Woman's Rights under the Law. In three Lectures delivered in Boston, January, 1861, by Caroline H. Dall, author of Woman's Right to Labor, &c. Boston: Walker, Wise & Co. 1861.
The Rebellion; its Latent Causes and True Significance, in Letters to a Friend abroad. By Henry T. Tuckerman. New York: James G. Gregory, 1861.
Light Infantry Drill in the United States Army. T. B. Peterson & Brothers. Philadelphia, 1861. Price, 25 cents.
EDITOR'S TABLE
It was usual, of old, to characterize as Annus Mirabilis, or A Year of Wonder, any twelvemonth which had been more than usually prolific in marvels. The historian who may in future days seek a dividing point or a date for the greatest political and social struggle of this age, can hardly fail to indicate 1861 as the Annus Mirabilis of the Nineteenth Century in America. That heart does not beat, the brain does not throb on earth, which is capable of feeling or appreciating the tremendous range of consequences involved in the events of this year. We hear the most grating thunder-peals of horror; the whole artillery of death and disaster roars and crashes from fort and field; there is blaze and ruin, such as this continent knew not perhaps even in the primeval times of its vanished Golden Hordes;—and again there rise prophetic organ-tones of solemn praise; merry bells ringing the carillon of joy; sweet voices as in dreams singing of the purple evening peace; while mysteriously and beautifully, beyond all, breathes the Daughter of the Voice—that strangest of prophecies known to the Hebrew of old, softly inspiring hopes of a fairer future America than was ever before dreamed of. For, of a truth, above all sits and works the awful destiny of man, proclaiming as of old, amid strange races now forgotten, that the humanity which bravely toils and labors shall live, while the haughty and the oppressor and the sluggard, puffed up with vanity, shall all pass away as the mist of the morning.
It is worth while, at the conclusion of such a year, to look about us; to see what has been done or what is now doing, and to surmise as well as we may what great changes the future may bring forth.
A year ago this country was plagued and disgraced beyond any on the face of the earth by swarms of professional politicians; by men who regarded all legislation as one vast Lobby and Third House, and 'ability' as the means of turning corruption to their own personal advantage. These miserables, whether on the Northern or Southern side, tacitly united in driving all legislation or congressional business from its legitimate halls into the procrastinating by-paths, in order that they might make speeches and magnify themselves unto Buncombe, and be glorified by the local home press because of their devotion to—the party! The party! That was always the word. Where are these men of froth and wind now,—these heroes of the stump and the bar-room? Passing away into nothing, at headlong speed, before the great storm of the times. Now and then they 'rally'—there was one ghastly wig-and-hollow-pumpkin effort at recovery in the trembling, rattle-jointed Peace Movement of these last summer months. Where is it now? There answers a gay laugh and merry stave from the corners of irreverent weekly newspapers:—
'The piece of a party, called the party of peace,
Like everything else which deceases,
Has gone where the wicked from trouble shall cease,
For the party of peace is in pieces.'
Or we may see now and then wretched election meetings, as of late in New York, where a worn-out Fernando Wood and others like him gabble as much treason as they dare. It is all played out—Mozart, Tammany, and all the trash. Rummy, frowsy candidates, treating Five-Point graduates, and shoulder-hitting bravos yelling at the polls, are beginning to be disgusting and anti-national elements. Their very existence is an insult to these great, serious and glorious times of manly war, when young men are beginning at last to 'think great.' A few more gasps by the politicians and down they must go into infinite depths of congenial darkness, to be remembered only as allied to 'the abominable state of affairs before the war.'