The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII.
by
Various
Part 5 out of 5
Fact is, the less the people know o' wut ther' is a-doin',
The hendier 't is for Guv'ment, sence it henders trouble brewin';
An' noose is like a shinplaster,--it's good, ef you believe it,
Or, wut's all same, the other man thet's goin' to receive it:
Ef you've a son in th' army, wy, it's comfortin' to hear
He'll hev no gretter resk to run than seein' th' in'my's rear,
Coz, ef an F.F. looks at 'em, they ollers break an' run,
Or wilt right down ez debtors will thet stumble on a dun
(An' this, ef an'thin', proves the wuth o' proper fem'ly pride,
Fer sech mean shucks ez creditors are all on Lincoln's side);
Ef I hev scrip thet wun't go off no more 'n a Belgin rifle,
An' read thet it's at par on 'Change, it makes me feel deli'fle;
It's cheerin', tu, where every man mus' fortify his bed,
To hear thet Freedom's the one thing our darkies mos'ly dread,
An' thet experunce, time 'n' agin, to Dixie's Land hez shown
Ther' 's nothin' like a powder-cask f'r a stiddy corner-stone;
Ain't it ez good ez nuts, when salt is sellin' by the ounce
For its own weight in Treash'ry-bons, (ef bought in small amounts,)
When even whiskey's gittin' skurce, an' sugar can't be found,
To know thet all the ellerments o' luxury abound?
An' don't it glorify sal'-pork, to come to understand
It's wut the Richmon' editors call fatness o' the land?
Nex' thing to knowin' you're well off is _nut_ to know when y' ain't;
An' ef Jeff says all's goin' wal, who'll ventur' t' say it ain't?
This cairn the Constitooshun roun' ez Jeff doos in his hat
Is hendier a dreffle sight, an' comes more kin' o' pat.
I tell ye wut, my jedgment is you're pooty sure to fail,
Ez long 'z the head keeps turnin' back for counsel to the tail:
Th' advantiges of our consarn for bein' prompt air gret,
While, 'long o' Congress, you can't strike, 'f you git an iron het;
They bother roun' with argooin', an' var'ous sorts o' foolin',
To make sure ef it's leg'lly het, an' all the while it's coolin',
So 's 't when you come to strike, it ain't no gret to wish ye j'y on,
An' hurts the hammer 'z much or more ez wut it doos the iron.
Jeff don't allow no jawin'-sprees for three months at a stretch,
Knowin' the ears long speeches suits air mostly made to metch;
He jes' ropes in your tonguey chaps an' reg'lar ten-inch bores
An' lets 'em play at Congress, ef they'll du it with closed doors;
So they ain't no more bothersome than ef we'd took an' sunk 'em,
An' yit enj'y th' exclusive right to one another's Buncombe
'Thout doin' nobody no hurt, an' 'thout its costin' nothin',
Their pay bein' jes' Confedrit funds, they findin' keep an' clothin';
They taste the sweets o' public life, an' plan their little jobs,
An' suck the Treash'ry, (no gret harm, for it's ez dry ez cobs,)
An' go thru all the motions jest ez safe ez in a prison,
An' hev their business to themselves, while Buregard hez hisn:
Ez long 'z he gives the Hessians fits, committees can't make bother
'Bout whether 't's done the legle way or whether 't's done the t'other.
An' _I_ tell _you_ you've gut to larn thet War ain't one long teeter
Betwixt _I wan' to_ an' _'T wun't du_, debatin' like a skeetur
Afore he lights,--all is, to give the other side a millin',
An' arter thet's done, th' ain't no resk but wut the lor'll be willin';
No metter wut the guv'ment is, ez nigh ez I can hit it,
A lickin's constitooshunal, pervidin' _We_ don't git it.
Jeff don't stan' dilly-dallyin', afore he takes a fort,
(With no one in,) to git the leave o' the nex' Soopreme Court,
Nor don't want forty-'leven 'weeks o' jawin' an' expoundin'
To prove a nigger hez a right to save him, ef he's drowndin';
Whereas ole Abram'd sink afore he'd let a darkie boost him,
Ef Taney shouldn't come along an' hedn't interdooced him.
It ain't your twenty millions thet'll ever block Jeff's game,
But one Man thet wun't let 'em jog jest ez he's takin' aim:
Your numbers they may strengthen ye or weaken ye, ez 't heppens
They're willin' to be helpin.' hands or wuss'n-nothin' cap'ns.
I've chose my side, an' 't ain't no odds ef I wuz drawed with magnets,
Or ef I thought it prudenter to jine the nighes' bagnets;
I've made my ch'ice, an' ciphered out, from all I see an' heard,
Th' ole Constitooshun never'd git her decks for action cleared,
Long 'z you elect for Congressmen poor shotes thet want to go
Coz they can't seem to git their grub no otherways than so,
An' let your bes' men stay to home coz they wun't show ez talkers,
Nor can't be hired to fool ye an' sof'-soap ye at a caucus,--
Long 'z ye set by Rotashun more 'n ye do by folks's merits,
Ez though experance thriv by change o' sile, like corn an' kerrits,--
Long 'z you allow a critter's "claims" coz, spite o' shoves an' tippins,
He's kep' his private pan jest where't would ketch mos' public
drippins,--
Long 'z A.'ll turn tu an' grin' B.'s exe, ef B.'ll help him grin' hisn,
(An' thet's the main idee by which your leadin' men hev risen,)--
Long 'z you let ary exe be groun'; 'less 'L is to cut the weasan'
O' sneaks thet dunno till they're told wut is an' wut ain't Treason,-
Long 'z ye give out commissions to a lot o' peddlin' drones
Thet trade in whiskey with their men an' skin 'em to their bones,--
Long 'z ye sift out "safe" canderdates thet no one ain't afeared on
Coz they're so thund'rin' eminent for bein' never heard on,
An' hain't no record, ez it's called, for folks to pick a hole in,
Ez ef it hurt a man to hev a body with a soul in,
An' it wuz ostenstashun to be showm' on't about,
When half his feller-citizens contrive to do without,--
Long 'z you suppose your votes can turn biled kebbage into brain,
An' ary man thet's pop'lar's fit to drive a lightnin'-train,--
Long 'z you believe democracy means _I'm ez good ez you be,_
An' thet a feller from the ranks can't be a knave or booby,--
Long 'z Congress seems purvided, like yer street-cars an' yer 'busses,
With oilers room for jes' one more o' your spiled-in-bakin' cusses,
Dough'thout the emptins of a soul, an' yit with means about 'em
(Like essence-peddlers[A]) thet 'll make folks long to be without 'em,
Jest heavy 'nough to turn a scale thet's doubtfle the wrong way,
An' make their nat'ral arsenal o' bein' nasty pay,--
Long 'z them things last, (an' I don't see no gret signs of improvin',)
I sha'n't up stakes, not hardly yit, nor't wouldn't pay for movin';
For, 'fore you lick us, it 'll be the long'st day ever you see.
Yourn, (ez I 'xpec' to be nex' spring,)
B., MARKISS O' BIG BOOSY.
[Footnote A: A rustic euphemism for the American variety of the
_Mephitis_.--H.W.]
* * * * *
TAXATION.
Milton, in his superb sonnet to Sir Henry Vane the Younger, declares
that Rome, in the most prosperous age of the Republic, never possessed a
better senator,--
"Whether to settle peace, or to unfold
The hollow drift of States, hard to be spelled;
Then to advise how war may, best upheld,
Move by _her two main nerves, iron and gold,_
In all her equipage."
The list of his writings appended by Mr. Upham to his instructive
biography of our _quondam_ fellow-citizen and governor[A] does not
enable us to judge to which of his twenty-five works Milton particularly
refers, in this magnificent commendation of Sir Henry Vane's financial
skill. It might be inferred, however, from the significant union of iron
and gold, as the "main nerves" of war, that he understood the importance
of a specie currency, which in fact, in those days, was the only
currency known.
[Footnote A: Sir Henry Vane the Younger, being then twenty-three
years of age, arrived in Boston in 1635, was chosen governor of
the Colony in 1636, and returned to England the next year. His
house stood, within the recollection of the writer, on what is
now Tremont Street, on a spot opposite the Museum.]
Our business, however, at present, is not with currency, but with taxes,
which as long ago as Cicero's time were pronounced "the nerves of the
State," and which, whether paid in gold or in what can in the present
condition of the country be best substituted, must be allowed to be the
great sympathetic nerve of the body-politic. Introduce a wise and
efficient system of taxation, and life and energy will pervade the
country. Without such a system it will soon sink into a general and
fatal paralysis.
The country is engaged at this moment in a struggle of unexampled
magnitude. The great wars of the last generation in Europe gathered no
army equal in magnitude to that which the Government of the United
States has, within little more than six months, called into being. Its
naval operations, so far as concerns the extent of sea-coast effectively
blockaded, and considering the condition of that branch of the service
at the breaking out of the war, will not suffer in comparison with those
of England in the wars of the French Revolution. England is now
threatening to take part against us in this war, waged by the first
State (according to Mr. Vice-president Stephens) ever avowedly founded
on Slavery as its corner-stone, on the ground that our blockade of the
Southern ports is not effectual,--forgetting, apparently, that our last
war with her was in part to resist her pretended right to seal up with a
paper blockade every port in the French Empire.
The great practical question which presses most heavily upon the mind,
not only of every person responsible for the conduct of affairs, but of
every intelligent and thoughtful citizen, is, in what way the vast
expenditure is to be met, which is necessary to bring this gigantic
struggle to a prompt and successful issue. It has been customary, from
the first, to estimate this expenditure at a million and a half of
dollars _per diem_, and it will not be lessened while the war
lasts. How is this frightful expenditure to be met?
The answer is simple, and is contained in the one little word
"Taxation." Without this, all else will be of no avail. Our civil rulers
may have the wisdom of Solomon; our generals and admirals may equal in
skill and courage the greatest captains of ancient or modern times; we
may place in the field the bravest and best-disciplined armies that ever
battled in a righteous cause,--but without an amount of taxation
adequate to sustain the credit of the Government, all this show of
counsel and strength will pass away, and that at no distant period, like
a morning cloud and the early dew.
"Adequate to sustain the credit of the Government,"--for that is all
that is required. It is by no means necessary, as it is by no means
just, that the whole of this vast expenditure should fall upon the
shoulders of the present generation. Engaged in a contest of which the
result, for good or for evil, is, if possible, more important to
posterity than to ourselves,--a struggle in which the great cause of
civil liberty, as embodied and regulated by the Constitution and laws,
is more deeply involved, not only for this, but for all future
generations, than in any other war ever waged,--it is not right that the
burden should fall exclusively on ourselves. Nor is it necessary. There
is, perhaps, no feature in our modern civilization in which its beauty,
flexibility, and strength, as compared with that of antiquity, is more
signally displayed, than the well-organized credit-system of a
prosperous State: the system which makes men not only willing, but
desirous, to forego the actual possession of that darling property which
has been the great object of desire through life,--which they have
sought by all honest and, unhappily too often, dishonest means, to gain
and accumulate,--provided only they can receive a fair equivalent for
its use. By the wise application of this almost mysterious principle,
the members of modern civilized States are not only, for the time being,
much more effectually consociated in the joint life and action of the
country than would have been possible without it, but even distant
generations--men separated from each other by years, not to say
ages--are brought into a noble partnership of effort in great and
generous undertakings and sacrifices.
Dr. Johnson somewhat cynically says, that
"Mortgaged States, in everlasting debt,
From age to age their grandsires' wreaths regret."
This may be true of debts incurred in wars of ambition and conquest; but
what citizen of the United States, at the present day, would not, with a
willing mind, if it were still necessary, bear his part of the pecuniary
burdens of the American Revolution?
It is a well-established law of public credit, that it can be carried to
any length to which it is sustained by an efficient system of taxation.
So long as provision is made to secure in this way the regular payment
of the interest on the sums borrowed, the Government holds the
purse-strings of the capitalist, and has nothing to do but to call for
whatever amount is needed for the public service. This, however, is the
essential condition, and nothing else will, for any length of time,
produce the desired result. In the first fervor of a great popular
movement, and in confident reliance that effective provision to sustain
it will eventually be made, a large loan may be obtained from the banks,
from capitalists, or the mass of the people; but this will be a
temporary, probably a solitary, effort. No Government can permanently
sustain its credit, but by providing the means (independent of credit)
to pay the interest on its public debt. To borrow more money in order to
pay the interest on that already borrowed is bankruptcy in disguise.
With these general principles established and clearly borne in mind, we
perceive the absurdity of the language which has been so freely used
abroad and is even sometimes heard at home, since the suspension of
specie-payments, that the United States are on the verge of bankruptcy.
Let the expenses of the war in which we are now engaged against the
"disappointed aspirants" of the South be estimated as high as six
hundred millions of dollars. A loan to this amount implies, at the usual
rate, the payment of an interest of thirty-six millions, certainly a
large amount in addition to the ordinary expenditure of the Government,
but not more than a fifth part of the annual interest on the public debt
of England,--by no means a formidable percentage, allowing for a short
war, on the annual surplus income of the country.
In fact, when we cast our eyes over the continent and contemplate the
vast extent of fertile land already brought or capable of being readily
brought into cultivation,--the productive agricultural, manufacturing,
and commercial investments,--our internal and foreign trade,--our
fisheries, and our mining operations,--the rapid increase of labor (the
great creative source of wealth) by the growth of our own native
population and the steady flow of immigration from abroad,--when we
contemplate these things, the draughts which must be made upon the
resources of the country in the successful prosecution of the war, great
as they are, are really insignificant Let us take a single item, but one
which may serve as a fair index of the resources of the loyal States. In
the American Circular of Messrs. Hallett & Co. of New York, for the 6th
of November last, the value of the tonnage of all kinds annually moved
upon the public works (railroads and canals) of the Northern and Middle
States is estimated in even figures at $4,620,000,000. This enormous
sum, of course, represents only that part of the internal and foreign
trade of the country which is moved upon the canals and railroads. All
that portion of trade which is not transacted in this way,--all that
moves exclusively on the lakes, rivers, and coastwise, without coming in
contact with artificial communications,--the retail business of every
kind in the large cities, and all that is transported in moderate
parcels by animal power in the neighborhood of the places of production,
is in addition to this vast amount.
The Secretary of the Treasury, in his patriotic appeal to the country
last summer, calculates "the real and personal values, in the States now
loyal to the Union, at eleven thousand millions of dollars," while he
remarks that "the yearly surplus earnings of the loyal people are
estimated at more than four hundred millions of dollars." A tax of nine
per cent, on this surplus would pay an interest of six per cent, on a
loan of six hundred millions. Now in this country, where we are so
little accustomed to taxation, such a tax may seem to be a very serious
affair; but the man who in times like these, and for objects like those
for which we are struggling, is not willing to pay nine per cent--of his
_surplus earnings_, does not deserve to enjoy the blessings of a
free government.
It is therefore a gross exaggeration to say that the country is
bankrupt, or on the verge of bankruptcy. Nothing more is true than that
the Government of the country--the legislative power--has not as yet
shown the sagacity and vigor to apply a moderate portion of its abundant
resources to the preservation of all we hold dear. The wealth is
here,--not merely what is locked up in the vaults of the banks, (for
this, though ample for all the purposes of these institutions, is but a
very small portion of the wealth of the country, not much over one-half
of the annual surplus earnings,) but the entire accumulations of town
and country, the whole vast aggregate of the property having a
marketable value or capable of being applied in kind or by exchange for
its equivalent to the public service. All this fund belongs to the
people, to be levied upon and appropriated to the service of the country
by the people's representatives and servants. It belongs only _sub
modo_ to those who are commonly deemed its owners. They are the
stewards to whom Providence has confided it, subject to the condition,
in time of need, of being employed, under equitable and equal laws, to
defend the life of the country. And when we consider how small a portion
of it is required to answer the demands of the public service, we cannot
but be amazed at the language of despondency which is sometimes uttered
at the state of the public finances. We call the individual man of
wealth a miser, who hoards his income, instead of spending a portion of
it in deeds of charity and public spirit, or even on his own comforts
and those of his family. This expressive use of that word, says Bishop
South, is peculiar to the English language. Although the word is Latin,
we have improved on the Romans, in the bitter sarcasm of this
application. But a Government deserves the same stigma or worse, which,
with the exuberant wealth of a loyal people at its command, wants the
moral courage to apply a moderate portion of it to obtain ample means
for feeding, clothing, and arming the brave men who, on the land and the
water, are risking their lives in the public service.
We speak of "the moral courage" to establish an efficient system of
taxation, more in deference to the traditionary unpopularity of the
tax-gatherer than because, in the present state of affairs, there is any
just cause to doubt the willingness of the people to make the necessary
sacrifices for the support of the Government and the defence of the
country. In peaceful times and in an ordinary state of affairs, it may
be admitted that the tax-gatherer is an unwelcome visitant. Mr.
Jefferson relied upon him in 1799 to bring about a change of parties and
administrations. But the country was then poor, the parties equally
divided, and the political issues matters of temper and theory, on which
men delight to differ and to argue, rather than those stern realities in
which, at the present time, the very being of the State is wrapt up.
Accordingly, it is a most remarkable fact at the present day, and one
certainly without example in this country, perhaps in any country, that
the unanimous desire of the people is for taxation, adequate, efficient
taxation. Although the emergencies of the service, and the large amounts
which it requires, are daily commented on by the public journals, and
are perfectly well understood, not a voice has been uttered on the
subject which does not call for taxation. The Secretary of the Treasury
is censured, the Committee of Ways and Means rebuked, the patriotism of
Congress called in question, because the absolute necessity for heavy
taxation is not urged with sufficient warmth by the Executive, and the
requisite laws for laying the tax are delayed in their introduction and
passage. And reason good; for, while the legislation required to impose
a tax lingers, the whole mass of the country's property is incurring the
fearful peril of a prostration of the public credit.
But though the loyal people of the country are more than willing--are
ardently desirous--to be taxed for the public service, they are not
willing to be taxed for the benefit of fraudulent contractors, or to
enrich the miscreants who, not content with plundering the Treasury by
exorbitant prices, put the health and lives of our brave men in peril,
and the success of the war at hazard, by furnishing arms that have been
condemned as unserviceable, clothes and shoes that drop to pieces in a
fortnight's wear, water poisoned by filthy casks, horses too feeble to
be ridden, and vessels known by their vendors to be of a draught too
great for the intended service. It is not unlikely that there may be
exaggeration in the accounts of this kind that find their way into the
public journals; but if any reliance can be placed on the reports of our
legislative committees, frauds like those alluded to have been carried
to a stupendous length. If we mistake not, a bill has been introduced
into Congress for the condign punishment of the wretches guilty of these
abominable crimes. The offences which have filled Forts Lafayette and
Warren with their inmates are venial, compared with the guilt of the man
who is willing to fatten on the sufferings of the country and the health
and lives of its patriotic defenders. But the evil, enormous as it is,
admits of an easy remedy. If, on the one hand, one or two cases of gross
fraud, highly prejudicial to the public service, were summarily dealt
with by a court-martial, while, on the other hand, fifty per cent, of
the contract-price were habitually retained for three or four months,
till the value of the article furnished was ascertained by trial, the
evil would soon be brought within manageable limits. A little of the
wholesome severity with which Bonaparte, in 1797, carried on what he
called "_la guerre aux voleurs_"[B] would not only save millions to
the Treasury of the United States, but protect the country from
consequences still more disastrous.
[Footnote B: Thiers, Tome II., p. 337.]
In fact, it will be one of the incidental benefits of an efficient
system of taxation, that it will induce greater care in the expenditure
of the public money. Fraudulent contracts are not the only, nor even the
chief cause of our financial embarrassments. It may be hoped that what
is extracted from it by downright swindling, however considerable in
amount, does not cause the great drain upon the Treasury. But if money
can be obtained by the simple issue of evidences of debt, and without
any provision to sustain the credit of the Government by taxation, the
process of supply is too facile. The funds so easily procured are in
danger of being too profusely spent. Individual responsibility in
money-matters, aided by direct self-interest, is usually more efficient
in imposing limits to improvidence than a general sense of duty on the
part of official personages. But if funds could be obtained _ad
libitum_ by the speculator, without the necessity of giving security
for the payment of principal or interest, bankruptcy would soon become
the rule and solvency the exception. Still more urgently, in the
administration of the National Treasury, is the wholesome corrective of
taxation required, to make economy a necessity as well as a virtue.
Much must be pardoned to the urgency of the public service, in a crisis
like that of last summer, when the Government was compelled to improvise
the forces, military and naval, required for the suppression of a
gigantic rebellion, long concocted and matured in treacherous secrecy.
With the capital of the country beleaguered by open foes without,
swarming with hardly concealed traitors within, who privately thwarted
and paralyzed when they could not openly defeat the measures of the
Government, and conveyed information of them to the enemy with the
regularity of official returns, some degree of improvident hurry in
every branch of the service was inevitable, and must not be too severely
scanned. You cannot stand chaffering at a bargain as to the cheapest
mode of extinguishing a fire kindled by a red-hot cannon-ball at the
door of the magazine. But the crisis and the necessity for precipitate
action are past. The rebellion, dragged to the light of day, has assumed
definite proportions. The means for its suppression are ample, and
nothing is requisite but the firmness and sagacity to apply them. In
other words, the one thing needful for the successful prosecution of the
war is a judicious system of taxation.
With such a system, as we have already intimated, there is no limit to
the credit of the Government With an efficient system of taxation to
sustain its loans, the entire property of the country--that is, all that
is needed of it--may be consecrated to the public service. We must not
be terrified by the ghost of the paper-money with which the country was
Hooded daring the Revolutionary War. It became worthless because there
was no limit to its issue and no provision for its redemption or the
payment of Interest. The Congress of the Confederation possessed no
power to lay a tax, and the States which had the power were destitute of
resources, without mutual concert, and often moved by influences at
variance with each other. In this state of things taxation was out of
the question, and the paper-money, which had been manufactured by
wholesale rather than issued on any system of finance, steadily and at
length rapidly sank to its intrinsic worthlessness. Its memory has left
behind a wholesome dread of paper-money, but ought not to create a
prejudice against a well-organized system of credit, sustained by
efficient taxation.
No one will be better pleased than the writer of this article, if,
before it sees the light, the vigorous action of Congress shall render
its suggestions superfluous and unseasonable.
* * * * *
VOYAGE OF THE GOOD SHIP UNION.
'T is midnight: through my troubled dream
Loud wails the tempest's cry;
Before the gale, with tattered sail,
A ship goes plunging by.
What name? Where bound?--The rocks around
Repeat the loud halloo.
--The good ship Union, Southward bound:
God help her and her crew!
And is the old flag flying still
That o'er your fathers flew,
With bands of white and rosy light,
And field of starry blue?
--Ay! look aloft! its folds full oft
Have braved the roaring blast,
And still shall fly when from the sky
This black typhoon has past!
Speak, pilot of the storm-tost bark!
May I thy peril share?
--O landsman, these are fearful seas
The brave alone may dare!
--Nay, ruler of the rebel deep,
What matters wind or wave?
The rocks that wreck your reeling deck
Will leave me nought to save!
O landsman, art thou false or true?
What sign hast thou to show?
--The crimson stains from loyal veins
That hold my heart-blood's flow!
--Enough! what more shall honor claim?
I know the sacred sign;
Above thy head our flag shall spread,
Our ocean path be thine!
The bark sails on; the Pilgrim's Cape
Lies low along her lee,
Whose headland crooks its anchor-flukes
To lock the shore and sea.
No treason here! it cost too dear
To win this barren realm!
And true and free the hands must be
That hold the whaler's helm!
Still on! Manhattan's narrowing bay
No Rebel cruiser scars;
Her waters feel no pirate's keel
That flaunts the fallen stars!
--But watch the light on yonder height,--
Ay, pilot, have a care!
Some lingering cloud in mist may shroud
The capes of Delaware!
Say, pilot, what this fort may be,
Whose sentinels look down
From moated walls that show the sea
Their deep embrasures' frown?
The Rebel host claims all the coast,
But these are friends, we know,
Whose footprints spoil the "sacred soil,"
And this is?--Fort Monroe!
The breakers roar,--how bears the shore?
--The traitorous wreckers' hands
Have quenched the blaze that poured its rays
Along the Hatteras sands.
--Ha! say not so! I see its glow!
Again the shoals display
The beacon light that shines by night,
The Union Stars by day!
The good ship flies to milder skies,
The wave more gently flows,
The softening breeze wafts o'er the seas
The breath of Beaufort's rose.
"What fold is this the sweet winds kiss,
Fair-striped and many-starred,
Whose shadow palls these orphaned walls,
The twins of Beauregard?
"What! heard you not Port Royal's doom?
How the black war-ships came
And turned the Beaufort roses' bloom
To redder wreaths of flame?
How from Rebellion's broken reed
We saw his emblem fall,
As soon his cursed poison-weed
Shall drop from Sumter's wall?
On! on! Pulaski's iron hail
Falls harmless on Tybee!
Her topsails feel the freshening gale,
She strikes the open sea;
She rounds the point, she threads the keys
That guard the Land of Flowers,
And rides at last where firm and fast
Her own Gibraltar towers!
The good ship Union's voyage is o'er,
At anchor safe she swings,
And loud and clear with cheer on cheer
Her joyous welcome rings:
Hurrah! Hurrah! it shakes the wave,
It thunders on the shore,--
One flag, one land, one heart, one hand,
One Nation, evermore!
* * * * *
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