Waifs from the Bay State: Westboro, Mass., March 28, 1861

[Correspondence of the Pac. Com. Advertiser]

Source: Pacific Commercial Advertiser. Honolulu: May 9, 1861.

MY DEAR COMMERICAL:-  The present unhappy and critical condition of affairs in our American Republic, (no longer alas! the united States,) is the all absorbing topic of interest on the side of the Atlantic, and is watched with intense anxiety by the nations of Europe. England, and to some extent France, are too intimately connected with us by commercial ties, and too dependent upon the Cotton States for the supply of the great staple of their manufactories, to view with indifference the revolutionary movement now in progress in that section. And the crumbling despotisms of the Old World, whose greatest stumbling block is been the hitherto wonderfully prosperity of our country under democratic institutions, take fresh courage as they see this mighty fabric suddenly, and without apparent cause, tottering to its base, while the struggling and oppressed nationalities of Europe, to whom our progress and example has been shining beacon of hope, are startled and dismayed at the impending disintegration of the Great Republic.

Since my last waif, President Lincoln has been inaugurated, and the new Administration has come into office, I cannot say power, for of that very desirable quality in a Government, it has as yet but the semblance. Seven powerful States, in the excitement caused by the election Of Lincoln, and under the management of skillful and desperate leaders, have thrown off their allegiance to the Federal Government, and in hot haste, have formed a new Confederacy, the corner stone of which is the institution of negro slavery. A Provisional Government has been formed, an army raised, a Constitution adopted, the forts, arsenals, navy yards, mint, and other Federal property within their limits seized, (with a few exceptions,) and a menacing attitude assumed towards the North, while every effort is being made to induce the Border States to join them in their rebellion.

This formidable movement, it is now admitted by its leaders, has been contemplated for many years, and the election of Lincoln was seized upon as a pretext for precipitating a step for which the political Southern leaders have been long of preparing. The Border States as yet, have declined to join the “Cotton Confederacy,” but they are wavering, and demanding of the North concessions to the slave interest which will hardly be granted, as the condition of the remaining in the Union. The new President, sworn to uphold the Constitution and execute the Laws in all the States of the Union, finds his authority set at defiance in the seceding States, and is without the necessary force to assert it. 

Already his Cabinet, composed of the most able statesman of the Republican party, is divided as to the policy to be pursued towards the rebellious States, and the disruption of the party itself on this great question seems inevitable. This, however, is a minor matter compared to the graver results which must follow the adoption of either policy. It is a question of peace or war; and if the latter, one of unparalleled horrors. The ultra Republicans advocate an uncompromising coercive policy, the retaking of the forts and other Federal property now in the hands of the seceders, and the collection of the revenue in their ports. They hold that the Government should not yield an iota of its authority to the rebels with arms in their hands, and that the revolutionists should be compelled to yield up the Federal property seized by them, and in every respect acknowledge the Federal authority, before their desire to leave the Confederacy should be listened to. This course would undoubtedly be followed if the rebellion was confined to one or two States, and no doubt existed of the power of the Government to enforce its demands. But in the present case, such a policy is out of the question. The Border States distinctly declare that if coercive measures are taken, they will make common cause with the Cotton States, while the President this without the sinews of war to act efficiently, having neither the force nor the means at his command. He cannot even collect the revenue from on board vessels of war stationed off the harbors without special authority of Congress, which is not now in session. The moderate wing of the party, of which the President and his able Secretary of State, Mr. Seward, are the leaders, are in favor of conciliatory measures and the avoidance of a collision, even at the sacrifice of national pride and dignity. By this policy of masterly inactivity, they hope to secure the Border States, unite the North in support of the Administration, and create a strong Union party in the South, which, in view of the heavy taxes which the support of a separate government will necessarily entail, and the evident groundlessness of their fears respecting the designs of the Republican party, will organize, and demand the restoration of the Federal Authority. On the contrary, should the sober second thought of the people of the Cotton States sustain their present action and attitude, then Congress will doubtless call a Convention for the purpose of enabling the Slave States constitutionally to withdraw from the Union so that whether this great Republic shall be permanently severed, or re-united, the public peace may be preserved, and the horrors of a civil and servile war be avoided. Even then the result would be sufficiently deplorable, and the prospect of a continued peace between the two rival Republics extremely dubious. The new Confederacy, unblushingly avowing as its foundation a system against which the advancing civilization of the whole world is arrayed, will it once endeavor to extend its possessions and bring under its baleful rule the weaker States of Mexico and Central America, and the North will surely join with England and France to prevent the consummation of the unjust scheme. Constant collisions will arise along the border, which will be infested by smugglers, slave-stealers and brigands, and it is not probable that piece could be long maintained. It is to be hoped that the Southern people may realize this, and throwing off the iron rule of their present selfish and despotic leaders, may demand from the Federal Government that protection which it is duty to extend over them, and that the close of Lincoln’s administration may again find the States united and prosperous. This “consummation so devoutly to be wished,” will be resisted to the end by the unscrupulous leaders in the present revolution, whose hands will be strengthened by the army and naval officers who have resigned their commissions or violated their oaths to serve the Federal Government, and are now in the service of the service of the South. Still we cannot yet despair of the Republic. We shall soon know what is to be its fate. That the new Confederacy, concerning which Stevens, its Vice-President, says, “It's foundations are laid,    

its corner-stone rests upon the great truth that slavery -subordination to the superior race -is the natural and normal condition of the negro” -that a government founded upon that such a principal can ever maintain a position among the civilized nations of the earth, we cannot for a moment believe. The following quotation from the London News gives, I think, the correct idea of the sentiment which, in spite of the power of King Cotton, will be universally felt by European Powers towards the new confederacy; “They, the Cotton States, have, as far as their acts are worth anything, voluntarily cut themselves off from the only connection with which gave them political dignity or credit. As long as they were confounded in the grand total of American Nationality, they shared the high and noble place which its vigor, freedom, and enlightenment secured it in the regard of the world. All this the South has lost. It has not only isolated itself, but in the madness of fanaticism, has found its constitution on that very social feature which is the most odious in the eyes of the civilized world. It has abused the name of the Republic, and from being part of a glorious nation, has become a joint stock corporation from holding and extending the enslavement of their fellow men.”

“Nero fiddled while Rome was burning,” and despite the storm which is raging around the devoted Republic and threatening it speedy ruin, the badgered President and his cabinet are besieged by the horde of hungry applicants for the official loaves and fishes which the new administration has it in its power to distribute. The unsolved appointment of Charles Francis Adams as minister to England gives general satisfaction to all parties. His grandfather, the immortal John Adams, was our first ambassador to that Court and the second President of United States. His father, John Quincy Adams, the “old man eloquent ,”was also Ambassador and President and the son bids fair to maintain the renown of his family of true patriots. Mr. T.J. Dryer, editor of the Oregonian, has been confirmed after much opposition as Commissioner to the Hawaiian Islands.  Mr. Bunker, formerly U.S. Consul to Lahaina, was a prominent candidate for that post. The two principal candidates for the Honolulu Consulship are Mr. J. A. Dix, one of the editors of the Boston Journal, and Mr. Elias Perkins, formerly resident of Honolulu. Mr. Dix’s chances are considered the best, though Mr. Perkins brings a strong New York influence to bear upon Mr. Seward. Either of these candidates will worthily fill the office. 

Favored denizens of Hawaii, as you cannot envy us our present political status, neither can you sigh for our most undelectable New England the climate. The first month of “ethereal mildness” has nearly passed, but winter yet “lingers in the lap of spring,” with a vengeance, after having once fairly taken his leave. On the second day of this deceitful month, the thermometer on the North side of my house stood at 76° in the shade. The snow had disappeared, and the snow drop and crocus were in bloom. In 48 hours later, the same thermometer indicated 4° below zero! Since then it has been 20° below zero, and we have had the three severest snow storms of the season, the last having drifted 20 feet high! In some of which your humble correspondent has three times been upset in his sleigh. And while I write, my little nephew, (sole scion of a late respected resident of Honolulu,) and a native graduate of Mr. Ingaham’s Honolulu Free School, yclept John Stupplebeen, are busily snowballing each other under my window to the music of the robins and blue birds and other spring warblers, which having been humbugged into coming north too soon, are “whistling to keep their courage up” till the “better time coming” makes its appearance. But in my letter is already too long, and I close. Aloha. 

MAIKELA

A Waif from Washington: July 25, 1861

Source: The Pacific Commercial Advertiser. Honolulu: September 26, 1861.

July 25, 1861.

A Waif from Washington

MY DEAR COMMERCIAL: A greater contrast can hardly be imagined in that experienced by your humble Bay State correspondent in his abrupt transition from the quiet rural scenes of Westboro’ to those of this great Babel of excitement. There, an industrious people were pursuing their peaceful avocations, and though all were interested in the war, and men discussed its progress and aspects as they sharpen their scythes, or leaned on their hoes, or rested under the trees at their “nooning,” and though many a heart was heavy, and the “unbidden tear” started to many an eye as they thought of their boys who had “listed,” and were exposed to its dangers, yet the village was so far away from the scene of strife that hardly seemed a reality.

The occasional stir created in the center of the town, as a regiment was rapidly whirled through on the railroad, and the excitement caused by the departure of our noble company of rifles, the captain of which was the Methodist minister of the little Society here, who, from motives of pure patriotism, has taken up the sword, but without laying down the Bible, have shown us more of the pomp and circumstance, than of the horrors of this fearful strife. Here, we are in the very focus of excitement. The broad avenues of this metropolis are constantly glittering with bayonets and resounding to the heavy tread of armed men, the streams of martial music, and the rumbling of artillery rhetoric and army wagons, and within the last few sad days, with ambulances filled with the wounded and dying victims of the bloody struggles of Thursday and Sunday, at Bull Run.

Last Monday was the most gloomy day ever seen in Washington. The intense anxiety of the day previous, as the heavy cannonaiding, which was distinctly heard, told of the bloody battle which was taking place, had given way to a feeling of satisfaction and relief as the reports came from the field, that “the three batteries of Bull Run were taken,” and that our troops were still advancing. The Secessionists in the Washington, of whom there are large numbers, were blue and dispirited; the Unionists work jubilant. But before midnight came the avant couriers of the flying troops with the startling tidings of the utter rout of our forces, and from that time till late on Monday, the stream of fugitives from the bloody field came pouring in, each with his tale of horror. Such a scene of confusion and excitement, I never before witnessed. 

Pennsylvania avenue was crowded with people; begrimmed and bloodstained soldiers, exhausted, lying on the sidewalk or telling their exaggerated stories of temper to a crowd of eager listeners; citizens trying to learn the truth, which was buried and amidst the mass of rumors and falsehood. Here and there, the glistening eye and triumphant expression revealed the sympathizer with the rebels, though none were rash enough to avow their sentiments in the midst of such an exasperated mob. 

As the day wore on, and people learned that the panic and rout had been continued to but one portion of our army, and that our men had bravely fought, until, exhausted, they were overpowered by fresh troops, the panic began to subside, and men took fresh courage. There was no necessity for the panic and rout of our troops. The men were tired and hungry, and in no condition to cope with the fresh troops of Johnson, who reinforced the wavering column of the rebels at this critical juncture, and turned the tide of victory.

But the panic, like that which seized a division of the French army at Solferino, was almost accidental in its origin, and might easily have been checked at the outset. Our inexperienced officers, however have not foreseen the possibility of such an occurrence, and the stream swelled and rushed on till it burst all barriers and carried along everything in its course. The rebels had suffered too severely themselves to be inclined to follow up their advantage, and thus lost the finest opportunity that will probably be offered them during this war to achieve a decided victory, and strike a heavy blow at the Unionists. 

Gen. McClellan, who has been ordered by Scott to take command of the Army of the Potomac, taking a soldier’s view of this disaster, says, “it was a bloody fight, but a splendid reconnaissance to me,” and there is no doubt that its lessons have been well learned, and will be made available in the next advance of our troops. 

One of the most fearful sites I ever saw, was an attempt on Tuesday to murder some prisoners taken at the lake the battle. They were being marched to the Guard House, by a file of regulars, when the excited mob of maddened and drunken soldiers, principally the Fire Zouaves, which had been surrounding them, demanded that they should be given up to their tender mercies. Their yells for vengeance on these helpless prisoners were fearful, and seemed to like the howlings of a pack of wolves for their prey. The soldiers finding it they could not protect them, but were likely to be overpowered, thrust the prisoners into a narrow passage, and with charged bayonets withstood the crowd of infuriated demons, until a squadron of cavalry, which had been send for, swept down the street, and with drawn sabers scattered the mob, and rescued the prisoners from their perilous position.

Washington is one vast camp, and its environs are white with tents; droves of horses and mules, and trains of army wagons are constantly passing through the streets. The extra session of Congress is being held and its proceedings are unusually interesting. The hotels are all crowded, and I regret to say that many of the officers are more likely to be found some of them, than in the camps of their commands. A better discipline is about to be introduced by the new commander, and though volunteers are not expected to be under as strict rules as regular officers, yet the efficiency of the army requires the adoption of more stringent regulations that have hitherto prevailed. 

I visited the Marshall House at Alexandria, where Col. Ellsworth and his assassin were killed. The stairs on which Ellsworth stood, and the floor where he fell, are entirely torn away by relic seekers. Alexandria is under martial law, and is almost deserted by its inhabitants. Grass grows in its streets, and the whole place wears an aspect of desolation and ruin. Hardly a person or vehicle is seen in its streets, and its quiet is well suited to the hospitals for which many of the buildings are now used. I visited the famous slave pens of “Price and Birch, Slave Dealers,” whose sign in immense letters, covers the front of the large building which was devoted to the traffic in human flesh.  As I walked through the de_____ enclosures of this revolting establishment, I could not but feel a strong hope that its walls might never again incarcerated slave and that the issue of this bloody struggle might prove to be the overthrow of an institution, that has shown itself to be the very hot bed of treason, as it has been the great blocked on our national escutcheon.

MAIKELA. 

Commentary/Editorial: The Polynesian, October 1862

Source: The Polynesian. Honolulu: Saturday, October 4, 1862.

In reading North American journals, and even some journals issued in this place, the writers, claiming to arrive at Union via Coercion, frequently accused themselves of leniency and forbearance and not having at an earlier stage of the war had recourse to slavery abolition as a means of speedily ending the rebellion. We never could see the force of their reasoning. It is historically and well-known that, up to the advent of Mr. Lincoln to power, the proslavery party both North and South ruled the roost in the country, in Congress and in the Cabinet. Consequently no abolition could have been forced down Southern throats up to that time. It is further well-known that no sooner was Mr. Lincoln elected and the abolitionists in power, than the South separated themselves from the Union, and thus made evolution impossible except for Northern arms had possession; consequently abolition, as a means to overthrow the slave power, was by the secession wrenched out of the grasp of the Northern philanthropists, and they need not, in our opinion, now blame themselves for not doing what, when the States were united, they had not the power to do, or what, after separation, they had not the means to enforce. One of the causes, as we understand it, that made the South secede, was their apprehension that when the anti-slavery party came into power, it would proceed to the extinction of slavery in a manner and in a time alike unpleasant and inconvenient to the South; and, notwithstanding the President tried in his inaugural address to reassure them that slavery would not be interfered with, and that their own slaves would be safer in that out of the Union, yet recent measures and the present cry for abolition can have but one tendency  -that of confirming the South in its first opinion that abolition would be the national policy of the present administration- quietly by legislation, if the south submitted -forcibly by arms, if it resisted. 

To us and other “impartial” journals, who keep their noses above the dust kicked up by the warm breeze, it seems that abolition proclamations at this stage of the game will only widen the gulf and embitter the hatred that separates the two sections. As well proclaim the abolition of slavery in Turkey. It would look well on paper; but unless Turkey were covered by the arms of the proclamation of the proclaimer, his proclamation might gain him great credit but would do no possible good for the slave and so with the Southern states. 

That slavery is a great evil, whether it affects body or soul, no sane man will deny. When the present Union of the American States was formed in 1787, all the States except Massachusetts were slave States. And then, and not in 1861, began “the uprising of a great people.” Then they uprose, each one for itself, and one after the other gradually and in concordance with natural laws, physical and moral, is all great and lasting changes in the world are made;  -quietly and noiselessly, as the providence of God, spread the Divine afflatus towards the South and the West, and those who are competent to judge affirm that in 20 or 25 years more Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri would have swelled the grand chorus of the “uprising.” It is proper for the thinking man, the Christian philosopher, and the candid historian, to inquire what arrested or retarded a consummation so devoutly desired, a movement of which the glory belonged to God alone- a movement like all great forces, slow but sure and embracing and its program more than the abrupt liberation of four million semi-savages.  We fear that the inquirer will be answered that benevolence without judgment, zero without direction, restlessness without patience, vanity with some, Phariseeism with others, were the principal causes that interfered with the gradual and safe abolition of slavery in the United States. People who had cleaned their own skirts of the abomination of slavery, fretted under the slow movement of natural laws; they felt themselves called upon to lend the Almighty a hand; the “Dieu le volt” of the Eleventh Century found a singular echo in the Nineteenth, and Peter the Hermit of the time of the Crusades found many a counterpart in the abolition ranks. They were met at the threshold of their enterprise by a document called the Constitution of the United States; but what avail human parchments against those who fancy themselves impelled by the inward sense of a “higher law”? They shouted to each other until they drowned of the sound of conservative men, and that shout, borne along on the air, has been hailed by some as the awakening  -“the uprising of a great people.” 

And now, for nearly two years, that this party has had control of the Government, how much nearer is the slave to his liberty then he was before its “aprising" -how much fitter to enjoy it when obtained? And when this fratricidal war is over, by conquest or exhaustion, who will charge themselves with the maintenance and education of the liberated slave during pupilage? -for political equality is not included on the abolition programme; it offers political outlawry in exchange for social bondage. There is a distinction between the two, we know. The one that is the measure of slaveholding depravity; the other is the extent of abolition benevolence. 

It is sad to think that men who distrusted the omnipotence of God, the efficacy of moral forces and natural laws, should feel no misgivings about the efficacy of physical forces in human hands, directed by red-hot zeal and brimful prejudice. It is sadder still to see the inextricable snarl into which men entangle themselves when, instead of invoking with God, they attempt to work for God. Frederik von Schlegel, speaking of the abolition of slavery, says: “The sudden abolition of an evil that has become an invertebrate habit in society, is mostly attended with danger, and frequently works another wrong of an opposite kind.” “But this,” says his commentator, “is one of those truths which giddy, reckless spirit of a spurious philanthropy can never be made to comprehend.”

As many of our readers of probably never read Schlegel’s works, we copy the following paragraphs from his commentator, Jas. Burton Robertson, Esq.:

Schlegel observes that the difference between strict wall and equitable law is the most arduous problem in all jurisprudence. Strict law is an abstract law, deduced from certain general principles, applied without the least regard to adventitious circumstances. Equity, on the other hand, payed regard to such circumstances, examines into the peculiar state of things and the mutual relation of parties; and forms her decisions not according to the caprice of fancy, or the waywardness of feeling, but according to the general principles of right, applied to the variable circumstances and situations of parties. 

According to the authors definition, the object of the institution of the state is the maintenance of internal and external peace. Justice is the only basis of peace; but justice is here the means and not the end. If justice were the end for which the state was constituted, then neither external or internal peace could ever be procured or maintained; for the state would then be compelled to wage eternal war against all who, at home or abroad, were guilty of injustice and could never lay down its arms till that injustice were removed. 

As peace is essentially the end of that great corporation called the state it follows that the justice by which its foreign and domestic policy must be regulated, is not that strict or absolute justice spoken of above, but that temperate or conciliatory equity, which is alone applicable to the concerns of men. The maxim, “a thousand years’ wrong cannot constitute an hours right,” if applied to civil jurisprudence prudence, would introduce interminable confusion, hardship, and misery in the affairs of private life, and if applied to constitutional and international law would lead to perpetual anarchy at home, and to endless, exterminating war abroad.

“The Christian religion, as it comes from God, is eminently social -hence it abhors the principle of absolute or inexorable right, whether applied to civil or public law -hence the Christian state, or the state animated with the spirit of Christianity, is in its tendency essentially pacific. 

This pacific policy of the state, however, so far from excluding, necessarily implies the firm, uncompromising vindication of its rights and interests, whether at home or abroad; and the repression of evil doers within, or a just war without, is often the only means of attaining the object for which the state was constituted -to wit, the maintenance of peace. On the other hand, the revolutionary state, or the state where, in opposition to the existing rights and interests, new right and interests are violently enforced; and where, in subversion of all established institutions, new institutions, conceived according to abstract and arbitrary theories, are violently introduced; the revolutionary state, I say is, from its nature and origin -no matter what form it may assume- necessarily driven to a course of iniquitous policy -to this organizing tyranny within, and to fierce relentless hostility without.” 

A Waif from Washington: November 2, 1861

Source: Pacific Commercial Advertiser. Honolulu: January 16, 1862

(Correspondence of the P.C. Advertiser)
Washington, November 2, 1861

MY DEAR COMMERCIAL:- Three months since, I sent you a waif from this great focus of excitement, written just after the disastrous panic and route of our army at Bull Run. Yet here I find the two great armies occupying about the same relative position as before that engagement. The Unionists guarding the Capital at every point, and pressing, the more slowly and cautiously them before, upon the as slowly retreating rebels, with each prospect of a general engagement at any moment. The desperate fight near Leesburg, a few days since, in which the advance guard of Gen. Stone’s division was attacked and repulsed, after a most brave resistance, by a force of four times their number, was a needless sacrifice. The attempt to push a force across the river on a hostile shore, without providing sufficient transportation, either for reinforcements or a means of retreat, was a gross blunder, and to our brave troops a fatal one. 

I witnessed a few days ago, the funeral pageant of the lamented Col. Baker, the distinguished Senator from Oregon, who fell in that bloody fight all cheering on his men. His body was pierced with ten balls, almost any one of which would have proved fatal. The funeral cortège was someone and imposing; it was composed of three regiments of infantry, with arms reversed, and bands playing a solemn dirge, and long procession of carriages containing persons of distinction, among home where the President, (who was under intimate personal friend of Baker, who had resided in Illinois,) and his Cabinet, Gen. Scott and staff, and others. That was the last public appearance of Gen. Scott as Commander-in-Chief of the army. Yesterday, being infirm and worn out by the arduous duties of a long life spent in the service of his country, he availed himself of the special act of Congress passed at the last session, which permits him to retire with full honors and pay during his life, and resigned his command as the head of our immense army to the more vigorous but less experienced, Gen. George B McClellan. The proceedings on this deeply interesting occasion, and the documents accompanying them, show the perfect confidence and esteem in which this noble chieftain is held, and must have been extremely gratifying to the scarred and worn veteran. He leaves to-day for Europe, and will be accompanied to New York by the Secretaries of war and navy. His wife has been in Europe some years. It would be an interesting spectacle to witness, if the stern old warrior should come in contact with any of the Rebel Commissioners in Europe, as he may probably do. The boldest of them might well quail before the indignant glance of his eagle eye, dimmed though it may be with years. 

The great topic now occupying men's minds is the destination of the great Naval Expedition which has just sailed from Fortress Monroe. A few hours more of suspense will solve the mystery, and bring us tidings of great success or defeat. So well has the secret been kept, that I find even to-day knots of citizens at Willard’s speculating upon its objects, and each with a different theory as to its destination. And yet it is possible that the rebel government is in full possession of the secret ere this. Their spies abound everywhere, and notwithstanding the researches of the Congressional Committee, and the numbers discharged in consequence thereof, I don't not there are even now in every department of the government employees who secret sympathies are with the Secessionists, or whose wives are ready to communicate any straight bit of information they may gather that will help the rebel cause. I find everywhere in Washington, among the ladies, instances of secession proclivities, as though the manifestation of them is more restrained since the arrest, by government, of certain fashionable ladies here who were acting as rebels spies, still it is easy to see that the feeling exists as an active principle. 

The great question as to what principle shall be adopted concerning the slaves who come into camp and deliver themselves up, is fast approaching its solution. If the Naval Expedition effect a landing on the Southern coast, and open a cotton port, as it is supposed by many it is their intention to do, the issue will speedily be made, and the war will in my opinion become one of freedom against slavery. The persistent efforts made by the leaders of the rebels to identify the Unionist troops with the Abolitionist, for the sake of rousing the prejudices of the South, although it was notorious that some of our foremost men in arms were leaders of the Breckenridge or pro-slavery party, is likely to recoil with terrible effect in their own heads. The President has heretofore lent a deaf ear to those who were clamoring for the immediate emancipation of the slaves of those engaged in the rebellion, deciding to take no important step of this sort in contravention of the Constitution, except as “military necessity” of sufficient urgency to justify so radical a measure. In this view he was confirmed by the voice of the border slave states, which continued (though nominally perhaps more than really) loyal, and which would have been driven at once into secession by such a policy. Now, however, the emergency seems to have arrived for the step, and the reasons adverse to its adoption to have in a great measure, disappeared. 

Though the slave states of Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri are nominally saved to the Union is not with the consent of the slave-holding portion of them. With few exceptions, and those mostly of old men unfit for service, the slaveholders of the Border States are open or secret Secessionists, and a large large proportion of them have joined the rebel army, and are in arms, with the avowed object of driving out the Unionists, and turning their States over to the Southern Confederacy. Those who remain firm for the Union feel that “it is worth more than all the niggers in the South,” as one of them expressed it. And that if the question is whether the Union or Slavery shall cease to exist, are ready for the sacrifice of the latter. So that the status of the States is not now likely to be affected by the issue, and therefore the objection against interfering with the peculiar institution on the score of policy is much weakened, if indeed it any longer exists. Setting aside considerations of justice and humanity, there can be no question that in the present position of affairs, a stern military necessity dictates the striking a blow at the rebels in what is at once their weakest and strongest joint, slavery. Their strongest, because as they themselves boast, their slaves, undisturbed by the war, which there astute leaders have thus far kept from their homes by interposing victimized Virginia as a shield between themselves and the loyal States, have raised their food and their cotton, while their masters have been thus free to fight for their unhallowed cause, and those not needed for this purpose have been employed on fortifications, and in various ways, have aided the rebellion. Their weakest, because they are human chattels, prefer freedom to slavery, and when the opportunity to secure their freedom presents itself to their minds, they will gladly embrace it. Such an opportunity will be offered, if the Naval Expedition is successful in making a landing on the coast of one of the Cotton States, as the Commander of those forces is instructed to act with reference to the slaves upon the principles adopted by General Butler at Fortress Monroe and accepted by the government. 

To day I took a long and very interesting horseback ride of twenty miles into Virginia, among the camps of our vast army, and almost up to the rebel pickets. It is very difficult now to get a pass to go into Virginia, the Provost Marshal being very strict and refusing most applications. Your humble correspondent however, having the honor to be secretary of the military committee of the little village of Westboro’, to which village the band of Senator (now Col.) Wilson's famous regiment, the “22nd Mass,” belonged, and being well acquainted with the venerable chaplain of that regiment, the distinguished clergyman and poet John Pierpont, who soon after the Baltimore massacre, offered his services as chaplain, on condition that his regiment was not to go around Baltimore, (but through it,) obtained a note from Col. Wilson to the Provost Marshal, requesting a pass for me to visit his regiment on business. Armed with this document, I proceeded to the office of that potentate, and found a slow procession in single file reaching from his door some twenty feet along the sidewalk, guarded by a file of soldiers to keep order and see fair play and that no one should “crowd the mourners.” At the caudeal extremity of this lugubrious procession, your waifer took his position and there like other wafers stuck. The file before me was what Artemis Ward would call decidedly mixed, but mainly consisted of most seedy and loaferish looking settlers, and darkies. Some were farmers who had come in on the business and who wished to renew their expired passes; some were sutlers to regiments, and some doubtless were engaged in more objectionable trade with the troops. As an individual emerged every few minutes from the office, his success or failure to procure the coveted permit was easily read from his countenance. After waiting some fifteen minutes, during which time I had advanced about one foot, I made the calculation that I should reach the dread presence in not less than three hours. Not having so much time to spare, I “broke ranks” to the evident gratification of the men behind me, and it concluded to await a more favorable opportunity. The next day I went again at three different times and finally took my place determined to “see it out.” I was forcibly reminded of the Post Office processions in San Francisco in 1849, though here the progress was much slower. By the way, the efficient Postmaster and Mayor of San Francisco in those halcyon days, afterwards one of the flying Governors of Kansas and her troublous times, is now Col. Gearey, an efficient and brave Commander, who has already won laurels in the recent skirmish at Harpers Ferry. After a delay of an hour and a half, I reach the arbiter of my fate, and laying great stress on my being a committeeman, having in charge the families of soldiers, and none at all on my curiosity and social intense, I received a pass for four days to visit camps across the river on official business, coupled with most solemn declarations of my loyalty, which I was made to sign.

Armed with this all important document, I crossed the long bridge, passed through Fort Runyon, and a long line of encampments on the road to Manassas, being stopped every few rods by a soldier with an order to “show pass,” from the time I entered long bridge, till I returned. I visited the various localities which are now rendered famous, though never heard of before; Munsons Hill, which a few weeks ago was occupied and fortified by the rebels, much to the dismay of the more timid Washingtonians, who felt that if they could be allowed to do that with impunity and plant the rebel flag in full site and within cannon shot of the White House, their next move might be on Washington itself. George McClellan, however, knew what he was about, it while he allowed the rebels to occupy and fortify the hill he made his preparations to cut off and capture the force of about 10,000 that occupied it. Through treachery, however, his signals were discovered, and his well they'd plan foiled by the sudden retreat of the rebels just as his forces had commenced their movement. I also visited Hall’s, Upton’s Hill, Balls Cross Roads, Fall’s Church, and other points of interest. The whole region is desolation and ruin, magnificent forests cutdown, houses burned, or pull down or stripped of all but frames and plaster, beautiful gardens and parks destroyed, and grim visaged war displaying his wrinkled and horrid front, wherever the eye turned. This region has been occupied by rebels and federals by turns, and each party have wrecked their vengeance on the partisans of the other till there is no hardly a house standing. I did not see a child or female from the time I left Washington toward returned to it, but everywhere the bronzed visages of stern warriors. I got out of my way early in the P.M. and having ridden a mile or two without being stopped, or seeing pickets, I thought it was time to consult my map, which had been corrected up to the present time, (at least I was assured so where I procured it,) I was startled at discovering by it that I was within the line of “rebel pickets," and that a rebel fort was just behind me, and rebel cavalry just before me. I began to think that the Commercial Advertiser was about to lose its “humble correspondent,” and that the military committee of Westboro’ their valuable secretary, and was looking forward to an incarceration in the Richmond prison during the war, with most unenviable feelings. They were no camps in sight, but quite near me was a party of soldiers. The question which to me was particularly interesting, whether they were federal or secesh, was not readily answered by their appearance. They were loading a cart with boards from a house which they were pulling down. As this had been the amusement of each party no clue to the answer was furnished. As I knew that they would fire at me without ceremony if I tried to gallop off whether they were friends or foes, I rode up to them, and found, to my relief, that they belonged to a Jersey regiment, and that our pickets had been extended and the rebels had retired. As I returned towards Washington, it was the hour of evening parade, and regimental bands were discoursing most stirring music as I passed in succession the various camps, while cavalry, artillery and infantry were moving through the fields and along the roads, presenting a most imposing and brilliant spectacle. A strange one, indeed, to an American. I could hardly realize that I was in Republican America, witnessing scenes, which I had before only seen in Europe, when I thanked God that I was a citizen of America, where standing armies were unknown. Auwe! auwe! Alas for the Republic! God grant her a safe deliverance from her deadly peril!  

The completion of the Pacific Telegraph brings us within a fortnight of the sunny isles! A wonderful achievement, with the excitement and glory of which the whole of the United States in ordinary times, would ring. But under the absorbing pressure of this fearful contest, hardly a thought is given to any pacific triumph which the soap emphatically is. Most heartily do I congratulate the denizens of the peaceful shores of Hawaii, on this auspicious event, which draws still closer the cords which bind Hawaii and New England forever! Farewell! To-morrow I leave Washington by the old-fashioned mode of travel, the stagecoach, to visit the scene of the bloody Leesburg fight, or rather our troops who were engaged in it, and are Westboro’ boys who were stationed at Harper's Ferry, and we're engaged under Col. Geary in the fierce skirmish of Bolivar Heights. If time permits I will send you a waif from there. 

MAIKELA.

Waifs from the Bay State: February 1, 1861

Source: Pacific Commercial Advertiser. Honolulu: Thursday, April 11, 1861.

MY DEAR COMMERCIAL: 

The dark cloud in the political sky of this hitherto favored nation, which but so lately arose “no bigger than a man's hand,” now overshadows the whole horizon, and from out its lowering blackness sharp flashes are seen, all the muttering thunder as yet indistinct and distant,  gives gloomy passage of the fearful storm about to burst upon our devoted country.  

Hardly a hope remains that the impending danger would be averted. State after state has been swept by this mad whirlwind of secession from the Confederacy, and though in all of them perhaps, except South Carolina, there may be a majority in favor of the Union, yet, such is the violence of the secession excitement, that the conservative portion of the community, not knowing their strength, have to bend to the blast, or be carried along with the mob. It is as dangerous for one in the seceding States, to avow himself opposed to the movement, and an adherent of the Federal Union, as it was during the election to avow himself an abolitionist. Many whose sympathies are all with the North, are compelled by their peculiar position to act with the secessionists. A friend of mine, who has been domiciled at the South for some 20 years, has belonged to a military company of the State of Alabama; and though a strong Union man in his feelings, was obliged to march with his company against the Navy Yard at Pensacola, commanded by Commodore Armstrong, an old acquaintance and former townsmen who surrendered to the overwhelming force. Doubtless many who are compelled to take part in these violent proceeding are similarly placed. The great question now is, whether the Border States will join the Cotton Confederacy, or remain in the Union. The Crittenden plan, erroneously called Compromise, which is offered by the Border States to the North, as the only basis of settlement acceptable to the South,  not only yields the whole question at issue, but is more pro-slavery then the platform of the ultra proslavery party of the last presidential contest. This proposition but only yields to Slavery all the territory in United States where Slavery can be made profitable,  but also stipulates that it shall be allowed and protected in all Southern territory hereafter to be acquired.  Even if the acquisition of more territory was the avowed policy of the United States, the injustice of fastening upon that the inhabitants of such territory the curse of slavery, without allowing them a voice in the matter, is too obvious to require argument. One of the grievances of Texas is which led her to throw off the Mexican rule was the prohibition by Mexico of Slavery. And yet the North are asked to consent in advance that Slavery, shall be legalized and fostered in any portion of that dismembered country which by filibustering or conquest or negotiation maybe acquired by the United States.

The Slave States are unyielding in their demands that Slavery shall not only be forever permitted where it is now, but that it shall by extension be enabled to increase its area and political power, 
so as to keep pace with the growth of the Free States. The Constitution is not sufficient for their protection now, and must be amended so as directly to recognize the right of property in man which its noble framers, though themselves slaveholders, were unwilling to do .The Free States are called upon to prevent the dissolution of the Union and the probable horrors of civil war, by an abandonment of their most cherished principles, and what they deem the common rights of man. It is a fearful alternative and let the result be what it may, the sacrifice will be terrible. On the one side are arrayed Peace, Prosperity, Patriotism, and Public Policy; on the other side, Principle. The odds are tremendous. The prominent actors in the Secession movement are violently opposed to any compromise or to any conciliation. They are determined to form a Southern Confederacy and knowing how dependent England and the North are upon their cotton, they have exaggerated the ideas of their power. Intoxicated by visions of future greatness and territorial aggrandizement by conquest of Mexico, Cuba etc., they spurned the idea of returning to their allegiance to the Federal Government and being subjected to the policy of the madsills of the North. But the moderate and Union men, of whom the number is not small even in the Cotton States and the large majority in the Border States are making eloquent and forcible appeals to the North, to save the country from dismemberment and from the most awful Civil War that ever raged. Mr. Seward, the leader of the party that elected Lincoln, and Mr. Adams, son of the “old man eloquent,” now a member of the House, have met these appeal in a magnanimous spirit, and showing a determination to abandon old party spirit, and go to the very extreme of concession to save the country and there is no doubt but that the North will sustain them by an overwhelming majority though the extreme anti-slavery party, like the secessionists of the South, are opposed to all compromise. But if the Slave States demand more than they have offered, and insist upon the cleaning everything and yielding nothing, I see no alternative but separation and civil war, for I fear that Webster will be proved a true prophet that "there can be no such thing as peaceable secession.” The South are contending for a system which the whole civilized world has deliberately condemned, and it can hardly be that in this enlightened age such a step backward can succeed. A few days will decide the fate of our country; but even though this glorious Republic should fall under the assaults of the Slave Power the experiment of self-government will not thereby, as has been falsely asserted, to prove a failure. The destruction of the most noble system of government the world has ever known will because not by any inherent defect in itself, but by the machinations of the only section of our country where the democratic principle has never been allowed to prevail. The London News, speaking of this change, says:

America is a signal illustration of the worth of representative government. The people of England neither believe nor wish to believe in the ruin of the great Commonwealth of their kindred beyond the ocean; but whatever perils be in store for it, arising out of the schism of the Southern States, they will know that these perils originate, not from the application or mis-application of the democratic principles in South Carolina, Georgia, or Virginia but conspicuously and only from its absence in those states. The Southern States are not and never were democracies in any sense of the word. The simple truth is and it cannot be too often reported that Virginia, Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, and Florida, were each and all expressly founded with oligarchic care and oligarchic aim upon an oligarchic model. All power and privilege was concentrated in the planter caste; and a servile multitude was provided by regal and aristocratic policy, by whose unrequited for the governing few were to subsist. 

We grieve to be obligated to say that in our estimate of the possible future of America we see calls for the deepest anxiety as to the fate of civilization, social, and political, in the devoted regions whose fanatic oligarchies are striving to sever them from the wise and enlightened rule founded by Adams, Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson, and Jay. For the destiny of the free North with its intelligence and industry, its wealth and invention, its love of equal liberty, and it's a love of equal law, there is no cause for fear. Inferiority of soil, seaboard and streams, of mineral wealth, and of mountain pasture, of sweep and domain, and enjoyable climate- the vigorous, fearless, self-reliant North can afford, with a laugh, to admit it all, and yet feel how consequently stronger and richer, nobler and happier is its place among the nations. If a permanent severance there must be, the world will soon comprehend the difference between a complete nature of educated, free, and self-dependent citizens, and a community of indolent and insolent proprietors of land living in hourly dread of a herd of slaves. 

I have filled my letter with the all absorbing subject of the American political crisis. But as it is a question in which the whole civilized world is just now deeply interested, I make no apology. Among the candidates for the commissionership to the Islands, Mr. Bunker formerly consul at Lahaina, seems prominent. It is too soon however, to predict who will be the successful applicant, and it is very likely that foreign appointments may be delayed by pressing emergency of home matters which will engross the attention of the incoming administration. 

MAIKELA. 

Poem: Jonathan and His Sons (1861)

Source: Pacific Commercial Advertiser. Honolulu: June 20, 1861.

Jonathan and his Sons: A BALLAD FOR THE TIMES (June, 1861)

For the Commercial Advertiser.

When Jonathan was a grown man,
He swore, as well he might, Sirs, 
That, rather than be ruled by 
Old Britain, he would fight, Sirs,
And, though a rebel son he was, 
Young Jonathan was right, Sirs. 

CHORUS.
Jonathan a rebel was,
Jonathan when young, Sirs, 
Every Tory in the land 
Vowed he would be hung, Sirs,
Yet Jonathan the battle won, 
For all they said and sung, Sirs.

But Jonathan, now older grown, 
Is not the man of yore, Sirs, 
His great success, prosperity, 
His pride and love of power, Sirs, 
Have turned him from his principles:- 
He's Tory to the core! Sirs.

Jonathan a rebel was, &c. 

The declaration which he made 
About the rights of man, Sirs,
Went first against his mother he 
Upraised an armed hand Sirs,
He, now, ingloriously ignores,
Or will not understand, Sirs.

Jonathan a rebel was, &c.

And when, of late, his rebel Sons, 
True offspring of their Sire, Sirs 
Avowed their independency, 
High rose is tory ire, Sirs,
He would baptize them all in blood, 
And scourge with sword and fire, Sirs.

Jonathan a rebel was, &c.

And, in his pride of power and place 
He maketh an oration 
About his high authority,
Their proper rank and station; 
How he had made himself and them
A great and mighty nation.

Jonathan a rebel was, &c.

The duty of obedience;
His law -the constitution;
The right of Government to keep 
Its parts from dissolution.
His rebel sons made answer in 
“The right of revolution!”

Jonathan a rebel was, &c.

“Traitors!” he said, “you have no cause 
To justify your claim, Sirs,- 
I am the judge, not you. Disperse! 
Go home and hide your shame, Sirs,
And know, that should we come to blows, 
With you must lie the blame, Sirs.”

Jonathan a rebel was, &c.

“With us and our posterity 
That judgment rests. And you, Sir,
In seventeen hundred seventy-six,
Past seventy years ago, sir,
Was then the judge, in your own case,
As will the records show, Sir.”

Jonathan a rebel was, &c.

We have in justice suffered much, 
Else, would the sword we draw? Sir, 
“To suffer what is sufferable
Mankind are apt,” your saw, Sir.
Our brothers, those adverse to us, 
Have made there will your law, Sir.”

Jonathan a rebel was, &c.

“And at their will-which is the law,
And by your own command, Sir,
We have been driven from the new,
Uncultivated land, Sir,
And, when we ask you for our right,
You smite us with the hand, Sir.”

Jonathan a rebel was, &c.

“These brothers -brother but in blood, 
No more -have to a man, Sir,
departed from those principles 
___________________________, Sirs,
For in their negro-longing, now 
They rob us when they can, Sir.”

Jonathan a rebel was, &c.

“But why enumerate the wrongs 
That we have suffered sore? Sir-
A numerous catalogue -which you 
Have heard and known before, Sir.
Enough? The world shall judge us when 
A few years have passed o’er, Sir.”

Jonathan a rebel was, &c.

“We long have a sought redress in form 
Prescribed:  -but vain each word, Sir! 
Tis not our purpose here. We now 
Demand, with one accord, Sir, 
Your free acknowledgment of this 
On which we draw the sword, Sir.”

Jonathan a rebel was, &c.

“We claim what you have cleaned before, 
What you yourself have done, Sir -
The right to form new government! 
We abrogate your own, Sir ,”
Thus, to the rebel father, spake 
Each goodly rebel son, Sir.

Jonathan a rebel was, &c.

Then Jonathan was wroth indeed; 
And swore in terms of uncivil,
Regardless of the consequence 
Of words and deeds of evil, 
That, “by the great Eternal,” he 
Would hang each rebel devil.

Jonathan a rebel was, &c.

“Charge me and my most loyal sons 
With theft and breach of faith, Sirs.
Look to yourselves and your own acts!” 
He answered, high in wrath, Sirs, 
“My castles in the gulf! my chests! 
My money bags! who hath? Sirs.”

Jonathan a rebel was, &c.

“Of wrong and grievances to talk 
Unwisely you made bold, Sirs, 
Go, wash your rebel hands! which these, 
My castles, and my gold, Sirs, 
Feloniously have seized upon, 
Feloniously withhold, Sirs.”

Jonathan a rebel was, &c.

Then, thus his rebel Sons: “The first 
Great law of life commands, Sir, 
Self-preservation, and all acts
Necessity demands, Sir, 
For our defense. We took the means 
That fortune placed at hand, Sir.

Jonathan a rebel was, &c.

“The castles we intend to keep 
And hold, now and forever, 
They are invaluable to us; 
To you not worth a feather: 
They must of right become our own, 
To be surrendered never.”

Jonathan a rebel was, &c.

“And, when you deign to treat with us, 
On settlement, we will, Sir,
Allow you, what is fair and just, 
Nor cavil at your bill, Sir:
The money that we hold of yours 
Your purse again shall fill, Sir.

Jonathan a rebel was, &c.

But loss of property!- that thought, 
Proclivities of age, Sirs. 
Had maddened and all the Old Man’s heart; 
And, rising in his rage, Sirs, 
“To arms! to arms!” he cried,  “-my boys, 
These rebel dogs engage, Sir.”

Jonathan a rebel was, &c.

“They think me weak, the fools! Their skulls 
My strength shall know and feel, Sirs, 
Bring me my arms! and cloth my limbs 
In panoply of steel! Sirs, 
Then let us forth! the castles storm! 
We take them well! wo or weal, Sirs.

Jonathan a rebel was, &c.

O would “the powers that be” but turn,
And do what duty tells, Sirs,
Then might we, brothers, part in peace, 
Apart, in peace might dwell, Sirs. 
‘Gainst wars that cannot come to good 
HUMANITY rebels, Sirs

Honolulu, June, 1861                     W.S. HUGHSON.

Late News from America. (February 1, 1862)

Source: The Friend. Honolulu: February 1, 1862. 

A few months ago, the true American, abroad in a foreign land, felt no pleasure in hearing from home. The citadel of Liberty had been attacked. Traitors were among the officers of the President's Cabinet. Spies gloried in their infamous trade. The Army, small and scattered, was demoralized. The Navy could not be trusted. It really seemed as if I-cha-bod —the glory is departed—was to be written beneath every inscription to which " U.S." was attached. Then came the astounding news of the defeat at Bull's Run, where, it appears, both Secesh and Yankee ran, but the Yankee outran his southern opponent, and carried off the palm of a defeat. The tables have turned. 

The American abroad now holds up his head. He has a country. He is not ashamed to acknowledge himself American. The late mails brought intelligence that cheers and animates the patriot's heart. The President's message is hopeful and sound. The Cabinet is united. Congress is alive. Senators and Representatives speak like men who had a work to do, and would do it. The Army and Navy are strong, and growing stronger. The Hatteras affair is eclipsed by the Beaufort victory, still more brilliant and glorious. The capture of Mason and Slidell capped the climax, and makes a good theme for newspaper talk. 

It was to be expected that the government and people of England would remonstrate loudly, if they did nothing more ; but, after all, there is net an Englishman, at home or abroad, who will not say that Wilkes did a brave deed, and showed what they call " pluck." No impartial person will or can say that he intended any insult to the English Flag, but he saw the game, and, as the sportsman says, " bagg'd it." 

Two more mischief-making rebels could not have been seized in all secessiondom. They were dyed in the wool. Neither Jeff. Davis or any other rebel is their superior. We may hereafter hear of the Northern forces meeting with an occasional repulse, but the backbone of the rebellion is cracked, if not broken! When this rebellion is once put down, another like it will never occur.