indulgence ; for, potential as the press undoubtedly 
 is, and immensely elevated in its conditions and per 
 spectives, I suppose none of us will pretend that it is 
 not the subject of many drawbacks and abuses. 
 
 I am fully persuaded that, take it for all and all, the 
 journalism of America is the very best in the world. 
 It is a complete answer to the ancient sneer of the 
 cockneys touching our books, for, in truth, it is begin 
 ning largely to constitute our literature. I do not 
 mean to disparage Longfellow and Whittier and Low 
 ell, Motley and Bancroft; and I hope I shall not be 
 suspected of seeking to steal a titular distinction for our 
 craft at the expense of our greatest humorist, if I de 
 clare that the morning paper is the only autocrat of the 
 breakfast-table. When I consider the labor and the 
 learning that are devoted to books which will be for 
 tunate if they get eight or ten thousand readers, and ob 
 serve the increasing audiences which are gathering about 
 the bulletin-boards, I mourn in silence, but in sorrow, at 
 the sight of such young men as Bret Harte and Joaquin 
 Miller and Mark Twain throwing themselves away, 
 and I rejoice and am exceeding glad in the salvation 
 to journalism and the world of a soul so precious as 
 that of John Hay. Badinage aside, my serious mean 
 ing is that every age has its interpreter; there was the 
 age of the drama; there was the age of the pamphlet; 
 there was the age of the novel. This is the age of the 
 228
 
 The American Newspaper 
 
 newspaper. The journalist is to-day what but a little 
 while ago the novelist was; what a little while before 
 that the dramatist was, the observed of all observers, for 
 he is an exceptional creature, a new creation, a man, in 
 deed, like his fellow-men, but possessed with strange, 
 invisible powers, which affect men s lives, fortunes, and 
 characters; not merely an abstract and brief chronicle 
 of the time, as the player used to be said to be; some 
 thing other than a myth or an almanac. There will 
 never again be a Dickens or a Dumas. The romance of 
 yesterday, with its moving incidents and real figures, 
 will engage the interest of vigorous writers as they en 
 gage that of the public, and, as fictitious situations and 
 conditions are nearly, if not quite, exhausted, actual sit 
 uations and conditions, brilliantly written out for the 
 daily newspaper, will take the place of imaginary scenes 
 and passions. I am myself, at this moment, diligently 
 seeking for a young Thackeray to sketch society ; for a 
 young Cooper, to go upon the frontier and "do" the 
 Modocs ; for a young "Boz," to take the place of a very 
 inadequate police reporter ; and for a young Bulwer to 
 do duty as a general utility man. I make no doubt of 
 finding what I want; and the likelihood is that, when 
 found, they will issue from strange places, just as there 
 is the certainty that they will enter upon a broad, new 
 field with boundless opportunities. What a "hit" 
 George Alfred Townsend made; then Don Piatt; and 
 along with them McCullagh. Did Thackeray ever do 
 229
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 wittier work than Don Piatt? Did ever Dickens 
 write more graphically than George Alfred ? Was not 
 McCullagh more quoted, did he not exercise a greater 
 influence on his country by his letters, than any writer 
 of his time? Yet they are but crude examples; they 
 worked in the dark; they worked much against them 
 selves, like the old poets, like Marlowe, Decker, and 
 Otway, who were half ashamed of their calling, and 
 held in disrepute by those who were not fit to tie their 
 shoe-strings. I name them to illustrate what may be 
 done by men of genius, who have not a financial stake 
 jn the press, and do not own and manage newspapers, 
 getting their fame and their fortune off the brains of 
 obscure, ill-paid subordinates. As Congreve and Sheri 
 dan were, as Dickens and Thackeray were, the journal 
 ist may be, and partly is, already; a man in whom a 
 public interest, great or less, according to his genius, is 
 taken ; a man who, loving his fellow-men, has it in his 
 power to help them and to be loved by them. 
 
 The process is very simple. To be kindly, honest, 
 fearless, capable, that is all ; and I name kindliness first, 
 because if a newspaper would be popular it must, like 
 an individual, carry a pleasant aspect ; it must be amia 
 ble and unpretentious ; speaking the language and wear 
 ing the habiliments of the people; bone of their bone 
 and flesh of their flesh, a sincere as well as an effective 
 deliverer of their thoughts, wishes, and fancies. If 
 Shakespeare lived in our time, conceiving him to have 
 230
 
 The American Newspaper 
 
 been a robust, blithe, and hearty person ; conceiving him 
 to have been what we understand by an able person and 
 an able-bodied, and, withal, a most representative, gay, 
 and festive person, I take leave to doubt whether he 
 would find the drama the best vehicle for his overflow 
 ing wisdom, his exuberant wit, humor, and fancy, his 
 amazing activity; and I wonder that a man of such 
 varied and large resources, of such vigorous, current, 
 and racy faculties as Dion Boucicault should be com 
 paratively a poor man, wandering about the world and 
 writing plays, when he might be, had he bent himself 
 that way, the editor of the London Times. 
 
 I do not name the London Times as a first-rate 
 example of a first-class newspaper. There is no journal 
 of the first class in London. I am not able to say 
 what the Times may have been in the days of Mr. 
 Kinglake s somewhat apocryphal, shrewd, idle clergy 
 man, who made it his business to loiter about places 
 of common resort and find out what people thought 
 upon the principal topics of the time. The press of 
 London is, and has been, since I became acquainted 
 with it, a pretentious jumble of incompletions ; very 
 polished and very dull ; reminding one of those elabo 
 rate dramatic compositions which are said to be writ 
 ten for the closet. I doubt whether it is not at its 
 best, and wholly discredit the story of the parson, or at 
 least the parson s knack of catching the popular 
 thought by lounging about the clubs and then of com- 
 231
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 municating it to a stilted person, seated on a tripod, to 
 be thence distilled into England s next day s cup of 
 coffee. You might as well put an ear-trumpet to a rose 
 and expect to draw its essence as hope to gather the 
 public sense in that way 
 
 "To catch a dragon in a cherry net, 
 To trip a tigress with a gossamer, 
 Were wisdom to it." 
 
 That which makes the journalist strong is that which 
 makes the poet inspired, the inner light, the intuitive 
 faculty to interpret, which cannot be had of books or 
 be got from loafers, no matter how observant and as 
 tute they be; it is a faculty which can indeed be cul 
 tivated ; but it is, in its origin, a mirrory, mercurial es 
 sence, the vivider as it is the purer, reflecting without 
 consciousness and almost without effort, and accurately 
 reflecting, the average mood and tense, themselves de 
 pendent on average commonplaces of interest and af 
 fection of the men and women in whose midst the 
 journalist lives, moves, and has his being. Defoe, 
 Steele, and Addison were journalists in this sense; 
 Swift and Cobbett were partly so; and, in our time, 
 differing chiefly in their outward signs and tokens, in 
 their visible manifestations and eccentricities, Greeley, 
 Bennett, and Raymond were eminently so. 
 
 In the hands of these the press of New York sped 
 beyond the press of London, which lacks special vigor 
 232
 
 The American Newspaper 
 
 and inspiration, is edited by cultivated subalterns at 
 second-hand, and, for all its rotundity and pretended 
 composure, is in a perpetual strain after heavy, beef- 
 eating effects, deficient at once in naturalness and hu 
 mor. As Fox said of Thurlow, one feels disposed to 
 say of the London press, it is not in nature to be as 
 wise as it looks to be; albeit, if we are to have vacuity 
 and pretence, it is well to have it well-clad and well- 
 bred, which elements of respectability form half the 
 prestige and all the attraction of this able, dreary, and 
 portentous element in journalism. 
 
 It can be said of the American press, on the other 
 hand, just as Thackeray and Taine have said of the 
 writings of Henry Fielding, that the cloth is none of 
 the cleanest, and that the dishes might be better 
 chosen; indeed, that the company makes but a small 
 show of courtliness and is often vulgar and ill-man 
 nered; but, on the whole, that it has a jovial, happy * 
 faculty of standing by the weak and resisting the 
 strong, of satirizing the wicked, exposing the base, de 
 tecting the false, and cheering the unfortunate, which 
 could only come to a press whose roots are nourished 
 by a free soil, and whose great boughs, spreading out 
 wider and thicker, shelter a free people. 
 
 We have heard a deal of late years about personal 
 and impersonal journalism. In the press of America, 
 we must needs have an abundance of personal journal 
 ism ; it is an appendage to our condition as well as an 
 233
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 offspring of our character. During our civil war, it 
 was remarked by foreign officers of experience who had 
 come here to observe the progress of military events 
 that individual valor not merely counts for more with 
 us than with European armies, but is required by our 
 soldiery, who keep a close watch on their leaders. 
 This is a Republican habit, and, as far as editors are 
 concerned, it is rendered the more scrutinizing and in 
 evitable by the comparative smallness of our towns, 
 which are not large enough to afford concealment to 
 an individual occupying an important local place. 
 Those who read a newspaper are pretty sure to find 
 out who it is that edits it; there is no possible escape; 
 the man s simple comings in and goings out will dis 
 cover him; and just as he happens to be a person of 
 exceptional character or characteristics is he likely to 
 be marked and talked of, until, being presently very 
 well known, and having himself charged with all the 
 virtues and all the offences of his journal, he is, invol 
 untarily, a personal journalist. 
 
 If you will but consider it for a moment, you will 
 agree with me that James Gordon Bennett was as per 
 sonal in his journalism, throwing as many of his pe 
 culiarities into it, as Horace Greeley; they differed in 
 kind and in degree; but both after their fashion were 
 known, personally known, and neither could nor de 
 sired to hide himself. 
 
 Even Mr. Greeley s successor, though scarcely warm 
 234
 
 The American Newspaper 
 
 in his seat and an exceptionally young and retiring 
 man, is familiarly known by name and countenance to 
 the great body of American readers ; and I confess that, 
 considering the case from this standpoint, I am unable 
 to see how men like Marble, Dana, Bowles, White, 
 and Halstead, filling the places they do, could, no mat 
 ter how ardently they might wish it, envelop them 
 selves in the mystery which surrounds the work-a-day 
 drudge who forges thunder-bolts for the London 
 Times. Nor does this seem to me a thing to be de 
 sired either by the journalist or by his readers. Be 
 coming modesty and self-denial, joined to absolute dis 
 interestedness in the public service, are all that should 
 be sought; because the very nature of the journalist s 
 vocation obliges him to be a man of action, to be in the 
 midst of affairs if not a part of them, to be ready, reso 
 lute, and personally informed qualities not to be 
 found in the recluse or the dummy. 
 
 When I say that the journalist must be a man of 
 action, I do not mean that he should seek office. 
 
 The functions of the politician and the journalist 
 are totally different. There is a yet stronger reason 
 why the success of the journalist in politics must and 
 will always be abridged; the journalist who is con 
 scientious and independent cannot be a strict partisan, 
 cannot establish a definite partisan claim by undoubt- 
 ing party work, and is sure to raise up against himself 
 many bitter enemies, who are powerless to injure him 
 235
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 in his walk in life, but who are able to thwart him 
 when he quits his intrenchments and gives them a 
 chance on their own ground. 
 
 There is impersonal journalism in England, because 
 the English press is conducted by scholarly dummies, 
 who, dwelling in London, to which the press is mainly 
 confined, are able to live reclusive lives, and who, be 
 ing for the most part the employees of men who pub 
 lish newspapers as they would traffic in bread-stuffs, 
 are not paid enough or permitted to display a costly 
 and offensive individuality. In America the power of 
 the press is not consolidated in a single great city. All 
 the larger towns have their journals and their journal 
 ists; some of them of the richest and most notable. In 
 this way journalism with us, as in France, though for 
 an opposite reason, opens a road to wealth and fame 
 which is closed to the journalist of England, who, from 
 necessity and not from choice, we may be sure, leads 
 an obscure life and goes to his grave "unwept, unhon- 
 ored, and unsung." 
 
 Men of vigorous parts and sound understandings do 
 not willingly part with their identity. That is a por 
 tion of the heritage which God has given to mankind, 
 our finer part, for it causes us to strive, to labor, to 
 aspire, to keep ourselves honorable and clean, to seek 
 the good-will and good-report of our fellow-men. 
 Personalism is only objectionable when it becomes 
 blatant or degenerates into vanity. It is considered, and 
 236
 
 The American Newspaper 
 
 it is a most ennobling and admirable quality, when it 
 causes Morton and Schurz to detach themselves from 
 the rest in order that they may tell millions of their 
 countrymen what they think on this question and on 
 that. The journalist does not, in his most personal 
 moments, display himself half so much as these, and, 
 while he is to be warned against using his great ve 
 hicle to the mere tickling of his own conceit, he is surely 
 not to be blamed for going in at the front door, in 
 stead of creeping round by way of the back alley, nor 
 stigmatized for holding his head up in the face of 
 all the world, non sibi, sed toti genitum se credere 
 mundo. 
 
 This principle, fairly construed and carried out, un 
 derlies another, and the most important of the unseen 
 forces in journalism the sense of responsibility. The 
 business of conducting newspapers is only just begin 
 ning to be recognized as a profession, like law, engineer 
 ing, or physic ; but it is yet a common, unfenced by es 
 tablished rules and marked by none of those precedents 
 which make its fellow-toilers so venerable and so 
 revered. It is at once without a jurisprudence and a 
 history. 
 
 I have been reading Mr. Hudson s recent book with 
 interest and attention, and nothing that it contains has 
 struck me with greater force than the general sugges 
 tion which it conveys of what it does not contain; 
 some theory of journalistic practice. That must in- 
 237
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 deed be a barren field of speculation which furnishes 
 so few abstract ideas to a man of such large experience 
 as the biographer of the American press. I take it for 
 granted that there must have been weighty reasons 
 which restrained a life-long journalist, who was the 
 executive officer during twenty momentous years of 
 the most famous and widely circulated American news 
 paper, from tossing his younger followers a hint or two 
 concerning the system whose loose, disjointed story he 
 undertook to tell us. I know of one repressing influ 
 ence it can hardly be called a reason which seals 
 the lips of many a practical journalist with respect to 
 his craft and his work: a worldly minded, perhaps a 
 prudent, well-bred disinclination to sermonize, and a 
 wholesome fear of ridicule. He is sufficiently oracular 
 when it comes to matters about which he cannot be so 
 well advised as about his own calling; he will con 
 strue the law; he will decide a case in railway econ 
 omy; he will be by turns a statesman, a soldier, and a 
 diplomatist; he will organize a party and furnish it a 
 platform of everlasting and infallible principles; he 
 will command an army and insure it victories in ad 
 vance; he will enter unfamiliar courts and throw 
 down the glove to kings and ministers. But when it 
 comes to guessing at the truths and falsehoods of his 
 daily life, to honestly investigating the mystery of a 
 penful of ink, and measuring the length, breadth, and 
 thickness of a bit of lead-pencil, to defining the tactics 
 238
 
 The American Newspaper 
 
 of a paragraph, and settling the strategy of a leading 
 article, to carefully, diplomatically weighing the nice 
 ties and balancing the subtleties of news, and casting 
 up some general, philosophical result, he sheers off 
 and begins to play what wicked and adventurous peo 
 ple call "a close game" that is to say, he presses the 
 cards to his bosom and is mute. 
 
 I suppose all of you know the editor of the Cincin 
 nati Commercial, and that most of you know the edi 
 tor of the Chicago Tribune; you will agree with me 
 that an essay on journalism from either would be val 
 uable, because each has illustrated the profession of 
 journalism by distinguished successes. But, do you not 
 see that the very quality which has made them what 
 they are shuts them up like oysters? Schurz calls this 
 "indifferentialism." I explain it in this way, that, 
 when they came to the front, frivolous garrulity and 
 mawkish gush were in the ascendant; they fought 
 against pruriency in themselves as well as in their or 
 der, overcoming it, at least, in themselves. With a ro- 
 bustuous, self-taught spirit, which was keen and detec 
 tive, flashing upon a sham and lighting up a cheat with 
 a peculiar species of new-fashioned, mirthful sincerity, 
 truth-seeking and truth-telling, they resolved to main 
 tain in their public intercourse the simple, colloquial 
 tone which is common to private expressions of opin 
 ion; and, by practising this self-repression, they, very 
 naturally, went to the extreme of it. They errctl 
 239
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 merely in degree, and in the right direction; but while 
 it may be said of them that 
 
 "E en their frailties lean to virtue s side," 
 
 I wish they could be induced to speak out as Medill 
 spoke out in this very place a year or two since, and 
 as Reid spoke out in New York not so long ago, and 
 as I am trying very inadequately to speak out on this 
 occasion, toward the establishment of some general, if 
 not some special, conception of a system by which we 
 not merely get our daily bread, but which I am sure 
 the greater number of us are interested in advancing, 
 in purifying, in elevating among the professions and in 
 the esteem of men. 
 
 With this in mind, I speak of the responsibility 
 which presses upon every newspaper conductor; and I 
 shall speak confidently and earnestly, because, having 
 some taste for investigating the causes of things, and 
 having had considerable apprenticeship to the experi 
 mental part of our vocation, I am satisfied that in jour 
 nalism, as in every conceivable sphere of life, the 
 foundation of success is Credit. What is it that makes 
 you trust your money in a bank? Confidence in its 
 management. What is it that makes you rally around 
 a favorite party leader? Confidence that he knows 
 more of the science of government than you do; that 
 he is a better representative of your peculiar notions 
 than you are yourself; and that he is to be relied on 
 240
 
 The American Newspaper 
 
 with greater assurance than his competitor. You do 
 not wish your banker and your politician to exchange 
 their places. The banker might get on but poorly in 
 public life, and the politician would, in all likelihood, 
 scarcely get on at all as a practical financier. Apply 
 this rule of fitness to the press. What is it that the 
 people want of a newspaper ? Not so much the science 
 of banking and government as the raw material, the 
 facts, out of which they may construct a rude, popular 
 science, which the scientists themselves must consult. 
 They want to feel, first of all, that it is reliable; that 
 it is uncontrolled by sordid interests, and unseduced by 
 passion and prejudice, which the unexcited heart of our 
 better nature secretly tells us are unjust. 
 
 I do not say that racy, reckless writing, be it never 
 so wrongful, is unattractive. It certainly pleases our 
 worse side; it flatters a combativism more or less com 
 mon to all men. But it cannot hold its own, and never 
 has held its own, when brought face to face with up 
 right, painstaking, sensible, and informed writing, sup 
 ported by those ordinary mechanical appliances which 
 are indispensable to the commercial success of newspa 
 pers. 
 
 Of course, the axiom of newspaper success is news. 
 The newspaper of to-day is the history of yesterday. 
 As action is said to be to oratory, so is currency to 
 journalism. But what sort of news, what sort of cur 
 rency? I answer, trustworthy information, of some 
 241
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 use, interest, and import, recent enough to be given to 
 the public for the first time; and, if commented upon, 
 to be fairly commented upon. I do not believe it to 
 be the mission of journalism to fish in the sewers for 
 scandal and to loiter up and down the world in quest 
 of the forbidden. There are many things not fit to be 
 told that may amuse or disgust the public. There 
 are many other things the telling of which might bring 
 a rogue to his deserts. In cases of this sort what are 
 we to do? 
 
 Let us take an example. One of my reporters comes 
 in late at night and says, breathlessly, that a promi 
 nent banker has absconded with half a million of dol 
 lars and the wife of a fashionable up-town clergyman. 
 I am overjoyed, of course I mean professionally over 
 joyed for though this same banker is my neighbor, 
 and lives in a much grander house than mine, though 
 he refused but yesterday to allow me to overcheck my 
 deposit, I entertain no grudge against him. I am 
 simply rejoiced that to-morrow s issue of the Courier- 
 Journal is to go out with a first-class sensation. It 
 comes out accordingly with the startling disclosure that 
 Mr. So-and-so has disappeared; that he was last seen 
 at the depot in Jeffersonville, with Mrs. So-and-so; 
 that there has been a good deal of scandal in religious, 
 aristocratic, and banking circles for some time about 
 Mr. So-and-so s business habits and his unfortunate in 
 timacy with Mrs. So-and-so; that persons best ac- 
 242
 
 The American Newspaper 
 
 quainted with him have never doubted him to be at 
 heart a villain; and, finally, that "at the late hour at 
 which we write," his family, being prudently sent away, 
 in order to facilitate his diabolical purpose, and his 
 cashier not being within reach of our reporters, we 
 must defer the full particulars of this horrible and la 
 mentable affair until "our next issue." Well, next day 
 comes, and what does it disclose? It discloses, in the 
 first place, that our reporter has picked up one of those 
 rumors which now and then take complete, though 
 happily only brief, possession of the streets. He knew 
 that his chief had no love for Mr. So-and-so, and he 
 colored and substantiated his story; let us say he be 
 lieved it. The facts are simply that Mr. So-and-so has 
 gone to Cincinnati with Mrs. So-and-so, who is his sis 
 ter; and all the rest is false. 
 
 There is a fight or a libel suit. 
 
 You will say at once that this is an extreme case; 
 unlikely to occur where ordinary prudence was em 
 ployed; impossible to occur in a well-regulated, dis 
 creetly handled newspaper office. I admit it ; but why ? 
 Because of the prominence and influence of the parties 
 supposed to be involved. But it is not at all improb 
 able, nay, it is common, where they are less conspicu 
 ous, where they happen to be poor, obscure work 
 people charged with crime, and having scanty means 
 of righting themselves. The law presumes a man to 
 be innocent until he is proved to be guilty. The press, 
 243
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 not merely usurping the functions of the law in ar 
 raigning a man whom the constable has no warrant 
 to arrest, goes still further and assumes him, prima 
 facie, to be guilty. After many weeks, if the case of 
 the accused comes to trial, he is acquitted; the law 
 makes him an honest man; but there is the newspaper 
 which has condemned him, and cannot, with a dozen 
 retractions, erase the impression left and the damage 
 done by a single paragraph. 
 
 This tendency to arraign, to accuse, arising out of 
 the critical nature of the work set before the journal 
 ist, might be given a better and happier direction if it 
 were confined to the laws of evidence and usage which 
 prevail in our old, established courts; if it based itself 
 on investigation; if it pursued its mission through the 
 sunshine and not through the shades of night. Nay, it 
 would be a most pleasing, popular element if it should 
 be wittily instead of savagely severe. 
 
 One may be shrewd and sound in his judgments 
 and still be charitable. Did ever you know a good and 
 valuable man who wore an habitual frown and spoke 
 constant ill of the world and his fellow-men? Such a 
 man may perhaps be honest, but he will not be a bene 
 factor or a leader of his kind. It is never necessary 
 to be brutal in order to be vigorous; to pule in order 
 to be humane. That is the best courage which does 
 not fly into a passion. There is, lurking down in the 
 heart of the fiercest partisan, a social yearning, which 
 244
 
 The American Newspaper 
 
 begets the selfish, manly instinct of fair-play. There is 
 in every man s nature a natural love of cheerfulness 
 and serenity. Observe how humor drove the old, 
 highfalutin novel into retirement and made those 
 writers of fiction, from Sterne to Dickens, from Gold 
 smith to Bret Harte, most popular who best illus 
 trated it. Observe how humor on the stage, personi 
 fied by Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Sothern, has paled the 
 ineffectual fires of tragedy. What is it but our God- 
 given better nature, chastened and educated by our 
 God-sent modern culture, and the spirit of a beautiful 
 and gracious Christianity, which commands and in 
 spires artist work of every sort, be it the work of the 
 actor, the painter, the musician, the statesman, the 
 jurist, the litterateur, or the editor? 
 
 Five and thirty years ago these ideas would prob 
 ably have been stoutly denied by the most celebrated 
 of our journalists, and were certainly contradicted by 
 the editorial practice of the period. Curious and com 
 ical period! when Richard Smith wore unbecoming 
 roundabouts and William Hyde instituted the black 
 art of selling newspapers on the banks of the Ohio; 
 when Walter Haldeman kept books for George D. 
 Prentice ; when Joseph Medill pulled a press at Cleve 
 land; when M. D. Potter wheelbarrowed the forms 
 of his paper through the streets of Cincinnati; when 
 Greeley, Raymond, and Bennett were obscure, and the 
 press glorified itself in the persons of half a hundred for- 
 245
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 gotten worthies, who wrote fierce nonsense, and fought 
 duels, and hickuped Fourth of July orations every day 
 of the year in exceeding bad grammar. Journalism in 
 those days was a sort of inebrious knight-errantry; a 
 big joke, considerably drunken and blood-stained. Now 
 and then I turn back to it and contemplate it, and 
 whenever I do so I begin to choke up between a laugh 
 and a cry; it was so funny, it was so tragic! 
 
 In the old time the journalist was a mere player, 
 strutting and fretting his hour upon the stage, acting 
 a part by command of his liege lord, the party leader. 
 He was about as much in earnest in his role of "or 
 ganist" as Mr. Booth is in his role of Richelieu or 
 Hamlet; that is, it suited him, and he adapted himself 
 to it. He was the politician s squire and the party s 
 hack neglected or rewarded according to the caprice 
 of his master. That, in spite of his genius and his per 
 sonality, his independence of spirit and undoubted 
 courage, was Prentice. With all his gifts his wit, 
 sagacity, and courage Prentice lived the life of a slave. 
 Realizing the fact always, he only realized the cause 
 toward the end. 
 
 I do not say that Horace White may not be a bet 
 ter-trained journalist to-day than Joseph Medill, who 
 trained himself from the ground floor and fought up 
 ward against odds and time. I am sure that Murat 
 Halstead is an abler editor than his predecessor, who 
 was a hero and a man of parts. What I do say, and 
 246
 
 The American Newspaper 
 
 mean to impress upon you, is that when Potter and 
 Medill began to evolve the mystery of modern jour 
 nalism out of their inner consciousness, the problem 
 was more blank and the future less assured than the 
 problem and the future are to you in the work of 
 emancipating the press the country press from its 
 present thraldom; for I should waste the time we 
 spend in coming here, and should poorly acquit myself 
 of the privilege of speaking out in meeting which you 
 have kindly allowed me, if I should let the occasion 
 pass with a few glittering generalities touching jour 
 nalism at large, and a pretty phrase or two about our 
 greater journalists. The purpose of my coming re 
 lates wholly to that weekly, provincial, to that county 
 journalism, which is so largely, so respectably, and so 
 intelligently represented here. The greater journals 
 take care of themselves. The greater journalists, 
 whether they be good or wise, creditable or unworthy, 
 are able to make a figure in the world. In any 
 event, they are few in number. If journalism ever 
 is reformed if it ever realize the ideal I have been 
 sketching in outline its reformation must embrace 
 the country press and enter into the homespun no less 
 than the imported fabric of the profession. 
 
 I have thrown out, generally, the principles of con 
 duct and the arts of enterprise which have given birth 
 to the Independent Press, that is, to the self-sustain 
 ing, non-partisan press to that press which is sought 
 247
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 to be run in the public interest, which affects not to 
 be purchased or intimidated, which pretends to be con 
 trolled by its legitimate owners and not by a clique 
 or ring of politicians, which looks for its support ex 
 clusively to the people, which relies solely on public 
 opinion for its good-will just as it relies on events, and 
 its representative character as a popular interpreter and 
 mouth-piece, for its vindication. If you will consider 
 these arts and these principles carefully, if you will 
 separate them minutely from their abstract setting and 
 apply them to the every-day conditions that surround 
 your life and labor, you will find them not merely 
 adaptable, but comprehensive and infallible. 
 
 There are in this State of Indiana, living in vil 
 lages, and passing comparatively obscure lives, pro 
 fessional men of real eminence and learning lawyers 
 and doctors who, transplanted to a larger field, would 
 make a figure in the world. Twelve or fourteen years 
 ago there was a young student at Terre Haute, un- 
 honored and unknown, who rose to national distinc 
 tion, still keeping his beautiful but out-of-the-way 
 dwelling-place. Occupying no great official place, he 
 signalized his genius as a pleader and politician all over 
 the country; and now, though defeated and gone into 
 retirement, he is perhaps stronger than ever he was, 
 with a better future. Five and twenty years ago, at 
 South Bend, another equally obscure young man be 
 gan a career which was peculiarly distinguished and 
 248
 
 The American Newspaper 
 
 brilliant, carrying him from the office of a county 
 newspaper into the National Congress, to the head of 
 this, and finally up to the second place within the gift 
 of the American people. Voorhees and Colfax were 
 both village men; their lot was cast in an interior 
 State; yet each of them carved out of fortune a place 
 for himself. Both became national influences. Turn 
 away to New England : take note of the trim little city 
 of Springfield, in Massachusetts merely a large vil 
 lage. You will find there a newspaper more praised, 
 abused, and quoted than any other newspaper in 
 America. Sam Bowles has simply done, in his way, 
 what Dan Voorhees and Schuyler Colfax did in their 
 way that is, being a man of genius, as they are, he 
 adapted himself to his situation in life. He made the 
 best of himself by doing faithful, conscientious work in 
 the sphere wherein his lot was cast. The same is open 
 to every man; only the county journalist has a better, 
 because an almost untilled, field for the planting and 
 reaping of a plentiful harvest. 
 
 My friends, you are, I take it, intelligent, candid 
 men, and you will not think the less of me if, stand 
 ing before you as your guest and feeling myself hon 
 ored by your notice, I speak plainly of some matters 
 about which we are not all agreed. You will admit 
 in your personal intercourse a hundred errors and 
 abuses of your system, and then, without making an 
 effort at emancipation, go off and submit to them. I 
 249
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 propose to enumerate some of these, for I have not 
 the time, nor have you, or any audience, the patience to 
 go through the long, black-letter list of dead-head nui 
 sances which keep the county press in a state of con 
 tempt and bondage. 
 
 First of all comes, of course, the dead-head system, 
 which is the parent of the dead-beat system; free 
 passes, free tickets, and free postage. You will all ap 
 plaud the sentiment that it is best to pay as we go, and 
 there is not one of you but believes in the man who 
 asks favors of nobody; who is the slave of nobody; 
 who minds his own business, relies on himself, and 
 lives as such a man is like to live, an upright, indus 
 trious, and decent life. How can a man realize this 
 character who submits to the tacit corruption and 
 quasi indignity of a free ride over a railroad, which 
 gives it in order that it may be able to command his 
 silence or his support; or a free admission into a thea 
 tre, which is meant to secure an unfaithful, compli 
 mentary notice of the performance next morning; or 
 free transit through the mails, which is obtained by a 
 collusion with local politicians and court-house rings, 
 which are too often interested in newspaper publica 
 tions? You will say, in answer to this, "it is very 
 well to talk so ; you can afford to pay your way as you 
 go; your paper will be only too glad to suspend the 
 free list, because it is prosperous and rich, and to es 
 tablish postal prepayment, because it will break down 
 250
 
 The American Newspaper 
 
 the country press and open the way for the extension 
 of your weekly edition." I believe nothing of the 
 kind ; if I did I should not venture upon a distasteful 
 topic on an occasion like this. I stand for the honor 
 of my cloth; and be this cut in a village or measured 
 out over a great metropolis, it is still my cloth, and I 
 am equally zealous in its service. 
 
 The dead-head system, the dead-beat system, li 
 censed and encouraged by the system of subsidies and 
 favors allowed the press and tolerated by journalists, 
 keeps the local newspaper in a hopeless, poverty- 
 stricken way, where the independent system, relying 
 for its success upon the same general law of public 
 needs of supply and demand which regulates other 
 commodities, would place it at least upon a level with 
 the successful cultivation of other reputable, neigh 
 borly pursuits. A man goes into a certain line of 
 business. Why? Because he likes it and thinks he is 
 suited to it. He wants to control his own business, 
 and be master of himself, of course. If he has been 
 correct in his preference, and is capable and indus 
 trious, he gets on. This rule of life does not vary its 
 terms in journalism. What is the secret of capacity 
 in journalism outside of that intuitive mystery of in 
 terpretation which passes for genius? It is the same 
 old-fashioned, well-known secret which the world has 
 been studying, and which philosophers and econo 
 mists have been blabbing, and which successful men 
 251
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 have been quietly practising, since the beginning of time 
 fair-dealing and open-sailing; self-reliance; cheer 
 fulness, common-sense, and candor, the foundation- 
 stones of diplomacy, of finance, of science, of com 
 merce, of all useful arts and strategy. Wherever these 
 elements have been thrown into journalism they have 
 produced the same familiar effects, great or small, as 
 the case might be, but absolutely specific and sure. 
 There is not a man here to-day, who is fit for an edi 
 tor, who would not be a better editor, a stronger and 
 more prosperous editor, if he should say to himself: 
 I will, whatever comes of it, be a perfectly independent 
 and impartial editor; I will let the politicians mind 
 their business, and I will mind my business; I will tell 
 the truth as I am able to conceive it, setting down 
 naught in malice; I will put the best work that is in 
 me on my paper ; I will collect the news industriously ; 
 I will express my opinions fearlessly but responsibly; 
 I will accept no indulgences not given my neighbors; 
 I will not be slapped on the back, nor be sneered at 
 as a sort of Cheap John, a public pensioner, who lives 
 partly by his wits, partly by the offal thrown out by 
 the yard-dogs who congregate about the court-house, 
 and partly by the insolent benefices of railroads and 
 the absurd cajolery of side-shows, which could not 
 merely be kept in a state of perpetual obeisance and re 
 spect, but could be turned into a source of legitimate 
 revenue by the application of a strict commercial foot- 
 252
 
 The American Newspaper 
 
 rule. Every man wants to be independent. Every 
 man wants to be respected. The road to independence 
 and dignity for the journalist is plain and open; it is, 
 in the first place, suitability and capacity; in the next 
 place, disinterestedness and courage without obstinacy 
 or vainglorious self-assertion. Finally, say nothing 
 about a man in print you would not say to him face 
 to face. 
 
 The exchange system, with the free list, ought to 
 be abolished. It is at once unequal and irregular as 
 well as expensive; simply a costly luxury. The paper 
 that cannot live except on favor and charity ought to 
 die. There ought to be one fixed, undeviating scale 
 of advertising prices, inexorable to the advertising 
 agent and the home advertiser; reasonable on its face 
 and not to be altered. Every practical newspaper man 
 knows what wretched abuses exist in our entire adver 
 tising system; how we allow ourselves to be imposed 
 on by our fancied necessities, and how, in turn, we im 
 pose upon others. Mr. A. T. Stewart once told me 
 that his success in the dry-goods line consisted in sell 
 ing the best quality of goods at a specified price, rely 
 ing solely on the public interest to find out the posi 
 tive value of the goods and not trying to deceive it, 
 knowing very well, as he added, that it is shrewd, 
 selfish, and sordid, not to be deceived in the long run, 
 and sure to find out that which is cheapest and best. 
 It is simply the rule of that positive philosophy, which 
 assures us that we are known better than we know 
 253
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 ourselves; that facts, not fictions, rule; that it is well 
 to make a clean breast of it in all our public deal 
 ings, producing such wares as we have and looking to 
 the public to take them only as they are sound, useful, 
 and wanted. People do not advertise with us because 
 they love us. They insert an advertisement in a news 
 paper as they hang a sign in a street, to be seen, and 
 just as they seek a thoroughfare for this sign, so they 
 seek the largest number of readers for their advertise 
 ment. It is purely a matter of interest, and, except as 
 a matter of interest, is not to be relied on. There 
 should be some fixed rule in every business. In the 
 advertising business there is none. There is indeed a 
 scale of prices, which, outside of the larger cities, is 
 rarely adhered to; and, as advertisers feel that they 
 hold the whip, they do not fail to use it. 
 
 I might go on endlessly with the many incidents 
 which belong to this matter of newspaper independence 
 and are inevitably suggested by it. You will not 
 charge me with presumption, I hope, because I have 
 sketched the character of a journalism which I do not 
 pretend to realize in my own practices, earnestly as I 
 am wedded to the theories in which it is constructed, 
 and thoroughly as I believe it to be the journalism of 
 the future. I have had some opportunities to test the 
 efficacy and value of many of the hints which I have 
 been throwing out here, in time of peace and in time 
 of war, and it is my unqualified opinion that, wielded 
 254
 
 The American Newspaper 
 
 with prudence, justice, and truthfulness, having the 
 right on its side, and being handled with ordinary com 
 posure and skill, the press is, as the old saying puts it, 
 "mightier than the sword." But to be mighty it must 
 be free, and to be free it must be self-sustaining and 
 self-respecting. 
 
 There is a great fight before us for liberty; a fight 
 as old as the hills. The fight of the poor against the 
 rich ; the fight of the weak against the strong ; the fight 
 of the people against the corporations. The corpora 
 tions just now hold the vantage ground. They began 
 by corrupting the newspapers; and they have gone so 
 fast and so far that they are able at last to buy up 
 Legislatures, to command the services of capable and 
 astute politicians, and even to shape the course of 
 parties. The people are becoming aroused, and, being 
 aroused, they look around them for weapons of de 
 fence. Thus seeking the means of war, they have 
 taken hold of the press as the most warlike enginery 
 within their reach, and, if it be true that the press con 
 trols the country, it is because the people, controlling 
 the press, engage it in their interest, supporting it with 
 the reserve power of public opinion. The silly old no 
 tion of "writing down to the people" is exploded. The 
 effort now is to write and act up to the people ; for the 
 people, in the aggregate, are wiser and purer than any 
 one man, even though that one man should be the edi 
 tor of a newspaper. 
 
 255
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 To-morrow morning the people of Indiana, issuing 
 out of a half-million of farm-houses and cottages, mov 
 ing about mill-wheels and ploughshares, bustling in 
 shops, and bathing themselves healthfully in the benign 
 May air that, pouring its fragrant flood down from the 
 lakes and over the prairies, bids a good-day and God 
 speed alike to the grain in the earth and the men and 
 women and the flowers above it to-morrow morn 
 ing the people of Indiana, who make their bread by 
 the sweat of their brow, and who get their school 
 ing the same way, rising out of toil-worn but com 
 fortable beds, at once sound-minded and whole-hearted, 
 wanting to do the right thing in the right manner, 
 and perfectly unexcited will have, if they are to have 
 their own way, just as little chaff, gush, and gam 
 mon in their favorite newspaper as possible. To be 
 sure, if they can get nothing better, they will take 
 this, provided it happens to agree with certain senti 
 mental conceits, which go by the name of "principles," 
 and which mean the latest party platform, always more 
 or less rickety and changeable. But they prefer that 
 which, being founded in genuine conviction, is not 
 bound to any particular circle of individuals, enjoying 
 ofHce or the hope of office and calling itself a party; 
 they prefer that which is to be relied on absolutely as 
 original truth. 
 
 I make no plea for that sort of independent journal 
 ism which represents the caprices of a single editor and 
 256
 
 The American Newspaper 
 
 piques itself on its immunity from obligations of every 
 sort. I know very well that parties are essential to 
 republics, and that organization is essential to parties. 
 I am myself a fairly good party man, but I am not so 
 good a party man as to accept the theory that politics is 
 war ; that a partisan line, like the military line of battle, 
 should divide me from my neighbors who Differ from 
 me in points of fact or in the construction which we 
 mutually place upon civil questions, and which requires 
 me to tell lies, bear malice, and be guilty of all un- 
 charitableness in order that one set of gentlemen shall 
 hold office and another set be kept out of office. 
 
 I say, and in using the first person singular I mean to 
 be understood as speaking for every editor who is satis 
 fied with his calling, that I want no office ; that I have 
 a better office already than I can hope to get if I do my 
 duty; and that, therefore, fairly representing the ideas 
 which group themselves from natural causes about a 
 certain point in our political field of action, I stand for 
 them in their truths and not in their falsehoods ; I stand 
 for them as they are just, and not as they are merely 
 selfish, strategic, or extreme, running into bombast, 
 and too often seeking to conceal and justify their errors 
 by increased wantonness and wrong. I believe I stand 
 where the people, who give me all I have and who make 
 me all I am, would have me stand, as a journalist, for, 
 in the long run, the people are pretty sure to find out 
 whether a newspaper is whimsical and eccentric, simply 
 257
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 pretentious and individualized, or whether, guided by 
 modesty and inspired by sincerity, it is a mouth-piece 
 of that yearning for public honesty, good-nature, and 
 fair-play, which are characteristic of our laughter-lov 
 ing, brave-hearted Americanism. 
 
 Pray do not think I am striking too high. These 
 are but simple and easy lessons in human nature, the 
 source and resource, the buttress, and the bell-tower of 
 journalism and a free press. They are attainable by 
 the smallest journalist of the smallest village, and not 
 until they are learned, and well learned, by the lesser 
 journalists of the country, can we hope for that journal 
 ism which, ideal now, is destined to win the fight of the 
 people against the great aggregation of capital ; to sub 
 stitute a national and popular spirit against mere dema- 
 gogism and party spirit; and, if such be God s provi 
 dence, to establish that universal republic which, based 
 on diffused intelligence, is to bring us peace on earth 
 and good-will among men. Emancipate the press from 
 its thraldom to mammon by making it self-sustaining! 
 Bind it with hooks of steel to the service of the people ! 
 Acknowledge no master except that of which you your 
 selves are component parts a board of which you are 
 members a cabinet of which you are ministers the 
 mastership of public opinion. It is the only service that 
 gives plenty of pay and honest pay ; it is the only service 
 of which a man may be proud and in which he may feel 
 happy. Throw off the old execrable badge, faded and 
 258
 
 The American Newspaper 
 
 tattered and worm-eaten by its dishonoring memories 
 and inscriptions, for that other badge, that insignia of 
 rank and power, which says: "I am no man s slave. I 
 am a man among men. The roof above me is my own. 
 This threshold is mine ; and, holding no commission but 
 that which, sent from Heaven, makes me a spokesman 
 for my fellow-men, and having no weapons except a 
 handful of types, I am able to defy the world that pro 
 poses, unbidden, to cross it, because I am supported by 
 an invincible army, ready to rally at a moment s notice 
 for the defence of itself, which is my defence." I be 
 lieve in that sort of journalism, and I believe that that 
 sort of journalism will come to be believed in by every 
 man who edits and reads a newspaper. 
 
 259
 
 A PLEA FOR PROVINCIALISM* 
 
 The present year marks the hundredth anniversary of 
 the settlement of Kentucky. In the spring of 1774 the 
 town of Harrodsburg, which is conceded the birthright 
 honor of seniority over its neighbors, was laid out by a 
 company of pioneers from Virginia. A year later grain 
 was growing among the cane-brakes. 
 
 There used to be a tradition that, at least five years 
 before the arrival of the Harrods and the McAfees, a 
 person by the name of Boone, from the Yadkin River, in 
 North Carolina, made his way to the spot where we are 
 now assembled ; whereat, in times gone by, the good 
 people hereabout took a certain pride and credit to them 
 selves as possessors of the soil from which the patri 
 archal ladder of promise and hope, ascending to Heaven 
 in the hunter s dream, had proved to be a real passway 
 for the manifold blessings and mercies showered upon 
 them by the God of their fathers. Certain it is that 
 Boone did make two separate incursions prior to the es 
 tablishment of a fixed colony. "It was on May i, 
 1769," he tells us, "that I resigned my domestic happi 
 ness and left my family and peaceful habitation on the 
 
 * Georgetown College, Kentucky, 1874. 
 260
 
 A Plea for Provincialism 
 
 Yadkin River, in North Carolina, to wander through 
 the wilderness of America in quest of the country of 
 Kentucke." He came afoot, and was followed by a 
 little troop of heroes and poets like himself. 
 
 I say heroes and poets, for they were stirred by the 
 fine frenzy of true poetry and the adventurous daring of 
 true heroism set upon an enterprise which brought forth 
 an epic. Nature herself seemed conscious of the com 
 ing of an important embassy, and put on her richest 
 apparel to receive it. The pomp of all the heraldries 
 in the world could not have furnished out a splendider 
 fete than that which waited these humble ministers and 
 envoys in buckskin. It was when the June skies were 
 softest and the June fruition was at its full ; when the 
 elm and the maple vied with one another which should 
 show itself the more hospitable and magnificent ; when 
 the welcoming bluebird call was clearest and sweetest, 
 that the mysterious pathway through the forest which 
 had opened day after day, not like the fabled avenue in 
 the enchanted garden, but like the track pointed out to 
 Christian by divine inspiration, brought the little band 
 to an elevation from which its members beheld, for the 
 first time, the land they had come so far to see. Moses, 
 stretching his weary eyes from Pisgah into Canaan, was 
 not gladdened and refreshed by a lovelier prospect. It 
 was, Boone declares in his autobiography, "a second 
 paradise." A new world dawned upon him, a world in 
 which nature revealed herself in perpetual surprises, a 
 261
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 world throughout whose dells, meadows, and streams, 
 disturbed only by the bear, the panther, and the wolf, 
 giving a weird, habitable grandeur to the solitudes con 
 genial to the heroic spirit, he might vindicate the poet s 
 lines, actually finding 
 
 "Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
 Sermons in stones, and good in everything." 
 
 It is apart from the purpose of the answer I have to 
 make to the invitation with which you have honored me 
 to pursue the story of the adventures that ensued, 
 though they rival the deeds of Perseus and are not sur 
 passed in legendary glory by the achievements of the 
 mythical knights who followed the fortunes of Arthur 
 and the Table Round. Nor shall I attempt to sketch, 
 however briefly, the career of the commonwealth which 
 thence sprang into existence, producing a succession of 
 famous statesmen and soldiers, and, during three-quar 
 ters of a century, holding a place alongside of Virginia 
 and Massachusetts in the household circle of States. I 
 wish to speak to you, the youthful descendants of this 
 most illustrious line, of the present rather than of the 
 past. I ask you to look about you, to note the reduced 
 rank into which Kentucky has fallen, to compare her in 
 all aspects with other of the great and growing States 
 of the country, and, if you reach the conclusion that 
 there has been a decline from the old high point occupied 
 by the State, to inquire the cause, and, having divined it, 
 262
 
 A Plea for Provincialism 
 
 to consider the important question how you shall regain 
 possession of the mantles of your forefathers, fit them to 
 the times in which you live, and wear them, as they 
 wore them, proudly among your fellow-men. 
 
 There are periods especially favorable to self-inspec 
 tion. This, the centenary of the laying of the corner 
 stones at Harrodsburg, is one of them, and it is the more 
 in season since it comes to us when the whole world is 
 full of movement. Ancient things are vanishing away. 
 The fabric of the past is everywhere undergoing repairs. 
 We must e en move with the rest. But, in putting our 
 house in order, I would not have you believe it necessary 
 to disturb its foundations, to alter its architectural de 
 sign, or even to change its furniture. You may, indeed, 
 find it well to remove a deal of rubbish which has some 
 how accumulated ; but it was not put there, nor in 
 tended to be there at the first. The original plan does 
 not leave us so much as a gable to remodel. The gim- 
 crackery of modern invention has produced nothing half 
 so worthy of preservation and respect as the old-fash 
 ioned solidarities of government, morals, and manners 
 bequeathed us by the gentlemen of the backwoods, who 
 wore with equal manliness and grace the knee-breeches 
 of civilization and the hunting-shirt of the frontier. It 
 is by restoring the spirit of those days, and adapting its 
 high purposes and simple methods to contemporaneous 
 uses, that we shall rise above the wretched dead-level 
 which seems to content us. 
 
 263
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 There are those who, puffed up by their own conceit, 
 never weary of descanting upon the progress of enlight 
 enment. In truth, if material development is to be re 
 garded as the sole test of civilization, one cannot deny 
 that the railroad has an advantage over the mail-coach 
 and that the telegraph is a somewhat swifter agent of 
 communication than the pony-post. Splendid cities 
 have risen out of the wilderness. Great public institu 
 tions have come into being here serving the calls of 
 philanthropy and there answering the convenience of 
 trade. Art galleries and museums, hotels and sleeping- 
 cars, theatres and club-houses, books, newspapers, and 
 periodicals contribute to our edification and comfort. 
 Assuredly it would be affectation in any man to quarrel 
 with novelties like these. But it is neither ungrateful 
 nor irrelevant to contrast the material well-being which 
 they denote with the moral, intellectual, and physical 
 conditions of the age, and to inquire whether they have 
 not been reached after some abatement of the standards 
 applied by a more exacting, but at the same time a more 
 God-fearing, man-loving epoch. Have we not pur 
 chased a diffusion of intelligence at the cost of thorough 
 and special culture, and are we not warned by the his 
 tory of the world that, unless the moral stature of a 
 people advance with the acquisition of wealth, and what 
 is called polite refinement, a descent in real manhood 
 will be experienced, and that in spite of all the arts of 
 all the masters? 
 
 264
 
 A Plea for Provincialism 
 
 I am certainly not going to make an argument against 
 pictures, against books, against railroads, telegraphs, 
 street-cars, sleeping-coaches, hotels, newspapers, and 
 places of elegant amusement. Plausible as such an 
 argument might be made and enriched by multiplied 
 illustrations, it would still fall flat before the material 
 interests of the time, and the prejudices founded on 
 those material interests. Futile the abstraction that 
 does not propose to compass some prevailing, substantial, 
 or fancied need ! Nor do I believe in the doctrine of re 
 nunciation in any worldly sense. It is by no means 
 essential to good morals, to good opinions, to good man 
 ners, that we discard the pleasures and advantages se 
 cured for us by the toil of our forefathers and enter 
 upon a self-chastising course of sackcloth and ashes in 
 order to revive a lively sense of their virtues. They cut 
 their way through primeval forests. Without the aid 
 of steam or electricity, they overcame all obstacles, cre 
 ating an empire unsurpassed and erecting upon it a sys 
 tem matchless in all its parts, adequate to every noble 
 aspiration, a watchword for freemen everywhere and 
 the glory of its authors forever. They committed this 
 to us. What have we done with it? What are we 
 doing with it? 
 
 It seems to me, my young friends, that we may be 
 
 likened, not inaptly, to the children of a rich and noble 
 
 sire, who, dying after a long and honorable career, has 
 
 left each of us a fortune. The need to work, as he 
 
 265
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 worked, is not pressed upon us. We have picked up a 
 little flippancy, which he was too busy to acquire, and, 
 thinking ourselves highly accomplished, we take our 
 store out into the world to display it in our own con 
 ceit. We fancy it enough to label it "Kentucky." 
 Pleased with ourselves and our label, we press forward, 
 like Orlando in the romance, seeking pleasures and ad 
 ventures. To be sure, contact with the world, travel 
 and experience, suggest new ideas to us ; but these new 
 ideas are not always good and useful. We grow lux 
 urious ; we must dress better ; we must move faster ; we 
 must be comfortable while we move ; in short, we must, 
 as the comic song puts it, 
 
 Keep up with the times and the fash-i-on." 
 
 One need begets another, one taste creates another, 
 until, lo, the giddy spendthrift at length appears as a 
 cosmopolitan, with flashy devices for putting the meta 
 phorical Mansard roof of the gay world upon every ob 
 ject, domestic and social, that meets his eye. He is 
 ashamed of the simple old home ways. The hearty grace 
 and natural ease of his father, who was a gentleman of 
 the rough-and-ready school, are replaced by the exceed 
 ing short-horn polish imparted by the dancing-master 
 and the tailor. His very talk is changed. Instead of 
 the plain language taught him by his mother, racy of the 
 soil, full of honest Saxon words, and homely sense and 
 wit the vestal fire of our English tongue he is fond of 
 266
 
 A Plea for Provincialism 
 
 foreign references and cadences ; and when he wants to 
 be particularly genteel he drawls and stammers like a 
 cockney. As a matter of course, he parts his hair in the 
 middle. Neither the clothes, the food, the drink, the 
 recreations of his childhood content him. He is not 
 warmed by the scenes nor inspired by the memories of 
 the past. Even the achievements of his father, except 
 as they contribute to his vanity, have ceased to interest 
 him. He is proud only of his riches and acquirements; 
 not the acquirements of the scholar and the hero, bring 
 ing honor to the State, but of the voluptuary, whose 
 chief aim is to imitate the fribbles by whom he has been 
 dazzled. He would, in a word, throw aside the robust 
 commonplaces of his native land, healthful and simple, 
 for the wearying follies of other lands all the while 
 consulting his selfish inclinations, and never once stop 
 ping to ask himself how his indolence is going to affect 
 the label, the trade-mark on which he relies and which 
 he neglects. The last thing that disturbs him is Ken 
 tucky. It is become old-fogyish to talk about the com 
 monwealth, 
 
 "The old three-cornered hat, 
 And the breeches and all that, 
 Are so queer." 
 
 Do I draw upon my imagination for my example? 
 Will any of you pretend to set up the Kentucky of to 
 day against the Kentucky of yesterday ? Take up a list 
 267
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 of the great Kentuckians who flourished together during 
 fifty years; take down the volumes that record their 
 lives; consider them, intellectually and physically. 
 Where is your Clay, who, as his old friend, Aris 
 Throckmorton, described him whether before the 
 American people, or the American Senate, or the courts 
 of Europe "was always captain"? the man whose 
 frown could awe a party and whose smile could win an 
 enemy ; the untaught statesman, diplomatist, and orator, 
 who could go out from "the country of Kentucke," and 
 hold his own with Talleyrand and Metternich, the peer 
 of Gallatin and Adams where is your Clay ? Where 
 is your Crittenden, the Bayard among party leaders, 
 who, during fifty years, made the name of Kentucky 
 ring throughout the Union where is your Crittenden ? 
 Where are your Rowans and your Trimbles at the bar ; 
 your Marshalls, your Hardins, and your Letchers on 
 the stump ; your Menifees and your Moreheads in Con 
 gress? Where are your Wickliffes and your Wards, 
 the beau-ideal of the private gentleman, to say nothing 
 of your warriors, from Dick Johnson and the Shelbys 
 to Albert Sidney Johnston, all giants and heroes in the 
 most literal sense where are they? The line is almost 
 measureless, bristling with such names, each a name of 
 national significance, as James Guthrie and Linn Boyd 
 and Archibald Dixon. Which of you will offer your 
 self against any one of them? I have seen, I have 
 known many of them, and I say to you with entire 
 268
 
 A Plea for Provincialism 
 
 seriousness that they did in reality, and not merely in 
 the imagination of their day, justify the romantic esti 
 mation in which they were held. You may consider it 
 somewhat beyond the limit set upon a discourse of this 
 kind to speak of the living, but, in carrying out my con 
 trast, I cannot deny myself two or three illustrative ex 
 amples which sustain the charge that the present genera 
 tion of Kentuckians is relapsing into a state of mediocre 
 indifrerentiality and a relaxation of that provincial pride 
 which lay at the bottom of the supremacy once enjoyed 
 by the commonwealth. There are four living Ken 
 tuckians who represent the old school, the soldierly and 
 gentleman-like school I have been speaking of at its best, 
 four living Kentuckians, who, no matter where you 
 place them in the Senate, at home, or in the courts of 
 foreign lands will rank high. I mean John C. Breck- 
 inridge, William Preston, Joseph R. Underwood, and 
 William O. Butler. The two latter, though octoge 
 narians, are magnificent examples of the glory of the 
 past; the two former, though still in the prime of life, 
 are unemployed in the public service. I shall make no 
 comment upon the circumstance beyond this reflection 
 suppose Kentucky had that quartette in the field to 
 day? Cynical people will answer, "Well, suppose she 
 had?" I tell you, however, we have nobody to match 
 them, nobody in the splendid manhood by which 
 each is signalized as by a patent of nobility, and 
 by splendid abilities and culture which you cannot 
 269
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 duplicate seek as you will from one end of the State 
 to the other. 
 
 I do not mean to discredit the pretensions of the am 
 bitious young men of our own time; but I ask you to 
 look at Kentucky abroad and find a native Kentuckian, 
 unless it be the newly made Secretary of the Treasury, 
 occupying national position and influence. The same 
 decline is visible in Massachusetts and Virginia, Ken 
 tucky s sisters in the old race of hero-statesmen. The 
 newer States have all the great guns now, realizing the 
 scriptural adage that the last shall be first. 
 
 There is a reason for this, and I think I can put you 
 on the trail of it. It is a result of a heaven-defying 
 modern impiousness, which scorns the old, slow, and 
 homely methods, in a vain and wicked effort to formu- 
 larize society under certain universally recognized con 
 ventional limitations. It is the application to the social 
 system of the centralization theory so dear to that class 
 of political charlatans who would square the whole 
 world by a specific foot-rule, heedless alike of character 
 istics and conditions. 
 
 The provincial spirit, which is dismissed from polite 
 society in a half-sneering, half-condemnatory way, is 
 really one of the forces in human achievement. As a 
 man loses his provincialism he loses, in part, his origi 
 nality, and, in this way, so much of his power as proceeds 
 from his originality. The same may be said of nations. 
 Cosmopolitanism in ideas, in dress, in manners, is merely 
 270
 
 A Plea for Provincialism 
 
 an imitation of that which is not our own, and is usually 
 obtained at the expense of that which is inherently 
 picturesque and strong. It seems that there must be a 
 focus to everything mechanical and natural ; and, as the 
 most artificial of contrivances is society, the gay French 
 capital has come to be, by a sort of common consent, the 
 social focus of the world. So Paris gives the fashion to 
 many things besides dress. It is the seat of the most ac 
 cepted cosmopolitanism. Excepting the achievements of 
 its milliners and cooks, however, what glorious concep 
 tions can we trace to Paris ? As a theatre of action, it is 
 certainly the arena of great exploits. But when we seek 
 for the pure and noble things of earth, we do not go to 
 Paris ; we go to regions which have not been refined out 
 of all naturalness and force. The truth is, the Parisian, 
 for all his boasting, is not a cosmopolitan. Among men 
 he is least adaptable. Remove him from his beloved 
 boulevards, and he is lost. He begins to wither. He is 
 but a provincial his provincialism being of the feebler 
 sort, exercising its originality on bonnets and pates. The 
 English are the most provincial people in the world, and 
 the most achieving; and their provincialism is of great 
 profit to themselves, at once burly and offensive. The 
 German, as he grows stronger, grows more provincial. 
 There was a time when Massachusetts, Virginia, and 
 Kentucky led all the States, each possessed of a provin 
 cialism peculiarly its own, full of quaint points and odd 
 conceits, characteristic of ardor, self-esteem, and indi- 
 271
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 vidual effort. This domestic spirit, this parent of the 
 home-rule idea in government, when highly developed 
 and well-taught, brings men out to their fullest, and is 
 the spring not of national divisions but of national unity. 
 
 Take the example furnished by Virginia, where it was 
 the source and resource of the popular thought and 
 culture during more than a hundred years. There was 
 never a community so permeated by national ideas. It 
 was Virginia, more than all the other States combined, 
 that brought round the ratification of the American 
 Constitution. It was Virginia that furnished the ablest 
 statesmen of the constitutional epoch. It was Virginia, 
 among the States of the South, that clung most tena 
 ciously to the Union. It was Virginia that, desolated 
 by armies and tempted by necessity, never swerved a 
 hair s line from the path of duty and honor she had 
 marked out for herself, passing through the dreadful 
 ordeal of war faithful and temperate and courageous to 
 the last. It was Virginia that murmured least and suf 
 fered most; Virginia which, stripped and crippled as 
 she is, stands to-day before the country a monument of 
 all that is heroic in man. Our venerable mother ! shall 
 we not honor her and be proud of her? Yet but a 
 province, with provincial peculiarities, why should she 
 have so carried herself ? I answer, because of the home 
 spirit, the provincial spirit, communicated orally and by 
 example from generation to generation. 
 
 The same spirit has done much for Kentucky, and I 
 272
 
 A Plea for Provincialism 
 
 would keep it from dying out. I would cherish it. I 
 would urge, indeed, that it be supported by the special 
 culture belonging to the age in which we live ; but never 
 forgotten nor abandoned. Let each one of you improve 
 himself as he may; let him study, travel, aspire; but, 
 whatever he reads, wherever he goes, and however he is 
 moved, let him feel to his uttermost "I am a provincial. 
 What is life to me if I gain the whole world and lose 
 my province. A fairer land there is not. A nobler 
 race of men and women lives not. It is all in all to 
 me, and to be a part of it, to reflect some credit on it, to 
 transmit its features to my children, that is the object of 
 my striving, and I know no higher ambition." If it be 
 said to me that this sets but a barnyard horizon upon 
 the young man s highway, I have to answer that it will 
 stunt no man s growth. It is not necessary to go far to 
 rise high. The man never did rise high who was not, 
 from youth to age, warmed by the inspirations of his 
 home, the soul-stirring memories of the roof-tree, and 
 the fireside. 
 
 "Take the bright shell 
 
 From its home on the lea, 
 And wherever it goes 
 
 It will sing of the sea; 
 So take the fond heart 
 
 From its home by the hearth, 
 It will sing of the loved ones 
 
 To the end of the earth." 
 
 Be sure of this, that great achievements spring from 
 273
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 noble impulses, and that the soul of these has in all time, 
 at the first and at the last, refreshed itself at the pure 
 fountains by the side of which it caught its earliest 
 glimpses of the beautiful and the great. The greatest 
 hearts are ever the fondest and the simplest, and those 
 who have striven humbly, working in a narrow circle, 
 have usually produced the grandest results. 
 
 "We figure to ourselves 
 
 The thing we like, and then we build it up, 
 As chance will have it on the rock or sand, 
 For thought is tired of wandering o er the world, 
 And home-bound fancy runs her bark ashore." 
 
 I did not come here, my friends, to deliver what is 
 called "an oration." I came to talk to you of Ken 
 tucky, as a Kentuckian; for, though I was not born 
 within the geographic lines which embrace what old 
 Daniel Boone called "the country of Kentucke," it is 
 the land of my forefathers, as of yours, made sacred to 
 my heart by more green mounds than I have living 
 kindred. I look back over the hundred years closed in 
 by this year, and, seeing in my mind s eye the figure of 
 a certain Grandfather Whitehead, who, long after the 
 allotted threescore and ten, could fetch down his squir 
 rel with his rifle, I thrill anew with the story which he 
 told me of the early settlers, and their progeny, who 
 made the province glorious and great. I see the cane- 
 brake and the block-house. I hear the ring of the rifle 
 and the axe. I smell the rose above the mould. Then, 
 274
 
 A Plea for Provincialism 
 
 looking around about me, I see pardon me if I say it 
 I see the people no longer proud within themselves 
 though vain of what they possess nor eager to salute 
 and rally to their representative men. I see a miserable 
 cosmopolitan frivolity stealing over the strong, simple 
 ruralism of the by-gone time. I see native worth ig 
 nored, and pretence set up everywhere just as it is out 
 side. I smell the mould above the rose. I go to sleep, 
 and I dream of something else I behold, in the gor 
 geous vision which comes to me in sleep, a Kentucky, 
 realizing the ecstasy of Boone, "a second paradise" a 
 Kentucky populous and rich, but still Kentucky; the old 
 spirit unabated, the old signals at the fore ; a Kentucky 
 as fruitful and peaceful and provincial as Warwickshire, 
 which, though it has multiplied its inhabitants many 
 times over since Shakespeare died, is to-day as rural, as 
 picturesque, as antique, odd, and attractive as it was 
 when he wandered along the banks of its Avon to see 
 Queen Bess and take notes of court life amid the splen 
 dors of Kenilworth Castle; a Kentucky filled with 
 genuine Kentucky stock, a stalwart and courteous man 
 hood, a chaste and womanly womanhood, hospitable, 
 sincere, and brave. I say I dream of this; but I should 
 add that I am a believer in dreams. 
 
 275
 
 THE NATION S DEAD* 
 
 I should not have ventured to come here to-day 
 I should not trust myself to speak in this place 
 if I were conscious of any sectional cr partisan feel 
 ing that may not do honor to a citizen of the United 
 States. It would be an affectation in me if I should 
 ignore the exceptional circumstance of my coming, 
 or fail to be guided in the discharge of the duty 
 you have assigned me by a recognition of that circum 
 stance. Herein, it has seemed to me, lies all that is 
 good or fit in the occasion which brings us together. 
 "On the library wall of one of the most famous writ 
 ers of America" I use the words of one of the most 
 famous writers of England "there hang two crossed 
 swords which his relatives wore in the great war of 
 independence; the one sword was gallantly drawn in 
 the service of the king, the other was the weapon of 
 a brave and honored republican soldier." The oppor 
 tunity has been given us to cross in the everlasting 
 peace of death swords that were crossed in the death- 
 struggle, proud of the undoubting spirit which carried 
 
 * National Cemetery, Nashville, Term., Decoration Day, 1877. 
 276
 
 The Nation s Dead 
 
 them in life; proud of the fortitude and courage which 
 sustained them to the end; proud still, though sorrow 
 ful, over the tragedy which caused them to flash the 
 prowess of our era, our country, and our race through 
 out the world. The day will come when the picture 
 of the soldier who wore the gray will hang side by side 
 with that of the soldier who wore the blue, and be 
 pointed to with undiscriminating elation by a common 
 progeny. The day has already come when the ani 
 mosities of war, growing less and less distinct as the 
 years have passed, should disappear altogether from 
 the hearts of brave men and good women. I can truly 
 say that each soldier who laid down his life for his 
 opinions was my comrade, no matter in which army he 
 fought. 
 
 We are assembled, my countrymen, to commemorate 
 the patriotism and valor of the brave men who died to 
 save the Union. We stand upon consecrated ground. 
 In the deep seclusion of this hallowed spot there is 
 nothing to disturb the mind or inflame the heart. The 
 season brings its tribute to the scene; pays its homage 
 to the dead; inspires the living. There are images of 
 tranquillity all about us: in the calm sunshine upon 
 the ridges; in the tender shadows that creep along the 
 streams; in the waving grass and grain that mark 
 God s love and bounty; in the flowers that bloom over 
 the many, many graves. There is peace everywhere in 
 this land to-day. 
 
 277
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 "Peace on the open seas, 
 In all our sheltered bays and ample streams, 
 Peace where er our starry banner gleams, 
 And peace in every breeze." 
 
 The war is over. It is for us to bury its passions 
 with its dead ; to bury them beneath a monument raised 
 by the American people to American manhood and the 
 American system, in order that "the nation shall, under 
 God, have a new birth of freedom, and that the gov 
 ernment of the people, by the people, and for the peo 
 ple shall not perish from the earth." 
 
 There is no one of us, wore he the one cloth or the 
 other, come he from the granite hills of New England 
 or the orange groves of the Sunny South, who has 
 not an interest for himself and for his children in the 
 preservation and perpetuation of Free America. It is 
 a reciprocal, as well as a joint interest; and, relating 
 to the greatest of human affairs, it ought to be not 
 only a paramount, but a holy interest. The most ob 
 stinate of partisans, the most untravelled of provincials, 
 cannot efface or obscure, still less dispute, the story of 
 heroism in war, of moderation in peace, which, written 
 in letters of vestal fire, will blaze forever upon our 
 national tablets. The occasion which brings us here 
 has this significance: it is illustrative; it tells us that 
 we have come to understand that there could be no 
 lasting peace, nor real republicanism, while any free 
 man s right was abridged, or any patriot s grave un- 
 278
 
 The Nation s Dead 
 
 honored. The freedom of each and every State, of 
 each and every citizen, is at length assured; and there 
 remains no longer so much as a pretext why the glory 
 of the past, marked by the graves of all who fell in 
 the battle, should not become the property of the whole 
 people. The old feudal ideas of treason do not belong 
 to our institutions or our epoch. Their influence in 
 public affairs, as far as they have influenced public 
 affairs, has been hostile to the national unity and peace. 
 Our future is to be secured by generous concessions, for 
 ours was a war of mistakes, not of disgraces. 
 
 There was an organic question left fatally open by 
 the authors of our Constitution. There was a property 
 interest madly entangled with the moral nature of the 
 time. There was no tribunal having power to deter 
 mine the issue. It is, perhaps, little to say that, had 
 the people foreseen all the consequences, they would 
 not have resorted to arms; on the contrary, recent ex 
 perience shows us that they would have made supreme 
 sacrifices for the sake of peace. All history relates that 
 wars are more or less the subjects of misconception and 
 mischance. It is rare, indeed, if ever, when all the 
 right lies on the one side and all the wrong on the other. 
 In our case, and I take leave to speak for both sides, 
 we have much to deplore, nothing to make us ashamed. 
 Assuredly, the world has never seen terms so liberal 
 extended to soldiers beaten in civil broil; or known 
 such abstinence from sanguinary revenges during the 
 279
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 progress of the strife. It is necessary to remind no 
 one of the conduct of Grant and Sherman in the mo 
 ment of their triumph. The conflicts of this present 
 hour cannot shut out from the hearts of grateful men 
 the spectacle of that dismal day, when, rising above 
 the passions of victory and the ruins of conquest, the 
 chiefs of the armies of the North remembered not 
 merely that they were soldiers and men of honor, but 
 that they were Americans. It was our Lee who paid 
 the honors of war to your Kearny. When the body 
 of Morgan was borne to its last resting-place, soldiers 
 of the Union, assembled by chance on the public 
 square in Nashville, stood, soldier-like, uncovered as 
 their fallen adversary passed. When McPherson fell 
 a thrill of sorrow went along the whole Confederate 
 line. I believe, to-day, that the assassination of Abra 
 ham Lincoln is lamented in the South hardly less than 
 in the North. 
 
 I know, my friends, that narrow-minded and em 
 bittered partisans will say there is nothing in all this. 
 I know that theorists will declare that great results 
 are not reached through the affections. I am ready 
 to admit the caprice as well as the insubstantiality 
 which belong to influences of the sentimental sort. 
 But every line of understanding must have some bond 
 of feeling; and I maintain that those touches of man 
 hood, of nature, of sorrow, of pride, of generosity and 
 pity, which make the whole world kin, tell us specifi- 
 
 280
 
 The Nation s Dead 
 
 cally and with emphasis that we are of one family, and 
 should be of one household forever. It is not a matter 
 of faith and hope, but of experience and observation, 
 with me, proclaimed on all occasions these dozen years 
 and more, that the people of the North and South are 
 one people, thoroughly homogeneous, differing only in 
 those externals which, the universe over, distinguish 
 several communities. That which is wanting in us is 
 less of self-conceit and more of love for our country; a 
 deeper, sincerer devotion to the principles of civil lib 
 erty which are bound up in the system under which 
 we live; a self-sacrificing spirit where the honor of the 
 nation is at stake. To sectionalism and partyism we 
 owe our undoing. We shall owe our restoration to 
 nationalism, and to nationalism alone. The man who 
 was a Confederate, and is a nationalist, must feel when 
 treading the floor of Faneuil Hall that he is at home. 
 In every part of the South the starry ensign of the Re 
 public must be not only a symbol of protection, but the 
 source and resource of popular enthusiasm. Above all, 
 the cabin of the poor man, whatever his color, race, or 
 opinions, must be a freeman s castle. In the North, 
 constitutional traditions must revive; in the South, the 
 old inspirations of the Union. 
 
 I declare here to-day that the South, more especially 
 
 the young manhood of the South, yearns for national 
 
 fellowship. It stretches out its arms to the national 
 
 government beseechingly; it entreats the North not to 
 
 281
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 build up a national spirit which shall in a word or 
 thought proscribe it, or those who are to come after 
 it. The present generation of Southern men is in 
 no wise responsible for the acts of the last. It has no 
 antecedents except those which illustrated its sincerity 
 and its valor on the battle-field; its fidelity to its be 
 liefs; its fidelity to its leaders; its fidelity to itself. 
 These are but so many hostages to the nation at large. 
 Instead of stigmatizing it, the victor in the fight should 
 throw over the South the flag of the Republic; should 
 place in front of it the emblematic eagles of the State; 
 should fold it round from the dark and the light with 
 the instinct of maternity, tenderest to its crippled off 
 spring. To the young men of the South the country 
 must look for the resurrection of the South. They 
 should carry no dead weights either in their hearts or 
 on their backs. The work of physical liberation, which 
 is happily ended, is to be followed by a greater, a 
 grander work the work of moral emancipation. A 
 sagacious statesmanship, even more than a generous 
 magnanimity points to this as alike the hope of the 
 white man and the black man; the real restoration of 
 the Union; the true solution of the problems of life 
 and labor raised up by the mighty vicissitudes of the 
 last fifteen years. 
 
 It is not my purpose to speak of current political 
 issues, except those which are always current, which 
 are above all parties our whole country, our whole 
 282
 
 The Nation s Dead 
 
 people the glory of the one, the integrity of the 
 other. Those of us who stood in the front of the bat 
 tle, who suffered and endured, settled the account be 
 tween ourselves long ago. We may quarrel never so 
 much, as honest men will and as honest men ought, 
 about the things of to-day. That is republicanism 
 which gives each man the right, as it imposes upon each 
 the duty, to speak his mind out freely, to make his 
 wants known subject neither to bayonet nor ban 
 limited only by the injunctions set by God upon the 
 sincerity, no less than the courage, of all men s con 
 viction. In the party sense, we may quarrel to-day 
 and fraternize to-morrow; what boots it? There is 
 no one of us who does not know in the core of his 
 heart that, as matters of fact and truth, such quarrels 
 have no bottom to them. They make us angry, 
 abusive, ungenerous. As a rule, the warmest and 
 truest natures are, for the moment, most intolerant. 
 The most charitable, the most magnanimous of men, 
 believing themselves in the right, believing all who do 
 not agree with them in the wrong, become unyielding, 
 sometimes bitter. It is an attribute of simple earnest 
 ness. Those who possess it should prize it, and, after 
 the event, weigh its conclusions with discrimination. 
 Let a counter-interest come between, let a common 
 grief, and lo! the mist rises. Those who worship the 
 same God, who kneel at the same shrine, who breathe 
 to Heaven the same prayers, who sing the same songs, 
 283
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 in whose mouths the inspirations of holy writ and the 
 precepts of Anglo-Saxon freedom are as familiar as 
 household words, can afford no impassable gulfs, can 
 not seriously and permanently be estranged. The dead 
 who lie here; the dead of all the battle-fields, the dead 
 of the South and the North, comrades at last in the 
 immortality of the soul, can leave us, do leave us, this 
 lesson only: That we are Americans; that we are re 
 publicans; that we are blessed in our condition; that 
 we should cherish it and one another, for God s sake 
 and for the honor of the flag! The poet put it in 
 versely when he wrote: 
 
 "I think in the lives of most women and men 
 
 There s a time when all might go smooth and even, 
 If only the dead could find out when 
 To come back and be forgiven." 
 
 Alas, it is the living who must go to the dead for 
 instructions. The brave hearts that lie about us here 
 have nothing to ask of us. They are everlasting, now. 
 They know all. They are moved no longer by the 
 fever, the worry and the fret, the error and the folly, 
 the laughter and the tears of this poor world. They 
 need seek the forgiveness of none of us. They earned 
 their shining titles of the ever-living God on the field of 
 battle. I would put upon their graves the inscription 
 which marks the last resting-place of two brothers in 
 Virginia, who fell on opposing sides, "Which was 
 right? God knows." I care not to know. I do know 
 284
 
 The Nation s Dead 
 
 that all of us thought we were right; and, feeling as I 
 do, I would visit, and revisit, these burial-places, not 
 to light the torches of hatred, but, by humiliation and 
 prayer, to draw from those mystic forces of the invis 
 ible, which move us we know not how, some token, 
 some inspiration, for the future. 
 
 I hope, my friends, that, though speaking in the 
 general, and making no effort at display, I put the 
 case with plainness. All of us here are neighbors. We 
 know each other fairly well; we are moved by the 
 every-day promptings of our lot; some good, some ill. 
 We ought not to desire a ceremony like this to be im 
 posing, or grand, or in any way ostentatious. He 
 would be a poor maker of phrases who could not turn 
 it to account. I come to you, come back to you, who 
 went hence a boy, but who has preserved the instincts, 
 with the traditions, of a youth which, as you will re 
 member, cannot be brought to contradict what, in my 
 mature manhood, I have tried to say. I hoped, when 
 you called me, that I might contribute a little to 
 the era of good-will, conceiving that its only value 
 would be its sincerity; for I need but repeat myself 
 ever since you knew me to do honor to the patriot 
 ism and valor of those who died to save the Union, 
 gratitude and respect to those who have lived to save 
 it. War or no war, we are all countrymen, fellow- 
 citizens; and it is no empty sentiment or idle rhap 
 sody which seeks to bring us nearer together. The 
 285
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 day of the sectionalist is over. The day of the nation 
 alist has come. It has come, and it will grow brighter 
 and brighter, dotting the land, not with battle-fields, 
 but with school-houses, in which our children, in 
 structed better than ourselves, will learn to discern the 
 shallow arts of the self-seeking demagogue, who would 
 thrive by playing upon men s ignorance and passion. 
 We have seen within the last few weeks how a little 
 generosity in the fountains of our political existence 
 has warmed the hearts of men and elevated the tone 
 of public life. This tells us simply but truly that 
 party lines are not, and ought not to be, lines of bat 
 tle, separating men committed to deadly strife. It tells 
 us that we, the people acting as a nation should be 
 sufficiently independent, because sufficiently enlight 
 ened, to detect the true from the false in our leaders 
 and in our system. There are few of us who do not 
 know instinctively the truth. We are constantly de 
 ceiving ourselves, constantly and consciously allowing 
 ourselves to be deceived, by sordid circumstance and 
 special pleading. I shall not pretend that it is possible 
 for us to escape this infirmity of human nature. That 
 which I plead for, which I have pleaded for all my 
 life, is that we shall be governed in our public inter 
 course by the same fair-minded and self-respecting prin 
 ciples of conduct which good men bring to their pri 
 vate intercourse. 
 
 Fellow-soldiers of the Union: I cannot close with- 
 286
 
 The Nation s Dead 
 
 out thanking you for the opportunity your generosity 
 has given me to speak in this place, and on my native 
 soil, for your country and my country, for your flag 
 and my flag. The Union is indeed restored, when the 
 hands that pulled that flag down come willingly 
 and lovingly to put it up again. I come with a 
 full heart and a steady hand to salute the flag that 
 floats above me my flag and your flag the flag of 
 the Union the flag of the free heart s hope and home 
 the star-spangled banner of our fathers the flag 
 that, uplifted triumphantly over a few brave men, has 
 never been obscured, destined by the God of the uni 
 verse to waft on its ample folds the eternal song of 
 freedom to all mankind, emblem of the power on earth 
 which is to exceed that on which it was said the 
 sun never went down. I had it in my mind to say 
 that it is for us, the living, to decide whether the hun 
 dreds of thousands who fell on both sides during the 
 battle were blessed martyrs to an end, shaped by a wis 
 dom greater than ours, or whether they died in vain. 
 I shall not admit the thought. They did not die in 
 vain. The power, the divine power, which made for 
 us a garden of swords, sowing the land broadcast 
 with sorrow, will reap thence for us, and for the ages, 
 a nation truly divine; a nation of freedom and of free 
 men; where tolerance shall walk hand in hand with 
 religion, while civilization points out to patriotism the 
 many open highways to human right and glory. 
 287
 
 THE NEW SOUTH* 
 
 I assure you that I consider this a very great oc 
 casion. I might call it an event in my life. It is true 
 that my intercourse with banks and bankers has ever 
 been of a pleasing and satisfactory character and I 
 hope equally so on both sides of the counter but I 
 never did expect to catch the whole banking system 
 of the country "on the wing," as it were, and to get 
 "the drop on it!" The temptation to proceed to busi 
 ness is almost irresistible, and, if my friend Haldeman, 
 who has a turn for these things and is a magician in 
 exchanges, renewals, and discounts, were only here, we 
 might pool the billions which you represent, get up a 
 corner on the national debt, and take out a post-obit 
 on the public credit! 
 
 There is something exhilarating in the sense of 
 rubbing against so much money, and, for the first time, 
 I can realize the full meaning of the immortal Sellers 
 when he said: "Millions of it! Millions of it! float 
 ing about in the air." 
 
 Being a provident person, and not without a cer 
 tain prudent forecast, I have always been a friend to 
 
 * American Bankers Association, Louisville, October n, 1883. 
 288
 
 The New South 
 
 the banks. A man may quarrel with his wife; he may 
 sometimes venture a suggestion to his mother-in-law; 
 but he must love, honor, and obey his banker. 
 
 It was not, however, to hear of banks and bankers 
 and banking that you did me the honor to call me be 
 fore you. I am told that to-day you are considering 
 that problem which has so disturbed the politicians 
 the South and that you wish me to talk to you about 
 the South. The South! The South! It is no prob 
 lem at all. I thank God that at last we can say with 
 truth, it is simply a geographic expression. The whole 
 story of the South may be summed up in a sentence : 
 She was rich, and she lost her riches; she was poor 
 and in bondage; she was set free, and she had to go 
 to work ; she went to work, and she is richer than ever 
 before. You see it was a ground-hog case. The soil 
 was here. The climate was here ; but along with them 
 was a curse, the curse of slavery. God passed the rod 
 across the land and smote the people. Then, in His 
 goodness and mercy, He waved the wand of enchant 
 ment, and, lo, like a flower, His blessing burst forth! 
 Indeed, may the South say, as in the experience of men 
 it is rare for any to say with perfect sincerity: 
 
 "Sweet are the uses of adversity." 
 
 The South never knew what independence meant 
 until she was taught by subjection to subdue herself. 
 We lived from hand to mouth. We had our debts 
 289
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 and our niggers. Under the old system we paid our 
 debts and walloped our niggers. Under the new we 
 pay our niggers and wallop our debts. We have no 
 longer any slaves, but we have no longer any debts, 
 and can exclaim, with the old darky at the camp-meet 
 ing, who, whenever he got happy, went about shout 
 ing: "Bless the Lord! I m gittin fatter an fatter!" 
 
 The truth is that, behind the great ruffle the South 
 wore to its shirt, there lay concealed a superb man 
 hood. That this manhood was perverted, there is no 
 doubt. That it wasted its energies upon trifles, is be 
 yond dispute. That it took a pride in cultivating what 
 it called "the vices of a gentleman," I am afraid must 
 be admitted. But, at heart, it was sound; from that 
 heart flowed honest Anglo-Saxon blood; and, when it 
 had to lay aside its broadcloth and put on its jeans, it 
 was equal to the emergency. And the women of the 
 South took their place by the side of the men of the 
 South, and, with spinning-wheel and ploughshare, to 
 gether they made a stand against the wolf at the door. 
 That was fifteen years ago, and to-day there is not a 
 reward offered in a single Southern State for wolf 
 skins. The fact is, the very wolves have got ashamed 
 of themselves and gone to work. 
 
 I beg you to believe that, in saying this, my purpose 
 is neither to amuse nor to mislead you. Although my 
 words may seem to carry with them an unbusiness 
 like levity, I assure you that my design is wholly busi- 
 290
 
 The New South 
 
 ness-like. You can see for yourselves here in Louis 
 ville what the South has done; what the South can 
 do. If all this has been achieved without credit, and 
 without your powerful aid and I am now addressing 
 myself to the North and East, which have feared to 
 come South with their money what might not be 
 achieved if the vast aggregations of capital in the fiscal 
 centres should add this land of wine, milk, and honey 
 to their fields of investment and give us the same cheap 
 rates which are enjoyed by nearer but not safer bor 
 rowers? The future of the South is not a whit less 
 assured than the future of the West. Why should 
 money, which is freely loaned to Iowa and Illinois, be 
 refused to Alabama and Mississippi? I perfectly un 
 derstand that business is business, and that capital is as 
 unsectional as unsentimental. I am speaking from 
 neither spirit. You have money to loan. We have a 
 great country to develop. 
 
 We need the money. You can make a profit off 
 the development. When I say that we need money, 
 I do not mean the sort of money once demanded by 
 an old Georgia farmer, who, in the early days, came 
 up to Milledgeville to see General Robert Toombs, at 
 the time a director of the State Bank. "Robert," says 
 he, "the folks down our way air in need of more 
 money." The profane Robert replied: "Well, how in 
 the h are they going to get it?" "Why," says the 
 farmer, "can t you stomp it?" "Suppose we do stomp 
 291
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 it, how are we going to redeem it?" "Exactly, Rob 
 ert, exactly. That was just what I was coming to. 
 You see, the folks down our way air agin redemption." 
 We want good money, honest money, hard money, 
 money that will redeem itself. 
 
 We have given hostages to fortune, and our works 
 are before you. I know that capital is proverbially 
 timid. But what are you afraid of? Is it our cotton 
 that alarms you ? or our corn ? or our sugar ? Perhaps 
 it is our coal and iron. Without you, in truth, many 
 of these products must make slow progress, while 
 others will continue to lie hid in the bowels of the 
 earth. With you the South will bloom as a garden 
 and sparkle as a gold-mine; for, whether you tickle 
 her fertile plains with a straw or apply a more violent 
 titillation to her fat mountain-sides, she is ready to 
 laugh a harvest of untold riches! 
 
 I am not a banker, and it would be a kind of effron 
 tery in me to undertake to advise you in your own busi 
 ness. But there is a point which relates to the safe 
 investment of money on which I can venture to express 
 an opinion with some positivity. That is, the political 
 stability, involving questions of law and order, in the 
 South. My belief is that life and property are as secure 
 in the South as they are in New England. I am certain 
 that men are at least as safe in Kentucky and Tennessee 
 as women seem to be in Connecticut. The truth is, the 
 war is over and the country is whole again. The people, 
 292
 
 The New South 
 
 always homogeneous, have a common, national interest. 
 For my own part, I have never believed in isothermal 
 lines, air-lines, and water-lines separating distinct 
 races. I no more believe that that river yonder, divid 
 ing Indiana and Kentucky, marks off two distinct spe 
 cies than I believe that the great Hudson, flowing 
 through the State of New York, marks off distinct 
 species. Such theories only live in the fancy of mor 
 bid minds. We are all one people. Commercially, 
 financially, morally, we are one people. Divide as 
 we will into parties, we are one people. It is this sense 
 which gives a guarantee of peace and order at the 
 South, and offers a sure and lasting escort to all the 
 capital which may come to us for investment. 
 
 293
 
 LET US HAVE PEACE* 
 
 I believe that, at this moment, the people of the 
 United States are nearer together, in all that constitutes 
 kindred feeling and common interest, than they have 
 been at any time since the adoption of the Federal Con 
 stitution. If it were not so, I should hardly venture 
 to come here and talk to you as I am going to talk 
 to-night. As it is, surrounded though I be by Union 
 soldiers, my bridges burned, and every avenue of escape 
 cut off, I am not in the least disconcerted or appalled. 
 On the contrary, I never felt safer or happier, or more 
 at home. Indeed, I think that, supported by your pres 
 ence and sustained by these commissary stores, I could 
 stand a siege of several months and hold out against 
 incredible odds. It is wonderful how circumstances 
 alter cases : for it was not always so. 
 
 I am one of many witnesses who live to tell the story 
 of a journey to the moon, and back! It may not be 
 that I have any marvels of personal adventure or any 
 prodigies of individual valor to relate; but I do 
 not owe my survival to the precaution taken by a 
 member of the Confederate battery, commanded by 
 the brave Captain Howell, of Georgia. It was 
 
 * Annual Banquet, Society of the Army of the Tennessee, Chicago, 
 October 9, 1891. 
 
 294
 
 Let Us Have Peace 
 
 the habit of this person to go to the rear whenever 
 the battery got well under fire. At last Captain How- 
 ell called him up and admonished him that, if the breach 
 of duty was repeated, he would shoot him down as he 
 went, without a word. The reply came on the instant : 
 "That s all right, Cap n ; that s all right ; you can shoot 
 me; but I ll be dadburned if I m going to let them 
 darn d Yankees do it !" I at least gave you the oppor 
 tunity to try, and I am much your debtor that, in my 
 case, your marksmanship was so defective. 
 
 You have been told that the war is over. I think 
 that I, myself, have heard that observation. I am glad 
 of it. Roses smell sweeter than gunpowder ; for every 
 day uses the carving-knife is preferable to the bayonet, 
 or the sabre ; and, in a contest for first choice between 
 cannon-balls and wine-corks, I have a decided prejudice 
 in favor of the latter ! 
 
 The war is over, and it is well over. God reigns, 
 and the Government at Washington still lives. I am 
 glad of that. I can conceive nothing worse for our 
 selves, nothing worse for our children, than what might 
 have been if the war had ended otherwise, leaving two 
 exhausted combatants to become the prey of foreign in 
 tervention and diplomacy, setting the clock of civiliza 
 tion back a century, and splitting the noblest of the con 
 tinents into five or six weak and warring republics, like 
 those of South America, to repeat in the New World 
 the mistakes of the Old. 
 
 295
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 The war is over, truly ; and, let me repeat, it is well 
 over. If anything were wanting to proclaim its ter 
 mination from every house-top and door-post in the 
 land, that little brush we had last spring with Signor 
 Macroni furnished it. As to the touch of an electric 
 bell, the whole people rallied to the brave words of the 
 Secretary of State, and, for the moment, sections and 
 parties sank out of sight and thought in one overmaster 
 ing sentiment of racehood, manhood, and nationality. 
 
 I shall not stop to inquire \rhether the war made us 
 better than we were. It certainly made us better ac 
 quainted, and, on the whole, it seems to me that we are 
 none the worse for that better acquintance. The truth 
 is, the trouble between us was never more than skin- 
 deep ; and the curious thing about it is that it was not 
 our skin, anyhow ! It was a black skin, not a white 
 skin, that brought it about. 
 
 As I see it, our great sectional controversy was, from 
 first to last, the gradual evolution of a people from dark 
 ness to light, with no charts or maps to guide them, and 
 no experience to lead the way. 
 
 The framers of our Constitution found themselves 
 unable to fix decisively and to define accurately the 
 exact relation of the States to the Federal Government. 
 On that point they left what may be described as an 
 "open clause," and through that open clause, as through 
 an open door, the grim spectre of disunion stalked. It 
 was attended on one hand by African slavery: on the 
 296
 
 Let Us Have Peace 
 
 other hand by sectional jealousy, and, between these evil 
 spirits, the household flower of peace was torn from its 
 stem and tossed into the caldron of war. 
 
 In the beginning, all of us were guilty, and equally 
 guilty, for African slavery. It was the good fortune 
 of the North first to find out that slave labor was 
 not profitable. So, very sensibly, it sold its slaves to 
 the South, which, very disastrously, pursued the delu 
 sion. Time at last has done its perfect work : the South 
 sees now, as the North saw before it, that the system of 
 slavery, as it existed, was the clumsiest and costliest 
 labor system on earth, and that when we took the field 
 to fight for it we set out upon a fool s errand. Under 
 slave labor the yield of cotton never reached five million 
 bales. Under free labor it has never fallen below that 
 figure, gradually ascending to six and seven, until, this 
 year, it is about to reach nearly nine million bales. 
 
 This tells the whole story. I am not here to talk 
 politics, of course. But I put it to you whether this is 
 not a pretty good showing for free black labor, and 
 whether, with such showing, the Southern whites can 
 afford any other than just and kind treatment to the 
 blacks, without whom, indeed, the South would be a 
 brier-patch and half our national gold-income a gaping 
 hole in the ground ! 
 
 Gentlemen, I beg that you will not be apprehensive. 
 I know full well that this is neither a time, nor place, 
 for abstract economies ; and I am not going to afflict you 
 297
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 with a dissertation upon free trade or free silver. I 
 carne, primarily, to bow my head and to pay my measure 
 of homage to the statue that was unveiled to-day. The 
 career and the name which that statue commemorates 
 belong to me no less than to you. When I followed 
 him to the grave proud to appear in the obsequies, 
 though as the obscurest of those who bore an official 
 part therein I felt that I was helping to bury not only 
 a great man, but a true friend. From that day to this 
 the story of the life and death of General Grant has 
 more and more impressed and touched me. 
 
 I never allowed myself to make his acquaintance until 
 he had quitted the White House. The period of his 
 political activity was full of uncouth and unsparing par 
 tisan contention. It was a kind of civil war. I had 
 my duty to do, and I did not dare to trust myself to the 
 subduing influence of what I was sure must follow 
 friendly relations between such a man as he was and 
 such a man as I knew myself to be. In this I was not 
 mistaken, as the sequel proved. I met him for the first 
 time beneath my own vine and fig-tree, and a happy 
 series of accidents, thereafter, gave me the opportunity 
 to meet him often and to know him well. He was the 
 embodiment of simplicity, integrity, and courage ; every 
 inch a general, a soldier, and a man ; but, in the circum 
 stances of his last illness, a figure of heroic proportions 
 for the contemplation of the ages. I recall nothing in 
 history so sublime as the spectacle of that brave spirit, 
 298
 
 Let Us Have Peace 
 
 broken in fortune and in health, with the dread hand of 
 the dark angel clutched about his throat, struggling with 
 every breath to hold the clumsy, unfamiliar weapon 
 with which he sought to wrest from the jaws of death 
 something for the support of wife and children when he 
 was gone! If he had done nothing else, that would 
 have made his exit from the world an epic ! 
 
 A little while after I came to my home from the last 
 scene of all, I found that a woman s hand had collected 
 the insignia I had worn in the magnificent, melancholy 
 pageant the orders assigning me to duty and the 
 funeral scarfs and badges and had grouped and framed 
 them ; unbidden, silently, tenderly ; and when I reflected 
 that the hands that did this were those of a loving 
 Southern woman, whose father had fallen on the Con 
 federate side in the battle, I said : "The war indeed is 
 over; let us have peace!" Gentlemen; soldiers; com 
 rades ; the silken folds that twine about us here, for all 
 their soft and careless grace, are yet as strong as hooks 
 of steel! They hold together a united people and a 
 great nation ; for, realizing the truth at last with no 
 wounds to be healed and no stings of defeat to remember 
 the South says to the North, as simply and as truly 
 as was said three thousand years ago in the far-away 
 meadow upon the shores of the mystic sea: "Whither 
 thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will 
 lodge ; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my 
 God." 
 
 299
 
 OUR EXPANDING REPUBLIC* 
 
 Among the wonders of creative and constructive 
 genius in course of preparation for this Festival of 
 the Nations, whose formal and official inauguration 
 has brought us together, will presently be witnessed 
 upon the margin of the inter-ocean, which gives to 
 this noble and beautiful city the character and rank 
 of a maritime metropolis, a Spectatorium, wherein the 
 Columbian epic will be told with realistic effects sur 
 passing the most splendid and impressive achievements 
 of the modern stage. No one, who has had the good 
 fortune to see the models of this extraordinary work 
 of art, can have failed to be moved by the union, which 
 it embodies, of the antique in history and the modern 
 in life and thought, as, beginning with the weird men 
 dicant fainting upon the hill-side of Santa Rabida, it 
 traces the strange adventures of the Genoese seer from 
 the royal camp of Santa Fe to the sunny coasts of the 
 Isles of Inde; through the weary watches of the end 
 less night, whose sentinel stars seemed set to mock 
 but not to guide; through the trackless and shoreless 
 wastes of the mystic sea, spread day by day to bear 
 
 * Dedication of the World s Fair, Chicago, October ai, 1892. 
 300
 
 Our Expanding Republic 
 
 upon every rise and fall of its heaving bosom the death 
 of fair, fond hopes, the birth of strange, fantastic fears; 
 the peerless and thrilling revelation, and all that has 
 followed to the very moment that beholds us here, citi 
 zens, freemen, equal shareholders in the miracle of 
 American civilization and freedom. Is there one 
 among us who does not thank his Maker that he has 
 lived to join in this universal celebration, this jubilee 
 of mankind? 
 
 I am appalled when I realize the meaning of the 
 proclamation which has been delivered in our pres 
 ence. The painter, employed by command of the self- 
 styled Lord s anointed to render to the eye some par 
 ticular exploit of the people or the king, knows 
 precisely what he has to do; there is a limit set upon 
 his purpose; his canvas is measured; his colors are 
 blended, and, with the steady and sure hand of the 
 master, he proceeds, touch upon touch, to body forth 
 the forms of things known and visible. Who shall 
 measure the canvas or blend the colors that are to 
 bring to the mind s eye of the present the scenes of 
 the past in American glory? Who shall attempt to 
 summon the dead to life, and out of the tomb of the 
 ages recall the tones of the martyrs and heroes whose 
 voices, though silent forever, still speak to us in all that 
 we are as a nation, in all that we do as men and 
 women ? 
 
 We look before and after, and we see through the 
 301
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 half-drawn folds of Time, as through the solemn arch 
 ways of some vast cathedral, the long procession pass, 
 as silent and as real as a dream; the caravels, tossing 
 upon Atlantic billows, have their sails refilled from 
 the East and bear away to the West; the land is 
 reached, and fulfilled is the vision whose actualities are 
 to be gathered by other hands than his who planned 
 the voyage and steered the bark of discovery; the long- 
 sought, golden day has come to Spain at last, and Cas- 
 tilian conquests tread one upon another fast enough to 
 pile up perpetual power and riches. 
 
 But even as simple justice was denied Columbus was 
 lasting tenure denied the Spaniard. 
 
 We look again, and we see in the far Northeast the 
 Old World struggle between the French and English 
 transferred to the new, ending in the epic upon the 
 heights above Quebec; we see the sturdy Puritans in 
 bell-crowned hats and sable garments assail in unequal 
 battle the savage and the elements, overcoming both, 
 to rise against a mightier foe; we see the gay but 
 dauntless Cavaliers, to the southward, join hands with 
 the Roundheads in holy rebellion. And, lo! down 
 from the green-walled hills of New England, out of 
 the swamps of the Carolinas, come, faintly to the ear 
 like far-away forest leaves stirred to music by autumn 
 winds, the drum-taps of the Revolution; the tramp of 
 the minute-men, Israel Putnam riding before; the 
 hoof-beats of Sumter s horse galloping to the front; 
 302
 
 Our Expanding Republic 
 
 the thunder of Stark s guns in spirit-battle; the gleam 
 of Marion s watch-fires in ghostly bivouac; and there, 
 there in serried, saint-like ranks on fame s eternal 
 camping-ground, stand 
 
 "The old Continentals, 
 In their ragged regimentals, 
 Yielding not," 
 
 as, amid the singing of angels in Heaven, the scene is 
 shut out from our mortal vision by proud and happy 
 tears. 
 
 We see the rise of the young Republic ; and the gen 
 tlemen in knee-breeches and powdered wigs who signed 
 the Declaration, and again the gentlemen in knee- 
 breeches and powdered wigs who framed the Constitu 
 tion. We see the little nation menaced from without. 
 We see the riflemen, in hunting-shirt and buckskin, 
 swarm from the cabin in the wilderness to the rescue 
 of country and home; and our hearts swell to a second 
 and final decree of independence won by the prowess 
 and valor of American arms upon the land and sea. 
 
 And then, and then since there is no life of nations 
 or of men without its shadow and its sorrow there 
 comes a day when the spirits of the fathers no longer 
 walk upon the battlements of freedom; and all is 
 dark; and all seems lost, save liberty and honor, and, 
 praise God, our blessed Union. With these surviving, 
 who shall marvel at what we see to-day ; this land filled 
 303
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 with the treasures of earth; this city, snatched from 
 the ashes, to rise in splendor and renown, passing the 
 mind to preconceive? 
 
 Truly, out of trial comes the strength of man, out 
 of peril comes the glory of the state! 
 
 We are met this day to honor the memory of Chris 
 topher Columbus, to celebrate the four-hundredth an 
 nual return of the year of his transcendent achieve 
 ment, and, with fitting rites, to dedicate to America 
 and the universe a concrete exposition of the world s 
 progress between 1492 and 1892. No twenty cen 
 turies can be compared with those four centuries, 
 either in importance or in interest, as no previous cere 
 monial can be compared with this in its wide signifi 
 cance and reach; because, since the advent of the Son 
 of God, no event has had so great an influence upon 
 human affairs as the discovery of the Western hemi 
 sphere. Each of the centuries that have intervened 
 marks many revolutions. The merest catalogue would 
 crowd a thousand pages. The story of the least of the 
 nations would fill a volume. In what I have to say 
 upon this occasion, therefore, I shall confine myself to 
 our own; and, in speaking of the United States of 
 America, I propose rather to dwell upon our character 
 as a people, and our reciprocal obligations and duties 
 as an aggregation of communities, held together by a 
 fixed constitution, and charged with the custody of a 
 union upon whose preservation and perpetuation in its 
 304
 
 Our Expanding Republic 
 
 original spirit and purpose the future of free, popular 
 government depends, than to enter into a dissertation 
 upon abstract principles, or to undertake an historic 
 essay. We are a plain, practical people. We are a 
 race of inventors and workers, not of poets and artists. 
 We have led the world s movement, rather than its 
 belles lettres. Our deeds are to be found not upon 
 frescoed walls, or in ample libraries, but in the ma 
 chine-shop, where the spindles sing and the looms thun 
 der; on the open plain, where the steam-plough, the 
 reaper, and the mower contend with one another in 
 friendly war against the obduracies of nature; in the 
 magic of electricity as it penetrates the darkest cav 
 erns with its irresistible power and light. Let us con 
 sider ourselves and our conditions, as far as we are 
 able, with a candor untinged by cynicism, and a confi 
 dence having no touch of condescension. 
 
 A better opportunity could not be desired for a study 
 of our peculiarities than is furnished by the present mo 
 ment. 
 
 We are in the midst of the quadrennial period es 
 tablished for the selection of a Chief Magistrate. 
 Each citizen has his right of choice, each has his right 
 to vote, and to have his vote freely cast and fairly 
 counted. Wherever this right is assailed for any cause 
 wrong is done and evil must follow, first to the whole 
 country, which has an interest in all its parts, but most 
 to the community immediately involved, which must 
 305
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 actually drink of the cup that has contained the poison, 
 and cannot escape its infection. 
 
 The abridgment of the right of suffrage, however, 
 is very nearly proportioned to the ignorance or indif 
 ference of the parties concerned by it, and there is good 
 reason to hope that, with the expanding intelligence of 
 the masses and the growing enlightenment of the 
 times, this particular form of corruption in elections 
 will be reduced below the danger line. 
 
 To that end, as to all other good ends, the modera 
 tion of public sentiment must ever be our chief reli 
 ance; for, when men are forced by the general desire 
 for truth, and the light which our modern vehicles of 
 information throw upon truth, to discuss public ques 
 tions for truth s sake; when it becomes the plain in 
 terest of public men, as it is their plain duty, to do this, 
 and when, above all, friends and neighbors cease to 
 love one another less because of individual differences 
 of opinion about public affairs, the struggle for unfair 
 advantage will be relegated to those who have either 
 no character to lose, or none to seek. 
 
 It is admitted on all sides that the immediate Presi 
 dential campaign is freer from excitement and tumult 
 than was ever known before, and it is argued from this 
 circumstance that we are traversing the epoch of the 
 commonplace. If this be so, thank God for it! We 
 have had full enough of the dramatic and sensational, 
 and need a season of mediocrity and repose. But may 
 306
 
 Our Expanding Republic 
 
 we not ascribe the rational way in which the people are 
 going about their business to larger knowledge and 
 riper experience, and a fairer spirit than have hitherto 
 marked our party contentions? 
 
 Parties are as essential to free government as oxygen 
 to the atmosphere, or sunshine to vegetation. And 
 party spirit is inseparable from party organism. To 
 the extent that it is tempered by good sense and good 
 feeling, by love of country and integrity of purpose, it 
 is a supreme virtue; and there should be no gag short 
 of a decent regard for the sensibilities of others put 
 upon its freedom of movement and plainness of utter 
 ance. Otherwise, the limpid pool of Democracy would 
 stagnate, and we should have a republic only in name. 
 But we should never cease to be admonished by the 
 warning words of the Father of his Country against 
 the excess of party spirit, reinforced as they are by the 
 incidents of a century of party warfare ; a warfare hap 
 pily culminating in the complete triumph of American 
 principles, but brought many times dangerously near 
 the annihilation of all that was great and noble in the 
 national life. 
 
 Sursum Corda. The young manhood of the coun 
 try may take this lesson from those of us who lived 
 through times that did, indeed, try men s souls when, 
 pressed down from day to day by awful responsibili 
 ties and suspense, each night brought a terror with 
 every thought of the morrow, and, when, look where 
 307
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 we would, there were light and hope nowhere that 
 God reigns and wills, and that this fair land is, and 
 has always been, in His own keeping. 
 
 The curse of slavery is gone. It was a joint heri 
 tage of woe, to be wiped out and expiated in blood and 
 flame. The mirage of the Confederacy has vanished. It 
 was essentially bucolic, a vision of Arcadie, the dream 
 of a most attractive economic fallacy. The Constitu 
 tion is no longer a rope of sand. The exact relation of 
 the States to the Federal Government, left open to 
 double construction by the authors of our organic be 
 ing, because they could not agree among themselves 
 and union was the paramount object, has been clearly 
 and definitely fixed by the three last amendments to the 
 original chart, which constitute the real treaty of peace 
 between the North and the South, and seal our bonds 
 as a nation forever. 
 
 The Republic represents at last the letter and the 
 spirit of the sublime Declaration. The fetters that 
 bound Columbia to the earth are burst asunder. The 
 rags that degraded her beauty are cast aside. Like the 
 enchanted princess in the legend, clad in spotless rai 
 ment and wearing a crown of stars, she steps in the 
 perfection of her maturity upon the scene of this, the 
 latest and proudest of her triumphs to bid a welcome 
 to the world ! 
 
 Need I pursue the theme? This vast assemblage 
 speaks with a resonance which words can never com- 
 308
 
 Our Expanding Republic 
 
 pass. It speaks from the fields that are blessed by the 
 never-failing waters of the Kennebec, and from the 
 farms that sprinkle the valley of the Connecticut with 
 mimic principalities more potent and lasting than the 
 real; it speaks in the whir of the mills of Pennsyl 
 vania and in the ring of the wood-cutter s axe from 
 the forests of the Lake peninsulas; it speaks from the 
 great plantations of the South and West, teeming with 
 staples that insure us wealth and power and stability; 
 yea, and from the mines and forests and quarries of 
 Michigan and Wisconsin, of Alabama and Georgia, 
 of Tennessee and Kentucky, far away to the regions 
 of silver and gold, that have linked the Colorado and 
 the Rio Grande in close embrace, and annihilated time 
 and space between the Atlantic and the Pacific; it 
 speaks in one word from the hearth-stone in Iowa and 
 Illinois, from the roof -tree in Mississippi and Arkan 
 sas, from the hearts of seventy millions of fearless, free- 
 born men and women, and that one word is "Union" ! 
 There is no geography in American manhood. 
 There are no sections to American fraternity. It 
 needs but six weeks to change a Vermonter into a 
 Texan, and there never has been a time when, upon 
 the battle-field or the frontier, Puritan and Cavalier 
 were not convertible terms, having in the beginning a 
 common origin, and so diffused and diluted on Amer 
 ican soil as no longer to possess a local habitation, or a 
 nativity, except in the National unit. 
 309
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 The men who planted the signals of American civ 
 ilization upon that sacred Rock by Plymouth Bay were 
 Englishmen, and so were the men who struck the 
 coast a little lower down, cradling by Hampton 
 Roads a race of heroes and statesmen, the mention of 
 whose names brings a thrill to every heart. The 
 South claims Lincoln, the immortal, for its own; the 
 North has no right to reject Stonewall Jackson, the 
 one typical Puritan soldier of the war, for its own! 
 Nor will it ! The time is coming, is almost here, when 
 hanging above many a mantel-board in fair New Eng 
 land glorifying many a cottage in the sunny South 
 shall be seen bound together, in everlasting love and 
 honor, two cross-swords carried to battle respectively 
 by the grandfather who wore the blue and the grand 
 father who wore the gray. 
 
 I cannot trust myself to proceed. We have come 
 here not so much to recall by-gone sorrows and glories, 
 as to bask in the sunshine of present prosperity and 
 happiness, to interchange patriotic greetings and in 
 dulge good auguries, and, above all, to meet upon the 
 threshold the stranger within our gate, not as a 
 stranger, but as a guest and friend, for whom nothing 
 that we have is too good. 
 
 From wheresoever he cometh we welcome him with 
 all our hearts: the son of the Rhone and the Garonne, 
 our godmother, France, to whom we owe so much, 
 he shall be our Lafayette ; the son of the Rhine and the
 
 Our Expanding Republic 
 
 Moselle, he shall be our Goethe and our Wagner; 
 the son of the Campagna and the Vesuvian Bay, he 
 shall be our Michael Angelo and our Garibaldi; the 
 son of Arragon and the Indes, he shall be our Christo 
 pher Columbus, fitly honored at last throughout the 
 world. 
 
 Our good cousin of England needs no words of 
 special civility and courtesy from us. For John the 
 latch-string is ever on the outer side; though, whether 
 it be or not, we are sure that he will enter and make 
 himself at home. A common language enables us to 
 do full justice to one another, at the festive-board, or 
 in the arena of debate; warning both of us in equal 
 tones against further parley on the field of arms. 
 
 All nations and all creeds be welcome here: from 
 the Bosphorus and the Black Sea, the Viennese woods 
 and the Danubian hill-side; from Holland dike to Al 
 pine crag; from Belgrade and Calcutta, and round to 
 China seas and the busy marts of Japan, the isles of 
 the Pacific and the far-away capes of Africa Arme 
 nian, Christian, and Jew the American, loving no 
 country except his own, but loving all mankind as his 
 brother, bids you enter and fear not; bids you partake 
 with us of these fruits of four hundred years of civ 
 ilization and development, and behold these trophies of 
 one hundred years of enlightened self-government. 
 
 At this moment, in every part of the American 
 Union, the children are taking up the wondrous tale
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 of the discovery, and from Boston to Galveston, from 
 the little log school-house in the wilderness to the tow 
 ering academy in the city and the town, may be wit 
 nessed the unprecedented spectacle of a powerful 
 nation captured by an army of Liliputians, of embryo 
 warriors and workers, statesmen and mothers, of top 
 pling boys and girls, and tiny elves scarce big enough 
 to lisp the numbers of the national anthem; scarce 
 strong enough to lift the miniature flags that make 
 of arid street and autumn wood an emblematic gar 
 den, to gladden the sight and to glorify the red, white, 
 and blue. See 
 
 "Our young barbarians at play," 
 
 for better than these we have nothing to exhibit. 
 They, indeed, are our crown jewels : the truest, though 
 the inevitable, offspring of our civilization and devel 
 opment; the representatives of a manhood vitalized and 
 invigorated by toil and care, of a womanhood elevated 
 and inspired by liberty and education. God bless the 
 children and their mothers! God bless our country s 
 flag ! And God be with us now and ever God in the 
 roof-tree s shade and God on the highway, God in the 
 winds and waves, and God in all our hearts! 
 
 312
 
 A WELCOME TO THE GRAND ARMY* 
 
 That promissory note, drawn by me upon the city of 
 Louisville, and discounted by you in the city of Pitts- 
 burg a year ago it has matured and I am come to pay 
 it! You, who were so prompt and so generous about it, 
 will not be displeased to learn that it puts us to no in 
 convenience to pay it. On the contrary, it having been 
 one of those obligations on which the interest compound 
 ing day by day was designed to eat up the principal, its 
 discharge leaves us poor only in the regret that we may 
 not repeat the transaction every twelve months, and con 
 vert this central point of the universe into a permanent 
 encampment for the Grand Army of the Republic. 
 
 Except that historic distinctions have long been oblit 
 erated here, it might be mentioned that I appear before 
 you as the representative alike of those who wore the 
 blue and of those who wore the gray in that great sec 
 tional combat, which, whatever else it did or did not, 
 left no shadow upon American soldiership, no stain 
 upon American manhood. But, in Kentucky, the war 
 ended thirty years ago. Familiar intercommunication 
 between those who fought in it upon opposing sides; 
 
 * Grand Army Encampment, Louisville, 1895.
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 marriage and giving in marriage ; the rearing of a com 
 mon progeny; the ministrations of private friendship; 
 the all-subduing influence of home and church and 
 school, of wife and child, have culminated in such a 
 closely knit web of interests and affections that none of 
 us care to disentangle the threads that compose it, and 
 few of us could do so if we would. 
 
 Here, at least, the lesson has been taught and learned 
 that 
 
 "You cannot chain the eagle, 
 And you dare not harm the dove; 
 
 But every gate 
 
 Hate bars to hate 
 Will open wide to love!" 
 
 And the flag! God bless the flag! As the heart of 
 McCallum More warmed to the tartan, do all hearts 
 warm to the flag ! Have you upon your round of sight 
 seeing missed it hereabout? Does it make itself on any 
 hand conspicuous by its absence? Can you doubt the 
 loyal sincerity of those who from house-top and roof- 
 tree have thrown it to the breeze? Let some sacri 
 legious hand be raised to haul it down and see! No, 
 no, comrades ; the people en masse do not deal in subter 
 fuges; they do not stoop to conquer; they may be 
 wrong ; they may be perverse ; but they never dissemble. 
 These are honest flags, with honest hearts behind them. 
 They are the symbols of a nationality as precious to us 
 as to you. They fly at last as Webster would have 
 314
 
 A Welcome to the Grand Army 
 
 had them fly, bearing no such mottoes as "What is all 
 this worth?" or "Liberty first and union afterward," 
 but blazing in letters of living light upon their ample 
 folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, those 
 words dear to every American heart, "Union and lib 
 erty, now and forever, one and inseparable!" 
 
 And why not ? What is left for you and me to cavil 
 about, far less to fight about? When Hamilton and 
 Madison agreed in supporting a Constitution wholly 
 acceptable to neither of them, they compromised some 
 differences and they left some other differences open to 
 double construction; and, among these latter, was the 
 exact relation of the States to the General Government. 
 The institution of African slavery, with its irreconcila 
 ble conditions, got between the North and the South, 
 
 and . But I am not here to recite the history of 
 
 the United States. You know what happened as well 
 as I do, and we all know that there does not remain a 
 shred of those old issues to divide us. There is not a 
 Southern man to-day who would recall slavery if he 
 could. There is not a Southern man to-day who would 
 lightly brook the effort of a State to withdraw from the 
 Union. Slavery is gone. Secession is dead. The 
 Union, with its system of Statehood still intact, sur 
 vives ; and with it a power and glory among men pass 
 ing the dreams of the fathers of the Republic. You 
 and I may fold our arms and go to sleep, leaving to 
 younger men to hold and defend a property tenfold 
 315
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 greater than that received by us, its ownership un 
 clouded and its title-deeds recorded in Heaven ! 
 
 It is, therefore, with a kind of exultation that I fling 
 open the gates of this gateway to the South ! I bid you 
 welcome in the name of the people whose voice is the 
 voice of God. You came, and we resisted you; you 
 come, and we greet you; for times change and men 
 change with them. You will find here scarcely a sign 
 of the battle ; not a reminiscence of its passions. Grim- 
 visaged war has smoothed his wrinkled front, and 
 whichever way you turn on either side, deepening as you 
 advance across the Chaplin Hills, where Jackson fell, 
 to Stone s River, where Rosy fought and on to Chat 
 tanooga and Chickamauga and over Missionary Ridge, 
 and down by Resaca and Kenesaw, and Allatoon, 
 where Corse "held the fort," as a second time you 
 march to the sea pausing awhile about Atlanta to look 
 with wonder on a scene risen as by the hand of enchant 
 ment thence returning by way of Franklin and Nash 
 ville you shall encounter, as you pass those mouldering 
 heaps, which remind you.of your valor and travail, only 
 the magnanimous spirit of dead heroes, with Grant and 
 Sherman, and Thomas and McPherson and Logan look 
 ing down from the happy stars as if repeating the words 
 of the Master "Charity for all malice toward none." 
 
 We, too, have our graves; we, too, had our heroes! 
 All, all are comrades now upon the other side, where 
 you and I must shortly join them ; blessed, thrice blessed
 
 A Welcome to the Grand Army 
 
 we who have lived to see fulfilled the Psalmist s prophecy 
 of peace : 
 
 "Peace in the quiet dales, 
 Made rankly fertile by the blood of men; 
 Peace in the woodland and the lonely glen, 
 Peace in the peopled vales. 
 
 "Peace in the crowded town; 
 Peace in a thousand fields of waving grain; 
 Peace in the highway and the flow ry lane, 
 Peace o er the wind-swept down. 
 
 "Peace on the whirring marts, 
 Peace where the scholar thinks, the hunter roams, 
 Peace, God of peace, peace, peace in all our homes, 
 And all our hearts!" 
 
 317
 
 THE PURITAN AND THE CAVALIER * 
 
 Eight years ago, to-night, there stood where I am 
 standing now a young Georgian, who, not without rea 
 son, recognized the "significance" of his presence here 
 "the first Southerner to speak at this board" a circum 
 stance, let me add, not very creditable to any of us 
 and who, in words whose eloquence I cannot hope to 
 recall, appealed from the New South to New England 
 for a united country. 
 
 He was my disciple, my protege, my friend. He 
 came to me from the Southern- schools, where he had 
 perused the arts of oratory and letters, to get a few les 
 sons in journalism, as he said ; needing so few, indeed, 
 that, but a little later, I sent him to one of the foremost 
 journalists of this foremost city, bearing a letter of in 
 troduction, which described him as "the greatest boy 
 ever born in Dixie, or anywhere else." 
 
 He is gone now. But, short as his life was, its 
 Heaven-born mission was fulfilled; the dream of its 
 childhood was realized; for he had been appointed by 
 
 * A response to the toast " The Puritan and the Cavalier," at the 
 dinner of the New England Society Delmonico s, New York City, Satur 
 day evening, December 22, 1897. 
 
 318
 
 The Puritan and the Cavalier 
 
 God to carry a message of peace on earth, good-will to 
 men, and, this done, he vanished from the sight of 
 mortal eyes, even as the dove from the ark. 
 
 I mean to take up the word where Grady left it off ; 
 but I shall continue the sentence with a somewhat larger 
 confidence, and, perhaps, with a somewhat fuller mean 
 ing; because, notwithstanding the Puritan trappings, 
 traditions, and associations which surround me visible 
 illustrations of the self-denying fortitude of the Puri 
 tan character and the sombre simplicity of the Puritan 
 taste and habit I never felt less out of place in 
 all my life. 
 
 To tell you the truth, I am afraid that I have gained 
 access here on false pretences ; for I am no Cavalier at 
 all; just plain Scotch-Irish; one of those Scotch-Irish 
 Southerners who ate no fire in the green leaf and has 
 eaten no dirt in the brown, and who, accepting, for the 
 moment, the terms Puritan and Cavalier in the sense an 
 effete sectionalism once sought to ascribe to them de 
 scriptive labels at once classifying and separating North 
 and South verbal redoubts along that mythical line 
 called Mason and Dixon, over which there were sup 
 posed by the extremists of other days to be no bridges I 
 am much disposed to say, "A plague o both your 
 houses!" 
 
 Each was good enough and bad enough, in its way, 
 while they lasted ; each in its turn filled the English- 
 speaking world with mourning; and each, if either could 
 319
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 have resisted the infection of the soil and climate they 
 found here, would be to-day striving at the sword s 
 point to square life by the iron-rule of theocracy, or to 
 round it by the dizzy whirl of a petticoat! It is very 
 pretty to read about the May-pole in Virginia, and very 
 edifying and inspiring to celebrate the deeds of the Pil 
 grim fathers. But there is not Cavalier blood enough 
 left in the Old Dominion to produce a single crop of 
 first families, while, out in Nebraska and Iowa, they 
 claim that they have so stripped New England of her 
 Puritan stock as to spare her hardly enough for seed. 
 This I do know, from personal experience, that it is 
 impossible for the stranger-guest, sitting beneath a 
 bower of roses in the Palmetto Club at Charleston, or 
 by a mimic log-heap in the Algonquin Club at Boston, 
 to tell the assembled company apart, particularly after 
 ten o clock in the evening! Why, in that great, final 
 struggle between the Puritans and the Cavaliers 
 which we still hear sometimes casually mentioned 
 although it ended nearly thirty years ago there had 
 been such a mixing up of Puritan babies and Cavalier 
 babies during the two or three generations preceding it 
 that the surviving grandmothers of the combatants 
 could not, except for their uniforms, have picked out 
 their own on any field of battle ! 
 
 Turning to the Encyclopaedia of American Biog 
 raphy, I find that Webster had all the vices that are 
 supposed to have signalized the Cavalier, and Calhoun 
 320
 
 The Puritan and the Cavalier 
 
 all the virtues that are claimed for the Puritan. Dur 
 ing twenty years three statesmen of Puritan origin were 
 the chosen party leaders of Cavalier Mississippi : Robert 
 J. Walker, born and reared in Pennsylvania; John A. 
 Quitman, born and reared in New York, and Sargent 
 S. Prentiss, born and reared in the good old State of 
 Maine. That sturdy Puritan, John Slidell, never saw 
 Louisiana until he was old enough to vote and to fight ; 
 native here an alumnus of Columbia College but 
 sprung from New England ancestors. Albert Sidney 
 Johnston, the most resplendent of modern Cavaliers 
 from trig to toe a type of the species the very rose and 
 expectancy of the young Confederacy did not have a 
 drop of Southern blood in his veins; Yankee on both 
 sides of the house, though born in Kentucky a little 
 while after his father and mother arrived there from 
 Connecticut. The ambassador who serves our Gov 
 ernment near the French Republic was a gallant Con 
 federate soldier and is a representative Southern states 
 man ; but he owns the estate in Massachusetts where his 
 father was born, and where his father s fathers lived 
 through many generations. 
 
 And the Cavaliers, who missed their stirrups, some 
 how, and got into Yankee saddles? The woods were 
 full of them. If Custer was not a Cavalier, Rupert 
 was a Puritan. And Sherwood and Wadsworth and 
 Kearny, and McPherson, and their dashing companions 
 and followers ! The one typical Puritan soldier of the 
 321
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 war mark you I was a Southern, and not a Norther^ 
 soldier : Stonewall Jackson, of the Virginia line. And, 
 if we should care to pursue the subject further back, 
 what about Ethan Allen and John Stark and Mad An 
 thony Wayne, Cavaliers each and every one! Indeed, 
 from Israel Putnam to Buffalo Bill, it seems to me the 
 Puritans have had much the best of it in turning out 
 Cavaliers. So the least said about the Puritan and the 
 Cavalier except as blessed memories or horrid exam 
 ples the better for historic accuracy. 
 
 If you wish to get at the bottom facts, I don t mind 
 telling you in confidence that it was we Scotch-Irish 
 who vanquished both of you some of us in peace 
 others of us in war supplying the missing link 
 of adaptability the needed ingredient of common- 
 sense the conservative principle of creed and ac 
 tion, to which this generation of Americans owes its 
 intellectual and moral emancipation from frivolity and 
 Pharisaism its rescue from the Scarlet Woman and the 
 mailed hand and its crystallization into a national 
 character and polity, ruling by force of brains and not 
 by force of arms. 
 
 Gentlemen Sir I, too, have been to Boston. 
 Strange as the admission may seem, it is true; and I live 
 to tell the tale. I have been to Boston ; and, when I 
 declare that I have found there many things that sug 
 gested the Cavalier and did not suggest the Puritan, I 
 shall not say I was sorry. But, among other things, 
 322
 
 The Puritan and the Cavalier 
 
 I found there a civilization perfect in its union of the 
 art of living with the grace of life; an Americanism 
 ideal in its simple strength. Grady told us, and told 
 us truly, of that typical American, who, in Dr. Tal- 
 mage s mind s eye, was coming, but who, in Abraham 
 Lincoln s actuality, had already come. In some recent 
 studies into the career of that great man, I have encoun 
 tered many startling confirmations of this judgment; 
 and from that rugged trunk, drawing its sustenance 
 from gnarled roots, interlocked with Cavalier sprays 
 and Puritan branches deep beneath the soil, shall spring, 
 is springing, a shapely tree symmetric in all its parts 
 under whose sheltering boughs this nation shall have 
 the new birth of freedom Lincoln promised it, and man 
 kind the refuge which was sought by the forefathers 
 when they fled from oppression. Thank God, the axe, 
 the gibbet, and the stake have had their day. They 
 have gone, let us hope, to keep company with the lost 
 arts. It has been demonstrated that great wrongs may 
 be redressed and great reforms be achieved without the 
 shedding of one drop of human blood ; that vengeance 
 does not purify, but brutalizes; and that tolerance, 
 which in private transactions is reckoned a virtue, be 
 comes in public affairs a dogma of the most far-seeing 
 statesmanship. Else how could this noble city have 
 been redeemed from bondage? It was held like a castle 
 of the Middle Ages by robber barons. Yet have the 
 mounds and dikes of corruption been carried from 
 323
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 buttress to bell-tower the walls of crime have fallen 
 without a shot out of a gun, and still no fires of Smith- 
 field to light the pathway of the victor, no bloody 
 assizes to vindicate the justice of the cause; nor need of 
 any. 
 
 So I appeal from the men in silken hose who danced 
 to music made by slaves and called it freedom from 
 the men in bell-crowned hats, who led Hester Prynne 
 to her shame and called it religion to that American 
 ism which reaches forth its arms to smite wrong with 
 reason and truth, secure in the power of both. I appeal 
 from the patriarchs of New England to the poets of 
 New England; from Endicott to Lowell; from Win- 
 throp to Longfellow; from Norton to Holmes; and I 
 appeal in the name and by the rights of that common 
 citizenship of that common origin back both of the 
 Puritan and the Cavalier to which all of us owe our 
 being. Let the dead past, consecrated by the blood of 
 its martyrs, not by its savage hatreds darkened alike 
 by kingcraft and priestcraft let the dead past bury its 
 dead. Let the present and the future ring with the 
 song of the singers. Blessed be the lessons they teach 
 the laws they make. Blessed be the eye to see, the light 
 to reveal. Blessed be tolerance, sitting ever on the right 
 hand of God to guide the way with loving word, as 
 blessed be all that brings us nearer the goal of true 
 religion, true Republicanism, and true patriotism, dis 
 trust of watchwords and labels, shams and heroes, belief 
 324
 
 The Puritan and the Cavalier 
 
 in our country and ourselves. It was not Cotton Ma 
 ther, but John Greenleaf Whittier, who cried : 
 
 "Dear God and Father of us all, 
 Forgive our faith in cruel lies, 
 Forgive the blindness that denies. 
 
 "Cast down our idols overturn 
 Our bloody altars make us see 
 Thyself in Thy humanity!" 
 
 325
 
 THE REUNITED SECTIONS* 
 
 If the illustrious soldier, whose memory we cele 
 brate, were with us here to-night, his heart would glow 
 with satisfied pride in the answer which time has made 
 to his prayer for peace between the once warring sec 
 tions of the Union, and in the spectacle which the pres 
 ent unfolds of a whole people rallying as a single man 
 beneath the star-flowered flag of the Republic. 
 
 I cannot help thinking that, when the history of our 
 generation comes finally to be made up, it will be re 
 lated that two mistakes of the first order were per 
 petrated by the people of the United States the latter 
 half of the nineteenth century. It was a mistake of 
 the South, for any cause whatever, to precipitate a 
 war of sections, and it was a mistake of the North, 
 after the overthrow of the Confederacy, to undertake 
 a reconstruction of the Union by force of arms. That 
 the country has survived errors of such magnitude is 
 proof of amazing vitality; of a vitality that draws its 
 sustenance from the adaptability and the flexibility of 
 free institutions and from a popular character equal to 
 all emergencies, military and civic. Man proposes and 
 
 * A response to the toast " The Reunited Sections," Grant Birthday 
 Banquet, Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York City, April 27, 1898. 
 
 326
 
 The Reunited Sections 
 
 God disposes, and often we build wiser than we know. 
 Perhaps the very mischances of these forty years of do 
 mestic controversy were needful to make us the nation 
 we are to-day. 
 
 It was General Grant, himself, who issued the order 
 finally withdrawing the troops from the Southern 
 States; and, when we remember that it was none other 
 than Grant who stood between the Confederate sol 
 dier and a surrender that might have been dishonoring 
 to American manhood, the debt we owe our great 
 captain becomes incalculable. 
 
 There is just now, I regret to observe, a disposition 
 manifested in certain quarters to magnify the arts of 
 peace and to belittle the arts of war. Most of us know 
 something about both; and, while I do confess that 
 even this frugal repast and these homely provisions 
 done in Grant s honor and in our edification are 
 preferable to a banquet of hard-tack by a blazing 
 brush-heap upon a Georgia hill-side, I shall not be the 
 man to say that any of us is the worse for knowing 
 from personal experience the actual difference. I have 
 respect for the principle of international adjustment 
 through moral suasion and mutual concession. I have 
 respect for the principle of approved capability and 
 fitness in the matter of appointments to office. But 
 when a gentleman in gold-rimmed specs and a swal 
 low-tailed coat, standing with one foot on Arbitration 
 and the other upon Civil Service Reform, solemnly 
 327
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 assures me that he has discovered perfectibility in gov 
 ernment, I take leave to have my doubts about it. I 
 am grown so pessimistic, indeed, as to think that the 
 one thing that we do not want, the one thing which 
 would certainly disappoint us in case we got it, is the 
 dreamer s idea of the ideal. Ideals, which exist for 
 reformers, lovers, and poets, exist not for men and 
 women. Those whose business it is to deal with life 
 as it is, and who can afford to waste no time on self-de 
 ceptions, address themselves to the real, not to the ideal, 
 and feel that they are fortunate if they come off with 
 whole bones. The rich, red blood of nature, which 
 makes men to act, and to act promptly, in times of dan 
 ger, is good enough for me; and I know nothing in 
 American history more exhilarating than the episode of 
 old Peter Muhlenberg, flinging aside his surplice and 
 appearing in a full Continental uniform, exclaiming: 
 "There is a time for all things a time to preach and 
 a time to pray; but there is also a time to fight, and 
 that time has come!" 
 
 If there was any doubt anywhere about the restora 
 tion of the Union, not merely in fact and in name, but 
 in the spirit to which it owes its birth, the manifesta 
 tions of the last few weeks cannot have failed to dissi 
 pate it. That Spanish gentleman who proposed to sup 
 plement the forces of his country in Cuba by inciting 
 the South to another rebellion must surely have been 
 the Knight of La Mancha come to life again, but quite 
 328
 
 The Reunited Sections 
 
 as bereft of reason as he was in the days of Sancho 
 Panza and the lady of Toboso ; though, in truth, most 
 of those supporting Spain in her ill-starred contention 
 seem to be lineal descendants of the famous Don! 
 Sir, the reunited sections of the Union stand a wall of 
 iron between the Nation s honor and, if need be, all 
 the world ; stand a wall of fire between the stricken 
 Cubans and any further hurt from Spain. We want 
 no other warrant for our act of war than the cruel, 
 the heartless story of the Spaniard in America. From 
 the coming of Cortez and Pizarro to the going of 
 Weyler three centuries of brutality, irradiated only 
 by the pirate s lust for plunder and the tiger s thirst 
 for blood each succeeding Captain-General has 
 seemed to emulate Alva as a rival of Satan by seek 
 ing a second immortality of damnation. Before such 
 an array, historical and contemporary, the true Amer 
 ican neither consults his geography nor counts the 
 cost. His pulse-beats are the same in Massachusetts 
 and in Mississippi, and whether the band plays "Yan 
 kee Doodle" or "Dixie" is all one to him ! Assuming 
 that in ordinary times it takes but a few months and 
 a change of raiment to convert a typical Vermonter 
 into a typical Texan, it has taken but a few weeks to 
 impress upon the reunited sections of the Union the 
 truth that we are the most homogeneous people on the 
 face of the globe; that such differences as exist among 
 us are local and external, and not skin deep, and, along 
 329
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 with this lesson, to reawaken in all hearts Decatur s 
 ringing words: 
 
 "Our country may she be ever in the right but, 
 right or wrong, our country!" 
 
 330
 
 FRANCIS SCOTT KEY* 
 
 The Key Monument Association, to which is due the 
 act of tardy justice whose completion we are here to 
 celebrate, has reason to be proud of the success which 
 has crowned its labor of love. Within something less 
 than four years from the date of its organization, it has 
 reared this beautiful and imposing memorial to the 
 author of "The Star-Spangled Banner." Beneath it lie 
 the mortal remains of Francis Scott Key, and of his 
 wife, Mary Tayloe Key. Hitherto unmarked, except in 
 the humblest way, their final resting-place on earth has 
 been at last separated from among the surrounding mul 
 titude of less-distinguished graves, to be at once an altar 
 and a shrine, known among men, wherever liberty 
 makes her home, and consecrate to all hearts wherein 
 the love of liberty dwells. 
 
 One cannot help thinking it something more than a 
 coincidence that this monument is erected, and that 
 these services are held, at a moment when not alone is 
 
 * Delivered at the dedication of the monument over the grave of the 
 author of "The Star-Spangled Banner," Frederick, Md., Tuesday, August 
 9, 1898. 
 
 331
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 the country engaged in foreign war, but also at a mo 
 ment when the words of Key s immortal anthem ring 
 in the memory and start to the lips of all the people of 
 all the States and sections of the Union. But a little 
 while ago this seemed a thing impossible of realization 
 during the life of the generation of men which is pass 
 ing away. Years of embittered civil strife, with their 
 wounds kept open by years of succeeding political con 
 troversy, were never before thus ended ; nor did ever a 
 people so promptly obey the laws alike of reason, race, 
 and nature, from which, as from some magic fountain, 
 the American Republic sprang. 
 
 Nothing in romance, or in poetry, surpasses the won 
 drous story of this Republic. Why Washington, the 
 Virginia planter, and why Franklin, the Pennsylvania 
 printer? Another might have been chosen to lead the 
 Continental armies: a brilliant and distinguished sol 
 dier; but, as we now know, not only a corrupt adven 
 turer, but a traitor, who preceded Arnold, and who, had 
 he been commander of the forces at Valley Forge, would 
 have betrayed his adopted country for the coronet which 
 Washington despised. In many ways was Franklin an 
 experiment, and, as his familiars might have thought, a 
 dangerous experiment, to be appointed the representa 
 tive of the colonies in London and in Paris, for, as they 
 knew, and as we now know, he was a stalwart, self- 
 indulgent man, apparently little given either to pru 
 dence or to courtliness. What was it that singled out 
 332
 
 Francis Scott Key 
 
 these two men from all others and designated them to be 
 the chiefs of the military and diplomatic establishments 
 set up by the provincial gentlemen whose Declaration 
 of Independence was not merely to establish a new na 
 tion but to create a new world ? It was as clearly the 
 inspiration of the Almighty as, a century later, was the 
 faith of Lincoln in Grant, whom he had never seen and 
 had reason to distrust. It was as clearly the inspiration 
 of the Almighty as that, in every turn of fortune, God 
 has stood by the Republic ; not less in the strange vicissi 
 tudes of the Wars of the Revolution and of 1812, than 
 in those of the war of sections ; in the raising up of Paul 
 Jones and Perry, of Preble and Hull, when, discouraged 
 upon the land, the sea was to send God s people mes 
 sages of victory, and in the striking down of Albert Sid 
 ney Johnston and Stonewall Jackson, when they were 
 sweeping all before them. Inscrutable are the ways of 
 Providence to man. Philosophers may argue as they 
 will, and rationalism may draw its conclusions ; but the 
 mysterious power unexplained by either has, from the 
 beginning of time, ruled the destinies of men. 
 
 Back of these forces of life and thought there is yet 
 another force equally inspired of God and equally essen 
 tial to the exaltation of man, a force without which the 
 world does not move except downward, the force of the 
 imagination which idealizes the deeds of men and trans 
 lates their meaning into words. It may be concluded 
 that Washington at Monmouth and Franklin at Ver- 
 333
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 sallies were not thinking a great deal of what the world 
 was like to say. But there are beings so constituted 
 that they cannot act, they can only think, and these are 
 the Homers who relate in heroic measure, the Shake- 
 speares who sing in strains of heavenly music. Among 
 the progeny of these was Francis Scott Key. 
 
 The son of a Revolutionary soldier, he was born 
 August 9, 1780, not far away from the spot where we 
 are now assembled, and died in Baltimore January n, 
 1843. His life of nearly sixty-three years was an un 
 broken idyl of tranquil happiness; amid congenial 
 scenes; among kindred people; blessed by wedded love 
 and many children, and accompanied by the successful 
 pursuit of the learned profession he had chosen for him 
 self. Goldsmith s sketch of the village preacher may 
 not be inaptly quoted to describe his unambitious and 
 unobtrusive career : 
 
 "Remote from towns he ran his godly race, 
 Nor e er had changed, nor wished to change, his place." 
 
 Yet it was reserved for this constant and modest gen 
 tleman to leave behind him a priceless legacy to his 
 countrymen and to identify his name for all time with 
 his country s flag. 
 
 "The Star-Spangled Banner" owed very little to 
 chance. It was the emanation of a patriotic fervor as 
 sincere and natural as it was simple and noble. It 
 334
 
 Francis Scott Key 
 
 sprang from one of those glorious inspirations which, 
 coming to an author unbidden, seizes at once upon the 
 hearts and minds of men. The occasion seemed to have 
 been created for the very purpose. The man and the 
 hour were met, and the song came; and truly was song 
 never yet born amid such scenes. We explore the pages 
 of folk-lore, we read the story of popular music, in vain, 
 to find the like. Even the authorship of the English 
 national anthem is in dispute. The "Marseillaise" did, 
 indeed, owe its being to the passions of war, and burst 
 forth in profuse strains of melody above the clang of 
 arms ; but it was attended by those theatrical accessories 
 which preside over and minister to Latin emotion, and 
 seem indispensable to its developments, and it is believed 
 to have derived as much of its enthusiasm from the 
 wine-cup as from the drum-beat. Key s song was the 
 very child of battle. It was rocked by cannon in the 
 cradle of the deep. Its swaddling clothes were the 
 Stars and Stripes its birth proclaimed. Its coming was 
 heralded by shot and shell, and, from its baptism of 
 fire, a nation of freemen clasped it to its bosom. It 
 was to be thenceforth and forever freedom s Gloria 
 in Excelsis. 
 
 The circumstances which ushered it into the world, 
 hardly less than the words of the poem, are full of 
 patriotic exhilaration. It was during the darkest days 
 of our second war of independence. An English army 
 had invaded and occupied the seat of the National Gov- 
 335
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 ernment and had burned the Capitol of the nation. An 
 English squadron was in undisputed possession of the 
 Chesapeake Bay. There being nothing of interest or 
 value left within the vicinity of Washington to detain 
 them, the British were massing their land and naval 
 forces for other conquests, and, as their ships sailed 
 down the Potomac, Dr. William Beanes, a prominent 
 citizen of Maryland, who had been arrested at his home 
 in Upper Marlboro, charged with some offence, real or 
 fancied, was carried off a prisoner. 
 
 It was to secure the liberation of this gentleman, his 
 neighbor and friend, that Francis Scott Key obtained 
 leave of the President to go to the British Admiral un 
 der a flag of truce. He was conveyed by the cartel-boat 
 used for the exchange of prisoners and accompanied by 
 the flag officer of the Government. They proceeded 
 down the bay from Baltimore and found the British 
 fleet at the mouth of the Potomac. 
 
 Mr. Key was courteously received by Admiral Coch- 
 rane; but he was not encouraged as to the success of his 
 mission until letters from the English officers wounded 
 at Blandensburg and left in the care of the Americans 
 were delivered to the friends on the fleet to whom they 
 had been written. These bore such testimony to the 
 kindness with which they had been treated that it was 
 finally agreed that Dr. Beanes should be released ; but, 
 as an advance upon Baltimore was about to be made, it 
 was required that the party of Americans should remain 
 336
 
 Francis Scott Key 
 
 under guard on board their own vessel until these oper 
 ations were concluded. Thus it was that, the night of 
 September 14, 1814, Key witnessed the bombardment of 
 Fort McHenry, which his song was to render illus 
 trious. 
 
 He did not quit the deck the long night through. 
 With his single companion, the flag officer, he watched 
 every shell from the moment it was fired until it fell, 
 "listening with breathless interest to hear if an explo 
 sion followed." While the cannonading continued 
 they needed no further assurance that their countrymen 
 had not capitulated. "But," I quote the words of Chief 
 Justice Taney, repeating the account given him by Key 
 immediately after, "it suddenly ceased some time before 
 day ; and, as they had no communication with any of the 
 enemy s ships, they did not know whether the fort had 
 surrendered, or the attack upon it had been abandoned. 
 They paced the deck the residue of the night in painful 
 suspense, watching with intense anxiety for the return 
 of day, and looking every few minutes at their watches 
 to see how long they must wait for it ; and, as soon as it 
 dawned and before it was light enough to see objects at 
 a distance, their glasses were turned to the fort, uncer 
 tain whether they should see there the Stars and Stripes 
 or the flag of the enemy." Blessed vigil! that its 
 prayers were not in vain ; glorious vigil ! that it gave us 
 "The Star-Spangled Banner" ! 
 
 During the night the conception of the poem began to 
 337
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 form itself in Key s mind. With the early glow of the 
 morning, when the long agony of suspense had been 
 turned into the rapture of exultation, his feeling found 
 expression in completed lines of verse, which he wrote 
 upon the back of a letter he happened to have in his pos 
 session. He finished the piece on the boat that carried 
 him ashore and wrote out a clear copy that same evening 
 at his hotel in Baltimore. Next day he read this to his 
 friend and kinsman, Judge Nicholson, who was so 
 pleased with it that he carried it to the office of the Bal 
 timore American, where it was put in type by a young 
 apprentice, Samuel Sands by name, and thence issued as 
 a broadside. Within an hour after it was circulating 
 all over the city, hailed with delight by the excited peo 
 ple. Published in the succeeding issue of the American, 
 and elsewhere reprinted, it went straight to the popular 
 heart. It was quickly seized for musical adaptation. 
 First sung in a tavern adjoining the Holliday Street 
 Theatre in Baltimore, by Charles Durang, an actor, 
 whose brother, Ferdinand Durang, had set it to an old 
 air, its production on the stage of that theatre was the 
 occasion of spontaneous and unbounded enthusiasm. 
 Wherever it was heard its effect was electrical, and 
 thenceforward it was universally accepted as the na 
 tional anthem. 
 
 The poem tells its own story, and never a truer, for 
 every word comes direct from a great heroic soul, pow 
 der-stained and dipped, as it were, in sacred blood. 
 338
 
 Francis Scott Key 
 
 "O, say, can you see by the dawn s early light 
 
 What so proudly we hailed at the twilight s last 
 
 gleaming, 
 
 Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the per 
 ilous fight, 
 
 O er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly 
 streaming!" 
 
 The two that walked the deck of the cartel-boat had 
 waited long. They had counted the hours as they 
 watched the course of the battle. But a deeper anxiety 
 yet is to possess them. The firing has ceased. Ominous 
 silence! While cannon roared they knew that the fort 
 held out. While the sky was lit by messengers of death 
 they could see the national colors flying above it. 
 
 "the rockets red glare and bombs bursting in air 
 Gave proof through the night that our flag was still 
 there." 
 
 But there comes an end at last to waiting and watch 
 ing; and as the first rays of the sun shoot above the 
 horizon and gild the eastern shore, behold the sight that 
 gladdens their eyes as it 
 
 "catches the gleam of the morning s first beam, 
 In full glory reflected now shines in the stream," 
 
 for there, over the battlements of McHenry, the Stars 
 and Stripes float defiant on the breeze, while all around 
 evidences multiply that the attack has failed, that the 
 Americans have successfully resisted it, and that the 
 339
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 British are withdrawing their forces. For then, and 
 for now, and for all time, come the words of the an 
 them 
 
 "Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand 
 Between their loved homes and the war s desola 
 tion! 
 Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued 
 
 land 
 
 Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a 
 nation !" 
 
 for 
 
 "conquer we must, when our cause it is just, 
 
 And this be our motto, In God is our trust ; 
 
 And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave 
 
 O er the land of the free and the home of the brave!" 
 
 The Star-Spangled Banner ! Was ever flag so beau 
 tiful, did ever flag so fill the souls of men ? The love of 
 woman; the sense of duty; the thirst for glory; the 
 heart-throbbing that impels the humblest American to 
 stand by his colors fearless in the defence of his native 
 soil and holding it sweet to die for it the yearning 
 which draws him to it when exiled from it its free 
 institutions and its blessed memories, all are embodied 
 and symbolized by the broad stripes and bright stars of 
 the nation s emblem, all live again in the lines and tones 
 of Key s anthem. Two or three began the song, mill 
 ions join the chorus. They are singing it in Porto 
 Rican trenches and on the ramparts of Santiago, and its 
 340
 
 Francis Scott Key 
 
 echoes, borne upon the wings of morning, come rolling 
 back from far-away Manila; the soldier s message to 
 the soldier ; the hero s shibboleth in battle ; the patriot s 
 solace in death ! Even to the lazy sons of peace who lag 
 at home the pleasure-seekers whose merry-making 
 turns the night to day those stirring strains come as a 
 sudden trumpet-call, and, above the sounds of revelry, 
 subjugate for the moment to a stronger power, rises 
 wave upon wave of melodious resonance, the idler s aim 
 less but heartfelt tribute to his country and his country s 
 flag. 
 
 Since "The Star-Spangled Banner" was written 
 nearly a century has come and gone. The drums and 
 tramplings of more than half its years have passed over 
 the grave of Francis Scott Key. Here at last he rests 
 forever. Here at last his tomb is fitly made. When his 
 eyes closed upon the scenes of this life their last gaze 
 beheld the ensign of the Republic "full-high advanced, 
 its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, 
 not a stripe erased or polluted nor a single star ob 
 scured." If happily they were spared the spectacle of a 
 severed Union, and "a land rent by civil feud and 
 drenched in fraternal blood," it may be that somewhere 
 beyond the stars his gentle spirit now looks down upon a 
 nation awakened from its sleep of death and restored to 
 its greater and its better self, and known and honored, 
 as never before throughout the world. While Key 
 lived there was but a single paramount issue, about
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 which all other issues circled, the Constitution and the 
 Union. The problems of the Constitution and the 
 Union solved, the past secure, turn we to the future ; no 
 longer a huddle of petty sovereignties, held together by 
 a rope of sand, no longer a body of mercenary shopkeep 
 ers worshipping rather the brand upon the dollar than 
 the eagle on the shield ; no longer a brood of provincial 
 laggards, hanging with bated breath upon the move 
 ments of mankind, afraid to trust themselves away from 
 home, or to put their principles to the test of progress 
 and of arms; but a nation, and a leader of nations; a 
 world-power which durst face imperialism upon its own 
 ground with Republicanism, and with it dispute the 
 future of civilization. It is the will of God; let not 
 man gainsay. Let not man gainsay until the word of 
 God has been carried to the furthermost ends of the 
 earth; not until freedom is the heritage of all His 
 creatures; not until the blessings which He has given 
 us are shared by His people in all lands; not until Latin 
 licentiousness fostered by modern wealth and culture 
 and art, has been expiated by fire, and Latin corruption 
 and cruelty have disappeared from the government of 
 men ; not until that sober-suited Anglo-Saxonism, which 
 born at Runnymede, was to end neither at Yorktown 
 nor at Appomattox, has made, at one and the same time, 
 another map of Christendom and a new race of Chris 
 tians and yeomen, equally soldiers of the sword and of 
 the cross, even in Africa and in Asia, as we have made 
 342
 
 Francis Scott Key 
 
 them here in America. Thus, and thus alone, and 
 wherever the winds of Heaven blow, shall fly the spirit 
 if not the actuality of the blessed symbol we have come 
 here this day to glorify; ashamed of nothing that God 
 has sent, ready for everything that God may send ! It 
 was not a singer of the fireside, but a hearthless wan 
 derer, who put in all hearts the Anglo-Saxon s simple 
 "Home, Sweet Home." It was a poet, not a warrior, 
 who gave to our Union the Anglo-American s homage 
 to his flag. Even as the Prince of Peace who came to 
 bring eternal life was the Son of God, were these His 
 ministering angels; and, as each of us, upon his knees, 
 sends up a prayer to Heaven for "Home, Sweet Home," 
 may he also murmur, and teach his children to lisp, the 
 sublime refrain of Key s immortal anthem 
 
 "And the star-spangled banner, oh, long may it wave 
 O er the land of the free and the home of the brave!" 
 
 343
 
 "GOD S PROMISE REDEEMED"* 
 
 The duty which draws us together, and the day al 
 though appointed by law come to us laden by a deeper 
 meaning than they have ever borne before ; and the place 
 which witnesses our coming invests the occasion with 
 increased solemnity and significance. Within the pre 
 cincts of this dread but beautiful city consecrate in all 
 our hearts and homes for here lie our loved ones two 
 plots of ground, with but a hillock between, have been 
 set aside to mark the resting-place of the dead of two 
 armies that in life were called hostile, the Army of the 
 Union, the Army of the Confederacy. We come to 
 decorate the graves of those who died fighting for the 
 Union. Presently others shall come to decorate the 
 graves of those who died fighting for the Confederacy. 
 Yet, if these flower-covered mounds could open and the 
 brave men who inhabit them could rise, not as disem 
 bodied spirits, but in the sentient flesh and blood which 
 they wore when they went hence, they would rejoice as 
 we do that the hopes of both have been at last fulfilled, 
 and that the Confederacy, swallowed up by the Union, 
 
 * Address delivered in the Union Division of Cave Hill Cemetery, 
 Louisville, Decoration Day, May 30, 1899. 
 
 344
 
 God s Promise Redeemed 
 
 lives again in American manhood and brotherhood, such 
 as were contemplated by the makers of the Republic. 
 
 To those of us who were the comrades and contem 
 poraries of the dead that are buried here, who survived 
 the ordeal of battle, and who live to bless the day, there 
 is nothing either strange or unnatural in this, because 
 we have seen it coming for a long time ; we have seen it 
 coming in the kinship of ties even as close as those of a 
 common country ; in the robust intercourse of the forum 
 and the market-place ; in the sacred interchanges of the 
 domestic affections; but, above all, in the prattle of 
 children who cannot distinguish between the grand 
 father who wore the blue and the grandfather who wore 
 the gray. 
 
 It is required of no man whichever flag he served 
 under that he make any renunciation shameful to him 
 self, and therefore dishonoring to these grandchildren, 
 and each may safely leave to history the casting of the 
 balance between antagonistic schools of thought and op 
 posing camps in action, where the essentials of fidelity 
 and courage were so amply met. Nor is it the part of 
 wisdom to regret a tale that is told. The issues that 
 evoked the strife of sections are dead issues. The con 
 flict, which was thought to be irreconcilable and was 
 certainly inevitable, ended more than thirty years ago. 
 It was fought to its bloody conclusion by fearless and 
 honest men. To some the result was logical to others 
 it was disappointing to all it was final. As no man 
 345
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 disputes it, let no man deplore it. Let us the rather be 
 lieve that it was needful to make us a nation. Let us 
 rather look upon it as into a mirror, seeing not the deso 
 lation of the past, but the radiance of the future; and 
 in the heroes of the New North and the New South 
 who contested in generous rivalry up the fire-swept 
 steep of El Caney, and side by side re-emblazoned the 
 national character in the waters about Corregidor Isl 
 and and under the walls of Cavite, let us behold host 
 ages for the old North and the old South blent together 
 in a Union that knows neither point of the compass and 
 has flung its geography into the sea. 
 
 Great as were the issues we have put behind us for 
 ever, yet greater issues still rise dimly upon the view. 
 
 Who shall fathom them ? Who shall forecast them ? 
 I seek not to lift the veil on what may lie beyond. It 
 is enough for me to know that I have a country and that 
 my country leads the world. I have lived to look upon 
 its dismembered fragments whole again; to see it, like 
 the fabled bird of wondrous plumage upon the Arabian 
 desert, slowly shape itself above the flames and ashes of 
 a conflagration that threatened to devour it; I have 
 watched it gradually unfold its magnificent proportions 
 through alternating tracks of light and shade; I have 
 stood in awe-struck wonder and fear lest the glorious 
 fabric should fade into darkness and prove but the in 
 substantial pageant of a vision; when, lo, out of the 
 misty depths of the far-away Pacific came the booming 
 346
 
 God s Promise Redeemed 
 
 of Dewey s guns, quickly followed by the answering 
 voice of the guns of Sampson and Shafter and Schley, 
 and I said : "It is not a dream. It is God s promise re 
 deemed. With the night of sectional confusion that is 
 gone, civil strife has passed from the scene, and, in the 
 light of the perfect day that is come, the nation finds, 
 as the first-fruit of its new birth of freedom, another 
 birth of greatness and power and renown." 
 
 Fully realizing the responsibilities of this, and the 
 duties that belong to it, I, for one, accept it, and all that 
 it brings with it and implies, thankful that I, too, am an 
 American. Wheresoever its star may lead, I shall fol 
 low; nothing loath, or doubting; though it guide the 
 nation s footsteps to the furthermost ends of the earth. 
 Believing that in the creation and the preservation of 
 the American Union the hand of the Almighty has ap 
 peared from first to last ; that His will begat it, and that 
 His word has prevailed ; that in the War of the Revolu 
 tion and in the Civil War the incidents and accidents 
 of battle left no doubt where Providence inclined ; if the 
 star that now shines over us, at once a signet of God s 
 plan and purpose and a Heaven-sent courier of civiliza 
 tion and religion, shall fix itself above the steppes of 
 Asia and the sands of Africa, it shall but confirm me in 
 my faith that "the judgments of the Lord are true and 
 righteous altogether." 
 
 347
 
 THE MAN IN GRAY* 
 
 There are two things which we alternate in stigma 
 tizing and cultivating, which we habitually condemn in 
 our speech and display in our actions. Briefly stated, 
 they are sectionalism and partyism. Considering the 
 roles they have played in our affairs, they might be mis 
 taken for attributes of the genius and policy of a free 
 people occupying a territory of considerable extent. 
 They cast their shadow over the American Revolution. 
 They obstructed the making of the Constitution. They 
 plunged the North and the South into a long and bloody 
 war. Neither are they limited to the points of the 
 compass, nor confined to political organism ; for we 
 feel the force of geographic lines in the subdivision of 
 States and cities, and we encounter party spirit even in 
 our churches and charities. They seem inherent to 
 our nature, inseparable from our condition. Instead of 
 seeking to uproot them, we should the rather strive to 
 moderate their excess and to bring them within the 
 bounds of reason; remembering that the bed-rock of 
 
 *A response to the toast "Our Coming Guest the Man in Gray," 
 annual banquet of the First Christian Church in Louisville, January 22, 
 1901. 
 
 348
 
 The Man in Gray 
 
 worldly wisdom lies at the bottom of the well of good- 
 sense and good-feeling, whence the best men and women 
 are supplied with passion-quenching draughts for the 
 better conduct of life. Save for this, we should be little 
 better than beasts of prey. 
 
 There was a time when the neighbor and friend who 
 has just taken his seat, and who has spoken so eloquently 
 of a flag which we both adore there was a time when 
 he looked askance upon a gray coat as I upon a blue one 
 and it may be that there are matters about which we 
 agree no nearer now than we did then ; but I can truly 
 say to him, and to you, that there has never been a time, 
 when, the combat ended, I could not take my brother by 
 the hand ; if wounded, to lift him to his feet ; if victor 
 in case he held it out to me still to take it, thankful 
 for the grace that offered it. 
 
 I am asked to say something about "our coming guest 
 the man in gray." There is not so many of him now 
 as there was ; but, few or many, he shall find such wel 
 come, when he gets here, as the waves found when 
 navies were stranded. He is not as young as he was; 
 and therefore we shall not wait for him to discover the 
 latch-string that hangs outside the door, but shall set 
 picket-lines of greeting and acclaim even from the re 
 doubts of the Reservoir to the oven-pits of Fountain 
 Ferry so that none may escape and, if need be, we 
 may send forth reconnoitring parties to scour the woods 
 and to bring him into camp. 
 349
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 I stand here to-night, with a blue coat, as it were, 
 upon my back, the Stars and Stripes in my hand, and in 
 my heart the most abiding love of the Union and all 
 that it embraces and implies, to vindicate the Confed 
 eracy ; to maintain and defend the reason of its being ; 
 and to show that, under God and through it, the Re 
 public has reached its full stature as a nation, and, along 
 with it, its promised new birth of freedom. 
 
 I shall begin by saying that, with a gray coat actually 
 upon my back, I did not believe either in the gospel of 
 slavery or in the doctrine of secession. In common 
 with hundreds of thousands of Southern men, I clung 
 to the Union until the last hope of a peaceful solution 
 of the issues in dispute was gone. The debate over, 
 war at hand, I went with my own people, the people 
 from whom I was sprung and with whom I had been 
 reared, the people of Tennessee. Strong as had been 
 the Union sentiment, sectional sentiment was stronger 
 still. We did not stop to inquire whether, as to the 
 political questions involved, we were either consistent 
 or justified. I think, after nearly forty years of inter 
 vening reflection and observation, and some additional 
 research, that, if we had wanted justification, we might 
 have found it in a long line of what I now regard as a 
 most plausible, if not a very attractive argument in 
 favor of the right of a State to withdraw at its own will 
 from the Union, beginning with Josiah Quincy, and his 
 associates, in New England, and ending with Jefferson 
 350
 
 The Man in Gray 
 
 Davis, and his associates, in the Gulf States of the 
 South. The framers of the Constitution found them 
 selves unable clearly to determine this point. So they 
 left it open. After fifty years of contention compli 
 cated by the irrepressible question of slavery carried to 
 the ultimate of the irreconcilable the well-intentioned 
 omission of the fathers to fix the exact relation of the 
 States to the Federal Government precipitated the two 
 sections of the Union into war; and out of this war 
 although we did not see it at the time we emerged 
 more homogeneous as a people and better equipped as a 
 nation than we had ever been before. 
 
 We of the South at least builded wiser than we 
 knew ; and, if the nation s might and glory to-day be not 
 in some sort a vindication of the Confederacy without 
 which they could hardly have come to their fruition 
 what shall we say about the providence of God? In 
 truth, He doeth all things well. Two hundred and 
 fifty years ago there arrived at the front of affairs in 
 England one Cromwell. In the midst of monarchy he 
 made a republic. It had no progenitor. It left no 
 heirs-at-law. It was succeeded, as it had been preceded, 
 by a line of monarchs. But from the commonwealth of 
 Cromwell date the confirmation and the consolidation 
 of the principles of liberty wrung by the barons from 
 their unwilling King. From the commonwealth of 
 Cromwell date the grandeur and the power of the Eng 
 lish fabric, the enlightened and progressive conservatism 
 351
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 of the English constitution, the sturdy independence of 
 the English people. Why such cost of blood and treas 
 ure for an interval of freedom so equivocal and brief 
 puzzled the wisest men ; remained for ages a mystery ; 
 though it is plain enough now and was long ago con 
 ceded; so that at last dire rebel though he was the 
 name of Cromwell, held in execration through two cen 
 turies, has a place in the history of the English-speaking 
 race along with the names of William the Conqueror 
 and Richard of the Lion Heart. 
 
 That which it took England two centuries to realize 
 we in America have demonstrated within a single gen 
 eration. When Worth Bagley gave up that fair young 
 life for his country at Cardenas, and Hobson, taking 
 death-orders from Sampson, plunged headlong into the 
 mouth of hell at Santiago; when, peril waiting on every 
 footstep, Victor Blue traversed the wilds of Puerto 
 Rico, and Brumby, intrepid as his great commander, 
 stood upon the bridge with Dewey at Manila, then and 
 there God gave the world a reason why the South was 
 not wholly blighted; pouring a flood of light upon 
 the genius of Lee and Jackson, of Johnston and of 
 Beauregard, and upon the courage and endurance 
 of the men who followed them. I seek to penetrate 
 no further. 
 
 To me, the politics of the Confederacy reads like a 
 myth of the Middle Ages. Secession is gone. Slavery 
 is gone. That which remains to us is the memory of 
 352
 
 The Man in Gray 
 
 its self-sacrificing heroism; its splendid valor; its glori 
 ous examples of the manhood and womanhood of our 
 race ; a heritage no less to the North than to the South ; 
 the common property of all the people of the American 
 Union. 
 
 He will come, this man in gray, a little bent by years, 
 it may be, but erect in the consciousness of his own in 
 tegrity. He will come, on crutches it may be, but ask 
 ing nothing except the recognition of the rectitude of 
 his intentions and the disinterestedness of his service. 
 The drum-beat to arms the bugle-call to battle are 
 but echoes of a past that lies behind him ; shared equally 
 with him by those who fought against him ; to live again 
 in their children and their children s children forever 
 united beneath the flag of their country. We have had 
 the supreme felicity of entertaining here the Grand 
 Army of the Republic. We shall not soon forget the 
 outpouring of enthusiasm upon that memorable and joy 
 ous occasion. The coming of the man in gray will be 
 no less memorable and no less joyous; for it will bring 
 with it the same outpouring of popular and patriotic 
 sentiment; the same profuse display of bunting, the 
 bonny blue flag entwined in the folds of the red, white, 
 and blue; the same delightful din of martial and na 
 tional music, the strains of "Dixie" and "Marching 
 Through Georgia," making counterpoints upon the 
 pealing anthem of "The Star-Spangled Banner," and 
 blazing in all hearts and over every threshold those 
 353
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 stirring words dear equally to Southern and to North 
 ern men : 
 
 "The Union of lakes, the Union of lands, 
 The Union of States none can sever; 
 The Union of hearts, the Union of hands, 
 And the flag of our Union forever!" 
 
 With those strains ringing in my ear, I am ready to 
 go to my account. There was a time when I lay awake 
 and paced the floor in a kind of anguish ; when, amid 
 sectional rancor and party rage, it seemed that judgment 
 and patriotism had fled to brutish beasts and men had 
 lost their reason ; when personal liberty hung in the bal 
 ance, and, amid the storm-clouds upon the Southern 
 horizon there loomed another Poland, there lowered an 
 other Ireland, preparing to repeat upon the soil of the 
 New World the mistakes of the old, and actually to rob 
 us of the Heaven-sent institutes of freedom. The hand 
 of the South was in the lion s mouth, and my one hope, 
 my only politics, was to placate the lion. I have lived 
 to see the lion lie down with the lamb, and I ask no 
 more ; I would go no further. Younger men may lose 
 their sleep and pace the floor ; for now, as ever, eternal 
 vigilance is the price of good government; but me, I 
 tweak no beak among them. Secure of the past, I have 
 no fear of the future. We move upon the ascending, 
 not the descending, scale of national development. The 
 torch-bearer of religion, the sword-and-buckler of free- 
 354
 
 The Man in Gray 
 
 dom, we are the avatar of the civilization of the modern 
 world ; and we go to all lands, while the stars in their 
 courses fight for us, and God upon His everlasting 
 throne directs the battle and the march ! 
 
 355
 
 "HEROES IN HOMESPUN"* 
 
 Travelling from out the twilight of the past into 
 the radiance of the present, and tracing as we go the 
 history of the country along the glorious but rugged 
 route of battle-fields by the glare of fagot-flame and 
 rifle-flash, it seems ages since Tippecanoe; since Har 
 rison and his hunting-shirts met and vanquished the 
 hordes of the two Tecumsehs; yet are there men still 
 living, and here to-day, who, if they were not con 
 temporary with the event and its valiants, can distinctly 
 recall the spirit of those times; the aspects, the very 
 familiar features, of those valiants; the atmosphere, 
 the form, and body of an epoch, when, from Faneuil 
 Hall in Boston, from Raleigh Tavern in Virginia, to 
 Fort Wayne and old Vincennes upon the confines of 
 this borderland, the redskin and the redcoat alike 
 stirred to its depths the heart of the young Republic. 
 
 There were giants in those days ; and there was need 
 that there should be. No vestibuled trains, nor pal 
 ace coaches waited to fetch them hither; no noisy pro 
 cession, with banners waving and brass bands playing, 
 marched forth to honor their arrival. They jour- 
 
 * Address in commemoration of Harrison and his men, Tippecanoe 
 battle-field, Sunday, June 15, 1902. 
 
 356
 
 Heroes in Homespun 
 
 neyed for the most part afoot. They picked their way 
 through trackless canebrake and wooded waste, across 
 swift-running, bridgeless streams, their flint-locks their 
 commissariat. They had quitted what they regarded 
 as the overcrowded centres of the populous East to 
 seek the lonely but roomier wilds of the far West, 
 keenly alive to the idea of bettering their condition, 
 having a fine sense of pure air and arable land it may 
 be for town sites ; but their hearts beat true to the prin 
 ciples of civil and religious liberty, and they brought 
 with them two accoutrements of priceless value; the 
 new-made Constitution of their country and the well- 
 worn family Bible; for they were God-fearing, Chris 
 tian soldiers; heroes in homespun as chivalric and un- 
 doubting as mailed Knights of the Cross; hating with 
 holy hate the Indians and the British; revering the 
 memory of the patriots and sages who had made the 
 Declaration of Independence, warm with the blood of 
 the Revolution, the echoes of Lexington and Bunker 
 Hill, of King s Mountain and Yorktown still ringing 
 in their ears. 
 
 I dare say their descendants are equally capable of 
 sacrifices. But it is not of ourselves that we are here 
 to speak. It is to commemorate the slain who lie here 
 and hereabout ; to keep their deeds and their worth for 
 long aye green; to confess the debt we owe them; to 
 garland their graves. If, in paying this homage from 
 the living to the dead, we rekindle within us the spirit 
 357
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 of the dead, we shall with each annual recurrence of 
 the day the surer approve our coming and grow bet 
 ter as we come. 
 
 Our lot has been cast in easier times, has been laid 
 on broader, larger lines. We live in an age of mira 
 cles. We gather the fruit of the tree which these, our 
 forefathers, planted. From the ashes of their camp- 
 fires rise the school-house and the court-house. The 
 church marks the spot where the block-house stood. 
 The war-whoop of the savage is succeeded by the 
 neigh of the iron-horse, the gleam of the tomahawk by 
 the flare of the electric lamp. Danger of the kind 
 that was their daily, hourly companion is to us un 
 known. Privation such as they sustained assails not 
 honest toil, however humble. Wealth and luxury 
 wait attendant upon thrift and skill. Primogeniture 
 no longer cheats merit of its due. Entail no longer 
 usurps the present and puts its mortgage on the fut 
 ure. Opportunity and peace and order and law are 
 the portion of the poorest. Struck by the wizard hand 
 of Progress, the sleeping beauty, Solitude, has awak 
 ened a Metropolis; touched by the finger of modern 
 invention, the prairie and the forest, as by enchant 
 ment, have revealed their secrets and poured their 
 riches into the lap of labor. Upon the loose cobble 
 stones of what was but a huddle of small provinces, 
 each claiming for itself a squalid sovereignty and held 
 together by a rope of sand, rises proudly, grandly, se- 
 358
 
 Heroes in Homespun 
 
 curely a Nation built upon the firm foundations of 
 an indissoluble compact of States, cemented forever by 
 the blood of a patriotic, brave, homogeneous people. 
 The bucolic Republic of Washington and Franklin, 
 the sylvan idyl of Jefferson the Government which 
 equally at home and abroad had from the first to fight 
 for its existence is a world power; and to the pres 
 ent generation of Americans these things have come 
 without any effort of their own ; as a rich inheritance, 
 which for good, or for evil, they are but beginning to 
 administer and enjoy. I pray them well to weigh its 
 responsibilities; deeply to ponder the changes wrought 
 by a century of acquisition and development; prayer 
 fully to consider the exceptional conditions and the 
 peculiar perils of the present as these distinguish the 
 present from the past; bearing in mind the truth that 
 now, as ever, eternal vigilance is the price, not alone 
 of liberty, but of all the better ends of life. 
 
 Ours is a Government resting on public opinion. 
 Each man is his own master. He can blame nobody 
 but himself if he goes astray. Has not the telegraph 
 annihilated time and space? Does not the daily news 
 paper bring him each day the completed history of yes 
 terday? Is he not able to read, to mark, and inwardly 
 to digest the signs of the times? With these helps, 
 why should he not be able to reach intelligent and just 
 conclusions ? 
 
 It is largely, that all men do not think alike. The 
 359
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 same fact will receive different interpretations from 
 differing minds. There are conflicts of statement. 
 Even the press is not infallible. We group ourselves 
 in parties; and, as with our watches, each believes his 
 own. Thus the ship of state is blown hither and yon 
 by the trade-winds of public opinion. Yet, somehow, 
 it has sailed triumphant; the struggle for freedom; the 
 struggle for union ; the foreign war ; the domestic war ; 
 the disputed succession, these it has survived; until, at 
 last, it has to face the most serious peril of all in that 
 excess of grandeur and power which crowns a century 
 of marvellous achievement. 
 
 We have become a nation of merchant princes. 
 Money is so abundant that men are giving it away in 
 sums of startling magnitude. It seems so easy to get 
 that men are on system putting it in the way of a kind 
 of redistribution back to the sources whence it origi 
 nally came. Shall we see the day when it will no 
 longer corrupt? If familiarity breeds contempt, we 
 surely shall. The earth s surface appears to be but an 
 incrustation over one vast mine of gold and silver and 
 precious stones. Life is a lottery, with more prizes 
 than blanks. But, in a land where there are no titles 
 or patents of nobility, money is bound to serve as the 
 standard of measurement; and, precisely as Constitu 
 tional Government, political and religious freedom, 
 were uppermost in the minds and hearts of the pio 
 neers who sleep here, is the acquisition of wealth up- 
 360
 
 Heroes in Homespun 
 
 permost in the minds and hearts of their sons and 
 grandsons. In other words, as I have elsewhere put 
 it, the idiosyncrasy of the nineteenth century was Lib 
 erty; the idiosyncrasy of the twentieth century is 
 Markets. The problem before us, therefore, involves 
 the adjustment of these two; the reconciliation of cap 
 ital and labor, of morality and dollars, the concurrent 
 expansion of the principles of the Constitution and the 
 requirements of commerce. It is of good augury that 
 both our two great parties claim the same objective 
 point; and, as I do not doubt that we are on the as 
 cending, not the descending scale of national develop 
 ment, with centuries of greatness and glory before us, 
 I shall continue, as is my duty, to discuss my own par 
 ticular horn of the dilemma, sure that in the end truth 
 will be vindicated and the flag of our country exalted. 
 To these ends, whatever our political belongings 
 and affiliations, let each of us here to-day resolve faith 
 fully to address himself. Party spirit, held within the 
 bounds of reason, restrained by good sense and good 
 feeling, is an excellent thing. It is of the essence of 
 our Republican being. I can truly say that I have 
 never loved any man less because he did not agree with 
 me; and, though I chide him for his perversity, I re 
 spect his right. The bed-rock of civil and religious 
 liberty is the law; the bell-tower of freedom is toler 
 ance. The mute inhabitants of these swelling mounds, 
 could they speak, would tell us that it were little worth
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 the toil and travail endured by them when, amid these 
 greenwood shades, they sought and found emancipa 
 tion from ages of feudal wrong, if, overflowing with 
 prosperity, bustling with pride, we should forget the 
 lesson and dissipate the heritage; repeating, under the 
 pretentious nomenclature of Democracy, the dismal 
 story of Greece and Rome. It can never be. We live 
 in the twentieth, not in the first of the centuries. 
 Though human nature be ever the same, the tale is 
 told by human environment, by mortal conditions, and 
 we shall the rather go forward than backward; the 
 Constitution in one hand, the Bible in the other hand, 
 the flag overhead, carrying to all lands and all peoples 
 the message alike of Civilization and Religion, the Ark 
 and the Covenant of American freedom along with 
 the word of God ! 
 
 The hunters of Kentucky, the pioneers of Indiana, 
 united as brothers in the bonds of liberty, fought the 
 battle of Tippecanoe. It was not a great battle as bat 
 tles go, but it proved mighty in its consequences: the 
 winning and the peopling of the West; the ultimate 
 rescue of the Union from dissolution; the blazing of 
 the way to the Pacific. They were simple, hardy men. 
 They set us good examples. They loved their country, 
 and were loyal to its institutions. They were comrades 
 in hearts and comrades in arms. Be it ours to bless 
 and preserve their memory and to perpetuate their 
 brotherhood ! 
 
 362
 
 THE HAMPTON ROADS CONFERENCE* 
 
 Jefferson Davis, than whom there never lived, in 
 this or in any land, a nobler gentleman and a knight- 
 lier soldier Jefferson Davis, who, whatever may be 
 thought of his opinions and actions, said always what 
 he meant and meant always what he said Jefferson 
 Davis declared that next after the surrender at Ap- 
 pomattox, the murder of Abraham Lincoln made the 
 darkest day in the calendar for the South and the 
 people of the South. Why? Because Mr. Davis had 
 come to a knowledge of the magnanimity of Mr. Lin 
 coln s heart and the generosity of his intentions. 
 
 If Lincoln had lived there would have been no 
 Era of Reconstruction, with its repressive agencies and 
 oppressive legislation. If Lincoln had lived there 
 would have been wanting to the extremism of the time 
 the bloody cue of his taking off to mount the steeds 
 and spur the flanks of vengeance. For Lincoln enter 
 tained, with respect to the rehabilitation of the Union, 
 the single wish that the Southern States to use his 
 
 * A response to the toast " To the Memory of Abraham Lincoln," 
 annual banquet of the Confederate Veteran Camp of the City of New 
 York, Waldorf-Astoria, January 26, 1903. 
 
 363
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 homely phraseology "should come back home and be 
 have themselves," and, if he had lived, he would have 
 made this wish effectual, as he made everything effect 
 ual to which he seriously addressed himself. 
 
 His was the genius of common sense. Of perfect 
 intellectual aplomb, he sprang from a Virginia pedi 
 gree and was born in Kentucky. He knew all about 
 the South, its institutions, its traditions, and its pe 
 culiarities. He was an old-line Whig of the school 
 of Henry Clay, with strong emancipation leaning, 
 never an abolitionist. "If slavery be not wrong," he 
 said, "nothing is wrong," but he also said, and re 
 iterated it time and again, "I have no prejudice against 
 the Southern people. They are just what we would 
 be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist 
 among them they would not introduce it. If it did 
 now exist among us, we would not instantly give it 
 up." 
 
 From first to last throughout the angry debates 
 preceding the war, amid all the passions of the war 
 itself, not one vindictive, prescriptive word fell from 
 his tongue or pen, while during its progress there 
 was scarcely a day when he did not project his great 
 personality between some Southern man or woman and 
 danger. Yet the South does not know, except as a 
 kind of hearsay, that this big-brained, big-souled man 
 was a friend, a friend at court, when friends were most 
 in need, having the will and the power to rescue it 
 364
 
 The Hampton Roads Conference 
 
 from the wolves of brutality and rapine whom the his 
 tory of all wars tells us the lust of victory, the very 
 smell of battle, lures from their hiding to prey upon 
 the helpless, the dying, and the dead. But, perusing 
 the after-story of those dread days, Jefferson Davis 
 knew this, and died doing full justice to the character 
 of Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 Considerable discussion has been heard latterly 
 touching what did and did not happen upon the occa 
 sion of a famous historic episode known as the Hamp 
 ton Roads Conference. That Mr. Lincoln met and 
 conferred with the official representatives of the Con 
 federate Government, led by the Vice-President of the 
 Confederate States, when it must have been known to 
 him that the Confederacy was nearing the end of its 
 resources, is sufficient proof of the breadth both of his 
 humanity and his patriotism. Yet he went to Fortress 
 Monroe prepared not only to make whatever conces 
 sions toward the restoration of union and peace he 
 had the lawful authority to make, but to offer some 
 concessions which could in the nature of the case go 
 no further at that time than his personal assurance. 
 His constitutional powers were limited. But he was 
 in himself the embodiment of great moral power. 
 
 The story that he offered payment for the slaves 
 
 so often affirmed and denied is in either case but a 
 
 quibble with the actual facts. He could not have 
 
 made such an offer except tentatively, lacking the 
 
 365
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 means to carry it out. He was not given the oppor 
 tunity to make it, because the Confederate commis 
 sioners were under instructions to treat solely on the 
 basis of the recognition of the independence of the Con 
 federacy. The conference came to naught. It ended 
 where it began. But there is ample evidence that he 
 went to Hampton Roads resolved to commit himself 
 to that proposition. He did, according to the official 
 reports, refer to it in specific terms, having already 
 formulated a plan of procedure. This plan requires 
 no verification. It exists, and may be seen in his own 
 handwriting. It embraced a joint resolution, to be 
 submitted by the President to the two Houses of Con 
 gress, appropriating four hundred millions of dollars, 
 to be distributed among the Southern States on the 
 basis of the slave population of each according to the 
 census of 1860, and a proclamation, to be issued by 
 himself as President, when this joint resolution had 
 been passed by Congress. 
 
 There can be no possible controversy among honest 
 students of history on this point. That Mr. Lincoln 
 said to Mr. Stephens, "Let me write Union at the top 
 of this page and you may write below it whatever else 
 you please," is referable to Mr. Stephens s statement 
 made to many friends and attested by a number of re 
 liable persons still living. But that he meditated the 
 most liberal terms, including payment for the slaves, 
 rests neither upon conjecture nor averment, but on in- 
 366
 
 The Hampton Roads Conference 
 
 disputable documentary support. It may be argued 
 that he could not have secured the adoption of any such 
 plan ; but of his purpose, and its genuineness, there can 
 be no question, and there ought to be no equivocation. 
 Indeed, payment for the slaves had been all along 
 in his mind. He believed the North equally guilty 
 with the South for the original existence of slavery. 
 He clearly understood that the irrepressible conflict 
 was a conflict of systems, not a merely sectional and 
 partisan quarrel. He was a just man, abhorring pro 
 scription; an old Conscience Whig, indeed, who stood 
 in awe of the Constitution and his oath of office. He 
 wanted to leave the South no right to claim that the 
 North, finding slave labor unremunerative, had sold 
 its negroes to the South and then turned about and by 
 force of arms confiscated what it had unloaded at a 
 profit. He fully recognized slavery as property. The 
 proclamation of emancipation was issued as a war 
 measure. In his message to Congress of December, 
 1862, he proposed payment for the slaves, elaborating 
 a scheme in detail and urging it with copious and 
 cogent argument. "The people of the South," said 
 he, addressing a war Congress at that moment in the 
 throes of a bloody war with the South, "are not more 
 responsible for the original introduction of this prop 
 erty than are the people of the North, and, when it is 
 remembered how unhesitatingly we all use cotton and 
 sugar and share the profits of dealing in them, it may 
 367
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 not be quite safe to say that the South has been more 
 responsible than the North for its continuance." 
 
 The years are gliding swiftly by. Only a little 
 while, and there shall not be one man living who saw 
 service on either side of that great struggle of systems 
 and ideas. Its passions long ago vanished from manly 
 bosoms. That has come to pass within a single gen 
 eration in America which in Europe required ages to 
 accomplish. There is no disputing the verdict of 
 events. Let us relate them truly and interpret them 
 fairly. If we would have the North do justice to our 
 heroes, we must do justice to its heroes. I here render 
 unto Caesar the things that are Caesar s, even as I 
 would render unto God the things that are God s. 
 As living men, standing erect in the presence of 
 Heaven and the world, we have grown gray without 
 being ashamed ; and we need not fear that history will 
 fail to vindicate our integrity. When those are gone 
 that fought the battle, and posterity comes to strike 
 the final balance-sheet, it will be shown that the 
 makers of the Constitution left the relation of the 
 States to the Federal Government and of the Federal 
 Government to the States open to a double construc 
 tion. It will be told how the mistaken notion that 
 slave labor was requisite to the profitable cultivation 
 of sugar, rice, and cotton raised a paramount property 
 interest in the southern section of the Union, while in 
 the northern section, responding to the trend of modern 
 368
 
 The Hampton Roads Conference 
 
 thought and the outer movements of mankind, there 
 arose a great moral sentiment against slavery. The 
 conflict thus established, gradually but surely section- 
 alizing party lines, was as inevitable as it was irre 
 pressible. It was fought out to its bitter and logical 
 conclusion at Appomattox. It found us a huddle of 
 petty sovereignties, held together by a rope of sand. It 
 made and it left us a nation. Esto perpetual 
 
 369
 
 THE IDEAL IN PUBLIC LIFE* 
 
 A virile old friend of mine he was not a Ken- 
 tuckian he lived in Texas, though he went there 
 from Rhode Island used to declare, with sententious 
 emphasis, that war is the state of man. "Sir," he was 
 wont to observe, addressing me as if I were personally 
 accountable, "y u are emasculating the human species. 
 You are changing men into women and women into 
 men. You are teaching everybody to read, nobody to 
 think, and do you know where you will end, sir? Ex 
 termination, sir extermination ! On the north side 
 of the North Pole there is another world peopled by 
 giants; ten thousand millions at the very least; every 
 giant of them a hundred feet high. Now, about the 
 time you have reduced your universe to complete 
 effeminacy, some fool with a pickaxe will break 
 through the thin partition the mere ice-curtain sepa 
 rating these giants from us, and then they will sweep 
 through and swoop down and swallow you, sir, and the 
 likes of you, with your topsy-turvy civilization, your 
 boasted literature and science and art!" 
 
 * A response to the toast " The Ideal in Public Life," Emerson Cente 
 nary, Waldorf-Astoria, New York, May 15, 1903. 
 
 370
 
 The Ideal in Public Life 
 
 This old friend of mine had a sure recipe for suc 
 cess in public life. "Whenever you get up to make a 
 speech," said he, "begin by proclaiming yourself the 
 purest, the most disinterested of living men, and end 
 by intimating that you are the bravest," and then, with 
 the charming inconsistency of the dreamer, he would 
 add, "If there be anything on this earth that I do hy- 
 bominate it is hypocrisy!" 
 
 Decidedly he was not a disciple of Emerson. Yet 
 he, too, in his way, was an idealist, and for all his 
 oddity a man of intellectual integrity, a trifle exag 
 gerated, perhaps, in its methods and illustrations, but 
 true to his convictions of right and duty, as Emerson 
 would have him be. For was it not Emerson who ex 
 claimed: "We will walk on our own feet; we will 
 work with our own hands; we will speak our own 
 minds"? 
 
 Taking a hint from the whimsies of my archaic 
 philosopher, Mr. Chairman, I shall begin by a repudia 
 tion of the sentiment you have just read. There is no 
 such thing as the ideal in public life, construing pub 
 lic life to refer to political transactions. The ideal 
 may exist in art and letters, and sometimes very young 
 men imagine that it exists in very young women. But 
 here we must draw the line. As society is constituted 
 the ideal has no place, not even standing-room, in the 
 arena of civics. If we would make a place for it, we 
 must begin by realizing this. The painter, like the 
 371
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 lover, is a law unto himself with his little picture 
 the poet, also with his little poem his atelier, his uni 
 verse, his barn-yard, his field of battle his weapons 
 the utensils of his craft he, himself, his own Provi 
 dence. It is not so in the world of action, where 
 the conditions are exactly reversed where the one 
 player contends against many players, seen and unseen 
 where each move is met by some counter move 
 where the finest touches are often unnoted of men, or 
 rudely blotted out by a mysterious hand stretched forth 
 from the darkness. "I wish I could be as sure of 
 anything," said Melbourne, "as Tom Macaulay is 
 of everything." Melbourne was a man of affairs, 
 Macaulay a man of books ; and so throughout the cata 
 logue the men of action have been fatalists, from Caesar 
 to Napoleon and Bismarck, nothing certain except the 
 invisible player behind the screen. 
 
 Thus, of all human contrivances, the most imperfect 
 is government. In spite of the essays of Bentham and 
 Mill, the science of politics has yet to be discovered. 
 The ideal statesman can only exist in an ideal state. 
 The politician, like the poor, we have always with us. 
 As long as men delegate to other men the function of 
 acting for them, if not of thinking for them, we shall 
 continue to have him. He is, of course, a variable 
 quantity. In the crowded centres of population his 
 distinguishing marks are short hair and cunning; upon 
 the confines, sentiment and the six-shooter! In New 
 372
 
 The Ideal in Public Life 
 
 York, he becomes a Boss; in Kentucky and Texas, an 
 orator. Let me hope that, on this occasion at least, 
 I shall not be suspected of being a politician. But, the 
 statesman the ideal statesman in the mind s eye, 
 Horatio! Bound by our limitations such an anomaly 
 would be a statesman lacking a party, a statesman who 
 never gets any votes, a statesman perpetually out of a 
 job. We have had some imitation ideal statesmen who 
 have been more or less successful in palming off their 
 pinchbeck jewels for the real; but, looking backward 
 over the history of the country, we shall find the great 
 est among our public men measuring greatness by 
 eminent service to have been, while they lived, least 
 considered as ideals; for they were men of flesh and 
 blood, who, amid the rush of duty as they saw it, could 
 not stop to paint pictures, to brood over details, to con 
 sider sensibilities, to put forth the deft hand, where 
 life and death hung upon the stroke of a bludgeon 01- 
 the swinging of a club. 
 
 Washington was not an ideal statesman, nor Ham 
 ilton, nor Jefferson, nor Lincoln ; though each of them 
 conceived grandly and executed nobly. They loved 
 truth for truth s sake. Yet no one of them ever quite 
 attained his own conception of it. Truth indeed is 
 ideal. But, when we come to adapt and apply it, how 
 many faces it shows us, what varying aspects! So that 
 he is fortunate who is able to catch and hold a single 
 fleeting expression, to bridle this and saddle it, and, 
 373
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 as we say in Kentucky, to ride it a turn or two around 
 the paddock, or, still better, down the home-stretch of 
 things accomplished. The real statesman must often 
 do as he can, not as he would ; the ideal statesman ex 
 isting only in the credulity of those simple idolaters 
 who are captivated by appearances or deceived by pro 
 fessions. 
 
 The ideal in public life, as I conceive it, relates 
 rather to the agglomeration of the State than to any 
 individual example ; to a people sufficiently lifted above 
 the strifes and passions of their leaders to discriminate 
 between right and wrong; to a body of voters who do 
 not trot in droves to the polls like sheep to the sham 
 bles, happy in the bonfires that blind their eyes, ex 
 ultant through sheer sound and fury, signifying at least 
 nothing to them except more taxes, heavier burdens, 
 and, at last, confirmation of the right to pay the piper 
 and settle with the undertaker. 
 
 The nearest approach to the ideal statesman this 
 country has evolved lived and died here in the metrop 
 olis. If ever man pursued an ideal life he did. From 
 youth to age he dwelt amid his fancies. He was truly 
 a man of the world among men of letters, and a man 
 of letters among men of the world. A philosopher 
 pure and simple a lover of books, of pictures, of all 
 things beautiful and elevating he yet attained great 
 riches, and, being a doctrinaire and having a passion 
 for affairs, he was able to gratify the aspiration to emi- 
 374
 
 The Ideal in Public Life 
 
 nence and the yearning to be of service to the State 
 which had filled his heart. Without any of the arti 
 fices usual to the practical politician he gradually rose 
 to be a power in his party; thence, to become the 
 leader of a vast following; his name a shibboleth to 
 millions of his countrymen, who enthusiastically sup 
 ported him, and who believed that he was elected 
 Chief Magistrate of the United States. He was in 
 deed an idealist; he lost the White House because he 
 was so; though represented by his enemies as a schem 
 ing spider weaving his web amid the coil of mystifica 
 tion in which he hid himself. For this man was per 
 sonally known to few in the city where he had made 
 his career; a great lawyer and jurist, who rarely ap 
 peared in court; a great popular leader, to whom the 
 hustings were mainly a stranger; a thinker, and yet a 
 dreamer, who lived his own life a little apart, as a 
 poet might; uncorrupting and incorruptible; least of 
 all his political companions moved by the loss of the 
 Presidency which had seemed in his grasp. And, 
 finally, he died though a master of legal lore to 
 have his last will and testament successfully assailed. 
 
 I hope the Society of American Authors, whose 
 guests we are this night, will not consider me invidious 
 when I say that literature and politics are as wide 
 apart as the poles. From Bolingbroke, the most splen 
 did of the world s failures, to Thackeray, one of its 
 greatest masters of letters who happily did not get 
 375
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 the chance he sought in public life to fail both Eng 
 lish and American history is full of illustrations to 
 this effect. Except in the comic opera of French poli 
 tics, the poet, the artist, invested with power, seems to 
 lose his efficiency in the ratio of his genius; the liter 
 ary gift, the artistic temperament, instead of aiding, 
 actually antagonizing the aptitude for public business. 
 The statesman may not be fastidious. The poet, the 
 artist, must be always so. If the party leader preserve 
 his integrity if he keep himself disinterested and 
 clean if his public influence be inspiring to his coun 
 trymen and his private influence obstructive of cheats 
 and rogues among his adherents he will have done 
 well, if not his best. Hence it is that I say that the 
 ideal in public life may not be achieved through any 
 one or a dozen individuals posing as statesmen, but 
 through the moral and intellectual emancipation of the 
 whole people. 
 
 We have happily left behind us the gibbet and the 
 stake. No further need of the Voltaires, the Rous- 
 seaus, and the Diderots to declaim against kingcraft 
 and priestcraft. We have done something more than 
 mark time. We report progress. Yet, despite the 
 miracles of modern invention, how far in the arts of 
 government has the world travelled from darkness to 
 light since the old tribal days, and what has it learned, 
 except to enlarge the area, to augment the agencies, to 
 multiply and complicate the forms and processes of 
 376
 
 The Ideal in Public Life 
 
 corruption? By corruption, I mean the dishonest ad- 
 vantage of the few over the many. The dreams of 
 yesterday we are told become the realities of to-mor 
 row. It may be so in science and in art. But the 
 dreams of Emerson related less to science and art and 
 letters than to the development of individual charac 
 ter, book-culture, picture-culture, music-culture, mere 
 ly the lamps that light the onward march of that 
 development, so many mile-posts along the highway 
 indicating that war is not the state of man. 
 
 In these despites, I am an optimist. Much truly 
 there needs to be learned, much to be unlearned. Ad 
 vanced as we think ourselves, we are yet a long way 
 from the most rudimentary perception of the civiliza 
 tion we are so fond of parading. The Eternal Veri 
 ties? Where shall we seek them? Little in religious 
 affairs, less still in commercial affairs, hardly any at all 
 in political affairs, that being right which represents 
 each church s idea, each party s idea, each man s idea 
 of the prevailing interest, or predilection. Still, I re 
 peat, we progress. The pulpit begins to turn away 
 from the sinister visage of theology and to teach the 
 simple lessons of Christ and Him crucified. The 
 press, which used to be omniscient, is now only indis 
 criminate; a clear gain; emitting, by force of pub 
 licity, if not of shine, a kind of light, through whose 
 diverse rays and foggy lustre we may now and then 
 get a glimpse of truth ; though rarely the primal truth 
 377
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 embodied by that blessed legend, "Do thou unto others 
 as thou wouldst that they should do unto you," 
 wherein lie the whole secret and mystery of human 
 happiness. Brook Farm was a failure because it was 
 long ages before its time; yet it set a candle upon the 
 altars of humanity and left a not unmeaning tradition 
 behind it. That lovely idyl lives to-day in the hearts 
 of the men who are returning to the world some of 
 the millions their genius for accumulation drew from 
 it in such sums and for such purposes as will presently 
 establish it as a fact, and not an empty saying, that 
 there is more pleasure in giving than in receiving. One 
 at least of these men has rendered us a modern and 
 truer reading of the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount 
 in the declaration that he would be ashamed to take 
 his millions with him into the throne-room of Grace; 
 and let us believe that in laying down this principle 
 and acting upon it, Carnegie is but the first of a line 
 of kings whose dynasty is safer than that of Hapsburg, 
 or of Hohenzollern, whose right divine is registered 
 where alone divine rights belong; of a line of kings 
 who shall ordain a new polity, establish a new gos* 
 pel, from whose bell-towers it shall be proclaimed that 
 there is actually a God above riches and might, who 
 will demand, and in this world, too, a strict account 
 ing. Let cynics deride them, let casuists find other 
 than noble motives for their benefactions, I, at least, 
 will look no gift horse in the mouth; the rather see 
 378
 
 The Ideal in Public Life 
 
 in them the dawn of a day when money shall be so 
 cheap and plenty even as it used to be in the Con 
 federacy that it shall be said of him who hath it, the 
 more he hath, the poorer he is! 
 
 The ideal then in public life is first of all and over 
 all a public opinion compelling the same moral obli 
 gation in public as in private affairs; of a public opin 
 ion able to distinguish between the spurious and the 
 real; in short, of a trained intelligence sufficiently dif 
 fused among the people to protect them at least against 
 the grosser forms of deception. Barnum discovered 
 not alone the virtues of humbug but the willing sub 
 jection of its victims. There will be, I suppose, al 
 ways persons who entertain a natural prejudice in 
 favor of quack nostrums. Cagliostro has ever been 
 one of the most interesting among the figures of an 
 age crowded with prodigies. We pique ourselves upon 
 our mother wit Yankee wit we call it but from 
 how many shams has it rescued us? We alternately 
 blame and praise the newspapers; they are precisely 
 what we make them. They will either grow wiser and 
 better as leaders, or, ceasing to lead, will become mere 
 vehicles of intercommunication; the editor only a few 
 hours in advance of his readers in the knowledge of 
 current events. Meanwhile, let us not misinterpret, 
 but carry in mind and heart these pregnant words of 
 Emerson: "We live in a very low state of the world 
 and pay unwilling tribute to governments founded on 
 379
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 force . . . but society is fluid . . . com 
 merce, education, religion may be voted in or out 
 . . . the law is only a memorandum. . . . 
 The statute stands there to say, yesterday we agreed 
 so and so ... the history of the State sketches 
 in coarse outline the progress of thought, and follows 
 at a distance the delicacy of culture and aspiration 
 . . . in the end, all shall be well." 
 
 Recurring to the text with which I began, let me 
 say in conclusion that I prefer to believe that there are 
 a little more than curiosity and superfluous energy be 
 hind the effort to reach the North Pole, and on the 
 other side of it something less strenuous, as our good 
 President would say, than a race of warlike giants 
 committed to a final world conquest. Perhaps we shall 
 find there, held through long ages in reserve in Para 
 disaic cold storage for the delectation of man, a crys 
 talline assortment of ideals of ideals translated and 
 ready to be at once appropriated and applied fore 
 most among them being the ideal statesman. Till then 
 let us continue to aspire, to labor, and to wait, for 
 not till then may we attain verification of the conceit 
 that one man is as good as another, as indeed he ought 
 to be when they can read, can also think, and when 
 we, the survivals of the fittest, have arrived in that re 
 created universe, where there shall be no more oratory 
 and posing for effect, nor kingcraft, nor priestcraft, 
 nor partycraft not even after-dinner speech-making 
 380
 
 The Ideal in Public Life 
 
 but where every voter shall be his own file-leader and 
 each particular lie shall nail itself to the cross. 
 
 "When the Church is social worth, 
 When the State-house is the hearth, 
 Then the perfect State is come, 
 The Republican at home!"
 
 IV 
 SPEECHES 
 
 383
 
 THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION BILL* 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I have listened with attention to what 
 ever has been said on either side of the House touching 
 this momentous question. I have done so not merely 
 on account of the distinguished character and talents of 
 the gentlemen who have preceded me, but because, en 
 tertaining a distinct opinion of my own, I have been 
 curious to discover how far that might be altered or 
 modified by the reasoning of those who have made the 
 consideration of problems in constitutional law the busi 
 ness of their lives, and who are therefore able to bring 
 to this present inquiry the copious information of profes 
 sional training. Being a layman, and having no larger 
 knowledge of such matters than should be possessed by 
 every citizen who loves his country, and who, valuing 
 its free institutes, has sought to compass the spirit and 
 forms under which they exist, I shall make no pretence 
 of adding to the law of the case. I would not trespass 
 upon the time and courtesy of the House at all but that, 
 intertwisted with the legal points submitted to us, are a 
 multitude of practical, every-day suggestions bearing 
 upon our whole political economy and nearly affecting 
 
 * House of Represcntativei, XLIVth Congress, January 16, 1877. 
 385
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 this immediate issue. For behind this conflict of juris 
 dictions are arrayed the forces of half a century of sec 
 tional agitation. The conflict itself is based upon the 
 disputed votes of one Northern and three Southern 
 States. These latter bring before us the results of a 
 vast scheme of reconstruction, while upon the final issue 
 another reconstruction may depend. Not merely the 
 rights, powers, prerogatives, and duties of the two 
 Houses are involved therefore, but the existence of po 
 litical society in certain parts of the country, and a just 
 understanding between the people in every part of it, all 
 referable more or less to the action of the proposed com 
 mission, as bound up in the administrative policy to flow 
 from the selection of the one or other contestant for the 
 office of Chief Magistrate. 
 
 That the situation is something more than critical; 
 that, with reference to the present, it may involve a 
 perilous exigency, while with reference to the future, it 
 does involve a vital principle in Republican ethics, will 
 hardly be denied by any thoughtful person. It must 
 also be admitted to be an extraordinary circumstance 
 that an organic question of such magnitude as that em 
 braced by a series of disputed matters of fact and law 
 in the count of the electoral vote, and behind that of the 
 popular vote for President and Vice-President, should 
 be the occasion of so little tumult. In the dead of a 
 winter of unusual rigor, thousands of people begging in 
 the streets of the great cities for bread, thousands of 
 386
 
 The Electoral Commission Bill 
 
 people everywhere out of employment, the business of 
 the country prostrate, what do we see? The rich hug 
 their millions in security, while the people, clasping 
 their free fabric to their bosoms, conscious alike of the 
 danger which menaces it and of the hardships which 
 press upon themselves, pursue the even tenor of their 
 way in a manner conservative enough to satisfy the most 
 infatuated believer in Napoleonic ideas. I shall take 
 leave in the remarks which I have to offer to go outside 
 the record of tittle-tattle which has constituted so large 
 a portion of our discussions nay, outside the record of 
 the written law, which is not always a certain guide 
 and ask your consideration of some odds and ends, partly 
 of belief and partly of observation, picked up in the 
 course of considerable migration between war and peace, 
 between the North and the South, during the stress of 
 weather encountered by our peculiar system the last 
 two decades. Conceiving that these may not fall in 
 precisely with the conventional routine of debate, I 
 venture to hope that they may give on this floor some 
 partial expression of that love of country and kind 
 which warms the Anglo-Saxon heart in the United 
 States to deeds of gentleness rather than violence, 
 clearly indicating that we are the most homogeneous 
 people on the face of the globe. 
 
 Sir, the American people are indeed a brave and lov 
 ing people. The two sections of our Union, never quite 
 married, originally held together by strong ties of nat- 
 387
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 ural affection only, got on well enough until the 
 stronger, as is wont to be the case, pressed for a closer 
 relationship, and with more power became more exact 
 ing. The weaker resisted, incautiously, of course. 
 She resented, passionately, of course. The open rupture 
 came, whose end was a matter of course, for the weaker 
 always goes to the wall. And now we behold in our 
 public affairs, what we often see in private life, that, be 
 cause submission and affection have not proved to be 
 convertible terms, despotic power would smirch the 
 character, as well as blight the future, of the victim. 
 Mr. Speaker, as we say to our little ones, "easy is much 
 better than hard." To-day it is the South which rep 
 resents the woman in the quarrel. To-morrow it may 
 be the East. Why is it that where the woman cannot 
 be debauched she must be destroyed ? 
 
 But we are told that "nobody wants to destroy the 
 South." Certainly not ; because, apart from considera 
 tions of a sentimental sort, the prosperity of the whole 
 country depends upon the well-being of each of its sec 
 tions. Baleful as I think the Republican policy has 
 been, and harshly as I sometimes feel toward the authors 
 of that policy, I shall not allow myself to believe the 
 Republican masses so deliberately malignant as the re 
 sults of eleven years of maladministration would make 
 them appear could they have foreseen its consequences. 
 I take it that they have been honestly mistaken as to the 
 true nature of the case, and shall try to show before I 
 388
 
 The Electoral Commission Bill 
 
 sit down some of the causes which have misled them. 
 Whatever its origin, all of us should desire to have done 
 with criminations and recriminations, bringing profit 
 only to such as trade upon the ignorance and passions of 
 unthinking men. 
 
 It used to be urged that the soldiers of the two con 
 tending armies in our sectional war would be able to 
 make a speedy and lasting peace if they were given the 
 opportunity. The same may be said of the whole peo 
 ple. If the people of the South could traverse the pleas 
 ant highways and byways of New England, if they 
 could behold the admirable public and domestic 
 economy that prevails there, if they could have personal 
 knowledge of the still more admirable hospitality and 
 geniality which warm the true New England heart, 
 they would recognize in the mingled obstinacy, narrow 
 ness, and good-will of the New Englander much of 
 their own exuberant spirit of provincial dogmatism. 
 On the other hand, I maintain it to be true that wher 
 ever the New Englander has gone South with a fair 
 purpose he has encountered an honest welcome and has 
 found a race of men and women kindred to his own. 
 There is no sectional line, no air-line or water-line in 
 this country, east or west or north or south, which 
 marks off separate species. There are local peculiari 
 ties everywhere. The habits, customs, and manners of 
 the people in Maine and Mississippi differ certainly, but 
 not more than those of the people in Arkansas and South 
 389
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 Carolina. Take two communities lying alongside, like 
 Kentucky and Tennessee, and we find each pursuing its 
 bent, having ways of its own not shared by the other. 
 There is no natural antagonism between any of those 
 States But it is easy enough to raise up artificial an 
 tagonism. "How great a flame a little fire kindleth;" 
 hate begetting hate as love begets love. The process is 
 as old as the world, familiar to all mankind. In this 
 place and at this time I wish to deal with it only as it 
 concerns ourselves. 
 
 My reading of American history may not be profound, 
 but if it tells me one thing more than another it is that 
 the American people are a homogeneous people, and 
 that, if they can once again establish themselves upon the 
 home-rule principle of the Constitution, which leaves 
 each section and State to settle its domestic affairs in its 
 own way, we shall see the dawn of an era of progress 
 and power hitherto undreamed of by the most ardent. 
 To the policy of interference, the spirit of intermeddling, 
 we can trace all our ills, for we may be sure that so long 
 as the politicians in one section are able to make capital 
 off the conditions prevailing in another section, there 
 will be misrepresentation, the party holding the general 
 government holding the whip-hand of prejudice and 
 passion. To-day we have merely a reversal of the 
 forces which filled the land with darkness twenty years 
 ago. The lines may be deeper, the portents more om 
 inous; but the spectacle of intolerance is just the same 
 390
 
 The Electoral Commission Bill 
 
 No fair-minded man can say, and no honest historian 
 will record, that our great sectional conflict was one 
 sided ; all the right here and all the wrong there. The 
 North found out very early in the race that slave labor 
 was not profitable. So, consulting a prudent sagacity, 
 it sold its slaves, never failing to put the money it got 
 for them in its pocket. That was a long time before 
 the morality of slavery entered into party politics. Nay, 
 for a quarter of a century thereafter the slavery ques 
 tion was remanded to the custody of a handful of en 
 thusiasts who were hardly more odious in the one sec 
 tion than in the other. At length the politicians, seeing 
 in it the materials for agitation, seized it, and for an 
 other quarter of a century, and on both sides, much per 
 verted it. The calm reviewer of the future, be his 
 predilections what they may, will peruse those old de 
 bates with mingled curiosity and sorrow; passionate 
 declamation everywhere, each party for itself, the un 
 happy cause of disturbance being slowly but surely 
 ground between the upper and nether mill-stone. Sir, 
 that is the spectacle in this country to-day, particularly 
 as to the black man. During all these years he has 
 been the one patient, unoffending sufferer. When he 
 was a slave his lot was made harder by the war which 
 was levied in his behalf. Now that he is a freeman, a 
 new contention has arisen which makes it harder still. 
 His real interest has been, and is, the very last thing 
 considered. And yet, seeing that his existence has 
 391
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 proved almost as tormenting to the white man as to 
 himself, one would be led to ask why he is such a 
 favorite with partisans of every description, if all of us 
 did not know that it was at the first, and is now, and 
 will always be as long as the race question is continued 
 in our politics to use the homely but expressive phrase 
 of Hosea Biglow 
 
 Xo git some on em offis an some on em votes 
 
 The black man is a freeman, a citizen, and a voter. 
 If these possessions do not protect him, no more can 
 troops of laws or troops of soldiers. But they are am 
 ple to protect him, and they do protect him, wherever 
 they are left to their natural bent. 
 
 Take, for illustration, the States of Maryland, Ken 
 tucky, and Missouri, which did not pass through the 
 ordeal of reconstruction, and compare the condition of 
 the negro therein with his condition in Louisiana and 
 South Carolina. I can speak with some assurance for 
 Kentucky, and I ought to be held to be a competent 
 witness, for I have given proofs of being a steady friend 
 to the black man. At the close of the war it was my 
 belief that, since there was no way to supply ourselves 
 with another labor system, our interest, as well as our 
 duty, was to improve such as we had ; to make the best 
 of a bad bargain; to take the negro in his rags, igno 
 rance, and squalor, and try to make a man of him ; to 
 392
 
 The Electoral Commission Bill 
 
 protect him, educate him, elevate him. A movement in 
 this direction was bound to meet resistance and obstruc 
 tion. But, step by step, within the good old common 
 wealth of Kentucky, and within the Democratic party, 
 which controlled Kentucky, the fight was made. There 
 were no trumped-up legislatures imported from alien 
 regions for hostile purposes, seeking to do by force that 
 which was to be best done by simple, popular arts. 
 There were no bellicose proclamations from bogus Gov 
 ernors, saddled upon the people by martial appliance, 
 intended to incite violence in order that arbitrary power 
 might secure its pretext for renewed exaction. The 
 Federal authority happened to be exercised with mod 
 eration through officials who, whatever opinions they 
 may have had, were responsible men, Kentuckians to the 
 marrow-bone and manner born. There were conflicts 
 of jurisdiction, undoubtedly, and wherever these ap 
 peared they retarded the forward march of events. But 
 they were not serious enough to stop it. Thus, by 
 easy stages, and by popular consent, the negro presently 
 tound himself vested with such legal rights as the States 
 have exclusive power to give ; he was established in the 
 rights which the general Government had given him; 
 he was made secure in his home, and he is to-day sur 
 passed by no laboring-man in any part of the world in 
 the advantage which he enjoys for getting on in life. 
 He is sought by all parties a very popular person, in 
 deed, with candidates for office. In the city where I 
 393
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 live, his churches and schools are numerous, well- 
 ordered, and well-attended. He has no conflicts with 
 the whites. In a word, he is a freeman, a citizen, and 
 a voter. 
 
 That is the solution, as it is the history, of the black 
 problem submitted to natural laws. If the negro can 
 not be protected by the domestic system under which he 
 lives, far less is he likely to be protected by misapplied 
 and misused Federal agencies. The enlightened forces 
 of society, however, when left to their particular ac 
 countability, will always assert themselves. They have 
 an interest at stake beyond all other interests. It is 
 when society has been overawed and silenced, when irre 
 sponsible men have been put above it, as in Louisiana 
 and South Carolina, that we see physical disturbance 
 and commercial ruin. 
 
 The plea that there is an exceptional civilization and 
 humanity in the South ineradicably opposed to the negro 
 is false. There is no more hostility toward the negro 
 in the South than in the North ; if I spoke my full mind, 
 I should say that there is less. Precisely the same sys 
 tem of civilization and humanity exists in the one section 
 that exists in the other. Its manifestations differ 
 merely as I have said. The vicious elements in an old- 
 established body-politic are less violent than in a newly 
 settled community. The educated rascal in New Eng 
 land who forges paper and raises checks finds his coun 
 terpart in the Southern swashbuckler who wears a ruf- 
 394
 
 The Electoral Commission Bill 
 
 fled shirt and is handy with his revolver. Each, taking 
 his cue from the conditions around about him, engages 
 in that department of crime which he thinks safest. 
 Thus, the one or the other becomes the fashion among 
 rogues. An ancient, thickly populated region finds it 
 necessary to hold life by its surest fastenings. Its laws 
 against murder are, therefore, rigidly enforced. Bad 
 men turn their attention to less dangerous pursuits and 
 murder is left to ruffians, who are too ignorant or too 
 hardened to have the fear of the gallows constantly be 
 fore their eyes. Life hangs more loosely in new com 
 munities and murder is at once cheaper and easier. But 
 crime is crime the world over acts perpetrated by bad 
 men and it is as fair to judge New England by her 
 Winslows and Pomeroys as to judge the South by such 
 examples as are paraded in support of the argument 
 touching her peculiar civilization. No society, how 
 ever, should be judged by its baser elements; for they do 
 not rule. The better elements of society govern in the 
 South as in the North, whenever society is put upon its 
 responsibility. Suppose, to take a ready example, that 
 after Tweed and his followers had got possession of the 
 city of New York they had been supported in their 
 predatory work by the Government of the United 
 States. Suppose the great body of the people of New 
 York had been disfranchised. Suppose every peaceful 
 effort at relief had been met by troops sent by orders 
 from Washington at Tweed s call. Suppose for years 
 395
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 the majority on this floor had extolled the Tweed sys 
 tem and the Tweed operators, and had described the 
 mass and body of society in New York as rebels and 
 traitors, having two rights only, the right to be hanged 
 and the right to be damned, what would the result have 
 been? I ask any candid man whether he thinks it 
 would differ materially from the existing state of affairs 
 in Louisiana and South Carolina, even as that is de 
 picted by the unfriendliest hand? It would be the 
 same, believe me, for New York and New Orleans, 
 Boston and Charleston, are made up of the same race, 
 moved by the same interests, stirred by the same pas 
 sions. Those who seek to create a different impression 
 have either learned nothing by their experience or are 
 consciously and purposely malignant. National gather 
 ings are constantly illustrating the absurdity of such 
 partisan outgivings. Church assemblies, trade meet 
 ings, educational and scientific and political conven 
 tions, made up of delegates from all the States, come 
 together, year after year, and there is no sign whatever 
 of a diversified humanity and civilization. On the con 
 trary, there is fellowship, thorough and complete. But 
 when it suits a body of partisans to do a job of work of 
 which they have reason to be ashamed, then we hear the 
 sectional tocsin sounded, appealing to passions of the 
 baser sort. Sir, the American people have listened to 
 that unreasoning clangor for five-and-twenty years, and 
 they are tired of it. They want a rest on it. The men 
 396
 
 The Electoral Commission Bill 
 
 of my generation were in no wise responsible for our sec 
 tional war. They can be fairly said to have no politi 
 cal antecedents. They are competent to utter the 
 things they will about that war as well as about passing 
 events, and they ought to do so freely and fully, nay, the 
 better sense and better nature of the country wish them 
 to do so. Such controversies as we have should be set 
 tled in our day and by ourselves. They should not be 
 committed to our children, to rankle in their hearts, 
 planting all over the land the seeds of future disturb 
 ance. 
 
 Less than this as to the circumstances which have 
 produced the present complications and their underly 
 ing cause I could not say. It may not be true that we 
 stand upon the brink of civil war; but it is true that 
 grave dangers stare us in the face, threatening every 
 public and private interest. I wish to inveigh against 
 no party, to abuse nobody, but that a well-organized 
 conspiracy exists to put a President in the White House 
 who in my judgment was not elected by the people, I 
 do not doubt. Nor is this the worst of it, for it has 
 long seemed inevitable, embodying a peril which the 
 wisest have feared might be inherent to our system. 
 The Democratic party of a by-gone era was strong 
 enough to make its exit from power the signal for a sec 
 tional war. The Republican party of this present day, 
 equally strong and arrogant, regards itself as holding 
 the Government in fee-simple, and, using the sectional 
 397
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 question as the Democratic party formerly used the 
 slavery question, it is able, through its leaders, to pre 
 cipitate the country into civil war. The transfer of 
 power by peaceful process from one great party to an 
 other is an unsolved problem in the practical operation 
 of domestic government. Therefore, I have looked to 
 the present crisis for years with misgiving, conceiving 
 that sooner or later it would surely come. Nor have 
 its dramatis persona, its implements and resources, sur 
 prised me. They are large and potent. It is even 
 claimed that they are sufficiently equipped to be more 
 than a match for the unorganized masses of the people. 
 We may as well talk plainly of things as they are. The 
 Republican party, intrenched in its position, is compact 
 and united. If it is magnificent in nothing else, it is 
 magnificent in its organization and audacity. The 
 Democratic party is as one who has his right arm tied 
 behind him. If forced into civil war, it would proceed 
 under the greatest possible disadvantage. I speak thus 
 not merely because I wish to be clear in my line of argu 
 ment, concealing nothing, but because there are evils to 
 be more dreaded than civil war. Rather than see a 
 cabal of party managers using the power placed in their 
 possession as a supreme party to seat a usurper in the 
 Chief Magistracy, the people would, after having ex 
 hausted peaceful agencies to prevent it, be justified in a 
 resort to stronger measures. In this connection I may 
 say that, dreading the arrival of this exigency, I have 
 398
 
 The Electoral Commission Bill 
 
 from the first urged upon my political associates proper 
 agitation as to the danger, so that the public opinion of 
 the time might be fully advised, and, being advised, 
 might organize itself to avert it. The fault is not with 
 me that this was neglected until the bare suggestion 
 came to be dismissed with alternate derision and odium, 
 by some as a piece of empty bravado, by others as down 
 right sedition. I do admit that the time has gone by 
 when the people at large could act effectively for them 
 selves. If the two Houses of Congress fail to agree, 
 then indeed we shall have come upon an emergency. 
 We shall see the Senate, casting the blame upon the 
 House, proceed to the counting in of Hayes and 
 Wheeler; we shall see the President of the United 
 States, supported by the army and navy, prepare to seat 
 them in office; we shall see the Chief-Justice ready to 
 administer to them the oaths of office. The House, act 
 ing under its construction of its rights, privileges, and 
 duties, proceeds to elect a President. Then follows 
 either civil war or a case in law, but no matter which, 
 continuous suspense, commotion, and discontent. Let 
 us assume, what I believe, that there will be no war. 
 Let us assume that the Senate, acting for itself, declares 
 Hayes and Wheeler elected, and that upon this the 
 country settles down into sullen acquiescence. What 
 have we then? There are those who tell us that four 
 years hence we shall obtain the desired change of parties 
 in the Government, brought about by such overwhelm- 
 399
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 ing majorities as will leave no room for conspiracy or 
 doubt. I think not so. On the contrary, we shall have 
 four years of planning and disturbance, with another 
 and a better substantial bloody-shirt campaign at the 
 end of them; a North more prejudiced than now; a 
 South thoroughly demoralized; no such organization, 
 no such issues, no such opportunities as the opposition 
 had in the last campaign. 
 
 Usurpation goes backward as little as revolution. 
 The inauguration of Hayes by a process such as the ex 
 treme members of the Republican Senate will be re 
 duced to, if the two Houses fail to agree upon a joint 
 plan, would be regarded as a usurpation by considerably 
 more than one-half of the people. In the South it 
 would be universally held as a step forward in revolu 
 tion. By its authors it would be taken as evidence of 
 their ability to go ahead without fear of the conse 
 quences. Another reconstruction, justified by the con 
 dition of affairs in Louisiana and South Carolina, will 
 loom into view. This will include -Mississippi, Florida, 
 and perhaps Alabama; and, to commend itself to any 
 approval, it must be "thorough," for the country will 
 submit to no more half measures. Thus, already ruined 
 in their material concerns, the Southern people will be 
 quite bereft of hope. They will have no political 
 future, and we shall see society divided into three 
 classes : 
 
 First, the despairing, who will say "There is no use 
 400
 
 The Electoral Commission Bill 
 
 of voting any more, because we elected a President 
 whom the country would not inaugurate." 
 
 Second, the time-servers, who will make terms with 
 the Republicans, and, like self-seekers time out of mind, 
 will become useful only for mischief. 
 
 Third, the constitutional opposition, weakened in 
 every way, and of no particular value to its fellow-class 
 in the North. 
 
 These, Mr. Speaker, I regard as the almost certain 
 consequences of seating a President in office by a process 
 and on a title which a large majority of the people can 
 not approve, but which they will believe to be fraud 
 ulent. The ultimate end of such an invasion of the 
 spirit of our Government must be the overthrow of the 
 Government itself, civil war, and all the evils which 
 such experiences entail. We, no more than other peo 
 ple, can claim or expect immunity from the ills which, 
 from the beginning of time, have beset the nations of the 
 earth. To prevent, therefore, a catastrophe so dire, no 
 less than to escape the perils immediately before us, 
 every nerve of brain and heart should be strained. I 
 take issue with those who think that any good can flow 
 from usurpation. Whoever succeeds to the Chief 
 Magistracy, I want to see him seated in office on an un 
 clouded title. This brings me to the bill under con 
 sideration. 
 
 I have said, sir, that I shall not undertake to add to 
 the law of the case. It seems to me that an eminent 
 401
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 jurist in the other House, the distinguished Senator 
 from Vermont,* has made it perfectly clear that the bill 
 is constitutional. I accept and adopt his view without 
 reservation. It not only settles all constitutional doubts 
 in my mind, but it smooths an original objection which 
 I had entertained to the scheme as a mere compromise. 
 Since Congress has power to legislate in this wise 
 the bill is not a compromise, although it accomplishes 
 that for which compromise is usually invoked. That 
 the proposed commission is established in accordance 
 with law, and that it is to be equitably organized, have 
 been the only questions on which I have allowed my 
 mind to rest; because, considering the present state of 
 affairs, not as I would have it, but as it is, I believe that, 
 if some arrangement be not reached between this and 
 the middle of February, we shall find ourselves drifting 
 in an open boat upon a shoreless sea, compassless and 
 rudderless, nobody to lead us whom we can trust, and 
 no concert of action among ourselves, but, in room of 
 these essentials to useful endeavor, a desperate partisan 
 conspiracy in front of us, armed cap-a-pie and prepared 
 for emergencies. The sole hope of that conspiracy is 
 the non-agreement of the two House of Congress. The 
 sole hope left the people a choice of evils, I grant is 
 the proposed commission. That it is to be fairly con 
 stituted, and that as made up it will compose a tribunal 
 which men can respect, I believe, and, so believing, I am 
 
 * Mr. Edmunds. 
 402
 
 The Electoral Commission Bill 
 
 willing to rest the case with it. I am the readier to do 
 this since I regard Tilden s case as a good one; but I 
 shall vote for the bill with the full consciousness that 
 the action of the commission may bitterly disappoint me 
 and those who feel and think with me. If it does, I 
 shall still have discharged a most unpleasing duty in 
 that manner which was best calculated to preserve con 
 stitutional forms and keep the peace of the country at a 
 time when the Republic was menaced and the people 
 were not prepared for war. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, sixteen years ago the people of this 
 country were brought face to face with an undetermined 
 point in constitutional law touching the right of a State 
 to secede from the Union. Thousands of intelligent 
 and honest men believed that right to exist. There was 
 no tribunal, however, to which they could refer it. 
 War, the result of which no one could foresee, whose 
 consequences will outlast this and the next generation, 
 ensued. It is idle at this late day to speculate upon 
 what might have been if the States had possessed some 
 constitutional means of arbitration. But it is quite cer 
 tain that had they known what we know, they would 
 have gone greater lengths to keep the peace. We now 
 confront a danger just as real and just as great. No 
 less than the rulership of the country is involved. The 
 Houses of Congress are controlled by opposing political 
 bodies. There is confusion in the returns of the elec 
 toral vote. The terms of the Constitution lack explic- 
 403
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 itness and furnish the minds of many a reasonable doubt 
 as to what, speaking precisely, is lawful to be done. 
 Setting aside the passions and interests of partisans, the 
 non-partisan classes, embracing at least one-half the 
 total vote polled in the election, share this doubt to such 
 an extent that they have held aloof thus far from public 
 demonstration. They are at length making their 
 wishes known with emphasis. They understand the 
 danger and see in the proposed commission the means of 
 averting it. For my part, if my objections were even 
 greater than they are, I should give it to them. Let it 
 place whom it may in the Presidential office, it will, 
 without dishonor, bring us that repose of which, of all 
 things, the country stands most in need. In other 
 words, it is this, or the Senate, or civil war. I may not, 
 and I do not, like it as an original proposition. I may, 
 and I do, feel a sense of indignation that such a contin 
 gency has been forced by the operations of what I be 
 lieve to be conspiracy. But, reduced to a choice of evils, 
 I take this tribunal, entertaining no doubt that it will be 
 composed of competent and patriotic men, by whose 
 judgment I shall abide, something more than party be 
 ing at stake. The happiness and peace of forty millions 
 of people will press upon the commission raised by this 
 act ; its members will cease to be partisans ; they will sit 
 for the whole country ; and, as they discharge their full 
 duty, they will be honored in the land. It seems to me 
 that, if arbitration is our only recourse, as I believe it is, 
 404
 
 The Electoral Commission Bill 
 
 that proposed is both legal and just. Upon it, there 
 fore, good men everywhere will rest the issue, trusting 
 that the God from whom we received our fair, free sys 
 tem, building wiser than we knew, will bring it safely 
 through this present danger. 
 
 405
 
 ENGLAND AND AMERICA* 
 
 A distinguished journalist of London, holding a 
 seat in the Imperial Parliament, was quoted last win 
 ter as saying that, before the United States venture 
 upon a war with England, or any foreign power, the 
 southern section of the Union would have to be reck 
 oned with. How little he knew about the situation 
 of affairs, and the state of public sentiment, in Amer 
 ica. If, upon this Memorial Day, officially dedicated 
 to the fallen heroes of one army, the fallen heroes of 
 both armies who fought in that stubborn contention 
 could be mustered on earth, and could witness the com 
 plete obliteration of every sign, token, and issue of 
 domestic strife, and realize, as the living do, the full 
 meaning of the conclusive result reached thirty-one 
 years ago, it may be doubted whether the exultation of 
 the one side would, in sincerity and universality, ex 
 ceed the satisfaction of the other side. I say "satisfac 
 tion" advisedly, for, since no man can be expected to 
 exult in his own undoing, a stronger expression might 
 not precisely fit the case. But I do declare that, among 
 the survivors of those who fought so well from Big 
 
 * A speech made at the Consular Banquet, Hotel Cecil, London, May 
 30, 1896. 
 
 406
 
 England and America 
 
 Bethel in 1861 to Appomattox in 1865, and their de 
 scendants, there is now but one feeling, and that of 
 thankfulness to God that He laid the weight of His 
 hand upon the Southern Confederacy and preserved 
 the life of the American Union. 
 
 I was over here just after that dreadful struggle 
 a very ragged rebel, indeed and was not long discov 
 ering that such trivial distinctions as Federal and Con 
 federate were Greek to the average European mind. 
 All of us, Southerners and Northerners alike, all of us 
 were Yankees. I took the hint, and with it the 
 shortest cut I could back to the protecting folds of 
 the flag under which I was born, and I found there 
 the shelter so ample and restful, so comforting and so 
 comfortable, that I clung to it, froze to it, and have 
 ever since been advising the boys, old and young, to 
 follow my example. 
 
 With all deference to my very old and dear friend, 
 the Ambassador,* and to the sentiments uttered by the 
 eminent Senator from Massachusetts,! I confess that 
 I am a Jingo ; but you will be assured that I mean no 
 discourtesy to those of our English friends who have 
 honored us by their presence when I tell you, and them, 
 that it was from England I learned the lesson and got 
 the cue. Let me hasten to add that there is no pos 
 session which England has that America wants. The 
 world is quite big enough for both of us. But nothing 
 
 * Mr. Bayard. t Mr. Hoar. 
 
 407
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 is gained to either by seeking to conceal the fact, that 
 behind the party leaders and the public journals, here 
 to-day and gone to-morrow, there are millions of peo 
 ple who may not with safety be ignored, and vast in 
 terests which can only be secured by a policy of firm, 
 enlightened self-assertion, equally plain-spoken on both 
 sides. 
 
 The greatness and glory of England go without 
 saying. It should require no self-seeking flunkyism 
 eager for social recognition, nor any resonant lip-ser 
 vice, delighted to have an audience and rejoicing in 
 the sound of its own voice, to impress upon intelligent 
 Englishmen the truth that no intelligent American 
 desires any other than the most constant, the most cor 
 dial relations of friendship with England. There are 
 indeed shrines here where we worship; founts whence 
 we have drawn thirst-quenching draughts of liberty 
 and poetry and law. But the talk about common in 
 stitutions and a common language is cheap talk, and, 
 in some respects, misleading talk. The common lan 
 guage did not prevent us from going to war on two 
 occasions, and enables us on every occasion, when we 
 happen to be out of temper, to express ourselves the 
 more volubly and the more offensively. The common 
 institutions, where they do not expose us to conflicting 
 interests, are rather imaginary than real. We are of 
 common origin and blood, undoubtedly, and that means 
 that we are good fighters, who may be counted on, 
 408
 
 England and America 
 
 each to stand by his own ; and consequently, as this cir 
 cumstance has come to be tolerably well understood on 
 both sides of the Atlantic, we are hearing a good deal 
 about a new principle of international ethics, or juris 
 prudence, or what you will, which they call arbitration. 
 
 Well, I am for "arbitration." I am for arbitration 
 just as I am for religion and morality and justice, and 
 all other good things that sound well and cost little. 
 But who ever heard of religion or morality or justice 
 interposing to prevent the church your church or my 
 church from doing, as an aggregation, what no hon 
 est man would willingly do as an individual. Nations, 
 I fear, are no better than churches, and, while arbitra 
 tion may work very well as a preventive, it will, when 
 the disorder has struck in or become chronic, prove in 
 effectual as a cure. Then it is that the body politic, 
 the body corporate, requires blood-letting; and blood 
 letting it will surely have. 
 
 Not until man ceases to litigate will he cease to fight. 
 When courts of law are abolished and lawyers are 
 turned into darning-needles; when journalists ex 
 change their functions as preachers sometimes exchange 
 their pulpits; when rival merchants will not permit 
 one another to undersell his wares; in short, when the 
 lion and the lamb have concluded to pool their issues 
 and to lie down to pleasant dreams, we shall have that 
 peace on earth, good-will to men, including, of course, 
 free trade and sailors rights, so ardently invoked on 
 409
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 this side of the ocean by Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright, 
 and, on our side, by Mr. Cleveland, to be applauded 
 and denied, when opportunity has offered, on both 
 sides. War is certainly a dreadful alternative. He 
 who has seen it, and who knows what it actually means, 
 can look upon it only with horror. But there are yet 
 greater evils to mankind than war, whose elimination 
 from human experience makes the emasculation of the 
 human species simply a question of time. It was the 
 heroic spirit of the Anglo-Saxon race which placed 
 England where England is to-day, and her warriors 
 are no more to be forgotten than her sages. It is to 
 this same martial spirit that the American Union owes 
 all that it is, and on which it must rely to maintain all 
 that it has. It is certainly true that these two great 
 nations occupy a position strong enough to control the 
 destinies of the world ; but they are not likely to agree 
 upon the terms until Englishmen find as much to thrill 
 and exalt them at Mount Vernon as Americans find to 
 thrill and exalt them at Stratford-on-Avon. Till then, 
 thanking God that I am an Anglo-Saxon, and glorying 
 in the achievements of my race, visible everywhere in 
 this wondrous land, I must rest upon the answer made 
 by John Adams to George the Third, when the King 
 reminded him that, having been born an English sub 
 ject, he ought to love England : "Sire," said the sturdy 
 old Republican, "Sire, I love no country except my 
 own." 
 
 410
 
 England and America 
 
 I beg that you will forgive me if I overstep the lim 
 itations as to belligerency in my case purely abstract 
 officially fixed upon an association dedicated to the 
 noble arts of avarice and peace. But something may 
 be allowed to certain peculiarities of the occasion. Your 
 guest this evening is a General. I, myself, being a 
 Kentuckian, have sometimes been called Colonel. 
 
 If, inspired by the heroic dead, to whose memory 
 we have drunk, I take leave to hoist the national bunt 
 ing a little higher than the Duke of York s column, 
 I trail it also in pious homage toward that dome yon 
 der where lie the mortal remains of Wellington and 
 Nelson. I certainly do not mean to beard the lion in 
 his den, nor to twist the mane or the tail of the noble 
 beast when I remind you that we, too, have in Grant 
 and Sherman and Lee, in Farragut and Stonewall 
 Jackson, Anglo-Saxon soldiers whom Englishmen 
 should delight to honor. Upon the basis of that honor, 
 mutual, reciprocal, spontaneous, and sincere, may Eng 
 land and America always be, what they of right are 
 and ought to be, bone of one bone and flesh of one 
 flesh. 
 
 411
 
 RECIPROCITY AND EXPANSION* 
 
 In the event that I am ever a candidate for Presi 
 dent of the United States, which Heaven forbid, I 
 shall need the electoral vote of Massachusetts or, 
 rather let me say, that I never expect to become a can 
 didate for that office until assured in advance of that 
 vote and, this being agreed upon, you will not think 
 me taking unfair advantage of your hospitality, or 
 making a self-seeking electioneering use of it, when I 
 say that I love Massachusetts. I love Massachusetts 
 because Massachusetts loves liberty, and I love lib 
 erty. If I am a crank about anything it is about my 
 right at all times and under all circumstances to talk 
 out in meeting. There is but one human being in this 
 world whom I bow down to and obey, and she is not 
 here this evening she is at home I came for pleasure 
 and, therefore, I am going to proceed just as though 
 I were in reality Julius Caesar! 
 
 Boston, I believe, is in Massachusetts, and the Bos- 
 tonese, I am told, possess the conceit of themselves. It 
 is a handy thing to have about the house, and in your 
 
 * A speech made at the Banquet of the Merchants Association of Bos 
 ton, December 10, 1901. 
 
 412
 
 Reciprocity and Expansion 
 
 case happens to be founded on fact. I at least shall 
 not deny your claim to many good things which have 
 come to pass since the birth of Benjamin Franklin and 
 on down to the completion of the subway and the new 
 passenger-stations. And yet back in the neck of 
 woods where I abide there are those who think that 
 Kentucky is "no slouch." A story is told of an old 
 darky in slave-holding days who declared that his 
 young master was the greatest man that ever lived. 
 "Is he greater than Henry Clay?" "Yas, sir." 
 "Greater than General Jackson?" "Yas, sir." "Well, 
 come now, Uncle Ephraim, you we n t say that he is 
 greater than the Almighty?" Uncle Ephraim was 
 stumped for a moment. "I won say dat, sah; no, sah; 
 but he ber y young yit." Kentucky may not be all 
 that Massachusetts is; but Kentucky is "ber y young 
 yit!" 
 
 You have here the accretions of nearly three centu 
 ries of thinking and doing. A single century ago the 
 hunters of Kentucky were threading their way by the 
 light of pine-knot and rifle-flash through the trackless 
 canebrake and the perilous forest to plant the flag 
 which you worship and I adore upon the first stage of 
 its westward journey around the world. During 
 that War of Sections which extinguished African sla 
 very and created a Nation, Massachusetts was united 
 to a man. Kentucky was so divided that she sent an 
 equal number of soldiers into both of the contending
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 armies. Throughout the period succeeding the chaos 
 of that great upheaval, while Massachusetts stood off 
 at long range and took a speculative crack at all crea 
 tion, Kentucky had to grapple with its realities: to 
 bind up the wounds of the body-corporate; to recover 
 the equipoise of the body-politic; to bury a lost cause 
 and to repair the breaches among the combatants. We 
 did it. We are still doing what is left of it for us to 
 do. And, though we lack somewhat of the wealth 
 which enables you to wish for a thing and to have it, 
 and, perhaps, the training and methods of order which 
 have come down to you from those blody riots in which 
 you will not deny that your fathers engaged at Lex 
 ington and Concord and Bunker Hill yea, in the 
 streets of this very town we are getting there, and, 
 let me repeat, Kentucky is young yet. 
 
 Not so young, however, that long before many of 
 us here present were born she was not old enough to 
 go partners with Massachusetts to help the manufac 
 turers fleece the farmers under the pretension that high 
 protective duties would develop our infant industries 
 and make everybody rich. 
 
 I beg you will not be alarmed. I am not going to 
 discuss the Tariff. Twenty-five years ago I ventured 
 in a modest Democratic platform, and in other simple, 
 childlike ways, to advance the theory that "Custom 
 house taxation," and I might have added all taxation, 
 "shall be for revenue only"; in other words, that the 
 414
 
 Reciprocity and Expansion 
 
 Government has no constitutional right nor power in 
 equity to levy a dollar of taxation except for its own 
 support, and that, when the sum required has been ob 
 tained, the tax shall stop. They called me names. 
 They said I was a revolutionist. They even went the 
 length of intimating that I was a Radical, and that, 
 you know, down our way, is equivalent to telling 
 a man he is a son-of-a-gun from Boston! Worse 
 than all, I was heralded and stigmatized as a Free 
 Trader. Hoary old infant industries, exuding the 
 oleaginous substance of subsidy out of every pore, 
 climbed upon their haunches and with tears in their 
 eyes exclaimed, "What, would you deprive us children 
 not only of our pap, but take from us the means of aid 
 ing the poor workingman to earn a living?" Being a 
 person of tender sensibilities there were times when I 
 wanted to creep off somewhere and weep. Lo! the 
 scene shifts, and what do I see? I see the Republican 
 party, which was so aghast at the old-fashioned, allo 
 pathic treatment I prescribed, coming out as a full- 
 fledged Free Trader on the homoeopathic plan; its 
 hands full of protocolic pill-boxes loaded with Reci 
 procity capsules; each capsule nicely sugared to suit 
 the fancy of such infants as accept the treatment, each 
 pill-box bearing the old reliable Protectionist label! 
 
 I should be disingenuous if I affected surprise. In 
 deed, the event fulfils a prophecy of my own. Many 
 years ago, talking to a company of manufacturers at 
 415
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 A 
 
 Pittsburg, I declared that the day was not far distant 
 when Pennsylvania would be for Free Trade, while a 
 Protectionist party would be growing in Kentucky; 
 that with plants perfected, with trade-marks fixed, and 
 patents secure, Pennsylvania, seeking cheaper processes 
 and wider markets, would say, "Away with the Tariff," 
 while the owners of raw material, the coal barons, and 
 the iron lords of Kentucky, would cry out, "Hold on, 
 we don t want the robbing to stop until we have got our 
 share of it." 
 
 I have lived to see and I do not deny Protectionism 
 its share of the credit my contention being that it was 
 bound to come and might have been had cheaper I 
 have lived to see the American manufacturer able to 
 meet this foreign rival in every neutral market in Chris 
 tendom, sure at least of recovering and controlling 
 those markets that geographically belong to him; be 
 cause, from a collar-button to a locomotive, the finished 
 product of the American manufacturer to-day beats the 
 world. 
 
 And this leads me to ask, if all of us are to turn 
 Free Traders, where is the revenue needful to support 
 the Government economically administered, mind 
 you, economically administered! to come from? We 
 are barred direct taxation. Henry George being dead, 
 and Tom Johnson alone surviving, Massachusetts, the 
 bell-wether of innovation, will have to wrestle with 
 the Single Tax problem even as long as she wrestled 
 416
 
 Reciprocity and Expansion 
 
 with the problem of Abolition; and, meanwhile, some 
 how, the Government must live. Is it possible that, 
 being a conservative philosopher and a responsible jour 
 nalist, I must go back upon my own progeny, cross my 
 own footprints, and become the champion of a revenue 
 tariff with "incidental protection" enough to supply 
 our poor President, and his advisers, and our poor Con 
 gress, and other of our impecunious employes in the 
 public service with the means of keeping out of the 
 poor-house? Shall there be another scandal about an 
 other liaison between Massachusetts and Kentucky, an 
 other league between the Puritan and the blackleg, 
 another era of bargain, intrigue, and corruption as a 
 consequence of our forgathering here to-night? Can 
 it be that it was for this you would lure the Star-eyed 
 one away from the cold pedestal, whereon, like Niobe, 
 she stands, all tears, to these gilded halls and festive 
 scenes? I was warned before I left home that "those 
 Yankees are mighty cute," and I am afraid that, when 
 I get back, the wise ones will shake their heads and 
 wonder what kind of walking it was between Boston 
 Common and the head-waters of the Beargrass! 
 
 Forgive the levity. But what a comedy the thing 
 we call Government, what a humbug the thing we call 
 Politics! And yet, after all, how inevitable! I have 
 seen some real battles in my time; but more sham bat 
 tles, and I do declare that I much prefer the sham bat 
 tles to the real battles. I shall always contend that 
 417
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 politics is not war ; that party lines are not lines of bat 
 tle. I believe that we shall never approach the ideal 
 in Government until we have forced public men to 
 speak the truth and hew to the line in public affairs, 
 even as in private affairs, the same laws of honor hold 
 ing good in both; and, while I would no more exclude 
 sentiment than I would stop the circulation of blood, 
 many lessons of dear-bought experience admonish me 
 that we are as a rule nearest to being in error when 
 we are most positive and emphatic; that grievous in 
 justice and injury are perpetrated by the misrepresen 
 tation and abuse which are so freely visited upon pub 
 lic men for no other cause, or offence, than a difference 
 of opinion ; and that intolerance, the devil s hand 
 maiden, in our private relations, embraces the sum of 
 all viciousness in the affairs of Church and State. 
 
 Among men of sense and judgment, of heart and 
 conscience, the subjects of real difference must needs 
 be few and infrequent. Even these may be often ac 
 commodated without hurt to any interest, all govern 
 ment being more or less a bundle of compromises. It 
 is that we do in the aggregate what no one of us would 
 dream of doing in severally ; the point turning perhaps 
 upon the division of responsibility, but more upon the 
 pressure which in excited times the wrong-headed and 
 stout of will impose upon the more moderate, the bet 
 ter-tempered, and better-advised. The Press partic 
 ularly the Yellow Press is doing a noble work toward 
 418
 
 Reciprocity and Expansion 
 
 the correction of this evil; because already people are 
 beginning to believe nothing they read in the newspa 
 pers, and, after awhile, tiring of an endless, daily cir 
 cuit of misinformation, they will begin to demand a 
 journalism less interesting and more trustworthy; and, 
 believe me, whenever they make this requisition 
 whenever they discriminate between the organ of fact 
 and the organ of fancy there shall not be wanting 
 editors who will prefer to grow rich by telling the truth 
 than to die poor telling lies. We may not have reached 
 yet the summit of human perfectibility, where we can 
 hold our own with the merchants of Boston, but even 
 among the members of my profession the self-sacri 
 ficing spirit lives apace, and the time will come when 
 the worst of us will scorn the scoop that is no longer 
 profitable ! 
 
 You have been told, and many of you doubtless be 
 lieve, that life is less secure in Kentucky than in 
 China, or even in Chicago ; and but a little while ago a 
 Kentucky mother was represented as thanking the One 
 Above that her boy was bravely fighting in the Philip 
 pines instead of having to face the perils of the deadly 
 roof-tree at home. You have been told that justice 
 cannot be had in our courts of law. You have been 
 told that, because we have some surviving prejudice 
 against bringing the black man and brother into the 
 bosom of our families, we are his enemies and would 
 take unfair advantage of his ignorance and poverty. 
 419
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 None of these things is true. They are the figments of 
 a bigotry that obstinately refuses to see both sides. 
 There is an equal quantum of human nature in Ken 
 tucky and in Massachusetts. There are as many 
 church-bells in the Bluegrass country as in the Bay 
 State country, and they send the same sweet notes to 
 Heaven and sound exactly alike. The one commu 
 nity, like the other, may be trusted to do its part by 
 humanity and its duty to the State; nor can the one 
 help the other except by generous allowance for in 
 firmities that under the same conditions are Common to 
 both, and by manly sympathy in the cause of liberty 
 and truth, which was, and is, and ever shall be, the 
 glory of our whole country and the fulfilment, under 
 God, of its sublime destiny. 
 
 We live in untoward times. We have witnessed 
 wondrous things. With the passing away of the old 
 problems, new problems confront us. Modern inven 
 tion has smashed the clock and pitched the geography 
 into the sea. The map of the world, so completely al 
 tered that it really begins to look like the Fourth of 
 July, lends itself as a telescope to the point of view. 
 Concentration is becoming the universal demand, the 
 survival of the fittest the prevailing law. The idio 
 syncrasy of the nineteenth century was liberty. The 
 idiosyncrasy of the twentieth century is markets. Be 
 it ours to look to it that we steer betwen the two ex 
 tremes of commercialism and anarchism, for, if we have 
 420
 
 Reciprocity and Expansion 
 
 not come to the heritage which God and Nature and 
 the providence of our fathers stored up for us, to em 
 ploy it in good works, we had better not come to it at 
 all. 
 
 Thoughtful Americans, true to the instincts of their 
 manhood and their racehood, answering the promptings 
 of an ever-watchful patriotism ; carrying in their hearts 
 the principles of that inspired Declaration to which 
 their country owes its being as one among the nations 
 of the earth; carrying in their minds the limitations 
 of that matchless Constitution to which their Govern 
 ment owes its stability and its power; conscientious, 
 earnest Americans, whether they dwell in Massachu 
 setts or in Kentucky, cannot look without concern upon 
 the peculiar dangers that assail us as we plough through 
 the treacherous waters which, for all our boasted deep- 
 sea soundings, threaten to engulf the ship of state, 
 and, along with it, the old-fashioned lessons of econ 
 omy, the simple preachments of freedom and virtue in 
 which those fathers thought they laid the keel and 
 raised the bulwarks of our great Republic. 
 
 That which we call Expansion coveted by some, 
 deplored and dreaded by others is a fact. The new 
 ly acquired territories are with us, and they are with 
 us to stay; a century hence the flag will be floating 
 where it now floats, unless some power stronger than 
 we are ourselves turns up to drive us out. The very 
 thought of the vista thus opened to us should give us 
 421
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 pause, should chasten and make us humble in the sight 
 of Heaven, should appal us with the magnitude and 
 multitude of its responsibilities. If we are to turn the 
 opportunities they embody only to the account of our 
 avarice and pride ; if we are to see in them only the ad 
 vancement of our private fortunes, at the expense of 
 the public duty and honor; if we are to tickle away 
 our consciousness of wrong-doing with insincere plati 
 tudes about religion and civilization, and to soothe our 
 conscience, while we rob and slay the helpless, with the 
 conceits of a self-deluding national vanity, then it had 
 been well for us, and for our c^ ldren, and our chil 
 dren s children that Dewey had sailed away, though 
 he had sailed without compass, or rudder, or objective 
 point, into the night of everlasting mystery and obliv 
 ion. But I believe nothing of the kind. I believe we 
 shall prove a contradiction to all the bad examples of 
 history, to all the warning voices of philosophy, to all 
 the homely precepts of that conservatism which, found 
 ed in the truest love of country, yet takes no account of 
 the revolution wrought by modern contrivance upon 
 the character and movements of mankind. I believe 
 that the American Union came among the nations 
 even as the Christ came among the sons of men. I 
 believe that Constitutional Freedom, according to the 
 charter of American liberty, is to government what 
 Christianity is to religion; and, so believing, I would 
 apply the principles and precedents of that charter to 
 422
 
 Reciprocity and Expansion 
 
 the administration of the affairs of the outlying regions 
 and peoples come to us as a consequence of the war 
 with Spain precisely as they were applied to the terri 
 tories purchased of France and acquired of Mexico ; not 
 merely guaranteeing to them the same uniformity of 
 laws which the Constitution ordains in the States of 
 the Union, but rearing among them kindred institu 
 tions, essential not less to our safety and dignity than 
 to their prosperity and happiness. Entertaining no 
 doubt that this view will prevail in the final disposi 
 tion, my optimism is as unquenchable as my Repub 
 licanism; and both forecast in my mind s eye centuries 
 of greatness and glory for us as a nation and as a 
 people. 
 
 We are upon the ascending, not the descending 
 scale of national and popular development. We are 
 to recreate out of the racial agglomerations which 
 have found lodgment here a new species and a better 
 species of men and women. We are to revitalize the 
 primitive religion, with its often misleading theologies, 
 into a new and practical system of life and thought, of 
 universal religion, to which the Declaration of Inde- 
 dendence, the Constitution of the United States, and 
 the Sermon on the Mount of Olives shall furnish the 
 inspiration and the key-note, to the end that all lands 
 and all tribes shall teem with the love of man and the 
 glory of the Lord. We are passing, it may be, through 
 an era of acquisition and mediocrity, a formative era, 
 423
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 but we have made and are making progress; and, in 
 spite of the threats of Mammon, the perils that en 
 viron the excess of luxury and wealth, in spite of the 
 viciousness and the greed, we shall reach a point at 
 last where money will be so plentiful, its uses so lim 
 ited and defined, that it will have no longer any power 
 to corrupt. 
 
 Although this is an association of merchants, and 
 Boston merchants at that professedly committed to 
 the principle that "business is business" sometimes 
 though wrongfully accused of "gainefulle pillage" I 
 am sure that there is no one amongst us who does not 
 feel that the unscrupulous application of money on 
 every hand has been and still is the darkest cloud upon 
 our moral horizon, the lion across our highway, stand 
 ing just at the fork of the roads, one of which leads 
 up patriotic steeps of fame and glory, the other down 
 into the abysses of plutocracy, opening his ferocious 
 jaws and licking his bloody lips to swallow up all that 
 is great and noble in the national life. 
 
 The Hercules who strangles that lion shall be called 
 blessed in the land, and this leads me to take note of 
 the presence with us here to-night of a Hercules, who 
 is said to know more about that lion than any other 
 Hercules, living or dead. I mean, of course, the Chair 
 man of the National Committee of one of the two 
 great parties contending for the sovereignty of the 
 people, the distinguished, the eminent Senator, the hon- 
 424
 
 Reciprocity and Expansion 
 
 ored neighbor and friend who sits near me. Though 
 not a Kentuckian himself, he has a brother who came 
 to Kentucky to bear away upon the wings of love one 
 of our fairest daughters. According to the law of the 
 vicinage down our way, the circumstance makes us 
 "kind o kin," as the saying is, and by that token I 
 have a proposition to submit to him. If he accepts it, 
 I will go bail that my party associates ratify my act. 
 
 He knows and I know how hard it is to raise money 
 even for the legitimate purposes of a national cam 
 paign. Yet many people imagine that more or less it 
 is merely to give the skillet an extra shake or two. 
 Those who have least actual familiarity with money 
 are pronest to thinking of millions as millionnaires 
 think of pennies. Thousands of good people believe 
 that for everybody except themselves money grows on 
 bushes, and that all elections are knocked down to the 
 highest bidder. The bare fact is lowering both to our 
 political standards and our standards of morality. 
 The mere statement is in a sense degrading. Never 
 theless, it is undoubtedly true that money is as essen 
 tial to political battles as powder and ball to actual 
 battles, and the proposition I have to submit to my 
 friend, the Senator from Ohio, is that he and I come 
 to an agreement about what sum of money the two 
 organizations will require honestly to tide them 
 through to the next Presidential election ; that we raise 
 this sum on a joint note and divide the proceeds equally ; 
 425
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 and that, when the election is over, the party carry 
 ing the country shall pay the note! If it be an induce 
 ment, I will further agree that the money to be raised 
 shall be of standard weight and value, expressed in 
 gold and silver and paper convertible into either at the 
 will of the holder. 
 
 But, whether this or some other plan be reached to 
 abridge the use of money in elections, I do not doubt 
 that we shall in the end weather the breakers of plu 
 tocracy. 
 
 It is true, that, possessed of no great aristocratic 
 titles, or patents of nobility, money becomes, and will 
 probably remain, the simplest and readiest of all our 
 standards of measurement. Yet, even now, it is grown 
 such a drug in the market, that some far-seeing men, 
 finding it. so plentiful and easy to get, are giving it 
 away in sacks and baskets. Time will show that its 
 value is relative, and that after the actual needs of 
 life it will buy nothing that wise men will think worth 
 having at the cost either of their conscience or their 
 credit. Give me the right not in the character of an 
 abstraction, so often misleading to theorists and doc 
 trinaires not as a flash of fancy, so often irradiating 
 the dreams of the visionary with its illusory hopes 
 but the plain, simple right in plain and simple things, 
 obvious to the reasonable and the fair-minded, arising 
 out of the common-sense and common honesty of the 
 common people, relating to the actualities of govern- 
 426
 
 Reciprocity and Expansion 
 
 ment and life, and driving home to the business and 
 bosoms of men and I care not for the golden con 
 tents of all the "bar ls" that were ever tapped by sor 
 did ambition, or consecrated themselves as rich liba 
 tions on the altars of opulent partyism. 
 
 The people, as a people, can never be corrupted. 
 The whole history of a hundred years of constitutional 
 government in America, the i.ioral lesson and the ex 
 perience of all our parties, may be told in a single sen 
 tence, that, when any political organism, grown over 
 confident by its successes and faithless to its duty, 
 thinks it has the world in a sling, public opinion just 
 rears back on its hind legs and kicks it out. In that 
 faith I rest my hope of the future of the country; sure 
 that in the long run wrong cannot prosper, and that 
 an enlightened public opinion is a certain cure for 
 every ill. 
 
 Gentlemen, Kentucky salutes Massachusetts! Come 
 and see us! You shall find the latch-string always 
 hanging outside the door! 
 
 427
 
 FAREWELL TO THE KENTUCKY 
 TROOPS * 
 
 I take it for granted that there is no one of you 
 who has enlisted for a soldier who does not want to be 
 a soldier and who has not resolved to be a soldier. 
 That much at least is the heritage of the Kentuckian. 
 But even in soldiership there is a right way and a wrong 
 way. The famous Confederate General Forrest said 
 of war that "it means fighting and fighting means kill 
 ing." He also said of success in battle that it is "get 
 ting there first with the most men." Some of us are 
 old enough to remember the delusion that once had a 
 certain vogue among the unthinking that one South 
 erner could whip six Yankees. We got bravely over 
 that; and now that we are all Yankees, let it not be 
 imagined that one Yankee can whip six Spaniards. It 
 is always better to overrate than to underrate the en 
 emy. He fights best who fights truest. He fights best 
 who knows why he fights and for what he fights, and 
 who, when he goes under fire, says to himself, "I have 
 but one time to die, and, please God, I am as ready 
 now as ever I shall be." The Irish have a couplet 
 which declares: 
 
 * Lexington, K.V., Friday, May ay, 1898. 
 428
 
 Farewell to the Kentucky Troops 
 
 "Not man, nor monarch, half so proud 
 As he whose flag becomes his shroud." 
 
 That is only another way of repeating the old Latin 
 heroic that it is sweet to die for one s country. 
 
 You are about to make history. It may prove that 
 this will not be history merely repeating itself. For 
 the first time since the Crusades war has been levied 
 for no cause of a purely material kind, and with no 
 selfish purpose. I scarcely like the shibboleth "Remem 
 ber the Maine." It seems to me too revengeful to be 
 quite worthy. I do not forget the circumstance to 
 which it owes its origin. The scene of that awful 
 tragedy under the shadow of Morro Castle is yet be 
 fore my eyes. I can see, as I close them, the very faces 
 of our murdered sailors with the ghastliness of death 
 upon them. But I also see the myriads of starving men, 
 women, and children, ruthlessly sacrificed to feed the 
 lust and to fill the pockets of professional plunderers 
 masquerading in Cuba as Spanish officers and gentle 
 men. Behind them I see three centuries of wanton pil 
 lage, of frightful corruption, of cruelty unsurpassed in 
 human annals. The time was long ago come for some 
 great power to stretch forth its hand, to interpose its 
 authority, and to say to the world, "This barbarism 
 shall stop." What power except that of the United 
 States was to do this? Cuba is our next-door neighbor. 
 Time out of mind these atrocities have been perpetrated 
 429
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 before our eyes. While Spain has required us to spend 
 millions of money policing our coasts against the fili 
 busters, she has shown herself unable, or unwilling, in 
 our protection, to police one of her own harbors. Was 
 this to go on forever? You yourselves are the answer 
 to the question. 
 
 You are going to fight a battle waged by man for 
 man. You are going therefore in the name of that 
 Christ who died for men. You are going to fight a 
 battle for the glory of God and your native land. You 
 are going, therefore, under a flag which, the symbol 
 at once of freedom and humanity, and having God s 
 blessing upon it, has never yet known defeat. Look to 
 it that you carry yourselves as soldiers equally of the 
 cross and of the flag. 
 
 No man can be a good soldier who is not at heart a 
 good man. While courage in battle is the first essen 
 tial of a good soldier, it is by no means the only essen 
 tial, for close along with it come endurance under trial 
 and moderation in action. Nor is the best courage the 
 absence of fear. Fearlessness, indeed, is a virtue rather 
 comfortable to him that hath it than commendable by 
 the rest of us, because no man deserves credit for 
 what was born to him and for what he cannot help. 
 Very, very few possess it. When cannon begin to 
 growl, grim watchdogs whose bark is something worse 
 than their bite, and bullets like birds of evil omen be 
 gin to sing their song of death, the greater number of 
 430
 
 Farewell to the Kentucky Troops 
 
 you will find yourselves very sensible of danger. Do 
 not mistake this apprehension for cowardice. It is no 
 such thing. Self-possession in the presence of danger 
 is the truest courage, and he is the bravest soldier who 
 keeps his head, who knows perfectly the right thing to 
 do, and who does it, when, frightened out of his boots, 
 his legs would fain carry him away. It is the sense of 
 duty which will make you men ; duty to the flag above 
 you; duty to constituted authority; duty to country 
 and honor, and to those dear ones at home who will 
 follow you with ever-tearful, but with ever-brighten 
 ing eyes. 
 
 After what I have said it will be superfluous to add 
 that I believe in this war. I believe in it with all my 
 mind and with all my soul. If ever there was a jus 
 tified war it is this. Though it should rob me of lives 
 that are dearer to me than my own life, I shall believe 
 it conceived in a holy spirit, sanctified by Heaven, and 
 directed toward the advancement and the enlargement 
 of a benign civilization. 
 
 In these warlike spectacles everywhere manifest, it 
 has already united us as nothing else could have united 
 us emancipated both sections of the Union from the 
 mistaken impression that we ever were, or ever could 
 be, anything else than one people. In the brilliant 
 achievement of that typical Green Mountain boy on 
 the other side of the globe, it has already exploited us as 
 a naval power, and, as you yourselves shall show, it will 
 431
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 presently demonstrate us no less a military power, be 
 fore whose legions the enemies of liberty and humanity 
 will do well to look before they leap. Surely, these 
 were consummations devoutly to be wished. They are 
 worth all the war has cost us, or will cost us. I know 
 what war means. I have seen it in all its horrors and 
 terrors. But there is something even worse than war. 
 To become a nation, not only of shop-keepers, but of 
 dishonest shop-keepers; to wear away our lives beat 
 ing one another out of a few degrading dollars the 
 more or the less; to find in the boasted arts of peace 
 nothing nobler than the piling up of riches, and the 
 gratification of propensities growing more and more 
 ignoble with increasing luxury and wealth; and, 
 finally, through the systematic violation of natural 
 laws and amid artificial class distinctions and hideous 
 contrasts of life, to emasculate the Anglo-Saxon species 
 in America these things seem to me even worse than 
 war. We have had thirty-three years of peace ; and we 
 seemed to be approaching perilously near domestic con 
 ditions appalling to contemplate. This peace has now 
 been broken. We are in the midst of war, and war is 
 a great educator. 
 
 It is at one and the same time a university course 
 and a career; and he who comes out of the fiery ordeal 
 with honor, though he come upon crutches, brings with 
 him a degree no college can confer. It is for you not 
 alone to meet the requirements of the service; not alone 
 432
 
 Farewell to the Kentucky Troops 
 
 to vindicate your motives in taking the field; but to 
 learn, as your lives pass through the crucible of honor 
 able war, how to retrieve the mistakes of your genera 
 tion, so that when you return victors to your homes 
 and become citizens again, you may turn back the tide 
 of evil counsels and wicked passions which was begin 
 ning to run to the centre of the stream, making men to 
 love money more than honor, to put their pockets above 
 their conscience and their party above their country. 
 War leaves no man where it found him; but, if he be 
 a true man, it will make him a better man. 
 
 I do not doubt the result of this war. But I should 
 whisper into your ear the blandishments of a most mis 
 leading optimism if I should promise you that it will 
 be all play and no work, all parade and no danger. He 
 who thinks so should remain at home. Under the best 
 conditions a soldier s life is a hard life. As one who 
 has seen it under its worst conditions, let me at least 
 encourage you with the assurance that you are not 
 likely to meet anything quite so hard as your fathers 
 met four or five and thirty years ago. Of course, it 
 should go without saying that we were better men than 
 you can hope to be. That much is the old man s priv 
 ilege as it is his boast, and, since the satisfaction of his 
 vanity costs you nothing, and is in a sense a tribute to 
 your own conceit, it may perchance strengthen you in 
 the moment of peril, console you in the moment of pri 
 vation, and, as in fancy you look back and see him por- 
 433
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 ing over the latest tidings from the front, it may nerve 
 you for the combat and make you braver soldiers and 
 better men. 
 
 I will not insult you by intimating that you must 
 not be afraid of fighting, for that is what you came 
 for; that is your business; that is, as the children say, 
 where you live. But let me suggest that you be not 
 afraid of work. Don t be afraid of marching and 
 mounting guard. Don t be afraid of cooking your 
 victuals, if you are fortunate enough to have any vict 
 uals to cook, or of washing your clothes even of 
 washing yourselves in case you happen to be camped 
 near a running stream. Don t be afraid of being for 
 gotten or neglected. Don t be afraid of not getting 
 enough campaigning. Above all, don t be afraid of 
 foreign intervention. If you will take care of the 
 Spaniards, I will engage, as Prince Bismarck is older 
 than I am, to take care of him, and maybe of his young 
 master, and, incidentally, while you are away, to look 
 after Kentucky, and Europe, and Asia, and Africa! 
 In short, dear boys, and may I not call you fellow-sol 
 diers, the sum total of it is stated in a single sentence: 
 Do your duty. 
 
 Obedience, submission, is the first, and, perhaps, the 
 hardest of the soldier s duties. If officers seem capri 
 cious, or tyrannical, do your duty. It will come round 
 all right. If the powers that be seem partisan, or un 
 fair, do your duty. The end will justify you. Be 
 434
 
 Farewell to the Kentucky Troops 
 
 sure that, in the long run, the man who does his duty 
 passes beyond the reach of wrong; for, as there is a 
 God who saith, "Vengeance is mine I will repay," so 
 is there a people, whose voice is the voice of God, who 
 will visit upon those that would convert the places of 
 trust which they chance to hold into places of private 
 or political advantage, a punishment as complete as it 
 is certain, as blighting as it is overwhelming. 
 
 With respect to the surgical examinations, Colonel 
 Castleman made a remark the other day which greatly 
 impressed me. He said the Government seemed to 
 want machines instead of soldiers. That was well 
 said. An army must, indeed, be a machine. But the 
 soldiers which make up an army must be men. The 
 war between the sections was prolonged during four 
 years of unexampled battle because the soldiers who 
 fought it were men and not machines. In the army 
 with which all too imperfectly I served, there was a 
 private soldier who enlisted with the very first in 1861 ; 
 he was a young lawyer, come with distinction from one 
 of the greatest of the schools; a scholar and a man of 
 genius. He might have had the captaincy of his com 
 pany, and, later on, been one of the field officers of his 
 regiment. He refused a commission, shouldered his 
 musket, and footed it with the boys. He was in every 
 battle. More than once upon the field exigencies re 
 quired him to command considerable numbers of men ; 
 but he persistently declined promotion. Though but 
 435
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 a private in the ranks, he became conspicuous in 
 the army. I once asked him why it was that he 
 courted obscurity, and he said that his ambitions were 
 not of the military sort, beyond the doing of his duty; 
 that he had enlisted from a sense of duty, and duty 
 alone; that he expected the war at some time to end, 
 and when it was over he wanted to be ready for the 
 work of civil life, and, particularly, for the work of his 
 profession, which greatly concerned him; and that, 
 free from the responsibilities and cares of a command, 
 he was able to continue his studies, to trim his lamp 
 and keep it bright, and, in many ways, while serving 
 his own conceptions, to set an example and to do good 
 among his immediate surroundings. He fell in front 
 of Atlanta ; and, when they lifted his lifeless body from 
 the earth, his hands clung to a musket and a little vol 
 ume of Greek verse fell from his knapsack. There is 
 nothing upon the simple stone that marks his resting- 
 place but the inscription, "Wright Smith Hackett," 
 but thirty years ago there were many thousands of 
 brave men who knew how much that name stood for! 
 In the nature of the case but few of you can hope 
 to attain to great commands, or to acquire exceptional 
 distinction. In the end most of you must lay aside 
 your uniforms and resume the habiliments of civil life. 
 But there is no one of you who cannot do his duty, 
 and, doing his duty, cannot be proud and happy. A 
 neighbor of mine came to see me the other day to ask 
 436
 
 Farewell to the Kentucky Troops 
 
 me to exert my supposed influence in getting his son a 
 commission. I assured him that I have no influence. 
 "But," said I, "I have two sons carrying muskets in 
 the ranks sons whom I dearly love but for whose 
 advancement I shall not put forth the slightest effort. 
 It is enough for me to know that they are serving their 
 country, and if it pleases God to bring them back to 
 their mother and me safe and sound, I shall bless His 
 name as long as I live." 
 
 In that prayer let me include each and every one of 
 you ; though I would rather see my boys, and each and 
 every one of you, lying by the side of that brave and 
 lovely sailor lad whom North Carolina has just given 
 up as Heaven s first sacrifice upon the altars of the 
 Nation and Mankind, than that one feather should be 
 plucked from the eagle s wing, or a syllable of re 
 proach he justly cast upon the name and fame of our 
 dear Kentucky! 
 
 437
 
 BLOOD THICKER THAN WATER* 
 
 I want to talk you to-night, not as a Democrat to 
 Republicans, but as an American to Americans. I have 
 always resisted and resented the idea that party lines 
 are lines of battle ; that party issues are proclamations of 
 war. Our Government rests upon the theory that we 
 are equal shareholders in a common property. Touch 
 ing the administration of this property there will always 
 exist honest differences of opinion. Good citizenship 
 imposes upon each of us the duty of entertaining his own 
 convictions and of living up to them; but he ,-ecomes 
 little other than a bigot who thinks more of himself on 
 this account, and loves his neighbor less, because that 
 neighbor, exercising the same right, does the same thing. 
 
 April 13, 1 86 1, Sumter fell. April 9, 1865, Lee sur 
 rendered. The four years intervening between those 
 dates, marking the beginning and the end of the most 
 momentous struggle of modern times, witnessed such an 
 outpouring of blood and treasure, such displays of cour 
 age and endurance, such sacrifices for opinion s sake, as 
 stagger human credulity and beggar alike the powers of 
 
 * A response to the toast " Peace Between the Sections," Hamilton 
 Club Banquet, Auditorium, Chicago, April 9, 1903. 
 
 438
 
 Blood Thicker than Water 
 
 computation and recapitulation. Never in any preced 
 ing war was there so little of public wrong, so much of 
 private generosity ; nor ever were the results of any war 
 so complete and final. Elsewhere upon the surface of 
 the earth traces may yet be seen, sometimes yet lurking 
 in the hearts of men sensibilities may be found, of strifes, 
 religious or racial, international or civil, one, two, and 
 three centuries agone; in America not a vestige except 
 what springs from associated charities and reciprocal 
 ministrations of patriotism and benevolence. Northern 
 men and women mark and decorate the last resting- 
 place of Southern soldiers who died in Federal prisons. 
 Confederate officers sit in both Houses of Congress and 
 upon the bench of the national judiciary, and have re 
 peatedly served in presidential cabinets and represented 
 the country abroad. At least two Confederate generals 
 wear the uniform of the United States army, glad to be 
 assured that the flag which waved over their cradles 
 shall wave over their graves. The Chief Magistrate of 
 the United States is half a Southerner and all a rebel ; 
 God bless him, and may the Lord keep him in the path 
 of wisdom and virtue! Already over the fireside of 
 many a home hang the swords of the grandfather who 
 wore the blue and the grandfather who wore the gray, 
 placed there by pious hands as priceless memorials of 
 love and valor, crossed at last in the everlasting peace of 
 a reunited family. 
 
 To what do we owe these miracles of enlightened 
 439
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 progress? Mainly to the good sense and good feeling, 
 the rich, red blood of American manhood ; partly to the 
 recognition by reflecting and generous minds that 
 neither party to that great sectional conflict had all the 
 right of it, its antagonist all the wrong. On this point 
 I can speak with tolerable assurance. I belonged to 
 that segment of conservative men in the South who 
 loved the Union and did not accept either the gospel of 
 African slavery or the dogma of secession. The debate 
 ended, the god of battle invoked to settle what had in 
 deed proved an irrepressible conflict, we went with our 
 own side. But four years later, when, in 1865, all that 
 we had feared in 1861 was actually come to pass, we 
 needed no act of Congress either for our redemption or 
 reconstruction. 
 
 The better to illustrate the situation, let me relate an 
 incident that happened in Tennessee toward the close 
 of the war. The Union general, Lovell Rousseau, of 
 Kentucky, found himself encamped on the farm of 
 Meredith Gentry, a famous orator of the old Whig 
 party. Gentry had been Rousseau s file-leader, his 
 political idol, a Whig of Whigs, a Unionist of Union 
 ists; but, swallowed by the movements of the time, he 
 had allowed his district, early in 1862, to elect him to 
 the Confederate Congress. He went to Richmond, 
 found himself out of place there, did not like it, and 
 returned home, where, among his books, under his vine 
 and fig-tree, he awaited the inevitable. Rousseau, his 
 440
 
 Blood Thicker than Water 
 
 heart overflowing with unquenched affection, thought 
 he would have a bit of fun with his friend. He caused 
 a feast to be prepared, invited all the good fellows he 
 could reach, and sent a file of soldiers, with a sergeant 
 and an order of arrest, to fetch Gentry into camp. It 
 was all real to the imaginary captive. Brought into 
 the presence of the Federal general, and what appeared 
 to be a drum-head court-martial, the old statesman drew 
 himself to his full height, and in sonorous but broken 
 tones he said: "General Rousseau, you know that I 
 loved the Union. Upon the altars of the Union I 
 poured out the dearest aspirations of my young man 
 hood. I grew gray in the service. Finally, the stern- 
 wheel steambot Secession came along. I saw first 
 one neighbor, then another neighbor, get aboard, and, 
 when all were aboard except me, and I stood alone upon 
 the shore, and they were about to haul in the gang 
 plank, I cried: Hold on, boys; I will go with you, if 
 . you go to hell ! " 
 
 I chanced to be in Europe a little while after the war. 
 Such trifling distinctions as Federal and Confederate 
 were unknown. All of us were Yankees. Then and 
 there, I took a bee line in the direction of the bunting, 
 and have been snuggling beneath its folds from that day 
 to this. I did not believe in slavery. I did not believe 
 in secession. Heavens, if I had ! But what is the 
 use speculating about inconjectural possibilities? The 
 doctrine of secession did not originate at the South, but 
 441
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 at the North; it was not the South that brought the 
 Negro from Africa, but the North. In the very begin 
 ning the seeds of dissolution were sown. The makers of 
 the Constitution left the exact relations of the Federal 
 Government to the States and of the States to the Fed 
 eral Government open to a double construction. In 
 claiming thence the right to secede, Yancey followed 
 after Pickering, Jefferson Davis after Gouverneur Mor 
 ris. Curiously enough, this right of secession, such as 
 it may be, stands yet in the Constitution unchallenged 
 and unabridged. You said by act of Congress that the 
 black man should be a white man. You confiscated the 
 debts and the money of the Confederacy. But you left 
 in the Constitution that fatal double construction to 
 which, along with slavery, we owed all our trouble, 
 and there it is to-day, so that if I want to take Kentucky 
 and go out of the Union, there is no statute to hinder 
 me, and, though you may make it uncomfortable for me, 
 you cannot find the law to hang me for treason. I beg 
 that you will not be disturbed. I am not going to do it. 
 I know that there are many Northern statesmen, con 
 scientious and learned, who cannot assent to this view. 
 They do not think it best to accept so light an estimate 
 of what they regard as a great crime. But why not? 
 Recalling Burke s aphorism touching his inability to 
 draft an indictment of an entire people even though 
 the subjects of a King how may ten millions of free 
 men be criminally arraigned by twenty millions of their 
 442
 
 Blood Thicker than Water 
 
 fellow-citizens because of the consequences of an honest 
 difference of Constitutional construction, embracing 
 some of the foremost jurists, some of the purest patriots, 
 from Josiah Quincy and John C. Calhoun to Alexander 
 H. Stephens and Salmon P. Chase? Why should the 
 North want to draw such an indictment of the South? 
 The North won all, the South lost all. No one of the 
 principals survives. Millions of stalwart Americans 
 have been born and have reached manhood many of 
 them middle age since the last shot was fired in that 
 conflict. Some of them serve in the army and some of 
 them in the navy. Some of them go to the length of 
 describing themselves as "Veterans of the Spanish 
 War." All of them are ready, eager to answer the call 
 of their country. Why should any thoughtful, patriotic 
 American want to put a blot upon the family escutcheon 
 of these Americans? Why should any thoughtful, 
 patriotic American seek to discriminate between any 
 body of upright and brave Americans, who did their 
 duty as God gave them the light to see it? What good 
 reason can any thoughtful, patriotic American give for 
 the wish to establish an historic line, blacklisting the 
 people of a section, who met defeat so manfully and 
 have taken upon themselves the renewed obligations of 
 citizenship so loyally ? 
 
 I did not come here to-night to exploit myself, or to 
 join in the exchange of immaterial compliments, how 
 ever agreeable. I came because I thought I might con- 
 443
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 tribute something to the common stock of information 
 touching the present relations of the North and the 
 South. There is already "peace between the sections." 
 Never since the creation of the Government has there 
 been a greater uniformity, a deeper effusion of national 
 sentiment. We are not merely a united people, we are 
 a homogeneous people. Mississippi and Massachusetts 
 are convertible terms, and it needs only a few weeks, 
 and a change of raiment, to convert a typical Vermonter 
 into a typical Texan. We used to hear a good deal 
 about the Puritan and the Cavalier. During our sec 
 tional war the armies of the North were full of Cava 
 lier soldiers, such as Wadsworth and Kearny in the 
 East, as McPherson and Custer in the West, while the 
 one representative Puritan soldier, Stonewall Jackson, 
 served the Confederacy. Many of the greatest families 
 in the South proudly trace their origin back to the blood 
 and loins of the Pilgrim Fathers. And yet are there 
 people at the North, newspapers at the North, that still 
 assume for the North the attitude of the imperious con 
 queror, for the South the relation of the suspected cap 
 tive, and we are being constantly warned that if we do 
 this, or do not do that, we shall be in danger of the judg 
 ment. 
 
 The justification for this is the political entity, the 
 
 partisan quantity, known as the Solid South. It is, let 
 
 me entreat you to believe, a specious justification. It is 
 
 the fault of the Republican party, not of the white 
 
 444
 
 Blood Thicker than Water 
 
 people of the Southern States, that the South is solidly 
 Democratic. From the death of Lincoln to the advent 
 of McKinley the Republican party threw out no 
 friendly signal to the whites of the South, made no 
 effort to establish itself in the South on any sound, en 
 during basis. It was known to the South only through 
 its reconstruction measures, mainly repressive and hos 
 tile, and its local agents, generally extreme, too often 
 unclean, employing the negro vote as a simple asset in 
 Congress, in Republican national conventions, and in 
 the field of the Federal patronage. In most of the 
 Southern States there seemed a deliberate plan to trim 
 the Republican minority among the whites down to the 
 point of just about filling the Federal offices precisely as 
 in the old antediluvian days of pristine Democracy, and 
 under the lead of that past-grand-master of political 
 chicane, General Benjamin F. Butler, the Democratic 
 party of New England was trimmed and regulated. 
 No thought was given the predilections, the prejudices, 
 the interests of the great body of the white population. 
 It was years after the war before such men as Meredith 
 Gentry were permitted to vote, while their former 
 slaves were marched in droves to the ballot-box by 
 political adventurers sure to misgovern when intrusted 
 with power. Even these things might have passed out 
 of mind, except that, whenever the chance has arisen, 
 the old agitation has been revived by the menace of 
 force bills to regulate elections by Federal statute, and 
 445
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 measures to reduce the Southern representation in Con 
 gress ; all, under the shadow by reason of the shadow 
 cast by the unconsenting, unoffending black man 
 athwart the whole track of American politics from 
 Maine to Texas. This brings me to the only apparent 
 cause of present disturbance the bee in our bonnet 
 the fly in our ointment the everlasting, ever-present 
 negro question. 
 
 I grew up to regard the institution of African slavery 
 as a monstrous evil. With a gray jacket on my back, I 
 abated no part of my abhorrence of it. The war over, 
 I fully realized that the negro could not be suspended, 
 like Mahomet s coffin, in the nether air, neither fish, 
 flesh, nor fowl ; that he must be made a freeman in fact, 
 as he was in name; that he must be habilitated to his 
 new belongings, and I promptly accepted the three last 
 amendments to the Constitution as the treaty of peace 
 between the North and the South, and went to work in 
 good faith to help carry them out. I fought to remove 
 the old black laws from the statute book in Kentucky. 
 I fought the Ku-Klux Klan from start to finish. I 
 fought in all possible ways to give the black man an 
 opportunity to achieve the hopes which, in common with 
 many other of his friends, I had formed of him. 
 
 After thirty years of observation, experience, and re 
 flection always directed from a sympathetic point of 
 view I am forced to agree with the Secretary of War 
 that negro suffrage is a failure. It is a failure because 
 446
 
 Blood Thicker than Water 
 
 the Southern blacks are not equal to it. It is a failure 
 because the Southern whites will not have it. 
 
 If, making a hot answer to this, some overzealous 
 and, as I must think, some mistaken partisan should 
 say, we have the power, we have the numbers, and we 
 will compel the whites of the South, my answer shall 
 be, "You did, and behold what came of it!" And 
 then, if my warm-blooded friend should throw up his 
 hands in despair, and with a kind of disgust turn 
 wearily away, I should continue "May you not have 
 been from the first upon the wrong tack? Is there 
 not another outlet to these perplexities, another solu 
 tion of this problem? After all, is not your dis 
 quietude based upon the idea that there are one set 
 of moral conditions at the North and another set at 
 the South, to which the whole racial trouble is refer 
 able? Believe me, there is no such difference. Re 
 move every white Democrat to-day living in the South 
 and replace him with a Northern Republican, and 
 twelve months hence the conditions will be the same, 
 may be worse, since the Northern Republican would 
 not be likely to have either the patience or the per 
 sonal sympathy and knowledge possessed by the native 
 Southerner." 
 
 Gentlemen, I appeal to you as Republicans, and 
 
 through you I appeal to the Republicans of the United 
 
 States, to have done with the conceit that unless you 
 
 stand by the black man, that unless you continue him 
 
 447
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 as an issue in partisan politics, injustice will be done 
 him. In the bettering of his condition, and in the ac 
 quisition of property, starting with nothing, he has 
 made wondrous progress the last five-and-thirty years ; 
 and, relatively, greater progress at the South than at 
 the North. He could not have done this without the 
 sympathy and co-operation of the Southern whites. He 
 has made little progress in the arts of self-government 
 either North or South, because of the agitation which 
 has kept him in a state of perpetual excitement, with 
 no healthful public opinion to moderate it, and has 
 been made the sport and prey of political exigency, 
 always selfish, and with respect to him more or less 
 visionary and heedless. 
 
 The negro can never become in any beneficent or 
 genuine sense an integral and recognized part of the 
 body politic except through the forces of evolution, 
 which are undoubtedly at work, but which in the 
 nature of the case must needs go exceedingly slow. 
 Where there is one negro fit for citizenship, there are 
 myriads of negroes wholly unfit. The hot-house 
 process has been tried and it has failed. If, invested 
 with every right enjoyed by the whites, the blacks, 
 gaining in all things else, have brought corruption into 
 the suffrage and discredit upon themselves, is it not a 
 kind of madness further to press artificial methods, 
 which, however justified theoretically from educational 
 lookouts in Michigan, Iowa, and Wisconsin, fall help- 
 448
 
 Blood Thicker than Water 
 
 less to the ground in their practical application to the 
 semi-barbarous toilers in the cotton-fields and corn- 
 lands of Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina? 
 
 I appeal to you equally in what I conceive the true 
 interest of the black people along with the white peo 
 ple of the South; nay, and of the North as well, for 
 all our interests are indissoluble, interchangeable, and 
 that can never be good or bad for one section which 
 is not good or bad for the other section. Modern in 
 vention, which has already annihilated time and space, 
 is surely erasing sectional lines. It ought not to leave 
 so much as a reminiscence of sectional strife. If that 
 dread spirit should come again, its evil winds will not 
 blow between the North and the South, but between 
 the East and the West; the horns of the dilemma pre 
 sented by extremism involving a new irrepressible con 
 flict between capital and labor. May that day never 
 come, but in case it does the conservatism of the North 
 will need the conservatism of the South. The law-lov 
 ing forces of the North will need the law-breeding in 
 stincts of the South. The Americanism of the North 
 will need the Americanism of the South. Then, in 
 deed, shall both sections learn what racial homogeneity 
 means and know for certain that blood is thicker than 
 water. 
 
 But, gentlemen, let us turn away from the darker 
 side of the page to the brighter, on which is em 
 blazoned that blessed legend, "The Constitution and 
 449
 
 The Compromises of Life 
 
 the Union, one, eternal, indivisible." Behind the 
 negro question, behind the question of capital and la 
 bor, stands the government of Washington and Frank 
 lin, which, like the old ship of Zion, has "carried 
 many thousands, and shall carry many more"; which, 
 like the old ship of Zion, has baffled every tempest, has 
 outridden every hurricane; the struggle for existence; 
 the foreign war; domestic discord and civil strife; the 
 disputed succession stronger to-day than ever before 
 in the timbers that float her in the hearts that sail 
 her in the admiration and confidence of human kind 
 the wide world over. I have seen too much of the 
 past to take many fears for the future. I counsel no 
 man to drop the oars and to go to sleep; I urge upon 
 each still to keep the watch, still to sit steady in the 
 boat; as for myself, I long ago ceased to worry and 
 to walk the floor. The mysteries of Providence are 
 hidden from you and me; why the negro was brought 
 hither from the wilds of Africa and sold into slavery, 
 his redemption thence, and all his redemption cost us; 
 but, assured that behind these mysteries lay some vast 
 design, I feel that God has been always with us and 
 is with us now. Why Washington, the patriot, in 
 stead of Lee, the adventurer? Why Lincoln, the seer, 
 instead of Seward, the scholar? If it was not the will 
 of Heaven that the Confederacy should fall, that the 
 Union should prevail, why were all the accidents of 
 the war with the North and against the South, the 
 450
 
 Blood Thicker than Water 
 
 fall of Johnston at the critical moment at Shiloh, the 
 death of Jackson at the critical moment in the valley 
 of Virginia, the arrival at the critical moment of the 
 Monitor in the waters of Hampton Roads? If it be 
 not the will of Heaven that we shall carry the Chris 
 tian s message of freedom and civilization to the ends 
 of the earth, why did not the Lord send Dewey home ? 
 No, no, gentlemen; as God was radiant in the stars 
 that shone over Washington at Valley Forge, over 
 Lincoln at Gettysburg, over Grant in the Wilderness, 
 over the fleets in Manila Bay, and the "bullies" in front 
 of Santiago, does His radiance shine upon us, brothers 
 in blood and arts and arms, whether our knees go down 
 amid the snows or the flowers. Long ago the South, 
 forgiving all, accepted the verdict in perfect faith. It 
 is for the North, forgetting all, to seal it in perfect 
 love. 
 
 451
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 CERTAIN DOWNWARD TENDENCIES IN 
 THE SMART SET OF FASHIONABLE 
 SOCIETY 
 
 453
 
 A FLOCK OF UNCLEAN BIRDS 
 Courier-Journal, August 23, 1902. 
 
 The Smart Set contrive to keep themselves before the 
 public. Yet, somehow, it is their scandals, not their 
 benefactions, that advertise them. But yesterday it 
 was an automobile tragedy that recalled the infelicities 
 and vulgarities of a family which, except for its mill 
 ions, would have decorated the criminal instead of the 
 social annals of its time. To-day s sensation relates to 
 an off-shoot of one of the oldest and richest of what 
 the shoddy aristocracy delight to call "our American 
 houses." . . . 
 
 Now comes the Remington suicide. . . . And 
 so it goes. We never hear of the Four Hundred except 
 it be a murder, a suicide, or a divorce. A shot fired 
 into a flock of these unclean birds cannot miss hitting 
 an injured husband, a recreant and disgraced wife, or 
 at the least some gilded nincompoop, who expects to 
 offset his bad manners and worse English with his 
 bulky bank-book ! 
 
 APPROACHING THE LIMIT 
 
 Courier- Journal, September 3, 1902. 
 
 The wheel of life, the whirligig of time, bringeth 
 not merely revenges, according to the adage, to the re 
 vengeful, but grist to the Yellow Journals; for each 
 day of the year has its scandals and its tragedies; some 
 rowdy-dow among the smart set at Newport; some 
 
 455
 
 Appendix 
 
 bloody deed lower down in the elbowing slums; with 
 Pierpont Morgan, May Yohe, Schwab, and Gates for 
 routine consumption stock in trade, as it were, and 
 very watered stock in case the morgue yields not its 
 victim, nor the Four Hundred its divorce. 
 
 What a rich morsel was that little affair of the auto- 
 mobilists near Paris, and how the sensation-mongers 
 dwell upon the succeeding settlements! Thursday, the 
 Smith family got half-a-million, according to the San 
 Francisco correspondents. Friday, the sum agreed 
 upon had reached a million. Since nobody knows any 
 thing about it even to the point whether there has been 
 any settlement at all it might as well be five millions 
 as one million. Indeed, until the subject grows entirely 
 stale, or is succeeded and obscured by another tragedy 
 or scandal, we shall have all sorts of stories, big and lit 
 tle, for the edification of the prurient and morbid, and, 
 then, each correspondent will undo his own work and 
 do it over again. That is Yellow Journalism. 
 
 As a matter of course, there is a market for such stuff. 
 Since a fool is born every minute, the itch to be hum 
 bugged will probably never die. Yet more and more 
 the public is being educated to discriminate between the 
 contents of the decent, healthy, reliable daily news 
 paper, keeping constant faith with its readers, and the 
 organ of the fancy, the dive-keeper s own, with its filthy 
 appeals to the vulgar and the vicious, its lies of yester 
 day contradicted by the events of to-day, its sprawling 
 headlines, inculcating equally bad morality and gram 
 mar. In the great cities the best paying newspapers are 
 the cleanest. 
 
 The Yellow Journal lives on offal. The time will 
 come when it will be relegated to the back alleys and 
 the dark places of the world, even the kitchen scullion 
 and the street gamin preferring to get their information 
 "straight." Thus, in quickening the reaction against 
 
 456
 
 Appendix 
 
 itself, the Yellow Journal does an unconscious and an 
 unintentioned service. There is a limit to sensational 
 ism as well as to indecency, and that limit has been 
 very nearly reached. Meanwhile, down with to-day s 
 newspaper, half of whose "news" has to-morrow either 
 to be contradicted or ignored. 
 
 THOSE UNCLEAN BIRDS AGAIN 
 
 Courier- Journal, September 4, 1902. 
 
 Commenting on some observations which lately ap 
 peared in these columns touching the Four Hundred, so 
 called, the San Francisco Bulletin says that they are 
 "intemperate," even for one whom it describes as habitu 
 ally "fiery," and then our esteemed contemporary comes 
 to the rescue of that Flock of Unclean Birds with these 
 deprecatory remarks: 
 
 "Now, the Four Hundred* has its faults as a set, and 
 there are black sheep enough within its folds ; but it is hardly 
 right or fair for Mr. Watterson to apply to the entire set what 
 is true, or partly true, of only a portion of the set. In the 
 first place, the Four Hundred is the creation of the press 
 and of the vulgar. The Four Hundred is a coterie of 
 people who keep themselves apart and aloof from the rest of 
 the population, and call themselves the best society. Unless 
 the press and the vulgar recognized them as the best society, 
 their styling themselves such would be as ridiculous as the 
 attempt of a group of inmates of a poor-house or a prison to 
 form an exclusive and best society. But the press and the 
 vulgar do recognize the Four Hundred as the best or high 
 est society in the country, and the very publicity given to the 
 action of its members nay, even Mr. Watterson s editorial 
 is homage to the pre-eminent social position of the Four 
 
 457
 
 Appendix 
 
 Hundred. The people who revile the Four Hundred for 
 its extravagances and scandals are the ones who call it the 
 best society, and never miss an opportunity to bask in its 
 light." 
 
 We at once take issue with our critic as to his "facts." 
 The "400" may be "a creation of the press and of the 
 vulgar," but they are not recognized by any competent 
 tribunal as "the best society." Nor is it true that, if 
 they were not so recognized, their attempt thus to 
 classify themselves would be "as ridiculous as the at 
 tempt of a group of inmates of a poor-house or a prison 
 to form an exclusive and best society." Such a proposi 
 tion is absurd on the face of it. It is libellous to say 
 that "the people who revile the 400 . . . are the 
 ones who call it the best society and never miss an op 
 portunity to bask in its light." Indeed, there is but one 
 true statement in the passage quoted, to wit, that "the 
 400 is a coterie of people who keep themselves apart and 
 aloof from the rest of the population and call themselves 
 the best society." 
 
 In a country like ours, where there are no titles, nor 
 patents of nobility, nor fixed, official insignia of rank, 
 wealth is bound to set the pace, if not the standards, in 
 what is called "Society." But, even in Europe, where 
 titular and caste distinctions exist, there are good society 
 and bad society, very markedly separate. 
 
 The term Smart Set was adopted by the bad society of 
 London to escape a more odious description. The dis 
 tinguishing trait of the Smart Set is its moral insensi 
 bility. It makes a business of defying and overleaping 
 conventional restraints upon its pleasures and amuse 
 ments. Being titled, as a rule, and either rich in fact, or 
 getting money how it may, it sets itself above all law, 
 both human and divine. Its women are equally de 
 praved with its men. They know all the dirt the men 
 
 458
 
 Appendix 
 
 know. They talk freely with the men of things for 
 bidden the modest and the virtuous; that passing freely 
 vis-a-vis, or at table, which was once excluded as un 
 clean by gentlemen from the smoking-room. They read 
 the worst French fiction. They see the worst French 
 plays. The very question of sex becomes interchange 
 able, and sometimes it is the Sissy Earl, and always the 
 Horsey Girl, who kicks out of traces and drags the 
 Set through the mire. Beginning with the Tichborne 
 trial, and the publication of all its unsavory details, 
 quickly followed by the vile incidents of the Dilke and 
 the Colin Campbell trials, an entire generation has been 
 familiarized with nastiness; the divorce court serving 
 as a very pest-house of immoral knowledge. 
 
 The women of this Smart Set no longer pretend to 
 recognize virtue even as a feminine accomplishment. 
 Innocence is a badge of delinquency, a sign of the crude 
 and raw, a deformity, which, if tolerated at all, must 
 can/ some promise of amendment; for, among these 
 titled Cyprians, the only thing needful is to know it all ! 
 In London and in Paris at Monte Carlo in the win 
 ter, at Trouville and Aix in the summer they make of 
 life one unending debauch; their only literary proven 
 der, when they read at all, the screeds of D Annunzio 
 and Bourget; their Mecca, the roulette table and the 
 race-course; their Heaven the modern yacht, with its 
 luxury and isolation. The ocean tells no tales ; and, as 
 the Smart Set knows no law, when in extremis, it can 
 go to sea. 
 
 The Smart Set in America take their cue, along with 
 their title, from the Smart Set of Europe. Behold 
 them at the Horse Show in New York. Regard them 
 at the swell resorts after the show. Their talk such 
 as can be heard stocks and bonds, puts and calls, 
 horses, scandals, and dogs. They, the "best society" 
 Good Lord ! Yet says their Occidental organ : 
 
 459
 
 Appendix 
 
 "Nor is the Four Hundred quite so bad as it is pictured. 
 When a couple in the very smart set are divorced the papers 
 make a huge display and outcry and everybody talks about it. 
 But divorces among obscurer people, who reckon themselves 
 thoroughly respectable, are obtained quietly every day and 
 nothing said. Three or four families, having attracted con 
 siderable notoriety to themselves, have given the whole Four 
 Hundred a bad name. 
 
 "The Four Hundred may be made up of snobs, and 
 there is certainly a fair proportion of fools in it, but the ma 
 jority of the members are pretty decent people, as people go, 
 and as good as their contemners. At least, most of them 
 have good manners and a surface politeness which is greatly 
 in their favor. They avoid hurting the feelings of their fel 
 lows, they take off their hats at the right time, and they 
 bathe a sufficient number of times in the month. When one 
 of them gets drunk it is his unhappy privilege to be written 
 up by an indignant newspaper man who is down on rum and 
 feels that his mission is to reform the Four Hundred by pre 
 cept if not by example. When a good, respectable bourgeois 
 has a little spree no newspaper attacks the immorality and in 
 ebriety of the middle class, and when Farmer Jones has a 
 scandal in his family the stain is not smeared over the entire 
 farming population of the land. 
 
 "Publicity carries a dreadful penalty, and the Four Hun 
 dred pays the penalty to the full, with no credits for good 
 behavior. But the Four Hundred is preserved as a social 
 entity by the publicity which its critics give it and by the spon 
 taneous and unanimous consent of those who recognize it as 
 the best society and strive to climb into its sacred enclosure. 
 
 Perusing this one might fancy it the homily of a rich 
 commoner nursing the hope of a peerage. He uses the 
 term "bourgeois" and "middle class" with the flip 
 pancy of a boulevardier, or a cockney. We look again 
 to be quite sure we are not reading from some foreign 
 
 460
 
 Appendix 
 
 society sheet, misprinted "San Francisco, U. S. A." 
 Truly, we have come to a beautiful pass if the simper 
 ing Johnnies and tough girls that make Sherry s and 
 Delmonico s "hum," that irradiate the corridors of the 
 Waldorf-Astoria with the exhalations of their unclean 
 lives and thoughts, emulating the demi-mondaines of 
 the Second Empire, are to be accepted, even by in 
 ference, as "the best society," while the good and virt 
 uous of the land, even though quite able to pay their 
 way at home and abroad, must be relegated to the 
 "middle class," and dismissed as simple "bourgeoisie." 
 
 Yet this is the effect, the morale, so to say, of such 
 writing as that we have quoted. 
 
 Our esteemed contemporary is mistaken. Where 
 there is excessive wealth and the pride that comes from 
 riches, there can be no real good. The Smart Set is 
 rotten through and through. It has not one redeeming 
 feature. All its ends are achieved by money, and 
 largely by the unholy use of money. If one of them 
 proposes to go into politics he expects to buy his way, 
 and the rogues who have seats in Congress, or foreign 
 appointments to sell, see that he pays the price. If one 
 of them wants to marry a lord she expects to buy him, 
 and the titled scamps who seek to recoup their broken 
 fortunes see that she pays the price. Their influence is 
 to the last degree corruptive. Their hangers-on and re 
 tainers are only such as money will buy. Nine out of 
 every ten of the fortunes behind them will not bear 
 scrutiny ; when it was not actually got by foul means, it 
 yet goes back to the grimiest antecedents, the washtub 
 and the stable yard, as in truth do many of the foreign 
 titles which are so attractive to the nouveaux riches. 
 Shall the press not exclaim against them without sub 
 jecting itself to the allegation of being mainly responsi 
 ble for their existence? Shall the pulpit not thunder 
 against them without having some Frisco oracle of 
 
 461
 
 Appendix 
 
 fashion rise up and say, "They are not so bad after all !" 
 Must these unclean birds of gaudy, and therefore of 
 conspicuous plumage, fly from gilded bough to bough, 
 fouling the very air as they twitter their affectations of 
 social supremacy and no one to shy a brick and to cry, 
 "Scat, you devils!" 
 
 Revise thy judgments, brother of the Setting Sun, 
 and bless thy God that the "middle class," of which 
 thou speakest so loosely; the "bourgeoisie," with such 
 unflattering levity; have no existence in this great land 
 of ours outside thine own disturbed fancy ; but that from 
 land s end to land s end, beginning with the rock-ribs of 
 the coast of Maine and ending not this side the Golden 
 Gate and the Coronado, there are myriads of cheerful, 
 comfortable homes where "Dad," and "Mam," and 
 "Granny," yea, and "Molly," and "Polly," and 
 "Susey," and "Sis," lead clean and wholesome lives, 
 happy in their ignorance of evil such as in the mouths 
 of the Smart Set is familiar as household words; not 
 merely honest, brawny people, who work for a living, 
 and would scorn to have any earls or marquises sitting 
 around on their cracker barrels, but educated, cultivated 
 people, with plenty of money for all the reasonable lux 
 uries and adornments of life, who would blush to sit at 
 table with these unclean birds and to listen to their 
 chatter. 
 
 If we are to be rescued from an aristocracy of money 
 from an untitled plutocracy as heartless as it is vul 
 gar the line should be clearly drawn. It should be 
 constantly drawn. It is enough for the poor devil who 
 gets drunk that he is led away to the calaboose. The 
 same for the millionaire, with this added, that, in pro 
 portion as he sets himself up for something, he pays the 
 increased assessment upon his assumption. Likewise 
 the debauched husband and the guilty wife; and all 
 who think they are rich enough to defy the command- 
 
 462
 
 Appendix 
 
 merits of God and the conventions of man, or buy im 
 munity from the consequences of lawless indulgence. 
 
 A very rich man was reported not long ago to have 
 said that he would be ashamed to face the courts of 
 Heaven with only his millions to pay his entrance fee. 
 Another declared that the time is coming when excessive 
 riches will need to make apology for their existence. 
 That such sentiments find expression in such quarters 
 is of good augury. They should be supported, not un 
 dervalued and decried. There is a way of making the 
 money standard odious, and that is by making its corrupt 
 and corrupting use odious. The Smart Set are a living 
 reproach to riches. They furnish a striking example of 
 the base use of wealth. Make their haunts of luxury 
 and alimony not only infamous, but uncomfortable; 
 drive their murderous White Ghosts and Red Rovers 
 and Purple Assassins from the speedways; put such a 
 brand upon their nomenclature that each individual will 
 have to outlive it, making his own separate record for 
 good and not for evil, and in another generation we shall 
 see, at least, less brutal parvenuism and ostentatious dis 
 play for the perversion of the young, if not cleaner con 
 ditions in the parent nest. 
 
 THE SMART SET, THE NEWSPAPERS, 
 AND THE TRUTH 
 
 Courier- Journal, September 17, 1902. 
 
 When Ward McAllister, a rather absurd, but yet a 
 well-born, gentleman, invented the Four Hundred, it 
 was his purpose two parts flunky and one part flam 
 to pay a kind of obeisance to certain families supposed 
 to be rich enough to form a court-circle in the great and 
 growing city of New York. 
 
 463
 
 Appendix 
 
 That was five-and-twenty years ago. There were 
 many who laughed both at him and his conceit. There 
 were some who seriously accepted the homage intended. 
 Perhaps very few thought that the imaginary lines thus 
 established in the mind s eye of a rather solemn bon 
 vwant, who lived high and died poor, would come to be 
 the boundaries of an actual territory; a newly discov 
 ered country as fantastic as Wonderland ; with laws of 
 its own, inhabitated by a people marked, quoted, and 
 signed for deeds of strenuous frivolity; an aristocracy 
 without a pedigree; a Cercle de Rambouillet without 
 wit or humor. 
 
 In the good old days when Bret Harte was a social 
 as well as a literary lion, and Mark Twain was consid 
 ered equal to extracting sunbeams from cucumbers, the 
 dinners were in solid virtues worth what they paid for 
 them in mirth-provoking jokes; the diners were dull, 
 but respectable; Chauncey being grand chamberlain 
 and toast-master in ordinary. What is now called 
 Lower Fifth Avenue could not be described as Mr. 
 Dooley recently described Newport, "the abode of 
 luxury and alimony," where "the husband of yesterday 
 inthradooces the wife that was to the wife that is, or 
 ought to be." In the beginning it was a stiff-necked, 
 high-backed affair. Having its abutment on Washing 
 ton Square, there were then, as there still are around 
 that genteel, comfort-breeding rectangle plain, brick 
 walls, with white facings, to which scandal was a 
 stranger; habitations that went by the name of home; 
 the homes of the Coopers, the Duncans, the Rhine- 
 landers, the Hewitts, the Garners, the Thorndikes; 
 solid folk, who, if not as rich as the elder Astors, were 
 rich enough, and vied with the Astors in lives singularly 
 clean and habits wholly unostentatious. They form 
 to-day the basis of what may fairly be called good so 
 ciety. Accuse one of them of being of the Four Hun- 
 
 464
 
 Appendix 
 
 dred and, if you do not offer an insult, you perpetrate 
 a solecism. 
 
 Mr. Devery leads the four hundred of the slums. 
 Who leads the four hundred of the upper crust? It 
 matters little ; but wherein shall we seek for any moral 
 difference in point of immoral influence that does not 
 lean to the side of Devery? 
 
 II 
 
 It was all on account of moving uptown. It began 
 with the sudden wealth of which war is the progenitor. 
 As long as the average New Yorker had to work for his 
 living and got his riches by the sweat of his brow, money 
 had equally a character and a value. When Union 
 Square was fenced round by a wooden paling and the 
 site of the Fifth Avenue Hotel was yet a frog-pond, not 
 a shop above Houston Street in Broadway the old 
 red-brick Roosevelt mansion at what is now Dead 
 Man s Curve, a kind of advance-guard of the march 
 northward the grandees of Gotham were content to 
 live in brown-stone fronts as like one to another as two 
 of a kind ; and they lived exceeding well. They could 
 tell the difference between Crow Whiskey and Rain 
 water Madeira. They played whist, not bridge. Grace 
 Church, indeed, seemed to have a little more ruffle than 
 shirt to it ; but there were other places of worship, and 
 they were not ill-attended. But, about the time the 
 equestrian statue of the Father of His Country went 
 up, and the palings around Union Square came down, 
 and the order to "place his head to the rising sun and 
 his tail to Dr. Cheever s Church" was issued, the 
 nouveaux riches of the war came upon the scene; the 
 monotony of brown-stone was not good enough for 
 them ; what had been the centre of culture and fashion 
 the sober shades of the Astor Library, and the orig- 
 
 465
 
 Appendix 
 
 inal homestead in Astor Place, just around th e corner, 
 hard by the Academy, where music was sometimes 
 heard, the sombre gayety, the sure-footed, square-cut 
 frivolity of Fifth Avenue but a stone s-throw away 
 were given over to Bohemia and the Bohemians ; greater 
 space and seclusion, a wider amplitude of architectural 
 display, were required to meet the bizarre taste of the 
 army contractors and the stock-brokers and the length 
 ening shoddy line of those who had made a profit out 
 of the opportunities of the time, shall we say out of the 
 travail of their country and their countrymen? So, 
 the uptown move began, and along with it the down 
 grade of fashion. 
 
 With magical rapidity wealth had already started to 
 accumulate; fortunes to be multiplied; millionaires to 
 become as plentiful as blackberries; common; not only 
 common in quantity, but in quality, likewise. Central 
 Park was made to the very hands of these. That they 
 should build their grandiose palaces near it was inevi 
 table. 
 
 In the early seventies Fisk stood for the horrid ex 
 ample just as Devery stands now. The show was the 
 thing; the "turn-out," as they called it. The Four 
 Hundred had come neither to their patrimony nor their 
 patronymic. But they existed in a crude, coarse way, 
 expressing themselves in bang-tails and shirt-fronts and 
 shiners; a trifle too brazen and noisy, perhaps, but un 
 deniably rich. The men had not yet learned the stony 
 stare and the brutal swagger of the bucks of the Jardin 
 Mabille and the titled bruisers of the Argyle Rooms. 
 The women were still women God bless them! a 
 little vulgarized by so much money, but ignorant of the 
 pinchbeck airs and graces of the demi-mondaine and the 
 unspeakable dirt of London and Paris. 
 
 Yet, then, as now, the best people, no matter how 
 rich, turned silently aside, and gave them the middle of 
 
 466
 
 Appendix 
 
 the road. The tragic end of Fisk was for a time an 
 object lesson. It let in a flood of light and gave a 
 moment s pause to the orgy of license which was exceed 
 ing its natural bounds and beginning to make its influ 
 ence felt in dangerous proximity to those regions where 
 wealth was recognized as paramount. It was this 
 which secured the modification of the Stokes verdict 
 from death to a short term of imprisonment. 
 
 The noxious weed, however, had taken root. The 
 bucketshop was to become an institution, the stock 
 gambler a power, the market as familiar to women as to 
 men. Mr. Carnegie may give all of his millions to the 
 noblest works. The Messrs. Rockefeller may endow 
 a thousand schools and charities, while a dozen billion 
 aires may show by their wise and lavish use of money 
 how ill they think of it except as the means of doing 
 good ; but, as the poor are always with us, so are the 
 vulgarians, who, given money enough, set up a volupt 
 uous principality, call it the Four Hundred, and, hav 
 ing made sure of its boundaries and their isolation, pro 
 ceed to make their own moral code, hardly deigning 
 even to ask the rest of the community, "What are you 
 going to do about it?" 
 
 The sea-going palace ; the modern auto ; the struggle 
 for equivocal notoriety; the strife for titles; the eating 
 from the tree of forbidden knowledge ; the aping of the 
 manners of the foreign swell and the fancied great ; the 
 marriage as an experiment and the marriage of con 
 venience; the hot pursuit of pleasure at home and 
 abroad in short, the constant striving after the osten 
 tatious display of wealth inevitable to the sun-worship 
 of money these are among the features that distinguish 
 the Four Hundred from other rich people, who do not 
 need to affect anything, who heartily despise such pro 
 ceedings, who, with fortunes secure and social positions 
 fixed, live without scandal and travel without adven- 
 
 467
 
 Appendix 
 
 ture, but whom the wantons of the Smart Set describe 
 as the "bourgeoisie." 
 
 In separating the sheep from the goats, and properly 
 ticketing the goats, shall one be accused of blasphemy? 
 
 Ill 
 
 We produce a varied assortment of editorial expres 
 sions upon this general subject, with particular refer 
 ence to some observations which lately appeared in these 
 columns. They are characteristic. The American 
 newspaper is nothing if not paradoxical. As usual, we 
 find ourselves accused by some without discrimination 
 and by others dismissed with vapid ebullitions of con 
 tempt. In the ethics of modern journalism few things 
 are so touching as the disdain of the superior being who 
 affects indifference when he cannot come to time, and 
 marks his lack of sincere feeling and his incapacity to 
 see and tell the truth, by the pretense of enlightened 
 deliberation. 
 
 "We have no defence to make," says one, and then 
 goes on defending. "No class has a monopoly of good, 
 or bad, qualities," says another, and, deprecating our 
 "heat" and "undue excitement," proceeds to concede 
 all we have claimed. Still another works in Burke s 
 aphorism, "You cannot indict a whole people," as if 
 we had, or as if these unclean birds were "a whole 
 people." Our article "must receive considerable mod 
 ification," declares a critic posing as a jurist, "before 
 persons who hold fact higher than fancy can be ad 
 vised to read it," the whole of the writing thus dis 
 credited reprinted elsewhere in the same paper to 
 disprove the assertion and invite perusal. A certain 
 Cholly Knickerbocker actually pretends to give in re 
 buttal a list of ladies and gentlemen, persons of the 
 very highest character and standing, leading noble and 
 
 468
 
 Appendix 
 
 useful lives, seeking by such a subterfuge to make it 
 appear that we included in our description everybody 
 having a picture-gallery or holding a recognized place 
 in society. It is very funny, but to use a figure of the 
 Smart Set, it won t wash ! 
 
 "All of us, your ladyship," Lord Brougham once 
 said to a famous social leader, "all of us, as your 
 ladyship knows, have committed adultery. But we 
 must draw the line somewhere; and, for one, I fix it 
 at murder!" 
 
 There need be no mistaking the lines that fence in 
 the Four Hundred. Nobody can deny, nor in truth 
 through all the expressions called out by our writing 
 do we find any denial, of the fidelity of the picture 
 drawn by us. It is the true, not the scurrilous, that 
 hurts. At the same time it is a fact that even in the 
 better realms of luxury and wealth there is a growing 
 toleration of the unclean. Good people are not so 
 shocked as they once were by moral infractions. 
 
 It is observable that the men drink less, at least at 
 table and in the public company of women, than they 
 did thirty years ago. But what the men may have 
 gained in this respect the women themselves have lost 
 by the evolution of modern society and the progress 
 of the desecration which that society has given the idea 
 of the new woman. It is a doubtful term at best. If 
 we would keep our women pure we must keep them 
 ignorant, if not of evil, at least of dirt. But what 
 shall be done, what can be done with those women 
 who insist upon knowing all that the men know, and, 
 by a certain not unreasonable claim of equality, who 
 propose to keep up with the masculine procession, share- 
 and-share alike ? There is not a conscientious man, not 
 a thoughtful woman, in the society of any of our great 
 centres of population, who does not mark with serious 
 apprehension the lowering tendencies of the time; the 
 
 469
 
 Appendix 
 
 multiplication of frivolous marriages, the desecration 
 of the marriage tie, the increasing number of scandal 
 ous divorces, directly traceable to the spirit of lawless 
 ness in excessive wealth and the bad example of the 
 infamous but prosperous rich. Yet, if we read our 
 critics aright, we must not speak of these things except 
 in decorous, half-excusing whispers. We must not call 
 a spade a spade. If we do, we at once become "indis 
 creet" and "sensational," getting our information at 
 "second hand," or else the subject of some "pique," 
 or "resentment," or, at the very least, "ignorant" and 
 "underbred." 
 
 In certain circles, where money rules, and the pres 
 ence of Quality is indicated by the absence of all else, 
 the one unpardonable sin is conviction. Whatever else 
 you are, or are not, you must eschew enthusiasm. You 
 may deal in vulgar double entendre; you may back 
 bite, or lie outright; you may make love to your 
 friend s wife, or inveigle his daughter; but you must 
 not be loud. The tone of your voice must suit itself 
 to a kind of drawl that is in the very atmosphere. 
 Tis English, you know," they used to say, until a 
 song made game of that form of expression and ex 
 pelled it from polite society. The average newspaper 
 seems thence to have taken its cue. It, too, affects a 
 fine superiority to feeling. Indifference serves as an 
 excellent recourse, where either there is no belief at 
 all, or the incapacity to express it in good round terms 
 of robust English. Imperturbability takes the place of 
 honest hate and scorn. To be in earnest is to be ex 
 cited; to be plain-spoken is to be inspired by personal 
 motives, and to be personal is to be "damned." Is it 
 
 not so ? 
 
 ******* 
 
 Back of all this stands not alone a great moral prob 
 lem, but a great national and economic problem. The 
 
 470
 
 Appendix 
 
 pretence that we have maligned anybody, or spoken 
 outside the record, is a device of the guilty, and their 
 newspaper apologists, to hide behind the self-respect 
 ing and the virtuous. It is of the essence of caste dis 
 tinction, where the rule is, touch one, touch all ; a rule 
 which, during the Reign of Terror, brought thousands 
 of the inocent and the good along with the bad to the 
 guillotine. 
 
 Licentiousness, like revolution, goes not backward. 
 The assumption of to-day becomes the claim of to 
 morrow. In a land where there are no patents of 
 nobility, and where in some sort money must set the 
 standards, the rich themselves, before all others, should 
 look to it that their colleagues in good fortune do not 
 disgrace the order shall we say of the Golden Fleece ? 
 by their disregard of common rights and their indif 
 ference to public opinion. 
 
 We do not need to institute any historic parallels; 
 to take to ourselves any lessons from ancient Greece 
 and Rome, or modern France, suggestive as these may 
 be. He is but a poor observer of contemporary life, 
 and no prophet at all, who does not see that the whole 
 trend of public affairs is set toward an ultimate con 
 flict between the forces of Prerogative, on the one 
 hand, and the forces of what the exclusive few delight 
 to call the Great Unwashed on the other hand; be 
 tween Capital, too often avaricious and grasping, and 
 Labor, grimy and passionate, and, left riderless, a 
 monster without a head. It is beside the purpose to 
 say that there are rich men humane, generous, chari 
 table. So are there poor men patient, wise, conserva 
 tive. It is with forces, not individuals, we shall have 
 to deal; and, though temporizing may postpone the 
 day, the day is surely coming when it is to be decided 
 who owns the country, who controls the Government, 
 the aggregations of wealth mainly piled up in a single 
 
 471
 
 Appendix 
 
 section, or the hewers of wood and the drawers of wa 
 ter who do the work and fight the battles and pay the 
 taxes, the great commonalty of what Abraham Lin 
 coln called "the plain people." Enlightened men 
 would moderate that conflict. The scandalous be 
 havior of the conspicuous rich plays directly to the lead 
 of the extremist and the agitator, with unclean hands 
 preparing the pick-axe of the leveller and the brand of 
 the incendiary. The indifference of the guild of lux 
 ury and wealth not to mention the common cause 
 which too many of the worthy rich from a mistaken 
 sense of association make with these is replete with 
 evil auguries. 
 
 Human nature has not much changed since man be 
 came acquainted with it. That we are yet upon the 
 ascending not the descending scale of national devel 
 opment need not be denied. But we live in an ac 
 celerated age, electricity having annihilated time and 
 space, and, the Latin races doomed, Spain dead, Italy 
 dying, France down with an incurable disease the 
 causes before our very eyes shall we not seek to es 
 cape what seems to have been the destiny, not so much 
 of luxury and wealth, as the vicious assumption of class 
 superiority, and the injustice of organized money, per 
 colating what is called Society for pleasure, corrupting 
 the fountains of the national credit and honor for 
 profit ? 
 
 If such offenses as we have set forth are endured 
 and condoned, how long before that which embraces 
 but a set becomes the distinguishing mark of a section ? 
 If the press is so easily seduced, or misled, what must 
 it become when it is bought outright? Look at the 
 lobby at Washington. Does it not exist? Yet are 
 there those who will swear that it is only a figment 
 of partisan malignity. It already costs a million of 
 dollars to set a Presidential ticket in the field ; already 
 
 472
 
 Appendix 
 
 a hundred thousand dollars to sustain a contest for a 
 seat in the Senate of the United States ; how long shall 
 it be the press already defending the Four Hundred 
 before our public men shall become but a race of 
 Medician princes, without the learning or the arts of 
 Florence, and the Presidential chair itself a simple com 
 modity, to be knocked down to the highest bidder? 
 
 The writer of these lines has always stood for the 
 decent, the stable, and the orderly in govenment and 
 life. He has grown gray fighting to defend the altars 
 of public credit and private honor. He would no more 
 cast a stone into the stagnant pool of a corrupt social 
 fabric just to see the scum rise to the surface than he 
 would do any other perilous and unclean thing. He 
 was drawn into this present contention not of his own 
 choice. Yet, if he had to make his case before his 
 Maker, he would humbly represent that the time has 
 come when some voice loud enough to be heard should 
 be raised against an increasing evil, having its centre 
 in the thing called by a most equivocal courtesy the 
 Four Hundred, and hope to be forgiven, in the event 
 that his voice provoked a single echo in response. 
 
 STILL HARPING ON MY DAUGHTER! 
 
 Courier- Journal, June 10, 1903. 
 
 The Pittsburg Press, following in the wake of those 
 melancholy yet belated Danes of daily journalism, who 
 are saddest when they sing, as in truth are those that 
 hear them, is still, as our old friend Polonius observes, 
 "harping on my daughter," the particular daughter in 
 question being the Smart Set, so-called the Four Hun 
 dred, of odious if not of blessed memory. From a long, 
 double-leaded, double-column leading editorial, pert, 
 
 473
 
 Appendix 
 
 but prolix, a trifle groggy, and a good deal unthoughted, 
 we quote the following : 
 
 "What are we going to do with our Smart Set, particu 
 larly that conspicuous portion of it which moves and has its 
 being in the metropolis and Newport? Naturally, this is not 
 the whole Smart Set. There is a Smart Set not only in New 
 York but also in Kalamazoo. Who that has been in Sque- 
 dunk has not been impressed by the Squedunk Four Hun 
 dred ? But it is of the New York Smart Set that Mr. 
 Andrew Carnegie, and Dr. Peabody, of Boston, and Edward 
 Everett Hale, all of whom would have been supposed to be 
 eligible to the Smart Set of any locality, despair. They may 
 not all express their concern in the manner of Henry Wat- 
 terson, who would probably challenge to a duel anyone who 
 mistook him for a fashionable. But they unite in deploring 
 the tendencies and the aims and the influence of the people 
 who are by common consent regarded as the leaders of the 
 most fashionable society of the country." 
 
 The reference here to the editor of the Courier-Jour 
 nal, which is a little forced also nearly out of date 
 represents what Charles Lamb would have called "a 
 case of imperfect sympathy." The editor of the Cou 
 rier-Journal is nothing if not a "fashionable," though 
 there might be a difference of opinion as to terms. At 
 least the Courier- Journal, for whose contents he may 
 be held accountable, has never yet been accused of fall 
 ing behind the procession, either at home or abroad. In 
 London, in Paris, in the Borough of Manhattan 
 sometimes in the sacred precincts of the Borough of 
 Brooklyn, and often amid the picturesque fastnesses of 
 the Borough of the Bronx the Smart Set call for it, 
 the Four Hundred cry for it. In Kentucky it is the 
 guide, philosopher, and friend of those Democrats who 
 believe in Democracy unterrified and undefiled, and 
 
 474
 
 Appendix 
 
 are still voting for Jefferson, Jackson, and Tilden, and 
 likewise of those Republicans, who, in matters of lit 
 erature, science, and art discounting its politics as at 
 the worse a disagreeable idiosyncrasy do not wish, cer 
 tainly do not mean, to be left at the post. 
 
 If the Pittsburg Press were up to date if it had any 
 kind of style about it surely it would not, in speaking 
 of the editor of the Courier-Journal, fall into the stu 
 pidity of picturing him as half-horse and half-alligator 
 of the regulation variety. There is "no sich a person," 
 as Mrs. Gamp might say; though of this, more anon! 
 Quoting Mr. Andrew Carnegie, Dr. Edward Everett 
 Hale and Professor Peabody in identical corroboration 
 of all the Courier-Journal has ever said, the Press pro 
 ceeds thus: 
 
 "It is quite evident, therefore, that the state of affairs is 
 serious. When Colonel Watterson effervesces, we may per 
 haps pardonably shrug our shoulders and go on in the way 
 we are going. But when Mr. Carnegie, Professor Peabody, 
 and Edward Everett Hale and men of their stamp confess 
 their indignation and alarm, the evil must be real and it must 
 be pressing. It is to be trusted they will continue raising 
 their potent voices as eloquently as they have begun. Men 
 of right ideas but meagre bank accounts may be sneered 
 down when they venture to condemn the unworthy example 
 of youthful millionaires who impudently set up a golden calf 
 and find thousands eager to worship it. But Carnegie, Pea- 
 body, and Hale these are men on whom the best-directed 
 sneers fail to leave their mark. When they begin to turn 
 aside with righteously flaming eyes from monkey parties and 
 other orgies supposed to be smart, many silly hands that had 
 been rapturously demonstrative before will suddenly cease 
 their applause." 
 
 Observing that the "effervescence" ascribed to the 
 editor of the Courier-Journal is nearly a year old in- 
 
 475
 
 Appendix 
 
 dicating a tolerably genuine brand of the wine of truth 
 and soberness we have the right to ask that is to say, 
 if we were speaking seriously and not facetiously, we 
 should have the right to ask why that in the editor of 
 the Courier- Journal, a rather old hand at the bellows, 
 and therefore so reasonably familiar with the world at 
 large and its passing events as to be hardly capable of 
 surprise at anything, should be pictured as effervescence, 
 which in Mr. Carnegie, Dr. Hale, and Professor 
 Peabody men of scholarship and business, who have 
 had scant opportunity to attain a knowledge of the 
 wickedness and frivolity of the times they have lived in 
 should be heralded as the Ultima Thule of delibera 
 tion and wisdom? 
 
 The matter respecting the Smart Set, the Four Hun 
 dred, to which our Pittsburg contemporary goes out of 
 its way to refer, appeared in the Courier- Journal nearly 
 a year ago. It was germane to a dreadful, heart-break 
 ing tragedy at Newport. Knowing the parties and the 
 facts, we drew the line if not at murder, at least at sui 
 cide. Having said what seemed needful to be said, we 
 passed to other scenes and other events. The journal 
 ist, like the actor, is a creature of the moment, the 
 merest abstract and brief chronicle of the time, who, 
 dying, leaves no copy. The editor of the Courier-Jour 
 nal is not a crusader; he is a journalist, instinct with 
 the sense of life, and the reflection of its currencies, per 
 haps a little instinct with the love of truth, assuredly 
 not, as the career of the Courier- Journal will show, a 
 lover of strife, or sensations. He was born in what is 
 called society and grew up in it at Washington and New 
 York, living in it somewhat later on in London and in 
 Paris and even he has no reason to blush for admitting 
 it at Newport. All that he said in what he wrote of 
 the Remington tragedy he personally knew to be true. 
 Every word of it has been more than vindicated by suc- 
 
 476
 
 Appendix 
 
 ceeding events, and the repeated outgiving of others be 
 sides Mr. Carnegie, Dr. Hale, and Professor Peabody, 
 whom the Pittsburg Press trots out as witnesses to its 
 own homilies, which are admirable, being little more 
 than iteration of what was said in these columns. So 
 barring the duello does not the writer of this article 
 think that he owes us an apology ? 
 
 Alas and alack the day! We set out to defend our 
 selves against a false accusation in a mock court, with 
 the purpose of being facetious. We meant to say a lot 
 of smart things of the Smart Set, and, indirectly, of our 
 esteemed contemporary, the Pittsburg Press. The 
 words refuse to come to us. We do not mean to be 
 mawkish, but the dead face of that young man lying 
 there in the Casino at Newport comes back to us, and, 
 his father s friend and schoolmate, we cannot make 
 light of it. To say truth, no sensible man could care 
 anything the one way or other about the Smart Set. 
 The Four Hundred must be to such an one a matter of 
 total indifference. As to the Courier- Journal, it spoke 
 out a little indignantly, perhaps somebody gaffed it, 
 and then it struck out and perhaps it has regretted it 
 ever since because it started so many foolish pens 
 a-going. 
 
 The Pittsburg Press must not only apologize to us, 
 but it must revise its judgment. Honest indignation, 
 sometimes aggressively never unthoughtedly ex 
 pressed, we own to; effervescences impossible! How 
 could a man, sprung from the ranks and yet able to do 
 any kind of work on the force, from "legs" up how 
 could a cold-nosed dog, with a life-time of newspaper 
 experience behind him how could a writer, jealous of 
 his parts of speech and using the blue pencil at three and 
 sixty as he used it at three and thirty how could such 
 a person "effervesce"? 
 
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