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Addresses and Papers

BY

EDWARD L. PIERCE.

EDITED BY
A. W. STEVENS.

BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
1896.

Copyright, 1896,
By Edward L. Pierce.

SEittijrasttg 3IKS8 :
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.

PREFACE.
That quaint preacher, Robert Collyer, who mingles
with his native Yorkshire characteristics a thoroughly
Americanized tone, once said in my hearing, " Whenever
I meet a new man, I always want to say to him, ' What 's
the reason of ye?'" Of course, Mr. Collyer could get a
satisfactory answer to his question only by becoming
acquainted with the new man : by finding out the reason
in him, he found out the reason of bim.
To any one who takes up this volume of " Addresses
and Papers," and inquires. Why was this book printed?
I have but to say. If you will take the pains to read its three
hundred and ninety-seven pages, I am confident that you
will be satisfied it has a reason for existence. It is true
that public interest in Addresses, and in contributions to
magazines, rarely survives the delivery and first reading,
and that there is ordinarily no impersonal reason for
seeking to give them permanency in book form. In this
volume, however, many readers are sure to recognize the
treatment of topics connected with events of American
history and phases of American thought during the last
thirty-five years which were not only in their time of the
first importance to us as a people, but which have re
tained to this day an undiminished interest and value.
Is it possible that any student of our history should ever
cease to be interested in the earliest efforts of the American

iv PREFACE.
government and people to protect and guide the slaves
who in the beginning of the Civil War thronged within
the lines of our armies, or in the later measures adopted
to establish their freedom and admit them to civil and
political equality ? The first three chapters, or one hundred
and twenty-eight pages, of this book are devoted to these
subjects, and by their graphic and faithful treatment bring
the reader in living relations with those momentous
problems in the solution of which the nation, in 1861-65,
at first groped and stumbled and then decisively acted.
By the narrative of his personal experience as " A private
soldier in Virginia," Mr. Pierce makes us hear again in
our streets the tramp of the volunteers in the great Army
of Freedom which marched southward to put down the
slaveholders' rebellion, and vividly to recall the heroic and
pathetic experiences of that eventful period in the life of
the Republic. In " The Contrabands at Fortress Monroe "
and "The Freedmen at Port Royal " we find a strong re
vival of our interest in those initiatory processes by which
we took up the grandest task ever accomplished by any
people, — the leading of four millions of slaves from bond
age to emancipation and citizenship ; and by reading the
author's description of the patience, docility, and devotion
shown by the Southern negro at that critical time, our con
fidence in his capacity to make most hopeful progress in
the future is greatly increased. In the "Assault on Fort
Wagner," which constitutes the fourth chapter in this vol
ume, the writer gives us a vivid account of the assault it
self, and also some interesting personal details concerning
the two leading actors in it, — Colonel Shaw and General
Strong, — of both of whom Massachusetts will never cease
to be proud, nor fail to cherish a tender memory. He also
gives the enthusiastic testimony of one near to the scene

PREFACE. V
of that, in some respects, greatest of all the early trage
dies of the Civil War, to the brave conduct of the col
ored troops engaged in it, whom he saw gathering for
and marching to the conflict, and, later, lying in the hos
pital cheerfully enduring deadly suffering.
Successful, however, as Mr. Pierce has been in dealing
with the subjects and incidents involved in these initial
chapters, even greater success attends his treatment of
those questions which arose directly after the war. In
the fifth chapter, on " Two Systems of Reconstruction,"
he presents a masterly review of the policy of the Johnson
Administration in contrast with that which undoubtedly
would have prevailed if President Lincoln had been
spared to finish his second term. The portrayal which the
glowing pages of this chapter give of the barbarous legis
lation concerning the emancipated negroes of some of the
Southern States, encouraged by the attitude toward them
of the accidental President, will, I am sure, be a startling
revelation to those who now for the first time read of it.
Mr. Pierce strikingly shows how the assassin's fatal shot
made horrible history of those first years of reconstruc
tion which but for it might have been so peaceful and
beneficent. Perhaps nowhere in these pages is Mr. Pierce's ability
as a felicitous and forcible writer shown more markedly,
than in those chapters which treat of the privileges and du
ties of American citizenship. This is evidently his favor
ite theme, and directly or indirectly he recurs to it many
times throughout this volume. It is a thread on which
be has strung many of his finest gems of eloquent and
earnest thought. It flames out in brilliant sentences or
prolonged and impressive appeals on most occasions where
he has made public addresses, and in the one instance

VI PREFACE.
herein of an article written for a public journal. Especially
does he lay stress upon the duty of all citizens, and pre
eminently of educated citizens, to be alive to every matter
of public concern, and to promote every needed reform in
the administration of municipal. State, and national affairs.
Mr. Pierce may be said to have a genius for politics and
political ethics. Patriotism and philanthropy burn in his
blood, and furnish his strongest heart-beats. More than
any other man in New England now living, he is the
orator of these ancient and noble virtues. No one can
read his academic address delivered on Commencement
Day at Brown University in 1880, without feeling one's
veins tingle with responsiveness to the stirring appeal
made to college graduates to be faithful to all their politi
cal and civic duties. Happy would it be for the future of
our Republic, could its educated young men be addressed
on every academic occasion in such a lofty strain !
The utter absence of cant from Mr. Pierce's oratory is
one of its most conspicuous features. He drives straight on
to his objective point, aiming both at the head and heart
of his hearers, but without fulsome or hackneyed phrase.
Intellectual vigor, clearness of statement, directness of
appeal, and moral enthusiasm stamp his every forensic
effort. While his sentences throb with passion, without
which no man can be an effective orator, he is always ele
vated and judicial in tone, never overweening or unfair.
Even in the one political address which this volume con
tains, delivered in 1868, wherein Mr. Pierce comprehen
sively discusses the policy and principles involved in the
restoration of the Southern States to their normal relations
with the Federal government, — a work of constructive
wisdom, by the way, which foreign observers thought to
be even more difficult than the suppression by force of the

PREFACE. vii
rebellion itself, — we find these rare rhetorical qualities
shining conspicuously, albeit the orator was endeavoring
to win votes for one party and against another. The secret
which lies at the bottom of this too uncommon success in
political discussion is that in this case the speaker was a
party man without being a partisan. What a loss to the
State and Nation, that, with such a qualification for public
service, Mr. Pierce has not oftener been called to it by
the suffrages of his fellow- citizens ! He ought to have
been the successor in the United States Senate of the
man at whose feet he so long sat as a loving and learn
ing disciple, and whose surpassing Memoir he has written
with laborious devotion.
The pages of this volume also bear convincing evidence
that their author might have shed lustre on the literary
path, had he devoted his time and attention solely to
the cultivation of letters. His style is chaste as well as
vigorous, graceful as well as effective ; and every Address
is adorned more or less by the thoughts and tastes of a
scholar and wide reader.
The unity of this collection is not marred, but rather
enriched, by the tributes herein rendered to a few eminent
men personally well known to Mr. Pierce, who illustrated
in their lives a noble ideal of what a good citizen should
be. It may also be added that a few contemporaneous
letters have been appended to some of the Addresses and
Papers in this volume, showing the impression they made
at the time.
A. W. Stevens.
Cambridge, Massachusetts,
December, 1896.

CONTENTS.

PAGE
I. A Private Soldier in Virginia . . ... i
II. The Contrabands at Fortress Monroe ... 19
III. The Freedmen at Port Royal  54
IV. Assault on Fort Wagner  132
V. Two Systems of Reconstruction  142
VI. George S. Hillard  185
VII. The Town of Milton  19S
VIII. The College Graduate: his Public and Social
Duties  214
IX. Tribute to Carl Schurz  246
X. The Town of Stoughton  254
XI. The Puritan Spirit  279
XII. The Citizen's Constant Duty  288
XIII. A Citizen of Boston: his Duties  296
XIV. The Free Soilers of 1848 and 1852  311
XV. The Adopted Citizen  321
XVI. Marathon and Chattanooga  331
XVII. George William Curtis  343
XVIII. John Jay  350
XIX. Completion of the Sumner Memoir. .... 362
XX. Tribute to Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar . . . 373
XXI. Recollections as a Source of History . . . 375

A PRIVATE SOLDIER IN VIRGINIA.

President Lincoln's call for seventy-five thousand State militia
being issued Monday, April 15, 1861,^ Mr. Pierce, who had
been active as a Free Soiler and Republican from the beginning
of his manhood, felt it to be his particular duty to respond at once
to the summons. Though without previous military training, he
made immediate preparations to enlist ; and on Thursday the 18th
joined as a private the New Bedford City Guards, being Company
L of the Third Regiment of the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia,
— a regiment composed chiefly of men from Plymouth and
Bristol counties. On the forenoon of that day they left Boston by
steamer for Old Point Comfort, being at sea while the Massachu
setts Sixth Regiment was passing through Baltimore, and arriving
at Fort Monroe on Saturday the 20th, — two hours later than the
Massachusetts Fourth Regiment, which had left on the evening of
the 17th for the same destination, by steamer from Boston to
New York, and the next day proceeding by steamer to Fort
Monroe. The Third Regiment remained at Fort Monroe and Hampton
during its three months of service. Mr. Pierce's letters describing
scenes in camp will be found in the Boston " Traveller " during
the months of April, May, June, and July. The one of earliest
date is here given, with that journal's introduction.
1 It in fact appeared on Sunday, one day earlier than its date.
I

2 A PRIVATE SOLDIER IN VIRGINIA.
EXPERIENCE OF A BOSTON LAWYER SERVING AS A
PRIVATE SOLDIER.
Attached to the New Bedford Company, as a private, is a well-
known Boston lawyer, who was a delegate from Massachusetts to
the Chicago Convention.^ He has consented to furnish hereafter
for the "Traveller" all the information from that quarter respect
ing the progress of the war. In regard to matters at the fort, he
sends the following : — Old Point Comfort, Fort Monroe,
April 26, 1861.
Our fare is simple and good. We have a thick slice of
baker's bread and a mug of coffee for breakfast and sup
per, generally with a shce of salt pork. For dinner we
have sometimes rice, beans, beef-soup, and bread. Our
company has been in tents hitherto, and the cooking has
been done in the open air, — two stakes being driven per
pendicularly into the ground, and one put across. I have
relished my fare (our cook being a good one), and when
not on guard have slept well. We are troubled with some
inveterate snorers, who we wish had stayed at home ; it
must be a comfort to their wives to be rid of them. To
day, and henceforth, we are going to be quartered in some
buildings. Our company was detailed for guard duty yesterday.
My post was at a gate directly in front of Colonel Dimick's
house, which is near the gate. My hours were from i to
3 P. M., from 7 to 9 P. M., from i to 3 a. m., and from 7 to
10 a. m., until to-day, when we were let off, and I have
now been excused, so as to write this letter.
1 The Republican National Convention, held in May, i860, which nomi
nated Abraham Lincoln for President. ¦William Claflin, afterwards governor
of Massachusetts, and Mr. Pierce were the delegates from the district then
represented in Congress by Charles Francis Adams.

A PRIVATE SOLDIER IN VIRGINIA. 3
Colonel Dimick,^ the commander, is a man of some sixty
years, of fine bearing, all on the alert, with no airs, but
every inch a gentleman and a faithful officer. His family
is with him, a part of which consists of two daughters. Not
being a married man, I thought it not wrong, when they
were at the window and while I was on guard, to put on
my best look. I did not apologize to them for my dress,
which is the flannel shirt furnished by the State, worn over
the pantaloons. This dress is worn chiefly by the volun
teers, and is more convenient than classic. The overcoats
furnished by the State answer their purpose well, and the
blankets will do, as summer is coming on ; but they are
too small for winter. I understand that ours are only half-
blankets. The Fort occupies a commanding position. It controls
the commerce of Norfolk, Richmond, Washington, and
Baltimore. It is the key to Virginia and the border States.
While the government retains it, secession is a barren
sceptre : and it will be retained. It would require more
military skill and resources to take it than have ever been
displayed in this country.
Do you or your readers ask whether I am sorry or not
that I came here? I answer, I am not, and have not been
for a moment ; and I am a mere private, living on a pri
vate's fare and doing a private's drudgery. Indeed, there
is no drudgery in serving one's country, especially when
attacked because she is loyal to human rights. No young
or middle-aged man ought to be wanting in such an emer
gency, especially those who have professed most for the
Antislavery cause. Let them now show that their devo
tion is not mere, lip-service.
1 Justin Dimick, 1800-1871 ; an oificer of the United States Army, who
had served in the Florida and Mexican wars. In 1863 he was in command of
prisoners of war at Fort Warren, Boston.

4 A PRIVATE SOLDIER IN VIRGINIA.
There is a great deal more to write, but I have no time,
and must close. Our dinner is ready, and I must not lose
my share. Yours, p
P. S. This afternoon the " Chesapeake " arrived, and
brought us seven hundred barrels of pork and one thou
sand barrels of flour. The Quincy, Braintree, Taunton,
and Foxborougb companies were detailed to roll them into
the fort. So you see we shall not be starved out. The
Hingham company is on guard to-day, having relieved us
this forenoon.

The following letter from Wendell Phillips to Mr. Pierce, oc
casioned by the latter's enlistment as a private soldier, is introduced
here as revealing a more genial side of Mr. Phillips's nature than
was ordinarily manifested to the public : — Tuesday, May 7, 1861.
My dear Pierce, — We have been reading this afternoon the
letter you were so kind as to tell Anna Loring to let us see ; that
was very kind, in you. I wish we could send you anything in
return. Yes, we were surprised to find you had enlisted. As day after
day went by, and we missed you and the pleasant messages and
glimpses of you, my wife would say, " I know Mr. P. has en
listed ; " but / thought it more likely you had •" enlisted " in
some long case in another county. A call at your office (at home
they would not let me rest till I had inquired for you) told us the
story; and then we enjoyed the "Traveller" letter, and now this,
— so we know all about you.
And you were the first of the " body guard " ^ to smell powder !
'T was very gallant in you and spirited ; we '11 never forget it. . . .
1' An allusion to the young men who during the mobs of the winter of 1860-
1861 accompanied Mr. Phillips to public meetings, some of them passing
several nights at his house. See G. W. Smalley's article in Harper's Monthly
for June, 1894, p. 134, entitled "Memories of Wendell Phillips."

A PRIVATE SOLDIER IN VIRGINIA.

5

Sumner has spent an evening with me, — the best man in your
party, I think ; the only one (we '11 put you out of consideration,
seeing you are now nothing but a private !) who would not soil
his personal honor to serve his party or himself. I won't write
you all he said, for other eyes than yours may see this sheet ;
but one thing any one may know. He said your speech on the
Personal Liberty law -^ was " the ablest speech he ever knew made
in Massachusetts by one of your age ; " turning to me he added,
"neither j'ou nor I ever did as well at his years." There, mix
that with your black coffee and salt pork, and be nourished
accordingly !
My wife bids me inclose these flowers, which have been brought
us from Milton (not from your mother's house), — the first, or
nearly so, we 've had, for it is very cold, the spring almost a month
behind its time ; but then we are all patriotic, and say to each
other, " Well, it is the better for those good fellows off" south to put
off summer."
Good-by, with congratulations and the kindest remembrances
and best wishes from aU of us.
Yours faithfully, Wendell Phillips.

Complaints having reached Governor Andrew that the Third
Regiment was suffering from scanty food and general ill treatment,
he replied to the gentleman (a resident of Plymouth, Mass.) who
communicated them, saying among other things : " E. L. Pierce of
our bar is in the Third Regiment, and I see his letters ; no such
complaints are made by him." The same day he wrote to Mr.
Pierce as follows : — Executive Department, Boston,
May 22, i86i.
My dear Pierce, — I enclose   's letter, and the
memoranda of my pencil reply. I wish you would send a careful
report on all points of interest, and, if need be, ask in my name —
1 E. L. Pierce's Argument, February i, i86i, before a Legislative Com
mittee against the repeal of the Personal Liberty law.

6 A PRIVATE SOLDIER IN VIRGINIA.
and let this be your authority — a furiough from the Commander
of the Fortress to enable you to come back by the return of the
" Pembroke " and report in person. I have read your letters here
with great pleasure ; and I am full of admiration at your devoted-
ness and cheerful patriotism.
I am ever Yours, in great haste, J. A. Andrew.

General Butler, then commanding at Fortress Monroe, in grant
ing the desired furlough, wrote (May 26) to Governor Andrew :
" I am most happy that a gentleman of intelligence, probity, and
character, who has seen, known, and felt all the privations of the
Massachusetts troops at Fortress Monroe, is to report to you.
To him I refer for a detailed statement of the treatment and
comfort of the troops."
Mr. Pierce was absent from his regiment from May 26 to June
16. Returning through Washington, he was taken by his friend
Secretary Chase to see in their offices President Lincoln, Secre
tary Cameron, and General Scott. While in Boston, Mr. Pierce
was requested by Governor Andrew to put in writing for publica
tion his oral statement concerning Massachusetts soldiers at Fort
Monroe. It is here given, as it appeared in the Boston " Daily
Advertiser," June i, 1861.

Milton, May 31, 1861.
To His Excellency Gov. Andrew:
Your Excellency has been pleased to request me, while
here on a brief furlough and awaiting the return of the
" Pembroke " to Fortress Monroe, to report upon such
matters connected with the health and comfort of the
volunteers of the Massachusetts Militia now at the fort
as may occur to me. With such a request coming from
such a source, and relating to my comrades in arms, it is
my duty to comply.

A PRIVATE SOLDIER IN VIRGINIA. 7
It is proper for me to state that I am a private in Co. L
of the Third Regiment, and to it my answer ought specially
to relate. But I may add that my residence and associa
tions in Norfolk County and vicinity have brought me into
daily companionship with the soldiers of the Fourth Regi
ment. It is proper also to state that ever since I left Boston
I have had the fare of a private; have been subjected to
his drills and discipline ; have performed all his fatigue
duty, such as loading barrels of beef, pork, beans, and
other provisions, dragging columbiads, as well as the police
duty of cleaning our quarters; and that, with the excep
tion of a single day, I have served on guard whenever that
duty has devolved on our company. This has enabled
me to learn something of the feelings and wants of a private
soldier. And here at the outset, speaking for myself, — and, as
I think I can, for my comrades, — I can say that the hour
or the moment has not been since we left Boston Harbor
on Thursday, i8th April, that we have regretted our enlist
ment among the volunteers of Massachusetts, to whom,
under the Providence of God, has been intrusted the
honor of our beloved Commonwealth, the integrity of the
government of the United States, and the interests of a
sacred cause. To be sure, we have had privations; but
they sunk into trifles when we recalled the winter encamp
ments of the Revolution ; and they became luxuries when
sweetened by the remembrance of the country we served.
It is now a part of the record of the times that the " S.
R. Spaulding," having on board the Third Regiment,
then partially filled, left Boston Harbor on Thursday, i8th
April, at II A. M., and arrived at Fortress Monroe on the
following Saturday at the same hour, — making a quick
passage of forty-eight hours, and reaching her destination

8 A PRIVATE SOLDIER IN VIRGINIA.
about two hours later than the disembarkation of the
Fourth Regiment from the " State of Maine," which came
from Fall River via New York. The worst part of our
soldier's life was experienced on this vessel, — partly due
to the necessities of the case, and partly to the officers of
the boat. A portion of the regiment, my own company
among them, were put on the lowest deck, — usually ap
propriated to freight, and reached by two flights of
stairs, badly ventilated, — where we lay at night crowded
together. In view of the exigency which required our
speedy transportation, this hardship was in the main
necessary. Besides that, however, our food was bad.
The tea and coffee distributed to us were the most unde
sirable beverages I have ever tasted. Better could have
been served to us, and was in fact served to the officers, —
for I once succeeded in buying some of the steward, but
failed in my second attempt. Of course these inconven
iences were brief, lasting only two days; but you may be
assured that we welcomed the hour when we disembarked
from the " S. R. Spaulding."
About noon on Saturday, 20th April, we entered the
fort, our eyes gladdened by the bloom of an apple-
orchard in front of it. We were then disabled by the sea
sickness which many of us had passed through, by the
want of nourishing sleep, of good air at night, and of
proper food when we were in a condition to take it. After
stacking our guns, and exchanging congratulations with
our comrades of the Fourth, we had a dinner on the grass,
of crackers and cold ham, — excellent ham it was, too.
Still, it was generally felt that before we advanced farther
we needed rest, sleep, and particularly a soldier's discipline.
For one, I had not fired a musket since I was sixteen years
old, and never with a ball cartridge ; and I hardly think
that my case was entirely exceptional. But at 4 P. M., or

A PRIVATE SOLDIER IN VIRGINIA. 9
a little later, while many were stretched on the grass,
attempting a nap, we were called into line, expecting
to march to quarters, but, as we were at once informed,
to go to Norfolk in the United States ship " Pawnee," to
retake the Gosport navy-yard if already captured by the
secessionists, or to defend it if still in loyal hands.
Virginia had seceded, and we received the news as we
reached the fort. It was not known at the fort who held
the navy-yard, or at the yard who still held the fort. A
mysterious uncertainty brooded over all things. The test
of loyalty was being applied to divide the traitor from the
true. No man could trust his fellow. Mechanics employed
on war vessels needing repairs, left; and officers necessary
to command others, resigned when they received orders
to sail. It was not known at the yard that the soldiers of
Massachusetts were on their way to the rescue, or that
the " Pawnee " was at hand, — she having been off Charles
ton at the bombardment of Sumter, thence having hurried
to Washington and back to Fort Monroe, where she ar
rived on the same day vCith our regiments. Thus unaware,
the officers of the yard had begun the scuttling of ships
and the spiking of guns, the first sounds which we heard
on arriving at the yard.
Our men, though disabled and undisciplined, maintained
their composure, and marched seriously but firmly to their
duty. For the first time in their lives, they trod the deck
of a man-of-war, ready for an encounter. We left the fort
about 5 or 6 o'clock P. M. ; loaded our muskets, expecting
a contest with musket or bayonet, reaching the navy-yard
at about 8| P. M., lighted on our errand by the rays of a
silver moonlight. When within pistol-shot of the " Cum
berland," our signal being unheard, and we being mistaken
for secessionists, the match was about to be applied to
the guns of the " Cumberland" and of the " Pennsylvania,"

10 A PRIVATE SOLDIER IN VIRGINIA.
when it was arrested by the vigorous voice of our intrepid
boatswain crying out, " They are going to fire on us, Sir !
United States ship ' Pawnee,' Sir ! " and cheers and " Hail
Columbia " from their bands then welcomed us. Disem
barking, for four hours we continued the work of destruc
tion already begun, some rolling several thousands of heavy
shells into the sea, while others laid powder-trains, and still
others stood guard.
We were very weary when we went again on board the
" Pawnee." On our return, having the " Cumberland " in
tow, we passed under the batteries of the secessionists,
which we had also passed on our way down ; and as the
powder-trains had taken effect, and the ships were burn
ing, the officers of the "Cumberland" expected that they
would now open upon us in revenge for this destruction.
The batteries did not, however, for some reason, open.
We passed safely on, and reached the fort at six on Sun
day morning, where we received the congratulations of the
regular soldiers and of our comrades of the Fourth, both
of whom had expected to see us with thinned ranks. Hap
pily we were safe ; had secured most important munitions
of war from falling into the hands of the rebels; bad in
six days from the summons of the President penetrated
farther South than any other regiment has yet gone, and
executed what your Excellency in your message to the
Legislature at its extra session has been pleased to call
" a brilliant movement, both of danger and success."
I have been thus particular about our passage to Fortress
Monroe and our expedition to Norfolk, because although
we have had privations, they involved the only real hard
ships we have been called to meet.
During our camp life, we have secured more conveni
ences the longer we have remained. At first, we were in
tents, slept only on our blankets, had our cooking done

A PRIVATE SOLDIER IN VIRGINIA. n
out of doors with an open fire, ate our meat with our fin
gers and even without plates. After two or three weeks of
camping in tents, we had quarters assigned us, where we
still are, except one or two companies who occupy tents
on a raised platform. In this statement I do not include
any companies who arrived since we first came, some of
whom are in tents and others in buildings outside the
fort. For the last three weeks our company has had mat
tresses formerly used in the Hygeia Hotel, by what funds
procured I do not know, but we have not been asked to
pay for them. Other companies, perhaps not all, have
also procured mattresses. I have seen soldiers make a
mattress by sewing their two blankets together, and filling
with straw, thus making a bed for two. We have now
mugs or bowls, and generally a knife, fork, and spoon
each, which we have bought at the sutler's ; and recently
some plates have been furnished to those not already pro
vided with them.
As to clothing, it may be stated that on our sudden
departure we came generally unprepared, each dressed in
his every-day suit, and that in many instances well worn ;
and at first there was a deficiency in this respect. This
was, however, remedied by an arrival of pantaloons and
shoes sent by the State. When I left, there was said to be
a deficiency of sevens and eights shoes, although enough
of the larger size. We have been amply provided with
woollen shirts and drawers, and have had a cotton shirt
each, which has been little worn. Our State overcoats
have answered their purpose well. The blankets will
answer for the warm season, — although not heavy enough
for the winter, or to make a comfortable bed in the absence
of a mattress or of a good amount of straw. I have heard
some of the officers of companies suggest the expediency
of India-rubber capes to be worn on stormy days when

12 A PRIVATE SOLDIER IN VIRGINIA.
we are on guard or marching, or to spread on the ground
when we are called from the fort to encamp on the field.
The suggestion appears reasonable, although I cannot
quote in its behalf any conclusive authority.
The season for that section of country has thus far been
unusually cold, May not differing much from the same
month as it is usually here. The officers within ten days
have had fires in their quarters, and we have found over
coats comfortable, generally in the evening and occasion
ally at morning drills. Sunday last — the day I left —
was the first uncomfortably warm day. It was thought
that the Havelock sun-cap would be of advantage in the
summer, protecting particularly the back of the neck, and
especially on a march. Major-General Butler wore one
as he arrived at the fort on the 22d inst, and some other
officers have worn them, although until Sunday last there
has been no heat requiring their general use. Straw hats
were also thought desirable ; the Foxborough company,
probably through the liberality of the citizens of that town,
had been provided with a neat pattern. But on leaving
the fort for a march, it would not be safe to go with a
straw hat only. It may be well to add that, as I am in
formed, the sun-caps, India-rubber capes or blankets, and
the smaller pattern of shoes have, in considerable quanti
ties, been recently forwarded by the State authorities.
As to a dress-parade suit, a few words may be sufficient.
Something of the kind is thought desirable to secure uni
formity and a good appearance to a regiment, and as
encouraging the soldiers to better drills. Most companies
came unprovided with these, and our dress-suit has been
at times rather various, — latterly becoming uniform by
the wearing of pantaloons of same color, and a blue shirt.
Just as I left, a new uniform had arrived, but had not yet
been distributed. One or two companies, as that from

A PRIVATE SOLDIER IN VIRGINIA.

13

New Bedford, brought a handsome dress-suit ; but it was
rather too showy for actual service, requiring more labor
to keep it clean, and being more likely to soil. The
citizens of Hingham have provided the company from that
town, of the Fourth Regiment, with a plain suit of cadet
gray, which appeared well.
The food of our regiment is the next point which invites
attention. Our rations, as to quantity, except in one or
two instances, have been all that was desired. Those
exceptions occurred at the time of our unexpected arrival,
as well as on the arrival of the Vermont regiment, — in the
last case being reduced to half-rations of fresh bread, and
furnished with hard bread to supply the deficiency. Our
staple food has been coffee, baker's bread, salt pork or
beef, changed at times by beans or rice soup. Once we
have had fish; and we have had fresh meat not much
more than ten times. The quality of these articles has
not been complained of. The cooking, except the baking
of the bread, is done by some member of the company, who
is thereby exempted from other duty, — selected by its
members generally, or by its officers, — and who is changed
if proved incompetent. It would be strange if no com
petent cook could be found in the company. Of course,
under such an arrangement there will be various grades of
excellence in cooking in the different companies. The
companies in quarters have been provided with good
stoves and boilers, to make coffee or soup in.
Our men have much desired that their rations of salt pork,
of which we have had so much more than other meats,
should be varied by ham, or if practicable by fresh meat.
Upon this point more complaint has been made than on
any other, and it is for others to say whether the cause can
be removed. Some ham was sent to our troops, but I
understand that it was properly reserved for a march.

14 A PRIVATE SOLDIER IN VIRGINIA.
We have had coffee twice a day during a great portion of
the time; too much, probably, for health. Our company
has had tea for supper a portion of the time, which, it was
stated to me, had been furnished by the citizens of New
Bedford. Either tea or chocolate — the latter being com
mended by medical men for nutritious and health-promot
ing qualities — should be substituted in part for coffee.
The State authorities, as I am informed, have met these
wants in recent consignments by the " Pembroke."
A quantity of dried apples has been sent to us by the
State, and they have been served to us several times. I
do not hesitate to say, that no other article of food has
been furnished to the soldiers by the State so grateful
to the appetite and so conducive to health, particularly
desirable in the absence of vegetables, and where salt pork
and coffee have had so large a place in our rations. We
have had potatoes but few times. These or any other
vegetables are relished, and will probably be sent as much
as convenient. The soldiers generally desired molasses to
eat upon their bread, and some had bought it at the
sutler's. That desire is enforced by dietetic reasons, and
has been recently answered by a consignment by the
" Cambridge." We have had some excellent cheese a few
times, and it was much liked. No butter has been served
to us, and in the warm season that is approaching, partic
ularly as molasses is to be furnished, the expediency of
providing" it is questionable.
In concluding these suggestions in relation to food,
I can say that I have relished my own as much as I
have relished more luxurious living after less physical
exertion. Besides the stores provided by the general government,
the kindness of friends has superadded numerous del
icacies, brought by the "Pembroke" and "Cambridge."

A PRIVATE SOLDIER IN VIRGINIA. 15
A military man might suggest some impolicy in these
donations ; but I know that the day after the first arrival
of the " Cambridge " broke in upon our isolation, bring
ing mails and packages, remembered as we had been by
loving hearts at home, we could have moved with firmer
souls and steadier steps to meet an advancing column.
As to the labor required of us, — a matter, of course,
beyond any control of the State, — I may say that when
we arrived, the regulars were being subjected to most
laborious duty in keeping guard and mounting cannon,
not having had more than four hours' sleep for several
nights, and none on the night previous to our arrival, being
in hourly expectation of an attack. The land side of the
fort was weakly defended, there being no casemated guns in
that part, and it was necessary to mount a large number
of eight and ten-inch columbiads, weighing nine thousand
or fifteen thousand pounds, and requiring fifty or seventy-
five men to man the ropes, as there are no oxen or horses
for the purpose. Besides, some thousands of barrels of
provisions were arriving to stock the fort for a siege, which
had to be taken from the transports to the storehouses in
the fort. This work, necessary for the defence of the post
and for our own safety, devolved on the Third and Fourth
regiments. It was imposed on us one day in five or
six, and guard duty about as often. The work was hard,
but not harder than the labor of farmers in busy sea
sons, or of persons engaged in heavy mechanical work.
Many of our men, it is true, had been in clerkly employ
ments or the lighter mechanical trades ; but I am not
aware that any suffered in health from this cause, as we
had a large number at work, and the amount each did
depended on his own notions of what he was able or bound
to do. The heutenants, sergeants, or corporals among the
regulars, under whom we were placed, treated us in every

l6 A PRIVATE SOLDIER IN VIRGINIA.
instance with kindness. Sometimes I thought of myself
as a Boston lawyer bossed by an Irish corporal, and the
practical joke seemed to lighten my labors. Since the
arrival of the First Vermont Regiment, and the filling
up of our own, our guard and fatigue duty has not been
thought severe or burdensome.
As to the discipline and treatment we have received
from our own officers, it is a delicate duty for a private to
speak, — and yet it is possible to speak with fidelity to
myself and in strict deference to mihtary subordination.
On this head I do not know that any complaint is now
made. We may have been once or twice subjected to
drills at double-quick time, which if kept up would have
surpassed the strength of many of the privates. Although
myself not having the average muscular strength, I went
through them, and, if weary at the time, experienced no
permanent evil effects, — and any objection of this kind,
on proper representation, was removed. Our regiments,
both officers and men, are composed mainly of existing
companies of the volunteer militia, the members joining
and the officers being selected without reference to actual
service. There are many men among them who could not
pass a surgical examination for admission to the army,
and time may show that many of the officers are without
the skill and qualities which become a military com
mander. But I am sure that we have no officers at For
tress Monroe who have treated the men with intended
harshness, or who have persisted in imposing on them
burdens beyond their power to sustain when the case was
properly presented. On this point, as well as on that of
food, there is an important consideration. Although our
men were taken without surgical examination, and not yet
learned in the arts of camp-life or acclimated to the new
latitude, the hospital returns will not show more cases of

A PRIVATE SOLDIER IN VIRGINIA. 17
sickness than among the same number of persons at home ;
and it must be admitted that the health of the men is one
of the best tests of their treatment.
The question has been put to me whether the troops
enlisted for three months will re-enlist for three years.
That question can be answered only by individual assur
ances and by time. It has already been remarked that the
volunteer companies now existing, organized without much
reference to actual service, or at least service outside the
State, formed the basis of the original enlistment. They
were summoned to meet an immediate exigency, and as
patriot citizens they met it without hesitation, bearing to a
remote field the arms which the government had confided to
them. They left their homes, most without a day's, some
without an hour's, preparation ; without opportunity to set
tle their accounts, or to dispose of the most important
business. Some had no time to bid farewell to their
dearest relatives, and all went without adequate provision
for a soldier's wants, at least for a protracted term of
service. They have already exposed themselves to the
dangers of war, with more probably in store for the com
ing six weeks; have saved Fortress Monroe, the key to
the Chesapeake, to Virginia, to the border States, and
exercising a controlling power over the rebellious region.
It would not be strange if some of them were willing that
others, now anxious to supply their places, should have
the opportunity; or if all should desire, before entering
on a three years' term, to close up their business, and for
a time find new vigor among the affections of kindred and
the associations of home.
In bringing this statement, too long drawn out, to a
close, let me say, that, although as a private soldier I have
had an opportunity to know something of his labors and

1 8 A PRIVATE SOLDIER IN VIRGINIA.
desires, my experience is limited to six brief weeks ; and
that though this communication may furnish suggestions,
it is quite likely to be in some respects erroneous. But
the truth will, I know, vindicate the assertion, confidently
made, that Massachusetts has followed her sons into the
field with anxious solicitude, and that they have endured
nothing to be compared to the glory of being the de
fenders of their country in its imperilled hour.
I am truly Your servant and friend,
Edward L. Pierce.
The following letter from Hon. John G. Palfrey, of Cambridge,
Mass., a veteran of the Antislavery cause and author of the " His
tory of New England," is appropriately given in this place : —
June I, 1861.
My dear Mr. Pierce, — When I saw you to-day, I had not
read your letter or heard of it. It makes your mark. It will be
matter for history, no one can tell how long. Oh that I had
begun to write the story of New England twenty years ago ! I am
much too old now to work down to your time ; but a better man
will build on my slender foundation, and you will be clamped into
the structure. Yours truly,
John G. Palfrey.

the CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE. 19

II.

While serving as a private soldier, Mr. Pierce watched intently
the development of the slavery question. He was requested by
General Butler to take permanent charge of the incoming " contra
bands " when their number had reached two hundred, and to
devise a scheme for employing and caring for them ; ^ but he
preferred at that time to remain with his regiment. His last days
of service, however, in Virginia, were passed in charge of negroes
at Hampton, of whom he gave an account in the Atlantic
Monthly for November, 1861. Though not appearing till the
issue of that number, the article was written as early as the month
of August preceding. It was at the time the earliest expression,
in a formal way, on the vital question as to the character and fate
of slaves coming under the flag of the United States. So sensi
tive was the public mind then on this subject, and such was the
prevailing anxiety to keep other issues than that of the preservation
of the Union out of the war, that the editor and proprietor of that
magazine (Mr. James T. Fields) called on the author, with the proof
of the article in his hand, to inquire whether he was to be understood
in the conclusion as proposing the arming of negroes as soldiers.
Mr. Pierce's answer was : " Not exactly that ; but I do intend to
intimate that if that measure should be adopted, no harm would
come of it." With this explanation, Mr. Fields, whose personal
sympathies were with the author's view, was content ; and he pub
lished the paper, herewith given, without omission or change.
1 The very friendly relations between General Butler and Mr. Pierce,
which began with their first acquaintance at Fort Monroe in 1861, continued
till 1868, when they were finally broken by the former's espousal of dan
gerous financial heresies.

20 THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE.

THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE.

In the month of August, 1619, a Dutch man-of-war
from Guinea entered James River and landed "twenty
negars " for sale. Such is the brief record left by John
Rolfe, whose name is honorably associated with that of
Pocahontas. This was the first importation of the kind
into the English colonies, and the source of existing strifes.
It was fitting that the system which from that slave-ship
had been spreading over the continent for nearly two
centuries and a half should yield, for the first time, to the
logic of military law almost upon the spot of its origin.
The coincidence may not inappropriately introduce what
of experience and reflection the writer has to relate of a
three-months' soldier's life in Virginia.
On the morning of the 22d of May last, Major-General
Butler, welcomed with a military salute, arrived at Fortress
Monroe, and assumed the command of the Department of
Virginia. Hitherto we had been hemmed up in the pe
ninsula of which the fort occupies the main part, and cut
off from communication with the surrounding country.
Until within a few days our forces consisted of about one
thousand men belonging to the Third and Fourth regi
ments of Massachusetts militia, and three hundred regulars.
The only movement since our arrival on the 20th of April
had been the expedition to Norfolk of the Third Regiment,
in which it was my privilege to serve as a private. The
fort communicates with the main-land by a dike or cause
way about half a mile long, and a wooden bridge, perhaps

THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE. 21
three hundred feet long ; and then there spreads out a tract
of country, well wooded and dotted over with farms.
Passing from this bridge for a distance of two miles north
westward, you reach a creek or arm of the bay spanned by
another wooden bridge ; and crossing it, you are at once
in the ancient village of Hampton, having a population of
some fifteen hundred inhabitants. The peninsula on which
the fort stands, the causeway, and the first bridge described
are the property of the United States. Nevertheless, a
small picket-guard of the secessionists had been accus
tomed to occupy a part of the bridge, sometimes coming
even to the centre, and a secession flag waved in sight of
the fort. On the 13th of May, the rebel picket-guard was
driven from the bridge, and all the government property
was taken possession of by a detachment of two companies
from the Fourth Regiment, accompanied by a dozen
regulars with a field-piece, acting under the orders of
Colonel Dimick, the commander of the post. They re
tired, denouncing vengeance on Massachusetts troops for
the invasion of Virginia. Our pickets then occupied the
entire bridge and a small strip of the main-land beyond,
covering a valuable well; but still there was no occupation
in force of any but government property. The creation of
a new military department, to the command of which a
major-general was assigned, was soon to terminate this
isolation. On the 13th of May the First Vermont Regi
ment arrived, on the 24th the Second New York ; and two
weeks later our forces numbered nearly ten thousand.
On the 23d of May, General Butler ordered the first
reconnoitring expedition, — which consisted of a part of
the Vermont Regiment, and proceeded under the command
of Colonel Phelps over the dike and bridge towards Hamp
ton. They were anticipated, and when in sight of the
second bridge saw that it had been set on fire, and, hasten-

22 THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE.
ing forward, extinguished the flames. The detachment
then marched into the village. A parley was held with a
secession officer, who represented that the men in arms in
Hampton were only a domestic police. Meanwhile the
white inhabitants, particularly the women, had generally
disappeared. The negroes gathered around our men, and
their evident exhilaration was particularly noted, some of
them saying, " Glad to see you, Massa," and betraying the
fact, that, on the approach of the detachment, a field-piece
stationed at the bridge had been thrown into the sea.
This was the first communication between our army and
the negroes in this department.
The reconnoissance of the day had more important re
sults than were anticipated. Three negroes, owned by
Colonel Mallory, — a lawyer of Hampton and a rebel
officer, — taking advantage of the terror prevailing among
the white inhabitants, escaped from their master, skulked
during the afternoon, and in the night came to our pickets.
The next morning. May 24, they were brought to General
Butler ; and there, for the first time, stood the Major-Gen
eral and the fugitive slave face to face. Being carefully
interrogated, it appeared that they were field-hands, the
slaves of an officer in the rebel service, who purposed
taking them to Carolina to be employed in military opera
tions there. Two of them had wives in Hampton, one a
free-colored woman, and they had several children in the
neighborhood. Here was a new question, and a grave one,
on which the government had as yet developed no policy.
In the absence of precedents or instructions, an analogy
drawn from international law was applied. Under that law,
contraband goods, which are directly auxiliary to military
operations, cannot in time of war be imported by neutrals
into an enemy's country, and may be seized as lawful prize
when the attempt is made so to import them. It will be

THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE. 23
seen, that, accurately speaking, the term applies exclusively
to the relation between a belligerent and a neutral, and not
to the relation between belligerents. Under the strict law
of nations, all the property of an enemy may be seized.
Under the common law, the property of traitors is forfeit.
The humaner usage of modern times favors the waiving of
these strict rights, but allows, without question, the seizure
and confiscation of all such goods as are immediately aux
iliary to military purposes. These able-bodied negroes,
held as slaves, were to be employed to build breastworks,
to transport or store provisions, to serve as cooks or
waiters, and even to bear arms. Regarded as property,
according to their master's claim, they could be efficiently
used by the rebels for the purposes of the rebellion, and
most efficiently by the government in suppressing it. Re
garded as persons, they had escaped from communities
where a triumphant rebellion had trampled on the laws,
and only the rights of human nature remained ; and they
now asked the protection of the government to which, in
prevailing treason, they were still loyal, and which they
were ready to serve as best they could.
The three negroes, being held contraband of war, were
at once set to work to aid the masons in constructing anew
bakehouse within the fort. Thenceforward the term " con
traband " bore a new signification, with which it will pass
into history, designating the negroes who had been held as
slaves, now adopted under the protection of the govern
ment. It was used in official communications at the fort;
it was applied familiarly to the negroes, who stared some
what, inquiring, "What d' ye call us that for?" Not having
Wheaton's "Elements" at hand, we did not attempt an
explanation. The contraband notion was adopted by Con
gress in the Act of July 6, which confiscates slaves used
in aiding the insurrection. There is often great virtue in

24 THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE.
such technical phrases in shaping public opinion; they
commend practical action to a class of minds little devel
oped in the direction of the sentiments, which would be
repelled by formulas of a broader and nobler import. The
venerable gentleman who wears gold spectacles and reads
a conservative daily, prefers confiscation to emancipation.
He is reluctant to have slaves declared " freemen," but has
no objection to their being declared "contrabands." His
whole nature rises in insurrection when Beecher preaches
in a sermon that a thing ought to be done because it is a
duty ; but he yields gracefully when Butler issues an order
commanding it to be done because it is a military necessity.
On the next day. Major John B. Cary — another rebel
officer, late principal of an academy in Hampton, a dele
gate to the Charleston convention, and a seceder with
General Butler from the convention at Baltimore — came
to the fort with a flag of truce, and, claiming to act as the
representative of Colonel Mallory, demanded the fugitives.
He reminded General Butler of his obligations under the
Federal Constitution, under which he claimed to act. The
ready reply was, that the Fugitive-Slave Act could not be
invoked for the reclamation of fugitives from a foreign
State, which Virginia claimed to be; and she must count
it among the infelicities of her position, if so far at least
she was taken at her word.
The three pioneer negroes were not long to be isolated
from their race. There was no known channel of commu
nication between them and their old comrades; and yet
those comrades knew, or believed with the certainty of
knowledge, how they had been received. If inquired of
whether more were coming, their reply was, that, if they
were not sent back, others would understand that they
were among friends, and more would come the next day.
Such is the mysterious spiritual telegraph which runs

THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE. 25
through the slave population : proclaim an edict of eman
cipation in the hearing of a single slave on the Potomac,
and in a few days it will be known by his brethren on the
Gulf. So, on the night of the Big Bethel affair, a squad
of negroes, meeting our soldiers, inquired anxiously the
way to " the freedom fort."
The means of communicating with the fort from the
open country became more easy, when on the 24th of May
(the same day on which the first movement was made
from Washington into Virginia) the Second New York
Regiment made its encampment on the Segar farm, lying
near the bridge which connected the fort with the main
land, — an encampment soon enlarged by the First Ver
mont and other New York regiments. On Sunday morning,
May 26, eight negroes stood before the quarters of Gen
eral Butler, waiting for an audience. They were exam
ined in part by Mr. James M. Ashley, M. C. from Ohio,
then a visitor at the fort. On May 27, forty-seven negroes
of both sexes and all ages — from three months to eighty-
five years, among whom were half-a-dozen entire families
— came in one squad. Another lot of a dozen good field-
hands arrived the same day; and then they continued to
come by twenties, thirties, and forties. They were as
signed buildings outside the fort, or tents within. They
were set to work as servants to officers, or to store pro
visions landed from vessels, — thus relieving us of the
fatigue duty which we had previously done, except that
of dragging and mounting columbiads on the ramparts of
the fort, a service which some very warm days have im
pressed on my memory.
On the 27th of May, the Fourth Massachusetts Regi
ment, the First Vermont, and some New York regiments
made an advance movement and occupied Newport News
(a promontory named for Captain Christopher Newport,

26 THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE.
the early explorer), so as more effectually to enforce the
blockade of James River. There, too, negroes came in,
who were employed as servants to the officers. One of
them, when we left the fort, more fortunate than his
comrades, and aided by a benevolent captain, eluded the
vigilance of the provost-marshal, and is now the curiosity
of a village in the neighborhood of Boston.
It was now time to call upon the government for a
pohcy in dealing with slave society thus disrupted and
disorganized. Elsewhere, even under the shadow of the
Capitol, the action of military officers had been irregular,
and in some cases in palpable violation of personal rights.
An order of General McDowell excluded all slaves from
the lines. Sometimes officers assumed to decide the
question whether a negro was a slave, and to deliver him to
a claimant, when, certainly in the absence of martial law,
they had no authority in the premises, under the Act of
Congress, — that power being confided to commissioners
and marshals. As well might a member of Congress or
a State sheriff usurp the function. Worse yet, in defiance
of the common law, they made color a presumptive proof
of bondage. In one case a free negro was delivered to a
claimant under this process, more summary than any
which the Fugitive-Slave Act provides. The colonel of a
Massachusetts regiment showed some practical humor in
dealing with a pertinacious claimant who asserted title to
a negro found within his lines, and had brought a pohce-
man along with him to aid in enforcing it. The shrewd
colonel (a Democrat he is), retaining the policeman, put
both the claimant and claimed outside of the lines together
to try their fleetness. The negro proved to be the better
athlete, and was heard of no more. This capricious
treatment of the subject was fraught with serious difficul
ties as well as personal injuries, and it needed to be dis
placed by an authorized system.

THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE. 27
On the 27th of May, General Butler, having in a pre
vious communication reported his interview with Major
Cary, called the attention of the war department to the
subject in a formal despatch, — indicating the hostile pur
poses for which the negroes had been or might be success
fully used, stating the course he had pursued in employing
them, and recording expenses and services, and suggest
ing pertinent, military, political, and humane considera
tions. The Secretary of War, under date of the 30th of
May, replied, cautiously approving the course of General
Butler, and intimating distinctions between interfering with
the relations of persons held to service and refusing to
surrender them to their alleged masters, which it is not
easy to reconcile with well-defined views of the new
exigency, or at least with a desire to express them. The
note was characterized by diplomatic reserve which it will
probably be found difficult long to maintain.
The ever-recurring question continued to press for so
lution. On the 6th of July the Act of Congress was
approved, declaring that any person claiming the labor
of another to be due to him, and permitting such party to
be employed in any military or naval service. whatsoever
against the government of the United States, shall forfeit
his claim to such labor, and proof of such employment
shall thereafter be a full answer to the claim. This Act
was designed for the direction of the civil magistrate, and
not for the limitation of powers derived from military law.
That law, founded on salusreipublicce, transcends all codes,
and hes outside of forms and statutes. John Quincy Adams,
almost prophesying as he expounded, declared, in 1842,
that under it slavery might be abolished. Under it, there
fore, Major-General Fremont, in a recent proclamation,
declared the slaves of all persons within his department,
who were in arms against the government, to be free men,

28 THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE.
and under it has given tide-deeds of manumission. Sub
sequently, President Lincoln limited the proclamation to
such slaves as are included in the Act of Congress;
namely, the slaves of rebels used in directly hostile ser
vice. The country had called for Jacksonian courage, and
its first exhibition was promptly suppressed. If the revo
cation was made in deference to protests from Kentucky,
it seems, that, while the loyal citizens of Missouri appeared
to approve the decisive measure, they were overruled by
the more potential voice of other communities who pro
fessed to understand their affairs better than they did
themselves. But if, as is admitted, the commanding
officer, in the plenitude of military power, was authorized
to make the order within his department, all human beings
included in the proclamation thereby acquired a vested
title to their freedom, of which neither Congress nor Pres
ident could dispossess them. No conclusive behests of
law necessitating the limitation, it cannot rest on any safe
reasons of military policy. The one slave who carries his
master's knapsack on a march contributes far less to the
efficiency of the rebel army than the one hundred slaves
who hoe corn on his plantation with which to replen
ish its commissariat. We have not yet emerged from
the fine-drawn distinctions of peaceful times. We may
imprison or slaughter a rebel, but we may not unloose his
hold on a person he has claimed as a slave. We may
seize all his other property without question, — lands,
houses, cattle, jewels; but his asserted property in man
is more sacred than the gold which overlay the Ark of
the Covenant, and we may not profane it. This reverence
for things assumed to be sacred, which are not so, cannot
long continue. The government can well turn away from
the enthusiast, however generous his impulses, who asks
the abolition of slavery on general principles of philan-

THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE. 29
thropy, for the reason that it already has work enough
on its hands. It may not change the objects of the war;
but it must of necessity at times shift its tactics and in
struments, as the exigency demands. Its solemn and im
perative duty is to look every issue, however grave and
transcendent, firmly in the face; and having ascertained
upon mature and conscientious reflection what is neces
sary to suppress the rebellion, it must then proceed with
inexorable purpose to inflict the blows where rebellion is
the weakest, and under which it must inevitably fall.
On the 30th of July, General Butler, being still unpro
vided with adequate instructions, — the number of contra
bands having now reached nine hundred, — applied to the
war department for further directions. His inquiries, in
spired by good sense and humanity alike, were of the most
fundamental character, and when they shall have received
a full answer the war will be near its end. Assuming the
slaves to have been the property of masters, he considers
them waifs abandoned by their owners, in which the gov
ernment as a finder cannot however acquire a proprietary
interest, and they have therefore reverted to the normal
condition of those made in God's image, — " if not free-
born, yet free-manumitted, sent forth from the hand that
held them, never to return." The author of that document
may never win a victor's laurels on any renowned field, but,
depositing it in the archives of the government, he leaves
a record in history which will outlast the traditions of
battle or siege. It is proper to add, that the answer of
the war department, so far as its meaning is clear, leaves
the General uninstructed as to all slaves not confiscated by
the Act of Congress.
The documentary history being now completed, the per
sonal narrative of affairs at Fortress Monroe is resumed.

30

THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE.

The encampment of Federal troops beyond the penin
sula of the fort and in the vicinity of the village of
Hampton was immediately followed by an hegira of its
white inhabitants, burning, when they fled, as much of the
bridge as they could. On the 28th of May, a detach-ment
of troops entered the village and hoisted the stars and
stripes on the house of Colonel Mallory. Picket-guards
occupied it intermittently during the month of June. It
was not until the first day of July that a permanent en
campment was made there, consisting of the Third Massa
chusetts Regiment, which moved from the fort, the Fourth,
which moved from Newport News, and the Naval Brigade,
all under the command of Brigadier-General E. W. Peirce,
— the camp being informally called Camp Greble, in honor
of the lieutenant of that name who fell bravely in the dis
astrous affair of Big Bethel. Here we remained until
July 16, when, our term of enlistment having expired, we
bade adieu to Hampton, its ancient relics, its deserted
houses, its venerable church, its trees and gardens, its con
trabands, all so soon to be wasted and scattered by the
torch of Virginia vandals. We passed over the bridge,
the rebuilding of which was completed the day before,
marched to the fort, exchanged our rifle muskets for an
older pattern, listened to a farewell address from General
Butler, bade good-by to Colonel Dimick, and embarked
for Boston. It was during this encampment at Hampton,
and two previous visits, somewhat hurried, while as yet it
was without a permanent guard, that my personal knowl-
ledge of the negroes, of their feelings, desires, aspirations,
capacities, and habits of life was mainly obtained.
A few words of local history and description may illus
trate the narrative. Hampton is a town of considerable
historic interest. First among civilized men, the illustrious
adventurer Captain John Smith, with his comrades, visited

THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE. 31
its site in 1607, while exploring the mouth of James River
to find a home for the first colonists. Here they smoked
the calumet of peace with an Indian tribe. To the neigh
boring promontory, where they found good anchorage and
hospitality, they gave the name of Point Comfort, which
it still bears. Hampton, though a settlement was begun
there in 1610, did not become a town until 1705. Hostile
fleets have twice appeared before it. The first time was
¦ in October, 1775, when some tenders sent by Lord Dun-
more to destroy it were repulsed by the citizens, aided by
the Culpepper riflemen. Then and there was the first
battle of the Revolution in Virginia. Again in June, 1813,
it was attacked by Admiral Cockburn and General Beck-
with, and scenes of pillage followed, dishonorable to the
British soldiery. Jackson, in his address to his army, just
before the Battle of New Orleans, conjured his soldiers to
remember Hampton. Until the recent conflagration, it
abounded in ancient relics. Among them was St. John's
Church, the main body of which was of imported brick,
and built at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The
fury of secession irreverently destroyed this memorial of
antiquity and religion, which even a foreign soldiery had
spared. One inscription in the graveyard surrounding the
church is as early as 1701, and even earlier dates are found
on tombstones in the fields a mile distant The court
house, a clumsy old structure, in which was the law-office
of Colonel Mallory, contained judicial records of a very
early colonial period ; some, which I examined, bore date
of 1634. Several old houses, with spacious rooms and high
ornamented ceilings, gave evidence that at one time they
had been occupied by citizens of considerable taste and
rank. A friend of mine found among the rubbish of a
deserted house ah English illustrated edition of" Paradise
Lost," of the date of 1725, and Boyle's Oxford edition of

32 THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE.
" The Epistles of Phalaris," famous in classical controversy,
printed in 1718. The proximity of Fortress Monroe, of
the fashionable watering-place of Old Point, and of the
anchorage of Hampton Roads, has contributed to the
interest of the town. To this region came in summer-time
public men weary of their cares, army and navy officers
on furlough or retired, and the gay daughters of Virginia.
In front of the fort, looking seaward, was the summer resi-"
dence of Floyd; between the fort and the tovyn was that-
of John Tyler. President Jackson sought refuge from
care and solicitation at the Rip Raps, whither he was
followed by his devoted friend Mr. Francis P. Blair. So
at least a contraband informed me, who said he had often
seen them both there.
Nevertheless, the town bore no evidence of thrift. It
looked as though it were sleepy and indolent in the best of
times, having oysters for its chief merchandise. The streets
were paved, but the pavements were of large irregular
stones, and unevenly laid. Few houses were new, and, ex
cepting St. John's Church, the public edifices were mean.
All these have been swept away by the recent conflagration,
a waste of property indefensible on any military principles.
The buildings might have furnished winter-quarters for
our troops ; but in that climate they were not necessary
for this purpose, perhaps not desirable, or, if required,
could be easily replaced by temporary habitations con
structed of lumber imported from the North by sea. But
the rebel chiefs had thrown themselves into heroic atti
tudes; and while playing the part of incendiaries, they
fancied their action to be as sublime as that of the Russians
' at Moscow. With such a precedent of vandalism, no rav
ages of our own troops can hereafter be complained of.
The prevaiHng exodus, leaving less than a dozen white
men behind, testifies the political feelings of the people.

THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE. 33
Only two votes were thrown against the ordinance of se
cession. Whatever of Union sentiment existed there had
been swept away by such demagogues as Mallory, Cary,
Magruder, Shiels, and Hope. Hastily as they left, they
removed in most cases all their furniture, leaving only the
old Virginia sideboard, too heavy to be taken away. In a
few exceptional cases, from the absence of the owner or
other cause, the house was still furnished ; but generally
nothing but old letters, torn books, newspapers, cast-off
clothing, strewed the floors. Rarely have I enjoyed the
hours more than when roaming from cellar to garret in
these tenantless houses. A deserted dwelling ! How the
imagination is fascinated by what may have there transpired
of human joy or sorrow, — the solitary struggles of the soul
for better things, the dawn and fruition of love, the separa
tions and reunions of families, the hearth-stone consecrated
by affection and prayer, the bridal throng, the birth of new
lives, the farewells to the world, the funeral train !
But more interesting and instructive were the features of
slave-life which here opened to us. The negroes who re
mained, of whom there may have been three hundred of
all ages, lived in small wooden shanties, generally in the
rear of the master's house, rarely having more than one
room on the lower floor, and that containing an open fire
place where the cooking for the master's family was done,
tables, chairs, dishes, and the miscellaneous utensils of
household life. The masters had taken with them, gener
ally, their waiting-maids and house-servants, and had
desired to carry all their slaves with them. But in the
hasty preparations, — particularly where the slaves were
living away from their master's close, or had a family, —
it was difficult to remove them against their will, as they
could skulk for a few hours and then go where they
pleased. Some voluntarily left their slaves behind, not
3

34 THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE.
having the means to provide for them, or, anticipating a
return at no distant day, desired them to stay and guard
the property. The slaves who remained lived upon the
little pork and corn-meal that were left and the growing
vegetables. They had but little to do. The women
looked after their meagre household concerns, but the
men were generally idle, standing in groups, or sitting in
front of the shanties talking with the women. Some be
gan to serve our officers as soon as we were quartered
in the town, while a few others set up cake-stands upon
the street.
It was necessary for the protection of the post that some
breastworks should be thrown up ; and a line was planned
extending from the old cemetery northward to the new
one, a quarter of a mile distant. Our own troops were
disinclined to the labor, their time being nearly expired,
and they claiming that they had done their share of fatigue
duty both at the fort and at Newport News. A member
of Brigadier-General Peirce's staff. Major R. A. Peirce (an
efficient officer and a humane gentleman), suggested the
employment of the contrabands and the furnishing of them
with rations, — an expedient best for them and agreeable
to us. He at once dictated a telegram to General Butler in
these words: " Shall we put the contrabands to work on
the intrenchments, and, will you furnish them with rations? "
An affirmative answer was promptly received on Monday
morning, July 8, and that was the first day in the course
of the war in which the negro was employed upon the
military works of our army. It therefore marks a distinct
epoch in its progress, and in its relations to the colored
population. The writer — and henceforth his narrative must indulge
in the frequent use of the first person — was specially
detailed from his post as private in Company L of the

THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE. 35
Third Regiment to collect the contrabands, record their
names, ages, and the names of their masters, provide their
tools, superintend their labor, and procure their rations.
My comrades smiled, as I undertook the novel duty, en
joying the spectacle of a Massachusetts Republican con
verted into a Virginia slave-master. To me it seemed
rather an opportunity to lead them from the bouse of
bondage never to return. For whatever m.ay be the gen
eral duty to this race, to all such as we have in any way
employed to aid our armies our national faith and our per
sonal honor are pledged; the code, of a gentleman, to
say nothing of a higher law of rectitude, necessitates pro
tection to this extent. ^Abandoning one of these faithful
allies, — who, if delivered up, would be reduced to severer
servitude because of the education he had received and
the services he had performed, probably to be transported
to the remotest slave region as now too dangerous to re
main near its borders, — we should be accursed among the
nations of the earth. I felt assured that from that hour,
whatsoever the fortunes of the war, every one of those en
rolled defenders of the Union had vindicated beyond all
future question — for himself, his wife, and their issue — a
title to American citizenship, and become heir to all the
immunities of Magna Charta, the Declaration of Indepen
dence, and the Constitution of the United States.
Passing through the principal streets, I told the contra
bands that when they heard the court-house bell, which
would ring soon, they must go to the court-house yard,
where a communication would be made to them. In the
mean time I secured the valuable services of some fellow-
privates, — one for a quartermaster, two others to aid in
superintending at the trenches, — and the orderly-sergeant
of my own company,-' whose expertness in the drill was
1 Samuel C. Hart, of New Bedford.

36 THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE.
equalled only by his general good sense and business ca
pacity. Upon the ringing of the bell, about forty contra
bands came to the yard. A second exploration added to
the number some twenty or more, who had not heard the
original summons. They then came into the building,
where they were called to order and addressed. I had
argued to judges and juries, but I had never spoken to
such auditors before in a court-room. I told them that the
colored men had been employed on the breastworks of the
rebels, and we needed their aid ; that they would be re
quired to do only such labor as we ourselves bad done ; that
they should be treated kindly, and no one should be
obliged to work beyond his capacity, or if unwell; and
that they should be furnished in a day or two with full
soldiers' rations. I told them that their masters had said
they were an indolent people ; that I did not believe the
charge ; that I was going home to Massachusetts soon, and
should be glad to report that they were as industrious as
the whites.
They generally showed no displeasure, some even say
ing, that, not having done much for some time, it was the
best thing for them to be now employed. Four or five
men over fifty years old said that they suffered from
rheumatism, and could not work without injury. Being
confirmed by the bystanders, they were dismissed. Other
old men said they would do what they could, and they
were assured that no more would be required of them.
Two of them, provided with a bucket and dipper, were de
tailed to carry water all the time along the line of laborers.
Two young men fretted a little, and claimed to be disabled
in some way. They were told to resume their seats, and try
first and see what they could do, — to the evident amusement
of the rest, who knew them to be indolent and disposed to
shirk. A few showed some sulkiness, but it all passed

THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE. 37
away after the first day, when they found that they were to
be used kindly. One well-dressed young man, a carpenter,
feeling a little better than his associates, did not wear a
pleasant face at first. Finding out his trade, we set him to
sawing the posts for the intrenchments, and he was entirely
reconciled. Free-colored men were not required to work ;
but one volunteered, wishing, as he said, to do his part.
The contrabands complained that the free-colored men
ought to be required to work on the intrenchments as well
as they. I thought so too, but followed my orders. A
few expressed some concern lest their masters should pun
ish them for serving us, if they ever returned. One in
quired suspiciously why we took the name of his master;
my reply was, that it was taken in order to identify them, —
an explanation with which he was more satisfied than I
was myself. Several were without shoes, ' and said that
they could not drive the shovel into the earth ; they were
told to use the picks. The rest of the forenoon being
occupied in registering their names and ages, and the
names of their masters, they were dismissed to come to
gether on the ringing of the bell, at two P. M.
It had been expressly understood that I was to have the
exclusive control and supervision of the negroes, directing
their hours of labor and their rests, without interference
from any one. The work itself was to be planned and
superintended .by the officers of the Third and Fourth
regiments. This exclusive control of the men was neces
sarily confided to one, as different lieutenants detailed each
day could not feel a responsibility for their welfare. One
or two of these, when rests were allowed the negroes, were
somewhat disgusted, saying that negroes could dig all the
time as well as not. I had had some years before an ex
perience of my own with the use of the shovel under a
warm sun, and knew better, and I wished I could superin-

38 THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE.
tend a corps of lieutenants and apply their own theory to
themselves. At two P. M. the contrabands came together, answered
to their names, and, each taking a shovel, a spade, or a
pick, began to work upon the breastworks farthest from
the village and close to the new cemetery. The afternoon
was very warm, the warmest we had in Hampton. Some,
used only to household or other light work, wilted under
the heat, and they were told to go into the cemetery and
lie down. I remember distinctly a corpulent colored man,
down whose cheeks the perspiration rolled, and who said he
felt badly. He also was told to go away and rest until he
was better; he soon came back relieved, and there was
no more faithful laborer among them all during the rest of
the time. Twice or three times in the afternoon an inter
mission of fifteen minutes was allowed to all. Thus they
worked until six in the evening, when they were dismissed
for the day. They deposited their tools in the court-house,
where each one of his own accord carefully put his pick or
shovel where he could find it again, — sometimes behind a
door, and sometimes in a sly corner or under a seat, — pre
ferring to keep his own -tool. They were then informed
that they must come together on the ringing of the bell
the next morning at four o'clock. They thought that too
early, but they were assured that the system best for their
health would be adopted, and they would afterwards be
consulted about changing it.
The next morning we did not rise quite so early as four,
and the bell was not rung till some minutes later. The
contrabands were prompt; their names had been called,
and they had marched to the trenches, a quarter of a mile
distant, and were fairly at work by half-past four or a
quarter before five. They did excellent service during the
morning hours, and at seven were dismissed till eight. The

THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE. 39
roll was then called again, absences, if any, noted, and by
half-past eight they were at their post. They continued
at the trenches till eleven, being allowed rests, and were
then dismissed until three P. M., being relieved four hours
in the middle of the day, when, the bell being rung and
the roll called, they resumed their work and continued till
six, when they were dismissed for the day. Such were
the hours and usual course of their labor Their number
was increased some half-dozen by fugitives from the back-
country, who came in and asked to be allowed to serve on
the intrenchments.
The contrabands worked well, and in no instance was it
found necessary for the superintendents to urge them.
There was a public opinion among them against idleness,
which answered for discipline. Some days they worked
with our soldiers, and it was found that they did more
work, and did the nicer parts — the facings and dressings —
better. Colonels Packard and Wardrop, under whose di
rection the breastworks were constructed, and General
Butler, who visited them, expressed satisfaction at the
work which the contrabands had done. On the 14th of
July, Mr. Russell, of the London " Times," and Dr. Bel
lows, of the Sanitary Commission, came to Hampton and
manifested much interest at the success of the experiment.
The result was, indeed, pleasing. A subaltern officer, to
whom I had insisted that the contrabands should be
treated with kindness, had sneered at the idea of applying
philanthropic notions in time of war. It was found then,
as always, that decent persons will accomplish more when
treated kindly, at least like human beings. The same
principle, if we will but credit our own experience and
Mr. Rarey too, may with advantage be extended to our
relations with the beasts that serve us.
Three days after the contrabands began their work, five

40 THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE.
days' rations were served to them, — a soldier's ration for
each laborer, and half a ration for each dependent. The
allowance was liberal, — as a soldier's ration, if properly
cooked, is more than he generally needs, and the depend
ent for whom a half-ration was received might be a wife
or a half-grown child. It consisted of salt beef or pork,
hard bread, beans, rice, coffee, sugar, soap, and candles ;
and where the family was large it made a considerable pile.
The recipients went home appearing perfectly satisfied,
and feehng assured that our promises to them would be
performed. On Sunday, fresh meat was served to them
in the same manner as to the troops.
There was one striking feature in the contrabands which
must not be omitted. I did not hear a profane or vulgar
word spoken by them during my superintendence, — a
remark which it will be difficult to make of any sixty-four
white men taken together anywhere in our army. Indeed,
the greatest discomfort of a soldier who desires to remain
a gentleman in the camp is the perpetual reiteration of
language which no decent lips would utter in a sister's
presence. But the negroes, so dogmatically pronounced
unfit for freedom, were in this respect models for those
who make high boasts of civility of manners and Christian
culture. Out of the sixty-four who worked for us, all but
half-a-dozen were members of the church, generally the
Baptist. Although without a pastor, they held religious
meetings on the Sundays we passed in Hampton, which
were attended by about sixty colored persons and three
hundred soldiers. The devotions were decorously con
ducted, bating some loud shouting by one or two excitable
brethren, which the better sense of the rest could not sup
press. Their prayers and exhortations were fervent, and
marked by a simplicity which is not infrequently the rich
est eloquence. The soldiers behaved with entire pro-

THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE. 41
priety; and two exhorted them with pious unction, as
children of one Father, ransomed by the same Redeemer.
To this general propriety of conduct among the contra
bands intrusted to me there was only one exception, and
that was in the case of Joe  ; his surname I have for
gotten. He was of a vagrant disposition, and an inveterate
shirk. He had a plausible speech and a distorted imagina
tion, and might be called a demagogue among darkies. He
bore an ill physiognomy, — that of one "fit for treasons,
stratagems, and spoils." He was disliked by the other
contrabands, and had been refused admission to their
church, which he wished to join in order to get up a char
acter. Last, but not least, among his sins, he was accus
tomed to beat his wife, of which she accused him in my
presence; whereupon he justified himself on the brazen
assumption that all husbands did the same ! There was
no good reason to believe that he had already been tam
pered with by rebels ; but his price could not be more
than five dollars. He would be a disturbing element
among the laborers on the breastworks, and he was a dan
gerous person to be so near the lines ; we therefore sent
him to the fort. The last I heard of him he was at the
Rip Raps, bemoaning his isolation, and the butt of our
soldiers there, who charged him with being a " secesh,"
and confounded him by gravely asserting that they were
such themselves, and had seen him with the " secesh " at
Yorktown. This was the single goat among the sheep.
On Monday evening, July 15, when the contrabands de
posited their tools in the court-house, I requested them to
stop a moment in the yard. I made each a present of
some tobacco, which all the men and most of the women
use. As they gathered in a circle round me, head peer
ing over head, I spoke to them briefly, thanking them
for their cordial work and complimenting their behavior,

42 THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE.
remarking that I had heard no profane or vulgar word
from them, in which they were an example to us, —
adding that it was the last time I should meet them, as
we were to march homeward in the morning, and that I
should bear to my people a good report of their industry
and morals.
There was another word that I could not leave without
speaking. Never before in our history had a Northern
man, believing in the divine right of all men to their
liberty, had an opportunity to address an audience of
sixty-four slaves and say what the spirit moved him to
utter, — and I should have been false to all that is true
and sacred if I had let it pass. I said to them that there
was one more word for me to add, and that was, that every
one of them was as much entitled to his freedom as I was
to mine, and I hoped they would all now secure it.^
"Believe you, boss," was the general response; and each
one with his rough gravelly hand grasped mine, and with
tearful eyes and broken utterances said, " God bless you ! "
" May we meet in Heaven I " " My name is Jack Allen,
don't forget me!" "Remember me, Kent Anderson!"
and so on. No, — I may forget the playfellows of my
childhood, my college classmates, my professional asso
ciates, my comrades in arms, but I will remember you and
your benedictions until I cease to breathe! Farewell,
honest hearts, longing to be free ! and may the kind
Providence which forgets not the sparrow shelter and
protect you ! '
During our encampment at Hampton, I occupied much
of my leisure time in conversations with the contrabands,
both at their work and in their shanties, — endeavoring
1 A correspondent of the "Antislavery Standard" (New York), Sep
tember 7, i86i, wrote of this address : "It was the first antislavery address
delivered in a slave State by a white man to slaves."

THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE. 43
to collect their currents of thought and feeling. It
remains for me to give the results, so far as any could be
arrived at.
There were more negroes of unmixed African blood than
we expected to find. But many were entirely bleached.
One man, working on the breastworks, owned by his
cousin, whose name he bore, was no darker than white
laborers exposed by their occupation to the sun, and
could not be distinguished as of negro descent. Opposite
our quarters was a young slave-woman, who had been
three times a mother without ever having been a wife.
You could not discern in her three daughters, either in
color, feature, or texture of hair, the slightest trace of
African lineage. They were as light-faced and fair-haired
as the Saxon slaves whom the Roman Pontiff, Gregory the
Great, met in the markets of Rome. If they were to be
brought North and their pedigree concealed, they could
readily mingle with our population and marry white
men, who would never suspect that they, were not pure
Caucasians. From the best knowledge I could obtain, the negroes in
Hampton had rarely been severely whipped. A locust-
tree in front of the jail had been used for a whipping-post,
and they were very desirous that it should be cut down.
It was used, however, only for what are known there as
flagrant offences, like running away. Their masters when
in ill-temper,-had used rough language and inflicted chance
blows ; but no one ever told me that he had suffered from
systematic cruelty or been severely whipped, except Joe,
whose character I have given. Indeed, many of them
bore testimony to the great kindness of their masters and
mistresses. Separations of families had been frequent. Of this I
obtained definite knowledge. When I was registering the

44 THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE.
number of dependants, preparatory to the requisition for
rations, the answer occasionally was, " Yes, I have a wife,
but she is not here." " Where is she? " " She was sold
off two years ago, and I have not heard of her since."
The husband of the woman who took care of the quar
ters of General Peirce had been sold away from her
some years before. Such separations are regarded as
death, and the slaves re-marry. In some cases the bereft
one — so an intelligent negro assured me — pines under his
bereavement and loses his value ; but so elastic is human
nature that this did not appear to be generally the case.
The same answer was given about children, — that they
had been sold away. This, in a slave-breeding country,
is done when they are about eight years old. Can that
be a mild system of servitude which permits such enforced
separations? Providence may, indeed, sunder forever
those dearest to each other, and the stricken soul accepts
the blow as the righteous discipline of a higher power;
but when the bereavement is the arbitrary dictate of
human will, there are no such consolations to sanctify
grief and assuage agony.
There is a universal desire among the slaves to be free.
Upon this point my inquiries were particular, and always
with the same result. When we said to them, " You don't
want to be free ; your masters say you don't," — they
manifested much indignation, answering, " We do want
to be free, — we want to be for ourselves." We inquired
further, " Do the house slaves who wear their master's
clothes want to be free? " " We never heard of one who
did not," was the instant reply. There might be, they
said, some half-crazy one who did not care to be free, but
they had never seen one. Even old men and women,
with crooked backs, who could hardly walk or see, shared
the same feeling. An intelligent secessionist, Lowry by

TPIE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE. 45
name, who was examined at headquarters, admitted that
a majority of the slaves wanted to be free. The more in
telligent the slave and the better he had been used, the
stronger this desire seemed to be. I particularly remem
ber one such, the most intelligent one in Hampton, known
as " an influential darky " (" darky " being the familiar
term applied by the contrabands to themselves). He
could read, was an exhorter in the church, and officiated
in the absence of the minister. He would have made a
competent juryman. His mistress, he said, had been kind
to him, and had never spoken so harshly to him as a
captain's orderly in the Naval Brigade had done, who as
sumed one day to give him orders. She had let him
work where he pleased, and he was to bring her a fixed
sum, and appropriate the surplus to his own use. She
pleaded with him to go away with her from Hampton at
the time of the exodus, but she would not force him to
leave his family. Still, he hated to be a slave, and he
talked like a philosopher about his rights- No captive in
the galleys of Algiers, not Lafayette in an Austrian dun
geon, ever pined more for free air. He had saved eigh
teen hundred dollars of his surplus earnings in attending
on visitors at Old Point, and had spent it all in litigation
to secure the freedom of his wife and children, belonging
to another master whose will had emancipated them, but
was contested on the ground of the insanity of the testator.
He had won a verdict; but his lawyers told him they
could not obtain a judgment upon it, as the judge was
unfavorable to freedom.
The most frequent question asked of one who has had
any means of communication with the contrabands during
the war is in relation to their knowledge of its cause and
purposes, and their interest in it. One thing was evident,
— indeed, you could not talk with a slave who did not

46 THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE.
without prompting give the same testimony, — that their
masters had been most industrious in their attempts to
persuade them that the Yankees were coming down there
only to get the land ; that they would kill the negroes and
dress the ground with them, or carry them off to Cuba or
Hayti and sell them. An inteUigent man who had be
longed to Colonel Joseph Segar — almost the only Union
man at heart in that region, and who for that reason, being
in Washington at the time the war began, had not dared
to return to Hampton — served the staff of General Peirce.
He bore the highest testimony to the kindness of his
master, who, he said, told him to remain ; that the Yankees
were the friends of his people, and would use them well.
"But," said David, —for that was his name, — " I never
heard of any other master who talked that way; but they
all told the worst stories about the Yankees, and the mis
tresses were more furious even than the masters." David,
I may add, spite of his good master, longed to be free.
The masters, in their desperation, had within a few
months resorted to another device to secure the loyalty of
their slaves. The colored Baptist minister had been some
thing of a pet among the whites, and had obtained sub
scriptions from some benevolent citizens to secure the
freedom of a handsome daughter of his who was exposed
to sale on an auction block, where her beauty inspired
competition. Some leading secessionists. Lawyer Hope
for one, working somewhat upon his gratitude and some
what upon his vanity, persuaded him to offer the services
of himself and his sons, in a published communication, to
the cause of Virginia and the Confederate States. The
artifice did not succeed. The minister lost his hold on his
congregation, and could not have safely remained after the
whites left. He felt uneasy about his betrayal, and tried to
restore himself to favor by saying that he meant no harm

THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE. 47
to his people; but his protestations were in vain. His was
the deserved fate of those in all ages, who, victims of folly
or bribes, turn their backs on their fellows.
Notwithstanding all these attempts, the negroes, with
rare exceptions, still believed that the Yankees were their
friends. They had learned something in Presidential
elections, and they thought their masters could not hate
us as they did unless we were friends to the slave. They
believed that the troubles would somehow or other help
them, although they did not understand all that was going
on. They may be pardoned for their want of apprehension,
when some of our public men, almost venerable, and reput
ed to be very wise and philosophical, are bewildered and
grope blindly. They were somewhat perplexed by the
contradictory statements of our soldiers, — some of whom,
according to their wishes, said the contest was for the
slaves ; and others that it did not concern them at all, and
they would remain as before. If it was explained to them
that Lincoln was chosen by a party who were opposed to
extending slavery, but who were also opposed to interfer
ing with it in Virginia ; that Virginia and the South had
rebelled, and we had come to suppress the rebellion ; and
although the object of the war was not to emancipate them,
that might be its result, — they answered that they under
stood the statement perfectly. They did not seem inclined
to fight, although willing to work. More could not be ex
pected of them while nothing is promised to them. What
latent inspirations they may have remains to be seen.
They had at first a mysterious dread of firearms, but
familiarity is rapidly removing that.
The religious element of their life has been noticed.
They said they had prayed for this day, and God had sent
Lincoln in answer to their prayers. We used to overhear
their family devotions, somewhat loud according to their

48 THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE.
manner, in which they prayed earnestly for our troops.
They built their hopes of freedom on Scriptural examples,
— regarding the deliverance of Daniel from the lions' den,
and of the Three Children from the furnace, as symbolic
of their coming freedom. One said to me that masters,
before they died, by their wills sometimes freed- their
slaves, and he thought that a type that they should all
become free.
One Saturday evening, one of them asked me to call
and see him at his home the next morning. I did so, and
he handed me a Bible belonging to his mistress, who had
died a few days before, and whose bier I had helped to carry
to the family vault. He wanted me to read to him the
eleventh chapter of Daniel. It seemed, that, as one of the
means of keeping them quiet, the white clergymen during
the winter and spring had read them some verses from it
to show that the South would prevail, enforcing passages
which ascribed great dominion to "the king of the South,"
and suppressing those which subsequently give the supre
macy to " the king of the North." A colored man who
could read had found the latter passages, and made them
known. The chapter is dark with mystery ; and my audi
tor, quite perplexed as I read on, remarked, " The Bible
is a very mysterious book." I read to him also the thirty-
fourth chapter of Jeremiah, wherein the sad prophet of
Israel records the denunciations by Jehovah of sword,
pestilence, and famine against the Jews for not proclaim
ing liberty to their servants and handmaids. He had
not known before that there were such passages in the
Bible. The conversations of the contrabands on their title to be
regarded as freemen showed reflection. When asked if
they thought themselves fit for freedom, and if the darkies
were not lazy, their answer was, " Who but the darkies

THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE. 49
cleared all the land round here? Yes, there are lazy
darkies, but there are more lazy whites." When told that
the free blacks had not succeeded, they answered that the
free blacks have not had a fair chance under the laws ;
that they don't dare to enforce their claims against white
men ; that a free-colored blacksmith had a thousand dollars
due to him from white men, but he was afraid to sue
for any portion of it. One man, when asked why he
ought to be free, replied, " I feed and clothe myself, and
pay my master one hundred and twenty dollars a year;
and the one hundred and twenty dollars is just so much
taken from me, which ought to be used to make me and
my children comfortable." Indeed, broken as was their
speech and limited as was their knowledge, they reasoned
abstractly on their rights as well as white men. Locke or
Channing might have fortified the argument for universal
liberty from their simple talk. So true is it that the best
thoughts which the human intellect has produced have
come, not from affluent learning or ornate speech, but
from the original elements of our nature, common to all
races of men and all conditions in life; and genius, the
highest and most cultured, may bend with profit to catch
the lowliest of human utterances.
There was a very general desire among the contrabands
to know how to read. A few had learned ; and these, in
every instance where we inquired as to their teacher, had
been taught on the sly in their childhood by their white
playmates. Others knew their letters, but could not " put
them together," as they said. I remember of a summer's
afternoon seeing a young married woman, perhaps twenty-
five years old, seated on a doorstep with her primer before
her, trying to make progress.
In natural tact and the faculty of getting a livelihood the
contrabands are inferior to the Yankees, but quite equal
4

50 THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE.
to the mass of the Southern population. It is not easy to
see why they would be less industrious if free than the
whites, particularly as they would have the encouragement
of wages. There would be transient difficulties at the out
set, but no more than a bad system lasting for ages might
be expected to leave behind. The first generation might
be unfitted for the active duties and responsibilities of citi
zenship ; but this difficulty, under generous provisions for
education, would not pass to the next. Even now they are
not so much behind the masses of the whites. Of the
Virginians who took the oath of allegiance at Hampton, not
more than one in fifteen could write his name; and the
rolls captured at Hatteras disclose an equally deplorable
ignorance. The contrabands might be less addicted than
the now dominant race to bowie-knifes and duels ; think
less of the value of bludgeons as forensic arguments; be
less inhospitable to innocent sojourners from Free States;
and have far inferior skill in robbing forts and arsenals,
plundering the national treasury, and betraying the country
at whose crib they had fattened : but mankind would for
give th^m for not acquiring these accomplishments of
modern treason. As a race, they may be less vigorous and
thrifty than the Saxon ; but they are more social, docile, and
affectionate, fulfilling the theory which Channing held in
relation to them, if advanced to freedom and civilization.
If in the progress of the war they should be called to
bear arms, there need be no reasonable apprehension that
they would exhibit the ferocity of savage races. Unlike
such, they have been subordinated to civilized life. They
are by nature a religious people. They have received an
education in the Christian faith from devout teachers of
their own and of the dominant race. Some have been
taught (let us believe it) by the precepts of Christian
masters, and some by the children of those masters, re-

THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE.

51

peating the lessons of the Sabbath-school. The slave
holders assure us that all their slaves have been well treated.
If that be so, they have no wrongs to avenge. Associated
with our army, they would conform to the stronger and
more disciplined race. Nor is this view disproved by servile
insurrections. In those cases, the insurgents without arms,
without allies, without discipline, but throwing themselves
against society, against government, against everything,
saw no other escape than to devastate and destroy without
mercy in order to get a foothold. If they exterminated,
it was because extermination was threatened against them.
In the Revolution, in the army at Cambridge, from the
beginning to the close of the war, against the protests of
South Carolina by the voice of Edward Rutledge, but
with the express sanction of Washington, — ever just,
ever grateful for patriotism, whencesoever it came, — the
negroes fought in the ranks with the white men ; and they
never dishonored the patriot cause. So also at the defence
of New Orleans, they received from General Jackson a
noble tribute to their fidelity and soldier-like bearing.
Weighing the question historically and reflectively, and
anticipating the capture of Richmond and New Orleans,
there need be more serious apprehension of the conduct
of some of our own troops recruited in large cities than
of a regiment of contrabands officered and disciplined by
white men.
But as events travel faster than laws or proclamations,
already in this war with rebellion the two races have
served together. The same breastworks have been built
by their common toil. True and valiant, they stood side by
side in the din of cannonade, and they shared as comrades
in the victory of Hatteras. History will not fail to record
that on the 28th day of August, 1 861, when the rebel forts
were bombarded by the Federal army and navy, under

52 THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE.
the command of Major-General Butler and Commodore
Stringham, fourteen negroes, lately Virginia slaves, now
contraband of war, faithfully and without panic worked
the after-gun of the upper deck of the " Minnesota," and
hailed with a victor's pride the Stars and Stripes as they
again waved on the soil of the Carolinas.

Mr. Pierce's article on the contrabands called forth expressions
of approval from several well-known genflemen. Mr. Smalley,
afterwards distinguished as the London correspondent of the
New York " Tribune," wrote : — Boston, October 23, 1861.
My dear Sir, — You will permit me to thank you for your
article on the contrabands, which entitles you to the thanks of
every man who hates slavery and believes the system may and
ought to be destroyed by this war. It is easy to applaud the
picturesque interest of its narrative, its clearness and courage of
statement and comment ; but its pathos and Christian humanity
are beyond all praise. In justice to myself, I cannot omit to tell
you how much I have been impressed ; and I beg you to be
lieve me Sincerely yours,
George W. Smalley.
E. L. Pierce, Esq.

A citizen of New Bedford, later holding a high judicial office,
wrote : — New Bedford, Mass., November 3, 1861.
My dear Sir, — I have just arisen from the perusal of your
article on "The Contrabands at Fortress Monroe," and I cannot
resist the impulse to thank you most cordially for it.
In my judgment you have by this rendered a far greater service
to our country, as well as to the great cause of human progress
and civilization, than even by the faithful service and chivalrous
example of your military term at Fort Monroe. If is a valuable

THE CONTRABANDS AT FORTRESS MONROE. 53
contribution to the great question of the hour, and I wish most
heartily that its general distribution in some popular form might be
provided for. In these days, when " bayonets think," our victory
will lag till they are reinforced by ideas.
Truly your friend,
Robert C. Pitman.
Edward L. Pierce, Esq.

The biographer of Theodore Parker testified his approval as
follows : — Milton, October 18, 1861.
My dear Mr. Pierce, — I thank you for letting me have an
early sight of your article, and I enjoyed reading it. I liked what
it implied as well as what it expressed. It will be an important
document by and by, as giving the world the most authentic ac
count of the first contact of the Army of Freedom with the
Slave. Very truly yours, John Weiss.

54 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.

III.

While on a journey to the Western States in May, 1853, Mr.
Pierce made at Cincinnati the acquaintance of Salmon P. Chase,
then United States Senator, by a letter of introduction from
Charles Sumner. This meeting led to an intimate friendship.
Mr. Pierce, who was just beginning professional life, entered Mr.
Chase's law office at Cincinnati in October, 1853, and remained
there till the summer of 1854 (Mr. Chase being, however, then in
Washington), and was the senator's secretary at Washington dur
ing the winter of 1854-55. As soon as Mr. Pierce was mustered
out of military service in July, 1861, he had occasion to visit the
capital, and while there related to Mr. Chase, then Secretary of the
Treasury, his recent experiences with negroes at Hampton, Va., in
which the secretary expressed great interest. This incident, in
connection with the personal relation above referred to, prompted
Mr. Chase, December 21, 1861, to send to Mr. Pierce, then a
lawyer in Boston, a letter and a telegram of similar purport, the
latter being as follows : " If you incline to visit Beaufort in con
nection with contrabands and cotton, come to Washington at once."
The secretary had already commissioned agents to collect the cot
ton on the islands, but was distrustful as to their sentiments and
conduct towards the negroes.
On the 25 th Mr. Pierce conferred with Secretary Chase at his
department, and returning home, accepted on the 30th the mis
sion, which was then supposed to be the temporary one of investi
gation. He left New York City for Port Royal, January 13, 1862,
and arrived at New York on his return February 13. On the
evening of the next day he read to Mr. Chase at the secretary's
house in Washington his report dated February 3, which he had
prepared at Port Royal. The secretary cordially approved its tenor
and recommendations, stating at the same time his regret that
he had no public fund available for the payment of teachers and

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.

55

superintendents, — a burden, however, which voluntary societies
came forward at once to assume. The report was at once pub-
hshed in the " New York Tribune," and copied wholly or in part
by other journals. It drew attention as the first comprehensive
treatment of the character of slaves in the revolted States, and as
the first statement of a plan for organizing and educating them as
laborers and citizens.
Early in the Civil War there was a craving for definite informa
tion as to the capacity of the Southern negroes to become citizens,
soldiers, and productive laborers ; and curiosity on these points
drew particular attention to Mr. Pierce's testimony concerning
them. There was a general apprehension — a conviction with some,
and a doubt or fear with others — that the slaves would not as free
men keep up the culture of cotton, an industry which was deemed
essential to the national prosperity ; and this state of the public
mind was a formidable obstruction to the policy of emancipation.
Even a radical Antislavery member of Congress from Massachu
setts said to Mr. Pierce at Washington, in February, 1862, "Do
you think anything can be done vifith these people ? " In view
of this prevailing scepticism, Mr. Pierce's reports emphasized any
hopeful indications of industrial capacity which he discovered in
the Southern negroes ; and his efforts were strenuously directed
to the raising of a crop of cotton in the season of 1862, even
though under the very unfavorable conditions the results might not
be considerable.
It should be observed that Mr. Pierce's official reports — dated
February 3 and June 2, 1862 — preceded by several months Presi
dent Lincoln's proclamations of emancipation. They appeared at
a time when both the people and public men were groping on the
slavery question, and there was as yet no definite policy or public
opinion as to the fate of the Southern negroes. Mr. Pierce
deemed it wise, in the sensitive state of the public mind, to avoid
argument on the vexed question of their status, and thought it the
better way to assume their freedom as already established by
events. The two documents were believed at the time to have
materially advanced the question in the direction of emancipation,
particularly by showing the disposition and capacity of the slaves

56 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
to work as free laborers. They were included in that well-known
collection of documents, the "Rebellion Record" (Companion
volume) pp. 302-323. Earl Russell referred, March 10, 1862, in
the House of Lords, to the first report as " an interesting account,"
and quoted from it. An English publication, entitled " Once a
Week," March 29, 1862, contained a paper on " Mr. Pierce's Ten
Thousand Clients," which reproduced the substance of his first re
port. Augustin Cochin referred to the two reports in his " Results
of Emancipation" (Boston edition, 1863, pp. 399), and Ehs6e
Reclus dwelt at some length upon them in his article entifled
" Les Noirs Am^ricains depuis La Guerre" in the "Revue des
Deux Mondes"for March 15, 1863 (pp. 388-394). Later his
torical references to the Port Royal enterprise will be found in the
Count of Paris's " History of the Civil War in America " (Phila
delphia, 1876, ii. 729-730) ; Wilson's " Rise and Fall of the Slave
Power in America" (iii. 455-463); Lossing's "Civil War in
America" (ii. 126), and " Memoir and Letters of Charles Sum
ner" (iv. 82).
Mr. Pierce's two reports and his article in the Atlantic
Monthly for September, 1863, have been combined in this volume,
with the omission from each of passages relating to details which
are not now of importance. The article referred to — entitled
"The Freedmen at Port Royal" — includes also notes of his visit
to the Sea Islands in the spring of 1863. He did not again visit
them till 1881. Shortly after, he gave a library of a thousand
volumes to the people of the islands, which together with the
building — the gift of Robert K. Darrah, of Boston — was unfor
tunately destroyed by fire in 1893.

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.

57

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
Two questions are concerned in the social problem of
our time. One is. Will the people of African descent
work for a living ? and the other is, Will they fight for
their freedom .¦' An affirmative answer to these must be
put beyond any fair dispute before they will receive per
manent security in law or opinion. Whatever may be the
theses of philosophers or the instincts of just men, the general
sense of mankind is not likely to accord the rights of com
plete citizenship to a race of paupers, or to hesitate in im
posing compulsory labor on those who have not industry
sufficient to support themselves. Nor, in the present de
velopment of human nature, is the conscience of great
communities likely to be so pervasive and controlling as to
restrain them from disregarding the rights of those whom
it is perfectly safe to injure, because they have not the
pluck to defend themselves. Sentiment may be lavished
upon them in poetry and tears, but it will all be wasted.
Like every unprivileged class before them, they will have
their full recognition as citizens and men when they have
vindicated their title to be an estate of the realm, and not
before. Let us, then, take the world as we find it, and try
this people accordingly. It is not pertinent to any practical
inquiry of our time to predict what triumphs in art, litera
ture, or government they are to accomplish, or what
romance is to glow upon their history. No Iliad may be
written of them and their woes ; no Plutarch may gather
the lives of their heroes ; no Vandyck may delight to warm

58 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
his canvas with their forms. How many or how few
astronomers like Banneker, chieftains like Toussaint, ora
tors like Douglass they may have, it is not worth while to
conjecture. It is better to dismiss these fanciful discus
sions. To vindicate their title to a fair chance in the world
as a free people, it is sufficient that it appear to reasonable
minds that they are in good and evil very much like the
rest of mankind, and that they are endowed in about the
same degree with the conservative and progressive ele
ments of character common to ordinary humanity.
It is given to the people of this country and time, could
they realize it, to make a new chapter of human experi
ence. The past may suggest, but it can do little either in
directing or deterring. There is nothing in the gloomy
vaticinations of De Tocqueville, wise and benevolent as he
is, which should be permitted to darken our future. The
mediaeval antagonisms of races — when Christianity threw
but a partial light over mankind, and before commerce had
unfolded the harmony of interests among people of diverse
origin or condition — determine no laws which will fetter
the richer and more various development of modern life.
Nor do the results of emancipation in the West Indies,
more or less satisfactory as they may be, afford any mea
sure of the progress which opens before our enfranchised
masses. The insular and contracted life of the colonies,
cramped also as they were by debt and absenteeism, has
no parallel in the grand currents of thought and activity
ever sweeping through the continent on which our prob
lem is to be solved.
In the light of these views, the attempt will be made to
report truthfully upon the freedmen at Port Royal. A
word, however, as to the name. Civilization, in its career,
may often be traced in the nomenclatures of successive
periods. These people were first called "contrabands"

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL. 59
at Fortress Monroe ; but at Port Royal, where they were
next introduced to us in any considerable number, they
were generally referred to as " freedmen." These terms
are milestones in our progress ; and they are yet to be lost
in the better and more comprehensive designation of
" citizens," or, when discrimination is convenient, " citizens
of African descent."
The enterprise for the protection and development of the
freedmen at Port Royal has won its way to the regard of
mankind. The best minds of Europe, as well as the best
friends of the United States, like Cairnes and Gasparin,
have testified much interest in its progress. In Parliament,
Earl Russell noted it in its incipient stage as a reason why
England should not intervene in American affairs. The
"Revue des Deux Mondes," in a recent number, character
izes the colony as " that small pacific army, far more im
portant in the history of civilization than all the military
expeditions despatched from time to time since the com
mencement of the civil war."
No little historical interest covers the region to which
this account belongs. Explorations of the coast now
known as that of the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida, in
volving the rival pretensions of Spain and France, were
made in the first half of the sixteenth century. They
were conducted by Ponce de Leon, Vasquez, Verrazzani,
and De Soto, in search of the fountain of perpetual youth,
or to extend empire by right of discovery. But no perma
nent settlement by way of colony or garrison was attempted
until 1562.
In that year, — the same in which he drew his sword for
his faith, and ten years before the Massacre of St. Bar
tholomew, in which he fell the most illustrious victim, —
Admiral Coligny, the great Protestant chief, anxious to

6o THE FREEDMEN AT RORT ROYAL.
found beyond the seas a refuge for persecuted Huguenots,
fitted out the expedition of Jean Ribault, which, after a
voyage of over three months across the ocean and north
ward along the coast, cast anchor on May 27 in the har
bor of Port Royal, and gave it the name which it retains
to this day. That year was also to be ever memorable for
another and far different enterprise, which was destined to
be written in dark and perpetual hues on human history.
Then it was that John Hawkins sailed for Africa in quest
of the first cargo of negroes ever brought in English ships
to the New World. The expedition of Ribault was the
first visit of Europeans to Port Royal or to any part of
South Carolina; and the garrison left by him was the first
settlement under their auspices ever made on this conti
nent north of Mexico. There is not space or need to de
tail here the mutiny and suffering of this military colony,
their abandonment of the post, the terrible voyage home
ward, or the perseverance of Coligny in his original pur
pose. Nor is it within the compass of this narrative to
recount the fortunes of the second garrison, which was
founded on the St. John's ; the visit of John Hawkins in
1565 with timely relief; the return of Ribault from France
and his sad fate ; the ferocity of Menendez against all
heretic Frenchmen ; and the avenging chivalry of Dominic
de Gourgues.i The student is baflfled in attempts to fix
localities for the deeds and explorations of this period,
even with the help of the several accounts and the draw
ings of Le Moyne; and, besides, these later vicissitudes
did not involve any permanent occupation as far north
as Port Royal, that region having been abandoned by the
1 The author's original manuscript entered at some length on these events,
but he was obliged to curtail the narrative for the reason that Francis Park-
man's articles on " The Pioneers of France in the New World," then being
prepared for the Atlantic Monthly, were to cover the same ground.

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL. 6 1
French, and being then visited by the .Spanish only for
trade or adventure.
Some merchants of Barbadoes, in 1663, sent William
Hilton and other commissioners to Florida, then including
Port Royal, to explore the country with reference to an
emigration thither. Hilton's "Narration," published in
London the year after, mentions St. Ellen's as one of the
points visited, — meaning St. Helena, but probably includ
ing the Sea Islands under that name. The natives were
found to speak many Spanish words, and to be familiar
enough with the report of guns not to be alarmed by it.
The commissioners, whose explorations were evidently
prompted by the motives of gain, close a somewhat glow
ing description of the country by saying, " And we could
wish that all they that want a happy settlement of our
English nation were well transported thither."
Hitherto England had borne no part in exploring this
region. But, relieved of her civil wars by the Restoration,
she began to seek colonial empire on the southern coast of
North America. In 1663, Charles II. granted a charter to
Clarendon, Monk, Shaftesbury, — each famous in the con
flicts of those times, • — and to their associates, as proprie
tors of Carolina. The genius of John Locke, more fitted
for philosophy than affairs, devised a constitution for the
colony,- — an idle work, as it proved. In 1670, the first
emigrants, under Governor William Sayle, arrived at Port
Royal, with the purpose to remain there; but, disturbed
probably with apprehensions of Spanish incursions from
Florida, they removed to the banks of the Ashley, and,
after another change of site, founded Charleston.
In 1682, a colony from Scotland under Lord Cardross
was founded at Port Royal, but was driven away four years
later by the Spanish. No permanent settlement of the
Beaufort district appears to have succeeded until 1700.

62 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
This district is divided into four parishes, — St. Peter's, St.
Luke's, St. Helena, and Prince William, — being fifty-
eight miles long and thirty-two broad, and containing
1,224,960 acres. St. Helena parish includes the islands
of St. Helena, Ladies, Port Royal, Paris, and a few smaller
islands, which, together with Hilton Head, make the dis
trict occupied by our forces. The largest and most popu
lous of these islands is St. Helena, being fifteen miles long
and six or seven broad, containing fifty plantations and
three thousand negroes, and perhaps more since the evac
uation of Edisto. Port Royal is two-thirds or three-
quarters the size of St. Helena, Ladies half as large, and
Hilton Head one-third as large. Paris, or Parry, has five
plantations; and Coosaw, Morgan, Cat, Cane, and Barn
well have each one or two. Beaufort is the largest town
in the district of that name, and the only one at Port
Royal in our possession. Its population, black and white,
in time of peace may have been between two and three
thousand. The first lots were granted in 1717. Its Epis
copal church was built in 1720. Its library was instituted
in 1802, had increased in 1825 to six or eight hundred vol
umes, and when our military occupation began contained
about thirty-five hundred.
The origin of the name Port Royal, given to a harbor
at first and since to an island, has already been noted.
The name of St. Helena, applied to a sound, a parish, and
an island, originated probably with the Spaniards, and
was given by them in tribute to Saint Helena, mother
of Constantine the Great, whose day in the calendar is
August 18. Broad River is the equivalent of La Grande,
which was given by Ribault. Hilton Head may have been
derived from Captain Hilton, who came from Barbadoes.
Coosaw is the name of a tribe of Indians. Beaufort is
likely to have been so called for Henry, Duke of Beaufort,

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL. 63
one of the lord proprietors while Carolina was a province
of Great Britain.
The Beaufort district is not invested with any consider
able Revolutionary romance. In 1779, the British forces
holding Savannah sent two hundred troops with a howitzer
and two field-pieces to Beaufort. Four companies of
militia from Charleston with two field-pieces, reinforced by
a few volunteers from Beaufort, repulsed and drove them
off. The British made marauding incursions from Charles
ton in 1782, and are said to have levied a military contri
bution on St. Helena and Port Royal Islands.
There are the remains of Indian mounds and ancient
forts on the islands. One of these last can be traced on
Paris Island, and is claimed by some antiquaries to be
the Charles Fort built by Ribault. There are the well-
preserved walls of one upon the plantation of John J.
Smith on Port Royal Island, a few miles south of Beau
fort, now called Camp Saxton, and recently occupied by
Colonel Higginson's regiment. It is built of cemented
oyster-shells. Common remark refers to it as a Spanish
fort, but it is likely to be of English construction. The
site of Charles Fort is claimed for Beaufort, Lemon Island,
Paris Island, and other points.
The Sea Islands are formed by the intersection of the
creeks and arms of the sea. They have a uniform level,
are without any stones, and present a rather monotonous
and uninteresting scenery, spite of the raptures of French
explorers. The creeks run up into the islands at numerous
points, affording facilities for transportation by flats and
boats to the buildings which are usually near them. The
soil is of a light, sand)' mould, and yields in the best
seasons a very moderate crop, say fifteen bushels of corn
and one hundred or one hundred and thirty pounds of
ginned cotton to the acre, — quite different from the plan-

64 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
tations in Mississippi and Texas, where an acre produces
five or six hundred pounds. The soil is not rich enough
for the cultivated grasses, and one finds but little turf.
The coarse saline grasses, gathered in stacks, furnish the
chief material for dressing the land. The long-fibred cotton
peculiar to the region is the result of the climate, which is
affected by the action of salt water upon the atmosphere
by means of the creeks which permeate the land in all
directions. The seed of this cotton, planted on the upland,
will produce in a few years the cotton of coarser texture ;
and the seed of the latter, planted on the islands, will in a
like period produce the finer staple. The treasury depart
ment secured eleven hundred thousand pounds from the
islands occupied by our forces, including Edisto, — being
the crop, mostly unginned, and gathered in storehouses,
when our military occupation began.
The characteristic trees are the live-oak, its wood almost
as heavy as lignum-vitse, the trunk not high, but sometimes
five or six feet in diameter, and extending its crooked
branches far over the land, with the long, pendulous, fune
real moss adhering to them ; and the palmetto, shooting
up its long, spongy stem thirty or forty feet, unrelieved by
vines or branches, with a disproportionately small cap of
leaves at the summit, — the most ungainly of trees, albeit
it gives a name and coat-of-arms to the State. Besides
these, are the pine, the red and white oak, the cedar, the
bay, the gum, the maple, and the ash. The soil is luxuri
ant with an undergrowth of impenetrable vines. These
interlacing the trees, supported also by shrubs, of which
the cassena is the most distinguished variety, and faced
with ditches, make the prevailing fences of the plantations.
The hedges are adorned in March and April with the yel
low jessamine {jelsemimtni) ; the cross-vine {bignonia^
with its mass of rich red blossoms; the Cherokee rose

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.

65

(IcBvigata^, spreading out in long waving wreaths of white ;
and, two months later, the palmetto royal {yzicca gloriosa),
which protects the fence with its prickly leaves, and de
lights the eyes with its pyramid-like clusters of white
flowers. Some of these trees and shrubs serve a utilitarian
end in art and medicine. The live-oak is famous in ship
building. The palmetto, or cabbage-palmetto, as it is
called, resists destruction by worms, and is used for facing
wharves; it was employed to protect Fort Moultrie in
1776, when bombarded by the British fleet, and the cannon-
balls were buried in its spongy substance. The moss
{tillandsia tisneoides~) served to calk the rude vessel of the
first French colonists, longing for home; it may be used
for bedding after its life has been killed by boiling water,
and for the subsistence of cattle when destitute of other
food. The cassena is a powerful diuretic.
The game and fish, which are both abundant and of de
sirable kinds, and to the pursuit of which the planters were
much addicted, are described in Eliot's book. Dr. W. H.
Russell's " Diary " may also be consulted in relation to
fishing for devil and drum.
The best dwellings in Beaufort are capacious, with a
piazza on the first and second stories, through each of
which runs a large hall to admit a free circulation of air.
Only one, however, appeared to have been built under the
supervision of a professional architect. Those on the
plantations, designed for the planters or overseers, were,
with a few exceptions, of a very mean character, and a
thriving mechanic in New England would turn his back on
them as unfit to live in. Their yards are without turf, hav
ing as their best feature a neighboring grove of orange-
trees. One or two dwellings only appear to be ancient;
indeed, they are not well enough built to last long. The
estates upon Edisto Island are of a more patrician charac-
5

66 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
ter, and are occasionally surrounded by spacious flower-
gardens and ornamental trees fancifully trimmed.
The names of the planters indicated mainly an English
origin, although some may be traced to Huguenot families
who sought a refuge here from the religious persecutions
of France.
The deserted houses were generally found strewn with re
ligious periodicals, mainly Baptist magazines. This charac
teristic of Southern life has been elsewhere observed in the
progress of our army. Occasionally, some book denounc
ing slavery as criminal and ruinous was found among those
left behind. One of these was Hewatt's " History of
South Carolina," published in 1779, and reprinted in Car
roll's collection. Another was Grdgoire's vindication of the
negro race and his tribute to its distinguished examples,
translated by Warden in 1810. These people seem, indeed,
to have had light enough to see the infinite wrong of the
system, and it is difficult to believe them entirely sincere
in their passionate defence of it. Their very violence,
when the moral basis of slavery is assailed, seems to be
that of a man who distrusts the rightfulness of his daily
conduct, has resolved to persist in it, and therefore hates
most of all the prophet who comes to confront him for his
misdeeds, and, if need be, to publish them to mankind.
Well-authenticated instances of cruelty to slaves were
brought to notice without being sought for. But it is un
pleasant to dwell on these painful scenes of the past, con
stant and authentic as they are ; and they hardly concern
the practical question which now presses for a solution.
Nor in referring to them is there any need of injustice or
exaggeration. Human nature has not the physical endur
ance or moral persistence to keep up perpetual and uni
versal cruelty ; and there are fortunate slaves who never
received a blow from their masters. Besides, there was

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL. 67
less labor exacted and less discipline imposed on the
loosely managed plantations of the Sea Islands than in
other districts where slave-labor was better and more pro
fitably organized and directed.
The capture of Hilton Head and Bay Point by the
navy, November 7, 1861, was followed b)' the immediate
military occupation of the Sea Islands. In the latter part
of December, the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Chase,
whose foresight as a statesman and humane disposition
naturally turned his thoughts to the subject, deputed my
self as a special agent to visit this district for the purpose
of reporting upon the condition of the negroes who had
been abandoned by the white population, and of suggest
ing some plan for the organization of their labor and the
promotion of their general well-being. Leaving New
York January 13, 1862, I reached that city again on my
way to Washington on the 13th of February, having in the
mean time visited a large number of the plantations, and
talked familiarly with the negroes in their cabins. The
results of my observations, in relation to the condition of
the people, their capacities and wishes, the culture of their
crops, and the best mode of administration, on the whole
favorable, were embodied in a report (addressed to Secre
tary Chase, from Port Royal, under date of February 3,
1862), the substance of which is here given: —
My first communication to you was mailed on the third
day after my arrival. The same day I mailed two letters
to benevolent persons ^ in Boston, mentioned in my pre
vious communications to you, asking for contributions of
clothing, and for a teacher or missionary to be sent, to be
supported by the charity of those interested in the move-
1 Rev. J. M. Manning, and Mrs. Samuel Cabot. See "Boston Evening
Transcript," January 27, 1862, where the letters are printed.

68 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
ment, — to both of which letters favorable answers have
been received.
I began at once a tour of the larger islands, and ever
since have been diligently engaged in anxious examina
tions of the modes of culture; the amount and proportions
of the products ; the labor required for them ; the life and
disposition of the laborers upon them; their estimated
numbers; the treatment they have received from their
former masters, alike as to the labor required, the provi
sions and clothing allowed, and the discipline imposed ;
their habits, capacities, and desires, with special reference
to their being fitted for useful citizenship ; and generally
whatever concerned the well-being, present and future, of
the territory and its people. Visits have also been made
to the communities collected at Hilton Head and Beau
fort, and conferences held with the authorities both naval
and military, and with other benevolent persons interested
in the welfare of these people, and in the wise and speedy
reorganization of society here. No one can be impressed
more than myself with the uncertainty of conclusions
drawn from experiences and reflections included in so
brief a period, however industriously and wisely occupied.
Nevertheless, they may be of some service to those who
have not been privileged with an equal opportunity.
Of the plantations visited, full notes have been taken of
seventeen, with reference to number of negroes in all, and
particularly of field-hands; amount of cotton and corn
raised, and how much per acre; time and mode of produc
ing and distributing manure; listing, planting, cultivating,
picking, and ginning cotton; labor required of each hand;
allowance of food and clothing ; the capacities of the labor
ers, and their wishes and feelings both as to themselves
and their masters. Many of the above points could be
determined by other sources, —such as persons at the

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL. 69
North familiar with the region, and publications. The
inquiries were, however, made with the double purpose
of acquiring the information and testing the capacity of
the persons inquired of. Some of the leading results of
the examination will now be submitted.
A fact derived from the Census of i860 may serve to
illustrate the responsibility now devolving on the govern
ment. This county of Beaufort had a population of slaves
in proportion of 82 8. 10 of the whole, — a proportion only
exceeded by seven other counties in the United States ;
namely, one in South Carolina, that of Georgetown ; three
in Mississippi, those of Bolivar, Washington, and Isse-
quena ; and three in Louisiana, those of Madison, Tensas,
and Concordia.
An impression prevails that the negroes here have been
less cared for than in most other rebel districts. If this be
so, and a beneficent reform shall be achieved here, the ex
periment may anywhere else be hopefully attempted.
The former white population, so far as can be ascer
tained, are rebels, with one or two exceptions. In January,
i86r, a meeting of the planters on St. Helena Island was
held, of which Thomas Aston Coffin was chairman. A
vote was passed, stating their exposed condition, and offer
ing their slaves to the governor of South Carolina, to aid in
building earthworks, and calling on him for guns to mount
upon them. A copy of the vote, probably in his hand
writing, and signed by Mr. Coffin, was found in his house.
It is worthy of note that the negroes now within our
lines are there by the invitation of no one ; but they were
on the soil when our army began its occupation, and could
not have been excluded, except by violent transportation.
A small proportion have come in from the main-land,
evading the pickets of the enemy and our own, — some-

70

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.

thing easily done in an extensive country, with whose woods
and creeks they are familiar.
The only exportable crop of this region is the long
staple Sea Island cotton, raised with more difficulty than
the coarser kind, and bringing a higher price.
Such features in plantation life as will throw light on the
social questions now anxiously weighed deserve notice.
Upon each plantation visited by me, familiar conversa
tions were had with several laborers, conversations more
or less full, as time permitted, — sometimes inquiries made
of them, as they collected in groups, as to what they de
sired us to do with and for them, with advice as to the
course of sobriety and industry which it is for their inter
est to pursue under the new and strange circumstances
in which they are now placed. Inquiries as to plantation
economy, the culture of crops, the implements still re
maining, the number of persons in all, and of field-hands
and the rations issued were made of the " drivers," as they
are called, answering, as nearly as the two different systems
of labor will permit, to foremen on farms in the free States.
There is one driver on each plantation, — on the largest
one visited, two. They still remained on each plantation,
and their names were noted. The business of the driver
was to superintend the field-hands generally, and see that
their tasks were performed fully and properly. He con
trolled them subject to the master or overseer; he dealt
out the rations. Another office belonged to him : he was
required by the master or overseer, whenever either saw
fit, to inflict corporal punishment upon the laborers ; nor
was he relieved from this service when the subject of
discipline was his own wife or children. In the absence
of the master and overseer, he succeeded to much of their
authority.

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL. 71
There are also on the plantations other laborers, more
intelligent than the average, — such as the carpenter, the
plowman, the religious leader (who may be called a
preacher), a watchman, and a helper, the two latter being
recognized officers in the churches of these people, and
the helpers being aids to the watchmen. These persons,
having recognized positions among their fellows, either by
virtue of superior knowledge or devotion, when properly
approached by us, may be expected to have a beneficial
influence on the more ignorant, and to help in creating that
public opinion in favor of good conduct which, among the
humblest as among the highest, is most useful. I saw
many of very low intellectual development, but hardly any
too low to be reached by civilizing influences either com
ing directly from us or mediately through their brethren ;
and while I saw some who were sadly degraded, I met also
others who were as fine specimens of human nature as one
can ever expect to find.
It seemed a part of my duty to attend the religious
meetings of these people, and learn further what could be
derived from such a source. Their exhortations to per
sonal piety were fervent; and, though their language was
many times confused, at least to my ear, occasionally an
important instruction or a felicitous expression could be
recognized. In one case, a preacher of their own, com
menting on the text, " Blessed are the meek," exhorted his
brethren not to be " stout-minded." On one plantation on
Ladies' Island, where some thirty negroes were gathered
in the evening, I read passages of Scripture, and pressed
on them their practical duties at the present time with re
ference to the good of themselves, their children, and their
people. The passages read were the first and twenty-third
Psalms, the sixty-first chapter of Isaiah, verses 1-4, the
Beatitudes in the fifth chapter of Matthew, the fourteenth

72

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.

chapter of John's Gospel, and the fifth chapter of the
Epistle of James. In substance, I told them that their
masters had rebelled against the government, and we had
come to put down the rebellion ; that we had now met
them, and wanted to see what was best to do for them;
that Mr. Lincoln — the President or Great Man at Wash
ington — had the whole matter in charge, and was thinking
what he could do for them ; that the great trouble about
doing anything for them was that their masters had always
told us, and had made many people believe so, that they
were lazy and would not work unless whipped to it ; that
Mr. Lincoln had sent us down here to see if it was so; that
what they did was reported to him, or to men who would
tell him ; that where I came from all were free, both white
and black; that we did not sell children or separate man
and wife, but all had to work ; that if they were to be free;
they would have to work, and would be shut up or de
prived of privileges if they did not ; that this was a critical
hour with them, and if they did not behave well now and
respect our agents and appear willing to work, Mr. Lincoln
would cease trying to do anything for them, and they must
give up all hope of anything better, and their children and
grandchildren a hundred years hence would be worse off
than they had been. I told them they must stick to their
plantations, and not run about and get scattered. I assured
them that what their masters had told them of our inten
tions to carry them off to Cuba and sell them was a lie,
and their masters knew it to be so ; that we wanted them
to stay on the plantations and raise cotton, and if they be
haved well they should have wages, small perhaps at first ;
that they should have better food, and not have their wives
and children sold off; that their children should be taught
to read and write, for which they might be willing to pay
something ; that by and by they would be as well off as the

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL. 73
white people, and we would stand by them against their
masters ever coming back to take them. The importance
of exerting a good influence on one another, particularly on
the younger men, who were rather careless and roving, was
urged, as all would suffer in good repute from the bad
deeds of a few. The name of Mr. Lincoln was used in
addressing them, as more likely to impress them than the
abstract idea of government.
It is important to add that in no case have I attempted
to excite them by insurrectionary appeals against their
former masters, feeling that such a course might increase
the trouble of organizing them into a peaceful and improv
ing system, under a just and healthful temporary discipline ;
and, besides, it is a dangerous experiment to attempt the
improvement of a class of men by appealing to their
coarser nature. The better way toward making them our
faithful allies, and therefore the constant enemies of the
rebels, seemed to be to place before them the good things
to be done for them and their children, and by sometimes
reading passages of Scripture appropriate to their lot
(without, however, note or comment) never before heard
by them, or heard only when wrested from their just inter
pretation, — such, for instance, as the last chapter of St.
James's Epistle, and the glad tidings of Isaiah : " I have
come to preach deliverance to the captive." Thus treated
and thus educated, they may be hoped to become useful
coadjutors with us, and the unconquerable foes of the
fugitive rebels.
There are some vices charged upon these people which
deserve examination. Notwithstanding their religious
professions, in some cases more emotional than practical,
the marriage relation, or what answers for it, is not, in
many instances, held very sacred by them. The grounds
of this charge, so far as they may exist, will be removed.

74 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
as much as in communities of our own race, by a system
which shall recognize and enforce the marriage relation
among them, protect their women against the solicitations
of white men as much as law can, and still more by put
ting them in relations where they will be inspired with self-
respect and a consciousness of their rights, and taught by
a pure and plain-spoken Christianity.
With reference to the veracity of these people, so far as
my relations with them have extended, they have appeared,
as a class, to intend to tell the truth. Their manner, as
much as among white men, bore instinctive evidence of
this intention. Their answers to inquiries relative to the
management of the plantations have a general concurrence.
They make no universal charges of cruelty against their
masters. They will say in some cases that their own was
a very kind master, but that another in the neighborhood
was cruel.
Again, there can be no more delicate and responsible
position, involving honesty and skill, than that of pilot.
For this purpose these people are every day employed to
aid our military and naval operations in navigating these
sinuous channels. They were used in the recent recon
noissance in the direction of Savannah; and the success
of the affair at Port Eoyal Ferry depended on the fidelity
of a pilot named William, without the aid of whom, or of
one like him, it could not have been undertaken. Further
information on this point may be obtained of the proper
authorities here. These services are not, it is true, in all
respects illustrative of the quality of veracity, but they in
volve kindred virtues not hkely to exist without it.
It is proper, however, to state that expressions are some
times heard from persons who have not considered these
people thoughtfully, to the effect that their word is not to

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.

75

be trusted ; but such persons nevertheless do trust them,
and act upon their statements. There may, however, be
some color for such expressions. These laborers, like all
ignorant people, have an ill-regulated reason, too much
under the control of the imagination. Therefore, when
they report the numbers of soldiers, or relate facts where
there is room for conjecture, they are likely to be extrava
gant, and it is necessary to scrutinize their reports. Still,
except among the thoroughly dishonest, — no more nu
merous among them than in other races, — there will be
found a basis for their statements, enough to show their
honest intention to speak truly.
It is true also that you will find them too willing to ex
press feelings which will please you. This is most natural.
All races, as well as all animals, have their appropriate
means of self-defence ; and where the power to use physi
cal force to defend one's self is taken away, the weaker
animal, or man, or race, resorts to cunning and duplicity.
Whatever habits of this kind may appear in these people
are directly traceable to the well-known features of their
past condition, without involving any essential proneness
to deception in the race, further than may be ascribed to
human nature in general.
Upon the question of the disposition of these people to
work, there are different reports, varied somewhat by the
impression an idle or an industrious laborer, brought into
immediate relation with the witness, may have made on the
mind. In conversations with them, they uniformly answered
to assurances that if free they must work, " Yes, massa, we
must work to live ; that 's the law ; " and they expressed
an anxiety that the work of the plantations was not going
on. Hard words and epithets are, however, of no use in
managing them ; and persons for whose service they are
specially detailed, who do not understand or treat them

jQ THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
properly, find some trouble in making their labor avail
able, as might naturally be expected. In collecting cot
ton, it is sometimes, as I am told, difficult to get them to
gether, when wanted for work. There may be something
in this, particularly among the young men. I have ob
served them a good deal ; and though they often do not
work to much advantage, a dozen doing sometimes what
one or two stout and well-trained Northern laborers would
do, and though less must always be expected of persons
native to this soil than of those bred in Northern latitudes
and under more bracing air, I have not been at all im
pressed with their general indolence. As servants, oars
men, and carpenters, I have seen them working faithfully
and with a will.
There are some peculiar circumstances in the condition
of these people which no one who assumes to sit in judg
ment upon them must overlook. They are now for the
first time freed from the restraint of a master, and, like
children whose guardian or teacher is absent for the day,
they may quite naturally enjoy an interval of idleness.
No system of labor for them, outside the canaps, has been
begun, and they have had nothing to do except to bale the
cotton when bagging was furnished, — and we all know
that men partially employed are if anything less disposed
to do the little assigned them than they are to perform the
full measure which belongs to them in regular life, the
virtue in the latter case being supported by habit. At
the camps they are away from their accustomed places of
labor, and have not been so promptly paid as could be
desired, and are exposed to the same circumstances which
often dispose soldiers to make as little exertion as possible.
In the general chaos which prevails, and before the inspi
rations of labor have been set before them by proper
superintendents and teachers who understand their dispo-

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.

n

sition, and show by their conduct an interest in their wel
fare, no humane or reasonable man would subject them to
austere criticism, or make the race responsible for the de
linquencies of an idle person who happened to be brought
particularly under his own observation. Not thus would
we have ourselves or our own race judged ; and the judg
ment which we would not have meted to us, let us not
measure to others.
Upon the best examination of these people and a com
parison of the evidence of trustworthy persons, I believe
that when properly organized, and with proper motives
set before them, they will as freemen be as industrious as
any race of men are likely to be in this climate.
The notions of the sacredness of property as held by
these people have sometimes been the subject of discussion
here. It is reported that they have taken things left in
their masters' houses. It was wise to prevent this, and
even where it had been done to compel a restoration, at
least of expensive articles, lest they should be injured by
speedily acquiring without purchase articles above their
condition ; but a moment's reflection will show that it was
a natural thing for them to do. They had been occupants
of the estates ; had had these things more or less in
charge ; and when the former owners had left, it was easy
for them to regard their title to the abandoned property as
better than that of strangers. Still, it is not true that they
have, except as to very simple articles, as soap or dishes,
generally availed themselves of such property. It is also
stated that in camps where they have been destitute
of clothing they have stolen from one another ; but the
superintendents are of opinion that they would not have
done this if already well provided. Besides, those familiar
with large bodies collected together, like soldiers in camp
life, know how these charges of mutual pilfering are made

78 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
among them often with great injustice. It should be
added, to complete the statement, that the agents who
have been intrusted with the collection of cotton have re
posed confidence in the trustworthiness of the laborers,
committing property to their charge, —a confidence not
found to have been misplaced.
To what extent these laborers desire to be free, and to
serve us still further in putting down the rebellion, has
been a subject of examination. The desire to be free has
been strongly expressed, particularly among the more
intelligent and adventurous. Almost every day adds a
fresh tale of escapes, both solitary and in numbers, con
ducted with a courage, a forecast, and a skill worthy of
heroes. But there are other apparent features in their disposi
tion which it would be untruthful to conceal. On the
plantations, I often found a disposition to evade the inquiry
whether or not they wished to be free; and though a
preference for freedom was expressed, it was rarely in the
passionate phrases which would come from an Italian
peasant. The secluded and monotonous life of a planta
tion, with strict discipline and ignorance enforced by law
and custom, is not favorable to the development of the
richer sentiments ; though even there they find at least a
stunted growth, irrepressible as they are. The inquiry
was often answered in this way : " The white man do what
he pleases with us ; we are yours now, Massa." One, if I
understood his broken words rightly, said that he did not
care about being free if he only had a good master.
Others said they would like to be free, but they wanted a
white man for a " protector." All of proper age, when in
quired of, expressed a desire to have their children taught
to read and write, and to learn themselves. On this point
they showed more earnestness than on any other. When

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.

79

asked if they were willing to fight in case we needed them
to keep their masters from coming back, they would seem
to shrink from that, saying that " black men have been
kept down so like dogs that they would run before white
men." At the close of the first week's observation, I almost con
cluded that on the plantations there was but little earnest
desire for freedom, and scarcely any willingness for its sake
to encounter white men. But as showing the importance
of not attempting to reach general conclusions too hastily,
another class of facts came to my notice the second week.
I met then some more intelligent negroes, who spoke with
profound earnestness of their desire to be free, and said
they had longed to see this day. Other facts connected
with the military and naval operations were noted. At the
recent reconnoissance toward Pulaski, negro pilots stood
well under fire, and were not reluctant to the service.
When a district of Ladies' Island was left exposed, they
voluntarily took such guns as they could procure, and
stood sentries. Also at Edisto, where the colony is col
lected under the protection of our gunboats, they armed
themselves and drove back the rebel cavalry. An officer
here high in command reported to me some of these facts,
which had been officially communicated to him. The sug
gestion may be pertinent that the negroes are divisible
into two classes. Those who by their occupation have
been accustomed to independent labor, and schooled
in some sort of self-reliance, are more developed in this
direction ; while others, who have been bound to the
routine of plantation life, and kept more strictly under
surveillance, are but little awakened. But even among
these last there has been, under the quickening inspiration
of present events, a rapid development, indicating that the
same feeling is only latent.

8o THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
There is another consideration which must not be
omitted. Many of these people have still but little confi
dence in us, anxiously looking to see what disposition we
are to make of them. It is a mistake to suppose that,
separated from the world, never having read a Northern
book or newspaper relative to them, or talked with a North
ern man expressing the sentiments prevalent in his region,
they are universally and with entire confidence welcoming
us as their deliverers. Here, as everywhere else, where
our army has met them, they have been assured by their
masters that we were going to carry them off to Cuba.
There is probably not a rebel master, from the Potomac to
the Gulf, who has not repeatedly made this assurance to
his slaves. No matter what his religious vows may have
been, no matter what his professed honor as a gentleman,
he has not shrunk from the reiteration of this falsehood.
Never was there a people, as all who know these blacks
will testify, more attached to familiar places than they.
Be their home a cabin, and not even that cabin their own,
they still cling to it. The reiteration could not fail to have
had some effect on a point on which they were so sensitive.
Often it must have been met with unbelief or great suspi
cion of its truth. It was also balanced by the considera
tion that their masters would remove them into the interior,
and perhaps to a remote region, and separate their fami
lies, — a fate about as bad as being taken to Cuba; and
they felt more inclined to remain on the plantations, and
take their chances with us. They have told me that they
reasoned in this way. But in many cases they fled at the
approach of our army; then one or two bolder returning,
the rest were reassured and came back. Recently, the
laborers on Paris Island, seeing some schooners approach
ing suspiciously, began gathering their little effects rapidly
together, and were about to run, when they were quieted

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL. 8 1
by the coming of some of our teachers in whom they had
confidence. In some cases their distrust has been in
creased by the bad conduct of some irresponsible white
men from the North, of which, for the honor of human
nature, it is not best to speak more particularly. On the
whole, their confidence in us has been greatly increased by
the treatment they have received, which, in spite of many
individual cases of injury less likely to occur under the
stringent orders recently issued from the naval and military
authorities, has been generally kind and humane. But the
distrust which to a greater or less extent may have existed
on our arrival renders necessary, if we would keep them
faithful allies and not informers to the enemy, the immedi
ate adoption of a system which shall be a pledge of our
protection and of our permanent interest in their welfare.
The manner of the laborers toward us has been kind and
deferential, doing for us such good offices as were in their
power, as guides, pilots, or in more personal service, invit-_
ing us on the plantations to lunch of hominy and milk or
potatoes, touching the hat in courtesy, and answering
politely such questions as were addressed to them. If
there have been exceptions to this rule, it was in the case
of those whose bearing did not entitle them to the civility.
In the report thus far, such facts in the condition of the
territory now occupied by the forces of the United States
have been noted as seemed to throw light on what should
be done to reorganize the laborers, prepare them to be
come sober and self-supporting citizens, and secure the
successful culture of a cotton crop, now so necessary to be
contributed to the markets of the world. It will appear
from what I have said, that these people are naturally relig
ious and simple-hearted, attached to the places where they
have lived, still adhering to them both from a feeling of
6

82 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
local attachment and self-interest in securing the means of
subsistence ; that they have the knowledge and experience
requisite to do all the labor, from the preparation of the
ground for planting until the cotton is baled, ready to be
exported ; that they, or the great mass of them, are dis
posed to labor, with proper inducements thereto; that
they lean upon white men, and desire their protection, and
could therefore, under a wise system, be easily brought
under subordination ; that they are susceptible to the higher
considerations, as duty and love of offspring, and are not
in any way inherently vicious, — their defects coming from
their peculiar condition in the past or present, and not
from constitutional proneness to evil beyond what may be
attributed to human nature ; that they have among them
natural chiefs, either by virtue of rehgious leadership or
superior intelligence, who, being first addressed, may exert
a healthful influence on the rest; in a word, that in spite
of their condition, reputed to be worse here than in many
other parts of the rebellious region, there are such
features in their life and character that the opportu
nity is now offered to us to make of them, partially in
this generation and fully in the next, a happy, industrious,
law-abiding, free, and Christian people, if we have but the
courage and patience to accept it. If this be the better
view of them and their possibilities, I will say that I have
come to it after anxious study of all peculiar circumstances
in their lot and character, and after anxious conference
with reflecting minds here who are prosecuting like in
quiries, — not overlooking what, to a casual spectator,
might appear otherwise, and granting what is likely
enough, that there are those among them whose characters,
by reason of bad nature or treatment, are set, and not ad
mitting of much improvement. And I will submit further,
that, in common fairness and common charity, when by

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL. 83
the order of Providence an individual or a race is com
mitted to our care, the better view is entitled to be first
practically applied. If this one shall be accepted and
crowned with success, history will have the glad privilege
of recording that this wicked and unprovoked rebellion
was not without compensations most welcome to our
race. What, then, should be the true system of administration
here ?
It has been proposed to lease the plantations and the
people upon them. To this plan there are two objections,
each conclusive. In the first place, the leading object of
the parties bidding for leases would be to obtain a large
immediate revenue, — perhaps to make a fortune in a year
or two. The solicitations of doubtful men offering the
highest price would impose on the leasing power a stern
duty of refusal, to which it ought not unnecessarily to be
subjected : far better a system which shall not invite
such men to harass the leasing power, or excite expec
tations of a speedy fortune to be derived from the labor
of this people. Secondly, no man, not even the best of
men, charged with the duties which ought to belong to the
guardians of these people, should be put in a position
where there would be such a conflict between his humanity
and his self-interest, — his desire, on the one hand, to bene
fit the laborer, and on the other the too often stronger
desire to reap a large revenue at once. Such a system is
beset with many of the worst vices of the slave system,
with one advantage in favor of the latter, — that it is for
the interest of the planter to look to permanent results.
Let the history of British East India, and of all communi
ties where a superior race has attempted to build up
speedy fortunes on the labor of an inferior race occupying
another region, be remembered, and no just man will listen

84 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
to the proposition of leasing, fraught as it is with such
dangerous consequences. Personal confidence forbids me
to report the language of intense indignation which has
been expressed against it here by some persons occupying
high places of command, as also by others who have come
here for the special purpose of promoting the welfare of
these laborers. Perhaps it might yield to the treasury a
larger immediate revenue, but it would be sure to spoil the
country and its people in the end. The government
should be satisfied if the products of the territory may
be made sufficient for a year or two to pay the expenses
of administration and superintendence, and of the inau
guration of a beneficent system which will settle a great
social question, insure the sympathies of foreign nations
now wielded against us, and advance the civilization of
the age.
The better course would be to appoint superintendents
for each large plantation, and one for two or three smaller
combined, — compensated with a good salary (say one
thousand dollars per year) ; selected with reference to pe
culiar qualifications, and as carefully as one would choose
a guardian for his children ; clothed with an adequate
power to enforce a paternal discipline, to require a proper
amount of labor, cleanliness, sobriety, and better habits of
life, and generally to promote the moral and intellectual
culture of the wards, with such other inducements, if there
be any, placed before the superintendent as shall inspire
him to constant efforts to prepare them for useful and
worthy citizenship. To quicken and insure the fidelity of
the superintendents, there should be a director-general or
governor, who shall visit the plantations and see that the
superintendents are discharging their duties ; and, if ne
cessary, he should be aided by others in the duty of visi
tation. This officer should be invested with liberal powers

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL. 85
over all persons within his jurisdiction, so as to protect the
blacks from one another and from white men, being re
quired in most important cases to confer with the military
authorities in punishing offences. His proposed duties
indicate that he should be a man of the best ability and
character, — better if he have already by virtue of public
services a hold on the public confidence. Such an ar
rangement is submitted as preferable for the present to any
cumbersome territorial government.
The laborers themselves, no longer slaves of their
former masters or of the government, but as yet in large
numbers unprepared for the full privileges of citizens, are
to be treated with sole reference to such preparation. No
effort is to be spared to work upon their better nature and
the motives which come from it, — the love of wages, of
offspring and family, the desire of happiness, and the ob
ligations of religion. And when these fail, and fail they
will in some cases, we must not hesitate to resort, — not to
the lash, which must be forbidden in the department of la
bor as it has been forbidden in the department of war, —
but to the milder and more effective punishments of de
privation of privileges, isolation from family and society,
the workhouse or even the prison. The laborers are to be
assured at the outset that parental and conjugal relations
among them are to be protected and enforced ; that
children and all others desiring it are to be taught; that
they will receive wages ; and that a certain just measure of
work, with reference to the ability to perform it, if not
willingly rendered, is to be required of all. The work, so
far as the case admits, should be assigned in proper tasks,
the standard being what a healthy person of average
capacity can do, for which a definite sum should be paid.
The remark may perhaps be pertinent, that, whatever may
have been the case with women or partially disabled per-

86 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
sons, my observations — not yet, however, sufficient to
decide the point — have not impressed me with the con
viction that healthy persons, if they had been provided with
an adequate amount of food, and that animal in due pro
portion, have been overworked heretofore on these islands;
the main trouble having been that they have not been so
provided, and have not had the motives which smooth
labor. Notwithstanding the frequent and severe chastise
ments which have been employed here in exacting work,
they have failed, and naturally enough, of their intended
effects. Human beings are made up so much more of
spirit than of muscle, that compulsory labor, enforced by
physical pain, will not exceed or equal in the long run
voluntary labor with just inspirations; and the same law,
in less degree, may be seen in the difference between the
value of a whipped and jaded beast and one well disci
plined and kindly treated.
I leave for Washington, to add any oral explanations
which may be desired, expecting to return at once, and,
with the permission of the Department, to organize the
laborers on some one plantation, and superintend them
during the planting season. Upon its close, business
engagements require that I should be relieved of this
appointment.

At this point the article in the Atlantic Monthly is resumed.
Mr. Chase adopted the plan proposed by me, and in
trusted its execution to my hands. I presented the sub
ject to several members of Congress, with whom I had a
personal acquaintance ; but though they Hstened respect
fully, they seemed either to dread the magnitude of the
question, or to feel that it was not one with which they

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL. 87
as legislators were called upon immediately to deal. The
Secretary himself, and Mr. Olmsted, then connected with the
Sanitary Commission, alone seemed to grasp it, and to see
the necessity of immediate action. It is quite certain that
no member of the Cabinet except Mr. Chase took then
any interest in the enterprise, though it has since been
fostered by the Secretary of War. At the suggestion of
Mr. Chase, the President appointed an interview with me.
Mr. Lincoln, who was then chafing under a prospective
bereavement, listened for a few moments, and then said,
somewhat impatiently, that he did not think he ought to
be troubled with such details, — that there seemed to be an
itching to get negroes into our lines ; to which I replied
that these negroes were within them by the invitation of
no one, being domiciled there before we began occupation.
The President then wrote and handed to me the following
card : — -
I shall be obliged if the Secretary of the Treasury will in his dis
cretion give Mr. Pierce such instructions in regard to Port Royal
contrabands as may seem judicious.
A. Lincoln.
Feb. 15, 1S62.
The President, so history must write it, approached the
great question slowly and reluctantly ; and in February,
1862, he little dreamed of the proclamations he was to
issue in the September and January following. Perhaps
that slowness and reluctance were well ; for thereby it was
given to this people to work out their own salvation, rather
than to be saved by any chief or prophet.
Notwithstanding the plan of superintendents was ac
cepted, there were no funds wherewith to pay them. At
this stage the " Educational Commission," organized in
Boston on the 7th of February, and the " Freedmen's Re-

88 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
lief Association," organized in New York on the 20th of
the same month, gallantly volunteered to pay both super
intendents and teachers, and did so until July i, when the
government, having derived a fund from the sale of confis
cated cotton left in the territory by the rebels, undertook
the payment of the superintendents, — the two societies,
together with another organized in Philadelphia on the 3d
of March, and called the " Port Royal ReHef Committee,"
providing for the support of the teachers.
When these voluntary associations sprang into being to
save an enterprise which otherwise must have failed, no
authoritative assurance had been given as to the legal condi
tion of the negroes. The Secretary, in a letter to me, had
said, that, after being received into our service, they could
not, without great injustice, be restored to their masters,
and should therefore be fitted to become self-supporting
citizens. The President was reported to have said freely,
in private, that negroes who were within our lines, and had
been employed by the government, should be protected in
their freedom. No official assurance of this had, however,
been given ; and its absence disturbed the societies in their
formation. At one meeting of the Boston society, action
was temporarily arrested by the expression of an opinion
by a gentleman present that there was no evidence show
ing that these people, when educated, would not be the
victims of some unhappy compromise. A public meeting
in Providence for their relief is said to have broken up
without action, because of a speech from a furloughed
officer of a regiment stationed at Port Royal, who consid
ered such a result the probable one. But the societies, on
reflection, wisely determined to do what they could to
prepare the freedmen to become self-supporting citizens,
in the belief that when they had become such, no govern
ment could ever be found base enough to turn its back

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL. 89
upon them. These associations, it should be stated, have
been managed by persons of much consideration in their
respective communities, of unostentatious philanthropy,
but of energetic and practical benevolence, hardly one of
whom has ever filled or been a candidate for a political
office. A pleasant interview fell to my lot at this time which
may here fitly be mentioned. The venerable Josiah
Quincy, just entered on his ninety-first year, hearing of
the enterprise, desired to see one who had charge of it.
I went to his chamber, where he had been confined to
his bed for many weeks with a fractured limb. He
talked like a patriot who read the hour and its duty.
He felt troubled lest adequate power had not been given
to protect the enterprise; said that but for his disability,
he should be glad to write something about it, but that
he was living " the postscript of his life ; " and as we
parted, he gave his hearty benediction to the work and
to myself. Restored in a measure to activity, he is
still spared to the generation which fondly cherishes his
old age; and recently, at the organization of the Union
Club, he read to his fellow-citizens, gathering close about
him and hanging on his speech, words of counsel and
encouragement.-' Two other recognitions I must not fail to mention, — one,
a letter from my venerated teacher Dr. Francis Wayland,
enjoining on me to dispense no charity among the negroes
which would tend to pauperize them ; '¦^ the other, a trav
eller's writing-case, as a gift from Mrs. Wendell Phillips,
whom, as a confirmed invalid confined to her bed, I had
never seen, though often a caller at her home on Essex
Street. Mr. Chase's letter of instructions was as follows :
1 Mr. Quincy lived till July i, 1864.
2 Francis Wayland's Memoir by his Sons, ii. 275.

90 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
Treasury Department,
February 19, 1862.
Sir, — Your report as Special Agent, dated on the 3d, of the
condition of the abandoned plantadons, and the laborers upon
them, within the Port Royal district, is received ; and it gives me
great pleasure to express my entire approval of your action in the
discharge of the important duties devolved upon you.
The whole authority of this department over the subjects of your
report is derived from the fifth section of the Act to provide for
the Collection of Duties, and for other purposes, approved July 13,
1861 ; by which the President is authorized to permit commercial
intercourse with any part of the country declared to be in a state
of insurrection, under such rules and regulations as may be pre
scribed by the Secretary of the Treasury, who is himself authorized
to appoint the officers needed to carry into effect such permits,
rules, and regulations.
As incidental to this authority, alone, have I any power to sanc
tion any measures for the culture of the abandoned estates in the
Port Royal or any other district. It is, indeed, in the highest
degree essential to commercial intercourse with that portion of the
country that the abandoned estates be cultivated, and the laborers
upon them employed. I do not hesitate, therefore, to continue
your agency, with a view to the general superintendence and di
rection of such persons as may be engaged in such cultivation and
employment. It is understood that an association of judicious and humane
citizens has been formed in Boston, which may act in concert or
be consolidated with a similar association in New York and other
cities, and that through the agency of these associations, or one
of them, persons may be employed to proceed, with the sanction
of the government, to take charge of the abandoned plantations
under the general plan suggested by yourself, and which is fully
approved by this department.
You will herewith receive copies of orders addressed to the
Quartermaster at New York and the General commanding at Port
Royal,, directing that transportation and subsistence, with all other
proper facilities, be afforded to the persons thus engaged.

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.

91

You will, therefore, receive applications for the employments
indicated, and will select and appoint such applicants as you think
best fitted, and assign each to his respective duty ; it being under
stood that compensation for services to be rendered will be made
by the association, while subsistence, quarters, and transportation,
only, will be furnished by the government unless Congress shall
otherwise provide. All engagements made by you will, of course,
be subject to be terminated by the government whenever any
public exigency shall require.
As agent of this department, you will also give all suitable sup
port and aid to any persons commissioned or employed by the
associations for the religious instruction, ordinary education, or
general employment of the laboring population.
It is my wish to prevent the deterioration of the estates, to se
cure their best possible cultivation under the circumstances, and
the greatest practicable benefit to the laborers upon them ; and by
these general purposes your own action will be guided.
Reposing great trust in your intelligence, discretion, and be
nevolence, the department confides this important mission to you
with confident expectation of beneficent results.
With great respect,
S. P. Chase,
Secretary of the Treasury.
Edward L. Pierce, Esq.,
Special Agent.

On the morning of the 3d of March, 1862, the first dele
gation of superintendents and teachers — fifty-three in all,
of whom twelve were women — left the harbor of New York,
on board the United States steam-transport " Atlantic,"
arriving at Beaufort on the Qth.^ It was a voyage never
to be forgotten. The enterprise was new and strange, and
it was not easy to predict its future. Success or defeat
might be in store for us ; and we could only trust in God
1 The names of the superintendents and teachers are given in the " Rebel
lion Record," iv. 227, 228.

92 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
that our strength might be equal to our responsibilities.
As the colonists approached the shores of South Carolina,
I addressed them, telling them the little I had learned of
their duties, enjoining patience and humanity, and im
pressing on them the greatness of their work, the results
of which were to cheer or dishearten good men, and to
settle, perhaps, one way or the other, the social problem
of the age, — assuring them that never did a vessel bear a
colony on a nobler mission, not even the "Mayflower"
when she bore the Pilgrims to Plymouth ; that it would be
a poorly written history which should omit their individual
names ; and that if faithful to their trust, there would come
to them the highest of all recognitions ever accorded to
angels or to men, in this life or the next, — "Inasmuch as
ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done it
unto Me."
This first delegation of superintendents and teachers
was distributed during the first fortnight after their arrival
at Beaufort, and at its close they had all reached their
appointed posts. They took their quarters in the deserted
houses of the planters, who had all left on the arrival of
our army, — only four white men, citizens of South Caro
lina, remaining, and none of those being slaveholders
except one, who had only two or three slaves. Our ope
rations were therefore not interfered with by landed pro
prietors who were loyal, or pretended to be so. The ne
groes had in the mean time been without persons to guide
and care for them, and had been exposed to the careless
and conflicting talk of soldiers who chanced to meet them.
They were also brought in connection with some employh
of the government, engaged in the collection of cotton
found upon the plantations, — none of whom were doing
anything for their education, and most of whom were in
favor of leasing the plantations and the negroes upon

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL. 93
them as adscripti glebtz, looking forward to the return of
them to their masters at the close of the war. The negroes
themselves were uncertain as to the intentions of the Yan
kees, and were wondering at the " confusion," as they called
it. They were beginning to plant corn in their patches,
but were disinclined to plant cotton, regarding it as a badge
of servitude. No schools had been opened, except one at
Beaufort, which had been kept a few weeks by two freed
men, — one bearing the name of John Milton, — under the
auspices of the Rev. Dr. Peck.
This is not the place to detail the obstacles we met with,
one after another overcome; the calumnies and even per
sonal violence to which we were subjected. These things
occurred at an early period of our struggle, when the
nation was groping its way to light, and are not likely to
occur again. Let unworthy men sleep in the oblivion they
deserve, and let others of better natures, who were then
blind but now see, not be taunted with their inconsiderate
acts. The nickname of " Gideonites," applied to the colo
nists, may, however, be fitly remembered. It may now
justly claim rank with the honored titles of Puritan and
Methodist. The higher officers of the army were uniformly
respectful and disposed to co-operation. Our most im
portant operations were in the district under the command
of Brigadier-General Isaac I. Stevens, an officer whose con
victions were not supposed to be favorable to the enterprise,
and who, during the political contest of i860, had been the
chairman of the National Breckinridge Committee. But
such was his honor as a gentleman, and his sense of the
duty of subordination to the wishes of the government, that
his personal courtesies and official aid were never wanting.
He received his mortal wound at Chantilly, Virginia, on
the first of September following, and a braver and abler
officer has not fallen in the service.

94

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.

Notwithstanding our work was begun six weeks too
late, and other hindrances occurred, detailed in my second
report, some eight thousand acres of esculents (a fair sup
ply of food) and some four thousand five hundred acres of
cotton (after a deduction for over-estimates) were planted.
This was done upon one hundred and eighty-nine planta
tions, on which were nine thousand and fifty people, of
whom four thousand four hundred and twenty-nine were
field-hands (made up of men, women, and children), and
equivalent, in the usual classification and estimate of the
productive capacity of laborers, to three thousand eight
hundred and five and one-half full hands. The cotton-
crop produced will not exceed sixty-five thousand pounds
of ginned cotton. Work enough was done to have pro
duced five hundred thousand pounds in ordinary times;
but the immaturity of the pod, resulting from the lateness
of the planting, exposed it to the ravages of the frost and
the worm. Troops being ordered north, after the disasters
of the Peninsular campaign, Edisto was evacuated in the
middle of July, — -and thus one thousand acres of esculents
and nearly seven hundred acres of cotton, the cultivation
of which had been finished, were abandoned. In the
autumn, Major-General Mitchell made requisition for forty
tons of corn-fodder and seventy-eight thousand pounds of
corn in the ear for army-forage. These are but some of
the adverse influences to which the agricultural operations
were subjected.
It is fitting here that I should bear my testimony to the
superintendents and teachers commissioned by the associa
tions. There was as high a purpose and devotion among
them as in any colony that ever went forth to bear the
evangel of civilization. Among them were some of the
choicest young men of New England, fresh from Harvard,
Yale, and Brown, from the divinity-schools of Andover

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL. 95
and Cambridge, — men of practical talent and experience.
There were some of whom the world was scarce worthy,
and to whom, whether they are among the living or the
dead, I delight to pay the tribute of my respect and
admiration.

In concluding his work on the Sea Islands, Mr. Pierce made the
following report, under date of Port Royal, June 2, 1862, to the
Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Chase : —
Upon the transfer of the supervision of affairs at Port
Royal from the Treasury to the War Department, a sum
mary of the results of this agency may be expected by
you ; and therefore this report is transmitted.
Upon the arrival of the superintendents, the plantations
were generally unsupplied with tools, even hoes, — those
on hand being the tools used last year, and a few found in
the shops at Beaufort. Some three thousand dollars' worth
of plows, hoes, and other implements and seeds were in
tended to be sent with the superintendents. The negroes
had begun to plant corn and potatoes in their own patches,
and in some cases had also begun to prepare a field of
corn for the plantation. No land, however, had been pre
pared for cotton, and the negroes were strongly indisposed
to its culture. They were willing to raise corn, because it
was necessary for food ; but they saw no such necessity
for cotton, and distrusted promises of payment for cultivat
ing it: it had enriched the masters, but had not fed them.
Moreover, soldiers passing over the plantations had told
them in careless speech that they were not to plant cotton.
As this, however, was a social experiment in which imme
diate industrial results were expected, it seemed important
that all former modes of culture should be kept up, and
those products not neglected for which the district is best

96 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
adapted, and which, in time of peace, should come from it.
Besides, when a people are passing through the most
radical of all changes, prudence requires that all old habits
and modes not inconsistent with the new condition should
be conserved. Particularly did it seem desirable that the
enemies of free labor in either hemisphere should not be
permitted to say exultingly, upon the view of a single sea
son's experiment here, that a product so important to trade
and human comfort could not be -cultivated without the
forced, unintelligent, and unpaid labor of slaves. There
fore no inconsiderable effort was made to disabuse the
laborers of their strong prejudice on this point, and to con
vince them that labor on cotton was honorable, remunera
tive, and necessary to enable them to buy clothing and
the fitting comforts they desired. Such effort was not
made in vain; and its necessity would in the main have
been dispensed with if we had received in the beginning
the money to pay for the labor required, and the proper
clothing and food to meet the just wants and expectations
of the laborers.
At the same time, the importance of raising an adequate
supply of provisions was enjoined, and with entire success.
On this point there was no trouble. The amount of these
planted is equal to that of last year in proportion to the
people to be supplied, and probably exceeds it. The pri
vate patches are far larger than ever before ; and as these
had been begun before we arrived, we were unable to make
them equal on the different plantations. They alone in a
fair season, and if harvested in peace, would probably pre
vent any famine. On the whole, it is quite certain that
without the system here put in operation the mass of the
laborers, if left to themselves and properly protected from
depredations and demoralization by white men, would have
raised on their private patches corn and potatoes sufficient

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL. 97
for their food ; though without the incentives and moral
inspirations applied by this system, they would have raised
no cotton, and had no exportable crop, and there might,
under the uncertainties of the present condition of things,
have been a failure of a surplus of corn necessary for cat
tle and contingencies, and for the purchase of needed
comforts. There is no disposition to claim for the move
ment here first initiated that it is the only one by which
the people of this race can be raised from the old to the
new condition, provided equal opportunities and an equal
period for development are accorded to them as to com
munities of the white race ; but it seems to have been the
only one practicable where immediate material and moral
results were to be reached, and upon a territory under
military occupation.
The order of Major-General Hunter compelling the
able-bodied men to go to Hilton Head on May 12, where
a proportion of them still remain against their will, pro
duced apprehension among these people as to our inten
tions in relation to them, and disturbed the work on the
plantations, the laboring force of which was thereby greatly
reduced, — leaving the women, and children over twelve
years of age, as the main reliance on many plantations. I
entered a protest against the order and its harsh execution,
and against the retention of any not disposed to enlist;
but the civil being subordinate to military power, no further
action could be taken.
The cases of discipline for idleness have been very few,
and cannot have exceeded, if they have equalled, forty on
the islands. These have been reported to the military
authorities, and been acted upon by them. Most trouble
has been experienced upon plantations lying exposed to the
camps and vessels both of the navy and sutlers, — as on
Hilton Head Island and on St. Helena near Bay Point,
7

98 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
where there were considerable discontent and insubordina
tion induced by visits from the vessels and camps. This
trouble, it is hoped, will hereafter be removed by a more
effective police system than has yet been applied.
It is not pretended that many of these laborers could
not have done more than they have done, or that in per
sistent application they are the equals of races living in
colder and more bracing latitudes. They generally went
to their work quite early in the morning, and returned at
noon, often earlier, — working, however, industriously
while they were in the field. Late in the afternoon, they
worked upon their private patches. As they were making
themselves self-supporting by the amount of work which
could be obtained from them without discipline, it was
thought advisable under the present condition of things
not to exact more, but to await the full effect of moral and
material inspirations, which can in time be applied. What
has, nevertheless, been accomplished with these obstruc
tions, with all the uncertainties incident to a state of war,
and with our own want of personal familiarity at first with
the individual laborers themselves, gives the best reason to
believe that under the guidance and with the help of the
fugitive masters, had they been so disposed, these people
might have made their way from bondage and its enforced
labor to freedom and its voluntary and compensated labor
without any essential diminution of products or any appre
ciable derangement of social order. In this as in all things
the universe is so ordered that the most beneficent revolu
tions, which too often cost life and treasure, may be accom
plished justly and in peace if men have only the heart to
accept them.
It is most pleasing to state, that, with the small pay
ments for labor already made, those also for the collection
of cotton being nearly completed ; with the partial rations

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL. 99
on some islands and the supplies from benevolent sources
on others ; with the assistance which the mules have
furnished for the cultivation of the crop, the general kind
ness and protecting care of the superintendents, the con
tributions of clothing forwarded by the associations, the
schools for the instruction of the children and others de
sirous to learn, — with these and other favorable influences
confidence in the government has been inspired, the
laborers are working cheerfully, and they now present to
the world the example of a well-behaved and self-support
ing peasantry of which their country has no reason to be
ashamed. The educational labors deserve a special statement. It
is to be regretted that more teachers had not been pro
vided. The labor of superintendence at the beginning
proved so onerous that several originally intended to be
put in charge of schools were necessarily assigned for the
other purpose. Some fifteen persons on an average have
been specially occupied with teaching; and of these four
were women. Others having less superintendence to at
tend to were able to devote considerable time to teaching
at regular hours. Nearly all gave some attention to it,
more or less according to their opportunity and their apti
tude for the work.
The educational statistics are incomplete, only a part
of the schools having been open for two months, and the
others having been opened at intervals upon the arrival of
persons designated for the purpose. At present, accord
ing to the reports, twenty-five hundred persons are being
taught on week days, of whom not far from one third are
adults taught when their work is done. But this does not
complete the number occasionally taught on week days
and in the Sunday-schools. Humane soldiers have also
aided the work of instruction in the case of their servants

100 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
and others. Three thousand persons are in all probability
receiving more or less instruction in reading on these
islands. The reports state that very many are now so
advanced that even if the work should stop here, they
would still learn to read by themselves and communicate
the knowledge to others.
An effort has been made to promote clean and health
ful habits. To that end, weekly cleanings of quarters were
enjoined. This effort, where it could be properly made,
met with reasonable success. The negroes, finding that we
took an interest in their welfare, acceded cordially, and in
many cases their diligence in this respect was most com
mendable. As a race, it is a mistake to suppose that they
are indisposed to cleanliness. They appear to practise it
as much as white people under the same circumstances.
There are difficulties to obstruct improvement in this re
spect. There has been a scarcity of lime and (except at
too high prices) of soap. Their houses are too small, not
affording proper apartments for storing their food, and
having no glass windows ; besides, some of them are tene
ments unfit for beasts, without floor or chimneys. One
could not ask the occupants to clean such a place. But
where the building was decent or reasonably commodious,
there was no difficulty in securing the practice of this vir
tue. Many of these people are examples of tidiness, and
on entering their houses one is sometimes witness of rather
amusing scenes, where a mother is trying the effect of
beneficent ablutions on the heads of her children.
The religious welfare of these people has not been ne
glected. The churches, which were closed when this be
came a seat of war, have been re-opened. Among the
superintendents there were several persons of clerical edu
cation, who have led in public ministrations. The larger
part of them are persons of religious experience and pro-

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL. lOI
fession, who on the Sabbath, in weekly praise-meetings
and at funerals, have labored for the consolation of these
humble believers.
These people have been assured by myself that if they
proved themselves worthy by their industry, good order,
and sobriety, they should be protected against their rebel
masters. It would be wasted toil to attempt their develop
ment without such assurances, and an honorable nature
would shrink from this work without the right to make
them. Nor is it possible to imagine any rulers now or in
the future, who will ever turn their backs on the laborers
who have been received, as these have been, into the ser
vice of the United States.
The success of the movement, now upon its third month,
has exceeded my most sanguine expectations. It has had
its peculiar difficulties ; and some phases at times, arising
from accidental causes, might, on a partial view, invite
doubt, which however was banished at once by a general
survey of what had been done. Already the high treason
of South Carolina has had a sublime compensation, and
the end is not yet. The churches are filled with wor
shippers. No master now stands between these people
and the words which the Saviour spoke for the conso
lation of all peoples and all generations. The gospel is
preached in fulness and purity as it has never before been
preached in this territory, even in colonial times. The
reading of the English language, with more or less system,
is being taught to thousands ; so that whatever military or
political vicissitudes may be in store, this precious know
ledge can never perish from among them. Ideas and
habits have been planted, under the growth of which
these people are to be fitted for the responsibilities of citi
zenship, and in equal degree unfitted for any restoration to
their former condition. Modes of administration have

102 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
been begun, — not indeed adapted to an advanced com
munity, but just, paternal, and developing in their charac
ter. Industrial results have been reached which put at rest
the often reiterated assumption that this territory and its
products can be cultivated only by slaves. A social prob
lem which has vexed the wisest approaches a solution.
The capacity of a race and the possibility of hfting it to
civilization without danger or disorder, even without throw
ing away the present generation as refuse, are being de
termined ; and thus the way is preparing by which the
peace to follow this war shall be made perpetual.
Finally, it would seem that upon this narrow theatre,
and in these troublous times, God is demonstrating to
those who would mystify his plans and thwart his purposes
that in the councils of his infinite wisdom he has predes
tined no race, not even the African, to the doom of eternal
bondage. In parting with the interesting people who have been
under my charge, I must bear testimony to their uniform
kindness to myself. One of them has been my faithful
guide and attendant, doing for me more service than any
white man could render. They have come, even after
words of reproof or authority, to express confidence and
good resolves. They have given me their benedictions
and prayers, and I should be ungrateful indeed ever to
forget or deny them.

Mr. Pierce's active connection with the administration of the
Sea Islands ended in June, 1862, by a transfer of the work from
the Treasury to the War Department. Mr. Chase, by authority
from Mr. Stanton, the Secretary of War, had offered Mr. Pierce
(April 11) the post of military governor; but shortly after, dis-

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.

103

trusting his power to make such appointments, which had been
quesdoned in Congress, Mr. Stanton withdrew the offer. It was
then decided to place the enterprise in the charge of Brigadier-
General Rufus Saxton, and Mr. Pierce was offered a place on his
staff, with the rank of colonel. He declined this appointment,
principally for the reason that it seemed to him better that his
successor should take up the enterprise unembarrassed by one
who had planned and organized it. Edward W. Hooper, now
Treasurer of Harvard College, who had been confidentially asso
ciated with Mr. Pierce since the beginning of March, remained
with General Saxton, taking a commission with the rank of cap
tain. Mr. Chase's letters to Mr. Pierce — one official, and the
other personal — are here given : — Treasury Department,
June 18, 1862.
Sir, — The Secretary of War having assumed the control and
direction of abandoned plantations, and of the laborers upon them,
in States declared by the President to be under insurrectionary
control, the connection of this department with that work necessa
rily terminates. Brigadier-General R. Saxton has been charged by
the Secretary of War with the control and direction of abandoned
property and the laborers in the district in which you have been
acting as Special Agent of this department. Upon his arrival at
Port Royal, therefore, your charge of abandoned estates and other
property, as Special Agent, will cease ; and you will transfer to him
the control of all property and papers in your custody, except such
papers as may be necessary to the settlement of your accounts.
These you will forward to this department. You will give to Gen
eral Saxton all the aid in your power in assuming charge of his
responsible trusts ; after which you will please make your final re
port in person at Washington.
While transferring to another department the control of the im
portant work in which you have been engaged, it gives me pleasure
to express to you my entire and cordial approval of your action as
Special Agent, and to acknowledge the great services rendered by
you to the department and the country in the performance of the

104 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
duties assigned you. The ability, energy, and fidelity which you
brought to their discharge have contributed essentially to the suc
cess of the work hitherto ; and I regret the necessity which severs
your connection with it now. Yours truly,
S. P. Chase,
Secretary of the Treasury.
Edward L. Pierce, Esq. Treasury Department,
June i8, 1862.
My dear Mr. Pierce, — I have to-day signed regretfully the
formal letter which terminates your official connection with me. I
must add to that official approval my personal thanks for your great
and most valuable services to a cause in which I take a deep per
sonal concern.
Your refusal to be further connected with the work under the
new auspices disappointed me exceedingly. I expected your
consent, and expected from that consent certainty of continued
success. But I had no right to claim your continuance in that
field of labor, though I felt, as I said, that your refusal was a mis
take. You did not accept originally for more than three months,
and you accepted at considerable personal sacrifice ; at even
greater, perhaps, you have continued working far beyond the time
originally limited. You have more than done all you promised.
Of course, I cannot ask for more.
Still, on your own account and as a personal gratification to me
your friend, I cannot help regretting you did not see your duty
otherwise. It would have been so pleasant to me to have it known
by everybody that your worth was recognized by an appointment
hardly ever given under Hke circumstances ; to have it understood
by all the friends of the work that it was as secure under Colonel
Pierce as it had been under Special Agent Pierce ; to feel that the
colonelcy itself was but temporary, and that in a litde while, when
your position had become as well established with Secretary
Stanton as with me. General Saxton would be relieved and you
would take his place ; to believe that beyond the Islands your

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.

105

position would contribute largely to the cause of enfranchisement
throughout the realm of rebeldom. But I must be content, or
as nearly content as disappointment will permit.
Very faithfully yours,

S. P. Chase.

Edward L. Pierce, Esq.

The Atlantic Monthly article is here again resumed.
On the first of July, 1862, the administration of affairs at
Port Royal having been transferred from the Treasury to
the War Department, the charge of the freedmen passed
into the hands of General Saxton, a native of Massachu
setts, who in childhood had breathed the free air of the
valley of the Connecticut, a man of sincere and humane
nature ; and under his wise and benevolent care they still
remain. The Sea Islands, and also Fernandina and St.
Augustine in Florida, are within our lines in the Depart
ment of the South, and some sixteen or eighteen thousand
negroes are supposed to be under his jurisdiction.
The negroes of the Sea Islands, when found by us, had
become an abject race, more docile and submissive than
those of any other locality. The native African was of a
fierce and mettlesome temper, sullen and untamable. The
master was obliged to abate something of the usual rigor
in dealing with the imported slaves. A tax-commissioner,'
now at Port Royal, and formerly a resident of South Caro
lina, told me that a native African belonging to his father,
though a faithful man, would perpetually insist on doing
his work in his own way; and being asked the threaten
ing question, " A'n't you going to mind?" would answer,
with spirit, " No, a'n't gwine to ! " and the master desist
ed. Severe discipline drove the natives to the wilderness,
1 Dr. William H. Brisbane.

I06 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
or involved a mutilation of person which destroyed their
value for proprietary purposes. In 1816, eight hundred
of these refugees were living free in the swamps and ever
glades of Florida. There the ancestors of some of them
had lived ever since the early part of the eighteenth cen
tury, rearing families, carrying on farms, and raising cattle.
They had two hundred and fifty men fit to bear arms, led
by chiefs brave and skilful. The story of the Exiles of
Florida is one of painful interest. The testimony of offi
cers of the army who served against them is that they were
more dangerous enemies than the Indians, fighting the
most skilfully and standing the longest. The tax-commis
sioner before referred to, who was a resident of Charleston
during the trial and execution of the confederates of Den
mark Vesey, relates that one of the native Africans, when
called to answer to the charge against him, haughtily re
sponded, " I was a prince in my country, and have as
much right to be free as you ! " The Carolinians were so
awe-struck by his defiance that they transported him.
Another, at the execution, turned indignantly to a com
rade about to speak, and said, " Die silent, as I do ! "
and the man hushed. The early newspapers of Georgia
recount the disturbances on the plantations occasioned
by these native Africans, and even by their children,
being not until the third generation reduced to obedient
slaves. .
Nowhere has the deterioration of the negroes from their
native manhood been carried so far as on these Sea Islands,
¦ — a deterioration due to their isolation from the excite
ments of more populous districts, the constant surveil
lance of the overseers, and their intermarriage with one
another, involving a physical degeneracy with which inex
orable Nature punishes disobedience to her laws. The
population with its natural increase was sufficient for the

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL. 107
cultivation of the soil under existing modes, and therefore
no fresh blood was admitted, such as is found pouring from
the border States into the sugar and cotton regions of the
Southwest. This unmanning and depravation of the na
tive character had been carried so far that on my first ex
ploration, in January, 1862, I was obliged to confess the
existence of a general disinclination to mihtary service on
the part of the negroes; though it is true that even then
instances of courage and adventure appeared, which indi
cated that the more manly feeling was only latent, to be
developed under the inspiration of events. And so, let us
rejoice, it has been. One may think himself wise, as he
notes the docility of a subject race; but in vain will he
attempt to study it until the burden is lifted. The slave
is unknown to all, even to himself, while the bondage lasts.
Nature is ever a kind mother. She soothes us with her
deceits, — not in surgery alone, when the sufferer, else
writhing in pain, is transported with sweet delirium ; but
she withholds from the spirit the sight of her divinity
until her opportunity has come. Not even De Tocqueville
or Olmsted, much less the master, can measure the ca
pacities and possibilities of the slave until the slave him
self is transmuted to a man.
In my recent visit to Port Royal, extending from March
25 to April 10, 1863, I noted some features in the present
condition of the freedmen bearing directly on the solution
of the social problem which seem to deserve consideration.
And, first, as to education. There are more than thirty
schools in the territory, conducted by as many as forty or
forty-five teachers, who are commissioned by the three
associations in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, and
by the American Missionary Association. They have an
average attendance of two thousand pupils, and are more

I08 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
or less frequented by an additional thousand. The ages
of the scholars range in the main from eight to twelve
years. They did not know even their letters prior to a
year ago last March, except those who were being taught
in the single school at Beaufort already referred to, which
had been going on for a few weeks. Very many did not
have the opportunity for instruction till weeks and even
months after. During the spring and summer of 1862
there were not more than a dozen schools, and these were
much interrupted by the heat, and by the necessity of
assigning at times some of the teachers to act as superin
tendents. Teachers came for a limited time, and upon its
expiration, or for other cause, returned home, leaving the
schools to be broken up. It was not until October or
November that the educational arrangements were really
effected ; and they are still but imperfectly organized. In
some localities there is as yet no teacher, and this because
the associations have not had the funds wherewith to pro
vide one.
I visited ten of the schools, and conversed with the
teachers of others. There were, it may be noted, some
mixed bloods in the schools of the town of Beaufort, —
ten in a school of ninety, thirteen in another of sixty-four,
and twenty in another of seventy. In the schools on
the plantations there were never more than half-a-dozen
in one school, in some cases but two or three, and in
others none.
The advanced classes were reading simple stories and
didactic passages in the ordinary school-books, — as
Hillard's Second Primary Reader, Willson's Second Reader,
and others of similar grade. Those who had enjoyed a
briefer period of instruction were reading short sentences,
or learning the alphabet. In several of the schools a class
was engaged on an elementary lesson in arithmetic, geog-

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL. 109
raphy, or writing. The eagerness for knowledge and the
facility of acquisition displayed in the beginning had not
abated. On the 25th of March I visited a school at the Central
Baptist Church on St. Helena Island, built in 1855, shaded
by lofty live-oak trees, with the long, pendulous moss every
where hanging from their wide-spreading branches, and
surrounded by the gravestones of the former proprietors,
which bear the ever-recurring names of Fripp and Chaplin.
This school, numbering one hundred and forty-five, was
opened in September last, but many of the pupils had re
ceived some instruction before. Like most of the schools
on the plantations, it opened at noon and closed at three
o'clock, — leaving the forenoon for the children to work
in the field, or to perform other service in which they
could be useful. At the close of the exercises the scholars
recited in concert the Psalm, " The Lord is my shepherd,"
requiring prompting at the beginning of some of the
verses. They sang with much spirit hymns which had
been taught them by the teachers, as, —
" My country, 't is of thee.
Sweet land of liberty ; "
also, — " Sound the loud timbrel ; "
also, Whittier's new song, written expressly for this school,
the closing stanzas of which are, —
" Oh, none in all the world before
Were ever glad as we I
We 're free on Carolina's shore.
We 're all at home and free I
" The very oaks are greener clad,
The waters brighter smile ;
Oh, never shone a day so glad
On sweet St. Helen's Isle! "

no THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
Never has that pure Muse, which has sung only of
truth and right, as the highest beauty and noblest art, been
consecrated to a better service than to write the songs of
praise for these little children, chattels no longer, whom
the Saviour, were he now to walk on earth, would bless as
his own.
One of the teachers of this school is an accompHshed
woman from Philadelphia.^ Another is from Newport,
Rhode Island, where she had prepared herself for this
work by benevolent labors in teaching poor children.^
The third is a young woman of African descent, of olive
complexion, finely cultured, and attuned to all beautiful
sympathies, of gentle address, and, what was specially
noticeable, not possessed with an overwrought conscious
ness of her race.^ She had read the best books, and natu
rally and gracefully enriched her conversation with them.
She had enjoyed the friendship of Whittier ; had been a
pupil in the Grammar School of Salem, then in the State
Normal School in that city, then a teacher in one of the
schools for white children, where she had received only the
kindest treatment both from the pupils and their parents,
— and let this be spoken to the honor of that ancient
town. She had refused a residence in Europe, where a
better social life and less unpleasant discrimination awaited
her, for she would not dissever herself from the fortunes
of her people; and now, not with a superficial sentiment,
but with a profound purpose, she devotes herself to their
elevation. At Coffin Point, on St. Helena Island, I visited a school
kept by a young woman from the town of Milton, Massa-
1 Miss Laura M. Towne, who with her associate. Miss Murray, have car
ried on a school for the colored people on the island continuously from 1862
to the present date {1896).
2 Miss Ellen Murray. ^ yi^^_ Charlotte Forten, now Mrs. Grimke.

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL. m
chusetts,! " the child of parents passed into the skies,"
whose lives have both been written for the edification of
the Christian world. She teaches two schools, at different
hours in the afternoon, and with different scholars in each.
Being questioned as to the subjects of the lessons, the
scholars answered intelligently. They recited the twos
of the multiplication- table, explained numeral letters and
figures on the blackboard, and wrote letters and figures on
slates. Another teacher in the adjoining district, a gradu
ate of Harvard, and the son of a well-known Unitarian
clergyman of Providence (Rev. Edward B. Hall, D. D.),
Rhode Island, has two schools, in one of which a class of
three pupils was about finishing Ellsworth's First Progres
sive Reader; and another, of seven pupils, had just fin
ished Hillard's Second Primary Reader. Another teacher,
from Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the same island, num
bers one hundred pupils in his two schools. He exercises
a class in elocution, requiring the same sentence to be re
peated with different tones and inflections ; and one could
not but remark the excellent imitations.
In a school at St. Helena village, where were collected
the Edisto refugees, ninety-two pupils were present when
I visited it. Two ladies were engaged in teaching, assisted
by Ned Loyd White, a colored man, who had picked up
clandestinely a knowledge of reading while still a slave.
One class of boys and another of girls read in the seventh
chapter of St. John, having begun this Gospel and gone
thus far. They stumbled a little on words like " unright
eousness " and " circumcision; " otherwise they got along
very well. When the Edisto refugees were brought here,
in July, 1862, Ned, who is about forty or forty-five years
old, and Uncle Cyrus, a man of seventy, who also could
read, gathered one hundred and fifty children into two
1 Miss Harriet Ware.

112 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
schools, and taught them as best they could for five months,
until teachers were provided by the societies.
On the 8th of April I visited a school on Ladies Island,
kept in a small church on the Eustis estate, and taught by
a young woman from Kingston, Massachusetts. She had
manifested much persistence in going to this field; went
with the first delegation, and still keeps the school which
she opened in March, 1862. She had taught the pupils
their letters. Sixty-six were present on the day of my
visit. A class of ten pupils read the story which begins
on page 86 of Hillard's Second Primary Reader. One
girl, Elsie, a full black, and rather ungainly withal, read
so rapidly that she had to be checked, — the only case of
such fast reading that I found. The teacher was instruct
ing her pupils in some dates and facts which have had
much to do with our history. The questions and answers,
in which all the pupils joined, were these : —
" Where were slaves first brought to in this country? "
"Virginia."
"When?"" 1620."
"Who brought them?"
" Dutchmen."
" Who came the same year to Plymouth, Massachusetts? "
" Pilgrims."
" Did they bring slaves? "
" No."
A teacher in Beaufort put these questions, to which an
swers were given in a loud tone by the whole school : —
" What country do you hve in? "
" United States."
"What State?"
" South Carolina."
"What i.sland?"

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL. 113
" Port Royal."
" What town?"
"Beaufort."" Who is your Governor? "
" General Saxton."
"Who is your President .' "
" Abraham Lincoln."
" What has he done for you?"
" He 's freed us."
There were four schools in the town of Beaufort, all
which I visited, each having an average attendance of from
sixty to ninety pupils, and each provided with two teach
ers. In some of them writing was taught. But it is un
necessary to describe them, as they were very much like
the others. There is, besides, at Beaufort an industrial
school, which meets two afternoons in a week, and is
conducted by a lady from New York, with some dozen
ladies to assist her. There were present, the afternoon
I visited it, one hundred and thirteen girls from six to
twenty years of age, all plying the needle, — some with
pieces of patchwork, and others with aprons, pillow-cases,
or handkerchiefs.
Though I have never served on a school-committee, I
accepted invitations to address these schools on my visits,
and particularly plied the pupils with questions, so as to
catch the tone of their minds ; and I have rarely heard
children answer with more readiness and spirit. We had a
dialogue substantially as follows : —
" Children, what are you going to do when you grow
up ?"
" Going to work. Sir."
" On what .' "
" Cotton and corn, Sir."
"What are you going to do with the corn?"

1X4 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
" Eat it."
" What are you going to do with the cotton?"
" Sell it"
"What are you going to do with the money you get
for it ? "
One boy answered in advance of the others, —
" Put it in my pocket. Sir."
" That won't do. What 's better than that ? "
" Buy clothes. Sir."
" What else will you buy? "
" Shoes, Sir"
" What else are you going to do with your money? "
There was some hesitation at this point- Then the ques
tion was put, —
" What are you going to do Sundays? "
" Going to meeting."
" What are you going to do there? "
" Going to sing."
"What else?"
" Hear the parson."
" Who 's going to pay him .-' "
One boy said, " Government pays him ; " but the others
answered, —
" We's pays him."
" Well, when you grow up, you '11 probably get married,
as other people do, and you'll have your httle children;
now, what will you do with them?"
There was a titter at this question ; but the general re
sponse came, —
" Send 'em to school, Sir."
" Well, who '11 pay the teacher? "
" We 's pays him."
One who listens to such answers can hardly think
that there is any natural incapacity in these children to

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.

"S

acquire with maturity of years the ideas and habits of good
citizens. The children are cheerful, and in most of the schools
well-behaved, except that it is not easy to keep them from
whispering and talking. They are joyous, and one may
see the boys after school playing the soldier, with corn
stalks for guns. The memory is very susceptible in them,
— too much so, perhaps, as it is ahead of the reasoning
faculty. The labor of the season has interrupted attendance on
the schools, the parents being desirous of having the chil
dren aid them in planting and cultivating their crops, and
it not being thought best to allow 'the teaching to inter
fere in any way with industrious habits.
Such are the general features of the schools as they met
my eye. The most advanced classes, and these are but little
ahead of the others, can read simple stories and the plainer
passages of Scripture; and they could even pursue self-
instruction, if the schools were to be suspended. The
knowledge they have thus gained can never be extirpated.
They could read with much profit a newspaper specially
prepared for them and adapted to their condition. They
are learning that the world is not bounded north by Charles
ton, south by Savannah, west by Columbia, and east by the
sea, with dim visions of New York on this planet or some
other, — about their conception of geography when we
found them. They are acquiring the knowledge of figures,
with which to do the business of life. They are singing
the songs of freemen. Visit their schools : remember
that a little more than a twelvemonth ago they knew not
a letter, and that for generations it has been a crime to
teach their race ; then contemplate what is now transpir
ing, and you have a scene which prophets and sages would
have delighted to witness. It will be difficult to find equal

1X6 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
progress in an equal period since the morning rays of
Christian truth first lighted the hill-sides of Judaea. I have
never looked on St. Peter's, or beheld the glories of art
which Michael Angelo has wrought or traced ; but to my
mind the spectacle of these poor souls struggling in dark
ness and bewilderment to catch the gleams of the upper
and better light, transcends in moral grandeur anything
that has ever come from mortal hands.
Next, as to industry. The laborers, during their first
year under the new system, have acquired the idea of
ownership and of the security of wages, and have come to
see that labor and slavery are not the same thing. The
notion that they were to raise no more cotton has passed
away, work on it being found to be remunerative and con
nected with the proprietorship of land. House-servants,
who were at first particularly set against such work, now
generally prefer it. The laborers have collected the pieces
of the gins which they destroyed on the flight of their
masters (the ginning being obnoxious work), repaired them,
and ginned the cotton on the promise of wages. Except
upon plantations in the vicinity of camps, where other
labor is more immediately remunerative and an unhealthy
excitement prevails, there is a general disposition to cul
tivate cotton. Its culture is voluntary, the only penalty
for not engaging in it being the imposition of a rent for
the tenement and land adjacent thereto occupied by the
negro, not exceeding two dollars per month. Both the
government and private individuals, who have become
owners of one fourth of the land by thq recent tax-sales,
pay twenty-five cents for a standard day's-work, which
may, by beginning early, be performed by a healthy and
active hand by noon ; and the same was the case with the
tasks under the slave-system on very many of the planta-

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.

117

tions. As I was riding through one of Mr. Edward S.
Philbrick's fields one morning, I counted fifty persons at
work who belonged to one plantation. This gentleman,
who went out with the first delegation, and at the same
time gave largely to the benevolent contributions for the
enterprise, was the leading purchaser at the tax-sales ; and
combining a fine humanity with .honest sagacity and close
calculation, no man is so well fitted to try the experiment.
The general superintendent of Port Royal Island said to
me, " We have to "restrain rather than to encourage the
negroes to take land for cotton." The general superin
tendent of Hilton Head Island said that on that island the
negroes had, besides providing for adequate corn, taken
two, three, and in a few cases four acres of cotton to a
hand, and there was a general disposition to cultivate it,
except near the camps. A superintendent on St. Helena
Island said that if he were going to carry on any work, he
should not want better laborers. He had charge of the
refugees from Edisto, who had been brought to St. Helena
village, and who had cleared and fenced patches for gar
dens, felling the trees for that purpose.
The laborers do less work, perhaps, than a Yankee
would think they might do ; but they do about as much
as he himself would do, after a residence of a few years in
the same climate, and when he had ceased to work under
the influence of Northern habits. Northern men have
sometimes been unjust to the South, when comparing the
results of labor in the different sections. God never in
tended that a man should toil under a tropical sun with
the same energy and constancy as he may do in our bra
cing latitude. There has been less complaint this year
than last of " a pain in the small of the back," or of " a
fever in the head," — in other words, less shamming. The
work has been greatly deranged by the draft (some fea-

1X8 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
tures of which have not been very skilfully arranged), and
by the fitfulness with which the laborers have been treated
by the military authorities. The work both upon the cot
ton and the corn is done only by the women, children, and
disabled men. It has been suggested that field-work does
not become women in the new condition ; and so it may
seem to some persons of just sympathies who have not
yet learned that no honest work is dishonorable in man or
woman. But this matter may be left to regulate itself.
Field-work, as an occupation, may -not be consistent
with the finest feminine culture or the most complete
womanliness ; but it in no way conflicts with virtue, self-
respect, and social development. Women work in the
field in Switzerland, the freest country of Europe ; and we
may look with prid'e on the triumphs of this generation,
when the American negroes become the peers of the Swiss
peasantry. Better a woman with the hoe than without it,
when she is not yet fitted for the needle or the book.
The negroes were also showing their capacity to organ
ize labor and apply capital to it. Harry, to whom I re
ferred in my second report as " my faithful guide and
attendant, who had done for me more service than any
white man could render," with funds of his own, and some
borrowed money, bought at the recent tax-sales a small
farm of three hundred and thirteen acres for three hundred
and five dollars. He was to plant sixteen and a half
acres of cotton, twelve and a half of corn, and one and a
half of potatoes. I rode through his farm on the loth of
April, my last day on the Islands, and one third of his
crop was then in. Besides some servant's duty to an offi
cer, for which he is well paid, he does the work of a full
hand on his place. He hires one woman and two. men,
one of the latter being old and only a three-quarters hand.
He has two daughters, sixteen and seventeen years of age.

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL. 119
one of whom is likewise only a three-quarters hand. His
wife works also, of whom he said, " She 's the best hand
I got ; " and if Celia is only as smart with her hoe as I
know her to be with her tongue, Harry's estimate must be
right. He has a horse twenty-five years old and blind in
both eyes, whom he guides with a rope, — carrying on
farming, I thought, somewhat under difficulties. Harry
lives in the house of the former overseer, and delights,
though not boastingly, in his position as a landed proprie
tor. He has promised to write me, or rather dictate a
letter, giving an account of the progress of his crop. He
has had much charge of government property ; and when
Captain Hooper, of General Saxton's staff, was coming
North last autumn, Harry proposed to accompany him;
but at last, of his own accord, gave up the project, saying,
" It'll not do for all two to leave together."
Another case of capacity for organization should be
noted. The government is building twenty-one houses
for the Edisto people, eighteen feet by fourteen, with- two
rooms, each provided with a swinging board-window, and
the roof projecting a little as a protection from rain. The
journeymen-carpenters are seventeen colored men, who
have fifty cents per day without rations, working ten hours.
They are under the direction of Frank Barnwell, a freed-
man, who receives twenty dollars a month. Rarely have
I talked with a more intelligent contractor.
It was my great regret that I had not time to visit the
village of improved houses near the Hilton Head camp,
which General Mitchell had extemporized, and to which
he gave so much of the noble enthusiasm of his last days.
Next, as to the developjnent of manhood. This has been
shown, in the first place, in the prevalent disposition among
the freedmen to acquire land. It did not appear upon

I20 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
our first introduction to these people, and they did not
seem to understand us when we used to tell them that we
wanted them to own land ; but it is now an active desire.
At the recent tax-sales, six out of forty-seven plantations
sold were bought by them, comprising two thousand five
hundred and ninety-five acres, sold for twenty-one hundred
and forty-five dollars. In other cases the negroes had
authorized the superintendent to bid for them, but the
land was reserved by the United States. One of the pur
chases was that made by Harry, noted above. The other
five were made by the negroes on the plantations combin
ing the funds they had saved from the sale of their pigs,
chickens, and eggs, and from the payments made to them
for work, — they then dividing off the tract peaceably
among themselves. On one of these, where Kit (a negro
preacher) is the leading spirit, there are twenty-three
field-hands, who are equivalent to eighteen full hands.
They have planted and are cultivating sixty-three acres
of cotton, fifty of corn, six of potatoes (with as many
more to be planted), four and a half of cow-peas, three
of peanuts, and one and a half of rice. These facts are
most significant. The instinct for land — to have one
spot on earth where a man may stand, and whence no
human being can of right drive him — is one of the
most conservative elements of our nature ; and a people
who have it in any fair degree will never be nomads or
vagabonds. This developing manhood is further seen in the freed
men's growing consciousness of rights, and their readiness
to defend themselves, even when assailed by white men.
The former slaves of a planter, now at Beaufort, who was
a resident of New York when the war broke out, have gen
erally left the plantation, suspicious of his presence, saying
that they will not be his bondmen, and fearing that in

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL. 12 1
some way he may hold them if they remain on it. A re
markable case of the assertion of rights occurred one day
during my visit. Two white soldiers, with a corporal, went
on Sunday to Coosaw Island, where one of the soldiers,
having a gun, shot a chicken belonging to a negro. The
negroes rushed out and wrested the gun from the cor
poral, — to whom the soldier had handed it, thinking
that the negroes would not take it from an officer ; they
then carried it to the superintendent, who took it to head
quarters, where an order was given for the arrest of the
trespasser. Other instances might be added, but these
are sufficient
Another evidence of developing manhood appears in
their desire for the comforts and conveniences of house
hold life. The Philadelphia society, for the purpose of
maintaining reasonable prices, has a store on St. Helena
Island, which is under the charge of Friend Hunn, of the
good fellowship of William Penn. He was once fined in
Delaware three thousand dollars for harboring and assist
ing fugitive slaves ; but he now harbors and assists them
at a much cheaper rate. Though belonging to a society
which is the advocate of peace, his tone is quite as war
like as that of the world's people. In this store alone —
and there are others on the island carried on by private
enterprise — two thousand dollars' worth of goods are
sold monthly. To be sure, a rather large proportion of
these consists of molasses and sugar, — " sweetening," as
the negroes call it, being in great demand, four barrels
of molasses having been sold the day of my visit. But
there is also a great demand for plates, knives, forks, tin
ware, and better clothing, including even hoop-skirts.
Negro-cloth, as it is called, osnaburgs, russet-colored
shoes, — in short, the distinctive apparel formerly dealt
out to them as a uniform allowance, — are very generally

X22 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
rejected. But there is no article of household furniture
or wearing apparel used by persons of moderate means
among us, which they will not purchase when they are
allowed the opportunity of labor and earning wages.
What a market the South would open under the new sys
tem ! It would set all the mills and workshops astir.
Four millions of people would become purchasers of
all the various articles of manufacture and commerce, in
place of the few coarse, simple necessaries laid in for them
in gross by their former masters. Here is the solution of
the vexed industrial question. The indisposition to labor
is overcome in a healthy nature by instincts and motives
of superior force, — such as the love of life, the desire
to be well clothed and fed, the sense of security derived
from provision for the future, the feeling of self-respect,
the love of family and children, and the convictions of
duty. These all exist in the negro, in a state of greater
or less development.
To give one or two examples. One man brought Cap
tain Hooper seventy dollars in silver, to keep for him,
which he had obtained from selling pigs and chickens, —
thus providing for the future. Soldiers of Colonel Hig
ginson's regiment, having confidence in the same officer,
intrusted him, when they were paid off, with seven hun
dred dollars, to be transmitted by him to their wives, and
this besides what they had sent home in other ways, —
showing the family feeling to be active and strong in them.
They have also the social and religious inspirations to
labor. Thus, early in our occupation of Hilton Head, they
took up, of their own accord, a collection to pay for the
candles for their evening meetings, feeling that it was not
right for the government longer to provide them. The
result was a contribution of two dollars and forty-eight
cents. They had just fled from their masters, and had

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.

123

received only a small pittance of wages; and this little
sum was not unlike the two mites which the widow cast
into the treasury. Another collection was taken, last
June, in the church on St. Helena Island, upon the sug
gestion of the pastor that they should share in the expen
ses of worship." Fifty-two dollars was the result, - — not a
bad collection for some of our Northern churches. I
have seen these people where they are said to be lowest,
and sad indeed are some features of their lot; yet with
all earnestness and confidence I enter my protest against
the wicked satire of Carlyle.
Is there not here some solution of the question of preju
dice or caste which has troubled so many good minds?
When these people can no longer be used as slaves, men
will try to see how they can make the most out of them as
freemen. Your Irishman, who now works as a day-laborer,
honestly thinks that he hates the negro ; but when the war
is over, he will have no objection to going South and sell
ing him groceries and household implements at fifty per
cent advance on New York prices, or to hiring him to
raise cotton for twenty-five or fifty cents a day. Our
prejudices, under any reasonable adjustment of the social
system, readily accommodate themselves to our interests,
even without much aid from the moral sentiments.
Let those who would study well this social question, or
who in public trusts are charged with its solution, be most
careful here. Every motive in the minds of these people,
whether of instinct, desire, or duty, must be addressed.
All the elements of human nature must be appealed to,
physical, moral, intellectual, social, and religious. Im
perfect indeed is any system which, like that at New
Orleans, offers wages, but does not welcome the teacher.
It is of little moment whether three or thirty dollars per
month be paid the laborer, so long as there is no school

124 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
to bind both parent and child to civil society with new
hopes and duties.
There are some vices charged upon these people, or a
portion of them, and truth requires that nothing be with
held. There is said to be a good deal of petty pilfering
among them, although they are faithful to'trusts. This is
the natural growth of the old system, and is quite likely
to accompany the transition-state ; besides, the present
disturbed and unorganized condition of things is not fa
vorable to the rigid virtues. But inferences from this must
not be pressed too far. When I was a private soldier in
Virginia, as one of a three-months' regiment, we used to
hide from one another our little comforts and delicacies,
even our dishes and clothing, or they were sure to disap
pear. A parcel of unworn underclothing which I had
brought from Boston disappeared while I was on the
" Pawnee " during our expedition to Norfolk, doubtless
taken by some one of its enlisted men. But we should
have ridiculed an adventurous thinker upon the character
istics of races and classes, who should have leaped there
from to the conclusion that all white men or all soldiers
are thieves. And what inferences might not one draw,
discreditable to all traders and manufacturers, from the
universal adulteration of articles of food !
These people, it is said, are disposed to falsehood in
order to get rations and small benefits, — a natural
vice which comes with slavery, and too often attends on
poverty without slavery. Those of most demonstrative
piety are rarely better than the rest ; not, indeed, hypocrit
ical, but satisfying their consciences by self-depreciation
and indulgence in emotion, — psychological manifesta
tions which one may find in more advanced communities.
They show no special gratitude to us for liberating them
from bonds. Nor do they ordinarily display much exhil-

TH5 FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL. 125
aration over their new condition, — being quite unlike the
Italian revolutionist, who used to put on his toga, walk in
the Forum, and personate Brutus and Cassius. The freed
men's appreciation of their better lot is chiefly seen in
their dread of a return of their masters, in their excite
ment when an attack is feared, in their anxious question
ings while the assault on Charleston was going on, and
in their desire to get their friends and relatives away from
the rebels, — an appreciation of freedom, if not ostenta
tious, at least sensible.
But away with such frivolous modes of dealing with the
rights of races to self-development ! Because Englishmen
may be classified as hard and conceited. Frenchmen as
capricious, Austrians as dull, and the people of one
other nation are sometimes thought to be vainglorious,
shall these therefore be slaves? And where is that
model race which shall sway them all? A people may
have grave defects, but it may not therefore be rightfully
disabled. During my recent visit, I had an opportunity, on three
different occasions, to note carefully Colonel T. W. Hig
ginson's colored regiment, known as the First Regiment of
South Carolina Volunteers. Major-General Hunter's first
regiment was mainly made up of conscripts, drafted May
12, 1862, and disbanded August 11, three months after
wards, — there being no funds wherewith to pay them,
and the discharged men going home to find the cotton
and corn they had planted overgrown with weeds. On
the loth of October, General Saxton, being provided with
competent authority to raise five thousand colored troops,
began to recruit a regiment. His authority from the War
Department bore date August 25, and the order confer
ring it states the object to be " to guard the plantations,

126 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
and protect the inhabitants from captivity and murder"
This was the first clear authority ever given by the gov
ernment to raise a negro regiment in this war. There
were, indeed, some ambiguous words in the instructions
of Secretary Cameron to General Sherman when the ori
ginal expedition went to Port Royal, authorizing him to
organize the negroes into companies and squads for such
services as they might be fitted for, but this not to mean a
general arming for military service. Secretary Stanton,
though furnishing muskets and red trousers to General
Hunter's regiment, did not think the authority sufficient
to justify the payment of the regiment. The first regi
ment, as raised by General Saxton, numbered four hun
dred and ninety-nine men when Colonel Higginson took
command of it on the 1st of Decem'oer; and on the 19th
of January, 1863, it had increased to eight hundred and
forty-nine. It has made three expeditions to Florida
and Georgia, — one before Colonel Higginson assumed
the command, described in Mrs. Stowe's letter to the
women of England; and two under Colonel Higginson,
one of which was made in January up the St. Mary's, and
the other in March to Jacksonville, which it occupied for
a few days until an evacuation was ordered from head
quarters. The men are volunteers, having been led to
enlist by duty to their race, to their kindred still in
bonds, and to us their allies. Their drill is good, and
their time excellent. They have borne themselves well
in their expeditions, quite equalling the white regiments in
skirmishing. In morale they seemed very much like
white men, and with about the same proportion of good
and indifferent soldiers. Some I saw of the finest metde,
— like Robert Sutton, whom Higginson describes in his
report as " the real conductor of the whole expedition at
the St. Mary's ; " and Sergeant Hodges, a master carpenter.

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL. 127
capable of directing the labors of numerous journeymen.
Another said, addressing a meeting at Beaufort, that he
had been restless, nights, thinking of the war and of his
people; that when he heard of the regiment being formed,
he felt that his time to act had come, and that it was his
duty to enhst: that he did not fight for his rations and
pay, but for wife, children, and people.
These men, as already intimated, are very much like
other men, — easily depressed, and as easily reanimated by
words of encouragement. Many have been reluctant to
engage in military service, — their imagination investing
it with the terrors of instant and certain death. But this
reluctance has passed away with participation in active
service, with the adventure and inspiration of a soldier's
life; and the latent manhood has recovered its rightful
sway. Said a superintendent who was of the first delega
tion to Port Royal in March, 1862, — a truthful man, and
not given to rose-colored views, — "I did not have faith
in arming negroes when I visited the North last autumn,
but I have now. They will be, not mere machines, but
real tigers, when aroused ; and I should not wish to face
them." One amusing incident may be mentioned. A
man deserted from the regiment ; was discovered hidden
in a chimney in the district where he had lived ; was taken
back to camp ; went to Florida in Higginson's first expe
dition ; bore his part well in the skirmishes ; became
excited with the service; was made a sergeant, and, re
ceiving a furlough on his return, went to the plantation
where he had hidden, and said he would not take five
thousand dollars for his sergeantship.
But more significant, as showing the success of the ex
periment, is the change of feeling among the white soldiers
toward the negro regiment, — a change due in part to the
just policy of General Saxton, in part to the President's

X28 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
Proclamation of January x, which has done much to clear
the atmosphere everywhere within the army lines, but
more than all to the soldierly conduct of the negroes
themselves during their expeditions. /
Such are some of the leading features in the condition
of the freedmen, particularly at Port Royal. The enter
prise for their aid, begun in doubt, is no longer a bare hope
or possibility. It is a fruition and a consummation.
The negroes will work for a living. They will fight for
their freedom. They are adapted to civil society. As a
people, they are not exempt from the frailties of our com
mon humanity, nor from the vices which hereditary bond
age always superadds to these. As it is said to take
three generations to subdue a freeman completely to a
slave, so it may not be possible in a single generation to
restore the pristine manhood. One who expects to find
in emancipated slaves perfect men and women, or to real
ize in them some fair dream of an ideal race, will meet dis
appointment; but there is nothing in their nature or
condition to daunt the Christian patriot, — rather, there is
everything to cheer and fortify his faith. They have
shown capacity for knowledge, for free industry, for sub
ordination to law and discipline, for soldierly fortitude,
for social and family relations, for religious culture and
aspirations ; and these qualities, when stirred and sus
tained by the incitements and rewards of a just society,
and combining with the currents of our continental civili
zation, will, under the guidance of a benevolent Providence,
which forgets neither them nor us, make them a con
stantly progressive race, and secure them ever after from
the calamity of another enslavement, and ourselves from
the worse calamity of being again their oppressors.

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL. X29
In connection with the foregoing magazine article and official
reports upon the Freedmen, the following letters from John Bright,
John Bigelow, and M. Gasparin have special interest : —
Rochdale, September 26, 1863.
My dear Sir, — I have read your reports as they have ap
peared in the newspapers, and I receive regularly the Atlantic
Monthly. I have taken great interest in your labors and your
reports, and I can assure you what you have written has had a
considerable effect here ; for there is a large and intelligent class
here who watch with constant interest all that is passing touching
the fate of the negro. A nation requires much teaching, and
your people are passing through a rugged school on this negrc
question. A century of oppression and crime cannot be atoned
for by a slight period of suffering, and I suppose only a severe
chastisement can bring about a complete repentance. . . .
You will derive much satisfaction from your labors on behalf of
the negro. To have lifted from his back only a portion of the
burden under which he has groaned will be a blessing to you in a
day to come, more than any to be derived from the results of
successful ambition. I wish you every success, and all the com
pensation and recompense which God gives to those who act
justly by the suffering ones of his creatures.
I am very sincerely yours, John Bright.
Edward L. Pierce, Esq.

Mr. Bigelow, at the time of writing the following letter, was
United States Consul at Paris ; two years later he succeeded Mr.
Dayton as Minister to France : — Paris, July 3, 1863.
My dear Sir, — I have read your reports with great satisfac
tion. They contained much information for which I have re
ceived frequent application, and wondered that the government
had not brought earlier within the reach of its foreign representa-
9

I30 THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL.
tives. I hope in future you will go a little more into detail.
You can hardly be too minute in giving the processes by which you
attempt to awaken the freed blacks to a comprehension of the
privileges and duties of freedom.
I have sent a copy of your reports to Laboulaye, with a note
stating the general character of your mission. I have also sent a
copy to Cochin, and given a copy to M. Reclus, who was in my
office yesterday ; he is the author of the article on the blacks in
America. This morning he brought a copy for you, which I will
forward by this evening's mail."-
I think you have a very interesting mission, and have no doubt
it will one day reflect great credit upon you.
Yours very truly, John Bigelow.
Edward L. Pierce, Esq.

Dear Sir, — You are at the head of one of the finest enter
prises now undertaken in America. To transform slaves into
peasants ; to show by facts that free negroes are not monsters ; to
preserve the cultivation of cotton, which the folly of the South per
sists in sacrificing, — this is to do much for the definitive solution
of the great problem whose solution weighs at this moment on
your great people. . . .
Believe, Sir, in my sincere sentiment of great esteem and
devotion. A. de Gasparin.

Valloges, October 2, 1863.
I hasten to offer to you anew all my thanks. No question ap
pears to me greater and more beautiful than that whose solution is
placed in your hands. Your successes at Port Royal are victories
gained over the great enemy, — over the prejudices which yet too
often reign in the North itself.
1 The paper bore the autograph of M. Reclus, with the words "A M.
Edward Pierce ; avec reconnaissance pour tout le bien qu'il a fait."

THE FREEDMEN AT PORT ROYAL 131
In showing that the negroes are capable of work and develop
ment, that they are men, and that they may become citizens, you
do much for the triumph of the good cause. May God bless your
efforts !
Your complete narration in the Atlantic Monthly, your official
reports, both of which contain so many important details, — all
which documents I owe to your kindness, — enable me to watch
the progress of a magnificent experiment.
I am sure that your cotton will have a great success. May you
be able to demonstrate to the most incredulous that this culture is
to be maintained in the South under the rule of liberty !
I beg you to believe, Sir, in my high esteem and devotion.
A. DE Gasparin.

X32 ASSAULT ON FORT WAGNER.
IV.
ASSAULT ON FORT WAGNER.

After his return from his visit to Port Royal in the spring of
1863, Mr. Pierce delivered addresses in- Boston, Newton, Concord,
and other places in behalf of the freedmen of the Sea Islands.
The Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment, composed of colored
men and commanded by Colonel Robert G. Shaw, was then
being drilled at Readville, and was about to leave for the field.
Mr. Chase, still Secretary of the Treasury, came to Boston April 30,
and sending for Mr. Pierce, informed him that the above regiment
and other colored troops were shortly to occupy Florida, with a
view to the restoration of civil government in that State. He
said that the plan was to include the colored people among those
entitled to suffrage, and thus offset their exclusion a year before
by Governor Edward Stanly in the initiation of a State govern
ment for North Carolina. Mr. Pierce asked how Mr. Lincoln
would regard the proposed inclusion of negroes in the voting
class, and Mr. Chase replied that he would not mind if it were
done " unbeknownst " to him. Mr. Pierce suggested a limitation
of the suffrage to those who could read or write or had borne
arms. Mr. Chase made no objection to this, but left it as an
open question. He desired Mr. Pierce to accept the post of
Supervising Agent of the Treasury Department for the Depart
ment of the South, with a view to his assisting in the reorganiza
tion of Florida on the basis of equal suffrage for the colored peo
ple. Mr. Pierce accepted the appointment, and left New York
for Port Royal June 6. He remained in the service, attending to
the commercial interests of the government in the territory of
South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, which was occupied by
United States troops, until the beginning of September. The
plan which Mr. Chase had at heart was, however, not put into

ASSAULT ON FORT WAGNER.

133

effect. The exigencies of military operations against Charleston
requiring the concentration of troops on the islands in its vicinity,
the Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Massachusetts colored regiments
were sent there.
Mr. Pierce was the guest on Morris Island, July 18, — the day
of the assault on Fort Wagner, — of Brigadier-General George C.
Strong, who commanded the assaulting body.^ A large number
of officers took supper that evening in the General's tent, —
among them Colonel Shaw, — just before they went to the front.
A few days later, Mr. Pierce wrote the following letter to Governor
Andrew : — Beaufort, July 22, 1863.2
My DEAR Sir, — You will probably receive an official
report of the losses in the Fifty- fourth Massachusetts by
the mail which leaves to-morrow, but perhaps a word from
me may not be unwelcome. I saw the officers and men
on James Island on the 13th inst., and on Saturday last
saw them at Brigadier-General Strong's tent, as they
passed on at six or half-past six in the evening to Fort
Wagner, which is some two miles beyond. Since Tuesday
I had been the guest of General Strong, who commanded
the advance. Colonel Shaw had become attached to Gen
eral Strong at St. Helena, where he served under him,
and the regard was mutual. When the troops left St.
Helena they were separated, the Fifty-fourth going to
James Island. While it was there. General Strong received
a letter from Colonel Shaw, in which the desire was ex
pressed for the transfer of the Fifty-fourth to General
Strong's brigade. So when the troops were brought away
1 General Strong died in New York City, July 30, 1863, of wounds
received in the assault.
2 This letter will be found in Moore's "Rebellion Record," vii. 215-216,
in the "Boston Journal," July 29, 1863, and — together with Mr, Pierce's
letter to Colonel Shaw's parents — in the privately printed " Memorial " of
Colonel Shaw, pp. 53-60.

134 ASSAULT ON FORT WAGNER.
from James Island, General Strong took this regiment into
his command. It left James Island on Thursday, July i6, at
nine P. M., and marched to Cole's Island, which they reached
at four o'clock on Friday morning, — marching all night,
most of the way in single file, over swampy and muddy
ground. There they remained during the day, with hard
tack and coffee for their fare, and this only what was left
in their haversacks, — not a regular ration. From eleven
o'clock of Friday evening until four o'clock a. m. of Saturday
they were being put on the transport " General Hunter," in
a boat which took about fifty at a time. There they break
fasted on the same fare, and had no other food before tak
ing part in the assault on Fort Wagner in the evening.
The " General Hunter " left Cole's Island for Folly
Island at six A. M., and the troops landed at the Pawnee
Landing about half-past nine A. M., and thence marched
to the point opposite Morris Island, reaching there about
two o'clock in the afternoon. They were transported in
a steamer across the inlet, and at five P. M. began their
march for Fort Wagner. They reached General Strong's
quarters, nearly midway on the island, about six, or half-
past six, where they halted for five minutes. I saw them
here, and they looked worn and weary.
General Strong expressed a great desire to give them
food and stimulants ; but it was too late, as they were to
lead the charge. They had been without tents during the
pelting rains of Thursday and Friday nights. General
Strong had been impres.sed with the high character of the
regiment and its officers, and he wished to assign them the
post where the most severe work was to be done and
the highest honor was to be won. Having been his guest
for some days, I knew how he regarded them. The march
across Folly and Morris islands was over a very sandy
road, and was extremely wearisome. The regiment went

ASSAULT ON FORT WAGNER. 135
through the centre of the island, and not along the beach
where the marching was easier. When they had come
within about sixteen hundred yards of Fort Wagner, they
halted and formed in line of battle, — the colonel leading
the right, and the lieutenant-colonel the left, wing. They
then marched four hundred yards farther on, and halted
again. There was little firing from the enemy at this
point, — a solid shot falling between the wings, and
another falling to the right, but no musketry.
At this point the regiment, together with the next sup
porting regiments, — the Sixth Connecticut, Ninth Maine,
and others, — remained half an hour. The regiment was
addressed by General Strong and Colonel Shaw. Then at
half-past seven or quarter before eight o'clock the order
for the charge was given. The regiment advanced at
quick time, changing to double-quick when at some dis
tance on. The intervening distance between the place
where the line was formed and the fort, was run over in
a few minutes. When within one or two hundred yards
of the fort, a terrific fire of grape and musketry was
poured upon them along the entire line, and with deadly
results. It tore the ranks to pieces and disconcerted some.
They rallied again, went through the ditch, in which were
some three feet of water, and then up the parapet. They
raised the flag on the parapet, where it remained for a few
minutes. Here they melted away before the enemy's fire,
their bodies falling down the slope and into the ditch.
Others will give a more detailed and accurate account of
what occurred during the rest of the conflict.
Colonel Shaw reached the parapet, leading his men, and
was probably there killed. Adjutant James saw him fall.
Private Thomas Burgess of Co. I told me that he was close
to Colonel Shaw ; that he waved his sword and cried out,
' Onward, boys ! ' and, as he did so, fell. Burgess fell.

136 ASSAULT ON FORT WAGNER.
wounded, at the same time. In a minute or two, as he
rose to crawl away, he tried to pull Colonel Shaw along,
taking hold of his feet, which were near his own head ; but
there appeared to be no life in him. There is a report,
however, that Colonel Shaw is wounded and a prisoner,
and that it was so stated to the officers who bore a flag
of truce from us ; but I cannot find it well authenticated.
It is most likely that this noble youth has given his life to
his country and to mankind. Brigadier-General Strong
(himself a kindred spirit) said of him to-day, in a message
to his parents : " I had but little opportunity to be with
him, but I already loved him. No man ever went more
gallantly into battle. None knew him but to love him."
I parted with Colonel Shaw between six and seven Satur
day evening, as he rode forward to his regiment, when,
after mounting his horse, he gave me the private letters
and papers he had with him, to be delivered to his father.
Of the other officers, Lieutenant-Colonel Hallowell is
severely wounded in the groin. Adjutant James has a
wound from a grape-shot in his ankle, and also a flesh-
wound in his side from a glancing ball or a piece of
shell. Captain Pope has had a musket-ball extracted
from his shoulder. Captain Appleton is wounded in the
thumb, and also has a contusion on his right breast from
a hand-grenade. Captain Willard has a wound in the leg,
and is doing well. Captain Jones was wounded in the
right shoulder; the ball went through, and he is doing
well. Lieutenant Homans was wounded by a ball from
a smooth-bore musket entering the left side, which has
been extracted from the back; he is doing well.
The above named officers are at Beaufort, all but the
last arriving there on Sunday evening, whither they were
taken from Morris Island to Pawnee Landing in the " Alice
Price," and 'thence to Beaufort in the "Cosmopolitan,"

ASSAULT ON FORT WAGNER.

137

which is specially fitted up for hospital service and is
provided with skilful surgeons under the direction of
Dr. Bontecou. They are now tenderly cared for with an
adequate corps of surgeons and nurses, and provided with
a plentiful supply of ice, beef arid chicken broth, and stimu
lants. Lieutenant Smith was left at the hospital tent on
Morris Island. Captain Emilio, and Lieutenants Grace,
Appleton, Johnston, Reed, Howard, Dexter, Jennison, and
Emerson were not wounded and are doing duty. Lieu
tenants Jewett and Tucker were slightly wounded, and are
also doing duty. Lieutenant Pratt was wounded, and came
in from the field on the following day. Captains Russell
and Simpkins are missing. The quartermaster and sur
geon are safe, and are with the regiment.
The surgeon. Dr. Stone, remained on the "Alice Price"
during Saturday night, caring for the wounded until she
left Morris Island, and then returned to look after those
who were left behind. The assistant-surgeon was at the
camp on St. Helena Island, attending to duty there. Lieu
tenant Littlefield was also in charge of the camp at St.
Helena. Lieutenant Higginson was on Folly Island with
a detail of eighty men at the time of the charge. Captain
Bridge and Lieutenant Walton are sick, and were at Beau
fort or vicinity. Captain Partridge had returned from the
North, but not in time to participate in the action.
Of the privates and non-commissioned officers I send
you a list of one hundred and forty-four who are now in
the Beaufort hospitals. Besides these wounded men, a few
died on the boats or since their arrival here. There may
be some at the Hilton Head hospital, and others are doubt
less on Morris Island ; but I have no names or statistics
relative to them. Those in Beaufort are well attended
to, — just as well as the white soldiers, the attentions of
the surgeons and nurses being supplemented by those

138 ASSAULT ON FORT WAGNER.
of the colored people here, who have shown a great interest
in them. The men of the regiment are very patient, and,
where their condition at all permits, are cheerful. They
expressed their readiness to meet the enemy again, and
they keep asking if Wagner is yet taken. Could any one
from the North see these brave fellows as they lie here,
his prejudice against them, if he had any, would all pass
away. They grieve greatly at the loss of Colonel Shaw,
who seems to have acquired a strong hold on their affec
tions. They are also attached to their other officers, and
admire General Strong, whose courage was so conspicuous
to all.
I asked General Strong if he had any testimony in re
lation to the regiment to be communicated to you. These
are his precise words, spoken from his bed, and I give them
to you as I noted them at the time : "The Fifty-fourth did
well and nobly; only the fall of Colonel Shaw prevented
them from entering the fort. They moved up as gal
lantly as any troops could, and with their enthusiasm they
deserved a better fate."
The regiment could not have been under a better officer
than General Strong. He is one of the bravest and most
genuine of men. His soldiers loved him like a brother,
and go where you would through the camps, you would
hear them speak of him with enthusiasm and affection.
His wound is severe, and there are some apprehensions as
to his being able to recover from it. Since I found him
at the hospital tent on Morris Island, about half-past nine
o'clock on Saturday evening, I have been all the time at
tending to him or the officers of the Fifty-fourth, both on
the boats and here. Nobler spirits it has never been my
fortune to be with. General Strong, as he lay on the
stretcher in the tent, was grieving all the while for the poor
fellows who lay uncared for on the battle-field; and the

ASSAULT ON FORT WAGNER.

139

officers of the Fifty-fourth have had nothing to say of their
own misfortunes, but have mourned constantly for the hero
who led them to the charge from which he did not return.
I remember well the beautiful day when the flags were pre
sented at Readville, and you told the regiment that your
reputation was to be identified with its fame. It was a
day of festivity and cheer. I walk now in these hospitals,
and see mutilated forms with every variety of wound, and
it seems all a dream. But well has the regiment sustained
the hope which you indulged, and justified the identity of
fame which you trusted to it.
I ought to add in relation to the fight on James Island,
on July x6, — in which the regiment lost fifty men, driving
back the rebels and saving, as it is stated, three compa
nies of the Tenth Connecticut, — that General Terry, who
was in command on that Island, said to Adjutant James:
" Tell your Colonel that I am exceedingly pleased with
the conduct of your regiment. They have done all they
could do." Yours truly,
Edward L. Pierce.

The following letters from General Butler, Charles Sumner, and
Rev. James Freeman Clarke are here given, as showing not only
the high esteem in which General Strong and Colonel Shaw were
held, but also the intense interest felt in the fortunes of the Fifty-
fourth Regiment : — Lowell, July 29, 1863.
My dear Pierce, — A thousand thanks for your kindness to
poor Strong in his calamity. It has fastened another cord around
my heart to yours ; but, alas ! it has been all unavailing. My
dear friend now hes at the point of death, and we have ceased
hoping against hope. Tetanus (lockjaw) has supervened, and he

X40 assault on fort wagner.
can recover only by a miracle, which will scarcely be wrought
even in favor of one so good and true. . . .
I am most truly yours, Benj. F. Butler.
Ed. L. Pierce, Esq.

Boston, 29th July, '63.
My dear Pierce, — I have just read your beautiful and touch
ing letter on the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts. Tell all that regiment
that you see, that I honor them much. Sic itur ad — Libertatem !
I cannot be consoled for the loss of Shaw. But where better
could a young commander die than on the parapet of an enemy's
fort which he had stormed? That death will be sacred in history
and in art. . . .
Good-by. Ever yours, Charles Sumner.

Jamaica Plain, August 8, 1863.
My dear Mr. Pierce, — I have followed your movements
with interest, so far as they have been made known by what I saw
in the newspapers. Your letter to Governor Andrew in regard to
the Fifty-fourth Regiment and Colonel Shaw's death was very valua
ble to us, as giving a correct picture of that great historic event. We
mourn here over one so modest and manly that all who knew him
honored and loved him. But he has done a noble work in dying,
and the vain thought of the enemy to disgrace him by putting
him in the same grave with the negroes will only redound to his
greater honor. You have seen, I suppose, the poem " Together,"
\vritten probably by Mrs. Howe.* . . . Our eyes are fixed on
Charleston with great interest. May the good cause triumph this
time ! Veiy truly yours,
James Freeman Clarke.
1 Mrs. Anna C. S. Waterston was the author of the ode to Colonel Shaw's
memory.

ASSAULT ON FORT WAGNER. X41
Mr. Pierce received word September 3, when taking supper in
the tent of Colonel Joseph R. Hawley, — since Governor of Con
necticut and United States Senator from that State, — that he had
been appointed to an important revenue office in Boston, and he
shortly after left the South to enter on its duties. The following
letter announced his appointment : — Treasury Department,
August 22, 1863.
My dear Mr. Pierce, — Our friend, Dr. James W. Stone, is no
more. After a brief illness (dysentery) he died yesterday. In him
I lose a faithful friend, and the country a faithful servant. He loved
you, and often spoke of you in terms of warm affection. When I
last saw him, some two weeks since, he said I ought to have recom
mended your appointment to the place he filled ; and I told him
I should have done so had your name been proposed for the
place, or a suggestion made to me that the appointment would be
agreeable to you. In recommending, therefore, your appointment
as his successor, I have felt that I was, in some sort, carrying out
his wishes, and at the same time testifying my esteem and confidence
in you in a way not, I hope, unacceptable. The President has
signed your commission, and nothing remains but for you to signify
your wishes. I hope you will accept. If you do, please leave
your best assistant to act in your place temporarily, and return to
Boston as soon as practicable. I was in the office at Boston ; it
is admirably organized for you.
Cordially and always yours,
S. P. Chase.

142 TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION.

V.

The following is an address delivered in the Town House, Mil
ton, Mass., October 31, 1868, and printed at the request of Henry
S. Russell, John M. Forbes, James M. Robbins, James B. Thayer,
Joseph M. Churchill, and other citizens of the town : —

TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION.
This is not the liberty which we can hope, that no grievance ever
should arise in the commonwealth : that let no man in this world expect ;
but when complaints are freely heard, deeply considered, and speedily re
formed, then is the utmost bound of civil liberty obtained that wise men
look for. — John Milton.
Had Abraham Lincoln lived to complete his second
official term, far different would have been the political
condition of the American people from what it is to-day.
He commanded the confidence as well of those who had
striven to destroy the government as of those who had
striven to preserve it. Magnanimous and humane, he would,
beyOnd all other men, have healed the wounds of civil
war. But, steadfast as the granite of your hills, he would
have stood faithfully by the loyal people of the South, of
whatever race or past condition. His influence, his great
name, his official power, would have been employed to
rebuild society in all the rebel territory upon the solid
masonry of justice and freedom. The prodigal sons would
have returned, sad and repentant, to the old family man
sion, ¦ — the latch-string still out, — and they and their
loyal brethren, forgiving, would have joined in repairing
the rents which the war had made. The two races would

TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION. 143
have come into kindly and co-operative relations. The
Southern people, weary with war and politics, would have
concentrated their energies on the reparation of their
broken fortunes.- They would have devoted themselves to
industrial pursuits, to the culture of the great staples in
larger abundance. Northern capital would have poured
into the South, stimulating enterprise and quickening
industry. New lines of railroad would have been built,
and existing lines pressed on to new districts. As free
society tends to a various development, and not like slave
society to uniformity, agricultural labor would have thriven
as never before; while mechanical, manufacturing, and
commercial enterprise would have sprung into vigorous
life. Factories would have risen on streams whose waters
had never before ministered to the comfort and progress
of man. Ten thousand forges and mills would have been
creating untold wealth where now is the silence of the
undisturbed forest. The wilderness and solitary place
would have been glad, and the desert have rejoiced and
blossomed as the rose. The wharves of seaboard cities
would have been covered with merchandise, departing and
arriving. As rights of person and property were respected
by public opinion and enforced by law, confidence would
have become established; and with this confidence, which
is to commercial life what the blood is to the body, would
have come ready loans, inflowing capital, and a steady
immigration. This new and assured prosperity at the
South — this recovery of a disabled member — would have
brought health again to the whole country. The honor of
the nation and its ability to pay its debts would have been
unquestioned. With a vast production, as yet without a
parallel in our history, taxation as well by customs as by
internal duties would have been no longer burdensome.
Increased exports would have turned the balance- of trade

144 TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION.
in our favor. The national notes would have appreciated
to par with gold, putting mercantile life on a surer foot
ing, and reducing the cost of the necessaries of life, — to
the great relief of laboring and salaried -men. With the
national credit thus established at home and abroad, the
national bonds would have been funded at a lower rate of
interest; and thus a controversy would have been impos
sible which has imperilled our credit, if not our reputation
for national morality.
This industrial regeneration would have modified politi
cal antagonisms. There might have been discussion, even
earnest discussion, but there would have been none of the
heated strife which we now witness. There would have
come an era of good feeling, such as was witnessed at the
inauguration of the government; such as followed the last
war with Great Britain. The good President would have
been offered a third term, but, like Washington before
him, he would have declined it; and he would have gone
back to the home at Springfield which he loved, followed
by the benedictions of his countrymen. The people, by a
universal instinct, would have turned for his successor to
General Grant, who had earned their gratitude and confi
dence in the field as Lincoln had earned them in the cab
inet. He would have been chosen as our first magistrate,
not as the candidate of a party, but as the candidate of all
the people.
But this fair picture was not to be. The pistol of the
assassin changed the course of history. A President suc
ceeded — the creature of an accident — whose wicked and
perverse policy fired again the Southern heart, organized
afresh the rebel party, and stimulated it with the hope of
gaining by craft what it had lost in war. The three years
and a half which succeeded the surrender of the rebel
armies have been years of misgovernment, barbarousiegis-

TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION. 145
lation, disorder, anarchy, persecution of loyal men, mur
ders of good citizens as frequent as once a day in a State,
or even in a county; massacres like those of Norfolk,
Memphis, Mobile, and New Orleans; bands of assassins
organized into Ku-Klux clans, and openly recognized as
the allies of the unsubdued rebel party. Every morning's
newspaper brings a fresh tale of crime and outrage.
To-day, instead of being a united people, devoted to the
development of our resources, we are meeting such ques
tions as these : Shall there be peace or war in ten States
of this Union? Shall protection of person and property,
or violence, rapine, and anarchy prevail there? Shall the
just and liberal governments which have been there estab
lished remain ; or shall they, as demanded by Mr. Blair in
his Broadhead letter, and implied in the platform of his
party, be overturned by the military and unconstitutional
order of the President, and all society be remanded into
chaos? Fellow-citizens, the issues of the rebellion are still alive.
The forces of the paroled Confederates, reinforced by
Northern allies, have reorganized as murderous clans and
desperate revolutionists. It is another — let us hope, the
last — battle of the war. If you have any love for your
country, any gratitude to our patriot soldiers living or
dead, any interest in social order as the father of a family
or the owner of property, — whatever may have been your
affiliations in the past, and whatever they may be in the
future, — your patriotism, your good name, and your
safety all adjure you to give your vote on Tuesday next
for the Republican candidates.
Never did soldiers go home from battle-fields with a
prouder consciousness of duty done than did ours, when
in the summer of 1865 they laid aside their muskets and
returned to their kindred and the employments of peace.

146 TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION.
The military power of the greatest rebellion recorded in
history had been smitten to the dust. The nation had been
rescued from imminent dismemberment ; its unity, integrity,
and glory had been maintained. Never before did it rank
so high in the family of nations. Despotic dynasties trem
bled, and oppressed races and classes took heart, as its
victory was heralded. Triumphant over domestic foes,
over States within itself banded together for its overthrow,
it had proved itself the strongest just where friends and
enemies alike supposed it to be the weakest. It had won
strength and achieved perpetuity in the very struggle in
which its doom was anticipated.
But all was not yet accomplished. A work, calling for
higher wisdom and even higher virtue than the levying of
troops, the raising of supplies, and the conduct of armies,
still remained. " Yet much remains
To conquer still ; peace hath her victories
No less renown'd than war."
The rebellion had " in its revolutionary progress de
prived the people of all civil government." Such were
the terms used by President Johnson in his proclamations
for the appointment of provisional governors for the rebel
States, and for once I can quote him with approval. There
were no constitutional officers of any kind, — no govern
ors, no legislatures, no judiciary, no executive officers, no
one to receive a vote or administer an oath : all had been
swept into the vortex of rebellion. There had succeeded
de facto governments, but they were alien and hostile, the
creation of public enemies ; and they fell with the rebel
lion itself. It was a tabula rasa, just like the slate when a
boy has rubbed out the figures of one sum, and before
he has begun another. There remained so many square
miles of land ; so many people upon them ; so many

TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION. 147
State lines, if you please, — but no governments. These
had been utterly destroyed in fact — not of right, to be
sure — by the rebellion, and the fall of the rebellion could
not reanimate them. It was necessary upon this vacant,
this deserted field to re-create civil governments, — gov
ernments adapted to the changed condition of affairs;
governments which would secure the fruits of the war,
and fortify the nation against another rebellion ; govern
ments which would respect and fulfil the pledges made
during the war to the national creditors, to the freedmen,
and to the loyal white men of the South.
Great as was the work of suppressing the rebellion, the
work of restoring civil governments was no less great.
Our European friends during the war often expressed
misgivings on this point. They said : You may, by your
superior numbers and resources, disperse the armed forces
of the rebellion, but after that, whence are to come the
loyal hearts which are to uphold civil governments at the
South? " Who overcomes
By force, hath overcome but half his foe."
If you undertake to govern the Southern States perma
nently as conquered provinces, you will fill your national
system with the spirit of absolutism which will destroy
your free institutions, as well at the North as at the South.
This was no idle fear. We saw the danger, but we saw
also the methods of guarding against it. We proposed
the restoration of civil governments based on the loyal
people of the South; and these we expected to find in the
white men who had been among the faithless faithful
found ; in repentant rebels who had been swept into the
rebellion by a furious current; in the colored population,
universally loyal; and in emigrants from the North and
from Europe.

148 TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION.
As the result of the war, — of the great upheaval of pop
ulation, the dissolution of business and local ties, the new
spirit of adventure awakened, the extraordinary interest in
cotton culture prevailing in all civilized countries, — there
was anticipated an emigration to the Southern States no
parallel to which has been known since the populous
tribes of the North, fifteen centuries ago, descended on the
vineyards of Italy and Spain. The war — the accounts of
battles, sieges, marches — had instructed our people in
the geography of that vast country stretching from the
Potomac to the Rio Grande. As our affections and patri
otism for four years travelled and lingered over it, places
heretofore all unknown became as familiar to us as the
hamlets of our birth. Our soldiers on their marches, their
bivouacs, and by their camp-fires had seen the fatness of
the land, and had already designated upon it their future
homes. Thither thousands of them were likely to go,
preferring, after their unsettled life, to set up in business
for themselves, rather than again to enter the service of
others in the places of their former residence. Becoming
thus citizens of the territory which their valor had saved to
the Union, they would be like the garrisons which Rome
planted in the countries traversed by her eagles. An
increased immigration from Europe, attracted by the pros
pect of profitable industry applied to the great staples of
Southern production, was promised. The tide of advan
cing population had, in its westward course, reached the
less available and as yet less accessible territories beyond
the Mississippi, and was likely to turn in a southern
direction. These different sources — the Unionists of the South,
white and black, our own soldiers, and emigrants from the
North and from Europe — would have furnished ample
foundations for a loyal society. Even the great mass of

TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION. 149
Southern men, under a steady hand, would have proved
plastic material. Resignation to the inevitable is a law of
human nature; and with that resignation come reflections
that, after all, it is a better lot than the one we would have
chosen. A strong and just government would have made
submission a necessity. A healthy reaction would have
succeeded the intense political excitements of preceding
years. The pressure of material wants, always controlling
in the long run, would have moderated and even extin
guished the animosities of section and race. Violent
spirits would have disappeared, lost in emigration to
Mexico, South America, and Cuba, or in retirement from
all public activities. The mass of the people would have
become disgusted with the agitators who had brought on
them poverty, bereavement, and dishonor, and would have
gathered about new chiefs. Society would have crystal
lized around the thoughts, the enterprises, and the associa
tions of freedom. The effects of slavery and the rebellion
might have been traceable for a generation; but stable
and loyal governments, affording reasonable protection to
persons and property, would have been possible in one,
two, or three years. The movement of modern life is so
rapid, that what once took a century for its consummation
may now be reached in a decade. What once required a
generation may now be realized in a year.
All these reasonable expectations, fondly cherished in
patriotic hearts, were defeated by the malignant policy of
Andrew Johnson, backed by that portion of the Demo
cratic party which had openly or secretly patronized the
rebellion. But whose constitutional prerogative was it to determine
when, how, by whom, and upon what conditions these new
civil governments should be organized where none ex
isted? Clearly, it was that of the loyal people of the

ISO

TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION.

country, who had fought the battles, paid the bills, and
undergone the sufferings of the war. It belonged to them,
for they had saved the territory to the nation, — not to
the rebels who had strained every nerve to wrest it away.
It belonged to the whole loyal people of the country as
represented in Congress, and through that body express
ing their united will and their common wisdom, — not to
any one man, certainly not to a magistrate whose business
it is to execute and not to make the laws. To frame a
government is the highest effort of human wisdom, one
that has made the founders of states illustrious in human
annals. The American people never intrusted it even to
Washington, far less would they intrust it to Johnson. It
was the right of the whole people, — and as ours is a
representative government they could act only through
Congress, — it was their right to say what was the best
time and mode of restoration, and what securities were
essential to prevent another rebellion and to fulfil the
national promises. It was the duty of the President, hos
tilities having closed after the adjournment of Congress,
to have preserved by means of the military forces peace,
order, and security through the rebel territory, awaiting
the next session when that body in its wisdom might have
initiated measures of restoration. If there was any ap
parent necessity for eariier action, an extra session might
have been called.
But the President decided upon a far different course.
On May 29, only sixteen days after the last collision
between the loyal and the rebel forces, — less than seven
weeks after his own accession, — President Johnson issued
a proclamation appointing a provisional governor for
North Carolina, and providing for a constitutional conven
tion in that State, and shortly after issued others of like
tenor for the organization of governments in the other

TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION.

151

rebel States. He undertook at the outset to say who
should be enfranchised as electors, who should be eli
gible to office, who should form the constitutions and
what kind of constitutions they should be. While the
conventions were in session, he dictated their action by
telegraphic despatches. At first, in a telegram of Mr.
Seward to Governor Marvin of Florida, of September X2,
1865, he stated that these proceedings were to be subject
to the revision of Congress. But subsequently, upon the
assembling of that body, he denied its power to alter,
revise, or supplement his work ; and because it would not
admit to seats the mere creatures of his usurpation, who
styled themselves representatives and senators, he stigma
tized it as a " rump congress " and " hanging on the verge
of the government." As his power to do all this was
questioned, he became belligerent, insolent, defiant. This
was Caesarism ; this was absolutism of the most danger
ous character. No constitutional monarch in our day has
asserted such imperial prerogatives. For doing less than
this, when you consider the difference of system then and
now prevailing, one king of England lost his head and
another his crown. The people looked on with amaze
ment at the usurpation. But so apprehensive were they
at that critical hour of any conflict between the executive
and legislative departments, so reluctant were they to take
issue with a magistrate who a few months before had re
ceived their votes, that they were disposed to submit to
the usurpation, provided the governments thus organized
proved to be just and liberal, and in that event to overlook
their illegitimate, unconstitutional, and monarchical ori
gin. The conventions thus called, met during the autumn
of 1865 and framed constitutions. Legislatures, in pursu
ance of their authority, met during that autumn and the
following winter, and formed codes of laws. And what
was the result?

152 TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION.
The first effect of President Johnson's policy was to
reanimate and reorganize the whole rebel element. He
had, without interposing any proper period of reflection,
without any reasonable pause after the bitterness of civil
war, admitted to political power the great mass of those
recently in arms against the government, and had intro
duced no new force to balance and counteract them. He
removed at once all their fears of punishment, and stimu
lated afresh their hopes of domination. Instead of build
ing their fences and working their crops, they flocked to
corner groceries and court-house squares for the discus
sion of politics. They saw an opportunity to gain by
craft what they had lost in war, — and with the passion
for dominion still lingering, it is not strange that they
seized it. They became self-conscious, aggressive, intol
erant. Where there was quiet, submission, and acquies
cence in May, there was disorder, resistance, and defiance
in November. Where in May they were resigned to any
fate which should be meted out to them as a vanquished
party, — such as the civil and political equality of the
freedmen, and even their own exclusion from political
power, esteeming themselves fortunate if permitted to
retain their estates and to live in the country, — they
began in November to threaten another rebellion unless
the old masters were allowed unlimited power, under ap
prentice, vagrant, and labor laws, to reduce the freedmen
to a degraded subordination. They enacted statutes, with
grievous restrictions and heavy penalties, which were made
applicable to freedmen alone, and not to all citizens.
Forced to accept the abolition of slavery as a legal state
ment, they sought to preserve slavery as a social fact.
They undertook with systematic violence to drive from
the South law-abiding citizens of the North, — many of
them patriot soldiers, scarred with honorable wounds re-

TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION. 153
ceived in the service of the country, — who went there in
the exercise of their inalienable right to live where they
please. With the ferocity of wild beasts, they hunted
down the Union men who had resisted the pressure of
treason, and who had hailed the old flag waving at the
head of our advancing armies.
The Johnson governments excluded colored men from
suffrage, — thus denying them representation while tax
ing them. They excluded them from the jury panel, —
thus denying them a trial by their peers. They admitted
the colored witness to testify only in a limited class of
cases, — a discrimination which had the effect of making
him a discredited and impeached witness even when he
was admitted. They made no provision for the education
of the colored people save in Florida, — thus endeavoring
to keep a whole race in ignorance. They undertook upon
system, by means of apprentice and vagrant laws, to re
vive slavery. Under the apprentice laws as administered,
any planter could obtain the unwilling labor of his former
slaves who were still minors. These laws allowed the
judge of probate to bind out children whose parents were
unable or refused to support them, giving the preference
to the old master; and the courts required no proper
proof of such inability and refusal.
The Johnson governments constructed an elaborate sys
tem for preventing the colored people from being masters
of their time, and for keeping them constantly under the
will and jurisdiction of the planters. They made it a crimi
nal offence, an act of vagrancy, punishable with fine and
imprisonment, for a freedman to leave his employer before
the expiration of a term of service prescribed in a written
contract. Such was the legislation of Alabama, Florida,
and Mississippi. It was made a criminal offence in Ala-

154 TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION.
bama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas for any
person to entice away such laborer, or after he had left
his employer to employ, harbor, feed, or clothe him.
What should we think of a law here which should send
to the house of correction for a year a farm-laborer failing
to carry out his contract to serve his employer, and which
should send there also the farmer who employed him after
such breach of contract? Furthermore, under the same
Act every civil officer was required and every person
authorized, by main force and without legal process, to
take back such a deserting laborer to his employer, and
was to receive for the service five dollars, and ten cents a
mile for travel.
In Mississippi, a freedman was declared a vagrant for
" exercising the functions of a minister of the gospel with
out a license from some regularly organized church."
This was intended to shut the mouths of negro preachers
who were disposed to instruct their brethren in the rights
and duties of freemen. Another Act of the same State
declared freedmen " found unlawfully assembling them
selves together, either in the day or night time," to be
vagrants, — thus aiming particularly at Republican meet
ings and loyal leagues. The same Act declared that
" white persons usually associating themselves with freed
men, free negroes, or mulattoes, on terms of equality, shall
be deemed vagrants," — thus aiming at the teachers of
freedmen who taught their children by day and could not
obtain board with white families. An Act of Louisiana
made it a criminal offence to " enter upon any plantation
without the permission of the owner or agent," — thus
aiming at Republican canvassers and teachers of freedmen,
and designing to keep plantation negroes in utter ignor
ance of their rights. In Florida, it was made a criminal
offence for a negro to " intrude himself into any religious

TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION.

IS5

or other public 'assembly of white persons, or into any
railroad car or other public vehicle set apart for the ex
clusive accommodation of white people," upon convic
tion of which he should be " sentenced to stand in the
pillory for one hour, or be whipped not exceeding thirty-
nine stripes, or both at the discretion of the jury."
What think you of that provision, — you who for curi
osity or information are accustomed to frequent public
meetings? In furtherance of the same purpose to reduce the freed
men to a degraded subordination by attaching them to the
soil and keeping them under the constant will of employ
ers, the planters enacted a law in Mississippi forbidding
a negro from doing "irregular and job work" without a
license from the municipal authorities; and another in
South Carolina forbidding him to practise " the art, trade,
or business of an artisan, mechanic, or shopkeeper, or
any other trade, employment, or business (besides that
of husbandry or that of a servant under a contract for
service or labor), on his own account or for his own bene
fit, or in partnership with a white person,'' without a
license (to expire in a year) from the district court.
What free society tolerates such functions in judges,
mayors, and selectmen? Is a man a freeman, unless he
can follow any honest, useful calling that he chooses,
without let or hindrance?
In Louisiana, the freedman as a laborer was finable for
" failing to obey reasonable orders," " absence from home
without leave," "impudence," and the like, — as if the
employer were still a slaveholder and the laborer still a
slave. In Florida, it was made a criminal offence, punishable
with pillory and stripes, for a negro to own, use, or keep in
his possession or under his control " any bowie-knife, dirk,

156 TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION.
sword, firearms, or ammunition of any kind," without a
license from the judge of probate; and a similar Act was
passed in Mississippi and South Carohna. The object of
these Acts was to make the negro race utterly defence
less, and to put them by day and by night at the mercy
of ruffians and assassins acting independently or organ
ized as clans. Does not the Constitution of the United
States affirm " the right of the people to keep and bear
arms"? And have you not the right to keep a pistol
under your pillow for the protection of yourself and
family? And has not every other man, white and black,
that same right? Does anybody deny that right except
Johnson lawgivers and Seymour partisans?
Punishments odious, unusual, and excessive, degrading
alike to society and to the victims, which have been dis
owned in civilized States, — such as chain-gangs, stocks,
whipping-posts, pillories, sale at public outcry to the high
est bidder, — were prescribed for the freedmen. These
you will find in the legislation of Alabama, Florida, and
Mississippi. It was reserved for the State of Mississippi to devise the
most ingenious methods for outlawing and crushing the
colored population. One Act of the Legislature allowed
the colored man to complain of a white man for an offence
committed upon him. Great privilege that ! But lest the
colored man, destitute, disfranchised, landless, friendless,
homeless, should thereby take advantage of white men,
who were rich, skilled in organization, and making all the
laws, another Act was passed a few. days later, — that if on
the trial of such complaint sufficient proof were made to
the court or jury that it had been made falsely and mali
ciously, the court should in that very trial render a judg
ment against such freedman, free negro, or mulatto, and
impose on him a fine not exceeding fifty dollars, and im-

TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION. 157
prisonment not exceeding twenty days; and for failure to
pay the fine and costs, the sheriff was directed to hire him
out at public outcry for a period necessary to discharge
fine, costs, and jail fees !
Look upon this barbarous provision ! I know well
enough that just codes provide for the punishment of ma
licious prosecutions, provisions however rarely invoked in
the administration of criminal law; but this is inflicted only
in independent proceedings, where the malice is the direct
and single issue of the case, and where the defendant is
shielded by the beneficent presumptions of the criminal
law : never is it, and never should it be, inflicted on the trial
of the prosecution which is claimed to have been malicious.
Imagine an instance under this Mississippi Act. A negro
enters a county court-room to complain of his employer
for putting out his eye or maiming him for life. Perhaps
he was one of that heroic band who assaulted Port Hud
son ; perhaps he was by the side of Colonel Shaw as he
charged upon Fort Wagner; perhaps he was one of the
thirty thousand colored soldiers who made a third or
fourth of Grant's army before Richmond in the last winter
of the war; or it may have been he who aided your son to
escape from Andersonville, and saved him from starvation
and recapture. Whether he be one of these or not, he is
at least one whose freedom the proclamation of President
Lincoln pledged the government to " recognize and main
tain." The injured man looks about him in that court
room, but sees no friendly face, — no lawyer who cares to
breast the wrath of the only class who have money to pay
fees. He looks at the judge, and he sees in him a Con
federate colonel; or, worse yet, a Confederate editor, too
cowardly to fight against his country, and just mean
enough to slander her at a safe distance. He looks at the
jury, but they are not his peers, — all of another race, all

158 TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION.
leagued to keep him in subjection; the very men who
have made the inhuman laws I have referred to. The
trial proceeds. The colored man tells his story in broken
speech, but with truthful lips. The white man denies all,
and of course his word is taken. The jury and the judge
mean that negroes shall be taught a lesson for complain
ing of the men of their class. They acquit the defendant,
and then, as a part of the same verdict and judgment, sen
tence to fine and imprisonment the negro complainant for
a malicious prosecution. My God ! The judgment hall
of Pilate, with a Roman soldiery for executioners, lights
up with justice by the side of this Mississippi tribunal !
The ruling classes to whom President Johnson had con
fided political power undertook to prevent the colored
people from ever becoming proprietors of the soil, in
order to make their subjection permanent and complete.
Their condition, even if favored by the laws, was hard at
the best. They came out of slavery without property,
without an inch of real estate, without personal chattels or
a dollar in their pockets. They were liable on any day to
expulsion from their cabins. They could not draw water
from a well or a spring if the planter refused permission.
The greatest mistake made by Congress was in not secur
ing to them a fair opportunity to become the owners of
small parcels of real estate. This should have been done,
— not perhaps by confiscation of the planters' estates and
the donation thereof to the freedmen, but in the exercise
of the right of eminent domain and of the rights of war,
enforcing conveyances upon the payment of an assessed
valuation. It was the determination of the planters, how
ever, that the colored people should have no chance
to become independent of employers, and that they
should have no incentive to save their earnings. They
therefore everywhere made combinations not to sell them

TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION. 159
land. Not content with this, they denied them in Missis
sippi, by express provision of law, " the right to acquire
and dispose of real property; " and still further, they pro
vided that no freedman, free negro, or mulatto should ever
" rent or lease any lands or tenements except in incorpor
ated towns or cities, in which places the corporate authori
ties shall control the same." I challenge you to find a
parallel to this legislative enormity in any other country
in modern times. Let us look at the import of this
provision more closely.
The desire for land — to have one spot on earth where
a man may stand, and whence no human being may of
right drive him — is one of the healthiest and most con
servative instincts of our nature. The people who have
it are no longer nomadic; they have taken a great step
in progressive civilization. Nor can free institutions last
in a country unless a large proportion of the population
are proprietors of the soil they live upon. If there is any
axiom in political philosophy, this is one. I do not affect
classical Jearning when I say — what every student of his
tory will join with me in maintaining — that the fatal hour
of Roman liberty came when the Gracchi, the greatest
and best of her reformers, failed to secure for the landless
peasantry of Italy some portion of the public domain.
" Great plantations destroyed Italy and the provinces,"
wrote the elder Pliny.^ Compare, if you will, the agricul
tural population of Holland, where the farmers own the
lands they till, with that of Ireland, where they do not.
There is thrift and intelligence in the one ; there is waste
and degeneracy in the other. So important, so vital to
the common weal has this principle become, that in Eng
land — a country where vested interests are accorded
1 Verumque confitentibus latifundia perdidere Italiam, jam vero et
provincias.

l60 TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION.
a peculiar sacredness — John Stuart Mill proposes an
interference with titles for the purpose of obtaining for
the Irish tenantry an interest, if only a tenant's interest at
a fixed rent, in the soil they cultivate.^ Fellow-citizens,
he is not a statesman, he is hardly a civilized man, who
does not recognize this primary, this most beneficent in
stinct of human nature. How a man loves his home, —
the hearthstone consecrated by family affection ; the tree
he has planted, whose fruit he plucks, and under whose
shadow he rests; the vines he has trained; the brook
whose flowing waters delight his eye and whose music
soothes his weariness! — howsoever mean and lowly that
home may be, he loves it, for it is his own. One of the
finest bursts of British eloquence was Lord Chatham's,
when he said: "The poorest man may in his cottage bid
defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail ;
its roof may shake ; the winds of heaven may blow through
every cranny; the storm may enter; the rain may enter;
but the king of England cannot enter ! All his force dares
not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement ! " Alas,
fellow-citizens, for the country that has not and never
hopes to have a population of small landed proprietors
clinging to its soil and sharing in its government! Alas
for the country that, once having them, has parted with
them forever, — their farms swallowed up in great planta
tions, and themselves reduced to beggary or driven to
better governed and more favored lands 1 As well attempt
to raise the columns of St. Peter's on a pyramid of sand,
as to build free institutions on great aristocratic estates.
Now, these barbarians of the South — they deserve no
milder term — conspired by means of laws and combi-
1 As is well known, since the date of this address Parliament has passed
successive radical measures interfering with the property of landlords for
the benefit of tenants.

TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION. i6x
nations to uproot one of the finest instincts of human
nature, and to keep a whole race forever landless and
homeless. Tell me if these Johnson lawgivers have proved
themselves fit architects of government I
I have given you fair examples of the legislation of the
Johnson governments. The same spirit of injustice, the
same determination to degrade and oppress, was every
where manifest, — in combinations against selling land to
the freedmen ; in combinations to keep their wages down
to the lowest standard ; in dismissals from employment on
frivolous pretexts, just before the harvest, so as to deprive
them of all share in the crop; in the unblushing partiality
of juries and the lower courts; in the burning of their
schoolhouses and churches; in the mobbing and expul
sion of their teachers ; in daily assaults and murders which
went unpunished and unprosecuted, — all culminating in
such massacres as those of Norfolk, Memphis, New
Orleans, and Mobile.
With such barbarous legislation and such prevailing
injustice, a neglect of Congress to interpose would have
been abdication of a high trust. Nevertheless, it pro
ceeded with great caution, — too great, history will prob
ably say. It passed, over the President's veto, the Civil
Rights Act of April 9, 1866, which affirmed the equal civil
rights of the freedmen, and prescribed punishments upon
all persons who should attempt under color of law to
deprive them of rights, or inflict on them different punish
ments, pains, or penalties on account of their color, race,
or former condition. This Act did something to protect
the freedmen in some localities ; but as a general remedy
it proved ineffective. Two months later. Congress sub
mitted to the States — partly with a view of securing
equal rights, and partly with a view of testing the loyalty
of the Johnson governments — the Constitutional amend-

x62 TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION.
ment now known as the fourteenth. It was liberal and
considerate in terms. It declared the citizenship of all
persons born or naturalized in the United States, and for
bade any State to abridge the privileges or immunities of
the citizens of the United States. Surely, none can object
to that constitutional truism. It reduced Congressional
representation in the same proportion as any State reduced
its body of electors by disfranchisement. That applied to
all the States, and was certainly fair. It affirmed the val
idity of the national debt : what honest citizen can object
to that? It forbade the payment by the United States or
by any State of the rebel debt : is any one of you specially
anxious to pay a share of that debt? — if you are, you can
buy a rebel bond. It incapacitated for public trust certain
officers who, having taken an oath to support the Constitu
tion of the United States, afterwards violated that oath and
engaged in rebellion: is there anything harsh in that? It
did not deprive them of life, liberty, property, civil rights,
suffrage even, but only of office: was ever treason so
kindly treated? It excluded from office a far less number
than were excluded by Mr. Johnson's amnesty Proclama
tion, issued contemporaneously with his appointment of
provisional governors; and furthermore, it even em
powered Congress to remove this disability by a two-thirds
vote, thus making it temporary only, to remain no longer
than the exigency. How was this overture of peace and
reconciliation met? In the winter of 1866-67 it was re
jected contemptuously, rejected unanimously, generally
not a single member of either house in the Johnson
legislatures voting for it.
Congress at last, pressed by the loyal people, entered
on a thorough policy in March, 1867. By one Act it
divided the rebel States into military districts, and re
quired the President to assign to each an officer of supe-

TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION. 163
rior rank, and clothed him with extraordinary powers for
the protection of persons and property. By another
Act, it prescribed the registration as voters in each State
of the people, irrespective of color or race, who were
not excluded from office by the fourteenth Constitutional
amendment. Such electors, if voting for a constitutional
convention, were to choose delegates ; and the convention
was to frame a constitution which upon its ratification was
to be submitted to Congress, and if found to be expres
sive of the popular will in such State and proper in its
provisions, the State was to be admitted under it to repre
sentation in Congress. Contrast in one item alone the
care of Congress with the slip-shod haste of Mr. Johnson.
The constitutions framed under the President were not
submitted for ratification to a popular vote, but became
such upon the adjournment of the conventions which
framed them. Those framed under Congress were all
submitted to a popular vote. Under these Acts of Con
gress, constitutions were formed by the people of the
late rebel States. Unlike those of the Johnson govern
ments, they make no discrimination on account of race,
color, or former condition of servitude, but prohibit such
discrimination and secure equal rights for all. They make
the most liberal provision for popular education, as broad
as any in the statutes of Massachusetts or New York.
Never in the history of that section of country have the
laws been so expressive of humanity and civilization.
Now, you are called upon, fellow-citizens, to decide
between the Johnson governments, with their cruel, bar
barous, and unequal legislation, and the governments or
ganized under the auspices of Congress, with their liberal,
just, and humane provisions. Not only this: you are
asked not merely to choose between them, but to say
whether you will destroy the good governments and re-

164 TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION.
store the bad governments in their place. More than
this even, you are summoned by Mr. Blair, the Democratic
candidate for the Vice-Presidency, to allow him and his
associates, by military usurpation and violence, to over
turn just governments and to set up unjust governments
in their place. Was there ever a more one-sided issue?
The Republicans are the true conservatives ; and they
say. Let the just governments now established abide.
But I am told that this whole business of reconstruction,
as treated by the Republicans, is made to concern only
the negroes ; and that they are not our brothers, nor are
we their keepers. This is not so. We plead for good
government, and that concerns all men for all time. It is
not merely a question of sentiment or of abstract justice ;
it is a question which comes home to the pockets of every
one of you. There is not a man here with a coat on his
back, or who expects to sleep between two sheets to
night; there is not a mother here who goes shopping on
Saturdays for her children ; there is not a father of a
family who has to fit out his daughter for marriage, —
there is not one of these who is not pecunfarily interested
in its just solution. There is not a bale of cotton, there
is hardly a case of tobacco, there is not a barrel of rice or
of turpentine, which is not the product of the labor of the
freedmen. Go to a plantation in Georgia in early spring,
and you will see these freedmen preparing the cotton land
for the season; later you will see them — men, women,
and children — planting it; then hoeing it during the
summer; then picking it in autumn ; then ginning, baling,
and carting it to a railroad depot or to a landing-place on
a river, whence it is to be transported to New York,
Boston, or Liverpool : all the labor is that of the freed
men. There is the white man's capital invested in the
product, and there is sometimes, not always, his superin-

TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION. 165
tendence. That cotton, after its manufacture, is to be worn
by you and your family; and according as good or bad
laws prevail at the South, you are to pay more or less
for it. What I have said of cotton, is true also of rice
and turpentine; and it is, though less so, true of tobacco,
which is, however, largely planted in the free States.
Through these great staples, then, the freedmen are
present in your daily comforts ; they supply your manu
factures and your commerce ; they regulate your balances
with foreign nations ; they determine the value of your
currency; they make and they vary the figures on your
ledgers; seen or unseen by you, they are present in
your homes, your banks, your warehouses, your workshops,
and in all the avenues of your life. Take the single pro
duct of cotton. The crop of 1867 was two millions and
six hundred thousand bales, worth two hundred and fifty
millions of dollars. One-third of it was consumed at home,
two-thirds of it were exported. Now, if the Forrests and
Wade Hamptons are to have their way with this people ; if
they are to be the victims of violence, Ku-Klux clans, and
massacres, — this great production is to be exterminated.
These freedmen have once tasted of freedom and suf
frage ; and before they will go back to slavery in name or
in fact, they will resist, as they ought to resist, to the bitter
end. It will be San Domingo again, as when Napoleon
undertook to reduce the emancipated slaves to bond
age. You will have the horrors and ravages of civil and
servile war combined. Where then will be the product to
feed your mills, to supply your spindles, to provide work
for your factory operatives, men and women, native and
foreign-born? Recall the wail of distress which came from
Lancashire in 1861, and ask yourselves if you wish to hear
it from Lowell and Lawrence and Fall River !
But this is not all. You are to have, by this policy of

l66 TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION.
injustice, one half of all your exports obliterated. The
total exports for the year ending June 30, 1867, were
$440,838,834. The chief item was cotton, which amount
ed to $202,91 x,4io. Another item was tobacco, amount
ing to $22,671,126. Another was turpentine, amounting
to $1,066,986. Let these branches of industry, conduct
ed mainly by freedmen, be destroyed, and how are you to
meet the balance of trade against you? Your currency
will depreciate ; gold will rise to two hundred ; your
bonds will fall in the market; your capacity to borrow
will be diminished, and your credit everywhere suffer.
On the other hand, give peace, security, and justice to all
races and classes; let your flag be the symbol of protec
tion to all men, the meanest as well as the highest, — and
your cotton crop will be doubled ; your tobacco, turpen
tine, and rice interests will thrive ; your mills will be ahve
with the hum of industry; your currency will appreciate
to par ; your credit, as well as your honor, will be unques
tioned in the markets of the world ; and your national
debt can be funded at lower rates of interest. Behold the
choice ! On the one side, just government, with commer
cial prosperity in its train ; on the other, oppression and
violence, with commercial disaster and ruin. Which will
you have? The Sibyl offers you the precious boon at the
mere price of a ballot. Refuse her, and when she comes
again, she will demand more than you can pay.
Sometimes, in individual life, seeing the prosperity of
the wicked, we almost distrust Providence. But this is
never so with nations, whose life is measured by centuries.
Spain lived on the plunder of Mexico and the Indies; and
where has she been for two hundred years? She now
shows the first sign of life in the expulsion of a dissolute
and tyrant queen, and in movements for a constitutional
government and the abolition of slavery. We lived on the

TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION. iQ']
sufferings and unrequited toil of a race for two centuries,
and even inventoried their bodies as national wealth. But
the furies of retribution were gathering; and at last they
came in civil war, with mourning homes, wasted industry,
and a grievous debt.
This injustice and violence at the South, this oppressive
legislation and persecution, are to be felt in another seri
ous way at the North as well as at the South. They will
force a redistribution of the laboring population of the
South, precipitating it upon us. The great mass of the
Southern freedmen, driven from homes and accustomed
avocations, will come here in hordes, to compete with our
laborers in various employments. It will be another he
gira. Under the operation of natural laws and the sway
of just government, the distribution of a laboring popula
tion is accomplished quietly and without any derangement
of industrial relations. The law of demand and supply
regulates the emigration of human beings, just as it regu
lates the exportation of products. The surplus flows off
from communities and countries where it is too abundant,
to communities and countries in which there is a defi
ciency. In this way, the tide of emigration runs from
Europe to America, and from the Eastern States of this
Union to the valley of the Mississippi and the States and
Territories upon the Pacific. But there is another kind of
emigration forced by persecution and oppression : that
strips and impoverishes the country which it leaves; and
though it sometimes helps, it often crowds the country
whither it goes. How often has religious persecution
desolated districts of one country and built up cities in
another! Geneva in the time of Calvin doubled her popu
lation with Marian and Huguenot exiles. Among the
early settlers of South Carolina and New York were large
bodies of Protestants who had been driven from France.

X68 TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION.
They were perpetuated in many honored names, and
among them those of Laurens and Jay. But take a single
period. The revocation of the edict of Nantes by Louis
XIV., which terminated the toleration of the Huguenots,
drove from France a quarter of a million of her most in
dustrious, most intelligent, and most skilful population.
They escaped, spite of edicts and guards, to Switzerland,
Holland, England, and America. They entered the
armies of the Continent, and aided in the victory of
William of Orange at the battle of the Boyne. Never
did a country pay more dearly and more speedily for
injustice perpetrated on the weak. Many branches of
manufacture were well nigh destroyed in France; they
were translated to the countries which offered a refuge to
the thrifty and ingenious exiles. Manufactories were
closed by the hundred, villages depopulated, large towns
half deserted, and the tillage of wide tracts of territory
abandoned. The Dutch cloth-makers of Abbeville emi
grated in a body, leaving none to carry on the manufac
ture. At Tours, of forty thousand silk artisans only four
thousand remained, and of eight hundred mills only
seventy were kept alive; of four hundred tanneries in
Lorraine, only fifty-eight were found in 1698; the popu
lation of Nantes was reduced from eighty thousand to
one half that number; of twelve thousand silk artisans in
Lyons, nine thousand fled. The industry of these flour
ishing centres of craft and trade was so completely pros
trated that they did not recover for a century, if they
have completely recovered at this day.
What was done in France under Louis XIV. would be
done in the United States under Horatio Seymour. The
freedmen would fly to the Northern States for protection,
and take their place by the side of our laboring popula
tion, native and foreign-born. Remember, too, that they

TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION. 169
are not merely field-hands, producers of cotton, tobacco,
turpentine, and rice. On every large plantation of the
South there is a carpenter, often a blacksmith ; and they
are colored men. Wherever, too, there is a steam-engine
to crush sugar-cane or gin cotton, there you will find a
black engineer. And the same is true of other mechani
cal operations. These people are also pilots and sailors
on the sea as well as skilful workmen on the land. Take
a single State for illustration. One third of the colored
men of North Carolina are mechanics. There are in that
State five black mechanics to one white mechanic, — one
hundred thousand black mechanics to twenty thousand
white mechanics. They are blacksmiths, gunsmiths,
wheelwrights, millwrights, machinists, carpenters, cabinet
makers, plasterers, painters, ship-builders, stone-masons,
bricklayers, pilots, and engineers. You could supply al
most any manufactory in Massachusetts from such material.
But you say these freedmen will not dare to come to the
North: they had a warning in the riots of July, 1863.
Ah ! you mistake. The world has moved in five years.
Horatio Seymour will not be governor of New York in
July, 1869, as he was in July, 1863. The governor, who
ever he may be, will not go down from Albany to address
a mob as " my friends!' That has ceased to be respect
able ; it has cost too many speeches to explain those
unfortunate words. The city of New York has paid two
or three millions of dollars, quite money enough, by way
of damages for such violence. The householders of the
city and the insurance capitalists will protest against the
relighting of the torches of desperate men ; incendiarism,
beginning at the Bowery, might sweep to the Fifth Avenue
and to Madison Square. The Anglo-Saxon love of order,
the American love of fair play, the human instinct for
justice and security will prevent the repetition of these

170 TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION.
horrors, never to be named without a shudder. No;
these freedmen, exiles from oppression, driven from the
South by rebel clans and Democratic partisans, will be
welcomed in the free States with the same sacred hospi
tality which awaited the Huguenots wherever they fled.
Let them come here, if moved by natural laws ; but let
them not be driven hither by violence, to the impoverish
ment of the South and the disturbance of our industrial
system. Every just sentiment as well as self-interest forbids us
to forget the colored population of the South, or to with
hold from them protection. There were 178,975 colored
soldiers who enlisted for the suppression of the rebellion:
of these, 123,156 were in service at one time. The last
year of the war they formed about one ninth of our
army. Thirty thousand of them were with Grant before
Richmond, holding the nearest point to that city, — Fort
Harrison. In the presence of yourself, Mr. President,^
who have commanded colored troops, I need only men
tion Port Hudson, Fort Wagner, the advance upon Rich
mond in 1864, the mine at Petersburg, and the campaign
against Mobile. Their services in war are already
familiar. Take their services in another department. One hun
dred thousand of them, at least, were at one time connected
with our army as laborers. In each of his annual reports,
Quartermaster-General Meigs, by no means a sentimental
ist, bore testimony to the great value of their services.
In his report for 1864 he said: "The negro is not an
embarrassment, but a great aid in the conduct of the
war." Summing up, in 1865, the work of his department
during the war, he paid a tribute to their effective aid, and
1 Colonel Henry S. Russell.

TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION. 171
said : " Colored men continued to the close of the war to
be employed and connected with the trains of the quarter
master's department, as laborers at depots, as pioneers
with the marching columns. In all these positions they
have done good service, and materially contributed to that
final victory which confirmed their freedom and saved our
place among the nations." Could there be more unim
peachable testimony?
The freedmen were the faithful and intelligent guides
of our army during the war. Not to take time in enumer
ating special instances of this service rendered by them,
I give you the testimony of one who has not been a swift
witness for the negro in these latter days. Said Mr.
Seward, in a despatch to Mr. Adams, of May 28, 1862:
" Everywhere the American general receives his most
useful and reliable information from the negro, who hails
his coming as a harbinger of freedom." Such is the record
of our diplomacy.
The negroes were everywhere the friends of our soldiers
escaping from Southern prisons. No soldier flying from
Andersonville, Salisbury, or Libby Prison ever found his
way to our lines who was not chiefly indebted to them for
the means of escape. At much risk to themselves, they
provided for him food, clothing, boats, hiding-places, and
guided him on his way. It was never necessary to ap
proach them with caution, or to inquire in advance who
of them might be trusted. The soldier told them his
story, and he was safe ; indeed, they seemed to know him
and his needs by instinct as he came in sight. The black
face was as much the sign and symbol of loyalty as the
American flag itself. History records no more touching
instances of fidelity to our escaping soldiers. Mr. Julius
Henri Browne, who escaped from Salisbury, has published
his account of the obligation of himself and his compan-

172 TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION.
ions to the negroes. In February, 1864, some thirty or
forty officers escaped from Libby Prison, and reached
our lines in safety. They authorized a published state
ment of the aid received by them from the negroes,
who gave them their only food, guided them on their
course, and directed them how to avoid the rebel pickets.
Lieutenant Estabrook, of Dorchester, in a most interesting
narrative called " Adrift in Dixie," has related his escape
from the rebel guard near the southern line of Virginia,
his descent of the Dan River, and his safe arrival at
our lines before Petersburg. All the way he received
constant and cordial aid from the negroes. But why
repeat instances? No Union soldier ever escaped from a
rebel prison who did not pay a tribute to their fidelity.
There was something sublime in the devotion of the
colored population of the South to the Union during the
war. Even while the nation protested that it was a war
for the Union only, and was not to affect their condition,
these lowly people, led by a profound instinct, at dead of
night, while the master slept, left their homes of bondage;
bearing their children and scanty packs of food and cloth
ing; creeping along the margins of creeks and rivers,
beneath the shadow of overhanging branches, in rude
dug-outs which their own hands had made; threading
forests, pathless except to those for whom the hope of
freedom is an unfailing compass ; chased by bloodhounds
and relentless patrols; approaching rebel pickets at im
minent peril of life or capture, — till at last, weary, foot
sore, and famished, they cast themselves at the feet of our
advanced sentries. They knew, that, whatever the laws
or proclamations or diplomatic assurances might be, God
had made them and us allies in the contest. They were
wiser in their generation than Cabinet or Congress. Again,
in human history, the truth was hid from the wise and

TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION. 173
prudent, and revealed unto babes. If we turn our backs
upon such a people, we shall receive, as we ought to
receive, the execrations of mankind.
It is claimed that this is a white man's government, and
that therefore the governments established under the au
spices of Congress and securing suffrage to all, irrespec
tive of color, ought not to stand. Whence came this
dogma? In vain will you seek for it in the writings of
Jefferson, the great apostle of democracy. He taught the
equal rights of all, and man's capacity for self-govern
ment. Not one of the fathers asserted it. The Declara
tion of Independence affirmed that all men — not all white
men, but all men — are created equal. The Constitution
in its preamble declares, " we the people," not " we the
white people ; " it says, " we the people ordain and estab
lish this Constitution," not this white man s Constitution ;
we do it in order to " provide for the common defence"
and " promote the general welfare," not in order to provide
for the defence and promote the welfare of any one set or
race of men. This doctrine of a white man's government
is a modern dispensation. The Dred Scott decision is its
creed ; Chief-Justice Taney is its high-priest. You will
find its altars in the corner groceries of Kentucky, where
the Nasbys, the Bascoms, and the Pograms congregate,
and where, amid the fumes of Bourbon whiskey, they
assume to be the vindicators of the white race. The men
that preach it were but too glad a few years ago to find
negro substitutes to take their place in a draft.
No, fellow-citizens, this is not a white man's government,
or a black man's government, or a native-born citizen's
or a foreign-born citizen's government. It is a govern
ment of the people, by the people, and for the people. Our
fathers, as they framed it, looking down through future

174 TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION.
time, saw men of all nationalities, exiles from all quarters
of the globe, gathering from age to age under its protect
ing aegis; and they in their comprehensive humanity
ordained that no one of all these — no, not the meanest,
the poorest, or the blackest — should ever be excluded
from its sublime benefaction.
Think not, my friends, that you lessen the value of any
franchise by admitting others to share it. It is only the
lowest order of possessions which must be exclusively
appropriated by one. The highest and the best are for
all, — the air we breathe; the rain that falleth on the just
and the unjust; the sunhght which bathes in glory the
evening sky ; love which setteth the solitary in families ;
the hope of immortality which shines for all. Do you
wish to be alone immortal, and to live on forever in
subhme isolation? Is your wife less precious to you
because another has one whom he too loves, honors, and
cherishes? Is your child less dear to you because some
two years ago the angel of Life, passing by, dropped a
like benediction at my hearthstone? Ay, and when on
Tuesday next you cast your freeman's ballot in this hall,
are you to prize it the less, and feel your citizenship dis
honored, because a thousand miles away some Louisiana
freedman is to be better protected and have a better chance
in life by having a right on that day to cast his first ballot
for a President? Shame on you if you do !
The governments organized under the auspices of Con
gress are stigmatized as "carpet-bag" governments. This
is a new term, and what does it mean? The facts which
gave rise to it are these. Congress authorized the actual
bona fide citizens of the rebel States, with certain excep
tions for disloyalty, to form constitutions, — just as the ac
tual bona fide citizens of Massachusetts have formed its

TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION. 175
constitution. Among those actual bona fide citizens was a
small proportion of persons who after the war emigrated
to those States from the North, cast in their fortunes with
them, carried capital to them, engaged there in merchan
dise and the culture of cotton and other products, and
thus became as much citizens of those States as if born
upon the soil, and just as much citizens thereof as you
and I are citizens of Massachusetts. Therefore, they were
entitled to the rights of citizenship in those States. The
Constitution says, " The citizens of each State shall be
entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the
several States." These citizens, derisively called " carpet
baggers," were in large proportion veteran soldiers of our
army; and who had a better right to settle in that territory
than they who had saved it to the Union? Now, it so
happened, and quite naturally too, that the enfranchised
colored people had more confidence in these emigrants
from the North than in the old planters who had held
them and their fathers in bondage, and preferred the new
settlers in some cases as legislators and magistrates. A
number of them were elected in this way to office, — not
a too large proportion. What was there new or strange
in all this? Have not qualified electors a right to vote for
whom they please, and have not successful candidates for
office, duly qualified, a right to accept? But look a little
further. What are we but a nation of emigrants, new set
tlers, squatters, — " carpet-baggers," if you please? What
is our government of eighty years' existence by the side of
the ancient and august dynasties of Europe? As the tide
of population flows westward, the old thirteen are lost in
the growing family of commonwealths. In the great city
of Chicago, with its two hundred and fifty thousand inhab
itants, few of the residents over twenty years of age were
born within its limits. People do not ask there, " Who

l-jQ TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION.
was your father?" but, "Where were you raised?" The
citizens of Massachusetts are welcomed wheresoever they
go in the new States and Territories of the Northwest. If
any one of you gentlemen shall, a fortnight hence, carpet
bag in hand, arrive in some town of Nevada or Colorado
with the intention to make your domicile there, you will be
welcomed to the firesides of those who have gone before
you ; everybody will offer to sell you real estate ; and in
a week you will be chosen a member of the school com
mittee. Such is the free course of American life.
Now, the demand of the Southern rebels is that the
old slave-masters shall have the exclusive right to occupy
and govern that vast section of country which stretches
from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, and from the Atlan
tic to the Pacific; and that no man from the North, hold
ing other opinions than theirs, shall ever become a citizen
thereof, shall ever go there to live, shall ever do business
there, or shall ever vote or hold office there ; and if they
do go there, they are to be stigmatized as " carpet-bag
gers " and " scallawags," and be driven thence with threats
of assassination. What say you to this impudent preten
sion? We have one country, have we not? — divided,
indeed, into several States, but still one country, with one
constitution, one citizenship, one flag, one destiny. We
have a right to go where we please in that country; to
carry on any lawful business that suits us ; to raise Indian
corn and potatoes in Massachusetts, or cotton in Carolina;
to think as we please; to cast what ballot we choose; and
to hold any office to which our fellow-citizens may elect
us. If we have not these first of all rights; if we have not
in four years of blood established them beyond all dis
pute; if veteran soldiers, scarred and maimed for hfe in
saving that territory to the Union, have not won these
rights for themselves, — the sooner we have another war
to vindicate them the better.

TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION. 177
The Republican party is in favor of paying the national
debt according to its spirit as well as its letter. The Sey
mour party proposes to pay it by issuing greenbacks and
flooding the country with an irredeemable, inconvertible
paper currency which will inflate the price of the necessa
ries of life, — of everything which a poor man or one of
moderate means eats, drinks, or wears. But who are the
national creditors? If they were Shylocks, they should
nevertheless be paid what is nominated in the bond. But
as a rule they are our friends, not our enemies ; those who
have confidence in our government, and not those who
have desired its ruin. The Rothschilds lent the govern
ments of Europe four hundred millions of dollars in ten
years, but we asked no loans of them. Our government
appealed to the patriotism of the people, who responded
with money as they had already responded with men ; all
classes according to their means subscribed. In time the
national bonds passed into the hands of the less wealthy.
The rich are more apt to invest in warehouses, merchan
dise, railroad stocks, factories, ships, and real estate. The
national bond is an easy investment for a man who has
little opportunity or capacity for speculation. Its value
can always be definitely determined ; it requires no exam
ination of title; it always finds a ready sale. The me
chanics of the country have largely invested in the national
bonds. So also have the savings-banks. Of eighty mill
ions of savings-bank capital in this Commonwealth, twenty-
five millions are invested in the national bonds. The
laboring man and the laboring woman, the journeyman
shoemaker and the carpenter, the cook and the seamstress,
every depositor in these banks, is interested directly in
the preservation of the national faith.
But I fear not the issue of this financial discussion.
Every day's debate has driven the repudiators from point

178 TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION.
to point till now they cry " quarter," explaining that they
do not favor the issuing of more greenbacks, though four
hundred millions of greenbacks c'annot pay off fifteen hun
dred millions of five-twenties ; and they protest that they
do not propose the payment of the principal of the bonds
till the greenback dollar and the gold dollar are of like
value. Why then vex the country with a premature agi
tation, which has brought only discredit? Sorry am I that
the Republican party is not quite the unit it should be
upon this question. But the masses are right, the organi
zation is right, the declaration of principles is right, the
grand current is right. The Chicago Convention de
nounced all forms of repudiation as a crime, and demanded
the payment of the public debt in the uttermost good
faith, as well according to its spirit as its letter. Vain will
be every ingenious or eccentric effort to resist or avoid the
force of these plain, honest words. There they stand, and
there they will continue to stand, as the orthodox Repub
lican faith. Uncle Sam has hitherto been an honest trades
man. He will never consider his creditors paid when he
has divided among them fifty cents on a dollar. He ran
up heavy store-bills in bringing his truant rebellious sons
to terms. He was obliged to take his loyal sons from
profitable callings, and use them in maintaining family
discipline. It was necessary to pay and pension them for
their service. Hard pressed on all sides, he was forced to
suspend the payment of money for his current liabihties,
and to issue promises to pay. He means to meet those
promises with money, and not with other promises of no
more value than the first. If he is ever in trouble again,
he means to carry to the market an unimpeached and un
impeachable credit. God bless the old fellow! Before
he would yield to the suggestion of any unworthy child to
pay anything else than the real dollar he has promised, the

TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION.

179

only dollar which the nations recognize as money, —
before he would have that shameful word " Repudiation "
branded on his forehead, he would go to the scaffold as
bravely as did John Brown.
It is charged that the Republicans are endeavoring to
perpetuate in peace the passions of war. Far from it.
Reconciliation, forgiveness, pardon, are the sacred terms
of our religion as well as the dictates of a wise pubhc
policy. We have not attempted to " draw up an indict
ment against a whole people," or to " apply the ordinary
ideas of criminal justice to this great public contest." We
challenge a comparison with other civil wars ; and we
claim that the suppression of no rebeUion has cost the
vanquished insurgents so little in disabilities, penalties, and
confiscations. You can almost count on your fingers the
estates of which the forfeiture has been claimed. They
are less than those which our fathers inflicted on the Brit
ish loyalists, who, unlike our rebels, remained faithful to
the governments under which they were born. We hold
no traitor in prison ; we have hung none. Only one man
was ever hung for treason in this country; and while John
Brown's soul goes marching on, we do not wish to give
Jefferson Davis the benefit of a comparison with him
which even a common fate might suggest. We have
nominated for President the most magnanimous of gen
erals, who has been sometimes censured for his too liberal
paroles. We have restored even to political power the
great mass of the rebels, only excluding for present secu
rity a class of leading men who had been doubly false, —
false not merely to the common allegiance due from all citi
zens, but to the solemn oath they had taken in assuming
public trusts. Even these we are ready to receive back into
fellowship as soon as they shall bring forth fruits meet for

l8o TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION.
repentance, and the public safety will admit. We ask no
thing for vengeance, punishment, retaliation ; but peace,
security, and protection for the loyal men of the South,
white and black, and the fulfilment of our national pledges,
we will have, cost what it may.
To my foreign-born fellow-citizens — some of whom I
see here this evening — I have a word to say. The mass
of you have been heretofore aggregated in the Democratic
party ; but will you tell me why it is that the great body
of you have emigrated to the free States, where Repub
licans have controlled, and why it is that you have avoided
the slave States, where Democrats have controlled? You
come to New England and to the Middle States, and you
push on to the Northwest; but you have shunned the
Southern or slave country as a pestilential region. By
the census of i860, there were 4,136,175 persons of for
eign birth in the United States: of these, 3,582,999 were
resident in the free States, and the balance in the slave
States, — eighty-nine per cent to eleven; eight to one.
The State of New York alone had a foreign-born popula
tion almost twice as large as that of all the slave States
together Of every nine men emigrating from a parish in
Ireland to this country, eight went to the free States, and
only one to the slave States, — and he probably lost his
way. Why is this? The answer is easy. Most of you
are laboring men, and you want to live in a community
where labor is honored and protected. It is honored and
protected in Massachusetts, where the Republican policy
has prevailed ; it has not been honored and protected in
Mississippi, where the Democratic policy has prevailed.
And, again. Republican States like Massachusetts provide
free public schools for all, in which knowledge is taught,
without money and without price, and in which your chil-

TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION. x8l
dren may rise to become Emmets and Sheridans. The
Republicans have signalized the first year of their adminis
tration in the South by constitutional and legislative pro
visions for universal education, where none had existed
during all the years of Democratic rule. Now, will you be
false to your true friends, and clasp hands with your real
enemies? It is the marvel of our history that you have
been heretofore so much consolidated in the Democratic
party, whose policy is so adverse to your best interests.
But a new spirit is making its way among you. One of
the most eloquent voices that ever pleaded for American
freedom, for universal freedom, was that of Daniel O'Con-
nell, the great Irish agitator; and young Irishmen now,
sharing his tongue of flame, are summoning you to
our ranks. Would you secure justice and freedom for
Ireland, your first step should be to aid in establishing
freedom and justice in America. Remember, too, that
when the rights of the meanest and the humblest any
where are invaded with impunity, the rights of all — yours
and mine — are made less secure.
Do we, my friends, appreciate the inestimable value of
the votes we give, especially of those votes when they are
to establish governments for this generation and for poster
ity? They are to send influences along the lines of future
time, and their end no man can see. Take a single illus
tration from our history. Upon the admission of Ohio
into the Union in 1803, there remained a vast territory
now comprising the States of Indiana, Illinois, Michigan,
and Wisconsin, on whose soil still rested the perpetual
prohibition of slavery incorporated in the Ordinance of
1787, which Jefferson had drawn. The settlers of this
territory, for the purpose of obtaining relief from the
scarcity of labor, petitioned Congress for a suspension of

1 82 TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION.
this ordinance, and several times renewed their appeal,
without remonstrance except once, and they were support
ed in their petition by Governor William Henry Harrison,
afterwards President of the United States. Congress,
approving a report of John Randolph as chairman of
the committee to whom the subject was referred, refused
the prayer of the petition, and again and again refused,
although three subsequent committees recommended a
compliance. Congress remained firm during the five
years in which the measure was pressed, and thus saved
to liberty that vast territory. Had it weakly yielded,
Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin would have
become as Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, and Louisi
ana; and that great Northern hive, whence issued multi
tudes of soldiers to defend the government, would have
sent forth multitudes to destroy it. To-day we legislate,
not for ourselves alone, but for all coming generations.
As we sow, they shall reap ; as we vote rightly or v/rongly,
they are to enjoy or suffer. Why, when that child, sleep
ing in his cradle to-night, tenderly watched by a mother's
eyes, shall be absorbed by the activities of middle life, as
we now are, he will be the citizen of a country teeming
with a hundred millions of people, — a country washed
by two oceans and clasped with iron bands, receiving
the long-sought wealth of the East, and, if we do our duty,
a country dedicated to Liberty, and fulfilling at last the
noblest aspirations of the human race. What a responsi
bility, what a trust, what a duty is ours !
But I must not detain you longer. The Ship of State
— pardon the well-worn figure — is now safe. Awhile
ago she seemed in some danger from a black craft, which
during the war sailed betimes with French or English
colors, and has of late had the names of Seymour and

TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION. X83
Blair flying at her mast-head, and even these she was
about to change the other day for some of better repute;
but whatever the colors, it is the same old rebel craft
still, — " Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark."
As she came up alongside, our Ship, with well-aimed shot
from three favorite guns, — the Pennsylvania, the Ohio,
and the Indiana,^ — dismantled and spht her in twain, just
as the "Kearsarge" sent the "Alabama" to the bottom
of the sea. Our good Ship is over the bar; she has
passed the shoals ; the rocks are far behind ; she rides in
deep waters, bound for the haven of Union and Peace.
She is well manned for the voyage ; the admiral walks the
deck as hopefully and serenely as when he waited for vic
tory before Vicksburg or Richmond. She is freighted
with the dearest interests ; she bears the hopes of the
human family. The heavens light up as never before to
guide her on her path of glory. Oppressed races and
classes take heart and are glad at her coming. Spirits
immortal, who ascended from battlefield and prison-pen,
send down from the skies their benedictions upon her.
All is well ! All is well !

The speech on " The Two Systems of Reconstruction " called
forth the following letters to Mr. Pierce : —
Natick, November 26, 1868.
Dear Pierce, — I have just finished reading your speech, and
I say to you in no spirit of flattery that it is one of the ablest
speeches of the canvass. There have been several able speeches
made during the canvass, and I put this speech of yours among
1 An allusion to recent elections in these three States, in which the
Republicans had prevailed.

184 TWO SYSTEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION.
the very best in all respects. I read it with pride, and congratu
late you for your presentation of the issues.
Ever yours, H. Wii^on.
Boston, 16 December, 1868.
My dear Sir, — I hope that it was you who sent me a copy of
your Milton address, which I read with very great pleasure and
profit. It is a thorough and admirable statement of the question,
which fortunately the country seemed to understand much better
than some of the leaders. ... I hope all goes well with you, and
I am always Very truly yours, George William Curtis.
Mr. Pierce. New Year's Day, '69.
Mv dear Pierce, — I wish you a happy New Year I I hope
your address has met with the success it deserved. None so
thoughtful and suggestive was made during the whole campaign.
Ever yours, Charles Sumner.
Wayland, January 14, 1869.
Dear Sir, — I liked the speech extremely. The spirit of it
pleased me ; and the clear, concise manner in which the wrongs
of Andy Johnson's administration were pointed out seemed to me
singularly well adapted to produce a powerful impression on the
popular mind. I have never read what seemed to me a better
campaign document, and being " a strong-minded woman " I
have read many.
I have very pleasant recollections of conversations with you dur
ing the war ; and my prayer is, that, as long as your life continues,
you may go on consecrating your abilities to the service of the
good and the true. Yours very respectfully,
L. Maria Child.

GEORGE S. HILLARD. 185

VI.

The Suffolk County Bar Association held a meeting, January 23,
1879, to take notice of the death of one of its most eminent mem
bers, Hon. George S. Hillard. Mr. Pierce, also a member of the
Suffolk Bar and an intimate friend of Mr. Hillard, delivered on
that occasion the following address : —

GEORGE S. HILLARD.
This afternoon we are to lay in his grave at Mount
Auburn all that is mortal of our departed brother. In
vited last evening to participate in this tribute of the bar
to his memory, I confess my inability to speak of his life
and character in a manner due to one who from youth to
age delighted to lay chaste and affectionate offerings on
the graves of those he had respected and loved.
The full ittJtices of Mr. Hillard which have appeared in
the public journals since his death make it unnecessary to
note in the order of time the steps of his career. His ex
cellent scholarship and great promise while a student in
the Boston Latin school, in Harvard College, in the Dane
Law School, — where he was a favorite pupil of Story, —
and as teacher in the Round Hill school at Northampton
are remembered by our older citizens. No young man
in the history of the city has probably become so early in
his career a central figure in its social life and public
affairs. He was one of that brilliant circle of lawyers

1 86 GEORGE S. HILLARD.
who rented offices in the Brooks building, soon after its
erection on the present site of the Sears building on Court
Street. There was his partner Charles Sumner ; there
also were Theophilus Parsons, Rufus Choate, the brothers
Chandler, Horace Mann, Luther S. Gushing, Edward G.
Loring, and, some years later, John A. Andrew and Mr.
Sanger, the present United States District Attorney. The
culture and friendliness of Hillard and Sumner made their
office the common resort of the tenants of the building,
as also of Judge Story, Greenleaf, Felton, Park Benjamin,
George Bancroft, and of Jeremiah Mason after his retire
ment from the profession. We have eminent lawyers
now, as wise and strong as these ; but where shall we
find in our professional inns the attractions of those well-
remembered rooms of " Number Four," where Choate
talked extravagantly of Burke, or Mann urged with the
intensity of his nature interests wider than those of the
profession, or Sumner compared Story with Stowell, Den-
man, Parke, and other jurists, always to the advantage of
his admired master, or Hillard poured out period after
period fit for a page of the " Spectator " ?
Few men have ever lived who shared so abundantly the
quality of friendliness as did Mr. Hillard. Recall, if you
can, your first interview with him, and you will recall also
what an interest he took in yourself and your plans of
life and study ; and then, following your relations with
him from that time, you will bear witness that his inter
est was sustained to the end. Nor were his friendships
limited to those of tastes and opinions kindred to his own,
but they comprehended as well others radically differing
from him, for he was eminently catholic in his sympa
thies with men. And here I cordially give my personal
testimony. Twenty years ago and more, when a youth,
I was kindly received by him at his house ; and during

GEORGE S. HILLARD. 187
the exciting controversies which followed, with no idem
sentire de republica to unite us, and widely separated in
political affiliations as we were, I always found at his
fireside a gracious and hearty welcome.
Mr. Hillard had a rare charity in estimating the char
acter of public men from whom he greatly differed. He
saw the best that was in his opponents, and always gave
them credit for it. He would state their peculiarities and
limitations, but do it fairly and without prejudice. He
was a student of character and personal life, and no man
among us could compare with him in the capacity to
report truthfully the events and persons of his youth and
early manhood. During the last four years, the period
of his disability, I had frequent occasion to consult him
in some biographical investigations in which I was en
gaged, and always with satisfaction. He had definite
recollections where others had entirely forgotten or re
membered vaguely ; and he was unfailing in his patience
and desire to serve. When we consider his large personal
acquaintance for a long period in the profession, in so
ciety, and in politics, his remarkable memory, and his
candid judgment of men and affairs, we must confess
that in his death the best link between the present and
the preceding generation has been broken.
As we join in this tribute to our friend to-day, we are
reminded how often and how generously he did this ser
vice for others. His eulogy of Webster, delivered by ap
pointment from the city authorities, is well remembered.
We may mention in this connection his share in the biog
raphy of Mr. Ticknor, his valuable memorials of Henry
R. Cleveland, Jeremiah Mason, James Brown, Judge
Story, President Felton, and James Savage ; his tribute to
Crawford, and his briefer sketches in the public jour
nals of many valued friends, among whom I recall Francis

X88 GEORGE S. HILLARD.
Lieber, Horace Binney, and the English barrister Robert
Ingham. The early friendship of Mr. Hillard and Charles Sumner
is a part of our local history. They were both cherished
pupils of Story. They were partners at the beginning of
their practice of the law, and so remained for twelve years
or more. No one can read Mr. Hillard's private letters
of that period, as it has been my privilege to do, without
being impressed by his fidelity in friendship, and by the
genuineness and tenderness of his nature. The two friends
never lost their interest in each other, though their politi
cal paths diverged, and during the struggle against slav
ery, which so often divided families and friends, they met
infrequently. In later life, as the shadows lengthened and
the public questions in a measure shifted, they renewed
their ancient relations of personal sympathy. No man
has been more anxious to preserve for posterity the char
acter and services of the illustrious Senator than this early
friend ; and the Senator while generally opposing President
Johnson's nominations gladly made that of Mr. Hillard
an exception, and joined heartily in his confirmation as
United States District Attorney.
It is difficult to treat with perfect frankness the life of
one so much associated with public interests as Mr. Hil
lard was, without some reference to his relations to the
political questions of his time, and most of all to the
historic movement which ended in the abolition of slav
ery. Silence, here would argue an unwillingness to speak
of this part of his career ; moreover, that biography and
in memoriam are the best which challenge inspection on
all points. In his youth, Mr. Hillard sat often at the feet
of Channing, attended his public ministrations, and as
sisted in the revision of his paper on " The Duty of the
Free States." He became naturally, with this association.

GEORGE S. HILLARD. 1 89
interested in antislavery, temperance, prison discipline, and
kindred reforms. In December, 1837, he joined in a pub
lic meeting in Faneuil Hall, called to denounce the assassi
nation of Lovejoy, speaking from the platform with Dr.
Channing and Wendell Phillips, a young lawyer of that
day who there began his celebrated career as an orator.
In the same hall, in 1845 ^'^'^ on other occasions at this
period, he addressed his fellow-citizens, in a similar spirit,
on our national relations to the institution of slavery. But
his public connection with the struggle against slavery
ended here. The capital and public opinion of the ruling
classes of this community were arrayed against the further
agitation of the question, and a social pressure was laid on
all who refused to acquiesce, such as was never known be
fore and is not possible in our day. Some of us, contem
plating our country now free from ocean to ocean, regret
that the disciple of Channing did not persevere in the path
to which his youthful feet had been directed. But all
men are not born to be Luthers and Miltons, to contend
against power and to endure proscription and exile. Our
friend, sensitive by nature, sympathetic with the society
around him, was not fitted for aggressive warfare at the
bar or in popular agitations. We have lived long enough,
we have seen our path behind so often strewn with errors
and shortcomings, and we have had so many occasions
to take new observations in our course, that we can well
afford to be charitable to those who did not see truth and
duty as we saw them. Let this be added of Mr. Hillard,
that the misfortunes of the African race always moved his
sympathy. Fugitive slaves, in times of terror, found
refuge under his roof, sheltered directly by his wife, and
with his full knowledge and consent.
A note to Mr. Sumner, which Mr. Hillard wrote when
leaving for Europe in 1847, reveals his inner thought on

I90

GEORGE S. HILLARD.

this part of his career: " We have sometimes differed of
late years, but our differences have been such as flowed
inevitably from diversity of organization and temperament.
I have never loved you the less. If there has ever been
anything in my manner from which a different inference
might have been drawn (I don't say that you have drawn
it), forgive it and forget it: look upon it as a cloud bred
of my infirmities and not myself You do not, cannot,
know how sorely I have been tried in all sorts of ways.
You have seen where I have yielded, but not known how
much I have resisted. Do not allude to these things in
our correspondence. I. write these words for you to think
upon in case we should never meet again."
In any complete estimate of Mr. Hillard his imperfect
health through life must be taken into account. From his
youth, while others were in the full enjoyment of strength
and buoyant spirits, he was an invalid, and he was often
the victim of depression. How greatly such ill-fortune
limits the capacities and shadows the career is but too
well known.
Mr. Hillard's literary labors were various. Besides his
biographies and sketches already referred to, his edition
of Spenser, his " Selections " from Landor, his translations
of Guizot's "Washington," his Life of Captain John Smith,
his literary and commemorative addresses, his school-
books packed with the choicest passages of our literature
and illustrated with his instructive notes upon authors
and books, his " Six Months in Italy," the best vade
•ynecum for the art and historical associations of that
country until Mr. Hare's " Walks," — all a worthy monu
ment of well-used powers, — are stored in our libraries.
Twice, at least, in early life, he produced a remarkable
effect as an orator. His Phi Beta Kappa address in 1843
on "The Relation of the Poet to his Age " was pronounced

GEORGE S. HILLARD.

191

by John Quincy Adams the finest he had ever heard ; and
his Lowell lectures on John Milton in 1847 fascinated the
most cultivated people of this city, who for twelve evenings
filled Tremont Temple.
Mrs. Grote has said of Charles Austin, the eminent
English lawyer, who was the disciple of Bentham, and
more than a match for Macaulay at Cambridge, that he
was " the first of conversers." Mr. Hillard was, all things
considered, the best converser this community has ever
enjoyed. He had none of the perpetual flow of Macaulay,
or the pointed wit of Sydney Smith. He delighted to
listen to others, and to draw from them their best. He
was always cheerful, had the finest things in literature at
ready command, and there was a marvellous felicity in all
he said. It is the testimony of those who have sat at the
breakfast-table of Samuel Rogers, or in the dining-halls
of Holland and Landsdowne houses, that in conversation
he had few, if any, superiors among English men of letters.
Surely his opportunities for acquiring this rare and noble
faculty were unrivalled among his countrymen. In his
early manhood he was one of the " Five of Clubs," of
whom the others were Felton, Longfellow, Sumner, and
Henry R. Cleveland, — a fellowship of gifted youths, of
which biography gives few parallels. Other companions
of his youth were Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes and Park
Benjamin. Later, he was of the distinguished group of
scholars who gathered often at the table of Prescott, —
among them Sparks, Bancroft, Ticknor, Palfrey, and Fel
ton. With Mr. Ticknor his relations were most intimate.
He was an early friend of Dr. Francis Lieber, and de
voted much time to the revision of the doctor's " Political
Ethics " before its first publication, — one of the many
kind offices which he was always doing for authors. All
these opportunities were supplemented by unceasing

192 GEORGE S. HILLARD.
devotion to literature, and by two European journeys.
Natural gifts and a complete discipline were happily
joined in this accomplished man.
Others here will speak of Mr. Hillard at the bar, in the
business of his office, and as the attorney of the govern
ment. Let me add that, associated with him as an in
structor in the Boston Law School, of which he was the
first dean, I can bear witness to his success as a teacher,
and to his constant interest in the students. After his
partial recovery from his first stroke of paralysis, he at
tended an evening reunion of the graduates of the school
(perhaps his last participation in any public festivities),
and in reply to a sentiment spoke but a single sentence,
but that one marked by the felicity of expression which
never failed him : " To an invalid there is no medicine so
grateful as the faces of his friends."
During his prolonged disability of five years he bore
himself patiently, submissive to Providence, cheerful with
his imperfect utterance, his old man's walk and his useless
right hand, willing that the end should come, but trusting
that he should escape pain and loss of intellectual power.
His wish was gratified. To the last his mind worked per
fectly; his gift of classic English style^ his interest in
current events, remained in full vigor. To this period,
the last year of his life, belongs his memorial of James
Savage. Nothing gladdened him so much as to be re
membered and called upon by friends; and I count
among precious memories my visits to his home at
Longwood, to which, in recent years, he had been con
fined. A letter to myself, dictated by him (his last one)
two days before the final attack, closed with these words:
" I am as well as an invalid of seventy can expect to be,
grateful for many comforts and blessings."

GEORGE S. HILLARD.

193

Our beloved friend had reached the age of three-score
years and ten, — the measure appointed for human hfe.
He carries to his grave the benedictions of many of all
ages and conditions, who will refnember his kindness till
they in their turn shall take their place by his side. There
will come, from time to time, abler jurists, more skilful
advocates, more aggressive reformers than he ; but we
shall always miss that rare combination of courtesy, cul
ture, refined sensibility, a memory rich in reminiscence, an
unfailing friendliness, a charity for all, which it was our
privilege to enjoy in the companionship of him whom we
are to bear this day in solemn procession to his final
rest.

The following letters fittingly belong here, — the one from
Mrs. Hillard, who survived her husband only a few months, hav
ing special interest : — West New Brighton, Staten Island N. J.,
I February, 1879.
My dear Pierce, — I thank you for your admirable sketch of
Hillard, and for the careful skill with which it is done. Those
who knew him know how hard a task you had, to be both just
and true. For some months I was with him intimately in Europe,
and I had always a certain tenderness of feeling for him, although
we never met in later years. Indeed, I do not remember to have
seen him during more than twenty years. Yet the morning in the
Tyrol is still as bright in my memory as yesterday when Hillard
stopped and said to me, " Don't think that I don't enjoy it as
much as you because I am older ! "
I send you my address on Bryant, and I am always
Very truly yours,
George William Curtis.
13

194 GEORGE S. HILLARD. Providence, February 5, 1877.
My dear Sir, — I beg you to accept my thanks for the copy
of your admirable tribute to the late Mr. Hillard, which I have
read with the greatest satisfaction. In these days of fulsome and
often insincere compliment, it is refreshing to read such an honest
and discriminating estimate. I do not see how it could have
been done better. I am Very sincerely yours,
J. L. Diman.
Mr. Edward L. Pierce.

55 Garden Street, Cambridge,
February 15, 1879.
My dear Mr. Pierce, — I read your appreciative words with
much gratification. Allow me to thank you for the pleasure I
enjoyed, through my old friend James B. Thayer, in reading your
memoir of Charles Sumner. The book, besides recalling many
pleasant memories of the good old times, reminded me of many
agreeable evenings of a more recent period, when the events nar
rated by you were talked over in our little parlor on Pinckney
Street. As I write of old times, there comes the remembrance of
that lovely autumn day when you and Mrs. Pierce took my hus
band and myself on that delightful drive, and visited with us your
brother's home. This often comes up to me as almost the last
pleasant day of my life, and I am always grateful to you for it.
With kind remembrance to Mrs. Pierce,
I am yours sincerely,
Susan T. Hillard.

THE TOWN OF MILTON. 195

VII.

Of Mr. Pierce's address at the dedication of Milton's new Town
Hall, February 17, 1876, which next follows, the "Boston Daily
Advertiser " of February 18, 1879, says: "The occasion was of
local concern chiefly, but Mr. Pierce's oration conferred upon it a
dignity which makes it interesting to a wider circle than the peo
ple of that town ; and we are sure it will be read with pleasure,
not more for its agreeable sketch of the history of Milton, and its
just appreciation of the importance in our civic system of the town
organization, than for its admirable literary and rhetorical quality.
Mr. Pierce has on several recent occasions so handsomely ac
quitted himself as a felicitous public speaker, that Massachusetts
may congratulate herself that, in spite of great losses, she does
not yet lack an orator who can honor any occasion by the ele
vation of his sentiments and the graces of effective, vigorous,
and scholarly speech."

THE TOWN OF MILTON.
As citizens of Milton we meet this evening to recognize
the completion of our new Town House. This is one of
those municipal events, occurring but rarely in the life of
a civic community, which it is fitting to commemorate with
simple and appropriate ceremonies. The interest which
the citizen takes in his town, his desire to serve it, his
pride in its history, his regard for those who are identified
with him in the neighborhood, lie at the foundation of that
patriotism which, in its higher and broader sphere, com
prehends his State and his country.

X96 THE TOWN OF MILTON.
The New England town has been the study of our
thoughtful statesmen, and has attracted the attention of
foreign observers. It is the opposite of the system of cen
tralization, which, refusing the people of each district or
subdivision of the State the direction of what immediately
concerns them, lodges all power in a central administra
tion. It is thus broadly distinguished from the munici
pal institutions of France, which are subject to the central
will at Paris, whether imperial or republican. It is also,
within its defined limits, the simplest and purest democ
racy. In the government of cities or dense popula
tions it becomes necessary to intrust to some board or
council the direction of affairs, leaving only to the people
the election of its members ; but, without such necessity,
this same method is, outside New England, generally ap
plied to towns. With us, however, the power over do
mestic concerns remains at its source, without surrender
or delegation. The town, to be sure, has none of the
attributes of sovereignty; it cannot declare war, make
treaties, enact laws or establish courts, but it deals with
those primary, ever-present interests which lie at our
hearthstones, which make our daily life.
The citizens in town-meeting choose a moderator, who
directs their deliberations, and enforces order. They elect
numerous magistrates and officers, — the administrators of
their revenues, the conservators of order, the custodians
of the public property, the managers of various public
concerns. They deliberate on a series of propositions
duly advertised, with the right of each citizen to express
fully his opinions, and then by ballot — the responsive
aye and no, the uplifted hand, or the division of the house
— establish and support schools, open and repair high
ways, establish systems of water supply and sewerage,
erect public buildings, provide for the relief of the poor

THE TOWN OF MILTON. 197
and the burial of the dead, organize a police, determine
methods of protection against fire and disease, direct and
limit expenditures, authorize loans and levy taxes. Each
citizen speaks with an equal voice, and gives an equal
vote. In the exercise of functions which thus belong to
each, in the bearing of burdens which are shared by all,
the town becomes the common centre of interests and
affections. Thus is constituted a miniature republic
founded on the principle that each man is the best judge
of what most interests himself Here is power distributed
widely among the people, left at its original source, — not
absorbed in some national capital, swayed by a single
hand and administered by a central bureau. Here the
civic faculty is developed in the discharge of official trusts
by various functionaries, in the deliberations and votes of
all the citizens.
Not in ancient, not in modern times has there been such
a school of republican liberty, such a nursery of active,
healthy patriotism as a New England town-meeting,
where civic duty is taught; where self-restraint and sub
mission to lawful authority are practised ; where parlia
mentary law is enforced ; where the equality of all men is
present to the eye, is seen in the equal rights accorded in
debate, in the equal value given to all ballots, irrespective
of age, descent, fortune, or education. A vigorous public
spirit and a generous devotion to the common weal are
born of the sense of common interests, common burdens,
and common duties. The forms essential to civil society
are observed with such yearly repetition that they become
a second nature. The jurisdiction of the town is confined,
indeed, to its own limits and to questions which are,
on the whole, easy of comprehension ; but they involve
principles and methods of analysis, investigation, and
judgment which are of wide application, and they test

198 THE TOWN OF MILTON.
capacity and moral purpose. He who knows by observa
tion and study how schools should be taught, highways
built and maintained, water introduced and sewage dis
posed of, the poor relieved, vagrants disciplined, expen
ditures adjusted and limited, — all with wisdom and
economy, — is fitted to comprehend and act upon the
broader questions which affect states and nations. Phi
losophers have dreamed of ideal republics, speculated on
the art of government, and constructed model constitu
tions ; but the plain citizen who has been trained in self-
control, obedience to law, respect for the opinions of his fel
lows, and in a wise economy has acquired a discipline and
faculty not to be attained in the study of Plato and Locke.
Thomas Jefferson thought our New England towns " the
most perfect specimens of government in the world," and
endeavored in vain to establish them in the institutions of
Virginia. John Adams insisted often on their educating
power in connection with the schools, the churches, and the
militia. " The virtues and talents of the people," said he
in 1786, "are here formed, — their temperance, patience,
fortitude, prudence, and justice, as well as their sagacity,
knowledge, judgment, taste, skill, ingenuity, dexterity,
and industry." De Tocqueville, who of all foreigners has
applied the most catholic judgment to our civil polity and
social character, described them in detail in his " Democ
racy in America," as training-schools for citizens, and
presenting a contrast to the centralized system of France.
I have touched upon the usual functions of town-meet
ings; but there come also, now and then, extraordinary
epochs, as in the Revolution and our Civil War, when they
serve a national purpose, — raising volunteers for the
common defence, and anticipating with their quick patri
otism the needs of the State and nation. The formulas in
which the Continental Congress declared the rights of col-

THE TOWN OF MILTON. 199
onies and of men were often almost literally the repetition
of what had again and again been resolved in these local
assemblies. The duty which we owe to our town is not limited to its
narrow jurisdiction; it is comprehensive in its relations.
The vote here given runs along the lines of influence and
power till it is felt in the national Capitol itself. The
future of our republic rests on the loyalty, the intelligence,
the self-control, the conscience of the people, as they are
kept alive and developed in multitudinous local centres
like our own.
Fellow-citizens, we have left this evening our individual
homes, which are expressive of our means and of our tastes.
There we have lived as families ; there we were born, and
children have been born to us ; there death has thinned
our numbers; there are enshrined the memories of our
private hopes, affections, griefs, all the manifold experi
ences of domestic life. But this building is to have far
different associations and answer a far different purpose.
It is the property, not of one or of several, but of all. It
is the house of the people, in which all citizens of both
sexes and all ages have each an undivided and indivisible
share, to be transmitted to those who, so long as it shall
stand, shall have their domicile or home within the bound
aries of the town. It is to remain a common possession
and inheritance, devoted to the common purposes of citi
zenship. Welcome, then, fellow-citizens, to your own
house, which is to be owned, used, and protected by
yourselves, by all the citizens of the town !
Town-meetings were held until 1836 in the parish meet
ing-house, now belonging to the First Congregational
(Unitarian) Society. In that and the succeeding year
they were held in the stone meeting-house at the Railway
Village. In 1838 the town occupied its first town-house,

200 THE TOWN OF MILTON.
then just completed, which still stands a few feet to the
south of this new one, and now looks meagre by contrast,
— costing, with land included, the modest sum of $2684.32,
and paid for out of the surplus revenue which the United
States had divided among the States, this Commonwealth
dividing its share among the towns. The old house, to
which now after forty years of use we bid adieu, has
witnessed important deliberations, stirring debates, divi
sions of opinion, which we ourselves shall long remember,
and which local history will preserve. It has in recent
years proved unequal to our needs, particularly at the
general town-meeting in the spring, always fully attended,
where all our various municipal interests are debated and
decided. The project of a new one, more spacious and
substantial, had been to some extent discussed in previous
years ; but as so large an outlay required serious consid
eration, and public opinion had not yet matured, we waited
for a more convenient season. At our meeting in March
last, with no previous agitation and with unexpected una
nimity, the town voted to erect a new town-house, and
appropriated for the purpose the liberal sum of thirty-five
thousand dollars. It appointed a committee to execute
the vote, and by formal action refused to hamper their dis
cretion, either as to design or material. That committee
has in less than a twelvemonth performed its duty, and
now surrenders its trust. It has during the intervening
period been in frequent session, and its sub-committees
have been in almost daily activity. Let me in this pres
ence bear witness to a fact, unhappily not always true of
committees. There has been no bickering or mistrust in
its deliberations, no cliques formed within it, no self-seek
ing, no attempt by any of its members to obtain jobs or
favors for his friends ; but each has seemed to have an
honest purpose to do his very best by the town which

THE TOWN OF MILTON. 201
placed its confidence in him. Upon all the questions,
some of which led naturally to opposite views, discussion
brought harmony of judgment. In a single instance
only — the choice of a plan — was there any substantial
difference of opinion ; and even then, when the decisive
vote had been taken, the minority was as earnest as the
majority in carrying out in the best possible manner the
plan selected. The committee has administered an appro
priation many times larger than the town has ever before
intrusted to any committee or official board ; and it has
caused the building to be erected, the grounds to be pre
pared, and incidental expenses to be met, without exceed
ing the limit of expenditure which was imposed. There
has been no loss from change of plan during the construc
tion, and the town has, as we are assured, its full money's
worth. Not a dollar has been used to pay for any services
or expenses of any member of the committee, but the
whole fund, without subtraction, has been spent on the
public object to which it was devoted. Not having been
a member of either of the sub-committees who were
charged with the immediate supervision of the work, I
feel justified in bearing this testimony. In these days,
when so much is said of the selfishness of public agents
and of their disregard of the limits of their trust, it is well
to put on record such an instance of official fidelity and of
scrupulous respect for law and authority.
The work, as now completed, will, I am confident, meet
with general and permanent favor. There are always
aesthetic questions, particularly in architecture, which in
our time copies and combines the styles of all countries
and periods, on which artists and amateurs disagree; but
I believe that the design which our architects made will
be approved by the educated as well as by the common
taste.

202 THE TOWN OF MILTON.
Look about you, and you will see that this main hall is
spacious ; the platform not remote from any point, so that
the moderator or public speaker can be readily heard in
every part of it; finished in good taste; well bghted;
easily accessible, without the necessity for old and dis
abled people to mount a weary staircase. There is a
smaller hall for meetings when the attendance may not be
numerous, a commodious room for the selectmen, a capa
cious fire-proof vault for our public records, some of
which are ancient and precious, and convenient provision
by means of ante-rooms and kitchen for social festivities.
Let me emphasize this last need which this new build
ing is to meet. An important truth which our fathers
undervalued is now invariably acknowledged, and it is
this, — that the moral and religious culture which saves
from vice and crime must be reinforced by recreations and
amusements which minister to the social nature. This
hall, built primarily as a place where citizens are to meet
and legislate on town affairs, may be used for a lecture-
room; its floor is fitted for the movement of feet to music,
and refreshments can be served in the adjoining hall.
Here, then, our town-meetings are to be held with ample
room for all voters, and a gallery from which spectators
of both sexes may observe their deliberations ; here we
may assemble to discuss and determine action in sea
sons of public peril, whether of peace or war; here
discourses on science, literature, and moral interests may
be given ; here school reunions and other festivals may
be held; here charity, asking help for good causes,
may receive offerings in money or handiwork ; here the
music of human voices and of instruments may charm and
elevate; here amateurs from our schools and homes may
amuse and instruct in plays, comic and serious; here our
young men and maidens may enjoy the dance; here, in a

THE TOWN OF MILTON. 203
word, all civic duties and all social offices and interests
may have a place. A marble tablet under the arch at the
main entrance awaits the names of soldiers who died for
their country in our Civil War, and an inscription commem
orative of their fidelity and services. This will be deemed
a worthier memorial of those who saved this nation from
dismemberment and dedicated it to liberty, than would a
monument perhaps unsightly and answering no purpose
either of taste or utility.
Citizens, we now deliver to your hands this substantial
edifice, complete in its appointments, built of the best
materials, and faithfully constructed, as we believe, in all
its parts. Unless destroyed by some casualty, it will an
swer the needs of the town for a long time to come. It
is difficult to foresee any changes in population, society,
or taste, or any municipal occasions, which will call in
our day for one more spacious or differently arranged. ^
This building adds another to the attractions and advan
tages of our town. We have highways which, though
needing reconstruction on an improved system and repa
ration from time to time, rest on the excellent granite
foundation which Nature laid for them. We have a pub
lic library of well-chosen books, established in 1871, and
numbering eight thousand volumes, which has proved of
great service to our people, particularly to the young.
We have a cemetery, extending from the place of ancient
sepulture over spacious grounds diversified with plain and
elevation, well shaded by native and transplanted trees,
laid out in open avenues and winding paths, beautified
at the public as well as private expense, — the simplicity
and loveliness of Nature not obscured by too much art
and elaboration, — fit resting-place for our beloved dead.
1 The population of the town made an unexpected increase from 2738
in 187s to 5518 in 1895.

204 THE TOWN OF MILTON.
We are grateful to the good citizens whose constant interest
has, without sensation or burdensome expenditure, secured
for us this hallowed ground.
In the pleasant places where our lines have fallen we
have blessings which come to us without effort or sacri
fice of ourselves or our fathers. There are no four square
miles in our country — perhaps, without exaggeration, we
might add on the globe — more endowed with all that is
attractive in scenery than those which are covered by our
municipal jurisdiction. Here are no morasses, no pesti
lential districts, no blasted heaths, no wastes where all is
parched, scraggy, and repulsive, no dead level wearisome
to eye or feet ; but the whole space is filled with a pure and
health-bringing air which rises from the sea and descends
from the hills, spread out in varied landscapes, diversi
fied with uplands and intervals, with forests and fields,
watered by unfailing brooks, and even the hills fed by
perpetual springs. Here in our fair heritage are com
bined the Blue Hills to the south, from which came, ac
cording to Roger Wilhams, the Indian name of our
beloved Commonwealth, — Massachusetts ; the Neponset
River flowing along our northern border, and the ocean
view to the east. You who have journeyed in other lands,
along the Charente, the Loire, or the Arno, what fairer
prospect have you seen than that which the eye sweeps as
you stand on Milton Hill, looking on the river as with
changing tides it spreads out a broad lake or withdraws to
its narrow bed ; on eminences crowned with villas ; on vil
lages nestling in valleys or covering elevations ; on church
spires testifying to Christian worship ; on the islands and
beacon lights in the harbor of New England's metropolis ;
on ships departing and returning on their errands of com
merce and civilization?^
1 Governor Hutchinson, the last Royal Governor of Massachusetts,

THE TOWN OF MILTON.

205

Looking southward on that familiar highway the old
Plymouth road, the eye glides along a scene hardly less
picturesque, which embraces the intervale and the hills
beyond. Standing on Brush Hill, with no intervening
obstruction between you and the Blue Hills, there lies
spread out before you Nature in one of her royal moods, a
study worthy of some gifted artist. Passing on to the
south, and ascending the hills themselves, which in a less
modest nomenclature than ours would be classified as
mountains, and there, on the summit, lies before you a
magnificent panorama of cities, villages, mountains, valleys,
rivers, lakes, the ocean, — where one may contemplate
with reverence the works of the Creator, the intelligence
of man, the life and growth of society, and the events
of history which have transpired in successive generations
within the bounds of the horizon.
Nor is the natural beauty of this township confined to
such favored sites as these, but it is distributed among our
farms and along our roads. I have seen the artist sitting
by our longest brook, which rises in the Blue Hills, and,
flowing through the Hobart woods, falls into the Nepon
set, sketching the overhanging branches, the moss-grown
trees and flowering meadows by its side, and placing on
canvas beauties of which we live altogether too uncon
scious. Coming at the close of day from the railway
station to my home, with the twin churches before me
and the Blue Hills in the background, I have often paused
looking westward to gaze on sunsets as finely colored
as any I have ever seen on Italian skies. We have,
indeed, villas and lawns which art has constructed and
laid out, but, better still, we have retained the primitive
sighed in exile for his home on " Unkity Hill," the Indian name for
Milton Hill Hosmer's "Life of Thomas Hutchinson," pp. 315, 327,
342. 343-

206 THE TOWN OF MILTON.
forest, where woodcock, partridge, quail, and rabbit still
hnger; we have highways not too broad, and lined with
graceful elms ; we have still, and long may we retain,
that freshness of Nature which makes the charm of Milton
as a home and place of rest. If some lover of Nature
gifted with imagination like Wordsworth, who glorified
with sentiment the Lake district of England and peopled
it with ideal forms, shall ever be born or come to live
among us, he will find all about him food for his contem
plative spirit and poetic genius.
It has been customary at dedications like this to review
the history of the town from its settlement; but I decline
a task which at our second centennial anniversary was so
well performed by our townsman, Mr. Robbins. The
chronicles of its churches have been written by two of its
pastors and present citizens, — the Rev. Dr. Morison and
the Rev. Frederick Frothingham, both of whom are with
us this evening. May we not also hope that before
long we shall welcome a complete history of the town,
full of accurate narrative, authentic reminiscences, choice
incidents of biography, and pictures of its life in different
periods, from another of our clergymen, the Rev. Dr. Teele,
who has already gathered valuable materials, and whose
recent retirement from a long and useful pastorate of
twenty-five years leaves him an opportunity to render
this important service to the community?^
We do not claim for our town any extraordinary annals.
It has no battle-fields ; it has not, like one of its neigh
bors, been the birthplace and burial-place of Presidents.
It boasts no remarkable strides in population or material
development. Incorporated by the act of May 7, 1662,
it was the fifty-first town established ; and, three having
1 Mr. Teele's " History of Milton " was published early in 1888.

THE TOWN OF MILTON. 207
disappeared by annexation to Boston, it is now among
the towns and cities of this Commonwealth the forty-
eighth in age. It numbered 743 souls in 1765; 12 13 in
1776; 1039 in 1790; I143 in 1800; 1264 in 1810 ; 1502
in 1820; 1576 in 1830; 1822 in 1840; 2241 in 1850;
2669 in i860; 2683 in 1 870 (some of our territory
having been made a part of Hyde Park in 1868) ; and
2738 in 1875.
Our countrymen sometimes lament the newness of
American life, and covet the antiquity of older nations.
We forget, however, how venerable some of our institu
tions are. The municipal history of this town, beginning
with 1662 and extending along a line of two hundred and
seventeen years, runs parallel with the most marvellous
epochs of modern times. When it began, Louis XIV.,
" the grand monarch,'' as he is called, ruled France, — a
reign which brings before us Mazarin and Colbert, Tu-
renne and Conde, Bossuet, Fenelon, and Pascal, and the re
vocation of the Edict of Nantes. In England, Charles II.
was the head of a dissolute court; Sir Henry Vane, once
governor of Massachusetts, was on his way to the scaffold ;
Milton was composing in blindness the " Paradise Lost,"
and Bunyan was writing in Bedford jail the " Pilgrim's
Progress." The incorporation of our town was but thirty
years after Gustavus Adolphus fell at Lutzen, and it was
ten years earlier than the birth of Peter the Great, who
was to consolidate the great empire of the North, and
bring Russia into the family of European states. What
afterwards became Prussia was then but a parcel of elec
torates and duchies. The Thirty Years' War had just
closed with the peace of Westphalia. The Ottoman
power was still threatening Europe, and was yet to be
broken before the gates of Vienna. No books in the
English tongue and now in general use had then been

2o8 THE TOWN OF MILTON.
printed, except Shakespeare and Bacon and the English
Bible. This municipahty has, in different generations, wit
nessed a procession of great events, — the growth of con
stitutional liberty in England ; a succession of revolutions
in France, ending at last, let us hope, in a permanent
republic, just as well as free; the creation of new pow
ers, as Prussia, Greece, Italy, and the new Germany ; the
American colonies passing into allied States, and then
to a sovereign and united nation ; the emancipation of the
African race on this continent and of the serfs of Russia,
both in a single decade, — manifold triumphs through the
world in art, science, civilization, and humanity. Surely,
if there is a charm in antiquity, in venerable age, in a
history contemporary with that of the world's most pro
gressive period, our town with its remote beginning and
its continuous life may claim that charm for itself.
Our town has been conspicuous for the good sense and
solid character of its citizens, and in some epochs for
names which mankind will remember. When our fathers
contended for existence against Philip of Pokanoket, her
Captain Wadsworth fell bravely with his gallant and de
voted band in Sudbury, and in a graveyard of that town
is a moTiument with this inscription: "Captain Samuel
Wadsworth of Milton, his Lieutenant Sharp of Brookline,
and twenty-six other soldiers fighting for the defence of
their country were slain by the Indian enemy and lye
buried in this place." The Voses and Sumners served
their country with honor in the army of the Revolution
and in the war with England of i8l2,,and theirs and other
names of our citizens are among the recorded heroisms
of our Civil War. In an early period this town gave a
president to Harvard College in the person of Benjamin
Wadsworth. Some of its citizens have been identified
with the civil and judicial history of the State. The town

THE TOWN OF MILTON.

209

has witnessed within its limits some historic scenes, — the
preaching of John Eliot and George Whitefield, and the
passage of the Suffolk Resolves in the house of Captain
Daniel Vose, drawn by Joseph Warren, and regarded as
the earliest organized demonstration for independence in
the colonies.
There has been a continuity in the life of this town rare
in municipal history. Growing in population by natural
increase rather than by accessions from other places, there
has been a steady flow of influence and character from
one generation to another. Eight of the original trustees,
to whom in 1664 a tract of land was conveyed for " a
meeting-house and other ministerial purposes," have
always since had and still have descendants in the town
bearing their names, and in some instances living upon
and holding, without break in the chain of title, their an
cestral acres, — the Voses, Wadsworths, Tuckers, Sum
ners, Gullivers, Babcocks, Swifts, and Cranes. It has a
remarkable record for longevity, including in successive
generations an unusual number of inhabitants who have
lived to fourscore years, and even passed in health and
vigor far beyond that limit. The long service of many of
its clergymen signifies its conservative and steady-going
character. Five active pastorates — those of Peter Tha-
cher, John Taylor, Nathaniel Robbins, Samuel Gile, and
John H. Morison — span a period of one hundred and
sixty-seven years, of which those of Thacher and Robbins
were each nearly half a century in duration. Three lives,
always identified with the town, connect us with the early
part of the eighteenth century. Nathaniel Robbins, the
third minister of the Milton church, lived from 1726 to
1795. His son Edward H. Robbins, an early lieutenant-
governor of the State, lived from 1758 to 1829; and but
for the inclement weather of this evening, we should have
14

2IO THE TOWN OF MILTON.
had with us next in the line, worthy alike of sire and
grandsire, the Hon. James M. Robbins, who at the age of
eighty-two is in the full enjoyment of his powers, and
active for the public good. May a gracious Providence
spare for years to come a life so precious in itself, so
honored in the generations before it. ^
The tone of municipal life has been at all times sensibly
affected by the superior intelligence of leading citizens.
Fortunate the people who have this advantage ! thrice
fortunate the people who value and profit by it ! The
town has probably counted among its citizens, at different
periods, more graduates of Harvard College than any one
of similar population in the State, and their trained intel
lects and large views have been felt at all periods in its
social life and public action. We greet this evening, as
one of our most welcome guests, a representative of the
ancient university, Mr. James B. Thayer, Royall professor
at the Dane Law School, — no longer of us as a citizen,
but always of us as a friend, — whose scholarly tastes,
neighborly offices, and beneficent activity in civic duties
remain in fresh remembrance.
There is another feature in the character of the town
which deserves mention. A kindly spirit of association
prevails among our people, with no sharp divisions into
sects, occupations, and family groups. Wealth here is
not supercilious and exclusive, but hospitable, open-
handed, and sympathetic. There is little of poverty
and dependence, but a general condition of comfort.
There are no wide estates tilled by tenants, but more than
in most communities each man is the owner of the house
he lives in. As the result, there prevails a sense of self-
respect and of respect for others.
In political controversies the vote of the town has been
1 Mr. Robbins died November 2, 1885, at the age of eighty-nine.

THE TOWN OF MILTON. 211
steadily for freedom, for the support of the government
and the honest administration of state affairs. In com
memoration of the ratification of Jay's treaty, by which
Washington upheld against clamor the peace of the
country, an arch was erected over the bridge at the Lower
Mills, at the instance and expense of Major John Lillie,^
an officer of the army of the Revolution, then a citizen of
the place, which bore this inscription: "We unite in de
fence of our Constitution and laws," — a resolution . to
which the town and, may I be permitted to add, his
descendants have ever since been loyal.
The town, in its ordinary proceedings, has been noted
for prudence and deliberate action. Though never nig
gardly, and meeting cheerfully all necessary outlays, it
has rarely, if ever, spent money foolishly, and it kept its
head level in the flush times which followed the Civil
War. This wise economy, which is true statesmanship
alike in the government of towns and of commonwealths,
has enabled us without any pressure or inconvenience to
erect this tasteful and capacious edifice, and to pay for it in
four yearly instalments, one of which was included in the
tax bills you have recently paid, — the entire rate being
only seven dollars on a thousand. Only ten of the three
hundred and forty-four towns and cities have this year a
tax-rate less than ours; and until a loan was obtained to
pay the cost of this building, Milton was one of the sixty-
three towns in the State absolutely free from debt. This
exhibit we have a right to regard with satisfaction. Nu
merous municipalities in other States are now bankrupt,
or, though able to pay, are repudiating their obligations.
In our own State, where no such dishonor has yet come,
cities and towns have built waterworks costing twice what
they should, opened highways for the benefit of specula-
1 Maternal grandfather of Mr. Pierce.

2X2 ' THE TOWN OF MILTON.
tors, or, worse yet, plunged into railroad schemes which
are no better than confiscation. Weighed down with taxa
tion, they are expelling capital from their limits, and are
forcing it to seek protection in communities which are
still governed by maxims of prudence and justice. Here
after, more than ever before, that town is to hold its own
and grow in strength which keeps out of debt, pays as it
goes, and gives assurance that persons and property are
secure within its jurisdiction.
And now, fellow-citizens, to the performance of the
civil duties and functions belonging to ordinary times or
coming only in great exigencies ; to the elective franchise,
the highest right and the highest duty of the citizen, to
be exercised and performed soberly, justly, and with a
deep sense of moral responsibility, — to all the uses of
municipal government, to rational amusements, to knowl
edge, to patriotism, to liberty and law, this noble structure
we now dedicate, full of hope that the fidelity, love of
order, prudence, and public spirit which distinguished our
fathers shall abide evermore with their posterity. Enter
ing this new house, we enter a new period of municipal
history. Let us begin its use with a profound sense of
our obligations as neighbors, as fellow-townsmen, as citi
zens of our common country. Let us resolve, that, so far
as in us lies, our votes shall be for justice, honor, integrity,
and the common good. Let these walls echo only to the
inspirations of a pure and elevated patriotism. Here,
amid all differences of opinion, let there be a united effort
to advance the morals and promote the welfare of this and
the coming generations. Let us strive for higher stan
dards of civic action, for nobler ideals in conduct and life ;
and trusting that God will be with us, as He was with our
fathers, let us hope that they who a century hence shall

THE TOWN OF MILTON. 213
unroll the records of our time may find in us, too, some
thing worthy of imitation and gratitude.

A leader of the Ohio bar, and inheritor of the name of his
distinguished ancestor, bore testimony to the quality of Mr. Pierce's
address in the following letter : — Cincinnati. March i, 1879.
My dear Mr. Rerce, — Though somewhat tardy in doing it, I
specially desire to thank you for your address in opening the Town
Hall at Milton. I read it to Mrs. King, cut it out of the " Adver
tiser," and have placed it carefully between the leaves of De
TocqueviUe's chapter on the New England town government, con
sidering it by all odds the very best photograph of the system
which it has been my pleasure to meet in all my reading.
At present, I think there is no point in statesmanship so im
portant or critical as that of municipal organization. If the rot
which threatens us there strikes in, that will be the end of the
business ; and Byron's couplet is going to be the inscription over
the gates of the republics as well as the monarchies.
Sincerely yours,
Rufus King.

214

THE COLLEGE GRADUATE:

VIII.
Mr. Pierce's address at Providence, Rhode Island, before the
Alumni of Brown University, June 15, 1880, attracted public atten
tion at the time as specially adapted to promote an active and
sustained civic spirit among educated young men. A vote of the
Alumni, at a meeting held the same day, directed its publication
in connection with a poem dehvered by Rev. Samuel F. Smith,
D. D., on the same occasion. At the Commencement two years
later, Brown University conferred on Mr. Pierce the degree of
LL.D.

THE COLLEGE GRADUATE: HIS PUBLIC AND
SOCIAL DUTIES.
This is the festival season of culture. On these fair
days of June, scholars come as pilgrims to seats of learn
ing, and youths go forth from them to assume the duties
and responsibilities of men. Few spectacles in human
life attract sympathies so genuine and universal. If our
hearts are rightly attuned, we cannot fail to enter into the
spirit of occasions in which worldliness yields to primal
instincts. The traveller in a foreign city pauses by the
wayside, as teachers and pupils celebrate some holiday
with songs and banners, or children in white array go to
their first communion, or bride and bridegroom, with the
loving escort of kinsfolk and neighbors, enter the cathe
dral to receive the consecration of their vows. Though
speaking another language and kneeling at other altars.

HIS PUBLIC AND SOCIAL DUTIES. 215
they are for the time of his kindred and family, and he
blesses them with a stranger's benediction.
In a like scene, to which all hearts are responsive, we
have met again to participate. Nearly three-score young
men, equipped for active life, go forth from this Univer
sity to enter on the work which God shall appoint unto
each to do. Father, mother, sister, brother, are to rejoice
in the growing promise of one on whom their hope has
centred. The ingenuous youth himself is to see visions
of the future as it offers duties, honors, rewards. We as
spectators, in sober thought, shall contemplate the possi
bilities of each as he comes upon this platform where once
we have stood, and shall ask what he will do with the
training, the acquirements, and the inspiration of his
college life?
I esteem it a privilege to stand before you to-day,
looking into the faces of early companions; in a church ^
where holy men no longer in mortal flesh, my guides and
friends, — Granger, Wayland, Caswell, — still speak in
their remembered ministrations ; in a city beautiful for
situation, to which I am bound by ties far tenderer than
those of any academic fellowship ; and, what most con
cerns the hour, in the presence of young men who are
passing from the, seclusion of the college to the activities
of the world. You will not be vexed this morning with
any old question of literature or history, or with any
speculations of science ; but the occasion in which we
join, and the period in which we live, shall suggest my
theme, — The Public and Social Duties of the College
Graduate. It would add to the value of our statistical tables if they
informed us with substantial accuracy how many students
1 The First Baptist Church.

2X6 THE COLLEGE GRADUATE:
are now in institutions which may fairly be called " colle
ges " according to the American standard, and how many
receive degrees from them each year; what is the total
number of such graduates in the country, and how they
are distributed among the various professions. But how
ever unsatisfactory the attainable figures may be, all will
agree that the college graduates living at any period ought
to be a prodigious force in the direction of public opinion.
Without refining upon the purpose of the college curri
culum, it is enough to say that it is arranged primarily for
the discipline of the whole man, — his intellectual and
moral nature ; and, secondarily, for the acquisition of the
elements of knowledge in as many departments as time
permits, so that thereafter, by himself or under specialists,
the student may pursue any one according to his taste and
aptitude. It puts in complete working order the noblest
machine in the universe, and starts it off to become the
greatest of dynamic agencies for good or for evil. With
it ought to come a clear perception of truth in the various
human relations, and a facility for impressing that truth
on others. The studies are not confined to one specialty
or group, but are comprehensive. They deal with the
intellectual and moral nature, with the best thoughts of
antiquity, with the material world, with what is taught by
science in its manifold divisions, and with what has tran
spired in human history. If one study followed ex
clusively tends to disturb a normal development, this
curriculum, so broad and inclusive, awakens the whole
soul, and teaches truth not as an absolute entity alone,
but in its many relations. This is what Milton describes
when he says : " I call, therefore, a complete and gener
ous education that which fits a man to perform justly,
skilfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both private
and public, of peace and war."

HIS PUBLIC AND SOCIAL DUTIES. 217
The College does more than train faculties and teach
elements. This may be done under private tutorship or
in a lecture-room, without association among students,
or between students and professors. The College is a
society. It is a society founded for a noble purpose, rich
in the means of culture, hallowed by the devotion of its
benefactors, glorious often by what it has done for man
kind. As such a society, it forms, directs, and inspires
its successive generations of students.
The college student is for four years set apart from
mankind. He is here at a period when the soul is sensi
tive to all impressions, when the character takes its
direction. He comes as a boy : he leaves as a man. The
world he enters is unlike that which for a time has closed
to him. They have points of comparison, but their points
of contrast are many and striking. Outside is the con
flict of material interests, the classification of men with
reference to wealth or worldly success, the subordination
of the better impulses to the lower, the pressure of ex
pediency against duty, the assertion and practice of a
conventional morality in politics and trade which sneers
at the highest rectitude as sentimental and pharisaic.
There, too, are the fierce competitions for place, the war-
cries of parties which no longer signify living issues, and
the fever of speculation, with its curious periodicity of
return. From all this the college student is withdrawn. He is,
indeed, born and remains with like passions as the rest of
us; but his time has not yet come. If the noise without
reaches him, he is undisturbed, for he listens rather to
the calm voices of teachers and books. If from his
chamber window he has a glimpse of human activities, he
sees them only as spectator and critic. If public journals
and partisans condone corruption and duplicity in high

2x8 THE COLLEGE GRADUATE:
places, or are subservient to clamor, or are always din
ning in our ears that it is the highest duty of a citizen to
sustain party nominations however objectionable, he turns
for instruction to moralists like Wayland, and to publi
cists like Lieber and Woolsey. Whatever outlook he may
have, he is in personal interest and activity isolated from
the world beyond. His stand is at a point where all finer
influences meet. He is of a commonwealth typical in
some respects of the outer life, but separate and apart
from it. He lives in a community where knowledge is
the pursuit of all ; where the atmosphere is charged with
an inspiring and vitalizing force; where rank among his
fellows depends not on birth or wealth, but on generosity,
true manliness, and achievements of intellectual power;
where pretension and genuine character are readily and
almost always justly assorted ; where his immediate ex
emplars are students already distinguished by promise
and attainment, and professors of finished culture and
unworldly lives. He holds converse all the while with
the great masters of thought in every age, and in their
presence discerns what is transient and what is enduring.
With each visit to the library, he sees at every turn of the
eye what names live and what soon perish. In the class
room and in the solitude of his study he tests the relations
of things by eternal standards, and there learns from con
stant iteration and reflection the supreme value of the
individual soul, — surviving societies, institutions, gov
ernments; its right of private judgment superior to the
authority of Church and State ; its perpetual obligations
to truth and duty, with no exceptions for exigencies and
crises personal or public. Moral philosophy teaches the
supremacy of conscience ; mental philosophy affirms the
right to think for one's self, as the foundation of intellect
ual life; and history teaches how posterity reserves its

HIS PUBLIC AND SOCIAL DUTIES. 2x9
garlands for those only who maintained in lives of thought
or action the courage of their convictions. The College,
then, in all her nurture, — from the hour when she calls
him to herself, to the hour when she bids him go forth
to his work, — helps the youth to see truth as it is, to live
it among men, and to maintain a vigorous personality in
the strong currents of society.
This individuality, which is essential to manhood and
to all good work in the world, is not to be confounded
with self-assertion, irreverence, or eccentricity, — opposite
vices which college discipline tends to counteract. The
true scholar is in a sense the citizen of all nations, the
contemporary of all ages. He has an open ear alike for
the according voices of his own generation and for the
wisdom of the past. In his own judgments he will take
account of the consensus of living men, and respect custom
and tradition. " Well speed thy mission, bold Iconoclast!
Yet all unworthy of its trust thou art.
If with dry eye and cold, unloving heart.
Thou tread'st the solemn Pantheon of the Past,
By the great Future's dazzling hope made blind
To all the beauty, power, and truth behind."
What place, then, is so adapted as the College to form
and solidify a manly character, to promote fearless inquiry
and independent conviction, to encourage the pursuit of
lofty ideals, to put in true perspective all the prizes of
ambition? Where else shall we send the youth of our
country with equal hope that they will come forth to
be contented with moderate gains in the midst of specu
lation; to live frugally in the midst of extravagance; to
assert the right of private judgment against authority;
to carry a clear head and a strong will in all periods of

220 THE COLLEGE GRADUATE:
frenzy and delusion; and to plant a firm foot against
organized bodies which would usurp individual responsi
bility? I answer with confidence, that there is no such
school of manhood as the College. Thousands may fail
to learn the lesson, to realize the ideal; but they, not the
College, are at fault. So true is it, as Wordsworth says,
that it is —
"... the most difficult of tasks to keep
Heights which the soul is competent to gain."
Nor does the power of the College over us end when
our names drop from its annual catalogue. Each one
remains accountable to teachers and classmates and con
temporary students, and he never can escape from their
moral jurisdiction. Can any one of that famous class of
1829 at Cambridge, which enrolls men pre-eminent in
science, literature, jurisprudence, and theology, — among
them the author of " My country, 't is of thee," ^ who
to-day serves us as poet, — ever emancipate himself from
the dominion of such a fellowship? Can a pupil of Way-
land, Hopkins, Porter, Robinson, when meditating an act
of meanness or dishonor, fail to hear the upbraiding voice
of the good president, living or dead, at whose feet he was
nurtured? Can I, when a choice of conduct is before me,
— one offering the rewards of duty, and the other worldly
temptations, — be blind to the presence of my college
teachers, four of whom survive,^ — three living in Provi
dence, and one, my cherished friend from college days,
the Latin professor, who is still at his ancient post? And
shall I not then also see about me, as witnesses and
judges, contemporary students of my own and other
classes, — my classmate and chum,^ who, after faithful ser-
1 Rev. S. F. Smith, D. D.
" Professors Chace, Gammell, Lincoln, Boise. ' Rev. James O. Murray.

HIS PUBLIC AND SOCIAL DUTIES. 221
vice in a metropolitan pulpit, now holds a chair at Prince
ton; an alumnus of an earlier class,^ now a professor at
Yale, whose treatment of Christian history at its beginning
and in later times has done so much to establish an intel
ligent faith ; an alumnus of a later class, ^ distinguished by
his culture and historical studies, now the Professor of
History in this college ; two members of another class, —
one ^ the President of Michigan University, who has re
cently been appointed the chief of an embassy to China,
sent to adjust the relation of that Oriental Power with
Western civilization ; and the other,* by whose imme
diate invitation I am here to-day, — a civilian honored for
many years with an important trust from the national
government, and a soldier who signalized his patriot
ism on fields of battle, and whose person bears the
perpetual seal of his heroism amid the blazing columns
of Wauhatchie?
Will it be said that I have given an ideal picture of what
the College ought to do for a man, rather than a state
ment of what it does? I answer. No! Wherever public
spirit, loyalty to conviction, resistance to clamor, perse
verance in good causes amid discouragements, the patient
endurance of hardships, and courage without fear of death
have been manifested, there the college graduate has
been conspicuous. You will find him at the missionary
station most remote from civilization, careless of discom
forts, facing even martyrdom, — as witness the career of
John Coleridge Patteson, a student and fellow at Oxford,
uniting in his blood and name two families distinguished
in the judicial history of England. In our Civil War no
class gave a readier response to the summons of patriot
ism than college men; none were more quick to enroll
1 Rev. George P. Fisher. ^ Hon. James B. Angell.
2 Rev. J. Lewis Diman. * Gen A. B. Underwood.

222 THE COLLEGE GRADUATE:
themselves in the military service than the students and
younger members of the alumni. According to statistics
collected with care, their proportionate contribution was
larger than that made by the public generally. The New
England colleges sent nearly a quarter of their students
and graduates of military age into the service. In some
colleges of Pennsylvania and the West the Commence
ment was given up, the whole graduating class having
volunteered. Oberlin is said to have sent seven hundred
of her students and alumni to the field, of whom one
hundred gave their lives.
But what the college men did for their country in that
hour of peril cannot be measured by numbers alone.
The example of each was in itself a power, a reinforce
ment. A nation is safe when its highest and best citizens
are foremost in self-abnegation. Who could look on their
manly forms, often more beautiful than that which ancient
art chiselled in the Antinous, their eyes beaming with
intelligence and lofty spirit; who could see them leaving
homes of refinement and careers just opening before them,
to undergo the hardships of camp and march, to suffer
weary months in hospitals and die on battlefields, — who
could behold that spectacle, and not feel assured that all
would be well with a country whose educated youth were
such as these? Where in ancient or modern times have
there been sublimer scenes than were witnessed, after the
war, on commemorative occasions at our colleges, when —
amid battle-flags and trophies and shields bearing the
names of the fallen — scarred veterans were received, not
with a Roman, but with a Christian triumph? Is there
in our own or any land a more impressive structure
than the Memorial Hall at Cambridge, on whose walls
Harvard has carved with classic tributes the names of her
patriot dead ? Where in ages to come shall mankind turn

HIS PUBLIC AND SOCIAL DUTIES. 223
for more inspiring examples than are found in the vol
umes in which the colleges have preserved with loving
care the heroism of their sons? If at any time it shall be
said that culture alienates from common interests and
sympathies; that the College, while it drills the intellect
and gives an aesthetic direction to the faculties, fails to
ennoble character, — our Civil War, with its histories, its
biographies, and its monuments, will be a final answer.
If the College has done less than it should have for the
improvement of American politics, it has in some emi
nent examples shown what it can accomplish in that
direction. The active participation, within the last few
years, of young men, many of them recent graduates of
colleges, in the movement to purify and improve civil
administration, and to test public men by severer stand
ards than before, is the most hopeful sign of contempo
rary politics. As typical of this class I mention the late
Henry Armitt Brown, of Philadelphia, whose beautiful
life and character Professor Hoppin has put in a volume
destined, I trust, to assist in moulding generations of young
men. A student at Yale, he was a true collegian, fair in
scholarship, a diligent reader, preserving his purity, active
in college sports, always foremost in song, poem, and
speech. Qualifying himself for the bar, and enriching
his culture with foreign travel, he entered on active life
with a serious purpose. He cultivated the art of public
speaking, and pursued the studies which are combined in
all finished statesmen, — history, the classics, the master
pieces of great orators, public law, political economy, and
the industrial and social questions of the time. The Civil
War and the period of reconstruction had passed when he
took his place on the platform, but he found field enough
for his powers. He assailed corruption in municipal gov
ernment, and entered actively into political campaigns, —

224 "T^^ COLLEGE GRADUATE:
addressing immense audiences, pleading always for higher
policies in finance and civil administration. He came to
the platform at the centennial epoch, and in orations upon
our early and Revolutionary history he was accurate in
details, picturesque in narrative, elevating in tone, earnest
in purpose. Compare him with the public men who now
hold, or for many years have held, the foremost places
in his State, — and it is refreshing to see what this gifted
young man, simply as a citizen, had accomplished at
the age of thirty-three.
The training of the College imposes duties various and
comprehensive. Culture must not end in itself; if it does,
it becomes that " fugitive ¦ and cloistered virtue " which
Milton refused to praise. In order to deserve divine ap
proval and win human favor, it must not live apart from
men, contemplating its own beauty and perfection. It
must diffuse " sweetness and light" as well as have them.
The scholar's sphere will always be larger than himself,
his family, and his business. He is a patriot; and he will
strive to purify public life, to ennoble the national spirit.
He is a townsman; and he will take part in eft'orts
to promote public education and health, honesty and
economy in municipal administration; and he will not
think it beneath his dignity to serve in any official capa
city, — selectman, overseer of the poor, or member of the
school committee. He is a neighbor; and he will with
out pretension diffuse about him by example and word
the spirit and knowledge with which the College has en
dowed him. He will take time for conversation, for per
sonal intercourse, with all sorts and conditions of men.
The difference between communities as places in which
to live and to hold real estate depends often not so much
on a fortunate site and facilities of communication, as upon

HIS PUBLIC AND SOCIAL DUTIES. 225
the quality of the prominent citizens who give the tone to
its civic life.
I venture in this presence to suggest — what may seem
heresy to some — that there is a tendency in our country
to overvalue what is called " higher education," at least
as compared with certain homely virtues on which the
family and society depend, — industry, contentment, fix
edness in home and pursuit. The College will have a
closer connection with the world, and will have a greater
power over men when it ceases to be regarded chiefly as
a preparatory school for what are called the learned pro
fessions. When its graduates are distributed among farm
ers, tradesmen, and mechanics, they will no longer appear
to the generality as a sedentary class, reposing under
grateful shades while the multitudes are toiling in the
heat; visionary while all others are practical, — a privi
leged body placed above the common lot. It is an au
spicious sign that the stream which flows from the College
is now spreading fertility into new fields. The alumnus
is not only a minister, lawyer, physician, teacher, — he is
also a civil engineer, manufacturer, merchant, farmer,
artisan. Among the founders of a new town in Colorado
a few years ago were twenty college men. A gentleman
once a professor of this college, and afterwards the mana
ger of a large mining establishment in that State, became
by his public spirit its first citizen, and then its representa
tive in the Senate of the United States.^
Our high schools are multiplying the number of young
men and women who turn from farm, mechanical, and
domestic work, and apply for employment as clerks and
scriveners. The trained nurse, how hard to find ! but
copyists, what legions of them of both sexes are always
waiting to serve you ! Even our reform-schools press
1 Hon. N. P. Hill.
IS

226 THE COLLEGE GRADUATE:
their inmates to a point of intellectual excitement so far
above their moral development that upon their discharge
they treat as beneath them farm or domestic drudgery.
This tendency is more marked with us than in any other
country. It exists, however, elsewhere, — as in Greece,
where the University is regarded by wise observers as an
obstacle to material progress, because it results in a dearth
of men fitted for surveying, mining, road-making, bridge-
building, and farming; while there is a superfluous number
of lawyers, doctors, and clerks, who, having no chance of
a career in those callings, become idle, restless agitators.
Are not the leaders in our educational movements respon
sible in some measure for that disgust with manual labor,
for that mischievous notion that it is a misfortune, even a
dishonor, to have to work for one's living on the farm, in
the factory, or in domestic service, which underlie the
dangerous movements of our time, and finally assail social
order, — as in the municipal elections of San Francisco
and the riots of Pittsburg? That civilization is not healthy
which divorces the training of the intellect from the labor
of the hands ; and that personal culture is defective in
which these cunning fingers, these powerful muscles, these
stalwart limbs are left altogether unexercised in productive
industry. At least as a recreation, manual labor helps to
maintain the tone of the intellectual life, as eminent exam
ples bear witness. Some of us remember Dr. Wayland,
hoe in hand, crossing the college yard of a summer morn
ing to work in his garden, near where the Memorial Hall
now stands ; and the present British Prime Minister ^ is
said to be the best woodchopper in the three kingdoms.
The proportion of graduates whose inherited fortunes
place them above the necessity of relying upon their
earnings for support has increased with the growing wealth
1 Mr. Gladstone.

HIS PUBLIC AND SOCIAL DUTIES.

227

of the country. It is not well for such to compete for
clients and patrons in professions already overcrowded ;
but nevertheless they owe a large duty to society. They
ought not to lead, as too many of them do, aimless lives,
keeping apart from men, frequenting clubs, travelling in
Europe, lounging at watering-places, or, at the best, ama-
teuring in art or literature. As Lord Bacon has nobly
said, " In the theatre of human hfe it is only for God and
angels to be spectators." Society has many offices of
beneficence which should be filled by men instructed in
the best knowledge of their time, and placed by excep
tional circumstances above the temptations which beset a
struggling life. There is a vast amount of unremunerative
work to be done, — for the relief of pauperism, the care
of the public health, the support of education, the work
ing of municipal government, the management of prisons
and hospitals, the administration of charities and savings-
banks, the protection of the Indian, the freedman, and
the emigrant; but when such honorable though gratui
tous service is called for, it is too often declined by per
sons of elegant leisure, and finally falls upon more earnest
men, already overworked in their professions. Noblesse
oblige applies to all fortunate classes ; and culture com
bined with wealth ought to do in a republic what it has
been claimed aristocracy has done as a privileged order.
Here, then, in the spheres I have named, the way opens
for educated men of wealth to careers of usefulness and
honor The transition from such beneficent service to
public life is natural; but what if it does not take place?
The best public work of our day is done outside legisla
tive bodies, — in thoughtful discussions by specialists, and
by charitable, business, and scientific commissions, which
mature conclusions and frame statutes. Lord Brougham

228 THE COLLEGE GRADUATE:
in his final estimate of Canning mentions as his greatest
defect that he had reasoned himself into the belief, which
he was wont to profess, that no man can serve his country
with eft'ect out of office, — as if there were no public, no
forum, no press, — the most pernicious notion which, in
Brougham's opinion, ever entered into the mind of a public
man. Educated men sometimes complain that a political
career in this country is closed to a gentleman, and open
only to men of coarse and pushing energy. If there be
anything in this, they who complain are often in a measure
responsible for the exclusion. No man has a right to
expect the confidence and favor of constituencies until he
has shown capacity for affairs and an active interest in the
public welfare. An English writer, Mr Frederic Harri
son, has said that " the active exercise of politics requires
common-sense, sympathy, trust, resolution, and enthusi
asm, — qualities which your man of culture has carefully
rooted up, lest they damage the delicacy of his critical
olfactories." Our educated men, who are placed above the necessity
of constant service in a profession, may learn a lesson
from English history. How is it that the English nobility
has survived the wreck which has befallen similar orders
elsewhere in Europe, so that it continues to furnish popu
lar statesmen, and no candidate for the House of Com
mons so attracts constituencies as the son of a peer? It
is because at all periods many of them have been distin
guished by beneficent activities. They have not been
idlers ; they have written histories, translated the classics,
cultivated science, trained themselves in the art of public
speaking, led in movements for moral and physical ame
lioration, and have in some measure preserved the best
idea of feudalism, — the duty which superior privilege

HIS PUBLIC AND SOCIAL DUTIES. 229
owes to inferior fortune. They perform common labors,
fill important trusts, and administer charities without com
pensation; they are represented in every unpaid parlia
mentary or social investigation, and sit in local tribunals
without salary or fees. Lord Wharncliffe, grandfather of
the present peer, presided for more than thirty years at
the Quarter Sessions in Sheffield, discharging the duty
gratuitously and in a manner to distinguish himself among
English magistrates. How many wealthy graduates of
American colleges would be willing to serve without com
pensation as justices of the peace and police judges?
The relation of the college graduate to politics presses
upon our attention to-day. Literary men have too much
the habit of treating political duty in the spirit of triflers,
and they have often only a smile, if not a sneer, for others
who busy themselves to save the State from a disastrous
policy or from unworthy public men. But can any con
duct be more irrational? Politics is the science of gov
ernment; it relates in one way or another to all that
concerns organized society. And can there be any nobler
pursuit? ft is the theme and title of a treatise by Aris
totle, who ruled philosophy for eighteen centuries, and
who did not think the subject unworthy of his thought.
Mr. Gladstone has been a politician for fifty years, and
where will you find a finer type of manhood than in him?
You will indeed meet with ignoble passions in political
parties; but you will meet with these in all human activi
ties, even in religious movements. However repelling
some aspects of contemporary politics may be, the good
citizen is bound to do his best to improve them ; and the
ampler his training and opportunities, the more peremp
tory is this obligation.
The college graduate should in his political action main-

230 THE COLLEGE GRADUATE:
tain the manly spirit which is the natural growth of his
training; and this quality was never so much needed as
now in American politics. The existence of political
parties and the divisions of citizens among them accord
ing to their opinions, interests, traditions, or temperament,
seem inseparable from a free commonwealth. Mr. Burke,
in his " Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discon
tents," has stated with his accustomed force the duty of
political association, and the unhappy and even unpatri
otic position of " detached " gentlemen who hold them
selves aloof from it. The duty of good men to associate
when the bad cornbine ; the necessity of organization for
promoting any policy in government; the impotence of
men who cultivate an austere individuality, — all this may
be admitted. Some mode also for collecting the general
sense of voters of the same party for the purpose of
concert in the support of candidates by means of a
preliminary conference, or expressions of opinion, seems
convenient and reasonable.
There are, however, existing conditions in American
politics which require the citizen to watch jealously the
limitations of party allegiance. A machine- has been
created, beginning with the primary meeting and ascend
ing to State and national organizations, which becomes at
times an intolerable tyranny. Adopting the scandalous
war-cry, " To the victors belong the spoils," it rules by
addressing the lowest passions. The caucus, managed by
experts, instead of expressing the popular sense is as
likely to express only the command of some partisan
chief. Two or three public men, with no records of meri
torious service, by arts unworthy of statesmen and of
honest men are able to override the wishes of the con
stituent body, and to defy the moral sense of the people.
They are, in their field, stronger than churches, colleges,

HIS PUBLIC AND SOCIAL DUTIES. 23 X
and public journals combined, — though at times foiled by
some happy turn of events which gives to the party a
candidate worthy, by his culture, his character, and his
blameless record, of the honorable title of statesman.
They set themselves against an improved civil service,
and checkmate and thrust at a President who would make
the reform " thorough, radical, and complete." This
system of dictation by unscrupulous partisan leaders, with
a body of henchmen at their backs, is perverting our
elections from a conflict of principles to a struggle of
placemen ; is destroying statesmanship, and corrupting the
sources of national life. Of this system at its start Dr.
Von Hoist, of Freiburg, ^ has said in his recent review of
our constitutional and political history: "From that hour
this maxim [ ' to the victors belong the spoils ' ] has re
mained an inviolable principle of American politicians;
and it is owing only to the astonishing vitality of the peo
ple of the United States, and to the altogether unsurpassed
and unsurpassable favor of their natural conditions, that
the State has not succumbed under the onerous burden
of the curse."
It is a hopeful sign that a new public spirit has arisen
among the young men of the country, — many of whom
are college graduates, — who are carrying their independ
ent convictions into civil activities, and are demanding,
with an emphasis which partisans are beginning to re
spect, that public life shall be fairly expressive of the
intelligence, the moral sentiment, and the patriotism of
the age.
No subject of national politics requires so much the
attention of educated men to-day as the reconstruction of
our civil service upon the principles of enlightened states
manship. For the first forty years of our history under
I More recently a professor in the University of Chicago.

232 THE COLLEGE GRADUATE:
the Constitution that service depended on personal integ
rity and fitness, and not upon political opinion. But with
President Jackson civil service and partisan service became
synonymous, and so they have remained to this day.
While in other respects the nation has made remarkable
advances in methods of administration, in this its move
ment has been retrograde, and we have fallen far behind
the progress of other civilized nations. The civil force
is treated as a party force to be marshalled in elections,
giving a portion of its time and of its compensation to
keep one party in power, although the whole people is
taxed to support it; and still more it is now treated as the
working force of a dominant faction within one party, and
of senators who happen to enjoy Executive favor. Mem
bers of Congress assume as a right to open and shut the
doors to the public service among their constituents, thus
usurping the power which the Constitution has confided
only to the President. This unconstitutional pretension
has been maintained in recent times by a remarkable in
novation called "the courtesy of the Senate," — accord
ing to which a senator, objecting to a nomination for a
post in his State for no other reason than that the nomi
nee is " not his man," is joined by senators of his own
party from other States, to whom he is expected to return
like favors; and thus one branch of the government seeks
to coerce another to surrender its unquestioned preroga
tive. So gross has this abuse become that Mr. Theodore
Roosevelt,! nominated as Collector of Customs for the
port of New York, — a man of eminent character and
fitness, beloved for his purity of life and noble charities,
— was rejected simply because a senator from his State
demanded his rejection; and he received from senators of
his own party, according to common report, only the
^ Father of a distinguished son of the same name.

HIS PUBLIC AND SOCIAL DUTIES. 233
support of six, — among whom were the senators from
Massachusetts and the junior senator from Rhode Island.
The senator who demanded the rejection ^ has been ambi
tious to display contempt for all efforts to put the civil
service on an honorable footing, — reminding us, by his
sneers at the movement to reform it, of Sir Robert Wal-
pole, who in coarse and cynical irony was accustomed to
jeer at all who objected to the gross parliamentary cor
ruption of his time as " patriots, saints, Spartans, boys."
Thus it has come to pass that the immense force of
revenue officers, postmasters, marshals, and deputies, who
are by law and every rational theory of government the
servants of the whole public, have become the servants of
one party, and still more the servants of individual parti
sans. Fifty thousand or more office-holders, whose duties
do not concern political opinion, are subject to dismissal
with new administrations and new senators. Witness the
natural effect of all this on the tone of public life ! On
the one hand, the officer who ought to be the honorable
representative of his government and people is degraded
to be the subservient, parasitical agent of a partisan chief;
and on the other, public men expect to hold their places,
not by their services and principles, the policies they have
upheld, the measures they have devised or carried, but by
their skill in manipulating caucuses and maintaining a
compact body of political dependents. How under such
a system can self-respect, efficiency, and character prevail
in the civil service? How under such a training can there
be honor, wisdom, magnanimity, and disinterested patri
otism in statesmen? 2
This use of patronage for political purposes once existed
1 Roscoe Conkling.
2 Since the date of this address, the sphere of patronage has been
greatly reduced by legislative and Executive action.

234 THE COLLEGE GRADUATE:
in England. It was a part of Sir Robert Walpole's scheme
of parliamentary corruption, and flourished later under
Lord North. But the system weakened with the progress
of reform ; and at length, as the result of a movement
beginning in 1853 and culminating in 1 870, it was dis
placed by a system of merit and competition open to all,
— to the sons of tradesmen and the sons of noblemen
alike. The reform has had in its course the efficient sup
port of eminent statesmen of both parties as members of
the ministry or of parliamentary commissions, — Aber
deen, Palmerston, Russell, Derby, Northcote, Sir Charles
Trevelyan, Bright, and Lowe. Less than three months
ago, in a new election which, after a contest exceeding in
interest and passion our recent Presidential elections, re
versed the foreign and domestic policy of the empire, of
the fifty thousand persons in the civil service less than
fifty, who necessarily were to represent the new policy,
went out with Beaconsfield and came in with Gladstone.
The colleges of the country — its educated men —
have it in their power to create a public opinion which
shall insure the triumph of this reform, and compel the
retirement of public men who stand in its way. This is
a measure of politics, indeed; but it is also a work of
patriotism, a movement of civilization.
In this connection and in this presence, one name
above all others deserves mention, — that of a graduate of
Brown University; a native and always a citizen of Rhode
Island ; the earliest, ablest, and most persistent advocate
of civil-service reform in Congress. Without the support
of party or any active force of public opinion, he embodied
it in a bill and defended it in successive reports and
speeches. He spoke like a statesman who looks far be
fore and far behind him; and while others thought only
of local interests and temporary issues, he devoted him-

HIS PUBLIC AND SOCIAL DUTIES. 235
self with his energy, his intellectual grasp, and his positive
conviction to this enduring work of statesmanship. When
history shall record what this generation has done for the
elevation of American politics, it will write in grateful
characters the name of Thomas Allen Jenckes.
The political education of the people, in a country gov
erned by universal suffrage, will always be the duty of
those who have had a special opportunity to study poli
tical subjects. In the recent financial contest in this
country two facts appeared : First, that there was a great
want of definite knowledge among the people on political
and economical questions ; and secondly, that everywhere
there was a craving for information concerning them.
Large audiences in agricultural and manufacturing districts
would listen for hours to statements of the elementary
laws of political economy, accompanied by detailed fig
ures and illustrations. The spirit of antagonism to
society, which in other countries breaks out in com
munism and nihilism, with us assumes the form of an
attack on the currency. The crusade for paper money
was made at a period of industrial depression, and was
carried on with an extraordinary zeal, and with all the
arts known to modern agitation. It became a powerful
political force, decided elections, carried one branch of
Congress, and well-nigh involved us in financial ruin. The
delusion was arrested by a combined effort which teaches
a perpetual lesson. A few earnest men in the West organ
ized an " Honest Money League;" they distributed two
hundred thousand pamphlets ; they addressed the masses
not only in populous centres, but sought remote villages
and the farming populations, and in simple and effective
statements exposed the mischievous sophistries which had
been industriously spread. This movement, and kindred
efforts of our public men, — notably those of Mr. Schurz

236 THE COLLEGE GRADUATE:
and Mr. Garfield, — dissipated popular ignorance, and
saved this nation from one of the worst calamities which
ever threatened it.^ The educated man of earnest purpose
and positive conviction can follow the communist, the
inflationist, the enemy of social order, wherever he may
go, confident that the masses will in the end heed the
teachings of reason and experience.
Public speakings or the "platform" as it is called —
supplies an opportunity for the political education of the
people in England and the United States, such as is found
in no other countries. In Germany this mode of acting
upon public opinion is not yet a habit, although it is likely
to become such with the progress of the republican spirit
In France, where a more liberal system is now under con
sideration, the right to hold a public meeting for the dis
cussion of political questions is not yet admitted, even by
a government founded on universal suffrage. Such a
meeting can be held only by a license from the Prefect of
Police, rarely granted except during a period of ten days
near an election of deputies ; and it is denied altogether
during the three days immediately preceding the election.
At such meetings the police are conspicuously present, —
" assisting," as it is called, — with power to close the ses
sion and arrest the speakers for language which they may
deem offensive to the government or tending to disturb
the public peace. The English-speaking race submits to
no such despotic restrictions. It maintains a platform
where the speaker may say what he likes, and the people
may listen to what they like, — the police being present
to protect, and not to prevent, free speech. In the hour
of public peril, in seasons when foreign or domestic ques
tions press for solution, — whenever statesmen seek to
1 Similar methods have since been used in resisting the free-silver delu
sion, Mr. Schurz being again conspicuous as an advocate of honest money.

HIS PUBLIC AND SOCIAL DUTIES.

237

direct their countrymen in the way of honor and safety,
or the people to learn the lessons of wisdom, — you will
see crowds moved by a common impulse, gathering in the
open air, under spreading tents, or in town-halls, court
houses, or theatres, where orators and audiences have
absolute freedom to speak and listen. No English or
American municipality is deemed complete in its appoint
ments which has not its spacious hall for popular assem
blies, — like those of Birmingham and Manchester, or
those of Boston and Worcester. A people which by right
and habit maintains a free 'platform needs for the main
tenance of domestic order no standing army, no police
espionage. Surely, one who has had the generous training of the
College ought, except in rare cases of physical disability,
to qualify himself for guiding public opinion in this mode,
which is sanctioned by the customs and traditions of the
two kindred nations among whom liberty and order stand
upon the surest foundations. There are indeed gifts of
voice, manner, person, unction, which are born with the
man and cannot be acquired, — such as have distinguished
Whitefield, O'Connell, Kossuth, and Bright ; but a genius
for oratory is not essential to effective public speaking.
Cobden did not have it, and yet no speaker has done so
much in our time to change, direct, and concentrate politi
cal opinion. His style was simple, like conversation, and
rejected all the glitter of rhetoric; but he went straight to
the understanding, and carried conviction to audiences
various in tastes and prejudices.
The style of public speaking is changing for the better.
Stately periods, studied gestures, and academic elabora
tion are less effective than formerly, and the sober sense
of our time has become, as it ought to be, intolerant of
turgid rhetoric and certain affectations of passion and

238 THE COLLEGE GRADUATE:
patriotism which once drew rounds of applause ; but the
capacity to give to a popular assembly well-considered
thoughts upon political and social themes was never a
power so effective for good as it is to-day. The educated
man cannot afford to dispense with it, — least of all, as some
do, to depreciate it. Of what avail is much of the college
curriculum, — the study of rhetoric and logic, the writing
of dissertations with infinite labor liinae, the training in
elocution, the exercises in declamation, the debates of
the societies, the parts on exhibition and commencement
days, — if after one has painfully wrought the weapons for
maintaining truth and assailing error before men, he is to
lay them aside forever like rusty armor in an attic?
A condition of public speaking in England and the
United States deserves mention, — and I delight here as
always to join together two kindred nations who ought
ever to act as one in movements of civilization, and whose
common language and spirit are destined to a dominion
wider and more enduring than those of any race. Else
where the orator addresses the self-interest, the instinct
for equality, loyalty, love of glory, nationality ; but with
the English-speaking race the appeal to the moral sense
has been most effective. So it was when this nation broke
the fetters of four millions of slaves ; so it was when the
English people abolished slavery in the West Indies, and
when, a few weeks ago in the election of a new govern
ment, they declared that their arms and diplomacy should
no longer be used to uphold Moslem barbarism and op
pression in eastern Europe, or to wage aggressive warfare
upon uncivilized races in Africa and Asia.
The scholar must not allow his superior attainments to
isolate him from common sympathies. If he would help
men he must remain of them, and while he directs them

HIS PUBLIC AND SOCIAL DUTIES. 239
to " nobler modes of life, sweeter manners, purer laws,"
take always the best view of their conduct and purposes.
The satirist may laugh at the follies of a degenerate age,
but satire never arrested national decline. He may, like
Pascal in the " Provincial Letters," unmask the hypocrisy
of some class or order; but his weapon serves no end
when aimed at his generation. The cynic, with his con
tempt for mankind, will find that mankind has no ear for
him. Men will accept as guide only him who comes to
them with the tone and manner of a friend.
A certain class of scholars in our day and country —
not a large one, it may be — appear to be pessimists in
their reflections on public affairs. Their general views are
excellent, but their cynical tone deprives them of the in
fluence which justly belongs to their high character and
their unquestioned patriotism. They see in public life
only corruption and low ambition. They mourn over the
failure of universal suffrage, instead of marking its evils
and showing in what better way mankind may be gov
erned. At literary festivals, in journals and magazines
distinguished by finish of style and sharpness of wit, and
in poems also, they lament the decline of national virtue,
and can see nothing but Tweeds in politics and Fisks on
the exchange. It is curious to note — and I trust the ob
servation will not offend the sensibilities of any — that
those who take this depressing view of human nature in
our age and country are conspicuously those who in
religious belief cherish the hopeful theory of its develop
ment; while those who, following Augustine, treat human
life as a probation, beginning with depravity and continu
ing a mortal struggle with foes within and without, never
seem to fail in courage whether contending with sin at
home or civilizing savage races abroad. A profound
religious conviction, narrow or uncultured though it be,
is never cynical or pessimistic.

240

THE COLLEGE GRADUATE:

Never in human history — never, certainly in the his
tory of our country — has there been a time when it
would be so irrational to lose faith in man as now. Every
where there is work for the patriot, the scholar, and the
Christian ; but nowhere does he confront desperate evils.
In religion, in politics, in the maintenance of every-day as
well as of heroic virtues there is no decline.
Our age is not a superstitious one ; hardly, in the tech
nical sense, a religious one, — that is, in its interest in
traditional points of controversy. It subordinates dogma
to conduct ; it mellows the old creeds or gives them a
liberal construction, — but it is loyal to the substance of
faith. One may indeed fasten on certain aspects of modern
thought, — agnosticism, for instance, — and lament, as
men have always lamented, the decay of faith ; but his
outlook would be narrow and partial. Life, if we com
pare the Sacred Record with our personal observation,
is purer now than it was among the believers of Rome and
Corinth who were converted by the direct ministrations
of the Apostles. On the platform, in public journals and
in social life, the Christian belief and its ministers were
never treated with more genuine respect. Even Rational
ists and Positivists confess the prudential argument for
revealed religion and its beneficent power in the civiliza
tion and government of mankind. An English writer,
who ranks as a Positivist, confessed to me last summer
that it was the religious bodies which had saved the min
ing and manufacturing districts of England from barbar
ism. For half a century Mr. Emerson has been regarded
by many good people as a very dangerous teacher, and
yet not long ago, as an overseer of Harvard College, he
gave his voice as well as his vote against dispensing with
the compulsory attendance of students on the morning
prayers ; and some have thought they discovered in his

HIS PUBLIC AND SOCIAL DUTIES. 24X
later utterances on religion a definite departure from the
pantheism which was ascribed to his earlier productions.
Our people have in recent history shown in their rela
tion as citizens not only the finer and more subtile inspira
tions which rise and subside with heroic periods, but also
the equally essential though less shining qualities on which
constitutional government depends, — good sense, patience,
moderation, tolerance of adverse opinion, the spirit of con
cession, tact in meeting new exigencies where the written
law or precedents fail, and sobriety in the midst of circum
stances which move the depths of popular passion. The
surrender of Mason and Slidell ; the maintenance of peace
with France when Louis Napoleon was scheming for inter
vention in our Civil War (from which we were saved by
the refusal of the British Cabinet), and was sending troops
to Mexico to extend the dominion of the Latin race on
this continent; the maintenance of peace with England
when " Alabamas," built in her dockyards and issuing from
her ports, were sweeping our commerce from the ocean, —
these are signal instances of national self-control. What
nation could more peacefully and fairly have settled the
disputed succession to a throne than we settled the Presi
dential controversy of 1876 by its submission to a new
tribunal of fifteen men in an emergency for which the Con
stitution had made no provision, — the award made by one
majority, and one member afterwards stating that the case
appeared so balanced that he first wrote opinions on both
sides in order the better to present the opposite views to
his own mind? And yet forty-five millions of people,
without disturbance, without the resistance of a single
citizen, without the arming of a single soldier, accepted as
law and government a judgment rendered on so narrow
an issue by the casting vote of one hesitating man !
We have lifted four millions of slaves to manhood and
16

242 THE COLLEGE GRADUATE:
citizenship, men of another color and another race, —
an achievement for which De Tocqueville, abolitionist
though he was, did not dare to hope ; and we have done
it with less personal violence, less disturbance of industry,
less friction of social forces than the most sanguine patriot
imagined was possible. More recently, as we have seen,
a destructive theory of finance seemed to overcome the
popular imagination; but the fanaticism was arrested by
appeals to sober reason.
And when heroic qualities have been needed, has this
people ever been found wanting? In 1861 we appeared
to foreign observers, even to many of ourselves, to be
given up to materialism, — loving comfort, greedy of
wealth, feeble in national spirit, lacking in personal cour
age, without faith in ourselves and our country; and for
eign statesmen, even the best of them, with few exceptions,
believed our dissolution was at hand. But when our peo
ple faced the dread questions, whether the country of
Washington should be severed in twain, whether the
Mississippi should flow through divided empires, whether
slavery should be perpetual on this continent, whether the
hope of the nations should be darkened, there rose a spirit
from east to west, — from farm, work-shop, factory, col
lege, — a spirit of self-sacrifice, patriotism, nationality,
and devotion to liberty, which has won the admiration of
mankind, and will move the souls of distant posterity as
the stories of Leonidas (savior of Greece) and of William
of Orange (savior of Holland) have swayed the departed
generations. Let us, then, my brethren, have faith in the suffrage
of the people, though it does not elect us ; in our coun
try, though another party than our own should succeed ;
in rehgion, though our particular sect dwindles ; in the
human race, though it does not always behave as we
would have it.

HIS PUBLIC AND SOCIAL DUTIES. 243
And now a final word to the young men who to-morrow
are to receive their commissions from the University.
You meet at the threshold of your career a period of great
interest and activity, and with the opening of the twentieth
centtiry you will be in all the prime of manly power.
There will be in your day, as in all days, ignorance to be
overcome, delusions to be dispelled, low ambition to be
withstood, noble causes to be advanced. Here then is
your opportunity: here also is your duty. Carry into the
State and into the Church the liberal spirit of the College ;
hold fast to the independent conviction which is born of
your training; maintain your individuality against com
bined masses, your right of private judgment against all
aggressive force; keep your heart warm and healthy by
contact with the people; have faith in the best instincts of
living men and in the highest possibilities of your race.
If the world's best things come to you, use them with
moderation; but if fame and fortune leave you uncrowned,
you will deserve well of Alma Mater if you live brave,
honest, simple lives, and all the ends you aim at be your
country's, your God's, and truth's.

The letters which follow will convey some idea of the reception
given at the time to the foregoing address. Two of them were
from gentlemen (Messrs. Bullock and Rice) who had been gover
nors of Massachusetts ; and one was from General Devens, then
Attorney- General of the United States. The first is from Rev.
Dr. Munger, the well-known theologian, who in later years has
been associated with a distinguished ministry at New Haven,
Connecticut. North Adams, August 12, 1880.
My dear Mr. Pierce, — I have just finished reading your
address at Brown. I hardly know what feature of it to place
highest, — the transparent style, the absolute appropriateness to

244

THE COLLEGE GRADUATE:

the occasion, the broad, ripe wisdom and grasp, or the moral
tone. But I think I admire most the unhesitating, concrete illus
tration of every point and principle you urge, because it makes
the address so effective. It is very well to think abstractly and
under philosophic forms, — such indeed is the tendency of
thought, — but it Is not the best form under which to speak.
I am very glad your address has been printed, and I hope it will
be widely read. It cannot fail to inspire and uplift any who read
it. Anything that sets life before one in a noble way is to be
praised. After all, there is nothing much higher we can do for
our fellow-men than to utter the word that inspires them.
Yours faithfully,
T. T. Munger.
Worcester, August 15, 1880.
Dear Mr. Pierce, — I should sooner have thanked you for
sending me a copy of your admirable address delivered at Provi
dence, but I have waited till I could say that I had read it
through. This I have done to-day with the greatest pleasure, and
I hasten to assure you that the perusal of it has not only gratified
but stimulated me. I do not know when the season of literary
festivities has turned out anything so good. I had first marked
and turned down corners to indicate topics most successfully
treated, but the whole is so excellent that I have turned back the
corners and packed the pamphlet away as altogether good. I
only add, by way of specification, that I do like the freedom
with which you speak of men. Now, believe me with great
regard. Truly and faithfully, Alex. H. Bullock.
Beverly Farms, August 16, 1880.
My DEAR Sir, — I thank you for sending me your eloquent and
impressive address. There was never more need of its lessons
than now, when too many educated men are forgetting that savoir,
as well as noblesse, oblige. Very truly yours,
O. W. Holmes.

HIS PUBLIC AND SOCIAL DUTIES.

245

Department of Justice, Washington,
August 18, 1880.
My dear Sir, — I read with the greatest interest when it ap
peared in the " Advertiser " your address on the duties of the
College Graduate. I am exceedingly obliged to you for a copy of
the address in more permanent form, as I feel it is one of the
highest value. Your obt. servant,
Chas. Devens.
AsHFiELD, Mass., August 19, 1880.
My dear Pierce, — Perhaps you saw in my paper [Harper's
Weekly] that I had received your address, which is very admirable,
and of which the " Evening Post " told the truth in a pleasant way.
Such talk to young men is worth while, and our Commencements
wiD have a use still. Very truly yours, George William Curtis.
Boston, September 3, 1880.,
Dear Mr. Pierce, — I have read your address with great
pleasure. It is a thoughtful and interesting address, scholarly and
instructive, and breathes throughout the inspiration of a high and
virtuous ambition. Very truly yours,
Alex. H. Rice.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Boston, January 24, 1881.
Dear Sir, — I have read with very great interest and pleasure
the address on the Public and Social Duties of the College Grad
uate which you have so kindly sent me. That interest was greatiy
heightened by my personal knowledge of several of the eminent
gentlemen to whom you so eloquently allude.
The chord you have struck will long vibrate. I wish, for its
largest and most permanent effect, that the address could be printed
in one of the half-hour or handy-volume series now issuing from
the press. Yours truly, Francis A. Walker.

246 TRIBUTE TO CARL SCHURZ.

IX.

On the 2 2d of March, 1881, a complimentary dinner was given
at the Hotel Vendome, in Boston, to Hon. Carl Schurz, who had
just completed four years of service as Secretary of the Interior
in the Cabinet of President Hayes. Among the gentlemen who
spoke on that occasion besides the distinguished guest, were Pre
sident Eliot of Harvard University, Rev. Dr. George E. Ellis,
Rev. Dr. James Freeman Clarke, Dr. E. B. de Gersdoff, and Theo
dore Lyman. Col. Charles R. Codman presided, and introduced
Mr. Pierce as the " friend and biographer " of Charles Sumner.

TRIBUTE TO CARL SCHURZ.
Among living statesmen, I know no one to whom I
would more gladly pay a tribute of respect than to the hon
orable guest whom we now welcome. He has had the
felicity to cover with his life a great period, and to fasten
his name to it in both hemispheres. Fresh and vigorous
he comes to us, his features stifl youthful, his locks not as
yet silvered, and, as we believe, with opportunities and
honors before him not less than those in retrospect. While
yet a student, he became the partisan of popular rights in
1848, — a year which witnessed the revival of the spirit of
liberty both in Europe and the United States. He is re
membered in Germany for his chivalrous rescue, from the
fortress of Spandau, of the patriot Johann Gottfried Kinkel,
— now a Professor of the History of Art at Zurich, whom
it was my privilege to meet two years ago in that city, at

TRIBUTE TO CARL SCHURZ. 247
the house of my friend Mr. Guyer, where we had much dis
course on the noble career of our guest. After a year's
residence in London, he came to this country in 1852 ; and
in six years or less from that time he was able to address
audiences in English, using our language with a facility, a
vigor of expression, and a keen sense of idioms which
belong to but few with whom it is the vernacular. No
foreigner, unless it be Kossuth, has been his rival in this
regard. In his speeches he showed from the beginning,
not only a breadth of vision and capacity for applying the
methods of philosophy to political questions which might
have been expected from one of his gifts and nationality,
but as well a vivid perception of the details of our history,
early and later, and a delicate appreciation of the local and
national spirit which has informed its successive epochs.
Among our public men, to-day, where will you find another
so accomplished, so well equipped on all sides for public
service, — speaking and thinking in three languages, and
in each easily and well ; a student of all political science
from the start, and not forced to cram for some new ques
tion or current of opinion ; matching senators in debate,
and instructing with marvellous skill popular audiences
on abstruse subjects of political economy; and, with all
this, energetic and practical in the management of public
business? There is not time this evening to review in detail the
services of Mr. Schurz on the platform, in the field, the
senate, and the cabinet; but some leading points in his
career may be recalled. In 1858 he was active in the
senatorial canvass in Illinois which gave Mr. Lincoln a
national reputation, and led to his nomination two years
later for the Presidency; and in the same year he aided
effectively in a Republican success in Wisconsin. No man
in i860 did so much as he to carry the German vote, — a

248 TRIBUTE TO CARL SCHURZ.
vote which was essential to Mr. Lincoln's election ; and in
that most important canvass of our history he was the
peer, before audiences of English-speaking citizens, of
Seward, Sumner, and Chase. In our Civil War, months
before the issue of the proclamation of emancipation, at a
time when our government disowned an antislavery policy,
he sought a discharge from our diplomatic service in Spain,
unwilling to remain longer a distant spectator of the
struggle ; and on his return he forecast the future in his
remarkable speech in March, 1862, at the Cooper Institute,
entitled " Reconciliation by Emancipation," — maintaining
that a mere victory of arms would be but half a victory,
and that there could be no assured peace without a new
society at the South founded on equality of rights, filled
with new hopes and aspirations, and harmonizing at once
with the spirit of our institutions and of the age. In our
recent financial controversy, which is destined to be of
perpetual historic interest, many men in public and private
life rendered eminent service ; but here, again, in the fore
most rank of public benefactors Mr. Schurz will have a
place. Though living in a section of the country strangely
infected with false theories of currency, he never wavered
a moment, never yielded an iota to popular clamor. The
critical period of that contest was the election in Ohio in
the autumn of 1875. If the result had then been different,
we should probably be struggling to-day with an irredeem
able currency, shifting in values, obstructing business,
impairing the public credit, and corrupting the morals of
the people. In the summer of that year some gentlemen
— Rutherford B. Hayes, then governor of Ohio, among
them — met at Cincinnati to confer as to the exigency;
and there it was determined to send a telegram to Mr.
Schurz, then in Switzerland, urging him to come home at
once and participate in the canvass. He came, obedient to

TRIBUTE TO CARL SCHURZ.

249

the summons ; and what service he rendered and with
what effect, is known to all. Later, when here in Massa
chusetts a similar issue was pending, his speech in Tremont
Temple, distinguished for its force of statement and lucid
ity of illustration, was the one which was spread in great
numbers by the State Committee in every village of the
Commonwealth.-' And now our distinguished guest has just laid aside the
duties of a high public trust, in which he has proved a
capacity for administration equal to that which he had
already shown in the discussion of public questions. He
has presided over that department of the national govern
ment which, though attracting less than those of finance
and foreign affairs the popular interest and imagination,
exacts greater labor, embraces more miscellaneous duties,
and requires the application of more various powers than
any other, — covering as it does agriculture, patents, the
census, public lands, national education, and the Indian
tribes. In all this he has done well. He has been so
clear in his office that intemperate criticism has been
unable to impeach his integrity and honor. He leaves
behind no acts to be investigated. He has deserved well
of the Republic by his persistence and success in purging
the Indian service of the scandals and abuses which have
been traditional with it. He has uniformly applied to his
department the same system of admissions and promo
tions which prevails in all well-conducted commercial
business, and which ought to prevail without favoritism
in the business of government. He has done for the civ
ilization of the Indian what no predecessor had done, —
testing his fidelity in responsible trusts and his capacity
1 Mr. Schurz, in his address on the free coinage of silver at Chicago,
September 5, 1896, maintained the foremost position which he had hereto
fore held in the debate on financial questions.

250 TRIBUTE TO CARL SCHURZ.
for higher education ; promoting as never before his indi
vidual ownership of the soil, and thus preparing the way
for the time' not far distant let us hope, when like the
African, who is no longer slave or freedman, the Indian,
dropping his exceptional status, shall be registered only as
an American citizen.
On the Indian question there is one pre-eminent author
ity, — Bishop Whipple. With him this is no new sensa
tion, no fresh topic of declamation. He has known the
Indian for a quarter of a century, not afar off, but by im
mediate intercourse with him in camp and wigwam. He
has been quick to see the red man's wrongs, and fearless
in denouncing them. By his consecration to the work, he
reminds us of kindred services to aboriginal races ren
dered, within our memory, by Selwyn and Patteson on a
distant continent. Says this distinguished expert on the
Indian question, —
" It is due to Mr. Schurz that I should say, that, in twenty-one
years' intercourse with this department, I have never found an
officer of the government more ready to examine into the wrongs
done to the Indians ; wherever proof has been submitted, he has
tried to redress the wrong. He has shown a courage and fidelity
in the discharge of duty which called out my hearty gratitude.
To him we owe the establishment of Indian police, the employ
ment of Indian freighters, the removal of bad white men for im
morality, and many other reforms."
To my mind, the testimony of this saintly bishop is
worth more than that of the critics whose new-born zeal
for the Indian has behind it no toils and sacrifices in his
behalf. The ex-Secretary will remember how, from his earhest
connection with his department, I have said to him with
reiteration : " Let no temptation of honor or service else-

TRIBUTE TO CARL SCHURZ. 25 1
where draw you, let no calumnies ever drive you, from
your post, but remain there till your chief closes his ad
ministration. Attest your capacity for affairs, and carry
into effect the opinions and policies you have developed
in speech." And now I gladly join, when his work is
finished, in the " Well done, good and faithful servant ! "
with which this city and State salute him at the close of
his official term.
Our guest has sometimes, in the pleasantry of social
intercourse, said that I " invented " him. If, indeed, I am
entitled to the credit of having in any way called public
attention to him at an early period of his career, I esteem
myself fortunate. I may perhaps be allowed a moment
to explain this reference by Mr. Schurz to the manner of
his original introduction to this community. In April,
1859, ^ few of us were engaged in an effort to defeat a
constitutional amendment which discriminated against citi
zens of foreign nativity. Meeting Senator Wilson on the
steps of the State House, I called his attention to the
movement. He said that he had just received a letter
from the most eloquent German in the country, stating
how prejudicial to the Republican cause in the coming
national election of x86o would be the success of that
proposition. At my request, he gave the name of the
writer, then unknown to me. It was the name of our
guest. The same day I posted a letter to Mr. Schurz,
asking him for some expression of opinion on the question
which might be publicly used, and adding incidentally
that I wished he might be present at a dinner soon to
be given in this city commemorative of the birthday of
Thomas Jefferson, where it was proposed to emphasize
that statesman's well-known sympathies with all who
sought among us an asylum from foreign oppression.

252 TRIBUTE TO CARL SCHURZ.
It happened to be convenient for Mr. Schurz to make the
journey hither; and, accepting the invitation, he arrived
just as the guests were about to enter the dining-hall at
Parker's. It was a notable occasion. Ex-Governor Boutwell, as
chairman, spoke with dehberation on the place of Jeffer
son in our history. Other speakers were Henry Wilson,
John P. Hale, Erastus Hopkins, and John A. Andrew, —
the last being associated with Henry L. Pierce as one of
the active managers of the festivity. Letters of sympathy
were read from William C. Bryant, WilUam H. Seward,
and Abraham Lincoln, — Mr. Lincoln's letter being re
markable for its sententious statement of the issues of that
period. But among the incidents of the day Mr. Schurz's
speech was the most noted. He was then thirty years of
age. Of those present few had ever heard of him, and
probably only Senator Wilson had ever met him before.
His brief remarks interested and charmed all; and, though
the season was late, there was a general demand that he
should speak in some public place in Boston, and Faneuil
Hall was secured for the purpose. It fell to me to call
the meeting to order with some preliminary remarks, and
then to introduce Senator Wilson, who presided. Mr.
Schurz's speech, which he prepared in the few interven
ing days between his arrival here and the time of the
meeting, was published in full in the Boston and New
York journals. It established his rank as an orator of
the first order, and from that time he was in great re
quest in the Eastern States as a lecturer before lyceums
and a speaker in political contests. Twenty-two years
ago he came to us unknown ; but he now comes to us
with a fame for eloquence and beneficent service which
has become a part of American history. With every
visit to Boston he has found an ever-widening circle of

TRIBUTE TO CARL SCHURZ. 253
friends, while those he has known the longest are as fast
bound to him as ever.
My last word must be of a tender tone. Mr. Schurz
became a senator in 1869, when Mr. Sumner was serving
his last term. It was the period in the career of our Mas
sachusetts senator in which he suffered much, — pain of
body intense and prolonged, the antagonisms of political
associates, the withdrawal of some he had counted as
friends, the hand of power laid heavily upon him, the cen
sure of the Commonwealth he had served so long (happily
recalled before it was too late), — a period closed by death.
In all this our guest was a loyal friend, sympathetic in pri
vate intercourse, tender at the bedside and in the last
offices, chivalrous and valiant in public defence. As we
recognize by this public festivity the character and services
of a statesman, it is a grateful thought that we are also
doing justice and honor to Sumner's faithful friend.

254 THE TOWN OF STOUGHTON.

X.

The town of Stoughton, in Massachusetts, held dedicatory ser
vices of a new Town House, November 22, 1881. Stoughton was
Mr. Pierce's native place, and as one of its sons he was invited to
deliver the address.

THE TOWN OF STOUGHTON.
Citizens, — You are here this afternoon to open for
public use your new Town House. On other occasions,
divided into families or associations of various kinds, you
meet in dwellings, churches, or halls which are erected for
private or social uses ; but here all citizens, however
otherwise classified or associated, meet with equal rights
to enjoy now and hereafter this building, so ample in pro
portions, so well arranged, and furnished with reference to
utility, comfort, and taste. Here are combined this spa
cious hall for your eleven hundred voters; a hall less
capacious and more convenient, when the attendance may
not be so numerous ; a room for the Public Library,
which, founded in 1874, now contains three thousand vol
umes ; a room for the national post-office, convenient to
the public ; apartments for municipal officers, and ante
rooms for the accommodation of guests on festive occa
sions. Here your town-meetings are to be held for
administering local affairs, and for receiving votes in
national and State elections. Here you are to discuss in
popular assemblies the political and moral questions which

THE TOWN OF STOUGHTON.

255

may from time to time arise. Here the young, full of
vital energy and spirit, with lively social affinities, are to
join in recreations both healthy and refining. Here, in a
word, is to be the centre of public interests, and the re
sort for whatever of social activity the private house is too
small and the church too sacred to permit. Glancing as
we may into the future, it is pleasant to contemplate how
much of beneficent effort, of moral and intellectual growth,
of neighborly sympathies, of solemn thought on issues
of life, duty, and humanity, this hall is to be the theatre
and witness. Regarding the occasion in this light, it
becomes impressive and inspiring.
Except during the brief space of six years, this town
has not had a house of its own set apart specially for civic
uses. For more than a hundred years after its incorpo
ration it held its meetings in the parish meeting-house, —
either in the one situated in what is now Canton, or in
the one built afterwards in this village. After leaving the
latter meeting-house, the town held its meetings for a few
years in Mr. Abraham Capen's hall. Then, in 1842, it
built and began to occupy its Town House on Pleasant
Street, which was destroyed by fire in 1848. From that
time it rented the hall known as Chemung Hall, of the
First Parish meeting-house, which had recently been
reconstructed with two stories, the upper being reserved
for worship. From 1870 the town rented Mr. Atwood's
hall, until its destruction by fire in February, 1880.
A town hall as a place for the discussion of public
questions is distinctively an institution of the English-
speaking race. It can exist only in countries where
freedom of speech is a traditional right, uncontrolled by a
censorship or police supervision. The H6tel de Ville in
Paris, beautiful in architecture, is not like Faneuil Hall in

256 THE TOWN OF STOUGHTON.
Boston or Exeter Hall in London, where philanthropists
and statesmen, agitators and reformers, may treat without
reserve all questions of human concern. The habit of our
people draws them to the town hall whenever their hearts
are stirred by some pervading thought or impulse. Let it
be a question of war or peace, — an arming for national
defence, the support of authority in the maintenance of
law and government, the reformation of morals, the dis
cussion of State and national policies, the death of a states
man honored for his private virtues and public services,
the commemoration of historic events, — at all such times
our people, moved by a common inspiration, throng to
public centres like this.
An ancient town marks a period in its career when, as
to-day, it opens its house for public use. We cannot on
this occasion overlook the fact that a New England town
is a body distinctive in character and history, quite unlike,
in its methods and functions, the municipal organizations
which prevail elsewhere. It is not like a French commune,
with its mayor sent from Paris, and all its acts subject to
central revision. It is the unit in our system of self-govern
ment ; it is a commonwealth, subject indeed to general
laws, but, when acting within its sphere and under the law,
exercising a discretion quite independent of control. The
voters do not, as in other municipalities, elect a few officers,
— aldermen or supervisors, — and thereby discharge them
selves from responsibility in matters of municipal inter
est; but they retain their power over the public business.
Here, under a moderator chosen by yourselves, you fill by
ballot or voice a long catalogue of offices ; and at the same
or at a later meeting you deliberate on the opening of new
and the repair of existing highways, the support of schools,
provision for paupers, protection against fire, the mainte
nance of the police, the payment of the town debt, the

THE TOWN OF STOUGHTON. 257
negotiation of loans, — in short, on all the matters of gov
ernment, except the post-office, which are immediately and
constantly present in your daily life. On each question
every citizen may speak; and if he speaks soberly and
wisely, he is sure to be heard. The final decision is made
by the majority, — men being counted as men, irrespective
of their condition or of their contributions to the general
revenue. In seasons of public peril the town has exceptional du
ties. It supplies, as in our Civil War, its quota on suc
cessive calls for troops ; and sometimes — less now than
formerly — it declares its opinion on State and national
questions. In the Revolution the town was a most im
portant institution. It preserved order where otherwise
there would have been anarchy, as one government dis
placed another. It raised men, paid bounties, and by care
ful enumeration and inspection saw to it that each citizen
did his duty to his country. It gave to its representa
tive minute instructions before he enterecl on his office ;
and sometimes after his term had ended, it appointed a
committee to inquire into his conduct, — a scrutiny which
some legislators nowadays might find it difficult to bear.
Again and again it declared the popular will on the issues
with the mother country, sometimes in resolves of great
length and elaboration. These formal expressions of
opinion were so much respected, that, in May, 1776, the
Massachusetts Assembly advised the people to instruct
their representatives on the question of Independence, —
that body hesitating to take the eventful step without first
consulting the source of political power. The leadership
of Massachusetts in the Revolution is largely due to her
peculiar municipal system, which quickened the sense of
civil rights, and facilitated united action for the common
defence.

258 THE TOWN OF STOUGHTON.
The town chooses a list of officers, perhaps exceeding
fifty. Few are the citizens who lack the capacity, or fail at
some time to have the opportunity, to fill some of these
trusts, and to acquire the training involved in their admin-
istradon. The ofifice may not have a high-sounding title ;
the aspirant for popular favor may treat it with contempt :
but the field-driver, the pound-keeper, the fence-viewer,
and the constable each represents the dignity and power
of the State ; and he will in the discharge of his functions
gain a better knowledge of the sphere and duties of an
American citizen. At the head of the list of municipal offi
cers are the selectmen, often chosen also to be assessors of
taxes and overseers of the poor. The people have at all
times shown in the election of these officers an unusual care
and sense of responsibility. The town selectmen of any
year for the whole State would show an assembly most
remarkable for integrity, steady public spirit, solid judg
ment, and capacity for affairs. These officers in a town
for the successive periods of its history — bating occa
sional mistakes, which are always to be expected under
any system of appointment — will be found in the general
result to be truly its select men. The long succession of
just and honorable men who have served you in this
capacity warrants this statement.
The habit of local self-government has become so much
a second nature with our people, that if State and na
tional authority were swept away in some revolutionary
storm, the towns could meet at once in an orderly way,
draft a body of laws, and raise a police and military force
to suppress violence within and repel aggression from
without. There is in such a habit as this, descending
from ancestors and practised from year to year, a develop
ment of the civic spirit and a training in the common
duties of citizenship which are worth more to the plain

THE TOWN OF STOUGHTON. 259
man than a painful study of all that wise men have written
on society and government. The distinguished French
man, De Tocqueville, during his visit to this country half
a century ago, found in the New England town the best
training-school of citizens. He says : —
" The native of New England is attached to his township
because it is independent and free ; his co-operation in its affairs
insures his attachment to its interests; the well-being it affords
him secures his affection ; and its welfare is the aim of his ambi
tion and of his future exertions. He takes a part in every occur
rence in the place ; he practises the art of government in the
small sphere within his reach ; he accustoms himself to those
forms without which liberty can only advance by revolutions ; he
imbibes their spirit; he acquires a taste for order, comprehends
the balance of powers, and collects clear, practical notions on the
nature of his duties and the extent of' his rights."
You would be wearied if I should spread before you in
detail at this time the ancient annals of the town, or the
statistical tables of its industries at different periods. The
occasion, however, requires a glance at the prominent
events of its history, — the milestones on the highway of
progress which its generations have traversed. I may,
however, in passing, express the hope that some one of
your citizens gifted with a taste for antiquarian research
like that of Mr. Huntoon of Canton,^ will be tempted be
fore long to explore faithfully the old records, collate
scattered manuscripts, study the topography of roads
and farms, trace the development of manufactures, give
brief biographies of prominent citizens, and put the result
in a compact and intelligible shape, to be printed at the
town's expense for the advantage of this generation and
^ D. T. V. Huntoon's " History of Canton," a part of the ancient Stough
ton, was published in 1893, after the author's death.

26o THE TOWN OF STOUGHTON.
of posterity. There are trustworthy traditions which are
growing dimmer every day ; there are old men living, who
connect us with the early part of this century, — and soon
it will be impossible to do what can now be well and
easily done.
Stoughton lies at the sources of the Neponset and Taun
ton rivers, at a point where the waters divide to go north
ward to Massachusetts Bay, or southward to Narragansett
Bay. It was formerly a border town of Suffolk County,
as it has been of Norfolk since 1793. It lies generally as
a plateau with moderate elevations, its highest point being
" the Pinnacle," where, it is said, a glimpse of the sea may
be obtained. It has no lofty heights like the Blue Hills
to the north and Moose Hill to the west, and no large
sheets of natural water like the Ponkapoag or Massapoag
ponds. Its chief water-power is found in its northwestern
district, where the cotton manufacture was established at
an early day. The forests still cover a large portion of its
territory; its cleared tracts, except in favored spots, are
not fertile ; and the rocks and bowlders on its surface have
made cultivation difficult. Certainly, the husbandman who
has here wrung a profit from the soil has fairly earned it.
Whatever has been done to subdue Nature and accumu
late wealth upon its farms has been accomplished by the
sturdy qualities of its people, and by the perseverance
and thrift inherited from the fathers of the town.
The ancient town of Dorchester acquired in 1637 the
land " lying beyond the Blue Hills '' and extending to the
line of Plymouth Colony. This unwieldy territory was
from time to time severed into parts. In 1726 Stoughton
— then comprehending what is now Canton and Sharon,
a considerable part of Foxborough, and a fraction of
Dedham — was incorporated. The town was named in
honor of William Stoughton, — a native of Dorchester, a

THE TOWN OF STOUGHTON. 261
graduate of Harvard College, afterwards a student at the
University of Oxford; beginning his career as a clergy
man, and preaching with favor both in England and
America; later in life devoted to public affairs, holding
high judicial offices in Massachusetts, and the first lieuten
ant-governor under the charter of William and Mary, an
appointment which he continued to hold until his death.
He is described by an old account as " a person of emi
nent qualifications, honorable extract, liberal education,
and singular piety." He was, indeed, a friend of popular
education and of academic learning, as his gift of land for
the support of schools in Dorchester and of Stoughton
Hall to Harvard College bears witness. Twenty-five years
after his death he was thought worthy to confer a name
on the new town created from the territory of the older
town, which had been the place of his birth and death.
It is well to recall that the incorporating statute required
the new town within twelve months " to procure and settle
a learned, orthodox minister, of good conversation, and
make provision for his comfortable and honorable sup
port ; and likewise to provide a schoolmaster to instruct
their youth in writing and reading." Thus did Massa
chusetts, as she established new towns, build them on
enduring foundations.
Taking the second quarter of the eighteenth century
as the period in which Stoughton was settled, we may
allow a moment's outlook on the world outside. The
power of the Indian tribes had been finally broken in King
Philip's War, and they no longer threatened danger to
settlements in this region. The colonies were advancing
in population and trade, and the sentiment of union for
the common safety was drawing them more closely
together. New England militia-men, chiefly of Massachu
setts, achieved a daring exploit in the capture of Louis-

262 THE TOWN OF STOUGHTON.
burg, — which was, however, soon after restored to France
by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. The final struggle be
tween England and France for dominion on this continent
was approaching. A revival of religion, so marvellous
that the world took note of it, was in progress along the
valley of the Connecticut. Jonathan Edwards, greatest
of American theologians, was preaching at Northampton,
and insisting, after the manner of Augustine and Calvin,
on a deeper spiritual faith and experience. The Wesleys
and Whitefield were bearing to this land the flame of re
ligious fervor which they had felt and kindled in their
own. It was during this period that the great leaders of
the Revolution were born, — Washington, John Adams,
Jefferson, James Otis, and Patrick Henry.
Europe was then the theatre of dynastic wars relating to
the Spanish and Austrian successions. It was the period
of Louis XV., Frederick the Great, Maria Theresa, and
just preceding the Seven Years' War. Eight years before
the town's incorporation Charles XII. of Sweden fell at
the siege of Frederickshall ; and only one year before its
incorporation Peter the Great of Russia closed his re
markable career. It was then that the hopes of the
Stuarts were extinguished on the field of Culloden. The
" Boston News-Letter," established a few years before,
may with its brief paragraphs of news foreign and do
mestic have occasionally reached the town ; but our
fathers, as they were struggling for a livelihood, cared
little for these dynasties and potentates whose conflicts
and ambitions are now so amply spread on the page of
history. Stoughton was from time to time reduced in area. In
1738 the territory west of the Neponset River was sur
rendered to Dedham. In 1765 Sharon became a district
under the name of Stoughtonham, and in 1775 a town, —

THE TOWN OF STOUGHTON. 263
not, however, acquiring its present name till 1783. In
1778 Foxborough, including parts of Stoughton and other
towns, was incorporated. Canton was not incorporated
until 1797; and for seventy years, — a period which in
cludes the English and French war in Canada, and the
Revolution which made the United States independent of
Great Britain, — the history of these two sister towns,
Stoughton and Canton, is one. Canton being the first to
receive settlers who passed southward from Dorchester
was during the last century the more populous of the two
towns, and more connected with historic events. There
the youth of Roger Sherman, signer of the Declaration
of Independence, was passed ; there lived and there lies
buried Colonel Richard Gridley, who won the laurels of
war and patriotism at Louisburg, Quebec, and Bunker
Hill ; there lived Rev. Samuel Dunbar, who by prayer
and speech inspired the people to deeds of heroism ; and
'there was and still remains the old Doty Tavern,^ in which
Joseph Warren presented to the County convention the
famous Suffolk Resolves.
Dorchester and Milton were well-peopled towns when
this region was a wilderness. According to Rev. Dr.
Edward Richmond, " it was not until the year 1716 that
any part of what is now Stoughton was inhabited." Civ
ilization had planted setdements to the north while the
Indians were yet lingering here, memorials of whom are
found in the arrow-heads still, or until recently, turned up
on your farms. Before homes were established on the
present territory of Stoughton, land-owners living in Can
ton may have come hither in the morning to cultivate
fields they had reduced to tillage, returning at night.
The cedars of Dorchester swamp, lying a mile to the
south of this village, were sought earlier than 1730 for
1 Destroyed by fire in December, 1888.

264 THE TOWN OF STOUGHTON.
building materials, which were carried to the head of navi
gation on the Neponset at Milton, thence to be shipped
to different points in the colony. No burials here are
recorded before 1743, which is the earliest date found on
a tombstone in your oldest graveyard, — though it is
not unlikely that some of the first settlers were previously
buried in the ancient place of sepulture which lies in
Canton. The facilities of communication from place to place in
any territory mark its progress. First there is the track
of the wild beast and the trail of the Indian ; then the
bridle-path or cart-way of the first civilized inhabitants,
changing its course with every obstruction, and laid out
to suit private convenience; at last there is the highway,
broad for safety and the meeting of travellers, resting on
solid foundations, smooth for the passage of wheels or
sledges, open to all who seek it for traffic or pleasure.
Such is the progress from savage to civilized life. >•
The oldest roads — those leading from Boston to Ply
mouth, and those from Boston to Taunton and Rhode
Island — passed to the east or west of the town as now
bounded, or touched it only on its borders. In 1700 the
Selectmen of Dorchester laid out the highway from the
Milton line to Billings's in Sharon ; and in 1733 Stoughton
laid out a road from this highway to Dry Pond, which
passed along the westernmost limit of the present town.
This important highway from Dorchester to the south
was known under various names, among which are the
Bay Road, or the road to Taunton, Rehoboth, or Rhode
Island. The centre of the town remained isolated until
1720, when a road was laid out, beginning on this high
way at Canton Corner and running to the Dorchester
swamp, — then the objective point of enterprise for this
region, — and following to some extent the course of

THE TOWN OF STOUGHTON. 265
an earlier cart-path, which may however have deviated
into West Stoughton and passed near the sites of the pre
sent factories in that locality. Thus in the early part of
the eighteenth century the heart of Stoughton, as now
bounded, was brought into communication with the metro
polis of New England. Between the incorporation of the
town and the Revolution many of the roads now used were
projected and built.
The chief matters of interest in town-meetings at this
period, as appears from the records, were the laying out
of roads and ways. There must also have been con
siderable activity at this time in clearing the land, build
ing houses, and settling the outlying districts. Thus in
1766 the inhabitants at Dry Pond, bearing names now
well known in that neighborhood, were allowed their share
of the school fund for a separate school. The map of
1794 shows how well the population had then been spread
over the town. The result was that in 1800, when the
first census was taken after the separation of Canton from
the old town, Stoughton, as thus reduced, had a popula
tion of X020, — only ninety less than that of Canton,
which was settled at an earlier date.
With a people religious like our fathers, there would be
a church as soon as there was a settled community.
Here in 1743, in what is now Stoughton, was established
a precinct or parish ; and the next year near the site of
the present First Church a meeting-house was erected,
which after being occupied sixty-three years was displaced
by the present one. Among the original church-members
are the representatives of families who have been conspic
uous during the history of the town, — Talbots, Adamses,
Holmeses, and Monks. Thus in the first half of the
eighteenth century there had grown up within the present
limits of Stoughton a community having a distinct life of

266 THE TOWN OF STOUGHTON.
its own, penetrated and intersected by roads, and conso
lidated as a parish. This stage in its progress just ante
dates the struggle between England and France for the
empire of Canada, and precedes by only a quarter of a
century the more historic struggle which severed the
American colonies from their British connection.
Some passages in the history of the town during the
Revolution, as indicative of its spirit at the time, deserve
mention. It was then in population the nineteenth town
in the State. In its formal letter of March i, 1773,
responding to Boston, Stoughton asserted with manly
emphasis the rights of the people as men, as Christians,
and as British subjects which had been violated by arbi
trary power, and concurred with other towns in uniting in
all constitutional methods for regaining those rights. It
was represented in the County convention which passed
at Milton September 9, 1774, the Suffolk Resolves, now
regarded as the earliest authoritative demand for Inde
pendence ; and one of its representatives in that body
was Jedidiah Southworth. The same month it elected
delegates to the Provincial Congress, and in January fol
lowing chose a committee of inspection, several members
of which are represented by descendants still living in the
town, — Peter Talbot, Jonathan Capen, Jedidiah South-
worth, Robert Swan, and Peter Gay. Six weeks before
the Declaration of Independence the town voted, " That
if the honorable Continental Congress should for the
safety of this colony declare us independent of the king
dom of Great Britain, we, the inhabitants, will solemnly
engage with our lives and fortunes to support them in the
measure." In May, 1778, it instructed its representative
"to vote for such large and speedy suppfies as may ap
pear necessary to enable the commander-in-chief of our

THE TOWN OF STOUGHTON. 267
armies to answer the expectations of his country, that the
war if possible may be ended the ensuing campaign, with
immortal honor to himself and permanent glory and se
curity to the United States of America."
The town was as prompt and faithful in its action as
in its formal resolutions. On April 19, 1775, nine com
panies, numbering in all four hundred and seventy
men, one of them commanded by Captain Peter Talbot,
marched from Stoughton to join the provincial army.
As appears from its records and tradition, the greater
part of its population capable of bearing arms entered
into the service. They shared in the siege of Boston, in
the defence of the harbor after the British evacuation, and
at more distant points, — in Rhode Island, along the
Hudson River, at Ticonderoga and Quebec.
Some of that patriot band who a century ago returned
to their rugged farms, poor in estate but rich in the grati
tude of their countrymen, lived to our time, and were
known by many in this audience. I name the last three,
— Captain Asa Waters, who died in 1845 ^t the age of
eighty-five, and whose widow still lives ; Lemuel Smith,
who died in 1846 at the age of eighty-seven; and Benja
min Bisbee, who died in 1849 at the age almost of ninety,
being the last survivor of the soldiers of the Revolution
who served for this town. I dwell for a moment on one
of these as an illustration of the spirit of the time, —
Lemuel Smith, my father's maternal uncle, with whom I
lived in childhood under the same roof. He enlisted
immediately after the battle of Lexington, when only
sixteen years of age ; helped to build the works on Dor
chester heights which compelled the evacuation of Boston,
and saw the British fleet as it sailed out of the harbor.
He served in 1779 on the Hudson River, and was cap
tured in February, 1780, while serving on the debatable

268 THE TOWN OF STOUGHTON.
territory lying between the British post at New York and
the American post at West Point and the Highlands.^
While he was a prisoner for fourteen months in the Sugar
House at New York, the town appointed a committee to
request the intervention of Washington for his release, and
also for that of two other townsmen who were fellow-cap
tives. Often did we boys listen, pleading again and again
to have the old story re-told, as he narrated the skirmish
in which one man was killed by his side; the winter
march to New York, in which he and his comrades, mis
erably clad and almost shoeless, stained the snow with
their bleeding feet ; the sufferings and indignities of the
Sugar House, equal to any recounted of Andersonville ;
the escape (which he witnessed) of Paulding, who three
days later was the captor of Andr6 ; his exchange and
liberation at the age of twenty-one; his weary journey,
footsore, penniless, and broken in health, to the old home
stead at Dry Pond, where he began his life-long contest
with Nature, contesting the ground inch by inch with bar
and pickaxe, still persevering when he had long passed
the ordinary limit of human life. How well I recall him !
How well many of you remember him ! — solid in person,
Samson-like in strength ; modest as he told of youth
ful exploits, never vaunting his courage, but to the end
brave and knightly in soul ; cheery with song and tale
and jest, as he sat by the fireside or trod the meadows ;
thoughtful as the shadows lengthened; bending often
before his Maker in solemn prayer, but fearless of death
as of mortal man. Such he was, and such he remains in
your memory and mine. Men like these, of humble and
unstoried lives, founded our nation, — worthy progenitors
1 Irving's Washington, iv. 8 (ed. 1857), gives an account of a skirmish
in Westchester County, probably the same one in which Lemuel Smith
was taken prisoner.

THE TOWN OF STOUGHTON. 269
of those who have in our time consecrated it afresh to
Liberty and Union.
The ancient history of a New England town usually
centres in the parish church. With the long pastorates
of former days it is often easy to connect distant periods
by the lives of a few clergymen.
Rev. Jedidiah Adams, the first pastor of the church in
Stoughton as now bounded, received his call in 1745 ; and
he remained its minister until his death, February 25, 1799,
at the age of eighty-eight, and in the fifty-third year of his
pastorate. The house which he built and lived in still
stands, the property and residence of his descendants.
He was a kinsman of John Adams, and a graduate of
Harvard College. He bore himself well during his long
career, leaving at its end, as was said of him at the time,
" a memory too precious to fall into oblivion." Like his
contemporaries. Rev. Samuel Dunbar of Canton and Rev.
Jonathan French of Andover, he maintained zealously the
patriot cause ; and his fellow-citizens, testifying their con
fidence in his patriotism and discretion, chose him in
1779 a member of the convention which was to meet for
the purpose of forming a constitution for the State. A
man of his education, connections, and knowledge of the
world must have rendered great service in diffusing moral
excellence, good breeding, and intelligence throughout
this rustic community, removed as it then was from the
centres of trafific and thought. No well-taught, right-
minded minister can live among and preach to such a
people for half a century without largely shaping public
opinion, and raising the standard of character.
Rev. Edward Richmond, D. D., a native of Middlebo-
rough and a graduate of Brown University, became the
colleague of Mr. Adams in 1792, and remained pastor of

270 THE TOWN OF STOUGHTON.
the church for twenty-five years. Resigning in 1817, he
settled shortly after in Dorchester, where he continued as a
pastor for fifteen years. He died in retirement in 1842, at
the age of seventy-five. He was a man of culture, of a sen
sitive temperament, kindly and helpful to aspiring young
men. This is the testimony of those who knew him well,
some of whom survive. Like men of his type and associa
tions, he was an earnest Federahst; and being disposed to
assert in the pulpit his polidcal views, he thus came in
collision with the adverse sentiment about him. He was a
favorite preacher at ordinations and on special occasions.
His sermons were carefully prepared, and, with their flow
ing and measured periods, read like essays.
Rev. Ebenezer Gay, a native of Walpole and graduate
of Harvard College, was the immediate successor of Dr.
Richmond. At the close of his pastorate of four years
the church was divided in doctrine, the Trinitarians with
drawing to form a new society. After his resignation
in 1822 he lived many years in Bridgewater, serving as a
pastor during a part of the time. Recently he removed
to Tompkins Cove, Rockland County, New York, where
he still lives with his son. This veteran divine, now in his
ninetieth year, who closed his ministry here nearly sixty
years ago, retains his intellectual vigor, reads without
spectacles, conducts his correspondence with his own
hand, and has within a year preached without notes.^ I
have here a letter which he wrote to me a few days ago.
Thus the lives of three clergymen — Mr. Adams, the
original pastor; Dr. Richmond, his colleague ; and Mr.
Gay, the successor of Dr. Richmond — span the entire
period during which this town as now limited has been a
settled community.
iMr. Gay was bom October 11, 1792, and died March 23, 1886. His
burial-place is in Bridgewater.

THE TOWN OF STOUGHTON. 27 1
Two other pastorates, which come nearer to the present
generation, deserve mention as a part of the history of the
town. Rev. Calvin Park, D.D., was the pastor of the
Trinitarian Congregational Church from 1826 to 1840,
and continued to live here until his death in 1847, at the
age of seventy-three. He brought to his people a mature
culture acquired in twenty-five years' service as a pro
fessor in Brown University, most of the time holding the
chair of moral philosophy and metaphysics. In theology
he was a follower of Edwards and Emmons. Many of
you will recall his erect person and still, small voice. It
is fitting to add that he vi^as the father of a son more cele
brated than himself, — Professor Edwards A. Park, the
theologian. Rev. Massena B. Ballon became in 1831 the pastor of
the Universalist Church, which still continues to worship
in the old parish meeting-house. Resigning in 1853, he
yet lives among you, respected by his fellow-citizens ; and,
present with us to-day, he enjoys at the age of eighty-one
unimpaired intellectual vigor.^ Only thirty-two years
divide the beginning of his pastorate from the close of
that of Mr. Adams, the earliest Christian teacher of this
neighborhood. The industry of the town, till about sixty-five years ago,
was entirely agricultural. The second war with Great
Britain developed manufactures here as well as elsewhere
in New England. In 1815 Hezekiah Gay and other cor
porators obtained a charter for a company, with a capital
of seventy-five thousand dollars, authorized to engage in
cotton and woollen manufacture, — an enterprise which
still flourishes on the sites of ancient sawmills in the north
western part of the town. About the same period several
1 Mr. Ballou died December 10, 1890, at the age of ninety.

272 THE TOWN OF STOUGHTON.
persons, particularly in the centre and eastern parts of
the town, began the manufacture of boots and shoes, —
an industry which developed rapidly a few years later,
and which now realizes an annual product exceeding one
million dollars in value. This is the distinctive industry
of the town, which has built up its largest villages and
brought to it railway facilities. Its population under this
stimulus grew rapidly from 1830, when it was 1591, rising
in 1840 to 2142, in 1850 to 3494, in i860 to 4830, — which
is substantially the present number.^
There are some passages in the history of the town
significant of a vigorous sentiment of nationality pervad
ing its people at an early day. Thus in January, 1781,
it voted, " We apprehend that for particular States to
make or repeal any law contrary to the resolution of
Congress tends to break the Union; " and on April xx of
the same year it instructed its representatives as follows:
" You are instructed to be very cautious in giving your
vote or votes for any law or resolve until you are well
informed that they are not repugnant to the authority of
Congress." This was the period, the early part of 1781,
when the New Jersey and Pennsylvania troops were
in mutiny, and Washington was apprehensive of disas
trous consequences to result from the weakness of the
central authority, and was pleading with the States to
invest Congress with adequate powers. Thus in an hour
of peril this town was in full sympathy with the com
mander-in-chief. The Stoughton of 1781 and the Stough
ton of 1 86 1, divided by an interval of eighty years, were
one for the maintenance of the Union and the authority
of Congress.
It is worthy of note that on the trial of the British sol-
1 Its population in 1895 was 5272.

THE TOWN OF STOUGHTON. 273
diers engaged in the Boston massacre in 1770, one of the
jurors. Consider Atherton, was from Stoughton. The ac
cused were defended by John Adams and Josiah Quincy,
Jr., at great risk to themselves of loss of popular favor.
Notwithstanding the public clamor and demand for ven
geance, the jury was true to its oath; and, carefully and
impartially weighing the evidence, convicted only two of
the accused of manslaughter, and acquitted six altogether.
Its conduct in this memorable trial inspired confidence
in the American character, at a period when as a people
we were first challenging the attention of mankind ; and
it is a grateful recollection that one of your well-known
names was on the panel.
The town has always supported popular rights. In
1778 it resolved that the Legislature ought not to enact
a plan of government, and that the proposed State consti
tution should not take effect without a popular vote ; and
a year later it adopted a vote of like tenor in the form of
instructions to its representative. It pressed as decisive
objections to the constitution whose adoption was then
pending, that it omitted a bill of rights and required a
two-thirds vote of the people for its amendment. In 1787
and 1788 it insisted, in formal votes, that the privilege of
habeas corpus and the liberty of the press should not be
infringed. Divers votes in 1786 and 1787 were emphatic
in favor of the redress of the grievances which were com
plained of by the insurgents of western Massachusetts, led
by Daniel Shays, — such as high salaries, particularly the
governor's (which they ask him as an act of grace to re
mit in part), the costs of litigation and the extortion of
lawyers, and proposing boards of arbitration and courts
in each town as substitutes for the courts of common pleas
and quarter sessions. They call for the removal of the
Legislature from Boston, earnestly insist that " the order
18

274 THE TOWN OF STOUGHTON.
of lawyers as they now practise be entirely annihilated,"
and show a repugnance to the strong measures adopted
for the suppression of the disorders. These votes of 1786
and 1787 reveal an impatience with government and a dis
content with existing social and industrial conditions. It
is not strange that a people hard-pressed by poverty and
debt, as were our fathers between the Revolutionary War
and the adoption of the national Constitution, should have
shown little discrimination in their treatment of rulers, and
have thought ill of those whom they deemed exempt from
the general calamity.
Captain Jedidiah Southworth, one of the two delegates
from Stoughton in the Massachusetts Convention which
acted on the national Constitution, voted and spoke
against its adoption, — probably for the reasons which
influenced Elbridge Gerry, who thought it failed to give
adequate securities to popular rights. His effort was one
of the last made in the convention, and the report says
that " the worthy gentleman from indisposition of body
was unable to complete his speech."
The town was decidedly Republican, or anti-Federal,
during the period when those names were borne by politi
cal parties ; indeed, during its history it has sustained the
party which at the time was believed to be most earnestly
devoted to popular rights. In no town of the State has
there been a greater equality of condition or a stronger
sentiment for equality of rights than in Stoughton. No
one individual or family, no corporation or aggregated
capital, has ever wielded a controlling influence over its
religion, politics, or pubhc opinion. Whoever on account
of wealth or birth has thought to set himself above his
neighbors has never found favor here. It is not to be
wondered at that this democratic instinct has sometimes
found extravagant expression, — as when Selfridge's effigy

THE TOWN OF STOUGHTON.

27s

was set up under circumstances especially annoying to
Dr. Richmond; or when, within the memory of men now
in middle life, the town voted to divide the surplus reve
nue per capita among the inhabitants.
The record of Stoughton on questions involving human
rights has always been an honorable one. In 1848 it was
one of the few towns in this part of the State to give a con
siderable plurality of votes to the Presidential candidate
pledged to resist the further extension of the slave em
pire. Two years later it elected a representative, Mr.
Albert Johnson, by whose decisive vote Charles Sumner
v/as placed in the national Senate, — a vote without which
that statesman would not then, or perhaps ever, have
entered on his public career. What the town did during
the Civil War; with what steadiness it supported State
and national authority ; with what alacrity it filled succes
sive calls for troops ; what service was rendered by its
enlisted men during memorable campaigns, the marches,
battles, sufferings, captivities in which they shared, — all
these are too fresh in your recollection to need recital
here, and would alone more than fill the measure of a
single discourse.
The early settlers of Stoughton were men of good stock,
and the old families have held their own against the waves
of immigration which manufactures have brought hither.
They came early, and here they are still, — the Talbots,
Southworths, Adamses, Athertons, Capens, Gays, Waleses,
Drakes, Monks, Battleses, and Porters, as well as a well-
defined branch of the widespread family of Smiths. At
all periods you have had, if not eminent citizens, many
stalwart men, healthy in body and in mind, thrifty, ener
getic, and public-spirited. Among these were Dr. Peter
Adams, a good physician, and son of the original pastor;

276 THE TOWN OF STOUGHTON.
Dr. Simeon Tucker, always the friend of education and
temperance; Nathan Drake, the elder, who carried into
age the spirit of youth, and left sons blameless in their
lives and faithful in the administration of trusts here and
elsewhere ; Joel Talbot, with much of adamant in his na
ture, but severely honest in the discharge of all fiduciary
responsibilities ; his kinsman Jabez Talbot, now your
oldest citizen, whose age, prolonged to ninety-three,
certifies to a well-ordered youth and a temperate life;
Nathaniel Morton, who at an early day opened streets
and multiplied houses in this village ; Lucius Clapp,
whose liberal donation to the public library entitles him to
lasting gratitude ; the Hodgeses, Southworths, Littlefields,
Blanchards, Swans, Hills, Waleses, Reynoldses, Packards,
Belchers, Phinneys, who dealt honorably with the artisans
in their service and developed your industry. To the list
of worthy citizens you must allow me to add that of one
nearest to me, — Colonel Jesse Pierce, who for many
years served you as representative in the Legislature and
as chairman of the Board of Selectmen, the first select
man of the town who refused to license the sale of intoxi
cating liquors, still gratefully remembered as teacher,
friend, and adviser. Time would fail me to tell of these
and of others, among the living and among the dead, who
laid the foundations of your prosperity and made this
people what it is. Their labors are your inheritance ; and
their character and deeds are present with you in memory
or tradition.
It is time that another voice than mine should be heard
here. It was fitting that the fathers of the town — they
who cleared its fields, planted its industries, and main
tained their own and their children's liberties — should
be commemorated to-day. They have come before us,

THE TOWN OF STOUGHTON.

277

clad in homespun, trudging along their rugged roads,
felling primeval forests, tilling the earth with their clumsy
implements, raising in patches their Indian corn, living
themselves and rearing their children without the luxu
ries, hardly with the necessaries, of life ; trading chiefly in
barter when they had anything to sell or something to buy
with, their exchanges interrupted by a currency worthless
or distrusted, — but with all this patient. God-fearing,
jealous of their own honor and rights, mindful always of
posterity, ready at all times to shoulder their flint-lock
muskets for the common defence. You rejoice in com
forts and opportunities which were not theirs, and your
higher privileges are the measure of your duties. This
is not now a wilderness, with here and there an Indian
hut or the struggling cabins of white men, penetrated only
by bridle or cart paths, yielding but a scanty subsistence,
with no schools or altars of religion. Here are well-
ordered roads, comfortable homes, populous villages, thriv
ing industries, churches, schoolhouses, a public library,
and at last this noble structure, with its spacious hall, its
library room, its conveniences for municipal administra
tion and social festivities, solidly built and tastefully
embellished. Citizens of Stoughton ! while this day is peculiarly your
own, you have with a generous welcome opened your
doors to others who gladly come to give you their con
gratulations. You have invited one, who though allied
to you by ancestral ties, and born and passing his youth
among you, is not now your fellow-citizen, to express the
significance of the occasion. The Governor is here to
bear witness to the constant interest of the Commonwealth
in all its people and municipalities. Various officers of
the State and county are in attendance. Neighboring
towns are represented by their selectmen or conspicuous

278 THE TOWN OF STOUGHTON.
citizens. Others, sons of the old town, bearing your
ancient names, who elsewhere in public or private life, in
high civic trusts, in business or professional careers, have
done honor to the place of their nativity, are here to tes
tify their continued solicitude for your welfare. You and
they and all — citizens and guests — now unite to dedicate
this structure to the great uses for which it was designed.
Let the votes here to be given be always for liberty and
law and good government ! Let the voices here to be
heard speak always for public virtue and knowledge, for
justice and charity ! Henceforth from this shrine, sacred
to patriotism and humanity, may there go forth influences
which shall be of perpetual advantage to this people, to
our Commonwealth, and to our Country I

THE PURITAN SPIRIT.

279

XI,

At the annual dinner of the New England Society in the city of
Brooklyn, N. Y., December 21, 1886, Mr. Pierce was an invited
guest, and responded to the toast, " The Puritan Spirit : A mighty
Force in human Progress." Among the other speakers at the
dinner were General Sherman, Joseph H. Choate, and Judge Noah
Davis. Hon. John Winslow, a fellow-student with Mr. Pierce at
Brovi^n University and the Harvard Law School, presided, and in
troduced his friend in these words : —
" I will say of the gentleman who is to respond to this toast,
though he may not be known to you all as well as he is to some of
us, that some signal honors have come to him. If it were not for
referring to personal matters, I should say that the first great honor
which came to him was that he was my room-mate at Cambridge,
thirty-six years ago, and behaved pretty well. The friendship there
formed has never suffered a jar. In his professional life he has
held the office of District Attorney, — an office, you know, which
in some parts of the country, including this part, ' means business.'
But the district in which our friend held the office included
Plymouth Rock; and so, of course, you will naturally infer the
district-attorney business was rather dull. In its traditions and
influence, Plymouth Rock is a district attorney.
" But another honor that has come to our friend — and I think
it a very choice one, whatever he may say of it — is, that that great
philanthropist and statesman, Charles Sumner, in his last will and
testament, associated him with the poet Longfellow as his literary
executor. The burden of that office, because of the death of
Longfellow, has come upon our friend. How ably, capably, and
faithfully he has performed it thus far, the two volumes that have
been published attest. It is with special pleasure that I introduce
the Hon. Edward L. Pierce, of Boston."

28o THE PURITAN SPIRIT.

THE PURITAN SPIRIT.
Gentlemen of the New England Society, — Your
President's kind words call up precious memories of our
school days at Cambridge, passed in " the quiet and still air
of delightful studies." We were young then, — I younger
than he, though you would hardly believe it, — each
with less solid weight than we now have, though neither
had then " a lean and hungry look," and with hope elevat
ing and joy brightening the crest of both. Knowing, as I
do, the roots of his character, I have watched with all the
interest of early friendship his career in this city of his
adoption. As I have seen him in the chair this evening,
I have been reminded how sturdy and enduring are the
Puritan characteristics, even in person. I once remarked
to one of the present generation of the Adamses, how
strikingly he and his brothers resembled his father, grand
father, and great-grandfather in stature, features, and bald
ness. " Perhaps so," he replied ; " but, after all, I have
only one-eighth of my grandfather in me." Your Presi
dent is, I believe, only collaterally connected with, and
also removed many generations from, Colonel John
Winslow, of Marshfield, who with a sad heart removed the
Acadians; so that, instead of one-eighth, he may not have
one-thousandth part of .that provincial officer's blood in
him. But the historian of " Montcalm and Wolfe "
describes Colonel Winslow at the time of that transaction
as fifty-three years of age, with double chin, smooth fore
head, arched eyebrows, round, rubicund face, and a close-
powdered wig, — a fair description, I submit, of your

THE PURITAN SPIRIT. 28 1
President, Judge Winslow, if he had not left his judicial
appendage at home. I trust I do not anticipate titles for
more than a year.
We are all happy to be at a New England dinner To
most of you, however, it is a greater novelty than to myself,
for I sit at three hundred and sixty-five New England
dinners during a year, — not all, indeed, so sumptuous as
this; for if they were, my household and myself would
hardly live to complete the annual round.
Your President has mentioned my relations to the late
Senator from Massachusetts, the friend of my youth and
later years. It is interesting to recall that Mr. Sumner's
last appearance before the people, his last public words,
except brief utterances in the Senate, were at the New
England dinner in New York, a few weeks before his death,
where he was in company with General Sherman as fellow-
guest, — going, as he said at the time, under pressure from
his friend Mr. Cowdin, and taking the only holiday he had
allowed himself in a long public service. His tribute to
the Pilgrims marks the end of his career, as his oration
on " The True Grandeur of Nations," in 1845, niarks its
beginning. It is always most pleasant to me to find myself among
the New Englanders of New York ; for I have to confess
to a kind of feeling, that better than a New Englander at
home is a New Englander transplanted. The strong blood
of his race which the emigrant carries with him is quick
ened by the larger life which awaits him in this metropo
litan centre; and more than those left behind, he values
his precious birthright. Is it not a truth of history, that
the best fruits of a great idea are often yielded elsewhere
than on the spot where the idea was first planted? If you
visit Eisleben where Luther was born and died, you will

282 THE PURITAN SPIRIT.
find, as I found, the churches on Sunday, even the one
most associated with his memory, almost deserted, while
the ale-houses at the same hour are crowded; yet the
power of the great Reformer still sways northern Europe,
and is an enduring fact in civilization. You need not seek
modern Geneva — that miniature of Paris, that factory of
watches and music-boxes — to study the fruit of Calvin's
work ; for while you will see there a statue to Rousseau,
whose dreams and confessions might have been spared
without serious loss to mankind, you will find none to
the man who as thinker and magistrate is the greatest
in her history : not there, but rather in Scotland and
America, will you find the immortal stamp of his mind and
character. So now, when so many of our New England
cities and popular towns are passing under the control of
crowds who have no connection, by blood or training or
ideas, with that early history we commemorate, the time
may not be far off when you will have to seek on the farms
of the Western Reserve of Ohio, of Michigan, northern
Illinois, Missouri, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, and Kan
sas for the best realization of the Puritan influence and
character. I have myself trodden with a traveller's interest the lanes
and fields of Scrooby and Austerfield associated with
Brewster and Bradford, and have visited in Leyden the
house where Robinson taught his flock, and the cathedral
opposite where he was buried ; but I cannot confess to any
new inspiration drawn from these spots. The Puritan
spirit has no limitadons of place ; it exists wherever there
is united fear of God, love of man, stubborn loyalty to
convictions, the spirit of self-sacrifice, the readiness to
suffer, and if need be to die, for a good cause, — be that
cause a pure faith, the freedom of the slave, the preser
vation of the Union, or the safety of society. In technical

THE PURITAN SPIRIT. 283
dogmas there was little of the Puritan in Channing, Palfrey,
Parker, Mann, Sumner, and Andrew ; in dress, habits, and
nurture, how unlike our grim forefathers were the fair
youths whose names Harvard has carved on memorial
slabs ! there is nothing in this brilliant scene which revives
the picture of the men with wan faces, meagre fare, and
Bible speech, whom we are here to honor. But, neverthe
less, the Puritan spirit has survived all mingling of blood,
all changes in manners, all new departures in theology, all
reconstructions of government. It has survived in the
martyrdoms of Torrey and Lovejoy and Brown ; in re
formers and statesmen who have broken the fetters of the
slave ; in the benefactors of schools and colleges and
noble charities; in that uncounted host of men of New
England origin or nurture who have stood for a lofty
ideal of duty and sacrifice ; in the heroes celebrated and
unknown who fought for the cause of Liberty and Union.
It lives also in us if we do our part, as they did theirs,
in the cause of good government, of pure administration,
of honest money, of equal laws for all men of every race
within our borders, Caucasian, African, or Semitic. To-day,
among whom, outside the Quakers, do you find the leaders
in the cause of justice to the Indian, confronting land-
grabbers, and — hardest of all to bear — the indifference
and sneers of even Christian people? It is among New
England men, — statesmen like Henry L. Dawes in the
Senate, and citizens like William H. Lyon, your townsman,
honored member and officer of your Society.
Though not by education or profession a Calvinist, I
have a profound respect for the body of believers who
bear that name. If they have contemplated with a too
lurid imagination the depths of human depravity, they
have always pointed to the heights which human nature
might attain. With all the Apollyons of human sin they

284 THE PURITAN SPIRIT.
have ever been ready to grapple. You never saw a Cal
vinist who was a pessimist or a cynic.
Mr. President, I attempt no distinction between Pilgrims
and Puritans ; between the colonies of Plymouth and
Massachusetts Bay; between Carver and Brewster and
Bradford on the one hand, and the Winthrops on the
other, — both happily united before the close of the seven
teenth century, and all comprehended in our filial gratitude
and affecdon. Looking at them as men of their time, I
have no sympathy with any one — historian, or critic of
dogmas and manner — who has a sneer for their faith,
their observances, their ways of hving and speaking, —
even though it be true, as one has facetiously said, that
they came in a month of winds and storms, and took a
cold which has affected the intonations of their posterity.
I prefer always to regard the Pilgrim Puritans or the
Puritan Pilgrims in a large way, as emancipators of the
human mind, as evangelists of liberty to mankind. I de
light to recall the confession of Hume, — partisan of the
Stuarts and cynic as well, — that the Puritans kindled and
preserved in England the spark of liberty, and that to them
the English owe the whole freedom of their Constitution.
I remember that Bancroft, professor of a different faith,
attributes to Calvin the influence which enfranchised the
human mind, and carried the doctrines of popular liberty
over the globe. Dean Stanley, dignitary of the Church
from whose persecutions our fathers escaped, standing in
Leyden Street in Plymouth, said thoughtfully and rever
ently, " This is the most historic street in the world."
It deserves special note that the few questionable acts of
our fathers appear in a better light as the records of their
time are subjected to keener research and criticism. Al-

THE PURITAN SPIRIT. 285
lowing all that is due to Roger Williams for his assertion
of " soul liberty," modern studies have shown that this
" conscientiously contentious man," as one has called him,
this " arch-individualist," as another has styled him, was
excluded from the Massachusetts Colony for reasons almost
wholly if not purely political, — for his disturbance of the
public peace, his insubordination to civil authority outside
matters of religion and belief, his assault on the foundations
of civil government. He was visited with none of the
dire penalties inflicted in those days on heresy, and was
simply allowed to withdraw to the milder climate and
better soil of the Narragansetts. Dr. Dexter's monograph
on this question has been accepted as a true version of
history by eminent historical students of Rhode Island,
like Professor Diman.
The removal of the Acadians a century later, in part
executed by Colonel Winslow, has been another of the
grave charges against our fathers. Romance has pictured
their sad migration from Grand Fr6 to distant Louisiana.
Their tale of woe has been told in the hexameters of
our most renowned poet. The imagined face of Evan
geline, fair maiden of seventeen summers, reproduced in
illustrated gift-books and hanging on cottage walls, has
taught impressible childhood how cruel were the men of
New England of the eighteenth century. But it now
appears, from Mr. Parkman's authentic narrative, that the
Acadians, stimulated and wrought upon by French priests
and emissaries, were a hostile body encamped within
British territory, in dangerous proximity to the enemy's
line, at a dread moment when two well-matched powers
were contending for the mastery of the continent. Nor
was the extreme measure of expatriation resorted to until
all efforts to bring the Acadians to their allegiance had
failed.

286 THE PURITAN SPIRIT.
The men of New England here and everywhere, with all
their traditions of freedom, are again summoned to the de
fence of the old cause now assailed from a new direction.
Our fathers contended for liberty of conscience and of wor
ship. A later generation fought for the right to tax them
selves, or, in a larger sense, for national autonomy and de
velopment. Still a later one, amid fire and blood, broke the
fetters of four million slaves, and welded this nation to
gether. But now the right of men and women to labor for
themselves and their families is assailed by terrorism and
violence. To the aspirations of toiling millions Christian
America will always respond with sympathy, favoring all
social and industrial arrangements which will promote
their welfare. But to one thing, as a free people, we must
hold fast. The right of every man to work for whom he
pleases, and as long as he pleases, and for what wages he
pleases, — with a corresponding right in every man who
wishes to employ him, — is a fundamental, an original, a
primordial right, lying deeper than statutes or any human
devices, just as essential as the right of every man to own
himself, born with us and derived from Nature herself.
If we are not to hold this right free, unlimited, and abso
lute ; if it is to be yielded to threats, to boycotts, to the
despotism of self-constituted bodies, — vain then are all
that Milton and Sidney and Harrington and Adams and
Jefferson have written! Vain, too, are those fields of
blood at Saratoga and Gettysburg! Are freemen — sons
of Pilgrim and Revolutionary sires, struggling to give bread
to their children — to be driven from their work-shops, to
be compelled to lose the fruits of their labor, to mortgage
and sell their homes, to draw from the savings-bank the last
farthing of their deposits, and then with their starving and
weeping families to go forth to beggary or the almshouse,
at the dictation of any illegal and irresponsible power?

THE PURITAN SPIRIT. 287
Men of New England, it is for you to answer. All honor
to that elected Mayor of New York,^ though not a New
Englander, who, when recently standing for the suffrages
of his fellow-citizens, kept his manhood, and boldly struck
at dangerous heresies ! All honor to that high prelate,^
though not a Protestant, who with clear thoughts, set in a
vigorous style, has just ministered to his flock in timely
warnings !
On Friday last, the poet, who by his sympathy with her
ideals, her history, her scenery, and her common life, is
distinctively the poet of New England, completed his
seventy-ninth year.^ Rich in fame and the gratitude of
mankind as he is, we bespeak for John G. Whittier
continued length of days. He will allow us to apply
to all New England what he has written of his beloved
Massachusetts, —
" For well she keeps her ancient stock.
The stubborn strength of Pilgrim Rock,
And still maintains, with milder laws
And clearer light, the Good Old Cause."
1 Abram S. Hewitt.
^ Archbishop Corrigan.
8 Mr. Whittier died September 7, 1892, at the age of eighty-four.

288 THE CITIZEN'S CONSTANT DUTY.

XII.

Colonel William W. Clapp, then editor of the " Boston
Journal," invited ten genflemen of Massachusetts to write a series
of articles, to be published in the "Journal," on political subjects
likely to interest voters. Among the other writers of this series
were the two United States senators from Massachusetts, Mr.
Dawes and Mr. Hoar, — and also Mr. Dawes's successor, Mr.
Lodge. The article contributed by Mr. Pierce (so much of which
as relates to the support of one party being here omitted), as one
of the ten writers, was published in the "Journal" October 29, 1887.

THE CITIZEN'S CONSTANT DUTY.
Another State election is at hand, and every citizen
is called upon to perform again the duty which, if he is
right-minded, he has ^performed annually since he became
twenty-one, and which he will continue to perform every
year of his life. It is a permanent duty, not to be aban
doned until he forswears allegiance to his country. It
is a continuous duty; not one incumbent only once in four
years or once in two, but one obligatory every year, and
as often as an election — national. State, or municipal —
occurs. If one cidzen may forego it rightfully, then may
all ; and if all were to follow the example of the faithless
one, there could be no representative government. It is
no apology to answer that others will do their duty, and
a vote here and there wiU not be missed. No one can
shake off his responsibility by assuming that others will

THE CITIZEN'S CONSTANT DUTY. 289
discharge theirs. The citizen's duty to vote is individual,
and his default creates a vacancy which no other citizen
can fill. Besides, the example of an unfaithful citizen is
contagious ; and if he is indifferent to the welfare of his
city or town, of his State and his country, he diffuses
about him an atmosphere of indifference which is fatal
to public spirit in the community where he may be con
spicuous for his wealth, his business activity, or his so
cial power. This asceticism which withdraws men from
human activities may be well enough in monks, but it is
altogether unnatural among citizens.
The absence from the polls of citizens who have a
stake in society is an invitation to others who are " on
the make " to come in and occupy the field which has
been left vacant. The official corruption which has pre
vailed for a generation in the metropolitan city of New
York (just now calling universal attention in the trial of
Sharp), which has controlled of late years the great west
ern city of Chicago, and which has at last invaded the
city of Boston, would in each case have been beaten back
if good citizens had kept up the same interest in their
civil duties as they have taken in the management of their
business and the care of their families. The career of
Tweed means that great numbers, counted by thousands
and even tens of thousands, who were regular in attend
ance in counting-rooms, never gave a thought to their
duty to vote at elections, and, what is equally essential,
to unite beforehand with others of like mind so as to make
their votes effective. The vote is all-important ; but of
not less moment is the preparatory conference, be it
caucus, convention, or by whatever name it is called.
Burke's words are trite enough, but they are ever true:
" When bad men combine, the good must associate ; else
they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a con-
19

290 THE CITIZEN'S CONSTANT DUTY.
temptible struggle." Nor is the evil of polidcal indolence
and indifference confined to great centres of population.
What has happened in cities has come to pass also in
many quiet towns where the abdication of duty on the
part of good citizens has opened the way to wild enter
prises, extravagant expenditures, and heavy debts.
It is a noteworthy fact that when affairs in nation,
State, or town go wrong, the citizens who are habitually
indifferent to their civil duties are the first to complain ;
and they are of all men apt to complain most vigor
ously. I recall an incident in point, which occurred a few
years ago in my own town. As I was standing in front
of the town-house, trying as best I could to influence my
fellow-citizens aright, I observed a gentleman on horseback
riding by leisurely, who, on solicitation, refused to stop a
moment and give his vote, saying, with a complacent air,
that he had not voted for many years ; and yet about the
same time he complained of the increase of his taxes.
Good citizens ought to remember, that, with their
continuous exercise of the elective franchise and their
continuous activity in civil affairs, their votes have a
power beyond their numbers. Their public spirit, their
admitted capacity, their personal character, their success
in business, perhaps their liberal charities, all combine to
give a tenfold power to an individual vote. There are
always scores of men who, without pretension to large
knowledge or experience, mean to do the right thing
under the best light they have, and they are glad to
follow the just and well-informed man in whom they put
faith. This personal power is one of the social forces
which can be wielded for vast benefit to mankind, — and
more, perhaps, in civil than in all other affairs.
Young men, particularly young men engaged in trades
and commercial business, ought to begin life with the

THE CITIZEN'S CONSTANT DUTY. 29 1
determination to perform faithfully, continuously, and to
the end their duty as citizens, never neglecting to vote at
an election. What they at first, perhaps, think to be a
task, they will come to enjoy as a relaxation. There is
always satisfaction in duty performed ; and they will find
in the performance of political duty not only a patriotic
service, but also the exercise of the higher qualities of
the mind. They will learn much of human nature, some
times in its lower forms, but often also in its higher.
They will come to see how masses of men are wielded,
how the forces of society are moved, how States are main
tained and developed, how laws and institutions are per
fected. There is no finer constructive work in the world
than the building and perfecting of political communities ;
and every young man can find here a field for his interest
in his fellow-men, for his generous aspirations, and for
the exercise of all those fresh powers of his being which
are yearning for activity and development. Regarded in
their true light, there is no better moral and intellectual
gymnasium than the town-house and the ward-room.
Among the leading States, there is none where default
in political duty prevails so much as in Massachusetts.
It has been here an evil of exceptional growth, and its
disastrous effects are beginning to manifest themselves.
In May, 1885, there were 442,612 legal voters;^ but in
the November following only 209,668 votes were cast for
governor. Allowing for a natural increase of four or
five thousand voters between May and November, there
appear to have been as many as 237,000 voters who failed
to vote, — more stay-at-homes than voters who did their
duty. Such a non-voting population cannot be found
1 Or, rather, " potential " voters ; that is, those who could have qualified
as voters. In 1895, out of 560,802 "potential" voters only 328,121 voted,
leaving 232,681 who did not vote.

292 THE CITIZEN'S CONSTANT DUTY.
anywhere else among the Northern States. Twenty years
ago Dn Lieber, the pubhcist, sought a comparison between
qualified voters and votes cast in Massachusetts. His
correspondent (Charles Sumner) requested me to pre
pare a table; and Dr. Lieber was surprised to find what
a large proportion of our people put no value on the
citizen's birthright Some years ago this startling fact
was partly explained by the great majorities of the pre
vailing party, which made the result a certainty, and
therefore in advance induced both sides to be inactive;
but that condition of things has passed away, and now
that every vote tells, this explanation of former indiffer
ence will not apply to the present. Things have come to
a pass in some places, and are approaching it in others,
where the Commonwealth, and the town or city where his
lot is cast, cannot spare the vote of a single citizen. The
cause of good government, which comprehends all inter
ests, — just laws, an efficient police, the suppression of
crime, good schools and highways, honest administration,
moderate taxation, — makes it imperative that the primal
duty lying at the source of civil society should be sacredly
observed. All our concerns — directly or indirectly,
sooner or later — are affected by laws and the quality of
their administration. Crime and pauperism are greater
or less, the police is more or less efficient, our homes and
persons are safer or more exposed, the streets are more or
less passable, the schools are better or worse taught, the
public moneys are wisely or foolishly spent on buildings
and works, the taxes are lighter or heavier, business is
assisted or cramped, labor receives a greater or less re
ward, just in proportion as citizens do their duty punctu
ally and intelligendy at the polls. There are towns in
this State where the rate of taxation now exceeds twenty
dollars on a thousand, often more than half the income

THE CITIZEN'S CONSTANT DUTY. 293
that a tax-payer can get out of his property, — an enor
mous burden growing out of improvidence during and
since the Civil War, repelling and driving out capital so
that the laborer is forced to go elsewhere for employment.
It is an old lesson, repeated too often in our time, — that
when responsible citizens, for the sake of ease or other
cares, step out, they may be sure that all that is corrupt
and low-toned and improvident in society will step in to
take their place; and the sure effect will soon come in
high tax-bills and bad government
There are, however, redeeming features in the situation.
It is a good sign that in our schools, public and private, the
scheme of civil government is now taught as never before.
It is a good sign that tracts are being published by soci
eties interested in political culture, with the same object
which Charles Sumner had at heart when he bequeathed
half his fortune to the Library of Harvard College, to be
expended only on books relating to politics and the fine
arts. It is a good sign that large bodies of emigrants
from the mother country, speaking our language and long
living among us, are waking up to a sense of unperformed
civil duties, and are qualifying themselves therefor by
naturalization and registration.
And can there be a higher and nobler duty than that
which is incumbent on the citizen? Politics is the science
of government; and what study is more ennobling and
far-reaching? Aristotle, one of the greatest of human
intelligences, made it the subject of a treatise which for
more than twenty centuries has commanded minds of
the best character and wisdom. Strike from history the
statesmen who have founded, preserved, or developed
States, and what a dismal blank would be left !
The only excuse ever offered for political indifference
is the ignoble passions of politicians and parties. True

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298 A CITIZEN OF BOSTON: HIS DUTIES.
scene of rural beauty. But with all this transformation from
large fields once swept by the scythe to groups of villages,
there still remains a natural scenery distinguished for va
riety and beauty, with lawns suggestive of English taste,
gardens and villas which win admiration from travellers,
and avenues and by-ways adorned with trees and shrubs.
The changes I have mentioned are to continue with the
exigencies of a crowding population; and they should
be qualified and mitigated by the skill of architects, for
esters, and gardeners, and the constant thought of public-
spirited citizens.
Our fathers made us a meagre bequest in the way of
architecture. They have left us in churches and public
edifices hardly any which aside from associations are
worth preserving. The Spaniards were better builders;
and the cathedrals of Mexico and Puebla, — the former
erected a few years before, and the latter a few years after,
the settlement of Plymouth, — as they stand to-day, would
attract admiration in any city of Europe. But the Puri
tans looked with no favor on such costly expressions of
faith; and their consciences would have forbidden them
to enslave the native population and use their forced
labor in the cause of religion. King's Chapel, not built
till the middle of the eighteenth century, and the State
House, not built till nearly its close, are the most attrac
tive structures which precede this century. The present
generation has witnessed a remarkable advance in archi
tecture in this vicinity. The genius of Richardson, a light
too soon extinguished, and of other masters of his craft,
has adorned the city and suburbs with noble arches and
domes, and with homes combining comfort and exquisite
taste. Not only in styles of building, but also in the treatment

A CITIZEN OF BOSTON: HIS DUTIES. 299
of public grounds, excellent skill has been shown. The
scene which lies before you as you stand on Arlington
Street looking toward the Public Garden, is as fair as any
that will meet your eye in European cities. Four years
ago, as I was passing a few hours in the home of the
Arnolds at the English lakes, Matthew Arnold, who was
a critic of scenery as well as of books, spoke with enthu
siasm of the view at the spot I have named, saying it was
in his mind's eye at the moment.
It is a good fortune to live where great events have
transpired, where good men have wrought well for man
kind. A lofty shaft to the north commemorates the de
votion of our fathers. From their rude breastworks on
Dorchester Heights they witnessed the departing fleet of
Great Britain. Scant traces only remain of Washington's
circumvallation around the city; but the old elm still
stands at Cambridge under which he drew his sword for
Independence, and the house still stands which sheltered
him during those eventful weeks. In Milton there is pre
served the house where Warren's " Suffolk Resolves "
were adopted. In an hour or less you can take your chil
dren to Lexington and Concord, —
" Where once the embattled farmers stood.
And fired the shot heard round the world."
The Old South Church and Faneuil Hall echo to the voices
of Liberty and Union. There are cherished among us the
homes and graves of statesmen, scholars, and poets, which
are now and always will be sought by pilgrims from afar.
Harvard College is one of the greatest attractions of
Boston and its vicinity. It has, in every period of our
history, diffused a refinement in life, an activity of thought,
and a liberal spirit among our people. Its advantages are

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302 A CITIZEN OF BOSTON: HIS DUTIES.
nominal rate; and this unique benefaction is still main
tained according to his original intent The Fuggerei
make a square by themselves, which is entered by gates,
and are visited by travellers as one of the principal sights
of the old city. To-day, Greek merchants, who have
amassed fortunes in different parts of the world, are
adorning the city of Athens with noble structures. In
kindred services for one's native or chosen home are
opportunities for all who, inspired by an honorable instinct
of human nature, desire to leave behind them a record
and a memory.
Boston was once called " the Athens of America." It
derived this name in part from its diffused culture, in part
from the intense civic spirit of its people, and perhaps also
in part from the good opinion which they have always had of
themselves. Though sometimes given in satire, it was in
a certain way appropriate at an early period. But the city
has undergone great changes during the last thirty or forty
years, — changes not merely in the centres of business or
in the quarters of fashion, or in costlier houses or churches,
or in new avenues and parks, but also in the habit and
tone of the people and the shifting of political power.
Some links connecting with the past remain, but the
greater number are broken. Boston is no longer limited
to sixty or eighty thousand inhabitants, as it was within
the memory of some still living and active, — a provincial
town, in which every well-to-do citizen knew every other
of like condition. It has become metropolitan in area and
numbers, and cosmopolitan in tastes and opinions. It
comprises within its limits more than four hundred thou
sand people;^ and this number, including the suburban
population within twelve miles, rises to nearly eight hun-
1 The population of Boston had risen in 1895 to 496,920.

A CITIZEN OF BOSTON: HIS DUTIES. 303
dred thousand.^ Once a people almost wholly of English
descent, and of the Protestant religion in its simplest and
sternest form, we are now mixed in origin and divided in
faith. Some may sigh whose fathers were the first citizens
of the ancient town, or who themselves recall the city as it
was when the principal inhabitants were nearly all found
within ten or fifteen minutes' walk from the State House ;
but regrets are vain. The changed circumstances — a so
cial revolution as it were — must be met by greater civic
activity, by larger sympathies with men of all conditions
and beliefs, and by constant efforts to melt the incongruous
elements into one citizenship and nationality.
Amidst all changes, there are some points to which we
must hold fast : without them there can be no safe anchor
age for our institutions. Whatever else we may be, we
are and must remain Americans. The contests of the Old
World must not be imported here. We may take a senti
mental, an academic, a humane interest in what transpires
in Europe. It is well enough to celebrate the arrival of a
saint in a pagan land, the death of an emperor, the fifty
years' reign of a queen, or the fifty years' priestly service
of a pontiff; these sympathetic and commemorative de
monstrations are harmless. But here the limit is reached.
Emigrants who ask for the rights must accept the duties
and limitations of American citizenship. They must not
make our land the tramping-ground of foreign agitators,
or the base of operations for raids on the territory of
friendly powers. They must not attempt to force the issues
of foreign parties upon us, or to run our politics on lines
of race and religion : no ties of kindred justify such a per
version of the welcome which our country has given to
mankind. We have laws and courts, judges and juries,
and just men to arbitrate; and there is no place within
1 Now (1896) considerably exceeding a million.

304 A CITIZEN OF BOSTON: HIS DUTIES.
our jurisdiction for barbarous weapons of class warfare
imported from abroad, — sure, when resorted to, to involve
capitalists and laborers in a common ruin. The natural
ized citizen is required to forswear foreign titles of nobility
and foreign ties of allegiance ; but it is of far greater con
sequence that he renounce affiliations and antagonisms of
race when he takes his oath as an American citizen. If
any peculiar privileges or powers, or any title to offices or
patronage, are asserted on the score of foreign origin, the
claim must be stoutly and fearlessly resisted. The public
man who for the sake of popularity or votes yields to it,
is false to his manhood. Those who make it are doing the
worst thing for themselves, — creating prejudice, suspicion,
and resentment, which are sure to result in reaction and
determined resistance. We have one flag, dear to us for
all it signifies and for all the heroism it has inspired, and
we can admit no foreign device to share its place as the
symbol of our nationality. It testifies to the unity and
solidarity of a great people, composed, not of Scandina
vian citizens or Irish citizens or German citizens, but of
American citizens only.
Of all our American institutions the public school is the
one to which we must adhere with the firmest tenacity.
If in founding it our fathers were forecasting, we are de
generate indeed if we do not stand by it in one body.
Among the enduring honors of Massachusetts is her devo
tion to this institution, which was estabhshed in days of
poverty and struggle. Wherever her civilization has
spread, the common school has been the first care of
her sons, whether making new homes in the heart of the
continent or on the Pacific. Its primary object is the
education of the whole people ; but its secondary object is
equally important, — the fusingof men of all races, religions,
and orders into one common citizenship and nationality.

A CITIZEN OF BOSTON: HIS DUTIES.

305

My own earliest recollection is of my seat in a public
school, in a square stone structure at the cross-roads ; and
all my children have been taught in similar association
with those of my neighbors. The public school is not
immoral or godless because it confines itself to its legiti
mate purpose, and forbids the intrusion of proselytism
while treating all creeds on the basis of absolute equality.
The time has come to give the warning that this institution,
intrenched in the affecdons of our people, will be defended
. at every cost against assaults from every quarter.
The separation of our youth by sectarian lines during
the period of education is a subject requiring grave and
delicate treatment It should be discussed temperately,
but without reserve. Parents may train their children in
matters of faith as they like. Acting individually and
without pressure, they may, for reasons of intellectual or
religious disciphne, or any other, place them in such day
or boarding schools as they choose. These rights are
traditional with us, and they are unchallenged ; the inter
ference of the State in such affairs would be likely to do
more harm than good. But parents, whatever their faith,
should soberly consider that with an enforced withdrawal
of all the children of one sect from the great body of those
of their own age, such children are to be inevitably the
sufferers. They are to lose that community of association
as well on the play-ground as in the school-room, and that
mutual interest and fellowship in youth the loss of which
will interfere seriously in after life with their success in
business, their social opportunities, and that absorption in
and identification with the mass of American citizens so
desirable on high public as well as personal grounds.
One startling evil of recent years is the enormous amount
of money spent in elections. A small fraction of it is

3o6 A CITIZEN OF BOSTON: HIS DUTIES.
applied to the legitimate purpose of spreading information
among voters ; but by far the greater part of the expendi
ture is demoralizing and corrupting in its results. It is
freely charged and generally believed — I make no refer
ence to particular localities or elections — that here in
New England votes are bought freely and in sufficient
numbers to decide results, the corruption fund sometimes
reaching the individual voter and sometimes stopping in
the hands of middlemen. No feature of our political
society is so alarming. It means that the primal sources of
patriotism are being poisoned. It has been in all ages
such a mark of declining public virtue, that, but for the
recuperative power of free institutions and of the Anglo-
Saxon race, we might fear for the worst But the time
has come to take a stand against this demoralization, for
which we hear too many apologies. No man, however
sheltered by wealth or good name, should be spared who
directly or indirectly shares in it. No assumed respectabil
ity of the giver and no assumed necessity of the receiver
can palliate the enormity of the offence ; each should meet
the reprobation of all honest men and the felon's doom.
Some men, honorable in other relations, wink at such
practices on the ground that only by them can what are
called the dangerous tendencies of universal suffrage be
tempered; but States are not worth saving which require
such remedies. Happily, in our country there is no such
alternative as between the destruction of society and the
resort to base means to save it. At the worst, an evil is
but temporary where a decision adverse to sound politics
or good morals may soon be reversed by a new appeal to
the people. Better, then, leave the government to bad
men for a time than have the people corrupted for all
time by such efforts to rescue it. In a large view, more
over, all dishonest and corrupt expedients are bad policy.

A CITIZEN OF BOSTON: HIS DUTIES. 307
Always in the long run, and generally in the immediate
exigency, it is better politics as well as better economy to
disregard the votes and influence which are for sale to the
highest bidder, — often not delivered even when paid for,
— and with patriotic appeals to go straight to the best
moral and political sense of the people. Sad, indeed, it is
that there are candidates who will pay the price, and poor
creatures who will take it; but saddest of all is the too gen
eral indifference to a transaction — the buying and selling
of a freeman's birthright — which public opinion ought to
stamp as infamous.
Nor is there anything in power or office which can com
pensate for personal dishonor in winning it Public life
has attractions for generous minds, who are conscious of
capacity and crave its opportunities. The aspiring young
man reads of the founders and leaders of States, and hopes
to tread in their footsteps ; but he may have to wait a
lifetime in vain, while he sees honors and dignities con
ferred upon others less competent, as he may think, than
himself. Better, however, than all honors and dignities is
the consciousness that from youth to age he has borne an
unsullied banner.
" 'Tis not in mortals to command success ;
But we '11 do more, Sempronius : we '11 deserve it."
I make no apology, on the eve of a national contest des
tined to be one of the most interesting and educating in
our history, for entering on topics like these.
The questions which now confront the citizen have a
peculiar variety and complexity, and are in close relation
with home interests. Theories of the character and scope
of our national Constitution are in the main settled. Sla
very, which troubled the national conscience and finally

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310 A CITIZEN OF BOSTON: HIS DUTIES.
Magnolia, Mass., July 22, 1888.
My dear Mr. Pierce, — I am very much indebted to you for
remembering me with a copy of your admirable pamphlet on the
" Obligations of the Citizen." Its pages deserve to be written in
letters of gold j and I thank you for the privilege of reading and
preserving it Faithfully yours,
Henry W. Foote.

THE FREE SOILERS OF 1848 AND 1852. 311

XIV.
Mr. Pierce, assisted by the late Henry O. Hildreth, arranged a
reunion of the Free Soilers of Massachusetts, survivors of the
national elections of 1848 and 1852, which was held at the
Parker House in Boston, June 28, 1888, the fortieth anniversary
of the first convention which organized the party in the State.
Among the one hundred and fourteen persons who took seats at
the table were Chief-Justice Marcus Morton ; Samuel E. Sewall,
the veteran lawyer ; Francis W. Bird ; Thomas Wentworth Hig
ginson ; John Winslow, of Brooklyn, N. Y. ; and Horace E.
Smith, of Johnstown, N. J. John G. Whittier was present at
the reception immediately preceding the dinner ; but being an
invalid, he left just before the guests proceeded to the dining-hall.
Mr. Pierce had in 1848, though not then of voting age, taken an
earnest interest in the election of that year ; and as soon as he
became a voter in 1850, he took an active part in the Free Soil
movement. He presided at this dinner, and gave the opening
address.

THE FREE SOILERS OF 1848 AND 1852.
Veteran Free Soilers of Massachusetts ! Forty
years ago you rallied for the defence of freedom in the
United States. Forty years ago this day, in the city of
Worcester, under the open sky, to the number of thou
sands, the freemen of the Commonwealth, coming from all
its counties, met with one inspiration, and declared by
formal resolutions and the voices of eloquent orators their
determination to resist the extension of slavery to another

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3X4 THE FREE SOILERS OF 1848 AND 1852.
M. Fisher of Medway, are living. The latter, whose anti-
slavery work goes back to 1833, fifty-five years ago, is
with us to-day. Of the delegates chosen for the State
or districts to attend the national Free Soil convention
at Buffalo, only Josiah G. Abbott,^ John A. Kasson,
Chauncy L. Knapp, and Mr. Fisher survive. Mr. Adams
presided over the mass convention at Buffalo ; and at one
of its sessions, his presence being required elsewhere, he
withdrew from the chair, calling to it Francis W. Bird, a
veteran whom we greet to-day.
The greatness of the issue which brought the Free Soil
party into existence appears when we recall the fact that at
that time the population of the country, slightly exceeding
twenty millions, was, with the exception of Texas, limited
to the States east of the Mississippi River, and to the four
States contiguous to its western shore. Beyond the great
river, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas were slave
States, with Iowa alone secure to freedom ; all else was
territory with destiny undetermined. The propagandists of
slavery demanded, with threats of disunion and armed re
sistance, that the Territories — those recently acquired from
Mexico and those included in the Louisiana purchase —
should be open to slavery. That vast region, then unin
habited but now swarming with population, imperial in
space, stretching from the western boundaries of Iowa and
Missouri to the Pacific Ocean, and from the British posses
sions to the Mexican line, with untold mineral and agricul
tural wealth, was in peril. Contemplate its territorial magni
tude and its capacity as a seat of empire ! It embraced
more than sixteen hundred thousand square miles, —
five times as many as were included in the original thir
teen States, and more than half of our entire dominion
before the later purchase of Alaska. It was altogether
1 Judge Abbott died June 2, 1891.

THE FREE SOILERS OF 1848 AND 1852. 315
unrecognized in the census of 1840, and was reported in
that of 1850 with only two hundred thousand inhabitants,
chiefly natives and new settlers in California and New
Mexico. To-day it numbers not less than seven millions
of people,^ equal to a third of the entire population of the
United States in 1848, — a number which, in view of the
western movement of the mass of emigrants from continen
tal Europe, is likely to rise to twenty-five millions within
the lifetime of men now living. Truly, the Free Soilers
of 1848 did not exaggerate when they warned the people
that the destinies of countless millions were at stake.
Their movement saved Oregon, which under its pressure
was organized as a free Territory immediately on the
adjournment of the Buffalo convention. It concentrated
the Antislavery sentiment of the North against the exten
sion of slavery. It stood defiant in 1852, when the two
old parties declared the Compromise Measures of 1850 a
finality, and attempted to crush out all agitation against
them. It prepared the way for that larger movement
which came near success in 1856, and finally triumphed
in i860. History commemorates it as one of the stages
in that grand conflict with slavery which made our country
free from ocean to ocean, with no master and no slave in
any part of its domain. Sumner expressed its significance
at the time : " We found now a new party. Its corner
stone is freedom ; its broad, all-sustaining arches are truth,
justice, and humanity."
The specific object of the Free Sotl movement of 1848
was the exclusion of slavery from the territories ; but its
idea and spirit were broader. Its platform at Buffalo —
largely the work of Salmon P. Chase, assisted by Charles
Francis Adams, and Benjamin F. Butler of New York —
called for legislation by Congress against slavery wherever
1 According to the Census of i8go, it amounted to 7,395,806.

3l6 THE FREE SOILERS OF 1848 AND 1852.
it depended on national law. Satisfied with this compre
hensive declaration, the Liberty party — which had cast
seven thousand votes in 1840 and sixty-two thousand in
1844, in each case for James G. Birney — joined in the new
party, which, with Van Buren and Adams as candidates,
cast two hundred and ninety-one thousand votes in 1848.
This number was reduced in 1852 to one hundred and
fifty-six thousand, chiefly by the return of the Barnburners
of New York to the Democratic party. In Massachusetts
the party maintained its vigor until the election of 1854,
when it was distracted bj' the Know-Nothing controversy.
A year later it was merged in the Republican party, which
grew out of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.
The Free Soilers of Massachusetts were men of extra
ordinary vitality. Not only their foremost leaders, but
their chief men in towns and cities were strong in their
combination of intellect, will, and intense moral convic
tions. Casting less than forty thousand votes at their
highest point, and falling at times below thirty thousand
(less than a third of the voters of the State), it is note
worthy how many of them afterward came to the front
rank in public life. Samuel Hoar, Horace Mann, Stephen
C. Phillips, and Edward L. Keyes died before the war; but
the other leaders lived to take part in the civil conflicts
which ended in the entire abolition of slavery in the United
States. The Legislature chosen in 1850 placed Sumner in
the Senate, where he remained till his death, in 1874, —
always the antislavery protagonist in Congress, and for ten
years chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations.
Wilson became his colleague in 1855, succeeding Edward
Everett ; served as chairman of the committee on Military
Affairs during the war, and when he died, in 1875, was
holding the second office under the Constitution of the
United States. Adams, entering Congress by an election

THE FREE SOILERS OF 1848 AND 1852. 317
in 1858, was soon called to represent the country as its
ambassador to Great Britain, and to conduct the most im
portant diplomatic controversy in our history; the pubhc
spirit inherited from his ancestors he transmitted to his
sons, two of whom were old enough to give their youthful
sympathies to the Free Soil cause. Charles Allen was
chosen to a seat in Congress, and later served for a long
period as chief-justice of the Superior Court E. Rock
wood Hoar has served as justice of the Supreme Court of
the State, member of Congress, and attorney-general of the
United States. Anson Burlingame, after service in Con
gress, became our minister to China, and was adopted by
that country as its ambassador to European nations and
our own. Richard H. Dana, Jr., as United States district
attorney and author, assisted in the just settlement of most
important questions of international law, and was nomi
nated minister to England, his confirmation being defeated
only by personal malignity. John A. Andrew became
illustrious as governor of the State during the Civil War,
and after an interval William Claflin was his successor in
that office. Marcus Morton of Taunton, an old Jeffersonian
Democrat, came with his three gifted sons into the move
ment; and the one bearing his name and inheriting his
judicial faculty has had a career of thirty years on the
bench, and now holds the high office of chief-justice of the
Commonwealth : we gratefully recognize his presence at
this table to-day.-" To the roll of members of Congress has
been added from the party, besides names already men
tioned, those of George F. Hoar, of Worcester, now our
senator in Congress, and one of the foremost in that great
body; John A. Kasson, of New Bedford, at one time min
ister to Austria; Alexander De Witt, of Oxford; Amasa
Walker, of North Brookfield ; John D. Baldwin and Wil-
1 Chief-Justice Morton died February 10, 1891.

3l8 THE FREE SOILERS OF 1848 AND 1852.
liam W. Rice, both of Worcester; Chauncy L. Knapp, of
Lowell; Daniel W. Gooch, of Melrose; John B. Alley, of
Lynn; Eben F. Stone, of Newburyport; Henry L. Pierce,
of Dorchester ; and Robert T. Davis, of Fall River One
of the most accomplished of the Free Soil leaders was
Erastus Hopkins, of the Connecticut valley, ever to be
remembered as an orator of rare grace and power, and a
steady and unselfish advocate of freedom ; we are glad to
recognize his features and genius in his son, a leader at
the bar of Massachusetts, and present with us.
But I must not prolong the enumeration. Time would
fail me to tell of Gideon and of Barak, and of Samson
and of Jephthah, of David also and Samuel, and of the
Prophets, who through faith stood firm for the freedom
of a race, wrought righteousness, out of weakness were
made strong, waxed valiant in fight, breasted social and
political proscription, and served faithfully a cause as holy
as any for which martyrs have died. We have with us as
participants in this reunion two distinguished men, whose
antislavery service exceeds a half century in duration, —
John G. Whittier, the poet of freedom, now of four-score
years; and Samuel E. Sewall, still older, the Nestor of the
Massachusetts bar, born in the last year of the last cen
tury.^ We welcome with tender regard the author of
those inspiring hymns which touched the hearts of millions
of freemen and broke the fetters of the slave; we honor
the patriarch of the law, whose services were always at
the command of fugitive slaves before hostile or unsym
pathetic tribunals. In this connection I ought to recall
to you that the Liberty party cast one thousand votes for
its first candidate for governor in 1841, and nearly thirty-
five hundred the next year; and that from 1843 to 1847
- Mr. Sewall died December 20, 1888 ; and Mr. Whittier died September
7, 1892.

THE FREE SOILERS OF 1848 AND 1852. 319
inclusive — five successive years — the standard-bearer
was Samuel E. Sewall, whose vote rose from six thousand
to nearly ten thousand ; his modesty and self-abnegation
have alone kept him from being called to high public
trusts. We are fortunate, too, in the presence of Horace
E. Smith, formerly of Chelsea, now dean of the Law School
at Albany ; of John Winslow, formerly of Newton, now an
eminent citizen and lawyer of Brooklyn, N. Y. ; and of
Francis W. Bird, who at the age of seventy-eight retains
the freshness and vitality of youth. ^ One word for the
absent, whom necessity and not their choice prevents their
mingling in this festivity, — Annis Merrill, of Boston, who
emigrated to California in 1849, and now lives in San
Francisco ; Shubael P. Adams, of Lowell, who has lived
since 1857 in Dubuque, Iowa; ^ John A. Kasson, of New
Bedford, long a resident of the same State; and Herman
Kreissman, of Boston, later of Chicago, once consul-gen
eral to Germany, and now residing in Berlin. Among
others necessarily absent are John B. Alley,^ now travel
ling abroad ; William Claflin, who engaged his seat with
us, but was at the last moment kept away by a disability
resulting from a recent accident; Henry L Pierce, who is
on his way to Europe ; Judge Hoar, who is seeking health
at Sharon Springs ; and his brother, the senator, engaged
in public business at Washington.
A reunion of the Free Soilers of Massachusetts took
place at Melville Garden, in Hingham, August 9, 1877, —
the twenty-ninth anniversary of the convention at Buffalo,
where many here to-day, and others no longer living, were
the guests of the late Samuel Downer. This second re
union, it is altogether probable, will be the last celebration
of that historic movement. Allow me to add one sugges-
1 Mr. Bird died May 23, 1894. ^ jy;,-, Adams died March 14, 1894.
^Mr. Alley died January 19, 1896.

320 THE FREE SOILERS OF 1848 AND 1852.
tion. This occasion is commemorative, and has no rela
tion to present controversies or divisions. The heats of
youth are passed, and we can all well afford, however we
may now be parted in our political relations, to give this
day to common memories of a great struggle in which we
stood shoulder to shoulder in defence of human liberty on
this continent.

THE ADOPTED CITIZEN.

321

XV.

The Association of British Americans, in Boston, held a meet
ing in the Dudley-Street Opera House, Roxbury (Boston), October
17, 1889. Mr. Pierce was invited on that occasion to deliver the
address. The veteran journahst, George H. Monroe, wrote in the
" Boston Herald," October 20, 1889 : " Mr. Edward L. Pierce de
livered an admirable address upon 'The Adopted Citizen,' in Rox
bury, last week, which has just appeared in print. It is thoroughly
non-partisan, and abounds in sensible and statesmanlike advice.
What it says of the caucus is particularly good. It abounds in
wisdom, and has many quotable sentences. Here is one of them :
' An ideal constitution is as waste paper without a right-minded
people behind it ; and on the other hand a people such as laid the
foundations of New England will work successfully almost any
scheme of government, and evolve from it order, liberty, and
progress.' "

THE ADOPTED CITIZEN.
Few occasions are more interesting than one like this,
when a body of persons, intelligent and public-spirited,
assume the rights and duties of citizenship. In other
directions there' are signs of a similar movement. The
Hebrews, for instance, most of whom have a considerable
stake in society, have been of late disposed to give up their
habit of aloofness. A year ago I accepted with pleasure
an invitation to address one of their meetings in this city,
on the propriety and advantage of an active interest in
public affairs ; and I am informed that their accession to

322 THE ADOPTED CITIZEN.
the ranks of voters was sensibly felt in the last municipal
election. Everywhere we must note how generally edu
cated young men are entering political contests, not merely
the national, but the State and municipal elections as well.
With all my heart, gentlemen, I bid you welcome to the
proud title and precious heritage, — prouder and more
precious than royal favor can give, — the title and heritage
of American citizens.
Why Englishmen living among us have been hitherto
slow to transfer their allegiance, has not been clear at first
sight. Perhaps taking a pride, and a just pride too, in
their native land, they have been reluctant to sever the
civil bond which bound them to her. Coming here they fled
from no tyranny, no exhausting taxation, no oppressive
conscription, no grinding poverty; and they have regarded
the old tie of country like that of family and kindred, as
one never to be broken. But such detachment from pre
sent interests of great moment, which are to affect one's
children as well as one's self, must, from the nature of
things, be temporary. No good man can live long among
a people and yet keep himself apart from them. By a law
of human sympathy he will gravitate to them, and become
a combatant in their contests and a sharer in their weal
and woe.
The transition is easy, in your case, from the old alle
giance to the new. You come from one people to another,
— each, however, of the same racial stock, with the same
language, and mostly the same institutions. The common
law which, as administered in our court-house to-day, de
termines our rights of person and property, was wrought
out in Westminster Hall. Here and there are deviations
arising from new conditions, but the body of doctrine is
the same, formed and developed by the customs and
notions of justice which make English character and Eng-

THE ADOPTED CITIZEN.

323

h'sh history. Our national and State constitutions affirm
certain fundamental rights; but they found their model
in Magna Charta wrested from King John, the Petition of
Right yielded by Charles I., and the Declaration of Rights
accepted by William and Mary. The trial by jury and
the habeas corpus are from the same historical source.
The rules of parliamentary law which are of vital efficacy
in all public and popular assembhes, and are essential to
the working of a democratic polity, are altogether an Eng
lish growth. A judiciary independent of power from
above and of dictation and passion from below is another
inheritance from the mother country. Even the written
constitutions of Nation and States, which restrict govern
ment and safeguard the people, are a reproduction and
development of colonial charters which, with no substan
tial alterations, some of our States have preserved to a
recent period as their fundamental law. Methods of ad
ministration devised by the English race in any quarter
of the world, however divided by barriers of empire or
ocean, are naturally transplanted into every region where
that race prevails. Thus the mode of voting, intended to
secure privacy and secrecy to the elector, first put in
practice in Australia more than thirty years ago and
adopted in England in 1872, is to be tested in this State
in the election of next month ; and if it bears the test
well, it is altogether likely to become the American sys
tem. Aside from law and government, I need hardly
speak of that community of intellectual life flowing from
one country to the other through the channel of a common
language; so that, with all English-speaking people the
world over, there is an identity of thought in every de
partment of speculation.
The American system of government differs, however,
in one respect from the English or any foreign system, —

324

THE ADOPTED CITIZEN.

even from that of Switzerland, which bears some anal
ogy to it. It imposes a double allegiance on every
citizen, — one to the United States, and the other to his
pardcular State. The Federal government, which repre
sents the nation, is charged with foreign affairs, with com
merce with other nations and between the States, and with
divers matters which concern the whole country. All
other interests, by far the most muldfarious, are within the
exclusive competence of the State. This dual system
under which two governments move in their distinct orbits
— each kept in its own sphere by the national Supreme
Court, the final arbiter — has been admired by publicists
as the most remarkable invention of political wisdom.
Without doubt it is our great contribution to mankind in
constructive statesmanship. It seemed in advance almost
impossible to work it ; and even now, after the lapse of a
century, one wonders that it works with so little friction,
so little conflict of jurisdiction. The men who shaped it
in 1787 were wise architects indeed; but it was not their
wisdom alone which has made the fabric enduring. They
framed it for a people who knew how to use it, — for a
people of moral earnestness, of solid sense, of self-control;
for a people largely descendants of English Puritans ; for
a people who believed profoundly in liberty, — not in liberty
as a dream, a phantasm, a festal show, but in liberty held
in restraint by moral obligation and regulated by law.
As citizens of the United States we vote for President
once in four years, and for members of Congress once in
two. Citizenship of the State comprehends participation
in all State and municipal elections. In no country does
the voter find himself so tasked as here, and oftentimes
he is bewildered by the number of officers for whom he
must vote. The importance of the national and of the
general State elections is always sufficiently impressed on

THE ADOPTED CITIZEN.

325

us ; but too little consideration is given to the municipal,
often the most important of all. There are men who
vote always for President, but who never vote for mayor
or selectmen. It is, however, the municipal government
which concerns most directly every citizen. On its char
acter depend the rate of taxation, the security of persons
and homes, the efficiency of the pohce, the quality of
the public schools, the maintenance of streets and high
ways. If you hear a policeman passing your door at
midnight, it is one thing to know that he is doing duty as
a faithful watchman, and quite another to suspect that
he is tramping on some political errand. Things may go
wrong at Washington, and your share of the loss may be
srrfall; but extravagance and corruption at the City Hall
are quickly felt in your tax bills, and in diminished se
curity of person and property.
The people of all free countries naturally divide into
parties, and these will rarely be more than two. Detached
citizens will not count except in a nice balance of the two
parties. The cipher with a digit before it has power, but
without that it is naught. A moral sentiment like that
arrayed against slavery may keep alive a third party ;
but the contest against American slavery was altogether
exceptional, and is no guide in the political controversies
of to-day. If any one hopes to give any direction to
politics, he must do it not as a critic from outside, but
only by active membership of the one party to which he
is by his instincts and beliefs most affiliated. After all, it
is the parties, the great parties, with their nomenclature
varying from time to time, which have carried on our
system of government; and, on the whole, we probably
get better legislation and better administration through
the responsibility which they assume than we should have
if the field were clear of them, and all voting were non-

326 THE ADOPTED CITIZEN.
partisan and unorganized. It is an old fashion to rail at
party spirit, but party spirit is essential to the life of
States. The trouble will come (may we have the wisdom
to meet it!), when, with the subsidence of sharply accent
uated issues, the strife of politics becomes a mere struggle
for place and patronage.
The working of parties involves the caucus, or primary
meeting. This is simply a method by which people who
think alike make their votes a united force instead of
dissolving them into multitudinous atoms. This asso
ciated action is so natural and essential that citizens who
wish in a particular emergency to come together without
reference to party, perhaps to overthrow party action, are
obliged at once to confer and combine. The caucus,*as
it now exists among us, differs from former methods only
in this respect, — that it recognizes the right of the mass
of voters of the party to name the candidate, instead of
leaving the nomination to a few persons who assume the
function voluntarily. In England, formerly, a noble or
land-magnate proposed his son or some friend for a seat
in Parliament, and a submissive tenantry accepted him.
Edmund Burke, rejected by Bristol, found a seat for Mal-
ton, a pocket borough of the Marquis of Rockingham, —
returning to that body again through " the back door of
the Constitution," as he called it. Within our time, some
clique or self-created committee has named the candidate ;
and the electors, still accustomed to defer to rank and
leadership, have approved. But even in England one
notes that now, with an enlarged electorate, associations
enrolling the mass of voters of the party have become
the nominating bodies. As that country advances to
universal suffrage, she comes nearer to the American
caucus. The caucus, in which all the voters of a party have a

THE ADOPTED CITIZEN. 327
voice, is an American creation. It exists among us, and
probably always will exist If you would do your full
part as citizens, you must take a hand in it. You must
not stay in your club, where you meet only neighbors with
tastes like your own ; but you must go to the primaries,
and rub shoulders with all sorts of men. The caucus is
indeed no ideal institution. It is a human device, an
imperfect method of evolving the best sentiment, a
machine which often works mischief and scandal. It
sometimes brings to the front the men who make a trade
of politics, — men whom you would not trust with any
serious responsibility in ordinary affairs. It is often
swayed by mere prejudice and jealousy, by the love
of winning, — indeed, by all sorts of impulses which have
in them no patriotism whatever. You will often go home
disgusted, resolving that you will never find yourself in
such a place again. But, after all, your accusations
against the caucus are against universal suffrage, even
against human nature. The caucus is human life over
again, with all the weakness, the short-sightedness, and the
selfishness of men as revealed in all human activities.
You will find, however, that if yourselves and others like
you attend the primary meetings habitually, - — not once
in three or four years only, but always, — you will have
your way four times out of five. The man of intelligence
and character and singleness of purpose has indeed only
one vote like his fellows ; but there is a power other than
numerical behind that vote. It carries along with it men
who have faith in him, and who trust his superior knowl
edge and his public spirit Natural leadership asserts
itself in the caucus as everywhere else.
I do not enjoin absolute obedience to the caucus major
ity. Ordinarily those who enter it take their chances, and
must abide the result : they cannot rightfully do otherwise

328 THE ADOPTED CITIZEN.
from caprice, disappointment, or mere preference for
another candidate. But if the caucus puts before the
electors dishonest men, those who are incompetent or
otherwise unfit, it is the duty of every good citizen by
all means in his power to compass their defeat. It is
no cant, but solemn truth, to say that the obligations of
manhood and patriotism must always transcend those of
caucus and party.
Let me say to you, gentlemen, who once British sub
jects are now, or are shortly to become, American citizens,
that in this transfer of allegiance you take no step down
ward. Rather should you feel like rising to a higher con
sciousness as the sharer of graver responsibilities, and the
inheritor of nobler attributes. Alone among great civil
ized nations our form of government is settled beyond
controversy or question. We are not like unhappy France,
vexed with monarchists and revisionists, with pretenders
royal or military. We are not like England, facing prob
lems of federation and the reconstruction of one legis
lative house. Our American commonwealth since the
Civil War is no longer treated as an experiment ; it came
out of that fiery trial unified and consolidated, with an
august future before it. This faith is not born of enthu
siastic optimism or a self-confident patriotism ; it is the
testimony of foreign observers. In an interview with
Kossuth at Turin, some sixteen years ago, he said to me:
" You have been through a bath of blood ; you have come
out of it with glory. You will yet be a people of a hun
dred millions ; and whether you will or not, you will have
to bear your part in the world's destiny."
A recent English critic, Mr. Bryce, doing in a measure
what De Tocqueville did nearly sixty years ago, while
not overlooking dangerous tendencies among us, comes to

THE ADOPTED CITIZEN. 329
the same favorable conclusion. But such a future pre
supposes a public spirit, a patriotism ever constant and
vigilant. An ideal constitution is as waste paper without
a right-minded people behind it ; and on the other hand
a people such as laid the foundations of New England will
work successfully almost any scheme of government, and
evolve from it order, liberty, and progress. The character
of a people and their civil polity will naturally react upon
each other ; but the former is the vital force, and is sure
to come out victor in the end.
There is no nobler title than that of American citizen.
Twice only before in history has there been a designation
at all comparable with it. The Roman found protection
wherever he followed the eagles of the Republic or the
Empire, from the Euphrates in the far east to the British
Islands in the far west. The Apostle's words, " I appeal
unto Caesar," silenced the governor of Judea, and carried
the prisoner to the feet of the emperor at Rome. In
modern times, something of the same universality of
empire has been realized by Great Britain, — "a power
which," as Mr. Webster said, "has dotted over the sur
face of the whole globe with her possessions and military
posts; whose morning drum-beat, following the sun and
keeping company with the hours, circles the earth with
one continuous and unbroken strain other martial airs."
But American, unlike Roman, citizenship signifies at
last the freedom of all men, — no enslavement of captives,
but equality of rights, irrespective of race, nativity, or reli
gion. Unlike British citizenship, it signifies no privileged
orders, no primogeniture or entails, no union of Church
and State, no hereditary throne and peerage. Apart from
European complications, with no standing army and no
need of one, with our magnificent domain bounded by the
oceans, with the traditions of noble ancestors before us,

330 THE ADOPTED CITIZEN.
with opportunities for enterprise and education opening
everywhere, it is for us to carry human well-being to its
highest attainable point It is for you who are joining the
ranks of American citizens to assist in this grand consum
mation. For you is a heritage such as has fallen to no
people before; and God grant you the will to preserve
and perpetuate it for yourselves and your posterity !

The following letter regarding the foregoing address is from the
then President of Cornell University, New York : —
Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y.,
July 9, 1890.
My dear Mr. Pierce, — What a good sensible address this is
of yours on the " Adopted Citizen " I I wish that every English
subject in this country might read it, for it would do them and the
country great good in many ways.
Very sincerely yours,
Andrew D. White.

MARATHON AND CHATTANOOGA.

331

XVI.
Mr. Pierce is a member of the Ben Stone, Jr., Post of the
Grand Army of the Republic, Dorchester, Mass. On Memorial
Day, May 30, 1890, in the First Parish Church of Dorchester, he
was the chosen orator of the occasion.

MARATHON AND CHATTANOOGA.
Comrades, — We meet again on this May day to
commemorate our dead comrades who served in the Civil
War. We come not as mourners, but rather to rejoice
that such as they have lived. We dedicate the day to
patriotism, to our common country, and to the free insti
tutions which we have inherited from our fathers. The
sentiments which unite us as one people under one gov
ernment gain new vigor and life as we stand by the head
stones of those who served well in the great civil conflict
of the world's history, and pay our tribute to them in this
sacred place. We come here with no sense of triumph
over fellow-countrymen ; and wherever those once arrayed
against us celebrate to-day the devotion of fathers, brothers,
and sons who fought for what they believed to be right,
we send them our fraternal greetings, bidding them only
to serve with us in the future for the common Union and
the common Liberty. The country of Washington is their
country not less than ours. For them, as for us, are all
the promises of the Declaration of Independence, all the
guarantees of the Constitution of the United States. The

332 MARATHON AND CHATTANOOGA.
boon of the final result was more to them than to us ; for
it made them a free people, and took away the only im
pediment to their progress.
It has been my fortune, within little more than a twelve
month, to stand on two renowned fields of war where human
destinies were at stake; the one ancient and distant, and
the other modern and within less than two days' journey,
— Marathon and Chattanooga. Divided though they are
in time by twenty-three and a half centuries, they may be
placed together in their relation to the permanent interests
of mankind. The one arrested the triumphal march of
Oriental despotism over Europe; the other arrested the
progress of American slavery on this continent, and in
sured the perpetuity of this Republic.
On a summer-like day of April of last year, after a drive
from Athens of twenty miles, with Hymettus on the right
and Pentelicus on the left, I stood and meditated on that
plain, six miles in length and two in breadth, looking out
across the strait on Euboea, encircled by rugged moun
tains, treeless, marshy at the sides, covered with vineyards
in the centre, — the field where, five hundred years before
the Christian era, ten thousand Athenians, with one thou
sand volunteers from Plataea, charged on Persians more
than ten times their number, and drove them to the sea.
Byron, lover of Greece and familiar with the place, has
described —
" The flying Mede, his shaftless broken bow ;
The fiery Greek, his red pursuing spear;
Mountains above. Earth's, Ocean's plain below ;
Death in the front, destruction in the rear !
Such was the scene."
A mound rises on the plain, its only elevation, raised by
the Greeks to commemorate their fallen heroes whom they

MARATHON AND CHATTANOOGA.

333

buried there. Their commander was Miltiades, supported
by Themistocles and Aristides.
The devotion of the Greeks on that day — of common
soldiers and their chiefs — saved not only their country,
but Europe also, from the Asiatic hordes that threatened
civilization itself. The Persians had overrun the East;
one empire after another had fallen before them, —
Lydian, Syrian, Armenian, Babylonian, Egyptian; they
were masters of India and of the countries to the north,
and they now threatened Europe as it was threatened a
thousand years later by the Moslems. Greece, narrow in
territory, limited in resources and men, but brave and
skilful in arms, held the outpost ; and at Marathon she
arrested the career of Asiatic despotism. Nor was this
her only achievement on that field. What she then did
has ever since been an inspiration to mankind. Valor,
patriotism, self-devotion, displayed on one day and in one
country, are an example for all time and for all men. A
modern writer, Mr. Creasy, who has described in a volume
the " Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World," beginning
with Marathon, including Saratoga, and ending with Water
loo, says of the first : " It secured for mankind the intellec
tual treasures of Athens, the growth of free institutions,
the liberal enlightenment of the Western world, and the
gradual ascendency for many ages of the great principles
of European civilization."
But we need not go to antiquity or to remote lands to
find examples of heroism, or to stand onfields where the
interests of mankind were at stake. We have had such
examples among us, those we have known and loved, and
whom we now honor ; and there are many fields in our
country where fidelity and courage, no less than those of
Marathon, were displayed in our Civil War. Ours, too,
was a cause wide-reaching in its relations to humanity.

334 MARATHON AND CHATTANOOGA.
A few weeks ago I saw, for the first time, Chattanooga,
¦ — presenting a scene more picturesque than Marathon,
where issues were decided greater than those which hung
on the day when Greeks confronted Persians. It is an
opening six miles square, not much larger than the plain
of Marathon, where the view from below is circumscribed
by the mountains (the Cumberland) which divide the
cotton from the grain-growing States, — a great bulwark
of Nature, broken here by the Tennessee River, where it
makes that curve which gives to the land it almost encir
cles the shape of an Indian's moccasin. It is a splendid
amphitheatre, — mountains above and around, and the
winding river below. Here, where high ranges cluster,
the three great States of Tennessee, Georgia, and Ala
bama join hands. Here is all the romance of Nature, —
precipitous heights, lonely valleys, tortuous streams, fit re
treats in other days of the eagles and the Indians, and still
haunted by the red men's legends. The time had come
when this scene was to have an interest apart from Nature,
and far more than Nature in all her wildness could give it,
as a decisive field for the cause of Liberty and Union.
Here converged two lines of railway, — one connecting
the Mississippi with the Atlantic, and the other connect
ing the North with the Gulf of Mexico. It was a great
strategic centre, essential to the unity of the Confederacy
and to the easy transportation of soldiers, munitions of
war, and supplies from one part of its territory to another.
Here our armies mustered from remote fields of war, —
from the Mississippi, the Cumberland, the Potomac ; sol
diers from the West and soldiers from the East, — to
maintain the unity of the Republic at its vital and central
point This territory, smaller than many of our New England
towns, bears the battle-names of Chickamauga, Wauhatchie,

MARATHON AND CHATTANOOGA.

335

Missionary Ridge, and Lookout Mountain. It is illustrated
by the devotion of Union soldiers led by Rosecrans, How
ard, Geary, Schurz, Sheridan, Hooker, Thomas, Sherman,
Grant. Here are the graves of thirteen thousand Union
soldiers, and of as many more who fought bravely on the
other side. Among the wounded on one of these fields
was one of my college mates, the colonel of the Thirty-
third Massachusetts, General A. B. Underwood, — a sol
dier and citizen as finely tempered as Sir Philip Sidney,
and who lived till a recent period. It was at Missionary
Ridge, November 25, 1863, where one hundred thousand
men, counting both sides, were engaged, that the rebel
forces were beaten, and the way opened to Atlanta and the
final dismemberment of the Confederacy.
Rarely in modern warfare has there been so much of
romance as in this interesting locality. Pitched battles by
light of day there were ; but not these alone. Pontoon
bridges were laid, and bodies of troops crossed and
descended rivers in darkness, moving so noiselessly as not
to startle the pickets on the banks ; fierce onsets at night
under a sky lit by moon and stars, or beclouded ; charges
in the mist by day; soldiers discovering comrade and
enemy by the flash of muskets; a thousand bayonets
gleaming in the sun as the fog lifted ; the climbing of
precipices in face of deadly volleys of musketry ; and most
remembered of all, the dauntless Hooker and his men
fighting " above the clouds," — a warfare miscellaneous
and romantic, such as has never been witnessed within
reach of the eye, from a single point, anywhere in the
world. The contest here, as elsewhere in our Civil War, was not
between a superior and an inferior race, between armies
differing in arms, in drill, and in chiefs ; but on both sides
there was the same people, of the same fibre and blood,

336 MARATHON AND CHATTANOOGA.
practised in the same kinds of warfare, and inheriting the
same soldierly qualities, with leaders taught in the same
schools and by the same masters. It was not the vigorous
European pitted against the worn-out Asiatic, an army of
freemen against an army of slaves, modern artillery and
firearms against primitive spears ; but it was a contest in
which each side matched the other, except as one or the
other might at the time have the advantage of position or
supplies or numbers. What was done at Marathon — a
handful of Greeks routing a horde of Persians — was not
possible in our Civil War.
This national triumph led to social and political changes
of transcendent importance. It is not military transactions
alone which concern the spectator who takes the view from
Lookout Mountain to-day. The eye catches from that
elevation glimpses of seven States, — Tennessee, Georgia,
Alabama, the two Carolinas, Virginia, and Kentucky; a
territory which, including Virginia as she was when un
divided, comprehends three hundred and thirty-eight thou
sand square miles, more than the kingdom of Great Britain
and the empire of Germany united. Their population in
i860 was seven millions and a half; it is now, or soon will
be, double that number.^ Thirty years ago Chattanooga
was a quiet hamlet of two thousand people ; it is now a
city of fifty thousand or more inhabitants, ambitious for
supremacy as the first city of the Southwest. By its rail
ways it stretches out its hands in every direction ; it is a
great centre of traffic; it has a various manufacturing
industry ; it is a storehouse of mineral products ; it ex
hibits, instead of the dead stillness before the Civil War,
the life, the hope, the enterprise of the most aspiring cities
of the Northwest Its people are covering with homes the
¦ 1 The population of these States, with their boundaries as in i860, was in
1890 more than twelve millions, according to the census of that year.

MARATHON AND CHATTANOOGA. 337
sides of the mountain, where railways are running to the
summit; and villages are rising where once contending
armies met.
In those seven States seen from Lookout Mountain there
were in i860 more than two and a half millions of slaves;
now there is not a slave within their borders. Those who
were then bought and sold are now citizens, masters of
their time, earners of wages, pupils and teachers in free
schools, and voters at the polls. Chattanooga has two
schools for colored children, containing fifteen hundred
pupils. The colored man votes as freely there, and his
vote is counted as honestly, as with us. He is paid for his
labor, and is more prosperous than the workingmen of a
great portion of Europe. In considerable districts the
conditions of the colored population are less favorable ;
but in view of the marvellous transformation which has
taken place so generally in the South I have faith that
time and patience, education and enterprise, will renovate
the whole. What one sees from Lookout Mountain typ
ifies the South as it is and is to be, from the Potomac to
the Rio Grande ; and one who stands there to meditate
asks himself. What has done all this ; what has made this
new departure in history; what has given to civilization
on this continent this new start, this new direction? The
answer is at hand. The change did not come from a mere
conflict of arms. W^ar alone is a calamity, not a boon ; it
ravages and desolates ; it spoils the husbandman, destroys
capital, reduces population, deteriorates manly growth,
and demoralizes peoples, conqueror and conquered alike:
but a war with ideas and principles at stake may greatly
develop and advance humanity, — and such was ours.
Whatever interest may attach to marches and battles,
war, it must ever be remembered, is never justifiable ex
cept as a last resort in saving some great cause, in pro-

338 MARATHON AND CHATTANOOGA.
moting some great idea. John Bright once said to me,
" If ever a war was just, it was your Civil War ; " and
what is it that distinguishes our Civil War from the bloody
conflicts which fill the pages of history? It was, in the
first place, the cause of the Union, — the cause, as it has
been called, of " an indestructible Union of indestructible
States." Here was a country vast indeed in extent,
stretching from ocean to ocean through twenty-three par
allels of latitude, divided at one time among several dis
coverers, — ¦ England, France, and Spain ; but wide as it
was, it was nevertheless stamped with physical unity, no
where cut asunder by barriers not yielding readily to
modern enterprise and skill ; traversed by rivers which
from source to mouth were made for one sovereignty;
peopled for the most part by one race, speaking one lan
guage, holding the same religion, governed by one law,
inheriting the same traditions, reared under republican
forms, — all sharing in the memories and glories of the
American Revolution, and revering the exalted name and
character of Washington. The Mississippi and its great
tributaries could never be shared in peace by rival nations:
the Father of Waters must flow unvexed by their strifes to
the sea. Above all, the experiment of self-government on
this continent was to be a failure, " a lost cause," if the
Republic were once cut in twain, and the way opened to
other divisions between East and West, ending no one
could tell when or where. The cause of Union was there
fore not one of territory, of empire, of dominion, — it was
the cause of free government, of American hopes and des
tiny, of civilization.
The Revolution which divided us from Great Britain
made us a nation, free and independent; but the pride,
the affections, the loyalty of the people for a long period
gathered about the States, themselves the successors of

MARATHON AND CHATTANOOGA. 339
the colonies. The sentiment of common nationality, weak
at the beginning, comparatively weak even when the Con
stitution was made, advanced from year to year, — imper
ceptibly at times, but now and then with rapid strides
under favoring events.
As our commercial relations extended, the flag of the
Union became the symbol of protection to the American
citizen wherever in foreign lands business or adventure
might call him. The War of 18 12 quickened the senti
ment of Union. The insubordination of South Carolina
called for General Jackson's proclamation, with the mem
orable words, "The Federal Union! it must and shall be
preserved." Webster's reply to Hayne, read by all citi
zens and declaimed in ten thousand schools, lifted the
people to a conception of national unity. Thousands and
tens of thousands of Fourth of July orations — sometimes
of real merit, often turgid and vainglorious — have, together
with the festivities of that anniversary, done much to in
spire the people with a love of their past history, and with
confidence in the future of the Republic. At last came
the great conflict in which fought side by side soldiers
of all the States, with their flags intermingled, tramping
together in long marches, communing by the same camp-
fires, moving together in steady phalanx when the final
order of " Charge " was given, sharing in common glories
and buried in common sepulchres, — making the Union
of the States and of the people thereof not only grander
in our imagination, but dearer than ever in our hearts.
My comrades, it is our happy fortune to have lived in
this period of a broader patriotism and an intenser national
spirit, and to have borne our part in making that patriot
ism and that national spirit what they are to-day.
But our cause was not that of Union only, it was the
cause of Liberty as well. Our fathers did the best they

340 MARATHON AND CHATTANOOGA.
could under the lights they had ; but inheriting slavery,
they were compelled, as they thought, to tolerate it as a
local institution, hoping and believing that it would soon
pass away. In this, however, their foresight was at fault.
The one institution which they supposed to be temporary
proved to be a permanent cause of division. It increased
in power and numbers with the production of the great
Southern staples of cotton and tobacco, and with the ex
pansion of our territory. Its supporters grew in pride
and ambition, and at last sought to make it perpetual,
and to spread it beyond its old limit, even to the Pacific
Ocean. Thwarted by a popular uprising in 1854, when
they had achieved their triumph in repealing the anti-
slavery restriction (the bargain by which they gained a
slave State in 1820), they plotted a revolution ; and finally,
in 1861, they struck boldly at the national existence.
When the Civil War began, the idea prevailed with con
servative leaders that the national power — our armies in
the field and our navy on the coast — must be confined
solely to the preservation of the Union, leaving untouched
the institution of slavery. But Providence was wiser than
great men ; it had purposes which even Lincoln and
Seward did not see. The contest was prolonged, with
disaster here and delay there, till the nation rose at length
to see more clearly its duty and its destiny ; and at last
came the declaration in the name of the American people,
their solemn resolve before Heaven and all mankind, that
freedom for all men of every race should prevail every
where under the American flag. Under that inspiration
our forces were led, and mankind came to see our cause
in its true light.
The Civil War did something more than maintain the
principles of Union and Liberty : it tested American
character. Before 1861 we were thought by foreign

MARATHON AND CHATTANOOGA.

341

critics to be a money-getting and money-saving people, —
thrifty, mercenary, skilful in mechanic arts, energetic in
subduing the wilderness, — but, with all this, unfitted for
high action, wanting in the romantic qualities which great
crises demand. Our republican polity was said to be
plain, uninspiring, — not appeaUng to the sensibilities and
the imagination, like a dynasty decorated with crown and
sceptre and tracing its origin to a misty antiquity. We
ourselves felt that there might be some truth in this state
ment of our limitations ; and this doubt accounts for the
disposition at the outset of some of our public men, patri
otic though they were, to let the seceding States go in
peace. But the war revealed the latent virtue and force
of the American character, the self-devotion, endurance,
courage, and faith of the American people, their readi
ness to suffer and die for their country. The four years
of civil war are filled not merely with what armies did, but
with individual deeds of sacrifice and daring equal to any
thing witnessed in the ages of chivalry. Legend com
memorates the Roman who held the bridge ; but was not
Chaplain Fuller more than his peer, who, with no duty as
a soldier, volunteered to cross the Rappahannock in face
of certain death? The story of another Roman, whose
breast was covered with scars, has been recounted for
centuries, and is conned by the schoolboy to this day;
but was not he matched by General Bartlett whom we
have known, and by countless others? We are familiar
with the Spartan mother and the Roman matron ; but we
have seen mothers, wives, and sisters, with no exceptional
intelligence and sensibility, bidding those dearest to them
go forth in the service of the country, bearing their soli
tude without a murmur, and waiting, waiting long, for the
footsteps which were to be heard no more. The Ameri
can woman in her high sentiment, in her steadfast faith,

342 MARATHON AND CHATTANOOGA.
in her resignation to bereavement in the cause of country,
passes to the front among the heroines of history.
Comrades, there is no honor so great as to have served
in the national army in our Civil War. Courage, self-
sacrifice, the offer of life and fortune on the altar of one's
country, have been commemorated in all ages with tri
butes of honor, with statues, memorial tablets, and grate
ful epitaphs ; and it will be for you to remember, and for
posterity ever to bear witness, that the cause you saved
was that of " Liberty and Union, now and forever, one
and inseparable ! "

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 343

XVII.
December 21, 1892, Mr. Pierce was again an invited guest at
the annual dinner of the New England Society of Brooklyn, N. Y.
Hon. Calvin E. Pratt presided at the dinner; and among other
guests present and making speeches were Bishop Phillips Brooks,^
Gen. Horace Porter, Rev. Lyman Abbott, and Hon. Roswell E.
Horr. One of the regular toasts was to the memory of George
William Curtis, who died August 31, 1892 ; and to this Mr. Pierce
responded.

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
Your committee will bear me witness that I accepted
reluctantly the assignment which was made to me for this
evening, taking it only when others better fitted were not
obedient to the summons.
George William Curtis, though living and doing his
work as one of the great metropolis, was in all respects a
New England man. He was born in Providence, under
the shadow of its college. The blood of Rhode Island
and Massachusetts, and no other, mingled in his veins.
His education, so far as schools taught him, was acquired
only in those States, — in Providence, West Roxbury,
and Concord. His marriage brought him into kinship
and close fellowship with a well-known family of Boston.
His later summers were passed in his rural home at Ash-
1 This was Bishop Brooks's last participation in a secular public meet
ing. He died January 23, 1893.

344 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
field, where he mingled freely with the townspeople, vil
lagers and yeomen, enjoying the almost unmatched scenery
of western Massachusetts. His most intimate friend, the
companion of his vacation rambles, was Charles Eliot
Norton, — a name long identified with Harvard College.
His ideals were New England men, — Sumner, Phillips,
Bryant, and Lowell; all subjects of his eulogies. He had
departed from the traditional faith of New England, but
none the less was he in perfect sympathy with the Puritan
character, which he testified on different occasions, notably
in his eulogy on General Sedgwick. Is it too much to
claim, merchants of New York and Brooklyn, that he
showed New England sense of honor when, with a perse
vering devotion recalling Walter Scott's, he toiled for
many years to pay debts which, though not binding in
law, he thought binding in conscience?
It was well for Curtis, it was well for you, it was well for
mankind, that he brought his gifts and inspirations to the
multitudinous life of New York, to this great centre of in
tellectual and commercial activity. Here was an ampler
opportunity, here a more commanding watch-tower.
Here too, perhaps, was a better field for the development
of the germs of character within him ; for, as I said to you
some years ago, and still verily believe, better than a New
Englander at home is a New Englander transplanted.
But, absorbed as he became in great interests here, he was
ever true to his origin and early associations, — always
ready with good offices to Brown University, which had
sheltered him for only a year; to the many New England
friends who sought him often for help and counsel ; to his
neighbors in "Arcadia," to whose annual feast his silver
tongue gave a peculiar zest, and who in tender gratitude
came to Staten Island to lay a memorial wreath on his
bier.

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 345
No one can, I think, undertake with confidence, certainly
I cannot, to define what place Curtis is to hold in the his
tory of American literature ; but I feel assured that it will
be a high and lasting one. We have grown wiser, and are
to grow wiser still, concerning Egypt and Syria, under the
guidance of savants and explorers like Maspero and Petrie;
but we shall always delight to gaze betimes on those fath
erlands of history and religion with the dreamy eyes of
Howadji. For each of us, with his own Prue by his side,
there will ever be a fascination drawing us to watch with
interest the passing Aurelia, a vision of the life outside our
own, or to loiter awhile in our far-off " castles in Spain."
The Potiphars and their familiars are permanent creations ;
and with the vices which wait on enormous wealth and
unrestrained luxury, that remarkable passage on " The
Decadence of the Romans," suggested by Couture's pic
ture, will remain an impressive warning, however opti
mistic men may be. Curtis's satire, unlike that of the
ancients and of many moderns, was never darkened by
self-love and misanthropy ; it was always benevolent. He
was like the kindly surgeon who feels, even more keenly
than his patient, the wound by which he hopes to cure.
But Curtis was made of too fine stuff to continue long in
reveries upon society. The Age called him to more seri
ous work, and he obeyed the summons. His was a clarion
voice in 1856, appealing to the cultivated youth of Amer
ica to enlist in the great conflict of patriotism and humanity.
From that time forward he was a living force and energy
in American politics, — a force and energy which will abide
to inspire this and coming generations. What he wrote
and spoke for thirty-five years, — the thoughts of the
" Easy Chair," playful, critical, contemplative, reminiscent;
how through the Journal of Civilization,^ in weekly minis-
1 Harper's Weekly.

346 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
trations, he pointed the millions of his countrymen to
purer pohtics, to a more enlightened patriotism, to a
soberer sense of civic duties, to an ethical comprehension
of all that concerns conduct and life, — this and more than
this thoughtful men now see, and faithful history will re
cord. He wrote no line which, dying, he could wish to
blot ; he wrote much which after-times will not willingly
let die. He might challenge criticism in the words he
spoke of Bryant: "Does any memory, however searching
or censorious, recall one line that he wrote which was
not honest and pure ; one measure that he defended
except from the profoundest conviction of its usefulness
to the country ; one cause that he advocated which any
friend of liberty, of humanity, of good government, would
deplore ? "
Emphasis is justly laid on what Curtis did as a journal
ist; but what he did as a public speaker was not less im
portant His appeals to cultured men, as at Middletown
and Providence; his lectures before hundreds of lyceums;
his commemorative orations ; his eulogies on great char
acters; his political addresses; his successive pleas for
civil-service reform, — how stimulating and elevating were
all these, not merely to listening audiences, but not less so
to the greater multitude who in all parts of the country
found hope and inspiration in his magnetic words ! The
well-thought essay may have power, but the distant reader
feels it all the more when he realizes that it has been heard
and applauded in Faneuil Hall and Cooper Institute.
There is a tendency in our time to decry eloquence ; and
it has been said, foolishly indeed, that the age of the ora
tor has passed. Some of you still remember the marvel
lous addresses of Louis Kossuth, forty years ago, on Staten
Island and at Castle Garden ; and I recall freshly the scene
in Faneuil Hall, where he stood as an historic figure. A

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.

347

year ago last September, in a half-hour interview with him
in his chamber at Turin,^ when he had just entered on his
ninetieth year, I said to the aged exile that his eloquence
still had its spell on the American memory; but he re
pelled the compliment, remembering sadly how vain had
been his prayer for intervention against Russia, and quoted
" words, words, words," as if from Emerson, but, as I fancy,
from Hamlet's answer to Polonius. I cannot, however,
yield even to the authority of one who ranks foremost
among the masters of eloquence in this century. The
time will never come in a free country when the human
voice will not give fresh power to argument, to noble pas
sion, to patriotic and spiritual appeals.
Who of us can ever forget the charming presence of our
friend as he stood before the people, the glass of fashion
and the mould of form, — "a figure," as he called another,
" of patrician port and sovereign grace," — - his features
finely chiselled, his elegant pose and classic gesture, his
richly modulated voice ringing out in clear and earnest
tone the duties of citizens and men ; always friendly, always
sympathetic, always loyal to the purest taste. I have him
now in my mind's eye as he stood, a fellow-member with
myself, in the Republican National Conventions of i860,
1876, and 1884, — in the last two the most attractive per
sonality, and in all summoning his party to maintain its
fealty to the cause of equal rights and the highest standards
of public Hfe. Here with you, as on other festive occa
sions, he seasoned the banquet with his wit, always refined,
never coarse or commonplace. You were not, as he
spoke, waiting with expectant lips and hands to respond
to the next jest; but when one came, spontaneous, un
forced, fresh from the mine, set in finest sentiment, you
1 Mr. Pierce had a still later interview, — October 3, 1893, — at Turin, with
Kossuth, who died March 20, 1894.

348 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.
caught eagerly the gem, and you will keep it precious in
your memory evermore.
Curtis was a scholar of no fugitive and cloistered virtue,
never shnking from the race, .nor shirking dust and heat,
— but a scholar ever hopeful, never cynical; always in
touch with men, and in sympathy with all seekers of truth.
He was a genUeman, fair to his antagonist ; keeping his
poise in controversy; measuring men by their worth, never
by their wealth or social rank ; bearing himself with infinite
courtesy towards all conditions, as gracious to the maid
who laid his morning meal as he would have been to a
princess. He was a patriot worthy to be placed in our
noblest list; " a life in civic action warm, a soul on highest
mission bent;" constant to the end, keeping ever the
heights which he had gained from the first, an example
of self-containment in an age of unrest; so content with
his home and work that after his first full draught of foreign
travel the Old World could not tempt him again, — and
even the mission to England, that prize much coveted by
scholars and public men, when offered to him, he waived
aside without regret. No whiter character, combining
scholar, gentleman, and patriot, has come in our time;
and all who have been privileged to commune with him
will say with William Winter, —
" Yet I hold my life divine,
To have know?n a soul like thine."
It was our hope and prayer that he would be permitted
to pass the limit which the Psalmist assigns to manly life.
Time decorates a youth and prime like his. There awaited
him the consciousness of years well spent, of duty well
done, — " And that which should accompany old age.
As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends."

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 349
But leaving us now or spared longer, he might say with
confidence, as James Montgomery, dear to Christendom
for his hymns, said in closing his long and troubled career
as a journalist, —
" I followed no mighty leader, belonged to no school, pandered
to no impure passion ; I veiled no vice in delicate disguise, grati
fied no malignant propensity to personal satire, courted no power
ful patronage. I wrote neither to suit the manners, the taste, nor
the temper of the age ; but I appealed to universal principles, to
imperishable affections, to primary elements of our common nature,
found wherever man is found in civilized society, wherever his
mind has been raised above barbarian ignorance, and his passions
purified from brutal selfishness."
Gentlemen of the New England Society, have I colored
the picture too highly? I think not. Are there limitations
omitted which I ought to state? I do not know them.
What I have said is not a youth's hero-worship, but the
sober judgment of a man of mature years, speaking from
profound conviction of one whom he knew well.

350 JOHN JAY.

XVIII.
The Evangelical Alliance of the United States held a memorial
meeting in New York City, November 20, 1894, in honor of John
Jay, who died May 5, 1894. President Seth Low was the chair
man of the meeting ; and Joseph H. Choate, Chauncey M. Depew,
Bishop A. Cleveland Coxe, and Edward L. Pierce were the
speakers. Mr. Pierce, who had maintained most friendly relations
with Mr. Jay for many years, had been assigned the part of describ
ing his career as a reformer, and spoke as follows : —

JOHN JAY.
New England joins cordially in this commemoration
of John Jay. My own friendship with him was one of
thirty years ; and during that time I never heard from his
lips a word unworthy of a pure and noble spirit. It was a
privilege to be admitted to communion with such a man,
— a privilege for which I expect to be accountable here
after. When in a European capital I heard of his death
the day after the event, I mourned not that the summons
had come at last to this patient and heroic sufferer, but
rather that he had left behind so few survivors of his tem
per and purpose. We have no regrets now that he has
passed from us ; for with his work well done he has gone
to dwell in men's memories with the wise and good, leav
ing behind a character for a perpetual inspiration and
example. My part this evening is not to review his life, or to de
scribe him as a citizen and public man, but to speak of him

JOHN JAY. 351
only as a reformer. And yet in a large sense his whole
career opens before us in that one word. It is the work
of the reformer to make things better than they are, or
to strive to that end ; and that was Jay's aspiration and
effort, from youth to his latest hour. What one of us,
visitors to his chamber in home or hospital for the last
four years, has not marvelled to see how keen he still was
for every contest of patriotism and humanity, ever ready,
leaping from his bed, to —
" Shoulder his crutch, and show how fields are won."

Having finished his professional studies, Jay entered in
1839, at the age of twenty-two, on active life; but already
as a college student, in 1834, at the age of seventeen, he
openly espoused the Antislavery cause, writing in its be
half, associating in the councils of its promoters, and on
the alert to protect the Abolitionists who were assailed by
mobs. Taught by his father, Judge William Jay, — as the
junior Pitt had been taught by his, still " young in years,
but in sage counsel old," — he brought to the conflict a
precocious wisdom. He rejected at the outset the futile
remedy of colonization, and planted himself on the firm
ground that immediate and unconditional emancipation
was the dictate alike of justice and prudence. Co-worker
with his father, he made a strenuous effort to advance the
Antislavery movement within Constitutional lines, and to
keep it clear of the vagaries — non-resistance and the like
— which beset it at this early stage. He sought to make
the United States Constitution an antislavery force, in
stead of proclaiming a crusade for its destruction; and
while exposing the shortcomings or hostile attitude of
church organizations, he avoided all offence to the relig
ious sentiment, — striving to make that sentiment, what it

352 JOHN JAY.
proved to be, the best ally of his cause. He saw what a
tremendous force moral agitation always is among a civil
ized and Christian people ; but he saw, too, how vain it
becomes in an assault on a political institution, unless it
takes final shape in political action. And here he divided
at an early day from a considerable body of his fellow
Abolitionists. Consider for a moment what was the period — that of
1830 to 1840 — in which this young man made choice of
his career. The American people, absorbed in material
progress, were loath to be disturbed in that repose on the
slavery question which followed the Missouri Compromise
of 1820. Political parties, ecclesiastical bodies, mercantile
interests, society in the great cities, the conservative spirit,
— all were arrayed against a renewal of the strife. Anx
ious patriots too, whose sincerity cannot be questioned,
saw in such an agitation the spectre of warring States and
a dissevered Union. The Abolitionists, who entered about
1830 on an organized warfare against American slavery,
encountered, as they might have expected, a determined
resistance from all these powerful organs of opinion and
action. They had indeed great allies, — " exultations,
agonies, and man's unconquerable mind." They had on
their side the sanctions of religion, the imperishable in
stincts of our common nature, and the godspeed of a far-
sighted patriotism. They might count, as the apostles of
a holy cause may always count, on final triumph; but the
immediate prospect was discouraging. Their warnings
and appeals were answered with derision, contempt, and
personal abuse; and their adversaries were not content
with such weapons alone. Their persons were assaulted,
their homes attacked, their halls and churches burned,
their printing-presses shattered into fragments or thrown
into rivers, their public meetings broken up, their schools

JOHN JAY. 353
for colored children suppressed (as in Connecticut and
New Hampshire), and a price was put on their heads by
Southern governors. The civil authorities dispersed their
assemblies, confessing inability to protect them either by
the police or the militia. The mob spirit in this city did
not spare such exemplars of good citizenship and Christian
conduct as Arthur and Lewis Tappan. Tampering with
the mails and the exclusion from them of antislavery pub
lications had the approval of President Jackson and his
Postmaster-general. It was proposed in high quarters, in
some Northern States, to punish Abolitionists as criminals
for exercising the riglit of free speech ; and this proceed
ing had the sanction of a Massachusetts governor, after
wards President of Harvard College. The attempt was
made to proscribe merchants and lawyers who protected
hunted negroes. Society in the commercial centres put
the ban of exclusion on antislavery men, marking them as
vulgar people, fanatics, disturbers of the public peace,
enemies of religion, of order, and the Union. The young
man who joined such a body had to put behind him all
ambition for ofifice, and to risk his success at the bar or in
trade. It was a period — "the martyr age," as Harriet Mardneau
has called.it — when Lovejoy perished at Alton in the de
fence of a free press ; when Torrey languished unto death
in a Baltimore jail for aiding fugitive slaves; when Jona
than Walker, for a like service of Christian charity, suffered
by the sentence of a United States court in Florida the
triple penalties of pillory, imprisonment, and branding;
when antislavery men were pursued by mobs composed
of roughs and so called " gendemen," in the cities of New
York, Boston, and Philadelphia, and in smaller commu
nities like those of Montpeher, Vt., and Udca, N. Y.
Time woufd fail me to tell the long story, but enough has
23

354 JOHN JAY.
been said to give a glimpse at the period when he whom
we commemorate this evening came to manhood.
When Jay finished his law studies in 1839, ^^ might
reasonably have competed for what the world regards as
the most coveted prizes. He came of a distinguished
stock, unsullied in each generation. He was equipped
with the best training, academical and professional. He
had the gift of rare manly beauty, alike in his youth, in his
prime, and to the end. His presence in any circle be
spoke purity of character and high aims. Society was
open to him, — not merely that which the " Potiphar
Papers " describe as recalling Rome in her decadence, but
that other society always existing here, which combined
culture, refined ways of living, love of art and literature,
and traditions of the colonial period. There was no place
at the bar or on the bench to which he might not have
fairly aspired. The legislative hall at Albany or at Wash
ington was within easy reach. It would have been an
honorable ambition as well as a filial office (doubtless he
thought of it) to have prolonged in himself the line of a
family celebrated in the public life of the country. Before
this young man, on the one side, were these seductions so
potent in human life ; and, on the other, the forlorn hope
of a small and hated band of men and women who had
sworn, with God's help, at some early or remote day, to
banish American slavery forever from this land. And
what was his choice? Turning his back on all temptadons
of success and worldly favor, he gave himself to this cause,
choosing, like him whom Michael Angelo has carved in
marble, " rather to suffer affliction with the people of God,
than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season." Such a
choice was in noble accord with the high spirit of the
poet who wrote, —

JOHN JAY. 355
" Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side.
Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 't is prosperous to be just ;
Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside.
Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified.
And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied."

New York has in all periods of American history given
other great names to the country, — Stuyvesants, Van
Renssalaers, Schuylers, Livingstons, Hamiltons, Clintons,
Van Burens ; but what young man bearing any of these
names made such a choice as Jay's?
It is beyond my limits to mention in detail Jay's services
by pen, voice, and personal influence to the Antislavery
cause, from his college days to its triumph thirty years
later in the Civil War. Those services were various and
continuous, including papers and addresses against the
existence of slavery in the Territories and the District of
Columbia; on judicious political action against the insti
tution ; the duty of the American Tract Society to give no
support to slaveholding in its publications ; the admission
of colored students to theological schools, and of colored
churches to the councils of his own sect; the duty of
clergymen to preach against slavery; the duty of the
church to which he belonged to bear public testimony
against the slave-trade, of which just before the Civil War
this city had become a principal 66p6t. His own church,
in which he made many of these efforts, was the most
conservative of all, with a membership which combined
fashion, respectability, and wealth. The attempt was made
again and again to suppress him by parliamentary expe
dients; but he managed in one way or another to be
heard. He was steadily and almost unanimously voted

356 JOHN JAY.
down; but such was his undaunted pluck that he returned
to the contest at the very next opportunity. His figure
in these scenes, where he stood alone, or almost alone,
will continue to be one of historic interest Later, as the
contest drew near its end, he maintained emancipation as
the true policy of the national government, and promoted
the enhstment of colored men as Union soldiers.
In all his later years Jay was deeply interested in the
education of the freedmen. He did not, like most political
leaders, care for them only as a political force capable of
determining national and State elections. He believed
it to be a prime necessity that they should be trained to
be good citizens, so that they might maintain their own
rights and secure the respect of the white people of the
South. Therefore he was the advocate of national grants
in aid of education in sections of the country where illiter
acy prevails. Three months before the disability which
withdrew him from active life, he appeared before the
Mohonk Conference on the negro question, and pleaded
for a formal expression in favor of the measure. There
was a difference of opinion, and no such expression was
then made. I recall the scene, and also his disappoint
ment. The next year, however, I had the pleasure of
announcing to him, as he lay in St Luke's Hospital, that
the second conference (in which I had taken part) had
come to his position.
It is rare that a reformer is so self-effacing as was Jay.
In 1844, at the age of twenty-seven, this young man, un
aided and alone, organized a public meeting in this city as
a protest against Calhoun's treaty for the annexation of
Texas, — a treaty negotiated for the purpose of establishing
a perpetual slave-empire on this continent He placed in
the chair Albert Gallatin, last survivor of Jefferson's Cabi-

JOHN JAY. 357
net, and divided the oflficers of the meeting equally be
tween the two great political parties, excluding his own
name from any public mention in connection with the
meeting. Two only of these officers, so far as I know,
survive, — your honored fellow-citizens, Benjamin D. Silli-
man and John Bigelow'. Ten years later he initiated and
organized a meeting held at the Broadway Tabernacle, —
the first meeting called in the free States to protest against
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the opening
of Kansas and Nebraska to slavery. Here again he
divided the ofificers of the meeting equally between the
two principal political parties, taking himself no open part
in the proceedings.
Jay's defence of fugitive slaves in the courts is alone suf
ficient to entitle him to lasting gratitude. The leaders of
the bar shrank from such a service ; public opinion frowned
on resistance to the pretensions of Southern claimants;
judges and marshals were unfriendly, and often more than
unfriendly; there was no fund to pay fees and expenses;
the lawyer who habitually undertook the defence lost caste,
and sometimes found himself under the ban of commercial
opinion and deprived of the earnings essential to the sup
port of his family. But Truth is never without her witnes
ses, and able lawyers came to the succor of this despised
race, — as Salmon P. Chase and John Joliffe in Cincinnati ;
David Paul Brown in Philadelphia; Samuel E. Sewall,
Robert Rantoul, and Richard H. Dana in Boston ; and
John Jay, Joseph L. White, and E. D. Culver in New York.
Posterity will place these men in that noble company of
lawyers who have vindicated liberty and justice, along with
Papinian who accepted a martyr's fate rather than justify
an imperial fratricide. Adams, in his Life of Dana, says
that holding in his hand the record of his defence of fugi
tive slaves, Dana might " stand with head erect at the bar

358 JOHN JAY.
of final judgment itself; " and who can doubt that when
Jay took his place before that august tribunal, if he needed
witnesses, certifiers to his life of duty on earth, he found
them at once in the dark-skinned bondmen whose freedom
he had chivalrously maintained?
After all, are there any honors more assured than those
which crown the benefactors of oppressed races? The
highest tribute which Lamartine pays to Washington is,
that when he presented himself before his Maker he held
in his hands the broken fetters of his fellow-men, whom he
had by will emancipated. The visitor to Westminster
Abbey pauses by the statue of Fox, who is commemorated
not as the prosecutor of Hastings or the rival of Pitt in
great debates, but with the grateful negro kneeling by his
side; and not far off are the monuments of Wilberforce,
Granville Sharp, Zachary Macaulay, and Fowell Buxton.
Our own Lincoln is figured in public squares not as direct
ing armies and cabinets, but rather as the emancipator of
slaves. In all Jay's connection with grave or burning questions
he left nothing to be recanted or explained, — no com
promise with wrong; no position hostile to freedom or
good government ; no deviation at any time from the
straight path of duty; no unjust aspersion on adversaries;
nothing in word or act, privately or publicly said or done,
which in the last moments of his life he needed to expunge
or qualify. One who, like myself, has followed his pri
vate correspondence with a distinguished contemporary^
for a long period, feels confident in the statement which
I now make.
Controversy never embittered Jay towards antagonists.
Antislavery man as he was from the beginning, he strove
after the Civil War as a commissioner from this State to
1 Charles Sumner.

JOHN JAY. 359
have a section of the cemetery at Antietam set apart for
the Confederate dead, encountering ungenerous criticism
for his magnanimity ; and as President of the Union
League Club he argued that hospitahty should be ac
corded to Confederate soldiers and citizens who had
accepted the results of the war. Those at whom his
keenest thrusts were made were fascinated by his sin
cerity and good humor. Very late in his life, as he was
being wheeled on the sidewalk of Fifth Avenue, a Catho
lic priest whom he had not before known stopped his in
valid carriage, and introducing himself said : " Mr. Jay,
you have said some hard things about my Church ; but I
know you are honest, and I wish you well."
Jay was no self-seeker. He was never a candidate for
an elective office when his party had the slightest chance
of success. He lived always in this city, or a suburban
county, where his views were disapproved by the majority.
When the Republicans achieved success in i860, it would
have been most fitting that he should be called to a foreign
mission, — a service in which his name in an earlier gen
eration had been distinguished, and for which he himself
was so well equipped. But in the competition he was dis
tanced by another, to the great regret of many of us. He
felt keenly the postponed opportunity; but he did not re
pine, and gave himself to all the duties of patriotism which
fell in his way. I can testify, from a reading of his letters
at the time, with what a manly spirit he bore the disap
pointment The deserved honor was not to be conferred
till eight years later.
Another enterprise of pubhc concern occupied Jay's
serious attention in the later period of his life. The re
former is apt to feel that nothing more remains to be done
when the work which enlisted his youthful fervor has been

360 JOHN JAY.
consummated. The Antislavery cause took hold of the
deepest passions and sendments of human nature, and it
was not easy for those who had carried it to triumph to
devote themselves afterwards to public questions of a
practical and business character. Jay, however, did not,
on his return from the mission to Austria in 1875, setde
down into an inglorious repose. The Civil Service re
form was then in an early stage, and he enlisted at once
in the ranks of its supporters. This cause does not tempt
the polidcian. It runs counter to partisanship, to low
ambitions, and the greed for office. Its advocates are
often pided as attempting the impossible, or derided as
sentimental, visionary, and unpracdcal. Nevertheless, few
are hardy enough to question seriously the principles of
public morality on which this reform is founded, or the
wisdom of the statesmanship which promotes it; and at
its head stands one name which challenges universal re
spect, — that of the late George William Curtis. As
member of a commission appointed in 1877 by President
Hayes to investigate the methods of the New York Cus
tom House, Jay urged in successive reports its reorgani
zation on a strictly business basis, and the entire divorce
of the service from party politics. From 1883 to the end
of 1887 he was a member of the Civil Service Commission
of this State, the first of the kind- created by any State, —
being called to it by Governor Grover Cleveland, and re
tired from it by Governor David B. Hill. Such was the
confidence in his fairness, that, while he was the only Re
publican member, his two Democratic associates made
him the chairman of the board for the entire period of his
service. He was active in the direction of the National
Civil Service Reform League, of which Mr. Curtis was
the head, from its formation until he was prostrated by
the injury which at length proved fatal. He contributed

JOHN JAY. 361
two important papers to the literature of the league, —
one on the systematic questioning of candidates for office
as to their proposed action on the reform ; and the other
invoking the co-operation of the clergy in its behalf In
these different positions he. did not shrink from drudgery,
wearisome attention to details, and conflicts with the ene
mies of the reform. When this cause, which is steadily
advancing, shall finally prevail, as it surely will in the
civil service of the Nation and the States, history will place
the name of John Jay on the list of its earliest and most
constant supporters.
Jay's example as a reformer is a precious inheritance.
It bids us stand by every good cause, however hopeless
the outlook. It summons us to the protection of op
pressed races and classes, — the Italian massacred in New
Orleans; the Chinaman massacred in Wyoming; the In
dian, still the victim of the white man's greed ; the Afri
can, still untaught and often unshielded by the law; the
Armenian, now being slaughtered for his rehgion, as of
old were the Vaudois of the Alps ; the Jew, forced into
exile by a merciless despot. It teaches also what a good
man may do as a private citizen to advance his country
and mankind. That lesson is ever recurring, and has just
been taught in the most impressive manner; for within a
stone's throw of this hall, civic fidelity, self-abnegation,
and heroism in a righteous crusade have been for the last
two years exemplified in a Christian minister,^ who, with
out ofifice, with no party behind him, and against sneers
and calumny and distrust, fought his way to the public
respect and gratitude, till he became the recognized leader
of that army of honest citizens who have redeemed this
noble city, and whose triumph has given hope to the
friends of good government everywhere.
1 Rev. Charles H. Parkhurst.

362 COMPLETION OF THE SUMNER MEMOIR.

XIX.
' COMPLETION OF THE SUMNER MEMOIR.
The last two volumes of Mr. Pierce's Memoir of Charles
Sumner were published in April, 1893 ; and he left home the
next summer for a year's visit to Europe. During his absence,
surviving friends of Sumner — among them Senator George F.
Hoar, Ex-Governor William Claflin, and others devoted to his
memory — arranged a commemoration of the final completion of
the biography. A dinner "commemorative of Charles Sumner
and complimentary to Edward L. Pierce " was served at the Parker
House, Boston, December 29, 1894. The committee in charge con
sisted of William Claflin, George F. Hoar, Alanson W. Beard, Francis
V. Balch, and George A. O. Ernst. At the close of the dinner, Ex-
Governor Claflin called the guests (ninety-four in all) to order, and
invited Senator Hoar to take the chair. The speakers, besides
the senator, were Governor Greenhalge (then in office, and rep-
presenting the State), Ex-Governor Alexander H. Rice, Charles
Francis Adams, John Winslow, Rev. Elmer H. Capen, and Arnold
B. Johnson. Letters regretting inability to attend were received
from George W. Julian, Henry Cabot Lodge, Henry L. Dawes, Fred
erick Douglass, Rev. Edward E. Hale, John Bigelow, John D. Long,
William E Chandler, James B. Angell, Bishop F. D. Huntington,
Frank B. Sanborn, James B. Thayer, Justin Winsor, Rev. John W.
Chadwick, Pj-ofessor James O. Murray, Milton M. Fisher, and
Chauncey L. Knapp. Mr. Pierce's speech and the introductory
remarks of the chairman are taken from the pamphlet report.
Senator Hoar : Charles Sumner had many friends who loved
him, and whom he loved. If it had been his privilege to choose
among them all the name he would like to have linked with his

COMPLETION OF THE SUMNER MEMOIR. 363
own twenty years after his death, there would have been no one
he would have preferred to that of the guest of the evening. I
ask you, my friends, to rise and drink to the memory of Charles
Sumner, and to the great work of his friend and biographer.
The company rose, and joined in drinking the toast ; after
which the Senator added, —
I have now the pleasure to present to you Mr. Edward L.
Pierce. Mr. Pierce spoke as follows : —

Mr. Hoar, Governor Claflin, and Friends :
It has sometimes occurred to me, when taking part in a
festivity where honor was being paid to a particular guest,
that he must sit uneasily while others spoke his praises.
I have, however, to confess that such an experience, which
is to-day my own, has proved thus far rather a pleasure
than a pain. But, grateful as I am for the pleasant words
which are being said of myself and my toils, I cannot fail
to recognize that the presence of this company here is
not so much a friendly testimonial to myself, as a tribute
(using Milton's words) to the memory of " a brave man
and worthy patriot, dear to God, and famous to all ages."
If such commemorations are more frequent in this com
munity than elsewhere, they call for no apology. We do
not envy sister States that outrun our Commonwealth in
numbers and resources, for we count always as her most
precious possession the character, the public service, and
the renown of her sons.
It will be fifty years the next Fourth of July that I first
saw Charles Sumner. It was in Tremont Temple, when

364 COMPLETION OF THE SUMNER MEMOIR.
he delivered his oration on the "True Grandeur of
Nations," — an oration which first made him known to the
world. I was a boy of sixteen from the country, and was
passing the holiday in the city, mostly on the Common,
where, like others of my age, I indulged in cake and lemon
ade, and exploded firecrackers, spending in this mode of
celebrating the day the one or two ninepences which had
been allowed me for pocket-money. Always interested
from boyhood in public speaking, I sought the Temple,
having heard casually that an address was to be given
there. I recall still the scene, — the orator wearing a blue
dress-coat with gilt buttons, white waistcoat and trousers ;
on his right and left officers of the army and navy in uni
form, and behind him a choir of one hundred school-girls
clad in white. I heard his opening sentences ; but the
allurements of the Common proving stronger with me
than his voice, I soon left the hall. Later, I returned in
time to hear his tender tribute to Sir Philip Sidney, which
perhaps I might now repeat with something of his tone
and gesture. The vista of the orator's future did not open
before him at that hour ; and least of all did he foresee
that near the entrance of the hall, in perhaps his youngest,
certainly his obscurest, listener, was one who was there
after to tell to mankind the story of his careen Three
years later, in 1848, — a year which in the Old World as
in this was J:o many a new birth of thought and aspiration,
— I heard Sumner in Faneuil Hall, as he took the chair at
a meeting called to ratify the Free Soil nominations of
Van Buren and Adams, and joined in the applause as he
finished, then giving my first open adhesion to the Anti-
slavery movement By this time I had become an enthu
siast for him, and let pass no opportunity of being present
at his addresses. I may say here that it is difiScult at this
day to realize the power and inspiration that he was with

COMPLETION OF THE SUMNER MEMOIR. 365
the young men of that period. This came from the charm
of his personal presence, the glow of his rhetoric, the
mellow cadences of his far-reaching voice, his unmistakable
sincerity, his courage, and his moral fervor: it was these
which then swayed ingenuous youth. The next year, when
I was in college, forty-five years ago this month, I confessed
in a letter to him my admiration of his character, accom
panying it with some things I had published, and received
promptly in return an invitation to call on him. I remem
ber freshly that first meeting, in his back office, in No. 4
Court Street, the site of the present Sears building. To
me it was a great moment ; and my feelings as I entered
his room were perhaps not unlike those of a lover on the
point of making his declaration. His gracious welcome
at once put me at ease. Indeed, he had always time for
young men, — time to talk with them, time to write to
them, time to encourage in them every prompting to intel
lectual and moral endeavor.
That was the beginning of a friendship which lasted to
the end, without the slightest break or misunderstanding.
I delight to remember that it was a relation in which there
was no thought of mutual gain or advantage. He never
assisted me to an office, rarely ever gave me an introduc
tion, and, so far as I know, I have never had a dollar which
came to me, directly or indirectly, through him ; and yet
I can truly say, that there was no moment in that relation
of twenty-five years when I would not have made any sac
rifice and encountered any peril in his behalf It is for
others to say whether fidelity on my part has been pro
longed beyond his life. Nor will I believe that this devo
tion to him was exceptional with myself. Sumner, as I
have had occasion to say elsewhere, stands alone, or almost
alone, as a public man whose support was in the moral
enthusiasm of the people. He had this rare advantage, -—

366 COMPLETION OF THE SUMNER MEMOIR.
that at every critical point of his career he could rally to
his side a host of men to whom he had never done a favor
by help to ofifice or otherwise, and who expected no such
favor in return. What a bulwark such a force is to any
public man ! How far superior to any army of retainers
and hustlers !
It is proper, in this connection, to say that in this inter
course between a distinguished public man and one much
younger than himself there was no self-assertion on the
one side or unmanly deference on the other. I was always
frank in questioning to his face his position or his action,
— as frank as I could be with any of yourselves. Once or
twice, when I was quite a young man, others put on me
the duty of saying to him things which they did not like to
say themselves. He never took offence, but always kindly
received such criticisms. So much for my personal rela
tions with him of whom I have written.
Sumner in his will designated Henry W. Longfellow,
Francis V. Balch, and myself as his literary executors, with
full power to preserve or destroy his papers ; but he made
no suggestion then or at any other time as to the choice of
a biographer. That was a matter which did not seem to
concern him ; but his interest centred in his last years on
the preparation of a complete edition of his speeches,
which he sometimes spoke of as his " Life." The execu
tors, myself as one of them, invited several disdnguished
writers to undertake the service ; and after they had de
clined, the duty, by request of my associates, fell to myself.
I began at once to collect materials, at the same time lay
ing aside my studies for a law-book on which I was then
engaged. It was fortunate that the work was entered upon
at once, as otherwise much that was valuable would have
perished. Since then have passed away his mates of the

COMPLETION OF THE SUMNER MEMOIR. 367
Boston Latin School; the members of his college class
save one ; ^ the one sister who survived him ; his early
friend and law-partner, Hillard; most of his associates in
the Senate (only Sherman, Morrill, and one other still re
maining there) ; and nearly all who were intimate with him
in the earlier political conflicts in which he took part.
The first two volumes of the memoir, which only brought
Sumner to July 4, 1845, the day when his public career
began, were published in 1877. It seemed proper to fill
so much space with this early period, as it covered his for
eign journey in the years 1 838-1 840, and his association
with the European jurists and scholars of that time. The
last two volumes were not published till 1893, just nineteen
years after his death. The task was on my mind for the
entire period, though for three or four years after the pub
lication of the first two volumes I mostly suspended the
work in order to finish my law-book. For about fifteen
years I devoted my time chiefly to the memoir, except
during such vacations and excursions to Europe as seemed
necessary for health and relaxation. It is difficult to com
prehend the labor in such research before composition
begins, — forty thousand letters to Sumner from corre
spondents to be examined, and notes made from them;
thousands of his own letters collected from every quarter,
and selections to be made ; files of newspapers for thirty
years to be turned over, with more or less to be copied ;
histories, biographies, public documents, the congressional
debates for a quarter of a century, to be studied ; a large
correspondence to be conducted, and interviews to be
sought with all contemporaries who could illustrate or
freshen a narrative with their recollections. Sometimes I
journeyed to places ass6ciated with interesting episodes of
1 Dr. Jonathan F. Bemis, the last surviving member of the class of 1830
in Harvard College, died eight days after this reference to him.

368 COMPLETION OF THE SUMNER MEMOIR.
his life, — to Aix in Savoy and Montpellier in France, in
both of which resorts he lingered, waiting for the health
and vigor which for nearly four years so often retreated as
he thought himself about to grasp them. Nor in this search
did I omit a visit to the grave of Preston S. Brooks in Edge
field, S. C, being the first, if not the only. Northern maii
to stand before the memorial stone of one who imperson
ated the madness and desperation of a losing cause. Some
may think this manifold toil superfluous ; but it seems to
me that biography and history are of little worth when the
writer shrinks from such drudgery.
The manuscript of the last two volumes as prepared for
the printer filled twenty-six hundred pages. All was twice
written, and some parts three or four times. Every page,
indeed every sentence, was Carefully weighed, and original
sources again and again explored for verification. The
whole was read by the late George William Curtis, who
advised the reduction of one chapter; but otherwise this
kindly critic made only slight suggestions. It was a grief
to me that this dear friend of my own did not live to greet
the publication of the volumes in which he had taken such
an earnest and prolonged interest. I may add that I have
no faith in fine writing, or in the inspirations of genius, at
least in historical composition ; but I believe profoundly
in exhaustive research and painstaking fidelity to truth.
These commonplace virtues tell in the long run.
Sometimes journalists and my own friends have chided
me for a too long interval between the first two and the last
two volumes ; and one or more have reminded me that a
final biographical sketch of myself was likely to be called
for before the completion of Sumner's memoir. While
I was the recipient of this friendly pressure, I was all the
while working to the limit of .vital forces, which, happily,
have been stronger with me than with most men.

COMPLETION OF THE SUMNER MEMOIR. 369
Necessarily with every biographer his own subject will
occupy the most conspicuous place in his canvas; but it
is his duty to do justice to other characters of the same
period, whether fellow-combatants or antagonists. This I
endeavored to do, — sometimes assigning to one or another
of Sumner's contemporaries the prime leadership in a con
test in which he also bore an eminent part. It was a satis
faction to reveal, perhaps more clearly than before, the
noble qualities of his colleague, Henry Wilson; and to
bring to the front the genuine patriotism and masterly
ability of Salmon P. Chase, who, as one of the only two
Free Soilers then in the Senate, welcomed as a coadjutor
a champion of freedom from Massachusetts.
There is one duty of a biographer which I regard as
supreme. It is to reveal fully his subject to mankind ; to
suppress nothing; to avoid no part of his career which
has been exposed to criticism. Two of Sumner's devoted
friends, both scholars and poets, advised me to pass lightly
over two of his controversies, — one with Winthrop in
1846 and 1847, concerning the Mexican war; and the
other with President Grant's Administration. After re
flection, it seemed to me that it was neither the part of
courage nor of wisdom to maintain silence as to those
well-known events; and that it was the duty of the his
torian to tell not only the truth, but the whole truth. I
confess that I had many troubled thoughts about the
controversy with Winthrop, anxious as I was to adhere
faithfully to historical verity, and at the same time not
to wound the sensibilides of an aged man whose high
personal character endtled him to sincere respect It
was a relief to be assured soon after the final volumes
appeared, that, while he might dissent on some points
from my view of those questions, he considered himself
courteously and fairly treated. 24

370

COMPLETION OF THE SUMNER MEMOIR.

The suggestion has been made that Sumner's biography
is of too ample dimensions ; that life is too short to allow
readers, even those not overburdened with public or pri
vate cares, the time to traverse so much ground. I was
quite well aware that this objection might be raised, but
on reflecdon felt bound to disregard it. The four volumes
comprehend letters as well as narrative ; and they are not
more voluminous than the memoirs and correspondence,
published separately or together, of other public men,
Americans or Europeans, who have had a long and re
markable connection with public affairs. Besides, a com
plete biography is always a thesaurus which can be drawn
upon by the authors of briefer lives, more suited to the
tastes and wants of readers who cannot spare the time for
a full investigation. I recall with pleasure an encouraging
message sent to me by Senator Hoar some time after the
first half of the work appeared, bidding me to take all the
space I required to carry out my original design, not with
holding a word which the spirit moved me to write.
A critic for a New York city journal, probably wearied
with the multitude of books laid on his table, and having
no time to traverse the period covered by my volumes,
undertook, instead of reviewing, to count, or rather esti
mate, the total number of words in the entire biography.
This was a novel mode of treating historical composition ;
and seeking myself a standard of comparison, I set an
amanuensis to computing the words in a Sunday news
paper of thirty-six or forty pages. The result was instruc
tive as well as surprising. My four volumes were equalled
in the number of words by two and one half copies of such
a hebdomidal issue. I asked my critic to consider whether
the product of fifteen years of labor might not be of as
much use to posterity as two and one half numbers of a
Sunday newspaper.

COMPLETION OF THE SUMNER MEMOIR. 371
The full study of Sumner's public life reveals what is
new to many, — the variety of the subjects which com
manded his attention, comprehending not only the Anti-
slavery cause, of which he was the protagonist in Congress,
but also foreign relations and nearly all domestic interests
which came up for consideration in his time. On financial
measures he was among the soundest of the sound ; and
on these and other questions, some of which combined a
moral as well as a material side, he escaped the vagaries
and extravagances which have too often disfigured the
careers of agitators and reformers.
No public man, or none except John Bright, has stood
as Sumner did for the supremacy of the moral sentiments
in government and the intercourse of nations. That is to
be his distinctive place in history. Lord Brougham has
singled out as a test of the progress of our race in wisdom
and virtue its veneration in successive ages for the name
of Washington. In like manner, will not a measure of our
country's loyalty to the law of right and duty be found in
all time to come in its fidelity to the precepts and example
of the statesman we are now commemoradng?
While honor is justly paid to the senator who for nearly
a quarter of a century represented Massachusetts, to me
the thought has ever been present that like honor belongs
to the generadon of her people who recognized at the out
set the nobility of his character, and stood by him faithfully
to the end, never failing him at any hour, and suppordng
him always in his advanced posidons. In the reacdon of
1862, when a combination was made for forcing him from
public life, he was rewarded with a complete vindicadon.
When at an eariier period he was compelled by his disa
bility to forego public dudes for nearly four years, there
was no murmur calling for a surrender of his seat If one
Legislature, misinterpredng public opinion, passed on him

372 COMPLETION OF THE SUMNER MEMOIR.
a censure, its successor hastened to expunge it. Fortu
nate the statesman who has such a people behind him!
It is doubtful if a career like his, unbroken and trium
phant to the end, could have been had elsewhere than
in this Commonwealth.
It is a rare assembly before whom it is my privilege to
stand this day. Here are citizens of honorable repute of
our own and other States, some of whom have borne
the insignia of high office, and are to live in the history
of the country. I see here and there those to whom I
have been bound for long years by bonds of friendship
and community of thought I recognize also the faces
of old comrades who enlisted with me in youth in the
cause of freedom, and who, after a hard-fought contest
ending in blood, rejoice at last in a redeemed land, where
there is no master and no slave. Here, too, are veterans
whose service in its ranks had an earlier beginning than
my own. I need hardly express to you, to each and all,
my profound appreciation of the generous thought im
plied in your presence on this occasion. You come here
not to exult over the issue of any party contest; you
come to testify your admiration of a great character, who,
you are pleased to believe, has been well placed before
his countrymen and posterity. I am devoudy grateful
to God for having permitted me to see the end of my
appointed task ; and while life remains to me, I shall cher
ish the memory of your sympathies and congratulations.

TRIBUTE TO EBENEZER ROCKWOOD HOAR. 373

XX.
At a meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, February
14, 1895, of which Judge Hoar was for some years a disdnguished
member, remarks were made by several fellow-members commem
orative of his eminent character. Among others who spoke, Mr.
Pierce (who was elected a member of the Society in 1893) made
the following remarks : —

TRIBUTE TO EBENEZER ROCKWOOD HOAR.
It is not for me to repeat in this presence the testimony
which has come from others having a longer or closer
connection than mine with Judge Hoar ; but I crave the
privilege of sharing in this day's tribute to his ever-to-be-
cherished memory.
It is a long career which we contemplate, begun with
promise, and continuing to the end without an incident
which calls for apology or explanation. Judge Hoar
developed in youth capacity for the highest places in
his profession. He had absolute clearness of intellect,
which, after a keen sense of justice, is the first quality
of a jurist. There was never for a moment obscurity
in his mental vision. He held political offices only
briefly and at long intervals, and these were but epi
sodes in his life. It is a public loss that his service of
this kind was so limited. But for forty years politicians
who were plotting to suppress moral questions or to ad
vance their own selfish schemes had to take him into

374 TRIBUTE TO EBENEZER ROCKWOOD HOAR.
account They knew that there was in Concord a man
with whom they would have to reckon, — one whose
intelligence they could not blind, whose moral sense they
could not tamper with. Once, when others slunk away
in fear and trembling from an encounter with the most
audacious demagogue of the age, undaunted he faced a
storm of calumny and abuse, with a self-consecration of
which there is hardly a sublimer instance in ancient or
modern story.
Mr. Webster said on a memorial occasion, " One may
live as a conqueror or a king or a magistrate, but he must
die as a man." With that sentiment in our hearts, we
shall not often recall the well-earned honors of our de
parted associate, or the robes of ofifice which he wore
so worthily, but we will keep fresh in mind, so long as
memory shall serve us, the wit which sparkled in every
word; the conscience which governed every act; the
civic courage which never quailed before authority, or the
civium ardor prava jubentium; the affection for friends
which, outlasting differences of opinion, was faithful unto
death ; the devotion to liberty which glowed as a perpet
ual fire from youth to age ; the simplicity in habits and
ways which became one whose daily walks and drives
were on those roads once trod by " the embattled farm
ers " of Concord and Lexington ; and the patriotism, pure
from ambition and self-seeking, which, inherited from his
ancestors, he has transmitted to his descendants. Stand
ing as it were before his open grave, I may be permitted
to pronounce, with lips less worthy than his, the words of
benediction, hallowed by the ages, which came from him
as he held the hand of the dead Sumner, not yet cold:
" Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into
the joy of thy Lord."

RECOLLECTIONS AS A SOURCE OF HISTORY.

3;s

XXL
The following paper was read by Mr. Pierce before the Massa
chusetts Historical Society, March 12, 1896.

RECOLLECTIONS AS A SOURCE OF HISTORY.
The memory is, in a strict sense, the basis of historical
narrative. The historian draws his materials from records,
newspapers, diaries, letters, and other written or oral ac
counts ; but these at first or second hand come from the
memory. The diarist who writes out at evening the trans
actions of the day, puts in permanent form what he remem
bers to have seen and heard since morning. The general
who reports a battle a day or a week after it took place,
relies on his own recollections and those of others. Yet
the memory, without which there could be little knowl
edge of the past, is, even when only a short period of time
is covered, a most uncertain and treacherous faculty; and
the historian must keep its limitations constantly in mind.
He must not, indeed, overlook other things, — the honesty |
and fidelity of the narrator who claims to have been on the
spot, the accuracy of his percepdons, and the advantage or
disadvantage of his standpoint; but assuming these con
ditions to be satisfactory, he must still be critical, even
sceptical, in the treatment of testimony ; and his scepticism
should be the more exacting the longer the period inter
vening between the transaction and the report

376 recollections as a source of history.
This paper will deal not with testimony given shortly
after the event, but with recollections coming out several
years later, — ten, twenty, or fifty; necessarily coming,
where the interval is long, from old people whose other
faculties may be still fresh and active, but whose memory,
failing them before a general decay has set in, makes their
accounts worthless, at least in the decision of any question
where controversy has arisen. ^B|c
The honest man as he advancel^^^^vs confesses his
own weakness in this respect. JolinH^ins, whose mood
was reminiscent to the last, writing when nearly seventy-
nine years old of the authorship of a Revolutionary pam
phlet, said : " The Group has convinced me of the decay
of my memory more than anything that has yet occurred ; "
and later in the same letter he breaks out pathetically,
" Help ! oh, help my memory ! " ^
One need not be as old as seventy- nine to distrust him
self in this respect. If any one of us were to have brought
to him all his letters written in youth and early manhood,
he would find in them vivid pictures of some scenes which
he had wholly forgotten, and could not recall even with the
assistance of the written account, and of other scenes which
lay in his mind very differently from the way in which he
described them at the time.
Retentiveness of memory varies greatly in persons of
equal intelligence. Some retain only general impressions,
while others retain a firm hold on details. When in the
seventies I used to ask Mr. Longfellow about things occur-
ing in the thirties and forties, he would often say, " You
had better ask Hillard." The latter was remarkable for
the freshness and accuracy of his recollections ; and the
same may be said of the late Judge Hoar.
1 John Adams's Works, x. 99, 100.

recollections AS A SOURCE OF HISTORY. 377
One frailty which perplexes advancing years is the inca
pacity to distinguish between what one has seen and what
one has only heard ; and the result is that the two kinds of
knowledge are hopelessly mixed together. The late Henry
W. Paine, while still holding a foremost rank at the bar,
used to describe a scene witnessed by him when Daniel
Webster presented publicly to Charles Sumner, then a
youth, a prize for an essay. Mr. Paine on reading Sum
ner's Memoir (vol. i. pp. 73, 74) discovered that he had
fallen into an anachronism, as the presentation had taken
place before he and Sumner met, for the first time, as
fellow-students at the Harvard Law School. Happening
to meet Wendell Phillips, another of his old comrades at
the school, he communicated to him his error, saying,
"What a wretched thing, Wendell, the memory is ! " The
explanation is, that Mr. Paine had in early life heard the
story, and, telling it often, had come to believe that he
himself was present.
Recollections may have a considerable value when theyt
corroborate one another, — as when they are given by dif
ferent persons testifying without collusion or conference,
and generally agreeing in details. This test of evidence is
familiar to lawyers.
Recollections maybe of some use in coloring a narrative,
where the substantial facts have been settled by trustworthy
evidence ; but even to this extent they are to be taken with
extreme caution. I have had occasion to relate scenes —
as a debate in Congress — which I had myself witnessed
and described at the dme ; and long afterwards descripdons
by others came out, giving incidents which I could not re
call, and which were not verified by contemporary accounts.
I have therefore been obliged to suggest that there might
be exaggeradon in such recollecdons.^ Mr. Hay, one of
I Sumner Memoir, iii. 607 note, 610 note.

378 RECOLLECTIONS AS A SOURCE OF HISTORY.
the biographers of Lincoln, once told me that he and his
associate rejected anecdotes and narratives not supported
by contemporary records or reports.
This paper relates to periods which have been illustrated
by abundant contemporary materials, and is altogether
aside from the questions which were raised by Niebuhr's
treatment of early Roman history. It deals only with
periods where twilight has passed into clear day. Nor
will any attempt be made to weigh and compare the dif
ferent kinds of evidence competent to prove historical
facts, whether original, secondary, hearsay, or traditionary.
Without doubt, the best kind of evidence is the testimony
of intelligent and trustworthy eye-witnesses, promptly and
faithfully transcribed in imperishable records; but with
something less than this history must often be content in
determining the general features of a transaction, or the
share in it which belongs to particular individuals.
The view here given of the value of personal recollec
tions invites attention to some instances where they have
been shown to be without value, even after they had found
credence with investigators.
In October, 1895, I listened at Cornell University to
the opening lecture of a course, by Professor H. Morse
Stephens, on the sources of the history of the French Re
volution, among them diaries of eye-witnesses, memoirs,
and public documents ; and he assigned small value to
memoirs written several years after the events, by persons
who had been contemporary with them.-^
The " Boston Tea Party " took place December 16, 1773.
The date and general features of the transaction are well
1 Since this paper was read, Professor Stephens's article entitled " Recent
Memoirs of the French Directory " has appeared in the American Historical
Review for April, 1896, in which (pp. 475, 476, 489) he comments on the
value of memoirs as historical evidence.

RECOLLECTIONS AS A SOURCE OF HISTORY. 379
ascertained ; but no one of its members is known by satis
factory proofs. In order to identify them there should be
some contemporaneous record, diary, or letter, or at least
testimonies of responsible individuals, made independently
of one another, substantially concurring, and given at least
within fifteen or twenty years after the event. There were
obvious reasons for reticence until the recognition of Amer
ican Independence in 1783, but they ended with that date.
When the contest with Great Britain had been successfully
terminated, an avowal of connection with the destruction of
the tea could entail no loss, and would insure honor, per
haps pensions, to the participants. Nevertheless, no one,
so far as my researches have gone, confessed to any con
nection with it till about half a century after the affair, —
when he had become so old as to be unable to distinguish
between what he had seen and what he had only heard.
The credibility of his narration would then be no more
than that of the depositions of the Bunker Hill veterans
hereinafter referred to.
There is no contemporaneous written evidence as to the
participants in the " Tea Party." Peter Edes, writing
February 18, 1836, of his father, Benjamin Edes, said:
" It is a little surprising that the names of the Tea Party
were never made public. My father, I believe, was the
only person who had a list of them, and he always kept
it locked up in his desk while living." ^ This statement,
made in the way it is, does not justify the belief that such
a list ever existed.
The number engaged in the "Tea Party "has been stated
variously, ranging from seventeen to three hundred; and
there have been discrepancies in the reminiscent state
ments as to the wharf where the ships lay and the number
of the ships, though these points are now settled.
1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, xii. 175.

380 RECOLLECTIONS AS A SOURCE OF HISTORY.
John Adams, who may have had some knowledge be
forehand of what was to take place, wrote to Mr. Niles as
late as May lO, 1819: "I now tell you, in truth and upon
honor, that I know not and never knew the name of any one
of them," — that is, of the pardcipants in the "Tea Party."
He avoided knowledge at the time, so as not to be a com
petent witness against any one in a criminal prosecution.
Two years before the date of this letter a visitor " blurted
out the name " of one member to Mr. Adams, but he would
not commit it to writing. Curiously enough, he states in
the same letter that he was at Plymouth at the time of the
event, whereas his journal and his letter to James Warren,
December 17, 1773, show him to have been then in Bos
ton, — another instance of the untrustworthiness of old
men's memories.^
Not long after the date of Mr Adams's letter to Niles,
when an interval of nearly fifty years had passed, and the
actors may be presumed to have reached an age between
seventy-five and ninety, reporters and interviewers began
to seek several garrulous persons who pretended to know
about the " Tea Party." Family traditions came out of a
father or son having tea found in his boots the morning
after the affair. Niles's " Principles and Acts of the
Revolution'' (pp. 485, 486) reprints from the "Boston
Daily Advertiser " (date not given) ^ a report of conver
sations with the survivors of the period, who disagreed as
to the number of the ships and the wharf where they lay.
This interviewer says : " The contrivers of this measure
and those who carried it into effect will never be known.
. . . None of those persons who were confidently said
I John Adams's Works, ii. 323, 334, ; ix. 333.
^ The original communication has, after a search, been discovered in the
issue of that journal for November 10, 1821. The first of the writers series
was published October 30, 1821.

RECOLLECTIONS AS A SOURCE OF HISTORY. 38 1
to have been of the party (except some who were then
minors or very young men) have ever admitted that they
were so. The person who appeared to know more than
any one I ever spoke with, refused to mention names. . . .
There are very few alive now who helped to empty the
chests of tea, and these few will probably be as prudent as
those who have gone before them." This writer gives no
names of persons taking part in the affair.
One of the interviewed persons ascribes to John Rowe
the words spoken at the meeting at the Old South Church,
"Who knows how tea will mingle with salt water?" —
language used to instigate the populace to the act These
words attributed to Rowe have been cited on this authority
alone by reputable authors. They are on their face in
credible, for Rowe was an owner of one of the tea cargoes,
and had enough of human nature in him not to exhort
others to destroy his own property. Moreover, just a year
ago appeared his Diary, which makes it clear that he
altogether disapproved the transaction, and could never
have spoken the words which have again and again been
put in his mouth.^ The result is that the anonymous
writer in the " Adverdser," who reports the loose talk of
other anonymous people, is not deserving of credit
In 1835, sixty-two years after the event, "The Traits of
the Tea Party, being a Memoir of George R. T. Hewes,"
was published. The author withheld his name, but later
he was ascertained to be Benjamin B. Thatcher. Hewes
was ninety-three, or nearly that age, when his account was
taken down; and he had believed himself to be in his one
hundredth year. His tesdmony is impeached by his
" positively affirming, as of his own observation, that
Samuel Adams and John Hancock were both acdvely
1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 2d series, a. 18, 19,
81, 82, where Mr. Pierce's paper on Rowe's Diary is printed.

382 RECOLLECTIONS AS A SOURCE OF HISTORY.
engaged in the process of destruction " (pages 192, 193) ;
and he said further that he recognized Hancock, not only
by his " ruffles," but by his " figure and gait," " features "
and " voice," and that he " exchanged with him an Indian
grunt" This was too much for even the credulous
Thatcher, who remarks, " This is a curious reminiscence,
but we believe it a mistake." Whatever Adams, or even
Hancock, may have done in advising the destruction of
the tea, no sane person believes that they took a personal
part in the scene itself; and there was every reason why
such well-known leaders of the Patriot cause should have
kept away. Now, Hewes states Hancock's presence just
as positively as he states his own ; and his narrative can
be relied on no more as to himself than as to others, as old
men so often remember to have seen what they have only
heard. Thatcher appends to his memoir of Hewes a list
of the "Tea Party," fifty-eight in all, — the first list ever
printed; and, indeed, no name of any one connected with
it had been before given to the public. He introduces the
list with this explanation : " We subjoin here also a list
which has been furnished by an aged Bostonian, well
acquainted with the history of our subject, of the persons
generally supposed within his knowledge, on traditionary
or other evidence, to have been more or less actively en
gaged in or present at the destruction of the Tea." This
is in many points a curious statement. " Persons engaged
in " are mixed with those who were merely "present at,"
whether approving or disapproving. The name of " the
aged Bostonian " who knew so much is kept back without
any apparent reason. It is a list of those " generally sup
posed " to have been participants or spectators, not of
those known to have been of one or the other class. It is
based on " traditionary and other evidence," -»- the word
" other " presumably indicating a weaker kind of evidence

RECOLLECTIONS AS A SOURCE OF HISTORY. 383
than even tradition, which is generally thought to be the
weakest of all. And yet this list has been adopted by
Lossing, who makes the number fifty-nine, and by .Drake,
who carries it to one hundred and thirteen; and upon
this evidence alone descendants of persons so enumerated
have chosen as a coat-of-arms a ship being emptied by
Mohawks, or a teapot fuming at the mouth.
Another " Tea Party " claimant is David Kinnison, the
supposed last survivor, who died in 1852 at the age of one
hundred and fifteen. His account seems to have been
given in 1848, seventy- five years after the event, when he
was one hundred and eleven years and nine months old.^
Even F. S. Drake, whose list, given in his " Tea Leaves,"
is very receptive and inclusive (page Ixxxii), admits that,
" owing to the great age of Kinnison when this relation was
made to Mr. Lossing, it is possibly in some particulars
erroneous, and is given only as a piece of original evidence,
and simply for what it is worth." This form of expression,
" for what it is worth," means in plainer English that it is
not worth anything. It does not add to the value of Kin-
nison's account that in middle life he met with a severe
injury, — the fracture of his skull and of his collar-bone
and two of his ribs.
Drake (page Ixxi) prints the account of Joshua Wyeth,
who in 1827, fifty-four years after the event, made his nar
ration at Cincinnad. He was fifteen years of age in 1773,
and claimed to have been one of twenty-eight or thirty
engaged. It is not likely that the real projectors of the
affair, who worked secretly and kept their secret well,
would have invited a youth of fifteen to join with them.
At this Society's commemoration of the one hundredth
anniversary of the " Tea Party" in December, 1873, Rich
ard Frothingham, a most careful and honest invesdgator,
1 Lossing's Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution, i. 499, 500.

384 RECOLLECTIONS AS A SOURCE OF HISTORY.
read a paper appropriate to the occasion, in which he
said : " Several of the party have been identified, but the ,
claims presented for others are doubtful ; " but he assigned
no names to either class. He said of Thatcher's list that
it was " not trustworthy as to those who did the work."
At the same meeting of the Society Thomas C. Amory
added two names to the list, — those of Amos Lincoln and
Colonel James Swan; but he gave no proofs, except by
saying that when a Harvard student he visited Colonel
Swan in London, who " recounted the particulars of the
destruction of the tea, in which he assisted." As Mr.
Amory graduated at Harvard College in 1830, Colonel
Swan made the communication fifty-seven years after the
" Tea Party ; " and Mr. Amory first gave it to the public
forty-three years after it had been made to him, — thus
being carried in two memories for one hundred years.
These intervals are too long to admit the two narrations
as bases of history.
The conclusion is that no one person has been iden
tified with any certainty as a member of the historic
" Tea Party," — at least upon any evidence on which a
plaintiff or a prosecutor could expect a verdict, or upon
the lesser evidence, that of reasonable probability, with
which historical writers must sometimes be content.
One inquiry comes naturally in this connection, why it
was that after the peace of 1783 the members of the "Tea
Party" kept up their reticence concerning their own share
in it, — a reticence which appears in John Adams's letter
and in the account reprinted in Niles's book. Those who
had borne a part in the civil and military history of the
Revolution took pride in avowing what they had done for
their country in those spheres. The men of the "Tea
Party " were then safe from civil and criminal proceed
ings, and also from social censure, as most of the owners,

RECOLLECTIONS AS A SOURCE OF HISTORY. 385
the Hutchinsons and Clarkes, were emigres. Was their
studied silence due to the instinctive shrinking of civilized
people to confess a share in any deed of violence, what
ever defences it may have, which lacks the sanction of
law, — either the civil law or the law of war ?
When the corner-stone of the Bunker Hill Monument
was laid in 1825, fifty years after the battle, there were
present one hundred and ninety survivors of the army of
the Revolution, forty of whom had been, or claimed to
have been, engaged in the conflict of June 17, 1775. One
of the directors of the Monument Association, William
Sullivan, assisted by other directors and by Judge Thatcher,
wishing to preserve the details of the battle and to clear up
disputed points, caused the depositions of the survivors to
be taken. These, or a transcript of them in three volumes,
were sent to this Society in 1842 by William Sullivan's
brother Richard ; and a committee consisting of Ticknor,
Bancroft, and Ellis was appointed to report on the his
torical character and value of the manuscripts. This com
mittee came to the conclusion that they should be sealed
up and deposited in the Cabinet as curiosides. It is not
clear what became of them. They were supposed to have
been returned to the Sullivan family at their request, and
to have been burned by them ; but some of the originals
have been since offered for sale at an auction-room in New
York City.i
A note by Dr. Ellis to the Proceedings of the Society
for April, 1842 (page 231), says: —
" I took the books to my house in Charlestown, and deliberately
examined them. Their contents were most extraordinary, — many
of the testimonies extravagant, boastful, inconsistent, and utterly
1 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, ii. 224, 225, 230-
232 234, 235 ; Narrative and Critical History of America, vi. 189.
25

386 RECOLLECTIONS AS A SOURCE OF HISTORY.
untrue ; mixtures of old men's broken memories and fond imagin
ings with the love of the marvellous. Some of those who gave in
affidavits about the battle could not have been in it, nor even in its
neighborhood. They had got so used to telling the story for the
wonderment of village listeners as grandfathers' tales, and as petted
representatives of ' the spirit of '76,' that they did not distinguish
between what they had seen and done and what they had read,
heard, or dreamed. The decision of the committee was that much
of the contents of the volumes was wholly worthless for history, and
some of it discreditable, as misleading and false."
Such is the testimony of a very competent historical
critic as to old soldiers' accounts of battles in which they
served, or thought they had served, long ago. It fits well
what King Henry foretold of the survivor of Agincourt, —
" Old men forget ; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day."
In the Proceedings of this Society for February, 1881
(pp. 340-344), there is an account of the Garrison mob of
October 21, 1835, contributed forty-five years after the
event by the late Ellis Ames, evidently without the assist
ance of any contemporaneous notes. He describes what
he saw of the mob, and then mentions a call at the law
office of A. H. Fiske, on Court Street, just after the affair,
and then a call on Charles Sumner at No. 4 Court Street,
directly opposite, to whom he related what he had just
seen. Then, apparently intending to give the impression
that Mr. Sumner did not disapprove, or at any rate with
any earnestness, what had occurred, he adds, —
" He did not express such anxiety about the affair as Mr. Fiske
did. If Mr. Sumner had gone to the door of his office, and walked
by the railing on the left side about twenty-five feet, he would have
come to a window which opened on the south side of Court Street,

RECOLLECTIONS AS A SOURCE OF HISTORY. 387
where by looking out in an easterly direction he could have seen
all the doings of the mob which took place on State Street."
How Mr. Sumner, whose office was in the rear, lighted
only by an inside court, is to be held responsible for not
looking at a scene on the street of which he knew nothing
till it was all passed, it is impossible to see. Besides, the
account which Mr. Ames gives and the suggestion he makes
are altogether improbable. His statement of the interior
arrangements of No. 4 Court Street, where he was only an
occasional visitor, does not agree with the recollection of
those who had offices there for a long time, — among them
our associates Mr. George S. Hale and Mr. George O.
Shattuck, — and who say that no window looked out from
the hall on Court Street, but that the windows looking out
on that street were to be reached only by entering the front
offices. Besides, Mr. Sumner, who had inherited his father's
antislavery sentiments, is on record as expressing like sen
timents even earlier than the mob ; and about the time it
took place he became a subscriber for the " Liberator." ^
I knew Mr. Ames from my youth, having been born and
having lived till manhood within four miles of his home. In
the winter of 1852-53 I passed three months in his law office
at Canton, often dining with him, and driving with him to
hunt up evidence for trials, and to explore disputed boun
daries in woods and swamps; and at this time he presented
me for admission to the bar. During this intimacy we talked
of Mr. Sumner very often, but he never mentioned the inci
dent about the mob. Late in his life he first mentioned it
to me on the street in Boston ; but I paid little attention to
what he said, treating it as a dream of age, as his faculties
were then waning, and his mood was unlike that of earlier
days. He mentioned at the same interview another anti-
1 Sumner Memoir, i. 24-27, 134, 157, 173, 185, 191 ; iii. 69.

388 RECOLLECTIONS AS A SOURCE OF HISTORY.
slavery leader whom he saw active as one of the mob, but
whose name he did not include in the account. I first as
certained that his narrative had passed into print when
I saw it noted in the Life of W. L. Garrison,^ where the
biographers, though calling it " a singularly mixed ac
count," interpreted it, so far as Mr. Sumner was concerned,
in the same manner I had interpreted it. To my note of
protest Mr. W. P. Garrison replied, — ¦
" I had no personal knowledge of Mr. Ames, or I might have
hesitated to cite him as I did ; but I detected his untrustworthiness
in relating what took place about the Old State House ; for here I
had a cloud of witnesses to check him at every point. I have re
ferred in a note to his singularly confused account. At a distance
from Boston I had to regard him with a certain respect, because
the Massachusetts Historical Society admitted him lo its ' Proceed
ings. ' I think your quarrel is really with that Society."
Of all reminiscences those concerning public men at
Washington are the most untrustworthy. The life of a
capital city teems with gossip ; it abounds in rivalries, jeal
ousies, calumnies. General Sherman, in a letter to Presi
dent Johnson, calls Washington " the focus of intrigue,
gossip, and slander." Stories of public characters have
\ somewhat the interest of fiction, and the mass of readers
care little whether they are true or not. Managers of
magazines are keen in the search for them ; and the result
is a medley of tales, with litde of truth in them, and that
little of truth so compounded with falsehood as to be worse
than falsehood entire. They obtain a credence with even
intelligent people, who fancy that what is in type must be
true. In ten, twenty, or thirty years they are thought worthy
of recognition as a source of history. But if any one canon
should be rigidly observed by American historians, it is
1 Vol. ii. p. 25 note.

RECOLLECTIONS AS A SOURCE OF HISTORY. 389
that Washington gossip is not history. I have had occa
sion elsewhere to deal with some of these irresponsible
raconteurs, — as Miss Olive Seward, Adam Badeau, and
Noah Brooks.^ Not seldom, such writers can be impeached
by a record ; and they are apt to expose themselves by
falling into anachronisms. Now and then a valuable con
tribution, like that of General J. D. Cox in the Atlantic
Monthly for August, 1895, appears; but generally remi
niscences of Washington life and affairs should be dis
missed without consideration by historians.
Mr. Lincoln has been the subject of a vast amount of
reminiscences, and will continue to be such for the next
twenty years or more. Whether the true Lincoln can ever
be discovered among the rubbish is doubtful. At a dinner
in Washington the host, whose recollections have been
published, was relating at length what Lincoln had said to
him, and even more at length what he had said to Lincoln,
when a guest, a witty lawyer of New York City, becoming
weary with the monotonous tale, interrupted it with the
question, " Will you not now tell us of your talks with
Washington and Columbus ? "
Daniel Webster has been the victim of reminiscences
by one who understood him not half so well as Friday
understood Robinson Crusoe. Mr. Lodge says of Peter
Harvey's book : " A more untrustworthy book it would
be impossible to imagine. There is not a statement in it
which can be safely accepted, unless supported by other
evidence. It puts its subject throughout in the most un
pleasant light, and nothing has ever been written about
Webster so well calculated to injure and belittle him as
these feeble and distorted recollections of his loving and
1 Sumner Memoir, iv. 381-383, 329 natc, 613-624; Century Magazine,
March, 1S9S, pp. 792, 793-

390 RECOLLECTIONS AS A SOURCE OF HISTORY.
devoted Boswell. It is the reflection of a great man upon
the mirror of a very small mind and weak memory." ^
And yet, as I happen to know, the book is not nearly so
bad as it would have been without the revision by a most
accomplished proof-reader^ of the University Press at
Cambridge. General Grant's " Personal Memoirs " reveal a remark
able inaccuracy of statement in an affair where Secretary
Stanton, with whom his relations were not pleasant, was
concerned. President Lincoln visited Richmond imme
diately after its evacuation ; and while there he issued an
order to General Weitzel to give permission to the Legis
lature of Virginia (or rather, as the order read, " to the
gentlemen who have acted as the Legislature of Virginia
in support of the rebellion") to assemble at Richmond.
He then returned to Washington by the Potomac, reaching
there the last Sunday evening of his life. From Washing
ton, April 12, 1865, two days before his death, he himself
revoked the summons to the above body, giving his rea
sons. It was his own act, and his last important official
act. The circumstances were well known at the time, and
shortly after became the subject of considerable discus
sion.^ Nevertheless, twenty years afterwards General
Grant in illustrating what he calls Stanton's " character
istic " as " a man who never questioned his own authority,
and who always did in war-time what he wanted to do,"
wrote that Stanton countermanded the above-named order,
" notwithstanding the fact that the President was nearer
the spot than he was," — meaning that Stanton did at
Washington, while Lincoln was in or near Richmond, what
1 Lodge's Webster, i. 95 note.
2 Mr. A. W. Stevens.
^ Nicolay and Hay's Lincoln, x. 222-228.

RECOLLECTIONS AS A SOURCE OF HISTORY. 391
in fact Lincoln himself did at Washington.^ The pub
lishers and editors of the recent edition of the " Personal
Memoirs " have not seen fit to note this manifest error.
This criticism is limited to General Grant's correctness as
a narrator of civil affairs ; but his accuracy as a narrator
of military affairs has also been much questioned.^
American magazines have of late years teemed with
descriptions of the campaigns and battles of the Civil War,
contributed by officers who had taken part in them. I
cannot speak in detail of this literature; but it is worthy
of note that Colonel Robert N. Scott, who had charge of
the published " Compilation of the Official Records of the
Union and Confederate Armies," took a certain satisfac
tion in calling the attention of these magazine contributors
to the disagreements between their official reports and
what they now wrote after an interval of years. They had
not even taken the pains to verify what they communi
cated for popular reading by recurring to what they had
written at the time on official responsibility.
\
It happened to me to read Wilberforce's Life when I
was in college; and Butler's Analogy being then one of
my textbooks, I noted what Pitt had said to Wilberforce, —
that " the work raised in his mind more doubts than it had
answered." ^ I remember to have used this extract in my
examination, and I have kept it in mind ever since. The
1 Personal Memoirs, rst ed. ii. 505, 506 ; 2d ed. ii. 355, 356.
2 " From Chattanooga to Petersburg," by W. F. Smith ; " Grant versus
the Record," by Carswell McClellan; General J. D. Cox's review of the
" Personal Memoirs " in the New York " Nation," February 25 and July i,
1886; "The Mistakes of Grant," by W. S. Rosecrans, North American
Review, December, 1885, pp. 580-599; "Misunderstandings: Halleck and
Grant," by J. B. Fry, Magazine of American History, xvi. 561.
3 Life of Wilberforce, i. 95.

392 RECOLLECTIONS AS A SOURCE OF HISTORY.
biographers include this remark of Pitt among conversa
tional memoranda which they had picked up from one
source or another, and represent it to have been made in
1785, while Wilberforce's Life was pubhshed in 1838.
But now, one hundred and eleven years after the remark
is said to have been made, and fifty-eight years after it
was put in print, Mr. Gladstone, in a recent paper in the
Nineteenth Century, November, 1895 (pages 721, 722),
disputes the authenticity of Pitt's reported remark, as
being from a source " neither contemporary nor first
hand," and " in conflict with another account of a directly
opposite tenor," according to which Pitt commended the
book. If Mr. Gladstone is right in his contention, what
credit is to be given to the conversations with which
biographies abound?
Conversations are with difficulty recorded by a listener,
and reports of them must be taken with much allowance.
In ordinary talk there are many omissions to be filled by
the context, — by what has been said before, either on the
same or an earlier occasion. Then, too, expression and
gesture are left to correct an imperfect sentence or com
plete an unfinished thought. Much depends also not
only on the narrator's skill, but also on his abstinence
from the natural disposition to color his record by his own
feelings and ideas. The late Henry Wilson, just after
reading a well-known diary containing much reported to
have been said by pubhc men, remarked to me that he
would not talk with any one whom he knew to be keeping
a diary. Perhaps he had premonitions of similar records
concerning himself; for his own conversations as to public
men and events were singularly free and unguarded. The
late Nassau W. Senior often visited Paris, where he mingled
freely with scholars and public men ; and his notes of the
" Conversations " he listened to have been published. I

RECOLLECTIONS AS A SOURCE OF HISTORY. 393
once mentioned these to Michel Chevalier; and he said
that there was a good deal of Mr. Senior in them, — mean
ing that Mr. Senior in undertaking to report others had
fallen into the habit of recording his own thoughts.
Somewhat kindred to the topic in hand is the credibility
of diaries. These must often be taken at a discount
Assuming the veracity of the writer, he is apt not to con
fine himself to what he really knows. For instance, J. Q.
Adams in his diary ^ attributes to Webster the authorship
of Whig resolutions in September, 1846; but intrinsic as
well as outside evidence points to another author, — J.
Thomas Stevenson, a merchant of the time, who reported
them to the convention. They lack terseness and vigor,
qualities which predominate in Webster's style.^
But whatever may be the value of diaries, greater or less
according to the moral and intellectual character of the
diarist and his opportunities of observation, no credit
should be given to anonymous diaries. Those which
cannot be tested by the character of the diarist are worth
less, and should never be cited except to be repudiated.
No honest narrator will withhold his name from what he
declares to the world he has seen or heard. A single
instance must suffice.
The North American Review in 1879^ printed what
purported to be the " Diary of a Public Man," describing,
with personal details of various public men, what was
going on in New York City and Washington in the winter
of 1860-1861, just before the outbreak of the Rebellion.
The editor, A. T. Rice, refused to give the name of the
writer to George T. Curtis, the biographer of President
1 Diary of John Quincy Adams, xii. 274.
2 Memoir of Charles Sumner, iii. 124 note; 125 note.
s North American Review, cxxix. 125, 375, 484.

394 RECOLLECTIONS AS A SOURCE OF HISTORY.
Buchanan.^ Other persons have sought to learn the au
thorship of this Diary, but without success ; and perhaps,
Mr. Rice having died, it is unknown to any living person.
Several names have been suggested, but probably without
reason. The latest theory is that the Diary is a pure
invention, — a fictitious narrative by an adventurer re
cently deceased, who had much to do with newspapers
and magazines, who had a career both in this country and
in England, and who late in his life figured in a scandalous
trial in London. He was able, by a general knowledge of
social occasions and of the presence of public men in the
two cities, to give an air of probability to his narrative ;
but a close scrutiny reveals his untrustworthiness.
This diarist makes himself the most remarkable per
sonage of modern times. His counsels and mediation
were eagerly sought by men of adverse opinions and
positions, and he was admitted by them to most confi
dential interviews. Among these were Douglas, Seward,
Sumner, the British Minister, and the Confederate chiefs
Orr and Forsyth. He was solicited to assist in making
the Cabinet; all the departments were open to him; and
Lincoln, as soon as he was in office, though weighted with
unexampled burdens, put aside all other duties to receive
him and listen to his wisdom. Who could be this mar
vellous man, so miscellaneous in his affiliations, whose
thoughts statesmen yearned to hear in those dread hours?
It is easier to suppose that he did not exist than to point
him out among the characters of that eventful period.
The Diary bears in some entries intrinsic evidence of
not being genuine. In the first place it attributes to Mr.
Sumner activity in Cabinet-making, — a function from
which by taste and habit he kept aloof. In the next place
it states that the diarist and another person held by ap-
1 President Buchanan's Life, ii. 891 note; 394, 395.

RECOLLECTIONS AS A SOURCE OF HISTORY.

395

pointment a conference with President Lincoln March 7,
his third day in office, and in the afternoon of that day.
Now, it appears, by the public journals of March 8, that on
the afternoon of the 7th the President gave a formal recep
tion, his first one, to the diplomatic corps, — a protracted
ceremonial. After its conclusion there would not have
been time before dinner, which then came at an early hour
in Washington, — that is, about six, — for such a confer
ence as the diarist pretends to ascribe. Again, he sub
stitutes blanks for names, — and this, eighteen years after
the date, when the prominent actors, long since dead,
could not be compromised by publicity. The suppres
sion of names is an obvious mode of securing a fictitious
narrative against detection.
In 1886, seven years after it appeared, I undertook to
test the Diary as well as I could. I found only one person
living with whom its writer described an interview, — in
deed, I think the only person named in that way who was
living when the Diary appeared ; and it is not unlikely,
as that one had retired from active life, that the diarist
thought him dead also. This was Hiram Barney,^ who a
few weeks after the reported interview with him became
Collector of the Port' of New York. I had become inti
mate with Mr. Barney as early as 1856, having formed an
acquaintance with him still earlier. He lived till May 18
of last year. The Diary reports a conversation with him
February 20, 1861, just after he had come from a break
fast at Moses H. Grinnell's, given to Mr. Lincoln, who was
then on his way to Washington. The breakfast did indeed
take place, and is mentioned the next day in the " New
York Tribune," with the names of several of the guests ;
but Mr. Barney is not named in the list, and in fact did
not attend, contrary to the statement of the Diary. In
1 Diary of a Public Man, pp. 137, 138.

396 RECOLLECTIONS AS A SOURCE OF HISTORY.
answer to my inquiry as to his presence and the conver
sation alleged to have taken place immediately after, he
rephed in a letter dated October 5, 1886, —
" I recollect the article in the N. A. Review to which you refer,
— ' Diary of a Public Man ; " and as I could not recollect his inter
view with me to which he refers, was anxious at the time to know
who he was. I applied to Appleton & Co., the publishers ; but
they could not or would not inform me. I do not think that his
statement, so far as it regards my calling upon him at his hotel, or
the breakfast at Grinnell's, or Mr. Lincoln, had a particle of truth
in it. There was no such breakfast, and no such interview, and
no such statements, and probably the author was a romancer. If
you should ever find out who the author was, I wish you would
tell me."
I replied promptly to Mr. Barney that there was a break
fast at Grinnell's, repeating the names of guests mentioned
in the " Tribune ; " and he wrote, October 7, —
" I have yours of the 6th. I am sure that I did not attend the
breakfast at Grinnell's, Feb. 20, '61. It was not such a gathering
as at that time I would probably be invited to or would care to at
tend. There are some of my special friends in the fist, such as
Charles H. Marshall, H. Fish, and T. Tileston ; there are others,
such as John J. Astor, John A. Stevens, Aspinwall, and Minturn,
with whom I was on friendly terms enough, but not very intimate ;
then there were others with whom I was never on any terms of cor
diality. It was, with few exceptions, a Seward crowd ; and such
people were wholly unsympathetic with me. I may have heard of
the breakfast at the time, and it now seems probable that it really
occurred ; but it does not seem possible that I called on the writer
in the N. A. Review, whoever he was, and had with him any con
versation, certainly not the conversation which he reports. I have
tried to find out the writer, but stat nominis umbra in spite of all
my efforts to uncover him. I do not even suspect who he may
be."

RECOLLECTIONS AS A SOURCE OF HISTORY. 397
It is not difficult to explain all this. The " romancer,"
as Mr. Barney calls him, knew from the public journals
that there was a breakfast at Mr. Grinnell's ; he imagined
that Mr. Barney, as a friend of Lincoln and Chase, was
likely to have been one of the guests ; he supposed, in
1879, that Mr. Barney, who had passed out of sight, was
no longer living to dispute his statement, and that it was
therefore safe to put into his mouth any words he pleased.
As the facts now appear, the " Diary of a Public Man ''
must be regarded as a fiction, — nothing more nor less.
The reading of Mr. Pierce's paper was followed by an informal
discussion, in which Messrs. George S. Hale, Justin Winsor,
William Everett, Barrett Wendell, William W. Goodwin, Samuel
A. Green, Samuel F. McCleary, and Albert B. Hart took part.
After the paper was printed, its critical method was approved in
letters to the author from several historical students, — among them
Andrew D. White, Horace White, Henry L. Dawes, James O.
Murray, and James B. Angell, — some of whom gave other in
stances of errors in recollections which had come within their
knowledge.

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