O Garfield! brave and patient soul!Long as the tireless tides shall rollAbout theLong Branchbeaches, whereThy life went out upon the air,So long thy land, from sea to sea,Will hold thy manhood's legacy.Thereweretwo parties: there were those,In thine own party, called thy foes;Therewasa North; therewasa South,Ere blazed the assassin's pistol-mouth.But lo! thy bed became a throne:And as the hours went by, at lengthThe weakness of thine arm aloneGrew mightier than thy strongest strength.No petulant murmur; no vexed cryOf balked ambitions; but a high,Grand patience! And thy whisper blentIn one heart all the continent.To-day there are no factions left,Butone Americabereft.
O Garfield! brave and patient soul!Long as the tireless tides shall rollAbout theLong Branchbeaches, whereThy life went out upon the air,So long thy land, from sea to sea,Will hold thy manhood's legacy.
Thereweretwo parties: there were those,In thine own party, called thy foes;Therewasa North; therewasa South,Ere blazed the assassin's pistol-mouth.
But lo! thy bed became a throne:And as the hours went by, at lengthThe weakness of thine arm aloneGrew mightier than thy strongest strength.
No petulant murmur; no vexed cryOf balked ambitions; but a high,Grand patience! And thy whisper blentIn one heart all the continent.To-day there are no factions left,Butone Americabereft.
O Garfield! fortunate in death wast thou,Though at the opening of a grand career!Thou wast a meteor flashing on the browOf skies political, where oft appear,And disappear, so many stars of promise. Then,While all men watched thy high course, wonderingIf them wouldst upward sweep, or fell again,Thee from thine orbit mad hands thought to fling;And lo! the meteor, with its fitful light,All on a sudden stood, and was a star,—A radiance fixed, to glorify the nightThere where the world's proud constellations are.
O Garfield! fortunate in death wast thou,Though at the opening of a grand career!Thou wast a meteor flashing on the browOf skies political, where oft appear,
And disappear, so many stars of promise. Then,While all men watched thy high course, wonderingIf them wouldst upward sweep, or fell again,Thee from thine orbit mad hands thought to fling;
And lo! the meteor, with its fitful light,All on a sudden stood, and was a star,—A radiance fixed, to glorify the nightThere where the world's proud constellations are.
Boston Globe.
Our sorrow sends its shadow round the earth.So brave, so true! A hero from his birth!The plumes of Empire moult, in mourning draped,The lightning's message by our tears is shaped.Life's vanities that blossom for an hourHeap on his funeral car their fleeting flower.Commerce forsakes her temples, blind and dim,And pours her tardy gold, to homage him.The notes of grief to age familiar growBefore the sad privations all must know;But the majestic cadence which we hearTo-day, is new in either hemisphere.What crown is this, high hung and hard to reach,Whose glory so outshines our laboring speech?The crown of Honor, pure and unbetrayed;He wins the spurs who bears the knightly aid.While royal babes incipient empire hold,And, for bare promise, grasp the sceptre's gold,This man such service to his age did bringThat they who knew him servant hailed him king.In poverty his infant couch was spread;His tender hands soon wrought for daily bread;But from the cradle's bound his willing feetThe errand of the moment went to meet.When learning's page unfolded to his view,The quick disciple straight a teacher grew;And, when the fight of freedom stirred the land,Armed was his heart and resolute his hand.Wise in the council, stalwart in the field!Such rank supreme a workman's hut may yield.His onward steps like measured marbles show,Climbing the height where God's great flame doth glow.Ah! Rose of joy, that hid'st a thorn so sharp!Ah! Golden woof, that meet'st a severed warp!Ah! Solemn comfort, that the stars rain down!The hero's garland his, the martyr's crown!
Our sorrow sends its shadow round the earth.So brave, so true! A hero from his birth!The plumes of Empire moult, in mourning draped,The lightning's message by our tears is shaped.
Life's vanities that blossom for an hourHeap on his funeral car their fleeting flower.Commerce forsakes her temples, blind and dim,And pours her tardy gold, to homage him.
The notes of grief to age familiar growBefore the sad privations all must know;But the majestic cadence which we hearTo-day, is new in either hemisphere.
What crown is this, high hung and hard to reach,Whose glory so outshines our laboring speech?The crown of Honor, pure and unbetrayed;He wins the spurs who bears the knightly aid.
While royal babes incipient empire hold,And, for bare promise, grasp the sceptre's gold,This man such service to his age did bringThat they who knew him servant hailed him king.
In poverty his infant couch was spread;His tender hands soon wrought for daily bread;But from the cradle's bound his willing feetThe errand of the moment went to meet.
When learning's page unfolded to his view,The quick disciple straight a teacher grew;And, when the fight of freedom stirred the land,Armed was his heart and resolute his hand.
Wise in the council, stalwart in the field!Such rank supreme a workman's hut may yield.His onward steps like measured marbles show,Climbing the height where God's great flame doth glow.
Ah! Rose of joy, that hid'st a thorn so sharp!Ah! Golden woof, that meet'st a severed warp!Ah! Solemn comfort, that the stars rain down!The hero's garland his, the martyr's crown!
Newport, Sept. 25, 1881.Boston Globe.
So long he prayed to come,Lingered so long away;Now, with the muffled beat of drumAnd solemn dirges, at last he hath come,Come home to stay.Yes, he has come to stay!The homesick heart is still,The hurried pulse and the aching breastNow in the lap of home shall rest;He has his will.No more of heat or chill,No frost or evil blight,The work of living a life is done,The long fight over, the victory won,He sleeps to-night.Silent is home's delight,Peaceful its tranquil cheer;Here is the cool, unbroken calm,The soft wind's breath and the fir-tree's balm,All, all are here.He and the dying yearLie in their slumber deep.Safe in the heart of home at last,Anxious slumber nor grievous pastShall stir his sleep.Woe for us to keep,For him a joy to last!Woe for the land in years to come,Wail, O trumpet! and mutter, drum!The dead comes home at last!
So long he prayed to come,Lingered so long away;Now, with the muffled beat of drumAnd solemn dirges, at last he hath come,Come home to stay.
Yes, he has come to stay!The homesick heart is still,The hurried pulse and the aching breastNow in the lap of home shall rest;He has his will.
No more of heat or chill,No frost or evil blight,The work of living a life is done,The long fight over, the victory won,He sleeps to-night.
Silent is home's delight,Peaceful its tranquil cheer;Here is the cool, unbroken calm,The soft wind's breath and the fir-tree's balm,All, all are here.
He and the dying yearLie in their slumber deep.Safe in the heart of home at last,Anxious slumber nor grievous pastShall stir his sleep.
Woe for us to keep,For him a joy to last!Woe for the land in years to come,Wail, O trumpet! and mutter, drum!The dead comes home at last!
Winsted, Conn.
The Independent.
[A prize offered by a London weekly for the best poem on the attempted assassination of President Garfield was awarded to the author of the following.]
Veil now, O Liberty! thy blushing face,At the fell deed that thrills a startled world;While fair Columbia weeps in dire disgrace,And bows in sorrow o'er the banner furled.No graceless tyrant falls by vengeance here,'Neath the wild justice of a secret knife;No red Ambition ends its grim career,And expiates its horrors with its life.Not here does rash Revenge misguided burn,To free a nation with the assassin's dart;Or roused Despair in angry madness turn,And tear its freedom from a despot's heart.But where blest Liberty so widely reigns,And Peace and Plenty mark a smiling land,Here the mad wretch its fair white record stains,And blurs its beauties with a "bloody hand."Here the elect of millions, and the prideOf those who own his mild and peaceful rule,—Here virtue sinks and yields the crimson tide,Beneath the vile unreason of a fool!
Veil now, O Liberty! thy blushing face,At the fell deed that thrills a startled world;While fair Columbia weeps in dire disgrace,And bows in sorrow o'er the banner furled.
No graceless tyrant falls by vengeance here,'Neath the wild justice of a secret knife;No red Ambition ends its grim career,And expiates its horrors with its life.
Not here does rash Revenge misguided burn,To free a nation with the assassin's dart;Or roused Despair in angry madness turn,And tear its freedom from a despot's heart.
But where blest Liberty so widely reigns,And Peace and Plenty mark a smiling land,Here the mad wretch its fair white record stains,And blurs its beauties with a "bloody hand."
Here the elect of millions, and the prideOf those who own his mild and peaceful rule,—Here virtue sinks and yields the crimson tide,Beneath the vile unreason of a fool!
Over the land the tidings sped,"The leader has fallen, our chief is dead."And over the land a cry of painBegan and ended with Garfield's name."He is dead," said each, with tearful eye:"So strong, so true, why must he die?"And the children paused that autumn dayTo talk of the good man passed away.Over the land when the tidings came,Even the babies lisped his name;And youthful eyes grew sad that dayFor the fatherless children far away.Fatherless,—word with a life of pain;Fatherless,—never complete again;Always to miss, and never to know,The joy of his greeting,—his love below.Missing the cheerful smile each day,Missing his care in studies or play,Missing each hour, each day, each year,The sound of a voice so tender and dear.Fatherless! only the children can tellThe sound of that dreary funeral knell;For only they, in all coming years,Find the roses of youth bedewed with tears.Over the land from shore to shore,The prayer of the children is echoed o'er,—"God of the fatherless, help we pray,The wards of our mourning nation to-day."
Over the land the tidings sped,"The leader has fallen, our chief is dead."And over the land a cry of painBegan and ended with Garfield's name.
"He is dead," said each, with tearful eye:"So strong, so true, why must he die?"And the children paused that autumn dayTo talk of the good man passed away.
Over the land when the tidings came,Even the babies lisped his name;And youthful eyes grew sad that dayFor the fatherless children far away.
Fatherless,—word with a life of pain;Fatherless,—never complete again;Always to miss, and never to know,The joy of his greeting,—his love below.
Missing the cheerful smile each day,Missing his care in studies or play,Missing each hour, each day, each year,The sound of a voice so tender and dear.
Fatherless! only the children can tellThe sound of that dreary funeral knell;For only they, in all coming years,Find the roses of youth bedewed with tears.
Over the land from shore to shore,The prayer of the children is echoed o'er,—"God of the fatherless, help we pray,The wards of our mourning nation to-day."
Boston Globe.
Salem, Sept. 24, 1881.
Currency.—Lincoln.—Forms of Government.—The Draft.—Slavery.—Human Progress.—Independence.— Republicanism and Democracy.—The Rebellion.—Protection and Free Trade.—Radicalism.—Education.—Reconstruction.— William H. Seward.—Fourteenth Amendment.—Classical Studies.—History.—Law.—Liberty.—Statistical Science.—Poverty.—Growth.—Ethics.—The Salary Clause.—The Railway Problem.—Church and State.— Courage.—Art.—Literature.—Character.—Public Opinion.—The Revenue.—Statesmanship.—Science.— Truth.—Elements of Success.—Suffrage.—Gustave Schleicher.—Appeal to Young Men.—The Union.—Inaugural.
Currency.—Lincoln.—Forms of Government.—The Draft.—Slavery.—Human Progress.—Independence.— Republicanism and Democracy.—The Rebellion.—Protection and Free Trade.—Radicalism.—Education.—Reconstruction.— William H. Seward.—Fourteenth Amendment.—Classical Studies.—History.—Law.—Liberty.—Statistical Science.—Poverty.—Growth.—Ethics.—The Salary Clause.—The Railway Problem.—Church and State.— Courage.—Art.—Literature.—Character.—Public Opinion.—The Revenue.—Statesmanship.—Science.— Truth.—Elements of Success.—Suffrage.—Gustave Schleicher.—Appeal to Young Men.—The Union.—Inaugural.
No man can doubt that within recent years, and notably within recent months, the leading thinkers of the civilized world have become alarmed at the attitude of the two precious metals in relation to each other; and many leading thinkers are becoming clearly of the opinion that, by some wise, judicious arrangement, both the precious metals must be kept in service for the currency of the world. And this opinion has been very rapidly gainingground within the past six months to such an extent, that England, which for more than half a century has stoutly adhered to the single gold standard, is now seriously meditating how she may harness both these metals to the monetary car of the world. And yet outside of this capital, I do not this day know of a single great and recognized advocate of bi-metallic money who regards it prudent or safe for any nation largely to increase the coinage standard of silver at the present time beyond the limits fixed by existing laws.... Yet we, who during the past two years have coined far more silver dollars than we ever before coined since the foundation of the Government; ten times as many as we coined during half a century of our national life; are to-day ignoring and defying the enlightened universal opinion of bi-metallism, and saying that the United States, single-handed and alone, can enter the field and settle the mighty issue. We are justifying the old proverb that "fools rush in where angels fear to tread." It is sheer madness, Mr. Speaker. I once saw a dog on a great stack of hay that had been floated out into the wild overflowed stream of a river, with its stack-pen and foundation still holding together, but ready to be wrecked. For a little while the animal appeared to be perfectly happy. His hay-stack was there, and the pen around it, and he seemed to think the world bright and hishappiness secure, while the sunshine fell softly on his head and hay. But by and by he began to discover that the house and the barn, and their surroundings were not all there, as they were when he went to sleep the night before; and he began to see that he could not command all the prospect, and peacefully dominate the scene as he had done before.
So with this House. We assume to manage this mighty question which has been launched on the wild current that sweeps over the whole world, and we bark from our legislative hay-stacks as though we commanded the whole world. In the name of common sense and sanity, let us take some account of the flood; let us understand that a deluge means something, and try if we can to get our bearings before we undertake to settle the affairs of all mankind by a vote of this House. To-day we are coining one-third of all the silver that is being coined in the round world. China is coining another third; and all other nations are using the remaining one-third for subsidiary coin. And if we want to take rank with China, and part company with all of the civilized nations of the Western world, let us pass this bill, and then "bay the moon" as we float down the whirling channel to take our place among the silver mono-metallists of Asia.
Columbus, Ohio, February 16, 1861.
Mr. Lincoln has come and gone. The rush of people to see him at every point on the route is astonishing. The reception here was plain and republican, but very impressive. He has been raising a respectable pair of dark-brown whiskers, which decidedly improve his looks, but no appendage can ever render him remarkable for beauty. On the whole, I am greatly pleased with him. He clearly shows his want of culture, and the marks of western life; but there is no touch of affectation in him, and he has a peculiar power of impressing you that he is frank, direct, and thoroughly honest. His remarkable good sense, simple and condensed style of expression, and evident marks of indomitable will, give me great hopes for the country. And, after the long, dreary period of Buchanan's weakness and cowardly imbecility, the people will hail a strong and vigorous leader.
A monarchy is more easily overthrown than a republic, because its sovereignty is concentrated, and a single blow, if it be powerful enough, will crush it.
As an abstract theory, the doctrine of Free Trade seems to be universally true, but as a question of practicability, under a government like ours, the protective system seems to be indispensable.
It has never been my policy to conceal a truthmerelybecause it is unpleasant. It may be well to smile in the face of danger, but it is neither well nor wise to let danger approach unchallenged and unannounced. A brave nation, like a brave man, desires to see and measure the perils which threaten it. It is the right of the American people to know the necessities of the Republic when they are called upon to make sacrifices for it. It is this lack of confidence in ourselves and the people, this timid waiting for events to control us when they should obey us, that makes men oscillate between hope and fear; now in the sunshine of the hill-tops, and now in the gloom and shadows of the valley. To such men the bulletin which heralds success in the army gives exultation and high hope; the evening dispatch, announcing some slight disaster to our advancing columns, brings gloom and depression. Hope rises and falls by the accidents of war, as the mercury of the thermometer changes by the accidents of heat and cold. Let us rather take for our symbol thesailor's barometer, which faithfully forewarns him of the tempest, and gives him unerring promise of serene skies and peaceful seas.
By this last act of madness, it seems as though the Rebellion had determined that the President of the soldiers should go with the soldiers who have laid down their lives on the battle-field. They slew the noblest and gentlest heart that ever put down a rebellion upon this earth. In taking that life they have left "the iron" hand of the people to fall upon them. Love is on the front of the throne of God, but justice and judgment, with inexorable dread, follow behind; and where law is slighted and mercy despised, when they have rejected those who would be their best friends, then comes justice with her hoodwinked eye, and with the sword and scales. From every gaping wound of your dead chief, let the voice go up for the people to see to it that our house is swept and garnished. I hasten to say one thing more. For mere vengeance I would do nothing. This nation is too great to look for mere revenge. But for security of the future I would do everything.
On the 21st day of June, 1788, our national sovereignty was lodged, by the people, in the Constitution of the United States, where it still resides, and for its preservation our armies are to-day in the field. In all these stages of development, from colonial dependence to full-orbed nationality, the people, not the States, have been omnipotent.Theyhave abolished, established, altered, and amended, as suited their sovereign pleasure.Theymade the Constitution. That great charter tells its own story best:
"We,the peopleof the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
"We,the peopleof the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
That Constitution, with its amendments, is the latest and the greatest utterance of American sovereignty. The hour is now at hand when that majestic sovereign, for the benignant purpose of securing still farther the 'blessings of liberty,' is about to put forth another oracle; is about to declare that universal freedom shall be the supreme law of the land. Show me the power that isauthorized to forbid it.... They made the Constitution what it is. They could have made it otherwise then: they can make it otherwise now.
In the very crisis of our fate, God brought us face to face with the alarming truth, that we must lose our own freedom, or grant it to the slave. In the extremity of our distress, we called upon the black man to help us save the Republic, and amidst the very thunder of battle we made a covenant with him, sealed both with his blood and ours, and witnessed by Jehovah, that when the nation was redeemed, he should be free, and share with us the glories and blessings of freedom. In the solemn words of the great proclamation of emancipation, we not only declared the slaves forever free, but we pledged the faith of the nation "to maintain their freedom"—mark the words, "to maintain their freedom." The Omniscient witness will appear in judgment against us if we do not fulfil that covenant. Have we done it? Have we given freedom to the black man? What is freedom? Is it a mere negation? the bare privilege of not being chained, bought, and sold, branded, and scourged? If this be all, then freedom is a bitter mockery, a cruel delusion, and it may well be questioned whether slavery were not better.
But liberty is no negation. It is a substantive,tangible reality. It is the realization of those imperishable truths of the Declaration, "that all men are created equal," that the sanction of all just government is "the consent of the governed." Can these truths be realized until each man has a right to be heard on all matters relating to himself?
Mr. Speaker, we did more than merely to break off the chains of the slaves. The abolition of slavery added four million citizens to the Republic. By the decision of the Supreme Court, by the decision of the attorney-general, by the decision of all the departments of our government, those men made free are, by the act of freedom, made citizens.
If they are to be disfranchised, if they are to have no voice in determining the conditions under which they are to live and labor, what hope have they for the future? It will rest with their late masters, whose treason they aided to thwart, to determine whether negroes shall be permitted to hold property, to enjoy the benefits of education, to enforce contracts, to have access to the courts of justice—in short, to enjoy any of those rights which give vitality and value to freedom. Who can fail to foresee the ruin and misery that await this race to whom the vision of freedom has been presented only to be withdrawn, leaving them withouteven the aid which the master's selfish, commercial interest in their life and service formerly afforded them? Will these negroes, remembering the battle-fields on which nearly two hundred thousand of their number have so bravely fought, and many thousands have heroically died, submit to oppression as tamely and peaceably as in the days of slavery? Under such conditions there could be no peace, no security, no prosperity. The spirit of slavery is still among us; it must be utterly destroyed before we shall be safe.
Mr. Speaker, I know of nothing more dangerous to a Republic than to put into its very midst four million people, stripped of every attribute of citizenship, robbed of the right of representation, but bound to pay taxes to the government. If they can endure it, we can not. The murderer is to be pitied more than the murdered man; the robber more than the robbed. And we who defraud four million citizens of their rights are injuring ourselves vastly more than we are injuring the black man whom we rob.
Throughout the whole web of national existence we trace the golden thread of human progress toward a higher and better estate.
The life and light of a nation are inseparable.
We confront the dangers of suffrage by the blessings of universal education.
We should do nothing inconsistent with the spirit and genius of our institutions. We should do nothing for revenge, but everything for security: nothing for the past; everything for the present and future.
There are two classes of forces whose action and reaction determine the condition of a nation—the forces of Repression and Expression. The one acts from without; limits, curbs, restrains. The other acts from within; expands, enlarges, propels. Constitutional forms, statutory limitations, conservative customs, belong to the first. The free play of individual life, opinion, and action, belong to the second. If these forces be happily balanced, if there be a wise conservation and correlation of both, a nation may enjoy the double blessing of progress and permanence.
It matters little what may be the forms of National institutions, if the life, freedom, and growth of society are secured.
There is no horizontal stratification of society in this country like the rocks in the earth, that hold one class down below forevermore, and let another come to the surface to stay there forever. Our stratification is like the ocean, where every individualdrop is free to move, and where from the sternest depths of the mighty deep any drop may come up to glitter on the highest wave that rolls.
The Union and the Congress must share the same fate. They must rise or fall together.
Real political issues cannot be manufactured by the leaders of political parties, and real ones cannot be evaded by political parties. The real political issues of the day declare themselves and come out of the depth of that deep which we call public opinion. The nation has a life of its own as distinctly defined as the life of an individual. The signs of its growth and the periods of its development make issues declare themselves; and the man or the political party that does not discover this, has not learned the character of the nation's life.
Mr. Chairman, great ideas travel slowly, and for a time noiselessly, as the gods, whose feet were shod with wool. Our war of independence was a war of ideas, of ideas evolved out of two hundred years of slow and silent growth. When, one hundred years ago, our fathers announced as self-evident truths the declaration that all men are created equal, and the only just power of governments is derived from the consent of the governed,they uttered a doctrine that no nation had ever adopted, that not one kingdom on the earth then believed. Yet to our fathers it was so plain that they would not debate it. They announced it as a truth "self-evident."
Whence came the immortal truths of the Declaration? To me this was for years the riddle of our history. I have searched long and patiently through the books of thedoctrinairesto find the germs from which the Declaration of Independence sprang. I find hints in Locke, in Hobbes, in Rousseau, and Fénelon; but they were only the hints of dreamers and philosophers. The great doctrines of the Declaration germinated in the hearts of our fathers, and were developed under the new influences of this wilderness world, by the same subtile mystery which brings forth the rose from the germ of the rose-tree. Unconsciously to themselves, the great truths were growing under the new conditions, until, like the century-plant, they blossomed into the matchless beauty of the Declaration of Independence, whose fruitage, increased and increasing, we enjoy to-day.
It will not do, Mr. Chairman, to speak of the gigantic revolution through which we have lately passed as a thing to be adjusted and settled by a change of administration. It was cyclical, epochal, century-wide, and to be studied in its broad andgrand perspective—a revolution of even wider scope, so far as time is concerned, than the Revolution of 1776. We have been dealing with elements and forces which have been at work on this continent more than two hundred and fifty years. I trust I shall be excused if I take a few moments to trace some of the leading phases of the great struggle. And in doing so, I beg gentlemen to see that the subject itself lifts us into a region where the individual sinks out of sight and is absorbed in the mighty current of great events. It is not the occasion to award praise or pronounce condemnation. In such a revolution men are like insects that fret and toss in the storm, but are swept onward by the resistless movements of elements beyond their control. I speak of this revolution not to praise the men who aided it, or to censure the men who resisted it, but as a force to be studied, as a mandate to be obeyed.
In the year 1620 there were planted upon this continent two ideas irreconcilably hostile to each other. Ideas are the great warriors of the world; and a war that has no ideas behind it is simply brutality. The two ideas were landed, one at Plymouth Rock, from theMayflower, and the other from a Dutch brig at Jamestown, Virginia. One was the old doctrine of Luther, that private judgment, in politics as well as religion, is the right and duty of every man; and the other, that capital shouldown labor, that the negro had no rights of manhood, and the white man might justly buy, own, and sell him and his offspring forever. Thus freedom and equality on the one hand, and on the other the slavery of one race and the domination of another, were the two germs planted on this continent. In our vast expanse of wilderness, for a long time, there was room for both; and their advocates began the race across the continent, each developing the social and political institutions of their choice. Both had vast interests in common; and for a long time neither was conscious of the fatal antagonisms that were developing.
For nearly two centuries there was no serious collision; but when the continent began to fill up, and the people began to jostle against each other; when the Roundhead and the Cavalier came near enough to measure opinions, the irreconcilable character of the two doctrines began to appear. Many conscientious men studied the subject, and came to the belief that slavery was a crime, a sin, or, as Wesley said, 'the sum of all villanies.' This belief dwelt in small minorities for a long time. It lived in the churches and vestries, but later found its way into the civil and political organizations of the country, and finally found its way into this chamber. A few brave, clear-sighted, far-seeing men announced it here, a little more than a generation ago. A predecessor of mine,Joshua R. Giddings, following the lead of John Quincy Adams, of Massachusetts, almost alone held up the banner on this floor, and from year to year comrades came to his side. Through evil and through good report he pressed the question upon the conscience of the nation, and bravely stood in his place in this House, until his white locks, like the plume of Henry of Navarre, showed where the battle of freedom raged most fiercely.
And so the contest continued; the supporters of slavery believing honestly and sincerely that slavery was a divine institution; that it found its high sanctions in the living oracles of God and in a wise political philosophy; that it was justified by the necessities of their situation; and that slave-holders were missionaries to the dark sons of Africa, to elevate and bless them. We are so far past the passions of that early time that we can now study the progress of the struggle as a great and inevitable development, without sharing in the crimination and recrimination that attended it. If both sides could have seen that it was a contest beyond their control; if both parties could have realized the truth that "unsettled questions have no pity for the repose of nations," much less for the fate of political parties, the bitterness, the sorrow, the tears, and the blood might have been avoided. But we walked in the darkness, our paths obscured by the smoke of the conflict, eachfollowing his own convictions through ever-increasing fierceness, until the debate culminated in "the last argument to which kings resort."
This conflict of opinion was not merely one of sentimental feeling; it involved our whole political system; it gave rise to two radically different theories of the nature of our government; the North believing and holding that we were a nation, the South insisting that we were only a confederation of sovereign States, and insisting that each State had the right, at its own discretion, to break the Union, and constantly threatening secession where the full rights of slavery were not acknowledged.
Thus the defence and aggrandizement of slavery, and the hatred of abolitionism, became not only the central idea of the Democratic party, but its master passion,—a passion intensified and inflamed by twenty-five years of fierce political contest, which had not only driven from its ranks all those who preferred freedom to slavery, but had absorbed all the extreme pro-slavery elements of the fallen Whig party. Over against this was arrayed the Republican party, asserting the broad doctrines of nationality and loyalty, insisting that no State had a right to secede, that secession was treason, and demanding that the institution of slavery should be restricted to the limits of the States where it already existed. But here andthere many bolder and more radical thinkers declared, with Wendell Phillips, that there never could be union and peace, freedom and prosperity, until we were willing to see John Hancock under a black skin.
Mr. Chairman, ought the Republican party to surrender its truncheon of command to the Democracy? The gentleman from Mississippi says, if this were England, the ministry would go out in twenty-four hours with such a state of things as we have here. Ah, yes! that is an ordinary case of change of administration. But if this were England, what would she have done at the end of the war? England made one such mistake as the gentleman asks this country to make, when she threw away the achievements of the grandest man that ever trod her highway of power. Oliver Cromwell had overturned the throne of despotic power, and had lifted his country to a place of masterful greatness among the nations of the earth; and when, after his death, his great sceptre was transferred to a weak though not unlineal hand, his country, in a moment of reactionary blindness, brought back the Stuarts. England did not recover from that folly until, in 1689, the Prince of Orange drove from her island the last of that weak and wicked line. Did she afterward repeat the blunder?
I am aware that there is a general disposition "to let by-gones be by-gones," and to judge of parties and of men, not by what they have been, but by what they are and what they propose.
That view is partly just and partly erroneous. It is just and wise to bury resentments and animosities. It is erroneous in this, that parties have an organic life and spirit of their own—an individuality and character which outlive the men who compose them; and the spirit and traditions of a party should be considered in determining their fitness for managing the affairs of a nation.
I will close by calling your attention again to the great problem before us. Over this vast horizon of interests North and South, above all party prejudices and personal wrong-doing, above our battle hosts and our victorious cause, above all that we hoped for and won, or you hoped for and lost, is the grand, onward movement of the Republic to perpetuate its glory, to save liberty alive, to preserve exact and equal justice to all, to protect and foster all these priceless principles, until they shall have crystalized into the form of enduring law, and become inwrought into the life and the habits of our people.
And, until these great results are accomplished, it is not safe to take one step backward. It is still more unsafe to trust interests of such measurelessvalue in the hands of an organization whose members have never comprehended their epoch, have never been in sympathy with its great movements, who have resisted every step of its progress, and whose principal function has been
"'To lie in cold obstruction'
"'To lie in cold obstruction'
across the pathway of the nation.
"No, no, gentlemen, our enlightened and patriotic people will not follow such leaders in the rearward march. Their myriad faces are turned the other way; and along their serried lines still rings the cheering cry, 'Forward! till our great work is fully and worthily accomplished.'"
Duties should be so high that our manufacturers can fairly compete with the foreign product, but not so high as to enable them to drive out the foreign article, enjoy a monopoly of the trade, and regulate the price as they please. This is my doctrine of protection.... I am for a protection that leads to ultimate free trade. I am for that free trade which can only be achieved through a reasonable protection.
Washington, January 1, 1867.
I am less satisfied with the present aspect of public affairs than I have been for a long time....Really there seems to be a fear on the part of many of our friends that they may do some absurdly extravagant thing to prove their radicalism. I am trying to do two things: dare to be a radical and not be a fool, which, if I may judge by the exhibitions around me, is a matter of no small difficulty.... My own course is chosen, and it is quite probable it will throw me out of public life.
We provide for the common defence by a system which promotes the general welfare.
It is to me a perpetual wonder how any child's love of knowledge survives the outrages of the school-house. I, for one, declare that no child of mine shall ever becompelledto study one hour, or to learn even the English alphabet, before he has deposited under his skin at least seven years of muscle and bone.
The student should study himself, his relations to society, to nature, and to art, and above all, in all, and through all these, he should study the relations of himself, society, nature, and art, to God, the Author of them all.
It is well to know the history of those magnificent nations whose origin is lost in fable, and whose epitaphs were written a thousand years ago—but if we cannot know both, it is far better to study the history of our own nation, whose origin we can trace to the freest and noblest aspirations of the human heart—a nation that was formed from the hardiest, purest, and most enduring elements of European civilization—a nation that, by its faith and courage, has dared and accomplished more for the human race in a single century than Europe accomplished in the first thousand years of the Christian era. The New England township was the type after which our Federal Government was modelled, yet it would be rare to find a college student who can make a comprehensive and intelligible statement of the municipal organization of the township in which he was born, and tell you by what officers its legislative, judicial, and executive functions were administered. One half of the time which is now almost wasted, in district schools, on English Grammar, attempted at too early an age, would be sufficient to teach our children to love the Republic, and to become its loyal and life-long supporters. After the bloody baptism from which the nation has arisen to a higher and nobler life, of this shameful defect in our systemof education be not speedily remedied, we shall deserve the infinite contempt of future generations. I insist that it should be made an indispensable condition of graduation in every American college, that the student must understand the history of this continent since its discovery by Europeans, the origin and history of the United States, its constitution of government, the struggles through which it has passed, and the rights and duties of citizens who are to determine its destiny and share its glory.
Having thus gained the knowledge which is necessary to life, health, industry, and citizenship, the student is prepared to enter a wider and grander field of thought. If he desires that large and liberal culture, which will call into activity all his powers, and make the most of the material God has given him, he must study deeply and earnestly the intellectual, the moral, the religious, and the æsthetic nature of man; his relations to nature, to civilization, past and present, and above all, his relations to God. These should occupy nearly, if not fully, half the time of his college course. In connection with the philosophy of the mind, he should study logic, the pure mathematics, and the general laws of thought. In connection with moral philosophy, he should study political and social ethics—a science so little known either in colleges or congresses. Prominent among all the restshould be his study of the wonderful history of the human race, in its slow and toilsome march across the centuries—now buried in ignorance, superstition and crime; now rising to the sublimity of heroism and catching a glimpse of a better destiny; now turning remorselessly away from, and leaving to perish, empires and civilizations in which it had invested its faith, and courage, and boundless energy for a thousand years, and plunging into the forests of Germany, Gaul, and Britain, to build for itself new empires, better fitted for its new aspirations; and, at last, crossing three thousand miles of unknown sea, and building in the wilderness of a new hemisphere its latest and proudest monuments.
I cannot forget that we have learned slowly.... I cannot forget that less than five years ago I received an order from my superior officer commanding me to search my camp for a fugitive slave, and if found, to deliver him up to a Kentucky captain who claimed him as his property; andI had the honor to be perhaps the first officer in the army who peremptorily refused to obey such an order. We were then trying to save the Union without hurting slavery.... It took us two years to reach a point where we were willing to do themost meagre justice to the black man, and to recognize the truth that