Great social and political results have thus been attained without consciously intending them, or seeing how they were to be brought about. Our Government, without professing great moral purposes, may yet accomplish more in that direction, and this, too, by the relentless and bloody hand of war, than has ever been the result of purely moral design by the most approved moral means, on the part of any combination of mankind. It may be a crisis in history, and the ushering in of a new era.

Our Government proposes to recover lost possessions, and restore the integrity of the Union. Wherefore? Ours is the most beneficent Government upon the earth, blessing the most human beings, and it should be sustained. The whole nation has contributed to the acquisition of Southern territory, and it is not meet that the Northern people should surrender their interest in the same. The Mississippi River belongs as naturally to the great West as to the South, and it should be under the control of the same sovereign power, to be used for the good of one great people. There is no natural division line between the North and South, and it would be fatal to the future peace and prosperity of this continent to attempt to make one.

These are some of the reasons ordinarily given for the prosecution of this war—for our great effort to reestablish the Union. They are practical, readily comprehended, and to urge them is well—enough, really, for present practical purposes; but may there not be in the idea of political unity a meaning—a philosophical significance, if you please, which these practical and obvious considerations do not reveal?

It is the confirmed conviction of the Northern people, with certain unnatural exceptions, that it is our true policy to maintain the integrity of the Union at any cost, however great; the people of the South evidently take a different view of it; the political thinkers of Europe appear to be divided in their sympathies between the North and South.

An article appears in a British quarterly to prove that it is the fate of great empires to fall to pieces; and that China, Turkey, Russia, and the United States show signs of approaching dissolution. It is observed that French writers of authority in the Government have issued pamphlets to prove that the peace and stability of nations require the dismemberment of the United States. The 'fire eaters' of the South are not the only people who would like to see the United States in fragments. We have such even in the North; and in Europe, especially near the thrones, 'their name is legion.'

The thinking world has not yet settled into the conviction that a great continental policy, preserving internal peace, and enduring for an indefinite period into the far-off future, is a possible thing. The fate of nations and empires, as revealed in history, is apparently against such an idea. Many empires have already appeared, risen to power, fallen into decay, and become dismembered, having run their course and disappeared. May it not be so with our own great confederacy of States? The authority against a great, practical, enduring political unity is respectable. May we not be fighting for an illusion? What guarantee have we in history, science, and common sense, that our Federal Union will not crumble as the empires of the past have done, and as the political prophets of Europe, casting the horoscope of nations in the shadows of their own political fragmentarism, have predicted for us? Even should the rebels South be chastised, and the Union restored for the present, have we solid reasons for believing in the permanency of our institutions? What is the warrant for our faith that American destiny comprehends the principle of American unity?

People contract habits of thought in a great measure from the nature of the institutions which surround them. Europe could think nothing but feudalism at one time; she had no conception of religion outside the Church of Rome. The Turk thinks by the standard of political absolutism and the Moslem faith. The reflections of every people are cast in the national mould; it is so the world over, and has been so in all times. Europe, or at least a very influential portion thereof, thinks that the 'balance of power' system will yet be inaugurated among the family of nations yet to spring up on this continent. Her people think balance of power, and the London Times and like organs of the existing polity write balance of power for our edification, and for the future of America. They cannot conceive that there is any other way to get along for any considerable length of time. In like manner is it concluded—keeping up the old trains of thought—that if nations once fell into fragments when shaken, they will do just so again.

Now, perhaps we have contracted habits of thought from the character of our country and her institutions, and are deceiving ourselves with hopes which have no real foundation. These, we believe, are considerations which have engaged the attention of every reflecting man; and it behooves us, as intelligent Americans and members of a young nation of hitherto unexampled prosperity and promise, to be able to give a reason for the faith that is in us.

There are changes and crises in the course and destiny of political systems. The conditions of one period of time are different from the conditions of another period. Different conditions necessitate different political systems. Feudalism did not last always; European diplomacy is only three hundred years old. If Europe, out of her peculiar situation, originated the doctrine of balance of power, thus innovating upon the past, may not we, owing to the novelty of our situation, originate a continental system which will endure to the remotest periods of time, or so long as political systems shall have place on the earth?

One empire may fall into fragments to-day; while another may not only not suffer dissolution, but really grow stronger, and appropriate, in a most legitimate manner, parts of the dismembered empire.

We must allow, not only for the difference of conditions with reference to time, but, also, for the different situations at the same time of different political structures. To assume, because nations have been ground to atoms, or have fallen to pieces of their own weight, that therefore Russia and the United States are about to go in the same way, is a species of reasoning which is hardly warranted by scientific methods. It may be that the empire of Great Britain is itself doomed to dissolution at no very distant day; but it does not follow that the United States are, therefore, liable to the same fate, now or ever. So far from this, it is possible, if not highly probable, that as the remote provinces of the British empire shall fall away, the central political system of this continent may very naturally absorb at least one of the fragments, and thereby become stronger as a Government, and more potent for good to the people of an entire world.

There are laws of dissolution, and laws of segregation and combination in the political as in the natural world. Great Britain may fall into fragments because her geographical and political conditions render her amenable to the laws of dissolution; while the United States may go on enlarging their boundaries and becoming more stable and powerful from the fact that their political status and local surroundings render them the legitimate subject of the laws of political growth and geographical enlargement. The British possessions are geographically too remote; they may not be united together by the necessary bonds of political union. The weakness of Great Britain may now be what the weakness of the Spanish empire once was. Her geography is against her. The day is gradually passing away when arbitrary power may hold distant regions in subjection to a central despotism; the day is at hand which demands that the bonds of union shall be natural and just, not arbitrary—bonds which forever assert their own inherent power to unite and grow stronger, not weaker, with the inevitable changes constantly being wrought out by the busy hand of time.

Man's social and political life depends much on the physical conditions by which he is surrounded. We have only to instance a mountain and valley population. The former is isolated and out of the way, and the people simple, uncouth, and uncultivated—contented, it is true, but, nevertheless, enjoying but little of the abundance and variety in which people of culture luxuriate. The valley population have a city, villages, rich lands, trade, and commerce; they are wealthy, cultivated, and realize far more the legitimate fruition of our entire nature.

Even missionaries, whose prejudices may be presumed to have been in favor of purely moral means, tell us that that heathen can only be permanently Christianized through changes in their physical conditions which commerce alone can bring about.

Physical conditions affect the destiny of nations, and go far to determine the extent and character of political organizations. It makes a great difference whether a country has or has not the means of ready communication and transportation from one section to another. While the great body of Europe was comparatively uncultivated, with only the natural channels of commerce, and these unimproved, there could be little communication between the different sections of country; and Europe had no political or social unity. The people of the entire continent were in a fragmentary and disorganized mass, comparatively isolated, and independent of each other. The jurisdictions of the great barons and of the cities became at length united into kingdoms. The increase of commerce brought these kingdoms into relations with each other, and diplomacy grew out of national necessities. As the countries improved and the facilities and occasions for intercommunication and commerce increased, the principle of political unity must needs comprehend a wider range. At first, it took in only the component parts of kingdoms, and then the kingdoms in the form of great national leagues of more or less permanence. This form of political unity may be very imperfect, but it is nevertheless unity consummated in the best possible manner which the system of separate thrones would permit. Changes in the conditions and relations of peoples render changes in their political forms an absolute necessity. The facilities for education, intercommunication, travel, and commerce, are the great unitizers of peoples and nations.

A great, overgrown empire, which has been built up by arbitrary power, may fall to pieces, because it is not bound together by the ligaments which an ubiquitous commerce affords. Another, because thus interlaced and woven together, cannot be sundered. The dependence of part on part and the facilities of transportation from one section to another, render such an empire a really vital organism, which cannot be divided without destroying the whole; but since nations, as individuals, are tenacious of life, the whole cannot be destroyed, and the empire cannot be divided. There is no place for division, and none can be made. This principle, we believe, applies to our own country.

Lines for the transmission of intelligence, the highways of travel, the channels of intercommunication and commerce—these connect remote sections with each other, and, in connection with the specialization of industry, cause them to become mutually dependent, and thus form a web of unity knitting the many into one. The Mississippi River has been characterized by some one as a great original Unionist. It is so.

The channels and highways of commerce are of two kinds: natural and artificial. The natural are the seas, lakes, rivers; and these only become the means of political union according to the extent of the use which is made of them. The improvement of harbors and of rivers, and the modern revolutions in the art of navigation, have greatly increased their power to make one section necessary to another, and bind people to people. Were not steam applied to locomotion, the great rivers of North America would afford far less of promise for American unity than they now do.

Since whatever facilitates communication and transportation makes one class of people dependent on another, through the mutual exchange of social opportunity and of industrial productions, and binds them more firmly together; hence, also, the political and social values of the artificial channels of commercial intercourse. Wagon roads, canals, railroads, telegraphs, are all so many political unitizers; but the railroad, with its accompaniment, the telegraph, may be regarded as the chief of all.

Let us notice for a moment the political value of our rivers, with the improved navigation of the same, and of our railroads, in the suppression of the existing rebellion.

Had there been no navigable rivers and no railroads uniting the North and South, the chances for the local division of our country would be far greater than they are under existing circumstances. The South would have been comparatively isolated from the North, and our armies could not have reached her territory with the facility they now do. Prolonged for years, as the war must have been under such circumstances, the North would have grown weary of prosecuting it; the chances for intervention would have been greater, and the establishment of a Southern nation by no means an impossible thing.

With facilities for penetrating the country, it may be easier to reduce a dozen rebel States than one quarter of the territory if held by uncivilized Indians. We were longer subjugating the Seminole Indians than we are likely to be in putting down the rebellion. The facilities of transportation in the one case, and their absence in the other, make part of the difference. Besides, these same facilities and their accompaniments render Southern society a really vital and sensitive thing, so that a wound in some vital part, as Vicksburg or Chattanooga, is felt to the remotest ends of Secessia. It will not require extermination of all the members; a few mere such wounds, and the rebellious creature will have to yield.

The Tennessee River enabled us to drive the enemy out of Western Tennessee and Northern Mississippi and Alabama. By means of the Mississippi River we have cut away a considerable limb of the 'confederacy,' and we believe it can never be restored. Nashville has become a depot of supplies for the army of the Cumberland, because of the Cumberland River and the railroad to the Ohio River.

When we advanced from Murfreesboro', on the 24th of June last, the rains fell almost incessantly, and the roads became at length really impassable. We were at Tullahoma and beyond it, on short rations. Had there been no means of transportation other than the army wagon and the common road, it is doubtful whether, under the circumstances, General Rosecrans could have held his advanced position so easily won. When some of the teams could not draw empty wagons back to Murfreesboro', it is not likely that such means of transportation would have been sufficient for the subsistence of our army in and around Tullahoma. But in less than ten days the joyful whistle of the locomotive was heard, and the army was soon abundantly supplied.

Take our present situation. Had there been no railroad from Nashville to the Tennessee River, the campaign of last fall could not have been undertaken with any prospect of success. But allow that it had been undertaken, and the result of the battle of Chickamauga what it was: could our army have terminated its retreat at Chattanooga, and held this important military position? By no means: it would have recrossed the mountains, a broken, discouraged, and almost demoralized host. The trains have run almost constantly from Nashville to Stevenson and Bridgeport, and the army has been on half rations for nearly two months. If wagons could not bring supplies fifty miles, much less one hundred and fifty. And now (November 15th) that the distance for teams has, for some days, been reduced to six or seven miles, we are still very short of supplies.

Let the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad receive due credit for the part it has played in promoting the success of the campaign and 'saving the Army of the Cumberland.' Railroads and all other channels of commerce contribute most efficiently to the success of the great effort of our Government to restore the integrity of the Union: let them receive due credit, and be rightly remembered when the great conflict is ended.

These facts may serve to suggest the value of the various commercial facilities as means of political unitization. A country without the means of travel and transportation may readily separate into independent fragments whenever any arbitrary institution, as that of slavery, develops antagonism between different geographical sections; and in that case the arbitrary institution would triumph, and civilization would be thrown backward. But in a country which speaks the same language, and is checkered all over by the pathways of commercial and social intercourse—since there is no place for division except by the rupture of innumerable ligaments—the integrity of its oneness will maintain itself; and if necessary to this end, the arbitrary institution, or cause of attempted rupture, whatever It may be, will be swept out of existence.

The vindication of national unity is the great issue; the abasement of slavery a subordinate one.

Here, then, may we perceive some reasons why our labor and sacrifice for the restoration of the Union are not given in vain; that we are not struggling to sustain a structure which will be liable at any time to pass into the history of the 'fall of empires.' We have the encouragement of new conditions—of conditions which give a warrant, wherever they obtain, for the permanence of political unity. Subdue the present rebellion, reinstate the Union, multiply the facilities for social intercourse and the mutual exchange of products, especially railroads, wherever there is sufficient promise of a need; and our country, thus knit together and united, has nothing to fear from the madness of local factions. Permeate the body politic in all its members by the nerves, veins, and arteries of a vital circulation, and it becomes an organized unity which is not susceptible of division into upper or lower, right or left, except by the destruction of the entire organism.

But admitting that continental unity is to obtain some day, still the question as to whether now is or is not the time for it to assume a more distinct form, brings us by a rational necessity to a brief notice of the influence of European diplomacy and the contingency of foreign intervention.

It is very clear that the 'balance of power' system of Europe, and the continental system which this war is waged on our part to sustain, are very unlike, if not antagonistic systems. The tone, all through the war, of a large portion of the British daily press, and of much of her weightier literature; the intrigues of Napoleon and the outspeaking of his minions, together with the measures which have been clandestinely taken by persons of power and influence to advance the interests of secession, show that there are influential classes in Western Europe, allied by interest to her fragmentary political organizations, who would gladly see the United States broken to pieces under the shock of rebellion. Their sympathies have been with the rebellion all through the war; and that they have not interfered more actively than they have, is not to be attributed to their sincere love for justice and neutrality, but to their own weakness—to the complicated nature of their own diplomacy, and its critical status just now, when there is danger of bursting volcanoes in their own midst.

It is a law of history that any political system of some degree of prevalence seeks to extend itself; indeed, this is a law of all movement, whether physical, chemical, social, or political. There is a political leaven which permeates the whole mass, and brings it into the same condition. It resulted once in the general prevalence of feudalism; it afterward touched the cities of civilizing Europe, and they became independent, and leagued together for a common purpose. It operated again, and governments of organized and more orderly character came into existence all over what was once feudal Europe. The prevailing system, or that which is animated by the strongest and most active principle, necessitates whatever is unlike it to become of the same character with itself, even though it might seem like the surrender of the better for the worse. This is very aptly shown by the fact that under feudalism allodial titles were voluntarily surrendered for feudal ones. This system subordinated even the church.

The question is legitimate: Have we nothing to fear from the leaven of political fragmentarism in Europe? Is there not vitality enough in the little-monarchy and balance-of-power system of Middle and Western Europe to extend its influence into this country, contributing effectually to the overthrow of American unity; and, by the operation of this political 'induction,' making the political system of America like the political system of Europe? Or, has the time come for the more permanent inauguration of the policy of continental unity—a system of very different genius from that which prevails in the former centres of civilization? We believe that there are the most rational grounds for encouragement.

Political fragmentarism is comparatively a primitive condition. Europe has bean growing out of it for hundreds of years. The grasp of political unity has gradually taken hold of the nations, and brought them organization and order out of isolation and anarchy. Even European diplomacy is an expression of the unitizing tendency, since it seeks to bind the nations together in leagues, making them as completely a unit as may be consistent with the pride and interests of separate and distinct sovereignties. Unitization is therefore in the line of political development; it has gained strength with the march of civilization and the growth of intelligence and freedom among the people. Our struggle, therefore, would seem to be a spontaneous uprising of the people for the security of a cardinal principle—a great torrent of human movement, surging forward with the stream of political development. History is, in its deepest heart, upon the side of unity, and ours is a sure faith that victory will crown our efforts.

We are led further to hope that the time has come for unity, by the fact that the European system has not as yet felt itself strong enough to meddle in any direct manner in our affairs to the detriment of our cause.

The fact that the political system of Europe is at present so completely busied with its own complications, together with the fact that our own country is so intersected by the natural and artificial channels of commerce and general intercourse, and by the interrelation and overlapping of interests, that there is no definite line for a fracture to be found, while, at the same time, our armies can readily penetrate into the enemy's country, and advance their base of supplies by means of the great thoroughfares of trade; these are sources of encouragement, and give us good reason to believe that the time has indeed come for the ushering in of a new political era by the successful vindication of American unity.

We repeat, this is the great issue of the war. Slavery has only sprung upon us; and if slavery stands in the way of national unity and political harmony, unity and harmony can only be secured by subordinating the power of slavery.

* * * * *

As to the importance and full significance of the principle of political unity, it is not proposed to enter into a detailed discussion here; the theme is too vast. A few suggestions must suffice in this connection.

One of the consequences of the want of political unity is national dissensions and frequent wars, by which the resources of nations are drained, property destroyed, countries devastated, the arm of industry weakened, commerce crippled, and progress in the means of civilization generally retarded. Political unity would do away with national quarrels, so disastrous to human well-being; while the emulation of states and sections will furnish all the incentive that is necessary to urge a people on to honorable achievements.

It does not promise well for the pacific character of unity, that we have a great civil war; but wherefore? An antiquated and misplaced institution—a relic of a more primitive and barbarous form of society—has led to the development of antagonism between two local divisions of our country. The war grew out of this antagonism: destroy the cause of sectional misunderstanding, and this cause of war will never more give us trouble.

But a difficulty is suggested: Our people will never become alike, never a homogeneous people; the differences of country and climate will forever prevent this. Very good; we don't want sameness throughout the society of a great empire. This is a distinctly marked feature of primitive society. The more unlike as to industrial pursuits, the more variety in the tastes and wants of the people of different sections, the more dependent may these different sections become upon each other; and with facilities for intercourse, the more intimately do they become related. Unity develops itself through the specialization of parts and functions. This specializing process, as in the gradual formation of the vital organs in fetal development, is the very creation of unlikeness; and unity is the mutual dependence and necessary cooeperation of these dissimilar organs. The more diversity the more complete the unity. It is antagonism—a very different thing—that does the mischief. It is not desirable that a people should be homogeneous; that would be a falling back into barbarous conditions. Unity demands that the people shall be heterogeneous and diversified, with heterogeneous and diversified occupations, tastes, and habits; and then, with proper facilities for mental intercommunication, travel, and transportation, they become a cooeperative and coalescent people. It is coalescence we want, and not homogeneity.

If such be the conditions of unity, then surely it is not to be feared, because New England manufactures, the Middle States mine, the Western States farm, and the Southern States plant, that, therefore, they must needs be under separate and distinct governments. This very dissimilarity of soil, climate, occupation, and production enables the sections to contribute to each other's welfare, and is a condition of their unity. The heart, liver, lungs, stomach, brain, and nerves cannot dispense with each other in the vital economy; it is the very dependence of one special part upon another through the channels of circulation, that renders the superior animal organism so completely a unit. It cannot be repeated too often that it is not sameness of function, but heterogeneity of function, that unity requires. Hence, through the specialization of industries—one kind of manufactures here, and another there; mining in one locality, and farming in another; the growing of a certain product in one section, and the growing of a different product in a different section—all these, together with, the increasing facilities for correspondence and transportation, are preparing society for larger, more complete, and inevitable unity.

There need be no fear of confirmed hostility of feeling between the North and South when the war is over, should it end in the reestablishment of the Union. Southern journalists say:

'If the North is successful in its mad scheme of conquest, we shall look upon ourselves as a subjugated people, and there never can be cordial union between the people of the two sections.'

Nonsense. With the coming of peace, there will also come a very different spirit over the dream of the entire South. The great mass of her people have been cruelly duped, and not less cruelly coerced; and once the war is over, these people will become undeceived, and at once relieved from the gyves of a remorseless conscription. There will be a violent reaction in Southern sentiment, and a storm of indignation will be hurled against the instigators of rebellion for all the torture and agony and ruin they have brought to the millions of a once happy nation. The war for the Union will yet find an altar in every Southern home; it will become as truly appreciated there as here; the Southern people will one day glory as greatly in its magnificent results. There will be no longer a few thousand aristocrats, calling themselves 'the South,' and teaching hatred to freedom and progress. This class will be shorn of power and influence, as one of the consequences of the war; and being no longer competent for good or mischief, they may, indeed, nurse their gloom, and torture their lives to the bitter end with the wail, 'We are a subjugated people.' But it will be the wail of selfishness for the sceptre which has departed forever from their hands. There is nothing to fear from these. Very soon after the Government shall have vindicated its competence and extended its jurisdiction over the rebel States, will the most influential and active of their people range themselves on the side of the 'powers that be'—such is the charm of power, the magic of interest, the welcome of peace. All the antagonism generated and cherished by slavery will have totally disappeared; and the South will soon be on the side of all freedom. There will be cordial cooeperation under free labor and free trade, between her people and our people; and though diversified as to occupations, habits, and tastes, they will constitute essentially one great political brotherhood.

When slavery, the cause of the present unhappy strife, is extinguished, our country has little to fear, except, perhaps, from the Rocky Mountains, which interpose so formidable a barrier between the Atlantic and Pacific States of our great Federal Union. This mountain barrier and the great distance by water may one day afford an occasion for the encouragement of ambitious men to repeat the experiment of secession. The antidote to this possible evil is the reduction of the most formidable features of the barrier, and the shortening of the forbidding interval. Span the mountains and intervening valleys with railroads and lines of telegraph, and every wire and rail assumes the dignity of a social and political power in the bonds of an indissoluble unity.

If there be so little to create apprehension for the future, may we not rationally hope that the diminution of war, if not its ultimate extinction, is one of the promises of political unity?

Great, strong, noble men—those who are great and noble in all the elements of their nature—such are never pugilists, and never fight: it is those of distorted and defective development—those who have not completeness and integrality within themselves, that are turbulent and break the peace.

Another value of comprehensive unity is that only in great cooeperative combinations of mankind can the individual man find the fullest expression for all the faculties of his nature. There is no unity proper—no organization—in savage society; and life there is very simple, with little variety of expression and little enjoyment. As man becomes cultivated his wants increase, and he becomes a more social being. His happiness becomes more and more dependent on others; hence arise societies and organizations of various kinds. The more cultivated any people and the more diversified their wants, the more various do their relations become, and the more extensive their combinations. This is given merely as a fact of history. The truly philosophic eye, we believe, cannot be long in discerning that these larger combinations and more comprehensive unities are only a necessary outgrowth of an improving civilization, and indispensable to the fullest measure of happiness; since in them only can the life of a cultured people find the means of its best expression. The growth of unity, as revealed in history, is not an arbitrary thing incident to a chance concurrence of causes, but naturally growing out of the needs of a steady progress in the education and freedom of the people.

To say that it is through great social and political institutions that the individual finds the most ample means for the culture and satisfaction of the faculties and wants of his nature, is but another way of saying that it is through such institutions that he finds the widest range for individual liberty. A very little observation of history will show that as political unity has enlarged and political organization become more distinctly marked, the radii of individual freedom have at the same time swept a wider field.

Despotism curtails enterprise, and prevents the specialization of parts and functions as the genuine condition of unity. The free play of intelligence and interest is necessary to develop the diversity upon which unity depends. Let the bare statement suffice. It must come to every careful observer and clear thinker with the authority of a self-evident proposition. Unity and individual freedom are necessary to each other; they act and react, and one implies the other. They go hand in hand; and national unity cannot be violated and broken, without, at the same time, necessitating despotism, and curtailing the individual in the exercise of his legitimate rights. Unity and liberty are mutually dependent and forever inseparable. Hence the inestimable value of unity, the leading issue of the war.

The issues of the war might be symbolized by the picture of a great river; the smaller branches forming still larger ones, and these putting into the main stream—unity—itself, as it descends, widening into the great ocean of the future.

These issues might, also, be exhibited in a kind of formula. The following is no doubt very imperfect, but it may be somewhat suggestive. The first includes the second, the second the third:

I. Political unity vs. secession:

{ A progressive civilization vs. a stagnant one; { A republican form of government vs. an aristocratic one; II. { Personal freedom vs. chattel slavery; { General peace vs. diplomatic intrigue and war; { An enlarged individual freedom vs. espionage, censure, { and restriction:

{ Common schools and general intelligence vs. partial { culture and general ignorance; { Free inquiry vs. conventional stultification; { Free speech and a free press vs. the surveillance { of a mercenary police; { The political equality of classes vs. the inequality of { ruling, servile, and disfranchised classes; { Respect for the affections vs. disregard for ties of { home and family; { Wages labor vs. compulsory labor; III. { The dignity of labor vs. the opprobrium and servility { of labor; { A healthy industrial activity vs. indolence and { crushing toil; { The continual specialization of industry vs. industrial { sameness; { Incentives to invention and improvement vs. mechanical { inactivity; { A constantly renewed soil vs. an exhausted one; { A great navy and flourishing commerce vs. general { commercial apathy; { Great industrial prosperity vs. industrial { stagnation; { Greater variety and versatility in life vs. a narrow { and bigoted uniformity.

As I close the preparation of this article for the press (November 26th), it becomes positively known that General Bragg is in full retreat. This is a great victory, and splendidly won. There has been no 'straggling to the rear,' no faltering, no serious reverse; the entire three days' conflict, from first to last, has gone right on. A noble victory, and worthy of a noble cause! Soldiers from every great section of the Union—from every State almost—have stood by the side of each other in the perilous conflict. Many have fallen a sacrifice to their country's great cause, unity. Let homage and gratitude from the deep-stirred heart of the nation be theirs; may they long be remembered; and may those who survive, long live to enjoy the fruits of their victory!

The South could ill afford to lose such a battle, here and now. Not long can she hold out in her unnatural struggle against destiny. The tide of a progressive civilization will roll over her, though for a time it must needs be crimsoned with the blood of martyrs.



AENONE:

A TALE OF SLAVE LIFE IN ROME.

CHAPTER I.

When, in the second year of Titus Vespasian, the Roman general Sergius Vanno returned from his armed expedition in the East, and asked for public honors, there were some in the senate who made objection. It was not fitting, they argued, that formal tokens of national commendation should be too readily bestowed. It had not been so in the time of their fathers. Long years of noble, self-sacrificing zeal and arduous service, crowned with conquests of supreme importance, had then been the only acknowledged title to the prize. It was scarcely proper that the same distinctions which had hitherto been awarded for the acquisition of the most valuable provinces should be granted for the annexation of a mere strip of worthless territory upon the extreme borders of the empire—wild, rugged, and inhospitable, and inhabited by nomadic tribes, who could only be brought under a nominal authority, and who would never prove otherwise than turbulent and unprofitable subjects. Nor was it a matter to be mentioned with especial laudation that Sergius Vanno had succeeded in repressing, with overwhelming force, a revolt in a few of the AEgean islands. If exploits such as these were to be so liberally recompensed, what honors could there be left to bestow upon deeds of acknowledged brilliancy and importance?

So, with cautious discrimination, spoke some of the senators; and so, in the secrecy of their hearts, most of them thought. But against all this were brought to bear, not only the influence which Sergius naturally commanded as a patrician of the highest rank, but also the far more powerful pressure of popular clamor. Sergius was a favorite with the people. His noble birth and lineage entitled him to their respect. He was of a rare type of manly beauty—was wealthy, and used his gold with liberality—gave abundant largesses to the poorer classes—was lavish in his expenditure upon the arts—did not disdain, at times, to descend from his natural station and associate with his inferiors, thereby pleasing the fancy of the masses for social equality—patronized poets and actors, who, in return, sang or spouted his praise, and thus still further added to his fame—and was noted for a bold, frank, out-spoken demeanor, which tended to conciliate all classes with him. These were virtues not always to be found combined in one person. Moreover, he was impulsively brave; and, though still young, was gifted with more than ordinary military genius, and had carried on his campaign with that rashly daring energy which, when rewarded with success, never fails to commend its possessor to popular adulation. In addition to all this, other considerations of a less personal character exerted their influence. Many months had elapsed since Rome had enjoyed any great civic festivity, and the people had begun to long for a new stimulant. The completion of the colossal Flavian amphitheatre had been delayed beyond public expectation; and though its speedy inauguration had been announced, there was serious doubt whether the lower and more turbulent orders of the populace, so long restrained, would possess themselves with sufficient patience to await the occasion with proper calmness. In fact, some outlet must be given to their excited appetite for novelty; and therefore, after much solemn consideration, the senate yielded to the public clamor, and voted an ovation.

As a token of national appreciation, therefore, the honor thus bestowed upon Sergius Vanno was not one of the first order; nor were such pageants a novelty to the Roman people. Several times before, within the memory of that generation, victorious generals had entered the city with myrtle wreaths upon their brows, and had exhibited to applauding throngs the gathered wealth of conquered provinces. Nor had many years elapsed since the present emperor—then prince—crowned with the richer and more lavish glories of a triumph, had ridden through the Via Sacra, greeted with welcoming acclamations as the destroyer of the Jewish capital—displaying before him the spoils of the sacred temple, and bringing in his train such thousands upon thousands of captives, that it had seemed as though all Palestine was being emptied into Rome. Compared with such exploits, those of Sergius were of trifling importance. But it now entered little into the minds of the people to make these comparisons. Whatever had been done in past time by other commanders, was not worth considering at present. Whoever might have been renowned before, Sergius Vanno was the hero of to-day. To him should be all the honor which tens of thousands of ringing voices and applauding hands could lavish. And therefore, once more, as in the days of the past, the balconies of the palaces and villas lining the broad Sacra Via were gorgeous with rich gold and purple tapestries—the Forum glowed bright and resplendent with statues and decorated arches—altars smoked with sacrifice in front of columned temples—and the walls and slopes of the Palatine Hill were joyous with triumphal tokens, while, upon the summit, the house of the Caesars glittered with banners and brave devices, and such costly adornments as were best fitted to grace the festivity and do honor to the exploits of a much-esteemed subject.

We know the scene. At first—in the full blaze of the noonday sun—standing silent and nearly deserted, except by a few workmen and artisans, who here and there lingered to complete the festive preparations, or by scattered parties of the praetorian guard, who, in holiday armor, moved slowly to and fro, to watch that order was maintained. Later—when the shadows deepened, and the air grew cooler—the avenues and prominent positions along the established route of the ovation beginning to fill with that great concourse of varied nationalities and conditions which only the imperial city could display. In the open streets a disorderly rabble of slaves and bondmen—pouring in steady streams from their kennels behind the palaces and from the unhealthy purlieus of such quarters as had been spared from the architectural encroachments of the wealthy, and allowed to fester in their own neglected corruption. Gathered together in close fraternity, the Briton, the Goth, the African, and the Jew—each bearing his badge of life-long servitude, some even wearing marks of recent chastisement, but almost all awaiting the approaching spectacle with pleased and animated countenances, and in seeming forgetfulness that so many of their own number had graced former displays, and, by their degradation, had afforded amusement to other equally unsympathetic concourses. Among them, the lesser Romans—citizens in name, indeed, but, from their poverty and the overbearing exactions of the patricians, almost as much in slavery as those around them—disdainfully asserting their free birth, and in turn contemned by the slaves themselves, as men to whom liberty was but another title for slow starvation, and who would not dare to resent the vilest insults heaped upon them by noble-owned and protected menials—and now equally with the common herd obliged to submit to the strong argument of sword and lance, as, every little while, the soldiers along the line drove the whole writhing crowd, without distinction, into smaller and more confined compass. Here and there, knights and soldiers of high rank—riding up on horseback, and pushing through the struggling mass of slaves to the front, or more leisurely, but to equal purpose, waiting until their own menials had gone before, and, with mingled threats and blows, had cleared out a vacant space for them. Other crowds, standing in favorable positions upon housetops and upon hastily constructed stagings; and more especially upon the great amphitheatre, whose arches were blackened with clusters of spectators, and whose summit, in place of the last few layers of stone, so soon to be adjusted, had its deep human fringe. Upon palace balconies, patricians and noble ladies, displaying a dazzling array of gold and purple and rare jewelry, and attended by Ethiopian slaves, who, in glittering armlets, stood behind, holding feathered canopies to shield their mistresses from the sun. All this confusing concourse of wealth and poverty each moment increasing in breadth, and density, as every avenue emptied new swarms into the packed arena, until it seemed as though not only all Rome, but half the empire had gathered there.

Later yet, the music of flutes and hautboys—which, for a time, had been only indistinctly heard—breaking upon the ear with a clearer sound, and the van of the procession suddenly emerging into full view from behind the Circus Maximus, and, accompanied by the ringing shout of thousands spreading abroad new and louder welcomes, beginning to file past with rapid steps. First in order, the magistrates in full official robes; the spoils of war; the white sheep dressed for the sacrifice, and the priests bearing the holy vessels of the altar; gay trappings, flaunting standards, and all that could most readily inspire the heart with elation and enthusiasm. After these, and guarded on either side by detached parties of troops, the captives, of barbaric and Grecian origin mostly, but here and there interspersed with men of other races—Jews, Syrians, and Huns—who, through contiguity of place or love of arms or self-interest, or a kindred hatred of the Roman rule, had been drawn into the battle—and who, having bravely stood their ground, striving for success, and with hearts well prepared for the consequences of failure, had been overtaken by the usual defeat, and dragged into utter and hopeless slavery. Among them, men of the Ethiopian race, also—who, having been slaves in Greece, had fought, not for principle or for freedom, but simply at their owners' bidding, and had thereby, upon being overcome, merely changed one class of masters for another—owners and slaves now knowing no difference in position, but standing involved in the same common fate. Some appearing defiant, others downcast and sullen, a few excited and curious, most of them walking with unfettered limbs, but here and there one heavily chained, betokening a fierce and unsubdued nature, upon which it was still necessary to put restraint. All marching or being dragged along at an equal pace; sometimes with an approximation to military exactness—at other points breaking into a confused mass, as women and children clung despairingly together and prevented the maintenance of any regular order. Around them, the spectators closely pressing, with morbid curiosity, discussing with loud approval the value of whatever of strength or beauty met their eyes, and occasionally greeting some undersized and misshapen victim with jeers of derision. And closing up the straggling line, more soldiers, marching in well-formed ranks, poising aloft myrtle-decked lances, and, while interchanging salutations with the eddying crowd, singing in measured cadence their songs of victory.

And at last, as the sun sank yet lower toward the horizon, a yet brighter brilliancy investing the scene, as far down the line new shouts arose, and the struggling throng caught up the loud acclaim and carried it onward like a great wave, betokening the speedy approach of the most distinguished feature of the procession—the conqueror himself—hailed Imperator by his troops—with his most noble friends clustered about him, the myrtle wreath encircling his brow, and his earnest gaze fixed upon the Capitol, the honorable termination of his route.

In every respect, indeed—except in the display of those few distinctive formalities required to mark, as with a legal stamp, the actual and comparative value of the honor—the same old familiar story, so often hitherto rehearsed upon that line of Sacra Via and of Forum: incense burning upon the altars, which had blazed for other heroes; garlands hanging from the arches which had graced past festivities; and surging crowds, heedful only of the present glory, and, with the customary popular fickleness, ready to forget it all as soon as the fleeting pageant should be over, now with indiscriminating zeal cheering the march of Sergius Vanno as frantically as in other days they had greeted the triumphal cars of Caesar and of Vespasian.

CHAPTER II.

Gradually the sun approached and dipped below the blue line of extended plain which lay between the city and the sea; the long shadows of afternoon began to blend into the one deeper shade of evening; the groups of distant buildings became more and more indistinct; the arches of the Colosseum softly faded away, leaving but a broad mass of unbroken wall; upon the Palatine Hill the great house of the Caesars shone less and less gloriously as the sky darkened behind the pile of decorated roofs; here and there a light gleamed from some distant quarter; here and there stars began to glisten in the sky.

Then the concourse of people, who had waited so long and patiently, began to break apart. The pageant was not yet entirely over, for fresh battalions of soldiers still marched past at rapid pace, tuning their steady tramp to the cadence of their songs of triumph. But the great feature of the occasion—the conqueror himself—had ridden by; and what yet remained was but a faint recapitulation of the glories which had gone before. Therefore the patricians retired from their balconies, the horsemen abandoned their stations and plunged down the many streets which led out from the Forum, and the crowd of slaves and menial citizens, already rendered so indistinct in the fading light as to resemble one writhing, struggling monster rather than separate beings, began to stretch out its long arms into the narrow lanes and byways, and so gradually to melt away.

Withdrawing from the front balcony of the Vanno palace, where, shielded from the sun, she had sat and watched the procession pass by, AEnone, the young and fair wife of the conqueror, now sought rest and retirement in an inner apartment. Thither one of her women had preceded her, and had drawn forward a cushioned lounge, had beaten up the silken pillows, had placed a table near at hand, with a light repast spread upon it, had trimmed and filled with fresh olive oil the large bronze lamp which swung from the ceiling, and now stood by awaiting further orders.

Throwing herself upon the lounge, AEnone covered her face with her hands. What unbidden thought was it that came creeping into her heart to trouble her? Why was it that something of the bright joyousness of spirit with which she looked forward to that day had vanished? Surely nothing had occurred which of itself could bring to her either sorrow or repining. All things had happened as she had anticipated. She had seen her honored lord pass by with the myrtle wreath upon his brow, his most worthy officers at his side, and his bravest guards around him. She had seen that he was strong and without wound, as he had departed from her. She had heard the shouts of applause which had welcomed his approach as though he were a god; and, with her heart generously and unselfishly alive only to his honor, and unable to realize that all this frantic joy and adulation were not the passion of the nation's life, but were merely one single, careless throb of its fevered pulse, she had rejoiced with him, believing that he had indeed done what had made him the greatest of all living men. And, better than all, amid this scene of triumph, he had not seemed unmindful of her, for he had looked up and waved to her a salute, which the responsive crowd had joined in and carried along with redoubled acclamations, and he had sent to her his most trusty slave with a loving message. What, then, could she ask more?

Nothing that she could name, or that if she named, to others, would have seemed a reasonable desire. And yet at her heart there was a certain dim, indistinct foreboding of evil, which she could not entirely repress. Was it that, in his glance, as he rode by and beheld her awaiting him, there was less of longing love than of gratified pride? Or did that flush upon his bronzed face indicate too surely his enjoyment of this pageant for its own sake rather than for the pleasure which he might have supposed that she would derive from it? Was it from forgetfulness of her that, after he had ridden past, he did not again look back to wave one more recognition, but rather seemed to gaze eagerly forward to where the assembled senators stood ready to greet him? Or, on the contrary, were all these merely vague and empty imaginings arising from the exhaustion and wearisomeness of long, impatient waiting?

At length, raising her head, she saw her attendant bondwoman standing at the distance of a few paces, with her hands crossed upon her breast. The steady tramp of marching troops outside had ceased, for the last battalion had passed; and now the only sound was the silver bubbling and plashing of a little fountain that adorned the courtyard upon which the window of the apartment looked out.

'The pageant is over now,' said AEnone, 'and he will soon be here. Let me know as soon as my lord returns.'

The woman bowed her head in silence; and then, feeling that nothing more was wanted of her, slowly turned to depart. As she did so, a new comer entered the room—a male slave of Gallic birth, who, by reason of his lofty stature as well as wonderful strength, had been promoted from the lowest order of servitude to become Sergius Vanno's armor bearer and chief attendant. In that capacity he had fought through the late campaign, and had now returned, bearing among his fellows his own share of honor for successful and daring exploits. He had been released from personal attendance only a few moments before, and was now carrying back his master's sword and buckler, to hang them up in their accustomed place, and himself subside into well-earned idleness. Being the first time, for many months, that he had seen his mistress, he muttered some rough ejaculations expressive of servile devotion, and then stood in lazy attitude awaiting her permission to speak further.

'Your master, Drumo?'

'Will not return to-night,' the man responded. 'The emperor demands his presence.'

'And that will detain him—'

'He knows not how long. But immediately after that there is to be a brave feast at the house of the poet Emilius, and it will doubtless be morning before they separate.'

'He bade you tell me this?'

The giant nodded.

'It is well. That is all; you can go. You may both go, for I would be alone.'

The armor bearer turned upon his heel and strode away, the sword and buckler, together with his own rougher trappings, rattling at his back as he passed down the hall; and behind him slowly crept away the bondwoman. And AEnone, once more leaning back upon the lounge, gave herself up to sombre reflection.

It was of course no more than proper, she mused, that her lord should obey the behests of the emperor and wait upon him. Perhaps new honors would then be showered down; and, at the least, it was no light privilege to stand in the presence of the ruler of the world, and there give personal narration of his exploits. But when that interview was over, what need to join the revels of another household, instead of hurrying back to place his newly won garlands at her feet?

She pondered upon the dubious reputation which attached to the house of the poet Emilius, and recalled the terrible stories which, from time to time, she had heard regarding it. What might be the realities of the scenes there enacted, none could truly tell, except the few most intimate frequenters of the place; but report gave no flattering description of them. Even among the Roman ladies with whom she was associated, and whose information was confined to such stray bits of gossip as they had picked up from slaves and menials, and who, standing in unconscious awe of her simple purity of heart, often forebore to speak with her as freely and unguardedly as with each other, she had occasionally heard such startling tales of the wild dissipations there enacted, as surpassed conception, and left her horrified senses no calm refuge except in unbelief. The gorgeous feasts, the night-long libations, the social intimacy with dancing girls and gladiators, the mockery of all that was pure and holy, the derisive insults to the gods themselves—these were practices which the public voice connected with the house of Emilius, not as occasional outbreaks of wild frivolity, but as the fixed habits of his daily life. And if these things were true, what claim of pride or policy could such a place advance to distract her lord from the allegiance due to his own home alone?

But possibly these things might not be true. She reflected that the poet was wealthy; and as long as the world continues to be envious, riches will seldom fail to bring false report upon their possessor. He was a man of genius, also; and all such can scarcely fail to find rivals who will turn satirists and attack them in their homes and daily life. Certainly, it is not difficult for slander to magnify the genial gatherings of kindred spirits into scenes of wild debauchery. And it was also true, that if mere outside appearance is of any value as an index of what is hidden, the slight figure, the pale and almost girlish face, and the winning and courteous demeanor of the poet were far from indicating a man of low and debasing inclinations. Moreover, his writings as surely spoke the contrary; and as she thus reasoned, AEnone lifted from its case a vellum roll with which Emilius himself had presented her, containing many of his poems, exquisitely engrossed. These poems treated not upon the pleasures of wine and love—those fruitful and ever-varying subjects of the Horatian school. Instead of this, they pursued, in deep-sounding and majestically rolling dactyls, the less favorite and trodden track of Socrates and Plato, and discoursed upon temperance and honor—upon the satisfaction derived from a well-spent life, and the delights attending a peaceful death—upon the immateriality of the soul, and the reward bestowed by the gods upon those who have honored them by leading a virtuous career. As AEnone slowly turned over leaf after leaf of the parchment roll, she felt her heart perplexed within her. She could scarcely believe that none of those tales of reckless dissipation were true, for she remembered that some of them had reached her ear attended by evidence so circumstantial that it was impossible to reject them; but, if true, how account for these grand maxims of lofty morality? What object could their author have in thus uselessly playing the hypocrite, when amatory and bacchanalian choruses would not only have been more consonant with his own feelings, but doubtless more acceptable to the world? She had not yet learned what it often takes the wisest man a lifetime to discover—that every inconsistency of conduct is not hypocrisy, but that it is one of the most common idiosyncrasies of the mind to write and believe one thing, and as self-approvingly to feel and act the reverse.

With a sigh she closed the volume, and restored it to its place within the case. Why ponder upon such things as these? The real character of the poet Emilius was, after all, a matter of but little consequence to her. Whether the meeting at his house was a wild, reckless orgy, or a mere intellectual gathering of literary genius, it was none the less certain that her lord was tarrying there, away from her side. But perhaps, indeed, even this was a duty which he owed to his fame and station; and her face brightened up with new hope as the suggestion flashed upon her. It might be that at this feast there would be present some poet of lofty epic powers, or historian of wondrous descriptive talent, ranking as the brightest star of Roman literature; and either of these, if properly conciliated, would doubtless celebrate her lord's exploits so grandly that in future ages his campaign would shine with far greater lustre than if simply committed to parchment in the dry detail of unadorned fact, and so filed away in the national archives. It was most fitting, therefore, that he should not permit his impatient love for her to allow him to neglect the opportunity of cultivating, by a wise and condescending courtesy, the world-renowned talents of these men, and thereby redoubling the resplendence of his own bright fame.

Easily satisfying her mind with this pleasing reasoning, she retired for the night into the innermost apartment—a retreat adorned with every luxury which could gratify pride and administer to a cultivated taste. The floor was covered with tesselated marbles of different shades and arranged in ingenious and novel patterns. The ceiling was resplendent with allegorical frescoes by the most celebrated masters of the day. There were glowing paintings upon the walls, rich tapestries in the windows, embroidered hangings upon the bed. Beside the tables stood bronze figures holding forth lamps ready trimmed and lighted; fresh flowers had been placed in their allotted vases, and weighed down the air with perfume; and in a deep recess stood the bath ready filled, and scented with carefully plucked rose leaves floating upon the water. But all this display of magnificent luxury and elaborate taste, if regarded by her at all, now seemed to affect her with weariness rather than with pleasure.

Why, as she lay down upon her couch, and prepared to yield herself up to pleasant slumber, did her thoughts wander back to the time when poverty instead of luxury had been her lot? Why did those olden memories of the past so strongly haunt her? They were, perhaps, never entirely absent from her heart; but now they thronged about her with a force that would not bear repression. Perhaps it was that the very magnificence and pomp of power of which she was now the centre, recalled the memory of the distant past, by virtue of strong contrast alone; perhaps that the unsatisfied longing and vague foreboding of her soul necessarily impressed upon her the consciousness that wealth and honor alone cannot give perfect happiness, and thereby naturally led her thoughts back to the time when she had found true content in poverty and loneliness. However that might be, now, as she closed her eyes and shut out the view of the costly adornments around her, more vividly than ever before were pictured before her mind the scenes of her childhood: her father's cottage on the outskirts of Ostia—the olive grove upon the slope behind—the roadside well, where the villagers would sometimes gather about some invalided soldier from the German army, and listen to his tales of the last campaign—and in front, the bay, sparkling in the bright glare of the sun and laden with the corn-freighted ships of Alexandria.

And there, too, was the old wave-worn rock—the scene of her life's only romance—where, stealing out from her father's cabin at the evening hour, and seating herself so close to the waterline that the spray of the tideless sea would dash up and bathe her naked feet, she would wait in all innocence for the coming of the young sailor from Samos. How rapidly those hours used to pass! How pleadingly, on the last evening, he had knelt beside her, with his arm resting upon her knee, and there, gazing up into her face, had asked her for one long tress of hair! How foolish she had been to give it to him; and how earnestly he had vowed that he would come back some day, no longer poor and forlorn, but in his own two-masted vessel, with full banks of oars, manned by the slaves whom he would capture, and would then bear her away unto his own home! And how, like a silly girl, she had believed him, as though wandering sailor boys ever did come back to seek the loving hearts which had trusted them! And so the year had passed away, and, as she might well have known from the first, he had not returned. Nor was it to her regret; for but a little afterward the youthful patrician, already flushed with budding honors, had chanced to meet her; had loved her with a generous passion, lifting him above all sordid calculation about wealth or social differences, and had taught her in turn to bestow upon him an affection more true and absorbing than she had yet believed her heart was able to contain. And so her first romantic dream had ended, as all such childish dreams are apt to end. Let it go. Her heart had found its true bourne; she could well look back upon the past without regret, and smile at the youthful fancies connected with it.

One prayer to the gods—a further special invocation to her favorite goddess, who, at the foot of the couch, stretched forth marble arms lovingly toward her—and then the silver tinkling of the little courtyard fountain lulled her softly to sleep.



CARL FRIEDRICH NEUMANN, THE GERMAN HISTORIAN OF OUR COUNTRY.

The first volume of a history of the United States by Carl Friedrich Neumann, of Berlin,[2] has just been announced as the first history of our country ever written originally in the German language. The appearance of such a work at this juncture in our national existence, is a noteworthy event, and the man who takes so unique an interest in our affairs should be introduced to our people. Having known him personally and intimately for many years, I shall attempt such sketch, making much of it anecdotal, for which purpose material is not wanting.

Dr. Neumann, born near Bamberg, in the kingdom of Bavaria, of Jewish parents, is now about sixty-five years of age, was educated at Heidelberg, passed over to the Protestant church at Munich, afterward attended lectures at Goettingen, and soon after became rector of the gymnasium at Speyer, but was dismissed from this place on account of the freedom with which he expressed himself on some religious topics in his historical teachings. He gave private lessons for a time in Munich, and then went to learn in a Benedictine monastery in Venice the Armenian language. This was in 1827. In 1829 he studied the Chinese language in Paris, went over to London, and sailed thence to visit India and China. He collected for himself about ten thousand volumes of Chinese works, embracing every department of the literature of this language, and bought for the Royal Library at Berlin two thousand four hundred volumes. Such collections had been till then unknown in Europe, and hence this was quite an event. Returning in 1831 from India, he made a present of all his Chinese books to the Royal Library at Munich, and was appointed conservator of this collection, and professor of Chinese and Armenian in the university of that capital.

Of Dr. Neumann's attainments in Oriental literature I know only what fame says, nor does it concern us much in this sketch. I once, however, sat with him in a retiring room of the Munich Museum (a great reading room), when Baron Tautphoeus, whose accomplished wife is so well known in this country as authoress of the 'Initials' and 'Quits,' entered, and asked if we had seen the notice of Dr. Neumann in the last number of the London Times. The doctor had read it; I had not, but immediately did so. It made him the equal of the greatest orientalists of the past and present ages, comparing him particularly with Klaproth. The Times, it is true, had a motive for this notice, as always, both in its praises and its lampoons. It had found views of Dr. Neumann on British India which it desired to commend, but even in our view this would not cancel the eulogy. His authorship in connection with Chinese and Armenian philosophy and history is very considerable, and outside of this field he won, in 1847, a prize offered by the French Institute for the best work on the 'Historical Development of the Peoples of Southern Russia.'

What was to be done in the university in Chinese and Armenian, he of course did; but his lectures took a much wider range, embracing general history and ethnography. His powers of elocution were of a high order, and crowds of students were drawn to his lecture room. That freedom of utterance which cost him the rectorship at Speyer, was like Dr. Watts's or Pope's instinct for making rhymes—it was his nature, and could not be whipped out of him; and it was equally natural that it should assume the form of wit and humor.

There are not a few anecdotes in the popular mouth illustrating this trait. He seems to have had no great liking to that race of men called kings, and it is said that he once alluded to them, in a lecture, in the not very respectful remark that 'they were numbered, like the hacks in our streets.' The reader's apprehension of the point of another anecdote, in which Dr. Neumann appears in an attitude not very respectful to his own sovereign, Louis II of Bavaria, will depend upon his knowing something of the situation and history of the university buildings in Munich. The king, among the many things he did for the architectural adorning of the city, built a street to be called by his name. It is all outside of the old wall, and its outer end is closed by a triumphal arch. Next to this, and outside of the city as it then was, the king purchased ground, perhaps because it was cheap, and built the present university edifice. As much farther out of the then city proper lies the miserable little town of Schwabing. Professors and students disliked to be taken so far from their lodgings and their beerhouses, and the old university had been quite within the city. When the removal took place, Dr. Neumann sketched the history of the institution in a lecture, referring to its original establishment at Ingolstadt, its removal thence to Landschut, and thence to Munich, and then added, that 'his Majesty King Louis II had now been pleased to remove it to Schwabing.' We can imagine the sensation which such a sally would produce among students already stirred up for its appreciation, by having to walk from a half mile to a mile from those depots of beer barrels from which so many of them sucked their sluggish life and inspiration. But such jokes were not treason, or contempt of majesty, or anything else against law.

It should be added in this connection, for Dr. Neumann's benefit, that these stories, and many of the kind, are floating around, and are just like him, but I have never had any confirmation of them from him, and in all our intercourse, which was frequent and intimate for six years, while he spoke much and freely in favor of democratical and against monarchical institutions, I never found him indulging in coarse and clamorous denunciations of his king or Government.

When the great revolutionary movement of 1848 broke upon the land, the sovereigns of Germany saw and accepted their condition. The popular mind was so penetrated by this unrest, and the revolutionary leaders were so substantial in character, that resistance was folly, and the monarchs yielded, waiting the time when some change would enable them to divide the revolutionists and turn them against each other. They allowed and even encouraged the formation at Frankfort of a provisional Parliament, called the Fore-Parliament, which looked toward a permanent central Government at that place for united Germany. Of this body Dr. Neumann was a member. It was a fine field for the display of his free and liberal instincts, and we cannot conceive of his passing through its debates without making large drafts upon his exhaustless fund of humor and sarcasm. It would be strange, indeed, if he could witness the dawn of that freedom which he loved without showing signs of exultation, accompanied with occasional taunts at the regime which was passing away and seemed already beyond recovery.

But, although a regular Parliament followed—although a quasi emperor was elected in the person of the Archduke John of Austria, and his way, as he proceeded to Frankfort, was a perfect triumphal procession—although he selected his ministers, set them to work, and Parliament was progressing with its constitution, and this continued for almost a year, still, that which the shrewd ministers of some of the sovereigns had doubtless foreseen and waited for, came. Radicals outran their wiser and more rational brethren, and took up arms. They would demolish at once those sovereignties which would have died by the slow action of time, had the central Government been fully established and wisely administered. But this new Government rather deliberated than acted. That which more than all else arouses the German mind—the Schleswig-Holstein question, identified as it is with the great question of the unity of the Teutonic race—was not taken up by the Government at Frankfort, but by that at Berlin. In the mean time the several Governments of Bavaria, Prussia, and Austria had gained the mastery over their own domestic revolutions, so that they could act more freely. Austria called home its archduke and its members in the Frankfort Parliament, and finally the whole movement subsided into the old order of things.

The various Governments were now in a position in which they could punish those disturbers of their peace who had endangered their very existence. Of these Dr. Neumann was one, and in 1852 he was notified that his lectures were no longer needed in the university of Munich. It was doubtless thought that he would make some slight formal concessions, and be permitted to continue his active duties, as others had done. But he felt too independent. He had means to live upon. His retiring pension could not be withheld. He could now, moreover, give his individual powers to authorship, without feeling hampered by the thought that he had a Government to please. He has persevered in this course, notwithstanding the express wish of the philosophical faculty for his return to active duty in the university.

He had been occupied with a history of the British empire in India. To this he gave increased attention, and published it some years ago; but the Indian rebellion breaking out soon after its publication, he was led to sketch its history as an appendix. His investigations in the East brought him in contact with the peculiar history of the Japanese empire, and he threw off by the way a brief history of Japan, devoting a chapter to the results of the American expedition thither.

It was while prosecuting his inquiries into the history of Eastern Asia, that he met with such evidences of the commercial enterprise of the United States, and obtained such views of the future of our country, as to conceive the thought of writing its history for the German people, commencing with the war of 1812, the point at which he considered our wonderful growth and expansion to have begun; and long before finishing his history of British India, he was collecting material for this work. He found, however, that he could not begin at the point he had chosen without striking upon roots and rudely severing them, which had struck deeply into the soil of all the earlier periods of our existence. His plan was therefore enlarged.

The breaking out of the rebellion was a sad blow to him—it could not have been more so to an American. It was likely not only to spoil our country, but his history of it. It either cut off or dimmed or confused that prospect of growth and expansion which had been stretched out interminably before him. He read the daily London Times—he had for years taken the New York Herald, and his reliance upon this sheet had been rather too implicit. Years before the breaking out of the rebellion, I had suggested this, and introduced to him the New York Times and Evening Post, one of which he has taken ever since, not, however, without occasional intervals of sighing for his old companion the Herald, much as his ancestors, after having left Egypt, sighed for its leeks and onions. Although he coupled the Herald and London Times—par nobile fratrum—as joint sharers of a favorite epithet of his—great liars—he still liked to read them.

Dr. Neumann had been a Democrat in his politics—for he was familiar with our distinctions in this country—but since the outbreak of the rebellion he has scarcely known where to place himself. He had made the personal acquaintance of Buchanan, when that 'old public functionary' was our Minister in London, and felt, as was quite natural, a little vain of this acquaintance when Buchanan became the head of the Government of that unseen land of his most enthusiastic admiration. The man, however, was less than the country, and he could drop him; but he still desired to see him succeeded by a Democrat. We often had little spats, in which I took the ground that such had been the extravagant demands of the South, made through the platforms of that party, that with the strongest predilections for some of its men and its earlier antecedents, I should have felt bound to vote for both Fremont and Lincoln, if I had been in the country. He would generally end the matter by a pleasant and jocular dissent, calling himself a Democrat and me a Republican. But after the rebellion, his friends never knew what he was, except that he was for the Union and the putting down of the rebels. No American could have felt in deeper sympathy with our cause. In that land, where a thousand volunteers could not be raised to save a throne, how did his heart swell with just pride when the President called for seventy-five thousand, and afterward in succession for hundreds of thousands, and they came forth at the call! How depressed at instances of want of skill or decision in Government or generals! He nearly lost his patience with young men who were quietly pursuing their studies in Europe, when their country was in peril and its armies needed them; and he quite lost it when he met Americans who sympathized with the rebellion, or even seemed indifferent to their country's fortunes.

There was an American lady in Munich, soon after the rebellion broke out, whose husband had died some years before, while holding a position in the army which entitled her to a pension, for which she had drawn while there. She had heard of Professor Neumann's love for our country and country people, but had no idea of the strictness of his discrimination between the parties—thought that he might feel much like the thousands of Germans who quietly ask us which side we are on—she may, too, have inferred something from his having a brother in Savannah, Georgia. She soon found her mistake; for he informed her, in terms of no doubtful import, that his sympathy did not embrace those of her class; and thus the result of the pleasant visit she had promised herself was little short of being turned out doors.

About the 10th of December, 1861, we had at our house a little company of about thirty persons, and Dr. Neumann, with his wife and two daughters, was among them. An American gentleman, who had been known to his family and ours, had left for Russia two years before, and returned that very day, was one of the company, and we had not yet learned his views of secession. The first thing with Dr. Neumann and his daughters was to know how he stood on this question. They found him a rebel, and in giving him their minds in relation to this matter, one of the daughters expressed to him her wonder that I should allow him to enter my house as they would not allow him in theirs. The stir made in the company by this little brush at arms arrested the attention of all, and gave the Americans their first information as to where our quondam friend stood, as well as set them an example of zeal and enthusiasm in their own cause.

I must close this notice with an incident which lies quite outside of Dr. Neumann's relations to America and Americans. On his retirement from his university labors, he withdrew mainly from the exciting scenes of public life. But in November, 1859, occurred the centennial anniversary of Schiller's birth. Of all the men connected with German popular literature, Schiller is most in the hearts of the people of Germany. The spirit of liberty shown in his 'William Tell'—his exile from his native Wirtemberg for the free expressions used in the first play he ever wrote—his high order of genius as a poet and historian—the subjects he chose, and the way he treated them, and, finally, his social and domestic character, have all combined to endear him to the whole people. This festival was everywhere observed, and with the highest enthusiasm; for although Governments were afraid of its effects, they were still more afraid to refuse permission to hold it. It lasted for several days, on one of which was a great public dinner, with several hundred in attendance, of which Dr. Neumann consented to be one. Champagne flowed freely, and although I did not taste this beverage, and know by experience little of its effects, it was easy to perceive that the animation could not all be accounted for by love to the memory even of Schiller. Poems were read, and speeches were made describing his character as poet, historian, or otherwise, according to the fancy of each speaker. I remember one from Bodenstedt, than whom few stand higher in the walks of polite literature, and one from Sybel, than whom no one in Germany ranks higher as a historian. Dr. Neumann, who, like an old parade horse long withrawn from the excitements of a parade, felt amid these scenes the spirit of former days stirred within him, rose to speak. We shall be prepared to appreciate the effect when we get an idea of the preternatural sensitiveness of those who composed the audience. A well-known poet, who may perhaps be called the poet-laureate of Bavaria, had read a poem on the occasion. It contained nothing to which any one could object, as we might infer from his position with the king, and yet I heard the poet himself say a few days afterward that the editors of a certain well-known journal, in publishing it, left out the stanzas containing the word Freiheit (liberty), so fearful were they of not pitching their tune to a key that would suit royal and Government ears. A similar sensitiveness pervaded the whole body present—nearly all drew their bread and beer from the Government, and did not wish it stopped or diminished. This class had gotten up the meeting, and hoped to control it. When they saw Dr. Neumann rise, they felt that there was a man naturally fearless, and now quite beyond that special sense of danger which made them cautious. Recollection passed over his seven years' silence, and called up the power with which he had harangued in other years. Nor was it so much what he said as the man who said it, which produced the effect, and yet there was much in the speech. He said that Schiller had been eulogized as a social and domestic man, poet, and historian; but nothing had been said of him as a politician, and he should speak of him in this character. The rising of such a man was an electric shock, suggestive of that which in 1848 made all Europe tremble from centre to circumference. The word politician was a second shock, drawing with it suggestively all the concomitants of that revolution, as yet so well remembered by all. And when he proceeded to compare Schiller with Goethe—the former frankly addressing himself to his friend in correspondence on the great questions of their politics, and trying to draw him out, the latter, then a minister of state, cautiously and warily declining to expose his views—he but carried out the impression made in his rising and his announcement. It was the only properly stump speech—I use the phrase in the high sense in which it might be used of O'Connell or Clay—I ever heard in Germany.

Such is the man who has undertaken to write our country's history for the Germans. Of his work I have said nothing, for I have not seen it; I write this impromptu on seeing the newspaper announcement of the first volume. He will doubtless do much to set us right in the eyes of his own people, where, however, there is less need of this than in another land, whose people are more nearly related to us, where such service, however, is less likely to be done.



THE GREAT AMERICAN CRISIS.

PART THREE.

In the last preceding article on this subject in THE CONTINENTAL, we concluded by considering the consequences of an early victory of the North over the entire South, followed by the restoration of the old Union upon precisely the old basis. We showed that, in such an event, the war would have been barren of results even to the extent of removing its own cause, or preventing its almost immediate and more desperate renewal; that the question at issue is a question of paramount governing power between two adverse theories of social existence; between two distinct and conflicting civilizations; between two antagonistic and irreconcilable political and moral forces; and that it must be fought out to the complete subordination of the less advanced or more barbarous and backward-tending of those forces—unless the wheels of progress on this continent are to be reversed, and the watchword of despotism be substituted for that of freedom: not only that it must be fought out on the battle field, but that the fruits of the victory must not be blindly or foolishly surrendered after the obvious and external victory is won.