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Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: 'Tis Sixty Years Since + +Author: Charles Francis Adams + +Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9996] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on November 6, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 'TIS SIXTY YEARS SINCE *** + + + + +Produced by Afra Ullah, Sjaani and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + +</pre> + + +<table width="80%" border="0" align="center"> + <tr> + <td> + <h1 align="center">"'TIS SIXTY YEARS SINCE"</h1> + <h3 align="center">ADDRESS OF <br /> + CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS </h3> + <div align="center">* * * * * </div> + <h4 align="center">FOUNDERS' DAY, JANUARY 16, 1913</h4> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +<br /> +<hr align="center" width="40%" /> + +<table width="80%" border="0" align="center"> + <tr> + <td> + <h1 align="center">"'TIS SIXTY YEARS SINCE"</h1> + + +<p>In the single hour self-allotted for my part in this +occasion there is much ground to cover,--the time is +short, and I have far to go. Did I now, therefore, submit +all I had proposed to say when I accepted your +invitation, there would remain no space for preliminaries. +Yet something of that character is in place. +I will try to make it brief.<a href="#one"><sup>[1]</sup></a></p> + +<p>As the legend or text of what I have in mind to submit, +I have given the words "'Tis Sixty Years Since." +As some here doubtless recall, this is the second or subordinate +title of Walter Scott's first novel, "Waverley," +which brought him fame. Given to the world in 1814,--hard +on a century ago,--"Waverley" told of the last +Stuart effort to recover the crown of Great Britain,--that +of "The '45." It so chances that Scott's period of +retrospect is also just now most appropriate in my case, +inasmuch as I entered Harvard as a student in the year +1853--"sixty years since!" It may fairly be asserted +that school life ends, and what may in contradistinction +thereto be termed thinking and acting life begins, the +day the young man passes the threshold of the institution +of more advanced education. For him, life's +responsibilities then begin. Prior to that confused, +thenceforth things with him become consecutive,--a +sequence. Insensibly he puts away childish things.</p> + +<p><a name="one"></a>[1] Owing to its length, this "Address" was compressed in delivery, +occupying one hour only. It is here printed in the form in which it was +prepared,--the parts omitted in delivery being included.</p> + +<p>In those days, as I presume now, the college youth +harkened to inspired voices. Sir Walter Scott belonged to +a previous generation. Having held the close attention +of a delighted world as the most successful story-teller +of his own or any preceding period, he had passed off the +stage; but only a short twenty years before. Other voices +no less inspired had followed; and, living, spoke to us. +Perhaps my scheme to-day is best expressed by one of +these.</p> + +<p>When just beginning to attract the attention of the +English-speaking world, Alfred Tennyson gave forth +his poem of "Locksley Hall,"--very familiar to those +of my younger days. Written years before, at the time +of publication he was thirty-three. In 1886, a man of +seventy-five, he composed a sequel to his earlier effort,--the +utterance entitled "Locksley Hall Sixty Years +After." He then, you will remember, reviewed his +young man's dreams,--dreams of the period when he</p> + +<p>" ... dip't into the future, far as human eye could see, +Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be,"</p> + +<p>--threescore years later contrasting in sombre verse +an old man's stern realities with the bright anticipations +of youth. Such is my purpose to-day. "Wandering +back to living boyhood," to the time when I first +simultaneously passed the Harvard threshold and the +threshold of responsible life, I propose to compare the +ideals and actualities of the present with the ideals, +anticipations and dreams of a past now somewhat remote.</p> + +<p>To say that in life and in the order of life's events it +is the unexpected which is apt to occur, is a commonplace. +That it has been so in my own case, I shall presently +show. Meanwhile, not least among the unexpected +things is my presence here to-day. If, when I entered +Harvard in 1853, it had been suggested that in 1913, I,--born +of the New England Sanhedrim, a Brahmin Yankee +by blood, tradition and environment--had it been suggested +that I, being such, would sixty years later stand +by invitation here in Columbia before the faculty and +students of the University of South Carolina, I should +under circumstances then existing have pronounced the +suggestion as beyond reasonable credence. Here, however, +I am; and here, from this as my rostrum, I propose +to-day to deliver a message,--such as it is.</p> + +<p>And yet, though such a future outcome, if then foretold, +would have seemed scarcely possible of occurrence, +there, after all, were certain conditions which would +have rendered the contingency even at that time not only +possible, but in accordance with the everlasting fitness of +things. For, curiously enough, personal relations of a +certain character held with this institution would have +given me, even in 1853, a sense of acquaintance with it +such as individually I had with no other institution of +similar character throughout the entire land. It in this +wise came about. At that period, preceding as it did the +deluge about to ensue, it was the hereditary custom of +certain families more especially of South Carolina and of +Louisiana,--but of South Carolina in particular--to +send their youth to Harvard, there to receive a college +education. It thus chanced that among my associates +at Harvard were not a few who bore names long familiarly +and honorably known to Carolinian records,--Barnwell +and Preston, Rhett and Alston, Parkman and +Eliot; and among these were some I knew well, and even +intimately. Gone now with the generation and even +the civilization to which they belonged, I doubt if any of +them survive. Indeed only recently I chanced on a grimly +suggestive mention of one who had left on me the memory +of a character and personality singularly pure, high-toned +and manly,--permeated with a sense of moral +and personal obligation. I have always understood he +died five years later at Sharpsburg, as you call it, or +Antietam, as it was named by us, in face-to-face conflict +with a Massachusetts regiment largely officered by Harvard +men of his time and even class,--his own familiar +friends. This is the record, the reference being to a marriage +service held at St. Paul's church in Richmond, +in the late autumn of 1862: "An indefinable feeling +of gloom was thrown over a most auspicious event when +the bride's youngest sister glided through a side door +just before the processional. Tottering to a chancel pew, +she threw herself upon the cushions, her slight frame +racked with sobs. Scarcely a year before, the wedding +march had been played for her, and a joyous throng +saw her wedded to gallant Breck Parkman. Before +another twelvemonth rolled around the groom was killed +at the front."<a href="#two"><sup>[2]</sup></a> Samuel Breck Parkman was in the +Harvard class following that to which I belonged. Graduating +in 1857, fifty-five years later I next saw his name +in the connection just given. It recorded an incident of +not infrequent occurrence in those dark and cruel days.</p> + +<p>It was, however, in Breck Parkman and his like that +I first became conscious of certain phases of the South +Carolina character which subsequently I learned to bear +in high respect.</p> + +<p>So far as this University of South Carolina was concerned, +it also so chanced that, by the merest accident, +I, a very young man, was thrown into close personal +relations with one of the most eminent of your professors,--Francis +Lieber. Few here, I suppose, now personally +remember Francis Lieber. To most it gives indeed +a certain sense of remoteness to meet one who, as in my +case, once held close and even intimate relations with a +German emigrant, distinguished as a publicist, who as a +youth had lain, wounded and helpless, a Prussian recruit, +on the field above Namur. Occurring in June, 1815, +two days after Waterloo, the affair at Namur will soon +be a century gone. Of those engaged in it, the last +obeyed the fell sergeant's summons a half score years +ago. It seems remote; but at the time of which I speak +Waterloo was appreciably nearer those in active life than +are Shiloh and Gettysburg now. The Waterloo campaign +was then but thirty-eight years removed, whereas those +last are fifty now; and, while Lieber was at Waterloo, I +was myself at Gettysburg.</p> + +<p><a name="two"></a>[2] DeLeon, "Belles, Beaux and Brains of the Sixties," p. 158.</p> +<p> +Subsequently, later in life, it was again my privilege +to hold close relations with another Columbian,--an +alumnus of this University as it then was--in whom I +had opportunity to study some of the strongest and most +respect-commanding traits of the Southern character. +I refer to one here freshly remembered,--Alexander +Cheves Haskell,--soldier, jurist, banker and scholar, +one of a septet of brothers sent into the field by a South +Carolina mother calm and tender of heart, but in silent +suffering unsurpassed by any recorded in the annals +whether of Judea or of Rome. It was the fourth of the +seven Haskells I knew, one typical throughout, in my +belief, of what was best in your Carolinian development. +With him, as I have said, I was closely and even intimately +associated through years, and in him I had occasion to +note that almost austere type represented in its highest +development in the person and attributes of Calhoun. +Of strongly marked descent, Haskell was, as I have always +supposed, of a family and race in which could be observed +those virile Scotch-Irish and Presbyterian qualities +which found their representative types in the two +Jacksons,--Andrew, and him known in history as "Stonewall." +To Alec Haskell I shall in this discourse again +have occasion to refer.</p> + +<p>Thus, though in 1853, and for long years subsequent +thereto, it would not have entered my mind as among the +probabilities that I should ever stand here, reviewing the +past after the manner of Tennyson in his "Locksley Hall +Sixty Years After," yet if there was any place in the +South, or, I may say, in the entire country, where, as a +matter of association, I might naturally have looked so +to stand, it would have been where now I find myself.</p> + +<p>But I must hasten on; for, as I have said, if I am to +accomplish even a part of my purpose, I have no time +wherein to linger.</p> + +<p>Not long ago I chanced, in a country ramble, to be +conversing with an eminent foreigner, known, and favorably +known, to all Americans. In the course of leisurely +exchange of ideas between us, he suddenly asked if I +could suggest any explanation of the fact that not only +were the publicists who had the greatest vogue in our +college days now to a large extent discredited, but that +almost every view and theory advanced by them, and +which we had accepted as fixed and settled, was, where +not actually challenged, silently ignored. Nor did the +assertion admit of denial; for, looking back through the +vista of threescore years, of the principles of what may +be called "public polity" then advanced as indisputable, +few to-day meet with general acceptance. To review +the record from this point of view is curious.</p> + +<p>When in 1853 I entered Harvard, so far as this country +and its polity were concerned certain things were matters +of contention, while others were accepted as axiomatic,--the +basic truths of our system. Among the former--the +subjects of active contention--were the question +of Slavery, then grimly assuming shape, and that of +Nationality intertwined therewith. Subordinate to this +was the issue of Free Trade and Protection, with the school +of so-called American political economy arrayed against +that of Adam Smith. Beyond these as political ideals +were the tenets and theories of Jeffersonian Democracy. +That the world had heretofore been governed too much +was loudly acclaimed, and the largest possible individualism +was preached, not only as a privilege but as a right. +The area of government action was to be confined within +the narrowest practical limits, and ample scope was to +be allowed to each to develop in the way most natural +to himself, provided only he did not infringe upon the +rights of others. Materially, we were then reaching +out to subdue a continent,--a doctrine of Manifest +Destiny was in vogue. Beyond this, however, and most +important now to be borne in mind, compared with the +present the control of man over natural agencies and latent +forces was scarcely begun. Not yet had the railroad +crossed the Missouri; electricity, just bridled, was still +unharnessed.</p> + +<p>I have now passed in rapid review what may perhaps +without exaggeration be referred to as an array of conditions +and theories, ideals and policies. It remains to +refer to the actual results which have come about during +these sixty years as respects them, or because of them; +and, finally, to reach if possible conclusions as to the +causes which have affected what may not inaptly be +termed a process of general evolution. Having thus, so +to speak, diagnosed the situation, the changes the situation +exacts are to be measured, and a forecast ventured. An +ambitious programme, I am well enough aware that the not +very considerable reputation I have established for myself +hardly warrants me in attempting it. This, I +premise.</p> + +<p>Let us, in the first place, recur in somewhat greater +detail to the various policies and ideals I have referred +to as in vogue in the year 1853.</p> + +<p>First and foremost, overshadowing all else, was the +political issue raised by African slavery, then ominously +assuming shape. The clouds foreboding the coming tempest +were gathering thick and heavy; and, moreover, they +were even then illumined by electric flashes, accompanied +by a mutter of distant thunder. Though we of the North +certainly did not appreciate its gravity, the situation +was portentous in the extreme.</p> + +<p>Involved in this problem of African slavery was the +incidental issue of Free Trade and Protection,--apparently +only economical and industrial in character, but +in reality fundamentally crucial. And behind this lay +the constitutional question, involving as it did not only +the conflicting theories of a strict or liberal construction +of the fundamental law, but nationality also,--the right +of a Sovereign State to withdraw from the Union created +in 1787, and developed through two generations.</p> + +<p>These may be termed concrete political issues, as opposed +to basic truths generally accepted and theories +individually entertained. The theories were constitutional, +social, economical. Constitutionally, they turned +upon the obligations of citizenship. There was no such +thing then as a citizen of the United States of and by itself. +The citizen of the United States was such simply +because of his citizenship of a Sovereign State,--whether +Massachusetts or Virginia or South Carolina; and, of +course, an instrument based upon a divided sovereignty +admitted of almost infinitely diverse interpretation. +It is a scriptural aphorism that no man can serve two +masters; for either he will hate the one and love the +other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the +other. And in the fulness of time it literally with us +so came about. The accepted economical theories of +the period were to a large extent corollaries of the +fundamental proposition, and differing material and +social conditions. Beyond all this, and coming still +under the head of individual theories, was the doctrine +enunciated by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration +of Independence,--the doctrine that all men were created +equal,--meaning, of course, equal before the law. But +the theorist and humanitarian of the North, accepting +the fundamental principle laid down in the Declaration, +gave to it a far wider application than had been intended +by its authors,--a breadth of application it would not +bear. Such science as he had being of scriptural origin, +he interpreted the word "equal" as signifying equal in +the possibilities of their attributes,--physical, moral, +intellectual; and in so doing, he of course ignored the +first principles of ethnology. It was, I now realize, a +somewhat wild-eyed school of philosophy, that of which I +myself was a youthful disciple.</p> + +<p>But, on the other hand, beside these, between 1850 +and 1860 a class of trained and more cautious thinkers, +observers, scientists and theologians was coming to the +front. Their investigations, though we did not then +foresee it, were a generation later destined gently to subvert +the accepted fundamentals of religious and economical +thought, literary performance, and material existence. +The work they had in hand to do was for the next fifteen +years to be subordinate, so far as this country was concerned, +to the solution of the terrible political problems +which were first insistent on settlement; yet, as is now +apparent, an initial movement was on foot which foreboded +a revolution world-wide in its nature, and one in +comparison with which the issues of slavery and American +constitutionality became practically insignificant,--in +a word, local and passing incidents.</p> + +<p>Finally, it remains to consider specifically the political +theories then in vogue in their relation to the individual. +In this country, it was the period of the equality of man +and individuality in the development of the type. It +was generally believed that the world had hitherto been +governed too much,--that the day of caste, and even +class, was over and gone; and finally, that America was +a species of vast modern melting-pot of humanity, in +which, within a comparatively short period of time, the +characteristics of all branches of Indo-Aryan origin would +resolve themselves. A new type would emerge,--the +American. These theories were also in their consequences +far-reaching. Practically, 1853 antedates all our present +industrial organizations so loudly in evidence,--the +multifarious trades-unions which now divide the population +of the United States into what are known as the +"masses" and the "classes." As recently as a century +ago, it used to be said of the French army under the Empire, +that every soldier carried the baton of the Field-Marshal +in his knapsack. And this ideal of equality and +individuality was fixed in the American mind.</p> + +<p>Not that I for a moment mean to imply that in my +belief the middle of the last century, or the twenty years +anterior to the Civil War, was a species of golden age in +our American annals. On the contrary, it was, as I +remember it, a phase of development very open to criticism; +and that in many respects. It was crude, self-conscious +and self-assertive; provincial and formative, +rather than formed. Socially and materially we were, +compared with the present era of motors and parlor-cars, +in the "one-hoss shay" and stove-heated railroad-coach +stage. Nevertheless, what is now referred to as "predatory +wealth" had not yet begun to accumulate in few +hands; much greater equality of condition prevailed; +nor was the "wage-earner" referred to as constituting +a class distinct from the holders of property. Thus the +individual was then encouraged,--whether in literature, +in commerce, or in politics. In other words, there being +a free field, one man was held to be in all respects the +equal of the rest. Especially was what I have said true +of the Northern, or so-called Free States, as contrasted +with the States of the South, where the presence of +African slavery distinctly affected individual theories, no +matter where or to what extent entertained.</p> + +<p>Such, briefly and comprehensively stated, having been +the situation in 1853, it remains to consider the practical +outcome thereof during the sixty years it has been my +fortune to take part, either as an actor or as an observer, +in the great process of evolution. It is curious to note +the extent to which the unexpected has come about. In +the first place, consider the all-absorbing mid-century +political issue, that involving the race question, to which I +first referred,--the issue which divided the South from +the North, and which, eight years only after I had entered +college, carried me from the walks of civil life into the +calling of arms.</p> + +<p>And here I enter on a field of discussion both difficult +and dangerous; and, for reasons too obvious to require +statement, what I am about to say will be listened to with +no inconsiderable apprehension as to what next may be +forthcoming. Nevertheless, this is a necessary part of +my theme; and I propose to say what I have in mind to +say, setting forth with all possible frankness the more +mature conclusions reached with the passage of years. +Let it be received in the spirit in which it is offered.</p> + +<p>So far, then, as the institution of slavery is concerned, +in its relations to ownership and property in those of the +human species,--I have seen no reason whatever to revise +or in any way to alter the theories and principles I +entertained in 1853, and in the maintenance of which I +subsequently bore arms between 1861 and 1865. Economically, +socially, and from the point of view of abstract +political justice, I hold that the institution of slavery, +as it existed in this country prior to the year 1865, was +in no respect either desirable or justifiable. That it had +its good and even its elevating side, so far at least as the +African is concerned, I am not here to deny. On the contrary, +I see and recognize those features of the institution +far more clearly now than I should have said would have +been possible in 1853. That the institution in itself, +under conditions then existing, tended to the elevation +of the less advanced race, I frankly admit I did not then +think. On the other hand, that it exercised a most pernicious +influence upon those of the more advanced race, +and especially upon that large majority of the more advanced +race who were not themselves owners of slaves,--of +that I have become with time ever more and more +satisfied. The noticeable feature, however, so far as I +individually am concerned, has been the entire change +of view as respects certain of the fundamental propositions +at the base of our whole American political and +social edifice brought about by a more careful and intelligent +ethnological study. I refer to the political equality +of man, and to that race absorption to which I have alluded,--that belief that any foreign element introduced +into the American social system and body politic would +speedily be absorbed therein, and in a brief space thoroughly +assimilated. In this all-important respect I do +not hesitate to say we theorists and abstractionists of the +North, throughout that long anti-slavery discussion which +ended with the 1861 clash of arms, were thoroughly +wrong. In utter disregard of fundamental, scientific facts, +we theoretically believed that all men--no matter what +might be the color of their skin, or the texture of their +hair--were, if placed under exactly similar conditions, +in essentials the same. In other words, we indulged in +the curious and, as is now admitted, utterly erroneous +theory that the African was, so to speak, an Anglo-Saxon, +or, if you will, a Yankee "who had never had a chance,"--a +fellow-man who was guilty, as we chose to express it, +of a skin not colored like our own. In other words, though +carved in ebony, he also was in the image of God.</p> + +<p>Following out this theory, under the lead of men to +whom scientific analysis and observation were anathema +if opposed to accepted cardinal political theories as enunciated +in the Declaration as read by them, the African +was not only emancipated, but so far as the letter of the +law, as expressed in an amended Constitution, would +establish the fact, the quondam slave was in all respects +placed on an equality, political, legal and moral, with those +of the more advanced race.</p> + +<p>I do not hesitate here,--as one who largely entertained +the theoretical views I have expressed,--I do not hesitate +here to say, as the result of sixty years of more careful +study and scientific observation, the theories then entertained +by us were not only fundamentally wrong, but +they further involved a problem in the presence of which +I confess to-day I stand appalled.</p> + +<p>It is said,--whether truthfully or not,--that when +some years ago John Morley, the English writer and +thinker, was in this country, on returning to England he +remarked that the African race question, as now existing +in the United States, presented a problem as nearly, to +his mind, insoluble as any human problem well could be. +I do not care whether Lord Morley made this statement +or did not make it. I am prepared, however, to say +that, individually, so far as my present judgment goes, +it is a correct presentation. To us in the North, the +African is a comparatively negligible factor. So far as +Massachusetts, for instance, or the city of Boston more +especially, are concerned, as a problem it is solving itself. +Proportionately, the African infusion is becoming less--never +large, it is incomparably less now than it was in +the days of my own youth. Thus manifestly a negligible +factor, it is also one tending to extinction. Indeed, it +would be fairly open to question whether a single Afro-American +of unmixed Ethiopian descent could now be +found in Boston. That the problem presents itself with +a wholly different aspect here in Carolina is manifest. +The difference too is radical; it goes to the heart of the +mystery.</p> + +<p>As I have already said, the universal "melting-pot" +theory in vogue in my youth was that but seven, or at +the most fourteen, years were required to convert the +alien immigrant--no matter from what region or of what +descent--into an American citizen. The educational influences +and social environment were assumed to be not only +subtle, but all-pervasive and powerful. That this theory +was to a large and even dangerous extent erroneous the observation +of the last fifty years has proved, and our Massachusetts +experience is sadly demonstrating to-day. It was +Oliver Wendell Holmes, who, years ago, when asked by an +anxious mother at what age the education of a child ought +to begin, remarked in reply that it should begin about one +hundred and fifty years before the child is born. It has so +proved with us; and the fact is to-day in evidence that this +statement of Dr. Holmes should be accepted as an undeniable +political aphorism. So far from seven or fourteen years +making an American citizen, fully and thoroughly impregnated +with American ideals to the exclusion of all others, +our experience is that it requires at least three generations +to eliminate what may be termed the "hyphen" in citizenship. +Not in the first, nor in the second, and hardly +in the third, generation, does the immigrant cease to be +an Irish-American, or a French-American, or a German-American, +or a Slavonic-American, or yet a Dago. +Nevertheless, in process of tune, those of the Caucasian +race do and will become Americans. Ultimately their +descendants will be free from the traditions and ideals, so +to speak, ground in through centuries passed under other +conditions. Not so the Ethiopian. In his case, we find +ourselves confronted with a situation never contemplated +in that era of political dreams and scriptural science in +which our institutions received shape. Stated tersely +and in plain language, so far as the African is concerned--the +cause and, so to speak, the motive of the great +struggle of 1861 to 1865--we recognize the presence in +the body politic of a vast alien mass which does not +assimilate and which cannot be absorbed. In other +words, the melting-pot theory came in sharp contact +with an ethnological fact, and the unexpected occurred. +The problem of African servitude was solved after a +fashion; but in place of it a race issue of most uncompromising +character evolved itself.</p> + +<p>A survivor of the generation which read "Uncle Tom's +Cabin" as it week by week appeared,--fresh to-day from +Massachusetts with its Lawrence race issues of a different +character, I feel a sense of satisfaction in discussing here +in South Carolina this question and issue in a spirit the +reverse of dogmatic, a spirit purely scientific, observant +and sympathetic. And in this connection let me say I +well remember repeatedly discussing it with your fellow-citizen +and my friend, Colonel Alexander Haskell, to +whom I have already made reference. Rarely have I +been more impressed by a conclusion reached and fixed +in the mind of one who to the study of a problem had +obviously given much and kindly thought. As those +who knew him do not need to be told, Alexander Cheves +Haskell was a man of character, pure and just and +thoughtful. He felt towards the African as only a Southerner +who had himself never been the owner of slaves +can feel. He regarded him as of a less advanced race than +his own, but one who was entitled not only to just and +kindly treatment but to sympathetic consideration. +When, however, the question of the future of the Afro-American +was raised, as matter for abstract discussion, +it was suggestive as well as curious to observe the fixed, +hard expression which immediately came over Haskell's +face, as with stern lips, from which all suggestion of a +smile had faded away, he pronounced the words:--"Sir, +it is a dying race!" To express the thought more fully, +Colonel Haskell maintained, as I doubt not many who +now listen to me will maintain, that the nominal Afro-American +increase, as shown in the figures of the national +census, is deceptive,--that in point of fact, the +Ethiop in America is incurring the doom which has ever +befallen those of an inferior and less advanced race when +brought in direct and immediate contact, necessarily and +inevitably competitive, with the more advanced, the +more masterful, and intellectually the more gifted. In +other words, those of the less advanced race have a fatal +aptitude for contracting the vices, both moral and physical, +of the superior race, in the end leading to destruction; +while the capacity for assimilating the elevating qualities +and attributes which constitute a saving grace is denied +them. Elimination, therefore, became in Haskell's belief +a question of time only,--the law of the survival +of the fittest would assert itself. The time required +may be long,--numbered by centuries; but, however +remotely, it nevertheless would come. God's mill grinds +slowly, but it grinds uncommon small; and, I will add, +its grinding is apt to be merciless.</p> + +<p>The solution thus most pronouncedly laid down by +Colonel Haskell may or may not prove in this case correct +and final. It certainly is not for me, coming from the +North, to undertake dogmatically to pass upon it. I +recur to it here as a plausible suggestion only, in connection +with my theme. As such, it unquestionably merits +consideration. I am by no means prepared to go the +length of an English authority in recently saying that +"emancipation on two continents sacrificed the real welfare +of the slave and his intrinsic worth as a person, to +the impatient vanity of an immediate and theatrical +triumph."><sup><a href="#three">[3</a>]</sup> This length I say, I cannot go; but so far +as the present occasion is concerned, with such means of +observation as are within my reach, I find the conclusion +difficult to resist that the success of the abolitionists in +effecting the emancipation of the Afro-American, as unexpected +and sweeping as it was sudden, has led to phases +of the race problem quite unanticipated at least. For +instance, as respects segregation. Instead of assimilating, +with a tendency to ultimate absorption, the movement +in the opposite direction since 1865 is pronounced. It +has, moreover, received the final stamp of scientific +approval. This implies much; for in the old days of +the "peculiar institution" there is no question the relations +between the two races were far more intimate, +kindly, and even absorptive than they now are.</p> + +<p><a name="three"></a>[3]Bussell's (Dr. F.W.) "Christian Theology and Social Progress." +Bampton Lectures, 1905.</p> + + +<p>That African slavery, as it existed in the United States +anterior to the year 1862, presented a mild form of servitude, +as servitude then existed and immemorially had almost +everywhere existed, was, moreover, incontrovertibly proven +in the course of the Civil War. Before 1862, it was confidently +believed that any severe social agitation within, +or disturbance from without, would inevitably lead to a +Southern servile insurrection. In Europe this result was +assumed as of course; and, immediately after it was +issued, the Emancipation Proclamation of President +Lincoln was denounced in unmeasured terms by the entire +London press. Not a voice was raised in its defence. +It was regarded as a measure unwarranted in civilized +warfare, and a sure and intentional incitement to the +horrors which had attended the servile insurrections of +Haiti and San Domingo; and, more recently, the unspeakable +Sepoy incidents of the Indian mutiny. What +actually occurred is now historic. The confident anticipations +of our English brethren were, not for the first +time, negatived; nor is there any page in our American +record more creditable to those concerned than the attitude +held by the African during the fierce internecine +struggle which prevailed between April, 1861, and April, +1865. In it there is scarcely a trace, if indeed there is +any trace at all, of such a condition of affairs as had +developed in the Antilles and in Hindustan. The attitude +of the African towards his Confederate owner was +submissive and kindly. Although the armed and masterful +domestic protector was at the front and engaged +in deadly, all-absorbing conflict, yet the women and +children of the Southern plantation slept with unbarred +doors,--free from apprehension, much more from molestation.</p> + +<p>Moreover, as you here well know, during the old days +of slavery there was hardly a child born, of either sex, +who grew up in a Southern household of substantial +wealth without holding immediate and most affectionate +relations with those of the other race. Every typical +Southern man had what he called his "daddy" and his +"mammy," his "uncle" and his "aunty," by him familiarly +addressed as such, and who were to him even closer +than are blood relations to most. They had cared for +him in his cradle; he followed them to their graves. Is +it needful for me to ask to what extent such relations +still exist? Of those born thirty years after emancipation, +and therefore belonging distinctly to a later generation, +how many thus have their kindly, if humble, kin of +the African blood? I fancy I would be safe in saying +not one in twenty.</p> + +<p>Here, then, as the outcome of the first great issue I +have suggested as occupying the thought and exciting +the passions of that earlier period, is a problem wholly +unanticipated,--a problem which, merely stating, I +dismiss.</p> + +<p>Passing rapidly on, I come to the next political issue +which presented itself in my youth,--the constitutional +issue,--that of State Sovereignty, as opposed to the +ideal, Nationality. And, whether for better or worse, +this issue, I very confidently submit, has been settled. +We now, also, looking at it in more observant mood, in +a spirit at once philosophical and historical, see that it +involved a process of natural evolution which, under the +conditions prevailing, could hardly result in any other +settlement than that which came about. We now have +come to a recognition of the fact that Anglo-Saxon nationality +on this continent was a problem of crystallization, +the working out of which occupied a little over two centuries. +It was in New England the process first set in, +when, in 1643, the scattered English-speaking settlements +under the hegemony of the colony of Massachusetts +Bay united in a confederation. It was the initial step. +I have no time in which to enumerate successive steps, +each representing a stage in advance of what went +before. The War of Independence,--mistakenly denominated +the Revolutionary War, but a struggle distinctly +conservative in character, and in no way revolutionary,--the +War of Independence gave great impetus +to the process, resulting in what was known as Federation. +Then came the Constitution of 1787 and the formation +of the, so called, United States as a distinct nationality. +The United States next passed through two definite processes +of further crystallization,--one in 1812-1814, when +the second war with Great Britain, and more especially +our naval victories, kindled, especially in the North, +the fire of patriotism and the conception of nationality; +the other, half a century later, presented the stern issue +in a concrete form, and at last the complete unification +of a community--whether for better or for worse is no +matter--was hammered by iron and cemented in blood. +It is there now; an established fact. Secession is a lost +cause; and, whether for good or for ill, the United States +exists, and will continue to exist, a unified World Power. +Sovereignty now rests at Washington, and neither in +Columbia for South Carolina nor in Boston for Massachusetts. +The State exists only as an integral portion of the +United States. That issue has been fought out. The +result stands beyond controversy; brought about by a +generation now passed on, but to which I belonged.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, the ancient adage, the rose is not without +its thorn, receives new illustration; for even this great +result has not been wrought without giving rise to considerations +suggestive of thought. Speaking tersely and +concentrating what is in my mind into the fewest possible +words, I may say that in our national growth up to the +year 1830 the play of the centrifugal forces predominated,--that +is, the necessity for greater cohesion made itself +continually felt. A period of quiescence then followed, +lasting until, we will say, 1865. Since 1865, it is not +unsafe to say, the centripetal, or gravitating, force has +predominated to an extent ever more suggestive of increasing +political uneasiness. It is now, as is notorious, +more in evidence than ever before. The tendency to +concentrate at Washington, the demand that the central +government, assuming one function after another, shall +become imperial, the cry for the national enactment of +laws, whether relating to marital divorce or to industrial +combinations,--all impinge on the fundamental principle +of local self-government, which assumed its highest +and most pronounced form in the claim of State Sovereignty. +I am now merely stating problems. I am not +discussing the political ills or social benefits which possibly +may result from action. Nevertheless, all, I think, must +admit that the tendency to gravitation and attraction +is to-day as pronounced and as dangerous, especially +in the industrial communities of the North, as was the +tendency to separation and segregation pronounced and +dangerous seventy years ago in the South.</p> + +<p>To this I shall later return. I now merely point out +what I apprehend to be a tendency to extremes--an +excess in the swinging of our political pendulum.</p> + +<p>We next come to that industrial factor which I have +referred to as the issue between the Free Trade of Adam +Smith and Protection, as inculcated by the so-called +American school of political economists. The phases +which this issue has assumed are, I submit, well calculated +to excite the attention of the observant and thoughtful. +I merely allude to them now; but, in so far as it is in my +power to make it so, my allusion will be specific. I +frankly acknowledge myself a Free-Trader. A Free-Trader +in theory, were it in my power I would be a +Free-Trader in national practice. There has been, so +far as I know, but one example of absolute free trade on +the largest scale in world history. That one example, +moreover, has been a success as unqualified as undeniable. +I refer to this American Union of ours. We have +here a country consisting of fifty local communities, +stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from +tropical Porto Rico to glacial Alaska, representing every +conceivable phase of soil, climate and material conditions, +with diverse industrial systems. With a Union +established on the principle of absolutely unrestricted +commercial intercourse, you here in South Carolina, and +more especially in Columbia, are to-day making it, so to +speak, uncomfortable for the cotton manufacturer in +New England; and I am glad of it! A sharp competition +is a healthy incentive to effort and ingenuity, and the +brutal injunction, "Root hog or die!" is one from which +I in no way ask to have New England exempt. When +Massachusetts is no longer able to hold its own industrially +in a free field, the time will, in my judgment, +have come for Massachusetts to go down. With communities +as with children, paternalism reads arrested +development. One of the great products of Massachusetts +has been what is generically known as "footwear." +Yet I am told that under the operation of absolute +Free Trade, St. Louis possesses the largest boot +and shoe factory in its output in the entire world. That +is, the law of industrial development, as natural +conditions warrant and demand, has worked out its +results; and those results are satisfactory. I am aware +that the farmer of Massachusetts has become practically +extinct; he cannot face the competition of the great +West: but the Massachusetts consumer is greatly advantaged +thereby. So far as agricultural products are +concerned, Massachusetts is to-day reduced to what is +known as dairy products and garden truck; and it is +well! Summer vegetables manufactured under glass in +winter prove profitable. So, turning his industrial +efforts to that which he can do best, even the Massachusetts +agriculturalist has prospered. On the other +hand, wherever in this country protection has been most +completely applied, I insist that if its results are analyzed +in an unprejudiced spirit, it will be pronounced to have +worked unmitigated evil,--an unhealthy, because artificially +stimulated and too rapid, growth. Let Lawrence, +in Massachusetts, serve as an example. Look at the industrial +system there introduced in the name of Protection +against the Pauper Labor of Europe! No growth is so +dangerous as a too rapid growth; and I confidently +submit that politically, socially, economically and industrially, +America to-day, on the issues agitating us, presents +an almost appalling example of the results of hot-house +stimulation.</p> + +<p>Nor is this all, nor the worst. There is another article, +and far more damaging, in the indictment. Through +Protection, and because of it, Paternalism has crept in; +and, like a huge cancerous growth, is eating steadily into +the vitals of the political system. Instead of supporting +a government economically administered by money contributed +by the People, a majority of the People to-day +are looking to the government for support, either +directly through pension payments or indirectly through +some form of industrial paternalism. Incidentally, a profuse +public expenditure is condoned where not actually +encouraged. Jeffersonian simplicity is preached; extravagance +is practised. As the New York showman long +since shrewdly observed: "The American people love to +be fooled!"</p> + +<p>But I must pass on; I still have far to go. As respects +legislation, I have said that sixty years ago, when my +memories begin, the American ideal was the individual, +and individuality. This, implied adherence to the Jeffersonian +theory that heretofore the world had been +governed too much. The great secret of true national +prosperity, happiness and success was, we were taught, +to allow to each individual the fullest possible play, provided +only he did not infringe on the rights of others. +How is it to-day? America is the most governed and +legislated country in the world! With one national law-making +machine perpetually at work grinding out edicts, +we have some fifty provincial mills engaged in the same +interesting and, to my mind, pernicious work. No one +who has given the slightest consideration to the subject +will dispute the proposition that, taking America as a +whole, we now have twenty acts of legislation annually +promulgated, and with which we are at our peril supposed +to be familiar, where one would more than suffice. Then +we wonder that respect for the law shows a sensible decrease! +The better occasion for wonder is that it survives +at all. We are both legislated and litigated out of +all reason.</p> + +<p>Passing to the other proposition of individuality, there +has been, as all men know and no one will dispute, a +most perceptible tendency of late years towards what is +known as the array of one portion of the community--the +preponderating, voting portion--against another--the +more ostentatious property-holding portion. It is +the natural result, I may say the necessary as well as +logical outcome, of a period of too rapid growth,--production +apportioned by no rule or system other or higher +than greed and individual aptitude for acquisition. I +will put the resulting case in the most brutal, and consequently +the clearest, shape of which I am capable. Working +on the combined theories of individualism controlled +and regulated by competition, it has been one grand game +of grab,--a process in which the whole tendency of our +legislation, national or state, has during the last twenty +years been, first, to create monopolies of capital and, +later, to bring into existence a counter, but no less privileged, +class, known as the "wage-earner."</p> + +<p>Of the first class it is needless to speak, for, as a class, +it is sufficiently pilloried by the press and from the hustings. +Much in evidence, those prominent in it are known +as the possessors of "predatory wealth"; "unjailed malefactors," +they are subjects of continuous "grilling" in +the congressional and legislative committee rooms. The +effort to make them "disgorge" is as continual as it is +noisy, and, as a rule, futile. It constitutes a curious and +in some respects instructive exhibition of misdirected +popular feeling and legislative incompetence. None the +less, the existence of a monopolist class calls for no proof +at the bar of public opinion. Not so the other and even +more privileged class,--the so-called "wage-earner"; +for, disguise it as the trades-unionist will, angrily deny it +as he does, the fact remains that to-day under the operation +of our jury system and of our laws, the Wage-earner +and the member of the Trades-Union has become, as +respects the rest of the community, himself a monopolist +and, moreover, privileged as such. Practically, crimes +urged and even perpetrated in behalf of so-called "labor" +receive at the hands of juries, and also not infrequently +of courts, an altogether excessive degree of merciful consideration. +At the same time, both here and in Europe, +Organized Labor is instant in its demand that immunity, +denied to ordinary citizens, and those whom it terms +"the classes," shall by special exemption be conferred +upon the Labor Union and upon the Wage-earner. The +tendency on both sides and at each extreme to inequality +in the legislature and before the law is thus manifest.</p> + +<p>Viewing conditions face to face and as they now are, +no thoughtful observer can, in my judgment, avoid the +conviction that, whether for good or ill, for better or for +worse, this country as a community has, within the last +thirty years--that is, we will say, since our centennial +year, 1876--cast loose from its original moorings. It +has drifted, and is drifting, into unknown seas. Nor is +this true of English-speaking America alone. I have +already quoted Lord Morley in another connection. +Lord Morley, however, only the other day delivered, as +Chancellor of Manchester University, a most interesting +and highly suggestive address, in which, referring to conservative +Great Britain, he thus pictured a phase of +current belief: "Political power is described as lying +in the hands of a vast and mobile electorate, with scanty +regard for tradition or history. Democracy, they say, +is going to write its own programme. The structure of +executive organs and machinery is undergoing half-hidden +but serious alterations. Men discover a change of attitude +towards law as law; a decline in reverence for institutions +as institutions."</p> + +<p>While, however, the influences at work are thus general +and the manifestations whether on the other side of the +Atlantic or here bear a strong resemblance, yet difference +of conditions and detail--constitutional peculiarities, +so to speak--must not be disregarded. One form +of treatment may not be prescribed for all. In our case, +therefore, it remains to consider how best to adapt this +country and ourselves to the unforeseeable,--the navigation +of uncharted waters; and this adaptation cannot +be considered hi any correct and helpful, because scientific, +spirit, unless the cause of change is located. Surface +manifestations are, in and of themselves, merely deceptive. +A physician, diagnosing the chances of a patient, +must first correctly ascertain, or at least ascertain with +approximate correctness, the seat of the trouble under +which the patient is suffering. So, we.</p> + +<p>And here I must frankly confess to small respect for +the politician,--the man whose voice is continually +heard, whether from the Senate Chamber or the Hustings. +There is in those of his class a continual and most noticeable +tendency to what may best be described as the <i>post +ergo propter</i> dispensation. With them, the eye is fixed on +the immediate manifestation. Because one event preceded +another, the first event is obviously and indisputably +the cause of the later event. For instance, in the present +case, the cause or seat of our existing and very manifest +social, political and financial disturbances is attributed +as of course to some peculiarity of legislation, either a +subtreasury bill passed in the administration of General +Jackson, or a tariff bill passed in the administration of +Mr. Taft, or the demonetization of silver in the Hayes +period,--that "Crime of the Century," the Crucifixion +of Labor on the Cross of Gold! Once for all, let me say, +I contemplate this school of politicians and so-called +"thinkers" with sentiments the reverse of respectful. +In plain language, I class them with those known in professional +parlance as quacks and charlatans. Not always, +not even in the majority of cases, does that which preceded +bear to that which follows the relation of cause and +effect. A marked example of this false attribution is +afforded in more recent political history by the everlasting +recurrence of the statement that American prosperity +is the result of an American protective system. Yet in +the Protectionist dispensation, this has become an article +of faith. To my mind, it is undeserving of even respectful +consideration.</p> + +<p>If I were asked the cause of that change, little short of +revolutionary, if indeed in any respect short of it, which +has occurred in the material condition of the American +people, and consequently in all its theories and ideals, +within the last thirty years, I should attribute it to a +wholly different cause. Mr. Lecky some years ago, in +his book entitled "Liberty and Democracy," made the +following statement, in no way original, but, as he put it, +sufficiently striking: "The produce of the American +mines [incident to the discoveries made by Columbus] +created, in the most extreme form ever known in Europe, +the change which beyond all others affects most deeply +and universally the material well-being of men: it revolutionized +the value of the precious metals, and, in consequence, +the price of all articles, the effects of all contracts, +the burden of all debts."</p> + +<p>In other words, referring to the first half of the sixteenth +century,--the sixty years, we will say, following the land-fall +of Columbus,--the historian attributed the great +change which then occurred and which stands forth so +markedly in history, to the increased New-World production +of the precious metals, combined with the impetus +given to trade and industry as a consequence of that discovery, +and of the mastery of man over additional globe +areas. Now, dismissing from consideration the so-called +American protective system, likewise our currency issues +and, generally, the patchwork, so to speak, of crazy-quilt +legislation to which so much is attributed during the +last thirty years, I confidently submit that in the production +of the results under discussion, they are quantities +and factors hardly worthy of consideration. The +cause of the change which has taken place lies far deeper +and must be sought in influences of a wholly different +nature, influences developed into an increased and still +ever increasing activity, over which legislation has absolutely +no control. I refer, of course, to man's mastery +over the latent forces of Nature. Of these Steam and +Electricity are the great examples, which, because always +apparent, at once strike the imagination. These, as +tools, it is to be remembered, date practically from within +one hundred years back. It may, indeed, safely be asserted +that up to 1815, the end of the Wars of Napoleon +and the time of your Professor Lieber, steam even had +not as yet practically affected the operations of man, +while electricity, when not a terror, was as yet but a toy. +Commerce was still exclusively carried on by the sailing +ship and canal-boat. The years from the fall of Napoleon +to our own War of Secession--from Waterloo to Gettysburg--were +practically those of early and partial development. +Not until well after Appomattox, that is, since +the year 1870,--a period covering but little more than +the life of a generation,--did what is known to you here +as the Applied Sciences cover a range difficult to specialize. +As factors in development, it is safe to say that those +three tremendous agencies--Steam, Electricity, Chemistry--have, +so to speak, worked all their noticeable +results within the lifetime of the generation born since +we celebrated the Centennial of Independence. The +manifestations now resulting and apparent to all are the +natural outcome of the use of these modern appliances, +become in our case everyday working tools in the hands +of the most resourceful, adaptive, ingenious and energetic +of communities, developing a virgin continent of undreamed-of +wealth. Naturally, under such conditions, +the advance has been not only general and continuous, +but one of ever increasing celerity. So Protection and +the Currency become flies on the fast revolving wheel!</p> + +<p>But what has otherwise resulted?--An unrest, social, +economical, political. Not contentment, but a lamentation +and an ancient tale of wrong! We hear it in the +continual cry over what is known as the increased cost +of living, and feel its pressure in the higher standard of +living. What was considered wealth by our ancestors +is to-day hardly competence. What sufficed for luxury +in our childhood barely now supplies what are known as +the comforts of life. Take, for instance, the motor,--the +automobile. I speak within bounds, I think, when I +say there are many fold more motors to-day racing over +the streets, the highways and the byways of America +than there were one-horse wagons thirty-five years ago. +Six hundred, I am told, are to be found within the immediate +neighborhood of Columbia; and, since I have +been here I have seen in your streets just one man on +horse-back! These figures and that statement tell the +tale. A few years only back, every Carolinian rode to +town, and the motor was unknown. A single illustrative +example, this could be duplicated in innumerable ways +everywhere and in all walks of life.</p> + +<p>The result is obvious, and was inevitable. Entered +on a new phase of existence, the world is not as it was in +the days of Columbus, when a single new continent was +discovered containing in it what we would now regard as +a limited accumulation of the precious metals. It is, +on the contrary, as if, in the language of Dr. Johnson, "the +potentiality of wealth" had been revealed "beyond the +dreams of avarice"; together with not one or two, but a +dozen continents, the existence and secrets of which are +suddenly laid bare. The Applied Sciences have been the +magicians,--not Protection or the Currency.</p> + +<p>And still scientists are continually dinning in our ears +the question whether this state of affairs is going to continue,--whether +the era of disturbance has reached its +limit! I hold such a question to be little short of childish. +That era has not reached its limits, nor has it even approximated +those limits. On the contrary, we have just entered +on the uncharted sea. We know what the last thirty +years have brought about as the result of the agencies +at work; but as yet we can only dimly dream of what the +next sixty years are destined to see brought about. +Imagination staggers at the suggestion.</p> + +<p>What, then, has been of this the inevitable consequence,--the +consequence which even the blindest should have +foreseen? It has resulted in all those far-reaching changes +suggested in the earlier part of what I have said to-day, +as respects our ideals, our political theories, our social +conditions. In other words, the old era is ended; what +is implied when we say a new era is entered upon?</p> + +<p>To attempt a partial answer to the query implies no +claim to a prophetic faculty. Whether we like to face +the fact or not, far-reaching changes in our economical +theories and social conditions are imminent, involving +corresponding readjustments in our constitutional arrangements +and political machinery. Tennyson foreshadowed +it all in his "Locksley Hall" seventy years ago:--"The +individual withers, and the world is more and more." +The day of individualism as it existed in the American +ideal of sixty years since is over; that of collectivism +and possibly socialism has opened. The day of social +equality is relegated to what may be considered a somewhat +patriarchal past,--that patriarchal past having +come to a close during the memory of those still in active +life.</p> + +<p>And yet, though all this can now be studied in the +political discussion endlessly dragging on, strangely and +sadly enough that discussion carries in it hardly a note +of encouragement. It is, in a word, unspeakably shallow. +And here, having sufficiently for my present purpose +though in hurried manner, diagnosed the situation,--located +the seat of disturbance,--we come to the question +of treatment. Involving, as it necessarily does, problems +of the fundamental law, and a rearrangement and different +allocation of the functions of government, this challenges +the closest thought of the publicist. That the problem +is here crying aloud for solution is apparent. The publications +which cumber the counters of our book-stores, +those for which the greatest popular call to-day exists--treatises +relating to trade interests, to collectivism, to +socialism, even to anarchism--tell the tale in part; in +part it is elsewhere and otherwise told. Only recently, +in once Puritan Massachusetts, processions paraded the +streets carrying banners marked with this device, more +suggestive than strange:--"No master and no God!"</p> + +<p>What are the remedies popularly proposed? In that +important branch of polity known as Political Ethics, +or, as he termed them, Hermeneutics, which your Professor +Lieber sixty years ago endeavored to treat of, what advance +has since his time been effected?--Nay! what +advance has been effected since the time, over two thousand +years, of his great predecessor, Aristotle? I confidently +submit that what progress is now being made in +this most erudite of sciences is in the nature of that of +the crab--backwards! In the discussions of Aristotle, +the problem in view was, how to bring about government +by the wisest,--that is, the most observant and expert. +In other words, government, the object of politics, was +by Aristotle treated in a scientific spirit. And this is as +it should be. Take, for example, any problem,--I do +not care whether it is legal or medical or one of engineering: How +successfully dispose of it? Uniformly, in +one way. Those problems are successfully solved, if at +all, only when their solution is placed in the hands of the +most proficient. Judged by the discussions of to-day, +what advance has in politics been effected? Do the +<i>Outlook</i> and the <i>Commoner</i> imply progress since the +Stagirite? Not to any noticeable extent. We are, +on the contrary, fumbling and wallowing about where +the Greek pondered and philosophized.</p> + +<p>Democracy, as it is called, is to-day the great panacea,--the +political nostrum; as such it is confidently advocated +by statesmen and professors and even by the presidents +of our institutions of the advanced education. "Trust +the People" is the shibboleth! "Let the People rule!" +"The cure for too much Liberty is more Liberty!" To +Democracy plain and simple--Composite Wisdom--I +frankly confess I feel no call,--no call greater than, for +instance, towards Autocracy or Aristocracy or Plutocracy. +Taken simply, and applied as hitherto applied, all and +each lead to but one result,--failure! And that result, +let me here predict, will, in the future, be the same in the +case of pure Democracy that, in the past, it was in the +case of the pure Autocracy of the Caesars, or the case of +the pure Aristocracy of Rome or of the so-called Republics +of the Middle Ages. A political edifice on shifting sands.</p> + +<p>Yet, to-day what do we see and hear in America? Tell +it not in Gath; publish it not in the streets of Askalon I +Two thousand years after the time of Aristotle, we see a +prevailing school working directly back to the condition +of affairs which existed in the Athenian agora under the +disapproving eyes of the father of political philosophy. +Panaceas, universal cure-alls, and quack remedies--the +Initiative, the Referendum, and the Recall are paraded +as if these--nostrums of the mountebanks of the county +fair--would surely remedy the perplexing ills of new and +hitherto unheard-of social, economical, and political conditions. +Democracy! What is Democracy? Democracy, +as it is generally understood, I submit, is nothing +but the reaching of political conclusions through the frequent +counting of noses; or, as Macaulay two generations +ago better phrased it, "the majority of citizens told by +the head";--the only question at just this juncture +being whether, in order to the arriving at more acceptable +results, both sexes shall be "told," instead of one +sex only. Moreover, I with equal confidence make bold +to suggest that while conceded, and while men have even +persuaded themselves that they have faith in it, and +really do believe in this "telling" of noses as the best +and fairest attainable means of reaching correct results, +yet in so doing and so professing they simply, as men are +prone to do, deceive themselves. In other words, victims +of their own cant, they preach a panacea in which they +really do not believe. Nor of this is proof far to seek. +<i>Vox populi, vox Dei</i>! If you extend the application of +this principle by a single step, its loudest advocates draw +back in alarm from the inevitable. They seek refuge +in the assertion--"Oh! That is different!" For instance, +take a concrete case; so best can we illustrate.</p> + +<p>One of the greatest scientific triumphs reached in modern +times--perhaps I might fairly say the greatest--is +the discovery of the cause of yellow fever, and its consequent +control. As a result of the studies, the patient +experimentation and self-sacrifice of the wisest,--that +is, the most observant and expert,--the amazing conclusion +was reached that not only the yellow fever but the +innumerable ills of the flesh known under the caption of +"malarial," were due to causes hitherto unsuspected, +though obvious when revealed,--to the existence in the +atmosphere of a venomous insect, in comparison with the +work of which the ravages on mankind of the entire carnivorous +and reptile creation were of comparatively small +account. The mosquito flew disclosed, the atmospheric +viper,--a viper most venomous and deadly. How was +the disclosure brought about? What was the remedy +applied? Was the discovery effected through universal +suffrage? Was the remedy sought for and decided upon +by the Initiative, or through a Referendum at an election +held on the Tuesday succeeding the first Monday of a +certain month and year? Had recourse in this case been +had to the panacea now in greatest political vogue, we +all know perfectly well what would have followed. History +tells us. The quarantine, as it is called, would have +been decreed, and a day of fasting, humiliation and prayer +appointed. The mosquito, quite ignored, would then +have gone on in his deadly work. We all equally well +know that the man, even the politician or the statesman, +who had suggested a solution of that problem by a count +of noses would have been effaced with ridicule. Even +the most simple minded would have rejected that method +of reaching a result. Yet the ilia of the body politic, +too, are complicated. Indeed, far more intricate in their +processes and more deceitful in their aspects, they more +deeply affect the general well-being and happiness than +any ill or epidemic which torments the physical being, +even the mosquito malaria. Yet the ills of the body +politic, the complications which surround us on every +side,--for these the unfailing panacea is said to lie in +universal suffrage, that remedy which is immediately +and of course laughed out of court if suggested in case of +the simpler ills of the flesh.</p> + +<p>This, I submit, is demonstration. The true remedy is +not to be sought in that direction in the one case any +more than the other.</p> + +<p>There is a considerable element of truth, though possibly +a not inconsiderable one of exaggeration, in this +statement from a paper I recently chanced upon in the +issue of the sober and classical <i>Edinburgh Review</i> for +October last,--a paper entitled "Democracy and Liberalism":--"History +testifies unmistakably and unanimously +to the passion of democracies for incompetence. There +is nothing democracy dislikes and suspects so heartily as +technical efficiency, particularly when it is independent +of the popular vote." But to-day, what is politically proposed +by our senatorial charlatans and the mountebanks +of the market-place? The Referendum, the constant and +easy Recall, the everlasting Initiative are dinned into +our ears as the cure-alls of every ill of the body politic. +On the contrary, I submit that, while in the absence of +any better method as yet devised and accepted, the process +of reaching results by a count of the "majority told +by the head" of the citizens then present and voting has +certain political advantages, yet, for all this, as a final, +scientific, political process, it is unworthy of consideration. +A passing expedient, it in no degree reflects credit +on twentieth-century intelligence.</p> + +<p>And now I come to the crux of my discussion. Thus +rejecting results reached by the ballot as now in practical +use, a query is already in the minds of those who listen. +At once suggesting itself and flung in my face, it is asked +as a political poser, and not without a sneer,--What else +or better have I to propose? Would I advise a return +to old and discarded methods,--Heredity, Caste, Autocracy, +Plutocracy? I respectfully submit this is a question +no one has a right to put, and one I am not called +upon to answer. Again, let me take a concrete case. +Once more I appeal to the yellow fever precedent. The +first step towards a solution of a medical, as of a political, +problem is a correct diagnosis. Then necessarily follows +a long period devoted to observation, to investigation +and experiment. If, in the case of the yellow fever, +a score of years only ago an observer had pointed out the +nature of the disease and the manifest inadequacy of +current theories and prevailing methods of prevention +and treatment, do you think others would have had a +right to turn upon him and demand that he instantly +prescribe a remedy which should be not only complete, +but at once recognized as such and so accepted? In the +present case, as I have already observed, from the days +of Aristotle down through two and twenty centuries, men +had been experimenting in all, to them, conceivable ways, +on the government of the body politic, exactly as they +experimented on the disorders of the physical body. But +only yesterday was the source of the yellow fever, for +instance, diagnosed and located, and the proper means +of prevention applied. The cancer and tuberculosis are +to-day unsolved problems. By analogy, they are inviting +subjects for an Initiative and a Referendum! +Yet would any person who to-day, standing where I stand, +expressed a disbelief, at once total and contemptuous, +of such a procedure as respects them, be met by a demand +for some other panacea of immediate and guaranteed +efficiency? And so with the body politic. I here to-day +am merely attempting a diagnosis, pointing out the disorders, +and exposing as best I can the utter crudeness and +insufficiency of the market-place remedies proposed. +Have you a right, then, to turn on me, and call for some +other prescription, warranted to cure, in place of the +nostrums so loudly advertised by the sciolists and the +dabblers of the day, and by me so contemptuously set +aside? I confess I am unable to respond, or even to +attempt a response to any such demand. I am not altogether +a quack, nor is this a county fair.</p> + +<p>"Paracelsus," so denominated, was one of Robert +Browning's earlier poems. In it he causes the fifteenth-century +alchemist and forerunner of all modern pharmaceutical +chemistry, to declare that as the result of +long travel and much research</p> + +"I possess<br /> +Two sorts of knowledge: one,--vast, shadowy,<br /> +Hints of the unbounded aim....<br /> +The other consists of many secrets, caught<br /> +While bent on nobler prize,--perhaps a few<br /> +Prime principles which may conduct to much:<br /> +These last I offer."<br /> + +<p>So, <i>longo intervallo</i>, I have a few suggestions,--the +result of an observation extending, as I said at the beginning, +over the lives of two generations and a connection +with many great events in which I have borne a part,--a +part not prominent indeed, and more generally, I acknowledge, +mistaken than correct. My errors, however, +have at least made me cautious and doubtful of my own +conclusions. I submit them for what they are worth. +Not much, I fear.</p> + +<p>What, then, would I do, were it in my power to prescribe +alterations and curatives for the ills of our American +body politic, of which I have spoken; or, more +correctly, the far-reaching disturbances manifestly due +to the agencies at work, to which I have made reference? +Let us come at once to the point, taking the existing +Constitution of the United States as a concrete example, +and recognizing the necessity for its revision and readjustment +to meet radically changed conditions,--conditions +social, material, geographical, changed and still +changing.</p> + +<p>It was Mr. Gladstone who, years ago, made the often-quoted +assertion that the Constitution of the United States +was "the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given +time by the brain and purpose of man." I do not think +he was far wrong; though we, of course, realize that the +Federal Constitution was a growth and in no degree an inspiration. +That Constitution has through a century and +a quarter stood the test of time and stress of war, during +a period of almost unlimited growth of the community +for which it was devised. It has outlasted many nationalities +and most of the dynasties in existence at the time of +its adoption; and that, too, under conditions sufficiently +trying. I, therefore, regard it with profound respect; +and, so regarding it, I would treat it with a cautious and +tender hand. Not lightly pronouncing it antiquated, +what changes would I make in it if to-morrow it were +given me to prescribe alterations adapting it to the +altered conditions which confront us? I do not hesitate +to say, and I am glad to say, the changes I would suggest +would be limited; yet, I fancy, far-reaching.</p> + +<p>And, in the first place, let us have a clear conception +of the end in view. That end is, I submit, exactly the +same to-day which Aristotle had in view more than twenty +centuries ago. It is, not to solve all political problems, +but to put political problems as they arise in the hands +of those whom he termed the "best,"--but whom we +know as the most intelligent, observant and expert,--to +be, through their agency, in the way of ultimate solution. +If, adopting every ill-considered and half-fledged +measure of so-called reform which might be the fancy of +the day, we incorporated them in our fundamental law, +but one thing could result therefrom,--ultimate confusion. +The Constitution is neither a legislative crazy-quilt +nor a receptacle of fads. To make it such is in every +respect the reverse of scientific. The work immediately +in hand, therefore, is to devise such changes in the fundamental +law as will tend most effectually to bring about +the solution of issues as they may arise, by the most expert, +observant and reliable. This accomplished, if +its accomplishment were only practicable, all possible +would have been done; and the necessary and inevitable +readjustment of things would, in politics as in medicine +and in science, be left to solve itself as occasion arose. +Provision cannot be made against every contingency.</p> + +<p>This premised, the Constitution of the United States +is an instrument through which powers are delegated by +several local communities to a central government. The +instrument, it was originally held, should be strictly construed +and the powers delegated limited; and in this respect, +with certain alterations made obviously necessary +to meet changed conditions, I would return to the fundamental +idea of the framers.</p> + +<p>In saying this I feel confidence also that here in South +Carolina at least I shall meet with an earnest response. +The time is not yet remote when local self-government +worked salvation for South Carolina, as for her sister +States of the Confederacy. You here will never forget +what immediately followed the close of our Civil War. +As an historic fact, the Constitution was then suspended. +It was suspended by act of an irresponsible Congress, +exercising revolutionary but unlimited powers over a +large section of the common country. You then had an +illustration, not soon to be forgotten, of concentration +of legislative power. An episode at once painful and discreditable, +it is not necessary here to refer to it in detail. +Appeal, however, was made to the principle of local self-government,--it +was, so to speak, a recurrence to the +theory of State Sovereignty. The appeal struck a responsive, +because traditional, chord; and it was through +a recurrence to State Sovereignty as the agency of local +self-government that loyalty and contentment were restored, +and, I may add, that I am here to-day. Ceasing +to be a Military Department, South Carolina once more +became a State. Not improbably the demand will in a not +remote future be heard that State lines and local autonomy +be practically obliterated. In that event, I feel +a confident assurance that, recurring in memory to the +evil days which followed 1865, the spirit of enlightened +conservatism will assert itself here and in the sister States +of what was once the Confederacy; and again it will +prevail. In the future, as in the past, you in South Carolina +at least will cling to what in 1876 proved the ark of +your social and political salvation.</p> + +<p>Taking another step in the discussion of changes, the +Constitution is founded on that well-known distribution +and allocation of powers first theoretically suggested by +Montesquieu. There is a division, accompanied by a +mutual limitation of authority, through the Judiciary, +the Executive, and the Legislative. As respects this allocation, +how would I modify that instrument? I freely +say that the tendency of my thought, based on observation, +is to conservatism. I have never yet in a single instance +found that when the people of this or any other +country accustomed to parliamentary government desired +a thing, they failed to obtain it within a reasonable +limit of time. Hasty changes are wisely deprecated; but +I think I speak within limitation when I say that neither in +the history of Great Britain,--the mother of Parliaments--nor +in the history of the United States, has any modification +which the people, on sober second thought, have considered +to be for the best, long been deferred. Action, revolutionary +in character, has not, as a rule, been needful, or, +when taken, proved salutary. This is a record and result +that no careful student of our history will, I take it, deny.</p> + +<p>Such being the case, so far as our Judiciary is concerned, +I do not hesitate to say I would adhere to older, and, as +I think, better principles, or revert to them where they +have been experimentally abandoned. It took the Anglo-Saxon +race two centuries of incessant conflict to wrest +from a despotic executive, practically an autocracy, judicial +independence. That was effected through what is +known as a tenure during good behavior, as opposed to a +tenure at the will of the monarch. This, then, for two +centuries, was accepted as a fundamental principle of +constitutional government. Of late, a new theory has +been propounded, and by those chafing at all restraint--constitutionally +lawless in disposition--it is said the +Recall should also be applied to the Judiciary. Having, +therefore, wrested the independence of the Judiciary from +the hand of the Autocrat, we now propose to place it, +in all trustfulness, in the hands of the Democrat. To me +the proposition does not commend itself. It is founded +on no correct principle, for the irresponsible democratic +majority is even more liable to ill-considered and vacillating +action than is the responsible autocrat. In that matter +I would not trust myself; why, then, should I trust +the composite Democrat? In the case of the Judiciary, +therefore, I would so far as the fundamental law is concerned +abide by the older and better considered principles +of the framers.</p> + +<p>Next, the Executive. Again, we hear the demand of +Democracy,--the Recall! Once more I revert to the +record. This Republic has now been in working operation, +and, taken altogether, most successful operation, for a +century and a quarter. During that century and a quarter +we have had, we will say, some five and twenty different +chief magistrates. There is an ancient and somewhat +vulgar adage to the effect that the proof of a certain +dietary article is in its eating. Apply that homely adage to +the matter under consideration. What is the lesson taught? +It is simply this,--during a whole century and a quarter +of existence there has not been one single chief executive +of the United States to whom the arbitrary Recall could +have been applied with what would now be agreed upon +as a fortunate result. In the Andrew Johnson impeachment +case was it not better that things were as they were? +On the other hand, every one of the seven independent, +self-respecting Senators who then by a display of high +moral courage saved the country from serious prejudice +would have been recalled out-of-hand had the Recall now +demanded been in existence. Its working would have +received prompt exemplification; as it was, the recall was +effected in time, and after due deliberation. The delay +occasioned no public detriment. In this life, experience +is undeniably worth something; and the experience here +referred to is fairly entitled to consideration. No political +system possible to devise is wholly above criticism,--not +open to exceptional contingencies or to dangers possible +to conjure up. Such have from time to time arisen in the +past; in the future such will inevitably arise. This consideration +must, however, be balanced against a general +average of successful working; and I confidently submit +that, weighing thus the proved advantage of the system we +have against the possibilities of danger which hereafter may +occur, but which never yet have occurred, the scale on which +are the considerations in favor of change kicks the beam.</p> + +<p>In view, however, of the growth of the country, the +vastly increased complexity of interests involved, the +intricacy and the cost of the election processes to which +recourse is necessarily had, I would substitute for the present +brief tenure of the presidential office--a tenure well +enough perhaps in the comparatively simple days which +preceded our Civil War--a tenure sufficiently long to enable +the occupant of the presidential chair to have a policy +and to accomplish at least something towards its adoption. +As the case stands to-day, a President for the first time +elected has during his term of four years, one year, and one +year only, in which really to apply himself to the accomplishment +of results. The first year of his term is necessarily +devoted to the work of acquiring a familiarity with +the machinery of the government, and the shaping of a +policy. The second year may be devoted to a more or +less strenuous effort at the adoption of the policy thus +formulated. As experience shows, the action of the third +and fourth years is gravely affected--if not altogether +perverted from the work in hand--by what are known as +the political exigencies incident to a succession. Manifestly, +this calls for correction. The remedy, however, +to my mind, is obvious and suggests itself. As the presidency +is the one office under our Constitution national in +character, and in no way locally representative, I would +extend the term to seven years, and render the occupant +of the office thereafter ineligible for reëlection. +Seven years is, I am aware, under our political system, +an unusual term; and here my ears will, I know, be assailed +by the great "mandate" cackle. The count of +noses being complete, the mind of the composite Democrat +is held to be made up. It only remains to formulate +the consequent decree; and, with least possible delay, +put it in way of practical enforcement. Again, I, as a +publicist, demur. It is the old issue, that between +instant action and action on second thought, presented +once more. Briefly, the experience of sixty years +strongly inclines me to a preference of matured and +considerate action over that immediate action which +notoriously is in nine cases out of ten as ill-advised as it +is precipitate. Only in the field of politics is the expediency +of the latter assumed as of course; yet, as in +science and literature and art so in politics, final, because +satisfactory, results are at best but slowly thrashed out. +As respects wisdom, the modern statute book does not +loom, monumental. Its contemplation would indeed +perhaps even lead to a surmise that reasonable delay in +formulating his "mandate" might, in the case of the +composite Democrat as in that of the individual Autocrat, +prove a not altogether unmixed, and so in the end +an intolerable, evil.</p> + +<p>Thus while a change of the Executive and Legislative +branches of the government might not be always simultaneously +effected, by selecting seven years as the presidential +term the election would be brought about, as frequently +as might be, by itself, uncomplicated by local +issues connected with the fortunes or political fate of +individual candidates for office, whether State, Congressional, +or Senatorial; and during the seven years +of tenure, four, at least, it might reasonably be anticipated, +would be devoted to the promotion of a definite policy, +in place of one year in a term of four, as now. If also +ineligible for reelection, there is at least a fair presumption +that the occupant of the position might from start to +finish apply himself to its duties and obligations, without +being distracted therefrom by ulterior personal ends +as constantly as humanly held in view.</p> + +<p>Having thus disposed of the Judiciary and the Executive, +we come to the Legislative. And here I submit is +the weak point in our American system,--manifestly +the weak point, and to those who, like myself, have had +occasion to know, undeniably so. I am here as a publicist; +not as a writer of memoirs: so, on this head, I do not now +propose to dilate or bear witness. I will only briefly +say that having at one period, and for more than the lifetime +of a generation, been in charge of large corporate +and financial interests, I have had much occasion to deal +with legislative bodies, National, State and Municipal. +That page of my experiences is the one I care least to recall, +and would most gladly forget. I am not going to +specify, or give names of either localities or persons; but, +knowing what I know, it is useless to approach me on this +topic with the usual good-natured and optimistic, if +somewhat unctuous and conventional, commonplaces on +general uprightness and the tendency to improved conditions +and a higher standard. I know better! I have +seen legislators bought like bullocks--they selling themselves. +I have watched them cover their tracks with a +cunning more than vulpine. I have myself been black-mailed +and sandbagged, while whole legislative bodies +watched the process, fully cognizant at every step of what +was going on. This, I am glad to say, was years ago. +The legislative conditions were then bad, scandalously +bad; nor have I any reason to believe in a regeneration +since. The stream will never rise higher than its source; +but it generally indicates the level thereof. In this case, +I can only hope that in my experience it failed so to do. +Running at a low level, the waters of that stream were +deplorably dirty.</p> + +<p>That the legislative branch of our government has fallen +so markedly in public estimation is not, I think, open to +denial. To my mind, under the conditions I have referred +to, such could not fail to be the case. It has, consequently, +lost public confidence. Hence this popular +demand for immediate legislation by the People,--this +twentieth-century appeal to the Agora and Forum methods +which antedate the era of Christ. It is true the world +outgrew them two thousand years ago, and they were +discarded; but, living in a progressive and not a reactionary +period, all that, we are assured, is changed! +The heart is no longer on the right-hand side of the body. +To secure desired results it is only necessary to start quite +fresh, as a mere preliminary discarding all lessons of experience.</p> + +<p>Such reasoning does not commend itself to my judgment. +On the contrary, the failure of the American +legislative to command an increasing public confidence, +while both natural and obvious, is, if my observation +guides me to conclusions in any degree correct, traceable +to two reasons. So far as government is concerned, the +law-making branch is assumed to be made up of the wisest +and the most expert. Meanwhile, it is as a matter of +fact chosen by the process I have not over-respectfully +referred to as the counting of noses; and, moreover, +by an unwritten law more binding than any in the Statute +Book, that counting of noses is with us localized. In +other words, when it comes to the choice of our law-makers, +reducing provincialism to a system we make the +local numerical majority supreme, and any one is considered +competent to legislate. He can do that, even +if by common knowledge he is incompetent or untrustworthy +in every other capacity. Localization thus becomes +the stronghold of mediocrity, the sure avenue to +office of the second-and third-rate man,--he who wishes +always to enjoy his share of a little brief authority, +to have, he also, a taste of public life. In this respect our +American system is, I submit, manifestly and incomparably +inferior to the system of parliamentary election +existing in Great Britain, itself open to grave criticism. +In Great Britain the public man seeks the constituency +wherever he can find it; or the constituency seeks its +representative wherever it recognizes him. The present +Prime Minister of Great Britain, for instance, represents +a small Scotch constituency in which he never resided, +but by which he was elected more than twenty years ago, +and through which he has since consecutively remained +in public life. On the other hand, look at the waste and +extravagance of the system now and traditionally in use +with us. To get into public life a man must not only +be in sympathy with the majority of the citizens of the +locality in which he lives, but he must continue to be in +sympathy with that majority; or, at any election, like +Mr. Cannon in the election just held, where for any +passing cause a majority of his neighbors in the locality +in which he lives may fail to support him, he must +go into retirement. I cannot here enlarge on this topic, +vital as I see it; I have neither space nor time, and must, +therefore, needs content myself with the "hints" of +Paracelsus. I will merely say that as an outcome this +localized majority system practically disfranchises the +more intelligent and the more disinterested, the more +individual and independent of every constituency. It +reduces their influence, and negatives their action. It +operates in like fashion everywhere. My field of +observation has been at home, here in America; but it +has been the same in France. For instance, while preparing +this address I came across the following in that +most respectable sheet, the London <i>Athenaum</i>. A very +competent Frenchman was there criticising a recent book +entitled "Idealism in France." Reference was by him +made to what, in France, is known as the "<i>scrutin +d'arrondissement,"</i> or, in other words, the district representative +system. The critic declares that this system +has there "created a party machine which has brought +the country under the sway of a sort of Radical-Socialist +Tammany, and bound together the voter and the deputy +by a tie of mutual corruption, the candidate promising +Government favors to the elector in return for his vote, +and the elector supporting the candidate who promises +most. Hence a policy in which ideas and ideals are +forgotten for personal and local interests, as each candidate +strives to outbid his rivals in the bribes that he +offers to his constituents. Hence, finally, a general +lowering in the tone of French home politics, every question +being made subservient by the deputies to that of +their reëlection."</p> + +<p>I would respectfully inquire if the above does not apply +word for word to the condition of affairs with which we +are familiar in America.</p> + +<p>But let me here again cite a concrete case, still fresh +in memory; nothing in abstract discussion tells so +much. Take the late Carl Schurz. If there was one +man in our public life since 1865 who showed a genius +for the parliamentary career, and who in six short years +in the United States Senate--a single term--displayed +there constructive legislating qualities of the highest +order, it was Carl Schurz. Yet at the end of that +single senatorial term, for local and temporary reasons +he failed to obtain the support of a majority, or the +support of anything approaching a majority, of those +composing the constituency upon which he depended. +Consequently he was retired from that parliamentary position +necessary for the accomplishment, through him, of +best public results. Yet at that very time there was no +man in the United States who commanded so large and +so personal a constituency as Carl Schurz; for he represented +the entire Germanic element in the United States. +Distributed as that element was, however, with its vote +localized under our law, unwritten as well as statutory, +there was no possibility of any constituency so concentrating +itself that Carl Schurz could be kept in the position +where he could continue to render services of the +greatest possible value to the country. I, therefore, +confidently here submit a doubt whether human ingenuity +could devise any system calculated to lead to a greater +waste of parliamentary ability, or more effectually keep +from the front and position of influence that legislative +superiority which was the arm of Aristotle to secure. +"Cant-patriotism," as your Francis Lieber termed it; +and, on this score, he waxed eloquent. "Do we not live +in a world of cant," he wrote from Columbia here to a +friend at the North seventy-five years ago, "that cant-patriotism +which plumes itself in selecting men from +within the State confines only. The truer a nation is, the +more essentially it is elevated, the more it disregards +petty considerations, and takes the true and the good +from whatever quarter it may come. Look at history +and you find the proof. Look around you, where you +are, and you find it now." And, were Lieber living to-day, +he would find a striking exemplification of the consequences +of a total and systematic disregard of this elementary +proposition in studying the United States Senate +from and through its reporters' gallery. The decline in +the standards of that body, whether of aspect, intelligence, +education or character, under the operation of the +local primary has been not less pronounced than startling. +The outcome and ripe result of "cant-patriotism," it +affords to the curious observer an impressive object-lesson,--provincialism +reduced to a political system; what a +witty and incisive French writer has recently termed the +"Cult of Incompetence." Speaking of conditions prevailing +not here but in France, this observer says:--"Democracy +in its modern form chooses its' delegates in +its own image.... What ought the character of the +legislator to be? The very opposite, it seems to me, of +the democratic legislator, for he ought to be well-informed +and entirely devoid of prejudice." Taken as a whole, +and a few striking individual exceptions apart, are those +composing the Senate of the United States conspicuous +in these respects? They certainly do not so impress the +casual observer. That, as a body, they increasingly +fail to command confidence and attention is matter of +common remark. Nor is the reason far to seek. It +would be the same as respects literature, science and art, +were their representatives chosen and results reached +through a count of noses localized, with selection severely +confined to home talent.</p> + +<p>I am well aware of the criticism which will at once be +passed on what I now advance. Local representation +through choice by numerical majorities within given confines, +geographically and mathematically fixed, is a system +so rooted and intrenched in the convictions and traditions +of the American community that even to question +its wisdom evinces a lack of political common-sense. +It in fact resembles nothing so much as the attempt +to whistle down a strongly prevailing October wind +from the West. The attempt so to do is not practical +politics! In reply, however, I would suggest that +such a criticism is wholly irrelevant. The publicist has +nothing to do with practical politics. It is as if it were +objected to a physician who prescribed sanitation against +epidemics that the community in question was by custom +and tradition wedded to filth and surface-drainage, and +could not possibly be induced to abandon them in favor +of any new-fangled theories of soap-and-water cleanliness. +So why waste time in prescribing such? Better +be common-sensed and practical, taking things as +they are. In the case suggested, and confronted with +such criticism, the medical adviser simply shrugs his +shoulders, and is silent; the alternative he knows is +inescapable. After a sufficiency of sound scourgings +the objecting community will probably know better, and +may listen to reason; in a way, conforming thereto. So, +also, the body politic. If Ephraim is indeed thus joined to +idols, the publicist simply shrugs his shoulders, and passes +on; possibly, after Ephraim has been sufficiently scourged, +he may in that indefinite future popularly known as "one +of these days" be more clear sighted and wiser.</p> + +<p>None the less, so far as our national parliamentary +system is concerned, could I have my way in a revision +of the Constitution, I would increase the senatorial term +to ten years, and I would, were such a thing within the +range of possibility, break down the system of the necessary +senatorial selection by a State of an inhabitant of the +State. If I could, I would introduce the British system. +For example, though I never voted for Mr. Bryan and +have not been in general sympathy with Mr. Roosevelt, +yet few things would give me greater political satisfaction +than to see Mr. Bryan, we will say, elected a Senator +from Arizona or Oregon, Mr. Roosevelt elected from +Illinois or Pennsylvania, President Taft from Utah or +Vermont. They apparently best represent existing feelings +and the ideals prevailing in those communities; +why, then, should they not voice those feelings and ideals +in our highest parliamentary chamber?</p> + +<p>As respects our House of Representatives, it would +in principle be the same. I do not care to go into the +rationale of what is known as proportional representation, +nor have I time so to do; but, were it in my power, I +would prescribe to-morrow that hereafter the national +House of Representatives should be constituted on the +proportional basis,--the choice of representatives to be +by States, but, as respects the nomination of candidates, +irrespective of district lines. Like many others, I am very +weary of provincial nobodies, "good men" locally known +to be such!</p> + +<p>As I have already said, in parliamentary government all +depends in the end on the truly representative character of +the legislative body. If that is as it should be, the rest +surely follows. The objective of Aristotle is attained.</p> + +<p>Exceeding the limits assigned to it, my discussion has, +however, extended too far. I must close. One word +before so doing. Why am I here? I am here,--a man +considerably exceeding in age the allotted threescore and +ten--to deliver a message, be the value of the same +greater or less. I greatly fear it is less. I would, however, +impart the lessons of an experience stretching over sixty +years,--the results of such observation as my intelligence +has enabled me to exercise. I do so, addressing +myself to a local institution of the advanced education. +Why? Because, looking over the country, diagnosing +its conditions as well as my capacity enables me, observing +the evolution of the past and forecasting, in as far +as I may, the outcome, I am persuaded that the future +of the country rests more largely in the hands of such +institutions as this than in those of any other agency or +activity. Do not say I flatter; for, while I can hope for +no advancement, I think I have not overstated the case; +I certainly have not overstated my conviction. There +has been no man who has influenced the course of modern +thought more deeply and profoundly than Adam Smith, +a Professor in a Scotch University of the second class. +So here in Columbia seventy years ago, Francis Lieber +prepared and published his "Manual of Political Ethics." +Adam Smith and Francis Lieber were but prototypes--examples +of what I have in mind. The days were +when the Senate of the United States afforded a rostrum +from which thinkers and teachers first formulated, and +then advanced, great policies. Those days, and I say +it regretfully, are past. Unless I am greatly mistaken, +however, a new political force is now asserting itself. I +have recently, at a meeting of historical and scientific associations +in Boston, had my attention forcibly called +to this aspect of the situation now shaping itself. I there +met young men, many, and not the least noticeable of +whom, came from this section. They inspired me with +a renewed confidence in our political future. Essentially +teachers,--I might add, they were publicists as well as +professors. Observers and students, they actively followed +the course of developing thought in Europe as in this country. +Exact in their processes, philosophical and scientific in +their methods, unselfish in their devotion, they were broad +of view. It is for them to realize in a future not remote +the University ideal pictured, and correctly pictured, from +this stage by one who here preceded me a short six months +ago. They, constituting the University, are the "hope +of the State in the direction of its practical affairs; in +teaching the lawyer the better standards of his profession, +his duty to place character above money making; +in teaching the legislator the philosophy of legislation, +and that the constructive forces of legislation carefully +considered should precede every effort to change an +existing status; in teaching those in official life, executive +and judicial, that demagogy, and theories of life +uncontrolled by true principles, do not make for success, +when final success is considered, but that, if they did +lead to success, they should be avoided for their inherent +imperfection.... The province of the University is +to educate citizenship in the abstract."</p> + +<p>It is the presence of this class, to those composing which +I bow as distinctly of a period superior to mine, that you +owe my presence to-day,--whatever that presence +may be worth. I regard their existence and their coming +forward in such institutions as this University of South +Carolina, as the arc of the bow of promise spanning the +political horizon of our future.</p> + +<p>Through you, to them my message is addressed.</p> +</td></tr></table> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's 'Tis Sixty Years Since, by Charles Francis Adams + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 'TIS SIXTY YEARS SINCE *** + +This file should be named 8sxys10h.htm or 8sxys10h.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8sxys11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8sxys10ah.htm + +Produced by Afra Ullah, Sjaani and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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