The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,That host with their banners at sunset were seen:Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,That host on the morrow lay withered and strewn.
For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd;And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still.
And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.
And there lay the rider distorted and pale,With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail;And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,The lances uplifted, the trumpet unknown.
And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!Lord Byron.
My sentence is for open war. Of wiles,More inexpert, I boast not; them let thoseContrive who need, or when they need, not now;For, while they sit contriving, shall the rest,Millions that stand in arms, and longing waitThe signal to ascend, sit lingering here,Heaven's fugitives, and for their dwelling-placeAccept this dark, opprobrious den of shame,The prison of his tyranny, who reignsBy our delay? No; let us rather choose,Armed with hell-flames and fury, all at once,O'er heaven's high towers to force resistless way,Turning our tortures into horrid armsAgainst the torturer; when, to meet the noiseOf his almighty engine, he shall hearInfernal thunder, and for lightning, seeBlack fire and horror shot with equal rageAmong his angels,—and his throne itself,Mixed with Tartarean sulphur and strange fire,His own invented torments.But, perhaps,The way seems difficult and steep to scale,With upright wing, against a higher foe.Let such bethink them, if the sleepy drenchOf that forgetful lake benumb not still,That in our proper motion we ascendUp to our native seat; descent and fallTo us adverse. Who but felt of late,When the fierce foe hung on our broken rearInsulting, and pursued us through the deep,With what compulsion and laborious flight,We sunk thus low? The ascent is easy then;The event is feared.Should we again provokeOur stronger, some worse way his wrath may findTo our destruction; if there be in hell,Fear to be worse destroyed. What can be worseThan to dwell here, driven out from bliss, condemnedIn this abhorred deep to utter woe;Where pain of unextinguishable fireMust exercise us without hope of end,The vassals of his anger, when the scourgeInexorable, and the torturing hourCalls us to penance? More destroyed than thusWe should be quite abolished and expire.What fear we then? what doubt we to incenseHis utmost ire? which to the height enraged,Will either quite consume us, and reduceTo nothing this essential (happier far,Than miserable, to have eternal being,)Or, if our substance be indeed divine,And cannot cease to be, we are at worstOn this side nothing; and by proof we feelOur power sufficient to disturb his heaven,And with perpetual inroads to alarm,Though inaccessible, his fatal throne;Which, if not victory—is yet Revenge.Milton.
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears:I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.The evil that men do lives after them;The good is oft interréd with their bones:So let it be with Cæsar, The noble BrutusHath told you, Cæsar, was ambitious:If it were so, it was a grievous fault,And grievously hath Cæsar, answered it.Here, under leave of Brutus, and the rest,(For Brutus is an honorable man;So are they all, all honorable men),Come I to speak in Cæsar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:But Brutus says he was ambitious,And Brutus is an honorable man.He hath brought many captives home to Rome,Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:Did this in Cæsar, seem ambitious?When that the poor have cried, Cæsar, hath wept:Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,And Brutus is an honorable man.You all did see, that, on the Lupercal,I thrice presented him a kingly crown,Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,And, sure, he is an honorable man.I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,But here I am to speak what I do know.You all did love him once, not without cause:What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,And men have lost their reason! Bear with me:My heart is in the coffin there with Cæsar,And I must pause till it come back to me.
But yesterday the word of Cæsar, mightHave stood against the world; now lies he there,And none so poor to do him reverence.O Masters! if I were disposed to stirYour hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong,Who, you all know, are honorable men.I will not do them wrong; I rather chooseTo wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you,Than I will wrong such honorable men:But here's a parchment, with the seal of Cæsar,—I found it in his closet; 't is his will.Let but the commons hear this testament(Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read),And they, would go and kiss dead Cæsar's, wounds,And dip their napkins in his sacred blood;Yea, beg a hair of him for memory,And, dying, mention it within their wills,Bequeathing it, as a rich legacy,Unto their issue.—
If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.You all do know this mantle; I rememberThe first time ever Cæsar, ever put it on;'T was on a summer's evening in his tent;That day he overcame the Nervii.—Look! In this place ran Cassius's dagger through:See what a rent the envious Casca made:Through this, the well-belovéd Brutus stabbed;And as he plucked his curséd steel away,Mark, how the blood of Cæsar, followed it!—This was the most unkindest cut of all!For when the noble Cæsar, saw him stab,Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms,Quite vanquished him! Then burst his mighty heart;And, in his mantle muffling up his face,Even at the base of Pompey's statue,Which all the while ran blood, great Cæsar, fell.O, what a fall was there, my countrymen!Then I and you, and all of us, fell down,Whilst bloody treason flourished over us.O, now you weep; and I perceive you feel
The dint of pity:—these are gracious drops.Kind souls! what, weep you when you but beholdOur Cæsar, vesture wounded? Look ye here!Here is himself—marred, as you see, by traitors.Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you upTo such a sudden flood of mutiny!They that have done this deed are honorable!What private griefs they have, alas, I know not,That made them do it! They are wise and honorable,And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you.I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts:I am no orator, as Brutus is;But as you all know me, a plain, blunt man,That love my friend; and that they know full wellThat gave me public leave to speak of him.For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech,To stir men's blood:—I only speak right on;I tell you that which you yourselves do know;Show you sweet Cæsar's wounds, poor, poor, dumb mouths,And bid them speak for me. But, were I Brutus,And Brutus, Antony, there were an Antony,Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongueIn every wound of Cæsar, that should moveThe stones of Rome to rise and mutiny!Shakespeare.
To be,—or not to be;—that is the question:—Whether 't is nobler in the mind, to sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune;Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,And, by opposing, end them?—To die,—to sleep,—No more; and, by a sleep, to say we endThe heartache, and the thousand natural shocksThat flesh is heir to,—'t is a consummationDevoutly to be wished. To die,—to sleep;—To sleep! perchance to dream;—ay, there's the rub;For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,Must give us pause. There's the respectThat makes calamity of so long life;For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,The pangs of despiséd love, the law's delay,The insolence of office, and the spurnsThat patient merit of the unworthy takes,When he himself might his quietus makeWith a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,To grunt and sweat under a weary life;But that the dread of something after death,—The undiscovered country, from whose bournNo traveller returns,—puzzles the will,And makes us rather bear those ills we have,Than fly to others that we know not of?Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;And thus the native hue of resolutionIs sicklied o'er with pale cast of thought;And enterprises of great pith and moment,with this regard, their currents turn awry,And lose the name of action.Shakespeare.
Oh! my offence is rank; it smells to heaven;It hath the primal, eldest curse upon 't,A brother's murder! Pray I cannot,Though inclination be as sharp as 't will:My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent;And like a man to double business bound,I stand in pause where I shall first begin,And both neglect. What if this curséd handWere thicker than itself with brother's blood;Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavensTo wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy,But to confront the visage of offence?And what's in prayer, but this twofold force,—To be forestalled, ere we come to fall,Or pardoned being down? Then I'll look up;My fault is past.—But, O, what form of prayerCan serve my turn? "Forgive me my foul murder!"That cannot be; since I am still possessedOf those effects for which I did the murder,—My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.May one be pardoned, and retain the offence?In the corrupted currents of this world,Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice;And oft 't is seen, the wicked prize itselfBuys out the law: but 't is not so above;There is no shuffling; there the action liesIn his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd,Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,To give in evidence. What then? What rests?Try what repentance can: what can it not?Yet what can it, when one can not repent?O wretched state! O bosom, black as death!O limed soul, that, struggling to be free,Art more engag'd! Help, angels! make assay!Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart, with strings of steel,Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe!All may be well.Shakespeare.
Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,A great-sized monster of ingratitudes.Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devouredAs fast as they are made, forgot as soonAs done, Perseverance, dear my lord,Keeps honor bright. To have done, is to hangQuite out of fashion, like a rusty mailIn monumental mockery. Take the instant way;For Honor travels in a strait so narrow,Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path;For Emulation hath a thousand sons,That one by one pursue: if you give way,Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,Like to an entered tide, they all rush by,And leave you hindmost;—Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank,Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,O'errun and trampled on. Then what they do in present,Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours:For Time is like a fashionable host,That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand;And with his arms outstretched, as he would fly,Grasps-in the comer: Welcome ever smiles,And Farewell goes out sighing. O, let not Virtue seekRemuneration for the thing it was;For beauty, wit,High birth, vigor of bone, desert in service,Love, friendship, alacrity, are subjects allTo envious and calumniating Time.One touch of Nature makes the whole world kin,—That all, with one consent, praise new-born gauds,Though they are made and moulded of things past;And give to dust, that is a little gilt,More land than gilt o'erdusted.The present eye praises the present object:Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax;Since things in motion sooner catch the eyeThan what not stirs: The cry went once on thee,And still it might, and yet it may again,If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive,And case thy reputation in thy tent;Whose glorious deeds, did but in these fields of late,Made emulous missions 'mongst the gods themselves,And drave great Mars to faction.Shakespeare.
Is this a dagger, which I see before me,The handle toward my hand? come, let me clutch thee:—I have thee not; and yet I see thee still.Art thou not, fatal vision, sensibleTo feeling as to sight, or art thou butA dagger of the mind—a false creation,Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?I see thee yet, in form as palpableAs this which now I draw.Thou marshal'st me the way that I was going;And such an instrument I was to use.Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,Or else worth all the rest: I see thee still;And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,Which was not so before. There's no such thing:It is the bloody business, which informsThus to mine eyes.—Know, o'er the one half worldNature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuseThe curtained sleep; now Witchcraft celebratesPale Hecate's offerings; and withered Murder,Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his designMoves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fearThy very stones prate of my where-about,And take the present horror from the time,Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives;Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.I go, and it is done; the bell invites me. [A bell rings.]Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell,That summons thee to heaven or to hell.Shakespeare.
But soft! what light through yonder window breaks?It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!—Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,Who is already sick and pale with grief,That thou her maid, art far more fair than she.Be not her maid, since she is envious:Her vestal livery is but sick and green,And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.It is my lady: O, it is my love!O, that she knew she were!—She speaks, yet she says nothing: what of that?Her eye discourses; I will answer it.I am too bold; 't is not to me she speaks:Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,Having some business, do entreat her eyesTo twinkle in their spheres till they return.What if her eyes were there, they in her head?The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,As daylight doth a lamp; her eye in heavenWould through the airy region stream so bright,That birds would sing, and think it were not night.See how she leans her cheek upon her hand!O, that I were a glove upon that hand,That I might touch that cheek!She speaks:—O, speak again, bright angel! for thou artAs glorious to this night, being o'er my head,As is a winged messenger of heavenUnto the white-upturned wondering eyesOf mortals, that fall back to gaze on him,When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds,And sails upon the bosom of the air.Shakespeare.
My blessing with you!And these few precepts in thy memory,Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,Nor any unproportioned thought his act.Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar:The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel;But do not dull thy palm with entertainmentOf each new-hatched, unfledged comrade: bewareOf entrance to a quarrel; but, being in,Bear it, that the opposed may beware of thee.Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice;Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,But not expressed in fancy; rich not gaudy;For the apparel oft proclaims the man;And they in France, of the best rank and station,Are most select and generous chief in that.Neither a borrower nor a lender be;For loan oft, loses both itself and friend;And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.This above all,—to thine own self be true,And it must follow, as the night the day,Thou canst not then be false to any man!Shakespeare.
Nay, then, farewell!I have touched the highest point of all my greatness;And, from that full meridian of my gloryI haste now to my setting: I shall fallLike a bright exhalation in the evening,And no man see me more.Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness!This is the state of man: to-day he puts forthThe tender leaves of hope; to-morrow, blossoms,And bears his blushing honors thick upon him:The third day comes a frost, a killing frost;And, when he thinks,—good easy man,—full surelyHis greatness is a ripening,—nips his root,And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured,Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,These many summers in a sea of glory;But far beyond my depth: my high-blown prideAt length broke under me; and now has left me,Weary and old with service, to the mercyOf a rude stream, that must forever hide me.Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye!I feel my heart new opened. O, how wretchedIs that poor man that hangs on princes' favors!There is, betwixt that smile he would aspire to,That sweet aspect of princes, and his ruin,More pangs and fears than wars or women have.And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,Never to hope again!Shakespeare.
Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tearIn all my miseries; but thou hast forced meOut of thy honest truth, to play the woman.Let's dry our eyes: and thus far hear me, Cromwell;And, when I am forgotten, as I shall be,And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mentionOf me more must be heard of,—say, I taught thee,—Say, Wolsey,—that once trod the ways of glory,And sounded all the depths and shoals of honor,—Found thee away, out of his wreck, to rise in;A sure and safe one, though thy master missed it.—Mark but my fall, and that which ruined me!Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition!By that sin fell the angels: how can man, then,The image of his Maker, hope to win by 't?Love thyself last; cherish those hearts that hate thee:Corruption wins not more than honesty;Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not.Let all the ends thou aim'st at, be thy country's,Thy God's, and truth's; then if thou fallest, O Cromwell,Thou fallest a blesséd martyr! Serve the king;And—Prithee, lead me in:There, take an inventory of all I have,To the last penny; 't is the king's; my robe,And my integrity to Heaven, is allI dare now call mine own. O Cromwell, Cromwell!Had I but served my God with half the zealI served my king, He would not, in mine age,Have left me naked to mine enemies!Shakespeare.
Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtuesWe write in water. May it please your highnessTo hear me speak his good now? This Cardinal,Though from an humble stock, undoubtedlyWas fashioned to much honor. From his cradle,He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one:Exceeding wise, fair spoken, and persuading;Lofty and sour to them that lov'd him not,But to those men that sought him, sweet as summer;And though he were unsatisfied in getting,(Which was a sin), yet in bestowing, madam,He was most princely; ever witness for himThose twins of learning that he raised in you,Ipswich and Oxford! one of which fell with him,Unwilling to outlive the good he did it;The other, though unfinish'd, yet so famous,So excellent in art, and still so rising,That Christendom shall ever speak his virtue.His overthrow heaped happiness upon him;For then and not till then, he felt himself,And found the blessedness of being little:And to add greater honors to his ageThan man could give him, he died fearing God.Shakespeare.
And then and thus comes the orator of that time, kindling with their fire; sympathizing with that great beating heart; penetrated, not subdued; lifted up rather by a sublime and rare moment of history made real to his consciousness; charged with the very mission of life, yet unassured whether they will hear or will forbear; transcendent good within their grasp, yet a possibility that the fatal and critical opportunity of salvation will be wasted; the last evil of nations and of men overhanging, yet the siren song of peace—peace when there is no peace—chanted madly by some voice of sloth or fear,—there and thus the orators of revolutions come to work their work! And what then is demanded, and how it is to be done, you all see; and that in some of the characteristics of their eloquence they must all be alike. Actions, not law or policy: whose growth and fruits are to be slowly evolved by time and calm; actions daring, doubtful but instant; the new things of a new world,—these are what the speaker counsels; large, elementary, gorgeous ideas of right, of equality, of independence, of liberty, of progress through convulsion,—these are the principles from which he reasons, when he reasons,—these are the pinions of the thought on which he soars and stays; and then the primeval and indestructible sentiments of the breast of man,—his sense of right, his estimation of himself, his sense of honor, his love of fame, his triumph and his joy in the dear name of country, the trophies that tell of the past, the hopes that gild and herald her dawn,—these are the springs of action to which he appeals,—these are the chords his fingers sweep, and from which he draws out the troubled music, "solemn as death, serene as the undying confidence of patriotism," to which he would have the battalions of the people march! Directness, plainness, a narrow range of topics, few details, few but grand ideas, a headlong tide of sentiment and feeling; vehement, indignant, and reproachful reasonings,—winged general maxims of wisdom and life; an example from Plutarch; a pregnant sentence of Tacitus; thoughts going forth as ministers of nature in robes of light, and with arms in their hands; thoughts that breathe and words that burn,—these vaguely, approximately, express the general type of all this speech. R. Choate.
The capital peculiarity of the eloquence of all times of revolution, is that the actions it persuades to are the highest and most heroic which men can do, and the passions it would inspire, in order to persuade to them, are the most lofty which man can feel. "High actions and high passions"—such are Milton's words, high actions through and by high passions; these are the end and these the means of the orator of the revolution. Hence are his topics large, simple, intelligible, affecting. Hence are his views broad, impressive, popular; no trivial details, no wire-woven developments, no subtle distinctions and drawing of fine lines about the boundaries of ideas, no speculation, no ingenuity; all is elemental, comprehensive, intense, practical, unqualified, undoubting. It is not of the small things of minor and instrumental politics he comes to speak, or men come to hear. It is not to speak or to hear about permitting an Athenian citizen to change his tribe; about permitting the Roman knights to have jurisdiction of trials equally with the Senate; it is not about allowing a £10 householder to vote for a member of Parliament; about duties on indigo, or onion-seed, or even tea.
"That strain you hear is of an higher mood."
It is the rallying-cry of patriotism, of liberty, in the sublimest crisis of the State,—of man. It is a deliberation of empire, of glory, of existence, on which they come together. To be or not to be, that is the question. Shall the children of the men of Marathon become slaves of Philip? Shall the majesty of the Senate and people of Rome stoop to wear the chains forging by the military executors of the will of Julius Cæsar? Shall the assembled representatives of France, just waking from her sleep of ages to claim the rights of man,—shall they disperse, their work undone, their work just commencing; and shall they disperse at the order of the king? or shall the messenger be bid to go, in the thunder-tones of Mirabeau,—and tell his master that "we sit here to do the will of our constituents, and that we will not be moved from those seats but by the point of the bayonet?" Shall Ireland bound upward from her long prostration, and cast from her the last links of the British chain, and shall she advance "from injuries to arms, from arms to liberty," from liberty to glory? Shall the thirteen Colonies become, and be free and independent States, and come unabashed, unterrified, an equal, into the majestic assembly of the nations?
These are the thoughts with which all bosoms are distended and oppressed. Filled with these, and with these flashing in every eye, swelling every heart, pervading electric all ages, all orders, like a visitation, "an unquenchable public fire," men come together,—the thousands of Athens around the Bema, or in the Temple of Dionysus,—the people of Rome in the forum, the Senate in that council-chamber of the world,—the masses of France, as the spring-tide, into her gardens of the Tuileries, her club-rooms, her hall of the convention,—the representatives, the genius, the grace, the beauty of Ireland into the Tuscan Gallery of her House of Commons,—the delegates of the Colonies into the Hall of Independence at Philadelphia,—thus men come in an hour of revolution, to hang upon the lips from which they hope, they need, they demand, to hear the things which belong to their national salvation, hungering for the bread of life. R. Choate.
By the side of all antagonisms, higher than they, stronger than they, there rises colossal the fine sweet spirit of nationality, the nationality of America! See there the pillar of fire which God has kindled and lifted and moved for our hosts and our ages. Gaze on that, worship that, worship the highest in that. Between that light and our eyes a cloud for a time may seem to gather; chariots, armed men on foot, the troops of kings may march on us, and our fears may make us for a moment turn from it; a sea may spread before us, and waves seem to hedge us up; dark idolatries may alienate some hearts for a season from that worship; revolt, rebellion, may break out in the camp, and the waters of our springs may run bitter to the taste and mock it; between us and that Canaan a great river may seem to be rolling; but beneath that high guidance our way is onward, ever onward; those waters shall part, and stand on either hand in heaps; that idolatry shall repent; that rebellion shall be crushed; that stream shall be sweetened; that overflowing river shall be passed on foot dryshod, in harvest time; and from that promised land of flocks, fields, tents, mountains, coasts, and ships, from north and south, and east and west, there shall swell one cry yet, of victory, peace, and thanksgiving! R. Choate.
Think of this nationality first as a state of consciousness, as a spring of feeling, as a motive to exertion, as blessing your country, and as reacting on you. Think of it as it fills your mind and quickens your heart, and as it fills the mind and quickens the heart of millions around you. Instantly, under such an influence, you ascend above the smoke and stir of this small local strife; you tread upon the high places of the earth and of history; you think and feel as an American for America; her power, her eminence, her consideration, her honor, are yours; your competitors, like hers, are kings; your home, like hers, is the world; your path, like hers, is on the highway of empires; our charge, her charge, is of generations and ages; your record, her record, is of treaties, battles, voyages, beneath all the constellations; her image, one, immortal, golden, rises on your eye as our western star at evening rises on the traveller from his home; no lowering cloud, no angry river, no lingering spring, no broken crevasse, no inundated city or plantation, no tracts of sand, arid and burning, on that surface, but all blended and softened into one beam of kindred rays, the image, harbinger, and promiser of love, hope, and a brighter day!
But if you would contemplate nationality as an active virtue, look around you. Is not our own history one witness and one record of what it can do? This day and all which it stands for,—did it not give us these? This glory of the fields of that war, this eloquence of that revolution, this one wide sheet of flame which wrapped tyrant and tyranny and swept all that escaped from it away, forever and forever; the courage to fight, to retreat, to rally, to advance, to guard the young flag by the young arm and the young heart's blood, to hold up and hold on till the magnificent consummation crowned the work,—were not all these imparted or inspired by this imperial sentiment? Has it not here begun the master-work of man, the creation of a national life? Did it not call out that prodigious development of wisdom, the wisdom of constructiveness which illustrated the years after the war, and the framing and adopting of the Constitution? Has it not, in general, contributed to the administering of that government wisely and well since? R. Choate.
Look at it! It has kindled us to no aims of conquest. It has involved us in no entangling alliances. It has kept our neutrality dignified and just. The victories of peace have been our prized victories. But the larger and truer grandeur of the nations, for which they are created, and for which they must one day, before some tribunal, give an account, what a measure of these it has enabled us already to fulfil! It has lifted us to the throne, and has set on our brow the name of the Great Republic. It has taught us to demand nothing wrong, and to submit to nothing wrong; it has made our diplomacy sagacious, wary, accomplished; it has opened the iron gate of the mountains and planted our ensign on the great, tranquil sea.
It has made the desert to bud and blossom as the rose; it has quickened to life the giant brood of useful arts; it has whitened lake and ocean with the sails of a daring, new, and lawful trade; it has extended to exiles, flying as clouds, the asylum of our better liberty.
It has kept us at rest within all our borders; it has repressed without blood the intemperance of local insubordination; it has scattered the seeds of liberty, under law and under order, broadcast; it has seen and helped American feeling to swell into a fuller flood; from many a field and many a deck, though it seeks not war, makes not war, and fears not war, it has borne the radiant flag, all unstained; it has opened our age of lettered glory; it has opened and honored the age of the industry of the people! R. Choate.
Sir, I must detain you no longer. I have said enough, and more than enough, to manifest the spirit in which this flag is now committed to your charge. It is the national ensign, pure and simple; dearer to all our hearts at this moment, as we lift it to the gale, and see no other sign of hope upon the storm-cloud which rolls and rattles above it, save that which is reflected from its own radiant hues; dearer, a thousand-fold dearer to us all, than ever it was before, while gilded by the sunshine of prosperity and playing with the zephyrs of peace. It will speak for itself far more eloquently than I can speak for it.
Behold it! Listen to it! Every star has a tongue; every stripe is articulate. There is no language or speech where their voices are not heard. There's magic in the web of it. It has an answer for every question of duty. It has a solution for every doubt and perplexity. It has a word of good cheer for every hour of gloom or of despondency.
Behold it! Listen to it! It speaks of earlier and of later struggles. It speaks of victories, and sometimes of reverses, on the sea and on the land. It speaks of patriots and heroes among the living and the dead: and of him, the first and greatest of them all, around whose consecrated ashes this unnatural and abhorrent strife has so long been raging—"the abomination of desolation standing where it ought not." But before all and above all other associations and memories—whether of glorious men, or glorious deeds, or glorious places—its voice is ever of Union and Liberty, of the Constitution and the Laws.
Behold it! Listen to it! Let it tell the story of its birth to these gallant volunteers, as they march beneath its folds by day, or repose beneath its sentinel stars by night. Let it recall to them the strange, eventful history of its rise and progress; let it rehearse to them the wondrous tale of its trials and its triumphs, in peace as well as in war; and, whatever else may happen to it or to them, it will never be surrendered to rebels; never be ignominiously struck to treason; nor be prostituted to any unworthy or unchristian purpose of revenge, depredation, or rapine. And may a merciful God cover the head of each one of its brave defenders in the hour of battle. R. C. Winthrop.
"Union for the sake of the Union"; "our country, our whole country, and nothing but our country";—these are the mottoes, old, stale, hackneyed, and threadbare as they may have seemed when employed as the watchwords of an electioneering campaign, but clothed with a new power, a new significance, a new gloss, and a new glory, when uttered as the battlecries of a nation struggling for existence; these are the mottoes which can give a just and adequate expression to the Cause in which you have enlisted. Sir, I thank Heaven that the trumpet has given no uncertain sound, while you have been preparing yourselves for the battle.
This is the Cause which has been solemnly proclaimed by both branches of Congress, in resolutions passed at the instance of those true-hearted sons of Tennessee and Kentucky—Johnson and Crittenden—and which, I rejoice to remember at this hour, received your own official sanction as a Senator of the United States.
This is the Cause which has been recognized and avowed by the President of the United States, with a frankness and fearlessness which have won the respect and admiration of all.
This is the Cause which has been so fervently commended to us from the dying lips of a Douglas, and by the matchless living voices of a Holt and an Everett.
This is the Cause in which the heroic Anderson, lifting his banner upon the wings of prayer,—and looking to the guidance and guardianship of the God in whom he trusted, went through that fiery furnace unharmed, and came forth, not indeed without the smell of fire and smoke upon his garments, but with an undimmed and undying lustre of piety and patriotism on his brow.
This is the Cause in which the lamented Lyon bequeathed all that he had of earthly treasure to his country, and then laid down a life in her defense, whose value no millions could measure.
This is the Cause in which the veteran chief of our armies crowned with the laurels which Washington alone had worn before him, and renouncing all inferior allegiance at the loss of fortune and of friends, has tasked, and is still tasking to the utmost the energies of a soul whose patriotism no age could chill. This is the Cause to which the young and noble McClellan, under whose lead it is your privilege to serve, has brought that matchless combination of sagacity and science, of endurance modesty, caution, and courage, which have made him the hope of the hour, the bright particular star of our immediate destiny.
And this, finally, is the Cause which has obliterated, as no other cause could have done, all divisions and distinction of party, nationality, and creed; which has appealed alike to Republican, Democrat, and Union Whig, to native citizen and to adopted citizen; and in which not the sons of Massachusetts or of New England or of the North alone, not the dwellers on the Hudson, the Delaware, and the Susquehanna only, but so many of those, also, on the Potomac and the Ohio, the Mississippi and the Missouri, on all the lakes, and in all the vast Mesopotamia of the mighty West—yes, and strangers from beyond the seas, Irish and Scotch, German, Italian, and French—the common emigrant and those who have stood nearest to a throne—brave and devoted men from almost every nation under heaven—men who have measured the value of our country to the world by a nobler standard than the cotton crop; and who realize that other and momentous destinies are at stake upon our struggle than such as can be wrought upon any mere material looms and shuttles—all, all are seen rallying beneath a common flag, and, exclaiming with one heart and voice: "The American Union—it must be, and shall be preserved." R. C. Winthrop.
On the 22d of May, when the Senate and House had clothed themselves in mourning for a brother fallen in the battle of life, in the distant State of Missouri, the Senator from Massachusetts sat in the silence of the Senate chamber, engaged in employments appertaining to his office, when a member from this House, who had taken an oath to sustain the Constitution, stole into the Senate, that place which had hitherto been held sacred against violence, and smote him as Cain smote his brother. One blow was enough; but it did not satiate the wrath of that spirit which had pursued him through two days. Again, and again, and again, quicker and faster fell the leaden blows, until he was torn away from his victim, when the Senator from Massachusetts fell into the arms of his friends, and his blood ran down the floor of the Senate.
Sir, the act was brief and my comments on it shall be brief also. I denounce it in the name of the Constitution which it violated. I denounce it in the name of the sovereignty of Massachusetts, which was stricken down by the blow. I denounce it in the name of humanity. I denounce it in the name of civilization, which it outraged. I denounce it in the name of that fair play, which bullies and prize-fighters respect. What, strike a man when he is pinioned, when he cannot respond to a blow! Call you that chivalry? In what code of honor did you get your authority for that? God knows my heart. I desire to speak with kindness. I speak in no spirit of revenge. I do not believe the member has a friend who must not in his heart of hearts condemn the act. Even the member himself—if he has left a spark of that chivalry and gallantry attributed to him—must loathe and scorn the act. But much as I reprobate the act, much more do I reprobate the conduct of those who stood by and saw the outrage perpetrated. O, magnanimous Slidell! O, prudent Douglas! O, audacious Toombs!
Sir, there are questions arising out of this, which are far more important than those of a mere personal nature. Of these personal considerations I shall speak when the question comes properly before us, if I am permitted to do so. The higher question involves the very existence of the government itself. If, sir, freedom of speech is not to remain to us, what is the government worth? If we from Massachusetts, or any other State,—senators or members of the House, are to be called to account by some "gallant uncle," when we utter something which does not suit their sensitive nature, we desire to know it.
If the conflict is to be transferred from the peaceful, intellectual field to one where, it is said, "honors are easy and responsibilities equal," then we desire to know it. Massachusetts, if her sons and representatives are to have the rod held over them,—though she utters no threats,—may be called upon to withdraw them to her own bosom, where she can furnish to them that protection which is not vouchsafed to them under the flag of their common country. But while she permits us to remain, we shall do our duty; we shall speak whatever we choose to speak, whatever we will, and however we will, regardless of the consequences.
Sir, the sons of Massachusetts are educated, at the knees of their mothers, in the doctrines of peace and good-will, and God knows we desire to cultivate those feelings,—feelings of social kindness, and public kindness.
The House will bear witness that we have not violated or trespassed upon any of them; but, sir, if we are pushed too long and too far, there are men from the old Commonwealth of Massachusetts who will not shrink from a defence of freedom of speech, and the State they represent: in any field where they may be assailed. A. Burlingame.
I know that I may be met at once by the objection that our general government is, after all, but a qualified and imperfect government. I may be reminded that it was from Massachusetts that the amendment came which expressly declares that all powers not given, are withheld. And then it may be asked, is there not here a manifest division of sovereignty and of power, and does not this show that much is wanting—that all which is retained at home is wanting—to constitute the full strength of a national government? My answer is twofold. First, I say, the national government has at this moment, by force of the Constitution, all the strength—absolutely all—which it needs, or could profitably use, as a central national government. I answer next, that by the admirable provisions of our Constitution, the reserved powers of every State may be, and, so far as that State does its duty, will be, prepared and developed to their utmost efficiency, and then imparted to the nation in its need.
Do we want a proof and illustration of all this? Very recent events have supplied one, which history will not forget, if we do. How happened it that, a few weeks since, when the general government seemed to be feeble, and was in peril, and the demand—I may as well say the cry for help came forth—why was it that Massachusetts was the first to spring to the rescue? Why was it that she was able, in four days from that in which this cry reached her, to add a new glory to the day of Lexington? Why was it that she could begin that offering of needed aid which has since poured itself in a full, and swollen, and rushing stream, into the war power of the national government? Even as I ask the question, the answer is in all your minds. It is, that Massachusetts could do this because she had done her own duty beforehand. She could do this because, within her own bounds, she had prepared and organized her own strength, and stood ready for the moment when she could place it in the outstretched hands of the government. And other States followed, offering their contributions with no interval—with almost too little of delay; with a haste which was sometimes precipitation; with an importunate begging for acceptance—all of it yet far behind the earnest desire and demand of the people of these States, until at length we stood before an astonished world the strongest government on the face of the earth.
Stronger, therefore, for all the purposes to which our national government should apply its strengths stronger for all the good it can do and all the harm it can prevent, that government is, as it is now constructed, and because it is so constructed, than it could be if it were the single, central, consolidated power of other nations. And it will show its strength, not by preventing all checks and reverses, for that is impossible; but, as I believe, in prompt and thorough recovery from them. T. Parsons.
In the whole political history of our own country, there has been no sin so atrocious as the repudiation of a higher than human law. It is stark atheism; for, with the law, this position virtually denies also the providence of God, and makes men and nations sole arbiters of their own fortunes. But "the Heavens do rule." If there be institutions or measures inconsistent with immutable rectitude, they are fostered only under the ban of a righteous God; they inwrap the germs of their own harvest of shame, disorder, vice, and wretchedness; nay, their very prosperity is but the verdure and blossoming which shall mature the apples of Sodom. O, how often have our legislators had reason to recall those pregnant words of Jefferson,—sad indeed is it that they should have become almost too trite for repetition, without having worked their way into the national conscience,—"I tremble for my country, when I consider that God is just!" The nations that have passed away, the decaying nations, the convulsed thrones, the smouldering rebellion-fires of the Old World, reveal the elements of national decline and ruin, and hold out baleful signals over the career on which our republic is hurrying; assuring us, by the experience of all climes and ages, that slavery, the unprincipled lust of power and territory official corruption and venality, aggressive war, partisan legislation, are but "sowing the wind to reap the whirlwind."
Our statesmen of the "manifest destiny" type seem to imagine oar country necessary to the designs of Providence. So thought the Hebrews, and on far more plausible grounds, of their commonwealth; but, rather than fulfil to such degenerate descendants the promise made to their great ancestor, "God is able," said the divine Teacher. "of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham."
Our destiny must be evolved, not from the blending of the world's noblest races in our ancestral stock; not from a position in which we hold the keys of the world's commerce, and can say to the North, "Give up," and to the South, "Keep not back;" not from our capacity to absorb and assimilate immigrant millions. Destiny is but the concrete of character. God needs no man or nation. He will bring in the reign of everlasting righteousness; and as a people, we must stand or fall as we accept or spurn that reign. Brethren, scholars, patriots also, I trust,—you whose generous nurture gives you large and enduring influence,—seek for the country of your pride and love, above all things else, her establishment on the eternal right as on the Rock of Ages. Thus shall there be no spot on her fame, no limit to her growth, no waning to her glory. A. P. Peabody.
This old watchword, so often heard by travellers in the early stages of steam-navigation, is now and then ringing in our ears with a very pointed and pertinent application. It is a note that belongs to all the responsibilities of this life for eternity. There is a day of reckoning, a day for the settlement of accounts. All unpaid bills will then have to be paid; all unbalanced books will have to be settled. There will be no loose memorandums forgotten; there will be no heedless commissioners for the convenience of careless consciences; there will be no proxies; there will be no bribed auditors. Neither will there be such a thing as a hesitating conscience; but the inward monitor, so often drugged and silenced on earth, will speak out. There will be no doubt nor question as to the right and wrong. There will be no vain excuses! nor any attempt to make them. There will be no more sophistry, no more considerations of expediency, no more pleading of the laws of men and the customs of society, no more talk about organic sins being converted into constructive righteousness, or collective and corporate frauds releasing men from individual responsibilities.
When we see a man, a professed Christian, running a race with the worshippers of wealth and fashion, absorbed in the vanities of the world, or endeavoring to serve both God and mammon, we hear the voice, Step to the captain's office and settle! When we see editors and politicians setting power in the place of goodness, and expediency in the place of justice and law in the place of equity, and custom in the place of right, putting darkness for light, and evil for good, and tyranny for general benevolence, we think of the day when the issuers of such counterfeit money will be brought to light, and their sophistries and lies exposed,—for among the whole tribe of unprincipled politicians there will be great consternation when the call comes to step to the captain's office and settle. When we see unjust rulers in their pride of power fastening chains upon the bondmen, oppressing the poor, and playing their pranks of defiant tyranny before high heaven, then also come these words to mind, like a blast from the last trumpet, Step to the captain's office and settle! G. B. Cheever
There are some people whose sympathies have been excited upon the subject of slavery, who, if they can only be satisfied that the slaves have enough to eat, think it is all very well, and that nothing more is to be said or done.
If slaves were merely animals, whose only or chief enjoyment consisted in the gratification of their bodily appetites, there would be some show of sense in this conclusion. But, in fact, however crushed and brutified, they are still men; men whose bosoms beat with the same passions as our own; whose hearts swell with the same aspirations,—the same ardent desire to improve their condition; the same wishes for what they have not; the same indifference towards what they have; the same restless love of social superiority; the same greediness of acquisition; the same desire to know; the same impatience of all external control.
The excitement which the singular case of Caspar Hauser produced a few years since in Germans is not yet forgotten. From the representations of that enigmatical personage, it was believed that those from whose custody he declared himself to have escaped, had endeavored to destroy his intellect, or rather to prevent it from being developed, so as to detain him forever in a state of infantile imbecility. This supposed attempt at what they saw fit to denominate the murder of the soul, gave rise to great discussions among the German jurists; and they soon raised it into a new crime, which they placed at the very head of social enormities.
It is this very crime, the murder of the soul, which is in the course of continuous and perpetual perpetration throughout the southern States of the American Union; and not upon a single individual only, but upon nearly one half of the entire population.
Consider the slaves as men, and the course of treatment which custom and the laws prescribe is an artful, deliberate and well-digested scheme to break their spirit; to deprive them of courage and of manhood; to destroy their natural desire for an equal participation in the benefits of society; to keep them ignorant, and therefore weak; to reduce them, if possible, to a state of idiocy; to crowd them down to a level with the brutes. R. Hildreth.
Let me here say that I hold judges, and especially the Supreme Court of the country, in much respect; but I am too familiar with the history of judicial proceedings to regard them with any superstitious reverence. Judges are but men, and in all ages have shown a full share of frailty. Alas! alas! the worst crimes of history have been perpetrated under their sanction. The blood of martyrs and of patriots, crying from the ground, summons them to judgment.
It was a Judicial tribunal which condemned Socrates to drink the fatal hemlock, and which pushed the Saviour barefoot over the pavements of Jerusalem, bending beneath his cross. It was a judicial tribunal which, against the testimony and entreaties of her father, surrendered the fair Virginia as a slave; which arrested the teachings of the great apostle to the Gentiles, and sent him in bonds from Judea to Rome; which, in the name of the Old Religion, adjudged the saints and fathers of the Christian Church to death, in all its most dreadful forms; and which afterwards, in the name of the New Religion, enforced the tortures of the Inquisition, amidst the shrieks and agonies of its victims, while it compelled Galileo to declare, in solemn denial of the great truth he had disclosed, that the earth did not move round the sun.
It was a judicial tribunal which, in France, during the long reign of her monarchs, lent itself to be the instrument of every tyranny, as during the brief reign of terror it did not hesitate to stand forth the unpitying accessory of the unpitying guillotine. Ay, sir, it was a judicial tribunal in England, surrounded by all the forms of law, which sanctioned every despotic caprice of Henry the Eighth, from the unjust divorce of his queen, to the beheading of Sir Thomas More; which lighted the fires of persecution that glowed at Oxford and Smithfield, over the cinders of Latimer, Ridley, and John Rogers; which, after elaborate argument, upheld the fatal tyranny of ship-money against the patriotic resistance of Hampden; which, in defiance of justice and humanity, sent Sydney and Russell to the block; which persistently enforced the laws of Conformity that our Puritan Fathers persistently refused to obey; and which afterwards, with Jeffries on the bench, crimsoned the pages of English history with massacre and murder—even with the blood of innocent woman.