The Galaxy, April, 1877 Part 19

And his life was spent as wine is poured upon the ground. Heine ended where the ascetics began, in pain, privation, mortification of the flesh; and it was a mortification that had not even the consolation of being the sufferer's own choice, for it was involuntary. Better for him would it have been had he gone out to dwell in the wilderness, as St.

Jerome left the Paris of his day, and retired into the desert of Chalcis. For a strange penalty was to be his--one of which the joyous apostle of pleasure could hardly have dreamed before the blow fell. A paralytic touch converted the man of pleasure into a man of pain, his bed a living tomb. No more for ever, for Heine, was there to be any reinstatement of the flesh.

This dark closing period of Heine's life has a fascination about it; it holds the attention like the background of a Rembrandt etching, with its dimly-seen forms that appear to stir in the gloom, ghostly, half-alive; such a contrast there is between his gloomy close and the bright projection of his earlier career. Shall we call his life a failure as regards himself, his personal success and happiness? Upon that point we may not p.r.o.nounce too confidently. He would have chosen it had the choice been offered him with full knowledge of the alternatives; he would have preferred it to any commonplace existence.

There will always be those who hold that such careers as Byron's or Heine's, such fitful careers, with their fierce tempests, their ecstatic sunshine, their "awful brevity," are preferable to any serener life, however long; and least of all may we pity Heine. With what scorn would he look down upon our pity!

Heine's life has a peculiar value for the student of modern life, in that it has what we may call an exemplary interest. For Heine made that costly sacrificial experiment of which the old examples never suffice us; the experiment which each new generation requires anew, in which nature in her wasteful way insists on consuming the finest geniuses. As Byron had attempted just before him, so Heine attempted to think and to live without reserves, to compa.s.s the round of sentiment and sensation, to touch the entire range of experience. Like Byron, he could not pa.s.s through the fire; he fell, the flame licked him up. And yet, far more truly than many a martyr, Byron and Heine gave their lives for us. Not, indeed, in the professed spirit of the martyr, not purposing the sacrifice, but for that very reason making it the more significant.

They experimented lavishly, daringly with life, and in their poems they give us real life as no other poets since have done. They are real pa.s.sion, real thought, the ruddy drops of the sad heart. Heine's "Book of Songs" is his own body and blood. One feels of it what Whitman says of his "Leaves of Gra.s.s": "This is no book; who touches this touches a man."

And Heine and Byron, in giving their lives for us, did what the greatest poets and the strongest men have seldom done. Though they have always suffered, yet for us these have rather toiled than suffered.

Dante, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Goethe--what exalted, what demiurgic creations have they bequeathed to us, what power to move, what beauty to ponder with unapproachable longing! But these creations have an awing beauty; they keep an unattainable distance and height. When we consider the lives of these greatest spirits, we find them walking apart in the fastnesses of the hills, pursuing arduous ways where few or none may bear them company. Their paths gain upward upon the heights; they gain so far and high that the tinge of that mountain remoteness falls upon them--an airy distance, a deterring shadow; and if ever their voices seem to say, "Follow us," they have not pointed out the way.

But though Byron and Heine were thus rapt up into the mountain in visions, their daily walk and life were in the world; its dust and soilure cling to them, we see them wavering and going astray. Their very wanderings bring them nearer to us, who sojourn; their desire, their aspiration, their failures make the wiser use of opportunity possible to any of us who may have been born away from home.

t.i.tUS MUNSON COAN.

THE HOME OF MY HEART.

Not here in the populous town, In the playhouse or mart, Not here in the ways gray and brown, But afar on the green-swelling down, Is the home of my heart.

There the hillside slopes down to a dell Whence a streamlet has start; There are woods and sweet gra.s.s on the swell, And the south winds and west know it well: 'Tis the home of my heart.

There's a cottage o'ershadowed by leaves Growing fairer than art, Where under the low sloping eaves No false hand the swallow bereaves: 'Tis the home of my heart.

And there as you gaze down the lea, Where the trees stand apart, Over gra.s.sland and woodland may be You will catch the faint gleam of the sea From the home of my heart.

And there in the rapturous spring, When the morning rays dart O'er the plain, and the morning birds sing, You may see the most beautiful thing In the home of my heart;

For there at the cas.e.m.e.nt above, Where the rosebushes part, Will blush the fair face of my love: Ah, yes! it is this that will prove 'Tis the home of my heart.

F. W BOURDILLON.

THE SOUTH, HER CONDITION AND NEEDS.

Sir Robert Peel, shortly before his death, said that what he had seen and heard in public life had left upon his mind a prevailing impression of gloom and grief. What impressed the mind of the English statesman so painfully in reference to his own country must be felt correspondingly by Americans who contemplate the South; for its present condition awakens the anxious solicitude of every thoughtful patriot. A brief mention of some of the evils that afflict her may help toward the ascertainment and application of adequate remedies. Let it be premised that this discussion proceeds in no degree from disloyalty to the Government, nor from unwillingness to accept the legitimate consequences of the war.

Betwixt the North and the South there lingers much estrangement. One serious cause of irritation at the South, which seems irremediable, is the distrust with which those who sustained the Confederate States are regarded by a large number of Northern people. Our motives are habitually misrepresented, our purposes misunderstood, our actions perverted, our character maligned. On our conduct have been placed constructions which seem to spring from direst hate or malice. By representative men Southern States are spoken of as outside the Union; and "a solid South" has been the party appeal most efficacious for arousing sectional and vindictive pa.s.sion. Every Southern citizen who followed his convictions, and affiliated with the 1,640,000 Democrats of the North, is suspected of disloyalty or treason. No protestations of men or parties, no avowals of governors or legislatures, are accepted as sincere unless accompanied by a support of the Republican party. Party platforms, the support of an Abolitionist like Mr.

Greeley, organic laws, are regarded as deceptive because the shibboleth of disloyalty and patriotism is "Republicanism." These persistent efforts to brand us as inferiors, to make us unequals as citizens, to coerce the support of an administration and a party, are based upon our unfitness, morally or intellectually, to decide for ourselves what is best for the country's welfare and perpetuity. We are loyal, and patriotic, and honest only when we sing paeans to the Administration and its favorites. Practically the war has been prolonged, and this policy of disunion alienates, embitters, and prohibits the growth of fraternal sentiments. To prevent a complete and durable reconciliation seems the settled policy of a large party. This proscription and ostracism have helped to create a hopelessness as to the future. A nightmare paralyzes our energies.

The South, if conquered, and honestly accepting the results of the war, needed encouragement and material help instead of discriminating injuries. Her condition was deplorable. All wars are destructive of property and production. To the South the war between the States was exhausting to the utmost degree. Its destructiveness is not computable by figures. The numerical inferiority of the army made it necessary to put into the effective military force every available boy and man; and these were thus withdrawn from productive labor. Much of the labor that remained was applied, not to the production of wealth, but to such manufactures as were needful only in war. For four dreadful years, like the _triste noche_ described by Prescott, with ports closed, and under the imperious necessity of evoking and utilizing every possible warlike agency, this cessation of wealth-producing industry, this drain upon material resources, this decimation of our best men, this waste of capital and exhaustion of the country from the Rio Grande to the Chesapeake bay, continued remorselessly. Superadd the emanc.i.p.ation of 4,000,000 slaves, the sudden extinction of $1,600,000,000 of property, the disorganization of the labor system, the upheaval of society, the "stupendous innovation" upon habits, modes of thought, allegiance, amounting almost to a change of civilization, and it will be easy to see that the South started upon her new career with nothing but genial climate, fertile soil, and brave hearts. Absence of capital, of concentrated wealth, made it necessary to begin _de novo_. Slavery and profitableness of crops had prevented diversity of pursuits.

Agriculture, applied to a few products, was almost our sole occupation.

Former habits had disinclined to mechanical pursuits or manual labor, and our towns, since 1865, have been crowded with young men, who have sought in clerkships, agencies, and professions the means of support.

These employments, if furnishing remunerative wages, are not wealth-producing, add nothing to capital, and have aggravated the general impoverishment.

These evils have been intensified by vicious legislation and bad government. Federal legislation has been much in the interest of stock-jobbers, speculators, monopolists, so that "corners" have been fostered, and labor has paid heavy and depressing tribute to fatten greedy cormorants. The present system of banking violates the established principles of currency, and is in utter contradiction to what, for a decade, by consent of all parties and financiers, was the policy of the Government. Bad as the system is inherently by injurious legislation, its benefits are secured to a favored cla.s.s, and by combination with other corporations, notably railroad companies, the business of the country is largely in the control of a few monopolists, who rule and grow rich in spite of the laws of political economy.

Promissory notes, printed with pictures on fine paper, have been subst.i.tuted for the money of the Const.i.tution, and our young people are growing up with the notion that this rag currency is a legitimate measure of value and a legal solvent of debts.

So marked has been this cla.s.s legislation in the interest of capital, that a Senator of the United States, Mr. Wallace of Pennsylvania, says, "From the beginning of the present Administration down to the adjournment of Congress in August, 1876, every financial statute has had but one purpose, and that purpose to increase the value of the bonded indebtedness of the Government." Statistics show how insecure is business, on what vicious principles it is transacted, and how rapidly property is concentrating in the hands of a few. In 1874 there were 5,830 failures for a total of $155,000,000, and in 1875 the failures increased to 7,740, aggregating a loss of $201,000,000. In both North and South there has been a frightful increase of indebtedness by towns and cities, counties and States--thirty-eight States owe an aggregate of $382,000,000--so that taxpayers groan in purse and spirit, and are deeply concerned to find a way of honest payment.

Taxation has been and is a potent instrument of wrong and corruption.

To pay the national debt increased taxation was, of course, necessary and proper, but taxation should have been adjusted to the rights of honest creditors and the lessened pecuniary ability of taxpayers. The Federal and local taxes of the last eleven years, according to high authority, amount to not less than $7,500,000,000. Never in modern times was revenue collected in such a complicated and ruinous manner.

Mr. Curtis tells us one-fourth of the revenue is lost in the collection. If the collection and expenditure of revenue be the tests for determining the wisdom of a government, then ours is not "the best the world ever saw."

Extravagant expenditure is closely connected with enormous revenues.

Economy of administration is a lost art. Federal expenditure in 1860, exclusive of payment of public debt, was $1.94 per head. In 1870 it was $3.52 per head, and in 1875 $3.38. The $4,500,000,000 of Federal taxes[7] of the last eleven years have not been exclusively appropriated to reduction of debt and defraying necessary expenditures.

Officials have been needlessly multiplied, jobs have been created, peculation is common, and millions have been squandered on contracts made with hungry partisans. Such an exhaustion of national resources is governmental robbery. In the purer days it was a political maxim that no more money was to be taken from the people than was necessary for the const.i.tutional and economical wants of the Government. Large revenues and large expenditures are mutually recreative. Mr. Calhoun, the most sagacious and philosophical statesman of this century, said, in 1839, "I am disposed to regard it as a political maxim in free States, that an impoverished treasury, once in a generation at least, is almost indispensable to the preservation of their inst.i.tutions and liberty." All experience shows that excessive revenue and large expenditures increase the patronage of the government and corrupt public and private morals. Some palliation may be found in the fact that wars are demoralizing, necessitate much a.s.sumption of power, and that our conflict was gigantic; but after all due allowances the corruptions in America must find a parallel in that period of English history when the sovereign was the pensioner of a foreign potentate.

The centennial anniversary of our republic finds a record so scandalous that all honest men blush, and the Fourth of July eulogists have to make the humiliating confession of much of vice and shame in our national life, of a decline from the former high standard of political and moral purity, and of the blister of corruption in high places, upon Executive and judiciary, upon laws, and on the acts of prominent officials. (See speeches of Dr. Storrs and Hon. C. F. Adams.)

[7] This is somewhat in excess of the actual amount, which is, however, quite large enough, $3,809,722,765; viz., customs, $1,973,589,621; internal revenue, $1,826,185,813; direct tax, $9,947,331. It is well to remember, too, that the expenditures of the Government have decreased one-half in this period; viz., from $520,809,417, in 1866, to $258,469,797 in 1876. Of this decrease, thirty-three millions is in the interest on the public debt.--ED. GALAXY.

As cause and consequence of oppressive taxes, and wasteful and corrupt extravagance, I may instance the centripetal tendencies of the Federal Government. The patriot must deprecate the rapid strides toward consolidation. Our government was designed as a government of clearly-defined limitations upon power. It is now practically absolute.

In its complex character, a division of powers mutually exclusive betwixt Federal and State governments, "divisibility of sovereignty,"

as some phrase it, was contemplated. Now the States are provinces dependent on, submissive to, the central head, just as the Colonies were looked upon, prior to our independence, as a species of feudatories for the benefit of the mother country. By popular vote, by elastic constructions or palpable violations of the Const.i.tution, by unprecedented a.s.sumptions, our Federal system has been revolutionized.

It is the height of absurdity to talk of the restrictions of a written Const.i.tution, when a dominant majority interprets finally that instrument, and there are no remedies to protect against invasion or encroachment.[8] It is a mere glittering generality to boast of a const.i.tutional republic, if a President can violate the organic law with impunity, or if Congress is restrained in its a.s.sumptions only by its own sense of justice. Much recent executive, legislative, and judicial action has tended to absorb State rights and prerogatives. Mr.

Boutwell's proposition to remand a State to territorial pupilage would be but the legal enactment and the logical sequence of what has had the enthusiastic approval of a large number of citizens. Encroachments have been so numerous and violent, submission has been so tame, that governors are coolly set aside on the demand of a petty marshal, and legislatures on the bidding of Mr. Jones. Once States were supposed to have the right of eminent domain; to have exclusive control of education, of litigation among its own citizens; to determine the elective franchise; to regulate the relations of parent and child, husband and wife, guardian and ward; but that was in the purer days of the republic, when States were not mere counties, but political communities, with, a large residuum of undelegated powers. The earlier amendments to the Const.i.tution imposed checks and limitations upon the general Government, because of the watchful jealousy on the part of the States of their sovereignty and independence. Following the tendency to centralize, to despotize, the late amendments are in the direction of consolidation, and take away from the States what was once universally regarded as their _exclusive_ prerogative in reference to the elective franchise. Now, under amendments and "_appropriate_ legislation for carrying them into effect," the _national_ Government can control voting, make a registration of voters, and very soon, if there be no arrest of tyranny, the ballot box will be under the guardianship of Presidential appointees. Federal election laws thus degrade States into petty munic.i.p.alities and subvert liberty.

[8] Not only that government is tyrannical which is tyrannically administered, but all governments are tyrannical which have not in their const.i.tution a sufficient security against arbitrary power.--_Burgh's Pol. Disquis._, 378.

Pa.s.sing from these grievances, applicable to the whole Union, I approach what is to my apprehension the most unmatchable outrage ever inflicted by a civilized people. Some acts, like the part.i.tion of Poland, stand out on the pages of history as disgraceful national crimes; but most of them shade into minor offences compared with the crime-breeding, race-endangering, liberty-imperiling savagery of conferring the right of suffrage upon the negroes _en ma.s.se_. In other countries liberty has been not so much a creation as a growth. In conservative England, suffrage has been slowly, temperately enlarged, always preserving restrictions so as not to commit the destinies of the kingdom to an ignorant mob. Giving the elective franchise to the suddenly emanc.i.p.ated negroes, placing the government of States in the hands of such a cla.s.s, wholly unprepared by education or experience, if not such a repeating crime, would be a farce for the ages. Every person of the least intelligence knows that generally the voting of the negroes is a mere sham. He votes as a machine. He is the tool of the demagogue, the p.a.w.n of a political party. That men with no intelligent understanding of rights and duties, unable to read, untrained in political affairs, wholly ignorant of the commonest matters pertaining to government, superst.i.tious, credulous, victims of impostors, paying no capitation tax, should decide upon grave questions of organic or statute law, upon the financial or foreign policy of the country, should control counties, cities, States, is an offence that will stink in the nostrils of coming centuries. What has occurred since the Presidential election is demonstration that both parties at the North regard unlimited negro suffrage as subversive of the principle of reliance upon moral worth and clear intelligence. The presence of the military in South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana, the hurrying to and fro of partisans, the secret conclaves and cabalistic telegrams, the jealous superintendence of the counting of votes, the criminations and recriminations in reference to fraud and intimidation, are the legitimate results of the attempt to sustain a party by such extreme medicine. Our novel experiment of free government cannot endure many more such tests. Prof. Huxley, speaking to Americans during his late visit, said: "You and your descendants have to ascertain whether the great ma.s.s of people will hold together under the forms of a republic and the despotic reality of universal suffrage; whether centralization will get the better without the actual or disguised monarchy; whether shifting corruption is better than a permanent bureaucracy." It need not take long to work out the problem if the ballot box is to be controlled by ignorance. Sometimes we are lectured to be grateful to the North for its magnanimity toward the South. Legislation does not sustain the self-eulogy. It is alleged that mercy was shown to "rebels and traitors." Pa.s.sing over the _pet.i.tio principii_ in the phraseology, a thousand times better it would have been to have hung President, and Cabinet, and every Congressman, and every general, than to have fastened upon us this incurable cancer, eating up the life-blood of the Union.

In the South, the administration of government in some instances has been marked by oppressive tyranny and open corruption. Incompetent and dishonest men have been appointed to positions, and with full knowledge of their wrong doings have been retained to accomplish party ends. This injustice and tyranny have demoralized somewhat our own people. Tyranny always corrupts. A lower standard of morality is first tolerated, and then becomes popular. Lax motives of honor are taking the place of chivalrous integrity. Payment of honest debts is evaded. Grinding poverty has made some unduly covetous of riches. Enormous taxation, selfish and immoral legislation, have partially undermined the foundations of private virtue. The ease and frequency with which the rewards of honest toil are filched away give insecurity to property and take away much of the stimulus to diligent toil. Some have sunk into despair, while others, with more of unsubdued energy, are willing for almost anything to turn up which gives promise or possibility of change.

The South in seeking relief need not delude herself by reliance upon any _party_ to reform evils and restore prosperity. Some difficulties are independent of party action, or even political policy, and have their origin in more general causes. A portion of the commercial and financial troubles is probably due to some "wider misadjustment of labor and capital" than can be rectified by one country, and requires broad and sound statesmanship. The Republican party is held together, in part, by the "cohesive power of public plunder," or compacted into unity by distrust or hatred of the South. The Democratic party, as unsound as its antagonist on the vital questions of tariff, currency, finances, and the character of the General Government, has practised the fatal maxim that "to the victors belong the spoils," and, in special localities, has been implicated in corruption. The history of parties in England and the United States shows that any party long in power will become corrupt. To rely upon any party, or the wisdom or sense of justice of any government, for protection of property or guaranty of civil or religious liberty, is to lean upon a broken reed; for rights never enforce themselves, and are soon gone unless sustained by more potent means than the justice or honor of those in power. A President is impotent of himself, soon pa.s.ses into private life, and is at best but a man.

Alike futile is the notion, sometimes finding audible expression, that an arbitrary government or a monarchy would bring relief. Our fathers, in throwing off a kingly government and setting up a const.i.tutional republic, acted in the full light thrown on popular rights by all preceding history. They did not live in prehistoric or barbaric times, but acted with rare wisdom and patriotism. More sagacious men never planned a government, and blindly and suicidally would we act to prefer or accept a monarchy. The centuries of the past are eloquent with wisdom and plethoric with instructive examples on this subject. G.o.d has never given any exclusive rights to special families, and all historical records confirm, with the Scriptures, the folly of choosing a king. How often in such governments is public policy dependent on royal whims, on palace intrigues, on the taste or caprice of the boudoir! Monarchy has been the rule of violence; inequality and centralization are of its essence. The rebellion in England and the French revolution were the long-delayed protests of outraged peoples against ruinous taxation and hurtful tyranny and cankerous corruption.

When the disgraceful crimes by men in high places were exposed last year European journals made themselves merry over the corruptions which they alleged were the legitimate outgrowths of democratic inst.i.tutions.

In the first place, our Government is not a democracy, and never was intended to be. Secondly, monarchies are not in a condition to cast the first stone. Italy, Spain, Austria, Russia, and France have had corruption enough to make them blush. As England is held up for our copying, and is less censurable than the others, I cite a few instances from her history. May, in "Const.i.tutional History of England," Vol. I., p. 299 says: "Our Parliamentary history has been tainted with this disgrace of vulgar bribes for political support from the reign of Charles II. far into that of George III." For shamefulness of public life Charles II. stands without a rival. He was a pensioner of the King of France, and applied to his own privy purse large sums of money which had been appropriated by Parliament for carrying on the war. The equipoise designed to be secured in the National Legislature by the House of Commons was defeated because the House was at once dependent and corrupt. Borough nominations, places, pensions, contracts, shares in loans and lotteries, and even pecuniary bribes, secured the ascendency of Crown and Lords in the councils and government of the State. Sunderland, Secretary of State under James II., stipulated to receive 25,000 crowns from the King of France for services to be rendered. Walpole's and Pelham's administrations were notorious for the very audacity of their corruptions. In the reign of Anne Parliamentary corruption was extensive and unblushing. Sir John Trevor, the Speaker, accepted a bribe and did the dirty work of bribing other members. In the reign of George I., during his first Parliament, 271 members held offices, pensions, and sinecures; in the first of George II., 257. In 1776 Lord Chatham accused the ministers of "servility, incapacity, corruption." Macaulay says Lord North's administration was supported by vile and corrupt means, and the King, George III., was not only cognizant of Parliamentary bribery, but advised it and contributed money to it. Although there has been much improvement in the character and purity of the public men, yet as late as 1829 the pension list was above 750,000.

The principle of a representative const.i.tutional republic is right.

Much of the evil which afflicts us is the result of a departure from our original system; is an accident rather than essential, and is certainly not to be cured by a monarchical government.

In suggesting some remedies or palliatives for present ills it is not needful to startle by novelties. Truth is generally commonplace, honesty always. A return to justice and right, frugality and economy, as applicable to the body politic and to individual life, a recurrence to fundamental principles, are of prime importance.

As a people we must, if possible, preserve what remains of the Const.i.tution and of the federative system. Sober, honest purpose can reform some abuses. Imperious necessity will compel the North to take effective steps for restoring the violated purity of the Government. If present tendencies are not arrested, liberty will be sacrificed. As the tendency of every government is to excess, a const.i.tution is more or less perfect according as it is full of limitations of authority. The grant and the distribution of public functions should be accompanied with safeguards. Our Federal Const.i.tution cautiously delegates to various public functionaries certain powers of government, defines and limits the powers thus delegated, and reserves to the people of the States their sovereignty over all things not delegated. Our organic law thus seeks to restrain the Government within narrow and prescribed limits, to guard weaker and dissimilar interests against inequality, to interpose efficient checks, to prevent the stronger from oppressing the weaker. Ours is a government under a written compact, and _in its purity the best ever devised_. The war between the States is much misunderstood. It was a gigantic conflict of _political_ ideas, a controversy, not for or between dynasties, but on the nature and character and power of the Federal Government. Three things were settled by the war:

1. Emanc.i.p.ation and citizenship of the negroes.

2. The surrender of any claim of resort to secession in case of dispute as to powers of the Government, or as a remedy for violated compact.

3. The recognition of such a person as a citizen of the United States, independent of citizenship in a State.