You can watch the operation of this quality in every-day business transactions. Your man of grit seems never deficient in news of the markets, though he may employ no telegraph-operator. Thus, about two years ago, a great Boston holder of flour went to considerable expense in obtaining special intelligence, which would, when generally known, carry flour up to ten dollars and a half a barrel. Another dealer, suspecting something, went to him and said, "What do you say flour's worth to-day?"—"Oh," was the careless answer, "I suppose it might bring ten dollars."—"Well," retorted the querist, gruffly, "I've got five thousand barrels on hand, and I should like to see the man who would give me ten dollars barrel for it!"—"I will," said the other, quickly, disclosing his secret by the eagerness of his manner, "Well," was the reply, "all I can say is, then, that I have seen the man."
The importance of this quality as a business power is most apparent in those frightful panics which periodically occur in our country, and which sometimes tax the people more severely than wars and standing armies. In regard to one of the last of these financial hurricanes, that of 1857, there can be little doubt, that, if the acknowledged holders of financial power had been men of real grit, it might have been averted; there can be as little doubt, that, when it burst, if they had been men of real grit, it might have been made less disastrous. But they kept nearly all their sails set up to the point of danger, and when the tempest was on them ignominiously took to their boats and abandoned the ship. And as for the crew and passengers, it was the old spectacle of a shipwreck,—individuals squabbling to get a plank, instead of combining to construct a raft.
Indeed, there was something pitiable in the state of things which that panic revealed in the business centres of the country. Common sense seemed to be disowned by mutual consent; an infectious fear went shivering from man to man; and a strange fascination led people to increase by suspicions and reports the peril which threatened their own destruction. Men, being thus thrown back upon the resources of character, were put to terrible tests. As the intellect cannot act when the will is paralyzed, many a merchant, whose debts really bore no proportion to his property, was seen sitting, like the French prisoner in the iron cage whose sides were hourly contracting, stupidly gazing at the bars which were closing in upon him, and feeling in advance the pang of the iron which was to cut into his flesh and crush his bones.
In invigorating contrast to the panic-smitten, we had the privilege to witness many an example of the grit-inspired. Then it was that the grouty, taciturn, obstinate trader, so unpopular in ordinary times, showed the stuff he was made of. Then his bearing was cheer and hope to all who looked upon him. How he girded himself for the fight, resolved, if he died, to die hard! How he tugged with obstacles as if they were personal affronts, and hurled them to the right and to the left! How grandly, amid the chatter of the madmen about him, came his few words of sense and sanity! And then his brain, brightened, not bewildered, by the danger, how clear and alert it was, how fertile in expedients, how firm in principles, with a glance that pierced through the ignorant present to the future, seeing as calmly and judging as accurately in the tempest as it had in the sunshine. Never losing heart and never losing head, with as strong a grip on his honor as on his property, detesting the very thought of failure, knowing that he might be broken to pieces, but determined that he would not weakly "go to pieces," he performed the greatest service to the community, as well as to himself, by resolutely, at any sacrifice, paying his debts when they became due. It is a pity that such austere Luthers of commerce, trade-militant instead of church-militant, who meet hard times with a harder will, had not a little beauty in their toughness, so that grit, lifted to heroism, would allure affection as well as enforce respect. But their sense is so rigid, their integrity so gruff, and their courage so unjoyous, that all the genial graces fly their companionship; and a libertine Sheridan, with Ancient Pistol's motto of "Base is the slave that pays," will often be more popular, even among the creditor portion of the public, than these crabbed heroes, and, if need be, surly martyrs, of mercantile honesty and personal honor.
In regard to public life, and the influence of this rough manliness in politics, it is a matter of daily observation, that, in the strife of parties and principles, backbone without brain will carry it against brain without backbone. A politician weakly and amiably in the right is no match for a politician tenaciously and pugnaciously in the wrong. You cannot, by tying an opinion to a man's tongue, make him the representative of that opinion; and at the close of any battle for principles, his name will be found neither among the dead nor among the wounded, but among the missing. The true motto for a party is neither "Measures, not men," nor "Men, not measures," but "Measures in men,"—measures which are in their blood as well as in their brain and on their lips. Wellington said that Napoleon's presence in the French army was equivalent to forty thousand additional soldiers; and in a legislative assembly, Mirabeau and John Adams and John Quincy Adams are not simply persons who hold a single vote, but forces whose power thrills through the whole mass of voters. Mean natures always feel a sort of terror before great natures; and many a base thought has been unuttered, many a sneaking vote withheld, through the fear inspired by the rebuking presence of one noble man.
Opinions embodied in men, and thus made aggressive and militant, are the opinions which mark the union of thought with grit. A politician of this class is not content to comprehend and wield the elements of power already existing in a community, but he aims to make his individual conviction and purpose dominant over the convictions and purposes of the accredited exponents of public opinion. He cares little about his unpopularity at the start, and doggedly persists in his course against obstacles which seem insurmountable. A great, but mischievous, example of this power appeared in our own generation in the person of Mr. Calhoun, a statesman who stamped his individual mind on the policy and thinking of the country more definitely, perhaps, than any statesman since Hamilton, though his influence has, on the whole, been as evil as Hamilton's was, on the whole, beneficent. Keen-sighted, far-sighted, and inflexible, Mr. Calhoun clearly saw the logical foundations and logical results of the institution of Slavery; and though at first called an abstractionist and a fanatic by the looser thinkers of his own region, his inexorable argumentation, conquering by degrees politicians who could reason, made itself felt at last among politicians who could not reason; and the conclusions of his logic were adopted by thousands whose brains would have broken in the attempt to follow its processes. One of those rare deductive reasoners whose audacity marches abreast their genius, he would have been willing to fight to the last gasp for a conclusion which he had laboriously reached by rigid deduction through a score of intermediate steps, from premises in themselves repugnant to the primal instincts both of reason and humanity. Always ready to meet anybody in argument, he detested all reasoners who attempted to show the fallacy of his argument by pointing out the dangerous results to which it led. In this he sometimes brought to mind that inflexible professor of the deductive method who was timidly informed that his principles, if carried out, would split the world to pieces. "Let it split," was his careless answer; "there are enough more planets." By pure intellectual grit, he thus effected a revolution in the ideas and sentiments of the South, and through the South made his mind act on the policy of the nation. The present war has its root in the principles he advocated. Never flinching from any logical consequence of his principles, Mr. Calhoun did not rest until through him religion, morality, statesmanship, the Constitution of the United States, the constitution of man, were all bound in black. Chattel slavery, the most nonsensical as well as detestable of oppressions, was, to him, the most beneficent contrivance of human wisdom. He called it an institution: Mr. Emerson has more happily styled it a destitution. At last the chains of his iron logic were heard clanking on the whole Southern intellect. Reasoning the most masterly was employed to annihilate the first principles of reason; the understanding of man was insanely placed in direct antagonism to his moral instincts; and finally the astounding conclusion was reached, that the Creator of mankind has his pet races,—that God himself scouts his colored children, and nicknames them "Niggers."
It is delicious to watch the exulting and somewhat contemptuous audacity with which he hurries to the unforeseen conclusion those who have once been simple enough to admit his premises. Towards men who have some logical capacity his tone is that of respectful impatience; but as he goads on the reluctant and resentful victims of his reasoning, who loiter and limp painfully in the steps of his rapid deductions, he seems to say, with ironic scorn, "A little faster, my poor cripples!"
So confident was Mr. Calhoun in his capacity to demonstrate the validity of his horrible creed, that he was ever eager to measure swords with the most accomplished of his antagonists in the duel of debate. And it must be said that he despised all the subterfuges and evasions by which, in ordinary controversies, the real question is dodged, and went directly to the heart of the matter,—a resolute intellect, burning to grapple with another resolute intellect in a vital encounter. In common legislative debates, on the contrary, there is no vital encounter. The exasperated opponents, personally courageous, but deficient in clear and fixed ideas, mutually contrive to avoid the things essential to be discussed, while wantoning in all the forms of discussion. They assert, brag, browbeat, dogmatize, domineer, pummel each other with the argumentum ad hominem, and abundantly prove that they stand for opposite opinions; we watch them as we watch the feints and hits of a couple of pugilists in the ring; but after the sparring is over, we find that neither the Southern champion nor the Northern bruiser has touched the inner reality of the question to decide which they stripped themselves for the fight. In regard to the intellectual issue, they are like two bullies enveloping themselves in an immense concealing dust of arrogant words, and, as they fearfully retreat from personal collision, shouting furiously to each other, "Let me get at him!" And this is what is commonly called grit in politics,—abundant backbone to face persons, deficient brain-bone to encounter principles.
Not so was it when two debaters like Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Webster engaged in the contest of argument. Take, for example, as specimens of pure mental manliness, their speeches in the Senate, in 1833, on the question whether or not the Constitution is a compact between sovereign States. Give Mr. Calhoun those two words, "compact" and "sovereign," and he conducts you logically to Nullification and to all the consequences of Nullification. Andrew Jackson, a man in his kind, of indomitable resolution, intended to arrest the argument at a convenient point by the sword, and thus save himself the bother of going farther in the chain of inferences than he pleased. Mr. Webster grappled with the argument and with the man; and it is curious to watch that spectacle of a meeting between two such hostile minds. Each is confident of the strength of his own position; each is eager for a close hug of dialectics. Far from avoiding the point, they drive directly towards it, clearing their essential propositions from mutual misconception by the sharpest analysis and exactest statement. To get their minds near each other, to think close to the subject, to feel the griding contact of pure intellect with pure intellect, and, as spiritual beings, to conduct the war of reason with spiritual weapons,—this is their ambition. Conventionally courteous to each other, they are really in the deadliest antagonism; for their contest is the tug and strain of soul with soul, and each feels that defeat would be worse than death. No nervous irritation, no hard words, no passionate recriminations, no flinching from unexpected difficulties, no substitution of declamatory sophisms for rigorous inferences—but close, calm, ruthless grapple of thought with thought. To each, at the time, life seems to depend on the issue—not merely the life which a sword-cut or pistol-bullet can destroy, but immortal life, the life of immaterial minds and personalities, thus brought into spiritual feud. They know very well, that, whatever be the real result, the Webster-men will give the victory of argument to Webster, the Calhoun-men the victory of argument to Calhoun; but that consideration does not enter their thoughts as they prepare to close in that combat which is to determine, not to the world, but to each other, which is the stronger intellect, and which is in the right Few ever appreciate great men in this hostile attitude, not of their passions, but of their minds; and those who do it the least are their furious partisans. Most people are contented with the argument that tells, and are apt to be bored with the argument which refutes; but a true reasoner despises even his success, if he feels that two persons, himself and his opponent, know that he is in the wrong. And the strain on the whole being in this contest of intellect with intellect, and the reluctance with which the most combative enter it unless they are consciously strong, is well illustrated by Dr. Johnson's remark to some friends, when sickness had relaxed the tough fibre of his brain,—"If that fellow Burke were here now, he would kill me."
A peculiar kind of grit, not falling under any of the special expressions I have noted, yet partaking in some degree of all, is illustrated in the character of Lieutenant-General Grant. Without an atom of pretension or rhetoric, with none of the external signs of energy and intrepidity, making no parade of the immovable purpose, iron nerve, and silent, penetrating intelligence God has put into him, his tranquil greatness is hidden from superficial scrutiny behind a cigar, as President Lincoln's is behind a joke. When anybody tries to coax, cajole, overawe, browbeat, or deceive Lincoln, the President nurses his leg, and is reminded of a story; when anybody tries the same game with Grant, the General listens and—smokes. If you try to wheedle out of him his plans for a campaign, he stolidly smokes; if you call him an imbecile and a blunderer, he blandly lights another cigar; if you praise him as the greatest general living, he placidly returns the puff from his regalia; and if you tell him he should run for the Presidency, it does not disturb the equanimity with which he inhales and exhales the unsubstantial vapor which typifies the politician's promises. While you are wondering what kind of man this creature without a tongue is, you are suddenly electrified with the news of some splendid victory, proving that behind the cigar, and behind the face discharged of all tell-tale expression, is the best brain to plan and the strongest heart to dare among the generals of the Republic.