CHAPTER XI.

THE FUTURE OF NATIONS.

In the most civilized countries, the tendency always is, to obey even unjust laws, but, while obeying them, to insist on their repeal. This is because we perceive that it is better to remove grievances than to resist them. While we submit to tho particular hardship, we assail the system from which the hardship flows.BUCKLE.

In all the large movements of human affairs, as in the operations of nature, the great law is gentleness-violence is the last resource of weakness-NICHOLAS BID

DLE.

I have said that I do not understand the Declaration of Independence to mean that all men are created equal in all respects. Certainly the negro is not our equal in color-perhaps not in many other respects. * * * I did not at any

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time say I was in favor of negro suffrage. Twice-once substantially, and once expressly-I declared against it. * * I am not in favor of negro citizenship.-ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

EXPLANATION.

SOON after the news of the assassination of President Lincoln was received in the River Plate, a rumor reached Buenos Ayres, from Rosario, that Captain R., formerly of Kentucky, who had been known as one of Morgan's most daring and efficient raiders, but who had been captured and finally released, and, at his own request, permitted to leave the United States—and who is now residing near Rosario, in the Argentine Republic-had given a dinner in celebration of that surpassingly foul and flagitious crime.

The rumor had been in circulation but a little while, when Captain R. came down to Buonos Ayres, and, in company with Colonel M., formerly of Charleston, South Carolina, who had also been in the rebel service, called

on me, at the Consulate, and assured me, in the most earnest and solemn manner, that there was not one word of truth in the report. Although Captain R.'s name and exploits had been frequently mentioned to me, yet I had never seen him until, accompanied by Colonel M., he called at the Consulate.

I quickly perceived that Captain R. was really and deeply grieved at the circulation of a false report, which was calculated to render him odious in the estimation of every loyal American who heard it, whether at home or abroad. He seemed to be particularly anxious that the rumor might be restricted to the limits which it had already reached, and that it should, if possible, be prevented from spreading to his friends in Kentucky. Yet he was aware that one or more of the departments of government at Washington would be likely to receive information of what was here current against him; and, in order to counteract the prejudices and wrong impressions which might result from such information, he asked me if I would assist him in making the facts of his case known to the Hon. Wm. H. Seward, Secretary of State.. Fully persuaded of the Captain's innocence, I cheerfully signified my willingness to comply with his request; and advised him to return to Rosario, and there procure, and forward to me, the several exonerative affidavits which he said he could, if necessary, obtain from the very persons who were reported to have been invited by him to partake of the dinner in question.

Captain R. did as I suggested; and I lost no time in transmitting to our Government the solemn declarations of himself and friends, in disproof of a most heartless and atocious calumny-a calumny of which, it would seem, a fellow-Kentuckian, an unprincipled personal enemy, was the author.

In the course of his conversation with me, Captain R.

was very frank; and, in speaking of the political opinions and actions of various members of his family in Kentucky, he said many things which I could not but regard as far more complimentary to them than to himself. He told me that he was the only member of his family who, of his own accord, had gone into the rebel service; and that, when he had made up his mind to go, and began to make the necessary preparations, his father took him aside, and used every manner of argument and entreaty to induce him to abandon his rebellious intentions. But he had deliberately volunteered to add himself to the rebel ranks; was hot-headed, hare-brained, and headstrong; and, therefore, to all his father's friendly counsel he turned a deaf ear; and would listen to no voice that was not elevated to a high pitch of rancor and wrath against the Union. His aged mother, (who, however, was the youngest of a large family of children,) then came to him, and, weeping bitterly, addressed him substantially in these words:

Oh!

"My son, oh! my son, you are making this the unhappiest day of my life! Remember that you had three uncles in the American army at the battle of King's Mountain. There, eighty years ago, on the soil of South Carolina, they fought to establish the independence of our common country. There, in defending and immortalizing the flag of the Union, one of them was killed outright, and another was dangerously wounded. it is, indeed, the bitterest experience of my life, thus to realize that I have borne a son who would raise his hand to strike down the honor and the greatness of his country. In no event may I reasonably expect to remain much longer upon the earth. If you take part with the rebels in their treasonable insurrection against the lawfully constituted authorities, I can hardly hope ever to see you again. I, therefore, beseech you, with all the solemnity

of a mother's dying request, that you will at once desist from all your purposes of hostility to the Government of the United States."

Captain R., regarding his mother's devotion to the Union as a mere womanish whim, heard her with comparative indifference, and continued to prepare himself for departure for the rebel camp. He had two sisters. They both came to him. The younger of them, with the most sisterly affection, threw her arms about his neck, and kissed him, and then, overcome by the anguish of her heart, she fell upon her knees at his feet, and, sobbing aloud, begged and adjured him not to disgrace his country, his family, and himself, by going voluntarily into the rebel service. The elder sister, of sterner mettle, stood before him, and said, in effect,

"Brother! you know how tenderly we have always loved you. Our poor old father and mother have both reasoned with you, pleaded with you, and, with all the sincerity and solicitude of parental concern, have warned you against the inevitable dangers and dishonor of taking sides with the enemies of your country. In harmony with what they have said, we are here to add the weight of our own solicitation and caution. We implore you not to offer yourself for so base a sacrifice. But, hear me further; sister and myself have come to

say to you, and we say it with no less genuineness of

the import of words, than with sorrow, that if you do go into the rebel service, we hope and pray never to see you return home alive!"

"Yes," substantially responded the younger sister, rising resolutely, and standing before him with firmness of purpose, "we have considered this matter well, and have come to say what sister has told you. We are mutually pledged to each other, to unite our prayers to Heaven, that if our brother ever raises even the little

finger of his hand to impair, in any degree, the consecrated union of these States, we may never see him alive again!"

But, owing to the very bad influences in the South under which the young men there have been reared, that is to say, owing to their life-long association with negroes and negro slaves, whose only power over the white race seems to be to develop in it whatever is cruel, vicious, and detestable, Captain R.'s nature was so hardened and distorted, that no amount of persuasion on the part of his parents, no measure of entreaty on the part of his sisters, could turn him aside from his rebellious purpose. Nor was he to be deterred from it by the threatened invocations for the vengeance of Heaven. Off he went to the rebels in arms, and joined them; was engaged in many battles and skirmishes; "broke the crust," it is said, of most of the fights in which he participated; was finally captured, paroled, and, in accordance with his own request, permitted to leave the United States; and at the very moment at which I write, is, as I learned last evening, harvesting two hundred and fifty acres of as fine wheat as ever grew on the banks of the Parana.

Captain R. is a better man to-day than he was yesterday; and was better yesterday than he was before the war. It would be a pleasant little task for me to say something of this sort, if I felt certain that I could say it with truth, of the humble writer, and also of all the gentle readers of these lines!

Should we ever become involved in a war for the maintenance of what is popularly known in our country as the Monroe Doctrine-in other words, should it ever come to be necessary for us, in (fractional) support of that doctrine, to oppose and put down the monarchy of Maximilian in Mexico-as it certainly will, if that adven