What's hallowed ground? Has earth a clodIts Maker meant not should be trodBy man, the image of his God,Erect and free,Unscourged by superstition's rodTo bow the knee?What hallows ground where heroes sleep?'Tis not the sculptured piles you heap,In dews that Heavens far distant weep,Their turf may bloom,Or Genii twine beneath the deepTheir coral tomb.But strew his ashes to the wind,Whose sword or voice has saved mankind,And is he dead, whose glorious mindLifts thine on high?To live in hearts we leave behindIs not to die!Is't death to fall for Freedom's right?He's dead alone that lacks her light!And murder sullies, in Heaven's sightThe sword he draws.What can alone ennoble fight?A noble cause.What's hallowed ground? 'Tis what gives birthTo sacred thoughts in souls of worth.Peace! Independence! Truth! go forthEarth's compass round,And your high priesthood shall make earthAll hallowed ground.
What's hallowed ground? Has earth a clodIts Maker meant not should be trodBy man, the image of his God,Erect and free,Unscourged by superstition's rodTo bow the knee?
What's hallowed ground? Has earth a clod
Its Maker meant not should be trod
By man, the image of his God,
Erect and free,
Unscourged by superstition's rod
To bow the knee?
What hallows ground where heroes sleep?'Tis not the sculptured piles you heap,In dews that Heavens far distant weep,Their turf may bloom,Or Genii twine beneath the deepTheir coral tomb.
What hallows ground where heroes sleep?
'Tis not the sculptured piles you heap,
In dews that Heavens far distant weep,
Their turf may bloom,
Or Genii twine beneath the deep
Their coral tomb.
But strew his ashes to the wind,Whose sword or voice has saved mankind,And is he dead, whose glorious mindLifts thine on high?To live in hearts we leave behindIs not to die!
But strew his ashes to the wind,
Whose sword or voice has saved mankind,
And is he dead, whose glorious mind
Lifts thine on high?
To live in hearts we leave behind
Is not to die!
Is't death to fall for Freedom's right?He's dead alone that lacks her light!And murder sullies, in Heaven's sightThe sword he draws.What can alone ennoble fight?A noble cause.
Is't death to fall for Freedom's right?
He's dead alone that lacks her light!
And murder sullies, in Heaven's sight
The sword he draws.
What can alone ennoble fight?
A noble cause.
What's hallowed ground? 'Tis what gives birthTo sacred thoughts in souls of worth.Peace! Independence! Truth! go forthEarth's compass round,And your high priesthood shall make earthAll hallowed ground.
What's hallowed ground? 'Tis what gives birth
To sacred thoughts in souls of worth.
Peace! Independence! Truth! go forth
Earth's compass round,
And your high priesthood shall make earth
All hallowed ground.
Harvard University after mature consideration has proclaimed that in the history of eloquence there are seven great orators who stand preëminent above other orators whom the world calls great. A visitor to that venerable institution of learning, on coming to Memorial Hall, will find at the theater end, on the outside and just above the cornice, seven niches containing gigantic busts of these seven orators: Demosthenes, the Greek; Cicero, the Roman; Chrysostom, the Asiatic Greek; Bossuet, the Frenchman; Chatham, the Englishman; Burke, the Irishman; and Webster, the American.It is in furtherance of this idea that we have selected short passages of eloquence from each of these men; and also with the threefold purpose of acquainting young students with masterpieces of oratory since the dawn of history, of providing passages well worth committing to memory, and offering extracts well suited for practice in public speaking.
Harvard University after mature consideration has proclaimed that in the history of eloquence there are seven great orators who stand preëminent above other orators whom the world calls great. A visitor to that venerable institution of learning, on coming to Memorial Hall, will find at the theater end, on the outside and just above the cornice, seven niches containing gigantic busts of these seven orators: Demosthenes, the Greek; Cicero, the Roman; Chrysostom, the Asiatic Greek; Bossuet, the Frenchman; Chatham, the Englishman; Burke, the Irishman; and Webster, the American.
It is in furtherance of this idea that we have selected short passages of eloquence from each of these men; and also with the threefold purpose of acquainting young students with masterpieces of oratory since the dawn of history, of providing passages well worth committing to memory, and offering extracts well suited for practice in public speaking.
Men of Athens, if any one regard without uneasiness the might and dominion of Philip, and imagine that it threatens no danger to the state, or that all his preparations are not against you, I marvel, and would entreat you every one to hear briefly from me the reasons why I am led to form a contrary expectation, and why I deem Philip an enemy; that, if I appear to have the clearer foresight, you may hearken to me; if they, who have such confidence and trust in Philip, you may give your adherence to them.
What did Philip first make himself master of after the peace? Thermopylæ and the Phocian state. And how used he his power? He chose to act for the benefit of Thebes, not of Athens. Why so? Because, I conceive, measuring his calculations by ambition, by his desire of universal empire, without regard to peace, quiet, or justice, he saw plainly that to a people of our character and principles nothing could he offer or give that would induce you for self-interest to sacrifice any of the Greeks to him. He sees that you, having respect for justice, dreading the infamy of the thing, and exercising proper forethought, would oppose him in any such attempt as much as if you were at war. But the Thebans, he expected, would, in return for the services done them, allow him in everything else to have his way, and, so far from thwarting or impeding him, would fight on his side if he required it. You are judged by these to be the only people incapable of betraying for lucre the national rights of Greece, or bartering your attachment to her for any obligation or benefit. And this opinion of you he has naturally formed, not only from a view of present times, but by reflection on the past. For assuredly he finds and hears that your ancestors, who might have governed the rest of Greece on terms of submitting to Persia, not only spurned the proposal when Alexander, this man's ancestor, came as herald to negotiate, but preferred to abandon their country and endure any suffering, and thereafter achieved such exploits as all the world loves to remember,—though none could ever speak them worthily, and therefore I must be silent, for their deeds are too mighty to be uttered in words. But the forefathers of the Thebans either joined the barbarian's army or did not oppose it; and therefore he knows that they will selfishly embrace their advantage, without considering the common interest of the Greeks. He thought then if he chose your friendship, it must be on just principles; if he attached himself to them, he should find auxiliaries of his ambition. This is the reason of his preferring them to you both then and now. For certainly he does not see them with a larger navy than you, nor has he acquired an inland empire and renounced that of the sea and the ports, nor does he forget the professions and promises on which he obtained the peace.
I cannot think that Philip, either if he was forced into his former measures, or if he were now giving up the Thebans, would pertinaciously oppose their enemies; his present conduct rather shows that he adopted those measures by choice. All things prove to a correct observer that his whole plan of action is against our state. And this has now become to him a sort of necessity. Consider. He desires empire; he conceives you to be his only opponents. He has been for some time wronging you, as his own conscience best informs him, since, by retaining what belongs to you, he secures the rest of his dominion. He knows that he is plotting against you, and that you are aware of it; and supposing you to have intelligence, he thinks you must hate him; he is alarmed, expecting some disaster, unless he hastens to prevent you. Therefore he is awake and on the watch against us; he courts certain people, who from cupidity, he thinks, will be satisfied with the present, and from dullness of understanding will foresee none of the consequences.
I imagine that what Philip is doing will grieve you hereafter more than it does now. I see the thing progressing, and would that my surmises were false, but I doubt it is too near already. So when you are able no longer to disregard events, when, instead of hearing from me or others that these measures are against Athens, you all see it yourselves and know it for certain, I expect you will be wrathful and exasperated. I fear then, as your ambassadors have concealed the purpose for which they know they were corrupted, those who endeavor to repair what the others have lost may chance to encounter your resentment, for I see it is a practice with many to vent their anger, not uponthe guilty, but on persons most in their power. Had you not been then deceived there would be nothing to distress the state. Philip would certainly never have prevailed at sea and come to Attica with a fleet, nor would he have marched with a land force by Phocis and Thermopylæ; he must either have acted honorably, observing the peace and keeping quiet, or been immediately in a war similar to that which made him desire the peace. Enough has been said to awaken recollection. Grant, O ye gods, it be not all fully confirmed! Though he may deserve death I would have no man punished to the damage and danger of the country.
FOOTNOTE:[26]From the Second Philippic delivered at Athens, 344 B.C.
[26]From the Second Philippic delivered at Athens, 344 B.C.
[26]From the Second Philippic delivered at Athens, 344 B.C.
Who is there who does not see that Antonius has been adjudged to be an enemy? For what else can we call him, when the Senate decides that extraordinary honors are to be devised for those men who are leading armies against him? What, did not the Martial legion decide by its resolutions that Antonius was an enemy before the Senate had come to any resolution? For if he be not an enemy, we must inevitably decide that those men who have deserted the consul are enemies. Admirably and seasonably, O Romans, have you by your cries sanctioned the noble conduct of the men of the Martial legion, who have come over to the authority of the Senate, to your liberty, and to the whole republic, and have abandoned that enemy and robber and parricide of his country. Nor did they display only their spirit and courage in doing this, but their caution and wisdom also. They encamped at Alba, in a city convenient, fortified, full of brave men and loyal and virtuous citizens. The fourth legion imitated and also joined the army of Caius Cæsar.
What more adverse decisions, O Marcus Antonius, can you want? Cæsar, who has levied an army against you, is extolled to the skies. The legions are praised in the most complimentary manner, which have abandoned you, which were sent for into Italy by you, and which, if you had been chosen to be a consul rather than an enemy, were wholly devoted to you. And the fearless and honest decision of those legions is confirmed by the Senate and is approved of by the whole Roman people. Do you suppose that the municipal towns and the colonies and the prefectures have any other opinion? All men are agreed with one mind, so that every one who wishes the State to be saved must take every sort of arms against that pestilence. What, does the opinion of Decimus Brutus which has this day reached us appear to any one deserving of being lightly esteemed? The family and name of Brutus has been by some especial kindness and liberality of the immortal gods given to the republic, for the purpose of at one time establishing, and at another of recovering, the liberty of the Roman people. What has been the opinion which Decimus Brutus has formed of Marcus Antonius? He excludes him from his province. He opposes him with his army. He rouses all Gaul to war, which is already aroused of its own accord, and in consequence of the judgment which it has already formed. If Antonius be consul, Brutus is an enemy. Can we then doubt which of these alternatives is the fact?
And just as you now with one mind and one voice affirm that you entertain no doubt, so did the Senate just now decree that Decimus Brutus deserved excellently well of the republic, inasmuch as he was defending the authority of the Senate and the liberty and empire of the Roman people. Defending it against whom? Why, against an enemy. For what other sort of defense deserves praise? In the next place the province of Gaul is praised and is deservedly complimented in most honorable language by the Senate for resisting Antonius. Butif that province considered him the consul, and still refused to receive him it would be guilty of great wickedness. For all the provinces belong to the consul of right, and are bound to obey him. Decimus Brutus, imperator and consul-elect, a citizen born for the republic, denies that he is consul. Gaul denies it. All Italy denies it. The Senate denies it. You deny it. Who then thinks he is consul except a few robbers? I think that at present not only men but the immortal gods have all united together to preserve this republic. For if the immortal gods foreshow us the future, by means of portents and prodigies, then it has been openly revealed to us that punishment is near at hand to him, and liberty to us. Or if it was impossible for such unanimity on the part of all men to exist without the inspiration of the gods, in either case how can we doubt as to the inclination of the heavenly deities?
I will act therefore as commanders are in the habit of doing when their army is ready for battle, who although they see their soldiers ready to engage, still address an exhortation to them; and in like manner I will exhort you who are already eager and burning to recover your liberty. You have not to war against an enemy with whom it is possible to make peace on any terms whatever. For he does not now desire your slavery, as he did before, but he is angry now and thirsts for your blood. No sport appears more delightful to him than bloodshed and slaughter and the massacre of citizens before his eyes. You have not, O Romans, to deal with a wicked and profligate man, but with an unnatural, and savage beast. And since he has fallen into a well let him be buried in it. For if he escapes out of it there will be no inhumanity of torture which it will be possible to avoid. But he is at present hemmed in, pressed, and besieged by those troops which we already have, and will soon be still more so by those which in a few days the new consuls will levy. Apply yourselves then to this business, as you are doing. Never have you shown greater unanimity inany cause, never have you been so cordially united with the Senate. And no wonder: for the question now is not in what condition we are to live, but whether we are to live at all, or to perish with torture and ignominy.
FOOTNOTE:[27]Taken from the Fourth Philippic, delivered in the Forum at Rome.
[27]Taken from the Fourth Philippic, delivered in the Forum at Rome.
[27]Taken from the Fourth Philippic, delivered in the Forum at Rome.
I am ashamed and blush to see unbecoming groups of women pass along the mart, tearing their hair, cutting their arms and cheeks, and all this under the eyes of the Greeks. For what will they not say? What will they not utter concerning us? Are these the men who philosophize about a resurrection? How poorly their actions agree with their opinions! In words they philosophize about a resurrection, but they act just like those who do not acknowledge a resurrection. If they fully believed in a resurrection they would not act thus; if they had really persuaded themselves that a deceased friend had departed to a better state they would not thus mourn. These things and more than these, the unbelievers say when they hear those lamentations. Let us then be ashamed, and be more moderate, and not occasion so much harm to ourselves and to those who are looking on us.
For on what account, tell me, do you thus weep for one departed? Because he was a bad man? You ought on that very account to be thankful, since the occasions of wickedness are now cut off. Because he was good and kind? If so, you ought to rejoice, since he has been soon removed before wickedness had corrupted him; and he has gone away to a world where he stands ever secure, and there is no room even to mistrust a change. Because he was a youth? For that, too, praise Him who has taken him, because He has speedily called him to a better lot. Because he was an aged man? On this account also give thanks and glorify Him that has taken him. Beashamed of your manner of burial. All this is not that you may weep and lament and afflict yourselves, but that you may render thanks to Him who has taken the departed.
When men are called to some high office, multitudes with praises on their lips assemble to escort them at their departure to their stations, so do all with abundant praise join to send forward, as to a greater honor, those of the pious who have departed. Death is rest, a deliverance from the exhausting labors and cares of this world. When, then, thou seest a relative departing yield not to despondency; give thyself to reflection; examine thy conscience; cherish the thought that after a little while this end awaits thee also. Be more considerate; let another's death excite thee to salutary fear; shake off all indolence; examine your past deeds; quit your sins and commence a happy change.
We differ from unbelievers in our estimate of things. The unbeliever surveys the heaven and worships it, because he thinks it a divinity; he looks to the earth and makes himself a servant to it, and longs for the things of sense. But not so with us. We survey the heaven and admire Him that made it, for we believe it not to be a god, but a work of God. I look on the whole creation, and am led by it to the Creator. He looks on wealth and longs for and laments; I see poverty and rejoice. I see things in one light, he in another. Just so in regard to death. He sees a corpse and thinks of it as a corpse; I see a corpse and behold sleep rather than death. And as in regard to books, both learned persons and unlearned see them with the same eyes, but not with the same understanding. To the unlearned the mere shapes of letters appear, while the learned discover the sense that lies within those letters. So in respect to affairs in general, we all see what takes place with the same eyes, but not with the same understanding and judgment. Since, therefore, in all other things we differ from them, shall we agree with them in our sentiments respecting death? Consider to whom the departed has gone. He has gone where Paul is, and the whole company of the saints. Consider how he shall arise, with what glory and with what splendor.
It is a mischief when one who teaches will in words impugn the teachings by his deeds. This has been the cause of many evils in the churches. Wherefore pardon me, I beseech you, if my discourse dwells long on this evil affection. Many take a great deal of pains to be able to stand up in public and make a long speech; and if they get applause from the multitude, it is to them as if they had gained the very kingdom of heaven; but if silence follows the close of their speech the defection that falls upon their spirits from the silence is worse than hell itself. This has turned the churches upside down, because you desire not to hear a discourse calculated to lead to compunction, but one that may delight you from the sound and composition of the words, as though you were listening to singers and minstrels. When we idly busy ourselves about beautiful expressions and the composition and harmony of our sentences in order that we might not profit; when we make it our aim to be admired, not to instruct; to delight, not prick to the heart; to be applauded and depart with praise, not to correct men's manners, we do wrong. Believe me, I speak what I feel, when as I discourse, I hear myself applauded, at the moment I feel it as a man; I am delighted and give way to the pleasurable feeling; but when I get home and bethink me that those who applauded received no benefit from my discourse, but whatever benefit they ought to have got they lost it while applauding and praising, I am in pain, and groan and weep, and feel as if I had spoken all in vain. I say to myself what profit comes to me from my labors, while the hearers do not choose to benefit by what they hear from me?
Even the heathen philosophers—we hear of their discoursing, and nowhere do we find that noisy applause accompanied their words; we hear of the apostles making public speeches, and yet nowhere do the accounts add that in the midst of their discourses the hearers interrupted the speaker with loud expressions of approbation. Christ spoke publicly on the mount, yet no one said aught until He had finished His discourse. How shall the hearer be otherwise than ridiculous? Nay, he will be deemed a flatterer and his praise no better than irony, when he declares that the teacher spoke beautifully; but what he said, this he cannot tell. This has all the appearance of adulation. For when, indeed, one has been hearing minstrels and players, it is no wonder if such has been the case with him, seeing he looks not how to utter the strain in the same manner; but where the matter is not an exhibition of song or of voice, but the drift and purport of thoughts and wise reflections, and it is easy for every one to tell and report what was said, how can he but deserve the accusation, who cannot tell what the matter was for which he praised the speaker? Nothing so becomes the church as silence and good order.
Noise belongs to the theaters, and baths, and public processions, and market-places; but where doctrines, and such doctrines, are the subject of teaching, there should be stillness and quiet, and calm reflection, and a haven of much repose. These things I beseech and entreat; for I go about in quest of ways by which I shall be enabled to profit your souls. And no small way I take this to be; it will profit not you only, but us also. So shall we not be carried away with pride, not be tempted to love praises and honor, not be led to speak those things which delight, but those things that profit: so shall we lay the whole stress of our time and diligence, not upon arts of composition and beauties of expression, but upon the matter and meaning of the thoughts.
Is not all nature decked with stillness and silence? Over all the face of heaven is scattered the charm of repose. On thisaccount we are evil spoken of even among the Gentiles, as though we did all for display and ostentation. But if this be prevented the love of the chief seats will also be extinguished. It is sufficient, if any one be enamored of praise, that he should obtain it after having been heard, when all is gathered in. Yea, I beseech you that doing all things according to God's will, we may be found worthy of the mercy which is from Him, through the grace and compassion of His only Son.
Our lamentations ought to break forth at the loss of so great a man. But for the love of truth and the shame of those who despise it, listen once more to that noble testimony which he bore to it in dying. Informed by his confessor that if our heart is not entirely right with God, we must, in our addresses, ask God Himself to make it such as He pleases, and address Him in the affecting language of David, "O God, create in me a clean heart," the Prince is arrested by the words, pauses, as if occupied with some great thought; then calling the ecclesiastic who had suggested the idea, he says: "I have never doubted the mysteries of religion, as some have reported." Christians, you ought to believe him, for in the state he then was he owed to the world nothing but truth.
What was then taking place in his soul? What new light dawned upon him? What sudden ray pierced the cloud, and instantly dissipated, not only all the darkness of sense, but the very shadows, and if I dare to say it, the sacred obscurities of faith? What then became of those splendid titles by which our pride is flattered? On the very verge of glory, and in the dawning of a light so beautiful, how rapidly vanish the phantoms of the world! How dim appears the splendor of the most glorious victory! How profoundly we despise the glory ofthe world, and how deeply regret that our eyes were ever dazzled by its radiance! Come, ye people, or rather ye princes and lords, ye judges of the earth, and ye who open to man the portals of heaven; and more than all others, ye princes and princesses, nobles descended from a long line of kings, lights of France, but to-day in gloom, and covered with your grief, as with a cloud, come and see how little remains of a birth so august, a grandeur so high, a glory so dazzling. Look around on all sides, and see all that magnificence and devotion can do to honor so great a hero; titles and inscriptions, vain signs of that which is no more—shadows which weep around a tomb, fragile images of a grief which time sweeps away with everything else; columns which seem as if they would bear to heaven the magnificent evidence of our emptiness; nothing, indeed, is wanting in all these honors but him to whom they are rendered! Weep then over these feeble remains of human life; weep over that mournful immortality we give to heroes. But draw near, especially ye who run with such ardor the career of glory, intrepid and warrior spirits! Who was more worthy to command you, and in whom did you find command more honorable? Mourn then that great captain, and weeping, say: "Here is the man that led us through all hazards, under whom were formed so many renowned captains, raised by his example to the highest honors of war; his shadow might yet gain battles, and lo! in his silence his very name animates us, and at the same time warns us, that to find at death some rest from our toils, and not arrive unprepared at our eternal dwelling, we must, with an earthly king, yet serve the king of heaven."
Serve then that immortal and ever merciful King, who will value a sigh or a cup of cold water, given in His name, more than all others will value the shedding of your blood. And begin to reckon the time of your useful services from the day on which you gave yourselves to so beneficent a Master. Will not ye too come, ye whom he honored by making you his friends?To whatever extent you enjoyed his confidence, come all of you, and surround his tomb. Mingle your prayers with your tears; and while admiring, in so great a prince, a friendship so excellent, an intercourse so sweet, preserve the remembrance of a hero whose goodness equaled his courage. Thus may he ever prove your cherished instructor; thus may you profit by his virtues; and may his death, which you deplore, serve you at once for consolation and example.
For myself, if permitted, after all others, to render the last offices at his tomb, O Prince, the worthy subject of our praises and regrets, thou wilt live forever in my memory. There will thy image be traced, but not with that bold aspect which promises victory. No, I would see in you nothing which death can efface. You will have in that image only immortal traits. I shall behold you such as you were in your last hours under the hand of God, when His glory began to dawn upon you. There shall I see you more triumphant than at Fribourg and at Rocroy; and ravished by so glorious a triumph, I shall give thanks in the beautiful words of the well-beloved disciple, "This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." Enjoy, O Prince, this victory, enjoy it forever, through the everlasting efficacy of that sacrifice.
I will not join in congratulation on misfortune and disgrace. I cannot concur in a blind and servile address, which approves and endeavors to sanctify the monstrous measures which have heaped disgrace and misfortune upon us. This, my lords, is a perilous and tremendous moment! It is not a time for adulation. The smoothness of flattery cannot now avail; cannot save us in this rugged and awful crisis. It is now necessary toinstruct the throne in the language of truth. We must dispel the illusion and the darkness which envelop it, and display, in its full danger and true colors, the ruin that is brought to our doors.
Can the minister of the day now presume to expect a continuance of support in this ruinous infatuation? Can Parliament be so dead to its dignity and its duty as to be thus deluded into the loss of the one and the violation of the other? To give an unlimited credit and support for the steady perseverance in measures not proposed for our parliamentary advice, but dictated and forced upon us—in measures which have reduced this late flourishing empire to ruin and contempt! "But yesterday and England might have stood against the world; now none so poor to do her reverence." It is a shameful truth that not only the power and strength of this country are wasting away and expiring, but her well-earned glories, her true honor and substantial dignity, are sacrificed.
My lords, this ruinous and ignominious situation, where we cannot act with success, nor suffer with honor, calls upon us to remonstrate in the strongest and loudest language of truth, to rescue the ear of Majesty from the delusions which surround it. The desperate state of our arms abroad is in part known. No man thinks more highly of them than I do. I love and honor the English troops. I know their virtues and their valor. I know they can achieve anything except impossibilities; and I know that the conquest of English America is an impossibility. You cannot, I venture to say it, you cannot conquer America. Your armies in the last war effected everything that could be effected; and what was it? It cost a numerous army, under the command of a most able general, a long and laborious campaign, to expel five thousand Frenchmen from French America. My lords, you cannot conquer America.
What is your present situation there? We do not know the worst; but we know that in three campaigns we have donenothing and suffered much. Besides the sufferings, perhaps total loss, of the northern force, the best-appointed army that ever took the field, commanded by Sir William Howe, has retired from the American lines. As to conquest, I repeat, it is impossible. You may swell every expense and every effort still more extravagantly; pile and accumulate every assistance you can buy or borrow; traffic and barter with every little pitiful German prince that sells and sends his subjects to the shambles of a foreign prince; your efforts are forever vain and impotent—doubly so from this mercenary aid on which you rely; for it irritates to an incurable resentment the minds of your enemies, to overrun them with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty! If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms—never—never—never.
FOOTNOTE:[28]Delivered in the House of Lords, Nov. 18, 1777.
[28]Delivered in the House of Lords, Nov. 18, 1777.
[28]Delivered in the House of Lords, Nov. 18, 1777.
My lords, no man wishes for the due dependence of America on this country more than I do. To preserve it, and not confirm that state of independence into which your measures hitherto have driven them, is the object which we ought to unite in attaining. The Americans, contending for their rights against arbitrary exactions, I love and admire. It is the struggle of free and virtuous patriots. America was indeed the fountain of our wealth, the nerve of our strength, the nursery and basis of our naval power. It is our duty, therefore, my lords, if we wish to save our country, most seriously to endeavor the recovery of these most beneficial subjects; and in this perilous crisis, perhaps the present moment may be the only one in which we can hope for success.
I would impart to them every enjoyment and freedom which the colonizing subjects of a free state can possess, orwish to possess; and I do not see why they should not enjoy every fundamental right in their property, and every original substantial liberty, which Devonshire or Surrey, or the county I live in, or any other county in England, can claim; reserving always as the sacred right of the mother country the due constitutional dependency of the colonies. The inherent supremacy of the state in regulating and protecting the navigation and commerce of all her subjects is necessary for the mutual benefit and preservation of every part, to constitute and preserve the prosperous arrangement of the whole empire.
You cannot conciliate America by your present measures. You cannot subdue her by your present, or by any measures. What, then, can you do? You cannot conquer, you cannot gain, but you can address; you can lull the fears and anxieties of the moment into an ignorance of the danger that should produce them. But, my lords, the time demands the language of truth. We must not now apply the flattering unction of servile compliance or blind complaisance. In a just and necessary war to maintain the rights or honor of my country, I would strip the shirt from my back to support it. But in such a war as this, unjust in principle, impracticable in its means, and ruinous in its consequences, I would not contribute a single effort, nor a single shilling. I do not call for vengeance on the heads of those who have been guilty; I only recommend to them to make their retreat; and let them make haste, or they may be assured that speedy and condign punishment will overtake them.
My lords, I have submitted to you, with the freedom and truth which I think my duty, my sentiments on this awful situation. I have laid before you the ruin of your power, the disgrace of your reputation, the pollution of your discipline, the contamination of your morals, the complication of calamities, foreign and domestic, that overwhelm your sinking country. Your dearest interests, your own liberties, the constitution itself, totters to the foundation. All this disgraceful danger, thismultitude of misery, is the monstrous offspring of this unnatural war. We have been deceived and deluded too long. Let us now stop short. This is the crisis, the only crisis of time and situation, to give us a possibility of escape from the fatal effects of our delusions. But if, in an obstinate and infatuated perseverance in folly, we slavishly echo the peremptory words this day presented to us, nothing can save this devoted country from complete and final ruin.
Is it possible, can it be believed, that ministers are yet blind to this impending destruction? I did hope that instead of this false and empty vanity, this overweening pride, that ministers would have humbled themselves in their errors, would have confessed and retracted them, and by an active though a late repentance, have endeavored to redeem them. But, my lords, since they had neither sagacity to foresee, nor justice nor humanity to shun, these oppressive calamities; since not even severe experience can make them feel, nor the imminent ruin of their country awaken them from their stupefaction, the guardian care of Parliament must interpose. I shall, therefore, my lords, propose an amendment to the address to his Majesty, to recommend an immediate cessation of hostilities and the commencement of a treaty to restore peace and liberty to America, strength and happiness to England, security and permanent prosperity to both countries.
My lords, you have now heard the principles on which Mr. Hastings governs the part of Asia subjected to the British empire. Here he has declared his opinion, that he is a despotic prince; that he is to use arbitrary power; and, of course, all his acts are covered with that shield. "I know," says he, "theConstitution of Asia only from its practice." Will your lordships submit to hear the corrupt practices of mankind made the principles of Government?
He have arbitrary power! My lords, the East India Company have not arbitrary power to give him; the King has no arbitrary power to give him; your lordships have not; nor the Commons; nor the whole Legislature. We have no arbitrary power to give, because arbitrary power is a thing which neither any man can hold nor any man can give. No man can lawfully govern himself according to his own will, much less can one person be governed by the will of another. We are all born in subjection, all born equally, high and low, governors and governed, in subjection to one great, immutable, preëxistent law, prior to all our devices, and prior to all our contrivances, paramount to all our ideas, and all our sensations, antecedent to our very existence, by which we are knit and connected in the eternal frame of the universe, out of which we cannot stir.
This great law does not arise from our conventions or compacts; on the contrary, it gives to our conventions and compacts all the force and sanction they can have;—it does not arise from our vain institutions. Every good gift is of God; all power is of God;—and He, who has given the power, and from whom alone it originates, will never suffer the exercise of it to be practiced upon any less solid foundation than the power itself. If then all dominion of man over man is the effect of the divine disposition, it is bound by the eternal laws of Him that gave it, with which no human authority can dispense; neither he that exercises it, nor even those who are subject to it. And if they were mad enough to make an express compact that should release their magistrate from his duty, and should declare their lives, liberties, and properties dependent upon, not rules and laws, but his mere capricious will, that covenant would be void.
This arbitrary power is not to be had by conquest. Nor canany sovereign have it by succession; for no man can succeed to fraud, rapine, and violence. Those who give and those who receive arbitrary power are alike criminal; and there is no man but is bound to resist it to the best of his power, wherever it shall show its face to the world. Law and arbitrary power are in eternal enmity. Name me a magistrate, and I will name property; name me power, and I will name protection. It is a contradiction in terms; it is blasphemy in religion, it is wickedness in politics, to say that any man can have arbitrary power. In every patent of office the duty is included. For what else does a magistrate exist? To suppose for power, is an absurdity in idea. Judges are guided and governed by the eternal laws of justice, to which we are all subject. We may bite our chains, if we will; but we shall be made to know ourselves, and be taught that man is born to be governed by law; and he that will substitute will in the place of it, is an enemy to God.
My lords, I do not mean to go further than just to remind your lordships of this,—that Mr. Hastings' government was one whole system of oppression, of robbery of individuals, of spoliation of the public, and of supersession of the whole system of the English Government, in order to vest in the worst of the natives all the power that could possibly exist in any government; in order to defeat the ends which all governments ought, in common, to have in view. In the name of the Commons of England, I charge all this villainy upon Warren Hastings in this last moment of my application to you.
My lords, what is it that we want here to a great act of national justice? Do we want a cause, my lords? You have the cause of oppressed princes, of desolated provinces, and of wasted kingdoms. Do you want a criminal, my lords? When was there so much iniquity ever laid to the charge of any one? No, my lords, you must not look to punish any other such delinquent from India. Warren Hastings has not left substance enough in India to nourish such another delinquent.
Therefore, it is with confidence that, ordered by the Commons of Great Britain, I impeach Warren Hastings of high crimes and misdemeanors. I impeach him in the name of the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament assembled, whose parliamentary trust he has abused. I impeach him in the name of the Commons of Great Britain, whose national character he has dishonored. I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose laws, rights and liberties he has subverted. I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose property he has destroyed, whose country he has laid waste and desolate. I impeach him in the name of human nature itself, which he has cruelly outraged, injured and oppressed, in both sexes. And I impeach him in the name and by the virtue of those eternal laws of justice, which ought equally to pervade every age, condition, rank, and situation in the world.
FOOTNOTE:[29]On the 15th of February, 1788, Edmund Burke began a four days' speech in the impeachment of Warren Hastings.
[29]On the 15th of February, 1788, Edmund Burke began a four days' speech in the impeachment of Warren Hastings.
[29]On the 15th of February, 1788, Edmund Burke began a four days' speech in the impeachment of Warren Hastings.
Sir, I have in general no very exalted opinion of the virtue of paper government; nor of any politics in which the plan is to be wholly separated from the execution. But when I saw that anger and violence prevailed every day more and more, and that things were hastening towards an incurable alienation of our colonies, I confess my caution gave way. I felt this as one of those few moments in which decorum yields to a higher duty. Public calamity is a mighty leveler; and there are occasions when any chance of doing good must be laid hold on, even by the most inconsiderable person. To restore order and repose to an empire so great and so distracted as ours, is, merely in the attempt, an undertaking that would ennoble the flights of the highest genius, and obtain pardon for the efforts of the meanest understanding.
The proposition is peace. Not peace through the medium ofwar; not peace to be hunted through the labyrinth of intricate and endless negotiations; not peace to arise out of universal discord fomented, from principle, in all parts of the empire. It is simple peace; sought in its natural course, and in its ordinary haunts. It is peace sought in the spirit of peace, and laid in principles purely pacific. I propose, by removing the ground of the difference, and by restoring the former unsuspecting confidence of the colonies in the Mother Country, to give permanent satisfaction to your people; and to reconcile them to each other in the same act and by the bond of the very same interest which reconciles them to British government.
The principle of this proceeding is large enough for my purpose. I mean to give peace. Peace implies reconciliation; and where there has been a material dispute, reconciliation does in a manner always imply concession on the one part or on the other. In this state of things I make no difficulty in affirming that the proposal ought to originate from us. Great and acknowledged force is not impaired, either in effect or in opinion, by an unwillingness to exert itself. The superior power may offer peace with honor and with safety. Such an offer from such a power will be attributed to magnanimity. But the concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear. When such an one is disarmed, he is wholly at the mercy of his superior; and he loses forever that time and those chances, which, as they happen to all men, are the strength and resources of all inferior power.
The leading questions on which you must this day decide, are these two: First, whether you ought to concede; and secondly, what your concession ought to be. On the first of these questions we have gained some ground. But I am sensible that a good deal more is still to be done. Indeed, Sir, to enable us to determine both on the one and the other of these great questions with a firm and precise judgment, I think it may be necessary to consider distinctly the true nature and the peculiar circumstances of the object which we have before us; because after all our struggle, whether we will or not, we must govern America according to that nature and to those circumstances, and not according to our own imaginations, nor according to abstract ideas of right.
America, gentlemen say, is a noble object. It is an object well worth fighting for. Certainly it is, if fighting a people be the best way of gaining them. Gentlemen in this respect will be led to their choice of means by their complexions and their habits. Those who understand the military art will of course have some predilection for it. Those who wield the thunder of the state may have more confidence in the efficacy of arms. But I confess my opinion is much more in favor of prudent management than of force. The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment, but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again; and a nation is not governed which is perpetually to be conquered.
My next objection is its uncertainty. Terror is not always the effect of force, and an armament is not a victory. If you do not succeed, you are without resource; for, conciliation failing, force remains; but, force failing, no further hope of reconciliation is left. Power and authority are sometimes bought by kindness; but they can never be begged as alms by an impoverished and defeated violence. Nothing less will content me than whole America. I do not choose to consume its strength along with our own, because in all parts it is the British strength that I consume. I do not choose to be caught by a foreign enemy at the end of this exhausting conflict; and still less in the midst of it. I may escape; but I can make no insurance against such an event. Let me add, that I do not choose to break the American spirit; because it is the spirit that has made the country.
In the character of the Americans, a love of freedom is the predominating feature which marks and distinguishes the whole;and as an ardent is always a jealous affection, your colonies become suspicious, restive, and untractable whenever they see the least attempt to wrest from them by force, or shuffle from them by chicanery, what they think the only advantage worth living for. This fierce spirit of liberty is stronger in the English colonies probably than in any other people of the earth.
Sir, from these six sources—of descent, of form of government, of religion in the northern provinces, of manners in the southern, of education, of the remoteness of situation from the first mover of government—from all these causes a fierce spirit of liberty has grown up. It has grown with the growth of the people in your colonies, and increased with the increase of their wealth; a spirit that unhappily meeting with an exercise of power in England which, however lawful, is not reconcilable to any ideas of liberty, has kindled this flame that is ready to consume us.
I am much against any further experiments which tend to put to the proof any more of these allowed opinions which contribute so much to the public tranquillity. In effect, we suffer as much at home by this loosening of all ties, and this concussion of all established opinions, as we do abroad; for in order to prove that the Americans have no right to their liberties, we are every day endeavoring to subvert the maxims which preserve the whole spirit of our own. To prove that the Americans ought not to be free, we are obliged to depreciate the value of freedom itself; and we never seem to gain a paltry advantage over them in debate without attacking some of those principles, or deriding some of those feelings, for which our ancestors have shed their blood.
The temper and character which prevail in our colonies are, I am afraid, unalterable by any human art. We cannot, I fear, falsify the pedigree of this fierce people, and persuade them that they are not sprung from a nation in whose veins the blood of freedom circulates. The language in which they would hearyou tell them this tale would detect the imposition; your speech would betray you. An Englishman is the unfittest person on earth to argue another Englishman into slavery.
But let us suppose all these moral difficulties got over. The ocean remains. You cannot pump this dry; and as long as it continues in its present bed, so long all the causes which weaken authority by distance will continue. If, then, the removal of the causes of this spirit of American liberty be for the greater part, or rather entirely, impracticable; if the ideas of criminal process be inapplicable—or, if applicable, are in the highest degree inexpedient—what way yet remains? No way is open but to comply with the American spirit as necessary; or, if you please, to submit to it as a necessary evil.