Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume I Part 2

It was well known that the ex-king, as well as his son, Prince Jrome Napoleon, were thorns in the side of Napoleon III, and many stories ill.u.s.trating this were current during my stay in Paris, the best, perhaps, being an answer made by Napoleon III to another representative of his family. The question having been asked, ''What is the difference between an accident and a misfortune (un accident et un malheur)?'' the emperor answered.

''If my cousin, Prince Napoleon, should fall into the Seine, it would be an ACCIDENT; if anybody were to pull him out, it would be a MISFORTUNE.'' Although this cousin had some oratorical ability, both he and his father were most thoroughly despised. The son bore the nickname of ''Plon-Plon,'' probably with some reference to his reputation for cowardice; the father had won the appellation of ''Le Roi Loustic,'' and, indeed, had the credit of introducing into the French language the word ''loustic,''

derived from the fact that, during his short reign at Ca.s.sel, King Jrome was wont, after the nightly orgies at his palace, to dismiss his courtiers with the words: ''Morgen wieder loustic, Messieurs.''

During the summer of 1854 I employed my vacation in long walks and drives with a college cla.s.smate through northern, western, and central France, including Picardy, Normandy, Brittany, and Touraine, visiting the spots of most historical and architectural interest. There were, at that time, few railways in those regions, so we put on blouses and took to the road, sending our light baggage ahead of us, and carrying only knapsacks. In every way it proved a most valuable experience. Pleasantly come back to me my walks and talks with the peasantry, and vividly dwell in my memory the cathedrals of Beauvais, Amiens, Rouen, Bayeux, Coutances, Le Mans, Tours, Chartres, and Orlans, the fortress of Mont St. Michel, the Chry.

Visiting the grave of Ch

''Roi, je ne puis, Prince ne daigne, Rohan je suis.''

At this he seemed greatly pleased, grasped my hand, and launched at once into extended conversation. His great anxiety was to know who was to be the future king of our Republic, and he asked especially whether Washington had left any direct descendants. On my answering in the negative, he insisted that we would have to find some descendant in the collateral line, ''for,'' said he, ''you can't escape it; no nation can get along for any considerable time without a monarch.''

Returning to Paris I resumed my studies, and, at the request of Mr. Randall, the biographer of Jefferson, made some search in the French archives for correspondence between Jefferson and Robespierre,--search made rather to put an end to calumny than for any other purpose.

At the close of this stay in France, by the kindness of the American minister to Russia, Governor Seymour, of Connecticut, I was invited to St. Petersburg, as an attach of the American Legation, and resided for over six months in his household. It was a most interesting period. The Crimean War was going on, and the death of the Emperor Nicholas, during my stay, enabled me to see how a great change in autocratic administration is accomplished. An important part of my duty was to accompany the minister as an interpreter, not only at court, but in his interviews with Nesselrode, Gortschakoff, and others then in power.

This gave me some chance also to make my historical studies more real by close observation of a certain sort of men who have had the making of far too much history; but books interested me none the less. An epoch in my development, intellectual and moral, was made at this time by my reading large parts of Gibbon, and especially by a very careful study of Guizot's ''History of Civilization in France,'' which greatly deepened and strengthened the impression made by his ''History of Civilization in Europe,'' as read under President Woolsey at Yale. During those seven months in St. Petersburg and Moscow, I read much in modern European history, paying considerable attention to the political development and condition of Russia, and, for the first time, learned the pleasures of investigating the history of our own country. Governor Seymour was especially devoted to the ideas of Thomas Jefferson, and late at night, as we sat before the fire, after returning from festivities or official interviews, we frequently discussed the democratic system, as advocated by Jefferson, and the autocratic system, as we saw it in the capital of the Czar. The result was that my beginning of real study in American history was made by a very close examination of the life and writings of Thomas Jefferson, including his letters, messages, and other papers, and of the diplomatic history revealed in the volumes of correspondence preserved in the Legation. The general result was to strengthen and deepen my democratic creed, and a special result was the preparation of an article on ''Jefferson and Slavery,'' which, having been at a later period refused by the ''New Englander,'' at New Haven, on account of its too p.r.o.nounced sympathy with democracy against federalism, was published by the ''Atlantic Monthly,'' and led to some acquaintances of value to me afterward.

Returning from St. Petersburg, I was matriculated at the University of Berlin, and entered the family of a very scholarly gymnasial professor, where nothing but German was spoken. During this stay at the Prussian capital, in the years 1855 and 1856, I heard the lectures of Lepsius, on Egyptology; August Boeckh, on the History of Greece; Friedrich von Raumer, on the History of Italy; Hirsch, on Modern History in general; and Carl Ritter, on Physical Geography. The lectures of Ranke, the most eminent of German historians, I could not follow. He had a habit of becoming so absorbed in his subject, as to slide down in his chair, hold his finger up toward the ceiling, and then, with his eye fastened on the tip of it, to go mumbling through a kind of rhapsody, which most of my German fellow-students confessed they could not understand.

It was a comical sight: half a dozen students crowding around his desk, listening as priests might listen to the sibyl on her tripod, the other students being scattered through the room, in various stages of discouragement. My studies at this period were mainly in the direction of history, though with considerable reading on art and literature. Valuable and interesting to me at this time were the representations of the best dramas of Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, and Gutzkow, at the Berlin theaters.

Then, too, really began my education in Shakspere, and the representations of his plays (in Schlegel and Tieck's version) were, on the whole, the most satisfactory I have ever known. I thus heard plays of Shakspere which, in English-speaking countries, are never presented, and, even into those better known, wonderful light was at times thrown from this new point of view.

As to music, the Berlin Opera was then at the height of its reputation, the leading singer being the famous Joanna Wagner. But my greatest satisfaction was derived from the ''Liebig Cla.s.sical Concerts.'' These were, undoubtedly, the best instrumental music then given in Europe, and a small party of us were very a.s.siduous in our attendance. Three afternoons a week we were, as a rule, gathered about our table in the garden where the concerts were given, and, in the midst of us, Alexander Thayer, the biographer of Beethoven, who discussed the music with us during its intervals. Beethoven was, for him, the one personage in human history, and Beethoven's music the only worthy object of human concern. He knew every composition, every note, every variant, and had wrestled for years with their profound meanings. Many of his explanations were fantastic, but some were suggestive and all were interesting. Even more inspiring was another new-found friend, Henry Simmons Frieze; a thorough musician, and a most lovely character. He broached no theories, uttered no comments, but sat rapt by the melody and harmony--transfigured--''his face as it had been the face of an angel.'' In these Liebig concerts we then heard, for the first time, the music of a new composer,--one Wagner,--and agreed that while it was all very strange, there was really something in the overture to ''Tannh

At the close of this stay in Berlin, I went with a party of fellow-students through Austria to Italy. The whole journey was a delight, and the pa.s.sage by steamer from Trieste to Venice was made noteworthy by a new acquaintance,--James Russell Lowell. As he had already written the ''Vision of Sir Launfal,'' the ''Fable for Critics,'' and the ''Biglow Papers,'' I stood in great awe of him; but this feeling rapidly disappeared in his genial presence. He was a student like the rest of us,--for he had been pa.s.sing the winter at Dresden, working in German literature, as a preparation for succeeding Longfellow in the professorship at Harvard. He came to our rooms, and there linger delightfully in my memory his humorous accounts of Italian life as he had known it.

During the whole of the journey, it was my exceeding good fortune to be thrown into very close relations with two of our party, both of whom became eminent Latin professors, and one of whom,--already referred to,-- Frieze, from his lecture-room in the University of Michigan, afterward did more than any other man within my knowledge to make cla.s.sical scholarship a means of culture throughout our Western States. My excursions in Rome, under that guidance, I have always looked upon as among the fortunate things of life. The day was given to exploration, the evening to discussion, not merely of archaeological theories, but of the weightier matters pertaining to the history of Roman civilization and its influence. Dear Frieze and Fishburne! How vividly come back the days in the tower of the Croce di Malta, at Genoa, in our sky-parlor of the Piazza di Spagna at Rome, and in the old ''Capuchin Hotel'' at Amalfi, when we held high debate on the a.n.a.logies between the Roman Empire and the British, and upon various kindred subjects.

An episode, of much importance to me at this time, was my meeting our American minister at Naples, Robert Dale Owen. His talks on the political state of Italy, and his pictures of the monstrous despotism of ''King Bomba'' took strong hold upon me. Not even the pages of Colletta or of Settembrini have done so much to arouse in me a sense of the moral value of political history.

Then, too, I made the first of my many excursions through the historic towns of Italy. My reading of Sismondi's ''Italian Republics'' had deeply interested me in their history, and had peopled them again with their old turbulent population. I seemed to see going on before my eyes the old struggle between Guelphs and Ghibellines, and between the demagogues and the city tyrants. In the midst of such scenes my pa.s.sion for historical reading was strengthened, and the whole subject took on new and deeper meanings.

On my way northward, excursions among the cities of southern France, especially Nismes, Arles, and Orange, gave me a far better conception of Roman imperial power than could be obtained in Italy alone, and Avignon, Bourges, and Toulouse deepened my conceptions of mediaeval history.

Having returned to America in the summer of 1856 and met my cla.s.s, a.s.sembled to take the master's degree in course at Yale, I was urged by my old Yale friends, especially by Porter and Gilman, to remain in New Haven.

They virtually pledged me a position in the school of art about to be established; but my belief was in the value of historical studies, and I accepted an election to a professorship of history at the University of Michigan. The work there was a joy to me from first to last, and my relations with my students of that period, before I had become distracted from them by the cares of an executive position, were among the most delightful of my life.

Then, perhaps, began the most real part of my education.

The historical works of Buckle, Lecky, and Draper, which were then appearing, gave me a new and fruitful impulse; but most stimulating of all was the atmosphere coming from the great thought of Darwin and Herbert Spencer,-- an atmosphere in which history became less and less a matter of annals, and more and more a record of the unfolding of humanity. Then, too, was borne in upon me the meaning of the proverb docendo disces. I found energetic Western men in my cla.s.ses ready to discuss historical questions, and discovered that in order to keep up my part of the discussions, as well as to fit myself for my cla.s.s-room duties, I must work as I had never worked before. The education I then received from my cla.s.ses at the University of Michigan was perhaps the most effective of all.

PART II

POLITICAL LIFE

CHAPTER III

FROM JACKSON TO FILLMORE--1832-1851

My arrival in this world took place at one of the stormy periods of American political history. It was on the third of the three election days which carried Andrew Jackson a second time into the Presidency.

Since that period, the election, with its paralysis of business, ghastly campaign lying, and monstrous vilification of candidates, has been concentrated into one day; but at that time all the evil pa.s.sions of a presidential election were allowed to ferment and gather vitriolic strength during three days.

I was born into a politically divided family. My grandfather, on my mother's side, whose name I was destined to bear, was an ardent Democrat; had, as such, represented his district in the State legislature, and other public bodies; took his political creed from Thomas Jefferson, and adored Andrew Jackson. My father, on the other hand, was in all his antecedents and his personal convictions, a devoted Whig, taking his creed from Alexander Hamilton, and worshiping Henry Clay.

This opposition between my father and grandfather did not degenerate into personal bitterness; but it was very earnest, and, in later years, my mother told me that when Hayne, of South Carolina, made his famous speech, charging the North with ill-treatment of the South, my grandfather sent a copy of it to my father, as unanswerable; but that, shortly afterward, my father sent to my grandfather the speech of Daniel Webster, in reply, and that, when this was read, the family allowed that the latter had the better of the argument. I cannot help thinking that my grandfather must have agreed with them, tacitly, if not openly. He loved the Hampshire Hills of Ma.s.sachusetts, from which he came. Year after year he took long journeys to visit them, and Webster's magnificent reference to the ''Old Bay State'' must have aroused his sympathy and pride.

Fortunately, at that election, as at so many others since, the good sense of the nation promptly accepted the result, and after its short carnival of political pa.s.sion, dismissed the whole subject; the minority simply leaving the responsibility of public affairs to the majority, and all betaking themselves again to their accustomed vocations.

I do not remember, during the first seven years of my life, ever hearing any mention of political questions. The only thing I heard during that period which brings back a chapter in American politics, was when, at the age of five years, I attended an infant school and took part in a sort of catechism, all the children rising and replying to the teacher's questions. Among these were the following:

Q. Who is President of the United States?

A. Martin Van Buren.

Q. Who is governor of the State of New York?

A. William L. Marcy.

This is to me somewhat puzzling, for I was four years old when Martin Van Buren was elected, and my father was his very earnest opponent, yet, though I recall easily various things which occurred at that age and even earlier, I have no remembrance of any general election before 1840, and my only recollection of the first New York statesman elected to the Presidency is this mention of his name, in a child's catechism.

My recollections of American polities begin, then, with the famous campaign of 1840, and of that they are vivid.

Our family had, in 1839, removed to Syracuse, which, although now a city of about one hundred and twenty thousand inhabitants, was then a village of fewer than six thousand; but, as the central town of the State, it was already a noted gathering-place for political conventions and meetings. The great Whig ma.s.s-meeting held there, in 1840, was long famous as the culmination of the campaign between General Harrison and Martin Van Buren.

As a President, Mr. Van Buren had fallen on evil times.

It was a period of political finance; of demagogical methods in public business; and the result was ''hard times,'' with an intense desire throughout the nation for a change. This desire was represented especially by the Whig party. General Harrison had been taken up as its candidate, not merely because he had proved his worth as governor of the Northwestern Territory, and as a senator in Congress, but especially as the hero of sundry fights with the Indians, and, above all, of the plucky little battle at Tippecanoe. The most popular campaign song, which I soon learned to sing l.u.s.tily, was ''Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too,'' and sundry lines of it expressed, not only my own deepest political convictions and aspirations, but also those cherished by myriads of children of far larger growth. They ran as follows:

''Oh, have you heard the great commotion-motion-motion Rolling the country through?

It is the ball a-rolling on For Tippecanoe and Tyler, too, For Tippecanoe and Tyler, too; And with them we 'll beat little Van; Van, Van is a used up man; And with them we 'll beat little Van.''

The campaign was an apotheosis of tom-foolery.

General Harrison had lived the life, mainly, of a Western farmer, and for a time, doubtless, exercised amid his rude surroundings the primitive hospitality natural to st.u.r.dy Western pioneers. On these facts the changes were rung.

In every town and village a log cabin was erected where the Whigs held their meetings; and the bringing of logs, with singing and shouting, to build it, was a great event; its front door must have a wooden latch on the inside; but the latch-string must run through the door; for the claim which the friends of General Harrison especially insisted upon was that he not only lived in a log cabin, but that his latch-string was always out, in token that all his fellow-citizens were welcome at his fireside.

Another element in the campaign was hard cider.

Every log cabin must have its barrel of this acrid fluid, as the ant.i.thesis of the alleged beverage of President Van Buren at the White House. He, it was a.s.serted, drank champagne, and on this point I remember that a verse was sung at log-cabin meetings which, after describing, in a prophetic way the arrival of the ''Farmer of North Bend'' at the White House, ran as follows:

''They were all very merry, and drinking champagne When the Farmer, impatient, knocked louder again; Oh, Oh, said Prince John, I very much fear We must quit this place the very next year.''

''Prince John'' was President Van Buren's brilliant son; famous for his wit and eloquence, who, in after years, rose to be attorney-general of the State of New York, and who might have risen to far higher positions had his principles equaled his talents.

Another feature at the log cabin, and in all political processions, was at least one racc.o.o.n; and if not a live racc.o.o.n in a cage, at least a racc.o.o.n skin nailed upon the outside of the cabin. This gave local color, but hence came sundry jibes from the Democrats, for they were wont to refer to the Whigs as ''c.o.o.ns,'' and to their log cabins as ''c.o.o.n pens.'' Against all these elements of success, added to promises of better times, the Democratic party could make little headway. Martin Van Buren, though an admirable public servant in many ways, was discredited. M. de Bacourt, the French Minister at Washington, during his administration, was, it is true, very fond of him, and this cynical scion of French n.o.bility wrote in a private letter, which has been published in these latter days, ''M. Van Buren is the most perfect imitation of a gentleman I ever saw.'' But this commendation had not then come to light, and the main reliance of the Democrats in capturing the popular good-will was their candidate for the Vice-Presidency, Colonel Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky. He, too, had fought in the Indian wars, and bravely. Therefore it was that one of the Whig songs which especially rejoiced me, ran:

''They shout and sing, Oh humpsy dumpsy, Colonel Johnson killed Tec.u.mseh.''

Among the features of that period which excited my imagination were the enormous ma.s.s meetings, with processions, coming in from all points of the compa.s.s, miles in length, and bearing every patriotic device and political emblem. Here the Whigs had infinitely the advantage.