426 



HAWTHORNE, NATHANIEL. 



in 1853, and entitled " The Pro-Slavery Argu- 

 ment." He had also published essays and dis- 

 courses on agriculture, manufactures, banks, 

 railroads, and literary topics, and an elaborate 

 review of the life, character, and public ser- 

 vices of John 0. Calhoun. During his guber- 

 natorial career he gave special attention to the 

 improvement of military education in the 

 State, introducing the West Point system into 

 several of the academies and colleges. In 1857 

 he was elected to the United States Senate in 

 place of Hon. A. P. Butler, deceased. Here, 

 in March, 1858, he delivered a speech against 

 the working-classes, which gave him an un- 

 enviable notoriety at the North, and fastened 

 upon him the title of "Mudsill Hammond." 

 The following paragraph from that speech was 

 the one to which most exception was taken : 



" In all social systems there must be a class to do 

 the mean duties, to perform the drudgery of life; 

 that is, a class requiring but a low order of intellect 

 and but little skill. Its requisites are vigor, docility, 

 fidelity. Such a class you must have, or you would 

 not have that other class which leads progress, refine- 

 ment, and civilization. It constitutes the very mud- 

 sills of society and of political government; and you 

 might as well attempt to build a house in the air, as to 

 build either the one or the other except on the mud- 

 sills. Fortunately for the South, she found a race 

 adapted to that purpose to her hand ; a race inferior 

 to herself, but eminently qualified in temper, in 

 vigor, in docility, in capacity to stand the climate, to 

 answer all her purposes. \Ve use them for the pur- 

 pose, and call them slaves. - We are old-fashioned at 

 at the South yet ; it is a word discarded now by ears 

 polite ; but I will not characterize that class at the 

 North with that term ; but you have it ; it is there ; 

 it is everywhere ; it is eternal." 



In the same speech he made, perhaps, the 

 first, certainly the strongest avowal of the su- 

 premacy of cotton, and predicted the downfall 

 of England if the South should choose to 

 withhold its cotton. The following passage 

 became subsequently the rallying-cry of the 

 partisans of the South : 



" No, sir, you dare not make war on cotton. No 

 power on earth dares make war upon it. Cotton is 

 king. Until lately the Bank of England was king, 

 but she tried to put her screws as usual, the fall be- 

 fore last, upon the cotton crop, and was utterly van- 

 quished. The last power has been conquered." 



On the secession of South Carolina he with- 

 drew from the Senate, and after the outbreak 

 of hostilities remained quietly at home, super- 

 intending the affairs of his large estate, until 

 declining health withdrew him from active 

 pursuits. 



HAWTHORNE, NATHAXIEL, an American 

 author, born in Salem, Mass., July 4th, 1804, 

 died at Plymouth, New Hampshire, May 19th, 

 18G4. He was descended from a strictly Puritan 

 stock, his ancestors having settled in Salem 

 very early in the history of the colony of Mas- 

 sachusetts, and one of them having been a 

 magistrate who took an active part in the trials 

 for witchcraft in Salem in 1692. For several 

 generations they had been seafaring men, the 

 son following his father to the sea, and in turn 

 coming home gray -haired and weather-beaten 



to enjoy the evening of life in quiet in tho 

 quaint old town. The last Captain Hathorne 

 (the change in the spelling of the name was duo 

 to the novelist, who believed that Hawthorne 

 was the original name), the father of Nathaniel, 

 died in Calcutta of fever, in 1810. Mr. Haw- 

 thorne's health was probably never firm ; for, 

 at the age of ten years, he left home to try the 

 effects, upon his constitution, of farm-life, going 

 to a farm owned by the family and situated on 

 the shores of Sebago Lake, Maine. On his re- 

 turn to Salem he completed his studies, pre- 

 paratory to entering Bowdoin College, where 

 he graduated in 1825, with Eev. Dr. Cheever 

 and the poet LongfelloAv. Ex-President Pierce, 

 then and through life his intimate friend, was 

 in the preceding class. For many years suc- 

 ceeding his college-life he lived in Salem " a 

 recluse from his own household; walking out 

 by night and passing the day alone in his room, 

 writing wild tales," most of which he burned, 

 though some of them afterwards appeared in 

 different magazines, annuals, &c. In 1828 he 

 published an anonymous romance which he 

 never claimed, and of which all that is now 

 known is that it bore on its title-page the motto 

 from "Southey, "Wilt thou go with me?" 

 Several of his earlier stories were contributed 

 to the successive volumes of S. G. Goodrich's 

 annual, " The Token." In 1837" he collected 

 his sketches, and published them under the title 

 of "Twice-told Tales." These were highly 

 landed by the "North American Review," but 

 not immediately appreciated by the public. Little 

 by little the book won readers who could not 

 fail to recognize its merits ; and in 1842 it was 

 republished with a second series which con- 

 tained many sketches from the " Democratic 

 Review." These "Tales" were pronounced, ir 

 the words of Curtis, " full of glancing wit, ot 

 tender satire, and exquisite natural description ; 

 of subtle and strange analysis of human life, 

 darkly passionate and weird." 



In 1838, when the Hon. George Bancroft 

 was collector of the port at Boston, Mr. Haw- 

 thorne received from him the appointment of 

 weigher and ganger of the Custom House. In 

 1841, when the Whigs came into power, he was 

 displaced ; and at this time retired to the Brook 

 Farm Fraternity, then forming at Roxbury. 

 He tried the "experiment for less than a year, 

 however, and returned to Boston, married, and 

 removed to Concord, occupying the well-known 

 Parsonage. In the introduction to his " Mosses 

 from an Old Manse," he gives an interesting 

 account of his life there. His study was in the 

 rear of the house ; and from its windows, its 

 clerical resident of the olden time had watched 

 the famous " Concord Fight " of April 19, 1775. 

 Here he lived in seclusion for about three years, 

 until, on the return of his friend, Mr. Bancroft, 

 to office as Secretary of the Navy, he was made 

 surveyor of the port of Salem, to which place 

 he moved, remaining there three years. Readers 

 of that remarkable romance, " The Scarlet 

 Letter," will remember its autobiographical 



