England." But it was no such thing. It was a covenant only, in accordance with which the 41 signers agreed to live together in a body politic, and by virtue thereof "to enact, constitute and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time as shall be thought most meet and convenient &c., unto which we promise due submission and obedience." Now these very words show that the compact proclaimed neither laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions nor even offices. These things were yet to follow, and as a matter of fact the Mayflower compact did nothing more than what was done in the case of all the companies contemplating settlement in America. The persons interested must have first assembled, organized as a body politic, and drawn up a paper in which the powers they wished to exercise were clearly outlined. The signature by the King conveyed only his sanction to their previous action. In the case of the Pilgrim Fathers the powers assumed under the Mayflower compact were little more than those granted under the patent obtained from the London Company, Feb. 12, 1620, and under which they sailed to America, for that too authorized them to make "orders, ordinances and constitutions for the better ordering and dyrecting of their servants and business," not repugnant to the laws of England.* Indeed, the Pilgrim Fathers were so far from thinking that they had done anything out of the ordinary that they made haste the very next year to seek and obtain from the Plymouth Company, under whose dominion they found themselves, a charter incorporating them into a body politic with the power "to establish such laws and orders as are for their better government." And under this charter and another they obtained in 1630, with broader powers, they lived out the brief period of their existence as a colony.† And Palfrey says that a royal charter was much desired by them. Be that as it may, the fact remains that the Mayflower compact created neither a government nor a constitution, if by that is *Records of the Virginia Company, I., 303. meant "a plan of government." Nor was democracy born with the compact. Whether the government was to be a monarchy, an aristocracy or a democracy had yet to be determined. When the government got into operation, it was an aristocracy. The right to vote at Plymouth was limited, and in 1643, while there were 600 persons on the military list, only 230 persons were allowed the ballot.* The Plymouth Colony was soon swallowed up by the great Massachusetts Bay Colony, where the power over the hundreds of freemen and servants that came with Endicott and Winthrop in 1628 and 1630 was exercised at first by only eleven persons; and though that number was shortly increased, citizenship was construed as a privilege and not a right, and made to depend upon membership in the Congregational Church. During most of the 17th century five-sixths of the people were deprived of the ballot, a condition not very much changed down to the American Revolution. So stubborn indeed was the power of the aristocracy maintained, that the people of Rhode Island had to rise in rebellion in 1842 to break up the inequality surviving in the freest of the New England States. The other writer whom I choose to regard not as a "sinner" but as a "victim" of Propaganda, is Dr. N. W. Stephenson, born in Ohio, and now holding the chair of history in Charleston College, South Carolina. This gentleman is an amiable example of a really strong scholar, who yet finds himself unable to resist the Lincoln Propaganda. He does not wholly subscribe to the deification of the martyred President, but that the Propaganda octopus has him in its strong grasp is shown by his distortions of history in the following closing paragraph of his "Abraham Lincoln and the Union," forming Volume XXIX, of the Chronicles of America. "The passage of sixty years has proved fully necessary to the placing of Lincoln in historic perspective. No President, in his own time, with the possible exception of Washington, was so bitterly hated and so fiercely reviled. On the other hand, none has been the object of such intemperate hero-worship. However, the *Plymouth Records VIII, 173-177; Palfrey, New England, II, 8. greatest of the land were, in the main, quick to see him in perspective and to recognize his historic significance. It is recorded of Davis that in after days he paid a beautiful tribute to Lincoln and said, 'Next to the destruction of the Confederacy, the death of Abraham Lincoln was the darkest day the South has known.'" In this paragraph the suggestion of a compliment to Lincoln is evident. The words are so stated that they appear to carry an authoritative and convincing decision. Under the pretext of a mere fellowship of abuse, Lincoln takes his stand by Washington, and the perspective of sixty years is illumined with a "a beautiful tribute" to Lincoln from his old arch enemy Jefferson Davis. But the suggestion is controverted by the facts, and on slight examination Dr. Stephenson's splendid fabric of eulogy melts and vanishes. Lincoln was abused, but why the comparison with Washington, unless it was to enhance Lincoln's importance? It is not true that Washington was abused more than any of the Presidents. Hundreds of contemporary writers pay their veneration to Washington, and the abuse comes from a few intemperate politicians like Freneau and Callender. Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, John Tyler, James Buchanan and Woodrow Wilson were far more intemperately abused than ever Washington was, though this fact itself counts for little in derogation of their character. What an enemy says is not worth considering, unless supported by strong disinterested evidence. Dr. Stephenson fails utterly to see that Lincoln is the one case of a president against whom the severest criticisms come from his intimate friends-Lamon, Herndon, Don Piatt, McClure, and cabinet members of his own appointment-Seward, Stanton, Chase and Blair. Nothing like veneration for him was expressed during his life time, making his case conspicuously different from that of Washington and Jefferson. And as to "the beautiful tribute" passed by Mr. Davis on Lincoln, only a victim of Propagandism could find a compliment to Lincoln in the words of the Ex-Confederate President. If Mr. Davis is correctly quoted, as I presume he is, he referred merely to the opportunity which Lincoln's assassination gave to the South haters in the North to carry through their plans of reconstruction. With one joyous shout these venomous representatives of the worst. passions of the country classed all Southerners as assassins with Booth. And gleefully they went to work to put all former rebels under the heel of the military and the ignorant negro. Had Lincoln lived, though there is little assurance that he would have successfully opposed any plan of the radicals, the necessary stimulus to excessive cruelty afforded by the action of Booth would have been lacking. Mr. Davis had excellent personal reasons to regret the death of Lincoln. On the charges of a band of scoundrels hoping to get a reward, and whose leader, one Connover, was subsequently landed in the penitentiary at Albany, Andrew Johnson issued a proclamation that the death of Lincoln "was incited, concocted and procured by and between Jefferson Davis" and certain other well known Confederates, and offered a hundred thousand dollars for his apprehension. And perhaps not even Davis' generosity to an enemy could quite overlook the fact that Booth's unfortunate shot would be almost certain to assure to Lincoln an estimate in the eyes of the North far beyond his actual worth. Undoubtedly then the death of Lincoln proved "a dark day," not for the good Lincoln had done to the South or would have done, but for the evil that others did do and have done, among whom the propagandists of the present day are not the least guilty. As a matter of fact, Lincoln's character is not to be determined by those speeches and messages of his which were dressed up for the occasion, but by his private conversation and his public and official acts. The evidence is overwhelmingly that he positively revelled in impure suggestions, and that as a statesman he was vacillating and unstable, lacking in proper pride and selfrespect, and, while not naturally venomous like Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner, callous to the obligations of humanity as defined in the International Law. There is little doubt that had the entire wiping out of the Southern people, or the failure of his war, presented itself to him, he would have unhesitatingly adopted the former alternative. We have his own words to this effect, when on August 3, 1862, he declared to his cabinet that "he was pretty well cured of any objections to any measure except want of adaptedness to putting down the rebellion." MR. JEFFERSON AND HIS DETRACTORS. In the Richmond Enquirer for 1805 appears a series of editorials defending Mr. Jefferson from attacks levelled against him by Federalists relating to his conduct of the government of Virginia during the American Revolution. Owing to the difficulties of his situation, which were not at the time fully understood by everybody, some dissatisfaction, of which Mr. George Nicholas was spokesman in the House of Delegates, was manifested in 1781, when the States was invaded by the British under Arnold and Cornwallis. The House on June 12, 1781, adopted a resolution that an enquiry be made into "the conduct of the executive of this State for the last twelve months." Mr. Jefferson demanded and courted an enquiry, and so in November of the next session the House appointed a committee consisting of John Banister, John Tyler, George Nicholas, Turner Southall and Haynes Morgan to report to the House any charges against Mr. Jefferson, if any could be found. And although Mr. George Nicholas, as is seen, was a member, the committee unanimously reported that the rumors in question were "groundless,' and, thereupon, on December 19, 1781, the sincere thanks of the Senate and House, constituting the General Assembly, were voted Mr. Jefferson for his "impartial, upright and attentive administration of the powers of the Executive while in office.” John Tyler, a member of the committee, was made speaker December 1, and when the committee reported, it was made his duty to voice the thanks of the assembly to Mr. Jefferson from the speaker's chair, which he did in "a warm and affectionate manner.” In the "Vindication," in the Richmond Enquirer* the following letter from Judge Tyler is printed: "Mr. Jefferson finding at the end of the second year of his administration, in 1781, that some people were discontented with his conduct with respect to Arnold's and Cornwallis' invasions declined offering for the office of Chief Magistrate, but neither *Richmond Enquirer, Sept. 10, 1805. |