The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 1, July, 1862

It is, therefore, needless to say that we welcome with pleasure the plan of An Institute of Technology, which it is proposed to establish in Boston, and which, to judge from its excellently well prepared prospectus, will fully meet, in every particular, all the requirements which we have laid down as essential to a perfect Polytechnic Institute. Indeed, the wide scope of this plan, its capacity for embracing every subject in the range of science, and of communicating it to the public either by publication, by free lectures, by a museum of reference, or by collegiate instruction, leaves but little to be desired. That there is great need of such an institution in this State is apparent from many causes. In the words of the prospectus, we feel that in New-England, and especially in our own Commonwealth, the time has arrived when, as we believe, the interests of Commerce and Arts, as well as General Education, call for the most earnest cooperation of intelligent culture with industrial pursuits. It is no exaggeration to state that probably no project was ever before presented to the wealthy men of Massachusetts which appealed so earnestly to their aid or gave such fair promise of doing good. The institute in question is one which will in every respect, socially and mentally, elevate the business man or practical man to a level with the college graduate or the practitioner in the three learned professions. It will stimulate progress by still further refining industry, and ally the action of capital to the advance of intellect. It will perform a noble and distinguished part in the great mission of the age and of future ages—that of vindicating the dignity of free labor and showing that the humblest work may be rendered high-toned and raised to a level with the calling of scholar or diplomatist through the influence of science. If we were called on to set forth the noble spirit of the North with all its free labor and all its glorious tendencies, we should, with whole heart and soul, choose this magnificent conception of an institute whose aim is to confer dignity on what the wretched and ignorant slaveocracy believe is cursed into everlasting vulgarity. It is fitting that this practical and eminently intelligent and progressive community should build up, on a grand scale, an institution which will be not only eminently useful and profitable, but serve as a culminating exponent of the great and liberal ideas for which the North has already made in every form the most remarkable sacrifices.

'While the vast and increasing magnitude of the industrial interests of New-England furnishes a powerful incentive to the establishment—within its borders of an institution devoted to technological uses, it can not be doubted that the concentration of these interests in so great a degree, in and around Boston, renders the capital of the State an eligible site for such an undertaking. Indeed, considering the peculiar genius of our busy population for the Practical Arts, and marking their avidity in the study of scientific facts and principles tending to explain or advance them, we see a special and most striking fitness in the establishment of such an Institution among them, and we gather a confident assurance of its preëminent utility and success. Nor can we advert to the intelligence which is so well known as guiding the large munificence of our community, without taking encouragement in the inception of the enterprise, and feeling the assurance, that whatever is adapted to advance the industrial and educational interests of the Commonwealth will receive from them the heartiest sympathy and support.'

As we have stated, the plan proposed is to establish an Institution to be devoted to the practical arts and sciences, to be called the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, having the triple organization of a Society of Arts, a Museum or Conservatory of Arts, and a School of Industrial Science and Art. Under the first of these three divisions—that of the Society of Arts—the Institute of Technology would form itself into a department of investigation and publication—devoting itself in every manner to collecting and rendering readily available to the public all such information as can in any way aid the interests of art and industry. If our manufacturers will reflect an instant on the vast amount of knowledge relative to their specialties extant in the world, which they have as individuals great difficulty in procuring, and which would be useful, but which an Institute devoted to the purpose could furnish without difficulty, they will at once appreciate the good which may be done by it. For many years the only comprehensive summaries of American Manufactures were a German work by Fleischmann, On the Branches of American Industry, to which was subsequently added Whitworth and Wallis's Report—drawn up for the British government, and Freedley's Philadelphia Manufactures—to which we should in justice add the invaluable series of Hunt's Merchant's Magazine, and the Patent Office Reports. The community needs more, however, than books can furnish. It requires the constant accumulation and dissemination of technological knowledge of every kind. It is proposed in the new Institute to effect this partly by publication and in a great measure by the labor of committees, devoted to the following subjects:

1. Mineral Materials—having charge of all relating to the mineral substances used in building and sculpture, ores, metals, coal, and in fact, all mineral substances employed in the useful arts, as well as what pertains to mining, quarrying, and smelting.

2. Organic Materials—embracing whatever is practically interesting in all vegetable and animal substances used in manufacturing, having in view their sources, culture, collection, commercial importance and qualities as connected with manufacturing. This department presents a vast field of immense importance to every merchant and importer of raw material.

3. On Tools and Instruments—devoted to all the implements and apparatus needed in all processes of manufacture.

4. On Machinery and Motive Powers.

5. On Textile Manufactures.

6. On Manufactures of Wood, Leather, Paper, India-Rubber, etc.

7. On Pottery, Glass, and Precious Metals.

8. On Chemical Products and Processes.

9. On Household Economy. This department would embrace attention to whatever relates to warming, illumination, water-supply, ventilation, and the preparation and preservation of food, as well as the protection of the public health.

10. On Engineering and Architecture.

11. On Commerce, Navigation, and Inland Transport. This department alone, developed in detail, and on the scale proposed, would of itself amply repay any amount of encouragement and investment. To collect and classify for the use of the public all available information on the subject of shipping, the improvement of harbors, the construction of docks, the location and efficiency of railroads, and other channels of inland intercourse; 'keeping chiefly in view the economical questions of trade and exchange, which give these works of mechanical and engineering skill their high commercial value,' is a project as grand as it is useful.

12. On the Graphic and Fine Arts.

Of the importance of the proposed Museum of Industrial Science and Art, it is needless to speak. It would be for the public the central feature of the Institute, and of incalculable value not only to it, but to all engaged in all active industry whatever.

As regards the School of Industrial Science and Art, with its divisions, we see no occasion for material cause of difference between its constitution and that of the excellent Polytechnic College in Philadelphia. New departments of instruction could be added as the means and power of the Institute increased, until it would ultimately form what the world needs but has never yet seen—a thoroughly scientific University, in which every branch of human knowledge should be clearly taught on a positive basis—a school where literature and art would be ennobled and refined by elevation from mysticism, 'rhapsody,' and obscurity, to their true position as historical developments and indices of human progress. We are pleased to see that in the plan proposed, provision would be made for two classes of persons—those who enter the school with the view of a progressive scientific training in applied science, and the far more numerous class who may be expected to resort to its lecture-rooms for such useful knowledge of scientific principles as they can acquire without continually devoted study, and in hours not occupied by active labor.

This whole plan, though in the highest degree practical, has, it will be observed, 'no affinity with that instruction in mere empirical routine which has sometimes been vaunted as the proper education for the industrial classes'—an absurd and shallow system which has been urged by quacks and dabblers in world-bettering, and which has been exhausted without avail in England—the system dear to single-sided Gradgrinds and illiterate men who grasp a twig here and there without knowing of the existence of the trunk and roots. It lays down a perfectly scientific and universal basis, believing that the most insignificant industry, to be perfectly understood and pursued, must proceed from a knowledge of the great principles of science and of all truth.

Under the charge of Professor W.B. Rogers, Messrs. Charles H. Dalton, E.B. Bigelow, James M. Beebee, and other members of a committee embracing some of the most public-spirited men of Boston, this plan has been thus far matured, and now awaits the sympathy, aid, and counsel of the friends of industrial art and general education throughout the community. We have gladly set forth its objects and claims, trusting that it may be fully successful here, and serve as an exemplar for the establishment of similar institutions in every other State.

SLAVERY AND NOBILITY vs. DEMOCRACY

Few political convulsions have hitherto transpired, which have so much puzzled the world to get at the entire motives of the revolt, as the present insurrection in this country. Were public opinion to be made up from the political literature of Great Britain, or its leading journals, very little certainty would be arrived at as to the merits or demerits of the attempted revolution. The articles of De Bow's Review smack little more of a secession origin than the late dissertations on American politics appearing in the British periodicals. The statements of most of the leading English journals are quite in keeping. Any one accustomed to the 'ear-marks' of secession phraseology and declamation would be at little loss to identify the Southern emissary in connection with the periodicals and press of the British islands. Hence the hypocrisy and studied concealment of those hidden motives necessary to be made apparent, in order to judge of the merits of secession.

The world has known that for thirty years past there has been a feverish and jealous discontent expressed in the cotton States. It had its first ebullition in 1832, when South-Carolina assumed the right to nullify the revenue laws of Congress. Since that time the North has continually been accused of an aggressive policy. Various extravagant pretenses have from time to time been raised up by the South, and urged as causes for dissolving the Union. They have always, until recently, been met by forbearance and compromise.

The extension and perpetuation of slavery has been prominent as the open motive for Southern political activity; and equally prominent as one of the motives for dismembering the Union. There has been another project, however, in connection with the attempted dissolution of the Union, of a most alarming nature: that project was the intended prostration of the democratic principle in Southern politics. While a privileged order in government was made the basis of political ambition by the aspirants or leading spirits, it was also to be made the means of perpetuating the institution of slavery. Whether these adjuncts, slavery perpetuation, and government through a privileged class, were twins of the same birth, is not very material; but whether they existed together as the joint motive to overthrow the national jurisdiction, involves very deeply the present and continuing questions in American politics.

To many gentlemen of intelligence and high standing in the South, the intended establishment of a different order of government, based on privilege of class, has appeared to be the ruling motive. They have set down the expressed apprehension as to the insecurity of slavery as a hypocritical pretext for revolution; believing that the more absorbing motive was to establish an order of nobility, either with or without monarchy. There is some plausibility for giving the ambitious motive the greater prominence; but a more severe analysis of the whole question will, it is believed, place slavery perpetuation in the foreground as the origin of all other motives for the conspiracy.

In classifying slaveholders, it is undoubtedly true that a small portion of them were Democrats in principle, and ardently attached to the National Government—perhaps would have preferred the abolition of slavery to the subversion of its jurisdiction. Another class, composing a majority, though distrusting the National Government, connected as it was and must be with a voting power representing twenty-six or seven millions of free labor, yet more distrusted the attempt at revolution. This class saw more danger in the proposed revolt than from continuing in the Union. Another class were politically ambitious; had ventured upon the revilement of the Democratic principle; had become secessionists per se, and were the instruments and plotters of the treason. This was substantially the condition of public opinion among slaveholders at the time of the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency. These three classes, embracing the slaveholders and their families, composed about one million five hundred thousand of the white population of the South.

Of the seven millions non-slaveholding population South, a small portion was engaged in trade and commerce, and naturally inclined to oppose secession; but timid in its apprehensions as to protection, was ready to acquiesce in the most extravagant opinions; in other words, like trade and commerce every where, too much disposed to make merchandise of its politics. The balance of the non-slaveholding population, if we except a venal pulpit and press, had not even a specious motive, pecuniary or political, moral or social, that should have drawn it into rebellion. It was a part and portion of the great brother-hood of free labor, and could not by any possibility raise up a plausible pretense of jealousy against its natural ally—free labor in the North.

In estimating the strength of a cause, we are obliged to take into account the actually existing reasons in favor of its support. Delusion, founded on a fictitious cause of complaint, is but a weak basis for revolution. It may have an apparent strength to precipitate revolt, but has no power of endurance. There is a reflection that comes through calamity and suffering that rises superior to sophistry in the most common minds. If not already, this will soon be the case with the whole Southern population. The slaveholder and the man of trade and commerce who feared the tumult, and would have avoided it, will have seen their apprehensions turned into the fulfillment of prophecy. The non-slave-holding farmer, mechanic, or laborer, will be made to see clearly that his interest did not lie on the side of treason. The political adventurer who planned the conspiracy, is already brought to see the fallacy of his dream. He may now consider the incongruous materials of Southern population. He may view that population in classes. He may contemplate it through the medium of its natural motives of fidelity to the Government on the one hand, and of its artificial delusion on the other. He may now go to the bottom of Southern society, and find in its conflicting elements the antagonistic motives that render the plans of treason abortive. These will be sure to continue, and sure to strengthen on the side of fidelity to the National Government. When the South is made a solid, compact unit in political motive, it will become so, disarmed of all purposes of treason.

It has been repeatedly asserted that the South was a political unit on the question of the attempted revolution. This declaration has been reïterated by the Southern press, by travelers, and by all the influences connected with the rebellion. It is not now necessary to delineate the quasi military organization of the Knights of the Golden Circle, or their operations in cajoling and terrorizing the Southern population into acquiescence. Much unanimity through this process was made to appear on the surface; but it is more palpable to the analytic mind acquainted with Southern society, that the very means employed to enforce acquiescence afforded also the evidence that there was a strong under-current of aversion. Willing apostasy from allegiance to the Union needed no terrorizing from mobs or murders. The ruffianism of the South had been fully armed in advance of the full disclosure of the plot to secede. Loyalty had been as carefully disarmed by the same active influences. It had nothing to oppose to arms but its unprotected sentiments. As soon as the law of force was invoked by the conspirators, the day of reasoning was wholly past. Flight or conformity became the condition precedent of safety, even for life. The bulk of the Southern population was as much conspired against as the Government at Washington; and force against the same population was rigorously called into requisition to consummate what fraud and political crime had concocted. This was the boasted unity of the South.

The inquiry is often made: 'How was it possible to have inaugurated the rebellion, without the bulk of the slaveholders, at least, acting in concert?' This inquiry is not easily answered, unless its solution is found in the fact that slaveholders, through jealousy, had parted with their active loyalty to the National Government. This was generally the case. Whilst the bulk of them hesitated for a little to take the fearful step of revolt, their hesitation was more connected with apprehension of its consequences than with any attachment to the Government. The deceptive idea of peaceable secession first drew them within the lines of the open traitor. The supposed probability of success made them allies in rebellion. As a general sentiment, they made their imaginary adieux to the Government of their fathers without apparent regret.

There has been much misapprehension as to the process of reasoning that brought slaveholders in the main to repudiate their Government. They were influenced by no apprehension of present danger to the institution of slavery. It was something far beyond the power of any party to stipulate against. Their apprehensions were connected with the laws of population and subsistence and the certain motive to political affiliation that underlies the platform of free-labor society. When indulging in the belief of peaceable secession, they expressed their sentiments truly in the declaration that 'they would not remain in the Union, were a blank sheet of paper presented, and they permitted to write their own terms.' This declaration merely characterized the foregone conclusion. It was the evidence of a previous determination, merely withheld for a season, in order to gain time.

But to come to a more definite delineation of the reasons that operated to raise up the conspiracy. There was a partial feud that had long existed in the mutual jealousies between the slaveholders and non-slaveholding population. Nothing very remarkable, however, had transpired to indicate an outbreak. Southern white labor was continually annoyed with the appellation of 'white trash,' and other contemptuous epithets; but still was obliged to toil on under the continuous insult. The habits and usages of slaveholders and their families, indicated by manners toward white labor, that white labor did not command their respect. Too many of the accidental droppings of foolish and stupid arrogance were let fall within the hearing of white labor to make it fully reconciled to the pretended monopoly of respectability by slaveholders. Under this corroded feeling, much of the white labor of the South had emigrated to the free States. In 1850, seven hundred and thirty-two thousand of these emigrants were living. Their communications and intercourse showed to their old friends, relatives, and acquaintances, that they had found homes and friendly treatment on Northern soil; and in addition thereto, a much better and more encouraging condition of society for the industrious white man. The feeling reflected back from the free to the slave States was analogous to that thrown back from the United States to Ireland. Its effect was also the same. Under its influence, nearly two millions are now living in the free States, who are the offshoot and increase of a Southern extraction. Slaveholders merely complained of this flow of population, on the ground that it contributed to overthrow the balance of political power. It would not, perhaps, be amiss to conclude that they saw with equal clearness the incentives that induced the emigration—a silent logic of facts against slavery.

The census statistics, commencing with 1840, have contributed much to play the mischief with the equanimity of slaveholders. They have always known that thorough education in the South was mainly confined to their own families. When, however, the discovery was made public that only one in seven of the aggregate white population of the South was receiving instruction during the year, the disclosure became alarming.⁴ It stood little better than the educational progress of the British Islands, which had crept up, under the fight with Toryism, to the alarming extent of one in eight. That one in four and a half of the aggregate population of the free States was receiving school instruction, made the contrast unpleasant to the mind of the slaveholder. He knew that the fact was 'world—wide,' that slaveholders had always controlled the policy of Southern legislation. He was aware that slaveholders had made themselves responsible for this neglect of the children of the South; and knew also that public opinion would visit the blame where it legitimately belonged. Pro-slavery sagacity was quick-sighted in its apprehensions that it could not dodge the inquiry, 'Whence comes this disparity?'

The statistics of the two sections presented a still more obnoxious comparison to the pro-slavery sensibilities, as it respects the physical condition of the respective populations. The cotton States have mostly been the advocates of 'free trade,' some of them tenaciously so. They deemed it impossible to introduce manufacturing, to much extent, into sections where the yearly surpluses in production were wholly absorbed by investment in land and negroes. The consequence has been, want of diversified industry and want of profitable occupation for the poorer classes. In the Northern and in some of the Border States, a different industrial policy has been pursued. Diversified occupation has raised up skilled labor in nearly every branch of industry. Notwithstanding the greater rigor of climate, adult labor on the average, under full and compensated employment, performs nearly three hundred solid days' work in the year. The eight millions of white population in the South, in consequence of this want of profitable occupation, perform much less, perhaps not one hundred and fifty days' work on the average. The following table, published in 1856-1857, by Mr. Guthrie, then Secretary of the Treasury, discloses a condition of things very remarkable; but no wise astonishing to those who have investigated the causes of the disparity. The ratio of annual per capita production to each man, woman, and child, white and black, in the respective States, exclusive of the gains or earnings of commerce, stood as follows:

It is seen by this table that the income, or product of the non-slaveholding population South, mainly disconnected as it is with mechanical industry, is reduced to the extreme level of bare subsistence, while the population of the States which have introduced diversified industry stand on a high scale of production. Contrast Massachusetts and South-Carolina, the two leading States in the promulgation of opposite theories. These two States have often been censured for the contumelious manner in which they have sometimes sought to repel each other's arguments. The one is in favor of 'free trade.' The other says: 'No State can flourish to much extent without diversified industry.' The one says: 'Open every thing to free competition.' The other replies: 'Are you aware that the interest on manufacturing capital in Europe is much lower; that skilled labor there is more abundant; and that it would dash to the ground most of the manufacturing we have started into growth under protection through our revenue laws?' 'Let it be so,' says Carolina; 'what right exists to adopt a national policy that does not equally benefit all sections?' 'The very object of the policy,' replies Massachusetts, 'is, that it should benefit all sections; and the most desirable object of all, in the eye of beneficence, would be, that it should benefit the laboring white population of the cotton States, as well as others.' 'But,' says Carolina, 'this diversified industry can not be introduced, to much extent, where slavery exists.' 'That is an argument by implication,' says Massachusetts, 'that you more prize slavery than you do the interests and welfare of the bulk of your white population.' 'Who set you up to be a judge on the question of the welfare of any part of the population South?' says Carolina. 'I assume to judge for myself,' replies Massachusetts, 'as to that national policy which is designed to affect beneficially the twenty-seven millions of people who are obliged to obtain subsistence through personal industry; theirs is the great cause of white humanity in its shirt-sleeves; and it behooves the National Government to take care of that cause, and to foster it; and not to submit to the narrow selfishness of a few slaveholders.'

It may readily be seen that this controversy, growing out of the opposite theories of selfish slaveholders on the one hand, and a spirit of beneficence, blended with the idea of a wide-spread advantage on the other, not only involves directly the demerits of slavery, in its prejudicial effect on the non-slaveholding population South, but also the great question of raising up skilled labor in all the States. It is thus clearly demonstrated that our national policy should be exempt from the control of an arrogant and selfish class. Slaveholders have had little sympathy with the great bulk of the white people in the Union; at most, they have never manifested it. Few of them can be trusted politically, where a broad industrial policy is concerned. No one is better aware than the political slaveholder of the crushing effect of slavery on the interests of the non-slaveholding population in the slave States: hence their jealousy of this population as a voting, governing power. The Southern political mind, connected with slaveholding, is astute when sharpened by jealousy. There is no phase in political economy, bearing on the disparity of classes in the South, that has not been taken into the account and analyzed. The fear with slaveholders has been, that the great majority, composed of the white laboring population South, would become able to subject matters to the same scrutinizing analysis.

It would be difficult to convince the American people that slavery is not 'the skeleton in their closet.' Any one who has encountered for years the pro-slavery spirit; who has watched it through its unscrupulous deviations from rectitude, morally, socially, and politically, will have been dull of comprehension not to have appreciated its atrocious disposition. Its great instrumentality in the management of Southern masses, consists not only of a disregard, but of a positive interdict of the principles of civil liberty, in all matters wherein the prejudicial effects of slavery might directly, or by implication, be disclosed. It is true, people are permitted to adulate slavery—so they are allowed to adulate kings, where kings reign. No one in recent years has been allowed the open expression of opinion or argument as to the bad effect of a pro-slavery policy on the great majority of Southern white population. This would bring the offender within the Southern definition of an 'incendiary,' and the offense would be heinous. The pro-slavery spirit has always demanded sycophancy where its strength was great enough to enforce it, and has ever been ready to invoke the law of force where its theories were contradicted. Even the fundamental law of the South, contained in Southern State Constitutions in favor of the 'freedom of speech, and freedom of the press,' is mere rhetorical flourish, where slavery is concerned. It means that you must adulate slavery if you speak of it; and woe to the man that gives this fundamental law any broader interpretation. In its amiable moods, the pro-slavery spirit is often made to appear the gentleman. In its angry, jealous moods, it is both a ruffian and an assassin. Mr. Sumner, of the Senate, once sat for its picture—twice in his turn he drew it—each portrait was a faithful resemblance.

Had we been exempt from slavery and its influences, it is difficult to conceive what possible pretense could have been raised up for revolution. What position could have been taken showing the necessity of disenthrallment from oppressive government? There would have existed no element of political discontent that could by any possibility have culminated in rebellion, aside from the active, jealous, and unscrupulous influence of slaveholders. Rebellion and treason required the lead and direction of an ambitious and reckless class; a class actuated by gross and selfish passions, in disconnection with sympathy for the masses. It required a class stripped and bereft by habits of thinking of the spirit of political beneficence, devoid of national honor, national pride, and national fidelity. Nothing less unscrupulous would have answered to plot, to carry forward, and to manage the incidents of the attempted dismemberment of the Union. It required something worse in its nature than Benedict Arnold susceptibility. His might have been crime, springing from sudden resentment or imaginary wrong. The other is the result of thirty years' concoction under adroit, hypocritical, and unscrupulous leaders. The slaveholders' rebellion has assumed a magnitude commensurate only with long contemplation of the subject. Making all due allowance for the honorable exceptions, this is substantially the phase of pro-slavery infidelity to the Union.