Various - Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1.

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CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

FROM

Charles William Wason

THE

CONTINENTAL MONTHLY.

DEVOTED TO

Literature and National Policy.

VOL. II.

JULY-DECEMBER, 1862.

New York: JOHN F. TROW, 50 GREENE STREET. (FOR THE PROPRIETORS).

1862.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, by

JOHN F. TROW,

For the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for
the Southern District of New York.

JOHN F. TROW,

Printer, Stereotyper and Electrotyper, 48 & 50 Greene Street, New York.

ENTERED, according to an Act of Congress, in the year 1882 by JAMES B.
GILMORE, in the Clerk of the Office of the District Court of the United
States for the Southern District of New-York.

JOHN A. GRAY PRINTER

The Continental Monthly:

Devoted to Literature and National Policy.

CONTENTS.----No. VII

What shall be the end? 1
Bone Ornaments, 5
The Molly O'Molly Papers. No. V., 6
Glances from the Senate-Gallery, 10
Maccaroni and Canvas. No. V., 14
For the Hour of Triumph, 26
In Transitu, 27
Among the Pines, 28
Was He Successful? 48
Newbern as it was and is, 58
Our Brave Times, 62
The Crisis and the Parties, 65
I Wait, 69
Taking the Census, 70
The Peloponnesus in March, 74
Adonium, 82
Polytechnic Institutes, 83
Slavery and Nobility vs. Democracy, 89
Watching the Stag, 105
Literary Notices, 106
Editor's Table, 109

SLAVERY AND NOBILITY vs. DEMOCRACY.

This article, written by a gentleman who, for fifteen years, was one of
the most prominent citizens of Texas, will be found worthy of most
attentive perusal.

WATCHING THE STAG

An unfinished Poem by FITZ-JAMES O'BRIEN, we give as it came wet from
the pen of its lamented author.

INDEX TO VOLUME II.

PAGE
Among the Pines. Edmund Kirke, 28, 127
An Englishman in South Carolina, 689
Adorium, 82
A True Romance. Isabella McFarlane, 190
A Physician's Story, 667
Astor and the Capitalists of New York. W. Frothingham, 207
A Merchant's Story. Edmund Kirke, 232, 328, 451, 560, 719
American Student Life, 266
Author Borrowing, 285
Anthony Trollope on America, 302
A Military Nation. Charles G. Leland, 453
A Southern Review. Charles G. Leland, 466
Aurora. Hon. Horace Greeley, 622

Bone Ornaments. Charles G. Leland, 5

Cambridge and its Colleges, 662
Corn is King, 237

Editor's Table, 109, 241, 369, 481, 638, 750
Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-Two, U.S. Johnson, 442

For the Hour of Triumph, 26
Flower Arranging, 444

Glances from the Senate Gallery. G.W. Towle, 10, 154
Gold. Hon. E.J. Walker, 743

Helter-Skelter Papers, 175
Hopeful Tackett. Richard Wolcott, 262
Huguenots of New York City. Hon. G.P. Disosway, 193
Henry Thomas Buckle, 253

In Transitu, 27
I Wait, 69

John McDonogh. Alexander Walker, 165
John Bull to Jonathan, 265
John Neil, 295

La Vie Poetique, 679
Literary Notices, 106, 238, 866, 478, 636, 747
London Fogs and London Poor, 404

Maccaroni and Canvas. Henry P. Leland, 14, 144, 290, 383, 591

Newbern as it Was and Is. F. Kidder, 58
National Unity. Hon. Horace Greeley, 357

On Guard. John G. Nicolay, 706
Our Brave Times, 62
Our Wounded. C.K. Tuckerman, 465
One of the Million. Caroline Chesebro', 541

Polytechnic Institutes. Charles G. Leland, 83

Railway Photographs. Isabella McFarlane, 708
Rewarding the Army. Charles G. Leland, 161
Reminiscences of Andrew Jackson, 318
Red, Yellow, and Blue, 535

Slavery and Nobility _vs._ Democracy. Lorenzo Sherwood, 89
Southern Rights, 143
Sketches of the Orient. Hon. J.P. Brown, 179
Shakspeare's Richard III. Rev. E.G. Holland, 320
Shoulder Straps. Henry Morford, 342
Sir John Suckling, 397
Southern Hate of the North. Horace Greeley, 448
Something we have to Think of, and to Do. C.S. Henry, LL.D., 657
Stewart, and the Dry Goods Trade of New York. W. Frothingham, 528

Thank God for All. Charles G. Leland, 718

The Molly O'Molly Papers, 6, 200, 257
The Crisis and the Parties. C.G. Leland, 65
Taking the Census, 70
The Ash Tree. Charles G. Leland, 682
The Obstacles to Peace. A Letter to an Englishman.
Hon. Horace Greeley, 714
The Freed Men of the South. Hon. F.P. Stanton, 730
The Peloponnesus in March, 74
The Last Ditch. Charles G. Leland, 159
The Bone of our Country, 198
The Soldier and the Civilian. C.G. Leland, 281
The Negro in the Revolution, 324
The Children in the Wood. Henry Morford, 354
The Constitution as It Is. C.S. Henry, LL.D., 377
Tom Winter's Story. G.W. Chapman, 416
The White Hills in October. C.M. Sedgwick, 423
The Union. Hon. E.J. Walker, 457, 572, 641
The Causes of the Rebellion. Hon. F.P. Stanton, 513, 695
The Wolf Hunt. Charles G. Leland, 580
The Poetry of Nature, 581
The Proclamation, 603
The Press in the United States. Hon. F.L. Stanton, 604
The Homestead Bill. Hon. R.J. Walker, 627

Up and Act. Charles G. Leland, 314
Unheeded Growth. John Neil, 534

What shall be the End? Hon. J.W. Edmonds, 1
Was He Successful? 48, 218, 360, 470, 610, 734
Watching the Stag. Fitz-James O'Brien, 105
Witches, Elves and Goblins, 184
Wounded. Henry P. Leland, 206
Word-Murder, 524

Vol. II.--July, 1862.--No. 1.

WHAT SHALL BE THE END?

If we look to the development of slavery the past thirty years, we shall
see that the ideas of Calhoun respecting State Sovereignty have had a
mighty influence in gradually preparing the slave States for the course
which they have taken. Slavery, in its political power, has steadily
become more aggressive in its demands. A morbid jealousy of Northern
enterprise and thrift, with the contrast more vivid from year to year,
of the immeasurable superiority of free labor, has brought about a
growing aversion, in the South, to the free States, until with every
opportunity presented for pro-slavery extension, there has resulted the
present organized combination of slave States that have seceded from the
Union. When the mind goes back to the early formation of our Government
and the adoption of the Constitution, it will be found that an entire
revolution of opinion and feeling has taken place upon the subject of
slavery. From being regarded, as formerly, an evil by the South, it is
now proclaimed a blessing; from being viewed as opposed to the whole
spirit and teachings of the Bible, it is now thought to be of divine
sanction; from being regarded as opposed to political liberty, and the
elevation of the masses, the popular doctrine now is, that slavery is
the corner-stone of republican institutions, and essential for a manly
development of character upon the part of the white population. Formerly
slavery was looked upon as peculiarly pernicious to the diffusion of
wealth and the progress of national greatness; now the South is
intoxicated with ideas of the profitableness of slave labor, and the
power of King Cotton in controlling the exchanges of the world. And the
same change has taken place in relation to the African slave-trade.
While the laws of the land brand as piracy the capture of negroes upon
their native soil, and the transportation of them over the ocean, it is
nevertheless true that a mighty change in Southern opinion has taken
place in respect to the character of this business. It is not looked
upon with the same horror as formerly. It is apologized for, and in some
places openly defended as a measure indispensable to the prosperity of
the cotton States. As a natural inference from the theory of those who
hold to the views of Calhoun upon State sovereignty, the doctrine of
coercion in any form by the Federal Union is denounced, and to attempt
to put it in practice even so far as the protection of national property
is concerned, is construed into a war upon the South. Thus, while it is
perfectly proper for the slave States to steal, and plunder the nation
of its property, to leave the Union at their pleasure, and to do every
thing in their power to destroy the unity of the National Government, it
is made out that to attempt to recover the property of the Federal Union
is unjustifiable aggression upon the slave States. Thus we see eleven
States in a confederate capacity openly making war upon the Federal
Government, and compelling it either into a disgraceful surrender of its
rights as guaranteed by the Constitution, or war for self-defense. Fort
Sumter was not allowed to be provisioned, nor was there any disposition
manifested to permit its possession in any manner honorable to the
Government, although its exclusive property. It must be surrendered
unconditionally, or be attacked.

The worst feature connected with the secession movement is the hot haste
with which the most important questions connected with the interests of
the people are hurried through. The ordinance of secession is not fairly
submitted to the people, but a mere oligarchy of desperate men
themselves assume to declare war, and exercise all the prerogatives of
an independent and sovereign government. And yet the terms submitted in
the Crittenden Resolutions as a peace-offering to the seceding States to
win them back by concessions from the North, present a spectacle quite
as mournful for the cause of national unity and dignity as the open
rebellion of the seceding States. The professed aim of these States is
either a reconstruction of the Constitution in a way that shall
nationalize slavery and give it supreme control, or a forcible
disruption of the Union. What are the terms proposed that alone appear
to satisfy the South? They may be briefly comprehended in a short
extract from a speech delivered by Senator Wilson, of Massachusetts,
February 21, 1861:

'But the Senator from Kentucky asks us of the North by irrepealable
constitutional amendments to recognize and protect slavery in the
Territories now existing, or hereafter acquired south of thirty-six
degrees, thirty minutes; to deny power to the Federal Government to
abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, in the forts,
arsenals, navy-yards, and places under the exclusive jurisdiction
of Congress; to deny the National Government all power to hinder
the transit of slaves through one State to another; to take from
persons of the African race the elective franchise, and to purchase
territory in South-America, or Africa, and send there, at the
expense of the Treasury of the United States, such free negroes as
the States may desire removed from their limits. And what does the
Senator propose to concede to us of the North? The prohibition of
slavery in Territories north of thirty-six degrees and thirty
minutes, where no one asks for its inhibition, where it has been
made impossible by the victory of Freedom in Kansas, and the
equalization of the fees of the slave Commissioners.'

Here we have the true position in which the free States are placed
toward the slaveholding States. Seven States openly throw off all
allegiance to the Federal Union, do not even profess to be willing to
come back upon any terms, and then such conditions are proposed by the
other slaveholding States as leads to the repudiation of the
Constitution in its whole spirit and import upon the subject of slavery.
The alternative, in reality, is either civil war or the surrender of the
Constitution into the hands of pro-slavery men to be molded just as it
may suit their convenience. The price they ask for peace is simply the
liberty to have their own way, and that the majority should be willing
to submit to the minority. They aim for a reconstruction of the Union
that shall incorporate the Dred Scott decision into the whole policy of
the Government and make slavery the supreme power of the country, and
all other interests subservient to it. The North has its choice of two
evils--unconditional and unqualified submission to the demands of
slavery, or civil war. It is expected, since the country has yielded
step by step to the exactions of slavery ever since the Government was
instituted, that the free States will keep on yielding until the South
has nothing more to ask for, and the North has nothing more to give.
With such a servile compliance, the free States are assured that they
will have no difficulty in keeping the peace. But the question to be
decided is: Is such a kind of peace worth the price demanded for it? May
it not be true that great as is the evil of civil war, it is less an
evil than an unresisting acquiescence to the exactions of slavery, and
the admission that any State that pleases can leave the Union? The
theory of secession involves, if admitted, a greater disaster to the
Federal Union than even the slow eating at its vitals of the cancer of
slavery. National unity, one country, the sovereignty of the
Constitution, are all sacrificed by secession. It involves in it either
the worst anarchy or the worst despotism. United, the States can stand,
and command the respect of the world, but secession is an enemy to the
country, the most cruel. Rev. Dr. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, most
forcibly says:

'Every man who has any remaining loyalty to the nation, or any hope
and desire for the restoration of the seceding States to the
Confederacy, must see that what is meant by the outcry against
coercion is in the interest, of secession, and that what is meant
is, in effect, that the Federal Government must be terrified or
seduced into complete cooeperation with the revolution which it was
its most binding duty to have used all its power and influence to
prevent.'

Jefferson Davis, in his late message, says: 'Let us alone, let us go,
and the sword drops from our hands.' But what does this involve? The
admission of the right of secession, which, as has been proved, is fatal
to all national unity and preservation. Even if this arrogant demand was
complied with, would peace be thus possible? Would not the breaking up
of the Union involve the people in calamities that no patience, or
wisdom upon the part of the North could avert? Remember a long border in
an open country, stretching from the Atlantic, possibly even to the
Pacific, is to be defended. Will the bordering people sink down from
war, and all its exasperations, and become as peaceful as lambs?
Constituted as human nature now is, will the dissolution of the Union
create with the great North and South the experience of millennium
prediction, 'The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall
lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and fatling
together; and a little child shall lead them'? Here is a line crossed by
great rivers; we are to shut up the mouth of the Chesapeake bay, on Ohio
and Western Virginia; we are to ask the Western States to give up the
mouth of the Mississippi to a foreign power. Is it reasonable to suppose
that no provocation will occur on this long frontier? Will no slaves run
away? What is to be gained by a dissolution of the Union? Not peace; for
if, when united, there exists such cause of dissension, the evil will be
tenfold greater when separated. Not national aggrandizement, for
division brings weakness, imbecility, and a loss of self-respect; it
invites aggressions from foreign powers, and compels to submission to
insults that otherwise would not be given. Not general competence, for
the South is quite as dependent upon the North as the North upon the
South.

Disunion is a violent disruption of great material interests that now
are wedded together. The dream of separate State sovereignty, our great
Union split into two or more confederacies, prosperous and peaceable, is
Utopian. So far from the secession doctrine carried out leading to peace
and prosperity, it can only lead to perpetual war and adversity. The
request to be 'let alone,' is simply a request that the nation should
consent to see the Constitution and Union overthrown, slavery
triumphant, and the great problem that a free people can not choose its
own rulers against the will of a minority prove a disgraceful failure.
It is a request that a nation should purchase a temporary peace at the
price of all that is dear to its liberty and self-respect. The arrogance
of the demand '_to be let alone_,' is only equaled by the iniquity of
the means resorted to, to break up the best Government under the sun.
The question of disunion, of separate State sovereignty, was fully
discussed by our fathers. Thus Hamilton, whose foresight history has
proved to be prophetic, says:

'If these States should be either wholly disunited, or only united
in partial Confederacies, a man must be far gone in Utopian
speculations, who can seriously doubt that the subdivisions into
which they might be thrown would have frequent and violent contests
with each other. To presume a want of motives for such contests, as
an argument against their existence, would be to forget that men
are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious. To look for a
continuation of harmony between a number of independent,
unconnected sovereignties, situated in the same neighborhood, would
be to disregard the uniform course of human events, and to set at
defiance the accumulated experience of ages.'

From a consideration of the true import of the Constitution, in relation
to slavery and the fallacy and wickedness of the doctrine of Secession,
we are now prepared to deduce, from what has been said, the following
reflections: First, the war in which the nation is now plunged should
have strictly for its great end, the restoration of the Constitution and
the Union to its original integrity; all side issues, all mere party
questions should be now merged in one mighty effort, one persevering and
self-sacrificing aim to maintain the Constitution and the Union. As
essential for this purpose, it is indispensable that all the rights
guaranteed to loyal citizens in the slave States should be respected.
The reason is two-fold. First, this war, upon the part of the North, is
for the maintenance of the Constitution as our fathers gave it to us.
Its object is not a crusade against slavery. What may be the results of
the war in relation to slavery is one thing; what should be the simple
purpose of the North is another. That this war, however it may turn,
will be disastrous to slavery, is evident from a great variety of
considerations. But that we should pretend to fight for the Constitution
and the Union, and yet against its express provisions, in respect to
those held in bondage by loyal citizens, is simply to act a part
subversive of the true intent of the Constitution. To violate its
provisions, in relation to loyal citizens South, is in the highest
degree impolitic and suicidal. It is the constant aim of the enemies now
in armed rebellion against the Union, to misrepresent the North upon
this very point. By systematic lying, they have induced thousands South
to believe that the election of Lincoln was designed as an act of war
upon slave institutions, and to subvert the Constitution that protects
them in all that they call their property.

There is nothing that the rebels South are more anxious to see than the
Government adopting a policy that will give them a plausible pretense
for continuing in rebellion. The Constitution places the local
institution of slavery under the exclusive control of those States where
it exists. Its language, faithfully interpreted, is simply this: Your
own domestic affairs you have a right to manage as you please, so long
as you do not trespass upon the Union, or seek its ruin. All loyal
citizens should be encouraged to stand by the Union in every Southern
State, with the unequivocal declaration that all their rights will be
respected, and that their true safety, even as noblest interests, must
lie in upholding the North in the effort made to put down the vilest
rebellion under the sun. My second reflection is, that those South, who
are in armed rebellion against the Constitution and the Union, must make
up their minds to take what the fortune of war gives them. This
rebellion should be bandied without gloves. The North should permit
nothing to stand in the way of a complete and permanent triumph. As
Northern property is all confiscated South; as Union men there are
treated with the utmost barbarity; as nothing held by the lovers of the
Union is respected, the greatest injury in the end to the Constitution
and the Union is, an unwise clemency to armed rebellion. In this
death-struggle to test the vital question, whether the majority shall
rule, let there be no holding back of money or men. Dear as war may be,
a dishonorable peace will prove much dearer. Great as may be the
sufferings of the camp and the battle-field, yet the prolonged tortures
of a murdered Union, a violated Constitution, and Secession rampant over
the country, will be found to be greater. My third reflection is, that
the main cause of our civil war is slavery. It has now assumed gigantic
proportions of mischief, and with its hand upon the very throat of the
Constitution and the Union, it seeks its death. The worst feature
connected with it has ever been, that it is satisfied with no
concession, and the more it has, the more it asks. By the very admission
of the chiefs of this rebellion, it is confessedly got up for the sake
of slavery, and to make it the corner-stone of the new Confederacy of
States. The real issue involved by the rebellion is, complete
independence of the North, the dissolution of the Union, and exclusive
possession of all the territories south of Mason and Dixon's line; or
reconstruction upon such conditions as would result in the repudiation
of the old Constitution, the nationalization of slavery, and giving
complete political control to a slaveholding minority of the country.
This rebellion has placed the North where it must conquer, for its own
best interests, and dignity, and the salvation of free institutions. It
must conquer, to command future friendship and that respect without
which Union itself is a mockery. Let the South see that the North can
not be beaten, and the universal consciousness of this fact will command
an esteem, and the useful fear of committing offense, that will do more
to keep the peace than all the abject professions or humble submissions
in the world. Having found out that the North not only is conscious of
its rights, but has the willingness and the ability to defend them, it
is certain that the country will yet have as much peace, general thrift,
and noble enterprise with the onward march of virtue and intelligence,
as may be reasonably expected of any community upon the face of the
earth.

BONE ORNAMENTS.

Silent the lady sat alone:
In her ears were rings of dead men's bone;
The brooch on her breast shone white and fine,
'Twas the polished joint of a Yankee's spine;
And the well-carved handle of her fan,
Was the finger-bone of a Lincoln man.
She turned aside a flower to cull,
From a vase which was made of a human skull;
For to make her forget the loss of her slaves,
Her lovers had rifled dead men's graves.
Do you think I'm describing a witch or ghoul?
There are no such things--and I'm not a fool;
Nor did she reside in Ashantee;
No--the lady fair was an F.F.V.

THE MOLLY O'MOLLY PAPERS.

V.

'Hearts are trumps,' is a gambler's cant phrase. That depends on the
game you are playing. In many of the games of life the true trump cards
are Diamonds; which, according to the fortune-teller's lore, stand for
wealth. Indeed, Hearts are by many considered so valueless that they are
thrown away at the very outset; whereas they should, like trumps, only
be played as a last resort. No trick that can be won with any other
card, should be taken with a heart--the card will be gone and nothing to
show for it. If you wish wealth, win it if you can--honestly, of
course--but don't throw in the heart. Are you ambitious--would you win
honor? Very well, if for political honor you can endure it to be spit
upon by the crowd, to have all manner of abuse heaped on you and your
_forbears_ to the remotest generation--a ceremony that in Africa follows
the election, but is 'preliminary to the crowning,' but in this country
is preliminary to the election--but if you can make up your mind to pass
through this ordeal, well and good--but don't throw in the heart.... Yet
in games on which is staked all that is worth playing for, 'hearts _are_
trumps;' and he who holds the lowest card, stands a better chance of
winning than he who has none, though in his hand may be all the aces of
the others, diamonds included. But, lest I go too far beyond the
analogy--as I might ignorantly do, being unskilled in the many games of
cards--I will drop the figurative.... Keep your heart for faith, love,
friendship, for God, your country, and truth. And where the heart is
given, it should be unreservedly. Its allegiance is too often withheld
where it is due, yet this is better than a half-way loyalty; there
should be no _if_, followed by self-interest.... The seal of confederate
nobles, opposed to some measures of Peter IV. of Aragon, 'represents the
king sitting on his throne, with the confederates kneeling in a
suppliant attitude, around, to denote their loyalty and unwillingness to
offend. But in the back-ground, tents and lines of spears are
discovered, as a hint of their ability and resolution to defend
themselves.' ... This kind of allegiance no true heart will ever give.

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