THE GOLDEN HOUR.*
THESE vigorous pamphlets come from the best school of "American thinkers and politicians, the ethical idealists of New England. Mr. Conway, however, belongs to this school by adoption, and not by birth. He is a Virginian, whose name, if we mistake not, was honourably known some eight or nine years ago, as having resigned his pulpit at Washington, be- cause lie would not cbn-3ent to cease preaching against slavery.
• The "speciality" of his present tracts is the additional light cast on the problem by his Southern antecedents. Not only does he regard slavery as the sole cause of the war, and plead that 'by a tho:ough7going anti-slavery policy, the material war- power of the rebels can be speedily paralyzed, and the military =struggle brought to a close ; but he also holds that with the
• The Rejected Stone. By a Native of Virginia. Boston : Walker, Wise, and Co. The Golden Hour. By Moucure D. Conway, Author of "The Rejected Stone." Boston Ticknor and Fields.
destruction of slavery the fire of hatred that rages be South and North would lose its fuel, and ultimately die while the Southern States would gradually regain prosperity which slavery has undermined or poisoned. h urges emancipation, therefore, not only as the right thin!, to be done in itself, but as the surgical operation which can alone heal the disunion of his country, and he sees no chance of healing in any other policy. "If this country is to be saved," says he, " the Abolitionists are to save it." As to the virulent hatred entertained by the South for the North, he thinks that the feeling is extremely morbid and not very deep. " The writer of these pages was reared in the midst of hatred and con- tempt of the Northern people, and did himself hate and despise them cordially during all his early youth. But fortune led him to a year's residence in a little Quaker settlement where slavery did not exist, and which, consequently, was en oasis upon a slavery-wasted desert. ;" and the result was a deliverance from Southern illusions and antipathies, such as he evidently thinks would be the case with others under similar experience. Another anecdote he tells which is worth condensing. He was consulted (about 1856) by a committee at Newhaven as to whether he knew any gentleman in the South who would come to Newhaven to lecture in defence of slavery. He named a Mr. Fitzhugh, of Virginia, who had written works on the " Failure of Free Society" and the " Sociology of the South." Mr. Fitzhugh went to New- haven in consequence, and delivered a lecture entitled " Free
Society a Failure." Wendell Phillips came -to hear it, and Mr. Fitzhugh evidently took pleasure in seeing him there. Next morning, his host, Mr. Samuel Foote, simply said that he " would take him (Fitzhugh) out to see how free society had failed." He drove the Southern lecturer throughout New- haven and its environs ; "showed him houses and cottages which would be marvels of elegance in Virginia, and informed him, without any allusion to log-cabins, that many of these mansions belonged to mechanics, and some even to day-labourers. Fitz- hugh was thunderstricken. He had proved free society a failure without ever leaving his State ; nobody replied to him, but he went home answered. He always preserved an ominous silence about the visit ; but he acknowledged his mistake about Northern society, and though before that lie had invariably printed a pamphlet every six months in favour of the ' Sociology of the South,' I believe he has not penned a line of the kind since." Another• instance of change of view is worth notice. " When I first came North, I used to maintain stoutly, with my com- panions, that the slaves did not desire freedom. More than twenty years had I lived amongst these dumb creatures, never dreaming that any one of them had a thought of fi•eedom. But when I returned South I found that they not only knew, what few whites knew, that I was antislavery ; but they were eager to consult me as to how they might escape. All this took me by surprise ; I had never• hinted freedom to one of them, and it was in one of the obscurest parts of Virginia, where Northerners never come. Then I saw, for the first time, that the whole social system of the South is undermined." But if Mr. Conway manifests a gentleness to the South which is rare among 'abolitionists, lie pours out the whole force of his indignation on the politicians of the North who deal with this terrible problem in a spirit of compromise and cowardice. He points out, as we have often done in this journal, that the intense passion with which the South fights for its evil prerogatives can never be mastered by any force to which the -North can appeal, save the equally strong and infinitely higher passion springing from entire devotion to freedom ; :and. in the conviction that " the arch-traitor is not Davis, but Slavery," Ire aims to " rescue, besides the Union, both slave and rebel," desiring that " the only war-cry of our nation shall be, ' Mercy to the South! Death to Slavery!" This is the main purport of Mr. Conway's hortatives, which are written in a racy American style, abounding with anecdote and apologue, classical, Biblical, political, and satirical, sometimes soaring into transcendental rhapsody, sometimes descending into shrewd Yankee humour. As to his suggestions respecting the President's course, it is not necessary to discuss here whether• they are all practical. Several of them have been already superseded by recent measures. But while the leaven of compromise still lingers in the American Cabinet, such works as Mr. Conway's are needed to rouse torpid consciences. We especially commend the second pamphlet
(which is by far the best) to the noblest Americans are re mortal struggle in-which the
11 readers who wish to hear what Ily thinking and feeling amid _the r country is engaged.
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