The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1853-07-08
enx,I.h Item. BY matt. ward.

viewer appears to be Of those passages N our
history. in which England 50 consoicuously
figured. He may possibly though never have
heard Of the revolution. or Of the war OF 1912;
and may be ignorant that such battles as
Yorktown and New Orleans have ever been
Fought
One grand element is wanted for TIE nur-
ture Of the poetical element in America
she has no traditions. She started at once
into life, rude, rugged, savage, self-conident.
She has nothing to fall back upon in her his
tory--no age Of gOd--no fabulous an.
tiqui,y-no fairy land. The want of
historical elements is supplied by the in
tensty of the glorifcation. Tue two great
subjects are Liberty aud the Indians.
They don't admire the subject of Liberty
and the Indians"
Two more unfortunate topics could not
have been bit upon. A u mems are born equal,
says the declaration Of Independence we
are The freest of the free, says the poet; and
SO the STAKEHOLDER illustrates the proposition
by tratficking in his own sons and daughters,
and enlarging his seraglio to increase his live
stock. He is his own lusty breeder Of equal
born men. A curious instance of American
liberty is cited by a traveller, who informs us
that he knows lady residing near Washing
ton, who is in the habit of letting out her
own natural brother! As to the Indians, no.
thing can exceed the interest these tiers
take in their picturesque heads and flowing
limbs-except the interest they tai e in their
lands. Nobody could ever suspect, while
reading these fine illusions upon the dignity
and beauty of the Indians, that they were
written by people through whose cupidity,
falsehood and cruelty, the Indians have been
stripped of their possessions and left to starve
Al d rot; that while they were thus evincing
the tenderest regard for the Indian nations
in octosylabic verse, Congress was engaged,
through its servants, in suborning Indian
chiefs, and msking them drunk, to entrap
them into deeds of sale Of their hunting
grounds; and, as if these and similar atroci-
ties were not enough to mark the difference
between the poetry and the policy If the
States, importing bloodhounds from Cuba to
hunt the Indians of Florida! 1t is quite i'm
possible to account for the incredible folly
which tempts them to indulge in surh themes,
unless we refer it TO the same infatuation
hich makes them boast of their morality in
the face of their filthy newspaper press, and
OF their honesty in the teeth of pocket-pick-
ing Pennsylvania.
Speaking of our national songs, he says:
This standing invitation to 60 to war, al
though there DE no foe to fight withal, hits of
with felicity the empty buster of the nation
al character. The call upon the "immortal
patriots" to "rise once more" is sung at all
hours in every cornsr Of the Union by men,
women and children; and it is very likely
that every day the "heaven born band" get
up out of their beds they believe they are ac-
tually rising once more to defend their rights
and their shore. This is the key to the poru-
lariiy of shall Columbia" Il fltters the
heroic qualities of the people, without max
ing an, further requisition upon their vaior,
than that they shalt implicitly believe In Il
themselves. "The Stnr-spangled Banner
is constructed on the same principle, and
blows the ''heaven- born" bubble with equal
enthusiasm; closing with the vivacty of
cock that knows when to crow on the summit
Of its odoriierOus nil.
Here is another condensed commentary on
our society AID manners:
These are genuine samples Of the cock-a.
doodle-doo sly lie Of warlike ballads. But the
most remarkable writer of this class was Rn-
bert Paine, heaven-born genius, who is sail
to have ruined himself by his love of the
swine cuP"-whrh is American for mint.ju-
lep and gin-sling. He was SO depraved in his
taste, and so lnsensble to the elegant a-pira.
tons OF his family, as to marry an actres -
Ii is amusing and instructive to learn from
the American editor that this monstrous
union between two professors Of two kindred
arts was regarded with such genteei horror
in the republican circles, as to lead to poor
Paire's "exclusion from fashionable sociefv.
and to denousmeut with his father, which
lasted ill his DEATH" The fal.e nature of
this is as striking as its pseudo fine breedi q;
and it shows how much bigotry and iutoie.
rance may be packed under the surface OF a
large Pretension to liberality and social jus.
uce. Certainly, there is nothing 50 yuga.
and base as American re6nement-no,binp
30 coarse as American delicacy-nothing so
tyrannical as American freedom.
Read his sumnIing-up on American liter.
ature:
Stepping out Of the literature of England
into that OF Americs, is like going back TWEEN.
ty years into a sort of high-hfe- below stairs
resuscitation of the style OF that period.
The following occurs in his closing para.
grarh:
Literature is, consequently, the least tempt.
ing OF all conceivable pursuits; and men
must foat with the stream, ana live as thev
can with the society in which they have been
educated. Even were The moral materials NV
which this vast deposit of human dreys il
supplied, other than they are-purer, wiser.
and more refined, -stiil America could not
originate or support literstu'e Of her own.
% long as English productions can be i'm.
ported free Of cost, ard circulated through the
Union alta cheaper rate than the best pro.
ductions of the country.
And yet there are Americans. who, Ia order
to extenuste their senseless devotion 10 Enc