Chapter XVIII (5)

The total wealth of the Union in 1860 exceeded $16,000,000,000. If this were increased $1,000,000,000 in time, by the augmented wealth of Missouri, and our revenue from duties and taxes should be $220,000,000, as estimated by the Secretary of the Treasury, the increased income, being one-seventeenth of the whole, would exceed $12,000,000 per annum; or, if the increase of wealth should be only $200,000,000, then the augmented proportional annual revenue would be $2,750,000, or nearly one-eightieth part of the whole revenue, thus soon extinguishing the principal and interest of the debt of $20,000,000, and leaving a large surplus to decrease the percentage of taxation in every State, Missouri included. The bill then might be justly entitled, _an act to restore the Union, to advance the public credit, to hasten the overthrow of the rebellion, to augment the national wealth, and_ DECREASE THE RATE OF TAXATION. By overthrowing the rebellion, the taxes to pay the national debt will be collected from all the States, instead of being confined to those that are loyal. The rebel confederate debt, never having had any existence in law or justice, but having been created only to support a wicked rebellion, will of course be expunged by the reëstablishment of the Union. Indeed, by a new mathematical and philosophical principle, far transcending the most sublime discoveries of Newton, Leibnitz, or La Place, the rebel debt is redeemable six months _after the end of eternity_, namely, six months after it is an _independent nation_, they shall have ratified a _treaty_ of peace with us! All the rebel State debts incurred since the revolt, for the purpose of overthrowing the Government, will, of course, have no legal existence. Under the Federal Constitution, no State Legislature can have any lawful existence, except in conformity with its provisions, accompanied by a prior oath of every member to support the Constitution of the United States. These assemblages, then, since the revolt in the several States, calling themselves State Legislatures, never had any legal existence or authority, and were mere assemblages of traitors. Such is the clear provision of the Federal Constitution, and of the law of nations and of justice. It would be strange, indeed, if conventicles of traitors in revolted States, could legally or rightfully impose taxes on the people of such States, loyal or disloyal, to overthrow the Government. Indeed, if justice could have her full sway, the whole debt of this Government, incurred to suppress this rebellion, ought to be paid by the traitors alone.

With a restoration of the Union, the prosperity of all sections will be enormously increased. The South, with peace and with ports reopened, relieved from rebel taxes and conscription, will again have a profitable market for their cotton, rice, naval stores, sugar, and tobacco; the West for breadstuffs and provisions; the North for commerce, navigation and manufactures; and our revenue, from duties, would be vastly augmented, soon justifying a reduction of internal taxation. There is one item of almost fabulous value that must not be omitted. The cotton now in the Confederate States, of the unsold crops of 1860-'61, 1861-'62, and 1862-'63, exceeds 5,000,000 of bales. This cotton, sold at present prices, payable in federal paper, would be worth $1,800,000,000, or $1,134,000,000 in gold. If we diminish this one-half, as cotton might fall in price from time to time by the gradual reopening of our ports, this cotton would still be worth $900,000,000 in our paper, and $567,000,000 in gold. This cotton, while putting all our spindles and those of the world into full operation, would turn the balance of foreign trade at once immensely in our favor, and bring back streams of gold to our shores. We would at once commence the liquidation of the national debt, with a large sinking fund, as a sacred trust applicable to that important subject.

Next to maintaining our finances and the public credit, followed by decisive victories in the field, the speedy success of emancipation in Missouri is most important. Missouri is larger by more than 6,000 square miles than any State east of the Mississippi, and occupies a central position between the North and the South, the East and the West. She is larger by 16,458 square miles than England proper, containing a population of nineteen millions. She is larger by 1,098 square miles than New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Delaware. She is larger by 5,264 square miles than all the New England States. She has a greater white population than the aggregate numbers of North and South Carolina and Florida, or of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, or of Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi, or of Florida, Arkansas, South Carolina and Mississippi, or Louisiana; and a larger white population than all Virginia, East and West. She had, if disloyal, by her position and large white population, more power to imperil the Union than any of the slaveholding States. She has been true--she has suffered much in our cause, her fields and towns have been laid waste, thousands of her brave sons now fill our armies, and thousands more have fallen in our cause, and we will be recreant to truth and justice, to the safety of the Union, and forfeit the nation's pledge, if we do not now aid her in becoming a Free State. The southern boundary of Missouri (lat. 36°) is several miles south of Nashville, Tennessee; but, if we take altitude also into consideration, then, according to well established meteorological principles, the southern boundary of Missouri is at least a degree south of Nashville, reaching the northern boundary of Alabama. There is then a very large area of Missouri well calculated for the production of cotton. To accomplish this, the levee system of the Mississippi must be extended from the southern boundary of Missouri to the first highlands in that State, above the mouth of the Ohio; and a proper system of drainage adopted. These lands would thus be entirely secured from overflow, and greatly improved in salubrity. With these improvements, Missouri would contain an area of rich alluvial lands, well adapted to the profitable culture of cotton, embracing an extent capable of producing at least one million of bales of the great staple. These lands, considering latitude and altitude, would possess a climate similar to that of Middle Tennessee and North Alabama, where cotton is already cultivated with great profit. If emancipation prevailed in Missouri, these lands would soon be cultivated in cotton by free labor, and its immense superiority over the servile system would soon be demonstrated. Such a proof of the superiority of free over slave labor, even in the culture of cotton, would soon have an immense effect in reconciling the South to the disappearance of a system so fatal to her own prosperity, and endangering so much the harmony and perpetuity of the Union. This Missouri cotton would be nearer the North and Northwest than that grown in any other part of the Southwest, and thus supplied at a cheaper rate to our manufacturers, while opening new and augmented markets for the provisions and breadstuffs of the Northwest. This cotton would, in part, pass up the Ohio to Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, and thence to New York, Philadelphia, and New England. It would also in part pass through Indiana and Ohio by their railroads and canals. The great central railroad of Illinois would carry large portions of it also from Cairo to Chicago; but perhaps the largest portion eventually would pass up the Mississippi and Illinois rivers and enlarged canals to Chicago, and thence eastward. With the proposed enlargement of the canal connecting the Illinois river with Lake Michigan, and the enlargement of the locks of the great Erie canal, extended by a similar enlargement of the Chenango branch, and down the Susquehanna to tide water, cotton steam propellers would carry the great staple by this route to the Hudson and New England, to Baltimore or Philadelphia, at a rate much lower than any other Southwestern cotton. The Mississippi would thus have a _quintuple_ outlet, as well into the lakes and the Hudson, the St. Lawrence, the Delaware, and Chesapeake, as into the Gulf of Mexico, and Missouri would be united by new ties with the North, and Northwest, as well as with the Middle States. Cairo, St. Louis, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Buffalo would become considerable cotton depots, and slave labor would cease to monopolize the cotton culture. But there are other considerations still more momentous. Missouri extends from the 36th parallel to 40-1/2, and from the 89th meridian to the 96th, thus embracing four degrees and a half of latitude, and seven degrees of longitude. She fronts for many hundred miles upon the great Mississippi, and commands its western shore; she commands also the mouth of the Missouri river, and both its banks for several hundred miles, and all its tributaries. The Missouri river and its tributaries are nearly double the length of the Mississippi and its branches. Missouri by her position dominates the whole valley of her great river, and commands Kansas and Western Iowa, and Nebraska, and Colorado, Dacotah and New Mexico. If Missouri had joined the Southern confederacy, and its power had ever been established, she would have forced with her all the vast region to which we have referred, containing, including Missouri, an area equal to twenty States of the size of Ohio. To separate Missouri forever from the proposed Southern confederacy, is to render the permanent establishment of such a government impossible. It not only severs Missouri from them, but all the vast region identified with the destiny of that great State. Secure Missouri permanently and cordially to the Union, and the rebellion is doomed to certain overthrow. With the fall of slavery in Missouri by her consent, and her cordial coöperation and sympathy with the North and Northwest, the days of the rebellion are numbered. With Missouri as a Free State, Arkansas, adjacent, cannot retain the institution. Such a result, aided by victories, and the reëstablishment of our finances, would soon give full effect to the edict of emancipation in Arkansas, and Louisiana would soon follow. With Missouri as a Free State by her consent, and her cordial coöperation and sympathy, slavery would soon disappear from the whole region west of the Mississippi, and Louisiana cordially be reunited to the Republic. With such a result, holding New Orleans and the mouth of the Mississippi and all the region west of that great stream, how could Tennessee or Mississippi remain in the Southern confederacy? The truth is, Missouri is the pivot upon which the rebellion turns. Had she gone with the South, and given to its cause a cordial support, it would have been difficult to subdue the rebellion. That she has gone with the Union is a momentous fact, and demands for her our heartfelt gratitude. I have shown, it is true, how greatly it is the interest of Missouri to become a Free State; but it is still more the interest of the nation to secure this great result. Give her what is needed to render emancipation certain, and we shall have secured the perpetuity of the Union. Missouri had no participation in introducing African slaves into this continent. The slaves that cultivate her soil are the descendants of those who were forced here under the British flag, or by the ships of the North, then in a state of colonial dependence; and it is just, and the national honor demands, that she should receive full compensation. As the existence of slavery in any State is a great evil and reproach, and a source of much weakness to the whole country, so should the nation compensate for any loss that may be occasioned by the abandonment of the system in any loyal State. Not only is this just, but the faith of the nation is solemnly pledged by resolutions adopted by Congress at its last session to carry this policy into full effect with the consent of any State. Twenty millions of dollars to secure such a result should be regarded as of little moment. Gladly would the nation pay a much larger sum for a single victory. But the moral and geographical and strategical victory secured by emancipation in Missouri by her consent, will be far more important than any triumph yet achieved by our arms. It is a victory that relieves a great State now and forever from the curse of slavery. It is a victory that secures the whole valley of the mighty Missouri to the Union. It is a triumph that sweeps slavery from Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas, dissevers the Southern confederacy, and restores the whole Mississippi, from its mouth to its source, to the Union.

The entire constitutionality of such a proceeding by _compact with a State_, was demonstrated by me in the November number of the CONTINENTAL MONTHLY, p. 575. Referring to the case of Texas, I there said: 'The principle, however, was adopted of State action by irrevocable _compact_ with the Federal Government, by which provision therein was made for abolishing slavery in all such States, north of a certain parallel of latitude (embracing a territory larger than New England), as might be thereafter admitted by the subdivision of the State of Texas. The power of action on this subject, by compact of a State with the General Government, was then clearly established, in perfect accordance with repeated previous acts of Congress then cited by me. The doctrine rests upon the elemental principle of the combined authority of the nation, and a State, acting by compact within its limits.' When Missouri, with her consent, shall have become a Free State, the leaders of the Southern rebellion will feel that they have received a mortal blow. Especially will this be the case in Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama. We shall have cut the gordian knot of slavery, and the death agonies of the hydra would soon be visible. The importance of the result would be felt in the North also, and the wretched traitors there, far more guilty even than those of the South, will shrink from their atrocious conspiracy to dissolve this Union. The dark plot of severing New England from the Republic and of reuniting the rest of the States with the Southern confederacy, will be abandoned. That such a scheme is contemplated by Northern traitors, and that it is tolerated in the South, _on condition_ that all shall become Slave States, is beyond controversy. New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and the Northwest are to abandon their free institutions, become slaveholding States, and be admitted as such into the Southern confederacy. I had supposed that crime had achieved its climax when the Southern rebellion was inaugurated; but something more base, more vile, more cowardly, debasing, and pusillanimous, it seems, is now contemplated. It is that New England shall be expelled, and that the rest of the Free States shall come under the dominion of the Southern confederacy. But the leaders of this scheme seem to have forgotten the fact, that New England, to a vast extent, has peopled the Northwest, and carried there their love of free institutions. The descendants of the pilgrims are scattered throughout the Northwest, and churches, and free schools, and love of liberty have gone with them. The scheme is as base and cowardly as it is impracticable. No! New England can never be expelled from this Union. There the grand idea of the American Union was first conceived; there the cradle of liberty was first rocked, before as well as amid the storms of the Revolution; there the first blood was shed, the first battles fought, the first flag of Union and Liberty unfurled, and there it shall float forever. There are Lexington, and Concord, and Bunker Hill, and no traitor hand shall ever sever them from the American Union. Not an acre of the soil of New England or a drop of all its waters shall ever be surrendered by this great Republic; and from Lake Champlain and the Housatonick to the St. Croix and St. Johns, the flag of the Union shall ever float in undiminished glory. Lake Champlain unites Vermont and New England with the Hudson, the lakes, and St. Lawrence; and Long Island Sound, commanding the deepest approaches to New York, completes the connection, which is a geographical and political necessity. I am not a New Englander by parentage, birth, or education, but if the other Free States of the North and Northwest should submit to the disgrace of uniting themselves with a Southern confederacy, I should remove to New England, and breathe an air uncontaminated by slavery or treason. And there are hundreds of thousands who would pursue the same course. When, in 1798, the great Washington feared that the South might be separated by traitors from the Union, he declared that, in such an event, he would remove to the North; and, in such a contingency, there are thousands, even in the South, who would remove to New England.[7]

Those of the North and Northwest, who should remain and carry their States into the Southern confederacy, would be regarded in the South with loathing and contempt; the whole civilized world would consider their degradation as complete and eternal. They would soon loathe themselves, and feel that it was not only the negroes who were enslaved, but that they had put fetters upon their own limbs, and rendered themselves worthy to be worked as slaves on the plantations of Southern masters. I do not believe any of the Free States of the North and Northwest can thus be disgraced and humiliated. There is one of these States, I am sure, that will never submit to such degradation. It is the State of Pennsylvania. There the Declaration of American Independence was first proclaimed. There the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution were framed. There are Germantown, Paoli, and Brandywine: there Washington crossed the Delaware at midnight, and fought the two great battles of the war of independence. There Franklin sleeps within her soil, the great patriot, philosopher, and statesman whom New England gave to Pennsylvania, the Union, and the world. No! No! from the Delaware and Susquehanna to the Ohio and Lake Erie, the people of a mighty State would consign to the scaffold and the block the wretched traitors who would attempt to sever Pennsylvania from New England. Ice and granite are called the principal products of New England, but our Revolution and this rebellion prove that her great staples are intellect, education, liberty, courage, and patriotism. She is said to have Puritan angularities and to love money; but she pours out now, as in 1776, lavish expenditures of her treasure in defence of the Union; and the blood of her sons empurples the ocean and the lakes in every naval conflict, and moistens all the battle fields of the nation. No! all the traitors of the South, and all the Burrs, Arnolds, and Catalines of the North can never sever New England from the Republic. And now, in this hour of our country's peril, Missouri stretches her hands to New England, and to all the free and loyal States, and proposes, with their assistance, to abolish slavery, and link her destiny with theirs in the bonds of a perpetual Union. And shall we hesitate for a moment, on such a question? The money consideration is far less than a month's cost of the war, and sinks into insignificance compared with the momentous results and consequences. Emancipation in Missouri, with her consent and the aid of Congress, is the first grand decisive victory of the Union in this contest, insures eventual success, and must now be placed beyond all hazard or contingency.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 7: 7th vol. Hamilton's 'Republic,' p. 189, and Jefferson's 'Autograph.']

THE SOLDIER'S BURIAL.

Where shall we lay our comrade down?
Where shall the brave one sleep?
The battle's past, the victory won,
Now we have time to weep!
Bury him on the mountain's brow,
Where he fought so well;
Bury him where the laurels grow--
There he bravely fell!

There lay him in his generous blood,
For there first comes the light
When morning earliest breaks the cloud,
And lingers last at night!

What though no flow'ret there may bloom
To scent the chilly air,
The sky shall stoop to wrap his tomb,
The stars will watch him there!

What though no stone may mark his grave,
Yet Fame shall tell his race
Where sleeps the one so kind, so brave,
And God will find the place!
Bury him on the mountain's brow,
Where he fought so well;
Bury him where the laurels grow--
There he bravely fell!

LITERARY NOTICES.

THE RESULTS OF EMANCIPATION, by AUGUSTIN COCHIN, Ex-Mayor and
Municipal Councillor of Paris. Work crowned by the Institute of
France. Translated by MARY L. BOOTH, translator of Count de
Gasparin's works on America, &c. Boston: Walker, Wise & Co. 1863.

AUGUSTIN COCHIN, author of the work before us, is a man of a class in France from which we are specially well pleased to see vindications of Emancipation and of the policy of the Federal Union arise. His position is well and briefly stated in the preface as that of a Legitimist, a fast friend and ally of Count de Montalembert in his effort to raise up a Catholic Liberal party for the development of republican sentiments and institutions, and the ardent coadjutor of Pére Lacordaire, Monseigneur d'Orleans, Viscount de Melun, and a host of other moderate reformers in behalf of freedom. He has some little reputation as a writer on public and political topics; is highly connected, and, what is perhaps more to the purpose than aught else, is a very practical man, and son-in-law to Benoist d'Azy, who, possessed of an immense fortune, an extensive landowner and proprietor of iron forges, has done perhaps more than any other man to advance the material interests of his country by railway building, mining, and agricultural improvements. We say that this is more to the purpose, since it is of importance that the men who _actively_ employ capital should understand the falsehood of slavery as a productive force in any system of labor, anywhere, at the present day. And it is highly significant when we find such men so far enlightened in France at this time, where, although, as we learn, very advanced views in political economy are set forth, we have still apprehended that a deeply based attachment to slavery, common to all the Latin races, prevails. That the Radicals should oppose slavery is but natural, but such views among the highly cultivated aristocracy are indeed encouraging.

We cannot agree with M. Villemain, who, in his report from the Academy, decreeing a prize of three thousand francs to M. Cochin for this work, speaks of it as inspired with 'eloquent zeal' and 'ardor.' It is very far from what it might have been as a _literary_ production; and to one not interested in the facts and subject, is even--with the exception of its excellent Introduction--dry. The author is decidedly an economist, but he is _not_ 'an apostle,' as his eulogist claims, unless it be in the sense in which any great collector and publisher of truths may be termed such. But on its true basis the work is indeed a great one, fully deserving the publisher's advertisement words, 'opportune and important.' The volume before us is a complete history, in a minor degree, of Slavery, and to a very full degree of Emancipation in the English and French colonies, with some account of the same in those belonging to Holland, Denmark, and Sweden. Having made for many years a specialty of the subject, and having had placed at his disposal the published and unpublished papers and records of every ministry of Europe, as, for instance, of the English Board of Trade, M. Cochin has accumulated a mass of extremely valuable material--all of which is presented in a very clear, perfectly well arranged form--and which we need not say should be read by every one in public, since there is certainly no intelligent American at the present day on whom the necessity of acquiring full information on this subject is not almost a solemn duty. Next after crushing rebellion, the great task of the Federal Government should be to organize labor and adopt a vigorous _central_ and _industrial_ policy. To do this, the relations of free and of slave labor to circumstances should be extensively studied. As in the case of all wars involving an institution, the question between the North and the South at the present day is simply one between ignorance and knowledge--knowledge such as books like this are eminently adapted to disseminate.

Passing by religious and philosophic argument, neither of which has been of much practical avail in this country, since we see the Church of the South quite as zealous in upholding slavery on Biblical grounds as that of the North is in opposing it, we come to Cochin's first real argument--that political economy affirms the superiority of free over forced labor. Policy and charity unite in this--'charity detests slavery because it oppresses; policy, more elevated, condemns it _because it corrupts the inferior race_.'

We call attention to this sentence because it accurately expresses the difference between mere 'Abolition,' which regarded only the sufferings of the blacks, and that higher and more comprehensive policy of 'EMANCIPATION FOR THE SAKE OF THE WHITE MAN,' which declares that slavery always in time inevitably makes of the slaveholder an intolerable neighbor to the free white laborer. From this point our author sets forth the gradual growth of the aversion to slavery all over the Continent, with the reactionary tendency in its favor in the Cotton United States and in England. It is needless to say that, before the overwhelming light of _facts_ presented, especially when these facts are drawn from the past as well as the present, and from every country instead of _one_, slavery is shown to be more than deadly-conservative; more than cruel; more than a mere dead wall in the way of the onward march of the century. The time will come when such a curse will be rooted out of a country by the strong hand of all civilized nations. Had England and France been truly enlightened to their own interests, this war would never have taken place.

The history of the African slave trade and the efforts to destroy it, the Emancipation of the French Convention and the reëstablishment of slavery by the Consulate, from 1794 to 1802, form the first chapter of this work. Hence we have its history, its abolition in 1848, and, after this, that most important part, a careful examination of the results of Emancipation, showing--as Sewall and others have done--the grossness of the current falsehood to the effect that it has led to evil results. For those who can see only a part instead of the whole, who regard the amount of good done to themselves as the test of everything, who make no allowance for a social transition, or for a future (like our own 'treason-Democrats'), and who see in the black, whether slave or free, simply a creature whose whole mission is to benefit the white, it is true that Emancipation in certain isolated cases may not appear to have fully succeeded. The _truth_ is, that freed labor has nowhere diminished--it has simply assumed _new forms_, more advantageous, for the time, to the laborer, while in most cases it has increased its profits. If slaves were overworked, there was no real gain;--if schools and marriage, cleanly independence and good clothing have increased tenfold among those who were once naked, starved, and ignorant, there has been a gain, although here and there less sugar is exported. And so the reader may trace the arguments and facts to the end.

Yet, after all, we feel almost ashamed that such a book should be really needed! What true _scholar_ and honest man requires arguments of this kind? A thousand or two years ago, any king's daughter, any young lady, anybody walking in a lonely spot, was in danger of being kidnapped and sold to prostitution or slavery. Philosophers, poets, and artists were owned by brutal wretches; pious priests purchased gentlemen of noble birth for slaves. The pirate's galley swept every coast to steal any human being. Time rolled on, and slavery was modified. White slaves became serfs, serfs became free. The cause of emancipation is clear as that of any progressive reform--and yet, right in the face of history and God's truth, we see the Southern Confederacy and the British people daring to put themselves forward as the advocates of a crime so rapidly becoming obsolete. Yes--that is what the land of Wilberforce is now _practically_ doing, while several of her writers, turning on their tracks, are beginning to 'reconsider' the subject in their writings!

WAR SONGS FOR FREEMEN. Dedicated to the Army of the United States.
Third Edition. Printed for the New York Volunteers. Boston: Ticknor
& Fields.

Have you a friend in the army, especially one who sings occasionally, or if he be not canorous, say a friend who likes to read songs and hear them sung by others? In other words, would you, young lady reader (or any other reader), like to give some soldier at least half an hour's amusement for a very trivial outlay? In such case we recommend you to purchase this little pamphlet, and investing in a postage stamp, send it off without delay to the Army of the ----, whatever _that_ may be.

The work in question contains thirty songs of the war, mostly written expressly for the book, and each accompanied by the music, in nearly all cases with the bass. Among the contributors are Dr. O. W. Holmes, who has given two capital lyrics, 'Union' and 'Liberty,' and a superb trumpet song, well adapted to _Was blasen die Trompeten?_ or 'What are the trumpets blowing?' a spirited German air. Mrs. Julia Ward Howe contributes a 'Harvard Student's Song', which is of course brilliant, earnest, and beautiful. It is set to the glorious old Slavonian--subsequently German air:

'Denkst du duran mein tapf'rer Lagienka?'

which no one ever heard without loving. C. T. Brooks, has given to the grand and swelling _Landesvater_ words in every way worthy of it:

'Comrades plighted,
Fast united,
Firm to death for Freedom stand!
See your country torn and bleeding,
Hear a mother's solemn pleading!
Rescue Freedom's promised land.'

The same author also gives the well known 'Korner's Prayer,' and 'The Vow.' From Mrs. T. Sedgwick we find a fine bold song, 'For a' that and a' that,' of course to the good old air of that name--a lyric of such decided merit in most respects that we regret to notice in it the venerable bull of 'polar stars,' quizzed long ago in another writer. Our contributor, Henry Perry Leland, has in this collection two songs, both strongly marked with the camp, neither setting forth the slightest earthly claim to be regarded as 'elevated poesie,' yet both remarkably sing-able, and probably destined to become broadly popular. Of these, 'Bully Boy Billy,' is set to a lilting 'devil may care' Low-Dutch camp tune--one of the kind which 'sings itself,' and is well adapted to a roaring chorus. From the same we find a lyric detailing the loss of a briarwood pipe stolen in a raid, which the grieving 'sojer' trusts (as we most sincerely do with him) may be found when Richmond's taken. Among the remaining lyrics are five by Charles Godfrey Leland, including 'We're at War,' to the bold French air of the _Choeur des Girondins_, 'Northmen Come Out,' to the _Burschen heraus_, and 'Shall Freedom Droop and Die?' to the fine old air of 'Trelawney.' 'The Cavalry Song' has a brave air, composed for it by John K. Paine. Very spirited and merry is 'Overtures from Richmond,' set to the quaint air of '_Lilliburlero, bullen a la_,' which is said to have 'sung a deluded prince out of three kingdoms.' We trust that some of the old charm still sticks to the magic words, and that it may do as much for King Jeff. as it once did for King James. Among the remaining lyrics are the following: 'Put it Through,' and 'Old Faneuil Hall,' by E. E. Hale; 'Our Country is Calling,' to '_Wohlauf Kameraden!_' by Rev. F. H. Hedge, and a translation of Luther's _Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott_ by the same; Hauff's 'Night Guard,' an exquisite German air, and 'I'll be a Sergeant,' and 'Would you be a Soldier, Laddy?' both of them capital spirited soldier-songs. Last, not least, we have the 'Lass of the Pamunkey,' by F. J. Child. We know not whether the incident detailed be strictly autobiographic or borrowed; it is at any rate well told and merrily music-ed.

The reader will do well to observe that this collection, which has already become immensely popular, and has furnished material for more than one excellent patriotic concert, is prepared solely for the benefit of the solders, _and that the proceeds of the sale of the book are all devoted to distributing it in the army_. All who wish to make a most acceptable little gift at a trifling price; all who are 'sending things' to the army; all who would secure an interesting specimen of the songs of the war, and, finally, all who would own a really excellent musical work, should send an order for the above mentioned to Messrs. Ticknor & Fields.

THE NATIONAL ALMANAC AND ANNUAL RECORD FOR 1863. 12mo, pp. 704.
Philadelphia: George W. Childs. New York: Charles T. Evans.

If Dickens's illustrious statistician, Mr. Gradgrind, were in the flesh to-day, how he would gloat over this book! The 'facts' presented in its seven hundred double-columned pages would satisfy, even to repletion, his voracious cravings; and once crammed with them, he would go forth into society a walking cyclopedia of all that appertained to the civil, military, agricultural, industrial, financial, educational, charitable, and religious condition of these United States.

But though we make no claim to belong to the Gradgrind family, we acknowledge with pleasure our gratification with this book. It has long been matter of reproach against us on the part of foreign writers on commerce and statistical science, that we produced no statistical works worthy the name. The publication of this work will forever put that reproach to silence. We have examined the book with care, and have been at a loss which most to admire, the patient and extraordinary labor which had brought together so vast a collection of important facts, or the complete and exhaustive treatment of every subject.

It is a marked characteristic of the work that, while omitting nothing necessary to a full elucidation of the past condition of the country, it brings all its statistics up to the latest dates. The United States debt is given to December 1, 1862; the Government receipts and expenditures for the financial year 1862; the issues of the mint to the autumn of 1862; the contributions of each State to the volunteer army to December, 1862; the finances of most of the States to the same date; even the Pacific States being brought up to last autumn; and the condition of the Rebel army and finances to January 1, 1863. Such enterprise deserves, and must achieve success.

Noticeable, too, for its completeness and thoroughness, is the 'Record of Events' of the war, occupying nearly eighty pages, and forming a continuous and admirable journal of the war up to the close of last year. In the States, also, the fulness and variety of detail of the finances, debts, banks, railroads (a new feature), educational institutions, charitable and correctional organizations, agriculture, manufactures, and military organization of each State, possess a deep interest to any man who desires to know the actual condition and resources of his country. We were particularly pleased with a series of diagrams, prepared by Prof. Gillespie of Union College, illustrating at a glance the changes which have taken place in the relative population of the different States, the relative proportion of increase of white and of slave population, and the effect produced by this upon different sections. We have not, at the late hour at which we write, time or room to indicate a tithe of the valuable features of this remarkable book; we can only say, that whoever expends the small sum necessary for its purchase, will most assuredly obtain an ample equivalent for his money.

THE ORPHEUS C. KERR PAPERS. Second Series. New York: Carleton, 413
Broadway. 1863.

During the present decade the American public has welcomed almost annually a new humorist. Thus we have seen in rapid succession John Phoenix, Doesticks, Fanny Fern, and Artemus Ward enjoying extraordinary popularity, and then new 'lords of misrule' 'reigning in their stead.' The last popular favorite is 'Orpheus C. Kerr'--a name thinly disguising that of Office Seeker, and which is not indeed too well chosen, since in the volume before us little or nothing relative to the very suggestive subject of office-seeking, on the part of the author at least, is to be found. The book itself is, however, marvellously laugh provoking, abounding in the oddest conceits, strangest stories, and drollest extravaganzas in the most ultra American vein. If the men who best ridicule great failures in war and in politics, are the ones most to be dreaded, it must be admitted that 'Orpheus C. Kerr' is the sharpest thorn which has been as yet planted in the side of the 'Young Napoleons' of our army, whose ability seems to consist in building up the strength of the enemy by delay and in canvassing indirectly for the Presidency. There is no cause so good as to be without abuses, and the abuses which have crept into our management of the war are touched off in these papers as merrily as unmercifully. They have done 'yeoman's service' in the press, hitting all sides, but bearing most heavily on 'Young Napoleon' and the _status quo_ Democracy. It cannot be denied that the humor of these sketches is often merely extravagant, sometimes harshly strained, and occasionally bare and thin enough in all conscience, while the stories of the Cosmopolite Club seem like mere 'filling up' to 'make pages;' yet with all this there is more real wit, humor, and life-knowledge in this volume than would give tone and strength to half a dozen ordinary popular essayists of the Country Parson school. Extravagance is however to American narrative what it is to Arab conversation, something much less _outré_ to those who are born to it than to strangers, who are unable to discount like the natives as fast as the sums total are set down. Making every allowance for every defect, there remains in 'Orpheus C. Kerr' a residuum of irresistible humor, provoking scores of hearty laughs, and many indications of a basis of thought and of literary ability which place him far in advance of the later writers of his school. He takes a wider range, too wide indeed at times, since he occasionally becomes 'Cockneyfied.' We wish that 'Villiam' and the Willis-y 'my boy' were less frequently mentioned. Yet as all this is atoned for by abundance of true American fun, we readily pardon such echoes, trusting that in his future writings our humorist will endeavor to be in all things truly original. He can be so by the very simple process of pruning.

POEMS. By THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH. New York: Carleton. 1863.

Most of these very pleasant little strains of word-music and of graceful thought have been frequently brought before the American public, and become familiar favorites. They now reappear to advantage in a delicate blue-and-gold volume, with a medallion portrait of the poet.

MODERN WAR: Its Theory and Practice Illustrated from Celebrated
Campaigns and Battles. With Maps and Diagrams. By EMERIC SZABAD,
Captain U. S. A. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1863.

An excellent work, of an eminently practical nature, which may be read with interest and profit by every one in a time when there are so few who do not assume to be more or less critical in the art of war.

THE PIRATES OF THE PRAIRIES; or, Adventures in the American Desert.
By GUSTAVE AIMARD. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson. New York: Frederic
A. Brady. 1863.

A very trashy wildcat romance, highly spiced with sensation sentiment, "r-r-revenge," and other melo-dramatic attributes. Its author is well known as an extensive contributor to what may be called the Sadly-Neglected-Apprentice school of literature and of readers.

ANDREE DE TAVERNEY, or the Downfall of French Monarchy. By
ALEXANDER DUMAS. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson & Brothers. 1863.

When we, on the publishers' authority, inform the reader that this is really 'the _final_ conclusion' of the 'Countess of Charny,' the 'Memoirs of a Physician,' and a small library of other works, we shall doubtless send a thrill of joy to more than one heart. Incredible as it may appear, the Dumas factory, as _Maquet_ termed it, has actually finished one of its valuable historical series--unless indeed the director-in-chief should see fit to republish the long-forgotten first volume, as a subsequent final conclusion to this of 'Andree de Taverney.'

VERNER'S PRIDE; a Tale of Domestic Life. By Mrs. HENRY WOOD. In two
volumes. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson & Brothers. 1863.

A decidedly English novel, of a type well known to our public, embracing few novelties of character, yet well written, with the story well told. It has, we believe, been so fortunate as to secure a wide circulation.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

It is a dangerous task for the editor of a monthly review, in times like these, to comment on what has been or is likely to be done by the army, when no one knows what a day may bring forth. But, as regards those of the enemy among us who are scheming to aid and abet their Southern friends, we may speak more confidently. These traitors, though they have of late cast off the mask, and no longer pretend to aid the Administration and the cause of the Union, are still obliged to move with the caution without which trachery and cowardice would soon perish. It is, however, a bitter and a humiliating thought that they are so openly active among us, that they hold meetings where the ruin of the country is calmly meditated, that they form clubs, that they stir up the mob of their degraded hangers-on to hurrah for JEFFERSON DAVIS in our streets, and that finally no amount of exposure and of denunciation in the patriotic press seems to have the slightest effect in attracting to them the punishment they deserve.

The traitors of whom we speak are of two classes, the leaders and the dupes. The latter, careless of the fact that even if a _sudden_ peace could be brought about it must overwhelm the country in financial ruin, believe in a restitution of the _status quo ante bellum_. They think that their leaders will, in unison with DAVIS and his colleagues, reunite, annul Emancipation, disavow the acts of the Lincoln Administration, and reëstablish Slavery. Cotton is again to be king, and all go on as of old, save that New England is to be thrown out of the confederacy. They are encouraged in this belief by lying or cunningly managed letters from the South, and by assurances that the confederate leaders are secretly working to this end and aim. 'We got along very well before the war,' is their constant complaint, 'and we could do as well again, were it not for the Emancipationists.' Among the lukewarm, the cowardly, the meanly selfish and avaricious, and the habitual grumblers, such doctrines are readily made plausible. Those especially, who measure the propriety of carrying on a war solely by the amount of success which they desire, and who are incapable of great thoughts and principles, are easily duped by intriguing villany.

The leaders of these dupes have no faith whatever in restoring the Union. They have no desire to restore it. Men like Fernando Wood hope from their very hearts for a complete disintegration--the more thorough, for them, the better. They could never expect to command the ship, and so they are willing to wreck her, in the hope of each securing a fragment. Ruined in character in the eyes of all honest men, their names a byword for treason, and in most cases for literal crimes, political outcasts of the stamp who are said to vibrate between the legislature and the penitentiary, these desperadoes are now working with all their might to mass the cowardice of the North into a body powerful enough to do collectively, that for which an individual has in all countries and in all ages been judged worthy the gallows. But for this war they must have been confined to representing the dangerous classes of our cities--the ignorance and vice which finds in them congenial leaders. As it is, they hope for wider fields and more absolute sway.

There is reason to apprehend that the men who are really true to the Union do not appreciate the extent to which treason is working among us. Worse than all, there are many, who, while believing themselves true to the good cause, are, by constant grumbling and complaint, aiding the very worst form of disunion. Could we prevail with one prayer upon the heart of every Federal freeman, it would be to implore him in this hour of trial not to withold his warmest support from the Administration and to fall into the common weakness of fault-finding and despairing. Such enormous wars as this never have been ended in a few months; wars especially which involve the deepest antagonism of social principles in existence. And our winnings have been neither few nor light. The Southern Border States, with little exception, are now ours, and will inevitably be fully won in time: New Orleans is a pledge, with other important points, and the enemy admit that every Southern seaboard town is destined to be taken. Does this look like the wild boasting of the South two years ago, when the North was to be plundered, Washington taken, and the Free States trampled under the heel of a chivalry fiercely crying, _Væ victis!_'--'Woe to the conquered!'? There is no danger now from the enemy: as he himself admits, two years more of the war would not, at the rate in which we progress, leave him a single State; and be it borne in mind that a _speedy_ return to peace is only to be purchased at the price of a terrible financial crisis.

But we are in danger from the traitors _at home_. JEFFERSON DAVIS is less deadly to the Federal Union and less to be dreaded than the men who are scheming to make of New York a free city, and of every State and county a feudal principality.

* * * * *

The intentions of Louis Napoleon as regards Mexico are beginning to excite interest. Whatever they may be, there is one thing which it would be well for the French Emperor never to forget. He holds France simply as a pledge to the Revolution. So long as he remains true to the cause of liberty--and, despite names and circumstances, he has been truer to it than many suppose--he will remain in power. When he is false to it he will perish. It was through forgetting this that his uncle died at St. Helena--it was through forgetting this that Louis Philippe quitted Paris in a very citizenly but most un-kingly manner. The _bourgeoisie_ of France and the gossips of Paris may storm at the Federal Union, _épiciers_ may growl for our sugar, and operatives for cotton, but this class--on whom Louis Philippe made the mistake of solely relying, with a little help from the aristocracy--are not the men who guide the storms of revolution in France. The arch spirits of mischief are more secret, and of late years they have learned much. They are no longer so much inclined to Socialism, Père Cabét and 'national ateliérs,' still less to guillotines and noyades. But they are firm as ever, as jealous of despotism as ever, and, for an oppressor, as powerful as ever. And we believe that this class of men are firmly attached to the great cause of progressive freedom as represented by the Federal States and by the present Administration. Every day sees the truth spreading in France, and with its extension goes a deeply seated interest in the abolition of slavery. France--unlike England--feels shame at the idea of being chronicled in history as aiding oppression. The Frenchman is not so enormously conceited, so pitiably vain as to believe, like the Briton, that a crime is a virtue when for _his_ own peculiar interest. Vain as the French may be, they have not quite come to _that_.

It must be admitted that the French are a shrewd nation. We were wont to think of old that there was more spite than intelligence in the epithet by which they characterized John Bull as 'perfidious.' They were right, for time has shown us that Venice, in the full bloom of her night-shade iniquity and poniard policy, was never falser at heart than this great, brawling, boasting, beef-eating England--this 'merry England' of paupers and prisons, where one man in every eight is buried at public expense--this Mother England, which starves away annually half a million of emigrants--this Honest Old England, which floods the world with pick-pockets, burglars, and correspondents for the _Times_.

It was a trifling thing which brought on the French Revolution of 1848--the return of foreign refugees to Austria, and other significant indications of joining with the old powers in oppressing freedom. Let Louis Napoleon beware of an anti-American policy--for to every such policy there will be an opposition, with a spectre of the Revolution in the background.

* * * * *

When these remarks meet the eye of the reader, the infamous conduct of the drunken Delaware Southern-ape Senator, SAULSBURY, will in all probability have been forgotten. We have for so many years been so familiarized with the ribald or rowdy pranks of the chivalry, and of those more miserable wretches their Northern servants, that the mass of the public seems even yet quite willing to endure, for the poor payment of an apology, conduct which should anywhere have promptly consigned to imprisonment, at least, the guilty one. Not but that the apology of SAULSBURY was humble enough in all conscience. But it is time that our halls of legislation were thoroughly purified, now that 'chivalric' brigandage and the Southern system of personal retaliation no longer prevail. The first legislator who shall dare to draw a weapon in a place sacred to the councils of his country, should be permanently expelled from those councils, and made to feel by rigorous imprisonment, and life-long disfranchisement, the enormous infamy of his offence. We wonder that the English press treats us as a nation of boors and fools, and yet permit a representative on the floor of the Senate to set forth in his own person the worst of which a boor or fool is capable, and accept as full reparation a drunken-headaching apology!

These are the days of reform, and we sincerely trust that the reform will extend to the conduct of all our representatives, especially in Congress. The man who shall dare to apply, not merely to the President, but to any fellow member, while in either House, any terms of personal abuse, should incur a punishment which would teach him for the future to keep a civil tongue in his head, and make him endeavor to assume in future, at least the outward deportment of a gentleman. The going armed into such an assembly should however be promptly visited with a penalty of the extremest severity. It is time that the North freed itself entirely of these Southern 'dead rabbits' of the Saulsbury stamp, and indicated by every means in its power its determination to progress in the path of justice, order, and civilization.

* * * * *

All contributions, letters, &c., intended for the editors of THE CONTINENTAL MAGAZINE, should be addressed to the care of JOHN F. TROW, Esquire, No. 50 Greene street, New York. Correspondents directing to Mr. LELAND are particularly requested to bear this address in mind, as that gentleman is no longer a resident of Boston.

* * * * *

We publish the poetical tale, THE LADY AND HER SLAVE, by an American lady, subscribing herself _Incognita_. This is a poem of great genius and power. Whilst it possesses the inspiration of poetry, it has all the merits of a truthful and most interesting tale, combined with a splendid intellectual argument against slavery. This poem unites the logic of Pope with the genius and poetical inspiration of Goldsmith. It is a tragedy, and might be transferred to the stage. We trust _Incognita_ will continue her favors to THE CONTINENTAL.

R. J. W.

* * * * *

The rise in specie and in exchange is, we observe, spoken of as 'unprecedented'. The following extract from a work entitled, 'The British Empire in America,' written in 1740, shows that we are as yet far from having attained the differences in these respects: