Quo, debellatis odiis, veritas triumphabit."
But there was no "fortasse" about it, to his confident and triumphant faith.
He had a gentle, affectionate, and magnanimous nature, incapable of hatred or revenge. In spite of his severity of speech, his differences with men were differences of principle, never personal. There is no nobler sentence in political history than that with which he begins his first speech after his injury, when he got back from Europe and took his place again in the Senate:—
"Mr. President: Undertaking now, after a silence of more than four years, to address the Senate on this important subject, I should suppress the emotions natural to such an occasion, if I did not declare on the threshold my gratitude to that Supreme Being through whose benign care I am enabled, after much suffering and many changes, once again to resume my duties here, and to speak for the cause so near my heart. To the honored commonwealth whose representative I am, and also to my immediate associates in this body, with whom I enjoy the fellowship which is found in thinking alike concerning the Republic, I owe thanks, which I seize the moment to express, for indulgence extended to me throughout the protracted seclusion enjoined on me by medical skill; and I trust it will not be thought unbecoming in me to put on record here, as an apology for leaving my seat so long vacant, without making way, by resignation, for a successor, that I acted under the illusion of an invalid, whose hopes for restoration to natural health continued against oft recurring disappointment.
"When last I entered into this debate, it became my duty to expose the crime against Kansas, and to insist upon the immediate admission of that territory as a state of this Union, with a constitution forbidding slavery. Time has passed, but the question remains. Resuming the discussion precisely where I left it, I am happy to avow that rule of moderation which, it is said, may venture to fix the boundaries of wisdom itself. I have no personal griefs to utter; only a vulgar egotism could intrude such into this chamber. I have no personal wrongs to avenge; only a brutish nature could attempt to wield that vengeance which belongs to the Lord. The years that have intervened and the tombs that have opened since I spoke[1] have their voices, too, which I cannot fail to hear. Besides, what am I, what is any man among the living or among the dead, compared with the question before us? It is this alone which I shall discuss, and I begin the argument with that easy victory which is found in charity."
He was proud that he was an American, proud of his State, proud of his birthplace, proud of his office. To his mind the most exalted position on earth was the position of a Senator of the United States. And if he thought that to be a Massachusetts Senator was a prouder title still, who shall blame him? From the beginning he had Massachusetts behind him; when he spoke from his seat, it was the voice, not of a man, but of a commonwealth.
It seemed sometimes as if he thought everything that had been accomplished for freedom was accomplished in the Senate; that even the war was but a tumult which had disturbed the debates, somewhat. He kept his senatorial robe unstained. He seemed never to lay it aside. There was no place in his life for jesting or trifling. He had no sense of humor. The pledge which he took upon his lips when he entered upon his great office he kept religiously to the end. "To vindicate freedom and oppose slavery is the object near my heart. Others may become indifferent to these principles, bartering them for political success, vain and short-lived, or forgetting the visions of youth in the dreams of age. Whenever I forget them, whenever I become indifferent to them, whenever I cease to be constant in maintaining them through good report and evil report, then may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, may my right hand forget its cunning."
His political creed, his political Bible, his Ten Commandments, his Golden Rule, were the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States penetrated, illuminated, interpreted by the Declaration of Independence. There was not a syllable in that august document to be omitted or qualified. It was to him a permanent, perfect, universal law of national life.
On many of the great questions with which the American people had to deal for the last thirty years of his life,—from 1844 to 1874—he was the leader and guide. His speeches on these subjects, contained in these volumes, were the speeches which attracted widest public attention at the time. They contained the arguments which convinced the public mind. They are probably, in most cases, the only ones remembered now. Toward the close of his life he gave much study to the questions of finance and currency. If his life had been spared he doubtless would have been foremost in conducting the country in the path of financial safety and integrity. The titles of the following speeches, to which many others might be added, suggest the principal subjects with which he dealt.
Vol. I.