The American Union Speaker

by John D. Philbrick

——" throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand,
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,"—

as he looked down, and beheld the lovely scene which spread beneath, at a summer sunset, the distant hill-tops glittering as with fire, the slanting beams streaming across the waters, the broad plains, the island groups, the majestic forest,—could he be blamed, if his heart burned within him, as he beheld it all passing, by no tardy process, from beneath his control, into the hands of the stranger?

As the river chieftains—the lords of the waterfalls and the mountains—ranged this lovely valley, can it be wondered at, if they beheld with bitterness the forest disappearing beneath the settler's axe? the fishing-place disturbed by his saw-mills? Can we not fancy the feelings with which some strong-minded savage, the chief of the Pocomtuck Indians, who should have ascended the summit of the Sugar-loaf Mountain, (rising as it does before us, at this moment, in all its loveliness and grandeur,)—in company with a friendly settler, contemplating the progress already made by the white man, and marking the gigantic strides with which he was advancing into the wilderness, should fold his arms and say "White man, there is eternal war between me and thee! I quit not the land of my fathers, but with my life. In those woods, where I bent my youthful bow; I will still hunt the deer; over yonder waters I will still glide, unrestrained, in my bark canoe. By those dashing waterfalls I will still lay up my winter's store of food; on these fertile meadows I will still plant my corn.

"Stranger, the land is mine! I understand not these paper rights. I gave not my consent, when, as thou sayest, these broad regions were purchased, for a few baubles, of my fathers. They could sell what was theirs; they could sell no more. How could my father sell that which the Great Spirit sent me into the world to live upon? They knew not what they did.

"The stranger came, a timid suppliant,—few and feeble, and asked to lie down on the red man's bear-skin, and warm himself at the red man's fire, and have a little piece of land to raise corn for his women and children; and now he is become strong, and mighty, and bold, and spreads out his parchments over the whole, and says, 'It is mine.'

"Stranger! there is not room for us both. The Great Spirit has not made us to live together. There is poison in the white man's cup; the white man's dog barks at the red man's heels. If I should leave the land of my fathers, whither shall I fly? Shall I go to the south, and dwell among the graves of the Pequots? Shall I wander to the west, the fierce Mohawk,—the man-eater,—is my foe. Shall I fly to the east, the great water is before me. No, stranger; here I have lived, and here will I die; and if here thou abidest, there is eternal war between me and thee.

"Thou hast taught me thy arts of destruction; for that alone I thank thee. And now take heed to thy steps; the red man is thy foe. When thou goest forth by day my bullet shall whistle past thee; when thou liest down by night, my knife is at thy throat. The noonday sun shall not discover thy enemy, and the darkness of midnight shall not protect thy rest. Thou shalt plant in terror, and I will reap in blood; thou shalt sow the earth with corn, and I will strew it with ashes; thou shalt go forth with the sickle, and I will follow after with the scalping-knife; thou shalt build, and I will burn,—till the white man or the Indian perish from the land." E. Everett.

LXXXVII.

THE MEN OF "SEVENTY-SIX."

If we look only at one part of the work of the men of '76 if we see them poring over musty parchments by the midnight lamp, citing the year-books against writs of assistance, disputing themselves hoarse, about this phrase in the charter of Charles the First, and that section in a statute of Edward the Third, we should be disposed to class them with the most bigoted conservatives that ever threw a drag-chain around the limbs of a young and ardent people. But, gracious heavens, look at them again, when the trumpet sounds the hour of resistance; survey the other aspect of their work. See these undaunted patriots, in their obscure caucus gatherings, in their town-meetings, in their provincial assemblies, in their continental congress, breathing defiance to the British Parliament and the British throne. March with their raw militia to the conflict with the trained veterans of the seven years' war. Witness them, a group of colonies, extemporized into a confederacy, entering with a calm self-possession into alliance with the oldest monarchy in Europe; and occupying, as they did, a narrow belt of territory along the coast, plainly peopled, partially cleared, hemmed in by the native savage, by the Alleghenies, by the Ohio, and the Lakes; behold them dilating with the grandeur of the position, radiant in the prospective glories of their career, casting abroad the germs of future independent States, destined, at no distant day, not merely to cover the face of the thirteen British colonies, but to spread over the territories of France and Spain on this continent, over Florida and Louisiana, over New Mexico and California, beyond the Mississippi, beyond the Rocky Mountains,—to unite the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, the arctic and the torrid zones, in one great network of confederate republican government. Contemplate this, and you will acknowledge the men of Seventy-six to have been the boldest men of progress that the world has ever seen!