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The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1
Before Dawn
by Hawthorne, Julian
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When, four centuries ago, adventurers from the Old World first landed on
the southern shores of the Western Continent, and pushed their way into
the depths of the primeval forest, they found growing in its shadowy
fastnesses a mighty plant, with vast leaves radiating upward from the
mould, and tipped with formidable thorns. Its aspect was unfriendly; it
added nothing to the beauty of the wilderness, and it made advance more
difficult. But from the midst of some of them uprose a tall stem, rivaling
in height the trees themselves, and crowned with a glorious canopy of
golden blossoms. The flower of the forbidding plant was the splendor of
the forest.
It was the Agave, or American Aloe, sometimes called the Century Plant,
because it blooms but once in a lifetime. It is of the family of the
lilies; but no other lily rivals its lofty magnificence. From the gloom of
the untrodden places it sends its shaft skyward into the sunshine; it is
an elemental growth: its simplicity equals its beauty. But until the
flower blooms, after its ages of preparation, the plant seems to have no
meaning, proportion, or comeliness; only when those golden petals have
unfolded upon the summit of their stately eminence do we comprehend the
symmetry and significance that had so long waited to avouch themselves.
This Lily of the Ages, native to American soil, may fittingly stand as
the symbol of the great Western Republic which, after so many thousand
years of spiritual vicissitude and political experiment, rises heavenward
out of the wilderness of time, and reveals its golden promise to those who
have lost their way in the dark forest of error and oppression. It was
long withheld, but it came at last, and about it center the best hopes of
mankind. These United States--this America of ours, as we love to call it
--is unlike any other nation that has preceded or is contemporary with it.
It is the conscious incarnation of a sublime idea--the conception of civil
and religious liberty. It is a spirit first, and a body afterward; thus
following the true law of immortal growth. It is the visible consummation
of human history, and commands the fealty of all noble minds in every
corner of the earth, as well as within its own boundaries. There are
Americans in all countries; but America is their home.
The seed is hidden in the soil; the germ is shut within the darkness of
the womb; the preparation for all birth is obscure. For more than a
century after the discovery of Columbus, no one divined the true
significance and destiny of the nation-that-was-to-be. Years passed before
it was understood even that the coast of the New World was anything more
than the western boundaries of the Asiatic continent; Columbus never
wavered from this conviction; the Cabots fancied that our Atlantic shores
were those of China; and though Balboa, in 1513, waded waist-deep into the
Pacific off Darien, and claimed it for Spain, yet the massive immensity of
America was not suspected. There was not space for it on the globe as then
plotted by geographers; it must be a string of islands, or at best but an
attenuated outlying bulwark of the East. News spread slowly in those days;
Vasco da Gama had reached India round the Cape of Good Hope before
Balboa's exploit; Columbus, on his third voyage, had touched the mainland
of South America, and young Sebastian Cabot, sailing from Bristol under
the English flag, had driven his prow against Labrador ice in his effort
to force a northwest passage; and still the truth was not fully realized.
And when, a century later, the English colonies were assigned their
boundaries, these were defined north, south and east, but to the west they
extended without limit. Panama was but thirty miles across, and no one
imagined that three thousand miles of solid land stretched between the
Chesapeake and the Bay of San Francisco. Then, as now, orthodoxy fought
against the heresy that there could be anything that was not as narrow as
itself.
And this physical denial or belittlement of the American continent had
its mental complement in the failure to comprehend the destiny of the
people which was to inhabit it. Spain thought only of material and
theological aggrandizements: of getting gold, and converting heathen, to
her own temporal and spiritual glory; and she was as ready to shed
innocent blood in the latter cause as in the former. England, without her
rival's religious bigotry, was as intent upon winning wealth through
territorial and commercial usurpations. Though not a few of the actual
discoverers and explorers were generous, magnanimous and kindly men,
having in view an honorable renown, based on opening new fields of life
and prosperity to future ages, yet the monarchs and the trading Companies
that stood behind them exhibited an unvarying selfishness and greed. The
new world was to them a field for plunder only. Each aimed to own it all,
and to monopolize its produce. The priestly missionaries of the Roman
Catholic faith did indeed pursue their ends with a self-sacrifice and
courage which deserve all praise; they devoted themselves at the risk and
often at the cost of their lives to the enterprise of winning souls, as
they believed, to Christ. But the Church dignitaries who sent forth these
soldiers of religion sought through them only to increase the credit of
their organization; they contemplated but the enlargement of their power.
The thought of establishing in the wilderness a place where men might rule
themselves in freedom entered not into their calculations. The spirit of
the old order survived the birth of the spirit of the new.
But the conflict thus provoked was necessary to the evolution which
Providence was preparing. The soul grows strong through hardship; truth
conquers by struggling against opposition. It is by resistance, at first
instinctive, against restraint that the infant attains self-consciousness.
The first settlers who came across the ocean were animated solely by the
desire to escape from oppression in their native land; they had as yet no
purpose to set up an independent empire. But, as the breath of the forest
and the prairie entered into their lungs, and the untrammeled spaciousness
of the virgin continent unshackled their minds, they began to resent,
though at first timidly, the arrogant pretension to rule them across the
waves. Their environment gave them courage, made them hardy and
self-dependent, enlightened their intelligence, weaned them from vain
traditions, revealed to them the truth that man's birthright is liberty.
And gradually, as the reins of tyranny were drawn tighter, these pioneers
of the New Day were wrought up to the pitch of throwing off all
allegiance, and setting their lives upon the cast. The idea of political
freedom is commonplace now; but to conceive it for the first time required
a mighty effort, and it could have been accomplished nowhere else than in
a vast and untrodden land. The Declaration of Independence, nearly three
centuries after Columbus's discovery of America, showed the hitherto blind
and sordid world what America was discovered for. Individual men of genius
had surmised it many years before; but their hope of forecast had been
deemed but an idle vision until in a moment, as it were, the reality was
born.
It was essential, however, to the final success of the great revolt, that
the men who brought it to pass should be the best of a chosen race. And
this requisite also was secured by conflict. It was the inveterate
persuasion of many generations that America was the land of gold. Tales
told by the Indians stimulated the imagination and the cupidity of the
first adventurers; legends of El Dorado kindled the horizons that fled
before them as they advanced. Somewhere beyond those savage mountains,
amid these pathless forests, was a noble city built and paved with gold.
Somewhere flowed a stately river whose waters swept between golden
margins, over sands of gold. In some remote region dwelt a barbarian
monarch to whom gold and precious stones were as the dross of the wayside.
These stories were the offspring of the legends of the alchemists of the
Dark Ages, who had professed to make gold in their crucibles; it was as
good to pick up gold in armfuls on the earth as to manufacture it in the
laboratory. The actual discovery of treasure in Mexico and Peru only
whetted the inexhaustible appetite of the adventurers; they toiled through
swamps, they cut their way through woods, they scaled precipices, they
fought savages, they starved and died; and their eyes, glazing in death,
still sought the gleam of the precious metal. Worse than death, to them,
would have been the revelation that their belief was baseless. The thirst
for wealth is not accounted noble; yet there seems to have been something
not ignoble in this romantic quest for illimitable gold. There is a magic
in the mere idea of the yellow metal, apart from such practical or
luxurious uses as it may subserve; it stood for power and splendor
--whatever good the men of that age were prone to appreciate. Howbeit, the
strongest and bravest of all lands were drawn together in the search; and
inevitably they met and clashed. Foremost among the antagonists were Spain
and England. The ambition of Spain was measureless; she desired not only
the mastery of America and its riches, but the empire of the world, the
leadership in commerce, and the ownership of the very gates of Heaven.
England sought land and trade; she was practical and unromantic, but
strong and daring; and in her people, unlike the Spanish, were implanted
the seeds of human freedom. She had not as yet the prestige of Spain; but
men like Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh went far to win it;
moreover, the star of Spain had already begun to wane, while that of
England was waxing. Whenever, therefore, the strength of the two rivals
was fairly pitted, England had the better of the encounter. Spain might
dominate, for a while, the southern regions of the continent; and her
priests might thread the western wildernesses, and build white-walled
missions there; but to England should belong the Atlantic coast from
Labrador to Florida: the most readily accessible from Europe, and the best
adapted to bring forth that wealth for which gold must be given in
exchange. The struggle, as between the Spanish and the English, was
temporarily suspended, and it was with France that the latter now found
themselves confronted. The French had entered America by way of the St.
Lawrence, and down the Mississippi, in expectation, like the others, of
finding a passage through to India; they had planted colonies and
conciliated the Indians, and were destined to give England much more
trouble than her former foe had done. They, like the English, wished to
live in the new world; Spain's chief desire was to plunder it and take the
booty home with her. In the sequel, England was victorious; and thus
approved her right to be the nucleus of the Race of the Future. Finally,
it was to be her fate to fight that Race itself, and to be defeated by it;
and thus, as the chosen from the chosen, the inhabitants of the Thirteen
Colonies were to begin their career.
The birth of America must therefore be dated, not from the discovery of
the land, but from the culmination in revolt of the English Colonies. All
that preceded this was as the early and ambiguous processes of nature in
bringing forth the plant from the seed. Nature knows her work, and its
result; but the onlooker sees the result only. The Creator of man knew of
what a child America was to be the mother: but the world, intent upon its
selfish concerns, recognized it only when the consummation had been
reached. And even now she eyes us askance, and mutters doubts as to our
endurance and our legitimacy. But America is Europe's best and only
friend, and her political pattern must sooner or later, and more or less
exactly, be followed by all peoples. Democracy, however unwelcome in its
first and outward aspect it may appear, is the logical issue of human
experiments in government; it is susceptible of much abuse and open to
many corruptions; but these cannot penetrate far below the surface; they
are external and obvious, not vital and secret; because at heart the voice
of democracy is the voice of God. It may be silent for long, so that some
will disbelieve or despair, and say in their haste that democracy is a
fraud or a failure. But at last its tones will be heard, and its word will
be irresistible and immortal: the word of the Lord, uttering itself
through the mouth of His creatures.
The preliminary episodes and skirmishings, therefore, which went before
the spiritual self-consciousness of America, will be treated here in
outline only; only such events and persons as were the sources of
subsequent important conditions will be drawn in light and shadow. This
period of adventure and exploration is, it is true, rich in picturesque
characters and romantic incident, but they have little organic relation to
the history of the true America--which is the tracing of the development
and embodiment of an abstract idea. They belong to Europe, whose life was
present in them, though the men acted and the incidents occurred in a
strange environment. They are attractive subjects of study in themselves,
but have small pertinence to the present argument. Our aim will be to
maintain an organic coherency.
Still less can we linger in that impressive darkness before dawn which
prevailed upon the continent before the advent of Columbus. The mystery
which shrouds the origin and annals of the races which inhabited America
previous to the European invasion has been assiduously investigated, but
never dispelled. At first it was taken for granted that the "Indians," as
the red men were ignorantly called, were the aboriginal denizens of the
country. But the mounds, ruined cities, pottery and other remains since
found in all parts of the land, concerning which the Indians could furnish
no information, and which showed a state of civilization far in advance of
theirs, were proof that a great people had existed here in the remote
past, who had flourished and disappeared without leaving any trace whereby
they could be accounted for or identified. They are an enigma compared
with which the archeological problems of the Old World are an open book.
We can form no conception of the conditions under which they lived, of
their personal characteristics, of their language, habits, or religion. We
cannot determine whether these forerunners of the Indians were one people
in several stages of development, or several peoples in simultaneous
occupation of the land. We can establish no trustworthy connection between
them and any Asiatic races, and yet we are reluctant to believe them
isolated from the rest of mankind. If they had dwelt here from their
creation, why had they not progressed further in civilization?--and if
they emigrated hither from another continent, why do their remains not
indicate their source? By what agency did they perish, and when? The more
keenly we strive to penetrate their mystery, the more perplexing does it
appear; the further we investigate them, the more alien from anything we
are or have known do they seem. Elusive as mist, and questionable as
night, they form a suggestive background on which the vivid and energetic
drama of our novel civilization stands out in sharp relief.
Scarcely less mysterious--though living among us still--are the red men
whom we found here. They had no written languages or history; their
knowledge of their own past was confined to vague and fanciful traditions.
They were few in numbers, barbarous in condition, untamable in nature;
they built no cities and practiced no industries: their women planted
maize and performed all menial labors; their men hunted and fought. Before
we came, they fought one another; our coming did not unite them against a
common enemy; it only gave each of them one enemy the more. After an
intercourse of four hundred years, we know as little of them as we did at
first; we have neither educated, absorbed nor exterminated them. The
fashion of their faces, and some other indications, seem to point to a
northern Asiatic ancestry; but they cannot tell us even so much as we can
guess. There have been among them, now and again, men of commanding
abilities in war and negotiation; but their influence upon their people
has not lasted beyond their own lives. Amid the roar and fever of these
latter ages, they stand silent, useless, and apathetic. They belong to our
history only in so far as their savage and treacherous hostility
contributed to harden the fortitude of our earlier settlers, and to weld
them into a united people.
Posterity may resolve these obscurities; meanwhile they remain in
picturesque contrast to the merciless publicity of our own life, and the
scientific annihilation of time and distance. They are as the dark and
amorphous loam in which has taken root the Flower of the Ages. If extremes
must meet, it was fitting that the least and the most highly developed
examples of mankind should dwell side by side, at the close of the
nineteenth century, in a land to which neither is native: that Europe, the
child of Asia, should meet its prehistoric parent here, and work out its
destiny before her uncomprehending eyes. The world is an inn of strange
meetings; and this encounter is perhaps the strangest of all.
The most dangerous enemy of America has been--not Spain, France, England,
or any other nation in arms, but--our own material prosperity. The lessons
of adversity we took to heart, and they brought forth wholesome fruit,
purifying our blood and toughening our muscles. So long as the Spirit of
Liberty was threatened from without, she was safe and triumphant. But when
her foes abroad had ceased to harry her, a foe far more insidious began to
plot against her in her own house. The tireless energy and ingenuity which
are our most salient characteristics, and which had rendered us formidable
and successful on sea and land, were turned by peace into productive
channels. The enormous natural resources of the continent began to receive
development; men who under former conditions would have been admirals and
generals, now became leaders in commerce, manufactures and finance; they
made great fortunes, and set up standards of emulation other than
patriotism and public spirit. Like the old Spanish and English
adventurers, they sought for gold, and held all other things secondary to
that. An anomalous oligarchy sprang into existence, holding no ostensible
political or social sway, yet influential in both directions by virtue of
the power of money. Money can be possessed by the evil as well as by the
good, and it can be used to tempt the good to condone evil. The exalted
maxim of human equality was interpreted to mean that all Americans could
be rich; and the spectacle was presented of a mighty and generous nation
fighting one another for mere material wealth. Inevitably, the lower and
baser elements of the population came to the surface and seemed to rule;
the ordinary citizen, on whom the welfare of the State depends, allowed
his private business interest to wean him from the conduct of public
affairs, which thereby fell into the hands of professional politicians,
who handled them for their personal gain instead of for the common weal.
We forgot that pregnant saying, "Eternal vigilance is the price of
liberty," and suffered ourselves to be persuaded that because our written
Constitution was a wise and patriotic document, we were forever safe even
from the effects of our own selfishness and infidelity. As some men are
more skillful and persistent manipulators of money than others, it
happened that the capital of the country became massed in one place and
was lacking in another; the numbers of the poor, and of paupers,
increased; and the rich were able to control their political action and
sap their self-respect by dominating the employment market. "Do my
bidding, or starve," is a cogent argument; it should never be in the power
of any man to offer it; but it was heard over the length and breadth of
free America. The efforts of laboring men, by organization, to check the
power of capitalists, was met by the latter with organizations of their
own, which, in the form of vast "trusts" and otherwise, deprived small
manufacturers and traders of the power of independent self-support.
Strikes and lockouts were the natural outcome of such a situation; and the
sinister prospect loomed upon us of labor and capital arrayed against each
other in avowed hostility.
Danger from this cause, however, is more apparent than actual. The
remedy, in the last resort, is always in ourselves. Laws as to land and
contracts may be modified, but the true cure for all such injuries and
inequalities is to cease to regard the amassing of "fortunes" as the most
desirable end in life. The land is capable of supporting in comfort far
more than its present population; ignorance or selfish disregard of the
true principles of economy have made it seem otherwise. The proper state
of every man is that of a producer; the craving of individuals to own what
they have not fairly earned and cannot usefully administer, is vain and
disorderly. Men will always be born who have the genius of management; and
others who require to have their energies directed; some can profitably
control resources which to others would be a mischievous burden. But this
truth does not involve any extravagant discrepancy in the private means
and establishments of one or the other; each should have as much as his
needs, intelligence and taste legitimately warrant, and no more. Such
matters will gradually adjust themselves, once the broad underlying
principle has been accepted. Meanwhile we may remember that national
health is not always synonymous with peace. It was the warning of our Lord
--"I am not come to bring peace? but a sword." The war which is waged with
powder and ball is often less contrary to true peace than the war which
exists while all the outward semblances of peace are maintained. We must
not be misled by names. America is perhaps too prone to regard herself in
a passive light, as the refuge merely of the oppressed and needy; but she
has an active mission too. She stands for so much that is contrary to the
ideas that have hitherto ruled the world that she can hardly hope to avoid
the hostility, and possibly the attacks, of the representatives of the old
order. These, she must be able and ready to repel. We have freely shed our
blood for our own freedom; and we should not forget that, though charity
begins at home, it need not end there. We should not interpret too
strictly the maxims which admonish us to mind our own housekeeping, and to
avoid entanglements with the quarrels or troubles of our neighbors. We
should not say to the tide of our liberties, Thus far shalt thou go, and
no further. America is not a geographical expression, and arbitrary
geographical boundaries should not be permitted to limit the area which
her principles control. We, who seek to bind the other nations to
ourselves by ties of commerce, should recognize the obligations of other
ties, whose value cannot be expressed in money.
America wears her faults upon her forehead, not in her heart; her history
is just beginning; she herself dreams not yet what her ultimate destiny
will be. But so far as her brief past may serve as a key wherewith to open
the future? a study of it will not be idle.
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