WE ARE A NATION.
The great national triumph we have just achieved renders that foggy and forlorn Second Tuesday of November the most memorable day of this most memorable year of the war. Under the heavy curtain of mist that brooded low over the scene, under the sombre clouds of uncertainty that hung drizzling and oppressive above the whole land, was enacted a drama whose grandeur has not been surpassed in history. The deep significance of that event it is not easy for the mind to fathom. As the accumulating majorities for the Union came rolling in, like billows succeeding billows, heaping up the waters of victory, it was not alone the ship of state that was lifted bodily over the bar, but all her costly freight of human liberties and human hopes was upborne, and floated some leagues onward towards the fair haven of the Future.
The first uprising of the nation, when its existence was assailed, was truly a sublime spectacle. But the last uprising of the same, to confirm with cool deliberation the judgment it pronounced in its heat, is a spectacle of far higher moral sublimity. That sudden wildfire-blaze of patriotism, if it was simply a blaze, had long since had time to expire. The Red Sea we had passed through was surely sufficient to quench any light flame kindled merely in the leaves and brushwood of our national character. Instead of a brisk and easy conquest of a rash rebellion, such as seemed at first to be pretty generally anticipated, we had closed with a powerful antagonist in a struggle which was all the more terrible because it was unforeseen. The country had soon digested its hot cakes of enthusiasm, and come to the tougher article, the ostrich-diet of iron determination. If we were a race of flunkies, ample opportunities had been afforded to have our flunky-ism whipped out of us. If Jonathan was but another blustering Sir Andrew Aguecheek, he would long before have elicited laughter from the world's aristocratic dress-circle, and split the ears of the groundlings, by turning from the foe that would fight, and bellowing forth that worthy gentleman's sentiments:—"An I thought he had been valiant, and so cunning in fence, I'd have seen him damned ere I'd have challenged him!" But those who looked hopefully for this conclusion have been disappointed. Even Mr. Carlyle may now perceive that we have something more than a foul chimney burning itself out over here:—strange that a seer should thus mistake the glare of a mountain-torch! We have not made war from a mere ebullition of spite, or as an experiment, or for any base and temporary purpose; but this is a war for humanity, and for all time. That we are in deadly earnest, that the heart of the nation is in it, and that this is no effervescent and fickle heart, the momentous Tuesday stands before the world as the final proof.
True, in that day's winnowing of the national grain, which had been some four years threshing, plenty of chaff and grit were found. The opposition to the Administration was made up of three classes. The smallest, but by far the most active class, consisted of reckless politicians,—those Northern men with Southern principles (if they have anything that can properly be called principles) who sympathize with the Rebels in arms,—who hold the interests of party to be supreme, and shrink from no acts that bid fair to advance those interests. They are the grit in the machine. The second class comprised the sheep which those bad shepherds led,—sheep with a large proportion of swine intermixed, and many a fanged and dangerous cur, as ignorant as they, doing the will of his masters,—the brutish class, without enlightenment or moral perception, goaded by prejudice, and deceived by lies so shallow and foolish that the wonder was how anybody could be duped by them. Side by side with these, and often mingling with them, was the third class, the so-called "Conservatives," whose numbers and respectability could alone have kept the warlike young Falstaff of the expedition in countenance, and induced him to march through Coventry (or rather into it, for he got no farther) with his motley crew of followers.
This last-named class, when analyzed, is found to be composed of a great variety of elements. The downright "Hunker" Conservative, who is very likely to pass over to and identify himself with the first class, hates with a natural, ineradicable hate all political and spiritual advancement. He takes material and selfish, and consequently low and narrow views of things,—and having secured for himself and his wife, for his son John and his wife, privilege to eat and sleep and cohabit, he cannot see the necessity of any further progress. If he is enterprising, it is to increase his blessings in this world; if devout, it is to perpetuate them in the next: for sincere religion he has none,—since religion is but another name for Love, inspiring hope, charity, and a zeal for the welfare of all mankind.—Others are conservative from timidity, or because they are wedded to tranquility. "Oh yes," they say, "no doubt the cause you are fighting for is just; but then fighting is so dreadful! Let us have peace,—peace at any cost!" Good-hearted people as far as they go, but lacking in constitution. To them the fiery torrents of generosity and heroism are unknown. Numbers of these, it is true, were swept away by the flood of enthusiasm which prevailed during the first days of the Rebellion; but when it appeared that the insurgents were not to be overawed and put down by noise,—that making speeches and hanging out flags would not do the business,—they became alarmed: the thought of actual bloodshed, and taxes, and a disturbance of trade developed the Aguecheek. "Good heavens!" said they, picking up the hats they has tossed with cheers into the sky, and carefully brushing down the ruffled nap to its former respectable smoothness, "this will never do! we can't frighten 'em!" So they concluded to be frightened themselves, and ran back to their comfortable apron-strings of opinion held by their grandmothers. Strange as it seems, many of these are persons of piety, taste, and culture. Yet their culture is retrospective, their taste mere dillettanteism, and their piety conventional: to whatever is new in theology, or vital in literature, (at least until the cobwebs of age begin to gather upon it,) and especially to whatever tends to overthrow or greatly modify the ancient order of things, they are unalterably opposed. If occasionally one of them becomes desirous of keeping up with the times, or is forced along momentarily by the stream of events, some defect of mental or moral constitution prevents his progress; and you are sure to find him soon or late returning to the point from which he started, like those bits of drift-wood which are always bobbing up and down close under the fall or circling round and round in the eddies. The trouble is, such sticks float too lightly on the surface of things; if they carried more heart-ballast, and would sink deeper, the current would bear them on.—Another variety of the Conservative is the man who is really progressive and right-minded, but extremely slow. Give him time, and he is certain to form a just judgment, and range himself on the right side at last. He goes with the rest only so far as they travel his road, and his lagging is pretty sure to be atoned for by earnest endeavor in the end. With these are to be classed numerous other varieties: those who are "Hunkerish" on account of some strange spiritual obtuseness, or from misanthropy, or perverseness, or self-conceit, or a cold and sluggish temperament, or from weak, human sympathies governed by strong political prejudice,—together with those countless larvæ and tadpoles, the small-fry of sons and nephews, of individuality yet undeveloped, who are conservative because their fathers and uncles are conservative.
Such was the Opposition, to which we have devoted so many words, because, though signally defeated, much of its power and influence survives. The fact that it proved to be as large as it was is by no means discouraging: that there should have been so much flabby and diseased flesh on the body-politic was to have been expected; and that it would show itself chiefly in the large cities, where foul humors and leprosy are sure to break out, if anywhere, upon slight irritation, (contrast the corrupt vote of New York City with Missouri and Maryland giving their voices for freedom!) was likewise foreseen. That the malady continues, and by what curative process it is to be subdued and rendered harmless,—this is what concerns us now.
We have at last demonstrated, to the satisfaction of our arrogant Southern friends, let us trust, that the despised Yankee, the dollar-worshipper, is as prompt to fight for a principle as they for power and a mistaken right of property,—ready to give blood and treasure without stint, all for an idea; and that, having reluctantly set his foot in gore, to draw back is not possible to him, for his heart is indomitable, and his soul relentless,—in his soul sits Nemesis herself. We have taught the slaveholding insolence the final lesson, that there is absolutely nothing to hope from the pusillanimity it counted upon. To the world abroad, also, that Tuesday's portentous snow-storm of ballots, covering every vestige of treason here, to the trail of the Copperhead, and whitening the face of the whole land with a purer faith, will be more convincing than our victories in the field. The bubble of Republicanism, which was to display such alacrity at bursting, is not the childish thing it was deemed, but granitic, with a fiery, throbbing core; its outward form no mere flashy film, blown out of chimeras and dreams, but a creation from the solid strata of human experience, upheaved here by the birth-throes of a new era:—
"With inward fires and pain,
It rose a bubble from the plain,"
secure and enduring as Monadnock or Mount Washington.