Letters to the London "Times", and New York "Courier and inquirer".

LETTER IX. The Revolution of February, 1848, 195

LETTER XL The Troubled State of France, 203

LETTER XH.

National Work-shops, 207

LETTER XIII.

Timidity and Weakness of the National Assembly, 210

LETTER XIV.

The " Four Days of June " and the Provisional Government, .... 2 12

LETTER XV.

The Great Movement in Europe, 214

LETTER XVI.

France in a State of Transition, 217

LETTER XVII.

The Republic near its End, 219

LETTER XVIII.

The Internal Administration of France, 221

LETTER XIX.

What can be substituted for the Republic ? 224

LETTER XX.

The Coup d'Etat of December 2d, 229

LETTER XXI.

Will Mankind go backwards ? 252

LETTER XXII.

The " Value of the Union," 255

LETTERS

'LONDON TIMES."

Letter I

It is frequently remarked by English writers, that the inhabitants of the United States " hate them," and would on the slightest provocation, or with no provocation at all, be glad to rush into a senseless war. This is not true, but it is so generally believed by them, that a very short time since, I was requested to write a letter, demonstrating the contrary, to be put into the hands of one of the leading men in your country.* We do not hate you, but all the actual wrongs you could heap upon us would hardly stir up such bitter blood as the venomous outpourings of the Quarterly Revieiu and other periodicals have done. Should you not rather seek for good than for evil in those of your own blood, and have you not much more to lose than to gain by exciting our evil passions, and by keeping us just at that point of irritation where you yourselves ought to be answerable for any act on our part which may eventuate in war?

*Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst

I am a man of peace, and I cannot but think that the responsibility of those who strive to set brethren at strife, is awful in the extreme. If, therefore, my poor persuasion can induce you or others to put less gall into your anathemas against my country, if not for our sakes and our children's sake, then for the sake of human happiness and civilization, endeavor to preserve that peace which God loves and man should not despise.

In order to preserve it between two powerful nations, it is of some consequence that their respective resources be not mutually undervalued. I admit that my countrymen, to judge from their frequent self-glorification, are either stupidly ignorant of, or grossly indifferent to, the immense numerical superiority of your war marine over ours ; but, on the other hand, our own means of annoyance in case of hostilities are vastly underrated by you. It is thought in England, because our public ships are not as one in ten to yours, that therefore our mercantile marine might be swept from the ocean, while yours remained almost unharmed. But you well know that a lancet can let life out as surely as a broadsword, and it needs no ghost of rich Indiamen, long sunk, to tell many a ruined family that a paltry privateer can do the work of destruction as effectually as the mightiest man-of-war with its hundred cannons. And, taking into consideration the myriads of private armed vessels which would swarm from all our ports in spite of blockades, and the immense extent of your commerce, considerably greater than ours, I hazard nothing in declaring, if war should come, that, ship for ship and man for man, we should have no reason to fear the last " dead reckoning. "

In your leading article of the 30th ult. you say, that " the effects of a state of war would be equally injurious to the interests and to the liberties of the (American) commonwealth." To the interests, yes ! but only temporarily and partially.

Temporarily, because the States arc yet too young to feel for any length of time the effects of a blow, however heavy, and are possessed in a rare degree of that elasticity which youth alone possesses.

Were you to raze every town on our seaboai'd, (a thing impossible, as New York and Boston, not to mention other ports? I know, are so strongly fortified that no enemy could enter them,) but for the sake of argument, were you to give our cities to the flames and our ships to the waves, do you think the effects would be so durable as in an older country suffering under a like calamity ? Do you believe that, a few years after earth's direst curse had passed, a vestige of it would remain ? — that a people who, in less than the ordinary duration of human life, have turned thousands of barren spots into habitations which the heart of man delights in, would allow a second sun to shine upon the encumbered streets where their infant steps first trod ? — or, that those who within the memory of middle age have distanced most competitors in the commercial race, and are now close upon the heels of the merchant princes of their parent isle, would leave their timber, their hemp, and their iron, for a single hour, while they straightened their backs beneath the blow that had bent them ? No, Sir ! The injuries to our interests would be but the history of a day. A young man can lose with impunity a pound of blood, while a single ounce from the veins of an old one, like the last ounce upon the camel's back, will kill.

Nor, while the storm lasted would its effects be more than partial. You seem to forget that foreign sources of luxuries and necessaries once shut up, our manufactures, no longer in a rude state, as at the commencement of the last war, would be pushed into more dangerous competition with your own — an affair of life and death to no small portion of your population, but of wealth incalculable to millions of ours.

I have not the presumption to crowd your columns, even if permitted, with reasons why I think you are mistaken in supposing that our "liberties, too, would suffer," and will merely say, if you mean our liberties in relation to our own rulers, that they are secured to us not by traditions, nor precedents, nor dicta, but by a written Constitution, which, though, from time to time, it may be violated by ignorant or rash or vicious men, can never be systematically perverted to private ends, because the people in their general intelligence know too well its value to let it be lost.

If, however, you mean our liberties as they relate to foreign nations, ask, I pray you, the first American you encounter, no matter of what party or of what politics, and he will tell you that at the least sign of war all the States would join with one accord, regardless of the justice of the cause, and defer till a more convenient season the discussion of their local animosities. You would learn, moreover, that whenever an anti-war cry has arisen in the midst of hostilities, it has been as instantly stilled by the univerr al voice of the people. So far, indeed, is it from being believed among us that war would endanger the Confederation, that not a few are heard openly to express the opinion that if it were to come every twenty years, it would serve to bind us more closely together, to knit up our ravelled sympathies, somewhat damaged by our ever occurring elections, and to open our eyes to the value of the Union. Some, in their fear of a separation, even pray for a national debt. But, for my own part, I am firmly convinced there is not a cabin on the remotest skirts of our borders, nor a dwelling in our most populous cities, where the necessity of union requires to be taught by any such extraordinary means as these.

With respect to the Oregon dispute, I think with you, that the sooner it is settled the better will it be for all honest men in both countries, though it may disappoint a host of armycontractors, speculators, and adventurers, greedy for their prey; I agree with you, too, in the opinion, that a refusal to submit one's claims to arbitration, when negotiation fads, is prima facie evidence against the party so refusing. But has negotiation failed ? I believe not, and I have just learned from a most intelligent source that there are yet good grounds for trusting that it will not. For this reason I do not, like you, " ground all hopes of a settlement on arbitration, " though, as a dernier ressort, I can conceive of nothing more desirable on the score of interest or of honor, especially where territory is concerned ; and, notwithstanding a prevailing notion among my countrymen that their claims, being the claims of republicans, would not stand a fair chance beside those of England if submitted to the award of a crowned King, I am quite sure, could any thing like unfairness enter into the decision, that England herself — rich and powerful England, the object of envy to the European world, would be the more likely victim.

Your correspondent " A. B. " asks, " If the degradation of the Republic " (a thing taken for granted) " is not caused by the conduct of the Americans themselves, who by deliberate and public frauds, have excluded themselves from the community of civilization ?" and gives as- a reason for the affirmative of the proposition, an answer which would raise a smile, were it not for the sympathy one feels for the unfortunate. He says that in 1839, he loaned a sum of money to one of our States, which in 1845, it cannot or will not repay. So then, because Illinois, an individual of our vast Confederation, rashly, but not in bad faith for aught that appears, made to " A. B. " a promise six years ago which she cannot now redeem, (for, be it remarked, her willingness to pay has always been manifest), our Republic, forsooth, is " degraded " and we, in the mass, as under an excommunication of old, are " excluded from the community of civilization. " Verily, even if Illinois were as bad as " A. B. " would make her, it is hard that all our teeth should he set on edge for sour grapes, which others — not " our fathers " — Lave eaten.

But let us put the case more strongly than " A. B. " has done. Not Illinois alone, hut nearly one half of our States are, as every body knows, in the same predicament, with one exception, which I will presently notice, They borrowed money, meaning and expecting to repay it, and they cannot at present. This is the " head and front of their offence, no more. " Their liability they never denied, and even if they had, I do not see how the Republic, the nation called the " United States, " should any more be degraded by the misconduct of some of its constituent parts, over whose money affairs it has no control, than England would be if several of its richest and most powerful corporations were to become fraudulently bankrupt. The government of the United States, which is the sole representative of the Republic at home or abroad, never pledged its faith for the States' individual solvency, nor did it ever plead unwillingness or inability to meet its own engagements. A truce, then, to such nonsense as " A. B. " in his angry mood puts forth. He is sore, and well he may be, after having so- foolishly squandered his money; for I can tell him that, had his means or his patience permitted it, if he had waited yet a. little, he would have received " his own with usury. " But angry as he is, even though it be against himself, it does seem to me that one " who once loved that land, " and therefore placed his money there rather than with " despotic Russia " or " drowsy Austria, " if influenced, as he says he was, by love for us and not for our high rate of interest, even under a still greater provocation, might have shown a more Christian, if not a more gentlemanly, spirit, in his reproaches, especially as he is " unwilling to irritate a people sensitive to shame, hut dead to honor. "

The State of Mississippi is the exception I above alluded to. Strictly and technically speaking, she is not liable for that portion of her bonds which she has repudiated. A fraud was committed upon her in the negotiation of them, by persons for whose agency she was not accountable. But there is no doubt that in refusing to acknowledge her liability she has committed an enormous blunder — and a blunder I now find the more to be lamented, that it has enabled " A. B. " ex cathedra to declare that "he is as much startled on meeting an American in (his) ? society as to hear of Robert Macaire at Almack's. "

Letter II

I should not reply to your correspondent, "X. X., " not even to point out his errors, were it not for the hope that the few lines I venture to intrude upon your indulgence, may reach, through your universal journal, the eyes of some of my countrymen at home.

Though brief in his epistle, wherein I will strive to imitate him, he has had the misfortune to commit several slight mistakes. I did not say that New York and Boston were " impregnable, " — a place to be impregnable must be able to defy attack both by land and by water, — but I said that the " ports of these two cities could not be entered by an enemy, " and this I learned within three months upon the spot from the best engineer authority in the country.

In comparing the Mississippi and Exchequer-bills cases together, a parallel is sought for where none can be found. In the former the now repudiated bonds, before the law which gave them being had been consummated in the manner prescribed by the constitution, and, moreover, contrary to the terms of that law, were thrown into the market by that " fittest imp of fraud " knavishly self-christened " Bank of the United States, " whose rightful sponsor was Pennsylvania ; and, as law recognizes no such plea as ignorance, the deluded purchasers became the victims. But still I think that the State is in honor bound to pay them ; and I doubt not that every honest man amongst us blushes at its short-sighted political criminality. In the latter case — that of the Exchequer-bills — the English Government had not a peg to hang a doubt upon. Honor out of the question, not a single point of law, thanks to the Chancellor himself, could be urged in extenuation.

The amount of the Mississippi debt is not as " X. X. " supposes, 12,000,000 dollars, but, to be exact, only 7,600,000, of which 2,600,000, called the " Planter's Bank's bonds, " are acknowledged to be due, while 5,000,000, the " Union Bank's bonds," are repudiated; and by referring to my letter of the 3d inst , it will be seen that I did not commit the blunder of speaking of the " whole debt as subject to a legal quibble. "

In saying that the non-paying States, with one exception^ have never denied their liability, but merely declared their inability to fulfil their contracts, I adopted their universal plea of pauperism, without making it entirely my own. For I believe that certain of them, if they would put their shoulders to the wheel, could, without the aid of any Hercules, extricate themselves from the mire, cleansed from the pollution which now covers them ; and, moreover, that could they feel a tithe of the shame which we, their countrymen abroad, do on their behalf, they would pay to the uttermost farthing, though it left them as poor as the first tillers of their soil. But there are others, Illinois and Indiana, for example, which I know to be for the moment physically incapable of meeting their engagements. Would you, however, the English, with true wisdom throw open your ports, and allow their corn, their sole produce, to come in, whereby their railroads and canals, constructed as you say with British capital, would rise many fold in value, instead of asking, without receiving your due, you would reap a rich harvest from what is now but fallow ground. But, your rich landed aristocracy resist the repeal of the corn laws, though all wise men, and lovers of their country, with Sir Robert Peel at their head, see the necessity of it. He would lend head, hand, and heart to carry the measure to-morroiv, if he dared to do so. But though he " bide his time " believe me, he is not the man to shrink from cutting off even a right hand to save the whole body politic from what is akin to hell-fire. Would you but open your ports, the cry of " Oregon " would die in the distance.

Abuse then, if you please, certain of our defaulting States — abuse them as much as you think your interests will sanction ; but when you assail a whole nation — a nation which one glories in calling his own, a nation, too, that may, perhaps, carry the fame of England to ages which will seek in vain for the landmarks of her glory, — at least be just in your wrath.

Letter III

I am far from being sure that any thing one of my countrymen can say will be of the slightest service to yours, however true his words and however important the occasion, because, as we all know, uncalled-for counsel, even from a friend, is generally contemned, and too often, even if followed, rendeied worse than useless by the drag-chain of unwillingness, which clogs its good intent. But, if it be lawful to be taught by an enemy, why should it be less so to receive useful suggestions from those who, after their own country, regard in the bottom of their hearts yours with a pride and an affection not unworthy of a fatherland ?

From some of the late English papers, it seems to be a general impression that the American supply of wheat but little exceeds the home consumption, and that therefore it would avail ycu nothing to open your ports and let it come in on reasonable and certain conditions. Assuming, without admitting, this to be true, there is no intelligent countryman of mine but will tell you, that with trade less shackled than it is, our labor being free from -every municipal vexation, a demand, however great, upon an almost boundless territory, a grateful soil, and an industrious people, could never be made in vain. Whence comes it that we have not more wheat if, after satisfying our own wants, only little remains for exportation, — we who, by every law that can apply to the case, are pre-eminently an agricultural people, and would have willingly kept, in the words of Jefferson, our workshops in Europe for ever, had you not forced us by your high-pressure policy to become manufacturers ourselves ? It is because we have too much of your own calculating Saxon blood in our veins, not rendered more sluggish by a burning sun, to waste our strength in sowing where we cannot reap an ample fold. It is because we find it more profitable to raise tobacco, cotton, rice, and Indian corn — the last in such abundance that neither man nor beast can need — than to fill our barns and our ware-houses with that whose sale depends upon a scale so barometrically slippery that we dare not trust ourselves to its sliding mercies.

"Were you to set a moderate and fixed duty on corn, (and what moment like the present to do it, when the American Government, almost beyond a doubt, will in a few months reduce their own tariff to 20 per cent, ad valorem) ? the cry of starvation would soon become as strange to your ears as it is to ours ; your manufacturers in their turn would permanently enjoy the fruits of your wisdom, and the moral effect on the American States would be almost incalculable. They would see at once that their pecuniary interests imperatively dictated an amicable settlement of every disputed question, and the thing would be done. Then, where one bushel of wheat is now raised by us there would be one hundred, and, if that did not suffice, more would be forthcoming. Indian corn, which under our summer sky grows, as it were, spontaneously, would fill up any deficiency at home, and that without hardship even to the poor, if poverty can be said to exist where alms are never asked, except by the wandering emigrant from Europe's overcrowded shores. Even at our richest tables the hot gold colored maize-cake at all times, and the luscious green corn in its season, have, like our crystalice amidst summer's parching heats, ceased to be luxuries, — they have become the necessaries of life.

There being, as you are aware, no impertinent legal interference in the cultivation of our lands, all we want is a market in England that can be relied upon, and thousands of acres, now producing the " filthy weed, " which neither feeds the hungry nor clothes the naked, would be devoted to supplying the real necessities of man, and thousands upon thousands, now lying in sterile virginity beneath the wasted influences of a genial heaven, would not send forth a single leaf that did not tell in living characters of man's good deeds and God's beneficence.

Letter IV

Owing to the late arrival of the English mail yesterday, I did not see " X. X.'s " letter in your number of the 20th, till the hour was passed for answering it. And now that I send a reply on a subject not germane to any other either of immediate consideration or present interest, I would respectfully leave to your discretion whether to publish it or to forward it to his address.

He seems anxious to know of me, " if the State of Mississippi did or did not receive the proceeds arising from their now repudiated bonds?" To the best of my belief, if she did not actually receive them, which I have been assured is the fact, she profited by them directly or indirectly; and it is my conviction, therefore, that, though she might by some technicality escape in a court of law, in no court of equity or of honor could she fail to be condemned. After this I need not add that I believe there can be no half-way house between right and wrong, and that dishonesty is an unprofitable article of traffic, which will return to " plague its inventors. " He then, with just feelings of pride, demands if his countrymen " urged legal objections to the payment of the forged Exchequer-bills ?" 1 am not aware that they ever did. But, whether they did or not, what law and honesty and honor dictated, that they performed.

When one quotes, the least that can be done is to quote correctly. Your correspondent gravely puts these words into my last letter but one, which I search for in vain : — " The Chancellor of the Exchequer stated that we (the English) were legally bound to pay the forged bills. " "Without citing any authority, it was my own assertion that "you had not a peg to hang a (legal) doubt upon, thanks to the- Chancellor himself. " Nor had you, notwithstanding the pretence that " the law did not require the bills to be paid ;" for, begging "X. X.'s" pardon, the law did require them to be paid, just as it requires the notes of a bank to be paid, whose president, recklessly signing, as did the Chancellor, in blank, all the paper which his villainous underlings may see fit to present, is made the unwitting instrument of a fraud which the proprietors of the institution must expiate.

His argument, that, " if the law had required the payment of these bills, then all the parties holding them would have been entitled to payment," is bordering somewhat upon the absurd ; for in that case the fraudulent holders would have been able to avail themselves of their own wrong, which is contrary to one of the first maxims of English law. " The power to discriminate the circumstances under which they (the bills) were received," he says, " proves that theie was no legal right to payment. " It follows, then, by consequence, that had a legal right to payment existed, " the power to discriminate, " even in cases of palpable fraud, would have been wanting,' — a position which "X. X. " will hardly find tenable.

He admits that you "enabled" — these are his own words — " your agent through neglect to deceive innocent holders of bills, " and if he knows any thing of the law cf his own country, lie need no f , be told that in awarding civil damages — damages touching property alone, I mean, — it makes no distinction between the commission of the malfeasant and the omission of the negligent ; and that the acts of an authorised agent, though his intent be fraudulent, so that he exceed not the letter of his instructions, are those of the principal. If, as he says, " no one can sue on a forged bill, " I can tell him that every innocent holder can sue on an Exchequer-bill, duly signed and executed, but fraudulently issued by its legal fabricators, and moreover, that he can recover upon it.

He rather plaintively exclaims in conclusion, that " England gained nothing while Mississippi received the proceeds of her bonds. " - What then ? does he reckon for nothing the conservation of his country's honor, or does he envy Mississippi her paltry gains at the expense of her reputation ?

LETTER Y .

We have the high authority of Dr. Johnson, if we needed any, that there is a world of moral difference between one who " lies unwittingly " and him who " knows that he lies ;" and, although I am far from thinking that some of your weekly newspapers, deliberately, and with malice aforethought, put forth on American affairs what they know to be false, yet my conviction is that they commit an offence scarcely less heinous in foro conscientice, when like the stabber in the dark, carelessly searching for his foe, they let off their random shots in the direction of my country, wilfully reckless whether they " hit or miss. "

They are " still harping on my daughter " I find — still fumbling at the Oregon question — at Mr. Polk and his policy, like an ignorant machinist, with monkey-like mischievousness, affecting to scrutinize what surpasses his powers of comprehension. According to them, Oregon is but a " quarry, " out of which our President's " temple of fame " is to be hewn, if England will only " stand like a sheep to be shorn, as did Mexico ; " Mr. Polk is a " villager who never wagged the tongue or wielded the pen ; " and his policy is to make a " hero of himself, " cost what it may to his country.

Now, all this is doubtless very convenient to fill a column or two, which, it would not be consistent with a paper's healthy circulation to blacken every day with tamer stuff. It is " fun " too for the " groundlings, " though, like the venemous insect's sting to the hunted stag, it may help in a small way to hurry into death-breeding confusion the higher tiers of society. But, is it true ? Is it true that we are the arrogant swash-bucklers which they describe us to be ; that our President is the god of his own imagination, in the " temple of whose fame " his country, if necessary, must be sacrificed ; and that his policy is war to the knife, unless that deity be propitiated? I think not; and, if I be mistaken, then have these writers stumbled upon the truth in a most " miraculous manner." And I believe not, because their information can hardly equal in accuracy that which is within my reach, coming as it does from those who, with reason, speak as men, " having authority and not as the scribes."

On the day of the arrival of the United States' mail by the last steamer, I received a communication from a gentleman, inferior only to our Chief Magistrate in rank, and inferior to no one in honesty, to whom I had freely expressed opinions, held by me at a former period, in common with many others no better informed than myself, respecting the apparently warlike disposition of our Cabinet, and its novel claim to the whole of a territory hitherto admitted, on all hands, to be a " debateable hind. " As he is of the Administration party, and a man incapable of wilfully deceiving any one, his words, though never intended for publication, may not, perhaps, be deemed unworthy of a place in your journal. '' Mark me, " was his reply, " whenever the President's message shall arrive in Europe, you and all men will clearly see that it is not we, but the English, who have been exacting and unreasonable ; that it is they who have always thrown obstacles in the way of an amicable settlement of our difficulties ; and that the justice of our cause will be made manifest to all the world, as well as the probity and courtesy with which it has been maintained ; and this will delight you. " And it did delight me; for though I dread an unrighteous war as much as any man, especially with England, from whom we have so much to apprehend, still, with our " quarrel just, " I entertain no fear as to the results, seeing that it would be a war not of party but of principle, and one which would enlist' the sympathies of not only all the American States, but of all the countries of Europe in our favor.