THE MAN. Tell me what it is. I will do everything you wish me to do,

WIFE. Listen! Your son will be a Poet!

THE MAN. What are you saying, Mary?

WIFE. The priest, when he baptized him, gave him first the name: Poet; and then: George Stanislaus.

It is I who have done this; first I blessed him—then I affixed a curse to the blessing: I know he will be a Poet!

VOICE (from above). Father, forgive them; they know not what they do!

WIFE. There is some one above us, suffering from strange and incurable madness; is it not so?

THE MAN. Very strange.

WIFE. He does not know what he is saying; but I can tell you how it would all be if God should go mad.

She seizes him by the hand.

All the worlds would go flying about, up and down, and crash against one another: every worm would cry out: 'I am God!' and then some of them would die every moment; they would all perish one after the other!

All the comets and suns would go out in the sky! Christ would redeem us no longer; He would tear His bleeding hands away from the nails, and pitch the cross into the bottomless abyss. It falls!

Listen! how this cross, the hope of millions, goes crashing and hurtling against the stars! Hark! it breaks! it flies asunder! the sky grows dark with the ruined fragments—they fall like hail, deeper, deeper—a wild storm surges from them—dreadful!

The holy Mother of God alone continues to pray, and the faithful stars, her servants, which have not yet deserted her:—but she too will plunge where all created things are storming down, for God is mad—and Christ has thrown away His Cross!

THE MAN. Mary, will you not come home with me to see our child?

WIFE. I have given wings to our son, and dipped him under the waves of the sea, that he might take into his soul all that is beautiful, sublime, and terrible. He will return to you a poet, and you will rejoice in him.

Ah me! ah me!

THE MAN. Do you suffer, Mary?

WIFE. Some one has hung up a lamp in my brain—and the light sways and flickers—I cannot bear it!

THE MAN. My beloved Mary, be calm and tranquil, as you were wont to be!

WIFE. Poets never live long.

She faints.

THE MAN. Help! Save her! Help!

Several women rush in.

THE WIFE OF THE PHYSICIAN. Pills—powders—no. She can swallow nothing solid; a fluid potion is the best.

Margaret, run for the apothecary!

Speaking to the Count.

This is all your fault, and my husband will be very angry.

WIFE. Henry, my Henry, farewell!

THE WIFE OF THE PHYSICIAN. You are then the count!

THE MAN. Mary! Mary!

Takes her in his arms.

WIFE. I am well—happy! I die near thee!

Her head sinks upon his breast.

THE WIFE OF THE PHYSICIAN. Her face grows crimson—the blood is rushing to her brain.

THE MAN. Her pure heart breaks—nor love nor wrong can ever reach her more! O Mary! Mary!

The Physician enters and approaches the sofa.

PHYSICIAN. It is all over now: she is dead!



SOUND REFLECTIONS.

A TORCHER.

What of the common lot of woman in the state hymeneal? Echo: High menial!

BRIDAL.

What does the world consider a proper tie? Echo: Property!



THE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.

On Wednesday, the fifteenth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, the following resolution, which had already passed the Senate, was put upon its final passage in the House of Representatives as a joint resolution of Congress, to be proposed to the people of the United States for an amendment to the Constitution:

'SECTION 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist in the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

'SECTION 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.'

The resolution was rejected for failure of the two-thirds vote required by the Constitution on a question of amendment; the vote standing, yeas ninety-four, nays sixty-five. Which vote has definitely determined two things: first, that the party which calls itself Democratic is afraid to trust this question to the people, and so belies its honored name; and secondly, that there is a political element in our country whose attachment to the slaveholding interest survives the attachment of the slaveholding interest to the Union. Is this the best evidence of patriotism?

Three years ago this summer of 1864, even after the treason of Southern leaders had precipitated the flagrant Southern rebellion, ay, and even after treason had dared the loyal army of the nation and flaunted its defiant banner on the field of battle, the sentiment of a forbearing people declared that no interference with the local establishments of the treason-infected South would be permitted. So faithful were we to the compromises of our fathers; so loth to believe in the wicked purpose that had moved the rebellion. Three years of desperate resistance to the nation's authority, three years of war, with its lessons of bitterness, and grief, and death, and agony worse than death, have convinced us that no further compromise is possible. Men told us so before, but we were too devoted to the Union to believe in a treason that would not stop short of the nation's complete dishonor. God be thanked that we know the issue at last! Our conviction has gradually, but how immovably, established itself! And now the sentiment of the people, no longer forbearing, but not less just, and based upon the same unalterable devotion to the Union, withdraws the pledges of the past and dictates an amendment to the Constitution that shall leave no possibility of slaveholding treason hereafter. That sentiment has found expression in two mass conventions, representing the undoubted overwhelming majority of the people, and it remains now to show the justice of it. It is accordingly the purpose of this paper to discuss the nature of the proposed amendment, and to state some controlling reasons in favor of it.

The question, plainly stated, is: Ought the Constitution to be amended so as to abolish slavery throughout the United States? Or, in other words, Ought liberty to become part of the supreme law of the land? Ought the idea of the nation to be now, at last, incorporated into the law of the nation, and so made a fixed fact of the nation's history?

It should seem that the mere statement of the question suggests the basis and positive force of the affirmative of it. For it reminds us at once of the mighty revolution that has agitated and aroused it. The progress of a century has been crowded into less than a decade of years. The statesmanship of 1850 (profound and patriotic, as alas! it is to be feared, too much of what we call statesmanship to-day is not) has been outgrown. Let us not be startled by the statement. The highest art of politics is to recognize existing facts. No thinking person will deny that the policies of the past are powerless to-day. We cannot, if we would, unmake the history of the last ten years. Tempora mutantur, et mutamur in illis. Or, as a distinguished and eloquent son of Tennessee lately paraphrased this old maxim: 'The world moves, and takes us along with it, whether we will or not.'

Our discussion naturally divides itself into two branches: first, as to the right, or constitutional power, to adopt the proposed amendment; and secondly, as to the expediency and necessity of it.

I. THE RIGHT, UNDER THE CONSTITUTION, TO ADOPT THE PROPOSED AMENDMENT.

No characteristic of the American people is more marked than their regard for law; and in nothing is that characteristic more striking than in their respect for the Constitution, the supreme law of the land. Whatever seems to come in conflict with that supreme law must encounter an irresistible odium. And herein appears the splendid fruit of the teachings of our great legists and statesmen, enforced, as they are, by the hereditary traditions of our Anglo-Saxon birthright. It is, moreover, a standing proof that democracy is not necessarily radical and destructive; and so furnishes us with a complete answer to the assumptions of English Tories, as in Alison's 'History of Europe,' that democracy is but the organized exponent of the self-willed passions of the multitude. What thing, indeed, is more wonderful than the tenacity with which conscientious men still cling to the doctrine (that had once some reason for it) of constitutional guaranties in behalf of slavery—an institution that has inspired the most monstrous treason of all history! What people but the American would still be hesitating, after the solemn experience of these three years, to strike down every possible support to slavery!

Surely the lesson of the French Revolution, in its trumpet-toned warning to the nations against a destructive radicalism, has not been lost upon us. How ought we to adore the Providence, guided by whose inspiration (as with becoming reverence we may believe) Washington and his supporters directed our infant republic in the track of English conservatism, fearful of the vagaries of the Red Republicanism of France! This prudent policy justifies itself more and more in our experience; and to-day the great heart of the people beats in unison with those Providential leadings. Therefore it is that the question, in reference to any measure, Is it constitutional? far from exciting ridicule, as sometimes with superficial thinkers it has done, is to be recognized as proof of our magnificent control over the wayward factions of the hour, and of our abiding trust in the hardly less than inspired wisdom of our fathers, to which we thus make our ultimate appeal. For the Constitution is the organic law of the nation, and stands for the firm foundation of our national life. The indissoluble bond of the Union, it is itself the palladium of our liberties. It is, in fine, the grandest chart of liberty and law, of justice and political order, which the world ever saw. The man who dares knowingly violate its provisions merits the punishment that followed the sacrilegious touch of David's servant to the ark of the covenant—instant death. In the midst of a fierce conflict with traitors who set at nought its binding force, let us beware lest in our zeal to punish them we be not guilty of an equal crime!

We yield, then, to no one in our devotion to the Constitution. We will not allow that any one goes before us in reverence for it. But we are of those who think that the time has come, in the providence of God, for an amendment to its provisions.

Indeed, the Constitution derives not the least portion of its claim upon our tender regard from the fact that it recognizes the eternal law of progress; and, while establishing a government whose stability should be as enduring as the principles upon which it is based, does not assume to declare that it has exhausted the possibilities of the future. Guarding against any and every impulse of popular passion, it nevertheless leaves scope for the necessary changes of time and circumstance, which may make the politic statesmanship of one period the exploded fallacy of the next. For of the science of politics it may be said, as in the glowing eulogy of Macaulay upon the philosophy of Bacon: 'It is a philosophy which never rests, which has never attained its end, which is never perfect. Its law is progress. A point which yesterday was invisible is its goal to-day, and will be its starting-post to-morrow.' Political science, indeed, is only another one of those 'illustrations of universal progress,' which the genius of Herbert Spenser has made familiar to our literature. And therefore it is that we cannot too much admire the sagacity of the patriots who framed our Constitution. It was a sagacity drawing its inspiration from all history, which taught, and teaches, that if progress is attempted to be checked, it will find vent in volcanic revolution. Reformation is the watchword of history: anarchy and destruction the fate of those nations which heed it not.

Thus it was that the principle of amendment found its way into the Constitution of the United States—a principle so just that by it we are enabled in these bitter days to faithfully withstand the usurpation that seeks to justify itself by appealing to the right of revolution. For in the principle of amendment (as has heretofore been stated in this magazine) the right of revolution was at the same time recognized and exalted; and by it a means of war was made a means of peace, and so revolution was sought to be forestalled. Nothing but despotism itself would have disregarded this humane provision of the Constitution, and sought a remedy for alleged grievances that is only justified by despotism.

What, then, is the principle of amendment in our Constitution, and what are its provisions? They are found in the fifth article, and read thus: 'The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided, ... that no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.'

Can anything be clearer? And yet how men have contrived to mystify the whole question by vague declamation about the rights of States! As if those rights of States that were meant to be protected, were not carefully guarded by the article itself, and especially by the proviso 'that no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate'! As if, too, the rights of the States were everything, the rights of the Nation nothing! It might well be asked, moreover (as, indeed, a discriminating writer in The Evening Post has lately asked), whether the people of the States have no rights that are to be considered in this discussion; whether there are not certain reserved rights of the people that have been violated by many States—rights reserved in the very constitutions of those States, as well as in the Constitution of the United States? But let it be noted, as above intimated, that this fifth article is duly careful to guard the rights of States. Three fourths of the States must concur in the amendment; and in no event may a State be unwillingly deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate, which is the distinguishing mark of the independent equality of all the States in the Union. On the other hand, the rights of the States being thus protected in a manner and degree which we must suppose to have been satisfactory to the men who framed and the States which ratified the Constitution, the article then proceeds to care for the rights of the Nation, by declaring that the amendment duly ratified by three fourths of the States 'shall be valid, as part of the Constitution:' thus binding all the States, the three fourths which have ratified it, and the one fourth which may not have ratified it. We have here a key to the motives of the Southern rebellion. The leaders of Southern politics knew well that an amendment like the one now proposed must one day come, and that whenever it should come, article fifth left them no pretext for resistance. So they precipitated their revolution, and have only hastened that inevitable day.

But it is objected that the right to amend the Constitution does not give us the right to enlarge its powers. Why not? And if not, to what things does the right of amendment extend? Such an interpretation makes article fifth an absurdity. This objection springs from the same mischievous doctrine of State sovereignty, which has so outraged the patriotic common sense of the people by the denial of our right to 'coerce' a State, and tends to the same result—nullification and secession. It is good logic for a confederation, but bad logic for a nation, to say that the articles of its organic law may not be changed by the will of the people. And let us not neglect to observe in the provisions of article fifth the strong incidental proof that the Constitution of the United States was meant to be the basis of a nation, and not the compact of a confederation. For how may this article be reconciled with the theory of a compact? Three fourths of the States may concur in adopting an amendment that shall be valid as part of the Constitution, which declares itself to be the supreme law of the land, over all the States.

This incidental point serves fitly to introduce the second branch of our discussion, namely:

II. THE EXPEDIENCY AND NECESSITY OF THE PROPOSED AMENDMENT.

For slavery, or, in other words (lest we seem to offend some), a rebellion in the interests and for the avowed establishment of slavery, has struck at the life of the nation; and in self-defence the nation must strike down slavery. If our Government is only the compact of a confederation, then not only is there no need, but we have not the right to adopt the proposed amendment. For by it an institution fostered by the legislation of some of the States would be overthrown, in defiance of that legislation. But the right, or constitutional power, of itself implies the necessity to adopt the amendment whenever the occasion for it may arise. The right is made part of the Constitution: the necessity, or expediency, must be determined by circumstances outside of the Constitution. We contend that circumstances at present point to the complete extinguishment of slavery as the political necessity of the period. The time for timid counsels is past. The day of tenderness for Southern prejudices is gone by.

Coming, then, directly to the root of the matter, we lay down this first proposition:

1. The proposed amendment finds its justification and highest warrant, as a measure of political reform, in the fact of the Southern Confederacy. This fact, pure and simple, is the controlling and abundant necessity for it. We need not take the ground that slavery is the cause of the rebellion: though to the philosophical inquirer it certainly seems difficult to reach any other conclusion. We Americans are so much under the influence of partisan prejudices, so surrounded with the complications of present and past political issues, that for us a dispassionate study of this point is almost, or quite, impossible. But the investigations of impartial and unprejudiced foreigners seem remarkably to concur in designating slavery as the moving cause of the war. We may cite, for example, the recent profound review of the slave power by Professor Cairnes. And surely no person who pauses to reflect upon the inherent nature of the slave system as a labor basis of society, will venture to deny that such a principle is at war with the elemental principles of our Government. No person will deny that slavery depreciates the dignity of labor, which is the pride and boast of our institutions. Nor does it need any but the logic of common sense to point out the incongruity of a free government resting, even partially, upon a basis of slave labor.

But all this may be waived. We may discard all these considerations. Perhaps it is wise to discard them. Let us forget our differences of political opinion in the past, and seek for points of agreement in the present. Taking this position, we cannot ignore the fact of the Southern Confederacy, and that the avowed basis of it is slavery. It is a stubborn fact confronting us at the outset of our inquiry, and, like Banquo's ghost, 'will not down.' Proclaiming boldly that free labor is a mistake, and unblushingly affirming as a doctrine of social and political economy that 'capital must own labor,' the Southern Confederacy challenges the Christian civilization of the age, and declares its right to exist as an independent nation of slaveholders. How may we explain so monstrous a pretence? There is but one explanation that is adequate. It may be stated in a single word, ambition. The lesson of our experience is that this malignant system of slavery, the chattel slavery of the South, is too great a temptation to the ambition of men. Let us not disregard it. Political ambition stands always ready to strike hands with the devil, and the devil is always near the conscience of ambitious men. We have no recourse but to remove the temptation. The death-knell of Carthage is well appropriated: Servitudo est delenda. So long as a vestige of the slavery establishment remains, the temptation remains—a deadly risk to our Government. The peril of it is too great. And this furnishes a complete answer to the superficial objection that there is no need of the amendment because slavery is dead already; for ambition may revive it, and what ambition may do it will do. In other words, and to sum up the argument on this point: Whatever may have been our individual opinions and beliefs before the rebellion (variant enough at all times), the attempted establishment of a confederacy avowedly based on slavery, proves beyond possibility of cavil that chattel slavery, to which we have been lenient without limit, is a temptation too great for the peace of the nation, and therefore the highest interests of the nation require its removal.

2. The simple fact of the Southern Confederacy is also the basis of our second proposition. For it reveals clearly the necessity of the proposed amendment as a thing essential to be added to the organic law, in order to carry out the purpose of it. That purpose is thus expressed in the preamble to the Constitution: 'We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.' Every one of the objects therein specified is, in the baleful light of the rebellion, a plea for the amendment.

We are aware that this preamble has heretofore served as a basis for the stanchest conservatism, and wisely so. We are of those who have always contended that the 'blessings of liberty' are best secured by whatever tends most to strengthen the Union—the asylum and hope of liberty, without which liberty, disorganized and unprotected, were a vain show. We are of that opinion still, and therefore support the amendment, because we are for strengthening the Union and making it 'more perfect.' We have not changed: circumstances have changed. What was formerly conservatism is now radicalism, and radicalism is now the true conservatism. For the period is one of transition, a crisis period, when these two forces, to be of use, must be interfused, and thus become a combined power of reform.

So long as the cotton and slaveholding interest could be held in check and kept measurably subordinate to the supremacy of the Constitution, there was hope that eventually the steadily-increasing forces of free labor would overpower the gradually-decreasing forces of slave labor. It was believed that by the silent action of natural laws freedom would, in the long run, assert itself superior, and the ideal of our Government, universal freedom, would thus at last become a reality and fact. Such, we have been taught to believe, was the doctrine of the statesmanship of 1850. Such was the underlying argument of Webster's great 7th of March speech—the enduring monument of his unselfish patriotism, seeking only the good of his whole country. Such was his meaning when he declared that the condition of the territories was fixed by an 'irrepealable law,' needing no irritating legislation to assure their freedom.

Contrary to the hopes of our fathers, the slave system had prospered and grown strong—chiefly because of the impetus given to it by the growth of cotton, as was clearly shown by Webster in the speech just noted. We suppose no candid reader of our history will deny this point. But the system had no vital force within itself, and could not withstand those laws of nature and free emigration to which we have adverted. It sought protective legislation, and got it. Still, it was hampered by limitations, notwithstanding it had present control of the cotton growth. So the question of the slave trade was mooted. Thus it came to pass that within half a century after it had expired by limitation of the Constitution, that monstrous anomaly of the Christian era was sought to be revived. And so corrupt had public sentiment become that the slave trader captain of the yacht Wanderer could not be convicted by a jury of his countrymen of violating the ordinance of the nation against this traffic.[8] Will any one dare affirm that the tone of public feeling in the South on this subject was not higher and purer in the time of Jefferson than in the time of Buchanan? To what a depth of moral degradation the nation might have sunk under the thus retrogressive influences of ungodly Mammon, setting God and Christianity at total defiance, may not easily be conjectured. But that law of action and reaction which balances the powers of nature with such equal justice, holds good also in the world of mind; and in the providence of God the time of reaction came at last, and the temper of the nation reverted to its pristine purity. That time came when defiant Mammon waxed so bold as to threaten the nation's life. Under the protective statutes of Congress, jealously watching over the local institutions of States, slavery had grown to be a dominating power in the country; and, bound by legislation and compromise, and the strict letter of the Constitution, the people could only protest, and bide the inevitable issue of such arrogant domination.

Now no longer is slavery dominant. Its own hand has struck down the protecting shield of a quasi-constitutional guaranty, and all men feel that its condemnation is just. Now there is 'none so poor to do it reverence.' Why is this? It is the uniform course and consequence of sin. 'Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.' But God has spoken at last in a voice that we must heed. It is the voice of war, a voice of woe; the voice of civil war, the chief of woes. Slavery is now at our mercy. And mercy to it is to be measured by our humanity to man and our fear of God. 'The word is nigh thee, even in thy own mouth.' Servitudo delenda est: deleta est. Slavery is to be destroyed: it is already destroyed. Shall we permit it a chance to be revived? The way is opened to us, as it was not to our fathers, to remove the curse from our borders. We shall be false to every inspiration of patriotism if we now fail to remove it. The time has come to complete the unity of the Constitution, and make the ideal purpose of it, as stated in the preamble, a living fact. Shall we let the opportunity slip? Now, at last, we may ordain a Constitution by which 'a more perfect Union' shall 'secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.'

3. A third reason for the proposed amendment, not less cogent though more familiar to our political discussions than the two already named, is found in article fourth, section second, of the Constitution: 'Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States.' Everybody knows that this section of the Constitution has been heretofore practically a dead letter, albeit as fully a part of the supreme law as that other provision in the same section for the rendition of 'persons held to service.' So everybody knows equally well the reason of it. It was a concession to the fierce passions of slaveholding politics. From the very nature of the case there could not be the same toleration of speech and press in a Slave State which the men from a Slave State enjoyed in a Free State. It was incendiary. So for half a century there has been this virtual nullification of one of the justest compromises of the Constitution; and citizens of the United States have, within the limits of the United States, been tarred and feathered, and burnt, and hung, and subjected to indignities without number and without name. Nobody will probably be willing to say that such a state of things is worthy to be continued. The hope of peaceable relief has for long restrained the hands of a people educated to an abhorrence of war. We have submitted to a despotism less tolerant than the autocracy of Russia, or the absolutism of France—hoping, vainly hoping, for some change; willing to forego all things rather than dissever the Union, which we have held, and hold, to be foremost, because bearing the promise of all other political blessings; pardoning much to a legacy left the South for which it was not primarily responsible, and ready to second the humane care of a feeble race, and clinging to the hope of that better time to which all the signs pointed, when, by force of freedom, there could be no more slavery. The time has come, though sooner and under other circumstances (alas! far other circumstances) than we expected. We need now no longer give guaranties to the slaveholding interest. Taking advantage of such as it had, it has not hesitated to attack its sole benefactor, and now all our obligations are at an end. The Congress of the nation may and will take care that, secession being stifled, there shall not henceforth be a nullification of the least provision of the organic law, out of mistaken tenderness for the interest of any section. We have at last learned a nobler virtue than forbearance, and henceforth either the Constitution, in all its parts, is to be supreme, or else the nation must die. One or other of these things must result. Let him who can hesitate between them write himself down a traitor; for he is one. No patriot can hesitate. No lover of his country can falter in a time like this. And if three years of war have not taught a man that this is the alternative, that man does not deserve a country.

4. But there is a more emphatic expression of our fundamental law than any yet cited; which, if left to its proper working, as now it may be, strikes at the root of slavery. It is the fourth section of the fourth article of the Constitution. 'The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government.'

The essence of republicanism is freedom. A republic that, like Sparta, permits the enslavement of any portion of its people, is surely not predicated upon the true idea of a republic; and it is worth while to consider that the ancient republics found their bane in slavery, and that the aristocratic republics of modern times, like Venice, have perished. Only those republics survive to-day which, like San Marino, have free institutions. A republic is a country where the whole people is the public, and the state the affair of the whole people. It is a public affair (as its name imports), a thing of the public; and this is not true of any other than a democracy. For the essential idea of such a government is expressed in the maxim: 'the greatest good to the greatest number;' and in that other maxim which is part of our Declaration of Independence, that 'government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed.' It needs no argument to show that these maxims are violated in a country where any portion of the people are deprived of their highest good—liberty. For what is the object of government? To protect men from oppression. And our republican doctrine is that this is best accomplished in a form of government which gives to the voice of all men the controlling power. 'The voice of the people is the voice of God,' because humanity is of God. The doctrine is that the state is made for the individual, not the individual for the state; just as our Saviour declared that 'the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.' These things being so (and it is not pretended that they are novel, for they are very trite), does it not immediately appear how essentially opposed is slavery to the idea of a republic? Therefore when the Constitution guarantees to every State a republican form of government, it guarantees to all the people of every State a voice in its control. And whatever State disfranchises any portion of its people violates this provision of the Constitution.

To the objection that, at the time of adopting the Constitution, all the States were Slave States, with a single exception, and therefore within the meaning of that instrument slavery and a republican form of government are not incongruous, there are two answers. First, it is matter of history that the framers of the Constitution acted throughout with reference to the eventual abolition of slavery; as has been already adverted to in this paper. Therefore such States as have retained their slave establishments have done so in violation of the spirit of this provision of the Constitution; while such States as have since been admitted into the Union with slave establishments have been admitted by compromises, equally in violation of that provision, but acquiesced in by the whole country, as the slave establishments of the original States had been, and therefore equally binding on our good faith. We are now no longer bound by any compromises. We have kept our plighted faith strictly and fairly, though the Slave States have not. Our duty now is to reconstruct, if we can, the fabric of the Union. If, in doing this, we abolish slavery entirely, which makes impossible the full realization of this guaranteeing clause, the guaranty will spring into new life and become a power in the law of the land. Secondly, what is meant by a republican form of government within the meaning of the Constitution must be determined by reference to the Declaration of Independence, which is the basis of our Government, and declares the principles of it. That Declaration was promulgated as embodying the doctrines of a new age—an age in which the rights of man should at last be maintained as against the rights of royalty and privilege. It is, therefore, the soundest rule of interpretation to refer the ambiguities of the organic law to the declaration that preceded and introduced it and made it possible. And so interpreting, will any one say that slavery is compatible with the principles of the Declaration of Independence?

In support, moreover, of the view here taken, may be cited the opinion of many of our statesmen, as expressed on the question of admitting new States into the Union: as, for instance, when Missouri applied for admission with a slave constitution. Nor is it competent to offset this with the opinion of such statesmen as have advocated the doctrine of the Virginia Resolutions of State sovereignty; for they notoriously disregarded the paramount supremacy of the Constitution. The conscientious doubt of others as to making the exclusion of slavery a condition precedent to admission into the Union, proves not the incorrectness of this position, but strengthens it, by showing that only a controlling love of the Union caused the doubt, which originated in a policy that would not even seem to do injustice to any State.

But whatever may be true as to the opinions of the fathers and early statesmen of the republic; whatever may be true as to the precise meaning of the term 'republican form of government' in the Constitution; surely, in the light of our rebellion, there cannot longer be a doubt as to the inherent antagonism of slavery to the principles of republican government. The Southern Confederacy sprang into existence as an oligarchy of slaveholders, willing (if need be) to live under a military despotism (as is the fact to-day, and will be hereafter if the world should witness the dire misfortune of its success), rather than submit to the searching scrutiny of republican ideas, with freedom of speech and press and person. And so it is that we recur to the simple fact of the Southern Confederacy for the vindication of the proposed amendment in all its bearings, finding in that fact the full warrant and justification of it.

5. There is still another reason for the proposed amendment, that may be urged with great force, on the ground of expediency; namely, that it would settle the whole question of reconstruction in a manner and with an effect that could not be gainsaid. For, once incorporated into the fundamental law, there could not then arise questions touching the validity of acts by which slaves are declared freemen. There would be nothing left to hang a doubt upon. The Proclamation of Emancipation as a war measure is undoubtedly a proper proceeding; but as a means of effecting organic changes, and as possible to operate beyond the period of actual war, it is open to many grave objections. Freedom being thus made the law of the land, there would be no longer reason for differences, as now there are wide differences among conscientious and capable men, as to the proper mode of reinvesting the States usurped by the rebellion with their rightful powers as kindred republics of the nation. Constituent parts of a common and indivisible empire, those powers cannot be destroyed by a usurping rebellion.

But, it is objected, the proposed amendment destroys certain of those powers. Yes, it takes away all pretended right to hold slaves. For the right of slavery is nowhere recognized in the Constitution. The fact of slavery as part of the local establishments of some States could not be ignored, although, as is well known, the word 'slave' was expressly ruled out of the Constitution. Hence, the famous provisions for the rendition of 'persons held to service' (art. iv. sec. 2), and for the apportionment of representatives and direct taxes, 'by adding to the whole number of free persons ... three fifths of all other persons' (art. i. sec. 2): which are the only recognition slavery finds in our Constitution.

It is true, therefore, that slavery, never a right, but always a wrong, under the Constitution, as under the law of nature and revelation, is now to be no longer recognized even as a fact. To abolish it by this amendment is to abolish it entirely throughout the Union, irrespective of apparent State rights. The repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law remits the question of restoring 'persons held to service' to the safeguards of trial by jury, but has no further force. To supplement and complete the work of reconstruction, we need to make impossible the pretence of a power anywhere within the domain of the United States to hold a person in bondage.

To the objection we have just noted, that certain State rights are thus destroyed, there are two sufficient answers. First, in no State of the Union, it is believed, does slavery exist by virtue of positive law. It is the subject of legislation only as a recognized fact in society. It exists in Virginia in violation of the Bill of Rights, which is part of the organic law of that State, and, in its essential features, of every slaveholding State. Therefore to abolish it is both to fulfil the duty of the United States in guaranteeing to every State a republican form of government, and to assert the only true doctrine of State rights, namely, that the legislation of a State shall conform to the fundamental law at once of the State itself and the nation. And thus the Bill of Rights of a slaveholding State will be no longer a mockery, but a living power. Secondly, the destruction of this pseudo right of a State to hold slaves is no cause of complaint—even supposing it were a legitimate and proper right.[9] For, the Constitution once adopted, the provision for amendment, as part of it, has also been ratified and adopted; and therefore, by a familiar principle of law, the exercise of that provision may not afterward be questioned. It is not for the parties who have once solemnly ratified an agreement to complain of the carrying into effect of its terms. They must forever hold their peace.

Thus, by virtue of the proposed amendment, all the States of the Union will become Free States, and there will be no longer the anomaly of a free nation upholding slavery. It will then, moreover, have been settled by the highest authority in the land, that a republican form of government means, first of all, freedom; and so a free constitution will be the unquestionable condition precedent of the admission of any State into the Union. This doctrine will seem monstrous to the believer in State sovereignty as paramount to the sovereignty of the nation: so it will seem monstrous to the believer in secession and rebellion. But by the lover of the Union (who alone is the true patriot in our country) it will be accepted as a doctrine that adds another bond of unity to the nation, and so tends to secure its perpetual strength.

In fine, the Constitution itself is all bristling with arguments for this amendment. Besides the provisions already quoted, there is the fifth article of the amendments, declaring that 'no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,' which has now a significance unknown before. Oh, how the rebellion has interpreted for us and commented upon the provisions of the Constitution! In the dread light of its unholy fires, we see, as never before, how cursed and doubly accursed a thing is slavery—making men forget all that is holiest and sacredest, quenching all their inspirations of patriotism, and leading them to sell body and soul for mad ambition. How true, alas! is the poet's word: 'How like a mounting devil in the heart rules the unreined ambition!'

We must, therefore, put an end to slavery. In its whole essence and substance, it militates against the perpetuity of our national Union. To think of preserving both it and the Union is to shut our eyes wilfully to the facts of the last half century, and the culminating condemnation of slavery in the rebellion. A Southern journal (The Nashville Times) has lately said, with great truth and force: 'Slavery can no more violate the law of its existence and become loyal and law-abiding than a stagnant pool can freshen and grow sweet in its own corruption.' Discard all other considerations; say, if we please, that slavery has nothing to do with the origin of the war; yet we must recognize the fact of a confederacy avowedly basing itself on the system of slavery, and which is in the interest of slaveholders, and is fostered by the minions of despotism all over the world. Then, if we can, let us come to any other conclusion than the one suggested in the proposed amendment.

This confederacy in the interest of slaveholders threatens the life of the nation. There is a limit to the powers of the Constitution, and we may not pass beyond it. But shall we deny that there is a higher law back of the Constitution, back of all constitutions—namely, that 'safety of the people,' which is 'the supreme law'? If we say that there is no such thing as moral government in the world; that a beneficent God does not sit in the heavens, holding all nations as in the hollow of His hand; yet we cannot deny this law of self-preservation. This law, this higher law of human society, the law political, in the very nature of things, demands the amendment.

Above all, let us not ignore the lessons of the war. The million graves of the heroes fallen in defence of our liberties and laws, are so many million wounds in the bleeding body of the nation, whose poor, dumb mouths, if they had voice, would cry out to Heaven against the system which has moved this foul treason against those liberties and laws. Let us, then, in the white heat of this terrible crisis, adopt the amendment, and stamp on the forefront of the nation, as its motto, for all time, those magnificent words of Webster: 'Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!' For let us be well assured that the Southern Confederacy cannot triumph. In the darkest and most mournful period of the despotism of the first Napoleon, when all hearts were failing, a minister of the Church of England spoke these words of the military empire of France, and they may fitly be spoken of the military empire of the South to-day:

'It has no foundation in the moral stability of justice. It is irradiated by no beam from heaven; it is blessed by no prayer of man; it is worshipped with no gratitude by the patriot heart. It may remain for the time that is appointed it, but the awful hour is on the wing when the universe will resound with its fall; and the same sun which now measures out with reluctance the length of its impious reign, will one day pour his undecaying beams amid its ruins, and bring forth from the earth which it has overshadowed the promises of a greater spring.'[10]

FOOTNOTES:

[8] The writer saw the defiant little yacht lying snug at the Savannah wharf, in October, 1859—after the trial.

[9] In the constitution of the republic of Texas (1836), it is declared (sec. 9 of General Provisions), 'All persons of color who were slaves for life previous to their immigration to Texas, and who are now held in bondage, shall remain in the like state of servitude.' But in the constitution of the State of Texas (1845) there is no such declaration; and article i., the Bill of Rights, sec. 1, declares: 'All power is inherent in the people.' The foregoing provision of the Texan constitution of 1836, is believed to be the only actual establishment of slavery in any Southern State, and even that has been abrogated, as is seen, by the State constitution of 1845. (See Hurd's Law of Freedom and Bondage, vol. ii.)

[10] Alison's History of Europe, vol. iii. p. 461.



AVERILL'S RAID.

Say, lads, have ye heard of bold Averill's raid? How we scoured hill and valley, dared dungeon and blade! How we made old Virginia's heart quake through and through, Where our sharp, sworded lightning cut sudden her view! Three cheers!

Red battle had trampled her plains into mire; The homestead and harvest had vanished in fire; But far where the walls of the Blue Ridge arose, Were prize for our daring and grief for our foes. Three cheers!

There was grain in the garners, fresh, plump to the sight; And mill-wheels to grind it all dainty and white; There were kine in the farmyards, and steeds in the stall, All ready, when down our live torrent should fall. Three cheers!

And in the quaint hamlets that nestled more far, Were contrabands pining to know the north star; And home guards so loath to leave home and its joys, But who dreamed not they staid prize for Averill's boys. Three cheers!

Oh, keen did we grind our good sabres, and scan Our carbines and pistols, girths, spurs, to a man! Then up and away did we dash with a shout, With cannon and caisson, away in and out. Three cheers!

Away in the forest and out on the plain; The stormy night gathered, we never drew rein; The raw morning cut us, but onward, right on, Till again the chill landscape in twilight grew wan. Three cheers!

Sleet stung us like arrows, winds rocked us like seas, And close all around crashed the pinnacle-trees; Red bolts flashed so near, the glare blinded our eyes, But onward, still on, for in front shone the prize. Three cheers!

We climbed the steep paths where the spectre-like fir Moaned of death in the distance; we ceased not to spur! Death! what that to us, with our duty before! Then onward, still on our stern hoof-thunder bore. Three cheers!

We dashed on the garners, their white turned to black; We dashed on the mills, smoky veils lined our track; We dashed on the hamlet, ha, ha! what a noise, What a stir, as upon them rushed Averill's boys! Three cheers!

The contrabands came with wide grins and low bows, And old ragged slouches swung wide from their brows; But the home guards ran wildly—then blustered, when found Not made food for powder, but Union-ward bound. Three cheers!

The kine turned to broils at our camp fires—the steeds, The true F. F. V.'s, fitted well to our needs; They pranced and they neighed, as if proud of the joys Of bearing, not home guards, but Averill's boys. Three cheers!

We dashed on the rail-track, we ripped and we tore; We dashed on the depots, made bold with their store; Then away, swift away, for 'twas trifling with fire; We were far in the foe's depths, and free to his ire. Three cheers!

Fierce Ewell and Early and Stuart and Hill Launched forth their fleet legions to capture and kill; But we mocked all pursuit, and eluded each toil, And drummed unopposed on their dear sacred soil. Three cheers!

We swam icy torrents, climbed wild, icy roads Where alone wolf and woodman held savage abodes; We floundered down glary steeps, ravine, and wall, Either side, where, one slip, and a plunge settled all: Three cheers!

The dark, mighty woods heaved like billows, as o'er Burst harsh jarring blasts, and like breakers their roar; While clink of the hoof-iron and tinkle of blade Made sprinkle like lute in love's soft serenade. Three cheers!

Oh, footsore and weary our steeds at last grew! Oh, hungry and dreary the long moments drew! We froze to our saddles, spur hardly could ply: What of that! we were lucky, and now could but die! Three cheers!

But we wore through the moments, we rode though in pain; Were sure to forget all when camp came again;— So we rode and we rode, till, hurrah! on our sight Burst our tents, as on midnight comes bursting the light! Three cheers!



OBSERVATIONS OF THE SUN.

As much interest is manifested for increased knowledge of solar characteristics, and as many astronomers and numerous amateurs are daily engaged in their investigation, I have thought that the experience of thousands of observations and the final advantages of a host of experiments in combination of lenses and colored glasses, resulting highly favorably to a further elucidation of solar characteristics, would be interesting, especially to such as are engaged in that branch of inquiry.

My experiments have resulted in two important discoveries. First, by a new combination of lenses, I prevent heat from being communicated to the colored glasses, which screen the eye from the blinding effects of solar light, and thus avoid the not infrequent cracking of these glasses from excess of heat, thereby endangering the sight—whereas, by my method, the colored glasses remain as cool after an hour's observation as at the commencement, and no strain or fatigue to the eye is experienced. Secondly, the defining power of the telescope is greatly increased, so that with a good three-and-a-quarter inch acromatic object-glass, with fifty-four inches focal length (mine made by Buron, Paris), I have obtained a clearer view of the physical features of the sun than any described in astronomical works.

In a favorable state of the atmosphere, and when spots are found lying more than halfway between the sun's centre and the margin, or better still, if nearer the margin, when the spots lie more edgeways to the eye, I can see distinctly the relative thickness of the photosphere and the underlying dusky penumbra, which lie on contiguous planes of about equal thickness, like the coatings of an onion. When these spots are nearer the centre of the sun, we see more vertically into their depths, by which I frequently observe a third or cloud stratum, underlying the penumbra, and partially closing the opening, doubtless to screen the underlying globe (which, by contrast with the photosphere, is intensely black) from excessive light, or to render it more diffusive.[11] The concentric faculae are then plainly visible, and do not appear to rise above the surface of the photosphere (as generally described), but rather as depressions in that luminous envelope, frequently breaking entirely through to the penumbra; and when this last parts, forms what are called 'spots.' The delusion in supposing the faculae to be elevated ridges, appears to me to be owing to the occasional depth of the faculae breaking down through the photosphere to the dusky penumbra, giving the appearance of a shadow from an elevated ridge. What is still more interesting, in a favorable state of the atmosphere, I can distinctly see over the whole surface of the sun, not occupied by large spots or by faculae, a network of pores or minute spots in countless numbers, with dividing lines or faculae-like depressions in the photosphere, separating each little hole, varying in size, some sufficiently large to exhibit irregularities of outline, doubtless frequently combining and forming larger spots.[12] When there are no scintillations in the air, the rim or margin of the sun appears to be a perfect circle, as defined, in outline, as if carved. By interposing an adjusted circular card, to cut off the direct rays of the sun, thus improvising an eclipse, not a stray ray of light is seen to dart in any direction from the sun, except what is reflected to the instrument, diffusively, from our atmosphere; thus proving that the corona, the coruscations or flashes of light, seen during a total or nearly total eclipse of the sun by the moon, are not rays direct from the sun, but reflections from lunar snow-clad mountains, into her highly attenuated atmosphere. Solar light, being electric, is not developed as light until reaching the atmosphere of a planet or satellite, or their more solid substance, which would explain why solar light is not diffused through space, and thus account for nocturnal darkness.

The combination of glasses which enabled me to inspect the above details may be stated briefly thus: In the place of my astronomic eyepiece, I use an elongator (obtainable of opticians) to increase the power. Into this I place my terrestrial tube, retaining only the field glasses, and using a microscopic eyepiece of seven eighths of an inch in diameter. Over this I slide a tube containing my colored glasses, one dark blue and two dark green, placed at the outer end of the sliding tube, one and a half inches from the eyeglass. The colored glasses are three quarters of an inch in diameter, and the aperture next the eye in diameter half an inch. The power which I usually employ magnifies but one hundred and fifty diameters; and I use the entire aperture of my object glass. This combination of colored glasses gives a clear dead white to the sun, the most desirable for distinct vision, as all shaded portions, such as spots, however minute, and their underlying dusky penumbra, are thus brought into strong contrasts.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] Imagine an immense sphere enclosed within two contiguous and equally thin envelopes, and yet sufficiently thick to show their edges distinctly when broken; the outer, a photosphere, having an intensely bright surface, and the inner, or penumbra, of a dull gray surface; while the enclosed hollow space is all dark, with the exception of an occasional fleecy cloud, floating within, and contiguous to the inner envelope. Now remove a large irregular piece from the outer, and a smaller piece from the inner envelope, and you have an exact idea of the appearance of a spot; contrasting the comparative brilliancy of the photosphere with the penumbra; their relative thickness; the intense blackness within, and occasional cloud stratum floating beneath the opening, as seen, under the most favorable circumstances, with a good telescope.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] The Nasmyth willow-leaf appearance, I think, is either the result of imperfect vision, defective instruments, or unfavorable state of the air, distorting the unvarying result of my observations, as above described, which have been a thousand times repeated in our clearer atmosphere, both on the coast and interior mountain regions. My observation of a general pore-like character, over the whole surface of the photosphere of the sun, is, I think, corroborated by considering the spots, as usually known and visible with ordinary instruments, as merely greater pores of the same general character.



AN ARMY: ITS ORGANIZATION AND MOVEMENTS.

FOURTH PAPER.

In previous papers we have briefly related the history of the art of war as now practised, stated the functions of the principal staff departments, and mentioned some of the peculiar features of the different arms of military service. It remains to describe the operations of an army in its totality—to show the methods in which its three principal classes of operations—marching, encamping, and fighting—are performed.

The first necessity for rendering an army effective is evidently military discipline, including drill, subordination, and observance of the prescribed regulations. The first is too much considered as the devotion of time and toil to the accomplishment of results based on mere arbitrary rules. The contrary is the truth. Drilling in all its forms—from the lowest to the highest—from the rules for the position of the single soldier to the manoeuvres of a brigade—is only instruction in those movements which long experience has proved to be the easiest, quickest, and most available methods of enabling a soldier to discharge his duties: it is not the compulsory observance of rules unfounded on proper reasons, designed merely to give an appearance of uniformity and regularity—merely to make a handsome show on parade. Nothing so much wearies and discourages a new recruit as his drill; he cannot at first understand it, and does not see the reason for it. He exclaims:

'I'm sick of this marching, Pipe-claying and starching.'

He thinks he can handle his musket with more convenience and rapidity if he is permitted to carry it and load it as he chooses, instead of going through the formula of motions prescribed in the manual. Perhaps as an individual he might; but when he is only one in a large number, his motions must be regulated, not only by his own convenience, but also by that of his neighbors. Very likely, a person uneducated in the mysteries of dancing would never adopt the polka or schottish step as an expression of exuberance; but if he dances with a company, he must be governed by the rules of the art, or he will be likely to tread on the toes of his companions, and be the cause of casualties. Military drill is constantly approaching greater simplicity, as experience shows that various particulars may be dispensed with. Formerly, when soldiers were kept up as part of the state pageants, they were subjected to numberless petty tribulations of drill, which no longer exist. Pipe-clayed belts, for example, have disappeared, except in the marine corps. Frederick the Great was the first who introduced into drill ease and quickness of execution, and since his day it has been greatly simplified and improved.

One great difficulty in our volunteer force pertains to the institution of a proper subordination. Coming from the same vicinage, often related by the various interests of life, equals at home, officers and men have found it disagreeable to assume the proper relations of their military life. The difficulty has produced two extremes of conduct on the part of officers—either too much laxity and familiarity, or the entire opposite—too great severity. The one breeds contempt among the men, and the other hatred. After the soldier begins to understand the necessities of military life, he sees that his officers should be men of dignity and reliability. He does not respect them unless they preserve a line of conduct corresponding to their superior military position. On the other hand, if he sees that they are inflated by their temporary command, and employ the opportunity to make their authority needlessly felt, and to exercise petty tyranny, he entertains feelings of revenge toward them. A model officer for the volunteer service is one who, quietly assuming the authority incident to his position, makes his men feel that he exercises it only for their own good. Such an officer enters thoroughly into all the details of his command—sees that his men are properly fed, clothed, and sheltered—that they understand their drill, and understand also that its object is to render them more effective and at the same time more secure in the hour of conflict—is careful and pains-taking, and at the same time, in the hour of danger, shares with his men all their exposures. Such an officer will always have a good command. We think there has been a tendency to error in one point of the discipline of the volunteer forces, by transferring to them the system which applied well enough to the regulars. In the latter, by long discipline, each man knows his duty, and if he commits a fault, it is his own act. In the volunteers, the faults of the men are in the majority of cases attributable to the officers. We know some companies in which no man has ever been sent to the guard house, none ever straggled in marching, none ever been missing when ordered into battle. The officers of these companies are such as we have described above. We know other companies—too many—in which the men are constantly straying around the country, constantly found drunk or disorderly, constantly out of the ranks, and constantly absent when they ought to be in line. Invariably the officers of such companies are worthless. If, then, the system of holding officers responsible for the faults of the men, were adopted, a great reform would, in our judgment, be introduced into the service. It is a well-known fact in the army that the character of a regiment, of a brigade, of a division even, can be entirely changed by a change of commanders. A hundred or a thousand men, selected at random from civil life anywhere, will have the same average character; and if the military organization which these hundred or thousand form differs greatly from that of any similar organization, it is attributable entirely to those in command.

Passing to the army at large, the next matter of prominent necessity to be noticed is the infusion in it of a uniform spirit—so as to make all its parts work harmoniously in the production of a single tendency and a single result. This must depend upon the general commanding. It is one of the marks of genius in a commander that he can make his impress on all the fractions of his command, down to the single soldier. An army divided by different opinions of the capacity or character of its commander, different views of policy, can scarcely be successful. Napoleon's power of impressing his men with an idolatry for himself and a confidence in victory is well known. The moral element in the effectiveness of an army is one of great importance. Properly stimulated it increases the endurance and bravery of the soldiers to an amazing degree. Physical ability without moral power behind it, is of little consequence. It is a well-known fact that a man will, in the long run, endure more (proportionately to his powers) than a horse, both being subject to the same tests of fatigue and hunger. A commander with whom an army is thoroughly in accord, and who shows that he is capable of conducting it through battle with no more loss than is admitted to be unavoidable, can make it entirely obedient to his will. The faculty of command is of supreme importance to a general. Without it, all other attainments—though of the highest character—will be unserviceable.

However large bounties may have given inducements for men to enlist as soldiers, it is undeniable that patriotism has been a deciding motive. Under the influence of this, each soldier has entertained an ennobling opinion of himself, and has supposed that he would be received in the character which such a motive impressed on him. He has quickly ascertained, however, when fully entered on his military duties, that the discipline has reduced him from the position of an independent patriot to that of a mere item in the number of the rank and file. Military discipline is based on the theory that soldiers should be mere machines. So far as obedience is concerned, this is certainly correct enough; but discipline in this country, and particularly with volunteers, should never diminish the peculiar American feeling of being 'as good as any other man.' On the contrary, the soldier should be encouraged to hold a high estimation of himself. We do not believe that those soldiers who are mere passive instruments—like the Russians, for example—can be compared with others inspired with individual pride. Yet, perhaps, our discipline has gone too far in the 'machine' direction. To keep up the feeling of patriotism to its intensest glow is a necessity for an American army, and a good general would be careful to make this a prominent characteristic of the impression reflected from his own genius upon his command. Professional fighting is very well in its place, and there are probably thousands who are risking blood and life in our armies, who yet do not cordially sympathize with the objects of the war. But an army must be actuated by a living motive—one of powerful importance; in this war there is room for such a motive to have full play, and it is essential that our soldiers should be incited by no mere abstract inducements, by no mere entreaties to gain victory, but by exhibitions of all the reasons that make our side of the struggle the noblest and holiest that ever engaged the attention of a nation.

But we must leave such discussions, and proceed specifically to the subject of this paper—the methods of moving an army.

A state of war having arrived, it depends upon the Government to decide where the theatre of operations shall be. Usually, in Europe, this has been contracted, containing but few objective points, that is, the places the capture of which is desired; but in our country the theatre of operations may be said to have included the whole South. The places for the operations of armies having been decided on, the Government adopts the necessary measures for assembling forces at the nearest point, and accumulating supplies, as was done at Washington in 1861. A commander is assigned to organize the forces, and at the proper time he moves them to the selected theatre. Now commences the province of strategy, which is defined as 'the art of properly directing masses upon the theatre of war for the defence of our own or the invasion of the enemy's country.' Strategy is often confounded with tactics, but is entirely different—the latter being of an inferior, more contracted and prescribed character, while the former applies to large geographical surfaces, embraces all movements, and has no rules—depending entirely on the genius of the commander to avail himself of circumstances. It is the part of strategy, for instance, so to manoeuvre as to mislead the enemy, or to separate his forces, or to fall upon them singly. Tactics, on the contrary, are the rules for producing particular effects, and apply to details. The strategy of the commander brings his forces into the position he has chosen for giving battle; tactics prescribe the various evolutions of the forces by which they take up their assigned positions. It was by strategy that General Grant obtained the position at Petersburg; it was by tactics that his army was able to march with such celerity and precision that the desired objects were attained.

Marches are of two classes—of concentration and of manoeuvre. The former, being used merely for the assembling of an army, or conducting it to the theatre of operations, need but little precision; the latter are performed upon the actual theatre of war, often in the presence of the enemy, and require care and skill for their proper conduct. The details of marches are of course governed by the nature of the country in which they are performed, but so far as practicable they are made in two methods—by parallel columns, or by the flank. The former is the most usual and the most preferable in many respects; indeed, the latter is never adopted except when compelled by necessity, or for the purpose of executing some piece of strategy. A careful arrangement of all details by commanders, and a steady persistence in their performance on the part of the troops, are required to permit this class of marches to be made safely in the presence of an enemy.

For the use of an army of a hundred thousand men about to march forward against an enemy, all the parallel roads within a space of at least ten miles are needed, and the more of them there are the better, since the columns can thereby be made shorter, and the trains be sent by the interior roads. Where a sufficient number of parallel roads exist, available for the army, it is usual to put about a division on each—sometimes the whole of a corps—according to the nature of the country and the objects to be attained. We will attempt to illustrate the march of an army by columns in the following diagram.



Suppose that E and F are two towns thirty miles apart, and that there are road connections as represented in the diagram. The army represented by the dotted line A B, wishes to move to attack the army C D. Cavalry, followed by infantry columns, would be sent out on the roads E M N and E G I, the cavalry going off toward P and K to protect the flanks, and the infantry taking position at I and O. Meantime another column, behind which are the baggage trains, covered with a rear guard, has moved to L. If the three points I, L, and O are reached simultaneously, the army can safely establish its new line, the baggage trains are entirely protected, and the whole country is occupied as effectually as if every acre were in possession.

The formation of a marching column varies according to circumstances, but is usually somewhat as follows, when moving toward an enemy:



The dots representing the ambulances and wagon trains do not show the true proportion of these to the rest of the column, and it cannot be given except at too great a sacrifice of space. They occupy more road than all the other parts of the column combined. With the advance guard go the engineers and pioneers, to repair the roads, make bridges, etc.

The difficulties and dangers attending a flank march can be made apparent by a diagram:



Let A B and C D represent two armies drawn up against each other in three lines of battle, on opposite sides of a stream, E F. The commander of the army A B, finding he cannot cross and drive the enemy from their works, determines, by a flank march to the left, to go around them, crossing at the point E. In order to effect this he must send his trains off by the road I K L to some interior line, and then slowly unfold his masses upon the single road K E H. By the time the head of his column is at H the rear has not perhaps left K, and thus the whole length of his army is exposed on its side to an attack by the enemy, which may sever it into two unsupporting portions. It will be perceived that to accomplish such marches with security, they must be made in secret as far as possible, until a portion of the marching force reaches the rear of the enemy; the column must be kept compact, and great vigilance must be exercised. In his progress from the Rapidan to the James, General Grant made three movements of this character with entire success, each time putting our forces so far in the rear of the rebels that they were compelled to hasten their own retreat instead of delaying to avail themselves of the opportunity for attacking.

Besides the topography of the country, various circumstances influence the manner in which a march is conducted—particularly the position of the enemy. When following a retreating foe, the cavalry is sent in the advance, supported by some infantry and horse artillery, to harass the rear guard, and, if practicable, delay the retreat until the main army can come up. This was the case in the peninsula campaign, from Yorktown to the Chickahominy. Again, the exact position of the enemy may not be known, or he may have large bodies in different places, so that his intentions cannot be surmised. It is then necessary to scatter the army so as to cover a number of threatened points, care being exercised to have all the different bodies within supporting distances, and to be on guard against a sudden concentration of the enemy between them. This was the case in the campaign which ended so gloriously at Gettysburg. The rebels were then threatening both Harrisburg and Baltimore, and the two extremities of our army were over thirty miles apart, so as to be concentrated either on the right, left, or centre, as events might determine. It happened that a collision was brought on at Gettysburg, and both armies immediately concentrated there. The corps on the right of our army was obliged to march about thirty-two miles, performing the distance in about eighteen or nineteen hours, and arriving in time to participate in the second day's battle. As much skill is evinced by a commander in preliminary manoeuvring marches and the assignment of positions to the different portions of his army as in the direction of a battle. Napoleon gained many of his victories through the effects of such manoeuvres.

Time is a very important element in marching. An army which can march five miles a day more than its opponent will almost certainly be victorious, for it can go to his flank, or assail him when unprepared, Frederick the Great achieved his successes by imparting mobility to his troops, and Napoleon also was a master of that peculiar feature in that faculty of command of which we have before spoken, that enables a leader to obtain from his men the maximum amount of continued exertion. To achieve facility in marching, all the equipments of the soldiers should be as light as possible, and the columns should be encumbered with no more trains than are absolutely indispensable. Officers of the highest class must be prepared to forego unnecessary luxuries, and to march with nothing more than a blanket, a change of clothing, and rations for a few days in their haversacks.

When a march is contemplated, orders are issued from the general headquarters prescribing all the details—the time at which each corps is to start, the roads to be taken, the precautions to be observed, and the points to be gained. Usually an early hour in the morning is fixed for the commencement of the march. If not in the immediate presence of the enemy, and a surprise is not intended, the reveille is beaten about three o'clock, and the sleepy soldiers arouse from their beds on the ground, pack up their tents, blankets, and equipments, get a hasty breakfast, and fall into their ranks. If some commander—perhaps of a regiment only—has been dilatory, the whole movement is delayed. Many well-formed plans have been defeated by the indolence of a subordinate commander and his failure to put his troops in motion at the designated hour. Such a delay may embarrass the whole army by detaining other portions, whose movements are to be governed by those of the belated fragment. At four o'clock, if orders have been obeyed, the long columns are moving. Perhaps four or five hours are occupied in filing out into the road. While the sun is rising and the birds engaged at their matins, the troops are trudging along at that pace of three miles an hour, which seems so tardy, but which, persisted in day after day, traverses so great a distance. Every hour there is ten or fifteen minutes' halt, enabling the rear to close up, and the men to relieve themselves temporarily of their guns and knapsacks. Soon the heat commences to grow oppressive, the dust rises in suffocating clouds, knapsacks weigh like lead, and the artillery horses pant as they drag the heavy guns. But the steady tramp must be continued till about eleven o'clock, when a general halt under the shelter of some cool woods, by the side of a stream, is ordered. Two or three hours of welcome rest are here employed in dinner and finishing the broken morning's nap. After the intenser heat of the day is past, the tramp recommences, and continues till six or seven o'clock, when the place appointed for encamping is reached. Soon white tents cover every hill and plain and valley, the weary animals are unharnessed, trees and fence rails disappear rapidly to feed the consuming camp fires, there is a universal buzz formed from the laugh, the song, the shout, and the talking of twenty thousand voices: it gradually subsides, the fires grow dim, and silence and darkness fall upon the scene.

Such marching, with its twenty, twenty-five, or thirty miles a day, is light compared with the harassing fatigues of a retreat, before the pursuit of a triumphant enemy. To accomplish this movement, so as to save the organization and the material of an army, without too great a loss of life, tests in the highest degree the skill of a commander and the fortitude of the men. In a retreat, the usual order of marching is reversed—the trains are sent in the advance, and the troops must remain behind for their protection. Often it happens that they are obliged to remain in line all day, to check by fighting the advance of the enemy, and then continue their march by night. The dead and wounded must, to a great extent, be left on the field; supplies are perhaps exhausted, with no opportunity for replenishment; the merciless cannon of the enemy are constantly thundering in the rear, his cavalry constantly making inroads upon the flanks. Weary, hungry, exhausted, perhaps wounded, the soldier must struggle along for days and nights, if he would avoid massacre or consignment to the cruelties of a prison. The rout of a great army—the disorganization and confusion of a retreat, even when well conducted—the toil and suffering and often slaughter—are the saddest scenes earth can present. Who can paint the terrors of that winter retreat of the French from Moscow? Fortunately, in our war we have had nothing to equal in horrors the retreats of European armies, but no one who passed through those trying seven days fighting and marching which closed the Peninsula campaign, can ever fail to shudder at the sufferings imposed on humanity by a retreat.



VIOLATIONS OF LITERARY PROPERTY.

THE FEDERALIST.—LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JOHN JAY.

Among the rights which are ill protected by law, and yet of essential importance to the individual and society, are those of literary property. If any bequest should be sacred, it is that of thought, convictions, art—the intellectual personality that survives human life—and the 'local habitation and the name' whereby genius, opinion, sentiment—what constitutes the best image and memorial of a life and a mind, a character and a career, is preserved and transmitted. And yet, with all our boasted civilization and progress, no rights are more frequently or grossly violated, no wrongs so little capable of redress, as those relating to literary property. Herein there is a singular moral obtuseness a want of chivalry, an inadequate sense of obligation—doubtless in part originating in that unjust legislation, or rather want of legislation, whereby international law protects the products of the mind and recognizes national literature as a great social interest. Within a few months, the biography of our pioneer author,[13] whose memory his life and character, not less than his genius, had singularly endeared to the whole range of English readers—was prepared by a relative designated by himself, who, with remarkable tact and fidelity, completed his delicate task, according to the materials provided and the wishes expressed by his illustrious kinsman. A London publisher reprinted the work, with eighty pages interpolated, wherein, with an utter disregard to common delicacy toward the dead or self-respect in the living, unauthentic gossip is made to desecrate the reticent and consistent tone of the work, pervert its spirit, and detract from its harmonious attraction and truth. A greater or more indecent and unjustifiable liberty was never taken by a publisher with a foreign work; it was an insult to the memory of Washington Irving, to his biographer and those who cherish his fame.

Not many weeks ago, an eloquent young divine, who had in no small degree saved the State of California to the Union, by his earnest and constant plea for national integrity, died in the midst of his useful and noble career: forthwith the publisher of a Review, in whose pages some of his early essays had appeared, announced their republication: in vain the friends and family of Starr King protested against so crude and limited a memorial of his genius, and entreated that they might be allowed to glean and garner more mature and complete fruits of his pen, as a token of his ability and his career; and thus do justice, by careful selection and well-advised preparation, to the memory they and their fellow citizens so tenderly and proudly cherished: no; the articles had been paid for, the recent death of the writer gave them a market value, and the publishers were resolved to turn them to account, however good taste and right feeling and sacred associations were violated.

Again, one of the few legal works of American origin which has a standard European reputation is Wheaton's 'International Law.' Its author was eminently national in his convictions; foreign service and patriotic instincts had made him thoroughly American in his sympathies and sentiments; no one of our diplomatic agents sent home such comprehensive and sagacious despatches, having in view 'the honor and welfare of the whole country;' and no one who knew Henry Wheaton doubts that, were he living at this hour, all his influence, hopes, and faith would be identified with the Union cause.

Yet an edition[14] of his great work has lately appeared, edited in an opposite interest; and the standard reference on the law of nations, so honorable to the legal knowledge, perspicacity, and candor of an American author, goes forth perverted and deformed by annotations and comments indirectly sympathetic with the wicked rebellion now devastating the nation. Can a greater literary outrage be imagined? Is it possible more grossly to violate the rights of the dead?

Aware that certain rules apply to the annotation of legal treatises not recognized in other departments of literature, and diffident of personal judgment in this respect, in order to ascertain how far our sense of this violation of literary property and reputation was well founded, how far we were right in asserting a partisan aim, we requested an accomplished lawyer, thoroughly versed in the literature of his profession, and experienced as an editor, to examine this edition of Wheaton, and state his own opinion thereof: to him we are indebted for the following clear and palpable instances of a perverted use of a standard American treatise, endeared to many living friends of the author, and all his intelligent and patriotic countrymen: of the 'additions' to the original by the editor, he says:

'1. They indicate considerable reading and industry, but are far too voluminous, and abound in extended extracts from speeches, state papers, and statutes, which should have been omitted altogether, or very much abridged.

'2. They contain no language complimentary to the Administration, little or nothing in defence of the Government—none that can be offensive to Jefferson Davis; and, as a whole, they give the impression that he regards the Confederate position as being quite as defensible, on the principles of international law, as that of the United States.

'3. He has no word of censure for Lord John Russell, and no word of apology for Mr. Seward. He nowhere calls the Confederates rebels, and nowhere thinks the conduct of France suspicious or unfriendly.

'4. His positions are unquestionably the same with those of Seymour, Bishop Hopkins, Professor Morse, Judge Woodward, etc.

'5. He is everywhere cold—more willing to wound than bold to strike; and yet he fretfully commits himself before he gets through, in defence of slavery and extreme democratic positions.

'6. He does not pretend that he was ever requested by the great author with whose productions he has taken such liberties to undertake the editorial duties.

'His language is so general that one needs to read it carefully to feel the full force of what I have said.

'In the preface (page 1-20), he speaks of 'Spanish American independence, now jeopardized by our fratricidal contest'—fratricidal is indeed a favorite word; he uses it in an offensive sense as regards the United States. Page 99, note, he says of slavery, what is utterly untrue, that 'the Constitution recognized it as property, and pledges the Federal Government to protect it.' The noble act of June 19, 1862, forbidding slavery in United States Territories, he comments on in this wise: 'This act wholly ignores the decision of the Supreme Court (meaning the Dred Scott case) on the subject of slavery.' He then inserts the whole act in the note, only to hold it up to censure—'testing it by international law' as interpreted by him. At page 605 he denounces that law as 'obnoxious not only to the principles of international law, but to the Constitution of the United States.' His note and extracts, including long extracts from speeches of Thomas, of Massachusetts, and Crittenden, of Kentucky, fill more than twenty-two pages—reserving a line or two of text at the top. To say nothing of the sentiments, such notes are a shameful abuse of the reputation and work of Mr. Wheaton, and a perversion of the duties and rights of an editor. But a word of the sentiments. He exhausts himself and the records of the past in accumulating precedents to condemn the policy of freeing slaves as a war measure, or of arming them in the nation's defence.

'At page 614, in this same note, speaking of the effect of the Proclamation of Emancipation, he says: 'The attention of publicists may well be called to the withdrawal of the four millions of men from the cultivation of cotton, which, is the source of wealth of the great commercial and manufacturing nations of Europe.' That is, he suggests this as a ground for interference in our affairs on the principles of his international law. He further adds that this cultivation of cotton is 'by nature a virtual monopoly of the seceded States;' that is, nature preordained the negroes to be slaves in the seceded States to raise cotton; and hence natural and international law require emancipation proclamations to be put down. Did Stephens ever go farther? Again, on the same page, he says: 'The effect on the United States, in the event of the reestablishment of the Federal authority,' without the Proclamation in force, etc., 'would be seriously felt, in its financial bearings,' etc.—'abroad as well as at home.' Not satisfied, therefore, with suggesting a justification of intervention, on the basis of international law, he appeals to the cupidity of foreigners as well as natives, by hinting also that financial ruin may follow the triumph of Freedom and the Federal armies. What a shame that an American editor should use the great name of Wheaton to give dignity to such suggestions in foreign countries.' He then gives—all in the same interminable note (page 614)—an extract from The Morning Chronicle, of May 16, 1860, of which I give you this delicious morsel: 'No blacks, no cotton, such is the finality.' At page 609, he speaks of the 'incompatibility of confiscation of property with the present state of civilization.' At page 609, he quotes, with evident delight, the sanctimonious despatch of Lord John Russell about sinking ships in Charleston harbor, which his lordship calls a 'project only worthy the times of barbarism;' and the American annotator, who could use page after page to degrade his own Government for emancipating slaves, of course could not be expected to refer to any of the precedents that would have silenced Lord John, and have justified the United States; and he therefore passes on with no reference to them.