The American Union Speaker
by John D. Philbrick · English · Gutenberg #7211 · 1,308,249 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The American Union Speaker
Author: John D. Philbrick
Release date: January 1, 2005 [eBook #7211]
Most recently updated: December 30, 2020
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7211
Credits: Produced by W. B. Jenness
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AMERICAN UNION SPEAKER ***
Produced by W. B. Jenness
ENTERED ACCORDING TO ACT OF CONGRESS, IN THE YEAR 1865, BY
JOHN D. PHILBRICK,
IN THE CLERK'S OFFICE
OF THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS.
RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:
STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY
H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.
PREFACE.
The design of this book is twofold,--to meet the present demand for new
selections suited to the spirit of the hour, and also to furnish a choice
collection of standard pieces for elocutionary exercises on which time has
set its lasting seal. In the execution of this design no pains have been
spared in selecting and preparing the best pieces, both new and old.
The extracts from recent productions, numbering about one hundred, by more
than fifty different authors, are now for the first time presented in a
Speaker. They are for the most part the eloquent utterances of our best
orators and poets, inspired by the present national crisis, and are
therefore "all compact of the passing hour," breathing "the fine sweet
spirit of nationality,--the nationality of America." They give expression
to the emotions excited, the hopes inspired, and the duties imposed by this
stormy and perilous period. They afford brilliant illustrations of the
statesmanship of the crisis. Sumner exposes the origin and mainspring of
the rebellion, Douglass strips off its pretext, Everett paints its crime,
Boutwell boldly proclaims its remedy in emancipation, and Banks pronounces
a benediction on the first act of reconstruction on the solid basis of
freedom to all. They furnish also an epitome of the convict of arms. Bryant
utters the rallying cry to the people, Whittier responds in the united
voice of the North, Holmes sounds the grand charge, Pierpont gives the
command "Forward!" Longfellow and Boker immortalize the unconquerable
heroism of our braves on sea and land, and Andrew and Beecher speak in
tender accents the gratitude of loyal hearts to our fallen heroes.
These new pieces will for a time receive the preference over old ones, and
some of them will survive the period which called them forth. But to insure
for the work, if possible, a permanent value as a Standard Speaker for
students of common schools, higher seminaries and colleges, the greater
part of the selections, nearly three hundred in number, have been chosen
from those of acknowledged excellence, and of unquestionable merit as
exercises for recitation and declamation. This department comprises every
variety of style necessary in elocutionary culture.
Another important feature of the collection is the introduction of those
masterpieces of oratory--long excluded from books of this class, though now
rendered appropriate by the new phase of public opinion,which advocate the
inalienable rights of man, and denounce the crime of human bondage. Aware
of the deep and lasting power which pieces used for declamation exert in
moulding the ideas and opinions of the young, it has been my aim to admit
only such productions as inculcate the noblest and purest sentiments,
teaching patriotism, loyalty, and justice, and bring the youthful heart
with ambition to be useful, and with heroic devotion to duty.
The text of the extracts has been made to conform to that of the most
authentic editions of the works of their authors. Some pieces which have
heretofore been presented in a mutilated form, are here restored to their
original completeness. Where compression or abridgment has been necessary,
it has been executed with caution, and with strict regard to the sentiments
and ideas of the authors. Fully convinced that elaborate treatises on
elocution more appropriately form separate publications, nothing of the
kind has been included in this volume. A summary of practical suggestions
to teachers and students was thought to form a more useful introduction.
For the sake of artistic beauty in the page, as well as for the convenience
of the student, the notes and explanatory remarks necessary for the proper
understanding of the pieces, have been thrown together at the end of the
volume, and so arranged that reference to them can be easily made.
This work, the preparation of which has been a recreation rather than a
labor--an agreeable diversion from the daily routine of a laborious
office,--is the embodiment of the experience and observation of twenty-five
years, with reference to this description of literature. It originated in a
desire to contribute something to the furtherance of the right education of
the young men of my country, and the extent to which it promotes this
object, will in my estimation, be the measure of its success.
Boston, July 4, 1864.
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ON DECLAMATION.
It is not my purpose to present here a theory of elocution, or a systematic
treatise on the art of speaking. My object will be accomplished if I
succeed in furnishing a summary of practical suggestions and hints on the
subject of declamation which shall prove useful both to student and to such
teachers as have not made the study of elocution a specialty.
That a correct and impressive elocution is a desirable attainment, few will
venture to deny. In my judgment it is the crowning grace of a liberal
education. To the highest success in those professions which involve public
speaking, it is, of course, indispensable. No person, whatever is to be his
destination in life, who aspires to a respectable education and to mingle
in good society, can afford to dispense with this accomplishment. If a
young man means to succeed in life and attain distinction and influence, he
should spare no pains in the cultivation of the faculty of speech. The
culture of his vocal organs should keep pace with the culture of his mental
powers. While acquiring a knowledge of literature and science, he should
also form the habit of speaking his vernacular with propriety, grace, ease,
and elegance, sparing no effort to acquire what has been aptly called "the
music of the phrase; that clear, flowing, and decided sound of the whole
sentence, which embraces both tone and accent, and which is only to be
learned from the precept and example of an accomplished teacher."
As a means of acquiring an appropriate, effective, and graceful elocution
for the purposes of conversation, reading, and public speaking, the
exercise of declamation, when properly conducted, cannot be too highly
valued. It must be confessed, however that the practice of declaiming as
managed in some institutions, is comparatively useless, if not positively
injurious. Hence arises the prejudice against it which exists in some
quarters. And it is not surprising that the results of declamation should
be unsatisfactory, considering the defective methods of conducting it,
which are still prevalent in not a few places. What can be expected of
declamation which consists in repeating on the stage a few
pieces,--injudiciously selected and imperfectly committed,--without
previous or accompanying vocal training? The remarks of Dr. Rush, on this
topic, though made more than a quarter of a century ago, are still to some
extent applicable. "Go to some, may I say all, of our colleges and
universities, and observe how the art of speaking is not taught. See a boy
of but fifteen treats sent upon the stage, pale and choking with
apprehension, in an attempt to do that, without instruction, which he came
purposely to learn; and furnishing amusement to his classmates, by a
pardonable awkwardness, which should be punished in the person of his
pretending but neglectful preceptor with little less than scourging. Then
visit a conservatory of music; observe there the orderly tasks, the
masterly discipline, the unwearied superintendence and the incessant toil
to produce accomplishment of voice; and afterward do not be surprised that
the pulpit, the senate, the bar, and the chair of the medical professorship
are filled with such abominable drawlers, mouthers, mumblers, clutterers,
squeakers, chanters, and mongers in monotony; nor that the schools of
singing are constantly sending abroad those great instances of vocal
wonder, who draw forth the intelligent curiosity and produce the crowning
delight and approbation of the prince and the sage."
This eminent writer's great work on the Philosophy of the Human Voice has
done much to correct the evil which he so graphically described. There are
now some schools and colleges to be found in which elocution is taught with
much skill and success. Among the disciples of Dr. Rush who have most
successfully cultivated the art of elocution in America, the foremost place
belongs to Professor William Russell, whose valuable and protracted labors
in this department of education, both as an author and a practical
instructor, merit the highest commendation.
As the first of my recommendations, I would, at the outset, strenuously
insist on the importance of systematic vocal culture, which implies the
training of the ear to perceive the various qualities and modifications of
vocal expression, and the training of the voice to produce them. All the
different functions of the voice employed in speech should be analytically
exemplified by the teacher, and practised by the pupil, in the reading or
recitation of short passages in which they are well illustrated, such as
may be found in any good manual of elocution. This kind of teaching is to
elocution what practice upon the scale is to music, and what the practice
of the eye upon the harmony and contrast of colors is to painting.
This course of training naturally divides itself into two
departments:--first that which is mechanical; and, secondly, that which
relates to the expression of thought and emotion.
I. THAT WHICH IS MECHANICAL.
BREATHING. The human voice is a musical instrument, an organ of exquisite
contrivance and adaptation of parts. Breath being the material of its
sound, vocal training should begin with the function of breathing. Vigorous
respiration is as essential to good elocution as it is to good health. To
secure this it is necessary, in the first place, to attend to the posture,
taking care to give the utmost freedom, expansion, and capacity to the
chest, and then to exercise and develop all the muscles employed in
respiration, so that they may be habitually used with energy and power,
both in the inhalation and expulsion of the breath. Whenever the voice is
to be used in speaking, reading, singing, or animated conversation, the
pupil should be required to assume the proper position, and to bring into
exercise the whole muscular apparatus of the vocal organs, including the
muscles of the abdomen, of the back, of the ribs, and of the chest.
Elocutionary exercises, especially that of declamation, thus practised with
a due regard to the function of breathing, become highly beneficial in a
hygienic point of view, imparting health and vigor to the whole physical
system. The want of this kind of training is the cause of much of the
bronchial disease with which clergymen and other public speakers are
afflicted. In the excellent work on Elocution, by Russell and Murdock, the
following exercises in breathing are prescribed and explained:--"Attitude
of the body and position of the organs; deep breathing; diffusive or
tranquil breathing; expulsive or forcible breathing; explosive or abrupt
breathing; sighing; sobbing; gasping; and panting."
Experience has proved that the respiratory organs are susceptible of a high
degree of development, and it is well known that the strength of the voice
depends on the capacity, health, and action of those organs. It is
therefore of paramount importance that elocutionary culture should be based
on the mechanical function of respiration. And while the elocutionist
trains his pupils in such breathing exercises as are above named, he is at
the same time giving the very best part of physical education; for the
amount of vital power, as well as the amount of vocal power, depends upon
the health and vigor of the respiratory process. Few are aware how much may
be effected by these exercises, judiciously practiced, in those
constitutions where the chest is narrow, indicating a tendency to pulmonary
disease. In all such cases, regularly repeated deep inspirations are of the
highest value. It should be observed that these exercises are best
performed in the open air, or, at least, in a well-ventilated room, the
windows being open for the time. But no directions however wise or minute,
can supersede the necessity of a competent teacher in this branch of
physical and vocal training, and I cannot dismiss this topic without
expressing my high appreciation of the value of the labors of that great
master of the science of vocal culture, Prof. Lewis B. Monroe, of Boston,
who is probably unsurpassed in this, or any other country, as a practical
teacher of the mechanism and physiology of speech. Already the benefit of
his instruction in this department of education is widely felt, and I omit
no opportunity to advise teachers to avail themselves of a longer or
shorter course of his admirable training. For if there is any
accomplishment which a teacher should be unwilling to forego, it is that,
of skill in elocution.
ARTICULATION. A good articulation consists in giving to each letter its
appropriate sound, and to each syllable and word an accurate, forcible, and
distinct utterance, according to an approved standard of pronunciation.
This is what constitutes the basis of all good delivery. It has been well
said that good articulation is to the ear what a fair hand or a clear type
is to the eye. Austin's often-quoted description of a good articulation
must not be omitted here. "In just articulation, the words are not to be
hurried over, nor precipitated syllable over syllable; nor as it were
melted together into a mass of confusion. They should be neither abridged
nor prolonged, nor swallowed, nor forced; they should not be trailed, nor
drawled, nor let to slip out carelessly, so as to drop unfinished. They are
to be delivered out from the lips as beautiful coins newly issued from the
mint, deeply and accurately impressed, perfectly finished, neatly struck by
the proper organs, distinct, in due succession, and of due weight." Good
articulation is not only necessary to the speaker, as a condition of being
heard and understood, but it is a positive beauty of delivery, for the
elementary sounds of speech, when properly uttered, are in themselves both
agreeable and impressive. For the attainment of this desirable
accomplishment, three classes of exercises are necessary. 1. Upon the
separate elementary sounds of the language, both vowels and consonants; 2.
Upon their various combinations, both such as constitute syllables and such
as do not, and especially the more difficult combinations of consonants;
and, 3. Upon words; spelling them by sounds, that is, uttering the
elementary sounds separately, and then the whole word.
Respecting these exercises, Dr. Rush observes:--"When the elements are
pronounced singly, they may receive a concentration of organic effort,
which gives them a clearness of sound, and a definiteness of outline, if I
may so speak, at their extremes, that make a fine preparation for a
distinct and forcible pronunciation of the compounds of speech." By
elementary sounds is here meant the forty-two sounds of the language which
are represented by the twenty-six letters of the alphabet. They are
represented in the following
TABLE OF ELEMENTARY SOUNDS.
VOWELS.
1. e, eve. 7. a, arm. 13. o, move.
2. i, in. 8. a, all. 14. u, full.
3. a, ale. 9, o, on. 15. u, tune.
4. e, end. 10. e, err. 16. i, isle.
5. a, air. 11. o, own. 17. oi, oil.
6. a, and. 12. u, un. 18. ou, our.
CONSONANTS.
1. p, rope. 9. th, bath. 17. ch, etch.
2. b, robe. 10. th, bath. 18. dg,(j) edge.
3. f, safe. 11. s, buss. 19. sh, rash.
4. v, save. 12. z, buzz. 20. g,(zh) rouge.
5. m, seem. 13. l, feel. 21. k, rack.
6. w, way. 14. r, fear. 22. g, rag.
7. t, feet. 15. n, seen. 23. ng, sing.
8. d, feed. 16. y, yea. 24. h, hay.
Pronounce the word eve, for example, slowly and distinctly, observing the
sounds which compose the word, and the movements of the organs in producing
them. Then enunciate singly the sound which the letter standing on the left
has in the word. When a distinct idea of each sound has been acquired, the
practice on the separate elements may be continued without pronouncing the
words. I have heard these sounds given with distinctness by children five
or six years of age. Indeed they should always be taught with the alphabet.
The next step in articulation proceeds with the combinations of the
elementary sounds. The most common combinations of consonantal sounds in
pairs are those represented in the following
TABLE OF COMBINED CONSONANTS.
pl lf zm zn kr vd rth
bl lv mp ln pr zd nth
fl lt mf rn rp gd thz
vl ld mt nt rb bz thr
tl ls md nd rf vz thn
dl lz mz ns rv dz lch
sl lk pn nz rt gz rch
zl lg fn pr rd nk nch
kl lm vn br rz ks ndg(j)
gl ln tn fr rk kt shr
lp rm dn tr rg st ndg
lb sm sn dr bd sp ndz
When the simpler combinations have become familiar, the more difficult,
consisting of three or four consonants, should be practised upon. Finally,
words should be pronounced simply as words, giving attention solely to the
articulation. Not that the first steps are expected to be perfect before
the succeeding ones are attempted, but that attention should be given to
only one thing at a time, a grand maxim in education, when rightly
understood. These exercises should be commenced with the first steps in
reading, and continued until the articulation is perfected, and the student
has acquired facility as well as precision, grace as well as force, and
distinctness and ease have been united and permanently secured.
I would not be understood to affirm that the mode here pointed out is the
only one by which a good articulation can be acquired. If a child is
brought up among persons whose articulation is good, and if, from the
earliest years, he is trained to speak with deliberation and distinctness,
he will in most cases have a good articulation for conversational purposes,
without special drilling on the elements.
II. THAT WHICH RELATES TO THE EXPRESSION OF THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS,
INCLUDING THE QUALITIES AND MANAGEMENT OF THE VOICE.
This branch of vocal gymnastics comprises, first the appropriate discipline
of the voice for its formation and development, by strengthening it, by
extending its compass, and by improving its quality so as to render it
full, sonorous, and agreeable; and, secondly, the training of the voice in
those modifications which are used in the expressions of thought and
feeling, including all that variety of management which appears in the
delivery of a good speaker.
STRENGTH. To secure the requisite strength of voice should be our first aim
in a course of vocal culture. So important was this element of elocutionary
training considered by the Athenians, that they had a class of teachers who
were wholly devoted to it as a specialty. The zeal and perseverance of
Demosthenes in correcting the natural deficiencies of his voice, have
passed into a proverb. How he was accustomed to run up the steepest hills,
and to declaim on the sea-shore, when the waves were violently agitated, in
order to acquire strength of voice and force of utterance is known to every
school-boy.
If strength of voice is of paramount importance to the speaker, it is also
an element which is very susceptible of cultivation. Professor Russell
says,--"The fact is familiar to instructors in elocution, that persons
commencing practice [in vocal gymnastics] with a very weak and inadequate
voice, attain, in a few weeks, a perfect command of the utmost degrees of
force." As has already been intimated, the strength of the voice depends
directly upon the condition and use of the respiratory organs, including
the larynx, and indirectly upon the general health and vigor of the whole
physical system. The volume of breath which can be inhaled, and the force
with which it can be expelled determine the degree of energy with which
vocal sounds are uttered. This fact affords a clear indication of the
proper mode of developing the strength of the voice. It is evident that the
exercises which have for their object the strengthening of the voice,
should also be adapted to develop and perfect the process of breathing. The
student should be frequently trained in set exercises in loud exclamations,
pronouncing with great force the separate vowel sounds, single words, and
whole sentences, and at the same time taking care to bring into vigorous
action, all the muscular apparatus of respiration. Shouting, calling, and
loud vociferation, in the open air, both while standing, and while walking
or running, are, with due caution, effective means of acquiring vigor of
utterance. Children when at play are instinctively given to vociferation,
which should be permitted, whenever practicable. One of the most remarkable
examples of the extent to which the power of voice may be developed, is
that of the Rev. Mr. Whitefield, the celebrated itinerant preacher. Having
listened to his preaching in the open air, in Philadelphia, on a certain
occasion, Dr. Franklin found by computation, that he might well be heard by
more than thirty thousand auditors. It is said that the habit of speaking
gave to the utterance of Garrick so wonderful an energy, that even his
under-key was distinctly audible to ten thousand people. Dr. Porter sums up
this matter thus :--"The public speaker needs a powerful voice; the
quantity of voice which he can employ, at least can employ with safety,
depends on his strength of lungs; and this again depends on a sound state
of general health. If he neglects this, all other precautions will be
useless."
COMPASS. When a person is engaged in earnest conversation, his voice
spontaneously adopts a certain key or pitch. This is called the natural or
middle key, and it varies in different persons. Pitt's voice, it is said,
was a full tenor, and Fox's a treble. When a speaker is incapable of loud
and forcible utterance on both high and low notes, his voice is said to be
wanting in compass. Webster's voice was remarkable for the extent of its
compass, ranging with the utmost ease, from the highest to the lowest
notes, required by a spirited and diversified delivery; and such was said
to be the versatility of Whitefield's vocal power, that he could imitate
the tones of a female, or the infant voice, at one time, and at another,
strike his hearers with awe, by the thunder of his under-key.
The want of compass is more frequently the result of bad habits of speaking
and imperfect training than of incapacity of the vocal organs. Mr. Murdock,
the well-known actor and elocutionist, tells us that, by appropriate vocal
training, he gained, within the space of some months, to such an extent, in
power and depth of voice, as to add to its previous range a full octave;
and this improvement was made at a period after he supposed himself nearly
broken down in health and voice, by over-exertion on the stage.
A command of the low notes is essential to the fullest effect of impressive
eloquence. The strongest and deepest emotions can be expressed only by a
full, deep-toned utterance. Speaking on one key, with only slight
variations, either above or below it, is perhaps the most common, and, at
the same time, the most injurious fault both of declaimers and of public
speakers.
As a means of acquiring compass of voice, the student should pronounce with
great force the vowel sounds on both the highest and lowest notes he can
reach. This elementary drill should be followed by practice in reading and
declaiming selections requiring the extreme notes of the compass. For
practice on the low notes, passages should be selected expressing deep
solemnity, awe, horror, melancholy, or deep grief. The following fine
simile affords an excellent example for practice on the low notes:--
"So when an angel, by divine command,
With rising tempests shakes a guilty land,
Such as of late o'er pale Brittania passed,
Calm and serene he drives the furious blast;
And, pleased th' Almighty's orders to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm."
The development of the top of the voice requires practice upon passages
expressing brisk, gay, and joyous emotions, and the extremes of pain, fear,
and grief. The following examples may serve as illustrations:
Last came Joy's ecstatic trial:
He, with viny crown advancing,
First to the lively pipe his hand addressed:
But soon he saw the brisk, awakening viol,
Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best.
They would have thought, who heard the strain,
They saw, in Tempé's vale, her native maids,
Amidst the festal-sounding shades,
To some unlearned minstrel dancing;
While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings,
Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round.
Strike--till the last armed foe expires;
Strike--for your altars and your fires;
Strike--for the green graves of your sires,--
God.--and your native land!
QUALITY. A voice may possess the properties we have considered, strength
and compass, and yet be very far from perfection. It may be neither loud,
nor round, nor clear, nor full, nor sweet. While on the other hand, it may
be hollow, or aspirated, or guttural, or nasal, or possibly it may be
afflicted with a combination of these faults. As one of the most important
conditions of success in the cultivation of the voice, it is necessary that
the student should acquire a distinct conception of the qualities and
characteristics of a good voice, as a standard, a beau-ideal, which he may
strive to reach. This must be derived mainly from the illustrations of the
teacher, or from listening to the speaking of an accomplished orator. No
mere description is adequate to convey it to the learner without the aid of
the living voice. And yet, such a quaint and charming description of both
the negative and positive qualities of a good voice, as the following, from
a colloquy between Professor Wilson and the Ettrick Shepherd, is worth
studying:--
NORTH. (Professor Wilson)
"James, I love to hear your voice. An Esquimaux would feel
himself getting civilized under it for there's sense in the very
sound. A man's character speaks in his voice, even more than in
his words. These he may utter by rote, but his 'voice is the man
for a' that,' and betrays or divulges his peculiar nature. Do you
like my voice, James? I hope you do."
Shepherd. (James Hogg.)
"I wad ha'e kent it, Mr. North, on the tower o' Babel, on the day
o' the great hubbub. I think Socrates maun ha'e had just sic a
voice--ye canna weel ca 't sweet, for it is ower intellectual for
that--ye canna ca 't saft, for even in its aigh notes there's a
sort o' birr, a sort o' dirl that betokens power--ye canna ca 't
hairsh, for angry as ye may be at times, it's aye in tune frae
the fineness o' your ear for music--ye canna ca 't sherp, for
it's aye sae nat'ral--and flett it cud never be, gin you were
even gi'en ower by the doctors. It's maist the only voice I ever
heard, that I can say is at ance persuawsive and commanding--you
micht fear 't, but you maun love 't; and there's no a voice in
all his Majesty's dominions, better framed by nature to hold
communion with friend or foe."
The quality of voice to which I would here call special attention is called
pure tone, which in its perfection, accompanied with strength and compass,
comprises nearly all the requisites of a good voice. "True utterance and
pure tone," says Professor Russell, "employ the whole apparatus of voice,
in one consentaneous act, combining in one perfect sphere of sound, if it
may be so expressed, the depth of effect produced by the resonance of the
chest, the force and firmness imparted by the due compression of the
throat, the clear, ringing property, caused by the due proportion of nasal
effect, and the softening and sweetening influence of the head and mouth."
The orotund quality which is so effective in impassioned utterance, and in
the expression of deep, forcible, and sublime emotions, is nothing more
than pure tone increased in extent of volume, and in intensity of force.
This modification of pure tone is very full, very rounds very smooth, and
very highly resonant or ringing. It is what Dr. Rush regarded as the
highest perfection of speech-voice, and as the natural language of the
highest species of emotion. Volume and energy are its distinguishing
characteristics. The piece from Webster on page 160, is a good illustration
of its use.
In cultivating purity of tone, it is necessary, in the first place, to
ascertain the elements of impurity, and their causes and remedies. To this
negative process must be added the positive, namely--attention to the due
and proportionate development of all the vocal organs. Depth is increased
by the expansion of the pharynx; roundness and volume are promoted by the
enlargement of the oral cavity, especially its back part; and smoothness is
the result of the free vibration of the vocal chords, while resonance is
produced by the proper expansion of the chest.
MODULATION. This has reference, not to the qualities of the voice itself,
but to its management in delivery. It includes those modifications and
variations which are requisite for the expression of thoughts and feelings,
and are therefore denominated by some elocutionists, the elements of
expression, in distinction from the elements of utterance, which we have
already considered under the preceding heads. The principal expressive
modifications of the voice, are pitch, force, rate, pause, and infection.
The voice should be exercised on these elements separately, till each can
be produced in all its varieties and degrees. The middle pitch, or
key-note, is that of common discourse, but by practice it may be rendered
effective in public speaking. Neglect to cultivate and develop the power of
speaking on this key, often leads speakers to adopt the high, shouting
note, which is heard so commonly, and with so much disapprobation, at
exhibitions of declamation. Every one can speak on a high key, although
without training few can do it pleasingly; but command over the low notes
of the voice is a rare accomplishment, and an unequivocal characteristic of
the finished speaker. It is well to pay some attention to the very high and
very low notes, not so much for their own utility in public speaking as for
the purpose of giving strength and firmness to the notes which are
intermediate between the natural pitch and either extreme, and which are
designated as simply high and low, without any qualifying term. After
accustoming the ear and voice to the different notes, the student should
learn to make sudden transitions from one key to another.
FORCE. The principal degrees of force requiring attention, are three: the
moderate, the declamatory, and the impassioned. The degrees lower than
moderate are, the suppressed and the subdued; and those higher than
impassioned are, shouting and calling. But these are not very important in
practical delivery.
RATE has reference to the kinds of movement in delivery, including the
rapid, the moderate, and the slow. Mrs. Siddon's primary rule for good
reading was, "Take Time." Excessive rapidity of utterance is, undoubtedly,
a very prevalent fault, both in speaking and in conversation. Deliberate
speech is usually a characteristic of culture and good-breeding. This
excellence is greatly promoted by giving due quantity, or prolongation of
sound, to the vowels.
PAUSES. Besides the pauses required by the syntactical structure of the
sentence, and denoted by grammatical punctuation, there are the pauses of
passion, and the pauses at the termination of the clusters into which words
are grouped in good speaking.
The pauses of emotion occur in impassioned delivery. They usually consist
in lengthening the stops indicated by the punctuation marks, especially
those of the points of exclamation and interrogation, and the dash. Pauses
of this description constitute one of the most importent of the elements of
emphatic expression, and yet they are, by many speakers, altogether
neglected, or so abridged as to destroy their effect. The young student is
particularly apt to disregard them.
The pauses which mark the grouping of words according to the sense, and
afford rests for taking breath, should generally be introduced before the
nominative, if it consists of several words, or if it is one important
word; before and after an intermediate clause; before the relative; before
and after clauses introduced by prepositions; before conjunctions; and
before the infinitive mood, if any words intervene betwixt it and the word
governing it.
INFLECTIONS. The two chief inflections or slides are the raising and the
falling. The voice, when properly managed, usually rises or falls on each
emphatic syllable. These upward and downward movements of the voice are
what we mean by inflections. The student should practice on them till he
can inflect with ease and in a full sonorous voice. Persons who are
deficient in tune do not readily perceive the difference between the rising
slide and loudness of voice, or the falling and softness. It is a very
useful exercise to pronounce the long vowel sounds giving to each first the
rising then the falling slide. The prolongation of these sounds is most
profitably connected with the slides, the voice being thus strengthened in
its whole range of compass, and, at the same time, accustomed to utter the
musical sounds of speech with due quantity. In inflecting the vowels, the
voice, in order to rise, begins low; and, in order to fall, it begins high.
The rising and falling slides combined form the circumflex, or wave, which
is a very impressive and significant modification of the voice. It is
chiefly used in sarcasm, raillery, irony, wit, and humor. It well deserves
careful study and practice.
THE MONOTONE, is the repetition of nearly the same tone on successive
syllables, resembling the repeated strokes of the bell. This element
belongs to very grave delivery, especially where emotions of awe,
sublimity, grandeur, and vastness are expressed, and is peculiarly adapted
to devotional exercises. The following example well illustrates its use:
"He bowed the heavens also, and came down; and darkness was under
his feet,--And he rode upon a cherub and did fly; yea, he did
fly upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness his secret
place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick
clouds of the skies."
In practical delivery, the elements of expression are never used
independently of each other, two or three being always combined, even in
the utterance of the shortest passage. The perfection of vocal training,
therefore, requires a command, not merely of each individual modification
of the voice, but of all their numerous combinations. The following example
requires the union of declamatory force, low pitch, slow rate, monotone,
and orotund quality:--
"High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus. and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand,
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat."
What has been said thus far, relates wholly to preparatory training in the
elements of elocution. I have dwelt upon this theoretical department of my
subject, because of its transcendent importance. But I do not mean to
imply, in anything that has been presented, that the pupil should be
confined exclusively to this disciplinary drill, for a long period, without
attempting practical exercises in reading and declamation. On the contrary,
I would recommend that this practice on the vocal and expressive elements
be carried forward together with practice in speaking pieces. Exercises in
vocal gymnastics, such as I have now indicated, should be commenced with
the first stages of education, and continued, with gradations adapted to
the age and progress of the pupil, through the whole course of instruction,
whether longer or shorter. The value of thorough elementary training is
well illustrated by the following anecdote respecting the education of the
ear and the singing voice:--
"Porpora, one of the most illustrious masters of Italy, having
conceived a friendship for a young pupil, exacted from him the
promise that he would persevere with constancy in the course
which he should mark out for him. The master then noted upon a
single page of ruled paper, the diatonic and chromatic scales,
ascending and descending; the intervals of third, fourth, fifth,
&c. This eternal page occupied master and pupil until the sixth
year, when the master added some lessons in articulation and
declamation. At the end of this year, the pupil, who still
supposed himself in the elements, was much surprised when Porpora
said to him, 'Go, my son, you have nothing more to learn; you are
the first singer of Italy, and of the world.' The master had
spoken the truth, for this singer was Caffarelli, the greatest
singer of the eighteenth century."
EXPRESSION
This term is used here, not in its limited and technical meaning, but in
its largest sense, as a convenient one to denote the practical application
of the principles of vocal culture which I have recommended. We will
suppose the student to be thoroughly trained in enunciation, that his
utterance is distinct and his pronunciation is correct, and that his voice
is fully developed and well modulated. The question now arises, How is he
to be guided in the right use of his powers of speech in the delivery of a
given piece? On this point there is a wide difference of opinion among
writers on elocution. On the one hand there are those who contend that, in
the delivery of every sentence, the application of emphasis, pause, pitch,
inflection, &c., should be governed by definite rules. In accordance with
this theory, they have formed complex systems of elocutionary rules, for
the guidance of pupils in reading aloud and in declamation. On the other
hand, there are authorities of eminence, who regard all specific rules for
the management of the voice in speaking as not merely useless, but
positively injurious. Most prominent among the latter class is Archbishop
Whately who, in speaking of the method of teaching expressive delivery by
rules, says:--"Such a plan not only directs us into a circuitous and
difficult path, towards an object which may be reached by a shorter and
straighter, but also in most instances completely fails of that very
object, and even produces oftener than not, effects the very reverse of
what was designed." Reprobating very emphatically all systematic attention
to elocution as an art, this eminent author advocates what he calls the
natural manner of speaking, for the attainment of which he prescribes the
rule, "not only to pay no studied attention to the voice, but studiously to
withdraw the thoughts from it, and to dwell as intently as possible on the
sense, trusting to nature to suggest spontaneously the proper emphasis and
tones."
The true course seems to me to lie midway between these two opposite
extremes. While it is useless to attempt to reduce to exact system all the
modifications of voice to be employed in the delivery of both plain and
allegorical language, still there are many important elocutionary rules and
principles which are eminently useful for the guidance of the student.
Because Walker fell into the error of attempting to carry his principles
too far, and perplexed the student with an endless list of rules, it does
not follow that all rules should be disregarded. His rules for inflections
are, no doubt, too complex and artificial for ordinary instruction in
elocution, but those found in the works of Dr. Porter and Professor Russell
are calculated to afford important aid; and Professor Mark Bailey, in his
Introduction to "Hillard's Sixth Reader," has still further simplified the
subject. The following principles which he lays down for regulating the
inflections are at once comprehensive and practical.
"The 'rising' and 'falling' slides separate the great mass of ideas into
two distinct classes; the first comprising all the subordinate, or
incomplete, or, as we prefer to name them, the negative ideas; the second
comprising all the principal, or complete, or, as we call them, the
positive ideas.
"The most important parts of what is spoken or written, are those which
affirm something positively, such as the facts and truths asserted, the
principles, sentiments, and actions enjoined, with the illustrations, and
reasons, and appeals, which enforce them. All these may properly be grouped
into one class, because they all should have the same kind of slide in
reading. This class we call 'positive ideas.'
"So all the other ideas which do not affirm or enjoin anything positively,
which are circumstantial and incomplete, or in open contrast with the
positive, all these ideas may be properly grouped into another single
class because they all should have the same kind of slide. This class we
call 'negative ideas.'
"Positive ideas should have the falling slide; Negative ideas should have
the rising slide.
"All sincere and earnest, or, in other words, all upright and downright
ideas demand the straight, or upright and downright slides.
"All ideas which are not sincere or earnest, but are used in jest, or
irony, in ridicule, sarcasm, or mockery, in insinuation or double-meaning,
demand the crooked or circumflex slides."
These rules taken in connection with the accompanying brief but clear and
precise explanation of the meaning attached to the words positive and
negative, constitute the most admirable generalization that I have met with
in elocutionary works of more recent date than that of Dr. Rush. And,
indeed, Professor Bailey's whole treatment of that part of elocution now
under consideration, is the best illustration I can name of the middle
course which I recommend. Avoiding alike the ultra "artificial" system of
Walker and the ultra "natural" system of Whately, he combines in his
instruction the excellencies of both, without their faults. He is both
philosophical in his theory, and practical in its application. He attempts
only what is practicable. He insists on analysis, but his analysis is at
once simple and comprehensive. He classes the different kinds of
composition with respect to the emotions, as follows,--1. Unemotional; 2.
Bold; 3. Animated or joyous; 4. Subdued or pathetic; 5. Noble; 6. Grave; 7.
Ludicrous or sarcastic, 8. Impassioned,--and then indicates the
modifications of voice appropriate for each.
Now such a course of training based on such principles, especially if
pursued under a competent instructor, cannot fail to be highly beneficial.
Experience has proved it. Whately is evidently in error in wholly
proscribing attention to the voice in speaking. In learning to dance, the
pupil must pay attention to the motions of his limbs, but when practice has
made the movements familiar, his mind is withdrawn from them. They then
become natural. Just so will the student of elocution. In his disciplinary
exercises he must attend to his voice. He must become accustomed to the
correct application of tones and inflections in the delivery of passages
which illustrate them. But when he comes to practical delivery, then the
mind should be withdrawn from the manner of utterance, and concentrated
intensely upon the matter,--the thoughts and feelings to be expressed. In
private rehearsals, the management of the voice will be a very prominent
object of attention. Declamation is a sort of transition stage, or
intermediate exercise between private rehearsal and practical delivery at
the bar, in the pulpit, or on the platform, and will require more or less
attention to the voice, in proportion to the progress already made by the
pupil. Judicious practice will gradually carry him to that point where he
will wholly cease to think of his manner, and become entirely absorbed in
his subject. He then becomes natural. But even the most accomplished orator
must occasionally give some thought to his voice. When he rises to address
an audience in a new place he must consider the circumstances,--the
capacity of the apartment, the nature and temper of his auditors, &c., and
pitch his voice accordingly. In other words, the speaker must on all
occasions give a general attention to his voice,--sufficient, at least, to
adapt it to the requirements of the position in which he is placed,
modifying it in the progress of the discourse, as the necessity of the case
demands. If the matter of his discourse is very familiar, the skilful
speaker may greatly augment the effectiveness of his delivery by more
particular attention to the manner, while he will seem wholly absorbed in
the spirit and sense of what he utters.
GESTURE.
The limited space allotted to this introduction will not permit a full
discussion of this topic, and I must content myself with presenting a few
general observations concerning it.
The little child, in the unconscious freedom of childhood, before his
actions and manners have been modified by the restraints of artificial
life, affords the best model of gesture. His instinct prompts him to that
visible expression of his thoughts and feelings
"Which we are toiling all our lives to find."
And it may be assumed as a general fact that external expression, unless
repressed by habit or design, usually corresponds with internal emotion.
The great desideratum in gesture is to make the visible expression in
delivery harmonize with the audible, or, as Shakspeare has it, to "suit the
action to the word, and the word to the action."
Professor Russell, in his excellent analysis of this subject says, "The
true speaker must have a true manner; and of the five great attributes of
genuine expression in attitude and action, TRUTH stands first, followed by
FIRMNESS, FORCE, FREEDOM, and PROPRIETY. GRACE, which is sometimes added as
a sixth, is, in all true manly eloquence, but another name for the symmetry
which flows from appropriateness; and, in masculine expression, should
never be a distinct object of attention."
In order to speak well, the orator must be able to stand well, that is, he
should assume a firm but easy and graceful attitude, the weight of the body
resting principally on one foot. The distance between the feet should be
such as to give both firmness and freedom to the position One foot should
be in advance of the other, the toes being turned outward. The attitude
should vary with the thoughts and emotions expressed. Unemotional thoughts
require an attitude of repose, the body resting on the retired foot. Bold
and impassioned language requires the reverse of this. The body is thrown
forward, resting on the foot advanced. In turning from side to side, the
toes should be kept apart and the heels together.
The principal feature of bodily action consists in the proper use of the
hands. "Have not," says Quintilion, "our hand's the power of exciting, of
restraining, of beseeching, of testifying approbation, admiration, and
shame? Do they not, in pointing out places and persons, discharge the duty
of adverbs and pronouns? So amidst the great diversity of tongues-pervading
all nations and peoples, the language of the hands appears to be a language
common to all men." We stretch forth and clasp the hands when we
importunately entreat, sue, beseech, supplicate, or ask mercy. To put forth
the right hand spread open is the gesture of bounty, liberality, and a free
heart; and thus we reward, and bestow gifts. Placing with vehemence the
right fist in the left palm is a gesture commonly used to mock, chide,
insult, reproach, and rebuke. To beckon with the raised hand is a universal
sign of craving audience and entreating a favorable silence. To wave the
hand from us, the palm outward, is the gesture of repulsion, aversion,
dismissal. To shake the fist at one signifies anger and defiance and
threatening. The hands are clasped or wrung in deep sorrow, and
outstretched with the palms inward to indicate welcoming, approving, and
receiving. In shame, the hand is placed before the eyes; in earnestness and
ardor, the hands reach forward; in joy, they are thrown up, widely apart;
in exultation and triumph, the right hand is waved above the head.
"In the rhetorical actions of the hand, the happy medium ought to be
observed; for the action of the hand should be full of dignity and
magnanimous resolution, making it a liberal index of the mind." A French
writer admirably remarks that we should move the arms because we are
animated, but not try to appear animated by moving the arms.
The countenance, especially the eye, should be made to speak as well as the
tongue. It is said of Chatham, that such was the power of his eye, that he
very often cowed down an antagonist in the midst of his speech, and threw
him into confusion. It is through the eye, scarcely less than through the
tones of voice, that intercourse of soul is carried on between the speaker
and hearers. To secure this intercourse the speaker should let his soul
beam from his eye. Nor should he fail to look at his hearers, if he would
have his hearers look at him. Among the faults to be avoided in the
management of the eye, Dr. Porter notices particularly that unmeaning look
which the eye "bent on vacuity" has, resembling the inexpressive glare of
the glass eye of a wax figure; that indefinite sweep of the eye which
ranges from one side to the other of an assembly, resting nowhere; and
that tremulous, roving cast of the eye, and winking of the eyelid, which
is in direct contrast to an open, collected, manly expression of the face.
Among the faults of action to be noticed are:--1. Want of action; 2. Want
of expression of countenance; 3. A stiff, or a careless, attitude; 4. Want
of appropriateness; 5. Excess of motions of the hands and arms; 6. Too
great violence of action; 7. Too great complexity; 8. A mechanical
uniformity; 9. Tardiness, the action following the utterances when it
should accompany it, or slightly precede it.
It must not be supposed that it is necessary for the pupil to receive
training in a technical system of gesticulation before he commences his
exercises in declamation. If the student designs to qualify himself to be a
professor of elocution, he will need to study the laws of gesture in
"Austin's Chironomia," and be instructed in their application by a skillful
teacher. But this course is neither practicable nor necessary for the mass
of students. Instruction in this department should generally be of a
negative nature, and occupy itself mainly in the correction of faults. When
the pupil commences his exercises in declamation, the less said about
action the better. Freedom is the first thing to be secured, and, to attain
this end, few directions should be given and few criticisms be made, at the
outset. When the speaker has acquired some confidence, and freedom of
action, his faults may be gradually pointed out, and his attention called
to some general principles of gesture, such as have been presented
respecting the language of the hands. Pupils should be taught to observe
accurately the action of accomplished orators, not with the view to
imitating their peculiarities, but to learn their method of producing
effect by means of attitude and gesture.
DECLAMATION.
Declamation should be attended to in all grades of educational
institutions, from the primary school to the college, and every pupil
should be required to take his turn in the performance of the exercise. It
would be highly beneficial, if well taught. The reason why so many teachers
have no taste for it, is because they have not taken pains to qualify
themselves to teach it. Want of time is sometimes offered as an excuse for
neglecting it. But if a part of the time which is devoted to teaching
reading, were appropriately to declamation, the progress in reading itself
would be more rapid, to say nothing of other advantages which would result
from this course. I cannot too earnestly urge upon every teacher the
importance of qualifying himself for teaching well both reading and
declamation, There is no accomplishment which more effectively promotes the
success of the teacher than that of elocutionary culture,--a good voice
skillfully managed in conversation and in teaching. Without special
attention to the subject, teachers are apt to acquire certain
characteristic faults of voice, such as nasality, sharpness, harshness, and
thinness of tone, of which they are quite unconscious. Whereas, by constant
attention to the manner of using the voice, since they are in constant
practice, it might be perfected in its modulation. For want of culture in
the elocutionary art, many teachers are greatly deceived, thinking their
pupils read and declaim well when they do not.
In the management of declamation much care should be taken in the selection
of the pieces. It is best for the pupil, in the first place, after proper
advice, to exercise his own taste in the selection of his piece, which
should then be submitted to the teacher for approval. If the selection is
very appropriate, the pupil should be commended and told why the piece is
considered suitable. If the selection presented is not suitable, the pupil
should be informed on what ground it is objected to, so as to aid his
judgment in another attempt. If the pupil has made proper effort without
success, he should be assisted by the teacher. It is very important that
the selection should be suited to the capacity and progress of the pupil.
Beginners should take simple pieces, and not be allowed, as is sometimes
the case, to murder a passage from Paradise Lost, or Macbeth. Sometimes a
fault is committed on the part of the teacher, by permitting a pupil to
confine his selections to one favorite class. I have observed in certain
schools, that one particular boy would always appear in a comic piece,
another in a tragic, and so on. It would be better for the teacher to
require each pupil to speak a variety of pieces, so as to secure a more
general and comprehensive culture than would result from practice on a
single class of selections.
The choice of the piece should be determined upon a considerable period
previous to the day appointed for the public performance of the stage, so
as to afford ample time for preparation. The piece should be accurately
committed to memory, without the variation of a syllable. It should be made
familiar, so that in the delivery no effort will be required in recalling
it. The young pupil should be instructed in the best method of learning his
piece. It will generally be found best to take one sentence at a time. The
teacher's chief work consists in attending to individual private
rehearsals. The rehearsal should be a drill. The piece should be analyzed
more or less minutely, the allusions and difficult points being explained.
It should be the first aim to make the pupil understand it, not only in
its general spirit and scope, but in its particular ideas. His attention
should then be turned to the emotions which it expresses. Let it be
remembered that the paramount object should be to make the pupil
understand the meaning and feel the spirit of the piece. If he is timid
and diffident he should be encouraged. Tell him that even Daniel Webster
could not make a declamation at the first attempt; but that he did not
despair; he did not cease his efforts; he persevered and succeeded.
After the rehearsal, the pupil should have time to practice by himself and
apply and confirm the instruction received from his teacher. It must be
impressed upon his mind that if he would attain excellence he must
practice, practice, practice. He must be made to understand that the
repetition of a piece three or four times is no adequate preparation, and
that it is necessary to go over with it twenty, thirty, or fifty times, if
he would excel, and take a high rank.
When the declamation takes place, excepting on public occasions, the
criticisms ought to be made immediately after the performance of each
speaker. The faults of the diffident should be mildly criticized. It is
very important to call attention to points of special excellence in any
performance. It should be remembered that judicious commendation is a most
powerful stimulant to exertion.
The most difficult task in teaching declamation is to develop that
indescribable fervor, that unaffected earnestness of manner which always
captivates the hearers, and wins the highest marks at an exhibition for
prizes. There will always be one speaker in a school who excels all the
rest in this quality. The teacher should point out the peculiar excellence
of this speaker, and show wherein it differs from loudness of voice, and
violence of actions and affected passion. Let it be remembered that the
perfection of declamation consists in delivering the piece as though it
were real speaking. The speaker must "put himself in imagination, so
completely into the situation of him whom he personages, and adopt for the
moment, so perfectly, all the sentiments and views of that character, as to
express himself exactly as such a person would have done, in the supposed
situation." Give the speaker every other quality--let his enunciation, his
modulation of voice, and his action be faultless, and yet without
earnestness, real earnestness,--not the semblance of it, not boisterous
vociferation, not convulsive gesticulation, but genuine emotion felt in the
heart, carrying the conviction to the hearers that the sentiments uttered
are real, the spontaneous, irrepressible outpouring of the thought and
feeling of the speaker,--without this sovereign, crowning quality, he
cannot be said to speak with eloquence. To bring out and develop this
highest quality of delivery, requires the highest skill in the teacher.
Unless the teacher possesses some degree of this quality himself he cannot
develop it in his pupils.
The best immediate preparation for speaking is rest. I have often noticed
that speakers at exhibitions have in many cases failed to do themselves
justice from sheer exhaustion. A day or two of repose previous to speaking,
enables the speaker to bring to the performance that vigor of the faculties
which is indispensable to the highest success, Webster told the Senate, and
truly, no doubt, that he slept soundly on the night previous to the
delivery of his second speech on Foote's resolution, which is considered
his greatest parliamentary effort. It is well for the speaker to remember
what Mr. Everett said in allusion to this fact: "So the great Condé slept
on the eve of the battle of Rocroi, so Alexander slept on the eve of the
battle of Arbela, and so they awoke to deeds of immortal fame."
The best training cannot make good readers and good speakers of all pupils,
but it can do much. And it is a fact worthy of observation that those who
are most sceptical as to the possibilities of elocutionary culture, are
invariably those who are themselves unskillful teachers in this branch.
BOOK FIRST.
STANDARD SELECTIONS
FOR
RECITATION AND DECLAMATION
IN PROSE AND POETRY.
BOOK FIRST.
STANDARD SELECTIONS.
PROSE.
I. THE NOBLE PURPOSES OF ELOQUENCE.
If we consider the noble purposes to which Eloquence may be made
subservient, we at once perceive its prodigious import ance to the best
interests of mankind. The greatest masters of the art have concurred, upon
the greatest occasions of its display, in pronouncing that its estimation
depends on the virtuous and rational use made of it.
It is but reciting the common praises of the Art of Persuasion, to remind
you how sacred truths may be most ardently promulgated at the altar--the
cause of oppressed innocence be most woefully defended--the march of
wicked rulers be most triumphantly resisted--defiance the most terrible be
hurled at the oppressor's head. In great convulsions of public affairs, or
in bringing about salutary changes, every one confesses how important an
ally eloquence must be. But in peaceful times, when the progress of events
is slow and even as the silent and unheeded pace of time, and the jars of a
mighty tumult in foreign and domestic concerns can no longer be heard,
then, too, she flourishes--protectress of liberty--patroness of
improvement--guardian of all the blessings that can be showered upon the
mass of human kind;--nor is her form ever seen but on ground consecrated to
free institutions.
To me, calmly revolving these things, such pursuits seem far more noble
objects of ambition than any upon which the vulgar herd of busy men lavish
prodigal their restless exertions. To diffuse useful information, to
further intellectual refinement, sure forerunner of moral improvement,--to
hasten the coming of the bright day when the dawn of general knowledge
shall chase away the lazy, lingering class, even from the base of the great
social pyramid;--this indeed is a high calling, in which the most splendid
talents and consummate virtue may well press onward, eager to bear a part.
Lord Brougham.
II.
ROLLA TO THE PERUVIANS.
My brave associates--partners of my toil, my feelings, and my fame! Can
Rolla's words add vigor to the virtuous energies which inspire your
hearts?--No! You have judged, as I have, the foulness of the crafty plea,
by which these bold invaders would delude you. Your generous spirit has
compared, as mine has, the motives which, in a war like this, can animate
their minds and ours.
They, by a strange frenzy driven, fight for power, for plunder, and
extended rule;--we, for our country, our altars, and our homes. They follow
an adventurer whom they fear, and obey a power which they hate;--we serve a
monarch whom we love,--a God whom we adore. Wherever they move in anger,
desolation tracks their progress. Wherever they pause in amity, affliction
mourns their friendship.
They boast they come but to improve our state, enlarge our thoughts, and
free us from the yoke of error! Yes;--they will give enlightened freedom to
our minds, who are themselves the slaves of passion, avarice, and pride.
They offer us their protection! Yes, such protections as vultures give to
lambs,--covering and devouring them! They call on us to barter all the good
we have inherited and proved, for the desperate chance of something better,
which they promise!
Be our plain answer this: The throne we honor is the People's choice,--the
laws we reverence are our brave fathers' legacy,--the faith we follow
teaches us to live in bonds of charity with all mankind, and die with hope
of bliss beyond the grave. Tell your invaders this; and tell them too, we
seek no change; and, least of all, such change as they would bring us!
R. B. Sheridan.
III.
INVECTIVE AGAINST WARREN HASTINGS.
If, my Lords, a stranger had at this time gone into the province of Oude,
ignorant of what had happened since the death of Sujah Dowlah--that prince
who with a savage heart had still great lines of character, and who, with
all his ferocity in war, had, with a cultivating hand, preserved to his
country the wealth which it derived from benignant skies and a prolific
soil--if, ignorant of all that had happened in the short interval, and
observing the wide and general devastation of fields unclothed and brown;
of vegetation burned up and extinguished; of villages depopulated and in
ruins; of temples unroofed and perishing; of reservoirs broken down and
dry, this stranger should ask, "what has thus laid waste this beautiful and
opulent land; what monstrous madness has ravaged with wide-spread war; what
desolating foreign foe; what civil discords; what disputed succession;
what religious zeal; what fabled monster has stalked abroad, and, with
malice and mortal enmity to man, withered by the grasp of death every
growth of nature and humanity, all means of delight, and each original,
simple principle of bare existence?" the answer would have been, not one of
these causes! No wars have ravaged these lands and depopulated these
villages! No desolating foreign foe! No domestic broils! No disputed
succession! No religious super-serviceable zeal! No poisonous monster! No
affliction of Providence, which, while it scourged us, cut off the sources
of resuscitation! No! This damp of death is the mere effusion of British
amity! We sink under the pressure of their support! We writhe under their
perfidious gripe! They have embraced us with their protecting arms, and lo!
these are the fruits of their alliance!
What then, my Lords, shall we bear to be told that, under such
circumstances, the exasperated feelings of a whole people, thus spurred on
to clamor and resistance, were excited by the poor and feeble influence of
the Begums? After hearing the description given by an eye-witness of the
paroxysm of fever and delirium into which despair threw the natives when on
the banks of the polluted Ganges, panting for breath, they tore more widely
open the lips of their gaping wounds, to accelerate their dissolution; and
while their blood was issuing, presented their ghastly eyes to heaven,
breathing their last and fervent prayer that the dry earth might not be
suffered to drink their blood, but that it might rise up to the throne of
God, and rouse the eternal Providence to avenge the wrongs of their
country,--will it be said that all this was brought about by the
incantations of these Begums in their secluded Zenana; or that they could
inspire this enthusiasm and this despair into the breasts of a people who
felt no grievance, and had suffered no torture?
What motive, then, could have such influence in their bosom? What motive!
That which nature, the common parent, plants in the bosom of man; and
which, though it may be less active in the Indian than in the Englishman,
is still congenial with, and makes a part of his being. That feeling which
tells him that man was never made to be the property of man; but that, when
in the pride and insolence of power, one human creature dares to tyrannize
over another, it is a power usurped, and resistance is a duty. That
principle which tells him that resistance to power usurped is not merely a
duty which he owes to himself and to his neighbor, but a duty which he owes
to his God, in asserting and maintaining the rank which he gave him in his
creation--that God, who, where he gives the form of man, whatever may be
the complexion, gives also the feelings and the rights of man. That
principle which neither the rudeness of ignorance can stifle, nor the
enervation of refinement extinguish! That principle which makes it base for
a man to suffer when he ought to act; which, tending to preserve to the
species the original designations of Providence, spurns at the arrogant
distinctions of man, and indicates the independent quality of his race.
R. B. Sheridan.
IV.
THE BIBLE THE BEST CLASSIC
The Bible is the only book which God has ever sent, and the only one he
ever will send into the world. All other books are frail and transient as
time, since they are only the registers of time; but the Bible is as
durable as eternity, for its pages contain the records of eternity. All
other books are weak and imperfect, like their author, man; but the Bible
is a transcript of infinite power and perfection. Every other volume is
limited in its usefulness and influence; but the Bible came forth
conquering and to conquer,--rejoicing as a giant to run his course,--and
like the sun, "there is nothing hid from the heat thereof." The Bible only,
of all the myriads of books the world has seen, is equally important and
interesting to all mankind. Its tidings, whether of peace or of woe, are
the same to the poor, the ignorant, and the weak as to the rich, the wise,
and the powerful.
Among the most remarkable of its attributes, is justice; for it looks with
impartial eyes on kings and on slaves, on the hero and the soldier, on
philosophers and peasants, on the eloquent and the dumb. From all, it
exacts the same obedience to its commandments: to the good, it promises the
fruits of his labors; to the evil, the reward of his hands. Nor are the
purity and holiness, the wisdom, benevolence, and truth of the Scriptures
less conspicuous than their justice. In sublimity and beauty, in the
descriptive and pathetic, in dignity and simplicity of narrative, in power
and comprehensiveness, in depth and variety of thought, in purity and
elevation of sentiment, the most enthusiastic admirers of the heathen
classics have conceded their inferiority to the Scriptures.
The Bible, indeed, is the only universal classic, the classic of all
mankind, of every age and country of time and eternity; more humble and
simple than the primer of a child, more grand and magnificent than the epic
and the oration, the ode and the dramas when genius, with his chariot of
fire, and his horses of ire, ascends in whirlwind into the heaven of his
own invention. It is the best classic the world has ever seen, the noblest
that has ever honored and dignified the language of mortals!
If you boast that the Aristotles and the Platos, and the Tullies of the
classic age, "dipped their pens in intellect," the sacred authors dipped
theirs in inspiration. If those were the "secretaries of nature," these
were the secretaries of the very Author of nature. If Greece and Rome have
gathered into their cabinet of curiosities the pearls of heathen poetry and
eloquence, the diamonds of pagan history and philosophy, God himself has
treasured up in the Scriptures, the poetry and eloquence, the philosophy
and history of sacred law-givers, of prophets and apostles, of saints,
evangelists, and martyrs. In vain you may seek for the pure and simple
light of universal truth in the Augustan ages of antiquity. In the Bible
only, is the poet's wish fulfilled,--
"And like the sun be all one boundless eye."
T. S. Grimké.
V.
WHAT WE OWE TO THE SWORD.
To the question, "What have the People ever gained but by Revolution?" I
answer, boldly, If by revolution be understood the law of the sword,
Liberty has lost far more than she ever gained by it. The sword was the
destroyer of the Lycian Confederacy and the Achæan League. The sword
alternately enslaved and disenthralled Thebes and Athens, Sparta, Syracuse,
and Corinth. The sword of Rome conquered every other free State, and
finished the murder of Liberty in the ancient world, by destroying herself.
What but the sword, in modern times, annihilated the Republics of Italy,
the Hanseatic Towns, and the primitive independence of Ireland, Wales, and
Scotland? What but the sword partitioned Poland, assassinated the rising
liberty of Spain, banished the Huguenots from France, and made Cromwell the
master, not the servant, of the People? And what but the sword of
Republican France destroyed the independence of half of Europe, deluged the
continent with tears, devoured its millions upon millions, and closed the
long catalogue of guilt, by founding and defending to the last, the most
powerful, selfish, and insatiable of military despotisms?
The sword, indeed, delivered Greece from the Persian invader, expelled the
Tarquins from Rome, emancipated Switzerland and Holland, restored the
Prince to his throne, and brought Charles to the scaffold. And the sword
redeemed the pledge of the Congress of '76 when they plighted to each other
"their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor." And yet, what would
the redemption of that pledge have availed towards the establishment of our
present government, if the spirit of American institutions had not been
both the birthright and the birth-blessing of the Colonies? The Indians,
the French, the Spaniards, and even England herself, warred in vain against
a people, born and bred in the household, at the domestic altar of Liberty
herself They had never been slaves, for they were born free. The sword was
a herald to proclaim their freedom, but it neither created nor preserved
it. A century and a half had already beheld them free in infancy, free in
youth, free in early manhood. Theirs was already the spirit of American
institutions; the spirit of Christian freedom of a temperate, regulated
freedom, of a rational civil obedience. For such a people the sword, the
law of violence, did and could do nothing but sever the bonds which bound
her colonial wards to their unnatural guardian. They redeemed their pledge,
sword in hand; but the sword left them as it found them, unchanged in
character, freemen in thought and in deed, instinct with the immortal
spirit of American institutions.
T. S Grimké.
VI.
DUTY OF LITERARY MEN TO THEIR COUNTRY.
We cannot honor our country with too deep a reverence; we cannot love her
with an affection too pure and fervent; we cannot serve her with an energy
of purpose or a faithfulness of zeal too steadfast and ardent. And what is
our country? It is not the East, with her hills and her valleys, with her
countless sails and the rocky ramparts of her shores. It is not the North,
with her thousand villages, and her harvest-home, with her frontiers of the
lake and the ocean. It is not the West, with her forrest-sea and her
inland-isles, with her luxuriant expanses, clothed in the verdant corn,
with her beautiful Ohio and her majestic Missouri. Nor is it yet the South,
opulent in the mimic snow of the cotton, in the rich plantations of the
rustling cane, and in the golden robes of the rice-field. What are these
but the sister families of one greater, better, holier family,--our
country?
I come not here to speak the dialect, or to give the counsels of the
patriot-statesman. But I come, a patriot scholar, to vindicate the rights
and to plead for the interests of American Literature. And be assured, that
we cannot, as patriot-scholars, think too highly of that country, or
sacrifice too much for her. And let us never forget, let us rather remember
with a religious awe,--that the union of these States is indispensable to
our literature, as it is to our national independence and civil
liberties,--to our prosperity, happiness, and improvement.
If, indeed, we desire to behold a literature like that which has sculptured
with so much energy of expression, which has painted so faithfully and
vividly, the crimes, the vices, the follies of ancient and modern
Europe;--if we desire that our land should furnish for the orator and the
novelist, for the painter and the poet, age after age, the wild and
romantic scenery of war; the glittering march of armies, and the revelry of
the camp; the shrieks and blasphemies, and all the horrors of the
battle-field; the desolation of the harvest, and the burning cottage; the
storm, the sack, and the ruin of cities;--if we desire to unchain the
furious passions of jealousy and selfishness, of hatred, revenge, and
ambition, those lions that now sleep harmless in their den;--if we desire
that the lake, the river, the ocean, should blush with the blood of
brothers; that the winds should waft from the land to the sea, from the sea
to the land, the roar and the smoke of battle, that the very mountain-tops
should become altars for the sacrifice of brothers;--if we desire that
these, and such as these,--the elements, to an incredible extent, of the
literature of the Old World,--should be the elements of our literature;
then, but then only, let us hurl from its pedestal the majestic statue of
our Union, and scatter its fragments over all our land.
But, if we covet for our country the noblest, purest, loveliest literature
the world has ever seen,--such a literature as shall honor God, and bless
mankind,--a literature, whose smiles might play upon an angel's face, whose
tears "would not stain an angel's cheek,"--then let us cling to the Union
of these State's with a patriot's love, with a scholar's enthusiasm, with a
Christian's hope.
In her heavenly character, as a holocaust self-sacrificed to God; at the
height of her glory, as the ornament of a free, educated, peaceful
Christian people, American Literature will find that THE INTELLECTUAL
SPIRIT IS HER VERY TREE OF LIFE, AND THE UNION HER GARDEN OF PARADISE.
T. S. Grimké.
VII.
AMERICA'S OBLIGATIONS TO ENGLAND.
The honorable member has asked--"And now will these Americans, children
planted by our care, nourished up by our indulgence and protected by our
arms,--will they grudge to attribute their mite?" They planted by your
care! No; your oppressions planted them in America! They fled from your
tyranny to a then uncultivated and inhospitable country, where they exposed
themselves to almost all the hardships to which human nature is liable;
and, among others, to the cruelties of a savage foe the most subtle, and I
will take upon me to say the most formidable, of any people upon the face
of the earth; and yet, actuated by principles of true English liberty our
American brethren met all the hardships with pleasure, compared with those
they steered in their own country from the hands of those that should have
been their friends.
They nourished by your indulgence! They grew by your neglect of them! As
soon as you began to care about them, that care was exercised in sending
persons to rule them, in one department and another, who were, perhaps, the
deputies of deputies to some members of this House, sent to spy out their
liberties, to misrepresent their actions, and to prey upon them;--men whose
behavior, on many occasions, has caused the blood of those sons of liberty
to recoil within them; men promoted to the highest seats of justice,--some
who, to my knowledge, were glad by going to a foreign country, to escape
being brought to the bar of a court of justice in their own.
They protected by your arms! They have nobly taken up arms in your
defence;--have exerted a valor, amid their constant and laborious industry,
for the defence of a country whose frontier was drenched in blood, while
its interior parts yielded all its little savings to your emolument. And,
believe me,--remember I this day told you so,--that same spirit of freedom
which actuated that people at first will accompany them still; but prudence
forbids me to explain myself further.
Heaven knows I do not at this time speak from motives of party heat. What I
deliver are the genuine sentiments of my heart. However superior to me, in
general knowledge and experience, the respectable body of this House may
be, yet I claim to know more of America than most of you, having seen that
country and been conversant with its affairs. The people, I believe, are as
truly loyal as any subjects the king has; but they are a people jealous of
their liberties, and who, if those liberties should ever be violated, will
vindicate them to the last drop of their blood.
Isaac Barré.
VIII.
WEBSTER'S PLEA FOR DARTMOUTH COLLEGE.
The Supreme Court of the United States held its session that winter in a
mean apartment of moderate size--the Capitol not having been built after
its destruction in 1814. The audience, when the case came on, was therefore
small, consisting chiefly of legal men, the élite of the profession
throughout the country. Mr. Webster entered upon his argument in the calm
tone of easy and dignified conversation. His matter was so completely at
his command that he scarcely looked at his brief, but went on for more than
four hours with a statement so luminous, and a chain of reasoning so easy
to be understood, and yet approaching so nearly to absolute demonstration,
that he seemed to carry with him every man of his audience without the
slightest effort or weariness on either side. It was hardly eloquence, in
the strict sense of the term; it was pure reason. Now and then, for a
sentence or two, his eye flashed and his voice swelled into a bolder note,
as he uttered some emphatic thought; but he instantly fell back into the
tone of earnest conversation, which ran throughout the great body of his
speech.
The argument ended. Mr. Webster stood for some moments silent before the
court, while every eye was fixed intently upon him. At length, addressing
the chief justice, Marshall, he proceeded thus:--
"This, Sir, is my case! It is the case, not merely of that humble
institution, it is the case of every college in our land. It is more. It is
the case of every eleemosynary institution throughout the country,--of all
those great charities founded by the piety of our ancestors to alleviate
human misery; and scatter blessings along the pathway of life. It is more!
It is, in some sense, the case of every man among us who has property of
which he may be stripped; for the question is simply this: Shall our State
legislatures be allowed to take that which is not their own, to turn it
from its original use, and apply it to such ends or purposes as they, in
their discretion, shall see fit?
"Sir, you may destroy this little institution; it is weak; it is in your
hands! I know it is one of the lesser lights in the literary horizon of our
country. You may put it out. But if you do so, you must carry through your
work! You must extinguish one after another, all those great lights of
science which, for more than a century, have thrown their radiance over our
land!
"It is, Sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet, there are those who
love it----."
Here the feelings which he had thus far succeeded in keeping down, broke
forth. His lips quivered; his firm cheeks trembled with emotion; his eyes
were filled with tears, his voice choked, and he seemed struggling to the
utmost simply to gain that mastery over himself which might save him from
an unmanly burst of feeling. I will not attempt to give you the few broken
words of tenderness in which he went on to speak of his attachment to the
college. The whole seemed to be mingled throughout with the recollections
of father, mother, brother, and all the trials and privations through which
he had made his way into life. Every one saw that it was wholly
unpremeditated, a pressure on his heart, which sought relief in words and
tears.
The court-room during these two or three minutes presented an extraordinary
spectacle. Chief Justice Marshall, with his tall and gaunt figure, bent
over as if to catch the slightest whisper, the deep furrows of his cheek
expanded with emotion, and eyes suffused with tears. Mr. Justice Washington
at his side,--with his small and emaciated frame, and countenance more like
marble than I ever saw on any other human being,--leaning forward with an
eager, troubled look; and the remainder of the court, at the two
extremities, pressing, as it were, toward a single point, while the
audience below were wrapping themselves round in closer folds beneath the
bench to catch each look and every movement of the speaker's face. If a
painter could give us the scene on canvas,--those forms and countenances,
and Daniel Webster as he then stood in the midst,--it would be one of the
most touching pictures in the history of eloquence. One thing it taught me,
that the pathetic depends not merely on the words uttered, but still more
on the estimate we put upon him who utters them. There was not one among
the strong-minded men of that assembly who could think it unmanly to weep,
when he saw standing before him the man who had made such an argument,
melted into the tenderness of a child.
Mr. Webster had now recovered his composure, and fixing his keen eye on the
Chief Justice, said in that deep tone with which he sometimes thrilled the
heart of an audience,--
"Sir, I know not how others feel, (glancing at the opponents of the college
before him,) but, for myself when I see my Alma Mater surrounded, like
Caesar in the senate-house, by those who are reiterating stab upon stab, I
would not, for my right hand, have her turn to me, and say Et tu quoque, mi
fili! And thou, too, my son!"
He sat down. There was a deathlike stillness throughout the room for some
moments; every one seemed to be slowly recovering himself and coming
gradually back to his ordinary range of thought and feeling.
C. A. Goodrich.
IX.
THE FOUNDERS OF BOSTON.
On this occasion, it is proper to speak of the founders of Our city, and of
their glory. Now in its true acceptation, the term glory expresses the
splendor which emanates from virtue, in the act of producing general and
permanent good. Right conceptions, then, of the glory of our ancestors, are
to be obtained only by analyzing their virtues. These virtues, indeed, are
not seen charactered in breathing bronze, or in living marble. Our
ancestors have left no Corinthian temples on our hills, no Gothic
cathedrals on our plains, no proud pyramid, no storied obelisk, in our
cities. But mind is there. Sagacious enterprise is there. An active,
vigorous, intelligent, moral population throng our cities, and predominate
in our fields;--men, patient of labor, submissive to law, respectful to
authority, regardful of right, faithful to liberty. These are the monuments
of our ancestors. They stand immutable and immortal, in the social, moral,
and intellectual condition of their descendants. They exist in the spirit
which their precepts instilled, and their example implanted.
It was to this spot, during twelve successive years, that the real body of
those just settlers emigrated. In this place, they either fixed permanently
their abode, or took their departure from it, for the coast or the
interior. Whatever honor devolves on this metropolis, from the events
connected with its first settlement, is not solitary or exclusive; it is
shared with Massachusetts; with New England; in some sense, with the whole
United States. For what part of this wide empire, be it sea or shore, lake
or river, mountain or valley, have the descendants of the first settlers of
New England not traversed; what depth of forest not penetrated? what danger
of nature or man not defied? Where is the cultivated field, in redeeming
which from the wilderness, their vigor has not been displayed? Where, amid
unsubdued nature, by the side of the first log-hut of the settler, does the
school-house stand, and the church-spire rise, unless the sons of New
England are there? Where does improvement advance, under the active energy
of willing hearts and ready hands, prostrating the moss-covered monarch of
the wood, and from their ashes, amid their charred roots, bidding the green
sward and the waving harvest to unspring, and the spirit of the fathers of
New England is not seen, hovering and shedding around the benign influences
of sound, social, moral, and religious institutions, stronger and more
enduring than knotted oak or tempered steel? The swelling tide of their
descendants has spread upon our coasts, ascended our rivers, taken
possession of our plains. Already it encircles our lakes. At this hour, the
rushing noise of the advancing wave startles the wild beast in his lair
among the prairies of the West. Soon it shall be seen climbing the Rocky
Mountains, and, as it dashes over their cliffs, shall be hailed by the
dwellers on the Pacific, as the harbinger of the coming blessings of
safety, liberty, and truth.
Pres. Quincy.
X.
THE AMERICAN SAILOR.
Look to your history--that part of it which the world knows by heart,--and
you will find on its brightest page the glorious achievements of the
American sailor. Whatever his country has done to disgrace him, and break
his spirit, he has never disgraced her;--he has always been ready to serve
her; he always has served her faithfully and effectually. He has often
been weighed in the balance, and never found wanting. The only fault ever
found with him is, that he sometimes fights ahead of his orders. The world
has no match for him, man for man; and he asks no odds, and he cares for no
odds, when the cause of humanity or the glory of his country calls him to
fight.
Who, in the darkest days of our Revolution, carried your flag into the very
chops of the British Channel, bearded the lion in his den, and woke the
echoes of old Albion's hills by the thunders of his cannon, and the shouts
of his triumph? It was the American sailor. And the names of John Paul
Jones, and the Bon Homme Richard, will go down the annals of time forever.
Who struck the first blow that humbled the Barbary flag--which, for a
hundred years, had been the terror of Christendom,--drove it from the
Mediterranean, and put an end to the infamous tribute it had been
accustomed to extort? It was the American sailor, and the name of Decatur
and his gallant companions will be as lasting as monumental brass.
In the year 1812, when your arms on shore were covered by disaster,--when
Winchester had been defeated, when the army of the Northwest had
surrendered, and when the feeling of despondency hung like a cloud over the
land,--who first relit the fires of national glory, and made the welkin
ring with the shouts of victory? It was the American sailor. And the names
of Hull and the Constitution will be remembered as long as we have left
anything worth remembering.
The wand of British invincibility was broken when the flag of the Guerrière
came down. That one event was worth more to the Republic than all the money
which has ever been expended for the navy. Since that day the navy has had
no stain upon its escutcheon, but has been cherished as your pride and
glory. And the American sailor has established a reputation throughout the
world,--in peace and in war, in storm and in battle,--for heroism and
prowess unsurpassed. He shrinks from no danger, he dreads no foe, he yields
to no superior. No shoals are too dangerous, no seas too boisterous, no
climate too rigorous for him. The burning sun of the tropic cannot make him
effeminate, nor can the eternal winter of the polar seas paralyze his
energies.
R. F. Stockton.
XI.
MORALITY, THE FOUNDATION OF NATIONAL GREATNESS.
When we look forward to the probable growth of this country; when we think
of the millions of human beings who are to spread over our present
territory; of the career of improvement and glory open to this new people;
of the impulse which free institutions, if prosperous, may be expected to
give to philosophy, religion, science, literature, and arts; of the vast
field in which the experiment is to be made, of what the unfettered powers
of man may achieve; of the bright page of history which our fathers have
filled, and of the advantages under which their toils and virtues have
placed us for carrying on their work;--when we think of all this, can we
help, for a moment, surrendering ourselves to bright visions of our
country's glory before which all the glories of the past are to fade away?
Is it presumption to say that, if just to ourselves and all nations, we
shall be felt through this whole continent, that we shall spread our
language, institutions, and civilization, through a wider space than any
nation has yet filled with a like beneficent influence? And are we prepared
to barter these hopes, this sublime moral empire, for conquests by force?
Are we prepared to sink to the level of unprincipled nations, to content
ourselves with a vulgar, guilty greatness, to adopt in our youth maxims and
ends which must brand our future with sordidness, aggression, and shame?
This country cannot, without peculiar infamy, run the common race of
national rapacity. Our origin, institutions, and position are peculiar, and
all favor an upright honorable course.
Why cannot we rise to noble conceptions of our destiny? Why do we not feel,
that our work as a nation is to carry freedom, religion, science, and a
noble form of human nature over this continent? And why do we not remember,
that to diffuse these blessings we must first cherish them in our own
borders; and that whatever deeply and permanently corrupts us, will make
our spreading influence a curse, not a blessing, to this new world? I am
not prophet enough to read our fate. I believe, indeed, that we are to make
our futurity for ourselves. I believe, that a nation's destiny lies in its
character, in the principles which govern its policy, and bear rule in the
hearts of its citizens. I take my stand on God's moral and eternal law. A
nation, renouncing and defying this, cannot be free, cannot be great.
W. E. Channing.
XII.
INTEMPERANCE.
Among the evils of intemperance, much importance is given to the poverty of
which it is the cause. But this evil, great as it is, is yet light, in
comparison with the essential evil of intemperance. What matters it, that a
man be poor, if he carry into his poverty the spirit, energy, reason, and
virtues of a man? What matters it, that a man must, for a few years, live
on bread and water? How many of the richest are reduced, by disease, to a
worse condition than this? Honest, virtuous, noble-minded poverty, is
comparatively a light evil. The ancient philosopher chose it, as a
condition of virtue. It has been the lot of many a Christian.
The poverty of the intemperate man owes its great misery to its cause. He
who makes himself a beggar, by having made himself a brute, is miserable
indeed. He who has no solace, who has only agonizing recollections and
harrowing remorse, as he looks on his cold hearth, his scanty table, his
ragged children, has indeed to bear a crushing weight of woe. That he
suffers, is a light thing. That he has brought on himself this suffering by
the voluntary extinction of his reason, that is the terrible thought, the
intolerable curse.
Intemperance is to be pitied and abhorred for its own sake, much more than
for its outward consequences. These owe their chief bitterness to their
criminal source. We speak of the miseries which the drunkard carries to his
family. But take away his own brutality, and how lightened would be these
miseries! We talk of his wife and children in rags. Let the rags continue;
but suppose them to be the effects of an innocent cause. Suppose his wife
and children bound to him by a strong love, which a life of labor for their
support, and of unlearned kindness has awakened; suppose them to know that
his toils for their welfare had broken down his frame; suppose him able to
say, "We are poor in this world's goods, but rich in affection and
religious trust. I am going from you; but I leave you to the Father of the
fatherless, and to the widow's God." Suppose this; and how changed these
rags!--how changed the cold, naked room! The heart's warmth can do much to
withstand the winter's cold;--and there is hope, there is honor, in this
virtuous indigence.
What breaks the heart of the drunkard's wife? It is not that he is poor,
but that he is a drunkard. Instead of that bloated face, now distorted with
passion, now robbed of every gleam of intelligence, if the wife could look
on an affectionate countenance, which had, for years, been the interpreter
of a well-principled mind and faithful heart, what an overwhelming load
would be lifted from her! It is a husband, whose touch is polluting, whose
infirmities are the witness of his guilt, who has blighted all her hopes,
who has proved false to the vow which made her his; it is such a husband
who makes home a hell,--not one whom toil and disease and Providence have
cast on the care of wife and children.
We look too much at the consequences of vice,--too little at the vice
itself. It is vice which is the chief weight of what we call its
consequences,--vice, which is the bitterness in the cup of human woe.
W. E. Channing.
XIII.
INCONSISTENT EXPECTATIONS.
This world may be considered as a great mart of commerce, where fortune
exposes to our view various commodities,--riches, ease, tranquillity, fame,
integrity, knowledge. Everything is marked at a settled price,--our time,
our labor, our ingenuity, is so much ready money, which we are to lay out
to the best advantage. Examine, compare, choose, reject; but stand to your
own judgment, and do not, like children, when you have purchased one thing,
repine that you do not possess another which you did not purchase.
Such is the force of well-regulated industry that a steady and vigorous
exertion of our faculties, directed to one end, will generally insure
success. Would you, for instance, be rich? Do you think that single point
worth the sacrifice of everything else? You may then be rich. Thousands
have become so, from the lowest beginnings, by toil, and patient diligence,
and attention to the minutest articles of expense and profit. But you must
give up the pleasures of leisure, of mental ease, of a free, unsuspicious
temper. If you preserve your integrity, it must be a coarse-spun and vulgar
honesty. Those high and lofty notions of morals which you brought with you
from the schools, must be considerably lowered, and mixed with the baser
alloy of a jealous and worldly-minded prudence. You must learn to do hard,
lf not unjust things; and as for the nice embarrassments of a delicate and
ingenuous spirit, it is necessary to get rid of them as fast as possible.
You must shut your heart against the Muses, and be content to feed your
understanding with plain household truths. In short, you must not attempt
to enlarge your ideas, or polish your taste, or refine your sentiments, but
must keep on in one beaten track, without turning aside either to the right
or to the left. "But you say, I cannot submit to drudgery like this; I feel
a spirit above it." 'Tis well, be above it then; only do not repine that
you are not rich.
Is knowledge the pearl of price in your estimation? That, toy may be
purchased by steady application, and long solitary study and reflection.
Bestow these, and you shall be learned. "But," says the man of letters,
"what a hardship is it, that many an illiterate fellow, who cannot construe
the motto of the arms on his coach, shall raise a fortune and make a
figure, while I have little more than the common conveniences of life!" Was
it, then, to raise a fortune, that you consumed the sprightly hours of
youth in study and retirement? Was it to be rich that you grew pale over
the midnight lamp, and distilled the sweetness from the Greek and Roman
springs? You have then mistaken your path, and ill employed your industry.
"What reward have I then, for all my labor?" What reward! A large,
comprehensive soul, well purged from vulgar fears, and perturbations, and
prejudices; able to comprehend and interpret the works of man,--of God; a
rich, flourishing, cultivated mind, furnished with inexhaustible stores of
entertainment and reflection; a perpetual spring of fresh ideas, and the
conscious dignity of superior intelligence. Good Heaven! What other reward
can you ask besides!
"But is it not some reproach upon the economy of Providence, that such a
one, who is a mean, dirty fellow, should have amassed wealth enough to buy
half a nation?" Not in the least. He made himself a mean, dirty fellow for
that very end. He has paid his health, his conscience, his liberty for it;
and will you envy him his bargain? Will you hang your head and blush in his
presence, because he outshines you in equipage and show? Lift up your brow
with a noble confidence, and say to yourself "I have not these things, it
is true; but it is because I have not sought, because I have not desired
them; it is because I possess something better. I have chosen my lot; I am
content and satisfied." The characteristic mark of a great and noble mind
is to choose some high and worthy object, and pursue that object through
life.
Mrs. Barbauld.
XIV.
THE PATRIOT'S SWORD VINDICATED.
But my Lord, I dissented from the resolutions before us, for other reasons.
I dissented from them, because I felt that my giving them my assent, I
should have pledged myself to the unqualified repudiation of physical force
in all countries, at all times, and under every circumstance. This I could
not do. For, my Lord, I do not abhor the use of arms in the vindication of
national rights. There are times, when arms will alone suffice, and when
political ameliorations call for a drop of blood, and many thousand drops
of blood. Opinion, I admit, will operate against opinion. But, as the
honorable member for Kilkenny has observed, force must be used against
force. The soldier is proof against an argument, but he is not proof
against a bullet The man that will listen to reason, let him be reasoned
with. But it is the weaponed arm of the patriot that can alone prevail
against battalioned despotism.
Then, my Lord, I do not condemn the use of arms as immoral, nor do I
conceive it profane to say that the King of Heaven--the Lord of Hosts! the
God of Battles!--bestows his benediction upon those who unsheathe the sword
in the hour of a nation's peril. From that evening, on which, in the valley
of Bethulia, he nerved the arm of the Jewish girl to smite the drunken
tyrant in his tent, down to our day in which he has blessed the insurgent
chivalry of the Belgian priest, his almighty hand hath ever been stretched
forth from his Throne of Light, to consecrate the flag of freedom--to bless
the patriot's sword! Be it in the defense, or be it in the assertion of a
people's liberty, I hail the sword as a sacred weapon; and if, my Lord, it
has sometimes taken the shape of the serpent and reddened the shroud of
the oppressor with too deep a dye, like the anointed rod of the High
Priest, it has at other times, and as often, blossomed into celestial
flowers to deck the freeman's brow.
Abhor the sword--stigmatize the sword? No, my Lord, for, in the passes of
the Tyrol, it cut to pieces the banner of the Bavarian, and, through those
cragged passes, struck a path to fame for the present insurrectionist of
Inspruck!
Abhor the sword--stigmatize the sword? No, my Lord; for at its blow, a
giant nation started from the waters of the Atlantic, and by its redeeming
magic, and in the quivering of its crimson light, the crippled Colony
sprang into the attitude of a proud Republic--prosperous, limitless, and
invincible!
Abhor the sword--stigmatize the sword? No, my Lord; for it swept the Dutch
marauders out of the fine old towns of Belgium--scourged them back to their
own phlegmatic swamps--and knocked their flag and scepter, their laws and
bayonets into the sluggish waters of the Scheldt.
My Lord, I learned that it was the right of a nation to govern herself--not
in this hall, but upon the ramparts of Antwerp. This, the first article of
a nation's creed, I learned upon those ramparts, where freedom was justly
estimated, and the possession of the precious gift was purchased by the
effusion of generous blood.
My Lord, I honor the Belgians, I admire the Belgians, I love the Belgians
for their enthusiasm, their courage, their success; and I, for one, will
not stigmatize, for I do not abhor the means by which they obtained a
citizen king, a chamber of deputies.
T. F. Meagher.
XV.
ON BEING FOUND GUILTY OF TREASON.
A jury of my countrymen have found me guilty of the crime for which I stood
indicted. For this I entertain not the slightest feeling of resentment
towards them. Influenced, as they must have been, by the charge of the lord
chief justice, they could have found no other verdict. What of that charge?
Any strong observations on it I feel sincerely would ill befit the
solemnity of this scene; but I would earnestly beseech of you, my
Lord,--you who preside on that bench,--when the passions and prejudices of
this hour have passed away, to appeal to your own conscience, and to ask of
it, was your charge as it ought to have been, impartial and indifferent
between the subject and the crown?
My Lords, you may deem this language unbecoming in me, and perhaps it will
seal my fate. But I am here to speak the truth, whatever it may cost; I am
here to regret nothing I have ever done--to retract nothing I have ever
said. I am here to crave, with no lying lip the life I consecrate to the
liberty of my country. Far from it, even here--here, where the thief the
libertine, the murderer, have left their footprints in the dust; here on
this spot, where the shadows of death surround me, and from which I see my
early grave in an appointed soil opened to receive me--even here, encircled
by these terrors, the hope which has beckoned me to the perilous sea upon
which I have been wrecked still consoles, animates, enraptures me.
No; I do not despair of my poor old country--her peace, her liberty, her
glory. For that country I can do no more than bid her hope. To lift this
island up,--to make her a benefactor to humanity, instead of being the
meanest beggar in the world; to restore her to her native powers and her
ancient constitution,--this has been my ambition, and this ambition has
been my crime. Judged by the law of England, I know this crime entails the
penalty of death; but the history of Ireland explains this crime, and
justifies it. Judged by that history, I am no criminal, I deserve no
punishment. Judged by that history the treason of which I stand convicted
loses all its guilt, is sanctioned as a duty, will be ennobled as a
sacrifice. With these sentiments, my Lord, I await the sentence of the
court.
Having done what I felt to be my duty,--having spoken what I felt to be the
truth, as I have done on every other occasion of my short career,--I now
bid farewell to the country of my birth, my passion, and my death; the
country whose misfortunes have invoked my sympathies; whose factions I have
sought to still; whose intellect I have prompted to a lofty aim; whose
freedom has been my fatal dream. I offer to that country, as a proof of the
love I bear her, and the sincerity with which I thought and spoke and
struggled for her freedom, the life of a young heart, and with that life
all the hopes, the honors the endearments, of a happy and an honored home.
Pronounce, then, my Lords, the sentence which the laws direct, and I will
be prepared to hear it. I trust I shall be prepared to meet its execution.
I hope to be able, with a pure heart and perfect composure, to appear
before a higher tribunal--a tribunal where a judge of infinite goodness as
well as of justice will preside, and where, my Lords, many, many of the
judgments of this world will be reversed.
T. F. Meagher.
XVI.
ADDRESS TO THE AMERICAN TROOPS BEFORE THE BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND.
The time is now near at hand, which must probably determine whether
Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any
property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be
pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness
from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions
will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our
cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of a brave resistance
or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or
to die. Our own, our country's honor, calls upon us for a vigorous and
manly exertion; and, if we now shamefully fail, we shall become infamous to
the whole world. Let us, then, rely on the goodness of our cause and the
aid of the Supreme Being, in whose hands victory is, to animate and
encourage us to great and noble actions. The eyes of all our countrymen are
now upon us; and we shall have their blessings and praises, if happily we
are the instrument of saving them from the tyranny meditated against them.
Let us, therefore, animate and encourage each other, and allow the whole
world that a freeman contending for liberty on his own ground, is superior
to any slavish mercenary on earth.
Liberty, property, life, and honor, are all at stake. Upon your courage and
conduct rest the hopes of our bleeding and insulted country. Our wives,
children, and parents expect safety from us only; and they have every
reason to believe that Heaven will crown with success so just a cause. The
enemy will endeavor to intimidate by show and appearance; but remember they
have been repulsed on various occasions by a few brave Americans. Their
cause is bad,--their men are conscious of it; and, if opposed with firmness
and coolness on their first onset, with our advantage of works, and
knowledge of the ground, the victory is most assuredly ours. Every good
soldier will be silent and attentive, wait for orders, and reserve his fire
until he is sure of doing execution.
Washington.
XVII.
CHARACTER OF CHATHAM.
The secretary stood alone; modern degeneracy had not reached him. Original
and unaccommodating, the features of his character had the hardihood of
antiquity. His august mind overawed majesty; and one of his sovereigns
thought royalty so impaired in his presence, that he conspired to remove
him, in order to be relieved from his superiority. No state chicanery, no
narrow system of vicious polities, no idle contest for ministerial
victories, sunk him to the vulgar level of the great; but, overbearing,
persuasive, and impracticable, his object was England, his ambition was
fame.
Without dividing, he destroyed party; without corrupting, he made a venal
age unanimous. France sunk beneath him. With one hand he smote the house of
Bourbon, and wielded in the other the democracy of England. The sight of
his mind was infinite; and his schemes were to affect, not England, not the
present age only, but Europe and posterity. Wonderful were the means by
which these schemes were accomplished,--always seasonable, always
adequate, the suggestions of an understanding animated by ardor, and
enlightened by prophecy.
The ordinary feelings which make life amiable and indolent, were unknown
to him. No domestic difficulties, no domestic weakness, reached him; but,
aloof from the sordid occurrences of life, and unsullied by its
intercourse, he came occasionally into our system, to counsel, and to
decide. A character so exalted, so strenuous, so various, so
authoritative, astonished a corrupt age; and the treasury trembled at the
name of Chatham, through all her classes of venality. Corruption imagined,
indeed, that she had found defects in this statesman, and talked much of
the inconsistency of his glory and much of the ruin of his victories; but
the history of his country, and the calamities of the enemy, answered and
refuted her.
Nor were his political abilities his only talents; his eloquence was an era
in the senate, peculiar and spontaneous, familiarly expressing gigantic
sentiments and instinctive wisdom; not like the torrent of Demosthenes, or
the splendid conflagration of Tully; it resembled sometimes the thunder,
and sometimes the music of the spheres. He did not, like Murray, conduct
the understanding through the painful subtlety of argumentation; nor was
he, like Townshend, forever on the rack of exertion; but rather lightened
upon the subject, and reached the point by the flashings of the mind,
which, like those of his eye, were felt, but could not be followed. Upon
the whole, there was in this man something that would create, subvert, or
reform; an understanding, a spirit, and an eloquence, to summon mankind to
society, or to break the bonds of slavery asunder; something to rule the
wilderness of free minds with unbounded authority; something that could
establish, or overwhelm empire, and strike a blow in the world, that should
resound through the universe.
H. Grattan.
XVIII.
THE PRESS AND THE UNION.
It were good for us to remember that nothing which tends, however
distantly, however imperceptibly, to hold these States together, is beneath
the notice of a considerate patriotism. It were good to remember that some
of the institutions and devices by which former confederacies have been
preserved, our circumstances wholly forbid us to employ. The tribes of
Israel and Judah came up three times a year to the holy and beautiful city,
and united in prayer and praise and sacrifice, in listening to that
thrilling poetry, in swelling that matchless song, which celebrated the
triumphs of their fathers by the Red Sea, at the fords of Jordan, and on
the high places of the field of Barak's victory. But we have no feast of
the Passover, or of the Tabernacles, or of the Commemoration. The States of
Greece erected temples of the gods by a common contribution, and worshiped
in them. They consulted the same oracle; they celebrated the same national
festival: mingled their deliberations in the same amphictyonic and
subordinate assemblies, and sat together upon the free benches to hear
their glorious history read aloud, in the prose of Heroditus, the poetry of
Homer and of Pindar. We have built no national temples but the Capitol; we
consult no common oracle but the Constitution. We can meet together to
celebrate no national festival. But the thousand tongues of the
press--clearer far than the silver trumpet of the jubilee,--louder than the
voice of the herald at the games,--may speak and do speak to the whole
people, without calling them from their homes or interrupting them in their
employments. Happy if they should speak, and the people should hear, those
things which pertain at least to their temporal and national salvation!
R. Choate.
XIX.
AMERICAN LITERATURE AND THE UNION.
In leaving this subject, I cannot help suggesting, at the hazard of being
thought whimsical, that a literature of such writings as these, embodying
the romance of the whole revolutionary and ante-revolutionary history of
the United States, might do something to perpetuate the Union itself. The
influence of a rich literature of passion and fancy upon society must not
be denied merely because you cannot measure it by the yard or detect it by
the barometer. Poems and romances which shall be read in every parlor, by
every fireside, in every school-house, behind every counter, in every
printing-office, in every lawyer's office, at every weekly evening club, in
all the States of this confederacy, must do something, along with more
palpable if not more powerful agents, towards moulding and fixing that
final, grand, complex result,--the national character. A keen, well
instructed judge of such things said, if he might write the ballads of a
people, he cared little who made its laws. Let me say, if a hundred men of
genius would extract such a body of romantic literature from our early
history as Scott has extracted from the history of England and Scotland,
and as Homer extracted from that of Greece, it perhaps would not be so
alarming if demagogues should preach, or governors practice, or executives
tolerate nullification. Such a literature would be a common property of all
the States,--a treasure of common ancestral recollections,--more noble and
richer than our thousand million acres of public land; and, unlike that
land, it would be indivisible. It would be as the opening of a great
fountain for the healing of the nations. It would turn back our thoughts
from these recent and overrated diversities of interest,--these
controversies about negro-cloth, coarse-wooled sheep, and cotton
bagging,--to the day when our fathers walked hand in hand together through
the valley of the Shadow of Death in the War of Independence. Reminded of
our fathers, we should remember that we are brethren. The exclusiveness of
State pride,--the narrow selfishness of a mere local policy and the small
jealousies of vulgar minds, would be merged in an expanded comprehensive,
constitutional sentiment of old, family, fraternal regard. It would
reässemble, as it were, the people of America in one vast congregation. It
would rehearse in their hearing all things which God had done for them in
the old time; it would proclaim the law once more; and then it would bid
them join in that grandest and most affecting solemnity,--a national anthem
of thanksgiving for the deliverance, of honor for the dead, of proud
prediction for the future!
R. Choate.
XX.
THE LOVE OF READING.
Let the case of a busy lawyer testify to the priceless value of the love
of reading. He comes home, his temples throbbing, his nerves shattered,
from a trial of a week; surprised and alarmed by the charge of the judge,
and pale with anxiety about the verdict of the next morning, not at all
satisfied with what he has done himself, though he does not yet see how he
could have improved it; recalling with dread and self-disparagement, if not
with envy, the brilliant effort of his antagonist, and tormenting himself
with the vain wish that he could have replied to it,--and altogether a very
miserable subject, and in as unfavorable a condition to accept comfort from
a wife and children as poor Christian in the first three pages of the
"Pilgrim's Progress." With a superhuman effort he opens his book, and in
the twinkling of an eye he is looking into the full "orb of Homeric or
Miltonic song;" or he stands in the crowd--breathless, yet swayed as
forests or the sea by winds--hearing and to judge the pleadings for the
crown; or the philosophy which soothed Cicero or Boethius in their
afflictions, in exile, prison, and the contemplation of death, breathes
over his petty cares like the sweet south; or Pope or Horace laughs him
into good humor; or he walks with Æneas and the Sibyl in the mild light of
the world of the laurelled dead; and the court-house is as completely
forgotten as the dreams of a pre-adamite life. Well may he prize that
endeared charm, so effectual and safe, without which the brain had long ago
been chilled by paralysis, or set on fire of insanity!
R. Choate.
XXI.
ELOQUENCE OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
Men heard that eloquence in 1776, in that manifold and mighty appeal by the
genius and wisdom of that new America, to persuade the people to take on
the name of nation, and begin its life. By how many pens and tongues that
great pleading was conducted; through how many months before the date of
the actual Declaration, it went on, day after day; in how many forms,
before how many assemblies, from the village newspaper, the more careful
pamphlet, the private conversation, the town-meeting, the legislative
bodies of particular colonies, up to the hall of the immortal old Congress,
and the master intelligences of lion heart and eagle eye, that ennobled
it,--all this you know. But the leader in that great argument was John
Adams, of Massachusetts. He, by concession of all men, was the orator of
that Revolution,--the Revolution in which a nation was born. Other and
renowned names, by written or spoken eloquence, coöperated effectively,
splendidly, to the grand result,--Samuel Adams, Samuel Chase, Jefferson,
Henry James Otis in an earlier stage. Each of these, and a hundred more,
within circles of influence wider or narrower, sent forth, scattering
broadcast, the seed of life in the ready virgin soil. Each brought some
specialty of gift to the work: Jefferson, the magic of style, and the
habit and the power of delicious dalliance with those large, fair ideas of
freedom and equality, so dear to man, so irresistible in that day; Henry,
the indescribable and lost spell of the speech of the emotions, which fills
the eye, chills the blood, turns the cheek pale,--the lyric phase of
eloquence, the "fire-water," as Lamartine has said, of the Revolution,
instilling into the sense and the soul the sweet madness of battle; Samuel
Chase, the tones of anger, confidence, and pride, and the art to inspire
them. John Adams's eloquence alone seemed to have met every demand of the
time; as a question of right, as a question of prudence, as a question of
immediate opportunity, as a question of feeling, as a question of
conscience, as a question of historical and durable and innocent glory, he
knew it all through and through; and in that mighty debate, which,
beginning in Congress as far back as March or February; 1776, had its close
on the second and on the fourth of July, he presented it in all its
aspects, to every passion and affection,--to the burning sense of wrong,
exasperated at length beyond control by the shedding of blood; to grief,
anger, self-respect; to the desire of happiness and of safety; to the sense
of moral obligation, commanding that the duties of life are more than life;
to courage, which fears God, and knows no other fear; to the craving of the
colonial heart, of all hearts, for the reality and the ideal of country,
and which cannot be filled unless the dear native land comes to be breathed
on by the grace, clad in the robes, armed with the thunders, admitted an
equal to the assembly of the nations; to that large and heroical ambition
which would build States: that imperial philanthropy which would open to
liberty an asylum here, and give to the sick heart, hard fare, fettered
conscience of the children of the Old World, healing, plenty, and freedom
to worship God,--to these passions, and these ideas, he presented the
appeal for months, day after day, until, on the third of July, 1776, he
could record the result, writing thus to his wife: "Yesterday the greatest
question was decided which ever was debated in America; and a greater,
perhaps, never was, nor will be, among men."
Of that series of spoken eloquence all is perished; not one reported
sentence has come down to us. The voice through which the rising spirit of
a young nation sounded out its dream of life is hushed. The great
spokesman, of an age unto an age, is dead.
And yet, of those lost words is not our whole America one immortal record
and reporter? Do ye not read them, deep cut, defying the tooth of time, on
all the marble of our greatness? How they blaze on the pillars of our
Union! How is their deep sense unfolded and interpreted by every passing
hour! How do they come to life, and grow audible, as it were, in the
brightening rays of the light he foresaw, as the fabled invisible heart
gave out its music to the morning!
Yes, in one sense, they are perished. No parchment manuscript, no embalming
printed page, no certain traditions of living or dead, have kept them. Yet,
from out and from off all things around us,--our laughing harvests, our
songs of labor, our commerce on all the seas, our secure homes, our
school-houses and churches, our happy people, our radiant and stainless
flag,--how they come pealing, pealing, Independence now, and Independence
forever!
R. Choate.
XXII.
TRIBUTE TO WEBSTER.
They say he was ambitious! Yes, as Ames said of Hamilton, "there is no
doubt that he desired glory; and that, feeling his own force, he longed to
deck his brow with the wreath of immortality." But I believe he would have
yielded his arm, his frame to be burned, before he would have sought to
grasp the highest prize of earth by any means, by any organization, by any
tactics, by any speech, which in the least degree endangered the harmony of
the system.
They say, too, he loved New England! He did love New Hampshire--that old
granite world--the crystal hills, gray and cloud-topped; the river, whose
murmur lulled his cradle; the old hearthstone; the grave of father and
mother. He loved Massachusetts, which adopted and honored him--that
sounding sea-shore, that charmed elm-tree seat, that reclaimed farm, that
choice herd, that smell of earth, that dear library, those dearer friends;
but the "sphere of his duties was his true country." Dearly he loved you,
for he was grateful for the open arms with which you welcomed the stranger
and sent him onwards and upwards.
But when the crisis came, and the winds were let lose, and that sea of
March "wrought and was tempestuous," then you saw that he knew even you
only as you were, American citizens; then you saw him rise to the true
nature and stature of American citizenship; then you read on his brow only
what he thought of the whole Republic; then you saw him fold the robes of
his habitual patriotism around him, and counsel for all--for all. So,
then, he served you--"to be pleased with his service was your affair, not
his."
And now what would he do, what would he be if he were here to-day? I do not
presume to know. But what a loss we have in him! I have read that in some
hard battle, when the tide was running against him, and his ranks were
breaking, some one in the agony of a, need of generalship exclaimed, "Oh
for an hour of Dundee!" So say I, Oh for an hour of Webster now! Oh for one
more roll of that thunder inimitable! One more peal of that clarion! One
more grave and bold counsel of moderation! One more throb of American
feeling! One more Farewell Address! And then might he ascend unhindered to
the bosom of his Father and his God.
R. Choate.
XXIII.
THE FRUITS OF SKILFUL LABOR AND CULTIVATED INTELLECT.
Perhaps as striking an illustration on a large scale as could be desired,
of the connection between the best directed and most skilful labor and the
most cultivated and most powerful intellect, is afforded by the case of
England. British industry as a whole, is among the most splendid and
extraordinary things in the history of man. When you consider how small a
work-bench it has to occupy altogether, a little stormy island bathed in
almost perpetual fogs, without silk, or cotton, or vineyards, or sunshine,
and then look at that agriculture, so scientific and so rewarded, that vast
net-work of internal intercommunication, the docks, merchant-ships,
men-of-war, the trade encompassing the globe, the flag on which the sun
never sets,--when you look, above all, at that vast body of useful and
manly art, not directed, like the industry of France,--the industry of
vanity,--to making pier-glasses and air-balloons and gobelin tapestry and
mirrors, to arranging processions and chiselling silver and twisting gold
into filigrees, but to clothing the people, to the manufacture of woolen,
cotton, and linen cloth, of railroads and chain-cables and canals and
anchors and achromatic telescopes, and chronometers to keep the time at
sea,--when you think of the vast aggregate mass of their manufacturing and
mechanical production, which no statistics can ex-press, and to find a
market for which she is planting colonies under every constellation, and by
intimidation, by diplomacy, is knocking at the door of every market-house
upon the earth,--it is really difficult to restrain our admiration of such
a display of energy, labor, and genius, winning bloodless and innocent
triumphs everywhere, giving to the age we live in the name of the age of
the industry of the people. Now, the striking and the instructive fact is,
that exactly in that island workshop, by this very race of artisans, of
coal-heavers and woollen manufacturers of machinists and blacksmiths and
ship-carpenters, there has been produced and embodied forever, in words
that will outlast the mountains as well as the pyramids, a literature
which, take it for all in all, is the richest, most profound, most
instructive, combining more spirituality with more common sense, springing
from more capacious souls, conveying in better wisdom, more conformable to
the truth in man, in nature, and in human life, than the literature of any
nation that ever existed. That same race, side by side with the
unparalleled growth of its industry produces Shakspeare, Milton, Bacon, and
Newton, all four at the summit of human thought,--and then, just below
these unapproachable fixed lights, a whole firmament of glories, lesser
than they, as all created intelligence must be, yet in whose superior rays
the age of Augustus, of Leo X., of Louis XIV., all but the age of Pericles,
the culture of Greece, pale and fade. And yet the literature of England is
not the only, scarcely the most splendid, fruit or form of the mental power
and the energetic character of England. That same race, along with their
indus try, along with their literature, has built up a jurisprudence which
is for substance our law to-day,--has constructed the largest mercantile
and war navy, and the largest commercial empire with its pillars encircling
the globe, that men ever saw,--has gained greater victories on sea and land
than any power in the world,--has erected the smallest spot to the most
imperial ascendency recorded in history. The administrative triumphs of her
intellect are as conspicuous as her imaginative and her speculative
triumphs.
Such is mental power. Mark its union with labor and with all greatness;
deduce the law; learn the lesson; see how you, too, may grow great. Such an
industry as that of England demanded such an intellect as that of England.
Sic vobis etian itur ad astra! That way to you, also, glory lies!
R. Choate.
XXIV.
THE EMPIRE OF MIND.
Knowledge is power as well as fame. Think of that subtle, all-embracing,
plastic, mysterious, irresistible thing called public opinion, the god of
this lower world, and consider what a State, or a cluster of States, of
marked and acknowledged literary and intellectual lead might do to color
and shape that opinion to their will. Consider how winged are words; how
electrical, light-like the speed of thought; how awful human sympathy.
Consider how soon a wise, a beautiful thought uttered here,--a sentiment of
liberty perhaps, or word of succor to the oppressed, of exhortations to
duty, to patriotism, to glory, the refutation of a sophism, the unfolding
of a truth for which the nation may be better,--how soon a word fitly or
wisely spoken here is read on the Upper Mississippi and beneath the
orange-groves of Florida, all through the unequalled valley; how vast an
audience it gains, into how many bosoms it has access, on how much good
soil the seed may rest and spring to life, how easily and fast the fine
spirit of truth and beauty goes all abroad upon the face of the world.
There is an influence which I would rather see Massachusetts exert on her
sisters of this Union, than see her furnish a President every twelve years
or command a majority on any division in Congress; and that is such an
influence as Athens exerted on the taste and opinion first of Greece, then
of Rome, then of the universal modern world; such as she will exert while
the race of man exists. This, of all the kinds of empire, was most grateful
and innocent and glorious and immortal. This was won by no bargain, by no
fraud, by no war of the Peloponnesus, by the shedding of no human blood. It
would rest on admiration of the beautiful, the good, the true, in art, in
poetry, in thought; and it would last while the emotions, its object, were
left in a human soul. It would turn the eye of America hitherwards with
love, gratitude and tears, such as those with which we turn to the walk of
Socrates beneath the plane-tree, now sere, the summer hour of Cicero, the
prison into which philosophy descended to console the spirit of Boethius,--
that room through whose opened window came into the ear of Scott, as he
died, the murmur of the gentle Tweed,--love, gratitude, and tears, such as
we all yield to those whose immortal wisdom, whose divine verse, whose
eloquence of heaven, whose scenes of many-colored life, have held up the
show of things to the insatiate desires of the mind, have taught us how to
live and how to die! Herein were power, herein were influence, herein were
security. Even in the madness of civil war it might survive for refuge and
defence!
R. Choate.
XXV.
THE CITY OF OUR LIBERTY.
But now that our service of commemoration is ended, let us go hence and
meditate on all that it has taught us. You see how long the holy and
beautiful city of our liberty and our power has been in building, and by
how many hands, and at what cost. You see the towering and steadfast height
to which it has gone up, and how its turrets and spires gleam in the rising
and setting sun. You stand among the graces of some--your townsmen, your
fathers by blood, whose names you bear, whose portraits hang up in your
homes, of whose memory you are justly proud--who helped in their day to
sink those walls deep in their beds, where neither frost nor earthquake
might heave them,--to raise aloft those great arches of stone,--to send up
those turrets and spires into the sky. It was theirs to build; remember it
is yours, under Providence, to keep the city,--to keep it from the sword
of the invader,--to keep it from licentiousness and crime and irreligion,
and all that would make it unsafe or unfit to live in,--to keep it from the
fires of faction, of civil strife, of party spirit, that might burn up in a
day the slow work of a thousand years of glory. Happy, if we shall so
perform our duty that they who centuries hence shall dwell among our graces
may be able to remember, on some such day as this, in one common service of
grateful commemoration, their fathers of the first and the second age of
America,--those who through martyrdom and tempest and battle sought
liberty, and made her their own,--and those whom neither ease nor luxury,
nor the fear of man, nor the worship of man, could prevail on to barter her
away!
R. Choate.
XXVI.
SPECIMEN OF THE ELOQUENCE OF JAMES OTIS.
England may as well dam up the wafers of the Nile with bulrushes as to
fetter the step of Freedom, more proud and firm in this youthful land than
where she treads the sequestered glens of Scotland, or couches herself
among the magnificent mountains of Switzerland. Arbitrary principles, like
those against which we now contend, have cost one king of England his life,
another his crown; and they may yet cost a third his most flourishing
colonies.
We are two millions--one fifth fighting men. We are bold and vigorous, and
we call no man master. To the nation, from whom we are proud to derive our
origin, we ever were, and we ever will be, ready to yield unforced
assistance; but it must not, and it never can be extorted.
Some have sneeringly asked, "Are the Americans too poor to pay a few pounds
on stamped paper?" No! America, thanks to God and herself is rich. But the
right to take ten pounds, implies the right to take a thousand; and what
must be the wealth that avarice, aided by power, cannot exhaust? True, the
spectre is now small; but the shadow he casts before him is huge enough to
darken all this fair land. Others, in sentimental style, talk of the
immense debt of gratitude which we owe to England. And what is the amount
of this debt? Why, truly, it is the same that the young lion owes to the
dam, which has brought it forth on the solitude of the mountain, or left it
amid the winds and storms of the desert.
We plunged into the wave with the great charter of freedom in our teeth,
because the fagot and the torch were behind us. We have waked this New
World from its savage lethargy; forests have been prostrated in our path;
towns and cities have grown up suddenly as the flowers of the tropics, and
the fires in our autumnal woods are scarcely more rapid than the increase
of our wealth and population. And do we owe all this to the kind succor of
the mother-country? No! We owe it to the tyranny that drove us from her, to
the pelting storms which invigorated our helpless infancy.
But perhaps others will say, "We ask no money from your gratitude--we only
demand that you should pay your own expenses." And who, I pray, is to judge
of their necessity? Why, the king--(and with all due reverence to his
sacred majesty, he understands the real wants of his distant subjects as
little as he does the language of the Choctaws.) Who is to judge concerning
the frequency of these demands? The ministry. Who is to judge whether the
money is properly expended? The cabinet behind the throne. In every
instance, those who take are to judge for those who pay. If this system is
suffered to go into operation, we shall have reason to esteem it a great
privilege, that rain and dew do not depend upon parliament; otherwise they
would soon be taxed and dried.
But, thanks to God, there is freedom enough left upon earth to resist such
monstrous injustice. The flame of liberty is extinguished in Greece and
Rome, but the light of its glowing embers is still bright and strong on the
shores of America. Actuated by its sacred influence, we will resist unto
death. But we will not countenance anarchy and misrule. The wrongs that a
desperate community have heaped upon their enemies, shall be amply and
speedily repaired. Still, it may be well for some proud men to remember
that a fire is lighted in these colonies which one breath of their king may
kindle into such fury that the blood of all England cannot extinguish it.
Mrs. M. L. Child.
XXVII.
WEBSTER IN THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE.
The Dartmouth College case forms an important era in Mr, Webster's life His
argument in that case stands out among his other arguments, as his speech
in reply to Mr. Hayne, among his other speeches. No better argument has
been spoken in the English tongue in the memory of any living man, nor is
the child that is born to-day likely to live to hear a better. Its learning
is ample but not ostentatious; its logic irresistible; its eloquence
vigorous and lofty. Judge Story often spoke with great animation of the
effect he then produced upon the court "For the first hour," said he, "we
listened to him with perfect astonishment; for the second hour, with
perfect delight; and for the third hour with perfect conviction." It is not
too much to say that he entered the court on that day a comparatively
unknown name, and left it with no rival but Pinkney. All the words he spoke
on that occasion have not been recorded. When he had exhausted the
resources of learning and logic, his mind passed naturally and simply into
a strain of feeling not common to the place. Old recollections and early
associations came over him, and the vision of his youth rose up.
The genius of the institution where he was nurtured seemed standing by his
side in weeds of mourning, with a countenance of sorrow. With suffused
eyes, and faltering voice, he broke into an unpremeditated strain of
emotion, so strong and so deep, that all who heard him were borne along
with it. Heart answered to heart as he spoke, and, when he ceased, the
silence and tears of the impassive bench, as well as of the excited
audience were a tribute to the truth and power of the feeling by which he
had been inspired.
G. S. Hillard.
XXVIII.
THE AMBITION OF WEBSTER.
Mr. Webster was an ambitious man. He desired the highest office in the gift
of the people. But on this subject, as on all others, there was no
concealment in his nature. And ambition is not a weakness unless it be
disproportional to the capacity. To have more ambition than ability is to
be at once weak and unhappy. With him it was a noble passion, because it
rested upon noble powers. He was a man cast in a heroic mould. His
thoughts, his wishes, his passions, his aspirations, were all on a grander
scale than those of other men. Unexercised capacity is always a source of
rusting discontent. The height to which men may rise is in proportion to
the upward force of their genius, and they will never be calm till they
have attained their predestined elevation. Lord Bacon says, "as in nature
things move violently to their place and calmly in their place, so virtue
in ambition is violent, in authority, settled and calm." Mr. Webster had a
giant's brain and a giant's heart, and he wanted a giant's work. He found
repose in those strong conflicts and great duties which crush the weak and
madden the sensitive. He thought that, if he were elevated to the highest
place, he should so administer the government as to make the country
honored abroad, and great and happy at home. He thought, too, that he could
do something to make us more truly one people. This, above everything else,
was his ambition. And we, who knew him better than others, felt that it was
a prophetic ambition, and we honored and trusted him accordingly.
G. S. Hillard.
XXIX.
THE DANGER OF EXCLUSIVE DEVOTION TO BUSINESS.
This is a world of inflexible compensations. Nothing is ever given away,
but everything is bought and paid for. If, by exclusive and absolute
surrender of ourselves to material pursuits, we materialize the mind, we
lose that class of satisfactions of which the mind is the region and the
source. A young man in business, for instance, begins to feel the
exhilarating glow of success, and deliberately determines to abandon
himself to its delirious whirl. He says to himself, I will think of nothing
but business till I shall have made so much money, and then I will begin a
new life. I will gather round me books and pictures and friends. I will
have knowledge, taste, and cultivation,--the perfume of scholarship, and
winning speech, and graceful manners. I will see foreign countries, and
converse with accomplished men. I will drink deep of the fountains of
classic lore. Philosophy shall guide me, history shall instruct, and poetry
shall charm me. Science shall open to me her world of wonders. I shall
remember my present life of drudgery as one recalls a troubled dream when
the morning has dawned.
He keeps his self-registered vow. He bends his thoughts downward and nails
them to the dust. Every power, every affection, every taste, except those
which his particular occupa tion calls into play, is left to starve. Over
the gates of his mind he writes in letters which he who runs may read, "No
admittance except on business." In time he reaches the goal of his hopes;
but now insulted Nature begins to claim her revenge. That which was once
unnatural is now natural to him. The enforced constraint has become a rigid
deformity. The spring of his mind is broken. He can no longer lift his mind
from the ground. Books and knowledge and wise discourse, and the amenities
of it, and the cordial of friendship, are like words in a strange tongue.
To the hard, smooth surface of his soul, nothing genial, graceful, or
winning will cling; he cannot even purge his voice of its fawning tone, or
pluck from his face the mean, money-getting mask which the child does not
look at without ceasing to smile. Amid the graces and ornaments of wealths,
he is like a blind man in a picture-gallery. That which he has done he must
continue to do. He must accumulate riches which he cannot enjoy and
contemplate the dreary prospect of growing old without anything to make age
venerable or attractive; for age without wisdom and without knowledge is
the winter's cold without the winter's fire
G. S. Hillard.
XXX.
SPEECH OF PATRICK HENRY, IN THE CONVENTION OF DELEGATES OF VIRGINIA, MARCH,
1775.
Mr. President, It is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope.
We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song
of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise
men, engaged in the great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed
to be of the number of those, who having eyes, see not, and having ears,
hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For
my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the
whole truth, to know the worst, and to provide for it.
I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of
experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And
judging by the past, I wish to know, what there has been in the conduct of
the British ministry, for the last ten years, to justify those hopes with
which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House. Is it
that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received?
Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not
yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss! Ask yourselves how this gracious
reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations, which
cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a
work of love and reconciliation! Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be
reconciled, that force must be called in to win back our love! Let us not
deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and
subjugation,--the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen,
sir, what means this martial array if its purpose be not to force us to
submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has
Great Britain any enemy in this quarter of the world, to call for all this
accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant
for us; they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and
rivet upon us those chains which the British ministers have been so long
forging.
And what have we to oppose to them?--Shall we try argument? Sir, we have
been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer on
the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light, of which
if is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and
humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already
exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer. Sir,
we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now
coming on. We have petitioned,--we have remonstrated,--we have
supplicated,--we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have
implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical bands of the ministry
and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have
produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been
disregarded; and we have been spurned from the foot of the throne.
In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and
reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be
free,--if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for
which we have been so long contending,--if we mean not basely to abandon
the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have
pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of or contest
shall be obtained,--we must fight; I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An
appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us!
XXXI.
THE SAME CONCLUDED.
They tell us, sir, that we are weak,--unable to cope with so formidable an
adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the
next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed; and when a British
guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by
irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual
resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom
of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?
Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God
of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people armed in the
holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are
invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir,
we shall not fight alone. There is a just God who presides over the
destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles
for us.
The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone,--it is to the active, the
vigilant, the brave. Besides sir we have no election! If we were base
enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There
is no retreat,--but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged.
Their clanking may be heard in the plains of Boston. The war is
inevitable,--and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.
It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry peace!
peace!--but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale
that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding
arms! Our brethren are already in the field. Why stand we here idle? What
is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace
so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it,
Heaven!--I know not what course others may take, but as for me,--give me
liberty, or give me death!
XXXII.
REPLY TO THE DUKE OF GRAFTON.
My Lords, I am amazed; yes, my Lords, I am amazed at his Grace's speech.
The noble Duke cannot look before him, behind him, or on either side of
him, without seeing some noble peer who owes his seat in this House to his
successful exertion in the profession to which I belong. Does he not feel
that it is as honorable to owe it to these, as to being the accident of an
accident? To all these noble Lords, the language of the noble Duke is as
applicable and insulting as it is to myself But I do not fear to meet it
single and alone. No one venerates the peerage more than I do; but, my
Lords, I must say, that the peerage solicited me, not I the peerage.
Nay, more; I can say and will say that as a Peer of Parliament, as a
Speaker of this right honorable House, as Keeper of the Great Seal, as
Guardian of his Majesty's conscience, as Lord High Chancellor of
England,-nay, even in that character alone, in which the noble Duke would
think it an affront to be considered but which character none can deny
me,--as a MAN,--I am, at this moment, as respectable,--I beg to leave add,
I am as much respected,--as the proudest peer I now look down upon.
Lord Thurlow.
XXXIII.
THE PROSPECTS OF CALIFORNIA.
Judging from the past, what have we not a right to expect in the future.
The world has never witnessed anything equal or similar to our career
hitherto. Scarcely two years ago California was almost an unoccupied wild.
With the exception of a præsidium, a mission a pueblo, or a lonely ranch,
scattered here and there, at tiresome distances, there was nothing to show
that the uniform stillness had ever been broken by the footsteps of
civilized man. The agricultural richness of her valley remained unimproved;
and the wealth of a world lay entombed in the bosom of her solitary
mountains, and on the banks of her unexplored streams. Behold the contrast!
The hand of agriculture is now busy in every fertile valley and its toils
are remunerated with rewards which in no other portion of the world can be
credited. Enterprise has pierced every hill, for hidden treasure, and has
heaped up enormous gains. Cities and villages dot the surface of the whole
State. Steamers dart along our rivers, and innumerable vessels spread their
white wings over our bays. Not Constantinople, upon which the wealth of
imperial Rome was lavished,--not St. Petersburg, to found which the
arbitrary Czar sacrificed thousands of his subjects, would rival, in
rapidity of growth, the fair city which lies before me. Our state is a
marvel to ourselves, and a miracle to the rest of the world. Nor is the
influence of California confined within her own borders. Mexico, and the
islands nestled in the embrace of the Pacific, have felt the quickening
breath of her enterprise. With her golden wand, she has touched the
prostrate corpse of South American industry, and it has sprung up in the
freshness of life. She has caused the hum of busy life to be heard in the
wilderness "where rolls the Oregon," and but recently heard no sound,
"save its own dashings." Even the wall of Chinese exclusiveness has been
broken down, and the children of the sun have come forth to view the
splendor of her achievements.
But, flattering as has been the past, satisfactory as is the present, it is
but a foretaste of the future. It is a trite saying, that we live in an age
of great events. Nothing can be more true. But the greatest of all events
of the present age is at hand. It needs not the gift of prophecy to
predict, that the course of the world's trade is destined soon to be
changed. But a few years can elapse before the commerce of Asia and the
islands of the Pacific, instead of pursuing the ocean track, by way of Cape
Horn or the Cape of Good Hope, or even taking the shorter route of the
Isthmus of Darien, or the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, will enter the Golden
Gate of California, and deposit its riches in our own city. Hence, on bars
of iron, and propelled by steam, it will ascend the mountains and traverse
the desert; and having again reached the confines of civilization, will be
distributed, through a thousand channels, to every portion of the Union and
of Europe. New York will then become what London now is,-the great central
point of exchange, the heart of trade, the force of whose contraction and
expansion will be felt throughout every artery of the commercial world; and
San Francisco will then stand the second city of America. Is this
visionary? Twenty years will determine.
The world is interested in our success; for a fresh field is opened to its
commerce, and a new avenue to the civilization and progress of the human
race. Let us, then, endeavor to realize the hopes of Americans, and the
expectations of the world. Let us not only be united amongst ourselves, for
our own local welfare, but let us strive to cement the common bonds of
brother-hood of the whole Union. In our relations to the Federal
Government, let us know no South, no North, no East, no West. Wherever
American liberty flourishes, let that be our common country! Wherever the
American banner waves, let that be our home!
Nathaniel Bennett.
XXXIV.
IN PROSPECT OF WAR
Go forth, defenders of your country, accompanied with every auspicious
omen; advance with alacrity into the field, when God himself musters the
hosts to war. Religion is too much interested in your success not to lend
you her aid. She will shed over your enterprise her selectest influence.
While you are engaged in the field, many will repair to the closet, many to
the sanctuary; the faithful of every name will employ that prayer which has
power with God; the feeble hands which are unequal to any other weapon,
will grasp the sword of the Spirit; and from myriad of humble, contrite
hearts, the voice of intercession, supplication, and weeping, will mingle,
in its ascent to heaven, with the shouts of battle and the shock of arms.
While you have everything to fear from the success of the enemy, you have
every means of preventing that success; so that it is next to impossible
for victory not to crown your exertions The extent of your resources, under
God, is equal to the justice of your cause. But, should Providence
determine otherwise,--should you fall in this struggle, should the nation
fall,--you will have the satisfaction (the purest allotted to man), of
having performed your part; your names will be enrolled with the most
illustrious dead, while posterity, to the end of time, as often as they
revolve the events of this period (and they will incessantly revolve them),
will turn to you a reverential eye, while they mourn over the freedom which
is entombed in your sepulchre.
I cannot but imagine the virtuous heroes, legislators, and patriots of
every age and country, are bending from their elevated seats to witness
this contest, as if they were incapable, till it be brought to a favorable
issue, of enjoying their eternal repose. Enjoy that repose, illustrious
immortals! Your mantle fell when you ascended; and thousands, inflamed with
your spirit, and impatient to tread in your steps, are ready to swear by
Him that sitteth on the throne, and liveth forever and ever, that they will
protect freedom in her last asylum, and never desert her cause, which you
sustained by your labors, and cemented with your blood!
Robert Hall.
XXXV.
THE AMERICAN INDIANS.
If the Indians had the vices of savage life, they had the virtues also. They
were true to their country, their friends, and their homes. If they forgave
not injury, neither did they forget kindness. If their vengeance was
terrible, their fidelity and generosity were unconquerable also. Their
love, like their hate, stopped not on this side of the grave. But where are
they? Where are the villages, and warriors, and youth? The sachems and the
tribes? The hunters and their families? They have perished. They are
consumed. The wasting pestilence has not alone done the mighty work.
No,--nor famine, nor war. There has been a mightier power, a moral canker,
which hath eaten into their heart-cores,--a plague which the touch of the
white man communicated,--a poison, which betrayed them into a lingering
ruin. The winds of the Atlantic fan not a single region which they may now
call their own. Already the last feeble remnants of the race are preparing
for their journey beyond the Mississippi. I see them leave their miserable
homes,--the aged, the helpless, the women, and the warriors, "few and
faint, yet fearless still." The ashes are cold on their native hearths. The
smoke no longed curls round their lowly cabins. They move on with a slow,
unsteady step. The white man is upon their heels, for terror or dispatch;
but they heed him not. They turn to take a last look of their deserted
villages. They cast a last glance upon the graves of their fathers They
shed no tears; they utter no cries; they heave no groans. There is
something in their hearts which passes speech. There is something in their
looks, not of vengeance or submission, but of hard necessity, which stifles
both; which chokes all utterance; which has no aim or method. It is courage
absorbed in despair. They linger but for a moment. Their look is onward.
They have passed the fatal stream. It shall never be repassed by them,--no,
never. Yet there lies not between us and them an impassible gulf. They know
and feel, that for them there is still one remove farther, not distant, nor
unseen. It is the general burying-ground of their race.
J. Story.
XXXVI.
CLASSICAL LEARNING.
The importance of classical learning to professional education is so
obvious, that the surprise is, that it could ever have become matter of
disputation. I speak not of its power in reining the taste, in disciplining
the judgment, in invigorating the understanding, or in warming the heart
with elevated sentiments; but of its power of direct, positive, necessary
instruction. There is not a single nation from the north to the south of
Europe, from the bleak shores of the Baltic to the bright plains of
immortal Italy, whose literature is not embedded in the very elements of
classical learning. The literature of England is, in an emphatic sense, the
production of her scholars; of men who have cultivated letters in her
universities, and colleges, and grammar-schools; of men who thought any
life too short, chiefly because it left some relic of antiquity unmastered,
and any other fame too humble, because it faded in the presence of Roman
and Grecian genius.
He who studies English literature without the lights of classical
learning, loses half the charms of its sentiments and style, of its force
and feelings, of its delicate touches, of its delightful allusions, of its
illustrative associations. Who that reads the poetry of Gray, does not feel
that it is the refinement of classical taste which gives such inexpressible
vividness and transparency to his diction? Who that reads the concentrated
sense and melodious versification of Dryden and Pope, does not perceive in
them the disciples of the old school, whose genius was inflamed by the
heroic verse, the terse satire, and the playful wit of antiquity? Who that
meditates over the strains of Milton does not feel that he drank deep at
"Siloa's brook, that flowed
Fast by the oracle of God,--"
that the fires of his magnificent mind were lighted by coals from ancient
altars?
It is no exaggeration to declare, that he who proposes to abolish classical
studies, proposes to render, in a great measure, inert and unedifying, the
mass of English literature for three centuries; to rob us of the glory of
the past, and much of the instruction of future ages; to blind us to
excellencies which few may hope to equal, and none to surpass; to
annihilate associations which are interwoven with our best sentiments, and
give to distant times and countries a presence and reality, as if they were
in fact his own.
J. Story.
XXXVII.
AN APPEAL IN BEHALF OF PATRIOTISM AND LOYALTY.
I call upon you, fathers, by the shades of your ancestors, by the dear
ashes which repose in this precious soil, by all you are, and all you hope
to be; resist every object of disunion, resist every encroachment upon your
liberties, resist every attempt to fetter your consciences, or smother your
public schools, or extinguish your system of public instruction.
I call upon you, mothers, by that which never fails in woman,--the love of
your offspring,--teach them as they climb your knees, or lean on your
bosoms, the blessings of liberty. Swear them at the altar, as with their
baptismal vows, to be true to their country, and never to forget or forsake
her.
I call upon you young men, to remember whose sons you are; whose
inheritance you possess. Life can never be too short which brings nothing
but disgrace and oppression. Death never comes too soon, if necessary in
defence of the liberties of your country. I call upon you, old men, for
your counsels, and your prayers, and your benedictions. May not your gray
hairs go down in sorrow to the grave, with the recollection that you have
lived in vain. May not your last sun sink in the west upon a nation of
slaves.
No;--I read in the destiny of my country far better hopes, far brighter
visions. We, who are now assembled here, must soon be gathered to the
congregation of other days. The time of our departure is at hand to make
way for our children upon the theatre of life. May God speed them and
theirs. May he, who at the distance of another century shall stand here to
celebrate this day, still look round upon a free, happy, and virtuous
people. May he have reason to exult as we do. May he, with all the
enthusiasm of truth as well as poetry exclaim that here is still his
country.
J. Story.
XXXVIII.
OUR DUTIES TO THE REPUBLIC.
The Old World has already revealed to us, in its unsealed books, the
beginning and end of all its own marvelous struggles in the cause of
liberty. Greece, lovely Greece,
"The land of scholars and the nurse of arms,"
where sister republics, in fair procession, chanted the praises of liberty
and the gods,--where and what is she? For two thousand years the oppressor
has ground her to the earth. Her arts are no more. The last sad relics of
her temples are but the barracks of a ruthless soldiery. The fragments of
her columns and her palaces are in the dust, yet beautiful in ruins. She
fell not when the mighty were upon her. Her sons were united at Thermopylæ
and Marathon; and the tide of her triumph rolled back upon the Hellespont.
She was conquered by her own factions. She fell by the hands of her own
people. The Man of Macedonia did not the work of destruction. It was
already done by her own corruptions, banishments, and dissensions. Rome,
republican Rome, whose eagles glanced in the rising and setting sun,--where
and what is she? The eternal city yet remains, proud even in her
desolation, noble in her decline, venerable in the majesty of religion, and
calm as in the composure of death. The malaria has travelled in the paths
worn by her destroyers. More than eighteen centuries have mourned over the
loss of her empire. A mortal disease was upon her vitals before Cæsar had
crossed the Rubicon; and Brutus did not restore her health by the deep
probings of the senate-chamber. The Goths, and Vandals, and Huns,--the
swarms of the North,--completed only what was already begun at home. Romans
betrayed Rome. The legions were bought and sold; but the people offered the
tribute-money.
We stand the latest, and, if we fail, probably the last experiment of
self-government by the people. We have begun it under circumstances of the
most auspicious nature. We are in the vigor of youth. Our growth has never
been checked by the oppressions of tyranny. Our constitutions have never
been enfeebled by the vices or luxuries of the Old World. Such as we are,
we have been from the beginning,--simple, hardy, intelligent, accustomed to
self-government, and to self-respect. The Atlantic rolls between us and any
formidable foe. Within our own territory, stretching through many degrees
of latitude and longitude, we have the choice of many products, and many
means of independence. The government is mild. The press is free. Religion
is free. Knowledge reaches, or may reach every home. What fairer prospect
of success could be presented? What means more adequate to accomplish the
sublime end? What more is necessary than for the people to preserve what
they have themselves created? Already has the age caught the spirit of our
institutions. It has already ascended the Andes, and snuffed the breezes of
both oceans. It has infused itself into the life-blood of Europe, and
warmed the sunny plains of France and the lowlands of Holland. It has
touched the philosophy of Germany and the North; and, moving onward to the
South, has opened to Greece the lessons of her better days. Can it be that
America, under such circumstances, can betray herself? Can it be that she
is to be added to the catalogue of republics, the inscription upon whose
ruins is: THEY WERE, BUT THEY ARE NOT? Forbid it, my countrymen! Forbid it,
Heaven!
J. Story.
XXXIX.
SPARTACUS TO THE GLADIATORS.
It had been a day of triumph at Capua. Lentulus, returning with victorious
eagles, had amused the populace with the sports of the amphitheatre, to an
extent hitherto unknown even in that luxurious city. The shouts of revelry
had died away; the roar of the lion had ceased; the last loiterer had
retired from the banquet, and the lights in the palace of the victor were
extinguished. The moon, piercing the tissue of fleecy clouds, silvered the
dew-drop on the corselet of the Roman sentinel, and tipped the dark waters
of Volturnus with wavy, tremulous light. It was a night of holy calm, when
the zephyr sways the young spring leaves, and whispers among the hollow
reeds its dreamy music. No sound was heard but the last sob of some weary
wave, telling its story to the smooth pebbles of the beach, and then all
was still as the breast when the spirit has departed.
In the deep recesses of the amphitheatre, a band of gladiators were crowded
together, their muscles still knotted with the agony of conflict, the foam
upon their lips, and the scowl of battle yet lingering upon their brows,
when Spartacus, rising in the midst of that grim assemblage, thus addressed
them:--
"Ye call me chief, and ye do well to call him chief, who, for twelve long
years, has met upon the arena every shape of man or beast that the broad
empire of Rome could furnish, and yet never has lowered his arm. And if
there be one among you who can say that, ever, in public fight or private
brawl, my actions did belie my tongue, let him step forth and say it. If
there, be three in all your throng dare face me on the bloody sand, let
them come on!
"Yet I was not always thus, a hired butcher, a savage chief of savage men.
My father was a reverent man, who feared great Jupiter, and brought the
rural deities his offerings of fruits ad flowers. He dwelt among the
vine-clad rocks and olive groves at the foot of Helicon. My early life ran
quiet as the brook by which I sported. I was taught to prune the vine, to
tend the flock; and then, at noon, I gathered my sheep beneath the shade,
and played upon the shepherd's flute. I had a friend, the son of our
neighbor; we led our flocks to the same pasture, and shared together our
rustic meal.
"One evening, after the sheep were folded, and we were all seated beneath
the myrtle that shaded our cottage, my grandsire, an old man, was telling
of Marathon and Leuctra, and how, in ancient times, a little band of
Spartans, in a defile of the mountains, withstood a whole army. I did not
then know what war meant; but my cheeks burned, I knew not why; and I
clasped the hand of that venerable man, till my mother, parting the hair
from off my brow, kissed my throbbing temples, and bade me go to rest, and
think no more of those old tales and savage wars.
"That very night the Romans landed on our shore, and the dash of steel was
heard within our quiet vale. I saw the breast that had nourished me
trampled by the iron hoof of the warhorse; the bleeding body of my father
flung amid the blazing rafters of our dwelling. To-day I killed a man in
the arena, and when I broke his helmet clasps, behold!--it was my friend!
He knew me,--smiled faintly,--gasped,--and died. The same sweet smile that
I had marked upon his face, when, in adventurous boyhood, we scaled some
lofty cliff to pluck the first ripe grapes, and bear them home in childish
triumph. I told the Prætor he was my friend, noble and brave, and I begged
his body, that I might burn it upon the funeral-pile, and mourn over him.
Ay, upon my knees, amid the dust and blood of the arena, I begged that
boon, while all the Roman maids and matrons, and those holy virgins they
call vestal, and the rabble, shouted in mockery, deeming it rare sport,
forsooth, to see Rome's fiercest gladiator turn pale, and tremble like a
very child, before that piece of bleeding clay; but the Prætor drew back as
if I were pollution, and sternly said, 'Let the carrion rot! There are no
noble men but Romans!' And he, deprived of funeral rites,--must wander, a
hapless ghost, beside the waters of that sluggish river, and look--and
look--and look in vain to the bright Elysian fields where dwell his
ancestors and noble kindred. And so must you, and so must I, die like dogs!
"O Rome! Rome! thou hast been a tender nurse to me! Ay, thou hast given to
that poor, gentle, timid shepherd-lad, who never knew a harsher sound than
a flute-note, muscles of iron, and a heart of flint; taught him to drive
the sword through rugged brass and plaited mail, and warm it in the marrow
of his foe!--to gaze into the glaring eyeballs of the fierce Numidian lion,
even as a smooth-cheeked boy upon a laughing girl. And he shall pay thee
back till thy yellow Tiber is red as frothing wine, and in its deepest ooze
thy life-blood lies curdled!
"Ye stand here now like giants, as ye are! the strength of brass in your
toughened sinews; but to-morrow some Roman Adonis, breathing sweet odors
from his curly locks, shall come, and with his lily fingers pat your brawny
shoulders, and bet his sesterces upon your blood! Hark! Hear ye yon lion
roaring in his den? 'Tis three days since he tasted meat; but tomorrow he
shall break his fast upon your flesh; and ye shall be a dainty meal for
him.
"If ye are brutes, then stand here like fat oxen waiting for the butcher's
knife; if ye are men, follow me! strike down yon sentinel, and gain the
mountain passes, and there do bloody work as did your sires at old
Thermopylæ! Is Sparta dead? Is the old Grecian spirit frozen in your veins,
that ye do crouch and cower like base-born slaves, beneath your master's
lash? O! comrades! warriors! Thracians! if we must fight, let us fight for
ourselves; if we must slaughter, let us slaughter our oppressors; if we
must die, let us die under the open sky, by the bright waters, in noble,
honorable battle."
E. Kellogg.
XL.
NO EXTENSION OF SLAVE TERRITORY.
Mr. Chairman, I have no time to discuss the subject of slavery on this
occasion, nor should I desire to discuss it in this connection, if I had
more time. But I just not omit a few plain words on the momentous issue
which has now been raised. I speak for Massachusetts--I believe I speak the
sentiments of all New England, and of many other States out of New
England--when I say that, upon this question, our minds are made up. So far
as we have power--constitutional or moral power--to control political
events, we are resolved that there shall be no further extension of the
territory of this Union, subject to the institution of slavery. This is not
a matter to argue about with us. My honorable friend from Georgia (Mr
Toombs) must pardon me if I do not enter into any question with him whether
such a policy be equal or just. It may be that the North does not consider
the institution of slavery a fit thing to be the subject of equal
distribution or nice weighing in the balances. I cannot agree with him that
the South gains nothing by the Constitution but the right to reclaim
fugitives. Surely he has forgotten that slavery is the basis of
representation in this House.
But I do not intend to argue the case. I wish to deal with it calmly, but
explicitly. I believe the North is ready to stand by the Constitution with
all its compromises, as it now is. I do not intend, moreover, to throw out
any threats of disunion, whatever may be the result. I do not intend, now
or ever, to contemplate disunion as a cure for any imaginable evil. At the
same time I do not intend to be driven from a firm expression of purpose,
and a steadfast adherence to principle, by any threats of disunion from any
other quarter. The people of New England, whom I have any privilege to
speak for, do not desire, as I understand their views, I know my own heart
and my own principles and can at least speak for them, to gain one foot of
territory by conquest, and as the result of the prosecution of the war with
Mexico. I do not believe that even the abolitionists of the North,--though
I am one of the last persons who would be entitled to speak their
sentiments, would be unwilling to be found in combination with Southern
gentlemen, who may see fit to espouse this doctrine. We desire peace. We
believe that this war ought never to have been commenced, and we do not
wish to have it made the pretext for plundering Mexico of one foot of her
lands. But if the war is to be prosecuted, and if territories are to be
conquered and annexed, we shall stand fast and forever to the principle
that, so far as we are concerned, these territories shall be the exclusive
abode of freemen.
R. C. Winthrop.
XLI.
NATIONAL MONUMENT TO WASHINGTON.
Fellow-citizens! Let us seize this occasion to renew to each other our vows
of allegiance and devotion to the American Union, and let us recognize In
our common title to the name and fame of Washington, and, in our common
veneration for his example and his advice, the all-sufficient centripetal
power, which shall hold the thick clustering stars of our confederacy in
one glorious constellation forever! Let the column which we are about to
construct, be at once a pledge and an emblem of perpetual union! Let the
foundations be laid, let the superstructure be built up and cemented, let
each stone be raised and reverted, In a spirit of national brotherhood! And
may the earliest ray of the rising sun--till that sun shall set to rise no
more--draw forth from it dally, as from the fabled statue of antiquity, a
strain of national harmony, which shall strike a responsive chord in every
heart throughout the Republic!
Proceed, then, fellow-citizens, with the work for which you have assembled.
Lay the corner-stone of a monument which shall adequately bespeak the
gratitude of the whole American people to the Illustrious Father of his
country! Build it to the skies, you cannot outreach the loftiness of his
principles! Found it upon the massive and eternal rock, you cannot make it
more enduring than his fame! Construct it of the peerless Parian marble,
you cannot make it purer than his life! Exhaust upon it the rules and
principles of ancient and modern art, you cannot make it more
proportionate than his character!
But let not your homage to his memory end here. Think not to transfer to a
tablet or a column the tribute which is due from yourselves. Just honor to
Washington can only be rendered by observing his precepts and imitating his
example. He has built his own monument. We and those who come after us, in
successive generations, are its appointed, its privileged guardians.
The wide-spread Republic is the true monument to Washington. Maintain its
Independence. Uphold its Constitution. Preserve its Union. Defend its
Liberty. Let it stand before the world in all its original strength and
beauty, securing peace, order, equality, and freedom to all within its
boundaries, and shedding light, and hope, and joy, upon the pathway of
human liberty throughout the world; and Washington needs no other monument.
Other structures may fitly testify our veneration for him; this, this
alone, can adequately illustrate his services to mankind. Nor does he need
even this. The Republic may perish; the wide arch of our ranged Union may
fall; star by star its glories may expire; stone by stone its columns and
its capitol may moulder and crumble; all other names which adorn its annals
may be forgotten; but as long as human hearts shall anywhere pant, or human
tongues shall anywhere plead, for a true, rational, constitutional liberty,
those hearts shall enshrine the memory, and those tongues prolong the fame,
of George Washington!
R. C. Winthrop.
XLII.
THE PERFECT ORATOR.
Imagine to yourselves a Demosthenes, addressing the most illustrious
assembly in the world, upon a point whereon the fate of the most
illustrious of nations depended. How awful such a meeting! How vast the
subject! Is man possessed of talents adequate to the great occasion?
Adequate! Yes, superior. By the power of his eloquence, the augustness of
the assembly is lost in the dignity of the orator; and the importance of
the subject, for awhile, superseded by the admiration of his talents. With
what strength of argument, with what powers of the fancy, with what
emotions of the heart, does he assault and subjugate the whole man; and, at
once, captivate his reason, his imagination, and his passions! To effect
this must be the utmost effort of the most improved state of human
nature,--not a faculty that he possesses is here unemployed; not a faculty
that he possesses but is here exerted to its highest pitch. All his
internal powers are at work; all his external testify their energies.
Within the memory, the fancy, the judgment, the passions, are all busy;
without, every muscle, every nerve, is exerted; not a feature, not a limb
but speaks. The organs of the body attuned to the exertions of the mind
through the kindred organs of the hearers, instantaneously vibrate those
energies from soul to soul. Notwithstanding the diversity of minds in such
a multitude, by the lightning of eloquence, they are melted into one
mass,--the whole assembly, actuated in one and the same way, become, as it
were, but one man and have but one voice. The universal cry is,--LET US
MARCH AGAINST PHILIP; LET US FIGHT FOR OUR LIBERTIES;--LET US CONQUER OR
DIE!
XLIII.
NECESSITY OF A PURE NATIONAL MORALITY.
The crisis has come. By the people of this generation, by ourselves,
probably the amazing question is to be decided, whether the inheritance of
our fathers shall be preserved or thrown away; whether our Sabbaths shall
be a delight or a loathing; whether the taverns, on that holy day shall be
crowded with drunkards, or the sanctuary of God with humble worshippers;
whether riot and profaneness shall fill our streets, and poverty our
dwellings: and convicts our jails, and violence our land; or whether
industry, and temperance, and righteousness, shall be the stability of our
times; whether mild laws shall receive the cheerful submission of free men,
or the iron rod of a tyrant compel the trembling homage of slaves. Be not
deceived. The rocks and hills of New England will remain till the last
conflagration. But let the Sabbath be profaned with impunity, to worship of
God be abandoned, the government and religions instruction of children
neglected, and the streams of intemperance be permitted to flow, and her
glory will depart. The wall of fire will no longer surround her, and the
munition of rocks will no longer be her defence. The hand that overturns
our doors and temples, is the hand of Death unbarring the gate of
pandemonium, and letting loose upon our land the crimes and miseries of
hell. If the Most High should stand aloof and cast not a single ingredient
into our cup of trembling, it would seem to be full of superlative woe. But
He will not stand aloof. As we shall have begun an open controversy with
Him, he will contend openly with us. And, never, since the earth stood, has
it been so fearful a thing for nations to fall into the hands of the living
God. The day of vengeance is at hand; the day of judgment has come; the
great earthquakes which sinks Babylon is making the nations, and the waves
of the mighty commotions are dashing upon every shore. Is this, then, a
time to remove the foundations, when the earth itself is shaken? Is this a
time to forfeit the protection of God, when the hearts of men are failing
them for fear, and for looking after those things which are to come upon
the earth? Is this a time to run upon His neck and the thick bosses of His
buckler, when the nations are drinking blood, and fainting, and passing
away in His wrath? Is this the time to throw away the shield of faith, when
His arrows are drunk with the blood of the slain?--to cut from the anchor
of hope, when the clouds are collecting, and the sea and the waves are
roaring and thunders are uttering their voices, and lightnings blazing in
the heavens, and the great hail is falling from heaven upon men, and every
mountain, sea, and island is fleeing in dismay from the face of an incensed
God!
L. Beecher.
XLIV.
ON THE IRISH DISTURBANCE BILL.
I do not rise to fawn or cringe to this House; I do not rise to supplicate
you to be merciful towards the nation to which I belong,--toward a nation
which though subject to England, is yet distinct from it. It is a distinct
nation; it has been treated as such by this country, as may be proved by
history, and by seven hundred years of tyranny. I call upon this House, as
you value the liberty of England, not to allow this nefarious bill to pass.
In it are involved the liberties of England, the liberty of the press, and.
of every other institution dear to Englishmen. Against the bill I protest,
in the name of the Irish people, and in the face of Heaven. I treat with
scorn the puny and pitiful assertions, that grievances are not to be
complained of,--that our redress is not to be agitated; for, in such
cases, remonstrances cannot be too strong, agitation cannot be too violent,
to show to the world with what injustice our fair claims are met, and under
what tyranny the people suffer.
The clause which does away with trial by jury,--what, in the name of Heaven
is it, if it is not the establishment of a revolutionary tribunal? It
drives the judge from his bench; it does away with that which is more
sacred than the throne itself--that for which your king reigns, your lords
deliberate, your commons assemble. If ever I doubted before of the success
of our agitation for repeal, this bill,--this infamous bill,--the way in
which it has been received by the House; the manner in which its opponents
have been treated; the personalities to which they have been subjected; the
yells with which one of them has this night been greeted,--all these things
dissipate my doubts, and tell me of its complete and early triumph. Do you
think those yells will be forgotten? Do you suppose their echo will not
reach the plains of my injured and insulted country; that they will not be
whispered in her green valleys, and heard from her lofty hills? O, they
will be heard there!--yes; and they will not be forgotten. The youth of
Ireland will bound with indignation,--they will say "We are eight millions;
and you treat us thus, as through we were no more to your country than the
isle of Guernsey or of Jersey!"
I have done my duty. I stand acquitted to my conscience and my country. I
have opposed this measure throughout; and I now protest against it as
harsh, oppressive, uncalled for, unjust;--as establishing an infamous
precedent, by retaliating crime against crime;--as tyrannous,--cruelly
and vindictively tyrannous!
D. O'Connel.
XLV.
CÆSAR'S PAUSE UPON THE RUBICON.
An advocate of Cæsar's character, speaking of his benevolent disposition,
and of the reluctance with which he entered into the civil war, observes,
"How long did he pause upon the brink of the Rubicon!" How came he to the
brink of that river? How dared he cross it? Shall private men respect the
boundaries of private property, and shall a man pay no respect to the
boundaries of his country's rights? How dared he cross that river?--Oh! but
he paused upon the brink! He should leave perished on the brink, ere he had
crossed it! Why did he pause? Why does a man's heart palpitate when he is
on the point of committing an unlawful deed? Why does the very
murderer,--his victim sleeping before him, and his glaring eye taking
measure of the blow,--strike wide of the mortal part?--Because of
conscience! 'T was that made Cæsar pause upon the brink of the Rubicon.
Compassion!--What compassion? The compassion of an assassin, that feels a
momentary shudder as his weapon begins to cut!
Cæsar paused upon the brink of the Rubicon!--What was the Rubicon?--The
boundary of Cæsar's province. From what did it separate his province? From
his country. Was that country a desert? No: it was cultivated and fertile;
rich and populous! Its sons were men of genius, spirit, and generosity! Its
daughters were lovely, susceptible, and chaste! Friendship was its
inhabitant!--Love was its inhabitant!--Domestic affection was its
inhabitant!--Liberty was its inhabitant!--All bounded by the stream of the
Rubicon! What was Cæsar, that stood upon the brink of that stream?--A
traitor, bringing war and pestilence into the heart of that country! No
wonder that he paused! No wonder if, in his imagination, wrought upon by
his conscience, he had beheld blood instead of water; and heard groans
instead of murmurs. No wonder if some Gorgon horror had turned him into
stone upon the spot.--But, no!--he cried, "The die is cast!" He
plunged!--He crossed!--and Rome was free no more.
J. S. Knowles.
XLVI.
GUSTAVUS VASA TO THE DALECARLIANS.
Swedes! countrymen! behold at last, after a thousand dangers past, your
chief, Gustavus, here! Long have I sighed 'mid foreign lands; long have I
roamed in foreign lands; at length, 'mid Swedish hearts and hands, I grasp
a Swedish spear! Yet, looking forth, although I see none but the fearless
and the free, sad thoughts the sight inspires; for where, I think, on
Swedish ground, save where these mountains frown around, can that best
heritage be found--the freedom of our sires? Yes, Sweden pines beneath the
yoke; the galling chain our fathers broke is round our country now! On
perjured craft and ruthless guilt his power a tyrant Dane has built, and
Sweden's crown, all blood-bespilt, rests on a foreign brow. On you your
country turns her eyes--on you, on you, for aid relies, scions of noblest
stem! The foremost place in rolls of fame, by right your fearless fathers
claim; yours is the glory of their name,--'t is yours to equal them. As
rushing down, when winter reigns, resistless to the shaking plains, the
torrent tears its way, and all that bars its onward course sweeps to the
sea with headlong force, so swept your sires the Dane and Norse;--can ye do
less than they? Rise! Reässert your ancient pride, and down the hills a
living tide of fiery valor pour. Let but the storm of battle lower, back to
his den the foe will cower;--then, then shall Freedom's glorious hour
strike for our land once more! What! silent motionless, ye stand? Gleams
not an eye? Moves not a hand? Think ye to fly your fate? Or till some
better cause be given, wait ye?--Then wait! till, banished, driven, ye fear
to meet the face of Heaven;--till ye are slaughtered, wait. But no! your
kindling hearts gainsay the thought. Hark! hear that bloodhound's bay! Yon
blazing village see! Rise, countrymen! Awake! Defy the haughty Dane! Your
battlecry be Freedom! We will do or die! On! Death or victory!
XLVII.
NOBILITY OF LABOR.
I call upon those whom I address to stand up for the nobility of labor. It
is Heaven's great ordinance for human improvement. Let not that great
ordinance be broken down. What do I say? It is broken down; and it has been
broken down for ages. Let it then be built up again; here, if anywhere, on
these shores of a new world, of a new civilization But how, I may be asked,
is it broken down? Do not men toil? it may be said. They do indeed toil;
but they too generally do it because they must. Many submit to it as in
some sort a degrading necessity; and they desire nothing so much on earth
as escape from it. They fulfil the great law of labor in the letter, but
break it in the spirit; fulfill it with the muscle, but break it with the
mind. To some field of labor, mental or manual, every idler should fasten,
as a chosen and coveted theatre of improvement. But so he is not impelled
to do, under the teachings of our imperfect civilization. On the contrary,
he sits down, folds his hands, and blesses himself in his idleness. This
way of thinking is the heritage of the absurd and unjust feudal system
under which serfs labored, and gentlemen spent their lives in fighting and
feasting. It is time that this opprobrium of toil were done away. Ashamed
to toil, art thou? Ashamed of thy dingy work-shop and dusty labor-field; of
thy hard hand scarred with service more honorable than that of war; of thy
soiled and weather-stained garments, on which mother Nature has
embroidered, midst sun and rain, midst fire and steam, her own heraldic
honors? Ashamed of these tokens and titles, and envious of the flaunting
robes of imbecile idleness and vanity? It is treason to Nature; it is
impiety to Heaven; it is breaking Heaven's great ordinance. Toil, I repeat
toil--either of the brain, of the heart, or of the hand, is the only true
manhood, the only true nobility.
O. Dewey.
XLVIII.
SALATHIEL TO TITUS.
Son of Vespasian, I am at this hour a poor man, as I may in the next be an
exile or a slave: I have ties to life as strong as ever were bound round
the heart of man. I stand here a suppliant for the life of one whose loss
would embitter mine! Yet, not for wealth unlimited, for the safety of my
family, for the life of the noble victim that is now standing at the place
of torture, dare I abandon, dare I think the impious thought of abandoning
the cause of the City of Holiness.
Titus! in the name of that Being, to whom the wisdom of the earth is folly,
I adjure you to beware. Jerusalem is sacred. Her crimes have often wrought
her misery; often has she been trampled by the armies of the stranger. But
she is still the City of the Omnipotent; and never was blow inflicted on
her by man, that was not terribly repaid.
The Assyrian came, the mightiest power of the world; he plundered her
temple, and led her people into captivity. How long was it before his
empire was a dream, his dynasty extinguished in blood, and an enemy on his
throne? The Persian came; from her protector he turned into her oppressor;
and his empire was swept away like the dust of the desert! The Syrian smote
her; the smiter died in agonies of remorse; and where is his kingdom now?
The Egyptian smote her; and who now sits on the throne of the Ptolemies?
Pompey came: the invincible, the conqueror of a thousand cities, the light
of Rome; the lord of Asia, riding on the very wings of victory. But he
profaned her temple; and from that hour he went down,--down, like a
millstone plunged into the ocean! Blind counsel, rash ambition, womanish
fears were upon the great statesman and warrior of Rome. Where does he
sleep? What sands were colored with his blood? The universal conqueror died
a slave, by the hand of a slave! Crassus came at the head of the legions;
he plundered the sacred vessels of the sanctuary. Vengeance followed him,
and he was cursed by the curse of God. Where are the bones of the robber
and his host? Go, tear them from the jaws of the lion and the wolf of
Parthia,--their fitting tomb!
You, too: son of Vespasian, may be commissioned for the punishment of a
stiff-necked and rebellious people. You may scourge our naked vice by force
of arms; and then you may return to your own land exulting in the conquest
of the fiercest enemy of Rome. But shall you escape
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