Charles Eliot Norton to George William Curtis, April 29, 1861

Shady Hill, 29 April, 1861.

I wish we could have a long talk together. Your last note found its answer in my heart. Everything is going on well here. The feeling that stirs the people is no outburst of transient passion, but is as deep as it is strong. I believe it will last till the work is done. Of course we must look for some reaction, — but I have no fear that it will bear any proportion to the force of the present current.

It seems to me to be pretty much settled by this unanimity of action at the North that we are not to have a divided Union. I almost regret this result, for I wish that the Southern States could have the opportunity of making a practical experiment of their system as a separate organization, and I fear lest when the time of settlement comes the weakness of the North may begin to show itself again in unmanly compliances.

But our chief danger at the present moment is lest the prevailing excitement of the people should overbear the wiser, slower, and more far-sighted counsels of Mr. Seward, — for it is he who more than any one else has the calmness and the prudence which are most requisite in this emergency. I am afraid that he is not well supported in the Cabinet, and I more than ever wish that he could have been our President. I am not satisfied that Mr. Lincoln is the right man for the place at this time.

Sumner dined with our Club on Saturday.¹ He did not make a good impression on me by his talk. He is very bitter against Seward; he expressed a great want of confidence in Scott, thinking him feeble and too much of a politician to be a good general; he doubts the honour and the good service of Major Anderson. There is but one man in the country in whom he has entire confidence, and in him his confidence is overweening.

After Sumner had gone Mr. Adams² came in and talked in a very different and far more statesmanlike way. His opinions are worthy of confidence. I think he is not thoroughly pleased with the President or the Cabinet, — but in him Mr. Seward has a strong ally.

You see that Caleb Cushing has offered his services to Governor Andrew. I understand that two notes passed on each side, — one a formal tender from Cushing of his services, which the Governor replied to with equal formality, stating that there is no position in the Massachusetts army which he can fill. Cushing's first letter was accompanied by another private one in which he offered himself to fill any position and expressed some of his sentiments on the occasion. To this Andrew answers that in his opinion Mr. Cushing does not possess the confidence of the community in such measure as to authorize him — the Governor — to place him in any position of responsibility, and that, even if this were not the case, Mr. Cushing does not possess his personal confidence to a degree which would warrant him in accepting his services. This is excellent. It is no more than Cushing deserves. Neither the people nor the Governor have forgotten, and they will never forgive, his speeches last November or December, or his previous course. . . .³

_______________

¹ The Saturday Club of Boston.

² Charles Francis Adams was appointed minister to England, March 20, 1861.

³ Cushing had presided at the Democratic National Convention which nominated Breckinridge to run against Lincoln.

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 231-3

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, June 18, 1862

18th June, '62.

What a resplendent summer! How densely rich and blooming! I am out all I can be. This moment A. darts in and out again, asking,”What's your hat on for?” I've just been pruning and quiddling, and feeling of the ground with the roots of the Virginia creeper (no allusion to McClellan), and of the air with the white blossom sprays of the deutzia. I am grand in my square foot principality! My patch to me a kingdom is, and that elm tree! (do you remember it ?) my prime minister.

Colonel Raasloff waits to see what Congress will do about his St. Croix proposition. I have written to him that it seems to me we want our Southern laborers where they are, but we want them free, and, until they are so, I should cry godspeed to any man who wanted to escape as a free man to another country. Consequently I shall work all the harder upon public opinion to hasten the day of their freedom. It is better they should be a “free rural population” in their native land, which wants their labor, than in another country, isn't it?

Colonel Raasloff says, and this is entre nous, that he saw Sumner the day before; and when the colonel said that the war would be long, the Senator was evidently “delighted,” which R. says he was sorry to observe. He says that Speaker Grow told him that Congress would not adjourn before the middle of July, or certainly until Richmond was taken, adding, “The army is encamped before Richmond, and we are encamped behind the army.” Fortunately for us all, Mr. Lincoln is wiser than Mr. Sumner. He is very wise.

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 155-6

Charles Eliot Norton to Arthur H. Clough, April 10, 1861

Shady Hill, April 10,1861.

. . . Truly this is a time when one may well be glad to be on the spot to study our public affairs. Our troubles do not appear to be coming to a speedy close, and I do not know that there has been a moment since their beginning in November, of greater interest than the present. A collision between the forces of the United States and those of the Confederates seems imminent.

The new Administration in coming into power on the 4th March found every branch of the public service in a state of disorganization. The treasury was empty, the fleet scattered, the little army so posted that it could not at once be brought to the points where it was needed. Everywhere was confusion, uncertainty of counsel, and weakness, the result of the treacherous and imbecile course of Buchanan and his Cabinet. For weeks Mr. Lincoln and his new Cabinet were necessarily engaged in getting things into working order. They could undertake no vigorous measures and make no display of energy; but they were quietly and actively collecting their forces. The newspapers, puzzled by the delay, and baffled by a secrecy in the Administration to which they had long been unaccustomed, began to complain that the affairs of state were no better conducted than under the previous regime, that the Cabinet had no policy, that the country was drifting to ruin. But last week the Government showed its hand, and it became plain that it had waited only to gather strength to act, that it had a definite policy, and that the policy was a manly and straightforward one. Within the past four or five days a fleet has sailed from New York, with large supplies of material and provisions, and a considerable force of soldiers. Not yet does the public know its destination, but there are three directions which it will take according to circumstances. In the first place, Fort Sumter is to be provisioned. This will be done by sending in an unarmed vessel to the fort while the vessels of war wait outside the harbour. If she be fired upon, they will enter and protect her, at whatever cost. I fear that we may hear to-morrow that the South Carolinians have been mad enough to begin the attack. After provisioning Fort Sumter, the next object is to relieve Fort Pickens in Florida which is menaced by a large body of Southern troops. Men and provisions can be thrown into this fort from the water, but an attack is threatened if this is done. The third object is to garrison the frontier posts on the Texas borders, to defend the Texans against Indians and Mexicans, and to cut off the Confederates from making a descent upon Mexico. This is a step of prime importance. Secession is not a valid fact so long as the boundaries of the States declaring themselves seceded are defended by United States troops.

More vessels will sail this week from Boston and New York. The work the Administration has undertaken will be done. Of course we are waiting with most painful anxiety the news from the South. It seems now as if the leaders of the Revolution were determined to push it to the bloodiest issue. Governor Pickens of South Carolina has been informed that Fort Sumter would be provisioned, and that the Government desired to do it peaceably; the answer from him was the ordering out of the reserves, the getting the batteries ready for an attack on Fort Sumter, and the making all the preparations for a fight. One cannot but pity the poor Southern troops; they are brave, no doubt, and are certainly full of zeal for battle, but hardly one of them has ever seen a shot fired, none of them are regular soldiers, many of them are men whose pursuits have hitherto been peaceful, and many belong to the most cultivated and best Southern families. Think of a shell bursting in the ranks of men like these, fighting for such a cause as that for which they have engaged!

I wish I could read you some of the extremely interesting letters which Jane has received this winter from her friend, Miss Middleton, of Charleston. They have given us a most vivid view of the state of feeling there, and of the misery which war, which a single battle, would produce. But the people there are truly demented.

How is it all to end? I believe, somehow for good. But the commercial spirit is very strong with us at the North, and the corruption of long prosperity very manifest. We have need of a different temper from that which prevails, before we can reap much good from our present troubles.

Meanwhile everything is astonishingly quiet here. No one travelling in New England would imagine that such a revolution was going on in any part of the country. There is less business done than common, but there is no suffering; no labourers are turned out of employment; life everywhere runs on in its common course. . . .

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 228-31

Charles Eliot Norton to George William Curtis, March 5, 1861

Shady Hill, 5 March, 1861.

Is it not a great satisfaction to have the dignity and force of the government once more asserted? To feel that there are strong and honest hands to hold it, in place of the feeble and false ones which for four months past have let it fall?

Lincoln's Inaugural is just what might have been expected from him, and falls but little short of what might have been desired. It is manly and straightforward; it is strong and plain enough to afford what is so greatly needed, a base upon which the sentiments of the uncorrupted part of the Northern people can find firm ground; and from which their course of action can take direction. But what will the seceded States say about it — still more, what will they do? I incline to believe that they will not try violence, and that their course as an independent Confederacy is nearly at an end.

Congress could not have done less harm than it has done in passing the proposal for a Constitutional Amendment.¹ I am sorry that Lincoln should have volunteered any approbation of the proposal, — though I have little fear that the Amendment can be adopted by a sufficient number of States to make it part of the Constitution. I do not wish to bind the future. I fully adopt the principle in regard to “domestic institutions” (what a euphuistic people about slavery we are!) of the Republican platform, but I do not want Congress bound never to pass laws to prevent the internal Slave Trade. Let Slavery alone in each state, — very well; but let us not promise never to try to stop Virginia from being nothing but a breeding ground of slaves.

The first act of this great play of Destruction of the Union has ended well. It seems now as if before the play were ended it would be generally found out that, as you and I have believed from the beginning, its proper name is, Destruction of the Slave Power.

When the history of American Slavery is written its open decline and fall will be dated from the day in which the South Carolina Declaration of Independence was signed. . . .

_______________

¹ The Thirteenth Amendment as proposed by Congress in 1861, and approved by Lincoln in his inaugural address, forbade the passage of any amendment empowering Congress “to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.” As adopted and declared in force before the end of 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery.

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 219-20

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, March 25, 1862

25th March.

Fletcher Harper has asked me to take into consideration the writing of a history, a chronicle of the war, to be illustrated by the war pictures of the "Weekly," a huge (in size) book for popular reading, and to be especially a Northern book, to show what the Rebellion came from, and what its end would probably be! That is not bad for Mr. Harper. I told him that if I wrote about the Rebellion I should want to write a proper history; that his work, though admirable in intention, could be but a ‘job’ for me; that the study would be useful to any subsequent work upon the subject, but that the public never could believe that the later was more than a hash of the earlier. He said that I could easily do it in three months, and he would pay me well, and begged me to think it over.¹

_______________

¹ The book was not undertaken.

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 154

Charles Eliot Norton to Arthur H. Clough, February 10, 1861

Shady Hill, 10 February, 1861.

. . . Well, since I wrote last to you, great things have been going on here. It has been no time for writing letters, for the speculations of one day were forgotten the next in the new aspect of affairs. Not even yet is there any certainty as to the result of our present troubles and excitements, so far as the South is concerned. It is still doubtful whether the states that have already left the Union will be the only ones to do so, or whether the whole body of Slave States will go off and set up an attempt at a Confederacy to be managed in the interest of the owners of slaves, and for the protection and extension of slavery. There is little to choose between the two. For many reasons, political, social, and economical, it would be desirable to keep the northern tier of Slave States united with the Free States; but on the other hand, if they go off, the Free States no longer have any connection with or responsibility for Slavery. For my own part I have been hopeful from the beginning that the issue of these troubles, whatever it might be, would be for the advantage of the North, and for the permanent and essential weakening of the Slave power; and I see no reason to change this opinion. The truth is that it is the consciousness of power having gone from their hands that has induced the revolutionists of the South to take the hasty, violent, and reckless steps they have done. It is not the oppression of the North, it is not any interference with the interests of the South, it is not John Brown, or Kansas, or the principles of the Republican party, that are the causes of secession, — but it is the fact that the South, which has heretofore, from the beginning, controlled the government of the country, is now fairly beaten, and that it prefers revolution to honest acknowledgment of defeat and submission to it. But disunion is no remedy for defeat; the South is beaten in the Union or out of it. If the Slave States had accepted in a manly way their new position they would have secured their own interests. Slavery would not have been interfered with. But the course they have pursued has already done more work in damaging Slavery as an institution than all the labours of the Abolitionists could have effected for years. The competition for the supply of cotton which has now been effectually roused will be the great means by which slave labour will be rendered unprofitable to the owners of slaves; and as soon as they find this out Slavery will cease to be defended as a Divine Institution, and as the necessary basis of the best form of society. In fact we are seeing now the beginning of the death struggles of Slavery; and there is no ground for wonder at the violence of its convulsions. Civil war between the Free and the Slave States is a remote possibility. It will be hard to drive us of the North into it. But we are quite ready to fight, if need be, for the maintenance of the authority of the Civil Government, (threatened by a prejudiced attack of the Southern revolutionists on Washington,) and, I hope, also for the freedom of the Territories. But I trust that fighting will not be required, and I believe that Mr. Lincoln will be quietly inaugurated on the 4th March. He has shown great courage and dignity in holding his tongue so completely since his election.

I could fill twenty sheets with the rumours, the fancies, and the theories of the day, but by the time my letter reaches you they would not be worth so much as last year's dead leaves. Of course there is no other news with us, for the intensity of the interest in public affairs lessens that of the other events, and diminishes the number of the events themselves. . . .

Emerson's new volume has been a great success here, and has met with far more favour than it seems to have done in England. Ten thousand copies of it have gone off here in spite of the political excitements. I do not wonder that the English critics do not like the book, for every year the imaginative and mystic element of the intellect, as it shows itself in literature, is getting more and more scouted at by them, — but I do not wonder at the abusive vulgarity of the article in the “Saturday Review.” The book is the most Emersonian, good and bad, of all his books; certainly a book to do good to any one who knows how to think. But Emerson's books, as you know, are not nearly so good as himself. . . .

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 216-8

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, March 6, 1862

March 6, '62.

I think I am a little more cheerful in the [Washington] matter than you, because I have rather more faith in the President's common sense and practical wisdom. His policy has been to hold the border States. He has held them; now he makes his next step and invites emancipation. I think he has the instinct of the statesman, — the knowledge of how much is practicable without recoil. From the first he has steadily advanced, and there has been no protest against anything he has said or done. It is easy to say he has done nothing until you compare March 6, '61 and '62.

As other signs of the current, I observe these things in the papers of to-day: 1st, Mr. Adams' speech distinctly saying that Slavery is the root of all evil; 2d, Cyrus Field, a stiff old Democrat, repeating it. 3d, Prosper Wetmore introducing into our Chamber of Commerce, he an old Commercial Democrat, a resolution of thanks to John Bright, the eloquent defender, etc., of freedom, — a word that your true-blue pro-slavery modern Democrat shies as a bat shies the sun.

All the omens are happy, it seems to me. For what is it but a question of our national common sense? and if that, as the year has proved, was strong enough to smother so furious a party spirit as ours in this country, why should we suppose it will fail us suddenly?

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 153-4

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, December 28, 1861

Home, 28th December, 1861.

The New London business was utterly dreary. The audience was fair, the best they had had, as they kindly say to every lecturer, but the course is a failure. I came away at twelve, midnight, and slept and waked, cold, back to New York. The wind had blown the water out of the Connecticut (high old Yankee river!) so that we lay for three hours upon the shore. I was not very sorry, for it prevented our arriving before dawn, and I came in upon mother and E. and N. at nine o'clock to breakfast.

I have just read the correspondence of Seward. It seems to me admirable and honorable. He puts it upon a true ground, — that we, in like circumstances, should demand reparation and apology. It is calmly and well argued, and the conclusion is ingenious and masterly. We have nothing to be ashamed of. Our pride may be wounded, but our honor is untouched. The third and last trump card of the rebellion has failed.

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 152

Charles Eliot Norton to George William Curtis, December 17, 1860

Shady Hill, 17 December, 1860.

. . . In these present times of alarm and suspense my chief fear is lest we of the North should fail to see that the time has now come when the dispute between the North and the South can be settled finally, and therefore ought to be settled and not deferred. I am afraid lest we may yield some part of our convictions and be false to our principles. The longer we stave off settlement by compromises and concessions, the heavier will be the reckoning when the day of settlement at length comes. This is no time for timid counsels. Safety no less than honour demands of us to take a firm stand, and to shrink from none of the consequences of the resolute maintenance of our principles, — the principles of justice and of liberty. I believe that New England is stronger than New Africa. A nominal union is not worth preserving at the price that is asked for it.

For my own part I think it most likely that we shall come at length to the rifle and the sword as the arbitrators of the great quarrel, — and I have no fear for the result. The discipline of steel is what we need to recover our tone. But I pity the South; and look forward with the deepest sorrow and compassion to the retribution they are preparing for themselves. The harvest they must reap is one of inevitable desolation. . . .

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 215-6

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, December 2, 1861

2d December, 1861.

At the Astor we saw General and Mrs. Fremont. She seems bitter, I think, but he is the same old simple, winning soul that he always was. He is perfectly calm and sweet. He evidently thinks the administration do not yet understand that there is a war.

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 151-2

Charles Eliot Norton to Arthur H. Clough, December 11, 1860

Shady Hill, 11 December, 1860.

. . . Confusion and alarm are the order of the day with us. The movement for the breaking-up of the Union has acquired a most unexpected force. No one could have supposed beforehand that the South would be so blind to its own interests, so deaf to every claim of safety and honour, as to take such a course as it has done since the election a month ago. This course if followed out must bring ruin to the Southern States, and prolonged distress to the North. We are waiting on chance and accident to bring events. Everything in our future is uncertain, everything is possible. The South is in great part mad. Deus vult perdere. There is no counsel anywhere; no policy proposed. Every man is anxious; no one pretends to foresee the issue out of trouble. I have little hope that the Union can be preserved. The North cannot concede to the demands of the South, and even if it could and did, I doubt whether the result would be conciliation. The question is now fairly put, whether Slavery shall rule, and a nominal Union be preserved for a few years longer; or Freedom rule and the Union be broken up. The motives which the Southern leaders put forward for disunion are mere pretexts; their real motives are disappointed ambition, irritated pride, and the sense that power which they have so long held has now passed out of their hands.

There is little use in speculating on the consequences of disunion. If but one or two States secede, if the terrorism now established in South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama, and which has strength to control every expression of sentiment opposed to disunion, — if this terrorism be broken through, and a chance be given for the conservative opinion in these States to manifest itself, it is possible that secession may take place without violence. But if, on the other hand, the excited feeling now prevalent should extend and gather force, peaceable secession becomes hardly possible, and all the horrors of servile insurrection and civil war loom up vaguely in the not distant future.

At present there is universal alarm; general financial pressure, great commercial embarrassment. The course of trade between the North and the South is interrupted; many manufacturing establishments are closed or working on short time; there are many failures, and many workmen thrown out of employment. This general embarrassment of business is shared in by foreign commerce, and must be sympathetically felt in England. The prospects of the next cotton crop are most uncertain.

The North stands in a perfectly fair position. It waits for action on the part of the South. It has little to regret in its past course, and nothing to recede from. It would not undo the election of Mr. Lincoln if it could; for it recognizes the fact that the election affords no excuse for the course taken by the South, that there was nothing aggressive in it and nothing dangerous to real Southern interests. It feels that this is but the crisis of a quarrel which is not one of parties but of principles, and it is on the whole satisfied that the dispute should be brought to a head, and its settlement no longer deferred. It is, however, both astonished and disappointed to find that the South should prefer to take all the risks of ruin to holding fast to the securities afforded to its institutions and to all the prosperity established by the Union. It is a sad thing, most sad indeed, to see the reckless flinging away of such blessings as we have hitherto enjoyed; most sad to contemplate as a near probability the destruction of our national existence; saddest of all to believe that the South is bringing awful calamities upon itself. But on the other hand there is a comfort in the belief that, whatever be the result of present troubles, the solution of Slavery will be found in it; and that the nature of these difficulties, the principles involved in them, and the trials that accompany them, will develop a higher tone of feeling and a nobler standard of character than have been common with us of late.

All we have to do at the North is to stand firm to those principles which we have asserted and which we believe to be just, — to have faith that though the heavens fall, liberty and right shall not fail, and that though confusion and distress prevail for the time in the affairs of men there is no chance and no anarchy in the universe.

We are reaping the whirlwind, — but when reaped the air will be clearer and more healthy.

I write hastily, for it is almost the mail hour, and I want to send this to you to-day. But even were I to write at length and with all deliberation, I could do no more than show you more fully the condition of anxious expectancy in which we wait from day to day, and of general distress among the commercial community.

Of course in these circumstances there is little interest felt in other than public affairs. It is a bad time for literature; the publishers are drawing in their undertakings; — and among other postponements is that of your poems. So much do our personal concerns depend on political issues. The only new book of interest is Emerson's.¹ It was published a day or two since and could not have appeared at a fitter time, for it is full of counsels to rebuke cowardice, to confirm the moral principles of men, and to base them firmly on the unshaken foundations of eternal laws. It is a book to be read more than once. It is full of real wisdom, but the wisdom is mingled with the individual notions of its author, which are not always wise. . . .

_______________

¹ The Conduct of Life.

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 212-5

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, October 7, 1861

7th October, '61.

Well, and how goes the day in your heart? Mrs. Shaw had a few lines from Mrs. Fremont the other day. It is fine to see her faith in her husband. Can there be any who do not wish him well and hope for his success?

I am putting down some of my thoughts about the war in a lecture upon “National Honor.” It is really a speech upon the times. The Fraternity wanted me to open their course upon the 15th, but I cannot be ready before the 29th October. Then I shall come; and I shall see you, I hope, though I do not know that I can do more than front, fire, and fall back.

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 151

Arthur H. Clough to Charles Eliot Norton, July 4, 1861

London: July 4, 1861.

On coming back from abroad ten days ago I received two letters from you, one of which I had received by copy from my wife at Athens. Many thanks for them; they were very interesting, and I hope you will not be discouraged by my brief acknowledgments from writing further. I am still invalided, and am to go abroad again the day after to-morrow. I have achieved a good deal already, having seen Athens and Constantinople. I was half-tempted to come over to pay you the visit you so kindly proposed, but I should have had to return early in September, and I hope some year to spend a September on your side. I have just made a call on a former acquaintance in America, Miss E. H., of Concord, who brought me a letter from Emerson moreover. She tells me that in New England, she believes, people do not expect that the Southern States will ever be brought back into the Union, and that it is not the object simply to make them return; it being indeed hardly possible that the States, North and South, should ever again live together in union, but that the war is rather in vindication of the North and its rights, which have been trampled upon by the South. Is this true, in your judgment? Certainly it does seem hardly conceivable that South Carolina should ever return. On what terms then would the North be willing to make peace, and what conditions would it require in limine before entering upon the question of separation?

As for the feeling here, you must always expect statesmen to be cold in their language, and the newspapers impertinent and often brutal. Beyond this, I think people here had been led to suppose at the outset that the Northern feeling was strong against civil war, (and so it was I suppose,) and that the principle of separation was conceded; the indignation being merely at the mode adopted for obtaining it. And the attack on Fort Sumter which caused so sudden a revulsion of feeling with you was naturally attended with no such change here. But coexisting with all this, I believe there is a great amount of strong feeling in favour of the North.

Technically we are wrong, I suppose, and as a matter of feeling, we are guilty of an outrage in recognising the South as a belligerent power, but as a matter of convenience between your government and ours, I suppose the thing is best as it is.

Miss H. will take to Emerson four photographs of Rowse's picture of me; one for you: it may be better than nothing.

My nervous energy is pretty well spent for to-day, so I must come to a stop. I have leave till November, and by that time I hope I shall be strong again for another good spell of work.

Lord Campbell's death is rather the characteristic death of the English political man. In the cabinet, on the bench, and at a dinner party, busy, animated, and full of effort to-day, and in the early morning a vessel has burst. It is a wonder they last so long. I shall resign if it proves much of a strain to me to go on at this official work. Farewell.

SOURCE: Arthur Hugh Clough, Letters and Remains of Arthur Hugh Clough, p. 316-7

Charles Eliot Norton to James Russell Lowell, June 3, 1860

Newport, 3 June, 1860.

. . . Are you pleased that Mr. Everett has consented to take the nomination for the Vice Presidency? His letter reminds me of the advertisement of “the retired Doctor whose sands of life have nearly run out.” We have patriots left. In the view of the Union party it would seem that the Union itself were in a similar condition to the English gunboats, planks rotted, sham copper bolts not driven half through, and a general condition of unsoundness making them wholly unsafe in a sea.

Yet if the Vengeur should go down under the waves, Bell and Everett will be seen upon the upper deck waving their hands in a graceful oratorical way, and crying with melancholy voice, Vive la République....

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 208-9

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, August 23, 1861

23d August, '61.

I am very firm in the faith that there can be but the government and anti-government parties, and then that the Republican party, though strictly loyal, does not by any means include all loyal men, and that recent political opponents have a right to demand, as a condition of concerted action, that some of the candidates shall be taken from among them. Isn't this exactly right?

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 151

Arthur H. Clough to Charles Eliot Norton, March 10, 1861

Freshwater, Isle of Wight: March 10, 1861.

I hope your being at home may be understood to prove that you are a good deal stronger. I am a good deal better myself, and have no very good excuse for not writing beyond the advice which is given me to indulge in laziness. Had I had six months' leave proclaimed to me from beforehand, I should have naturally thought of going over to see you in America; but, what with water-cure and other things, I don't think I shall even go abroad to the Continent for more than a month.

I am glad to hear you speak so hopefully of your future much, however, will I suppose in any case depend on the good sense and character of your new President and his advisers. I for my part should suppose that an attempt to retake the federal forts would be unwise. You are strong enough not to need it.

Emerson's new essays were to me quite as good as, if not better than, any former volume. The reviews are no great index of public interest unless you collect a good number. There are now so many local reviews, and people with us depend so very little on Athenaeums and Literary Gazettes, or even Saturday Reviews. An article in the 'Times' is the really important thing for a book to get with a view to sale, but even that proves little as to people's interest. There is a vast deal of anti-mysticism, and of a dense, supercilious, narrow-minded common sense, which of course speaks pretty loudly.

SOURCE: Arthur Hugh Clough, Letters and Remains of Arthur Hugh Clough, p. 301-2

Charles Eliot Norton to Ellen Dwight Twisleton, December 13, 1859

Shady Hill, 13 December, 1859.

... I have thought often of writing to you, — especially since John Brown made his incursion into Virginia, — but it has been difficult hitherto to form a dispassionate judgment in regard to this affair, and I have not cared to write a mere expression of personal feeling. Perhaps it is even now still too near the event for one to balance justly all the considerations involved in it. Unless you have seen some one of the American papers during the last two months you can hardly have formed an idea of the intensity of feeling and interest which has prevailed throughout the country in regard to John Brown. I have seen nothing like it. We get up excitements easily enough, but they die away usually as quickly as they rose, beginning in rhetoric and ending in fireworks; but this was different. The heart of the people was fairly reached, and an impression has been made upon it which will be permanent and produce results long hence.

When the news first came, in the form of vague and exaggerated telegraphic reports, of the seizure of the Arsenal at Harper's Ferry, people thought it was probably some trouble among the workmen at the place; but as the truth slowly came out and John Brown's name, which was well known through the country, was mentioned as that of the head of the party, the general feeling was that the affair was a reckless, merely mad attempt to make a raid of slaves, — an attempt fitly put down by the strong arm. There was at first no word of sympathy either for Brown or his undertaking. But soon came the accounts of the panic of the Virginians, of the cruelty with which Brown's party were massacred; of his noble manliness of demeanour when, wounded, he was taken prisoner, and was questioned as to his design; of his simple declarations of his motives and aims, which were those of an enthusiast, but not of a bad man, — and a strong sympathy began to be felt for Brown personally, and a strong interest to know in full what had led him to this course. Then the bitterness of the Virginia press, the unseemly haste with which the trial was hurried on, — and all the while the most unchanged, steady, manliness on the part of "Old Brown," increased daily the sympathy which was already strong. The management of the trial, the condemnation, the speech made by Brown, the letters he wrote in prison, the visit of his wife to him, — and at last his death, wrought up the popular feeling to the highest point. Not, indeed, that feeling or opinion have been by any means unanimous; for on the one side have been those who have condemned the whole of Brown's course as utterly wicked, and regarded him as a mere outlaw, murderer, and traitor, while, on the other, have been those who have looked upon his undertaking with satisfaction, and exalted him into the highest rank of men. But, if I am not wrong, the mass of the people, and the best of them, have agreed with neither of these views. They have, while condemning Brown's scheme as a criminal attempt to right a great wrong by violent measures, and as equally ill-judged and rash in execution, felt for the man himself a deep sympathy and a fervent admiration. They have admitted that he was guilty under the law, that he deserved to be hung as a breaker of the law, — but they have felt that the gallows was not the fit end for a life like his, and that he died a real martyr in the cause of freedom.

Brown in truth was a man born out of time. He was of a rare type, rare especially in these days. He belonged with the Covenanters, with the Puritans. He was possessed with an idea which mastered his whole nature and gave dignity and force to his character. He had sincere faith in God, — and especially believed in the sword of the Lord. His chief fault seems to have been impatience with the slowness of Providence. Seeing what was right he desired that it should instantly be brought to pass, — and counted as the enemies of the Lord those who were opposed to him. But the earnestness of his moral and religious convictions and the sincerity of his faith made him single-minded, and manly in the highest degree. There was not the least sham about him; no whining over his failure; no false or factitious sentiment, no empty words; — in everything he showed himself simple, straightforward and brave. The Governor of Virginia, Governor Wise, said of him, that he was the pluckiest man he had ever seen. And on the morning of his execution, the jailor riding with him to the gallows said to him, — “You 're game, Captain Brown.” And game he was to the very last. He said to the sheriff as he stepped onto the platform of the gallows, “Don't keep me waiting longer than is necessary,” — and then he was kept waiting for more than ten minutes while the military made some movement that their officers thought requisite. This gratuitous piece of cruel torture has shocked the whole country. But Brown stood perfectly firm and calm through the whole.

The account of his last interview with his wife before his death, which came by telegraph, was like an old ballad in the condensed picturesqueness of its tender and tragic narrative.

You see even from this brief and imperfect statement of mine, how involved the moral relations of the whole affair have been, and how difficult the questions which arise from it are to answer.

What its results will be no one can tell, but they cannot be otherwise than great. One great moving fact remains that here was a man, who, setting himself firm on the Gospel, was willing to sacrifice himself and his children in the cause of the oppressed, or at least of those whom he believed unrighteously held in bondage. And this fact has been forced home to the consciousness of every one by Brown's speech at his trial, and by the simple and most affecting letters which he wrote during his imprisonment. The events of this last month or two (including under the word events the impression made by Brown's character) have done more to confirm the opposition to Slavery at the North, and to open the eyes of the South to the danger of taking a stand upon this matter opposed to the moral convictions of the civilized world, — than anything which has ever happened before, than all the anti-slavery tracts and novels that ever were written.

I do not believe that other men are likely to follow John Brown in the course which he adopted, — mainly because very few of them are of his stamp, but also because almost all men see that the means he adopted were wrong. But the magnanimity of the man will do something to raise the tone of national character and feeling, — and to set in their just position the claims and the pretensions of the mass of our political leaders. John Brown has set up a standard by which to measure the principles of public men. . . .

SOURCE: Sara Norton and  M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 197-201

James Russell Lowell to Charles Eliot Norton, April 13, 1865

. . . The news, my dear Charles, is from Heaven. I felt a strange and tender exaltation. I wanted to laugh and I wanted to cry, and ended by holding my peace and feeling devoutly thankful. There is something magnificent in having a country to love. It is almost like what one feels for a woman. Not so tender, perhaps, but to the full as self-forgetful. I worry a little about reconstruction, but am inclined to think that matters will very much settle themselves. But I must run to my tread-mill. Love and joy to all!

Ever yours,

J. R. L.

SOURCE: Charles Eliot Norton, Editor, Letters of James Russell Lowell, Volume 1, p. 385-6

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, August 19, 1861

August 19, '61.

I say these things looking squarely at what is possible, looking at what we shall be willing to do, not what we ought to do. There is very little moral mixture in the "anti-slavery" feeling of this country. A great deal is abstract philanthropy; part is hatred of slave-holders; a great part is jealousy for white labor; very little is a consciousness of wrong done, and the wish to right it. How we hate those whom we have injured. I, too, “tremble when I reflect that God is just.”

If the people think the government worth saving they will save it. If they do not, it is not worth saving. And when it is gone, he will be a foolish fellow who sees in its fall the end of the popular experiment. All that can truly be seen in it will be the fact that principles will wrestle for the absolute control of the system. That is my consolation in any fatal disaster. Meanwhile I hope that the spirit of liberty is strong enough in our system to conquer.

I am elected a delegate to our State Convention on the 11th September. There was a strong effort to defeat me, but it was vain. In the reorganization of the County Committee, the opposition triumphed, though I and my friends were unquestionably strongest. But none of us moved a finger, and the enemy had been busy for a fortnight. We were displaced in the Committee by a conspiracy based upon personal jealousy of me as the “one-man power” in the distribution of political patronage in the county. I am not sorry at the result, for the post of chairman was very irksome, but I am sorry for the method, for it is an illustration of the way in which we are governed.

Don't think I am lugubrious about the country, for I am really very cheerful. The “old cause” is safe, however in our day it may be checked and grieved. The heart of New England is true. So I believe, is the heart of its child, the West. We go out alone to fight Old England's battle, and she scoffs and sneers. “The Lord is very tedious,” said the old nurse, “but he is very sure.”

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 149-51

Arthur H. Clough to Charles Eliot Norton, December 5, 1859

Council Office: December 5.

We are here in a state of rifle fever, which I do not think will be allayed by the imperial smooth words. Palmerston is not to go to the Congress, and France, I fear, will do as she pleases.

I was glad to have your account of Brown. His behaviour before his death struck me quite in the way in which you regard it: nothing could be plainer, and more composed and upright.

SOURCE: Arthur Hugh Clough, Letters and Remains of Arthur Hugh Clough, p. 294