1856.] THE ABOLITIONISTS. 43 they thought they did; and, besides, did they not see a happy family, and many curious objects of nature and art, which were not in the bill at all, and were in themselves worth more than twenty-five cents? Barnum in heaven will feel at home. Hallelujahs will strike his ear as a familiar sound, reminding him of his own aerial orchestra, which across the busy scene of Broadway, serenades St. Paul for ever and ever. Possibly his disembodied spirit will still watch over the corner of Ann Street, and he will at times think with yearning regret of his "dear public," gaping there for the thrilling excitements which only he could supply. At such times he will gaze, perhaps, with a covetous eye at the Four Beasts, or privately offer an engagement to the eldest of the Four and Twenty Elders. So much for the general character of the political and literary writing done by Mitchel in the Citizen. I regret that the necessity of keeping this book within certain limits prevents me from quoting more fully from the paper. There are, however, one or two matters connected with Mitchel's editorship of the Citizen which call for a somewhat fuller notice. Very shortly after the Citizen was started, Mitchel was drawn into a controversy, which excited much attention at the time, and which probably had a large influence in determining the subsequent course of his life. The abolition party was then rising to power in the Northern States, and the questions which afterwards divided the Union were being hotly discussed. Now, there lived in Dublin at this time a very benevolent old gentleman named James Haughton. Mr. Haughton had known most of the Young Irelanders during the '48 time; and now that several of them were rising to notice in America, he was anxious that they should be found upon what he regarded as the right side in the slavery question. He, accordingly, wrote and published a letter, which he addressed to Thomas Francis Meagher. In this letter he appealed, not only to Meagher, but also to John Mitchel, John Dillon, and Richard O'Gorman, and he called on them to prove themselves true men by boldly taking sides with the abolitionists. John Mitchel thought right to notice this letter in his paper. He had known Mr. Haughton in Dublin, and had never concealed the opinions which he even then held upon the slavery question. In his notice of the letter, he first refers to the fact that his views on the slavery question had long since been stated to Mr. Haughton, and then proceeds : And here, now, after six years, we find Mr. Haughton as fresh as ever, saying the very same things that were then so tedious to us. Others may exert themselves to gain justice and freedom for Irish serfs; he, for his part, will stand by the negroes, and scathe the cradle-plunderers. But what right has this gentleman to expect Thomas Francis Meagher, or the others whom he has named, to take up his wearisome song-which they always refused to sing at home? Now, let us try to satisfy our pertinacious friend, if possible, by a little plain English. We are not abolitionists; no more abolitionists than Moses, or Socrates, or Jesus Christ. We deny that it is a crime, or a wrong, or even a peccadillo, to hold slaves, to buy slaves, to keep slaves to their work by flogging or other needful coercion. "By your silence," says Mr. Haughton, "you will become a participator in their wrongs." But we will not be silent, when occasion calls for speech; and as for being a participator in the wrongs, we, for our part, wish we had a good plantation, well-stocked with healthy negroes, in Alabama. There, now! Is Mr. Haughton content? What right has he to call upon Mr. Mitchel the moment he sets his foot in America to begin a crusade for a cause which, as Mr. Haughton knows, was always distasteful to him in Ireland? This was certainly plain speaking enough; such speaking as was certain to excite the fierce animosity of a powerful section of the community in which Mitchel then 1856.] REV. HENRY WARD beecher. 45 lived. He was prepared for a fair share of abuse; but he was not, he tells us, prepared for what actually happened. He was not then fully conscious of the intensity and bitterness of the anti-slavery sentiment; and the tempest of execration which greeted his answer to Mr. Haughton fairly astonished him. I cannot here stay to notice the abundant abuse of the New York press, nor to determine which of the various journals carried off the palm for hard language. But amongst Mitchel's fiercest assailants was one whose attack calls for a special notice. This was the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. Writing many years afterwards of his controversy with Beecher, Mitchel says: The Citizen had not been two weeks in existence when I was startled, if not confounded, by a furious assault upon me by the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, a very popular clergyman in Brooklyn, of the sect of people called "Congregationalists;" an eloquent, powerful, and rowdy preacher, of no great cultivation, but of intense energy, and an appearance of wonderful earnestness. Of course, he was a violent abolitionist, and chose to consider my declaration of adverse opinion as a fatal stab to my own character. In short, he pronounced me a dead man, and thereupon proceeded to mangle my corpse and suck my bones. First in a public lecture, and afterwards in a weekly newspaper called the Independent, this reverend man minced me extremely small. Mangled as he was, however, Mitchel was able to strike back with effect. I shall take occasion further on to say what I deem it necessary to say regarding John Mitchel's attitude on the slavery question. For the present, I will merely notice one charge much dwelt on by Beecher. It was inconsistent, he thought, of Mitchel, the champion of freedom in Ireland, to champion slavery in America. Mitchel had little difficulty in disposing of this charge. If it be inconsistent to champion the rights of a nation to freedom from foreign rule, and at the same time to hold slaves, then the charge of inconsistency holds good against Leonidas and Themistocles, against Washington and Jefferson. Mitchel might well be content to stand or fall in such company. The controversy with Beecher was, in more than one respect, a remarkable event in Mitchel's life. In the first place, the answer which Beecher's attack called forth is, in a literary point of view, one of the very best things Mitchel ever produced. In no other one of his writings does his wonderful power over the English language as an instrument of expression appear with more telling effect. Whatever may be one's opinion upon the subject discussed, it is impossible to read the controversy without feeling that Mitchel showed himself far more than a match for his opponent. There are passages in the letters in answer to Beecher which for irony and cutting sarcasm are equal to anything in Swift. But it was not only by reason of the display of literary power which it called forth that this controversy was a remarkable event in Mitchel's life. It was, I think, the first link in a chain of causes which ultimately led to Mitchel's throwing in his lot with the Confederacy in the war of secession. Not that he would not in any case have sympathized with slavery and with the South; he had done so before he came to America. But I doubt if he would have considered himself bound to take active part in a cause which, after all, was not his own, had he not been powerfully roused and incited in that direction. From the time of this controversy forward there is an element of ferocity in his advocacy of slavery and denunciation of abolition. I believe we may trace the origin of this ferocity in that hatred of cant and hypocrisy which was the ruling passion of his nature. He saw, or fancied he saw, a large element of cant in the abolition movement, as represented by Mr. Beecher; and the least suspicion of cant was always enough to set him up in arms. 1856.] CONTROVERSY WITH BEECHER. 47 It would not be possible to select a few quotations. which would give an adequate idea of the literary power displayed in the letters to Beecher. But the reader may take the following passage as representing the average of the whole as well as any other I could select :— I do not affect to be ignorant that your little school claim the Founder of the Christian religion as an abolitionist; not by reason of any positive condemnation or prohibition of slavery or slaveholding, but by virtue of what you call the development of the religion, which you suppose to be growing and advancing, as man grows and advances. Especially you dwell upon the great precept, "Do unto others as ye would that others should do unto you"and you say here is abolition in embryo. Though a laic, I shall venture to suggest to you, most learned clerk, a simple explanation of that text, which, perhaps, never occurred to you before. It means, do unto others as you would wish (if they were in your circumstances and you in theirs) that they should do unto you. If you are a creditor, treat your debtor with that forbearance and consideration which, if you were the debtor and he the creditor, you might reasonably wish and expect him to use towards you. This does not mean, Creditors, discharge your debtors free. Again, if you are a slaveholder, use your slave with gentleness, humanity, and kindness, rewarding him when he does well, néver punishing him wantonly or oppressively-in short, just as you could reasonably wish, were you the slave and he the master, that he would behave towards you. Therefore, the injunction of the New Testament is, not, Masters, discharge your slaves; but, be merciful to your slaves; slaves, be obedient to your masters. But I said something of slaves being lashed, Yes; the very idea of a slave includes the idea of coercion, but does not at all include the idea of cruelty; and when I wished for a plantation of negroes, your reverence, and the Tribune, with great candour, proclaim that I want slaves in order to have the luxury of flogging them. Does any man marry a wife that he may have the pleasure of beating his children? Yet he who spareth the rod, spoileth the child. Does any man buy a horse for the sake of whipping Did Washington keep negroes merely that he might him? |