Of Course There Was Hatred Of
The Deepest Dye; Of Course There Were Muttered Curses, Or Curses
Which Sometimes Were Not Simply Muttered.
Of course there was
wretchedness, heart-burnings, and fearful divisions in families.
That, perhaps, was the worst of all.
The daughter's husband would
be in the Northern ranks, while the son was fighting in the South;
or two sons would hold equal rank in the two armies, sometimes
sending to each other frightful threats of personal vengeance. Old
friends would meet each other in the street, passing without
speaking; or, worse still, would utter words of insult for which
payment is to be demanded when a Southern gentleman may again be
allowed to quarrel in his own defense.
And yet society went on. Women still smiled, and men were happy to
whom such smiles were given. Cakes and ale were going, and ginger
was still hot in the mouth. When many were together no words of
unhappiness were heard. It was at those small meetings of two or
three that women would weep instead of smiling, and that men would
run their hands through their hair and sit in silence, thinking of
their ruined hopes and divided children.
I have spoken of Southern hopes and Northern fears, and have
endeavored to explain the feelings of each party. For myself I
think that the Southerners have been wrong in their hopes, and that
those of the North have been wrong in their fears. It is not better
to rule in hell than serve in heaven. Of course a Southern
gentleman will not admit the premises which are here by me taken for
granted. The hell to which I allude is, the sad position of a low
and debased nation. Such, I think, will be the fate of the Gulf
States, if they succeed in obtaining secession - of a low and debased
nation, or, worse still, of many low and debased nations. They will
have lost their cotton monopoly by the competition created during
the period of the war, and will have no material of greatness on
which either to found themselves or to flourish. That they had much
to bear when linked with the North, much to endure on account of
that slavery from which it was all but impossible that they should
disentangle themselves, may probably be true. But so have all
political parties among all free nations much to bear from political
opponents, and yet other free nations do not go to pieces. Had it
been possible that the slaveowners and slave properties should have
been scattered in parts through all the States and not congregated
in the South, the slave party would have maintained itself as other
parties do; but in such case, as a matter of course, it would not
have thought of secession. It has been the close vicinity of
slaveowners to each other, the fact that their lands have been
coterminous, that theirs was especially a cotton district, which has
tempted them to secession. They have been tempted to secession, and
will, as I think, still achieve it in those Gulf States, much to
their misfortune.
And the fears of the North are, I think, equally wrong. That they
will be deceived as to that Monroe doctrine is no doubt more than
probable. That ambition for an entire continent under one rule will
not, I should say, be gratified. But not on that account need the
nation be less great, or its civilization less extensive. That hook
in its nose and that thorn in its jaw will, after all, be but a hook
of the imagination and an ideal thorn. Do not all great men suffer
such ere their greatness be established and acknowledged? There is
scope enough for all that manhood can do between the Atlantic and
the Pacific, even though those hot, swampy cotton fields be taken
away; even though the snows of the British provinces be denied to
them. And as for those rivers and that sea-board, the Americans of
the North will have lost much of their old energy and usual force of
will if any Southern confederacy be allowed to deny their right of
way or to stop their commercial enterprises. I believe that the
South will be badly off without the North; but I feel certain that
the North will never miss the South when once the wounds to her
pride have been closed.
From Washington I journeyed back to Boston through the cities which
I had visited in coming thither, and stayed again on my route, for a
few days, at Baltimore, at Philadelphia, and at New York. At each
town there were those whom I now regarded almost as old friends, and
as the time of my departure drew near I felt a sorrow that I was not
to be allowed to stay longer. As the general result of my sojourn
in the country, I must declare that I was always happy and
comfortable in the Eastern cities, and generally unhappy and
uncomfortable in the West. I had previously been inclined to think
that I should like the roughness of the West, and that in the East I
should encounter an arrogance which would have kept me always on the
verge of hot water; but in both these surmises I found myself to
have been wrong. And I think that most English travelers would come
to the same conclusion. The Western people do not mean to be harsh
or uncivil, but they do not make themselves pleasant. In all the
Eastern cities - I speak of the Eastern cities north of Washington - a
society may be found which must be esteemed as agreeable by
Englishmen who like clever, genial men, and who love clever, pretty
women.
I was forced to pass twice again over the road between New York and
Boston, as the packet by which I intended to leave America was fixed
to sail from the former port. I had promised myself, and had
promised others, that I would spend in Boston the last week of my
sojourn in the States, and this was a promise which I was by no
means inclined to break.
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