Now, my friends, I am no farmer. I have not sought to teach you the details of your work, for I know little of them. I have not commended your splendid local advantages, for that I shall do elsewhere. I have not discussed the differences between the farmer and other classes, for I believe in essential things there is no difference between them, and that minor differences should be sacrificed to the greater interest that depends on a united people. I seek not to divide our people, but to unite them. I should despise myself if I pandered to the prejudice of either class to win the applause of the other.
But I have noted these great movements that destroy the equilibrium and threaten the prosperity of my country, and standing above passion and prejudice or demagoguery I invoke every true citizen, fighting from his hearthstone outward, with the prattle of his children on his ear, and the hand of his wife and mother closely clasped, to determine here to make his home sustaining and independent, and to pledge eternal hostility to the forces that threaten our liberties, and the party that stands behind it.
When I think of the tremendous force of the currents against which we must fight, of the great political party that impels that fight, of the countless host of mercenaries that fight under its flag, of the enormous powers of government privilege and monopoly that back them up, I confess my heart sinks within me, and I grow faint. But I remember that the servant of Elisha looked abroad from Samaria and beheld the hosts that encompassed the city, and said in agonized fear: “Alas, master, what shall we do?” and the answer of Elisha was the answer of every brave man and faithful heart in all ages: “Fear not, for they that be with us are more than they that be with them,” and this faith opened the eyes of the servant of the man of God, and he looked up again, and lo, the air was filled with chariots of fire, and the mountains were filled with horsemen, and they compassed the city about as a mighty and unconquerable host. Let us fight in such faith, and fear not. The air all about us is filled with chariots of unseen allies, and the mountains are thronged with unseen knights that shall fight with us. Fear not, for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. Buckle on your armor, gird about your loins, stand upright and dauntless while I summon you to the presence of the immortal dead. Your fathers and mine yet live, though they speak not, and will consecrate this air with their wheeling chariots, and above them and beyond them to the Lord God Almighty, King of the Hosts in whose unhindered splendor we stand this morning. Look up to them, be of good cheer, and faint not, for they shall fight with us when we strike for liberty and truth, and all the world, though it be banded against us, shall not prevail against them.
AT THE BOSTON BANQUET.
IN his Speech at the Annual Banquet of the Boston Merchants’ Association in December, 1889, Mr. Grady said:
Mr. President: Bidden by your invitation to a discussion of the race problem—forbidden by occasion to make a political speech—I appreciate in trying to reconcile orders with propriety the predicament of the little maid who, bidden to learn to swim, was yet adjured, “Now, go, my darling, hang your clothes on a hickory limb, and don’t go near the water.”
The stoutest apostle of the church, they say, is the missionary, and the missionary, wherever he unfurls his flag, will never find himself in deeper need of unction and address than I, bidden to-night to plant the standard of a Southern Democrat in Boston’s banquet hall, and discuss the problem of the races in the home of Phillips and of Sumner. But, Mr. President, if a purpose to speak in perfect frankness and sincerity; if earnest understanding of the vast interests involved; if a consecrating sense of what disaster may follow further misunderstanding and estrangement, if these may be counted to steady undisciplined speech and to strengthen an untried arm—then, sir, I find the courage to proceed.
Happy am I that this mission has brought my feet at last to press New England’s historic soil, and my eyes to the knowledge of her beauty and her thrift. Here, within touch of Plymouth Rock and Bunker Hill—where Webster thundered and Longfellow sang, Emerson thought and Channing preached—here in the cradle of American letters, and almost of American liberty, I hasten to make the obeisance that every American owes New England when first he stands uncovered in her mighty presence. Strange apparition! This stern and unique figure—carved from the ocean and the wilderness—its majesty kindling and growing amid the storms of winters and of wars—until at last the gloom was broken, its beauty disclosed in the sunshine, and the heroic workers rested at its base—while startled kings and emperors gazed and marveled that from the rude touch of this handful, cast on a bleak and unknown shore, should have come the embodied genius of human government, and the perfected model of human liberty! God bless the memory of those immortal workers—and prosper the fortunes of their living sons—and perpetuate the inspiration of their handiwork.