Now, as a lonely watcher on the strand,
Hemmed by the mist and the quick coming waves,
Hears but one voice, the voice of warning bell,
That solemn speaks, "Beware the jaws of death!"
Death on the sea, and warning on the strand!
Such is our life, while Summer, mocking, broods.
O mighty heart! O brave, heroic soul!
Hid in the dim mist of the things that be,
We call thee up to fill the highest place!
Whether to till thy corn and give the tithe,
Whether to grope a picket in the dark,
Or, having nobly served, to be cast down,
And, unregarded, passed by meaner feet,
Or, happier thou, to snatch the fadeless crown,
And walk in youth and beauty to God's rest,—
The purpose makes the hero, meet thy doom!
We call to thee, where'er thy pillowed head
Rests lonely for the brother who has gone,
To fix thy gaze on Freedom's chrysolite,
Which rueful fate can neither crack nor mar,
And, hand in hand indissolubly bound
To thy next fellow, hand and purpose one,
Stretch thus, a living wall, from the rock coast
Home to our ripe and yellow heart of the West,
Impenetrable union triumphing.
The solemn Autumn comes, the gathering-time!
Stand we now ripe, a harvest for the Right!
That, when fair Summer shall return to earth,
Peace may inhabit all her sacred ways,
Lap in the waves upon melodious sands,
And linger in the swaying of the corn,
Or sit with clouds upon the ambient skies,—
Summer and Peace brood on the grassy knolls
Where twilight glimmers over the calm dead,
While clustered children chant heroic tales.
DEMOCRACY AND THE SECESSION WAR.
The interest which foreign peoples take in our civil war proceeds from two causes chiefly, though there are minor causes that help swell the force of the current of feeling. The first of these causes is the contemplation of the check which has been given by the war's occurrence to our march to universal American dominion. For about seventy-two years our "progress," as it was called, was more marvellous than the dreams of other nations. In spite of Indian wars, of wars with France and England and Mexico, of depredations on our commerce by France and England and Barbary, of a currency that seemed to have been created for the promotion of bankruptcy and the organization of instability, of biennial changes in our tariffs and systems of revenue, of competition that ought to have been the death of trade,—in spite of these and other evils, this country, in the brief term of one not over-long human life, increased in all respects at a rate to excite the gravest fears in the minds of men who had been nursed on the balance-of-power theory. A new power had intruded itself into the old system, and its disturbing force was beyond all calculation. Between the day on which George Washington took the Presidential oath and the day when South Carolina broke her oath, our population had increased from something like three millions to more than thirty-one millions; and in all the elements of material strength our increase had far exceeded our growth in numbers. When the first Congress of the old Union met, our territory was confined to a strip of land on the western shore of the Atlantic,—and that territory was but sparsely settled. When the thirty-sixth Congress broke up, our territory had extended to the Pacific, on which we had two States, while other communities there were preparing to become States. It did seem as if Coleridge's "august conception" was about to become a great fact. "The possible destiny of the United States of America," said that mighty genius, "as a nation of a hundred millions of freemen, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, living under the laws of Alfred, and speaking the language of Shakspeare and Milton, is an august conception." To all appearance in 1860, there would be a hundred millions of freemen here, and not far from twenty millions of slaves, at the close of the nineteenth century; and middle-aged men were not unreasonable in their expectation of seeing the splendid spectacle. The rate of increase in population that we had known warranted their most sanguine hopes. Such a nation,—a nation that should grow its own food, make its own cloths, dig or pick up its own gold and silver and quicksilver, mine its own coal and iron, supply itself, and the rest of the world too, with cotton and tobacco and rice and sugar, and that should have a mercantile tonnage of not less than fifteen millions, and perhaps very much more,—such a nation, we say, it was reasonable to expect the United States would become by the year 1900. But because the thought of it was pleasing to us, we are not to conclude that it would be so to European sovereigns and statesmen. On the contrary, they had abundant reason to dread the accumulation of so much strength in one empire. Even in 1860 we had passed the point at which it was possible for us to have any fear of European nations, or of a European alliance. We had but to will it, and British America, and what there was left of Spanish America and Mexico, would all have been gathered in, reaped by that mowing-machine, the American sword. Had our rulers of that year sought to stave off civil war by plunging us into a foreign war, we could have made ourselves masters of all North America, despite the opposition of all Europe, had all Europe been ready to try the question with us, whether the Monroe doctrine were a living thing or a dirty skeleton from the past. But all Europe would not have opposed us, seeing that England would have been the principal sufferer from our success; and England is unpopular throughout Continental Europe,—in France, in Germany, and in Russia. Probably the French Emperor would have preferred a true cordial understanding with us to a nominal one with England, and, confining his labors to Europe and the East, would have obtained her "natural boundaries" for France, and supremacy over Egypt. The war might have left but three great powers in the world, namely, France, Russia, and America, or the United States, the latter to include Canada and Mexico, with the Slave-Power's ascendency everywhere established in North America. It was on the cards that we might avoid dissension and civil strife by extending the Union, and by invading and conquering the territories of our neighbors. Why this course was not adopted it is not our purpose now to discuss; but that it would have been adopted, if the Secession movement had been directed from the North against the rule of the Democratic party, we are as firmly convinced as we are of the existence of the tax-gatherer,—and no man in this country can now entertain any doubt of his existence, or of his industry and exactions.
When, therefore, our Union was severed in twain by the action of the Southern Secessionists, and the Confederacy was established, it was the most natural thing in the world that most European governments, and by far the larger part of the governing classes in most European nations, should sympathize with the Rebels: not because they altogether approved of what the Rebels avowed to be their principles, or of their scandalous actions in the cause of lawlessness; but because their success would break down a nation that was becoming too strong to have any regard for European opinion, and the continuance and growth of which were believed to be incompatible with the safety of Europe, and the retention of its controlling position in the world. England was relieved of her fears with regard to her North-American possessions; and Spain saw an end put to those insulting demands that she should sell Cuba, which for years had proceeded from Democratic administrations,—President Buchanan, in the very last days of his term, and while the Union was falling to pieces around him, persisting in a demand which then had become as ridiculous as it had ever been wicked. Austria and Prussia could have no objection to the breaking-up of a nation which had sympathized with Poland, Hungary, and Italy, and which, so far as it acted at all, had acted in behalf of European Liberalism. France, which would have been willing to act with us, had we remained in condition to render our action valuable, had no idea of risking anything in our behalf, and turned her attention to Mexico, as a field well worthy of her cultivation, and which our troubles had laid open to her enterprise and ambition. The kingdom of Italy was of too recent birth to have much influence; and, though its sympathies were with us, it was forced by circumstances to conform to the example of France and England. Even Russia, though unquestionably our friend, and sincerely anxious for our success, probably did not much regret that something had here occurred which might teach us to become less ready to prompt Poles to rebel, and not so eager to help them when in rebellion. Most of the lesser governments of Europe saw our difficulties with satisfaction, because generally they are illiberal in their character, and our example was calculated to render their subjects disaffected.
The feeling of which we speak is one that arose from the rapid growth of this country, and of the fears that that growth had created as to the safety of European States. It had nothing to do with the character of our national polity, or with the political opinions of our people. It would have existed all the same, if we had been governed by an Autocrat or a Stratocrat, instead of having a movable President for our chief. It would have been as strong, if our national legislature had been as quiescent as Napoleon I.'s Senate, instead of being a reckless and an undignified Congress. It owed its existence to our power, our growth, our ambition, our "reannexing" spirit, our disposition to meddle with the affairs of others, our restlessness, and our frequent avowals of an intention to become masters of all the Occident. We might have been regarded as even more dangerous than we were, had our government been as firmly founded as that of Russia, or had it, like that of France, the power that proceeds at once from the great intellect and the great name of its chief. A Napoleon or a Nicholas at the head of a people so intelligent and so active as Americans would indeed have been a most formidable personage, and likely to employ his power for the disturbance of mankind.