The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860

V >> Various >> The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860

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We have all heard of the man who planned a house on so magnificent a
scale, that, when the porch was finished, the funds were found to be
nearly exhausted, and the main body of the house had to be built much
smaller than the porch. Mr. Ormsby has avoided this error. His porch
is _not_ half of the whole structure. His book contains 377 pages; of
these, only 188 (actually less than half!) are devoted to porch, or
introductory matter. This part is richly studded with blunders of every
description, and written in language which for copiousness and clearness
rivals the fertilizing inundations of the Nile.

The decorous appearance of impartiality, necessary to an historian,
is well preserved by such choice language as "crusade against the
institutions and people of the South,"--"fratricidal hand in sectional
warfare,"--"first to arouse jealousy and hatred,"--"the South at
the mercy of the North,"--"shriek for freedom,"--"political
mountebank,"--"and it is to the stunted, obtuse, bigoted, fanatical,
ignorant, jaundiced, self-righteous, and self-conceited millions of such
in the North, that Mr. Seward, and others of his kidney, address,"
etc., etc.,--"British gold," (a favorite phrase,)--"cant of British
philanthropy,"--etc., etc.

Mr. Ormsby devotes some little space to what may be called the
legitimate object of his work,--that is, the vindication of the
distinctive tariff policy of the Whigs,--and here advocates a good cause
in a singularly illogical, bungling way. Most of his book, however, is
given up to foolish invective against British machinations in the United
States,--an idea which may have been plausible in Jefferson's time,
but has long been abandoned to minds of our author's calibre,--and
to arguments against the Republican party which show only that he
is entirely ignorant of the doctrines of that party, and entirely
incompetent to understand them, if he were not ignorant.

We can present only a few specimens, taken almost at random from the
pages of this book. The author's ignorance (omitting the frequent
instances of error in the names) may be shown by his ranking R. M.
Johnson of Kentucky and Davy Crockett among the eminent statesmen of
their time! He says of Mr. Clay, "When, in 1825, as a Senator from
Kentucky, he sustained Mr. Adams (in the House) for the Presidency, he
acted," etc. Now Henry Clay was not in the Senate at any time between
March 3, 1811, and March 4, 1831. Moreover, if he had been, he could
not have voted for Adams, as Mr. Ormsby would have known, had he known
anything of the Constitution to which he professes such entire devotion.
Of the Missouri Compromise he says, "It was an arrangement by which the
South made concessions, and gained nothing"! If we are to adopt the
principle, that slavery is to be fostered, not discouraged, the South
did make concessions. The essential principle of the Republican party
is, that slavery is a great evil and brings in its train many other
evils, and that the legislation of the United States is not to be warped
by vain attempts to save the slave-holding interest from inevitable
disaster by systematic injustice to the other interests of the country.
If we adopt this view, which is admitted even by so ardent a pro-slavery
leader as Senator Mason of Virginia to have been the view of the framers
of the Constitution, then the South gave up what she never owned, and
was paid for so doing. And taking either view, we must admit that she
has since, by the Kansas-Nebraska act, revoked the grant, without
refunding the pay.

Mr. Ormsby mentions "the significant and highly encouraging fact," that
many leading Democrats, including Mr. Hallett, (whose name, of course,
he spells incorrectly,) declared for Protection in the campaign of
1856. His taking courage from so insignificant a fact as any of these
gentlemen declaring for any serviceable doctrine in a campaign shows
Mr. Ormsby to be by no means intimately acquainted with Massachusetts
Democracy.

It is commonly thought that General Taylor's nomination kept the Whigs
from sinking in 1848, and that the Whig party died in 1852 "of trying to
swallow the Fugitive Slave Law." But Mr. Ormsby thinks Taylor hurt them,
and that the Baltimore Platform was too anti-slavery. He frequently
alludes to Garrison and Phillips as Republicans, although nearly every
other adult in the country knows that they are bitter opponents of that
party,--says that Mr. Seward can rely only upon the Abolitionists in the
North,--misunderstands, of course, the "irrepressible conflict,"--says
that no Northern editor ventures to speak or write against Personal
Liberty bills, although probably not a day passes without their being
assailed by a dozen in New England alone,--that slaves never can be
carried into New Mexico, although they have been carried thither, and
slavery has even been declared perpetual by enactment of the Territorial
Legislature,--and, speaking of Kansas, that President Buchanan's "best
endeavors to secure the people of that Territory equal rights were
thwarted by factionists"!--in other words, "factionists" declined to
admit Kansas under the pro-slavery Lecompton constitution, forced by
gross frauds upon a loathing and reluctant people. He adds, that "no one
denies Mr. Buchanan eminent patriotism and statesmanship." Now, whether
the President possesses these qualities or not, there can be no doubt
that a great many deny them to him. And so Mr. Ormsby continues, heaping
blunder upon blunder, to a greater length than we can follow him.

On p.79, he makes this following unorthodox statement: "We have a right
to hate and detest slavery, and should belie our natures, were we not to
do so." Elsewhere, however, he dwells rapturously upon the happy lot of
the slave. The apparent inconsistency is explained on p. 318: "We will
not insult our understandings by doubting the great enormity of so foul
a thing as human bondage." "In regard to detestation of slavery, there
is no difference between the people of the North and South." "But these
two people (!!) differ widely in their feelings in regard to negro
servitude." Oh, that is it, then? Vast is the difference between "human
bondage" and "negro servitude!"

Mr. Ormsby's argument is aimed against the Republicans. Accordingly, he
assails the Abolitionists! Now we do not find fault with him because his
arguments are pitiably silly,--because an intelligent Abolitionist would
refute them instantly,--but because, even if they were sound, they
have no bearing upon his point. They are not only nonsensical, but
irrelevant.

"For the ignorance of the Southerners," says our author, "we should pity
them, and send them our schoolmasters, who, in happy years past, have
ever found a cordial reception." Exactly so,--"in happy years _past_."
He then innocently asks, Is it strange that the South should think it
necessary that she should have the ascendency in at least one branch
of the national government? Oh, no,--not at all,--but as Republicans
_don't_ consider it necessary, is it strange that they should, vote as
they think?

Here is a sample of most eminently logical reasoning: "The powerful
efforts made by the British government to suppress the slave-trade have
been far from successful. The exportation of negroes from Africa has not
been discontinued, but the sufferings of the middle passage have been
increased twofold; _showing that an attempt to thwart by legislation the
decrees of Providence is of but little avail_." If murder were frequent
in New York, and an insufficient force called out to suppress it, the
consequence being only more bloodshed, Mr. Ormsby, to be consistent,
would have to say it was not well to try to suppress murder, the event
showing it to be only a futile legislative attempt to thwart the decrees
of Providence!

"Not that any Whig was more in favor of the extension of slavery into
the Territories, by the general government, than Mr. Fremont, or the
best Republican at his back; but the idea of the formation of a party
based on the slavery question could not be entertained for a moment by
any one imbued with genuine Whig sentiments." pp. 357-8.

There is precisely the old argument of timid conservatism, although its
champions are seldom unskilful enough to advance it in a form so easily
dealt with. You may be bitterly opposed, forsooth, to the extension of
slavery; but you must not organize or even vote against it! Where, then,
is the good of being opposed to it?

The object of all this bad logic, bad history, and bad language is
to attack the Republicans, and advocate the claims of modern
Democracy,--not the Democracy of Jefferson and Silas Wright, but of
Cushing and Buchanan. And what is the conclusion? What is the mission of
the surviving Whigs?

"The existence of a conservative, enlightened, and patriotic opposition
party is the necessary condition of the existence of the Democracy as a
national party." p. 355.

"The slightest reflection, after even a superficial observation of the
condition of our country, will satisfy any candid person, of ordinary
ability, that the reconstruction of the Whig party is indispensable to
the perpetuity of the Union. The Democratic party, though now national,
if left to the sole opposition of the Republican, which is a sectional
party, must inevitably, sooner or later, itself degenerate into
sectionalism. This must be the necessary result of such antagonism. But
a party based upon intelligence and moral worth _must, most of the time,
be in the minority of the country, and much of the time exceedingly
small. This the Whigs see, and readily accept the conditions of their
existence_." pp. 363-4.

This, then, is the banquet to which we are invited! The mission of the
resuscitated Whig party is to be--not gaining any victory, but--being
beaten by the Democrats! It is important to the nationality of the
Democratic party that they have a sound and national opposition for them
to defeat regularly, year after year,--and this want the Whigs are to be
so obliging as to supply!

After all, is there anything very strange in silly men writing silly
books?

_The West Indies and the Spanish Main_. By ANTHONY TROLLOPE, Author of
"Barchester Towers," "Doctor Thorne," "The Bertrams," etc. London. 1859.
8vo. pp. 395.

This entertaining volume has already reached a second edition in
England. It is made up, in great part, of a series of lively sketches
of the West Indies, British Guiana, and some parts of Central America,
taken on a hasty tour during the winter and spring of last year. Its
style is by no means so good as that of which Mr. Trollope has
shown himself the master in his popular novels; it is disfigured by
Carlylisms, and other inelegancies, and bears many marks of negligence
and haste. With a little pains, Mr. Trollope might have made his book
much better, and of much more permanent value. In spite of a sense of
real humor, he sometimes falls into heavy attempts at smartness and fun;
and although he has a quick eye for the essential traits of character,
he not infrequently runs into trivial details. In travelling with
him, one is not quite certain whether his companion is a gentleman.
Breakfasts, lunches, and dinners hold a great place in his thoughts. He
gives far too much attention to rum-and-water, brandy-and-water, and the
varieties of drinking and eating in general. He has neither the ease nor
the self-restraint which mark the thoroughly well-bred man of the world;
but he is, nevertheless, good-natured, amusing, and likable. The chief
merit of his book arises from the fact that he has seen much and many
parts of the world, has been a student of life and manners, and thus
has acquired skill in observation and facility of comparison. The
conclusions which he draws from what he sees may be right or wrong; but
he knows well how to state what has come to his notice, and his readers
may get from his pictures many valuable indications in regard to men and
to social conditions, whether they accept his conclusions or not.

The state of the British West Indies is one of peculiar interest at the
present day, both in a social and an economical point of view. The great
questions opened by the emancipation of the slaves in these islands, in
1834, are not yet settled; and upon the solution of the problems now
being worked out there depends not only their own future, but also, in
great measure, the future of all the countries in which slavery still
exists. If the results of emancipation prove, on the whole, advantageous
both to masters and slaves, the question of the universal and
comparatively speedy abolition of slavery would be virtually decided.
If, however, it should be shown that the results, in the long run, are
disastrous both to whites and blacks, or to either of these classes,
then, although no one can doubt that slavery must sooner or later be
done away with, wherever it now exists, the time of its abolition may
be indefinitely postponed, and other means of accomplishing it must be
devised and adopted, than those which the example of the West Indies
will have proved injurious.

As in regard to all matters which have been vehemently discussed, the
accounts in regard to the effects of emancipation in the West Indies
differ widely; but the weight of authority tends to show, that, putting
aside for the moment all moral considerations, the scale inclines
towards the side of good. Mr. Trollope, who writes without prejudice,
may be taken as a fair witness, so far as his opportunities for
observation extended; and as his views will not satisfy the warm
partisans of either side, it may perhaps be assumed that they are in the
main correct. In his chapter on the Black Men in Jamaica, he says: "I
shall be asked, having said so much, whether I think that emancipation
was wrong. By no means. I think that emancipation was clearly right; but
I think that we expected far too great and far too quick a result from
emancipation. These people [the negroes] are a servile race, fitted by
nature for the hardest physical work, and apparently at present fitted
for little else. Some thirty years since, they were in a state where
such work was their lot; but their tasks were exacted from them in a
condition of bondage abhorrent to the feelings of the age, and opposed
to the religion which we practised. For us, thinking as we did, slavery
was a sin. From that sin we have cleansed ourselves. But the mere fact
of doing so has not freed us from our difficulties. Nor was it to be
expected that it should. The discontinuance of a sin is always the
commencement of a struggle."

This is well said. The negroes, freed from the bondage of labor,
suddenly becoming masters of themselves, with simple and easily
satisfied wants, with abundant means of subsistence, to be procured at
the expense of the least possible effort, exposed to no competition
from the pressure of population, and endowed by nature with indolent
temperaments, naturally took to leading idle and easy lives, and refused
to work except at their own pleasure. They had, as a class, no desire of
regular and continued occupation, and little sense of the worth of work
in itself. There was nothing surprising in this, and the blacks were
little to be blamed for it. But the world will not advance, unless men
work; and any country where there is not a sufficient stimulus for labor
is in the course of decline. The inevitable results followed in the West
Indies from the difficulty of obtaining labor. In Jamaica, the largest
and most important of these British islands, other and widely different
causes--mistakes in legislation, previous financial embarrassment, and
especially the unwillingness or inability of the planters to recognize
the necessities of their altered position--contributed to bring about
a condition of wretched adversity. Estates went out of cultivation,
expensive establishments failed, roads were disused, and the island was
full of the signs of decay. The negroes, indeed, were happy; a few days'
work in the course of the year secured them subsistence; and irregular
labor for wages, on the plantations of their old masters, gave them the
means of gratifying their liking for dress and finery.

A full generation has not yet passed since the act of emancipation,
but there are already indications that this transitional condition is
drawing to an end. A portion, at least, of the negroes are beginning to
recognize the responsibilities as well as the privileges of liberty, to
seek employment for the sake of raising themselves and their children in
the social scale, and to accumulate property. They are not merely free,
but are becoming independent. Still the number of those who live from
hand to mouth, in the indolent and useless possession of freedom, is
very great. In Mr. Trollope's opinion, little is to be expected from the
blacks. "To lie in the sun and eat bread-fruit and yams is the negro's
idea of being free. Such freedom as that has not been intended for man
in this world; and I say that Jamaica, as it now exists, is still under
a devil's ordinance." Education is a slow process with the blacks.

But in Jamaica, as elsewhere, where slavery exists, there is a race
neither black nor white, but of mixed blood, important in numbers,
and important also from possessing a mingling of the qualities of
its progenitors, which seems to fit it peculiarly for the prosperous
occupation of the tropics. Supposing this colored race to have the power
of continuing itself through successive generations, a problem which is
as yet unsolved, it would seem as if the future of these islands were
mainly in its hands. Of pure whites, there are not more than fifteen
thousand in Jamaica; of the mixed race, there are said to be seventy
thousand. Before the abolition of slavery, their position was one of
degradation; since the abolition, it has greatly improved. They are
still looked upon with ill-concealed disdain by their white brothers and
sisters; but they are forcing themselves into social recognition and
equality. "These people marry now," said a lady to Mr. Trollope; "but
their mothers and grandmothers never thought of looking to that at all."
There is matter for reflection, as well as for satisfaction, in that
sentence.

But as yet the condition of Jamaica is such as may well excite doubt as
to the possibility of its recovery from the misfortunes under which it
has suffered,--misfortunes due quite as much to the evils of preexisting
slavery, as to the blow given to its prosperity by the act of
emancipation. "Are Englishmen in general aware," asks Mr. Trollope,
"that half the sugar-estates in Jamaica, and I believe more than half
the coffee-plantations, have gone back into a state of bush?--that all
this land, rich with the richest produce only some thirty years since,
has now fallen back into wilderness?"

Still, if the experiment of emancipation be considered doubtful or
disastrous, so far as Jamaica is concerned, it cannot be esteemed so
in regard to the chief remaining, islands. In Barbadoes, for instance,
there was no squatting-ground for the blacks. The negro was obliged to
work or starve. Labor was consequently abundant,--and "there is not
a rood of waste land" in the island. Even here, "numerous as are the
negroes, they certainly live an easier life than that of an English
laborer, earn their money with more facility, and are more independent
of their masters." In the report made by the governor of the island, in
1853, he states,--"So far, the success of cultivation by free labor in
Barbadoes is unquestionable."[1]

Trinidad, of which but a comparatively small part has been cultivated,
and where the negroes have displayed the same indisposition to labor as
in Jamaica, is, however, flourishing. Its prosperity seems to be due to
the fact, that, during the last few years, some ten or twelve thousand
Coolies have been brought from the East Indies, and have supplied the
demand for labor.

In British Guiana, or Demerara, on the main land, the same fact has
brought about a similar result. The emancipated negro could not be
depended upon for regular work. He established himself on his small
freehold, and lived, like Theodore Hook's club-man, "in idleness and
ease." But for some years past laborers have been brought in freely from
India and China, and the fertile colony is now in a state of abundant
prosperity. Mr. Trollope seems to us to refute effectually the notion,
so far at least as regards the British West Indies, that this Cooly
immigration, is only slavery under another name. "On their arrival in
Demerara," he says, "the Coolies are distributed among the planters by
the Governor,--to each planter according to his application, his means
of providing for them, and his willingness and ability to pay the cost
of the immigration by yearly instalments.

[Footnote 1: We quote from an extract in an able article in the
_Edinburgh Review_ for April, 1859, entitled, _The West Indies as they
were and are_.]

They are sent to no estate, till a government officer shall have
reported that there are houses for them to occupy. There must be a
hospital for them on the estate, and a regular doctor, with a sufficient
salary. The rate of their wages is stipulated, and their hours of work.
Though the contract is for five years, they can leave the estate at the
end of the first three, transferring their services to any other master,
and at the end of the five years they are entitled to a free passage
home." "The women are coming now, as well as the men; and they have
learned to husband their means, and put money together."

We pass over the other British "West Indies," though Mr. Trollope's
animated sketches tempt us to linger. The main conclusion to which this
part of his book leads is, that this question of labor is the one upon
which the results of emancipation hinge. Unless moved by necessity, the
negro is disinclined to work. Slavery has rendered labor offensive
to him, and his own nature inclines him to idleness, The pressure of
population, as in Barbadoes, may compel him, for his own good, to labor;
or he may, as in Demerara, be superseded by other workmen. If left to
himself, his tendency seems to be to sink into sensuality, rather than
to rise in civilization by his own efforts. The condition of the mass of
the negroes is undoubtedly a happier one than in the days of slavery;
but it may be fairly doubted whether emancipation has led to any moral
improvement in the race.

How far a forced system of labor for wages might answer for the
blacks,--how far a regular and organized plan of education might elevate
them,--how far the danger of their relapse into barbarism might be
obviated by preliminary precautions,--are questions which that country
which next undertakes emancipation must solve for itself, and which
the example of the British West Indies will give some of the means for
solving in a satisfactory manner. Mr, Trollope's book is well worth
reading by those who would prepare themselves by knowledge and by
reflection for a proper appreciation of the advantages and the evils of
giving unlimited freedom to a race that has been long enslaved.

There is less interest in his account of Central America than in the
other parts of his volume. The ground is more familiar to American
readers, and some of our own travellers have given descriptions of the
country far more thorough and not less entertaining.

Of Cuba, which he trusts may, for the benefit of humanity, be some day
transferred to American keeping, he says but little; and after Mr.
Dana's late excellent, though hasty, sketches of the island, that author
must have more than common ability who can, with hope of success,
venture over the same ground.

_The Public Life of Captain John Brown_. By JAMES REDPATH. With an
Autobiography of his Childhood and Youth. Boston. 1860. l2mo. pp. 408.

It would have been well, had this book never been written. Mr. Redpath
has understood neither the opportunities opened to him, nor the
responsibilities laid upon him, in being permitted to write the
"authorized" life of John Brown. His book, in whatever light it is
viewed,--whether as the biography of a remarkable man, as an historic
narrative of a series of extraordinary and important events, or simply
as a mere piece of literary jobwork,--is equally unsatisfactory. He has
shown himself incompetent to appreciate the character of the man whom he
admires, and he has, consequently, done great wrong to his memory.

There never was more need for a good life of any man than there was for
one of John Brown. The whole country was curious to learn about him, and
to be told his story. Those who thought the best of him, and those who
thought the worst, were alike desirous to know more of him than the
newspapers had furnished, and to become acquainted with the course of
his life, and the training which had prepared him for Kansas and brought
him to Harper's Ferry. Whatever view be taken of his character, he was
a man so remarkable as to be well worthy of study. In the bitter and
excited state of public feeling in regard to him, there was but one way
in which his life could be properly told,--and that way was, to allow
him, as far as possible, to tell it in his own words. For that part
of his life which there were no letters of his to illustrate, his
biographer should have been content to state facts in the simplest and
most careful manner, entering into no controversy, and keeping himself
entirely out of sight. Thus only could John Brown's character produce
its due effect. His letters from prison had shown that he was a master
of the homeliest and strongest English. His words said what they meant,
and they were understood by everybody; he had found them in the Bible,
and had been familiar with them all his life. Whatever he was, he could
have told us better than any other man; and he was the only man who
would have been listened to with much confidence concerning himself. Mr.
Redpath has, very unfortunately, thought differently. He has not taken
pains to collect even all the letters of John Brown which had been
previously published; he has written in the worst temper and spirit of
partisanship, so that with every cautious reader doubts attend many
statements which rest only on his authority; he has thrust himself
continually forward; and he has exercised no proper care in arranging
his materials.

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