Yorkshire, and Boston sustained what London never did, a magazine
devoted exclusively to genealogy.' The history of different families,
the records of nearly all the older towns, the colonial records, have
all been placed in print. Many of these books are larger than any
English works on the subject, and are monuments of patient industry.
After such researches we may claim to speak intelligently of our
ancestry, and to point to the proofs of our assertions. In one work,
contained in four volumes, covering two thousand five hundred pages, Mr.
Savage has attempted to record the names of the settlers of New England
and of two generations of their descendants. Imperfect as such an
attempt may be, what other section of our country or any nation can
pretend to such a knowledge of its antecedents? I give the result of his
twenty years' study in his own words:

     'From long and careful research I have judged the proportion of the
     whole number living here in 1775, that deduce their origin from the
     kingdom of England, i.e., the southern part of Great Britain,
     excluding also the principality of Wales, to exceed ninety-eight
     in a hundred.'

     'A more homogeneous stock cannot be seen, I think, in any so
     extensive a region at any time, since that when the ark of Noah
     discharged its passengers on Mount Ararat, except in the few
     centuries elapsing before the confusion of Babel.'

So much for the idle slander that New England has no records nor
homogeneity.

As to the other alleged stigma of Puritanism. Could Virginia maintain
her claim to a Cavalier ancestry instead of failing on even a
superficial scrutiny, the contrast attempted to be drawn between Puritan
and Cavalier is based on a fallacy. When these colonies were
established, the distinction was a political one as clearly as the
succeeding divisions of Whig and Tory. In those days the gentry were the
leaders--the Puritan was as much a gentleman in the technical English
sense as the Cavalier. To take an instance which will strike our
Virginia friends, who quote the Fairfaxes and Washingtons: Lord Fairfax,
the Puritan, married the daughter of Lord Vere, 'a zealous Presbyterian
and disaffected to the king.' Their daughter married the gay Cavalier,
duke of Buckingham.

The Washingtons were connections, and rather humble ones, of the
Spencers. Yet the latest account of the families show Henry Lord Spencer
'standing by the side of the Lords Northumberland and Essex, and the
other noblemen who were afterward the leaders of the Parliament during
the civil war.'

Puritan and Cavalier! The phrase only means that those, both of gentry
and yeomanry, who had sufficient brains to understand liberty, and the
courage to fight for it, combined and forever broke the chains of royal
or oligarchical oppression. If the gentry were a minority in the party,
so much the less reason to boast of such an ancestry.

Still, as no point in a contest should be thrown away, let it be avowed
that Puritanic New England could always display a greater array of
'gentlemen by birth' than Virginia, or even the entire South. This is
said deliberately, because we know whereof we speak. If the fact be of
service in any way, it can easily be substantiated. A list of such names
as I can at present remember is longer than any list I have been able to
collect from Southern publications. These are, Adams, Amory, Anderson,
Appleton, Belcher, Bond, Bowdoin, Bromfield, Browne, Burrill, Chauncy,
Chester, Chute, Checkley, Clark, Clarke, Cotton, Coolidge, Corwin,
Cradock, Davenport, Downing, Dudley, Dummer, Eyre, Fairfax, Foxcroft,
Giffard, Jaffrey, Jeffries, Johnson, Hawthorne, Herrick, Holyoke,
Hutchinson, Lawrence, Lake, Lechmere, Legge, Leverett, Lloyd, Lowell,
Mascarene, Mather, Miner, Norton, Oliver, Pepperell, Phips, Phippen,
Prince, Pynchon, Saltonstall, Sears, Sewall, Thornton, Usher, Vassall,
Ward, Wendell, Wetmore, Wilson, Winslow, Winthrop, Wyllys.

I insert this list only for the benefit of those who have yielded to the
claims of Virginia through ignorance on points which are peculiarly the
care of genealogists. It can easily be extended, and every year, as our
records are more fully examined, it will increase.

If we leave the dry details, which I have presented simply as
indications of the method in which this question can be discussed, and
regard the problem in a more general view, it is surprising to see how
theory and fact agree. The United States are essentially English to-day,
despite the millions of foreigners which have been absorbed into its
population. The tendency of its citizens has been toward a democracy,
and yet not toward anarchy and lawlessness. The throes of a gigantic
revolution have not sufficed to outweigh the instinctive love of law and
order peculiar to the English race. Though events unforeseen by the
authors of the Federal Constitution have called for exercises of power,
obscurely permitted perhaps by that instrument, yet unknown to former
practice, still there has been no popular convulsion at the North, no
armed outbreak, no phrensy of mob power. There is as yet no such thing
known as an American mob.

When we inquire what controlling influence has impressed this form upon
the national character, the enemies of the predominant party
instinctively show that it is New England. Not the comparatively limited
New England of 1863, but the New England stock and influence which has
invigorated nearly every State of the Union. In their ignorance of the
past, these revilers of New England have been blindly attacking a
greater fact than they were aware of. Not only is nearly a third part of
our native-born population the offspring of the New England of the
Revolution, but long before that time the intermixture had commenced.
Whitehead's 'New Jersey' (p. 159) quotes Governor Burnet's letter,
written in 1729:

     'The people of New Jersey (being generally of New England
     extraction, and therefore enthusiasts) would consider the number of
     planters, etc., as a repetition of the same sin as David committed
     in numbering the people.'

The History of Dorchester, Massachusetts, quotes a letter from the
Secretary of Georgia, in 1755, in relation to a colony from that town,
in which he says:

     'I really look upon these people moving here to be one of the most
     favorable circumstances that could befall the colony.'

It is added:

     'This settlement has furnished Georgia with two governors, two of
     its most distinguished judges, the theological seminary of South
     Carolina and Georgia with an able professor, the Methodist
     Episcopal Church with an influential and pious bishop, the
     Presbyterian and Baptist Churches of that State with many of their
     ablest and most useful ministers; and six of her sons have been
     called to professorial chairs in collegiate institutions.'

The first attempt at colonizing the Mississippi delta was made by the
Lymans, Dwights, and their associates from Connecticut. New York
received a constant accession from New England long before 1775.

Here, then, history and theory both agree. New England, colonized by
Englishmen, homogeneous in a remarkable degree, has been the only
thoroughly pure nationality within our territories. The few stray
Englishmen of education in the Southern colonies, the much greater
number of convicts, the increasing immigration of French, Irish, Scotch,
and German settlers, have not only failed to overwhelm this compact and
thoroughly alive minority, but have been formed and moulded into shape
by it. In protesting against New England, the Vallandighams and Coxes
are only proving the nullity of 'expunging resolutions.' 'Can they make
that not to be which has been?' Until they can recall the past,
annihilate the past inhabitants of these States, and from stones raise
up some other progenitors for the present generation, they cannot
destroy the influence of New England.

And yet we are called upon to believe that the race which has thus done
the greatest work of the past two centuries was the random aggregation
of opposite and mongrel races, the offspring of ignorance, poverty, and
crime. We are to believe that while the pure blood of English gentlemen
in Virginia has produced not only the gentlemanly vices of pride,
treachery, and falsehood in the leaders, but the ignoble faults of crime
and debasement in the 'poor trash'--that some occult influence of
climate has advanced an entire community at the North far above the
position of its progenitors--that while the gentle Cavalier has been
overcome by the seductive charms of luxury and repose, the ignoble
Puritan has thrown off his degrading antecedents, and has obtained the
control of the allied races. The servant has become the master, the scum
of all nations has overpowered the choicest offspring of that race which
Macaulay terms 'the hereditary rulers of mankind.'

These conclusions, so eminently logical and convincing, we must believe,
or we must doubt the pure blood of the aristocracy of the Slave States.

Is it not more reasonable to believe, as facts daily prove, that New
England was colonized from the hardiest and best portion of the English
stock? That our ancestors, accepting the state of English society as a
fact, neither invited nor repelled the accession of the gentry. That
many of that class did join in the enterprise, and that, where they were
worthy, they received the slight preference which is accorded to
personal advantages of any sort. That the bulk of the colonists were
separated from this class by slight barriers, that many of them were
excluded only by a want of the necessary property to maintain the
position, and that on this new territory these distinctions were
speedily forgotten--not because the higher class deteriorated, but
because the lower, having but a slight advance to make, soon stood on an
actual equality with them.

If the sympathy of England were now as desirable and as strongly
expected as it was two years ago, I might urge the matter further. As it
is, it seems sufficient to overthrow the claims of Southerners, based
upon false pretences, and supported only by unblushing effrontery, and
to refute the slanders which have been thrown upon an entire section of
the loyal States.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 13: Yet our author had already shown that Dennis, Cromwell's
captain, 'contrived a stratagem which betrayed the country. He had got a
considerable parcel of goods aboard, which belonged to two of the
Council, and found a method of informing them of it. By this means they
were reduced to the dilemma, either of submitting or losing their goods.
This caused factions amongst them, so that at last'--we blush to
add--'the colony surrendered--and saved the goods.' _En dat Virginia
quintam._ The fifth crown had its price, even for a 'usurper.']

[Footnote 14: Virginia was the other of which he was writing.]

THE EARLY ARBUTUS.

  Give me water, give air, give me light!
    Oh, as life in my heart ebbs away,
  I pine through the dim, chilly night,
    I long for the sun's kindly ray!
      Even I, a poor little Arbutus!

  I was plucked from my beautiful earth,
    And my soul it then quitted its form;
  What since has my life e'er been worth?
    Ah, would I had never been born!
      Thus I sigh, a poor little Arbutus!

  Now to man in my anguish I cry:
    Ah, but what for a sigh does he care?
  To heaven I now raise my eye,
    And mourn in my futile despair!
      Even I, a poor, dying Arbutus!

  Ah, a life for a life--it is just!
    But a life for a nothing, oh, cruel!
  Still low must I languish in dust?
    And is there for me no renewal?
      Ah, for me, poor, broken Arbutus!

  Into elements now I resolve,
    Yet to life I still cling with each breath;
  As slowly away I dissolve,
    Life's sweeter as closer to death!
      Unto me, but a little Arbutus!

  Too precocious the life which I bore,
    Which I drew sweetly in with each breath!
  The fulness of life did no more
    Than ripen a fruitage for death,
      Within me, a too early Arbutus!

THE THIRD YEAR OF THE WAR.

Few persons, at the beginning of this unhappy war, anticipated its
prolongation to the present day. The projected rebellion was so daring
and sudden in its appearance, so utterly causeless and reckless in its
pretexts and objects, that an astounded people could scarcely believe it
to be serious in its character and destined to give them any real and
protracted trouble. The rebels themselves fed the credulity of their
deluded victims with the promise of a peaceful separation, or, at the
worst, of a short and triumphant contest, to be speedily followed by a
career of boundless prosperity, expansion, greatness, and glory. And, on
our part, when we came at length to understand that war was inevitable,
we were scarcely less sanguine in our anticipation of easy victory and
of the instant restoration of that noble Government, which the domestic
enemy, with the most wicked ambition, sought to overthrow and utterly
destroy. Confidently and even boastingly, we contrasted our strength
with the weakness of the insurrection; we numbered our men in comparison
with those of the rebellious States, proud of the favorable result; and
we weighed the means of the adversary with our own, in such scales as
our sanguine hopes and extravagant ideas served only too well to impose
upon us.

The ultimate basis of our calculation was undoubtedly sound and solid,
and the anticipated result must eventually come according to our
original views, though not within the period then too hastily assigned
for the duration of the bloody and disastrous contest. The stupendous
force of our Government is amply sufficient to crush the rebellion in
all its vast proportions, however slowly the great work may be carried
on, and however wastefully and unskilfully the national means may be
applied to that indispensable end. Though occasionally baffled in our
projects, we are still advancing on the whole; and there is evidently no
possible escape for the leaders of the rebellion. They must already
begin to entertain fearful apprehensions of their certain ultimate doom.
Our great fleet hovers upon their coast and penetrates their bays and
rivers, cutting off most of their commerce with the outside world, and
isolating them within the narrow limits of the territory actually
occupied by them; while our immense armies are pressing them at all
important points, with a deliberation and steadiness which evidently
spring from the consciousness of superior strength and the certainty of
ultimate triumph. The Mississippi river is virtually open to our
commerce, or at least to the complete occupation of our gunboats and
armies, and the suffering enemy is thus cut off from his communication
with Texas, and from the only available resources on which he can
securely rely to sustain him much longer in his wicked and desperate
game of treason. His condition is in the last degree perilous; he seems
to be in the very agony of dissolution, or at least in that stage which
immediately precedes it. His extremities are already cold with the chill
of mortal congestion; but the fever rages all the more fiercely about
the vital parts, where the maddened energies of the whole system are
concentrated in the last desperate struggle for life. Possibly there may
be a little reaction here and there, or even a violent convulsive effort
of tremendous energy; an incursion may be made into Kentucky, or some
temporary success achieved in other quarters; but the revival will be
deceptive and evanescent, and the fitful return of life to the limbs
will only serve to complete the process of exhaustion and to hasten the
final catastrophe.

After two years of civil war, maintained under great embarrassments and
disadvantages--two memorable years, during which all the malignant
powers of treason and hate have been arrayed against the Union with the
determined purpose to destroy it--the condition of the Federal
Government is wonderfully good, presenting a vivid contrast to the
wretched poverty and prostration of the ambitious States which have so
rashly assailed it. It would be vain to deny the vast injury suffered by
the whole nation, from the inauguration and continuance of this most
unnatural strife. It is chiefly this widespread mischief which
constitutes the stupendous crime of the rebellion. Thousands upon
thousands of valuable lives have been sacrificed; the maimed victims of
the war appeal to our sympathies on every side; widows and orphans fill
the whole land with lamentation. These are calamities that cannot be
compensated by any material prosperity, however great and imposing.
Besides, it is impossible to conceal from ourselves, upon mature
reflection, that in the present marvellous activity of business and the
great abundance of money, we are drawing largely on the future, and
maintaining present prosperity at the cost of burdens which will weigh
heavily both on ourselves and on coming generations. Nevertheless, the
wonderful success of our financial measures and the evidently increasing
strength of the Government, in spite of its immense efforts, and with
all the alternations of triumph and defeat, of success and failure, of
good fortune and disaster, cannot fail to inspire every friend of the
Union with hope and confidence. That this great struggle for national
existence can be conducted with so little disturbance to the prosperity
of the loyal States, and, indeed, with actual increase of activity and
immediate success in almost all departments of business, affords the
best evidence of the solidity and greatness of our country, and of its
ability finally to maintain itself against the vast and powerful
conspiracy by which it has been so vigorously assailed. At this moment,
the domestic foe, notwithstanding his defiant attitude, is actually
writhing in the grasp of an outraged nation; and the foreign enemies of
our cause, so recently rejoicing in our misfortunes and elated with the
envious anticipation of our utter overthrow, are now looking on with
silent apprehension and ill-concealed chagrin at the growing strength we
exhibit with every day's experience in the mighty contest. They are
disappointed that we are not overwhelmed by every slight check we
suffer, and astounded that we are not at all discouraged even by serious
disasters to our arms. We derive renewed energy and courage from our
very reverses, which give us the inestimable advantage of experience,
and enable us finally to turn misfortune into good. Our determination
becomes more fixed and immovable with every demand upon our fortitude;
and thus the power of the nation advances steadily through all the
varying incidents of the struggle, so that now, after these two years of
sanguinary civil war, with the gigantic rebellion still wrestling and
warring in the bosom of the republic, we yet stand before the world an
object of respect and fear to those who hate us and wish us evil, while
the masses of men in all countries, who love liberty and desire to
escape from despotism, still seek our shores as the very Canaan of
promise and the asylum of freedom, even in the midst of our grand
struggle for existence as a nation.

It is the people, in their national capacity, as distinguished from the
mere agents of Government, who present this sublime spectacle to the
view of mankind. The Government for the time being may commit blunders
and follies innumerable; yet behind all these, there is the solid and
enduring judgment of the nation, which will eventually correct all
errors, and bring back the wandering statesman to the paths of common
sense and ultimate safety. Two years have not sufficed to teach us what
we require to know in order to bear ourselves altogether nobly and
calmly in so grand an emergency. We have not yet been sufficiently
schooled in war, and especially in the bitter experience of civil war,
to be able to resist the pressure of great dangers and difficulties,
and, at the same time, to maintain undisturbed all the ordinary
operations of civil life, and to secure due respect for personal rights
and liberties. The mighty and unexampled convulsion of the whole nation,
consequent on the rebellion of a wealthy and powerful section, which
constituted the bulk of one great political party in the country, and
which necessarily had connections of interest and sympathy with large
numbers in all the States, has tended to develop party political
animosities to the highest pitch. This terrible excitement, continued
without interruption for two years, has served at least to test the
patriotism of the people, and to determine whether faction was destined
so far to prevail as to paralyze the hand of Government and render
secession triumphant through our own dissensions. These fearful contests
of party have run their course up to the present time, without serious
trouble; and it is now apparent that the mass of the people are settled
in their devotion to the Union, and will sustain no man or party in
factious opposition to the Government, or even in ill-timed exertions to
obtain redress of acknowledged wrongs, when those exertions are
calculated to embarrass the nation in its mortal struggle for safety and
triumph. The existence of the nation, its unity and tranquillity, are
paramount to all personal or party rights and interests; and though we
may be justly indignant that many arbitrary and unnecessary things are
done, yet must they be borne patiently for the sake of the country. The
time for accountability will come at last. Under the pressure of vast
responsibilities and difficulties, the agents of the people may
plausibly, or even justly, excuse themselves for almost any
irregularity; and the most honest and devoted patriot may, with apparent
truth, be accused of sympathy with the adversary, if he take occasion,
in the midst of great perils, to urge his personal sufferings, to the
inconvenience and annoyance of the Government.

But while the last two years have subjected us to great difficulties,
which have been happily surmounted, if not with entire immunity from
evil, at least with substantial safety and great preponderance of good,
we have yet to undergo an ordeal such as every thoughtful man might well
wish to avoid. The greatest of all trials is to come upon us in the
course of another year, if, unhappily, the war should last so long.
Nothing could be more unfortunate than one of our presidential
elections, to be carried on in the midst of a horrible civil war. It is
impossible to anticipate the troubles which may ensue--the sympathies
which may be expressed for the rebellion--the intolerance which may seek
to suppress freedom of speech under pretext of preventing the
consequences of treason--and the fearful license of denunciation which
may be assumed and permitted, under that natural delicacy which would
hesitate to use even a necessary severity against a political enemy and
a rival. Deplorable and dangerous excitement is almost certain to
prevail in all quarters; and we may well congratulate ourselves and our
country, if we should pass through such a contest without having
numerous scenes of trouble and even bloodshed in the war of parties, as
episodes and accompaniments to the grand war of the sections. In its
effects on the national cause at home and abroad, the violence of that
proceeding will be something like one of those lamentable occurrences
which sometimes take place in the army, when portions of our own
forces, through misapprehension, turn their arms against each other in
the face of the enemy. If we shall not actually take each other's lives,
we shall weaken and distract the country by our dissensions and mutual
denunciations. Ambition on both sides--on the part of those in power
seeking to retain it and using their authority for that end, and on the
part of their opponents resisting perhaps beyond the bounds of
legitimate opposition--will shed its baleful influence through the land,
and intensify the animosities naturally arising upon the recurrence of
our great quadrennial struggle.

Yet would that grand emergency offer to a wise and patriotic
Administration an inestimable opportunity for the noblest exhibition of
unwavering firmness, justice, and self-denial. Should there be presented
an example of perfect singleness of purpose, with no room for suspicion
of sinister objects, or personal ambitions and enmities; should the
Administration in all its departments, devote itself exclusively to the
sacred work of preserving the nation, regardless of all consequences to
individuals or parties, then would the approbation of a grateful people
be its sure reward, and the patriotic masses would take care not only of
the Government, but of those, also, who had thus nobly and fearlessly
administered it in the critical hour of its mortal danger. A contrary
course would only lead to disaster in the momentous operations of the
war, and to distraction and weakness among the people, whose duty and
disposition it is to sustain the Government in all honest efforts to
conquer the rebellion. The temptation insensibly to depart from this
pure and patriotic policy is great and almost irresistible. It is so
easy and so natural for one in power to persuade himself that he ought
to retain it, that himself or his party is the only safe depositary of
public authority, and that the general interest requires him to be
sustained by all the means at his command, _per fas aut nefas_, that few
men in this country ever avoid the error of using official position and
patronage to promote personal and party ends. This is the very bane and
opprobrium of our institutions. It has already so perverted the
democratic system, that men of the highest ability and character no
longer seek political position, and seldom succeed if they do. Alas for
our country, if this pernicious practice should prevail in conducting
the tremendous operations of the present civil war!--if the coming
presidential election should be permitted to cast the ominous influence
of party intrigue and official mismanagement upon our struggling armies
and our heavily taxed people! Let us fervently pray that our suffering
country may escape this danger. It is in the power of the Administration
in a great measure to control the whole subject; and upon it will rest
the chief responsibility for any serious error that may be committed. It
will be responsible not merely for its own conduct, but also for that
which it necessitates or provokes on the part of opposing interests and
parties. There must be forbearance, united with firmness and infinite
discretion in the use of just authority. A more difficult position was
never occupied by any party since the organization of the Government.
But in proportion to the difficulty and responsibility will be the merit
of a wise and successful administration in this most perilous crisis.

If the progress of the war thus far, running through more than half of
one Administration, has brought us under the ominous shadow of a coming
presidential election, it has, on the other hand, effected a vast
modification of opinion and feeling on some questions from which the
greatest disturbances might well have been anticipated. From the
beginning it was felt to be inevitable that the long continuance of the
war would seriously affect the relation of master and slave directly in
the rebellious States, and indirectly in all others wherever that
relation existed. Far more rapidly than could well have been anticipated
has this result been effected; but what is of much greater interest and
importance, the violent prejudices of the people have melted away before
the inevitable fact, and even the celebrated proclamation no longer
excites the fierce animadversion with which it was at first greeted.
From the escaped slaves of the rebellious States and the free colored
men of the North, negro regiments have been organized and are still in
process of formation. There is no outcry against the policy, but there
seems to be a general acquiescence in the propriety of using the African
race to assist in putting down the traitors who are ready to overthrow
all free government in order to perpetuate the subjugation of that
unfortunate people. Had the fortunes of war resulted in a speedy
annihilation of the confederate authority, it would have been utterly
impossible to have made any serious inroad upon the institution of
slavery. Sympathy for the Southern people, and a natural indisposition
to inaugurate fundamental changes, always attended with immense
temporary disadvantages and inconveniences, would have prevented any
thorough policy of emancipation from being adopted. But the day of
moderation and compromise has now passed by, probably forever. The
persistence of the rebels in their mad scheme, although their efforts
were plainly destined to ultimate defeat, has secured for themselves the
greatest boon which even the highest wisdom in the calmest times could
have conferred. Their prodigious folly and wickedness have been
overruled by a higher power, and mercifully directed to the complete
regeneration of Southern society. The operation is severe, but in the
end it will be salutary. In a state of continued peace, this could not
have been done. Scores of years would have been required to prepare the
Southern mind for it; but now, by one huge convulsive effort, made by
themselves with far different views, all obstacles are swept away, and
slavery is likely to come to a sudden and final end. A feeble
insurrection, soon extinguished, would not have accomplished this work;
and even now, if the war should speedily end, there would be serious
embarrassment in disposing of the troublesome questions arising out of
the subject. The continuance of the war, on its present basis, will soon
settle the whole difficulty; and among the many tremendous evils and
calamities attending the progress of the war, this inevitable result is
one of the greatest compensations. Few men, perhaps, would have desired,
or, by deliberate action, have promoted this violent destruction even of
so pernicious a system as that which prevailed in the South; but, on the
other hand, with the experience of the last two years, still fewer men,
in the loyal States at least, can be found to deny that the judgment is
righteous, and that, in the actual circumstances, it is destined to be
in the end as beneficial to the Southern people themselves, as it is, in
its immediate consequences, just in its retribution for their enormous
crime. In the progress of so tremendous a war, in which, notwithstanding
its origin and cause, the insurrectionary States have strangely been
enabled to command foreign capital, together with the sympathy and even
the indirect assistance of foreign powers, it would have been
shortsighted in the extreme to have anticipated that slavery would
escape attack. Though made the pretext for violence, and prominently put
forward as the justification of rebellion, it was evidently the weakest
point in the rebel cause, and was, therefore, alike from the choice of
the rebels as from the necessity of the Government, destined to become
the central object and pivotal point of the whole contest. Having once
been placed in this position, and fixed in it by the inveterate
enmities of prolonged war, it must from that time abide the arbitrament
of arms. Two years of fierce and calamitous war seem to have brought the
South to this alternative: either to restore the Union with immediate
freedom to the slaves, or to accomplish its dissolution, with a doubtful
and troubled continuance of the system for an uncertain period in the
future.

If the continuance of the struggle thus far has done so much toward a
final settlement of the most troublesome of all questions growing out of
the contest between the North and the South; if it has probably prepared
the way for disposing of slavery in all the States where it now exists,
and even given the African a _status_ as a soldier of the republic; it
has also had an equal effect in other important aspects. It has tended
to develop and settle definitely the political objects and purposes of
the contending parties. With the South, these, to some degree, have
necessarily been changed. The original designs of the rebels, whatever
they may have been in the beginning, have been modified according to the
stringent exigencies of their condition. Their daring and ambitious
plans have been restrained by the public opinion of the civilized world,
and still more by the limitation of their own resources. So long as
their strength was untried, imagination ran riot, and there was no bound
to the magnificence of their bad schemes. But the experience of two
years has taught them that, in their realization, all such wild dreams
are destined to be curtailed within the inexorable limits of
possibility. They have only begun to discover how narrow these limits
are to them. Unexpected obstacles have arisen on every side, and the
soaring purposes of the rebellion have vainly beaten their bruised and
wearied wings against the solid walls which circumscribe them within the
humble limits of their present uncertain hopes and expectations. The
Federal Government, on the other hand, has not changed its purpose, as
avowed in the beginning, to restore the national authority, in its unity
and integrity, over the whole country. The prospect of accomplishing
this end has grown brighter from the beginning. We have passed through
almost all phases of party excitement; faction has tried its perilous
experiments upon the national temper; divisions have been industriously
fomented; and for a time discord has threatened seriously to weaken us.
But the patriotism of the people has finally prevailed, and the question
may now be considered settled. The people not less than the Government
are fully committed to the grand purpose of putting down the rebellion
and restoring the Union. Nor does this work, immense as it is, seem to
be disproportioned to the national means and energies. The people
believe themselves competent to the mighty task, and with this patriotic
confidence, the undertaking is already more than half accomplished. The
enemy has not the power to defeat our purpose. By our own unhappy
divisions, we might possibly defeat ourselves; but with a united and
determined people, there is not the slightest room for doubt.

The war continues to be carried on solely in the disaffected region.
Threats of transferring the seat of the contest to the loyal States have
constantly been made, and are now renewed with an energy of assertion
equal to the longing desires with which the straitened rebels look upon
the fat fields and the groaning storehouses of the Northern States.
Their futile threats do indeed express their wishes or their disordered
imaginations, rather than their actual intentions or their possible
achievements. If they could transfer the war to Pennsylvania and Ohio,
or even to Kentucky and Maryland, a new aspect would be given to the
controversy, and different results might well be anticipated. But the
time for such enterprises on the part of the rebels, if it ever
existed, has evidently passed by, and is not likely to return. One of
the strongest indications of the ultimate result of the war has been the
rigid uniformity with which the military operations have been
continually pushed back upon the soil of the seceded States, and
maintained there in spite of all their efforts to the contrary. In all
instances, their incursions into the States mentioned, though projected
upon the grandest scale and with the most hopeful results, have
eventually proved to be miserable failures; and if they have not always,
or even in any instance, met with the severe punishment that ought to
have followed them, it was only because the attempts were too
preposterous to have been anticipated by a vigilant foe, and we were too
confident in our strength to make the preparation necessary properly to
repel them. With such experience on our part, after two years of
constant efforts to invade our territories successfully met and more
than merely repelled, it would be evidence of gross inefficiency and
weakness in us, to permit the enemy to gain even a temporary foothold in
any one of the loyal States, or even to attempt it, without the complete
overthrow and destruction of the invading force. Our manifest policy is
to attack them in their own country, and to hold them there, until we
can annihilate their military power. We have successfully accomplished
one half this programme; but so far we have failed in the other. However
humiliating may be the admission, we are nevertheless compelled to make
it. We have not yet overthrown their main armies in any decisive
engagements; although we have achieved many important successes and made
some fatal encroachments on the territory of the enemy, crippling his
power and cutting off his resources. From the very inception of the
rebellion, its field of operations has been gradually contracting. One
after another the strongholds of the enemy have fallen into our hands,
and whole regions of his territory have been over run and occupied by
our forces, with every appearance of having been finally and forever
lost to them. Our standards, advancing steadily, though slowly, have not
receded anywhere, except temporarily, and then only, it would seem, to
make still further advance into the very heart of the confederacy. With
some few exceptions, such as the withdrawal of the army from the
Peninsula, this has been the history of the last two years; and there is
nothing in the present condition of affairs which would appear to
forebode a departure from this uniform progress of our arms. We may
complain, perhaps justly, of the slowness of this process. In the ardor
and impatience of our patriotism, we may demand more rapid and energetic
action, claiming that our immense resources shall be used with greater
vigor and concentration, and our vast armies hurled like a thunderbolt
upon the enemy, to crush him with one sudden and overwhelming blow.
Truly this would be a grand result--a consummation most devoutly to be
wished--making short work of the bloody war which has so terribly
afflicted our country. This done, there could not be any serious
difficulty in resuscitating the love of Union among the masses in the
South, and of reëstablishing the Union on its old foundations.

It may or may not be reasonable to demand such energy and speedy success
at the hands of the Government. At all events, it is natural that the
country, having confided unlimited means to the constituted authorities,
should become impatient under the delays and difficulties of the
contest, and that inexperienced men should expect the unequal forces of
the two sections to be brought into quick and decisive conflict, with a
result accordant to the relative strength of the opposing parties. A
true Napoleonic genius might well have accomplished this grand result
within the two years that have already passed. But such a mighty spirit
has not yet come forth at the call of our agonized country; or if,
perchance, he has made his appearance, he has certainly not been
recognized and received by the powers that be. We must, therefore, needs
be contented with the slow and gradual approach we are evidently making
toward a final solution of the bloody problem. And as, even in the
greatest misfortunes, there is often some hidden compensation for the
unhappiness they produce, so in this case, perhaps we may find, in the
great changes destined to be wrought in the condition of the Southern
people by their stubborn perseverance in the war, ground for consolation
in the midst of the calamities and bereavements which every day
continues to bring upon us. The Southern rulers and masters pride
themselves on their inveterate animosity. They glory in their own shame,
and imagine themselves successful, so long as they can protract the
struggle and renew the slaughter of great battles in which they are not
utterly overthrown, though thousands of innocent victims are sacrificed
to their mad and wicked ambition. But in truth, with every day of
continued war they are only the more effectually destroying themselves,
especially in that particular in which they are most anxious and
determined to succeed. For the security of their slave property and the
peaceful continuance of the institutions which sustain it, it would have
been far better for them had they been thoroughly beaten and effectually
put down at the very beginning of the war. There might then have been a
chance for slavery to escape, at least for a while. Now it must be
admitted there is hardly the vestige of such a chance. It is almost
alike certain that slavery has been shaken to its very foundations in
every State, whether the rebellion shall now either succeed or fail. The
rebels have been wrong in all their calculations. Exactly the reverse of
their aims and expectations will be the reward of their treason. They
sought to overthrow the Government in order to perpetuate slavery; they
have only succeeded in overthrowing slavery, to the certain
strengthening and probable perpetuation of the Government they hate.

The leading rebels, occupying the seats of usurped power in their
ephemeral confederacy, have succeeded in arousing and sustaining a
considerable feeling of nationality and independence among the masses of
their population. Grasping the sceptre of ill-gotten authority with
great boldness, they have wielded it with a corresponding energy. Their
early successes and their protracted resistance, sustained for more than
two years by means of large and formidable armies, organized,
disciplined, and led with great skill, have sufficed to give them credit
and support at home, and much consideration abroad. In the midst of
stirring events, carried away by the first impulse of excitement, the
Southern people have not been in a mood to calculate the consequences of
a long struggle. They have been elated and blinded by their apparent
triumphs; and they, whose crafty purpose all the time has been to make
use of them for the furtherance of their own ambitious projects, have
been careful to preoccupy the minds of the people, and to conceal from
them, by the plausible pretences and superficial successes of the hour,
the certainty of ultimate discomfiture which has awaited them from the
beginning. Occasionally, it is true, there have been indications that
light was beginning to dawn on the popular mind; and in spite of the
complete system of terror and compression which the leaders have
inaugurated and sustained with the utmost determination, and with the
most relentless rigor, we have seen every now and then, in different
parts of the confederacy, the vivid flashes of a still living sentiment
of love for the Union. As the hopes of the conspiracy become gradually
less bright, this sentiment of affection for the old and honored
Government of our fathers will grow stronger and more outspoken, and
will not be confined to mere individual expressions. When the people
begin to open their eyes and see the strength of the rebellion rapidly
wasting away, with the repetition of its fruitless endeavors; when
victories no longer compensate for the privations and horrible disasters
which follow in their track; when, finally, they understand, as they
soon must, that the whole movement is destined to end in utter failure,
and that this failure is to be only the more overwhelming the longer the
unhappy contest shall be continued, a complete revulsion of feeling may
well be expected to take place. Many things in the course of the
struggle have combined to delay the advent of this inevitable change.
The progress of our arms has been extremely slow, with many checks and
defeats in those campaigns and at those points which seemed to be the
most important. If we have been successful in the West, it has not been
without protracted efforts and immense expenditure of life and means--a
long and bloody struggle, the uncertainty of which has not tended to
strengthen us during its pendency. On the other hand, the brilliant
successes of the rebels on the Rappahannock and at Charleston have not
been fully counteracted by their actual and definitive discomfiture in
other quarters. When Vicksburg and Port Hudson fall, as fall they must,
the emptiness of all their triumphs will be felt and appreciated. Bull
Run, twice famous, Fredericksburg, Charleston, Chancellorsville--all
will then appear in their true light as magnificent phantoms of delusive
success, alluring the proud victors to further fruitless efforts and
barren victories, only to overwhelm them with more tremendous ruin, in
the end which is slowly but certainly approaching.

Thus the continuance of the war, with its exhausting expenditures and
its bloody sacrifices of life, is destined to be not altogether without
its advantages in other respects besides its influence on the great
question of slavery. It is preparing the public mind of the South for a
most vehement reaction against all the false ideas which have been the
animating spirit of the rebellion. In proportion to the greatness of the
conflict, the immensity of its disasters, its delusive promises and
barren victories, will be the thoroughness of the discomfiture, the
completeness of the overthrow, the utter disgrace of the confederate
cause, and of the men who have been its authors and leading
representatives. It will be impossible for the Southern people to say,
'We have been engaged in a noble cause; we have failed for the time
being; but there is a future for us in which we shall surely triumph.'
On the contrary, every Southern man will feel that there is no
resurrection for the bad designs which will thus have been forever
prostrated. They have in them none of the elements of resuscitation.
Failure in the present contest is annihilation forever. The very
foundation and active power of the fatal movement will have been swept
away, while at the same time the authors and the cause alike will be
stamped with eternal infamy, as having aimed at the subversion of human
liberty, and only succeeded in producing ruin and devastation to the
beautiful region which they have misled and betrayed into a wicked war.
The events of the mighty conflict will live in history, but only as an
example of just punishment for a great crime, and as a solemn warning
against the indulgence of selfish and unprincipled ambition in all
future ages.

WAS HE SUCCESSFUL?

     'Do but grasp into the thick of human life! Every one _lives_
     it--to not many is it _known_; and seize it where you will, it is
     interesting.'--GOETHE.

     'SUCCESSFUL.--Terminating in accomplishing what is wished or
     intended.'--WEBSTER'S _Dictionary_.

CHAPTER VI.

Before evening Hiram had informed himself fully (through Hill) of the
current rumors about the failure of Allwise, Tenant & Co. He was glad to
find a universal sympathy prevailing in all business circles for this
old and respectable house.

'That's well, at any rate,' quoth Hiram to himself. 'No one will think
of attacking the old gentleman, if he does secure a portion of his
property, or, rather, nobody will suspect him of attempting it. He is
bound in honor to me [oh, Hiram! _honor!_] to protect his daughter. Such
was really the agreement, that is, by implication, when we became
engaged. It won't be honest if he leaves me in the lurch. He need not
think that he can do that, though. Twelve thousand dollars! Why, it will
scarcely board the old folks in any decent place; and who does he think
is going to marry his daughter at that rate?' * * *

Hiram was at the house at his usual hour. It was a lovely evening, about
the first of June, and as he walked slowly along, he caught a glimpse of
Emma through the blinds. She was seated at a window, evidently watching
for his coming. He could perceive, before she knew it was he, that her
countenance was troubled. Hiram turned away his head. Evidently
something attracted him in another direction.

Mr. Tenant resided in a handsome house in one of the finest squares of
the city. As Hiram mounted the steps, he paused a moment to survey the
scene. The trees were in full leaf, and the odor of flowers filled with
their fragrance the evening air.

'No, he must not give this up,' he muttered.

He turned and rang the bell sharply. It was a habit of Emma to open the
door herself when she saw him coming, but this time the servant
responded to the summons.

Hiram passed into the front parlor without speaking. As he approached
Emma, she rose and threw herself into his arms, and burst into tears.
She did not attempt to speak, but kept sobbing as if heart-broken.

Hiram stood still, and, in consequence of his undecided state of mind, a
good deal embarrassed.

'Why, what is the matter, Emma?' he said at length. 'Has anything
happened to your father or mother?'

'You know what has happened,' she finally articulated.

'Well, my dear child, is that anything to be so distressed about?'

'Don't _you_ care?' she exclaimed, looking up joyfully.

'To be sure I care, but only on your account, and'--

'Oh, never think of me. I shall be the most light-hearted creature in
the world. I was only afraid--afraid'--

'Of what, pray?'

'I cannot tell. That--that--perhaps--perhaps--you would
not--that--papa's losing everything might make a difference in your
feelings. Now don't be angry. (Hiram was looking grave.) I did not
_really_ think it would; but--but the bare possibility has made me so
very unhappy--so very, very unhappy!' and she began to cry again.

'Come, Emma, you must not be so foolish. Sit down now with me, and let
me say a few words to you; for your father will want me in a few
minutes, and I shall have to be with him all the evening.'

'Oh, I am so glad; you will be such a comfort to him. I know you will.'

Hiram made no reply; both took their seats, and then he spoke.

'Emma,' he said, in a tone so solemn and important that it struck terror
to her soul, she knew not wherefore--'Emma, this is a momentous period
of your life, and everything depends on the steps you take'--

'Why, Hiram, what _do_ you mean--what _can_ you mean?'

'Nothing to alarm you, but everything to impress you with the fact that
no time is to be lost. Your father has made the foolish resolution to
give up all his private property to his creditors'--

'So he told mamma and me. Is that not right?'

'No, it is not right. It is wrong,' replied Hiram, in a harsh tone.
'More than wrong--sinful--wicked, very wicked. Do you know who it is the
Scripture says is worse than an infidel?'

'I do not,' she replied faintly.

Hiram intended to frighten her, and he had succeeded.

'You do not! Well, it is the man who fails to provide for his own
household. Why, we had the text in our Sunday-school lesson only three
weeks ago.'

Emma sat paralyzed.

'Now, Emma,' continued Hiram, 'I want you to see your mother, and tell
her what I say. Tell her your father is determined to ruin the whole of
you--going to give up this very house--just think of that.'

'Papa has already told us so,' said Emma in a low, timid tone; 'but he
says it is the only honorable course.'

'Honorable!' exclaimed Hiram, pettishly. 'Stuff--nonsense. I tell you
that you are all crazy. You don't think what you are about. Wait till
you are turned out of doors, bag and baggage, then see how you will
feel--but then it will be too late. Do you understand?'

Emma Tenant was not a brilliant girl, but she had good sense and an
honest nature. By degrees she recovered from the stupor into which
Hiram's onslaught threw her; she began to feel something of her lover's
purpose, and appreciate something of the position he might soon assume.
Loving and trustful, these faint glimmerings of the truth appalled her.
She did not cry any more. She became pale. She breathed short and quick.

'Hiram,' she gasped, 'you mean something--I fear you mean something.
Papa knows best what is honest, better than you--a young man. To lose
our property would make me unhappy. And I thought--yes, I conceived--oh,
Hiram--tell me--_am_ I going to lose you?' she cried, interrupting
herself. 'If it be so, say it--say it now. Do not keep me in suspense.'

'Why, Emma, how nervous you are! Ah, here comes your father. I see you
are waiting for me. I am quite ready, sir.'

'Good. Emma, can you spare him for one evening? You will soon have him
all to yourself--eh?' and, with a pleasant tap on her cheek, Mr. Tenant
turned and left the room.

Hiram followed without saying a word.

Emma sat by herself an hour--at least an hour. The servant came in to
light the gas, but she would not permit it. I won't attempt to describe
her thoughts.

At length she rose, and took her way to her mother's room. She told her
just what had passed. Mrs. Tenant was a superior woman. Her experience
taught her, despite her good opinion of Hiram, for he had spared no
pains to present himself favorably, that he might prove to be merely
mercenary. Yet, after all, she did not think it probable. She said all
she consistently could say to soothe her child, without absolutely
declaring that she believed her fears to be groundless. _That_ she
dared not utter. She finished by a very common and rational argument,
which, by the way, has very little comfort in it:

'I know, my darling, that you love him, but you cannot love a mean,
low-spirited creature; and if he prove to be such, let us be thankful
for your escape.'

She kissed and caressed her child--her only child. But her words were
poor consolation to Emma, whose heart was devoted to this man--very
meagre consolation. Mrs. Tenant knew it; but what could she say or do
more, just then? She could only watch and stand ready to protect her
daughter's happiness, when events should decide what course she was to
take.

Hiram spent the entire evening looking over accounts and papers with Mr.
Tenant. His manner was quiet but assiduous. Very useful he made himself.
Frequently in the course of the evening he drew from that gentleman
well-merited encomiums on his clear head and methodical ideas.

As he was about leaving--it was fully twelve o'clock, and Mr. Tenant had
just thanked him for the twentieth time--Hiram ventured to speak again
about his property.

'Dear sir, I feel impelled to speak once more to you. Do listen to me.
Do not beggar yourself, and then turn yourself out of doors. Permit me
to tell you that you can save this house very easily.'

'I know it, Hiram. I know it. Don't think I have forgotten Emma and you.
I have thought it all over. Recollect, I don't blame you. I know it is
Emma you are thinking about. But, my dear boy, I can't do it--it would
not be _honest_. I can't do it. Never mind, we shall be all the happier
for doing right--all the happier, all the happier. I will see you
to-morrow. Good night. God bless you.'

They had gradually got to the door, and Hiram, echoing the good night,
stepped into the street.

''God bless you,' indeed,' he muttered. 'Soft words butter no parsnips.
'God bless you!' What idle profanity!'

He walked slowly down the street, unconscious that a young face from a
window of the second story watched his retreating steps--that a young
heart beat painfully as he passed out of sight.

A few moments later Emma's mother entered her room, and found her still
at the window.

'Not yet in bed?' she said tenderly. 'I thought you left me because you
were too much fatigued to sit up.' She came and put her arms about her
daughter's neck and kissed her.

'My dear, I have joyful news for you. Your papa says Hiram takes just
the right view of everything--that nothing can be more satisfactory than
his whole conversation. He explained all to Hiram, and he declares he
never passed a happier evening in his life. Is not that worth coming to
tell you of?'

'Indeed, it is, dear mamma.'

'Now you can sleep?'

'Oh yes.'

But she did not sleep, though. It is not so easy to recover from a heart
shock such as she had just experienced. No, she did not sleep a moment
during the night. Hiram's harsh, repulsive tone and manner haunted her.
Oh, _how_ they haunted her! Never before had he exhibited such traits.
Whatever the future had in store for her, here was a revelation, sudden,
unexpected, _true_.

Honest, simple-minded Mr. Tenant! How he is chattering away to his wife,
repeating again and again his encomiums on Hiram, till she is really
convinced. Why should she not be?

Meanwhile Hiram has reached his lodgings. He goes through with his usual
devotions, and is soon sound asleep. From his composed manner it may
reasonably be inferred that he has made up his mind just what course to
take.

CHAPTER VII.

'Mr. Meeker!'

There was no answer.

'Mr. Meeker!'

The accent was one of sudden distress and alarm. There was a short
pause, when the call was renewed.

'Mr. Meeker!'

'What is it? What is the matter? Is anything the matter?'

A slight groan.

Mr. Meeker sprang from his bed as if he were a young man, and made haste
to light a candle.

'My dear, are you ill?'

'I don't know. It's something strange.'

Mrs. Meeker's voice sounded so unnatural that her husband hurried to the
other side of the bed. He found his wife helpless, unable to change her
position. Her articulation was very difficult, and her countenance
presented a ghastly appearance, for one half of her appeared to be
completely paralyzed.

It was the work of a few moments to alarm the house and despatch a
messenger for the doctor. But what could a physician avail when nature
refused longer to perform her office? The doctor could investigate, and
the result of his examination was most alarming. Voluntary action over
one half the frame quite suspended; what was worse, there was little or
no sensation. The poor woman essayed to speak from time to time, but
with repulsive contortions, so that her words sounded like idiotic
babble. As her husband bent over her, she seized his arm with the hand
still _live_, and with distinctness said:

'_Send for Hiram._'

This was in time for the mail which closed in twenty minutes.

Hiram rose the morning after the long session at Mr. Tenant's house,
cool and refreshed by his undisturbed slumber. Arriving at his counting
room, he received, among his other correspondence, a letter, which read
as follows:

     MY DEAR SON: Your mother has been taken alarmingly ill. Come home
     at once. Your affectionate father,

                                                       F. MEEKER.

What a load off Hiram's mind by the receipt of this brief note! The idea
of a fond, devoted mother, struck down by a possibly fatal illness, did
not present itself for an instant, or if it did, it was without effect
on him.

He breathed a deep _relieved_ respiration, while he articulated, just
above a whisper, '_How very Providential!_'

The New Haven boat left at one o'clock. Hiram spent a most active
morning. Hill was summoned, and kept on the run all the time. No
explanations, though, except "a sudden call out of town." Arrangements
were made which looked to an absence prolonged into weeks. The bank was
visited with reference to what might be required, and the news of his
mother's dangerous illness turned to advantage in the most effective
way.

All was ready.

It was just half past twelve o'clock. Hiram sat down, and taking up a
torn piece of paper, scratched off a blurred and nearly unintelligible
scrawl as follows:

                                                         12-1/2 P.M.

     DEAR EMMA: I have this moment received the enclosed. I leave in
     fifteen minutes. Barely time to send this.

                                                                  H.

This note he despatched by a messenger, and went directly on board the
boat. There he found his brother, Dr. Frank, who had also been summoned
by his father, although not mentioned in Mrs. Meeker's request. The
brothers shook hands. The Doctor's heart was softened by the afflictive
intelligence, and Hiram felt in a very placable humor, in consequence of
the 'special interposition' that day made in his behalf. They did not
converse much, however. Hiram sat most of the time quietly in a corner
of the boat, looking over various commercial papers, while Dr. Frank
walked up and down the deck, enjoying the cool breeze and the pleasant
landscape presented on either side, despite the melancholy thoughts
which were from time to time forced on him, in view of the alarming
letter he had received. But he was familiar with disease and every
corporeal malady. His nature was buoyant and sanguine. He had the
confidence of a man of true genius in his own powers, and this did not
permit any very grave doubts about the result of his mother's illness.

When Emma Tenant received Hiram's note, she expressed but one feeling,
one sensation: that of earnest and profound sympathy from the bottom of
a heart earnest and sympathetic.

'Poor Hiram,' she said to herself. 'Poor, dear Hiram. He has been
obliged to leave suddenly without a word of consolation and kindness
from me. And I was unkind to him last night. I know I was. Poor fellow;
but I will make up for it when he comes back. I will never distrust him
again. Never.'

The stage reached Hampton at the usual time. The passengers had ridden
all night, and now descended glum and stiff to stretch their limbs for
breakfast. A nice double wagon stood waiting. It was driven by the
younger brother.

'How are you, Ned?' said the Doctor, first getting out. 'How is mother?'

'Oh, very bad, Frank; very bad. Past all hope, the doctors say.'

'What is it?'

'Paralysis.'

'Good God! you don't tell me so?'

The other nodded.

All this time Hiram stood calmly listening, but not saying a word. _He_
was greatly relieved. He felt sure that he could not return to New York
for two or three weeks, and--he was to be married in three weeks.

Dr. Frank was the first to enter the sick room. Though a physician,
accustomed to every form of disease, he was appalled at the change in
his mother's appearance. On this, however, we will not dwell. Mrs.
Meeker had been gradually sinking since the first attack. She was quite
sensible, however. Dr. Frank approached the bed and kneeled down and
addressed his mother tenderly.

The poor woman tried to articulate, and after many efforts, she
gasped--'_Hiram_.'

'He has come,' replied Dr. Frank, 'and will be with you in a moment.'

This seemed to relieve her, and the Doctor proceeded to investigate the
case as far as was necessary. There could be but one conclusion--Mrs.
Meeker was soon to pass away from this world. She was beyond the reach
of medical aid.

Dr. Frank stepped into the sitting room, and beckoned Hiram to go in.
Then came a very touching scene. When the mother became conscious of the
presence of her darling boy, she essayed to give exhibitions of her
feelings. It is impossible to describe these. To have him hold her
lifeless hand, to endeavor to press his own with the one which was still
in part vital, to pass her fingers over his face, and strive to put her
arm around his neck, seemed to render her perfectly happy. But her
strength was soon exhausted, and she was obliged to rest. What appeared
to afflict her most was that she could not articulate with distinctness.
She evidently wished to commune with her son, but it was impossible. She
did, however, give utterance to a few words, which were perhaps an index
to her thoughts:

'_Good--be good--good man_,' were plainly intelligible. '_Too
worldly--not_' * * * (the words were not audible). '_Treasure in
heaven--in heaven._'

By which disconnected sentences one might hope, and, I think, reasonably
infer that Mrs. Meeker, in view of that eternity for which she had been
so long, as she thought, preparing, suddenly saw things in a new and
different light, and desired effectually and lovingly, to impress the
same on her favorite child. Hiram, during the interview, behaved like a
model son--pliant, sorrowful, devoted, affectionate. But it would make
you shudder if you could have looked into his heart.

When his mother became exhausted, so as no longer to be sensible of his
presence, he stole softly out of the room, and breathed long and freely,
as one safely through with some difficult performance or operation.

Meanwhile Dr. Frank was sitting with his father. Very affecting was the
interview. The old man had at no time been ready to believe the
attending physician, who could give him no hope. When 'Frank' came, _he_
would know all about it. And so he did, but his knowledge could bring no
comfort--only a confirmation of what had already been announced.

'She can't recover, father. She can't recover,' and the stout man began
to sob. In the presence of his parent he was again a child, and the
latter instinctively became consoler. Mr. Meeker, as we have intimated,
though old, was not infirm, and it was a curious sight to witness his
efforts to comfort his boy, while he himself so much more required
sympathy.

So the day passed. The next morning Dr. Frank was obliged to return to
the city, for his patients demanded his presence. He first had a
consultation with the attending physician. Nothing remained for Mrs.
Meeker but wearisome days and nights till death should release her, and
all that a medical man could do was to make her as comfortable as
possible.

There was a small room adjoining the one where Mrs. Meeker lay, which
Hiram took possession of. It had a pleasant window looking out on the
garden, and it contained a small cot bedstead, besides a table and
chairs. Here Hiram spent most of his time busily occupied. By every mail
he received letters from New York, detailing with minuteness just what
took place in his affairs from day to day. In short, his private office
was moved from New York to Hampton, and the only apparent inconvenience
was that he did business at arm's length, as they say. Daily came a
letter from Hill, although Hill was not in Hiram's counting room. Daily
was an answer returned.

There was some one else who wrote Hiram just as regularly. Among the
business letters, written in various hands and on various kinds of
paper, could always be seen a small, neatly folded sheet, having a
refined and delicate superscription. It was from Emma Tenant. She had
forgotten all that was unpleasant and disagreeable in their last
interview, on receiving her lover's hurried-_looking_ scrawl, and, as if
by a sudden rebound, her sympathies were roused to an extraordinary
degree for 'poor Hiram--dear Hiram,' whom she 'treated so coldly' the
last time they met. I need not say her notes were full of the most
tender sympathy and condolence.

These letters bored Hiram exceedingly. The second day after reaching
Hampton he had written Emma another of his hastily got up epistles,
which contained just six lines, stating that he had found his mother in
a dying condition, and was watching at her bedside. He did not intend to
write again, but Emma's letters were so persistent that, despite his
resolution, he did despatch two other notes, each more hasty and
illegible and more distracted in tenor than the previous one. In fact
the last had no signature at all.

At length Emma was so completely carried away by Hiram's distress, that
she actually desired to proceed to Hampton, where she felt her presence
would act like a balm to his sorrowful and bruised heart. Her mother, of
course, would permit no such indiscreet step, so that Emma had to rest
satisfied with writing long, loving letters.

Hiram, meantime, was not without his harmless recreations.

[All the town seemed to have been informed how devoted Hiram was to his
sick mother. Nobody knew, however, of the secret of the little room
adjoining, and of our hero's busy hours there.]

In the cool of the afternoon he would take a walk into the village. He
called on his old master, Benjamin Jessup, who still maintained the
opposition store as against the Smiths. Jessup was the same
good-natured, jovial fellow as ever, but all token of familiarity died
away when Hiram, entering his place, saluted him with the quiet air and
manner of recognized superiority--yet, as you would say, pleasantly
enough. The rich New York shipping merchant inspired the country
storekeeper with awe.

Hiram enjoyed all this vastly, and talked amiably with Jessup about old
times. He walked complacently over the village, stopping every few steps
to have a word with his numerous acquaintances.

One afternoon, as he was taking his usual walk to the village, and had
nearly reached it, he met a lady whom at first he did not recognize, but
who appeared to know him from a distance.

It was Mary Jessup--now Mrs. Mary Williams--who stopped the way, and
whose face crimsoned as she approached. She had been married four or
five years--well married, as the phrase is. Her appearance had greatly
improved. Her form was finely developed. She had become stouter, and was
really more blooming than when she was a girl.

I have said she blushed, but not from any sense of mortification, such
as is not unfrequently experienced when one of the sex, feeling
conscious that time has not dealt kindly with her, meets an old friend
after a lapse of years, and dreads the first scrutinizing gaze. On the
contrary, Mary Williams was fully sensible of her improved good looks,
and this gave to her a certain self-possession of manner which prevented
the least awkwardness on her part.

Still she blushed--from old recollections, doubtless, and because Hiram
had not before greeted her as a married woman.

'Why, how do you do, Mr. Meeker? I am very glad to see you, even by
accident. I heard of you at father's, and I think you might, for old
acquaintance, sake, have stepped in to see me. Mr. Williams, too--you
used to know him--would be very glad to see you.'

Mrs. Williams was determined to have the first word, and she took
advantage of it. She looked very handsome, and acted more and more at
ease as she proceeded, especially after the reference to Mr. Williams.

[Women always like to allude to their husbands in presence of an old
admirer; as much as to say, 'Don't think I am without somebody to care
for and protect me;' or, 'Don't fancy I mean to forget my husband
because I choose to be chattering with you;' or--or--or--a dozen things
else.]

Hiram replied in his old artful way, very seriously, and with an air of
sadness (as he made allusion to his mother's situation), yet with a
touch of embarrassment (all assumed), while his voice assumed a
tenderness of feeling which it would seem impossible for him to restrain
in consequence of the suddenness of the meeting.

'Is she indeed so ill?' asked Mrs. Williams. 'We understood she was
greatly afflicted by a stroke of paralysis, but I had no thought of
immediate danger.'

'She cannot live,' replied Hiram, his lips quivering.

'Oh, Mr. Meeker, do not say that. I cannot bear to hear it. You know
how attached I always was to your mother.'

'Call me Hiram,' was the response. 'It will put me in mind of old
times.'

'Well, I don't know but it _is_ more natural, for I declare I have
hardly set eyes on you since you left our house.'

Hiram sighed.

'Well, I suppose I shall not see you again for another five years; so I
had best say, 'Good-by.''

They were standing at a point where a lane led off from the main street.

'Which way are you going?' asked Hiram.

'Just a few steps down the lane, and then home.'

'Shall you be detained long?'

'Only a minute. I have just to run in and leave a pattern, if you must
know.'

'Then I will walk along with you, if you have no objections. I am out
for a little necessary exercise.'

'Objections? why, I shall be delighted.' * * *

They sauntered down the lane to the place indicated by Mrs. Williams,
where a sign over the door, 'Fashionable Dressmaker,' explained the
feminine nature of her errand. Leaving there, the two walked on till
they reached a spot where they used to stroll together in old times.

'Now I think of it,' said Mrs. Williams, as she came out of the house
and rejoined her companion, 'I forgot to ask you if you are married,
because if you are, I need make no apology for marching you by a
dressmaker's establishment.

'Don't you know whether I am married or not?'

'Why, how should I? I certainly think you ought to be by this time. Why
don't you marry Miss Burns, or Louise Hawkins, or Charlotte, or--or'--

'Or whom?' asked Hiram.

'Oh, I dare say there are ever so many more, ever so many. So you are
not married?'

'Do you think I am, Mary?' * * *

As I was saying, the two sauntered on till they reached a spot that had
been favorite ground for their sentimental strolls. Both knew well
enough, when Hiram proposed to walk down the lane, where they would
land, for it was in both their minds. Mrs. Williams fancied it would
amuse her and furnish a little variety. She was very sure of herself,
and knew 'just what a flirt Hiram was.'

Hiram--but never mind what _he_ thought.

Although the days were at their longest, it was quite dark before Mrs.
Williams reached her own door. She entered it--after a hurried 'good
evening' to Hiram--flushed, excited, and with feelings generally
disturbed. Contrary to her resolution, in opposition to her judgment,
and, I may say, against her will, she listened to the old familiar
accents breathed in more impassioned tones than ever before, while
relieved by a gloss of sentimental sadness.

What had she been doing, and where had the hours fled? To what was she
listening, whose arm did she hold, and whose hand ventured to enclose
hers?

[It was 'only in sisterly friendship.' That was Hiram's observation as
he took it.]

Before she was aware of it, twilight was disappearing in the darkness.

She started as if recovering herself, and commenced to walk hurriedly
toward home. Hiram by no means relished the pace, but he was forced to
keep up, and, as I have observed, with an abrupt 'good evening' he was
summarily dismissed.

But he had enjoyed himself exceedingly, and he walked slowly toward his
house, recalling every little word which, as he believed, disclosed the
true state of Mary Williams's affections. Scoundrel that he was, he gave
not a thought to what might be the consequence if he persevered in his
wicked attempt to interest her. In fact, he made up his mind that it
would make the time pass less heavily while he was detained in the
neighborhood.

Do not suppose the calculating wretch intended to push the 'flirtation'
beyond what he called brotherly and sisterly conduct. Not he. There
might arise some charge of criminality or wrong, which would endanger
his position, or weaken his claims to the 'kingdom.'

Hiram reached home and found his mother much worse. By signs and every
other manifestation in her power, she had intimated her wish to see him.
Now she was quite speechless.

When Mrs. Williams entered her house, the 'tea table' was still spread,
and her husband wondering what had become of her. Her little girl
shouted in a joyful tone as she came in, 'Here is mamma,' and Mr.
Williams's countenance was instantly relieved from an expression of
suspense.

'Why, Mary, where have you been?'

For an instant Mrs. Williams was on the point of fabricating an answer.
But her better angel was on guard just then. The evil spell was
dissolved, while she replied, with one of her pleasant laughs:

'You could never guess. I met Hiram Meeker on my way to the
dressmaker's. You know he is here attending on his mother. Well, we
undertook to stroll over some of our old walks, and, before I knew it,
talking about old times and old scenes, it was dark. More fool I for
wasting my time and keeping tea waiting.'

'Why did he not come in?'

'To tell you the truth, I never asked him. I was so frightened when I
saw how late it was, I hurried away home, and left him at the door to do
the same.'

Mary Williams was relieved. She went about the duties of her household
with a light heart. And Hiram Meeker, during his stay at Hampton, found
no further opportunity for 'brotherly conferences' with her.

CHAPTER VIII.

Mrs. Meeker died the next week.

The funeral took place on the day which had been fixed for Hiram's
marriage with Emma Tenant. After it was over, William Meeker removed
with his wife from the small house to live with his father, and we will
say here that both contributed much to make Mr. Meeker's latter days
happy.

Hiram did not wait an hour, but took the stage the same afternoon, while
Dr. Frank remained with his father over the next day.

One morning, two or three days after his return, Hiram presented himself
at the house and inquired for _Mrs._ Tenant. On this occasion he was
cased in a complete suit of the deepest black, with crape reaching to
the very top of his hat. He was the picture of despairing grief.

It happened that Emma was not at home, so that Mrs. Tenant was not
surprised that she should be sent for. She did not know Hiram had not
inquired for her daughter. She came in with the impression that he was
all that he should be; his failure to write often being thought quite
excusable under the circumstances.

She had not, however, advanced three steps into the room before
_feeling_ there was something wrong.

Hiram, regarded in a certain light, presented a most comical, though
most lugubrious appearance. He was so completely acting a part that his
very looks and gestures, and, in short, the minutest movements of his
body, were manifestly 'got up.' One would think an automaton had been
employed and set to work to do a certain amount of mourning, and furnish
the requisite quantity of family grief.

Nevertheless Mrs. Tenant advanced and greeted Hiram cordially.

He put out the tips of his fingers, produced his pocket handkerchief,
as if to be ready for an overflow, but uttered no word, no articulate
sound.

This continued for at least five minutes, Mrs. Tenant endeavoring to say
something the while by way of condolence.

'I shall never recover from the shock,' at last he ejaculated; 'never!'

He did not look Mrs. Tenant in the face, but kept his eyes fixed on
vacancy.

'I am very sorry Emma is not in, but you will not have to wait long,'
remarked Mrs. Tenant at last.

'I do not think I shall be able to see her,' said Hiram, with a groan.

'Not see her; not see Emma? Why, what do you mean?' exclaimed the
mother, now fully roused.

'This is no period to devote myself to things of time and sense. I feel
that all my thoughts should be centred on eternity.'

[You should have seen the activity Hiram had been displaying in his
counting room since his return.]

This was enough for Mrs. Tenant. She understood him now, and determined
to bring matters at once to a crisis.

'Mr. Meeker,' she said, 'will you be so kind as to step with me into the
library a few moments?'

Hiram acquiesced.

She rang the bell, and said to the servant:

'When Miss Tenant comes in, request her to go to my room, and wait for
me there.

'Now, Mr. Meeker,' she said, as soon as they were seated, 'let me ask
you a plain question: Is it your intention to break your engagement with
my daughter?'

'Really, ma'am, I do not wish to speak on the subject at present,'
whispered Hiram, looking at the crape on his hat.

'But you must, you _shall_ speak. Do you think you can trifle with me,
sir?'

Hiram was silent.

'SPEAK! I say. Do you intend to keep your engagement with my daughter?'

Thus invoked, Hiram murmured something about--'under the
circumstances'--his 'great affliction'--'change in your own
family'--'business troubles'--'not sure of his own situation'--'perhaps
it would be best not to consider it a positive engagement'--'that is,
for the present'--'after a season should'--

The street-door bell rang, and Mrs. Tenant heard not another word. Her
heart scarcely beat as she listened to the footsteps of the old servant
along the hall. Agitated by a rush of tumultuous emotions, she was
unable to breathe during the short parley between Emma and the domestic.

At length she heard the welcome sound of Emma's step up the staircase,
and she drew a long full breath of relief. Then she started up and rang
the bell sharply, yes, furiously, and remained standing till the
servant, with quickened pace, came in.

'William, show Mr. Meeker the door.'

Hiram sprang to his feet. He did not like the general _look_ matters
were assuming.

'Go,' said Mrs. Tenant, pointing to the entrance.

In less than a quarter of a minute Hiram was walking down the street.

'It is over with me, anyhow,' he muttered.

But for once in his life he felt very small. 'To be turned out of doors
by a woman; still, nobody will know it.' He was soon busy in his
counting room, examining one of Hill's invoices.

Mrs. Tenant threw herself on the sofa, and was apparently lost in
thought for several minutes. Then she rose and went to her daughter.

THE CHICAGO (ILLINOIS) AND OTHER CANALS.

                                 CORK, Ireland, _April 18, 1863_.
  HON. ISAAC N. ARNOLD, M.C.,
        _Chicago, Illinois_.

DEAR SIR:

Here I am in this beautiful city, in glorious old Ireland, so many of
whose gallant sons have fallen in our defence, and thousands more of
whom now fight the battles of our country. When I think of Shields, and
Meagher, and Corcoran, and their brave associates, shedding their blood
that the Union may live; when I feel myself surrounded here by friends
of my country, and realize how fervently all Ireland desires our
success, my heart swells with gratitude for this noble race, and my
prayers are, that Providence would crown them with every blessing.

When you received my promise to attend as a delegate the Chicago Canal
Convention, little was it then supposed by me, that duty would call me
before that time to Europe. So much of my promise, however, as embraced
the discussion of the question, will now be redeemed. The project of an
enlarged _thorough-cut_ canal, uniting Chicago and the lakes with the
Illinois river and Mississippi, has long attracted my attention. As a
Senator of the United States, for many years, from a Southwestern State,
then devoted to the Union, and elected to the Senate on that question, I
have often passed near or over the contemplated route, always
concluding, that this great work should be accomplished without delay.
Every material interest of our whole country demands the construction of
this canal, and the perpetuity of the Union is closely identified with
its completion. It is for the nation's benefit, and should be the
nation's work. It will give new outlets to the Mississippi, through the
lakes, to the ocean, and neutralize that too exclusive attraction of
Western commerce to the Gulf, which has so often menaced the integrity
of the Union. We must make the access from the Mississippi, through the
lakes, to the ocean, as cheap, and easy, and eventually as free from tar
or toll, as to the Gulf, and the flag of disunion will never float again
over an acre of the soil, or a drop of all the waters of the mighty
West.

It is clear that, centuries ago, the lakes and Mississippi were united,
through the Illinois and Wisconsin rivers, and we must remove the
obstructions, now divorcing their waters, and restore their union, by
thorough-cut canals. In a few years, the saving of transportation, in a
single year, would more than pay the cost of the work. The increase of
population, wealth, products, imports, exports, and revenue, which would
follow the completion of this work, can scarcely now be estimated, and
it should be accomplished if for no other reason, as a most profitable
investment of capital for the benefit of the nation.

But, great as is the importance of these enlarged canals, uniting the
Illinois and Wisconsin rivers with the lakes, other great works,
connecting with the East, are indispensable. But great as is the
importance of these are the enlarged locks of the Erie, Champlain, Black
River, Syracuse, and Oswego, Cayuga, Seneca, Chemung, and Elmira to the
Pennsylvania State line, Rochester, and Alleghany River. Nearly all of
these are 70 feet wide and 7 feet deep, and require only an enlargement
of the locks, whilst a few require to be widened and deepened. The
Chemung canal connects the Susquehanna with the Erie canal, at
Montezuma, and the Chenango is nearly completed to the north branch of
the Susquehanna at the Pennsylvania State line, whence, the Susquehanna
canal passes through Wilkesbarre, Northumberland, Middleton, and
Wrightsville, to Havre de Grace, in Maryland, on tide water, at the
head of Chesapeake Bay. The great canal, from the southern boundary of
New York, down the Susquehanna to tide water, is now five feet deep, and
from 40 to 50 feet wide, and can all be readily enlarged to the
dimensions of the Erie canal. With these works thus enlarged, the
connection of the lakes would not only be complete with the Hudson, and
by the Delaware and Raritan canal with the Delaware, and by the Delaware
and Chesapeake canal with the Chesapeake Bay, but also by the direct
route, down the Susquehanna, to Baltimore, Norfolk, and Albemarle Sound.
Is not this truly national, and is it not equally beneficial, to the
East and the West, to open all these routes for large steamers? The
system, however, would not be complete, without uniting Champlain with
the St. Lawrence, Ontario with Erie, and Huron and Michigan with
Superior.

The enlarged works should also be provided through Wisconsin, Indiana,
Ohio, and western Pennsylvania, to the lakes, to the extent that these
canals can be made of the dimensions of the Erie, and supplied with
water. Nor should we forget the widening of the canal at Louisville, the
removal of obstructions in the St. Clair flats and upper Mississippi,
and the deepening of the mouth of this great river. The construction of
these works would be costly, but as a mere investment of capital, for
the increase of our wealth and revenue, they would pay the nation
tenfold.

As the main object of these works is cheap transportation, the tolls
should be diminished, as the works were completed, to the full extent
that freight could be carried more cheaply in large boats, and provision
should be made for an adequate sinking fund, so as gradually to
liquidate the whole cost, and then to collect no more toll than would
pay to keep the works in repair. Such is the true interest of the States
and of the nation. If New York could collect a toll for navigating the
Hudson, it would be against her interest, for the diminution and
diversion of business, and tax on labor and products, would far exceed
the net proceeds of any such toll. The same principle will apply to
these canals. As some of them, unfortunately, are owned by private
companies, adequate provision should be made, to prevent these aids from
being perverted to purposes of individual speculation. The Erie and
Ontario canal, at the falls of Niagara, and the Superior, Huron, and
Michigan canal (less than a mile long), at the falls of St. Mary, should
be made ship canals, much larger than those of Canada.

The cost of all these works may exceed $100,000,000, but the admirable
financial system of Mr. Secretary Chase, would soon supply abundant
means for their construction. Already the price of gold has fallen
largely, our legal tenders are being funded, by millions, in the
Secretary's favorite 5-20 sixes, and we shall soon have, under his
system, a sound, uniform national currency, binding every State and
citizen to the Union, and fraught ultimately with advantages to the
nation, equal to the whole expense of the war.

In passing down the Susquehanna canal, at Middletown, commences the
canal which, by way of Reading and the Schuylkill, connects Philadelphia
with the Susquehanna and the lakes. Most of this work is already six
feet deep, but the whole route, if practicable, should be enlarged to
the dimensions of the Erie canal.

I have met in the British Museum some documents showing the original
project (absurdly abandoned) for a large canal from the Schuylkill to
the Susquehanna. A slight change will restore this work, and give to
Philadelphia a complete seven-foot canal, via the Schuylkill and
Susquehanna to the lakes, as short as from New York, and through a
richer country, both mineral and agricultural. It appears that
Washington and Franklin both favored this route.

1. Gunboats, and large commercial steamers, could then pass, without
interruption, through all the lakes, to the St. Lawrence, the Hudson,
the Delaware, Susquehanna, Chesapeake Bay, Albemarle Sound, the Ohio,
and Mississippi.

2. In case of war, foreign or domestic, the saving to the Government in
prices of articles they must buy, and in transportation of men,
munitions of war, supplies, and coal, would be enormous. It is believed
that the excess of cost in prices and transportation during this
rebellion, occasioned by the want of these works, WOULD MORE THAN PAY
FOR THEIR CONSTRUCTION. Nor is this the only loss, but victories no
doubt have often been turned into defeats, for the want of proper
facilities for the movement of gunboats, of supplies, and munitions, and
the rapid concentration of troops and reënforcements.

3. The ability to obtain supplies, and coals, and vessels, from so many
points, and especially gunboats, where the coal, iron, and fluxes are in
justaposition, would hasten construction, and cheapen prices to the
Government.

The enormous naval and military power, gained by such works, would tend
greatly to prevent wars, foreign or domestic; or, if they did occur,
would enable us to conduct them with more economy and success. It is
said such vessels can be built on the lakes, and so they can, for lake
defence, but they would be liable to capture or destruction there,
before completed, by the enemy, and iron vessels, and iron-clads, could
not be constructed so cheaply, where there is neither coal nor iron, as
in regions like the Delaware, Susquehanna, Alleghany, and Ohio, where
these great articles abound, and can be used on the spot, with so much
economy.

It must be remembered, also, that, if these iron steamers and iron-clads
are constructed on the seaboard or the lakes, still, the iron and coal
for building them, and the coal for running them, could be supplied much
more cheaply, if these enlarged canals were finished. Besides, events
are now occurring, and may again, in our history, requiring the
immediate construction of hundreds of iron vessels, rams, iron-clads,
and mortar boats, calling for all the works on the seaboard, the lakes,
the Western rivers, and enlarged canals, to furnish, in time, the
requisite number. Rapid concentration of forces, naval and military, and
prompt movements, are among the greatest elements of success in war. It
will be conceded, that the ability to run gunboats, iron-clads, rams,
and mortar boats, through all our lakes, to and from them to all our
great rivers, and to connect from both, through such enlarged canals,
with the seaboard, and the Gulf, would vastly increase our naval and
military power.

Is it not clear, then, that if such a movement, with such resources and
communications, had been made, in sufficient force, the first year of
the war, so as to seize, or effectully blockade, all the rebel ports, to
occupy, by an upward and downward movement, the whole Mississippi and
all its tributaries, isolating and cutting rebeldom in two, and thus
preventing supplies from Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas, that the
contest must have been closed long ere this, and thus saved five or six
times the cost of these works. As indicating the consequence of our
occupation and command of the Mississippi and the Gulf, let us see its
effect on the supply of the single indispensable article of _beef_ to
the rebel army and people.

By the census of 1860, table 36, the number of cattle that year in the
loyal States was 7,674,000; in Texas alone, 2,733,267; in Louisiana,
329,855; and in Arkansas, 318,355;--in those parts of the rebel States
east of the Mississippi, not commanded by our troops and gunboats,
2,558,000, and in the parts of those States thus commanded by us,
1,087,000. Thus it will be seen, that the cattle in Texas alone (whence
the rebels, heretofore, have derived their main supplies), raised on
their boundless prairies, and rich perennial grass, have largely
exceeded all the cattle in those parts of the rebel States east of the
Mississippi, commanded by them. But that commanded by us, of the
Mississippi and its tributaries, and the Gulf, as is now the case, cuts
off the above supplies from Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, west and north
Mississippi, north Alabama, and west and middle Tennessee. Hence the
cries of starvation from the South; hence, mainly, the rise there in the
price of beef, from a few cents to a dollar a pound. Controlled, as the
Gulf and Mississippi and its tributaries now are by us, so as to prevent
any Western supplies of beef, and the desolation and inundation which
have swept over so much of the rest of rebeldom since 1860, their army
and people cannot be supplied with beef throughout this year. Nor would
running the blockade help them in this respect, for Europe has no
supplies of beef to spare, requiring large amounts from us every year.
The revolt, then, is doomed this year by starvation, if not, as we
believe, by victories. Indeed, I imagine, if our Secretaries of War and
of the Navy were called on for official reports, they could clearly
show, that with ample appropriations in July, 1861, and all these works
_then_ completed, they could have crushed the revolt in the fall of 1861
and winter of 1862. All, then, that has been expended since of blood and
treasure, and all the risks to which the Union may have been exposed,
result from the want of these works. Surely, these are momentous
considerations, appealing, with irresistible force, to the heart and
judgment of every true American statesman, and patriot.

Great, however, as are the advantages in war to be derived from the
construction of these works, it is still more in peace, and as arteries
of trade, that the benefit would be greatest. If iron steamers are to
control the commerce of the world, the cheap construction and running of
such vessels may decide this great question in our favor. Now, whether
these steamers are to be built on the seaboard or interior, the coal,
and iron, and timber, with which to make them, and the coal and supplies
with which to run them, could be furnished much more cheaply by these
enlarged canals. And even if the vessels be of timber, the engines,
boilers, anchors, &c., must be of iron, and they must be run with coal,
all which would be furnished cheaper at our lakes and seaboard, by these
enlarged canals. Nor is it only for the construction of engines and
boilers for steamers, or coal to run them, that these works would be
important, but the cheapening of transportation of coal, iron, timber,
and supplies would be greatly beneficial in all industrial pursuits. It
is, however, in cheapening the transportation of our immense
agricultural products to the East, South, seaboard, and the return
cargoes, that these works would confer the greatest benefits. The value
of the freight transported on these canals, last year, was over
$500,000,000; but, when all should be enlarged, as herein proposed, the
value of their freight, in a few years, would exceed SEVERAL BILLIONS OF
DOLLARS. They would draw from a vastly extended area, from augmented
population and products, and with greater celerity and economy of
movements, from the increased distances that freight could be carried,
and additional articles. With these improvements, millions of bales of
cotton would be carried annually on these enlarged canals. All of
Missouri, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Kansas, and the Northwestern
Territories, up the Missouri and its tributaries, with large portions of
Tennessee, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, and even of Texas, on the Red
river, would be added to the region from which supplies would be sent,
and return cargoes proceed by these works. Our exports abroad would
soon reach a BILLION of dollars, of which at least one third would
consist of breadstuffs and provisions. Corn was consumed, last year, in
some of the Western States, as fuel, in consequence of high freights.
But this could never recur with these enlarged canals. Indeed, the
products to be carried on these canals would include the whole valley of
the lakes, the Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri; and many articles, thus
reaching there, thence be carried, on our great imperial railway, to the
Pacific, bringing back return cargoes for the same routes. Breadstuffs
and provisions and cotton would be carried more cheaply through these
canals to the manufacturing States, and their fabrics return, the same
way, in vastly augmented amounts, to the West.

Last year, even during a war, breadstuffs and provisions, reaching
$109,676,875 in value, were exported abroad, from the loyal States
alone; but, with these enlarged canals, the amount could be more than
tripled, the augmented exports bringing in increased imports, and vast
additional revenue. Can we not realize the certainty of these great
results, and have we not the energy and patriotism to insure their
accomplishment? Assuredly we have.

Nor is it only our revenue from duties that would be increased to an
extent sufficient of itself, in a few years, to pay the principal and
interest of the debt incurred in the construction of these works, but
our internal revenue, also, would be prodigiously augmented.

The census of 1860 shows our increase of wealth, from 1850 to 1860, to
have been 126.45 per cent. (Table 35). Now, if we would increase our
wealth only one tenth, in the next ten years, by the construction of
these works, then (our wealth being now $16,159,616,068) such increase
would make our wealth, in 1870, instead of $36,593,450,585, more than
sixteen hundred millions _greater_, or more than _ten times_ the cost of
these works; and, in 1880, instead of $82,865,868,849, over three
billions six hundred millions more, or more than twenty times the cost
of those works. The same percentage, then, of our present internal tax,
on this augmented wealth, estimated at only one per cent., would be
$16,000,000 (annually) in 1870, and $36,000,000 (annually) in 1880, and
constantly increasing. Add this to the great increase of our revenue
from duties, as the result of these works, and the addition would not
only soon liquidate their cost, but yield a sum which, in a few years,
would pay the principal and interest of our public debt.

With such works, we would certainly soon be the first military, naval,
and commercial power of the world. The West, with these reduced
freights, would secure immense additional markets for her products, and
the East send a much larger amount of manufactures, in return cargoes,
to the West.

A new and great impulse would be given to the coal and iron interest. If
the Delaware, Susquehanna, and their tributaries, and the Ohio and its
tributaries, especially the Youghiogheny, Monongahela, and Alleghany had
the benefit of low freight, afforded by these canals, they could supply
not only the seaboard at reduced rates, but also central and western New
York, the Canadas, and the whole lake region, with coal and iron.
Indeed, the increased demand, thus caused for these great articles,
would soon bring our make of iron, and consumption of coal, up to that
of England, and ultimately much larger. Freight is a much greater
element in the cost of coal and iron, than of agricultural products, but
the increased exchange would be mutually advantageous.

With this system completed, the Mississippi might communicate by large
steamers with all the lakes, and eastward, by the enlarged canals, to
Chicago or Green Bay, or pass up the Ohio, by the Wabash or from
Lawrenceburg or Cincinnati to Toledo, or by Portsmouth or Bridgeport to
Cleveland or by Bridgeport to Erie city, or by Pittsburg, up the
Alleghany, to Olean and Rochester, on the Erie canal, or by ship canal,
from Buffalo to Ontario, thence, by the St. Lawrence, to Lake Champlain
and the Hudson, or by Oswego to Syracuse, or by the Erie canal from
Buffalo to the Hudson, or by the Chenango or Chemung route, down the
Susquehanna, to Philadelphia, or Baltimore, or down the Chesapeake to
Norfolk, and on through Albemarle Sound south. Or, going from the East,
or South, westward by these routes, the steamer could proceed west, and
up the Missouri, to the points where they would meet the great railway
leading to the Pacific. Indeed, if we do our duty now, the next
generation may carry similar canals from the head of Lake Superior to
the Mississippi and Missouri, and up the Kansas or Platte to the gold
mines of Colorado, or, from the great falls of the Missouri, to the base
of the Rocky mountains, with railroad connection thence to the mouth of
the Oregon and Puget's sound. There would be connected with this system,
the lakes, and all the Eastern waters, the Ohio and all its tributaries,
including the Youghiogheny, Monongahela, Alleghany, Kanawa, Guyandotte,
Big Sandy, Muskingum, Scioto, Miami, Wabash, Licking, Kentucky, Green
river, Barren, Cumberland, and Tennessee, the upper Mississippi and its
tributaries, especially the Illinois and Wisconsin, the Desmoines and
St. Peter's, the lower Mississippi and all its vast tributaries, the St.
Francis, White river, Arkansas, Red river, and Yazoo. These are no
dreams of an enthusiast, but advancing realities, if _now_, _now_ we
will only do our duty in crushing this rebellion, and exorcise the foul
fiend of slavery, that called it into being. We may best judge of what
we may do in the future, by what we have done in the past. We have
constructed 4,650 miles of canals (including slackwater), at a cost of
$132,000,000. We have constructed (including city roads) 31,898 miles of
railroad, at a cost of $1,203,285,569, making an aggregate, for
railroads and canals, of $1,335,285,569. Now, one tenth of this sum will
probably make all the works proposed now to be executed, for they are
all only enlargements of existing canals, except the ship canal round
the falls of Niagara, and a similar canal from Lake Champlain to the St.
Lawrence, a work of vast importance, but that can only be accomplished
with the aid and consent of Canada, and is not now estimated.

These improvements would be truly national, especially as provision
would be made for deepening the mouth of the Mississippi. We propose to
make or enlarge no mere local works, but only such as connect the
Atlantic and the Gulf with the lakes, Ohio, Mississippi, Missouri,
Hudson, Delaware, Susquehanna, Chesapeake bay, and Albemarle sound.
There local routes must be constructed or enlarged by local or State
expenditures.

The canals in New York, constituting so large a portion of the system,
have already (mostly) the requisite width and depth, and only need an
enlargement of the locks. The great Delaware and Raritan canal,
connecting New York with Philadelphia, has a depth of 8 feet, and the
Delaware and Chesapeake, uniting them with the Susquehanna and the
lakes, Baltimore, Norfolk, and Albemarle sound, has a depth of ten feet.
No doubt the enlightened proprietors of the Delaware and Raritan canal
would, on fair terms to themselves and the Government, enlarge that
canal (if practicable) to the depth of the Delaware and Chesapeake,
which would be of incalculable benefit to the whole country, but
especially to New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Norfolk.

The Pennsylvania canals proposed to be enlarged are the Schuylkill,
leading by the Union from Philadelphia, through Reading to Middleton on
the Susquehanna, and thence up that river to the Erie and the lakes. The
Schuylkill canal, 70 miles to Reading, has a depth of 6 feet, and from
Reading to Middleton, 4 feet. The Susquehanna canal, from Havre de
Grace, Maryland, at the head of tidewater, and the Chesapeake bay to the
New York line, and system, has a uniform depth of 5 feet, and is about
300 miles long. This canal, leading through Maryland and Pennsylvania
along the Susquehanna, can readily and cheaply be enlarged to the
dimensions of the Erie canal, and will then furnish Norfolk, Baltimore,
and Philadelphia a direct route to the lakes by the enlarged system,
fully equal to that of New York. Western Pennsylvania and Pittsburg
would have the route, by the enlarged system, up the Alleghany and Olean
to Rochester on the Erie canal, and thence to the Hudson or the lakes,
and from Bridgeport to Cleveland or Erie city. Ohio would have the
benefit of the routes (enlarged) to and from Cleveland to Bridgeport or
Portsmouth on the Ohio, and to and from Toledo to the mouth of the
Wabash or Miami or to Cincinnati. These canals are 40 feet wide and 4
feet deep. Indiana would have the benefit of the Wabash and Erie canal
to Evansville, on the Ohio, from Toledo, and to and from the same point
to the mouth of the Miami at Lawrenceburg and to Cincinnati, and would
also largely participate in the benefit of the Chicago and Illinois
canal of the whole system. Wisconsin would have the benefit of all these
canals, but especially of that connecting the Wisconsin river with Green
Bay, and the rest of the lakes with Lake Superior. Illinois would have
the benefit of the Wabash and Erie, the Chicago and Illinois, and of the
entire system. Indeed, with a thorough-cut canal from the Illinois river
to Chicago, fact will outstrip fancy as regards the progress of that
great city. And here a strong argument in favor of the whole of these
works is presented to every true American, by the fact that the vast and
increasing heavy and bulky products of the West demand the enlarged
works, and if she cannot have them by the Hudson, the Delaware, and
Susquehanna, she will have them by the Canada canals, and the St.
Lawrence to its outlet in the Gulf. Minnesota would have the benefit of
the improvement of the upper Mississippi, and of the canals uniting the
Wisconsin with Green Bay, and Superior with the other lakes. Iowa,
Missouri, Kansas, and the whole Western Territories would have the
benefit of the improvement of the Mississippi, of the routes by Chicago,
Green Bay, the Ohio, and the whole system. The glorious new free State
of Western Virginia would have the benefit of all the routes up and down
the Ohio and Mississippi to the lakes, the Hudson, Delaware,
Susquehanna, and the Gulf. So would Kentucky, and the enlargement of the
Louisville canal would be within her own limits. When we reflect that
Kentucky borders for nearly a thousand miles on the Ohio and
Mississippi, with her streams, the Big Sandy, Licking, Kentucky, Green
river, and Barren (which last four have 766 miles of slackwater
navigation), Cumberland, and Tennessee, all tributaries of the Ohio, the
benefits to her would be prodigious. The interest of the States of
Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, North Alabama, on the
Tennessee river, and Texas, on the Red river, would be greatly promoted.
They would all have improved routes to and from the mouth of the
Mississippi, and to and from the Ohio, the lakes, and the Atlantic.
Eastern Virginia and North Carolina would derive great advantages by the
enlarged routes, connecting Albemarle sound and the Chesapeake with New
York, Philadelphia, the Hudson, the Delaware, the Susquehanna, and the
lakes. Delaware and Maryland could avail themselves most beneficially of
all these routes, and Baltimore would derive immense advantages from
the enlarged route by the Susquehanna to the lakes, having then as good
a route there as New York, and the difference of distance being only 30
miles. New Jersey, by her route from the Delaware and Raritan to the
Hudson, and by her rising cities near or opposite Philadelphia and New
York, and by the enlarged system to the lakes, would find all her
interests greatly advanced, and the business on her canals and railroads
vastly increased. Michigan, with a larger lake shore than any other
State, fronting on Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, St. Clair, the
connecting straits and rivers, and Lake Erie, would derive immense
advantages. By her immediate connection with the whole New York and
Eastern system, and by Toledo, Cleveland or Erie city, to the Ohio
river, and by the Chicago or Green Bay routes to the Mississippi and the
Gulf, her vast agricultural products in the peninsula would find new and
augmented markets; while, with the ship canal to Lake Superior, her
magnificent iron and copper mines on that immense inland sea, as well as
those in Wisconsin, and the splendid pineries and fisheries of both
States, would receive an immense development. Pennsylvania has no large
available through route now from the Delaware and Susquehanna to the
lakes, nor from Pittsburg. The proposed system would give her those
routes, as well from the East as from the West. This would give to her
coal and iron, her vast agricultural products, her immense manufactures,
and all her industrial pursuits a new impulse, while her two great
cities, Philadelphia and Pittsburg, would be greatly advanced in wealth
and population. When we reflect that coal and iron have mainly
contributed to make England what she is, and how superior, in this
respect, are the natural advantages of Pennsylvania with her bituminous
and anthracite coal and iron and fluxes in juxtaposition, with a
_continent_ surrounding her to furnish a market, with her central
location, fronting on the deep tidewater of the Delaware, and upon the
lakes and the Ohio, with its two great confluents at Pittsburg, the
Alleghany and Monongahela, we cannot fully realize the immense
advantages which she would derive from these enlarged communications.
But what of New York? With all her routes, as well as that of the Erie
canal, enlarged as proposed, with her mighty system extending to the
lakes and St. Lawrence, from Lake Champlain to Superior, south by the
Delaware and Susquehanna, west by the Alleghany, Ohio, Missouri, and
Mississippi, and her great city with an unrivalled location, what an
imperial destiny lies before her, with the Union preserved? Oh! if she
would only fully realize these great truths, and spurn from her embrace
the wretched traitors who, while falsely professing peace, mean the
degradation of the North and the dissolution of this Union, who can
assign limits to her wealth and commerce?

Let us now examine the relations of New England to these proposed works.
Vermont, upon Lake Champlain, by the enlarged system, connecting her
with the Hudson, the St. Lawrence, and the lakes, would be greatly
advanced in wealth and population. But with cheapened transportation to
and from Lake Champlain or the Hudson, not only Vermont, but all New
England, in receiving her coal and iron, and her supplies from the West,
and in sending them her manufactures, will enjoy great advantages, and
the business of her railroads be vastly increased. So, also, New
England, on the Sound, and, in fact, the whole seaboard and all its
cities. Bridgeport, New Haven, New London, Providence, Fall River, New
Bedford, Boston, Portland, Bangor, Belfast, and Eastport will all
transact an immense increased business with New York, Philadelphia,
Baltimore, and the West. As the greatest American consumer of Western
breadstuffs and provisions, and of our iron and coal, and the principal
seat of domestic manufactures, the augmented reciprocal trade of New
England with the South and West will be enormous. Her shipping and
shipbuilding interests, her cotton, woollen, worsted, and textile
fabrics, her machinery, engines, and agricultural implements, boots and
shoes, hats and caps, her cabinet furniture, musical instruments, paper,
clothing, fisheries, soap, candles, and chandlery, in which she has
excelled since the days of Franklin, and, in fact, all her industrial
pursuits, will be greatly benefited. The products of New England in
1860, exclusive of agriculture and the earnings of commerce, were of the
value of $494,075,498. But, in a few years after the completion of these
works, this amount will be doubled. Such is the skilled and educated
industry of New England, and such the inventive genius of her people,
that there is no limit to her products, except markets and consumers. As
New York increases, the swelling tide of the great city will flow over
to a vast extent into the adjacent shores of Connecticut and New Jersey,
and Hoboken, West Hoboken, Weehawken, Hudson City, Jersey City, and
Newark will meet in one vast metropolis. Philadelphia will also flow
over in the same way into Camden and adjacent portions of New Jersey,
whose farms already greatly exceed in value those of any other State.
The farms of New Jersey in 1860 were of the average value of $60.38 per
acre, while those of South Carolina, the great leader of the rebellion,
with all her boasted cotton, rice, and tobacco, and her 402,406 slaves,
were then of the average value of $8.61 per acre. (Census Table 36.) And
yet there are those in New Jersey who would drag her into the rebel
confederacy, cover her with the dismal pall of slavery, and who cry
_Peace! peace!_ when there is no peace, except in crushing this wicked
rebellion. The States of the Pacific, as the enlarged canals reached the
Mississippi and Missouri, and ultimately the base of the Rocky
mountains, would be greatly advanced in all their interests.
Agricultural products and other bulky and heavy articles that could not
bear transportation all the way by the great Pacific railroad, could be
carried by such enlarged canals to the Mississippi and Missouri, and
ultimately to the base of the Rocky mountains, and thence, by railroad,
a comparatively short distance to the Pacific, and westward to China and
Japan. In order to make New York and San Francisco great depots of
interoceanic commerce for America, Europe, Asia, and the world, these
enlarged canals, navigated by large steamers, and ultimately toll free,
are indispensable.

We have named, then, all the Territories, and all the thirty-five
States, except three, as deriving great and special advantages from this
system. These three are Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida, with a
white population, in 1860, of 843,338. These States, however, would not
only participate in the increased prosperity of the whole country, and
in augmented markets for their cotton, rice, sugar, tobacco, and timber,
and in cheaper supplies of Eastern manufactures, coal, iron, and Western
products, but they would derive, also, special advantages. They have a
large trade with New Orleans, which they would reach more cheaply by
deepening the mouth of the Mississippi. They could pass up Albemarle
sound, by the interior route, to Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, or
the West, and take back return cargoes by the same route. Georgia, also,
by her location on the Tennessee river, together with South Carolina,
connected with that river at Chattanooga, would derive great benefits
from this connection with the enlarged canals and improved navigation of
the West, sending their own and receiving Western products more cheaply.

Thus, every State and every Territory in the Union would be advanced in
all their interests by these great weeks, and lands, farms, factories,
town and city property, all be improved in value.

But there is another topic, connected with this subject, of vast
importance, particularly at this juncture, to which I must now refer. It
is our public lands, the homestead bill, and immigration. On reference
to an article on this subject, published by me in the November number of
THE CONTINENTAL MONTHLY, it will be found that our unsold public lands
embraced 1,649,861 square miles, being 1,055,911,288 acres, extending to
fifteen States and all the Territories, and exceeding half the area of
the whole Union. The area of New York, being 47,000 square miles, is
less than a thirty-fifth of this public domain. England (proper), 50,922
square miles; France, 203,736; Prussia, 107,921; and Germany, 80,620
square miles. Our public domain, then, is more than eight times as large
as France, more than fifteen times as large as Prussia, more than twenty
times as large as Germany, more than thirty-two times as large as
England, and larger (excluding Russia) than all Europe, containing more
than 200,000,000 of people. As England proper contained, in 1861,
18,949,916 inhabitants, if our public domain were as densely settled,
its population would exceed 606,000,000, and it would be 260,497,561, if
numbering as many to the square mile as Massachusetts. These lands
embrace every variety of soil, products, and climate, from that of St.
Petersburg to the tropics.

After commenting on the provisions of our homestead bill, which gives to
every settler, American or European, 160 acres of this land for ten
dollars (the cost of survey, etc.), I then said:

     'The homestead privilege will largely increase immigration. Now,
     besides the money brought here by immigrants, the Census proves
     that the average annual value of the labor of Massachusetts _per
     capita_ was, in 1860, $220 for each man, woman, and child,
     independent of the gains of commerce--very large, but not given.
     Assuming that of the immigrants at an average annual value of only
     $100 each, or less than thirty-three cents a day, it would make, in
     ten years, at the rate of 100,000 each year, the following
     aggregate:

     1st year 100,000 = $10,000,000
     2d   "   200,000 =  20,000,000
     3d   "   300,000 =  30,000,000
     4th  "   400,000 =  40,000,000
     5th  "   500,000 =  50,000,000
     6th  "   600,000 =  60,000,000
     7th  "   700,000 =  70,000,000
     8th  "   800,000 =  80,000,000
     9th  "   900,000 =  90,000,000
     10th " 1,000,000 = 100,000,000
                       ------------
                Total, $550,000,000

     'In this table the labor of all immigrants each year is properly
     added to those arriving the succeeding year, so as to make the
     aggregate the last year 1,000,000. This would make the value of the
     labor of this million of immigrants in ten years, $550,000,000,
     independent of the annual accumulation of capital, and the labor of
     the children of the immigrants (born here) after the first ten
     years, which, with their descendants, would go on constantly
     increasing.

     'But, by the official returns (p. 14, Census), the number of alien
     immigrants to the United States, from December, 1850, to December,
     1860, was 2,598,216, or an annual average of 260,000.

     'The effect, then, of this immigration, on the basis of the last
     table, upon the increase of national wealth, was as follows:

     1st year 260,000 = $26,000,000
     2d   "   520,000 =  52,000,000
     3d   "   780,000 =  78,000,000
     4th  " 1,040,000 = 104,000,000
     5th  " 1,300,000 = 130,000,000
     6th  " 1,560,000 = 156,000,000
     7th  " 1,820,000 = 182,000,000
     8th  " 2,080,000 = 208,000,000
     9th  " 2,340,000 = 234,000,000
     10th " 2,600,000 = 260,000,000
              Total, $1,430,000,000

     'Thus, the value of the labor of the immigrants, from 1850 to 1860,
     was $1,430,000,000, making no allowance for the accumulation of
     capital, by annual reinvestment, nor for the natural increase of
     this population, amounting, by the Census, in ten years, to about
     twenty-four per cent. This addition to our wealth, by the labor of
     the children, in the first ten years, would be small; but in the
     second and each succeeding decade, when we count children, and
     their descendants, it would be large and constantly augmenting. But
     the Census shows that our wealth increases each ten years at the
     rate of 126.45 per cent. (Census Table 35.) Now, then, take our
     increase of wealth, in consequence of immigration, as before
     stated, and compound it at the rate of 126.45 per cent. every ten
     years, and the result is largely over $3,000,000,000 in 1870, and
     over $7,000,000,000 in 1880, independent of the effect of any
     immigration succeeding 1860. If these results are astonishing, we
     must remember that immigration here is augmented population, and
     that it is population and labor that create wealth. Capital,
     indeed, is but the accumulation of labor. Immigration, then, from
     1850 to 1860, added to our national products a sum more than double
     our whole debt on the 1st of July last, and augmenting in a ratio
     much more rapid than its increase, and thus enabling us to bear the
     war expenses.'

As the homestead privilege must largely increase immigration, and add
especially to the cultivation of our soil, it will contribute vastly to
increase our population, wealth, and power, and augment our revenues
from duties and taxes.

As this domain is extended over fifteen States and all the Territories,
the completion of these enlarged canals, embracing so large a portion of
them, would be most advantageous to all, and the inducement to
immigration would greatly increase, and immigration must soon flow in
from Europe in an augmented volume. Indeed, when these facts are
generally known in Europe, the desire of small renters, and of the
working classes, to own a farm, and cultivate their own lands here, must
bring thousands to our shores, even during the war. But it will be
mainly when the rebellion shall have been crushed, the power of the
Government vindicated, its authority fully reëstablished, and slavery
extinguished, so as to make labor honorable everywhere throughout our
country, and freedom universal, that this immigration will surge upon
our shores. When we shall have maintained the Union unbroken against
foreign and domestic enemies, and proved that a republic is as powerful
in war as it is benign in peace, and especially that the _people_ will
rush to the ranks to crush even the most gigantic rebellion, and that
they will not only bear arms, but taxes, for such a purpose, the
prophets of evil, who have so often proclaimed our Government an
_organised anarchy_, will lose their power to delude the people of
Europe. And when that people learn the truth, and the vast privileges
offered them by the Homestead Bill, there will be an exodus from Europe
to our country, unprecedented since the discovery of America. The wounds
inflicted by the war will then soon be healed, and European immigrants,
cultivating here their own farms, and truly loyal to this free and
paternal Government, from which they will have received this precious
gift of a farm for each, will take the place of the rebels, who shall
have fled the country. We have seen that the total cost of our railroads
and canals, up to this date, was $1,335,285,569, and I have estimated
the probable cost of these enlarged works as not exceeding one tenth of
this sum, or $133,528,556. Let us now examine that question. We have
seen that our 4,650 miles of canals cost $132,000,000, being $28,387 per
mile, or less, by $8,395 per mile, than our railroads. It will be
recollected that a large number of miles of these canals have already
the requisite depth of seven feet, and width of seventy, and need only
an enlargement of their locks. It appears, however, by the returns, that
the Erie canal, the Grand Junction, Champlain canal, and the Black
River, Chemung, Chenango, and Oswego, in all 528 miles, are all seven
feet deep, and seventy feet wide, and cost $83,494 per mile, while the
average cost of _all_ our canals, varying from forty to seventy-five
feet in width, and from four to ten in depth, was $28,387 per mile.
Assuming $28,000 per mile as the average cost of the canals requiring
enlargement, and $83,000 that of those per mile having already the
requisite dimensions, the difference would be $55,000 per mile, as the
average cost of those needing increased dimensions.

The estimated cost, then, would stand as follows:

  598 miles New York canals,
  enlargement of locks        $5,980,000

  Enlarging dimensions, etc.,
  of 1,696 miles, at $55,000
  per mile                    93,280,000
                             -----------

                    Total,   $99,260,000

The conjectural estimate heretofore made by me was $133,528,556, or one
tenth the cost of our existing railroads and canals, and exceeding, by
$1,528,556, the cost of all our present 4,650 miles of canal. Deduct
this from the above $133,528,556, leaves $34,268,556, to be applied to
improving the St. Clair flats, the Mississippi river, deepening its
mouth, and for the ship canal round the Falls of Niagara.

No estimate is now presented of the cost of the canal from Lake
Champlain to the St. Lawrence, because that requires the coöperation of
Canada.

The railroads of our country would increase their business, with our
augmented wealth and population, especially in the transportation of
passengers and merchandise. They would also obtain iron cheaper for
rails, boilers, and engines, timber for cars, breadstuffs and provisions
for supplies, and coal or wood for their locomotives.

Great, however, as would be the effect of these works in augmenting our
commerce, wealth, and population, their results in consolidating and
perpetuating our Union would be still more important. When the Ohio,
Mississippi, and Missouri, and all their tributaries, arterializing the
great valley, shall be united by the proposed routes with the lakes, the
St. Lawrence, the Hudson, Delaware, Susquehanna, Chesapeake, and
Albemarle, what sacrilegious hand could be raised against such a Union?
We should have no more rebellions. We should hear no more of North,
South, East, and West, for all would be linked together by a unity of
commerce and interests. Our Union would become a social, moral,
geographical, political, and commercial necessity, and no State would
risk by secession the benefit of participating in its commerce. We
should be a homogeneous people, and slavery would disappear before the
march of civilization, and of free schools, free labor, free soil, free
lakes, rivers, and canals. It is the absence of such a system (aided by
slavery), _drawing the West and Southwest, by a supposed superior
attraction, to the Gulf_, that has led the Southwest into this
rebellion. But with slavery extinguished, with freedom strengthening
labor's hand, with education elevating the soul and enlightening the
understanding, and with such communications uniting all our great lakes
and rivers, East and West, all crowned with nourishing towns and mighty
cities, with cultured fields and smiling harvests, exchanging their own
products and fabrics, and those of the world, by flying cars and rushing
steamers, revolt or disunion would be impossible. Strike down every
barrier that separates the business of the North and East from that of
the South and West, and you render dissolution impossible. In commerce,
we would be a unit, drawing to us, by the irresistible attraction of
interest, intercourse, and trade, the whole valley of the lakes and St.
Lawrence. Whom God had united by geography, by race, by language,
commerce, and interest, political institutions could not long keep
asunder. Of all foreign nations, those which would derive the greatest
advantages from such an union would be England and France, the two
governments which a wicked pro-slavery rebellion invites to attempt our
destruction. With such a commerce, and with slavery extinguished, we
would have the Union, not as it was, but as our fathers intended it
should be, when they founded this great and free republic. We should
soon attain the highest civilization, and enjoy the greatest happiness
of which our race is capable. So long as slavery existed here, and we
were divided into States cherishing, and States abhorring the
institution, so long as free and forced labor were thus antagonized, we