coln, in his quality of Commander-in- in their business again. They are out Chief, understands this, and makes the of business now. Border State Unionists understand that every thing must give way to the necessity of putting an end to the rebellion forthwith by the employment of all the means which God and nature have put in our power, the better it will be for him, the better for the nation, and the better for the Border States themselves, if they are wise. I think that when firmly told there must be an end to this conditional Unionism, this loyalty with a price, those States will have the wisdom to see on which side their real interests lie. But, at all events, the question should be settled. Better they should go over to the rebels at once, than prevent the extinction of the rebellion through their conditional Unionism. But it is with Northern out-criers for the Constitution and the Union that the present inquiry is chiefly concerned. These men want the Union 'as it was.' What was it? What was it, in the only thing that is in their thoughts and wishes when they raise the cry? It was a Union controlled by the South through alliance with a Northern party styling itself Democratic. It was the whole power of the Federal Government wielded for the aggrandizement of slavery, its extension and perpetual maintenance as an element of political domination. This is what the Union was. This is what these Democrats want again—in order that they may again enjoy such a share (never an equal one) in the honors and emoluments of office as their oligarchic masters may allow them. This is all they think of or desire when they cry for the Union as it was—a chance for loaves and fishes again at the hands of those who for thirty years have used them and despised them. They want to be used and despised again. Hence, though they talk about putting an end to the rebellion, they want it put an end to only in such a way as shall secure the restoration of the slave power to its old position, and of themselves to their old relations with it. This would set them up Hence, while Governor Stanly, in North-Carolina, is telling the people there that the rebellion must be crushed though it involve the destruction of every Southern institution,' and that the maintenance of the supremacy of the National Government and the integrity of the national domain is worth more than all the lives and all the property of rebels of whatever sort; and while Andrew Johnson is declaring the same thing in Tennessee, these Northern traitors are speaking tenderly of the rebellion as an 'irregular opposition'— excited and almost justified by Northern aggressions on Southern rights -- which ought to be so met on our part as not to preclude the South from a return to its ancient domination. They insist that the struggle shall be conducted with the least possible 'irritation' of rebel feelings and with a sacred regard to their slave rights. They bewail the enormities perpetrated by Congress and the President against the rebels, the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, the receiving and feeding of fugitive slaves, the employment of negroes as Government teamsters, the repeal in the Senate of the law prohibiting free negroes to carry the mail, the legalizing of the testimony of blacks, the attempt to create an Abolition party in the Border States' by the offer of compensation to the owners in such States as may adopt the policy of emancipation, and lastly, the Confiscation Act, which takes away the property of rebels and sets free their slaves. These things they denounce in the bitterest terms - some of them as 'wounding to the sensibilities of the South,' and some of them as atrocious outrages on the rights of the rebels, calculated to drive them to such desperation' that they will never consent, on any entreaty of their Northern friends, to accept their old position of political control in the Union as it was.' Some of these men talk, indeed, of putting down the rebellion by the strong arm; but they talk a great deal more of putting down Abolitionism—which with them means not only hostility to slavery, but even the disposition to acquiesce in the military necessity of its extinction. They sometimes go to the length of talking of 'hanging the secessionists;' but then, you will observe, they always talk of hanging the 'Abolitionists' along with them. They want them to dangle at the other end of the same rope. It is easy, however, to perceive that the hanging of the secessionists is not the emphatic thing-with many not even the real thing, but only an ebullition of vexation at them for having spoiled the old Democratic trade—a figurative hanging - often, indeed, only a rhetorical tub thrown out prudentially to the popular whale, who might not be quite content to hear them talk of hanging only on one side but the hanging of the Abolitionists, there is no mistaking their feelings about that; there is a hearty smack of malignant relish on their lips when they speak of it. These men are as foolish as they are traitorous in their cry for the Union as it was. The Union as it was' is a thing that never can be again. They say the South wants nothing but guarantee for the security of its constitutional slave rights if that had been given they would never have taken up arms; give them that and they will lay them down. Nothing more false. Just before the secession of South-Carolina, Pryor telegraphed from Washington: 'We can get the Crittenden Compromise, but we don't want it.' 'No matter what compromise the North offers,' said Mason, 'the South must find a way to defeat it.' These are facts undeniable and undenied. They demonstrate the falsehood and folly of the men who talk of bringing the rebels back into the Union by concessions. The South did not want guarantees; it wanted separation. It determined to set up an independent slave empire, and no concession you can make will lead them to abandon their determination. Undo the recent legislation of Congress, reëstablish slavery in the District of Columbia, and repeal the prohibition of slavery in the Territories, and you make the Union 'as it was,' so far as the North is concerned; but will that bring back the South? No. Go still further, and make the Union more than 'it was' for them; yield them the principle of the Lemmon Case, and so allow them to call the roll of their slaves under the shadow of Bunker Hill, and to convert New-York Battery into a slave-mart for the convenience of slave-breeding Virginia and the slave-buying Gulf States; and will these concessions lead the rebels to lay down their arms and return into the Union? No. They will never lay down their arms until they are conquered by overwhelming military force. They will never be in the Union until subjugated. And I think the rebellion will never be extinguished without extinguishing slavery. Then, and not before, will the conditions begin to exist of lasting peace and true union between the South and the North. Then, and not before, will there be genuine prosperity, a true social order, and a decent civilization in the South. And since the Union as it was' is a thing that never can be again, it is not worth while to concern ourselves overmuch about the Constitution as it is,' so far as those who raise the outcry for it have any determinate meaning in their cry. For here, too, the reëstablishment of the political power of slavery is the only point in their view. The Constitution -in its great substance, in its essential principles, in the general frame of government it establishes, in its organization of powers, in its main provisions, and in most of its details — is an instrument which probably few wise and patriotic Americans would care to see altered, and none would wish to see subverted. But the constitutions, of all governments, written or unwritten, (and each sort has its special advantages and disadvantages,) are more or less subject to changemust change and should change — with the progress of society. The Constitu tion of the United States provides for its own amendment by the people by whom and for whom it was framed. Many amendments have already been made; more are likely in time to be found needful. And no one but a fool will swear blindly by the Constitution as it is,' if he is thereby to be precluded from voting for such improvements as time and circumstances may make important and desirable. But these traitorous traders in the phrase have (as before said) but one single point in view. In the whole compass of the Constitution their devotion embraces nothing in their vows for its unchangeable sacredness except its recognition of slavery, its 'provisions for the rendition of fugitive slaves, and for counting five Southern chattels as three white citizens in the basis for Federal representation. These are provisions that must not be changed. This is what they mean, and all they mean, when they shout for the Constitution as it is.' So sacred is the Constitution in this one sole respect, that they have rung every change of protest from solemn remonstrance to frantic howls of wrath - against the recent law for taking from rebels the slaves that dig trenches and grow food for them while they are fighting for the overthrow of the Constitution. And the only vision of a Constitution 'as it is' which looms up to their views and wishes in the future 'the Mecca of their hearts' fond dream'—is the overthrow of this legislation, and the reinstatement of slaveholders in their old rights fortified and extended by Supreme Court decisions carrying slavery and their slave laws into all the Territories, with the right of transit and sale for slaves in all the free States. But most wise men believe that in the end of the war there is not likely to be much slavery to need constitutional protection. And since our nation at its very birth solemnly proclaimed the doctrine that of right 'all men are born free and equal' as before the law, and have an equal right 'to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,' perhaps these Democrats may be willing to let these provisions in behalf of slavery be dropped out of the Constitution when they shall have become no longer any thing but a dead letter with no power of political victory and reward in them. As a living contradiction to the Declaration of Independence they have been the source of all our woes. It is not necessary to blame the framers of our Constitution for introducing them. They did it for the best, as they thought. They themselves hoped and believed the necessity for such provisions would long before this time cease to exist. They little dreamed what mighty mischiefs, what long contentions, what bitterness, what crimes, what bloody horrors they were entailing on their descendants. They little dreamed what a terrible Nemesis would so soon avenge the expedient and temporary introduction (as they thought) of a contradiction to the principles of liberty into the organic law of a free nation whose first foundations they themselves had laid in the solemn proclamation of man's inalienable rights. Is it too much to hope that, by and by, when there shall (as God grant) no longer be any slavery to need protection, these Democrats will be willing that this contradiction should be removed, by making a slight alteration in 'the Constitution as it is'? Let us trust they will. It is true the Democratic party for twenty years has had but one single principle. Its whole life, activity, object, and occupation has centred and turned on the one sole point of upholding slavery, echoing its doctrines, asserting its rights, obeying its behests, extending its area, and aggrandizing its power; and so thoroughly imbued with the spirit of their Southern masters became the members of the party, that in ten years past I have found but few men calling themselves Democrats and acting with the party who were not in mind and heart, in principle and feeling, proslavery men! Pro-slavery Democrats! Four-cornered triangles! Square circles! So the sense of contradiction always struck me. Yet for most of of Democrats have been subjected to them I could not feel any thing of that the influence of Southern masters who intense scorn with which John Ran- long ago out-grew and renounced the dolph of Roanoke more than thirty sentiments prevalent in the early days years ago branded the Northern ‘dough- of John Randolph: and I have been face' in Congress, when pointing his charitable in most cases (not in all) to skinny finger at his sneaking victim, he their inability to see the contradiction exclaimed: 'Mr. Speaker, I envy neither between the ideas of Democracy and the head nor the heart of the Northern Pro-Slaveryism. Let us hope for better man who rises here to defend slavery things in time to come. With their on principle.' I remembered the prodi- bondage, their love of bondage will go. giously demoralizing effect of slavery on It has been passing from the hearts of the moral sense and sentiments. I re- the great, honest masses of them ever membered that the present generation since Saint Sumter's Day. MACCARONI AND CANVAS. A ROMAN VETTURA. VIII. Ir a man's mind and purse were in such state that he didn't care where he went, and was able to go there; if the weather was fine, and the aforesaid man could eat, drink, and sleep rough, and really loved picturesqueness in all his surroundings for its own sake-that man should travel by vettura. Not one of the vetture advertised by a Roman 'to go to all parts of the world;' not one of those traveling carriages with a seat for milady's maid and milord's man, with courier beside the driver and a vettura dog on top of the baggage, at the very sight of which, beggars spring from the ground as if by magic, and the customhouse officers assume airs of state. No, no, No! What is meant by a vettura is a broken-down carriage, seats inside for four English or six Italians, a seat outside along with the driver for one American or three Italians, and places to hold on to, for two or three more, Italians. The harness of the horses consists of an originally leather harness, with rope commentaries, string emendations, twine notes, and ragged explanations of the primary work; in plain English, it's an edition of harness with nearly all the original leather expurgated. Well, you enter into agreement with the compeller of horses, alias vetturino, to go to a certain town a certain distance from Rome. The vehicle he drives is popularly reported to leave regularly for that town; you know that regularly means regularly- uncertainly. You go and see the vetturino, say in that classic spot, the piazza Pollajuólo; you find him, after endless inquiries, in a short jacket, in a wine-shop, smoking a throatscorcher of a short pipe, and you arrange with him as regards the fare, for he has different prices for different people. Little children and soldiers pay half-price, as you will read on your railroad ticket to Frascati, and priests pay what they please, foreigners all that can be squeezed out of them, and Italians at fixed price. As for the horses that drag this vettura. Olà! I hope the crows will spare them one day longer. The longsuffering traveler pauses here, reader, wipes the dust from his brow, and exclaims: 'Blessed be bull-fights; for they use up that class of horses which in pious America drag oysters to their graves, and in papal Italy drag the natives to their lairs outside of Rome!' You will toil along the dusty plainhot, weary, worn-out-but anon you begin the ascent of the mountains; then, as you go up, the air grows purer and cooler. You descend from the vettura, and on foot tramp up the road, perhaps beside the driver, who is innately thankful to you for saving his horses a heavy pull; and with him, or a fellow-traveler, joke off the weary feeling you had in the low grounds. Again you are ascending a still steeper part of the mountain. Now oxen are attached to the old rumbling rattle-trap of a carriage, and it is creak, pull, yell, and cheer, until you find yourself above the clouds - serene and calm-away from dust, heat, turmoil, bustle, in an old locanda, in a shaded room, a flask of cool red wine before you, the south wind rustling the leaves in the lattice, the bell of the old Franciscan convent sending its clear silver notes away over valley and mountain from its sleepy old home under the chestnut trees, the crowing of cocks away down the mountain, the hum of bees in the flower-garden under the windowthe blessed, holy calm of the country! It is the end aimed at that makes vettura - traveling jolly, for it can well be imagined, as an Englishman justly said of it: 'It is just as good a vehicle to go to the gallows in, as any I've ever been in, I am sure.' But it is equally certain that the quiet joys revealed to the man who travels by it-always be it understood, the man who don't care where he goes or when he gets there-are many. These quiet joys consist of exquisite paintings, sketches, scenes, landscapes, or whatever else you choose to call them, wherein shrines, asterias or taverns, locandas or inns; costumes; shadow of grand old trees; the old Roman stone sarcophagus turned into a water-trough, into which falls the fountain, and where the tired horses thrust their dusty muzzles, drawing up water with a rattling noise, while the south wind plays through the trees, and they switch the flies from their flanks with their tails; the old priest, accosted by the three small boys-they are asking his blessing,' said Miss Hicks-'they are asking him for a pinch of snuff,' said Caper--and when she saw him produce his snuff-box, she acquiesced; the winecarts instead of swill-carts; the Italian peasants instead of Paddies; agriculture instead of commerce; churches and monasteries in place of cotton-mills; Roman watch-towers instead of factorychimneys; trees instead of board-yards; vineyards and olive-groves in place of blue-grass and persimmon trees; golden oranges in place of crab-apples and choke - pears; zigarri scelti instead of Cabañas--but this is the reverse of the medal; let us stop before we ruin our first position. It was warm in Rome. The English had fled. The Romans, pure blood, once more wandered toward sunsetnot after it-on the Pincian Hill, and trod with solid step the gravel of Il Pincio Liberato. In the Spanish square around the fountain called Barcaccia, the lemonaders are encamped; a hint of lemon, a supposition of sugar, a certainty of water-what more can one expect for a baioccho? From midday until three o'clock in the afternoon, scarcely a place of business, store or shop, is open in Rome. The inhabitants are sleeping, clad as Monsieur Dubufe conceived the original Paradisians should be clad. At sunset, as you turn down the Via Condotti, you see chairs and tables placed outside the Café Greco for its frequenters. The interior rooms are too, too close. Even that penetralia, the 'Omnibus,' can not compare with the unwalled room outside, with its stargemmed ceiling, and the cool breeze eddying away the segar-smoke; so its usual occupants are all outside. At one of these tables sat Caper, Rocjean, and their mutual friend, Dexteran animal painter-the three in council, discussing the question: 'Where shall we go this summer?' Rocjean strongly advocated the cause of a little town in the Volscian mountains, called Segni, assuring his friends that two artists of the French Academy had discovered it the summer before. |
