When the great revolutionary movement of 1848 broke upon the land, the sovereigns of Germany saw and accepted their condition. The popular mind was so penetrated by this unrest, and the revolutionary leaders were so substantial in character, that resistance was folly, and the monarchs yielded, waiting the time when some change would enable them to divide the revolutionists and turn them against each other. They allowed and even encouraged the formation at Frankfort of a provisional Parliament, called the Fore-Parliament, which looked toward a permanent central Government at that place for united Germany. Of this body Dr. Neumann was a member. It was a fine field for the display of his free and liberal instincts, and we cannot conceive of his passing through its debates without making large drafts upon his exhaustless fund of humor and sarcasm. It would be strange, indeed, if he could witness the dawn of that freedom which he loved without showing signs of exultation, accompanied with occasional taunts at the regime which was passing away and seemed already beyond recovery.
But, although a regular Parliament followed—although a quasi emperor was elected in the person of the Archduke John of Austria, and his way, as he proceeded to Frankfort, was a perfect triumphal procession—although he selected his ministers, set them to work, and Parliament was progressing with its constitution, and this continued for almost a year, still, that which the shrewd ministers of some of the sovereigns had doubtless foreseen and waited for, came. Radicals outran their wiser and more rational brethren, and took up arms. They would demolish at once those sovereignties which would have died by the slow action of time, had the central Government been fully established and wisely administered. But this new Government rather deliberated than acted. That which more than all else arouses the German mind—the Schleswig-Holstein question, identified as it is with the great question of the unity of the Teutonic race—was not taken up by the Government at Frankfort, but by that at Berlin. In the mean time the several Governments of Bavaria, Prussia, and Austria had gained the mastery over their own domestic revolutions, so that they could act more freely. Austria called home its archduke and its members in the Frankfort Parliament, and finally the whole movement subsided into the old order of things.
The various Governments were now in a position in which they could punish those disturbers of their peace who had endangered their very existence. Of these Dr. Neumann was one, and in 1852 he was notified that his lectures were no longer needed in the university of Munich. It was doubtless thought that he would make some slight formal concessions, and be permitted to continue his active duties, as others had done. But he felt too independent. He had means to live upon. His retiring pension could not be withheld. He could now, moreover, give his individual powers to authorship, without feeling hampered by the thought that he had a Government to please. He has persevered in this course, notwithstanding the express wish of the philosophical faculty for his return to active duty in the university.
He had been occupied with a history of the British empire in India. To this he gave increased attention, and published it some years ago; but the Indian rebellion breaking out soon after its publication, he was led to sketch its history as an appendix. His investigations in the East brought him in contact with the peculiar history of the Japanese empire, and he threw off by the way a brief history of Japan, devoting a chapter to the results of the American expedition thither.
It was while prosecuting his inquiries into the history of Eastern Asia, that he met with such evidences of the commercial enterprise of the United States, and obtained such views of the future of our country, as to conceive the thought of writing its history for the German people, commencing with the war of 1812, the point at which he considered our wonderful growth and expansion to have begun; and long before finishing his history of British India, he was collecting material for this work. He found, however, that he could not begin at the point he had chosen without striking upon roots and rudely severing them, which had struck deeply into the soil of all the earlier periods of our existence. His plan was therefore enlarged.
The breaking out of the rebellion was a sad blow to him—it could not have been more so to an American. It was likely not only to spoil our country, but his history of it. It either cut off or dimmed or confused that prospect of growth and expansion which had been stretched out interminably before him. He read the daily London Times—he had for years taken the New York Herald, and his reliance upon this sheet had been rather too implicit. Years before the breaking out of the rebellion, I had suggested this, and introduced to him the New York Times and Evening Post, one of which he has taken ever since, not, however, without occasional intervals of sighing for his old companion the Herald, much as his ancestors, after having left Egypt, sighed for its leeks and onions. Although he coupled the Herald and London Times—par nobile fratrum—as joint sharers of a favorite epithet of his—great liars—he still liked to read them.
Dr. Neumann had been a Democrat in his politics—for he was familiar with our distinctions in this country—but since the outbreak of the rebellion he has scarcely known where to place himself. He had made the personal acquaintance of Buchanan, when that 'old public functionary' was our Minister in London, and felt, as was quite natural, a little vain of this acquaintance when Buchanan became the head of the Government of that unseen land of his most enthusiastic admiration. The man, however, was less than the country, and he could drop him; but he still desired to see him succeeded by a Democrat. We often had little spats, in which I took the ground that such had been the extravagant demands of the South, made through the platforms of that party, that with the strongest predilections for some of its men and its earlier antecedents, I should have felt bound to vote for both Fremont and Lincoln, if I had been in the country. He would generally end the matter by a pleasant and jocular dissent, calling himself a Democrat and me a Republican. But after the rebellion, his friends never knew what he was, except that he was for the Union and the putting down of the rebels. No American could have felt in deeper sympathy with our cause. In that land, where a thousand volunteers could not be raised to save a throne, how did his heart swell with just pride when the President called for seventy-five thousand, and afterward in succession for hundreds of thousands, and they came forth at the call! How depressed at instances of want of skill or decision in Government or generals! He nearly lost his patience with young men who were quietly pursuing their studies in Europe, when their country was in peril and its armies needed them; and he quite lost it when he met Americans who sympathized with the rebellion, or even seemed indifferent to their country's fortunes.
There was an American lady in Munich, soon after the rebellion broke out, whose husband had died some years before, while holding a position in the army which entitled her to a pension, for which she had drawn while there. She had heard of Professor Neumann's love for our country and country people, but had no idea of the strictness of his discrimination between the parties—thought that he might feel much like the thousands of Germans who quietly ask us which side we are on—she may, too, have inferred something from his having a brother in Savannah, Georgia. She soon found her mistake; for he informed her, in terms of no doubtful import, that his sympathy did not embrace those of her class; and thus the result of the pleasant visit she had promised herself was little short of being turned out doors.
About the 10th of December, 1861, we had at our house a little company of about thirty persons, and Dr. Neumann, with his wife and two daughters, was among them. An American gentleman, who had been known to his family and ours, had left for Russia two years before, and returned that very day, was one of the company, and we had not yet learned his views of secession. The first thing with Dr. Neumann and his daughters was to know how he stood on this question. They found him a rebel, and in giving him their minds in relation to this matter, one of the daughters expressed to him her wonder that I should allow him to enter my house as they would not allow him in theirs. The stir made in the company by this little brush at arms arrested the attention of all, and gave the Americans their first information as to where our quondam friend stood, as well as set them an example of zeal and enthusiasm in their own cause.
I must close this notice with an incident which lies quite outside of Dr. Neumann's relations to America and Americans. On his retirement from his university labors, he withdrew mainly from the exciting scenes of public life. But in November, 1859, occurred the centennial anniversary of Schiller's birth. Of all the men connected with German popular literature, Schiller is most in the hearts of the people of Germany. The spirit of liberty shown in his 'William Tell'—his exile from his native Wirtemberg for the free expressions used in the first play he ever wrote—his high order of genius as a poet and historian—the subjects he chose, and the way he treated them, and, finally, his social and domestic character, have all combined to endear him to the whole people. This festival was everywhere observed, and with the highest enthusiasm; for although Governments were afraid of its effects, they were still more afraid to refuse permission to hold it. It lasted for several days, on one of which was a great public dinner, with several hundred in attendance, of which Dr. Neumann consented to be one. Champagne flowed freely, and although I did not taste this beverage, and know by experience little of its effects, it was easy to perceive that the animation could not all be accounted for by love to the memory even of Schiller. Poems were read, and speeches were made describing his character as poet, historian, or otherwise, according to the fancy of each speaker. I remember one from Bodenstedt, than whom few stand higher in the walks of polite literature, and one from Sybel, than whom no one in Germany ranks higher as a historian. Dr. Neumann, who, like an old parade horse long withrawn from the excitements of a parade, felt amid these scenes the spirit of former days stirred within him, rose to speak. We shall be prepared to appreciate the effect when we get an idea of the preternatural sensitiveness of those who composed the audience. A well-known poet, who may perhaps be called the poet-laureate of Bavaria, had read a poem on the occasion. It contained nothing to which any one could object, as we might infer from his position with the king, and yet I heard the poet himself say a few days afterward that the editors of a certain well-known journal, in publishing it, left out the stanzas containing the word Freiheit (liberty), so fearful were they of not pitching their tune to a key that would suit royal and Government ears. A similar sensitiveness pervaded the whole body present—nearly all drew their bread and beer from the Government, and did not wish it stopped or diminished. This class had gotten up the meeting, and hoped to control it. When they saw Dr. Neumann rise, they felt that there was a man naturally fearless, and now quite beyond that special sense of danger which made them cautious. Recollection passed over his seven years' silence, and called up the power with which he had harangued in other years. Nor was it so much what he said as the man who said it, which produced the effect, and yet there was much in the speech. He said that Schiller had been eulogized as a social and domestic man, poet, and historian; but nothing had been said of him as a politician, and he should speak of him in this character. The rising of such a man was an electric shock, suggestive of that which in 1848 made all Europe tremble from centre to circumference. The word politician was a second shock, drawing with it suggestively all the concomitants of that revolution, as yet so well remembered by all. And when he proceeded to compare Schiller with Goethe—the former frankly addressing himself to his friend in correspondence on the great questions of their politics, and trying to draw him out, the latter, then a minister of state, cautiously and warily declining to expose his views—he but carried out the impression made in his rising and his announcement. It was the only properly stump speech—I use the phrase in the high sense in which it might be used of O'Connell or Clay—I ever heard in Germany.