The Lost Cause - Chapter 1

There is nothing of political philosophy more plainly taught in history than the limited value of the Federal principle. It had been experimented upon in various ages of the world - in the Amphictyonic Council, in the Achaean League, in the United Provinces of Holland, in Mexico, in Central America, in Columbia, and in the Argentine republic; in all these instances the form of government established upon it had become extinct, or had passed into the alternative of consolidation or anarchy and disintegration. Indeed, it is plain enough that such a form of government is the resource only of small and weak communities; that it is essentially temporary in its nature; and that it has never been adopted by States which had approached a mature condition, and had passed the period of pupillage. It is not to be denied that the Federal principle is valuable in peculiar circumstances and for temporary ends. But it is essentially not permanent; and all attempts to make it so, though marked for certain periods by fictitious prosperity and sudden evidences of material activity and progress, have ultimately resulted in intestine commotions and the extinction of the form of government. What, indeed, can be more natural than that the members of a confederation, after they have advanced in political life and become mature and powerful, should desire for themselves independence and free action, and be impatient of a system founded on their early and past necessities!

Coleridge, the acute English scholar and philosopher, once said that he looked upon the American States as "splendid masses to be used by and by in the composition of two or three great governments." For more than a generation past it was considered by a party in America, as well as by intelligent men in other parts of the world, that the American Union, as a confederation of States, had performed its mission, and that the country was called to the fulfillment of another political destiny.

And here it is especially to be remarked that those statesmen of the South, who for more than thirty years before the war of 1861 despaired of the continuation of the Unioin, were yet prompt to acknowledge its benefits in the past. There could be no dispute about the success of its early mission; and no intelligent man in America dared to refer to the Union without acknowledging the country's indebtedness to it in the past. It had peopled and fertilized a continent; it had enrished the world's commerce with a new trade; it had developed population, and it was steadily training to manhood the States which composed it, and fitting them for the responsibility of a new political life. The party that insisted at a certain period that the interests of the Southern States demanded a separate and independent government, simply held the doctrine that the country had outlived the necessities of the Union, and had become involved in the abuses of a system, admirable enough in its early conception, but diverted from its original objects and now existing only as the parent of intolerable rivalries, and the source of constant intestine commotions.

With reference to these abuses, it must be remarked here that although the Federal principle was the governing one of the American Union, yet such Union was not purely a confederation of States; it was mixed with parts of another system of government; and that the subordination of the Federal principle to these produced many additional causes of disruption, which plainly hurried the catastrophe of separation and war.

But before coming to the subject of these abuses, it will be necessary to determine the true nature and value of the Union. We must go back to an early period of American history; we must explore the sources of the great political parties in the country; and we must enumerate among the causes of disunion not only the inherent weakness of the Federal principle, but those many controversies which aided and expedited the result, and in which the true idea of the Union was violated, the government distorted to the ends of party, and faction put in the place of a statesmanship that sought long but in vain to check its vile ambition and avert the final result.

When the thirteen colonies in North America resolved to throw off the yoke of Great Britain, committees of correspondence were established in each colony. In May, 1774, after Lord Dunmore dissolved a patriotic Virginia House of Burgesses, eighty-nine of its members met at the Raleigh Tavern, in Williamsburg, and, among other acts, recommended that all the colonies should send deputies to a General Congress, to watch over the united interests of all, and deliberate upon and ascertain the measures best adapted to promote them.

On the 4th of July, 1776, the Congress published a Declaration of Independence. It declared that the colonies were "free and independent States," thus asserting their separate State sovereignty, and expressly negativing the idea of consolidation, held by New Hampshire, who on the 15th of June, 1776, voted that the Thirteen United Colonies ought to be declared "a free and independent State."

At this time the only common agent of the States was a Congress which really had no legislative power. Its action was generally wise, and therefore cheerfully acquiesced in and made efficient by the principals. But as the war continued, its pressure became heavier; men, money, and supplies were needed; and often the resolutions of Congress were either wholly neglected or positively repudiated by the States. It became apparent that the common agent must be clothed with actual power, and this could only be done by an express agreement between the States, whereby each should bind itself to observe certain rules, and obey certain regulations adopted to secure the common safety.

It was thus that the first Confederation of the American States - the articles of which were adopted by the several States in 1777 - originated in the necessities of the war waged by them against Great Britain for their independence. A common danger impelled them to a close alliance, and to the formation of a confederation, by the terms of which the colonies, styling themselves States, entered "severally into a firm league of friendship with each other for their common defence, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other against all force offered to or attacks made upon them or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade or any other pretence whatever."

In order to guard against any misconstruction of their compact, the several States made explicit declaration, in a distinct article, that "each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and right which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled."

The objects and character of this confederation or union were thus distinctly defined. Under its terms the war of the Revolution was successfully waged, and resulted in the treaty of peace with Great Britain in 1783, by the terms of which the several States were, each by name, recognized to be independent.

As the Confederation originated in the necessities of the war against Great Britain, it was these necessities which determined its character and measured its powers. It was something more than a military alliance; for it was intended to unite the resources of the States, to make a common financial fund, and to "secure the public credit at home and abroad." Partial and imperfect as was the union it established, it accomplished a great historical work, and dated an important era; it supplied what scarcely anything else could have supplied - a political bond between colonies suddenly erected into sovereign States; it was the stepping stone to a firmer association of the States, and a more perfect union. In this sense are to be found its true offices and value. Lines of exasperated division had been drawn between the colonies; the sharp points of religious antagonism had kept them at a distance; the natural difficulties of intercourse and the legislative obstructions of trade had separated them; differences of government, contrast of manners, diversity of habits had contributed to the estrangement; and in these circumstances a bond of union, however slightly it held them, was important as the initial of their political association, and was educating them for the new and enlarged destiny dated with their independence.

We have implied that the Confederation was a bond of very partial and imperfect effect. It practically existed not more than two years; although its nominal term in history is eight years. It was debated for nearly five years. It was not consummated until 1781. It was full of glaring defects; it had no power to enforce the common will of the States; it had no jurisdiction of individuals; it had but a mixed and confused power over foreign relations, and the treaties it might make were dependent on commercial regulations of the different States. Having outlived the prime necessity that originated it during the war, its cohesive powers gradually gave way; it yielded to the impressions of new events; and it is remarkable that the association formed under it and entitled a "Perpetual Union" was practically terminated by the uninterrupted free will of the States which composed it.

A convention of delegates assembled from the different States at Philadelphia in May, 1787. It had been called by Congress "f0r the sole and express purpose of revising the Article of Confederation, and reporting to Congress and the several legislatures such alterations and provisions therein, as shall, when agreed to in Congress, and confirmed by the States, render the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies and the preservation of the Union." This was the Convention that erected the two famous political idols in America: the Constitution of 1789 and the Union formed under it, and entitled itself to the extravagant adulation of three generations as the wisest and best of men.

This adulation is simply absurd. The language in the call of the Convention was singularly confused. The men who composed it were common flesh and blood, very ignorant, very much embarrassed, many of them unlettered, and many educated just to that point where men are silly, visionary, dogmatic, and impracticable.

Hildreth, the American historian, has made a very just remark, which describes the cause of the unpopularity of his own compositions. He says: "In dealing with our revolutionary annals, a great difficulty had to be encountered in the mythic, heroic character above, beyond, often wholly apart from the truth of history, with which, in the popular idea, the fathers and founders of our American Republic have been invested. American literature having been mainly of the rhetorical cast, and the Revolution and the old times of the forefathers forming standing subjects for periodical eulogies, in which every new orator strives to outvie his predecessors, the true history of those times, in spite of ample records, illustrated by the labors of many diligent and conscientious inquirers, has yet been almost obliterated by declamations which confound all discrimination and just appreciation in one confused glare of patriotic eulogium."

The Constitution formed by this Convention , although singularly deficient - and so far from being esteemed by American demagogueism as "almost of Divine authority," actually one of the loosest political instruments in the world - contained one admirable and novel principle, which grew out of the combination of circumstances in the debate. One party in the Convention plausibly contended that its power was limited to a mere revision and amendment of the existing Articles of Confederation, and that it was authorized to add nothing to the Federal principle. Another party favored the annihilation of the State governments. A third party stood between these extremes, and recommended a "national" government in the sense f a supreme power with respect to certain objects common between the States and committed to it. But when on this third plan the question of representation arose, it was found that the large States insisted upon a preponderating influence in both houses of the National Legislature, while the small States insisted on an equality of representation in each house; and out of this conflict came the mixed representation of the people and the States, each in a different house of Congress; and on this basis of agreement was reared the Constitution of the United States of America.

The great novelty of this Constitution - the association of the principle of State sovereignty with a common government of delegated powers acting on individuals under specifications of authority, and thus, therefore, not merely a Federal league - is scarcely to be esteemed as an a priori discovery, and to be ascribed, as American vanity would have it, to the wisdom of our forefathers. The mixed representation of the people and the States originated, as we have seen, in a jealousy sprung in the Convention, and is better described as the fruit of an accident than the elaborate production of human wisdom. It was a compromise. It simply extricated the Convention from a dead-lock of votes between the large and the small States as to the rule of representation. But it was of immense importance as the initial and necessary measure of the combination of State sovereignty with the simple republic. There is reason to suppose that the framers of the Constitution did not fully comprehend the importance of the great political principle on which they had stumbled, with its long train of consequences, and that, as often happens to simple men, they had fallen upon a discovery, of the value of which they had but a dim apprehension.

The principle involved in the measure of the Convention referred to was more fully and perfectly developed in the Amendments, which were the fruit of the legislative wisdom of the States, not of that of the Convention, and were designed to give a full development and a proper accuracy to what was certainly ill-performed work in it. The following Amendments were embodied in the official declarations of at least six of the States, coupled with their ratification of the Constitution, and made by them the conditions precedent to such ratification:

"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

The Union, thus constituted, was not a consolidated nationality. It was not a simple republic, with an appendage of provinces. It was not, on the other hand, a mere league of States with no power to reach individuals. It was an association of sovereign States with a common authority qualified to reach individuals within the scope of the powers delegated to it by the States, and employed with subjects sufficient to give it for certain purposes the effect of an American and national identity.

At the separation from the British Empire, the people of America preferred the establishment of themselves into thirteen separate sovereignties, instead of incorporating themselves into one. To these they looked up for the security of their lives, liberties, and properties. The Federal government they formed to defend the whole against foreign nations in time of war, and to defend the lesser States against the ambition of the larger. They were afraid of granting power unnecessarily, lest they should defeat the original end of the Union; lest the powers should prove dangerous to the sovereignties of the particular States which the Union was meant to support, and expose the lesser to being swallowed up by the larger.

The articles of the first Confederation had provided that "the Union shall be perpetual." Notwithstanding this, as we have seen, another convention subsequently assembled which adopted the present Constitution of the United States. Article VII. provided that "the ratifications of nine States shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution, between the States ratifying the same." In effect, this Constitution was ratified at first by only a portion of the States composing the previous Union, each at different dates and in its sovereign capacity as a State, so that the second Union was created by States which "seceded" from the first Union, three of which, in their acts of ratification, expressly reserved the right to secede again. Virginia, in giving her assent to the Constitution said: "We, the delegates of the people of Virginia, duly elected, etc., etc., do, in the name and in behalf of the people of Viriginia, declare and make known that the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States, may be resumed by them whenever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression." The State of New York said that "the pwoers of Government may be re-assumed by the people whenever it shall be necessary to their happiness." And the State of Rhode Island adopted the same language.

The reader of American history must guard his mind against the errour that the Union was, in any sense, a constitutional revolution, or a proclamation of a new civil polity. The civil institutions of the States were already perfect and satisfactory. The Union was nothing more than a convenience of the States, and had no mission apart from them. It had no value as an additional guaranty of personal liberty, nor yet for its prohibitions of invasion of individual rights. These had been declared with equal clearness and vigour five centuries before in the Great Charter at Runnymede, had been engrafted upon the Colonial Governments, and were the recognized muniments of American liberty.

The novelty and value of the Federal Constitution was the nice adjustment of the relations of the State and Federal Governments, by which they both became co-ordinate and essential parts of one harmonious system; the nice arrangement of the powers of the State and Federal Governments, by which was left to the States the exclusive guardianship of their domestic affairs, and of the interests of their citizens, and was granted to the Federal Government the exclusive control of their international and inter-State relations; the economy of the powers of the States with which the Federal G0vernment was endowed; the paucity of subjects and of powers, withdrawn from the States, and committed to the Federal Government. It was the recognition of the idea of Confederation - the appreciation of the value of local self-g0vernment. It was the recognition that the States were the creators and their powers were inherent, and that the Federal Government was the creature and its powers were delegated.

The two great political schools of America - that of Consolidation and that of State Rights - were founded on different estimates of the relations of the General Government to the States. All other controversies in the political history of the country were subordinate and incidental to this great division of parties. We see, at once, how it involved the question of negro-slavery in the South. The agitation of this question was a necessity of the Consolidation doctrine, which was mainly the Northern theory of the government; for duty being the correlative of power, the central government at Washington was responsible for the continuance or existence of slavery in proportion to its power over it. On the other hand, the State Rights party assented to the logical integrity of the proposition that if the government had been consolidated into one, slavery might have been abolished, or made universal throughout the whole; but they claimed that the States had retained their sovereignty, for the reason, among others, that they desired to avoid giving any pretext to the General Government for attempting to control their internal affairs; and they, therefore, contended that the Northern party could with no more reason assail the domestic institutions of the South than they could attack the similar institutions of Cuba and Brazil.

The difference between the State Rights and Consolidation schools may be briefly and sharply stated. The one regarded the Union as a compact between the States: the other regarded the Union as a national government set up above and over the States. The first adopted its doctrine from the very words of the Constitution; the seventh article for the ratification of the Constitution reading as follows:

"The ratification of the Conventions of nine States shall be sufficient for the establishment of this constitution BETWEEN the States so ratifying the same."

The great text of the State Rights school is to be found in the famous Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798. These resolutions are properly to be taken as corollaries drawn from those carefully-worded clauses of the Constitution, which were designed to exclude the idea that the separate and independent sovereignty of each State was merged into one common government and nation. The Virginia resolutions were drawn up by Mr. Madison, and the Kentucky resolutions by Mr. Jefferson. The first Kentucky resolution was as follows:

"1st. Resolved, That the several States comprising the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government, but that by compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a general government, for special purposes, delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force; that to this compact each State acceded, as a State, and is an integral party; that this government created by this compact, was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself, since that would have made its discretion and not the Constitution the measure of its powers; but that as in all other cases of compact among parties having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress."

The most formidable conflict between these two schools of politics took place during the memorable tariff controversy of 1831-2, in which Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, the most remarkable antitypes of Northern and Southern statesmanship, joined in debate, explored the entire field of controversy, searched every feature and principle of the government, and left on record a complete and exhausting commentary on the whole political system of America.

Mr. Calhoun was logician enough to see that the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions invovled the right of Secession. But he was not disposed to insist upon such a remedy. He lived in a time when, outside of his own State, there was a strong sentimental attachment to the Untion; and he would have been a reckless politician, who would then have openly braved popular passion on this subject. Indeed Mr. Calhoun professed, and perhaps not insincerely, an ardent love for the Untion. In a speech to his constituents in South Carolina, he declared that he had "never breathed an opposite sentiment," and that he had reason to love the Union, when he reflected that nearly half his life had been passed in its service, and that whatever public reputation he had acquired was indissolubly connected with it.

It was the task of the great South Carolina politician to find some remedy for existing evils short of Kisxunion. He was unwilling, iether to violate his own affections of or the popular idolatry for the Union; and at the same time he was deeply sensible of the oppression it devolved upon the South. The question was, what expedient could be found to accommodate the overruling anxiety to perpetuate the Union, and the necessity of checking the steady advance of Northern aggression and sectional domination in it. Mr. Calhoun did succeed in accommodating these two considerations. He hit upon one of the most beautiful and ingenious theories in American politics to preserve and perfect the Union, and to introduce into it that principle of adaptability to circumstances, which is the first virtue of wise governments. He proposed that in cases of serious dispute between any State and the General Government, the matter should be referred to a convention of all the States for its final and conclusive determination. He thus proposed, instead of destroying the Union, to erect over it an august guardianship, and instead of bringing it to the tribunal of popular passion, to arraign it only before the assembled sovereign States which had created it.

Mr. Calhoun abundantly explained his doctrine. "Should," said he, "the General Government and a State come into conflict, we have a higher remedy: the power which called the General Government into existence, which gave it all of its authority, and can enlarge, contract, or abolish its powers at its pleasure, may be invoked. The States themselves may be appealed to, three-fourths of which, in fact, form a power, whose decrees are the Constitution itself, and whose voice can silence all discontent. The utmost extent then of the power is, that a State acting in its sovereign capacity, as one of the parties to the constitutional compact, may compel the government, created by that compact, to submit a question touching its infraction to the parties who created it." He insisted with plain reason that his doctrine, s far from being anarchical or revolutionary, was "the only solid foundation of our system and of the Union itself." His explanation of the true nature of the Union was a model of perspicuity, and an exposition of the profoundest statesmanship. In opposition to a certain vulgar and superficial opnion, that the State institutions of America were schools of provincialism, he held the doctrinre that they were in no sense hostile to the Union, or malignant in their character; that they interpreted the true glory of America; and that he was the wisest statesman who would constantly observe "the sacred distribution" of power between the General Government and the States, and bind up the rights of the States with the common welfare.

It is a curious instance of Northern misrepresntation in politics and of their cunning in fastening a false political nomenclature upon the South, that the ingenious doctrine of Mr. Calhoun, which was eminently conservative, and directly addressed to saving the Union, should have been entitled "Nullification," and its author branded as a Disunionist. Unfortunately, the world has got most of its opnions of Southern parties and men from the shallow pages of Northern books; and it will take it long to learn the lessons that the system of negro servitude in the South was not "Slavery;" that John C. Calhoun was not a "Disunionist;" and that the war in 1861, brought on by Northern insurgents against the authority of the Constitution, was not a "Southern rebellion." Names are apparently slight things; but they create the first impression; they solicit the sympathies of the vulgar; and they often create a cloud of prejudice which the greatest exertions of intelligence find it impossible wholly to dispel. But it is not the place here to analyze at length the party terms of America; and the proper definition of the words we have referred to as falsely applied to the South will appear, and will be easily apprehended in the general argument and context of our narrative.

-E.A. Pollard

The Derailed Rider

Platonic Politics 2 - Intuition of Forms

Behold! Human beings living in a sort of underground den; they have been there from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained - the chains are arranged in such a manner as to prevent them from turning round their heads. At a distance above and behind them the light of a fire is blazing, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have before them, over which they show the puppets. Imagine men passing along the wall carrying vessels, which appear over the wall; also figures of men and animals, made of wood and stone and various materials; and some of the passengers, as you would expect, are talking, and some of them are silent!

That is a strange image, he said, and they are strange prisoners.

Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave?

True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?

And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the shadows?

Yes, he said.

And if they were able to talk with one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them?

Very true.

And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy that the voice which they heard was that of a passing shadow?

No question, he replied.

There can be no question, I said that the truth would be to them just nothing but the shadows of the images.

That is certain.

And now look again and see how they are released and cured of their folly. At first, when any one of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to go up and turn his neck round and walk and look at the light, he will suffer great pains; the glare will distress him and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then imagine someone saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now he is approaching real being and has a truer sight and vision of more real things, - what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them, - will he not be in a difficulty? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?

Far truer.

And if he is compelled to look at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take refuge in the object of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be clearer than the things which are now being shown to him?

True, he said.

And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast and forced into the presence of the sun himself, do you not think that he will be pained and irritated, and when he approaches the light he will have his eyes dazzled, and will not be able to see any of the realities which are now affirmed to be the truth?

Not all in a moment, he said.

He will require to get accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves; next he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars; and he will see the sky and the stars by night, better than the sun, or the light of the sun, by day?

Certainly.

And at last he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him as he is in his own proper place, and not in another, and he will contemplate his nature.

Certainly.

And after this he will reason that the sun is he who gives the seasons and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and in a certain way the cause of all things which he and his fellows have been accustomed to behold?

Clearly, he said, he would come to the other first and to this afterwards.

And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the den and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them?

Certainly, he would.

And if they were in the habit of conferring honors on those who were quickest to observe and remember and foretell which of the shadows went before, and which followed after, and which were together, do you think that he would care for such honors and glories, or envy the possessors of them?

Would he not say with Homer, -

"Better to be a poor man, and have a poor master," and endure anything, than to think and live after their manner?

Yes, he said. I think that he would rather suffer anything than live after their manner?

Imagine once more, I said, that such an one coming suddenly out of the sun were to be replaced in his old situation, is he not certain to have his eyes full of darkness?

Very true, he said.

And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who have never moved out of the den, during the time that his sight is weak, and before his eyes are steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable), would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he comes without his eyes; and that there was no use in even thinking of ascending: and if anyone tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender in the act, and they would put him to death.

No question, he said.

This allegory, I said, you may now append to the previous argument; the prison is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, the ascent and vision of the things above you may truly regard as the upward progress of the soul into the intellectual world.

And you will understand that those who attain to this beatific vision are unwillinlg to descend to human affairs; but their souls are ever hastening into the upper world in which they desire to dwell. And is there anything surprising in one who passes from divine contemplations to human things, misbehaving himself in a ridiculous manner.

There is nothing surprising in that, he replied.

Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye: and he who remembers this when he sees the soul of any one whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul has come out of the brighter life, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light. And then he will count one happy in his condition and state of being.

-Plato, The Republic - Book VII

The Bank War

It was the heroic struggle with the Second Bank of the United States that truly revealed Jackson's conception of presidential powers. Moreover, it revealed his own special brand of democracy. Pursuing a calculated course, he proceeded to destroy the Bank because he believed it capable of infinite harm to the American people and government. It was, in his own celebrated words, a "monster," a "hydra-headed monster," whose powers and potential were so enormous that it threatened the safety of the Republic.

Andrew Jackson destroyed the Bank, no one else. Not Martin Van Buren, not Wall Street bankers, not the Albany Regency, Amos Kendall, Roger Taney, or anyone else. Granted Jackson had the assistance of a number of shrewd, dedicated, and conscientious political operators, notably Kendall, Taney, Benton, Francis P. Blair and others, but they were all of secondary importance. It was Jackson who conceived the idea to smash the financial giant, and it was Jackson who determined how and when it should be done.

What was his motive? To some extent, the President was conditioned by his financial losses at an earlier time, possibly his views on States' rights and maybe even western prejudice, but fundamentially the Bank War was not an economic struggle, nor a contest between sections, nor an expression of hostility by the frontier toward the city, nor an act of spite or revenge; essentially it was a political war, or at least that is how it started. After 1833, it developed into something else again. But, in initiating the battle, Jackson's motivation was fundamentally political. He regarded the Bank as dangerous to the liberty of the American people because it represented a fantastic centralization of economic and political power under private control. It was a "monopoly" with special privileges, and yet it was not subject to presidential, congressional, or popular regulation. Only the financial interest of the B.U.S. constituted any real control of this "monster," and to Jackson that was no control at all.

The political motive, therefore, is absolutely central to the Bank War, at least in its initial stage. However, it was not a simple case of Jackson battling for democracy against a moneyed aristocracy, the few against the many, the rich against the poor, although obviously these can and have been read into the controversy. What Jackson wished to terminate, what he hammered at over and over again, was the Bank's enormous political "power to control the Government and change its character..." He blasted the institution as "an irresponsible power" spending its money "as a means of operating upon public opinion." He termed it a "vast electioneering engine."

For the President to decide by himself that this brain child of Alexander Hamilton had no right to exist in its present form took towering presumption. But Jackson was never especially deficient in that department. It also took courage - another of his virtues. Finally it required extraordinary political skill to bring off the complete destruction of the Bank, and here is where the President really excelled. Yet, despite a deep-seated prejudice against all banks that went back many years, he was very slow to move against the biggest of them, possibly because of his willingness to compromise with it at first, possibly because of his habitual caution, and possibly out of a need to instruct the people, his friends (with some notable exceptions), and Congress at almost every step of the way.

Following the initial battle with the Bank, when recharter of the institution was denied, the war intensified and developed into a disordered contest among politicians and businessmen from every section of the country who scrambled for advantage at the Bank's expense - everyone for himself, pushing for the main chance. It was an incredible demonstrataion of lusty men in a swiftly changing age struggling to get ahead by annihilating whatever stood in their way.

In other words the Bank War involved two phases: the first, stretching from 1829 to 1833, constituted a power struggle between Jackson and the Bank over the President's fear of the Bank's unchecked political and economic privileges; the second, continuing after 1833, was a highly complicated story of political and economic jockeying among "men on the make" who were out for anything they could get, each man for himself, snatching at every advantage...

The Second Bank of the United States was chartered by Congress in 1816, with the charter to run twenty years. The capital stock of the B.U.S. was assigned at 35 million dollars, one fifth of which was subscribed by the federal government, the rest by the public. A board of twenty-five men directed the Bank's affairs, appointed its administrative officers, invested its funds, and established its branch banks in the principal cities throughout the country. Five of the board members were appointed by the President of the United States, the others elected by the stockholders. In effect, the B.U.S. was a central bank, designed to regulate the credit and currency operations of the country. This it did, and did extremely well, despite Jackson's claims to the contrary. The Bank had authority to issue notes that were receivable for money owed the U.S. government, and it served as a depository for government funds that could be invested for the profit of the stockholders. Thus, the B.U.S. exercised tremendous influence in foreign and domestic finance, as well as unrivaled power over state banks. The profits from this tidy arrangement were shared by private investors, both American and foreign, and by the federal government.

The first president of the Second Bank was William Jones, a man of rare incompetence, a onetime Secretary of the Navy and Secretary pro tem of the Treasury. He was followed in 1819 by Langdon Cheves of South Carolina, a former Congressman and Speaker of the House of Representatives. The same year the presidency changed hands an economic depression struck the country. The panic was part of a world-wide dislocation, but it was intensified in the United States by Cheves' policy of restoring the Bank's credit by calling in loans and foreclosing mortgages. The B.U.S. gathered the notes of many state banks and then returned them for payment in cash: gold and silver. Sincy many of these unlucky banks were without specie, they slid into bankruptcy. The resulting depression brought a price collapse, unemployment, and in some areas, starvation. It was especially severe in the West where political repercussions continued to echo for almost ten years.

But the B.U.S was saved. It had gone through a terrible ordeal under Jones' mismanagement, but Cheves had steered it back to a position of financial strength and soundness. His work done, Cheves retired and was replaced as president in January, 1823 by Nicholas Biddle, a thrity-sevenyear-old scion of a wealthy and distinguished Philadelphia family. Biddle, hmself, was one of those impossibly gifted men. He had everything: brains, looks, money, and family, and now he assumed control of a financial colossus. Although he exercised this control with considerable restraint and discretion, nevertheless at times he could be arrogant and would prod the monster to a vicious display of its power. The Bank was subject to no regulatory check except what was imposed by the laws of business and the profit-minded demands of the stockholders. Under Biddle it prospered, branching into twenty-nine cities from its headquarters on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia and doing a business of 70 million dollars a year. As a central banking system, it provided the financial operations of the country with uniformity and regulation, and as such was of immense economic benefite to all the people . Despite rumors to the contrary, it handled only 20 percent of the country's loans; its note circulation was only one-fifth of the nation's total; and it held only one-third of the total bank deposits and specie.

Even so, to Andrew Jackson it was a monster, maybe half asleep, but hardly less dangerous. It was not so much the size of the beast that offended, though that was bad enough, or the amount of money stored in its care, but rather that it was unchained, that it was independent of the government and the people, that it had the means to nullify economic development, and that it frequently interfered in politics. A few years later, in summing up the administration's complaints against the institution, Roger B. Taney listed "its corrupting influence...its patronage greater than that of the Government - its power to embarrass the power of the Government - & to influence elections..." These were all basically political reasons, and the last-named - "influence elections" - was the one that especially concerned Jackson. It was really impossible for him to believe that a Bank with so much money and so many special prviileges could remain independent of the political process. And such involvement, said Jackson, threatened "to destroy our republican institutions." In June, 1829, just three months after his inauguration, the President told John Overton that he planeed to shange "the present incorporated Bank to that of a National Bank - This being the only way that a recharter to the present U.S. Bank can be prevented & which I believe is the only thing that can prevent our liberties to be crushed by the Bank & its influence, - for I [have learned] of the injurious effect & interference of the directors of the Bank had in our late election which if not curbed must destroy the purity of the right of suffrage."

Another thing: the monster discriminated. It did not respond when Andrew Jackson, the duly elected and lawful head of the national government, commanded; it only responded when Nicholas Biddle gave the order. It discriminated in other ways, too. It extended favors to a few men for the help they could render the Bank; and some of these men were important politicians, such as Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, William T. Barry and others, men on both sides of the political aisle, and who were indebted to the Bank for many thousands of dollars. This was another way it interfered in politics. At one point, Webster wrote to Biddle, "I believe my retainer has not been renewed or refreshed as usual. If it be wished that my relation to the Bank should be continued, it may be well to send me the usual retainer..." Now Webster served as legal counsel to the B.U.S., but his "retainer" covered more than his legal fees though a lot less than the "corrupt" intent he was accused of by Democrats.

That the Bank, therefore, did not generally abuse its privileges and that, by 1830, it contributed substantially to the welfare of the country is clear. That at any moment and for any reason it could also abadndon its responsibilities and scorch the nation with its fiery breath as it had done in 1819 is also very clear.

Jackson came to the presidency in March, 1829 with every intention of "chaining" the monster. His prejudice - no doubt nurtured by the bone-rattling financial misadventures of his early days and especially the harrowing history of the Allison land deal which forever confirmed his hostility to paper money and the agencies that issued it - was encouraged by several of his advisers. They assured him that the Bank's vast political power had been used against him in the presidential election of 1828, and that it would continue to be used against him in the future. Amos Kendall, for example, whose own hatred for the Bank emerged during the Relief War in Kentucky five years before, and Isaac Hill, who presented the President with documentary proof that the branch of the Bank in New Hampshire discriminated against friends of the administration, were especially effective in this regard. But, as one member of the Cabinet pointed out, Jackson had expressed "strong opinions against the Bank of the United States" even before becoming President.

In his first message to Congress in December, 1829, the Hero alerted the B.U.S. to his intentions. Those two short paragraphs at the end of the message were the tip-off. Interestingly enough, in this first warning, Jackson did not propose the destruction of the Bank. Probably, at first, he did not intend to kill it outright. He was willing to compromise with it on the bais of certain changes that would eliminate his constitutional objections. Also, he needed time to convince the people, his party, and Congress that tampering with the Bank was not the deranged suggestion of a lunatic westerner.

But Biddle would never compromise. Why should he? He was doing a splendid job, had many supporters in and out of Congress, and enjoyed the knowlege that the country needed and wanted his Bank - just as it was. But, to play it safe, he insinuated his way into the Jackson circle of friends by doing financial favors for those who had the good sense to appreciate them, not realizing that he was proving Jackson's contention that the Bank played politics. As added protection, Biddle generously proposed to pay off the national debt by January 8, 1833 - the eighteenth anniversary of Jackson's victory over the British at New Orleans - recognizing how appreciative the President would be for liquidating the debt and for doing it on such a memorable day. Of course, for this gracious gesture, there was a price: the continuation of the Bank's charter.

Whether he realized it at the time or not, Jackson had touched a very tender spot in the breast of many Americans by his message, particularly those seeking economic advantage who had been denied the assistance of the B.U.S. Several wrote the President complaining how the Bank was contemptuous of their demands and favored only those whose operations guaranteed huge profits to fatten the dividends of the great stockholders. Other would-be antagonists of the Bank were roused by Jackson's message: state bankers, for example, especially in New York and Baltimore, who resented the size, wealth, and controlling functions of the B.U.S. and the amount of profits pumped into Philadelphia; also, freeholding farmers, who regarded the Bank as the embodiment of all the corrupting forces in society threatening their simple republican way of life; and urban wage earners, who viewed the Bank as the largest monopoly among many monopolies equipped with special privileges to grind the faces of the poor; finally, there were lawyers and other professional men, small planters, merchants, and manufacturers - a diverse group of Americans, having at least one thing in common: they were all economically aggressive.

Yet despite this broad spectrum of sympathy for his apparent intention to modify the Bank's charter, Jackson did not proceed any further. He bided his time, for he was not a man to act precipitously. He talked about possible changes in the operation of the Bank, without indicating any urgency in his suggestion. For instance, at one time he tossed out the idea of tying the B.U.S. to the Treasury and restricting its not-issuing powers; at another, he thought of recommending to Congress the creation of a government-owned institution with branches in the several states. Otherwise, he did nothing. Unquestionably, part of his inaction during the early years of this administration was due to his problems over the Eaton affair and the breakup of his first Cabinet. Yet, when he chose his new Cabinet in 1831, he selected men who favored a National Bank - or some variation of it. They were not expressly hostile to a continuation of Biddle's institution, and probably most of them doubted that the matter would come up for a number of years, since the charter of the B.U.S. had several years to go before expiring in 1836.

But they figured without Biddle. Suddenly, almost without warning, he decided to ask for a recharter in 1832, four years before the date of expiration. On the face of it, this action seemed an excellent idea, since 1832 was a presidential election year. Biddle guessed that Jackson would never risk re-election by making the Bank an issue in the campaign. Inasmuch as he must request recharter anyway, Biddle felt he had a better chance of getting it if he asked before the election rather than afterward. Besides, if Jackson refused the request and vetoed the recharter bill, then Congressional candidates up for election would have to commit themselves on the issue one way or the other, and Biddle believed there were enough Americans who favored the B.U.S., and that a sufficient number of Congressmen would be elected to override the veto. Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams, and Daniel Webster concurred in the wisdom of the course. But what they failed to tell Biddle was that the action deliberately baited Jackson - it goaded him into a veto.

"Now as I understand the application at the present time," wrote Roger Taney, "it means in plain English this - the Bank says to the President, your next election is at hand - if you charter us well - if not - beware of your power." This was it precisely. Other men who were friends of the Bank and friends of the administration warned Biddle that the application would resoundingly prove the President's contention that the Bank was a political agency interfering in the electoral process and was in effect ordering the government either to comply with its will or be prepared to sustain a "severe chastisement."

Clay disagreed with this argument, however. "The course of the President in the event of the passage of the bill," he told Biddle, "seems to be a matter of doubt and speculation. My own belief is that, if now called upon he would not negative the bill..." Biddle concurred, and he initiated action by writing to Senator George M. Dallas of Pennsylvania on January 6, 1832 and presenting a memorial asking for renewal of the Bank charter. Three days later, the memorial was placed before each house of Congress, and, in turn, was referred to separate committees:

one in the House chaired by George McDuffie and one in the Senate presided over by Dallas.

Two months later, the Senate bill came to the floor for debate, and the support for the measure was so strong and so spontaneous that immediate action was necessary if the President's objections were to get a proper hearing. after a consultation among Democratic leaders, it was decided to move a House investigation of the B.U.S., thereby giving anti-Bank Jacksonians time to consolidate their forces and perhaps come up with information to discredit Biddle's company in the eyes of the American people. In the forefront of this fight in Congress stood Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, "Old Bullion," whose views about the danger of paper money corresponded exactly with those of the President. In the ensuing battle, he was an army in himself, converting Democrats into anti-Bank men, drilling Congressional forces against Biddle, and through his speeches in the Senate propagandizing the country about the evils practiced by the monopoly. He even arranged the details for the investigation of the Bank initiated in the House of Representatives, and he saw to it that the eventual report by the majority of the committee was loaded with enough examples of alleged abuses by the Bank to substatntiate the President's case against recharter.

Though the subsequent report shimmered with distorition, it made beautiful propaganda. Its charges were restated in Democratic newspapers across the country, libeling the Bank with claims of having violated the terms of its charter. The Washington Globe, edited by Francis Blair, led the other party organs in circulating the document and in arousing poublic opinion in defense of the President's cause. It launched a massive attack to "display the evil of the [B.U.S.], rouse the people [and thereby] prepare them to sustain the veto." It was a magnificently conducted campaign at all levels, one that again demonstrated the organizational splendor of the Democratic party.

Despite the strategy directed by Benton in Congress, the pro-Bank forces in Congress led by Clay and Webster could not be turned. Even some Democrats went along, fearing that without recharter "the country will be ruined...& that there will be no sound currency extant." On June 11, 1832, the bill for recharter passed the Senate by a vote of 28 to 20, and almost a month later, on July 3, it passed the House by 107 to 85. The vote indicated solid support for the Bank in New England and the Middle Atlantic states, strong opposition in the South, and an almost divided opinion in the Northwest and Southwest. Biddle was ecstatic over the vote. "I congratulate our friends most cordially upon this most satisfactory result. Now for the President. My belief is that the President will veto the bill though that is not generally known or believed."

Ill, tired, and debilitated by the hot, sticky Washington weather, Jackson was irritable and cranky when the recharter bill landed on his desk for signature. Martin Van Buren, just returned from England after his rejection by the Senate, came to see the President and found him lying on a sofa in the White House, looking more like a ghost than a man. On seeing his friend for the first time in many months Jackson brightened, then reached out and grasped the Magician's hand. "The bank, Mr. Van Buren, is trying to kill me," he said, "but I will kill it!" His voice, reported by the Red Fox, was entirely devoid of passion, anger, or bluster, but there was no mistaking his mind or mood. He was indeed determined to kill the Bank, not compromise with it, not change its charter and nudge it into the orbit of governmental control, but eliminate it once and for all. What convinced him of this was undoubtedly Biddle's action in seeking recharter at a time, carefully selected, whereby he thought he could tamper with the electoral process to get what he wanted.

Yet, Jackson was too good a politician to miss the danger to his re-election and the election of other Democrats if he vetoed the charter. Politically speaking the moment for battle was all wrong. An election year is no time to disturb the public mind with momentous, quarrelsome issues - not when they are unnecessary and can be avoided. The public is never anxious to settle portentous questions, least of all in an election and certainly not when members of their own party are themselves divided over the issues. The voters bitterly resent being stirred up and having a choice thrust upon them; it agitates and frightens them; and Jackson, by playing into Biddle's hands, was unduly exciting the people and thereby courting electoral disaster. As professional a politician as Silas Wright understood this and told one friend that if the Democrats lost the election it would not be for the want of organization or spirit but because the people "were not equal to the conflict." Still Jackson believed he was acting for the public good in eliminating this extragovernmental "power in the State," that the people would recognize this and that they would sustain him. "Providence has had a hand in bringing forward the subject at this time," he told Kendall, "to preserve the republic from its thraldom and corrupting influence." Thus, certain of popular approval, and convinced of the Bank's evil influence, Jackson made up his mind to write the veto.

The actual writing of the message was the work of several men: Jackson himself, Amos Kendall, Roger B. Taney, Andrew J. Donelson, and Levi Woodbury. What the President wanted was a message that had force and logic and strength to carry it across the nation and convince the people of its fundamental truth. Naturally he needed a closely reasoned paper, but he also desired one that would stir men and reach their minds and hearts, one that could later serve as a propaganda document during the election. His assistants, working three days at fever pitch, did not fail him. What they produced was the most important presidential veto in American history, a powerful and dramatic polemic that can still reach across a century and more of time and excite controversy among those who study it.

In the veto, delivered to the Congree on July 10, the President claimed that the Second Bank of the United States enjoyed exclusive privileges that, for all intents and purposes, gave it a monopoly over foreign and domestic exchange. Worse, some eight millions of the bank's stock was held by foreigners. "By this act the American Republic proposes virtually to make them a present of some millions of dollars," said Jackson - and why should the few, particularly the foreign few, enjoy the special favor of this country. "If our Government," he continued, "must sell monopolies...it is but justice and good policy...to confine our favors to our own fellow citizens, and let each in his turn enjoy an opportunity to profit by our bounty." Over and over, like the intense nationalist he was, Jackson repeated this foreign-influence theme, no doubt striking fire in the hearts of millions of patriotic Americans. Then he turned to the constitutional question involved in recharter. He noted that the Supreme Court in the case McCulloch vs. Maryland had judged the Bank constitutional. "To this conclusion I can not assent," aanounced Jackson. Elaborating, he declared that the Congress and the President as well as the Court "must each for itself be guided by its own opinion of the Constitution. It is as much the duty of the House of Representatives, of the Senate, and of the President to decide upon the constitutionality of any bill or resolution which may be presented to them for passage or approval as it is of the supreme judges when it may be brought before them for judicial decision. The opinion of the judges has no more authority over Congress than the opinion of Congress has over the judges, and on that point the President is independent of both. The authority of the Supreme Court must not, therefore, be permitted to control the Congress or the Executive when acting in their legislative capacities, but to have only such influence as the force of their reasoning may deserve." This is an extraordinary concept. In effect what Jackson said was that no member of the tripartite government can escape his responsibility to consider the constitutionality of all bills and act as his knowledge and good judgmeent dictate. And in this instance, Jackson did not agree with the Court about the Bank. Since the matter was subject to legistlative and executive action, he simply claimed the right to think and act as an independent member of the government.

-Robert V. Remini, Andrew Jackson, 141-151

the Sea

"I have known its fascination since; I have seen the mysterious shores, the still water, the lands of brown nations, where a stealthy Nemesis lies in wait, pursues, overtakes so many of the conquering race, who are proud of their wisdom, of their knowledge, of their strength. But for me all the East is contained in that vision of my youth. It is all in that moment when I opened my young eyes on it. I came upon it from a tussle with the sea - and I was young - and I saw it looking at me. And this is all that is left of it! Only a moment; a moment of strength, of romance, of glamour - of youth! ... A flick of sunshine upon a strange shore, the time to remember, the time for a sigh, and -goodbye-Night-Goodbye...!"

He drank.

"Ah! The good old time - the good old time. Youth and the sea. Glamour and the sea! The good, strong sea, the salt, bitter sea, that could whisper to you and roar at you and knock your breath out of you."

He drank again.

"By all that is wonderful it is the sea, I believe, the sea itself - or is it youth alone? Who can tell? But you here - you all had something out of life: money, love - whatever one gets on shore - and, tell me, wasn't that the best time, that time when we were young at sea; young and had nothing, on the sea that gives nothing, except hard knocks - and sometimes a chance to feel your strength - and that only, what you all regret?"

And we all nodded at him: the man of finance, the man of accounts, the man of law, we all nodded at him over the polished table that like a still sheet of brown water reflected our faces, lined, wrinkled; our faces marked by toil, by deceptions, by success, by love; our weary eyes looking still, looking always, looking anxiously for something out of life, that while it is expected is already gone - has passed unseen, in a sight, in a flash - together with the youth, with the strength, with the romance of illusions.

-Joseph Conrad, from "Youth"

on Love

...the problem of love, in the contemporary way of looking at the world, is regarded as something given, as something already understood and known. Different systems contribute little that is enlightening to an understanding of love. So although in reality love is for us the same enigma as is death, yet for some strange reason we think about it less. We seem to have developed certain cut and dried standards in regard to an understanding of love, and men thoughtlessly accept this or that standard. Art, which from its very nature should have much to say on this subject, gives a great deal of attention to love; love ever has been, and perhaps still is, the principal theme of art. But even art chiefly confines itself merely to descriptions and to the psychological analysis of love, seldom touching those infinite and eternal depths which love contains for man.

If, for convenience in reasoning, we shall accept the division of man and of the world into three planes: material, psychic and spiritual, then we may say that all the current understandings of love are confined to the material plane; art deals with love on the material and psychic planes, while only as a rare exception do philosophy and art rise to the spiritual plane in the understanding of love. It is commonly assumed that love does not reach the spiritual plane, and even hinders the spiritual evolution.

From this point of view the denial of love, and its repression, which is regarded as the overcoming of the flesh, conduces to spiritual development.

Humanity has had far other understandings of love, but for the most part they are lost and forgotten, and contemporary thought of the most diverse shades does not comprehend, except by flashes, the most important aspects of love - its mystical and religious content. The chief cause of this condition of things lies in the fact that the two great religions which embrace the majority of human-kind - Christianity and Buddhism - deal with love negatively, as a deplorable necessity of physical existence, and as a phenomenon of a lower order in comparison with spiritual aspirations, with which it is assumed to interfere. This view, milleniums old, has inevitably affected the most various modes of world-contemplation. Moreover, during the last few centuries, a growing materialism has cheapened love in men's minds even more, degrading it to a material fact with material consequences, which fact is on a level with other physiological functions of the organism. As a result of such a direction of thought, of such a warped point of view, contemporary humanity has almost entirely lost the spiritual understanding of love.

So that in our time men understand love as a common, every-day manner of life, they understand it as a psychological phenomenon, but all idea and sense of the cosmical element of love is atrophied in them.

In the first mentioned case - in an every-day understanding of love - men strive to utilize love as an instrument or means for the settling of their lives; and in the second, they demand of love that it shall settle the affairs of their souls. But in both cases love is burdened by purposes and problems which do not belong to it at all. In reality love is a cosmic phenomenon, in which men, humanity, are merely accidents: a cosmic phenomenon which has nothing to do with either the lives or the souls of men, any more than that the sun is shining, that by its light men may go about their little affairs, and that they may utilize it for their own purposes. If men would only understand this, even with a part of their consciousness, a new world would open, and to look on life from all our usual angles would become very strange.

For then they would understand that love is something else, and of quite a different order from the petty phenomena of earthly life.

Perhaps love is a world of strange spirits who at times take up their abode in men, subduing them to themselves, making them tools for the accomplishment of their inscrutable purposes. Perhaps it is some particular region of the inner world wherein the souls of men sometimes enter, and where they live according to the laws of that world, while their bodies remain on earth, bound by the laws of earth. Perhaps it is an alchemical work of some Great Master wherein the souls and bodies of men play the role of elements out of which is compounded a philosopher's stone, or an elixir of life, or some mysterious magnetic force necessary to someone for some incomprehensible purpose.

It is difficult to understand all this, and to make it seem rational. But by seeking to understand these mysterious purposes and by departing from mundane interpretations, man, without even being conscious of it at first, unites himself with the higher purposes and finds that thread which in the end of all ends will lead him out of the labyrinth of earthly contradictions.

But this thread must be found first through the emotions, by direct feeling, and only afterwards by reason. And this thread will never reveal itself to a man who denies love and scorns it, because the denial of the importance and deep meaning of love always results from the materialistic view, and the materialistic view of love cannot be true. This view cannot be true because it considers love too narrowly, deduces general conclusions from premises of too negligible a percentage of data based on facts, sees only in a plane section a phenomenon of four-dimensional character. Love is exactly as material a phenomenon as is the picture of a painter or the symphony of a musician. To analyze and evaluate love materialistically is precisely the same thing as trying to value a picture by its weight and a symphony by the volume of sound produced.

What does the spiritual understanding of love mean?

It means the understanding of the fact that love does not serve life, but serves the higher apprehension. If he is in right relation to it, love attunes man to the note of the "wondrous," strips off veils, opens closed doors. Both in the past, and perhaps in the present, there undoubtedly have been attempts at the understanding of love divorced from life, as a cult, as a magical ceremony, attuning body and soul to the reception of the wondrous.

Love in relation to our life is a deity, sometimes terrible, sometimes benevolent, but never subservient to us, never consenting to serve our purposes. Men strive to subordinate love to themselves, to warp it to the uses of their everyday mode of life, and to their souls' uses; but it is impossible to subordinate love to anything, and it mercilessly revenges itself upon these little mortals who would subordinate love to anything, and it mercilessly revenges itself upon these little mortals who would subordinate God to themselves and make Him serve them. It confuses all their calculations, and forces them to do things which confound themselves, forcing them to serve itself, to do what it wants.

Although our relation to love is so naive, there is no reason to suppose that men cannot take toward it an entirely different attitude, or that they always have been or always will be completely bound by materialism, without flashes of understanding of the wondrous in love...

The chief error that men make about love consists in the fact that they believe in its reality, and ascribe love to themselves; or, generally, to mankind. It seems to them that love begins in them, belongs to them, ends in them. And even when they admit that everything in the world depends upon love and moves by love, they still seek in themselves the sources of love.

Mistaken about the origin of love, men are mistaken about its result. Positivistic and spiritistic morality equally recognize in love only one possible result - children, the propagation of the species. But this objective result, which may or may not be, is in any case an effect of the outer, objective side of love, of the material fact of impregnation. If it is possible to see in love nothing more than this material fact and the desire for it, so be it; but in reality love consists not at all in a material fact, and the results of it - except material ones - may manifest themselves on quite another plane. This other plane, upon which love acts, and the ignored, hidden results of love, are not difficult to understand, even from the strictly positivistic, scientific standpoint.

To science, which studies life from this side, the purpose of love is the continuation of life. More exactly, love is a link in the chain of facts supporting the continuation of life. The force which attracts the two sexes to one another is acting in the interests of the continuation of the species, and is accordingly created by the forms of the continuation of the species. But if we regard love in this way, then it is impossible not to recognize that there is much more of this force than is necessary. Herein lies the key to the correct understanding of the true nature of love. There is more of this force than is necessary, infinitely more. In reality only an infinitesimal part of love's force incarnate in humanity is utilized for the purpose of the continuation of the species. But where does the major part of that force go?

We know that nothing can be lost. If energy exists, then it must transform itself into something. Now if a merely negligible percentage of energy goes into the creation of the future by begetting, then the remainder must go into the creation of the future also, but in another way. We have in the physical world many causes in which the direct function is effected by a very small percentage of the consumed energy, and the greater part is spent without return, as it were. But of course this greater part of energy does not disappear, is not wasted, but accomplishes other results quite different from the direct function.

Take the example of a common candle. It gives light, but it also gives considerably more heat than light. Light is the direct function of a candle, heat the indirect, but we get more heat than light. A candle is a furnace adapted to the purpose of lighting. In order to give light a candle must burn. Combustion is a necessary condition for the receiving of light from a candle; it is impossible to ignore this combustion but the same combustion gives heat. At first thought it appears that the heat from a candle is spent unproductively; sometimes it is superfluous, unpleasant, annoying; if a room is lighted by candles it will soon grow excessively hot. But the fact remains that light is received from a candle only because of combustion - by the development of heat and the incandescence of volatilized gases.

The same thing is true in the case of love. We may say that a merely negligible part of love's energy goes into posterity; the greater part is spent by the fathers and mothers on their personal emotions as it were. But this also is necessary. Without this expenditure the principal thing could not be achieved. Only because of these at first sight collateral results of love, only because of all this tempest of emotions, feelings, effervescences, desires, thoughts, dreams, fantasies, inner creation; only because of the beauty which it creates, can love fulfill its immediate function.

Moreover - and this perhaps is the most important - the superfluous energy is not wasted at all, but is transformed into other forms of energy, possible to discover. Generally speaking, the significance of the indirect results may very often be of more importance than the significance of direct ones. And since we are able to trace how the energy of love transforms itself into instincts, ideas, creative forces on different planes of life; into symbols of art, song, music, poetry; so can we easily imagine how the same energy may transform itself into a higher order of intuition, into a higher consciousness which will reveal to us a marvelous and mysterious world.

In all living nature (and perhaps also in that which we consider as dead) love is the motive force which drives the creative activity in the most diverse directions.

In springtime, with the first awakening of love's emotions, the birds begin to sing, and to build nests.

Of course a positivist would strive to explain all this very simply: singing acts as an attraction between the females and the males, and so forth. But even a positivist will not be in a position to deny that there is a good deal more of this singing than is necessary for the "continuation of the species." For a positivist, indeed, "singing" is merely "an accident," a "by-product." But in reality it may be that this singing is the principal function of a given species, the realization of its existence, the purpose pursued by nature in creating this species; and that this singing is necessary, not so much to attract the females, as for some general harmony of nature which we only rarely and imperfectly sense.

Thus in this case we observe that what appears to be a collateral function of love, from the standpoint of the individual, may serve as a principal function of the species.

Furthermore, there are no fledglings yet: there is even no intimation of them, but "homes" are prepared for them nevertheless. Love inspires this orgy of activity, and instinct directs it, because it is expedient from the standpoint of the species. At the first awakening of love this work begins. One and the same desire creates a new generation and those conditions under which this new generation will live. One and the same desire urges forward creative activity in all directions, brings the pairs together for the birth of a new generation, and makes them build and create for this same future generation.

We observe the same thing in the world of men: there too love is the creative force. And the creative activity of love does not manifest itself in one direction only, but in many ways. It is indeed probable that by the spur of love, Eros, humanity is aroused to the fulfillment of its principal function, of which we know nothing, but only at times by glimpses hazily perceive.

-Ouspensky, from Tertium Organum, 162-68

The Soul of an Artist

I find an interesting example of the understanding of the hidden meaning of phenomena contained in "The Occult World" in the letter of a Hindu occultist to the author of the book, A.P. Sinnett.

"We see a vast difference [he writes] between the two qualities of two equal amounts of energy expended by two men, of whom one, let us suppose, is on his way to his daily quiet work, and another on his way to denounce a fellow creature at the police station, while the men of science see none; and we - not they - see a specific difference between the energy in the motion of the wind and that of a revolving wheel.
Every thought of man upon being evolved passes into the inner world, and becomes an active entity by associating itself, coalescing we might term it, with an elemental - that is to say, with one of the semi-intelligent forces of the kingdom."

If we ignore the last part of this quotation for the moment, and consider only the first part, we shall easily see that the "man of science" does not recognize the difference in the quality of the energy spent by two men going, one to his work, another to denounce someone. For the man of science this difference is negligible: science does not sense it and does not recognize it. But perhaps the difference is much deeper and consists not in the difference between modes of energy but in the difference between men, one of whom is able to develop energy of one sort and another that of a different sort. Now we have a form of knowledge which senses this difference perfectly, knows and understands it. I am speaking of art. The musician, the painter, the sculptor well understand that it is possible to walk differently - and even impossible not to walk differently: a workman and a spy cannot walk like one another.

Better than all the actor understands this, or at least he should understand it better.

The poet understands that the mast of a ship, the gallows, and the cross are made of different wood. He understands the difference between the stone from a church wall and the stone from a prison wall. He hears "the voices of stones," understands the whisperings of ancient walls, of tumuli, of mountains, rivers, woods and plains. He hears "the voice of the silence," understands the psychological difference of silence, knows that one silence can differ from another. And this poetical understanding of the world should be developed, strengthened and fortified, because only by its aid do we come in contact with the true world of reality. In the real world, behind phenomena which appear to us similar, often stand noumena so different that only by our blindness is it possible to account for our idea of the similarity of those phenomena.

Through such a false idea the current belief in the similarity and equality of men must have arisen. In reality the difference between a "hangman," a "sailor," and an "ascetic" is not an accidental difference of position, state and heredity, as materialism tries to assure us; nor is it a difference between the stages of one and the same evolution, as theosophy affirms; but it is a deep and IMPASSABLE difference - such as exists between murder, work and prayer - involving entirely different worlds. The representatives of these worlds may seem to us to be similar MEN, only because we see not them, but their shadows only.

It is necessary to accustom oneself to the thought that this difference is not metaphysical but entirely real, more real than many visible differences between things and between phenomena.

All art, in essence, consists of the understanding and representation of these elusive differences. The phenomenal world is merely a means for the artist - just as colors are for the painter, and sounds for the musician - a means for the understanding of the noumenal world and for the expression of that understanding. At the present stage of our development, we possess nothing so powerful, as an instrument of knowledge of the world of causes, as art. The mystery of life dwells in the fact that the noumenon, i.e., the hidden meaning and the hidden function of a thing, is reflected in its phenomenon. A phenomenon is merely the reflection of a noumenon in our sphere. THE PHENOMENON IS THE IMAGE OF THE NOUMENON. It is possible to know the noumenon by the phenomenon. But in this field the chemical reagents and spectroscopes can accomplish nothing. Only that fine apparatus which is called the soul of an artist can understand and feel the reflection of the noumenon in the phenomenon. In art it is necessary to study "occultism" - the hidden side of life. The artist must be a clairvoyant; he must see that which others do not see: he must be a magician, must possess the power to make others see that which they do not themselves see, but which he does see.

Art sees more and further than we do. As was said before we usually see nothing, we merely feel our way; therefore we do not notice those differences between things which cannot be expressed in terms of chemistry or physics. But art is the beginning of vision; it sees vastly more than the most perfect apparatus can discover; and it senses the infinite invisible facets of that crystal, one facet of which we call man.

The truth is that this earth is the scene of a drama of which we only perceive scattered portions, and in which the greater number of the actors are invisible to us.

-Ouspensky, Tertium Organum, 155-157