no such thing as a divided liberty. That which is inherent cannot be conferred. And this is the end of all. Till we secure it, there cannot be perfect peace.

And so they are gradually coming back, these repentant statesmen; and as they come they are flanked and followed by the sable column. For every ex-rebel we have an ex-slave, and it is an even wager that the latter will not be left long in the rear if the next ten years be as revolutionary as the decade we have passed. The old stagers have lost just that many years out of their lives. They have been absorbed by fatal theories. They must unlearn contempt of the successful philosophy to be harmonious with the age. The new men, the dark men and the yellow men, have been gathering the harvest neglected by their former masters, and they gather quickly and generously. They have learned what others have lost. They are apt scholars, and not the less apt because they have copied much from the proud chiefs of the old parties. The master has slept while the pupil has been awake.

Nor are we any longer frightened by what was called amalgamation. There is a new meaning to the word. The North amalgamates with the South. They marry and intermarry in every way; by the nuptials of the railroads, by the weddings of the telegraph, by the incessant intercourse of the press. There is hardly a Northern town in which a Union soldier does not glory in his Southern wife. There is not a Southern town in which a Southern man does not glory in his Northern wife. How vain the effort to separate a people so reunited? Amalgamated by law and love, by trade and temperature, by necessity and by accident, by destiny, by memory and hope!

"See, through plots and counterplots,

Through gain and loss, through glory and disgrace,
Along the plains where passionate Discord reared
Eternal Babel, still the holy stream

Of human happiness glides on!

"Let us own it: there is one above
Sways the harmonious mystery of the world
Even better than prime-ministers.

Our glories float between the earth and heaven,
Like clouds that seem pavilions of the sun,
And are the playthings of the casual wind;
Still, like the cloud which drops on unseen crags
The dews the wild flower feeds on, our ambition
May from its airy height drop gladness down
On unsuspected virtue; and the flower
May bless the cloud when it has passed away.”

XXVI.

GENERAL JACKSON'S VINDICATION OF A COLORED CITIZEN OF PHILADELPHIA UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF THE FATHER OF RICHARD VAUX, THE DEMOCRATIC LEADER.

THURSDAY, January 8, victory of New Orleans.

1880, was sixty-five years since the A short time in the history of a

creation of unknown antiquity, a brief span in thousands of years, and yet that little more than half a century has seen the Old World made almost new, and astonishingly changed the habits and capacities of the human race.

Andrew Jackson is the main figure on the anniversary of the battle of New Orleans, not alone because he won a great victory, but because from that event he passed into a still grander history. For many years he was honored as a successful soldier and party-leader, and the 8th of January was made a Democratic jubilee, especially in the South. Tammany held high carnival to celebrate his valor in the field and his patriotism in the Cabinet, and the true diploma of Democratic deserving was a speech in favor of Andrew Jackson. When the Rebell ion burst upon the nation, the 8th of January and the 4th of July were ignored in the discontented section, probably because

the hero of the first had declared that "the Union must and shall be preserved," and certainly because the hero of the second had written that antislavery document, the Declaration of American Independence. But time cures all things, and in another decade these two national holidays will be as warmly welcomed as ever.

Andrew Jackson will be the more honored as increasing years prove the value of his example. An incident, never before published, sheds a new light upon his character. It came to my knowledge only a few days ago, and deserves to be printed immediately preceding January 8, 1874. I have alluded once or twice, in these sketches, to my friend Robert Purvis, a leading colored citizen, born in South Carolina nearly seventy years ago, and for more than fifty a resident of Philadelphia. He is still living, in his seventieth year, as I write these lines, July, 1880, and there is not anywhere a more honored citizen or a better man. In all private relations and public trusts he is an example. The passport mentioned below, over the name of Andrew Jackson, President of the United States, forty-six years ago, is a wonderful proof of the courage and sagacity of the hero of New Orleans. The colored men fought under him in New Orleans in 1815, and under his ideas against secession in 1861-64, and he never joined in their persecution. I met him accidentally one day recently, and, alluding to the late declaration of Hon. Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, in favor of the Civil Rights bill, I predicted that the Democrats in Congress would be found on the same side, and that the measure would, of necessity, soon be the law of the land.

The influence of a great name is often irresistible. Mr. Stephens leads manfully in the right direction, and thousands who have long hesitated will follow. Jackson was a bolder pioneer. He startled the whole world when he whipped the British by his unique and daring generalship on the plains of Chalmette. He broke up the Nullification scheme in 1832. He destroyed

the Bank of the United States in 1834-35. Ridicule was changed to admiration of his genius as a soldier, and timid friends first faltered and then followed him in the two other crises. It was in our brief conversation about the stand taken by Mr. Stephens, of Georgia, on the Civil Rights bill, that I gathered the following:

Forty-six years ago, Robert Purvis, of South Carolina, was married to the daughter of the highly esteemed James Forten, of Philadelphia. Highly educated and in comfortable circumstances, he resolved to visit Europe, and, to this end, applied to the State Department at Washington for his passport. After a delay of several days, he received what was in no sense the certificate always given to Americans travelling in foreign countries. Mortified beyond measure at the slight, he accidentally met the philanthropist, Roberts Vaux, father of the highly esteemed ex-Mayor, Richard Vaux, of Philadelphia, and instantly showed him what he had received from the State Department. Roberts Vaux was a member of the Society of Friends, and was universally beloved for his kindly disposition, his active benevolence, and his blameless life. He was also an antislavery man, and a personal friend of President Jackson. He heard the story of his young friend Purvis, and earnestly sympathized with his complaints. Taking from his hand the insulting paper he had received from Washington, he wrote a personal letter to President Jackson, in which he enclosed the paper in question, and demanded a passport for Mr. Purvis, as an American citizen entitled to the protection of his Government in his travels abroad. The appeal of the Quaker Democrat struck home. General Jackson carried it himself to the Department of State, and, by due course of mail, came the following, under the broad seal of the American Government:

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

To all to whom these presents shall come, greeting:

DESCRIPTION.

Age, 23 years.

Stature, 5 feet 10 inches Eng'h.
Forehead, high.

Eyes, hazel.

Nose, sharp.

Mouth, small.

Chin, ordinary.

Hair, dark.

Face, oval.

Signature of the bearer,

ROBT. PURVIS.

No. 3373.

I, the undersigned, Secretary of State of the United States of America, hereby request all whom it may concern to permit safely and freely to pass Robert Purvis and his wife, both citizens of the United States, and, in case of need, to give them all lawful aid and protection.

Given under my hand and the impression of the seal of the Department of State, at the city of Washington, the 19th day of May, 1834, in the fifty-eighth year of the Independence of these United States.

So that, forty-six years ago, President Jackson set his example by the recognition of the citizenship of the colored man. In May of 1834, Jackson was deep in his conflict with John C. Calhoun. He had conquered him in the Nullification troubles; he had beaten him and Henry Clay in the Presidential election of 1832; and the South Carolinian, stung by his double overthrow, united with others to oppose Jackson in his war upon the Bank of the United States. The iron President may have remembered these things as he ordered the passport to be issued to Robert Purvis, who, like Calhoun, was also a South Carolina Robert Purvis made his European tour, armed with the pledge of his country. He was a citizen of that country in Europe, yet an alien at home. But Old Hickory did not stop to think of the contradiction. He acted on the best of impulses

man.

in his response to his friend Roberts Vaux, and "took the re