Every chronicle of manners has a certain value. When customs are connected
with principles, in their origin, development, or end, such records have
a double importance; and it is because we think we see such a connection
between the facts and incidents of the Littlepage Manuscripts, and certain
important theories of our own time, that we give the former to the world.
It is perhaps a fault of your professed historian, to refer too much to
philosophical agencies, and too little to those that are humbler. The
foundations of great events, are often remotely laid in very capricious and
uncalculated passions, motives, or impulses. Chance has usually as much to
do with the fortunes of states, as with those of individuals; or, if there
be calculations connected with them at all, they are the calculations of a
power superior to any that exists in man.
We had been led to lay these Manuscripts before the world, partly by
considerations of the above nature, and partly on account of the manner
in which the two works we have named, "Satanstoe" and the "Chainbearer,"
relate directly to the great New York question of the day, ANTI-RENTISM;
which question will be found to be pretty fully laid bare, in the third
and last book of the series. These three works, which contain all the
Littlepage Manuscripts, do not form sequels to each other, in the sense of
personal histories, or as narratives; while they do in that of principles.
The reader will see that the early career, the attachment, the marriage,
&c. of Mr. Cornelius Littlepage are completely related in the present book,
for instance; while those of his son, Mr. Mordaunt Littlepage, will be just
as fully given in the "Chainbearer," its successor. It is hoped that the
connection, which certainly does exist between these three works, will have
more tendency to increase the value of each, than to produce the ordinary
effect of what are properly called sequels, which are known to lessen the
interest a narrative might otherwise have with the reader. Each of these
three books has its own hero, its own heroine, and its own---picture--of
manners, complete; though the latter may be, and is, more or less thrown
into relief by its _pendants_.
We conceive no apology is necessary for treating the subject of
anti-rentism with the utmost frankness. Agreeably to our views of the
matter, the existence of true liberty among us, the perpetuity of the
institutions, and the safety of public morals, are all dependent on putting
down, wholly, absolutely, and unqualifiedly, the false and dishonest
theories and statements that have been boldly advanced in connection with
this subject. In our view, New York is at this moment, much the most
disgraced state in the Union, notwithstanding she has never failed to pay
the interest on her public debt; and her disgrace arises from the fact that
her laws are trampled underfoot, without any efforts, at all commensurate
with the object, being made to enforce them. If _words_ and _professions_
can save the character of a community, all may yet be well; but if states,
like individuals, are to be judged by their actions, and the "tree is to be
known by its fruit," God help us!
For ourselves, we conceive that true patriotism consists in laying bare
everything like public vice, and in calling such things by their right
names. The great enemy of the race has made a deep inroad upon us, within
the last ten or a dozen years, under cover of a spurious delicacy on the
subject of exposing national ills; and it is time that they who have not
been afraid to praise, when praise was merited, should not shrink from the
office of censuring, when the want of timely warnings may be one cause of
the most fatal evils. The great practical defect of institutions like
ours, is the circumstance that "what is everybody's business, is nobody's
business;" a neglect that gives to the activity of the rogue a very
dangerous ascendency over the more dilatory correctives of the honest man.