Secrets of the Late Rebellion
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CHAPTER XX. – III. – FROM ALL YOUR STUDY OF HISTORY, WHAT DEDUCTIONS DO YOU DRAW AS TO THE FINAL DECLINE AND FALL, IF SUCH A THING IS EVER TO BE, OF THIS REPUBLIC?
TO the casual reader, the relationship that this question bears to "Secrets of the Late Rebellion, now Revealed for the First Time," may seem very obscure, but to our mind, that sees the end from the beginning, the relationship seems very close, as our readers will also see, we think, before we close the answer.
Patrick Henry, in one of his outbursts of eloquence, said he "knew of no way to judge of the future save by the past." Taking this as our guide, let us inquire somewhat into the history of former republics, and see if we cannot gather therefrom some probabilities as to the future of our own, and some light by which to guide our own footsteps meanwhile. Our plan and limited space will only permit us to take a bird's-eye view of four – Athens, Sparta, Thebes, and Rome – but even from these alone we may learn some useful lessons.
The republic of Athens came into existence immediately after the voluntary death of King Codrus, about 1068 years before Christ. Codrus having been made to believe, through an oracle, that if he sacrificed his own life, his country would be victorious over the Heraclidæ, with whom they were then engaged in war, disguised himself as a peasant, and, purposely quarrelling with a soldier of the hostile army, procured the death he wished. His sons, Medon and Nileus, disputed the succession to the crown; and the Athenians, taking advantage of this dispute, determined to set aside the crown altogether, and thenceforth have a representative or republican form of government. Hence arose the Athenian Republic. Though they abolished the title of king, out of the high regard they had for Codrus, they appointed his son Medon chief magistrate for life, and even made the office hereditary, so that for three hundred and thirty-one years thereafter the chief magistrate continued in that family. They then abolished the perpetual archonship, and made the tenure of the office ten years. This term they reduced erelong to one year, and, instead of one archon or chief magistrate, appointed nine, with equal authority. Meanwhile their government became so purely democratic as to become utterly despotic, and the tyranny of the mob was found to be more oppressive than the restraints of a single ruler. Then followed the laws of Draco, which, because of their severity, were said to have been "written in blood." He made no distinction of offences, but punished all equally with death. He weakened the authority of the Areopagus, and instituted a new tribunal, in which judges were given almost unlimited power, and virtually made brutes. The severity of his laws defeated their own object.
Such was the condition of things when the great lawmaker, Solon, appeared on the stage, five hundred and ninety-four years before Christ. The laws which he framed and gave the Athenians were not, as he said himself, "the best possible, but the best which the Athenians were capable of receiving." To the rich he gave offices and dignities; to the poor he gave the right of suffrage, whereby in the framing of laws, the election of magistrates, the making of war or peace, the forming of treaties and alliances, and in all that regarded either religious or civil policy, they should have an equal voice with the rich, and, being much the greater in number, their class could overbalance the other three, though out of their class could no nomination be made to any office of honor or profit. A senate of four hundred members held an intermediate place between office-holders and the people, and served as a restraint upon both. The arbitrary power of the judges, as established by Draco, Solon restrained, and made the court of Areopagus the chief judicial tribunal, and gave it also a tutorial power over all the youth of the republic. Instead of having an egotistical, half-educated state school superintendent to do such duty (as sometimes found in this country), this court appointed masters and governors for the youth, and superintended their education. The Areopagus also inquired into the life and morals of all who held offices in the state, and such as could not stand the scrutiny were not only incapacitated for employ, but declared infamous. His laws also prohibited all imprisonment for debt, and contained many other provisions in which legislators have made no improvement during the nearly two thousand five hundred years that have passed since then.
Notwithstanding the good laws of Solon, then, as now, there were found men to take advantage of their provisions to gratify their own private hates. Thus, Solon's laws allowed popular action for most offences – regarding all offences as against the "peace and dignity of the state" – as we do now; but in many cases advantage was taken of this by bad men to make the most calumnious accusations against men whose character until then had stood even above suspicion. So advantage was frequently taken of the law of ostracism (which was only meant for good), whereby some of their very best men were banished from the state. Thus, when an ignorant citizen was about to cast his vote for the ostracism of Aristides, he was asked by Aristides himself, who chanced to be passing by at the moment, and who was unknown t<\ him:
"Why, what harm, my friend, has Aristides done to you?"
"None in the world," replied he; "but I hate to hear everybody call him the 'Just.'"
Thucydides also, from whom Athens had received the most eminent services, was in like manner banished by ostracism; as likewise were Miltiades, Cimon, Themistocles, Phocion, and many other of their most eminent men. What was meant, too, for religious freedom was made to subserve (by those who temporarily had the power) the purposes of religious bigotry, tyranny, and persecution, until even the renowned philosopher, Socrates, was made to drink the fatal hemlock.
While the great majority of Athenians were entirely satisfied with their form of government; while the masses were equally jealous of their liberty, because liberty was equally necessary to each for the enjoyment of his favorite scheme of life; yet there were those inside of the republic, as well as outside, who did not like a republican form of government, and who were all the while watching for an opportunity to overthrow it Among these was Pisistratus, a man of large wealth, splendid talents, and of great popularity. He aspired to sovereign power, and by his artifices came so near in obtaining it, that Solon, disgusted at the want of patriotism among his countrymen, and unable to witness its degradation, bade adieu to Athens, and died in voluntary exile. He – even he, the great and good Solon – was made to feel what it was to be "a man without a country," and chose to die in exile rather than to remain in his native land, or even to look upon it again in a state of degradation.. If the time should ever come (and God only knows how soon it may come!) when not only one but scores, yea, hundreds, of American Solons should be wandering throughout the world, without a home and without a country, because of the destruction of our representative form of government by European jealousy and Catholic bigotry, then, if never before, they and all others will fully understand something of the natural outgrowth of the Democratic party of this country, of which the late rebellion was the first act in the drama, and of which its secret workings only represented the machinations of a hundred Pisistratuses!
But though Pisistratus thus usurped power, and for a while played the sovereign, he was unable to retain it long. Megacles and Lycurgus, the chiefs of the Alemæonidæ, gained at length so much strength as to attack and expel the usurper from Athens. By a stratagem he again secured power, and, on dying, bequeathed the crown to his sons, Hippias and Hipparchus, but erelong Hipparchus was killed, and Hippias dethroned, and once again the republic prevailed, and statues were erected to the honor of Harmodius and Aristogiton as the authors of their country's deliverance from tyranny.
From thenceforth there was almost a constant warfare between the political parties or factions of the republic, while jealous eyes outside were consequently watching an opportunity for its destruction. Ambitious demagogues were constantly using the people as their tools, but scarcely would one obtain the chief magistracy until another would pull him down – if not by a vote of the people, then by faction or by assassination. Meanwhile Hippias, who had been dethroned, sought aid from the king of Persia to reinstate him, and thus brought a long and bloody war upon his own country. In this war were fought the renowned battles of Marathon, Salamis, Plateæ, and Mycale, and the Greeks came off victorious, but at a most fearful sacrifice of treasure and life. After this followed the disunion among the several Grecian states – the secession of some – the coldness and indifference of others; and though the brilliant administrations of Cimon and Pericles seemed to revive the republic for awhile, it was evident to all that the seeds of death were fast germinating and would bring forth fruit erelong. The Persian king, and the sovereigns of other surrounding countries, had long felt deep jealousy of the Athenian Republic, and, when an excuse came for attacking it, they were not backward in availing themselves of the opportunity. Fortunately for the Athenian Republic the attack made upon them by Persia had the effect to bring the whole power of the Spartan Republic to their aid, which, with such other aid as they received from minor states of Greece, enabled them to defeat the Persians in the end and maintain their own independence.
But a worse fate awaited them – namely, a fight among themselves. The mutual jealousies that had long existed between Athens and Sparta broke out afresh, and soon terminated in an open war between the two republics, and most of the minor states of Greece took a part in the quarrel. The first declaration of hostilities, however, was compromised before they came to actual conflict; but it proved to be only a smouldering, and not an extinguishment, of the fire that had long burned in the breast of each – a fire that afterwards broke forth in what was known as the "Peloponnesian war," and lasted twenty-eight years. Our plan and space will not permit any details of this. A history of the first twenty-two years of the war was admirably written by Thucydides, and of the last six years by Xenophon, to whom we must refer the reader who would know its particulars. Suffice it to say here that during this long internecine war each achieved victories and each suffered defeats. At one time the Spartans so reduced Athens as to make an entire change in its constitution. The republic was abolished and thirty governors, or, as the Greek historians style them, "thirty tyrants" were substituted, whose power seems to have been absolute, unless in so far as each was restrained by the equally arbitrary will of his colleagues. So fearful and terrible was their rule, that Xenophon thinks "a greater number of Athenian citizens lost their lives by the sentence of these tyrants, in the short space of eight months, than had fallen in the whole twenty-eight years of the Peloponnesian war." Hundreds of the most eminent of the Athenian families left their country in despair, and what remained were for a time awed into silence, and dumb with consternation.
And just here we may pause to say that precisely the same kind of rule, and the same kind of results, would have been witnessed in this country, had the rebellion, by the aid of the Democratic party, succeeded in capturing Washington and in establishing their rule over this country. It is one of the "Secrets of the Late Rebellion, now Revealed for the First Time" (and our information comes from one who was behind the scenes and knew all about it, and the first sixteen chapters of this volume entirely confirm this opinion), that behind President Davis and behind General Lee stood a body of desperate men, who, at one single sweep, would have wiped them off the chess-board and put others in their stead, had they shown the least considerate humanity in dealing with Northern men, in case the rebellion had succeeded. Not Abraham Lincoln alone would have fallen at the hands of the assassin or hangman, but thousands of others throughout the North would have suffered a like fate, until the rule of the "thirty tyrants" in Athens would have been considered but child's play in comparison with the rule of the more than three hundred tyrants of this republic. Then would have been witnessed here, as there, thousands of the most eminent of American families leaving their country in despair – wandering they knew not whither – without a home, and without a country! Abraham Lincoln's assassination was indeed done by a half crazed Southern rebel; but who can doubt, after reading the secrets revealed in the foregoing pages, that the frenzy that fired Booth's brain, and the nerve that enabled him to fire the deadly shot, came as directly from the Democratic party, as a party, as that the pistol itself was purchased by a Democratic partisan. All these facts go hand-in-hand, and there is no separating one from the others.
But we have already occupied much more of time and space on the Athenian Republic than we had intended. We can only say, in conclusion, that, after the reign of the "thirty tyrants," its fortunes were up and down – oftener down than up – until the battle of Chæronea, which occurred in the year 338 before Christ, when the liberties of Greece were made to yield finally and forever to the stronger arm of the Macedonian. The Athenian Republic had existed after a fashion – and, indeed, much of the time it was orderly "after a fashion" – for seven hundred and thirty years; and when it fell, there was not so much as an empty shell left. Its internal dissensions, more than anything else, had eaten out its vitals; the jealousy of surrounding monarchies had been to it a constant source of danger, and several times a source of great disaster; while for fully one-half of the seven hun-dren and thirty years it was rather a government of tyranny than of liberty to those who lived under it.
CHAPTER XXI. OF SPARTA AND ITS LESSONS
SPARTA was built by Lacedaemon as early as 1487 years before Christ; but it did not become a republic until Lycurgus remodelled its laws, eight hundred and eighty-four years before Christ. Though a representative form of government, and therefore a republic, yet it was so different from any other government that ever existed before or since, it may well be called unique, singular, sui generis. Its citizens, for instance, ate at public tables; the children were regarded as belonging to the state rather than to parents; its money was made of iron and of such weight that no one man could carry a hundred dollars. Thus, and in other ways, the accumulation of wealth was discouraged – while instruction in the art of war was made pastime – meat, drink, and sleep, as it were, to all its male inhabitants. The labor of its farms, of its shops, of its merchants even, was all done by slaves; while the administration of government, the learning how to fight, and fighting, seems to have been the principal, if not the only, employment of its free citizens. Though existing at the same time with the Athenian Republic, and within one hundred and eighty-four years as old, the two governments were in no sense a type of each other. The Athenian found in his taste for pleasure constant employment; the Spartan's taste was only for war. The arts of Athens met with the highest encouragement; at Sparta, scarcely none at all. At Athens the luxury of the rich constantly employed the industry of the poor; at Sparta, luxury was regarded as almost criminal, and he who indulged in it was regarded with contempt, if not with execration. The sciences were also cultivated by Athenians with the same ardor as the arts; while Spartans cared nothing for science, except so far as it contributed to the efficiency of warfare. As another, in contrasting the two republics, has very aptly put it, "Sparta was altogether a military establishment; every other art was prohibited, industry among individuals was unknown, and domestic economy unnecessary – for all was in common. The Lacedaemonians were active only when at war. In peace, their manner of life was languid, uniform, indolent, and insipid. Taught to consider war as the sole honorable or manly occupation, they contracted a fierce and ferocious turn of mind, which distinguished them from all the other states of Greece. Despising the arts themselves, they despised all who cultivated them. Their constitution was fitted to form a small, a brave, and an independent state; but had no tendency to produce a great, a polished, or a conquering people."
Between our own and a republic so peculiarly constituted, we can hardly make comparisons; and yet we find, even in that, some features like in our own. Lysander was not only a great general, but, as Plutarch calls him, he was a fox as well. Richelieu, when told that his enemies called him a fox, said: "Fox! – Well, I like the nickname! What did Plutarch say of the Greek Lysander?"
Joseph. I forget.
Richelieu. That where the lion's skin fell short, he eked it out with the fox's! A great statesman, Joseph, that same Lysander!
Martin Van Buren, both before and after he became President of the United States, was called a fox, because of his great slyness and shrewdness in pulling the wires for the Democratic party. He denounced that party before he died, however, and allowed himself to be run against their regular candidate for the Presidency; and, were he alive to-day, and knew of the secrets which this volume discloses, no man in the United States would be more free in denouncing that party for the part it took in the rebellion, and for the part it is still taking in helping Europeans in their designs to overthrow this government and the freedom of the press, than Martin Van Buren.
This republic, like that of Athens, had its ending with the battle of Chæronea, b.c. 338, after which the all-conquering Philip took possession of it and of all the states of Greece. The republic had existed after a fashion (for here, as at Athens, it was only "after a fashion" part of the time) through a period of five hundred and forty-six years; but finally died from the ambition of those within and the jealousy of those without.
Thebes was the last of the Grecian republics, but for a time shone with as much brilliancy as either of the others. It had its origin from fortuitous circumstances rather than from the genius of any lawmaker; but it produced and nurtured legislators as wise as Solon or Lycurgus, and soldiers as brave and as brilliant as Pericles or Lysander. When Athens and Sparta were visibly tending to decline, Thebes suddenly rose to a degree of splendor which eclipsed all her sister and contemporary states.
Long before b. c. 382, at which time the citadel of Thebes was seized by the Spartans, the government of the Thebans was called republican, but it was rather so in name than in fact. The oligarchic party at Thebes, corresponding with the Democratic party of this country, were all the while aiming at the establishment of an oligarchy, while the patriotic supporters of liberty and independence were just as determined not only to maintain the republic, but to make it so in fact as well as in name.
The last-named party of Thebes corresponded precisely with the Republican party of this country. When the contention between these two parties was at fever heat, it happened that Phoebidas, a Lacedaemonian general, was sent with an army to punish the people of Olynthus, a Thracian city, for an alleged infraction of a treaty of peace formed not long before. While Phoebidas was on this expedition, Leontiades, the head of the oligarchic party at Thebes, prevailed on him to second the attempts of his party against the liberties of their country. The Spartan general yielded to the suggestion, and, while the unsuspecting Thebans were celebrating the festival of Ceres, Phoebidas marched his army into the city and took possession of their citadel. When the republicans of Thebes protested against this, the Spartans acknowledged it an act of treason in Leontiades to have thus betrayed his country, and they reprobated the conduct of Phoebidas in giving his aid to a measure which was a direct infraction of a national treaty; but being now masters of Thebes, they did not choose to abandon their acquisition.
If through the influence and aid of Lord John Brewerton (the particulars of which are given in the fifth chapter of this volume) and others like him, the heads, the Leontiadeses, of the Democratic party of this country, could have betrayed our government into the hands of Great Britain, and thereby pleased every other kingly government of Europe, every Englishman would have acknowledged that somebody had played the traitor, and that it constituted not only a direct infraction of the treaty between their government and ours, but an infraction of the law of nations as well; yet, like the Spartans, they would have been unequal to the conflict between virtue and self-interest, and, like them, would have replied, Now that we have the country, we'll keep it!
But though the "mills of the gods grind slowly, they grind exceeding fine," and erelong the republicans of Thebes, headed by the brave Pelopidas, and seconded by the no less brave Epaminondas, shook off the Spartan yoke – shook off the oligarchy – and reëstablished a republican form of government, and from thenceforth the Theban Republic went forward in a career of glory equal to anything that Athens or Sparta could ever boast. The battle of Leuctra, in which six thousand Thebans, commanded by Epaminondas, entirely defeated twenty-five thousand Lacedaemonians, leaving four thousand, with their chief, Cleombrotus, dead upon the field, was but the beginning of a series of actions all of which reflected upon Thebes the highest glory. We have not room to relate these in detail, but one incident in the life of Epaminondas – at its close – we cannot omit. The full particulars of the incident may be found in Xenophon and Diodorus, but its gist is about as follows: At the battle of Mantinea, Epaminondas, too rashly pursuing his success, had advanced beyond the line of his troops, when, the enemy rallying, he was exposed to a whole shower of darts, and fell, pierced with numberless wounds. "His faithful Thebans," says Professor Tytler, "found means to rescue his body while life yet remained, and to bring him to his tent. A javelin stuck fast in his breast, and his physician declared that on extracting it he would immediately expire. In this extremity, breathless and fainting, while his friends stood weeping around him, he first inquired what had become of his shield, and being told that it was safe, he beckoned to have it brought to him, and kissed it. He then asked which side had gained the victory, and being told it was the Thebans, 'Then,' said he, 'all is well.' While some of his friends were lamenting his untimely fall, and regretting that he had left no children to perpetuate his memory, 'Yes,' said he, 'I have left two fair daughters, Leuctra and Mantinea (the names of battle-fields) – 'these will perpetuate my memory;' so saying, with his own hands he drew forth the javelin from his breast, and instantly expired."
If the republic at that moment could have died with Epaminondas, it would have gone out in a blaze of glory; but, alas! alas! it yet contained traitors in its own bosom, and was yet to reap the fruits of treason.
Philip, King of Macedon, determined to subvert the liberties of all the Grecian republics. To him, as to European sovereigns of to-day, a representative form of government was hateful, as would have been the liberty of the press, had there been a press in those days. It was one of his favorite maxims that "no fortification was impregnable into which a mule could make its way with a bag of money!" as it was a maxim with the first Napoleon that "every man has his price?" In pursuance of this policy, Philip had his bribed emissaries in Thebes, as he had at Athens and Sparta. In Athens he had in his pay no less a man than Æschines, the great orator, and Aris-todemus and Neoptolemus, the two great comedians – all of whom were men of the highest influence in the public assemblies.
With such men at the capitals of the three largest republics – all constantly declaring themselves' to be the "stanchest of democrats" – it was only a question of time with Philip when he should have the republics within his grasp. Demosthenes thundered and lightened worse than the natural elements. His "Philippics" rolled over the heads and hearts of the people, and found responsive echoes in thousands of breasts; but the still, small voice of Philip's gold in the pockets of leading loud-mouthed so-called Democrats had more influence than all the thunders of a Demosthenes. Philip's far-reaching plan was first to introduce treachery in the heart of each republic, and then set them at variance with each other, that his alliance might be courted and an opportunity furnished for introducing Macedonian troops into Greece. He had not long to wait for the maturing of his plans. The Phocians, instead of paying a fine inflicted upon them by the Amphictyonic Council (corresponding to our Congress), seized the temple of Apollo at Delphos, with all its treasures. This set the republics at war with each other – some siding with the Council and some with the Phocians. At length the Thessalians implored Philip's assistance against their tyrant, Lycophron, whose government they felt to be intolerable. The tyrant sought aid of the Phocians to support him against his own subjects. They responded to Lycophron, and Philip, with an alacrity that knew no precedent, responded to the people. The result of all this was that Philip obtained a strong foothold in Greece, the very thing he had so long sought through his paid emissaries. This advantage Philip followed up with the keen scent and persistence of a bloodhound, and although Demosthenes still continued to thunder against him, Philip's gold in the pockets of sordid ignorance, under the guise of democratic patriots, overbalanced the warnings of eloquence, and thus matters went on, step by step, until the battle of Chæronea, when, at one fell swoop, not only the republic of Thebes, but all the other republics and states of Greece, fell into the hands of Philip.