THREE more questions, please, and then I will not trouble you more. What you have already said seems to be true, and yet so new and so strange are these revelations to my ears—stranger than any fiction I ever read in the works of Sir Walter Scott or others—that had you not substantiated each proposition with arguments drawn from antecedent probability, from sign, and from example, I could scarcely have believed them. But three queries yet remain in my mind. Allowing all that you have said to be veritable history, how comes it that the South has not denounced the Democratic party for its perfidy in making promises which it never fulfilled? How comes it that, with such a weight of sin upon it, the party can still be kept alive? And, from all your study of history, what deductions do you draw as to the final decline and fall—if such a thing is to be—of this Republic?
Your questions are plain, frank, yet pointed, and I will endeavor to answer each in as plain and frank a manner. First, as to the truth of what we have already said, if the statements and propositions related to any other than a political subject, there would be no more doubt of their truthfulness than of any statement or proposition made by Gibbon, Macaulay, Bancroft, or any other historian. But upon the two subjects of politics and religion, men are generally so set in their opinion that blindness in the one and bigotry in the other seems to be as natural to the human mind "as for grass to be green, or skies to be blue, on bright clear days in June." Nor are such statements ever allowed to go unchallenged, however true they may be, unless the parties have been so long dead and buried that no sympathy remains. What Macaulay says of political parties and of church influences in his History of England, is just as true as any other part of his admirable work, and yet the work had scarcely made its appearance before the most violent epithets were hurled at him because of these. Had Gibbon written his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ten or even five centuries earlier, it would have received most bitter denunciation from all who yet sympathized with the wrongs which Gibbon pointed out, and even so late as the eighteenth century, when his work was first published, it did not escape censure. While Bancroft only wrote of the long, long ago, in his capital History of the United States, nobody questioned his statements or deductions; but as he approached nearer to the present, and had of necessity to say something of the acts and influence of political parties and of churches, he awoke the sleeping demons—blindness and bigotry—and from thenceforth there was more or less growl whenever a new volume appeared. I revive and mention these facts now, only to show you, my friend, that I am not at all surprised at your inquiries; nor shall I be surprised if the last six chapters of this volume, and, because of these, the whole book, are most violently and bitterly denounced by the entire Democratic press of this country, and by every religious and political journal in this country and Europe whose special province it is to uphold foreign religious and political influence. With these as introductory remarks, I will now proceed to answer your inquiries.
1. How comes it that the South has not denounced the Democratic party for its perfidy in making promises which it never fulfilled?
We have no sympathy now, and never had, with rebellion, as such; and, while it continued, helped to fight it as best we could; but we had then, and have now, a very deep sympathy with those who were blindly led to their own destruction by wicked, designing men. To no people in all of history are the words of our blessed Saviour more applicable than to the people of the South, when he said, "Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!"
We have heretofore spoken of Jefferson Davis, his Cabinet, and of others with whom he advised, as high-minded, honorable gentlemen. This character they had before the war, maintained it during the war, and such as survived continued to maintain it after the war. After the war, Mr. Davis had but little to say of the events of the past. He preferred not to talk of them at all, as he often said to those who broached the subject, and never would talk of them except to his most confidential friends. He desired to live a quiet, peaceful, retired, Christian life, in the bosom of his little family (and no man ever had a truer or more faithful helpmeet than Mrs. Davis proved to be to her husband), nor would he allow himself to talk of politics at all, as before stated, except to a very few. From one of these few we have it, as from Mr. Davis's own lips, that no one felt, nor could feel, more keenly than he did, the perfidy, the meanness, the baseness which had been practised upon the South by certain leading Democratic politicians of the North; and yet he could not but recollect that others, as they had opportunity, had aided him and their cause to the full extent of their ability, and had the will to aid them a thousand times more, if they could have done so with safety to themselves, personally and pecuniarily. This last recollection took the keen edge off the first, and left a sort of dulcamara—a bitter-sweet—to rest upon his mind.
And, besides this, only a choice of evils was left to him and his followers. Their own party of Secession having been destroyed, only the Democratic and Republican parties remained. To side with or go into the Republican party was out of the question. Such as did, would be charged with, or suspected of, treachery by both sides. To denounce and yet expect to get into, or cooperate with, the Democratic party, was out of the question. No one can regard as a friend one that curses him. So, you see, they were walled in, as it were, on every side, and, as a choice of evils, thought it best to go into the Democratic party—to which most of them had belonged all their lives, previous to the rebellion—to hold their peace, and to "wait for the good time coming which the voice of certain siren leaders still whispered into their ears. We say this not in a poetic, but in a historic sense; for we know it to be true that, after the close of the rebellion, prominent leaders of the Democratic party North said to prominent gentlemen of the South that so soon as they could get the general government once again into their own hands, all Southern claims upon the government, because of the war, should be adjusted, the same as Northern claims had been; all bonds issued by the Confederate government during the war should be placed upon precisely the same footing as the bonds issued by the United States government during the same period; and that slavery should be restored as it was before the war, or those who had owned slaves, or their legal representatives, should be paid full value for every slave they had lost. When it was said to them that to do all this would require several alterations in the United States Constitution as it now stands, their ready reply was, "Only put the government into our hands, and we'll find means to amend the Constitution just as readily as to make laws, for all needed purposes. Your wrongs and ours will find a way, or make one!" With such assurances, made over and over again in the most solemn manner, how could a Southern man find it in his heart to denounce the Democratic party, notwithstanding all the wrongs he had suffered from it?
Some seventeen years have now passed since the close of that war. As a matter of history it is well known that over ninety-five per cent, of those who had taken an active part in the Confederate cause went into the Democratic party, and since that time have steadily cooperated with that party. A few, a very few, could not, as they said, forgive the treachery and the wrongs of the Democratic party towards the South, and these went into the Republican party—some honestly, no doubt; others, only because they thought it would "pay best."
Another answer to your query would be, that in not denouncing, but by going into, the Democratic party a very large proportion of Southern men were only returning to their first love. In the days of Whiggery several of the Southern States gave Whig majorities; but when that party died, because of its coquetting with slavery, and the Republican party took its place, the leading principle of which new party was opposition to slavery, first, as to its extension, and then as to its continuance, nearly the whole vote of the South became Democratic. This was very plainly shown in the vote cast for Franklin Pierce and Winfield Scott (the last Whig candidate), in 1852, when the former received two hundred and fifty-four electoral votes and the latter only forty-two. Indeed, it was this fact, and the great preponderance of Democratic votes at that election, that gave to the Secessionists of the South, and their sympathizers, aiders, and abettors of the North, the encouragement which caused them to inaugurate a rebellion in 1860. It was this, together with the fact that out of the thirty-two preceding years—from the election of Jackson in 1828 to that of Lincoln in 1860—the Democrats had held the power twenty-four years and the Whigs only eight. They had grown to look upon the Democratic power as invincible, and their European coadjutors had been made to believe that the time had finally come when the hated representative form of the United States government could be changed into a slaveocracy, then into an aristocracy, and then into a kingly form of government; while a censorship could be placed upon the press so effectual, that from thenceforth it could never do European sovereignties or the Roman Catholic Church any harm. Those who only saw the outside of the late rebellion supposed that it had its incipiency in 1860, whereas those who knew of its inside workings (as we all know now), knew that preparations had been going on for eight years previous, and that both Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan, from 1852 to 1860, had only been used as tools or instruments by which to forward these preparations. The result of the Presidential vote in 1856 only made those in the secret of the secession movement (both in this country and in Europe) the more determined to strike the blow in 1860; for they saw by that vote that, while their candidate, Buchanan, was elected by a majority of fifty-two electoral votes (Buchanan one hundred and seventy-four, Fremont et al. one hundred and twenty-two), yet the popular vote stood Buchanan 1,838,169, Fremont et al. 2,215,498, being really against their candidate, on the popular vote, to the extent of 377,329 votes. This strange result was owing to the fact that, while all the Southern States voted for their candidate, and several Northern States as well, they were all by small majorities; whereas such of the Northern States as voted for Fremont and others did so by large majorities. Had they delayed the strike another four years, it would have been forever too late.
So soon as the secret commenced to ooze out among the masses, it caused no little commotion in the Democratic party itself, and when they came to name presidential candidates in 1860, while those in the secret boldly put forward John C. Breckenridge (who afterwards became a rebel general in their army), the more timid and doubting named Stephen A. Douglas, while those who were yet more frightened at the prospect of coming events named Bell of Tennessee. The Republicans named Abraham Lincoln. The result showed one hundred and eighty electoral votes for Lincoln and one hundred and twenty-three for all the others (again the South voting solid against the Republican nominee), while the popular vote showed 1,866,352 for Lincoln, and 2,810,501 for all the others. The South by that time became so thoroughly identified with the Democratic party, and the Democratic party with the South, that, like man and wife, their interests were thenceforth inseparable, while the groomsman and bridesmaid (fitly represented by European sovereignty and the Roman Catholic Church) stood at their sides, or close behind, tapping them on the back.
And just here let us say, lest we may be misunderstood, that when we speak of the Catholic Church it is not by way of disparagement, so far as their religion is concerned, but only and purely as one of the instruments by which European sovereigns hope to work the downfall of this nation, or rather of the representative form of its government and the liberty of its press. Against the religious faith and the religious zeal of the Catholics we have not a word to say, though ourself a Protestant. History, as well as our own eyes and ears while travelling in Europe, has proven to us that with every ounce of corruption to be found in that Church there is a full pound of virtue, and, better than this, so far as we know, cannot be said of any other church organization. We cannot forget, nor overlook the facts, that while Tetzel was peddling indulgences and Luther was thundering against them, thousands of Sisters of Charity (God bless them!) were waiting upon the sick and dying in Paris and elsewhere, and doing what they could to make life tolerable and death endurable to thousands and tens of thousands; that while scores were being tortured and burned by the Spanish inquisition, thousands of faithful Catholic missionaries, in all parts of the world, were enlightening their fellow-men, easing their burdens of life, and pointing them to a hope beyond the grave. Nor can we overlook the fact that other religious bodies have been just as bigoted and just as intolerant as the Catholics, whenever they have had the power and opportunity; that John Calvin and his followers burned Servetus, at Geneva, with just as little compunction of conscience as the Catholics burned Huss at Constance; that Luther and his coadjutors granted to Philip, the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, a dispensation for polygamy, rather than lose his support, while Clement VII., Pope of Rome, refused a like dispensation to Henry VIII., King of England; that this same Henry, who was acknowledged at the time as the head of the Church of England, divorced two wives and beheaded two others; and that even here, in our own New England, when the Puritans had absolute power, they ordered delicate Quaker women tied to a cart-tail and whipped upon the bare back, and others hung, for no other reason than that they chose to worship God in a different way from themselves. A somewhat careful study of the rise and progress of all religions, and of all religious sects, convinces us that bigotry, intolerance, and persecution are alike common to all whenever they hold absolute power, and that in this respect the Catholics are no worse than others.
And yet, while saying all this, no less in justice to ourself than to them, we must not overlook the fact that Catholicism is the religion of a large majority of the sovereigns and princes of Europe; that absolutism (and consequent opposition to anything like a representative form of government, or the liberty of the press) is one of its cardinal principles of faith and practice; that, being so largely supported by European sovereigns, it would naturally be disposed to aid them in any way within its power; and that to aid them in overthrowing our representative form of government, and our boasted liberty of the press, would be no violation of their own cherished principles, but in exact accordance therewith. Hence in all our calculations as to influence and power, without having the least prejudice against the religion of the Catholics, we must invariably put them down as in favor of absolutism, and as only using, in this country, the name democracy (which means the reverse of absolutism) as a cloak to their real sentiments. Of course in this we only refer to the bishops, priests, and few educated laymen of the Catholic Church; for, as to the great mass of its adherents, they merely follow the dictum of others, without knowing or caring about the meaning of names, and would vote under any name, or for anybody, if only told to do so by their church officials.
It is a matter of public notoriety—indeed of public record—that, under the name of "Societies for the Propagation of the Faith," the sovereigns of Europe, and their more wealthy subjects, have sent, and are every year sending, large sums of money to this country. A single one of these societies at Lyons, France (as published in their own reports at the time), sent in this way $65,438 in 1839; $163,000 in 1840; $177,000 in 1842; $207,218 in 1843, while correspondingly large sums were doubtless sent from Spain, Austria, and other European countries during the same years; and from that time until the present every year. A portion of this was and is undoubtedly contributed from the purest of religious motives; but by far the larger portion, only with the view to subvert our representative form of government and the liberty of the press. 'All these are matters of history, and as such come legitimately within the province of any historian, and of any reader, who, aside from religious or political prejudices, would carefully weigh facts with a view to arrive at undoubted conclusions.
And thus, my friend (the reader), have we, by reciting historic facts, and through the processes of deduction and induction, shown you very plainly "How it comes that the South has not denounced the Democratic party for its perfidy in making promises which it never fulfilled;" and thus, my friend, I have, I think, fully and fairly answered your first inquiry.
TO answer this question, we would first direct your attention to the United States census returns for the years 1850,'60,'70, and 80. We only go back four decades, for from these we can draw correct conclusions just as well as if we commenced at an earlier date. These returns show that for the ten years preceding 1850 there arrived in this country from Europe 1,713,251 persons; for the ten preceding 1860, 2,598,214; for the ten preceding 1870, 2,491,209; and for the ten preceding 1880, 2,742,137. Of those that came from Catholic countries, 95 out of every 100 went into the Democratic party. Of those that came from Germany and other Protestant countries, probably about one-half went into the Democratic party; for even though they came from nominally Protestant countries, fully one-half of the emigrants from those countries are Catholics. Of those who are Protestants in Europe, but few join the Democratic party after reaching this country. Estimating that one out of every five of these emigrants becomes a voter, and that 85 out of every 100 of these voters joined the Democratic party, we should have as added to that party from naturalization alone, for the ten years preceding 1850, 290,753 votes; for the ten preceding 1860, 431,696 votes; for the ten preceding 1870, 424,505 votes; and for the ten preceding 1880, 466,164 votes. Meanwhile, while these immense additions are being made from year to year to the Democratic party from naturalization, it loses large numbers every year from increased civilization. The Whig party was, and the Republican party is, the party of enlightenment; and as foreigners, and especially their children, become more enlightened as to the advantages of a republican or representative form of government—more and more enlightened as to the advantages of a free press—they leave that party and go into the Republican; or, what is more frequent, their children, having been educated in our free schools, learn to love freedom of thought as well as of action, and, on becoming of age, join the Republican party, and some of them join Protestant churches. But for this retroactive process, which is constantly going on, this country long ago would have been completely under foreign influence, and we never should have been permitted to have celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of American independence.
Now let us take a retrospective view and see what has been the practical outcome of these two antagonistic principles. In 1852 the number of Democratic votes cast for President was 1,601,474; number of Whig votes, 1,542,403; total, 3,143,877; population of the United States in 1850, 23,191,876. In 1860, number of Republican votes, 1,866,352; Democratic and all others, 2,810,501; total, 4,676,853; population that year, 31,443,321. In 1872, number of Republican votes, 3,597,070; Democratic, 2,834,078; total, 6,431,148; population for 1870, 38,558,371. In 1880, number of Republican votes, 4,450,921; Democratic, 4,447,888; total, 8,898,809; population for 1880, 50,155,783.
The immigration for the last few years has been exceedingly large, reaching the enormous figures of 457,257 for 1880, and 669,431 for 1881. Among these were 2,600 Jews from Russia, of whom it is announced there are 10,000 more to come soon, and for whom contract has already been made with the Hamburg line of steamers. Of these it is safe to calculate that 95 out of every 100 voters will go into the Democratic party.
As showing the effect of the retroactive process heretofore spoken of, whereby enlightenment turns Catholics into Protestants and Democrats into Republicans, it may be stated (as census returns show) that while in 1801 there were in the two Protestant countries of Great Britain and the United States about 6,000,000 Roman Catholics to about 15,000,000 Protestants, or about one to two and a-half, in 1880 there were about 12,000,000 Catholics to about 74,000,000 Protestants, or about one to six. In using the word enlightenment in connection with the words Republican and Protestant, we would by no means have it inferred that all Democrats and all Catholics are ignorant. In both are to be found men of the highest intelligence and of the most exalted character; but these form the exception rather than the rule—the leading few, who have their own purposes to subserve, rather than the following many, with whom party is madness only for the benefit of the few.
Now, my friend (the reader), you can begin to see, can you not, why it is that the Democratic party, notwithstanding all its sins, has still been kept alive? But yet there is one more item to be added to account for its continued existence: namely, that it is not only supplied with recruits from Europe, but with money as well. We have heretofore shown from official sources how many hundreds of thousands of dollars have been, and are constantly being sent from Europe to this country to "propagate" the Catholic faith—which is, indeed, but another name and another way of propagating the Democratic party—and but for the extreme secrecy of their movements, we might show just as plainly that other hundreds of thousands are sent here at every Presidential election by European capitalists, European manufacturers, and European sovereigns, with a view to influence our elections. Bribery at elections being made a misdemeanor in nearly all the States, movements of this character have to be conducted with extreme secrecy; but that the thing has been done for the past forty years (ever since the inauguration of the protective system by Henry Clay), and is still being done, there is not a shadow of doubt; nor is there a doubt that this is another one of the reasons why the Democratic party is kept alive. A single Hartford convention killed the Federal party; a single set of pro-slavery resolutions, adopted by a National convention, killed the Whig party; and the part which the Democratic party took in the late rebellion would have killed it so effectually that no resurrection could have ever reached it, but for the support it has had, and still has, from European powers, through emigration and through the Catholic Church, and with the once avowed, and now no less steadily held, object of overthrowing our representative form of government, and of destroying the liberty of our press. Thus, my friend (the reader), your second query is answered beyond, as we think, all possibility of successful contradiction.
YOU DRAW AS TO THE FINAL DECLINE AND FALL, IF SUCH A THING IS EVER TO BE, OF THIS REPUBLIC?
TO the casual reader, the relationship that this question bears to "Secrets of the Late Rebellion, now Revealed for the First Time," may seem very obscure, but to our mind, that sees the end from the beginning, the relationship seems very close, as our readers will also see, we think, before we close the answer.
Patrick Henry, in one of his outbursts of eloquence, said he "knew of no way to judge of the future save by the past." Taking this as our guide, let us inquire somewhat into the history of former republics, and see if we cannot gather therefrom some probabilities as to the future of our own, and some light by which to guide our own footsteps meanwhile. Our plan and limited space will only permit us to take a bird's-eye view of four—Athens, Sparta, Thebes, and Rome—but even from these alone we may learn some useful lessons.
The republic of Athens came into existence immediately after the voluntary death of King Codrus, about 1068 years before Christ. Codrus having been made to believe, through an oracle, that if he sacrificed his own life, his country would be victorious over the Heraclidæ, with whom they were then engaged in war, disguised himself as a peasant, and, purposely quarrelling with a soldier of the hostile army, procured the death he wished. His sons, Medon and Nileus, disputed the succession to the crown; and the Athenians, taking advantage of this dispute, determined to set aside the crown altogether, and thenceforth have a representative or republican form of government. Hence arose the Athenian Republic. Though they abolished the title of king, out of the high regard they had for Codrus, they appointed his son Medon chief magistrate for life, and even made the office hereditary, so that for three hundred and thirty-one years thereafter the chief magistrate continued in that family. They then abolished the perpetual archonship, and made the tenure of the office ten years. This term they reduced erelong to one year, and, instead of one archon or chief magistrate, appointed nine, with equal authority. Meanwhile their government became so purely democratic as to become utterly despotic, and the tyranny of the mob was found to be more oppressive than the restraints of a single ruler. Then followed the laws of Draco, which, because of their severity, were said to have been "written in blood." He made no distinction of offences, but punished all equally with death. He weakened the authority of the Areopagus, and instituted a new tribunal, in which judges were given almost unlimited power, and virtually made brutes. The severity of his laws defeated their own object.
Such was the condition of things when the great lawmaker, Solon, appeared on the stage, five hundred and ninety-four years before Christ. The laws which he framed and gave the Athenians were not, as he said himself, "the best possible, but the best which the Athenians were capable of receiving." To the rich he gave offices and dignities; to the poor he gave the right of suffrage, whereby in the framing of laws, the election of magistrates, the making of war or peace, the forming of treaties and alliances, and in all that regarded either religious or civil policy, they should have an equal voice with the rich, and, being much the greater in number, their class could overbalance the other three, though out of their class could no nomination be made to any office of honor or profit. A senate of four hundred members held an intermediate place between office-holders and the people, and served as a restraint upon both. The arbitrary power of the judges, as established by Draco, Solon restrained, and made the court of Areopagus the chief judicial tribunal, and gave it also a tutorial power over all the youth of the republic. Instead of having an egotistical, half-educated state school superintendent to do such duty (as sometimes found in this country), this court appointed masters and governors for the youth, and superintended their education. The Areopagus also inquired into the life and morals of all who held offices in the state, and such as could not stand the scrutiny were not only incapacitated for employ, but declared infamous. His laws also prohibited all imprisonment for debt, and contained many other provisions in which legislators have made no improvement during the nearly two thousand five hundred years that have passed since then.
Notwithstanding the good laws of Solon, then, as now, there were found men to take advantage of their provisions to gratify their own private hates. Thus, Solon's laws allowed popular action for most offences—regarding all offences as against the "peace and dignity of the state"—as we do now; but in many cases advantage was taken of this by bad men to make the most calumnious accusations against men whose character until then had stood even above suspicion. So advantage was frequently taken of the law of ostracism (which was only meant for good), whereby some of their very best men were banished from the state. Thus, when an ignorant citizen was about to cast his vote for the ostracism of Aristides, he was asked by Aristides himself, who chanced to be passing by at the moment, and who was unknown t<\ him:
"Why, what harm, my friend, has Aristides done to you?"
"None in the world," replied he; "but I hate to hear everybody call him the 'Just.'"
Thucydides also, from whom Athens had received the most eminent services, was in like manner banished by ostracism; as likewise were Miltiades, Cimon, Themistocles, Phocion, and many other of their most eminent men. What was meant, too, for religious freedom was made to subserve (by those who temporarily had the power) the purposes of religious bigotry, tyranny, and persecution, until even the renowned philosopher, Socrates, was made to drink the fatal hemlock.
While the great majority of Athenians were entirely satisfied with their form of government; while the masses were equally jealous of their liberty, because liberty was equally necessary to each for the enjoyment of his favorite scheme of life; yet there were those inside of the republic, as well as outside, who did not like a republican form of government, and who were all the while watching for an opportunity to overthrow it Among these was Pisistratus, a man of large wealth, splendid talents, and of great popularity. He aspired to sovereign power, and by his artifices came so near in obtaining it, that Solon, disgusted at the want of patriotism among his countrymen, and unable to witness its degradation, bade adieu to Athens, and died in voluntary exile. He—even he, the great and good Solon—was made to feel what it was to be "a man without a country," and chose to die in exile rather than to remain in his native land, or even to look upon it again in a state of degradation.. If the time should ever come (and God only knows how soon it may come!) when not only one but scores, yea, hundreds, of American Solons should be wandering throughout the world, without a home and without a country, because of the destruction of our representative form of government by European jealousy and Catholic bigotry, then, if never before, they and all others will fully understand something of the natural outgrowth of the Democratic party of this country, of which the late rebellion was the first act in the drama, and of which its secret workings only represented the machinations of a hundred Pisistratuses!
But though Pisistratus thus usurped power, and for a while played the sovereign, he was unable to retain it long. Megacles and Lycurgus, the chiefs of the Alemæonidæ, gained at length so much strength as to attack and expel the usurper from Athens. By a stratagem he again secured power, and, on dying, bequeathed the crown to his sons, Hippias and Hipparchus, but erelong Hipparchus was killed, and Hippias dethroned, and once again the republic prevailed, and statues were erected to the honor of Harmodius and Aristogiton as the authors of their country's deliverance from tyranny.
From thenceforth there was almost a constant warfare between the political parties or factions of the republic, while jealous eyes outside were consequently watching an opportunity for its destruction. Ambitious demagogues were constantly using the people as their tools, but scarcely would one obtain the chief magistracy until another would pull him down—if not by a vote of the people, then by faction or by assassination. Meanwhile Hippias, who had been dethroned, sought aid from the king of Persia to reinstate him, and thus brought a long and bloody war upon his own country. In this war were fought the renowned battles of Marathon, Salamis, Plateæ, and Mycale, and the Greeks came off victorious, but at a most fearful sacrifice of treasure and life. After this followed the disunion among the several Grecian states—the secession of some—the coldness and indifference of others; and though the brilliant administrations of Cimon and Pericles seemed to revive the republic for awhile, it was evident to all that the seeds of death were fast germinating and would bring forth fruit erelong. The Persian king, and the sovereigns of other surrounding countries, had long felt deep jealousy of the Athenian Republic, and, when an excuse came for attacking it, they were not backward in availing themselves of the opportunity. Fortunately for the Athenian Republic the attack made upon them by Persia had the effect to bring the whole power of the Spartan Republic to their aid, which, with such other aid as they received from minor states of Greece, enabled them to defeat the Persians in the end and maintain their own independence.
But a worse fate awaited them—namely, a fight among themselves. The mutual jealousies that had long existed between Athens and Sparta broke out afresh, and soon terminated in an open war between the two republics, and most of the minor states of Greece took a part in the quarrel. The first declaration of hostilities, however, was compromised before they came to actual conflict; but it proved to be only a smouldering, and not an extinguishment, of the fire that had long burned in the breast of each—a fire that afterwards broke forth in what was known as the "Peloponnesian war," and lasted twenty-eight years. Our plan and space will not permit any details of this. A history of the first twenty-two years of the war was admirably written by Thucydides, and of the last six years by Xenophon, to whom we must refer the reader who would know its particulars. Suffice it to say here that during this long internecine war each achieved victories and each suffered defeats. At one time the Spartans so reduced Athens as to make an entire change in its constitution. The republic was abolished and thirty governors, or, as the Greek historians style them, "thirty tyrants" were substituted, whose power seems to have been absolute, unless in so far as each was restrained by the equally arbitrary will of his colleagues. So fearful and terrible was their rule, that Xenophon thinks "a greater number of Athenian citizens lost their lives by the sentence of these tyrants, in the short space of eight months, than had fallen in the whole twenty-eight years of the Peloponnesian war." Hundreds of the most eminent of the Athenian families left their country in despair, and what remained were for a time awed into silence, and dumb with consternation.
And just here we may pause to say that precisely the same kind of rule, and the same kind of results, would have been witnessed in this country, had the rebellion, by the aid of the Democratic party, succeeded in capturing Washington and in establishing their rule over this country. It is one of the "Secrets of the Late Rebellion, now Revealed for the First Time" (and our information comes from one who was behind the scenes and knew all about it, and the first sixteen chapters of this volume entirely confirm this opinion), that behind President Davis and behind General Lee stood a body of desperate men, who, at one single sweep, would have wiped them off the chess-board and put others in their stead, had they shown the least considerate humanity in dealing with Northern men, in case the rebellion had succeeded. Not Abraham Lincoln alone would have fallen at the hands of the assassin or hangman, but thousands of others throughout the North would have suffered a like fate, until the rule of the "thirty tyrants" in Athens would have been considered but child's play in comparison with the rule of the more than three hundred tyrants of this republic. Then would have been witnessed here, as there, thousands of the most eminent of American families leaving their country in despair—wandering they knew not whither—without a home, and without a country! Abraham Lincoln's assassination was indeed done by a half crazed Southern rebel; but who can doubt, after reading the secrets revealed in the foregoing pages, that the frenzy that fired Booth's brain, and the nerve that enabled him to fire the deadly shot, came as directly from the Democratic party, as a party, as that the pistol itself was purchased by a Democratic partisan. All these facts go hand-in-hand, and there is no separating one from the others.
But we have already occupied much more of time and space on the Athenian Republic than we had intended. We can only say, in conclusion, that, after the reign of the "thirty tyrants," its fortunes were up and down—oftener down than up—until the battle of Chæronea, which occurred in the year 338 before Christ, when the liberties of Greece were made to yield finally and forever to the stronger arm of the Macedonian. The Athenian Republic had existed after a fashion—and, indeed, much of the time it was orderly "after a fashion"—for seven hundred and thirty years; and when it fell, there was not so much as an empty shell left. Its internal dissensions, more than anything else, had eaten out its vitals; the jealousy of surrounding monarchies had been to it a constant source of danger, and several times a source of great disaster; while for fully one-half of the seven hun-dren and thirty years it was rather a government of tyranny than of liberty to those who lived under it.
SPARTA was built by Lacedaemon as early as 1487 years before Christ; but it did not become a republic until Lycurgus remodelled its laws, eight hundred and eighty-four years before Christ. Though a representative form of government, and therefore a republic, yet it was so different from any other government that ever existed before or since, it may well be called unique, singular, sui generis. Its citizens, for instance, ate at public tables; the children were regarded as belonging to the state rather than to parents; its money was made of iron and of such weight that no one man could carry a hundred dollars. Thus, and in other ways, the accumulation of wealth was discouraged—while instruction in the art of war was made pastime—meat, drink, and sleep, as it were, to all its male inhabitants. The labor of its farms, of its shops, of its merchants even, was all done by slaves; while the administration of government, the learning how to fight, and fighting, seems to have been the principal, if not the only, employment of its free citizens. Though existing at the same time with the Athenian Republic, and within one hundred and eighty-four years as old, the two governments were in no sense a type of each other. The Athenian found in his taste for pleasure constant employment; the Spartan's taste was only for war. The arts of Athens met with the highest encouragement; at Sparta, scarcely none at all. At Athens the luxury of the rich constantly employed the industry of the poor; at Sparta, luxury was regarded as almost criminal, and he who indulged in it was regarded with contempt, if not with execration. The sciences were also cultivated by Athenians with the same ardor as the arts; while Spartans cared nothing for science, except so far as it contributed to the efficiency of warfare. As another, in contrasting the two republics, has very aptly put it, "Sparta was altogether a military establishment; every other art was prohibited, industry among individuals was unknown, and domestic economy unnecessary—for all was in common. The Lacedaemonians were active only when at war. In peace, their manner of life was languid, uniform, indolent, and insipid. Taught to consider war as the sole honorable or manly occupation, they contracted a fierce and ferocious turn of mind, which distinguished them from all the other states of Greece. Despising the arts themselves, they despised all who cultivated them. Their constitution was fitted to form a small, a brave, and an independent state; but had no tendency to produce a great, a polished, or a conquering people."
Between our own and a republic so peculiarly constituted, we can hardly make comparisons; and yet we find, even in that, some features like in our own. Lysander was not only a great general, but, as Plutarch calls him, he was a fox as well. Richelieu, when told that his enemies called him a fox, said: "Fox!—Well, I like the nickname! What did Plutarch say of the Greek Lysander?"
Joseph. I forget.
Richelieu. That where the lion's skin fell short, he eked it out with the fox's! A great statesman, Joseph, that same Lysander!
Martin Van Buren, both before and after he became President of the United States, was called a fox, because of his great slyness and shrewdness in pulling the wires for the Democratic party. He denounced that party before he died, however, and allowed himself to be run against their regular candidate for the Presidency; and, were he alive to-day, and knew of the secrets which this volume discloses, no man in the United States would be more free in denouncing that party for the part it took in the rebellion, and for the part it is still taking in helping Europeans in their designs to overthrow this government and the freedom of the press, than Martin Van Buren.
This republic, like that of Athens, had its ending with the battle of Chæronea, b.c. 338, after which the all-conquering Philip took possession of it and of all the states of Greece. The republic had existed after a fashion (for here, as at Athens, it was only "after a fashion" part of the time) through a period of five hundred and forty-six years; but finally died from the ambition of those within and the jealousy of those without.
Thebes was the last of the Grecian republics, but for a time shone with as much brilliancy as either of the others. It had its origin from fortuitous circumstances rather than from the genius of any lawmaker; but it produced and nurtured legislators as wise as Solon or Lycurgus, and soldiers as brave and as brilliant as Pericles or Lysander. When Athens and Sparta were visibly tending to decline, Thebes suddenly rose to a degree of splendor which eclipsed all her sister and contemporary states.
Long before b. c. 382, at which time the citadel of Thebes was seized by the Spartans, the government of the Thebans was called republican, but it was rather so in name than in fact. The oligarchic party at Thebes, corresponding with the Democratic party of this country, were all the while aiming at the establishment of an oligarchy, while the patriotic supporters of liberty and independence were just as determined not only to maintain the republic, but to make it so in fact as well as in name.
The last-named party of Thebes corresponded precisely with the Republican party of this country. When the contention between these two parties was at fever heat, it happened that Phoebidas, a Lacedaemonian general, was sent with an army to punish the people of Olynthus, a Thracian city, for an alleged infraction of a treaty of peace formed not long before. While Phoebidas was on this expedition, Leontiades, the head of the oligarchic party at Thebes, prevailed on him to second the attempts of his party against the liberties of their country. The Spartan general yielded to the suggestion, and, while the unsuspecting Thebans were celebrating the festival of Ceres, Phoebidas marched his army into the city and took possession of their citadel. When the republicans of Thebes protested against this, the Spartans acknowledged it an act of treason in Leontiades to have thus betrayed his country, and they reprobated the conduct of Phoebidas in giving his aid to a measure which was a direct infraction of a national treaty; but being now masters of Thebes, they did not choose to abandon their acquisition.
If through the influence and aid of Lord John Brewerton (the particulars of which are given in the fifth chapter of this volume) and others like him, the heads, the Leontiadeses, of the Democratic party of this country, could have betrayed our government into the hands of Great Britain, and thereby pleased every other kingly government of Europe, every Englishman would have acknowledged that somebody had played the traitor, and that it constituted not only a direct infraction of the treaty between their government and ours, but an infraction of the law of nations as well; yet, like the Spartans, they would have been unequal to the conflict between virtue and self-interest, and, like them, would have replied, Now that we have the country, we'll keep it!
But though the "mills of the gods grind slowly, they grind exceeding fine," and erelong the republicans of Thebes, headed by the brave Pelopidas, and seconded by the no less brave Epaminondas, shook off the Spartan yoke—shook off the oligarchy—and reëstablished a republican form of government, and from thenceforth the Theban Republic went forward in a career of glory equal to anything that Athens or Sparta could ever boast. The battle of Leuctra, in which six thousand Thebans, commanded by Epaminondas, entirely defeated twenty-five thousand Lacedaemonians, leaving four thousand, with their chief, Cleombrotus, dead upon the field, was but the beginning of a series of actions all of which reflected upon Thebes the highest glory. We have not room to relate these in detail, but one incident in the life of Epaminondas—at its close—we cannot omit. The full particulars of the incident may be found in Xenophon and Diodorus, but its gist is about as follows: At the battle of Mantinea, Epaminondas, too rashly pursuing his success, had advanced beyond the line of his troops, when, the enemy rallying, he was exposed to a whole shower of darts, and fell, pierced with numberless wounds. "His faithful Thebans," says Professor Tytler, "found means to rescue his body while life yet remained, and to bring him to his tent. A javelin stuck fast in his breast, and his physician declared that on extracting it he would immediately expire. In this extremity, breathless and fainting, while his friends stood weeping around him, he first inquired what had become of his shield, and being told that it was safe, he beckoned to have it brought to him, and kissed it. He then asked which side had gained the victory, and being told it was the Thebans, 'Then,' said he, 'all is well.' While some of his friends were lamenting his untimely fall, and regretting that he had left no children to perpetuate his memory, 'Yes,' said he, 'I have left two fair daughters, Leuctra and Mantinea (the names of battle-fields)—'these will perpetuate my memory;' so saying, with his own hands he drew forth the javelin from his breast, and instantly expired."
If the republic at that moment could have died with Epaminondas, it would have gone out in a blaze of glory; but, alas! alas! it yet contained traitors in its own bosom, and was yet to reap the fruits of treason.
Philip, King of Macedon, determined to subvert the liberties of all the Grecian republics. To him, as to European sovereigns of to-day, a representative form of government was hateful, as would have been the liberty of the press, had there been a press in those days. It was one of his favorite maxims that "no fortification was impregnable into which a mule could make its way with a bag of money!" as it was a maxim with the first Napoleon that "every man has his price?" In pursuance of this policy, Philip had his bribed emissaries in Thebes, as he had at Athens and Sparta. In Athens he had in his pay no less a man than Æschines, the great orator, and Aris-todemus and Neoptolemus, the two great comedians—all of whom were men of the highest influence in the public assemblies.
With such men at the capitals of the three largest republics—all constantly declaring themselves' to be the "stanchest of democrats"—it was only a question of time with Philip when he should have the republics within his grasp. Demosthenes thundered and lightened worse than the natural elements. His "Philippics" rolled over the heads and hearts of the people, and found responsive echoes in thousands of breasts; but the still, small voice of Philip's gold in the pockets of leading loud-mouthed so-called Democrats had more influence than all the thunders of a Demosthenes. Philip's far-reaching plan was first to introduce treachery in the heart of each republic, and then set them at variance with each other, that his alliance might be courted and an opportunity furnished for introducing Macedonian troops into Greece. He had not long to wait for the maturing of his plans. The Phocians, instead of paying a fine inflicted upon them by the Amphictyonic Council (corresponding to our Congress), seized the temple of Apollo at Delphos, with all its treasures. This set the republics at war with each other—some siding with the Council and some with the Phocians. At length the Thessalians implored Philip's assistance against their tyrant, Lycophron, whose government they felt to be intolerable. The tyrant sought aid of the Phocians to support him against his own subjects. They responded to Lycophron, and Philip, with an alacrity that knew no precedent, responded to the people. The result of all this was that Philip obtained a strong foothold in Greece, the very thing he had so long sought through his paid emissaries. This advantage Philip followed up with the keen scent and persistence of a bloodhound, and although Demosthenes still continued to thunder against him, Philip's gold in the pockets of sordid ignorance, under the guise of democratic patriots, overbalanced the warnings of eloquence, and thus matters went on, step by step, until the battle of Chæronea, when, at one fell swoop, not only the republic of Thebes, but all the other republics and states of Greece, fell into the hands of Philip.
Can you not see, my friend (the reader), in all this some striking points of resemblance between the rise, progress, and fall of the Theban Republic, and the rise, progress, and what threatened to be the fall of our own government in the late rebellion?
According to European notions, we had a sort of republic, a sort of representative form of government, prior to 1776; but it was rather an oligarchy than a republic, and Washington, Adams, John Hancock, and others, determined to have a real republic or die in the attempt. Seven years of terrible struggle and fearful sacrifice brought their wishes to a successful issue. From 1783 until 1822 the course of this republic was one blaze of glory, equal to anything that Thebes could ever boast. Meanwhile the jealous eyes of many European Philips had been looking on, and finally a Congress at Vienna, in 1822, entered into a solemn treaty with each other (two of the articles of which we have heretofore quoted) that representative governments, and the liberty of the press, were "incompatible" (that is the word) with "monarchical principles," and therefore ought to be abolished. In pursuance of this resolve the Philips of Europe began to send their gold into this country, of which no less than $612,656 were sent from a single city of France (Lyons) in four years, as we have heretofore shown from their own published reports. True, this was but a drop in the bucket, but it shows that the drops came from thick-lipped vials, and consequently were very large drops. Among the contributions made about that time, it was announced, with a great flourish of trumpets and as greatly to his credit, that the Emperor of Austria had contributed twenty thousand francs to "The Society for the Propagation of the Faith." For the propagation of what? Of the faith? God save the mark! Had the item read, For the propagation of the Democratic party, and, through it, monarchical principles, it would, in our humble judgment, have been nearer the truth. Of course we do not know—no one ever can know—what proportion of the money contributed in Europe and sent to this country (nominally to propagate the faith of the Catholic Church) went into the hands of State and National Democratic Executive Committees; but this we do know, as well as we know any conclusion drawn from known facts by deduction, that the money so sent had for its ultimate object (no matter into whose hands it first fell) more the destruction of the representative form of this government, and the liberty of the press, than the propagation of any religious faith.
And let us pause a moment just here to say, that the process of investigation and of reasoning by which we arrive at the above conclusion, and at other conclusions heretofore announced, is very near to certainty, nor is it at all mystical. As Professor Huxley very aptly says, when writing of the results of induction and deduction, "The vast results obtained by science are won by no mystical faculties, by no mental processes, other than those which are practised by every one of us in the humblest and meanest walks of life. A detective policeman discovers a burglar from the marks made by his shoe, by a mental process identical with that by which Cuvier restored the extinct animals of Montmartre from fragments of their bones. Nor does that process of induction and deduction by which a lady, finding a stain of a particular kind upon her dress, concludes that somebody has upset the inkstand thereon, differ in any way from that by which Adams and Leverrier discovered a new planet. The man of science, in fact, simply uses with scrupulous exactness the methods which we all habitually and at every moment use carelessly."
Though our present treatise is on history rather than on science, we have used the facts which have fallen in our way from a somewhat extensive reading and study of history with as much "scrupulous exactness" as though we had been writing upon science, and we feel within our own breast that the conclusions reached are very near, if not a dead, certainty. We did not make the facts that we have used. They have been parts of current history from time to time, extending through a period of nearly three thousand years. We have simply put the facts in logical form—in the form of proposition and proof—and then drawn therefrom such inferences as seemed natural and inevitable. Politicians will say, we know, that our conclusions are the result of preconceived opinions; bigots in religion will say that our conclusions are founded upon prejudice; but neither the one nor the other will be true. Take the same facts, and we defy any logician or rhetorician in the world to reach different conclusions, if honest with his own conscience before God.