then emancipated, but denied the suffrage, would have continued to be as great a monstrosity and as fruitful a source of political agitation and sectional strife as they were when slaves. Peace between the races at the South being impossible, and liberty existing only in name, the North would have labored for reform, and the South for disunion. All the evils from which emancipation was supposed to have delivered us, would have returned to testify that, in the denial of the suffrage, emancipation had been repealed and slavery restored. Universal suffrage was not then a new fact, but a part of emancipation.

On a calm survey of the effects of granting and withholding the ballot from the colored race, the intelligence of the country must ultimately be convinced that universal suffrage, so far from being an evil, which we should plunge the country into another gigantic civil war to abolish, is the sole hope of freedom and the only pledge of peace between the races, and of the voluntary maintenance of the Union without the despotic aid of the bayonet.

Yet the transition is so sudden, and the question of its safety so nearly divides public opinion, that, if submitted without any accessory circumstances, it is doubtful whether a majority of the Northern people would, at present, endorse it. In this dilemma, General Francis P. Blair, by announcing his revolutionary plan of settling the question by a coup d'état, and using the army to defy Congress; the Democratic Convention, by nominating General Blair because of this letter, and by denouncing the Southern State governments as "unconstitutional, revolutionary, and void; " General Wade Hampton, by announcing that this was his plank in the platform, and that it meant all that Blair said; and Wise, Vance, Forrest, Toombs, Cobb, and other fire-eating rebels, who proclaimed that all that was lost under Jeff. Davis would be regained under Seymour and Blair,-all these have shifted the issue, and brought the country face to face with the problem, “Shall

we allow the question of the status of the negro-race to be settled by rebellious force; in short, shall we have war or peace?"

The Republican majorities given in Vermont and Maine, compared with previous majorities in those and other States, show a gain which authorizes us to expect that Connecticut will give a Republican majority of 2,000 or 3,000; New York, of from 7,000 to 10,000: Pennsylvania, of 20,000; leaving, of the Northern States, only New Jersey to the Democrats, by about 5,000. It is seldom that the real foreshadowings of the September and October elections disappoint us in November.

While the fate of the canvass thus turns mainly on the question of peace or war, the incidental discussion of financial issues has been important and salutary. The Democratic party, abandoning its ancient hostility to a papercurrency of any kind, has adopted a resolve in favor of "one currency," without defining whether that may mean specie, greenbacks, checks, national bank-notes, or State bank-notes; but with a very general interpretation in favor of greenbacks only. It is silent upon the national banking system, notwithstanding the continued hostility maintained towards the banks by Democratic orators and journals. For aught that appears in its platform, the one currency it demands may as well be that of the banks as any other. Departing from its ancient doctrine of free-trade, it advocates, in plain terms, such an adjustment of our tariffs on imports to our internal revenues as will protect domestic manufacturers. Mr. Carey, Mr. Greeley, or Mr. Morrell, as protectionists, could ask no more. It revives, however, its ancient hobby of direct taxation on all capital, in order to levy a tax on the national bonds. While it advocates paying the "fivetwenties," which form the bulk of the national debt, in greenbacks, it claims to do so, not with any repudiatory intent, but on the plea that the letter of the law is satisfied by this mode of payment. Since the "greenbacks," before

the five-twenty bonds were issued, were declared by law to be "lawful money and legal tender, in payment of all debts, public and private, except customs, and the interest on the public debt," there is obviously a basis for the position that the "letter" of the legal tender act makes them "legal tender " by the Government in payment of the principal of the five-twenties. At the passage of the legal-tender act, there was an intense desire, especially on the part of Mr. Stevens, its author, to give the highest possible credit to the legal tenders. He desired them to be legal tender in payment of customs as well as internal taxes, and of interest as well as principal of the public debt. He believed they could, by these means, be kept at par, and steadily and furiously denounced the requirement of gold for customs and for interest, as in itself a repudiation by the Government of its own legal tenders, which would result in depreciation and two currencies. The omission to make the five-twenties expressly payable in coin, was caused by this hope that the greenbacks could be kept at par. On the other hand, all our Secretaries of the Treasury and the mass of Republicans, with a few Democratic speakers and journals, declare that, this expectation having failed, the bonds, which were sold on the representation that they would be paid in gold, shall be paid according to such representation; and that, having been put forth as national obligations, for sale in the markets of the world, they shall be paid in the manner necessary to sustain our credit among nations, in the currency of the world.

The practical importance of this discussion is very slight. The depreciation of the greenback is caused by the fact that our debt is larger than we are able to pay in several years. Until we shall be able to pay it, it is premature to discuss how we shall pay it. When we become able to pay it, our ability will place the greenback on a par with gold, and the public creditor will accept one as readily as the other. In the meantime, if we desire to lessen our debt, we can

buy the bonds with the greenbacks at so nearly par in greenbacks as to amount, practically, much nearer to a payment in greenbacks than in gold. Now that the greenbacks are depreciated, there is a degree of inconsistency between the letter of the legal-tender act and the spirit of the five-twenty loan. The former makes the legal tenders payable in discharge of the principal of the public debt; the latter requires that the public debt be paid in gold. This inconsistency disappears with the resumption of specie payments, which the authors of these measures hoped would never be suspended.

The Democratic resolution demanding the "equal taxation of all kinds of property, including Government bonds,” is directly at issue with the Republican resolution in favor of " equalizing taxation," so far as the national faith will permit. The Republican resolution agrees with the general system, which has been actually adopted, of taxing the earnings and incomes resulting from the use of property, rather than making all taxes on property according only to its value. This system admits of discriminating in taxation, so as to favor the poor, and pass over the necessaries of life, at the expense of its luxuries and superfluities. The Democratic system, however, would tax all property alike, whether it be a distillery earning 200 per cent., or a farm earning 10 per cent.; and would exempt those who have large incomes but no capital, from all taxes. The liquor manufacturers and dealers, who form as truly the backbone of the Democratic party of the North, as the churches are the support of the Republican, have a strong interest in a platform which transfers $50,000,000 of taxes, per annum, from the liquor-dealers to the farmers, which taxes a distillery at the same rate as a church or college, and protests against all inquiry into the nature or extent of any man's business. Such direct taxation as the Democratic platform demands would fall with crushing weight on all owners of real estate, and would prove the most unequal system of taxes

ever devised. Its leading object, however, is to respond to a supposed popular demand for the taxation of the national debt. This measure, though denounced by some as repudiatory, has been voted for by a majority of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, and bills for carrying it into effect have been introduced by Republican Senators.

It is contended that such a tax is not repudiatory, provided it taxes the bonds no higher than other investments. While the decisions of the Supreme Court forbid States and local authorities to tax them, as a State right, Congress might, constitutionally, authorize the States to tax them, equally with other property. The incomes derived from all bonds held by Americans are now taxed under the income-tax; about $600,000,000 of them are held abroad, and would not be reached by State and local taxation; about $1,000,000,000 are held by savings banks and insurance companies, as the basis of stock, depos its, and dividends, which are taxed. In order to reach the remaining $500,000,000, it would be necessary to lay direct taxes on all other property, real and personal, in the country, amounting to $17,000,000,000. For every dollar of tax collected from the bonds, $34 would be collected by direct tax from houses, farms, and other property. Since the exemption of the bonds from taxation lessens by so much the rate of interest, the amount thus saved is saved by all the taxpayers in exact proportion to their taxable liability. The amount of the tax could not be divided among them more equally than the benefits of the exemption.

The discussion of financial questions has elicited the gratifying fact that, including our unliquidated debt, our entire war debt, outstanding in June, 1865, and amounting to about $3,300,000,000, has been reduced by over $800,000,000, or one fourth its entire amount.

The effect of the approaching election of Grant, upon the rebel and reactionary elements of the South, will be like that of the reelection of Abraham Lincoln,

in 1864. Then every rebel in arms, in council, or in sympathy, felt that the nation was unconquerable, that the mass of the American people would fight on, and ever, for union and freedom, until the victory should be won. This conviction melted the hosts of the rebellion like snow under an April sun. .So the election of Grant will end all efforts to reverse, in the arena of politics, the results won by the nation on the battlefield. State rights will finally yield to the sovereignty of the nation, and the aristocracy of race to the equality of

man.

The prejudice against permitting the lately subject race to enjoy equal political rights, must slowly fade with returning material prosperity and the education of the colored race. Before the latter can hope to wholly escape the odium of their past servile condition, they must develop from servants and menials into merchants, farmers, manufacturers, scholars, orators, poets, men of science, and statesmen. For the fine arts, music, oratory, painting, etc., they have, in sporadic instances, already developed no small capacity. Rising races and nations have usually attained a higher excellence in the imaginative and sensuous arts during their dawning periods, than in their fuller civilization. But all growth in intellect, morals, and religion waits upon the development of industry, wealth, and leisure. The temporary effects of emancipation, both in the United States and Russia, have been seriously to diminish the productive powers of both countries. Our first problem now is, to prove that freedom is more productive than slavery. We believe that during the four years of union, security, and peace, which will be secured by General Grant's election, the annual products of the South will reach a value never before attained; that mainly through their export, the balance of trade with Europe and the flow of gold will be turned once more in our favor; that the national debt will be reduced by another fourth, or even by one half; that, with the completion of the Pacific Railroad and the

opening up of our trade with the populous empires of Eastern Asia, the fact will dawn upon the world that the future centre of the world's industry and commerce lies right here in our midst; and in the light of these facts it will be clearly seen that our recent tremendous and agonizing war, and the after-struggle for equality of political rights, were

necessary, not only to the complete eradication of human bondage, but to the development of a system of free government, which may afford at once protection and unity to a hundred States, and liberty, equality, and the noblest arena for social progress and political ambition to hundreds of millions of people.

Ir is not in this country alone that we are passing through a fierce transitional epoch that is leading us to a higher stage of development. All the various races in Europe are struggling to gather their scattered forces, and combine them into a living, organic unity, and the country that does not succeed in organizing itself in harmony with a better order of things, will retrograde fearfully, and take a lower position hereafter, than it has ever occupied among the sisterhood of the nations. But it is in South America, that unredeemed Eden of the world, that tropical wilderness, with its magnificent scenery and immense resources, which a short time ago was regarded as beyond the boundaries of civilization, but, at present, which is beginning to attract the attention of the whole civilized world; it is in South America that the struggle of a new birth into a higher life has been the most protracted and dangerous. The series of earthquakes that have just devastated the western coast of South America have not been more preternatural in their fury, and disastrous in their consequences, than the revolutions that have convulsed its social life; and when we remember that the Argentine Republic has just elected Sarmien-, to President; that Brazil is under the dominion of a wise, humane, and enlightened Emperor; and that the last of the barbarian chiefs who have been a scourge to the land, Lopez, according to the latest accounts, has been subdued in Paraguay, we are tempted to believe that the spirits of discord and barbarism are being driven from the land, and that it is this legion of devils, no longer able to interrupt the operation of moral forces, that have rent the physical frame of the continent, before taking their final departure.

In the volume now before us, a clear and philosophical account of the social struggles

Το

of the Argentine Republic is, for the first time, presented to the English public. this is added a biographical sketch of the author, compiled by Mrs. Mann, with extreme judgment and discrimination; a sketch which greatly enhances the interest of the main body of the work, and to those readers who are not familiar with Sarmiento's life, which will serve as a key to many events in the history of his country, which, otherwise, would remain involved in obscurity.

Sarmiento was born in 1811, the year after the Argentine Republic freed itself from the yoke of Spain. His parents were poor, although of noble descent, and his mother, a woman of lofty spirit and noble character, lived a life of ceascless labor and self-sacrifice, in order to give her children the educational advantages which she had not been able to enjoy; a domestic training preëminently fitted to prepare her son for the noble and beneficent career in which he has since gained such enviable distinction. Sarmiento's childhood was rocked by revolutions, and while a mere boy he perceived the great truth that the only sure foundation of a republican government is an educated people. Henceforth, he devoted himself to the great cause of popular education with all the enthu siasm and energy of his nature. When only sixteen years old, he was imprisoned for political insubordination-the only virtue possible in the condition of his country at that time-and two years afterward emigrated with his family to Chili. Here he established schools and papers-besides working as a miner for his support--and succeeded in elevating, in a marked degree, the moral and intellectual tone in the society of that State. In 1837 he returned to San Juan, and continued there his life-work as teacher, editor, and author; establishing schools and col

leges, founding liberal papers, etc., etc., until renewed persecution once more compelled him to withdraw into Chili.

In 1841 he resolved to join Colonel La Madrid, who was opposing Rosas, the barbarian chief then tyrannizing over Buenos Ayres. Before he had crossed the Andes, however, Colonel Madrid's army had been routed, and after rescuing the fugitives, and affording them all the assistance and comfort which his influence could command, Sarmiento, despairing of gaining a foothold in his native country, left Chili to visit Europe and the United States. He now devoted himself to studying the institutions of foreign nations, with a good effect, of which his after-life has given evidence. He was everywhere received with enthusiasm by the literary men and liberal statesmen of Europe, and all facilities afforded him for pursuing his investigations. In this country, under the guidance of the lamented Horace Mann, he applied himself especially to the study of our public-school system, and, on his return to Buenos Ayres, succeeded in inaugurating the same system in that distracted State. He took part in the revolution led by General Uriquez, that overthrew Rosas, and in 1857, several years after the fall of that tyrant, he went to live in Buenos Ayres, where, although merely as a private citizen, he devoted himself with his usual energy, and triumphant success, to reforming abuses and conducting enterprises for promoting the public good.

It is impossible to estimate the influence that Sarmiento has exerted, without referring directly to facts and dates; the two changeless pillars upon which the most romantic superstructures, if they are to endure, must be erected. In 1860, seventeen thousand children were receiving free instruction in the public schools that had been established in Buenos Ayres through his exertions; and it is due to him that religious toleration was granted in Buenos Ayres, and that there are now as many Protestant as Catholic churches in that city. After he was elected Senator, the violence and disorderly conduct that had disgrace the Senate-chamber ceased, and the Provincial Convention became a model of parliamentary order and eloquence. In 1858, after two years' discussion, he succeeded in obtaining permission from the government to survey, and lay out in small farms in the North American mode, an extensive tract of land in Chivilcoi, at that time in the possession of thirty-nine individuals, distinctively known as squatters. Last year a railroad VOL. I.-40

was opened between this region and Buenos Ayres, and those who witnessed the ceremony found the terminus of their journey a Chicago in the wilderness; a city elegantly laid out, and already containing a church, a beautiful public school-house, private schools, a bank, a fine railroad station, etc., etc. The same lands that were owned, in 1858, by thirty-nine squatters, are now occupied by twenty thousand happy, prosperous, farming people, who enjoy all the conveniences of civilized life, and among whom, although no immense fortunes are made, great riches are uniformly distributed, and are increasing rapidly and wonderfully.

resort.

Redeeming the Isles of the Parana from the waters of the La Plata, and cultivating them, was another of Colonel Sarmiento's enterprises, which proved as successful as the laying out of the lands in Chivilcoi. After five years' cultivation, these islands, which had been considered waste land, had become a new and exhaustless source of wealth to the State, besides being unsurpassed as a country "At the end of five years, the aspect of the canals was one of magical beauty; they were planted with poplar-trees for leagues and leagues, and barques of all descriptions were navigating them, receiving the showers of peaches that fell from the trees for miles together. There is perhaps no place in the world so picturesque, or of such dream-like beauty as these channels bordered by trees. They are the delight of all the dwellers upon the river La Plata."

These projects, and many of similar character, Sarmiento carried out while Senator in Buenos Ayres, and engaged in the most exhausting political contests. He educated the people, in the first place, and gave them strength to conquer their tyrants; and having regained their freedom, he has taught them to use that priceless boon with moderation, forbearance, and wisdom. Nor should we forget, in estimating the character and genius of the man, that he has established popular education in a country where teaching was not only neglected, but where the vocation of the teacher was despised; in a country where a man was sentenced "to serve three years as a schoolmaster, for having robbed a church;" and that he has been the invariable advocate of popular rights and constitutional liberty, in a land that has been convulsed with ceaseless revolutions from the day of his birth up to the present hour. After such a career it is not strange that the people of the Argentine Republic should have risen up, at their