John Ludlum McConnel

“ A character, a purpose, is imparted to the life, as to the stream, and usefulness becomes an element of being. The river is a chain which links remotest latitudes, as through the social man relations are established, binding alien hearts: the spark of thought and feeling, like the fluid of the magnet, brings together distant moral zones.
On it rushes—through the rapids, where the life receives an impulse—driven forward—haply downward—among rocks and dangerous channels, by the motives of ambition, by the fierce desire of wealth, or by the goad of want! ”

“ Submission always encourages oppression, and admiration adds fuel to the fire of vanity. Not that the politician was precisely a despot, even over men's opinions: the application of that name to him would have been as sore a wound to his self-respect as the imputation of horse-stealing. He was but an oracle of opinion, and though allowed to dictate in matters of thought as absolutely as if backed by brigades of soldiers, he was a sovereign whose power existed only through the consent of his subjects. ”

“ Even the infirmities and vices of the men who piled the first stones of great empires, are chronicled in history as facts deserving record. The portrait of an ancient hero is a treasure beyond value, even though the features be but conjectural. How much more precious would be a faithful portrait of his character, in which the features should be his salient traits—the expression, outline, and complexion of his nature! ”

“ The valley of a river like the channel of a man's career, does not always bear proportion to the magnitude or volume of the current, which flows through it. Mountains, forests, deserts, physical barriers to the former—and the obstacles of prejudice, and accidents of birth and education, moral barriers to the latter—limit, modify, and impair the usefulness of each. A river thus confined, an intellect thus hampered, may be noisy, fretful, turbulent, but, in the contemplation, there is ever a feeling of the incongruity between the purpose and the power ”

“ Like the beast of the forest, they are no sooner old enough to care for themselves, than they cease even to remember, by whose care they have become so; and the slightest provocation will produce a quarrel with a father, as readily as with a stranger. The unwritten law of the Indian, about which so many writers have dreamed, enacts no higher penalty for parricide, than for any other homicide; and a command to honor his father and mother because they are his father and mother, would strike the mind of an Indian as simply absurd. ”

“ The art of governing is the accomplishment of the true politician: [Pg 341] the arts of governing are the trickeries of the demagogue. Right is the key-note of one: popularity of the other.
The large majority of men are sufficiently candid to acknowledge—at least to themselves—that they are unfit for the station of law-giver; but the vanity and jealousy begotten by participation in political power, lead many of them, if not actually to believe, at all events to act upon the faith, that men, no more able than themselves, are the best material for rulers. ”

“ Its pauseless flow, the stern momentum of its current—its remorseless coldness to all human hopes and fears—the secrets which lie buried underneath its waters, and the myriad purposes of those it bears upon its bosom—are all so clearly typical of Time. The waters will not pause, though dreadful battles may be fought upon their shores—as Time will steadily march forward, though the fate of nations hang upon the conflict. The moments fly as swiftly, while a mighty king is breathing out his life, as if he were a lowly peasant ”

“ The enactments of the criminal code were generally so worded as to give some scope for the exercise of a compassionate and enlightened discretion; but when the decision lay in the breast of our justice, if he adjudged any punishment at all, it was usually the severest provided for by the statute. Half-measures were not adapted to the temper of the times or the character of the people; indeed, they are suited to no people, and are signal failures at all times, in all circumstances. Inflicting light punishments is like firing blank cartridges at a mob, they only irritate, without subduing ”

“ Even the (so-called) “varied imagery” of the Indian's eloquence—about which so much nonsense has been written—is, in a far greater measure, the result of the poverty and crude materialism of his language, than of any poetical bias, temperament, or tone of thought. An Indian, as we have said before, has no humor—he never understands a jest—his wife is a beast of burthen—heaven is a hunting-ground—his language has no words to express abstract qualities, virtues, or sentiments. And yet he lives in the wilderness all the days of his life! ”

“ In this view, how noble an object is the Mississippi!
In extent, fertility, variety of scenery, and diversity of climate, its valley surpasses any other in the world. It is the great aorta of the continent, and receives a score of tributary rivers, the least of which is larger than the vaunted streams of mighty empires. It might furnish natural boundaries to all Europe, and yet leave, for every country, a river greater than the Seine. ”

“ The absence of dates and facts, to mark the course of his migration, remits us to conjecture, or the scarcely more reliable resource of tradition—the want of history has made him a character of romance. The mere name of Indian gives the impression of a shadowy image, looming, dim but gigantic, through a darkness which nothing else can penetrate. ”

“ To the force of character, belonging to the white, he added the savage virtues of the red man; and many a captive has been rescued from the flames, through his stern contempt for torture, and his sneering triumph over his tormentors. The highest virtue of the savage was his fortitude; and he respected and admired even a “pale face,” who emulated his endurance.
But fortitude is only passive courage—and the bravery of the pioneer was eminently active. His vengeance was as rapid as it was sometimes cruel. No odds against him could deter him, no time was ever wasted in deliberation. ”

“ He is constantly exposed to the storms of heaven, in the chase, and on the war path; and, even in his best “lodge,” he finds but little shelter from their fury. Clear weather is, therefore, grateful to him—bright sunshine associates itself, in his mind, with comfort, or (that supremest of Indian pleasures) undisturbed indolence. And the transition, though, as we have said, an approach to an abstract conception, is easy, even to the mind of a savage. His employment of such illustrations is rather an evidence of rudeness, than of eloquence—of barrenness, than of luxuriance of idea. ”

“ As years rolled on, his substance increased with the improvement of the country—the rougher points of his character were gradually rubbed down—age and gray hairs thickened upon his brow—honors, troops of friends, and numerous children, gathered round him—and the close of his career found him respected in life and lamented in death. His memory is a monument of what honesty and industry, even without worldly advantages, may always accomplish. ”

“ At this moment, there are men in every western settlement who have only vague, [Pg 134] crude notions of what a city is—who would feel nervous if they stepped upon the deck of a steamboat—and are utterly at a loss to conjecture the nature of a railroad. Upon either of these mystical subjects they will swallow, without straining, the most absurd and impossible fictions. And this is not because of their ignorance alone, for many of them are, for their sphere in life, educated, intelligent, and, what is better, sensible men. ”

“ But the voyageur had higher qualities than enthusiasm. He was capable of being so absorbed in a cause as to lose sight of his own identity; to forget that he was more than an instrument in the hands of God, to do God's work: and the distinction between these traits is broad indeed! Enthusiasm is noisy, obtrusive—self-abnegation is silent, retiring; enthusiasm is officious, troublesome, careless of time and place—self-abnegation is prudent, gentle, considerate. ”

“ Misfortune is as stern a leveller as Death; and early youth, with all its noble aspirations, gorgeous visions, never to be realized, must often plunge, like the placid river over a foaming cataract, down the precipice of affliction—even while its current, though nearing the abyss, flow softly as “the waters of Shiloah.” It may be the death of a mother, whom the bereaved half deemed immortal—some disappointment, like the falsehood of one dearly loved—some rude shock, as the discovery of a day-dream's hollowness ”

“ But fear was not a part of these men's nature; or if it existed, it lay so deep, buried beneath religious zeal and pious trust, that its voice never reached the upper air. Leaving the boatmen with the canoes, near the mouth of the river now called Des Moines, Marquette and Joliet set out alone, to follow up the trail, and seek the people who had made it. It led them to an open prairie, one of the most beautiful in the present state of Iowa, and crossing this, a distance of six miles, they at last found themselves in the vicinity of three Indian villages. ”

“ A zeal like this, what pious legends tell?”
The shapeless knight-errantry of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, rich as it was in romance and adventure, is not to be compared, in any valuable characteristic, to the noiseless self-devotion of the men who first explored the Western country. The courage of the knight was a part of his savage nature; his confidence was in the strength of his own right arm; and if his ruggedness was ever softened down by gentler thoughts, it was only when he asked forgiveness for his crimes, or melted in sensual idolatry of female beauty. ”

“ It is remarkable, that anything like a fair or candid estimate of—for example—a public man's character, while he is yet favored with the people's suffrages, is very certain to be pronounced a caricature; and it is not less singular, that, while the complaints of popular critics, in effect, affirm that there is fidelity enough in the picture to enable even obtuse minds to fit the copy to the original, they at the same time vehemently assert that the whole portrait is a libel. A just admeasurement of a demagogue's ability is thus always abated by the imputation of partisan falsehood or prejudice ”

“ The reign of violence, when an evil at all, is an evil which remedies itself: the severity of its proceeding hastens the accomplishment of its end, as the hottest fire soonest consumes its fuel. A nation will endure oppression more patiently immediately after a spasmodic rebellion or a bloody revolution, than at any other time; and a community requires less law to govern it, after a violent and illegal assertion of the law's supremacy, than was necessary before the outbreak. ”

“ An ounce of lead was worth more than a pound of advice; and, in the vindication of justice, a “charge” of gunpowder was more effectual than the most tedious judicial harangue. It is, even now, a proud, but well-founded boast, of western men, that these traits have been transmitted to them from their fathers—that they are more remarkable for fighting than for wrangling, for acting than for talking. ”

“ The tide of immigration, or the increasing intelligence of the people, raised up men of larger views; and he speedily found himself outstripped in the race, and forgotten by his ancient retainers. Then—like his predecessor, the original frontierman—disgusted with civilization and its refinements—he migrated to more congenial regions, and, in the scenes of his former triumphs, was heard of no more. ”

“ But the only measure of justice in those days, was the lex talionis—“An eye for an eye,” a scalp for a scalp; and, even now, you may hear frontiermen justify, though they do not practise it, by quoting the venerable maxim, “Fight the devil with fire.”
But, though the warfare of the ranger was sometimes distinguished by cruelty, it was also ennobled by features upon which it is far more pleasant to dwell.
No paladin, or knight, of the olden times, ever exhibited more wild, romantic daring, than that which formed a part of the ranger's daily action. ”

“ It flows from the country of the savage, toward that of civilization; and like the gradations of improvement among men, are the thickening fields and growing cultivation, which define the periods of its course. Near its mouth, it has reached the culmination of refinement—its last ripe fruit, a crowded city ”

“ Thus, un voyageur means not only a traveller, but a traveller with a purpose; an adventurer among the Western wilds; a chivalrous missionary, either in the cause of science or religion. It includes high courage, burning zeal for church and country, and the most generous self-devotion. It describes such men as Marquette, La Salle, Joliet, Gravier, [Pg 65] and hundreds of others equally illustrious, who lived and died among the dangers and privations of the wilderness; who opened the way for civilization and Christianity among the savages, and won, many of them, crowns of martyrdom. ”

“ A leader of regulators, for example, whose administration of his dangerous powers had been marked by promptitude and severity, was expected to be equally efficient when clothed with more regular authority. A captain of rangers, whose enterprises had been remarkable for certainty and finish, would, it was believed, do quite as good service, in the capacity of a civil officer. A daring pioneer, whose courage or presence of mind had saved himself and others from the dangers of the wilderness, was supposed to be an equally sure guide in the pathless ways of politics. ”

“ Such were the purposes, such the motives, of this band of noble men; and whatever may have been their errors, we must at least accord them the virtues of sincerity, courage, and self-denial. But let us look a little more closely at the means by which they accomplished undertakings which, to any other race of men, would have been not only impracticable, but utterly desperate. Take again, as the representative of his class, the case of Father Marquette, than whom, obscure as his name is in the wastes of history, no man ever lived a more instructive and exemplary life. ”

“ But whatever may have been the motives of their spiritual superiors, the missionaries themselves were moved only by the considerations of which we have spoken—the truest piety and the most burning zeal. Of these influences they were conscious; but we shall perhaps not do the character injustice if we add another spur to action, of which they were not conscious. There is a vein of romance in the French composition; a love of adventure for the sake of the adventure itself, which, when not tamed or directed, makes a Frenchman fitful, erratic, and unreliable. ”

“ I seek not so much to excuse as to account for—less to justify than to analyze—the characteristics of the class before me. I wish to establish that the pioneer hatred of the Indian was not an unprovoked or groundless hatred, that the severity of his warfare was not [Pg 124] a mere gratuitous and bloody-minded cruelty. There are a thousand actions, of which we are hearing every day, that are indefensible in morals: and yet we are conscious while we condemn the actors, that, in like circumstances, we could not have acted differently. ”