The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 1, July, 1862
TextEDITOR'S TABLE
The proclamation of President Lincoln in reference to General Hunter, and the bold measures of the latter calling forth Executive interference, form one of the most interesting episodes of the war of Freedom. Regarded from the high standpoint whence acts are seen as controlled by circumstances and formed by events, the conduct of the one public functionary, as of the other, will appear to the future historian in a very different light from that in which it has been presented by either the radical or democratic journals of the day. He will speak of the one as a military chieftain under the influence of worthy motives, cutting a Gordian knot which the higher and controlling diplomatic and executive superior wished should be cautiously untied. The one has acted with a view to promptly settling a great trouble within his own sphere—the other wisely comprehending that the action was premature, has decisively countered it. By attempting to free the slaves, General Hunter has shown himself a friend of freedom and a man of bold measures; by annulling his acts Mr. Lincoln has availed himself of an excellent opportunity of proving to the South and to the world that he is not, as was said, a sectional or an Abolition President, and that with the strongest sympathies for freedom, he is determined to respect the rights even of enemies, and leave behind him a clear record, as one who did nothing wrongly, and who with keen and wide comprehending glance took in the times as they were, and acted accordingly.
Meanwhile to the most prejudiced vision it is apparent that the great cause of Emancipation has gained vastly by this little struggle between the shepherd and that unruly member of the flock who would dash a little too impetuously ahead of his fellows. The proclamation of President Lincoln contains but cold comfort for the pro-slavery democracy, although they affect to rejoice over it. In vain may they declare, as they did of the celebrated 'remunerating message,' that it is very palatable, and vow that it 'creates fresh hope and gives a new and needed assurance to the conservative men of the nation.' The sour faces of their pro-slavery, Southern-adoring, English-ruled, traitorous friends is an effectual answer to their hypocrisy. We have not forgotten how warmly the Democratic press indorsed the message of January 6th, or how the Democratic multitude kicked against it in public meetings.
Let the Democratic tories of the day who find this message so consolatory, duly weigh the following extract from it:
'I further make known that whether it be competent for me as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy to declare the slaves of any State or States free, and whether at any time or in any case it shall have become a necessity indispensable to the maintenance of the Government to exercise such supposed power, are questions which under my responsibility I reserve to myself, and which I can not feel justified in leaving to the decisions of commanders in the field. These are totally different questions from those of police regulations in armies and camps. On the sixth day of March last, by a special message, I recommended to Congress the adoption of a joint resolution to be substantially as follows:
"Resolved, That the United States ought to co-operate with, any State which may adopt a gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be used by such State in its discretion, to compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of system.'
'The resolution, in the language above quoted, was adopted by large majorities in both branches of Congress, and now stands an authentic, definite, and solemn proposal of the Nation to the States and people moat immediately interested in the subject-matter. To the people of those States, I now earnestly appeal. I do not argue, I beseech you to make the arguments for yourselves. You can not, if you would, be blind to the signs of the times. I beg of you a calm and enlarged consideration of them, ranging, if it may be, far above personal and partisan politics. This proposal makes common cause for a common object, casting no reproaches upon any. It acts not the Pharisee. The change it contemplates would come gently as the dews of heaven, not rending or wrecking any thing. Will you not embrace it? So much good has not been done by one effort in all past time as in the providence of God it is your high privilege to do. May the vast future not have to lament that you have neglected it.'
If any one can see in this aught save the clearest sympathy with the gradual advance of Emancipation, he must be indeed gifted with a strange faculty of perversion. If, however, the Democrats indorse the President's recommendation and approve the Executive policy of gradual emancipation for the sake of the white man, why do they continue to abuse so fiercely presses which agree exactly with the Administration, and ask for nothing more than a recognition of the great principle and its realization according to circumstance?
A more contemptible and pitiable political spectacle was never yet presented than that which may now be witnessed in the actions and words of the 'Conservative' Democracy. Driven day by day nearer into their true light of sympathizers at heart with the enemy—upholding the institution for which it fights—obliged to bear the odium of its ancient opposition to protection, disgraced by its enmity to American manufacturing interests—apologizing in a thousand shuffling, petty ways for English arrogance—this wretched fragment of a faction, after assuring the South that the North would not fight, and persuading the North that the South was quite in the right in every thing, now appears as constant meddler and mischief-maker in the great struggle going on, giving to it those elements of darkness, disgrace, and treason which, unfortunately, are always to be found in the greatest struggles for freedom and right, and which, when history is written, give such grounds to the carper, the sophist, and skeptic to ridicule the noblest efforts of humanity. Such are the self-called Conservatives in this great battle—men hindering and impeding the great cause, eagerly grasping at every little premature advance—as in the case of General Hunter's action, to scream out that all will be lost, and exult over its correction by the leading power as though they had gained a victory!
Meanwhile it is a matter of no small import to observe that there has been a vast increase in the mass of indorsement of General Hunter's conduct compared to what there would have been a few months ago. However it interfered with the general policy of the Executive, no one doubts that as a military and local measure it was eminently wise. Sooner or later it will be adopted—meanwhile what has been done has been productive of results which can not be undone. The great cause is the cause of God—and every struggle only aids it onward.
The London Times of May 10th contained a long editorial leader on American affairs, beginning in the following manner:
'It will have been noticed as a singular feature of the American quarrel, that no intervention is thought probable or practicable, except in favor of the South. Mediation, in whatever form or under whatever name it is to be offered, is universally taken to imply some movement in behalf of the Confederates. So completely, indeed, are the belligerents themselves impressed with this idea, that the South casts it in our teeth as a scandal and a blunder that no European arbitration has been yet interposed; while the President of the Northern States actually proclaims a day of thanksgiving for the deliverance of the country from 'foreign intervention,' which he identifies with nothing less than 'invasion.' The instincts of the combatants have undoubtedly led them to correct decisions on this point, but the fact is not a little curious. We need not dissemble the truth about certain prepossessions current in Europe. It is beyond denial that, in spite of the slavery question, the Southerners have been rather the favorites, partly as the weaker side, partly as conquerors against odds, and partly because their demand for independence was thought too natural to be resisted at the sword's point by a Government founded on the right of insurrection only. To these merely sentimental and not very cogent considerations was added the more potent and weighty reflection that what the Southerners had done no Power, whether American or European, could succeed in undoing.'
The rest of the article, as the reader may recall, was devoted to sneering at the North and in commending intervention; the whole being characterized by an underhand, venomous, and latent treacherous tone, much more becoming a vindictive and vulgar Oriental than a civilized and Christian European.
A little while before the Times leader appeared, the London Morning Herald had informed the world that
France and England suffer more than neutrals ever suffered from any contest, and both begin to regard the war as interminable and atrocious.'
It is singular that the great majority of the British press and people should dare to talk so glibly of intervention in this our civil war, when we consider what their intermeddling may cost them. Cotton they may or may not get, but no intervention can compel us to buy their goods, and, as we have already pointed out in our columns, the entire loss of the free States market involves a disaster which will be permanent and terrible. Apart from the danger attendant upon insolently threatening a nation amply capable of mustering an army of a million on its own soil—two thirds of them practiced in war—there remains to be considered the utter loss of all American custom. We buy much more than any other nation whatever. Worse than this, for Europe, there would follow Such a development of our home-manufactures as would seriously threaten to drive England and France from a hundred markets. Let them think twice ere they intervene. But the people, it is said, are starving; and it may be, for this is one of the occasional and unavoidable results of England's endeavoring to become the workshop of the world. By over-manufacturing, she has brought it to such a pitch that one fourth of her population live on imported food—such as do not starve outright—for be it remembered that in Great Britain one person in eight is buried at the public expense, while one in every twelve or fourteen is a constant pauper. They are starving at present more than usual, simply because the North is buying less; but to turn away any popular opposition to government, and suppress riots, they and the world are told that the trouble all comes from the closing of Southern ports and the want of cotton! This, too, when published facts show that the stock of goods and cotton on hand far exceeds the demand, and is likely to exceed it for a long time to come. It is not cotton that England or France want, but customers. How are they to obtain these? By exasperating their best buyers beyond all reconciliation? The day that witnesses British or French meddling in our war, sees the inauguration of such hostility to their manufactures as they little dream of. There will be leagues formed to enforce this to the letter. It will be treason to wear an inch of English cloth or of French silk, and what lie will they say to their starving operatives then?
Already within the past year, great advances have been made in manufacturing, especially in silks. A little closing of us up would be the worst experiment for England that she ever yet tried. She may possibly get cotton from the South, but not a customer from the North. You may lead a horse to water, but it is another affair to make him drink. And no one who can recall the prompt resolve not to use English goods, and the beginning of leagues to that effect, of which we lately heard so much, can doubt that in case we hear much more of this impertinence of intervention, the American market would immediately be lost to the insolent meddlers. It is only of late that the free States have shaken off their Democratic, pro-slavery, anti-tariff tyrants, and learned to be free. England has groaned and howled at our freedom; now she goes so far as to threaten; but unless she soon stop that, we shall promptly show her where the strength lies. While we were under a half-Southern, half-British tyranny, we could do nothing. And be it remembered that from the days of the New-York Plebeian, when British gold was spent literally by the million in this country, to strengthen the Democratic party and build up free trade, slavery and English interests always went hand in hand to oppress the interests of American free labor. But we shall soon change all that. It is in our power to chastise British impudence most effectually, and we shall probably soon be called upon to do it, by buying nothing from abroad.
The inhuman, inconsistent, and cynically selfish conduct of England toward the North in this war, whenever we have been threatened by reverses, should not be forgotten. It has been literally devilish in its grossness and meanness. Whatever wickedness the South has been guilty of was at least barefaced and bold. The South had not for years labored to build up an Abolition party in the North, as England did. For well nigh half a century has England howled, wailed, whined, and canted over slavery; but at the first pinch of the pocket, away goes the previous philanthropy, and John Bull stands revealed, the brutal, cruel, treacherous, lying savage that he is at heart, under all his aristocratic feudal trash and gilding. Well, we know him at last, and will remember him. His conduct toward us has put hay on his horns—foenum habet in cornu—and we shall avoid him. Let the manufacturers of America watch this intolerably insolent intervention closely, and lose no opportunity to turn it to their own advantage, that is to say, to the advantage of the whole nation. Let them, by means of journal and pamphlet, profusely scattered, explain to the people the enormous wrong which England is seeking to do us, and the deliberate, we may truthfully say, the official falsehood on which it is based. They have it in their power to make our country literally free—will they hesitate to use that power?
The reliance of England is, by returning to her sweet, stale flatteries, after the establishment of the Confederacy, to be friends as of old with the North. It is, she thinks, easily done. Our servants abroad and their friends are to be a little more favored with levee tickets and access to noble society; a few dozen more of the rank and file will be marched along or 'presented' before her Majesty, and thereby sworn in to endless admiration of all that is Anglican; venerable gentlemen in white waistcoats will make sweet speeches, after public dinners, of the beauty of Union, just as they made them here a year ago, in reference to the South, when the tiger was on the spring. The old see-saw of 'nations united in language and customs—brothers at heart,' will be set to vibrating, and all, as they believe, must jog along merrily as of old. For it is with a very little regularly organized stuff of this kind, turned on or off as from a hydrant, and always in dribbling drops at that, that England has, when necessary, pacified and delighted a great number of Americans, semi-insane to be received on terms of equality by the 'higher classes,' whom they worshiped at heart, while they affected all manner of bold Americanisms to hide the truth. It is time to end all this. We have come to serious and terrible days, and must be free from all such flunkeyism. In our hour of trouble, the English press boldly proclaimed that its sympathy was with the South. Let it be remembered!
In our June number we gave the Kansas John Brown song, for the benefit of those who collect the more curious ballads of the war. We are indebted to Clark's School-Visitor for the following song of the Contrabands, which originated among the latter, and was first sung by them in the hearing of white people at Fortress Monroe, where it was noted down by their chaplain, Rev. L.C. Lockwood. It is to a plaintive and peculiar air, and we may add has been published with it in 'sheet-music style,' with piano-forte accompaniment, by Horace Waters, New-York:
OH! LET MY PEOPLE GO
the song of the contrabands
The Lord, by Moses, to Pharaoh said: Oh! let my people go;
If not, I'll smite your first-born dead—Oh! let my people go.
Oh! go down, Moses,
Away down to Egypt's land,
And tell King Pharaoh
To let my people go.
No more shall they in bondage toil—Oh! let my people go;
Let them come out with Egypt's spoil—Oh! let my people go.
Haste, Moses, till the sea you've crossed—Oh! let my people go;
Pharaoh shall in the deep be lost—Oh! let my people go.
The sea before you shall divide—Oh! let my people go;
You'll cross dry-shod to the other aide—Oh! let my people go.
Fear not King Pharaoh or his host—Oh! let my people go;
For they shall in the sea be lost—Oh! let my people go.
They'll sink like lead, to rise no more—Oh! let my people go;
An' you'll hear a shout on the other shore—Oh! let my people go.
The fiery cloud shall lead the way—Oh! let my people go;
A light by night and a shade by day—Oh! let my people go.
Jordan shall stand up like a wall—Oh! let my people go;
And the wails of Jericho shall fall—Oh! let my people go.
Your foes shall not before you stand—Oh! let my people go;
And you'll possess fair Canaan's land—Oh! let my people go.
Oh! let us all from bondage flee—Oh! let my people go;
And let us all in Christ be free—Oh! let my people go.
This world's a wilderness of woe—Oh! let my people go;
Oh! let us all to glory go—Oh! let my people go.
Oh! go down, Moses,
Away down to Egypt's land,
And tell King Pharaoh
To let my people go.
Speaking of the interview some weeks since between M. le Comte Henri de Mercier with the extremely 'honorable' J.P. Benjamin, the secession Secretary of State, the Petersburg (Virginia) Express uses the following elegantly accurate language:
'It is said that these two distinguished functionaries spoke the French dialect altogether, the gallant Frenchman not having yet been enabled to master the good old Anglo-Saxon idiom.'
What, to begin with, is the French dialect? The Provencal, the Gascon, the Norman, are tolerably prominent French dialects, but which of them is preëminently the dialect we will not decide—nor why the diplomatic gentlemen selected a dialect instead of French itself as a medium of conversation. It is, however, possible that Comte de Mercier having heard of little Benjamin's antecedents, talked to him in argôt or thieves' slang. It may be that in the school of Floyd and Benjamin argôt is the dialect.
Again, we learn that the gallant Frenchman spoke 'the French dialect' because he has not as yet mastered 'the good old Anglo-Saxon idiom.' This is even more puzzling than the dialect-question. Why the Anglo-Saxon idiom? Suppose Count Mercier wished to say that he was sorry that his tobacco had been captured by the foe, why should he couch it in such language as, 'Thá mee ongan hréowan thaet mín tobacco on feónda geweald feran sceolde'—which is the good old Anglo-Saxon idiom.' We can imagine that thieves' slang would have the place of honor in Secessia, but why the old Anglo-Saxon idiom should be so esteemed, puzzled us for a longtime. At last we hit it. The Southrons have long been told—or told themselves—that they are Normans, while we of the North are Saxon—and hoping to acquire a little Anglo-Saxon intelligence, prudently begin by studying the language which they believe is in common use among our literati.
Seriously, it is not merely to stoop to such small game as the grammar of a secession newspaper that we notice these amusing mistakes. There are many persons-we are sorry to say many clergymen among others—here, even in the free States, who, in attempting to write elegantly, use words very ridiculously. They say 'dialect' and 'idiom' when they mean 'language;' they use 'donate' for 'give;' 'transpired' for 'happened;' 'paper' for 'newspaper,' and describe various events as taking place in 'our midst'—all because they think that these vulgarisms are really more correct than the words or terms in common use.
We wish, however, that Anglo-Saxon—joking apart—were more generally studied. When we remember that the very great majority of good words in English are of Saxon origin, and with them all that is characteristic either in our grammar or modes of expression, it becomes evident that the most certain and shortest method of arriving at a thorough and correct comprehension of English is by the study of its most important element—one which, as a writer has well said, bears the same relation to our mother-tongue as oxygen does to water. It is not fair to speak as some do of the Latin and Saxon wings of the English bird—the bird itself is Saxon—head and tail included. English has been but little benefited by its Latin and Greek additions—the old tongue had excellent synonyms or creative capacity like German—to fully equal every new need of thought.
The reader who has time for study, would do well to obtain the Anglo-Saxon Grammar of Louis Klipstein, published by G.P. Putnam, New-York, which is by far the most practical and easiest work of the kind with which we are acquainted. A few days' study in it will be time well invested by any one desirous of really understanding English. When we reflect that many boys study Latin for years 'because it enables them to understand the structure and derivation of their own language,' while the extremely easy Anglo-Saxon is almost entirely neglected, we smile at the ignorance of the first principles of education which prevails. But we advise the reader who may have a few shillings and a few hours to spare to invest them in a 'KLIPSTEIN,' and know—what very few writers do—something of the roots of English. Our word for it, he will not regret following the advice.
We are indebted to a Dawfuskie Island correspondent for the following details relative to