The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864

V >> Various >> The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864

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"It is so, Sir. Whoever tells you otherwise deceives you. I think I know
Northern sentiment, and I assure you it is so. You know we have a system
of lyceum-lecturing in our large towns. At the close of these lectures,
it is the custom of the people to come upon the platform and talk with
the lecturer. This gives him an excellent opportunity of learning public
sentiment. Last winter I lectured before nearly a hundred of such
associations, all over the North,--from Dubuque to Bangor,--and I took
pains to ascertain the feeling of the people. I found a unanimous
determination to crush the Rebellion and save the Union at every
sacrifice. The majority are in favor of Mr. Lincoln, and nearly all of
those opposed to him are opposed to him because they think he does not
fight you with enough vigor. The radical Republicans, who go for
slave-suffrage and thorough confiscation, are those who will defeat him,
if he is defeated. But if he is defeated before the people, the House
will elect a worse man,--I mean, worse for you. It is more radical than
he is,--you can see that from Mr. Ashley's Reconstruction Bill,--and the
people are more radical than the House. Mr. Lincoln, I know, is about to
call out five hundred thousand more men, and I can't see how you _can_
resist much longer; but if you do, you will only deepen the radical
feeling of the Northern people. They will now give you fair, honorable,
_generous_ terms; but let them suffer much more, let there be a dead man
in every house, as there is now in every village, and they will give you
_no_ terms,--they will insist on hanging every Rebel south of ----.
Pardon my terms. I mean no offence."

"You give no offence," he replied, smiling very, pleasantly. "I wouldn't
have you pick your words. This is a frank, free talk, and I like you the
better for saying what you think. Go on."

"I was merely going to say, that, let the Northern people once really
feel the war,--they do not feel it yet,--and they will insist on hanging
every one of your leaders."

"Well, admitting all you say, I can't see how it affects our position.
There are some things worse than hanging or extermination. We reckon
giving up the right of self-government one of those things."

"By self-government you mean disunion,--Southern Independence?"

"Yes."

"And slavery, you say, is no longer an element in the contest."

"No, it is not, it never was an _essential_ element. It was only a means
of bringing other conflicting elements to an earlier culmination. It
fired the musket which was already capped and loaded. There are
essential differences between the North and the South that will, however
this war may end, make them two nations."

"You ask me to say what I think. Will you allow me to say that I know
the South pretty well, and never observed those differences?"

"Then you have not used your eyes. My sight is poorer than yours, but I
have seen them for years."

The laugh was upon me, and Mr. Benjamin enjoyed it.

"Well, Sir, be that as it may, if I understand you, the dispute between
your government and ours is narrowed down to this: Union or Disunion."

"Yes; or to put it in other words: Independence or Subjugation."

"Then the two governments are irreconcilably apart. They have no
alternative but to fight it out. But it is not so with the people. They
are tired of fighting, and want peace; and as they bear all the burden
and suffering of the war, is it not right they should have peace, and
have it on such terms as they like?"

"I don't understand you. Be a little more explicit."

"Well, suppose the two governments should agree to something like this:
To go to the people with two propositions: say, Peace, with Disunion and
Southern Independence, as your proposition,--and Peace, with Union,
Emancipation, No Confiscation, and Universal Amnesty, as ours. Let the
citizens of all the United States (as they existed before the war) vote
'Yes,' or 'No,' on these two propositions, at a special election within
sixty days. If a majority votes Disunion, our government to be bound by
it, and to let you go in peace. If a majority votes Union, yours to be
bound by it, and to stay in peace. The two governments can contract in
this way, and the people, though constitutionally unable to decide on
peace or war, can elect which of the two propositions shall govern their
rulers. Let Lee and Grant, meanwhile, agree to an armistice. This would
sheathe the sword; and if once sheathed, it would never again be drawn
by this generation."

"The plan is altogether impracticable. If the South were only one State,
it might work; but as it is, if one Southern State objected to
emancipation, it would nullify the whole thing; for you are aware the
people of Virginia cannot vote slavery out of South Carolina, nor the
people of South Carolina vote it out of Virginia."

"But three-fourths of the States can amend the Constitution. Let it be
done in that way,--in any way, so that it be done by the people. I am
not a statesman or a politician, and I do not know just how such a plan
could be carried out; but you get the idea,--that the PEOPLE shall
decide the question."

"That the _majority_ shall decide it, you mean. We seceded to rid
ourselves of the rule of the majority, and this would subject us to it
again."

"But the majority must rule finally, either with bullets or ballots."

"I am not so sure of that. Neither current events nor history shows that
the majority rules, or ever did rule. The contrary, I think, is true.
Why, Sir, the man who should go before the Southern people with such a
proposition, with _any_ proposition which implied that the North was to
have a voice in determining the domestic relations of the South, could
not live here a day. He would be hanged to the first tree, without judge
or jury."

"Allow me to doubt that. I think it more likely he would be hanged, if
he let the Southern people know the majority couldn't rule," I replied,
smiling.

"I have no fear of that," rejoined Mr. Davis, also smiling most
good-humoredly. "I give you leave to proclaim it from every house-top in
the South."

"But, seriously, Sir, you let the majority rule in a single State; why
not let it rule in the whole country?"

"Because the States are independent and sovereign. The country is not.
It is only a confederation of States; or rather it _was_: it is now
_two_ confederations."

"Then we are not a _people_,--we are only a political partnership?"

"That is all."

"Your very name, Sir, '_United_ States,' implies that," said Mr.
Benjamin. "But, tell me, are the terms you have named--Emancipation, No
Confiscation, and Universal Amnesty--the terms which Mr. Lincoln
authorized you to offer us?"

"No, Sir, Mr. Lincoln did not authorize me to offer you any terms. But I
_think_ both he and the Northern people, for the sake of peace, would
assent to some such conditions."

"They are _very_ generous," replied Mr. Davis, for the first time during
the interview showing some angry feeling. "But Amnesty, Sir, applies to
criminals. We have committed no crime. Confiscation is of no account,
unless you can enforce it. And Emancipation! You have already
emancipated nearly two millions of our slaves,--and if you will take
care of them, you may emancipate the rest. I had a few when the war
began. I was of some use to them; they never were of any to me. Against
their will you 'emancipated' them; and you may 'emancipate' every negro
in the Confederacy, but _we will be free_! We will govern ourselves. We
_will_ do it, if we have to see every Southern plantation sacked, and
every Southern city in flames."

"I see, Mr. Davis, it is useless to continue this conversation," I
replied; "and you will pardon us, if we have seemed to press our views
with too much pertinacity. We love the old flag, and that must be our
apology for intruding upon you at all."

"You have not intruded upon me," he replied, resuming his usual manner.
"I am glad to have met you, both. I once loved the old flag as well as
you do; I would have died for it; but now it is to me only the emblem of
oppression."

"I hope the day may never come, Mr. Davis, when _I_ say that," said the
Colonel.

A half-hour's conversation on other topics--not of public
interest--ensued, and then we rose to go. As we did so, the Rebel
President gave me his hand, and, bidding me a kindly good-bye, expressed
the hope of seeing me again in Richmond in happier times,--when peace
should have returned; but with the Colonel his parting was particularly
cordial. Taking his hand in both of his, he said to him,--

"Colonel, I respect your character and your motives, and I wish you
well,--I wish you every good I can wish you consistently with the
interests of the Confederacy."

The quiet, straightforward bearing and magnificent moral courage of our
"fighting parson" had evidently impressed Mr. Davis very favorably.

As we were leaving the room, he added--

"Say to Mr. Lincoln from me, that I shall at any time be pleased to
receive proposals for peace on the basis of our Independence. It will be
useless to approach me with any other."

When we went out, Mr. Benjamin called Judge Ould, who had been waiting
during the whole interview--two hours--at the other end of the hall, and
we passed down the stairway together. As I put my arm within that of the
Judge, he said to me,--

"Well, what is the result?"

"Nothing but war,--war to the knife."

"Ephraim is joined to his idols,--let him alone," added the Colonel,
solemnly.

I should like to relate the incidents of the next day, when we visited
Castle Thunder, Libby Prison, and the hospitals occupied by our wounded;
but the limits of a magazine-article will not permit. I can only say
that at sundown we passed out of the Rebel lines, and at ten o'clock
that night stretched our tired limbs on the "downy" cots in General
Butler's tent, thankful, devoutly thankful, that we were once again
under the folds of the old flag.

* * * * *

Thus ended our visit to Richmond. I have endeavored to sketch it
faithfully. The conversation with Mr. Davis I took down shortly after
entering the Union lines, and I have tried to report his exact language,
extenuating nothing, and coloring nothing that he said. Some of his
sentences, as I read them over, appear stilted and high-flown, but they
did not sound so when uttered. As listened to, they seemed the simple,
natural language of his thought. He spoke deliberately, apparently
weighing every word, and knowing well that all he said would be given to
the public.

He is a man of peculiar ability. Our interview with him explained to me
why, with no money and no commerce, with nearly every one of their
important cities in our hands, and with an army greatly inferior in
numbers and equipment to ours, the Rebels have held out so long. It is
because of the sagacity, energy, and indomitable will of Jefferson
Davis. Without him the Rebellion would crumble to pieces in a day; with
him it may continue to be, even in disaster, a power that will tax the
whole energy and resources of the nation.

The Southern masses want peace. Many of the Southern leaders want
it,--both my companion and I, by correspondence and intercourse with
them, know this; but there can be no peace so long as Mr. Davis controls
the South. Ignoring slavery, he himself states the issue,--the only
issue with him,--Union, or Disunion. That is it. We must conquer, or be
conquered. We can negotiate only with the bayonet. We can have peace and
union only by putting forth all our strength, crushing the Southern
armies, and overthrowing the Southern government.

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

_Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin._ By JAMES PARTON. New York: Mason
Brothers. Two Volumes. 8vo.

To appreciate the importance of this work, we must remember that it
covers more than three-fourths of a century full of great events, if not
of great men; that it begins with Boston and Philadelphia as small
provincial towns, and leaves them the thriving capitals of independent
States; that it finds colonial energy struggling with metropolitan
jealousy and ignorance; that it follows the struggle through all its
phases, until the restrictions of the mother became oppression, and the
love of the children was converted into hatred; that it traces the
growth and expansion of American industry,--the dawn of American
invention, so full of promise,--the development of the principle of
self-government, so full of power,--the bitter contest, so full of
lessons which, used aright, might have spared us more than half the
blood and treasure of the present war.

To appreciate the difficulty of this work, we must remember that the
inner and the outer life of the subject of it are equally full of
marvels; that, beginning by cutting off candle-wicks in a
tallow-chandler's shop in Boston, he ended as the greatest scientific
discoverer among those men renowned for science who composed the Royal
Society of London and the Academy of Sciences of Paris; that, with the
aid of an odd volume of the "Spectator," used according to his own
conception of the best way of using it, he made himself master of a
pure, simple, graceful, and effective English style; that the opinions
and maxims which he drew from his own observation and reflection have
passed into the daily life of millions, warning, strengthening,
cheering, and guiding; that he succeeded in the most difficult
negotiations, was a leader of public opinion on the most important
questions, and, holding his way cheerfully, resolutely, and lovingly to
the end, left the world wiser in many things, and in some better, for
the eighty-four years that he had passed in it.

Nor must we forget, that, among the many things which this wonderful old
man did, was to tell us half the story of his own life, and with such
unaffected simplicity, such evident sincerity, and such attractive
grace, as to make it--as far as it goes--the most perfect production of
its class. Then why attempt to do it over again? is the question that
naturally springs to every lip, on reading the title of Mr. Parton's
book.

Mr. Parton has anticipated this question, and answered it.
"Autobiography is one of the most interesting and valuable kinds of
composition; but autobiography can never be accepted _in lieu_ of
biography, because to no man is the giftie given of seeing himself as
others see him. Rousseau's Confessions are a miracle of candor: they
reveal much concerning a certain weak, wandering, diseased, miserable,
wicked Jean Jacques; but of that marvellous Rousseau whose writings
thrilled Europe they contain how much? Not one word. Madame D'Arblay's
Diary relates a thousand pleasant things, but it does not tell us what
manner of person Madame D'Arblay was. Franklin's Autobiography gives
agreeable information respecting a sagacious shopkeeper of Philadelphia,
but has little to impart to us respecting the grand Franklin, the
world's Franklin, the philosopher, the statesman, the philanthropist. A
man cannot reveal his best self, nor, unless he is a Rousseau, his
worst. Perhaps he never knows either."

The basis of Mr. Parton's work is, as the basis of every satisfactory
biography must be, the writings of its subject. "After all," he says,
"Dr. Jared Sparks's excellent edition of the 'Life and Works of
Franklin,' is the source of the greater part of the information we
possess concerning him.... The libraries, the public records, and the
private collections of England, France, and the United States, were so
diligently searched by Dr. Sparks, that, though seven previous editions
of the works of Franklin had appeared, he was able to add to his
publication the astonishing number of six hundred and fifty pieces of
Dr. Franklin's composition never before collected, of which four hundred
and fifty had never before appeared in print. To unwearied diligence in
collecting Dr. Sparks added an admirable talent in elucidating. His
notes are always such as an intelligent reader would desire, and they
usually contain all the information needed for a perfect understanding
of the matter in hand. Dr. Sparks's edition is a monument at once to the
memory of Benjamin Franklin and to his own diligence, tact, and
faithfulness." We take great pleasure in copying this passage, both
because it seems to illustrate the spirit which Mr. Parton brought to
his task, and because the value of Mr. Sparks's labors have not always
been so freely acknowledged by those who have been freest in their use
of them.

To a careful study of those volumes Mr. Parton has added patient and
extensive research among the newspapers and magazines of the time, and,
apparently, a wide range of general reading. Thus he has filled his work
with facts, some curious, some new, and all interesting, as well in
their bearing upon the times as upon the man. He is a good delver, a
good sifter, and, what is equally important, a good interpreter,--not
merely bringing facts to the light, but compelling them to give out,
like Correggio's pictures, a light of their own. He possesses, too, in
an eminent degree, the power of forming for himself a conception of his
subject as a whole, keeping it constantly before his mind in the
elaboration of the parts, and thus bringing it vividly before the mind
of the reader. Franklin's true place in history has never before been
assigned him upon such incontrovertible evidence.

If we were to undertake to name the parts of this work which have given
us most satisfaction, we should, although with some hesitation, name the
admirable chapters which Mr. Parton has devoted to Franklin's diplomatic
labors in England and France. In none of his good works has that great
man been more exposed to calumny, or treated with more barefaced
ingratitude by those who profited most by them, than in bringing to
light the dangerous letters of Hutchinson and Oliver. Even within the
last few years, the apologetic biographer of John Adams repeats the
accusation of moral obliquity in a tone that would hardly have been
misplaced in a defence of Wedderburn. Mr. Parton tells the story with
great simplicity, and, without entering into any unnecessary
disquisition, accepts for his commentary upon it Mr. Bancroft's wise,
and, as it seems to us, unanswerable conclusion. "Had the conspiracy
which was thus laid bare aimed at the life of a minister or the king,
any honest man must have immediately communicated the discovery to the
Secretary of State: to conspire to introduce into America a military
government, and abridge American liberty, was a more heinous crime, of
which irrefragable evidence had now come to light."

Never, too, was philosopher more severely tried than Franklin was tried
by the colleagues whom Congress sent him, from time to time, as clogs
upon the great wheel which he was turning so skilfully. And this, too,
Mr. Parton has set in full light, not by the special pleading of the
apologist, but by the documentary researches of the historian.

There are some things, however, in this work which we could have wished
somewhat different from what they are. Mr. Parton's fluent and forcible
style sometimes degenerates into flippancy. We could cite many instances
of felicitous expression, some, also, of bad taste, and some of hasty
assertion. "_Clubable_" is hardly a good enough word to bear frequent
repetition. "This question was a complete baffler" is too much like
slang to be admitted into the good company which Mr. Parton's sentences
usually keep. We were not aware that "Physician, heal thyself" was a
stock classical allusion. We do not believe--for Dante and Milton would
rise up in judgment against us, even if the vast majority of other great
men did not--that "it is only second-rate men who have great aims." We
do not believe that the style of the "Spectator" is an "easily imitated
style"; for, of the hundreds who have tried, how many, besides Franklin,
have really succeeded in imitating it? We do not believe that Latin and
Greek are an "obstructing nuisance," or that the student of Homer and
Thucydides and Demosthenes and Plato and Aristotle and Caesar and Cicero
and Tacitus is merely studying "the prattle of infant man," or "adding
the ignorance of the ancients to the ignorance he was born with." We
believe, on the contrary, that it was by such studies that Gibbon and
Niebuhr and Arnold and Grote acquired their marvellous power of
discovering historical truth and detecting historical error, and that
from no modern language could they have received such discipline.

But we not only agree with the sentiment, but admire the simple energy
of the expression, when he says that "Franklin was the man of all others
then alive who possessed in the greatest perfection the four grand
requisites for the successful observation of Nature or the pursuit of
literature,--a sound and great understanding, patience, dexterity, and
an independent income." Equally judicious and equally well-expressed is
the following passage upon the Penns:--"Thomas Penn was a man of
business, careful, saving, and methodical. Richard Penn was a
spendthrift. Both were men of slender abilities, and not of very
estimable character. They had done some liberal acts for the Province,
such as sending over presents to the Library of books and apparatus, and
cannon for the defence of Philadelphia. If the Pennsylvanians had been
more submissive, they would doubtless have continued their benefactions.
But, unhappily, they cherished those erroneous, those Tory notions of
the rights of sovereignty which Lord Bute infused into the contracted
mind of George III., and which cost that dull and obstinate monarch,
first, his colonies, and then his senses. It is also rooted in the
British mind, that a landholder is entitled to the particular respect of
his species. These Penns, in addition to the pride of possessing acres
by the million, felt themselves to be the lords of the land they owned,
and of the people who dwelt upon it." And in speaking of English ideas
of American resistance:--"Englishmen have made sublime sacrifices to
principle, but they appear slow to believe that any other people can."
And, "George III. sat upon a constitutional throne, but he had an
unconstitutional mind." It would be difficult to find a more
comprehensive sentence than the following:--"The counsel employed by Mr.
Mauduit was Alexander Wedderburn, a sharp, unprincipled Scotch
barrister, destined to scale all the heights of preferment which
shameless subserviency could reach."

It would be easy to multiply examples, but we have given, we believe,
more than enough to show that we look upon Mr. Parton's "Franklin" as a
work of very great value.

_The Maine Woods._ By HENRY D. THOREAU, Author of "A Week on the Concord
and Merrimack Rivers," "Walden," "Excursions," etc., etc. Boston:
Ticknor & Fields.

The steadily growing fame of Thoreau has this characteristic, that it
is, like his culture, a purely American product, and is no pale
reflection of the cheap glories of an English reprint. Whether he would
have gained or lost by a more cosmopolitan training or criticism is not
the question now; but certain it is that neither of these things went to
the making of his fame. Classical and Oriental reading he had; but
beyond these he cared for nothing which the men and meadows of Concord
could not give, and for this voluntary abnegation, half whimsical, half
sublime, the world repaid him with life-long obscurity, and will yet
repay him with permanent renown.

His choice of subjects, too, involves the same double recompense; for no
books are less dazzling or more immortal than those whose theme is
external Nature. Nothing else wears so well. History becomes so rapidly
overlaid with details, and its aspects change so fast, that the most
elaborate work soon grows obsolete; while a thoroughly sincere and
careful book on Nature cannot be superseded, and lives forever. Its
basis is real and permanent. There will always be birds and flowers,
nights and mornings. The infinite fascinations of mountains and of
forests will outlast this war, and the next, and the race that makes the
war. The same solidity of material which has guarantied permanence to
the fame of Izaak Walton and White of Selborne will as surely secure
that of Thoreau, who excels each of these writers upon his own ground,
while superadding a wider culture, a loftier thought, and a fine, though
fantastic, literary skill. All men may not love Nature, but all men
ultimately love her lovers. And of those lovers, past or present,
Thoreau is the most profound in his devotion, and the most richly
repaid.

Against these great merits are to be set, no doubt, some formidable
literary defects: an occasional mistiness of expression, like the summit
of Katahdin, as he himself describes it,--one vast fog, with here and
there a rock protruding; also, an occasional sandy barrenness, like his
beloved Cape Cod. In truth, he never quite completed the transition from
the observer to the artist. With the power of constructing sentences as
perfectly graceful as a hemlock-bough, he yet displays the most wayward
aptitude for literary caterpillars'-nests and all manner of
disfigurements. The same want of artistic habit appears also in his
wilful disregard of all rules of proportion. He depicts an Indian, for
instance, with such minute observation and admirable verbal skill that
one feels as if neither Catlin nor Schoolcraft ever saw the actual
creature; but though the table-talk of the aboriginal may seem for a
time more suggestive than that of Coleridge or Macaulay, yet there is a
point beyond which his, like theirs, becomes a bore.

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