APPENDIX.
THE LAST SPEECH
OF
ZACHARIAH CHANDLER,
Delivered in McCormick Hall, in the City of Chicago, on the Night of his Death, October 31, 1879.
[Republished by permission of Ritchie & Williston, Stenographers, Room 23, Howland Block, Chicago.]
Mr. Chairman and Fellow-Citizens: It has become the custom of late to restrict the lines of citizenship. In the Senate of the United States and in the halls of Congress you will hear citizenship described as confined to States, and it is denied that there is such a thing as national citizenship. I to-night address you, my fellow-citizens of Chicago, in a broad sense as fellow-citizens of the United States of America. [Applause.] A great crime has been committed, my fellow-citizens—a crime against this nation, a crime against republican institutions throughout the world; a crime against civil liberty, and the criminal is yet unpunished—that is to say, he is not punished according to his deserts. [Applause.] And I shall to-night devote myself chiefly to the history of a crime, and shall endeavor to hold up the criminal to your execration. [Renewed applause.]
But, first, it is proper for me to allude to certain matters of national importance, which are at this present moment living issues. Twelve years ago an idea was started in the neighboring State of Ohio, called the "Ohio idea," which spread and bore fruit in different States. That idea was to pay something with nothing. [Laughter] From this Ohio idea sprang up a brood of other ideas. For example, the greenback idea, an unlimited issue of irredeemable currency, and a party was inaugurated in different States called the greenback party. It took root in Michigan last year, had a vigorous growth, put forth limbs, blossomed liberally, bore no fruit, and died. [Laughter and cheers.] Therefore, I shall pay no attention to the greenback party. It is not a living issue. [Laughter.] But the Ohio idea is still a living issue, and even during the last session of Congress a demand was made, and persistently made, to repeal the Resumption act that had been in existence for years. The resumption of specie payment was virtually accomplished when, in 1874-5, that Resumption act became a law, for at that time we made that act so strong that there was no power on earth that could defeat the resumption of specie payments after it had once been inaugurated. [Applause.] We authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to use any bonds ever issued by the government, and in any amount that was necessary, to carry forward to success specie payments, as soon as the time arrived for the resumption. We carefully guarded that law. True, we are under an obligation to the man who executed the law, but the resumption of specie payments was as much a fixed fact when that law was signed as it is to-day, and all the powers on earth combined could not break that resumption when it had once been inaugurated.
But this Ohio idea, as I said, was to pay off your bonds with greenbacks. Well, my fellow-citizens, we have paid off $160,000,000 of your bonds in greenbacks within the last sixty or ninety days, and what more do you want? Ah! But the Ohio idea was something different from that. It was, as I said before, to pay something with nothing, and up to the final adjournment of the last regular session of Congress the attempt was still made to issue irredeemable paper and force it upon the creditors of the nation. Now, if this paper which they propose to issue in paying off the bonds of your government was properly and truthfully described, it would read thus: "The government of the United States for value received"—for it was for value received; no greenback was ever issued except for value received; no bond of the government was ever issued except for value received—"for value received, the government of the United States promises to pay nothing to nobody, never." [Applause and laughter.] That was the paper with which it was proposed by these men, entertaining then, and now entertaining the "Ohio idea," to redeem the bonds of your government.
Now, you have heard, I presume, here in Chicago, the denunciation of the holders of your government bonds. The "bloated bondholder" was a term of reproach, both on the floor of Congress and in the streets of Chicago and all over these United States. But who were the bloated bondholders? Why, my friends, every single man who has a dollar in the savings bank is a bloated bondholder, for there is not a savings-bank in the land, which ought to be entrusted with a dollar, whose funds are not invested in the bonds of your government. [Applause.] There is not a widow or orphan who has a fund to support the widow in her widowhood and the orphan in its orphanage, in a trust company, who is not a bloated bondholder; for there is not a trust company in the land that ought to be trusted which has not a large proportion of its funds in the bonds of your government. Every man who has his life insured, or his house insured, or his barn, or his lumber, or who has any insurance, is a bloated bondholder; for there is not an insurance company, life, fire, marine, or of any other class of insurance, that ought to be trusted, which has not its funds invested in bonds of your government. You may go to the books of the Treasury to-morrow and inquire and you will find ninety-nine men who own $100 and less of the bonds of your government, directly or indirectly, where you will find one man who owns $10,000 or more. And these men, entertaining the Ohio idea, would ruin the ninety-nine poor men for the possible chance of injuring the one-hundredth rich man. And yet you may destroy the bonds of the rich man and you do him no harm, for he has but a small amount of his vast wealth in the bonds of your government, while the poor man, owning $100 or under as his little all, is utterly ruined. [Applause.]
You would not find a man, woman, or child in America who would touch the kind of paper I have described, if proffered to them. You say you would stop the interest on your bonded debt. Very well! The holder of your bonds would say: "You do not propose to pay any interest. I hold a bond for value received, with a given amount of interest payable on a given day. Now I will hold your bonds until you men entertaining the Ohio idea are buried in your political graves, and then I will appeal to an honest people, to an honest government, to pay an honest debt." [Applause] "But," say these men, "pay off your foreign bonds." I see men before me who remember the days of General Jackson, and they likewise remember that in the time of General Jackson the government of France owed to the citizens of the United States $5,000,000, which France did not refuse to pay, but neglected to pay. It ran along from decade to decade, unpaid. General Jackson sent for the French minister and said: "Unless that $5,000,000 due to the citizens of the United States is paid, I will declare war against France." [Applause.] General Jackson was remonstrated with. It would disturb the commercial relations, not only of this country, but the world. Said he, "Unless France pays that $5,000,000, by the Eternal, I will declare war against France." [Applause.] Every man, woman and child and the King of France knew that he would do it, and the $5,000,000 was paid to the United States. It is not $5,000,000 that your government owes to the citizens of the world, but it is more than fifty times five million, and it is scattered in every nation with which we have commercial relations, or where money is found to invest in your bonds. You say you will stop the interest on those bonds. How long do you think it would be before a British fleet would come sailing to your coast, followed by a French fleet, and a German fleet, and a Russian, and an Austrian, and a Spanish and an Italian fleet, and the British Admiral would step ashore and say: "I have $50,000,000 of the bonds of this government belonging to the citizens of Great Britain, which I am ordered to collect!" The answer is: "Your account is correct, sir. The government of the United States owes just $50,000,000 to the citizens of Great Britain, and here is your money, sir."
[Mr. Chandler, suiting the action to the word, held out a sheet of paper with $50,000,000 written upon it, and the audience burst out into loud and long-continued laughter.]
The British Admiral looks at it and says: "What's that?"
"Why, money. Don't you see? Why, it is a first mortgage on all the property of all the citizens of all the United States." [Laughter.] "Don't you see the stamp of the government?" [Laughter.]
Says the Admiral: "Where is it payable?"
"Nowhere." [Laughter and applause.]
"To whom is it payable?"
"Nobody." [Laughter.]
"When is it made payable?"
"Never." [Renewed laughter and cheers.]
"Why," says the Admiral, "I don't know any such money. My orders are to collect this $50,000,000 in the coin of the world, and unless it is so paid my orders are to blockade every port of these United States, and here are all the navies of the earth to assist me, and to burn down every city that my guns will reach."
Honesty is the best policy with nations as well as with individuals. [Cheers.] "Well," they say, "perhaps you are right about this bond business. It is an open question, and we will abandon that, but the national banks—down with the national banks! [Laughter and applause.] Abolish national banks and save interest." What do you want to abolish the national banks for? That is a living issue to-day—a present proposition of the Democratic party that I propose to hold up to your abhorrence before I get through to-night. What do you want to "down with the national banks" for? I was in the Senate of the United States when that national banking law was passed. I was a member of that body and voted upon every proposition made in it. I had had a little experience in state banks myself. [Laughter and applause.] Michigan had a very large state bank circulation at one time [loud applause], and we called that "money" in those days wild-cat money [laughter], and it was very wild. [Renewed laughter and applause.] Chicago also had a little experience in those days as well as Michigan. In those days it was necessary for any man liable to receive a five-dollar note to carry a counterfeit detector with him for three purposes. First, to ascertain whether there ever was such a bank in existence. [Laughter and applause.] Second, to ascertain whether the bill was counterfeit, and, third, to ascertain whether the bank had failed [laughter]—and as a rule it had failed. [Laughter and applause.] Now, we had two objects in view in getting up that national banking law. First, we wanted to furnish an absolutely safe circulating medium, so that no loss could ensue to the bill-holder. Second, we wanted to furnish a market for our bonds which had become somewhat of a drug. We might just as well have put in state bonds as security for those bank notes. It would have been just as legal, just as right, but we didn't know which one or how many of those rebel States would repudiate their bonds, and therefore we didn't put in any. [Laughter and applause.] We might just as well have put in railroad bonds, but we didn't know how many railroads would default in their interest. We might just as well have put in real estate, but we didn't know whether the neighbors of the banker would appraise the real estate at its actual cash-selling value. [Applause and laughter.] And therefore we put in the bonds of your government at 90 cents on the dollar; so that to-day for every single 90 cents of national bank notes afloat there is 100 cents—(worth 102½ cents)—of the bonds of your government deposited with the Treasurer of the United States for the redemption of the 90 cents. [Applause.] And you don't know and you don't care whether the bank is located in Oregon, in Texas, in South Carolina, Mississippi, New York or Illinois, because you know there is 102½ cents to-day of the bonds of your government deposited with the Treasurer of the United States for the redemption of every 90 cents of national bank notes you hold. You don't know and you don't care whether the bank whose note you have in your pocket failed yesterday, last week, or last year, or whether it ever failed. And you never find that out, for if trouble comes the bonds are sold and your bank notes are redeemed the day after, or the week after, or the year after your bank has failed, precisely the same as though it had never failed. [Applause.]
Now you say, "Call in your bonds; abolish the national bank notes." Very well! You pass a law to-morrow repealing the charters of all your national banks. Call in the national bank notes! Every national bank in America takes the exact amount of the circulation which it has, either in silver or gold or greenbacks, to the Treasury, leaves it there to redeem its notes, takes the bonds and distributes them among the stockholders of that bank, and the day after you have called in every national bank note that you have out, you pay the self-same amount of interest on your bonds that you paid the day before, not one farthing more nor less. You don't gain one cent, but you lose $16,500,000 of taxes paid this year and last year and every year upon the stock of the national banks to national, state and municipal governments. [Applause.] You gain nothing, and you lose $16,500,000. You distress the whole community of these United States by compelling your banks to call in $850,000,000, now loaned and now being used in commerce, manufactures and all the industries of the nation. You distress the people by forcing a recall of that amount. No, my friends, in my judgment you had better devote yourselves to something you understand, and let the national banks alone. [Applause and laughter.]
But they say, "There is one thing that we know we are right on, and that is the free coinage of silver." Every man who holds 85 cents worth of silver shall go to the Treasury or the mints of the United States and take a certificate of deposit for 100 cents, which shall pass as money. This was the Warner bill. This the Democratic party as a party was committed to, and is committed to, and on the very last day of the extra session by a majority vote of one, and only one, in the Senate of the United States we substantially laid that bill upon the table, every Republican voting aye, and every Democrat, except four or five, voting no. [Applause.] Now, to-day, the laboring man can take gold or silver or paper, as he chooses, for his day's labor. I am in favor of the dual standard. I am in favor of a silver dollar with 100 cents in it. I am in favor of an honest dollar anywhere you can find it [cheers], and I stand by an honest dollar. To-day the laboring man can take gold or silver or paper, and they are all of equal value, because they are all interchangeable into each other. The paper dollar costs nothing; a silver dollar costs the government 85 cents—a fraction more now; it has been a fraction less. But all three are of equal value. Now the very moment you commence issuing those certificates of deposit freely to every man having bullion you banish gold from your circulating medium and make it an article of traffic and nothing else; and you have but a single standard, and that is a depreciated standard. Now there is paid out in these United States every day for labor alone $4,000,000. By compelling the substitution of the silver dollar alone, you swindle the laboring man out of $600,000 a day. The laboring man who receives a dollar gets but 85 cents. The man who receives $10 a week gets $8.50, and no more. The farmer who sells a horse, or the man who sells a load of lumber, or a load of wheat, or anything else amounting to $100, receives but $85, and no more. You have but one single standard, and that the silver standard, which, having banished gold, is worth precisely the metal that is in it. Who is benefited by this substitution? Why, my friends, not a living mortal is benefited, except the bullion-owner and the bullion-speculator. I do not charge these men with being bribed to pass that law, because I have no proof of it; but I do say that the bullion-owners and the bullion-speculators can afford to pay $10,000,000 in bullion for the privilege of swindling the laboring men of the country out of 15 per cent. of all their earnings. [Applause.] They say, "That may all be true; we don't know how it is; we have not been bribed"—and I never knew a man that would own up that he was bribed in my life. [Laughter.] I don't say that they are, but I do say that they are engaged in a mighty mean business. [Laughter and applause.]
But there is another question which is of vital interest to every man, woman and child in America, and that is this question of the enormous rebel claims against your government. I hold in my hand a list of the claims now before the two houses of Congress, and being pressed—cotton claims, claims for the destruction of property, for quartermaster's stores, for every conceivable thing that war could produce. I have a list of claims right here [holding up several sheets of paper containing names and amounts] aggregating many hundreds of millions. And the only thing to-day—the Senate and the House both being under the control of those Southern rebels—the only protection, the only barrier between the Treasury of the United States and those rebel claims is a presidential veto [cheers], and thank God for the veto! [Long-continued applause.] But these claims are not all. There are claims innumerable which they dare not yet present. You may go through every State in the South, and somewhere, hidden away, you will find a claim for every slave that ever was liberated. In the files of the Senate and the House you will find demands for untold millions of dollars to improve streams that do not exist—where you will have to pump the water to get up a stream at all. [Laughter and applause.] Demands for untold millions to build the levees of the Mississippi river! We have already given the Southern people 32,000,000 of acres of land which would be reclaimed by those levees, and now they propose to bankrupt your Treasury by telling you, people of the North, to build the levees to make the lands which you gave them valuable.
To show you that I am not over-stating this idea of Southern claims, I will read you a petition which is now being circulated throughout the South:
"We, the people of the United States, most respectfully petition your honorable bodies to enact a law by which all citizens of every section of the United States may be paid for all their property destroyed by the governments and armies on both sides, during the late war between the States, in bonds, bearing 3 per cent. interest per annum, maturing within the next one hundred years."
Every soldier who served in the Northern army has been paid. Every dollar's worth of property furnished to the Northern army has been paid for. Every widow or orphan of a wounded soldier entitled to a pension has been pensioned, so that there is no claim from the North; but this means that you shall do for the South precisely what you have done for your own soldiers.
But I have not yet reached the milk in this cocoa-nut. [Laughter.]
"And we also petition that all soldiers, or their legal representatives, of both armies and every section, be paid in bonds or public lands for their lost time [laughter], limbs, and lives while engaged in the late unfortunate civil conflict." [Laughter and applause.]
That all soldiers be paid for their lost time while fighting to overthrow your government! That they shall be paid for their lost limbs and their lost lives while fighting to overthrow your government!
Ah, my fellow-citizens, they are in sober, serious, downright earnest. They have captured both houses of Congress, and the only obstacle to the payment of these infamous claims is the presidential veto, and there is not a man before me who has not a personal, direct interest in seeing to it that the rebels do not capture the balance of Washington. [Applause.] These rebel States are solid—solid for repudiating your debt, solid for paying these rebel claims; they have repudiated their individual debts through the bankrupt law; they have repudiated their State debts by scaling, and then refusing to pay the interest on what has been scaled; they have repudiated their municipal debts by repealing the charters of their cities, towns, and villages. And do you think they are more anxious to pay the debt contracted for their subjugation than they are to pay their own honest debts? I tell you, No. They mean repudiation, and do not mean that your debt shall be of any more value than their own. When you trust them you are making a mistake, and I do not believe you will ever do it again. [Laughter and applause, and voices: "We won't!">[
But we have a matter under consideration to-night of vastly more importance than all the financial questions that can be presented to you, and that is, Is this or is it not a Nation! We had supposed for generations that this was a Nation. Our fathers met in convention to frame a constitution, and they found some difficulty in agreeing upon the details of that constitution, and for a time it was a matter of extreme doubt whether any agreement could be reached. Acrimonious debate took place in that convention, but finally a spirit of compromise prevailed, and the constitution was adopted by the convention and submitted to the people of these United States. Not to the States, but to the people of the United States, and the people of the United States adopted the constitution that was framed by the fathers, and for many long years the whole people of the United States believed that we had a Government. The whisky rebellion broke out in Pennsylvania, and was put down by the strong arm of the Government, and we still believed that we had a Government. We continued in that belief until the days of General Jackson, when South Carolina raised the flag of rebellion against the Government. Armed men trod the soil of South Carolina and threatened that unless the tariff was modified to suit their views they would overthrow the Government. This was under the leadership of John C. Calhoun, in carrying out his doctrine. Old General Jackson took his pipe out of his mouth when he was told that Calhoun was in rebellion against the Government, and said: "Let South Carolina commit the first act of treason against this Government, and, by the Eternal, I will hang John C. Calhoun!" and every man, woman, and child in America, including Calhoun, knew that he would do it, and the first act of treason was not committed against the Government, for even the State of South Carolina, under the leadership of John C. Calhoun, had bowed to its power.
We remained under that impression until I first took my seat in the Senate on the 4th day of March, 1857. Then, again, treason was threatened on the floor of the Senate and on the floor of the House. They said then: "Do this or we will destroy your Government. Fail to do that, and we will destroy your Government." One of them in talking to brave old Ben. Wade one day repeated this threat, and the old man straightened himself up and said: "Don't delay it on my account." [Laughter.] Careful preparations were made to carry out these treasons. Jefferson Davis stepped out of the Cabinet of Franklin Pierce, as Secretary of War, into the Senate of the United States, and became chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs. There was an innocent-looking clause in the general appropriation bill which read that the Secretary of War might sell such arms as he deemed it for the interest of the government to dispose of. Under that apparently innocent clause, your arsenals were opened; your arms and implements of war went together with your ammunition; your accoutrements followed your arms; your navy was scattered wherever the winds blew and sufficient water was found to float your ships, where they could not be used to defend your government. The credit of the government, whose 6 per cent. bonds in 1857 sold for 122 cents on the dollar, was so utterly prostrated and debased that in February, 1861—four years afterward—bonds payable, principal and interest in gold, bearing 6 per cent., were sold for 88 cents on the dollar, with no buyers for the whole amount. Careful preparations were made for the overthrow of your government, and when Abraham Lincoln [cheers] took the oath of office as President of the United States [cheers], you had no army, no navy, no money, no credit, no arms, no ammunition, nothing to protect the national life. Yet with all these discouragements staring us in the face, the Republican party undertook to save your government. [Applause.] We raised your credit, created navies, raised armies, fought battles, carried on the war to a successful issue, and, finally, when the rebellion surrendered at Appomattox, they surrendered to a Government. [Applause.] They admitted that they had submitted their heresy to the arbitrament of arms and had been defeated, and they surrendered to the government of the United States of America. [Applause.] They made no claims against this government, for they had none. In the very ordinance of secession which they had signed they had pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the overthrow of this government, and when they failed to do it, they lost all they had pledged. [Cries of "Good.">[ They made no claims against the government because they had none. They asked, and asked as a boon from the government of the United States, that their miserable lives might be spared to them. [Applause.] We gave them their lives. They had forfeited all their property—we gave it back to them. We found them naked and we clothed them. They were without the rights of citizenship, having forfeited those rights, and we restored them. We took them to our bosoms as brethren, believing that they had repented of their sins. We killed for them the fatted calf, and invited them to the feast, and they gravely informed us that they had always owned that animal, and were not thankful for the invitation. [Great laughter and cheers.] By the laws of war, and by the laws of nations, they were bound to pay every dollar of the expense incurred in putting down that rebellion. Germany compelled France to pay $1,000,000,000 in gold coin for a brief campaign. The seceding States were bound by the laws of war and by the laws of nations to pay every dollar of the debt contracted for their subjugation, but we forgave them that debt, and, to-day, you are being taxed heavily to pay the interest on the debt that they ought to have paid. [Applause.] Such magnanimity as was exhibited by this nation to these rebels has never been witnessed on earth [applause], and, in my humble judgment, will never be witnessed again. [Cheers.] Mistakes we undoubtedly made, errors we committed, and I will take my full share of responsibility for the errors, for I was there, and voted upon every proposition; but, in my humble judgment, the greatest mistake we made, and the gravest error we committed was in not hanging enough of these rebels to make treason forever odious. [Prolonged cheers.] Somebody committed a crime. Either those men who rose in rebellion committed the greatest crime known to human law, or our own brave soldiers, who went out to fight to save this government, were murderers. Is there a man on the face of the earth who dares to get up and say that our brave soldiers, who bared their breasts to the bullets of the rebels, were anything but patriots? [Cheers.]
And now, after twenty years—after an absence of four years from the Senate—I go back and take my seat, and what do I find? The self same pretensions are rung in my ears from day to-day. I might close my eyes and leave my ears open to the discussions that are going on daily in Congress, and believe that I had taken a Rip Van Winkle sleep of twenty years. [Applause.] Twenty years ago they said, "Do this or we will shoot your government to death! Fail to do that or we will shoot your government to death!" To-day I go back and find these paroled rebels, who have never been relieved from their parole of honor to obey the laws, saying: "Do this! obey our will, or we will starve your government to death! Fail to obey our will, and we will starve your government to death!" Now, if I am to die, I would rather be shot dead with musketry than be starved to death. [Laughter and applause.]
These rebels—for they are just as rebellious now as they were twenty years ago—there is not a particle of difference—these rebels to-day have thirty-six members on the floor of the House of Representatives, without one single constituent, and in violation of law those thirty-six members represent 4,000,000 people, lately slaves, who are as absolutely disfranchised as if they lived in another sphere, through shot-guns, and whips, and tissue ballots; for the law expressly says, wherever a race or class is disfranchised they shall not be represented upon the floor of the House. [Applause.] And these thirty-six members thus elected constitute three times the whole of their majority upon the floor of the House. Now, my fellow-citizens, this is not only a violation of law, but it is an outrage upon all the loyal men of these United States. [Applause.] It ought not to be. It must not be. [Applause.] And it shall not be. [Tremendous cheers.]
Twelve members of the Senate—and that is more than their whole majority—twelve members of the Senate occupy their seats upon that floor by fraud and violence, and I am saying no more to you in Chicago than I said to those rebel generals to their faces on the floor of the Senate of the United States. [Enthusiastic applause.] Twelve members of that Senate were thus elected, and with majorities thus obtained by fraud and violence in both houses, they dare to dictate terms to the loyal men of these United States. [Applause.] With majorities thus obtained they dare to arraign the loyal men of this country, and say they want honest elections. [Laughter and applause.] They are mortally afraid of bayonets at the polls. We offered them a law forbidding any man to come within two miles of a polling place with arms of any description, and they promptly voted it down [laughter and applause], for they wanted their Ku-Klux there. They were afraid, not of Ku-Klux at the polls, but of soldiers at the polls. Now, in all the States north of Mason and Dixon's line and east of the Rocky Mountains there is less than one soldier to a county. [Laughter.] There is about two-thirds of a soldier to a county. [Laughter and applause.] And, of course, about two-thirds of a musket to a county. [Laughter.] Now, would not this great county of Cook tremble if you saw two-thirds of a soldier parading himself up and down in front of the city of Chicago. [Loud and long-continued applause and laughter.] But they are afraid to have inspectors. What are they afraid to have inspectors for? The law creating those inspectors is imperative that one must be a Democrat and the other a Republican. They have no power whatever except to certify that the election is honest and fair. And yet they are afraid of those inspectors, and then they are afraid of marshals at the polls. Now, while the inspectors cannot arrest, the marshals under the order of the court can arrest criminals; therefore, they said: "We will have no marshals." What they want is not free elections, but free frauds at elections. They have got a solid South by fraud and violence. Give them permission to perpetrate the same kind of fraud and violence in New York city and in Cincinnati and those two cities with a solid South will give them the presidency of the United States; and once obtained by fraud and violence, by fraud and violence they would hold it for a generation. To-day eight millions of people in those rebel States as absolutely control all the legislation of this government as they controlled their slaves while slavery was in existence. Through caucus dictation now I find precisely what I found twenty years ago when I first took my seat in Congress. In a Democratic Congress, composed of twenty-eight Southern Democrats and sixteen Northern Democrats, they decreed that Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois should be degraded and disgraced from the Committee on Territories, and there were but just two Northern Democratic senators who dared even to enter a protest against the outrage. To-day there are thirty-two Southern Democratic senators to twelve Northern, and out of the whole twelve there is not a man who dares protest against anything. [Applause.] I say, that through this caucus dictation, these eight millions of Southern rebels as absolutely control the legislation of this nation as they controlled their slaves when slavery existed.
Now, if every man within the sound of my voice should stand up in this audience and hold up his right hand and swear that a rebel soldier was better than a Union soldier, I would not believe it. [Laughter and applause.] I would hold up both of my hands and swear that I did not believe it. [Cheers.] And yet, to-day, in South Carolina, in Alabama, in Louisiana, in Mississippi and in several other States the vote of a rebel soldier counts more than two of the votes of the brave soldiers of Illinois; for they vote for the negro as well as for themselves, and their vote weighs just double the weight of that of the brave soldier in Illinois. It is an outrage upon freedom, an outrage upon the gallant soldiers of Illinois and Michigan. [Applause.]
Now, my fellow-citizens, I have undertaken to show you the condition in which the country was placed when the Republican party assumed the reins of power. When the Republican party took the reins of power, the country had no money, no credit, no arms, no ammunition, no navy, no material of war. When the Republican party took the reins of power in its hands, there was no nation poor enough to do you reverence. You were the derision of the nations of the earth. You had but one ally and friend on earth, and that was little Switzerland. [Applause.] Russia sent her fleet to winter here for her own protection, but there was not a nation on God's earth, that did not hope and pray that your republican government might be overthrown, and there was no nation on earth poor enough to do you reverence. We fought that battle through; we raised the nation's dignity, and the nation's honor, the national power and the national strength, until now, to-day, after eighteen years of Republican rule, there is no nation on earth strong enough not to do you reverence. [Loud and continued applause.] We took your national credit when it was so low that your bonds were selling at 88 cents on the dollar, bearing six per cent. interest and no takers, and we elevated your credit up, up, up, up, up until to-day your four per cent. bonds are selling at a premium in every market of the earth. [Applause.] So your credit stands higher than the credit of any other nation. [Applause.] We saved the national life and we saved the national honor, and yet, notwithstanding all this, there are those who say that the mission of the Republican party is ended and that it ought to die. If there ever was a political organization that existed on the face of this globe, which, so far as a future state of rewards and punishments is concerned, is prepared to die, it is that old Republican party. [Cheers.] But we are not going to do it. [Laughter and applause.] We have made other arrangements. [Renewed laughter and cheers.]
The Republican party is the only party that ever existed, so far as I have been able to ascertain—so far as any record can be found, either in sacred or profane history—it is the only party that ever existed on earth which had not one single, solitary, unfulfilled pledge left [cheers]—not one [renewed cheers]; and I defy the worst enemy the Republican party ever had to name one single pledge it gave to the people who created it which is not to-day a fulfilled and an established fact. [Cheers.] The Republican party was created with one idea, and that was to preserve our vast territories from the blighting curse of slavery. We gave that pledge at our birth, that we would save those territories from the withering grasp of slavery, and we saved them. [Voices. "Yes, we did.">[ It is our own work. We did it. [Cheers.] But we did more than that; we not only saved your vast territories from the blighting curse of slavery, but we wiped the accursed thing from the continent of North America. [Tremendous cheering.] We pledged ourselves to save your national life, and we saved your national life. We pledged ourselves to save your national honor, and we saved your national honor. [Applause.] We pledged ourselves to give you a homestead law, and we gave you a homestead law. [Applause.] We pledged ourselves to improve your rivers and your harbors, and we improved your rivers and your harbors. [Applause.] We pledged ourselves to build a Pacific railroad, and we built a Pacific railroad. [Applause.] We pledged ourselves to give you a college land bill, and we gave it to you; and, not to weary you, the last pledge ever given and the last to be fulfilled was that the very moment we were able we would redeem the obligations of this great government in the coin of the realm, and on the first day of January, 1879, we fulfilled the last pledge ever given by the Republican party. [Cheers and long-continued applause.]
Notwithstanding all this, you say: "Your mission is ended and you ought to die." [Laughter and applause.] Well, my fellow-citizens, if we should die to-day, or to-morrow, our children's children to the twentieth generation would boast that their ancestors belonged to that glorious old Republican party [applause] that wiped that accursed thing, slavery, from the escutcheon of this great government. [Cheers.] And they would have a right to boast throughout all generations.
Senator Ben. Hill of Georgia said, in my presence, that he was an "ambassador" from the sovereign State of Georgia [laughter] to the Senate of the United States. Suppose Ben. Hill should be caught in Africa or India, or some of those Eastern nations, and should get into a little difficulty, do you think he would raise the great flag of Georgia over his head [laughter] and say: "That will protect me." [Renewed laughter and applause.] My fellow-citizens, you may take the biggest ship that sails the ocean, put on board of her the flags of all the States that were lately in the rebellion against this government, raise to her peak the stars and bars of the rebellion, start her with all her bunting floating to the breeze, sail her around the world, and you would not get a salute of one popgun from any fort on earth. [Loud and continued laughter and applause.] Take the smallest ship that sails the ocean, mark her "U. S. A."—United States of America—raise to her peak the Stars and Stripes, and sail her around the world, and there is not a fort or a ship-of-war of any nation on God's footstool that would not receive her with a national salute. [Cheers.] And yet the Republican party has done all this. We took your government when it was despised among the nations, and we have raised it to this high point of honor; and yet you tell us we ought to die. [Laughter and applause.]
Suppose there was a manufacturing concern here that failed about the year 1837, and the citizens of Chicago thought it very important that it be reorganized and resume business. You would buy the property for fifty cents on the dollar and reorganize it under your general laws, elect officers, and look about for a competent man to manage it. Finally you find what you believe to be the very man for that business and put him in possession. He finds that the machinery is not up to the progress of the age, and goes and buys new. He brings order out of confusion, he manages the business so that the stock of the concern rises to par; dividends are paid semi-annually and they grow larger and larger. The stock rises to two hundred, and none for sale. After eighteen years of successful management the manager comes in with his account-current and his check for the half-yearly dividend, and lays it before the president and the directors. The president has had a little conversation with his directors, and says:
"This statement is very satisfactory, but we have concluded that after the first day of July next we shall not require your services any longer."
"Why," says the manager, "what have I done?"
"Nothing that is not praiseworthy. We will give you a certificate that we think you have managed this establishment with great ability and great success. We will certify that we think you have no equal in the city of Chicago or State of Illinois. Everything you have done is praiseworthy, and we give you full credit for it; but eighteen years ago one of our employes was caught stealing and sent to the penitentiary. He has now served his time out, and we propose to put him in your place." [Prolonged laughter and cheers.] Wouldn't you say that the president and all of the directors should be put into a lunatic asylum on suspicion at once? [Applause and laughter.]
Now, I tell you, Mr. Chairman, the mission of the Republican party is not ended. [Cheers.] I tell you, furthermore, Mr. Chairman, that it has just begun. [Cheers.] I tell you, furthermore, that it will never end until you and I can start from the Canada border, travel to the Gulf of Mexico, make black Republican speeches wherever we please [applause], vote the black Republican ticket wherever we gain a residence [cheers], and do it with exactly the same safety that a rebel can travel throughout the North, stop wherever he has a mind to, and run for judge in any city he chooses.
[This hit at the Democratic candidate for judge of the Cook County Superior Court, who was a rebel soldier during the war, set the audience wild, and they cheered and swung their hats and handkerchiefs frantically.]
I hope after you have elected him judge he won't bring you in a bill for loss of time. [Laughter.]
You are going to hold an election next Tuesday which is of importance far beyond the borders of Chicago. The eyes of the whole nation are upon you. By your verdict next Tuesday you are to send forth greeting to the people of the United States, saying, that either you are in favor of honest men, honest money, patriotism, and a National Government [cheers], or that you are in favor of soft money, repudiation, and rebel rule. [Cheers.] It is a good symptom, Mr. Chairman, to see 600 young men like you in line, prepared to carry the flag of the Republican party forward to victory. [Cheers.] It is a good symptom to see 600 young men like my friend, the chairman here, in the front ranks, ready to fight the battles of their country now, and vote as they shot during the war. [Cheers.]
Now, I want every single man in this vast audience to consider himself a committee of one to work from now until the polls close on Tuesday next. [Cheers.] Find a man who might stay away, who has gone away and might not return; secure one man besides yourself to go to the polls and vote the Republican ticket; and if you cannot find such a man, try to convert a sinner from the error of his way. [Applause.] You have got too much at stake to risk it at this election. The times are too good. Iron brings too much. Lumber is too high. Your business is too prosperous. Your manufactories are making too much money for you to afford to turn this great government over to the hands of repudiating rebels. You cannot do it. Shut up your stores. Shut up your manufactories. Go to work for your country, and spend two days, and on the night of election, Mr. Chairman, send me a dispatch, if you please, that Chicago has gone overwhelmingly Republican. [Loud cheers.]
The Doric Pillar of Michigan.
A MEMORIAL ADDRESS,
Delivered in the Fort Street Presbyterian Church, Detroit, Mich., Thursday Morning, Nov. 27, 1879,
BY
The Rev. ARTHUR T. PIERSON, D. D.
"There were giants in the earth in those days," is the simple record of the age before the flood.
There has been no age without its giants; not, perhaps, in the narrow sense of great physical stature, but in the broader sense of mental might, capacity to command and control. Such men are but few, in the most favored times, and it takes but few to give shape to human history and destiny. Their words shake the world; their deeds move and mold humanity; and, as Carlyle has suggested, history is but their lengthened shadows, the indefinite prolonging of their influence even after they are dead.
One of these giants has recently fallen, at the commanding signal of One who is far greater than any of the sons of men, and at whose touch kings drop their sceptre, and, like the meanest of their slaves, crumble to dust.
This giant fell among us. We had seen him as he grew to his great stature and rose to his throne of power. He moved in our streets; he spoke in our halls; in our city of the living was his earthly home, and in our city of the dead is his place of rest. He went from us to the nation's capital, to represent our State in the Senate of the republic; he belonged to Michigan, and Michigan gave him to the Union; but he never forgot the home of his manhood. Here his dearest interests clustered, and his deepest affections gathered; and here his most loving memorial will be reared. As he belonged peculiarly to this congregation, surely it is our privilege to weave the first wreath to garland his memory.
The annual Day of Thanksgiving is peculiarly a national day, since it is the only one in the year when the whole nation is called upon by its chief magistrate to give thanks as a united people. By common consent, it is admitted proper that, on that day, special mention be made of matters that affect our civil and political well-being. There is therefore an eminent fitness in a formal commemoration upon this day of the life and labors of our departed Senator and statesman.
With diffidence I attempt the task that falls to me. The time is too short to admit even a brief sketch of a life so long in deeds, so eventful in all that makes material for biography; a life full, not only of incidents, but of crises; moreover, I am neither a senator nor a statesman, and feel incompetent to review a career which only the keen eye of one versed in affairs of state can apprehend or appreciate in its full significance; but, if you will indulge me, I will, without conscious partiality or partisanship, calmly give utterance to the unspoken verdict of the common people as to our departed fellow-citizen; and try to hint at least a few of the lessons of a life that suggests some of the secrets of success.
History is the most profitable of all studies, and biography is the key of history. In the lives of men, philosophy teaches us by examples. In the analysis of character, we detect the essential elements of success and discern the causes of failure. Virtue and vice impress us most in concrete forms; and hence even the best of all books enshrines as its priceless jewel the story of the only perfect life.
To draw even the profile of Mr. Chandler's public career the proper limits of this address do not allow. There is material, in the twenty years of his senatorial life, which could be spread through volumes. His advocacy of the great Northwest, whose champion he was; his master-influence, first as a member, and then as the chairman of the Committee of Commerce; his bold, keen dissection of the Harper's Ferry panic; his sagacious organization of the presidential contests; his plain declarations of loyalty to the Union as something which must be maintained at cost both of treasure and of blood; his large practical faculty for administration, made so conspicuous during stormy times; his efficiency as a member of the standing Committee on the Conduct of the War; his exposure of those who were responsible for its failures, and his defense of those who promoted its successes, his marked influence in changing not only the channel of public sentiment, but the current of events; his watchful guardianship of popular interests, political and financial; his intelligence and activity in senatorial debates; his attentive and persistent study of the problem of reconstruction; and his fearless resistance to all Southern aggression and intimidation, are among the salient points of that long and eventful public service, whose scope is too wide to allow at this hour even a hasty survey.
But, happily, it is quite needless that in such a presence I should trace in detail the events of his life; to us he was no stranger; and the mark he has made upon our memory and our history is too deep not to last. His footprints are not left upon treacherous and shifting quicksands; and no wave of oblivion is likely soon to wash them away.
Zachariah Chandler had nearly completed his sixty-sixth year; forty-six years he had been a resident of the City of the Straits. New Hampshire was the State of his nativity: Michigan was, in an emphatic sense, the State of his adoption. In our city his first success was won in mercantile pursuits, where also was the first field for the exhibition of his energy, ability and integrity. Here, as this century passed its meridian hour, he passed the great turning-point in his career; and his large capacities and energies were diverted into a political channel. First, Mayor of the city, then nominated for Governor; when, more than twenty years ago, a successor was sought for Lewis Cass in the Senate, this already marked man became the first representative of the Republican party of this State in that august body at Washington. There, for a period of eighteen years, he sat among the mightiest men of the nation, steadily moving toward the acknowledged leadership of his party, and the inevitable command of public affairs. After three terms in the Senate, his seat was occupied for a short time by another; but, upon the resignation of Mr. Christiancy, he was, with no little enthusiasm, re-elected, and was in the midst of a fourth term, when suddenly he was no more numbered among the living. It may be doubled whether, at this time, any one man, from Maine to Mexico, swayed the popular mind and will with a more potent sceptre than did he; and many confidently believe and affirm that, had death spared him, he would have been lifted by the omnipotent voice and vote of the people to the Presidency of the Republic.
Mr. Chandler took his seat in the Senate in those days of strife when the storm was gathering, which, on the memorable 12th of April, 1861, burst upon our heads, in the first gun fired at Fort Sumter. He entered the Senate chamber, to take the oath of office, in company with some whose names are now either famous or infamous for all time. On the one hand, there was Jefferson Davis; on the other Hannibal Hamlin, Charles Sumner, Benjamin F. Wade and Simon Cameron.
Those were days when history is made fast. Every day throbbed with big issues. Kansas was a battle-ground of freedom; and the awful struggle between State Sovereignty and National Unity was gathering, like a volcano, for its terrible outbreak. The Republican Senator from Michigan took in, at a glance, the situation of affairs. Devoted as he was to the State, whose able advocate and zealous friend he was; earnest and persistent as he was, in promoting the commercial and industrial interests of the lake region; he was yet too much a patriot to forget the whole country; and as the great conflict, which Mr. Seward named "irrepressible," moved steadily on toward its crisis, he armed himself for the encounter and planted his feet upon the rock of unalterable allegiance to the Union; and from that position he never swerved.
Mr. Chandler was a zealous party-man; in the eyes of some he was a partisan, in the strenuous advocacy of some measures; but I believe that when history frames her ultimate, impartial verdict, she will accord to him a candid, conscientious adherence to what he believed to be a fundamental principle, absolutely essential to our national life. He saw the South breathing hot hate toward the North, planning and threatening to rend the Union asunder. To him it was not a question simply of liberty and slavery, of sectional prejudice, of political animosity; but a matter of life or of death. He saw the scimitar of secession raised in the gigantic hand of war—but what was it that it was proposed to cleave in twain at one blow? A living, vital form! the body of a nation, with its one grand framework, its common brain and heart, its network of arteries and veins and nerves. It was not dissection as of a corpse—it was vivisection as of a corpus—that sharp blade, if it fell, would cut through a living form, and leave two quivering, bleeding parts, instead. Divide the nation? Why, the same mountain ranges run down our eastern and western shores; the same great rivers, which are the arteries of our commerce, flow through both sections. Our republic is a unit by the decree of nature, that marked our nation's area and arena by the lines of territorial unity, a unit by the decree of history that records one series of common experiences; and, aside from the decree of nature and of history, it is one by the decree of necessity, for we could not survive the separation. Those were the decisive days, and they showed whose heart was yearning toward the child; and God said, as he saw a unanimous North pleading with Him to arrest the falling sword and spare the living body of a nation's life—"Give her the child, for she is the mother thereof!"
Mr. Chandler has been charged with violent and even vindictive feeling toward what he deemed disloyalty and treason.
You have heard the story of the Russians, chased by a hungry pack of wolves, driving at the height of speed over the crisp snow, finding the beasts of prey gaining fast upon them, and throwing out one living child after another to appease the maw of wolfish hunger, while the rest of the family hurried on toward safety.
There are sagacious statesmen that have declared, for a quarter of a century, that State Rights represents the pack of wolves and the Sovereignty of the Union the imperilled household. For scores of years, the encroachments of the South became more and more imperious and alarming.
Concession after concession was made, offering after offering flung to the sacrifice, but only to be followed by a hungrier clamor and demand for more; and, at last, even men of peace said, "We must stop right here and fight these wolves;" and, when it becomes a question of life and death, men become desperate.
I have never supposed myself to be a strong partisan. As a man, a citizen, and a Christian, I have sought to find the true political faith, and, finding it, to hold it, firmly and fearlessly. The question of the unity of our nation and the sovereignty of the national government has ever seemed to me to be of supreme moment, transcending all mere political or party issues; and, as a patriot, I cannot be indifferent to it.
When the long struggle between State Rights and National Sovereignty grew hot and broke out into civil war, it was a matter of tremendous consequence that the Union be preserved. History stood pointing, with solemn finger, to the fate of the republics of Greece and Switzerland, reminding us that confederation alone will not suffice to keep a nation alive. Mexico, at our borders, was a warning against dismemberment or the loss of the supremacy of a republican unity. And men of all parties forgot party issues in patriotic devotion. It may be a question whether State Sovereignty, however fatal to national life, deserved the hideous name of treason, before the war. But, after the matter had been referred to the arbitrament of the sword, and had been settled at such cost of blood and treasure, it can never henceforth be anything but treason, again to raise that issue. Hence, even men that were temperate in their opposition to Southern aggressions before the war, now are impatient. They set their teeth with the resolution of despair, and say, "We make no further effort to escape this issue, and we throw out no more offerings of concession. We shall fight these wolves; and either State Rights or National Sovereignty shall die."
This was Mr. Chandler's position; if it was a mistaken one, it is the unspoken verdict of millions of the best men of all parties in the whole country; and every new concession to this great national heresy is only making new converts to the necessity of a firm and fearless resistance.
Some one has suggested that the old division of the church into militant and triumphant is no longer sufficient; we must add another, namely, the church termagant. In our country both sections were militant, and one was triumphant; the other has been very termagant ever since. General Grant, at his reception in Chicago, declared that the war for the Union had put the republic on a new footing abroad. A quarter of a century ago, by political leaders across the sea, "it was believed we had no nation. It was merely a confederation of States, tied together by a rope of sand, and would give way upon the slightest friction. They have found it was a grand mistake. They know we have now a nation, that we are a nation of strong and intelligent and brave people, capable of judging and knowing our rights, and determined on all occasions to maintain them against either domestic or foreign foes; and that is the reception you, as a nation, have received through me while I was abroad."
On the same day we have a significant voice from the South, General Toombs, in response to a suggestion that Governors of various States and prominent Southern men should unite in congratulations to the ex-President on his return, telegraphs in these words: "I decline to answer except to say, I present my personal congratulations to General Grant on his safe return to his country. He fought for his country honorably and won. I fought for mine and lost. I am ready to try it over! Death to the Union!"
Here we have simply two representative utterances; one is the voice of a solid North; the other is, we fear, the voice of a South that is much more "solid" than we could wish. It is no marvel if, after a war of so many years, that cost so many lives and so much money, and left us to drag through ten years of a financial slough, loyal men are impatient and even angry, when they discover that the question is still an unsettled one, and that we have not even conquered a peace! Even the interpretation now attached to this seditious utterance by General Toombs himself, that "the result of war was death to the Union, and that the present government is a consolidated one, not a confederacy," does not essentially relieve the matter.
Mr. Chandler could not brook what he regarded as sentiments rendered doubly treasonable by the fact that a long, bitter but successful war had burned upon them with a hot iron the brand of treason. He fought those sentiments, and it was as under a black flag that announced "no quarter." But this does not prove malicious or vindictive feeling toward misguided men who hold such views. There is a difference between fighting a principle and fighting a person. In fact the only way to prevent fighting men is often a vigorous and timely opposition to their measures. And if we wish to avoid another war, and that a war of extermination, the ballot must obviate the necessity for the bullet: we must stand together, and by our voice and vote, by tongue and pen, by our laws and our acts, in the use of every keen weapon, exterminate the heresy of State Rights. We need not do this in hate toward the South: a true love even for the South demands it, for to them as to us it is a deadly foe to all true prosperity and national existence. How can a man who candidly looks upon the present attitude of the South as both suicidal and nationally destructive be calm and cool? The philippics of Demosthenes were bitter, but they were the mighty beatings of a heart that pulsed with the patriotism that could not see liberty throttled without sounding a loud and indignant alarm. The North owes a big debt to every man who at this crisis will not suffer an imperilled republic to sleep.
Mr. Chandler was not a college graduate. His early training was got in the New England common school and academy. Yet he was in a true sense an educated man: for education is "not a dead mass of accumulations," but self-development, "power to work with the brain," to use the hand in cunning and curious industries, to use the tongue in attractive and effective speech, to use the pen in wise, witty or weighty paragraphs. Somehow he had learned to hold, with a master hand, the reins of his own mind, and make his imagination and reason and memory and powers of speech obey his behests. That is no common acquirement: it is something beyond all mere acquirement; it is the infallible sign and seal of culture. His addresses, even on critical occasions, were unwritten, and, in some cases, could not have been elaborated, even in the mind; yet in vigor of thought, logical continuity and consistency, accuracy of diction, and even rhetorical grace, few public speakers equal them.
The power to command the popular ear is a rare power, whether it be a gift of nature or a grace of culture. With Mr. Chandler it was held and wielded as a native sceptre. He had the secret of rhetorical adaptation; he could at once go down to the level of the people and yet lift them to his level. They understood what he said and knew what he meant. He threw himself into their modes of thought and habits of speech; he culled his illustrations mainly from common life. If he sacrificed anything, it was rhetorical elegance, never force; his one aim was to compel conviction.
The simplicity of his diction was a prime element and secret of his power. He did not speak as one who had to say something, but as one who had something to say, and whose whole aim was to say it well; with clearness, plainness, force and effect. If he could not have both weight and lustre, he would have weight.
Walter Scott has exposed the absurdity of "writing down" to children, and shown that it is really writing up, to make oneself so simple as to be plain even to the child-mind. Simplicity is the highest art. To have thought faintly gloom and glimmer through obscure language, like stars through a haze or mist, may serve to impress the ignorant with a supposed profundity in the speaker; but it is no more a sign of such profundity than muddy water signifies depth in a stream; it may suggest depth because you can see no bottom, but it means shallowness! It is a lesson that all of us may learn through the life of our departed Senator, that the first element of good speaking is thought; and the second a form of words fitting the thought, which, like true dress, shall not call attention to itself but to the idea or conception which it clothes. Any man who is long to hold the ear of the people must give them facts and thoughts worth knowing and thinking of, in words which it will not take a walking dictionary or living encyclopædia to interpret, or a philosopher to untangle from the skein of their confusion.
Mr. Chandler was such a man, a man for the people. Free from all stately airs and stilted dignities, he took hold of every political and national question with ungloved hands. He understood and used the language of home life, which is the "universal dialect" of power. His speeches were packed with vigorous Saxon. He thought more of the short sword, with its sharp edge and keen point and close thrust, than of the scholar's labored latinity, with its longer blade, even though it might also have a diamond-decked hilt; and in this, as in not a few other conspicuous traits, he was master of the best secrets that gave the great Irish agitator, O'Connell, his strange power of moving the multitude. His last speech, even when read, and without the magnetism of his personal presence, may well stand as the last of his utterances.
The simplicity of Mr. Chandler's style of oratory amounted to ruggedness, in the sense in which we apply that word to the naked naturalness of a landscape, whose features have not been too much modified by art. There is in oratory an excessive polish, which suggests coldness and deadness. Some speakers sharpen the blade until there is no blade left, the mistaken carefulness of their culture brings everything to one dead level of faultlessness; there is nothing to offend, and nothing to rouse and move. Demosthenes said that kinésis—not "action," but motion, or rather that which moves—is the first, second, third requisite of true oratory. He is no true speaker who simply pleases you: he must stir you to new thought, new choice, new action.
We must beware of the polish that is a loss of power, and, like a lapidary, not grind off points, but grind into points. Demosthenes was more rugged than Cicero; but he pricked men more with the point of his oratorical goad. Men heard the silver-tongued Roman and said, "How pleasantly he speaks!" They heard the bold Athenian and shouted, "Let us go and fight Philip!"
Carlyle says, "He is God's anointed king whose simple word can melt a million wills into his!" That melting wills into his own is the test of eloquence in the orator; and a rugged simplicity has held men in the very fire of the orator's ardor and fervor, till they were at white heat, and could he shaped at will; while the most scholarly display of culture often leaves them unmoved, to gape and stare with wonder, as before the splendors of the Aurora Borealis, and feel as little real warmth. Emerson is right: "There is no true eloquence unless there is a man behind the speech," and men care not what the speech is if the man be not behind it, or, on the other hand, what the speech is, if the man be behind it! And so it is that Richard Cobden compelled even Robert Peel, who loved truth and candor, to become a convert to his free-trade opinions; and so it was that John Bright, another model of a simple utterance with a sincere man behind it, swayed such a mighty sceptre over the people of Britain. The mere declaimer or demagogue may win a temporary hearing; but the man who leaves a lasting impress on the mind of the people must have in himself some real worth.
To Mr. Chandler's executive ability reference has been made. It was never better illustrated than in his vigorous and faithful administration as Secretary of the Interior. It was Hercules in the Augean stables again—purging the department of incompetency and dishonesty. He sent a flood through the Patent Office, that swept all the clerks out of one room; and another through the Indian Bureau, that cleaned out its abuses and exposed its frauds. It is said that the reconstruction of that department saved millions annually to the treasury of the nation. Mr. Schurz, in becoming his successor, paid a very handsome tribute to the retiring Secretary, acknowledging the great debt of the country to Mr. Chandler's energy and fidelity, and modestly declaring that he could hope for no higher success than to keep and leave the department where he found it.
If there be any one thing for which the Senator from Michigan stood above most men it was in this practical business ability. He had, in rare union, "talent" and "tact." His good sense, clear views, ready and retentive memory, prompt decision, patience and perseverance, quick discernment and instinctive perception of the fitness of ways to ends, qualified him for energetic and successful administration anywhere. Webster said, "There is always room at the top." Even the pyramid waits for the capstone, which must be, itself, a little pyramid. And he who has inborn or inbred fitness for the top place will find his way there; no other will long stay there, even if some accident lifts him to the nominal occupancy of such a position.
He had rare tact, that indefinable quality of which Ross says, that "it is the most exquisite thing in man." Literally it means "touch," and is suggested by the delicacy often found in that mysterious sense. It describes, though it cannot define, the nice, skillful, innate discernment and discrimination which tells one what to say and do, even on critical occasions; how to reach and "touch" men, when a blunder would be fatal. This wisdom of instinct may be cultivated but cannot be acquired; and it seems to be close of kin with that common sense which, though by no means exceedingly "common," represents a sound intuitive sense in common matters, such as would be the common sense or verdict of wise and sagacious minds.
The Senator impressed men as one whose powers were varied and versatile. Thomas F. Marshall, the "Kentucky orator," maintained that fine speaking, writing and conversation depend on a different order of gifts. "A speech cannot be reported, nor an essay spoken. Fox wrote speeches; nobody reads them. Sir James Mackintosh spoke essays; nobody listened. Yet England crowded to hear Fox, and reads Mackintosh. Lord Bolingbroke excelled in all, the ablest orator, finest writer, most elegant drawing-room gentleman in England."
Whether or not this philosophy be sound and this estimate correct, we shall all agree that few men combine power of speech with force in composition and grace in conversation. Our departed Senator certainly had more than the common share of versatility. That last speech at Chicago thrilled a vast audience when spoken, and kindled a flaming enthusiasm; yet it reads like the compact and complete sentences of the essayist.
Versatility, however, is not to be coveted where it implies a lack of concentration. An anonymous writer has left us a very discriminating comparison of two great British statesmen. He likens Canning's mind to a convex speculum which scattered its rays of light upon all objects; while he likens Brougham's to a concave speculum which concentrated the rays upon one central, burning, focal point. There are some men who possess, to a considerable degree, both the power to scatter and the power to gather the rays. At times they exhibit varied and versatile ability, they touch delicately and skillfully many different themes or departments of thought and action; but when crises arise which demand the whole man, they become in the best sense men of one idea, for one thought fills and fires the soul; every power is concentrated in one burning purpose.
The Senator, whose deserved garland we are weaving, was one of these men. There were times when he seemed to turn his hand with equal ease to a score of employments; now giving wise counsel in gravest matters, now playfully entertaining guests at his table; now studying the deep philosophy of political economy, now holding a Senate in rapt attention; now reorganizing a department of state; now pushing a new measure through Congress; now closeted with the President over the issues of a colossal campaign, and again conducting a pleasure excursion; to-day leading on the hosts of a great party, and to-morrow managing the affairs of an extensive farm. But, when the destiny of the nation hung in the balance, or history waited with uplifted pen to record on her eternal scroll the final decision of some great question, he gathered and condensed into absolute unity all the powers of mind and heart and will, and flung the combined weight of his whole manhood into the trembling scale. When he felt that a thing must be, a mountain was no obstacle to surmount, a host of foes no occasion for dismay. With intensity of conviction, with contagious courage and enthusiasm, with indomitable resolution, with tireless energy of action, he went ahead, and weaker men had to follow; his conviction persuaded the hesitating, his courage emboldened the timid, his determination inspired the irresolute. He was the unit that, in the leading place, makes even the cyphers swell the sum of power.
It is no slight praise of Mr. Chandler to say that he was a man of industry; the results he reached were won by work. There is a great deal of blind talk about genius. That there is such a thing, apart from the practical faculty of application, even great men have doubted or boldly denied; but certain it is that there is such a thing as the genius of industry, and that rules the world! Alexander Hamilton disclaimed any other genius than the profound study of a subject. He kept before him a theme which he meant to master, till he explored it in all its bearings and his mind was filled with it. Then, to quote his words, "the effort which I make the people are pleased to call the fruit of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought."
And so for us all there is no royal road to a true success. We must simply plod on, along the plain, hard, plebeian path of honest toil, and climb up the hills, if we would get on and up at all. Spinoza grandly says that that there is no foe or barrier to progress like "self-conceit and the laziness which self-conceit begets." We venture to add that no conceit is surer to beget laziness than the conceit of "conscious genius." Our peril is to learn to do our work easily; that means poor work, if indeed any work at all, shallow acquirements, superficial attainments, and no real scholarly or heroic achievements.
Our regretted Senator did not despise honest work, and never claimed to be a genius. He had a hearty contempt for all that aristocracy of intellect that frowns on mental toil.
He spoke without manuscript, and without memorizing; or, as we say, "extempore." That is another much-abused word. Extemporaneous speech is not the utterance of words that shake the world, or any considerable part of it, unless such speech be the fruit not of that time, but, as Dr. Shedd says, "of all time previous." But when the orator first becomes master of his theme and then of the occasion, and is thus fitted to deal with the real vital issues before the people, he may, without having put pen to paper, or having framed a single sentence beforehand, often find himself master also of his audience. The careful study of his subject, the habit of thinking in words, and of weighing words when he reads and talks, scoops out a channel in the mind; and when he rises to speak he finds his thought flowing naturally and easily in this channel.
No man can carefully read Mr. Chandler's public utterances without detecting a brevity and terseness, a simplicity and plainness, an accuracy and vigor, and often a rhetorical beauty, which shew care in preparation. These qualities are not the offspring of indolence. Years of drill lie back of the exact and daring touches with which the artist makes the canvas speak and the marble breathe; and the extempore speech of the eloquent orator tells of long, hard discipline that has taught him how to think and how to talk; it may have taken him fifty years to learn how to hold and sway an audience at will for fifty minutes. The ease and grace of true oratory are the signs of previous exertion; of that systematic exercise of the intellect that has suggested for our training schools the name, gymnasia. The laws of brain and of brawn do not differ much in this respect. Men are not born athletes, either in mind or muscle; and to all who have a true desire to succeed, in any sphere of life, the one voice that, with the growing emphasis of the successive centuries, speaks to us, is, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." Your sword may be short; "add a step to it!" it may be dull; add force to the blow or the thrust. There is no encouragement from history, more universally to be appropriated by us, than the testimony she furnishes to the power and value of honest endeavor. To will and to work is to win. The highest endowments assure no achievements; all success is the crown of patient toil!
While thus speaking a word in favor of hard work, one word of caution and of qualification may not be out of place. I think God means that the sudden decease of public men when in life's prime, shall not be without warning. No thoughtful man fails to feel the force of this fact that somehow the average duration of human life, especially on these shores and among men of mark, is shortening; and that apoplexy, paralysis, angina pectoris, cerebral hemorrhage, and softening of the brain are amazingly common among brain-workers. The fatality among journalists is especially startling.
We are a fast-living and a fast-dying people. Our habits are bad. We work hard half the time and worry the other half. We eat and sleep irregularly; we tax our powers unduly, keeping the bow bent until the string snaps simply from constant tension, lack of relaxation. We turn night into day, without restoring the balance by turning day into night. We live in an atmosphere of excitement, and push on to the verge of death before we know our peril or realize our risk. We are tempted to put stimulus in the place of strength, that we may do, under unnatural pressure, what we cannot do by nature's healthy powers. Instead of repairing the engine, we crowd fuel into the boiler and get up more steam; and, by and by, something breaks, or bursts, and the machinery is a wreck.
I believe it is not hard work that kills us, so much as work under wrong conditions. To do, with the aid of even mild stimulants, like tea and coffee, not to say tobacco, opium, quinine, etc., what we cannot do by the natural strength, is the worst kind of overwork; and yet our public men are subject, to such strain, that they are almost driven to such resorts. Where they ought to stop, and sleep and rest, they "key up" with a kind of artificial strength, and get the habit of unnatural wakefulness; and then wonder why they are victims of insomnia.
Professor Tyndall, one of the most tireless men of brain in our day, says to the students of University College, London: "Take care of your health! Imagine Hercules, as oarsman in a rotten boat; what can he do there but, by the very force of his stroke, expedite the ruin of his craft! Take care of the timbers of your boat!" And Dr. Beard adds: "To work hard without overworking, to work without worrying, to do just enough without doing too much—these are the great problems of our future. Our earlier Franklin taught us to combine industry with economy; our 'later Franklin' taught us to combine industry with temperance; our future Franklin—if one should arise—must teach us how to combine industry with the art of taking it easy."
The qualities that fitted Mr. Chandler for the conduct of affairs were, however, not purely intellectual; they belonged in part to another and a higher order, viz.: the emotions and affections.
He had great intensity of nature. Even his political opponents could not doubt the positiveness of his conviction and the profoundness of his sincerity; and here, as Carlyle justly says, must be found the base blocks in the structure of all heroic character. It is no small thing to be able to command even from an antagonist the concession and confession of one's sincerity. Candor atones for a host of faults. Men will, at the last, forgive anything else in a man who tries to be true to his own convictions and to their interests. The utterances of impulse and even of passion, stinging sarcasm and biting ridicule, unjust charges and assaults, all are easy to pardon in one whose sincerity and intensity of conviction betray him into too great heat; men would rather be scorched or singed a little in the burning flame of a passionate earnestness than freeze in the atmosphere of a human iceberg—beneath whose rhetorical brilliance, they feel the chill of a cold, calculating insincerity and hypocrisy that upsets their faith in human honesty.
He was also peculiarly independent and intrepid. The determination to be loyal, both to his convictions and to his country, inspired him to a bold, brave utterance and invested him with a courage and confidence that were almost contagious. We cannot but admire the political fidelity expressed by Burke, in his famous defense before the electors of Bristol, when he said: "I obeyed the instructions of nature and reason and conscience; I maintained your interests, as against your convictions." Few men have ever dared to say and do what Mr. Chandler has, in the face of such political risks and even such personal peril. One brief address delivered by him in the Senate, soon after he resumed his seat, will stand among the classics of our language, and, if I may so say, among the "heroics" of our history.
He was also a man of great political integrity. In the long career of a public life spanning more than a quarter of a century, no suspicion of dishonesty or disloyalty has ever stained his character or reputation. Michigan may safely challenge any Senatorial record of twenty years to surpass his, either in the quantity or quality of public service.
Those who knew him best affirm that he was, politically and personally, an incorruptible man. The position of a legislator is one of proverbial peril. From the days of Pericles and Augustus till now, the men who make laws and guide national affairs are peculiarly in danger of defiling their consciences by "fear or favor." Bribery sits in the vestibule of every law-making assembly. Greed holds out golden opportunity for getting enormous profits from unlawful or questionable schemes and investments. Ambition lifts her shining crown, and offers a throne of commanding influence if you will bow down and worship, or even make some slight concession in favor of, the devil. Only a little elasticity of conscience, a little blunting of the moral sense; a little falsehood, or perjury, or treachery, under polite names; a lending of one's name to doubtful schemes; and there is a rich reward in gains to the purse and gratifications to the pride, which more than pay for the trifling loss of self-respect. And so not a few who go to Congress with unsullied reputation, come back smutched with their participation in "Credit Mobilier" and "Pacific Railroad" schemes, or any one of the thousand forms of fraud.
So far as I know, Mr. Chandler has never been charged with complicity as to dishonest and disgraceful measures such as have sometimes made the very atmosphere of the Capitol a stench in the nostrils of the pure and good. His name does not stand on the pay-roll of Satan, but with the honored few whose eyes have never been blinded by a bribe and whose record has never been blotted with political dishonor.
To have simply done one's duty is no mean victory. To stand—like the anvil beneath the blows of the hammer—and firmly resist the force of a repeated temptation is grand and heroic. To be venal is no venial fault; no price which can be weighed in gold can pay a man for the sale of one ounce of his manliness. Conscience is a Samson, whose locks are easily shorn, but they never grow again; whose eyes, once put out or seared with a hot iron, no prayer will restore. And men, as great and wise as Bacon, have like him been compelled to confess to their own meanness and the mercenary character of their virtue.
One of the worst signs of the times is this corruptibility of popular leaders. One of the greatest of European journals moves like a weather-vane, just as the day's wind blows. Much of the best talent of Europe is for sale for or against despotism. Some of the most gifted men in the House of Lords are of plebeian birth, bought by the bribe of a title, as Harry Brougham himself was, when his great influence became a terror to the aristocracy; and the Duke of Newcastle is said to have bought one-third of the House of Commons. There is scarce a measure, however infamous, that may not be pushed through our common councils and legislative bodies if the lobbyists are only "influential and numerous," and the money is only plenty enough. Let us give God thanks for every man in the community who is not on the auction block to be knocked down to the highest bidder. In these days of abounding fraud and falsehood, men are beginning to feel the value of simple honesty. We have, in our admiration of the genius of intellect, forgotten the genius of goodness, which has power to inspire men with heroism. Better to strengthen a few timid hearts in loyalty to principle than to have deserved the encomium of Augustus, who "found Rome brick, and left it marble." The Earl of Chatham refused to keep a million pounds of government funds in the bank and pocket the proceeds; as Edmund Burke, on becoming paymaster-general, first of all introduced a bill for the reorganization of that department of public service, refusing to enrich himself, through the emoluments of that lucrative office, at public expense.
No wonder George the Second should have said of such "honesty" that it is an "honor to human nature!" Such words were worthy of a king, but it is only a crowned head bowing to royal natures that need no crown to tell that they are kingly. The distinguished Hungarian exile will never be forgiven for saying that he would praise anything and anybody to aid Hungary. There is an instinct in the great heart of humanity which not even wickedness kills, that no quality is so fundamental to character as absolute loyalty to truth, it is the base-block of the whole structure; and great has been many a "fall," where there is no better foundation than the treacherous and shifting quicksands of what is called "policy," and which is to many the only standard of honesty.
Mr. Chandler was known in politics as an enthusiastic and radical advocate of his party and its measures. It was not in him to do anything by halves, and it is difficult to see why one may not as naturally be zealous in politics as in religion; in fact, none are more likely to charge upon him partisanship than those who in their attachment to the opposite party shew their own lack of moderation.
It has been well said that religion demands "a faith, a polity and a party." The faith and the polity belong to it as necessary features; the party is that on which it depends for organization and onward movement. There is a philosophy, a political creed and economy, which are to the state what religion is to the church; and no man can be a patriot without a political faith and polity and party; though he may stand alone, he represents all three. He may be in the largest sense a patriot, and adopt the sublime motto of Demosthenes, "Not father, nor mother, but dear native land!" yet his patriotism may compel him, us he looks at the matter of his country's interest, to take a position on the side of a political party, and to hold it in the face of ridicule and reproach and even of a pelting hail of hate. Others may not be wrong in their espousal of a different political creed, but he is not wrong, but right, in his honest adherence to his. It is so in religion; an honest, intelligent man is loyal to his own denomination, yet is he none the less, because of that, a Christian in the breadth of his charity.
In fact, religion is not the only sphere where self-sacrifice, for duty and for conscience, may be pressed even to martyrdom. St. Ignatius, facing the wild beasts in the arena, calmly said, "I am grain of God; I must be ground between teeth of lions to make bread for God's people." That was the grand confession of a Christian martyr. Tell me, how much lower down in the scale of the heroic does he belong who, for the sake of the best good of a constituency blinded by passion or prejudice, like the great English statesman, consents to be hurled from his shrine as the idol of the people, and calmly says, "I am under no obligation to be popular, but I am under bonds to myself to be true!" When Regulus refused to buy his own liberty and life, at the cost of Rome's disgrace, and persuaded the Senate to reject the very overtures which he was commissioned to convey, himself returning as his pledge required him if the negotiations were unsuccessful, and surrendering himself to the will of his enemies that Carthage might put him to death by slow torture, it seems to me something like the martyr-spirit burned in that bosom. And, if there be nothing akin to moral martyrdom in bravely standing in one's place and boldly holding one's ground, advocating what one believes to be the only true creed in politics, and the only true policy for the country, in face of sneer and threat, daring the blade and the bullet, the open affront and the secret assault, for the sake of being true to one's self and to one's native land—if there be nothing sublime and heroic in all this, the verdict of reason is unsound.
This lamented statesman had also a genial temper, which won for him a host of friends. Public men are prone to one of two extremes; either the hypocritical suavity of the demagogue, or the arbitrary bluntness and curtness of the despot. Some swing away from the fawning airs of the puppy, but it is toward the repulsive manners of the bear. The man who, as you tip your hat with a polite good morning, sweeps by, saying, "I haven't time," is too often the typical man of affairs, who thinks the quick dismission of applicants and intruders is the price of all energetic public service. It is said of the great French statesman, Richelieu, that he could say "No." so gracefully and winningly, that a man once became applicant for a position, upon which he had not the least claim, just to hear the great Cardinal refuse. If common testimony may be trusted, Michigan's esteemed Senator seldom lost the hearty cordiality and courtesy of his manners, even under the fretting friction of public cares.
I am tempted to add that, though a representative Republican, Mr. Chandler was, in the best sense, a democrat. He weighed a man according to the worth of his manhood. He could recognize true manliness beneath a black skin as well as a white one, and behind the rough dress of a poor man, as behind broadcloth; and, because he was the friend of humanity and of human rights, you will find some of his warmest friends among the common people and in the lower ranks.
I think both justice and generosity demand that among the tributes we weave for him, there should be distinct and emphatic mention of this simplicity of character. He was a man among men. From the first, he had none of those assumptions of conscious superiority that mark the aristocrat. If anything, he was rather careless than careful of his dignity, and would sooner shock than mock the fastidious airs and tastes of those who prate about culture, or pride themselves on their "nobility." Fox quaintly said, of the elder Pitt, that he "fell up stairs" when he was elevated to the peerage. Many a man cannot stand going up higher. He becomes haughty, proud; he affects dignity, he lords it over God's heritage, he becomes too big with conscious superiority. Like Jeshurun, he waxes fat and kicks. He falls up stairs, if not down.
The warm, soft, genial side of Mr. Chandler's nature was unveiled in social life and most of all in the domestic circle. The play of his smile, the roar of his laughter, the delicacy and tenderness of his sympathy, his stalwart defense of those whom he loved, the childlike traits that drew him to children and drew children to him, none appreciate as do those who knew him best as friend, husband and father. The man of public affairs, he could lay one hand firmly on the helm of state, while with the other he fondly pressed his grandchildren to his bosom, or playfully roused them to childish glee.
This aspect of his many-sided character makes his death an irreparable loss to his own household. Even the great grief of a nation cannot represent by its "extensity," the intensity of the more private sorrow that secludes itself from the public eye. He was, to those whom he specially loved, both a tower for strength, and a lover and friend for comfort and sympathy. Those who were "at home" with him and especially those who were the peculiar treasures of his heart, knew him as no others could. Happy is the minister who forgets not his parish at home—the church that is in his own house—and happy is the public man, whose private life is not simply the revelation of the hard, coarse and unattractive side of his character.
That is I am sure no ordinary occurrence, which has made forever memorable the Calends of this November. Death, however frequent and familiar by frequency, can never, to the thoughtful, be an event of common magnitude; the exchange of worlds cannot be other than a most august experience. But this death has about it colossal proportions; it stands out and apart like a mountain in a landscape. It is recognized as a calamity not only to a household, but to the city, the State, the Nation; and it may be doubted whether, since the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, any single announcement has so startled the public mind and moved the popular heart as when on the 1st day of November it was announced that Zachariah Chandler was found sleeping his last sleep.
Ulysses S. Grant is a man of few words—and like his shot and shell they weigh a good deal and are well aimed. Let us hear his verdict on Mr. Chandler:
"A nation, as well as the State of Michigan, mourns the loss of one of her most brave, patriotic and truest citizens. Senator Chandler was beloved by his associates and respected by those who disagreed with his political views. The more closely I became connected with him the more I appreciated his great merits.
U. S. GRANT.
"Galena, Ill., Nov. 9, 1879."
It is evident that it is no ordinary man who has departed from among us. It is not "a self-evident truth that all men are created equal," if we mean equality of gifts and graces, capacity, opportunity or even responsibility; and the people of these United States do not need to be told that Mr. Chandler was no common man. It was by no accident that he held in succession, and filled with success, posts of such importance and trusts of such magnitude. He did not drift into prominence; he rose by sheer force of character and by the fitness of things. Born to be a leader, endowed with those qualities that mark a man destined to leadership, having rare business faculty, and sagacity, tact and talent, large capacity for organization and administration, his hand was naturally at the helm.
Mr. Chandler's leadership reached beyond and beneath the visible conduct of affairs. As Moses was the inspiration, of which Aaron was the expression, he was often the power behind the throne. He who has now left us, forever, belonged to the illustrious few who were the special counselors of Mr. Lincoln and the instigators of many of his wisest and best measures. There is an inner history of the war which has never been written and never will be. The lips that alone could disclose those secrets are fast closing in eternal silence, and the scroll will find no man worthy to loose its seals.
Mr. Chandler could not have been wholly ignorant of the risk he ran in his laborious and prolonged campaign-work; but when his country seemed in peril his tongue could not keep silence. Just before starting on his last journey westward, he said to me: "In my judgment the crisis now upon us is more important than any since Lee surrendered, and as grave as any since Sumter was fired on." Those who knew him best will not be surprised that, with such an impression of the magnitude of the issues now before the American people, he could not spare himself, but gave himself without reserve to his country, sacrificing his life itself on the altar of his own patriotism.
And so our stalwart statesman has fallen, and we have a new lesson on human mortality. Anaxagoras, when told that the Athenians had condemned him to die, calmly added, "And nature, them!" All our riches, honors, dignities cannot stay the steps of the great destroyer. The manliest and mightiest leaders, and the humblest and meanest followers bow alike to the awful mandate of death. And as Massilon said at the funeral of the Grand Monarch, "God only is great!"
Of how little consequence after all are all the things that perish. Temporal things derive all their true value from their connection with the invisible and eternal. How small will all appear as they recede into the dim distance at the dying hour and the world to come confronts us with its awful decisions of destiny! What grandeur and glory are imparted to our humblest sphere of service, here, when touched and transformed by the power of an endless life!
We have reason to be glad that the popular recognition of Mr. Chandler's abilities and services has been so prompt and hearty as to afford him not a little satisfaction. Posthumous tributes are sometimes melancholy memorials, reminding us of the monumental sepulchres of martyr-prophets.
Robert Burns's mother said about his monument, as she bitterly remembered how the poet of Ayr had been left to starve, "Ah, Robbie, ye asked them for bread and they hae ge'en ye a stane!" It can never be said that our departed Senator had to wait for another generation to pronounce a just or generous verdict upon his career; the trophies of victory and of popular esteem were strewn along the whole line of his march; and his last tour of the Northwest was a perpetual ovation.
There is to my mind no little inspiration of comfort in the fact that not even human malice can falsify history. Men sometimes get more than their share of praise or of blame while they live; but sooner or later the cloud of incense or the mist of prejudice clears away and the real character is more plainly seen. We can afford to leave the final verdict to another generation if need be, grateful as it is to be appreciated by the generation which we seek to serve.
But it is still more inspiring to know that God rules this world, and reigns over the affairs of men. If He marks the flight and the fall of the sparrow, we may be sure that no man rises to the seat of power or sinks to the grave without His permission.
God is not dead, and cannot die. Generations pass away while He remains the same. His hand is on the helm, whatever human hand seems to have hold, and is still there when the most trusted helmsman relaxes his dying grasp. If God's hand is not in our history, all its records are misleading, and all its course a mystery. Admit the divine factor, and, from the strange unveiling of this hidden Western world until this day, our national life appears like one colossal crystal; it has unity, transparency and symmetry. We can understand Plymouth Rock, the revolution, the French and Indian wars, the war of 1812, the great rebellion, the Kansas problem and the California problem, the Indian question and the Chinese question, Romanism and Communism, Eastern conservatism and Western radicalism, the freedmen and the emigrant, state rights and national sovereignty—all are the subordinate factors whose harmonizing, reconciling, assimilating factor is the divine purpose and plan in our history. My friends, the republic has a divine destiny to fulfill. The Great Pilot is steering the ship of state for her true haven. Scylla threatens on one side, Charbydis on the other; but He knows the channel. The stormy Euroclydon may strike her, tear her sails to tatters and snap her ropes like burnt tow, and splinter her masts to fragments; but He holds the winds in his fists. Let us not fear. We have only to love, trust and obey the God of our Fathers and He will guide us safely and surely through all darkness and danger. The sins that reproach our people are the only foes we have to fear; the righteousness that exalts a nation the only ally we need to covet. If the people of Michigan would rear a grand monument to the heroic men who have adorned our history, let us be true to the principles which they have defended, and to the God who gave them to us as His instruments.
The Doric Pillar of Michigan has fallen; but the State stands, and God can set another pillar in its place. There is stone in the quarry—columns are taking shape to-day in our homes and schools and churches; and in God's time they shall be raised to their place. Let us only be sure that in the shrine of our nation God finds a throne, and not the idols of this world, and not even the earthquake shock shall shatter the symmetric structure of the Republic.