LINCOLN'S SPEECH AT GETTYSBURG.
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Blue Laws in Old New England.
How the Puritans, Seeking and Finding Toleration for Themselves, Become
Themselves Intolerant—Sunday Observance With a Vengeance—Death
Penalty for Disobedient Children.
Compiled and edited for The Scrap Book.
People who object to modern laws for the regulation of conduct may, after all, consider themselves fortunate. Sometimes anti-cigarette laws are resented as infringements on personal liberty. But what shall we say of a law under which, in a certain colony, the mere possession of dice or playing-cards was punishable by a fine?
The old "Blue Laws" of Connecticut, or, strictly, of New Haven Colony, are not, in their frequently quoted form, true Blue Laws. Attention was first attracted to the collection by the publication of a "General History of Connecticut" in England in 1781. The author was a Tory minister, the Rev. S.A. Peters, who had been forced to flee from the colony. In the circumstances, it is not remarkable that his volume should bear many signs of spiteful exaggeration.
The Rev. Mr. Peters, however, did not invent the Blue Laws, though he has often been charged with so doing. All but two or three of the forty-five are to be found in the works of earlier writers, or, slightly modified, in the statute books of the various New England colonies. Many of them are not in the New Haven statute books. Those which we quote have been carefully selected from the best obtainable authorities.
The Puritans came to America to find a place where they could practise their religion without interference. Here are some of the Blue Laws which indicate the Puritan intolerance of the religion of others:
If any man, after due conviction, shall have, or worship any other God but the Lord God, he shall be put to death.—Lev. xxiv:15-16.
If any person turns Quaker, he shall be banished and not suffered to return upon the pain of death.
No priest shall abide in this Dominion; he shall be banished, and suffer death on his return. Priests may be seized by any one without a warrant. (In force before 1656.)
No man shall hold any office who is not sound in the faith, and faithful to his Dominion; and whoever gives a vote to such person shall pay a fine of one pound; for a second offense he shall be disfranchised.
No Quaker or dissenter from the established worship of this Dominion shall be allowed to give a vote for the election of magistrates or any officer.
No food or lodging shall be afforded to a Quaker, Adamite, or other heretic.
How strictly the conduct of the individual was made to conform with religious rules may be gathered from the following laws as to Sunday observance, the name of authorities being given in parentheses, in some instances:
Every person in this jurisdiction, according to the mind of God, shall duly resort and attend worship upon the Lord's days at least, and upon public fasting, or thanksgiving days, and if any person, without just cause, absent, or withdraw from the same, he shall for every such sinful miscarriage forfeit five shillings. (1656.)
No one shall run on the Sabbath day, or walk in his garden, or elsewhere, except reverently to and from meeting. (Barber.)
No one shall travel, cook victuals, make beds, sweep house, cut hair or shave, on the Sabbath or fasting day. (Barber.)
No woman shall kiss her child on the Sabbath or fasting day. (Barber.)
Whosoever shall profane the Lord's day, or any part of it, by work or sport, shall be punished by fine, or corporally. But if the court, by clear evidence, find that the sin was proudly, presumptuously, and with a high hand committed against the command and authority of the blessed God, such person therein despising and reproaching the Lord shall he put to death. (1656.)
If any man shall kiss his wife or wife kiss her husband on the Lord's day, the party in fault shall be punished at the discretion of the Court of Magistrates.
Tradition says that a man of New Haven reached home on Sunday, after an absence of several months, and, meeting his wife at the door, kissed her. For thus violating the law he was arraigned before the court and fined.
Children were given excellent reason to mind their parents, as witness the following laws:
If any child above sixteen years old shall curse, or smite his, her or their parents, such child or children shall be put to death (Exod. xxi:17; Lev. xx:9; Exod. xxi:15), unless it be proved that the parents have been very unchristianly negligent in the education of such child, etc. (Eaton.)
If any man have a stubborn, rebellious son of sixteen years old, who will not obey the voice of his father or mother, and being chastened will not hearken unto them, then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him and bring him to the magistrates assembled in court, and testify unto them that their son is stubborn and rebellious, and will not obey their voice, but lives in sundry crimes: such a son shall be put to death. (Enacted 1656.)
Puritan notions of propriety, as enforced by the laws, seem odd to modern minds. Thus we learn on authority of Barber, as well as from Peters, that "every male shall have his hair cut round according to a cap." Sometimes half a pumpkin was used instead of a cap, to guide the hair-cutting of these "Round-heads." Other unique laws follow:
No minister shall keep a school. (Barber.)
A debtor in prison, swearing he has no estate, shall be led out and sold to make satisfaction. (Altered in 1656.)
Whoever brings cards or dice into this Dominion shall pay a fine of five pounds. (Barber.)
No one shall read common prayer, keep Christmas or Saints' days, make minced pies, dance, play cards, or play on any instrument of music except the drum, trumpet, and jew's-harp. (Barber.)
Whoever wears clothes trimmed with gold, silver, or bone lace, above two shillings by the yard, shall be presented by the grand jurors, and the selectmen shall tax the offender at three hundred pounds estate. (Several acts governing the attire of the subjects.)
There was an ancient law in Massachusetts that ladies' dresses should be made long enough to hide their shoe-buckles. In 1660 an act of the General Court prohibited short sleeves, and required garments to be lengthened so as to cover the arms to the wrists and gowns to the shoe-buckles; "immoderate great breeches, knots of ribbon, broad shoulder bands, and they be, silk roses, double ruffs and cuffs" were forbidden. In the same colony, in 1653, I. Fairbanks was tried for wearing great boots, but was acquitted.
Laws governing marriage and the marriage relation were rigorous.
When parents refuse their children convenient marriages, the magistrate shall determine the point. (Reenacted with alterations.)
The selectmen finding children ignorant may take them from their parents and place them in better hands at the expense of their parents. (Record.)
A wife shall be deemed good evidence against her husband.
Married persons must live together, or be imprisoned.
No man shall court a maid in person or by letter without first obtaining consent of her parents; five pounds penalty for the first offense; ten pounds for the second; and for the third, imprisonment during the pleasure of the court.
A man that strikes his wife shall be fined ten pounds. A woman that strikes her husband shall be punished at the court's discretion.
Puritan New England was not alone among the colonies in adopting harsh laws. Virginia went to extremes, as appears in the following extract from "Laws of Virginia, at a Grand Assembly held at James City, 23d March, 1662":
In every county the court shall cause to be set up a pillory, a pair of stocks, and a whipping-post near the courthouse, and a ducking stool; and the court not causing the said pillory, whipping-post, stocks, and ducking-stool to be erected, shall be fined five thousand pounds of tobacco to the use of the public.
Among commercial restrictions we find an enactment prohibiting the planting of tobacco after July 10, which was done for "the improvement of our only commodity, tobacco, which can no ways be effected but by lessening the quantity and amending the quality."
Another object that the government had in view was to compel the people to become silk-growers against their will. "Be it therefore enacted," says the Legislature, "that every proprietor of land within the colony of Virginia shall, for every hundred acres of land holden in fee, plant upon the said land ten mulberry-trees at twelve feet distance from each other, and secure them by weeding and a sufficient fence from cattle and horses."
Tobacco fines, as usual, were enacted in case the planting and weeding were not duly performed according to the statute; and further:
There shall be allowed in the public levy to any one for every pound of wound silk he shall make, fifty pounds of tobacco, to be raised in the public levy, and paid in the county or counties where they dwell that make it.
This act was passed in 1662, and probably continued in force for a long time; but Virginia did not therefore become a silk-growing country, nor has it yet, though many parts are well adapted to raise this commodity. People, we presume, have hitherto found other things more profitable.
The following enactment is a mixture of the barbarous and the ludicrous:
Whereas many babbling women slander and scandalize their neighbors, for which their poor husbands are often involved in chargeable and vexatious suits, and cast in great damages; be it therefore enacted, That in actions of slander, occasioned by the wife, after judgment passed for the damages, the woman shall be punished by ducking; and if the slander be so enormous as to be adjudged at greater damages than five hundred pounds of tobacco, then the woman to suffer ducking for each five hundred pounds of tobacco adjudged against the husband, if he refuses to pay the tobacco.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF TROUBLE-SEEKING.
Adversity Has So Many Pleasant Uses That Most of the World's Inhabitants Appear to be
Unable to Wait Until It Comes to Them.
A very large proportion of the inhabitants of earth appear to take no stock in that cheerful assurance, given in the Book of Job, that "Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward." They believe that man cannot have trouble unless he looks for it.
"Seek and ye shall find" is their motto, and they seek trouble because they are philosophers. Apparently Shakespeare was of their ilk, for he said:
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
Here are some advantages of adversity as pointed out by Punch:
You wear out your clothes.
You are not troubled with visitors.
You are exonerated from making calls.
Bores do not bore you.
Tax-gatherers hurry past your door.
Itinerant bands do not play opposite your windows.
You avoid the nuisance of serving on juries.
No one thinks of presenting you with a testimonial.
No tradesman irritates by asking, "Is there any other article you wish to-day, sir?"
Impostors know it is no use to bleed you.
You practise temperance.
You swallow infinitely less poison than others.
Flatterers do not shoot their rubbish into your ears.
You are saved many a debt, many a deception, many a headache.
And lastly, if you have a true friend in the world, you are sure, in a very short space of time, to know it.
THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD.
By THEODORE O'HARA.
Theodore O'Hara (1820-1867) has been said to have produced the one perfect and universal martial elegy that the world has known. "The Bivouac of the Dead" has been translated into almost every European language, and since it was written, more than half a century ago, it has been almost as popular in England as in the United States.
On the field on which was fought one of the most stubbornly contested battles of the Crimean War is a large monument which bears the last four lines of the first verse of O'Hara's poem, and over the gateway of the National Cemetery at Arlington the whole first stanza is inscribed, while there, as at Antietam and other national cemeteries, the entire poem is produced, stanza by stanza, on slabs along the driveways.
O'Hara was a native of Kentucky, and served in the army during the war with Mexico. He wrote "The Bivouac of the Dead" on the occasion of the removal of the bodies of Kentucky soldiers from the field of the battle of Buena Vista to their native State.
At the outbreak of the Civil War O'Hara entered the Confederate army as a colonel. He died in Alabama in 1867, and his body was removed to Kentucky and laid beside those of the soldiers he had commemorated.
The muffled drum's sad roll has beat
The soldier's last tattoo!
No more on life's parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.
On fame's eternal camping ground
Their silent tents are spread,
And glory guards, with solemn round,
The bivouac of the dead.
No rumor of the foe's advance
Now swells upon the wind;
No troubled thought at midnight haunts
Of loved ones left behind;
No vision of the morrow's strife
The warrior's dream alarms;
No braying horn nor screaming fife
At dawn shall call to arms.
Their shivered swords are red with rust,
Their plumed heads are bowed,
Their haughty banner, trailed in dust,
Is now their martial shroud,
And plenteous funeral tears have washed
The red stains from each brow,
And the proud forms, by battle gashed,
Are free from anguish now.
The neighing troop, the flashing blade,
The bugle's stirring blast,
The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
The din and shout are passed;
Nor war's wild note nor glory's peal
Shall thrill with fierce delight
Those breasts that never more may feel
The rapture of the fight.
Like the fierce northern hurricane
That sweeps this great plateau,
Flushed with the triumph yet to gain,
Came down the serried foe,
Who heard the thunder of the fray
Break o'er the field beneath,
Knew well the watchword of that day
Was "Victory or death!"
Full many a norther's breath has swept
O'er Angostura's plain,
And long the pitying sky has wept
Above the moldering slain.
The raven's scream or eagle's flight
Or shepherd's pensive lay
Alone now wakes each sullen height
That frowned o'er that dread fray.
Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground,
Ye must not slumber there,
Where stranger steps and tongues resound
Along the heedless air;
Your own proud land's heroic soil
Shall be your fitter grave;
She claims from war its richest spoil,
The ashes of her brave.
So 'neath their parent turf they rest,
Far from the gory field,
Borne to a Spartan mother's breast
On many a bloody shield;
The sunshine of their native sky
Smiles sadly on them here,
And kindred eyes and hearts watch by
The hero's sepulcher.
Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead!
Dear as the blood ye gave,
No impious footsteps here shall tread
The herbage of your grave.
Nor shall your glory be forgot
While fame her record keeps
Or honor points the hallowed spot
Where valor proudly sleeps.
Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone
In deathless songs shall tell,
When many a vanished age hath flown,
The story how ye fell;
Nor wreck nor change nor winter's flight
Nor Time's remorseless doom
Can dim one ray of holy light
That gilds your glorious tomb.
Little Glimpses of the 19th Century.
The Great Events in the History of the Last One Hundred Years, Assembled
so as to Present a Nutshell Record.
[Continued from page 163.]
THIRD DECADE.
1821
A congress of the European powers, held at Laibach, in Austria, determined to suppress the liberal movement in Italy and to restore absolute rule in Naples. King Ferdinand of Naples agreed, though he had recently sworn to uphold the constitution. Austrian armies invaded Piedmont and Naples, speedily crushed the revolutionary movement, and the leaders of the popular party were shot or imprisoned.
Both in the Old World and in the New the year was one of political unrest. Brazil rebelled against Portuguese rule, and Mexico, Peru, and Ecuador against Spanish domination. Greece and the Christian tribesmen of the Balkans rose against Turkey. In retaliation, Greeks in Constantinople were strangled; Greek settlements on the Bosporus were wiped out; and the Patriarch of Constantinople, head of the Greek Church, was hanged by the Turks. Russia, on the point of declaring war against Turkey, was restrained by England and Metternich. Both Greeks and Turks carried on a war of indiscriminate slaughter.
Napoleon died at St. Helena, May 5, after nearly six years of captivity. A curious feature of his will was his bequest of ten thousand francs to Cantillon, who had attempted to assassinate Wellington. Queen Caroline of England, wife of George IV, died; serious riots at her funeral. John Keats, English poet, died.
In the United States, James Monroe began his second term as President. Missouri was admitted to the Union. Arrangements were made to open the territory of Liberia, on the west coast of Africa, as a colony for freedmen. Amherst College and the Massachusetts General Hospital were founded.
POPULATION—Washington, D.C., 13,247; New York (including the boroughs now forming Greater New York), 152,056; New York (Manhattan), 123,706; London (Metropolitan District), 1,225,694; London (old city), 125,434; United States (1820), 9,633,822; Great Britain and Ireland (1821), 20,893,584.
RULERS—United States, James Monroe; Great Britain, George IV; France, Louis XVIII; Spain, Ferdinand VII; Prussia, Frederick William III; Russia, Alexander I; Austria, Francis I; Pope Pius VII.