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mon, Mr. Brooks then must have been one, to get the wealth he has; a jackass means anything and nothing, he's always calling people asses. How strange it is that an austere and ceremonious gentleman like Mr. Brooks can occasionally call people such hard names! But a time server." Ellen pondered long on that sneering epithet, but could not come to any conclusion what time it was, nor how it could be wrong to serve time, as it served us constantly. She wound up her revery with a flood of tears that assured her she never could give up the Leas, nor get them out of her heart.

XV.

Mr. Brooks had been long twinged in his conscience concerning the Christianity of eating animal food; and the next day at dinner declined taking any, preparatory to his expounding his views to the family. He had read all that had been said on the subject in the learned journals that crammed his shelves, and felt ready to explode with authority, conviction, and zeal.

"Now it seems to me," said he, "that eating meat is a low, brutish taste. Dogs and lions eat meat; horses and cows don't, and they are much kinder and nobler in their dispositions. Some assert, from our teeth and stomach, that we were made to eat it; but they argue, I guess, from the cravings of their gross appetites. Nations that live principally on rice and vegetable diet have produced the most instances of longevity."

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Mrs. Grey, in consternation, "you wouldn't advise people to give up meat entirely? Why we cat it three times a day. I always slice the rarest beef and mutton for supper."

"And bring up such children as that," said Mr. Brooks, pointing significantly at Ellen. "It's terrible to think how, through ignorance and lack of investigation, we blight the lives of our offspring."

"But why ain't I blighted?" said the good lady, glancing down at her portly person, and holding out an arm that might bolster a giant; "I've eaten it twice as long as she has, and have never been sick in my life, but once-and that from an accident-you know."

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Well; but how long will your life last?" suggested Mr. Brooks, "that's the question. We were, doubtless, intended to live much longer than we

do. Why isn't the short-coming owing to meat?"

"I don't know how I am to find out the way to live the longest, without two lives; a meat one, and a vegetable one," answered she. "It isn't safe to experiment on one's self otherwise."

"The feelings soon tell what agrees with the body; but we will waive that side of the subject and turn to another. Will you go out to-morrow, Mrs. Grey, and slay me and dress me an ox, that I may feast thereon ?"

"Not I, indeed."

"Well, somebody must do it. Now am I to say to Sambo:-'Sambo, you're my brother before God; but I choose to think you more vulgar and beastly than I am. Blood won't make you faint, nor anguish sicken you. Lead that ox far out of my sight, knock him down, rip him open, cut him up, and don't even let me see a raw piece of him, if you love me and value my nerves. The cook will do the handling; and all I desire is to partake of it when in a decent state to suit my delicate sensibilities. People may pow-wow as much as they please, but that's the Christian view of the matter."

Mr. Brooks made an oratorical poke -he was opposed to flourishes-and looked as if he would like to see anybody get upon a higher platform than that!

Mrs. Grey was floored; and for a few moments there was a triumphant, impressive silence, soon broken through by her saying, faintly, "She didn't know that butchers felt abused-she never heard them complain."

"That's the worst feature of it, my dear madam; we not only force them to a brutal employment, but we accustom them to it, so that they become brutes themselves, and compete with each other in the number of slain, and the most scientific manner of slaying."

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'Well, now," replied she, "I didn't know they were any more wicked than other men. I've been to market these thirty odd years, and have a great many butcher acquaintances. They are rather fat, red-faced, and big-voiced, to be sure, but they'd say as cheerily :— 'Good morning, Mrs. Grey. What now? There's a splendid steak I have saved for you, just suit Mr. Grey to a T. I have been wanting to see you, Mrs. Grey; and the big voice would sink into a whisper as fine as any gentleman's.

'My old woman's out of sorts, and I'd like to know how to make tappyoker. I've been up with her o' nights lately, and last night she took a craving for some, such as you made her once, she said. I'll just take it down, if you've time.' And if I hadn't insisted on making it myself, he would have really written it with a bloody pencil and bloody hands, on a bloody piece of paper. I thought my basket was rather heavy, and when I got home, I found in it a quantity of mutton-chops, a soup-bone, and a lump of liver I hadn't paid for. There was one butcher used always to bring his baby in a basket when the weather was mild, to give his wife a lift in the work, he said, but I believe, too, because he couldn't bear to leave it behind. I never could go by, without stopping; he was so proud and tender of it! It was always smeared with candy. One day it had the colic, from being stuffed with the best things in the market, and he asked me, with tears in his eyes, what he should do. I took it home, gave it catnip and lobelia, and it soon got well. Do you believe that butcher never had change afterwards when I went to buy? It ran up into a bill, and he wouldn't present it. Mr. Grey sent him what he considered the amount; and the next Christmas, I had a present of a handsome silk dress, that the girls have called the butcherdress ever since."

Mr. Brooks seemed alarmed lest the private history of all the butchers was coming, and hastened to say that conjugal and paternal love were strong animal characteristics, and argued nothing for human progress.

It was admitted that butchers were a degraded class, and of course it was their occupation which made them so.

Mrs. Grey contended that they were no more degraded than any class absorbed in material wants, and the struggle for bread. She had nursed them in sickness, and seen them under the weight of affliction; she knew they had noble hearts and generous impulses like other mortals. "They were fond of me," added the good lady, blushing; "and I'm sure I was neither conjugal, nor paternal. As for honesty, I have been as often cheated at the wagon of a farmer as at the stall of a butcher. I've killed many a chicken myself, and

believe I am less hard-hearted than some who would scorn to do it."

“But what right had you to kill a chicken?" demanded Mr. Brooks, seriously; "the Bible says: thou shalt not murder. You laugh, Mrs. Grey; but it isn't any the less murder because you are of a different race, or stronger and more cunning than a poor dumb beast. This chicken," seizing a drumstick, and pointing it with a solemn ghostly wave at Jane, the black cook, who entered to change the plates, "this chicken, four hours ago, was running about, enjoying itself, and would be enjoying itself now, if presuming mortals had not taken away from it the measure of life God gave."

The murdered leg seemed to make no great impression on Jane, who had a slight greasy rim round her mouth, as if she had been surprised regaling on the choice tid-bits in the frying-pan. She removed the platter with the lazy indifference of one whose soul is full to satiety of what it surveyeth, and reported in the kitchen that the "old gem'mun was gwine it awrful with a leg in his hand."

We will spare the reader the rest of the discussion; for Mr. Brooks, if opposed, hung on to an argument like grim death, and when he had presented all the phases of it, turned them, twisted them, and repeated them, dressed up in a few new words and similes, as if they were original and striking thoughts. He never took a speaking part in the reform meetings he attended, never eased himself by writing articles, though possessed of fine argumentative talent, and a certain power of style. His family became the repository of all his out-door and in-door enlightenment. He sat in ready, sleepy indolence when trifling, worldly matters were broached, but showed he listened attentively by ingeniously screwing some remark into the basis of a mighty progressive edifice. He talked to Mrs. Grey long after dinner, when she whispered to Ellen she felt so buz-fuz and cottony in her head, that she was afraid she should drop to sleep unless something was done to breeze up. But such men as Mr. Brooks do not talk in vain; and the consequence of his persuasive talents was, the disappearance of meat from the table.

CALHOUN ON GOVERNMENT.*

THES close of this fine collection of the late Mr. Calhoun's writings and speeches, judiciously edited by Mr. Crallé, affords a fitting opportunity for some remarks upon the political theories of that distinguished man.

Apart from the general interest which attaches to the leading subjects of them, there is a special interest arising from the peculiar position and circumstances of the author. For many years he occupied a foremost rank among the number of our foremost statesmen. He was connected, in one way or another, with the administration of the federal government, from before the war of 1812, or from the close of the era which may be regarded as the era of the revolutionary fathers and founders of the Republic, till his death. No important political question has divided the common mind, on which he was not called to speak or to act; and it is universally conceded that, on all occasions, he spoke with ability, and acted with firmness, if not discretion. His fame, as a legislator, is second to that of none of his colleagues. Much as we Americans, in the immaturity of our intellectual development, are prone to exaggerate the powers of mere political men, we have scarcely exaggerated those of Mr. Calhoun. He fully deserved the wreaths of laurel which he won in the olympic contests of the senate, and among the bureaus at Washington.

Mr. Calhoun occupied not only a distinguished, but a peculiar position. Scarcely identified with either of the great political parties of the nation, he alternately co-operated with and opposed each; and always on grounds of his own, and with an independent body of followers on whose fidelity he could rely. Mr. Webster was never such a representative of the East, nor Mr. Clay of the West, as Mr. Calhoun was of the South. They had earnest admirers and supporters, in their respective localities, and many who adopted opinions entirely from their words; but Mr. Calhoun had lieges, who, besides admiring him and supporting him, were willing to buckle on their armor and

Mr.

fight to the death in his cause. Clay and Mr. Webster were leaders, chosen by their friends; but Mr. Calhoun was a captain, who commanded his troops. It was this peculiarity of political faith, combined with this grasp of personal influence, which at one time in his career brought him into open conflict with the central government, and came nearer than any other event in our history to the overthrow of our federal system. He was called, in the bitter partisan animosities of the day, John Catiline Calhoun; but nothing could have been more unjust to his position, his character, and his abilities, than the comparison suggested by such a parallel. There was nothing of conspiracy, while there was much of gallant daring and noble self-sacrifice, in the revolt which he undertook to conduct.

Besides his general experience of political life and his original habits of thought, Mr. Calhoun was one of the few of our statesmen who have possessed philosophical genius, and whose tastes led them, in addition to the duties of practical administration, to the study of abstract principles. His enemies used to deride this latter quality, as his metaphysical tendency, implying that it was somewhat of a disqualification rather than a merit; but we suspect it was true in his case, as it has been in so many other cases, that his metaphysics was simply their ignorance, and that the subtlety and depth of thought, which they could not comprehend, they were amply able to ridicule. Mr. Calhoun was only metaphysical to the extent in which every man, who seeks to penetrate the rational grounds and first principles of science, must be metaphysical. He was not satisfied with the stereotyped and superficial theories of political action, which are commonly accepted; and he endeavored to find deeper and more primary truths. Whether he succeeded, we shall see; but the attempt, in that direction, certainly ought to have been regarded with favor; and, out of the range of party meanness, would have been regarded with favour, and not reproach.

It would seem, therefore, that Mr.

The Works of John C. Calhoun. Edited by RICHARD R. CRALLE. 6 vols. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1855.

Calhoun was preeminently qualified by practical experience, and special endowment, for the task of speculating on subjects of government. We do not, however, share in the sentiment which confounds practical and speculative ability. Some knowledge of actual life is necessary to the philosopher, and some knowledge of abstract principles to the practician; but great skill in practice does not necessarily imply great acuteness in speculation, nor does great sagacity in speculation imply great and effective power in management. Comte, indeed, contends that speculative men are quite unfit for the duties of administration; because intellectually they are unprepared for special and pressing calls on their activity; and, morally, they are unwilling to take a sufficient interest in the obtrusive and detailed realities, with which it is the business of government to deal. But if this be true, it is equally true, on the other hand, that practical men are unfitted for the duties of investigation; for while they are absorbed in the mere functions of administration, devoted to the special and temporary aspects of questions, they are not apt to rise to those contemplations of the whole-to the more patient and comprehensive generalizationswhich are the province of philosophy.

In the first of these volumes we have a posthumous disquisition on Government, which contains a summary view of Mr. Calhoun's theory of the origin, nature, and ends of the state, in the right constitution of political society. With the larger number of our modern thinkers, he begins by discarding the old doctrine of a "natural state," anterior to the existence of society, which is so gratuitous and absurd an assumption, that one wonders how it ever crept into thought. Man's only natural state is the social state, without which he could not either exist physically, or be a man at all. When the lion casts her whelp into the desert, it will grow up, through its own unaided instincts, into a perfect lion; but the human infant, cast into the desert, will perish on the spot, or degenerate into something infinitely less than man. A communion with our kind is absolutely necessary to the development of those intellectual and moral faculties which constitute us men. For this reason the Creator has endowed us with spontane

ous, social impulses, which, without any experience of the pleasures of society, or any reasoning as to its probable advantages, lead us universally into association. They are impulses as natural as the impulse to eat; and the human being could just as easily thrive, without that food which is the nutriment of his body, as he could without that intellectual and moral reciprocation which is the nutriment of his mind and heart.

Society, then, being one of the most original, positive, and indispensable of the needs of man, must be also one of his clearest and most essential rights. If he can only exist and grow by means of fellowship with others-if that fellowship is the condition sine qua non of his bodily continuance and of his spiritual evolution-then by the very ordinance of the Creator, in placing him here, he is entitled to all the necessary ministrations of society. He is, moreover, equally entitled to them, to the extent of his capacity to receive them, with every other man, whatever conventional arrangements his predecessors may have made to the contrary, or the laws of previous society have determined. As the creature of the Heavenly Father, he has a right to every bounty which that Father has made auxiliary to his creatureship. This, we say, is the obvious inference from Mr. Calhoun's primitive principal; and yet he argues, in several places, to a very opposite result. In the disquisition on Government, for instance, he denies that all men are "created free and equal," alleging that they are created subject to conditions, and with the most flagrant disparities of power and skill. Men, he says, are born subject to parental authority, and to the laws and institutions of the country by whose protection alone they draw their first breath; which is true, but which does not apply to the maxim it is meant to controvert. When it it is said that men are created free, the meaning is, not that they are physically or morally exempted from the laws of the mediums in which they live (which would be an intrinsic absurdity), but that freedom is the distinctive and constituent element of their manhood-the reason why they are men, and not vegetables or animals. In the same way, when it is said that men are created equal, it is not asserted that they are, or ever will be, equal in physical or moral capacity; but that, as

children of the same Father, they are equally entitled to all the bounties éssential to their existence, which he has bequeathed as a free gift to their race. Again, Mr. Calhoun has departed from his fundamental truth, when, as in the letter on the Rhode Island controversy, he contends that the suffrage is not a natural but a conventional right, resting upon the concession of others, or upon the political constitution of the state. But if society be the natural state of every man, his right to a membership in that society, and, consequently, to a voice in the control of those acts by which he is affected, is also natural. Nor can he be deprived of that right on any other grounds than its positive necessity, as a means of self-defense to the other members. But this is anticipating.

We have seen that, in our estimation, as well as Mr. Calhoun's, society is the universal because inevitable condition of man. At the same time, we may see another no less universal and inevitable fact, that wherever there is society there is government. As man is not possible without society, so society is not possible without government, or an agency for the execution of its ends. The question, therefore, arises, what is the origin of this coincidence? Why has there never been a society without a government? Mr. Calhoun's solution is, that the direct or individual affections of man are stronger than his sympathies or social feelings, and that this fact occasions the necessity for some controlling power, which shall be vested with authority to bring his repellant into subordination to his attractive feelings. By the constitution of our nature, he argues, we feel more intensely what affects us directly than what affects us indirectly through others. Each one has a greater regard for his own safety and happiness than for the safety and happiness of others, and, where they come in conflict, will prosecute his own in preference to that of others; and hence "the tendency to a universal state of antagonism between individual and individual, accompanied by the passions of jealousy, anger, and revenge, followed by insolence, fraud and cruelty, and ending in general discord and confusion, if not prevented by some controlling power," which is government. Jones, it is obvious, gathers a mushroom supper for himself with far livelier satisfaction than

he sees Smith or Brown eat it; and as Smith and Brown each entertain the same sentiments about that, each is more likely to pursue his own supper than furnish suppers to others. He will even take forcible 'possession of the suppers of others if they happen to be scarce and he very hungry. Government, therefore, is a provision, which Smith and Brown adopt as a shield against Jones's trespassing voracityit is a social reaction from individual selfishness.

This view is virtually the same with the celebrated theory of Hobbes, who, in the De Cive and the De Cupere Politico, maintains that man, in the state of natural liberty, is in a state of warfare, in which each one is struggling to advance his own interests; but he adds, that, inasmuch as experience shows that universal warfare is universal suffering, reason dictates that he should organize institutions for security and peace.

In either form we do not think the theory an entirely accurate statement of the case. The external necessity for government takes its rise in the diversity of the human constitution, both intellectual and moral; for ás all men have not the same capacity, nor the same goodness, they must differ in judgment and purpose in regard to nearly every question, not mathematically demonstrable, which is presented to their decision. Each one, without supposing him more wicked than the rest, or more stupid than the rest, would be inclined to his own course, by the simple fact of his individuality. Where a multitude of these individualities, therefore, are expected to act together, there must be some acknowledged rule of order by which they shall act, and some ministerial agent by which that rule is enforced. But Mr. Calhoun means more than this simple diversity of individual constitution, when he says that government originates in the superior strength of the individual over the social affections. By individual affections, as his argument assumes throughout, he means the selfish affections-those which terminate in the individual's well-being and gratification; and by social affections, those which terminate in the wellbeing or gratification of others, or, in a word, man is more selfish than social, so that government is needed to restrain the selfish within social ends. If this view be correct, however, if the indi

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