(‡ decoration)HENRY CLAY.“THE GREAT PACIFICATOR.”IT is impossible within the necessary limits of this article to give anything like a satisfactory account of the life and services of the “Great Pacificator.” For nearly fifty years he took a prominent part in the discussion of every public question. In a time whose dangers and difficulties were so great that the most far-seeing statesmen almost despaired of the future of our country, it was to Henry Clay that all eyes were turned, and it was to him that we owe the postponement of the great conflict of 1861 almost for a generation.Clay was a native of Hanover County, Virginia; born in 1777. His father dying when he was four years old, the future statesman lived a life of great hardship, toil and poverty. He had almost no education, and at fourteen he was placed in a drug store in Richmond, where he served for a year as errand boy. His mother having remarried, her husband obtained for Henry a clerkship in the office of the Court of Chancery. While here he studied law, and, believing that his chances of success would be better in the West, he followed his mother and stepfather to Kentucky, and opened an office in Lexington. His success was immediate, and he was soon possessed of a lucrative practice and of a position of great influence.In 1799 Clay married Miss Lucretia Hart, the daughter of a gentleman of prominent standing in the State. His prosperity rapidly increased, and he was soon able to purchase “Ashland,” an estate of some six hundred acres near Lexington, which afterwards became famous as the home of Henry Clay. In 1806Mr.Clay was elected to fill a vacancy in the Senate of the United States. Returning to Kentucky, he became a member of the Kentucky Legislature, where he took a leading part. Again, in 1809, he was sent to the United States Senate, but it may be said that his public life properly began in 1811 as a member of the House of Representatives. He was immediately elected Speaker, and so distinguished himself in that office that it is sometimes said that he was the best presiding officer that any deliberative body in America has ever known, even down to the present time. It was to him more than to any other individual that we owe the War of 1812, and when President Madison, discouraged at the failures of the National armies in the first year of that war, was about to appoint Clay commander-in-chief of the land forces, he was persuaded not to do so because he could not be spared from the House of Representatives. In 1814Mr.Clay was one of the commissioners to arrangethe terms of peace with England. Returning from Europe, he remained Speaker of the House of Representatives until 1825, when he became Secretary of State under John Quincy Adams. During this time the great conflict over slavery began. The introduction of the cotton-gin had made slavery profitable, and the sentiment of the South, which at the time of the Revolutionary War had apparently favored the gradual doing away with that system, now insisted upon its extension; but while Southern sentiment had progressed in this way, the feelings of the North had grown in the opposite direction, and the increasing importance of the North and its approaching predominance in the government, made Southern politicians anxious about the future of their peculiar institution. The conflict broke forth in 1818, when Missouri asked to be admitted to the Union. “It was,” said Thomas Jefferson, describing the suddenness with which the danger appeared, “like the ringing of a fire-bell in the night.” It was the most dangerous crisis which had yet occurred in the history of the government. It was to the genius of Henry Clay that the ship of State was successfully steered out of these waters. The famous “Missouri Compromise” admitting one free State—Maine—and one slave State—Missouri—at the same time and enacting that no other slave State should be formed north of latitude thirty-six degrees, thirty minutes, which was the southern boundary line of Missouri, seemed likely to solve the difficult question, and certainly postponed the conflict.The disappointment of Henry Clay’s life was his failure to be elected President. He was a candidate in 1824, but with little hope of success, and when his party, in 1840, found conditions favorable for the election of their candidate, the popularity of General Jackson had convinced the party managers that success demanded a military hero as a candidate, and accordingly General Harrison took the place which belonged by right to Clay. When he was again nominated, 1844, the slavery question had again assumed so dangerous a form that it prevented his election. He was a slave-holder, and so could not receive the votes of the Liberty Party; he was opposed to the extension of slavery, and, therefore, not satisfactory to the South. Although the situation was evident to the party managers, a large majority of the people expected Clay to be elected, and when the news of his defeat came the public sorrow was greater than has ever been manifested for such a cause.Returning to the Senate,Mr.Clay completed his public services by accomplishing the famous “Compromise of 1850,” which is believed to have postponed for ten years the Civil War. He was now an old man, but his labors for the preservation of the Union were untiring. On the morning when he began the great speech of that session, he was so weak that he had to be assisted to climb the steps of the Capitol. He was aware that the exertion would probably shorten his life; but under the fear that if he did not complete the speech at that time he would never be able to resume it, he determined to continue. He spoke for two days with the force, pathos and the grandeur possible only to the greatest orators. The underlying thought of his speech was the unity of the nation and the paramount allegiance owed by her citizens, not to a single State; but to the country. Although he lived two years longer, he never recovered from the effort.Probably no man was ever more fondly loved, probably no man was so nearly worshipped. An Englishwoman, traveling in America, in 1844, wrote that three-quarters of all the boys born in that year must have been named Henry Clay.“Whatever Clay’s weakness of character and errors in statesmanship may have been,” says Carl Schurz, “almost everything he said or did was illumined by a grand conception of the destinies of his country, a glowing national spirit, a lofty patriotism.” It was a just judgment which he pronounced upon himself when he wrote, “If anyone desires to know the leading and paramount object of my public life, the preservation of the Union will furnish him the key.”DEFENCE OF JEFFERSON, 1813.NEXT to the notice which the opposition has found itself called upon to bestow upon the French emperor, a distinguished citizen of Virginia, formerly President of the United States, has never for a moment failed to receive their kindest and most respectful attention. An honorable gentleman from Massachusetts, of whom I am sorry to say, it becomes necessary for me, in the course of my remarks, to take some notice, has alluded to him in a remarkable manner. Neither his retirement from public office, his eminent services, nor his advanced age, can exempt this patriot from the coarse assaults of party malevolence. No, sir! In 1801, he snatched from the rude hand of usurpation the violated Constitution of his country,—andthatis his crime. He preserved that instrument, in form, and substance, and spirit, a precious inheritance for generations to come, and forthishe can never be forgiven. How vain and impotent is party rage, directed against such a man! He is not more elevated by his lofty residence, upon the summit of his own favorite mountain, than he is lifted, by the serenity of his mind and the consciousness of a well-spent life, above the malignant passions and bitter feelings of the day. No! his own beloved Monticello is not less moved by the storms that beat against its sides, than is this illustrious man, by the howlings of the whole British pack, let loose from the Essex kennel. When the gentleman to whom I have been compelled to allude shall have mingled his dust with that of his abused ancestors,—when he shall have been consigned to oblivion, or, if he lives at all, shall live only in the treasonable annals of a certain junto,—the name of Jefferson will be hailed with gratitude, his memory honored and cherished as the second founder of the liberties of the people, and the period of his administration will be looked back to as one of the happiest and brightest epochs in American history!REPLY TO JOHN RANDOLPH.(FROM SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 1834.)SIR, I am growing old. I have had some little measure of experience in public life, and the result of that experience has brought me to this conclusion, that when business, of whatever nature, is to be transacted in a deliberate assembly, or in private life, courtesy, forbearance, and moderation, are best calculated to bring it to a successful conclusion. Sir, my age admonishes me to abstain from involving myself in personal difficulties; would to God that I could say, I am also restrained by higher motives. I certainly never sought any collision with the gentleman from Virginia. My situation at this time is peculiar, if it be nothing else, and might, I should think, dissuade, at least, a generous heart from any wish to draw me into circumstances of personal altercation. I have experienced this magnanimity from some quarters of the House. But I regret that from others it appears to have no such consideration.The gentleman from Virginia was pleased to say that in one point, at least, he coincided with me—in an humble estimate of my grammatical and philological acquirements. I know my deficiencies. I was born to no proud patrimonial estate; from my father I inherited only infancy, ignorance, and indigence. I feel my defects; but, so far as my situation in early life is concerned, I may, without presumption, say they are more my misfortune than my fault. But,however, I regret my want of ability to furnish to the gentleman a better specimen of powers of verbal criticism, I will venture to say, it is not greater than the disappointment of this committee as to the strength of his argument. It is not a few abstractions engrossed on parchment, that make free governments. No, sir; the law of liberty must be inscribed on the heart of the citizen:THE WORD, if I must use the expression without irreverence,MUST BECOME FLESH. You must have a whole people trained, disciplined, bred,—yea, and born,—as our fathers were, to institutions like ours.Before the Colonies existed, the Petition of Rights, that Magna Charta of a more enlightened age, had been presented, in 1628, by Lord Coke and his immortal compeers. Our founders brought it with them, and we have not gone one step beyond them. They brought these maxims of civil liberty, not in their libraries, but in their souls; not as philosophical prattle, not as barren generalities, but as rules of conduct; as a symbol of public duty and private right, to be adhered to with religious fidelity; and the very first pilgrim that set his foot upon the rock of Plymouth stepped forth aLIVING CONSTITUTION, armed at all points to defend and to perpetuate the liberty to which he had devoted his whole being.ON RECOGNIZING THE INDEPENDENCE OF GREECE, 1824.ARE we so low, so base, so despicable, that we may not express our horror, articulate our detestation, of the most brutal and atrocious war that ever stained the earth, or shocked high Heaven, with the ferocious deeds of a brutal soldiery, set on by the clergy and followers of a fanatical and inimical religion, rioting in excess of blood and butchery, at the mere details of which the heart sickens; if the great mass of Christendom can look coolly and calmly on, while all this is perpetuated on a Christian people, in their own vicinity, in their very presence, let us, at least, show that, in this distant extremity, there is still some sensibility and sympathy for Christian wrongs and sufferings; that there are still feelings which can kindle into indignation at the oppression of a people endeared to us by every ancient recollection, and every modern tie.But, sir, it is not first and chiefly for Greece that I wish to see this measure adopted. It will give them but little aid,—that aid purely of a moral kind. It is, indeed, soothing and solacing, in distress, to hear the accents of a friendly voice. We know this as a People. But, sir, it is principally and mainly for America herself, for the credit and character of our common country, that I hope to see this resolution pass; it is for our own unsullied name that I feel.What appearance, sir, on the page of history, would a record like this make:—“In the month of January in the year of our Lord and Saviour 1824, while all European Christendom beheld with cold, unfeeling apathy the unexampled wrongs and inexpressible misery of Christian Greece, a proposition was made in the Congress of the United States,—almost the sole, the last, the greatest repository of human hope and of human freedom, the representatives of a nation capable of bringing into the field a million of bayonets,—while the freemen of that nation were spontaneously expressing its deep-toned feeling, its fervent prayer for Grecian success; while the whole Continent was rising, by one simultaneous motion, solemnly and anxiously supplicating and invoking the aid of Heaven to spare Greece, and to invigorate her arms; while temples and senate-houses will be resounding with one burst of generous sympathy;—in the year of our Lord and Saviour,—that Saviour alike of Christian Greece and of us, a proposition was offered in the American Congress to send a messenger to Greece, to inquire into her state and condition, with an expression of our good wishes and our sympathies;—and it was rejected!”Go home, if you dare,—go home, if you can,—to your constituents, and tell them that you voted it down! Meet, if you dare, the appalling countenances of those who sent you here, and tell them that you shrank from the declaration of your own sentiments; that, you cannot tell how, but that some unknown dread, some indescribable apprehension, some indefinable danger, affrighted you; that the spectres of scimitars and crowns, and crescents, gleamed before you, and alarmed you; and that you suppressed all the noble feelings prompted by religion, by liberty, by national independence, and by humanity! I cannot bring myself to believe that such will be the feeling of a majority of this House.
(‡ decoration)
“THE GREAT PACIFICATOR.”
IT is impossible within the necessary limits of this article to give anything like a satisfactory account of the life and services of the “Great Pacificator.” For nearly fifty years he took a prominent part in the discussion of every public question. In a time whose dangers and difficulties were so great that the most far-seeing statesmen almost despaired of the future of our country, it was to Henry Clay that all eyes were turned, and it was to him that we owe the postponement of the great conflict of 1861 almost for a generation.
Clay was a native of Hanover County, Virginia; born in 1777. His father dying when he was four years old, the future statesman lived a life of great hardship, toil and poverty. He had almost no education, and at fourteen he was placed in a drug store in Richmond, where he served for a year as errand boy. His mother having remarried, her husband obtained for Henry a clerkship in the office of the Court of Chancery. While here he studied law, and, believing that his chances of success would be better in the West, he followed his mother and stepfather to Kentucky, and opened an office in Lexington. His success was immediate, and he was soon possessed of a lucrative practice and of a position of great influence.
In 1799 Clay married Miss Lucretia Hart, the daughter of a gentleman of prominent standing in the State. His prosperity rapidly increased, and he was soon able to purchase “Ashland,” an estate of some six hundred acres near Lexington, which afterwards became famous as the home of Henry Clay. In 1806Mr.Clay was elected to fill a vacancy in the Senate of the United States. Returning to Kentucky, he became a member of the Kentucky Legislature, where he took a leading part. Again, in 1809, he was sent to the United States Senate, but it may be said that his public life properly began in 1811 as a member of the House of Representatives. He was immediately elected Speaker, and so distinguished himself in that office that it is sometimes said that he was the best presiding officer that any deliberative body in America has ever known, even down to the present time. It was to him more than to any other individual that we owe the War of 1812, and when President Madison, discouraged at the failures of the National armies in the first year of that war, was about to appoint Clay commander-in-chief of the land forces, he was persuaded not to do so because he could not be spared from the House of Representatives. In 1814Mr.Clay was one of the commissioners to arrangethe terms of peace with England. Returning from Europe, he remained Speaker of the House of Representatives until 1825, when he became Secretary of State under John Quincy Adams. During this time the great conflict over slavery began. The introduction of the cotton-gin had made slavery profitable, and the sentiment of the South, which at the time of the Revolutionary War had apparently favored the gradual doing away with that system, now insisted upon its extension; but while Southern sentiment had progressed in this way, the feelings of the North had grown in the opposite direction, and the increasing importance of the North and its approaching predominance in the government, made Southern politicians anxious about the future of their peculiar institution. The conflict broke forth in 1818, when Missouri asked to be admitted to the Union. “It was,” said Thomas Jefferson, describing the suddenness with which the danger appeared, “like the ringing of a fire-bell in the night.” It was the most dangerous crisis which had yet occurred in the history of the government. It was to the genius of Henry Clay that the ship of State was successfully steered out of these waters. The famous “Missouri Compromise” admitting one free State—Maine—and one slave State—Missouri—at the same time and enacting that no other slave State should be formed north of latitude thirty-six degrees, thirty minutes, which was the southern boundary line of Missouri, seemed likely to solve the difficult question, and certainly postponed the conflict.
The disappointment of Henry Clay’s life was his failure to be elected President. He was a candidate in 1824, but with little hope of success, and when his party, in 1840, found conditions favorable for the election of their candidate, the popularity of General Jackson had convinced the party managers that success demanded a military hero as a candidate, and accordingly General Harrison took the place which belonged by right to Clay. When he was again nominated, 1844, the slavery question had again assumed so dangerous a form that it prevented his election. He was a slave-holder, and so could not receive the votes of the Liberty Party; he was opposed to the extension of slavery, and, therefore, not satisfactory to the South. Although the situation was evident to the party managers, a large majority of the people expected Clay to be elected, and when the news of his defeat came the public sorrow was greater than has ever been manifested for such a cause.
Returning to the Senate,Mr.Clay completed his public services by accomplishing the famous “Compromise of 1850,” which is believed to have postponed for ten years the Civil War. He was now an old man, but his labors for the preservation of the Union were untiring. On the morning when he began the great speech of that session, he was so weak that he had to be assisted to climb the steps of the Capitol. He was aware that the exertion would probably shorten his life; but under the fear that if he did not complete the speech at that time he would never be able to resume it, he determined to continue. He spoke for two days with the force, pathos and the grandeur possible only to the greatest orators. The underlying thought of his speech was the unity of the nation and the paramount allegiance owed by her citizens, not to a single State; but to the country. Although he lived two years longer, he never recovered from the effort.
Probably no man was ever more fondly loved, probably no man was so nearly worshipped. An Englishwoman, traveling in America, in 1844, wrote that three-quarters of all the boys born in that year must have been named Henry Clay.“Whatever Clay’s weakness of character and errors in statesmanship may have been,” says Carl Schurz, “almost everything he said or did was illumined by a grand conception of the destinies of his country, a glowing national spirit, a lofty patriotism.” It was a just judgment which he pronounced upon himself when he wrote, “If anyone desires to know the leading and paramount object of my public life, the preservation of the Union will furnish him the key.”
DEFENCE OF JEFFERSON, 1813.
NEXT to the notice which the opposition has found itself called upon to bestow upon the French emperor, a distinguished citizen of Virginia, formerly President of the United States, has never for a moment failed to receive their kindest and most respectful attention. An honorable gentleman from Massachusetts, of whom I am sorry to say, it becomes necessary for me, in the course of my remarks, to take some notice, has alluded to him in a remarkable manner. Neither his retirement from public office, his eminent services, nor his advanced age, can exempt this patriot from the coarse assaults of party malevolence. No, sir! In 1801, he snatched from the rude hand of usurpation the violated Constitution of his country,—andthatis his crime. He preserved that instrument, in form, and substance, and spirit, a precious inheritance for generations to come, and forthishe can never be forgiven. How vain and impotent is party rage, directed against such a man! He is not more elevated by his lofty residence, upon the summit of his own favorite mountain, than he is lifted, by the serenity of his mind and the consciousness of a well-spent life, above the malignant passions and bitter feelings of the day. No! his own beloved Monticello is not less moved by the storms that beat against its sides, than is this illustrious man, by the howlings of the whole British pack, let loose from the Essex kennel. When the gentleman to whom I have been compelled to allude shall have mingled his dust with that of his abused ancestors,—when he shall have been consigned to oblivion, or, if he lives at all, shall live only in the treasonable annals of a certain junto,—the name of Jefferson will be hailed with gratitude, his memory honored and cherished as the second founder of the liberties of the people, and the period of his administration will be looked back to as one of the happiest and brightest epochs in American history!
NEXT to the notice which the opposition has found itself called upon to bestow upon the French emperor, a distinguished citizen of Virginia, formerly President of the United States, has never for a moment failed to receive their kindest and most respectful attention. An honorable gentleman from Massachusetts, of whom I am sorry to say, it becomes necessary for me, in the course of my remarks, to take some notice, has alluded to him in a remarkable manner. Neither his retirement from public office, his eminent services, nor his advanced age, can exempt this patriot from the coarse assaults of party malevolence. No, sir! In 1801, he snatched from the rude hand of usurpation the violated Constitution of his country,—andthatis his crime. He preserved that instrument, in form, and substance, and spirit, a precious inheritance for generations to come, and forthishe can never be forgiven. How vain and impotent is party rage, directed against such a man! He is not more elevated by his lofty residence, upon the summit of his own favorite mountain, than he is lifted, by the serenity of his mind and the consciousness of a well-spent life, above the malignant passions and bitter feelings of the day. No! his own beloved Monticello is not less moved by the storms that beat against its sides, than is this illustrious man, by the howlings of the whole British pack, let loose from the Essex kennel. When the gentleman to whom I have been compelled to allude shall have mingled his dust with that of his abused ancestors,—when he shall have been consigned to oblivion, or, if he lives at all, shall live only in the treasonable annals of a certain junto,—the name of Jefferson will be hailed with gratitude, his memory honored and cherished as the second founder of the liberties of the people, and the period of his administration will be looked back to as one of the happiest and brightest epochs in American history!
REPLY TO JOHN RANDOLPH.
(FROM SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 1834.)
SIR, I am growing old. I have had some little measure of experience in public life, and the result of that experience has brought me to this conclusion, that when business, of whatever nature, is to be transacted in a deliberate assembly, or in private life, courtesy, forbearance, and moderation, are best calculated to bring it to a successful conclusion. Sir, my age admonishes me to abstain from involving myself in personal difficulties; would to God that I could say, I am also restrained by higher motives. I certainly never sought any collision with the gentleman from Virginia. My situation at this time is peculiar, if it be nothing else, and might, I should think, dissuade, at least, a generous heart from any wish to draw me into circumstances of personal altercation. I have experienced this magnanimity from some quarters of the House. But I regret that from others it appears to have no such consideration.The gentleman from Virginia was pleased to say that in one point, at least, he coincided with me—in an humble estimate of my grammatical and philological acquirements. I know my deficiencies. I was born to no proud patrimonial estate; from my father I inherited only infancy, ignorance, and indigence. I feel my defects; but, so far as my situation in early life is concerned, I may, without presumption, say they are more my misfortune than my fault. But,however, I regret my want of ability to furnish to the gentleman a better specimen of powers of verbal criticism, I will venture to say, it is not greater than the disappointment of this committee as to the strength of his argument. It is not a few abstractions engrossed on parchment, that make free governments. No, sir; the law of liberty must be inscribed on the heart of the citizen:THE WORD, if I must use the expression without irreverence,MUST BECOME FLESH. You must have a whole people trained, disciplined, bred,—yea, and born,—as our fathers were, to institutions like ours.Before the Colonies existed, the Petition of Rights, that Magna Charta of a more enlightened age, had been presented, in 1628, by Lord Coke and his immortal compeers. Our founders brought it with them, and we have not gone one step beyond them. They brought these maxims of civil liberty, not in their libraries, but in their souls; not as philosophical prattle, not as barren generalities, but as rules of conduct; as a symbol of public duty and private right, to be adhered to with religious fidelity; and the very first pilgrim that set his foot upon the rock of Plymouth stepped forth aLIVING CONSTITUTION, armed at all points to defend and to perpetuate the liberty to which he had devoted his whole being.
SIR, I am growing old. I have had some little measure of experience in public life, and the result of that experience has brought me to this conclusion, that when business, of whatever nature, is to be transacted in a deliberate assembly, or in private life, courtesy, forbearance, and moderation, are best calculated to bring it to a successful conclusion. Sir, my age admonishes me to abstain from involving myself in personal difficulties; would to God that I could say, I am also restrained by higher motives. I certainly never sought any collision with the gentleman from Virginia. My situation at this time is peculiar, if it be nothing else, and might, I should think, dissuade, at least, a generous heart from any wish to draw me into circumstances of personal altercation. I have experienced this magnanimity from some quarters of the House. But I regret that from others it appears to have no such consideration.
The gentleman from Virginia was pleased to say that in one point, at least, he coincided with me—in an humble estimate of my grammatical and philological acquirements. I know my deficiencies. I was born to no proud patrimonial estate; from my father I inherited only infancy, ignorance, and indigence. I feel my defects; but, so far as my situation in early life is concerned, I may, without presumption, say they are more my misfortune than my fault. But,however, I regret my want of ability to furnish to the gentleman a better specimen of powers of verbal criticism, I will venture to say, it is not greater than the disappointment of this committee as to the strength of his argument. It is not a few abstractions engrossed on parchment, that make free governments. No, sir; the law of liberty must be inscribed on the heart of the citizen:THE WORD, if I must use the expression without irreverence,MUST BECOME FLESH. You must have a whole people trained, disciplined, bred,—yea, and born,—as our fathers were, to institutions like ours.
Before the Colonies existed, the Petition of Rights, that Magna Charta of a more enlightened age, had been presented, in 1628, by Lord Coke and his immortal compeers. Our founders brought it with them, and we have not gone one step beyond them. They brought these maxims of civil liberty, not in their libraries, but in their souls; not as philosophical prattle, not as barren generalities, but as rules of conduct; as a symbol of public duty and private right, to be adhered to with religious fidelity; and the very first pilgrim that set his foot upon the rock of Plymouth stepped forth aLIVING CONSTITUTION, armed at all points to defend and to perpetuate the liberty to which he had devoted his whole being.
ON RECOGNIZING THE INDEPENDENCE OF GREECE, 1824.
ARE we so low, so base, so despicable, that we may not express our horror, articulate our detestation, of the most brutal and atrocious war that ever stained the earth, or shocked high Heaven, with the ferocious deeds of a brutal soldiery, set on by the clergy and followers of a fanatical and inimical religion, rioting in excess of blood and butchery, at the mere details of which the heart sickens; if the great mass of Christendom can look coolly and calmly on, while all this is perpetuated on a Christian people, in their own vicinity, in their very presence, let us, at least, show that, in this distant extremity, there is still some sensibility and sympathy for Christian wrongs and sufferings; that there are still feelings which can kindle into indignation at the oppression of a people endeared to us by every ancient recollection, and every modern tie.But, sir, it is not first and chiefly for Greece that I wish to see this measure adopted. It will give them but little aid,—that aid purely of a moral kind. It is, indeed, soothing and solacing, in distress, to hear the accents of a friendly voice. We know this as a People. But, sir, it is principally and mainly for America herself, for the credit and character of our common country, that I hope to see this resolution pass; it is for our own unsullied name that I feel.What appearance, sir, on the page of history, would a record like this make:—“In the month of January in the year of our Lord and Saviour 1824, while all European Christendom beheld with cold, unfeeling apathy the unexampled wrongs and inexpressible misery of Christian Greece, a proposition was made in the Congress of the United States,—almost the sole, the last, the greatest repository of human hope and of human freedom, the representatives of a nation capable of bringing into the field a million of bayonets,—while the freemen of that nation were spontaneously expressing its deep-toned feeling, its fervent prayer for Grecian success; while the whole Continent was rising, by one simultaneous motion, solemnly and anxiously supplicating and invoking the aid of Heaven to spare Greece, and to invigorate her arms; while temples and senate-houses will be resounding with one burst of generous sympathy;—in the year of our Lord and Saviour,—that Saviour alike of Christian Greece and of us, a proposition was offered in the American Congress to send a messenger to Greece, to inquire into her state and condition, with an expression of our good wishes and our sympathies;—and it was rejected!”Go home, if you dare,—go home, if you can,—to your constituents, and tell them that you voted it down! Meet, if you dare, the appalling countenances of those who sent you here, and tell them that you shrank from the declaration of your own sentiments; that, you cannot tell how, but that some unknown dread, some indescribable apprehension, some indefinable danger, affrighted you; that the spectres of scimitars and crowns, and crescents, gleamed before you, and alarmed you; and that you suppressed all the noble feelings prompted by religion, by liberty, by national independence, and by humanity! I cannot bring myself to believe that such will be the feeling of a majority of this House.
ARE we so low, so base, so despicable, that we may not express our horror, articulate our detestation, of the most brutal and atrocious war that ever stained the earth, or shocked high Heaven, with the ferocious deeds of a brutal soldiery, set on by the clergy and followers of a fanatical and inimical religion, rioting in excess of blood and butchery, at the mere details of which the heart sickens; if the great mass of Christendom can look coolly and calmly on, while all this is perpetuated on a Christian people, in their own vicinity, in their very presence, let us, at least, show that, in this distant extremity, there is still some sensibility and sympathy for Christian wrongs and sufferings; that there are still feelings which can kindle into indignation at the oppression of a people endeared to us by every ancient recollection, and every modern tie.
But, sir, it is not first and chiefly for Greece that I wish to see this measure adopted. It will give them but little aid,—that aid purely of a moral kind. It is, indeed, soothing and solacing, in distress, to hear the accents of a friendly voice. We know this as a People. But, sir, it is principally and mainly for America herself, for the credit and character of our common country, that I hope to see this resolution pass; it is for our own unsullied name that I feel.
What appearance, sir, on the page of history, would a record like this make:—“In the month of January in the year of our Lord and Saviour 1824, while all European Christendom beheld with cold, unfeeling apathy the unexampled wrongs and inexpressible misery of Christian Greece, a proposition was made in the Congress of the United States,—almost the sole, the last, the greatest repository of human hope and of human freedom, the representatives of a nation capable of bringing into the field a million of bayonets,—while the freemen of that nation were spontaneously expressing its deep-toned feeling, its fervent prayer for Grecian success; while the whole Continent was rising, by one simultaneous motion, solemnly and anxiously supplicating and invoking the aid of Heaven to spare Greece, and to invigorate her arms; while temples and senate-houses will be resounding with one burst of generous sympathy;—in the year of our Lord and Saviour,—that Saviour alike of Christian Greece and of us, a proposition was offered in the American Congress to send a messenger to Greece, to inquire into her state and condition, with an expression of our good wishes and our sympathies;—and it was rejected!”
Go home, if you dare,—go home, if you can,—to your constituents, and tell them that you voted it down! Meet, if you dare, the appalling countenances of those who sent you here, and tell them that you shrank from the declaration of your own sentiments; that, you cannot tell how, but that some unknown dread, some indescribable apprehension, some indefinable danger, affrighted you; that the spectres of scimitars and crowns, and crescents, gleamed before you, and alarmed you; and that you suppressed all the noble feelings prompted by religion, by liberty, by national independence, and by humanity! I cannot bring myself to believe that such will be the feeling of a majority of this House.
(‡ decoration)DANIEL WEBSTER.THE DEFENDER OF NATIONAL UNION.AMONG the men who may properly be called the makers of the nation, Daniel Webster holds a foremost place. If Washington was “the father of his country,” and Lincoln its “saviour,” it may also be said that it was Webster, more than any other one man, who laid down the principles upon which it was made possible for the nation to endure; for it was he who maintained that the Federal Constitution created not a league, but a nation, thus enunciating far in advance the theories which were wrought into our constitutional law at the expense of a long and bloody Civil War.The life of Daniel Webster extended from 1782 until 1852. His father was one of the brave men who fought at Lexington, and Daniel was the youngest of ten children who were compelled very early in life to share in the labor of supporting the family on a rocky New Hampshire farm. Working in his father’s sawmill, he used the time while the saw was going through the log in devouring a book. His abilities were very remarkable and the fame of “Webster’s boy” was known far and wide. His memory was very extraordinary. In a competition between the boys of his school in committing to memory verses in the Bible, the teacher heard him repeat some sixty or seventy which he had committed between Saturday and Monday and was then obliged to give up as Webster declared that there were several chapters more that he had learned. By means of great sacrifice on the part of the entire family, Daniel was sent to Phillips Exeter Academy, and, by teaching school in vacations, made his way through Dartmouth College. He took up the study of law and was admitted to practice in 1805.There was something inMr.Webster’s appearance and bearing which must have been very majestic. He seemed to everyone to be a giant; but as his proportions were not those of an unusually large man, his majestic appearance must have been due to something within which shone out through his piercing eyes and spoke in his finely cut and noble features. It is said that he never punished his children, but, when they did wrong, he would send for them and silently look at them, and the sorrow or the anger of the look was reproach enough.Webster was a lawyer, an orator and a statesman. As a lawyer, his most famous arguments are those in the “Dartmouth College Case,” the “White Murder Case” and the “Steamboat Case,” as they are called. A part of his speech in the “Murder Case” is still printed in the school readers. The “Dartmouth College Case” isvery famous. It was a suit whose success would have destroyed the college, and, after trial in the State Courts, it was appealed to the United States Supreme Court, before whichMr.Webster made his argument. The interest was very great and the details of the trial are among the most interesting in the history of our jurisprudence. The eloquence with whichMr.Webster described the usefulness of the institution, his love for it, and the consequences which the precedent sought to be established would involve, all contributed to make this one of the greatest oratorical efforts of which we have any record.“Sir,” said he, “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.The court room, during these two or three minutes, presented an extraordinary spectacle. Chief Justice Marshall, with his tall, gaunt figure bent over as if to catch the slightest whisper, the deep furrows of his cheeks expanded with emotion, and eyes suffused with tears;Mr.Justice Washington at his side, with his small and emaciated frame, and countenance like marble, leaning forward with an eager, troubled look; and the remainder of the court, at the two extremities, pressing, as itwere, 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 the 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.As an orator,Mr.Webster’s most famous speeches are the “Plymouth Rock Address” in 1820, on the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Landing of the Pilgrims, the “Bunker Hill Monument Address,” and his speech in the Senate in reply to Hayne in 1830, and on “Clay’s Compromise Bill of 1850.”UponMr.Harrison’s inauguration in 1841,Mr.Webster became Secretary of State, which office he held until 1843. During this time, he negotiated the famous treaty with Lord Ashburton which settled a long-standing dispute with England over the boundary of Maine. He supported Clay for the presidency in 1804 and opposed the annexation of Texas. In the debate on the “Compromise of 1850,”Mr.Webster advocated the acceptance of the provisions for extending slavery into the territory purchased from Mexico, and for the “Fugitive Slave Law,” and in so doing gave great offense to his supporters in the North. In 1850, he was appointed Secretary of State, which office he held until his death.DANIEL WEBSTER’S HOME, MARSHFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS.He took great interest in the operations of his farm at Marshfield, near Plymouth, Massachusetts, and delightful stories are told of the pleasure he took in his cattle—how he might be seen breaking ears of corn to feed to his oxen on the right and left declaring that he would rather be there than in the Senate, and adding with a smile, “I think it better company.” It was here, in 1852, that he was thrown from his carriage and received severe injuries from which he did not recover. In his last words, he manifested a desire to be conscious of the approach of death and his last words were, “I still live.” In the vast concourse which gathered at his funeral was a plain farmer who was heard to say, as he turned from the grave, “Daniel Webster, without you the world will seem lonely.”SOUTH CAROLINA AND MASSACHUSETTS, JANUARY, 1830.An extract from a speech byMr.Webster, in reply toMr.Hayne, of South Carolina, in the Senate of the United States, January, 1830. This was probably the most remarkable speech ever made in the American Congress. His peroration, comprised in the last paragraph, under the succeeding heading, “Union and Liberty,” for patriotic eloquence has not a counterpart, perhaps, in all history. The speech is the more remarkable for the fact thatMr.Webster had but a single night in which to make preparation.THE eulogium pronounced on the character of the State of South Carolina, by the honorable gentleman, for her Revolutionary and other merits, meets my hearty concurrence. I shall not acknowledge that the honorable member goes before me in regard for whatever of distinguished talent or distinguished character South Carolina has produced. I claim part of the honor, I partake in the pride of her great names. I claim them for countrymen, one and all. The Laurenses, the Rutledges, the Pinckneys, the Sumpters, the Marions,—Americans all,—whose fame is no more to be hemmed in by State lines, than their talents and patriotism were capable of being circumscribed within the same narrow limits. In their day and generation, they served and honored the country, and the whole country; and their renown is of the treasures of the whole country. Him whose honored name the gentleman himself bears,—does he suppose me less capable of gratitude for his patriotism, or sympathy for his sufferings, than if his eyes had first opened upon the light in Massachusetts, instead of South Carolina?Sir, does he suppose it is in his power to exhibit a Carolina name so bright as to produce envy in my bosom? No, sir; increased gratification and delight, rather.Sir, I thank God, that, if I am gifted with little of the spirit which is said to be able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I trust, of that other spirit, which would drag angels down. When I shall be found, sir, in my place here, in the Senate, or elsewhere, to sneer at public merit, because it happened to spring up beyond the little limits of my own State or neighborhood; when I refuse, for any such cause, or for any cause, the homage due to American talent, to elevated patriotism, to sincere devotion to liberty and the country; or, if I see an uncommon endowment of heaven,—if I see extraordinary capacity and virtue in any son of the South,—and if, moved by local prejudice, or gangrened by State jealousy, I get up here to abate the tithe of a hair from his just character and just fame, may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!Sir, let me recur to pleasing recollections; let me indulge in refreshing remembrance of the past; let me remind you that, in early times, no States cherished greater harmony, both of principle and feeling, than Massachusetts and South Carolina. Would to God that harmony might again return! Shoulder to shoulder they went through the Revolution, hand in hand they stood round the administration of Washington, and felt his own great arm lean on them for support. Unkind feeling, if it exist,—alienation and distrust,—are the growth, unnatural to such soils, of false principles since sown. They are weeds, the seeds of which that same great arm never scattered.Mr.President, I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts;—she needs none. There she is,—behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her history,—the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill,—and there they will remain forever. The bones of her sons, fallen in the great struggle for Independence, now lie mingled with the soil of every State from New England to Georgia,—and there they will lie forever. And, sir, where American liberty raised its first voice, and where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, in the strength of its manhood, and full of its original spirit. If discord and disunion shall wound it,—if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it,—if folly and madness, if uneasiness under salutary and necessary restraints, shall succeed to separate it from that Union by which alone its existence is made sure,—it will stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked; it will stretch forth its arm, with whatever vigor it may still retain, over the friends who gather round it; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst the proudest monuments of its own glory, and on the very spot of its origin!LIBERTY AND UNION, 1830.(Continuation of the foregoing.)IPROFESS, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view the prosperity and honor of the whole country, and the preservation of our Federal Union. It is to that Union we owe our safety at home, and our consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that Union we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country. That Union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues, in the severe school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of disordered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its benign influences, these great interests immediately awoke, as from the dead, and sprang forth with newness of life. Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and its blessings; and although our territory has stretched out wider and wider, and our population spread further and further, they have not outrun its protection, or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain of national, social, personal happiness.I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty, when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunionto see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe counsellor in the affairs of this government whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how the Union should be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when it shall be broken up and destroyed.While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that, in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise! God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind! When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the Sun in Heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States severed, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance, rather, behold the gorgeous Ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing, for its motto, no such miserable interrogatory as—What is all this worth?—nor those other words of delusion and folly—Liberty first and Union afterwards,—but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart, LibertyandUnion, now and♦forever, one and inseparable!♦‘forver’ replaced with ‘forever’THE ELOQUENCE OF ACTION.WHEN public bodies are to be addressed on momentous occasions, when great interests are at stake and strong passions excited, nothing is valuable in speech, further than it is connected with high intellectual and moral endowments. Clearness, force, and earnestness are the qualities which produce conviction. True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech. It cannot be brought from far. Labor and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshalled in every way, but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion. Affected passion, intense expression the pomp of declamation, all may aspire after it,—they cannot reach it. It comes, if it come at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force. The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men when their own lives, and the fate of their wives, their children, and their country hang on the decision of the hour. Then, words have lost their power, rhetoric is vain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities. Then, patriotism is eloquent; then, self-devotion is eloquent. The clear conception, outrunning the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward, right onward, to his object,—this, this is eloquence; or, rather, it is something greater and higher than all eloquence,—it is action, noble, sublime, godlike action.THE TWENTY-SECOND OF FEBRUARY.(SUITED TO WASHINGTON’S BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION.)GENTLEMEN, a most auspicious omen salutes and cheers us this day. This day is the anniversary of the birth of Washington. Washington’s birthday is celebrated from one end of this land to the other. The whole atmosphere of the country is this day redolent of his principles,—the hills, the rocks, the groves, the vales, and the rivers shout their praises and resound with his fame. All the good, whether learned or unlearned, high or low, rich or poor, feel this day that there is one treasurecommon to them all; and that is the fame of Washington. They all recount his deeds, ponder over his principles and teachings, and resolve to be more and more guided by them in the future.To the old and the young, to all born in this land, and to all whose preferences have led them to make it the home of their adoption, Washington is an exhilarating theme. Americans are proud of his character; all exiles from foreign shores are eager to participate in admiration of him; and it is true that he is, this day, here, everywhere, all over the world, more an object of regard than on any former day since his birth.Gentlemen, by his example, and under the guidance of his precepts, will we and our children uphold the Constitution? Under his military leadership, our fathers conquered their ancient enemies; and, under the outspread banner of the political and constitutional principles, will we conquernow? To that standard we shall adhere, and uphold it, through evil report and good report. We will sustain it, and meet death itself, if it come; we will ever encounter and defeat error, by day and by night, in light or in darkness—thick darkness—if it come, till“Danger’s troubled night is o’er,And the star of peace return.”AMERICA’S GIFTS TO EUROPE.AMERICA has furnished to Europe proof of the fact that popular institutions, founded on equality and the principle of representation, are capable of maintaining governments, able to secure the rights of person, property, and reputation. America has proved that it is practicable to elevate the mass of mankind—that portion which in Europe is called the laboring or lower class—to raise them to self-respect, to make them competent to act a part in the great right and great duty of self-government; and she has proved that this may be done by education and the diffusion of knowledge. She holds out an example, a thousand times more encouraging than ever was presented before, to those nine-tenths of the human race who are born without hereditary fortune or hereditary rank.America has furnished to the world the character of Washington; and if our American institutions had done nothing else, that alone would have entitled them to the respect of mankind. Washington! “First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen,” Washington is all our own! The enthusiastic veneration and regard in which the people of the United States hold him, prove them to be worthy of such a country, while his reputation abroad reflects the highest honor on his country.I would cheerfully put the question to-day to the intelligence of Europe and the world, “What character of the century, upon the whole, stands out, in the relief of history, most pure, most respectable, most sublime?” and I doubt not that, by a suffrage approaching to unanimity, the answer would be, Washington!(‡ decoration)
(‡ decoration)
THE DEFENDER OF NATIONAL UNION.
AMONG the men who may properly be called the makers of the nation, Daniel Webster holds a foremost place. If Washington was “the father of his country,” and Lincoln its “saviour,” it may also be said that it was Webster, more than any other one man, who laid down the principles upon which it was made possible for the nation to endure; for it was he who maintained that the Federal Constitution created not a league, but a nation, thus enunciating far in advance the theories which were wrought into our constitutional law at the expense of a long and bloody Civil War.
The life of Daniel Webster extended from 1782 until 1852. His father was one of the brave men who fought at Lexington, and Daniel was the youngest of ten children who were compelled very early in life to share in the labor of supporting the family on a rocky New Hampshire farm. Working in his father’s sawmill, he used the time while the saw was going through the log in devouring a book. His abilities were very remarkable and the fame of “Webster’s boy” was known far and wide. His memory was very extraordinary. In a competition between the boys of his school in committing to memory verses in the Bible, the teacher heard him repeat some sixty or seventy which he had committed between Saturday and Monday and was then obliged to give up as Webster declared that there were several chapters more that he had learned. By means of great sacrifice on the part of the entire family, Daniel was sent to Phillips Exeter Academy, and, by teaching school in vacations, made his way through Dartmouth College. He took up the study of law and was admitted to practice in 1805.
There was something inMr.Webster’s appearance and bearing which must have been very majestic. He seemed to everyone to be a giant; but as his proportions were not those of an unusually large man, his majestic appearance must have been due to something within which shone out through his piercing eyes and spoke in his finely cut and noble features. It is said that he never punished his children, but, when they did wrong, he would send for them and silently look at them, and the sorrow or the anger of the look was reproach enough.
Webster was a lawyer, an orator and a statesman. As a lawyer, his most famous arguments are those in the “Dartmouth College Case,” the “White Murder Case” and the “Steamboat Case,” as they are called. A part of his speech in the “Murder Case” is still printed in the school readers. The “Dartmouth College Case” isvery famous. It was a suit whose success would have destroyed the college, and, after trial in the State Courts, it was appealed to the United States Supreme Court, before whichMr.Webster made his argument. The interest was very great and the details of the trial are among the most interesting in the history of our jurisprudence. The eloquence with whichMr.Webster described the usefulness of the institution, his love for it, and the consequences which the precedent sought to be established would involve, all contributed to make this one of the greatest oratorical efforts of which we have any record.
“Sir,” said he, “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.
The court room, during these two or three minutes, presented an extraordinary spectacle. Chief Justice Marshall, with his tall, gaunt figure bent over as if to catch the slightest whisper, the deep furrows of his cheeks expanded with emotion, and eyes suffused with tears;Mr.Justice Washington at his side, with his small and emaciated frame, and countenance like marble, leaning forward with an eager, troubled look; and the remainder of the court, at the two extremities, pressing, as itwere, 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 the 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.
As an orator,Mr.Webster’s most famous speeches are the “Plymouth Rock Address” in 1820, on the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Landing of the Pilgrims, the “Bunker Hill Monument Address,” and his speech in the Senate in reply to Hayne in 1830, and on “Clay’s Compromise Bill of 1850.”
UponMr.Harrison’s inauguration in 1841,Mr.Webster became Secretary of State, which office he held until 1843. During this time, he negotiated the famous treaty with Lord Ashburton which settled a long-standing dispute with England over the boundary of Maine. He supported Clay for the presidency in 1804 and opposed the annexation of Texas. In the debate on the “Compromise of 1850,”Mr.Webster advocated the acceptance of the provisions for extending slavery into the territory purchased from Mexico, and for the “Fugitive Slave Law,” and in so doing gave great offense to his supporters in the North. In 1850, he was appointed Secretary of State, which office he held until his death.
DANIEL WEBSTER’S HOME, MARSHFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS.
DANIEL WEBSTER’S HOME, MARSHFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS.
He took great interest in the operations of his farm at Marshfield, near Plymouth, Massachusetts, and delightful stories are told of the pleasure he took in his cattle—how he might be seen breaking ears of corn to feed to his oxen on the right and left declaring that he would rather be there than in the Senate, and adding with a smile, “I think it better company.” It was here, in 1852, that he was thrown from his carriage and received severe injuries from which he did not recover. In his last words, he manifested a desire to be conscious of the approach of death and his last words were, “I still live.” In the vast concourse which gathered at his funeral was a plain farmer who was heard to say, as he turned from the grave, “Daniel Webster, without you the world will seem lonely.”
SOUTH CAROLINA AND MASSACHUSETTS, JANUARY, 1830.
An extract from a speech byMr.Webster, in reply toMr.Hayne, of South Carolina, in the Senate of the United States, January, 1830. This was probably the most remarkable speech ever made in the American Congress. His peroration, comprised in the last paragraph, under the succeeding heading, “Union and Liberty,” for patriotic eloquence has not a counterpart, perhaps, in all history. The speech is the more remarkable for the fact thatMr.Webster had but a single night in which to make preparation.
THE eulogium pronounced on the character of the State of South Carolina, by the honorable gentleman, for her Revolutionary and other merits, meets my hearty concurrence. I shall not acknowledge that the honorable member goes before me in regard for whatever of distinguished talent or distinguished character South Carolina has produced. I claim part of the honor, I partake in the pride of her great names. I claim them for countrymen, one and all. The Laurenses, the Rutledges, the Pinckneys, the Sumpters, the Marions,—Americans all,—whose fame is no more to be hemmed in by State lines, than their talents and patriotism were capable of being circumscribed within the same narrow limits. In their day and generation, they served and honored the country, and the whole country; and their renown is of the treasures of the whole country. Him whose honored name the gentleman himself bears,—does he suppose me less capable of gratitude for his patriotism, or sympathy for his sufferings, than if his eyes had first opened upon the light in Massachusetts, instead of South Carolina?Sir, does he suppose it is in his power to exhibit a Carolina name so bright as to produce envy in my bosom? No, sir; increased gratification and delight, rather.Sir, I thank God, that, if I am gifted with little of the spirit which is said to be able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I trust, of that other spirit, which would drag angels down. When I shall be found, sir, in my place here, in the Senate, or elsewhere, to sneer at public merit, because it happened to spring up beyond the little limits of my own State or neighborhood; when I refuse, for any such cause, or for any cause, the homage due to American talent, to elevated patriotism, to sincere devotion to liberty and the country; or, if I see an uncommon endowment of heaven,—if I see extraordinary capacity and virtue in any son of the South,—and if, moved by local prejudice, or gangrened by State jealousy, I get up here to abate the tithe of a hair from his just character and just fame, may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!Sir, let me recur to pleasing recollections; let me indulge in refreshing remembrance of the past; let me remind you that, in early times, no States cherished greater harmony, both of principle and feeling, than Massachusetts and South Carolina. Would to God that harmony might again return! Shoulder to shoulder they went through the Revolution, hand in hand they stood round the administration of Washington, and felt his own great arm lean on them for support. Unkind feeling, if it exist,—alienation and distrust,—are the growth, unnatural to such soils, of false principles since sown. They are weeds, the seeds of which that same great arm never scattered.Mr.President, I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts;—she needs none. There she is,—behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her history,—the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill,—and there they will remain forever. The bones of her sons, fallen in the great struggle for Independence, now lie mingled with the soil of every State from New England to Georgia,—and there they will lie forever. And, sir, where American liberty raised its first voice, and where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, in the strength of its manhood, and full of its original spirit. If discord and disunion shall wound it,—if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it,—if folly and madness, if uneasiness under salutary and necessary restraints, shall succeed to separate it from that Union by which alone its existence is made sure,—it will stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked; it will stretch forth its arm, with whatever vigor it may still retain, over the friends who gather round it; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst the proudest monuments of its own glory, and on the very spot of its origin!
THE eulogium pronounced on the character of the State of South Carolina, by the honorable gentleman, for her Revolutionary and other merits, meets my hearty concurrence. I shall not acknowledge that the honorable member goes before me in regard for whatever of distinguished talent or distinguished character South Carolina has produced. I claim part of the honor, I partake in the pride of her great names. I claim them for countrymen, one and all. The Laurenses, the Rutledges, the Pinckneys, the Sumpters, the Marions,—Americans all,—whose fame is no more to be hemmed in by State lines, than their talents and patriotism were capable of being circumscribed within the same narrow limits. In their day and generation, they served and honored the country, and the whole country; and their renown is of the treasures of the whole country. Him whose honored name the gentleman himself bears,—does he suppose me less capable of gratitude for his patriotism, or sympathy for his sufferings, than if his eyes had first opened upon the light in Massachusetts, instead of South Carolina?Sir, does he suppose it is in his power to exhibit a Carolina name so bright as to produce envy in my bosom? No, sir; increased gratification and delight, rather.
Sir, I thank God, that, if I am gifted with little of the spirit which is said to be able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I trust, of that other spirit, which would drag angels down. When I shall be found, sir, in my place here, in the Senate, or elsewhere, to sneer at public merit, because it happened to spring up beyond the little limits of my own State or neighborhood; when I refuse, for any such cause, or for any cause, the homage due to American talent, to elevated patriotism, to sincere devotion to liberty and the country; or, if I see an uncommon endowment of heaven,—if I see extraordinary capacity and virtue in any son of the South,—and if, moved by local prejudice, or gangrened by State jealousy, I get up here to abate the tithe of a hair from his just character and just fame, may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!
Sir, let me recur to pleasing recollections; let me indulge in refreshing remembrance of the past; let me remind you that, in early times, no States cherished greater harmony, both of principle and feeling, than Massachusetts and South Carolina. Would to God that harmony might again return! Shoulder to shoulder they went through the Revolution, hand in hand they stood round the administration of Washington, and felt his own great arm lean on them for support. Unkind feeling, if it exist,—alienation and distrust,—are the growth, unnatural to such soils, of false principles since sown. They are weeds, the seeds of which that same great arm never scattered.
Mr.President, I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts;—she needs none. There she is,—behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her history,—the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill,—and there they will remain forever. The bones of her sons, fallen in the great struggle for Independence, now lie mingled with the soil of every State from New England to Georgia,—and there they will lie forever. And, sir, where American liberty raised its first voice, and where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, in the strength of its manhood, and full of its original spirit. If discord and disunion shall wound it,—if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it,—if folly and madness, if uneasiness under salutary and necessary restraints, shall succeed to separate it from that Union by which alone its existence is made sure,—it will stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked; it will stretch forth its arm, with whatever vigor it may still retain, over the friends who gather round it; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst the proudest monuments of its own glory, and on the very spot of its origin!
LIBERTY AND UNION, 1830.
(Continuation of the foregoing.)
IPROFESS, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view the prosperity and honor of the whole country, and the preservation of our Federal Union. It is to that Union we owe our safety at home, and our consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that Union we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country. That Union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues, in the severe school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of disordered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its benign influences, these great interests immediately awoke, as from the dead, and sprang forth with newness of life. Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and its blessings; and although our territory has stretched out wider and wider, and our population spread further and further, they have not outrun its protection, or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain of national, social, personal happiness.I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty, when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunionto see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe counsellor in the affairs of this government whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how the Union should be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when it shall be broken up and destroyed.While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that, in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise! God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind! When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the Sun in Heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States severed, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance, rather, behold the gorgeous Ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing, for its motto, no such miserable interrogatory as—What is all this worth?—nor those other words of delusion and folly—Liberty first and Union afterwards,—but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart, LibertyandUnion, now and♦forever, one and inseparable!♦‘forver’ replaced with ‘forever’
IPROFESS, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view the prosperity and honor of the whole country, and the preservation of our Federal Union. It is to that Union we owe our safety at home, and our consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that Union we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country. That Union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues, in the severe school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of disordered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its benign influences, these great interests immediately awoke, as from the dead, and sprang forth with newness of life. Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and its blessings; and although our territory has stretched out wider and wider, and our population spread further and further, they have not outrun its protection, or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain of national, social, personal happiness.
I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty, when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunionto see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe counsellor in the affairs of this government whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how the Union should be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when it shall be broken up and destroyed.
While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that, in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise! God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind! When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the Sun in Heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States severed, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance, rather, behold the gorgeous Ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing, for its motto, no such miserable interrogatory as—What is all this worth?—nor those other words of delusion and folly—Liberty first and Union afterwards,—but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart, LibertyandUnion, now and♦forever, one and inseparable!
♦‘forver’ replaced with ‘forever’
THE ELOQUENCE OF ACTION.
WHEN public bodies are to be addressed on momentous occasions, when great interests are at stake and strong passions excited, nothing is valuable in speech, further than it is connected with high intellectual and moral endowments. Clearness, force, and earnestness are the qualities which produce conviction. True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech. It cannot be brought from far. Labor and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshalled in every way, but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion. Affected passion, intense expression the pomp of declamation, all may aspire after it,—they cannot reach it. It comes, if it come at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force. The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men when their own lives, and the fate of their wives, their children, and their country hang on the decision of the hour. Then, words have lost their power, rhetoric is vain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities. Then, patriotism is eloquent; then, self-devotion is eloquent. The clear conception, outrunning the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward, right onward, to his object,—this, this is eloquence; or, rather, it is something greater and higher than all eloquence,—it is action, noble, sublime, godlike action.
WHEN public bodies are to be addressed on momentous occasions, when great interests are at stake and strong passions excited, nothing is valuable in speech, further than it is connected with high intellectual and moral endowments. Clearness, force, and earnestness are the qualities which produce conviction. True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech. It cannot be brought from far. Labor and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshalled in every way, but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion. Affected passion, intense expression the pomp of declamation, all may aspire after it,—they cannot reach it. It comes, if it come at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force. The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men when their own lives, and the fate of their wives, their children, and their country hang on the decision of the hour. Then, words have lost their power, rhetoric is vain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities. Then, patriotism is eloquent; then, self-devotion is eloquent. The clear conception, outrunning the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward, right onward, to his object,—this, this is eloquence; or, rather, it is something greater and higher than all eloquence,—it is action, noble, sublime, godlike action.
THE TWENTY-SECOND OF FEBRUARY.
(SUITED TO WASHINGTON’S BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION.)
GENTLEMEN, a most auspicious omen salutes and cheers us this day. This day is the anniversary of the birth of Washington. Washington’s birthday is celebrated from one end of this land to the other. The whole atmosphere of the country is this day redolent of his principles,—the hills, the rocks, the groves, the vales, and the rivers shout their praises and resound with his fame. All the good, whether learned or unlearned, high or low, rich or poor, feel this day that there is one treasurecommon to them all; and that is the fame of Washington. They all recount his deeds, ponder over his principles and teachings, and resolve to be more and more guided by them in the future.To the old and the young, to all born in this land, and to all whose preferences have led them to make it the home of their adoption, Washington is an exhilarating theme. Americans are proud of his character; all exiles from foreign shores are eager to participate in admiration of him; and it is true that he is, this day, here, everywhere, all over the world, more an object of regard than on any former day since his birth.Gentlemen, by his example, and under the guidance of his precepts, will we and our children uphold the Constitution? Under his military leadership, our fathers conquered their ancient enemies; and, under the outspread banner of the political and constitutional principles, will we conquernow? To that standard we shall adhere, and uphold it, through evil report and good report. We will sustain it, and meet death itself, if it come; we will ever encounter and defeat error, by day and by night, in light or in darkness—thick darkness—if it come, till“Danger’s troubled night is o’er,And the star of peace return.”
GENTLEMEN, a most auspicious omen salutes and cheers us this day. This day is the anniversary of the birth of Washington. Washington’s birthday is celebrated from one end of this land to the other. The whole atmosphere of the country is this day redolent of his principles,—the hills, the rocks, the groves, the vales, and the rivers shout their praises and resound with his fame. All the good, whether learned or unlearned, high or low, rich or poor, feel this day that there is one treasurecommon to them all; and that is the fame of Washington. They all recount his deeds, ponder over his principles and teachings, and resolve to be more and more guided by them in the future.
To the old and the young, to all born in this land, and to all whose preferences have led them to make it the home of their adoption, Washington is an exhilarating theme. Americans are proud of his character; all exiles from foreign shores are eager to participate in admiration of him; and it is true that he is, this day, here, everywhere, all over the world, more an object of regard than on any former day since his birth.
Gentlemen, by his example, and under the guidance of his precepts, will we and our children uphold the Constitution? Under his military leadership, our fathers conquered their ancient enemies; and, under the outspread banner of the political and constitutional principles, will we conquernow? To that standard we shall adhere, and uphold it, through evil report and good report. We will sustain it, and meet death itself, if it come; we will ever encounter and defeat error, by day and by night, in light or in darkness—thick darkness—if it come, till
“Danger’s troubled night is o’er,And the star of peace return.”
“Danger’s troubled night is o’er,And the star of peace return.”
“Danger’s troubled night is o’er,
And the star of peace return.”
AMERICA’S GIFTS TO EUROPE.
AMERICA has furnished to Europe proof of the fact that popular institutions, founded on equality and the principle of representation, are capable of maintaining governments, able to secure the rights of person, property, and reputation. America has proved that it is practicable to elevate the mass of mankind—that portion which in Europe is called the laboring or lower class—to raise them to self-respect, to make them competent to act a part in the great right and great duty of self-government; and she has proved that this may be done by education and the diffusion of knowledge. She holds out an example, a thousand times more encouraging than ever was presented before, to those nine-tenths of the human race who are born without hereditary fortune or hereditary rank.America has furnished to the world the character of Washington; and if our American institutions had done nothing else, that alone would have entitled them to the respect of mankind. Washington! “First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen,” Washington is all our own! The enthusiastic veneration and regard in which the people of the United States hold him, prove them to be worthy of such a country, while his reputation abroad reflects the highest honor on his country.I would cheerfully put the question to-day to the intelligence of Europe and the world, “What character of the century, upon the whole, stands out, in the relief of history, most pure, most respectable, most sublime?” and I doubt not that, by a suffrage approaching to unanimity, the answer would be, Washington!
AMERICA has furnished to Europe proof of the fact that popular institutions, founded on equality and the principle of representation, are capable of maintaining governments, able to secure the rights of person, property, and reputation. America has proved that it is practicable to elevate the mass of mankind—that portion which in Europe is called the laboring or lower class—to raise them to self-respect, to make them competent to act a part in the great right and great duty of self-government; and she has proved that this may be done by education and the diffusion of knowledge. She holds out an example, a thousand times more encouraging than ever was presented before, to those nine-tenths of the human race who are born without hereditary fortune or hereditary rank.
America has furnished to the world the character of Washington; and if our American institutions had done nothing else, that alone would have entitled them to the respect of mankind. Washington! “First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen,” Washington is all our own! The enthusiastic veneration and regard in which the people of the United States hold him, prove them to be worthy of such a country, while his reputation abroad reflects the highest honor on his country.
I would cheerfully put the question to-day to the intelligence of Europe and the world, “What character of the century, upon the whole, stands out, in the relief of history, most pure, most respectable, most sublime?” and I doubt not that, by a suffrage approaching to unanimity, the answer would be, Washington!
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