How to Master the Spoken Word / Designed as a Self-Instructor for all who would Excel in the Art of Public Speaking

by Edwin Gordon Lawrence

CHAPTER IX

THE MODERN ORATORS

The need of orators is as great today as when John Hampden spoke against the exactions of Charles I, James Otis argued against writs of assistance, or Daniel Webster expounded the Constitution of his country. The need is here, but where are the orators? Questions of great moment now confront America and the world, but there is no Demosthenes to arouse men to the necessity of action, no Cicero to drive out the traitor Injustice, no Patrick Henry to consolidate the forces of Liberty. The power of the newspaper is great, and today it is doing noble work for progress; but this power can be used, and is being used, for evil as well as for good. A subsidized press is as dangerous as a Catiline or an Aeschines, and government by newspapers is as tyrannous as was the rule of Nero, Louis XI, or George III. The questions of the tariff, the trusts, finance, religion, education, and civic justice are burning, vital ones that closely affect the well-being of man on earth and his preparation for a larger existence in a hopeful spiritual future, and they should be plainly and honestly presented, clearly discussed, and justly settled. These results cannot be reached through papers that are owned by the great financiers and trust magnates, and where the complaints and demands of the people receive scant consideration. Wherein, then, lie the hopes of the masses? In the power of the spoken word. All great reforms, through all ages, have been brought about by the voiced thoughts of men who not only knew their rights but had the courage that gave them the ability to enforce them. A band of noble missionaries should be created, composed of men and women who not only have ideas concerning the questions of today but who know how to express those ideas by word of mouth.

The eighteenth century produced oratorical giants that were undoubtedly equal in many cases to the orators of Greece and Rome in their palmiest days. Such men as the Earl of Chatham, Charles James Fox, Henry Grattan, Lord Brougham, Thomas Erskine, and William C. Plunket of Great Britain, and James Otis, Samuel Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Patrick Henry, and Richard Henry Lee of America, compare favorably with any group of ancient orators existing within a like period of time; while in behalf of the nineteenth century, America boasts of Pinckney, Prentiss, Wirt, Clay, Calhoun, Everett, Choate, Phillips, Lincoln, and Webster, and Great Britain points to Gladstone, Cobden, Curran, O’Connell, and Bright. The great rhetorician Burke is not placed among the foremost orators for the reason that he was a great constructor of speeches but not equally great in the art of delivery. His speeches are masterpieces of composition, and live today as such, but he was a poor speaker, and consequently should not be called an orator, because an orator, in the true sense of the word, is primarily a speaker, whereas Burke’s genius consisted of his masterly logic and his marvellous power of composition.

Today, America has many beautiful writers and clever constructors of speeches, but not one really great orator. Theodore Roosevelt and William J. Bryan are two representatives of the best this country can offer in the way of orators, but neither of them measures up to the standard of Edward Everett, Wendell Phillips, or Daniel Webster. The main reason for the dearth of real orators is the lack of training in the art of delivery. Much attention is given to gaining a knowledge of the matter that is to be spoken, but little consideration is given to the delivery of that matter to the listener after once it has been gathered by the speaker. It is unfortunate that men like John Mitchell and Dr. Washington Gladden, who are standing up so nobly for the rights of labor, should be poorly equipped as speakers. Both these men possess noble thoughts which read impressively, but, when spoken, lack much force and power, on account of the poor delivery.

This point can be illustrated further by citing the manner and delivery of two men well known to the public of today—Andrew Carnegie and John H. Finley. Both have done considerable public speaking, and one is the president of a college.

On a night in 1911, the members of the Young Men’s Bible Class of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church of New York were addressed by these gentlemen. Both were at a considerable disadvantage from the fact that they had been invited to address a “Young Men’s Bible Class,” and as they naturally concluded the class would be composed of young men, they arranged their speeches accordingly; consequently, their plans of address were upset on finding that the majority of the class was composed of men close to the half-century mark, and many beyond it; or, as Mr. Carnegie wittily stated it, “with parts in their hair a lot wider than my own.”

However, no exception could be taken to the matter of either speaker, although both changed their themes on finding the audience more matured in years than they had expected, and both had to pocket their notes on the subjects upon which they had intended to talk, and to speak extemporaneously. Both speakers cleverly switched to matters upon which they were thoroughly informed—Mr. Carnegie narrating events in his busy and influential life, and Dr. Finley discussing how to get the most benefit out of a twenty-four hour day. The matter of both was good, but the manner was unsatisfactory. Mr. Carnegie talked in a pleasant, conversational way which would have been most enjoyable had it not been that his delivery was slow. His utterance was often so slow as to mar the expressive force of his good language. He also leaned on the reading desk in front of him, not because he needed physical support, he looked strong and rugged on the eve of his seventy-sixth birthday, but from the force of a bad habit.

He was perfectly at home before the audience, spoke in clear tones, at times with considerable force, particularly when quoting from Rev. John Home’s tragedy of “Douglas,” was winning in manner, took immediate hold of his audience, was witty in appropriate places, and would have been altogether delightful but for length and attitude. Mr. Carnegie was perfectly at home while facing the audience, and had his delivery equaled his matter, the speech would have been a most happy and effective one.

From Dr. Finley, because of his being President of the College of the City of New York, one might reasonably expect much in the way of delivery, but on this occasion the assembly received less than from the other speaker. He stood on the platform awkwardly, hands in pockets most of the time, and seldom did he utter a really smooth sentence, but separated his words in a manner to irritate the audience. He would say, for instance, “We—have—been—progressing—upward—and—onward—for—millions—of—years—,” as though he had only one word in his mind at a time, whereas the learned President’s head was full of grand and glorious thoughts that only needed to be spoken in phrases and sentences, instead of single words, in order to make him a most instructive and entertaining speaker. Dr. Finley’s matter was well arranged, his diction excellent, but his delivery was unfortunate.

The orators of old, with few exceptions, studied the art of delivery as faithfully as they studied rhetoric, as did the British and American orators of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but the public speakers of the twentieth century sadly neglect this most important part of the speaker’s art. Dr. Arthur T. Hadley, President of Yale University, is an able and learned man whose compositions are chaste and effective but whose delivery mars the force of his matter. He looks down on the floor immediately in front of him, instead of sweeping his glance over his audience, awkwardly swings his arms, and speaks his lines as though he were wound up and compelled to utter his matter within the given time. This is said with all respect to the famous educator, but his style of delivery should be avoided. Educators, more than most professional men, should be entertaining and convincing speakers, but, as a rule, they are woefully deficient in the qualities necessary to the making of orators. They, of all men, should set an example to the generation that is soon to take up the duties of life, and if college presidents improved their delivery, a long step would be taken toward making them oratorical beacons for the guidance of their students.

William J. Bryan, one of the best orators, if not the best, of today, owes his success mainly to his delivery. It is not so much what he says but how he says it that makes him a successful speaker. He possesses a rich, strong, and flexible voice that adds greatly to the effectiveness of his matter, and his speeches invariably sound better than they read. He will hold an audience absolutely in hand, sway it at his will, and force it against its inclination momentarily to agree with him, even though, after mature deliberation, his reasoning may be disputed and his conclusions rejected. Mr. Bryan’s power lies not in the beauty or force of his composition but in his mastery over the spoken word.

Theodore Roosevelt, contrary to the views of many, is, in the opinion of the author, an orator. He is not merely a speaker, because his speeches possess him as much as he possesses his speeches. He impresses an audience by his sincerity, convinces it by his reasoning, and persuades it by his earnestness. His matter reads as well as it sounds, thus demonstrating his ability as a rhetorician, his manner is graceful and forceful, and the general feeling, after listening to one of his addresses, is that a master has spoken. The author has heard Mr. Roosevelt many times during the past twenty years, and the improvement in his delivery is marked. There was a time when everything was sacrificed to force, he would snap his jaws and try to drive the voice through his clenched teeth, but now his enunciation is clear, and his entire delivery delightful. This shows the good that is to be derived from a speaker considering his manner as well as his matter.

Joseph H. Choate and W. Bourke Cockran are excellent examples of effective speakers of a decade or so ago, the former having been the most alluring and convincing in both his matter and his manner, and the latter entrancing and powerful in diction and delivery.

Forensic oratory has almost ceased to exist, while pulpit oratory is rarely to be found. This is a sad state of affairs, and requires immediate attention if the art of all arts is to be saved from extinction. The two essentials most missing in our public speakers are constructive skill and effective delivery—some lacking in one and some in the other—and the author asserts that great orators will not arise until both these essentials are found in the one man. Two thousand years ago Cicero, discoursing on oratory, said:

And why need I add any remarks of delivery itself, which is to be ordered by action of body, by gesture, by look, and by modulation and variation of the voice, the great power of which, alone and in itself, the comparatively trivial art of actors and the stage proves; on which though all bestow their utmost labor to form their look, voice, and gesture, who knows not how few there are, and have ever been, to whom we can attend with patience? . . . In those arts in which it is not indispensable usefulness that is sought, but liberal amusement for the mind, how nicely, how almost fastidiously, do we judge? For there are no suits or controversies which can force men, though they may tolerate indifferent orators in the forum, to endure also bad actors upon the stage. The orator, therefore, must take the most studious precaution not merely to satisfy those whom he necessarily must satisfy, but to seem worthy of admiration to those who are at liberty to judge disinterestedly.

How many modern orators measure up to this standard set by the ancient master? The author knows of none.

How is one to obtain an effective delivery?

By close observation, hard study, and diligent practice. The student should observe his delivery, note the defects in breathing, voice production, articulation, inflection, and emphasis, and correct them; he should be sure to understand all he aims to explain, see all he desires others to see, and believe all he aims to make others believe. No speaker whose delivery is poor will be able to hold, convince, and persuade an audience, and unless he can do these three things he should refrain from speaking, as no man possesses a valid commission publicly to address his fellows unless he has a message to communicate and knows how to deliver it.

EXAMPLES OF MODERN ORATORY

PATRICK HENRY

Liberty or Death[1] (1775)

No man thinks more highly than I do of patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the house. But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope it will not be thought disrespectful of those gentlemen, if, entertaining as I do, opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve. This is no time for ceremony. The question before the house is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than the question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfil the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offence, I should consider myself as guilty of treason toward my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.

Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those, who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British Ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House. Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, What means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us; they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British Ministry have been so long forging. And, what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find, which have not already been exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the Ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted: our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free—if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending—if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon, until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained—we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us!

They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every home? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone, it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat, but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable—and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace—but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

DANIEL WEBSTER

On the Clay Compromise[2]

(Known as “The Seventh of March Speech,” 1850)

Slavery did exist in the states before the adoption of this Constitution, and at that time. Let us, therefore, consider for a moment what was the state of sentiment, North and South, in regard to slavery—in regard to slavery at the time this Constitution was adopted. A remarkable change has taken place since; but what did the wise and great men of all parts of the country think of slavery then? In what estimation did they hold it at the time when this Constitution was adopted? It will be found, sir, if we will carry ourselves by historical research back to that day, and ascertain men’s opinions by authentic records still existing among us, that there was no diversity of opinion between the North and the South upon the subject of slavery. It will be found that both parts of the country held it equally an evil, a moral and political evil. It will not be found that, either at the North or at the South, there was much, though there was some, invective against slavery as inhuman and cruel.

The great ground of objection to it was political; that it weakened the social fabric; that, taking the place of free labor, society became less strong and labor less productive; and therefore we find from all the eminent men of the time and clearest expression of their opinion that slavery is an evil. They ascribed its existence here, not without truth, and not without some acerbity of temper and force of language, to the injurious policy of the mother country, who, to favor the navigator, had entailed these evils upon the Colonies.

The whole interest of the South became connected, more or less, with the extension of slavery. If we look back to the history of the commerce of this country in the early years of this government, what were our exports? Cotton was hardly, or but to a very limited extent, known. In 1791 the first parcel of cotton of the growth of the United States was exported, and amounted only to 19,200 pounds. It has gone on increasing rapidly, until the whole crop may now, perhaps, in a season of great product and high prices, amount to a hundred millions of dollars. In the years I have mentioned, there was more of wax, more of indigo, more of rice, more of almost every article of export from the South, than of cotton. When Mr. Jay negotiated the treaty of 1794 with England, it is evident from the Twelfth Article of the Treaty, which was suspended by the Senate, that he did not know that cotton was exported at all from the United States.

Mr. President, in the excited times in which we live, there is found to exist a state of crimination and recrimination between the North and the South. There are lists of grievances produced by each; and these grievances, real or supposed, alienate the minds of one portion of the country from the other, exasperate the feelings, and subdue the sense of fraternal affection, patriotic love, and mutual regard. I shall bestow a little attention, sir, upon those various grievances existing on the one side and on the other. I begin with complaints of the South. I will not answer, further than I have, the general statements of the honorable senator from South Carolina, that the North has prospered at the expense of the South in consequence of the manner of administering the government, in the collection of its revenues, and so forth. These are disputed topics, and I have no inclination to enter into them.

But I will allude to other complaints of the South, and especially to one which has, in my opinion, just foundation, and that is, that there has been found at the North, among individuals and among legislators, a disinclination to perform fully their constitutional duties in regard to the return of persons bound to service who have escaped into the free States. In that respect, the South, in my judgment, is right, and the North is wrong. Every member of every Northern Legislature is bound by oath, like every other officer in the country, to support the Constitution of the United States; and the article of the Constitution which says to these states that they shall deliver up fugitives from service, is as binding in honor and conscience as any other article. No man fulfils his duty in any legislature who sets himself to find excuses, evasions, escapes from this constitutional obligation. I have always thought that the Constitution addressed itself to the legislatures of the states or the states themselves. It says that those persons escaping to other states “shall be delivered up,” and I confess I have always been of the opinion that it was an injunction upon the states themselves. When it is said that a person escaping into another state, and coming therefore within the jurisdiction of that state, shall be delivered up, it seems to me the import of the clause is, that the state itself, in obedience to the Constitution, shall cause him to be delivered up. That is my judgment. I have always entertained that opinion, and I entertain it now.

Then, sir, there are abolition societies, of which I am unwilling to speak, but in regard to which I have very clear notions and opinions. I do not think them useful. I think their operations for the last twenty years have produced nothing good or valuable. At the same time, I believe thousands of their members to be honest and good men, perfectly well-meaning men. They have excited feelings; they think they must do something for the cause of liberty; and, in their sphere of action, they do not see what else they can do than to contribute to an abolition press, or an abolition society, or to pay an abolition lecturer.

I do not mean to impute gross motives even to the leaders of these societies, but I am not blind to the consequences of their proceedings. I can not but see what mischief their interference with the South has produced. And is it not plain to every man? Let any gentleman who entertains doubts on this point, recur to the debates in the Virginia House of Delegates in 1832, and he will see with what freedom a proposition made by Mr. Jefferson Randolph, for the gradual abolition of slavery was discussed in that body. Every one spoke of slavery, as he thought; very ignominious and disparaging names and epithets were applied to it. The debates in the House of Delegates on that occasion, I believe were all published. They were read by every colored man who could read, and to those who could not read, those debates were read by others. At that time Virginia was not unwilling or afraid to discuss this question, and to let that part of her population know as much of the discussion as they could learn.

That was in 1832. As has been said by the honorable member from South Carolina, these abolition societies commenced their course of action in 1835. It is said, I do not know how true it may be, that they sent incendiary publications into the slave states; at any rate, they attempted to arouse, and did arouse, a very strong feeling; in other words, they created great agitation in the North against southern slavery. Well, what was the result? The bonds of the slaves were bound more firmly than before; their rivets were more strongly fastened. Public opinion, which in Virginia had begun to be exhibited against slavery, and was opening out for the discussion of the question, drew back and shut itself up in its castle. I wish to know whether anybody in Virginia can now talk openly, as Mr. Randolph, Governor McDowell, and others talked in 1832, and sent their remarks to the press. We all know the fact, and we all know the cause; and everything that these agitating people have done has been, not to enlarge, but to restrain, not to act free, but to bind faster, the slave population of the South.

Mr. President, I should much prefer to have heard from every member on this floor declarations of opinion that this Union could never be dissolved, than the declaration of opinion by anybody, that in any case, under the pressure of any circumstances, such a dissolution was possible. I hear with distress and anguish the word “secession” especially when it falls from the lips of those who are patriotic, and known to the country, and known all over the world for their political services. Secession! peaceable secession! Sir, your eyes and mine are never destined to see that miracle. The dismemberment of this vast country without convulsion! The breaking up of the foundations of the great deep without ruffling the surface! Who is so foolish—I beg everybody’s pardon—as to expect to see any such thing?

Sir, he who sees these states now revolving in harmony around a common center, and expects to see them quit their places and fly off without convulsion, may look the next hour to see the heavenly bodies rush from their spheres, and jostle against each other in the realms of space, without causing the crush of the universe. There can be no such thing as a peaceable secession. Peaceable secession is an utter impossibility. Is the great Constitution under which we live, covering this whole country, is it to be thawed and melted away by secession, as the snows on the mountains melt under the influence of a vernal sun, disappear almost unobserved, and run off? No, sir! No, sir! I will not state what might produce the disruption of the Union; but sir, I see, as plainly as I see the sun in heaven, what the disruption itself must produce; I see that it must produce war, and such a war as I will not describe, in its twofold character.

Peaceable secession! peaceable secession! The concurrent agreement of all the members of this great Republic to separate! A voluntary separation, with alimony on one side and on the other. Why, what would be the result? Where is the line to be drawn? What states are to secede? What is to remain American? What am I to be? An American no longer? Am I to become a sectional man, a local man, a separatist, with no country in common with the gentlemen who sit around me here, or who fill the other House of Congress? Heaven forbid! Where is the flag of the Republic to remain? Where is the eagle still to tower?—or is he to cower, and shrink, and fall to the ground?

Why, sir, our ancestors—our fathers and our grandfathers, those of them that are yet living among us, with prolonged lives—would rebuke and reproach us; and our children and our grandchildren would cry out shame upon us, if we, of this generation, would dishonor these ensigns of the power of the government and the harmony of that Union, which is every day felt among us with so much joy and gratitude. What is to become of the army? What is to become of the navy? What is to become of the public lands? How is any one of the thirty states to defend itself?

Sir, we could not sit down here today, and draw a line of separation that would satisfy any five men in the country. There are natural causes that would keep and tie us together; and there are social and domestic relations which we could not break if we would, and which we should not if we could.

Sir, nobody can look over the face of this country, at the present moment, nobody can see where its population is the most dense and growing, without being ready to admit, and compelled to admit, that ere long the strength of America will be in the valley of the Mississippi. Well, now, sir, I beg to inquire what the wildest enthusiast has to say on the possibility of cutting that river in two, and leaving free states at its source and on its branches, and slave states down near its mouth, each forming a separate government? Pray, sir, let me say to the people of this country, that these things are worthy of their pondering and of their consideration. Here, sir, are five millions of freemen in the free states north of the river Ohio.

Can anybody suppose that this population can be severed, by a line that divides them from the territory of a foreign and alien government, down somewhere, the Lord knows where, upon the lower banks of the Mississippi? What would become of Missouri? Will she join the arrondissement of the slave states? Shall the man from the Yellowstone and the Platte be connected, in the new Republic, with the man who lives on the southern extremity of the Cape of Florida? Sir, I am ashamed to pursue this line of remark. I dislike it; I have an utter disgust for it. I would rather hear of natural blasts and mildews, war, pestilence, and famine, than to hear gentlemen talk of secession. To break up this great government! to dismember this glorious country! to astonish Europe with an act of folly such as Europe for two centuries has never beheld in any government or any people! No, sir! no, sir! There will be no secession! Gentlemen are not serious when they talk of secession.

And now, Mr. President, instead of speaking of the possibility or utility of secession, instead of dwelling in these caverns of darkness, instead of groping with those ideas so full of all that is horrid and horrible, let us come out into the light of day; let us enjoy the fresh air of liberty and union; let us cherish those hopes which belong to us; let us devote ourselves to those great objects that are fit for our consideration and our action; let us raise our conceptions to the magnitude and the importance of the duties that devolve upon us; let our comprehension be as broad as the country for which we act, our aspirations as high as its certain destiny; let us not be pigmies in a case that calls for men. Never did there devolve on any generation of men higher trusts than now devolve upon us, for the preservation of this Constitution, and the harmony and peace of all who are destined to live under it. Let us make our generation one of the strongest and brightest links in that golden chain, which is destined, I fondly believe, to grapple the people of all the states to this Constitution for ages to come.

We have a great, popular, constitutional government, guarded by law and by judicature, and defended by the whole affections of the people. No monarchic throne presses these states together; no iron chain of military power encircles them; they live and stand upon a government popular in its form, representative in its character, founded upon principles of equality, and so constructed, we hope, as to last forever. In all its history it has been beneficent; it has trodden no man’s liberty; it has crushed no state. Its daily respiration is liberty and patriotism; its yet youthful veins are full of enterprise, courage, and honorable love of glory and renown. Large before, the country has now, by recent events, become vastly larger. This Republic now extends, with a vast breadth, across the whole continent. The two great seas of the world wash the one and the other shore. We realize, on a mighty scale, the beautiful description of the ornamental edging of the buckler of Achilles—

Now the broad shield complete, the artist crowned
With his last hand, and poured the ocean round:
In living silver seemed the waves to roll,
And beat the buckler’s verge, and bound the whole.

ROBERT YOUNG HAYNE

On the Foote Revolution[3] (1830)

When the gentleman from Massachusetts adopts and reiterates the old charge of weakness as resulting from slavery, I must be permitted to call for the proof of those blighting effects which he ascribes to its influence. I suspect that when the subject is closely examined, it will be found that there is not much force even in the plausible objection of the want of physical power in slave-holding states. The power of a country is compounded of its population and its wealth, and in modern times, where, from the very form and structure of society, by far the greater portion of the people must, even during the continuance of the most desolating wars, be employed in the cultivation of the soil and other peaceful pursuits, it may be well doubted whether slave-holding states, by reason of the superior value of their productions, are not able to maintain a number of troops in the field fully equal to what could be supported by states with a larger white population, but not possessed of equal resources.

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There is a spirit which, like the father of evil, is constantly “walking to and fro.” It is the spirit of false philanthropy. The persons whom it possesses do not indeed throw themselves into the flames, but they are employed in lighting up the torches of discord throughout the community. Their first principle of action is to leave their own affairs, and neglect their own duties, to regulate the affairs and duties of others. Theirs is the task to feed the hungry and clothe the naked of other lands, while they thrust the naked, famished, and shivering beggar from their own doors—to instruct the heathen while their own children want the bread of life.

When this spirit infuses itself into the bosom of a statesman (if one so possessed can be called a statesman), it converts him at once into a visionary enthusiast. Then it is that he indulges in golden dreams of national greatness and prosperity. He discovers that “liberty is power,” and, not content with vast schemes of improvement at home which it would bankrupt the treasury of the world to execute, he flies to foreign lands to fulfil obligations to “the human race,” by inculcating the principles of “political and religious liberty,” and promoting the “general welfare” of the whole human race. It is a spirit which has long been busy with the slaves of the South and is even now displaying itself in vain efforts to drive the government from its wise policy in relation to the Indians. It is this spirit which has filled the land with thousands of wild and visionary projects which can have no effect but to waste the energies and dissipate the resources of the country. It is the spirit of which the aspiring politician dexterously avails himself when, by inscribing on his banner the magical words, Liberty and Philanthropy, he draws to his support that class of persons who are ready to bow down at the very name of their idols.

But, sir, whatever difference of opinion may exist as to the effect of slavery on national wealth and prosperity, if we may trust to experience, there can be no doubt that it has never yet produced any injurious effect on individual or national character. Look through the whole history of the country from the commencement of the Revolution down to the present hour; where are there to be found brighter examples of intellectual and moral greatness than have been exhibited by the sons of the South? From the Father of his Country down to the distinguished chieftain who has been elevated by a grateful people to the highest office in their gift, the interval is filled up by a long line of orators, of statesmen, and of heroes, justly entitled to rank among the ornaments of their country, and the benefactors of mankind. Look at “the Old Dominion,” great and magnanimous Virginia, “whose jewels are her sons.” Is there any State in this Union which has contributed so much to the honor and welfare of the country? Sir, I will yield the whole question—I will acknowledge the fatal effects of slavery upon character, if any one can say that for noble disinterestedness, ardent love of country, exalted virtue, and a pure and holy devotion to liberty, the people of the southern states have ever been surpassed by any in the world.

The senator from Massachusetts tells us that the tariff is not an eastern measure, and treats it as if the East had no interest in it. The senator from Missouri insists it is not a western measure, and that it has done no good to the West. The South comes in, and in the most earnest manner represents to you that this measure, which we are told “is of no value to the East or the West” is “utterly destructive of our interests.” We represent to you that it has spread ruin and devastation through the land and prostrated our hopes in the dust. We solemnly declare that we believe the system to be wholly unconstitutional and a violation of the compact between the states and the Union; and our brethren turn a deaf ear to our complaints, and refuse to relieve us from a system “which not enriches them, but makes us poor indeed.” Good God! Mr. President, has it come to this? Do gentlemen hold the feelings and wishes of their brethren at so cheap a rate that they refuse to gratify them at so small a price? Do gentlemen value so lightly the peace and harmony of the country that they will not yield a measure of this description to the affectionate entreaties and earnest remonstrances of their friends? Do gentlemen estimate the value of the Union at so low a price that they will not even make one effort to bind the states together with the cords of affection? And has it come to this? Is this the spirit in which this government is to be administered? If so, let me tell, gentlemen, the seeds of dissolution are already sown, and our children will reap the bitter fruit.

What, sir, was the conduct of the South during the Revolution? Sir, I honor New England for her conduct in that glorious struggle. But great as is the praise which belongs to her I think at least equal honor is due to the South. They espoused the quarrel of their brethren with a generous zeal which did not suffer them to stop to calculate their interest in the dispute. Favorites of the mother country, possessed of neither ships nor seamen to create a commercial rivalship, they might have found in their situation a guaranty that their trade would be forever fostered and protected by Great Britain. But trampling on all consideration either of interest or of safety, they rushed into the conflict and fighting for principle, periled all in the sacred cause of freedom. Never was there exhibited in the history of the world higher examples of noble daring, dreadful suffering, and heroic endurance than by the Whigs of Carolina during the Revolution. The whole state, from the mountains to the sea, was overrun by an overwhelming force of the enemy. The fruits of industry perished on the spot where they were produced, or were consumed by the foe. The “plains of Carolina” drank up the most precious blood of her citizens! Black and smoking ruins marked the places which had been the habitations of her children! Driven from their homes into the gloomy and almost impenetrable swamps, even there the spirit of liberty survived, and South Carolina (sustained by the example of her Sumpters and her Marions) proved by her conduct that though the soil might be overrun, the spirit of her people was invincible.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

The “House Divided Against Itself” Speech[4] (1858)

If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it, we are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation not only has not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. “A house divided against itself can not stand.” I believe this government can not endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall; but I do expect that it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new, North as well as South. Have we no tendency to the latter condition? Let any one who doubts carefully contemplate that now almost complete legal combination-piece of machinery, so to speak—compounded of the Nebraska doctrine and the Dred Scott decision.

Put this and that together, and we have another nice little niche, which we may, ere long, see filled with another Supreme Court decision, declaring that the Constitution of the United States does not permit a state to exclude slavery from its limits. And this may especially be expected if the doctrine of “care not whether slavery be voted down or voted up,” shall gain upon the public mind sufficiently to give promise that such a decision can be maintained when made.

Such a decision is all that slavery now lacks of being alike lawful in all the states. Welcome or unwelcome, such decision is probably coming, and will soon be upon us, unless the power of the present political dynasty shall be met and overthrown. We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their state free, and we shall awake to the reality, instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave state. To meet and overthrow that dynasty is the work before all those who would prevent that consummation. That is what we have to do. How can we best do it?

There are those who denounce us openly to their own friends and yet whisper to us softly that Senator Douglas is the aptest instrument there is with which to effect that object. They wish us to infer all, from the fact that he now has a little quarrel with the present head of the dynasty; and that he has regularly voted with us on a single point, upon which he and we have never differed. They remind us that he is a great man and that the largest of us are very small ones. Let this be granted. “But a living dog is better than a dead lion.” Judge Douglas, if not a dead lion, for this work, is at least a caged and toothless one.

How can he oppose the advance of slavery? He does not care anything about it. His avowed mission is impressing the “public heart” to care nothing about it. A leading Douglas Democratic newspaper thinks Douglas’s superior talent will be needed to resist the revival of the African slave-trade. Does Douglas believe an effort to revive that trade is approaching? He has not said so. Does he really think so? But if it is, how can he resist it? For years he has labored to prove it is a sacred right of white men to take negro slaves into the new territories. Can he possibly show that it is less a sacred right to buy them where they can be bought cheapest? And unquestionably they can be bought cheaper in Africa than in Virginia.

He has done all in his power to reduce the whole question of slavery to one of a mere right of property; and as such, how can he oppose the foreign slave-trade? How can he refuse that trade in that “property” shall be “perfectly free,” unless he does it as a protection to the home production? And as the home producers will probably ask the protection, he will be wholly without a ground of opposition.

Senator Douglas holds, we know, that a man may rightfully be wiser today than he was yesterday—that he may rightfully change when he finds himself wrong. But can we, for that reason run ahead, and infer that he will make any particular change, of which he himself has given no intimation? Can we safely base our action upon any such vague inference? Now, as ever, I wish not to misrepresent Judge Douglas’s position, question his motives, or do aught that can be personally offensive to him. Whenever, if ever, he and we can come together on principle, so that our cause may have assistance from his great ability, I hope to have interposed no adventitious obstacle. But, clearly, he is not now with us—he does not pretend to be, he does not promise ever to be.

Our cause, then, must be entrusted to, and conducted by, its own undoubted friends—those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work—who do care for the result. Two years ago the Republicans of the nation mustered over thirteen hundred thousand strong. We did this under the single impulse of resistance to a common danger. With every external circumstance against us, of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought the battle through, under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy. Did we brave all then, to falter now?—now, when that same energy is wavering, dissevered, and belligerent! The result is not doubtful. We shall not fail—if we stand firm, we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate, or mistakes delay it; but, sooner or later, the victory is sure to come.

On Leaving Springfield[5]

My friends, no one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place and the kindness of this people I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born and one is buried.

I now leave, not knowing when or whether ever I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him I can not succeed. With that assistance I can not fail.

Trusting in Him who can go with me and remain with you and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell.

WENDELL PHILLIPS

On the Murder of Lovejoy[6] (1837)

A comparison has been drawn between the events of the Revolution and the tragedy at Alton. We have heard it stated here in Faneuil Hall, that Great Britain had a right to tax the Colonies; and we have heard the mob at Alton, the drunken murderers of Lovejoy, compared to those patriot fathers who threw the tea overboard! Fellow citizens, is this Faneuil Hall doctrine? The mob at Alton were met to wrest from a citizen his just rights—met to resist the laws. We have been told that our fathers did the same; and the glorious mantle of Revolutionary precedent has been thrown over the mobs of our day. To make out their title to such defense the gentleman says that the British Parliament had a right to tax these Colonies.

It is manifest that, without this, his parallel falls to the ground; for Lovejoy had stationed himself within constitutional bulwarks. He was not only defending the freedom of the press, but he was under his own roof, in arms with the sanction of the civil authority. The men who assailed him went against and over the laws. The mob, as the gentleman terms it—mob, forsooth! certainly we sons of the tea-spillers are a marvelously patient generation!—the “orderly mob” which assembled in the Old South to destroy the tea were met to resist, not the laws, but illegal exactions! Shame on the American who calls the tea tax and Stamp Act laws! Our fathers resisted not the king’s prerogative, but the king’s usurpation. To find any other account, you must read our Revolutionary history upside down. Our state archives are loaded with arguments of John Adams to prove the taxes laid by the British Parliament unconstitutional—beyond its power. It was not till this was made out that the men of New England rushed to arms. The arguments of the Council-chamber and the House of Representatives preceded and sanctioned the contest.

To draw the conduct of our ancestors into a precedent for mobs, for a right to resist laws we ourselves have enacted, is an insult to their memory. The difference between the excitements of those days and our own, which the gentleman in kindness to the latter has overlooked, is simply this: the men of that day went for the right, as secured by the laws. They were the people rising to sustain the laws and Constitution of the province. The rioters of our day go for their own wills, right or wrong. Sir, when I heard the gentleman lay down principles which place the murderers of Alton side by side with Otis and Hancock, with Quincy and Adams, I thought those pictured lips [pointing to the portraits in the hall] would have broken into voice to rebuke the recreant American—the slanderer of the dead. The gentleman said that he should sink into insignificance if he dared not gainsay the principles of these resolutions. Sir, for the sentiments he has uttered, on soil consecrated by the prayers of Puritans and the blood of patriots, the earth should have yawned and swallowed him up.

Fellow citizens, I can not take back my words. Surely, the attorney-general, so long and well known here, needs not the aid of your hisses against one so young as I am—my voice never before heard within these walls!

Another ground has been taken to excuse the mob, and throw doubt and discredit on the conduct of Lovejoy and his associates. Allusion has been made to what lawyers understand very well—the “conduct of laws.” We are told that nothing but the Mississippi River rolls between St. Louis and Alton; and the conflict of laws somehow or other give the citizens of the former a right to find fault with the defender of the press for publishing his opinions so near their limits. Will the gentleman venture that argument before lawyers? How the laws of the two states could be said to come into conflict in such circumstances I question whether any lawyer in this audience can explain or understand. No matter whether the line that divides one sovereign state from another be an imaginary one or ocean-wide, the moment you cross it, the state you leave is blotted out of existence, so far as you are concerned. The Czar might as well claim to control the deliberations of Faneuil Hall, as the laws of Missouri demand reverence, or the shadow of obedience, from an inhabitant of Illinois.

I must find some fault with the statement which has been made of the events at Alton. It has been asked why Lovejoy and his friends did not appeal to the executive—trust their defenses to the police of the city. It has been hinted that, from hasty and ill-judged excitement, the men within the building provoked a quarrel, and that he fell in the course of it—one mob resisting another. Recollect, sir, that they did act with approbation and sanction of the mayor. In strict truth there was no executive to appeal to for protection. The mayor acknowledged that he could not protect them. They asked him if it was lawful for them to defend themselves. He told them it was, and sanctioned their assembling in arms to do so. They were not, then, a mob, they were not merely citizens defending their own property; they were in some sense the posse comitatus, adopted for the occasion into the police of the city, acting under the order of a magistrate. It was civil authority resisting lawless violence. Where, then, was the imprudence? Is the doctrine to be sustained here that it is imprudent for men to aid magistrates in executing the laws?

Men are continually asking each other, had Lovejoy a right to resist? Sir, I protest against the question instead of answering it. Lovejoy did not resist, in the sense they mean. He did not throw himself back on the natural right of self-defense. He did not cry anarchy, and let slip the dogs of civil war, careless of the horrors which would follow.

Sir, as I understand this affair, it was not an individual protecting his property; it was not one body of armed men resisting another, and making the streets of a peaceful city run blood with their contentions. It did not bring back the scenes to old Indian cities, where family met family, and faction met faction, and mutually trampled the laws under foot. No! the men in that house were regularly enrolled under the sanction of the mayor. There being no militia in Alton, about seventy men were enrolled, with the approbation of the mayor. These relieved each other every other night. About thirty men were in arms on the night of the sixth, when the press was landed. The next evening it was not thought necessary to summon more than half that number; among these was Lovejoy. It was, therefore, you perceive, sir, the police of the city resisting rioters—civil government breasting itself to the shock of lawless men.

Here is no question about the right of self-defense. It is in fact simply this: Has the civil magistrate a right to put down a riot?

It has been stated, perhaps inadvertently, that Lovejoy or his comrades fired first. This is denied by those who have the best means of knowing. Guns were first fired by the mob. After being twice fired on, those within the building consulted together and deliberately returned the fire. But suppose they did fire first. They had a right so to do—not only the right which every citizen has to defend himself, but the further right which every civil officer has to resist violence. Even if Lovejoy fired the first gun, it would not lessen his claim to our sympathy or destroy his title to be considered a martyr in defense of a free press. The question now is, did he act within the Constitution and the laws? The men who fell in State Street on the 5th of March, 1770, did more than Lovejoy is charged with. They were the first assailants. Upon some slight quarrel they pelted the troops with every missile within reach. Did this bate one jot of the eulogy with which Hancock and Warren hallowed their memory, hailing them as the first martyrs in the cause of American liberty?

If, sir, I had adopted what are called peace principles, I might lament the circumstances of this case. But all you who believe, as I do, in the right and duty of magistrates to execute the laws, join with me and brand as base hypocrisy the conduct of those who assemble year after year on the Fourth of July to fight over the battles of the Revolution, and yet “damn with faint praise” or load with obloquy the memory of this man who shed his blood in defense of life, liberty, property, and the freedom of the press!

Imagine yourself present when the first news of Bunker Hill Battle reached a New England town. The tale would have run thus: “The patriots are routed—the redcoats victorious—Warren lies dead upon the field.” With what scorn would that Tory have been received who should have charged Warren with imprudence! who should have said that, bred a physician, he was “out of place” in that battle, and “died as a fool dieth!” How would the intimation have been received that Warren and his associations should have waited a better time? But, if success be indeed the only criterion of prudence, Respice finem—Wait till the end.

Mr. Chairman, from the bottom of my heart I thank that brave band at Alton for resisting. We must remember that Lovejoy had fled from city to city; suffered the destruction of three presses patiently. At length he took counsel with friends; men of character, of tried integrity, of wide views, of Christian principle. They thought the crisis had come. It was full time to assert the laws. They saw around them, not a community like our own, of fixed habits, of character molded and settled, but one “in the gristle, not yet hardened into the bone of manhood.” The people there, children of our older states, seem to have forgotten the blood-tried principles of their fathers the moment they lost sight of our New England hills. Something was to be done to show them the priceless value of the freedom of the press, to bring back and set right their wandering and confused ideas. He and his advisers looked out on a community staggering like a drunken man, indifferent to their rights, and confused in their feelings. Deaf to argument, haply they might be stunned into sobriety. They saw that of which we can not judge: the necessity of resistance. Insulted law called for it. Public opinion, fast hastening on the downward course, must be arrested.

Does not the event show they judged rightly? Absorbed in a thousand trifles, how has the Nation all at once come to a stand! Men begin, as in 1779 and 1640, to discuss principles, to weigh characters, to find out where they are. Haply we may awake before we are borne over the precipice.

I am glad, sir, to see this crowded house. It is good for us to be here. When liberty is in danger, Faneuil Hall has the right, it is her duty, to strike the keynote for these United States. I am glad, for one reason, that remarks such as those to which I have alluded have been uttered here. The passage of these resolutions, in spite of this oppression, led by the attorney-general of the commonwealth, will show more clearly, more decisively, the deep indignation with which Boston regards this outrage.

JEFFERSON DAVIS

On Withdrawing from the Union[7] (1861)

I rise, Mr. President, for the purpose of announcing to the Senate that I have satisfactory evidence that the State of Mississippi, by a solemn ordinance of her people in convention assembled, has declared her separation from the United States. Under these circumstances, of course, my functions are terminated here. It has seemed to me proper, however, that I should appear in the Senate to announce that fact to my associates, and I will say but very little more. The occasion does not invite me to go into argument, and my physical condition would not permit me to do so if it were otherwise; and yet it seems to become me to say something on the part of the state I here represent, on an occasion so solemn as this.

It is known to senators who have served with me here that I have for many years advocated, as an essential attribute of state sovereignty, the right of a state to secede from the Union. Therefore, if I had not believed there was justifiable cause; if I had thought that Mississippi was acting without sufficient provocation, or without an existing necessity, I should still, under my theory of the government, because of my allegiance to the state of which I am a citizen, have been bound by her action. I, however, may be permitted to say that I do think she has justifiable cause, and I approve of her act. I conferred with her people before the act was taken, counseled them then that if the state of things which they apprehended should exist when the convention met, they should take the action which they have now adopted.

I hope none who hear me will confound this expression of mine with the advocacy of the right of a state to remain in the Union, and to disregard the constitutional obligations by the nullification of the law. Such is not my theory. Nullification and secession, so often confounded, are indeed antagonistic principles. Nullification is a remedy which it is sought to apply within the Union, and against the agent of the states. It is only to be justified when the agent has violated his constitutional obligation, and a state, assuming to judge for itself, denies the right of the agent thus to act, and appeals to the other states of the Union for a decision; but when the states themselves, and when the people of the states, have so acted as to convince us that they will not regard our constitutional rights then, and then for the first time, arises the doctrine of secession in its practical application.

A great man who now reposes with his fathers, and who has been often arraigned for a want of fealty to the Union, advocated the doctrine of nullification because it preserved the Union. It was because of his deep seated attachment to the Union, his determination to find some remedy for existing ills short of a severance of the ties which bound South Carolina to the other states, that Mr. Calhoun advocated the doctrine of nullification, which he proclaimed to be peaceful, to be within the limits of state power, not to disturb the Union, but only to be a means of bringing the agent before the tribunal of the states for their judgment.

Secession belongs to a different class of remedies. It is to be justified upon the basis that the states are sovereign. There was a time when none denied it. I hope the time may come again when a better comprehension of the theory of our government, and the inalienable rights of the people of the states, will prevent any one from denying that each state is a sovereign, and thus may reclaim the grants which it has made to any agent whomsoever.

I therefore say I concur in the action of the people of Mississippi, believing it to be necessary and proper, and should have been bound by their action if my belief had been otherwise; and this brings me to the important point which I wish on this last occasion to present to the Senate. It is by this confounding of nullification and secession that the name of the great man, whose ashes now mingle with his mother earth, has been invoked to justify coercion against a seceded state. The phrase “to execute the laws” was an expression which General Jackson applied to the case of a state refusing to obey the laws while yet a member of the Union. That is not the case which is now presented. The laws are to be executed over the United States, and upon the people of the United States. They have no relation to any foreign country. It is a perversion of terms, at least it is a great misapprehension of the case, which cites that expression for application to a state which has withdrawn from the Union. You may make war on a foreign state. If it be the purpose of gentlemen, they may make war against a state which has withdrawn from the Union; but there are no laws of the United States to be executed within the limits of a seceded state. A state finding itself in the condition in which Mississippi has judged she is, in which her safety requires that she should provide for the maintenance of her rights out of the Union, surrenders all the benefits (and they are known to be many), deprives herself of the advantages (they are known to be great), severs all ties of affection (and they are close and enduring), which have bound her to the Union; and thus divesting herself of every benefit, taking upon herself every burden, she claims to be exempt from any power to execute the laws of the United States within her limits.

I well remember an occasion when Massachusetts was arraigned before the bar of the Senate, and when then the doctrine of coercion was rife and to be applied against her because of the rescue of a fugitive slave in Boston. My opinion then was the same that it is now. Not in a spirit of egotism, but to show that I am not influenced in my opinion because the case is my own, I refer to that time and that occasion as containing the opinion which I then entertained, and on which my present conduct is based. I then said, if Massachusetts, following her through a stated line of conduct, chooses to take the last step which separates her from the Union, it is her right to go, and I will neither vote one dollar nor one man to coerce her back; but will say to her, Godspeed, in memory of the kind associations which once existed between her and the other states.

It has been a conviction of pressing necessity, it has been a belief that we are to be deprived in the Union of the rights which our fathers bequeathed to us, which has brought Mississippi into her present decision. She has heard proclaimed the theory that all men are created free and equal, and this made the basis of an attack upon her social institutions; and the sacred Declaration of Independence has been invoked to maintain the position of the equality of the races. That Declaration of Independence is to be construed by the circumstances and purposes for which it was made. The communities were declaring their independence; the people of those communities were asserting that no man was born—to use the language of Mr. Jefferson—booted and spurred to ride over the rest of mankind; that men were created equal—meaning the men of the political community; that there was no divine right to rule; that no man inherited the right to govern; that there were no classes by which power and place descended to families, but that all stations were equally within the grasp of each member of the body politic. These were the great principles they announced; these were the purposes for which they made their declaration; these were the ends to which their enunciation was directed. They have no reference to the slave, else how happened it that among the items of arraignment made against George III was that he endeavored to do just what the North had been endeavoring of late to do—to stir up insurrection among our slaves? Had the Declaration announced that the negroes were free and equal, how was the prince to be arraigned for stirring up insurrection among them? And how was this to be enumerated among the high crimes which caused the Colonies to sever their connection with the mother country? When our Constitution was formed the same idea was rendered more palpable, for there we find provisions made for that very class of persons as property; they were not put upon the footing of equality with white men—not even upon that of paupers and convicts; but, so far as representation was concerned, were discriminated against as a lower caste, only to be represented in the numerical proportion of three-fifths.

Then, senators, we recur to the compact which binds us together; we recur to the principles upon which our government was founded; and when you deny them, and when you deny us the right to withdraw from a government which, thus perverted, threatens to be destructive to our rights, we but tread in the path of our fathers when we proclaim our independence, and take the hazard.

I find in myself, perhaps, a type of the general feeling of my constituents toward yours, I am sure I feel no hostility to you, senators from the North. I am sure there is not one of you, whatever sharp discussion there may have been between us, to whom I can not now say, in the presence of my God, I wish you well; and such, I am sure, is the feeling of the people whom I represent toward those whom you represent. I therefore feel that I but express their desire when I say I hope, and they hope, for peaceful relations with you, though we must part. They may be mutually beneficial to use in the future as they have been in the past, if you so will it. The reverse may bring disaster on every portion of the country; and if you will have it thus, we will invoke the God of our fathers, who delivered them from the power of the lion, to protect us from the ravages of the bear; and thus, putting our trust in God, and in our firm hearts and strong arms, we will vindicate the rights as best we may.

In the course of my service here, associated at different times with a great variety of senators, I see now around me some with whom I have served long; there have been points of collision; but whatever of offense there has been to me, I leave here; I carry with me no hostile remembrance. Whatever offense I have given which has not been redressed, or for which satisfaction has not been demanded, I have, senators, in this hour of our parting, to offer you my apology for any pain which, in the heat of discussion, I have inflicted. I go hence unencumbered of the remembrance of any injury received, and having discharged the duty of making the only reparation in my power for any injury offered.

Mr. President and senators, having made the announcement which the occasion seemed to me to require, it only remains for me to bid you a final adieu.

ROBERT TOOMBS

On Resigning from the Senate[8] (1861)

The success of the Abolitionists and their allies, under the name of the Republican party, has produced its logical results already. They have for long years been sowing dragons’ teeth and have finally got a crop of armed men. The Union, sir, is dissolved. That is an accomplished fact in the path of this discussion that men may as well heed. One of your confederates has already, wisely, bravely, boldly confronted public danger, she is only ahead of many of her sisters because of her greater facility for speedy action. The greater majority of those sister states, under the circumstances, consider her cause as their cause; and I charge you in their name today: “Touch not Saguntum.”[9] It is not only their cause, but it is a cause which receives the sympathy and will receive the support of tens and hundreds of thousands of honest patriot men in the non-slaveholding states who have hitherto maintained constitutional rights, and who respect their oaths, abide by compacts, and love justice.

And while this Congress, this Senate, and this House of Representatives are debating the constitutionality and the expediency of seceding from the Union, and while the perfidious authors of this mischief are showering down denunciations upon a large portion of the patriotic men of this country, those brave men are coolly and calmly voting what you call revolution—aye, sir, doing better than that: arming to defend it. They appealed to the Constitution, they appealed to justice, they appealed to fraternity, until the Constitution, justice, and fraternity were no longer listened to in the legislative halls of their country, and then, sir, they prepared for the arbitrament of the sword; and now you see the glittering bayonet, and you hear the tramp of armed men from your capital to the Rio Grande. It is a sight that gladdens the eyes and cheers the hearts of other millions ready to second them. Inasmuch, sir, as I have labored earnestly, honestly, sincerely, with these men to avert this necessity so long as I deemed it possible, and inasmuch as I heartily approve their present conduct of resistance, I deem it my duty to state their case to the Senate, to the country, and to the civilized world.

Senators, my countrymen have demanded no new government; they have demanded no new Constitution. Look to their records at home and here from the beginning of this national strife until its consummation in the disruption of the empire, and they have not demanded a single thing except that you shall abide by the Constitution of the United States; that constitutional rights shall be respected, and that justice shall be done. Sirs, they have stood by your Constitution; they have stood by all its requirements, they have performed all its duties unselfishly, uncalculatingly, disinterestedly, until a party sprang up in this country which endangered their social system—a party which they arraign, and which they charge before the American people and all mankind with having made proclamation of outlawry against four thousand millions of their property in the Territories of the United States; with having put them under the ban of the empire in all the states in which their institutions exist outside the protection of federal laws; with having aided and abetted insurrection from within and invasion from without with the view of subverting their institutions, and desolating their homes and their firesides. For these causes they have taken up arms.

I have stated that the discontented states of this Union have demanded nothing by clear, distinct, unequivocal, well-acknowledged constitutional rights—rights affirmed by the highest judicial tribunals of their country; rights older than the Constitution; rights which are planted upon the immutable principles of natural justice; rights which have been affirmed by the good and the wise of all countries, and of all centuries. We demand no power to injure any man. We demand no right to injure our confederate states. We demand no right to interfere with their institutions, either by word or deed. We have no right to disturb their peace, their tranquility, their security. We have demanded of them simply, solely—nothing else—to give us equality, security and tranquility. Give us these, and peace restores itself. Refuse them, and take what you can get.

What do the rebels demand? First, “that the people of the United States shall have an equal right to emigrate and settle in the present and any future acquired territories, with whatever property they may possess (including slaves), and be securely protected in its peaceable enjoyment until such territory may be admitted as a state into the Union, with or without slavery, as she may determine, on an equality with all existing states.” This is our territorial demand. We have fought for this territory when blood was its price. We have paid for it when gold was its price. We have not proposed to exclude you, though you have contributed very little of blood or money. I refer especially to New England. We demand only to go into those territories upon terms of equality with you, as equals in this great Confederacy, to enjoy the common property of the whole Union, and receive the protection of the common government, until the territory is capable of coming into the Union as a sovereign state, when it may fix its own institutions to suit itself.

The second proposition is, “that property in slaves shall be entitled to the same protection from the government of the United States, in all its departments, everywhere, which the Constitution confers the power upon it to extend to any other property, providing nothing herein contained shall be construed to limit or restrain the right now belonging to every state to prohibit, abolish, or establish and protect slavery within its limits.” We demand of the common government to use its granted powers to protect our property as well as yours. For this protection we pay as much as you do. This very property is subject to taxation. It has been taxed by you and sold by you for taxes.

The title to thousands and tens of thousands of slaves is derived from the United States. We claim that the government, while the Constitution recognizes our property for the purposes of taxation, shall give it the same protection that it gives yours.

Ought it not to be so? You say no. Every one of you upon the committee said no. Your senators say no. Your House of Representatives says no. Throughout the length and breadth of your conspiracy against the Constitution there is but one shout of no! This recognition of this right is the price of my allegiance. Withhold it, and you do not get my obedience. This is the philosophy of the armed men who have sprung up in this country. Do you ask me to support a government that will tax my property; that will plunder me; that will demand my blood, and will not protect me? I would rather see the population of my native state laid six feet beneath her sod than they should support for one hour such a government. Protection is the price of obedience everywhere, in all countries. It is the only thing that makes government respectable. Deny it and you can not have free subjects or citizens; you may have slaves.

We demand, in the next place, “that persons committing crimes against slave property in one state, and fleeing to another, shall be delivered up in the same manner as persons committing crimes against other property, and that the laws of the state from which such persons flee shall be the test of criminality.” That is another one of the demands of an extremist and rebel.

But the non-slaveholding states, treacherous to their oaths and compacts, have steadily refused, if the criminal only stole a negro and that negro was a slave, to deliver him up. It was refused twice on the requisition of my own state as long as twenty-two years ago. It was refused by Kent and by Fairfield, governors of Maine, and representing, I believe, each of the then friendly parties. We appealed then to fraternity, but we submitted; and this constitutional right has been practically a dead letter from that day to this. The next case came up between us and the state of New York, when the present senior senator (Mr. Seward) was the governor of that state; and he refused it. Why? He said it was not against the laws of New York to steal a negro, and therefore he would not comply with the demand. He made a similar refusal to Virginia. Yet these are our confederates; these are our sister states! There is the bargain; there is the compact. You have sworn to it. Both these governors swore to it. The senator from New York swore to it. The governor of Ohio swore to it when he was inaugurated. You can not bind them by oaths. Yet they talk to us of treason; and I suppose they expect to whip freemen into loving such brethren! They will have a good time in doing it!

It is natural we should want this provision of the Constitution carried out. The Constitution says slaves are property; the Supreme Court says so; the Constitution says so. The theft of slaves is a crime; they are a subject-matter of felonious asportation. By the text and letter of the Constitution you agreed to give them up. You have sworn to do it, and you have broken your oaths. Of course, those who have done so look out for pretexts. Nobody expected them to do otherwise. I do not think I ever saw a perjurer, however bald and naked, who could not invent some pretext to palliate his crime, or who could not, for fifteen shillings, hire an Old Bailey lawyer to invent some for him. Yet this requirement of the Constitution is another one of the extreme demands of an extremist and a rebel.

The next stipulation is that fugitive slaves shall be surrendered under the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, without being entitled either to a writ of habeas corpus, or trial by jury, or other similar obstructions of legislation, in the state to which he may flee: Here is the Constitution:

“No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such services or labor may be due.”

This language is plain, and everybody understood it the same way for the first forty years of your government. In 1793, in Washington’s time, an act was passed to carry out this provision. It was adopted unanimously in the Senate of the United States, and nearly so in the House of Representatives. Nobody then had invented pretexts to show that the Constitution did not mean a negro slave. It was clear; it was plain. Not only the federal courts, but all the local courts in all the states, decided that it was a constitutional obligation. How is it now? The North sought to evade it; following the instincts of their natural character, they commenced with the fraudulent fiction that fugitives were entitled to habeas corpus, entitled to trial by jury in the state to which they fled. They pretended to believe that our fugitive slaves were entitled to more rights than their white citizens; perhaps they were right, they know one another better than I do. You may charge a white man with treason, or felony, or other crime, and you do not require any trial by jury before he is given up; there is nothing to determine but that he is legally charged with a crime and that he fled, and then he is to be delivered up upon demand. White people are delivered up every day in this way; but not slaves. Slaves, black people, you say, are entitled to trial by jury; and in this way schemes have been invented to defeat your plain constitutional obligations.

Senators, the Constitution is a compact. It contains all our obligations and the duties of the federal government. I am content and have ever been content to sustain it. While I doubt its perfection, while I do not believe it was a good compact, and while I never saw the day that I would have voted for it as a proposition de novo, yet I am bound to it by oath and by that common prudence which would induce men to abide by established forms rather than to rush into unknown dangers. I have given to it, and intend to give to it, unfaltering support and allegiance, but I choose to put that allegiance on the true ground, not on the false idea that anybody’s blood was shed for it. I say that the Constitution is the whole compact. All its obligations, all the chains that fetter the limbs of my people, are nominated in the bond, and they wisely excluded any conclusion against them, by declaring that “The powers not granted by the Constitution to the United States, or forbidden by it to the states, belong to the states respectively or the people.”

Now I will try it by that standard; I will subject it to that test. The law of nature, the law of justice, would say—and it is so expounded by the publicists—that equal rights in the common property shall be enjoyed. Even in a monarchy the king can not prevent the subjects from enjoying equality in the disposition of the public property. Even in a despotic government this principle is recognized. It was the blood and the money of the whole people (says the learned Grotius, and say all the publicists) which acquired the public property, and therefore it is not the property of the sovereign. This right of equality being, then, according to justice and natural equity, a right belonging to all states, when did we give it up? You say Congress has a right to pass rules and regulations concerning the territory and other property of the United States. Very well. Does that exclude those whose blood and money paid for it? Does “dispose of” mean to rob the rightful owners? You must show a better title than that, or a better sword than we have.

What, then, will you take? You will take nothing but your own judgment; that is, you will not only judge for yourselves, not only discard the court, discard our construction, discard the practice of the government, but you will drive us out, simply because you will it. Come and do it! You have sapped the foundations of society; you have destroyed almost all hope of peace. In a compact where there is no common arbiter, where the parties finally decide for themselves, the sword alone at last becomes the real, if not the constitutional, arbiter. Your party says that you will not take the decision of the Supreme Court. You said so at Chicago; you said so in committee; every man of you in both Houses says so. What are you going to do? You say we shall submit to your construction. We shall do it, if you can make us; but not otherwise, or in any other manner. That is settled. You may call it secession, or you may call it revolution; but there is a big fact standing before you—that fact is, freemen with arms in their hands.

RUFUS CHOATE

Eulogy of Webster[10] (1853)

Webster possessed the element of an impressive character, inspiring regard, trust and admiration, not unmingled with love. It had, I think, intrinsically a charm such as belongs only to a good, noble, and beautiful nature. In its combination with so much fame, so much force of will, and so much intellect, it filled and fascinated the imagination and heart. It was affectionate in childhood and youth, and it was more than ever so in the few last months of his long life. It is the universal testimony that he gave to his parents, in largest measure, honor, love, obedience; that he eagerly appropriated the first means which he could command to relieve the father from his debts contracted to educate his brother and himself; that he selected his first place of professional practice that he might soothe the coming on of his old age.

Equally beautiful was his love of all his kindred and of all his friends. When I hear him accused of selfishness, and a cold, bad nature, I recall him lying sleepless all night, not without tears of boyhood, conferring with Ezekiel how the darling desire of both hearts should be compassed, and he, too, admitted to the precious privileges of education; courageously pleading the cause of both brothers in the morning; prevailing by the wise and discerning affection of the mother; suspending his studies of the law, and registering deeds and teaching school to earn the means, for both, of availing themselves of the opportunity which the parental self-sacrifice had placed within their reach; loving him through life, mourning him when dead, with a love and a sorrow very wonderful, passing the sorrow of woman; I recall the husband, the father of the living and of the early departed, the friend, the counselor of many years, and my heart grows too full and liquid for the refutation of words.

His affectionate nature, craving ever friendship, as well as the presence of kindred blood, diffused itself through all his private life, gave sincerity to all his hospitalities, kindness to his eye, warmth to the pressure of his hand, made his greatness and genius unbend themselves to the playfulness of childhood, flowed out in graceful memories indulged of the past or of the dead, of incidents when life was young and promised to be happy,—gave generous sketches of his rivals,—the high contention now hidden by the handful of earth,—hours passed fifty years ago with great authors, recalled for the vernal emotions which they then made to live and revel in the soul. And from these conversations of friendship, no man—no man, old or young—went away to remember one word of profaneness, one allusion of indelicacy, one impure thought, one unbelieving suggestion, one doubt cast on the reality of virtue, of patriotism, of enthusiasm, of the progress of man,—one doubt cast on righteousness, or temperance, or judgment to come.

I have learned by evidence the most direct and satisfactory that in the last months of his life, the whole affectionateness of his nature—his consideration of others, his gentleness, his desire to make them happy and to see them happy—seemed to come out in more and more beautiful and habitual expressions than ever before. The long day’s public tasks were felt to be done; the cares, the uncertainties, the mental conflicts of high place, were ended; and he came home to recover himself for the few years which he might still expect would be his before he should go hence to be here no more. And there, I am assured and duly believe, no unbecoming regrets pursued him; no discontent, as for injustice suffered or expectations unfulfilled; no self-reproach for anything done or anything omitted by himself; no irritation, no peevishness unworthy of his noble nature; but instead, love and hope for his country, when she became the subject of conversation, and for all around him, the dearest and most indifferent, for all breathing things about him, the overflow of the kindest heart growing in gentleness and benevolence—paternal, patriarchal affections, seeming to become more natural, warm, and communicative every hour. Softer and yet brighter grew the tints on the sky of parting day; and the last lingering rays, more even than the glories of noon, announced how divine was the source from which they proceeded; how incapable to be quenched; how certain to rise on a morning which no night should follow.

Such a character was made to be loved. It was loved. Those who know and saw it in its hour of calm—those who could repose on that soft grass—loved him. His plain neighbors loved him; and one said, when he was laid in his grave, “How lonesome the world seems!” Educated young men loved him. The ministers of the gospel, the general intelligence of the country, the masses afar off, loved him. True, they had not found in his speeches, read by millions, so much adulation of the people; so much of the music which robs the public reason of itself; so many phrases of humanity and philanthropy; and some had told them he was lofty and cold—solitary in his greatness; but every year they came nearer and nearer to him, and as they came nearer, they loved him better; they heard how tender the son had been, the husband, the brother, the father, the friend, and neighbor; that he was plain, simple, natural, generous, hospitable—the heart larger than the brain; that he loved little children and reverenced God, the Scriptures, the Sabbath day, the Constitution, and the law—and their hearts clave unto him. More truly of him than even of the great naval darling of England might it be said that “his presence would set the church bells ringing, and give schoolboys a holiday, would bring children from school and old men from the chimney-corner, to gaze on him ere he died.” The great and unavailing lamentations first revealed the deep place he had in the hearts of his countrymen.

You are now to add to his extraordinary power of influencing the convictions of others by speech, and you have completed the survey of the means of his greatness. And here, again, I begin, by admiring an aggregate made up of excellences and triumphs, ordinarily deemed incompatible. He spoke with consummate ability to the bench, and yet exactly as, according to every sound canon of taste and ethics, the bench ought to be addressed. He spoke with consummate ability to the jury, and yet exactly as, according to every sound canon, that totally different tribunal ought to be addressed. In the halls of Congress, before the people assembled for political discussion in masses, before audiences smaller and more select, assembled for some solemn commemoration of the past or of the dead—in each of these, again, his speech, of the first form of ability, was exactly adapted, also, to the critical proprieties of the place; each achieved, when delivered, the most instant and specific success of eloquence—some of them in a splendid and remarkable degree; and yet, stranger still, when reduced to writing, as they fell from his lips, they compose a body of reading in many volumes—solid, clear, rich, and full of harmony—a classical and permanent political literature.

And yet all these modes of his eloquence, exactly adapted each to its stage and its end, were stamped with his image and superscription, identified by characteristics incapable to be counterfeited and impossible to be mistaken. The same high power of reason, intent in every one to explore and display some truth; some truth of judicial, or historical, or biographical fact; some truth of law, deducted by construction, perhaps, or by illation; some truth of policy, for want whereof a nation, generations, may be worse—reason seeking and unfolding truth; the same tone, in all, of deep earnestness, expressive of strong desire that which he felt to be important should be accepted as true, and spring up to action; the same transparent, plain, forcible, and direct speech, conveying his exact thought to the mind—not something less or more; the same sovereignty of form, of brow, and eye, and tone, and manner—everywhere the intellectual king of men, standing before you—that same marvelousness of qualities and results, residing, I know not where, in words, in pictures, in the ordering of ideas, in felicities indescribable, by means whereof, coming from his tongue, all things seemed mended—truth seemed more true, probability more plausible, greatness more great, goodness more awful, every affection more tender than when coming from other tongues—these are, in all, his eloquence.

But sometimes it became individualized and discriminated even from itself; sometimes place and circumstance, great interests at stake, a stage, an audience fitted for the highest historic action, a crisis, personal or national, upon him, stirred the depths of that emotional nature, as the anger of the goddess stirs the sea on which the great epic is beginning; strong passions, themselves kindled to intensity, quickened every faculty to a new life; the stimulated associations of ideas brought all treasures of thought and knowledge within command; the spell, which often held his imagination fast, dissolved, and she arose and gave him to choose of her urn of gold; earnestness became vehemence, the simple, perspicuous, measured and direct language became a headlong, full, and burning tide of speech; the discourse of reason, wisdom, gravity, and beauty changed to that superhuman, that rarest consummate eloquence—grand, rapid, pathetic, terrible; the aliquid immensum infinitumque that Cicero might have recognized; the master triumph of man in the rarest opportunity of his noble power.

Such elevation above himself, in congressional debate, was most uncommon. Some such there were in the great discussions of executive power following the removal of the deposits, which they who heard them will never forget, and some which rest in the tradition of hearers only. But there were other fields of oratory on which, under the influence of more uncommon strings of inspiration, he exemplified, in still other forms, an eloquence in which I do not know that he has had a superior among men. Addressing masses by tens of thousands in the open air, on the urgent political questions of the day, or designed to lead the meditations of an hour devoted to the remembrance of some national era, or of some incident marking the progress of the nation, and lifting him up to a view of what is, and what is past, and some indistinct revelation of the glory that lies in the future, or of some great historical name, just borne by the nation to his tomb—we have learned that then and there, at the base of Bunker Hill, before the corner-stone was laid, and again when the finished column the centuries looked on him; in Faneuil Hall, mourning for those with whom spoken or written eloquence of freedom its arches had so often resounded; on the Rock of Plymouth; before the Capitol, of which there shall not be one stone left on another before his memory shall have ceased to live—in such scenes, unfettered by the laws of forensic or parliamentary debate, multitudes uncounted lifting up their eyes to him; some great historical scenes of America around; all symbols of her glory and art and power and fortune there; voices of the past, not unheard; shapes beckoning from the future, not unseen—sometimes that mighty intellect, borne upward to a height and kindled to an illumination which we shall see no more, wrought out, as it were, in an instant a picture of vision, warning, prediction; the progress of the nation; the contrasts of its eras; the heroic deaths; the motives to patriotism; the maxims and arts imperial by which the glory has been gathered and may be heightened—wrought out, in an instant, a picture to fade only when all record of our mind shall die.

In looking over the public remains of his oratory, it is striking to remark how, even in that most sober and massive understanding and nature, you see gathered and expressed the characteristic sentiments and the passing time of our America. It is the strong old oak which ascends before you; yet our soil, our heaven, are attested in it as perfectly as if it were a flower that could grow in no other climate and in no other hour of the year or day. Let me instance in one thing only. It is a peculiarity of some schools of eloquence that they embody and utter, not merely the individual genius and character of the speaker, but a national consciousness—a national era, a mood, a hope, a dread, a despair—in which you listen to the spoken history of the time. There is an eloquence of an expiring nation, such as seems to sadden the glorious speech of Demosthenes; such as breathes grand and gloomy from the visions of the prophets of the last days of Israel and Judah; such as gave a spell to the expression of Grattan and of Kossuth—the sweetest, most mournful, most awful of the words which man may utter, or which man may hear—the eloquence of a perishing nation.

There is another eloquence, in which the national consciousness of a young or renewed and vast strength, of trust in a dazzling certain and limitless future, an inward glorying in victories yet to be won, sounds out as by voice of clarion, challenging to contest for the highest prize of earth; such as that in which the leader of Israel in the first days holds up to the new nation the Land of Promise; such as that which in the well-imagined speeches scattered by Livy over the history of the “majestic series of victories” speaks the Roman consciousness of growing aggrandizement which should subject the world; such as that through which, at the tribunes of her revolution, in the bulletins of her rising soldiers, France told the world her dream of glory.

And of this king somewhat is ours—cheerful, hopeful, trusting, as befits youth and spring; the eloquence of a state beginning to ascend to the first class of power, eminence, and consideration, and conscious of itself. It is to no purpose that they tell you it is in bad taste; that it partakes of arrogance and vanity; that a true national good breeding would not know, or seem to know, whether the nation is old or young; whether the tides of being are in their flow or ebb; whether these coursers of the sun are sinking slowly to rest, wearied with a journey of a thousand years, or just bounding from the Orient unbreathed. Higher laws than those of taste determine the consciousness of nations. Higher laws than those of taste determine the general forms of the expression of that consciousness. Let the downward age of America find its orators and poets and artists to erect its spirit, or grace, and soothe its dying; be it ours to go up with Webster, to the Rock, the Monument, the Capitol, and bid “the distant generations hail!”

Until the seventh day of March, 1850, I think it would have been accorded to him by an almost universal acclaim, as general and as expressive of profound and intelligent conviction and of enthusiasm, love, and trust, as ever saluted conspicuous statesmanship, tried by many crises of affairs in a great nation, agitated ever by parties, and wholly free.

JOHN BRIGHT

The Strength of the American Government (1863)

Will anybody deny that the Government at Washington as regards its own people is the strongest Government in the world at this hour? And for this simple reason: because it is based on the will, and the good will, of an instructed people. Look at its power! I am not now discussing why it is, or the cause which is developing this power; but power is the thing which men regard in these old countries, and which they ascribe mainly to European institutions; but look at the power which the United States have developed! They have brought more men into the field, they have built more ships for their navy, they have shown greater resources, than any nation in Europe at this moment is capable of. Look at the order which has prevailed at their elections, at which, as you see by the papers, fifty thousand, or one hundred thousand, or two hundred and fifty thousand persons voting in a given state, with less disorder than you have seen lately in three of the smallest boroughs in England. Look at their industry. Notwithstanding this terrible struggle, their agriculture, their manufactures and commerce proceed with an uninterrupted success. They are ruled by a President, chosen, it is true, not from some worn-out royal or noble blood, but from the people, and the one whose truthfulness and spotless honor have claimed him universal praise; and now the country that has been vilified through half the organs of the press in England during the last three years, and was pointed out, too, as an example to be shunned by many of your statesmen, that country, now in mortal strife, affords a haven and a home for multitudes flying from the burdens and the neglect of the old governments of Europe; and, when this mortal strife is over—when peace is restored, when slavery is destroyed, when the Union is cemented afresh—for I would say, in the language of one of our own poets addressing his country,

The grave’s not dug where traitor hands shall lay
In fearful haste thy murdered corse away—

then Europe and England may learn that an instructed democracy is the surest foundation of government, and that education and freedom are the only sources of true greatness and true happiness among any people.

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS

Robert Burns[11] (1880)

Burns died at the same age with Raphael; and Mozart, who was his contemporary, died only four years before him. Raphael and Mozart are the two men of lyrical genius in kindred arts who impress us and the most exquisitely refined by careful cultivation; and, although Burns was of all great poets the most unschooled, he belongs with Raphael in painting and Mozart in music, and there is no fourth. An indescribable richness and flower-like quality, a melodious grace and completeness and delicacy, belong to them all. Looking upon a beautiful human Madonna of Raphael, we seem to hear the rippling cadence of Mozart and the tender and true song of Burns. They are all voices of the whole world speaking in this accent of a native land. Here are Italy and Germany and Scotland, distinct, individual, perfectly recognizable, but the sun that reveals and illuminates their separate charms, that is not Italian or German or Scotch, it is the sun of universal nature. This is the singer whom this statue commemorates, the singer of songs immortal as love; pure as the dew of the morning, and sweet as its breath; songs with which the lover wooes his bride, and the mother soothes her child, and the heart of a people beats with patriotic exultation; songs that cheer human endeavors, and console human sorrow, and exalt human life. We cannot find out the secret of their power until we know why the rose is sweet, or the dew-drop pure, or the rainbow beautiful, we cannot know why the poet is the best benefactor of humanity. Whether because he reveals us to ourselves, or because he touches the soul with the fervor of divine aspiration, whether because in a world of sordid and restless anxiety he fills us with serene joy, or puts into rythmic and permanent form the best thoughts and hopes of man—who shall say? But none the less is the heart’s instinctive loyalty to the poet the proof of its consciousness that he does all these things, that he is the harmonizer, strengthener, and consoler. How the faith of Christendom has been stayed for centuries upon the mighty words of the old Hebrew bards and prophets, and how the vast and inexpressible mystery of divine love and power and purpose has been breathed into parable and poem! If we were forced to surrender every expression of human genius but one, surely we should retain poetry; and if we were called upon to lose from the vast accumulation of literature all but a score of books, among that choice, and perfect remainder would be the songs of Burns.

How fitly, then, among the memorials of those who in different countries and times and ways have been leaders of mankind, we raise this statue of the poet whose genius is an unconscious but sweet and elevating influence in our national life. It is not a power dramatic, obvious, imposing, immediate, like that of the statesman, the warrior, and the inventor, but it is as deep and strong and abiding. The soldier fights for his native land, but the poet touches that land with the charm that makes it worth fighting for, and fires the warrior’s heart with the fierce energy that makes his blow invincible. The statesman enlarges and orders liberty in the state, but the poet fosters the love of liberty in the heart of the citizen. The inventor multiplies the facilities of life, but the poet makes life better worth living. Here, then, among trees and flowers and waters; here upon the greensward and under the open sky; here where birds carol, and children play, and lovers whisper, and the various stream of human life flows by—we raise the statue of Robert Burns. While the human heart beats, that name will be music in human ears. He knew better than we the pathos of human life. We know better than he the infinite pathos of his own. Ah! Robert Burns, Robert Burns! whoever lingers here as he passes and muses upon your statue will see in imagination a solitary mountain in your own beautiful Scotland, heaven-soaring, wrapped in impenetrable clouds. Suddenly the mists part, and there are the heather, the brier-rose, and the gowan fine; there are the

Burnies, wimplin’ down your glens
Wi’ toddling’ din,
Or foaming strang wi’ hasty stens
Frae lin to lin;[12]

the cushat is moaning; the curlew is calling; the plover is singing; the red dear is bounding; and look! the clouds roll utterly away, and the clear summit is touched with the tender glory of sunshine, heaven’s own benediction!

L. Q. C. LAMAR

Sumner and the South[13] (1874)

It was certainly a gracious act on the part of Charles Sumner toward the South, though unhappily it jarred on the sensibilities of the people at the other extreme of the Union, to propose to erase from the banners of the national army the mementos of the bloody internal struggle which might be regarded as assailing the pride or wounding the sensibilities of the Southern people. The proposal will never be forgotten by that people so long as the name of Charles Sumner lives in the memory of man.

But while it touched the heart and elicited her profound gratitude, her people would not have asked of the North such an act of self-renunciation. Conscious that they themselves were animated by devotion to constitutional liberty, and that the brightest pages of history are replete with evidences of the depth and sincerity of that devotion, they can but cherish the recollection of the battles fought and the victories won in defense of their hopeless cause; and respecting, as all true and brave men must respect, the martial spirit with which the men of the North vindicated the integrity of the Union, and their devotion to the principles of human freedom, they do not ask, they do not wish the North to strike the mementos of heroism and victory from either records or monuments or battle-flags. They would rather that both sections should gather up the glories won by each section, not envious, but proud of each other, and regard them as a common heritage of American valor. Let us hope that future generations, when they remember the deeds of heroism and devotion done on both sides, will speak, not of northern prowess or southern courage, but of the heroism, courage and fortitude of the Americans in a war of ideas—a war in which each section signalized its consecration to the principles, as each understood them, of American liberty and of the Constitution received from their fathers.

Charles Sumner in life believed that all occasion for strife and distrust between the North and South had passed away, and there no longer remained any cause for continued estrangement between these two sections of our common country. Are there not many of us who believe the same thing? Is not the common sentiment, or if not, ought it not to be, of the great mass of our people, North and South? Bound to each other by a common constitution, destined to life together under a common government, forming unitedly but a single member of a great family of nations, shall we not now at least endeavor to grow toward each other once more in heart, as we are indissolubly linked to each other in fortunes? Shall we not, while honoring the memory of this great champion of liberty, this feeling sympathizer with human sorrow, this earnest pleader for the exercise of human tenderness and heavenly charity, lay aside the concealments which serve only to perpetuate misunderstandings and distrust, and frankly confess that on both sides we most earnestly desire to be one—one not merely in political organization; one not merely in community of language, and literature, and traditions, and country; but more and better than all that, one also in feeling and in heart?

Am I mistaken in this? Do the concealments of which I speak still cover animosities, which neither time nor reflection nor the march of events have yet suffered to subdue? I can not believe it. Since I have been here I have scrutinized your sentiments, as expressed not merely in public debate, but in the abandon of personal confidence. I know well the sentiments of these by my southern friends, whose hearts are so infolded that the feeling of each is the feeling of all; and I am on both sides only the seeming of a constraint which each apparently hesitates to dismiss.

The South—prostrate, exhausted, drained of her life-blood as well as her material resources, yet still honorable and true—accepts the bitter award of the bloody arbitrament without reservation, resolutely determined to abide the result with chivalrous fidelity. Yet, as if struck dumb by the magnitude of her reverses, she suffers on in silence. The North, exultant in her triumph and elevated by success, still cherishes, as we are assured, a heart full of magnanimous emotions toward her disarmed and discomfited antagonist; and yet, as if under some mysterious spell, her words and acts are words and acts of suspicion and distrust. Would that the spirit of the illustrious dead, whom we lament today, could speak from the grave to both parties to this deplorable discord, in tones which would reach each and every heart throughout this broad territory: My country-men! know one another and you will love one another.

ROBERT INGERSOLL

At His Brother’s Grave[14] (1879)

My Friends: I am going to do that which the dead oft promised he would do for me.

The loved and loving brother, husband, father, friend, dies where manhood’s morning almost touches noon, and while the shadows were still falling toward the west.

He had not passed on life’s highway the stone that marks the highest point, but, being weary for a moment, lay down by the wayside, and, using his burden for a pillow, fell into that dreamless sleep that kisses down his eyelids still. While yet in love with life and raptured with the world, he passed to silence and pathetic dust.

Yet, after all, it may be best, just in the happiest, sunniest hour of all the voyage, while eager winds are kissing every sail, to task against the unseen rock, and in an instant hear the billows roar above a sunken ship. For, whether in mid-sea or ’mong the breakers of the farther shore, a wreck at last must mark the end of each and all. And every life, no matter if its every house is rich with love and every moment jeweled with a joy, will, at its close, become a tragedy as sad and deep and dark as can be woven of the warp and woof of mystery and death.

This brave and tender man in every storm of life was oak and rock, but in the sunshine he was vine and flower. He was the friend of all heroic souls. He climbed the heights and left all superstitions far below, while on his forehead fell the golden dawning of the grander day.

He loved the beautiful, and was with color, form, and music touched to tears. He sided with the weak, and with a willing hand gave alms; with loyal heart and with purest hands he faithfully discharged all public trusts.

He was a worshiper of liberty, a friend of the oppressed. A thousand times I have heard him quite these words: “For justice, all place a temple; and all seasons, summer.” He believed that happiness was the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest. He added to the sum of human joy; and were every one to whom he did some loving service to bring a blossom to his grave, he would sleep tonight beneath a wilderness of flowers.

Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word; but in the night of death hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.

He who sleeps here, when dying, mistaking the approach of death for the return of health, whispered with his last breath: “I am better now.” Let us believe, in spite of doubts and dogmas, and tears and fears, that these dear words are true of all the countless dead.

And now to you who have been chosen, from among the many men he loved, to do the last sad office for the dead, we give his sacred dust. Speech can not contain our love. There was, there is, no greater, stronger, manlier man.

WILLIAM GLADSTONE

Against the Tory Government[15] (1880)

To those gentlemen who talk of the great vigor and determination and success of the Tory government, I ask you to compare the case of Bulgaria and Turkey. Try them by principles, or try them by results, I care not which; we knew what we were about and what was to be done when we had integrity and independence to support. When they had integrity and independence to protect they talked indeed loud enough about supporting Turkey, and you would suppose they were prepared to spend their resources upon it; but all their measures have ended in nothing except that they have reduced Turkey to a state of greater weakness than at any portion of her history, whereas, on the other hand, in regard to the twelve or thirteen millions of Slavs and Roumanian population, they have made the name of England odious throughout the whole population, and done everything in their power to throw that population into the arms of Russia, to be the tool of Russia in its plans and schemes, unless, indeed, as I hope and am inclined to believe, the virtue of free institutions that they have obtained will make them too wise to become the tools of any foreign power whatever, will make them intent upon maintaining their own liberties, as becomes a free people playing a noble part in the history of Europe.

I have detained you too long, and I will not, though I would, pursue this subject further. I have shown you what I think the miserable failure of the policy of the government. Remember, we have a fixed point from which to draw our measurements. Remember what in 1876 the proposal of those who approved of the Bulgarian agitation and who were denounced as the enemies of Turkey, remember what the proposal would have done. It would have given autonomy to Bulgaria, which has not got autonomy; but it would have saved all the remainder at less detriment to the rest of the Turkish Empire. Turkey would have had a fair chance. Turkey would not have suffered the territorial losses which she has elsewhere suffered, and which she has suffered, I must say, in consequence of her being betrayed into the false and mischievous, the tempting and seductive, but unreal and unwise policy of the present administration.

There are other matters which must be reserved for other times. We are told about the Crimean War. Sir Stafford Northcote tells us the Crimean War, made by the Liberal government, cost the country forty millions of debt, and an income tax of one shilling and four pence per pound. Now what is the use of telling us that? I will discuss the Crimean War on some future occasion, but not now. If the Liberal government were so clever that they contrived to burden the country with forty millions of debt for this Crimean War, why does he not go back to the war before that and tell us what the Tory government did with the Revolutionary War, when they left a debt on the country of some nine hundred millions, of which six hundred and fifty millions then had made in the Revolutionary War, and not only so, but left the blessing and legacy of the corn laws, and of a high protective system, an impoverished country, and a discontented population—so much so that for years that followed the great Revolutionary War, no man could say whether the constitution of this country was or was not worth five years’ purchase. They might even go further back than the Revolutionary War. They have been talking loudly of the colonies, and say that, forsooth, the Liberal party do nothing for the colonies. What did the Tory party do for the colonies? I can tell you. Go to the war that preceded the Revolutionary War. They made war against the American continent. They added to the debt of the country two hundred millions in order to destroy freedom in America. They alienated it and drove it from this country. They were compelled to bring this country to make an ignominious peace; and, as far as I know, that attempt to put down freedom in America, with its results to this country, is the only one great fact which has ever distinguished the relations between a Tory government and the colonies.

But gentlemen, these must be matters postponed for another occasion. I thank you very cordially, both friends and opponents, if opponents you be, for the extreme kindness with which you have heard me. I have spoken, and I must speak in very strong terms of the acts done by my opponents. I will never say that they did it from vindictiveness, I will never say that they did it from passion, I will never say that they did it from a sordid love of office; I have no right to use such words; I have no right to entertain such sentiments; I repudiate and abjure them. I give them credit for patriotic motives—I give them credit for those patriotic motives which are incessantly and gratuitously denied to us. I believe we are all united in a fond attachment to the great country to which we belong, to the great empire which has committed to it a trust and function from Providence, as special and remarkable as was ever entrusted to any portion of the family of man. When I speak of that trust and that function I feel that words fail. I cannot tell you what I think of the nobleness of the inheritance which has descended upon us, of the sacredness of the duty of maintaining it. I will not condescend to make it a part of controversial politics. It is a part of my being, of my flesh and blood, of my heart and soul. For those ends I have labored through my youth and manhood, and, more than that, till my hairs are gray. In that faith and practice I have lived, and in that faith and practice I shall die.

JAMES G. BLAINE

Eulogy of President Garfield[16] (1881)

His terrible fate was upon him in an instant. One moment he stood erect, strong, confident in the years stretching peacefully out before him. The next he lay wounded, bleeding, helpless; doomed to weary weeks of torture, to silence, and the grave.

Great in life, Garfield was surpassingly great in death. For no cause, in the very frenzy of wantonness, by the red hand of murder, he was thrust from the full tide of this world’s interest, from its hopes, its aspirations, its victories, into the visible presence of Death—and he did not quail. Not alone for the one short moment in which, stunned and dazed, he could give up life, hardly aware of its relinquishment, but through days of deadly languor, through weeks of agony, that was not less agony because silently borne, with clear sight and calm courage, he looked into his open grave. What blight and ruin met his anguished eyes, whose lips may tell—what brilliant broken plans, what baffled high ambitions, what sundering of warm, strong, manhood’s friendships, what bitter rending of sweet household ties! behind him a proud, expectant nation, a great host of sustaining friends, a cherished and happy mother, wearing the full, rich honors of her early toil and tears; the wife of his youth, whose whole life lay in his; the little boys not yet emerged from childhood’s days of frolic; the fair, young daughter; the sturdy sons just springing into closest companionship, claiming every day and every day rewarding a father’s love and care, and in his heart the eager rejoicing power to meet all demands! Before him desolation and great darkness! And his soul was not shaken. His countrymen were thrilled with instant, profound, and universal sympathy. Masterful in his mortal weakness, he became the centre of a nation’s love, enshrined in the prayers of a world; but all the love and all the sympathy could not share with him his suffering. He trod the wine-press alone. With unfaltering front he faced death. With unfailing tenderness he took leave of life. Above the demoniac hiss of the assassin’s bullet, he heard the voice of God. With simple resignation, he bowed to the Divine decree.

As the end drew near his early craving for the sea returned. The stately mansion of power had been to him the wearisome hospital of pain, and he begged to be taken from its prison walls, from its oppressive, stifling air, from its homelessness and hopelessness. Gently, silently, the love of a great people bore the pale sufferer to the longed-for healing of the sea, to live or to die, as God should will, within sight of its heaving billows, within sound of its manifold voices. With wan, fevered face tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze, he looked out wistfully upon the ocean’s changing wonders; on its far sails whitening in the morning light; on its restless waves rolling shoreward to break and die beneath the noonday sun; on the red clouds of evening arching low to the horizon; on the serene and shining pathway of the stars. Let us think that his dying eyes read a mystic meaning which only the rapt and parting soul may know. Let us believe that in the silence of the receding world he heard the great waves breaking on a farther shore, and felt already upon his wasted brow the breath of the eternal morning.

WILLIAM J. BRYAN

“The Cross of Gold” Speech[17] (1896)

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Convention: I would be presumptuous indeed to present myself against the distinguished gentlemen to whom you have listened if this were a mere measuring of abilities; but this is not a contest between persons. The humblest citizen in all the land, when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error. I come to speak to you in defense of a cause as holy as the cause of liberty—the cause of humanity.

When this debate is concluded, a motion will be made to lay upon the table the resolution offered in commendation of the Administration, and also the resolution offered in condemnation of the Administration. We object to bringing this question down to the level of persons. The individual is but an atom; he is born, he acts, he dies; but principles are eternal; and this has been a contest over a principle.

Never before in the history of this country has there been witnessed such a contest as that through which we have just passed. Never before in the history of American politics has a great issue been fought out as this issue has been, by the voters of a great party. On the fourth of March, 1895, a few Democrats, most of them members of Congress, issued an address to the Democrats of the nation, asserting that the money question was the paramount issue of the hour; declaring that a majority of the Democratic party had the right to control the action of the party on this paramount issue; and concluding with the request that the believers in the free coinage of silver in the Democratic party should organize, take charge of, and control the policy of the Democratic party. Three months later, at Memphis, an organization was perfected, and the silver Democrats went forth openly and courageously proclaiming their belief, and declaring that, if successful, they would crystallize into a platform the declaration which they had made. Then began the conflict. With a zeal approaching the zeal which inspired the crusaders who followed Peter the Hermit, our silver Democrats went forth from victory unto victory until they are now assembled, not to discuss, not to debate, but to enter up the judgment already rendered by the plain people of this country. In this contest brother has been arrayed against brother, father against son. The warmest ties of love, acquaintance, and association have been disregarded; old leaders have been cast aside when they refused to give expression unto the sentiments of those whom they would lead, and new leaders have sprung up to give direction to this cause of truth. Thus has the contest been waged, and we have assembled here under as binding and solemn instructions as were ever imposed upon representatives of the people.

We do not come as individuals. As individuals we might have been glad to compliment the gentleman from New York (Senator Hill), but we know that the people for whom we speak would never be willing to put him in a position where he could thwart the will of the Democratic party. I say it was not a question of persons; it was a question of principle, and it is not with gladness, my friends, that we find ourselves brought into conflict with those who are now arrayed on the other side.

The gentleman who preceded me (ex-Governor Russell) spoke of the State of Massachusetts; let me assure him that not one present in all this Convention entertains the least hostility to the people of the state of Massachusetts, but we stand here representing the people who are the equals, before the law, of the greatest citizens in the state of Massachusetts. When you [turning to the gold delegates] come before us and tell us that we are about to disturb your business interests, we reply that you have disturbed our business interests by your course.

We say to you that you have made the definition of a business man too limited in its applications. The man who is employed for wages is as much a business man as his employer; the attorney in a country town is as much a business man as the corporation counsel in a great metropolis; the merchant at the cross-roads store is as much a business man as the merchant of New York; the farmer who goes forth in the morning and toils all day, who begins in spring and toils all summer, and who by the application of brains and muscle to the natural resources of the country creates wealth, is as much a business man as the man who goes upon the Board of Trade and bets upon the price of grain; the miners who go down a thousand feet into the earth, or climb two thousand feet upon the cliffs, and bring forth from their hiding places the precious metals to be poured into the channels of trade are as much business men as the few financial magnates who, in a back room, corner the money of the world. We come to speak of this broader class of business men.

Ah, my friends, we say not one word against those who live upon the Atlantic coast, but the hardy pioneers who have braved all the dangers of the wilderness, who have made the desert to blossom as the rose—the pioneers away out there [pointing to the West], who rear their children near to Nature’s heart, where they can mingle their voices with the voices of the birds—out there where they have erected schoolhouses for the education of their young, churches where they praise their Creator, and cemeteries where rest the ashes of their dead—these people, we say, are as deserving of the consideration of our party as any people in this country. It is for these that we speak. We do not come as aggressors. Our war is not a war of conquest; we are fighting in the defense of our homes, our families, and posterity. We have petitioned, and our petitions have been scorned; we have entreated, and our entreaties have been disregarded; we have begged, and they have mocked when our calamity came. We beg no longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defy them!

The gentleman from Wisconsin has said that he fears a Robespierre. My friends, in this land of the free you need not fear that a tyrant will spring up from among the people. What we need is an Andrew Jackson to stand, as Jackson stood, against the encroachments of organized wealth.

They tell us that this platform was made to catch votes. We reply to them that changing conditions make new issues; that the principles upon which Democracy rests are as everlasting as the hills, but that they must be applied to new conditions as they arise. Conditions have arisen, and we are here to meet those conditions. They tell us that the income tax ought not to be brought in here; that it is a new idea. They criticize us for our criticism of the Supreme Court of the United States. My friends, we have not criticized; we have simply called attention to what you already know. If you want criticisms, read the dissenting opinions of the court. There you will find criticisms. They say that we passed an unconstitutional law; we deny it. The income tax law was not unconstitutional when it was passed; it was not unconstitutional when it went before the Supreme Court for the first time; it did not become unconstitutional until one of the judges changed his mind, and we cannot be expected to know when a judge will change his mind. The income tax is just. It simply intends to put the burdens of government justly upon the backs of the people. I am in favor of an income tax. When I find a man who is not willing to bear his share of the burdens of the government which protects him, I find a man who is unworthy to enjoy the blessings of a government like ours.

They say that we are opposing national bank currency; it is true. If you will read what Thomas Benton said, you will find he said that, in searching history, he could find but one parallel to Andrew Jackson; that was Cicero, who destroyed the conspiracy of Catiline and saved Rome. Benton said that Cicero only did for Rome what Jackson did for us when he destroyed the bank conspiracy and saved America. We say in our platform that we believe that the right to coin and issue money is a function of government. We believe it. We believe that it is a part of sovereignty, and can no more with safety be delegated to private individuals than we could afford to delegate to private individuals the power to make penal statutes or levy taxes. Mr. Jefferson, who was once regarded as good Democratic authority, seems to have differed in opinion from the gentleman who has addressed us on the part of the minority. Those who are opposed to this proposition tell us that the issue of paper money is a function of the bank, and that the government ought to go out of the banking business. I stand with Jefferson rather than with them, and tell them, as he did, that the issue of money is a function of government, and that the banks ought to go out of the governing business.

They complain about the plank which declares against life tenure in office. They have tried to strain it to mean that which it does not mean. What we oppose by that plank is the life tenure which is built up in Washington, and which excludes from participation in official benefits the humble members of society.

Let me call your attention to two or three important things. The gentleman from New York says that he will propose an amendment to the platform providing that the proposed change in our monetary system shall not affect contracts already made. Let me remind you that there is no intention of affecting these contracts which, according to the present laws, are made payable in gold; but if he means to say that we cannot change our monetary system without protecting those who have loaned money before the change was made, I desire to ask him where, in law or in morals, he can find justification for not protecting the debtors when the act of 1873 was passed, if he now insists that we must protect the creditors.

He says he will also propose an amendment which will provide for the suspension of free coinage if we fail to maintain a parity within a year. We reply that when we advocate a policy which we believe will be successful, we are not compelled to raise a doubt as to our own sincerity by suggesting what we shall do if we fail. I ask him, if he would apply his logic to us, why he does not apply it to himself. He says he wants this country to try to secure an international agreement. Why does he not tell us what he is going to do if he fails to secure an international agreement? There is more reason for him to do that than there is for us to provide against the failure to maintain the parity. Our opponents have tried for twenty years to secure an international agreement, and those are waiting for it most patiently who do not want it at all.

And now, my friends, let me come to the paramount issue. If they ask us why it is that we say more on the money question than we say upon the tariff question, I reply that, if protection has slain its thousands, the gold standard has slain its tens of thousands. If they ask us why we do not embody in our platform all the things that we believe in, we reply that when we have restored the money of the Constitution all other necessary reforms will be possible; but that until this is done there is no other reform that can be accomplished.

Why is it that within three months such a change has come over the country? Three months ago, when it was confidently asserted that those who believe in the gold standard would frame our platform and nominate our candidates, even the advocates of the gold standard did not think that we could elect a President. And they had good reason for their doubt, because there is scarcely a state here today asking for the gold standard which is not in the absolute control of the Republican party. But note the change. Mr. McKinley was nominated at St. Louis upon a platform which declared for the maintenance of the gold standard until it can be changed into bimetallism by international agreement. Mr. McKinley was the most popular man among the Republicans, and three months ago everybody in the Republican party prophesied his election. How is it today? Why, the man who was once pleased to think that he looked like Napoleon—that man shudders today when he remembers that he was nominated on the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo. Not only that, but as he listens he can hear with ever-increasing distinctness the sound of the waves as they beat upon the lonely shores of St. Helena.

Why this change? Ah, my friends, is not the reason for the change evident to any one who will look at the matter? No private character, however, pure, no personal popularity, however great, can protect from the avenging wrath of an indignant people a man who will declare that he is in favor of fastening the gold standard upon this country, or who is willing to surrender the right of self-government and place the legislative control of our affairs in the hands of foreign potentates and powers.

We go forth confident that we shall win. Why? Because upon the paramount issue of this campaign there is not a spot of ground upon which the enemy will dare to challenge battle. If they tell us that the gold standard is a good thing, we shall point to their platform and tell them that their platform pledges the party to get rid of the gold standard and substitute bimetallism. If the gold standard is a good thing, why try to get rid of it? I call your attention to the fact that some of the very people who are in this Convention today and who tell us that we ought to declare in favor of international bimetallism—thereby declaring that the gold standard is wrong and that the principle of bimetallism is better—these very people four months ago were open and avowed advocates of the gold standard, and were then telling us that we could not legislate two metals together, even with the aid of all the world. If the gold standard is a good thing we ought to declare in favor of its retention and not in favor of abandoning it; and if the gold standard is a bad thing why should we wait until other nations are willing to help us to let go? Here is the line of battle, and we care not upon which issue they force the fight; we are prepared to meet them on either side or on both. If they tell us that the gold standard is the standard of civilization, we reply to them that this, the most enlightened of all the nations of the earth, has never declared for a gold standard and that both the great parties this year are declaring against it. If the gold standard is the standard of civilization, why, my friends, should we not have it? If they come to meet us on that issue we can present the history of our nation. More than that; we can tell them that they will search the pages of history in vain to find a single instance where the common people of any land have ever declared themselves in favor of the gold standard. They can find where the holders of fixed investments have declared for a gold standard, but not where the masses have. Mr. Carlisle said in 1878 that this was a struggle between “the idle holders of idle capital” and “the struggling masses, who produce the wealth and pay the taxes of the country”; and, my friends, the question we are to decide is: Upon which side will the Democratic party fight, upon the side of “the idle holders of idle capital” or upon the side of “the struggling masses”? That is the question which the party must answer first, and then it must be answered by each individual hereafter. The sympathies of the Democratic party, as shown by the platform, are on the side of the struggling masses who have ever been the foundation of the Democratic party. There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that, if you will only legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea, however, has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous, their prosperity will find its way up through ever class which rests upon them.

You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the gold standard; we reply that the great cities rest upon our broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country.

My friends, we declare that this nation is able to legislate for its own people on every question, without waiting for the aid and consent of any other nation on earth; and upon that issue we expect to carry every state in the Union. I shall not slander the inhabitants of the fair state of Massachusetts, nor the inhabitants of the state of New York, by saying that, when they are confronted with the proposition they will declare that this nation is not able to attend to its own business. It is the issue of 1776 over again. Our ancestors, when but three millions in number, had the courage to declare their political independence of every other nation; shall we, their descendants, when we have grown to seventy millions, declare that we are less independent than our forefathers?

No, my friends, that will never be the verdict of our people. Therefore, we care not upon what lines the battle is fought. If they say bimetallism is good, but that we cannot have it until other nations help us, we reply that, instead of having a gold standard because England has, we will restore bimetallism, and then let England have bimetallism because the United States has it. If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we will fight them to the uttermost. Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.

JOHN HAYNES HOLMES

The Birth of an Orator[18] (1912)

On the 9th day of December, 1837, there was held in Faneuil Hall, in the city of Boston, a great public meeting in protest against the recent murder, in Alton, Illinois, of the Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy. The historic old edifice was filled upon this momentous occasion to suffocation, as feeling was running very high upon both sides of the slavery question; and the audience was about equally divided between the friends and enemies of the cause. The meeting was opened with a brief and impressive address by Dr. Channing. Resolutions denouncing the murder of Lovejoy were then read and formally seconded. Everything seemed to be moving smoothly, when a man was seen making his way through the excited crowd to the great gilded eagle in the front of the gallery. He was instantly recognized as James T. Austin, a parishioner of Dr. Channing, a popular politician, and at that time the Attorney-General of the Commonwealth. Gaining his position, he began a harangue, calculated to fire the crowd and break up the meeting. He compared the slaves of the South to a menagerie, and likened Lovejoy to one who should “break the bars and let loose the caravan to prowl about the streets.” He talked of the rioters of Alton as akin to the “orderly mob” which threw the tea into Boston Harbor in 1773; and, in direct allusion to his minister, Dr. Channing, he closed by asserting that a clergyman with a gun in his hand, or one “mingling in the debates of a popular assembly, was marvellously out of place.”

No sooner were these words spoken than the chairman lost all control of the meeting. The Attorney-General had captured his audience, and friends and foes seemed to vie with one another in calling for the resolutions that they might vote them down, and then turn the protest of the occasion into an endorsement. At this wild moment, when all hope of saving the meeting seemed to be lost, a young man with pale face and close-pressed lips, was seen pushing his way to the platform through the frenzied mob. A few persons recognized Wendell Phillips, a son of one of the richest and most conservative families of Boston, a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, and now just entered upon the practice of his profession. Leaping upon the stage, this unknown stripling faced the crowd, as tall and fair and beautiful as an Apollo, and, raising his hand, spoke two or three words in those marvellous silvery tones which were destined ultimately to chant their music in so many halls and before so many popular assemblies. Instantly the wild “tumult and shouting” was hushed, while men leaned forward curiously to hear what this foolish youth could find to say in answer to the Attorney-General. “Mr. Chairman,” he began, “we are here met for the freest discussion of these resolutions, and the events which gave rise to them. I hope I shall be permitted to express my surprise as to the sentiments of the last speaker—surprise not only at such sentiments from such a man, but at the applause which they received within these walls. . . . Sir, when I heard the gentleman lay down principles which place the murders of Lovejoy side by side with Otis and Hancock, Quincy and Adams, I thought [pointing to the portraits of the revolutionary heroes in the hall] those pictured lips would have broken into voice to rebuke this recreant American—this slanderer of the dead.” Instantly, with this utterance of magic eloquence, the tide of popular feeling was turned. Sentence after sentence fell from the speaker’s lips like thunderbolts from the land of Jove, until at last his words were swept away in the wild tumult of applause; and with a mighty shout the resolutions were put and carried. Thus was the day unexpectedly saved, and from that moment on Faneuil Hall was identified with the name of Wendell Phillips as it had previously been identified with the names of James Otis and Samuel Adams, and was dedicated to the cause of anti-slavery, as it had hitherto been dedicated to the cause of political independence.

Peace Between Labor and Capital[19] (1912)

First of all, let me tell you that nothing will be gained by crushing unions and destroying organizations of labor. The time has passed by forever for that course of procedure. Labor is learning its power; and, what is more important still, society has itself learned the value of organized labor as a bulwark against the aggressions of militant capitalism. The man who thinks that labor can be permanently repressed and exploited is mad, and his madness is a menace to the future peace of the country.

Neither can we solve this problem by talking about the interests of capital and labor being identical under the present system of industry, and by bringing capital and labor together into any such “moonshine” organization as the Civic Federation. We might as well recognize the fact once for all that, just as long as higher wages mean lower dividends, and shortened hours mean lessened output, the interests of capital and labor are not identical but opposite, not mutual but antagonistic.

The only way to bring peace into the present turmoil and confusion of industry is first, for the sake of ordinary decency and order, to make some laws to meet the situation—laws which will oblige two warring classes to bring their dispute before some impartial tribunal for peaceful settlement, as two warring individuals are obliged to do; and then, going straight to the heart of the matter, to recognize that our whole system of capital and labor, employer and employee, master and servant, is a form of feudalism, and that this feudalism must give way to democracy in the world of industry as it has long since given way to democracy in the world of politics. The social war will be over and peace established, when the man who invests his labor in an industry is given the same degree of ownership in that industry, as the man who invests his money—when the laborer with his hands, like the laborer with his brains, is given the full product of his labor—when the laborer becomes a capitalist and the capitalist becomes a laborer—when one man counts for one man in the organization of industry, whatever his class or station or wealth, just as one man is now counted for one man in the organization of government. In other words, when competition is succeeded by coöperation, private ownership and control by social ownership and control, feudalism by democracy, despotism by liberty, inequality by equality, antagonism by fraternity, hatred by good-will. And you and I can speed the coming of this happy day, by solemnly resolving in the sight of God, that, so far as we are concerned, we shall seek the enjoyment of no privilege which is not universal, demand the exercise of no right for ourselves which is denied to one of the least of these our brethren, and cherish no sentiment within our hearts save that of good-will for all the sons of men.

I have spoken upon this burning question this morning, my friends, with a freedom which makes misinterpretation inevitable and misquotation certain. I have spoken thus for two reasons! First, that you, as my people, may know, beyond all doubt, just where I, your minister, stand on this burning question. I want you to know that, in this present fight, I am on the side of labor. I excuse none of its crimes—I pardon none of its criminals; but no crime and no criminal can ever shake my faith in the justice of its cause. And, in the second place, I have thus spoken, that I may shake you out of that opinion which has been forced upon your minds by the public discussions of the last two weeks, and set your thinking upon this question all anew. If you go out of this place, and denounce me as a dynamiter, I shall have failed in my purpose; and the fault will be mine, that I cannot express clearly what I want to say. If you go out of this place, and, without accepting any of my opinions, think the whole problem through again, in prayer to God that you may find the truth and may do injustice to no living soul, I shall have succeeded; and the credit will be yours, that you have the open mind. But whether I succeed or fail, matters little, perhaps; for, in spite of you and in spite of me, “it is God who reigneth over all the earth—He will judge the world in righteousness and minister judgment to the people. He will not fail nor faint till He have set justice in the earth—till He have burst the yoke asunder and given liberty to all them that are oppressed.”

RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN

The Perfect Orator

Imagine to yourself a Demosthenes, addressing the most illustrious assembly in the world, upon a point whereon the fate of the most illustrious of nations depended. How awful such a meeting! How fast the subject! Is man possessed of talents adequate to the great occasion? Adequate! Yes, superior. By the power of eloquence, the augustness of the assembly is lost in the dignity of the orator; and the importance of the subject, for a while superseded, by the admiration of his talents.

With what strength of argument, with what powers of the fancy, with what emotions of the heart, doth he assault and subjugate the whole man; and at once, captivate his reason, his imagination, and his passions. To effect this, must be the utmost effort of the most improved state of human nature. Not a faculty that he possesses is here unemployed; not a faculty that he possesses but is here exerted to its highest pitch. All his internal powers are at work; all his external, testify their energies.

Within, the memory, the fancy, the judgment, the passions, are all busy. Without, every muscle, every nerve, is exerted; not a feature, not a limb, but speaks. The organs of the body, attuned to the exertions of the mind, through the kindred organs of the hearers, instantaneously vibrate those energies from soul to soul.

Notwithstanding the diversity of minds in such a multitude, by the lightning of eloquence, they are melted into one mass; the whole assembly, actuated in one and the same way, become, as it were, but one man, and have but one voice. The universal cry is—“let us move against Philip—let us fight for our liberties—LET US CONQUER OR DIE!”

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Inaugural Address[20] (1905)

My Fellow Citizens: No people on earth have more cause to be thankful than ours, and this is said reverently, in no spirit of boastfulness in our own strength, but with gratitude to the Giver of Good, who has blessed us with the conditions which have enabled us to achieve so large a measure of well-being and happiness.

To us as a people it has been granted to lay the foundations of our natural life in a new continent. We are the heirs of the ages, and yet we have had to pay few of the penalties which in old countries are exacted by the dead hand of a bygone civilization. We have not been obliged to fight for our existence against any alien race; and yet our life has called for the vigor and effort without which the manlier and hardier virtues wither away.

Under such conditions it would be our own fault if we failed, and the success which we have had in the past, the success which we confidently believe the future will bring, should cause in us no feeling of vainglory, but rather a deep and abiding realization of all that life has offered us; a full acknowledgment of the responsibility which is ours; and a fixed determination to show that under a free government a mighty people can thrive best, alike as regard the things of the body and the things of the soul. Much has been given us, and much will rightfully be expected from us. We have duties to others and duties to ourselves—and we can shirk neither. We have become a great nation, forced by the fact of its greatness into relation to the other nations of the earth, and we must behave as becomes a people with such responsibilities.

Toward all other nations, large and small, our attitude must be one of cordial and sincere friendship. We must show not only in our words but in our deeds that we are earnestly desirous of securing their good will by acting toward them in a spirit of just and generous recognition of all their rights.

But justice and generosity in a nation, as in an individual, count most when shown not by the weak but by the strong. While ever careful to refrain from wronging others, we must be no less insistent that we are not wronged ourselves. We wish peace; but we wish the peace of justice, the peace of righteousness. We wish it because we think it right, and not because we are afraid. No weak nation that acts rightly and justly should ever have cause to fear, and no strong power should ever be able to single us out as a subject for insolent aggression.

Our relations with the other powers of the world are important; but still more important are our relations among ourselves. Such growth in wealth, in population, and in power, as a nation has seen during a century and a quarter of its national life, is inevitably accompanied by a like growth in the problems which are ever before every nation that rises to greatness. Power invariably means both responsibility and danger. Our forefathers faced certain perils which we have outgrown. We now face other perils the very existence of which it was impossible that they should foresee.

Modern life is both complex and intense, and the tremendous changes wrought by the extraordinary industrial development of the half century are felt in every fiber of our social and political being. Never before have men tried so vast and formidable an experiment as that of administering the affairs of a continent under the forms of a democratic republic. The conditions which have told for our marvelous material well-being, which have developed to a very high degree our energy, self-reliance, and individual initiative, also have brought the care and anxiety inseparable from the accumulation of great wealth in industrial centers.

Upon the success of our experiment much depends—not only as regards our own welfare, but as regards the welfare of mankind. If we fail, the cause of free self-government throughout the world will rock to its foundations, and therefore our responsibility is heavy, to ourselves, to the world as it is today, and to the generations yet unborn.

There is no good reason why we should fear the future, but there is every reason why we should face it seriously, neither hiding from ourselves the gravity of the problems before us, nor fearing to approach these problems with the unbending, unflinching purpose to solve them aright.

Yet, after all, though the problems are new, though the tasks set before us differ from the tasks set before our fathers, who founded and preserved this Republic, the spirit in which these tasks must be undertaken and these problems faced, if our duty is to be well done, remains essentially unchanged. We know that self-government is difficult. We know that no people needs such high traits of character as that people which seeks to govern its affairs aright through the freely expressed will of the free men who compose it.

But we have faith that we shall not prove false to memories of the men of the mighty past. They did their work; they left us the splendid heritage we now enjoy. We in our turn have an assured confidence that we shall be able to leave this heritage unwasted and enlarged for our children’s children.

To do so we must show, not merely in great crisis, but in every-day affairs of life, the qualities of practical intelligence, of course, of hardihood, and endurance, and, above all, the power of devotion to a lofty ideal, which made great the men who founded this Republic in the days of Washington; which made great the men who preserved this Republic in the days of Abraham Lincoln.

EDWIN G. LAWRENCE

Our Country[21] (1912)

Mr. Toastmaster, Ladies and Gentlemen: In that long ago, that age just following the period when darkness covered the face of the earth, that age when God dispelled that darkness by issuing his fiat, “Let there be light,” we are told in the Good Book that God followed the birth of the light with the creation of man, that He breathed the breath of life into his nostrils and that man became thereby a living soul. With the entrance of divine breath into the senseless clay, with the awakening of the soul of man, there came the realization of three spiritual facts: the belief in God, the love of home, and the devotion to country.

Nowhere in this vast universe does a conscious being exist who does not, in his heart, believe in God. Traverse the wilds of darkest Africa, enter the densest jungles of that great continent, and you will find that all its human inhabitants have some conception of God. In the remotest isles of the Pacific, among the cannibals who devour the flesh of their victims, is found evidence of the belief in the existence of God, although the evidence may be nothing more than the setting up of a symbol of wood or stone that typifies to the poor savage the Being he worships. Even the blasphemer, who, with the words of his mouth, denies the Almighty who created him, will, in his secret soul, hear the still small voice, the reflex of that great Creator, whisper unto him, “I am the Lord thy God.”

The love of home is universal. Be that home a hovel or a palace, if the heart be there, happiness will be its companion. Love of home often exists where the home is only in the fancy, only in the heart that longs and hungers for its blessings. That sweet singer who sang of “Home, sweet home” was a wanderer on the face of the earth, and possessed that home only in his dreams. No matter how pomp and power may elevate us, no matter how our erring feet may carry us astray, still in our hearts will echo the refrain:

’Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.

As we are gathered within this palatial building, around these well-laden tables, under the splendor of these electric lamps, how many of you at the sound of the word “Home” think of the little cottage perched upon the hill, or nestling down in the valley, where, seated at the plain wooden table, the room faintly lighted by a tallow candle, you have eaten your humble meal, blessed by the spirit that ever sanctifies the home? How many of you at this moment are, in fancy, back in the dear old county of Greene? How many of you trace the winding brook climb the hills, till the fields, or sit within the holy confines of the House of God, humble in its man-made structure but magnificent with the glory of His presence?

Home is a thought, a dream, a wish, the longing of the soul for the attainment of the heaven upon earth; and because man keeps before him the vision of what he would have his home, and sees not the materiality of its reality, he conceives his home, no matter where it may be placed, to be the best on earth. That beautiful writer, weak man, and luckless wanderer, Oliver Goldsmith, thus expresses the idea I would convey to you:

But where to find that happiest spot below
Who can direct, when all pretend to know?
The shudd’ring tenant of the frigid zone
Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own.
Extols the treasures of his stormy seas,
And his long nights of revelry and ease:
The naked negro, panting at the Line,
Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine,
Basks in their glare, or stems the tepid wave,
And thanks his gods for all the good they gave.
Such is the patriot’s boast where’er he roam,
His first, best country, ever is at home.

What does the word country signify? It means the same to the Russian on the frozen Volga; the German on the castled Rhine; the Irish on the shores of the River Lee, listening to “those bells of Shandon”; to the English on the Thames, that little stream pregnant with the history of a world; and to the American by the shores of the Hudson, the Columbia or the Mississippi. To all men, in all climes, “my country” means the land of my fathers, or the land of my choice; the place of sacred memories, of strong endeavors and of fervent hopes. Be that country the rock-ribbed land of Scotland, the sands of Africa, the vine-clad hills of France, the plains, the valleys and the mountains of America, it is “my country” to her sons and daughters. No matter what may be the language spoken, no matter what may the natural formation of the landscape, be it Holland with her dykes and ditches or Switzerland with her home in the clouds, no matter what may be the color of her children, be they white, yellow, black or brown, to them she is their mother, and they adore her.

All this and more “our country” means to us Americans. She means more to us than most lands can mean to their children, because she offers us greater opportunities for advancement in education, more religious, social and political liberty, and instills into us an appreciation of the necessity of working for the uplifting of mankind.

While laboring to uplift ourselves and our fellows, we should keep ever in mind the first tenth of that Decalogue given to the children of Israel for their guidance and government, and which is as necessary to our national preservation as it was to their national formation. That commandment states “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me”; and wherever that divine order was broken, the peoples so breaking it, went down to destruction. When Athens turned from her high ideals of progress and liberty she became the vassal of Macedonia and passed out of existence as an independent state. When the Emperor Augustus mounted the throne of the world-power of Rome, the people of that vast empire were slaves to sensuality and luxury, and from that moment, when her greatness appeared fixed for all times, her decline began. Let America pause and ponder as she stands on the brink of that gulf wherein lie buried Israel, Assyria, Carthage, Greece, and Rome, for unless she turns from the false god Mammon, and returns to the worship of the Lord God, she will as surely be plunged into the bottomless pit as were the nations that preceded her in wealth and power and which she is imitating by bowing down to and worshiping the golden calf. Let us keep before our country the lights of truth and justice that they may guide her from this threatening peril on to that upward and onward path leading to the holy of holies wherein sits enthroned the one true God—the God of Equality and of Love.

It is well to blend God, Home and Country, because the belief in all three makes the believer, man or woman, the patriot and the child of God. Take God out of the home and what have we? A shelter for the body, perhaps, but a wilderness for the spirit. Take God out of the country and what have we? A ship of state without a compass whereby to direct its course. Therefore, if either love of God or love of home fails to exist in the hearts of the citizens of any land, that part of the earth’s surface will be their habitation but it will fail to be their country. When the patriot thinks of the nation he loves he does not picture it as so much land, so much water, so many mountains or so many plains. No, he sees it as he sees his flag, symbolical of all that is dear, holy and true. It is the spirit of our flag that we love. It is the spirit of God and the spirit of Home that make us love our Country. Let us look to hear as our mother, let us be to her faithful and loving children, and may she be the better for having nurtured us in her arms.

Ladies and Gentlemen: Our Country. God grant she may always stand for the fulfillment of His word.

FOOTNOTES:

[1]Delivered in the Virginia Convention, on a resolution to put the commonwealth into a state of defense, March 23, 1775.

[2]Delivered in the United States Senate, March 7, 1850, in support of Clay’s compromise resolutions. Abridged.

[3]Delivered in the Senate of the United States, January 21, 1830. Abridged.

[4]Delivered at the Illinois Republican State Convention at Springfield, June 16, 1858.

[5]Delivered on February 11, 1861.

[6]Delivered in Faneuil Hall, Boston, December 8, 1837.

[7]Delivered in the United States Senate, January 21, 1861.

[8]Delivered in the United States Senate, January 7, 1861.

[9]A city of Iberia (Spain). Captured by Hannibal in 219 b. c., in spite of Rome’s warning. Hannibal’s action caused the war between Rome and Carthage.

[10]Delivered at Dartmouth College, July 27, 1853.

[11]Extract from an address delivered at the unveiling of the Statue of the Poet, in Central Park, New York, October 2, 1880.

[12]From Robert Burns’ Elegy on Captain Matthew Henderson.

[13]Delivered in the House of Representatives, April 28, 1874. Extract.

[14]Delivered in Washington, D. C., June 3, 1879.

[15]Delivered in Edinburgh, Scotland, March 17, 1880.

[16]Extract from an oration delivered before the President and both Houses of Congress in the House of Representatives at Washington, D. C., February 27, 1882.

[17]Delivered in the National Democratic Convention at Chicago in 1896.

[18]From a sermon delivered in the Church of the Messiah, New York City.

[19]From a sermon on “Capital vs. Labor,” delivered in the Church of the Messiah, New York City.

[20]Delivered at Washington, D. C., March 4, 1905.

[21]Delivered at the Hotel Astor, New York City, on the occasion of the Eighth Annual Dinner of The Greene County Society, Jan. 30, 1912.