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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 sce 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.

resigned nor refused the acceptance of it. His particular friends, however, expressed a wish to appoint him again; but on its having been moved that an enquiry should take place the succeeding session into the conduct of the executive for the last year, nothing more was said on the subject, but General Nelson, who then was at the head of the militia, was elected Governor. Mr. Jefferson was sent to the Assembly in the fall or spring following and there called on the house for the threatened examination in a very handsome address, but by this time even those who thought him culpable began to think otherwise on a real reflection and a better information, and the house, by a general vote, directed their thanks to be delivered to him from the chair, by John Tyler, then their speaker, who did it accordingly in a warm and affectionate manner.

The appointment of General Nelson was at Staunton, where the Assembly sat. Mr. Jefferson I believe was immediately sent to Congress, and from thence to France, where he continued seven years, discharging his important affairs, highly to the interest. of his country, and greatly to the satisfaction of the government of France. Richmond, September 9, 1805. John Tyler."

After this, for many years these charges of inefficiency in the gubernatorial office were entirely suppressed, and Mr. Jefferson passed from post of honor to post of honor, serving as member of Congress, minister plenipotentiary to France and Secretary of State under Washington. But in 1796 Mr. Charles Symmes, of Alexandria, a virulent Federalist, revived the old exploded charges, and was answered by Mr. Jefferson's friends, who drew the record. on him.

It appears rather queer that, when soon after John Adams came in as President, he should so flout a man holding the vice-presidency, as to appoint Symmes, his worst detractor, collector of the port of Alexandria, then the most lucrative Federal office in Virginia.

The tale was next handed over to Mr. William Smith, a Federalist of South Carolina, who with a view to influence the election in that State represented it with additional coloring in his pamphlet styled Phocion.

Was a signal service like this to be treated with ingratitude?

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