Born a gentleman and attaining soldierly distinction and high place, he fell a victim to the lure of a soaring ambition and the devious experience of a man about town.
The object of political proscription for all his intellectual and personal resources, he could not successfully meet and stand against it. There was nothing in the affair with Hamilton actually to damn and ruin him. Neither morally nor politically was Hamilton the better man of the two. Nor was there treason in his Mexican scheme. He meant no more with universal acclaim than Houston did three decades later. To couple his name with that of Benedict Arnold is historic sacrilege.
Jefferson pursued him relentlessly. But even Jefferson could not have destroyed him. When, after an absence of four years abroad, he returned to America, there was still a future for him had he stood up like a man, but, instead, like one confessing defeat, he sank down, whilst the wave of obloquy rolled over him.
His is one of the few pathetic figures in our national history. Mr. Davis has had plenty of defenders. Poor Burr has had scarcely an apologist. His offense, whatever it was, has been overpaid. Even the War of Sections begins to fade into the mist and become dreamlike even to those who bore an actual part in it.
The years are gliding swiftly by. Only a little while, and there shall not be one man living who saw service on either side of that great struggle of systems and ideas. Its passions long ago vanished from manly bosoms. That has come to pass within a single generation in America which in Europe required ages to accomplish.
There is no disputing the verdict of events. Let us relate them truly and interpret them fairly. If the South would have the North do justice to its heroes, the South must do justice to the heroes of the North. Each must render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s even as each would render unto God the things that are God’s. As living men, standing erect in the presence of Heaven and the world, the men of the South have grown gray without being ashamed; and they need not fear that History will fail to vindicate their integrity.
When those are gone that fought the battle, and Posterity comes to strike the balance, it will be shown that the makers of the Constitution left the relation of the States to the Federal Government and of the Federal Government to the States open to a double construction. It will be told how the mistaken notion that slave labor was requisite to the profitable cultivation of sugar, rice and cotton, raised a paramount property interest in the Southern section of the Union, whilst in the Northern section, responding to the trend of modern thought and the outer movements of mankind, there arose a great moral sentiment against slavery. The conflict thus established, gradually but surely sectionalizing party lines, was as inevitable as it was irrepressible. It was fought out to its bitter and logical conclusion at Appomattox. It found us a huddle of petty sovereignties, held together by a rope of sand. It made and it left us a Nation.
Chapter the Thirty-Second
A War Episode—I Meet my Fater—I Marry and Make a Home—The Ups and Downs of Life Lead to a Happy Old Age