The American Republic: its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny. By O. A. Brownson, LL. D. New York: P. O'Shea.
Mr. Brownson's influence over the American people, which had dwindled pretty nearly to zero at the beginning of the war, revived with that revival of the old Adam which made him a patriot, and thus showed him rather in the light of a heretic. This book sets him right (or wrong) again, and his temporary partnership with "humanitarians" may be regarded as closed by official notification. In a volume which might well be compressed into one fourth its present size, he covers a great deal of ground, and has pungent suggestions on both sides of a great many questions. Even in the Preface he announces his abandonment of the doctrine of State sovereignty, after holding it for thirty-three years, and at once proceeds to explain how, in a profounder sense, he holds it more thoroughly than ever. In the chapter on "Secession," which is the best in the book, he indorses Charles Sumner's theory of State suicide; holds that the Southern States are now "under the Union, not of it," and seems quite inclined to pardon Mr. Lincoln for abolishing slavery by proclamation. On the other hand, he scouts the theory that the Rebels committed treason, in any moral sense, and proclaims that we are all "willing and proud to be their countrymen, fellow-citizens, and friends." "There need be no fear to trust them now." To hang or exile them would be worse than "deporting four millions of negroes and colored men." (pp. 335-338.)
It must, indeed, be owned that our author has apparently reverted to an amount of colorphobia which must cheer the hearts of the Hibernian portion of his co-religionists. Ignoring the past in a way which seems almost wilful, he declares that the freedman has no capacity of patriotism, no sort of appreciation of the question at stake; and that he would, if enfranchised, invariably vote with his former master. "In any contest between North and South, they would take, to a man, the Southern side." (pp. 346, 376.) Nevertheless, he thinks that the negro will be ultimately enfranchised, "and the danger is, that it will be attempted too soon." If, indeed, it be postponed, he seems to think the negro may, by the blessing of Providence, "melt away." (p. 437.) What a pity that the obstinate fellow, with all the aid now being contributed in the way of assassination, so steadfastly refuses to melt!
Against the Abolitionists, also, Mr. Brownson is still ready to break a lance, with the hearty unreasoning hostility of the good old times. "Wendell Phillips is as far removed from true Christian civilization as was John C. Calhoun, and William Lloyd Garrison is as much of a barbarian and despot in principle and tendency as Jefferson Davis." (p. 355.) This touch of righteous indignation is less crushing, however, than his covert attacks upon our two great generals. For in one place he enumerates as typical warriors "McClellan, Grant, and Sherman," and in another place, "Halleck, Grant, and Sherman." This is indeed the very refinement of unkindness.
Of a standing army Mr. Brownson thinks well, and wishes it to number a hundred thousand; but his reason for the faith that is in him is a little unexpected. He thinks it useful because "it creates honorable places for gentlemen or the sons of gentlemen without wealth." (p. 386.) Touching our naturalized foreigners, he admits that they have been rather a source of embarrassment in recruiting for our armies (p. 381); but consoles himself by hinting, with his accustomed modesty, that "the best things written on the controversy have been by Catholics." (p. 378.)
He sees danger in the horizon, and frankly avows it. It is none of the commonplace perils, however,—national bankruptcy, revival of the slave power, oppression of Southern loyalists. A wholly new and profounder terror is that which his penetrating eye evokes from the future. It is, that, if matters go on as now, foreign observers will never clearly understand whether it was the "territorial democracy" or the "humanitarian democracy" which really triumphed in the late contest! "The danger now is, that the Union victory will, at home and abroad, be interpreted as a victory won in the interest of social or humanitarian democracy. It was because they regarded the war waged on the side of the Union as waged in the interest of this terrible democracy, that our bishops and clergy sympathized so little with the government in prosecuting it; not, as some imagined, because they were disloyal.... If the victory of the Union should turn out to be a victory for the humanitarian democracy, the civilized world will have no reason to applaud it." (pp. 365, 366.)
After this passage, it is needless to say that its author is the same Mr. Brownson whom the American people long since tried and found wanting as a safe or wise counsellor; the same of whom the Roman Catholic Church one day assumed the responsibility, and found the task more onerous than had been expected. He retains his arrogance, his gladiatorial skill, his habit of sweeping assertion; but perhaps his virulence is softened, save where some unhappy "humanitarian" is under dissection. Enough remains of the habit, however, to make his worst pages the raciest, and to render it a sharp self-satire when he proclaims, at the very outset, that a constitutional treatise should be written "with temper."
Across the Continent: a Summer's Journey to the Rocky Mountains, the Mormons, and the Pacific States, with Speaker Colfax. By Samuel Bowles, Editor of the Springfield (Mass.) Republican. Springfield, Mass.: Samuel Bowles & Co.
Since Mr. Greeley set the example, it has been the manifest destiny of every enterprising journalist to take an occasional trip across the continent, and personally inspect his subscribers. The latest overland Odyssey of this kind—transacted by three silent editors and one very public Speaker—is recorded in Mr. Bowles's new book; which proceeds, as one may observe, from his own publishing office and bindery, and may therefore almost claim, like the quaint little books presented by the eccentric Quincy Tufts to Harvard College Library, to have been "written, printed, and bound by the same hand."
Journalism is a good training, in some ways, for a trip like this. It implies a quick eye for facts, a good memory for figures, a hearty faith in the national bird, and a boundless appetite for new acquaintances. Every Eastern editor, moreover, is sure to find old neighbors throughout the West; and he who escorts a rising politician has all the world for a friend.