Secrets of the Late Rebellion

CHAPTER XXII. THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER

HAVING more than consumed the space allotted for this volume, we have neither room nor time left in which to write of the Roman Republic as its importance demands, and as indeed we should gladly have written. And yet we confess there is not, or ought not to be, any necessity for adding another word. If the lessons taught us from what we have learned of the three preceding republics have not opened our eyes to the dangerous tendencies of the Democratic party as a party; if we are not already convinced that the leaders of that party, and those who stand behind the scenes to prompt the leaders and furnish them with the "sinews of war," in the shape of European gold, have for their ultimate object the setting aside of our representative form of government and the destruction of the liberty of our press, then we would not be convinced though one arose from the dead.

Why, then, need we add a word about the founding of the Roman Republic, five hundred and ten years before Christ; why tell of the law, then for the first time enacted by the Senate, that any citizen who had been condemned to death by a magistrate, or even to banishment, or corporal punishment, should have the right of an appeal to the people before the sentence went into effect; why tell of the wars in which the republic was thenceforth engaged, and how gloriously the people sustained the honor of the republic; why tell how the people were afterwards betrayed by their rulers, and made to suffer the most intolerable hardships until they obtained the privilege of electing tribunes; why tell of the struggles that these tribunes of the people had with rulers chosen by the aristocracy for many, many years in maintaining for the people the rights for which they had made immense sacrifice of life, and which they valued so highly; why tell – as it would take an entire volume to tell – how corruptions crept, from time to time, into the heart of the republic, how ambition took the place of patriotism, how the leaders in the provinces were watching with jealous eyes those at Rome and vice versa, how Caesar finally "passed the Rubicon," how he seized the government, how he attempted to put on a crown, and in the attempt lost both the crown and his life; and how, when great Caesar fell, fell the republic, with a crash that was heard to the uttermost ends of the earth? If we were to tell all this with the precision of a Montesquieu, or with as much display of learning as an Abbé de Vertot, there could only be gathered therefrom precisely the same lessons as we have already learned from the rise, progress, decline, and downfall of the three Grecian republics.

And thus, my friend (the reader), we are finally brought face to face to the last clause of your third question, as to What is to be the final end of this republic?

The shortest answer would be, We don't know, and then stop right there; but this would not be satisfactory to you. The next shortest answer will be that our republic will, in all human probability, follow the fate of the Grecian and Roman republics, and that it is only a question of time when that shall be. We know that such a confession is humiliating to one's pride, and that we would all much rather believe, as it is usual for Fourth of July orators to say, that "this republic is to last forever!" but alas! alas! for human vanity, it is only too true that "history but repeats itself!"

But, allowing this answer to be the correct one, it by no means lessens your and my responsibility; for whether that end comes in twenty years, or two hundred years, or two thousand years, depends altogether upon Americans themselves. There are good, and true, and intelligent men in every political party, as there are good, and true, and intelligent men in every religious organization. While we conscientiously believe that the tendency of the Democratic party to be just as we have repeatedly stated; and while we as conscientiously believe that the Roman Catholic Church, as a church, is being made use of by European sovereigns, just as we have repeatedly stated; yet we believe, indeed, we know, that both in that party and in that church are as good men, as true men, and as intelligent men as are to be found in any party or in any church on earth; and if these will but unite with the good, and true, and intelligent of other parties and of other churches, the representative form of this government, and consequently its liberties, and the liberty of its press, may be preserved yet for many scores of years, if not for many centuries. It is no mere figure of speech to say that "the price of liberty is eternal vigilance" Like panthers crouching and waiting for their prey, the enemies of this government are all the while on the watch. They have their paid emissaries not only at Washington, but at every State capital, just as Philip of Macedon had among the republics of Greece. A lack of vigilance upon the part of patriots may, at any one of our national elections, put the general government into their hands. This once in their hands, they will find a way, or make one, as we have heretofore said, to hold it for all time to come; for every crowned head of Europe would at once, openly or secretly, rally to their support. Then would come a weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth, but, alas, it would be too late! Then would be found Americans in all parts of the world without a home and without a country, but their regrets, alas! would bring back neither. There are Greeks and Romans to-day, as there were Greeks and Romans two thousand and three thousand years ago; but it blurs the eye to see (as we have seen in their own lands), and it sickens the heart to think (as any intelligent man may think) of, the difference between a citizen of Greece and of Rome to-day and of the citizen who lived when they were republics! Pigmies and giants are the only two English words we have to express such difference; but to one who has seen and felt the difference, while travelling through their own lands, these words fail utterly to convey a true conception of the real difference which exists.

And now, my good friend (the reader), I must bid you farewell. We have travelled a long way together – longer, perhaps, than has occurred to you as we have steadily pursued our course. Starting in our own times, and with events in some of which we have ourselves taken part, we have slowly ascended the river of time until we reached a point (the beginning of the Athenian Republic) nearly three thousand years from where we started. Then, retracing our way, we slowly descended the river, stopping long enough to gather a few grains of wheat at one place, a few grains of rye at another, a few grains of corn at another, and so on, and on, until we have got back to where we started. In the beginning of our journey we peeped into some dark places – places into which the light of history never before had shone, but which, from this time forth, will be as well known as any other facts of the great rebellion.

All that I have done for you, in all these journeyings, is, at near the close of our pilgrimage, to select out the different kinds of grain, arrange them in form of proposition and proof, just as any other logician or rhetorician might have done, and then point out to you that, if we would be profited by these grains (of information), picked up on the way, and treat them in a certain manner, they would yield wholesome bread and sustain life (the life of our republic) for many years to come; whereas, treated in another way, these same grains would only make the vilest of whiskey, which, used wrongfully, could only lead to misery and final death here and eternal death hereafter. In some things, my friend (the reader), your knowledge is far beyond mine; in others, mine may be greater than yours, because of chances of information which happened to come in my way instead of coming in yours. While glad to learn anything I can from you, I have only done my duty, for which I claim no credit – only done as I would wish to be done by – in communicating to you such facts, and the unmistakable inference from such facts, as were secrets with others until they came to me, and secrets with me until I now communicate them to you, and through you and the printed page to the rest of the world.

And now, what is your and my duty in the premises? Is it to sit with folded hands and see our glorious republic drift on and on until it falls into the hands of the Democratic party, and then into the hands of European sovereigns, and then is blotted out in one eternal night? Or shall we not rather (as Gough so graphically pictures in one of his inimitable lectures) cry aloud to those whom we see carelessly sailing on the river of Time – the Niagara River, – only a little way above the rapids, and within plain hearing of the thundering of the all-devouring falls – "Young men, ahoy there; the rapids are below you!" And if they should at first respond with a "Ha! ha! we will laugh and quaff; all things delight us; what care we for the future?" – then to cry again, still louder than before, "Beware! Beware! The rapids are below you!" and if, after all this, they still go shrieking, howling, blaspheming over the falls of the river of Time, your skirts and mine will be free of their blood.

Or, to change the metaphor, my friend, let you and I and all of us who love a representative form of government, who love the freedom of the press, who love our own glorious republic – let us, whenever we see the "ship of state" floundering in the breakers and liable to be engulphed by the angry waves of passion, hate, and self-interest, imitate the example of our blessed Saviour, and cry aloud, "Peace; be still!" and though we may not, like Him, calm the waves by miraculous power, yet, if with our cry we put our shoulders firmly together, and pull at the same end of the rope, all of us who really love the republic – the honest Democrat with the honest Republican, the honest Catholic with the honest Protestant – we and our descendants may save the "ship of state" from sinking, at least for many years, if not for many centuries to come. And may God bless and prosper every such united effort for the saving of our glorious republic!