Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 by Various

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861

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[Footnote A: At what precise time Russia's policy began to influence
the action of the European powers it would not be easy to say.
Unquestionably, Peter I.'s conduct was not without its effect, and his
triumph over Charles XII. makes itself felt even to this day, and it
ever will be felt. "Pultowa's day" was one of the grand field-days of
history. Sweden had obtained a high place in Europe, in consequence of
the grand part she played in the Thirty Years' War, to which contest she
contributed the greatest generals, the ablest statesmen, and the best
soldiers; and the successes of Charles XII. in the first half of his
reign promised to increase the power of that country, which had become
great under the rule and direction of Gustavus Adolphus and Oxenstierna.
This fair promise was lost with the Battle of Pultowa; and a country
that might have successfully resisted Russia, and which, had its
greatness continued, could have protected Poland,--if, indeed,
Poland could have been threatened, had Russia been unsuccessful at
Pultowa,--was thrown into the list of third-rate nations. Poland was
virtually given up to Russia through the defeat of Charles XII., just
as, a century later, she failed of revival through the defeat of
Napoleon I. in his Russian expedition. But the effect of Sweden's defeat
was not fully seen until many years after its occurrence. Prussia became
alarmed at the progress of Russia at an early day. The War of the Polish
Succession was decided by Russian intervention, in 1733. In 1741 Maria
Theresa relied on Russia, and in 1746 Russia and the Empress of Germany
formed a defensive alliance. The _Cotillon_ Coalition of the Seven
Years' War, formed for the destruction of Frederic II., and the parties
to which were the Czarina Elizabeth, Maria Theresa, and Madame de
Pompadour,--a drunkard, a prude, and a harlot,--brought Russia famously
forward in Europe. In the Eighty-Seventh Letter of Goldsmith's _Citizen
of the World_, published a century ago, are some very just and
discriminating remarks on "the folly of the Western parts of Europe in
employing the Russians to fight their battles," which show that their
author was far in advance of his time, and that he foresaw the growth
of Russia in importance before she had seized upon Poland. In Catharine
II.'s time, the Russian Empire was the object of much adulation from
Western envoys, and the English sought to obtain the assistance of
the barbarians in the American War, but with not such success as they
desired, though they managed to keep our envoy from the court, and to
make Russia unfriendly to us. Our diplomatic relations with Russia did
not begin until a generation after the Declaration of Independence.]

Thus the United States and Russia began their careers at the same time,
as nations destined to have influence in the ordering of Western life.
They were then, as they are now, very unlike to each other. In one
respect only was there any resemblance between them: In this country
there were some myriads of slaves, and in Russia there were many
millions of serfs. Now who, of all the sagacious, far-sighted men then
living, could have ventured to predict that at the end of one hundred
years the American nation that was so soon to be should be engaged in a
civil contest having for its object, on the part of those who began
it, the perpetuation and extension of slavery, while Russia should be
threatened with such a contest because her government, an autocracy,
had abolished serfdom? Many years earlier, Berkeley had predicted that
Time's last and noblest offspring would be the nation that was growing
up in North America; and when he died, in 1753, he would not have
admitted that slavery was an institution which his favorite land could
hug to its bosom, or that America would be less benevolent than that
semi-barbarous empire which was rising in the East,--an empire, to use
his own thought, which Europe was breeding in her decay. Franklin was
then at the height of his fame as a philosopher, and his merits as a
statesman were beginning to be acknowledged; but, wise as he was, he
would have smiled, had there been a prophet capable of telling him the
exact truth as to the future of America. Probably there was not a person
then on earth who could have supposed that that would be which was
written in the Book of Fate. That freedom should come to a people from
a despot's throne was almost as hard to understand as that the rankest
kind of despotism should rise up from among a people the most boastful
of their liberty that ever existed. There are, unhappily, but too many
instances of free nations that have behaved oppressively. The first
African slaves that were brought into the territory of the American
nation came under the flag of a people who had most heroically struggled
for their rights, and the recollection of whose efforts has been revived
by the brilliant labors of the most accomplished of living American
historians. The Greeks, who had so much to say about their own liberty,
believed that they had the right to enslave all other men; and the
Romans, who sometimes talked as if they had a Fourth of July of their
own, assumed that it was in the power of society to enslave any race
whose services its members required. The slaves of free peoples have
generally fared worse than the slaves of men themselves despotically
governed. Thus there is nothing so very strange in the conduct of those
Americans who, concerned for their "right" to trade in black humanity,
and to live on the sweat of black humanity's brows. That which is
strange in the condition of the world is the contrast which is furnished
to the action of our Southern population by the action of the rulers of
Russia. Since American democrats have endeavored to show that no such
contrast exists,--that between the enslavement of black men and the
granting of freedom to white men there is a close resemblance,--and that
the two proceedings are one in fact, how much soever they may differ in
name; that it is not because he is an enemy of slavery, as it is here
understood, that the Czar has become an emancipationist, but because he
is hostile to the slavery of white men,--that, were the Russian serfs as
dark as American slaves, his heart would have remained as hard toward
them as that of Pharaoh toward the Israelites when the plague-pressure
was temporarily removed from his people,--that he would as soon have
thought of washing the Ethiopian white with his own imperial hands as of
conferring freedom upon this race. Such is the theory of those of our
democrats who would still maintain their regard for the Czar and their
worship of Czarism. Alexander has not, they aver, been so bad as the
Abolitionists have drawn him. Like another illustrious personage, he
is not half so black as he is painted. Nay, he is not black at all. He
worships the white theory, and might run for the Montgomery Congress in
South Carolina without any danger of being numbered among the victims
of Lynch-law. Other democrats are not so well disposed toward the Czar,
their feelings respecting him having changed as completely as did those
of certain earlier democrats in regard to Mr. O'Connell, when the great
Irishman denounced slavery in America. It is a sore subject with our
pro-slavery people, this faithlessness of Russia to the cause of human
oppression. How they sympathized with her in the war with the Western
powers, and prophesied the defeat of the Allies in the Crimea, is well
remembered; but when the new Czar announced his purpose to abolish
serfdom, they, as Lord Castlereagh would have said, "turned their backs
upon themselves," and could see no good in the great Northern Empire.
Russia as the great revolution-queller, reading the Riot Act to the
liberals of Europe, and sending one hundred and fifty thousand men to
"crush out" the nationality of Hungary, and to revivify the power of
Austria, was to them an object of reverence; but Russia the liberator of
serfs, and the backer of France in the Italian War, became an object of
hate and fear. Nicholas might have patronized our Secessionists, for he
was partial to rebels who supported his opinions; but his son can
have no sympathy with men whose every act is a condemnation of those
principles which govern his conduct as a Russian ruler,--though in his
bearing toward Poland and others of the conquered portions of his empire
he may prove himself no more lenient than Mr. Jefferson Davis would
toward a Northern State that had declared itself independent of Southern
supremacy, could he "subdue" it.

It would, however, be most unjust so to speak of Russian serfdom as to
convey the impression that it ever was quite so bad as American slavery
is. It is the peculiarity of American slavery, that it has no redeeming
features. Long before it had become so odious as we see it, and before
its existence was found incompatible with the peaceful prevalence of
a constitutional system of government, its character was emphatically
summed up in a few words by a great man, who called it "the sum of
all villanies." Time has not improved its character, but has made the
institution worse, by extending the effect of its operations. The
political character which American slavery has had ever since the
formation of the Constitution has not only stood in the way of every
emancipation project, but it has made slaveholders, and men who have
sought political preferment through working on the prejudices of
slaveholders, supporters of the institution on grounds that have had no
existence in other countries; and the contest in which this country is
now involved is the natural effect of the more rapid growth of the Free
States in everything that leads to political power in modern times. Had
the Slave States in 1860 been found relatively as strong as they were in
1840, the Secession movement could not have occurred; for most of the
men who lead in it would have preferred to rule the United States, and
would have cared little for the defeat of any political party, confident
as they would have been in their capacity to control all American
parties. As slavery is the foundation of political power in this
country, its friends cannot abandon their ideas without abdicating their
position. Hence the fierceness with which they have put forth, and
advocated with all their strength, opinions that never were held by any
other class of man-owners, and which would have been scouted in Barbary
even in those days when religious animosity added additional venom to
the feelings of the Mussulmans toward their Christian captives, and when
Spain and Italy were Africa's Africa. The slave population of the United
Slates are forbidden to hope. They form a doomed race, the physical
peculiarities of which are forever to keep them out of the list of
the elect. They are slaves, they and their ancestors always have been
slaves, and they and their descendants always must be slaves. Such is
the Southern theory, and the practice under it does that theory no
violence. In Russia the condition of the enslaved has never been so
bad as this, nor anything like it. Between the slave and the serf the
difference has been almost as great as that between the serf and the
free citizen.

Nothing certain is known as to the origin of Russian serfage. Able men
have found the institution existing in very early times; and other men,
of not less ability, and well acquainted with Russian history, are
confident that it is a modern institution. Count Gurowski, whose
authority on such a point he ought to be a very bold man to question,
says,--"In Russia, slavery dates, with the utmost probability, since the
introduction of the Northmen, originating with prisoners of war, and
being established over conquered tribes of no Slavic descent. This was
done when Rurik and his successors descended the Dwina, the Dnieper, and
established there new dominions. In the course of time, the conquerors
cleared the forests, established villages and cities. As, in other
feudal countries, the tower, the _Schloss_, was outside of the village
or of the borough,--so was In Russia the _dwor_ or manor, where the
conqueror or master dwelt,--and from which was derived his name of
_dworianin_. That the genuine Russian of that time, whatever may have
been his social position, was free in his village, is beyond doubt,--as,
according to old records, the boroughs and villages, dependencies of the
manor, were settled principally with prisoners of war and the conquered
population. It was during the centuries of the Tartar dominion that the
people, the peasantry, became nailed to the soil, and deprived of
the right of freely changing their domicile. Then successively every
peasant, that is, every agriculturist tilling the soil with his own
hands, became enslaved. Only in estates owned by monasteries and
convents, which were very numerous and generally very rich, slavery
being judged to be opposed to Christian doctrine, it did not take
root at once. Generally, monks were reluctant to the utmost, and even
directly opposed to the sale of men in the markets, and the dependants
of a monastery were never sold in such a manner." The common view is,
that Borys Gudenoff, who reigned at the beginning of the seventeenth
century, established serfage age in Russia; but though the exact
character of his legislation is yet in dispute, it is obvious that no
Czar, and least of all one situated as was Borys, could have enslaved a
people. His legislation is involved in as much doubt as for a long time
were the Sempronian Laws of Rome. If we could believe that he instituted
the system of serfage, or seriously strengthened it, we should find that
Russian slavery came into existence but a few years before American
slavery; but such a "coincidence" cannot be rigidly insisted upon. It
would, however, we think, be difficult to show that the condition of
the Russian laboring classes was not made worse by the action of the
usurper.

Peter the Great was so affected by the circumstance that men and women
and children could be sold like cattle, as American slaves now are, that
he sought to put a stop to the infamous traffic, but without success.
Catharine II. was a philosopher, and a patron of that eighteenth-century
philosophy which so largely favored human rights, and she regretted
the existence of serfage; but, in spite of this regret, and of some
sentimental efforts toward emancipation, she strengthened the system of
slavery under which so great a majority of her subjects lived. She gave
peasants to her "favorites," and to others whom she wished to reward
or to bribe. The brothers Orloff are said to have received forty-five
thousand peasants from her, being in part payment for what was done by
their family in setting up the new Russian dynasty founded by the German
princess. Potemkin received myriads of peasants. Some outrageous abuses
were practised by wealthy landholders, in consequence of the Czarina
having proclaimed that the laborers in Little Russia should belong to
the soil on which they were at that date employed. Thousands of persons
were entrapped into serfdom through a measure which the sovereign had
intended should lessen the evils of that institution. Catharine's
authority was never but once seriously disputed at home, and that was
by the rebellion of Pugatscheff, which is sometimes spoken of as an
outbreak against serfdom, which it was not in any proper sense, though
the abuses of the owners of serfs may have contributed to swell the
ranks of the pretender,--Pugatscheff calling himself Peter III. The Czar
Paul would not allow serfs to be sold apart from the soil to which they
belonged. It is a curious incident, that, when Paul restored Kosciusko
to liberty, he offered to give him a number of Russian peasants. The
Polish patriot had no hesitation in refusing to accept the Emperor's
offer, for which, in these times, there are Americans who think he was a
fool; but in 1797 certain lights had not been vouchsafed to the American
mind, that have since led some of our countrymen to become champions of
the cause of darkness.

Alexander, whose reign began in 1801, was moved by a sincere desire to
get rid of serfdom. Schnitzler says that he "solemnly declared that he
would not endure the habit of making grants of peasants, a practice
hitherto common with the autocrats, and forbade the announcement in
public papers of the sales of human beings,"--and that "he permitted his
nobles to sell to their serfs, together with their personal liberty,
portions of land, which should thus become the _bona fide_ property of
the serf purchaser. This was a most important act; for Alexander thus
laid the basis of a class of free cultivators." A public man having
requested an estate with its serfs as hereditary possessions, the Czar
replied as follows:--"The peasants of Russia are for the most part
_slaves_. I need not expatiate upon the degradation or the misfortune
of such a condition. Accordingly, I have made a vow not to augment the
number; and to this end I have laid down the principle, that I will not
give away peasants as property." The Czar was determined to go farther
than this. Not only would he not increase the number of the serfs, but
he would lessen their number. The serfs of Esthonia were first favored,
their emancipation beginning in 1802, and being completed in 1816, the
year in which Alexander may be regarded as having been at the height of
his greatness, for he had completed the overthrow of Napoleon, and had
seen France saved from partition through his influence and exertions.
The Courland serfs were emancipated in 1817. Two years later, the nobles
of Livonia formed a plan of emancipation in their country, and when they
submitted it to the Czar, his answer was,--"I am delighted to see that
the nobility of Livonia have fulfilled my expectations. You have set an
example that ought to be imitated. You have acted in the spirit of our
age, and have felt that liberal principles alone can form the basis of
the people's happiness." So long as Alexander remained true to liberal
principles himself, there was some hope that he might abolish serfdom
throughout his dominions. He abhorred the "peculiar institution" of his
empire with all the force of a mind that certainly was generous, and
which had a strong bias in the direction of justice. Once he made a
solemn religious vow that he would abolish it. It is probable that
he would have made an attempt at complete emancipation, if the
circumstances of his time and his country had enabled him to concentrate
his thoughts and his labors upon domestic affairs. Unhappily for Russia,
and for the Czar's fame, he was soon drawn into the European vortex, and
became one of the principal actors in the grand drama of that age, so
that Russian interests were sacrificed to ambition, to the love of
military glory, and to the Czar's desire to become Don Quixote with an
imperial crown and sceptre. He wished to reconstruct the map of Europe,
which had been so terribly deranged by those terrible map-destroyers and
map-makers, the French republicans. Catharine II. had had the sense to
keep out of the war that had been waged against France, though no person
in Europe--not even George III. himself--hated the revolutionists more
intensely. She wished to see them subdued, but she preferred that the
work of subjugation should be done by others, so that she might be at
liberty to pursue her designs against Poland and Turkey and Persia. The
destruction of Poland she completed, but she was called away before she
could conquer the followers of Omar and of Ali. Paul was a party to the
second coalition against France, and his armies tore Italy from its
conquerors, and but for the stupidity of Austria there might have been
a Russian restoration of the Bourbons in 1709. Alexander resumed the
policy which his father had adopted only to discard, and though at one
period of his reign he appeared well inclined to Napoleon, there never
was any sincerity in the alliance between the two masters of so many
millions. The Czar was easily induced to favor the strange scheme of
an Italian adventurer for the rehabilitation of Europe, which had been
adopted by his friend and counsellor, the Prince Czartoryski, and
which ultimately furnished the basis, and many of the details, of that
pacification which was effected in 1815. We have seen the treaties of
that memorable year torn to tatters by Napoleon III., but the adoption
of Piatoli's project by Alexander affected the last generation as
intimately as the French Emperor's conduct has affected the men of
to-day. It led the Czar away from his original purpose, and converted
him, from a benevolent ruler, into a harsh, suspicious, unfeeling
despot. There could be nothing done for Russian serfs while their
sovereign was crusading it for the benefit of the Bourbons in particular
and of legitimacy in general. "God is in heaven, and the Czar is afar
off!" words once common with the suffering serfs, were of peculiar force
when the Czar, who believed himself to be the chosen instrument of
Heaven, was at Paris or Vienna, laboring for the settlement of Europe
according to ideas adopted in the early years of his reign. Napoleonism
and Liberalism were the same thing in the mind of Alexander, and he
finally came to regard serfdom itself as something that should not be
touched. It was a stone in that social edifice which he was determined
to maintain at all hazards. The plan of emancipation had worked well in
the outlying Baltic provinces, where there were few or no Russians, but
he discouraged its application to other portions of his dominions.
Some of his greatest nobles were anxious to take the lead as
emancipationists, but he would not allow them to proceed in the only way
that promised success, and so the bondage system was continued with the
approbation of the Czar. In his last years, Alexander, though still
quite a young man,--he was but forty-eight when he died,--was the most
determined enemy of liberty in Europe or Asia.

The Emperor Nicholas began his remarkable reign with the desire strong
in his mind to emancipate the serfs,--or, if that be too sweeping
an expression, so to improve their condition as to render their
emancipation by his successors a comparatively easy proceeding. Much of
his legislation shows this, and that he was aware that the time must
come when the serfs could no longer be deprived of their freedom. Such
was the effect of his conduct, however, that all that he did in
behalf of the serfs was attributed to a desire on his part to create
ill-feeling between the nobility and the peasants. Then he was so
thoroughly arbitrary in his disposition, that he often neutralized the
good he did by his manner of doing it. But that which mainly prevented
him from doing much for his people was his determination to maintain the
position which Russia had acquired in Europe, and to maintain it, too,
in the interest of despotism, "pure and simple." A succession of events
caused the Czar's attention to be drawn to foreign affairs. The French
Revolution of 1830, the Polish Revolution of the same year, the troubles
in Germany, the Reform contest in England, the change in the order of
the Spanish succession, the outbreaks in Italy,--these things, and
others of a similar character, all of which were protests against
that European system which Russia had established and still favored,
compelled Nicholas to look abroad, and to neglect, measurably, domestic
government. At a later period, he was one of the parties to that
combination of great powers which threatened France with a renewal of
those invasions from which she had suffered so much in 1814 and 1815.
Turkey was the source of perpetual trouble to the Czar; and his eyes
were frequently drawn to India, where one of his envoys half threatened
an English minister that the troops of their two countries might meet,
and was curtly answered by the minister that he cared not how soon the
interview should begin. The extinction of Cracow served to show how
close was the watch which the Czar kept upon the West, and that he was
ready to crush even the smallest of those countries in which the spirit
of liberty should show itself. Had San Marino lain within his reach, he
would have been induced neither by its weakness nor its age to spare
it. The struggle with the Circassians was long, vexatious, and costly.
Finally, the Revolutions of 1848, leading, as they did, to the invasion
of Hungary, in the first place, and then to the war with the Western
Powers, operated to prejudice the Imperial mind against every form of
freedom, and to provide too much occupation for the Emperor and his
ministers to permit them to labor with care and effect in behalf of the
oppressed serfs at home. It would have been a strange spectacle, had
the man who was trampling down the Hungarians employed his leisure in
raising his own serfs from the dust.

The Emperor Nicholas died in March, 1855, having lived long enough after
the beginning of that great war which he had so rashly provoked to see
his armies everywhere beaten and his fleets everywhere blockaded, while
the Russian leadership of Europe was struck down at a blow, never to be
resumed, unless there should be a radical change effected in Russian
institutions. Nearly thirty years of the most arrogant rule ever known
to the world came to an end in a moment, because the Emperor took "a
slight cold." A breath of the Northern winter served to stop the breath
of the Emperor of the North. He slept with his fathers, and his
son, Alexander II., reigned in his stead. The new Czar, who has the
reputation of being a much milder man than his father, and to bear
considerable resemblance to his uncle, as that uncle was in his best
days, was soon reported to be an emancipationist; but as the same
reports had prevailed respecting both Alexander I. and Nicholas, the
world gave little heed to what was said on the subject. It was not until
he had reigned for almost two years that something definite was done in
relation to it by the Czar; and then as many obstacles were thrown in
the way of the reform as would have served to disgust any man who had
not been in downright earnest. The Czar then took matters into his own
hands, so far as that was possible, and the work was pushed forward
with considerable speed. There was much discussion, and there were many
disappointments, in the course of the business; but through all the Czar
held to his determination, with a pertinacity that was not expected of
him, and which leaves the impression that his character has not been
properly understood. The history of the undertaking is yet to be
written, but, from what little is known of its details, we should say
that Alexander II. experienced more opposition, and that of an extremely
disagreeable character, from the nobility, than Alexander I. would
have encountered from the nobles of his time, had he resolved upon
emancipation in good faith, and adhered to his resolution, as his nephew
has done. Persons who suppose that a Russian Czar cannot be drowned,
because belonging to that select class who are born to be strangled,
would have it that the question would be settled by an application of
the bowstring, or the sash of some guardsman, to the Imperial throat;
and so a successful palace revolution lead to the postponement of the
plan of emancipation for another quarter of a century. But Russian
morality is of a much higher character than it was, and the members
of the reigning house are models of decorum, and know how to defer to
opinion. The nobles, too, are men of a very different stamp from their
predecessors of 1762 and 1801. The Russian polity is no longer a
despotism tempered by the cord. Fighting the good fight with something
of a Puritanical perseverance, the Czar was enabled to triumph over all
opposition to his preliminary project; and on the 3d of March, (N.S.,)
1861, the "Imperial Manifesto" emancipating the serfs was published.

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